DRK QOL changes for 5.4

[Danelo]

I get what you’re saying - some of the changes I agree with and some I think are more in the category of visual preference. That being said, 99% of DRKs think that BW doesn’t function as intended. If it is then there’s a fundamental issue of needing to add skill speed and spell speed (bcs aoe rotation are spells not abilities) to your build to get 5 gcds in. Point being that we can almost all agree there is a problem when you compare BW to other like abilities. While there have been multiple ideas put forward on how to fix some DRK abilities the one driving constant is that the ideas all travel in the same direction. SE just needs to take the ball and run with it - be bold and stop playing it safe.

[Lyth]

I think the dev team needs to have a clear vision on the central concept for each tank. That's not something that should change from expansion to expansion, even if the gameplay does. It's also not something that should overlap with other tanks.

While DRK should have really been built around lifesteal from the ground up, it isn't. And rather than giving every tank their own token lifesteal move and diluting the concept, they should just double down and focus on building WAR up around that concept. Living Dead, likewise, makes no sense on a tank without focused self-healing potential. So put it on WAR and let them fight for their lives. They're the only ones capable of doing it.

Likewise, the most unique element of DRK gameplay that's persisted to date is TBN. That barrier shield concept is something that should be exclusive to DRK. Turn Shake it Off into something healing and HP boosting, and turn Dark Missionary into a groupwide bubble. Let us be the Zarya to their Roadhog. Bubble yourself, bubble your team, hit harder and faster. You could even tie Darkside uptime into it. Every time one of your bubbles take damage, your Darkside timer increases incrementally. While Darkside is active, you have increased damage and the old Blood Weapon style attack speed boost. Give Darkside the Greased Lightning treatment. Give us a shield styled invuln - when you hit 1 HP, any additional damage you take gets converted into barrier shields when the effect ends. The instant you start giving everyone their own personal watered down version of a "bubble", then you kill off the identity.

The dev team is too reactive. They're too busy putting out fires and trying to fend off complaints. The problem with tanking job identities is that there's no clear vision. So you could get a really cool ability that seems job defining, only for everyone else to get a copycat ability the next expansion. Or worse, it gets converted to a role action in a diluted form. You need to have distinct gameplay experiences that are capable of achieving similar goals. But the starting point is not to give everyone equivalent actions from a common template (Rampart/Sentinal/Hallowed Ground). The starting point is to develop unique concepts and try to solve the same problem different ways.

[cactuarzzzz]

I don't get why we must be the BARRIER/BUBBLE KNIGHT either. At this rate when 6.0 came I can see how Abyssal Drain and Salted Earth erased or did something unrelated to it's own name like equilibrium did in this patch. And before long I bet we might not even have darksides either.

"You're already at the xxx stage of grief so whatever the great producer like me put you through, you would eventually find a way to coping again... like in Shadownbringers! Dark Knight are easy prey. They can't unite against me since I've planted the seed to divided them back in HW. Dark Knight is a scapegoat! ooopse! I forget, your job name isn't Dark Knight anymore. You are a BUBBLE KNIGHT now!"

Mix Barrier with LD isn't going to help much because barrier isn't allow to stay more than a few secs. After it naturally fade away if you can't heal yourself up enough then you're still in trouble in solo contents and it doesn't change the fact that healer still need to heal you up before barrier fade away in group content.

And the last note about these "SE need to stop being xxx, SE need to start doing xxx".

I wish you luck... Not sarcasm or to offend but as far as I can see.. dev don't have to do anything and there would be some people jump ship to main other tank or keep resub so they can come and complain in here, some people has already gone to the great length to vow that they won't stop coming here to post until they get what they want. Now then, what the dev needed to do in these situation?

NOTHING.

And they would still get the sub money. Not to mention that covid keep pushing more and more people into the game.

