6.0 Both Tank and Healers Need Major Focus on Bringing Back Job Identity

[FallenWings]

even then it wasn't that much, in 3.0 you could pump out 4 dark arts boosts for a burst phase or to recover lots of hp but you really needed ethers or bard mp songs, whereas 4.0 it was only 3 because mp recovery was either nonexistent or high depending on whether blood weapon was on cd
the core problem is the devs giving it an overhaul and destroying its niche in 4.0 that it didn't need, and being lazy in 5.0 by making it a warrior clone

Drk was a magic tank that focuses on debuffs (slash down, magic vul up, ground dot and scourge dot). Since the devs hate non dot debuffs apparently, there's still a niche for it to be a shields focused or self buffing tank pulling elements from 3.0 and 4.0 (boosting damage through DA, haste, parry rate etc)

Personally, something the devs should explore is a return to the DA focus of 3.0 when the job was at its prime, but remove Dark arts from mp entirely, using it to cast spells or attacks like the current one.
instead put dark arts on a charge button like plunge.

DRK was no more a debuff tank than WAR was a debuff tank in 3.0.

DRK has original Delirium which was 10% Int down and Scourge, a generic 500 potency DoT. WAR by comparison had the vastly superior 10% Damage Down, 10% Slash resist Down and Fracture, a generic 300 potency DoT.

DRk was simply a faster PLD with a more interesting MP management tank.

People like to cry about the changes from 4.0 to 5.0 and say that we had lost Dark Arts but frankly it had simply been renamed. Dark Arts was previously just a 140 potency oGCD in reality that had the roundabout way of simply placing the potency on the next GCD/oGCD. What do we have now? A 500 potency oGCD.

If you want to argue about Dark Arts as a concept of a buff that powered up their next action, then it really died in Stormblood when every action besides Carve and Spit simply gained 140 potency or had niche side effects that hardly mattered. (Enmity buff/AoE blind only effective in dungeons).

People like to whinge about 1 combo when 4.0 realistically only had DRK mainly use Soul Eater(*gasp* one combo!). 3.0 was not much more different where DRK pressed a 20 potency stronger button if they had no mana instead of Soul Eater. People like to whinge about Darkside as if it was inherently more interesting in Stormblood where it was a permanent buff that did virtually the same thing.

DRK hasn't fundamentally changed in it's oGCD/mana driven nature. It is very much a fast swinger heavy weapons user if you realize that DRK mashes oGCD swings like a madmen instead of receiving a temporary buff to spam Soul Eater 10% faster.

All people like to do is focus on Delirium(as if the previous one was any more interesting) and then slam the class for being a war clone on. One. Damn. Skill.

I frankly enjoy the new direction DRK is taking being heavy burst via oGCD(like it always has been) and the more controlled battery nature of its mana. I enjoy the big 500 potency swings inbetween the slashes rather than a 140 potency seizure they were previously doing. Other than PLD, every tank has a bland gcd cycle and that is attributed to the skill budget of the tanks various kits being put in oGCDS or Defensive Cooldowns. Old Blood Weapon isn't really interesting and would be counterproductive to current DRK with it's quad double weave bursts. I'd personally rather have more weaves and oGCDs to press for the feeling of speed rather than a bland 10% GCD buff to press Soul Eater faster.

Delirium can be more interesting but I'm not gonna be hung up and leave a class over one skill so /shrug.

[MirronTulaxia]

I would certainly love to see them focus more on tanking/healing as opposed to feeling like DPS with some side responsibilities, but I'm somewhat doubtful it'll happen.

[shao32]

DRK was no more a debuff tank than WAR was a debuff tank in 3.0.

DRK has original Delirium which was 10% Int down and Scourge, a generic 500 potency DoT. WAR by comparison had the vastly superior 10% Damage Down, 10% Slash resist Down and Fracture, a generic 300 potency DoT.

DRK use to have reprisal as a personal unique skill too, 20s of 10% damage reduction every 30s, considering this was always a dps gain compared to WAR counterpart DRK use to have more uptime with reprisal that WAR with path when they use it only when its just need, they have salted earth too wich is basically another dot and sole survivor acted as a debuff so DRK was pretty much a debuffer tank back there much more than WAR.

