Trying to understand the complaints about DRK

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Originally Posted by SleepyNeko

Also Raw Intuition/Bulwark > Dark Mind for fluff.

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Tell me again how that's working out for you in o5s and o6s. Also, you don't use DM for fluff. TBN zeros out autos, and can be used frequently on demand.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

Tell me again how that's working out for you in o5s and o6s. Also, you don't use DM for fluff. TBN zeros out autos, and can be used frequently on demand.

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I still do not know why most players do not understand this. Use tbn for fluff, and use darkmind/shadow wall for tank busters. Unless the boss is full magical, then yea add dark mind in for fluff with tbn. A 16k shield for fluff every 15 - 25 secs is pretty solid mitigation if you ask me. Just try your best to make sure you time it right and make it pop, so you can get as many blood spillers as possible.

If TBN was actually dps neutral, then you could certainly throw it out on random autos. It's not.

The dps value of TBN is variable. In some cases the blood gain is greater than the MP cost, as tends to be the case during raid burst windows. On average, though, it works out to be a minor dps loss.

This shouldn't discourage you from using it when you need to mitigate a cleave or tankbuster. But it's a bit of a waste to use it frivolously. If you're unsure of this, look up DRKs who are trying to optimise for speedruns. You'll find a much lower rate of TBN usage in general (on the order of 1-2 times per fight). I'm not saying that you should necessarily emulate this, but it's worth noting.

I think that TBN's design tries to be clever with its resource juggling, but falls a little short because the rest of DRK's kit doesn't really take full advantage of blood - MP conversions. If it's supposed to be a focal mechanic, they should've gone the route of turning DRK into a full Zarya tank. Throw out shields, hit harder, throw out more shields.

From the way people talk about IB, you'd think that nobody ever uses it. If so, they should consider just replacing IB with FC in Defiance during the next job action crunch.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

If TBN was actually dps neutral, then you could certainly throw it out on random autos. It's not.

The dps value of TBN is variable. In some cases the blood gain is greater than the MP cost, as tends to be the case during raid burst windows. On average, though, it works out to be a minor dps loss.

This shouldn't discourage you from using it when you need to mitigate a cleave or tankbuster. But it's a bit of a waste to use it frivolously. If you're unsure of this, look up DRKs who are trying to optimise for speedruns. You'll find a much lower rate of TBN usage in general (on the order of 1-2 times per fight). I'm not saying that you should necessarily emulate this, but it's worth noting.

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Square should just make bloodspillers from TBN popping a obvious dps gain. From 400 to 500 potency would be nice.

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Originally Posted by Rubytoe

Square should just make bloodspillers from TBN popping a obvious dps gain. From 400 to 500 potency would be nice.

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The problem is, if TBN use is a flat DPS gain, then TBN becomes a DPS ability and you stop using it when it matters, but as much as possible.

Ah, TBN...so incredibly controversial. I feel like most of the problems Dark Knight is facing currently can be directly or indirectly traced back to it. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised then, that those most satisfied with Dark Knight currently are the biggest fans of this skill. I am not, however. It's a very cool concept that I like, but the implementation is maddeningly frustrating at worst, and feeling like it's missing something at best. I still feel Reprisal was a better fit for Dark Knight's skillset and wish they would have expanded on that instead of replace it entirely.

I personally feel with less spammy and dumbed down Dark Arts, TBN being reworked into something a bit less frustrating, and a little bit more damage overall, I'd be satisfied with Dark Knight for the rest of the expansion.

Of course, some kind of Souleater function out of Grit, Blood Price/Weapon being unlocked, Syphon Strike's silly dark arts effect being removed and shuffled into more Dark Passenger usage, some kind of knockback prevention or increased range for Plunge, Living Dead being less obtuse, all these would be kind of wishlist stuff but give me the aforementioned 3 things and I'd be alright with whatever place Dark Knight falls in the tank balance shenanigans until 5.0.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

If TBN was actually dps neutral, then you could certainly throw it out on random autos. It's not.

The dps value of TBN is variable. In some cases the blood gain is greater than the MP cost, as tends to be the case during raid burst windows. On average, though, it works out to be a minor dps loss.

