4.11+ DRK Suggestions/Balance Changes from a "Hardcore" Player

Currently, the tank balance is far worse than HW was among the tanks. Specifically between DRKs and PLDs. It feels like it is actually a big step backwards, and not forwards. I'm not here to compare HW and SB though, we're here to talk about the current SB and the current tanks. My opinions will be coming from having done speedruns on both DRK and PLD, and having an awesome WAR co-tank. When pushing for those extra few seconds off your best kill time, you will notice very VERY big differences between the tanks.

Should you take a DRK with either tanks, over PLD + WAR?

1. Does DRK offer any party-wide mitigation AKA party-wide utility?
a. No. Only PLDs and WARs have a party-wide HP shield.

2. Does DRK offer better DPS than either tanks?
a. No. DRK's maximum potential is lower than PLDs and WARs.

3. Does DRK offer better mitigation than either tanks?
a. No. PLDs mitigate a lot better, and WARs can mitigate as much as DRKs.

I'm pretty sure SE can see the statistics for clear rate over the course of 1-4 weeks among the tanks for relevant content. Pretty sure. If there are no changes to be made on or before Ultimate drops, then it will be 100% Square Enix's community managers and staff's fault for not listening to their tank community IF they see a significant drop in the DRK class usage throughout the rest of Stormblood.

Now, I know SE looks at the low end of the spectrum of raiding over higher end. So I've taken that into account for what changes I'm asking for. Hopefully these changes won't disrupt the balance for people who want to just clear vs the speedrunners clearing for the fastest times possible. Though, imo you will only see the biggest difference in class balance at a speedrunning level. Any class, any party comp will be able to clear any content. No class is better than another when trying to meet the minimum DPS and healing checks. If you are just there to clear the fight and get your loot, then don't let any raid leader or anyone tell you that you shouldn't play your favorite class just because it's not the "meta".

DRK Suggestions and Feedback:

1. Plunge or Carve and Spit - Additional Effect: Increased enmity

2. The Blackest Night - Duration: 7s

3. Bloodspiller - Blood Gauge Cost: 40

4. Living Dead - 75% HP restored to remove walking dead, not 100%

5. Reprisal - Lower's target damage dealt by 15%. Recast: 90s. Make this a DRK Exclusive Skill, this would remake DRK's identity back to the debuff tank. Remove Reprisal from WAR and PLD, they already have their party-wide HP shield combo.

6. Dark Passenger - MP Cost: 1200

Summary for the above changes:

1. Plunge or Carve and Spit - This will not make a difference for tanks that sit in tank stance throughout the entire fight, but it will definitely make a huge difference for hardcore players who live on the fine line of aggro.

2. The Blackest Night - I know Sheltron is 10s but only blocks 1 attack while TBN can block multiple, but 5s is pretty ridiculous when majority of boss casts are 5s WITH a ~1s delay of actual damage registering.

3. Bloodspiller - Indirect potency buff, because I know SE cringes when they need to give out potency buffs. Using TBN should be more rewarding than what it is now.

4. Living Dead - One of the many reasons why DRKs aren't taken to raids, it's a burden on most healers. Holmgang and obviously Hallowed Ground are superior to Living Dead by miles currently. Holmgang being that you don't need to completely top off the WAR after Holmgang wears off.

5. Reprisal - Currently, with 2 tanks using reprisal: in a 6 minute fight, you will have a potential of 12 Reprisals in a fight. Giving only DRKs reprisal would mean that you will have a potential of 4 Reprisals in a fight. It is actually a big potential nerf for healers, but this could possibly give DRKs an actual identity/niche. Instead of shielding the entire party, they will be the only tank that can debuff for the entire party.

6. Dark Passenger - Still not sure why this is a DPS loss to use, why use Dark Passenger when you could Dark Arts a Souleater or Bloodspiller for +140 Potency? Circle of Scorn makes this skill looks like a freaking joke.

