4.11+ DRK Suggestions/Balance Changes from a "Hardcore" Player

[inhaledcorn]

In addition, I think giving DRK back the old Delirium (but calling it something else), that also generates MP on hit would be a good thing for DRK to have, imo. So, you're swapping between the Souleater DA combo and, let's just tentatively call it Scourge, for the MP regeneration, hitting Bloodspiller when available.

I'd, personally, like to see TBN be a DRK Adlo/NoctAB, so it's a self heal and shield = to amount healed as well as giving Blood. Or, rather, Dark Mind be the DRK Adlo/NoctAB, and TBN be a DRK Succor/NoctAH. Gives them healing utility and shield utility and makes Dark Mind kinda useful again (it can get the Blood gain trait when the Blood gauge is unlocked at 62, giving you the current TBN at an earlier level).

[Sarcatica]

You heavily underestimate how much 200 DPS matters when you're in the top 30 world slot for a fight. 6:18 kill time for O2S puts us at #22, while the #1 slot is 5:58. Do you really think 200 DPS won't matter when you're trying to shave off seconds? A WAR and PLD that optimizes their HP shields would actually give healers a few extra GCDs throughout a fight, not to mention PLD already has heavy mitigation with hallowed and passive blocking. Can DRKs atleast offer anything to the raid? Currently, no. I do agree that PLD was not as bad as people made it out to be in HW. They had hallowed and divine veil, which they atleast offered something to the raid. Which is why I would say that DRKs are at a worse position than PLDs were at HW.

DRK already heavily relies on the BRD+DRG+NIN buffs to even reach consistent numbers of a PLD. It's really annoying how I can walk into O3S for the very first time on my PLD and do the same numbers as my DRK, without any effort. Sure, my group has the meta comp now and I could go back on DRK to get better personal numbers. But speedrunning is about your kill time, not your personal DPS.

Any class changes that affect the speedrunner opinions will usually sway how the rest of the community will view a class, just look at how influenced the community is from guides made by "hardcore" players (more prominently Momo & Xeno).

Let's be honest, how many people here are doing speedrun? That 200 dps won't matter to them. I mained PLD in Gordias and I easily got higher DPS than those DRK mains. So much for "DRK can do more dps than PLD easily", right? PLD and WAR are neck to neck, WAR sometimes gets that lucky crits during their bursts to completely dominate the tank class.

DRK can't even reach PLD's and WAR's number at 97%+, of course that's bad. BUT that's only if you can do 97%+ on those jobs for it to matter.

[Crater]

Let's be honest, how many people here are doing speedrun? That 200 dps won't matter to them. I mained PLD in Gordias and I easily got higher DPS than those DRK mains. So much for "DRK can do more than PLD easily", right? PLD and WAR are neck to neck, WAR sometimes gets that lucky crits during their burst.

If it doesn't matter, then you might as well buff DRK by 200 DPS, right?

[Sarcatica]

You shouldn't feel -bad- for playing what you want, and that's why these balance discussions will persist despite the speed run population being much lower than even the Savage clear population.

TBH I just don't get the point of "maining a job", you have so many jobs you can play in your role, yet you are so fixated at one. I, for one, switch to WAR for speedrun but it's not like I don't enjoy playing WAR. So you see, it's part of the game. More often that people complain but they can't even get better results in the said 'OP' job.

[Sarcatica]

If it doesn't matter, then you might as well buff DRK by 200 DPS, right?

True, the discussion is to bring up the power level of DRK to match PLD and more so WAR, but the tone set is another different thing.

[Lyth]

The funny thing is, the 200 dps gap is specifically referring to the highest percentiles. The gap generally becomes wider as you look at lower percentiles. In fights like Neo Exdeath and Shinryu, when you look down at the 50th-75th percentiles, it's more on the order of 300-400 dps. The problem with presenting the percentile data to people is that they deliberately ignore the massive gap between WAR and DRK at the percentiles where they actually play at and quote the max value. When you look at lower percentiles, you start to see non-zero tank stance uptime, groups without NIN, and you start to see the effects of the Grit double tax.

Tanks are probably the only players in the game who pretend that having nearly the entirety of your dps condensed into pressing Damage Up! + Big Damage spam is like climbing Mount Ordeals rather than an optimisation advantage. It's like those folks in HW claiming that FoF usage was the height of technical skill. It's just self-aggrandisement. The average DRG gets over this sort of thinking by level 30.

If you're playing more casually or are jumping into trap groups, you'll see a much wider variation in your teammates' skill. You're dependent on clutch performances from a few teammates to make dps checks. It's actually that much more important to get every bit of dps that you can out of your rotation.

As a side note, with regards to Reprisal: I find it interesting that the devs showcased it in the middle of the Stormblood job action reveal for DRK, when it was actually just in the process of being given away. Giving Reprisal back to as a DRK exclusive wouldn't shift players back onto the job on its own without some dps parity, and there will always be times where DV and SiO will be stronger (since they don't require a target), but it would help.

