to Future DRK Players

[Lyth]

...

Just because a job design works well for a given expansion doesn't mean that it would work well in a different expansion.

Heavensward DRK worked well for 3.x. That's not because it was the best designed job. It just worked well for its time. It wasn't without flaws. If you used Dark Arts with Dark Dance, for example, you'd boost your evasion. But DRK relied on getting hit (especially by autos) in order to get Blood Price ticks, as well as to get parries to trigger Low Blow resets and Reprisal procs. There were many parts of the design that just clashed with each other. In addition, a lot of players at the time either didn't realize that spending MP on defensive Dark Arts buffs cost DPS to use, or didn't mind doing so. Some of the job's highlights, such as being the only tank with a gap closer, are things that we are less excited by now because it's a standard across all jobs. And I think most importantly, players were willing to overlook a lot of faults because it was a relatively high DPS job which was also viewed as relatively high skill to play.

Stormblood DRK did not work well for 4.x. It was a relatively low DPS job which was viewed widely as relatively low skill to play. It also unearthed a lot of the underlying weaknesses in Heavensward's design, because players were starting to realize that Dark Arts = Potency, and weren't willing to use a lot of their kit because they were gated behind DPS losses. If you look at the 4.3 changes, a lot of them just added the 140/168 potency as standard to every time you pressed the Dark Arts button. It's actually not rocket science to see why Edge/Flood replaced it. I have a really hard time taking people seriously when they claim to have loved Stormblood DRK back in the day, because a lot of those exact same posters were campaigning to get the job changed during 4.x.

I think that if you took either of these jobs and just copied them into the current expansion, players would be extremely unhappy. The game has changed. All the other jobs have changed, and no job exists in a vacuum. So you can't silence discourse on the job. It has to evolve with the game.

Regardless of whether you like the aesthetic choices made, it's hard not to see Shadowbringers DRK as a more streamlined, synergistic version of the job compared to previous iterations. I suspect you'd see a lot less complaints if it wasn't a lower dps tank for the second expansion running. Would I like to see a speed buff again? Yes. But maybe the solution is to do something situational like Reaper does, dropping to a 1.5 s GCD in Avatar form. Would I like to see a different aesthetic on Delirium? Probably, but every tank has a one button spam window now, especially with GNB's combo being turned into a single button. And I absolutely, definitely don't want to go back to Stormblood's Delirium, which was the most awkward, most ineffectual 'burst' window of all time. You do not burst by increasing the duration on something. You burst by increasing the potency. Whoever designed that was delirious. I'd sooner lose Delirium over Salted Earth, if they ever reverted that change. Players across all language forums wanted to burn it with fire during Stormblood.

Do I want to see Living Dead changed? Definitely. And I want the dev team to actually talk about invulns and the impact that they've had on fight design to date, rather than avoiding the topic. I actually want to see invulns removed and an emphasis placed on learning how much to actually mitigate.

This is not a generational thing. The game changes, and the jobs have to change with it. I think if Warcraft classic proved anything, as much as players think they want to go back to earlier points in time in an MMO's history, they actually don't. Keep your memories of Heavensward and Stormblood. But you'll think more fondly of them if you let them stay in the past.

[Hierro]

I have a really hard time taking people seriously when they claim to have loved Stormblood DRK back in the day, because a lot of those exact same posters were campaigning to get the job changed during 4.x.
[...]
And I absolutely, definitely don't want to go back to Stormblood's Delirium, which was the most awkward, most ineffectual 'burst' window of all time. You do not burst by increasing the duration on something. You burst by increasing the potency. Whoever designed that was delirious.

I loved Stormblood DRK, like my own son! I still maintain the job was fine back then. Plunge was the anti-knock back needed. For all encounters designed, including ucob and uwu, DRK's lack of a raid-wide mitigation CD like dark missionary did not adversely affect a party's success. Still, arm's length and dark missionary are welcomed additions.

DRK wasn't meant to burst with delirium. It was meant to go fast! Don't you like Sonic games, old friend? Don't you like going fast? YOU GOTTA GO FAST!

[KatsuraJun]

I loved Stormblood DRK, like my own son! I still maintain the job was fine back then. Plunge was the anti-knock back needed. For all encounters designed, including ucob and uwu, DRK's lack of a raid-wide mitigation CD like dark missionary did not adversely affect a party's success. Still, arm's length and dark missionary are welcomed additions.

