Is anyone surprised at this point?

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

I'm not underappreciating it's potency. WAR's my go-to tank for dungeons because, thanks to nascent, I don't care what skill level the Healer is; they're irrelevant.
But let's be honest.
Nascent: 6s duration, 25s recast.
Bloodbath: 20s duration, 90s recast.

I'm not a numbers person but 25x4=100, and 6x4=24, yeah? So how mugh of that 10s difference that nascent has over bloodbath equates to GCD's impacted by that ability? I'd argue one. A single GCD of lifesteal on WAR over literally every melee DPS. wow.

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I am.

Nascent destroys Bloodbath. It's not even a fair comparison.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I am.

Nascent destroys Bloodbath. It's not even a fair comparison.

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Can you provide your math too please?

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Can you provide your math too please?

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Using the following, as the tank variant was slightly different.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

Bloodbath was roughly 25% heals from damage dealt for 30 secs

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Nascent is 50-75% of your damage dealt as healing, with 6s/25s duration/recast
Bloodbath is 25% of your damage dealt as healing, with 30s/90s duration/recast.

The primary advantage Bloodbath had going for it is that it lined up with with (prior to the Stormblood rework) your IR/Berserk window, meaning the 8 GCDs you could fill were going to 6 Fell Cleaves and 2 fillers, along with your OGCDs, or all 5 of your post rework IR GCDs.

Comparatively, Nascent can only fit 3 gcds into it, but those GCDs are twice as effective (thrice with a friend). From here it's just a matter of simple comparison.

Does 6 effective IR Fell Cleaves outheal 5? Yes.

Does 6 effective GCDs outheal 12? No. But you can get 18 in less total time, and more surgically selected. Does 18 outheal 12? Yes.

Does 2 Upheavels outheal 1? Yes.

And this is without considering you can have a friend. Nascent's effectiveness increases by 50% just for having someone in range. So not only do you outheal bloodbath for yourself with Nascent, you give Bloodbath back to a friend.

The numbers themselves will change if you compare complete toolkits against the other - But we aren't. We're just comparing Bloodbath to Nascent, and Nascent stomps it. There are few scenarios where you only change Bloodbath and Nascent's position where Nascent doesn't come out on top.

You effectively have to die in the interim of better healing with Nascent that the longer duration of Blooodbath would cover for you, however given how much HP nascent can restore to you, this requires that enemy damage be high enough that doubled effective healing isn't enough to save you.

So your condition for Bloodbath being better is twofold - You need the longer duration, but lower healing for at least 12+ seconds, and the enemy threatening you has to die within 30s where your own death is going to come just after.

Very few entities in the game are going to give you that level of threat combined with such a timely death.

But that's just output. Lets talk about practical use.

Practically speaking, being able to target your strongest damage windows for life drain is far better than having a bigger life drain window, but nothing to throw into it. Bloodbath being a 90s cooldown lining up with IR inflates how good Bloodbath looks individually. After all, you can just pop it every time before you go into IR.

But do you need to?

What if your IR window is happening when you're not taking damage?

People might say warrior is "boring" now, but it wasn't exactly boasting much better in Stormblood. Any time Bloodbath isn't used with IR, you're doing 12 GCDs of filler and non-boosted Fell Cleaves. Basically the same as a non-focused Nascent window in terms of output.

Nascent being shorter duration and shorter recast effectively lets you work it around all your burst. This nascent can be used with IR. This nascent can be used with IC. This one is in between big hits and lets you cover some auto attack damage.

A 30s bloodbath is prone to overhealing or underhealing based entirely on the whims of the encounter and your party, but Nascent is much more in your control.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

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That is some sick math.
I had no idea it was so strong.

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Originally Posted by Argyle_Darkheart

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At the end of the day, it comes down to value.

Clearing content isn't the issue. Gear makes content easier over time. So how do you define what makes a player good or not? Damage output is a measure of this, but only if you can correlate higher skill with higher damage output. If you're just doing more damage because you picked a particular job and rolled your face across the keyboard, then it has no value whatsoever as a measure of skill.

Game developers think that if you make the average player feel good about themselves, they'll stick around and make more purchases. That's true in the short-term, as evidenced by countless F2P cashgrabs, but shortsighted. You only value the the things that you really worked for. You need differences in skill to correlate to differences in performance. Otherwise, the average player has nothing to look up to, and nothing to aspire to. There's no reason to stick around and get better.

Alarm bells should ring in your head any time somebody buffs your base combo without doing anything else to raise the difficulty of your job. Congratulations, you paid your subscription. You won the game, you are the best of the best. Please buy more mogstation glamours. Is there any surprise why tanking and healing ennui is so prevalent? I don't know about you, but I would feel embarrassed to be handed a win without putting any work into it. I wouldn't feel good about that at all, but apparently some people do.

My stance always has, and always will be this: skill differences should translate into performance differences. I want to play a job that is recognized by the playerbase as high skill, with a low performance floor and a high performance ceiling. Ideally a tank, given that I've spent the better part of 15 years playing tanks. Ideally something with a cool aesthetic, like big greatswords swung at high speeds. That's why I liked DRK in Heavensward.

But my biggest requirement is that skill correlate with performance, across all tanks.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

But my biggest requirement is that skill correlate with performance, across all tanks.

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Yes. High skill ceiling and low floor is what’s missing. I will admit I could see the difficulty in tuning all the jobs so that player effort=Job performance on a sliding scale. I would be willing to show grace if the kinks are worked out quickly and not left toward the end of the expansion like DRK in sb.

I wish SE would put as much effort into job adjustments/reworks as they do on the story.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

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I'm sorry but it sounds to me like you're missing the forest for the trees. Like, there's never been or can ever be numbers adjustments to balance out a jobs damage with it's supposed complexity or proper "tier"? It's all just stuffing your face with cake? Nom nom nom...