DRk was simply a faster PLD with a more interesting MP management tank.

pretty much false, PLD was a 2 combo tank where they place his dot and spam royal authority and keep his 3 oGCD on CD back then, DRK was a sustained dps rotation tank where his GCD usage was dictated mostly by his MP skills and scourge with other reactive stuff like reprisal and low blow, DRK was built in both GCD and MP around priority system, PLD was just a fixed rotation just like now.

People like to cry about the changes from 4.0 to 5.0 and say that we had lost Dark Arts but frankly it had simply been renamed. Dark Arts was previously just a 140 potency oGCD in reality that had the roundabout way of simply placing the potency on the next GCD/oGCD. What do we have now? A 500 potency oGCD.

If you want to argue about Dark Arts as a concept of a buff that powered up their next action, then it really died in Stormblood when every action besides Carve and Spit simply gained 140 potency or had niche side effects that hardly mattered. (Enmity buff/AoE blind only effective in dungeons).

Dark arts use to manipulate the GCD, something that has been lost in SB but ppl wanted to come that back, one of the mayor claims back there was to have back HW DRK back, Dark arts should have been ajusted not removed and being sustituted to a generic oGCD and have no interaction whatsoever with the rest of the kit, Dark arts was really special and unique, no anymore.

People like to whinge about 1 combo when 4.0 realistically only had DRK mainly use Soul Eater(*gasp* one combo!). 3.0 was not much more different where DRK pressed a 20 potency stronger button if they had no mana instead of Soul Eater. People like to whinge about Darkside as if it was inherently more interesting in Stormblood where it was a permanent buff that did virtually the same thing.

People complained a much of being 1 combo job back in 4.0 and one of the request ppl tend to want is having more combos to use like in HW, something that have being ignored when they complety make DRK a 1 combo job after remove power slash instead of just reajust the combo for better gameplay.

the problem of darkside is apart of remove all the sinergy it use to have they obviously build a mechanic around it with the new ui Gauge but result to being so trivial that the gauge and the mechanic become complety useless, why add a new gauge if the mechanic autokeep on himself? useless work here for no reason like the 4.0 lilies gauge.

DRK hasn't fundamentally changed in it's oGCD/mana driven nature. It is very much a fast swinger heavy weapons user if you realize that DRK mashes oGCD swings like a madmen instead of receiving a temporary buff to spam Soul Eater 10% faster.

it really changes and a lot, DRK use to be a constan MP management job where he use his MP skill in a regular basis to dont overlow resources with diferent prioritys on his usage and preparations when the peaks of performance will come, now it's just load and shoot, no much diferent of PLD MP management outside of the no overflow rule and thats the most brainddead part due how little MP generate now, they never been a burst type job.

All people like to do is focus on Delirium(as if the previous one was any more interesting) and then slam the class for being a war clone on. One. Damn. Skill.

its not only about delirium, its the whole blackblood system thats it's basically a clone now, the only diference betwen rage and blood are living shadow,ounslaugh and upheaval, in SB Delirium and blood in general use to interac a lot with MP with the resource conversion, peole are specially mad against Delirium now since it's the bigest behavior on a system that has been literally almost a 100% copied of WAR, the changes on his MP system and the pace of the job has just help to solidify the WAR copy complains.

I frankly enjoy the new direction DRK is taking being heavy burst via oGCD(like it always has been) and the more controlled battery nature of its mana. I enjoy the big 500 potency swings inbetween the slashes rather than a 140 potency seizure they were previously doing. Other than PLD, every tank has a bland gcd cycle and that is attributed to the skill budget of the tanks various kits being put in oGCDS or Defensive Cooldowns. Old Blood Weapon isn't really interesting and would be counterproductive to current DRK with it's quad double weave bursts. I'd personally rather have more weaves and oGCDs to press for the feeling of speed rather than a bland 10% GCD buff to press Soul Eater faster.

Delirium can be more interesting but I'm not gonna be hung up and leave a class over one skill so /shrug.

independent of you own taste about the current version of the job with is respetable i have the responsability to correct you that DRK has never ever being a oGCD burst job, DRK has always been a sustained dps tank and if you belive otherwhise no offense but you has been playing DRK wrong all this years and old blood weapon didn't present all the problems current one is giving, old blood weapon was way superior but most importantly it was better designed and didn't present the ping related problems of no landing 5GCD that represent a masive lost and his usage was more constant due his 40s recast so it reinforce more the speed nature on his usage more that the speed buff actually.

old blood weapon was more about his oGCD more than the 10% speed buff, the older versions use to have way more oGCD uses that current one and we just lost both, the problem it's really aggravated when DRK now just trow all his oGCD in a buff window and spend 50s of turtle GCD speed.