DRK wasn't meant to burst with delirium. It was meant to go fast! Don't you like Sonic games, old friend? Don't you like going fast? YOU GOTTA GO FAST!

Agreed. I don't know where the "people who want 4.x DRK used to complain about it" nonsense comes from - I always loved the 4.x design. I can accept it was an unpopular opinion, but try to dismiss people who legitimately liked that iteration as being hypocritical or wishy-washy is nonsense.

[Bhearil]

Agreed. I don't know where the "people who want 4.x DRK used to complain about it" nonsense comes from - I always loved the 4.x design. I can accept it was an unpopular opinion, but try to dismiss people who legitimately liked that iteration as being hypocritical or wishy-washy is nonsense.

Come on, every version of DRK is/was fun in its own way, but few people will say that they enjoying spamming Dark Arts like a madman because you drowned in MP back then and that it merely became a flat 140 potency buff besides Abyssal Drain lifesteal (AOEing in 4.0 was much more fun though).

My beef with 5.0 DRK is the lesser copy paste skills from WAR and the boredom of Souleater combo spam that makes up for 70% of your atacks

[bundythenoob]

snip

you bring a lot of interesting points about the HW/STB DRK kits being disjointed, but at the same time you are dismissing valid complaints about the SHB DRK kit being disjointed, which has been a topic of major criticism and concern. are you suggesting you have absolutely NO problems with Salted Earth being nerfed as well as losing blood generation which connected it to our kit? Abyssal Drain losing its mana cost and being placed on a long cooldown rather than being changed to be stronger in single target? Quietus/BS being reduced to spam rather than well timed resource generation skills? are you suggesting that the ONLY thing that needs to be addressed for DRK is Living Dead, and not the lack of impact that a lot of the abilities have besides muh stronk tbn?

I might be in the minority here, but I actually think that the STB version of DRK was superior to the HW version due to a few key aspects, such as having a more dynamic resource management playstyle with its mana and blood interactions, and the overall streamlining of the kit with regards to how mana and blood worked with your skills. losing some of those DOTs and the fun MT revenge mechanics did hurt, but I believe what we gained from STB far outweighed those losses, especially because we got to keep almost all of the DRK core abilities, like DA, AD, SE, DP, and BP.

while you are correct that a lot of the more hardcore playerbase realised that spending DA on defencive buffs was a DPS loss, you're also forgetting that a lot of the more casual to midcore level players utilised those in their daily activities, where the environment is a lot more hectic than in organised pugs/parties in which you can rely on timed heals to make up for the damage. a lot of times in leveling or roulette content, spending mana on defencive buffs could mean the difference between living or dying since not every healer has immediate responses to incoming damage. plus, you're forgetting the most important aspect.. we had branching decisions we could make (whether they be """good""" or """bad""") which was one of the hallmarks of the playstyle that differentiated it from PLDs stricter rotation and WARs GCD based playstyle. this made DRK objectively unique in terms of gameplay, and made it feel fun to engage with the kit in terms of job fantasy.

as for your comment on how "all other jobs have changed", it's not hard to see that from certain perspectives, some jobs seem to have regressed in SHB, and that others seem to have stagnated in EW. did PLD really need MORE finishers, especially ones that combo off confiteor of all things, rather than fixing sheltrons cost and duration (especially at lower levels)? did DRG need ANOTHER AOE as opposed to a way to ramp up their eyes or a way to refresh to disembowl like how SAM does? did MCH really deserve nothing but a chainsaw and shotgun? did BRD deserve to have its procs and party buffs removed in favour of ... whatever they got? did SCH deserve to get ignored and told there wasn't much to change, despite almost 2 years of criticism from SCH players? don't even get me started on jobs that regressed in EW... rip DNC, NIN, and SMN mains of old. titan egi will be gone, but never forgotten.

the main problem I see with your issue of invulns and their impact is not DRKs fault, but rather the fault of the devs refusing to hire more employees to fix the spaghetti code, which is why battle content is designed the way it is. MY problem with DRK, besides its atrocious leveling kit, is that disjointedness between its job fantasy and the bone dry gameplay that in no way complements the job fantasy. and the biggest problem I feel is plaguing this game, is the increasing movement away from the more "technical gameplay" jobs with unique XIV twists on them, and that said jobs keep getting dumbed down in gameplay for the sake of "muh traditional FF version"

sure, by all means go ahead and buff Living Dead, but without fixing that disjointed feeling, the job will still boil down to spamming all mana in burst window, spamming 1-2-3 for 60 seconds. but now you get peppered earth and a new flood follow up!