There are far too many dimensions by which one could calculate any given player's level of skill. Damage needs to be looked at relatively not comparatively. GNB to GNB, WAR to WAR, PLD to PLD, DRK to DRK, etc. If knowing that GNB deals more damage at base than a WAR, then seeing them do more damage in a fight doesn't necessarily mean they are more skilled, they are "just doing more damage because (they) picked a particular job". It's at least a heavy consideration. In this instance the only way I can judge my skill level is against another WAR.

Consider too that there is a difference in skill at a job vs skill at content/game mechanics in general. Knowing how to dodge an aoe at the last moment to get an extra GCD in translates to all jobs, not any specific one. Cheesing a mechanic with an invuln to get more attacks in is likewise transferable across tank jobs. These have nothing to do with the complexity of a job itself but certainly contribute to what might be considered in determining if a player is "good" or not.

Among other things, complexity of the job is not really all that good of a metric imo. Any "good" player that spends enough time on a job will become comfortably proficient at it, likely to a level above average if we're just looking at numbers. All that's required is time and practice. Some people are naturally more adept at learning or muscle memorizing, others need more time. At the end of the day it's all the same, great players will still be great.

Sure, we all know that certain jobs have inflated dps for less effort. When you outperform them, everyone else in the group knows fairly decisively that you're better. It's doubly embarrassing to come up short. That implication was what Arygle was getting upset about, but in fairness, it's always been in the game (How did you outdps both the WAR and BRD? etc. etc.) There's no point begging for inflated numbers. It only works to your disadvantage.

By the way, all the things that you described in the latter part of your post have to do with uptime. And again, uptime should always translate into more damage, regardless of the job you pick. I don't really care how much you artificially boost your numbers, as long as you're in striking range to be properly shown up by another tank with better uptime.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Damage output is a measure of this, but only if you can correlate higher skill with higher damage output.

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You can. Barring RNG and kill time woes, if you play better, then you will deal more damage. You don't deal more damage by playing worse (well, there's padding and griefing your party for some selfish advantage, but those are the exception); that wouldn't even make sense.

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I want to play a job that is recognized by the playerbase as high skill, with a low performance floor and a high performance ceiling. Ideally a tank...

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I don't. Or, rather, I don't particularly care. I've played WAR since 2.0; it's been all over the place when it comes to skill expression.

I want to play a tank that has high impact with reasonable skill expression. Sadly, I wouldn't call any of the tanks "high impact," currently.

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But my biggest requirement is that skill correlate with performance, across all tanks.

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It already does? But not to the extent that you would like it to, I'm assuming? I don't know, you're talking very generally about a very specific thing.

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Alarm bells should ring in your head any time somebody buffs your base combo without doing anything else to raise the difficulty of your job...I don't know about you, but I would feel embarrassed to be handed a win without putting any work into it. I wouldn't feel good about that at all, but apparently some people do.

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Why? The potency changes literally do nothing to WAR gameplay. If you were bad before, then you're bad now. If you were good before, then you're good now. If anything, the changes reward good fundamentals and shift some focus away from 90s unga bunga.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Sure, we all know that certain jobs have inflated dps for less effort. When you outperform them, everyone else in the group knows fairly decisively that you're better. It's doubly embarrassing to come up short. That implication was what Arygle was getting upset about, but in fairness, it's always been in the game (How did you outdps both the WAR and BRD? etc. etc.) There's no point begging for inflated numbers. It only works to your disadvantage.

By the way, all the things that you described in the latter part of your post have to do with uptime. And again, uptime should always translate into more damage, regardless of the job you pick. I don't really care how much you artificially boost your numbers, as long as you're in striking range to be properly shown up by another tank with better uptime.

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Have you ever stopped, for a moment, to examine your borderline-obsession with showing off your SK1LLZ via your class choice? I'm guilty of showboating just as much as the next guy, but the way you go out it, to me it's like it embodies the meme of "it's not enough that I succeed but others must fail." It comes off like you desire not to show how much you're capable of, but you want to show "BTW I outdpsed the actual dps and the defacto tank dps." Almost like your success hinges on the failures of others, embarrassing or humiliating them.

Gotta re-examine that, brother.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

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Perhaps we should re-examine which game we're playing, then. Any game that is skill driven is going to have an element of competition. There's always going to be an element of failure or loss. It takes a certain amount of maturity to shrug that off and use that frustration to try and get better. I would feel genuinely mortified to be handed an easy win, and I'm surprised that you aren't. I actually find it quite odd that you were gloating about your job's supposed superiority earlier in the thread. That's nothing to do with your skill level. And if anything, it'll just make it more embarrassing to lose out to someone playing a less 'superiorly-designed' job. It's to your disadvantage.

Everyone wants more stuff. More damage, more loot, more rewards. But it's their scarcity that drives their value. If everyone has the same weapon as you, that weapon isn't all that special. If everyone does the same damage regardless of skill, effort, or performance, then the damage you do isn't meaningful. If everyone clears the same content, then being able to clear isn't that special. But that's what we're moving towards. We're afraid of letting tanks and healers fail, which is why you don't have impact any more. I wonder if we'll ever get to the point where 'raid content' becomes swarmable raid bosses that get cleared whether you live or die in the encounter. You participated? You win. Buy more glamours. All the Bravest, now for PC.

And again, unless you're willing to let your players become frustrated, unless your rewards have scarcity to them, unless you have a skill differential, and unless you have winners and losers, the rewards in the game lose value and people lose interest. A short term gain becomes a long term loss. The devs are cashing out while they can.

I think that it's reasonable to look for damage buffs, but it's to your own interest to seek it out in a way that adds depth to your job. Freebies devalue what you do, and devalue what all tanks do. If everyone can do it, there's no reason to improve.

