Here's how to fix TBN

First of all, delete Oblation.

Once you activate TBN, it will proc Dark Arts right out of the gate. Once the shield breaks, you will then get 10% damage mitigation for the next 10 seconds. It still won't be as powerful defensively compared to the other tanks, but the damage will make up for it every time. There will never be a reason to not use TBN with this change.

You could make it a level 82 trait to upgrade it, or you could change it entirely. Also I'm not sure if this buff would constitute a longer cooldown or not. Thoughts would be appreciated.

A 10% mitigation after the shield expires would be incredibly powerful when combined with TBN's current effects, and would definitely constitute an increased CD to compensate. 25s at a minimum. However, if the additional 10s duration of additional mitigation was reduced to 4s, it might not need a CD change. I'd rather see TBN instead get a small HoT effect after the shield is absorbed or expires instead. This would help DRK's sustain for multi-hit busters and recovery from auto's following the tank buster, but wouldn't pose too troublesome from a balance standpoint to worry about adjusting its current 15s CD and MP cost.

Personally, I'd rather see Oblation buffed than deleted. TBN is a critical part of DRK's personal survivability, but Oblation can easily be spread to other party member's without sacrificing a huge portion of our ability to withstand tank-specific mechanics.

I edited out my original, second bulletpoint because I re-read my statements and jumped the gun a bit! If anyone has already quoted me, I realize my mistake xp

the fix for DRK defensives are even easier i guess, might just remove the mana cost from TBN and add a 20s CD or maybe 25s CD to it and ffs add some healing buff on Walking dead debuff.

Actually i was playing FF8 last night remembered the trick to kill the zombie boss was simply to phoenix down on him, this made me think that could be cool if casting Ress on the DRK after LD couldnt just top his HP while in Walking Dead mode. Would make so all healers and even casters in emergency cases could save him from the grave with a Swiftcast+Res.

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Originally Posted by NeoDivinity

Actually i was playing FF8 last night remembered the trick to kill the zombie boss was simply to phoenix down on him, this made me think that could be cool if casting Ress on the DRK after LD couldnt just top his HP while in Walking Dead mode. Would make so all healers and even casters in emergency cases could save him from the grave with a Swiftcast+Res.

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Sounds cool on paper, but you would need a Rdm for the consistency, Healers will keep their Swiftcast on cooldown, Rdm can respond rezzes anytime and that doesn't solve the issue only moving it to another job.

This idea is a pretty considerable nerf to DRK, unless you mean that using TBN gives you a DA charge on-cast and then gives you another charge if it breaks (in which case it would be worth putting up with the huge defensive nerf, but I'm not sure it would be a great idea to give DRK an extra 5% damage in exchange for being much weaker defensively.)

I don't know what the rationale is for giving TBN additional mitigation after it breaks. That suggests that you're thinking of sustained-damage scenarios where you continue to take considerable damage after the initial shield break - but those scenarios are where TBN is already strong due to its low cooldown. TBN's weakness is in instances where you're taking extremely high (90%+ of your maximum health, after Rampart/Shadow Wall/Dark Mind) damage in a single instance. Having 10% mitigation after you take that hit does nothing for you; you need something like Oblation with percentage-based mitigation that can be up before TBN breaks to shore up that weakness, though Oblation's 10% mitigation is probably too weak to serve the purpose.

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

Sounds cool on paper, but you would need a Rdm for the consistency, Healers will keep their Swiftcast on cooldown, Rdm can respond rezzes anytime and that doesn't solve the issue only moving it to another job.

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Well its not a concrete concept, anyway DRK need a complete rework for me, his machanics dont make much sense and lets be honest no one care about lore acurracy on how ability works if the gameplay is unpleasent.
This also goes for other classes too, the way the game works nowdays, makes like older jobs feel clunky and sometimes punishing on certaing encounters.
I expect to see some reworks or quality of life updates on more jobs in the future.

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Originally Posted by Crater

you need something like Oblation with percentage-based mitigation that can be up before TBN breaks to shore up that weakness,.

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Would not be a little bit counter intuitive to have that?

We want the shield to break, additional mitigation on top of it would make it harder to do so.

At the same time, for TBs its a pretty okay defensive already since we are certain it will aways break no matter how many CDS we use on top of it, the annoying aspect of it is having to hold onto your resources to avoid not having it when needed. Its not a fun resource management.

I mean making it a 20cd and moving the damage aspect away from it just like the other tanks new mitigation wouldnt just adress this problem for now?

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Originally Posted by NeoDivinity

Would not be a little bit counter intuitive to have that?

I mean making it a 20cd and moving the damage aspect away from it just like the other tanks new mitigation wouldnt just adress this problem for now?

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I am assuming you forgot to mention removing MP from the skill with said change. xp

Regardless, I'm still more for buffing Oblation instead of altering TBN. TBN is perfectly fine at what it does - its a single, upfront chunky shield meant to mitigate a single, hard-hitting attack that refunds your MP cost so your DPS stays more or less neutral vs purely spamming Edge. Oblation is the shiny, 82 skill whose performance could use a bit of love.

Edit - I forgot to mention that increasing TBN's CD would be a huge hit to our dungeon survivability. ;-;

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Originally Posted by NeoDivinity

We want the shield to break, additional mitigation on top of it would make it harder to do so.

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If you're in a situation where TBN is "hard to break" then you're in a situation where you don't need, and probably shouldn't be using, any defensives in the first place, because your healer is basically going to keep you topped off just by doing DPS and is going to be overhealing you by the time they take care of the mandatory partywide healing they have to do to keep the DPS alive from unavoidable damage. That scenario has zero relevance to anything.

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Originally Posted by Crater

If you're in a situation where TBN is "hard to break" then you're in a situation where you don't need, and probably shouldn't be using, any defensives in the first place, because your healer is basically going to keep you topped off just by doing DPS and is going to be overhealing you by the time they take care of the mandatory partywide healing they have to do to keep the DPS alive from unavoidable damage. That scenario has zero relevance to anything.

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Unless of course it's a situation where TBN would normally break but somebody mitigated too much and it just misses the mark of breaking...which happens more often than you'd think. It never feels good to use TBN in a situation where it would normally break only for it to not break due to somebody else. A DPS loss caused by somebody overcompensating makes TBN frustrating as hell to use.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Unless of course it's a situation where TBN would normally break but somebody mitigated too much and it just misses the mark of breaking...which happens more often than you'd think. It never feels good to use TBN in a situation where it would normally break only for it to not break due to somebody else. A DPS loss caused by somebody overcompensating makes TBN frustrating as hell to use.

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Have this happened on P4 normal last night, had TBN on with Rampart on the Tank Buster, but sage or sch(dont remember) also shielded me TBN didnt broke, we laughed and now im statistics. anyway thats not the point as i said, it a very nieche scenario where it wont break, since on every savage tb it will 99% time break no matter what.

Really hard to make a change on TBN that pleases everybody, but right now it pleases no one

I'm going to echo this sentiment one last time before I give up - TBN does not need changing in the slightest, as it accomplishes exactly what is has always promised to do - be a single, chunky shield for a single hit. In my experience, TBN has never failed to break, even against pathetic dungeon TB's. If TBN needs to be a changed, I'd welcome a small, negligible HoT or Dark Art's activating a self-heal, but that would be about it.

Oblation is the skill we need to convince Square Enix to change. Oblation is the skill that has the potential to buff our defensive hit where it is the weakest (frequent physical damage and dungeon trash). TBn has a purpose in our defensive kit, whereas Oblation is more or less...there. It is definitely not a wasted defensive and serves a purpose, its just relatively weak and could use some attention to help refine DRK's kit to be a bit more robust.

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

First of all, delete Oblation.

Once you activate TBN, it will proc Dark Arts right out of the gate. Once the shield breaks, you will then get 10% damage mitigation for the next 10 seconds. It still won't be as powerful defensively compared to the other tanks, but the damage will make up for it every time. There will never be a reason to not use TBN with this change.

You could make it a level 82 trait to upgrade it, or you could change it entirely. Also I'm not sure if this buff would constitute a longer cooldown or not. Thoughts would be appreciated.

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You'd then have DRK's EW trait essentially grant up to 40 seconds per minute (67% coverage) of 10% mitigation, as opposed to the up to 16% coverage of the others' traits.

Put more simply, your suggestion must be compared against Knight's Resolve (10% miti, 4s) and Knight's Benediction for PLD (1000p HoT), Catharsis of Corundum (900p excog) and Clarity of Corundum (15% miti, 4s) for GNB, and Stem the Tide (10% miti, 4s) and Stem the Flow (400p shield) for WAR.

Does an almost 50% increase in coverage of that mitigation fall below the value of those 2 self-heals/shields per minute?

Moreover, given how DRK uses TBN, is that where you most want to apply, inseparably, that added defensive value per minute?

Making TBN free or guaranteeing the DA proc will just slowly slide the DRK rotation meta to slamming your TBN button whenever its recast timer is up. DRK has big periods of being pretty slow in-between openers and burst phases, it seems wasteful to me to turn TBN into another button you'd never have to think about again.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

You'd then have DRK's EW trait essentially grant up to 40 seconds per minute (67% coverage) of 10% mitigation, as opposed to the up to 16% coverage of the others' traits.

Put more simply, your suggestion must be compared against Knight's Resolve (10% miti, 4s) and Knight's Benediction for PLD (1000p HoT), Catharsis of Corundum (900p excog) and Clarity of Corundum (15% miti, 4s) for GNB, and Stem the Tide (10% miti, 4s) and Stem the Flow (400p shield) for WAR.

Does an almost 50% increase in coverage of that mitigation fall below the value of those 2 self-heals/shields per minute?

Moreover, given how DRK uses TBN, is that where you most want to apply, inseparably, that added defensive value per minute?

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You're not going apples:apples here. You have to look at the whole ability, not JUST the EW upgrade. Holy Sheltron lasts 8 seconds. Only 2 came as an EW upgrade but considering the first 6 seconds came at level 35 where DRK has 0 parallel so it has to be ability:ability not just EW parts to EW parts. It's not like I can just use the 2 seconds of block and 15% for 4 seconds individually. Sheltron lasts 8 seconds and charges in 20 seconds of melee uptime. 40% uptime. Wilford's 67% is out of line with that but considering all the other tanks have half their uptime be at double strength, having more uptime but weaker wouldn't be the craziest thing

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Originally Posted by Weetzlo

You're not going apples:apples here. You have to look at the whole ability, not JUST the EW upgrade.

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I'm recommending you compare the pre-expansion kits to the pre-expansion kits and the post-expansion kits to the post-expansion kits. Call it crackerjacks:crackerjacks for all I care.

There is no point in overbuffing DRK's lv70-81 kit to make up for a lv82-90 comparative weakness. Buff only the part that needs buffs.

(Yes, the whole thing could use correction, beyond capacity buffs alone, because DRK is a mess, but that's out of our scope here.)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I'm recommending you compare the pre-expansion kits to the pre-expansion kits and the post-expansion kits to the post-expansion kits. Call it crackerjacks:crackerjacks for all I care.

There is no point in overbuffing DRK's lv70-81 kit to make up for a lv82-90 comparative weakness. Buff only the part that needs buffs.

(Yes, the whole thing could use correction, beyond capacity buffs alone, because DRK is a mess, but that's out of our scope here.)

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But in the situation he presented it would be level 80 PLD has 30% uptime on block, DRK has TBN exactly same as before. Level 90 PLD has 40% uptime on block, with half of that stacked with 15% resolve, DRK has a potential 67% uptime on 10% mit based on shields breaking on cooldown. Overbuffing the 70 kit not on the table.

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Originally Posted by Weetzlo

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You're still overcomplicating this slightly.

That's not to say that you're overthinking this. Rather, you're pushing into the question concerns that are best addressed separately.

Also, if you want us to "look at" and adjust "the whole ability" --and I do mean you, as that is quoting you, not the OP -- that means adjusting not just what's added at lv82, but also what comes before.

DRK's defensive kit at 70-81 should be competitive with the other tanks' 70-81. 82-86, competitive with other tanks' 82-86. 87-90... you guessed it. You don't fix problems with the lv82 skills' parity by adjusting the level 70 kit, nor do you, say, fix LD, by buffing TBN after level 82. You adjust what's added over the span in question.

Meanwhile, fixating on the coverage of percentile mitigation without some way of considering its value against potency is just running in circles. You'd need to pick a benchmark:

Percentile mitigation will be balanced around defensive (curative or absorptive) potency by selecting a particular 'standard' of DTPS (damage taken per second) likely to occur over a given span.

If we take a higher DTPS standard, such as Expert Roulette double-pulls, then potency hold up against percentile mitigation even in those situations while potency is superior if the DTPS is lower than that standard and percentiles are superior if the DTPS is higher.

So again, you pick a situation as your standard, such that percentile mitigation over 8 seconds of that situation should nullify as much damage as the potencies would absorb or heal.

Given that standard, would the 40 seconds per minute of 10% mitigation that the OP has suggested be traited atop TBN exceed the value of the 8-9.6 seconds per minute of mitigation and potencies of its competing traits? That's it.

I'd need a standard by which to find pre-active-mitigation DTPS and determine whether that the suggested buff would be overkill. Ideally, I'd like a rationale, too, as to why that standard would make sense (e.g., because it renders more similar mitigation+healing over time between jobs and therefore seems the more likely intended balancing point). But that's the whole of it. It's either noticeably greater than its competing trait's values and may be OP, noticeably lower and UP, or it's roughly balanced. But the best way to figure that out is simply to compare this suggested trait against the other traits. DRK's lack of self-sustain, etc., should be addressed separately as such, not as part of its lv82 trait.

TBN doesn't need any fixing, it needs to be straight up removed and replaced by something else. If anyone should get a "TBN-like" Skill, its GNB for cardridges.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Unless of course it's a situation where TBN would normally break but somebody mitigated too much and it just misses the mark of breaking...which happens more often than you'd think. It never feels good to use TBN in a situation where it would normally break only for it to not break due to somebody else. A DPS loss caused by somebody overcompensating makes TBN frustrating as hell to use.

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That's not an "unless" - that's exactly what I'm talking about. If the difference between TBN breaking or not breaking is a spare Holos or Aquaveil, that's an inappropriate place to be using it, full stop. You are, definitionally, taking so little damage that your healer will be keeping you healed without giving up a single thing, simply by doing the mandatory healing required to keep the party alive.

There is absolutely no reason to change anything about how the skill works based on that situation, because using the skill in that situation is player error on your part.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

You're still overcomplicating this slightly.

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Oh the ironing

Anyone suggesting TBN have increased CD is missing every problem DRK has, and that is dungeon pulling. A longer TBN CD is going to make pulling so much worse, were talking about 2 TBNs a pull compared to 3.

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Originally Posted by Valknut

Anyone suggesting TBN have increased CD is missing every problem DRK has, and that is dungeon pulling. A longer TBN CD is going to make pulling so much worse, were talking about 2 TBNs a pull compared to 3.

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i mean thats not TBNs fault, thats the class being dogs. for dungeons cuz of lack of survivability, TBN was meant for Tankbuster(thats why u are only able to use on 70), and making Abyssal Drain share CD with carve n spit was a mistake that they had to make cuz of the bloat of OGCDs in my view.
Having it on a higher cooldown and not costing any Damage resource would make it so at least you dont get so much punished if u fat finger it.

In the end the whole concept of the job is flawed at this point, i have leveled my all the tanks due to necessity in Savage but i would never touch another job besides WAR for dungeons. Its just too good

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Originally Posted by Weetzlo

Oh the ironing

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Well, "balance the lv82 skill effect versus the other lv82 skill effects, and leave the other, separate issues to separate solutions" went unable to be understood, so...

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Originally Posted by NeoDivinity

i mean thats not TBNs fault, thats the class being dogs. for dungeons cuz of lack of survivability, TBN was meant for Tankbuster(thats why u are only able to use on 70), and making Abyssal Drain share CD with carve n spit was a mistake that they had to make cuz of the bloat of OGCDs in my view.
Having it on a higher cooldown and not costing any Damage resource would make it so at least you dont get so much punished if u fat finger it.

In the end the whole concept of the job is flawed at this point, i have leveled my all the tanks due to necessity in Savage but i would never touch another job besides WAR for dungeons. Its just too good

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But the cool thing about TBN is that it works differently from the other tanks' tools. It would be much more useful in dungeon pulls if TBN had actually no cooldown tied to it.

...Do people not use TBN in dungeon pulls?

You SHOULD be using TBN in dungeon pulls, assuming you know the damage intake is more than or just enough to break it.

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

Once the shield breaks, you will then get 10% damage mitigation for the next 10 seconds.

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With the current version of TBN, the CD is 15 sec. A 10% mitigation effect for 10 sec after breaking would mean that TBN could have up to 100% uptime, and even that the effects could overlap.

As an alternative, perhaps if the duration of the barrier effect was extended to 8-10 sec at 82, and the 10% mitigation used the remaining duration of the barrier? You probably wouldn't even need to have DA given outright with a small duration increase.

I mean an easy way to go about tbn is just have the stupid thing proc once after you take any hit after using it, even without the shield breaking. Pop tbn take an auto, it procs, you still got a bit of its shield left, kind if deal.

Personally i think TBN is a tool to especially reduce big hits, so a 10% dm after it breaks seems unnecessary bc you can use oblation after it breaks there u have your 10%dm. I think a drk should be able to increase the effect of tbn like a warrior can increase his shake it off. Like using shadowbringer will increase the effect of tbn by 5% per use. This would also change make the drk (hopefully) some more complex because you have to decide whether you want to use your 2x shadowbringer in the 2minute raidbuff window or you want to use it to increase your mitgation. I also think that after the effect of tbn is over it should give dark arts regardless of breaking or not. When tbn breaks however it should let your next edge of darkness crit.

Oblation should be redesigned to worthy small defcd like every other tank has (like holy shilton and so on), somethink like 15%dm and an excog like gunbreaker ( would also massively help with living dead).

There SE fixed drk for you

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Originally Posted by Seife

Like using shadowbringer will increase the effect of tbn by 5% per use. This would also change make the drk (hopefully) some more complex because you have to decide whether you want to use your 2x shadowbringer in the 2minute raidbuff window or you want to use it to increase your mitgation.

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It won't, this is useless.

Increasing 5% TBN after Shadowbringer won't ever be used, and adding more % will only lead to another issue, TBN negating mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Undeadfire

Increasing 5% TBN after Shadowbringer won't ever be used, and adding more % will only lead to another issue, TBN negating mechanics.

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Not that I don't agree with you, but I have to remind you...they can code things to always apply, regardless of whether all the damage is blocked or not.

The key to fixing TBN is to remove Living Dead from the game.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Not that I don't agree with you, but I have to remind you...they can code things to always apply, regardless of whether all the damage is blocked or not.

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True, but we also need to remember TBN scaling is a lot stronger than Sheltron/HoC/BW vs Busters/Power Hits, the ability can soak a buster by it's self with more HP added up. I know TBN isn't massive value vs mass targets, but Savage/Ultimate tiers it's far above them, other tanks need to respond with another strong cooldown on top, Drk can throw a cheap Dark Mind, or Rampart, then call "tis but a scratch" - Black Knight. Increasing TBN % removes need of Dark Mind/Rampart, and use Rampart/Shadowall/Dark Mind in other places, making Drk more impenetrable vs other tanks. Increase the busters? Pld/War get lead into mitigation problems. Balance is annoying system.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

It would be much more useful in dungeon pulls if TBN had actually no cooldown tied to it.

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It would be broken af if it had no cooldown. You'd just keep chaining it until you're down to 2 mobs left or run out of MP. During burst, especially due to Quietus's 500 MP per hit under Delirium, you could churn out a good 5 TBNs nearly back-to-back, for up to some 20+ seconds of near invulnerability. Let's rein Warrior in just a little, not just try to put a new broken tank at the top.

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Originally Posted by Seife

Like using shadowbringer will increase the effect of tbn by 5% per use.

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Shadowbringer is never going to be used outside of raid buffs. There's just not enough damage against tanks to justify losing 60+ potency just to add another ~64 potency (5% of its current value, at rough Vitality->potency parity) to TBN's shield. At most, it'd make TBN slightly less freely weaveable for the next use after raid buffs since it'd have an extra 20% required damage to refund itself. It won't save a healer GCD, nor a life, but it could cost you an Edge/Flood.