Dark Knight under review: Feedback to the Developers and Community Team

I agree with almost everything (especially that grit should not be GCD and cost no MP), except for one thing: the skill lock depending on stances.
You might dislike me for this, but I'm on the side of players that feels that a main tank should not be trying to push dps, but instead focus on holding aggro on the boss and mobs, mitigating party damage (tanks should get more tools for this like blackest night or divine veil), mitigating damage on himself, moving the boss around to specific spots and just staying alive, not going out of tank-stance while maintanking, while it's the offtanks job to do damage and maybe do a few mechanics (like the kiss mechanic in o6s), but mainly focus on dps and not on things like sustaining himself, since that's the healer's job (so no need for lifesteal on souleater out of grit) and not staying in tank stance.

Of course due to the high dps checks we have in endgame raids it's favourable and for some part even required that even the main tank should stay out of tank stance as much as possible, but I see this as an issue with the raid design, not with the tanks. DPS checks should be lowered the same time steps to enforce tanks in tank stance are made.

I think the skill restrictions on dark knight depending on his stance are a good first step to enforcing tanks tanking in tank stance and offtanks not using tankstance. To be honest, I was super happy, when I read the 4.0 patch notes back then and thought "Oooh boy! Dark Knights are now forced to tank in tank stance and OT out of it. Finally square enix is making people play like their role says!" and I really hope this will be extended to paladin as well, maybe by making it so PLD can only block at all, use passage of arms and bulwark when in shield oath while requiescat and holy spirit can only be used in sword oath.

I also truly believe, that with "job identity" square enix is meaning exactly what I am talking about: That a tank should tank in tank stance and not be aiming towards dps. I think there are still several flaws, like for example the new stat tenacity. A great idea imho would be that tenacity should be a situational stat, meaning, that it significantly increases mitigation while in tank stance while it significantly increases damage for tanks while in an offensive stance (blood weapon, sword oath, deliverance).

Fantastic write up.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

You might dislike me for this, but I'm on the side of players that feels that a main tank should not be trying to push dps, but instead focus on holding aggro on the boss and mobs,

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If you're even remotely decent at your job and learn the ins and outs of it, this is possible with and without tank stance. Tank stance is a learning, leveling and progression tool, it is not a requirement nor should it ever be seen as one. Enforcing tank stance is a way to drive away the tanks that currently exist and push more people away from trying out tanks—it's an EXCEEDINGLY bad idea.

I don't normally just spit on someone's opinion, but your's is the wrong one to have, and while you can play like that, it is wrong outside of casual play. Were they to ever enforce that the people who willingly play and enjoy tanking would cease to exist in this game as not focusing on doing damage in this MMO is not only the least engaging thing you can do, but it is so boring as a tank that we'd hardly be able to keep interest for more than a few minutes at most.

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I also truly believe, that with "job identity" square enix is meaning exactly what I am talking about: That a tank should tank in tank stance and not be aiming towards dps.

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You are confusing responsibility and identity.

Identity is just that, the identity of a job.

Darkside, Dark Arts, The Blackest Knight, Living Dead, Blood Weapon, and etc. all the core (or themed) skills of a job are the identity; this was the same for Low Blow, Reprisal, Delirium and Scourge in 3.X but... let's not get into that. What you are talking about is a tank's responsibility, which is universal among the three, it has nothing to do with an individual job and has very little to do with their identity as a whole. Dark Knight is a Dark Knight before it is a tank, it needs to be able to perform in solo instances without accommodation from other players using the skills and abilities that form its identity. Flipping the coin we know that it's party responsibility is that of a tank, but that is not what defines what a Dark Knight is a job/class.

You are so far off base that I'm not sure how to further reply.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

I really hope this will be extended to paladin as well, maybe by making it so PLD can only block at all, use passage of arms and bulwark when in shield oath while requiescat and holy spirit can only be used in sword oath.

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Paladin players neither need nor want to return to the days of Heavensward.

I don't mind if Square experiments with a fight that uses a different fail condition outside of a dps check, but I do not want that to become the rule as opposed to the exception. If you start balancing an encounter around super tank busters, WAR will cheese through them with Holmgang if you make no further adjustments.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

-Consider removing either the MP cost or the GCD cost on Grit.

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I completely disagree with this. There's a reason why Shield Oath, Sword Oath, and Grit all have a cost and a GCD requirement and Warriors do not.

Shield Oath and Grit have an IMMEDIATE 20% Damage Mitigation. Defiance does not. It increases their HP and HP recovered by healing but does not have any IMMEDIATE mitigation. This means that healers have to IMMEDIATELY heal the Warrior for their tank stance to be useful pre-damage. You don't have to do that for DRK or PLD.

You can't just give DRK a free 20% mitigation buff. Every tank that knows how to DPS uses their tank stance to mitigate busters and generous amounts of damage to help their healers. Otherwise they stick to their DPS stance (or in DRK's case just staying out of Grit). This would make it easier for DRKs to use, yes. But from a design and reasoning perspective it's not a good idea unless you want to rework Grit to be similar to Warrior's Defiance. This is one particular tank design you have to consider and why there's even a cost for Shield Oath/Grit relative to Defiance.

Side Note: Add Convalescence effect to Walking Dead. Living Dead is now fixed. Thnx

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Originally Posted by Indicative

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its one or the other not both at the same time, removing the mp cost will be neat and will not broke it, now is extremely punishing and dont forgeth WAR have equilibrium to cover that hole in a second, they dont really need a healer for that, plus they can avoid tank stance penalty.

