Half-baked Thoughts of a Filthy Casual DRK

Don't forget we also got the "omg looks so cool" crowd of lolnins who were loldrgs.

But as Syzy said, most of my time on these forums (when not arguing with syzy or jack) is spent trying to dispel the "drk sucks" crowd.

We don't; you do. If you don't like having to keep track of multiple resources at once, 6 ogcds and then 2 generator ogcds, you will not succeed. The only class that has this degree of micromanagement is the machinist.

I recommend everyone who is having trouble with drk go learn to play mch at raid level.
It'll improve your ability to manage drk's resources.

DRK doesn't suck. I just have reservations about skills needing other party members to fulfill their function or you get nothing. Mainly SoSu and LD. But when they work it's great.

I play BLM so MP management is easy.

I don't raid so other then a bad vault run I will never need LD.

Fell Cleave? I have Scourge/Salted Earth.

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Originally Posted by shao32

syzz like the dark knight i am from 3.0 congratz for this post, you can't say it better.

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Yeah, no need to comment. He said it all.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

DRK doesn't suck. I just have reservations about skills needing other party members to fulfill their function or you get nothing. Mainly SoSu and LD. But when they work it's great.

I play BLM so MP management is easy.

I don't raid so other then a bad vault run I will never need LD.

Fell Cleave? I have Scourge/Salted Earth.

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There are a lot of them on multiple classes but no one complains about those to the same degree as the LD whiners.

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Originally Posted by Violette

There are a lot of them on multiple classes but no one complains about those to the same degree as the LD whiners.

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Probably because unlike Holmgang and Hallowed Ground Living Dead requires on hand Party coordination or in this case coordination between the Tank and the Healer for Living Dead to work properly.

With both HG skills they work by themselves by the PLD/WAR who triggered them and can enjoy their effects without need of another and still be perfectly fine. Point is they can synergize with these skills with shit in their own kit.

PLD can combine their Ult with Cover. WAR can get themselves back up by a decent margin with a plethora of self heals and ignore draw-in effects and chain something down. With DRK however it's a bit more limited and you really can't synergize it with anything in it's kit. And it comes with a very steep price unlike the other 2 where you need a full heal once you hit 0 HP. The other 2 do not have that stipulation and therefore the whining. And as I said for the most part you won't ever need to use it except in the case of "I blew all my defensive abilities like a dumb and none of them are up and LD is all I have left". Or maybe if someone screws up bad in the Vault's last boss where the DPS were just atrocious and killed the healer. Which in itself is baffling with everything DRK has for defenses which IMO is still a lot. More ingenious use of LD if you trust your healer enough is massive pull everything in a dungeon and just focus down the mobs and let the healer do some dps before popping a regen and emergency full heal button like a WHM can.

But in a dungeon it isn't even needed. It's always felt like a raid-centric skill if you ask me.

I do feel the whining about Living Dead has run it's course though. If the devs feel it is working as intended it won't change and if it does later on then that's great as well.

If I'd change anything about DRK it's some sort of Utility the DRK can offer in the presence of a Monk. Otherwise I'm fine with it.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

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Even when going through dungeons on either of the other two tanks, I always let my healer know if I'm going to Hallowed or Holmgang. Its just courtesy. This lack of communication is really the only thing holding LD back in DF content. The only healer that remotely struggles with LD is SCH, as AST's Essential Dignity may as well be a bene, with regens and anyself-healing you're doing taken into account. But even then, I've never met one that couldn't do it if they knew it was coming. And if you pair it with Conva then all excuses go out the window. You'd have to be in cleric stance to not keep a DRK with LD+Conva from dying.

