Is anyone surprised at this point?

[Lyth]

I think that it's perfectly fine for a job to feel comfortable and accessible to play. I think that every job should be viable, and they've done a good job of that as far as comparative tank dps totals this expansion. They've also, up until just now, done a reasonable job of rewarding sustain and burst appropriately.

I do, however, believe that comfort should come at a cost. Effort should always translate into a performance advantage, however slight, so that you get recognized for the work you put in. Uptime focused jobs should, by rights, always win out over jobs that have an advantage in burst. It doesn't have to be a big advantage, but there should be a difference.

As an example, one of the key reasons why there are endless complaints about Living Dead (design problems aside) is that it's completely inferior to Holmgang, despite being significantly more punishing. Why go through the extra hassle if you can have more rewards for less effort? Likewise, one of the reasons why people are questioning this potency change is because it rewards you for breathing. Congratulations, you picked WAR and have an intact brainstem. It doesn't reward you for doing something skillful or clever with your burst window. It doesn't force you to do something engaging outside of your burst window and then reward you for it. It arbitrarily hands out sustain benefits to a job that has canonically always been given an advantage over everyone else in burst.

Nobody is begrudging you having a beginner friendly, accessible tank that feels comfortable to play. But be sure to properly reward more skillful play on other jobs appropriately and fairly.

[ItMe]

You still are bound by DRK being a hybrid weaponskill/spell GCD job.
BW is still clunky in AoE situations. You cannot meld enough SkS to mitigate that.

Instead of being upset that it just doesn't give me space for 5 GCDs, I guess I'm just not getting worked up because I see it more as giving me more than enough space for 4.
Especially since the game never tells me "you should be getting 5," so I've never felt shafted that in AoE vs single target situations parts of my kit work a little differently.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

To be honest, there's really no excuse for Blood Weapon being so tight, especially with spells. More to the point, Skill Speed and Spell Speed ought to just be one stat at this point; I don't see a compelling reason otherwise.

[Sqwall]

a

that plus Bunshin and Perfect Balance being changed to have charges to spend, whereas blood weapon is still "hope you have good latency."



good for you. You still are bound by DRK being a hybrid weaponskill/spell GCD job.
BW is still clunky in AoE situations. You cannot meld enough SkS to mitigate that.
Even ignoring that "but that's not raids, so who cares?" because how many people are uber casual, log in to do roulettes, and not much else? They just get shafted?

It's a much requested, twice paralleled QoL change that's been asked for since 5.0's release (BW is jank please fix), and fully realized with NIN's redesign (Bunshin does it why cant we?), and again wound-salted with MNK's rework (Perfect Balance too now functions like how we want BW to, please??).

At this point it's just tradition. DRK Gets nothing meaningful, then throughout the expac their like dead last to get anything close to a good adjustment, then the next expansion comes and it's almost a whole new job with the changes to it. Taking bets on what 6.0 Delirium will do if it's even still in the job kit.

Yes I don't main DRK but I have dabbled, and I would also compare to the other tanks. DRK imo is great, but it is SEVERLY lacking compared to WAR,PLD,GNB. I can analogize it with driving a brand new car vs. a junker. I drive a junker for many weeks and get a rental new car, I doubt I would ever "like" going back to my junker. DRK to me is just...not quite what I want compared to how good the other tanks play.

If I was a main DRK coming into 5.0....I would definitely be waiting for them to "fix" some of the aspects. WAR to me is just makes sense from a design point of view. DRK just makes me think....this could be better.

[Eloah]

Forgot to mention:

They didn't "revamp" Blood Weapon to 5 stacks, but at the same time Riddle of Earth does get "revamped" from 6s duration to 10s for 3 stacks... I am freaking done...

People who don't play Monk might think that Riddle of Earth changed but it really didn't. They just reversed its functionality, from what it originally was. Originally it was for damage reduction with the benefits of True North, now it's more another True North with the benefit of damage reduction. It also functions like Perfect Balance, Triplecast, Bunching, the 10s is for that. But no the skill hasn't changed all that much.

[ArianeEwah]

Okay, I can explain. [...]

The issue[...]

An excellent post! You describe the issue with this DRK patch outstandingly, and in detail.

Instead of being upset that it just doesn't give me space for 5 GCDs, I guess I'm just not getting worked up because I see it more as giving me more than enough space for 4.
Especially since the game never tells me "you should be getting 5," so I've never felt shafted that in AoE vs single target situations parts of my kit work a little differently.

That would be playing sloppy (no pun intended) on purpose! Just because you can't be "bothered" playing how it was meant to be, or how it should've been... That can't be a legit argument for defending this awful design flaw.
The AOE example from OdinelStarrei is proof of that. While on level <64, it is impossible to get 5 GCDs into BW because of the spell recast time. At 64+ - once you get Quietus - you are only able if 1. you have good latency, 2. enough SkS on your weaponskill GCD, 3. saved enough gauge for at least 2 Quietus, or get enough during BW, 4. and execute it in the right order. As OdinelStarrei said, once you are at 100+ ping you can forget about that!

Even from my personal experience during TEA - a duty which is already prone to lag - in 1 of 5 cases BW doesn't count the 5th GCD even with ~20ms ping, and 2.38s GCD. And trust me: I know when to use BW, so I wouldn't miss the 5th GCD!
You just play worse because of reasons that are out of your control. That's neither fun, nor exciting, neither rewarding. It's just but punishing. In clonclusion: Unless DRK is supposed to feel punishing, it's definitely bad game design.
And we know SE love their band-aid-fixes. Which makes you wonder why they haven't fixed BW yet. It would simply a QoL change, like those MNK and NIN (can) enjoy.

