Question for fellow DRK's who have played its new Shb iteration.

[Wyndam]

snip

That's probably the best comment in this thread right there.

[Tint]

When Stormblood substituted Dark Arts for Darkside's MP drain, Dark Arts was already dead. There was no 'nuanced' enhancement effect, it was a straight up 2400 MP = 140 potency.

Interestingly in tank stance there were more decisions / priorities for Dark Arts.

Carve and Spit for biggest potency buff.
Bloodspiller because the bonus potency wasn't reduced by tank stance.
Souleater for the extra heal.
Syphon Strike when you were overcapping.
Dark Passenger when you were overcapping really hard or for extra burst.
Power Slash for extra enmity.
And of course TBN wich you could use instead of Dark Arts.

I actually loved DRK in tank stance. It was slow and methodical, one combo = one Dark Arts or TBN. And there were these priorities, not just press button for 140 potency.

Wished 5.0 DRK would play more like 4.0 DRK in tank stance...

[Reynhart]

Even in Heavensward, there really was just one dps combo. You never used Souleater without DA.

Sure, but you didn't always use Dark Arts at all, just to make sure you have enough mp to keep Darkside up, so Delirium was an alternative, on top of having a debuff worth keeping up.

I think this is always going to be an issue with jobs like DRK. People look at it from the outside, and say "this can't be that difficult."

I'm definitely not a top raider, but since you don't have to think of what combo to use, nor have anything to maintain during fights (since you can refill far more MP than Darkside will require before expiring, MP that are basically always spend to keep Darkside up) nor require any preparation prior to your spam-Bloodspiller phase, I'm pretty much convinced that DRK has become much easier than it ever was.

If your goal is to maximise the number of combos you have, PLD is probably more your jam.

Personally, I think no job should only rely on a single combo over and over, especially since PLD already had that issue in ARR. And DRK is the only tank who only has only one (single target) combo. It wouldn't have been very difficult to keep another one just to maitain a specific (unique) buff.

[Lyth]

Much like Dragon Kick, 3.x Delirium essentially kept itself up if you were playing the job properly. Outside of BW, you were forced to use Delirium to allow your MP to recover (hence the 2:1 Delirium : DASE ratio).

A popular conceit of people playing combo-focused jobs is that they're making "decisions" about what combo to make. You really aren't. It's a structured rotation, and you either execute it correctly until it becomes muscle memory, or you don't really succeed at playing the job.

124123123
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12?

It's like those IQ test questions: guess what comes next in the sequence? Uh... 6?

I mean, don't get me wrong, this could be incredibly challenging for someone. Gathering jobs are a pretty good alternative. There are combos, but you can spend the next five minutes analysing what your next step is going to be.

You know what? It's gotta be 5. Definitely 5.

Anyone who thinks that any iteration of DRK plays like 2.x PLD has either forgotten how 2.x PLD played, or doesn't have 90% of their buttons mapped.

I think it's perfectly possible to play DRK incredibly poorly this expansion and think that you're doing a reasonable job at it. But that's always been a thing on the job. "I'm pressing the combo butans, it's so easy!" Yes, but your MP and blood are capped, and you have five oGCDs that have been off cooldown for the past 10 seconds and are sitting around doing nothing. Sadly, self-reflection is not a pre-requisite for playing any job.

Combos on DRK are just there as filler. All the decision making comes out of resource management and oGCD usage. If that's not your thing? PLD is for you. If it's sort of your thing? Maybe try WAR/GNB for a bit of both. There's something for everyone.

[Kabooa]

There's something for everyone.

I think this is the take away. The job people want to play is available, just not wrapped in the skin they want.

[ADVSS]

I feel very discouraged to play the class now after reading this. Not that I'm blaming you; rather, I'm blaming SE for their poor attempt at a rework. And that's a shame because I've been interested in the job for quite some time. I want to Tank, and I want to play DRK, but seeing that the job got such a poor rework is disheartening. With that said, I'll still play DRK. Since I was able to play the stale WHM till lvl. 70, I think I can handle the 'boredom'. But SE needs to work fast or else DRK, the poster boy for Shadowbringers, will continue to sit in the sidelines while the other tanks flourish (still early, I know, but from what I'm hearing on these forums, PLD and WAR seem like great tanks).

Dont want to discourage you, but he isnt wrong. And can anyone explain to me WHY WE NEED A TIMER ON THE DS GAUGE FOR LIVING SHADOW? It doesnt refresh, why is it even there?(tells you how long its got left when active) When I got the tool tip upon hitting 80. I was like SERIOUSLY?! Thats literally the most pointless thing
Also the illusion of using TBN(which ive had withstand even tank busters in story) to "counter attack" is silly when you realize it costs the same mp to not use TBN and hit them with edge anyway,

[Reynhart]

All the decision making comes out of resource management and oGCD usage.

