Dark Knight where is my Identiy

[FallenWings]

I'm not sure you've understood what I've was trying to say, but that might be because I was a bit unfocused on my argument, so my fault here.

You are fine with not reducing PLD and GNB to effectively 60 second sustained DPS classes when they are that but will happily reduce WAR/DRK down to just "burst" without explaining upon their individual intricacies.

Unlike GNB which has no decision making, DRK has all the flexibilities in it's rotation to play burst or constant. It's just a matter of perception or if you care enough about fitting everything in burst windows.

You can press Edge every 15 seconds and plunge every 30 instead to spread out their damage. You can choose to press Bloodspiller whenever you hit 50 instead of stockpiling for 60 seconds to better break up the GCD monotony if you so desire. The performance difference is small enough to not matter the majority of the time and only the parsers and speedrunners ultimately care about stockpiling. DRK has that going for it, being able to be played differently without such a substantial loss in performance. Something the other 3 tanks are unable to do.

You can even play the ultimate defensive tank by spamming TBN on near CD and having even more oGCD presses that way and immediately using your Dark Arts charge as retaliation. (Something that I've done in several fights like TEA and E4S to great success and enjoyment).

DRK is optimally a 60 second burst cycle class with different burst situations depending on composition. (3/4/5 edge for different burst comps like MNK). DRK is also a relaxing press your buttons anywhere class.

GNB is given so much concession despite being a shallow job. Continuation has no flexibility and GNB cannot choose where to place any of it's rotation. Everything automatically aligns and its 1-2-3 monotony is just borken up by Gnash which is just another 1-2-3 ultimately. But I guess being forced to press 4a-5a-6a every 30 seconds and having new flashy animation is enough to distract people from the class' flaws and similiarities.

DRK is considered a WAR clone due how his GCD core gameplay ...

Again, Delirium is really the weakest CD in DRKs kit. It is not comparable to Inner Release when DRK optimizes differently with its more important skills ala Edge/TBN. I can't change how you perceive DRK outside of Delirium and that's ultimately a personal opinion thing based on each person.

Fancy words

I'm not against bringing aspects of the SB AoE back, especially the mana/blood interplay. I'm generally not as disappointed with their loss due to their obvious imbalance but yet we have WAR being imbalanced in dungeons with Nascent lol. The issue is that WAR atleast has a 30 second hard cooldown but the DRK would be nearly immortal all the time with the old system.

I'm ultimately happy about the direction of DRK right now outside of Delirium because of the previously mentioned controlled and burst options that DRK enjoys. To me, burst and more specifically, elective burst is the most interesting design because it encourage play with mechanics and buffs outside your own. Adapting on the fly by throwing edges in windows of opportunity is better than a self contained sustained dps with weak button presses spread throughout. ShB DRK feels like a clean slate and I'm hopeful for how it will advance in the near coming expansion. I wouldn't be bothered too much either if DRK stepped a little closer to its old roots and would support that as well because I enjoy DRK in most of it's iterations save for SB single target.