This shouldn't discourage you from using it when you need to mitigate a cleave or tankbuster. But it's a bit of a waste to use it frivolously. If you're unsure of this, look up DRKs who are trying to optimise for speedruns. You'll find a much lower rate of TBN usage in general (on the order of 1-2 times per fight). I'm not saying that you should necessarily emulate this, but it's worth noting.

I think that TBN's design tries to be clever with its resource juggling, but falls a little short because the rest of DRK's kit doesn't really take full advantage of blood - MP conversions. If it's supposed to be a focal mechanic, they should've gone the route of turning DRK into a full Zarya tank. Throw out shields, hit harder, throw out more shields.

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It's not that bad. Looking at top 5 DRKs on godka, 3 of those used TBN ~1 time per minute, one didn't use it at all (?) and one used it nearly 2 times per minute. We are talking about the very top here. You probably could use it on cooldown (when it breaks ofc) and still get into 95+

Personally I don't like blood mechanic at all. I'd prefer them to just build on mana bar instead of adding totally separate resource. Feels clunky and forced.

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Originally Posted by Megguido

The problem is, if TBN use is a flat DPS gain, then TBN becomes a DPS ability and you stop using it when it matters, but as much as possible.

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but that'd be up to the player's choice. Just like how black mage has to decide to move out an aoe and loose dps, or eat it "possibly die" and keep casting.

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Originally Posted by Rubytoe

but that'd be up to the player's choice. Just like how black mage has to decide to move out an aoe and loose dps, or eat it "possibly die" and keep casting.

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You don't eat anything without the expressed permission and frustration of the healer.

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Originally Posted by Megguido

The problem is, if TBN use is a flat DPS gain, then TBN becomes a DPS ability and you stop using it when it matters, but as much as possible.

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I disagree, even with a change to 500 potency TBN returns would still be lower than sheltron returns on procing shield swipe at a 100 potency increase. People weren't standing in avoidable aoes for 150 potency, they aren't standing in avoidable damage for 100 potency, I doubt they would stand in avoidable damage for even less reward.

More parallels to sheltron, as long as you have enough guage to hit Sheltron when you need it you’ll be fine. If we switch one Dark Arts cast to one TBN it will hardly effect much except making us slightly more tanky.

I don't think that's the best comparison. Sheltron can only be used to increase your DPS if Shield Swipe is off coooldown and if you would otherwise not proc it; TBN isn't gated like this (though it is gated, however little, by incoming damage). As for taking avoidable damage, there would little to no need for that when you can just cast TBN on someone else.

Would it be a huge issue if TBN was DPS positive? I don't really know, but it makes sense for it to be DPS neutral. The "issue" is that isn't, though I do think it's close enough.

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

I don't think that's the best comparison. Sheltron can only be used to increase your DPS if Shield Swipe is off coooldown and if you would otherwise not proc it; TBN isn't gated like this (though it is gated, however little, by incoming damage). As for taking avoidable damage, there would little to no need for that when you can just cast TBN on someone else.

Would it be a huge issue if TBN was DPS positive? I don't really know, but it makes sense for it to be DPS neutral. The "issue" is that isn't, though I do think it's close enough.

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To determine what the best comparison to TBN is on another tank you you need to go through all the possible options, which ever is the the closest is the "best". I don't see any suggestion for a better comparison so I cannot reasonable respond with a comparison.

When acting as an OT Shelton and TBN can be used similarly on yourself, used on unavoidable damage, and can be used with cover to again proc shield swipe when it would otherwise be unprocced. In that vein they are extremely similar, though TBN has a frequency advantage here since cover and unavoidable raid wides are less common than every 15 seconds. As a main tank, there is little to no reason to keep your guage at 100%, meaning there is no reason to not pop sheltron relatively frequently in most cases (somewhere in the range of once every 22 seconds) and some of those will undoubtably proc a shield swipe (especially keeping in mind that you can proc shield swipe when it is still on cooldown and use it once it comes off cooldown). The main point here is that there are more examples of them being similar in terms of active mitigation used for other attacks than are not, despite that there are such things as natural shield swipes and an extra block between the two of them.