Raid-centric is honestly what matters. A high-end raid is where any jobs maximum potential and the fruition of their intended design shines brightest. You have to use all your abilities and you have to use them correctly. No one is going to care if some DRK popped LD in a dungeon and died because there are so many other questions to ask before even considering sympathizing with that plight. First, for them not to communicate I'd assume they are casual or new, and its just a hop/skip/jump from there to "Why are they not pulling smaller and if they are already only pulling 1 or 2 packs, how the hell did they need living dead?" If the healer was asleep/afk/eating sammich, they would have died regardless. If the DRK in question fancies themselves a badass, and are pulling OMG XBAWKS HUEG pulls, "Why didn't you blind everything/boost your evasion between Blood Price casts?" "Why didn't you self-heal to kingdom come if you had all that trash on you and were getting more MP than a BLM on steroids?"

Those were strats I outlined in my earlier post. I use them at the start of literally every large, worthy pull in a dungeon, which means I am, on average, about 30-40s into a pull before I even have to touch a genuine cooldown other than Dark Dance.

Frankly, there's a lot of creative tools you have at your disposal to survive big dungeon pulls outside of your garden-variety cooldowns. If I were to hazard a guess, that's probably why they didn't care if LD isn't dungeon friendly. But again, fault there lies with the player (either healer or tank or both), not the job or the ability. The ability is amazing if you ask me. ~15s of healers ignoring the tank and going caveman on a boss in a raid setting is a thing of beauty. I'm not bound in place, it doesn't need a target, and there's a good chance I can use it twice per pull unlike Hallowed. Not that HG/Holmgang aren't awesome abilities in their own right. But it basically boils down to this: Yeah, LD is mostly only awesome in raids. Its not so great in casual content, but in casual content you have DADP/DADD/DAAD+BP. I mean those are like having 3 extra cooldowns. So for a DRK to run out of ways to mitigate damage on a dungeon pull to the point where they have to even consider using LD is beyond me, unless the healer is, as I said, dead/afk/eating sammich.

I know you don't like it because you don't raid but... I mean I raid, and I never ever have to use it in a dungeon. Like, never. So just like its usefulness in raids is wasted on you, its lack of synergy with casual content is kinda wasted on me.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

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I'll be perfectly honest in just dungeons I'm perfectly content with DADD + DADP and going gritless or just Abyssal Drain spam. Because 90% of the time LD is just simply not used or needed. Which you've already addressed.

And you are absolutely right by time you run out of defensive cooldowns your first one or at least Dark Dance is back up. Really no excuses. LD is more of a use this or you will die skill. Primarily in raids. Or use it to great effect in PvP.

Only issues I'll see if any with LD is people being bad and not knowing what it does, how it works, or just doesn't run with a DRK that often which by now should no longer be an excuse unless they are new to the game period.

And if I run DRK in anything I always have a "vocal" channel open since communication that way is more concise and exact.

The Dark Knight is simply not a easy Tankclass and he is good how he is. If you don't understand how he works, practice instead of demanding changes.

There are lots of good DRK out there and they love their emo Tank exactly how he is!

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Originally Posted by Ilan

TWINSISTER

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offtopic i need to say ilan you are my lost twinsister XDDD

here my char ^^

http://i.imgur.com/kAh4pzN.jpg

Well hello then. :D

My issue with LD is it's not a use it or you die skill, it's a use it and you may still die skill.

my solution for living dead: if the buff runs out before you got healed enough the drk automatically sacrifices all the healers HP to get a 100% heal. okay, that's not really a good solution xD

hmm... but what if the drk actually sacrifices the HP of the party for surviving living dead? either you heal the drk to 100% but if you just healed him for 70% he takes the other 30% from the party's life?

"Hallowed has a 7 (!) minute recast. Holmgang only lasts 6 seconds and still requires a heal. Does Living Dead require you to communicate with your healer? Absolutely. If you have a good one, its better than either of them as far as the length of time you can go without attention from the healer. Have you considered pairing Living Dead with Convalescence?

In a raid setting there's no excuse for a healer not handling Living Dead. In the DF setting, one of four things happens: 1. You communicate, you do the pull, Living Dead, get healed - hooray. 2. You communicate, you do the pull, Living Dead, don't get healed - HEALER'S FAULT NOT THE JOB'S. 3. You don't communicate, you do the pull, Living Dead, get healed - You have a good healer and a set of balls. 4. You don't communicate and don't get healed - YOUR FAULT NOT THE JOB'S.

