Trying to understand the complaints about DRK

[Sylvain]

Beside using it on Plundge for aggro or abyssal drain for some sweet heal, the problem is that for the vast majority of skill it's a simply potency increase.


I think people just want more nuance.
The spam in itself it's a matter of preference, I don't mind it, some people do, but to me the core of the issue is the lack of impact DA has.
This, on top of having a single dps combo, makes the job very simplistic (altough one could argue that doing a different combo once every30sec isn't super engaging too)

But for instance, let say they'd cut in half the MP gain from Syphon Strike (to reduce the amount of DA you could do) and they'd add new effect to DA on top of the 140 potency

For instance
Soul Eater: Double healing received from Soul Eater
Carve and Spit (no DA) : gants 2400mp 160potency
Carve and Spit DA : Heal for 20% of missing health 300 potency
Blood Spiller: consumes an additional 2400 to inflict bleed: Potency 70 duration :12s (280 potency for 2DA worth of mana basically)
Salted Earth (DA) : Salted Earth damage heals you for 50% of the damage done. (no potency gain)
Unleash (DA) : Increase damage to 150potency per target. No longer increase threat generated (didn't really think about the math here, the idea is just to make it a good AoE for damage and not aggro only)

With less mana, each DA would matter more thus making the choice more relevant as long as the effect is more than more potency.
100% more healing on Soul Eater is significative over the course of a fight.
A well executed carve and spit would be seen


I didn't think about what I suggested for an extensive period of time nor are these suggestion meant to be balanced within 4.x serie , but the point I'm trying to make is that DA could be more than simply +140 potency

It could be something that you pop to make a difference and enhance a specific skill for a specific situation (a bit like Abyssal Drain, when there are a lot of ennemies on you, the heal can be a life saver, it is nice, and there could be more nice skills like this.)

[Hierro]

Have you tanked lv70 content on all 3 tanks?

I can answer yes to all your questions, and even I have a hard time understanding the complaints. People cite the old delirium combo as being variation offered, but really, the goal was always to spam our soul eater combo as much as possible, and one button is hardly "variation."

I fully agree with the decision to cut out RNG procs like low blow and reprisal. I never liked having inconsistent damage from one encounter to the next all because one had more procs than the other. DRK was full of button bloat, too centered on watching your buttons more than the fight. To have it concentrated to DA is something I appreciate.

Oh, and I so don't miss Dark Dance.

Also, for DPS, it's about equal to PLD, and for defense it arguably has the best personal mitigation kit, and for utility, schmutility. SiO never saved a wiping party.

[Insanecell]

I’m still not 100% sure on how quoting and what not works so bear with me.

@Chrono_Rising: I don’t agree with reworking DA effects to such a degree. I think that creates an unnecessary amount of balancing. I think the current state of DA is fine except for the DA effect on Syphon Strike. What I think is best is moving away from the spam entirely by re implementing the MP drain on Darkside instead of leaving it as a trait that you can toggle on and off. Adding in a third combo finisher that has the same principal surrounding the old version of Delirium, except its a vanilla attack that has 20 more potency than Soul Eater solves a lot of issues that I think a lot of people have. It creates a combo that has no DA effects, and gives people a lot of breathing room to bank their DA uses on OGCDs. I also think its a lot more realistic to focus efforts on getting the devs to implement a third combo rather than rebalance most DA effects or entire reworks I’ve seen on the forums. Also get rid of that Grit effect for doubling Syphon Strike’s mp return and make Blood Price a button worth pressing. Or just get rid of it and make Blood Weapon universal.

@Hierro: With the removal of Parry as a stat and the number of fights with almost universal magic attacks I don’t see a point to returning to a reactive style of game play that relies on parry either. However I will argue that making a third “Delirium” like combo that breaks the monotony of just spamming the Soul Eater combo over and over would be worth it in of itself. Sometimes variety can come in one extra button. Also good to see another player from Mateus.

As per the DPS of the class, I would stick it right next to PLD, but just a hair above. Defensive wise I think the class is fine and it just gets better on magic encounters. I would like to see Soul Eater heal for half the damage it deals outside of Grit, maybe through a DA effect if anything but I think what we got now is fine. Utility wise, turn the class into a self-sufficient tank like the Blood Death Knight from WoW and the class becomes its own utility on a fight with nasty tank busters or effects like God Kefka.

