Should Dark Knight get a Rework?

[Kyrj]

Man I want to like DRK, but whoever is in charge of their mechanics and balancing of that Job is just horrible

At this point I'd be fine with them just reworking it into a DPS...like it should've been.

[Shurrikhan]

Man I want to like DRK, but whoever is in charge of their mechanics and balancing of that Job is just horrible

At this point I'd be fine with them just reworking it into a DPS...like it should've been.

I honestly prefer DRK as a tank. It looks better in plate, half its weapons have greater blocking area across their exposed flat than most shields do, and that role gives a far better anchor for edgy risk-reward aspects that tie well into DRK.

I just dislike how basic tanks have been left in this game, both in terms of internal components and external interactions (i.e., what risk-reward aspects could from its interactions with content). That's the real issue.

Also, inb4 "Being a tank prevents DRK from sacrificing HP." No, a tank role is the only role for which sacrificing HP, e.g. for burst damage or eHP conversion (Flat HP -> percentile mitigation, etc.), makes sense. On Tank, HP can be an actual manipulable resource that involves risk and reward.

On a DPS, on the other hand, it just turns into a wonky ACT-bars trade for ultimately no rDPS gain except in incredibly niche scenarios:

• Keep HoTs up on the DRK and let it soak up any excess oGCD heals you have so that it can do its normal DPS, which will ultimately be at most a healer filler attack per HoT duration higher than its competitors,
• with the grand unique feature of "in a pinch, let DRK drop itself to near-death before healable downtime, using that empty time on GCD heals on it" (so very exciting).

[OdinelStarrei]

I would like it to get one, to become like the HW that so many of us fell in love with as a base and its subsequent SB onwards skills to be added back in on a case by case basis where they add to the job.
I don't want the current devs to be the ones to do it though. Reaper stole so much stuff that drk players were begging for (higher apm burst, crest of time borrowed, a gauge that's actually worthwhile etc) and they have fucked up so many jobs since HW that they need to be replaced by people who care about more than just blm.

I just dislike how basic tanks have been left in this game, both in terms of internal components and external interactions (i.e., what risk-reward aspects could from its interactions with content). That's the real issue.

You know what, I thought I was done in this topic but it turns out I actually have more to add. People always theorize and ask for rework ideas, and always talk about the things they liked from before, but look just HOW MUCH, minor and major, they stole from DRK?