"there wasn't much we could really do with DRK"

[Lyth]

...

Our values change with every expansion. This doesn't have anything to do with playing optimally or your time commitment to the game.

Heavensward DRK was a fantastic job, for Heavensward. When you take an action like Plunge, for example, people loved it in Heavensward because it was the only tank gap closer at the time. It also showed up at a point where the broader playerbase was just starting to realize that you could negate a knockback with a well timed gap closer. Sure, you could negate it with Tempered or Holmgang, but Plunge was the stylish way to do it. In Stormblood, it was a liability. It was vastly inferior to Onslaught, which had a longer range, a faster animation, and could essentially be used on demand, and was coupled with the fact that IR negated knockbacks, and Holmgang also negated knockbacks. Stormblood also brought in faster and more frequent knockbacks than we had seen in the likes of, say, Midas. Plunge didn't change. The game did.

I think the interaction between MP and blood in Stormblood was an interesting idea. Dual resource systems are generally fun. The devs flirted with the idea of creating this blue-black deck style design where you burn MP to gain blood and burn blood to gain MP in an infinite resources loop that wins you the game. They did it for AoE and people loved how broken it was. TBN to gain blood, Quietus to gain MP, and so on. But they didn't dare to do it for single target, which is where DRK ended up being seriously disadvantaged. Bloodspiller actually never generated resources, and with very good reason.

You talked about the blood gain on Salted Earth. That's a nice idea, but it's very hard to balance AoE vs. single target. Either you'll generate too much blood in AoE, or too little in single target. The same was true for Blood Price. I think it's better to opt for a versatile kit that is balanced around both, rather than having something that's exclusively strong in AoE ('the dungeon tank').

I think it would be reasonable to change Abyssal Drain such that it's balanced around both single target and AoE. But to do that, you'd need to have fairly significant diminishing returns in AoE to keep it appropriately powerful in single target.

I don't see what Living Dead's problems have anything to do with coding. It's just a badly designed action all around. The actual invuln effect is not the problem. It's mathematically inferior to Holmgang even before you take the penalty into account. And the penalty itself is poorly executed, relies entirely on another player to understand how your actions work, has incorrect tooltips, and has no UI support to show how much healing will remove the effect. It'll be even better next expansion when your shield healer is struggling to cleanse it.

Stormblood didn't streamline Heavensward's kit. It ripped out large chunks of it and donated inferior versions as role actions shared across all tanks. It locked actions like Blood Price behind Grit such that you were denied access to them. It was conditional and clunky. It was widely regarded as the worst tank by a large margin for that expansion, and we're still recovering from the aftermath of it. Stormblood DRK was a terrible job, for Stormblood. Context matters.

[bundythenoob]

Context matters.

if context is as important as you say, then lets look at all iterations of DRK from a couple of different contexts.

firstly, if DRK was a "bad job" like you said in the context of STB, then why did they not fix the problems with the job for the next expansion, an expansion in which the job was not only the poster boy, but in the same xpac where the devs showed they could make a new tank with a different playstyle from the existing ones (GNB),
keep an old tanks playstyle while evolving its rotation further (PLD),
and even fix the problems people had with the 5.0 version of a tank (WAR)?
was there really a need to make drastic changes to a job that was loved by the people that played it and enjoyed the challenge? you even pointed out some ways in which the STB DRK could have been made better while keeping its old kit AND having a UNIQUE playstyle.
what context justifies breaking a unique playstyle in an MMO which is inherently supposed to allow for multiple playstyles to suit the multiple people that play the game?

secondly, you say that HW DRK is superior to STB DRK given the context of the jobs' abilities at the time, but in what way is that context even relevant to the conversation of the erosion of the job's identity? they both fundamentally maintained the same playstyle, using Dark Arts to strengthen your core abilities while juggling resource generation. the only difference between HW DRK and STB DRK being that if HW DRK was not locked to MT it would lose out on some procs, whereas STB DRK would lose out on some abilities while it was not MT. both versions of the jobs had issues, there's no denying that. but neither of these versions have as much problems as the current SHB DRK kit.

