Half-baked Thoughts of a Filthy Casual DRK

[SyzzleSpark]

I think we can all agree that DRK has a bit of an identity crisis. It can't be helped, after all. Our SE overlords can't seem to decide what they want from us, either.

They want you to have tanked before and be open to playing a job that has a high skill ceiling.

"You get MP for getting hit!" They give our oGCD AoE a blind.

Don't use them together.

"You want to parry for more skills!" Our parry buff gives us evasion.

Don't Dark Arts it on single-target.

"You're a tank and should be able to cheat death once every 5 minutes!" They give our "Ult" an instant-death penalty only the healer can prevent. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. YER DED, SON!

Communicate with your healer.

On top of it all, our main "gimmick", careful MP management and preparation, is often seen as clunky, cumbersome, or too high of a skill floor.

How is it Cumbersome to simply rotate through your combos? Its not brain surgery. Keep your Bloods on cooldown and rotate your combos, and pick your Dark Arts usages wisely. Don't over-extend yourself. Clunky is using Clemency on PLD and then having to poke things with Riot Blade 5 times before you can do it again.

They are in no way to be taken as actual suggestions, or anything I demand from our SE overlords... just thoughts I've had to... "modify" the job in a way that we're not so... confused.

Speak for yourself. If you are confused, ask for help. I for one would be happy to teach you the ways of the darkside, as well as many others.

Elephant in the room: Living Dead. You suck. You actively kill us. Your SOLE benefit relies COMPLETELY on the HEALER. You have almost twice the cooldown of Holmgang which does the darn near the same effect. To top it all off, you don't even DO anything unless we ACTUALLY die within 0 seconds.
At least Holmgang can be used to ignore pushback mechanics and pulls. At least hallowed ground actually... well.. makes you immune to damage.

Hallowed has a 7 (!) minute recast. Holmgang only lasts 6 seconds and still requires a heal. Does Living Dead require you to communicate with your healer? Absolutely. If you have a good one, its better than either of them as far as the length of time you can go without attention from the healer. Have you considered pairing Living Dead with Convalescence?

In a raid setting there's no excuse for a healer not handling Living Dead. In the DF setting, one of four things happens: 1. You communicate, you do the pull, Living Dead, get healed - hooray. 2. You communicate, you do the pull, Living Dead, don't get healed - HEALER'S FAULT NOT THE JOB'S. 3. You don't communicate, you do the pull, Living Dead, get healed - You have a good healer and a set of balls. 4. You don't communicate and don't get healed - YOUR FAULT NOT THE JOB'S.

This is all kind of grasping straws though. No tank requires their ultimate ability to get through a *dungeon*. If you do... hmm. Arguably, PLD and WAR (actually WAR has quite a few things as well) have even fewer tools to deal with this. As a DRK, if you do a pull that would require the other two tanks to either Holmgang or Hallowed, there are a handful of things you can do as a DRK that they cannot, without even touching Living Dead.
1. Pull all the things, hit Blood Price, pop a cooldown, and self-heal with Abyssal Drain. You can self-heal pretty much indefinitely in a Hallowed-Ground-or-Holmgang-worthy pull, for 15 seconds.
2. Pull all the things, DO NOT HIT BLOOD PRICE, and then Dark Arts-Dark Passenger + Dark Arts-Dark Dance. You will take very, very little damage for 15-20s.
3. Pull all the things, and do #1, and then #2, OR Pull all the things, and do #2, and then #1.

Bam, you've just survived 20-40s of a huge-ass pull while barely touching any of your main cooldowns, and not touching Living Dead. Good on you.

"Grant Immunity to stun, sleep, bind, knockback, and draw-in effects. When HP is reduced to 0 while under the effect of Living Dead, instead of becoming KO'd, your status will be changed to Walking Dead.
Living Dead duration: 10s
Walking Dead: While under the effects of Walking Dead become incapacitated and unable to act and reduce Healing received from magical sources by 100%, however, most attacks will not lower your HP below 1. Instead, damage received in this state will instead heal you for an equal amount.
Walking Dead duration: 10s"
While the "fetter-ward" effect I feel is a bit much, I still dislike the idea of my "ultimate" skill doing nothing unless I die. How dare I have a half decent healer.

Please no.

