DRK balance

[FallenWings]

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MP management - This was fine before the last update, but now with Dark Arts on a 3 second cooldown, you can fit a few more things in (a Dark Arts Dark Passenger for example) which increase MP drain. Could do with either some stronger MP recovery, or lower Dark Arts cost at this point.

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Dark Arts change doesn't really impact the rotation that much.

Just because you can use Dark Arts more in a small time frame, doesn't mean you should.

Dark Arts Dark Passenger is still poor usage of your mana as far as single target is concerned. All the change really did was improve quality of life for DRK. An example like, for some reason you needed a Dark Arts Dark Mind now, but just came off using Dark Arts for CnS/SE. Now you can do it 2 seconds earlier in those situations.

[Nalien]

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You know Carve and Split is 450 potency when use with Dark Arts, no? And can be use to recover MP if you're low of MP . The MP recover is a shit (should be higher) But the damage is not precisely "meh". Is one of the best DPS skills alongside Soul Eater which is 400 potency with Dark Arts.

You know what I'd like? Since the animation is very clearly three distinct hits, I'd like Carve and Spit to function the same as Dream Within a Dream, which is actually three hits. Do that for Carve and Spit, then you've tripled its base MP recovery, because now it's three actual hits. Would need to change the potency somewhat though, since splitting its current 100 base potency into three hits would be messy. Threefold attack with 50 potency each, 150 with Dark Arts? Then it goes from 100/450 to 150/450 total.

Either reduce MP cost from dark arts or increase maximum MP pool.

My biggest disappointment with this game has to be how stats are handled... Tanks now get to use VIT and STR, but I'd still much rather have had a situation where most Jobs make use of a different combination of stats; Dark Knight could be VIT/PIE (more MP), Paladin VIT/MND (stronger Cure they never use because the developers are too lazy to justify that Conjurer cross class option), Warrior VIT/STR (since they're really the DPS tank). Wouldn't work with the way gear is handled in this game though, people would get upset for the same reason people disliked Esoterics, might have been something with the new materia slots...

[FallenWings]

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My biggest disappointment with this game has to be how stats are handled... Tanks now get to use VIT and STR, but I'd still much rather have had a situation where most Jobs make use of a different combination of stats; Dark Knight could be VIT/PIE (more MP), Paladin VIT/MND (stronger Cure they never use because the developers are too lazy to justify that Conjurer cross class option), Warrior VIT/STR (since they're really the DPS tank). Wouldn't work with the way gear is handled in this game though, people would get upset for the same reason people disliked Esoterics, might have been something with the new materia slots...

If this is under the current Stat weights, then PLDs and DRKs would lose something like 40% of their attack power, further cementing WAR/WAR compositions. PLD? I doubt they would give up half their attack power to sometimes use Cure more effectively. Nor would DRKs choose to lose 40% across the board to use Dark Arts a couple more times.

This will also break several skills, lifesteals, and aggro generation just to accommodate Cure. Having more MP for DRK only really just increases the amount of MP in their opener. As far as I know, your rate of mana regeneration doesn't increase with a larger MP pool. At best you can fit in what, 1 or 2 more Dark Arts?

You'd either bloat loot tables with 'PLD gear or DRK gear' or bloat stats on Tank Gear which either make no sense, or are really just pointless clutter. If you throw AP on PIE and MND, then WAR loses out by having stats affect it the least, putting them below DRK and PLD(not really) for loot consideration.

[Nalien]

If this is under the current Stat weights, then PLDs and DRKs would lose something like 40% of their attack power, further cementing WAR/WAR compositions. PLD? I doubt they would give up half their attack power to sometimes use Cure more effectively. Nor would DRKs choose to lose 40% across the board to use Dark Arts a couple more times.

No way am I suggesting this under the current stat weights... You'd swap STR for MND or PIE, Paladin would get half its attack power from MND instead of STR, Dark Knight from PIE instead of STR. They've essentially gotten around Paladin using MND with Clemency, though.

Only real issue is gear bloat and gear set space. With Esoterics we already had separate sets for each Job, I'm essentially suggesting that just with the stats being different, rather than it being solely for glamour. With the way gear is locked out though, that certainly wouldn't be a popular change. Still, I'd rather see Jobs gear for different stats, rather than the current sorry state of everyone gearing essentially the same thing... I actually find myself preferring sets like Esoterics just because the glamour system is so flawed for tanks/healers...

Pretty much how 1.23 worked, come to think of it... Every Job used to have two main stats impacting their attack powers, things feel dumbed down these days...

[MagiusNecros]

I always relish in telling my friends that Dexterity only adds damage to physical ranged casters and Ninja and has nothing to do with evasion. Or how the spells of DRK scale off of STR(or is it VIT now?) instead of INT. Their reactions are priceless since we all play DnD. Which really just illustrates how ability scores in this game are handled. It's atrocious. Linear stat progression up the ass.

[Ashkendor]

I always relish in telling my friends that Dexterity only adds damage to physical ranged casters and Ninja and has nothing to do with evasion. Or how the spells of DRK scale off of STR(or is it VIT now?) instead of INT. Their reactions are priceless since we all play DnD. Which really just illustrates how ability scores in this game are handled. It's atrocious. Linear stat progression up the ass.