looking at these changes from the context of HW to STB, the devs already stated why they removed dots from jobs, and they have also stated they removed those "revenge mechanics" because they didn't want jobs competing for MT slot. what we lost was more than made up for with a new resource system, strong abilities to play with that helped interlink the two resource systems, and a powerful shield that rewards the player for smart decision making
a shield that to this day remains a powerful staple of DRK gameplay while simultaneously being a rewarding tank ability that FEELS like a proper tanking cooldown due to the cost and reward feedback

finally, in the context of SHB to EW, why were absolutely no changes made to fix the myriad of valid criticisms of SHB DRK laid out by DRK players for the last 2 years?
the issue of our resource generation abilities lacking impact could be solved many ways, such as the removal of mana regen ticks which would allow power to return to said abilities.
the issue of delirium feeling like a cheap clone of another ability, rather than being a unique resource tool for the resource generation tank
the issue of the disjointed kit because of the lack of interplay between said resources
the issue of Living Dead being a poorly designed skill (something which people seem to be adamant is the PRIORITY to fix, and not something that should be fixed ALONGSIDE the above problems)


the ONLY context I can think of is that Square decided that pandering to people who are unwilling to put in the work required to become proficient at a job far outweighed the option to continue to make improvements to jobs that their core playerbase would enjoy; however, the big problem with this """context""" is that they showed that they can continue to make jobs evolve without destroying their unique playstyle, while simultaneously lowering the skill floor to both healing and tanking with the new aggro changes. or am I just looking into this all wrong? I mean they DID basically imply that players who wanted a return to complexity should instead expect the SHB versions of jobs to be """built up""", yet they also showed no additional buildup for multiple jobs, not just DRK. why was the posterboy for the expansion shown no love compared to others like WAR, NIN, or AST? why was DRK shown no love in the next expansion, where they could have drawn upon MULTIPLE sources of feedback?

at this point the meme quote should be "there wasnt much we could do with drk/sch/mch/brd/pld/drg/dnc" because there wasn't much """Build up""" aside from a few enders and more needless AOEs. then again, this is just the opinion of someone who was told to look elsewhere, despite years of nothing but love and support for the game which showed me there was an MMO worth investing time into.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

firstly, if DRK was a "bad job" like you said in the context of STB, then why did they not fix the problems with the job for the next expansion.

I mean, they did fix the issues many people were complaining about the job. Just not the fixes you personally wanted.
People complained delirium was an ineffectual burst button in a meta that was all about burst. So they -made- it a proper burst button.
People complained dark Arts was too spammy. So they streamlined it by replacing it with a new system that serves the exact same purpose in function, only you aren't spamming it as crazy as much as you were spamming DA in SB.

but neither of these versions have as much problems as the current SHB DRK kit.

and this is when we start heading into subjective territory, but IMO HW's kit had way more problems than SHB's does, my personal opinion is people look at it with way too rose tinted glasses. Functionally, SHB's kit works. It may not personally appeal to people, but everything works as it should both MT & OT wise. It's only flaw really is LD but thats been a constant across every iteration of DRK. HW DRK had serious issues about being OT between losing dps, the party losing a powerful mitigation tool in the form of Reprisal, two of its DA effects fighting against itself (Why would you ever give Dark Passenger a blind or Dark Dance evasion on a job that -wants- to get hit between blood price & reprisal? Not to mention the hilarity that was hitting blood price and then the WHM chain stunning the pack for 8s.) or several DA effects being basically worthless in raid (DA-DP, DA-DD, DA-AD.)

finally, in the context of SHB to EW, why were absolutely no changes made to fix the myriad of valid criticisms of SHB DRK laid out by DRK players for the last 2 years?
the issue of our resource generation abilities lacking impact could be solved many ways, such as the removal of mana regen ticks which would allow power to return to said abilities.
the issue of delirium feeling like a cheap clone of another ability, rather than being a unique resource tool for the resource generation tank
the issue of the disjointed kit because of the lack of interplay between said resources
the issue of Living Dead being a poorly designed skill (something which people seem to be adamant is the PRIORITY to fix, and not something that should be fixed ALONGSIDE the above problems)

To be fair, we have literally only animations and anything related to blood to go off of from the job action trailer, and several skills were not shown. LD could be fully fixed, Carve and Spit has a hidden visual effect to its animation that's been datamined in the benchmark indicating an upgrade, any of the various OGCDs could have new effects added to them. Delirium could have a secondary side effect that isn't visually shown. Saying 'no changes' is extremely disingenuous when you have literally no tooltips available.

