
Originally Posted by
EpicOverlord85
snip
It being completely unbalanced for dungeons and 24-mans is still being unbalanced for a discernible chunk of the content, especially considering that AD is an AoE ability which is designed primarily for using on groups of enemies which you will mainly be dealing with in dungeons and 24-mans. Making AD intentionally unbalanced in its primary usage scenario just doesn't make sense. Besides there are ways to make the ability much better for single-target situations while still keeping it balanced for AoE.
I feel too many people are way too hung up on the way DRK used to be, decrying changes that were made even when they needed to be and frankly, spammable AD self-heals needed to be changed. It was not at all balanced, and let's be honest here, that is precisely why players loved it so much, because it was crazy overpowered and pretty much made DRKs unkillable self-sustain murder machines in large pulls. So again, while fun, it needed to go just like the crazy self-healing from IR+Steel Cyclone needed to go.
Now don't get me wrong, I feel that the devs have somewhat missed the mark with their current implementation of Abyssal Drain and I quite forwardly state my issues with it in threads on this forum, but at the same time I understand the reasoning behind the changes and how they were arguably necessary to make the different aspects of the tanks more in-sync with each other.
As for Abyssal Drain's "niche", it is quite obviously supposed to be that of a larger self-heal like Equilibrium and Aurora, it just doesn't perform so great at fulfilling its niche in single-target situations which is an issue that I bring up almost anytime this ability is discussed.
Lastly, Abyssal Drain is already pretty balanced with its equivalents on the other tanks in regards to groups of enemies; so how is making it a spammable GCD like it was going to help where it is having trouble, in single-target?
That would just make it super overpowered in multi-target situations and a noticeable dps loss in single-target, basically exacerbating the disparity that the ability already has in those situations.
It's main functional issue as it is, is the interplay between it and Soul Eater's larger heal in single-target and how it is too spread out to be truly effective in practice while seeming equitable to other tanks like WAR on paper.
As for 60s being too long of a recast, I mostly agree but I feel that is a general issue with DRK and that the job could really use having more frequent OGCD use overall to help smooth out the periods between it's big bursts. WAR too tbh.
I've already gone into great detail on what I think could be done to improve Abyssal Drain which covers both improving it's single-target potential as well as making it have a shorter recast, in my thread that I made a while back (here).
Here is the snippet on Abyssal Drain from that thread ...
Abyssal Drain heal in single-target vs. packs and frequency of use
Currently Abyssal Drain's heal is heavily skewed towards packs, providing a 200 potency cure per enemy hit, which is awesome when you are facing large packs of six or more, but is extremely lacking in most difficult content which is primarily single-target. Even wall to wall dungeon pulls tend to hover around 6-7 enemies which makes Abyssal Drain's heal pretty much break even with the healing from Equilibrium and Aurora in the place where it should really shine since it is lackluster in single-target.
I feel that this division between single-target and pack usage needs to be reigned in, improving its strength in single-target situations while still keeping it slightly skewed towards being better in packs. The way that I propose doing this is by rolling the DoT aspect from Salted Earth into it and applying a singular HoT on the player on ability usage.
In addition I would like to see Abyssal Drain available more often simply because I would like to be able to weave oGCD abilities just a little bit more and reducing it's recast from 60s to 30s while adding the DoT and HoT effects to it would make it sort of like the DRK version of Circle of Scorn but it heals you as well. This would be nice because as stated earlier, DRK does now feel quite similar to WAR and I feel that pulling in aspects from DRK's thematic opposition, PLD, would help give DRK more of its own unique feel and help solidify the connection to PLD.
This would result in a slight damage buff, but I feel that it would be fairly negligible overall.
Abyssal Drain proposed solutions.
- Recast reduced to 30s instead of 60s.
- Damage potency reduced to 100 from 200.
- Cure potency reduced to 100 from 200.
- Abyssal Drain now also applies a damage over time effect to enemies for 40 potency for 15s (200 potency total per enemy).
- Abyssal Drain now also applies a healing over time effect to self for 40 potency for 15s (200 potency total)(applied on ability use and not per enemy hit).
- *UPDATE* Potentially lower Soul Eater cure potency to 250.
- *Update 2* Allow Abyssal Drain to hold 2 charges like Plunge.
* In single-target this would equate to 600 potency of damage and cures every 60s vs. the 400pot damage and 200pot cure of current AD + Salted. At 2 enemies it would be 1200pot damage and 800pot healing vs. 800pot damage and 400pot healing. 3 enemies, 1800pot damage and 1000pot healing vs. 1200pot damage and 600pot heal. Basically being a consistent 50% damage and 400 cure potency boost, no matter the # of enemies compared to the current AD and Salted, which tbh are a tad underwhelming as they are and make up very little of DRK's overall dps.
***UPDATE*** If the above suggestion is seen as providing too much self-healing for DRK in single-target situations, if you factor in the strong heal from Soul Eater, I would suggest potentially reducing the heal on Soul Eater to compensate which would shift DRK's self-healing to be a bit more bursty, allowing them to direct when they get that healing a bit more. If Soul Eater's heal were reduced to 250 cure potency, that would even out the 400 cure potency gain from the above suggestion. This would put DRK at ~2600 cure potency every 60s versus WAR at ~2700 in single target, which is where it is now just shifting the heals from being spread out in the combo to more concentrated into small bursts from AD.
***UPDATE 2*** I feel that Abyssal Drain with it's newly proposed 30s recast should be able to hold 2 charges like Plunge does, providing greater differentiation in the way DRK's self-heal kit works as well as providing more flexibility in condensing two AD's close together for better burst healing.