Dark Knight follow up thread

[DRKoftheAzure]

On another note, while I do feel that Delirium's current form was a lazy and uninspired choice, I can't help but comment how all 4 tanks have a point or 2 where they are just spamming the same button 5+ times per min due to a buff or some skill letting them do so. Holy Spirit, Fell Cleave, and even Atonement and Continuation fits this. I actually think that you're having to hit these even more per minute than HS/FC. Yet it seems only Drk is really drawing people's ire about doing so.

At least Continuation changes to the appropriate attack name when you are using Gnashing Fang Combo, which is surprisingly macro friendly... I might name the macro "Mashing Fang" since that is basically how macro friendly it is... although I think Koji Fox knew someone would make a Gnashing Fang Macro with that name...

[Sancho_Nyanta]

Interesting. I'm a bit surprised that it is that nice about working with macros like that. That said, why would you want to use macros for it? Wouldn't it slow up your inputs? I haven't finished leveling it yet but if it is as snappy as Drk then I would hate using macros with it due to the input delays.

[MerlinCross]

Now you have way more tools at your disposal. Abyssal Drain is something to use in raids now, Double Plunge, Living Shadow, Edge of Darkness, higher overall Black blood building (only gaining 10 per Souleater combo in Stormblood was pure ass when WAR gained what, 20? 30?). An actually fantastic burst window.

Blood weapon needed.
TBN blood nerfed.
Blind removed.
Derlium nerfed/changed.
Blood Price gone.
Fairly certain Carve and Spit nerfed on mana gen.
Mana gen nerfed in general.

Double Plunge and Abssyal Drain being useful are not enough for me to come back to a class I feel is worse now. Oh and thanks for giving us a fancier version of Scrouge(That has to bloody move to keep damaging the boss. Does Fray get double Plunge?)

[Arsthan]

That's a mighty bold statement there . What proof do you have of this assessment or is it just biased conjecture?
Seriously, what is up with the amount of "No true Scotsman" arguments being tossed out there by people that dislike the rework?
We get it, you and some others liked the Stormblood version of DRK and/or dislike the Shadowbringers rework. That's fine, everyone is allowed to have an opinion. But trying to paint those who don't share your opinion as "not true tanks" or "lesser tanks" is ridiculous.
If you want to argue for your position, argue it's merits. Don't try to elevate yourself by excluding your opposition as not being worthy of having a valid opinion.

That is speaking from experience of playing the game and talking with other people about tanking. While I obviously didn't speak with the whole data center, let alone all data centers, it is still a valid way to collect informations. Also do mind I've never ever told anyone that they are "not true tank mains", that is just what you made up after my rant. I very much support anyone who wants to tank and wants to play DRK, since over time the number of tanks will drop per usual. It is just not a role that most people like. My point was that it is purely ridiculous to alienate some portion of DRK players (dunno how many of us feel this way yet) for the sake of making DRK more accessable. We already had WAR and PLD as the easy tanks to play, now DRK joined them and the "skilled" tank is now GNB - though it's more strict than anything. More than anything however, the people I know from tanking seriously dislike how slow DRK has gotten.

I raided with all three tanks in Stormblood, and exclusively played DRK up until Sigmascape launched. It was incredibly dull then. Now you have way more tools at your disposal. Abyssal Drain is something to use in raids now, Double Plunge, Living Shadow, Edge of Darkness, higher overall Black blood building (only gaining 10 per Souleater combo in Stormblood was pure ass when WAR gained what, 20? 30?). An actually fantastic burst window.

All this is much better, in my opinion, than just pressing one button between the same 3 GCDs

That is your opinion and I very much respect that. However new tools don't mean much when you can't use them often. Plunge with charges is awesome, I'll give you that, but the rest? EoS is just a DA that now does direct damage and the usage dropped significantly, plus you need to spam it in a party buff window instead of using it whenever you can. Living Shadow... eeeeh, I just can't say much about this, others have already said more accurate stuff about it than I could - it's just a glorified DoT with a 2 min CD and has no interplayability with anything in your kit, hence a DoT. More blood is neat, since WAR had 30 every Path combo. Abyssal Drain eh... I'd much prefer the AoE rotation DRK had in SB than what we had now, so I'm not a fan of this one bit.

