Another Pal an War buff patch, another middle finger to Drks

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Cure potency... is potency.

And we've already seen cure potency slapped onto, by now, at least 4 tank actions that previously had none (CFR, BoF, BoT, BoV), and 7 among other tanks' actions' cure potencies have been buffed over the last couple expansions, iirc?

There's no reason they can't do the same for DRK during this expansion.



I don't personally consider increased sustain all that vital, given that dungeons are only becoming increasingly undemanding (I did the new dungeon on DRK just fine at minimum ilvl with only oGCDs and Kardia) and our mitigation is already fine, but let's not pretend other jobs haven't already seen increases in self-healing this expansion that are almost as great as DRK's current total.

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It wouldn't even take much to make DRK feel better in the healing department either. Right now they could boost the Cure Potency on Abyssal Drain to 400 (it's currently 200) and it'd feel a hell of a lot better to use in pulls. It would be enough to at least give DRK a boost every minute. They could even throw a regen on Oblation, and DRK would be better in self-sustain.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

So every DRK I have to heal as a SCH in dungeons is bad? That's incredibly sad.

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You seriously underestimate how terrible the average player is at this game.

DRK doesn't need self-sustain or other help: its mitigation suite is the best among all the tank jobs. It needs a competent player to perform well, and finding a competent DRK player amid a sea of paint-drinkers attracted to DRK's job fantasy is a big ask.

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Originally Posted by ed3891

You seriously underestimate how terrible the average player is at this game.

DRK doesn't need self-sustain or other help: its mitigation suite is the best among all the tank jobs. It needs a competent player to perform well, and finding a competent DRK player amid a sea of paint-drinkers attracted to DRK's job fantasy is a big ask.

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DRK's mitigation is great, sure. But unless one would otherwise be one-shot anyways, sustain includes both healing and mitigation, though. And DRK's sustain --combined effective healing and mitigation-- is generally the lowest among all tanks.

It's not a shortfall enough to really make a difference, but then again, neither were the offensive throughput differences between GNB and DRK large relative to that difference in total sustain to disrupt balance... and yet we buffed GNB by another 60 potency per combo right quick. Seems a slight double-standard.

I do think its worth nothing that DRK's best mitigation status also only applies to magic damage, which depending on the content you're running, Dark Mind is either OP or worthless with almost no inbetween.

Abyssos was pretty terrible at spreading out Magic and Physical, with half of a Physical TB in P5 that you'd only see every other time due to swaps, and the physical TB of P6 was typically ignored with Invul, and if DRK was main tanking you'd never see it at all. P7 and P8 were exclusively magic.

P9-12 seems to be more of an even spread based on the normals, so we'll see there.

What is crazy is in HW we had sustain and mitigation. Literally they could add sole survivor effect to oblation to provide a heal after x amount of damage mitigated or at the end of the cast. But that is a expansion or focused patch level change.

They can adjust cure potency, but what would they do it to? Souleater?

I do think they may have overbuffed the other tank jobs without considering DRK.

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Originally Posted by Derio

What is crazy is in HW we had sustain and mitigation. Literally they could add sole survivor effect to oblation to provide a heal after x amount of damage mitigated or at the end of the cast. But that is a expansion or focused patch level change.

They can adjust cure potency, but what would they do it to? Souleater?

I do think they may have overbuffed the other tank jobs without considering DRK.

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As much as I'd love (and prefer) a flat tank sustain/heal nerf instead of buffing DRK. They don't usually balance that way.

Honestly I think the play would be to uncouple Abyssal Drain from C&S, and do something to it in some way that limits it from being used in single target fights.

This could range from making it a GCD, giving it an MP cost, or something along those lines. The fact its only a 200 cure potency on 60s cd is why DRK feels so weird in this area.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

As much as I'd love (and prefer) a flat tank sustain/heal nerf instead of buffing DRK. They don't usually balance that way.

Honestly I think the play would be to uncouple Abyssal Drain from C&S, and do something to it in some way that limits it from being used in single target fights.

This could range from making it a GCD, giving it an MP cost, or something along those lines. The fact its only a 200 cure potency on 60s cd is why DRK feels so weird in this area.