It's just an incredibly idealistic perspective. Remember what happened the last time players became too frustrated with the game. Most people want to have fun while playing, only a small niche enjoy beating their heads against a wall for 100s of hours. Small niches ain't gonna pay SE's bills.

IMO there's just not that much difference. Getting a 100 on WAR isn't really any easier than getting a 100 on GNB or DRK or PLD or any other job. And like, after I got GNB to 80 I went to try it out and did pretty much the same damage I did on WAR without very much practice on it. 90% correct play on WAR vs 50% correct play on GNB with basically the same result. Such skillz. Much free wins. The added complexity you speak of is more than meaningless in this regard.

So yes, there's only going to be a relatively small subset of players at the top. But that's actually what drives games like this. It has to be accessible, such that anyone can understand and enjoy it, but there also has to be that unattainable peak that everyone else looks up to. That's also the sort of thing that keeps content providers going. If you're not doing something extraordinary, why should I watch you? The reason why those 8 WAR runs back in ARR were fun to watch was because we didn't expect people to pull them off. I want to see someone push the envelope in a job I play.

Those 'small niches' are what keep people going. If I've done everything that's there to do, and seen everything that's there to see, there's no reason to stick around. Unsub until the next tier (unless you have a house to maintain). This is why you have content pitched at different difficulty levels. But players shouldn't get every reward automatically handed out to them because they demand it. It devalues effort, and I have no time for such people.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Perhaps we should re-examine which game we're playing, then. Any game that is skill driven is going to have an element of competition. There's always going to be an element of failure or loss.

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At the end of the day, you need to realize this is not a competitive game. There's no winning or losing when the objective is for your party to beat the content. Either you all win, and get the clear, or you don't. Your co-tank is your partner, not your adversary. You just can't win or lose against someone who's not even competing against you.

I enjoy partaking in healthy "othering", much in the same way people will show pride in being from Los Angeles and gloat about how The Lakers beat The Celtics to someone from Boston. I love WAR, and WAR loves me. I love seeing my home team win, of course I'm going to gloat about it. But at no one point am I actually belittling or berating others for not having done as well as I, nor am I going to beat myself up because I die and end up with a terrible parse compared to my co-tank, and I'm sure as hell not going to think my value as a player with the level of experience I have has been lessened. I'll play the game I love and improve for the fun of it, and that's it!

Let's be realistic here for a moment, saying the devs are cashing out for handing out potency buffs to WAR is silly. Fact of the matter is it's just not as popular as it used to be, especially when DRK copied it's playstyle for accessibility's sake, GNB's the shiny new toy, and PLD's the known posterboy for next expac. Listen, the point is that no one ever said this game was competitive, and no one ever said you'd be "rewarded" justly for playing a "harder" class. As cheesy as it sounds, the real success is in the friends you make along the way. It'd do you some good to realize that.

I dont think people have realized that when they break apart into the "pro DA spam" group, the "HW DRK" group, the "BW drama" group, and the "DRK is always gonna be broken because its not designed how i think it should be" the devs will literally sit there and go "F you". Tanks are fine right now, the issue is burnout and boredom people have with the game in general.

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Originally Posted by RinaB

I dont think people have realized that when they break apart into the "pro DA spam" group, the "HW DRK" group, the "BW drama" group, and the "DRK is always gonna be broken because its not designed how i think it should be" the devs will literally sit there and go "F you". Tanks are fine right now, the issue is burnout and boredom people have with the game in general.

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Then they need new devs. Their job is to sort through the feedback and determine a course of action. If they've simply ran out of creativity in where to take the job, or result to heavily copying the design of another for simplicity sake, then fresh eyes are clearly needed because the burnout comes internally. Tanks aren't "fine" right now. At least not in the eyes of many. And it's more than a little presumptuous to claim people's dislike for certain design choices are due to burn out.

Speaking only for myself, I've tried DRK throughout this whole expansion and never once enjoyed it all too much. There are some decent ideas but otherwise it feels far too similar to WAR except with more effort required for no real reason or reward. I'm neither burnt out nor bored. I just think they missed the mark completely on DRK this expansion.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Then they need new devs. Their job is to sort through the feedback and determine a course of action. If they've simply ran out of creativity in where to take the job, or result to heavily copying the design of another for simplicity sake, then fresh eyes are clearly needed because the burnout comes internally. Tanks aren't "fine" right now. At least not in the eyes of many. And it's more than a little presumptuous to claim people's dislike for certain design choices are due to burn out.

Speaking only for myself, I've tried DRK throughout this whole expansion and never once enjoyed it all too much. There are some decent ideas but otherwise it feels far too similar to WAR except with more effort required for no real reason or reward. I'm neither burnt out nor bored. I just think they missed the mark completely on DRK this expansion.

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Yeah, and? I hate paladin so does that mean the the class is broken, unplayable and needs to be reworked? I dont think its too much to demand job reworks or changes, I think the issue is with so many varying opinions on said job, what kind of position would that leave you in as a developer? And people are burned out because content has rolled out slow this past year and I've already noticed longer queue times since 5.5 launch meaning people came for story 1 run of new content and bounced.

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Originally Posted by RinaB

Yeah, and? I hate paladin so does that mean the the class is broken, unplayable and needs to be reworked? I dont think its too much to demand job reworks or changes, I think the issue is with so many varying opinions on said job, what kind of position would that leave you in as a developer? And people are burned out because content has rolled out slow this past year and I've already noticed longer queue times since 5.5 launch meaning people came for story 1 run of new content and bounced.

