RIP Dark Passenger. Not enough Dark Knight changes.

[Linkan]

Snip

During 3.0 we had an assortment of skills to use off the GCD that got taken away from us, such as reprisal, a somewhat dps upgrade.
Their lack now made DRK feel more slugish. Something should be add and I believe that Quietus and bloodspiller fit this position quite way
About TBN buff, I have no idea how they should fix it server wise, but they should. Right now I hit, have the buff appear and get dmg anyways, while its still standing.
What I do to change it is probably inscrease its duration so it is not so demanding to activate it, specially on people sitting on 200 ms latecy.

[TouchandFeel]

The patch notes drk update just simply made me sad and to be honest I wasn't expecting much and yet still feel let down.

While a potency buff to our most used and powerful combo ender is nice and the Quietus mp regain will help in the situation where we tend to be the most mp starved, when looking at the greater picture of where PLD is even with the lightest of nerfs and the buff that WAR got, DRK just doesn't measure up unfortunately.

As many others have stated we, not just the DRKs but the entire tank community, need to start making it well known that DRK needs to be fixed and soon so that we don't end up in a situation again with one tank being bottom of the barrel and ignored.

Also we need to be smarter about asking for changes.
Just making statements like "OmG, just make Drk like it was in 3.x", "the job is so lame and boring now, change it" or "just delete ....." doesn't help. You are not identifying what the specific issues with the current implementation are, nor are you providing real actionable suggestions for change.

Stop just reacting or parroting stuff you read online and think about the issues.

Ask yourselves the following.
What is the problem? Why is it a problem? What is the root cause of the problem? What are solutions that address the root cause of the problem? How can things be adjusted to provide such a solution? How does the solution and adjustments fit into the bigger picture of the job and the role as a whole? How can the problem and solution be presented clearly and intelligently?

Seem like a lot? Good, that means you are actually putting thought into it.

The greatest hurdle to be overcome getting the changes we need is not "the devs don't want to listen" but our own inability to provide sensible, cohesive and unified constructive feedback where we clearly identity the problems and provide intelligent and actionable solutions.

I'm sorry if this comes off harsh but I am tired of seeing us spend more time and energy fighting each other instead of fighting for each other. We are all on the same team here people.

EDIT: I would just like to point out I am seeing a bit of an increase in better presented feedback so thank you for that and let's keep it up!

[347SPECTRE]

A few things I would like to see for DRK
1. An overhaul or replacement of Living Dead. The other tank Invulns don't outright kill you if you dont get healed up enough.

2. An emergency self heal (SE and AD don't count, they don't heal worth a damn where it counts)
I'm fairly certain many DRK mains or DRK players in general are tired of always being the Healer's bitch.

(I'll add more if I can thing of anything else.

[Pori_Dessu]

During 3.0 we had an assortment of skills to use off the GCD that got taken away from us, such as reprisal, a somewhat dps upgrade.
Their lack now made DRK feel more slugish. Something should be add and I believe that Quietus and bloodspiller fit this position quite way
About TBN buff, I have no idea how they should fix it server wise, but they should. Right now I hit, have the buff appear and get dmg anyways, while its still standing.
What I do to change it is probably inscrease its duration so it is not so demanding to activate it, specially on people sitting on 200 ms latecy.

I know we had more "buttons" to press in 3.x, right now we just changed all those for a single button that we press the same amount of times, if not more, considering MP management is easy now. I would love to get the old reprisal and low blow, but Quietus and BS as oGCDs would make those skills completely different in concept, which is my problem with that. I have to add that this is a subjective argument though, as I stated in my earlier post.
As for the TBN problem, is a problem that many skills have, and you gotta remember the netcode of this game is coded on top of the 1.0 code (Heavily modified perhaps, but same basic structure I'd guess), which wasn't made to run a combat system as active as we have now. The best they can make without changing a lot of the netcode (Which is risky, considering it may end up breaking more than fixing if not given the proper amount of time and investment) is alleviate the issue with slight changes. Changing the time in which the effect becomes active is one way (Like they did with Mudras), the other is increasing the duration as you mentioned. The thing with increasing the duration is it will require some analysis of the skill in terms of balance, which I'd love to see anyway, so I'm not againt the idea. However they do it, I just want the skill to feel less clunky to use in the end.

[Falar]

These patch notes are beyond bad.

At this point, just delete Dark Passenger. They already have done it for the most part, now just take off my menu please.

Getting BS off the GCD would be great, as it would no longer cut into your MP generation (SS) or Blood/HP (SE). To compensate, the damage of CnS with DA would need to become native though so we didn't have TWO big ST skills that we were forced to double weave. I think it would be a good change for CnS AND BS.

[WhyAmIHere]

-snip-

What's the problem? Not enough usefulness in DRK's innate damage mitigation tool Shadow Wall; Dark Passenger having too high an MP cost; Living Dead being counter-intuitive.

Why's that a problem? Shadow Wall is inferior to Rampart, and the WAR/PLD exclusive mitigators. DP is too expensive and outshined for what it does. For living dead either you activate it, and the healer heals you enough that you never proc walking dead, meaning for 300s you're out of that safety net, or healers fail to heal you out of walking dead. In PUGs, more often than not the first event happens, meaning you never get the full benefit from using it.