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Yeah, at 60s it should be a 400 cure potency, which would bring up its value considerably as sustain in dungeons during w2w pulls without effecting what it already has against bosses.

We keep winning. I am living.

Honestly just remove the shared cooldown of AD with CS and give AD a single target cure potency of 800.

I guess if DRK is in such a bad spot compared to the other 3 tanks we won't see any DRKs in savage prog next week...

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Originally Posted by Amenara

I guess if DRK is in such a bad spot compared to the other 3 tanks we won't see any DRKs in savage prog next week...

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Job in question: Great at A, weirdly (if insignificantly, for now) bad at B.

----: "Well, I guess if they're so bad at [B], we won't see them doing [A], right?

/sigh

But what are they bad at? Healing themselves in dungeons? You said it yourself in that it insignificant. The game forces you to have a healer when queuing for the dungeon to take care of that pesky healing anyway. Honestly, the complaining about buffing PLD and WAR is premature as we have no idea what the numbers are going to look like with savage mechanics. If DRK is behind and not being brought then I am all about buffing them to bring them in line. If it continues to be the norm that every single prog group brings a DRK tank because of their mitigation and DPS kit, then I don't see the issue.

Edit to be more clear: You want to add more sustain to arguably the best designed tank for the current 2 minute buff windows who has arguably the best tank CDs in raids because you are mad that the healer has to cast a few more heals on them in a dungeon when compared to the other tanks? The problem is that the game isn't balanced around dungeons because it is content that is designed for every single person to clear difficulty wise no matter what your skill level is with the job. The game is balanced around raids where actual job disparity matters and you have instances where there are DPS checks that may not be met depending on your groups composition and the current balance of the jobs, ie what happened last tier.

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Originally Posted by Amenara

Edit to be more clear: You want to add more sustain to arguably the best designed tank for the current 2 minute buff windows who has arguably the best tank CDs in raids because you are mad that the healer has to cast a few more heals on them in a dungeon when compared to the other tanks? The problem is that the game isn't balanced around dungeons because it is content that is designed for every single person to clear difficulty wise no matter what your skill level is with the job. The game is balanced around raids where actual job disparity matters and you have instances where there are DPS checks that may not be met depending on your groups composition and the current balance of the jobs, ie what happened last tier.

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So tell me...how would it make DRK OP to get sustain? People mention that sustain does nothing for WAR in raids, so how would it make DRK OP? How would adding a regen on Oblation make DRK OP? How would buffing AD's cure potency make DRK OP?

People need to pick a lane.

Either Tanks having strong solo sustain is irrelevant to balance, or it isn't.

If solo sustain is not important when considering Savage balance, then DRK getting sustain equal to the other Tanks in the ever-vaunted "lesser content" is not a problem.

If solo sustain is important when considering Savage balance, then other Tanks shouldn't be buffed to equivalence with DRK in other areas.

If you're OK with WAR's damage output getting buffed without nerfing its solo sustain, then you have no ground to stand on when DRK — which already has the damage — simply requests equivalent solo sustain.

Otherwise, you're basically suggesting that it's okay for WAR to just be an objectively-superior mechanical choice, which is inane.

I also think anyone who says WAR's sustain is worthless in savage content hasn't actually read nascent flash.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

I also think anyone who says WAR's sustain is worthless in savage content hasn't actually read nascent flash.

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WAR's sustain isn't worthless, it's just not any better than the superior flat mitigation that other tanks have.

Nascent is a bit of a special case, even if it ends up being worthless because it just resulted in overhealing you still barely lose any of your own sustain, whereas using TBN on someone else means you end up with 0 mitigation from it for yourself.

Although technically Paladin is in a similar boat, you can use Intervention on someone else without necessarily losing Holy Shelltron for yourself.

I think with the recent discussion around WAR and PLD facilitating a no healer clear of the latest Ultimate in the same patch that it was released, the devs really should be evaluating whether both those jobs actually need to have access to so much additional sustain and mitigation for no effort. Lifesteal can be interesting when it requires players to actually understand damage patterns (see: Death Strike), but on demand healing whenever you feel like it doesn't reinforce skilled play.

