DRK adjustments idea

I know the DRK class rework discussion has been done to death and a lot of people have gone to great lengths to rebuild the entire job. i think the devs have done their big rework with 5.0 and will most likely only make small adjustments to the current iteration of DRK. Since that's the most probable course of action I really wouldn't mind seeing some potency buffs across the board to make DRK more competitive dps wise (especially salted earth) but I think it wouldn't be too much to ask to have abysal drain combo off of stalwart soul for a proper aoe combo.

I cant edit my post so I wanted to clarify that obviously they would need to lower the cure potency on abysal drain if it were to combo off of stalwart soul or they could leave it as is and add something new.

Small adjustments is being optimistic at this point.

Anyway, this is probably not fine for a few reasons.

DRK's damage is fine. It's more than fine actually, all the tank damage is so close to each other it comes down to a per encounter and personal comfort level on which tank to take. DRK in particular, with proper raid buff utilization with Edge of Shadow, can put out very respectable ADPS numbers, and adjustments to any of the core skills or even the MP regeneration rate can have some pretty wide reaching consequences. Even boosting Salted Earth by a flat 10 potency is in actuality a 60 total potency buff per enemy. Regardless, you're never going to hit enrage because you brought a DRK. Offset that very minor DPS discrepancy in the tank role by optimizing Edge, and TBNing for your healers to throw out more of their 1 button nuke skills, the raid DPS will increase either way.

On the other side of the coin though, if you did make Abyssal Drain into a GCD action, you've actually nerfed DRK. Stalwart Soul is incredibly powerful, not because of it's potency, but because it generates 600 MP and 20 Blood in 2 GCDs with a potency gain at two targets vs Souleater combo's 3 GCDs. This is why Stalwart Soul's actual potency is low in comparison to other tank AoE combos. While other tanks only have one AoE dump option that will consume resources, DRK has two via Flood and Bloodspiller at 2, Quietus at 3+, meaning the actual burst damage is quite high. This is without talking about Quietus under Delirium giving more mana than usual, Living Shadow AoE scaling, etc etc. Even outside of offensive based skills, combining this with the passive MP regen, you can TBN, do three Unleash Combos, and have generated enough MP to TBN again on cooldown, which I think is more advantageous than healing outright due to TBN's power right now. We don't have any real multi-target fights in the tier, but this AoE kit advantage was huge in content that does have multiple targets.

When you add a 3rd GCD, all you've really done is add unneeded self-healing, for the most part, and delayed the MP and Blood acquisition. While I do miss Abyssal Drain being a dedicated GCD, making it into a combo action without considering the benefits Stalwart Soul's quick 1-2 regeneration gives us won't make DRK better offensively or defensively. Maybe instead we can lean into oGCDs like Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit having multiple charges like on MCH.

I feel most DRKs are at least hoping for a rework of Living Dead with the next expansion.

It still feels really bad to have the entire class reworked yet have the worst tank CD in the game not receive any adjustments.

Personally, I think DRK is quite strong in terms of performance while gameplay design needs a bit of work(Primarily Delirium).

I won't call what the dev team did to 5.0 a rework when basicaly has consisted on remove every unique element of his gameplay and sustituted with a WAR element, all being said that don't stop them to give a 180º like they did with BRD in HW-SB so no lose hope. All being said DRK doesn't need a dps buff like other said, the job is competitive number wise and in my opinion Abyssal drain always worked way better as a independent skill that act as a MP dump and i belive it should be like that again, the current desing it's boring and uninteresting and dodn't make it justice considering how fun was the skill before.

The most probable course of action the devs should do is removing or reworking Delirium, the skill has never get so much hate before and no matter where you look everyone literally have a problem with the current desing, even the JP forums has create dedicated threat to change it, so yeah at least Delirium and the whole blackblood system should get a rework from the feet to the head next expansion since it's the biggest behavior on DRK gameplay, and i hope they change other aspects of the job at the same time like increasing the MP generation and make Darkside and Living shadow being more involved mechanics to fix the absurd downtimes the job have.

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

When you add a 3rd GCD, all you've really done is add unneeded self-healing, for the most part, and delayed the MP and Blood acquisition. While I do miss Abyssal Drain being a dedicated GCD, making it into a combo action without considering the benefits Stalwart Soul's quick 1-2 regeneration gives us won't make DRK better offensively or defensively. Maybe instead we can lean into oGCDs like Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit having multiple charges like on MCH.

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I'd be more in favor of using it as an example template of a different type of Charged action.

It'd still be an Ability, however it'd be an MP ability that's always available. It'd gain a charge that reduces the MP cost to 0 every 60 seconds though. Effectively the same, though the 'always available' version of it might need to be reduced.