Gapcloser? Believe it or not, previously unique to DRK, a unique gauge version given, and then taken from WAR, then given to PLD, and now GNB has Rough Divide at 2 stacks innately while DRK just kinda has 1 until ShB.
Dark Dance being a physical equivalent to Dark Mind that had synergy with the kit via Low Blow counters? First, replaced with Anticipation role-action, then deleted from tanks, coming back as Camouflage on Gunbreaker with innate damage mitigation. Low Blow also relegated to a role action stun, despite both PLD and WAR having unique stun skills in their kits.
GCD DoT in Scourge, so you had something to look at every 30 seconds? Removed. GNB can have Sonic Break though, that's fine. (???)
Reprisal? Removed from DRK, role action now.
Shadowskin? Removed, even if it would be perfect for a weaker version of TBN pre-70.
Dark Mind? Nerfed by 10%.
Manual placed Salted Earths? Removed. I liked it.
Salted Earth giving RESOURCES? PER ENEMY? Removed.
Blood Weapon scaling MP gained with enemies hit? Removed.
Blood Weapon working on physical off-globals? Removed.
Quietus having MP regen attached as a base attribute. Removed.
Delirium? Not removed, but considering the torture it's been through over the years I kinda wish it was.
Infinite sustain in dungeons? Removed! Then buffed, and given to WAR for ONE skill instead of like the five, offensive and defensive, it took for DRK to do the same thing!
Darkside management? First, removed the drain aspect of MP, removing a significant portion of risk from the skill floor, but still allowing optimizations from quick math from BW hits in SB. Removed entirely in ShB.
Being able to turn off Darkside during downtime to gain MP from passive MP regens or even things like Refresh and Mana Shift? Removed in ShB, along with those skills, wouldn't want to have too much team interplay outside of the buff windows!
The ability to buff skills, at all on DRK? Removed, in two pieces! Rotation-wise, given to GNB via Gnashing Fang, and thematically, grafted onto Sage via Eurkrasia.
MP spenders having variable amounts? Removed. 3000 MP or nothing.
MP having more than 2 player influenced acquisition sources? Deleted! Soul Survivor, gone. Blood Price, gone! SB Delirium, gone! I do not count CnS now giving it's 600 MP all the time suitable, because the only impact it has is that it allows a single extra Edge of Shadow to fit more comfortably into an opener/2 mins. It's not actually MP management.
MP having more than 2 ways to spend it? No. GCD Abyssal Drain, gone, a SERIOUS tragedy considering all the complaining that goes about "sustain". Dark Passenger, gone. (All you had to do was make DP a AoE version of old CnS enough potency to be worth it in single target, this deleted 4800 MP per use!!!!) I even miss GCD Grit of all things, because it didn't take a GCD to turn off, was in actuality just a 1200 MP toggle-able Rampart, and if you had to stay in it for a little while, as long as BW was off cooldown, your Syphons gave more MP as a mitigating factor. Unlike on PLD, where Shield Oath would just screw you and say lmao. It was so cool to use it, and Dark Mind, and TBN to completely trivialize Hyperdrive, or Flare Breath, or Homing Lasers(safety), and the flip back into the offensive. Now everybody is a kitchen-sinking god, so the uniqueness isn't there.
Job gauge that increments slowly in single digit increments, but steadily? No, it's just going to be big huge chunks of 10/20/30 like every other job in the game.
TBN feeding into a resource? Kept, but the urgency of preventing a Blood overcap is totally gone, and a DA proc can be held infinitely, while +50 Blood was often gained in the process of SPENDING that Blood to free up the room in the gauge. When you can Edge whenever you want with no GCD investment, the failure states are not equivalent.
TBN as a concept? Versions of it given to every tank, shrinking the defensive DRK niche.
Variable GCD speeds/Haste? Removed, as we've been over.
More than 1 combo? Aggro combos were removed, even if DAPS was the highest GCD aggro generator in FFXIV, usable even outside of Grit. Note, aggro combos were not changed, they were not adjusted to fit into another system, or retooled to fit into the rotation in a different way, those skills and the system were removed, with nothing to replace them. But as a DRK specific bonus, OG Delirium relegated to the Interject interrupt.
3/7 role actions have DRK origins.
Scheduled Mana Demolition? Kept! But only because you don't have any other options, but 2 mins. Taking trick attack off the 1 min was a DRK nerf. You had teams with 60s? Dump MP in the 60s. You had teams with 90s? Dump in the 90s. You had teams with 180s? Dump in the 180s. Someone died and you have to hold burst for a bit? Didn't matter to you! You just moved most of your burst around depending on composition, you were a SUSTAIN TANK.
Sustain tanks? Soon to be deleted in January.

Whoa, that's a lot of things that I just wrote from my memory alone, I might've even missed some stuff! But with that many removals, that means there's a ton of room for additions! So what did we gain?

Dark Missionary for a raidwide mitigation. One of the biggest issues after the SB Shake It Off change.
A 5% stronger TBN.
Passive MP regeneration.
Oblation.
Fire and forget moves like, Shadowbringer, Living Shadow, and Salt and Darkness. In full uptime encounters with no phasing, there are no creative ways to utilize these skills.
And most importantly, a Living Dead that is 99% usable, after like six years or something jesus christ.

So, yeah. Like I always say. Remove to improve and consolidation is the only thing they know how to do. They will not add systems, they will not intentionally add complexity, and they will not return us to where we were. They have certainly had the opportunity. Why would I trust them to do anything? To reiterate:

I wouldn't trust SE to rework a paper bag at this point.

Reworks are something to be feared now. To think otherwise is edging closer to delusional rather than optimistic. Always remember.

They very rarely rework a job for the people who actually play it to enjoy it more. They don't care about you.

[Axious]

Would probably be labeled as "too complicated" but I wouldn't mind DRK being a tank that possessed self destructive skills for a sizeable amount of burst damage paired with sustain/recovery based around stealing HP from enemies. FFXI probably hit this niche the best as DRK in that game had access to a majority of the plate tank armor along with a VIT stat and HP pool comparable to PLD and even had a skill with a built in emnity boost in Last Resort which spiked enmity like a small provoke while boosting attack and lowering defense. The kit also had Souleater which converted your own HP into raw additional damage and it's trumpcard ability with a 2hr cooldown Bloodweapon which converted your damage into raw absorbed HP (unless you were stupid enough to try using it on undead cause that game actually had normal JRPG mechanics). It also had access to magic though the only real notable spells were specifically classified as dark magic which included Bio spells which in FFXI was a DoT that weakened the enemy's offense and Drain, Drain II, Aspir, and a set of Absorb spells that would temporarily steal stats from the target like str, vit, dex, etc...