For Dark Passenger, all I'd want is for it is some synergy with myself. my first thought would be simply exchange the Blind effect from Dark Arts to "Increased Emnity". It would be a very costly emnity skill, but it would turn it into a 250 AoE emnity potency skill on a 30 second cooldown. something similar to say... Steel cyclone maybe.
The only other idea i could think of that would make sense would give it Storm's Path damage debuff, but that seems a bit much to me...

DRK already has SO MUCH AoE hate generation literally probably the LAST thing it would ever need is more. An AoE Storm's Path would be ridiculously broken. The blind is a fine debuff, just don't use it with Blood Price! Its so simple. A SMN wouldn't use Titan Egi on a boss. A DRG wouldn't use Life Surge on Impulse Drive. A NIN wouldn't Kassatsu a Hyoton. A healer wouldn't heal in Cleric Stance. A DRK shouldn't Blood Price on blinded targets.

Dark Dance would be extremely simple. Give it the same treatment of another skill we already get: Dark Mind.
We get the 30% parry effect, dark arts doubles it. give us 60% parry for 20 seconds. it does ALOT for us and we don't have a "Sheltron" for parry. So give us MOAR!

Why are you so dissatisfied with what you have? Dark Dance is fine as is. Its on a 60s recast. That's shorter than any other tank cooldown barring Sheltron and I suppose Inner Beast. Dark Dance also procs Reprisal. Did you know Reprisal is DRK's shield/equilibrium? Its that one thing we have that the other tanks don't. For up to 40s per minute (closer to 30s in practice), we're taking 10% less damage, at no cost whatsoever.

The last thing I thought about was Carve and Spit. I know! One of our better skills! and with a dual purpose! This one I actually don't mind leaving alone either! But I was thinking... why not make it more accessible? It would certainly help our MP generation. Then again, it might become way too powerful. My only thought would be to make it a 30s Cooldown, but drop the Dark Arts potency down to say... 300?

No. That would make our DPS shoot through the roof and make our MP consumption go up with it.

Also, consider practicing your rotation whilst NEVER leaving C&S unboosted (never use it without Dark Arts). Unbuffed C&S is a safety net when you screw up, not a default part of your MP management rotation.

Again... nothing to take TOO seriously. I'm just a filthy casual. Food for thought maybe? Anyone else with some poorly thought out ideas for what we already have?

I feel like this is kind of passive aggressive, but whatever. Consider investing your energy into playing the job better instead of insisting it be changed to your liking. If its not to your liking, there are other jobs to play.

[TankHunter678]

I think Living Dead should be changed in a simple way:

While Living Dead is active HP cannot fall below 1 for 20 seconds (10 seconds in PvP).

You will still need the healer to heal you before it wears off, but if the healer fails to heal you to full you wont get KO'd by your own skill. Simple, effective, and does not punish you for the faults of another player.

Though it does kind of turn into an anti-tankbuster skill.

[Violette]

I think Living Dead should be changed in a simple way:

While Living Dead is active HP cannot fall below 1 for 20 seconds (10 seconds in PvP).

You will still need the healer to heal you before it wears off, but if the healer fails to heal you to full you wont get KO'd by your own skill. Simple, effective, and does not punish you for the faults of another player.

Though it does kind of turn into an anti-tankbuster skill.

20 seconds of Holmgang is too much.

Smart use can get you close, but it's part of the risk/reward aspect of the class.

[ADVSS]

20 seconds of Holmgang is too much.

Smart use can get you close, but it's part of the risk/reward aspect of the class.

what if it factored in heals after ld hits walking dead? aka heals dont impact you until WD is activated. this would still give 10 seconds but would give 10 more if heals werent adaquate enough. for first 10 secs cant rlower health below 1, but still die if nothing was done between ld and wd

[Violette]

what if it factored in heals after ld hits walking dead? aka heals dont impact you until WD is activated. this would still give 10 seconds but would give 10 more if heals werent adaquate enough. for first 10 secs cant rlower health below 1, but still die if nothing was done between ld and wd

No.

As Syzy said, stop trying to make a high skill ceiling class easier because you don't like it.

There is nothing wrong with the classes skills, just that people are playing it like a Paladin. There is a class like Paladin in this game, it's called Paladin.

[ADVSS]

No.