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Except Paladin hasn't undergone any substantial redesign whereas Dark Knight has. It's similar to the complaints of numerous Bard mains who feel the jobs whole identity was ripped out in favor of giving said identity to Dancer, leaving them an Archer with songs. There's a reason after four years, HW Dark Knight remains the most praised iteration of the job. And that should stand out to the dev team on where to build their foundation from. They likely aren't going to nail every complaint but it's a far better starting point returning to what worked than continuing their attempt to force a new design every expansion.

General burnout from the game isn't relevant in this argument, and ignores these complaints started within the first month of Shadowbringers. People didn't wake up come 5.5 and suddenly decide Dark Knight needs a second overhaul. The lack of new content doesn't change people's opinion on job design. Hence why I cited myself as someone who is still actively playing, isn't burnt out and has never enjoyed Dark Knight at any point this expansion. I'm far from the only one evident by the sheer number of complaints we've seen.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Except Paladin hasn't undergone any substantial redesign whereas Dark Knight has. It's similar to the complaints of numerous Bard mains who feel the jobs whole identity was ripped out in favor of giving said identity to Dancer, leaving them an Archer with sings. There's a reason after four years, HW Dark Knight remains the most praised iteration of the job. And that should stand out to the dev team on where to build their foundation from. They likely aren't going to nail every complaint but it's a far better starting point returning to what worked than continuing their attempt to force a new design every expansion.

General burnout from the game isn't relevant in this argument, and ignores these complaints started within the first month of Shadowbringers. People didn't wake up come 5.5 and suddenly decide Dark Knight needs a second overhaul. The lack of new content doesn't change people's opinion on job design. Hence why I cited myself as someone who is still actively playing, isn't burnt out and has never enjoyed Dark Knight at any point this expansion. I'm far from the only one evident by the sheer number of complaints we've seen.

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Thats fine but despite forum opinion there are a lot of people out there who like the current iteration of DRK, so screw them because HW DRK is best? This is my point, the reason why they keep reworking the class is because they can't find a happy medium and each rework has created its fan base. I think the issue started with the decision to rework the job each xpac instead of tweaking it for 1, for 2, I like current DRK and hope they build on to it because now I'm worried about 6.0 when I should be excited for it. Burnout is relevant because like real life, when you spend too much time at work or too much time with anything you start becoming annoyed by even the smallest of issues.

Current 5.0 DRK have recive heavy complains since the day the kit has been revealed back when SE lifted the info restriction to the youtubers that get invited for the especial event to try the new jobs skills, have been so heavy that several threats has been insta deleted without warning bcs some unfortunate manners about how SE totally miss interpreted the feedback. Since then DRK has been a non-stop of complains about his gameplay not only here but in the JP forum too and HW has been praised as the best version of the job in a way or another.

Is not a question of burnout basically bcs the job many use to love, me included, doesn't exist anymore. I consider create a mordernized version of HW DRK is basically what the job needs the most since is the comon point betwen most of the DRK feedback.

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Originally Posted by RinaB

Thats fine but despite forum opinion there are a lot of people out there who like the current iteration of DRK, so screw them because HW DRK is best? This is my point, the reason why they keep reworking the class is because they can't find a happy medium and each rework has created its fan base. I think the issue started with the decision to rework the job each xpac instead of tweaking it for 1, for 2, I like current DRK and hope they build on to it because now I'm worried about 6.0 when I should be excited for it. Burnout is relevant because like real life, when you spend too much time at work or too much time with anything you start becoming annoyed by even the smallest of issues.

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That rise another question, is fair snatch DRK from all the ppl who use to love it before 5.0 and leave it without nothing is fair? the answer is no, mostly bcs WAR is current DRK and current DRK is WAR so if DRK is reworked to recover the job we use to love the ppl who are playing right now still have WAR wich is basically the same gameplay with to little diferences.

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Originally Posted by shao32

Current 5.0 DRK have recive heavy complains since the day the kit has been revealed back when SE lifted the info restriction to the youtubers that get invited for the especial event to try the new jobs skills, have been so heavy that several threats has been insta deleted without warning bcs some unfortunate manners about how SE totally miss interpreted the feedback. Since then DRK has been a non-stop of complains about his gameplay not only here but in the JP forum too and HW has been praised as the best version of the job in a way or another.

Is not a question of burnout basically bcs the job many use to love, me included, doesn't exist anymore. I consider create a mordernized version of HW DRK is basically what the job needs the most since is the comon point betwen most of the DRK feedback.



That rise another question, is fair snatch DRK from all the ppl who use to love it before 5.0 and leave it without nothing is fair? the answer is no, mostly bcs WAR is current DRK and current DRK is WAR so if DRK is reworked to recover the job we use to love the ppl who are playing right now still have WAR wich is basically the same gameplay with to little diferences.

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So its ok to take current DRK away from people who like it and say "go play warrior" and you expect these people to sympathize with the "HW DRK is best" crowd? The devs have already made the decision to change the class dramatically in 5.0 and what im saying is to tweak and build on it instead of a whole new rework. Like I said in my previous post I think the rework every xpac was a bad decision but they did it anyway. As crazy as people think I am for liking current DRK, I for one can't believe people enjoyed the stormblood version but thats the dilemma the developers created. So since I keep talking about a happy medium and have not offered any solutions my hope is to use current DRK as a base and tweak it by bringing back key components from HW that people loved the most and make adjustments to accommodate the changes. Therefore we don't get a whole new rework, we don't have to play warriors, and people who love HW DRK at least get something. Maybe im delusional but thats the only thing I can see coming close to "pleasing everyone" which just isn't possible at all in life.

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Originally Posted by shao32

Current 5.0 DRK have recive heavy complains since the day the kit has been revealed back when SE lifted the info restriction to the youtubers that get invited for the especial event to try the new jobs skills, have been so heavy that several threats has been insta deleted without warning bcs some unfortunate manners about how SE totally miss interpreted the feedback. Since then DRK has been a non-stop of complains about his gameplay not only here but in the JP forum too and HW has been praised as the best version of the job in a way or another.

