DRK is going to be Nerfed in Stormblood

[Reynhart]

3* 380 = 1140 potency.

For a SE combo:
680+ 420 (3 dark arts (mp saved on not using BN)) + 70 (Syphon Strike)= 1170 potency.

There is still a big flaw in that calculation. To use 3 Dark Arts, you have to do more than one combo, thus, spending 2 GCD on Hard Slash, wich completely kills your average potency.

[Daniel_Fury]

There is still a big flaw in that calculation. To use 3 Dark Arts, you have to more than one combo, thus, spending 2 GCD on Hard Slash, wich completely kills your average potency.

If you were to finish a 10 minute fight, and look at all your skills used and saw that you used blackest night 3 times and 3 blood spillers as a result but then saw you didn't use dark arts on 3 gcd or ogcds in the fight, factor in the fact you also could of used the entire souleater combo instead of those bloodspillers, then you would see that you lost damage.

The problem is that you expect 3 dark arts to be used in 3 gcds for the calculations to make sense, but mp is a resource that can increase dps. You can save it for later.

If a fight finishes and there's more blackest nights used over missed dark arts opportunities, then the damage loss is there.

[Sarcatica]

TLDR: DRK doesn't change too much. WAR's gameplay shifts into generating their Beast Gauge faster aka no more BB combo as OT (thank god). PLD changes the most, 2 main rotations that is seeming so strong but is heavily punished by mechanics, movement and downtime. You just want to ignore everything else to gain more uptime in your DPS if you can (OT slot alert).

[Lyth]

I think that they did a fantastic job of resolving the dps disparity found amongst PLDs of different skill levels. Now, if you fall asleep during GB RAx2, it's no longer counted as a dps loss as long as you pass out on to the Holy Spirit button. Let us remember our fallen brethren, Requiescat in pace.

But enough banter. Let's do some math.

...

This calculation shows why natural Bloodsplitters are a dps gain (there's a slight technical error in that the 0.5DA term should be averaged across 3 GCDs, but it doesn't really change the outcome). The problem is that TBN costs an additional DA on top of this (i.e. an extra 140 potency needs to be accounted for).

Let's do this formally.

1 DA is worth 140 potency.

If Bloodsplitter truncates one Hard Slash, then we have:
50 blood = 380 potency - 150 potency
50 blood = 230 potency

If Bloodsplitter truncates one Siphon Strike, then we have:
50 blood = 380 potency - 250 potency - 0.5 DA
50 blood = 130 potency - 0.5(140 potency)
50 blood = 60 potency

If Bloodsplitter truncates one Souleater, then we have
50 blood = 380 potency - 280 potency - 10 blood
60 blood = 100 potency
50 blood = 83 potency

So no matter what GCD we lose, Bloodsplitter is always a dps gain when it occurs naturally. If we activate TBN to gain 50 blood, however, we're spending 1 DA worth of MP to gain this 50 blood. So we're spending 140 potency to gain 230 potency on Hard Slash, 60 potency on Siphon Strike, and 83 potency on Souleater.

More generally, if we use 3 Bloodsplitters to truncate one entire Souleater combo, then we have:
150 blood = 3(380 potency) - (150 + 250+ 280 potency) - 0.5DA - 10 blood
160 blood = (1140 potency) - (680 potency) - 0.5(140 potency)
160 blood = 390 potency
50 blood = 121 potency

So we've proven that natural Bloodsplitters are always a dps gain. But 121 potency is less than the value of 1 DA, so using TBN to gain a Bloodsplitter is a dps loss. With some simple algebra, you can also show that in order for using TBN on Bloodsplitter to be a dps gain, the base potency of Bloodsplitter needs to be 400.

Now this is where it gets really interesting. Delirium gives you 1 DA worth of MP in addition to the Blood Weapon/Price buff extension. Because you're gaining at least 140 potency in exchange for 50 blood, it is always a dps gain to spend your blood on Delirium over Bloodsplitter. In addition, if that blood comes from TBN, then you're spending 1 DA to gain back an equal if not greater amount of MP. So if you use TBN to pay the cost of Delirium, it's a dps gain.

As a result, you get one "free" use of TBN every time Delirium comes up, once every two minutes. That's the reason for why our defensive cooldowns are designed the way they are, at the moment. The interactions between the four new skills is really interesting. Bloodspiller's potency can't go much higher without making TBN free and spammable. Delirium's recast controls how often TBN can be used defensively without penalty, and gaining more usages out of it than this limit results in lost dps. Really neat stuff.

