DRK tanking. A little bit of pain.

[Shurrikhan]

All I've seen on the front page for the past two weeks is "give DRK all the things, all the time, regardless of stance, regardless of MP, at the same time, forever, with shorter CDs, and no forethought required. I don't wanna manage my MP, I don't wanna think about how to optimally use my buffs/debuffs in a rotation (I wanna blind things and pop Blood Price at the same time and then complain about it), screw it, I just don't wanna push buttons period." Please consider what you could be doing to play the job more efficiently and optimally, accept the fact that you are playing a job with a high skill cap and a lot of active thought required beyond the basics of tanking, and either press on, or play a different job.

And admittedly a lot of those—many of my own included—therefore shouldn't be taken seriously. But not all, or likely even most, most complaints are made with the intent or short-sided allowance of dumbing down the job. Some stem from more fundamental questions like "what is the actual opportunity cost of Grit even supposed to be tuned against?" (Because if it's PLD's 2-GCD stance-dance, there are even more complaints in that sector because of how that compared to Warrior's 10s no-GCD swap.)

"Why is Dark Arts set at the mana cost it is, or the AoEs set at theirs, and the mana-generators at their particular outputs? What was the attempted ratio?"

"Is the DRK toolkit is so individually strong that its sum has to be weaker than its parts?"

"Why is the DRK's primary method for mana generation vs. AoE packs built to be in conflict with its strongest mana-consuming defenses (especially against—get this— AoE packs).

If you wonder why these suggestions keep popping up, you need look no further than how you and others tend to answer them—with defensive classism for your veteran set of players (which is right and fine; you are the people actually invested in this job), rather than with the math that might show where the balance really lies and why these conflicts exist, likely even to the DRK's benefit in terms of interesting gameplay and situational/burst capabilities.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

"Why is Dark Arts set at the mana cost it is, or the AoEs set at theirs, and the mana-generators at their particular outputs? What was the attempted ratio?"

The aoes are set at their values based on two magic numbers - 884 and 1768. Most of the Dark Knight's kit revolves around them.

Unleashed is 795(technically 795.6, but the game seems to ignore decimals), or 0.9 the value of 884
Abyssal Drain is set at 972, or 1.1 the value of 884
Dark art's cost is exactly 2x 884 or our magic 1768
Blood price returns 353 MP, or just the tinsy-tiniest bit under 1/5th a Dark art's cost. (19.9%) Unmend also costs this same amount
Carve and spit returns 884MP last time I checked when un-dark arts'd, forgive me if I'm wrong, or 1/2 a Dark Arts cost. same with Syphon strike.
Dark passenger is the magic 884, or 1/2 a dark arts cost.
Blood weapon is the only odd one out, as it requires 7.5 hits to recover a Dark Arts cost.
Grit is exactly 0.75 the cost of a Dark Arts, and is 50% more MP than our magic 884 number (1326)


Dark Arts itself is close to 25% of your max MP (Due to racial stats)

With that in mind, It's safe to say Dark Arts was balanced at base MP at 60, then (mostly)everything was ratio'd around it.

The ratios on Blood price and blood weapon make sense in context though. Boss autos are roughly 2-3 seconds in between, so Blood price will basically refund one dark arts if the boss continues to auto during the whole time. and Blood weapon, accounting for GCDs only, basically refunds you a dark arts cost. Blood weapon's ratio is also lower due to the fact that autos and OGCDs are also triggering it as well, whereas Blood price is strictly locked to being attacked.

Looking at the values, Grit's MP cost can also be looked at in terms of Sword and Shield Oath. They both cost 884MP (Magic number again), and take 2 GCDs to switch from one back to the first. Grit only consumes 1 GCD to turn on, while not consuming one to turn off. Since it only uses 50% of the GCDs, it also costs 50% more to activate at all.

