DRK needs re-tuning/buffing.

[SyzzleSpark]

snip

My expectations at this point are that they will buff drk and not nerf the others, but you seem to suggest/believe otherwise. If PLD's DPS and WAR's cool downs are overtuned/need dialing back, what is the argument for not simply buffing DRK?

Too many people suggest zany ideas SE has given us no precedence for. I don't trust SE to balance anything through nerfs tbh.

[Mattiux]

By now Dark knight got an inferior kit if compared withe the Paladins one. Ignoring the shared skill we got this situation:

PLD
Sentinel
CD: 180s Reduces damage taken by 40%.
Duration: 10s

Drk
Shadow wall
Cd: 180s Reduces damage taken by 30%.
Duration: 10s




PLD
Cover
Take all damage intended for another party member, suffering only 80% of it.

Drk
No party utility comparable with cover





PLD
Bullwark: Increases block rate by 60%.

DRK
Dark Mind: Reduces magic vulnerability by 15%.
Can only be executed when succumbing to the Darkside.
Dark Arts Effect: Increases magic vulnerability reduction to 30%
Cost us resources to work full potential, while only lowering magic damage. Block rate now works for both damage





PLD
Hallowed Ground: Renders you impervious to most attacks.

DRK
Living dead When HP is reduced to 0 while under the effect of Living Dead, instead of becoming KO'd, your status will change to Walking Dead.
Living Dead Duration: 10s
While under the effect of Walking Dead, most attacks will not lower your HP below 1. If, before the Walking Dead timer runs out, HP is 100% restored, the effect will fade. If 100% is not restored, you will be KO'd.
This is Hilarious. HG plain reduce all damage to 0. No downside,
at the the end of it you are full HP and healthy.


PLD
Sheltron: Blocks the next attack.

Divine Veil:Upon HP recovery via healing magic cast by self or a party member, a protective barrier is cast on all party members within a radius of 15 yalms.
Barrier Effect: Prevents damage up to 10% of your maximum HP

Clemency:Restores target's HP.
Cure Potency: 1200
Additional Effect: Restores to self 50% of HP restored to target if target is a party member

Passage of arms: Increases block rate by 100% and creates a designated area in a cone behind you in which party members will only suffer 85% of all damage inflicted.


Drk
No party or self utility comparable with those




PLD
Intervention: Reduces target party member's damage taken by 10%.
Additional Effect: Increases damage reduction by another 50% of the effect of Rampart or Sentinel if either are active.

Drk
The Blackest NightCreates a barrier around self that absorbs damage totaling 20% of your maximum HP, or around a party member that absorbs damage totaling 10% of your maximum HP.

The only skill ahead in the drk kit. However using it during trash is a huge waste of mana

Didn't mentioned Dark passanger blind effect 'cause the mana cost isn't affordable.

i can deal with a dowside either in the party utility, mitigation or dps. But right now we are behind in all three sides.

[ChenDynasty]

Blood Price should have a defensive mitigation added to it.

Sole Survivor should have a MCH Wildfire mechanic change, that compounds damage into healing at its expiration -- It's currently not viable for raid encounters with such a long CD and useless on a boss-only encounter.

Abyssal Drain/Unleash should be re-worked -- There's no sense in having two AoE Enmity abilities that hardly cost more/less than each other.

Shadow Wall -- Compare to Vengeance = 1 min longer CD, Same Reduction, No Additional Effect, Lasts 5s shorter -- How did this fall through the cracks?

[SyzzleSpark]

Blood Price should have a defensive mitigation added to it.

Sole Survivor should have a MCH Wildfire mechanic change, that compounds damage into healing at its expiration -- It's currently not viable for raid encounters with such a long CD and useless on a boss-only encounter.

Abyssal Drain/Unleash should be re-worked -- There's no sense in having two AoE Enmity abilities that hardly cost more/less than each other.

Shadow Wall -- Compare to Vengeance = 1 min longer CD, Same Reduction, No Additional Effect, Lasts 5s shorter -- How did this fall through the cracks?

Blood Price should absolutely have like a -10% damage taken added to it. This would make it a more accurate equivalent to Blood Weapon and help DRK in between tankbusters.

The sole Survivor idea is interesting. I think I would rather see that compounded into a shield instead of healing, simply because the healing would likely be overhealing because of the timing element.

The AD/Unleash bit is the only one I disagree with, since they do have different purposes and one doesn't actually wholly replace the other. I wouldn't mind something piddly like the PVP bind being added to Unleash but these skills are fine and the nerf to Unleash has barely any effect on the job at all in spite of people's complaints. The nerf to Dark Passenger however...

Shadow Wall - total agreement. This skill needs to have something to make it stand out between the other tanks' equivalents. Right now its strictly inferior. And if this was balanced around TBN, they need to dial back TBN so that we are not so excessively over-reliant on it.

[Tegernako]

I don't think WAR is in as good of a spot as some people here think but other then that, this seems really spot on and nobody can argue OP is being "toxic" or whatever as an excuse to downplay the criticisms.

I will be spreading this thread around as much as possible. Both tanks are in really bad spots imo right now.

[Praesul]

Dark passenger and DA quietus will have to be buffed, it's like not even arguable otherwise. Dark passenger is crap both baseline and dark arts, and dark arts quietus is like....Why? The MP you spend on dark arts quietus can be spent on two more abyssal drains for 240 potency as opposed to the 2400 MP to get 50 extra potency on quietus. It's laughable.

