6.0 Both Tank and Healers Need Major Focus on Bringing Back Job Identity

I loved using Dark Arts, you had to manage your MP and it was quite the DRK's identity. Coupled with a crit Souleater I felt I was a bit useful to ease the healer's job.
Now I don't play tank anymore, for the reasons explained in this post.

And what's shocking me the most, is that DRK had zero changes sinces 5.0 throughout the patches, as if SE thought DRK is good as it is. Well no, it's not.

I haven't play healer until now and I like it more than tanking in 5.0, but I feel the lack of identity too, and the poverty of their dps: one single target skill, one aoe, one DoT, and we're done.

I think this discussion is the main problem of the game right now, and the reason I could leave, even if I don't want to because there is a lot of good things...

Tanks are lacking some things indeed...
The most cool thing to do as tank is trying to survive as long as you can when you are the last one standing and kill the boss. But if everything is ok, most of the time the healer will heal everything outside of tankbusters/raidbusters.
Very few offensive abilities work with defense too... Same thing the over way around.
The dps rotation for tanks are almost the same too. Drg, nin, mnk, and sam have some thing in common but all have something that makes then unique. Why tanks don't have that ? Why give inner release to drk ? edit: let's not forget bloodspiller the fell cleave clone.
Tbh making tanking easier didnt help.

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Originally Posted by Arkhon-Infaustus

I loved using Dark Arts, you had to manage your MP and it was quite the DRK's identity.

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Dark arts didnt need to disapear, just change. I'm still surprised they didnt make it less spammy in stormblood.

Agree to some extent that a lot of jobs are getting dumed down for the sake of gamers greatest enemy “Broad appeal” which in a MMO makes no sense.

But what exactly is the best course of action?

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Originally Posted by Jirah

Agree to some extent that a lot of jobs are getting dumed down for the sake of gamers greatest enemy “Broad appeal” which in a MMO makes no sense.

But what exactly is the best course of action?

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pretty easy, we have 17 full jobs +1 limited in the game, respect the gameplay and complexity and let the other jobs that have been fair simple stay simple like for example PLD on tanks, dump down everything when we have enough jobs to please all the playerbase demographic so the casuals are the most happy with this has been "with all respect" the most stupid idea ever made.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

At the same time tho a lot of other classes clearly have been listened to and have gotten huge reworks.

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My issue is that their reworks tend to comes at the expense of those who already enjoyed the job, to the point of feeling like either malicious compliance or gross over-stepping.
--> "So you want a less ping-punishing NIN and MCH? Here, let's just gut nearly all of their rotational complexity for you."

Blizzard has had its "You guys all have phones, right?" moments, and reluctance to make positive changes where there was just no reason to hesitate, but at least none of those changes in recent memory come with such a slap to the face of those who already play or enjoy a given job. They tend to fix, slower than they should, and improve, with unwarranted delays, but apart from perhaps their Exp rates and how they affect leveling, they don't tear the house down to appeal to an unknown quantity of people who'd play X if it we'd just remove half the things that make it X.

I don't think that reworks are intrinsically a bad thing. But you have to go in with an overall vision in mind.

As an obvious counter-example, the PLD rework between Heavensward and Stormblood was a success. They re-envisioned the job, taking it from being a purely (physical) "defensive" tank into being a mix of swordplay, offensive spellcasting, and support abilities. They gave PLD an identity. You can argue that Req/Holy Spirit feels very similar to the other "spam X" windows, but the fact that you're casting spells gives it a different flair. I can't really think of anyone who wants to go back to the original.

I'd take the feedback to reworks with a grain of salt. People can tell you that they don't like something, but they may not be able to articulate why. As an example, most of the people who are complaining about the removal of Dark Arts are the same ones who pushed for its removal in the first place. But the problem isn't specifically Dark Arts. You could do an animation swap of DA with the present Edge/Flood and you'd scarcely notice the difference, outside of your character having a tonic-clonic seizure in-between oGCDs. The bigger complaint comes from the fact that it feels too similar to WAR's gameplay, primarily because of the Delirium rework. It's still an improvement over the old Delirium (not difficult), because it previously lacked impact.

I think that part of the problem is that in ARR WAR pushed too heavily into what should later have become DRK's niche (HP manipulation, Lifesteal), and DRK pushed too heavily into the classic barbarian niche of surviving on the edge of death (faux-Holmgang). Now they are struggling to disentangle the two. To make things more complex, we've moved DRK away from fast sequences of sword strikes a la Cloud Strife to allow GNB to carry that aesthetic. As an aside, I'd prefer to have seen GNB differentiate itself through mobility tools. Could we have a tank with a traited faster run rate, like NIN's fleet of foot? Or perhaps a dps neutral gap extender (Elusive Jump)? DRK ends up being squashed out between several very similar job entities.

When you have multiple jobs competing for similar design space, you have to go in with a clear vision of what specific flair each should have. I don't think that's at odds with the basics of job balancing. I think that the problem with a lot of reworks is they go in with the tunnel vision mindset of "let's mollify the playerbase by fixing XYZ" instead of looking of how everything fits together as a whole.

With regards to Blizzard, they certainly do reworks. I just have a better sense of what these reworks mean as a cohesive whole, generally because there's a blue post or patch note that says exactly what their broad strokes vision for the class/character is.

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Originally Posted by Arkhon-Infaustus

I loved using Dark Arts, you had to manage your MP and it was quite the DRK's identity. Coupled with a crit Souleater I felt I was a bit useful to ease the healer's job.
Now I don't play tank anymore, for the reasons explained in this post.

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I find it ironic that in 3.0 players complained DA was too spammy (I didn't mind it) but in 5.0 almost every other ogcd is a Shadow spam. All they needed to do was increase the DA cd and make it only affect combo enders exclusively and some defensive cds, instead of it also buffing siphon strike which was where most of the complaints came from. 10 secs DA cd would have suffice to reduce the DA spam while still allowing options for DA buffs, though it may become more methodical since you could either buff a powerslash or buff a dark mind for an upcoming TB and have to choose which one.

I'm just sad that we lost a lot of good attack animations, with DRK getting the worst. WAR got Steel Cyclone back which I like but I'm still not a fan of the golf swing Inner Chaos.

I think you might mean 4.0? In 4.0 DA was really REALLY spammy and the only effect it had was increase the potency of weaponskills and CNS if i remember in 4.0.

In 3.0 it didn't just increase potency but also it changed how an ability worked. Dark Passenger (DA) had a Blind Debuff, Dark Dance (DA) increased both evasion and parry, Dark Mind (DA) increased its mitigation effect i believe. The only ones that have were kept in Stormblood were CNS (DA) increased Damage over gaining MP, and Soul Eater (DA) having increased potency. Power Slash (DA) had an enmity bonus but that's really the only difference in Stormblood. In Heavensward DA was costly and you wanted to manage how you used it on which abilities, so it was less spammy and more tactical? It's been awhile since Heavensward so i don't remember as well.

Dark Arts was well suited for 3.x. In 4.x they removed the MP drain from Darkside to make DRK more accessible, which in conjunction with 4.x's Delirium gave you a ton of extra MP that had to be burned through with DA uses. The core design problem in DRK is always: how do we balance out resource generation and expenditure? If you generate too much too quick, it becomes thoughtless spam. If you generate too little too slow, the pacing falls off and it starts to feel like WAR. The nice thing about 3.x was that DRK had a steady stream of oGCDs, but they weren't all the same oGCD.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Dark Arts was well suited for 3.x. In 4.x they removed the MP drain from Darkside to make DRK more accessible, which in conjunction with 4.x's Delirium gave you a ton of extra MP that had to be burned through with DA uses. The core design problem in DRK is always: how do we balance out resource generation and expenditure? If you generate too much too quick, it becomes thoughtless spam. If you generate too little too slow, the pacing falls off and it starts to feel like WAR. The nice thing about 3.x was that DRK had a steady stream of oGCDs, but they weren't all the same oGCD.

