DRK tanking. A little bit of pain.

[JackFross]

It really depends on what situations you're discussing. You're making untrue blanket statements that showcase a lack of knowledge of the Job you're playing and asking for changes for.

Single target:
1. Unleash should never under any circumstances be used on a single-target encounter for any reason.
2. DA+AD should also never be used in a single-target encounter.
3. Darkside is not hard to manage without Blood Price in a single target encounter, however you should be using BP on cooldown always if you're tanking...
4. DA+DP should also never be considered for a single-target encounter.

And if you're NOT tanking, Blood Weapon more than makes up the expenditure for DP.

Trash pull:
1. Unleash is nice for enmity, yes, but DP is more mana efficient in terms of Mana Cost : Damage Dealt.
2. DA+AD should only ever be used during Blood Price Mana regen, otherwise it's a massive Mana sink either way!
3. Darkside is nearly impossible to manage in a trash pull without Blood Price. If you don't use it, you're bad lol.
4. DA+DP should only ever be used when BP is up and your Mana is literally limitless. When it's draining, use it without DA instead.

And, still - DP is more mana efficient than any other option in trash, so if you're not using it, why not? You're otherwise spamming Unleash or Abyssal Drain, which causes you to just hemorrhage enmity - there's nobody who should be able to pull off you if you're in Grit in a trash pull with Darkside up. Just running through your initial mana pool without Blood Price is enough to solidly hold any group of mobs forever. You can afk after 5-6 Unleash/AD and the pull will die before anything gets pulled off you.


So I'm really confused by this.
And all I'm reading it as, now, is "Dark Passenger costing mana makes this Job too hard for me, so they should change it and make it easier."

Basically: You having problems managing Mana because you waste it on silly things in silly situations is not a cause to get something changed. The class has a beautiful design as it stands in terms of the Mana management v DPS and threat output aspects. Other aspects are a bit off (defensive uses for Mana are garbage, for instance) but none of that plays into the interplay between DP and Unleash/Abyssal Drain/DA+PS/DA+SE/DA+CaS.

[Drkdays]

You're assuming way too much about my personal play style. I do use it and frequently. Pretty sure I've said that several times now...It's about streamlining the skill and introducing a more lore friendly skill to the class. You like the way it works then that's fine, but don't jump on my back and lie about things I haven't said. Stick to the conversation.

[MagiusNecros]

DA+DP should only ever be used when BP is up and your Mana is literally limitless. When it's draining, use it without DA instead.

Disagree. Large pulls and use of DADD + DADP is the greatest thing in the world. And mana isn't an issue when you can drop grit pop BW and not worry about a thing.

[JackFross]

You're assuming way too much about my personal play style.

Not assuming anything. Like, my last post was directly addressing what you said in the quote from you I reproduced below, with bolded emphasis:

All those other abilities are on DPS classes where ap strongly affects the damage output so you can't really compare it to a tank skill since the results are totally different. They might share similar potency but will never get the same results. In any case this is about saving mana for other skills, not about the skill itself. Also I said it's more lore friendly for a class that traditionally cost health to attack rather than mana. This would be a more of a union of the old method with the new. Also it does cost more than its worth to use it on cool down because there are other abilities that are more efficient to use as a tank that, while not necessarily optimizing DPS, would benefit enmity and Yes you can certainly use it as you said, especially with mana regen skills, but the point is that it'd be better for the overall condition of drk tanking if it cost health instead. All gain, no loss.

I never said dark arts plus power slash... Unleash, Dark arts plus Abyssal drain, having darkside constantly active without relying on blood price, even basic combo's cost mp and drk go through mana very fast! And again you assume for some reason that I never use it. I do, by thunder! It's just tedious for it to cost a chunk of mp, health cost would be cooler. And it makes perfect sense for it to be more lore friendly. Obviously that's not how this game works...hence the union of old ideas and new. I'm hardly the first to remember how it worked in previous games.

I'm keeping with the conversation by actively disproving silly points you're making with regards to how you play the Job - or, more accurately, how you imply the Job should be played.
Like.
Dark Passenger does not cost more Mana than it's worth.
There are literally two other uses for Dark Arts which are more efficient for a Tank to use for enmity, and one of those you said you weren't referencing.
I've shown that Dark Passenger on cooldown benefits enmity more than any other option for mana from an efficiency standpoint except for Power Slash and Carve and Spit. (PS is even debatable, because DA+PS technically costs 1.5 DA, since you don't get a SS mana chunk back)

So, like. Your argument literally boils down to:
"It is more lore-friendly for Dark Knight to use health, and it would make MP management easier."
Point 1: Dark Knight's lore in this game has nothing to do with sacrificing your health to deal damage. It's about using the power of ~love~ to protect those you care about.
Point 2: This statement implies that DRK's MP management at current is poorly put-together and that the change to Dark Passenger would do anything other than thrust the Job into the "easy-as-shit-to-play" territory, when it's clearly designed to be the most intricate, complicated Tank to play well. It's okay if that's not your style and you don't like the way the Job is designed - that's why you can play other classes. All I'm saying is that it's way out of left field to suggest that the Job be made easier because you struggle to handle it properly the way it's currently made and the way it currently works.