[OdinelStarrei]

DRK was no more a debuff tank than WAR was a debuff tank in 3.0.

DRK has original Delirium which was 10% Int down and Scourge, a generic 500 potency DoT. WAR by comparison had the vastly superior 10% Damage Down, 10% Slash resist Down and Fracture, a generic 300 potency DoT.

DRk was simply a faster PLD with a more interesting MP management tank.

This is semantic on my part, but I would change this statement into just saying that PLD's 10% physical down was absolute garbage due to fight design, while DRK and WAR's power mitigation combo just was too appealing not to take. Blame Sizzlebeam, Long Needle, Mega Holy etc. The only physical AoE was in A10S, IIRC. Also, what about OG Reprisal?

I would not call Scourge generic. Scourge was pretty unique in HW tanking because it didn't operate under the same parameters as Goring/Fracture. It broke your combo without being a combo ender, so you had to always use it before Hard Slash, and it's low duration had 2 reapplications per minute that could not be ignored if you wanted to push damage out on DRK. In phase transitions, you had to ask yourself a similar question to PLDs now. "Is it worth reapplying, or should I just gather mana instead?" Contrast this with Fracture, which, outside of it being your 9th GCD in Beserk, was never used, as it didn't give any stacks, therefore delaying Fell Cleaves, lowering damage. Fracture was a cross-class skill for MNK though, so that did give it a bit of uniqueness as a skill.

Even back then, PLD's rotation was fixed in GB>RA>RA>GB. DRK was certainly faster, and certainly had more MP management, but the way you approached it's damage was not like PLD at all. It wasn't fixed, but a priority system with timed mana dumping. Scourge > 10% int >= Mana, and how you did that per encounter could change, particularly if dropping the 10% int for more mana because there wasn't any magic damage to mitigate at that moment was a nice bit of optimization per fight. And can't forget about Low Blow/Reprisal procs! Wasn't perfect, far from it really. Raids were definitely designed around DRK, rather than DRK being designed to be a functional tank option, if that makes sense.

People like to cry about the changes from 4.0 to 5.0 and say that we had lost Dark Arts but frankly it had simply been renamed. Dark Arts was previously just a 140 potency oGCD in reality that had the roundabout way of simply placing the potency on the next GCD/oGCD. What do we have now? A 500 potency oGCD.

Everyone knows this, for the most part. There is nothing wrong about Edge in concept, much like how there was nothing wrong with Dark Arts in concept. It's just that the implementation of both skills has been divisive at best. People who only complain at losing Dark Arts in your eyes aren't really saying they miss Dark Arts the SKILL. They miss Dark Arts in the EXECUTION, and that Edge is not a suitable replacement. I'll try to explain more on this in the next paragraph.

If you want to argue about Dark Arts as a concept of a buff that powered up their next action, then it really died in Stormblood when every action besides Carve and Spit simply gained 140 potency or had niche side effects that hardly mattered. (Enmity buff/AoE blind only effective in dungeons).

People like to whinge about 1 combo when 4.0 realistically only had DRK mainly use Soul Eater(*gasp* one combo!). 3.0 was not much more different where DRK pressed a 20 potency stronger button if they had no mana instead of Soul Eater. People like to whinge about Darkside as if it was inherently more interesting in Stormblood where it was a permanent buff that did virtually the same thing.

DRK hasn't fundamentally changed in it's oGCD/mana driven nature. It is very much a fast swinger heavy weapons user if you realize that DRK mashes oGCD swings like a madmen instead of receiving a temporary buff to spam Soul Eater 10% faster.

