A DRK Rework Suggestion for 7.0 (or beyond)

[Archwizard]

I don't think the job needs lifesteal mechanics because WAR is already that type of tank.

This would be a great idea, except for the fact that WAR is already is the tank that you describe.

Yes, and I asked "why isn't DRK the vampiric tank instead of WAR". Because I consider the positions they each occupy to be... a bit backwards. Nor am I alone in that regard.

Here's the thing: your argument that I'm suggesting reworking two jobs hinges on the assumption that life-draining is integral to WAR's current playstyle... when it is in fact only a big part of two skills, both on-demands.
One of which was changed only two months ago and is considered wildly overpowered, and previously was just raw mitigation.
Okay yes, they previously had Bloodbath too, but they lost that back in Stormblood... in a time when Dark Knight still had spammable Abyssal Drains. And NF came out a lot stronger than Bloodbath ever was, and was intended to be used for off-tanking.


If we look at the historical precedent set by Dark Knight across the Final Fantasy series, two things of importance jump out, central to its identity:
One, their "Darkness" ability uses health as a resource, usually to deal damage. Not something easy to implement on a tank, I will grant. Pin in that thought.
Two, they often supplement this with Sanguine Sword/Blood Weapon or other Drain-type abilities. Including the spammable Abyssal Drains I mentioned. This is... much more doable for a tank.

Going back to Warrior for a minute, since we're on the topic, my opinion is that the job should be focused on tools that bump its EHP to absorb damage... like it did before it had Nascent Flash. Whether that's heavy mitigation skills like Raw Intuition, skills that bump its max HP like Thrill of Battle, or even damage nullifying effects like Bloodwhetting also provides.
I'm not even averse to WAR keeping Equilibrium. A tank having their own Second Wind is fine; the only expressly non-magical tank could even justify it as adrenaline.
It has more of a case to be a barrier tank than DRK, in my opinion. Literally all you would need to change is turning RI/BW back into raw mitigation, or convert the "leech on hit" element into a stacking barrier effect on hit of equal (or ideally more balanced) potency. Nothing about its playstyle would even need to change!
But high-potency vampirism? Unless the Warrior is actually licking the blood off their axe, there's no non-magical explanation for that, especially if they're somehow healing other people more effectively than Paladin. Yes, it encourages them to keep swinging to maintain their life which seems fitting for a Berserker, until you realize that's on its head; a Berserker should be able to keep swinging because they ignore every arrow and ailment that strikes true in the first place.

Now, the line you quoted about Dark Knights? "But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted..."
That's the difference between Warriors and Dark Knights: WARs revel in combat but ignore pain. DRKs use pain as power.
That is 14's reflection of their Darkness ability: they grow stronger the more they're beaten down. It's a sadomasochistic dance for them. Just look at lost skills of theirs like Blood Price. (Which I used as a guiding principle for redesigning its mitigation.)
Which they used to cast more Dark Arts skills, including Abyssal Drain.

And on the flip-side, how much are you bleeding and soaking your armor when your main form of defense is barrier magic that eats tankbusters? Food for thought.

So to summarize,

My recommendation is this. Forget about lifesteal and trying to swap places with WAR. Bad things lie in wait at the end of that timeline.

I acknowledge your counsel, but I retain my agency not to follow it. This is the rework that follows that path to its conclusion.

Thank you for your earlier compliment. I hope you take the chance to comment on the changes to the playstyle I wrote beyond the sustain.

[Lyth]

...

Like I said earlier, if you were designing the tank jobs from scratch, everything that you're suggesting would be very reasonable. The problem is that the playerbase has expectations of the jobs based off of their prior experiences with them.

The primary reason why WAR is currently the lifesteal tank is, unfortunately, because it got there first. There was a period in time during early Stormblood where it could have gone either way, and I've asked many of these same questions myself several years back. But now you have players who have been maining WAR for something approaching 10 years now, and there's a community expectation that's built up over time that it's 'supposed' to be good at lifesteal. If you want to know what you're up against, just take a look at the 'Tank healing is too high' thread to see what happens when you try to take away those toys. And from a developer standpoint, why would you want to risk it? You have players that are really happy with the design of the job. If you start tampering with it to make another job look more attractive, then you just end up with two groups of angry players instead of just one.

I'm likewise not a fan of trying to try to share lifesteal with other tanks. It's dumb enough that PLD now uses vampiric holy magic. Why would you throw yourself into the midst of that competition? I'd personally just like to see DRK develop a unique gameplay style and identity that isn't available on another tank, rather than ending up as a budget WAR just because it's in vogue. And that's the comparison that will invariably be made at the end of the day.

It doesn't matter either way. I can only point out the practicalities of the issue. Enjoy your homebrew.

[Archwizard]

I'm likewise not a fan of trying to try to share lifesteal with other tanks. It's dumb enough that PLD now uses vampiric holy magic. Why would you throw yourself into the midst of that competition? I'd personally just like to see DRK develop a unique gameplay style and identity that isn't available on another tank, rather than ending up as a budget WAR just because it's in vogue. And that's the comparison that will invariably be made at the end of the day.

So one, this paragraph here gives me the vibe that you wrote off the entire doc without reading it when you saw "life steal" on the OP, because you think WAR should have a monopoly on it – which I would normally write off as an outlandish bad faith interpretation of your statement, if you hadn't gone so far as to heckle PLD for healing with its holy spells. The job that has had self-healing since FF1, but only as a ribbon here because of its DPS cost.
Or claimed that this would make DRK "budget WAR" when... look at it currently. This isn't in a vacuum of "the only thing I added was more lifesteal."
And to be honest, the idea that you would throw out any type of lifesteal, regardless of its methodology, only permitting Bloodwhetting purely because "WAR got there first" is exceptionally close-minded.

Especially when you pull out the one-two of

The primary reason why WAR is currently the lifesteal tank is, unfortunately, because it got there first. There was a period in time during early Stormblood where it could have gone either way, and I've asked many of these same questions myself several years back.

... wherein you demonstrate the malleability of these roles and how they aren't set in stone, regardless of "expectations." It's a very "eat your cake and have it too" argument.
And as I already explained, DRK has an even longer precedent than WAR does, predating 14, one where people claiming WAR should life-leech would have less of a leg to stand on if a swap was imminent. Meanwhile DRK's current role as a barrier tank comes out of nowhere.

[Luizgazen]

If DRK were a job available from ARR, it definitely would be the lifesteal tank and WAR the heavy mitigation one, but it werent, so WAR got the lifesteal and PLD the mitigation back then... now DRK magic style of tanking can lend itself to both lifesteal and shielding and since TBN is a thing, that should be the direction they take us.
A direction i tought right now, quickly at that so there may be some serious flaw in my ideas, would be something like this:

get a "Brutal Shell"-like shield on our ST and AOE combos, change Dark Missionary to a 15% maxhp shield to the party, Dark Mind to a big shield and increase its cooldown to balance, and turn Oblation into a trait, giving raw mitigation to the shield we make.
Like this we could keep some light mitigation most of the time so our shields wont break instantly and Dark Missionary would became a very good party utility with a base 10% mit and some shielding, do this and we wouldnt even need much more sustain than Soul Eater and Abyssal Drain, maybe just changing the Dark Arts proc into a heal like the other tank spammables, just have to make sure the Oblation trait won't work with healer shields or it would became too strong.