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even then it wasn't that much, in 3.0 you could pump out 4 dark arts boosts for a burst phase or to recover lots of hp but you really needed ethers or bard mp songs, whereas 4.0 it was only 3 because mp recovery was either nonexistent or high depending on whether blood weapon was on cd
the core problem is the devs giving it an overhaul and destroying its niche in 4.0 that it didn't need, and being lazy in 5.0 by making it a warrior clone

Drk was a magic tank that focuses on debuffs (slash down, magic vul up, ground dot and scourge dot). Since the devs hate non dot debuffs apparently, there's still a niche for it to be a shields focused or self buffing tank pulling elements from 3.0 and 4.0 (boosting damage through DA, haste, parry rate etc)

Personally, something the devs should explore is a return to the DA focus of 3.0 when the job was at its prime, but remove Dark arts from mp entirely, using it to cast spells or attacks like the current one.
instead put dark arts on a charge button like plunge.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

even then it wasn't that much, in 3.0 you could pump out 4 dark arts boosts for a burst phase or to recover lots of hp but you really needed ethers or bard mp songs, whereas 4.0 it was only 3 because mp recovery was either nonexistent or high depending on whether blood weapon was on cd
the core problem is the devs giving it an overhaul and destroying its niche in 4.0 that it didn't need, and being lazy in 5.0 by making it a warrior clone

Drk was a magic tank that focuses on debuffs (slash down, magic vul up, ground dot and scourge dot). Since the devs hate non dot debuffs apparently, there's still a niche for it to be a shields focused or self buffing tank pulling elements from 3.0 and 4.0 (boosting damage through DA, haste, parry rate etc)

Personally, something the devs should explore is a return to the DA focus of 3.0 when the job was at its prime, but remove Dark arts from mp entirely, using it to cast spells or attacks like the current one.
instead put dark arts on a charge button like plunge.

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DRK was no more a debuff tank than WAR was a debuff tank in 3.0.

DRK has original Delirium which was 10% Int down and Scourge, a generic 500 potency DoT. WAR by comparison had the vastly superior 10% Damage Down, 10% Slash resist Down and Fracture, a generic 300 potency DoT.

DRk was simply a faster PLD with a more interesting MP management tank.

People like to cry about the changes from 4.0 to 5.0 and say that we had lost Dark Arts but frankly it had simply been renamed. Dark Arts was previously just a 140 potency oGCD in reality that had the roundabout way of simply placing the potency on the next GCD/oGCD. What do we have now? A 500 potency oGCD.

If you want to argue about Dark Arts as a concept of a buff that powered up their next action, then it really died in Stormblood when every action besides Carve and Spit simply gained 140 potency or had niche side effects that hardly mattered. (Enmity buff/AoE blind only effective in dungeons).

People like to whinge about 1 combo when 4.0 realistically only had DRK mainly use Soul Eater(*gasp* one combo!). 3.0 was not much more different where DRK pressed a 20 potency stronger button if they had no mana instead of Soul Eater. People like to whinge about Darkside as if it was inherently more interesting in Stormblood where it was a permanent buff that did virtually the same thing.

DRK hasn't fundamentally changed in it's oGCD/mana driven nature. It is very much a fast swinger heavy weapons user if you realize that DRK mashes oGCD swings like a madmen instead of receiving a temporary buff to spam Soul Eater 10% faster.

All people like to do is focus on Delirium(as if the previous one was any more interesting) and then slam the class for being a war clone on. One. Damn. Skill.

I frankly enjoy the new direction DRK is taking being heavy burst via oGCD(like it always has been) and the more controlled battery nature of its mana. I enjoy the big 500 potency swings inbetween the slashes rather than a 140 potency seizure they were previously doing. Other than PLD, every tank has a bland gcd cycle and that is attributed to the skill budget of the tanks various kits being put in oGCDS or Defensive Cooldowns. Old Blood Weapon isn't really interesting and would be counterproductive to current DRK with it's quad double weave bursts. I'd personally rather have more weaves and oGCDs to press for the feeling of speed rather than a bland 10% GCD buff to press Soul Eater faster.

Delirium can be more interesting but I'm not gonna be hung up and leave a class over one skill so /shrug.

I would certainly love to see them focus more on tanking/healing as opposed to feeling like DPS with some side responsibilities, but I'm somewhat doubtful it'll happen.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

DRK was no more a debuff tank than WAR was a debuff tank in 3.0.

DRK has original Delirium which was 10% Int down and Scourge, a generic 500 potency DoT. WAR by comparison had the vastly superior 10% Damage Down, 10% Slash resist Down and Fracture, a generic 300 potency DoT.

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DRK use to have reprisal as a personal unique skill too, 20s of 10% damage reduction every 30s, considering this was always a dps gain compared to WAR counterpart DRK use to have more uptime with reprisal that WAR with path when they use it only when its just need, they have salted earth too wich is basically another dot and sole survivor acted as a debuff so DRK was pretty much a debuffer tank back there much more than WAR.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

DRk was simply a faster PLD with a more interesting MP management tank.

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pretty much false, PLD was a 2 combo tank where they place his dot and spam royal authority and keep his 3 oGCD on CD back then, DRK was a sustained dps rotation tank where his GCD usage was dictated mostly by his MP skills and scourge with other reactive stuff like reprisal and low blow, DRK was built in both GCD and MP around priority system, PLD was just a fixed rotation just like now.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

People like to cry about the changes from 4.0 to 5.0 and say that we had lost Dark Arts but frankly it had simply been renamed. Dark Arts was previously just a 140 potency oGCD in reality that had the roundabout way of simply placing the potency on the next GCD/oGCD. What do we have now? A 500 potency oGCD.

If you want to argue about Dark Arts as a concept of a buff that powered up their next action, then it really died in Stormblood when every action besides Carve and Spit simply gained 140 potency or had niche side effects that hardly mattered. (Enmity buff/AoE blind only effective in dungeons).

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Dark arts use to manipulate the GCD, something that has been lost in SB but ppl wanted to come that back, one of the mayor claims back there was to have back HW DRK back, Dark arts should have been ajusted not removed and being sustituted to a generic oGCD and have no interaction whatsoever with the rest of the kit, Dark arts was really special and unique, no anymore.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

People like to whinge about 1 combo when 4.0 realistically only had DRK mainly use Soul Eater(*gasp* one combo!). 3.0 was not much more different where DRK pressed a 20 potency stronger button if they had no mana instead of Soul Eater. People like to whinge about Darkside as if it was inherently more interesting in Stormblood where it was a permanent buff that did virtually the same thing.

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People complained a much of being 1 combo job back in 4.0 and one of the request ppl tend to want is having more combos to use like in HW, something that have being ignored when they complety make DRK a 1 combo job after remove power slash instead of just reajust the combo for better gameplay.

the problem of darkside is apart of remove all the sinergy it use to have they obviously build a mechanic around it with the new ui Gauge but result to being so trivial that the gauge and the mechanic become complety useless, why add a new gauge if the mechanic autokeep on himself? useless work here for no reason like the 4.0 lilies gauge.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

DRK hasn't fundamentally changed in it's oGCD/mana driven nature. It is very much a fast swinger heavy weapons user if you realize that DRK mashes oGCD swings like a madmen instead of receiving a temporary buff to spam Soul Eater 10% faster.

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it really changes and a lot, DRK use to be a constan MP management job where he use his MP skill in a regular basis to dont overlow resources with diferent prioritys on his usage and preparations when the peaks of performance will come, now it's just load and shoot, no much diferent of PLD MP management outside of the no overflow rule and thats the most brainddead part due how little MP generate now, they never been a burst type job.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

All people like to do is focus on Delirium(as if the previous one was any more interesting) and then slam the class for being a war clone on. One. Damn. Skill.

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its not only about delirium, its the whole blackblood system thats it's basically a clone now, the only diference betwen rage and blood are living shadow,ounslaugh and upheaval, in SB Delirium and blood in general use to interac a lot with MP with the resource conversion, peole are specially mad against Delirium now since it's the bigest behavior on a system that has been literally almost a 100% copied of WAR, the changes on his MP system and the pace of the job has just help to solidify the WAR copy complains.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

I frankly enjoy the new direction DRK is taking being heavy burst via oGCD(like it always has been) and the more controlled battery nature of its mana. I enjoy the big 500 potency swings inbetween the slashes rather than a 140 potency seizure they were previously doing. Other than PLD, every tank has a bland gcd cycle and that is attributed to the skill budget of the tanks various kits being put in oGCDS or Defensive Cooldowns. Old Blood Weapon isn't really interesting and would be counterproductive to current DRK with it's quad double weave bursts. I'd personally rather have more weaves and oGCDs to press for the feeling of speed rather than a bland 10% GCD buff to press Soul Eater faster.

Delirium can be more interesting but I'm not gonna be hung up and leave a class over one skill so /shrug.

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independent of you own taste about the current version of the job with is respetable i have the responsability to correct you that DRK has never ever being a oGCD burst job, DRK has always been a sustained dps tank and if you belive otherwhise no offense but you has been playing DRK wrong all this years and old blood weapon didn't present all the problems current one is giving, old blood weapon was way superior but most importantly it was better designed and didn't present the ping related problems of no landing 5GCD that represent a masive lost and his usage was more constant due his 40s recast so it reinforce more the speed nature on his usage more that the speed buff actually.

old blood weapon was more about his oGCD more than the 10% speed buff, the older versions use to have way more oGCD uses that current one and we just lost both, the problem it's really aggravated when DRK now just trow all his oGCD in a buff window and spend 50s of turtle GCD speed.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

DRK was no more a debuff tank than WAR was a debuff tank in 3.0.

