What's going to be the strength of Dark Knights now?

[Lyth]

While I can appreciate the artistic effort behind the new gauges, I actually find them intrusive. I'm grateful that DRK has the most minimalistic UI out of the three tanks. Had I the option to replace it with a simple bar for tracking Blackblood next to HP and MP, I would.

I don't think that the best visual indicator for tanks is to fill up half of your screen space with "SHIELD OATH" in boldface type. If anything, you want to move the player's eyes away from the gauges and hotbars and back to where the action is actually happening, on their character. If you want the player to immediately know what stance they're in, you need animation cues and auras on the character which show this. 2.x WAR was pretty good in this regard, as you knew from your Wrath aura that you were in Defiance.

DRKs have been asking for a revision to the Darkside aura for some time now, whether it be in line with the subtle red-black foot flames of the original Heavensward job actions reveal video, or the Darkside aura that you see in the 3.3 Hildebrand quest. Having a clear visual indicator on the character would be far more beneficial than adding further bulk to the new UI element. Of course, auras don't need to be the only way in which you indicate stance, either. Even having a different battle stance animation (for example, something similar to the DRK /bstance pose as a persistent animation) could indicate what stance you were in.

Actually, when the new UI elements were first mentioned in interviews months ago, I was actually expecting something more along the line of visual indicators to alert you when Berserk had come off cooldown, for example. I feel that the visual elements being tracked are not necessarily representative of areas in which newer players are going to make mistakes.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I don't think that the best visual indicator for tanks is to fill up half of your screen space with "SHIELD OATH" in boldface type. If anything, you want to move the player's eyes away from the gauges and hotbars and back to where the action is actually happening, on their character. If you want the player to immediately know what stance they're in, you need animation cues and auras on the character which show this. 2.x WAR was pretty good in this regard, as you knew from your Wrath aura that you were in Defiance.

The gauges were scaled up to make them more visible during the showcase and like all other UI elements the size and placement can be adjusted. Also Auras are very busy and often make things hard to see for you and others. Consider the complaints about Dark Knights in Darkside at 3.0 release.

[Lyth]

The gauges were scaled up to make them more visible during the showcase and like all other UI elements the size and placement can be adjusted. Also Auras are very busy and often make things hard to see for you and others. Consider the complaints about Dark Knights in Darkside at 3.0 release.

The problem isn't the scaling. It's the bulk. You can make it smaller to take up less room, but the bar shrinks with it, and that's really the only part that I really care about. It's a personal preference issue.

A lot of the complaints about the Darkside aura on release was that the fumes permeated into the space around you. It still does this, except that they toned down the red so that now you and the players around you can barely see it. In fact, most of the DRKs who complained about it were asking for something that was more self-contained, like you see in the original job skill reveal in HW. There haven't been complaints about the aura associated with Wrath/Abandon even though the aura is significantly more obvious, mainly because it's very self contained. You want the aura to be obvious to the player, but not so obvious that other players can smell it over in the next town.