So...DRK kinda sucks now.

[Dragonkat]

Lets be honest. People complaining about DA spam are actually saying this.

"I had to hit DA between every attack because if I didn't I wouldn't get max dps and be at the top of the parse"

Again it's another example of how SE sacrificing everything to the all powerful DPS > all meta got us Balance bot AST, NIN still being kicked from savage content despite Yoshi's statement on wanting every role to be viable, and this utility free garbage version of DRK that plays like a shallow uninspired warrior wannabe. Minus the things that made it fun and feel like a real unique tank in the form of blood price, sole survivor, AD spam, and passenger among others.

Now if you didn't give a damn about your dps and did oh i don't know this crazy thing called be a tank, DA "spam" was only needed two places.

Dark passenger for the blind
Abyssal drain for the HP

Optional being

Carve and spit if you didn't need the extra mp boost
syphon strike, soul eater, and blood spiller for the extra potency

Saying you had to press it between every attack is frankly ridiculous. And regardless of that at least that DA had what felt like a real impact on my skills instead of this new and not improved DA spam that's an equally visually uninspired sword poke or slash to keep a paltry dps boost up for our watered down IR. Which you'll never bother to use quietus on anyway, and don't even get me started on the nerfs to it's MP gain.

Now DRK is a one trick pony, and that tricks name is TBN. Which even then has gone from a meaningful impact in terms of impact and lore (taking pain to get blood) to just a neutral at best to dps loss at worst power that's not even needed when you can just pop rampart or arms length on a trash pull, pop flood for the dps gain and extra hit off the bat and let the healers do this crazy thing called heal [sarcasm] unless that dips into their precious dps uptime too? [/sarcasm]

The class works, but it's not fun. The problem isn't even homogenization though, it's the shallowness and utter lack of identity that kills it for me. you could have named it big sword guy for all the similarity it has to any previous incarnations of dark knights anymore.

In an attempt to be constructive though I will offer this.

*Give us back old quietus, make that risk vs reward mean something on big pulls
*At the same time give us back a spamable AD at 3000 MP, make us have meaningful choices to bring back the resource management feel old DRK had.
*Give back Blood price for an extra mp regen tool that again can be a risk v reward / or at least make MP regen with delirium consistent, 200 mp for a BS is insulting.
*Take a page from BLM and extend the TBN duration by 3 secs to make it viable to pop on trash pulls when you're overgeared for the content (seriously the fact it works better when you aren't keeping up is idiotic, aug scaven gear couldn't break it until i was fighting 4+ mobs in holminster switch at 71)

[RadicalPesto]

Lets be honest. People complaining about DA spam are actually saying this.

"I had to hit DA between every attack because if I didn't I wouldn't get max dps and be at the top of the parse"

Yes, indeed, the people complaining about DA spam are actually saying that playing Dark Knight correctly, instead of throwing out single target abyssal drains and fully resisted blinds at raid bosses, required you, indeed, to use Dark Arts at a rate of around 10+ casts a minute. Inventing freestyle rotations against raid bosses to compensate for the correct rotation not being fun is not many people's idea of how to make tanking entertaining in this game. If we're going to be talking in the realm of just pressing random buttons at the boss I don't even see why people would complain about the new Delirium, since you can choose to not press the same button 5 times in a row during it, if that is your desire, you could, indeed, mix Quietus and Bloodspillers in randomly since DPS doesn't matter and only tanking does, I guess?

[DRKoftheAzure]

Now if you didn't give a damn about your dps and did oh i don't know this crazy thing called be a tank, DA "spam" was only needed two places.

Dark passenger for the blind
Abyssal drain for the HP

Optional being

Carve and spit if you didn't need the extra mp boost
syphon strike, soul eater, and blood spiller for the extra potency

Saying you had to press it between every attack is frankly ridiculous. And regardless of that at least that DA had what felt like a real impact on my skills instead of this new and not improved DA spam that's an equally visually uninspired sword poke or slash to keep a paltry dps boost up for our watered down IR. Which you'll never bother to use quietus on anyway, and don't even get me started on the nerfs to it's MP gain.

Now DRK is a one trick pony, and that tricks name is TBN. Which even then has gone from a meaningful impact in terms of impact and lore (taking pain to get blood) to just a neutral at best to dps loss at worst power that's not even needed when you can just pop rampart or arms length on a trash pull, pop flood for the dps gain and extra hit off the bat and let the healers do this crazy thing called heal [sarcasm] unless that dips into their precious dps uptime too? [/sarcasm]

The class works, but it's not fun. The problem isn't even homogenization though, it's the shallowness and utter lack of identity that kills it for me. you could have named it big sword guy for all the similarity it has to any previous incarnations of dark knights anymore.

In an attempt to be constructive though I will offer this.

*Give us back old quietus, make that risk vs reward mean something on big pulls
*At the same time give us back a spamable AD at 3000 MP, make us have meaningful choices to bring back the resource management feel old DRK had.
*Give back Blood price for an extra mp regen tool that again can be a risk v reward / or at least make MP regen with delirium consistent, 200 mp for a BS is insulting.
*Take a page from BLM and extend the TBN duration by 3 secs to make it viable to pop on trash pulls when you're overgeared for the content (seriously the fact it works better when you aren't keeping up is idiotic, aug scaven gear couldn't break it until i was fighting 4+ mobs in holminster switch at 71)

You forgot to mention Power Slash(coolest ability for a combo ender btw) for extra aggro/enmity generation, which as an offtank I used over Syphon Strike as that was more of a 'in case main tank dies' scenario I could turn Grit on if I had the MP, Provoke, and Power Slash maybe twice to make sure I had the boss' attention. (had to cut out some of the quote to post and too lazy to edit after posting)