More Opinions:

There are more changes I'd like to see, but I fear for the balance at the low end side of raiding. If all 3 tanks were to sit in their own tank stance for the entirety of a fight, then DRKs would be the top tank to take. But a good number of tanks do not do this, and I think SE only look at these kind of tanks when trying to balance the tanks. SE should not look at tanks like how they look at DPS, since a tank's skill level is solely determined on how much they use their tank stance. Whether or not that's how they intended tanks to be, that is how most of the community would view tanks to be. It's really a shame that DRK's skill ceiling takes a lot more effort to reach than the other tanks, yet they're not rewarded for it. For now, I'll be sticking to my 2 rotation PLD where I don't need to think as hard about Mana, Gauge, Defensives, or Party Buffs, compared to being on DRK.

Why should I work so hard in mastering a class when there is no reward in the end?

i agree whit opening post exept.
10s 1hit shildron will midigate 25% incoming dmg.
aka 75k tankbuster will reduce dmg by 18750
TBN is 20% out of Tank max HP so at best its 65K
that mean it midigate max 13000 DMG

even if u make TBN last 7s it give only benefit in normal dmg midigation.
Similar to RAW and Bulwark is on PLD and WAR.
For tankbusters Shielddron > TBN

in 4.6 i would revalue it because tanks will have then 100k Health it seems so 20k dmg midigation off TBN but atm its like this.

Another hot topic is using TBN on party member.
6500 shield VS PLD Intervention 10%/60%
in case of lets say 50k dmg incoming TBN > Intervention
6500 > 5000 . If tank has up Rampart then
30000 > 6500.

Not to mention that DRK need to decide eather TBN is used for self or party midigation where PLD can use shieldron on himself all time and intervent when needed for saveing some lost soul life.


Overall i changed from my 2 years of being DRK to PLD in my raidgroup because i could not pring up more excuses not to change.

I approve those changes.

I would also add a change to delirium to this because the skill is just very meh worthy. And since it isn’t stance locked could offer a nice boost to the entire spectrum.

FFXIV is one of the more balanced games in terms of class discrepancy. We are walking a very fine line between being overpowered and being balance. I think these changes walks that line exceptionally without making DRK overpowered, quite unlike many of the changes offered by other players so far. At the top end of the spectrum these changes makes DRK less unwieldy and more rewarding to play while not upsetting the overall balance of the tanks at all spectrum of skill level.

I like your way to balance the skills, but even with that, I will not playing DRK again.
Another issue that I've heard - and that I say - about the DRK is the gameplay. A lot of players find the gameplay boring, I too.

Coming from me who speedrun a bit, yes DRK is not as good as WAR. BUT that only accounts for people who do speedrun, heck, my DRK has better dps than my WAR. The "DRK sucks" does not apply if your WAR sucks ass (like how mine is) or if you don't try to optimize. Before the buff in 4.05, WAR already was the go-to tank VS DRK for Lakshmi and Susano speedruns. There is no point talking when you are just here to spread the disease that DRK is broken, like how people chose to present PLD in HW. PLD was never broken, DRK just outshone PLD in the MT slot.

So yes, DRK is less optimal but it just doesn't matter for most of you. 200 dps extra isn't going to break your bones.

The only few things I would get into is increasing TBN's duration to 6sec, Dark Passenger buffed so it's used or heck even removing it would be fine as it is, the extra enmity is not a problem due to Shirk, Delirium is such a long CD that it would have to be adjusted so that we actually have better sustain in dmg. Or maybe just a flat 5% extra on Darkside would be sufficient, maybe.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

So yes, DRK is less optimal but it just doesn't matter for most of you. 200 dps extra isn't going to break your bones.

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You heavily underestimate how much 200 DPS matters when you're in the top 30 world slot for a fight. 6:18 kill time for O2S puts us at #22, while the #1 slot is 5:58. Do you really think 200 DPS won't matter when you're trying to shave off seconds? A WAR and PLD that optimizes their HP shields would actually give healers a few extra GCDs throughout a fight, not to mention PLD already has heavy mitigation with hallowed and passive blocking. Can DRKs atleast offer anything to the raid? Currently, no. I do agree that PLD was not as bad as people made it out to be in HW. They had hallowed and divine veil, which they atleast offered something to the raid. Which is why I would say that DRKs are at a worse position than PLDs were at HW.