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Originally Posted by Amenara

But what are they bad at? Healing themselves in dungeons? You said it yourself in that it insignificant.

Edit to be more clear: You want to add more sustain to arguably the best designed tank for the current 2 minute buff windows who has arguably the best tank CDs in raids because you are mad that the healer has to cast a few more heals on them in a dungeon when compared to the other tanks?

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Abyssal Drain. I'd like an Abyssal Drain buff, and --at most-- *maybe* a bit of healing attached to Carve and Spit.

That's what you're getting yourself so worried over.

Yes, I said myself that it's insignificant. I have to wonder why an AD cure potency buff then --despite being insignificant by even your admission, especially in the content DRK is already fine at-- is somehow going to worsen tank balance significantly further (especially when DRK was the only tank not to receive buffs to what matters in 8-man content).

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

WAR's sustain isn't worthless, it's just not any better than the superior flat mitigation that other tanks have.

Nascent is a bit of a special case, even if it ends up being worthless because it just resulted in overhealing you still barely lose any of your own sustain, whereas using TBN on someone else means you end up with 0 mitigation from it for yourself.

Although technically Paladin is in a similar boat, you can use Intervention on someone else without necessarily losing Holy Shelltron for yourself.

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Not really? Its not what I'm talking about.
Its less of the fact of using it for tanking damage (which you very much still can do), and more of the fact it allows WAR to heal a DPS/Healer who aren't taking constant damage basically to full, at no real cost to itself, on a 25s cooldown, and you're still healing yourself to boot.

Using the other Tank's cover skills has way less payoff. You honestly can be mashing Nascent on CD between Tank busters, especially if you're the OT as then the entire mitigation part is more or less completely out the window at that point.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

So tell me...how would it make DRK OP to get sustain? People mention that sustain does nothing for WAR in raids, so how would it make DRK OP? How would adding a regen on Oblation make DRK OP? How would buffing AD's cure potency make DRK OP?

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You've got access to 20% magic damage reduction in Dark Mind, two charges of 10% damage reduction in Oblation, plus Rampart & Shadow Wall, and TBN with a 15s cooldown on top of that.

In terms of flat% damage reduction, WAR's got Rampart & Vengeance, and 8s of 10% reduction from BW. Thrill doesn't reduce incoming damage and only confers a 10s HP buffer every 90s, and Equi just adds a 5-tick HoT that totals to 1000p usable once a minute.

It occurs that if you want self-sustain tacked onto DRK, you need to be prepared both to give up several of your available existing %mitigations, and to endure an endless bitch-fest about further tank homogenization and the perceived uselessness of healers.

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Originally Posted by ed3891

It occurs that if you want self-sustain tacked onto DRK, you need to be prepared both to give up several of your available existing %mitigations, and to endure an endless bitch-fest about further tank homogenization and the perceived uselessness of healers.

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Yet WAR and PLD can get damage without taking any hits in other departments? A bit of a double standard, don't you think?

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Not really? Its not what I'm talking about.
Its less of the fact of using it for tanking damage (which you very much still can do), and more of the fact it allows WAR to heal a DPS/Healer who aren't taking constant damage basically to full, at no real cost to itself, on a 25s cooldown, and you're still healing yourself to boot.

Using the other Tank's cover skills has way less payoff. You honestly can be mashing Nascent on CD between Tank busters, especially if you're the OT as then the entire mitigation part is more or less completely out the window at that point.

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And what I meant was that using Nascent can absolutely end up worthless if it just results in overhealing the DPS/Healer, because those will most likely get aoe healing from other sources, in which case you would've been better off with the mitigation on yourself for 8 seconds.

Nascent is absolutely stronger than the other tanks' "support" skills since you can heal yourself and a secondary target at little cost, but while using Nascent loses you none of the self healing you still can't just use it on cooldown or you'll most likely end up a splat on the ground, warrior's mitigation kit is already comparatively mediocre and that's including BW's ~20%.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Yet WAR and PLD can get damage without taking any hits in other departments? A bit of a double standard, don't you think?