You lot have made really good points. I main DRK and think its fine, I felt SB was a complete mess but I was just thinking of minor changes to improve the class outside of the whole "bring back DA spam!!" argument. I dont think the devs will be paying too much attention to us DRK mains and I agree with living dead being basically useless and in need of changes. So if you sat down at SE and were told to make adjustments to DRK what would you do? I think big pull aoe DRK is currently pretty good and more fun then other tanks but single target is where it gets boring. I dont think DA spam is the answer, perhaps lowering the blood cost of current abilities and adding a new one or making a blood gauge combo?

Basically we are playing "Dark Warrior" with both Warrior's good points and flaws (aka yawning in boredom pressing 1-2-3 and refreshing damage buff until you have your burst window ready again)

The issue stems that SE though that WAR gameplay was what tanks should aspire to and pidgeon holed all tanks on that gameplay style like it or not ( DRK is the most blatant clone, while others like GNB and PLD still retaining a bit more of flavour for now) instead of solving the flaws on other tanks. It wasnt that WAR was the best tank, it was that the other tanks were more flawed and less suited to the "kill fast before enrage" metagame where damage is everything once you learn the dance steps of the fight

One of my main issues with DRK is Stalwart Soul. All other tanks get their 2nd AoE skill around level 40, yet DRK has to wait until level 72? Ridiculous! It's so stupid! Introduce the skill at an early level like all other tanks and then give it a trait at a later level that allows the blood gauge to fill.

The other thing that bothers me is, of course, Delirium. Like what shao32 said, it has to either be reworked or removed. Though we may have to wait until the next expansion comes out in order for that to happen, sadly.

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

One of my main issues with DRK is Stalwart Soul. All other tanks get their 2nd AoE skill around level 40, yet DRK has to wait until level 72? Ridiculous! It's so stupid! Introduce the skill at an early level like all other tanks and then give it a trait at a later level that allows the blood gauge to fill.

The other thing that bothers me is, of course, Delirium. Like what shao32 said, it has to either be reworked or removed. Though we may have to wait until the next expansion comes out in order for that to happen, sadly.

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TECHNICALLY, I think the justification from a design perspective is that you already learn Flood Of Darkness, 250 potency, 3 effective usages per pull, as your 2nd AoE skill at 30. You do generate MP really quickly out of combat between pulls, so maybe that's the reason??? I don't agree with this, because Stalwart Soul is only 10 potency higher than Unleash, and can have it's restoration aspects locked behind a trait like Enhanced Blackblood II in SB at 66 or something. You are right, Mythril Tempest and Prominence are both learned early and traited late, so I don't get why DRK can't be the same way to have a slightly less mind numbing experience in AoE early on. Considering we have DNC/RDM/MCH/GNB running around in sub-70 content absolutely destroying everything, I feel that adding 10 potency to DRK wouldn't be the end of the world. (Unleash > 150, SS > 160) I'm fairly sure balance in sub-80 content doesn't matter anyway, otherwise we'd probably have Dark Missionary in UCOB and UWU.

Can't tell you where I heard this from, I really don't remember, but someone during the Media Tour asked about this exact problem. The response being "Does it really matter?" I would say yes, the AoE experience of a job for 42 levels, and the majority of that leveling experience being dungeon pulls, is a fairly significant reason to have more than 1 GCD button in your AoE combo by the time you're entering Shadowbringers. When you have the same amount of offensive AoE options as a Heavensward WHM at 71 (1GCD, 1 oGCD), something may have gone amiss.

-insert Delirium complaint here-

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Originally Posted by RinaB

You lot have made really good points. I main DRK and think its fine, I felt SB was a complete mess but I was just thinking of minor changes to improve the class outside of the whole "bring back DA spam!!" argument. I dont think the devs will be paying too much attention to us DRK mains and I agree with living dead being basically useless and in need of changes. So if you sat down at SE and were told to make adjustments to DRK what would you do? I think big pull aoe DRK is currently pretty good and more fun then other tanks but single target is where it gets boring. I dont think DA spam is the answer, perhaps lowering the blood cost of current abilities and adding a new one or making a blood gauge combo?

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No one is saying bring back DA exactly as it was. This is a strawman about DRK players. Dark Arts, as it was, needed tweaking to reduce the casts per minute of oGCDs. This is what Edge/Flood do. All Edge is, is tweaked 3.X Dark Arts with less steps and less kit interactivity. It's more expensive, you can't use it as much. 1768 MP with 6939 MP, or in more meaninful terms, 3 usages with a little extra left over, much like Edge is now. There was just spam because they didn't increase of percentage cost of DA to compensate for the increased MP from longer BWs, not draining MP, and Delirium steroids, which is another design misstep of SB DRK. (DA as it was in SB would've costed 2K mana today, as a sidenote.) I personally think that people who do say "Dark Arts was better, bring it back." are instead referring to 2 points.

1. DRK's kit actually interacting with itself, being individually interesting components that comprise a more bigger, if unwieldy, whole.
2. DRK being the faster tank in general. This is due to Blood Weapon changes, not due to Dark Arts specifically.

Bring back DA does has a better ring to it, I will admit. Succinct, but it does miss the mark a tad.