As far as Delirium point, I'm going to give you a little lesson in game design and how the devs are applying it to FF14. People by large -love- flashy things. People -love- to feel immediate tactile feedback from interacting with something. Take a look at the job designs as a whole in SHB & EW. They have been streamlining systems that make very little visual impact (DoTs, resource generations, etc) In favor of grandiose visual flair. Look at Living Shadow. In form, it is effectively a reskinned DoT. But it is far more visually interesting than hitting Scourge and seeing a small tick animation pop up for the next 30s. Same thing with Queen. Lead shot was uninteresting visually. But summoning a huge ass robot to punch, kick and drill targets is far more visually interesting.

To that end, finishers &/or abilities that let you spam a big powerful button feel great to a ton of people. It gives a lot of immediate power and satisfaction, you -know- you're doing a ton of damage for Delirium's duration. Contrast SB's Delirium. You extended your BW or BP. Unless someone calculates how much extra MP they receive and then converts it to raw potency from Dark Arts, they don't know how much damage they just got from it. That's even before considering you hit the button then go back to doing your normal rotation, there's no immediate tactile feedback that you did anything with it. With SHB, you -know- you are doing 600 potency a hit, AND you get to do BloodSpiller's incredibly powerful, weighted animation multiple times in a row compared to just another hard slash.

Which also extends to interplay between resources - it's much easier to feel the tactile feedback of straight potency than to have to worry about math or think about how your resources are shifting to maximize damage. Hence why every job with any sort of complexity with resource generation has been steadily streamlined over the expansions in favor of grandiose visual flair.

what context justifies breaking a unique playstyle in an MMO which is inherently supposed to allow for multiple playstyles to suit the multiple people that play the game?

Many reasons. internal statistics showing the job is suffering from a drought of players. Wanting to make the job easier to balance in the future. Wanting to streamline the game in general. Take your pick of hundreds of possible reasons. Also being blunt, FF14 might offer many playstyles, but the reality is aesthetic flair plays a huge role in the jobs people choose. People might like the gameplay of WAR but despise its aesthetic and want to be the dark, edgy boi wielding a giant bigass greatsword. So then they give their thoughts on social media/fourms/in-game/etc, and it adds to the collective pool of data Square uses to make decisions.

the ONLY context I can think of is that Square decided that pandering to people who are unwilling to put in the work required to become proficient at a job far outweighed the option to continue to make improvements to jobs that their core playerbase would enjoy;

Bingo; and they outnumber you at least 10 to 1 when it comes time to pay the monthly bills. Possibly even way more, depending on how much you purchase off the mogstation vs them.

however, the big problem with this """context""" is that they showed that they can continue to make jobs evolve without destroying their unique playstyle

*Looks at AST's cards, SCH in general, MNK getting rework after rework*

Yeah...not always. Even history itself has shown they'll tear apart a job's identity to make parity with other jobs in its role. Exhibit A: Bowmage in 3.0.

why was the posterboy for the expansion shown no love compared to others like WAR, NIN, or AST? why was DRK shown no love in the next expansion, where they could have drawn upon MULTIPLE sources of feedback?

Ask that to MNK & SAM, the posterboys of SB. Because giving MNK an ability that intentionally went against its core identity of going fast fast fast by slowing it down and a rainbow of various tackles really wasn't really showing it much love. Not to mention poor SAM. A job meant to be a selfish dps when the meta was stacking so many buffs that the extra damage everyone did outweighed SAM's personal damage. Just because a job is a posterboy doesn't mean it gets preferential treatment. it just means its the job that's most in line with the theme of the expansion for marketing purposes, nothing more.

Also DRK was shown plenty of love in SHB. It got a rework of its jobkit. Just because you hate it doesn't discredit the time the DRk job designer spent having to create a brand new system that filled the same purpose of DA and then take meticulous amounts of hours balancing potency with the other tanks. Look at something like WAR, which effectively only got a bigger badder fell cleave & decimate. Or how many jobs in SHB just got heavily streamlined and lost more than they gained (SCH, AST's cards in SHB, AST AGAIN in EW losing half its identity with the loss of Noct).

and again, as I highlighted earlier, they did draw on feedback. They just listened to feedback you didn't like is all. But they listened.

This is just the opinion of someone who was told to look elsewhere, despite years of nothing but love and support for the game which showed me there was an MMO worth investing time into

I mean, let's be blunt here. You're just a single person, we all are, which is why Square doesn't listen to individuals. But they do listen to trends and a large majority...which isn't the case here. As I linked in the homogenization topic, there's been fan polls done across the 5.0 series on reddit that give a glimpse into the picture that the large majority are at least satisfied with DRK's changes in SHB. No doubt to me Square's internal statistics likely show a major uptick in DRK players this expansion compared to SB, but that's my speculation.