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No, I don't, because WAR/PLD have lagged behind GNB/DRK this entire expansion, and WAR in particular was locked out in PF during early Abyssos prog. You know this; you're aware of this and pretending like you weren't is absurd and casts you in a poor light.

I know that the OF is the place to doom & gloom about balance adjustments following patches, but I'm not making assumptions about where tank DPS is until after we see what numbers are put up come Savage's release this week. That said, I really doubt 10p extra on combo finishers and FC being brought back to its ShB potency is going to cause WAR to overtake DRK's damage.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Yet WAR and PLD can get damage without taking any hits in other departments? A bit of a double standard, don't you think?

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WAR needed the potency to become viable. PLD was completely screwed by fight design in Abyssos until it came into its current form. Can't really say it's a double standard unless one job is standing arms and shoulders above the others patch over patch.

You can W2W with no problem. As long as you focus on a defensive rotation instead of an offensive one. Offensive one is great for bosses and raids. But not for trash.

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Originally Posted by rxantos

You can W2W with no problem. As long as you focus on a defensive rotation instead of an offensive one. Offensive one is great for bosses and raids. But not for trash.

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We are talking about XIV here, right?

???

Defensive rotation?
Offensive rotation?
https://i.imgflip.com/5rq830.jpg

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Originally Posted by rxantos

You can W2W with no problem. As long as you focus on a defensive rotation instead of an offensive one. Offensive one is great for bosses and raids. But not for trash.

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There is no "defensive rotation".

The last time we had any ability to influence our defense, besides simply not pressing the button that makes you take less damage and consequently dying, was Stormblood, where higher passive defense was an option but came at the expense of offense.


Unless by defensive rotation you mean actually pressing your defensives and by offensive rotation you mean not pressing them and standing around with a dunce cap on your head.

From my experience the areas where DRK's lack of sustain are pretty niche, but the most relevant recent example I can think of is actually my attempts at Orthos Solo with the job, and this honestly hits the sweet spot where DRK's mitigations kinda break. The issue I see with the DRK sustain arguments is that DRK has this weird gap of content where TBN doesn't function due to it not breaking, and thats an issue to me because TBN is effectively DRK's only way to extend its longevity and shrug off damage.

The mobs in the early to mid floors do just enough damage to be threatening to you, but not enough damage to make TBN not a damage loss, you can use it anyway of course. But it feels shitty to do so, its also something thats entirely a unique problem to DRK.
The bosses of Deep Dungeons make this worse, as they're going to do constant damage to you, not enough to break TBN, but enough to where you have to worry about it.

It honestly makes DRK into a pot guzzling job for solo attempts of Orthos or even HoH (and in HoH TBN is basically unusable until floor 60 due to this damage threshold), and I think this is notable because I don't think this is the case for the other 3 tanks. Yeah you CAN guzzle those pots to make up for it, and honestly I HAVE started using Hyper Potions from Orthos to fill this gap in DRK's kit to great effect in all content, and even that amount of healing is enough to make DRK feel solid to me.

But its really sad to me that this consumable item from Eureka Orthos gives you more healing than everything in your kit combined.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

The issue I see with the DRK sustain arguments is that DRK has this weird gap of content where TBN doesn't function due to it not breaking, and thats an issue to me because TBN is effectively DRK's only way to extend its longevity and shrug off damage.

The mobs in the early to mid floors do just enough damage to be threatening to you, but not enough damage to make TBN not a damage loss, you can use it anyway of course. But it feels shitty to do so, its also something thats entirely a unique problem to DRK.

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Agreed.

I'd appreciate more means of control for TBN's %HP (e.g., variable MP consumption based on %MP, with consequently varied shielding -- especially if we had more means of rapid MP regeneration), or even to reduce it to a 20% HP barrier base (or, heck, a potency-based barrier with percentile-mitigation while active, so it can snapshot that miti onto the remaining TB damage that breaks it).

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Originally Posted by ed3891

No, I don't, because WAR/PLD have lagged behind GNB/DRK this entire expansion, and WAR in particular was locked out in PF during early Abyssos prog. You know this; you're aware of this and pretending like you weren't is absurd and casts you in a poor light.

