Current State of ENDWALKER DRK

Hello,

After a few chance of log in, during off hours, and playing DRK extensively, from a DRK main, I would like to share some thoughts and humble opinions about DRK.

Currently, I believe DRK is a bit lack behind in terms of sustaining themselves and Clunky with button bloat. One way to relieve sustaining pressure, and the first bloat, is to bring back Abysmal Drain like SHB. The shared CD of Abysmal Drain and Carve and Spit makes us having two buttons, that may clash each other in different encounters. I saw your potency of Carve and Spit and I am sure you did what necessary to maintain Tanks balance. If you want to keep the current DRK dps state, maybe it's okay to nerf the damage of Abysmal drain but still maintain heal of 200 potency.

Another step is to make oblation as an Upgrade to Dark mind; 10% raw mitigation+20% magical. Sure you can keep to 1 charge to maintain balance since we are hoping to get back Abysmal drain back as SHB. This would make DRK feels upgrade from SHB without introducing bloat. Plus, now we can use all CD and can't argue on "situational CD".

Regarding TBN, the state squish impact TBN significantly, from my perspective, because it ties to percentage of your health. Of course, you can always argue "overtime it will be better". However, that comment is not a fix but rather an ignorant to the issue of unable to use DRK for some encounters. Healers are much more proactive with healing me when I'm a DRK when compares to GNB. For that reason, if possible, maybe add a trait that allows DRK to heal somewhere around 200 to 300 potency when TBN break? It encourage DRK to use TBN even more while also may fix the whole sustain problem.

I want to say Thank you to Dev of ffxiv. FFXIV endwalker has been phenomenal, as long as I can log, and I cannot wait for more. I am humble by the content you provided me and I am so grateful to find this game. I totally understand both side of argument on server congestion. I am happily waiting.

Please be kind when sharing your opinions below and constructively critique each other if you would like.

I like the DPS buff but DRK definitely needs more self-healing/a bit of polish. I think Oblation should just be baked into TBN, giving it the two charges/no mana cost but with a higher CD; having it heal on pop instead of proccing flood/edge would be great as well, and put it in line with the other tank 82's.

Honestly I am fine with the kit. Maybe some life steal on Bloodspiller, Edge and Flood. Although I would like to see the job brought back to being based around Blood Weapon, and for Delirium to have its SB effect of increasing the window of it by a significant amount instead of IR 2: Electric Cleave-aloo.

A rework of DRK is in order.
The current state is miserable. In ShB it felt like copy/paste poor WAR and now? Its still a copy/paste poor WAR but with nerfs and barely any self-healing. Its miserable by all means.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kranel_San

A rework of DRK is in order.
The current state is miserable. In ShB it felt like copy/paste poor WAR and now? Its still a copy/paste poor WAR but with nerfs and barely any self-healing. Its miserable by all means.

---

Eh, its topping the tank charts on damage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Caurcas

Eh, its topping the tank charts on damage.

---

Not by a lot from what I understand and tank damage barely makes up for currently being the tank with the worst utility and let us not pretend like the stuff DRK got in this expansion are interesting in the slightest. Salted Earth but saltier, Dark Passenger but they forgot Flood of Shadow exists, extra Shadowboy damage and the glorious Enhanced Unmend Plunge (Oh yeah, and TBN-lite that I forgot to mention because it's just PLD's Intervention but really, really bad) were and still hardly are things to get excited by when leveling the job.

Oblation is actually quite handy.

I think Oblation should stay, it's the most interesting of the new additions. Saying TBN gets better over time is a weird thing to say when the only thing it gets better at is to lose you a mana spender. It needs to no longer be tied to your damage resource and it would be fixed. This ties into the sustain problem. Where Gunbreaker, Paladin and Warrior can just spam their equivalents on cooldown and get nice heals from it, DRK very often cant because it would just not break in time and eat up your damage resource. Dark Knight has to get full value from it or you're in for a bad time. I wish dark mind wasnt the way it is now because if SE happen to decide to make a boss that deals primarily physical damage DRK is just losing one mitigation due to boss design.

Using Living Dead may aswell be considered griefing.

Enhanced Unmend as a trait tells you all you need to know about the state of DRK. Whoever thought that was a goo idea needs a stern talking too.

Same discussion about making Carve & Spit and Abyssal Drain share a CD.

Old Abyssal drain would also work great for sustain.

As a healer, I have often found DRKs more squishy than the other tanks. They will be ok for a brief moment and then implode.