So I haven't posted here in a very looong while (stopped the game for months and stuff) but everyday I go to the forums and I always see people saying that in SB, DRK became the easiest and least busy out of the 3 tanks and I think that they are completely blind. I suspect them not having even played it at level 70 yet (besides easy dungeon stuff or brainless dummy DPS).

Disclaimer : I'm not pretending to be the best out there but I have tanking experience in raiding starting in 2.1 with all tank jobs and I main DRK since 3.0 launch so I atleast know what I'm talking about when it comes to how tanking works in this game and especially DRK.

Let me explain. I'll reply to what I read the most about the new DRK on forums recently. And please read the whole post or don't read at all. I'm not just gonna defend the current DRK, there are bad things about how the job currently is of course and I'm gonna talk about that too.

"Now you only have one combo over and over again", yeah ? Like it wasn't already feeling that way in HW ? You'd spam DA SE as much as you could and just be hitting Delirium for MP regen because it had more potency than non-DA SE. It's literally just hitting another button for the last input of the combo. It's far from being complex and it doesn't require any form of skill whatsoever. SB only made it so that you'd still be using SE for when you'd be using Delirium before. If you really want to hit a different key on the last hit of your combo when you want to regenerate MP then just put a second Souleater in your bars where your old Delirium used to be and it would feel the exact same as HW DRK again.

"We've lost Scourge", refreshing a single-hit DoT once every 30s doesn't require any skill either and feels just like using an oGCD whenever it comes off CD. It doesn't require a brain. So removing it doesn't affect the complexity of the job in any way. The only sad thing about losing Scourge (besides its really high total potency of course, which is another problem, nothing to do with complexity) is losing its beautiful animation.

"We have less oGCDs than before so it's slow now", wait, what ? Because Dark Arts isn't an oGCD ? You can use it even more right now. The Blackest Night is an oGCD too. So yeah we lost Low Blow procs and Reprisal as damaging oGCDs just to gain non-damaging ones, and I myself am quite sad about that (especially about the loss of Low Blow procs, it felt really good), but in terms of keystrokes per minute I assure you that lvl 70 DRK is on par with HW lvl 60 DRK if not higher because of the DA spam. And on top of that, you now have more uptime on BW by it having its CD reduced and Delirium extending its duration once every 2min which makes your GCD faster even more often than before. Saying that DRK has become as slow as WAR is utter bullshit.

"There are no decision anymore", again what ? Because in HW we had more ? About what, Dark Arts ? In HW there wasn't any decision about DA, it was just SPAM it with SE as long as you have enough MP for DA C&S and non-DA DP (except in AoE where you'd DA it) whenever it's available. There was an optimal rotation where you'd use it as much as possible to gain more damage while making sure you don't get to 0 MP (which wasn't hard at all) and still have enough MP for higher priority MP usage (being DAC&S and DP). Sure we lost the single-target Dark Passenger as a priority before DASE but again it doesn't hinder the complexity of the job at all. It was just one oGCD to use whenever available. The MP cost was so low that you'd barely have to watch at your MP and it became much more about muscle-memory than actual MP management and "decision-making". SB just forces you to move your muscle-memory eslewhere.

We actually have a bit of decision-making with the Blood Gauge and TBN now. You don't want to mindlessly use Bloodspiller everytime you hit 50 on your gauge. For example, in the current level 70 EX primals, there are some times where you're in Grit and sometimes where you're out of Grit (And I'm pretty sure it will also be the case in Savage). You'll want to save Bloodspiller for when you'll be switching into Grit in order to get free very strong GCDs that ignore Grit's damage penalty (as a "mini-unchained"). But you don't want to cap out on Blood Gauge either otherwise it's a waste of Blood and you ultimately lose DPS. You'll also want to use Delirium when you're out of Grit and have Blood Weapon active, but you don't want to use it if you're near max MP since Delirium will immediately give you 2400 MP on top of extending BW. You'll also only do that if you're sure that you'll be hitting the boss for the entire duration of BW. If the boss is gonna jump out of the arena or you'll have to go Grit in seconds for a tank-swap, using a Bloodspiller instead is a better option (after turning Grit on for the latter).

As for TBN, let's take Susanoo EX as an example : You're not currently tanking, you're out of Grit, DPSing. A tank buster is coming, you put TBN on the MT, then turn Grit on, and then Voke + DA Bloodspiller immediatly after the tank buster hits. You can weave it into your Power Slash combo if you're not confident about keeping hate over the other tank without it (but honestly you should be fine as long as they're not DPSing in tanking stance like some baddies do). On top of that, if your Blood Gauge was already near 50 before TBN to break, you'll get another in-Grit Bloodspiller almost right after. Another example in the same fight is when you're the one tanking and your tank buster is coming, you use TBN on top of a CD. You usually don't have a lot of Blood since using Bloodspiller while in Grit is a high priority GCD. The tank buster hits, you drop Grit as the other tank provokes, then you immediatly Blood Weapon + Delirium thanks to the 50 Blood generated by TBN breaking after the buster. It will both immediatly refund you for the MP cost of TBN while extending BW, increasing your DPS. This last example can be applied to Lakshmi too if you're the MT (or solo-tank) since she has phases where she does almost no damage and phases where she hits really hard (with chanchala aura), which will determine when you'll be in Grit and out of Grit and when you'll be using Bloodspiller and TBN.

Granted, it's not hard to figure out and not really complex, but it gives a nice dynamic to the job and it IS a bit of decision-making. It's more decision-making than 3.X DRK atleast which was full-on muscle-memory + watching for Low Blow procs and nothing else.

The only tank who ever had decision-making pre-4.0 was WAR. Now both DRK and WAR have it (WAR currently being the most complex because of the clunkiness and all the drawbacks from 4.0 changes), PLD is still very straight forward and the easiest tank to play who only gained an extra magic-damage burst phase which consists of spamming Holy Spirit back to back to back with Requiescat, far from being complex. And PLD's gauge is just an afterthought, might as well be a longer CD on Sheltron and Intervention and the result would be the same.


Of course tho, I think that there are issues with the current 4.0 DRK. But it has nothing to do with the job's complexity. I don't understand the Dark Passenger nerf as it was a balanced ability that worked well as it was and didn't need any change. Now it's worthless, even in AoE scenarios. I don't understand the Blood Price nerf either, the MP regen is abysmal now (being at level 70, 1/3rd of what it was at level 60 per received hit) and the flat 20 Blood gauge it gives over-time for its entire duration doesn't make up for the fact that it's now locked behind Grit. I also think that Quietus should ignore Grit's damage penalty just like Bloodspiller does. I also don't like having lost the Low Blow procs. I liked that "random" aspect about the job. And I also miss the DADD + DADP dodge-tank big ass pulls in dungeons. But I don't think that any of this has anything to do with the job's complexity or pace. I hope some of those things will be changed with the release of Savage or in future updates.

Please make Dark Passenger great again. Scourge and Dark Passenger were the best animations on this job and one disappeared while the other became total shit. I'm sad.