Let's hope next Tuesday we get some changes, even small little changes are good for DRK at this point.
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Let's hope next Tuesday we get some changes, even small little changes are good for DRK at this point.
Well DRK had been reworked in every expansion since HW. EW is the first expansion where they actually stuck to something that the prior expansion did and added to it. I think the issue might be that DRK, by the numbers, is serviceable and just as good as any other tanks in ex/sav.
It also doesn't help that its just not that fun imo. If I wanted to play a job where I have busy burst windows I'll play a DPS. I tank because I want the freedom between gcds to decide how to use my defensive cds, not be forced into shadow/ogcd spams.
getting nothing would be fine.
getting potency nerfs would be a death sentence.
decoupling CnS from AD would be a half-measure.
any changes at this point aren't gonna be good until YoshiP announces the dev team is working on a rework of DRK in response to player feedback, in my opinion.
EDIT::
"Now?"
They need to hire someone to work on DRK. It has been said the original creator left the team. Well if that's true than no wonder. They have no clue what they are doing with the job. I remember monk players having the same issue for years and now it's DRK.
This is old /sh rumor mill/tinfoil hat stuff but apparently the reason DRK been not any good since SB was because DRK was the developer's favorite job and they do this out of spite. There's apparently some really bad blood in there.
This is pitiful if true, but where does that rumor even come from. This is most likely false and a theory to find a justification to hate on the devs.
To be honest, this seems like the only valid theory out there. What more evidence do you need other than looking at DRK's kit and scratching your head as to why they just couldn't be bothered?
Criticism isn't blind hate. I "hate" when people cannot logically grasp that difference. Should we shower them with praise and approval for something that simply just is a trashfire?
I'm not sure wether it's the company or the developers but in all honesty, the CEO isn't sitting there with an agenda to make DRK worse. Do these developers truly love you? I think not.
Whatever. Look at every other gaming company or specifically Blizzard and they truly despise their customers. The only reason we got to this point is blind obedience and fanboyism.
I doubt they would add self-heal to any ogcds because they know we use them for damage. All the other tanks' self heals are regular CDs minus PLD. Best bet would be adding heal effects to oblation or tbn, blood weapon and delirium are iffy since they're more combat-oriented CDs. Heal on bloodweapon would be cool, but 60 seconds is a bit too long for a self heal ability. I think they just realized they are in a tight spot now. Arcane circle is an ability I wouldn't mind stealing.
There's a difference between critiquing a dev team over a disappointing product and globbing onto tinfoil backstory rumors, likely formed from thin air by a bored Redditor, to get one's disgust-kicks.
Hell, it takes more faith in the team's creativity to say that every issue with DRK has come specifically because the current devs wanted to piss on a former dev's job out of spite.
The latter exists but it hardly emerges from the crowd. Hate is very specific. If you keep disappointing people to the very core of their disappointment; hate you will get, and rightfully so.
Just the fact alone there's enough feedback to make solid choices benefitting the player goes to show you how little they care. Personal vendetta or not, it doesn't alleviate the position DRK is in right now.
However, I can't help but laugh how everything is supposed to be hate nowdays. Take some agency and grow up. Your feelings hardly matter in the grand scheme of things; results do however.
Calling a rumor that "DRK is only bad because they're purposely sabotaging the game over interpersonal issues" less likely than that the dev team might just not be that great when it comes to designing distinct tanks now shows immaturity and a lack of agency? The comic-book villainizing of the current state of things, though, is mature and takes agency for oneself? Hmm.
That is Ativan levels of strawman and spin, both, Shin.
The word "hate" never once appeared in my post, and if the circumstances are, as you say, irrelevant (and yes, I agree, they are), what need would anyone have to explain away the result with ridiculous backstories like these?
How about they are a multi millionaire company oozing with cash from every pocket to the point they can fund anything but choose not to. Even giving DRK a very much needed overhaul? Why did they say we won't go back to the 3.0 complexity then? DRK is very symptomatic and a remnant of that. They've been turning jobs into braindead faceroll experiences a child can play. No room for introspection and learning.
It really is just a lack of agency because everytime you call them out on their bullshit you have thousand drones coming to their defense. Nevermind if there is truth and validity in criticism leveled against the developers. Oh no! It's the company.
Wether that rumor is true or not, it only shows us that people seem to care more about feelings than actual results. What if our "hate" would've gotten us an awesome and amazing rework for DRK? Respect goes both ways.
To call out a comically terrible explanation is not to take a side. "Your explanation for the problem is comically ridiculous" =/= "The problem does not exist."