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I'm pointing out the absolute stupidity of your statement that DRK needs to lose something just for Abyssal Drain's cure potency to be 400 instead of 200. You know, the ability that is an AoE attack that is never used in raids because it shares a cooldown with Carve 'n Spit.

In my experience, it comes down to whether the DRK in question knows what they're doing. The ones who know how to use their mits do need healing, but it's nothing major. It's more than WAR and PLD who straight up don't need heals, but they really aren't struggling that much. Maybe you've just been running into DRKs who aren't that experienced?

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Originally Posted by Oizen

From my experience the areas where DRK's lack of sustain are pretty niche, but the most relevant recent example I can think of is actually my attempts at Orthos Solo with the job, and this honestly hits the sweet spot where DRK's mitigations kinda break. The issue I see with the DRK sustain arguments is that DRK has this weird gap of content where TBN doesn't function due to it not breaking, and thats an issue to me because TBN is effectively DRK's only way to extend its longevity and shrug off damage.

The mobs in the early to mid floors do just enough damage to be threatening to you, but not enough damage to make TBN not a damage loss, you can use it anyway of course. But it feels shitty to do so, its also something thats entirely a unique problem to DRK.
The bosses of Deep Dungeons make this worse, as they're going to do constant damage to you, not enough to break TBN, but enough to where you have to worry about it.

It honestly makes DRK into a pot guzzling job for solo attempts of Orthos or even HoH (and in HoH TBN is basically unusable until floor 60 due to this damage threshold), and I think this is notable because I don't think this is the case for the other 3 tanks. Yeah you CAN guzzle those pots to make up for it, and honestly I HAVE started using Hyper Potions from Orthos to fill this gap in DRK's kit to great effect in all content, and even that amount of healing is enough to make DRK feel solid to me.

But its really sad to me that this consumable item from Eureka Orthos gives you more healing than everything in your kit combined.

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I finished HoH solo as DRK and while it was fun... yeah TBN really doesn't help much until later floors outside of a landmine or massive pull in the earlier floors. I definitely used a lot of pots; I can't say the same about EO since I did that solo attempt as a healer instead.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

Which is a problem because you spend less time in raids than you do in all other content

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Speak for yourself, I only login to raid :)

You can decide to focus on focus on attacking keeping dps your high.
or focus on keeping your mitigation by keeping TBN and other mitigations as soon as they pop. If you focus in the damage, sometimes you will not have enough magic for tbn, making you vulnerable in a w2w.

Tank Focus on damage is great for bosses. Bad for w2w where your focus should be in keeping the agro and surviving by mitigating.

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Originally Posted by rxantos

You can decide to focus on focus on attacking keeping dps your high.
or focus on keeping your mitigation by keeping TBN and other mitigations as soon as they pop. If you focus in the damage, sometimes you will not have enough magic for tbn, making you vulnerable in a w2w.

Tank Focus on damage is great for bosses. Bad for w2w where your focus should be in keeping the agro and surviving by mitigating.

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Yeah but the issues people are pointing out is that DRK is the only one who has to do this, for no real upside anymore seeing as they're intent on closing the damage gap completely.
Not that DRK was ever the highest for AOE damage.

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Originally Posted by rxantos

You can decide to focus on focus on attacking keeping dps your high.
or focus on keeping your mitigation by keeping TBN and other mitigations as soon as they pop. If you focus in the damage, sometimes you will not have enough magic for tbn, making you vulnerable in a w2w.

Tank Focus on damage is great for bosses. Bad for w2w where your focus should be in keeping the agro and surviving by mitigating.

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I still don't understand this proposed idea that DRK has a "damage" and "defensive" rotation.

As long as you don't overcap MP and also end the pull with zero MP, you didn't lose any damage by holding 3k MP at a time and using TBN on cooldown — unless you're overwriting Dark Arts, which is just playing incorrectly, not a Damage vs. Defense decision.

If you're talking about dumping MP inside party buffs, that's not really an issue, even if you're trying to optimize trash pulls for some reason, because you can open the pull with a TBN pop and then convert your Dark Arts while buffs are still active, then dump your remaining MP, and then have 3k back by the time you need another TBN (or close enough).

