made a post in another thread that i think is relevant here

DRK: DRK's recent changes really just shows a gigantic disparity in what the devs think goes in in arena play vs what actually happens and what is actually useful. I'll skip the breakdown of what strengths and roles PLD/WAR get to have, but the short of it is this:

- DRK doesn't have as good a burst as WAR, and burst is the absolute KING win condition in this mode.
- DRK has almost no way to protect their teammates from burst the way PLD does.
- DRK has very little CC.
- DRK has underwhelming defensive abilities that make it more susceptible if they are designated as the medal carrier.
- DRK as a result is just a weak melee DPS that contributes almost nothing to a fight, and it really has no defining role in PVP.

So in 3.25, the dev team basically just gave DRK some higher potencies on their abilities. But that did absolutely nothing to address the issues above. And really the buffs to DRK are symptomatic of a greater issue: Not everything in feast is about pure damage, though the devs seem to think so. You can't just look at aggregate data damage because there are so many different variables and dynamics in each fight that blanket solutions won't actually create balance the way you might want it to.

You know what WOULD help DRK? Things that have nothing to do with pure potency adjustments. Let certain DRK attacks have CC's attached to them. Maybe add a 5 second heavy effect added to plunge. Let syphon strike steal MP from the player you hit. Or let souleater steal a player's attributes (obviously with a cap on them). Let blood weapon steal TP. Something like that.

Or make DRK the tank that fights off CC a lot easier than PLD or WAR can. Change plunge to break out of bind or sleeps. Make it so dark mind can do the same thing, or prevent bind/sleep/heavy/stun the way fetter ward can.


IMO DRK can easily be designed to have a role completely unique compared to WAR and PLD which can make it both fun and viable for arena play.