At the same time I feel like a tank with self destructive spike damage skills would probably have alot of healers complaining because they have to pay more attention. I know insta-KO'd myself in FFXI using a 4 hit scythe weaponskill with souleater active while wearing gear items that boost it's effect paired with gear that granted passives for double or triple attack and having one of those proc on every hit of the Weaponskill... >.>; I recall making a macro for souleater that said something along the lines of "Wheee~ Look at my HP fly away!" XD

Oh the fun of watching Drks kill themselves with guillotine haha.

I personally would enjoy Drk becoming an absorb defbuff tank.
Absorb strength, vitality, intellect, etc as damage reduction / buff skills.

Concept of sacrificing hp for damage is fun but tough to work around as a tank. A dps most definitely though.
Only idea I can think of atm would be a shield barrier acting as false hp to work skills into.

Do I want job identity? Yes. Will we get it? I do not see the Devs moving towards that direction in any near future.
If anything the exact opposite. We’re getting into the territory of “All skills are role job identical and the jobs are reskinned animations”.

My rambling thoughts? Each job will begin with a few set 123 456 gcd combo and everything else will be role job skills.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Oh the fun of watching Drks kill themselves with guillotine haha.

I personally would enjoy Drk becoming an absorb defbuff tank.
Absorb strength, vitality, intellect, etc as damage reduction / buff skills.

Concept of sacrificing hp for damage is fun but tough to work around as a tank. A dps most definitely though.
Only idea I can think of atm would be a shield barrier acting as false hp to work skills into.

Do I want job identity? Yes. Will we get it? I do not see the Devs moving towards that direction in any near future.
If anything the exact opposite. We’re getting into the territory of “All skills are role job identical and the jobs are reskinned animations”.

My rambling thoughts? Each job will begin with a few set 123 456 gcd combo and everything else will be role job skills.

Actually the deaths were from the weaponskill I don't remember the name of that was added with Treasures of Aht Urgran that if I remember right had to be "quested" by getting the scythe weapon from one of the dungeon like things added then using said weapon to do a certain amount of weaponskills. I used that one at times to close skill chains. Otherwise it was spamming Catastrophe all day since I normally did things as DRK/SAM lol

[Shurrikhan]

You know what, I thought I was done in this topic but it turns out I actually have more to add. People always theorize and ask for rework ideas, and always talk about the things they liked from before, but look just HOW MUCH, minor and major, they stole from DRK?

Too much has been taken from DRK without any real compensation, certainly.

That being said, though...

Gapcloser? Believe it or not, previously unique to DRK, a unique gauge version given, and then taken from WAR, then given to PLD, and now GNB has Rough Divide at 2 stacks innately while DRK just kinda has 1 until ShB.

GNB does seem like it should be the breakneck tank, regularly inflicting itself with whiplash, far more so than DRK, so I don't have a problem with that.

Reprisal? Removed from DRK, role action now.

Was a Monkey's Paw issue. HW DRKs asked to be able to apply Reprisal more reliably. Non-DRKs asked for access to percentile raid miti. This was the monstrous birth that followed.

Shadowskin? Removed, even if it would be perfect for a weaker version of TBN pre-70.

Probably because it was literally Rampart. (I am of course all for it filling the place of TBN pre-70, though, if we are to remain fixated on/around TBN, which I would be... okay... with, as at least it is the most unique among tank defensives.)

Salted Earth giving RESOURCES? PER ENEMY?

...was cooler on paper than in practice, as it ultimately just siphoned would-be direct potency into mild AoE ppgcd gains (over previously spammable AD) via Quietus. I do still miss it, though, yeah.

Delirium? Not removed, but considering the torture it's been through over the years I kinda wish it was.

The only form that's been tortured since was the StB ability, but that was a 90s CD that simply applied a partial duration bump to a lesser CD. It can and should be really awesome, I would think, with a name like that (more so than the original spinny spin spin slight potency bump for no self-healing combo finisher), but it really never has been. (The Stormblood version was less copy-pasta than its iteration since, but calling it actually good or interesting would, imo, be like calling Barrel Stabilizer an awesome CD.)

MP having more than 2 player influenced acquisition sources?

Didn't Darkside make you "immune" to all MP-granting effects? Soul Survivor, likewise, didn't trigger from allies, only from the affected enemy being slain in its duration (or, later, at the end of the duration regardless).

