New drk is too much fun!

How come people are complaining about the new dark knight? This spin2win aggressive style of drk is a blast! Who actually had fun doing dark arts spam? I was a healer main who played drk for fun in dgns but dam im maining this version of drk! Im like an evil warrior lol. Spin2win! See you ast! Let the darkness consume my healing ways. Who agrees with me?

I am still unsure about DRK.

I liked SB DRK. I also liked HW DRK. And ShB DRK doesn't look bad also... okay, I am not a fan of the Bloodspiller spam, but overall the gameplay is fine. It could be better, but it's not worse than SB DRK, just different...

Main problem is that BLM is just so much fun! :O But switching to a dps-job feels kinda strange...

I'm glad someone else enjoys it too, it really is fun. I do wish the abilities has a slight bit more interaction between them and maybe a bit more mana gain but nonetheless it is great.

well to answer you question i did really enjoy dark arts, meaby to much spam and lack of any other choice to spend you mp but i really miss dark arts, other thing i don't agree with you but have fun.

iam one of the people who also join the happy wagon for shb DRK, not seeing the problem but then again i didnt play my DRK 120%, i just play it normally and enjoy the hell out of it.

People are complaining about the new DRK, because they took one of the highest apm classes in the game that was, imo, really fun to optimimise and micro manage, and turned it into braindead dump mana every min whilst using worse inner release thats slower. Warrior already exists, we didn't need warrior with edgy paintjob.

All I want is the HW DRK back. He was sooo funny. I loved the Rotation, the mitigation and even the scourge dot...

Hey thanks for the replies! Im happy tp see others enjoy the new drk and feel for the ppl who dont likw the changes. Im going to keep maining this job. I cant wait to ask you guys for raiding tips in the coming days. Maybe one day you guys will notice me senpai!

Has OP tried WAR yet?

I'll also put down an optimistic yes.

I'll have to see how it goes in EX dungeons and above, but I like the generic feel of the changes.

Only things I would complain about are:

• long cooldowns on AB and Salted Earth
  
• on better gear it might be hard to break the shield to get the lost dps back
  
• a very slightly higher mana generation. Having a natural Edge/Flood every 20 seconds is a bit too little. Shaving off 2-3 seconds off that migt alleviate some of the downtime when you are on cooldown.

Spin to win? Thats got nothing to do with new DRK at all. Spin to win was inner release/steel cyclone spam. If we had that, I would be way less upset. More sensible blood spenders- like just making AD a blood spender, and i wouldnt complain as much, and yeah even in levelling its gotten a little hard to get TBN to pop. But the reward for that is a free edge/flood. Which, you could just not mitigate with TBN and spend the same mana for anyway.... At 80 its not god awful, but I personally think there needs to be something the blood gauge does besides just damage. AD would be fine, because then we could use delirium for a burst heal, like all the other tanks have...edge/flood should just be one button ability, i get that damage is different, but still tedious when we're using them for refresh and more damage anyway.

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Originally Posted by Valic

Has OP tried WAR yet?

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Lol Right?

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

People are complaining about the new DRK, because they took one of the highest apm classes in the game that was, imo, really fun to optimimise and micro manage, and turned it into braindead dump mana every min whilst using worse inner release thats slower. Warrior already exists, we didn't need warrior with edgy paintjob.

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DRK in SB was really annoying and clunky due to DA spam. I originally played the class in HW and had to give it up in SB because of the loss of its original great identity of a balancing act. Balance your MP, balance your cooldowns, balance your damage, balance your aggro...it had the complexity and micromanaging of a SCH in tank form. SB took away the synergy of its moves and stripped its kit of several of the abilities that made us who we are (outside of Reprisal, did any tank need Low Blow or Anticipation!?), made it practically braindead in the MP department, and forced Dark Arts spam for offensive moves to the point where it could give carpal tunnel (when originally it was used more defensively and tactically). We go from there to now, where it's fluid, there's actual synergy within the entire kit, and is far less annoying to pull out the full potential of. DRK has gotten an identity again along with a bit of tactical complexity it was missing in SB, and IMO is far better for it. Sadly it's not at HW's level, but DRK is actually fun again.

