Your Dark Knight players are unhappy. あなたの暗闇騎士プレイヤーは不幸です

[MerlinCross]

I mean, if they took the coolest part of a job, broke it over their knee, and turned it into a thoughtless spamfest with no real nuance, I'd want it removed too. It's pretty clear they didn't know how to take Dark Arts and turn it into something actually interesting or evolve the concept after 3.0. Which sucks because, as much as some people hate to believe it, they've done just that with plenty of other jobs, including tank jobs (namely PLD).

Which is why I said it was a rather moot point as the two were so meshed. Rather than go “oh they hate the implementation” it was “Oh they hate dark arts. Better kill it”. Though my own thought on Dark Arts was salvageable. More things or ways to spend it yeah okay, just scale it back to the pace of HW and make it more viable in the moment to moment choice. But it was just easier to ax it then walk it back or fix.

That said I did like the speed DRK felt in stormblood but we also still had speed on Blood Weapon so, column A column B.

[AziraSyuren]

Which is why I said it was a rather moot point as the two were so meshed. Rather than go “oh they hate the implementation” it was “Oh they hate dark arts. Better kill it”. Though my own thought on Dark Arts was salvageable. More things or ways to spend it yeah okay, just scale it back to the pace of HW and make it more viable in the moment to moment choice. But it was just easier to ax it then walk it back or fix.

That said I did like the speed DRK felt in stormblood but we also still had speed on Blood Weapon so, column A column B.

Yeah, I'm just kinda salty that people pretend 4.0 DRK was its high point when it was a disaster all around. It might've been more fun than its 5.0 variant, but its overall terrible design made its lows a hell of a lot lower.

[MerlinCross]

Yeah, I'm just kinda salty that people pretend 4.0 DRK was its high point when it was a disaster all around. It might've been more fun than its 5.0 variant, but its overall terrible design made its lows a hell of a lot lower.

I think most Older DRKs would say Heavensward was peak DRK. Even with the Glasses off but those days the game was different in how they handled fights and job balance around them.

That said, I didn't think 4.0 was a disaster. We picked up some good things, pruned some stuff that could stay or go, and saw improvements. Though at the same time the Devs were kinda starting to fumble with the idea of "How does Tank" which still struggles to this day depending, so some of the things were just odd or different. The main problem was at least to me of course the issue around Dark Arts, it had other problems like a focus still around Parry and Magic tank, but DA spam was the main downside. Myself, I liked it as it didn't feel like I was always 'building up' to a full gauge like other jobs, just get enough to burn DA onto something. No having to worry about when I get to go off the leash like say PLD or WAR. To me it felt very much like an upkeep job like DRG's Blood of the Dragon, just keep that plate spinning where as other jobs want to wait for their big burst and dump everything into it, when the ability is off CD or their gauge is up.

This IS however, with me having poor memory these days and it was what 3 years ago by now? 4? So I will admit I could be forgetting things or just have rose tinted glasses. I liked what I liked, saw some problems it had or could have going forward but I was still pretty hopeful to see just what they would do. Possibly Naïve.

To put it into a picture though; I'd give Heavensward ward a grade of B+ to A. Very good.
Stormblood drops to C- or B. Decent, like some ideas, really need to settle on some of them.
Shadowbringers drops to D or lower with a note of "Who actually wrote this?" on the side.

[AziraSyuren]

snip.

The thing is that 5.0 DRK, as boring as it was, had few major design flaws. 4.0 DRK had a load of problems that just didn't mesh well with the overall game design at the time. It lacked a slashing debuff, which basically forced a composition containing some of the most already-broken jobs in the game (and Samurai, lol), locked multiple skills behind either tank or DPS stance-preventing you from ever using them the moment you wanted to optimize- and arguably had more trouble holding aggro than any other tank until late into Stormblood. Not all of these things are bad on their own, mind- heck, the only thing I'd argue was an objective design flaw was locking abilities behind tank stance- but your reward for what was more or less the most difficult tank to play was the lowest damage and worst party utility out of every tank by a pretty sizable margin. It was profoundly unrewarding the moment you cared about anyone other than yourself.

I found its gameplay loop pretty fun, don't get me wrong, but I've never been so thoroughly annoyed with how reliant upon others it was than I was with 4.0 DRK, and as thematically fitting as that might be, I really don't think it was worth it.

And that's just it. 4.0 DRK just wasn't worth the effort to play compared to the other two. 3.0 and even 5.0 DRK was. It's hard for me personally to enjoy a job when I feel like I'm dragging down the rest of the party by playing it. The job was all take and no give, which I strongly believe a tank shouldn't be.

(and that's not even getting into how bad it felt in dungeons KEKW)

[MerlinCross]

Snip

Weird, I never had problem holding hate as DRK. But then again, I was a bad tank because I used actual Tank Stance which was the incorrect thing to do at the time if my memory from posters is correct(Yes I was told I was a bad tank if I couldn't hold hate when not in Grit when part of my kit wanted Grit anyway). As for the locking of abilities, well, yeah. Back then they were trying to make things function as MT focus or OT focus. You didn't NEED certain abilities if you were focused on damage or tanking. But this isn't me fully defending it as Peak design, that was Heavensward. I just didn't see or care about the problems listed because I either didn't play that way or that level of content. DRK did less damage than WAR, so, I ran dungeons all day. Killing something 5-10 seconds faster really didn't effect me that much. Some of those complaints only really felt like they mattered when you needed to push every little number as far as it could go and well, I just don't like playing that way most the time. I was hopeful they could somehow do something better in the next expansion, maybe find a way to fuse both of them.

But instead we got..., a very effective version of DRK in 5.0. I'll admit it, 5.0 DRK is good. It's just so mind numbingly slow, boring, and just so bland; I went and leveled WAR, never looked back. And even then, I only tank these days for the fast times, tanking in general is just bleh to me these days. A class can be powerful and top the charts, I won't play it if it feels wrong. I forced myself to level BLM because "It MUST be good, everyone likes it" during Shadowbringers and well...., My mind just refused to record any moment of my BLM time because I was just so put off by the job. Heck if I recall for a time in Shadowbringers, MNK was really good.... for as clunky as the player base made it out to be. Though that's also info I picked up when people were all a buzz and those numbers/opinions changed like per week or day. What I'm reaching for is this; the point in making an effective Job if the cycle of play is just so awkward, off pace, and clunky.

But then again, that's also why a lot of people quit 4.0 DRK. They just also had the numbers to back them up where as now I can only say "I don't like how it plays". The numbers seem to be against me but from what I'm seeing of PLD being maybe fun but lacking, maybe I'll go give that one a shot.

I think what you look for in a Job, is different from what I look for in a Job.

They could make a tank that's interesting, fun to play, and can be effective. But the devs seem to be in a war of "Balance/Enjoyment/Ease/Popularity" when it comes to balance so I don't think they're going to be able to please both of us at the same time.