WAR's opportunity cost is 10 seconds of being locked into the stance which can be fatal if fat fingered at a bad time (Due to IB being locked to tank stance) as well as having to sacrifice either their major mitigation tool (IB) or strongest potency move (Fell Cleave) for at minimum 10 seconds, as well as 30% of their damage(Deliverance -> Defiance wise). In addition, a WAR going from Deliverance -> Defiance is NOT at full HP as only their max HP is increased, whereas a PLD/DRK instantly gain the effect of their tank stance from turning it on. If a DRK and a WAR were both at 20K HP and taking a hit worth 23k within the next second, the DRK would pop Grit, be left at 1600HP. A WAR taking the hit would turn on Defiance and unless he had an instant heal or received one, is dead regardless.

Obviously, such a situation isn't exactly common, but it does show that WAR pays it's opportunity cost on dps and not receiving the EHP of their tank stance immediately. How much that hinders WAR or if its even an issue is for another topic though.

As far as Dark Dance/dark passenger Evasion vs Blood price, I think that more comes down to something the player is supposed to be thinking about actively, not trying to tie together. For example, my opener on any Large pack as DRK is to pop a defensive CD + Blood Price, then go ham with DA+ Abyssal. Between the sheer self heals going and the damage% reduction, I've had healers comment on the fact they basically didn't need to heal besides regens. Then when BP's timer is approaching 0, I stop Abyssal to build MP to go -> (DA+DD) + (DA+DP) which usually carries me till the death of the whole pack.

At least in my opinion, it should be obvious that BP works against evasion, so you actively make sure NOT to use it with evasion and get creative with it. Like how WAR can use Awareness to turn Raw intuition from something that would be hellish in large pack situations positioning wise into an awesome CD.

[Kitfox]

Looking at the values, Grit's MP cost can also be looked at in terms of Sword and Shield Oath. They both cost 884MP (Magic number again), and take 2 GCDs to switch from one back to the first. Grit only consumes 1 GCD to turn on, while not consuming one to turn off. Since it only uses 50% of the GCDs, it also costs 50% more to activate at all.

You can't really apply DRK's "magic numbers" on PLD because PLD has a different amount of max MP, making the mp cost a different scale. Grit is ~19% mp cost (1326/6935) while Oaths are ~17% mp cost each (884/5201).

[Sarcatica]

If you wonder why these suggestions keep popping up, you need look no further than how you and others tend to answer them—with defensive classism for your veteran set of players (which is right and fine; you are the people actually invested in this job), rather than with the math that might show where the balance really lies and why these conflicts exist, likely even to the DRK's benefit in terms of interesting gameplay and situational/burst capabilities.

Pardon me if I sound nasty but I find it rather funny that majority of these "veterans" are not even touching the hardest raid content and they are rambling about the balances between tanks.

Adjustments to the balances to the jobs should be made with a huge amount of data to support the ideas you are bringing whether it is raw DPS, effectiveness, who is pulling first, skill cap of players, relations between tanks to healers and dps. The comparisons between tanks in different situations need to be made. It just doesn't sound convincing if you don't provide real stats and experience to back the arguments you make. In this sense SE has to thank the raiders for providing the stats they need for necessary adjustments to the jobs and also the future contents.

[Fluffernuff]

Pardon me if I sound nasty but I find it rather funny that majority of these "veterans" are not even touching the hardest raid content and they are rambling about the balances between tanks.

Adjustments to the balances to the jobs should be made with a huge amount of data to support the ideas you are bringing whether it is raw DPS, effectiveness, who is pulling first, skill cap of players, relations between tanks to healers and dps. The comparisons between tanks in different situations need to be made. It just doesn't sound convincing if you don't provide real stats and experience to back the arguments you make. In this sense SE has to thank the raiders for providing the stats they need for necessary adjustments to the jobs and also the future contents.