This is all kind of grasping straws though. No tank requires their ultimate ability to get through a *dungeon*. If you do... hmm. Arguably, PLD and WAR (actually WAR has quite a few things as well) have even fewer tools to deal with this. As a DRK, if you do a pull that would require the other two tanks to either Holmgang or Hallowed, there are a handful of things you can do as a DRK that they cannot, without even touching Living Dead.
1. Pull all the things, hit Blood Price, pop a cooldown, and self-heal with Abyssal Drain. You can self-heal pretty much indefinitely in a Hallowed-Ground-or-Holmgang-worthy pull, for 15 seconds.
2. Pull all the things, DO NOT HIT BLOOD PRICE, and then Dark Arts-Dark Passenger + Dark Arts-Dark Dance. You will take very, very little damage for 15-20s.
3. Pull all the things, and do #1, and then #2, OR Pull all the things, and do #2, and then #1.

Bam, you've just survived 20-40s of a huge-ass pull while barely touching any of your main cooldowns, and not touching Living Dead. Good on you."

I might just keep coming back to that.

If you don't like how Dark Knight plays......don't play it. Stop trying to "fix" the class when nothing is wrong with it.

There are lacks, in comparison to other tanks.

But which other class lets the healer hands off for 15ish seconds and just dps?

None of them.

LD is def worse off than other tank savers. Pld hallowed might have the longest CD, but you can only use it once per fight just like the others. Unless it's a really long fight. Holmgang might put you at rock bottom like LD but at least you can get away with having just a portion of your health restored. It certainly can't be said LD is as good as the other tank savers. Wouldn't a skill called living dead make more sense if it made you immune to damage? Zombie don't care about a spear in the chest. Though that's stepping more into the realm of death knights than dark knights.

Come to think of it, didn't undead traditionally get damaged by heal spells. Maybe they should make it so damage is reversed to heal while healing damages the drk. Healers would definitely need to pay attention then. But again, that's more death than dark.

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Originally Posted by Drkdays

LD is def worse off than other tank savers.

Come to think of it, didn't undead traditionally get damaged by heal spells. Maybe they should make it so damage is reversed to heal while healing damages the drk. Healers would definitely need to pay attention then. But again, that's more death than dark.

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........Except Holmgang is trash and Living Dead is amazing in raid situations.

Go watch the world first A8S clear. They do some neat things with Living Dead, only possible with living dead.
Don't take away this functionality because it's not as "conventionally good."

Calling holmgang trash is a bit harsh. After all it does pretty much the same thing as LD except that admittedly annoying movement freeze, but LD requires a full heal. If they would just drop that full heal requirement it'd be simply better than holmgang, as it is it only buys you a bit of time to hope your healer can spam heal you hard enough while not standing in poo. As mentioned it requires a call out or macro to see it's full usefulness as I'm sure they had in that aforementioned raid kill.

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Originally Posted by Drkdays

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Why? It's 6 seconds, timing it poorly directly removes the ability to sustain tanking in some situations or gets you killed because it wears off early. That is why it is bad. Not the 6 second movement freeze. That's only applicable in dungeon content.

If you cannot communicate with your healer, don't use Living Dead. And it wasn't used to dodge a tank buster in A8S. It allowed the healers to focus on healing everyone else then Benediction for the save. It was used in A3S to tank 30kish damage, but that's just another use.
As said, Dark Knight is an advanced job. All of the advanced jobs have mechanics that are harder to master than the original jobs.
If you cannot deal with it as it is, I suggest playing Paladin. Same structure, less stress.

All jobs have room for improvement, drk included. The fact that of the three tank savers LD is the riskiest and requires the most coordination cannot be denied. Now I'm all for playing a challenging class, in facts that's why I enjoy playing drk most, but I like challenging myself and not my team and LD is a team effort more than the other tank savers. I like challenging myself while making the team effort easier. Imagine if you will that savage fight where the healer didn't have that one shot heal available. He simply would have had to choose who to save. It's a good clinch move with definite viability, but far too hazardous when compared to other classes.

