DRK Consolidated Feedback Thread

[Chrono_Rising]

Also I agree, we did not need to be buffed for aoe damage. This is a bit silly to me. Single target we are in as weird a place as ever.

[Xenosan]

More than anything they feel like token buffs they had to provide to match with Storm's Eye pumped to 270 and the Bloodbath element baked into Steel Cyclone.

[Veerne]

Some ideas I've had:

1. Shadow Wall: increase damage reduction to 40% from 30%, or reduce cooldown to 120 sec. from 180 sec.
2. Turn Dark Passenger into a defensive cooldown: 90 sec. cooldown. Reduce all damage taken by 20% for 10 sec. Upon expiration, release a wave of darkness around you that blinds enemies for 10 sec. and deals 200 potency damage. Dark Arts: Increase duration by 5 sec (both damage reduction and blind).
3. Consolidate Unleash and Abyssal Drain: Increase Unleash potency to 120. Dark Arts: Absorb portion of damage dealt as HP.
4. Bring back Scourge as a combo finisher: Deal 100 potency damage. Combo Action: Syphon Strike. Combo effect: apply Scourge on the target: 40 potency, 18 sec. duration.

[Kalocin]

Some ideas I've had:
Snip snippy.

I think that'd probably make Dark Passenger OP, that being said I'd love to see the blind be usable on boss' autoattacks. I heavily disagree with consolidating unleash and abyssal drain though as having a "cheap" snap enmity grabber is really useful during add phases in dungeons or on bosses. I'd actually prefer scourge be tacked onto power slash if it's brought back, gives us a reason to use it and not feel bad about it.

[DRKoftheAzure]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...in-3.x-and-4.x

Here's my little rant for people to look at that might be of interest to all DRK mains and subs... as well as the developers to look at if they even get around to looking at it...

[Deathshiro]

I can't even...

SE I'll make this simple and clean

We need to do MORE damage than PLD and LESS damage than WAR
Wanna make this simple? Lets add one thing to blood spiller, just one

Add Scourge dot effect to Bloodspiller

Problem solved, I can wait on our mitigation, just fix that fact that thematically we make no sense.

[Link594]

Not sure how much visibility this will get in a mega-thread, but here goes.

Concerns:

1. The rotation is really repetitive and bland with just 1 DPS combo. People currently compare DRK to 2.0 PLD.

2. The class is noticeably squishier then the other tanks, especially before level 70 without TBN.

3. Unleashed is useless after Abyssal Drain.

4. Dark Passenger is hardly worth using, its very underwhelming.

5. Blood Weapon and Blood Price is unnecessary button bloat.

Solutions:

1. Bring Scourge back as a 3rd combo finisher after Syphon Strike.

Scourge is a pretty cool animation to keep around, and DRK is the only tank with 2 combos instead of 3. WAR tracks Storm's Eye and PLD tracks Goring Blade, so tracking Scourge would add some parallels. Have seen this suggested plenty.

2. Make Dark Mind reduce both physical and magical damage.

The amount reduced or the recast timer can be tuned. Could also remove the DA part to make it simpler to use/balance.
PLD got block, shelltron, bulwark, and cover extended to magical to cover their weakness while DRK got nothing, just TBN at 70.
This is also suggested plenty.

3. Either delete Unleashed and give us Abyssal Drain at level 6, or give us a trait at 56 that improves Unleashed and makes it into Abyssal Drain.

Not much to talk about here, having 2 AOE skills that do the same thing is redundant. WAR has Overpower (DPS) and PLD has Flash (enmity) and Total Eclipse (DPS).
Again, a common request.

4. Make Dark Passenger free and make the DA effect baseline.

It makes it always worth using and makes this DP easier to use to balance out the complexity of adding a 3rd combo. Dark Passenger NEEDS a buff, its not usable currently.

5. Make Blood Weapon usable in Grit, and merge the effects of Blood Price into Blood Weapon.

If you want to, you can make the Blood Price effect only happen in Grit by giving a Grit Additional Effect to Blood Weapon. As for separate timers, you could have both buffs with separate timers, similar to how WAR Vengeance gives you 2 buffs for the mitigation and the counterattack. Delirium could extend the timers of both. Maybe not a common solution, but Blood Weapon/Blood Price consolidation is something that is frequently discussed.