[Reynhart]

If you were to finish a 10 minute fight, and look at all your skills used and saw that you used blackest night 3 times and 3 blood spillers as a result but then saw you didn't use dark arts on 3 gcd or ogcds in the fight, factor in the fact you also could of used the entire souleater combo instead of those bloodspillers, then you would see that you lost damage.

That's overly simple.
Did you use Blackest Night to not activate Grit ?
Would you have used these Blackest Night to mitigates tankbusters anyway ?
How much time did you spend in Grit, bumping the effective potency of BloodSpiller when compated to SoulEater ?

And again, 3 basic Bloodspillers give a better average potency that one full powered SoulEater combo.

[Talec]

I will miss Dark Dance so much. For me it was THE poster-move for my DRK, combined with Dark Arts. It decreased the incomming dmg so much! And it was unique! All other CGs just decrease dmg like any other CD of any other tanks in any other MMORPG in this universe.

R.I.P. Dark Dance T__T


What is left to say is, I'm usually not the pessimistic type. I don't care if DRK is not as strong as the other two tanks (I'm a casual and no raider) but after what I have seen and what I read here I get the ill Feeling, that DRK won't be the same after this Friday. And that it will be a lot more boring to Play. New Skills on GCD don't add to the complexity.

[Niyuka]

I will miss Dark Dance so much. For me it was THE poster-move for my DRK, combined with Dark Arts. It decreased the incomming dmg so much! And it was unique! All other CGs just decrease dmg like any other CD of any other tanks in any other MMORPG in this universe.

R.I.P. Dark Dance T__T


What is left to say is, I'm usually not the pessimistic type. I don't care if DRK is not as strong as the other two tanks (I'm a casual and no raider) but after what I have seen and what I read here I get the ill Feeling, that DRK won't be the same after this Friday. And that it will be a lot more boring to Play. New Skills on GCD don't add to the complexity.

Which is the intention of the design, so its good. DRK is the "coolest" tank job, so highest probability of new players picking it up. Making it super simple is smart.

[Talec]

"the Intention of the design, so it's good"? that's the result? I could tell you a dozen very cynical "Intention of the designs" made during history, which didnt result "good".

Beeing more bored to play a game is never a good result.

btw. Warrior was also very cool to play, it just happened that I don't like axes. The only "boring" Job was Paladin. Now they made all three tanks equal boring. Very good intentional design, I must admit.


/irony off

MaKiNg iT SuPeR SiMpLe Is SmArT.

[SyzzleSpark]

As a result, you get one "free" use of TBN every time Delirium comes up, once every two minutes. That's the reason for why our defensive cooldowns are designed the way they are, at the moment. The interactions between the four new skills is really interesting. Bloodspiller's potency can't go much higher without making TBN free and spammable. Delirium's recast controls how often TBN can be used defensively without penalty, and gaining more usages out of it than this limit results in lost dps. Really neat stuff.

I do think that the interaction between TBN and Delirium and our Blood and Mana for that matter is indeed fascinating, and I think its cool that they gave us a skill that trades blood for mana and another one that trades mana for blood. And of course, the one that is a DPS gain is the one with the longer recast -_-

My concern is that this is a lot of convoluted math and interactions that don't necessarily offer a higher payoff than either of the other tanks, and if current numbers stay the same, they may actually be lower. It does look fascinating and fun, no doubt, but its really stupid that it appears to be shaping up to be weaker overall than we were before. I just don't see them making up for all the source of damage they stripped away from us specifically for no apparent reason.

I don't mean Scourge/Reprisal/LB needed to stay exclusive to us in their utility, but the damage they offered could have been better and more obviously distributed elsewhere. Right now I'm just not seeing it.

Basically TL;DR they need to make DRK not such a colossal DD-job-tier-pain-in-the-ass to math out.

[Daniel_Fury]

That's overly simple.
Did you use Blackest Night to not activate Grit ?
Would you have used these Blackest Night to mitigates tankbusters anyway ?
How much time did you spend in Grit, bumping the effective potency of BloodSpiller when compated to SoulEater

Read Lyths post above. It explains what I'm trying to explain in a much better format with easier to understand calculations.

It is quite simple, you're just simply over complicating things.

We are speaking about why you lose dps for using TBN over DA and how blood spiller doesn't quite cover the damage potential that you lost. The reason for using the TBN does not play a part in it.

I'd personally use TBN on a MT every tank buster whether it is a dps loss or not. The skill seems to be designed so that you will use it as an OT but if it increased damage it would be overpowered. The cost for using it is not too much and the benefit outweighs the damage loss in my eyes.