[ADVSS]

I don't get why we must be the BARRIER/BUBBLE KNIGHT either. At this rate when 6.0 came I can see how Abyssal Drain and Salted Earth erased or did something unrelated to it's own name like equilibrium did in this patch. And before long I bet we might not even have darksides either.

"You're already at the xxx stage of grief so whatever the great producer like me put you through, you would eventually find a way to coping again... like in Shadownbringers! Dark Knight are easy prey. They can't unite against me since I've planted the seed to divided them back in HW. Dark Knight is a scapegoat! ooopse! I forget, your job name isn't Dark Knight anymore. You are a BUBBLE KNIGHT now!"

Mix Barrier with LD isn't going to help much because barrier isn't allow to stay more than a few secs. After it naturally fade away if you can't heal yourself up enough then you're still in trouble in solo contents and it doesn't change the fact that healer still need to heal you up before barrier fade away.

And the last note about these "SE need to stop being xxx, SE need to start doing xxx".

I wish you luck... Not sarcasm or to offend but as far as I can see.. dev don't have to do anything and there would be some people jump ship to main other tank or keep resub so they can come and complain in here, some people has already gone to the great length to vow that they won't stop coming here to post until they get what they want. Now then, what the dev needed to do in these situation?

NOTHING.

And they would still get the sub money. Not to mention that covid keep pushing more and more people into the game.

Actually I really really like Lyth's suggestion. Like 100% I would be totally okay with blood shield knight, that suggestion makes a lot of sense if you think about it. WAR can keep the lifesteal tank, if DRK were designed as a barrier tank with more attack speed driven game play. As it stands right now, i just meld as much sks as possible because bloodweapon is even nerfed if you're missing extra GCD thats extra mp for more damage/mitigation. Might as well shed the skin, and come back as a tank with its own identity That will probably get nerfed to shit halfway through 6.0, but it would be a good year of best iteration of DRK in XIV. Its just that...all of its setup and design is right now focused on how many times you can complete your combo, for blood as well as MP. Not having the speed, is just making it kind of like watching paint dry, as well as forcing it back as least dps tank atm.

I think the dev team needs to have a clear vision on the central concept for each tank. That's not something that should change from expansion to expansion, even if the gameplay does. It's also not something that should overlap with other tanks.

While DRK should have really been built around lifesteal from the ground up, it isn't. And rather than giving every tank their own token lifesteal move and diluting the concept, they should just double down and focus on building WAR up around that concept. Living Dead, likewise, makes no sense on a tank without focused self-healing potential. So put it on WAR and let them fight for their lives. They're the only ones capable of doing it.

Likewise, the most unique element of DRK gameplay that's persisted to date is TBN. That barrier shield concept is something that should be exclusive to DRK. Turn Shake it Off into something healing and HP boosting, and turn Dark Missionary into a groupwide bubble. Let us be the Zarya to their Roadhog. Bubble yourself, bubble your team, hit harder and faster. You could even tie Darkside uptime into it. Every time one of your bubbles take damage, your Darkside timer increases incrementally. While Darkside is active, you have increased damage and the old Blood Weapon style attack speed boost. Give Darkside the Greased Lightning treatment. Give us a shield styled invuln - when you hit 1 HP, any additional damage you take gets converted into barrier shields when the effect ends. The instant you start giving everyone their own personal watered down version of a "bubble", then you kill off the identity.

The dev team is too reactive. They're too busy putting out fires and trying to fend off complaints. The problem with tanking job identities is that there's no clear vision. So you could get a really cool ability that seems job defining, only for everyone else to get a copycat ability the next expansion. Or worse, it gets converted to a role action in a diluted form. You need to have distinct gameplay experiences that are capable of achieving similar goals. But the starting point is not to give everyone equivalent actions from a common template (Rampart/Sentinal/Hallowed Ground). The starting point is to develop unique concepts and try to solve the same problem different ways.

I just thought of a barrier-like tank invuln that might be interesting if they paired the barrier concept with like a minus strike(similar to BLU revenge blast, but maybe the potency maxes around 50% or lower.
Something like this for the invuln.


