Low lvl mitigation for DRK

Hi everyone,
I started playing ff14 oct 2018 so I never got to experience heavensward DRK. I think the class plays fine the way it is now as I really hated the storm blood playstyle of the class. There's a lot of detailed threads of people's whish lists and ideas to change the class and it seems most people want the heavensward DRK design back. I did some snooping and looked up the old DRK abilities. I was thinking since DRK does feel really squishy until you get TBN and the vast majority of trash and bosses use physical attacks, why not give us Dark Lance at 30 (with the included old dark arts evasion bonus) and have it change to Dark Mind at 70 once you get TBN?

I honestly feel like they should just give TBN earlier cuz as it is right now is as ridiculous as PLD waiting till Stone Vigil for it's tank stance back at launch. Could nerf the shield potency of it until lvl 70 (at which point it's upgraded via trait) as well, that way it allows players the opportunity to learn how to use it over a longer period of time. The devs probably think low level squishiness is alleviated enough with the role skills reprisal and arm's length so I personally don't see them making TBN available earlier then upgraded via trait which in my view would be the ideal solution. I do miss Dark Dance though.

It would solve many of the sync problems as well, so we could keep better skills and just "downgrade" em when synched as we lack the higher level traits...

Evasion is bad. Even without the HW kit conflict of having Blood Price, DADP and increased evasion in the same defensive toolkit, Evasion makes incoming damage more inconsistent. Things can't crit anymore in ShB and Awareness was removed, the other end of that is just negating damage via dodge, heavy doubt they'll go back to it now, even pre-70. Wonder if they'll get rid of crits throughout the entire game when they go back and do the stat squish for old content. Ah, not that random spike damage is something I disapprove of, just looking at the dev choices recently. Role Actions make it not as awful low level, but it's still a trash experience.

Super easy fix, bring back Shadowskin as a 10-15% personal shield, put it on Level 30, Shadowskin Mastery trait at 70 for TBN. Teach people early that MP is a defensive and offensive resource. Traits are underutilized in this game.

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

Super easy fix, bring back Shadowskin as a 10-15% personal shield, put it on Level 30, Shadowskin Mastery trait at 70 for TBN. Teach people early that MP is a defensive and offensive resource. Traits are underutilized in this game.

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I like this idea. The only thing I'd change is maybe the level requirement, as I feel Lv. 30 is still a bit too late. I'd say give Shadowskin only a 10% personal shield effect and have it be learned as early as Lv. 15-20 or so.

You can't really change the timing of TBN's acquisition due to story reasons. You could introduce a single target personal version and then upgrade it at a later point, as has been suggested. The other alternative is to make Dark Mind offer some shielding against physical damage and have players acquire it about 10 levels earlier.

Personally, I think they should take Lyth's idea and make Dark Mind give us some physical mitigation of some sort. If they don't want to change DRK's place in the mitigation landscape in the endgame, they could make it give +20% evasion on top of the magic mit. Evasion is underrated, and it would have no possible negative impact on today's DRK, since Blood Price no longer exists. It had its place in the old days too, namely after Blood Price went on cooldown.

Honestly low level dungeons the low mitigation is often due to many tanks not updating their gear as they level. However at the same time losing dark dance and 30s reprisal when role actions were changed really hurt DRK before lvl 70.

Dark Mind does need updating for sure. However with them changing the leveling again we should see some major QOL in 6.0 in terms of leveling up to 80

I am in favour of bringing in TBN sooner. Maybe make it so it has a higher CD until you get a trait at 70 to lower it to what it is now.

If lore/story/whatever is such an issue for people then make the inferior version have a different name and have it "replaced" when you do the quest. Problem solved.