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

[bundythenoob]

I agree with this. When I do play DRK I don't want TBN to feel pigeon holed as "tank buster block". I have moments when i'm nearly capped on MP and 50 sec left on darkness. I just pop TBN for the added mitigation, so what if it doesn't break. I mitigated some damage for the healer to DPS. I know it's not implied for the healer to "know" this, but I would think if I was on my astro I would see the tank is fine...dps time!

I think DRK imo could benefit from Dark Arts more. It should bring back the same buffs for Souleater, Abyssal, Delirium, Carve and Spit. If i'm capped on MP don't use flood or edge, but use Souleater for a large HP boost. Capped on HP and MP, use with delirium for 20% more dps for 10 seconds. (10% from Darkness and 10% from Dark Arts).

I actually miss Dark Arts, and knowing when to use it correctly for added benefits. This would also make TBN used more besides flood and edge procs, this would just modify the skills without procing. It's kind of the best of both worlds for DRK. Adjust the potency

I have been thinking of ways to reintegrate Dark Arts into the kit, using the new proc system. since its effectively placed Dark Arts on a 15 second cooldown, there should definitely be more integration into our kits to mirror the old Heavesnward decision making gameplay, such as empowering souleater to become a direct critical cure, abyssal drain being able to be cast for free, carve and spit restoring more than a measly 600 mana, and maybe even to give dark mind the old blood price effect (capped at 3k mana generation to balance out). Abyssal drain definitely needs to come back as a mana spender that rivals Edge in single target and isnt too broken in multi, but the problem is that most of these skills would have to give equal value when compared to the 500 potency of Edge of Shadow.

I also want to invite any DRK players to check out some simple yet effective QOL changes I've proposed in another thread. I believe we can get Square to make some simple changes by 5.35 or 5.4, so lets band together and discuss there!

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...hanges-for-5.4

[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.

[VenKitsune]

Did you get kicked out of savage groups and statics because you play DRK?
NO! Because the tanks are still balanced and you can play any tank you want.
These 2 just got QoL changes and the WAR should get a bit closer to DRK and PLD dmg.

Pretty sure WAR damage is higher than DRK ever since 5.2 changes, DRK becoming the lowest damage tank in the game. Now with these changes in 5.3, this is actually a pretty substantial buff as it means WAR's can get a lot more wrath, and by extension use fell cleave more per fight. I dont really have any numbers to back it up but i'd hazard a guess that GNB, PLD and WAR are more of less equal in terms of damage and DRK is far lower than it should be. DRK needs buffs, now more than ever that WAR got some, Because that "Oh well they're mostly balanced" stance is changing slowly, and by the end of the expansion if they dont do anything DRK will be the one that isnt played, much like PLD in HW and...well, and DRK in SB

[Quor]

I'll never understand how lazy an AST or SCH has to be to not be able to heal a DRK up from WD. Synastry is on a shorter CD than Bene, and it plus a single ED is more than enough to get 100% of a DRK's life back within 2-4 GCD's, depending on crits. Yes, that's 2-4 GCD's you aren't nuking, deal with it, you're a healer, you heal people. Sometimes as a tank you need to re-position and it means you clip or drop a GCD. You just deal with it because that's your job. Sometimes as a healer you just gotta heal. You just deal with it because it's your job. You don't bitch about it on the forums like a petulant child because the game expects you to do your primary role.

SCH isn't bad either. A Recitation Excog+Physick+Lustrate combo is perfect, and if Recitation isn't up you either toss out another Lustrate or an additional Physick or two. Yes, 1-3 GCD's and a CD or two, and the loss of a precious 300-450 potency because you can't ED due to having to actually heal with your AF charges. Cry me a river. I lose more potency when a mechanic forces me to maneuver a boss in the middle of my BW or Delirium windows, but I still move the boss. Because that's what a tank does, they put the needs of the group before themselves so as to make it as easy and streamlined as possible for the dps and healers.

I don't even play healer that seriously, but the couple of times I've been in the latest story trial, dealing with the white hole-lite mechanic at the beginning is child's play. Yet, as a tank, I've had healers let me die from it more times than I'd like to count. It's like the idea of overhealing being a bad thing has so infested people's minds that they'd rather let both tanks die then just top them off. Sure, try to avoid overhealing when possible, but when it's a matter of saving someone's life, just fucking do the overheal. Who gives a shit what your parse will say on FFlogs.

As for DRK, our survivability is fine. Great even. Yes, LD has it's limitations, but that's as much on some healers being lazy af as it is on skill design. The thing DRK needs more than anything else is something to do besides a single 1-2-3 combo when in single target. Our AoE feels great, with a pair of oGCD options and a mix of line, targeted circular and pbaoe to choose from. Our single target is just boring outside of an opener or re-opener.

[Absurdity]

Pretty sure WAR damage is higher than DRK ever since 5.2 changes, DRK becoming the lowest damage tank in the game. Now with these changes in 5.3, this is actually a pretty substantial buff as it means WAR's can get a lot more wrath, and by extension use fell cleave more per fight. I dont really have any numbers to back it up but i'd hazard a guess that GNB, PLD and WAR are more of less equal in terms of damage and DRK is far lower than it should be. DRK needs buffs, now more than ever that WAR got some, Because that "Oh well they're mostly balanced" stance is changing slowly, and by the end of the expansion if they dont do anything DRK will be the one that isnt played, much like PLD in HW and...well, and DRK in SB

No it is not a "substancial buff". With these changes you gain 10 more gauge every 90 seconds so over an 8 minute fight you gain 1 extra Fellcleave which amounts to ~7 dps more, an increase so miniscule that you see more varience by getting good or bad crit rng. Those numbers aren't set in stone yet but it certainly doesn't look like a dps increase and if you look at the actual changes why would it? Sure, we may gain some more dps by not having eye drop off during boss transitions anymore where it would've done so before.

But our general rotation has barely changed, you still refresh Storm's Eye as close to every 30 seconds as possible, IR just gives us 15 seconds more on Eye every 90 sec so you can do exactly 1 Storm's Path combo before you need to refresh Eye.


Whether or not a warrior does more dps than a drk is fight dependent, has been since 5.0.

I'll never understand how lazy an AST or SCH has to be to not be able to heal a DRK up from WD. Synastry is on a shorter CD than Bene, and it plus a single ED is more than enough to get 100% of a DRK's life back within 2-4 GCD's, depending on crits. Yes, that's 2-4 GCD's you aren't nuking, deal with it, you're a healer, you heal people. Sometimes as a tank you need to re-position and it means you clip or drop a GCD. You just deal with it because that's your job. Sometimes as a healer you just gotta heal. You just deal with it because it's your job. You don't bitch about it on the forums like a petulant child because the game expects you to do your primary role.

SCH isn't bad either. A Recitation Excog+Physick+Lustrate combo is perfect, and if Recitation isn't up you either toss out another Lustrate or an additional Physick or two. Yes, 1-3 GCD's and a CD or two, and the loss of a precious 300-450 potency because you can't ED due to having to actually heal with your AF charges. Cry me a river. I lose more potency when a mechanic forces me to maneuver a boss in the middle of my BW or Delirium windows, but I still move the boss. Because that's what a tank does, they put the needs of the group before themselves so as to make it as easy and streamlined as possible for the dps and healers.

The argument was never that it is unhealable, the argument is that it is way more of a resource investment than healing any of the other tank invulns and that's simply a fact. The comparison with tanks is also a pretty bad one because the game doesn't force you to lose uptime while moving a boss, if you do then you just messed up. The game does however force you to heal LD if you don't want to spend even more time and resources getting the dead tank back up.

[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.