DRK Consolidated Feedback Thread

[Link594]

You have 50 Blood. Blood Weapon/Price have 7 seconds left. Delirium is going to be ready to use in 5 seconds. Do you Bloodspiller? You have 2400 MP, your last hit was Syphon Strike, Carve and Spit is not ready yet, The Blackest Night is. What do you press? You have 50 Blood, You have less than 1320 MP, you have 4 targets. What do you press?

You are arguing DRK has many "choices" to make in their "priority-based" system. The answer is simple, its always Dart Arts in ST and Abyssal Drain in AoE for MP, and Bloodspiller in ST and Quietus in AoE for Blood. There is no choice here, your "choice" is just an illusion. those 2 abilities are in completely different rotations 1 target vs multiple.

The only choice DRK has is whether to Spinning Slash for threat or Syphon Strike for MP/Damage. TBH is only used if you know you can get the shield to break. To answer your questions, the first one is Delirium, 2nd is DA-Souleater, 3rd is Quietus. Just following the rotation I outlined. Besides Delirium and DA Carve and Spit, the class has no priorities or procs to take advantage of.

Unleash is a x 20.6 enmity move. Abyssal Drain is x5. 1030 vs 600. I will Unmend pull if things are too spread, I will Abyssal Drain pull otherwise, the first ability used once everything is in range is Unleash. Possibly twice, depending on what sort of DPS I have. After that, I will Abyssal Drain.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/wiki/enmity

You have a very skewed idea of Unleash. You are basically saying you need to use it to hold threat, which is just false. Abyssal Drain is much more then enough. You can argue that Unleash has a positional use, but I'd argue that it doesn't justify keeping it around.

During a Blood _ Quietus spam period on trash you are generating FAR more MP than you can spend on Dark Arts Abyssal Drains alone. You could Dark Arts Quietus itself, but then Dark Passenger is worth more potency at that point, and DADP worth even more.
The MP is more wasted by letting yourself hit 100% and gain nothing. You could also just keep doing ADs and not bother with Quietus, but then you're depriving yourself of raw potency, MP, self healing, and mitigation.
Some people don't have Limit Break on their bars just because the purpose of it is scarce. Doesn't make them right.

I guess you are arguing Dark Passenger is a well tuned ability. The entire DRK community disagrees with you. I'm not going to try to change your mind, but maybe you should be shooting down everyone's DP buff suggestions since you think the ability is good as it is. Comparing Limit Break with Dark Passenger isn't really fair, not having the Limit Break can wipe your party, not having Dark Passenger wouldn't have any noticeable effect.

If all the tanks only have enmity combos because we rolled everything together to save buttons, what does it matter? Again, it's an insane suggestion I admit, it's just also the logical conclusion of you wanting to roll things into one for being even slightly similar.

I don't think you read or saw what I said. I just told you they have different functions. So of course it matters lol. If you roll them together, you have no way of managing your enmity independent of your damage. You lose a functionality. You are comparing 2 different things with no relation, my argument still stands.

[Valdegarde]

Now it's being compared to other MMO Dark Knights. I agree with SyzzleSpark, I feel like one of the reasons Dark Passenger has been forgotten and trashed is that people (and SE) just conveniently forget that it's Cecil's signature skill. You know, the straight up random battle ender that started Dark Knights as a thing in the entire Final Fantasy series in the first place. But perhaps this too is fate, considering Cecil also gave it up for the more OP Paladin...

[WhyAmIHere]

5. Make Blood Weapon usable in Grit, and merge the effects of Blood Price into Blood Weapon.

If you want to, you can make the Blood Price effect only happen in Grit by giving a Grit Additional Effect to Blood Weapon. As for separate timers, you could have both buffs with separate timers, similar to how WAR Vengeance gives you 2 buffs for the mitigation and the counterattack. Delirium could extend the timers of both. Maybe not a common solution, but Blood Weapon/Blood Price consolidation is something that is frequently discussed.

Call the merged skill Blood Arts (or pact), and suddenly there's a sense of logic of why we suddenly start accumulating it, lore-wise. Plus it just sounds nice to have Blood / Dark Arts

[EusisLandale]

TBH is only used if you know you can get the shield to break. To answer your questions, the first one is Delirium, 2nd is DA-Souleater, 3rd is Quietus. Just following the rotation I outlined. Besides Delirium and DA Carve and Spit, the class has no priorities or procs to take advantage of.

