Quote Originally Posted by MikoRemi View Post
So you're ok with Dark Mind getting better, yet you also say removing DRK's "niche" would homogenize it further. Yeah, I want it to be better. This isn't even niche for the sake of being niche, you're just asking for a worse tank at that point. Might as well have PLD's "niche" of not being able to block magic back. Or how Berserk used to give Pacification as a "niche" thing that required Esuna. Or DRG's niche of dying easily to magical raidwides. Maybe even DRK's old Living Dead just to be the tank with the worst invuln for its standout "niche". Just mitigate all damage like a normal tank without any terrible downsides.

At that point one can spread out and figure out how to make it do good stuff in its own way. Again with Blood Price healing back 50% damage taken per hit, it wouldn't full heal but it'd be quite strong on slowing down the death of HP which combined with shields could make it purely devastating on top of the magical burst it offers. Lean into the MP management like usual but keep a general kit. We all have things like Rampart after all, and it was certainly "niche" when DRK's Shadow Wall had an extremely long cooldown for no reason compared to things like Sentinel or Vengeance. Were all tanks, but WAR is slow and steady with beefy health and fun cleaving, PLD has ranged magic and very good overall support, DRK is a magical burst who is a god with shielding, and GNB is a higher action tank that can burst out some nice damage while managing cartridges vs a standard gauge or MP and being a middle ground defensively.

That's a better route to go instead of keeping some terrible weaknesses for the sake of it.
Well, yeah, it would. You would be making it just universal like every other tank at that point. I could go on what I think would be good niches or bad (especially paladin being unable to block magic damage or Berserk's Pacification) but I don't think we'll get anywhere. At this stage, if we're going to make DRK the "god of shielding" then let us pursue our strength of that instead of just being given self-healing.

I honestly don't think we'll ever come to some sort of agreement trying to convince one or another the otherwise on most fronts. You hold different viewpoints than I do and neither of us are going to back down from them.