PLD synergy issues

[Launched]

So let me get this straight everyone is fine with how DRK is designed?

No, I think it's incredibly badly designed and it's my least favourite job in the game. It has a ton of problems:
Skills: lots of unnecessary duplicates or ones that don't add anything interesting. Why have Unleash and Abyssal Drain at the same time instead of making DA+Unleash give 20 more potency and the HP drain? Dark Passenger, Salted Earth (which are also 2 more aoes) and Carve and Spit are just there to be a DPS increase that you use as often as possible. The rotation and MP "management" are nowhere near as complicated as DRK players like to make it sound. And why is Dark Arts to bland and limited? It's not interesting at all and just gets used in the same way constantly.

Cooldowns: just copies of PLD skills, should be obvious why that's bad. There are other tanking styles it could have got that weren't just percentage mitigation on every skill, like Brewmaster Monk's stagger from WoW. Make DRK take more damage overall but make that damage smoother instead of big spikes. Living Dead is probably its best-designed skill.

Raidwide contribution: Giving DRK INT down on Delirium was a horrible idea. First, it conflicts with MNK because you can only have INT down from one source, so it means you probably won't ever want DRK and MNK in the same group. Second, when you compare PLD and DRK, one has STR down and one has INT down. Everything in this game so far leans heavily in one direction, I don't think there's any fight where both the MT and the group take an even split of physical or magical damage. So you're only ever going to want one of Halone or Delirium, and for all of HW that's been Delirium. It wouldn't be too bad if it stopped there, but adding Reprisal on top of that is just stupid. Delirium was already close to 10% raidwide mitigation, and Reprisal is another 10% on top of that, just with a bit less uptime than Storm's Path. It's a stupidly strong combination that shouldn't just be limited to one job. And despite the fact that it has cooldowns nearly identical to PLD's along with tons more raidwide mitigation, it also does WAR levels of DPS.

Tanking spot: DRK's entire skillset makes it want to MT. It loses too much from Blood Price procs, Reprisal and Low Blow procs when it's not getting hit. PLD also wants to get hit for Shield Swipe procs. It doesn't lose as much as DRK from OT, but neither of them gain anything either and unlike WAR they can't use their defensive cooldowns in other ways so that they're not completely wasted. DRK should have been designed to fit with how tanks were at the end of ARR: PLD MT (so DRK OT) and WAR OT (so DRK MT) like how AST got the two sects. Instead, it just fights with PLD for the MT spot because neither of them have anything that makes them want to MT.

Basically, just making DRK a direct upgrade to PLD was a horrible idea. Jobs like WAR, the 3 healers, MCH, DRG etc. work well with every other job in the game, but DRK's design still directly conflicts with PLD and MNK nearly 2 years after HW was released and I don't understand why it hasn't been changed.

[Sqwall]

Basically, just making DRK a direct upgrade to PLD was a horrible idea. Jobs like WAR, the 3 healers, MCH, DRG etc. work well with every other job in the game, but DRK's design still directly conflicts with PLD and MNK nearly 2 years after HW was released and I don't understand why it hasn't been changed.

YES!! This completely! I have been waiting for someone to post something about this. This just shows me that not everyone has played all 3 tanks and some of the DPS that have conflicting skills. To me this is why PLD is completely no longer viable in end game. DRK has all the skills PLD does and does it better. If your smart about the MP management DRK eclipses PLD in every possible way. Same with WAR, It does way more DPS and higher AOE DPS + the debuffs are a simple rotation.

I'm with you SE needs to address this issue quickly and make it worth while to put that shield back on for me. I suppose I'll work on finishing DRK 56 and WAR 56.

[Lyth]

DRK has all the skills PLD does and does it better. If your smart about the MP management DRK eclipses PLD in every possible way. Same with WAR, It does way more DPS and higher AOE DPS + the debuffs are a simple rotation.

If you're just looking for someone to validate your point of view, I'm sure that there's someone out there willing to do so. That being said, there's nothing that prevents you from doing raids on PLD. You'll always find fights which work in favour of one tank over another. But you can't make that judgement if you're not actually pushing the limits of the job. WAR may bring the highest personal and raid dps by design, but there are plenty of mediocre WARs out there who still manage to consistently get outperformed by their co-tanks, whether they be on PLD or DRK. So you should always ask yourself if you could push your own skill further before you ask the devs to push your job's power further.

That's not to say that PLD couldn't benefit from a rework. But I do feel like a lot of its naysayers haven't really explored what it can or cannot do as a job. If you haven't had moments where you wished that you had access to Spirits Within, Cover, Tempered Will, Hallowed Ground, Sheltron, or Divine Veil while on another tank, you haven't really played PLD.

Rotations aren't actually what make a job simple or hard. Any rotation becomes second-nature with enough practice. It's a combination of maximising your uptime and recognising how to tailor your rotation to each individual fight that makes the difference. That being said, faster-paced jobs with higher APM requirements tend to be more rewarding to execute, once you learn how. That's part of the reason why some people love jobs like DRK or NIN, while others find them unnecessarily fiddly.

Either way, take all this with a grain of salt (or provide the salt yourself, in some cases). It's all going to change in two months anyways, so why not wait and see?