DRK redesign details explained

[AngelyLowell]

I enjoyed the changes, for me, it's way better then 4.X.

For one combo only, well, we just do 1 Power Slash combo once today.

For what I see for new changes, we have damage skills now that we will have to administrate during our combo, not a Dark Arts Span anyome, I enjoyed that.

For our AoE Protection, really, how many physical raid buster we have on raids? Almost none, it's not going to be any huge diference.

[Lingeringwill]

I haven't been playing for long, but I'm pretty disappointed.

As above:
- Still only have one combo
- We got a raid wide CD, but it is objectively worse than the other 3 as it is magic only
- We lost Sole Survivor for no reason
- Our cheat death still kills us (only tank class where this happens)
- We get a version of Inner Release, but no critting, so worse than WAR's

So unless we do large DPS...
- We do less damage than a WAR
- We have less play-style variation than a WAR
- We have a worse Raid Wide CD than a WAR

So, why would you ever chose a DRK over a WAR? And this is before we see the numbers coming out from GNB. It genuinely might end up that, once again, DRK is beaten by the other 3 tanks at literally every feature of tanking in FFXIV.

[WhyAmIHere]

For one combo only, well, we just do 1 Power Slash combo once today.

This is really the only sticking point I'm going to harp on, probably senselessly. They could have changed power slash's effects and kept it in the game. It was used in promotional material, it had a very nice aesthetic to it (being a GCD where, even though it was a physical skill, you still let out just a tiny boop of dark magical energy), and the sound effect was nice to hear.

To make DRK the only tank whose GCD rotations consist of just one weaponskill combo where the other three all still have two combo chains, instead of reworking the skill into something else? I'll also bring up "but it has so many oGCDs to use now!" Yes; so does GNB from the looks of it, and even GNB took what was wrong with Dark Arts, refined it, and from initial impressions made it work.

[AngelyLowell]

Another point to take in mind in the case of AoE protections.

- DRK new skill Dark Missionary: Just 15% of magic protection, but only in magic attacks, 90 secs of CD
- PLD Divine Vail: 10% of your max HP, depends on a heal to proc and heals can undo too. 120sec CD
- PLD Passage of Arms: 15% of protection, ends if PLD moves, PLD cannot dps, 120secs of CD
- WAR Shake it Off: 8% of protection, can be incrised using others skills (the same skills we be lots if uses it), 90 secs of CD

I think its well balanced, since the majorities of AoE Buster are magic.

[Renato]

I'm going to hold my criticism until I actually play the game. Sure, things were taken away but there is a lot of good with this too.

Even though, DRK was known for Dark Arts Spam, it seems like they'll be an ability spam class now trying to get off as many attacks while under Delirium (which is the DRK equivalant to Inner Release. Blood Weapon doesn't increase SkS anymore but instantly gives 600MP for every GCD that you do and 10 Blood Gauge. Delirium makes Blood Spiller and Quiteus require no MP and gives MP per attack.

It also seems like we'll be more TBN dependent not only for mitigation but for the MP restoration since it no longer gives Blood Points but mana to use for new Dark Side abilities, Flood/Edge of Shadow which are basically your dark arts spam except now it's built into one big damage move. Still want to manage enough mana for TBN.

Unleash now has an AoE combo ability that gives 20 blood gauge and no longer requires mana. Abyssal Drain is a 60 second oCD AoE Heal. Quietus can be spammed while under (I saw up to 5 times on a playthrough vid while under Delirium.) and still restores MP and does damage.

Flood/Edge of Shadow are basically your dark arts spam except now it's built into one big damage move. Still want to manage enough mana for TBN.

Other than that, not much has changed and I'm ok with that. I like the removal of Darkside and Dark Arts. I like the removal of the enmity combos since they weren't used much anyway. This seems to be a complaint I'm seeing often but with all the new skills that seem to be weavable, I'm not complaining.

It's different but I'm still excited. I've stuck with DRK all this time for the last 3 years and I don't plan on switching.