DRK has original Delirium which was 10% Int down and Scourge, a generic 500 potency DoT. WAR by comparison had the vastly superior 10% Damage Down, 10% Slash resist Down and Fracture, a generic 300 potency DoT.

DRk was simply a faster PLD with a more interesting MP management tank.

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This is semantic on my part, but I would change this statement into just saying that PLD's 10% physical down was absolute garbage due to fight design, while DRK and WAR's power mitigation combo just was too appealing not to take. Blame Sizzlebeam, Long Needle, Mega Holy etc. The only physical AoE was in A10S, IIRC. Also, what about OG Reprisal?

I would not call Scourge generic. Scourge was pretty unique in HW tanking because it didn't operate under the same parameters as Goring/Fracture. It broke your combo without being a combo ender, so you had to always use it before Hard Slash, and it's low duration had 2 reapplications per minute that could not be ignored if you wanted to push damage out on DRK. In phase transitions, you had to ask yourself a similar question to PLDs now. "Is it worth reapplying, or should I just gather mana instead?" Contrast this with Fracture, which, outside of it being your 9th GCD in Beserk, was never used, as it didn't give any stacks, therefore delaying Fell Cleaves, lowering damage. Fracture was a cross-class skill for MNK though, so that did give it a bit of uniqueness as a skill.

Even back then, PLD's rotation was fixed in GB>RA>RA>GB. DRK was certainly faster, and certainly had more MP management, but the way you approached it's damage was not like PLD at all. It wasn't fixed, but a priority system with timed mana dumping. Scourge > 10% int >= Mana, and how you did that per encounter could change, particularly if dropping the 10% int for more mana because there wasn't any magic damage to mitigate at that moment was a nice bit of optimization per fight. And can't forget about Low Blow/Reprisal procs! Wasn't perfect, far from it really. Raids were definitely designed around DRK, rather than DRK being designed to be a functional tank option, if that makes sense.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

People like to cry about the changes from 4.0 to 5.0 and say that we had lost Dark Arts but frankly it had simply been renamed. Dark Arts was previously just a 140 potency oGCD in reality that had the roundabout way of simply placing the potency on the next GCD/oGCD. What do we have now? A 500 potency oGCD.

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Everyone knows this, for the most part. There is nothing wrong about Edge in concept, much like how there was nothing wrong with Dark Arts in concept. It's just that the implementation of both skills has been divisive at best. People who only complain at losing Dark Arts in your eyes aren't really saying they miss Dark Arts the SKILL. They miss Dark Arts in the EXECUTION, and that Edge is not a suitable replacement. I'll try to explain more on this in the next paragraph.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

If you want to argue about Dark Arts as a concept of a buff that powered up their next action, then it really died in Stormblood when every action besides Carve and Spit simply gained 140 potency or had niche side effects that hardly mattered. (Enmity buff/AoE blind only effective in dungeons).

People like to whinge about 1 combo when 4.0 realistically only had DRK mainly use Soul Eater(*gasp* one combo!). 3.0 was not much more different where DRK pressed a 20 potency stronger button if they had no mana instead of Soul Eater. People like to whinge about Darkside as if it was inherently more interesting in Stormblood where it was a permanent buff that did virtually the same thing.

DRK hasn't fundamentally changed in it's oGCD/mana driven nature. It is very much a fast swinger heavy weapons user if you realize that DRK mashes oGCD swings like a madmen instead of receiving a temporary buff to spam Soul Eater 10% faster.

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This may get a little esoteric, so I apologize in advance if this seems rambling. Dark Arts, as a concept, was deeply integrated into DRK's overall offensive kit in SB. In HW, DRK had two main pillars. Mana and Damage. More mana = More damage, usually. It's actually why Blood Price wasn't an absolute joke back then, because you could translate that mana gain from an add pull into big AoE healing/damage if you turned Grit off after. In SB, this was expanded to three pillars with the addition of Blood. Every skill on DRK except for Hard Slash had overlapping interactions with your Mana, your Damage, or your Blood. Usage of your skills had trade offs, here are a few examples.

Dark Arts = +Damage / -Mana
TBN = +Blood / -Mana
Bloodspiller = +Damage / -Blood
Blood Weapon = +Blood / +Mana / -Comfy (incredibly fast drk moving at hihg speeds)
Delirium = +Mana /-Blood
etc. etc.

This is why no one complained about DRK only having SE as the only offensive option. Your GCDs on DRK were honestly, just a means to an end, you just pressed them because that's how you gained/dumped many of your resources and you had to fill the time. Mentally, you had more important things to focus on, because Blood Weapon and Delirium's timers did not align with raid buffs. It was that leverage of not overcapping mana, but saving as much of it as possible for the burst, and dumping all the Blood/Mana you had for as much damage as possible. The game would not do this for you, you had to plan it yourself. That's probably what people mean by "Dark Arts was so much better!!!" Anyone who extensively played DRK in HW/SB knew that the only guaranteed line up CD you had on that job was CnS every 60 seconds. Everything else was 40/45/80, or some number that you'd have to still press on CD, but not all at once. Everything else in the skill ladder, going from managing that breakneck pace from BW/Delirium to stockpiling to Bloodspiller GCD-manipulation was on the player, and that was not for everyone.

(A small note since I couldn't find a place to fit it in: Even things like DA Dark Passenger got usage in DRK's kit, because it served as a HUGE mana dump you could use to correct mistakes in your mana management if Delirium/BW were going to overcap you. When I had a SMN in the party, I would use it in opener as well. DA Plunge was pretty good for grabbing adds outside of Grit, think Dadaluma from O7S, and still was part of your mana dumping process, since 140 potency is 140 potency. Small niches like that have a big impact on how a job feels in action.

Please understand that I'm not saying that the current system is bad, but I am saying that the current system is underutilized. I wrote something on Darkside awhile back, but to give a summary, Darkside could've been a fourth pillar on DRK. It's a resource now like any other, it gives way too much duration to be a simple buff, and it would build on what DRK had been doing previously.

Edge: +Darkside/-Mana

Having high mana and high blood translates directly into higher damage. Having a high Darkside does nothing. And because of changes to the kit, many of the pillars on DRK are "lowered", for lack of a better term. Blood Weapon doesn't speed you up, so you've lost CPM, you've lost it's huge mana gain from Quietus/passive auto attacks and IT'S ALSO A BUGGED TRASH ABILITY. It's not fun to use, because it doesn't feel like it enhances anything on the job like a traditional damage buff or MP steroid like Delirium would. Delirium I will get to. Salted is just a DoT, doesn't interact with the kit at all anymore. CnS doesn't interact with the kit anymore either, it's just damage and mana with no trade offs anymore, mash it on CD. Plunge had it's interaction with the kit removed, now it's ACTUALLY a "generic" ability. Adding Abyssal to an oGCD literally does nothing but add button bloat. It's very disjointed, and the job doesn't flow the same way. Rather than your kit working together as a cohesive whole, you have segments of your kit operating entirely separated from each other with little/no unity and no feedback. Just look at Living Shadow. Here's your 50 Blood! Off you go now! You give this thing an entire section of my job gauge, but I can't do anything with it? Why? There is so much POTENTIAL, and it's not being taken advantage of.

DRK HAS changed. It is not a true oGCD spamming tank. You get four MP spenders per minute on DRK. You gain mana too slowly to do otherwise. And it doesn't make any sense not to throw those Edges into raid buffs with the rest of the garbage you are using on the boss. It doesn't take any thought, and that's the key difference between SB and ShB. Both SB and ShB had busywork. But ShB forces that busywork into ten seconds rather than over the course of the encounter. The time where you are not bursting the boss should also be engaging, and right now, it's not. Go hit a dummy after your opener, and actually think about what's happening over the next 50 seconds. It's almost as bad as healer DPS kits.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

All people like to do is focus on Delirium(as if the previous one was any more interesting) and then slam the class for being a war clone on. One. Damn. Skill.

I frankly enjoy the new direction DRK is taking being heavy burst via oGCD(like it always has been) and the more controlled battery nature of its mana. I enjoy the big 500 potency swings inbetween the slashes rather than a 140 potency seizure they were previously doing. Other than PLD, every tank has a bland gcd cycle and that is attributed to the skill budget of the tanks various kits being put in oGCDS or Defensive Cooldowns. Old Blood Weapon isn't really interesting and would be counterproductive to current DRK with it's quad double weave bursts. I'd personally rather have more weaves and oGCDs to press for the feeling of speed rather than a bland 10% GCD buff to press Soul Eater faster.