DRK already heavily relies on the BRD+DRG+NIN buffs to even reach consistent numbers of a PLD. It's really annoying how I can walk into O3S for the very first time on my PLD and do the same numbers as my DRK, without any effort. Sure, my group has the meta comp now and I could go back on DRK to get better personal numbers. But speedrunning is about your kill time, not your personal DPS.

Any class changes that affect the speedrunner opinions will usually sway how the rest of the community will view a class, just look at how influenced the community is from guides made by "hardcore" players (more prominently Momo & Xeno).

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

So yes, DRK is less optimal but it just doesn't matter for most of you. 200 dps extra isn't going to break your bones.

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Balance isn't just about damage. If you don't have anything to make up for that 200 dps difference then it can be a deal breaker.
Having a DRK in your party is just a like a piece of hay poking at your side. It's not going to kill you but you'd have a better time without it.

That said, I do agree that the proposed changes in OP would easily launch DRK into the overpowered zone. Minor potency/duration changes would help DRK become more useful but it won't fix the core problem of its gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

So yes, DRK is less optimal but it just doesn't matter for most of you. 200 dps extra isn't going to break your bones.

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I advocate play what you want as much as anyone else, but it also sucks knowing you can be bringing more and doing better if you were a different job competing for your spot. I say this as a Black mage currently transitioning into Machinist. I definitely need more work on Machinist but I'm already at the point, with just a few hours of practice, where I'd be comfortable with the personal damage I lose by switching, and that margin will only get smaller as the gear catches up and I hammer out the rotation more.

You shouldn't feel -bad- for playing what you want, and that's why these balance discussions will persist despite the speed run population being much lower than even the Savage clear population.

The Reprisal adjustment I'd welcome, I think it's a good solution. I get nervous with raid-mitigation concerns because one must consider that SE's response may be to super-glue that raid mitigation in via some erroneous resource cost, I hope to avoid that.

... like if DRK were given raid Mitigation is in any way similar to another cumulating, binary Dark Arts added effect then we're still short-changed, and that just compounds into the argument of being a B-tier performer.

So are we just going to ignore Dark Passenger?
Something needs to be done about it.

Also Shadow Wall. Seriously needs a cooldown reduction to match PLD

Then Dark Mind. In HW it was useful because the other tanks couldnt parry magical attacks. Now that all tanks can parry magical attacks this skill is almost useless as and exclusive skill and needs rework.

DRK needs some kind of group mitigation tool like the other tanks to keep it balanced.

All these changes look good! Now if only SE would listen....

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Originally Posted by Derio

So are we just going to ignore Dark Passenger?
Something needs to be done about it.

Also Shadow Wall. Seriously needs a cooldown reduction to match PLD

Then Dark Mind. In HW it was useful because the other tanks couldnt parry magical attacks. Now that all tanks can parry magical attacks this skill is almost useless as and exclusive skill and needs rework.

DRK needs some kind of group mitigation tool like the other tanks to keep it balanced.

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Let's not make all 3 tanks have the exact same skills and the exact same utility, and instead maybe try to give DRK an actual identity.

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Originally Posted by akisya

Let's not make all 3 tanks have the exact same skills and the exact same utility, and instead maybe try to give DRK an actual identity.

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I agree, I understand people are just making suggestions but it wouldn't bring much variety from the tank jobs if all three tanks brought the same thing, as you said. Which brings me in favor of your idea about Reprisal, I would welcome Reprisal being returned as a DRK exclusive skill and was a bit disappointed pre-SB that it was one of three skills donated to the Role Action pool, two of which proc'ed off one skill and now it has left us with almost no niche. The damage reduction on Reprisal would have to be adjusted to make it worthwhile, 15% seems fair and it would make DRK more attractive to groups: Do we take the two tanks that can give party shields? Or take one of the two with the other solely responsible for reducing incoming raid damage or help with MT mitigation before it happens?

Seriously, why does every player want to make each tank equal and a carbon copy of eachother?

You have 3 different type of tanks! Make them different.

1) paladin.