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Originally Posted by shao32

its one or the other not both at the same time, removing the mp cost will be neat and will not broke it, now is extremely punishing and dont forgeth WAR have equilibrium to cover that hole in a second, they dont really need a healer for that, plus they can avoid tank stance penalty.

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That's still forcing the WAR to use a cooldown to actually use their tank stance that they could apply elsewehere. That's still part of my point that WAR doesn't get their benefit the moment they push their button. WAR has a legitimate cost to them using Defiance. How is that not a penalty?

Removing any penalty from grit won't break the class, no. But it's also completely unnecessary and removes the whole reason the tank stances are the way they are. If you remove the MP cost OR the GCD it's a pretty negligible cooldown and DRKs already generate a lot of MP anyway so keeping the MP Cost but removing the GCD is a big non-issue. It basically turns into a Rampart minus the 90 second recast time.

On this same vein we should make PLDs always be in Shield Oath or Sword Oath and have no GCD rather then having to waste an extra GCD to go between each. DRKs have the luxury of literally hitting Grit again to take it off without taking a GCD to go on the offensive again.

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Originally Posted by Indicative

I completely disagree with this. There's a reason why Shield Oath, Sword Oath, and Grit all have a cost and a GCD requirement and Warriors do not.

Shield Oath and Grit have an IMMEDIATE 20% Damage Mitigation. Defiance does not. It increases their HP and HP recovered by healing but does not have any IMMEDIATE mitigation. This means that healers have to IMMEDIATELY heal the Warrior for their tank stance to be useful pre-damage. You don't have to do that for DRK or PLD.

You can't just give DRK a free 20% mitigation buff. Every tank that knows how to DPS uses their tank stance to mitigate busters and generous amounts of damage to help their healers. Otherwise they stick to their DPS stance (or in DRK's case just staying out of Grit). This would make it easier for DRKs to use, yes. But from a design and reasoning perspective it's not a good idea unless you want to rework Grit to be similar to Warrior's Defiance. This is one particular tank design you have to consider and why there's even a cost for Shield Oath/Grit relative to Defiance.

Side Note: Add Convalescence effect to Walking Dead. Living Dead is now fixed. Thnx

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I do agree partly, but you forgot about one major thing.
Using Grit takes 1 GCD and it decreases a total DPS output, since DRK dps is super heavly based around soul eater combo, taking 1 GCD out of it and a use some of the MP is kind off worse than using a little more MP for TBN.
Grit without MP cost would give you at least a second option to reconsider, if you dont have enough MP you could switch to tank stance and take the dmg with it, this change would make it easier to play drk overall, and you still will have to sacrifice some dmg for it.
PLD switching tank stance also take 1 GCD, but it does not affect him as much as DRK.
1-2-3 of the DRK makes up to 70% of his total dps.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

I'm on the side of players that feels that a main tank should not be trying to push dps, but instead focus on:

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

holding aggro on the boss and mobs

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Press button.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

mitigating party damage

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Press button.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

mitigating damage on himself

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Press button.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

moving the boss around to specific spots

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Press button while moving

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This is why players push the limits of what tanks are capable of. It's pretty foolish to think even if you nerf tank dps that people aren't going to find ways to maximize (or scrutinize) it anyways. And besides that, most people who raid want to get better. How are we going to judge if we are getting better or not if our dps is always stuck at 1000 (or whatever)? Did we live? Ok that's enough I guess..

I used to sort of agree, being against the str tanking meta early on in HW (mainly because of unfair cost to tanks compared to everyone else). But now I accept that it's simply much more fun to have options and really trying to push and see what you can do, versus being forced to only play one way all the time.

If you follow the logical conclusions of "tanks should just be tanks" it only ends with a mundane style of play and a lot less tanks in the community.

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Originally Posted by Indicative

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i show it you in this way then, grit and shield oath are a complety disgusting waste of dps by only thinking to turning it on in combat, this is the most huge penalty you can face in this game, WAR defiance on the other hand is not, it dont cost resources, is not cost time to use it, you miss the hp when you activate defiance?, well yeah is a disadvantage use equilibrium on it bcs it cost a gcd.... o wait is not.
mmmm at least WAR will suffer the same damage penaltys like the other too, oh wait they have unchained, war legitimate cost is long at the 0,1 second you use equilibrium and unchained, DRK/PLD cost is tie to our neck during all the combat.

the real panorama is defiance apart of being ogcd have the tools to avoid the weakness in ogdc able to go in and out without any cost, hell defiance equilibrium is free agroo too, but for PLD is like stab a knife on you back to use shield and for DRK is like do a arakiri, you can generate the mp yes but the mp you waste on grit is potency loss at the end.

tank stances dont have a real purpose anymore, they are just mere agro buff for pulling and extra defense on mass pulling, at least with this change with will have a purpose on raid and extremes even for being a defense buff and "smooth" emergency turning on and i still im being generous bcs we still suffer a full time damage penalty, the stances are not working as a full time stance as SE want since heavensward.

One thing that I really want adjusted for DRK is plunge. It has the same issue as Repelling Shot had, you have an utility skill tied with a potency, so you use it to increase your damage on cooldown and don't have it up from when you need. Not to mention its clunkyness. Plunge needs to get the same treatment as Shukuchi, make it faster(removing animation lock in the process), increase range to equal Onslaught. I remember back in Neo ExDeath, my plunge would cancel midair because the boss went out of range. That's ridiculous.
C&S needs the same treatment as Assize got in Stormblood. Devs need to understand that everytime they tie damage to an utility skill, the players will always favor the damage aspect of it as "optimal". C&S should do fulldamage and recover MP without DA, that alone could solve a lot of DRK oGCD bloat, same for Dark Passenger, just give it full effect without dark arts.

