DRK Consolidated Feedback Thread

[Zero_Griever]

Raid wise i'm more familiar with Dark Knight.

I can tell Warrior has a lot more upside.

For all other content, I am using Warrior.

[Chrono_Rising]

Hi Hi o/
I'm one of those people who haven't switched yet, and I think some of that can be put down to the fact that obviously, there are still some groups out there that don't follow the speed run meta religiously.
A lot of minorities are the ones who say "Play what you enjoy." or there some out there that don't want SE to think DRK has been completely snuffed out and everyone else is in favor of the other two.

Hi, I’m one of the people who was asked to switch despite what I enjoy. However, I would not ask people to switch, but at this point I would have switched just from the lack of attention the job gets now.

[akisya]

There's no point in switching to PLD unless you speedrun, and speedrunners are really minority in the community. DPS meta will really make the biggest difference in the party vs tank meta, better to switch to PLD if your group speedruns AND already has the god comp. Any casual to midcore group without the DPS meta that asks you to switch from a tank class you enjoy should really take a good look in the mirror first.

[Chrono_Rising]

It’s not only dps but also mitigation and utility. Paladin simply brings more in shielding and party mitigation.

[Aana]

There's no point in switching to PLD unless you speedrun, and speedrunners are really minority in the community. DPS meta will really make the biggest difference in the party vs tank meta, better to switch to PLD if your group speedruns AND already has the god comp. Any casual to midcore group without the DPS meta that asks you to switch from a tank class you enjoy should really take a good look in the mirror first.

This so much.

Maybe I've just been fortunate. My group has never forced anyone to switch. In the past weve run 2x Brd+Nin No str melees. Ive been running as War throughout regardless of its status (2.0 shit version up till now). The only time we force anyone to switch is to maintain 2 tank, 2 heal, 1 melee, 1 ranged support, 2 anyDPS. We all play what we like, regardless of the balance because we realize that no minor (and lets keep some perspective, balance issues in this game are comparatively minor vs other games. People like to say 'unplayable' but that's honest hyperbole. All classes can clear content without excessive burdon. Just not speed clear/world 1st true balance). And some of our setups have been truly bad lol. Yet we still clear content. Everyone gets their dreadwyrm before echo. Were on track to also get V4 down this cycle. Maybe we could have made it a week earlier for bahamut 2 years ago. Whooptie friggin do. It gets done. You get your shinies. And you can enjoy it too without being under the heel of some arbitrary dumb meta.

I would never recommend changing jobs based on current balance. Play what you love. Master it so it doesn't matter. I suppose that's just my oldschool thinking. Keeping up every couple months with the current bandwagon balance changes is just silly imo. Between FFXI, StarCraft, League, dungeon crawlers, or whatever else ive played over the years, I find it much more satisfying to play what you actually enjoy instead of chasing the meta all over the place. Just because the pros do something doesn't mean you have to do it that way. You can be entirely successful at the regular level of play and play the style you enjoy without worrying about who gets 2% more this or 3% less that.

Just because things need to change doesn't mean you need to abandon the play you find fun. This isnt beastmaster in FFXI or something that is literally 'unplayable' for many events no matter how hard you try. The buff cycle comes and goes. Youll be on top and bottom and in the middle, but as long as they are all playable (within reason) then just do what you like. Screw what some gamer pro that spends the entire week doing speed runs to rank on the Logs List does. Doing 5% less damage or whatever doesn't ruin the game unless you let it.

[Mycow8me]

I play drk and warrior side by side currently but I'd be a fool to choose drk over warrior for the current hard content. I enjoy drks power boosting playstyle more than being a fel cleave cannon. As a MT drk does not have enough emergency situation skills. War can instantly pop 2 different HP skills or even an inner beast for HP+mitigation. Been doing shinryu EX and as a drk I just find myself not being nearly as good or useful to the party but on warrior its a whole nother story. Self sustain on drk is a joke and I hope we don't have to wait till 5.0 to see changes. Hopefully they have just been experimenting with drk up till now to find something that works and will put it into a patch when they can.

[Zero_Griever]

My ideas, some of them have been brought up.

Sole Survivor: Places a debuff on the target. Every time the caster damages the mob, it restores 1% HP to the party. If the mob dies during the cooldown it will immediately give the caster 25 Blackblood. 12s Duration.

Dark Passenger: Remove the MP cost for the ability. Using Dark Arts increases potency to 140 and guarantees a critical hit.

The Blackest Night: Casts a shield around the user, or the party that absorbs 10%/20%. MP reduced. Using Dark Arts casts the shield on the entire party. 10% Damage absorption. If one of the shields are broken. Grants 50 Blackblood.

[DRKoftheAzure]

I'm 1 of those few people who will keep playing my favorite class to play under the condition that they fix all of the more noticeable problems with DRK that everyone all agrees on as well giving DRK the identity of the tank that it needs... both thematically and mechanically...

[InfiniDragon]

I've been thinking about ways to realistically change DRK for the better (aka no big rework that isn't happening until 5.0), and here are my thoughts. Would take any combination of these, all would be great but not necessarily needed:

Bloodspiller: Increase potency so it's the clear winner of how to spend Dark Arts outside of Carve and Spit in or out of Grit, and make it absorb a portion of the damage as HP (both in and out of Grit). This would act as our version of a Clemency or Equilibrium (just because SE took Mercy Stroke out does not mean Sole Survivor is a Clemency/Equilbrium, it's still Mercy Stroke lol) but we'd have access to it without DPS loss since it's part of the rotation, so balance the HP restore accordingly.

Dark Passenger: Add a 10% damage debuff to Dark Arts, make the Blind effect in the base version. Claire_Pendragon mentioned this also and it was my exact thought for it; it will give DRK utility, cover a hole in their defensive kit AND make DADP's high cost actually worth it.

Sole Survivor: No longer an enemy debuff, self buff instead. Gives HP and MP back like it did when you killed a target immediately, and adds a HP steal to all attacks akin to Bloodbath (but much more potent). Basically, a way for a DRK to attempt to save themselves/help healers in the Walking Dead state, and more fitting for the name of the skill as you would be more self sufficient while active. Increase the timer of the CD to compensate as it would be a pretty strong CD, I'm thinking 3 minutes.

The Blackest Night: 6-8 seconds on the shield (most folks agree 6 would be fair so I'll go with that), Dark Arts version shields the party.

[SyzzleSpark]

The numbers for Shinryu are probably most telling; DRK has an 'advantage' in clear statistics for Omega since people used it for prog and many groups just stick with their prog strategy/compositions.

Right now PLD and WAR are the #1 and #2 most popular classes for Shinryu clears, with DRK sitting at about half the clears of either, which is a pretty piss-poor showing considering that Shinryu is actually a really "good" DRK fight with plenty of opportunity to use Dark Mind.

The numbers you're referring to, for additional impact:

Warrior 170
Paladin 191
Dark Knight 87

Christ, that is awful.