Delirium can be more interesting but I'm not gonna be hung up and leave a class over one skill so /shrug.

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Yeah, I'm gonna focus on Delirium. Just like Blood Weapon, it's horrible. Mainly because of Delirium's current implementation, it's drastically changed the damage profile of the job. Based on a few metrics, Bloodspiller has increased from around 12-15% of a DRK's damage, to an overwhelming 22-25% of a DRK's entire damage output. That's not right, because it's seriously screwing with the oGCD-based identity of the job by putting all the damage into a GCD skill. This is too close to WAR, because Fell Cleave is ~30% of their damage output, which would be closer to DRK's Bloodspiller amount if the Fell Cleaves didn't DCH under IR. If one -50 gauge dumping skill that now becomes free with a 90 second cooldown defines a job's output, and then that same skill is grafted onto another with no real transformation to take advantage of that job's unique mechanics, I'm more than justified in saying they are the same. Just look at their openers! They're GCD identical outside of more filler oGCDs on DRK.

Delirium before was interesting because it extended Blood Weapon, and gave you enough mana for a free Dark Arts, while draining your Blood as a prerequisite. That's THREE job elements that ONE skill was linking together, and that's why people complain about new Delirium now. It doesn't link with the job. It does NOT give you 250 Blood. It gives you free Bloodspillers that you don't have to account for in your rotation because of the GCD combo decay timer increase. It doesn't give you any meaningful amount of mana, two Syphon Strikes over the course of your natural rotation gives 200 more than it. It's timer is identical to IR, without the benefits of crits/directs, meaning DRK has the exact same crit variance problem that WAR did before IR was changed. We've inherited an issue that the job design team had ALREADY "fixed." If you want more weaves, and more oGCDs, you SHOULD want things to be reverted, because you don't get any resource accumulation to USE any oGCDs on under the current oGCD/mana economy. Edge is just too expensive for that mindset to be appropriate. I approach Delirium the same way I approach IR. And that's important because I need a segway into why Requiescat isn't a problem despite it also being a 5 GCD burst on a Tank.

To start off, Requiescat has a timer of 60 seconds, slotting in nicely with the Double RA rotation from SB, and the addition of the Atonement section in ShB. Not 90. Requiescat cannot be used if you mismanaged your mana, a FAILURE state. This can be anything from not pressing GCDs in the correct order, to using Clemency. But you gain enough mana on PLD over time to insert a Holy Spirit to delay GCDs or not have to use Shield Lob if you are forced to disengage, provided there is enough time to regenerate that amount of mana. Under Requiescat, you have three options. You can do the standard 4 HS, 1 Confiteor. You can use boosted Clemencies under progression or emergencies to help your healers. (Or a combination of both!) You can also do as many HS as you need at the end of a phase/fight, and END the burst early with Confiteor. That's a lot of options for a burst window, and fits PLD perfectly. Then you naturally transition into your physical FoF phase, while regaining mana resources. Req openers and FoF openers are also both viable, depending on the fight timeline. That's job identity, that's uniqueness, that's something only PLD can do. Req CAN be "unga bunga press button" but it also has options where you can say, "Actually, wait a second, maybe I should do this instead?" Delirium doesn't have anything like that. What can Delirium do that IR doesn't already do better? That's the problem. It doesn't create a DRK-exclusive situation in your rotation, or solve a problem in a way only DRK can. We lost that when we had it before, and losing things you like kinda sucks.

I slam the job again, and again about Delirium and Blood Weapon because of these issues. It used to be fine, now it's not. They could've complemented Edge beautifully, as it's just a more expensive DA, exactly what I wanted. For anyone who is still reading this trash, I HIGHLY recommend going into PvP and using Delirium on a dummy in there. That's what Delirium in PvE should be under this current design sandbox. It's a buff every 45 seconds that you can use for 3 Bloodspillers that give you 500 MP each (it used to be 1000). That fills in the downtime of post-opener by offsetting the 60 second burst timer, changes Delirium to become dual-purposed in GCD spam/Mana accumulation, and DIRECTLY translates into more Edges, which should be the 20-25% total damage on DRK instead of Bloodspiller. There are some other interesting changes in there too that make DRK a bit more unique, such as Edge/Flood being cheaper to use, Bloodspiller and Quietus innately granting MP on usage without Delirium, and Darkside only having a max of 30s with 15s boosts from Edge/Flood, making it a bit harder to maintain. With a bit of tweaking on the MP acquisition, that could be what we're looking for, and it's ALREADY in the game!

It's something simple and doesn't really fix these issues, but I wish they would give us our old tank CD animations like rampart, shadowskin, and foresight back. It would give the tanks some visual identity they lost going to stormblood. Yea they almost did exactly the same thing, but giving all of the tanks who have very different visual identities the same looking CD is stupid and unfitting for DRK and WAR. I really don't understand why they thought that was a good idea. Makes me fear they'll do the same with sentinel/shadow wall.

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Originally Posted by jetfire117

It's something simple and doesn't really fix these issues, but I wish they would give us our old tank CD animations like rampart, shadowskin, and foresight back. It would give the tanks some visual identity they lost going to stormblood. Yea they almost did exactly the same thing, but giving all of the tanks who have very different visual identities the same looking CD is stupid and unfitting for DRK and WAR. I really don't understand why they thought that was a good idea. Makes me fear they'll do the same with sentinel/shadow wall.

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DRK, GNB, and PLD needs an additional effect on their 30% cooldowns. There's 3 sentinel and one vengeance currently. GNB a HoT, PLD is 40%, and DRK gets a mana regen.

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Originally Posted by Quri

DRK, GNB, and PLD needs an additional effect on their 30% cooldowns. There's 3 sentinel and one vengeance currently. GNB a HoT, PLD is 40%, and DRK gets a mana regen.

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I would love to have this.
Also for warrior to not left behind he should be able to cast nascent flash on himself receiving 10% mitigation.

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Originally Posted by Quri

DRK, GNB, and PLD needs an additional effect on their 30% cooldowns. There's 3 sentinel and one vengeance currently. GNB a HoT, PLD is 40%, and DRK gets a mana regen.

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The problem with those is that a HoT would either be overpowered or underpowered based on gear relative to the fight's assumed ilevel, 40% is overkill when tankbusters are tuned for everyone else's 30% tankbusters, and a mana regen would turn it into a pop on cooldown or it is a dps loss because more mp=more damage.

DRK lost a lot of things. Missing skill animations and lost skill interaction for sure. But I still fundamentally stand by the current direction that DRK is taking in the realm of more controlled bursts. The decision making is not as busy or frantic like it was in previous editions but that works out for me personally since I enjoy controlled actions (aligning bursts etc) over a bland "sustained dps" that only focuses on not tripping over themselves and hardly interacts with their party.

The lack of synergy, among other things is a step backwards. But overall the skeleton of the job is what I prefer over it's previous incarnations. And that is the problem with DRK right now. Compared to PLD who only evolves and becomes more complete, DRK as is is but a skeleton of a job. Lacking distinctive kit synergies and large differing playstyles from the new tank cookie cutter that SE has settled with. But that is fine because it is a result of a job rework and opens up DRK to more evolution should SE maintain their course for once and expand on ShB DRK.

The alchemic interaction with Blood and MP was really isolated only between 2 skills. TBN and Delirium. The former was interesting due to the GCD shifting nature of Bloodspiller but that was really it. You converted Dark Arts into a Bloodspiller which was a "gain" on very specific situations. The current direction of TBN storing a free Edge/Flood(oGCD) is much more coherent within mana and simply further enforces the more controlled, battery DRK playstyle I personally prefer. Delirium was a capstone offensive skill that had the most minor effect in terms of a button press. It didn't *feel* like it did anything because what it did do was spend a Bloodspiller button into a little longer Blood Weapon button.

However, DRKs dungeon toolkit and the further expanded interaction with Quietus and Abyssal drain was the peak of DRK gameplay. The issue was that it was tuned down or removed because SE wants to make dungeon tanking more uniform which achieves a balance, as hollow as it is. Dungeon being a minor portion of my interest meant that it had no real impact on me but I can understand the anguish for those who have a bit more focus on that type of content. For the most part this also means that generally, every tank's answer to AoE situations is more inline with eachother, rather than previously WAR just instawinning whilst PLD pathetically spammed Total Eclipse as their only option.

