Is anyone surprised at this point?

[ForteNightshade]

Thats fine but despite forum opinion there are a lot of people out there who like the current iteration of DRK, so screw them because HW DRK is best? This is my point, the reason why they keep reworking the class is because they can't find a happy medium and each rework has created its fan base. I think the issue started with the decision to rework the job each xpac instead of tweaking it for 1, for 2, I like current DRK and hope they build on to it because now I'm worried about 6.0 when I should be excited for it. Burnout is relevant because like real life, when you spend too much time at work or too much time with anything you start becoming annoyed by even the smallest of issues.

To be blunt, yes. At least to a certain degree. While I appreciate you prefer this iteration, fans of the original design have been effectively screwed too. Priority should always be on those who already like the job, not chasing new fans which is something SE has been increasingly guilty of doing. For comparison sake, look no further than Bard. There are people who prefer it's more Ranger focus this expansion. Hell, some want it to lose songs entirely. Should that demographic be appeased when the far louder voice are Bards from Stormblood who found their preferred job identity destroyed?

Ultimately, the fault of this divide lies on the dev team and their constant re-design. The likelihood any of us are wholly satisfied with DRK isn't high. Which is why I think they need to start with the most popular foundation and incorporate some aspects of the re-design from there. Living Shadow and TBN have both solid additions. Personally, I dislike how spam-y Flood of Shadow is, though perhaps they could make it work. Old Blood Weapon, on the other hand, should return to better separate DRK from its counterparts. Delirium needs yet another overhaul, or frankly, just remove the ability entirely and do something new with Bloodspiller. Either way, I'd like DRK to get away entirely from the "spam x button five times" philosophy. Let it be unique, something the tanks desperately need.

Thing is, DRK most likely got gutted because the skill ceiling was too high for the average player to manage. Why would you make something as complex as possible if the rewards outweigh the benefits? Complexity needs to be rewarding enough to engage the player in its intricacy to the point their learning experience shows steadfast results.

It's this mentality which has since screwed up their design philosophy. DRK was never overly complex. It just asked more of you than Warrior or Paladin. The bigger issue is both how bad people were at the game back then and that several wanted DRK to be a DPS and tried treating it as such. Not to mention, WAR was comically overpowered back then. On the whole though, DRK was about as complex as GNB is now. You can to watch for Low Blow procs and know what to Dark Arts but it wasn't anything too robust.

SE simply caved and has since found themselves re-designing DRK every expansion. That should be rather telling they overreacted.