On all other counts, completely agreed.

:: And those few above I mention only because I feel like DRK threads a little too often rapidly devolve into "It was so much better back then!!!" acritical nostalgia-munching despite HW and StB DRK also having plenty of flaws, stale points, copy-pasta, etc., that we definitely could and should do better than if we were to bother with a large rework. We should take cues and direction from it, but by noting and addressing the bad, too, not just repeating the good.

(That's not to say you're going that route, Odinel. Just an aside.)

[Jeeqbit]

Dark Dance being a physical equivalent to Dark Mind that had synergy with the kit via Low Blow counters? First, replaced with Anticipation role-action, then deleted from tanks, coming back as Camouflage on Gunbreaker with innate damage mitigation.

It was Parry, the thing everyone attacked for existing, that you were trying to proc against bosses dealing magic damage.

GCD DoT in Scourge, so you had something to look at every 30 seconds? Removed.

The problem was it not being a GCD at first so that you could gain a lot of 100 potencies by spamming it when you already had an awful lot to press already.

Reprisal? Removed from DRK, role action now.

Unfortunate as it is for DRK to lose so much to the role actions, this version of Reprisal is so much better than the old version and it's one of my most favorite, most versatile tank abilities that I wouldn't want them to remove.

Manual placed Salted Earths? Removed. I liked it.

Even Yoshi-P was using macros to place it though.

A lot of it has been responding to general changes people wanted like removing Parry, removing Dark Arts, people not using tank stances, but it's obviously been changed a lot to make it less overpowered (such as spamming sustain) and to make it easier for a new player to get into.

[OdinelStarrei]

Too much has been taken from DRK without any real compensation, certainly.

That being said, though...

Was a Monkey's Paw issue. HW DRKs asked to be able to apply Reprisal more reliably. Non-DRKs asked for access to percentile raid miti. This was the monstrous birth that followed.

From what I remember, this is true. We kept a bit of the counterattack gameplay via TBN, but tying rep to a mitigation wasn't the best idea. Monkey's Paw. I'd at least like the old animation back with the explosion compared to the swirly.

Probably because it was literally Rampart. (I am of course all for it filling the place of TBN pre-70, though, if we are to remain fixated on/around TBN, which I would be... okay... with, as at least it is the most unique among tank defensives.)

Agreed. However, I think an ability, even if it's identical in function, should at least reflect the identity of the job that is using it in animations. Shadow Wall, Nebula, and Sentinel (with Vengeance being the small outlier) are not role actions, so I don't see why Shadowskin, Foresight, Rampart, and a new GNB exclusive 90 sec can't also be unique.

...was cooler on paper than in practice, as it ultimately just siphoned would-be direct potency into mild AoE ppgcd gains (over previously spammable AD) via Quietus. I do still miss it, though, yeah.

Yeah in single target, this wasn't a big deal, but as soon as you got a clump of enemies, it was just something that filled your Blood guage REALLY fast. From a potency perspective, it's whatever, but from a resource perspective, it was kinda awesome, because it directly gave you extra Quietus, and under old BW, you'd regenerate thousands of MP instantaneously, which you fed into DA ADs for health sustain, and Salted would just kinda support the gradual Blood build up. Being a 45 second CD, and thus able to repeat this loop every pull made it a really compelling dungeon experience!

The only form that's been tortured since was the StB ability, but that was a 90s CD that simply applied a partial duration bump to a lesser CD. It can and should be really awesome, I would think, with a name like that (more so than the original spinny spin spin slight potency bump for no self-healing combo finisher), but it really never has been. (The Stormblood version was less copy-pasta than its iteration since, but calling it actually good or interesting would, imo, be like calling Barrel Stabilizer an awesome CD.)

I will admit my bias. I love buff extenders and internal mechanic interplay, even to the smallest degree.

Then: Trade offer! You give me Blood, I give you MP, and more time going really fast! Accept?
Now: Trade offer! You give me nothing, I give you straight damage! Or in the case of Living Shadow, you give me Blood, I give you straight damage! Wait isn't that what Bloodspiller is (technically no, but let me have this one ok)

Didn't Darkside make you "immune" to all MP-granting effects? Soul Survivor, likewise, didn't trigger from allies, only from the affected enemy being slain in its duration (or, later, at the end of the duration regardless).