King of protection in my book. Should be the Tank with the lowest damage, the highest survivability and lowest HP. This is the class that protect it's friends and itself, is excellent at solo mob/boss tanking, bad at multi mobs.

2) Warrior.

Well this is the barbarian, the berserker the big damage dealer, low defense. High HP, Highest damage, no party wide protection and medium self protection. Enrage abilities? Avarage bosses, avarage at multimobs?

3) Dark Knight

This is your AoE tank, your drainer/debuffer. It should have Avarage HP, Avarage Damage, High self sustain trough leeches of mana and hp. No party wide protection, avarage Self protection. Able to place debuffs on the mob/boss. Excells at Multiple mob tanking, avarage on bosses.

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Originally Posted by Syrellaris

Seriously, why does every player want to make each tank equal and a carbon copy of eachother?

You have 3 different type of tanks! Make them different.

1) paladin.

King of protection in my book. Should be the Tank with the lowest damage, the highest survivability and lowest HP. This is the class that protect it's friends and itself, is excellent at solo mob/boss tanking, bad at multi mobs.

2) Warrior.

Well this is the barbarian, the berserker the big damage dealer, low defense. High HP, Highest damage, no party wide protection and medium self protection. Enrage abilities? Avarage bosses, avarage at multimobs?

3) Dark Knight

This is your AoE tank, your drainer/debuffer. It should have Avarage HP, Avarage Damage, High self sustain trough leeches of mana and hp. No party wide protection, avarage Self protection. Able to place debuffs on the mob/boss. Excells at Multiple mob tanking, avarage on bosses.

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This would never work. Dps is king, so no one would want to take a pld to anything past savage progression. They need to be balanced dps wise and, by default, need the defensive cds to actually do the content. They also need to be able to do all types of content, from trials to raids, to dungeons. *How* they do these things is where they can have their own little identity.

PLD is "defensive," and WAR is "offensive." This leaves DRK with "???"

This is the crux of the issue, to my mind. DRK has no mechanical identity because WAR already embodies it. DRKs were sort of the in-between guy in HW, which never really made much sense to me, but now they just suck (relatively speaking).

Part of the problem with that is that "the offensive tank" is way too broad of an advantage to give to any one tank.

Nobody really comments on it, but "the tank with the highest burst damage" and "the tank with the highest DPS at the end of a fight" should absolutely not, ever, under any circumstance be given to the same class, because those are two completely separate advantages to have.
Conceptually, balancing tank DPS is pretty easy:

- One class does extremely high burst damage and has the lowest overall DPS
- One class has the highest overall DPS but does constant damage with no ability to burst outside of party buffs
- One class is able to do moderate burst, and has an overall DPS in between the other two.

That's meaningful differentiation in class identity with respect to DPS, without painting in an overly broad brush and just saying "Okay, this class is the best at damage, everybody else is fighting over their table scraps".

True enough, which is why I put "offensive" in scare quotes, but tanks aren't DPS, so I don't know that SE cares to fine tune the balance along those vectors. Maybe they do, but it wouldn't be easy.

In addition, I think giving DRK back the old Delirium (but calling it something else), that also generates MP on hit would be a good thing for DRK to have, imo. So, you're swapping between the Souleater DA combo and, let's just tentatively call it Scourge, for the MP regeneration, hitting Bloodspiller when available.

I'd, personally, like to see TBN be a DRK Adlo/NoctAB, so it's a self heal and shield = to amount healed as well as giving Blood. Or, rather, Dark Mind be the DRK Adlo/NoctAB, and TBN be a DRK Succor/NoctAH. Gives them healing utility and shield utility and makes Dark Mind kinda useful again (it can get the Blood gain trait when the Blood gauge is unlocked at 62, giving you the current TBN at an earlier level).

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Originally Posted by akisya

You heavily underestimate how much 200 DPS matters when you're in the top 30 world slot for a fight. 6:18 kill time for O2S puts us at #22, while the #1 slot is 5:58. Do you really think 200 DPS won't matter when you're trying to shave off seconds? A WAR and PLD that optimizes their HP shields would actually give healers a few extra GCDs throughout a fight, not to mention PLD already has heavy mitigation with hallowed and passive blocking. Can DRKs atleast offer anything to the raid? Currently, no. I do agree that PLD was not as bad as people made it out to be in HW. They had hallowed and divine veil, which they atleast offered something to the raid. Which is why I would say that DRKs are at a worse position than PLDs were at HW.