Duration 6-10 secs? im not a good maths guy
Effect: User reduces damage taken by 90%
While Active: All healing done to target is stored/but not immediately recieved(think scholars excog)
Effect End: Target at 1 HP, or duration is finished
Additional Effect at End: All healing done to target is refunded upon effect ending.
Actually, maybe we should just stick to something like holmgang or bolide....just realized healers might dump too many resources untill they realize that the tank invuln was used...

[cactuarzzzz]

I was one of people who suggest we get haste-gcd boost before too but speed won't help you. DRK's slow feeling came from the long and slow attack animation despite having the same gcd sks with other tank. If you simply want to fix BW then gcd speed isn't necessary because as it is right now you still need to wait for 5 gcd after 60s so even with sks boost it doesn't change the fact that you still need more than 60s and land 5 hits. SkS Boost can also make weaving harder depend on how long the weaponskill/ability have animation lock because your weaving window = gcd. If you want to make haste a thing for DRK and make the most of it then you must change DRK to reliant on GCD attack even more which mean you can't have more OGC.

Focus on Barrier could lower DRK Compatibility with SCH because a barrier needed to break but when you stack barrier it didn't have diminish return and harder to break.


Why life drain is better :

If you only have life Drain but not Barrier.

Boss use Tank Buster

You use mitigation

TB hit you and leave you with 50% HP

You use Life Drain and heal your self up to 90%.

You won't ever going to die to TB


If you only have Barrier but not life Drain.

Boss use Tank Buster

You use barrier+mitigation

TB break your barrier and leave you with 70% HP

By the 4th TB it will kill you.

[ADVSS]

I was one of people who suggest we get haste-gcd boost before too but speed won't help you. DRK's slow feeling came from the long and slow attack animation despite having the same gcd sks with other tank. If you simply want to fix BW then gcd speed isn't necessary because as it is right now you still need to wait for 5 gcd after 60s so even with sks boost it doesn't change the fact that you still need more than 60s and land 5 hits. SkS Boost can also make weaving harder depend on how long the weaponskill/ability have animation lock because your weaving window = gcd. Focus on Barrier could even lower DRK Compatibility with SCH because a barrier needed to break but when you stack barrier it didn't have diminish return and harder to break.


Why life drain is better :

If you only have life Drain but not Barrier.

Boss use Tank Buster

You use mitigation

TB hit you and leave you with 50% HP

You use Life Drain and heal your self up to 90%.

You won't ever going to die to TB


If you only have Barrier but not life Drain.

Boss use Tank Buster

You use barrier+mitigation

TB break your barrier and leave you with 70% HP

By the 4th TB it will kill you.

Well no one said Soul Eater should be taken away, they probably will never get rid of it because it is pretty much DRK's iconic skill, as much as Jump is DRG's iconic skill. But if they did, they most definitely would just give DRK a reliable burst heal like WAR and PLD have, or give it hallowed ground/bolide invuln or you would be right. They would have to give DRK even more reliable barrier to overcompensate for sure, but they would have to do it if they gave it no means of regularly handling chip damage(this is all SE is anyway, nothing but to make auto crits feel a little better, and even worse when its not even needed and becomes overheal). After the first raid tier began, they would have to hot fix patch DRK for sure if it wasnt at least functioning properly compared to the other 3. It would be as glaring as DRG dying to unavoidable raid wide damage in coils(i think)
But in my opinion, they never wanted to give DRK lifestealing anyway. And to date, besides the situational wonkiness that is Abyssal Drain, DRK has never, ever ever been given a reliable burst heal for mt boss content which happens in almost every raid/extreme trial.
This, my friend is what compromise looks like in situations where the job is just designed a way it probably never should have been(to some OG fans of the job) They will have to do something, and the 3 other tanks will have to cry for something similar, like they do with DRK one trick pony TBN. That is just what it will take, if they really want to fix the job and keep people playing it, cause right now, its a hot depressing mess(that functions, some kind of way).

