DRK needs re-tuning/buffing.

[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.