DRK already heavily relies on the BRD+DRG+NIN buffs to even reach consistent numbers of a PLD. It's really annoying how I can walk into O3S for the very first time on my PLD and do the same numbers as my DRK, without any effort. Sure, my group has the meta comp now and I could go back on DRK to get better personal numbers. But speedrunning is about your kill time, not your personal DPS.

Any class changes that affect the speedrunner opinions will usually sway how the rest of the community will view a class, just look at how influenced the community is from guides made by "hardcore" players (more prominently Momo & Xeno).

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Let's be honest, how many people here are doing speedrun? That 200 dps won't matter to them. I mained PLD in Gordias and I easily got higher DPS than those DRK mains. So much for "DRK can do more dps than PLD easily", right? PLD and WAR are neck to neck, WAR sometimes gets that lucky crits during their bursts to completely dominate the tank class.

DRK can't even reach PLD's and WAR's number at 97%+, of course that's bad. BUT that's only if you can do 97%+ on those jobs for it to matter.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

Let's be honest, how many people here are doing speedrun? That 200 dps won't matter to them. I mained PLD in Gordias and I easily got higher DPS than those DRK mains. So much for "DRK can do more than PLD easily", right? PLD and WAR are neck to neck, WAR sometimes gets that lucky crits during their burst.

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If it doesn't matter, then you might as well buff DRK by 200 DPS, right?

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

You shouldn't feel -bad- for playing what you want, and that's why these balance discussions will persist despite the speed run population being much lower than even the Savage clear population.

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TBH I just don't get the point of "maining a job", you have so many jobs you can play in your role, yet you are so fixated at one. I, for one, switch to WAR for speedrun but it's not like I don't enjoy playing WAR. So you see, it's part of the game. More often that people complain but they can't even get better results in the said 'OP' job.

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Originally Posted by Crater

If it doesn't matter, then you might as well buff DRK by 200 DPS, right?

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True, the discussion is to bring up the power level of DRK to match PLD and more so WAR, but the tone set is another different thing.

The funny thing is, the 200 dps gap is specifically referring to the highest percentiles. The gap generally becomes wider as you look at lower percentiles. In fights like Neo Exdeath and Shinryu, when you look down at the 50th-75th percentiles, it's more on the order of 300-400 dps. The problem with presenting the percentile data to people is that they deliberately ignore the massive gap between WAR and DRK at the percentiles where they actually play at and quote the max value. When you look at lower percentiles, you start to see non-zero tank stance uptime, groups without NIN, and you start to see the effects of the Grit double tax.

Tanks are probably the only players in the game who pretend that having nearly the entirety of your dps condensed into pressing Damage Up! + Big Damage spam is like climbing Mount Ordeals rather than an optimisation advantage. It's like those folks in HW claiming that FoF usage was the height of technical skill. It's just self-aggrandisement. The average DRG gets over this sort of thinking by level 30.

If you're playing more casually or are jumping into trap groups, you'll see a much wider variation in your teammates' skill. You're dependent on clutch performances from a few teammates to make dps checks. It's actually that much more important to get every bit of dps that you can out of your rotation.

As a side note, with regards to Reprisal: I find it interesting that the devs showcased it in the middle of the Stormblood job action reveal for DRK, when it was actually just in the process of being given away. Giving Reprisal back to as a DRK exclusive wouldn't shift players back onto the job on its own without some dps parity, and there will always be times where DV and SiO will be stronger (since they don't require a target), but it would help.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

Let's be honest, how many people here are doing speedrun? That 200 dps won't matter to them. I mained PLD in Gordias and I easily got higher DPS than those DRK mains. So much for "DRK can do more dps than PLD easily", right? PLD and WAR are neck to neck, WAR sometimes gets that lucky crits during their bursts to completely dominate the tank class.