Hoho, you're correct, but only if Darkside was active. Darkside was technically a stance that could be disabled at will. Turning it on took 400 or 600 MP, if I'm remembering right. So during downtimes, you could have a caster (specifically Black Mages in Umbral Ice), shove some MP into you for a free Dark Arts when resuming combat, or even just let the passive MP regen take over as long the downtime was long enough to be MP positive after you factored in the cost of turning it back on. Things like Refresh and Ewer were much less common. You saw usages of this in A12S, O8S P1, Ultimate phasings, even some really long dungeon intermissions like Ghimlyt Dark if people were sweaty enough. Just a little bit of optimization to keep things interesting. It wasn't a big deal, really, just a tiny micro optimization where you gain 140 potency here or there, it was just fun, like a "ohhh, look how smart I am for playing around your restrictions." or a little bro moment you could have with your casters. Playing SkS DRK, my main focus was accumulating as much MP as possible, as quickly as possible, whatever way I could. I had an Xiphias Eureka with like +800 Skill Speed, I was a true degenerate.

On all other counts, completely agreed.

:: And those few above I mention only because I feel like DRK threads a little too often rapidly devolve into "It was so much better back then!!!" acritical nostalgia-munching despite HW and StB DRK also having plenty of flaws, stale points, copy-pasta, etc., that we definitely could and should do better than if we were to bother with a large rework. We should take cues and direction from it, but by noting and addressing the bad, too, not just repeating the good.

Of course. You got the jist of my point though. It's not that I want the old versions to return. It's that the things old versions did for DRK and other jobs are no longer congruent with current FFXIV job philosophies. I've gone on record now saying that I don't think Dark Knight has ever really realized it's full potential, and the lack of explanations and commitment to just fix stuff is why the discourse is so tumultuous at times. Back then, there was always jank, there was always inconsistent design choices, there were always counter-intuitive gameplay decisions (invincible, non-Grit dungeon tanking is the perfect example of this). It was always a flawed job, but it was always a fun job to me, even now to an extent. I am okay if I have to put up with this version of the job, because when the really bad stuff was addressed finally, the Blood Weapon, the Living Dead, those massive issues got resolved after much teeth pulling, and I do not think the job design team is capable of anything else without a complete upheaval, they're far too entrenched in the current system. Even if I think that what we have now is wasted potential, there's far bigger issues in the game right now from a gameplay perspective as a whole then in just my tiny corner of DRK-land. I think this is the healthiest way to proceed until further information is acquired, probably in a year or so. There comes a point where you have to stop mourning the canary in the coal mine, and just try to salvage whatever is left.

And as a sidenote, Jeeqbit, yes, I know Parry/Ten was/is trash. The system was poor. The substat system is still poor. Considering that there were not many bosses in all of Alexander that inflicted magic auto attacks, with the exceptions being Brawler, Swindler, and I think Manipulator???, Reprisal was easy enough to get where it was needed. My point is, that it was a removal in a list of removals with minor to major impacts, and I'm already biased against role actions specifically because they offered almost no equivalent replacements in the kits they pulled from or did changes to fights with things like autocrit/random crit, specifically when Anticipation and Awareness were removed(UCOB double nael/twin). Not that I expected them to, I am just stating what they did. I am not asking for Reprisal to be removed off of Role Actions, or from the game. It is unambiguously more useful now. I am not intending to be revisionist or say all removals ever done were unjustified and bad because that's not true, and change is inevitable. It'd just be nice if it said change was with a scapel instead of a sledgehammer.

And I used macros for Salted Earth. Doesn't mean I didn't have another bind of unmacro'd Salted Earth sitting in a less popular location in the event I wanted to place the Salted Earth ahead of where I was running or pulling because bosses weren't locked to the center of the stage 24/7. Yoshi-P told me that Blood Weapon was a ping issue and that dying to Living Dead was part of the DRK identity, gaslighting DRKs for years, so when it comes to DRK-specific discourse, he's about the last person on Earth I'd want to hear from, producer or not.

[MsMisato]

Yes, ever since they butchered it going into Stormblood, it has been needing a full rework to bring it back to its former glory. No, I don't care that they said they would be looking away from HW setups for jobs, you just need to give DRK an actual resource to manage and a few small fixes for their defensive and dungeon sustain. MP is spend and forget unless you're main tanking, Blood Gauge is pretty WAR levels of dumb.

Bring back the actual resource management, like Bloodspiller and Quietus having Darkside duration costs in addition to the gauge, make TBN cost Darkside duration instead of MP (with a proper TBN breaking giving you back the amount you spent on it), make Darkside THE resource you're managing. Hell, make Shadowbringer cost a huge chunk of Darkside duration so it's not so damned braindead and forgettable, it doesn't interact with anything in the kit atm.

