to Future DRK Players

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I will be the first to admit, I'm not strong enough to continue the fight.

I'm not strong enough to continue fighting for a "better future", in a game in which the developers do not care about the opinions of players like me. I'm not strong enough to continue playing the current iterations of the jobs in a game that broke the jobs I loved the most. I'm not strong enough to continue supporting a game in which the developers do not use the money to hire more competent staff to help design the content which I subscribe to support.

Regardless, what I DO believe is important is to implore everyone who can continue to fight, to keep fighting for a better future. I know many of the new players nowadays are WoW players, and I too was once a WoW player. I know you guys are enjoying the game, because to you guys, Shadowbringers is your WoW Vanilla, just as A Realm Reborn was my Burning Crusade; however, without having a Heavensward/WoTLK to look forward to bringing something new to the table, what else lies in the future?
Just know that from the humble opinion of your average player, this xpac was the Cataclysm of the game, and Endwalker will be the MoP of the game. if any of you wish to continue the fight, be my guest.

only Unto death will we part, when our life is torn apart, then at the end of all days... Lest fate spare us, with a kinder gaze.

...I am not.. 100% certain yet, but I do feel similar... I already did abandon Dark Knight a few months ago, and my naïve hope had been that 6.0 would redeem the Dark Knight for me. But then the 66th Live Letter said that people like me are the sacrifice, and that what we think of as Dark Knight, will not be Dark Knight... Now, I plan to just wait for.. and see for myself, every tooltip of every action that Dark Knight will have in EndWalker, and only then decide if I will upgrade from my decision to abandon Dark Knight, to then complete abandon Dark Knight...

If I do complete abandon Dark Knight at the end, then I will return to this thread and post my own letter message to future Dark Knight players...

That aside...

If theres one thing that you future DRKs should fight for, its to bring back empowering decision making and a semblance of actual resource management for the job. It's not like its even that hard to do so anyway.

a few simple changes you can fight for:

• move Blood Weapon to the same level as Flood of Darkness so you can spend and earn mana at the same time
  
• move Stalkwart to lv 40 so you arent relying on spamming unleash in between mana dry spells
  
• make Abyss Drain a spender on par with Flood/edge to give some gameplay variety.
  hell even just giving it another charge if you're unable to balance the mana cost and potencies (cough cough Square Devs)
  
• allow Delirium to give you at least enough mana back for you so you can use a flood/edge/abyss, especially considering its now 3x BS/Quietus spam
  
• make Salted Earth generate up to 50 blood for an additional quietus/bloodspiller, as it stands the skill is so forgetful that even a "placed where you use it" buff won't make it better
  
• make Living Shadow either copy your rotation 1:1 or make it give you resource for every action it takes (its Abyssal Drain heals you, its BS/Quietus restore your mana)
  
• make TBN's "DARK ARTS" empower some abilities with a simple buff, to give you the choice of spending for DPS or to help against that tankbuster/raidwide during prog

For Blood Weapon... If even 6.0 fails to fix that half-broken action, then Dark Knights will need to continue to complain about Blood Weapon, until it finally receives some manner of fix. As for whether or not to make blood Weapon and Flood of Darkness unlock at the same level... It would be nice, in AoE situations, since the only MP under Lv35 is Syphon Strike, and you will not use that in AoE situations, unless you juggle single target with Flood of Darkness and pretend like Unleash does not exist; but other than that, Since Flood of Darkness unlocks at Lv30, and Blood Weapon straight after, at Lv35, it may or may not be fine as it is...

For Stalwart Soul, here is my own analysis of that: continue to complain about that its unlock level is Lv72, as this is terrible. When I look at our action list, I think that Stalwart Soul should drop from Lv72 to lv45, move Dark Mind from Lv45 to Lv52, and move Salted Earth from Lv52 to Lv72, but only in the case of if the level pattern absolute has to be upheld, to the detriment and non-convenience of the Dark Knight.

For Abyssal Drain, it needs to self-heal against a single target better, at the least.

For Delirium... I advise that Dark Knights continue to complain about it, as ShB Delirious Inner Release is the worst Delirium... To be honest, SB Delirium was the superior design concept, and ShB Delirious Inner Release way the inferior, but SB Delirium.. despite the good concept, had a bad implementation. It would restore MP and buff actions that restore MP, to restore more MP, but it was too strong... too much MP restoration, so it was often a partial waste. I think that EW Delirium should be SB Delirium, with the issue that SB delirium had fixed.

also, have a quote, as this was not a bad idea for Delirium...

Delirium allows for free Edge of Shadows/Flood of Shadows instead of Bloodspiller/Quietus. This would make make it less of an Inner Release, more of an actual Delirium that would fit DRK as the oGCD tank.

Last.. For Salted Earth, it just need to go back to what it used to be... higher damage and lower CD, since the ground-target issue is already to be dealt with, in EW.