Is not a question of burnout basically bcs the job many use to love, me included, doesn't exist anymore. I consider create a mordernized version of HW DRK is basically what the job needs the most since is the comon point betwen most of the DRK feedback.



That rise another question, is fair snatch DRK from all the ppl who use to love it before 5.0 and leave it without nothing is fair? the answer is no, mostly bcs WAR is current DRK and current DRK is WAR so if DRK is reworked to recover the job we use to love the ppl who are playing right now still have WAR wich is basically the same gameplay with to little diferences.

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So its ok to take current DRK away from people who like it and say "go play warrior" and you expect these people to sympathize with the "HW DRK is best" crowd? The devs have already made the decision to change the class dramatically in 5.0 and what im saying is to tweak and build on it instead of a whole new rework. Like I said in my previous post I think the rework every xpac was a bad decision but they did it anyway. As crazy as people think I am for liking current DRK, I for one can't believe people enjoyed the stormblood version but thats the dilemma the developers
created.

So since I keep talking about a happy medium and have not offered any solutions my hope is to use current DRK as a base and tweak it by bringing back key components from HW that people loved the most and make adjustments to accommodate the changes. Therefore we don't get a whole new rework, we don't have to play warriors, and people who love HW DRK at least get something. Maybe im delusional but thats the only thing I can see coming close to "pleasing everyone" which just isn't possible at all in life.

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Originally Posted by RinaB

So its ok to take current DRK away from people who like it and say "go play warrior" and you expect these people to sympathize with the "HW DRK is best" crowd? The devs have already made the decision to change the class dramatically in 5.0 and what im saying is to tweak and build on it instead of a whole new rework. Like I said in my previous post I think the rework every xpac was a bad decision but they did it anyway. As crazy as people think I am for liking current DRK, I for one can't believe people enjoyed the stormblood version but thats the dilemma the developers
created.

So since I keep talking about a happy medium and have not offered any solutions my hope is to use current DRK as a base and tweak it by bringing back key components from HW that people loved the most and make adjustments to accommodate the changes. Therefore we don't get a whole new rework, we don't have to play warriors, and people who love HW DRK at least get something. Maybe im delusional but thats the only thing I can see coming close to "pleasing everyone" which just isn't possible at all in life.

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you have a duplicated post somehow ^^

It's ok that ppl like me has suffered his fav job been taked away to give this WAR copy? The devs make a lot of bad decisions and that's doesnt mean they should stick on it, remember HW bard for example many hate it some like it, the thing is i don't consider healty the job have to sufer constant reworks bcs the devs screw up and i preffer evolution, but i want that evolution based on HW DRK the original one and not the current WAR copy pasta bcs it just would be forever "WAR with" and i pretty much dislike WAR gameplay thats why i been forced to stop playing DRK complety. It's not a fair situation for any part but considering WAR gameplay already exist is more fair bring back old DRK or basically something based on how it was and have 2 more unique jobs that what we have now.

Now to mention many hate current delirium and dislike Blood weapon nerf betwen how useless is the Darkside mechanic, those are good reasons to re-estructure the job kit to make it work in a more unique way that is not based on a current job on the same role.

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Originally Posted by ArianeEwah

https://i.imgur.com/NE3hLvh.png

The Grit adjustment is just ridiculous. Did we ever had enmity problems with Living Shadow?!

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The living shadow thing sounds like more of a bug fix rather than being meant as a direct buff.

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Originally Posted by RinaB

Thats fine but despite forum opinion there are a lot of people out there who like the current iteration of DRK, so screw them because HW DRK is best? This is my point, the reason why they keep reworking the class is because they can't find a happy medium and each rework has created its fan base. I think the issue started with the decision to rework the job each xpac instead of tweaking it for 1, for 2, I like current DRK and hope they build on to it because now I'm worried about 6.0 when I should be excited for it. Burnout is relevant because like real life, when you spend too much time at work or too much time with anything you start becoming annoyed by even the smallest of issues.

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so your enjoyment is more valid that everyone else? Is that the take you wanna carry on with?
How about the myriad threads, hundreds if not thousands of posts by people across the globe saying "DRK is flawed, please address?"
Listen I'm happy you enjoy what DRK is now but frankly I don't honestly care that you like what it is now. You're going up against the HW DRK players and the SB DRK players, all of whom were shafted by DRK's continual redesigns.

And yet I can't justify directing this frustration towards you and others like you. I should be directing my ire, as should everyone, at the development team for letting things get this damn far out of hand. Why has DRK gone through so many wildly expansive changes? Why hasn't DRK had a consistent gameplay identity besides a super niche, and frankly outdated and outclassed "anti-magic" tank? Why was the idea in 5.x to just make it a copy of WAR? Why has DRK gotten nothing in terms of meaningful adjustments this entire expansion? Why is the perception that DRK player feedback is just ignored? Why is there a lack of engagement? Why?

I enjoy this game. But I can't help but see it's flaws and shortcomings and just be disappointed. I want to see it get better, not just "it makes Square Enix truckloads of cash." But it's getting more difficult as time goes on, just to have "well you're dumb and wrong and your opinion is bad and smelly and not mine so you're entirely not worth listening to lalala."

Healers have been shafted this expansion. Tanks have been shafted this expansion. Some DPS have been shafted this expansion. But only one of those three groups has really had anything done to help them out, and it's not the role the least amount of people play yet is just as if not more important.

