5.3 patch complete note. Yes just keept upgrade WAR and forget about DRK

[TouchandFeel]

Just a quick note, while I am using your quotes, I am not arguing against or at you. I am simply commenting on the topic you are addressing or using what you said as a springboard for my own thoughts.

1) DRK could do with a 4th GCD combo so it isn't 123 the entire fight.

I agree that DRK needs something to break up the 1-2-3 combo rotation more, but I disagree about the solution being adding another combo-ender weaponskill. I just don't see what another combo could bring that is meaningful that isn't something that another job already does with one of their combos. Debuffs were removed entirely, so that is a no-go. A buff like say moving Darkside upkeep to said combo just mimicks Storm's Eye on WAR. A DoT is just like PLD's other combo. Trying to rejigger resource gain by splitting it between different combos would likely really mess with the job in a bad way. So really what does that leave us with? Pretty much nothing asides from just trying to shoe-horn another combo-ender in just because.

Instead I think a potentially good direction that DRK could go in to break up the combo rotation monotony is to look at and take some inspiration for how GNB breaks up their standard combo rotation, by providing enough resources frequently so that basically every combo rotation is accompanied by a cartridge spender.
Now I'm not necessarily saying that DRK should get 50 Blood every combo rotation, although that could possibly work if done in tandem with other changes, but I believe that increasing the frequency of Bloodspiller usage would likely be more effective at breaking up the Soul Eater rotation and making the job feel "faster" than having another combo-ender weaponskill.

1)
2) RI is SiO fodder yes, and Nascent is good, sure. But TBN being the strongest single target shield means bupkis if you use it and it doesn't break. (had this argument before that it's uSeR eRrOr so many times, idc.)

Oh boy, I've got some thoughts on this topic.

TBN is a great skill and very powerful, but there are discernible caveats that make the argument that it is "hands down the best defensive in the game" questionable. I mean it can be argued as such, but there are counterpoints that too often get ignored. The main being of course the one that you mentioned which is that TBN needs to break or it is a heavy dps loss, which means that it should only be used when it is sure that it will break. This means that there are situations where you will avoid using it entirely where other tank's can still use their short recast defensive abilities for some defensive benefit and no potential drawback. As I have said before there are situations where it can save the tank more HP than the other tank equivalents, there are situations where it will save approximately the same amount and there are situations where it will save less even to the point of saving none since it can't be used.

I also find the argument that gets thrown out "well if you aren't taking enough to pop TBN then you didn't need it" asinine. Sure you may not have "needed" it but by that logic then neither would the other tanks have needed their short recast defensives that they can still use and benefit from. It's quite the double standard.
Then when you think of that argument and combine it with another argument that I see come up, "TBN is so powerful it can sometimes stop you from taking any damage so it is like a Hollowed Ground you can use frequently". For starters if you are using TBN in situations where it is negating all or around all damage, you are either having it not pop and taking a dps loss or you are dancing on a razor's edge and may have gotten lucky but that won't always be the case. That and if you are taking so little damage that TBN negates basically all of it, then according to the first argument I referenced, aren't you taking so little damage that you didn't need it anyways, therefore negating the second argument.
There is no doubt that TBN is a very powerful defensive ability and in harder content where it will break consistently most of or all of the time it's probably the best of the short recast defensives, if you ignore the incredible self-heal potential from NF which will likely be a bit worse in some instances and way better in others. However, some of the arguments leveled against it make no sense when actually scrutinized.

As for the statement they made about Raw Intuition being trash because of how powerful Nascent Flash is, that logic is incredibly flawed. Yes if you look at WAR and only WAR, then RI looks like a waste of an ability since the majority of the time NF will be more beneficial but that is only because of how powerful NF is. Then if you look at the other tank short recast defensives RI is pretty on par with the rest, which would point to NF being the outlier, meaning that RI isn't actually "trash" but that NF is just insanely good.
Honestly in regards to having a weak short recast defensive, GNB probably has the most room to complain, what with HoS's 15% damage reduction (5% less than RI) and 7s duration (only 1s more than RI).

