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

[Freyyy]

After playing ShB DRK a lot more now that I'm 80 (and having done quite a bit of extreme runs by now), my opinion on it kinda changed. It's still not perfect and still less engaging than HW DRK, but I think that it's way better than SB DRK was, and it's better designed than HW DRK (even if it felt incredibly fun it was still pretty clunky in a lot of ways, which I loved but gotta admit that it was bad design). I can see a very good and solid foundation to build on for DRK now. Lyth gave a very good detailed review earlier on this thread which I agree with on a lot of points.

Firstly, the MP regen/expenditure ratio is actually very close to HW DRK. There is a priority system in Blood expenditure with Living Shadow reminiscent of DA Carve & Spit's old priority with MP. DRK is also the only tank that has to think about using its on-demand mitigation (TBN) since it costs resource that can only be refunded when used correctly. The other tanks can just pop it without really thinking about it since it doesn't potentially cost them 500 potency. Delirium, Blood Weapon and Living Shadow lining up in different ways during the full fight (60s, 90s and 120s) makes for some very interesting situations in terms of resource expenditure and actually creates some form of decision making (something that DRK lacked in SB). It's not crazy but it's there.

But it's not all perfect and beautiful. Here I'll share the issues I personally still have with this iteration of the job :

- It feels a lot slower. I really loved the haste buff on Blood Weapon and I would immensely love seeing it come back. oGCD frequency is actually fine as is but could still be increased a bit (it's almost as good as HW's frequency, only lacks Low Blows). Reducing either C&S, Salted Earth or Abyssal Drain's CD should do it.

- C&S doesn't feel as impactful as before since we no longer use DA to amp it. It's just press once every minute and that's it. The MP it gives also feels underwhelming for its CD. It might be just me tho. If it was used more frequently OR made more powerful it'd feel better.

- Salted Earth, why ? It's so weak now, might as well merge it with Abyssal Drain like other people suggested.

- Abyssal Drain still feels like shit in single target and great in AoE (even if it's now a free oGCD). They could just make it so that it heals for 1200 pot instead of 200 and make it divide with the number of targets hit. It would fix the current lack of self-healing DRK suffers compared to the other tanks. Or merge it with Salted Earth and make the DoT like an over-time lifesteal. Either way would be really good for this ability.

- One combo is still unacceptable. Even if you've got some form of decision making and even with resource management looking closer to HW DRK's resource management, it's still not as engaging and seeing the same Souleater animation so frequently is very very very boring. The only thing that changes your GCD routine are Bloodspiller usage and the Delirium window.

- Speaking of Delirium, I'm still very disappointed that SE decided to just copy-paste Inner Release. I find it very unfun and it feels even worse than IR since there's no guaranteed DHCrits. It could've been something more unique. This is IMO the absolute worst point about ShB DRK alongside the "only one combo" point.

- TBN should last 2 seconds longer. I'm not even at the current max iLvl and I'm already struggling to have it break in level 80 dungeons even while pulling wall-to-wall. When WHM is spamming Holy it just outright won't ever break. Outside of dungeons it's fine tho since you'll use it for tank busters.

- Quietus feels weak, could be better (bring back MP regen on it ? Increase potency ?).

- Living Dead still requires outside resource. There's plenty of ways to change it while still keeping its "identity", as a lot of people already suggested. I've died like 5 times last Sunday on Titania EX PF runs because the WHM would use bene too soon when I LD Fae Light. They bene between the second and third hit, then I get one shot by the third hit because Walking Dead is gone. It's the only tank that can have that happen because of a healer not knowing how its invuln works. The healer should only have to heal so that we don't die by the next auto attack when the invuln ends. He/she shouldn't have complete control over the duration of our invuln. I believe that change needs to be made so that we're in control of it. It could even make for the most engaging tank invuln if done right.


TL;DR : There it is. It's still not quite there, but I think that ShB actually created a good base to build on. It's on SE's hands.

Also what's with deleting all the coolest animations ? First Scourge, now Power Slash and Dark Passenger... Souleater was literally the worst looking combo from the 3 original HW DRK combos and it's the only one we're left with. I would have loved to see Power Slash repurposed instead, I really liked the animation and was sad that it was the never-used aggro combo back then.

[Reynhart]

- One combo is still unacceptable. Even if you've got some form of decision making and even with resource management looking closer to HW DRK's resource management, it's still not as engaging and seeing the same Souleater animation so frequently is very very very boring. The only thing that changes your GCD routine are Bloodspiller usage and the Delirium window.

Give PowerSlash the same haste buff as Shifu. Two birds, one stone

- Speaking of Delirium, I'm still very disappointed that SE decided to just copy-paste Inner Release. I find it very unfun and it feels even worse than IR since there's no guaranteed DHCrits. It could've been something more unique. This is IMO the absolute worst point about ShB DRK alongside the "only one combo" point.