Another thing is how blood gauge works, its terrible. it takes forever to fill and you have the same issue with a broken gauge as warrior did. I think every GCD should give 10 gauge and have souleater give 20, kinda like warrior works and remove the blood aspects from Blood Weapon and Salted Earth.

Speaking about Salted Earth, this skill is terrible. It's terrible to place ground target AoEs when you play on keyboard, you always end up clicking other stuff and breaking your combo. Yes you can use a macro, but macros can't be queued, so most of the times you end up spamming the macro button. Please rework this skill to work similar to Circle of Scorn or just remove it completely.

Non DA Carve and Spit restores mp, DA + CS does not restore mp

Phone edit: C&S is fine the way it is. During pulls use non DA version for mp where needed. In single target use on cooldown with dark arts

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

Tank stance is a learning, leveling and progression tool

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And it shouldn't be. It is called tank stance, which means its meant to be used for tanking, while damage stance is meant to be used for doing damage.

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

Enforcing tank stance is a way to drive away the tanks that currently exist and push more people away from trying out tanks

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I disagree. It might be a driveaway for some dps greed tanks who think they're a dps and not a tank, but imo it encourages lots of new players to play tank, since many feel discouraged about tanking, because they have the responsibility for the group and don't want to tank without tank stance because they fear to lose aggro or to die because they didn't use the appropriate tank cd in the right time, but at the same time those people are frequently blamed for being a bad tank since they're only tanking in tank stance and not doing damage by other dps greed tanks. I've experienced this countless times in PF groups, which is why many don't want to play tank right now (already talked to many people about this).

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

and while you can play like that, it is wrong outside of casual play

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And that's what needs to be fixed imo.

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

as not focusing on doing damage in this MMO is not only the least engaging thing you can do

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Well, that is your opinion. I find it waaay more engaging to stay in my tank stance, use my tank cd's at the right time, not having to worry about dps all the time and instead focusing in mitigating that party damage with things like blackest night, cover, passage of arms, etc. and looking at the boss, preparing for what he's doing that I can prevent as a tank, running around doing mechanics appropriately, etc. That dps element is just an unnecessary addition and in my opinion a good tank is not someone who does big d*** dps, but one who never dies, mitigates nearly any possible damage and uses his defensive cooldowns perfectly throughout a whole content.

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Originally Posted by Keldion

Paladin players neither need nor want to return to the days of Heavensward.

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I think what you are talking about is the fact that no one wanted paladin, because he wasn't as good in raids as a DRK+WAR combo. If you readjust all the tanks the same way, no one gets less preferred though. I'm talking about making it so all tank jobs have to tank in tank stance and do damage in damage stance.

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Originally Posted by Keldion

If you start balancing an encounter around super tank busters, WAR will cheese through them with Holmgang if you make no further adjustments.

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And I am specifically talking about making lots of adjustments and further adjustments.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Press button.

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So? Anything you do in this game is "Press button". Even a perfectly optimized dragoon opener is just 23x "Press button" and I'm saying this as a dragoon main.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

How are we going to judge if we are getting better or not if our dps is always stuck at 1000 (or whatever)?

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And this is exactly the toxic mentality I hate most, the reason why almost all my ffxiv friends quit WoW and the reason why Yoshida will never implement an ingame parser. All 3 instances I mentioned (me, my friends and yoshida) don't want player skill to be judged based on plain numbers in a parser and you can even be banned in FFXIV for judging someone's skill in ingame chat because his numbers weren't high enough. In WoW this is always done (people get kicked from raid parties without a word if their dps isn't on point) and WoW is considered to have one of the most toxic raiding communities in MMOs, because everyone is just looking at those numbers instead of people doing mechanics right.
And to answer your question on "how are we going to judge if we are getting bette ror not": Easy. By seeing how often a person died, how perfectly mechanics were executed and how fast the boss died. "But yu can't see individual progress with this" -> This is an MMORPG. Raids are teamwork and individual skill doesn't matter. Group skill matters. If the group clears content faster, everyone got better and that's what the mentality in raiding should be: Progressing as a group. If you want to be an op solo player, go play FF15 or any solo title, but that's not a point for a team game.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

I'm talking about making it so all tank jobs have to tank in tank stance and do damage in damage stance.

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As much as I vehemently disagree with this sentiment I understand it as a valid opinion among a certain player population. However, this topic and changes listed have been about adjusting Dark Knight in accordance with the current tank balance, not about changing how tanking fundamentally works from the ground up for everyone. Perhaps such a debate might be fought for a reshuffling in 5.0 and beyond, but what's being argued for here is a better implementation for how Dark Knight may interact with the game as it is currently presented.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

Even a perfectly optimized dragoon opener is just 23x "Press button" and I'm saying this as a dragoon main.

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Pressing 1 button for a mitigation CD is not anywhere near the same as a 23 GCD rotation. You don't just 23x Heavy Thrust. At least make a reasonable argument lol

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

Raids are teamwork and individual skill doesn't matter

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Except that there is no team without the individuals. If you take a group of people who've never raided before and put them in a savage raid, they don't instantly clear because all of a sudden they are a "team" now. No, it takes competent individuals to form a competent team. Individual skill absolutely matters, otherwise you are just carrying the weakest link(s). And, regardless of whether you realize this or not, perfectly executed mechanics = higher dps. How fast the boss died is relative to the group's DPS. Your argument contradicts itself. If you're focusing on achieving higher damage then the only ways you can do that are by sharpening up every other area. If you sharpen up every other area then your damage naturally increases. It's the same goal either way.