[TouchandFeel]

For context between the other tanks, here are the WAR and PLD videos.
WAR - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0FdTCvUr24
PLD - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8YJ0wUjM90
GNB - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXhCe9qbduo
Also Role Actions - Tank actions are the first role gone over
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K6o58V0Yt0

I would say the changes to DRK are interesting, and a mixed bag of things that seem cool and some changes, or lack thereof, that I find questionable.

Potential Pros:
I find the Dark Arts/Darkside changes intriguing and potentially really cool and fun. I will still have to see how it "feels" in actual play before I know for sure though.

Potential Cons:
I find the idea of keeping Living/Walking dead "virtually the same" as questionable. It was one of the most criticized DRK abilities and for a good reason. With WAR losing it's insane burst healing potential from spamming IR+IB/SC, Holmgang and Living Dead have been brought closer together, but at minimum the heal requirement should be nixed or changed so that the DRK has more control over avoiding potential insta-death.
Second, I question the potential lack of a burst heal, or at least one that will work in single-target situation. This coupled with the supposed keeping of Living Dead, with its death penalty, the same just seems odd and leaves a common complaint unresolved.
Edit:
On second look, it does somewhat rub me the wrong way that Delirium is basically Inner Release but doesn't guarantee DH-Crits. It does provide MP however but I am not sure if that necessarily is equitable, I guess it would depend on the amount and how the amount of MP gained would translate to extra Floods or Edges.

Overall though it seems that they "streamlined" the tank jobs and their game-play, for better or worse. Many elements of how the tanks function and their capabilities were duplicated across all the tanks, seemingly creating a list of "every tank must have or do this" and then just giving each job it's own slightly different flavor for each item. This will likely make some players very happy as they will feel that the jobs have become more balanced, while I'm sure there will be other players that will malign it because it feels like excessive homogenization to them.

In the end though, we will just have to wait to actually get our hands on the jobs and put them through their paces before we can really tell how everything shakes out.

... the fact that the other two tanks have great single target healing abilities while the dark depends on AoE groups for ample healing ...

This may or may not be the case as the tool-tip and description given for Abyssal was fairly vague on whether or not the cure potency of 200 displayed was per enemy hit or per ability usage. A 200 potency heal on ability usage for an ability on a 60s cd seems incredibly weak, so hopefully it is per enemy hit.

EDIT:
As for the situation with DRK having a number of defensive abilities that are magic damage only:
- First off the vast majority of AoEs are magic damage so Dark Missionary being magic damage I would say is pretty much a non-issue unless the devs suddenly change the format that they have being going with.
- Dark Mind is still magic damage, so that is not any different. The reduction to 20% from 30% makes me raise my eyebrow but I would need to look at the other tanks' defensives more indepth before I could say anything on that.

[AngelyLowell]

This is really the only sticking point I'm going to harp on, probably senselessly. They could have changed power slash's effects and kept it in the game. It was used in promotional material, it had a very nice aesthetic to it (being a GCD where, even though it was a physical skill, you still let out just a tiny boop of dark magical energy), and the sound effect was nice to hear.

To make DRK the only tank whose GCD rotations consist of just one weaponskill combo where the other three all still have two combo chains, instead of reworking the skill into something else? I'll also bring up "but it has so many oGCDs to use now!" Yes; so does GNB from the looks of it, and even GNB took what was wrong with Dark Arts, refined it, and from initial impressions made it work.

Well, int he new expansion they don't have 2 combo chains, WAR and PLD just change the last skill of their combo in 5.X, for PLD to apply a DoT and for WAR to gain buff. I really don't see much disadvantaged here to have 2 final skill combo. We may only have one combo chain, but putting Bloodsplit in the mix, we have a variable chain combo.

[VenKitsune]

Yea for me the biggest problem is Dark Missionary - What were they thinking? Its YET ANOTHER "Magic vulnerability down" skill, 15% in an area around the DRK that casts it. This is exactly what made DRK so valuable in HW, but in SB both PLD and WAR got massive GENERAL damage reductions and DRK got nothing.