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Originally Posted by Drkdays

All jobs have room for improvement, drk included. The fact that of the three tank savers LD is the riskiest and requires the most coordination cannot be denied. Now I'm all for playing a challenging class, in facts that's why I enjoy playing drk most, but I like challenging myself and not my team and LD is a team effort more than the other tank savers. I like challenging myself while making the team effort easier. Imagine if you will that savage fight where the healer didn't have that one shot heal available. He simply would have had to choose who to save.

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So you want to provide team utility while challenging yourself? That's a paladin.

Pld abilities are too boring for me. I've leveled it (and warrior) but I just can't get into it like I can drk. Though holding agro isn't as aggressively hard for pld as it used to be so some of that challenge is gone.

More food for thought: it'd be nice if empowered dark minds affected the group...

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Originally Posted by Drkdays

Pld abilities are too boring for me. I've leveled it (and warrior) but I just can't get into it like I can drk. Though holding agro isn't as aggressively hard for pld as it used to be so some of that challenge is gone.

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Okay.

So PLD is too easy.

But Dark is too hard?

No no. No. I don't enjoy pld as much as drk because I don't care for pld playstyle. Drk is more fun to me as is easier in some ways then pld. I said as you did that drk is an advanced class that does take some effort to play efficiently. I just wish that challenge was not transfered to healers with a skill like LD.

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Originally Posted by Drkdays

No no. No. I don't enjoy pld as much as drk because I don't care for pld playstyle. Drk is more fun to me as is easier in some ways then pld. I said as you did that drk is an advanced class that does take some effort to play efficiently. I just wish that challenge was not transfered to healers with a skill like LD.

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Well, think of it this way.

You have a skill that is both high risk and high reward in design and usability. That fits with a lot of the Dark Knight's design. By making it "better" (per say), you will be taking away it's function outside of being a simple hit absorbed. You'll have to nerf it (because it's already in line with HG and HG) and take away something that makes it so useful

Walking Dead doesn't really inflict you with any actual "Undead" status, if it did healing magic would hurt you, draining attacks would heal you(regen spells would also heal you as well depending on the game), physical damage would be reduced by half, instant death attacks would full heal you, etc.

Zombie status isn't in XIV as far as I know and the effects would make you be subject to the effects of "Confused" meaning you'd attack other party members at random while being susceptible to healing magic and once KO'd you would be removed from the entire battle ergo you cannot be revived.

Living Dead just works more like a Death Ward and just delays the time you would have died by 10 seconds. Which in comparison to Holmgang which needs a target and locks you in place makes LD really good. However LD will require a massive heal check if the DRK does indeed die unlike Holmgang which yes you'll probably need a lot of healing if you are at 1 HP but you don't need to full heal the 30k HP WAR.

I wouldn't consider the PLD challenging if you want team utility when you have Clem, Divine Veil(that you can proc yourself), and Cover + any defensive skill. WAR can buff the other Tank's dmg(slashing) with SE.

DRK outside of Delirium(not even that if the Monk is using DK) has no team utility other then more damage skills. If the SoSu buff coming to PvP was for all content in 3.3 and more DA effects on other skills like Salted Earth then DRK would have some team options to play with but right now they don't really have any.

I suppose so. It just seems incorrect for such a double-edged skill to be considered a tank saver. More like a tanking tactic. Small difference, I know, but it's not something we can click and say "OK, I'm good now."

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Originally Posted by Drkdays

I suppose so. It just seems incorrect for such a double-edged skill to be considered a tank saver. More like a tanking tactic. Small difference, I know, but it's not something we can click and say "OK, I'm good now."

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If the healer/healer's cannot get me to full in 10 seconds with due forewarning, they're doing something wrong.
If relying on your team is a worry, find a better team.