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Originally Posted by Valdegarde

but what's being argued for here is a better implementation for how Dark Knight may interact with the game as it is currently presented.

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My apologies. Back to the topic that sort of started this diversion, I think Grit should remain with MP cost but should should be taken off the GCD, give it smoother action turning on and off (more like War). It's always felt like there is a weird delay with turning it off especially.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

I think what you are talking about is the fact that no one wanted paladin, because he wasn't as good in raids as a DRK+WAR combo. If you readjust all the tanks the same way, no one gets less preferred though. I'm talking about making it so all tank jobs have to tank in tank stance and do damage in damage stance.
And I am specifically talking about making lots of adjustments and further adjustments.
So? Anything you do in this game is "Press button". Even a perfectly optimized dragoon opener is just 23x "Press button" and I'm saying this as a dragoon main.
And this is exactly the toxic mentality I hate most, the reason why almost all my ffxiv friends quit WoW and the reason why Yoshida will never implement an ingame parser. All 3 instances I mentioned (me, my friends and yoshida) don't want player skill to be judged based on plain numbers in a parser and you can even be banned in FFXIV for judging someone's skill in ingame chat because his numbers weren't high enough. In WoW this is always done (people get kicked from raid parties without a word if their dps isn't on point) and WoW is considered to have one of the most toxic raiding communities in MMOs, because everyone is just looking at those numbers instead of people doing mechanics right.
And to answer your question on "how are we going to judge if we are getting bette ror not": Easy. By seeing how often a person died, how perfectly mechanics were executed and how fast the boss died. "But yu can't see individual progress with this" -> This is an MMORPG. Raids are teamwork and individual skill doesn't matter. Group skill matters. If the group clears content faster, everyone got better and that's what the mentality in raiding should be: Progressing as a group. If you want to be an op solo player, go play FF15 or any solo title, but that's not a point for a team game.

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But the game is designed that way and not another, your team dont need to, but have to meet certain DPS level in order to beat the end game content, and this is dictating the players priorities.
If the raids never had a enrage timers but instead it would be difficult on some different way than it is now, it would be all different. However its not, and the biggest part of the blame you should put on Yoshida himself and the game developer team, they designed it that way and they made it the most important part of the game i mean raids in this case.
Players just adjust, they dont have power over this things.
A tank playing in tank stance even if having extra mitigation hurts his team for doing so. If the game would have the dungeons rewarding as well as raids, the story would be totally different, but well its not and it seems raids will remain the most important part of the end game.
Dungeons are different and tanks could play in tank stance there, but well its not the case, i would love to see dungeons being the most important part of the game along side with raids, but thats not going to happen.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

I find it waaay more engaging to stay in my tank stance, use my tank cd's at the right time, not having to worry about dps all the time and instead focusing in mitigating that party damage with things like blackest night, cover, passage of arms, etc. and looking at the boss, preparing for what he's doing that I can prevent as a tank, running around doing mechanics appropriately, etc.

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I disagree, I can be defensive while being offensive and helping the group with Shake it Off, pre-planning Vengeance so I can get more potency per auto attack while getting it que'd for the next TB, that makes a great tank, as for preparing what the boss does next it's all laughably scripted, with the exception being O7S but even then it has multiple patterns.

What's funny is you mentioned all that while being in tank stance when you can perfectly do it in DPS stance while positioning/tanking adds etc, you can do everything you can do in tank stance while being in DPS stance.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

That dps element is just an unnecessary addition and in my opinion a good tank is not someone who does big d*** dps, but one who never dies, mitigates nearly any possible damage and uses his defensive cooldowns perfectly throughout a whole content.

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Again I disagree nothing in this game in casual content is gonna 1 shot you and even in raids what else are you going to do? Sit there and spam Rage of Halone and Butchers Block getting all that sweet threat when you can Voke+ Shirk with your OT/Shadewalker with your Nin to get more threat and provide more overall raid DPS? It's not about going balls to the walls no regard for CDs or the raid group DPS, it's about contributing and pushing yourself to the max as a tank you need to understand that because clearly you don't.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

And this is exactly the toxic mentality I hate most, the reason why almost all my ffxiv friends quit WoW and the reason why Yoshida will never implement an ingame parser. All 3 instances I mentioned (me, my friends and yoshida) don't want player skill to be judged based on plain numbers in a parser and you can even be banned in FFXIV for judging someone's skill in ingame chat because his numbers weren't high enough. In WoW this is always done (people get kicked from raid parties without a word if their dps isn't on point) and WoW is considered to have one of the most toxic raiding communities in MMOs, because everyone is just looking at those numbers instead of people doing mechanics right.

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I don't get how this is toxic when parsers are there to help you improve and if you're in a static it shows who's not pulling their weight/needs to improve, it's a tool to use how you see fit. As for people being kicked it should happen if you're not preforming adequately why would I wanna bring a DPS who does 1-2k less than the other DPS and keeps dying to mechanics over and over? Not to mention you're free to use it in pugs to see the overall group play and see who's doing what.

Doing mechanics right + DPS uptime is the sign of a good player so that last part there of everyone looking at numbers vs people doing mechanics is just wrong, a good DPS will do mechanics and DPS at the same time.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

This is an MMORPG. Raids are teamwork and individual skill doesn't matter. Group skill matters.

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Wrong individual skill contributes to the overall continuity of the group, if you have people who have never raided once and their individual skill is lesser than an actual group of raiders they aren't a raid group. Their individual performance will plummet and it'll show when they either hit enrage because they're not doing uptime or they can't execute mechanics in conjunction with DPS.

In the end all the points you outlined is just wrong, tanks should contribute, healers should contribute, DPS should be at the top of their game this isn't lvl 30 content this is max lvl where everyone expects everyone to know their role and preform well.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

And this is exactly the toxic mentality I hate most, the reason why almost all my ffxiv friends quit WoW and the reason why Yoshida will never implement an ingame parser. All 3 instances I mentioned (me, my friends and yoshida) don't want player skill to be judged based on plain numbers in a parser and you can even be banned in FFXIV for judging someone's skill in ingame chat because his numbers weren't high enough. In WoW this is always done (people get kicked from raid parties without a word if their dps isn't on point) and WoW is considered to have one of the most toxic raiding communities in MMOs, because everyone is just looking at those numbers instead of people doing mechanics right.
And to answer your question on "how are we going to judge if we are getting bette ror not": Easy. By seeing how often a person died, how perfectly mechanics were executed and how fast the boss died. "But yu can't see individual progress with this" -> This is an MMORPG. Raids are teamwork and individual skill doesn't matter. Group skill matters. If the group clears content faster, everyone got better and that's what the mentality in raiding should be: Progressing as a group. If you want to be an op solo player, go play FF15 or any solo title, but that's not a point for a team game.

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Yeah, uhm... with regards solely to the bolded section...
That's all done by doing damage. If you don't die, you do more damage. If you don't mess up mechanics, you do more damage. Everything in this game is about doing more damage.
If even one person in a raid isn't pulling their weight and not doing enough damage, but they're still doing mechanics and surviving, that still means that the rest of the raid has to pick up the slack on that one person's missing DPS potential.

Dear Tracks,

I miss you and hope to see you again soon.

Love,
Train

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Originally Posted by Awful

I don't get how this is toxic when parsers are there to help you improve and if you're in a static it shows who's not pulling their weight/needs to improve, it's a tool to use how you see fit. As for people being kicked it should happen if you're not preforming adequately why would I wanna bring a DPS who does 1-2k less than the other DPS and keeps dying to mechanics over and over? Not to mention you're free to use it in pugs to see the overall group play and see who's doing what.

Doing mechanics right + DPS uptime is the sign of a good player so that last part there of everyone looking at numbers vs people doing mechanics is just wrong, a good DPS will do mechanics and DPS at the same time.

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How don't you get it, how this isn't toxic? I'll point it out more precise, so you understand it: People in WoW are kicking other people for not having a 90+ percentile in dps. Even if that person never dies to a single mechanic and executes every mechanic perfectly, but isn't using the optimal spreadsheet calculated rotation or simply not having a good dps uptime because they're focusing on doing mechanics correctly instead of being on the boss every millisecond, they are still getting kicked over someone who dies 2 times and fails his mechanics every second time killing other party members, but executes his rotation perfectly like on a spreadsheet so his dps is still at the tops, because people only look at the parser and are like "Oh, his dps is good, so he isn't doing anything wrong", while at the same time they're like "This person's dps is bad, so he must be bad." and Within the last few months that mentality is slowly rising more and more in ffxiv.

For example the healer from my static just recently got kicked from 2 o7s pf practice groups within one week only, just because she was only doing 900 dps, while the other healer was constantly failing his mechanics, wiping the whole raid, not raising the tanks, not healing appropriately, but his dps was dopey 1800, so he was allowed to stay.

Also, your "Doing mechanics right + DPS uptime"-Theory is just idealistic, but far away from reality. Maybe 5% of players do both. The reality is that most either do mechanics right, but have suboptimal rotations + dps uptime on the boss OR they have perfect rorations + dps uptime, but still fail mechanics, because they can't focus on both and only look at their parser every 5 seconds. And the latter is mostly the reason for raid fails. A group that has perfect mechanic execution, but only mediocre dps uptime will much more likely beat a raid than a group that has perfect dps uptime but only mediocre mechanic execution (since one mechanic in a savage raid can sometimes wipe a group if only 1 person fails at it).

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

That's all done by doing damage. If you don't die, you do more damage. If you don't mess up mechanics, you do more damage. Everything in this game is about doing more damage.

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If you stay in every AoE to keep DPS uptime, you're doing more damage, but put a lot of unneeded pressure on the healers, that you will probably blame if you die.
And you're certainly not "better" than someone that does slightly less damage than you but perfectly dodges all avoidable damage.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

If you stay in every AoE to keep DPS uptime, you're doing more damage, but put a lot of unneeded pressure on the healers, that you will probably blame if you die.
And you're certainly not "better" than someone that does slightly less damage than you but perfectly dodges all avoidable damage.

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I mean... if you're intentionally standing in the bad, you yourself are to blame if you die, since you'd be making the healer's job more difficult by your own actions. You can't DPS if you're dead.

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

A group that has perfect mechanic execution, but only mediocre dps uptime will much more likely beat a raid than a group that has perfect dps uptime but only mediocre mechanic execution

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This is true to an extent, but averages out in the long run. As far as I can tell there are really 2 mindsets: 1) focusing on mechanics over dps while learning a fight and 2) aggressive dps adjusting as they learn their limitations in a particular encounter. (IE how long can I stand in this AoE for uptime before I need to move to avoid death). The latter are typically first to get clears, and in general they are setting the bar for everyone else. Draw you own conclusions.

Neither style is wrong, per se. It just depends on the group. As a raid leader I put up with my dps doing stupid things for uptime because I know they're trying to figure it out, while I personally try to steer everyone in the "lets just focus on mechanics" direction. It's OK to have a balance between the 2..

At the end of the day, I think you just need to be more open minded. Changing tanks dps because you think they should be more like a "tank" isn't actually going to impact the possibility of encountering toxic individuals. In fact adding more restrictions is likely to increase it. So just let people play they want to play, if it's not your style then find people with similar mindsets and try again. No one is stopping you.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

Dear Tracks,

I miss you and hope to see you again soon.

Love,
Train

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T h a t f o n t .

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Originally Posted by Arkfrost

-snip-

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It should be and it is. Tanks stance is a learning tool, this game is not designed around your role it is designed around your job, period. You are a Dark Knight, Warrior, or Paladin before you are a tank. You need to be able to perform the functions required of you to hold your own outside of party content, that includes having the ability to do respectable damage, and unless you want that aspect removed from the game your mindset will never hold water and will always be a failed argument.


Furthermore it would drive away current tanks in end game, the tanks that strive to master their jobs, learn how to map their CDs while out of stance, that work tooth and nail to learn a fight inside and out to optimize how we're doing our job. Quite frankly, were there a push to what you're suggesting I'd quit playing. It's a dumb idea. We are not greedy, contrary, we are competent and know our jobs well—if that counts as greed then I don't want to be considerate (even if it isn't greedy at all.) On another note, you said you want to optimize your CD timing, yet ignore the fact that in tank stance you don't need to put as much thought into as you would outside of it. You're literally ignoring the design philosophy of this game and suggesting a much debated and hated idea in a thread that is completely unrelated to what you're saying.

You said a good tank is one who never dies, mitigates party damage, mitigates personal damage and looks at the boss to know what's coming, right? Funny that.

I do call outs for my group, I use reprisal on raid wide damage, I take tank busters outside of tank stance with appropriate cool-downs, I inform my group of what I am doing and ride my GCD all the while while trying to not miss a single Delirium + Blood Weapon window or Inner Release window, wll the while doing mechanics and contributing more to my group far beyond simply sitting in tank stance could ever hope to accomplish. I die occasionally, but it's Savage, everyone dies, everyone will taste the floor at least a couple dozen times in their raiding career and frankly there's nothing wrong with that.

Everything you're saying; as a self-proclaimed DRG main no less, implies that you actually understand very little of what it means to tank in this game.

My reasoning for this is that you're throwing out all these ideas and benefits of supposedly staying in tank stance when all that, and more, is possible without it. Simply put, your argument fell flat on it's face the moment you started listing what your "ideal" for a good tank is, as those things are expected whether you DPS or not, that's your role's responsibility, but as a job you are expected to contribute DPS in a party environment. This isn't the healer debate where healers deliberate whether they should DPS or just heal, tanks are literally in the boss' face the entire fight; save for swaps, and if all they're doing is rotating CDs and mitigating raid-wides they aren't performing to the best of their ability.

God willing, this will never change, as simply "tanking" with the constraints of your loose understanding allows for very little room for personal improvement and is basically shoving tanks into this small corner saying "This is what you do and if you try anything else you're going to get a swat on the hand." No offense, but if this is indicative of how you tank, you probably should just stick with Dragoon and let us handle things the way we have been. If you're not dying and your tank is doing their job; eg: not dying, taking busters, mitigating damage and contributing damage, you shouldn't care.

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Raids are teamwork and individual skill doesn't matter. Group skill matters. If the group clears content faster, everyone got better and that's what the mentality in raiding should be: Progressing as a group.

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Personal skill is what affects group synergy, a Dragoon doesn't just use Litany whenever they please, a Ninja doesn't hold the first trick attack far beyond the end of their opener, a healer doesn't wait to heal a tank after they take a buster, and so on. These are things you as a player learn about your job and are indicative of personal skill, these are things you should learn outside of a raid environment and have a direct impact on your group's ability to clear. It is progressing as a group, but to progress as a group you must also strive to improve as an individual player, that's not wanting to be an overpowered solo player, that's just striving to get better so that you aren't a burden on your team.

If this is your understanding of raiding then I don't think I can believe that you've ever stepped foot into Savage content; at least not with a dedicated group. As that mindset alone is detrimental and will affect group performance as it encourages under-performing. Realign your mindset, do research on the tanks, read guides and find out what is possible with them before ever making this argument again. Educate yourself and don't just make baseless assumptions based on what you feel should be done when you fail to understand why things are this way in the first place.

I'm going to flesh out my idea from the other day a bit more.

I feel that each tank should have an identity of its own. To me, a Paladin is the standard defender; they're capable of protecting themselves but also prioritize protecting others. Warriors, meanwhile, are selfish, aiming to push themselves as long as possible and keep their foes focused on only them, so they can keep fighting, without regarding the safety of others.

So, where does that leave Dark Knight? To me, I don't see Dark Knight as actively protecting others, as in putting themselves in harm's way. They're more likely to butcher the thing that's attacking someone they're protecting, rather than shield them with their body. They will kill the attacker before it kills them or their charge. I feel that that should be the Dark Knight's identity. They should be the powerhouse tank, sacrificing ample mitigation and party utility in exchange for sheer, raw damage.

In order to do this, however, I feel that Dark Knights should have a LOT of its mechanics addressed, and I will begin with...

Dark Arts

Dark Arts is just... not fun. It's not interesting or entertaining to use this move every time you want to increase the power of some of your moves. Classes with lots of oGCDs are fun, but it's not fun when it's spamming the same thing over and over just to get extra potency on attacks. However, I do feel that Dark Knights empowering their abilities with Darkness is a signature of the class. So, I suggest that Dark Arts be removed and we instead focus on...