Soul Eater can't even fully heal you from boss auto attack. Not to mention that it is the 3rd combo and it delayed further if you have other gcd attack that wasn't part of the combo.

This is why i dislike mathing the shit out of things and people over hyping a 20 second dot thats easilly forgettable every 2 minutes or so. Because in practice it isnt doing much of anything. But on a parser DRK over a 10 minute fight, look at all its useless HPS. The devs mathed it out, and it looks great over a long period of time, but every DRK knows that shit isnt doing anything with a healer there to heal you through real damage. It ends up being a chaotic overheal, that only mitigates overworld mob soloing. Mathing the shit out of potencies, and actually experiencing how those numbers dont even relate to a necessary situation are like night and day. Look the DRK self healed more than the PLD did in this raid. Yeah, but it didnt really save it from that walking dead death.

[cactuarzzzz]

Soul Eater can't even fully heal you from boss auto attack. Not to mention that it is the 3rd combo and it delayed further if you have other gcd attack that wasn't part of the combo.

And what make you believe that the dev want to give DRK more barrier?

because you want it? because you tried to convince them?

If that is true then some of the 40+likes "DRK improvement suggestion" thread would have changed something right now. But as a matter of fact even in JP forum it didn't even receive attention from the dev no matter how many like it get and DRK in JP forum stop posting since like what... 3 months ago? meanwhile in eng forum you see how DRK gave up one after another no matter how much we show the proof of how horrible the design in this expansion is.

"They need to do something, They have to do something"

Been hearing these word since 5.0.

Keep in mind that Yoshi's word have more weight than dev's decision. Especially now that he is held with such a high regard and has absolute control over XIV. WD will stay as it is as long as Yoshi feel like and no dev or player can do anything about it. The CEO's eyes is filled with greed after they saw how much money Shadowbringers bring them despite the horrible job design and the least fun savage tier so Yoshi is basically untouchable, not to mention that he still got an army of Tempered Fanboy/girl to defend whatever he do.


What make you're so sure that after became full barrier knight and doing well no other tank can't take that away from you again?
If they can slap you and get away with it once then they can slap you and get away again.


*Oh yes let cut ourselves from the option to get more than 600 potency from 50 blood gauge every 120+144s. No body in the world care if DRK's dps could get lower anyway even someone who main DRK. Let forget the calculation and cry for the dream build we want from the dev, yay!*

Not that I like it anyway but if it simply gone and nothing filled the void then we're just losing dps for nothing.

Don't know how can I explain more about life drain but I guess some DRK might already addicted to the helplessness they feel whenever they do content that have no good healer or don't have anyone to heal them at all.

"Well I was actually surprised DRK made it in 3.0 because i felt like 2.0 WAR was literally the closest they would come to a DRK and that idea was gone. You make a good point, guess they still are trying to make WAR the health steal tank, at least in pvp."

PLD got both 100% hp drain from Holy Spirit and Holy Circle even before WAR did in pvp. GNB Also have 100% hp drain from burst strike and fated circle. DRK alone got forbid from having a Life Drain. Just want to point out what they decided to spend the time on while we believe they don't have enough time or manpower.

[Lyth]

I can't make someone change their way of thinking. But that's also not my job. I'm just here to offer an opinion.

I think that the end goal should be to create distinct ways of performing core tank functions. Let's take mitigation as an example. How can you reduce the rate of incoming damage?