Another idea is to merge Anticipation into Blood Weapon to justify the Blood Price effect thematically and to increase desperately needed Physical mitigation, and delete Anticipation in favor of Bloodbath. (fits all 3 tanks thematically) and change Bloodbath to work from magical damage too.

And thats it, suddenly DRK is more refined and much more fun and its up to par with the other tanks. All that is missing is the old Delirium animation, but oh well. Wish they would delete the Souleater animation and give us that instead.

[EusisLandale]

1. The rotation is really repetitive and bland with just 1 DPS combo. People currently compare DRK to 2.0 PLD.
1. Bring Scourge back as a 3rd combo finisher after Syphon Strike.

The difference being that we have more things on the side to do than Paladin did back then. And Scourge really just is not coming back, between Bloodspiller and Darkside's buff it's been baked into the Job without the need for constant management.

2. The class is noticeably squishier then the other tanks, especially before level 70 without TBN.
2. Make Dark Mind reduce both physical and magical damage.

It's going to take more than just one skill and adjustment to touch this problem up. Give Blood Price a mitigation effect to put it in line with Blood Weapon. make Dark Mind apply to all damage, improve The Blackest Night's duration, allow Souleater to heal even if only at half the rate out of Grit, and alter Shadow Wall to have two of three minimum; more power, a better duration, or a lower recast time.

3. Unleashed is useless after Abyssal Drain.
3. Either delete Unleashed and give us Abyssal Drain at level 6, or give us a trait at 56 that improves Unleashed and makes it into Abyssal Drain.
Not much to talk about here, having 2 AOE skills that do the same thing is redundant.

Unleashed is Power Slash to Abyssal Drain's Souleater. You're looking at x20.6 enmity vs x5. It would be more reasonable to ask for Abyssal Drain to lose its enmity modifier rather than to ask for them to be merged.

4. Dark Passenger is hardly worth using, its very underwhelming.
4. Make Dark Passenger free and make the DA effect baseline.
It makes it always worth using

They don't want it to be always worth using, they made that pretty clear with the cost and potency adjustments. Dark Passenger is an early game tool to weave in for some damage before you get all your aoe tools, and a late game trash mitigation tool. The change to Quietus allows for us to get into a period where we're overwhelmed with MP when paired with Blood Weapon. A single BW Quietus on 5 targets pays off a DA DP.
About the only way you could convince them to make Dark Passenger free and to have its Dark Arts boost naturally is if that comes with the condition of stripping its potency. Congrats, you got Line Flash.

5. Blood Weapon and Blood Price is unnecessary button bloat.
5. Make Blood Weapon usable in Grit, and merge the effects of Blood Price into Blood Weapon.
Another idea is to merge Anticipation into Blood Weapon to justify the Blood Price effect thematically and to increase desperately needed Physical mitigation

Dark Knights are hardly suffering from any button bloat. No, it would be far better to leave them separate. And no linking them up to the same recast time like Warrior stuff either. Again though, Blood Price definitely needs to be given mitigation. That puts it thematically in line with Blood Weapon, MP+Blood Generation and DPS/Mitigation.

[Link594]

The difference being that we have more things on the side to do than Paladin did back then. And Scourge really just is not coming back, between Bloodspiller and Darkside's buff it's been baked into the Job without the need for constant management.

So things can be readjusted, I'm not advocating for a DPS buff, just for a less bland rotation.

It's going to take more than just one skill and adjustment to touch this problem up. Give Blood Price a mitigation effect to put it in line with Blood Weapon. make Dark Mind apply to all damage, improve The Blackest Night's duration, allow Souleater to heal even if only at half the rate out of Grit, and alter Shadow Wall to have two of three minimum; more power, a better duration, or a lower recast time.

While I don't disagree with some of those suggestions, the biggest problem is that Dark Mind is very situational and DRK doesn't have as many tool as the other tanks to mitigate Physical damage.

Unleashed is Power Slash to Abyssal Drain's Souleater. You're looking at x20.6 enmity vs x5. It would be more reasonable to ask for Abyssal Drain to lose its enmity modifier rather than to ask for them to be merged.

Unleashed is basically a DRK version of flash that does 50 potency. It really is redundant in the grand scheme of things. And that argument doesn't really hold. Unleashed is not as useful as Power Slash is. If you are using unleashed, you are pretty much wasting the GCD.