The annoying thing here is that gun breaker got a skill with an identical cooldown and range which is a flat 15% reduction to ALL damage, AND they got heals on top of that.
DRK is lacking waaaay too much party utility in shadowbringers based on what we've seen.

I think the first thing they need to do is to change the 15% magic resist on Dark Missionary to a flat 15% damage reduction, or a shield like The blackest night.

There are many other problems with the job based on what we've seen, but this is definitely the worst part we've seen from the changes that were announced, and should be changed for the expansions release date, everything else can be tweaked in the following weeks.

Another point to take in mind in the case of AoE protections.

- DRK new skill Dark Missionary: Just 15% of magic protection, but only in magic attacks, 90 secs of CD
- PLD Divine Vail: 10% of your max HP, depends on a heal to proc and heals can undo too. 120sec CD
- PLD Passage of Arms: 15% of protection, ends if PLD moves, PLD cannot dps, 120secs of CD
- WAR Shake it Off: 8% of protection, can be incrised using others skills (the same skills we be lots if uses it), 90 secs of CD

I think its well balanced, since the majorities of AoE Buster are magic.

Yes but you're forgetting that Gun breaker is getting a skill that is almost identical to Dark Missionary - Other than its a flat 15% damage reduction to ALL damage and not just magical, all on the same cooldown and affect radius. Plus, Gun breaker has heals rolled in to their based combo with the ability to heal others. Its stupid that gun breaker gets a skill so much stronger than DRK especially after they said they want to make it so that all tanks can be used in an OT or MT role without much debate.
Plus, we don't really know how WARs shake it off with be affected in this expansion, considering some of the defensive skills have been changed.

Dark missionary needs to be changed to a TBN-like shield imo - Not only would it make it unique and make use of the new shield UI on health bars, but it would also be more versatile.

[WhyAmIHere]

Well, int he new expansion they don't have 2 combo chains, WAR and PLD just change the last skill of their combo in 5.X, for PLD to apply a DoT and for WAR to gain buff. I really don't see much disadvantaged here to have 2 final skill combo. We may only have one combo chain, but putting Bloodsplit in the mix, we have a variable chain combo.

Even at that, it's a miniature (or alternatively lesser) Fell Cleave, and new new Delirium is, again, akin to a WAR skill but inferior.
What is it with SE not having any kind of mean to make DRK stand out amongst its peers? (rhetorical, and I'm over reacting for now. But come on, since 4.2 DRK has always lagged behind its peers, and 5.0 seems to continue that trend)

[PangTong]

Dark Missionary could arguably be better than Shake It Off since WAR has to give up 2 of its other defense cooldowns to make Shake It Off have a shield equivalent to Dark Missionary's damage reduction. Almost all raidwide-attacks in the game are magic damage, so I think the situations where it becomes useless will not be too common. Similarly, although PLD has both Divine Veil and Passage of Arms, individually they are weaker than Dark Missionary against magic damage, plus they each have a longer cooldown at 120s. Whether it ends up better than DRK probably depends on the fight.

The real baffling one is Gunbreaker's Heart of Light, which is ostensibly identical to Dark Missionary except it works on ALL damage, not just magical. Same cooldown, same duration, same amount of mitigation, just Gunbreaker's one works on everything and DRK's doesn't. Kind of a rip off, even if most raidwides are magical. I guess the tradeoff is meant to be that DRK's single-target shield (TBN) is better than GNB's (Heart of Stone), but that's not really gonna be a super big difference.

We have no real way of knowing how their damage will compare to other jobs until we get to play them, but imo DRK's biggest problem is their lack of engaging gameplay. Souleater spam is NOT FUN. In a single-target rotation, Bloodspiller and Delirium-Bloodspiller are the ONLY things that interrupt DRK's 1-2-3 Souleater spam. Everything else is just oGCDs. This is not just mechanically boring but visually too. Even something simple like a second combo ender like what PLD and WAR have with Goring Blade or Storm's Eye, change up their rotation enough for you to feel it. Playing DRK is going to be SO BORING compared to the other tanks.