If TBN were dps positive, lets say 10 potency, the only thing this would encourage would be to pop it more frequently making dark knight tankier. Would it mean additional casts? No, you are just replacing 1 dark arts with 1 TBN every so often for slightly more potency. Hardly game breaking. No one is going to be risking their life to stand in avoidable and potentially fatal damage for 10 potency, much like no one does this to proc an extra sheltron when off tanking.

Is TBN the primary issue with dark knight? I would say thats also no but I would also need a huge amount of space to write what is wrong with it. but if people feel more secure with TBN a small positive over a small negative then I don't think there is any real argument either way to change it from -3 potency a use to +3 potency a use, it fixes relatively little except that it turns the community feeling against TBN to a slightly more positive light.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

If TBN was actually dps neutral, then you could certainly throw it out on random autos. It's not.

The dps value of TBN is variable. In some cases the blood gain is greater than the MP cost, as tends to be the case during raid burst windows. On average, though, it works out to be a dps lose.

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Also you have to think about all the healing your saving for your healers when your TBNing the autos as MT. 1 tbn is like saving a Cure II, and replacing it with a Stone IV. So in some cases i think it's a dps increase to your healer, along with the blood spiller it brings.

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Originally Posted by Rubytoe

Also you have to think about all the healing your saving for your healers when your TBNing the autos as MT. 1 tbn is like saving a Cure II, and replacing it with a Stone IV. So in some cases i think it's a dps increase to your healer, along with the blood spiller it brings.

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Not really. I stopped healing after Deltascape, so it might be different now (doubt it), but as SCH I barely ever had to use GCD heals for tank and my WHM buddy only used regen afaik. Regen, Eos, AoE heals and tanks self heal from Path (WAR) was enough most of the time. Occasional Excog/Lustrate and Tetra were enough when he got lower.
Sure, it will help healers in the long run, but it's far from being a whole GCD per TBN.

Sheltron is a strict potency gain even without a Swipe Proc. The ability generates 600 MP (roughly 40% of a Holy Spirit), which translates into additional Holy Spirit uses. Oddly enough, having a defensive ability that is also a dps gain to use did not cause PLD's gameplay to fall apart at the seams. The universe did not, in fact, implode.

Ever since we sat down and calculated the relative dps value of blood and MP, there's been this unhealthy obsession in the community with balancing TBN's blood gain. Yeah, it's pretty neat how close the average values for 50 blood and 1 DA are. But is this really necessary?

The philosophy behind actions like Inner Beast or the old DA Dark Mind was built around making you pay to gain access to your defensive toolkit. But we've seen time and again that players avoid using abilities when they are dps losses. Perhaps we've got things backwards. Shouldn't you reward tanks for mitigating damage?

It's worth noting that Bloodspiller makes up a much smaller proportion of our overall dps than does Holy Spirit or Fell Cleave (most of our dps comes from Souleater). This is even before you account for the fact that the benefit of the ones generated by TBN are negated by the MP cost. I think TBN could benefit from being a potency gain.

Drk could use some QoL anti-clunk changes for sure. Addressing the anti-synergy of speed buffs and double weaves would actually help. When OT DPS mode it isnt bad really, but trying to use any defensive OGCDs while weapon is up is the stuff of nightmares. I suppose SE's 'plan' for that is you are supposed to tank in grit and therefore this situation never happens as you loose your speed madness. But that's just not how people play and I hope SE aknowledges how people ACTUALLY play jobs instead of how they designed them. They finally accepted ninja as a tank in XI after years, hopefully they aknowledge DPS stance tanking in shorter order and plan around that design. Would alleviate so many tank design issues.

People are still hung up on a couple (single digit) potency loss on TBN? /facepalm. Loosing -3 potency here, -9 potency there, gaining +6 potency over there a couple times a minute is not doing anything to you. It really isnt. Not when you are doing over 100 pot per SECOND. Using TBN 10 times in a 10 minute fight where you count your potency totals in the 10s of thousands is a grain of sand on the beach.

Tweaking TBN to be 100% neutral instead of the 99.9% what we have now doesnt 'fix' drk. It doesnt do anything at all to the state of drk as a job. If you think it actually affects you, its in your head. Let's stick to things that actually matter. Not PR stunts.