Getting to me isn't the issue so much as healing me to 100% while I'm still taking boss damage (them to probably) is. Seen that way that's 10 sec of total freak out stress even forewarned. Unless they were able to plan ahead of course and nothing goes wrong. Not that anything EVER goes wrong in raids (lol).

Holm is far from being trash. No need to put down one ability in order to prop up a raid-centric ability. If 'bad timing can get you killed' then that's not the fault of the skill, but the player for not timing its use properly. Even HG can get you killed if it's not timed properly.

With that said, DRK being made easier shouldn't be a thing. You have to have variation between the Jobs in order to appeal to a different variety of players.

Taking boss damage won't matter. If they heal you for your HP total say 23k during the duration they pass the check. Once WD procs it only cares about receiving healing that passes your total current HP during the WD duration for it to fall off.

It's very similar to the Doom mechanic in the one Hard Mode dungeon where they top the HP of whoever was inflicted to remove it.

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Originally Posted by Drkdays

Getting to me isn't the issue so much as healing me to 100% while I'm still taking boss damage (them to probably) is. Seen that way that's 10 sec of total freak out stress even forewarned. Unless they were able to plan ahead of course and nothing goes wrong. Not that anything EVER goes wrong in raids (lol).

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So, you don't understand how Living Dead works?

Explains a lot.

You do not need to be healed to 100% hp.
You need to be healed for your full value of hp.

(it's different).

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

DRK outside of Delirium(not even that if the Monk is using DK) has no team utility other then more damage skills. If the SoSu buff coming to PvP was for all content in 3.3 and more DA effects on other skills like Salted Earth then DRK would have some team options to play with but right now they don't really have any.

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I've seen you and numerous other people say things along these lines on the forums over the past several weeks, while conveniently leaving Reprisal out.

In efficiently compositioned teams, DRK is usually the de-facto MT (although there really isn't one right now - so even if OT they will still being MTing a significant chunk of the time) and there are no "magic only" fights right now, in fact many of them are highly physical.

Reprisal+Delirium is fantastic utility. That's a Storm's Path and a Dragon Kick. The former of which stacks with its counterpart. Plunge is also much more effective utility than people give credit for, as having a gap closer on a tank is indirectly a raid DPS increase since it eases positioning issues and helps everyone's uptime.

In a fight where the OT literally just pokes the boss and handles a mechanic now and then with no tank swaps? Yeah, an OT DRK could use a boost there, I'll grant you.

But you and everyone else posting save for Violette don't raid and outside of raiding, raid utility doesn't even make that much of a difference one way or another. So its frustrating to see people just discredit it and misjudge something that they honestly don't even understand that well to be honest, nor do you have personal experience with it. Have you been in a savage raid and had personal experience with DRK's utilities benefiting the raid group and seen the effects of your play on your teammates? Cause no amount of casual theorycrafting substitutes for that.

Also, if the PVP buff to Sole Survivor came to PVE, DRK would be the hands down best goddamn tank in the game. A 15s Trick Attack every 2 minutes? Are you insane? RIP WAR/PLD.

Reprisal like shield swipe is only available in MT slot. I'm looking at utility that can be performed regardless of Tank role. No one is arguing that 20 seconds of 10% dmg reduction(30% for PLD/DRK in Tank stance) is really good. And with only 10 seconds of down time as well.

If the SoSu buff came every 2 minutes the cooldown for it would be warranted. And could play with 2 NIN's altering between SoSu, Trick, Trick for one Vulnerability up for at least 10 seconds every minute. As opposed to Clemency and Equil which are more available and on demand and only depend on the user. Right now as it stands as a skill other then the restore if thing dies in 15 seconds it does nothing. Although if you'd rather not blow a Plunge, Abyssal or Unmend on picking up an add you can use SoSu to pick them up with it's 25y(10y larger then the others) range and the fact it establishes some initial enmity to an enemy. Or even a group if they are linked together.

