Suggestions for bringing DRK up to par, and QoL changes.

[Aana]

1. Warrior is not "the de facto OT" and hasn't been since 3.x

2. While the best strategy (and the current meta) is to do frequent tank swaps whether they're required or not, Warrior's time spent tanking is noticeably more sturdy than Dark Knight's or Paladin's on almost every single fight, because they're less squishy in their DPS stance than the other tanks

3. Neo Exdeath is the definition of a cherry-picked fight to make PLD look good, as there are no auto-attacks or standard cleaves - everything is either raid-wide damage or a tankbuster, meaning that Sheltron might as well have 100% uptime. This is not the case in Exdeath, Halicarnassus, Catastrophe, Alte Roite, Shinryu, or any phase of Unending Coil, which are all fights where Warrior is the sturdiest tank in DPS stance. And WAR is still on par or better than DRK in that fight

Any instance where the game doesn't 'force' specific tank swaps (A2 for example) with hard death mechanics and players get to choose, the default strategy is War pulls for agro, uses HG on the 1st available thing worth using HG on and hands it over. Takes it back when you can HG something later in the fight. The way players (when given the option) use war now is for agro and abuse of HG then hand the reins over to the other tank.

Pld has the obvious advantage over everyone for DPS stance tanking. They loose nothing at all. Passive shield blocks, shelltron, standard CD suite. Drk is a lesser version as it lacks the passive shield obviously and rides out TBN. The difference between Drk/War offense stance MT squishyiness is not nearly as drastic as Pld/War though. The only way war is superior in this regard is riding the coattails of TBN/Intervention. War is only a better MT in offense stance when the 'oh so bad' IB equivalents for Pld/Drk are used on war. But again, this is the nuanced way people actually play, not this BS sweeping generalization of "WAR OP". War by itself is binary based on defiance/deliverance. Deliverance war is ONLY superior to Pld/Drk offense stance mitigation USING pld/drk abilities.

But if war is only better working WITH another tank, but if there was no war, then the Pld/Drk combo could do the exact same thing and be even MORE defensive by combining TBN+Shelltrong/Intervention.

Just check FF logs. War is, most often, the tank that takes the least damage/boss time. I know because I was forced into MTing for my raid when we repped our Drk and the new tank wasn't very experienced vs me tanking since 2.0. I tried to find what 'mt' war damage was supposed to look like to see how I was doing by checking wars on FFlogs that MT. They are few and far between.

[whiskeybravo]

Just check FF logs. War is, most often, the tank that takes the least damage

Come Aana, it's obviously because they are the best defensive tank

Ironically my dps went up when I started MT'ing v1s. Could be due to other things but I thought it was interesting.

I just want to throw out my *at minimum* suggestions for DRK, and then I need to peace out of the convo for a while. Just based on how I felt when playing DRK and general consensus on the forums:

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Living Dead
CD reduction to 180 sec. If they don't otherwise adjust the instant KO aspect of this CD it should be reduced similar to War. I do feel like the ability to move around is better than being rooted, but the instant KO is every bit as dangerous.

Shadow Wall
Increased duration to 15 sec, same 180 sec CD. Possibly tack on a gauge/mp/hp restore effect to assist in overall survivability/damage potential.

Dark Mind
15% DR for 10 sec with 60 sec CD.

TBN
Duration extension. Possibly add a DA effect to power up the shield. Possibly add a 25-50% self heal upon shield break.

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I think those coupled with the possible re-work posted for HW Reprisal would be enough to bring DRK up to par with WAR/PLD. I'm not real sure how I feel about possibly losing reprisal on war/pld, as there's a fine line where it would have the opposite of effect of balancing the tanks. Just my opinion, but all 3 tank comps should have access to/be able to provide baseline raid mitigation. If HW reprisal is too strong it would simply shoehorn us in to pld/drk or war/drk comps and leave pld/war comps undesired. (I'm eyeballing about 15% uptime, anything more than that and I think it would overtake DV/SiO shield combo, which while hard to calculate exactly have about 10% uptime each as far as I can calculate - feel free to correct me here)

I do believe they deserve some synergy with one or both of their old skills. PLD has synergy with Rampart via Intervention, and War has synergy with Awareness via Raw Intuition. Maybe there is a way to give DRK a better reprisal, or as already spelled out, give them the old reprisal back (would create synergy with Anticipation) and introduce a similar effect role skill that couldn't be stacked with Reprisal.

Or maybe I should just prepare to lose Reprisal lol. Not that I particularly care, but it's one of the of the only 2 things I can use as a war to help out my party. Used to be the only thing so I guess I've gotten a bit attached to it. But I think about how we are able to rotate Reprisal and shields on Neo and that would be lost if Reprisal were to become drk exclusive again.

