I'm not the only one that thinks DRKs are boring now, am I

I don't care too much about maxing DPS as a tank as that's not my job so I'm not worried about the damage drop most of the tank classes took, but in my opinion DRK went from the most entertaining tank class to play to the most obnoxiously boring one.

When Main tanking I find myself spending most of my time cycling my enmity generation rotation to keep enmity away from the Red Mages and since I don't generate Blood Gauge with that rotation I don't get to play with any of the new SB abilities except when my Blood Price and Salted Earth generation finally produce 50 BG and allow me to use a SINGLE ability.

But even then this single ability isn't an OCD it's a GCD which interferes with my normal rotation which isn't a major thing but it certainly removes some of the entertainment that comes from timing OCDs between your GCDs to maximize your rotation.

tl'dr: I think DRKs are boring to play now vs PALs which are probably now the most entertaining. Am I the only one thinking that?

Is Grit on? If yes, use AD 4 to 6 times and switch to SS combo. DA When appropriate

If no, turn on Grit.

I hope this helps.

Keep Grit on for larger pulls. It's a DPS loss for the precise reason you said. You can dip out of it once some of the mobs die to weave in Blood Weapon. If the RDM isn't using their aggro dump, let him have the mob(s). Frankly, I find that the best teacher for DPS not using their abilities. :p

Something else you can do for better aggro generation is equip some 270 STR accessories. The added Attack Power does wonders for your aggro. I would start with the Alex ring and Augmented Shire earrings just to see how you feel. If it's going well and the less HP isn't a hindrance, experiment with more.

I'm not terribly concerned about my ability to maintain aggro while stance dancing, that part I've got fairly well figured out even though I can't do it as often as I would like. My problem is with how repetitive and boring DRK play has become. There's no "skill" required to play them anymore. MP management is jokingly easy, there aren't any DOTs or Debuffs to try and keep up all the time on the enemy, and the new skills are mostly GCDs meaning there's no OCD and GCD weaving that needs to be done.

Playing DRK is easy, having fun with DRK not so much.

Nope you are not. If you browsing through my recent Posts you will see that I exactly feel the same. As casual Player I don't care about DPS. I havent even entered a raid dungeon since a year. But with Stormblood I dropped DRK because the class feels utterly boring to me now. They really broke the class.

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Originally Posted by Talec

I have dropped DRK with this Expansion and not gonna take it up again. The playstyle of DRK has been ridiculously destroyed. (...) And unlike the DRK, Paladin still looks somewhat fun with cool new animations and a broad range of actions.

...

But exactly that's the reason. I'm a casual Player who didn't enter any raid Content since a year. I don't care about the DMG I did or do now as a DRK. I'm not one of those People salty because DRK has 100 less DPS than the rest of them.

I simply stopped playing DRK because he is no more fun. From Mana Management and Dark Dance-Playstyle to a boring mitigation Tank who just spams Dark Arts. DRK is boring. This class surely go a hard nerf and it doesn't matter if SE will buff their DPS for a thousand, I'm not gonna play it again until I get back more skills, more ways to tank and more possibilitys to evade DMG. And this won't happen before 5.0. So R.I.P. DRK.

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Originally Posted by UnitedWeSTand

MP management is jokingly easy,.

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It was always easy. The difference is that you're punished for it more now. If you screwed up before you lost Darkside and had your natural regen and Blood Price filling you back up in an instant. Screw up now, Darkside is still there and Blood Price is returning crap for MP, you're stuck needing to get off some Syphon Strikes or wasting Carve and Spit to get back up to decent MP levels.

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there aren't any DOTs or Debuffs to try and keep up all the time on the enemy

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And good riddance. A lot of Jobs got trimmed back in that regard because there were so many that in large enough groups the game just could not show them all. Even if you set things to only show yours, once the target hit a certain number it wouldn't display them for anyone under any circumstance. Good luck tracking your stuff if you got there half a second to late to be in the visible category.

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the new skills are mostly GCDs meaning there's no OCD and GCD weaving

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Delirium and The Blackest Night are oGCD. Quietus and Bloodspiller are GCD. That's 50/50 not mostly. This also matches up with the loss of Reprisal and Low Blow as far as weaving goes. You'd have made a better argument bringing up Dark Passenger for this sort of complaint, but even so it still exists and still has some niche uses. Due to Syphon Strike being able to be subjected to Dark Arts means that needs to be woven in more frequently as well. If you're finding that there's no weaving to be done, that's on you not the Job.

Tell your red mages to take their emnity reducing skills. They have two for a reason.

