Perma shelved my DRK: No role, no idenity, no lore, no worthwhile skills, no fun

[Xan_Kriegor]

I do not think current DRK is that awful like some people say. It already has a decent CPM if compared to other tankers and an overall good mitigation kit. However, it could get some tweaks and gameplay changes.

First of all, the most important issue right now is the Blood Weapon duration. It must be the same as Delirium. This way, even players with high ping can get five hits consistently at 2.38 GCD.

Living Dead could be reworked. There are a lot of ideas on forums, I will not talk about it here.

My issue with the gameplay of DRK is mostly the Darkside management. It is not a good design because the skill that gives the 10% damage buff is the same skill that you always want to use just to damage even if the buff is already up (Edge of Shadows). Also, people often complain about the boring downtime DRK has right now while oGCDs are not available and DRK is pooling MP for the next burst.

To fix those issues, I propose some changes based on some ideas I have heard from other DRK players.

Changes:

Salted Earth:

Action removed.

Salted Earth was nerfed for Shadowbringers and it is just a bad skill right now. It could be removed to open space for a more interesting skill.

Stalwart Soul:

Action is now learned at Level 52 instead of Level 72.

The removal of Salted Earth would allow our AoE combo action to be learned earlier. This will fix a problem DRK has that its AoE combo is only available at a high level while PLD and WAR have it earlier. Of course, Stalwart Soul will not give blood at level 52, it will start to provide blood only on Level 62 when Blackblood trait is learned. The mana provided for this action will help players to use more often Flood of Darkness at lower levels.

Edge of Darkness/Shadows:

These actions no longer grant Darkside effect.

This would be the major change. EoS/EoD would be used for pure damage, while FoS/FoD would be used for AoE situations AND to get Darkside effect up when needed. This would add more complexity to our Darkside management and will enhance the decision making in the Job. Of course, this change will result in potency loss, but it will be addressed later.

New Action Level 72:

Delivers an attack with a potency of 900 to target and all enemies nearby it. Can only be executed while under the effect of Delirium. Effect fades upon execution.
Additional Effect: Grants Darkside, increasing damage dealt by 10%
Duration: 30s
Extends Darkside duration by 30s to a maximum of 60s.

To fill the spot left open to the Job action of Level 72 we could get a combo finisher to the Delirium burst. This could also be an alternative way to up Darkside buff. So, now players have two ways to do it: either use a Flood of Shadows instead a Edge of Shadows or waiting for the next Delirium burst to regain it. Again, this will add more decision making to the DRK gameplay.

Abyssal Drain:

Recast reduced from 60s to 30s.

Carve and Spit:

Recast reduced from 60s to 30s.

These reductions will provide filler oGCDs to weave during DRK downtime. They are also compensations to the removal of Salted Earth. Carve and Spit with a shorter CD will help DRK's MP generation and Abyssal Drain will provide more self heal since it will be only 30 seconds recast.

I have not done the maths about these changes regarding its potencies, so it could need some potencies changes.

In short, with these changes I think most of the DRK gameplay problems would be addressed and it would become a more interesting Job to play. The Delirium burst will have some PLD flavor in there, so it will be more of a mix from WAR and PLD bursts instead of a "copy of IR" as a lot of people complain about. And the Darkside gauge would be useful now, since we will not spamming FoS mindlessly. The Job's CPM would be slightly higher than now, maybe it will reach GNB's CPM.

So, what do you guys think? Would you guys like these changes ?

[Arsthan]

snip

I like those ideas, though a attack speed buff on BW would be still nice but I digress.

The main thing about your changes that interests me is the EoS/FoS change. That would actually give us Darkside management, which I'm totally up for. They could also achieve a similar thing with adding a new skills that either is used only to get/increase Darkside or meant purely for damage with no Darkside buff attached to it. Either way, the result is technically the same. I really like this and hope they'd do it.

[Xan_Kriegor]

Agreed. In my opinion, not having darkside management is one of the biggest design issues that DRK has.

I think that a similar way to solve It would be creating a blood spender action with less damage/blood than bloodspiller but with the additional effect to grant darkside effect.

[Reynhart]

Agreed. In my opinion, not having darkside management is one of the biggest design issues that DRK has.

For me, either you make Darkside harder to maitain (Edge/Flood cost more, MP regen is lower or you extend for less time) or, you give DRK another MP spender, and you'd have to judge if you have the MP to spare while still being able to reapply Darkside.