DRK's Niche as a tank?

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Originally Posted by Hierro

What? So the ability to have a 10 second buffer before the actual invulernability is not as good as holmgang? Or how about 4 seconds longer invulerability than holmgang? How about the ability to move while invulernable?

Dude, for what Living Dead affords a player, it's balanced. Lower the cooldown to holmgang's 3 minutes, and it's DEFINITELY overshadowing holmgang. Where do you get the idea that it'd be worse?

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I guess you're right in that its a perceived "lesser" in my eyes, as the reasons you mentioned can be considered plenty good on their own, if not better to some.
I personally prefer the frequency of it over all else.

(Actually there is another way in which living dead also shines, which is not needing a target to hit. though most tank busters have a target to select while its going off.)

PLD does roughly the same amount of damage as DRK, has better consistent utility (as in utility that is LITERALLY ALWAYS USEFUL EVERY SINGLE ENCOUNTER) and EXTRA utility on top of that, that while niche, is still something they can bring to the table. Better mitigation overall, too. Sentinel is a better version of Shadow Wall, Bulwark while unreliable and superfluous for tank busters is a better fluff cooldown than DRK has ever had, and PLD can passively block physical and magical damage.

Literally, the only thing DRK brings to the table is TBN. Intervention is just straight up a better version of TBN. It lasts for longer, scales with BOSS DAMAGE and not your own HP, and has the option of being upgraded to greater values while TBN is stuck at 10% for other players and 20% on self. Dark Mind is also a lame cooldown. The only reason I don't consider it terrible is because it's "free". You can just toss it in at any time along with another cooldown for magical busters, but the dark arts version is strictly worse than just spending MP on TBN since TBN reduces physical and magical damage. The only time one should consider using dark arts on dark mind is if it's a multihit magical tank buster.

Looking at WAR? It has the perfect selfish kit already. It has the best cooldowns in the form of vengeance, holmgang, raw intuition and holmgang, AND they can use rampart now which is infinitely better than foresight and bloodbath ever were. It deals the highest damage, and isn't reliant on another party member to buff their own damage. I think their damage potential is fair, but now they're tossing more utility on them which further tips the scale's in WAR's favor.

We'll see how things go when we see some actual numbers but I really don't see DRK faring well in the future if nothing is changed. The job has a neutered playstyle in comparison to before, whereas PLD and WAR increased in depth and I personally think fun, AND DRK is worse off balancewise? Yeah, not looking good. DRK has needed changes for a while but people have been too blind wearing their TBN goggles to see the big picture.

Add a Dark Art effect on TBN. It will fit right in.
It could either have an extended duration, higher mitigation or.... AOE SHIELDS FOR EVERYONE!

Also, it wouldnt hurt to decrease Shadow Wall CD.

Generally the "meta" of invulnerabilities depend on their usage cases for raid tiers. Holmgang can be used to avoid two of three thunder tankbusters in exdeath, for instance. So it becomes a de-facto "better" invuln to a lot of groups because it just takes away a lot of work/coordination requirement.

I don't think just add DA effect on TBN would be a good thing.
It already costs the same price as a DA, so it will costs too much DA.
I would say that divide the cost of TBN by 2 will garantee a better use of it.
I agree however fo Shadow Wall.

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Originally Posted by Azerhan

I don't think just add DA effect on TBN would be a good thing.
It already costs the same price as a DA, so it will costs too much DA.
I would say that divide the cost of TBN by 2 will garantee a better use of it.
I agree however fo Shadow Wall.

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While I agree the cost of a DA TBN is way too steep, the reason its technically a good idea, is because if we did not make the cost steep, it would make DRK a little too good. (not by a lot)
Plus a group SHOULD be surviving w/o an AoE TBN to begin with.

It would essentially be almost like how DRK was in HW for physical heavy fights, where they end up relying on Living Dead to survive TBs, because all other CDs are down, and comboing Dark Dance to fish for parry procs, to put up reprisal, and then foresight, to survive another physical TB. (sometimes requesting a shield/stonekin, if your gear isnt good enough to make foresight decent enough, or for some reason u didnt get a reprisal proc in time.)

It exists mainly to make groups feel comfortable in bringing a DRK, as they would see "Oh hey, look! This DRK brings an AoE TBN", while the DRK themselves would think, "im not using that unless i absolutely must!"
(and yeah, Shadow wall could benefit from a minor recast reduction. Doesnt have to be drastic, but a minor amount would be nice.)

A major issue is that the kit only comes together (slightly) when you get TBN. Leveling a DRK must be pretty crappy about now. Must be why I only see newbie GLD and MRD tanks except for Frontline and PotD. Although its not as bad as 4.0 before the potency buff (which was across the board for the entire role).

I don't think the devs care much about what we think or they just can't read it well enough. We have to rely on the salt from the JP forum from the Edgelords in Japan. And believe me, there's a salt mine in there.

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Originally Posted by Praesul

PLD does roughly the same amount of damage as DRK

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Been itching to say till now, PLD rivals WAR in dmg. DRK has got nothing on them. DRK is thoroughly beaten in dmg in any speedkill content by both PLD and WAR. The gap is like 200dps which might be small but that gives an edge to WAR. This is why DRK is no longer used in any top speedkill if you actually see FFlogs properly.

There is a reason why PLD is the OT while DRK was the MT which got replaced by WAR pretty quickly in the HC scene.

DRK has best job quests and glams. That's all that matters in the end.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

Been itching to say till now, PLD rivals WAR in dmg. DRK has got nothing on them. DRK is thoroughly beaten in dmg in any speedkill content by both PLD and WAR. The gap is like 200dps which might be small but that gives an edge to WAR. This is why DRK is no longer used in any top speedkill if you actually see FFlogs properly.

There is a reason why PLD is the OT while DRK was the MT which got replaced by WAR pretty quickly in the HC scene.

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In a LL from Yoshida just before SB, if my memory is good, YoshiP said he sees the PLD as the MT for the team and the WAR as the OT, DRK taking the place that free.
But now, is more DRK MT, WAR OT and PLD taking the free place.

I'm really sure that bring us Scourge back can change things, and in good.

@Claire_Pendragon: yeah, you're right about the lack of CDs for the DRK. It's always been the case since his release...

The one thing that has always bothered me about DRK in SB is that its a two combo tank. One for enmity, which in most fights is used maybe a handful of times, and one for dps which is you're bread and butter combo. Gets real boring just doing one combo for an entire fight. Also Shadow Wall has always irked me with its recast duration for having the same duration as Sentinel and being 10% weaker. It really should be augmented with DA similar to Dark Mind. Consistency in a job is what makes it feel engaging.

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Originally Posted by CCheshire

DRK has best job quests and glams. That's all that matters in the end.

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Even if the job sucks all you care about is its quests and glams...? I don't even think casual DRK player who are just learning how to play it would agree with you given how VERY WRONG you are... then again what do I know about balance...

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

Even if the job sucks all you care about is its quests and glams...? I don't even think casual DRK player who are just learning how to play it would agree with you given how VERY WRONG you are... then again what do I know about balance...

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