DRK being shifted from being a sustained with very minor burst to a more burst orientated class is always going to come as a shock to players because that's just what will happen to an older fanbase used to a previous identity.

Previously we were pressing buttons more spread out through the minute. You can still do that but not to the degree as it was before. But currently optimal DRK is just preparing and building up every minute for the quad double weave sequence. For the sake of comfort and accessibility; that is very good and why DRK is regarded as the most comfy tank.

A burst orientated DRK meant a more team reliant DRK. DRK truly thrived in party buffs and due to the flexible nature of Edges meant that it really gained alot from them. Optimal DRK with an optimal team pre nerfed TA was sitting at second tank DPS, which was a great motivator for job perfection. That imo is much more interesting overall than being an isolated sustained DPS that only functions on its own but that's a pet peeve more than anything and with the direction of balance as well as past stigma, co-ordinated burst has fallen to the wayside so that the selfish DPS can dominate all levels of play, for whatever reason. An unfortunate state where the tank with the most controlled burst is coming into a meta where party buffs are at their weakest.

The opener looking the same GCD wise to WAR is a no brainer because they have a similiar GCD skeleton. But DRK has the biggest opener with the strongest burst potential along with the longest double weave sequence.

All the individual skills being changed from their previous incarnation will come as a shock. But frankly I couldn't care less from what they were previously. Equally uninteresting buttons that are overglorified now simply to validate anti DRK views.
Scourge? It's just Bloodspiller without the nuisance of being a DoT. Abyssal Drain? Dungeon content button. Delirium the GCD? What Storm's Eye is now. A maintenance button.

By all means, add more kit interaction. Add more oGCDs. Bring back OG Reprisal. Bring back Low Blow procs. Let me continue the current piano like roation of DRK. Let me press a sequence of buttons in flow that makes bursting more interesting and filled with adrenaline and give me a short break inbetween these highs.

DRK is an oGCD tank and still is. (I structured my sentence incorrectly earlier and meant that DRKs identity was always a "oGCD Tank".)

Delirium sucks. It can always be better and could've been more interesting instead of throwing more weight into spillers, a skill that even animation wise doesn't flow correctly. But atleast, it is balanced, as easy as it is so my distaste of it is more tempered than most and I enjoy TBN and the oGCD bursts more to care. But that is all tanks. No PLD *wants* to break their requiscat to heal, but it is an option. HS spam is just as uninteresting but PLD is still riding it's high and people don't care enough to complain.

Don't get me started on current Blood Weapon, otherwise known as Infuriate with extra steps.

Other than the overall tank problems. The majority of the playerbase enjoys DRK as is. DRK is still very much fast but not in the GCD manner that people seem to think that only matters. DRK can be expanded and I am hopeful for its future.

It certainly is better than holding onto a bygone past and whinging about it in every single thread. :rolleyes:

I personally feel DRK's current direction could be good. But that's the keyword here *COULD* be. Currently there's just too many similarities between the tanks and specifically between DRK and WAR that at the end of the day DRK has nothing unique except more ogcd burn phases and TBN. Living Shadow has a few moments where it shines like the add phase in E8S but its true potential is largely never tapped into.

So rather than wishing for the past iterations i LIKE where DRKs current "base" COULD go. But it's not there yet, it's like they give us half of a rework because the other half wouldn't fit with the other tanks this expansion or something. Delirium legit feels like it was brought up in their design last minute because they couldn't fit whatever else they wanted to and just needed something to close the missing damage on the Job. I still raid on DRK just because i like the job fantasy and aesthetics, but it bothers me that there's so much great potential here that hasn't been used. And like all potential that's all it is "potential" until it is correctly brought out.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

The problem with those is that a HoT would either be overpowered or underpowered based on gear relative to the fight's assumed ilevel, 40% is overkill when tankbusters are tuned for everyone else's 30% tankbusters, and a mana regen would turn it into a pop on cooldown or it is a dps loss because more mp=more damage.

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How is that any different from Vengeance tho? Either Vengeance becomes the same generic Sentinel every other tank has now, or all the other 30%-mitigation CDs actually need different effects. Those suggestions ain't bad either.
The HoT on Nebula doesn't differ from Aurora HoT, if that's what you meant. 40% on Sentinel being on "overkill" is a non-issue either. PLD's image is that of a bulky tank; instead of lifesteal/shielding like the other tanks, they do mitigate more incoming damage, so it makes sense.
Mana gain from Shadow Wall doesn't have to be big. Remember Blood Price? It was nerfed to the ground in 4.0, and was only useful in dungeon pulls. Just like Vengeance, it is more like a "little bonus"; nothing that will make a big difference.

With the changes in SB and ShB, the dev team could've rightout removed all those "fake identity" actions -Defiance, Grit, Royal Guard, Shadow Wall, Nebula (and Vengeance)- and make Iron Will and Sentinel role actions, just like they did with Rampart, Shadowskin, Foresight, Brutal Swing, and Low Blow. All have the same difference, except for their aesthetic aspect. If they can remove it from Shadowskin and Brutal Swing, they can do it to all the other actions, too. I just hope they will change the actions, and make them unique or give them a little gimmick, instead of just replacing them...

Maybe we can as a community, make one thread and discuss and come to decision on what changes we would like to see for the tank role as a whole, and what changes for each tank job. But can we as a community agree on what is best for the role/jobs. Maybe get with the JP community and work together on coming up with changes and we would like to see the role move towards. Once we come to an agreement, write out a well written, thought out letter, with the issues we have with the role and the changes we would like to see, to the devs, or forum thread or something to show the devs, this is what we want.

Maybe even appoint someone as a "community rep" that would be in charge of seeing thus through. Even if we don't focus on the changes, maybe just coming up with an agreed upon list of the issues and problems and sending that to the Devs. Just an idea.

Right now it just seems we have all these threads, and maybe just having one big thread would be better.

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Originally Posted by Delis

Maybe we can as a community, make one thread and discuss and come to decision on what changes we would like to see for the tank role as a whole, and what changes for each tank job. But can we as a community agree on what is best for the role/jobs. Maybe get with the JP community and work together on coming up with changes and we would like to see the role move towards. Once we come to an agreement, write out a well written, thought out letter, with the issues we have with the role and the changes we would like to see, to the devs, or forum thread or something to show the devs, this is what we want.

Maybe even appoint someone as a "community rep" that would be in charge of seeing thus through. Even if we don't focus on the changes, maybe just coming up with an agreed upon list of the issues and problems and sending that to the Devs. Just an idea.

Right now it just seems we have all these threads, and maybe just having one big thread would be better.

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It could be a giant thread with Neon lights flashing and people throwing money all over the place, and the community reps and devs would STILL ignore it.

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Originally Posted by FoxCh40s

It could be a giant thread with Neon lights flashing and people throwing money all over the place, and the community reps and devs would STILL ignore it.

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Well that is why I am saying once we can agree on the issues etc, we send a letter to the devs, or since we know they look at Reddit, we can post an "Open Letter to the Devs" couldn't hurt to at least try.

What we do know is that the Devs don't really pay attention to the forums and if we are serious about getting the role changed we need to change tactics. Or we could just continue to complain on the forums, getting the same results it always get, ignored, and leave the role in the hands of the Devs and let them adjust it as how they think we want.

Hasn’t it been obvious they don’t give a damn about healers’ feedback? Even during live letters where there were huge amounts of healer questions they ignored essentially every one. Each time they done a slideshow on the roles, healers got basically one sentence or bullet point opposed to multiple slides on tanks and DPS. They don’t care about healer mains or their concerns, they couldn’t have made that any more obvious.

Half the time you can't tell what the healers' feedback actually is, aside from the fact that they want you to stop ignoring their feedback. It seems like they're perpetually stuck on the eternal debate on the purity of healers and whether they should be doing more damage or more healing.

Tanks are simple creatures. We're the main characters. We want to go toe to toe with the big bad. We want to control the fight. We want to survive attacks that would kill lesser mortals. We want to hit things hard. We want to embarrass underperforming dps. Think that's it's unfair for us to have all that fun to ourselves? Then play tank. The only reason why people should ever want to play dps is because they're not good enough to be tanks. That's how you get yourself adequate numbers of tanks. People fill the dps role by default.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

Bring back OG Reprisal. Bring back Low Blow procs.

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Proc based Counter dps actions are not coming back because they force jobs to MT/take unnecessary damage unless they want to lose dps. Vengeance only slipped through due to how insignificant its dps increase is.

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Originally Posted by ArianeEwah

How is that any different from Vengeance tho? Either Vengeance becomes the same generic Sentinel every other tank has now, or all the other 30%-mitigation CDs actually need different effects. Those suggestions ain't bad either.