As Syzy said, stop trying to make a high skill ceiling class easier because you don't like it.

There is nothing wrong with the classes skills, just that people are playing it like a Paladin. There is a class like Paladin in this game, it's called Paladin.

Sorry I thought we were talking about a tank job here, you know the only job that probably shouldnt murder itself for no good reason at all.

[Violette]

Sorry I thought we were talking about a tank job here, you know the only job that probably shouldnt murder itself for no good reason at all.

Here are some tips:

If you can't rely on your healer to heal you through Living Dead, don't use Living Dead.
If you can't tank without using Living Dead, don't play Dark Knight.

And I'll just go back to what was said earlier:

Hallowed has a 7 (!) minute recast. Holmgang only lasts 6 seconds and still requires a heal. Does Living Dead require you to communicate with your healer? Absolutely. If you have a good one, its better than either of them as far as the length of time you can go without attention from the healer. Have you considered pairing Living Dead with Convalescence?

In a raid setting there's no excuse for a healer not handling Living Dead. In the DF setting, one of four things happens: 1. You communicate, you do the pull, Living Dead, get healed - hooray. 2. You communicate, you do the pull, Living Dead, don't get healed - HEALER'S FAULT NOT THE JOB'S. 3. You don't communicate, you do the pull, Living Dead, get healed - You have a good healer and a set of balls. 4. You don't communicate and don't get healed - YOUR FAULT NOT THE JOB'S.

This is all kind of grasping straws though. No tank requires their ultimate ability to get through a *dungeon*. If you do... hmm. Arguably, PLD and WAR (actually WAR has quite a few things as well) have even fewer tools to deal with this. As a DRK, if you do a pull that would require the other two tanks to either Holmgang or Hallowed, there are a handful of things you can do as a DRK that they cannot, without even touching Living Dead.
1. Pull all the things, hit Blood Price, pop a cooldown, and self-heal with Abyssal Drain. You can self-heal pretty much indefinitely in a Hallowed-Ground-or-Holmgang-worthy pull, for 15 seconds.
2. Pull all the things, DO NOT HIT BLOOD PRICE, and then Dark Arts-Dark Passenger + Dark Arts-Dark Dance. You will take very, very little damage for 15-20s.
3. Pull all the things, and do #1, and then #2, OR Pull all the things, and do #2, and then #1.

Bam, you've just survived 20-40s of a huge-ass pull while barely touching any of your main cooldowns, and not touching Living Dead. Good on you.

Bam, guide to using Living Dead. But if you're still having issues....

I feel like this is kind of passive aggressive, but whatever. Consider investing your energy into playing the job better instead of insisting it be changed to your liking. If its not to your liking, there are other jobs to play.

[ADVSS]

you know i agree with those points, im just questioning why the decision to do so for drk was even a good idea to begin with. keep the job as it is, i dont care, make a couple people happy while the rest are coming up with interesting ideas to fill in the gaps(that exist even if either of you believe it or not) exists. MP management a problem? not for me. Is it an added piece of complexity and resource that doesnt really need to exist for balance? I believe so yes its more than either tank has to deal with, does it then deal the most damage or mitigate the most? no sir, it does not. just middle road. you may see balance as its dps is less than war and more than pld and it has dark mind. whoopty do. The whole point of this thread was about -IDEAS- to make it less self defeatist as per page one the OP. Make a DRK IS PERFECT thread instead of being mad about people theorizing about improvements they would like to see? maybe? I get the frustration but i seriously dont see what youre mad about, not being middle road MT for every content ever because WAR is the true OT argument? please. We want balance, if the resource management sucks, then it has to provide superior results, OR we could make it less rediculous and make it balanced. you know, maybe allow it to OT and stop forcing WAR to only OT. Hey theres a true middle ground right there already without replacing paladins completely, but thats too much to ask for? seriously? Be Real SE is reading these threads and acting the same way DRK is perfect where its at to them, just let people vent or make suggestions at least t keeps the forum lively.

[SyzzleSpark]

People that play DRK, and play it exceptionally well (and I know a lot of MCH and AST that feel the same) take a lot of pride in that because it is after all an advanced job. So when we see people trying to dumb down a system that we worked hard to master and have reaped the rewards for doing so, yeah, it is a little frustrating. You wanted the job, you rolled the job, DO THE JOB.

