DRK redesign details explained

[Danelo]

The identity of the DRK as a "Magic Tank" is dead.

Its a failed concept as it is practiced in FFXIV. I think it could be cool but as it stands its the same thinking as 3.x with PLD being the tank that takes physical damage. The only saving grace for PLD was the majority of TBs and damaging attacks were/are magic based so SE had to right that wrong faster.

I wanted to specifically address Heart of Light (GNB) verses Dark Missionary (DRK) AOE raidwide shields as an example of this. Disclaimer: Maybe the tooltips I've found are incorrect. If that is the case the please if someone would link the accurate versions so I can avoid communicating bad info. As it stands I found this from a reputable source so I'm running with it. Heart of Light: Flat 15% damage reduction, duration 15sec., recast 90sec.. Dark Missionary: 15% magic damage reduction, duration 15sec., recast 90sec.. The radius of effect is the same for both. The result of being a "magic tank" is DRK being forced into the box of only blocking magic (not even being something it is good at when you compare kit of other tanks). The step towards homogenization is real. While I'm frustrated with that, it's not a deal breaker for me. Being that homogenization has occurred why not make theses both flat 15% damage reduction shields - "Magic Tank", thats why.

"Magic Tank" was an okay theme back in HW because it was piggybacked by other mechanics in the game like evasion tank and parry tank but that was then and those underylying themes are gone; Magic tank as a theme should be gone too. IF the dev team said DRK would excell at taking magic damage in addition to a bevy of on par CDs I could be okay with that (as other tanks should excell in different areas) but this isn't the case. Instead what we get is a model of DRKs that take magic damage at the level everyone else does and is subpar at everything else. And that is the heart of why "Magic Tank" has failed. Make Dark Missionary TBN-like that gives health/mp back or a flat damage resistance buff on par with heart of stone so it can be utilized as a personal CD for extra mitigation time allowing. Oh, why nerf Dark Mind? Fix that too or rework it to get away from "Magic Tank".

Magic tank is cool in theory but SE has failed to make it work. It's simply gives devs a reason to say that almost everything mechanically is magic damage focused therefore, since they are the "magic tank", we can make their overall kit subpar because DRKs, by the very nature of their job, benefit from game mechanics. This is why no rework has succeeded to resonate with the community, the underlying premise of the job is flawed so everything flowing from that will by flawed as well.

[Freyyy]

The 25second recast on heart of light vs 90second recast for Dark Missionary when looking at what they do is a major nerf. There is no reason for it.

Heart of Light has a 90sec CD just like Dark Missionary. 25s is for Heart of Stone, which is GNB's "TBN".

[Danelo]

Thanks for the info Freyyy. I wish Gamerscape would update their tooltips regarding GNB. Although I still think Dark Missionary is unnecessarily worse and in the grand scheme of things wouldn't change the overall content of my last post.

[Crescence]

I'm a bit confused about Dark Arts so please correct me if I'm wrong.

So we use TBN, and if it's broken then we get DA, which gives us free EoS/FoS.
TBN costs 3000 MP.
EoS/FoS costs 3000 MP without DA.

so basically using TBN doesn't really change the number of EoS/FoS we can do, nor does it effect our DPS in any manner (if we're doing it right).
Except if we're doing it wrong and ended up losing 500 potency or worse.
is that correct?


Like, I understand if I "need" to use it for mitigation and will definitely do so if required, but why would I want to use it otherwise?
Considering the high risk of it not breaking, wouldn't it be better if I just not use it at all most of the time, and keep my precious 3000MP for risk-free EoS/FoS instead?



GNB's barrier is simple 0-cost ability, so I wouldn't mind using it cos nothing to lose anyways, but
TBN....?

[FallenWings]

...

You use it because its 25% Health Shield for the target and 500 potency effectively instead of just 500 potency.

Not only is it a nice gameplay synergy between damage and mitigating, it does 2 bonus things: provide possibly another healer GCD(more pot) but you can (assuming the duration is infinite) hold that dark arts for burst windows, giving you an additional Edge of Shadow for trick attack assuming you stockpiled your mana for it as well.