@Lersayil
Overall...I disagree, I think 5.0 DRK needs a bit more than what you listed to become a complete, enjoyable class. You\\'re right about removing the 60s cd on Abyssal Drain, I think this is one of the worst things about 5.0 DRK, Abyssal Drain just feels really bad and unsatisfying with that long of a a cooldown.

DRK doesn't need just "very slightly" better MP regen, it needs to be bumped up quite a bit. DRK's overall MP regen speed being butchered as much as it was is (I think) one of the main reasons why the class feels so much more sluggish and tedious to play. If DRK had a system of MP management somewhat akin to PLD's, I think it would work a lot better than what we currently have (all of PLDs spells cost 2000 mp, and a single Riot Blade combo restores 1000 mp). I'm just brainstorming here, but in this hypothetical new system, the MP cost of spells could still be 3,000, but Syphon Strike would restore ~1500 MP, and Stalwart Soul combo could restore ~1000 MP.

Also, 5.0 Delirium needs to go. Imo, it's the worst iteration of the skill yet. Aside from just being an unoriginal copy of a skill that already exists, its mechanic is just really repetitive, restricting, and ultimately, boring. It boggles my mind how most people who like 5.0 DRK (not necessarily referring to you @Lersayil, but I'm just speaking generally based on what I've seen and heard) claim to have utterly despised 4.0's Dark Arts spam, but are perfectly fine with this new Delirium essentially forcing you to do the same exact skill over, and over, and over again. Also, if SE is going to make Delirium generate MP with each of these moves, the MP that is restored needs a serious buff to make the function feel worthwhile. I couldn't believe my eyes when a Delirium Bloodspiller only generated 200 MP...that's just insane.

Personally, I thought Delirium worked fairly well in 4.0 when it functioned as a resource (MP) generator. In fact, in 4.0 your Blood Gauge was basically a resource that generated MP for you. I feel like that was a pretty good idea, and the cool thing was you didn't have to use it solely for the sake of MP generation, because we also had the choice to use Bloodspiller. I would like to see 5.0 build off of this foundation. Instead of having damage-only skills for our meter, I would have liked to see more of SB's restorative uses for it, or maybe even some PLD-esque uses that involve some kind of group utility.

Also, there needs to be another combo added, immediately. Even my buddies who have DRK at 80 already and love the class have told me spamming Souleater combo over and over just isn't fun, and understandably so. DRK is the only tank right now with only one single target combo, something needs to be done about that.

And for the love of God lol, can we make Fray actually do something interesting. Honestly, at this point, I think I'd take anything SE decided to give us. Just please, make Living Shadow more than just a glorified D.O.T.

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Originally Posted by TheForce

@Lersayil
Overall...I disagree, I think 5.0 DRK needs a bit more than what you listed to become a complete, enjoyable class. You\\'re right about removing the 60s cd on Abyssal Drain, I think this is one of the worst things about 5.0 DRK, Abyssal Drain just feels really bad and unsatisfying with that long of a a cooldown.

DRK doesn't need just "very slightly" better MP regen, it needs to be bumped up quite a bit. DRK's overall MP regen speed being butchered as much as it was is (I think) one of the main reasons why the class feels so much more sluggish and tedious to play. If DRK had a system of MP management somewhat akin to PLD's, I think it would work a lot better than what we currently have (all of PLDs spells cost 2000 mp, and a single Riot Blade combo restores 1000 mp). I'm just brainstorming here, but in this hypothetical new system, the MP cost of spells could still be 3,000, but Syphon Strike would restore ~1500 MP, and Stalwart Soul combo could restore ~1000 MP.

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Was unaware that PLD got more returns on their syphon move, you know what? The mp boost you suggest might actually fix a ton of problems ive noticed with it, and yeah 8-9 BS in a row is extremely boring as hell, I have no idea why people think thats more fun than boosting a BS to have double potency or something. Use TBN and hope it pops or just use edge and not risk the pop, your mp will be the same at the end anyway, Also, what is the point of the LS timer being added to the DS timer if its non-refreshable? That...That really really got me scratching my head...

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Originally Posted by TheForce

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I see where you are comming from, but personally dont quite agree. Overall I agree that most of the individual DRK mechanics are... mediocre at best. Delirium spam is meh, cds on Salted Earth and Abyssal Drain are way too long, and the mana generation without blood weapon is low.

