DRK Request - Please Remove the Grit Requirement for Souleater's HP Leech

[TheJarvisMan]

Honestly, this is a minor changes that I would really love to see. This would help leveling DRK's with open world survivability, help add a sustain option in pvp, and really help when doing solo challenges such as non-synced trials and dungeons. Could we please have this examined? This is just a helpful change that would not make us OP by any stretch of the imagination.

[MagiusNecros]

I don't think they will do it. Since it's the only Grit effect DRK's have. I don't even think they would give it even 25% or 50% restore of damage dealt.

[Xenosan]

For that to happen I think they'd would have to provide the additional effect of ignoring the Tank Stance penalty for the Dark Arts buff. If not, than the tank stance is working against the life tap. That reason is why I think they tied the Health absorb to Grit in the first place.

It's never made sense to me that Abyssal Drain and Souleater have different Absorb triggers and Dark Arts benefits. In unsync'd content the only self-heal of consequence anyway is Sole Survivor. IMO DRKs healing kit is the worst of the tanks for that content (especially if the boss has no adds for SS).

I would have imagined something like:
Souleater & Abyssal Drain both requiring Darkside for Absorb.
Dark Arts allows both to ignore tank penalty, Souleater increased potency, AD increased AOE range or chance at free proc or something.

Something like that would have made more sense to me, but considering how much time has passed since job adjustments I'd guess the jury's already ruled on this.

(Though count me in on liking a change like OP suggested. So true about the PVP aspect)

[Yuni_Queen]

I am afraid this will never happen. Access to Blood Weapon buffs (SkS, Mana refresh) would make SE comboses too fast and too powerfull - in other words, you will be healing yourself too much in too short time.

[MiniPrinny]

I don't think they will do it. Since it's the only Grit effect DRK's have. I don't even think they would give it even 25% or 50% restore of damage dealt.

And Paladins have zero interaction with Shield or Sword Oath. That's because Shield Oath, Sword Oath, and Grit are all not the core mechanics of Paladin and Dark Knight. Their core mechanics are both MP management and ability management, with Dark Knight having a higher emphasis on the MP management through Dark Arts.

Meanwhile, Warrior's core mechanic is their stances, Defiance and Deliverance play an integral role in the Warrior's kit. Even before Heavensward, Warriors relied on Defiance to flesh out and complete their kit. Dark Knights have little interaction with Grit while Paladins have no interaction with Shield Oath and Sword Oath beyond their defensive, offensive, and enmity boosts.

Now, if you want to talk about possible balance issues, I think it wouldn't be overly unbalanced if Dark Knights had half restorative power on Souleater without Dark Arts while outside of Grit, and only quarter power with Dark Arts while outside of Grit. Then you just write the Grit effect to "Dark Arts Effect absorbs 100% of damage dealt as HP." This would put Dark Arts as a closer comparison to Storm's Path and Inner Beast bundled up into one neat little package.

I am afraid this will never happen. Access to Blood Weapon buffs (SkS, Mana refresh) would make SE comboses too fast and too powerfull - in other words, you will be healing yourself too much in too short time.

And yet, it's fine for the other tank without a shield to have twice the duration of Bloodbath, Berserk, a stance that boosts their damage by another 5%, and again, a spammable combo that restores half the damage dealt as HP with only 10 less potency that also reduces the target's damage output by 10%. And their other HP restoration attack ignores their tank damage reduction, reduces their damage incoming by 20%, and heals them, again, for 100% of the damage dealt.

Edit: Further thought about this, mostly by beating up on a lv60 dummy. Giving Dark Knights 50% absorption outside of Grit and 25% for Souleater would actually make for an interesting dynamic. My Warrior has a weapon 10 item levels below my Dark Knight (Axe of the Sephirot vs Hyperconductive Nothung), and the HP restoration with my proposed numbers are about the same, with the Dark Arts version of Souleater actually being considerably weaker than without, which is a fair trade off for the amount of power the Dark Knight gains from Dark Arts.

[SpookyGhost]

Maybe because WAR's gimmick is self healing, and DRK's isn't. Maybe having an extremely potent heal on it's most used combo in and out of tank stance isn't the smartest choice. Maybe giving it something unique would be better, like HP shields based on % health healed. Maybe.

[Praesul]

Extremely potent heal? Souleater is ass when it comes to healing. The amount of health you get back isn't even enough to make up for boss autoattacks, especially in difficult content. AND it takes 3 GCDs to even get the heal. Souleater heal is terrible, the heal is not the reason we use it, it just happens to be a small bonus on top of the damage.

[Yuni_Queen]

The Hype!

WAR is spoiled. Thou he cannot heal himself too goodly outside of Defiance. Even with crit its around 10k for on 226 lvl.

But hell, i am not saying no to self-heal buff, m8.
Just do not let it be too OP, or nerf will trigger your dissapointment like a truck!

[MagiusNecros]

Gonna concur with the weak heal bit. The strongest heals DRK has is Sole Survivor and Abyssal Drain.

One relies on a enemy dying soon and another relies on an army of enemies beating on you so you engage in a HP vs. MP tug of war conflict.

Definitely more technical.

[SpookyGhost]

Extremely potent heal? Souleater is ass when it comes to healing. The amount of health you get back isn't even enough to make up for boss autoattacks, especially in difficult content. AND it takes 3 GCDs to even get the heal. Souleater heal is terrible, the heal is not the reason we use it, it just happens to be a small bonus on top of the damage.

In terms of healing it's only trumped by a Berserk buffed IB or Equal. So I'd say it's extremely potent, considering DRK doesn't revolve around self healing. It's problems are less to do with "why can't I heal an entire boss auto in my most used combo" and more "why is my job so poorly designed that I have a random near useless self heal tacked on to my most potent combo". Just for reference, if they just let you use SE's heal out of Grit as a 1:1 conversion, it would be a a 460 potency heal every 3 GCDs (7.5s). You could scale this down and give it to DRK out of Grit, but it'd only allow for a slightly higher chance of soloing some specific stuff and wouldn't really have any use otherwise, similar to Storm's Path healing component.

Also, just quickly, there is no "tug of war" with Abyssal Drain. You use Blood Price, you use defensive CDs, and you only use DA if you actually need to because otherwise you might as well use that MP on another Abyssal Drain.