DRK can't even reach PLD's and WAR's number at 97%+, of course that's bad. BUT that's only if you can do 97%+ on those jobs for it to matter.

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I this, I that more than this. Maybe you should make a thread on how much more damage you can do on PLD than the majority of DRKs in the past, since you're not really contributing to this one.

It doesn't matter if people here speedrun or not, I'm only giving my suggestions and feedback here as a speedrunner. Since speedrunning is where you'll see the biggest difference in tank balance, especially having played both PLD and DRK.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The funny thing is, the 200 dps gap is specifically referring to the highest percentiles. The gap generally becomes wider as you look at lower percentiles. In fights like Neo Exdeath and Shinryu, when you look down at the 50th-75th percentiles, it's more on the order of 300-400 dps. The problem with presenting the percentile data to people is that they deliberately ignore the massive gap between WAR and DRK at the percentiles where they actually play at and quote the max value. When you look at lower percentiles, you start to see non-zero tank stance uptime, groups without NIN, and you start to see the effects of the Grit double tax.

Tanks are probably the only players in the game who pretend that having nearly the entirety of your dps condensed into pressing Damage Up! + Big Damage spam is like climbing Mount Ordeals rather than an optimisation advantage. It's like those folks in HW claiming that FoF usage was the height of technical skill. It's just self-aggrandisement. The average DRG gets over this sort of thinking by level 30.

If you're playing more casually or are jumping into trap groups, you'll see a much wider variation in your teammates' skill. You're dependent on clutch performances from a few teammates to make dps checks. It's actually that much more important to get every bit of dps that you can out of your rotation.

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This so much. My performance for both DRK and WAR are pretty far apart, WAR being the lower end of it. They are comparable but again not supposed to happen when WAR is innately stronger at doing more dps, mostly due to me not understanding the burst periods that DRK don't really offer. But yes, the fluctuation does occur and it's usually worse at lower percentiles.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The funny thing is, the 200 dps gap is specifically referring to the highest percentiles. The gap generally becomes wider as you look at lower percentiles. In fights like Neo Exdeath and Shinryu, when you look down at the 50th-75th percentiles, it's more on the order of 300-400 dps. The problem with presenting the percentile data to people is that they deliberately ignore the massive gap between WAR and DRK at the percentiles where they actually play at and quote the max value. When you look at lower percentiles, you start to see non-zero tank stance uptime, groups without NIN, and you start to see the effects of the Grit double tax.

Tanks are probably the only players in the game who pretend that having nearly the entirety of your dps condensed into pressing Damage Up! + Big Damage spam is like climbing Mount Ordeals rather than an optimisation advantage. It's like those folks in HW claiming that FoF usage was the height of technical skill. It's just self-aggrandisement. The average DRG gets over this sort of thinking by level 30.

If you're playing more casually or are jumping into trap groups, you'll see a much wider variation in your teammates' skill. You're dependent on clutch performances from a few teammates to make dps checks. It's actually that much more important to get every bit of dps that you can out of your rotation.

As a side note, with regards to Reprisal: I find it interesting that the devs showcased it in the middle of the Stormblood job action reveal for DRK, when it was actually just in the process of being given away. Giving Reprisal back to as a DRK exclusive wouldn't shift players back onto the job on its own without some dps parity, and there will always be times where DV and SiO will be stronger (since they don't require a target), but it would help.

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+1

If Reprisal is there to stay as a role action, giving an additional reprisal-like effect (probably put onto one of the other abilities, I'm looking at you Dark Passanger and Soul Survivor) that stacks with reprisal would be nice.

The other thing about Grit is it basically has the biggest damage tax when swapping in compared with other stance swapping (though unlike oaths is mostly only one way), as it takes off a chunk of MP as well as the GCD it takes.

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Originally Posted by Hruodig

This would never work. Dps is king, so no one would want to take a pld to anything past savage progression. They need to be balanced dps wise and, by default, need the defensive cds to actually do the content. They also need to be able to do all types of content, from trials to raids, to dungeons. *How* they do these things is where they can have their own little identity.

