DRK Consolidated Feedback Thread

[Kabooa]

So what you're saying here is you actually have no argument to disprove that a cut loss is superior to a full loss and instead go with "Lol you bad for not being halfway through new group content day two"

"If you're not 32nd, you're last"

[Kalocin]

I don't understand how people can argue that over half your mana bar for a blind is worth it. Unless you have incompetent healers you're better off with the health drain (edit: What I meant is the mana to potency alongside the health return is better, not that it is better. Looking back I can see how this was confusing.) from abyssal. On top of that it's actually able to hit all the adds while dark passenger is likely only to hit half. It's mana cost for what it offers is too high, even for big groups. Quietus lets me use more abyssal drains, not DA/DP. There's a difference between "can be used" and "there's a better option".

I can tank without using my cool downs and let the healer pick up the slack, it works right? Unfortunately it's a bad option though. If we recovered as much mana like we did pre-Stormblood then I could see the high mana making sense but as it is I'll never cap my mana with abyssal drain before I'll have enough blood to use Quietus.

Thus, unless I'm supremely dying with no living dead or cool downs up I'll consider using DA/DP. On top of that, I don't understand why we also don't mention that dark passenger currently has no use OUTSIDE of dark arts. The mana cost for 100 potency is too high to justify it.

and if we're to talk about analysis regarding raid mitigation:

Main tanking Susano Ex (since it's the most common example): TBN breaks only on the big hits, if it was 6-7 seconds it would break from auto, leaving you only to use it mostly on Stormsplitters which you need it for anyways. Likewise you need Shadow Wall or Rampart for it so there's a good chance you're going to be stuck with only one of those that can't be used leaving you to be flogged on with no extra mitigation. Dark Mind is for Uheki. There's a lack of "I just want to reduce damage that isn't a buster" cooldown, and that's not cool. Likewise, we do the same damage as Paladins (from dummy tests) but we lack as much mitigation as they do to make up for it. There's a lot "???" involved.

If we're to talk about Shinryu's adds:

No, I'm not spending that much mana on DA/DP when I need it to pick up the next big or pile of adds. They die too fast for the blind to be effective or I'm better off using TBN to break on adds or the meteor AoEs. After that, I'm going to want enough mana for the next phase so I'd rather not be empty.

Mitigation analysis pre-70:

You run out of cool downs between pulls and your healer picks up the slack. This is especially true for tanks leveling without all their role skills before 46.

Solution?

Dunno I'm not a designer but I don't think anyone would cry if blood price had steady mitigation baked into it (heck I'd even trade the mana return on it for mitigation). Nor can anyone really say no to 6-7 seconds on TBN


Also: Going in circles is not a bad thing, it gives awareness and as far as I am concerned there's obviously not enough of it.

[Kabooa]

Unless you have incompetent healers you're better off with the health drain from abyssal.

a DAAD is about 75% the mana of a DAP. For all intents and purposes you're going to be spending the (effectively) same amount of MP for this. The only time this will cover the damage you're going to take is if the enemy's auto attack damage is in the range of the Abyssal's damage (Which is only on the designated AOE packs any ways).

DADP will outperform the amount of health it saves you in the former case by one dodge on every mob (Easily doable over 15 seconds) or one- two on a bigger mob, especially if it was their designated "200% more damage" ability.

It also isn't on the GCD, allowing you to utilize something else in that time span. DAAD + AD is 5300 MP compared to 4800 for DADP for 240 potency in both cases, but one doesn't suck up two GCDs.

You can say DADP it's worthless all you want, but never say DAAD is better for staying alive. That's an outright lie.

[Falar]

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.

There are more pressing issues, yes.

This is still an issue though, ours are many.

[Kalocin]

That's an outright lie.

That's actually not what I said, I never even said DA/AD. That being said I can see why it looked that way, I meant more the potency with the health return bonus is usually better than wasting half the bar of mana as you're looking at damage and enmity.

There are more pressing issues, yes.

This is still an issue though, ours are many.

I agree, that's why we need to be vocal about all of em.

[SyzzleSpark]

A DRK MTed world 1st O4S, so RIP SE taking this thread seriously, or any other like it.

[Kabooa]

That's actually not what I said, I never even said DA/AD. That being said I can see why it looked that way, I meant more the potency with the health return bonus is usually better than wasting half the bar of mana as you're looking at damage and enmity.
.

I mean, for the record, I treat it as a last ditch defensive cooldown, so while I don't entirely agree with the view, I do agree the niche use is a bit too niche.

It's a dual-ability. It is both offensive and defensive, and while the sum of it works for when you need it specifically, there's other competing MP cooldowns that do one part of it better.

Quietus gaining an MP gain (a Delayed MP gain too, given the way AOEs work in this game) does put it back on the table to prevent overflow, but then, it's also a TBN plus more Drains, other Dark Arts...

I'd rather not see it be just another braindead OGCD though. I find the current iteration more interesting because it at least forces thought in the few scenarios it would see use, but it can use help.

At a baseline, I think it should count for Blood Weapon MP restore, as a bare minimum. This at least provides it a scaling return on how much 'Damage' you get per MP spent.

As far as spitballing specific uses though...

As far as single target goes, I don't think it really needs it, but, I wouldn't say no if Dark Arts refunds its cost if it only hits one enemy.

Grit: The blind is nice, but a bit binary, and useless on enemies immune to it. Many Dark Knights point to a lack of a solid cooldown to deal with non-buster damage. Remove the blind effect, and add one of the following when Dark Arts'd:
-20% heal siphon from enemies that hit you (An effective 20% mitigation effect on stuff that can't one shot you)
-Shadowskin makes a return for 10 seconds (effectively 33% uptime, can be utilized for more than auto attacks)
-Dark Passenger reduces the cooldown of Shadow Wall by 30 seconds (Allowing more liberal use of the cooldown, giving it an effective 90s cooldown)

Out of Grit: Doesn't need much else if it benefits from Blood Weapon and refunds the DA cost on single target.