They don't want it to be always worth using, they made that pretty clear with the cost and potency adjustments. Dark Passenger is an early game tool to weave in for some damage before you get all your aoe tools, and a late game trash mitigation tool. The change to Quietus allows for us to get into a period where we're overwhelmed with MP when paired with Blood Weapon. A single BW Quietus on 5 targets pays off a DA DP.
About the only way you could convince them to make Dark Passenger free and to have its Dark Arts boost naturally is if that comes with the condition of stripping its potency. Congrats, you got Line Flash.

Except Dark Passenger is completely useless. DP costs the same amount of MP as DA, so if you are really capped on MP, and you can't afford to wait for the next Abyssal Drain, you're better off spending it on DA. The blind really doesn't mesh well with Blood Price, and we don't need that mitigation if we get other mitigation you or I mentioned buffed. When I meant naturally have the DA boost, I meant the potency boost. A similar ability would be Howling Fist from Monk.

Dark Knights are hardly suffering from any button bloat. No, it would be far better to leave them separate. And no linking them up to the same recast time like Warrior stuff either. Again though, Blood Price definitely needs to be given mitigation. That puts it thematically in line with Blood Weapon, MP+Blood Generation and DPS/Mitigation.

Why leave them separate? They both have the same function and are mutually exclusive. I also don't want them on the same recast, I would much prefer to just have the effects combined. 1 button for MP regen, there is no need for 2 mutually exclusive ones that accomplish the same thing. This also goes back with Unleashed/Abyssal Drain argument.

As I said before, these solutions are pretty common ones that people are suggesting. In this very thread, in the forums, and elsewhere. DRK has too many underwhelming abilities and too many redundancies in their kit.

[EusisLandale]

So things can be readjusted, I'm not advocating for a DPS buff, just for a less bland rotation.

It's only bland if you're looking at just the core of it and not the whole picture. Dark Knight is less a rotation based Job and more a priority based one. Just slapping in a third combo just because the others do isn't really going to help matters.

While I don't disagree with some of those suggestions, the biggest problem is that Dark Mind is very situational and DRK doesn't have as many tool as the other tanks to mitigate Physical damage.

Dark Mind being situational is fine. Dark Mind being situational when we have next to nothing outside of those situations is the bigger problem in the long run. Something needs to happen, be it DM going all damage types or some other changes.

Unleashed is basically a DRK version of flash that does 50 potency. It really is redundant in the grand scheme of things. And that argument doesn't really hold. Unleashed is not as useful as Power Slash is. If you are using unleashed, you are pretty much wasting the GCD.

Unleash and Power Slash are both generally cheaper, weaker, high enmity alternatives to the more expensive and powerful Abyssal Drain and Souleater. Should we roll Power Slash into Souleater just because one is wasted GCDs outside of the opening of a fight? Because that's the same place Unleash is at.

Except Dark Passenger is completely useless. DP costs the same amount of MP as DA, so if you are really capped on MP, and you can't afford to wait for the next Abyssal Drain, you're better off spending it on DA. The blind really doesn't mesh well with Blood Price, and we don't need that mitigation if we get other mitigation you or I mentioned buffed.

You don't pair it with Blood Price. You pair it with Blood Weapon.

When I meant naturally have the DA boost, I meant the potency boost. A similar ability would be Howling Fist from Monk.

They put out the nerfs to Dark Passenger specifically to avoid having us use multiple area attacks in single target situations. They're not going to give us a free oGCD instant 240 AoE

Why leave them separate? They both have the same function and are mutually exclusive. I also don't want them on the same recast, I would much prefer to just have the effects combined. 1 button for MP regen, there is no need for 2 mutually exclusive ones that accomplish the same thing. This also goes back with Unleashed/Abyssal Drain argument.

As it stands right now, you can have 30-46 seconds of extra MP and Blood generation. 15-23 if you're the OT. The function may be the same, but the method is different; Blood Weapon rewards offensive playstyles, Blood Price rewards defensive playstyles. And if you wish to make the argument of rolling things together based on function rather than purpose and method, I'll again say to just roll Power Slash's combo into Souleater's. Let's just roll all the tank enmity combos into the damage combos. But this is of course an insane suggestion.

As I said before, these solutions are pretty common ones that people are suggesting. In this very thread, in the forums, and elsewhere. DRK has too many underwhelming abilities and too many redundancies in their kit.

Common suggestions do not equal good suggestions. The constant hyperfocus on tank DPS being a pretty good example, all the changes this patch were to accommodate those issues rather than the more pressing matters of mitigation and utility.