No other mitigation besides TBN involves any choice related to damage, except maybe finding OGCD slots to weave it in while dumping Dark Knight's "Amazon.com search page" worth of OGCD action bloat.

And as of ShB, keeping aggro involves remaining conscious and spamming 1-2 on your AOE bar; it is also not a tradeoff with damage. In fact, it's caused by doing damage, so they're synergistic goals.

You're not really gaining any meaningful damage as DRK by overspending MP in a pull and leaving yourself without MP for TBN; that's not a "decision" so much as just a clumsy panic response to being flustered or inexperienced. Your total damage will be nearly the same whether you TBN on cooldown or not, assuming again that you use Dark Arts correctly (which is not a high bar of demand).

Also, assuming your party is all using their AOEs, you can deliberately dump to zero when you can see the HP bars of the majority of enemies are about to deplete, because you don't need TBN to survive when there's like 2-3 stragglers leftover at the end. So while you could say, "Holding MP reduces the total number of enemies your MP damages", in practice it's not really an issue.

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Originally Posted by rxantos

You can decide to focus on focus on attacking keeping dps your high.
or focus on keeping your mitigation by keeping TBN and other mitigations as soon as they pop. If you focus in the damage, sometimes you will not have enough magic for tbn, making you vulnerable in a w2w.

Tank Focus on damage is great for bosses. Bad for w2w where your focus should be in keeping the agro and surviving by mitigating.

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Play a Drk on the latest expert with trust NPC's then come back to me.

Anyone who want's to say War's needed a buff because they were unplayable in raids, I would like to point out that a WAR solo'd P1 within like a week of it releasing.

WAR's an PAL did a relative amount less damage than Dark based on the self sustain they had, that was the reasoning. Then they ramped up their damage, the first time it was perfectly reasonable, the second time, ok fair enough the damage was pretty low, but now it's a joke. The comparison between the self sustain and the damage difference between Drk and War/Pal is night and day.

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Originally Posted by Malthir

Play a Drk on the latest expert with trust NPC's then come back to me.

Anyone who want's to say War's needed a buff because they were unplayable in raids, I would like to point out that a WAR solo'd P1 within like a week of it releasing.

WAR's an PAL did a relative amount less damage than Dark based on the self sustain they had, that was the reasoning. Then they ramped up their damage, the first time it was perfectly reasonable, the second time, ok fair enough the damage was pretty low, but now it's a joke. The comparison between the self sustain and the damage difference between Drk and War/Pal is night and day.

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Trust npcs are notoriously incompetent and not reflective of actual gameplay.
Why does everyone fixate on warrior doing it when gunbreaker and paladin also did, or dark knight was the only tank that didn't.
Yet again you completely gloss over dark knight having significantly better mitigation for raids (dark mind, dark missionary, 2 oblations, tbn) than the other tanks as well as an opener/burst phase several dps would be envious of.

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Originally Posted by rxantos

You can W2W with no problem. As long as you focus on a defensive rotation instead of an offensive one. Offensive one is great for bosses and raids. But not for trash.

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What? You pop 2 or 3 mits towards the end of your pull and just use every GCD and OGCD in your arsenal..

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Originally Posted by fulminating

Trust npcs are notoriously incompetent

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Yes.

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Originally Posted by fulminating

and not reflective of actual gameplay.

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Uh....., dont know about that I've seen plenty of people on duty finder where I wished I was with trust npcs.

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Originally Posted by fulminating

Yet again you completely gloss over dark knight having significantly better mitigation for raids (dark mind, dark missionary, 2 oblations, tbn) than the other tanks as well as an opener/burst phase several dps would be envious of.

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Dark Missionary isn't as good as Shake it off honestly.
That shit instantly heals, grants a shield, and a regen, while also having a damage boost mechanic for the WAR.
By comparison, 10% mit that you can only use on a single damage type isn't amazing. Its not bad but I think I'd rather have the one thats more applicable to all content.

Likewise WAR isn't completely without tools similar to this, Thrill of Battle is just TBN on a long cooldown without the niche benefit of shield hp.

Yeah DRK beats it in raw mitigation, but having an even spread of mitigation and regen is nothing to write off so easily.