Replace Flood with Abyssal Drain on the MP cost, buff the cure potency to 400, make it do as much damage as Edge with an AoE falloff while giving no Darkside.

Give Dark Mind the Addle treatment and have it reduce physical damage taken by 10% in addition to its 20% magic damage reduction.

Adjust Oblation to being learned in ARR (like level 48) so DRKs have some more defensives to make up for their lackluster defensive capabilities until level 70. The trait upgrade would give it the 2nd charge and an extra effect of a Bloodbath style buff that heals the player for the next 3-5 attacks they do.

All of those are ways they can just make DRK feel so much better.

I didn't feel they really butchered to horrible, but going into shadowbringer warrior and drk got gutted.

[Jeeqbit]

an ability, even if it's identical in function, should at least reflect the identity of the job that is using it in animations.

That would be nice and I think it was an obvious disappointment that it wasn't like that when Role Actions appeared, but I can see why it's a bit repetitive to have identical actions across jobs.

The flaw with this system is that there are a lot of repetitive actions that are identical that are not Role Actions, including a lot of healer cures, attacks and dots, the 30% tank mitigations where the only one with any minor difference is Warrior's, ranged single target attacks on melee jobs, tank aoe combos and it starts to get to a point where if those were Role Actions then the animation differences would detract from the class they are meant to be.

under old BW, you'd regenerate thousands of MP instantaneously, which you fed into DA ADs for health sustain, and Salted would just kinda support the gradual Blood build up. Being a 45 second CD, and thus able to repeat this loop every pull made it a really compelling dungeon experience!

I agree that it was fun. But was it something that an average sprout doing a dungeon as a Dark Knight would do over just spamming Unleash? I don't really know because I mostly played tanks myself instead of being in a dungeon with someone else on one. Less people picked up tanks then as well, because explaining an enmity combo was enough to make someone think it was complicated.

SE seems to have been trying to streamline it so that it's intuitive and you don't just have to "figure out" that you're able to spam Abyssal Drain instead of Unleash.

I will admit my bias. I love buff extenders and internal mechanic interplay, even to the smallest degree.

I like it too. I can accept it in a small, minor way though (for example, Astrologians working towards Divination and putting useless cards into Lord/Lady or other Royal Road-like system).

I think that Dark Knight took it to extremes in Heavensward though. I played it, it was varied and fun the completely different ways you would use it in different situations or phases, and how you would have to reserve different amounts of resources for abilities like Dark Mind or to empower certain attacks for a burst (all whilst still tanking), but no part of me felt it needed to be that complicated.

I feel that there can be a compromise somewhere that has some mechanics that interact but that don't create a massive skill and usage gap where someone picking it up for the MSQ is using it completely different and only using a fraction of their actions, which I feel must have been the case with how it worked in HW given how sophisticated it was.

Of course. You got the jist of my point though. It's not that I want the old versions to return. It's that the things old versions did for DRK and other jobs are no longer congruent with current FFXIV job philosophies.

I see your point about just how much was removed from Dark Knight (although, given how they don't want us to have too many actions, if they had remained, most of them would have been upgraded through traits by now). I think the debate is healthier if we focus on how Dark Knight can be improved within its current iteration, rather than reducing it to "3.0 DRK" or "4.0 DRK", which SE almost directly refused in a live letter before EW where they said they saw the "3.0" debate but are happy with the "5.0" direction and want to continue it. Given that is their decision it's going to work better to focus on how the "5.0" version can be improved without simply backtracking to 3.0.

Back then, there was always jank, there was always inconsistent design choices, there were always counter-intuitive gameplay decisions (invincible, non-Grit dungeon tanking is the perfect example of this). It was always a flawed job, but it was always a fun job to me, even now to an extent.

I'm glad you acknowledge this because it feels like a lot of people forgot this "jank" that was in Heavensward - which I understand, it was a long time ago, we're all getting older and our memories become fuzzy, but we really shouldn't forget how these "amazing" class designs were built ontop of game mechanics that everyone was petitioning SE to remove (and they did remove).

Considering that there were not many bosses in all of Alexander that inflicted magic auto attacks, with the exceptions being Brawler, Swindler, and I think Manipulator???

One way or another, Alexander itself would hardly proc anything for me. I was on my knees begging it to proc. It did proc, but it was rare.