Some DRK changes seem annoyingly simple yet are ignored....

[VicariousXIV]

TBN has nothing to do with the degradation of MP management.

What you're doing is like blaming Shinten/Kyuten for the loss of unique costs on Guren/Senei and the pruning of Kaiten and Seigan and if Yaten/Gyoten lost their Kenki costs and damage. They're not the cause; they're the sole survivors.

Likewise, Dark Arts, MP costs on other skills, etc., all existed simultaneously with TBN. The same period in which we got TBN also gave us the most involve MP manipulations and thematic means of sustain that we've ever had, and to which TBN was synergetic, not mutually exclusive.

TBN didn't remove Darkside, Dark Arts, Dark Passenger, or spammable Abyssal Drain. It's simply the sole survivor of intentional simplifications.


Costing MP is, however, the reason TBN can be as flexible as it is, allowing 50% barrier HP (2 casts at 25% each) compressed into as little as 9 seconds. Meanwhile, embedding Oblation into it would both waste its scaling value on non-tanks targets and make TBN itself less flexible.

I never said it "killed" MP management, I said it's CURRENTLY the reason why they can't expand on it, not without other overhauls.

If you seriously think everything would be fine if more MP skills were added, then provide me an example? What could CBU3 add into the DRK's kit that would add more uniqueness to it that cost MP while not getting in the way of the current playstyle of burning it on Edge and making sure to have enough for TBN? Cause if you tried mixing in something like my suggestion for without TBN costing MP then you simply make having enough for TBN so easy that the cost again becomes pointless.

TBN can also be just as flexible even if it didn't cost MP. People said nearly the same thing when I was advocating for LD to get updated, to just mostly remove the drawbacks of so easily dying when you used it, and I was always met with a wall of "but then it becomes too strong and they have to make it weaker to balance it which will result in it losing all of it's identity," but hey look at that they mostly removed the drawbacks and it's fucking awesome without being OP and is even more unique! I soundly believe it would be the same for TBN, it's just a shield, allow it to be flexible and also remove it's MP cost so that the MP usage can be expanded on again.

EDIT: You added a lot after I started my reply lol

[Shurrikhan]

I never said it "killed" MP management, I said it's CURRENTLY the reason why they can't expand on it, not without other overhauls.

But it's not. TBN does not need to give (modern) "Dark Arts" nor the name "Dark Arts" be limited to giving free Edge/Flood casts. Edge/Flood is not TBN. TBN does not need to give free Edges/Floods. Nor did it originally give free Edges/Floods.

They simply had TBN go from giving empowered GCDs (via 50 Blood, which you'd spend on Bloodspiller or Quietus for a boost over combo average ppgcd worth X potency-per-MP spent) to giving oGCD attacks because their Shadowbringers simplifications included removing Dark Arts, which would otherwise have left DRK with a massive apm gulch to fill that would have otherwise upset even more DRK players.

Cause if you tried mixing in something like my suggestion for without TBN costing MP then you simply make having enough for TBN so easy that the cost again becomes pointless.

Then don't make it not cost MP?

If you seriously think everything would be fine if more MP skills were added, then provide me an example? What could CBU3 add into the DRK's kit that would add more uniqueness to it that cost MP while not getting in the way of the current playstyle of burning it on Edge and making sure to have enough for TBN?

Literally Dark Arts in place of Edge/Flood, with

• each Dark Arts offensive spender not on a CD having X effective-potency-per-MP-spent plus varied utility (be that banked MP, additional healing done, suppression, or what-have-you),
• the rotational CD-locked offensive spenders (Shadowbringers, Carve and Spit) having higher effective-potency-per-MP-spent, directly or indirectly (as per follow-up buffs) to encourage margining for them as well,
• the other (non-TBN) defensive spenders, if any, generally having enough indirect rDPS value via whatever combination of saved healer GCDs/resources and/or counteroffensive attacks/buffs to be frequently optimal over non-CD directly offensive spenders (except when their burst healing or damage is more necessary at that particular moment) until overgearing content,
• and successfully popped TBNs again giving Blood (even if allowed an overcap margin for reduced skill floor), with said Blood spenders being tuned over combo appgcd sufficiently to compete with Dark Arts for successful pops only, and
• more MP actively generated per minute (instead of merely having costs nullified via CDs) such that one can more often burst in multiple means of sustain into the same TBN CD's period and for more APM between bursts (even if we might, say, have a couple actions less per 2-minute burst)...

