If You Were A Class/Job Designer...

[Ultimatecalibur]

Me? I wouldn't change the tanks very much. I'd introduce 2 new dps jobs.

New DpS 1 (Samurai?) would apply its own non-stacking version of the Storm's Eye/Dancing Edge debuff with its primary damage combo and a version of Storm's Path (that doesn't stack with the Warrior's) with a tertiary combo.

New DpS 2 (Red Mage?) would apply its own non-stacking version of the Rage of Halone debuff with its primary combo.

These new jobs should shift the tanking meta so that Drk/Pld/"Sam" = War/Pld/Mnk = War/Drk/RdM.

[Sousoulsu]

DRK:

Expanding on Dark Arts
Dark Arts is a core mechanic for DRK, but too few abilities are affected by it; and none are really affected by it in interesting ways.

This is less of a new mechanic / redesign, and more of a collection of interconnected ideas to help make the decisions you make with Dark Arts more interesting; as well as to add an iconic DRK ability

-Dark Arts Delirium: Raises potency to 400 (equal to current Dark Arts Souleater)
-Dark Arts Souleater: Increases life-siphon effect to 200%; as well as granting 100% of damage dealt as a shadowy barrier (absorption shield); regardless of whether or not you are in Grit.
-Dark Arts Unleash: Causes affected targets to be unable to crit for 12s.
-Dark Arts Salted Earth: All targets who take damage from Salted Earth are also immobilized for 3s; which does not break upon taking damage (keep targets in position).

Aside from adding/changing Dark Arts effects; I'd like to see a few Dark Arts effects being different, rather strictly better than their non-DA effects:

-Dark Arts Shadowskin: Reduces duration to 10s, but increases damage reduction to 30%.
-Dark Arts Shadow Wall: Increases damage reduction to 40%; but increases cooldown-time to 240s (up from 180s).
-Dark Arts Dark Dance: Removes 30% Parry and 20% Evasion; but grants you 50% Evasion which only functions with Magic.
Dark Dance: 30% Parry, 20% Evasion by default.
-Dark Arts Dark Mind: Instead of reducing Magic Vulnerability; causes all Magic damage you take to recover your MP.

New Ability: Darkness
-Can not have Grit active
-Requires Darkside

-Press this ability to begin a 10s cast; and press the ability again to stop the cast and execute the ability
-Damage done is based on how long you let the cast go through
-You also take 20% of the damage you deal with this ability.
-In addition to taking 20% of the ability's base damage; the abiltiy also drains all but 10% of your MP; and uses this MP drained to increase the damage done by this ability.
-Damage taken is reduced by 60% if you are under the effects of Shadow Barrier (Dark Arts Souleater); regardless of the Barrier's strength.

Alternative method to cleansing Walking Dead:
-If you use Dark Arts Souleater with Walking Dead active, the amount of life siphoned and damage absorbed is increased to 300% and 150% respectively; and cleanses Walking Dead.

Reasoning
DRK is an overall well-designed class, but its Dark Arts mechanic isnt as interesting as it could be. The variability with its cooldowns using Dark Arts to augment their duration, strength, and cooldown would make the choice between using Dark Arts and not using it not as clear-cut.

As it is, you do not want to use Dark Dance or Dark Mind at all unless it's Dark Arts; which is not very interesting.
With the change to Dark Dance, you would essentially be choosing between 30% parry and 20% evasion; to converting the cooldown to a Magic-reduction cooldown.

The use of Darkness would be to deal higher damage during extended periods where you do not need to do damage, and Blood Weapon is down. It is essentially a "Filler" in your DPS rotation once Scourge is up, The enemy is affected by Delirium, and you've expended the effects of Blood Weapon.
You should deal 1.2x more damage by using Darkness than you would do by just spamming a potency combo.
This would relegate Dark Arts Delerium to a potency combo in Grit.

A lot of these are rather sweeping changes. I am not a meowthematician; but just take from these ideas the idea behind them, not the exact implementation. 'w'

[Sousoulsu]

Me? I wouldn't change the tanks very much. I'd introduce 2 new dps jobs.