I suggested elsewhere that we should have a 3rd Blood Weaponskill, namely, having Scourge back as a long duration DoT, and that we could have a Quietus-Bloodspiller-Scourge combo (With in-combo Scourge doing its full damage instantly). That way, even if Delirium still retains its unlimited blood effect, it would give something a bit different.

Also, what could create a little more synergy is having Blood skills extends the duration of Living Shadow.

[Freyyy]

I also want to just give a little tip :

In ShB they increased the time it takes for your combos to fall off. Which means that you can now start your Souleater combo, go into your Delirium window, spam your Bloodspillers, and then continue your Souleater combo. I've done it plenty of times now since too much skillspeed makes Delirium come back right after Hard Slash instead of at the end of the previous Souleater GCD. With the old shorter combo delay you'd have to either delay your Delirium until the end of the combo you just started, have a Bloodspiller ready, or delay your GCD, the last one negating the benefit of having all that skillspeed. Now you can just do Hard Slash -> Delirium -> BSx5 -> Syphon Strike -> SE. It also works with WAR's Inner Release and GNB's Gnashing Fang combo.

[Jandor]

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,

TBN should probably be slightly cheaper than Edge. Still a DPS loss if it fails to break, but potentially a minor gain if you use it well.

I wonder if it would be better if Dark Arts was a stack-able resource, maybe with delirium instantly granting you a bunch of stacks instead of just making bloodspiller free for a bit.

[Derio]

The job needs another rework. Lets just put it at that.

Blood weapon cooldown is weird and does not line up well with Delirium. Overall combat pacing seems very slow, perhaps the slowest out of the tanks right now.

[shao32]

The job needs another rework. Lets just put it at that.

Blood weapon cooldown is weird and does not line up well with Delirium. Overall combat pacing seems very slow, perhaps the slowest out of the tanks right now.

According to some theory crafter's DRK is the fastes one but nah just by a micro bit, the problem is the huge downtime the job have make it feel way worse and slower that the others and the spaming nature of the job don't help either.

[ADVSS]

TBN should probably be slightly cheaper than Edge. Still a DPS loss if it fails to break, but potentially a minor gain if you use it well.

I wonder if it would be better if Dark Arts was a stack-able resource, maybe with delirium instantly granting you a bunch of stacks instead of just making bloodspiller free for a bit.

I mean..."Dark Art(s)" only really applies to two attacks, that are meant to refresh Darkside, its very strange that it wouldnt just apply to several other abilities. I do get what youre saying though, it might work. Though apparently 5+ BS is some sort of awesome thing. But now you can time all those burst windows perfectly, so that makes some people happy.

[Summer_Iris]

I like some of the changes as, like others have said, they seem to create a foundation that could be further developed.

A common theme across various posts is that Drk could distinguish itself from other tanks by being about sustain (or Grit if you will) and high actions per minute giving the impression of speed.

I think this could easily be achieved without removing or adding skills but making some slight changes to some of them (except delerium, which would need a bigger change).

1) Add a HoT to Salted Earth - gives it unique identity, adds flavour (i.e. reinforces some a drain theme present in Soul Eater and AD), compliments Drk's existing heals, and adds to Drks raid utility.

2) Add an effect to Bloodspiller and Quietus that reduces the recast time (15 secs) of CnS and AD like the old Aetherflow trait. This achieves a few things - it makes those skills feel different to other tanks. It also ties blood gain, which is enhanced by blood weapon, to more OGCDs providing a nice feedback loop and bringing back the speed aspect of BW indirectly. It also addresses the impact of CnS and AD skills as we would do them more often.

3) Finally, change delerium to grant 3k mp for a free EoS, TBN or FoS in a predictable way. At the same time it could reset the cooldown of CnS and AD. Again adding to the quick feel but allowing for burst in a different way to the other tanks.

Obviously increased usage of OGCDs would require some potency adjustments to ensure overall they're not miles away from the others.

[RitzNBitz]

My thoughts are simple, if I wanted to play Warrior I would of played Warrior. Dark Knight changes are here to stay, and nothing I say or think will change that but they gutted what a Dark Knight was and gave the people that hated the job prior their new Warrior clone.

I have close to no will to play Dark Knight. I never enjoy Warrior and Paladin's magic skills never felt right on a melee orientated tank role. Gun Breaker is great but everyone, my co-tank included is going to play the role.

[ADVSS]

I think Id rather have a way to refresh Fray instead of darkside, idk what they INTENDED to do with it, but it looks like they had originally intended for him to be refreshable or something. The timer on the DS gauge, and the fact that he switches targets and begins the same rotation(of course could just be some programming spaghetti) but eh. BS vs Nasty Cleave? Ah well. After some 80 play, its not godawful, it just doesnt really stand out at all from warrior besides TBN. All i can say, stack sks, cause it doesnt get any faster at 80