Your first answer has contradicted your stance that you Bloodspiller when you have the Blood, as you have prioritized Delirium. Your second answer you have decided that you wouldn't be able to break TBN and prioritized Dark Arts instead.

You have a very skewed idea of Unleash. You are basically saying you need to use it to hold threat, which is just false. Abyssal Drain is much more then enough. You can argue that Unleash has a positional use, but I'd argue that it doesn't justify keeping it around.

Establish enmity, not to hold it. Just like Power Slash.

I guess you are arguing Dark Passenger is a well tuned ability.

And here we have you moving the goal. You said it was, and I quote,

Except Dark Passenger is completely useless.

when the fact of the matter is it has a good use within a situation that comes up quite regularly.
If you'd like I can provide another situation where Dark Passenger is the more viable option for spending your MP. Two targets. This is also a situation that occurs fairly regularly.
Abyssal Drain is 720 over 3 GCDs, while a Souleater combo is 700. A Ninja or Samurai being present brings that up to 770.
One Dark Arts brings it up to 840/924, two brings it up to 980/1078. Alternatively Dark Passenger brings it up to 900/970, while DADP brings it to 1180/1250.

So, what we have here with Dark Passenger is an ability that sees proper usage in light aoe situations, on its own, as well as extreme aoe situations, with support from other tools we possess.
What we no longer have with Dark Passenger is an aoe ability that sees use in every situation every single time it comes off cooldown.

I don't think you read or saw what I said. I just told you they have different functions. So of course it matters lol. If you roll them together, you have no way of managing your enmity independent of your damage. You lose a functionality. You are comparing 2 different things with no relation, my argument still stands.

Blood Price affords you MP and Blood while playing defensively. Blood Weapon does the same while playing offensively. Similar, but not quite the same function. By making the two one button you lose the ability to do both. You cut away the options in favor of some "ideal" best of both worlds concept. Unleash establishes enmity, Abyssal Drain maintains it and provides better DPS. Similar, but not quite the same. So yes, the logical conclusion of you wanting to roll things together to save space is to roll enmity and dps combos for all tanks into one combo.

[Link594]

Your first answer has contradicted your stance that you Bloodspiller when you have the Blood, as you have prioritized Delirium. Your second answer you have decided that you wouldn't be able to break TBN and prioritized Dark Arts instead.

Except Delirium is only usable when you have the buff up and running, and not on CD. As I stated in my answer, DA/Carve and Spit and Delirium are the only meaningful choices DRK has.

My second answer was just following the rotation, to always use Dart Arts. If you wanna include TBN in there, that is fine, I'll concede that to you, but these "priorities" are not in the core rotation. Delirium has a 2 minute CD and Carve and Spit has a 1 minute CD. These "choices" don't even happen often. I can give you tons of priority based examples in PLD/WAR, and they have 3 combos. DRK doesn't have a priority based rotation, but if you want to believe it does, i won't try to change your mind anymore. If you want to see a real priority based rotation, try BRD or MCH, or even SMN.

Establish enmity, not to hold it. Just like Power Slash.

Except you can establish enmity with Abyssal Drain just fine. As I said previously, it generates more then sufficient enmity then you need.

And here we have you moving the goal. You said it was, and I quote,

when the fact of the matter is it has a good use within a situation that comes up quite regularly.

Except the situation doesn't come up regularly, and the use doesn't justify keeping it around. It is an underwhelming ability.

May I redirect you to this thread to argue why Dark Passenger doesn't need a buff? http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Knight-changes.

I see you posted in the thread, the OP literally mentions that it serves no purpose other then to destroy your mana pool, and yet you didn't say anything about how Dark Passenger is "fine."

I'm not moving any goal posts, I'm arguing that Dark Passenger needs a buff, and I provided a suggestion with how to buff it, and you are telling me that it is fine.