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And that is exactly where the problem is at ain't it? DPS is king? No, dps is part of the fight but should not be the go to for everything. There is multiple ways to balance fights around classes, it doesn't have to be purely dps. It takes a bit more effort sure, but at least it removes the issue of cookie cutter templates that we currently have. Each tank is pretty much the exact same thing, there is no uniqueness to any of em. Well besides how flashy some of the animations are.

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Originally Posted by Syrellaris

And that is exactly where the problem is at ain't it? DPS is king? No, dps is part of the fight but should not be the go to for everything. There is multiple ways to balance fights around classes, it doesn't have to be purely dps. It takes a bit more effort sure, but at least it removes the issue of cookie cutter templates that we currently have. Each tank is pretty much the exact same thing, there is no uniqueness to any of em. Well besides how flashy some of the animations are.

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Well I don't personally have a problem with it, it's how I came to enjoy the game. If I wanted a different meta I'd play a different game.

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Originally Posted by Hruodig

Well I don't personally have a problem with it, it's how I came to enjoy the game. If I wanted a different meta I'd play a different game.

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There isn't enough "good game" anywhere around to announce "I choose the game for the meta", pretty much you just came and fitted into a meta and now can't imagine something else.

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Originally Posted by Syrellaris

And that is exactly where the problem is at ain't it? DPS is king? No, dps is part of the fight but should not be the go to for everything. There is multiple ways to balance fights around classes, it doesn't have to be purely dps. It takes a bit more effort sure, but at least it removes the issue of cookie cutter templates that we currently have. Each tank is pretty much the exact same thing, there is no uniqueness to any of em. Well besides how flashy some of the animations are.

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In FF XIV, dps is king. Maybe it should be not, but it is.

I know a WAR than can hold the aggro very easily, but he doesn't make a lot of dmgs. By that I mean even less than the heal. So ok, it's easy for this last one to heal him, but in Trials or Raid, we are risking the enrage just because he can't make a lot of dps.
It's just an exemple, but this is how the game is done: dps dps dps...

Btw, I've read your idea of "DRK is the AOE tank", and it's not a good idea, at all.
So the DRK will be usefull for what? Dungeon? And? That is all.
So the DRK will be useless. And personally, I find the WAR better for dungeon.

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Originally Posted by akisya

Currently, the tank balance is far worse than HW was among the tanks.

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Didn't read the rest after this as this is simply false. In terms of damage, tanks are closer now than they were in HW. In terms of speed kill meta, drk being non-meta hardly hinders the party like paladin did in HW (with the lack of magic mitigation + int down).

Yes, drks need help, yes drks should do more dmg than plds, but no the balance is not worse than it was in HW lol

I suppose it depends on your point of view. As a PLD main who didn't run DRK past A2S, you might feel that the balance is a lot better now. Most DRK mains probably feel the opposite. But we're not talking about whether the "balance" is subjectively good for the job you're presently playing. We want to see a variety of strong comps. It keeps the game interesting.

To be honest, I don't really care to debate whether PLD had it worse in HW. Either way, the most glaring problem across both HW and SB is that we can't seem to find a tank balance in which PLD and DRK are simultaneously relevant. The core problem is actually identical, because it was never addressed, only sidestepped.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I suppose it depends on your point of view ... you might feel that the balance is a lot better now. Most DRK mains probably feel the opposite

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This isn't Star Wars where we say Jedis are evil from a point of view. We use data. In terms of points relative to dps score, in creator warrior's were 2.3 points better than drk in terms of dps, and they were 8.6 better than pld (as an average for all bosses). In SB warriors are ranked 1.6 points better than pld, and 4.1 better than drk.

In short, the difference between the two worst tanks in creator was 6.3 in favor of drk, and in SB it is 2.5 in favor of pld. All this can be viewed in the statistics page.

For speed runs in creator, for top 20 fastest kills, there was 0 paladins in A9S, 0 in A10S, 1 in A11S, and 0 in A12S, and 1 in faust.

For speed runs in delta, for top 20 fastest kills, there is 1 dark for O1S, 6 in O2S, 2 in O3S, 7 in exfaust, and 6 in Neo.