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Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere

so your enjoyment is more valid that everyone else? Is that the take you wanna carry on with?
How about the myriad threads, hundreds if not thousands of posts by people across the globe saying "DRK is flawed, please address?"
Listen I'm happy you enjoy what DRK is now but frankly I don't honestly care that you like what it is now. You're going up against the HW DRK players and the SB DRK players, all of whom were shafted by DRK's continual redesigns.

And yet I can't justify directing this frustration towards you and others like you. I should be directing my ire, as should everyone, at the development team for letting things get this damn far out of hand. Why has DRK gone through so many wildly expansive changes? Why hasn't DRK had a consistent gameplay identity besides a super niche, and frankly outdated and outclassed "anti-magic" tank? Why was the idea in 5.x to just make it a copy of WAR? Why has DRK gotten nothing in terms of meaningful adjustments this entire expansion? Why is the perception that DRK player feedback is just ignored? Why is there a lack of engagement? Why?

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Well first of all I never said it was a good thing the class got reworked so dramatically. I also never said it was a good thing to ruin it for the people who liked it. I barely played DRK in stormblood because it felt like a clunky mess of button mashing to do what you could on a warrior with half the effort and more damage. Like I said in my double post (not sure how that happened) I would like to see the devs stop the reworks and find some happy medium. Now I understand thats pretty much another rework but maybe it doesn't have to be so dramatic.

Yes I like current DRK, but its not without its flaws. Its not perfect and it wasn't perfect in the other xpacs either. After the 5.0 rework I think its pretty apparent they are not going back to the HW model and its not just for DRK. So what im trying to talk about is where is the compromise? How can we retain the best of the old and the best of the new? Maybe its impossible, im not a dev but I dont like this argument of "I don't care if you like drk, I want hw drk back and screw you". Let's say you all got HW DRK back and your dreams came true. Would I adapt and play it? Yes. Would people start coming up with all kinds of new threads complaining about it or leaving the job entirely? Yes. So why does it have to be so extreme? Because they might change it so much in 6.0 that we ALL hate it and i think im justified in my worries about this.

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Originally Posted by RinaB

[...]After the 5.0 rework I think its pretty apparent they are not going back to the HW model and its not just for DRK. So what im trying to talk about is where is the compromise? How can we retain the best of the old and the best of the new? Maybe its impossible [...]

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I mean, it's not impossible in the same way that quantum mechanics mean a lot of things are technically possible just really unlikely. But I feel like the chances of them going back to their roots of weird anti-synergy are probably long past. DADM + DADP + Blood Price will never be a hilariously expensive combo again.

Furthermore, a la WhyAmIHere

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Why has DRK gotten nothing in terms of meaningful adjustments this entire expansion? Why is the perception that DRK player feedback is just ignored? Why is there a lack of engagement? Why?

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DRK usage rates are just fine. Why would they dedicate time to a huge overhaul of a job that has a reasonably sized population of players? Bard has oodles more reasons to be adjusted, but hasn't exactly been reworked from the ground up itself. If there's no Bard rework in the works, why would they spend money redesigning DRK when people are already using it? Their rationale (I'm guessing) is that if people don't like it they'll try something else. I mean, DRK usage (proportionally) is waaay better now than it was during Stormblood, so it's probably mission successful to them. Even if I vaaastly prefer StB DRK, I was clearly in a smaller minority then compared to the people who like it now.

Why make anything better? Well, that's what the competition does.

If you were designing a new expansion, what would you be doing? Hopefully looking through job designs and making improvements, for one. It's surprising that some abilities, like Divine Veil and Living Dead, continue to remain completely unaltered in their original, clunky forms. Surely someone must have looked at them at some point between 2015 and today. It's odd that they're so talked about by players, but we're yet to hear any sort of dev commentary. I'd love to read a really in depth interview on what any dev feels about the state of tanks, current abilities and interactions, and content design. What's your design philosophy? What gameplay direction are you moving in? But even when you hear a role mentioned it gets discussed in only the most general of terms.

There's a progressive move away from giving tanks wipe potential. Tankbusters are rarer, and damage is less scary. Mob movement in raids is less frequently under our control. That's fine, but I want to see someone come out and say that, and outline their philosophy behind how they want tanks to contribute in the future. Are we going to become melee dps with frontal positionals? If so, will we get more engaging rotations, more opportunities for skilled play, and more opportunities to have impact?

You don't have to rework everything, but you do need to let players in on your thought process and communicate with them. And historically we've had a lot of radio silence, especially because all the communication comes from a single person, instead of from the people directly involved in job design.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Why make anything better? Well, that's what the competition does.

If you were designing a new expansion, what would you be doing? Hopefully looking through job designs and making improvements, for one. It's surprising that some abilities, like Divine Veil and Living Dead, continue to remain completely unaltered in their original, clunky forms. Surely someone must have looked at them at some point between 2015 and today. It's odd that they're so talked about by players, but we're yet to hear any sort of dev commentary. I'd love to read a really in depth interview on what any dev feels about the state of tanks, current abilities and interactions, and content design. What's your design philosophy? What gameplay direction are you moving in? But even when you hear a role mentioned it gets discussed in only the most general of terms.

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I agree with you and I'll give my own opinion as to whats probably going on here. Based on what I saw going from stormblood DRK and MCH to shadowbringers DRK and MCH, theyre wanting to streamline jobs who were "cluttered" and make them more user friendly. The MCH rotation was so tedious to manage in SB and so was DRK and you could achieve the same if not better results from other jobs without all the buttons and constant micro management. Obviously people love this sort of gameplay and I dont have an issue with peoples gaming preferences (which is why no ui looks the same). I for one prefer a smoother experience that still demands I manage my character but leaves me a lot more room to focus on the game instead of staring at my ui constantly. This is one of the biggest reasons I do like current DRK but that doesn't go without saying I would like another melee combo alternative to the 1,2,3, a rework of delirium to get us away from WAR 5 hit spam and a BW rework. This is just my 2 cents on what seems to be their design decisions moving forward and I think the "buttons tank" is now GNB. Maybe im wrong who knows.

