Should Dark Arts Come Back in 6.0? If so, What Should the Skill Do?

[Lyth]

If you want to do solo content, RDM is far superior to any tank, as both of the PoTD and HoH solo world firsts demonstrated. Because if you want the nice things, then you just want to be a 'blue DPS'. I'm hoping Reaper has some degree of vampiric self-sustain so that it becomes the melee equivalent.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

...my intent was to focus on what I would like in a not-solo situation, though... But if we must focus on the solo part, I would retort that I do not like Red Mage much, and would rather prefer that Tanks have more self-sustain / self-healing capability. If we had to debate solo, I would also retort that the PoTD and HoH is not my interest... I would want to solo all of the activities that require other people, Dungeons, Trials, Raids, Alliance Raids...
but let us not get into that debate. there is no point, and this is not the place for it, any way.

I can agree, though, that I would like it if Reaper has more self-healing stuff than just the weak Role Actions.

That's just it, though. There was often more active tanking on those than what we have now.

Here on XIV, tanking doesn't include actively thwarting our enemy's offenses outside of the rare tether-grabbing mechanic; instead, we just slap the enemy at a 10x modifier and damn near everything that may be redirected is automatically redirected.

That's the problem. It's not a matter of what capacities we have, but literally what we are doing (or, in XIV's case, not doing).

Again, I'm not asking for tanks to have less throughput impact. I'm just asking for their input to be less passive.

Personally, I like when tanks' sustained combined throughput (in terms of healing spared, rather than going so far as to balance them around lives saved) isn't head and shoulders above the other roles because it makes any trade-offs available to a tank feel better situated, and the presence of such options allow for more involved undermechanics that in turn allow for more engaging tanking, healing, and damage-dealing alike. But that fine of balance is not essential so long as they're not pushing other roles out entirely.

But what is essential is that there be actual things to do. Actual things to time, to position, to prioritize, and for reasons beyond just pushing a bit more damage out per minute. "The Monster Hunter minigame" as you called it? Great. Awesome. Not the limit, by any means, but yes, let's make mitigation more active, knowledge more (literally) vital. Where attacks of opportunities can be utilized or created, perfect. But you should still feel like you're a playmaker, not merely matching buttons to incoming types so that an increasingly slow-to-change number can be a bit bigger.

I'd just caution, finally, that in the end, it is only about the actual fun of playing the role (e.g., tank) or playing around it (DPS, healers). No amount of increased risk will make holding a dead man's switch, in and of itself, any more exciting. It's still just holding down a button, even if everyone dies if you let go. Such can never be used in place of actual engaging playflow it ought to compound. It's just a topping, at best.

and I can agree with just about all of that...
It would be more interesting if combat mechanics in fight design had more things that demands the Tank to be more of a Tank.

also.. it is hypocritical of me, since I am a part of it, but.. we have gone quite off-topic, now... we should probably go back to the thread topic.

[Marxam]

It will be really insulting if they are transforming DRK to be WAR so they can transform WAR in something else, i don't think they are so twisted minded to do such deporable thing but god lord if that happens at the end.

Depends on if the poster boy curse continues. FFXIV has had a history of WoL main job for expansion having some glaring flaws.

-2.0 WAR couldn't survive extreme damage and tank busters like twintania's death sentence. This was fixed in 2.1.
-3.0 DRG had you lose nearly half your potency if you missed positionals and animation locking was very real.
-4.0 MNK had questionable design choices like Tornado kick removing all your GL stacks and sadly MNK won't be "fixed" till 6.0 but that's unsure. 4.0 SAM didn't suffer as bad since it was new job but it had its issues.
-5.0 DRK is a mixed bag. While they made the job more accessible to newer players, it is by far the tank with the most gutted skills with older players missing the identity and feel of older DRK but at least they finally got an aoe at lvl 72. They also gave it a flashy dot in the form of a pet aka, Living Shadow so that's fun right?

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

nawh, not fun at all. Dark Knight is boring and dull at every level... pre-BlackBlood gauge levels, in other words Lv61 and lower, are just even more boring and further dull... some of our skills are also schitt, Living Shadow is lame, and Stalwart Soul all the way up at Lv72 is awful.

I can not imagine how any Dark Knight player, even if they did start to play Dark Knight only after 5.0, and so know naught of the better versions,
could possibly like to play Dark Knight, with how Dark Knight is almost total trash, at the moment.
the original 3.x Dark Knight is even, for the most part, widely considered to have been the best version of Dark Knight.

and if that curse does continue, Paladin is about to take quite the hit...

[AziraSyuren]

If you want to do solo content, RDM is far superior to any tank, as both of the PoTD and HoH solo world firsts demonstrated. Because if you want the nice things, then you just want to be a 'blue DPS'. I'm hoping Reaper has some degree of vampiric self-sustain so that it becomes the melee equivalent.