This may get a little esoteric, so I apologize in advance if this seems rambling. Dark Arts, as a concept, was deeply integrated into DRK's overall offensive kit in SB. In HW, DRK had two main pillars. Mana and Damage. More mana = More damage, usually. It's actually why Blood Price wasn't an absolute joke back then, because you could translate that mana gain from an add pull into big AoE healing/damage if you turned Grit off after. In SB, this was expanded to three pillars with the addition of Blood. Every skill on DRK except for Hard Slash had overlapping interactions with your Mana, your Damage, or your Blood. Usage of your skills had trade offs, here are a few examples.

Dark Arts = +Damage / -Mana
TBN = +Blood / -Mana
Bloodspiller = +Damage / -Blood
Blood Weapon = +Blood / +Mana / -Comfy (incredibly fast drk moving at hihg speeds)
Delirium = +Mana /-Blood
etc. etc.

This is why no one complained about DRK only having SE as the only offensive option. Your GCDs on DRK were honestly, just a means to an end, you just pressed them because that's how you gained/dumped many of your resources and you had to fill the time. Mentally, you had more important things to focus on, because Blood Weapon and Delirium's timers did not align with raid buffs. It was that leverage of not overcapping mana, but saving as much of it as possible for the burst, and dumping all the Blood/Mana you had for as much damage as possible. The game would not do this for you, you had to plan it yourself. That's probably what people mean by "Dark Arts was so much better!!!" Anyone who extensively played DRK in HW/SB knew that the only guaranteed line up CD you had on that job was CnS every 60 seconds. Everything else was 40/45/80, or some number that you'd have to still press on CD, but not all at once. Everything else in the skill ladder, going from managing that breakneck pace from BW/Delirium to stockpiling to Bloodspiller GCD-manipulation was on the player, and that was not for everyone.

(A small note since I couldn't find a place to fit it in: Even things like DA Dark Passenger got usage in DRK's kit, because it served as a HUGE mana dump you could use to correct mistakes in your mana management if Delirium/BW were going to overcap you. When I had a SMN in the party, I would use it in opener as well. DA Plunge was pretty good for grabbing adds outside of Grit, think Dadaluma from O7S, and still was part of your mana dumping process, since 140 potency is 140 potency. Small niches like that have a big impact on how a job feels in action.

Please understand that I'm not saying that the current system is bad, but I am saying that the current system is underutilized. I wrote something on Darkside awhile back, but to give a summary, Darkside could've been a fourth pillar on DRK. It's a resource now like any other, it gives way too much duration to be a simple buff, and it would build on what DRK had been doing previously.

Edge: +Darkside/-Mana

Having high mana and high blood translates directly into higher damage. Having a high Darkside does nothing. And because of changes to the kit, many of the pillars on DRK are "lowered", for lack of a better term. Blood Weapon doesn't speed you up, so you've lost CPM, you've lost it's huge mana gain from Quietus/passive auto attacks and IT'S ALSO A BUGGED TRASH ABILITY. It's not fun to use, because it doesn't feel like it enhances anything on the job like a traditional damage buff or MP steroid like Delirium would. Delirium I will get to. Salted is just a DoT, doesn't interact with the kit at all anymore. CnS doesn't interact with the kit anymore either, it's just damage and mana with no trade offs anymore, mash it on CD. Plunge had it's interaction with the kit removed, now it's ACTUALLY a "generic" ability. Adding Abyssal to an oGCD literally does nothing but add button bloat. It's very disjointed, and the job doesn't flow the same way. Rather than your kit working together as a cohesive whole, you have segments of your kit operating entirely separated from each other with little/no unity and no feedback. Just look at Living Shadow. Here's your 50 Blood! Off you go now! You give this thing an entire section of my job gauge, but I can't do anything with it? Why? There is so much POTENTIAL, and it's not being taken advantage of.

DRK HAS changed. It is not a true oGCD spamming tank. You get four MP spenders per minute on DRK. You gain mana too slowly to do otherwise. And it doesn't make any sense not to throw those Edges into raid buffs with the rest of the garbage you are using on the boss. It doesn't take any thought, and that's the key difference between SB and ShB. Both SB and ShB had busywork. But ShB forces that busywork into ten seconds rather than over the course of the encounter. The time where you are not bursting the boss should also be engaging, and right now, it's not. Go hit a dummy after your opener, and actually think about what's happening over the next 50 seconds. It's almost as bad as healer DPS kits.

All people like to do is focus on Delirium(as if the previous one was any more interesting) and then slam the class for being a war clone on. One. Damn. Skill.