Basically the recurring theme I'm seeing with LD and SS is "I don't like this ability because if I play poorly, it does nothing." Does no one else see how this is completely justified?

With LD there is at least a chance you could do everything right and still be screwed. With Sole Survivor... I'm sorry but if you put that on an add and it wears off before it dies that's 1000% your fault, barring something ridiculous like a bolt of lightning knocking out the power in the homes of all your DPS.

Also why in the hell would you use Sole Survivor like provoke? No wonder you never get any mp/hp from it.

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Originally Posted by Violette

So, you don't understand how Living Dead works?

Explains a lot.

You do not need to be healed to 100% hp.
You need to be healed for your full value of hp.

(it's different).

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True enough I got that wrong, but that's irrelevant to my point that having to heal me to or for 26k or I'll die is a stipulation that doesn't exist for the other tank savers which is why I say it's inferior and why it's more stressful for healers.

Who said I did? It's merely an option available to you if you choose to do so.

You really like making assumptions.

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Originally Posted by Drkdays

No no. No. I don't enjoy pld as much as drk because I don't care for pld playstyle. Drk is more fun to me as is easier in some ways then pld. I said as you did that drk is an advanced class that does take some effort to play efficiently. I just wish that challenge was not transfered to healers with a skill like LD.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Who said I did? It's merely an option available to you if you choose to do so.

You really like making assumptions.

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Its just mind-boggling that, while criticizing an ability that works perfectly well for what it does once you learn how to time its usage properly, you would suggest using for something that another ability already does (provoke), and for which its intended use would be rendered completely inert.

Its already been said a million times that LD when used properly actually allows a LONGER period of healer DPS before the final burst of heals required to neutralize the effect. Its only when it is used poorly or without proper communication that it fails in comparison to the other tank savers. Most healer complaints I've heard about LD come from - again - miscommunication. The DRK popped LD, didn't say anything, healer didn't catch it (shakey excuse IMO as the buff/debuff has very high priority on your status effects bar) and then the DRK yelled at them. Sticking a regen on the DRK and hitting them with Bene/ED/A pair of Lustrates+Fairy heals is not difficulty. My WHM never misses LD unless she's dead and even when she is, my SCH has gotten me out of it as well in a pinch.

DRK only fails or lives up to people's criticisms of it when they underutilize/don't use at all/poorly use its tools. The people that can play DRK well aren't superhuman genetic mutants, we're people just like you that can learn and make mistakes. Its your choice to play a job that requires a lot of dedication and skill suboptimally and suffer the disappointing consequences, and also your choice to come here and complain about it. I don't think there's a job in the game right now about which people feel so entitled to play poorly, and then place blame elsewhere, while furthermore shirking others' attempts to help them understand how the job is designed and how they could play it better for a more satisfying experience. More than anything it CERTAINLY is not on SE to repair a job that isn't broken so that people unable or unwilling to play it to the best of their ability can feel more comfortable.

Its absolutely more complicated and complex and as has been said before a million times, if that's not for you, one of the other tanks/jobs is probably a better fit. Its strange to call PLD boring and declare DRK is more fun, but then turn around and bemoan the things that make DRK more fun, intricate, and engaging.

Then there's the fact that almost every suggestion made on this thread and others, if they were to come to pass, would make DRK do mid-air 360-donut pole-vaults over/around PLD/WAR in every piece of content in the game forever and ever amen. DRK already has select areas and circumstances where it wrecks/is wrecked by PLD/WAR which is... well, balance. And as much as I wouldn't mind dethroning WAR for a patch or two and giving DRK its due time as "best tank" (which PLD and WAR both have had at varying points in the game's lifespan), it just isn't necessary. PLDs would get even more butthurt, and WARs would just straight-up end the Earth (did you SEE the RAGE when 3.2 happened?)

