Oh Square Enix… (A Heartfelt Open Letter To The Developers…)

[Llus]

They were aware of the problems people had with PLD, some exaggerated, although many on here have argued why that was the case yet they got buffs and a rotation which isn't as punishing as WAR if you mess it up. WARs shake it off got introduced way too late after they removed the pacification penalty for using berserk, they were aware of how useless it was and informed the community through live letters that they were going to fix it, and they did. Giving WARs their own stack able version Divine Veil. There have been quite a few suggestions as to how they can buff DRK, some real good ones as well. Yet up to this patch they have said nothing, only to give us minor potency buffs and to "fix" blood price which is still locked behind grit.

I think I speak for most here when I say it would be nice for them to acknowledge the problems with DRK then not say anything at all. I don't know, maybe we aren't taking the right approach to this getting noticed. What exactly did the WAR mains do to create such noise and get things gradually fixed in a short space of time?

Stance switch cost: Pointed out that stance switch cost left you with an unusable number of rage after stance dancing meaning that you missed all the party buffs because your opener was made late by 4 GCDs and that further switching to Defiance from Deliverance meant that unless you had infuriate available or 100 rage you couldn't IB or SS if needed
Unchained: Pointed out that because you can't infuriate out of battle, you couldn't do an unchained pull
Shake it off: Pointed out that in raids, the skill was worthless because your healer will already cleanse those debuffs that could be cleansed


These were specific mechanic failures relating to the playability of the class itself.

For DRKs the issues I see are:

Shadow wall cd needs to be reduced. This isn't a role mechanic failure because there are other mitigation tools, it's a QoL improvement that NEEDS to be made
Blood Price needs to be usable outside of grit in order to maximize DRKs DPS. This is partly a QoL improvement and a role mechanic failure that NEEDS to be addressed.
The Blackest Night, a very useful skill that is great at building your gauge (if nobody else shields you when you use it) while also protecting yourself or your co-tank and until the shake it off change was perfect (minus other shields overriding TBN). At this point, with SiO being a party shield, BN should be changed into party shield when not specifying a party member or a single target shield when providing a party member target and should take priority over other shields (so you can guarantee the 50 gauge) This is a QoL improvement that would be on par with SiO and a mechanic failure (because anyone else shielding your BN prevents you from getting your +50 blood gauge) and should be implemented.

So, first try TBN. Since this will get the biggest bang for the buck if improved. At the minimum it needs priority over other shields because you could BN during your rotation and get a shield that stops BN from giving you your +50 gauge. If DRK can also get party wide mitigation of BN (without the gauge increase) it would be a great QoL improvement and give DRK comparable raid utility again and the next raid tier won't be PLD+WAR meta due to raid utility.

2nd, BP. This NEEDS to be useable outside of grit, both for the MP generation AND gauge generation. Gauge generation should be increased to 10 blood when used and 40 when complete. The cd should be increased to 60 or 90s because this combined with BN will give 4-5 BS per burst window making DRK BS 4 or 5 burst comparable with WARs IR cleaves and PLD's Requiescat+HS

Again, focus on the ROLE MECHANIC FAILURES vs QoL improvements and the devs might be more inclined to listen.

[shao32]

2nd, BP. This NEEDS to be useable outside of grit, both for the MP generation AND gauge generation. Gauge generation should be increased to 10 blood when used and 40 when complete. The cd should be increased to 60 or 90s because this combined with BN will give 4-5 BS per burst window making DRK BS 4 or 5 burst comparable with WARs IR cleaves and PLD's Requiescat+HS

unleash you add blood weapon being able on grit you are destroing the already unfair balance on tanking on grit vs non-grit.

[SplittingSkies]

Stance switch cost: Pointed out that stance switch cost left you with an unusable number of rage after stance dancing meaning that you missed all the party buffs because your opener was made late by 4 GCDs and that further switching to Defiance from Deliverance meant that unless you had infuriate available or 100 rage you couldn't IB or SS if needed
Unchained: Pointed out that because you can't infuriate out of battle, you couldn't do an unchained pull
Shake it off: Pointed out that in raids, the skill was worthless because your healer will already cleanse those debuffs that could be cleansed

Thank you for the info on this, in my view this just goes to show that we aren't doing anything different, yet our issues with DRK is taking longer to solve. Odd.

unleash you add blood weapon being able on grit you are destroing the already unfair balance on tanking on grit vs non-grit.

I don't think he was talking about BW being usable in grit, he was talking about BP being usable outside of grit. I don't see a problem with that, again, welcome to be corrected on that. I always got the impression with 4.x DRK that, although lacking in some departments we wouldn't get the most benefits being outside of grit. Surely they must know that unless its prog, not every tank main worth his/her salt is going to stay in tank stance the whole of a fight.