That being said, for me the sum of these mediocre mechanics are more enjoyable than each of the individual parts would warrant. Sure, it could use some chiseling here and there, but I can live with the base provided here.

Thus my previous comment. When we have our cooldowns its active enough for my liking. The downtimes are a bit too low however with only 1-2-3 and one flood / edge per 20 seconds, so I would like them shortened a bit, or made more active.

I hate the spin2win mechanic they added to the Dark Knight. It's just so unbelievably, mind-numbingly, boring and slowly drives me insane, playing a spinning wheel for 10 seconds. Also while I could understand why people might have disliked the Dark Arts spam, I actually miss it. It helped to keep me engaged, because I was constantly doing something and was focusing on buffing my damage rotation to its highest possible limit. Now I only have 1 combo string and occasionally hit one of the other available damage buttons.

I know a lot of players weren't happy with the changes to the Job in the Stormblood expansion, but I was still having a lot of fun. Now, now I am actually feeling bored.

Dark Arts ruined the class for me before, so now I will actually play Dark Knight again.

I haven't played new DRK yet I went GNB first but it'll be my 2nd tank job to level right after I level MCH, I do like the ideas of new DRK but we'll see how it goes if it's boring I'll reserve judgement till 80 just like I did with GNB.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

DRK in SB was really annoying and clunky due to DA spam. I originally played the class in HW and had to give it up in SB because of the loss of its original great identity of a balancing act. Balance your MP, balance your cooldowns, balance your damage, balance your aggro...it had the complexity and micromanaging of a SCH in tank form. SB took away the synergy of its moves and stripped its kit of several of the abilities that made us who we are (outside of Reprisal, did any tank need Low Blow or Anticipation!?), made it practically braindead in the MP department, and forced Dark Arts spam for offensive moves to the point where it could give carpal tunnel (when originally it was used more defensively and tactically). We go from there to now, where it's fluid, there's actual synergy within the entire kit, and is far less annoying to pull out the full potential of. DRK has gotten an identity again along with a bit of tactical complexity it was missing in SB, and IMO is far better for it. Sadly it's not at HW's level, but DRK is actually fun again.

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I played on DRK in HW, then when SB intially came out I played Warrior, then switched back to DRK when 4.2 came out because I detested inner release. I'm firmly in the camp of I liked Dark Arts, not as much as HW mind you, but still found the mechanic enjoyable, and if you were into micro optimising a fight to get high percentiles it was very fun. Knowing when to tbn to get an extra bloodspiller to prep downtime, trying to make the most of misaligned raid buffs by choosing to mana dump, there was a lot of nuiance you could get out of it if you knew what you were doing. I'm firmly in the I like high APM crowd which is why im not so happy, I think they could have redigned the kit to keep the speed but lose the clunk. Also new Delerium can just go to hell, I hated inner release on WAR, I don't need it on DRK too.

Despite my reservations about Inner Delirium, I have found myself sorta liking Bloodspiller spam. I feel like I've lost a few braincells to enjoy it.

Become what you must, I suppose.

I'm not too keen on Delirium, Bloodspiller spam isn't exactly a fun burst system.
However I do love the new Edge/Flood Darkside system and how it works with TBN. Mitigation is a lot more active and rewarding now.
That said, DRK feels awful synced without TBN now.

TBH I'm surprised that they didn't have Delierium just give you a perma Dark Arts Proc for 10 sec. This way we would just have to weave the Darkness/Shadow skills with GCDs and other OGCDs for maximum performance. I would think that this would let us keep the burst window that they are promoting while making us unique from the other 3 tanks and making use of the new DA system they gave us.

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Originally Posted by Sancho_Nyanta

TBH I'm surprised that they didn't have Delierium just give you a perma Dark Arts Proc for 10 sec. This way we would just have to weave the Darkness/Shadow skills with GCDs and other OGCDs for maximum performance. I would think that this would let us keep the burst window that they are promoting while making us unique from the other 3 tanks and making use of the new DA system they gave us.

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That basically would make the Darkside timer obsolete. I mean it's not difficult to keep it up anyway, but why add a timer when you can spam the skill wich extends the timer for free?