Now the "fantastic burst window" is what drew many WAR players away from him in 4.2 while drawing in new ones. This "burst window" was an incredibly hit or miss change. And to this day, the comunity is very torn about it, some find it awesome, some find it dreadfully boring to spam a single skill. So why would it be any different on DRK? Why did the sustained DPS change to burst? There is literally no reason. If the DPS was a problem, you very much could have increased the damage dealt by auto attacks to balance it out. Though I honestly don't get what you mean with your last line. It's better to not weave between SE almost anything rather than something like it used to be? But you do you.

Do understand that if someone didn't like or didn't care about SB BW, the job wasn't most likely for you anyway.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Interesting. I'm a bit surprised that it is that nice about working with macros like that. That said, why would you want to use macros for it? Wouldn't it slow up your inputs? I haven't finished leveling it yet but if it is as snappy as Drk then I would hate using macros with it due to the input delays.

I only generally use the macro when I'm offtank, have no defensives ready to use, or fight requires me to move around the boss like in the first dungeon of Shadowbringers with the last boss of said dungeon.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Blood weapon needed.

You mean nerfed right...?

TBN blood nerfed.

You definitely meant removed there...

Blind removed.

And in Stormblood they removed the +20% evasion...

Derlium nerfed/changed.

Not the first time this happened... certainly won't be the last...

Blood Price gone.

On one hand; I'm glad it's gone... But the other hand; I wish they reworked it...

Fairly certain Carve and Spit nerfed on mana gen.
Mana gen nerfed in general.

Oh good, so I'm not the only person who noticed that...

Double Plunge and Abssyal Drain being useful are not enough for me to come back to a class I feel is worse now. Oh and thanks for giving us a fancier version of Scrouge(That has to bloody move to keep damaging the boss. Does Fray get double Plunge?)

Basically how I feel about DRK right now...

[DRKoftheAzure]

@Arsthan I do agree that DRK, like GNB, should be for people who are used to tanking and want something different from what their main tank is generally.


And honestly believe that Dark Arts COULD/SHOULD HAVE BEEN the AoE Continuation for DRK, and they could have had Edge of Shadow be like Gnashing Fang(just minus the unique recast for GCD) combos into Syhpon Strike but also procs Flood of Shadow on Dark Arts, Syphon Strike still combos into Soul Eater but would have proced Stalwart Soul, and Souleater procs Abyssal Drain, and they would have kept Dark Passenger that proced Flood of Shadow, which comboed into Queitus, which proced Stalwart Soul, which then comboed into a new target AoE that proced Abyssal Drain.


And they could have kept Power Slash Combo that procs and maintains Darkside(maybe add Dark Dance buff to Spinning Slash but that personal preference right there...)


They could have brought back Shadowskin but it upgrades into The Blackest Night at level 70


Yes they would have to rework or delete Unleash or even make a new AoE combo that procs and maintains Darkside, as well as making a new AoE Blood spender, but I believe it's worth bringing more people who like GNB now, and people who like DRK now, as well as people who like WAR now.

[jetfire117]

They could have brought back Shadowskin but it upgrades into The Blackest Night at level 70

I wish, that would help drk defenses in pre-70 content. Don't know why TBN isn't gained in lower levels, it has spoiled me so much that I feel naked when playing the other tanks besides gnb.

[DRKoftheAzure]

I wish, that would help drk defenses in pre-70 content. Don't know why TBN isn't gained in lower levels, it has spoiled me so much that I feel naked when playing the other tanks besides gnb.

I know right? It's so weird.

[MerlinCross]

You mean nerfed right...?

I was real tired when I was typing that out. But that point is I feel we lost a lot of stuff or nerfed and what have we gained? Inner Release and a buff to our AoE game which wasn't terrible, like it wasn't Ninja. Also I could have sworn we still had the blind tagged to Dark Passenger for Stormblood. Already losing my memory of what stuff did because it's just straight up gone.

I just feel like I'm not doing anything when I play DRK. Sure I actually might be doing more actions but it's spam with less buttons so it doesn't feel like it. And as much as I loved TBN in Stormblood, this really needs to get nerfed. Look I love it, it's still very good, but if something isn't going to change, we're probably going to just get balanced around TBN going forward.

I wish, that would help drk defenses in pre-70 content. Don't know why TBN isn't gained in lower levels, it has spoiled me so much that I feel naked when playing the other tanks besides gnb.

I'm not sure this is a problem for DRK alone. I've been leveling PLD and finding out in early dungeons "I don't have anything ELSE FOR THIS" just feels bad. Now I haven't tried WAR but this just feels like SE forgetting that new players do actually come into the game and the experience is going to be different based on what changes they do.

I know seeing no Trait bonus for DRK from till like 62 would look real off as a new player.