It just grinds my gears that DRK has to experience the late fixes (or in case "never gonna happen" fix) when the job really needs those! In SB DRK had the worst defensive and enmity generation toolkit of all tanks, and SE buffed them at the very end of the expansion. That is way too late, and overdue! Whether DRK is the poster boi of ShB doesn't matter, it seems SE doesn't give a damn about tanks as they favor their dps jobs above all else. It makes me feel... lost and abandoned.

On the WAR topic: Even tho WAR is my most played tank job, I don't see the need for the potency buff. I would understand something in range of +20 potency per combo which would still be less than 1% buff. Maybe I just do not want to see it, because if this buff was necessary that would mean that SE neglected WAR - or the tank role in general - for 2 whole years! Or they just buff it "because it's Warrior, duh".
In both cases, I feel like showing them the middlef*nger and tell them to do their f*cking job! Essentially that means, do not favor jobs or roles before others and treat them all equally!

[Argyle_Darkheart]

WAR "needed" a DPS buff, but it should have happened at the start of the tier. It happening now is kind of whatever, especially since I doubt these changes will push it into speed kills.

As someone who mains WAR, however, I can't say I don't appreciate it.

[ArianeEwah]

People who don't play Monk might think that Riddle of Earth changed but it really didn't. They just reversed its functionality, from what it originally was. Originally it was for damage reduction with the benefits of True North, now it's more another True North with the benefit of damage reduction. It also functions like Perfect Balance, Triplecast, Bunching, the 10s is for that. But no the skill hasn't changed all that much.

Well, I know that the old Riddle of Earth had a 30s duration upon taking damage, with a 60s CD. The new version is more an "on demand" button while the old version was more niche, but less spammy.
It was already comfy enough to get 3 GCDs in the previous RoE with just 6s duration. Heck, you get 3 GCDs into Nascent Flash with WAR, and they don't get 20% recast reduction.

I am not surprised anymore that SE "fixes" stuff that doesn't need to be fixed, but decides to ignore a whole job, a whole community, people and gamers that are tired to put up with their sh*t.

DRG got their what... 2nd... or 3rd buff on Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw, MNK got a whole rework - mainly on Greased Lighting which wasn't really necessary - they had very situational, and very niche actions, but they all worked as intended... well, maybe except Perfect Balance on level 80.

What did tanks get? WAR got self targeting Nascent Flash, all 30% CDs duration increase from 10s to 15s, all very early in 2019. DRK in 2021 after a 2 years long scream for BW fixes? Enmity bug fix on Living Shadow...
Calling that a "joke" wouldn't even justify this level of insanity!

[ItMe]

That can't be a legit argument for defending this awful design flaw.

I'm not defending anything. It for sure could be better.
I'm just asking questions to try and understand the seemingly hyperbolic outcry. The original post had no details about what they were upset about. I now understand this is about feeling (for a variety of reasons) DRK deserves more DEV attention than it's getting.

The AOE example from OdinelStarrei is proof of that. While on level <64, it is impossible to get 5 GCDs into BW because of the spell recast time. At 64+ - once you get Quietus - you are only able if [you...] 3. saved enough gauge for at least 2 Quietus, or get enough during BW, 4. and execute it in the right order.

Wait, I thought people enjoyed this part of it.
Players are coming out of the woodwork pining after old versions of DRK. One of the points consistently touched on was 5.0 turned Delirium into a mindless Fell Cleave spam as opposed to how it used to be something you had to plan your rotation around to optimize lining up the right skills inside it.
Now with Blood Weapon I'm hearing "you gotta prep for that part of the rotation to hit certain skills within it? No thanks!"
Is this really what the common consensus? Cuz now I'm getting very mixed messages...

[ArianeEwah]

I now understand this is about feeling (for a variety of reasons) DRK deserves more DEV attention than it's getting.

Certainly. Honestly, nobody here expects them to do rocket science to develope the perfect job, but on the other hand everyone here can see that the change they did to Bunshin and Perfect Balance (and now Riddle of Earth) are meant for Blood Weapon.

Wait, I thought people enjoyed this part of it.[...]
Now with Blood Weapon I'm hearing "you gotta prep for that part of the rotation to hit certain skills within it? No thanks!"

You misunderstood me there! The issue here is not point 3 or 4, but point 1, and partly 2. Latency isn't anything you have control over. You can try to get a better connection, but if said design only works on the devs test servers with 0.5ms ping or behind a paywall of third party programs, your options are very limited to say the least.
I enjoy the fact that I have to pay attention to my rotation, no matter how meager the difference to non-optimal play might be. Yet - as I said - if by design, it's out of my control whether I succeed or not, is not fun.
I know you can use BW -> Delirium to hit 5 GCDs easier, but there is still no guaratee it works due to the fact you have to start with a spell (Unleash or Stalwart Soul), lags, or latency. Delirium and Inner Release should've the same problem (sometimes they do, but it's rare), but they also have a hidden additional second (~10.7s), which BW does not (~9.9s).

On the "Delirium = Inner Release" topic: I know YoshiP said they aren't gonna do any reworks anymore before Endwalker. That wasn't my issue with the patch notes. We should've gotten one tho,... OdinelStarrei wrote a great explanation. Living Shadow enmity was a non-issue (and still is). This QoL bug fix doesn't change anything gameplay-wise. A Blood Weapon fix wouldn't change DRK power, except for those who are suffering from bad ping, who would finally be able to enjoy the job as it was meant to be.