DRK's Sustainability and suggestions

[Danelo]

This expansion was, at the least, supposed to be about lowering synergies between jobs in the meta and leveling out the playing field. It seems like the only thing that anyone can really point to as a real tangible expansion bonus is TBN buff. And as far as self sustain goes, thank you SE, thanks for locking me into a single combo finisher to guarantee weak souleater hp gain. As far as now having it out of Grit? IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THAT WAY TO BEGIN WITH! What about the AoE raid utility we finally got? AGAIN, AFTER SiO WAS BUFFED WE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN A RAIDWIDE or SE shouldn't have given in to WARs. TBN was nice self mitigation but doesn't count as a raidewide AoE bc it's single target and doesn't effect the meter the way tank shields did/do in SB. Magic tank means CDs are crappier than other tanks just for the sake of maintaining a flawed identity (dark mind and dark missionary). If it's a "magic tank" then make the magic CDs exceedingly powerful to make up for them having no usage against physical damage like the other ones do, but no, they are straight nerfs bc every other tank takes magic just fine and then has an area it excels in. And at last check War, for example, the class with the most single target mitigation without using HG and has the most powerful ultimate bc of CD timer just got buffed. It might as well be a second 3 minute cd for WAR for cheesing 3 to 4 TBs per fight. Ridiculous. And WAR has a real heal and the class that has a death check on its ultimate doesn't? Oh convalescence gets baked into thrill of battle, that makes sense too. 200 potency on AD is a nerf compared to DA AD in dungeon content based on the info we have so far. That would again be really handy for that heal check to 100%. I'm not hating on war bc you can look at GNB and find discrepancies too. And also, DRK isn't the only tank that uses magic. PLD gets a very potent heal in clemency. Why can't the real "magic tank" get a 1200 potency heal. Rework was only a patch for things that should have, for balance, been shared last expansion. 2 years, nerfed, copy and paste shite.

Yoshi, is the information on the forums not getting back to you? WTH.

[Jeeqbit]

Since you could only DA+Abyssal twice, it would have been, on average, a combined 120 potency cure from a single target at the expense of all your MP (0-240). 200 is probably good enough to heal decently and it's costing no MP.

DRK self-heals haven't necessarily been a problem despite not being as powerful and freecast as other tanks.

TBN has a 15 second cooldown. Being a shield that absorbs damage makes it part of self-sustain like an SCH shield's impact on survival. You have to use it right or you lose the MP needed for Shadow, putting your ability to keep Darkside up at risk.

Magic mitigation is fine because most raid casts are magic damage. It's helpful but not meant to be required anyway if healers have it under control. It'll be balanced because the other raid tank should not be a DRK and all other tanks can mitigate physical. Opposite is true for gunbreaker.

DRK has all the cooldowns it requires as a tank: Rampart, Shadow Wall and TBN (so Dark Mind is an optional/for fun buff). Can use it if you know casters or magical enemies are attacking you with things like aero.

If they copied the other tanks they'd get accused of homogenizing them. Oh wait, they are getting accused of that too. They can't win, can they?

[WhyAmIHere]

Since you could only DA+Abyssal twice, it would have been, on average, a combined 120 potency cure from a single target at the expense of all your MP (0-240). 200 is probably good enough to heal decently and it's costing no MP.
still 200 potency isn't that big of a break, and seeing how much more the other tanks can heal themselves, and don't have an invuln that kills them if you're not healed for 100% of your HP. Also it only comes up every minute.

DRK self-heals haven't necessarily been a problem despite not being as powerful and freecast as other tanks.
yes, they have been. Until 5.0 DRK's combo self-heal being locked behind grit was senseless. The levels of conditionals for DRK has been gross for all of 4.x

TBN has a 15 second cooldown. Being a shield that absorbs damage makes it part of self-sustain like an SCH shield's impact on survival. You have to use it right or you lose the MP needed for Shadow, putting your ability to keep Darkside up at risk.
look forward to when you out-gear content and use TBN and it doesn't break. It can happen now, it will happen in 5.0 with the stronger shield.

Magic mitigation is fine because most raid casts are magic damage. It's helpful but not meant to be required anyway if healers have it under control. It'll be balanced because the other raid tank should not be a DRK and all other tanks can mitigate physical. Opposite is true for gunbreaker.
yes, making a class only shine when fight design caters to that class is good design. All it takes is for a raid tier to have more physical raid wides, rare as they are, and DRK goes into the trash. And the point for GNB? HoL is just flat out better than DM2. HoS has synergy with their rotation. Camouflage needs to be tweaked, yes, and I hope 5.01 to do just that, if not 5.05

DRK has all the cooldowns it requires as a tank: Rampart, Shadow Wall and TBN (so Dark Mind is an optional/for fun buff). Can use it if you know casters or magical enemies are attacking you with things like aero.
this is a non-point as you're just stating "DRK functions, and it can perform its role." EVERY tank is functional, and performs the tanking role. DRK just has the worst kit to do so of the three as seen from the media tour information.