Thing is, DRK most likely got gutted because the skill ceiling was too high for the average player to manage. Why would you make something as complex as possible if the rewards outweigh the benefits? Complexity needs to be rewarding enough to engage the player in its intricacy to the point their learning experience shows steadfast results.

The overall design philosophy behind tanks has drastically changed in 5.0, albeit in a very simple way. Enmity generation has been essentially cut. The battle climax always ends the same way, in which your damage output is irrelevant. Now, I know some people aren't particularly fond of enmity but you cannot logically cut something without finding a proper replacement instead. Tanking feels unrewarding because there's nothing you can do wrong. Take a DPS for example, their primary goal is to maximize efficency and use their skills accordingly to decrease their enemies HP significantly. The lesson learned is if you play lazy the timer shows you that your run took far longer than it needed. The message is clear. What can be said about tanks however? Aside from your regular Tank Buster and popping CD's there's little to nothing that can go wrong. The game doesn't demand much from you and it can feel somewhat underwelming when gameplay holds your hand.

You can design encounters from the perspective of a tank, for one. As a matter of fact, the last dungeon added in patch 5.5 has a fight where you need to place mobs accordingly to avoid damage to your entire party. With this in mind, I'm confident the developers have understood the gravity of the situation and will make further adjustments regarding all the criticism players were vocal about. To an extend Shadowbringers was a neccessary, albeit painful rework trying to adress issues that originally started when HW branched off to SB, a time in which the mindset has changed and much more people started playing FFXIV. Naturally, you ought to adjust classes to avoid negative feedback from your playerbase.

With all of this said, I believe you can make something complex and rewarding without overwhelming the player. What once was is now gone, but that doesn't exclude the possibility to enhance the experience and introduce more versatlity to each tank. Give real meaningful impact towards the interactivity of each action, it's all possible but we're all at the mercy of the developers and we can only but trust that they make the right decisions for us.

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Originally Posted by RinaB

Thats fine but despite forum opinion there are a lot of people out there who like the current iteration of DRK, so screw them because HW DRK is best? This is my point, the reason why they keep reworking the class is because they can't find a happy medium and each rework has created its fan base. I think the issue started with the decision to rework the job each xpac instead of tweaking it for 1, for 2, I like current DRK and hope they build on to it because now I'm worried about 6.0 when I should be excited for it. Burnout is relevant because like real life, when you spend too much time at work or too much time with anything you start becoming annoyed by even the smallest of issues.

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To be blunt, yes. At least to a certain degree. While I appreciate you prefer this iteration, fans of the original design have been effectively screwed too. Priority should always be on those who already like the job, not chasing new fans which is something SE has been increasingly guilty of doing. For comparison sake, look no further than Bard. There are people who prefer it's more Ranger focus this expansion. Hell, some want it to lose songs entirely. Should that demographic be appeased when the far louder voice are Bards from Stormblood who found their preferred job identity destroyed?

Ultimately, the fault of this divide lies on the dev team and their constant re-design. The likelihood any of us are wholly satisfied with DRK isn't high. Which is why I think they need to start with the most popular foundation and incorporate some aspects of the re-design from there. Living Shadow and TBN have both solid additions. Personally, I dislike how spam-y Flood of Shadow is, though perhaps they could make it work. Old Blood Weapon, on the other hand, should return to better separate DRK from its counterparts. Delirium needs yet another overhaul, or frankly, just remove the ability entirely and do something new with Bloodspiller. Either way, I'd like DRK to get away entirely from the "spam x button five times" philosophy. Let it be unique, something the tanks desperately need.

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Originally Posted by Shin96

Thing is, DRK most likely got gutted because the skill ceiling was too high for the average player to manage. Why would you make something as complex as possible if the rewards outweigh the benefits? Complexity needs to be rewarding enough to engage the player in its intricacy to the point their learning experience shows steadfast results.

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It's this mentality which has since screwed up their design philosophy. DRK was never overly complex. It just asked more of you than Warrior or Paladin. The bigger issue is both how bad people were at the game back then and that several wanted DRK to be a DPS and tried treating it as such. Not to mention, WAR was comically overpowered back then. On the whole though, DRK was about as complex as GNB is now. You can to watch for Low Blow procs and know what to Dark Arts but it wasn't anything too robust.

SE simply caved and has since found themselves re-designing DRK every expansion. That should be rather telling they overreacted.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

To be blunt, yes. At least to a certain degree. While I appreciate you prefer this iteration, fans of the original design have been effectively screwed too. Priority should always be on those who already like the job, not chasing new fans which is something SE has been increasingly guilty of doing. For comparison sake, look no further than Bard. There are people who prefer it's more Ranger focus this expansion. Hell, some want it to lose songs entirely. Should that demographic be appeased when the far louder voice are Bards from Stormblood who found their preferred job identity destroyed?

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Ideally, it should be both. They need to engage newer players with accessability without disrespecting players loyal to the original concept of the jobs. What they've been doing however is the exact opposite and while I like to be optimistic, the recent developements have shown that it seems their priority is placed far higher towards expanding the playerbase at the expense of people that enjoy their jobs and have them ruined. These simplifications and destruction of identity will most likely continue. Now I personally wish for nothing more than for DRK to return to its HW iteration but the majority wins the vote and if this means displeasing us, they will accept that loss because ultimately, growth they do find more important. Judging by how this situation is evolving of course.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

To be blunt, yes. At least to a certain degree. While I appreciate you prefer this iteration, fans of the original design have been effectively screwed too. Priority should always be on those who already like the job, not chasing new fans which is something SE has been increasingly guilty of doing.

