Some simple DRK changes, and why they would improve things.

[SyzzleSpark]

Some opinions:

I think you let some abilities off the hook too easily while scrutinizing things that should be on the back-burner. I almost didn't read past Unleash and Power Slash before I got to the actual adjustments in your post.

While DRK got a free pass in Omega due to A: 1/2/4 being almost wholly magical and B. 3 allowing you an extra ~~40% mitigation through Awareness, I, like you, would rather this not be the case. It works, but it feels bad. So let me talk about some other things that feel bad.

Keep in mind that I live the pug life and from some basic google-fu I see that you probably don't, but just take that into account.

Unleash, Power Slash, Plunge, and Quietus I really don't see as problems. Other than perhaps Plunge these are not active parts of playing the job that apply to all content or all parts of a given piece of content. Unleash is weaker than TE, but to recover the resource that we use for it, we just use our single target rotation, whereas PLD has to stop doing damage entirely (Flash). Power Slash's new DA effect is actually beautifully balanced in such a way as to net you the 140 potency DA baseline if you drop Grit immediately after, thus being perhaps the only tank stance-relevant mechanic that SE appears to have designed to encourage a tank to drop their tank stance. Plunge is unchanged from 3.x and so I'm accustomed to its quirks and really can't be bothered with any of them in light of more pressing problems with the job. Quietus is what it is, and it works for that purpose in dungeons, but has barely any effect on raid content right now so once again its something that really I could take or leave and should be on the back-burner, IMO.

Anyway, on to actual problems:

TBN feels bad, and it doesn't even get an honorable mention in your post. Its powerful, no doubt, but its frequency of use and entanglement with our resources makes it more than a cooldown: its a mechanic. Moreover, after the removal of the DD+3.xReprisal combo and Shadowskin in SB, it was obviously clear to the dev team, as well as anyone with eyes, that DRK's mitigation suite was almost eradicated as a result. So TBN was very clearly and blatantly made to fill this huge hole with one skill.

What they should have done instead, is make DM work on physical damage as well and extend its duration to 15-20s, reduce Shadow Wall's recast time/extend its duration to 15s, and have implemented a slightly weaker version of TBN on closer to a 30s recast.

Instead we got what we have now, which is a cooldown suite of abilities that don't last longer than 10 seconds and provide a very bumpy ride whilst tanking the 10K+ AAs of the current savage tier. They absolved themselves of fixing our remaining cooldowns by implementing 1 new one that is extremely powerful, but honestly, they didn't even do that right, because of its resource mechanic. TBN is designed to stop mitigating damage as quickly as possible. Moreover when it does, you aren't actually rewarded. There have been many suggestions on how to fix this, and my personal favorite is the proc-ing of a DA effect upon TBN popping, and perhaps getting a portion of the Blood Gauge up front and the rest when it pops.

Perhaps the most puzzling and infuriating thing about TBN is that the ability is so blatantly designed to be used on tank busters and yet, is almost never strong enough to be used by itself, meaning that you don't actually gain an extra use of one of your other cooldowns, cross-role or otherwise, by using it. You must always pair it with something else, which means you can't use whatever that something else was, be it Rampart or Shadow Wall or whatever, on any of the fluff damage that happens in between TBs. What do you have to use? TBN of course. You have to use a TB ability on AAs. *confused head-twitch* Also its use on a party member is almost never meaningful, and I would argue is not any stronger of a utility than WAR's now-extraneous slashing debuff. TBN is a 5.2K shield on a party member other than yourself, usually your co-tank. Now, if your co-tank survives something with less than that amount of HP (meaning TBN saved their life) it usually indicates that they fucked up somehow (mistimes a cooldown, or maybe the healer forgot to shield). Its "utility" that at best can be a clutch save in a situation where somebody goofed, and at worst is practically unnoticeable.

Shadow Wall is not fine and I don't believe that a cooldown that is a whole other job mechanic in itself excuses its problems, or our lack of sustained mitigation that lasts long enough for a healer to react to and adjust their GCD usage accordingly. But maybe that's just me. I like somewhat weaker, short-recast cooldowns, and I like sustained mitigation and not this spikey, "take zero damage from 1 AA in exchange for taking the next 4 AAs on your bare ass" nonsense.

Sole Survivor I don't think is hard to use or weak, just situational. 20% isn't really that much weaker than Clemency or Equilibrium really (which are both equally powerful? 1200 potency), as 20% of 52000 is a touch over 10K which could easily just be a low roll on the former two. And 20% MP is definitely significant even if it doesn't add up to a full DA. That being said, I wouldn't argue with your change, and I think a 120s recast easily justifies on-demand use.

Bloodspiller's tooltip has never triggered me in the way that it seems to trigger most people. Idk I guess reading tooltips and doing math comes naturally to me. I think the verbiage was chosen over what is used in the IB tooltip due to the fact that IB is only useable in Defiance, so its appropriate to word it in that fashion. Bloodspiller also no longer ignores the damage penalty. It ignores about 75% of it. It would have to be 500 potency baseline in Grit to constitute "ignoring the penalty" but it is only 475.

Grit going unmentioned in your post is a head-scratcher too, as while it is free to turn off, it is the most expensive to turn on by a landslide, and it is the ability to turn on your tank stance that can save your life, not the ability to turn it off. The cost of a GCD alone is sufficient to balance it with the largely free Defiance, whereas the 1800 mana is just a kick in the genitals. Alternatively, they could make it oGCD with a 1s recast and give it a higher mana cost, around the same as DA, which would invoke roughly the same potency loss as sitting in Defiance for 10 seconds.

More than anything I want to see the return of mechanics that reward you for maximizing the job and its resources. Right now you aren't rewarded, you break even with a baseline that is set in stone as soon as you use 9480 mana. Assuming good uptime and hitting DA Carve on cooldown and low Grit usage if any, that 9480 mana (roughly 560 potency) sustained over the course of a fight is the exact distance between the skill floor and skill ceiling, which to me feels just a-w-f-u-l.

In an expansion, aside from the obvious buffs from increased level cap and gear, your DPS floor should remain where it is and require you to master the new mechanics of the abilities you learn while leveling to reach the new ceiling. In SB, our floor was LOWERED, and we are required to master the new mechanics to stay where we were.

While some of these changes are more complicated than simple number-tweaking, they aren't the ridiculous full-job-redesigns that people commonly suggest and I believe they are pretty well in line with the simplicity of balance adjustments that, as you rightly point out, we've come to expect from SE. Basically I want to see all of our defensive cooldowns buffed which the exception of TBN which I wouldn't mind seeing a slight nerf, and for our DPS ceiling to be raised noticeably but gated by skilled play. I want more frequent checks to see if we are managing mana and Blood optimally, and a worthy DPS payoff if we are. I want our mitigation to not be so expensive. I want burst. I want TBN to be rewarding to optimize. I've made countless posts on the forums of simple solutions to our problems and the preceding statements pretty accurately sums them up.