Look at Kalaam's posts across this thread and mine and you will see valid complaints and no blind defense of the product as given. "The devs are sabotaging each other in some weird sort of pissing contest!" however, almost certainly isn't a valid, let alone relevant, complaint.
Can we happily let the Reddit rumors die and get back to the actual issues instead of treating this weird funk like some kind of warpaint?
Who are you then to disprove it? You call it ridiculous yet you offer no substantial evidence. Only good faith, which alas was crushed for 2 expansions. We are running out of good faith, I believe.
Calling a theory most likely false and hateful because it directs itself to the source of our discontent (i.e. the developers are completly ignoring DRK) is incorrect. It's criticism directed at the roots. It may be personal in nature but it still reserves its judgement towards the creators.
There's not more I can add to this. Either hold them accountable or spend the rest of your lives complaining in an echo chamber. Perhaps enhanced Unleash and enhanced Unmend 2 will change your mind? One can only hope.
The one area where Dark Knight actually doesn't have a case to be made for already being balanced in terms of "healing" is that it lacks a direct, non-rotational heal that isn't a part of its standard mitigation suite. Warrior has Equilibrium, Gunbreaker has Aurora, Paladin has Clemency, and Dark Knight doesn't really have anything. If you squint really hard you can kind of see where they meant for Abyssal Drain to fill that role, but it obviously failed at that job even before they merged it with CnS in your singletarget rotation, because AD is a rotational ability in AoE which constricts its use as a directed heal, and even when it was used in singletarget, the 200p you got from using it on one enemy was basically nothing.
I think it would be a reasonable ask for Abyssal Drain to be A) Completely decoupled from Carve and Spit, B) Removed from your standard AoE rotation, and C) Rebalanced to be a reasonable, usable self-heal in both singletarget and AoE, with an MP cost that makes it a modest DPS loss on use.
Something like:
A) Decoupled from Carve and Spit: No longer shares a cooldown, AD no longer restores MP on use.
B) Removed from your standard AoE rotation: Because you currently get 150 potency of AoE damage from AD, that potency should be added to Flood of Shadow to maintain your 'ideal' AoE DPS. Buff Flood from 160 to 190 potency (Sanity check: In AoE you generate about 15000 MP per minute, which is five uses of Flood, so a buff of 30 potency per Flood maintains the current level of maximum AoE damage, without making Flood a DPS gain over Edge on 2 targets.)
C) Remove AD from your standard rotation: Give it a 3000 MP cost, and make it deal 350 potency of damage to the first target, and 100 to any additional targets, healing you for 600 potency on the first target, and 100 potency for any additional targets. Change the cooldown from 60 seconds to 30s, 25s, or 20s.
- In singletarget AD would give you the option of replacing an Edge with AD for a 110 potency loss in exchange for a 600 potency heal.
- In two-target situations, AD would probably become your preferred MP spender, dealing 450 total potency to Edge's 460, but returning a 700 potency heal.
- In three-target situations, AD would fill the same role in relation to Flood, dealing 550 total potency to Flood's 570, but returning an 800 potency heal.
- In larger AoE situations, AD would generally be a DPS loss compared to Flood at 100 potency to Flood's 190 (except for the initial target, obviously), but would become a relatively powerful heal.
- For fewer than six targets, AD would heal more than it currently does (600+100n compared to 200n for n<=5), at exactly six targets the heal would be identical (600+100(6) vs 200(6)), and at larger pack sizes it would heal less (1300 to the current 1400, for 7 targets, for example). However, it would be held until you wanted to use it, to make the best use of it, and you could potentially use it more often than you can now.
- In singletarget, the self-healing would be somewhere between 1 and 1.5 casts of Aurora in total healing, depending on the cooldown, split up between 2-3 instances of 600p healing, with a 20-30s cooldown between them. This feels fair, considering that you would be losing 220-330 potency instead of getting it completely free.
- This has nothing to do with Dark Knight, but if this change were made then I feel like it would only be right to give Clemency an effect like "Your next cast of Holy Spirit or Holy Circle deals extra damage" to keep the DPS loss approximately fair.
While I'm definitely not in the camp that thinks there's some great DRK crisis when it comes to a self-heal, I do have to recognize that they are definitely missing a non-rotational heal that isn't coupled to their standard mitigation suite, and I could get behind something like this to give them a reasonable on-demand health bump in a way that doesn't warrant nerfing any of their existing skills to make room for incoming HP.