Blood Price affords you MP and Blood while playing defensively. Blood Weapon does the same while playing offensively. Similar, but not quite the same function. By making the two one button you lose the ability to do both. You cut away the options in favor of some "ideal" best of both worlds concept. Unleash establishes enmity, Abyssal Drain maintains it and provides better DPS. Similar, but not quite the same. So yes, the logical conclusion of you wanting to roll things together to save space is to roll enmity and dps combos for all tanks into one combo.

Except you can never do both. It is either or, they are mutually exclusive. Unless you are constantly swapping in and out of Grit to do both, (which would be ridiculous) you don't really have a point. Point is, they have the same function, they work differently, but they accomplish the same thing. There is no "option", it is either Price in Grit or Weapon without. If they had the same recast, then there would be an option. and that isn't what I would want at all. DRK doesn't need multiple abilities that are mutually exclusive and redundant. So by making them one button with combined effects, you don't lose anything. You just lose the ability to do them at different times, which is fine. Pre 4.0, you were always casting Blood Weapon and Blood Price at the same time when you weren't in Grit, because why not? You need MP, and both of them give it to you.

Enmity and DPS combos have different functions, and accomplish different things. You can't relate the 2. I've said it multiple times and yet you still compare the two, as if enmity and damage combos have the same function.

And as I said before multiple times, Abyssal Drain establishes and maintains enmity, if you don't believe me, run a level 70 dungeon without Unleash on your bar, and see if you have problems establishing enmity. You won't unless you are missing your Abyssal Drains.

At this point I'm just repeating my arguments to you and you can't see my point. Either you are playing devil's advocate and trolling me, or you really think DRK redundancies and underwhelming abilities are fine and don't need to be touched. (That is a fine opinion to have, i'm just not going to agree with you.)

Either way, continuing to try to explain to you my points isn't going to result in any success.

[EusisLandale]

Except the situation doesn't come up regularly, and the use doesn't justify keeping it around. It is an underwhelming ability.
May I redirect you to this threat to argue why Dark Passenger doesn't need a buff? http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Knight-changes.
I see you posted in the thread, the OP literally mentions that it serves no purpose other then to destroy your mana pool, and yet you didn't say anything about how Dark Passenger is "fine."
I'm not moving any goal posts, I'm arguing that Dark Passenger needs a buff, and I provided a suggestion with how to buff it, and you are telling me that it is fine.

Saying it is completely useless is not saying it needs a buff. Unless you feel your only way to get a buff is through pointless and inaccurate exaggerations. Could it use a buff? Yeah, sure. Does it need one? No not really. It's far and away the lowest priority I'd say on Dark Knight changes. It has a number of viable uses, the only thing that has changed about it is that you can't just mindlessly push the button.

Do you not pull more than one pack at a time? Because with that you can easily end up with more MP than you can ever deal with through Dark Arts Abyssal Drain alone. You need to DADP to keep yourself from getting your MP capping and wasting away.
Do you just go ahead and Abyssal Drain at a mere two targets? Because at that point your MP is better served on DADP when it's up, barring the need to DA C&S or TBN, after all that, then yes go ahead and spend on DA single target attacks.
"Destroying your mana pool" is not a bad thing, if you do it in the right situations. These situations come up quite regularly. It's simply a matter of balancing cost, time, and generation. No, don't Dark Passenger at 1, 3-4 ever, or 5+ without a Blood buff running. Do Dark Passenger responsibly at 2 or 5+ with a Blood buff running.

[Link594]

If you'd like I can provide another situation where Dark Passenger is the more viable option for spending your MP. Two targets. This is also a situation that occurs fairly regularly.
Abyssal Drain is 720 over 3 GCDs, while a Souleater combo is 700. A Ninja or Samurai being present brings that up to 770.
One Dark Arts brings it up to 840/924, two brings it up to 980/1078. Alternatively Dark Passenger brings it up to 900/970, while DADP brings it to 1180/1250.

So, what we have here with Dark Passenger is an ability that sees proper usage in light aoe situations, on its own, as well as extreme aoe situations, with support from other tools we possess.
What we no longer have with Dark Passenger is an aoe ability that sees use in every situation every single time it comes off cooldown.

I'd admit you are correct here, with 2 targets and 3 globals your single target rotation with DA/DP comes ahead.

