Regarding no DRK adjustments in 4.1

[SyzzleSpark]

I keep hearing about how powerful the Steel Cyclone buff is, not sure why they even bothered to take Bloodbath away at this point. And before anyone says "well its locked behind Defiance!" - let me refer you to the myriad of WAR players that will readily tout their ability to tank an entire dungeon in Deliverance with zero problems.

Can we get a single button that mimics the dual effect of Dark Dance+Reprisal, since the theme lately is arbitrarily giving things removed from the game for "balance" reasons back to the jobs they were removed from? Maybe get Scourge's DoT just tacked on to Souleater for good measure?

[Starkbeaumont]

as of 4.1 DRK is worse in almost every category than the other 2 tanks.
As long as tank busters remain magical drk will at least take those hits better than a pld since TBN+DM is always better than sheltron. pld would only be better here when tank busters happen more often than once a min and always exceed the drk's hp.
Also sheltron isn't made for multi-hits.

But I still don't see the point in:

- LD having such a long CD when it needs so much more attention than HG or Holmgang. either shorten the cd, make it easier to handle, or change the penalty

- TBN being meant for frequent use yet is unreliable for auto-attacks. Also unless you factor in the possible gain in healer damage it's a lose outside grit. As a party support tool it's also useless. Only good use is if put on the MT. but why would you let a drk OT in the first place? Either make it more reliable for autos e.g. by giving it a longer duration or by returning a lower amount of blood so it's not a total lose

- DM's DA effect. There is only a very small window where DADM is better than DM+TBN. As I already suggested last month DA should give the party a 10% magic damage reduction

- SW's long cd, low effect or lack of additional effect. My suggesion for DM could also work for SW. Otherwise just lower the cd already or bring it on par with sentinel.

- DP's high mp cost. I just don't know anymore what SE with thinking here. Especially that evading still doesn't work too well with BP. IMO the base damage should be much higher and the DA effect should be similar to a reprisal effect. That might even make it raid relevant even with the high mp cost.

- Sole Survivor. too much trouble for bad returns. I'd still like to see it as a self buff that doubles all absorbing effects for a few moments

- Bloodspiller's lack of impact. imo it just doesn't feel rewarding enough. Either have it return mp similar to quietus and rise the drk's overall damage this way or have it return hp to further give the feeling of being a counter attack.

I think there are so many ways to buff drk without overpowering it or making it feel homogenized. But atm SE doesn't even seem to try.

[Aana]

- TBN being meant for frequent use yet is unreliable for auto-attacks. Also unless you factor in the possible gain in healer damage it's a lose outside grit. As a party support tool it's also useless. Only good use is if put on the MT. but why would you let a drk OT in the first place? Either make it more reliable for autos e.g. by giving it a longer duration or by returning a lower amount of blood so it's not a total lose

For the love of cake STOP repeating this nonsense. Its 100% negligible. You GAIN 3 potency near immediately (as soon as you use the 50blood you just got). You MIGHT POSSIBLY loose 6 potency over the course of the fight on average. You do easily TWO THOUSAND potency in that 15 sec CD. You aren't gonna miss +3 to -6.

Unless you are predicting what CD you end the current phase on accurately and are certain it would be a DPS loss or a gain then just use it. But if you were doing that you wouldn't have made that statement to start with.

Stop promoting the idea that TBN isnt usable because its a DPS loss. Its a monumental exaggeration and isnt even true much of the time. For all intents and purposes its FREE. +3 to -6 potency does not effect drk balance in any measurable way. That aspect of TBN is one thing that ISNT actually broken contrary to most drk posters on this forum claims.

[Chrono_Rising]

For the love of cake STOP repeating this nonsense. Its 100% negligible. You GAIN 3 potency near immediately (as soon as you use the 50blood you just got). You MIGHT POSSIBLY loose 6 potency over the course of the fight on average. You do easily TWO THOUSAND potency in that 15 sec CD. You aren't gonna miss +3 to -6.

Unless you are predicting what CD you end the current phase on accurately and are certain it would be a DPS loss or a gain then just use it. But if you were doing that you wouldn't have made that statement to start with.

Stop promoting the idea that TBN isnt usable because its a DPS loss. Its a monumental exaggeration and isnt even true much of the time. For all intents and purposes its FREE. +3 to -6 potency does not effect drk balance in any measurable way. That aspect of TBN is one thing that ISNT actually broken contrary to most drk posters on this forum claims.