Streamlining and visuals is the name of the game now in FF14. Resource management across every job is basically 'build resource, spend it'. They're not going to be introducing or re-introducing interplaying resources at this point; the initial removal of Hagakure from SAM (and its return as a severely nerfed ability only useful for managing Sens in extremely niche scenarios) & DRK's design in 5.0 both indicate the devs have little interest in interplaying resources. Even RPR with its two gauges literally comes down to 'build one gauge to use attacks which build a second gauge which you spend to enter reaper mode.'

[bundythenoob]

snip

I'm well aware of both the butchering of SCH and MNK, having mained PLD/MNK/SCH in ARR and later DRK in HW. I'm also well aware of the game design lesson you chose to give me, but thank you for reiterating in case others who stumble upon this thread might not know about that aspect of FFXIV's direction of game design.

I'm not questioning the dev's decision to cater to the loudest demographic, I'm well aware of the shift in video game design over the last few years, as well as the overt money grubbing schemes that corporations have taken to maximise profits over the enjoyment of the medium, much to the chagrin of veterans who seek a challenge. I'm questioning the devs decision to come to no compromises in terms of restoring gameplay identity to the CURRENT DRK and the lack of any meaningful changes to the job in Endwalker after they specifically said they're BUILDING UP on the SHB jobs.

I concede that you are correct in saying that we don't have tooltips, but from the gameplay we saw, there was no difference between any old abilities generating blood or spending of the Darkside gauge, no difference in Living Shadow (they made it perform the same actions in the same order as in the SHB trailer), no difference to the stale 1-2-3 gameplay after the expenditure of your "burst" tool. even with these "new" skills added, there were still no changes to our kits overall disjointed design, nor were there any changes to the old skills' lack of meaningful interactions with the resources. despite how "subjective" my opinions are, you can objectively see which tank job got an actual evolution to its playstyle (WAR), and which tank was left in the dust to rot once all its mains switch to RPR.

as for your comment on the devs """hard work"""... they've stated in the past that they don't enjoy playing TANKS or HEALERS, so why should any of us be praising square enix for forcing the DPS orientated devs to rework a job they don't understand, rather than questioning why they don't just hire a dedicated dev for tanks and a dedicated dev for healers, so that the DPS devs can focus on further developing the DPS jobs that have been neglected, or do BRD and MCH not deserve the same amount of love as SAM or NIN?

I already came to terms with my future with FFXIV and the decision of its direction in the first post. the whole purpose of this thread is so that the new playerbase has at least one source to inform themselves of the problems with the job that they might have felt, but been unable to put into words due to missing context, and get a glimpse into what the past job was like so that they can see for themselves why certain abilities exist and why they feel so disjointed as opposed to interconnected with the kit. this thread is for FUTURE DRK players to know that there are job fixes they can fight for using the CURRENT DRK shell. you might think DRK doesn't """need""" these fixes because it's """functional""", but that doesn't mean that there isn't a loooong list of valid complaints about the jobs lackluster burst window, the lack of impact and interplay of your abilities, and the "fire and forget" nature of the jobs various tools. on top of that, the devs refusal to listen to feedback from both sides, not just from a "game design" perspective, but from a corporate decision to not hire a dedicated developer, despite all of the money this game is raking in, really shows which direction the game is heading.

[Benn]

I'm questioning the devs decision to come to no compromises in terms of restoring gameplay identity to the CURRENT DRK and the lack of any meaningful changes to the job in Endwalker after they specifically said they're BUILDING UP on the SHB jobs.

I mean, we only know about mechanic changes of Delirium, additional "Salted Earth" power and 2 powers added? We don't know if they will tweak potency, cooldowns, durations etc. of other abilities. There are so many jobs that they won't give full patch notes of every little change they will make in EW.

A major change on some job abilities would be changing duration from 5s to 7s or Potency from 200 to 250 etc. So we don't know yet the full scale of all the changes in EW. I think we should wait and then decide if there were major changes.

As far as reworking goes - I don't think DRK will get any for next 2 years at least. They are building on ShB job, so the core of kit remains the same. And I think core of the kit is fine. It just need little tweaks like for example making Blood Weapon having 1s timer delay after pushing button to get proper 10s duration would be a big change, but overall nothing major for the kit shape.