This seems reasonable. I'd slightly prefer going more the Paladin / StB DRK route in making AD a more flexible, rather than Equilibrium-like, self-heal, and don't much see the need to move AD over to that effect (especially when Salted Earth could easily fill that role already if we felt it was truly necessary), but I wouldn't hate that direction, either.
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Separately:
Which generally holds the burden of proof, the simpler, more common explanation, or the likes of "no, it's all a conspiracy!" per the above rumor?
I call it most likely false because it's a needlessly convoluted explanation and because design issues resulting from intentional self-sabotage certainly seem less likely than design issues stemming from any other, more typical reason.Quote:
Calling a theory most likely false and hateful because it directs itself to the source of our discontent (i.e. the developers are completly ignoring DRK) is incorrect. It's criticism directed at the roots.
I've not called it hateful; you're again conflating or strawmanning.
Finally, why would you critique "the roots" through an explanation that you admit is irrelevant to the product, is unlikely (yes, until such time as you can prove that more problematic designs are consequent to vendettas than not, it is unlikely), and you have no actual knowledge of, rather than critiquing the actual product you are familiar with? That's like getting a bad steak and then yelling at the cook for having an affair (since who is anyone to say that's the less likely explanation in the wake of your righteous indignation) when the steak is right there and fully worth critique in and of itself. You don't need the random, "at the roots" tinfoil theories to give a valid complaint. To speak on about something you admit is irrelevant and you do not know the validity of is exactly how render your complaint invalid.
How about, again, looking at the product and making concrete suggestions instead of drowning them out by yelling pure frustration into walls as if feelings, alone, would drive results?Quote:
There's not more I can add to this. Either hold them accountable or spend the rest of your lives complaining in an echo chamber.
Right, because my critiques there were purely ironic? Enough strawmen.Quote:
Perhaps enhanced Unleash and enhanced Unmend 2 will change your mind?
Not going to read this anyway. To simplify my point:
Developers don't care. We give them feedback. Good.
Next expansion, DRK is severely lacking in self-sustain options and defense. They don't care. Oh yes, Living Dead still is absolute shite despite years of criticism from loyal fans.
Someone makes a theory which sounds ridiculous but it reveals the developers don't care. My initial assumption based on their absolute lack of actions taken for years.
Theory involves the developers in a way where it explains why they haven't taken any action. Sounds like a solid explanation to me. They still don't care.
In the end you look like someone in absolute denial, same with that other guy I quoted. You cannot even conceptualize the idea that perhaps these developers are complete hacks that ignore us for no good reason. DRK in 6.0 recevied no mentionable changes despite an increase in DPS. It's the equivalent of leaving construction work on hold for another 2 years.
What you think is irrelevant. For all your screeching of calling things conspiracies and this smug attitude, in the end you're just another customer with nothing to say. DRK will still be shit, nothing will change, and people still believe our words and feedback is taken seriously. Despite years of players making threads voicing their opinions in the most respectable attitude; nothing has changed. The hubris from these developers is astounding yet frustrating.
A theory doesn't prove anything. It suggests an explanation that must then be proven.
Ever heard of Halon's razor ? "Never attribute to malice what that which is adequately explained by stupidity/incompetence"
It is much more likely that the devs just don't know what to do with dark knight, or didn't have time to work on it, than for them to purposefully sabotage their own work to piss off someone who isn't even working with them anymore.
"Oh boy, my last colleague was a pain for (insert unknown reason), now that they have left I will make sure that the part of our group project they worked on becomes terrible !"
Here is another theory, that explains all:
The devs' dogs ate their homework with the dark knight updates in it, and they had to redo something from scratch in the last minute because they have terrible memory and couldn't remember what they did before.
It explains it all ! You don't believe me ? Prove me it's wrong then. Prove me that they didn't lose the actual EW Dark knight updates and forgot all about their competence and skills until the last minute.
Living Dead still sucks.
No self-sustain options.
Enhanced Unmend.
Enhanced Living Shadow.
DRK still shares Delirium with IR.
Salted Earth.. uh, yeah.
Remove iconic animations.
No charges to Bloodweapon.
Lastly, they received a tremendous amount of decent feedback in case they were unable to incorporate better ideas. What more evidence do you need? Paladin literally has a 3-set combo which looks fancy. DRK received the most lazy amount of effort you could possibly deliever. If all of this is not enough to convince you then keep believing. I have been a very loyal player regarding DRK. I reserve my judgement for future improvements but I wouldn't be so sure it will ever happen. At least not in a meaningful way.
This just proves that dark knight is poorly designed and doesn't get attention. Which nobody is denying.