EDIT: Being objective is important when wanting people to take you seriously with requests to change your class. "Balance is *far worse* now than in HW" is a false statement with the information available to us.

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Originally Posted by Zykor

This isn't Star Wars where we say Jedis are evil from a point of view. We use data. In terms of points relative to dps score, in creator warrior's were 2.3 points better than drk in terms of dps, and they were 8.6 better than pld (as an average for all bosses). In SB warriors are ranked 1.6 points better than pld, and 4.1 better than drk.

In short, the difference between the two worst tanks in creator was 6.3 in favor of drk, and in SB it is 2.5 in favor of pld. All this can be viewed in the statistics page.

For speed runs in creator, for top 20 fastest kills, there was 0 paladins in A9S, 0 in A10S, 1 in A11S, and 0 in A12S, and 1 in faust.

For speed runs in delta, for top 20 fastest kills, there is 1 dark for O1S, 6 in O2S, 2 in O3S, 7 in exfaust, and 6 in Neo.

EDIT: Being objective is important when wanting people to take you seriously with requests to change your class. "Balance is *far worse* now than in HW" is a false statement with the information available to us.

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I hit like on ur post, but I also feel there is a slight error in it. (Well, technically not, but more so something else to consider)
The problem with DRK also stems from other tanks not being pushed to their max. (Mainly mitigation, as we now see 2 tanks with raid wide mitigation, that can be ignored, as obviously DRK and WAR were abel to clear just fine before the updates to WAR)
If content was actually tuned to be difficult enough to require the bonus mitigation PLD offers, and now WAR, then DRK wouldnt compete. (DPS or no DPS)

I do agree its not on the same level as HW.

I also agree if Ultimate is roughly on par with neo exdeath, then there just isnt a big enough issue to worry about.

But if its going to actually push us to the maximum potential play, then DRK will be a hindrance, regardless is if its a difference of 1% vs 20% performance difference. (This is a bit harder to explain, so I probably won't, since I know I'll fail.)

As other said, its only for the speed runners.
But once we see A4S DPS checks again in Ultimate, if not worse, even the small DPS difference in DRK will make ppl not want DRKs in their groups. Even for that small % difference. (Its also possible we wont see extreme DPS checks either, and Neo will be the most extreme DPS check we're going to see.)

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Originally Posted by Claire_Pendragon

...Mainly mitigation, as we now see 2 tanks with raid wide mitigation...

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I agree with you fully on everything you said, Claire. It is for this reason dark knights do need assistance. In fact, my DRK and I are currently holding the global #1 spot for pld/drk combined tank dps and still we are having the drk switch to warrior, specifically because a higher dps potential is possible there and now shake it off helping healer DPS out (with potential LB building cheese happening as well).

But if we are going to be honest, there will always be a tank that needs assistance, and the non meta speed kill one will be making posts on the forums.

The problem with using normalised values is that they are normalised relative to the highest dps job. There are three issues with this. Firstly, the gap between tanks and dps has increased since HW, due in part to changes to how our gear scales, so each point of difference represents a bigger discrepancy. Secondly, every job does more dps than it did in HW, so again, each point of difference represents a bigger discrepancy. Third, the normalization (i.e. the divisor) depends on the percentile that you're looking at (i.e. it's inconsistent, and you have to say specifically which percentile data the normalisation was done at).

It's like saying DRK does x% less damage, except that it's even more misleading, because you're dividing by an even bigger number (i.e. from the top dps job, rather than a tank) to make the dps discrepancy seem smaller than it actually is.

I suppose how many plds vs drks in the top 20 speed kills is also relative data :eyes:

And your assumption sounds right on paper but that gap doesn't exist right now. Our gear scales terribly with accessories but that scale will become more apparent over the course of the expansion and will affect all tanks, but that gap doesn't exist now and it doesn't only affect drks.

For relative data, in creator warrior's score was 68.0, now compared that to SBs score of 67.9, being relative to the highest DPS. So using warrior as a benchmark is pretty reasonable.

EDIT: With that warrior score in mind, do note that the difference between drk and pld in HW was 6.3 and 2.5 in SB lol, over double :confused: