if we got a brand new DRK fresh from the ground up this is the baseline i'd want

Couple of ground rules
A i will not be including potencies as i do not know the scaling/formulas for them.
B i will not include level unlocks but for basic combos they will all be unlocked by level 15 regardless of job (goes for both AOe and single target)
C GCD will start at 2.5 seconds as per usual

Gauge

Torment gauge- builds up to 100 and will have a timer above it for torments unleash

Basic 1-2-3 combo actions GCD CDs

steps of torment- deal x potency to a target
thirst of torment- deal x potency to a target and apply a x potency shield on hit
torments finale- deal x potency to a target and give a x potency cure on hit and 25 gauge gain

AOE actions GCD CDs

2 part AOE combo
darkness surrounds- deal x potency to all targets in an area
darkness explosion- deal x potency to all targets in an area giving a x potency cure and 20 gauge gain

Defensive CDs

Dark magic barrier- 3000MP (the only MP spending ability in kit) applies a x potency shield to target (10second duration) that when broken gives access to torments blade (even while not in unleash) 10 second CD

Shroud of darkness- a 10% DR that also applies a x potency regen to you for 15 seconds 30seconds CD

Unholy light- a party wide 15% DR that allows you to take 15% of the damage dealt to your allies 1 min CD

Utility CDs

Torments unleashed- DRK enters a rage after tormenting himself (100 gauge cost) setting his HP to 5% of max (3 second invuln) all abilities/actions now consume 3% max HP to use (goes through your shield) and grant 5 gauge per usage as well lasts 1 minute 2 mins CD

Bleeding heart- applies a x potency DOT to yourself for 30 seconds gaining 15% potency bonus in return for the DOT duration 1min CD

Vampires kiss- every form of damage dealt now has a x cure potency on hit for 15 seconds 30second CD

Darkness reloaded- instantly resets your gauge timer at the cost of 50% of your max HP 50seoncd CD

Shadows unbound- costs 25 of your gauge to summon a shadow version of yourself that will coat the area in darkness making all enemies within it take 5% more damage

Offensive CDs

Well of darkness- creates a patch of endless void in front of the DRK applying an attack speed slow to all enemies inside and dealing x potency to all targets

Spirits vengeance- unleash a dark spirit to slash the enemy in half dealing x potency and applying a bleeding DOT of x potency for 30seconds 25second CD

Torments blade- (only usable while under torments unleashed) summons a giant blade filled with torment and despair slicing down on the enemy dealing x potency to the first target (50% less potency to all other targets) costs 50 gauge to use GCD

Fall from the heavens- a massive downward strike on the enemy dealing up to x potency (based on missing HP) (costs 10 gauge to use 25 under unleash)

torments regen- for the next 5 hits gain 25 of your gauge 3 min CD

role actions will be 2 single target DRs 1 party wide DR tank stance ranged attack and gap closer

Traits

Dark magics return- dark magic barrier now grants access to torments blade

Dying for power- DRK gains up to x% potency increase the lower his current HP compared to MAX HP is

TLDR: DRK is now a drain tank that rewards high risk gameplay

this was made in less than an hour so do keep that in mind plus i don't now the scalings to apply proper potencies to every thing

also i will be working on more fresh new baselines for every job in the future if you're interested

Torment's a good word, for sure. Not sure I'd want to mingle dark knight thematically with vampires though, even though they do relate to life drain mechanics, vampires are dainty wussy stuff, and dark knights are armored hard-hitting manly men

listen it's 2022 if the big burly man in a 10 ton armor suit wants to be a little bit on the wussy side we let him XD

also i just threw names on there instead of just copy pasting current kits names cause i wanted to avoid confusion or people thinking i'm asking for DRK to be reworked when this is purely just for fun and hypothetical

A tank that uses HP as a resource is, in mu opinion, not a good way to build a tank, especially if you start adding a DPS increase based on how low the tank is.

Even taking Torment's Unleashed into consideration, 5% is not much HP and a 3 second invuln is way too short to react to. Irregardless of that, having an invuln that is essentially Superbolide, but on a 2 minute cooldown is ridiculous, especially if you take into account the fact that you clearly intend for the DRK to heal themselves, so the healing is going to be quite big (also, FYI, 5% of 80,000 is 4000 HP for a tank, I know the joke is auto attacks tickle, but even then they could tickle you to death).

Even then, you have a trait that rewards low HP, yet your basic combo heals you, which is counter to what you want the job to achieve.

Also, adding in a party wide damage boost would inevitably make it a top pick, there is a reason why none of the tanks have that ability after all (the same goes for why none of the tanks can permanently decrease incoming damage).

Overall, it suffers from what I see in most 'reworks/reimaginings', there has not been any thought put into how the kit potentially interacts in a party setting or how the job would actually feel like to play within FFXIVs combat system. I will give the same advice I do to anyone, think critically about your ideas. You have this idea, but how would it work in the game, would it make things unbalanced, would it even feel good to play etc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

A tank that uses HP as a resource is, in mu opinion, not a good way to build a tank, especially if you start adding a DPS increase based on how low the tank is.

Even taking Torment's Unleashed into consideration, 5% is not much HP and a 3 second invuln is way too short to react to. Irregardless of that, having an invuln that is essentially Superbolide, but on a 2 minute cooldown is ridiculous, especially if you take into account the fact that you clearly intend for the DRK to heal themselves, so the healing is going to be quite big (also, FYI, 5% of 80,000 is 4000 HP for a tank, I know the joke is auto attacks tickle, but even then they could tickle you to death).

Even then, you have a trait that rewards low HP, yet your basic combo heals you, which is counter to what you want the job to achieve.

Also, adding in a party wide damage boost would inevitably make it a top pick, there is a reason why none of the tanks have that ability after all (the same goes for why none of the tanks can permanently decrease incoming damage).

Overall, it suffers from what I see in most 'reworks/reimaginings', there has not been any thought put into how the kit potentially interacts in a party setting or how the job would actually feel like to play within FFXIVs combat system. I will give the same advice I do to anyone, think critically about your ideas. You have this idea, but how would it work in the game, would it make things unbalanced, would it even feel good to play etc.

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literally take 5 seconds to read how much regens/heals and shields are put into the kit maybe just maybe there's a reason for that? not only does it help counteract torment unleashed HP cost per action but it helps you maintain HP while being at low HP vampire's kiss plus dark magic barrier plus literally any oGCD heal from healer and you're automatically back into good standing defensively wise

B if you actually paid attention to the kit there's no reason to use torment's unleash as an invuln cause you actively lose DPS (costs a full gauge bar to use) if you want to keep it up you have to sac your HP to refresh the timer making the class actually have to work with healers to make sure you don't nuke yourself when you decide to refresh your timer

C in terms of party damage being increased this is a part of a full set of reworked baselines i'm creating where every tank will have a party buffing ability cause my roles are tank (tank/support) healers (heal/support) and DPS (DPS/debuffer) (theoreticllly we'd have more debuffs that actually do stuff instead of just interrupt against bosses>.>) and you act like DRK already isn't basically the go to just cause highest DPS with GNB there will always be go to picks it's what happens when you have any form of a competitive scene in a game with jobs/classes

Ever played a healer? How would you feel if your tanks HP was yoyoing around all the time? Was the damage intentional due to skills or did they get hit by an AoE etc. How is the healing going to be balanced? Are they able to heal themselves completely on their own or do they need healer support? If they need healer support, how much? Where is this balance? It sounds like you want the DRK to have full control, which, if too strong, makes healers pointless. If it is too strong, you would just end up with 2 DRKs as they can look after themselves and replace a healer with a DPS, more damage output after all. This is still just scratching the surface if the issues that come with allowing a tank to use HP as a resource.

B, yes, it is an offensive cooldown, however, if you have the chance to use it to mitigate a tankbuster that is close in timing, do you not think it will be used in that way? especially if the DRK can completely heal themselves after, or, even better, they can heal themselves whilst the other tank takes damage, so there is no danger. Again, this goes back to the strength of the healing of the DRK compared to the healer issue.

C, Why should the tank be responsible for increasing the party DPS and not increasing the parties survivability? Tanks are there to make sure you survive the hit, healers heal you after, DPS kill things. I have made posts in the past on how you can make tanking better, it would require a change to how stuns/interrupts work and I do not know if it is possible, but having stuns/interrupts not stop an attack, but changes it's properties, ie, it could be a raidwide with a bleed, stun it, it is just a raidwide. That is the basics anyway.

As I said, you need to think how it would affect the gameplay, both good and bad. I can give an example below of a thought train I have had in the past to give an idea:

New DPS, Geomancer, what is it's classic trait? Using the environment. Not really possible as you aren't going to get different looking spells for each environment, so give the Geo an area that affects their spells, think like BLM Ley Lines. Problem, how big is this area? Too small and you really restrict where the Geo can go, (my thought being they needed some area to stand in at all times, so it is a constant restriction), make it too big and it might as well not be there, it might be seen as a pointless button. Why does this work for BLM? Long cooldown and can plan, probably too much to do constantly and will be a real detriment in heavy movement parts. If the ground AoE is too clunky, it could be an Aura around the Geo, Then there are 2 ways to go, the Aura affects the spells or the spells affect the aura giving different effects. I never intend to make any sort of real job from this, just idle musing whilst trying to sleep, so there isn't much from then on, however, it should highlight that, for me at least, even in idle musings, I still think about how it will affect the gameplay. However, by thinking critically about how it affects the game, you can then think of ideas about how you can mitigate these downfalls and make the idea (potentially) better.

Also, I suspect MP is used on DRK because the dev team realised that having a tank with a bouncy HP bar is a bad idea, so they used MP as the substitute, it is all generated and used by the DRK (even back in the day) and it doesn't affect healing at all.

yes i played healer for my entirety in SHB and yes i watch my tanks HP yoyo all the time, (knowing what you can and can't get away with is in fact how you get more DPS in), you know what's intentional and unintentional by LEARNING WHEN MECHANICS HAPPEN. and i'm pretty sure you can tell the difference between a 3% HP hit and the tank losing a quarter plus HP to a raidwide or misstepping into an AOE

also once again as i stated i don't know the scalings for potencies meaning the healing factor will remain anonymous cause witout knowing the scalings/being able to actually you know TEST the kit it's nearly impossible to balance actual numbers hence why this is a BASELINE kit aka what i consider to be the "core of the job"

but i want the healing to end up at a slight positive to unleasheds cost so you should roughly end up healing slightly above the 3% loss. with the use of stuff like vampire's kiss allowing you to manually get up after using unleashed, and to the 50% HP mark to reset timer in case healer can't top you off for it (but if you have to use it before then congrats it's either you hope a healer can get your HP up or lose unleashed and have ot fill up the gauge/potentially wait for it's CD)

the entire point of this job is HP management yes you will need to manually be able to at least come out even if not a little bit further HP wise for playing optimally
without that a HP management tank would literally not even be able to work period (unless you want a healer to babysit you but then it's less you managing your HP bar and more the healer)

healers are there to heal you for TB and raidwides and in this jobs case every 50 seconds so you can reset your timer, healers don't have to babysit you so they can focus others/DPS

B unless you're ultimately getting a damage upside (yours/team damage) out of cheesing the TB/hard hitting mechanic no tank would lose the DPS to cheese mechanics

C i'm not even sure i wanna touch this cause based on your logic
1 caster DPS no longer raise/heal
2 ranged phys no longer interrupt
3 melee DPS shouldn't be able to stun
4 no DPS should be able to mitigate for the party/heal themselves

listen i'm not trying to be mean but literally almost everything you have issues with require actual testing. something that without some sort of system to test said kits in is near impossible to come up with best you can do is a baseline and rough estimates/ideas

I have never asked for potencies, just an idea of how things will behave relative to each other. If I deplete 10% of my HP per attack, will the self healing heal it all or not (I know you said just above) and that is the main takeaway, however, you still have not criticised your ideas in how the would work in FFXIV.

The damage you inflict to yourself is a massive consideration, a healer like WHM is going to wait until you are low before healing if they Benediction, they have an idea of how much you are taking, so you suddenly take a chunk out, it can catch them by surprise, or is it a small chunk where the healer doesn't really notice, but at that point, is it worth using HP as a mechanic.

I would honestly say the tank's HP is more at the mercy of healers than the tank, the healer knows how the HP is fluctuating, yes, but they do not know when you are going to be losing HP to your actions, or do you plan to have healers keep track of that as well?

How is it going to be affected by gear? As we get better gear, our HP increases, is it a fixed damage per level or a % of your HP. If it is fixed, you get more worth the better geared you are, which could mean more effective damage, a benefit the other tanks currently do not have, if it is % based, how is that going to affect a case where you are well geared and the healers might be lesser geared.

If you are healing what you deal to yourself, can you really say your HP is a resource to spend? Might as well cut out the headache of balancing with your HP and different gear levels between the tank and healer.

This has been discussed alot, especially when DRK was first released. The general consensus, IIRC, was that there is too much to try and balance to make it an actual intuitive way to use HP as a resource.

i will also mention, it works in a solo player experience as you have control over when you want to use your HP, you know when you want to heal, you are in control of everything, make it multiplayer, you lose some of that control and with that, introduce many more problems that need to be solved.

As for my stun/interrupt, yes, I am well aware of potential consequences, I have made longer posts in the past, that was literally a TL:DR version. If it was to be implemented, yes, stuns/interrupts would probably have to be removed from DPS, however, there is also the consequence of 8 man content, having 2 tanks with short cooldowns could be an issue, but do you make the cooldown longer? How would this then affect 4 man content etc. There is alot to consider.

You don't necessarily require actual testing to find potential issues, especially more glaring issues. Testing takes time, the less variables you have to consider or work around, the better. Again, you need to think about how it will impact gameplay and no just go, this is a good idea, without thinking of the consequences of the system.

literally read the kit jesus christ

Torments unleashed- DRK enters a rage after tormenting himself (100 gauge cost) setting his HP to 5% of max (3 second invuln) all abilities/actions now consume 3% max HP to use (goes through your shield) and grant 5 gauge per usage as well lasts 1 minute 2 mins CD

3% MAX HP PER ACTION/ABILITY USED IT IS A SET PERCENT OF MAX HP PURELY CAUSE GEAR AND LEVEL HP DIFFERENCES EXIST

secondly yes it's the healers job to make sure you don't die but if they're beneing you immediately after using say unleashed, after knowing what your kit does that is not YOUR kits fault that is the fault on the WHMs part for not learning what your kit does it's the same thing that affects AST card prios based on burst windows if you know the 1 min burst window for NIN is coming up you make sure if you have a melee card it goes to them MCH wild fire coming up? hand them the ranged card etc..

a players inability or more so laziness to not adapt is not an excuse to say a kit is flawed or won't work well

also the HP gain being neutral is key as i stated healers don't have to babysit you cause you can remain at a stable HP if you're playing well (not including the fact there is alot of single player content without any NPC healers as well) and the management comes form the fact you are still a tank you still need to make sure you can eat the timer reset and survive with little to no healer assistance (you're still at way more risk without coordianting with your healer) you still need to make sure you have enough HP before the raidwide to eat your allies damage taken that is where the HP/defensive management comes in making sure you're at a stable HP at all times to not die to auto attacks and making sure you know when and what healing/defensive options you have to prepare yourself for bigger hits

also for the love of god learn how actual class making/balancing works you can in no way shape or form give an accurate represention/know majority of the flaws of how it'll work in a team based game without being able to test it in game first why do you think PTRs and the such exist? it's almost as if even "flawless" kits that work on paper with the game and it's systems can still be majorly flawed when put into practice cause on paper and in the field are two completely different animals

ummm.... ok....

I'll bite.

This would be a nightmare to play. Just the shear amount of "torment gauge" I need to use the skills that use it numbers in the 400's That means I would need to spam the torment gains like crazy to even get close to a semblance of a rotation. Now this is a mere observation and is more a personal problem rather then a wide spread issue.

Let's move on.

Unholy Light (if i'm understanding this right) would straight up nearly DELETE a tank if used during a raid wide AOE. Average raidwide does anywhere from 30-40k damage if unmitigated...averaged amount.
35k * 7 party members = 245,000 damage or 5,250HP per party member to be "absorbed".
15% absorb "cover" = 36,750 HP total absorbed by party raid wide.

36,750 + 35,000 (tanks hit) = 71,750 total HP lost to the DRK with this defensive utility. I would NEVER use this skill when reprisal is hands down better for healer resources, and I won't get killed by an auto following the raid wide.

Reprisal 10% damage mitigation for entire party.
35,000 HP per party member - 10% = 31,500 HP lost per party member
I stay above 50% HP rather then go to <20% HP. This is why Cover is never used.....it can sometimes kill you. And the healer doesn't have to focus you spending more MP to keep you alive AND then heal the party. (while I do think tanks need to be hit harder...but this is just masochistic levels of "I need a challenge")

This job has not one...not two...but 3 different forms of resources to manage.

HP - Used to provide defensive cooldowns
MP - Used on a "TBN"
Torment - Used on virtually everything in the kit.

I understand what you're trying to do with sacrifice HP to deal damage or protect yourself. But this would never fly in a savage setting. While healers would be able to circumvent this quite easily, but I highly doubt there MP would hold out as they have more to do then watch as your HP goes wildly back and forth. This would be...annoying.

There is NO MP regen available on the job and the current rate of most DRK's MP regen I think is 300mp/3 sec. Which this would be 30 seconds just to cast the TBN clone once, which gives me the ability to use a hard hitting AOE with damage drop off, and it also costs 50 gauge. Of which I need to go through two 1-2-3 rotations to get 50 gauge, which would take 15 seconds with a 2.5 sks, but I have to wait an additional 15 seconds until I have enough MP to cast the "tbn" clone.

I get the idea...but this is why it's hard to design a job, and they spend close to nearly a year or year and a half designing these jobs that ALSO have to interact with other jobs in the game.

This also basically feels like RPR.

Keep at it and don't give up. Sometimes the dev's listen.

thats the thing even only using the unholy light which A never happens and B you'd still technically live it the more it gets mitigated the less it overall is which is the thing it allows you to heal up for raidwides potentially even full HP and then can immediately bring yourself back to low HP to keep up your damage bonuses thats the point you want to be at high HP for as little time as possible

secondly there is not 3 guages to manage you can lierally use DMB (dark magic barrier) whenever as long as you're not overcapping and saving at least 3k for burst window (hoping it pops for free torments blade proc) or oh shit moments

C i already brought this up in another reply but the potency of the healing should be equal to if not slightly above ( slightly above for optimal play of course) the cost of using skills under torments unleashed with your utility skills like vampire's kiss allowing you to get yourself up to breakpoints like the 50% HP needed to reset your torment timer without needing alot of healer intervention maybe at most one oGCD

i also don't get your issue with DMB giving torments blade it makes it free a more than fair trade off imo for the wait (torments blade is supposed to be the iggest damaging ability in kit it's meant to be your big single target hit but i add in AOE capabilities to make it worth using in mob pulls as well) it's meant more as a reward for using it properly (shielding teamamtes or yourself for big damage attacks/raidwides) and using it for burst windows since that opens up another 50 guage to use for fall from heaven and shadows unbound or just flat out another torments blade

also at most you can use every ability rn for barely above 100guage which is good and honestly i would like more guage options if they decided to keep a blood guage/torment guage system give us more things to spend guage on make us think about what we really want to save/use rn should we for example save 100 guage for a nuke or spend 50 on a smaller nuke and save the other 50 for damage buffs for the burst window coming up etc...

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

also at most you can use every ability rn for barely above 100guage which is good and honestly i would like more guage options if they decided to keep a blood guage/torment guage system give us more things to spend guage on make us think about what we really want to save/use rn should we for example save 100 guage for a nuke or spend 50 on a smaller nuke and save the other 50 for damage buffs for the burst window coming up etc...

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Then I would continue to stay in the vein of let's add more without diluting the main goal of the job.

Look at the job objectively and see what works well and what could be enhanced.

Personally I would rather rather the current TBN give me some MP if it didn't break. Say like 600 MP as a consolation price.

Or if it were to break grant black blood instead of Dark Arts, as I feel dark arts is just...meh.

Dark Arts is now granted when using Blood Spiller, this allows for Delerium burst to weave Bloodspiller, free edge, bloodspiller, free edge, bloodspiller free edge. Your downtime after burst you need to spend MP to weave edge and every 50 gauge you get a free edge, until your burst comes back around.

Using your Dark Arts charge also procs Salt and Darkness.

Weaponskills used while under the effect of Blood Weapons charges reduce the timer on Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain by 5 seconds each hit. Total of 25 Seconds reduced of timer.


Dark Arts can now be allocated to 2 charges.

Your shadow can now cast TBN on you, and you gain the dark arts.

When your Shadow now casts abyssal drain it now heals you and party members within 10 yalms of your character or shadow.

When your shadow uses Carve and spit you now gain the MP.

Things I would remove-

The stupid Unmend Trait that barely complements the job at all.

Replace with-

Carve and Spit/ Abyssal Drain have an additional charge added. For total of 2 charges for each ability. 60 sec cooldown. Your Shadow is granted this trait.

IDK...just some ideas I can think of that would enhance the job now? None of are connected in some for or fashion and adding ANYONE of these would fundamentally change how the job interacts or plays.

if you want to talk current dark there's alot that needs ot be done

first off TBN should be purely a CD based defensive ability still proccing edge of shadow (or hell i'd even argue shadowbringer now)

secondly make blood weapon and delirium cost darkside timer to use (15-20seconds per ability) (actually giving it a use and a reason to actually refresh it)

thirdly as a counter balance and to help not change opener too much i would add an ogcd that gives darkside by itself on a relatively long CD so it's usable every say 4 mins basically still allow you to prepull blood weapon and delirium if you so choosed, also allows you to recover after death alot easier

defensively we're fine tbh although i would like C&S to have a decent heal tied to it since they wanna tie it and abyssal drain together

my changes are more so aimed at creating a constant engine for DRK there's always something to do some form of generating and spending resources you spend MP to get blood weapon and delirium up which not only help your guage go up but replenish the MP you spent getting hte darkside then you spend the MP to generate the darkside needed for bloodweapon/delirium leaving the guage more for esteem (which is a whole nother story) and delirium off time cause delirium would still be on a decently long CD (40seconds) and blood weapon being more spammable so to speak (20 second CD so there is some downtime and helps you fill the guage during hte delirium downtimes)

esteem if he's gonna use a preset rotation should grant all beneficial effects to you. that should've been done when it was released (or make him only copy our moves after a slight delay)

they can further improve on this system by adding more spenders that in return give another resource to help you achieve like i said an engine you're still 1-2-3ing but now have somehing to keep you busy during downtime while still being able to optimize for burst windows that to me is DRKs biggest downfall rn is nothing to do outside of our 1min burst and 2 min burst windows

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

literally read the kit jesus christ

Torments unleashed- DRK enters a rage after tormenting himself (100 gauge cost) setting his HP to 5% of max (3 second invuln) all abilities/actions now consume 3% max HP to use (goes through your shield) and grant 5 gauge per usage as well lasts 1 minute 2 mins CD

3% MAX HP PER ACTION/ABILITY USED IT IS A SET PERCENT OF MAX HP PURELY CAUSE GEAR AND LEVEL HP DIFFERENCES EXIST

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

Bleeding heart- applies a x potency DOT to yourself for 30 seconds gaining 15% potency bonus in return for the DOT duration 1min CD

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That has a potency, that is affected by stats and I'm pretty sure an equal increase in Strength/Vitality is not going to equate to the same % HP lost, ie. the Dot either gets relatively weaker, or relatively stronger.

The same applies to healing effects, however, since Healing uses a different formula, it is not as much of an issue.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

secondly yes it's the healers job to make sure you don't die but if they're beneing you immediately after using say unleashed, after knowing what your kit does that is not YOUR kits fault that is the fault on the WHMs part for not learning what your kit does it's the same thing that affects AST card prios based on burst windows if you know the 1 min burst window for NIN is coming up you make sure if you have a melee card it goes to them MCH wild fire coming up? hand them the ranged card etc..

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These things have to work in more than just raid settings, which is always why I try and refrain from talking about specific raid scenarios, however, your average WHM is not going to keep track of it, your average DRK isn't going to comunicate when they use it. It is just punishing for the average party.

You are also almost required to have Vampire's Kiss or use Dark Magic Barrier to use it safely, but going through how it is going to play out (Assume VK has equivalent healing), Torment's Blade (5% HP)> Vampire's Kiss > GCD (5%) > GCD (5%) > Invuln wears off. Of course, you have the healing/shield from your GCDs, however, they are not very strong and so really are not going to be healing you enough to bring you to a safe HP value. If you have to use DMB, you are just delaying the time between the invuln wearing off and you still being low HP. Why am I bringing this up? You have essentially neutered your HP that now requires you to be healed by a healer to have any sort of survivability and this is WITH the healing cooldown, which is healing everything you lose exactly. This also does not take into account the action Bleeding Heart which is just more damage on yourself, which could just wipe out any benefit from your GCD healing and weaken shields. You are in a vulnerable state with no way out. Again, make the healing too high and you effectively make healers useless.

But how does this differ to say, Superbolide? Easy, Superbolide is not part of a normal rotation, it is used for tank busters where Healers tend to use their potent healing, plus, GNB can help with HoC (for the Excog healing effect) and Aurora for a decent chunk of HP regen whilst being invulnerable for 10 seconds. It is no extra stress on a healer as they have already saved cooldowns for the tank buster anyway. How about Living Dead? After 6.1, from my understanding, DRKs can heal themselves for close to, if not all of their HP. I have not actually used it for myself, so this is just from what I have heard. Of course, it is no longer a burden on healer resources, however, before 6.1 and popping Walking Dead, this is essentially what Torment's Unleashed is, the big difference here is, the DRK still couldn't die, so you had time to heal HP, in your case, there is none of that AND it is used every 2 minutes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

a players inability or more so laziness to not adapt is not an excuse to say a kit is flawed or won't work well

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There is a difference between a lazy player and an action that is just badly designed. TU is an action designed for a raid setting where you tax a healers healing capabilities. There is no benefit to this, there is no reason for this to exist, it is just bad design. It might work in a single player setting, where you have control, but not in an MMO like FFXIV.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

also the HP gain being neutral is key as i stated healers don't have to babysit you cause you can remain at a stable HP if you're playing well (not including the fact there is alot of single player content without any NPC healers as well) and the management comes form the fact you are still a tank you still need to make sure you can eat the timer reset and survive with little to no healer assistance (you're still at way more risk without coordianting with your healer) you still need to make sure you have enough HP before the raidwide to eat your allies damage taken that is where the HP/defensive management comes in making sure you're at a stable HP at all times to not die to auto attacks and making sure you know when and what healing/defensive options you have to prepare yourself for bigger hits

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Except your HP is not stable. Having it go up and down as a result of you damaging yourself and then healing it back up is not stable. It is not something a healer can plan around. You say the healing is neutral but in the same paragraph say you need to make sure you have enough HP to survive, which implies you have a way to either give yourself more HP quickly, which is contradictory to neutral HP gain, or you have to hold back your HP draining moves, which then comes with it's own issues of, are they going to fall out of buff windows, could it misalign other things in your own rotation etc. It is just a mess.

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

also for the love of god learn how actual class making/balancing works you can in no way shape or form give an accurate represention/know majority of the flaws of how it'll work in a team based game without being able to test it in game first why do you think PTRs and the such exist? it's almost as if even "flawless" kits that work on paper with the game and it's systems can still be majorly flawed when put into practice cause on paper and in the field are two completely different animals

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You do not just throw something together, code it and see what happens, you do exactly what I said, you look at the idea, think critically about how it would affect gameplay, are there things we can see now that we should address before we take the time to code it up. It is a much easier and quicker way to weed out potentially bad ideas which saves time and money in the long run. All idea start out as pen and paper, but not all get to the end stage of being tested, why do you think that is? To take this to an extreme, I can say the gameplay should be 1 button, just spam that to get through fights. Of course, there are glaringly obvious issues with this but it also means there is going to be no skill expression involved (ignoring some's ability to not get bored) which means everything will perform the same, perfect balance in the jobs, all that is left is player skill. Should I really take the time to code this knowing that it has all these flaws?

Again, THINK about the good in your ideas and the bad. THINK about how it would affect the gameplay, how is it going to look if I actually use it, how is it going to affect my gameplay, how is it going to affect others, how does it stack up to others in the same role etc. As it stands, this idea will not work and the main issue is with Torment's Unleashed. That is where you should start in improving the experience, you clearly want it to be the main focal ability, so make it something that stand out as a button you want to press, not something you are hesitant to do as your healer might not be on the ball.

I also suggest not draining HP, that comes with too many headachess with balancing, which I have already scratched the surface of, as I said, there is a reason DRK uses MP and not HP when it traditionally used HP.

they took 10 years to change living dead, honestly guys just accept that the dark knight will remain as such in future expansions, with just another else new random gcds or ogcds like shadowbringer and Salt and Darkness

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Originally Posted by Titoulakikoute

they took 10 years to change living dead, honestly guys just accept that the dark knight will remain as such in future expansions, with just another else new random gcds or ogcds like shadowbringer and Salt and Darkness

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oh trust me i have 0 faith in the balance team at most they'll finally get around to fixing the other issues most DRKs have been complaining about for years now and prolly not even fix them properly like with LD

also doesn't help we have people like hte guy who posted above you who literally says a more complex/interesting kit is bad cause casual healers are too lazy to even read others kits. like maybe maybe there's a reason we have multiple tanks if you don't like healing DRK get them to play another tank so you can go back to being braindead and hitting the one DPS button you have. i'm sick and tired of all skill expression and potnetial for complexity/interesting kits being shafted cause people are too lazy to learn or get better.

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

also doesn't help we have people like hte guy who posted above you who literally says a more complex/interesting kit is bad cause casual healers are too lazy to even read others kits.

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Never said you couldn't have a complex kit, never said you couldn't have an interesting kit, I was just stating how your kit just does not work in reality. Should a healer really have to keep track of your kit during a dungeon so that they know when you are about to suicide yourself? Bear in mind, people of vastly different abilities play the game, so your complex kit that relies on someone else to pay attention, are you really willing to take that risk?

Your idea is not complex and I wouldn't say it is interesting, I would say it is a hinderance on the job and I guarantee that if something like that were to come into the game, people would want changes. I have told you want I feel the issues are, I have shown you the downfalls of the idea from different perspectives, however, an idea is not going to improve if you just ignore the feedback and criticisms and ignore it.

I don't like changing people's ideas as they are not mine, however, just looking at TU, these are the main downfalls, the massive initial HP cost and the fact it drains your HP continuously. You could probably get away with a smaller HP investment as an initial startup and drop the HP drain, OR get rid of the initial HP cost and make it a HP drain. I do not feel it should last 1 minute, that is too long, at that point you start to think, can it not just be a permanent damage buff? So I would shorten that to ~15 seconds. The fact it also relied heavily upon other actions so that you did not die I would also say is a detriment, but that is solved just from tweaking the action.

Now, while I have made it known that I do not think HP draining mechanics on a tank are a good idea, I would change it so something like this:

100 gauge cost, takes 10% of your HP to use, provides 10% damage buff, keep the extra gauge on attack, and provide a regen of 100 potency over 15 seconds.

This has essentially turned it into your burst skill as opposed to an action that basically allows everything to give 5 more gauge per attack, which, once you break it down, it really isn't that impressive considering the massive detriment to your character. The regen is there and using very rough maths, the 100 potency over 15 seconds should be enough to cover the initial HP drain, just restored over time.

I would say this alone makes it far more interesting and it is not nearly as detrimental to your survivability as your initial idea. Other things to think about, if you want it to act more as a draining attack, have it be an attack that deals damage and gives the enemy a debuff that, when you attack it, you restore HP, obviously taking away the regen. You can add additional effects like, being able to use all gauge attacks without them using up gauge for one time (ie. you can use Torment's Blade for free once per TU cooldown period).

Would you not say something like that is far more interesting as an action and dependant on other actions, could make things more complex, especially when trying to line up burst phases. It also doesn't matter what skill level the healer is (as long as they were not completely incompetent) as you don't suicide yourself and have to add an invuln to make sure you do not die straight away.

Again, I am pretty much opposed to a tank that takes their own HP as a resource, however, I believe the ideas I have shown are a far more balanced and reasonable way to approach the issue. This is what I am getting at and what I have been trying to say. Take the criticisms, learn what they are and try and improve on them if they seem reasonable.

Also, go ahead and pick apart what I've said, is there anything you feel from this revised idea that is lacking (probably, I was literally thinking as I was typing this post)? Anything you want to tweak? Just want to say it is complete and utter trash and why have I been so stupid? Go ahead. Oh, and to add to what I normally say about criticising your own ideas, the only one I can think of that stands out is the same thing that plagues all HP drain actions, what if you do not have enough HP to use it, do you just kill yourself (probably not) or are you just unable to use it, leading to it being delayed and potentially messing up burst windows (most likely). I would also say that taking both HP and gauge is a bit much, but I wanted to stick to the original as close as possible, however, I would just have it take HP and leave the gauge alone, having gauge when you activate it and combining that with the ability to use actions at no gauge cost once, you can make an incredibly powerful burst window that requires gauge management, so there is more complexity there for you.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

leading to it being delayed and potentially messing up burst windows (most likely). I would also say that taking both HP and gauge is a bit much, but I wanted to stick to the original as close as possible, however, I would just have it take HP and leave the gauge alone, having gauge when you activate it and combining that with the ability to use actions at no gauge cost once, you can make an incredibly powerful burst window that requires gauge management, so there is more complexity there for you.

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THIS IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE KIT AND WHY IT WORKS THE WAY IT DOES IF YOU DON'T MANAGE YOUR HP CORRECTLY YOU GET PUNISHED BY NOT HAVING OPTIMAL DPS (EITHER BY DROPPING TU OR NOT BEING ABLE TO APPLY THE DOT ON YOURSELF FOR THE DAMAGE INCREASE) OR FORCING YOUR HEALER TO HELP YOU MORE THAN THEY SHOULD (WHICH SHOULD MOSTLY ONLY BE FOR RAIDWIDES TBS AND RESETTING TIMER IF YOU DON'T FEEL COMFORTABLE PLAYING WITH SUPER LOW HP)

YOU'VE LITERALLY OVERLOOKED THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE KIT THIS ENTIRE TIME

AND ONCE AGAIN NO THE HEALER DOESN'T HAVE TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR KIT JUST KNOW WHAT YOUR KIT SI LIKE HOLY HELL ARE YOU ACTUALLY STUPID? I DON'T RMEMBER EVERY SINGLE ABILITY IN EVERY KIT WHEN I PLAYED AST BUT I UNDERSTAND THE BASIS OF THEM AND THEIR BURST WINDOWS YOU JUST APPLY THAT FORM OF THINKING TO THIS KIT AS A HEALER ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW IS DRK IS DAMAGING HIMSELF FOR DAMAGE BUFFS AND HE NEEDS TO BE ABOVE 50% HP EVERY 50SECONDS AFTER TU. DON'T LET HIM GET IN THE DANGER ZONE (5/10% DEPENDING ON HOW HARD THE FIGHT IS) AND IF YOU SEE A HUGE DROP IN HP AND NOTHING ELSE HAS HAPPENED THAT COULD CAUSE IT THEN YOU DON'T NEED TO HEAL HIM TO FULL. HELL I ALREADY SAID YOU SHOULD AT LEAST THROW AN OGCD HEAL ON HIM WHEN HE ENTERS TU ANYWAYS SO THE ENTIRE LOW HP POINT IS MOOT

ALSO PEOPLE ASK FOR CHANGES FOR MORE SHIT TO DO NOT FOR MORE DUMBED DOWN LET'S MAKE IT EASIER FOR EVERYONE KITS. IF YOU ACTUALLY PAID ATTENTION TO WHAT PEOPLE WANTED YOU'D UNDERSTAND WHY THIS KIT WOULD BE A NICE CHANGE OF PACE FOR THE GAME

YOU HAVE 3 OTHER TANKS TO PLAY IF YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT THE HEALERS WHO WANT TO BE BRAINDEAD AND PUSH1 DPS BUTTON OVER AND OVER WAR BASICALLY ALREADY SUSTAINS HIMSELF THROUGH ALL CONTENT ASIDE FROM TBS

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE KIT THE SHIELD HEALING AND REGENS ALLOWS IT TO REMAIN HP NEUTRAL (AHEAD HP WISE WHEN USING UTILITY SKILLS LIKE VK) WHICH MEANS HEALERS DON'T HAVE TO BABYSIT YOU UNLESS YOU MESS UP WHICH THEY'D HAVE TO DO ANYWAYS REGARDLESS OF KIT

LITERALLY EVERY POINT YOU HAVE BROUGHT UP MEANS NOTHING CAUSE THE KIT WORKS IN A VACCUM AS IT SHOULD FOR A HP BASED KIT AND IF THE HEALER HELPS YOU WITH SAY RESETTING YOUR TU TIMER THATS CALLED WORKING TOGETHER YOU KNOW WORKING AS A TEAM AND GIVING THE HEALER A REASON TO PUSH THEIR HEAL OUTSIDE THEIR SCRIPTED BUTTON PRESSES THATS NOT CAUSE SOMEBODY MESSED UP

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

1. THIS IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE KIT AND WHY IT WORKS THE WAY IT DOES IF YOU DON'T MANAGE YOUR HP CORRECTLY YOU GET PUNISHED BY NOT HAVING OPTIMAL DPS (EITHER BY DROPPING TU OR NOT BEING ABLE TO APPLY THE DOT ON YOURSELF FOR THE DAMAGE INCREASE) OR FORCING YOUR HEALER TO HELP YOU MORE THAN THEY SHOULD (WHICH SHOULD MOSTLY ONLY BE FOR RAIDWIDES TBS AND RESETTING TIMER IF YOU DON'T FEEL COMFORTABLE PLAYING WITH SUPER LOW HP)

YOU'VE LITERALLY OVERLOOKED THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE KIT THIS ENTIRE TIME

2. AND ONCE AGAIN NO THE HEALER DOESN'T HAVE TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR KIT JUST KNOW WHAT YOUR KIT SI LIKE HOLY HELL ARE YOU ACTUALLY STUPID? I DON'T RMEMBER EVERY SINGLE ABILITY IN EVERY KIT WHEN I PLAYED AST BUT I UNDERSTAND THE BASIS OF THEM AND THEIR BURST WINDOWS YOU JUST APPLY THAT FORM OF THINKING TO THIS KIT AS A HEALER ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW IS DRK IS DAMAGING HIMSELF FOR DAMAGE BUFFS AND HE NEEDS TO BE ABOVE 50% HP EVERY 50SECONDS AFTER TU. DON'T LET HIM GET IN THE DANGER ZONE (5/10% DEPENDING ON HOW HARD THE FIGHT IS) AND IF YOU SEE A HUGE DROP IN HP AND NOTHING ELSE HAS HAPPENED THAT COULD CAUSE IT THEN YOU DON'T NEED TO HEAL HIM TO FULL. HELL I ALREADY SAID YOU SHOULD AT LEAST THROW AN OGCD HEAL ON HIM WHEN HE ENTERS TU ANYWAYS SO THE ENTIRE LOW HP POINT IS MOOT

3. ALSO PEOPLE ASK FOR CHANGES FOR MORE SHIT TO DO NOT FOR MORE DUMBED DOWN LET'S MAKE IT EASIER FOR EVERYONE KITS. IF YOU ACTUALLY PAID ATTENTION TO WHAT PEOPLE WANTED YOU'D UNDERSTAND WHY THIS KIT WOULD BE A NICE CHANGE OF PACE FOR THE GAME

4. YOU HAVE 3 OTHER TANKS TO PLAY IF YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT THE HEALERS WHO WANT TO BE BRAINDEAD AND PUSH1 DPS BUTTON OVER AND OVER WAR BASICALLY ALREADY SUSTAINS HIMSELF THROUGH ALL CONTENT ASIDE FROM TBS

5. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE KIT THE SHIELD HEALING AND REGENS ALLOWS IT TO REMAIN HP NEUTRAL (AHEAD HP WISE WHEN USING UTILITY SKILLS LIKE VK) WHICH MEANS HEALERS DON'T HAVE TO BABYSIT YOU UNLESS YOU MESS UP WHICH THEY'D HAVE TO DO ANYWAYS REGARDLESS OF KIT

6. LITERALLY EVERY POINT YOU HAVE BROUGHT UP MEANS NOTHING CAUSE THE KIT WORKS IN A VACCUM AS IT SHOULD FOR A HP BASED KIT AND IF THE HEALER HELPS YOU WITH SAY RESETTING YOUR TU TIMER THATS CALLED WORKING TOGETHER YOU KNOW WORKING AS A TEAM AND GIVING THE HEALER A REASON TO PUSH THEIR HEAL OUTSIDE THEIR SCRIPTED BUTTON PRESSES THATS NOT CAUSE SOMEBODY MESSED UP

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1. You said the damage and healing is essentially neutral, that means you really don't have control over your health, your healers do. If you damage yourself only to heal it back up, almost straight away, it is the same as not having that effect at all, so the only thing that now influences your HP is the healer.

2. They do if you are about to delete your HP. They will either need to save an, oGCD to get you out, or spend a GCD to heal you and this is potentially outside of a tank buster. No other tank has this limitation on healers. Also, you say they do not need to keep track, then in the next sentence say that, once their HP plummets, they just need to know that 50 seconds later they are about to do it again, that is the definition of keeping track. You have contradicted yourself.

3. How has anything I said implied dumbing things down? I have merely stated the opinion that it would not work as well as you seem to think, the main cause being Torment Unleashed. If you want to make a job difficult to play, go ahead, however you still need to consider how it can affect the gameplay of others, remembering that not everyone is good enough to raid. Is it really good design to have an ability that works well in a raid setting but has disastrous results as soon as you get randoms?

4. And I predict the vast majority of players would play the other 3 tanks due to the much better survivability they provide. Remember, your tank would not do that much more than the others, so if it has too many downsides, noone will play it in raids either.

5. So, getting into the territory of healers being useless? FYI, WAR cannot sustain themselves in any sort of difficult content, so they do still require a healer.

6. Working in a vacuum is not a good measurement, you have to look at how it would interact with other people, how would it affect being in an encounter, etc. You can make anything work in a vacuum, but not everything works in the field. Also, you using TU and making healers heal you would just become part of their scripted button presses, so that changes nothing.

Have you not noticed that the only thing I have really criticised is Torment's Unleashed? How it is an incredibly high risk low reward ability? The one ability that requires many others in order to actually have some sort of chance at working? 50% of the time, your healing from your GCDs are effectively doing nothing, just recovering what you lose, what is the point? This one action alone is what is killing your kit. The fact you cannot see the downsides and are essentially just saying, that's a problem for the healer, the healer should get good etc. is just you not seeing the problem that is slapping you in the face.

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Originally Posted by pikalovr

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Honestly, you posted a theoretical rework of DRK on a public forum, complete with ability additions and changes. Chances are you are going to get those who agree with you, and those who disagree. Can't take the heat? Don't post. lol Some of your ideas aren't bad, but I just don't think they'd work with the way the game is currently designed.

i agree yes there will be changes to the current gameplay style of healers/tanks/DPS if we started implementing more interesting kits but thats not a bad thing having a job or 2 that shakes up how we play and force more people to wake up and pay attention could be a good thing in the long run

also keep in mind this is a baseline meaning they'd add on to it prolly with more gauge spenders and more HP spenders/generators (i'd like a few more gauge spenders first if anything. gives us more to chew on with our gauge during downtimes)

there's quite a lot they can do with expanding with this baseline after testing it

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Honestly, you posted a theoretical rework of DRK on a public forum, complete with ability additions and changes. Chances are you are going to get those who agree with you, and those who disagree. Can't take the heat? Don't post. lol Some of your ideas aren't bad, but I just don't think they'd work with the way the game is currently designed.

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i went to read what they said and honestly couldnt get past the first sentence of FULL CAPS LOCK, LET ALONE AN ENTIRE POST.