If you pop Dualcast+Swiftcast+Acceleration 10s before fight you better also use Diversion with your Veraeoro+Fleche+Contre-Six->Verthunder for those 1320 potency in 2 GCDs.

It's not just you. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why it feels so dumb to play now, but I'd probably attribute to the lack of DoT/Debuffs to keep track of, and the fact that 2/3 Black Blood abilities are just damage weaponskills that we press every 20 seconds when they light up. I mean, they don't even offer any utility other than "big numbers".

I really don't get the people who complain DRK became "too easy".
Balance issues aside, we lost Scourge and Delirium. Let's not pretend refreshing a 30 sec dot was in any way difficult, nor was hitting a different keybind at the end of your usual combo.
Mana managment was also a complete non-issue. Dark Arts isn't on a cooldown, you therefore don't lose anything if you don't use it right away, meaning you only had to use it prevent capping your mana outside of "burst" phases (burning what's left at the end of the battle or before lull intervalls).

Meanwhile at 70, we got new tools like the blood gauge, Bloodspiller, the new Delirium and the fantastic Blackest Night.
Sure, if you're just going to spam your Souleater combo it's braindead easy, but TBN changes everything.
Considering it's a dps gain in Grit, careful use of the Blood Gauge is required and mana managment is much harder than it was at 60. You have to juggle in as much TBN as possible while in grit (making sure they break), with your usual DA Souleater combos, DA CnS and DA Bloodspiller while not capping or running out of mana.
The blood gauge also isn't something to ignore that lights up once in a while, if you use your abilities correctly blood will flow and you'll have to make sure not to cap it (meaning you'll have to use mana) while also having enough when Delirium is about to come off cooldown (and not overfill your mana when you use it while not delaying it too much). The fact Bloodspiller is stronger in Grit is important as well, it can be better to hold off on it if you're going into grit soon and your blood gauge won't cap in the process. A good example for this is Susano EX, optimally you'll use TBN on your fellow tank when the tankbuster hits so you have a grit Bloodspiller ready when you take back the boss, but you'll need to get your blood gauge below 50 before so you don't overfill.
Admittedly, grit Bloodspiller juggling fades off if you can main tank outside of grit but I mostly run with pugs myself and they have a hard enough time keeping me alive with it on. If Savage does hit hard however, a DRK main tank in an organized group will need to optimally use Bloodspiller while getting as much Delirium extended Blood Weapon as possible.

That's it for personal dps. However, while TBN is a dps loss outside of grit, it's very minor (around 11 potency overall) and is a great and polyvalent mitigation tool which could account for more healer dps and could be a crutch in random situations.

Overall, past the initial shock of the starting SB experience, I find the new DRK to be much more fun and difficult to play. I have to think a lot more about what I'm doing. Can I use TBN now ? Will it break ? Will I have enough mana to shield the next tankbuster ? Will I have enough mana when CnS comes off cooldown in turn ?
It's also surprisingly easy to cap mana with the increased mana regen if you're too skittish about mana usage. DA Syphon Strike is a good safety net to prevent it but remember that a DA Souleater is still better (EDIT : Just realized it's actually the same potency gain).

I'd like to add that for now aggro is a non-issue on single target if the two tanks share aggro with Shirk. You'll get so far ahead your aggro combo will be something of the past for the rest of the fight.
Example : Main tank pulls in tank stance, does one aggro combo. Off tank provoke offs him. Main tank shirks the off tank before provoking back. Off tank then shirks main tank. You now have aggro forever.
We'll see how it plays out in further tiers if they don't fix tank stat weights/accessories.

Agree with Walfan, I'm still having fun. There is still plenty to do. My biggest gripe is AoE threat is a major chore now, and it's infuriating because I know our MP pool isn't going to grow to make it any easier. I also hate that they stopped VIT from effecting Tank damage. In my opinion, this needs to be reverted.

There are some changes I would like.

I would like our Enmity Combo to match that of the other tanks, since ours inherently produces less. Some argue that that is why we can DA+Power Slash, but I shouldn't be spending resources just to match another tank. Instead, make DA+PS add Scourge to PS and put on a 25pot/Sec for 30Sec DoT. Would be a great way to keep out old attack in a different way.

Also, remove DA from Dark Passenger, lower MP Cost on DP and increase the base potency to current DA+DP amount. Currently, I completely avoid DP, waste of MP.

And last, I would like Abyssal Drain added as a Syphon Strike Combo where when used from Syphon Strike, the MP cost is reduced by 50%. AoE threat is a pain in the butt right now.

