Quote Originally Posted by Tetsujin View Post
Snip because eating into my word count lol
WDYM? DRK has two DoTs right now: Living Shadow + Salted Earth (heavy /s)

I definitely agree with you a lot on this. Due to the skill level of the general playerbase, I do think it was good for the longevity of the game/enjoyment of most of their subscribers to "dumb down" the playstyle of jobs across the board. Using DRK as an example, I know it was frustrating for a lot of the casual playerbase because they couldn't even function in dungeons just due to the general skill level. That being said, now that they have established this new skill floor, I'd like to see them do something similar to what they have done for the playstyle of BLM; where it's a low skill floor to understand what to do, but a high skill ceiling in terms of per fight optimization. That is, and should always be, the design goal for jobs IMO.

In addition to that, I really do think they should take a step back and look at what they have done in terms of job identity and feel in Crystalline Conflict/PvP. I have really only heard good things in regards to job identity/feel in PvP. DRK in PvP is the most DRK-y I've felt since Stormblood; I was very disappointed when I launched Shadowbringers on launch only to find out they reworked my favorite job to a WAR clone with more oGCDs. And then to further add salt into the wound, the two new classes they added in EW actually stole some of the old mechanics they removed from DRK that made it unique and fun (at least for me) among the tanks; primarily the faster GCD burst windows [RPR wraith] (old blood weapon) + an ability to change/augment other abilities [SGE] (Dark Arts). I don't think we'll ever see a return to stance dancing/the ability to augment or change mitigations/more involved tank mechanics but I'd at least like to see a return to more unique job design within roles. (Also, for any tanks missing the old feel of tanking, I'd highly recommend trying to prog DSR. It is the closest I have felt to how things used to be.)

I understand their want to homogenize so there isn't a "meta" job for each fight/tier, but the path they are going down now leads to boring gameplay with no alternative within the same role. I say this as someone that was locked out of 50%+ of party finder listings just due to my choice of DRK as a tank for most of Stormblood (until world first UCoB clear had a DRK in the party and the community's mindset started to shift). I can only speak for myself on this, but I'd much rather be "locked out" of random party finders that are ran by meta slaves and have a job that actually feels fun to play than what we have now; jobs feel same-y and uninspired but are also fairly balanced.