The issue is that this is an imbalance, no matter how small, to give one tank a cost on mitigation while the others get the same things for free, but actually free because it is literally 0. It automatically creates a preference system where dark is at the bottom yet again. I get that it bothers you for people to talk about this as a dps loss, but at the end of the day it is an imbalance and people do want a fix. If we ignore resource gains sure TBN is a gain, I disagree that we can ignore 28 potency in resources, but we have had this debate to no end. But there are so many other things in their post, and I cannot help but feel it is really distracting to have to go back and forth on this issue of what to do with the 10 blood from soul eater.

Boost bloodspiller to the average potency of our GCD +150 and the whole issue will really go away once and for all while also helping to chip away at our lower dps compared to the other tanks.

[Aana]

The issue is that this is an imbalance, no matter how small, to give one tank a cost on mitigation while the others get the same things for free, but actually free because it is literally 0. It automatically creates a preference system where dark is at the bottom yet again. I get that it bothers you for people to talk about this as a dps loss, but at the end of the day it is an imbalance and people do want a fix. If we ignore resource gains sure TBN is a gain, I disagree that we can ignore 28 potency in resources, but we have had this debate to no end. But there are so many other things in their post, and I cannot help but feel it is really distracting to have to go back and forth on this issue of what to do with the 10 blood from soul eater.

Boost bloodspiller to the average potency of our GCD +150 and the whole issue will really go away once and for all while also helping to chip away at our lower dps compared to the other tanks.

I personally find it distracting for every, single, solitary drk complaint thread to continually bring up a moot point for 'why drk is broken'. The devs at SE can do math. Every tweak to drk potencies (multiple) has intentionally left TBN as a virtual side grade overall. Its not an accident. SE has repeatedly (through action) stated that TBN is not designed as a damage buff. Its a defensive tool (on anyone) that is 'free' if you use it properly. Its working as intended in the resource cost vs gain department. The fact that this +3 to -6 potency gain when we are talking about thousands and thousands of potency during the CD period gets THIS much attention is really absurd. People either don't understand and just repeat what they have heard or are splitting hairs over an entirely irrelevant point. Its just misinformation at this point and SE is obviously aware of the cost/reward ratio already as they have maintained near perfect balance between all patches. -6 potency isnt the reason drk is in the doghouse. Its 100% irelivant but used as the rallying cry for the last few months. Its in EVERY SINGLE POST and its just exaggerated, misunderstood or both. SE already knows better than the complaints about TBN cost. It just takes away credibility imo. When a dev working on drk reads post after post of drks misunderstanding their own core ability, its harder to take the real issues raised seriously.

Drk got 99 problems, but the TBN in grit cost/reward aint one.

[Chrono_Rising]

Except that it was a much larger dps loss at release and received buffs after complaints. Looking at your lodestone, do you have an alt with a level 70 dark? I only seem to see warrior at 70. I’m just a curious soul.

I’ve seen you post a few times about dark having problems but I don’t think I’ve seen fixes or suggestions of what those problems are, only posts about tbn. Do you think you could share your thoughts on it?

[kashi11]

While I don't have a problem with TBN being a DPS loss or gain, I'm more concerned with its short duration. Everyone keeps saying it should be boosted to at least 6s but I'm of the mind to have it be 10s, like sheltron. If it was more reliable a shield I'd be more confident in fights I'm learning that it would pop. Whiffing a TBN is definitely a large loss.

[Aana]

Except that it was a much larger dps loss at release and received buffs after complaints. Looking at your lodestone, do you have an alt with a level 70 dark? I only seem to see warrior at 70. I’m just a curious soul.

I’ve seen you post a few times about dark having problems but I don’t think I’ve seen fixes or suggestions of what those problems are, only posts about tbn. Do you think you could share your thoughts on it?

I was wondering how long before someone brought that up lol. Heres the real me. TLDR: I don't carry my main's security token around with me just to log into a forum away from home.

As for fixes id like to see?
* TBN 'usability' buff to allow significantly more use by lowering the associated risk, but without an actual power spike. Either increased duration (5sec is really narrow to break outside of TBs), or making the refund somehow more reliable. Maybe break it into 2 shields and if 1 breaks you get the refund or something else in that vein. Could be combined with a 'get half now, get half later'. 25 blood on use, 25 after break.