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I'm not saying that I think that these actions couldn't use things to individualize them more, but your suggestions do have problems.

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The HoT on Nebula doesn't differ from Aurora HoT,

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Aurora's HoT is the equivalent of the WAR's Equilibrium and PLD's Clemency. All are 1200 potency heals. To be balanced the HoT would need to be close to meaningless.

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if that's what you meant. 40% on Sentinel being on "overkill" is a non-issue either. PLD's image is that of a bulky tank; instead of lifesteal/shielding like the other tanks, they do mitigate more incoming damage, so it makes sense.

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All the Tanks currently mitigate/self-heal roughly the same amount of damage. Paladin's shield block procs are balanced by rotational self-heals/shields and the fact that all 3 other tanks have an additional defensive cooldown over Paladin. Increasing Paladin mitigation from Sentinel will not make it more interesting and would lead more to overhealing rather than any interesting gains.

A better unique effect would likely be for it to add an amount of shield gauge on use.

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Mana gain from Shadow Wall doesn't have to be big.

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Any amount of MP is going to make players ask "Can I use this often enough to squeeze in another EoS/FoS/TBN during the fight?" They do not want to repeat the "Vengeance is a dps cooldown" situation of ARR/HW when Vengeance granted a Wrath stack and so WARs were saving it for their Berserk phases for more IB/FCs.

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Remember Blood Price? It was nerfed to the ground in 4.0, and was only useful in dungeon pulls.

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Blood Price was not directly connected to the Dark's defensive suite. It was designed to one of the major mp recovery mechanism (therefore damage resource generators) for DRKs while in Grit. Blood Price was removed due to double dipping allowing for increased dps and therefore forcing the DRK into the MT position.

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Just like Vengeance, it is more like a "little bonus"; nothing that will make a big difference.

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In most cases "Little bonuses" add up. Vengeance's bonus, on the other hand, is so small that it is close to nonexistence as it requires a physical attack to trigger, a majority of attacks in EX+ content are magical and cast bars stop auto attacks (which are sometime the only physical attacks in a fight). In a theoretical best case "100% primary target with physical attacks" scenario it is 2.75 potency increase per second, but in reality constant use is far less of a dps gain.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Aurora's HoT is the equivalent of the WAR's Equilibrium and PLD's Clemency. All are 1200 potency heals. To be balanced the HoT would need to be close to meaningless.

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Your first argument was it would scale too well with gear, but EVERY action in this game scales with gear. So that's not a reason. I don't know how you got the impression Nebula had to have a combined 1200 potency HoT or something. It could be anything; on-hit heal, on-hit HoT that refreshes after with each hit (e.g. 100p/tick on 6s duration), or shielding when taking damage (anything >0).

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

All the Tanks currently mitigate/self-heal roughly the same amount of damage. Paladin's shield block procs are balanced [...] Increasing Paladin mitigation from Sentinel will not make it more interesting and would lead more to overhealing rather than any interesting gains.

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This is where you are wrong. If not for Hallowed Ground, Paladin is the least favorite tank for MT spot, and that for a reason. You can look up any high ranked savage run, and not see any PLD going for the MT spot. All other tanks have oGCD and combo self-heals. In e.g. E5s they "passive heal" through roughly 20% of incoming damage (Aurora, Equilibrium, Abyssal Drain, combos), PLDs "passive" block only mitigates 6% on average. A 10% increase on Sentinel would actually relieve some stress on healers, as PLD already needs the most healing of all tanks. Even in dungeons, PLD is the most vulnerable tank if don't sacrifice your own dps by wasting your mana on Clemency. Your argument about overhealing is invalid. Again the image PLD has is that of a bulky, hard-mitigating tank, so it would make sense. Interesting or not is subjective.

I would understand an additional increase of oath if it wouldn't be overflowing most time anyway. You already pair CDs if necessary. This would just result in "press an additional button before and/or after usage" before overcapping. THAT would actually be overkill.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Blood Price [...] was designed to one of the major mp recovery mechanism (therefore damage resource generators) for DRKs while in Grit.

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This is also wrong. Even with Blood Price locked behind Grit, it was never a major MP recovery mechanism in 4.x. Quite the opposite, Blood Price gave so little mana in return, staying out of Grit and going for Blood Weapon was far more benefical, and standard. DRK players were actually quite shocked that the amount of mana recovered was reduced as well as being locked behind Grit from 3.x to 4.x. Since then it has only been useful in dungeons and in combination with Delirium. Otherwise it was a loss in dps and survivability.
The only "real MP gain" in Grit was the increased mana recovery on Sython Strike.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Any amount of MP is going to make players ask "Can I use this often enough to squeeze in another EoS/FoS/TBN during the fight?" [...]
In most cases "Little bonuses" add up. Vengeance's bonus [...] In a theoretical best case "100% primary target with physical attacks" scenario it is 2.75 potency increase per second, but in reality constant use is far less of a dps gain.

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Where did you get this number from? Vengeance is only active for 15s on 120s CD. AAs happen every 3s max -unless we are dealing with multi-hit mechanics- that's 5 hits under Vengeance. That's 275 potency/120s -> 2.292 potency/s.
If Shadow Wall would give e.g. 200MP/hit, at "theoretical best" that would be 1k MP/120s. You would need up to 6min for 3 Shadow Wall usages on optimal uptime to gain 3k MP for one! EoS. That's 500 potency/360s -> 1.39 potency/s. Unless it'd give double or triple the amount, it wouldn't be worth using it every time it comes off CD. Just as Vengeance isn't used on CD if you need it elsewhere.

If you really are against such additions or think them as problems, don't defend the Vengeance "bonus" in the first place.
Your posts sound as if you'd think we expect 12.000 potency heals, or 30.000 MP from just one usage. We/the original poster didn't even tell any numbers, but you already discarded everything as "problematic/too strong, but Vengeace is fine". Aestetics are fine, but at this level of homogenisation the 30%-mitigation actions require more than that. They don't have priority, but they are no doubt part of the identity problem.

I don't mind some homogenization.

Like I don't mind all the tanks having: short CD, 20% cooldown, 30% cooldown, fluff cooldown, provoke, invuln.
Likewise, I wouldn't mind all the healers having: small heal, big heal, shield, regen, aoe heal, esuna & raise.

What gets me though, is that after making sure all the jobs in a role can do the basics properly, they then homogenize the damage dealing aspect of it as well. There was no need to reduce all healers down to damage skill, aoe damage skill, and dot skill. There was no need to give 3 out of 4 tanks a spamX5 window.

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Originally Posted by ArianeEwah

Where did you get this number from? Vengeance is only active for 15s on 120s CD. AAs happen every 3s max -unless we are dealing with multi-hit mechanics- that's 5 hits under Vengeance. That's 275 potency/120s -> 2.292 potency/s.

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Due to server tick timings and ping auto attacks can hit up 6 times during of a 15s cooldown (first on sec 0 last of 15s, 5 is a more normal number of auto attacks) not including any instant cast physical abilities during that time which would not stop auto-attacks. If you factor 1 physical ability and 5 physical autos in you get 330 potency every 120 sec (i.e. 2.75 potency per second). This is the theoretical optimal discounting server tick/ping goofiness. Due to the nature of fight design, cast bars and animation locks you are lucky to see 3 during those 15s.

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This is where you are wrong. If not for Hallowed Ground, Paladin is the least favorite tank for MT spot, and that for a reason. You can look up any high ranked savage run, and not see any PLD going for the MT spot. All other tanks have oGCD and combo self-heals. In e.g. E5s they "passive heal" through roughly 20% of incoming damage (Aurora, Equilibrium, Abyssal Drain, combos), PLDs "passive" block only mitigates 6% on average. A 10% increase on Sentinel would actually relieve some stress on healers, as PLD already needs the most healing of all tanks. Even in dungeons, PLD is the most vulnerable tank if don't sacrifice your own dps by wasting your mana on Clemency. Your argument about overhealing is invalid. Again the image PLD has is that of a bulky, hard-mitigating tank, so it would make sense. Interesting or not is subjective.

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And you point out the problem with just Clemency. Aurora, Equilibrium and Abyssal Drain are where the majority of the missing 14% is coming from (abuse of Nascent Flash for self-healing during burst windows is where Warrior is getting a lot) as none of the other tanks loose out on dps using their ogcd self heals on near cooldown to mitigate much of the fluff damage. The heals/shields from combos are equal to the ~6% damage reduced by natural shield blocks. If a Paladin was willing to tank their dps by casting a Clemency every minute they would get that 14% as well. (Stupid idea to fix this: Clemency gives you a buff that increases the potency of the next Confiteor by 350).