I frankly enjoy the new direction DRK is taking being heavy burst via oGCD(like it always has been) and the more controlled battery nature of its mana. I enjoy the big 500 potency swings inbetween the slashes rather than a 140 potency seizure they were previously doing. Other than PLD, every tank has a bland gcd cycle and that is attributed to the skill budget of the tanks various kits being put in oGCDS or Defensive Cooldowns. Old Blood Weapon isn't really interesting and would be counterproductive to current DRK with it's quad double weave bursts. I'd personally rather have more weaves and oGCDs to press for the feeling of speed rather than a bland 10% GCD buff to press Soul Eater faster.

Delirium can be more interesting but I'm not gonna be hung up and leave a class over one skill so /shrug.

Yeah, I'm gonna focus on Delirium. Just like Blood Weapon, it's horrible. Mainly because of Delirium's current implementation, it's drastically changed the damage profile of the job. Based on a few metrics, Bloodspiller has increased from around 12-15% of a DRK's damage, to an overwhelming 22-25% of a DRK's entire damage output. That's not right, because it's seriously screwing with the oGCD-based identity of the job by putting all the damage into a GCD skill. This is too close to WAR, because Fell Cleave is ~30% of their damage output, which would be closer to DRK's Bloodspiller amount if the Fell Cleaves didn't DCH under IR. If one -50 gauge dumping skill that now becomes free with a 90 second cooldown defines a job's output, and then that same skill is grafted onto another with no real transformation to take advantage of that job's unique mechanics, I'm more than justified in saying they are the same. Just look at their openers! They're GCD identical outside of more filler oGCDs on DRK.

Delirium before was interesting because it extended Blood Weapon, and gave you enough mana for a free Dark Arts, while draining your Blood as a prerequisite. That's THREE job elements that ONE skill was linking together, and that's why people complain about new Delirium now. It doesn't link with the job. It does NOT give you 250 Blood. It gives you free Bloodspillers that you don't have to account for in your rotation because of the GCD combo decay timer increase. It doesn't give you any meaningful amount of mana, two Syphon Strikes over the course of your natural rotation gives 200 more than it. It's timer is identical to IR, without the benefits of crits/directs, meaning DRK has the exact same crit variance problem that WAR did before IR was changed. We've inherited an issue that the job design team had ALREADY "fixed." If you want more weaves, and more oGCDs, you SHOULD want things to be reverted, because you don't get any resource accumulation to USE any oGCDs on under the current oGCD/mana economy. Edge is just too expensive for that mindset to be appropriate. I approach Delirium the same way I approach IR. And that's important because I need a segway into why Requiescat isn't a problem despite it also being a 5 GCD burst on a Tank.

To start off, Requiescat has a timer of 60 seconds, slotting in nicely with the Double RA rotation from SB, and the addition of the Atonement section in ShB. Not 90. Requiescat cannot be used if you mismanaged your mana, a FAILURE state. This can be anything from not pressing GCDs in the correct order, to using Clemency. But you gain enough mana on PLD over time to insert a Holy Spirit to delay GCDs or not have to use Shield Lob if you are forced to disengage, provided there is enough time to regenerate that amount of mana. Under Requiescat, you have three options. You can do the standard 4 HS, 1 Confiteor. You can use boosted Clemencies under progression or emergencies to help your healers. (Or a combination of both!) You can also do as many HS as you need at the end of a phase/fight, and END the burst early with Confiteor. That's a lot of options for a burst window, and fits PLD perfectly. Then you naturally transition into your physical FoF phase, while regaining mana resources. Req openers and FoF openers are also both viable, depending on the fight timeline. That's job identity, that's uniqueness, that's something only PLD can do. Req CAN be "unga bunga press button" but it also has options where you can say, "Actually, wait a second, maybe I should do this instead?" Delirium doesn't have anything like that. What can Delirium do that IR doesn't already do better? That's the problem. It doesn't create a DRK-exclusive situation in your rotation, or solve a problem in a way only DRK can. We lost that when we had it before, and losing things you like kinda sucks.

