Trying to understand the complaints about DRK

[Lyth]

It's good to see DRK being utilised in WF clears. It's been fairly common to see people lock in PLD/WAR slots in PF groups this expansion, even after the previous Ultimate clear. Anything that promotes comp diversity is a good thing.

I think that 'viable' is a misleading term. FFXIV is a team game, such that anything can be viable so long as the rest of your team covers for your weaknesses. A tank without raid-wide mitigation or self-healing is still viable. You just shift the burden to your healers. A tank with a lower damage output is still viable. You just shift the burden to your dps. A tank with weaker enmity generation or mitigation is still viable. You just shift the burden to your co-tank.

Every time that you shift the burden to someone else, you place an additional constraint on your team (in some cases, it even places limits on what other jobs you can bring). This becomes especially important as a tank, because how you play directly impacts everyone else's performance. A self-sufficient tank can pick up a lot of slack for the rest of the team. A tank that is overly dependent on their teammates to function becomes a burden.

Some people try to divert the discussion away from balance in favour of viability with the claim that balance only matters at high skill levels. This is false. Because casual groups have a bigger variation in player skill across the group, cross-compensation becomes even more important. Your 70th percentile tank's dps is crucial to offset his friends 20th percentile dps. If your healer is a bit uncomfortable with the timings, savvy use of tank raid mitigation can prevent a wipe.

I've tabulated dps differences between the tanks several times before. Because DRK has relatively weaker burst, the gap between the tanks narrows slightly with higher percentiles and better uptime. But the average player isn't three standard deviations from the mean.

Gameplay is just one of the issues facing DRK. There's a fairly sizeable list of them on the front page of these forums. There are issues with burst, overly situational abilities and stance locks on a job without freedom to stance dance. There are questions about job identity. Individually, you could probably pick any one complaint and provide a work around. Have your healers saving their cooldowns for Living Dead. Have your dps push out more damage. But they all add up, and it becomes especially difficult in groups with a lesser degree of coordination.

Most opinions on balance and job adjustments are subjective. There's been a trend of late for people to try to "theorycraft" their opinions into something that looks objective. But the collective opinion is what matters. That in turn influences the jobs that people pick, and also the jobs that they want to bring in their groups.

The real goal should be variety. Bring a NIN for trick and slashing. Bring a DRG for piercing. Bring a WAR for slashing, high dps, and utility. The reason why some jobs end up being a consistent staple in so many comps is because their job identities have been grandfathered into some sort of powerful raid benefit.

What would I like to see? I'd like to see players running radically different comps in 2019 compared to what they were in 2014. This is the same discussion that we were having at the end of Heavensward going into Stormblood. You need to identify why certain "niches" have consistently higher pickrates and address those points. That's the real goal of balance. To encourage diversity.

[Mycow8me]

Can we stop with the viable, and is fine bs. War was viable and fine for a while but they kept inproving it after feedback. Theres nothing wrong with drks arguing for their class to make it better or improve it which is the same goal warriors had. I dont think the argument ever was over viability. It was how it could be improved for the ones who like/enjoy/identify to the class but feel it has problems or falls short in comparison to what the other 2 bring. Some miss the playstyle of 3.0, which is understandable cause it was a big shift.

[Hierro]

Can we stop with the viable, and is fine bs. War was viable and fine for a while but they kept inproving it after feedback. Theres nothing wrong with drks arguing for their class to make it better or improve it which is the same goal warriors had. I dont think the argument ever was over viability. It was how it could be improved for the ones who like/enjoy/identify to the class but feel it has problems or falls short in comparison to what the other 2 bring. Some miss the playstyle of 3.0, which is understandable cause it was a big shift.

I enjoy how the goal post keeps moving. first it was cries of WAHH, MUH DAMAGE, MITIGATION, AND UTILITY! Then it's cries about "M-MUH GAMEPLAY FEEL!" now it's "WE JUST WANT IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE SAKE OF IT!"

[Kabooa]

I enjoy how the goal post keeps moving. first it was cries of WAHH, MUH DAMAGE, MITIGATION, AND UTILITY! Then it's cries about "M-MUH GAMEPLAY FEEL!" now it's "WE JUST WANT IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE SAKE OF IT!"

That's how you fix things. One at at time.

[TouchandFeel]

I wouldn't say that the "goal posts keep moving".
To me the situation seems more like people were saying "A, B, C, D, E are problems with DRK".
B and C were resolved and so people are now saying "A, D and E are still problems".

[Mahrze]

I enjoy how the goal post keeps moving. first it was cries of WAHH, MUH DAMAGE, MITIGATION, AND UTILITY! Then it's cries about "M-MUH GAMEPLAY FEEL!" now it's "WE JUST WANT IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE SAKE OF IT!"

Wasn't this warrior from 4.0 to 4.2? Like, you just literally described that time line.

[Mycow8me]

I enjoy how the goal post keeps moving. first it was cries of WAHH, MUH DAMAGE, MITIGATION, AND UTILITY! Then it's cries about "M-MUH GAMEPLAY FEEL!" now it's "WE JUST WANT IMPROVEMENTS FOR THE SAKE OF IT!"

Man did a drk scar you emotionally in your past life or something? Why do you even care so much to post here if you arent interested in drk. I feel like this is a legit obligatory war egoist persona representation on forums so kudos for a job well done atleast. Dont worry cupcake your position as best tank is hardly in danger currently.

[shao32]

Some Warriors fail to control they inner beast.

[Hierro]

Man did a drk scar you emotionally in your past life or something? Why do you even care so much to post here if you arent interested in drk. I feel like this is a legit obligatory war egoist persona representation on forums so kudos for a job well done atleast. Dont worry cupcake your position as best tank is hardly in danger currently.

you do realize I play both and enjoy both very much?

Wasn't this warrior from 4.0 to 4.2? Like, you just literally described that time line.

No, the only real complaint was the stance dance penalty. After that was removed, everything was fine with the job. As to why SiO was changed into a raid wide shield, I have no clue. No one really asked for it. People just wanted usable effect for SiO. The 4.2 change, I can only assume it went through because the gap between cieling and floor was too large. But again, no one asked for it. Post deltascape savage release, no one said WAR was bad.

[TouchandFeel]

As to why SiO was changed into a raid wide shield, I have no clue. No one really asked for it.

People asked for SiO to be changed. They also asked for party/raid utility like PLD has. One of the most common requests of what to do with SiO was to make it party/raid utility in the vein of Thrill of War, a party-wide Thrill of Battle buff. What SE provided with the SiO change was very much in line with if not pretty much exactly what many people requested.

If you read through threads on the subject from the time, you will see the above sentiments come up quite frequently.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...eedback-Thread

As for the 4.2 changes, that was a result of people's complaints and sentiments regarding how they felt that WAR's burst damage was too "unstable" and rng-based because if you didn't crit on your FC spam, as people liked to put it "you might as well just give up right there, pack up and go home". That and the complaint of ending up with stupid and unusable chunks of gauge due to IR's old halving of cost effect, a valid complaint I will say. Basically the change was to kill two birds with one stone by addressing both those complaints while also nudging WAR in the direction that they have been trying to take tanks this expansion by simplifying them a bit.

These changes didn't come out of nowhere and there was precedence for them provided by the playerbase.