I haven't played my drk since the first five minutes of logging in for early access, but I've watched my friend play it at lv 78. From what I've seen, I'll probably neither like or dislike the new drk. I've always been the type of player who adapts to changes. If I don't like something, I'll either find a way to overcome it or just deal with it. I doubt we'll get any big fixes in lieu of bandaid patches, though. My only real complaint is mp generation. All of our mp-consuming skills costs a lot of mp. If siphon strike restored 1200-1500 mp, that would solve a lot of problems. Dps would definitely increase, and availability of TBN would increase as well.

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Originally Posted by Lannybaby

All of our mp-consuming skills costs a lot of mp. If siphon strike restored 1200-1500 mp, that would solve a lot of problems. Dps would definitely increase, and availability of TBN would increase as well.

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If MP restoration is increased, you're back to spamming Darkside skill every two GCD, like you did with Dark Arts. Basically, they didn't fix the design issue about spamming a single oGCD, they just make the skill cost more.

Whatever they do in future updates, the way Delirium works right now really needs to change. Instead of just letting us spam Bloodspiller/Quietus for 10 seconds, maybe it could be a 10 second buff, that increases the damage output/skillspeed on all our skills, as well as resets all cooldowns, with the exception of Living Shadow and Living Dead.

Heck, maybe during that 10 second window, change how certain skills work. For example Plunge, during Delirium it could get an added AoE effect that cracks the earth, so you can instantly aggro whole groups. There's so much they could do to make us feel like a total badass during the 10 second burst window, but instead we just press same button for 10 seconds straight.

Yeah, Delirium needs a complete rework!

Even the people who in general like the new DRK seem to hate Delirium - myself included.

It just highlights how simplified Dark Knight has become in this new expansion. Aggro management is gone, Dark Arts is gone. Oh, wanna do a high damage burst? Don't worry, press the same button for 10 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Tint

That basically would make the Darkside timer obsolete. I mean it's not difficult to keep it up anyway, but why add a timer when you can spam the skill wich extends the timer for free?

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I mean you already should be using either of the Darkness skills at least twice if not more in the current version of Delirium for every Delirium. Exactly how would this make it so you are invalidating the timer of Darkside since you will be capping at 60 sec. in both scenarios?

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Originally Posted by Sancho_Nyanta

TBH I'm surprised that they didn't have Delierium just give you a perma Dark Arts Proc for 10 sec. This way we would just have to weave the Darkness/Shadow skills with GCDs and other OGCDs for maximum performance. I would think that this would let us keep the burst window that they are promoting while making us unique from the other 3 tanks and making use of the new DA system they gave us.

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If Delirium were to do that, it would mess up your ability to weave your other oGCD abilities. With the 2s recast on the Edge and Flood abilites, as well as animation-locks, double-weaving oGCDs without potentially clipping your GCDs is tenuous at best. If you are spamming Edge or Flood between every GCD within 10s, you will likely not be able to take advantage of all the other stuff you would want to weave in there like CnS, AD and Plunge. You would basically be giving up your ability to utilize your other oGCDs to best effect just to give the semblance of being "different" for this one ability, when in reality you are still just spamming a single ability ~5 times and weaving other things in between, just swapping GCDs for oGCDs.

For me personally I did enjoy the constant use of DA, while sure it was superficial I felt that SB dark knight felt like it had a more active play style. In general most classes I played during SB-- Brd, Drk, Ast,-- so far feel less engaging though I am not 80 yet so I will not pass complete judgment.

GNB is the closest thing I've got to the Heavensward DRK I loved. Current DRK just has nothing to do with that anymore, unfortunately. I was ready to give up tanking when I came back to Stormblood, the changes to DRK and WAR just made them uninteresting to play. GNB isn't perfect, but it lets me at least return to my main role.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

If Delirium were to do that, it would mess up your ability to weave your other oGCD abilities. With the 2s recast on the Edge and Flood abilites, as well as animation-locks, double-weaving oGCDs without potentially clipping your GCDs is tenuous at best. If you are spamming Edge or Flood between every GCD within 10s, you will likely not be able to take advantage of all the other stuff you would want to weave in there like CnS, AD and Plunge. You would basically be giving up your ability to utilize your other oGCDs to best effect just to give the semblance of being "different" for this one ability, when in reality you are still just spamming a single ability ~5 times and weaving other things in between, just swapping GCDs for oGCDs.

