Quote Originally Posted by Aana View Post
TLDR: Drks base enmity is lower because they 'can' spike it to a whopping 3300 on a single GCD. ~1.7x more than halone or BB.
It's not really 'whopping' once you consider that WAR and PLD have enmity multipliers outside of their actual enmity combo, and DRK doesn't. That 1650 enmity-potency they get from Dark Arts is pretty meager when you stack it up against a Warrior dealing 2600 enmity-potency in its opener with the two Onslaughts that are part of its max-DPS rotation, on top of an instant 600 enmity-potency on the pull using Equilibrium. That's twice the enmity that the DRK is getting from Dark Arts, and it's part of Warrior's optimum DPS opener. And DRK has to commit to losing 120 potency on a Power Slash combo before they even have the option to spend the additional 140 potency on DA Power Slash.

Paladin is at a pretty significant advantage in that field too; 450 enmity-potency from every Shield Swipe (usable potentially every 15 seconds), and 300 enmity-potency from every Circle of Scorn (25 seconds) starts to add up really quickly. It's basically the equivalent of the DRK getting that DA worth of enmity every minute or so - except, again, using those skills as often as possible is part of PLD's max-DPS rotation.


I don't think the idea of having to pay an opportunity cost for enmity is a bad one, or even really incompatible with the game's DPS-first/speedrun playstyle - but if only one class is really going to be forced to pay that opportunity cost, the cost needs to be lower, and/or the reward for doing so needs to be massively better in terms of enmity than what the other tanks can accomplish, not just "Yeah, it's kind of good sometimes if you tilt your head and squint."