...as would befit any actually involved use of a gauge.

Again, what you're saying is the equivalent to "We can't have Kaiten because we already have Shinten." You can have competing spenders, and the MP gauge would be better utilized for it.

Skills being stronger doesn't automatically mean "easier,"

Not inherently, no, but it does when the strengths added specifically deemphasize skillful timing.

I do think they're all easy to use and yet TBN is even easier still.

But it's not. It's literally not. Start learning how to bank and pre-pop it. I get that the game right now, once geared, is frequently too easy to see the difference, but that goes even more all the other on-demands.

But yeah, it's main reward is infact "use damage ability you lost otherwise,"

Something net-neutral literally cannot be a "reward". Again, the reward has to earn you something. In TBN's case, it's subtle but still existent: an extra Edge/Flood under raid buffs because you can use it to, in effect, bank 3k MP.

And yeah, there used to be A LOT more MP management, that is MY point too.

Which, again, TBN did not remove. TBN's entry introduced the height of DRK's MP manipulations, even when discounting TBN itself. If it were the limiter, it would not have existed simultaneously with that, let alone been synergetic to it.

[VicariousXIV]

They simply had TBN .... would have otherwise upset even more DRK players.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding for what I'm saying, it seems, evident by your suggestions;

Literally Dark Arts in place of Edge/Flood, with [LIST]each Dark Arts offensive spender not on a CD having X effective-potency-per-MP-spent plus varied utility (be that banked MP, additional healing done, suppression, or what-have-you)

You're fully in the realm of "complete overhaul/rework."

The thing is I do completely agree with that, if we could get a full rework to the job then I too think a reintroduction of Dark Arts would be a good route to take and TBN staying an MP ability would fit so much better in a kit where you're building and using MP far more frequently.

But as I've mentioned a few times now, maybe not clearly enough, we've come so far down this current iteration that those options don't work anymore, my suggestions for "easy changes" are deliberately made so the devs might actually do them.

So in THAT scenario, without overhauling the whole MP system, what new ability at the start of an expansion without any other major changes could be added into the kit that costs MP and does not interfere with the current Edge/TBN gameplay? Cause that's the reality we're in, we're not getting a major overhaul.

Not inherently, no, but it does when the strengths added specifically deemphasize skillful timing.

I honestly don't think basic timing is all that "skillful," I guess, utilizing the abilities afterwards is far more "skill" expressive, but again not that I think the other tank's defensives take much skill to use either.

But it's not. It's literally not. Start learning how to bank and pre-pop it. I get that the game right now, once geared, is frequently too easy to see the difference, but that goes even more all the other on-demands.

Don't start to get insulting just cause I don't think pre-popping is "skillful" LOL

Something net-neutral literally cannot be a "reward". Again, the reward has to earn you something. In TBN's case, it's subtle but still existent: an extra Edge/Flood under raid buffs because you can use it to, in effect, bank 3k MP.

Again, that's my point, it's actual mechanics are not a reward at all, this one small auxiliary bonus in that one specific use does not equate to the whole kit being unchangeable or "skillful," it's literally a single button press.

Which, again, TBN did not remove. TBN's entry introduced the height of DRK's MP manipulations, even when discounting TBN itself. If it were the limiter, it would not have existed simultaneously with that, let alone been synergetic to it.

Which, again, is not my point, as expanded on above.