This doesn't mean that every dev working on the jobs decided to sabotage that specific job because they didn't like a previous colleague. And that the game's director either doesn't know about it, or is ok with it.
I literally provided proof above. They gave every other tank every bit of love except DRK. For me, this simply is sabotaging their work. The end result is they have no interest in giving this job the attention it needs.
You guys are getting upset because your conception of the developers is shaking right now. Good. Maybe next time, don't give good faith to a company that repeatedly screws you over with little interest in discourse.
But why is it not getting any attention? Sabotage is the logical conclusion when you withdraw attention and resources from a job. If their priority lied by giving DRK its essentials we wouldn't have this mess of a job now.
I personally believe it's pure mallace, because Salt and Darkness and Enhanced Unmend sounds like they're mocking us.
You are making massive leaps.
"Drk is in a terrible state"
Ok.
"It is the devs deliberatly sabotaging their own game"
Or, it could be:
Devs focused on other jobs needing a lot of work (posterboy, SMN rework, Monk, the new jobs) and left DRK aside 'cause it had a fancy rework last expansion. Quality aside.
They might also just have no idea what to do with it, consider that a rework is necessary but don't have time for it, so just leave it as is for now. Yes it sucks.
You just want it to be "sabotage" because this gives you a nice black and white version of the story. The devs are evil, you are a victim. Yaddi Yaddi Yadda.
We all aggree that DRK is in a terrible state and needs a lot of work, but you litteraly do not bring anything interresting to the conversation with your conspiracies. Bring actual proof, like messages from devs from in-house chats about how they hate X guy. Or you know, actual proof that they hate DRK.
You're just drawing conclusions out of your butt because you're unhappy and want to make sense of the situation in a neat and tiddy way.
I guess if the truth slapped you right across the face it wouldn't count. That was putting one and one together. What else would lead them to ignore part of their playerbase?
It's so cute how you guys are hanging on this tiny shred regarding intentional mallace on part of the developers, yet ignoring the fact they have no interest to improve this job regardless of criticism. The outcome is the same.
I think it's better if we just ignore you. Stay in your own little world where you are the only smart kid and everyone else but you is stupid.
We honestly shouldn't have kept this going for so long.
Remeber there is a blocking function so we don't have to do this again.
No one said I was the victim and no one said they are evil. You are quite literally turning this debate into a black and white issue.
They don't care. They are absolutely sabotaging this job by intentionally ignoring massive flaws we put out there for years.
We'll see. I suppose we have another 2 years to go to show wether or not this is deliberate incompetence or just simply them hating this job and putting it on the low priority list.
Can we go back to speaking about the permanent issues of Dark Knight we know of? instead of this thing concerning the devs (which is "unknown" so to speak)
We know the problem about living dead and it's lack of visual effect, either in the battle field or the HUD (without even talking about the mechanics of the ability itself)
The problems with the animations of the class gettiing more and more dull and weightless (shadowbringer being flood of shadow 2.0 and a majority of attacks feeling like wet paper)
The complete and utter lack of synergy, class identity, uniqueness, making it feel like all the spells of the dark knight at the moment have no correlation with each other at all except for their visual effect and their color pattern.
And also the fact that, despite those flaws (and many, many, mant others),
there is still this weird idea that the class is fine because "it does damage" in endwalker, or during shadowbringer the excuse of "well at least it got blackest night so it's good enough", and the worst offender of all "who cares about class identity, it's viable"
I'm not an Expert when it comes to dark knight (far from it) but i love this class since i played it at heavensward, and i just think there are more problems to speak about that some hypothetical grudge from the dev team (whenever it's true or not)
(As usual i may speak nonsense so , sorry in advance)
Careful there; any logic is inherently arrogant and shrill.
On the broader topic, I'd love to see...
- Some self-sustain.
- A slightly more impactful Oblation.
- A Living Dead fix.
- A more interesting Living Shadow.
- Further general polish (no bloat, no dead mechanics).
- Pipedream/Long Shot: Darkside as an actual mechanic
Spitball means of getting most of the way there:
- Bloodspiller and Carve and Spit now heal for 300 potency and Quietus for 100 potency per enemy hit. (Because we have some flexibility in how we time Delirium (even in NIN-comps, but especially in NIN-less/2-minute comps), this should allow at least as much control as the likes of Equilibrium.)
- Oblation changed from 10 seconds of 10% mitigation to 8 seconds of 15% mitigation. (This is a slight buff both on-paper and, further, in practice.)