If you don't use Darkside or Blood Price or Sole Survivor or Abyssal Drain or Dark Arts Dance/Passenger or Living Dead etc. or misuse/mistime any combination of those things how in the world is that the fault of the job's design? Just learn to play the job better. Judging by the suggestions and complaints made, if either of you don't think you have any room for improvement I'm not sure what more to say. I main the job because I love the job and it has never left me wanting.

So are you saying in the current Tank Meta that OT DRK is fine as is?

I agree with the rest of your points but a common complaint is DRK as OT is lacking.

The LD and SoSu complaints for me are mostly a nonissue. I just wish they could be better.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

So are you saying in the current Tank Meta that OT DRK is fine as is?

I agree with the rest of your points but a common complaint is DRK as OT is lacking.

The LD and SoSu complaints for me are mostly a nonissue. I just wish they could be better.

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Given that:

A5S required multiple tank swaps, both tanks taking high damage targets, coordination between the party and didn't care for composition, DRK OT was fine.

A6S requires multiple tank swaps/tanks taking different bosses, which meant there was no true OT. But fight by fight:
Blaster: Hits like a truck but Dark Knight can take it.
Brawler: Magic damage & multiple tank swaps, extra magic defence cd helps with balls.
Swindler: Can adequately tank the boss (like all tanks can). Plunge is a massive gain in moving around when adds spawn.
Vortexer: plunge helps again, mix of magic and physical doesn't advantage or disadvantage either way. All the tank swaps.

A7S has burn phases, but currently is not a DPS race. With coordination and tank swaps during the hearts phases (so your paladin can stun bitch if required), drks still have the burst dps for jails, gap closers after moving out for uptime, delirium if no monk and LD If you want to DPS for a while. Living dead> hallowed is quite a bit of hands off time. This is possibly also the WEAKEST DRK ot fight, due to the only real checks being DPS checks and war out doing DRK in that area. Same if it were a paladin.

A8S is very physical heavy, but the tank busters are splitable.... So yeah. LD is the easiest way to deal with adds phase mines, delirium utility is insanely strong. Given its sustained DPS isn't too bad and has the gap closer, it can still function well. But when your yardstick is the best/second best class in the game, everything will look somewhat bad.

DRK OT itself isn't lacking all that much, because 10% damage down 100% of the time will trump all utility. Delirium is better than what Paladin can provide and a gap closer is better than knock back resistance in nearly every case. That is not to say cover/dv/clemency are worthless (except clemency in raid situations), just that divine veil provides more magic mitigation that deli, for a short time and cover is only useful in A7s in some spots.


The class might have been built with the main tanking spot in mind, but that doesn't exist in some fights. It has precise utility, but when used properly will be almost as effective as warriors (minus the fell leave utility).

@Syzzle: So, to summarize, you think the class is fine just the way it is. No need for soapboxing. And the only skill I "bemoan" is LD. It's my understanding that this thread was created to discuss ideas for improvement for drk. If you're not here for that then you're just here to badmouth other players ideas?

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Originally Posted by Drkdays

@Syzzle: So, to summarize, you think the class is fine just the way it is. No need for soapboxing. And the only skill I "bemoan" is LD. It's my understanding that this thread was created to discuss ideas for improvement for drk. If you're not here for that then you're just here to badmouth other players ideas?

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Ideas exist to be critiqued, assessed, discussed and then proceeded with.

If your idea cannot be opposed because that's "badmouthing", then the idea is not worth putting forward.

I put forward the idea of a 2.35gcd DRK breakpoint as better than 2.44. I'm still working on my counter data, but good ideas and critiques were bought up supporting the 2.44 over 2.35. But I didn't whine and dodge when my idea was critiqued, I accepted the data provided and moved on to the next step.

When you improve something, there needs to be a reason.

"Pld has the worst enmity compared to DRK/war". Got fixed in 3.2
"Summoner has too much damage" got thunder removed as a cross class.
"Noct sect is trash"....still on going.

But "living dead forces me to rely on my healers"? If you're doing casual content (calling sephi ex casual content too), you don't need living dead. If you're doing raid content, you will rely on your healers anyway.

So what's the damn problem?