Dark Knight Changes

[whiskeybravo]

(Why does only WAR have the OGCD stance privilege in first place?).

Because that's the way it's always been for War? Additionally their cornerstone abilities are locked behind each stance, unlike PLD and mostly unlike DRK - Blood price/weapon notwithstanding. It doesn't cost War anything to switch stances - but it does cost them abilities. If you want to talk about the costs being imbalanced, that's fair, but it's an entirely different discussion. The main reasons Defiance/Deliverance are oGCD is because there is no innate damage mitigation from the stance and because War looses parts of their tanking kit when switching.

Grit is definitely the "in between" GCD/oGCD and should be looked at by most opinions. I personally have mixed feelings on PLD oaths, I suppose if forced to settle on something I'd lean towards taking it off the GCD but retaining MP cost as PLD (and DRK) both recover MP naturally via their DPS rotations. If you are needing to switch stances because a run is going south, the last thing you should be focusing on at that point is your DPS. Just make it easy enough to switch stances and recover, then switch back when stabilized.

"But War can negate damage penalty" Big whoopee. War doesn't go to defiance and pop unchained for a DPS increase, it's still a loss. Additionally, consider that you rarely tank in Defiance with Unchained for the full 20 sec duration. At most for 3-4 GCDs on the pull, and 10 sec mid-fight until we can switch back to deliverance. (for prog it's a bit more of an advantage but not by the time you have the fight "on farm"). DRK has good snap aggro with DAPS, so it's just PLD that's losing out. But let's be honest, it would still not be optimal for a PLD to pull even if there were no MP costs/GCD loss associated with stance change. It's still delaying their dot and they still have the weakest aggro combo.

For DRK, there have been a ton of changes mentioned in the tank forums, so I don't really understand why the OP would rather have "non-tank feedback and discussions" when the one's actually tanking & commenting have a pretty good handle on what needs to happen. Regardless, they need a bit of help defensively, offensively, and utility-ely. CD reduction on Shadow Wall, a fix to LD so it's not such trash compared to HG/Holmgang. TBN would be better as a 30ish sec CD with no MP cost to help alleviate the constant tug-of-war between mitigation & dps. And they need something to compete with Divine Veil/Shake it Off - be it either giving them back HW-style Reprisal mechanic or another copy/paste AoE shield. And finally I believe they should offer a bit higher DPS than PLD. PLD simply has too much utility and defense to warrant their damage output even by SE's own idea of "balance". I certainly don't want to see PLD suffer like they did in HW, but DRK is kind of in that spot right now and they need to do something. Otherwise it'd be better for all of us to just #deleteDRK and focus on having 2 really strong, desired tank jobs.

[addz3]

I don't really understand why the OP would rather have "non-tank feedback and discussions" when the one's actually tanking & commenting have a pretty good handle on what needs to happen

Because not everybody reads the tank forums and you don't need to be a tank to have an opinion.

[basketofseals]

Because not everybody reads the tank forums and you don't need to be a tank to have an opinion.

I mean won't that lead to a bunch of completely useless opinions? I don't play DRK. What good is my view on the class balance?

As a WHM, personally it's my favorite tank. TBN is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than passage of arms and shake it off from my PuG-pro perspective. I think DRK is perfectly fine, but is my opinion really valid?

[whiskeybravo]

I mean won't that lead to a bunch of completely useless opinions? I don't play DRK. What good is my view on the class balance?

As a WHM, personally it's my favorite tank. TBN is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than passage of arms and shake it off from my PuG-pro perspective. I think DRK is perfectly fine, but is my opinion really valid?

That's kind of what I was alluding to in my comment. I don't really care one way or the other, everyone is entitled to an/their opinion, I just thought it was a bit odd. Being a tank main I wasn't even going to comment initially but eventually my resistance fell lol

[Enlial]

What's always really bugged me about drk is how shielding nullifies blood price. I pretty much stopped queuing dungeon roulette on drk because the average duty finder sch or noct ast isnt going to bother playing around it. It seems like really weird design and is inconsistent with the overall balancing of party comps (that is, maybe some jobs synergize a little better than others, but there's nothing else like how bad combining a scholar and dark knight is)

[addz3]

What's always really bugged me about drk is how shielding nullifies blood price. I pretty much stopped queuing dungeon roulette on drk because the average duty finder sch or noct ast isnt going to bother playing around it. It seems like really weird design and is inconsistent with the overall balancing of party comps (that is, maybe some jobs synergize a little better than others, but there's nothing else like how bad combining a scholar and dark knight is)

Excellent comment from a dps imo. I hadnt thought about this, it's really interesting. Just noting why I didn't put it on the tank forums

[Enlial]

Excellent comment from a dps imo. I hadnt thought about this, it's really interesting. Just noting why I didn't put it on the tank forums

Oh, well, I mean I wouldnt worry too much about it, most all of the posts in general could probably have gone to a subforum if the op wanted but get posted here for better coverage. And that comment could have just as easily come from a sch who hates having to not use one of the strongest heals in their toolkit (after all adlo is the reason why sch's stack crit rating) or getting annoyed seeing drks use a macro to cancel their adlo crits.

As for me I only came back to stormblood recently and havent managed to get more than a few jobs leveled (I do have drk at 70 and geared, but not pld or war), but Ive been playing since launch, aside from a break around SB release, and have at various times mained all three tanks.

There was a huge post on reddit a few weeks back on the state of dark knight. One point that was made, that I agree with, is that dark arts has become to spammy (due to syphon strike restoring MP). Also someone crunched a bunch of numbers from fflogs and found that darks who use blackest night on cooldown actually boost raidwide dps, at the expense of their own, and because of that most do not. Something like that, if true, and a majority of people are "doing it wrong", its probably bad design due to being so un-intuitive.

[whiteblade89]

What's always really bugged me about drk is how shielding nullifies blood price. I pretty much stopped queuing dungeon roulette on drk because the average duty finder sch or noct ast isnt going to bother playing around it. It seems like really weird design and is inconsistent with the overall balancing of party comps (that is, maybe some jobs synergize a little better than others, but there's nothing else like how bad combining a scholar and dark knight is)

Are you sure? Not saying you're wrong, but I've been playing drk since it was released and I never noticed this happening. Even if you take 0 damage, you should still be getting mp back because BP has a flat mp return regardless of damage taken, as long as you're actually being hit and not dodging. If anything, WHM's were my main concern, with their holy spam stun-locking everything and then "OH BLOOD PRICE IS DONE, GOOD THING THE MOBS CANT BE STUNNED ANYMORE!" and I'm sitting there bone dry on mp >.<

[addz3]

I mean won't that lead to a bunch of completely useless opinions? I don't play DRK. What good is my view on the class balance?

Every opinion is valid, I was hoping for more healer opinions. I have multiple classes at 70 like most players, yet I rarely go in the class specific forums. I think healers could give a lot of insight in to mechanics of LD for example. I think they also are pro mitigation damage. I also think that the comments about its increase of dps as a tank could open the job as a wider played tank. So there healer and dps comments that are valid opinions which could improve the class and make it more payable for everyone and not just existing tanks.