3) You literally contradicted yourself here. DRK's damage IS baked into a 10s window, it's just not as good as IR. As well, BW is still awkward to time to get all 5 hits for the full 50 blood, whereas Infuriate is instant 50 gauge, so there's no chance of missing out and only getting 40 resource.

Yeah, I have no idea what they were talking about there either.
DRK's primary burst is 10s long on a 90s recast and is comprised of spamming their hard-hitting resource GCD attack 5 times, virtually exactly the same as WAR. In fact that is one of the most common complaints against Delirium.
Also, like you alluded to, Blood Weapon is very similar in terms of output to Infuriate in that it gives you enough resources for an extra Blood attack and an extra Edge/Flood, while Infuriate instantly gives you enough resources to then use on an upgraded version of your Beast attack. Essentially Blood Weapon is just a buggier (since that 5th attack doesn't always register in the window) version of Infuriate stretched out over 10s instead of being instant. It's also not like it really changes up what you do during those 10s, you are still doing the same rotation, you just get more resources from doing it.

Yes, Living Shadow is somewhat different since it is on a 120s recast, but it is a single button press every two minutes. I mean I like the ability and all, but it isn't some huge divergence in game-play that makes DRK vastly different than WAR. A little different, yes. A lot different, no.

Lastly, Edge does allow DRK to spread out their dps a bit more that WAR, that is true; but you better believe that any remotely competent DRK is trying to squeeze every Edge they can into those 10 seconds under Delirium.

So yeah, DRK most definitely follows the same general 90s cadence that WAR does.

SE: How do we fix LD, players?
1: ADD CONVA EFFECT
2: DONT MAKE IT AUTO KILL YOU
3: CHANGE % OF HEALING REQUIRED
4: CHANGE WHAT THE EFFECT DOES

While there is variance and a level of disagreement on how to address the problem with Living Dead, I believe that there is fairly unanimous consensus on the foundation of the problem, that a defensive ability shouldn't be able to actively kill you.

As for the suggestions referenced, 1 and 3 are effectively the same and basically just reduce the healing requirement. These suggestions however have a couple of problems with them that to me at least are a deal breaker.
First is that it still leaves in the death penalty which I feel is an unnecessary complication. You are already only reducing damage taken once you hit 1hp and you can still take damage during that time if healed. The healer not having your hp high enough when the ability wears off should be what kills you, not the ability itself and that shouldn't require ridiculous last minute burst healing equal to your entire hp pool.
Second is that reducing the required healing makes cleansing the death effect easier but that is not the only thing that gets cleansed, the invulnerability goes with it. That means that it is also easier for a healer to accidentally cleanse the DRK too early which at best means they get less out of the ability and at worse leads to the DRK's death.

As for 4, the only real different effect that I can recall seeing coming up is replacing death with a weakness state, and that also is not acceptable to me. Why should we accept some arbitrary negative attached to the ability when none of the other do? Are we all suffering from some sort of weird Stockholm syndrome-like affect where we feel like we have to punished by the ability?

To me 2 is really the only option that makes sense. Just simply get rid of the death penalty but keep the aspect of healing to a certain % of total hp dispelling the invuln effect. That way you get the benefit of a ease-of-use cushion at the beginning to hit 1hp, but then the healer has to be somewhat careful about their healing so that they don't accidentally cleanse it. A little wiggle room upfront and a little caution towards the end to balance it out. Best of all, the ability itself won't kill you.

[Absurdity]

As for the statement they made about Raw Intuition being trash because of how powerful Nascent Flash is, that logic is incredibly flawed. Yes if you look at WAR and only WAR, then RI looks like a waste of an ability since the majority of the time NF will be more beneficial but that is only because of how powerful NF is. Then if you look at the other tank short recast defensives RI is pretty on par with the rest, which would point to NF being the outlier, meaning that RI isn't actually "trash" but that NF is just insanely good.