This is why you see people that aggressively defend the jobs' design and advocate advanced and proper play of the job. They want to lay out for you what it requires point-by-point so people can see what they are getting themselves into. They've developed and worked hard for the finesse required to play these jobs at a high level, they just get it, and they want other people to get it too. And if they can't, every last one of them is going to tell you to re-roll.

Its not an issue of balance, its an issue of playing your job right. Which is a discussion that should come first, every time. We all stopped caring that Fell Cleave is 500 potency or that Hallowed Ground grants invulnerability a long time ago. We pride ourselves on the fact that our job is not easy and that as players that can play it well, we are and will be in demand based on simple laws of supply and demand, regardless of whether we can crit for 10K on a boss with vuln stacks or negate tank busters by pushing a button.

you know i agree with those points, im just questioning why the decision to do so for drk was even a good idea to begin with.

Does it matter though? Its been a whole year and the job has been successful in PvE. People that took the time to master it, they've been successful. Why? Cause they embraced the job's design instead of fighting it every step of the way. That's how you succeed. If you can't do that then don't play the job its not for you. Its not a matter of opinion of the people that like the job, its a matter of fact - its been successful in the hands of good players embracing its design. By this criteria alone, its a successful job that doesn't need an overhaul.

keep the job as it is, i dont care, make a couple people happy while the rest are coming up with interesting ideas to fill in the gaps(that exist even if either of you believe it or not) exists.

Gaps? There are no gaps. If you use all of the job's skills (yes, ALL of them) there are no gaps. Are there some doohickeys that should probably get added in the future (extra utility while not tanking, etc.) sure. Those aren't gaps. Gaps would be like, missing a cooldown, not having a combo. Gaps where what PLD had before it got 2 more combo finishers, gaps where what WAR had when it had no Deliverance or stack mechanic while OTing. Those are gaps. DRK doesn't have gaps.

MP management a problem? not for me. Is it an added piece of complexity and resource that doesnt really need to exist for balance? I believe so yes its more than either tank has to deal with, does it then deal the most damage or mitigate the most? no sir, it does not.

People already look at Shadowskin = Rampart and Grit = Shield Oath and cry that DRK is a clone of PLD (bogus, imo) and you're basically saying that one of the primary mechanics that differentiates DRK as a job doesn't need to exist. o.O

Yeah its more than the other tanks have to deal with. Was nobody paying attention when they said 3.0 jobs are "advanced"? Advanced in almost any vidya game means "harder, with not necessarily more payoff other than personal satisfaction"

DRK is a job that forces you to maximize EVERYTHING. Your GCDs, your uptime, your mitigation, your MP, all of it. Its all intertwined and its all pivotal. You need the raid and mitigation awareness of a tank, the uptime and DPS awareness of a melee. If you don't its not just your DPS or mitigation that suffers as with WAR or PLD, its your entire kit that snowballs into a state where you need to clean it up and sacrifice further benefits. Yeah its punishing. So don't fuck up. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

When you do it right, DRK essentially mitigates as much as PLD and hits as hard as WAR. Not more, but equivalent. Yeah its harder for you as a player to pull that off but isn't that the entire joy of it?

just middle road. you may see balance as its dps is less than war and more than pld and it has dark mind. whoopty do. The whole point of this thread was about -IDEAS- to make it less self defeatist as per page one the OP. Make a DRK IS PERFECT thread instead of being mad about people theorizing about improvements they would like to see? maybe? I get the frustration but i seriously dont see what youre mad about, not being middle road MT for every content ever because WAR is the true OT argument? please.

There essentially is no MT or OT in current content, its all pretty equal. Sure, DRK could use a piece of extra utility while not getting hit. That's not what I've seen people asking for. "Change Living Dead!" "Is Dark Passenger worth it?" "I hate managing MP!" "Sole Survivor sucks!" "Souleater doesn't heal enough!" "Why can't I use Reprisal all the time?" "Why can't I use Blood Weapon all the time?" Honestly the best thing for balance would simply be for them to introduce a 4th tank that competes with WAR the way DRK (apparently) competes with PLD. Trust me, there's still plenty of raid groups running PLD. Why? Because good DRKs are like chocolate coated loch ness unicorns. There's probably on average about 5 on any given server and that sadly is not an extreme exaggeration. Threads like the ones I've seen lately enable people by implying that its the job and not the player that is at fault. That is incorrect. That's what makes me mad, personally, and is why there is such a shortage of highly skilled DRKs.