All they need to do is remove the damage penalty on Grit and make Blood Weapon/Blood Price usable whenever and maybe add more Grit bonuses since DRK would be the first tank to actually benefit from staying in tank stance with no real downside but people would think that's not balanced...

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

people would think that's not balanced...

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People already know that's not balanced.

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Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

All they need to do is remove the damage penalty on Grit and make Blood Weapon/Blood Price usable whenever and maybe add more Grit bonuses since DRK would be the first tank to actually benefit from staying in tank stance with no real downside but people would think that's not balanced...

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you want to do that on all tanks to make it balance, i will love to see that but dont expect to happen.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Sheltron is a strict potency gain even without a Swipe Proc. The ability generates 600 MP (roughly 40% of a Holy Spirit), which translates into additional Holy Spirit uses.

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No. PLD isn't like DRK; more MP doesn't necessarily translate into more Holy Spirits.

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Oddly enough, having a defensive ability that is also a dps gain to use did not cause PLD's gameplay to fall apart at the seams. The universe did not, in fact, implode.

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No, it didn't, and neither would DRK, in all likelihood. But let's not pretend that a DPS positive TBN would be used like Sheltron--TBN's limiting resource is its cooldown, but Sheltron's is the Oath gauge.

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

No. PLD isn't like DRK; more MP doesn't necessarily translate into more Holy Spirits.



No it didn't, and neither would DRK, in all likelihood. But let's not pretend that a DPS positive TBN would be used like Sheltron--TBN's limiting resource is its cooldown, but Sheltron's is the Oath gauge.

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I think you misunderstand the MP gain part. If you gain enough MP between req windows, you can use an additional unbuffed HS. Do this enough over time, and suppose you do 3, then that replaces an entire combo. That is a substantial DPS gain.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

I think you misunderstand the MP gain part.

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I didn't.

The point is that you can't just convert "extra" MP into potency wily-nilly as PLD; it's not that simple. So, it's incorrect to consider Sheltron a "strict potency gain" on those grounds.

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

No. PLD isn't like DRK; more MP doesn't necessarily translate into more Holy Spirits.

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Using sheltron enough can provide enough mp to get more Holy Spirits, whether or not that is useful depends on the GCD you end on. Sheltron on its own is neutral, the bonus mp, shield swipe procs, and GCD manipulation are other positives to this skill. There are times where the bonus mp from sheltron is actually useful, and sometimes its not, but when its not useful it isn't a negative.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

Using sheltron enough can provide enough mp to get more Holy Spirits, whether or not that is useful depends on the GCD you end on. Sheltron on its own is neutral, the bonus mp, shield swipe procs, and GCD manipulation are other positives to this skill. There are times where the bonus mp from sheltron is actually useful, and sometimes its not, but when its not useful it isn't a negative.

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Yes, I'm well aware; I said "necessarily" for a reason.

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

Yes, I'm well aware; I said "necessarily" for a reason.

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More mp on dark knight doesn't necessarily translate to more potency either. Maybe they are more alike than you think.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

More mp on dark knight doesn't necessarily translate to more potency either.

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That's true, but that's not the point.

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

That's true, but that's not the point.

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That is fine, but the point people are speaking about is using a skill optimally. We can say Souleater is a potency gain without qualifying that it is only a potency gain when used as the combo finisher of a three tier combo. We can say that more mana translates to more mp on dark knight without qualifying exactly how and when it should be used. Sure, poping Sheltron on its own doesn't net you anything except mana and maybe a proc, but when those resources are used strategically it is a potency gain.

More to the point, I believe that Lyth is pointing out that using tools properly on other tanks does net a positive dps gain, so why are we so afraid of doing the same on dark knight? I don't think their point really rested on this idea of "strictly positive", it is based on proper usage of skills (and even at times frequent use in the case of sheltron) leads to positive results.

And as Aana said, these conversations always seem to revolve around TBN, but fixing this one skill is hardly the fix dark knight needs.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

And as Aana said, these conversations always seem to revolve around TBN, but fixing this one skill is hardly the fix dark knight needs.

