DRK QOL changes for 5.4

[Salmon_The_Zero]

At this point my transformation into Cecil Harvey might as well be solidified.

[shao32]

We have to remember how we lose too the "sacrifice something to get more power" feeling it use to have the job, Darkside use to consume your MP in order to grant you more raw power and being able to execute certain skills in HW, in SB at least still prevent you to gain MP from the pasive generation as a paycheck, but now? darkside it's just a regular buff that no longer sacrifice anything to keep it up and don't grant anything more that just damage, a trait that's no different from storm eye or any generic keep it up buff that grant only raw damage.

DRK has lost almost all his flow, with the APM down to the ground and all his oGCD so badly distributed across the rotation + losing all the meaning to have darkside as a mechanic in the game and losing iconic skills and bring mechanics from other jobs it's what really killed the core feeling of the job, the fasted and busy tank based on resourced management turned in to a slow unga-bunga WAR with slightly more APM.

lore wise DRK can be whatever you want and still works but gameplay wise DRK have not sense at all mostly bcs is not the DRK we use to have and have fun in the past anymore, it's just a black WAR.

[TouchandFeel]

Well you are right, i still feel like current DRK is a thematic nightmare, regardless of the inspiration they used(very loosely beyond the original HW AF design, and the Great sword).

Feeling that way is perfectly viable and justifiable, and on the general topic I both disagree and agree.

I disagree in that I feel that from a story-level and general theme viewpoint, it has a pretty good and well defined theme revolving around the ideas good vs evil/light vs dark and where we see ourselves on that spectrum vs where others see us, the idea of necessary darkness vs guarding against and fighting against darkness, the inherent darkness inside us and where it comes from and how to control it. There is a lot of philosophical introspection and contemplation there on some pretty heavy stuff presented within the Dark Knight job quests that I found to be a level of storytelling well above many if not all of the other job quests for really developing an emotional core towards not only what the job is but also what that means to you. So I absolutely must give kudos to the writer who did the Dark Knight job quests as they did an amazing job there.

Where I agree with you and others expressing a lack of a proper theme in the job, and to which I feel most of you are speaking, is in the game-play department. I feel that between trying to adhere to elements of the identity of the Dark Knight in previous games in the series, trying to mold their own version for this game and trying to make it fit within the structure of what they had developed for the tank role; things got a bit jumbled and lost along the way.
I'm not going to go into all the ins and outs of what went wrong, how it went wrong and all that, as that has been talked about by myself and others for years now. I think that really the take away from all of that is there seems to be a general consensus, at least among DRK players that post here on the English portion of the official forums, that something is currently wrong.
Though for the sake of honest clarity, I do feel that DRK does now have a more solid foundation to build and expand from compared to previous iterations in this game; but, to use a cooking metaphor, while the base of the dish is good, it is missing the spices and seasoning to provide it its own unique flavor.
I also understand that some players feel that the current version is a big step back from previous versions, particularly the initial HW version, which had a lot more bells and whistles that made the job feel more unique. I get that sentiment and even agree with it to a point. The problem that I had with these previous versions of DRK is that they always felt like all those bells and whistles and flashy bits were just sort of slapped on top of a fairly weak foundation that would likely collapse when you tried to build on it.

So now we basically have a relatively bland job that we can build on, which leads to the question that I think most of us reading this thread are thinking; where do we go from here with DRK?

This topic of course has many differing and at time opposing positions on what should be done and I have a lot of thoughts on this topic which are frankly a bit too much to try to cover in this response. Maybe I'll make a thread to cover those when I have the time.