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If only those OG players were populous enough that SQEX didn't need to try and make the job cater to a wider crowd...

Also, SQEX isn't trying to improve the job. They just have to change it for the sake of making it different for each expac. Otherwise jobs that were in a "perfect spot" would have basically been kept in stasis. I wonder what form DRK would have taken were this a single player game.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

If only those OG players were populous enough that SQEX didn't need to try and make the job cater to a wider crowd...

Also, SQEX isn't trying to improve the job. They just have to change it for the sake of making it different for each expac. Otherwise jobs that were in a "perfect spot" would have basically been kept in stasis. I wonder what form DRK would have taken were this a single player game.

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Mostly the Shadowbringers version, but keeping the Heavensward counter-attacking and ability enhancing aspects.

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Originally Posted by RinaB

So its ok to take current DRK away from people who like it and say "go play warrior" and you expect these people to sympathize with the "HW DRK is best" crowd?

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The "HW DRK is Best" crowd is wrong, because Allah knows that the "SB DRK is best" crowd is correct.

Anyways, would you be sad if they took away current DRK? Why? If you liked how it plays, WAR is available. Why isn't "go play war" a valid response? You'll be pleased to know WAR feels way better in almost every respect. Or, do you just want to swing around a greatsword in black spiky armor and have good results for playing at a low APM while avoiding the giant axe, fur-n-leather-wearing barbarian aesthetic? That's my biggest gripe, that this was less of an issue of gameplay and more so about taking one style of play away to give the aesthetic to the masses.

Honestly, I just want the kit back. DRK or not, I don't really care about any aesthetic or weapon, or w/e. a new tank job could be added and be called Tin Foiler for all I care, and use cardboard for as it's main weapon, but so long as it utilized that same fast-paced style of resource management, I'd sign up for my new 2nd main.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

Anyways, would you be sad if they took away current DRK?

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Much as I love it, no.
Because it must change, for good or for ill, and I've long since accepted that.
I will have more fun playing a class I do enjoy (DRK or not) than I would pining after something I could never have again.
I became a DRK main in StormBlood and do not get hung up about SB DRK either.

But everyone is different.

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Originally Posted by Shin96

Ideally, it should be both. They need to engage newer players with accessability without disrespecting players loyal to the original concept of the jobs. What they've been doing however is the exact opposite and while I like to be optimistic, the recent developements have shown that it seems their priority is placed far higher towards expanding the playerbase at the expense of people that enjoy their jobs and have them ruined. These simplifications and destruction of identity will most likely continue. Now I personally wish for nothing more than for DRK to return to its HW iteration but the majority wins the vote and if this means displeasing us, they will accept that loss because ultimately, growth they do find more important. Judging by how this situation is evolving of course.

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Most definitely. Increased accessibility isn't itself a bad philosophy. Focusing on it almost exclusively is. And it's that mentality which led to some of the blandest and least creative design choices we've seen. Regardless of your thoughts on Dark Knight, there is no excuse for Delirium being identical to Inner Release but simple laziness. They had no idea what to do and opted for an easy and "accessible" fix. Which, to the surprise of no one, led to mass criticism. It's the same tone deaf response they took with Monk; going so far as to announcing it was the most proud of job changes they made going into Shadowbringers despite addressing literally none of the feedback. It's baffling how they didn't foresee the ire which resulted in them panic buffing and later overhauling Monk entirely.

Sadly, it seems players need to take drastic responses to actually get attention because when the playerbase threw up their hands and refused to play Monk, it finally saw its aforementioned rework.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

If only those OG players were populous enough that SQEX didn't need to try and make the job cater to a wider crowd...

Also, SQEX isn't trying to improve the job. They just have to change it for the sake of making it different for each expac. Otherwise jobs that were in a "perfect spot" would have basically been kept in stasis. I wonder what form DRK would have taken were this a single player game.

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Except... they were. Bard was by far the most popular DPS in the entire game. In fact, it was among the most popular jobs period throughout Stormblood.

The deemphasis on support is literally due to their silly belief only one support range can exist, and they elected Dancer to be that job. That, and their fear of Bard reaching the overpowered heights it had. Which, ironically, was their own damn fault because they never considered the impact piercing had on Bard and Machinist.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Except [...] Bard

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I thought we were talking about DRK?
I'm not making a sweeping statement about all jobs.
I'm just commenting on DRK in a thread about it.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I thought we were talking about DRK?
I'm not making a sweeping statement about all jobs.
I'm just commenting on DRK in a thread about it.

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Fair enough. I mentioned Bard immediately after where you quoted as my example of the devs ignoring popular opinion due to their own bias.

With that said though, my point still applies in a general sense. People complained about Dark Arts spam and the lack of AoE mitigation. No one asked for a massive overhaul nor did they even want Dark Arts removed. The devs overcompensated for no real reason and landed on budget Warrior. In that context, it's similar to their lack of reaction to Monk despite it's horrendous player numbers. Which suggests they aren't paying attention to feedback, but either overreacting to small complaints or stubbornly clinging to a job philosophy that doesn't work.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Fair enough. I mentioned Bard immediately after where you quoted as my example of the devs ignoring popular opinion due to their own bias.

With that said though, my point still applies in a general sense. People complained about Dark Arts spam and the lack of AoE mitigation. No one asked for a massive overhaul nor did they even want Dark Arts removed. The devs overcompensated for no real reason and landed on budget Warrior. In that context, it's similar to their lack of reaction to Monk despite it's horrendous player numbers. Which suggests they aren't paying attention to feedback, but either overreacting to small complaints or stubbornly clinging to a job philosophy that doesn't work.

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stubbornly clinging to failure and square enix. name a more lasting duo.