Probably worth adding is that yes, NF can be extremely powerful but only if you know what you're doing. It requires certain conditions to be met and in that sense it is very similar to TBN, if you just press it on cooldown you might as well not use it at all.

[Sqwall]

Probably worth adding is that yes, NF can be extremely powerful but only if you know what you're doing. It requires certain conditions to be met and in that sense it is very similar to TBN, if you just press it on cooldown you might as well not use it at all.

I can attest to this that NF is REALLY powerful when you need it post 5.3. I have been playing on my warrior almost exclusively after 5.3 and Nascent is simply amazing to use when I need it versus trying to heal someone up with the old gimmicky way. I use Nascent more then I ever have and it makes warrior feel very sturdy now. Nascent lines up MUCH better with Infuriate-Inner Chaos and Inner Release burst window. I have the choice now to look at my HP, if it's topped off Raw Intuition it is. I love the extra choices now that Nascent if free. While also complimenting the class, Storms Eye is MUCH more manageable and has made me change up my hot bar for my 1-2-3 combo.

I open with tomahawk > Storms Eye combo > Infuriate > Nascent > Inner Chaos > Infuriate > Inner Chaos > Inner Release (refresh SE timer) > Fell Cleave > Upheaval > Fell Cleave > Onslaught > Fell Cleave x3 > Path > Path > Fell Cleave > Storms Eye

Having Nascent no longer tied to a party member allows me to finally complete my opener the way I kinda of wanted it to work since 5.0. Warrior truly is the life steal tank now...as much as others don't want to admit it. I really don't have any issues any more trying to get HP back, before it was very lack luster even with Equilibrium/Thrill of Battle. You just can't discount your getting more path combos in now and Nascent is godlike.

The warrior kit IMO is perfect much like PLD at this point. NOW DON'T TOUCH IT! LOL we only want 1 maybe 2 new skills next expansion SE, and for the love of all that is holy just make it compliment what we already have! Something like Counter Attack, 6 sec. you counter all auto attacks with an auto attack or something. Would couple nicely with Nascent for more sustainability. Just a thought

[DRKoftheAzure]

The warrior kit IMO is perfect much like PLD at this point. NOW DON'T TOUCH IT! LOL we only want 1 maybe 2 new skills next expansion SE, and for the love of all that is holy just make it compliment what we already have! Something like Counter Attack, 6 sec. you counter all auto attacks with an auto attack or something. Would couple nicely with Nascent for more sustainability. Just a thought

Challenge Accepted.


Warrior needs to be less boring with it's DPS rotation, because spamming the 1 combo for more than 5 minutes straight with almost no variance outside of spamming a button 5-7-9 times just does not sit right with me at all because I don't like looking at the same 1 or 3 animations over and over again and make me more likely to go "this is not fun at all... it's also boring..." more often than the opposite... maybe it's because I like the combo system that FF14 has for DPS(which it also used to have for the older tanks before Shadowbringers) which is very likely...


Anyway Warrior, like Dark Knight, needs a rework to be less boring to look at and play and more fun to look at and play...

[Sqwall]

Challenge Accepted.


Warrior needs to be less boring with it's DPS rotation, because spamming the 1 combo for more than 5 minutes straight with almost no variance outside of spamming a button 5-7-9 times just does not sit right with me at all because I don't like looking at the same 1 or 3 animations over and over again and make me more likely to go "this is not fun at all... it's also boring..." more often than the opposite... maybe it's because I like the combo system that FF14 has for DPS(which it also used to have for the older tanks before Shadowbringers) which is very likely...


Anyway Warrior, like Dark Knight, needs a rework to be less boring to look at and play and more fun to look at and play...