[Bhearil]

Correction : You use BN ONLY when you are mostly certain that is gonna break otherwise is a 500 potency loss with a 30 seconds Darkside extender (not counting that DRK has around 1/6 of their old mp regen via skills, even inclusing the in combat natural mp regen so wasting mp hurts a LOT).

You can use it on a pinch when the healer is down to keep yourself alive longer no matter what but its a non conventional use when shit has really hit the fan and dps on those cases are the least of your concerns. Allowing healer an extra gcd atack by missusing BN is not worth the 500 potency loss( actually 550 if Darkside is truly 10% as some calculations say), and even if yes, having a Dark Arts stored is good, for burst windows is just better to use Delirium and spam Bloodspiller

[Sylvain]

I really fail to understand why there's so much hate on Livind dead x)
I main heal and living dead has never been a huge concern to me. As long as I know when it comes. I really don't see the issue with that skill. Topping a tank takes at most 2 gcd and 1 ogcd. On top of it I can actually let the DRK at 1hp for 6~7s for free...
I'm personally quite excited for the new DRK.
It looks like a lot of fun.

I also don't see the issue with aoe dark mind.... Every single aoe has been magical so far and I'd be quite surprised to see an encounter with 100% physical damage...
I like how TBN is now dps neutral. U spend 3k to get 3k back. (I obviously assume it get consumed everytime)

Regarding the critique of '' in lower level content it will never proc'''.... Yeah, because tank dps / balance in lower level content is obviously a big concern. How could I job be balanced if I can't use all my lv 80 skill while running sadtasha normal for my BLU friend...

I dunno which which tank I'll level first between DRK and GNB, but I'm quite hyped.

[Tint]

Regarding the critique of '' in lower level content it will never proc'''.... Yeah, because tank dps / balance in lower level content is obviously a big concern. How could I job be balanced if I can't use all my lv 80 skill while running sadtasha normal for my BLU friend...

This concern is more directet towards level 70+ content wich you can outgear I guess, like Primals, 8-man story raids and 24-man raids. Also dungeons. I was today in expert roulette and was taking a tankbuster in tankstance + TBN. The shield broke, but I lost basically no additional life. A 25% shield will most likely not break, so mitigating tankbusters in expert dungeons could result in a dps-loss for DRK.

[TouchandFeel]

Regarding the critique of '' in lower level content it will never proc'''.... Yeah, because tank dps / balance in lower level content is obviously a big concern. How could I job be balanced if I can't use all my lv 80 skill while running sadtasha normal for my BLU friend...

From what I have seen, and as one of the people that initially brought it up here on the forums, the argument that I have seen was not "in low level content" but "when we start to outgear content" which often times happens for many players immediately when stepping into an expansion since most gear that players will be going in with is actually quite a bit more powerful than the leveling gear that things are tuned for to the point where their current lvl.70 gear could last into the mid 70's before the new gear starts to catch up and people start swapping out gear. That is the way it was in HW and in SB, and I doubt it will change for ShB.
That is also not even considering the lvl.80 content and how quickly players start to outgear that since it is often tuned to be accessible to a player that just hit 80 and many have been 80 for a bit and have been grinding through the endgame gear upgrade loop for a bit.
Outside of extremes, savage and the top tier content, stuff tends to be tuned very generously so that it is incredibly easy to be overgeared and discernibly more powerful that what the content is tuned for.

In Xeno's video where he went over the tanks and his opinions on playing them during the media tour he actually mentions that it is very difficult now to get TBN to pop and he was playing a test character created for the media tour and likely much more closely tuned to the content than many players will be.

[FallenWings]

Correction : You use BN ONLY when you are mostly certain that is gonna break otherwise is a 500 potency ... burst windows is just better to use Delirium and spam Bloodspiller

I was replying under the assumption that TBN gets fully used each time but yes, DPS loss when incorrectly used, DPS "gain" and eHP gain when used correctly. I like that it is hard to break, makes meaningful mitigation more important. Making effective mitigation = damage is always a good design decision.

Stockpiled Edge of Darkness > BS spam. Multiple 500 pot oGCDS are more useful than a 200ish pot increase of the average GCD.

But ofcourse they're not exclusive, just do both. BS and EoD spam in buffs. EoD stockpiling will align better than a hard 90sec recast, as far as Trick Attack timing goes.