DRK's Sustainability and suggestions

[Jeeqbit]

Its just crazy how much self healing they removed in ShB for DRK

DRK hasn't really lost self-healing. Souleater is about the same in practice, Abyssal Drain shouldn't have been used to heal much anyway except in an emergency because it takes half your MP and Sole Survivor is only going to save you when an enemy is about to die and you're low on health. In practice your self healing will be about the same.

It's always had the lowest self-healing and will still have the lowest self-healing though.

[WhyAmIHere]

...Abyssal Drain shouldn't have been used to heal much anyway except in an emergency because it takes half your MP and Sole Survivor is only going to save you when an enemy is about to die and you're low on health.

. . .
How much did you play DRK then? DA+AD healing in trash pulls was one of the best things about taking DRK into a dungeon, because of how the two skills synergized with TBN and BP/BW, effectively allowed your healer to not have to worry as much about your HP because you were stealing from so many enemies.
Sole Survivor was used more for the MP on a dying enemy in my opinion, and relying on the heal it proffered is so far from what you should have done with the skill. At max level, with the ability just simply expiring, you only regained 20% of your HP/MP, and 30% if they died.

[ADVSS]

. . .
How much did you play DRK then? DA+AD healing in trash pulls was one of the best things about taking DRK into a dungeon, because of how the two skills synergized with TBN and BP/BW, effectively allowed your healer to not have to worry as much about your HP because you were stealing from so many enemies.
Sole Survivor was used more for the MP on a dying enemy in my opinion, and relying on the heal it proffered is so far from what you should have done with the skill. At max level, with the ability just simply expiring, you only regained 20% of your HP/MP, and 30% if they died.

That DA - AD with BP in 3.0 was sick for mass pulls, when it was valid to them. But in a single target scenario, DRK has always been the lowest tier. It simply shouldnt be their identity at all, or ever, in any FF considering besides SoulEater. that is their only other trait. In FFXIV? Apparently DRK has to be the most dependant tank on healers, for virtually anything, even their ultimate. For reasons. Now maybe in the past our word "sustainablity" got mixed up with "MP sustain", but thats never what I meant when using the term. Dunno about everybody else. Pretty sure we were all on the same page though.

[Inuk9]

That DA - AD with BP in 3.0 was sick for mass pulls, when it was valid to them. But in a single target scenario, DRK has always been the lowest tier. It simply shouldnt be their identity at all, or ever, in any FF considering besides SoulEater. that is their only other trait. In FFXIV? Apparently DRK has to be the most dependant tank on healers, for virtually anything, even their ultimate. For reasons. Now maybe in the past our word "sustainablity" got mixed up with "MP sustain", but thats never what I meant when using the term. Dunno about everybody else. Pretty sure we were all on the same page though.

I think, in big pulls if you manage your TBN properly you can sustain yourself for quite some time with abyssal drain being 200 healing potency per target and a 60sec cooldown. But in big pulls (if you are not overlv) every tank will have trouble without healer.

About single target I think DRK will have more self-healing than other tanks we can check parses when content releases, that is due to souleater combo being the only combo the DRK will use in non-burst phases. But I can say for sure that for single target DRK sustainability got way better than 4.x

[ADVSS]

I think, in big pulls if you manage your TBN properly you can sustain yourself for quite some time with abyssal drain being 200 healing potency per target and a 60sec cooldown. But in big pulls (if you are not overlv) every tank will have trouble without healer.

About single target I think DRK will have more self-healing than other tanks we can check parses when content releases, that is due to souleater combo being the only combo the DRK will use in non-burst phases. But I can say for sure that for single target DRK sustainability got way better than 4.x

Yeah Im not really sure what it will be in ShB, but looking at the what base mp gains from ss looks like all they did was eliminate any choice we had in dumping mp into dark arts, and just forcing it in, with much less jumps in mp highs and lows into our main rotation. As far as SE potency, I dont think theyll make it anything great, as it hasnt been like ever.
I'm just glad, regardless of what others say about these types of suggestive threads, that there are others out there that feel as passionately, if not more than me about similar things we'd like to see, or things that don't make sense. I feel less crazy, when I know I'm not the only one.

I really might need to go back and watch some live letters when they elaborate on bringing DRK as a new job-more specifically a tank, in HW. This "identity" thing just seems to be kind of split, I know that it was mentioned a while back that there was a back and forth over SAM and DRK being the new tank for HW, and all I'm seeing is that you could have reversed it either way, but currently, it feels like SAM mightve well been the better pick for that 3rd tank slot. Not saying I dont like DRK being a tank(or tanking), but it seems like the treatment its gotten was a position that was slotted in on some semantics, rather than identity. SAM got the whole light armor look as well, to cement that it was a dps, but any fan of FF knows the traditional SAM from 5 and on had heavy armor appearance, maybe besides a tactics advance or whatnot. Again, not that I mind SAM in this incarnation, but seems a little odd that they had to change its aesthetic, which they would not really be able to do to DRK(just give it maiming gear) as easilly.

[Jeeqbit]

. . . How much did you play DRK then? DA+AD healing in trash pulls was one of the best things about taking DRK into a dungeon, because of how the two skills synergized with TBN and BP/BW, effectively allowed your healer to not have to worry as much about your HP because you were stealing from so many enemies.

I use it mainly in pre-70 content and usually don't have TBN, so using DA+AD always seems like a waste of a giant chunk of my MP pool when the healer is keeping me alive. I did notice TBN could be used in synergistic ways of that sort the few times I've got the L69 dungeon though.