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I respectfully disagree, I do believe Dark Knight has other pressing issues still remaining, but I feel that TBN as it exists in its current form still creates quite a bit of contention among the playerbase and would benefit Dark Knight tremendously for being looked at. For example, with people who'd otherwise choose to main Dark Knight and possibly pick an alternate tank instead to not deal with Dark Knight's strange nuance in some of its skills such as Living Dead, TBN, Bloodspiller potencies, etc.

I'm not going to be ashamed to admit anymore, that I still find TBN very hard to use. Using it with tank busters is fine, but on auto attacks, I still miss it quite often since almost every fight is radically different and I don't always know when to gauge strings of 2-3 auto attacks to break it. And when it doesn't...boy, I feel like a failure as a tank, sitting there wasting MP and defense and especially offense. And for such a reactive skill, it seems to suffer heavily from server ticks, I cannot count how many times that a bosses' attack comes out seconds after I use TBN, hits me normally, TBN soaks the next hit (or doesn't) and there goes 50 blood and the healers have to watch me like a hawk.

Yet I feel very pressured to use TBN this way because it's what tanks are supposed to do, correct? Utilize their defensive capabilities to the utmost? TBN just on tank busters or easily predictable attacks seems like a waste, as many have mentioned already in this thread. And I think that's a bad thing. I do think I dislike this skill more than most, with how it's stripped away a lot of Dark Knight's other capabilities for a niche thing (think Red Mage and verraise, that's how I feel about Dark Knight and TBN), but I admit it's a really cool concept and I like when I can pull it off or have perfect TBN uptime in a fight. I just think there's still some major frustration involved with its current implementation and making it more reactive and less punishing wouldn't ruin Dark Knight's playstyle any more than it already has been.

If I'm going to talk about Dark Knight complaints, it's this feeling for me. TBN existing and having to sacrifice all of Heavensward Dark Knight for it, for a skill that feels like a sacrifice each time I use it, just sort of contributes to this tinge of Dark Knight being this rewardless-feeling playstyle that the other tanks don't suffer from. It's so cool to be able to Divine Veil early enough and have your Fight or Flight in sync for Goring Blade then Requiescat and a full string of Holy Spirits on Paladin, or a perfectly timed Inner Release that you're able to Thrill + Upheaval and Onslaught all during like a Trick Attack or something. Dark Knight, while I love it to pieces and still prefer it to the other tanks despite all this, feels like "do everything all the time, don't overflow MP or blood, Salted Earth 100% uptime and don't f#%@ TBN up or you just lost your relevance as a tank in this party"

I apologize for such a rant, but I had to get it all out. Judge me if you want, but I hope some other hopeful Dark Knight players can relate with these frustrations.

I know a lot of folks are on the fence about TBN, but it's the skill I feel the most sets DRK apart and I'd absolutely hate to see it get heavily changed/gutted into a generic shield or a Shake it Off clone.

I hope the inevitable rework in 5.0 leaves that skill alone, myself.

Pretty sure there was an interview where yoshi says DRK is fine and not being looked at. Time to adapt.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

It's worth noting that Bloodspiller makes up a much smaller proportion of our overall dps than does Holy Spirit or Fell Cleave (most of our dps comes from Souleater). This is even before you account for the fact that the benefit of the ones generated by TBN are negated by the MP cost. I think TBN could benefit from being a potency gain.

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Except it is not. Just compared two God Kefka parses where I did about the same DPS with both PLD and DRK (± 100 DPS). Holy spirit was 11% of the total damage dealt. Bloodspiller was 18% of the total damage dealt (and Souleater was like 20% total damage). For both PLD and DRK, auto-attacks are what deals the most damage.

Fell Cleave cannot even be compared to Holy Spirit or Bloodspiller, since it's about 40% of a WAR's total damage (more than twice Bloodpsilla's contribution, and three/four times Holy Spirit's).

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Originally Posted by Valdegarde

I respectfully disagree, I do believe Dark Knight has other pressing issues still remaining, but I feel that TBN as it exists in its current form still creates quite a bit of contention among the playerbase and would benefit Dark Knight tremendously for being looked at. [...]
I apologize for such a rant, but I had to get it all out. Judge me if you want, but I hope some other hopeful Dark Knight players can relate with these frustrations.