Were Dark Arts to survive into 5.X with the same mentality they are taking to Edge/Flood, it probably would've also received a substantial increase in it's potency modification via trait like Edge and Flood do. In "theory", you could just supplant all the good 5.X things (Missionary and Edge of Shadow) onto the 4.X kit and I don't think too much changes. It's really when they started messing with Blood Weapon, Delirium, and Darkside where everything fell apart.

Optimized DRK in 4.X was doing the same thing that optimized DRK is doing in 5.X in terms stockpiling MP for raid buff windows and dumping for damage. (Blood served an entirely different purpose outside of "fell cleave time" Resource dump from multiple sources vs main source of GCD damage is an important distinction) The difference now is that 3.X/4.X had a failure state in both directions, where you could overcap and lose MP, or my favorite "i have MP must press glowy DA button right now this instant wtf where'd all my mana go i can't unleash im pressing too many buttons job too hard"

Now we don't have a failure state anymore. That's not due to Dark Arts going away, that is the combination of numerous, conscious decisions to change the damage profile into more GCDs, reduce the MP regeneration rate, changing TBN, amongst other things.

I have given up on Living Dead.

If you sat me down in front of anyone at the SE Job Design Team, I would ask them what's the point of Delirium first, what was the reasoning behind the MP changes, why they decided that when we said almost unilaterally (rare for DRKs) that "We want DRK to have utility in 8man content" that meant making it into a WAR clone, and to maybe go look at literally any forum, because it goes beyond JP forums, for feedback on DRK by players who actually understood how to play it, god knows we have enough topics about it by now, it's practically it's own meme.

If you made Dark Missionary one expansion earlier, or Slashing Debuff wasn't on WAR, or you didn't buff WAR and change Shake It Off to be scaling raid shields compared to a selfish self-cleanse, DRK probably would've had way higher player numbers like in launch Deltascape, because it was the same situation that SAM, WHM, MCH and BLM found themselves in by being pigeon-holed in an endgame environment that heavily favored and emphasized raid buffs, and party synergy, something those jobs did not offer, DRK in particular lacking the ease of use and flexibility of, for example, WHM. The alternatives in every role, not only tanks, just fit the landscape at the time, and only at the complete apex of player ability, not content. The answer to that wasn't to boil all tanks down into the same grey soup, we have a multi-job, single character game. Stop balancing jobs based on play rate, it's doesn't matter how many players play a job if the job itself is a boring, broken husk. blah blah level 60 job in level 80 content blah blah

Realistically, I'd just beg for tweaks. Darkside duration to be nerfed, BW to become Bunshin because obviously we're never going fast again, consider higher MP regen amounts vs MP ticks, and Delirium to give less free BS GCDs, more MP, on a lower cooldown (such as 45 seconds) to break up the flow between burst windows and to reduce the over-reliance on favorable killtimes or really, anything else. I don't even really dislike 5.X DRK, it's just hasn't reached it's potential or developed a real individualized "identity", it's being handicapped by the baggage of previous iterations and being a WAR clone.

(Hey, I don't like the fact that in E11S, during the 2nd Burnt Strike, if that one is Fire, the WAR next to me can IR no problem, but I have to do a stupid mid-pushback plunge to keep uptime and keep alignment, that has nothing to do with this topic I just wanted to complain)

This wasn't supposed to be long, but it kind of ended up that way. Sorry. Really loving the raid tier though!

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Originally Posted by Bhearil

The issue stems that SE though that WAR gameplay was what tanks should aspire to and pidgeon holed all tanks on that gameplay style like it or not ( DRK is the most blatant clone, while others like GNB and PLD still retaining a bit more of flavour for now) instead of solving the flaws on other tanks. It wasnt that WAR was the best tank, it was that the other tanks were more flawed and less suited to the "kill fast before enrage" metagame where damage is everything once you learn the dance steps of the fight

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One of the big issues was probably that they received a lot of positive feedback with warrior's rework in 4.2 which lead them to the conclusion that this should be the design template for every tank. What SE obviously didn't keep in mind is that the rework wasn't some kind of holy grail of tank design but instead it was just a lot less of a mess than 4.0-4.1 warrior...the fact that it performed well dps-wise probably also contributed to the positive reception of the rework.


But since ShB boiled their warrior design down to it's very core you very quickly notice that the core is about as interesting as watching paint dry.

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Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

(Hey, I don't like the fact that in E11S, during the 2nd Burnt Strike, if that one is Fire, the WAR next to me can IR no problem, but I have to do a stupid mid-pushback plunge to keep uptime and keep alignment, that has nothing to do with this topic I just wanted to complain)

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The whole wall aside, which included some interesting vantages on SB->ShB Dark, I just want to say that I find reactive solutions to immediate problems more interesting than blanket immunity.

Not a gold star tank here, but I personally enjoy cheating forced movement in that manner. It feels better than arms/IR immunity, but that's preference.