10% increase in Sentinel would not change how many gcds a healer would use to heal the Paladin. The Paladin would still need 2 big heals to be topped off after being hit by a tankbuster. A slight more powerful medium recast cooldown will not significantly decrease the average damage taken in a fight.

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I would understand an additional increase of oath if it wouldn't be overflowing most time anyway. You already pair CDs if necessary. This would just result in "press an additional button before and/or after usage" before overcapping. THAT would actually be overkill.

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Oath gauge overflow is a sign of underutlization of gauge abilities. Intervention and Cover get underutilized as ShB fight design doesn't have as many occasions where they are obviously useful. Intervention is actually designed to follow Sentinel (it jumps from 10% to 25%), but fights lack the single target healer/dps busters that would make these useful.

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If Shadow Wall would give e.g. 200MP/hit, at "theoretical best" that would be 1k MP/120s. You would need up to 6min for 3 Shadow Wall usages on optimal uptime to gain 3k MP for one! EoS. That's 500 potency/360s -> 1.39 potency/s. Unless it'd give double or triple the amount, it wouldn't be worth using it every time it comes off CD. Just as Vengeance isn't used on CD if you need it elsewhere.

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Considering that Dark Knight rarely wants to be at more than 90% MP, a Dark Knight will always see that 1k mp. This will mean that bad DRKs will pop it for DpS rather than saving it for where it is appropriate. We saw that exact situation during HW where WARs saved Vengeance for their Berserk windows and would therefore lack cooldowns for tankbusters. This would be a lesser problem for DRK as 3 Shadow walls would mean another potential TBN, but it would still turn Shadow Wall into a dps cooldown which is counter its intended usage.

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If you really are against such additions or think them as problems, don't defend the Vengeance "bonus" in the first place.

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I don't really think the Vengence's "bonus" needs to be there. It is completely a hold over from when Vengeance was only counter damage+stack generation. I was actual surprised that it kept the counter attack effect when all other counter attacks were purged in ShB. I suspect that the only reason the counter damage is still their is so that the name makes even a little sense.

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Your posts sound as if you'd think we expect 12.000 potency heals, or 30.000 MP from just one usage. We/the original poster didn't even tell any numbers, but you already discarded everything as "problematic/too strong, but Vengeace is fine". Aestetics are fine, but at this level of homogenisation the 30%-mitigation actions require more than that. They don't have priority, but they are no doubt part of the identity problem.

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No, I didn't. I said a HoT was going to either be so underpowered to be meaningless or potentially overpowered based on potency and gear, increased damage mitigation would just lead to no real change in healing needed and MP regen would turn it into a dps cooldown.

I'd like to see them individualized but HoTs, flat increases in mitigation, MP Regen and non-neutral dps resource increases are not going to be viable ways of individualizing.

Possibilities I could see working:

• Shadow Wall: If The Blackest Night's duration runs out without being broken gain Dark Arts.
• Sentinel: Increase Oath gauge by 25.
• Nebula: Heart of Stone's additional effect increases by 10% of the target's max hp.

As someone who recently came back as a PLd main I feel like putting in some two cents.

Imo while the loss of a number of my cooldowns took a while to get used to, I prefer the current system to having like, 6 versions of functionally the same skill. I'm not a really high level player and making sure to dodge attacks and deal with mechanics is enough on my plate without remembering which skills were on cooldown when things get hectic.

Another thing to think of is that at the end of stormblood I had a full 3 hotbars full of skills for combat. The extra skills from the next 10 levels would have not only raised the complexity of endgame even higher but also would have required another hotbar taking up space on my screen and requiring another set of key combinations so I feel that skill consolidation was basically a requirement.


Lastly in regards to the issue of the tank and healer jobs being the same nowadays, I blame the endgame community. It used to be that each of the tanks had the same goals but approached them in different ways. The problem is that while PUGs for mid range endgame would accept any tank, high end demanded whatever job was the current meta. At the time I had to take my hiatus the consensus seemed to be that if you weren't WAR you were crippling your party DPS. And anytime changes were made for balance it was always a source of drama. Can't blame them for making the jobs play the same. Far easier to keep things balanced and avoid complaints from whichever job got nerfed (or not buffed as hard) if they all have the same approach

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Originally Posted by Shadotterdan

As someone who recently came back as a PLd main I feel like putting in some two cents.

Imo while the loss of a number of my cooldowns took a while to get used to, I prefer the current system to having like, 6 versions of functionally the same skill. I'm not a really high level player and making sure to dodge attacks and deal with mechanics is enough on my plate without remembering which skills were on cooldown when things get hectic.

Another thing to think of is that at the end of stormblood I had a full 3 hotbars full of skills for combat. The extra skills from the next 10 levels would have not only raised the complexity of endgame even higher but also would have required another hotbar taking up space on my screen and requiring another set of key combinations so I feel that skill consolidation was basically a requirement.


Lastly in regards to the issue of the tank and healer jobs being the same nowadays, I blame the endgame community. It used to be that each of the tanks had the same goals but approached them in different ways. The problem is that while PUGs for mid range endgame would accept any tank, high end demanded whatever job was the current meta. At the time I had to take my hiatus the consensus seemed to be that if you weren't WAR you were crippling your party DPS. And anytime changes were made for balance it was always a source of drama. Can't blame them for making the jobs play the same. Far easier to keep things balanced and avoid complaints from whichever job got nerfed (or not buffed as hard) if they all have the same approach

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I mean it is the end game community who are constantly given out how they oversimplified jobs and destroyed the skill ceiling, because casuals who cba to learn how to play their job cried about it being too difficult instead of getting good, also why Savage fights have become much more simple compared to HW. The diversity being removed from a lot of jobs can be boiled down to accommodating the casuals that make up 90% of the player base (give or take a few percent), to make it easier for casuals to play tank or healer. SE have made the introductory into each role less stressful and difficult while failing to increase the difficulty in end game, especially in the skill ceiling to keep thing interesting.

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Originally Posted by Shadotterdan

As someone who recently came back as a PLd main I feel like putting in some two cents.

Imo while the loss of a number of my cooldowns took a while to get used to, I prefer the current system to having like, 6 versions of functionally the same skill. I'm not a really high level player and making sure to dodge attacks and deal with mechanics is enough on my plate without remembering which skills were on cooldown when things get hectic.

Another thing to think of is that at the end of stormblood I had a full 3 hotbars full of skills for combat. The extra skills from the next 10 levels would have not only raised the complexity of endgame even higher but also would have required another hotbar taking up space on my screen and requiring another set of key combinations so I feel that skill consolidation was basically a requirement.


Lastly in regards to the issue of the tank and healer jobs being the same nowadays, I blame the endgame community. It used to be that each of the tanks had the same goals but approached them in different ways. The problem is that while PUGs for mid range endgame would accept any tank, high end demanded whatever job was the current meta. At the time I had to take my hiatus the consensus seemed to be that if you weren't WAR you were crippling your party DPS. And anytime changes were made for balance it was always a source of drama. Can't blame them for making the jobs play the same. Far easier to keep things balanced and avoid complaints from whichever job got nerfed (or not buffed as hard) if they all have the same approach

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What did the end game community have anything to do with the over simplification. It's those players that gave feedback on issues with DRK last expansion. It was some of those that warned about the WAR rework not being very good. It was those that got world's first on UCOB on DRK because "I just enjoy the job". This statement is completely not true. It was the midcore PF PUGs that had actual role restrictions to joining PF. I couldn't join a single group for a long period of time in SB as a SAM because NO ONE WANTED ONE BECAUSE IT WASN'T 'META'.
Beginning of this expansion they were locking out RDM/DNC because they weren't 'meta.
This has 0 to do with end game/hardcore part of the community, it has 100% to do with PUGs attitudes and self imposed 'elitism' when it turned out they were trying to get carried by others helping thier own difficencies.

Right, okay, I was wrong. The casual retards have broken the game because their vegetative brains can't comprehend simple game mechanics. Heres a pld idea, bring back shield and sword stance. The stats for the relevant equipment only apply while in the proper stance. optimal play would revolve around switching to shield to block incoming attacks while switching to sword to deal damage with vuln debuffs applied for using the wrong one. Each stance would have an exclusive suite of 10 cooldowns to use with situational differences based on factors such as the time of day, the element of the attack and whether the target is humanoid. Further efforts to remove the cancer would be adding xp penalties for death and upgrading boss aoe to instakill fools who don't get out of the way

The tank issue can be mitigated if OT stances were brought back and were the same 10 sec cd, and damage penalty removed, across the board for all tanks. Then tune the fights to have constant enmity resets like O4S and make the OT stance actually lose aggro (or at least revert it to 2.0 enmity generation) so you have to think twice about dealing damage over holding aggro. This would alleviate aggro fights in 24 mans but not entirely resolve it. They don't need to introduce enmity control for DPS and Healers so all the enmity falls strictly on the tanks and their job to control it. Fights should be tuned with tanks in their tank stance 100% of the time and the OT stance is for those in the endgame who want to maximize their limits or speed kills.

