DRK Buff?

[Shurrikhan]

I like DRK being a job that requires a bit of skill and forethought. If you just give a job all of its tools all the time regardless of situation or role being played with no consequences or hoops/mechanics to jump through... well I dunno. I just think that's stupid. =/ I'd like to be able to spam Geirskogul outside of BoTD on my DRG when I take my weekly jaunt into Void Ark but uhh... I just wouldn't wish a dumbing down of a job like that on those that main it.

Anyway, if you DID get BW in Grit, what would you give DRK to differentiate its OT playstyle from its MT playstyle? Cause at that point, there'd be almost nothing.

They mentioned changes to Oaths and other stancing abilities(?). Maybe Grit itself will be affected too?

I feel like one of the easiest ways to bring out the changes more is to put the two variants (Grit and no-Grit) closer back to back, so that their smaller differences aren't forgotten after taking and/or eventually sitting in either stance.

For instance, if Shield Oath and Grit each gave some benefit (nearly) worth their MP other than merely switching stances, such as a small shielding effect, a debuff-purge, or whatever might be appropriate, the relative cost of that lost GCD and MP would decrease, making stance dancing more lucrative and thereby, in all likelihood, more frequent. Once Grit's not treated as a permanently held eHP standard, nor the lack of it as necessarily requiring adjustment of CDs (it's now worth it to simply put Grit back up instead of having to pop Shadow Wall instead of Shadowskin there), the differences even in just that 20% mitigation should actually stick out more. Alternatively, the MP cost itself could be reduced, or the GCD cost cut in half (functioning a bit like Meditation does on Monks, consuming roughly half a GCD).

Or, looking at differentiation a bit more directly, we could vary the toolkit according to Grit status. Dark Passenger could create or manipulate a said 'Passenger' in Grit or according to damage taken, while remaining simple AoE burst when out of Grit. Blood Weapon itself could give HP per hit and increased life-steal in Grit, and give MP per hit and increased haste while out of Grit. Any of these things would make your toolkit feel adjusted between positions.

(My personal favorite design structure is a pipedream that involves somewhat centering DRK gameplay around resources that the CDs tap into, rather than the CDs themselves being the end all be all, allowing the DRK to generate CD-usable resources or stacks by, say, evasion and magic damage (shadow; usable in Shadow Skin, Shadow Wall, and Shadow Dance), bleeding, lifestealing, and absorbing (blood; usable in Blood Price and Blood Weapon), and parrying and resisting (steel; usable in Grit). But, that's much too complicated for any realistic hope of development.)

Might some of these changes make DRK, already the strongest MT, even stronger? Certainly, but now that SE's finally willing to look at tank balance and seems interested in replacing certain old systems and possibly adding unique flavor, it seems a good time to consider changes that could improve gameplay through internal balance (between the choices viable within a given job) without being too firmly directed by external balance (specific and average strength relative to other jobs in the line-up).