What's the root cause? in attempting to bring all tanks to parity, sacrifices were made to all three job's skill kits. The MP cost is too damn high for what DP offers. While it can effectively be a 20s survival mechanic, the finesse to pull that off cannot be found outside of statics, where WAR/PLD do better.

What are some solutions and how can they address the core issues? Dark Passenger either needs to have it's MP cost reduced, or be given a more worthwhile effect. Perhaps change it's effect from a blind to a damage mitigation effect. As far as living dead goes? An idea that comes to mind is, instead of outright dying if you're not healed to 100% at the end of walking dead's duration, you're given either a weakness or brink of death debuff.

[TouchandFeel]

snip

A step in the right direction, but it could be organized in a more digestible fashion, at least by grouping corresponding problems and solutions together.

Also, my list of questions you should ask is not necessarily a format for feedback on the forums but a guideline for going through a proper process of critically thinking about issues and potential solutions.

Here is an example of how I posted feedback on DRK issues in another thread.
Warning: It is quite long.

My feedback and proposed solutions for DRK.

Note: I intentionally avoided adding new abilities or bringing old ones back and instead focused on integrating effects and changes into the current kit, as I feel new abilities and the like are less likely to be considered viable for implementation. Also I prefer the idea of "let us do more with what we have" instead of just adding more stuff to do because it provides a more flexible, dynamic, strategic and ultimately more fun set of tools.

1A) Problem: DRK is lacking in lower-end mitigation to be used for basic incoming damage such as auto-attacks when compared to the other tanks.
1B) Solution: Add an additional effect to Blood Price where X% (20%?) of damage dealt is returned as HP.

2A) Problem: Shadow Wall is discernibly worse than it's equivalents on the other tanks, Vengeance and Sentinel.
2B) Solution: Reduce Shadow Wall's CD from 180 seconds to 120 seconds. Maybe give it the additional effect of increasing evasion by X% (20%?) to balance out against Vengeance's longer duration and damage dealing effect.

3A) Problem: Dark Passenger no longer seems to be useful due to low damage and a steep resource (MP) cost.
3B) Solution: Reduce MP cost so it is equivalent to Abyssal Drain. Make blind effect part of the base ability. Increase potency to base 120 and 260 with Dark Arts.

4A) Problem: Unleashed has diminished value when you get Abyssal Drain.
4B) Solution: Additional effect of pulling enemies hit by Unleashed towards the DRK.

5A) Problem: The Blackest Night's duration feels a bit short, especially with a slight delay in activation (hope I'm not the only one that notices this).
5B) Solution: Increase duration from 5 seconds to 6 seconds, same duration as Inner Beast.

6A) Problem: Sole Survivor has little to no use in boss fights.
6B) Solution: WIP. Rethinking this one. With 4.05 I don't want to go with a DoT due to excess dps and am trying to come up with a utility focused idea.

7A) Problem: Living Dead is a way more cumbersome ability compared to it's equivalents on the other tanks, Hallowed Ground and Holmgang.
7B) Solution: First off it NEEDS better visual messaging for the activation of the Walking Dead status so that healers can easily see when this goes active and they need to react, this should at least include a much larger/noticeable visual fx on the DRK. Make self-healing count towards the needed incoming heals with maybe a buff to self-heals. Change the potential of dying if not healed to receiving a weakness/brink of death debuff for X seconds (30 seconds?).

8A) Problem: As of 4.05 Bloodspiller is not enough of a gain when used.
8B) Solution: Additional effect of reducing Delerium CD by X seconds (30?) when used without DA. Decrease potency of non-DAed Bloodspiller by 10 to 390, 465 in Grit. Increase potency of DAed Bloodspiller by 20 to 560, 670 in Grit.

Other things that would be nice to have.
- Delerium gets renamed to something more appropriate like "Blood Frenzy" or "There Will Be Blood".

[WhyAmIHere]

A step in the right direction, but it could be organized in a more digestible fashion, at least by grouping corresponding problems and solutions together.

Also, my list of questions you should ask is not necessarily a format for feedback on the forums but a guideline for going through a proper process of critically thinking about issues and potential solutions.

Here is an example of how I posted feedback on DRK issues in another thread.
Warning: It is quite long.

Not gonna lie, I spent way too long typing out a more detailed thing, but hit that 1k character limit, and what I posted was what I got after trimming it down. Also sleep deprivation. Tthen an FC-mate goes and tells me "just edit it in after you post it, you can bypass that limit" and all that was left was the last paragraph after copy/cutting/pasting. =s

[Kalocin]

These patch notes are beyond bad.

At this point, just delete Dark Passenger. They already have done it for the most part, now just take off my menu please.

Getting BS off the GCD would be great, as it would no longer cut into your MP generation (SS) or Blood/HP (SE). To compensate, the damage of CnS with DA would need to become native though so we didn't have TWO big ST skills that we were forced to double weave. I think it would be a good change for CnS AND BS.

Honestly more concerned about the mitigation than I am with BS being oGCD. That being said, I think Bloodspiller needs an additional effect, personally I'd aim with a bleed or something for like 4 seconds considering the name. We can double up for mitigation and perhaps have a weakened state/blow or something.

[Falar]

Honestly more concerned about the mitigation than I am with BS being oGCD. That being said, I think Bloodspiller needs an additional effect, personally I'd aim with a bleed or something for like 4 seconds considering the name. We can double up for mitigation and perhaps have a weakened state/blow or something.

Yeah I'd like to see a different Dark Dance return to give us another cooldown.