Disagree. Large pulls and use of DADD + DADP is the greatest thing in the world. And mana isn't an issue when you can drop grit pop BW and not worry about a thing.

Yeah, I don't disagree, that's a super fun and novel way to mitigate a pack for the 10-15s that the effects last. I just don't believe it is exactly optimal to burn all that Mana on miss chances and then drop Grit to BW the lost Mana back - it seems like that tradeoff would balance out to 0 net gain in mitigation. But maybe I'm off-base on that. I've never really played with the blind + DADD evasion boost.

[Drkdays]

You take a lot of context from what I've said. You write whole pages from a few of my sentences and you say I'm making blanket statements? O.o. what I mean by lore friendly is previous final fantasy games, not this one. No I'm not whining about mana problems, I'm talking about alternatives. No I'm not demanding change, I'm suggesting it. This thread is meant to propose feedback from an idea. Yes I stand by my statement saying that it costs more than its worth especially for low level tanks that are still learning about mana management whereas changing the cost to health would make it simpler to use while using mana on such things as unleash. And would it be such a terrible thing to make it simpler to use while tipping a hat to the classics?

[Fluffernuff]

You take a lot of context from what I've said. You write whole pages from a few of my sentences and you say I'm making blanket statements? O.o. what I mean by lore friendly is previous final fantasy games, not this one. No I'm not whining about mana problems, I'm talking about alternatives. No I'm not demanding change, I'm suggesting it. This thread is meant to propose feedback from an idea. Yes I stand by my statement saying that it costs more than its worth especially for low level tanks that are still learning about mana management whereas changing the cost to health would make it simpler to use while using mana on such things as unleash. And would it be such a terrible thing to make it simpler to use while tipping a hat to the classics?

I'll TL;DR this whole thing for you then.

1: "lore" of other games doesn't matter because ff14 isn't every other ff. yknow what other class doesnt line up with the lore of other games? warrior. a master of all arms and armor is now the stereotypical "hulk SMERSH!!". instead of a refined soldier, we have an animalistic almost shaman-like barbarian.
heck, Astrologian doesnt even HAVE any lore from other games. so basically the "lore" point is moot

2: Dark Passenger is statistically and mathematically our BEST use of mana. MP management doesnt start and end with mp cost of skills, and even if it did, DP is still our cheapest. changing it would change little.

3: as a new player learning to tank, i'd rather mess up and OoM then mess up and actively kill myself. there's a reason Living Dead is a joke. its a CD that ACTUALLY kills you.

...yeah... can we change living dead? PLEASE? i want a reason for it to be on my bar

[Drkdays]

Warriors fit the lore in that they're a class that does not rely on magic. While there may be no history of a class called astrologian there have certainly been celestial style classes. As for drk one of the main characters in a final fantasy game was a drk who used a skill that inflicted damage at the cost of health. DP the best use of mana for DPS perhaps, but not tanking. If they want it to be a DPS skill does it not seem logical that, just as in games past, it cost health to use it to damage opponents? It would add a certain level of fun risk just as in past games, yet even the max level cost could hardly be considered hazardous. As for LD I agree that does sucka bit, much less handy than other life saving tank skills.

[Fluffernuff]

Typically in the past.. or "lore" as you call it, dark knights mechanically were purely damage dealers. their stats, skills, and mechanics made them extremely ill-suited to get hit by anything, even a stiff breeze.

HP draining is inherently at odds with tanking as a role, as you're already taking damage, and the goal is to NOT die. SE took liberties with this and decided to have "draining" skills be tied to MP rather than HP so first time tanks didn't get themselves killed. I think there's a reason Darkside works the way it does. thematically, its the same idea, just not one that matches with other games... when it frankly doesnt need to. and thats the rub

does it fit the mold of dark knights as we know them? no. but dark knights as we know them dont fit the role of tank.

while a certain element of "risk" can be exciting and rewarding, i don't think dark knight need even MORE confused and self-countering design flaws

we already get a blind when we want to get hit. our parry skills grants evasion. i'd rather not have to lose HP when i'm trying to live for the party's sake. we already have the weakest self-healing ability of the 3 tanks (i dont count DA+AD, as thats specific to AoE only) and you want us to lose even MORE HP? i... really can't see that as a "fix" to anything

[Drkdays]

Yes it's certainly a dramatic change, no doubt heavily influenced by the fact that another tank class was needed and since the already covered the good guy tank (PLD) the neutral tank(war) it was about time to introduce something...a little darker. But i just feel like drk origins shouldn't be forgotten simply for convenience.

[JackFross]

Bottom line:

A Tank with a skill that costs health to use is immediately unequivocally undeniably a worse Tank than the next Tank who DOESN'T spend health to do damage.

You say that DP is not the best use of Mana for tanking (when I have proven to you that it absolutely is) and then say it should cost health so that you should therefore quite literally never use it when you are the tank. Like. Ever. For any reason. It would always be a net loss to spend health to deal damage, unless you made it such a negligibly small amount of health so as to raise the question of "why even give it a cost at all."