Drk: worst designed class

[Insanecell]

There's nothing inherently wrong with a DPS loss either providing its made up elsewhere.
Bloodspiller would feel a bit more satisfying with a potency buff.

You actually just touched on my ONE issue with TBN. So right now TBN is dps neutral. But if you buff Bloodspiller then this could cause TBN to become a dps gain on top of it being a gigantic mitigation gain. This would fundamentally change how you would use TBN as well. It would go from "Spend MP to mitigate damage to get a free Bloodspiller" over to "This needs to break on cd to maximize dps." I have a few ideas on how to get around this, but they all require blood gauge reworks and I have no idea if Square is willing or able to do that.

[Hierro]

You actually just touched on my ONE issue with TBN. So right now TBN is dps neutral. But if you buff Bloodspiller then this could cause TBN to become a dps gain on top of it being a gigantic mitigation gain. This would fundamentally change how you would use TBN as well. It would go from "Spend MP to mitigate damage to get a free Bloodspiller" over to "This needs to break on cd to maximize dps." I have a few ideas on how to get around this, but they all require blood gauge reworks and I have no idea if Square is willing or able to do that.

I don't think that idea will fly. Current philosophy dictates that any opportunity to widen the skill gap between good and bad DRK is going to be shunned.

I personally don't want to deal with the headache of planning TBN usage to be as close to on cooldown as possible.

[Jandor]

Technically, it's not "free". Basically this game has three cost (soon, only two), which are TP, MP and time (Fun fact, DRK is the first job that got screwed by having Dark Passenger cost both MP and time). Divine Veil and Shake It Off both have a CD that prevent from using them too much. A 4800MP partywide TBN would have a far better uptime, if you're willing (or need) to sacrifice some of your DPS...which depending of how DA-TBN returns Blood, might not even be that big of a loss.

You missed gauge

I meant free in the sense that it doesn't hurt their damage output, although that's on me, I really wasn't very clear. PLD and WAR can throw out DV and SiO on cooldown without it really having any bearing on what they're doing.

I just don't think DA-TBN is a very good idea. I think it'd be pretty damn awkward in practice, all to get something that's not all that important to have, and that it is IMHO a rather boring way of giving DRK some party utility.

[Jandor]

I have a few ideas on how to get around this, but they all require blood gauge reworks and I have no idea if Square is willing or able to do that.

One idea I keep thinking of, that I'm not 100% sure on tbh, is having blood gauge be a copy of your HP bar.

People want DRK to use HP to fuel abilities, it's FF tradition, but obviously it can't here because it's a tank in this game. But if DRK had a big lifesteal focus, and all HP you lifesteal from an enemy is also copied into your blood gauge, well that's thematically rather close. You're not just using your HP as a resource, you're exclusively using the HP of your enemies, to hurt your enemies even more! (or even to protect your allies.)

Would require a lot of reworking though, plus without knowing more about the MP/TP merger it's kind of hard to speculate. I can't see them making everything that currently uses TP free, but a lot of people seem to think that's how it'll go.

I don't know, as I said, not sold on it myself. I like it thematically, but gameplay wise would require a lot of tweaking.

[Reynhart]

I meant free in the sense that it doesn't hurt their damage output, although that's on me, I really wasn't very clear.

It still bugs me how mitigation is valued on its impact on DPS, but I guess I'm too old fashioned...
Right now, TBN is mostly DPS neutral. If DA-TBN gives you 15 Blood each time one the shields is broken, you could gain enough to do 2 Bloodspiller for the MP cost of 2 TBN, so, it wouldn't hurt your DPS either. But you still wouldn't want to use it on CD, because not breaking almost all shields every time would be wasting some of your MP.

that is IMHO a rather boring way of giving DRK some party utility.

I agree that it's not the most innovative idea for DRK, but it could easily be implemented.

[Insanecell]

I don't think that idea will fly. Current philosophy dictates that any opportunity to widen the skill gap between good and bad DRK is going to be shunned.

I personally don't want to deal with the headache of planning TBN usage to be as close to on cooldown as possible.

You’ll have to forgive me. This should have been in my first post you quoted. It hit me while I’m bored sitting at work. But that was only half of my concern with TBN. The other one is the future/next xpac. What other actions made could cause even worse interactions? Does DRK get a defensive that consumes blood? Does DRK get another attack that’s superior to Bloodspiller that consumes blood and TBN use has to change to be fit around that abilities timer to ensure optimal use? Does DRK get another way to generate blood and then the generation on TBN gets even more fiddly? How does balance work with those such actions? They already can’t touch Bloodspiller, I checked the patch archives to see if they did while I was gone and I didn’t see anything. But I could have missed it.

I don’t think a heavy rework is needed. I don’t want this to be “WoW” levels of changes and the class becomes unrecognizable.

[Jandor]

It still bugs me how mitigation is valued on its impact on DPS, but I guess I'm too old fashioned...
Right now, TBN is mostly DPS neutral. If DA-TBN gives you 15 Blood each time one the shields is broken, you could gain enough to do 2 Bloodspiller for the MP cost of 2 TBN, so, it wouldn't hurt your DPS either. But you still wouldn't want to use it on CD, because not breaking almost all shields every time would be wasting some of your MP.

I agree that it's not the most innovative idea for DRK, but it could easily be implemented.

I wouldn't say I totally determine the value of mitigation based on its impact on DPS, just that I'm very aware of how these things tend to play out in-game.

I'd like defensive measures to have a bit more of active gameplay element to them in general to be honest, it's why I'm a fan of TBN and Sheltron, and to a degree it's the one thing I like about Oath gauge. You can build it by doing tanky things, and then you spend it on extra tanky things. It's a tad boring in practice, but I like the principle.

As for 15 blood AoE TBN. Hmm, maybe, I don't think it would work out like that in practice though.
Blood builds quickly but rather incrementally, it can only be spent in huge chunks though. You'll almost certainly end up wasting blood by going over 100, or wasting MP as some shields don't pop.

[Reynhart]

You'll almost certainly end up wasting blood by going over 100, or wasting MP as some shields don't pop.

"Wasting blood" is not really a problem. TBN breaking is DPS neutral because it costs the same as DA, so as soon as DA-TBN gives you two BloodSpillers, it would make up for its cost. With 15 Blood per shield, it would allow you to break even if 7 shield breaks, and, since out of Blood Weapon, you only gain 10 Blood per combo, 6 shields + 1 combo would reach 100 Blood. If all 8 shield breaks, you're even, and you've mitigated every damage you can, so the wasted Blood is not that big of a deal.

[Renato]

I think the best way to incorporate a self-heal is just to make Delirium heal a large percentage of Health while Grit is up instead of recovering MP.

If you're pulling, Blood Price + Quietus will keep your MP pretty high especially while doing the Soul Eater combo. Then you always have Carve and Spit to fall back on.

With an 80 second cooldown, I feel like it wouldn't be too gamebreaking and would compete with WAR's Equilibrium heal.

[Derio]

I agree with OP only on a few matters. The DA spam is annoying and hopefully they remove DA on siphon strike and quietus.

However TBN is great and I have used it to give healers breathing room, cheese a few dungeon mechanics and make TB very minimal damage.

DRK is getting a rework come 5.0 so I would say that while DRK isnt in the best place right now, I wouldnt call it completely broken.