- Living Dead no longer has a Doom effect. Walking Dead now simply prevents your HP from falling below zero and increases your self-healing by a percentage equal to twice your missing %HP. Triggering Walking Dead also heals you over 9 seconds for an amount equal to the would-be overkill damage. (Otherwise put, it's now a more self-sufficient Holmgang, rather than the directly worst of the invulns despite not having the shortest CD among them.)
- Living Shadow now summons in far more quickly and thereafter duplicates each of your actions at 25% effect. Rather than a 250 GCD DoT, you instead get a 25% increase to your damage dealt and Blood, self-healing, and active MP generation over its duration, which has been adjusted to compensate. (This should feel more integral and rewarding, a large step up from the current fire-and-forget version.)
- Darkside removed (bloat-gauge gone, Dark Arts procs moved to Status Bar); potencies adjusted to compensate. Blood Weapon wrapped into Delirium, which now generates a further 600 MP and 20 Blood per strike. All Bloodspillers now generate 200 MP (ST combo MP/GCD) and all Quietus casts generate 300 MP (AoE combo MP/GCD). Blood Weapon and Delirium together therefore totals to 2400 MP and 60 Blood, in place of 3600 MP and 50 Blood.
- Carve and Spit and Abyssal Drain gain a second charge and their CD is reduced to 45 seconds.
- DRK gets a trait that duplicates Skill Speed to Spell Speed.
Or, more realistically...But even that would honestly be a notable boon.
- Oblation gets a regen.
- Blood Weapon gets +1 second of duration or swaps to 5 stacks.
- DRK spells reclassified to weaponskills.
- Living Dead loses Doom state, but gains no advantages to make it worth its extended cooldown relative to Holmgang.
“ Or, more realistically...
Oblation gets a regen.
Blood Weapon gets +1 second of duration or swaps to 5 stacks.
DRK spells reclassified to weaponskills.
Living Dead loses Doom state, but gains no advantages to make it worth its extended cooldown relative to Holmgang.
But even that would honestly be a notable boon.”
Some have said it would be too powerful to up oblation to 15-20% dr with a regen so I propose it replace dark mind entirely. It may be an unpopular opinion but dark mind needs to die a gruesome death. It’s a relic from a time when sqex was supposed to have learned it’s lesson with pld only being able to block physical damage.
It was decent because of it strength when it was 30% magic resistance in hw. But it was ridiculous when it was nerfed in sb for no reason; and then there was dadm…. Damage specific mitigations are crap in concept. Their dr values have to be incredibly powerful to be viable and often leave the kit with a hole bcs devs view it as just another defense cd when they are niche at best and don’t add depth. In reality it is just another button to press since most players rarely can point to a time that it saved them from certain death.
They worked on so many other Jobs this expansion though. SMN rework, addition of Sage and Reaper, Monk semi rework, BRD changes, and of course PLD changes.
They simply ran out of time for DRK.
But the problem is the rework DRK got last expansion was already bad.
Last expansion they did not fix BW, LD, TBN, Dark Mind or self sustain.
3.0 DRK was very good. However they made decision to move away from this complex playstyle. However DRK still has the most complex abilites. Most complex invuln. Dark Mind is a very situational cooldown to where the game does not tell you which attacks are magical vs physical without add ons. BW still requires skill speed to meet the optimization requirements. TBN is tied to damage. It has been proven that souleater and AD are not enough for sustain.
DRK has so many issues but that is the problem. It has so many issues that it cant be fixed in a simple hotfix or .5 patch.
Ran out of time? Lol like they did for 3 expansions now? Oh warrior wants a buff, here you go. Scholars need nerfed, here fuck you. Rework potencies for some dps classes, sure why not. DRK has been ignored and given the shaft for 3 expansions, keep fucking it over. They have a personal vendetta against DRK or they put the lazy ass who gets drunk every night and probably lied on their resume in charge.
They can fix it anytime they want and chose not to for several years. RPR was a smack in face to every DRK hoping for a rework.
You have to pair them though, which outside statics, may luck be on your side.
I meant they're paired, the Healer comp destroys Ast/Whm, there's nothing damaging enough to warrant them, except Whm having MP issues.
About this though, Drk had a DPS issue in SB, but it's pick rate pretty shot up for UCOB.
SHBs, Dark Knight had been a meta tank since the release with Gunbreaker, it was tough for Paladin to beat Dark Knight because of "TBN" alone, 25% HP barrier is ultra strong in raid content, Paladin only started making it's place over Dark Knight in Eden Promise, but still 1-2 fights Dark Knight had an advantage in Promise.
Tuesday is coming. Pray we get something good...any Change will be good at this point.