RDM isn't that great in HoH and is outclassed by MCH in PoTD these days, actually. Tanks are easily the best role for HoH and GNB in particular is catching up in PoTD. Tanks in general are the best role for solo content these days, outside of stuff you can just oneshot and speedrun through, in which case, ranged DPS are better.

...my intent was to focus on what I would like in a not-solo situation, though... But if we must focus on the solo part, I would retort that I do not like Red Mage much, and would rather prefer that Tanks have more self-sustain / self-healing capability. If we had to debate solo, I would also retort that the PoTD and HoH is not my interest... I would want to solo all of the activities that require other people, Dungeons, Trials, Raids, Alliance Raids...
but let us not get into that debate. there is no point, and this is not the place for it, any way..

DD usually does usually require other people.

[Lyth]

That's really only true after Shadowbringers 5.05 nerfed both sets of Deep Dungeons by giving everyone a boost to survivability and damage to make them doable by every job. It's actually amazing that not only was the world first solo on PoTD an expansion late on a DPS job that didn't exist at it's launch, but that tanks had to wait an additional expansion for nerfs before they managed a clear.

[Vyrerus]

Damage potencies on tanks were too low prior to SHB for tanks to really do PoTD or HoH solo because there's so many monsters in both that kill you outright after a set amount of time passes. Since D-hit and Crit are at base values, food barely helps DPS, and so having more DPS skills is a dramatic increase to speed. The 60 minute time limit for floorsets is the only real reason that tanks could not clear prior. If they really wanted to make everything solo PoTD and HoH, they would up the time limit to the standard 90 minute dungeon limit.

Also they barely altered anything in 5.05. Just something in PoTD that sometimes caused incorrect values for ATP and HP. Which I never saw back then, anyway, and after 5.05 the overarching changes to potency that came with 5.0 is all that I feel. Right, like, the landscape changed from being basically, "RDM and really lucky other DPS/exploit using DPS/exploit users" to being MCH, Tanks, RDM, and any serious deep dungeon enthusiasts on just about anything, because DPS potencies are through the roof. MCH can literally one shot most monsters up until the 130s with Reassemble Drill.

Tanks provide a more stable run, having the tools to deal with surprise mimics in the late floors, and also not absolutely needing Steels for both the floor enemies and bosses. RDMs only weakness is it can't silence mimics. MCH requires potions, even with kiting; RDM does not. RDM deals the best with no abilities / no items debuff floors. Tanks, even GNB, are the most stressed for time out of the "best" jobs for deep dungeon solos.

[AziraSyuren]

A Warrior managed to succeed in soloing HoH pre-SHB.

But that was Warrior.

[Chrono_Rising]

If you want to appease the masses, keep it as is. The player base just wants to use a great sword with no effort, and the previous versions required effort, as surprising as it seemed (all you had to do was press buttons faster than normal). it's a shame we lost out on such a beautiful kit, really.

I remember how much this forum fought me for correctly calling them out on their hidden desire to play WAR with a glamored axe, because that's exactly what all the complaints were about. As soon as we went to WAR 2.0, the majority of the complaints stopped.

I don't think we stopped because we were appeased by playing a warrior clone, personally just tired of trying to point out the obvious.

Dark arts spam of 4.x wasn't great => it was clunky in double weaves, we needed a plunge animation shortening, less dark arts effects on miscellaneous skills like dark mind and eventually did get these positive changes. We still need to address things like Blood weapon having a different treatment versus every other 10 second buff in the game, living dead is still a glaring issue. While things that felt like they finally functioned well (I forgot the 20% self heal that you could put on enemies back in SB) after finally getting addressed gets removed.

As a maker of many 4.x threads I personally wanted more interplay between skills. Like what warrior has, but more accurately what dark knight of 3.x had. Examples: Thrill + equilibrium; planned nascent flash around bursting with IR or infuriate, IR and onslaught and upheaval. I wanted a stronger lean in on things like speed and resource interplay, the counter attack feel of reprisal and low blows of 3.x. Really make me feel like a dark knight, wielding dark magic and sacrifice to deal damage. Bards play songs, its in the name, dancers dance, checks out, mch uses machines, I'm seeing a pattern. SMN summons to deal damage. Its not much to ask for a real feel of a dark knight through game play.

What we got was more homogenized and yes more warrior like technically, but without any of the synergy warrior had. If your feed back is to get a unique identity, and what you get is a knock off, would you keep trying to ask for adjustments?

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

My own speculation is along the same lines... "As soon as Dark Knight went to WAR 2.0, the majority of the complaints stopped."

is this because of satisfaction? I doubt it, a lot. I am far more willing to bet that a lot of people had simply "given up" on Dark Knight, and given up on the hope that Dark Knight could improve, after Dark Knight was ruined two expansions in a row.