If they copied the other tanks they'd get accused of homogenizing them. Oh wait, they are getting accused of that too. They can't win, can they?
Newnew Delirium is a flat out lesser form of WAR's IR. I already am anticipating threads here and on reddit saying "WAR has guaranteed DHit/Crit, why cant we? We deserve it if they (WAR) can have it!" SE put themselves in this position by designing 5.0 DRK so poorly and out of touch of why the playerbase enjoyed the playstyle. SE can win, but they just keep stumbling every time they get up, and deserve no sympathy for their actions.

replies in bold in the quote.

[Jeeqbit]

If you outgear the content that much, then perhaps you don't need the TBN since you aren't taking enough damage to need it. Presumbly you'll figure out that you are overgeared when it doesn't break and stop using it.

Camouflage is also an optional, for-fun buff since GNB has the essential cooldowns already as well. Perhaps it will act as a light cooldown in big pulls.

There are only so many ways they can diversify a mitigation cooldown. If Dark Mind didn't mitigate just magic then it would be a clone of either Rampart or Shadow Wall.

It's part of the tact of the job to try and identify when there are magic casts and use it for those, and on GNB to prioritise Camouflage for physical damage.

[WhyAmIHere]

If you outgear the content that much, then perhaps you don't need the TBN since you aren't taking enough damage to need it. Presumbly you'll figure out that you are overgeared when it doesn't break and stop using it.

Camouflage is also an optional, for-fun buff since GNB has the essential cooldowns already as well. Perhaps it will act as a light cooldown in big pulls.

There are only so many ways they can diversify a mitigation cooldown. If Dark Mind didn't mitigate just magic then it would be a clone of either Rampart or Shadow Wall.

It's part of the tact of the job to try and identify when there are magic casts and use it for those, and on GNB to prioritise Camouflage for physical damage.

-When TBN is your largest source of blood generation, why would I want to be dis-incentivized from using it? Do you not even see what's wrong with your statement?

-that's what Camo will do, yes, just fluff / adds mitigation. it's still bad.

-and yet SE isn't willing to even attempt to try something new or creative with DRK. Rather than come up with something exciting and revivifying for the job, just turn 5.0 DRK into a Great Value Brand knockoff of WAR.

-"part of the tact" applies when you can tell what kind of damage is hitting you. if you have a magical device that can read through the aether and divine whether an attack is physical or magical, then great; but dark magicks like that are frowned upon, so your best bet is just use it and see if it mitigates the damage at all.

[Jeeqbit]

I don't see what's wrong with my statement. TBN doesn't say anywhere that it generates blood in 5.0. All it does is absorb 25% damage at a cost of 3000 MP. Using it deprives you of using 3000 MP on Shadow abilities. If it successfully mitigates a buster it allows you to use those Shadow actions for free, so it's as if you never used the TBN.

Unless I'm missing something or they got the tooltips wrong?

[Tint]

If you outgear the content that much, then perhaps you don't need the TBN since you aren't taking enough damage to need it. Presumbly you'll figure out that you are overgeared when it doesn't break and stop using it.

In other words I have to eat tankbusters wich hit for 20% of my max life unmitigated, while in worse gear it would hit for 30% of my max life, wich I can reduce to 5% with TBN. So I take more damage when I use better gear. Great design...

[WhyAmIHere]

I don't see what's wrong with my statement. TBN doesn't say anywhere that it generates blood in 5.0. All it does is absorb 25% damage at a cost of 3000 MP. Using it deprives you of using 3000 MP on Shadow abilities. If it successfully mitigates a buster it allows you to use those Shadow actions for free, so it's as if you never used the TBN.

Unless I'm missing something or they got the tooltips wrong?

aight, i'll level.
"...then perhaps you don't need the TBN since you aren't taking enough damage to need it."
it's not about whether or not I need the mitigation, it's about, as of right now, whether or not i need the blood it generates. In 5.0 I can easily say "whether or not I need the Dark Arts proc."

Tint hit the nail on the head. If I spend 3k MP on TBN and it does not break, I lose out on 3k MP, whatever potency I would have gotten from a free edge/flood use, and can run the risk of running down the timer on darkside.

What I think you're missing is that you're looking at each skill in isolation of each other, and not applying every skill to content scenarios.

[shao32]

I don't see what's wrong with my statement. TBN doesn't say anywhere that it generates blood in 5.0. All it does is absorb 25% damage at a cost of 3000 MP. Using it deprives you of using 3000 MP on Shadow abilities. If it successfully mitigates a buster it allows you to use those Shadow actions for free, so it's as if you never used the TBN.

Unless I'm missing something or they got the tooltips wrong?

TBN scale with your HP, more gear and more HP more powerful TBN will become and more harder to break the shield will be, overgearing content as a dark knight make TBN a potential waste of resources and DPS in general, right now with ilvl 400 im unable to make TBN break in time on anything thats not a TB or mass pulling and even on some trials TB are not enough so this will delete TBN of my arsenal if i want to keep my performance.

TBN it's being buffed from 20% to a 25% hp based shield, i hope you can see the problem now.

[Bhearil]

I can already see BN duration being buffed to 10 seconds considering that original duration wasnt enough and they had to increase it to make it more usable outside of heavy tankbusters. With an extra 5% we should need at least 2-3 extra seconds of duration