Drk
The Blackest NightCreates a barrier around self that absorbs damage totaling 20% of your maximum HP, or around a party member that absorbs damage totaling 10% of your maximum HP.

The only skill ahead in the drk kit. However using it during trash is a huge waste of mana

Also are you for real? TBN used during trash is a waste of mana? It's amazing for trash specifically. You get a sizable HP buffer and either a higher potency aoe (So it's basically a dark arts worth of MP for a big shield + 160 potency) or the shield and a free delirium. This isn't even taking into account the GCD or two that you free up on the healer.

DRK needs some help, but definitely not in the form of blackest night. It's EASILY our best ability, especially now that they buffed bloodspiller to incentivize more usage of it.

[SyzzleSpark]

...but definitely not in the form of blackest night. It's EASILY our best ability...

Yeah... this is kind of the problem. TBN is so good because the rest of our kit is garbage. And you know that SE knows it, because that is specifically why they made it as such. TBN screams "oh crap, we nerfed the living balls out of DRK's mitigation, quick, give it something crazy and top-heavy to even it out!" I'd happily trade a longer recast time on TBN in exchange for Shadow Wall, LD, or DM being buffed. As it is they are relics of 3.x that are aging rapidly and poorly.

[Starkbeaumont]

we nerfed the living balls out of DRK's mitigation

i guess you are talking about the old reprisal? cause DA dark dance was never a thing for raids. and non of the other skills got nerfed. rampart = shadowskin, shadow wall is the same as before, so is dark mind, conva and living dead. grit is also the same.

and talking about reprisal. you couldn't even use it in some encounters as it required a parry to activate.

Is DRK perfect? hell no! is it as bad as some ppl say? Definitely not.

[SyzzleSpark]

i guess you are talking about the old reprisal? cause DA dark dance was never a thing for raids. and non of the other skills got nerfed. rampart = shadowskin, shadow wall is the same as before, so is dark mind, conva and living dead. grit is also the same.

and talking about reprisal. you couldn't even use it in some encounters as it required a parry to activate.

Is DRK perfect? hell no! is it as bad as some ppl say? Definitely not.

No, I'm not talking about DA Dark Dance.

DD+Reprisal was what tied DRK's mitigation kit together. They were a package. Dark Dance is just gone, we can't get it back because in any serious content we don't have room for Anticipation, almost everything else is more valuable. So we don't get that back. A 5s Reprisal every 60 seconds in no way in no reality or dimension makes up for the loss of a 20s Reprisal every 30s, 40s if you were unlucky. Unlike Storm's Path, Reprisal was extremely effective personal mitigation because we kept it up as much as possible; it was a part of our cooldown suite. Without it, we are undeniably squishier.

Requiring a parry to activate locked its use out of 1 encounter (A4s). Every other boss in Alex savage had at least physical AAs. And where physical damage was not present... well... we're DRKs. You know, the pigeon-holed "magic tank".

TBN is powerful, and now it is a DPS gain to keep more or less on cooldown. But having to precisely time a cooldown every 15s and manage your mana around it requires a decent amount of skill and awareness, and yet its not fun. Its just stressful. And while I enjoy tradeoffs, gambling with a tradeoff mechanic 3-4 times per minute doesn't feel good. And the ability is overpowered, even, and our kit is entirely too over-centralized on it. DD+Reprisal simply bridged the gap between our stronger cooldowns. TBN doesn't work in the same way. Its high uptime mitigation, yes, but you risk a DPS loss every time you use it, assuming a cast/TB isn't incoming.

Our DPS and mitigation are so entangled with timing this one single button every 15s, to such a strong degree, that it just becomes a button that symbolizes stress. TBN is just too over-centralizing. All of our remaining defensive CDs are completely forgettable, and as Lyth pointed out, DA-DM is almost completely obsolete. While they argue Vengeance is overtuned, I would rather see Shadow Wall buffed, and of course Living Dead is still completely unchanged along with our ability (or lack thereof) to push any kind of reliable or appreciable self-healing throughput.

Honestly, the more I've discussed TBN on these forums with people, the more I've come to resent the ability. By its very design within the context of our toolkit, it symbolizes imbalance.

DRK is pretty bad. Its arguably the worst tank right now. WAR mains may have you believe otherwise, but a WAR/PLD comp brings better survivability, better damage, and only slightly less utility. Its still fun, and I enjoy and love the job, and will never stop maining it. But it needs a lot of help, as does WAR.

[BlueYukiao]

FWIW I love TBN. After the buff, knowing that TBN+Bloodspiller is a flat dps gain; I love getting the most I can out of TBN, and the satisfying sound the gauge makes when the shield breaks.... Mmm MM!! I especially enjoy using it as OT, on the MT. Been farming Lakshmi Ex recently (I just love that fight so I'm always down), and throwing up TBN on every Pull of Light on the MT gives me ALL the Bloodspillers!! (And that's really the endgame for me, I love Bloodspiller's animation/sfx.)

I'm torn because I agree that we have to use it too much, your dps will suffer for letting it sit off cooldown for too long, therefore we're forced to use it so often... But I LOVE fitting it in anywhere I can, so if the CD was reduced to be more comparable to C&S (and perhaps we gain some more mitigation elsewhere), I'd be a little sad to see it less.