I too would really disagree with an argument that it's easier to play now. Scourge and the old delirium were not difficult. Delirium should have been up 100% of the time anyway, given it was your highest non-DA combo. Scourge was exceedingly powerful and required very little attention paid to it. You could clip it with substantial duration left and come out ahead. I don't really find any of the oGCD skills "lost" to add any particular difficulty either. TBN actually involves thinking rather than "hit button on cooldown". Plus Dark Arts is much more frequently weaved in now.
Quietus and Bloodspiller are on GCD but they don't interrupt combos and are on a resource with very flexible timing, so I don't really get that complaint either.


Frankly, I haven't had the hate issues others seem to have and it's not like I'm playing too much differently than before, using a bit more grit I guess, but I was never all that liberal with stance-dancing in dutyfinder before gear levels start to get ahead of of that content a bit more.
For groups stay in grit and make use of abyssal drain. Spam it on those mobs, use Carve for the mana when you're against multiple enemies for more AD spam.
Use The Blackest Night. It is great and you should be using it whenever you're pretty sure that you'll take the full damage. That is, essentially, any trash pull and nearly whenever a boss doesn't have a cast bar up. You get a free delirium/quietus right away.

Against bosses I don't find I need to use powerslash more than as my opening combo for the most part. Again I don't tend to dance much in DF parties so that might account for that.
If you're still having issues, go get a couple/few i270 accs. Or, atleast, meld in strength to what you have. It'll be pretty significant.

Overall I've really grown to like what they've done, especially since getting TBN, but I have a couple things I think they should look at:
Unleash needs a larger enmity modifier or damage. It's just kinda bad.
Dark Passenger should be more mana efficient than Abyssal Drain. It doesn't need to be good enough to use in single-target but against 2+ mobs it should be more useful.
Quietus should behave like Bloodspiller where it gets boosted potency in Grit+DA. Maybe even a bit more potency with DA in general. IMO it should be more mana efficient than abyssal drain as well.
TBN should have a slightly longer timer so it's a bit more forgiving. At least one more second for 6, up to 8 probably.

The biggest issue I find is that black blood doesn't actually do anything useful. You can convert it to MP, which is great, but that's on a 120 second cooldown. Other than that, you basically dump it on Quietus or Bloodspiller which are flashy spells but ultimately all they do is damage that's it. TBN offers a great mechanic/utility to DRK and I agree that it makes the DRK much interactive, but ultimately the other support abilities we get don't feel nearly as useful to the things we've lost (reprisal, ddance, scourge, etc)

Addendum on scourge: Nobody is arguing that reapplying a debuff/dot is hard to do, but it gives you something to keep track of and keeps the fight just a bit more engaging. Scourge in particular was great because you were still dealing damage to the boss if you couldn't attack it. Now it feels like we've lost all of our debuffs and our actions aren't actually doing anything tangible to the boss. I realize it's something that can apply to all the jobs in SB, though.

yes they butchered drk. from the most nuanced tank to one that even pld mains can play is really sad to see.

Lost three OGCD abilities (counting dark passenger) as well as mana management. Yeah, they ruined it. No question.

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Originally Posted by say0

yes they butchered drk. from the most nuanced tank to one that even pld mains can play is really sad to see.

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You seem like a pleasant person.

It is very much so. I know they were trying to avoid skill bloat but PLD has the most skills, giving them a better position to chose role skills.

DRK seems like I have no skills compared to PLD. And since things changed to STR. I have to spam unleashed and AD

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Originally Posted by Klongol

Is Grit on? If yes, use AD 4 to 6 times and switch to SS combo. DA When appropriate

If no, turn on Grit.

I hope this helps.

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well completely ignore this guys comment. this is how you let your healers out dps you. which is embarrassing. and will account for a lack of fun had.
if you pull you should be doing 1 power slash and then drop grit. from then on out think of grit as another cd, a bad one that you dont want to use. only hop back into grit if you screw up either your cd rotation or you catch a vuln up or something similar and you need the extra mitigation. just sitting in it however is lazy and boring and doing so is a hindrance to the raid. as far as fun goes i personally find it to be pretty fun but at the same time it is braindead easy and extremely easy to do good dps on since its so forgiving now that you cant lose darkside. still though, i find it entertaining.

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Originally Posted by Dizzy_Derp

well completely ignore this guys comment. this is how you let your healers out dps you. which is embarrassing. and will account for a lack of fun had.
if you pull you should be doing 1 power slash and then drop grit. from then on out think of grit as another cd, a bad one that you dont want to use. only hop back into grit if you screw up either your cd rotation or you catch a vuln up or something similar and you need the extra mitigation. just sitting in it however is lazy and boring and doing so is a hindrance to the raid. as far as fun goes i personally find it to be pretty fun but at the same time it is braindead easy and extremely easy to do good dps on since its so forgiving now that you cant lose darkside. still though, i find it entertaining.