As always, these are just my opinions. I don’t see the need for a massive rework of the class, instead just go back to the basics by cutting the mp cost on DP in half and a third weapon skill combo mixed in with current Stormblood additions instead. It would be easier to work in along with re implementing the MP drain on Darkside and it would make the class a lot better if it could be done in time for the next tier.

[LeoLupinos]

The complaints are "DRK changed a lot, it's better now, but let's not stop there"

I feel that Lvl 50 and 60 needs improvement. Blood Price is useless pre 60, recovering 88MP at lvl 60 per hit is nearing useless.

[shao32]

I actually enjoy old DRK and current DRK but i easily see why many ppl is upset with the current desing.
Compared to heavensward DRK lose many of they flexibility, the constant double weaving is unfriendly and the loss of many sinergy betwen skills specially dark arts make the job feels worse that the older one.

On stormblood DRK was treathed pretty bad on every field, our defensive kit go to the ground loosing overall physical mitigation and fluff mitigation was conplety removed for no reason, out utility reprisal was nerfed and shared with the other 2 and we get a weak ST shield for others on return.

DRK in general is still the hardest tank to play and optimice but thats not a problem bcs hardest Jobs are fun if are rewarded properly, the problem is the actual Gameplay is fairly unfriendly for many and i agreed all this work for general lower performance just raise the concern why da feels so bad now, if drk performance was better balanced probably less ppl will complaing about it, but since they under perform in every field (thankfully not mitigation anymore) its normal ppl complaing even more about It .

[Marxam]

DA spam is just not interesting nor doing anything but being a 25% MP for 140 Potency crutch on most of the actions that use it. Its gimmick doesn't add a layer of reward, but its a layer of unnecessary button bloat. Which "supposedly" was what they were trying to cut down in SB.

At its core, DRK was a paper tank that needed to take three steps to what its peers achieve with different methods. As is, it now needs only 2 steps.

All in all, DRKs Blackblood gimmick and MP usage isn't as interwoven as you'd think.

^ Pretty much this. It's a way to compensate for the lack of a third combo tree while giving DRK it's "gimmick". As a WAR main since 2.0 beta even I feel like I press too much buttons for a tank and I've been through the BIR combo days where you needed 9 gcds in Berserk with off gcds timed properly. This can easily be fixed by making DA a duration buff and any skill used under it will receive said buff during its duration for 5.0. I'd even go so far as to make it drain the Blood gauge so its actually useful outside of 3 moves. However the recent 4.3 buffs has made DRK a lot more manageable for me and I find myself playing it more.

[Tint]

This can easily be fixed by making DA a duration buff and any skill used under it will receive said buff during its duration for 5.0.

it's actually not that easy. so i activate Dark Arts, spend some mana and have now the Dark Arts buff in place for the next couple of seconds. Great! but now i overcap my mana and have no way to dump it since Dark Arts is already active...

to change the giant stream of incoming and outgoing mana the DRK has to handle you have to basically rebuild the whole job from scratch. increasing the mana costs of dark arts or recuding the incoming mana to balance out that you don't use dark arts that often anymore leads to other problems with your aoe attacks and TBN, wich also depend your mana.

[Seraphor]

it's actually not that easy. so i activate Dark Arts, spend some mana and have now the Dark Arts buff in place for the next couple of seconds. Great! but now i overcap my mana and have no way to dump it since Dark Arts is already active...

to change the giant stream of incoming and outgoing mana the DRK has to handle you have to basically rebuild the whole job from scratch. increasing the mana costs of dark arts or recuding the incoming mana to balance out that you don't use dark arts that often anymore leads to other problems with your aoe attacks and TBN, wich also depend your mana.

Pretty simple work around for this:
DA as a buff costs no MP, however causes all comparable skills to cost that much more MP to use for their DA effect.
If you don't have enough MP to do So, the buff is cancelled and you then use the basic version of that skill.

[Aluja89]

What's so difficult to understand? The class is boring to play, doesn't feel like a Dark Knight and doesn't stand out. It's like a monotonous treadmill.

[Megguido]

What's so difficult to understand? The class is boring to play, doesn't feel like a Dark Knight

That part is very subjective. Current DRK might be boring for you, it might not be boring for everybody. Also, what would feel like a Dark Knight for you ? I'm pretty sure that will differ if you ask several people.