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But aren't we already double weaving with the current incarnation of Delirium? Like the opener after you pop Delirium is to have 4 sets of double woven skills. Wouldn't the only difference here be that you would hit a GCD, double weave Delirium and a Darkness/Shadow to start?

So using the single target opener as my example; hit a GCD, double weave Delirium and EoS, use GCD, double weave Plunge and EoS, double weave C&S and EoS, use GCD, double weave AD and EoS, use GCD, double weave 2nd Plunge and EoS.

The GCDs themselves don't matter and can be any GCD.

I'm not sure what I'm missing that would really change what we are doing currently other than to make what we are spamming different than the other tanks in that it is a oGCD vs a GCD.

Me sir, like it

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Originally Posted by Sancho_Nyanta

But aren't we already double weaving with the current incarnation of Delirium? Like the opener after you pop Delirium is to have 4 sets of double woven skills. Wouldn't the only difference here be that you would hit a GCD, double weave Delirium and a Darkness/Shadow to start?

So using the single target opener as my example; hit a GCD, double weave Delirium and EoS, use GCD, double weave Plunge and EoS, double weave C&S and EoS, use GCD, double weave AD and EoS, use GCD, double weave 2nd Plunge and EoS.

The GCDs themselves don't matter and can be any GCD.

I'm not sure what I'm missing that would really change what we are doing currently other than to make what we are spamming different than the other tanks in that it is a oGCD vs a GCD.

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Yes, the opener where you literally push out everything you have at your disposal because nothing is on cooldown results in double-weaving.
The difference is that the forced double-weaving from the opener happens once in a fight, not every 90s like your proposed Delirium change would result in.
Believe me, there are going to be a lot of players clipping their GCDs with the opener because of double-weaving and forced double-weaving was a frequent complaint of SB DRK. Forcing the choice between regular double-weaving or not utilizing your oGCDs to the fullest just so you can spam one ability instead of another one for the sake of convincing yourself that it is now "different" even though it admittedly is more of a superficial difference than a substantial one, just doesn't seem like a good trade-off.

I am open to ideas for how Delirium could be changed to better differentiate it from Inner Release, but most of the ideas I have seen presented so far on the forums have glaring flaws and I will not give my personal thumbs up to such.

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Originally Posted by Awha

For me personally I did enjoy the constant use of DA, while sure it was superficial I felt that SB dark knight felt like it had a more active play style. In general most classes I played during SB-- Brd, Drk, Ast,-- so far feel less engaging though I am not 80 yet so I will not pass complete judgment.

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I didn't see a problem with it, either. It was annoying at first, but I was able to get over that after seeing how much harder I hit with each DA skill. The harder I hit, the more I felt I was contributing to the party damage as a whole. Sure, it could have been implemented differently, but I only cared for the end result. Spamming 1 skill took no brain power, which allowed me to focus more on the encounter instead of using the right skill at the right time.

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Originally Posted by Lannybaby

I didn't see a problem with it, either. It was annoying at first, but I was able to get over that after seeing how much harder I hit with each DA skill. The harder I hit, the more I felt I was contributing to the party damage as a whole. Sure, it could have been implemented differently, but I only cared for the end result. Spamming 1 skill took no brain power, which allowed me to focus more on the encounter instead of using the right skill at the right time.

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I feel you, and I do think my "feelings" on how the class currently plays differs greatly from many, and I am glad people are enjoying the class and role. I would be lying if I said I missed the sense of impact SB DA had, and how I felt as if my fingers were always busy. Sadly I never tried HW version of DRK only started to play the game more often during the window leading up to SB though from what I could tell I would have enjoyed it greatly, I probably would have enjoyed old cleric stance for healers. Overall I have come to terms with the fact that my sense of enjoyment in a game differs greatly from man, I am hoping Gunbreaker and or Dancer do fill that void a tad moving forward if I still feel a lack of engagement with Brd, Drk and Ast.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

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(Shrugs) Still not seeing a problem with doing it that way, personally, if we are already going to be double weaving as is at one point in the fight then it shouldn't be a problem to do so at other points with fewer CDs. The opener will be the hardest point, which is why I used it for this example.

