Dark Knight Media Tour Feedback

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Originally Posted by Inuk9

If you time your abyssal drain properly youll get a lot of life steal, TBN, rampart and SW are more than enough to do big pulls. TBN is a 15 sec 25% heal, with delirium you can spam quieus, with blood weapon you will have a lot mp to spam at least 4 TBN (and 4 flood of shadow) in a pull, and Im pretty sure you should have Blood weapon on every pull.

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TBN is a 25% shield not a heal.

I've had many of the same thoughts as others in the thread. My main gripes with the redesign of Drk and some of the other tanks is not about dps or mitigation per se but about flavour / identity and how that is being translated into their kit.

It seems like SE wants Drk to be a tank with an affinity for magic and 'darkness', which is ok but shouldn't limit them. To me, if Pld is about being a protector / guardian and Warrior is an aggressive berserker, I would have thought Drk is, based on the story, more about punishment and pain and using that to deliver justice.

With this in mind I would have liked to see some of the following things added / tweaked. Some apply to more than just Drk.

Invulnerability skills: I think these should all have been the same at their core. I.e prevent ho going below 1 for 8 seconds with like a 4-5 min cooldown. Each tank would then have a different flavour for recovery linked to their theme. E.g. warrior could have had equilibrium reset. Hallowed ground could actually put down an air regen bubble. Drk could get a free TBN applied.

The 30% DMG reduction skills: I think they have right idea with vengeance. The other skills should have an identity effect too. Pld could have a boost to gauge accumulation. Now that eye for an eye is gone, maybe shadow wall could have its effect (i.e. change of DMG down on enemies) in line with the punishing theme etc.

Drk mind / dark missionary: I think having a pure magic mitigation is ok, if we could also have mitigated physical via another method. My suggestion is add dark dance back as a physical only mitigation skill that shares recast with dark mind. Then have dark missionary act like deployment tactics but preemptive i.e. your next dark mind or dark dance is aoe

Other:
- I'd love for scourge to come back - fits the punishing theme.
- in an aoe context I would have thought that it would be cool if flood of shadow then was able to spread the scourge effect even if at a lower potency.
- I think a more fitting use of delerium is making EoS and FoS cost no MP for a period of time
- agree with others that adding a bloodbath effect to blood weapon would be nice and re-adding the speed effect
- successfully popping TBN should be changed to just reset TBN. The mana cost would prevent it being overpowered ( could be adjusted further)
- I also would have liked the shadow to not be tied to blood but instead gained by executing a number of EoS or FoS - kind of like you build darkness and then it spills out in the form of the shadow

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Originally Posted by shao32

TBN is a 25% shield not a heal.

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It is the same thing, you are saving healer mana and time either way.

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Originally Posted by Inuk9

It is the same thing, you are saving healer mana and time either way.

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it's not the same thing, mitigation and self sustain/healing are 2 diferent things, DRK don't recover any HP with TBN no matter how much you wanna look at it.

the terms are complety diferent so do not use them inappropriately.

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Originally Posted by shao32

it's not the same thing, mitigation and self sustain/healing are 2 diferent things, DRK don't recover any HP with TBN no matter how much you wanna look at it.

the terms are complety diferent so do not use them inappropriately.

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Shielding is healing. It's preemptive / proactive, not reactive, nor regenerative.

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

Shielding is healing. It's preemptive / proactive, not reactive, nor regenerative.

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TBN it's not, if you are alone against a boss and use constantly TBN to mitigate his attacks you will die eventually, only SCH and AST shields are considerated heals bcs they restore HP in the proces of shielding, TBN doens't do that so his type os shield can't be considerated healing at all.

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Originally Posted by shao32

TBN it's not, if you are alone against a boss and use constantly TBN to mitigate his attacks you will die eventually, only SCH and AST shields are considerated heals bcs they restore HP in the proces of shielding, TBN doens't do that so his type os shield can't be considerated healing at all.

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The only reason that statement is true is due to the 15 sec CD and 3K MP cost of TBN. If a PLD is alone against a boss he cant heal himself with clemency forever either he will die eventually just like the DRK.

Shield is HP, that means healers will not have to heal that HP, therefore its a heal. I don't know why you are being so stubborn about this.

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Originally Posted by Inuk9

The only reason that statement is true is due to the 15 sec CD and 3K MP cost of TBN. If a PLD is alone against a boss he cant heal himself with clemency forever either he will die eventually just like the DRK.

Shield is HP, that means healers will not have to heal that HP, therefore its a heal. I don't know why you are being so stubborn about this.

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I mean they can be close. Shield if indefinite and stack-able would be a better cure, though in reality it can wear off and often don't stack (same shield types from the same player I mean). The issue is no matter how much you recast TBN on yourself you'll never go back to "recovering" hp from where the shield started from - which was their point (shields can't bring your HP bar up, they can only keep it from going down). This probably doesn't seem important when the Paladin's self cure vanishes in one hit from a tank buster too.. its just like eh whatever lol but when the boss goes into the quiet time Paladin could go full health even if there is no enemy around (while dark knight would have a lot of trouble doing that, it's possible they couldn't do it even).

So it's almost a cure with the awesome benefit of being able to precast before big damage (technically meaning shields can also break maximum hp while a cure cannot). When the shield is used to it's full extent I could definitely see how it feels just like a cure :D. But during down time casting TBN and having it fall off would be nothing like casting a few clemencies on yourself.

Just cursory looking but I'm pretty sure a Paladin could out solo a Dark Knight with clemency.

Paladin:
Requiescat = instant cast spells
Clemency = 1200 cure no cooldown (2k mp, has 1.5s cast time)

Welcome to full health town when combine, but also a very strong cure you can mass repeat when just done by itself.

Dark Knight:
Soul Eater = 300 cure (but needs to be built from 1 2 3 combo)
The Blackest Night = 25% shield for 7 seconds (3k mp, 15 second cooldown)
Abyssal Drain = 60 second cure with potency = damage done (so probably not that much against a boss, but awesome in a group).

Imo Paladin is very likely to do better lasting against a boss, although of course they'd lose a lot of damage in all that mp being diverted into healing instead of magical damage.. If the boss had a bunch of soft hitting adds though I imagine Dark Knight being really happy lol.

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Originally Posted by Inuk9

The only reason that statement is true is due to the 15 sec CD and 3K MP cost of TBN. If a PLD is alone against a boss he cant heal himself with clemency forever either he will die eventually just like the DRK.

Shield is HP, that means healers will not have to heal that HP, therefore its a heal. I don't know why you are being so stubborn about this.

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it's called effective HP and it's not the same of healing/reciving a heal, missinformation will lead to ppl who don't know the job spread this info.
in resume yes TBN is effective HP like any defensive skill in the game but comparing TBN to a real heal and calling like that is another thing, technically the devs use the forum to recive feedback so we need to be responsible with the terms to proper discuss things, sorry if i did bother you ^^

The fact that a lot of "Fix DRK" threads are just making this thread non-existent proves that the devs really screwed up DRK rework for Shadowbringers... also people need to put the "fix DRK"feedback stuff into this thread rather than making 5-10 different threads...

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Originally Posted by shao32

yeah, all i can say is thanks Yoshi p to make DRK so generic and literaly worse, i guess it was so hard give us a upgraded version of HW gameplay, im switching to GNB please looking forwad to it Yoshi p.

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yoshi did GREAT! SB was the BEST...but...they removed dark arts which made the class fun now idk just looks like a dark gunblade class to me. Dark arts was dk identity

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

The fact that a lot of "Fix DRK" threads are just making this thread non-existent proves that the devs really screwed up DRK rework for Shadowbringers... also people need to put the "fix DRK"feedback stuff into this thread rather than making 5-10 different threads...

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No, only proves that people need to experience content before make threads with solutions for a job they dont even played it yet.

Everyone can theorycraft rotations but you cant insert that in the new content and predict how it will perform.

People who played it at San Francisco are optimistic so Just chill the f out and wait to see if it is really that bad, that is a crazy idea I know.

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Originally Posted by guardin

yoshi did GREAT! SB was the BEST...but...they removed dark arts which made the class fun now idk just looks like a dark gunblade class to me. Dark arts was dk identity

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Why does this remind me of 3.0 BRD changes so much?

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Originally Posted by guardin

yoshi did GREAT! SB was the BEST...but...they removed dark arts which made the class fun now idk just looks like a dark gunblade class to me. Dark arts was dk identity

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More like a dark WAR with less depth and no longer having anything that remind you you are a DRK Gameplay wise apart of dark mind, livind dead and the animations for me.

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Originally Posted by shao32

More like a dark WAR with less deep.

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Do you have a source for this?

The Madden's curse of ff14. The job on the cover art gets hurt the most, the dark knight.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

Do you have a source for this?

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Based on the media tour skill set, it's easy to see DRK becomes a 1 combo job that throw a oGCD to don't overcap MP and have all his oGCD simplified aca carve and spit and abyssal drain substituting dark passenger and salted heart.

Then we have the gauge mechanic with its a clear copy paste of WAR gauge mechanic, 90s recast delirium the same of inner release, bloodspiller it's just fell cleave and Quietus it's just decimate working exactly the same, all the flow of DRK around his gauge have been removed and it's exactly the same as the WAR with the exception WAR have direct hit/crits and DRK gain a bit of MP.

Outside of that DRK don't have anything, it's become the most simple tank and the only deep the job will have will be TBN and his potential 500p waste Compared to WAR and PLD that have more combos, extra mechanics like infuriate and the new buffed fell cleaves and the new finish move on requiem cast with PLD apart of other stuff

Yes I consider DRK a poor copy of WAR in literally 50% of his gameplay and the other half its just extreme simple to manage.

All is suggest to change but we all know the media tour is the final build and only will change numbers except we express our disapprove like WHM did in the past and still they almost didn't change at the end.

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

The fact that a lot of "Fix DRK" threads are just making this thread non-existent proves that the devs really screwed up DRK rework for Shadowbringers... also people need to put the "fix DRK"feedback stuff into this thread rather than making 5-10 different threads...

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NA doesn't operate like JP. Instead of consolidation, we just flood the forums with all these threads.

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Originally Posted by shao32

Based on the media tour skill set, it's easy to see DRK becomes a 1 combo job that throw a oGCD to don't overcap MP and have all his oGCD simplified aca carve and spit and abyssal drain substituting dark passenger and salted heart.

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DRK's one combo situation is virtually the same as WAR and PLD, the only real difference being that DRK has to push one additional button for an oGCD ability (Edge/Flood) every ~30s as opposed to hitting one different button ~20s (Goring) for PLD or ~30s (Storm's Eye) for WAR. Seriously, this whole "only one combo" complaint for DRK is blown way out of proportion and misses how extremely similar the setup is between the tanks.

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Originally Posted by shao32

Then we have the gauge mechanic with its a clear copy paste of WAR gauge mechanic, 90s recast delirium the same of inner release, bloodspiller it's just fell cleave and Quietus it's just decimate working exactly the same, all the flow of DRK around his gauge have been removed and it's exactly the same as the WAR with the exception WAR have direct hit/crits and DRK gain a bit of MP.

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WAR and DRK both got their gauges at the same time, so it's a stretch to say that one is an obvious copy of the other. Who is to say that WAR didn't copy DRK's gauge or that the gauge idea was designed independently and then applied to both? One could argue that the gauges are basically just variations on the stack mechanic that rage used but then again the way MP worked was pretty much the same there with a stack value being the cost of a DA/TBN. Also PLD got a gauge at the same time as well, so I guess they copied WAR too.
Anyways, resource systems tend to work pretty much the same across the board in games and the gauge system works basically the same for all the tanks; you have a "gauge" that holds a resource with a value between 0 and 100, you can spend resources to use abilities which almost all of cost 50 gauge, you gain gauge from other actions like combos. Even the GNB cartridges is basically the same, just replace a cartridge with 50 gauge and there you go, pretty much the same as the others.

Yes, the new Delirium is very similar to Inner Release, but giving DRK a burst window ability like WAR was literally one of the most requested things in ShB, so ... we got what we asked for in the most literal sense. Also the differences between the abilities, DH-crits for IR and MP for Delirium, while subtle could actually have a pretty big effect on how they affect the way the kits play seeing as how the gains for one are an all in one smash with WAR and with DRK are building up resources that could potentially give extra dps or defenses immediately or could be held on to for a more opportune time to use them. In addition, exact side-by-side comparisons of the dps of specific abilities is pointless when it is the dps potential of the entire kit that matters.

As for Bloodspiller and Quietus, well the other tank jobs also have big hard hitting single-target and AoE abilities that cost resources to use, it's not like they are unique to DRK and WAR and therefore DRK must have copied it from WAR.

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Originally Posted by shao32

Outside of that DRK don't have anything, it's become the most simple tank and the only deep the job will have will be TBN and his potential 500p waste Compared to WAR and PLD that have more combos, extra mechanics like infuriate and the new buffed fell cleaves and the new finish move on requiem cast with PLD apart of other stuff

Yes I consider DRK a poor copy of WAR in literally 50% of his gameplay and the other half its just extreme simple to manage.

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Honestly if you feel that DRK "don't have anything" you really need to look again and try to see the details below the surface. With what we have been presented it will likely not be "the most simple tank" and could very much end up actually being the most complex and difficult to optimize of all the tanks thanks to a more fluid and complex resource system than the other tanks, multiple levels and cycles of burst rotations that would need to be carefully timed and managed and having to juggle defense and offense in a way no other tank has to due to the TBN-->Dark Arts-->Edge/Flood-->Darkside interactions. I've touched on many of these aspects of complexity with DRK in other threads and I really don't feel like repeating them all here since each one is rather long, but I went into decent detail about how intricate many of these interactions actually are. I don't know if you and others didn't read them, ignored them or simply didn't understand them but they are available for reading and scrutinizing, which I welcome.



Look, I really like DRK, it's my favorite conceptually of the tanks so far and I really really really want it to be awesome and fun. I think I have over time on these forums shown that I care about DRK and how it plays.
With that being said I am really starting to find some of the complaints regarding what has been shown of the 5.0 DRK to be hyperbolic hysterics based on snap judgments gained from incomplete and fairly limited understandings of how the job and it's kit actually work. People are taking a quick glance at things, seeing one thing that doesn't make immediate sense to them and start crying foul instead of trying to take a closer look and figure out what is actually going on that may not be apparent on the surface.
I'll admit that I too likely don't have anywhere near a full understanding of how DRK will function. I too have some questions, concerns and gripes about parts of the DRK kit. However, at least I am trying to dig in and figure out what the pieces are and how they fit together, especially with the parts that I initially thought underwhelming or subpar, instead of just jumping to conclusions and emotionally reacting.

Whew ..... sorry for the rant but seriously all; calm down, slow your roll and start using your head to figure things out instead of relying on your gut to dictate reality.

Oh, and calling the devs or their work lazy is really uncalled for especially when it could just be a case of you not understanding their design.

I don't think that the feedback in this thread should come as a surprise.

During the Stormblood Media Tour, people were a bit skeptical of the new actions. Delirium was a neat idea, but was fairly underwhelming for its cooldown duration. Bloodspiller and Quietus were nice, but they were functionally weaker versions of Fell Cleave and Decimate, released to us an expansion after WAR got them (and moved on). It was a series of hand-me-downs.

We were worried, but we said that we'd give it a shot. You didn't play DRK to be the most powerful tank, after all. You played it because it was interesting on a technical level, and people respected you for being good at it.

After the full release of information from the tour, the community looked at potencies. PLD was clearly ahead, with WAR in second, marginally ahead of DRK. A number of DRK abilities, including Dark Passenger, were hit with a series of nerfs. The numbers aren't final, most of us said. Let's play it, and see what happens. I was one of them.

At this time, WHMs were unhappy with their gauge system (rightfully so), and actually managed to get a bit of feedback before launch, if I remember correctly. We weren't in a rush, though. If there's a problem, they'll fix it after.

Then they released the final patch notes. The nerfs to our old skills were even worse than they were in the Media Tour version. We played it. People weren't happy with it. But perhaps that was part of changing things up, and giving PLD a chance to shine. Both WAR and DRK were in the backseat, but interestingly, their dps during the launch Ex Primals was the closest that it's ever been (about 50 dps).

And then the community responses started. There was a flood of feedback about WAR. WAR was clearly hard done by. It's the "hardest" job, after all. And DRK? No, that's not important. DRK is 1-2-3 easy. Most of this was regurgitated comments from Xeno, from players who didn't really understand either job all that well. So you couldn't even say that you were playing DRK for the technical mastery of it. It wasn't until months later, when the broader playerbase had the chance to try out both DRK and Ungabunga for themselves, that people started to realise from where Xeno was talking out of.

The end result? Well, WAR got fixed in a hurry, and then some. And DRK? Well, it was about 9 months before the development team even acknowledged that there was a problem. There were quite a few large feedback threads that got a lot of attention. Syz tried. Chrono tried. There were some fantastic efforts that got a lot of community attention. But it was like talking to a wall.

I think it was only after the community collectively upvoted one of the Q+A questions on DRK into the stratosphere (in part due to some coordinated effort through reddit) that the idea that something bad had happened even permeated the devs consciousness. That's what actually gave us the leverage to push for the 4.3 changes.

That's a long time to wait for a response. And a whole lot of work.

We don't want to repeat this all again in Shadowbringers. But it's starting. Again.

The starting point for change is to acknowledge that there's a problem.

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Originally Posted by shao32

Based on the media tour skill set, it's easy to see DRK becomes a 1 combo job that throw a oGCD to don't overcap MP and have all his oGCD simplified aca carve and spit and abyssal drain substituting dark passenger and salted heart.

Then we have the gauge mechanic with its a clear copy paste of WAR gauge mechanic, 90s recast delirium the same of inner release, bloodspiller it's just fell cleave and Quietus it's just decimate working exactly the same, all the flow of DRK around his gauge have been removed and it's exactly the same as the WAR with the exception WAR have direct hit/crits and DRK gain a bit of MP.

Outside of that DRK don't have anything, it's become the most simple tank and the only deep the job will have will be TBN and his potential 500p waste Compared to WAR and PLD that have more combos, extra mechanics like infuriate and the new buffed fell cleaves and the new finish move on requiem cast with PLD apart of other stuff

Yes I consider DRK a poor copy of WAR in literally 50% of his gameplay and the other half its just extreme simple to manage.

All is suggest to change but we all know the media tour is the final build and only will change numbers except we express our disapprove like WHM did in the past and still they almost didn't change at the end.

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I asked if you have a source for drk having "less deep" than war. You just listed a buncha subjective opinions about the gameplay. Were all free to love or hate a class design. Do you have a source to supports your statement that war does more damage?

One complaint that I feel needs be leveled is that PLD/WAR/GNB all receive the AoE rotation combo skill at 40, with PLD and WAR receiving completely new skills on top of what they will be getting from 70+. Why does DRK have to wait until level 72? Is it because of Edge/Flood?

I saw somewhere that the gamerescape tooltips were wrong, with regards to Edge/Flood of Darkness/Shadow. The tooltips alone seem to imply that Edge/Flood *upgrade from ___ of Darkness into ___ of shadow, whereas the trait Darkside Mastery implies Flood of Darkness/Shadow upgrades into Edge of Darkness/Shadow at level 74. (i.e. the skills tooltips and the related traits tooltip are incongruent with each other)
I personally hope they go with Edge of Darkness/Shadow for single target, and Flood of Darkness/Shadow for AoE, just for aesthetic purposes and for general sensibility to me.

I sincerely hope they do something about living dead. Having the ONLY skill in the game that punishes you if someone else fails your skills mechanic is poor design.

Beyond more wants, these things are things I would expect to be addressed if not on launch, then before we have a repeat of 4.x.

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

One complaint that I feel needs be leveled is that PLD/WAR/GNB all receive the AoE rotation combo skill at 40, with PLD and WAR receiving completely new skills on top of what they will be getting from 70+. Why does DRK have to wait until level 72? Is it because of Edge/Flood?

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The Dark Knight doesn't need the combo to meet level 50 AOE damage requirements. Unleash+FoD equals or exceeds the damage output of the Provenience, Mythril Tempest and Demon Slaughter combos.

Sadly for me I don't want to repeat the same thinking (for myself) as SB DRK, I kept telling myself "it'll get better!" and then 4.3 comes along and we finally get some changes that shoulda happened months ago yet WARs can cry out in 4.0-4.1 and get a fix almost immediately. I'm tired of throwing away my favorite class yet again for another tank that's just as fast and fun as it's HW variant as I'm going GNB, both my tank buddies are going WAR and PLD and there's just no reason for me to go DRK as its just so unfun.

Maybe in late 5.X they'll do another "revamp" but as it stands I'm tired of seeing great responses like Chrono, Lyth, Siez and all of the big contributors as well as the Q&A on many of the live letters/functions but just nothing, I'm sad to hang up the greatsword again in favor of a Gunblade but not much I can do when the class is getting worse every xpac.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

The Dark Knight doesn't need the combo to meet level 50 AOE damage requirements. Unleash+FoD equals or exceeds the damage output of the Provenience, Mythril Tempest and Demon Slaughter combos.

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Without the combo you will generate no mana and no blood, so you will not have the ressources to use FoS much, or Quietus, until you reach lvl 72.

They are further destroying DRKs aoe in low level...

In 3.0 we could aoe at lvl 35, when we learned Bloodprice.

In 4.0 they reduced the potency of Unleash, so we had to wait until lvl 56 when we learn Abyssal Drain to deal some damage, but it's not until lvl 64 when we learn Quietus with it's mana regen when we actually can make some use of the aoe.

And now in 5.0 they moved it further back, lvl 72 to generate mana and blood in aoe so we can actually use the tools we have learned long before... including TBN in 70 dungeons.

Until then it's Unleash spam. And we probably can't keep up Darkside when we do that...

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

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Originally Posted by Tint

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From what I have seen, WAR's AoE combo doesn't generate resources until lvl74 and they get the Mastering the Beast trait.
PLD's AoE rotation also is very incomplete until lvl.72 when they get Holy Circle so they have an AoE to use under Requiescat which leaves the MP generated by their combo fairly useless for AoE until then.
GNB doesn't appear to have a situation like the other tanks where it gets a major peice of it's AoE kit in the 70s but it's traits seem potentially incomplete and there may be a trait similar to WAR's that we haven't seen.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

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I believe the "less deep" comment they made was actually supposed to refer to depth, as in they are claiming that DRK has less depth to it's game-play than the other tanks, and not "deeps" as in dps.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

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I know the history of that whole debacle, I was there from the very beginning of it pointing out what I saw as issues with DRK. Heck, I was there from DRK's 3.0 release pointing out many of the issues the job had that were carried over into 4.0. I was at times the lone voice bringing up specific DRK issues that others only later caught on to. I'm not just familiar with it, I was a part of it.

The difference between then and now, or in some cases not so different, is that fewer people seem to be actually bothering to look at and think about things, and trying to understand them. Instead people are being quite quick to jump straight to pitchforks and torches because of a fear of being disappointed again and a lack of patience to see if something is actually okay even though it may not be exactly what they have decided in their minds that it should be.

People can and should point out what they see as functional deficiencies of the 5.0 DRK, but they need to do a bit of legwork too so that their assertion is actually based on properly vetted information and rationale, not knee-jerk emotional reactions.

People are also free to have and express their opinions on the potential feel of things, but they should frame it as such, opinions with reasoning to back them up instead of the hard-line blanket statements that have been getting tossed around. Say something like "I personally don't like X aspect of the proposed 5.0 DRK because I feel ... yadda yadda" instead of "DRK is trash! It's been dumbed down! It has no depth! It's just a trash-tier WAR clone!". Positing subjective feelings as objective facts needs to be avoided.

I have zero problem with people taking issue with things, even if I disagree. My problem lies with the disparity between the amount of noise being raised, and the amount of thought, research and reasoning being applied.

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Originally Posted by Tint

Without the combo you will generate no mana and no blood, so you will not have the ressources to use FoS much, or Quietus, until you reach lvl 72.

They are further destroying DRKs aoe in low level...

In 3.0 we could aoe at lvl 35, when we learned Bloodprice.

In 4.0 they reduced the potency of Unleash, so we had to wait until lvl 56 when we learn Abyssal Drain to deal some damage, but it's not until lvl 64 when we learn Quietus with it's mana regen when we actually can make some use of the aoe.

And now in 5.0 they moved it further back, lvl 72 to generate mana and blood in aoe so we can actually use the tools we have learned long before... including TBN in 70 dungeons.

Until then it's Unleash spam. And we probably can't keep up Darkside when we do that...

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The only way DRK will get to regen mana in low level content will be Blood Weapon, but that too is now inferior to what it used to be, lasting only 10s and having a 60s recast.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

I asked if you have a source for drk having "less deep" than war. You just listed a buncha subjective opinions about the gameplay. Were all free to love or hate a class design. Do you have a source to supports your statement that war does more damage?

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my apologize, i did mean depth, sometimes i mess with english and i didn't notice, performance comparations doesn't matter thight now until the final release yeah, i was talking about the new gameplay and not really the impact compared to other jobs, sorry again.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

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im actually pretty calm after the initial disappointment, looking at DRK it's going to be a 1 combo tank like now yes but without anything that separe his gameplay from the other 2.

don't get me wrong im not complaing DRK gauge it's a bar like the other 2, no, what i complaing the way DRK work around that bar it's being removed and replaced to inner release and sorry but can pass years and i will find it ilogical and silly no matter how much non DRK mains want to try to convince me, there was a thing that make DRK diferent and it's gone, the gameplay similarities betwen the 3 tanks are so big it's not fun anymore for me and thanks god we get GNB to break the rule.

so i guess i have to apologize for being so insistent about this but im extremly unhappy with what i see and i want to SE change it instead to dealt with it 2 years more, i don't want to stay using a single combo with no depth and a bunch of oGBD with a ocasional blood spiller or shadow until delirium is up, bcs that what DRK it's going to do.

im going to push no matter what to minimun get rid of this silly version of inner release, bcs apart of don't want it i find ilogical 3 tanks have this silly mechanic of press a buff and spam 5 time in a row you bloodspiller/fell cleav/holy spirit thing, i didn't like WAR and PLD much bcs of that but i respect ppl love this, but no for DRK, it's not a DRK thing and shouldn't be implemented to the job, bloodspiller is not specially fun to spam.

Ah my bad shao. Reading comprehension fail on my part. Sometimes deep actually just means....deep. Internet slang on the brain. Dont apologize, you wrote it properly, i just misread it.

To be fair, there's not a whole lot of "thought, research, or reasoning" you can apply to some of the changes. They're that bad.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

To be fair, there's not a whole lot of "thought, research, or reasoning" you can apply to some of the changes. They're that bad.

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How so? Please elaborate.
Oh, and let's focus on objective bad, not subjective.
I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge issues as long as they are properly backed up with a reasoned argument, I've made some of those exact arguments already in threads about obvious and potential issues with DRK going into ShB.

Realistically you will not want to play it below lvl 70 after 5.0 release simply due to the kit being really wacky.

Its funny because for leveling roulette the adventurer in need is always tank, and I never run it because of how broken the kit is below current level.

I do think Blood weapon should have a longer duration. 10s is just to short.

Im not really concerned as if DRK isnt fun anymore I will just jump ship to GNB until 6.0 when they rework it.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

How so? Please elaborate.
Oh, and let's focus on objective bad, not subjective.
I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge issues as long as they are properly backed up with a reasoned argument, I've made some of those exact arguments already in threads about obvious and potential issues with DRK going into ShB.

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I don't particularly care enough (nor, quite frankly, am I qualified enough) to elaborate on DRK specific issues, other than what I said. 1 combo line is a joke, don't need an in-depth analysis to figure that one out.. Living dead is bad for all the same reasons it's been bad the last 3 years.. Plenty of elaboration available. Why Dark Missionary is magic only when every other tank can mitigate either is a mystery as well. Oh let's break down the pros and cons of Copy/Paste Inner Release while we are at it.

SE needs to explain their own thought, research and reasoning more than we do. You're pretty much asking people to make sense of things when all we can do is grasp at straws while trying to find some rationality in their decision making to begin with..

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Originally Posted by Derio

Realistically you will not want to play it below lvl 70 after 5.0 release simply due to the kit being really wacky.

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That's true, but to be fair that has been the case since Stormblood and the introduction of TBN, so it's not really something brought about by the recent changes. Should it have been better addressed when they made the changes? Absolutely, but you can't really argue that it's something they broke with the ShB DRK rework.

Also, while potentially not as extreme as DRK, the other tanks have their kits jacked up as well when synced down .

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Originally Posted by Derio

I do think Blood weapon should have a longer duration. 10s is just to short.

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That is subjective, not necessarily objective but you did state it as an opinion instead of an absolute so thank you, that is better than many have been doing. Also while subjective, it is a point to be made that warrants consideration and to be honest it's something I have debated too and haven't quite come to a solid conclusion on how I feel on the matter.

From what I can tell Blood Weapon has been balanced mostly around blood gain with the mp part being an extra that just factors into the general cadence of DRK's mp regain.
This focus on blood and having a 60s recast makes it appear to be an attempt at giving DRK a psuedo Infuriate equivalent. If you then look at the duration and how much blood you could potentially gain from it during the 10s, it's 50 potential blood from whatever weaponskills as long as you fit 5 in, like you would fit 5 FC in for IR with it's duration of 10s. That 50 blood is the same as Infuriate's 50 beast. So I think the 10s was set exactly for that reason.

However there is one big difference between Infuriate and Blood Weapon that I feel is worth mentioning, and that is that Infuriate can hold 2 charges. That is something that I think could, and perhaps should, carry over to Blood Weapon as it could actually have potentially better synergy with DRK's kit seeing as they actually have a burst period built around the 120s recast of Living Shadow which would make holding 2 charges of Blood Weapon to be used and synced up with Living Shadow perhaps a better option than just using it every 60s. While it would make Infuriate and Blood Weapon more similar if you look at just the abilities, it would likely end up playing pretty differently due to the interactions with the kit as a whole being different.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

...I don't particularly care enough to elaborate...

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If you don't care to back your statements up with substance, then it's really hard to assume they have any.

Anyways, I've already spoken on the whole "1 combo" thing and how it's functionally the same across most of the tanks.
DRK: 1-2-3 combo with 1-2-3-4/5 every ~20s-30s.
PLD: 1-2-3 combo with 1-2-4 every ~20s.
WAR: 1-2-3 combo with 1-2-4 every ~30s.
In fact, of those 3 jobs DRK is arguably the most complex because the TBN->DA->Edge/Flood->Darkside is connected to it.
GNB is really the only one that is noticeably different with the more frequent use of Burst Strike and Gnashing Fang.
You could argue semantics and say that DRK's usage of Edge/Flood isn't technically a combo but objectively it is the same in that it is just a single button press deviation at approximately the same frequency like the other tanks doing their variant combos.
So if the game-play around DRK's combo is a joke, then that also applies to at least 3 out of 4 of the tanks as well and is a much bigger issue with tank game-play as a whole.

As for Living Dead, yes it is a problem and one that I have been arguing to have changed since 3.0. That is not a new issue though and wasn't caused by the rework for ShB, so it's not at all accurate to equate the problems of Living Dead as problems with the changes. At most you could argue the devs are at fault of doing nothing and that they should have fixed it, to which I would agree.

Dark Missionary being magic only and whether that will actually be a detriment is yet to be determined. For starters most raid-wide damage has been magic damage, so Dark Missionary would work on it. If the way content works stays the same then Dark Missionary will be pretty equitable in most common use scenarios. If you want to harp on Dark Missionary for anything, it should be that it is too simplistic and should have some extra mechanic like, just as an example and not saying they should copy, the way WAR can burn cooldowns to empower SiO.
I get that the "magic only" thing feels bad, but in actual use I doubt it will be as big of a deal as people are making it out to be.

Lastly, you expect the devs to come and give you a detailed breakdown of their designs, yet you refuse to actually analyze their work and try to understand what they have done on your own? Doesn't that seem a tad entitled? I get that we are customers and that they as the company providing the product have a level of onus to address the concerns of their customers, but that stance is perhaps going a bit far. Besides, figuring out the job mechanics, rotations, etc. of the jobs is something that they want players to do as part of the experience and is something that many players enjoy doing, so why should we expect to be handed it all on a silver platter just because some players not only don't understand what they did but are unwilling to even try to understand.

Perhaps I am giving the internet too much credit in expecting a semblance of measured rationale and contemplative discourse, and honestly arguing for such is tiresome.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

Lastly, you expect the devs to come and give you a detailed breakdown of their designs, yet you refuse to actually analyze their work and try to understand what they have done on your own? Doesn't that seem a tad entitled?

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No more entitled than asking a non-DRK main to breakdown and explain every detail they (or others) see as a potential problem. At some point it's simply no longer worth the effort. And just because you can justify a bad idea doesn't make it a good one.

You can infer a lot of their reasoning as it has been vaguely talked around at different points. For example, they have often mentioned how powerful hallowed ground is. But the raid community values frequency and easeof use oover power, duration. It explains why they never mention anything wrong with holmgang and still have that mega timer on hallowed. SE just disagrees with the community.

Fundamentally thats the issue with reworks and most of the complaints every expac. Se gives items different value than players. They want drk to focus more on irs cool darkside element. You see that aesthetically and in the actions. Players want the high skill tank back as drk, se gave it back as gun. They turned warrior from this knifes edge fluid job balancing act into ungabunga fellest cleave. And they did these changes based on a misinterpretation of feedback. Players didnt like dark arts spam. Repetative, no impact. Delierium no impact etc. Well its gone now and drk has more impactful actions. Some stupid streamer started the short bus about crit unreliability during berzerk. Here you go! No more problem! Ungabunga!

SE does respond to feedback. Its just not how players meant it. And part of that is on whiney short sited complaints that get traction and parroted by others (looking at you xeno sheep that bought into a fabricated problem). In that regard Touchandfeel is right. People need to analyze instead of kneejerk everything or you will destroy the jobs you love with poorly thought out salty posts.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

No more entitled than asking a non-DRK main to breakdown and explain every detail they (or others) see as a potential problem. At some point it's simply no longer worth the effort. And just because you can justify a bad idea doesn't make it a good one.

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If you propose that there is a problem it is your responsibility to state what exactly the problem is and why with enough substance that someone can properly evaluate the claim. Stating "it's just bad" is not anywhere near doing that.

Also just because you think an idea is bad doesn't make it actually bad, especially when you admit to not wanting to spend the time or effort to properly evaluate it.

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Originally Posted by Izsha

You can infer a lot of their reasoning as it has been vaguely talked around at different points.

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Precisely, a lot of what the devs are trying to do is not too hard to infer as it's fingerprints are all over the place. It's been touched upon in interviews, articles and other media. It's shown in the patterns of design from their past work in the game as well as their current and upcoming work. There is enough there to gain a basic grasp of it all if one is just willing to actually take a look and inform themselves and their opinions.

As for players asking for vague things with perhaps not thinking through what they are asking for or how they are asking, and the refocusing/changes to Darkside, it funny enough fits pretty exactly with what a lot of people were saying over and over.
"I don't like DA spam, it's not fun", "Darkside as a toggle is dumb, change it", "DRK needs more job identity", "TBN needs to be dps neutral and not a slight loss because of GCDs pushing back resource gain". Sound familiar?
Well guess what, now we have it where DA is a proc so no spamming, Darkside is a buff that we have to keep up with certain abilities, DRK is more focused around the whole Darkside concept and mechanics and TBN is now exactly dps neutral because it cost exactly the same as an Edge or Flood and breaking it gives a free Edge or Flood and those abilities are oGCD so no delay. People's feedback was directly addressed and they got what they asked for.

Oh and Izsha, this might be of interest to you since you really liked the burst rotation complexity of 3.X WAR, start breaking down all the levels and tiers of the proposed ShB DRK burst rotations, from what I can discern it looks pretty complex compared to what we have seen before, and it and GNB's burst rotations seem the closest to the way that 3.X WAR worked in regards to optimization, with DRK potentially taking the complexity crown due to the extra layer of double-resource management layered on top.
I'm curious to see your take on it.



Anywho ... I'm not saying that people have to agree with or like the dev team's decisions, or that they don't make mistakes because of course they do. There are things that I think are mistakes like the situation with the tank invulns. I'm just saying people should be informed and not just reactionary in regards to their decisions. If you want to argue that something is bad or doesn't work, then argue it properly so people and the devs can understand what the actual problem is. Don't just cross your arms over your chest and go "I just don't like it, it's bad".

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

If you propose that there is a problem it is your responsibility to state what exactly the problem is and why with enough substance that someone can properly evaluate the claim. Stating "it's just bad" is not anywhere near doing that.

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Why do I need to rehash stuff that's already been discussed ad nauseum, some of which has been discussed LITERALLY for years. Not to mention, again, that I'm not even a DRK main. I can barely manage to get my thoughts on WAR correct, much less another job entirely.

Look, I understand what you're asking for. All I was originally saying is that some of the things (like Living Dead) are so bad that it's just redundant to repeat all that again, why do you need some detailed analysis from someone claiming Living Dead is still bad. It's been bad since it was created, and it hasn't changed at all. So all the same reasoning still applies, nothing changed.

1 combo line... DRKs have been sarcastically complaining for all of SB about how they just have one combo. What does SE do? Literally delete the only other combo so they really only have one now. It'd be comical if it wasn't so sad. So what if someone can demonstrate that "in the flow of combat it might not be that different" - it's still a bad look and utterly disregards the feedback that's been accumulated over the last year and half..

And really? You're going to try to argue that Delirium isn't a knock-off Inner Release but worse? Please..

Those are just some of the things that are difficult to truly find any rational reasoning for. That's all I really meant.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

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ok i think we are talking about diferent things so i will try to explain my point of view the best i can, first of all this have nothing to do with DRK performance compared to the other jobs but the relation of gameplay betwen the player and the job.

im a DRK main since 3.0 to the point when the job was released the first thing i did was pick the job and level it to 50 to play the story with it, so i will expline the involution of DRK mechanics by expansions.

DRK have been know by his particular and original gameplay based on MP, primary based on the darkside system and the dark arts system and secondary systems like the parry and the reprisal low blow sinergy.

Darkside start as a MP drain that allowed you to have acces to different skills like dark arts, dark mind ect ect and lock you from getting MP from party members, this mechanic allows us to have a gameplay based on tactical MP management with great rewards and diverse ways to spend you MP and such, in SB they removed the MP drain and nerf some MP skill making MP being used exclusively with DA most of the time simplifying the gameplay around this mechanic, but the skill still lock you from get MP from outsiders and activate certain skills keeping certain feeling of tactical use and now in 5.0 darkside MP recovery lock from others it's gone and no longer activate anything becoming just a generic keep me up damage buff that only a donkey will let fade off, complety brainless.

dark arts was the bread and butter, a tactical skill that allow us to have a dinamic combo system, have DA? use soul eater, you don't have DA then delirium, breaking monotony, his effects including gaining more DPS when used on certain aoe skills with 2 or more targets to increase the self sustain, doge, blind or pure raw magic mitigation, DA was a tactical skill combined with the darkside mechanic make the job interesting and no so heavily based on a static rotation.
dark arts get nerfed on SB mechanically speaking, combined with the darkside nerf dark arts become just a 140 buff for you next action but hey still have diverse effects on other skills, in 5.0 DA is removed, no more interactivity with other skills just nothing, it's replaced with a generic pair of oGCD that they unique purpose is prevent you MP get overcaped since yeah MP uses are reduced to only 3 skills now, DA have isues for being to spamy but now that skill that give us so much fun in the past is gone.

the blood mechanic was an addiction on SB, it's basically a bar to spend you new 3 actions bloodspiller, quietus and a saddly reworked delirium, you use you gauge on bloodspillers and delirium mostly and this come the best part, delirium is/was a buff that grant you resources and extend the duration of bloodweapon to gain even more resources, with fits DRK theme pretty well, comparations with the old delirium aside the skill grant's us something unique to us and now it's gone, replaced to a copy paste inner release bcs why not.

several old oGCD like dark passenger, carve and apit, low blow, ect are being nerfed or removed, they literay remove the choise of carve and spit and you now get both effects, dark passenger from being used regulary to never used single target to being removed to add a new flashy version equally useless on single target.

in resume DRK will have darkside mechanic involuted to a generic buff that don't need effort to keep up, dart arts and his effects removed to get a generic oGCD without sinergy to other skills, aoe rotation gutted again, his unique aoe playstyle to 1-2 combo and more oGCD, and delirium mechanics complety sustituted by the mechanic from other job, i mean there is nothing left.... only TBN and just to become more harder to break and more punishing that ever.

i don't say the new DRK won't work, of course will works, it's become so simple and easy it will work, DRK lost his iconic gameplay his own feeling his own flow and i don't care about his performance, it's like a dragoon that no longer have jump or a ninja that have his mudra removed and sustitute to a chackra system.

meaby something sounds confusing, im sorry if i wasn't as clear as i want but there is a lot of stuff to cover and become a bit harder, probably i will miss something too, and sorry for the wall ^^

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

Anyways, I've already spoken on the whole "1 combo" thing and how it's functionally the same across most of the tanks.
DRK: 1-2-3 combo with 1-2-3-4/5 every ~20s-30s.
PLD: 1-2-3 combo with 1-2-4 every ~20s.
WAR: 1-2-3 combo with 1-2-4 every ~30s.
In fact, of those 3 jobs DRK is arguably the most complex because the TBN->DA->Edge/Flood->Darkside is connected to it.
GNB is really the only one that is noticeably different with the more frequent use of Burst Strike and Gnashing Fang.
You could argue semantics and say that DRK's usage of Edge/Flood isn't technically a combo but objectively it is the same in that it is just a single button press deviation at approximately the same frequency like the other tanks doing their variant combos.
So if the game-play around DRK's combo is a joke, then that also applies to at least 3 out of 4 of the tanks as well and is a much bigger issue with tank game-play as a whole.

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Ok your “combo” comparison is wrong on a few levels. Obvious disclaimer that everything below is based on the media tour.

1. Your PLD is just flat out wrong. It's gonna look like this: 1-2-3-1-2-4-5-5-5 repeat. That's not even considering the requiescat window every minute. Which brings us to:
2. Why are you including bloodspiller and EoS ( an ogcd) for DRK but exclude fel cleave and also ignore pretty much every ogcd except the former mentioned EoS. If you compare something you should apply the same rules to everything and not cherry pick what you want and no EoS giving darkside has no bearing on gcds or combos at all currently, so saying EoS is objectively a combo is like saying a bike is a car, because both have wheels.

So after pointing this out let's correct this comparison a bit:

PLD: 1-2-3-1-2-4-5-5-5 with 6-6-6-6-7 once every 60 seconds
WAR: 1-2-3 with 4 every ~20 seconds, 4-4-4-4-4 every 90 seconds, and 1-2-4 every 40 seconds
DRK: 1-2-3 with 4 every ~20 seconds and 4-4-4-4-4 every 90 seconds

Huh the last 2 look oddly similar and yes DRK has a bit more going on in the ogcd department than warrior, but in reality not that much.

The assumption of using EoS once every ~20 seconds only holds up in theory or in condition that are not optimal ( aka no trick attack and even then you still probably pool for one of many 90 seconds raid cds). In reality you are going to dump all 3-4 you get in a minute in that 10 seconds raid cd window along with every damaging ogcd that is currently ready ( except salted earth and living shadow, the first doesn't snapshot and the second has this 7 seconds start-up time so use it before the window). Yes this means double weaving and yes you are not going to use EoS much outside of the window. And about darkside? It has a mx duration of 60 seconds, so it will still be up for every trick window and one use of EoS will make sure it's still up for 90 second pooling ( you are going to have to dump one anyway for a 90 second window).

Warrior in comparison pools infuriate and gauge for every even trick window (the odd ones are covered by IR). Considering that DRK' s mp seems to be now tuned to give exactly enough for the previously described tactic, WAR now has more resource management than DRK. The only thing resource based gameplay on the DRK is that you want 1 TBN per minute to break to pool the fourth EoS. That being said the last part is tuning based and could still change although unlikely.