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IMO, TBN is a bit like Sheltron but with a higher risk. If you use Sheltron but you aren't taking any damage in the next 10s, you're losing 100 potency from Shield Swipe (happens often when being OT if there's not that much AoE damage for example). But if you're using TBN and you're not taking enough damage, you're losing 50 blood. Now that TBN is 7s, it's kinda hard to not make it break, it's long enough to cover 2 boss' auto-attacks which are 10-15k damage each usually. But if it is timed poorly, just before the boss casts something, it may not break and that feel bad.

My point is, TBN is a great ability if used wisely, otherwise it's kinda disappointing. A ressourceless, 13k HP shield every 15s would be rather OP, so it has to be gated by a ressource. But DRK only has 2 ressources and both are used to deal damage, so you consume mana (you lose damage for mitigation) and if you shield yourself at the right moment, you're rewarded with blood (which makes TBN virtually free).

If you time TBN poorly, you're not only losing damage, you're also using mitigation for nothing (shield isn't breaking = you didn't even mitigate 13k damage).
If you time TBN well, you're not losing any damage, and you're mitigating at least 13k damage.

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Originally Posted by Valdegarde

I apologize for such a rant, but I had to get it all out. Judge me if you want, but I hope some other hopeful Dark Knight players can relate with these frustrations.

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you dont need to apologize, its actually what you say, TBN is not desing to dealt with AA, its the comunity who start to say we need to do this to say we dont need fluff mitigation, TBN start being a 5 seconds shield, in those days it was imposible mitigate AA without loosing the potency and then SE buff it to 7 seconds but no for dealt with AA, it was for those with high ping being unable to place the shield in so short window so now they can precast the shield and use it more easily, today its imposible pop the shield with AA outside of some savage figths.

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Originally Posted by Megguido

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If you look at the example that you cited, you use TBN 22 times over the course of a ten minute fight, which works out to be a little more than once every thirty seconds. That's significantly more than you'll see in most of the better optimised runs.

This is the reason why your Bloodspiller values are inflated. The additional Bloodspillers that you gain are coming at the expense of DA Souleater and DA Syphon. What's more, if you look at your total counts for your combo actions, you have one less Souleater than you do Hard Slash and Syphon. This suggests that at least one of the forced Bloodspillers clipped Souleater, costing you a minimum of 93 potency on at least one of those TBN uses. That's a surprisingly large amount to accidentally lose on a "dps neutral" defensive, especially when many players consider spending 170 potency on IB to be anathema.

If you look at better optimised runs, you'll generally see a pattern of Souleater contributing the most dps, followed by autos, followed by Syphon, followed by Bloodspiller. This is partially because a lot less MP gets dumped into TBN (some of the better runs use on the order of 0-2 uses total). It's also because better coordination with raid buffs tends to increase the weighting of your harder hitting abilities relative to your autos.

I don't want to dissuade anyone from using TBN here. You're going to lose more dps from a lost GCD due to mistakes in uptime than you will worrying about clipping Souleaters. But the system as a whole is unnecessarily convoluted.

Why does any of this matter? There are two reasons. The first is related to burst. As we said earlier, burst makes your life easier. The smaller the window that you concentrate your dps into, the less important overall uptime becomes, and the more room you have for error. This is one of the reasons why you have lower percentile WARs doing comparable dps to DRKs nearly 40 percentiles above them. Bloodspiller and Delirium are supposed to be hard hitting attacks. But because DRK tries to be cute with the MP/blood exchanges, you end up treading water instead of getting the proper gains out of them.

The second reason is related to playstyle. Most people recognise that dps, even as a tank, is really important. But a frequently voiced complaint amongst more defensive minded players is that you always seem to lose out for mitigating. Perhaps this is a missed opportunity. If cleverly shielding your teammates made you stronger, then Sheltron, Intervention, and TBN could pave the way for a more engaging defensive playstyle which rewards you offensively for protecting others, to contrast with WAR's approach of doing more damage by just hitting really hard. If diversity is what we're after, this is one way to do it.