Warrior does not need a 3rd rework! I can respect your opinion that warrior feels boring or slow, but I actually like that in a tank. The less I have to worry about the better. Gives more thought time for other things going on. Maybe it's my age, nearly 40. But I want to log in to decompress not add to my frustration. Warrior is so comfortable now due to it's SLOW nature. Sure I do agree it can get stale, but not boring. Go play MNK from 1-80 and left me know how that rotation feels after 80 levels. MNK is stale, but that's a DPS. Apples to Oranges here Warrior is the slow heavy hitting tank, and yeah I miss Butchers Block (most satisfying animation in the game hands down). Compare that to PLD a very fast disciplined rotatation during a savage fight, while tanking, and a ton of situational awareness, and i'm ready for a break. Now I can do savage content with my warrior, and enjoy it more.

For warrior this is hitting the reset button and looking towards the future, and if SE can follow this idea for warrior and sprinkle in some new flashy attacks then so be it. BUT DON'T SCREW IT UP! Like I said 1 - 2 new skills for variety sake or pull a paladin and REPLACE/TRAIT the old skills. BUT DON'T SCREW IT UP!

[TouchandFeel]

Probably worth adding is that yes, NF can be extremely powerful but only if you know what you're doing. It requires certain conditions to be met and in that sense it is very similar to TBN, if you just press it on cooldown you might as well not use it at all.

I agree that NF requires proper usage of it to make it shine, but to be fair any defensive ability requires certain conditions to be met to get the most out of it and all of them require a sense of knowing what you are doing.

While NF requires more knowledge, thought and planning like TBN does, the difference between NF and the rest of the short recast defensives is the ceiling of gain possible when knowing how to use it.
If used during normal combo rotation it may not seem that impressive, but lining it up with Infuriate/Inner Chaos and Inner Release, which isn't too difficult since the 25s recast is so close to 30s, gives a very strong amount of healing back that can surpass the HP saved by the other defensives.
So if you used NF about every 30s; you basically end up with one that returns a lesser amount of HP every 30s interval that doesn't overlap with Infuriate or Inner Release, one that returns a good amount of HP that can be a bit better than the other defensives every 60s by lining it up with Infuriate/Inner Chaos, and one that returns a large amount of HP every 90s when lined up with Inner Release.
Now of course this requires you to sync the ability with your own timing and so makes it more difficult to sync it to the timings of the encounter mechanics, so you may not be able to line up NF, Inner Chaos or Inner Release and spike damage like a buster, that much is true. But in such a case that is happening and you aren't able to cover the buster with you other defensives, WAR has the option to fall back on Raw Intuition if they need to and then just go back to using NF when they can get more HP from it. As I said before, their bases are covered. When dps burst isn't lining up or when you really really need to make sure you aren't one-shot, RI has you covered. Every other time, NF.

While they both do require you to coordinate your usage of the abilities, their feedback loops to the player are polar opposites.
When you use NF poorly you simply minimize your gains and when you use NF well you are handsomely rewarded. This is a positive feedback loop.
When you use TBN poorly you lose a good chunk of dps and when you use it well you simply aren't punished. This is a negative feedback loop.

[Absurdity]

While they both do require you to coordinate your usage of the abilities, their feedback loops to the player are polar opposites.
When you use NF poorly you simply minimize your gains and when you use NF well you are handsomely rewarded. This is a positive feedback loop.
When you use TBN poorly you lose a good chunk of dps and when you use it well you simply aren't punished. This is a negative feedback loop.

I do have to add that using NF poorly doesn't just mean that you minize healing gained depending on where you use it. Choosing to use NF instead of RI on a buster for example and then not utilizing those 6 seconds of selfheal optimally doesn't just mean that you would've gotten more value out of RI but also that your healers now need to spend more resources to make up for the extra damage you took and didn't heal up yourself. Poor TBN usage means you atleast still mitigate damage so you're just screwing yourself over, poor NF usage can screw your healers over as well.



But you don't need to tell me about the less-than-stellar feedback you get from using TBN, tell it to the people who keep screaming about how TBN is the best skill ever and anyone who disagrees doesn't know how to DRK.