Darkside & Black Blood

Darkside, as it is, is something that you turn on and leave on. There's no reason NOT to use it, to the point where it's boring. And Black Blood is something that is introduced so late that it feels almost as if it were tacked on to the class so that it'd have a Job Gauge like the rest of the classes.

In order to make both of these more interesting, I suggest that Darkside be fueled by Black Blood, introducing the resource as soon as you get Darkside from your level 30 job quest. Activating Darkside will begin draining Black Blood and grant you the additional 20% damage increase. But, to reward you for managing your Blood, it will also have the effect of giving all of your weaponskills, spells and abilities the increased potency and additional effects as if they were under the effects of Dark Arts.

This way, Dark Knights learn to manage Black Blood for powerful burst phases that show off their sheer damage they are capable of inflicting to those that would harm others. But, since Black Blood is going to be used as a resource for fueling Darkside, I feel that other abilities need to be addressed...

Quietus and Bloodspiller

As these abilities use Black Blood currently, under my proposed new system, they would cause you to drain Black Blood very rapidly. I suggest, instead, that the Blood cost of these abilities be removed and their usages shifted.

Quietus, I feel, should have its potency increased to make it comparable to Warrior's Decimate. As MP management would be less of an issue for Dark Knights with the focus being on Black Blood, the MP gained can be removed. But in order to prevent it from being totally unbalanced, I suggest it be turned into an oGCD and given a moderate cooldown, so it cannot be spammed.

Bloodspiller, meanwhile, I feel should be the Dark Knight's endgame identity. It is an extremely powerful attack and one that should be used frequently to dole out justice to those that would harm those weaker than themselves. I suggest that it be turned into a weaponskill combo that branches off Syphon Strike, in contrast to Soul Eater. Allow it to maintain its high damage and I would even suggest it outright ignore the damage penalty from Grit. The trade off would then be between using Souleater to generate Black Blood for your burst phases or use Bloodspiller to dish out damage.

The changes might seem overpowered, but I feel that it would help separate Dark Knights from Paladins and Warriors. But, there are other abilities that interact with Black Blood that I feel should also be tweaked.

Blood Weapon, Blood Price and Delirium

Due to the introduction of Black Blood as soon as you get Darkside, I feel that Blood Weapon and Blood Price should generate Black Blood immediately. However, in order to prevent Blood Weapon from being too powerful from the start, I feel that the amount of Black Blood you generate should be reduced from three Blood per hit, to one Blood per hit. Blood Price should remain the same, as it can be used to generate your Blood during a dungeon which you can then use for your burst phase at the start of the next boss fight.

But, in order to keep both of these abilities relevant at the end game, I suggest that the level 66 trait, Enhanced Black Blood, instead be turned into Enhanced Blood Weapon & Blood Price.
This trait would restore the Black Blood generated from Blood Weapon from one to three. While Blood Price will carry the effect of reducing the cooldown on Quietus every time you are struck,
perhaps with a brief cooldown on how frequently this can happen to prevent Quietus from being too powerful.

Delirium, meanwhile, I feel is a perfectly fine ability, but due to the fact that Black Blood is introduced alongside Darkside, I suggest that you learn this ability much sooner. Since Dark Arts would be removed under my proposed system, I feel that it should take the place of your reward for your level 45 quest. And since you'll be wanting to use Delirium to help you generate Black Blood for your burst phases, I suggest removing the cost.

Since you're getting Delirium as soon as you hit level 45, rather than 62, I suggest that you gain a trait at level 62 that lets Delirium grant you Black Blood, so that it can be used early in a boss fight to reach your burst phase sooner.

Now, all of these tweaks and changes would, hopefully, result in a massive increase in damage output from Dark Knights, which is my intention with these suggestions. However, as I believe that Dark Knights should be more focused on butchering their foes, rather than defending themselves or others from them, I feel that their defensive capabilities should be... balanced.

Grit

As it stands, Grit is just a worse Shield Oath. It's simply a 20% damage mitigation and 20% damage dealt penalty. To set it apart from Shield Oath, and in order to keep with the theme of Dark Knight's being the powerhouse and slaughterers, I suggest that Dark Knights have their damage resistance and damage dealt penalty on Grit reduced to 10%, while also giving it an additional effect of having a chance of dealing a low potency attack to enemies when they are struck.

This would make Dark Knights squishier than the other tanks, but hardiness shouldn't be their identity;
that belongs to Warriors. Rather than being able to survive incredible amounts of punishment,
Dark Knights should be focused on killing everything before they can take that much damage.

I don't doubt that these suggestions might be incredibly unbalanced. And they could very well be a damage nerf, rather than gain, like I think it is. But I imagine a seasoned team of developers would be able to balance it much better. My main intention with these suggestions is to give Dark Knight an identity that really sets it apart from the other two tanks.

Paladins are the defenders.
Warriors are the survivors.
Dark Knights are the slayers.

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

Jobs are the bread and butter of this game, if one feels bad and is suffering from poor design choices it needs to be made a top priority and adjusted as soon as they possibly can. Simply leaving job changes to each #.X patch is ridiculous and is a trend that needs to stop. If they've completed the changes they feel are best and finalized what they want to do, we should get a hot-fix. There should be no waiting for that kind of thing when the jobs are the direct way we interact with the game on a day to day basis, they should be a huge priority and the changes they make should not be held back until the next content update.

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We needs only look to Astro and the impact their lengthily delays had on player perception. Astro was actually decent in Midas; some groups favouring it over White Mage, yet few bothered. Why? It developed a stigma due to the awful first impression and was allowed to languish for over a year. The subsequent Balance buffs in 3.4 were a desperate plea from the developers for us to give it a chance—a plea they never had to make if these changes weren't delayed. Samurai and Dark Knight are in similar positions, albeit far better off than Astro. Sadly, changes don't seem to be coming until 4.3. We can only hope they're meaningful.

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

You can't DPS if you're dead.

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You can if a good healer saves you. But a parser won't tell you that you're being carried by your healer.

I feel like they should give it a nice buff at the risk of making it a bit overpowered. You could argue that pld/war are both overpowered already. Up the potency on Bloodspiller, up the HP restore on Souleater and yes keep the HP restore when Grit is not in effect.

Something I want back from HW are the many ogcds buttons you had that weren't Dark Arts. DRK was such an interactive and reactive class back then, but now PLD has become that in SB.

Remove the Dark Passenger mana cost and either buff its damage or let it keep its DA property. Add some kind of additional property like, I dunno, HP Leech? WAR has steel cyclone, so it's not like it'd be OP. Or maybe a 15% damage debuff to make up for DRK's small amount of defensive cooldowns and his lack of raidwide mitigation tool like divine veil and shake it off. Increase its cooldown to 60 secs to balance it out and make it stack with reprisal or something.

Make Quietus an OGCD that costs 50 blood gauge. "But that'd make drk too strong in dungeons!" Probably still wouldn't be as strong as WAR's current aoe rotation.

Make Delirium the old inner release, cuts blood gauge costs in half. And sync Blood Weapon/Price and Delirium's cooldown times and voila, drk now has a burst window.

Make Bloodspiller an alternative of Soul Eater off Syphon Strike that costs no blood gauge but doesn't build up any either. Now you have an interesting rotation and an interesting way to manage blood gauge.

Make Soul Eater heal available outside of grit (if WARs can have storm's path, why not DRKs?)

About Sole Survivor, how about making it the equivalent of Equilibrium heal but as a Heal over Time instead? Could even work as a low potency hp leech to give DRK a new offensive ogcd, just make it a 90 seconds cooldown. Fits the tank's personality, makes an useless button useful, adds much needed self sustain.

Just outright remove Dark Arts buff on Syphon Strike and Bloodspiller, we don't need to press dark arts every bloody gcd.

Then balance the potencies to make him do a lil bit more dps than pld but a lil less than WAR.

So many ways you could make a boring class fun,

I like your ideas but what would blood even do in single target then if Bloodspiller had no blood cost? Perhaps you could make Dark Passenger a single target offgcd that costs blood, similar to SAM's shinten? And you'd spam this in delirium/unbuffed burst windows.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

You can if a good healer saves you. But a parser won't tell you that you're being carried by your healer.

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Actually it will. It's called "damage taken" and "healing done".

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Originally Posted by Satarn

Actually it will. It's called "damage taken" and "healing done".

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I'm pretty sure people won't care when they decide to kick those who don't "do enough DPS" for their taste.
Or they will simply kick the healer who is struggling to keep you alive because his DPS is too low, like Arkfrost witnessed in his static.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

I'm pretty sure people won't care when they decide to kick those who don't "do enough DPS" for their taste.
Or they will simply kick the healer who is struggling to keep you alive because his DPS is too low, like Arkfrost witnessed in his static.

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This doesn't happen nearly as much as people like to claim it does, stop perpetuating that mindset. Jerks exist, but most people who parse; while upset by unperformers, won't kick you simply because you're not playing to their standards.

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Originally Posted by Aniya_Estlihn

This doesn't happen nearly as much as people like to claim it does, stop perpetuating that mindset.

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I never said it happens that frequently, but not having an official parser means that you can report those who do for breaking the ToS.

And even if one don't kick everyone in sight, claiming that parsing is the only way to judge if someone is improving is already a slippery slope.

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Originally Posted by Bec

I like your ideas but what would blood even do in single target then if Bloodspiller had no blood cost? Perhaps you could make Dark Passenger a single target offgcd that costs blood, similar to SAM's shinten? And you'd spam this in delirium/unbuffed burst windows.

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I was throwing out random suggestions, but you'd basically waste it on ogcd quietus. Could always have Bloodspiller with a 20 blood gauge cost, so to prevent gauge overflowing during non burst rotation.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

I never said it happens that frequently, but not having an official parser means that you can report those who do for breaking the ToS.

And even if one don't kick everyone in sight, claiming that parsing is the only way to judge if someone is improving is already a slippery slope.

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But someone that understands a mechanic and stops dying to it will obviously see an improvement to his DPS, even if it's a tank spamming rage of halone in tank stance. And the next step after mastering a mechanic (which isn't hard to do most of the time) is to optimize your rotation around it to get more out of that part of the battle, and end the fight faster to avoid enrage, that applies to every class in this game. Once a fight has been cleared, you can plan around it really easily before entering because it's completely scripted. Your DPS can only go up, being proof of your performance. A dude that keeps dying to mechanics but has ridiculously high dps sounds like a very rare scenario.

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Originally Posted by Booden

But someone that understands a mechanic and stops dying to it will obviously see an improvement to his DPS, even if it's a tank spamming rage of halone in tank stance. And the next step after mastering a mechanic (which isn't hard to do most of the time) is to optimize your rotation around it to get more out of that part of the battle, and end the fight faster to avoid enrage, that applies to every class in this game.

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And you can do that without a parser to attain a number high enough so you're undoubtedly pulling your weight.

I think the main issue here is just a numbers thing, quietus as an offgcd is just too much potency in aoe, while being a little weird to be using in single target. having DP buffed in potency and be similar in use to shinten I think would solve the issue