Yeah, I'm not going to go into the whole "raider vs casual" thing- theres always going to be that divide, and sometimes "skill" isn't what makes that divide. Though there is the point of stats. someone needs to be clearing that content so someone knows what's capable or what is being used in that content. But I cant say I subscribe to raiding being the end-all be all of class balance. SE is a PvE heavy game, yes, but I don't get the vibe that SE is pumping out raid-only content for raid-only players. So I'm sure endgame A8S raiding isnt the sole factor into what goes into class balance.

there's also a factor of enjoyment- this IS still a game, even if some of us play it like a second job. in this regard, casuals and newbies provide stats of their own. If so many people are having trouble grasping or not enjoying how DRK is more than the "veterans" that find is balanced, SE might still be inclined to change things in order to bring in or entice more subs to play those classes. its kind of a catch 22, and I wish people were just a bit more civil and tried to genuinely help instead of being condescending or dismissing for the sake of pride.

[Sarcatica]

Yeah, I'm not going to go into the whole "raider vs casual" thing- theres always going to be that divide, and sometimes "skill" isn't what makes that divide. Though there is the point of stats. someone needs to be clearing that content so someone knows what's capable or what is being used in that content. But I cant say I subscribe to raiding being the end-all be all of class balance. SE is a PvE heavy game, yes, but I don't get the vibe that SE is pumping out raid-only content for raid-only players. So I'm sure endgame A8S raiding isnt the sole factor into what goes into class balance.

there's also a factor of enjoyment- this IS still a game, even if some of us play it like a second job. in this regard, casuals and newbies provide stats of their own. If so many people are having trouble grasping or not enjoying how DRK is more than the "veterans" that find is balanced, SE might still be inclined to change things in order to bring in or entice more subs to play those classes. its kind of a catch 22, and I wish people were just a bit more civil and tried to genuinely help instead of being condescending or dismissing for the sake of pride.

I am stating the fact that people base on their experience and opinions to balance the jobs. You NEED to know the maximum capabilities of all tank jobs to get a better perspective on how to balance, and that's not just through playing certain jobs because it's "fun" to people. This is not for the sake of pride for sure.

Tell me, how do you know if a certain job is better than the rest? By testing it out and compare all the options and judge from the contents that actually push the jobs to the limit. Same applies to anything you do IRL: How to be the better artist? How to be a better surgeon? Tell me, how? The opinions need to tone down and if you want to have a legit discussion, you bring all the data for all of us to discuss or perhaps the rest can add on. IF you are telling "this is my 12.99 and I do whatever I want" then sure, by all means go ahead. But to me, these changes most of you propose are plain "pls buff so i can play this well too". Why not learn together to be better? Why not get better? This is by far how hard SE is dumbing down contents because "THIS CONTENT IS TOO HARD, PLS NERF SO I CAN DO IT". If this is the case, SE can't truly give us better and interesting contents for all of us to do. Do you think all classes need to be so simple that everyone can play?

If all you want is just play the game, why bother chime in discussions about balance issues that aren't so easy to solve? It literally doesn't make any sense that, 1. you are basing on your experience that is low in value and it's a very small sample size hence can't get a definitive comparison, 2. You are separating us into 2 groups which makes me think that you don't intend to contribute in the thread with anything useful and instead just ramble based on what you would like to see (See why PLD was buffed twice in 3.1~3.2, it's definitely not because of raiding??),3. the problems discussed aren't macro enough to address tanks as a whole(1 of 3 getting buffed needs to be in relation to the other 2 jobs and not just isolated to DRK alone), 4. All combined you show that you are not interested in raiding yet decide to leave comments antagonizing me as "raider" like I killed a bunch of you guys and it is a crime to do so, 5. again IF you just say "MY 12.99 MY RULES", then whatever. This is practically the same as Mentor in game, ramble a lot yet can't even do tank/dps/healer jobs properly, "I HAVE CROWN I AM TOO GOOD".

By no means I am targetting anyone here, just my 2cents. Veterans ≠ skilled. Most of them aren't even close tbh, even the legacy players. It's just upsetting that this forum isn't actively used for more productive arguments and instead too many untested opinions. Sad truth. A pretty useless forum that I probably won't be using anymore. Peace out.