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Another thought I had, and I don't think it's all that feasible but was just trying to think outside the box. Change DRK's damage to blunt and give them a blunt resist down to help improve another oddly undesirable job - monk. I don't know if it would actually be able to work or even if it would be beneficial. Again just an off-the-wall idea I had to change things up

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Another area where DRK seems to be lacking is in a self heal. PLD has clemency, WAR has Equilibrium.. DRK has.. Sole survivor? IDK. Depends if DRK's want a 1-button self heal or something more complicated/engaging in the style of DRK. But they need some help in this regard, as well. (maybe the TBN self-heal would be enough? A 50% heal 4 times a minute would be pretty close to a crit Equilibrium)

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That's all I can really figure. I leave the rest to the experts

[Zerathor]

Drk doesn't seem super far behind survival wise. Maybe make living dead a 180s cd, but that'd be fine.

What they really need is higher dps, but only a little. I just want to see bloodspiller grant enough mana for DA. An extra 120 potency per 50 blood is a modest boost that would help out a bit.

[Zerathor]

Drk doesn't seem super far behind survival wise. Maybe make living dead a 180s cd, but that'd be fine.

What they really need is higher dps, but only a little. I just want to see bloodspiller grant enough mana for DA. An extra 120 potency per 50 blood is a modest boost that would help out a bit.

And it would make sense, as bloodspiller is the only blood move that doesn't restore mana. So I don't think it's too far out there of a request.

[Zerathor]

And it would make sense, as bloodspiller is the only blood move that doesn't restore mana. So I don't think it's too far out there of a request.

(Sorry, mobile site doesn't seem to have edit option so I'm just replying)
Also for survival, maybe let soul eater have its grit healing effect out of grit. That could add up to a lot.

[Aana]

(Sorry, mobile site doesn't seem to have edit option so I'm just replying)
Also for survival, maybe let soul eater have its grit healing effect out of grit. That could add up to a lot.

I would love to be a fly on the wall in the conference room when they had the meeting about these kinds of things. Was there a discussion about things as minor as SE heal outside of grit? What in the world was their reasoning, and why not be consistent with path (both have or both don't). Some things SE does just make my scratch my head.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Another area where DRK seems to be lacking is in a self heal. PLD has clemency, WAR has Equilibrium.. DRK has.. Sole survivor? IDK. Depends if DRK's want a 1-button self heal or something more complicated/engaging in the style of DRK. But they need some help in this regard, as well. (maybe the TBN self-heal would be enough? A 50% heal 4 times a minute would be pretty close to a crit Equilibrium)

Actually, rethinking on this, a way to "make it more engaging" and a slight fix to sole survivor, is to actually strengthen sole survivor (why not anyways? its not good enough as is) like double the effectiveness of its heal, and maybe 50% more mp on its return.

BUT if you press sole survivor again, it actually cancels the effect, to only give you half the HP portion of it's effect. (or something along those lines)

Or allow it to target PT members too, and Walking Dead triggers the effect of sole survivor.

[whiskeybravo]

Actually, rethinking on this, a way to "make it more engaging" and a slight fix to sole survivor, is to actually strengthen sole survivor (why not anyways? its not good enough as is) like double the effectiveness of its heal, and maybe 50% more mp on its return.

BUT if you press sole survivor again, it actually cancels the effect, to only give you half the HP portion of it's effect. (or something along those lines)

Or allow it to target PT members too, and Walking Dead triggers the effect of sole survivor.

It would help, I think, but the problem is drk can't use it in raid to get the full effect, except perhaps on add phase. It's pretty much an (odd) dungeon ability, and it needs to be more useful or replaced.

An interesting take on walking dead, but again it becomes an ability with a niche use. You wouldn't be able to use for the same things Eq or Clemency are used for.

[Aana]

Actually, rethinking on this, a way to "make it more engaging" and a slight fix to sole survivor, is to actually strengthen sole survivor (why not anyways? its not good enough as is) like double the effectiveness of its heal, and maybe 50% more mp on its return.

BUT if you press sole survivor again, it actually cancels the effect, to only give you half the HP portion of it's effect. (or something along those lines)

Or allow it to target PT members too, and Walking Dead triggers the effect of sole survivor.

Sole survivor+walking dead synergy. That's a new one. I kinda like that.

[Crater]

Any instance where the game doesn't 'force' specific tank swaps (A2 for example) with hard death mechanics and players get to choose, the default strategy is War pulls for agro, uses HG on the 1st available thing worth using HG on and hands it over. Takes it back when you can HG something later in the fight. The way players (when given the option) use war now is for agro and abuse of HG then hand the reins over to the other tank.

What game are you playing? Because it certainly isn't 4.x FFXIV.

Just check FF logs. War is, most often, the tank that takes the least damage/boss time.

I suggest you do the same. 9/10 of the top 10 PLD/WAR clears on v1s, 8/10 on v2s, and 10/10 on v3s, have the Warrior doing more tanking than the Paladin (often 2.5-3x as much). It's the same story in Exdeath and Neo Exdeath.

DRK/WAR compositions see a lot more parity, where it's 5-5 for who does more tanking on most Deltascape fights, but even then it's back to the Warrior doing the bulk of the tanking for 8/10 of the top ten DRK/WAR clears on v2s (bear in mind that v2s is almost 100% magic damage, so this is a 'good' Dark Mind fight for DRK to be tanking).