I slam the job again, and again about Delirium and Blood Weapon because of these issues. It used to be fine, now it's not. They could've complemented Edge beautifully, as it's just a more expensive DA, exactly what I wanted. For anyone who is still reading this trash, I HIGHLY recommend going into PvP and using Delirium on a dummy in there. That's what Delirium in PvE should be under this current design sandbox. It's a buff every 45 seconds that you can use for 3 Bloodspillers that give you 500 MP each (it used to be 1000). That fills in the downtime of post-opener by offsetting the 60 second burst timer, changes Delirium to become dual-purposed in GCD spam/Mana accumulation, and DIRECTLY translates into more Edges, which should be the 20-25% total damage on DRK instead of Bloodspiller. There are some other interesting changes in there too that make DRK a bit more unique, such as Edge/Flood being cheaper to use, Bloodspiller and Quietus innately granting MP on usage without Delirium, and Darkside only having a max of 30s with 15s boosts from Edge/Flood, making it a bit harder to maintain. With a bit of tweaking on the MP acquisition, that could be what we're looking for, and it's ALREADY in the game!

[jetfire117]

It's something simple and doesn't really fix these issues, but I wish they would give us our old tank CD animations like rampart, shadowskin, and foresight back. It would give the tanks some visual identity they lost going to stormblood. Yea they almost did exactly the same thing, but giving all of the tanks who have very different visual identities the same looking CD is stupid and unfitting for DRK and WAR. I really don't understand why they thought that was a good idea. Makes me fear they'll do the same with sentinel/shadow wall.

[Quri]

It's something simple and doesn't really fix these issues, but I wish they would give us our old tank CD animations like rampart, shadowskin, and foresight back. It would give the tanks some visual identity they lost going to stormblood. Yea they almost did exactly the same thing, but giving all of the tanks who have very different visual identities the same looking CD is stupid and unfitting for DRK and WAR. I really don't understand why they thought that was a good idea. Makes me fear they'll do the same with sentinel/shadow wall.

DRK, GNB, and PLD needs an additional effect on their 30% cooldowns. There's 3 sentinel and one vengeance currently. GNB a HoT, PLD is 40%, and DRK gets a mana regen.

[Nedkel]

DRK, GNB, and PLD needs an additional effect on their 30% cooldowns. There's 3 sentinel and one vengeance currently. GNB a HoT, PLD is 40%, and DRK gets a mana regen.

I would love to have this.
Also for warrior to not left behind he should be able to cast nascent flash on himself receiving 10% mitigation.

[Ultimatecalibur]

DRK, GNB, and PLD needs an additional effect on their 30% cooldowns. There's 3 sentinel and one vengeance currently. GNB a HoT, PLD is 40%, and DRK gets a mana regen.

The problem with those is that a HoT would either be overpowered or underpowered based on gear relative to the fight's assumed ilevel, 40% is overkill when tankbusters are tuned for everyone else's 30% tankbusters, and a mana regen would turn it into a pop on cooldown or it is a dps loss because more mp=more damage.

[FallenWings]

DRK lost a lot of things. Missing skill animations and lost skill interaction for sure. But I still fundamentally stand by the current direction that DRK is taking in the realm of more controlled bursts. The decision making is not as busy or frantic like it was in previous editions but that works out for me personally since I enjoy controlled actions (aligning bursts etc) over a bland "sustained dps" that only focuses on not tripping over themselves and hardly interacts with their party.

The lack of synergy, among other things is a step backwards. But overall the skeleton of the job is what I prefer over it's previous incarnations. And that is the problem with DRK right now. Compared to PLD who only evolves and becomes more complete, DRK as is is but a skeleton of a job. Lacking distinctive kit synergies and large differing playstyles from the new tank cookie cutter that SE has settled with. But that is fine because it is a result of a job rework and opens up DRK to more evolution should SE maintain their course for once and expand on ShB DRK.

The alchemic interaction with Blood and MP was really isolated only between 2 skills. TBN and Delirium. The former was interesting due to the GCD shifting nature of Bloodspiller but that was really it. You converted Dark Arts into a Bloodspiller which was a "gain" on very specific situations. The current direction of TBN storing a free Edge/Flood(oGCD) is much more coherent within mana and simply further enforces the more controlled, battery DRK playstyle I personally prefer. Delirium was a capstone offensive skill that had the most minor effect in terms of a button press. It didn't *feel* like it did anything because what it did do was spend a Bloodspiller button into a little longer Blood Weapon button.