[akisya]

Let's be honest, how many people here are doing speedrun? That 200 dps won't matter to them. I mained PLD in Gordias and I easily got higher DPS than those DRK mains. So much for "DRK can do more dps than PLD easily", right? PLD and WAR are neck to neck, WAR sometimes gets that lucky crits during their bursts to completely dominate the tank class.

DRK can't even reach PLD's and WAR's number at 97%+, of course that's bad. BUT that's only if you can do 97%+ on those jobs for it to matter.

I this, I that more than this. Maybe you should make a thread on how much more damage you can do on PLD than the majority of DRKs in the past, since you're not really contributing to this one.

It doesn't matter if people here speedrun or not, I'm only giving my suggestions and feedback here as a speedrunner. Since speedrunning is where you'll see the biggest difference in tank balance, especially having played both PLD and DRK.

[Sarcatica]

The funny thing is, the 200 dps gap is specifically referring to the highest percentiles. The gap generally becomes wider as you look at lower percentiles. In fights like Neo Exdeath and Shinryu, when you look down at the 50th-75th percentiles, it's more on the order of 300-400 dps. The problem with presenting the percentile data to people is that they deliberately ignore the massive gap between WAR and DRK at the percentiles where they actually play at and quote the max value. When you look at lower percentiles, you start to see non-zero tank stance uptime, groups without NIN, and you start to see the effects of the Grit double tax.

Tanks are probably the only players in the game who pretend that having nearly the entirety of your dps condensed into pressing Damage Up! + Big Damage spam is like climbing Mount Ordeals rather than an optimisation advantage. It's like those folks in HW claiming that FoF usage was the height of technical skill. It's just self-aggrandisement. The average DRG gets over this sort of thinking by level 30.

If you're playing more casually or are jumping into trap groups, you'll see a much wider variation in your teammates' skill. You're dependent on clutch performances from a few teammates to make dps checks. It's actually that much more important to get every bit of dps that you can out of your rotation.

This so much. My performance for both DRK and WAR are pretty far apart, WAR being the lower end of it. They are comparable but again not supposed to happen when WAR is innately stronger at doing more dps, mostly due to me not understanding the burst periods that DRK don't really offer. But yes, the fluctuation does occur and it's usually worse at lower percentiles.

[Eyvhokan]

The funny thing is, the 200 dps gap is specifically referring to the highest percentiles. The gap generally becomes wider as you look at lower percentiles. In fights like Neo Exdeath and Shinryu, when you look down at the 50th-75th percentiles, it's more on the order of 300-400 dps. The problem with presenting the percentile data to people is that they deliberately ignore the massive gap between WAR and DRK at the percentiles where they actually play at and quote the max value. When you look at lower percentiles, you start to see non-zero tank stance uptime, groups without NIN, and you start to see the effects of the Grit double tax.

Tanks are probably the only players in the game who pretend that having nearly the entirety of your dps condensed into pressing Damage Up! + Big Damage spam is like climbing Mount Ordeals rather than an optimisation advantage. It's like those folks in HW claiming that FoF usage was the height of technical skill. It's just self-aggrandisement. The average DRG gets over this sort of thinking by level 30.

If you're playing more casually or are jumping into trap groups, you'll see a much wider variation in your teammates' skill. You're dependent on clutch performances from a few teammates to make dps checks. It's actually that much more important to get every bit of dps that you can out of your rotation.

As a side note, with regards to Reprisal: I find it interesting that the devs showcased it in the middle of the Stormblood job action reveal for DRK, when it was actually just in the process of being given away. Giving Reprisal back to as a DRK exclusive wouldn't shift players back onto the job on its own without some dps parity, and there will always be times where DV and SiO will be stronger (since they don't require a target), but it would help.

+1

If Reprisal is there to stay as a role action, giving an additional reprisal-like effect (probably put onto one of the other abilities, I'm looking at you Dark Passanger and Soul Survivor) that stacks with reprisal would be nice.

The other thing about Grit is it basically has the biggest damage tax when swapping in compared with other stance swapping (though unlike oaths is mostly only one way), as it takes off a chunk of MP as well as the GCD it takes.

[Syrellaris]

This would never work. Dps is king, so no one would want to take a pld to anything past savage progression. They need to be balanced dps wise and, by default, need the defensive cds to actually do the content. They also need to be able to do all types of content, from trials to raids, to dungeons. *How* they do these things is where they can have their own little identity.

And that is exactly where the problem is at ain't it? DPS is king? No, dps is part of the fight but should not be the go to for everything. There is multiple ways to balance fights around classes, it doesn't have to be purely dps. It takes a bit more effort sure, but at least it removes the issue of cookie cutter templates that we currently have. Each tank is pretty much the exact same thing, there is no uniqueness to any of em. Well besides how flashy some of the animations are.