[DWolfwood]

A DRK MTed world 1st O4S, so RIP SE taking this thread seriously, or any other like it.

Guys, I just wanna chime in and remind people that SE is not going to take us seriously if threads are filled with nothing but pessimism. Please, submit your ideas rather than tear other peoples ideas down.

When all ideas are on the table, there can be a reasonable discussion on what is more urgent and important. We all know this job is broken and we need to work together to get our changes.

If SMN can get a Bahamut Egi, the sky is the limit. Stay positive.

[SyzzleSpark]

Please, submit your ideas...Stay positive.

Well - I've said a lot on these forums already but I'll condense my grievances down to some more succinct suggestions:

DPS:

1. Add a 10% damage dealt buff to Blood Weapon. Casting Delirium on Blood Weapon raises this to 15%.
Reasoning: DRK's damage is arguably the lowest amongst the tanks, but that's not why I'm suggesting this. Currently DRK rewards optimization very poorly. I cite for evidence almost every thread on these forums where optimizing this job is a topic: people are trying to figure out how to gain single-digit amounts of potency on their GCD. Adding a % increase window like this to hit would give the rotation more structure and make you think about how you spend your mana and when. While I'm not in the camp that thinks DRK is braindead as there are still plenty of mistakes and pitfalls on the part of the player and design flaws that can cost you DPS, they cost you very little DPS, and conversely, you gain very little for mastering them. If there are concerns that this is overpowered, if you hit BW on cooldown and perfectly line it up with Delirium such that the full 23s of Delirium BW is a 15% buff, it is only a DPS increase of 5%.

2. Increase TBN to 6s duration. Addionally, vastly increase the base and DA potency of Bloodspiller (say 580 base, 720 DAed).
Reasoning: Right now, TBN not popping for Bloodspiller is a huge loss, whereas getting it to break only merely breaks even (slight loss/slight gain depending on the GCD it replaces as others have pointed out). From a DPS perspective, this renders the interaction between these two abilities extremely frustrating. The extension of the timer and the increase in potency means it will still be a big loss if you mis-time it, but if you DO get it to pop, its extremely satisfying. If there are concerns that this is overpowered, We can revert the extraneous potency buffs the Souleater combo received. In fact, iff any of these buffs are too much, simply trim potency from the Souleater combo so that TBN and Bloodspiller optimization is a greater gain and greater reward for mastering. Having half a dozen skills that are over 400 potency while dealing very meh DPS is not satisfying. Right now TBN, if cast on someone else, is a very, very weak shield, not even matching a Cure 1 eHP gain. You want to use it for DPS, but every time you cast it, you dig yourself a hole, and if it pops, it simply refills that hole with a net gain of, for all intents and purposes, zero.

Mitigation:

1. First and foremost: Double TBN's recast time to 30s.
The purpose for this is two-fold: First- it balances the aforementioned DPS buffs, making TBN-Bloodspillers less overpowered with their increased likelihood and higher potency. Second- it decentralizes the ability from our cooldown suite and gives us room to buff our other abilities and add mitigation tools elsewhere without being too overpowered. If 30s is still too short in light of the buffs I am about to suggest, I suggest 40s.


2. Reduce Shadow Wall's cooldown to 150s and increase its duration to 15s.
Reasoning: This makes Shadow Wall a viable competitor against Vengeance and Sentinel. In terms of mitigation and uptime, this makes Shadow Wall a precise middle-road between Vengeance and Sentinel.
(10/180)*40 = 2.22% (Sentinel)
(15/120)*30 = 3.75% (Vengeance)
(15/150)*30 = 3.0% (Shadow Wall)

3. Add a -10% damage taken effect to Blood Price
Reasoning: This gives us a high uptime, weak cooldown to use between tank busters. While it is locked behind Grit, many other defensive tank abilities are either a DPS loss (Clemency) or locked behind tank stance (Inner Beast, Equilibrium). This gives us an equivalent to that as well. It also just generally makes Blood Price feel better to push.

4. When using Dark Arts on Dark Mind, enable the skill to mitigate physical damage as well.
Reasoning: This ability and its DA effect are very weak in 4.0, and feel awful in physical fights such as Susano. In terms of mana, there is little reason to use DA on DM outside of a multi-hit magical tank buster, as outside of this scenario, TBN and regular DM provide similar mitigation and are 100% more resource efficient. DAing DM needs to be worth something. Unbuffed, it would still only be its niche magical form, which is still useful particularly if the burst mitigation is not needed and the mana would be better served elsewhere.

5. Living Dead: Honestly I tried to think of a creative solution to this one, but I think people are so sick of this ability that a simple solution would just be better. So here is mine: Change Living Dead to function exactly like Holmgang, but to last for 12 seconds instead of 6. Reduce its cooldown to 4 minutes (240 seconds). To further balance with Holmgang, which binds you in place, have the ability place a 20% heavy on you. This is fitting considering the "zombie" theme of the ability.

OR...

Alternatively, keep Living Dead as is, but buff Souleater's HP return back to 100% of the damage dealt, and, while under the effect of Walking Dead, increase this value to 200% of the damage dealt to mitigate the resources a healer must spend.

[Kalocin]

Yeah I don't really have much to disagree with on these other than I wouldn't want TBN's recast to go if it wasn't paired with the Bloodspiller buff as the mitigation buffs are already kind of necessary without it in my eyes.