DEV Request: Please do not make DRK a 1-2-3 like PLD was

[Lyth]

This topic keeps coming up, for some reason.

In 3.x, the delirium combo has 227 average potency/gcd. The base SE combo has 220 average potency/gcd. The power slash combo has 223 average potency/gcd. As you can see, you never use the base SE combo. The reason why SE exists is so that you can, at one specific point in your combo cycle, use DA as a 120 potency oGCD. If you accidentally hit SE without activating SE, you just lose dps.

In 4.0, the base SE combo potency has been boosted to 227 average potency/gcd, identical to your old delirium combo. The new base SE combo, which you never previously used, is now functionally identical to the delirium combo. The only thing that has changed is that you can use DA as a 140 potency oGCD combo at any point in your cycle. The reason that this is changed is because MP no longer drains in Darkside, so you will have to actively work significantly harder to burn off extra MP in order to ensure that you do not cap, especially when BW is up.

Here's another point worth considering. In 3.x, PLD gains 5-6% extra average damage reduction in physical fights from block procs. DRK gains about the same in single target from Reprisal procs. WAR makes up with self-healing and baseline parry bonuses (because yeah, axe fencing is the vogue nowadays). With the change to block in 4.0, and the loss of the old Reprisal, you can expect DRK and WAR to take more damage on average. WAR's combo changes force more SP usage, offsetting this with more consistent self-healing. The DRK combo changes do something similar, as long as you're in Grit, as more SE combos give you more lifesteal. The one problem is that this doesn't help you out of Grit.

Maybe if you ask the devs, they'll let you glamour Delirium's animation back in, like the SMN Egi-Glamours (I'd definitely glamour Scourge on to something if this happened). But functionally, it was a beneficial change on several levels.