How bad are the issues with DRK?

[LegolasT]

DRKs are in a bad spot OP just read the forums goto Reddit read the live letter ignore all the 70drks who say its okay, play the class you like of course but dont settle like all of these other DRK players who say its fine .

So ignore skilled 70DRK and listen to inexperienced DRK who just want to complain about a job they don't main or mastered??? Does that even make sense. I main DRK I been playing DRK since Heavensward and love the job. Do I feel that changes can be done yes, but I feel that it should be done more towards DPS. All the tanks have an identity PLD being the best in tanking and WAR is mitigation and seft-sustaining itself. To me DRK should be and has the attack tools to be the main DPS tank with WAR close behind in my opinion. the fact that PLD is out doing the 2 tanks in DPS makes no sense. But overall in the function of the tanks tho they are balanced IMO

[Rbstr]

The HW complexity is all but gone

Like, what complexity was there though?
I think people conflate complexity with being busy. What DRK maybe had was being fairly busy with oGCDs. It had a lot of buttons to push between GCDs compared to the other two tanks. That's isn't complexity in and of itself. (I'm not honestly even sure that it was more busy in HW, given how much DA use we have now)

You used pretty much everything on cooldown - not really complex, just button-pushy. There was no decision tree except if you had enough mana to DA Souleater. Functionally not much changed there, just the combo-endign button press.
Mana-managment is still there, except now you're trying to not over-top more than trying to not run out.

IMO DRK's problems are:
Dark Passenger is nearly never worth its cost. - Some kind of change to make it and its DA upgrade mana efficient vs. several targets or give it a more generally useful rider or something.
They might need an additional physical mitigation skill, while TBN is great vs. one-shot busters it's not so great vs. the multi-hit stuff that has often been used. PLD and War just have much more extensive mitigation options.
The probably need a bit of a DPS bump.

It does feel a bit weird pre-70 but many classes do in various leveling regions. It works fine though and 70 balance is way more important.

Overall I think the tanks are somewhat better balanced than before. It's not perfect since PLD is now an outlier, but its nowhere near the extent of HW's WAR imbalance. No tank should be "the damage tank" or "the mitigation tank". They should all off-tank and main-tank well. We're closer to that now, even if there are still issues.

[Shinkyo]

snip

+1
HW DRK weren't more complex. The ogcd were pretty much aligned making it a big burst of button press and not much in between. The combos themselves didn't add much more depth either.
I'm one of those who prefers the current class design and the only things I miss are the defensive CDs.

[Dizzy_Derp]

Says who? Statistics? If a person knows the their job the only way it can be outclass if there is a better player with better gear / understands their role. While I may not be the best tank I consider my self well trained and can out class some tanks that are both better geared or considered better than DRK. Results is all that matters.

Says we, that's the exscf exude they used to explain same high dps. It's because it brings no raid utility. Drk does so it needs to be lower. I'm actually not talking about player skill whatsoever in discussing max potential of the classes. If I were discussing that there would be no problem since my tank damage is better than the majority of dps is this game since the majority suck at thiat classes. And I don't even know how you can speak on the matter, you don't even do content. Come back when you get some exp and your opinions on the matter may be of some worth when discussing potentioal.

[Rhinos]

While its not really an issue at 70, the gutted damage on unleash makes low lvl dungeons just so painful. Basically stuck with blizzard 2 tier aoe until lvl 56. Even PLD at least gets total eclipse at 46 for lvl 50 roulette.

[Lannybaby]

.

When I said complex, I didn't mean in the extremes. Things like accidentally letting your mp run dry and losing DS, then having to use CaS without DA just to get DS rolling again. It's not that it was ever really difficult, but complex in the sense that it gave you more to watch out for, and punish you for not managing mp properly. Now that DA consumes as much mp as SS restores, on top of having a viable def cd active on pretty much every buster or AoE, there's no more decision-making aspect. It's very straightforward now.

And I'm not one to complain; this version of drk is something I can roll with. Sure I would like some tweaks here and there, but I won't complain if drks remain as they are throughout SB.

[Dregenfox]

As a lv 70 drk, I'll tell you that this class is, as Xeno put it, brain-dead easy. The HW complexity is all but gone, and it's just effortless to deal high damage. Basically, DA all the things, keep your mana up, then DA some more, and you're pretty much golden. You can even deal good damage sitting in grit if you want. But if you ever want to do just a touch more, go ahead and turn off that grit. Mana management will be a bit tighter, but not too difficult either. Less sustain, but you hit harder.

I personally found DRK much more difficult than the war to play. War is pretty easy to understand, but DRK has constant DA spam + stance switching to worry about. I never really had to manage resources on my warrior besides IB which is pretty simple, while I find that my DRK is constantly struggling to refill his mana.

Could just be muscle memory though since I've been playing warrior way longer and DRK starts at 30. It's just a different playstyle compared to WAR.

[OmegaFlare]

What issues? You have like infinite mitigation with the blackest night and after every blackest night you get to smack the boss for 650 potency atk. If anything, it is the best main tank atm. I absolutely love it. People just hate on it because it's not as complex to play as before since you just manage mp and spam dark arts. But I love the class. It has that badass look and it's just...dark. PLD and WAR look meh.

[SpookyGhost]

If anything, it is the best main tank atm.

That's a funny joke.

[_Pigzig]

In terms of whether or not the job is strong or not, it's not awful

In terms of how well it plays, it's a disaster and a shadow of what it was in 3.X

The class is a cluster**** of redundant abilities
e.g. 1: Darkside which you now never need to turn off
e.g. 2: It has 5 AOE abilities.

It has a basic rotation that rarely goes beyond pushing 1,2,3(or whatever its keybound to) but more button presses than I've seen from any job in the game so far, due to dark arts spam and an extremely high number of OCDs that you're going to want to weave in between the 1,2,3.

MP fluctuates wildly due to the job having high regen as well as consumption. If you want to play efficiently you will have to keep your eyes on your MP all the time.
(edit: I haven't done any tanking at 70 yet so I'm not sure if this settles down once you get a higher MP pool)

It also suffers from the VIT accessory and tank stance problems plaguing tanks in general.