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This is right on the money!

There is nothing really to maintain on the mob anymore except threat. The Delirium INT debuff might have been worthless most of the time, but the loss of Scourge does make it less exciting especially on bosses. It feels very repetitive and mundane. I won't play anything else, but I really wish they would give us another timer/debuff to keep up with while tanking.

I haven't run out of mp or lost darkside since 4.0. I don't know if they changed how quickly and how efficiently we had to manage our mp, but it seems too easy to keep mp at this point. Please don't vote me down for that comment I truly am trying to approach this neutrally from my perspective in HW. I stopped playing after the final steps of faith encounter.

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Originally Posted by One_Time

I haven't run out of mp or lost darkside since 4.0. I don't know if they changed how quickly and how efficiently we had to manage our mp, but it seems too easy to keep mp at this point.

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If you're just using your MP as before, Dark Arts on Souleater, Dark Mind, and Carve & Spit, then yes it's going to be too easy to keep your MP. Add in Dark Arts on Syphon Strike, Bloodspiller, and Quietus as well as The Blackest Night and the lowered MP gains on Blood Price and you're looking at things being a bit more difficult. The only difference between then and now is that if you overspend and it drops to 0 Darkside doesn't drop, which is punishment in and of itself since you don't get your natural regen or any lucky catches on party Refreshes going out to catch you back up to safe levels.

still dont know why pld keeps Goring Blade dot and both war and drk lost dots (fracture and scourge) :/

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

still dont know why pld keeps Goring Blade dot and both war and drk lost dots (fracture and scourge) :/

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Unless you've not noticed, the theme of SB tank wise is that DRK and WAR needed to lose things for reasons, but PLD for some reason gets to keep the same things while getting more.

I'm thinking it was because both fracture and scourge were dots that both resided outside of a combo - which made them both easier to remove and add new abilities vs goring blade, which is currently part of a combo, making it a little harder to remove. Even more so considering how PLD only had a few attacking moves to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

still dont know why pld keeps Goring Blade dot and both war and drk lost dots (fracture and scourge) :/

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You can add their version of reprisal and 3rd combo to that list as well.

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Originally Posted by Dauntess

You can add their version of reprisal and 3rd combo to that list as well.

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Goring blade is the only PLD combo finisher with something other than DMG. Maim/Riot Blade/Syphon Strike you can cancel out. Soul Eater and Storm's Eye (or is it Path havent used WAR much in 4.X) have their heals, basically where Goring Blade fits in. After that only one OGCD dmg skill with just a CD (Shield Swipe retains Block req). A general lack of non-combo dmg skills or buffers. Tho on the other hand the amount of non-dmg skills on PLD is quite a bit higher.
And Spirit's Within got cut in half, the Silence in XRs comes from there.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

still dont know why pld keeps Goring Blade dot and both war and drk lost dots (fracture and scourge) :/

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All physical classes' open DoTs unless pivotal to mechanics (Bard's 2 DoTs) were removed, gamewide. Only combos remain, as for DRG as for PLD.

How is the new rotation? No scourge...no comboed delirium..idk feels slow af

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Originally Posted by Mirch

How is the new rotation? No scourge...no comboed delirium..idk feels slow af

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It gets a bit better at level 70, but now DA is basically used on a priority system where if you're in Grit, Bloodspiller takes priority, then SE, then SS. With a full DA's worth of MP returned with SS, and Darkside no longer draining MP, there's really no tactical usage of DA and the associated risk & reward.

Funnily enough, it's even more braindead without Grit since all of your DA rotation abilities do the same thing: add 140 potency.

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Originally Posted by UnitedWeSTand

I don't care too much about maxing DPS as a tank as that's not my job

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This is why you find the class boring.

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Originally Posted by Chronons

This is why you find the class boring.

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I don't care about DPS as a tank either, but I find drks fun for other reasons. I always thought of tank DPS as just a bonus. If I have to work harder to push through a dps check, then the fault lies with the damage dealers. They need to stop being bad at their job. Sure, I'll drop grit every now and then (outside BS use, of course) just for BW use, but it's right back to grit afterward.

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Originally Posted by Tila

Unless you've not noticed, the theme of SB tank wise is that DRK and WAR needed to lose things for reasons, but PLD for some reason gets to keep the same things while getting more.

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Check how many role skills were originally paladin's then talk.....

I be happy as hell if goring is traded for a hp absorbing combo finisher...paladin's royal combo is the only one that has no additional effect between tanks.