[ADVSS]

Feels very similar to 2.0 PLD, exception being shadow, and delirium and a 2nd hit to "flash" as it was back then. Delirium which every expansion has been changed completely to do something different(proof the devs original design and idea for the job is as fleeting as an annual celebration). This is the gameplay feel of current DRK. CnS - Spirits Within SE - less user friendly CoS, TBN - Stoneskin

We're basically spamming rage of halone, with a damage version of fight or flight on a longer lasting cd and refreshable.
No shield swipe, so ill just assume that button is the upkeep button with flood/edge.
In many ways it feels even more braindead than 2.0 PLD. This is my opinion. They easilly had this foundation in 3.0, if they stripped out the bells and whistles. So all we can do now is speculate, doesnt mean we have to like it.
Could've kept scourge instead of repackaging the dot in a harder to keep track of manner you just set and forget. Looks pretty though, I guess.
EDIT: Better be more precise, shadow is not harder to use, its long cd just makes it easier to forget. This gives you less apm, and less to upkeep in downtime. The whole idea of trying to mimic warrior makes no sense, when like pld, drk has 2 resources - their guage and mp. Unless WAR starts using mp, its best to try to figure out how both job resource and mp can be worked with in a manner that isnt conflicting. ie: Blood is primarily for offense. fine thats cool, then mp is = primarily for offense, but also defense. They do this to PLD but in reverse. Its just feels like the job gauge was tacked on "because"
And they need to fix the timer on shadow. This is stupid that they still let it show up slowly eating its timer before it does anything. 4 - 5 whole seconds.

[Lyth]

I think the key things that people seem interested in are:
1) Increase baseline attack speed to be on par with HW/SB era Blood Weapon.
2) Second combo.
3) More oGCD usage/APM.
4) Replace Living Dead with something that isn't obviously garbage in comparison to Holmgang.

None of these are difficult to fix.

[RyuDragnier]

On a different note...can we change Abyssal Drain into a buff that gives us HP drain on all our attacks for 20-30s? Using Essence of the Bloodsucker in Bozja is so incredible, it feels like it fits the DRK kit way too well and should be implemented via Abyssal Drain. Plus...its current iteration is a joke, it only helps in AoE and sucks for single target. Changing it this way makes it actually usable in single-target or multi-target situations.

[Kabooa]

On a different note...can we change Abyssal Drain into a buff that gives us HP drain on all our attacks for 20-30s? Using Essence of the Bloodsucker in Bozja is so incredible, it feels like it fits the DRK kit way too well and should be implemented via Abyssal Drain. Plus...its current iteration is a joke, it only helps in AoE and sucks for single target. Changing it this way makes it actually usable in single-target or multi-target situations.

Abyssal Drain only ever helped in AoE in prior iterations.

You never used it against a single target.

[RyuDragnier]

Abyssal Drain only ever helped in AoE in prior iterations.

You never used it against a single target.

We could spam it back then. Now it's just a single use and it's out of commission for 60s.

[WhyAmIHere]

On a different note...can we change Abyssal Drain into a buff that gives us HP drain on all our attacks for 20-30s? Using Essence of the Bloodsucker in Bozja is so incredible, it feels like it fits the DRK kit way too well and should be implemented via Abyssal Drain. Plus...its current iteration is a joke, it only helps in AoE and sucks for single target. Changing it this way makes it actually usable in single-target or multi-target situations.

6.0 will see AD (and salted earth) removed to "reduce button bloat." that or it just gets a trait to add a charge to it like plunge. *shrug*
Plus lIfEsTeAl Is WaR's GiMmIcK. and TBF lifesteal in bozja feels great on every job that can get it.
humor though, if DRK were to get lifesteal i'd rather see blood price return for that. 45s recast, 20s duration, damage dealt restores a portion of health, and for shiggles and personal want add in some jank mitigation, like 15% parry/dodge increase.

[Agner]

I think the key things that people seem interested in are:
1) Increase baseline attack speed to be on par with HW/SB era Blood Weapon.
2) Second combo.
3) More oGCD usage/APM.
4) Replace Living Dead with something that isn't obviously garbage in comparison to Holmgang.

None of these are difficult to fix.

I legitimately just kinda scratched my head and went "Yeah, that about sums up my basic wants."

There are definitely more things I would change (dear god, Delirium), but that is what I wish the devs would see and start with.