New DpS 1 (Samurai?) would apply its own non-stacking version of the Storm's Eye/Dancing Edge debuff with its primary damage combo and a version of Storm's Path (that doesn't stack with the Warrior's) with a tertiary combo.

New DpS 2 (Red Mage?) would apply its own non-stacking version of the Rage of Halone debuff with its primary combo.

These new jobs should shift the tanking meta so that Drk/Pld/"Sam" = War/Pld/Mnk = War/Drk/RdM.

I like this a lot, especially promoting the PLD/DRK combo. As is, it's too big of a loss.
Debuff balance is important.

[Sousoulsu]

WAR

WAR is the design standard that PLD and DRK should be up to. They have an alternative resource to manage which is non-binary in its usages, it has active mitigation in holding Wrath stacks and Inner Beast, and some of its defensive cooldowns also add to its alternative resource.

Its Defensive and Offensive resources are shared, so since it can fluidly swap between these, it can DPS in Deliverance while still building stacks for defense in Defiance.
If also is one of the rare examples in XIV of one ability having two uses depending on the state you are in (Equilibrium).

There are decisions to make with WAR, and that makes for an interesting and engaging job.
The only thing I would say about WAR's design is that PLD, DRK, and any future tank classes should be designed to have as many moving parts and options as WAR has.

Bring PLD and DRK up; do not bring WAR down.

[Shurrikhan]

Oh, this thread's back on the main page.


Could I just ask the Warriors out there what they'd actually like to see done with Fracture? Or, is it fine as is? What seems to be especially lackluster about it now, if anything? Should it have more damage under its current usage, or a new application style entirely? Should it be filler or something to watch out for and build up? Should procs be involved? Should Monks get indirect buffs through it, or should any improvements be purely traited?

Also, how are we feeling about Defiance? Do the improved enmity gains on Defiance mean that you swap between stances more often (e.g. Defiance for Butcher, Deliverance for Storm and Fracture)? If so, does that or other changes to stance-based gameplay feel any more interesting or just more annoying (by much more noticeably adding enmity needs to healing taken/eHP as reasons to use Defiance)? For those Warrior mains who still play a fair amount of the other two jobs, how bad do their stance swaps seem by comparison, or their enmity losses due to reduced AP? Is it like you took a bullet to foot, and/or like their legs were chewed off to the knee, or no real difference for anyone?

What, if anything, could make the "(near-)perfect" tank job feel a bit more fun without breaking balance? (Given that this started off as a daydream/idealistic thread but has bounced here and there on realism and current needs...)

[Sousoulsu]

Oh, this thread's back on the main page.


Could I just the Warriors out there what they'd actually like to see done with Fracture?)

-Trait for Combo-ending Crits to reset Fracture?
-Trait to add a 20% chance on Fracture ticks to cause the next Combo-finisher to crit?

The only other points I feel interested in replying to of your post have to do with stance swapping.
As a DRK / WHM main who plays WAR often, WAR's stance fluidity is what solidifies its role as "The Tank who can do a lot of damage". Its fluidity in swapping should be unique to itself.

PLD/DRK feel way too similar to eachother, but WAR feels completely different from them (in a good way). As a result, even though I play DRK a lot more, the freedom to swap stances as WAR feels right as a WAR, but I don't think it would fit for DRK or PLD.

[RapBreon]

To make Deliverance/Defiance, Sword Oath/Shield Oath, Grit/No Grit one goddamn button so I don't have to rely on a macro.

[Sousoulsu]

To make Deliverance/Defiance, Sword Oath/Shield Oath, Grit/No Grit one goddamn button so I don't have to rely on a macro.

To add to this; make the Warrior Wrath/Defiance expenders be the same ability which changes effects depending on current stance.

[RapBreon]

To add to this; make the Warrior Wrath/Defiance expenders be the same ability which changes effects depending on current stance.

Yes, yes, yes.