We want balance, if the resource management sucks, then it has to provide superior results, OR we could make it less rediculous and make it balanced. you know, maybe allow it to OT and stop forcing WAR to only OT. Hey theres a true middle ground right there already without replacing paladins completely, but thats too much to ask for? seriously? Be Real SE is reading these threads and acting the same way DRK is perfect where its at to them, just let people vent or make suggestions at least t keeps the forum lively.

I'm getting the impression that you're an ex-PLD that grudgingly switched to DRK.

The resource management doesn't suck. Its not even the hardest part of the job. It happens naturally just from you pushing the right buttons at the right times. WAR doesn't have the option to only OT right now. WAR has to MT at least 20-40% of the time in the current raids.

I had an epiphany recently, when I level BLM to 60, dungeon grinding and the like. I saw so many DRKs in the DF and saw a laundry-list of problems.

1. Not using Darkside/using Darkside randomly
2. Not even pushing Blood Price
3. Rotating Power Slash combos instead of simply hitting Unleash or Abyssal Drain
4. Not using Syphon Combos
5. (Pre-lv30) Not using Blood Weapon
6. Basic tank failures (no cooldowns, improper pulling and/or positioning

I generally only said anything whenever I wound up tanking (which was about 50% of the time). I'd look at I'd see they'd have 1 job at 50, no tanks at 60 (or 50) etc. etc. I'd say Unleash more... "RIP my MP" ..."Use Blood Price" "...wat?" "Use Syphon combos" "ummm... ok" "keep Darkside up, I'm tired of tanking and Manaward/wall are 2 min cooldowns" "but my MP... "

It became clear to me that the fundamental difficulty with DRK is simply a failure to push buttons. Its a button. Its a button that does good things. PUSH IT!

I came from DRK after being a DRG main in 2.x. I had both tanks at 50. I will say that the experience of maining a melee DPS is a huge help with DRK because having to mash a lot of buttons is something that that accustoms you to, rather than it being a fate worse than death.

I'll admit, there's a lot of places to fuck up with DRK. "Did you forget to hit Blood Price or Blood Weapon when it came off cooldown? Did you hit Dark Arts 1 too many times? Did you forget to Sole Survivor that add that is dead on the floor right now? Did you get lost in Souleating when you should have been saving up for C&S and Dark Passenger? or Dark Mind? Did you miss that Reprisal proc? Did you melee-Plunge on that add that was gonna melt in seconds anyway and turn around to go back to the boss only to find he's across the room? Did you put down Salted Earth somewhere stupid? Did you Dark Arts something on accident?" Sure its punishing but I mean... you either like the job or you don't and if you like it, get better at it. If you don't like it then why are you playing it and furthermore still, why do you see yourself in a position to suggest changes?

Almost all of the changes asked for are just "I wish I didn't have to do x" or "I wish I could do y regardless of x" which are just complaints about the core design of the job, not constructive suggestions to actually fix something that is broken... and DRK isn't. There's also hundreds of people out there STILL calling DRK's design "clunky" and "lacking synergy" because they don't know when to properly push buttons. Then you get new or casual players reading crap like that and it enables them and they're like "meh, this job is clunky and lacks synergy so if I fuck up its the job not me. Fix it SE!" I would say countering this sentiment is probably the primary motivation for posters like myself. The reputation DRK has for manifesting a surplus of bad players is almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like, WAR needed fixing in 2.1. DRG needed fixing in 2.4. PLD needed fixing in 3.2. DRK hasn't ever needed fixing its just a hard job to maximize. That's it.

Come 4.0, the job is undoubtedly going to get lots of changes. But they won't be changes that simplify the job or make it easier, if 3.0 has taught us anything, and they certainly won't gut the job of its main mechanic. If we don't get more buttons to push, we'll have more effects to and interactions between the buttons we already push and it'll likely get even more hostile to the player that wants SE to change or redesign the job.

[shao32]

snip

syzz like the dark knight i am from 3.0 congratz for this post, you can't say it better.