However, DRKs dungeon toolkit and the further expanded interaction with Quietus and Abyssal drain was the peak of DRK gameplay. The issue was that it was tuned down or removed because SE wants to make dungeon tanking more uniform which achieves a balance, as hollow as it is. Dungeon being a minor portion of my interest meant that it had no real impact on me but I can understand the anguish for those who have a bit more focus on that type of content. For the most part this also means that generally, every tank's answer to AoE situations is more inline with eachother, rather than previously WAR just instawinning whilst PLD pathetically spammed Total Eclipse as their only option.

DRK being shifted from being a sustained with very minor burst to a more burst orientated class is always going to come as a shock to players because that's just what will happen to an older fanbase used to a previous identity.

Previously we were pressing buttons more spread out through the minute. You can still do that but not to the degree as it was before. But currently optimal DRK is just preparing and building up every minute for the quad double weave sequence. For the sake of comfort and accessibility; that is very good and why DRK is regarded as the most comfy tank.

A burst orientated DRK meant a more team reliant DRK. DRK truly thrived in party buffs and due to the flexible nature of Edges meant that it really gained alot from them. Optimal DRK with an optimal team pre nerfed TA was sitting at second tank DPS, which was a great motivator for job perfection. That imo is much more interesting overall than being an isolated sustained DPS that only functions on its own but that's a pet peeve more than anything and with the direction of balance as well as past stigma, co-ordinated burst has fallen to the wayside so that the selfish DPS can dominate all levels of play, for whatever reason. An unfortunate state where the tank with the most controlled burst is coming into a meta where party buffs are at their weakest.

The opener looking the same GCD wise to WAR is a no brainer because they have a similiar GCD skeleton. But DRK has the biggest opener with the strongest burst potential along with the longest double weave sequence.

All the individual skills being changed from their previous incarnation will come as a shock. But frankly I couldn't care less from what they were previously. Equally uninteresting buttons that are overglorified now simply to validate anti DRK views.
Scourge? It's just Bloodspiller without the nuisance of being a DoT. Abyssal Drain? Dungeon content button. Delirium the GCD? What Storm's Eye is now. A maintenance button.

By all means, add more kit interaction. Add more oGCDs. Bring back OG Reprisal. Bring back Low Blow procs. Let me continue the current piano like roation of DRK. Let me press a sequence of buttons in flow that makes bursting more interesting and filled with adrenaline and give me a short break inbetween these highs.

DRK is an oGCD tank and still is. (I structured my sentence incorrectly earlier and meant that DRKs identity was always a "oGCD Tank".)

Delirium sucks. It can always be better and could've been more interesting instead of throwing more weight into spillers, a skill that even animation wise doesn't flow correctly. But atleast, it is balanced, as easy as it is so my distaste of it is more tempered than most and I enjoy TBN and the oGCD bursts more to care. But that is all tanks. No PLD *wants* to break their requiscat to heal, but it is an option. HS spam is just as uninteresting but PLD is still riding it's high and people don't care enough to complain.

Don't get me started on current Blood Weapon, otherwise known as Infuriate with extra steps.

Other than the overall tank problems. The majority of the playerbase enjoys DRK as is. DRK is still very much fast but not in the GCD manner that people seem to think that only matters. DRK can be expanded and I am hopeful for its future.

It certainly is better than holding onto a bygone past and whinging about it in every single thread.

[Lukeal]

I personally feel DRK's current direction could be good. But that's the keyword here *COULD* be. Currently there's just too many similarities between the tanks and specifically between DRK and WAR that at the end of the day DRK has nothing unique except more ogcd burn phases and TBN. Living Shadow has a few moments where it shines like the add phase in E8S but its true potential is largely never tapped into.

So rather than wishing for the past iterations i LIKE where DRKs current "base" COULD go. But it's not there yet, it's like they give us half of a rework because the other half wouldn't fit with the other tanks this expansion or something. Delirium legit feels like it was brought up in their design last minute because they couldn't fit whatever else they wanted to and just needed something to close the missing damage on the Job. I still raid on DRK just because i like the job fantasy and aesthetics, but it bothers me that there's so much great potential here that hasn't been used. And like all potential that's all it is "potential" until it is correctly brought out.