Dark Knight - I Used To Love You

[shao32]

As someone who only started playing in Shb (and doesn't mind DRK, though it does feel similar to WAR), why did they change this?
It looks so much more interesting here... I mean some of these abilities look really cool. That entire Darkside stance, along with abilities interacting with it? That's super cool.
So... what happened?

The curse of being the poster boy? Devs hating us? Leaving the job for the last of the list and find they run out of time so they go trough WAR gameplay to fill they huge holes they left after removing everything to released it on time?
I don't know, the only thing I know the job I use to love doesn't exist anymore, they ignored us and give us this Frankenstein filled with useless mechanics like darkside and living shadow with his new gauge and the whole rage system copy pasted from WAR with oversimplification to his MP management making it non existed.

what I know nobody ask for this, we claim how much we loved HW gameplay in SB and they give us a black WAR with a oGCD burst window on raid buffs, they solved the problems by removing the problems so no more problems right?.

Sorry I know I sound a bit frustrating when I talk about DRK, it's just the wound still bleeds for me, I have no real answer about why they did this, some will say we asked for this and defend it but I will always disagree with them, if I knew DRK will become this I would never support any change to the job honestly, what I know if we want to DRK being unique and fun like HW we have to fight for it and pray the devs listen to us for once.

[ArianeEwah]

I can only agree with shao. Nobody knows because nobody asked for this.

I can only imagine that the dev team felt the urge to dumb down DRK because nobody was really playing it in SB... but for the wrong reason.

My guess: the dev team saw WAR as the most favoured tank in its previous iterations and copy-pasted it for DRK because they had no freaking idea what to do with the job. And/or because YoshiP once said in an interview they wanted to have 2 MTs+2 OTs this expansion - probably with PLD+GNB prefered OT, and WAR+DRK prefered MT, looking at their current toolkit. After they copy-pasted WAR they had little time to actually design it, and called it a day after the uproar from the community about the upcoming MT/OT design... in hindsight the prefered MT/OT design might have been the better choice here. Who knows?!

€dit: found the interview (reddit link)

Q: Right now, the three tanks are well-balanced. What will happen when you throw another job into the mix? Can you tell us roughly what Gunbreaker's special characteristics will be?

A: Honestly, please wait until May for the answer. We'll show you how the four tanks will differentiate themselves, including their new actions. We've had three tanks up to Patch 4.5, and we see tank players' preferences with regards to MTing, OTing, tank stances, etc. I don't think it'd be good for the three tanks to form a "triangle", so maybe we'll balance them by having two MTs and two OTs, or make them capable of both. Right now, we're working towards a compromise as we adjust the actions. We'll announce the battle system details in May, so please wait until then.

[Ultimatecalibur]

My guess: the dev team saw WAR as the most favoured tank in its previous iterations and copy-pasted it for DRK because they had no freaking idea what to do with the job. And/or because YoshiP once said in an interview they wanted to have 2 MTs+2 OTs this expansion - probably with PLD+GNB prefered OT, and WAR+DRK prefered MT, looking at their current toolkit. After they copy-pasted WAR they had little time to actually design it, and called it a day after the uproar from the community about the upcoming MT/OT design... in hindsight the prefered MT/OT design might have been the better choice here. Who knows?!

I suspect the DRK fell victim to the more broad fight design, tank and general mechanics changes. HW's Darkside MP Drain caused problems when they started using full cutscene transitions in Zurvan and StB's "No MP Regen/Refresh" Darkside meant that the cutscene transitions that were meant to be semi-reset points failed to do so for the DRK if they forgot to turn it off, removal of all external sources of MP recovery/Refresh made the No MP Regen pointless, WARs cheesing Phantom Train adds meant that all fights and Tanks needed to be designed to account for Tank burst dps to prevent a repeat, Enmity combos were culled, Counter and Hit base resource recovery actions and abilities were mostly removed so that MT/OT dps was equal and dps resources and defensive resources were for the most part disentangled or made almost always dps neutral.

[ArianeEwah]

I suspect the DRK fell victim to the more broad fight design, tank and general mechanics changes.

Partly, the biggest changes still happened to BW and (Blood)Delirium. They are copy-pasted actions from WARs Infuriate and Inner Release. But I can't recall anyone asking for them to become (such obvious) clones.
If their goal was simply to make tanks easier/more accessable, the change from Dark Arts+Darkside to Darkness/Shadow actions+Darkside would've been enough.
I doubt it had anything to do with mechanics, but rather the dev team becoming lazy to balance 3-4 different tanks, and thus laid a "new basement" for DRK as it was the most unique/different tank prior ShB.

HW's Darkside MP Drain

I actually thought about giving a statement about this in my previous post, but decided not to. Anyway, I agree the trend going toward easier/less punishing gameplay, especially on DRK. You had to "not forget" to turn it off, or think twice before turning it off and on again after x seconds, i.e. was the gain greater than the activation cost. The changes in SB made it less punishing. And in ShB the Darkside-buff applied by Darkness/Shadow actions would've been fine... tho... strange.

The last remains of "Counter and Hit" from HW is just Vengeance (and to a degree TBN), Shield Swipe was the previous victim that didn't survive ShB. Let's see what the next expac will bring.

(But honestly, if they doesn't change directions, I doubt anything good will come of it. Healers and tanks have been hit hard, way harder than we actually thought at first. And aside from a few QoL changes, SE keeps quiet about those roles.)

[yamyamcake]

not like the way it moves lol