[JackFross]

DRK:
A lot of these are rather sweeping changes. I am not a meowthematician; but just take from these ideas the idea behind them, not the exact implementation. 'w'

A lot of this is interesting, but you're kind of glossing over every major issue with the Job in favor of trying to strengthen the strongest part of the Job as it currently exists.

Dark Arts working the way it does is very good - implementing it to augment essentially all of your skills would just add way too much glut to a class that's already incredibly complex.

The Darkness attack has several glaring issues:
1. It would be impossible to balance. The mana expenditure directly leading to damage dealt will lead to a skill that will either be insanely overpowered or completely worthless, and nothing in-between. If it's just "good" - no one will use it, since you get far more benefit out of using your mana for other utility things and your main damage combos.
2. In the case of where it's "good" and deals "1.2x" the amount you'd do with a combo in that time, you could run into some pretty serious health issues when acting as the Main Tank if you use the skill. It also would cause severe mana issues in that position, the likes of which you'll more than likely end up wasting a Carve and Spit on to dig yourself out.
3. The mana loss will just flat out -never- be worth it, especially with the changes/modifications to Dark Arts you suggest in this post.
4. And most importantly - it would need to replace an existing skill, and there is not a single current skill that I would want to lose.


So, I'll expand on what I mean by the "issues" with Dark Knight that you seem to be missing:
Several skills in the Dark Knight kit do not mesh -at all- with one another.

Dark Dance is best utilized in mass pulls. Boosting the parry chance is most noticeable when you have a shitload of damage flowing in. Dark Arts + Dark Dance completely flies opposite to this idea, in that it no longer meshes with what Dark Knight should be using first in a mass pull - Blood Price. You could wait for BP to drop before doing DA+DD, however at this time, you really shouldn't be SPENDING mana, but rather refilling it to fuel your next run of BP-AD spam.

Dark Passenger is the best AoE skill that Dark Knight has, especially when you Dark Arts it. However, Dark Arts + Dark Passenger is an INSANE Mana expense, best used while under the effect of Blood Price --- oh wait, but it blinds the enemies. :|

And then having two skills which like parries while having no significant parry skills.

Dark Dance is 30%. DA+DD makes that lower because you dodge before you parry and the parry rate isn't increased.


The Dev team has specifically stated that the reason Darkside and Dark Arts work off Mana rather than Health is because Dark Knight is a tank. You can't have a tank who is freely shifting health up and down. It trivializes healers - all you'd need to do is stop spending Health and just use the plethora of Health regen you would undoubtedly have and suddenly you would become literally invincible.

We don't need to spend health to deal damage to be Dark Knights. I know I'm in the minority in saying that.

Like, yeah. Dark Knight needs more ways to spend Dark Arts for interesting tanky reasons, rather than them all being all offense all the time as it is in the current meta. I suggested things like this in the post I made about changes to the Tanks:

1. Dark Dance - Dark Arts+Dark Dance should increase the Parry rate from 30% to something more like 60-70%, instead of increasing dodge chance.

2. Dark Passenger - Dark Arts+Dark Passenger should deal 250 potency and inflict damage reduction - effect identical to and cannot stack with Storm's Path.

Some of the other ones are silly, now having played 3.2 DRK pretty extensively. TP issues don't exist anymore sooo... yeah.
I would also suggest that DA+DD should actually just be 100% parry because, seriously, why not? Low Blow procs? Why are we not allowed to use Dark Arts for mitigation while also getting some offensive benefit out of it? I dunno, seems silly to me, but maybe I'm just weird. With this sort of change, I wouldn't even be mad if DD was suddenly a 90s cd, so long as that base 30% went up to like 40-50%.

I also think Grit (or Greatswords) needs to have a built in Parry chance buff. Could just make it built into the Parry stat - while in Grit, your Parry increases by 50% or something. Give DRK a reason to stack Parry - make it scale better on us. :\




tl;dr: The main issue with DRK is they're built around WANTING TO BE HIT and then are given skills that clash with this ideal by bolstering dodge chance and inflicting blind at the expense of their main resource.