1) % Damage Reduction
2) Max HP buffs paired with self-healing
3) Flat Damage Shields
4) Stagger
5) Rewind damage received over past X seconds
6) Debuffs (Slow, STR/INT down)
7) Directional Shields (i.e. Passage of Arms)

What movement abilities can a tank have?
1) Gap closer to target/ally
2) Set up teleporter between two points on map
3) Increase movement speed
4) Gap close to a specific point
5) Pull mobs to you

The starting point is wrong. There's no point giving everyone % damage reduction abilities (i.e. Sheltron/Rampart/Sentinel/Hallowed) and then trying to balance them. That's a math question, and there is going to be a best option that people migrate to. You have to start with alternate approaches, and find a way to make them feel equivalent. Some people are going to want to buff their max HP, followed by a burst of lifesteal to survive a big hit. Others are going to like seeing incoming damage just get negated while they launch a series of counterattacks. Or what if, as the boss hit you, they just started doing progressively less damage? The goal should be to create unique experiences, and then find balance between them, despite there being no way to mathematically correlate those effects.

I'll say this. The community response of "Where's my X ability" is the biggest culprit here. You never needed your copy of Reprisal. You didn't need your copy of Plunge. You don't need your carbon copy of TBN. You need to find your own way of achieving the same goals. And a dev team that only knows how to cater to these demands as a means of putting out fires just perpetuates the cycle.

I think that's the one thing that Blizzard is pretty smart about. That and the fact that there's at least some level of interaction between the devs and the playerbase.

[cactuarzzzz]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ard_and_world/
The irony... The man who confessed how he love WoW and WoWficationed XIV didn't even try to do the same thing that make WoW good.












Now, while there's the idea that "distinct ways of performing core tank functions" is needed
there is still no explanation why we must choose the barrier over life drain.
To be a life drain tank you only need to make WAR give up trying to be one
But to be a barrier tank you would need other tank to change as well. Ever wonder about the success rate?

Like a tribe who got driven from homeland > gave up on it and now trying to heading to an uncharted land with nothing but ideal and hope the god would make the place that they choose prosper and make it only belong to them. No real plan nor being realistic at all.


I should at least help with how to come up with the barrier knight tho
but.... the day that dark knight is nothing but a person in black armor carrying a greatsword would be the day I permanently leave XIV.

[ADVSS]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ard_and_world/
The irony... The man who confessed how he love WoW and WoWficationed XIV refused to do what make WoW good.












While there's the idea that "distinct ways of performing core tank functions" is needed
there is still no explanation why we must choose the barrier over life drain.
To be a life drain tank you only need to make WAR give up trying to be one
But to be a barrier tank you would need other tank to change as well. Ever wonder about the success rate?

Like a tribe who got driven from homeland > gave up on it and now trying to heading to an uncharted land with nothing but ideal and hope the god would make the place that they choose prosper and only belong to them. No real plan nor being realistic at all.


I should at least help with how to come up with the barrier knight tho
but.... the day that dark knight is nothing but a person in black armor carrying a greatsword would be the day I permanently leave XIV.

DRK out the gate in HW was not a tradition DRK, to begin with. It barely resembled one at all. I have to agree someone had posted it was more of a Mystic Knight, than an actual antipaladin due to its focus on magic barrier defense rather than stat/health drain/debuffing. As a tank, the sacrifice life for damage was not going to work, so understandable they would have to cut some of its identity out of the gate. To most of us, that was a logical and acceptable thing we could deal without, for the sake of functionality alone as a tank.

The other problem, though was that its design was partially something different, partially beholden to the 2 tanks before it, and it was moreso just a hybrid of paladin and warrior, that wasnt supposed to step on either's toes, just like AST was literally a hybrid of sch and whm and was never designed to step on eithers toes.

As was said earlier, their design philosophy is basically "its a tank so it needs this, cause the other tanks have this and it cannot be a tank unless it has these things"

The healers are having a rough time too, because they did this exact same philosophy to them.

Instead of focusing on "how do we get it to do this or comparable in its own way"
They simply went with "These things work and make the role work, so it must have these abilities like the others"

I would argue that they did do this in HW but then they got those skills out of the box immediately, so theres all the cool downs, and the tank invuln. Well lets just slap some stuff together to make it look cool now and call it a day.