By doing your filler combo, you generate far enough MP so there's no real management to do there, especially since Blood Weapon is available every time during a full Darkside window. Same for Blood, you don't need to really save it since Delirium will provide all the Blood you need for burst windows. At least in Stormblood, you could keep on blood for a little time if Delirium and Blood weapon were near their CD, or you could use/break TBN to have a surge of Blood for an approaching burst window…
Now the ressource management is basically "Don't cap your ressources". I'd say that's hardly a decision. Technically, by having Requiescat tied to a nearly full MP gauge, and Oath skills only mitigation skill, PLD has more ressource management and timing to do than DRK.

There's something for everyone.

You're right, but I'd say that if you wanted a job that spam its ressource skills freely during a burst window, WAR was already providing that 2 years ago.

The job people want to play is available, just not wrapped in the skin they want.

Ok, so where is the fast paced tank with skills that actually synergize with each other to achieve great performance ?

Or, another question : Who are the people targeted by this new DRK that couldn't find what they wanted in either the old DRK or the other tanks ?

[Kabooa]

Ok, so where is the fast paced tank with skills that actually synergize with each other to achieve great performance ?

Or, another question : Who are the people targeted by this new DRK that couldn't find what they wanted in either the old DRK or the other tanks ?

Gunbreaker.

I dunno. I haven't gotten to try it extensively yet, but the main issue I see is just a matter of resource tuning, and changing Delirium to something else.

[Lyth]

It depends on what your goals are. Do you just want to keep Darkside up? That's probably simple enough. Do you need to mitigate something with TBN? You could probably just keep a bit in reserve. Are you trying to save up for a burst window?

As far as cooldowns are concerned, there are some additional questions that you need to ask yourself. You may have noticed that you can't enter a combined Delirium/BW window with more than 50 blood. You also can't enter Delirium as LS is coming off cooldown with less than 50 blood. There are a number of little traps that you can run into that force you to cap resources unintentionally.

I'm very curious to see what the APM averages are going to be for the ex primals.

That being said, you're not going to have an epiphany on DRK by simply typing on the forums, any more than you reached an epiphany on why "defensive tanking" didn't catch on in raid content through forum debates. The answer then, as it is now, is to play it yourself and see.

As an analogy:
"He who studies medicine without books sails an uncharted sea, but he who studies medicine without patients does not go to sea at all."

[Reynhart]

Gunbreaker.

For now, I've only unlocked it, not really played it. But I will likely level all tanks to 80, so I'll see how it goes.

What bugs, me, if Gunbreaker actually fills that niche, is that past jobs were stripped away of their mechanics so that those can be given to new ones. "Yeah, Machnist doesn't rely on procs anymore, so let's create a Ranged DPS job that rely on procs and call it Dancer"...And the continuation combo already feel like the old Dark Arts in-between to enhance your full combo.

It depends on what your goals are. Do you just want to keep Darkside up? That's probably simple enough. Do you need to mitigate something with TBN? You could probably just keep a bit in reserve. Are you trying to save up for a burst window?

Yes, you ought to keep 3000 if you need TBN once in a while, but that's already what past DRK did. But, back then, breaking the shield during a burst window would give you an additionnal Bloodspiller, or to have instant access to Delirium. It was more than spending 3000 MP to do one move or spending those same 3000 MP to do the same move 5s later with mitigation in-between.

You may have noticed that you can't enter a combined Delirium/BW window with more than 50 blood.

You'll just delay your window by one GCD, and do the exact same number of Bloodspiller during the burst window anyway. It's not like IR where doing a "naked" Fell Cleave is far less powerful than a Fell Cleave during IR. Also the MP return of Delirium+BW will give you just above an additional Flood/Edge during that burst window, so unless you manage to spend all your MP, it won't make a real difference.

You also can't enter Delirium as LS is coming off cooldown with less than 50 blood.

Not level 80 yet, so didn't experiment it yet. On a sidenote, though, a problem I see with how engaging DRK is is that between lvl70 and lvl79, your single target gameplay doesn't change at all. The only real new skill you gain is Stalwart Soul, which, I admit, makes AoE situation a lot more fun. At least, PLD gets a new rotation at 76 with Atonement on top of an AoE magic phase (that it never had before) with Holy Circle and its gap closer at 74.

The answer then, as it is now, is to play it yourself and see.

I am playing it, and I'm mostly bored by it.