It's different than D&D = it's atrocious? Okay. Honestly, I like how simple our stats are. The stat system does what it's supposed to do. There's plenty of people that don't want to have to sit comparing tank pieces for evasion and blocking and a bunch of other crap. We already have Accuracy caps to worry about and from there it's just optimizing for damage. Even if we had more options due to differing secondary stats (or even primary stats), the number crunchers out on reddit would simply figure out the optimal setup and everything else would fall by the wayside. It's better that dex doesn't affect tank skills at all because tanks can't need roll on dex accessories anyway. That's the reason they finally fixed Vitality; tanks weren't even using their designated accessories and that was a fundamental flaw with the way the system was designed.

[Quor]

If you're a WHM with Benediction ready, yes it is better. If not then you're going to struggle, especially nowadays where tanks are going full vit. Before at least they had less hp due to the strength gear they had to get, meaning less hp to recovery. But now? It's insanely high for one thing and they will "start" from 1 hp, meaning that you have to heal 20k hp (more or less) in less than 10 seconds AND while the boss is still attacking, most likely negating one of your heals if the boss can hit for more than 5k damage (and I can even name a few).

And sure, while my AST can heal 5k with benefic 2, I have to do that within 10 seconds which means I have to cast it 4 times in a row: miss one and the tank is dead at 80-90%

Sure it can be fixed with a macro, but why not fix the skill itself? Maybe increase the healing taken by 100% during Walking Dead or lower the hp required to 50% instead, because it's highly unreliable as of now. Holmgang at least doesn't kill you while at 99% of hp!

All true. But also important is that Holmgang has 4s lower duration, on a tank with no natural damage reduction in tank stance. So part of the execution in Walking Dead is to get the OT to step up long enough to get the DRK back to stability.

The same, of course, can be said for Holmgang. But you still have to account for an extra 4s of "hah hah you can't kill me" that LD grants. While it does suck to lose an LD DRK at 99%, there are just as many downsides to Holmgang as there are to WD/LD.

WD/LD also doesn't root you in place, preventing any movement (including turning). Most people have no idea how annoying that is. I'd really like if WAR got an actual "oh sh*t" ability instead of the band-aid that was applied to Holmgang nearly two years ago.

[MagiusNecros]

It's different than D&D = it's atrocious? Okay. Honestly, I like how simple our stats are. The stat system does what it's supposed to do. There's plenty of people that don't want to have to sit comparing tank pieces for evasion and blocking and a bunch of other crap. We already have Accuracy caps to worry about and from there it's just optimizing for damage. Even if we had more options due to differing secondary stats (or even primary stats), the number crunchers out on reddit would simply figure out the optimal setup and everything else would fall by the wayside. It's better that dex doesn't affect tank skills at all because tanks can't need roll on dex accessories anyway. That's the reason they finally fixed Vitality; tanks weren't even using their designated accessories and that was a fundamental flaw with the way the system was designed.

What you mean to say is they homogenized the jobs even more by making them rely on just one stat and the only slight customization you have is strength on accessories and secondaries. Which for tanks is even less considering many won't even look at Parry due to how wonderful it is. If they just want you to rely on one stat why have any other stat at all? Same reason with all those elemental resistances sitting at 280ish and the same with your physical resistances sitting at 0 for everything.

I'm glad you like it simple but it offers little room for diversity in playstyle. Which you had in several other RPG's. FF included. Hell FF Explorers does a better fucking job at being a what they referred as a lite version of FFXI and everything is simply fantastic?

[Belhi]

Look, people keep talkin about needing more MP or making Dark Arts cheaper.

If SQ gave Dark Knights more MP or made Dark Arts cheaper they would have to either put a higher CD on Dark Arts, limiting the flexibility of its use or nerf the effect Dark Arts has.

Why?

Because Dark Knights are currently balanced against the other tanks with the MP cost vs the effectiveness of Dark Arts in mind. Dark Arts isn't something your supposed to be spaming. Its supposed to be a periodic boost to existing skills. Managing that boost is part of the skill of playing a DRK.

What you mean to say is they homogenized the jobs even more by making them rely on just one stat and the only slight customization you have is strength on accessories and secondaries. Which for tanks is even less considering many won't even look at Parry due to how wonderful it is. If they just want you to rely on one stat why have any other stat at all? Same reason with all those elemental resistances sitting at 280ish and the same with your physical resistances sitting at 0 for everything.

I'm glad you like it simple but it offers little room for diversity in playstyle. Which you had in several other RPG's. FF included. Hell FF Explorers does a better fucking job at being a what they referred as a lite version of FFXI and everything is simply fantastic?

Honestly that really has little to do with DRK balance. However Yoshi P has said that he prefers to offer variety by offering more job types. Very few of the Jobs play that similar to each other so stats doesn't really cause homogenization except perhaps with gear availability and with a computer game, particularly one balanced like this, having clearly defined Jobs, abilities and roles makes the game more accessible and keeps the game well balanced. More customisation of abilities and power almost always has a negative impact on balance and no one likes it when their favourite class/Job feels weaker than the others.

That said, FF14 could do with a bit less rigidity and some things like Parry definitely need fixing. While they said they don't intend to offer anything notable in Job customisation, I wouldn't say they would never do it cause with game design things are always changing and its not like they can just keep giving us more skills to find space on the skill bar for every 10 levels.

[MagiusNecros]

Back on topic however I hope by the expansion they really give DRK a look over and not hope making some slight change to Parry will fix all their problems.

Especially when it comes to OT role and Living Dead as a skill. Such a drain on the healer and if full HP total isn't restored the DRK just dies and then you have to waste more MP to res the DRK if you aren't already dead and usually if I have to use Living Dead the healer is well dead and it's because DPS failed a mechanic big time.

You can macro it but it's much more efficient to have a healer buddy with a vocal channel open. Things go a lot smoother. But in Pug's? Good luck.