You want HP return off Souleater? Stay in grit
You want a DA return after using Syphon? Stay in grit
You want to be able to use a nerfed Blood Price Stay in grit
But if you Stay in grit you get to keep the full potency of Bloodspiller. *sigh*

[shao32]

snip

SE was pretty clear when they put blood price on grit only, they balance resources generation in and out of grit being equal more or less, blood weapon generate more constan MP by miles that blood price with depend of autoattacks mostly, thats why Syphon have that extra MP on grit and even with that you generate more MP outside of grit on bosses.

so what i mean with that is adding only blood price outside of grit will increse non-grit resources generation a lot and let grit being more useles bcs you will generate less MP, less blood and dealt much more less dps compared to tanking outside of grit giving us even more reasons to avoid grit.

to be a fair change it will be unclock blood price out of grit and blood weapon being able on grit and remove the MP bonus on syphon.

[Llus]

Thank you for the info on this, in my view this just goes to show that we aren't doing anything different, yet our issues with DRK is taking longer to solve. Odd.



I don't think he was talking about BW being usable in grit, he was talking about BP being usable outside of grit. I don't see a problem with that, again, welcome to be corrected on that. I always got the impression with 4.x DRK that, although lacking in some departments we wouldn't get the most benefits being outside of grit. Surely they must know that unless its prog, not every tank main worth his/her salt is going to stay in tank stance the whole of a fight.

You want HP return off Souleater? Stay in grit
You want a DA return after using Syphon? Stay in grit
You want to be able to use a nerfed Blood Price Stay in grit
But if you Stay in grit you get to keep the full potency of Bloodspiller. *sigh*

IDK, I see so many ideas about what players want to change in DRK there's a lack of consensus. Part of that is because there are SO many things weird and wrong about SB DRK - like, salted earth increasing blood gauge by 1? O.o Blood weapon increase by 3 for each physical attack? O.o Blood price increasing gauge by 5? There's no skill that uses 1, 3 or 5 gauge. For salted earth increase to be useful you need 50 of them. No way you're going to not cap 100 then burn DA+BS. BW +3???? 3,6,9,12,15 - so 5 physical attacks and you still don't have your 50, ... 18,21,24,27,30,33,36,39,42,45,48,51 .... ok so now you're left with an odd 1 from BW and since you can't use BW+BP you can't get an even 20 from BW+BP which would make sense cause at least 3 soul eaters later you'd have a 50.

SE was pretty clear when they put blood price on grit only, they balance resources generation in and out of grit being equal more or less, blood weapon generate more constan MP by miles that blood price with depend of autoattacks mostly, thats why Syphon have that extra MP on grit and even with that you generate more MP outside of grit on bosses.

so what i mean with that is adding only blood price outside of grit will increse non-grit resources generation a lot and let grit being more useles bcs you will generate less MP, less blood and dealt much more less dps compared to tanking outside of grit giving us even more reasons to avoid grit.

to be a fair change it will be unclock blood price out of grit and blood weapon being able on grit and remove the MP bonus on syphon.

This is true, 100% going out of grit for your bursts SHOULD be MUCH better than trying to burst while in grit; and opening up BP to use outside of grit will do 2 things: give you gauge for you burst outside of grit and give you MP (if you're taking damage) so you can DA everything during your burst and still have MP to swap back into grit if you need to.

[shao32]

This is true, 100% going out of grit for your bursts SHOULD be MUCH better than trying to burst while in grit; and opening up BP to use outside of grit will do 2 things: give you gauge for you burst outside of grit and give you MP (if you're taking damage) so you can DA everything during your burst and still have MP to swap back into grit if you need to.

the thing is already better, blood weapon generate more MP and blood that blood price and you dont have damage penalty, adding more gap betwen both grit and non-grit just make grit more cunkly and akward to use if you have to, there is no sense on make grit more punishing that already is.

[SyzzleSpark]

like, salted earth increasing blood gauge by 1? O.o Blood weapon increase by 3 for each physical attack? O.o Blood price increasing gauge by 5? There's no skill that uses 1, 3 or 5 gauge.

This isn't really a problem that people complain about because it doesn't actually cause any issues. There's no burst window for DRK like there is with WAR wherein you build to maximum gauge and have to divide it evenly such that there is no uneven remainder, so variable returns don't really cause issues. Build your gauge to 50 in whatever way possible, dump it, repeat. The only time you would try to do otherwise is during a TA window or something, but even then there's nothing that dictates that two Bloodspillers MUST be back-to-back, just that you get 2 into that 10s window, etc.