Also you talk that it being different is superficial but that is like telling the people whom are complaining about the fact that the job feels too much like War that their complaints are superficial. Are we spamming 1 button made free by a 1.5 min CD? Yes but unlike War, we are doing this while spamming as many as 6 different offensive CDs each with their own CD timers that have them coming up at different points of the rotation. This is not even to speak of having to hit any defensive. Whereas War will have to single weave just 2 offensive CDs. This will make us a bit different as is since we will be looking to line as many of these up for trick windows as possible. Therefore their complaints that it is "too much like War" are pretty superficial reasons.

That being said, it isn't like it matters. This is the final version for the next 2 years and nothing on it is making it unplayable or even close to it the way that War was for the 2 different mid-patch reworks that it got. So no one should expect any real big changes at this point.

TBH I'm actually enjoying the changes, once I killed my SB muscle memory. Realistically, I personally would only like to see a few QOL changes at this point:

1) A little bit more MP regeneration, maybe making the blood attacks give 600 on hit IDK as it just seems a little slow.
2) Since TBN was increased in its shield by 25% I would love the timer get an increase to match it to the tune of an extra 2 seconds.
3) Some % of general damage mitigation added to Dark Mind for fights that don't have much/any single target magic damage, like what they did with Camouflage.
4 [personal wish]) Would REALLY like to see Salted Earth made into a targeted ability as it can sometimes be a pain for PS4 players, like myself, to have our camera in the right spot to drop it and be able to look at stuff. I'm using a macro to make this happen but I hate the macro lag from it.

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Originally Posted by Sancho_Nyanta

Also you talk that it being different is superficial but that is like telling the people whom are complaining about the fact that the job feels too much like War that their complaints are superficial. Are we spamming 1 button made free by a 1.5 min CD? Yes but unlike War, we are doing this while spamming as many as 6 different offensive CDs each with their own CD timers that have them coming up at different points of the rotation. This is not even to speak of having to hit any defensive. Whereas War will have to single weave just 2 offensive CDs. This will make us a bit different as is since we will be looking to line as many of these up for trick windows as possible. Therefore their complaints that it is "too much like War" are pretty superficial reasons.

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I in no way said that wanting Delirium to be more different from Inner Release is a superficial desire. If you look at the thread that I created on my thoughts and changes that I would like to see (thread here), I directly acknowledge the similarities and propose a solution to alter it. I personally am not as down on the similarity as some others seem to be, but I am able to acknowledge and understand their perspective and tried to empathize by proposing a potential solution that would hopefully provide enough differentiation to give them what they want while being something that I myself would find to be a fun addition to the kit.

What I was calling superficial was changing spamming 5 Bloodspillers to spamming 5 Edges. It's superficial, in the literal definition sense, because you are still performing the same mechanic of spamming a hard-hitting offensive ability 5 times within 10 seconds. Same thing, different coat of paint, hence superficial as opposed to a substantive change where the game-play mechanics are different, like say a % damage boost like Fight or Flight, which would imo be even more boring.
On top of that, what little difference such a change would provide, spamming oGCDs instead of GCDs, creates the discernible problem of forced double-weaving which is something that many players have said they dislike, disadvantages players with higher ping and should just really be avoided if possible. That is why I disagree with your proposal of having Delirium provide Darkside for 10s, because it doesn't change the core game-play mechanic of spamming a single ability 5 times and brings extra negative baggage along with it, while the only thing you arguably gain is being able to say that it is different in that you spam X ability instead of Y.

As for the other four changes you listed that you would like to see, I actually spoke to most of them and put forth solutions for them in my thread, so it may be worthwhile to check out.

We appear to be generally on the same page, I just feel your Darkside proposal's cons far outweigh any pros that it brings to the table.

Actually it wasn't really a proposal. As I mentioned, I am very doubtful that we will see any big ability changes until the next expansion. It was more meant as a comment that I would have expected them to tie it with the new DA proc that they added with this expansion. My follow up comments were just me wanting to hear your thoughts on why it wouldn't work.