For newer players of those who enjoy the 5.0 tank changes just stay in tank stance. For veteran players like myself who enjoy the high stakes game of balancing damage and aggro pick the OT stance.
They should not introduce skills like Unchained for one tank exclusively. While I loved it as WAR it gave an unfair advantage to stay in the tank stance with no penalty and dealing more damage. This was one of the reasons why WAR was op, in addition to damage down and slashing debuff in 3.0. If one tank gets a skill like this all tanks need to get one like it too.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

The tank issue can be mitigated if OT stances were brought back and were the same 10 sec cd, and damage penalty removed, across the board for all tanks. Then tune the fights to have constant enmity resets like O4S and make the OT stance actually lose aggro (or at least revert it to 2.0 enmity generation) so you have to think twice about dealing damage over holding aggro. This would alleviate aggro fights in 24 mans but not entirely resolve it. They don't need to introduce enmity control for DPS and Healers so all the enmity falls strictly on the tanks and their job to control it. Fights should be tuned with tanks in their tank stance 100% of the time and the OT stance is for those in the endgame who want to maximize their limits or speed kills.

For newer players of those who enjoy the 5.0 tank changes just stay in tank stance. For veteran players like myself who enjoy the high stakes game of balancing damage and aggro pick the OT stance.
They should not introduce skills like Unchained for one tank exclusively. While I loved it as WAR it gave an unfair advantage to stay in the tank stance with no penalty and dealing more damage. This was one of the reasons why WAR was op, in addition to damage down and slashing debuff in 3.0. If one tank gets a skill like this all tanks need to get one like it too.

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We don't need to bring back annoyances like hate management to tanks, its so unpopular even all other MMOs have the party themselves watch their own hate, not the tanks. Its one thing to be voking on time and shirking, but forcing tanks to turn around and do aggro combos that were counterproductive to your job resources, or even flow is just a big "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO". If we bring back stances, bring back DPS/Heals hate reduction skills. If we make it to where one tank is 100% of the time in tank stance congrats, there is going to be more fighting over tanks wanting the OT role and less MT because "MY DEEPS!" Keep them both the same, period. The stance change was fine, what wasn't fine was the additional curtailing of all tank job skills, overhomoginization, taking away each tanks skill gap, and boss design taking positioning of boss/exclusive tank mechanics.
The unchained for WAR only mattered in 4.0 because WAR could have the best MT pull and establish aggro, after that you never really went back into tank stance after opener, thus Unchained would never be used afterwards. Though I do agree, it was one of the reasons WAR was problematic, but it was also its damage was too high with holmgang breaking too many fights. Those issues were fixed (though damage was hit too hard some would say, but since WAR is the easiest of all tanks to play this expansion it makes sense from a design standpoint.)

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Originally Posted by BarretOblivion

We don't need to bring back annoyances like hate management to tanks

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Im a bit confused by that statement but I always thought that the point to tanking was to make sure that you had the boss' attention and not just be a dps with higher hp and defense. The dps in OT stance was just a nice bonus and tested how well you could maintain said aggro and the payoff was higher damage. The fine line of losing aggro but keeping high uptime was exhilarating but I also value the control of aggro management and its why I love to tank. If I just wanted to hit things and go for damage then I'd play dps. Aggro combos are no longer counter productive to your job resource with the 5.0 changes because its tied directly to your stance and not the weaponskill and this is even exacerbated by the fact some tank jobs only have one combo path i.e. DRK, so its redundant to say that it hinders you job's play style when its literally the only combo they can do.

Many older players who played in 2.0-3.0 WAR knows how smooth the stance dance was and Unchained has always been important with berserk because Defiance was a 25% dmg reduction and to mitigate that and increase your attack power by 50% was how WAR dominated the first two expansions though it was toned down in 4.0. Regardless the tanking in 5.0 is just put up tank stance then forget about it as opposed to earlier expansions where you walked the fine line.

Applying that same stance dance to all tanks would even the playing field to a degree and teach players how important aggro management is to your job as a tank and what your role entails in a party especially with how easy it is to gain enmity. That said, OT stance is for those who have mastered the job and want something extra. I'm not gonna deny that there will be elitists but every online endgame has a reason to min-max and this is for those players who have the skill to push a job further which is something FFXIV has been lacking since 3.0. The players ability to push a job to the limit.

I agree. However, I disagree that we should be waiting for 5.0. This should be fixed in shadowbringers. SE still being paid during ShB duration. A sub is required to play.

Barret, telling us Warrior is the easiest tank to play this expansion. That's not how you spell, GUNBREAKER

Hate management was stupid, yes, but babysitting enmity stance is just as dumb if not more. tomahawk, equilibrium, deliverance and then did circleshirk with my cotank (which is what tanking mechanics used "well"). Needing to constantly click my stance on and off just because of a tank swap, that's stupid. Especially with a 10s cd on it, wtf? Enmity management isn't fun. Get rid of it. While I did enjoy the reward holding it even in tank stance, you still needed your partys support.

Also, barret, holmgang didn't break too many fights. Stop exaggerating. Only ONE fight was holmgang overpowered, and that was Sigmascape 4.0 (Savage), God Kefka. One fight, barret. Be chill. Very circumstantial. I can legitimately go over every fight with you and show that holmgang wasn't overpowered in any fight other than O8S. Stop regurgitating empty rhetoric from bad players. You know what was overpowered? COVER. Often hallowed was more overpowered than holmgang. Yes, an invulnerability on a 3m cd is great, but unless the circumstances of something like O8S is consistent, its not op. Not to mention it wasnt the best in dungeons. Paladin utility of cover and hallowed as well as intervention beats holmgang.

War wasnt too high in SB. Warrior wasnt even the best tank in SB. Paladin was.

I dont care that much about getting tank/dps stance on tank, I rather them make our dps stance our stance now as those are the real ones (except dark, as DS was a buff tbh...), what I DO care about is removing tank mastery. Removing universal defiance off the tanks and give us our damage back (and I just want deliverance.. better animation, better stance).

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Originally Posted by Marxam

Im a bit confused by that statement but I always thought that the point to tanking was to make sure that you had the boss' attention and not just be a dps with higher hp and defense. The dps in OT stance was just a nice bonus and tested how well you could maintain said aggro and the payoff was higher damage. The fine line of losing aggro but keeping high uptime was exhilarating but I also value the control of aggro management and its why I love to tank. If I just wanted to hit things and go for damage then I'd play dps. Aggro combos are no longer counter productive to your job resource with the 5.0 changes because its tied directly to your stance and not the weaponskill and this is even exacerbated by the fact some tank jobs only have one combo path i.e. DRK, so its redundant to say that it hinders you job's play style when its literally the only combo they can do.

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You would think that but all MMOs with the Tank/Heal/DPS aspect either don't have a focus on Tanks keeping control of hate because they focus on other things... like focus on the tank trying to stay alive... or they have the group focus on thier own hate, like even going so far as to STOP ATTACKING like in WoW. It's an annoyance, that adds nothing to 'tanking' when the focus of tanking is you are the one getting yoru face beat in so the squishes don't. We are basically walking masochists at the end of the day.

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Originally Posted by millktea

Barret, telling us Warrior is the easiest tank to play this expansion. That's not how you spell, GUNBREAKER

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...
Out of all the ... WHAT???!!!???
GNB has the worst mitigation of all the tanks. GNB is the 2nd least played tank yet has the highest feedback of the community of how it plays. WAR litteraly is 45% of the time "MAASSH MY FELLL CLEAAAAVE!!"
Let me break down the rules of WAR:
Keep Storm's eye up.
Don't Infuraite during IR.
Hit upheavel on cooldown unless IR is about to come up.
Congrats, I just simplified all you need to know about WAR in 3 sentances.
GNB is:
Watch your charges so you don't use Bloodfest on cooldown overcapping.
Only weave one of the OGCDs during continuation combo if available (not counting the continuation OGCD proc)
Know your timing of the fight so you know to prioritize continuing your base combo after continuation so you don't drop that combo. Sometimes you have to start continuation early like in Shiva icelit 1 so you don't drop your standard combo progression during the knockback.
Look, GNB is still easy to play, but its no where near as braindead as WAR.