DRK Consolidated Feedback Thread

[Starkbeaumont]

Maybe TBN should use Blood and give back MP. Then add more additional effects via Dark Arts so all that MP can be used on something.

[FallenWings]

Maybe TBN should use Blood and give back MP. Then add more additional effects via Dark Arts so all that MP can be used on something.

We have too much MP gain as it is imo. And putting TBN in Blood Gauge could turn it into Inner Beast levels of usage (i.e rarely) and also limits the usage of other skills. Not to mention it'll also break the synergy it has with Quietus in AoE situations.

[DRKoftheAzure]

Also number of DRK complaint posts is staggering since Stormblood launched... The guys that do balance adjustments really screwed up.... DRK utility should be all about debuffs with decent damage mitigation and damage output, not what PLD and WAR do but A LOT WORSE... at least how I see DRK should be... I enjoyed DRK before 4.0 launch and was a decent tank with decent mitigation and damage output and felt like it needed more utility type debuffs... But role action pretty much confirmed my fears of what would happen to DRK...

[TouchandFeel]

snip

You have touched on the current design flaw with DRK in 4.0, "choice without meaning".

With the redesign of DRK for Stormblood we saw an increase of "choice" with DA usage becoming a greater and more frequent aspect of our game-play. However, as has been pointed out, while more options and choices were given the results are all virtually the same with being a standardized potency boost and therefore the choices feel meaningless because no matter what choice you make it ends up pretty much the same or with such slight differences that it doesn't really matter. Strangely enough, this is what I believe lead to or at least contributed to the feeling for some that DRK had been "dumbed down". While technically the job had complexity added to it by providing more options, it felt more simple because the choices provided little variance in result so it was easy to get consistent results no matter what you did.

To put it more simply, in 3.X DRK had less DA options and frequency of use which resulted in more relative value for each DA option and use. So far in 4.X there was an increase in options and frequency of use while not having differing returns on those options and so the relative value of the greater number of options decreased greatly.
It's like walking into an ice cream shop that serves only vanilla and your only options are what color cup the vanilla ice cream is served in.

As you, myself and others have brought up, this should be solved by attaching differing and meaningful additional effects to abilities based on whether or not they are being DAed and/or whether or not Grit is active.

For example, let's take Soul Eater and Syphon Strike.
Pretty straightforward abilities. SE does more damage when DAed and provides a small heal in Grit. Syphon has the same DA potency boost and returns some MP. Really not much difference in which to DA except a little more HP returned from SE. A very lackluster choice that just defaults to DAing SE for miniscule gains.

Now what if Soul Eater instead did the following: an increased % of damage returned as HP when DAed in Grit along with the current potency boost, when DAed out of Grit gives a small amount of Black Blood (20?).

And Syphon did the following: when DAed provides the existing potency boost and an increase to MP gained (25% the cost of a dark arts?).

These abilities are now much more complex and interesting in their usages and interactions with other abilities and resources. You actually have a choice that seems more worthwhile; do you want more HP to soften incoming damage, do you want more resources by trading mp for blood or by slowing mp burn by increasing regain while retaining the potency boost, etc.

I strongly feel it is this conceptual approach that the devs need to take when looking at fixing DRK's issues.

[WhyAmIHere]

seeing more use out of the blood gauge.
having more impact when using dark arts.
regaining better forms of mitigation.
balancing the skills to not be bogged down by what the other tanks can do, and solidify DRK's unique place in the game.
reintroducing some level of complexity to the class and how it is to be played, both for casual and hardcore players.
and ostensibly, making the class more enjoyable for those to play it from 30 onwards.

sounds like a decent summation of what people are looking for, yes? or am I off in any place?

[zipzo]

I like most things about playing DRK but one thing that's always made me feel kinda weird doing is the constant spam of Dark Arts. I get that due to its MP cost it's meant to force us to make choices on what ability to 'supercharge' but in practicality it feels kinda (I hate using this word) clunky.

I'd rather see them just bake all Dark Arts effects in to the abilities, up the mana cost of all the abilities to compensate with not needing to use Dark Arts, then re-increase the "complexity" of our rotation to compensate for not having to hit DA before every combo finisher...maybe give us Scourge back, giving us another element of the rotation to manage, then tune Scourge's damage up or down in order to close whatever minoscule gap is left between us and the other tanks.

However it seems all the tanks lost their "upkeep this DOT forever" ability so I'm not seeing that as likely...so maybe they can increase mana cost a bit more than simply a compensatory amount for baking in Dark Arts, making MP management a bit more of a pressing matter? MP management has always seemed like a defining element of DRK gameplay as it were, so I feel it would be fitting.

[Xenosan]

some morning feelings for the DRK diary

Blood Price:

Restores partial MP when damage is taken.
*Reduces Spell and Ability MP cost by 25%
*Increases own HP recovery via healing magic and health absorbs by 15%.

For Shadow Wall and Dark Mind, I'd like adjustments to recast and DA effects for these abilities. I'd like something where the result would be: the emphasis/productivity that DADM has currently is given to SW (and a DASW). Then, DM can function as a free TBN occasionally in magical content (the MP saved from not using TBN converted to DPS). So SW+TBN or SW+DM.

That to me is a 'better' magical advantage for DRK. Right now the advantage is too heavily skewed with DM being a heavy mitigation CD. DM carries too much water for something niche, letting DRK hop one-footed through content. Give that emphasis to Shadow Wall (which mitigates both damage types), and make Dark Mind a pre-TBN TBN or have some other unique additional effect.

[SyzzleSpark]

A neat boost to DRK's DPS and a good way to make it more engaging and reward more skilled play is to A: Put DP back where it was and B: have Dark Arts reduce the recast time on Carve and DP by like 2s or something per cast. In this way you have more frequent checks to see if you're managing your mana properly, because DP and Carve will be coming up more frequently and if you lack the MP to use them because you've been DAing a little too much you can't use them/Dark Arts them. In this way you reward skilled play with higher DPS while punishing less skilled play with lower DPS.

We could also do this with Shadow Wall, where every cast of DA reduces its recast time by 5s. This would go a long way towards giving it parity with Vengeance as well.

[RaizeGraymalkin]

Blood Weapon should be useable in Grit. If not then Grit needs to be an OGCD and not cost MP. Swapping is so easy and fun on Warrior and the exact opposite on Dark Knight.

[Kowen]

It's probably been brought up already, but playing DRK feels pretty bad at the old level caps. Now that I've tried it at 70 it's very fun, but I think the fact that DRK revolves so much around the blood gauge, yet doesn't even unlock it until 62, is bad design.

What if some of the blood skills were given to us earlier? Let us have the gauge and Bloodspiller at 50 so that we can start using it in that content range, then give us another blood skill by 60. Or, maybe create a new blood ability and have it unlocked early on.

Regardless of the exact changes, I think the job would feel much better if our entire core mechanic wasn't locked til nearly max level!