When Stormblood first launched, a number of us were really pleased with the seeming interplay between blood and MP. There was this sense that you'd juggle resources to boost your damage output. But because blood is restricted to the level 70 abilities, this interplay is nearly non-existent. I'm wondering if we'd be better off simply uncoupling MP and blood and treating them as independent entities.

If that were the case, you wouldn't have to worry about how adjustments to Bloodspiller might nerf Delirium and buff TBN, or how adjustments to combo potencies might buff Delirium and nerf TBN. You'd just have a system where proactively shielding yourself and your teammates from harm simply made you hit harder. Think Zarya to WAR's Roadhog.

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Originally Posted by Megguido

Except it is not. Just compared two God Kefka parses where I did about the same DPS with both PLD and DRK (± 100 DPS). Holy spirit was 11% of the total damage dealt. Bloodspiller was 18% of the total damage dealt (and Souleater was like 20% total damage). For both PLD and DRK, auto-attacks are what deals the most damage.

Fell Cleave cannot even be compared to Holy Spirit or Bloodspiller, since it's about 40% of a WAR's total damage (more than twice Bloodpsilla's contribution, and three/four times Holy Spirit's).

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Looks like you missed a Requiscat window, as well as missing at least one Holy Spirit per window you did have.

As a WAR main who just leveled DRK from 60 to 70 (as in, hit 70 last night), I enjoyed reading this thread and the different takes everyone has on the current state of DRK. I'm much more of an "intuitive" than a "technical" thinker, so I appreciate the number-crunching of those who lean toward the latter; it's helped me grow tremendously as a player the last couple months.

I know this thread has been going on for a few weeks, and I'm not wading in now with anything particularly substantial, but wanted to add that I had an absolute blast leveling to 70. The gameplay is much different than the build-and-burst style of WAR and feels super speedy on controller with lots of buttons to press--seems to generally have shorter CDs than WAR's off-global moves--but still feels comfortably tanky to me.

Not intending to suggest anyone's opinion is wrong, just thought I'd share my perspective as someone relatively new to SB DRK that I'm really enjoying the play style right now and can't really imagine what I'd change about it. That said, my views could always evolve once I attempt savage raids with DRK.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Snip.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Looks like you missed a Requiscat window, as well as missing at least one Holy Spirit per window you did have.

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Thanks for the log review, I'll take a better example than my terrible scrub performance. I'll take our World First UwU team as example, on God Kefka : https://www.fflogs.com/reports/V7ztg...pe=damage-done The difference in TBN usage is huge, Raffter used it 10 times less than I did.

The inital statement from Lyth was Bloodspiller is a much smaller proportion of DRK's DPS than Holy Spirit is to PLD.

In this case, Bloodspiller contributes 12% of DRK's DPS, Holy Spirit 15% of PLD's DPS. 3% difference isn't something I'd call much smaller. But it is cherry picking, feel free to bring another example.
Though I agree on Fell Cleave being a much higher proportion than Bloodspiller.

I still have much to learn.

I mean, you're still way ahead of me there. All I got is data reading. Practice is another matter.

Much of my concern with Dark Knight has primarily been inequity (which has largely been addressed) and style (Which is opinion). On the side of equity, Dark Knight's in a pretty good position with the recent changes, even if some of it, like Soul Survivor, feels uninspired. As far as baseline defensive kits go, the weaknesses were shored up and the specialties were emphasized. It is standing shoulder to shoulder now, with little room to debate on an efficiency front.

It's fine if Bloodspiller, Fellcelave, and Holy Spirit occupy different rungs. They emphasize different approaches to the tanks, and what we really need is more tank and healer diversity right now, rather than the core kit of each being exactly the same, palette swapped actions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jhett_Magnum

Pretty sure there was an interview where yoshi says DRK is fine and not being looked at. Time to adapt.

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You would be wrong. Before 4.3 dropped, Yoshi said that it would take 6 months to redesign how DRK plays, so that would assume something else is on the way but not anytime soon.

Did someone has the last stats for the game ?
I've seen one recently and I'm pretty sure there is less DRK than during HW.

I could be wrong however, I've just take a quick look.