[Falar]

Saying it is completely useless is not saying it needs a buff. Unless you feel your only way to get a buff is through pointless and inaccurate exaggerations. Could it use a buff? Yeah, sure. Does it need one? No not really. It's far and away the lowest priority I'd say on Dark Knight changes. It has a number of viable uses, the only thing that has changed about it is that you can't just mindlessly push the button.

Do you not pull more than one pack at a time? Because with that you can easily end up with more MP than you can ever deal with through Dark Arts Abyssal Drain alone. You need to DADP to keep yourself from getting your MP capping and wasting away.
Do you just go ahead and Abyssal Drain at a mere two targets? Because at that point your MP is better served on DADP when it's up, barring the need to DA C&S or TBN, after all that, then yes go ahead and spend on DA single target attacks.
"Destroying your mana pool" is not a bad thing, if you do it in the right situations. These situations come up quite regularly. It's simply a matter of balancing cost, time, and generation. No, don't Dark Passenger at 1, 3-4 ever, or 5+ without a Blood buff running. Do Dark Passenger responsibly at 2 or 5+ with a Blood buff running.

I agree that it is not what is currently needing "fixed" the most but it does suck having a skill that is so worthless on our hotbar now (many are removing it) especially considering it was one of our signature moves.

I choose to spent its MP on 2 x ADs every time. Whatever large pulls we have available to us now I am getting by without the blind as I am unwilling to give up 1/2 my MP for it. I suppose now that Quietus has a purpose if I start a large pull with 50 Blood that changes things.

[Link594]

Saying it is completely useless is not saying it needs a buff. Unless you feel your only way to get a buff is through pointless and inaccurate exaggerations. Could it use a buff? Yeah, sure. Does it need one? No not really. It's far and away the lowest priority I'd say on Dark Knight changes. It has a number of viable uses, the only thing that has changed about it is that you can't just mindlessly push the button.

Do you not pull more than one pack at a time? Because with that you can easily end up with more MP than you can ever deal with through Dark Arts Abyssal Drain alone. You need to DADP to keep yourself from getting your MP capping and wasting away.
Do you just go ahead and Abyssal Drain at a mere two targets? Because at that point your MP is better served on DADP when it's up, barring the need to DA C&S or TBN, after all that, then yes go ahead and spend on DA single target attacks.
"Destroying your mana pool" is not a bad thing, if you do it in the right situations. These situations come up quite regularly. It's simply a matter of balancing cost, time, and generation. No, don't Dark Passenger at 1, 3-4 ever, or 5+ without a Blood buff running. Do Dark Passenger responsibly at 2 or 5+ with a Blood buff running.

Actually, it seems DA-DP only falls behind at 6 targets, 7 targets if you have slashing. You give up a little more MP, but gain some back with the Souleater combo that you wouldn't get a chance to do with Abyssal Drain, after the DA-DP, you can begin to spam Abyssal Drain.

So I'll concede the Dark Passenger point to you, seems I was wrong. Even when it starts to fall behind, the amount of MP you get back thru Quietus or Blood Weapon/Price seems to justify the use.

So the ability goes from something that always sees use, to something that only sees use in AoE with DA.

Still think my other points about my other suggestions stand though, and personally I'd rather have Dark Passenger be something that sees use even with one target (my opinnion). So I'd still like it to be free, but you are definitely right in having the DA buff built in is asking for too much.

Could be my math is wrong, but 240 (DA-DP) * 6 targets +770 Souleater potency over 3 GCDS with Slashing comes out at 2210, while 120 (Abyssal Drain) * 6 targets * 3 GCDS comes out at 2160 still falling behind.

At 7, its 2450 for DA-DP with Souleater combo vs 2520 for 3 Abyssal Drains.

[Tankstuff]

you guys are arguing over aoe shit which is only relevant in dungeons aka faceroll content instead of worrying about balancing the important parts of our kit for savage/raids. Who cares about "oh well with 6 adds do this but SEVEN adds do this" just burn that shit down with AD its a dungeon. give us sole survivor pvp utility in pve, make dp useful on single target, buff cns dmg or add an effect to it, give us more mitigation for fluff dmg, fix tbn so server tick doesnt screw it up half the time.