DRK - Excessive "Conditional" Effects

[Shurrikhan]

For example purposes, let's look at the respective immunities.

Hallowed Ground; 10s; 7m CD
Holmgang; 6s; 3m CD
Living Dead; 10-19s; 5m CD

At face value they all are relatively even. However, once you look at the effects, you start to see the issue. Paladin requires nothing from anyone since it literally takes zero damage. Warrior, meanwhile, can self-heal if absolutely necessary. Dark Knight is the only tank entirely dependent on a healer to survive its own immunity. Say you're in a scenario where people have died, including one of the healers. Paladin and Warrior can use their abilities to save the day. Now Dark Knight technically can, but you've also put a huge burden on the one healer to heal you within ten seconds. Warrior just switches to Defiance, uses Equilibrium and Inner Beast to buy itself some time.

This is the issue when people talk about how unrewarding Dark Knight can actually be. Nearly every hallmark ability in their arsenal requires more work for only equal to even worse results.

But let's consider also: with Benediction at the ready, Living Dead provides up to 19 seconds where you do not need to be worried about your tank. If he dies, he only "dies", and he can absorb infinite damage between having "died" and the end of Walking Dead, just like Holmgang. Chalk up a second to reaction time and latency and you've got almost twice the duration for less than half the cooldown, plus that an additional period of safety before Walking Dead even begins because you know that Walking Dead will eventually take effect anyways. That seems pretty balanced to me.

Now, we could reduce the issues involved in that by reducing the healing requirement thereafter, showing the healing requirement yet required, displaying the Walking Dead timer more clearly, or even making Living Dead (just that pre-activation portion) itself last... infinitely (but only beginning its cooldown upon entering Walking Dead), or even make it a passive that activates upon death with a 5 minute ICD, but at that point (or even just half way to that point) it'd not only free up healers the most over time, especially with a WHM or even AST, but would also be the easiest to use.

I like that a more complicated ability may have the highest potential throughput, situationally. Heck, I'd like there to be more ways to do Living Dead "wrong" or "right" that aren't simply due to latency or awkward HoT crit ticks or the lack of on-screen graphics or buff sort orders, in order for it to warrant that.

I just don't like the idea that because a job as a whole is more complex, it must also be rewarded as a whole, and outpace all less complex opposition, which is an altogether separate thing that I hear asked for widely and consistently... until it's given -- at which point it has become a point of public outcry every time I've seen it.

You're misrepresenting my argument to advance your own.

What you are hearing me say is that what I want DRK to be pretty much the best tank, because we make sacrifices in a few key areas.

What I would like is for the areas in which we do make these sacrifices to be areas where we attain a greater reward.

Until reading this, I too was under the impression that the prior was what you wanted.

I'd be totally fine with the areas that require the most precise control (over our class) to also be the areas in which... we are capable of the most precise and helpful control (over our circumstances).

[Bourne_Endeavor]

But let's consider also: with Benediction at the ready, Living Dead provides up to 19 seconds where you do not need to be worried about your tank.

This doesn't change the argument as Dark Knight remains entirely dependent on a White Mage to maximize its own ability. Considering SCH/AST has been "meta" since Creator, thus popular. It's quite likely you won't have Benediction. Now Astro can handle Living without too much fuss, but the crux of my point is Dark Knight essentially gets punished if the healer can't respond fast enough whereas the same isn't true for Warrior or Paladin. It may not be optimal for Warrior to use Equilibrium and spam Inner Beast, however they have some way to control their own immunity. Dark Knight doesn't.

I just don't like the idea that because a job as a whole is more complex, it must also be rewarded as a whole, and outpace all less complex opposition, which is an altogether separate thing that I hear asked for widely and consistently... until it's given -- at which point it has become a point of public outcry every time I've seen it.

Of course, everyone wants his main job as the better, and everyone allways have a wagon of reasons that seems plausible to anyone with the same mindset. But is it objective ?

Without reward, what purpose does higher risk and complexity serve? If I can achieve far superior results on Paladin without half the effort, why am I going to bother with Dark Knight? There has to be some incentive otherwise its complexity for complexity's sake. Like Syzzle, I'm not looking for Dark Knight to be OP, but competitive. Right now, it's objectively inferior to both its counterparts in every way.

[Shurrikhan]

Without reward, what purpose does higher risk and complexity serve? If I can achieve far superior results on Paladin without half the effort, why am I going to bother with Dark Knight? There has to be some incentive otherwise its complexity for complexity's sake. Like Syzzle, I'm not looking for Dark Knight to be OP, but competitive. Right now, it's objectively inferior to both its counterparts in every way.

I'll agree absolutely that DRK needs certain improvements. I'm just saying that no one is going to accept reduced skill requirement as a excuse for poorer optimal performance. That removes classes from viability in the only content that actually requires tight balancing -- the upper end, much like DRK is pushed out right now. While players do not uniquely invest nearly as much time into a particular job here as in, say, Legion WoW -- wherein even each spec on a given class may require unique BiS gear, over a year of Artifact grinding, and separate playstyle mastery, and no gear, experience, or story progression is shareable between classes to boot -- "your class is easier, so expect to fall behind in the higher percentiles just as you outpaced others in the lower percentiles" almost certainly will not go well. Heck, just ask any dedicated top percentile Red Mage...

To repeat:

I'd be totally fine with the areas that require the most precise control (over our class) to also be the areas in which... we are capable of the most precise and helpful control (over our circumstances)..., and can therefore get the most from them

...but something as broad as highest overall continuous average DPS or should not be a reward, at least by a significant margin, for having more means of control. That complexity should feel like a boon in its own right. If it doesn't, it's probably more "convoluted" than it is finely "complex". Check over these more "complicated" areas of DRK: how many of them actually provide additional, viable choice, rather than just artificial difficulty, or vulnerability to latency, miscoordination, etc.? If primarily the latter, make them more intuitive first and then judge whether they need to be buffed just to bribe people to use them. Let's smooth it out first, and make it feel polished, and then let's up the numbers as necessary, without using any old (or remaining) clunkiness as excuse.