TLDR: I don't think TBN needs a power increase, but it needs a consistency, QOL, increase.

* Buff shadow wall already. Just make it 40% like pld to shut everyone up lol.

* Sole survivor is a relic of a skill. It shouldn't be so restrictive and situational. Make it debuff a mob in some way. (if its a party DPS buff then ignore buffing personal DPS etc). Its the shake it off of Drk. Its pretty junky and is a flex slot to potentially fill any desired gap in drk.

* Passenger. SE hasn't learned their lesson about debuff effects that don't work on bosses. It costs so much because it adds blind. Blind doesn't work. It needs to be worth using even without the blind effect (just like shake it off was trash because it didn't work on anything that mattered). This leads to the next point

* Drk AOE skills. Theres to many and the whole process of drk aoe is convoluted and obtuse. They could really just rework the entire AOE system for drks. Passenger, quietus, unleash, abyssal drain. Its just a shit show when all considered.

* Damage: Buff it a smidge. Theres 100 ways to do it and I don't particularly care which. But I like Occam's Razor. Just buff potencies. Its not sexy or flashy, but it gets the job done without some full job redesign that will only bring unforeseen consequences with it.

___________________
Issues I don't particularly care about.

* TBN out of grit. Nuff said.

* 'Bring scourge back!!! QQ'. Dear god. Its an animation. Its purpose was flat damage. It was an unnecessary fluff skill just like fracture. Let it die already.

* 'Only 1 damage combo'. That's an aesthetic issue, not a balance one. I personally enjoy the current drk playstyle quite a bit.

* 'Redesigning drk'. Aesthetic. Not balance. There are people happily playing Drk just like it is. If you dramatically change the playstyle you will just bring those guys to the whine fest instead. That doesn't help.

Aesthetic complaints should be met with new jobs, not changing existing ones imo. You just put the shoe on the other foot and piss a different group off.

[Chrono_Rising]

Thanks this helps me know this is genuine.

[TouchandFeel]

Aesthetic complaints should be met with new jobs, not changing existing ones imo. You just put the shoe on the other foot and piss a different group off.

It could be posited that many of the complaints regarding the aesthetics of DRK are a result of SE implementing a lot of changes to the job with 4.0 that had a noticeable impact on said aesthetics, many of which are seen to be negative.
Essentially, SE by themselves did exactly what you are saying that people should not ask them to do and now a good number of people are not too pleased with that and are offering suggestions to move it back towards the aesthetics that were already established before.

Me personally, I am in both camps where I feel some of the changes in 4.0 were good and some were atrocious.
I definitely feel that DRK was the most negatively affected by the culling of abilities that happened to all tanks with 4.0, mainly so because I feel that DRK relied the most on those extra abilities to define it's "feel", for example I feel that a large part of DRK's 3.X identity was ogcd ability weaving. While that still exists with DRK, it has definitely been simplified into what people regard as "Dark Arts spam" due to the loss of abilities like Scourge and Dark Passenger becoming extremely questionable in it's usefulness. With less of those "extras" to weave in, the "fast flurry" play-style that I loved about DRK in 3.0 feels diminished to me and apparently to others as well.

However, I agree that giving back a 3rd combo won't really fix or address the root of the concerns that I believe people have, and in fact I feel that it would be a move in the opposite direction of what I feel DRK's style niche should be, which would revolve less around a structured combo style of system and more around ogcd weaving, gcd abilities that don't break combos and can be inserted in the middle of them like Blood Spiller, and abilities having variable effects attached to them based on circumstance (stance, whether DAed, etc). This would provide more of move back towards what drew me into wanting to main DRK; that faster-paced, split-second decision, push myself to the edge style of play.

Basically if I could sum up what I think of the tanks jobs in regards to what they should "feel" like into single words it would be, PLD = Sturdy, WAR = Fury, and DRK = Flurry.

In the end, SE ended up themselves causing all the aesthetics/'feel" complaints that are now being seen by altering those with the 4.0 changes. It is a bit unfair to dismiss these comments asking for change out of hand when they are a reaction to change that was not asked for in the first place. Especially so when you see such requests and comments having been put forth quite regularly for WAR and PLD, which I feel have received more support and attention from both the playerbase and the devs.