DRK changes from Prelim notes

[Esp]

I like most of these changes. I'm really thankful for the Shadow Wall, Dark Mind and Soul Survivor change. Some of the others are ok QoL changes.

But that DA added to Plunge...just, why?

And I'm surprised they didn't increase the RANGE of Plunge instead of adding a DA effect to it (Like we needed MORE things to DA when we have been asking for less DA spam).

Dark Passenger change is...ok I suppose. The extra enmity will be nice, but still not enough to keep it on my main bar. If they had either reduced or remove the MP cost and did these changes, it would have been a really great change.

All in all though, still pleased. I'm interested to try out DRK when 4.3 hits :P

[Deceptus]

Yo Dawg, I heard you like Dark Arts. . .

[auren_23]

For what is worth i really like the changes, makes DRK almost even with WAR in personal toolkit and whether or not to bring a DRK to a fight is now a totally valid question

[NewAgeDoom]

I haven't really leveled any of my tanks yet, but these do seem like welcome changes from the people I talk to in my FC that play DRK.

[Tint]

nice changes, but it doesn't look like they do much for our dps at all.

to the people who are crying here "more dark arts spam" and "double weave plunge" - just because you have more dark arts effects doesn't mean you will have more mana to spam dark arts. the only reason to ever user dark arts plunge is for pulling an enemy from distance. otherwise just fire dark passenger on it.

but that's also the problem here: all those dark arts effects will increase (or decrase for the most people here i guess ^^; ) our QoL, but not our dps. okay, powerslash and more mana from sole survivor, and the fact that we can pull now with DA plunge and fire off dark passenger for bonus enmity, so maybe no enmity combo needed anymore... but i doubt that DRK will be inbetween PLD and WAR dps wise, he will more likely stay on PLD lvl - wich is actually a good thing balancing wise.

but i am excited for the shadow wall change, self heal from sole survivor and off-gcd enmity tools, especially dark arts plunge for pulling! ^O^
...too bad they didn't increased the range of plunge...

[TouchandFeel]

It's a start and there were some much needed changes included here but more definitely still needs to be done.

The first thing they should work on next which could likely be implemented in only half a patch cycle (4.35) or less, is improving DRK's self-healing ability which is sorely lacking especially when compared to WAR.
My suggestions for this are:
- Soul Eater heal is no longer locked behind Grit (seriously this should be added in with THIS patch).
- Add a self-heal to the DA effect of Bloodspiller. This one can be locked behind Grit.
- Add a potency boost with the DA effect on Abyssal Drain (more damage = bigger heal).

As for the DA addition to Plunge ... yeah I agree it was not really necessary. It's not good, it's not bad, it's somewhere in between. It has some good usage scenarios such as initial pull, when re-engaging an enemy and pre-prepping a DA for a knock-back and then using Plunge, so it definitely has some pros to it. However adding a DA effect to an OGCD ability adds to the problem of double-weaving that DRK has. Honestly I would have preferred if they would have just added the additional enmity effect to the base ability so you can cycle between Plunge and Dark Passenger for passive enmity generation, and then boosted the enmity multiplier for the DA version sort of like PS and DA-PS.
Overall though I feel they need to move away from and dial back having DA effects on OGCD abilities to prevent annoying double-weaving and while this change definitely has some beneficial uses to it, it also muddies the water involving the double-weaving problem.

[Xenosan]

Glad to see they put potency++ on DA-Power Slash - now do the same for DA-Abyssal Drain!

Since DA+OGCDs appear here to stay, If they have more changes coming in the months to follow, I may hope that it is to the Dark Arts action itself. (Faster animation & stacks).

[Liam_Harper]

No Dark Arts on Dark Mind, sweet!

...Lol jk, Dark Arts on Plunge.

...Oh :c

Seriously though, from a tank point of view they're some great changes. Solid magic defence reduction, better cd on shadow wall, Soul Survivor does something, better emnity generation. From a dps point of view it adds very little though.
I also really wish we had got a "Souleater heals outside of Grit" change. It was the one change I was hoping on. I don't understand why the Dark magic weilding 2 hander no-shield class that absorbs enemy life force has the niche of being worst at self heal. Surely they got that mixed up?

[Tex_Mex]

When I first read through the changes, I was pretty disappointed. There is some great QoL stuff in there, but the clunky DA spam is here to stay and our DPS was barely modified.

After reading through the changes again, there are a couple of really great things though:

1) Having increased enmity on plunge gives us an threat tool that is actually part of our normal DPS rotation outside of grit, so we should be able to generate a bit more aggro without needing a PS combo. Having to double weave DA on another oGCD it is just plain annoying, but at least it functions.
2) The Shadow Wall change is what I consider to be the biggest buff out of this bunch. DRK was sorely lacking in the damage reduction CD department (especially pre-70) and this goes a long way towards helping that. The DM change should have been done a long time ago, and I still think that they should make damage types much easier to identify so that you know if DM will be useful or not.
3) Sole Survivor just became a very minor DPS CD, which is at least a step up from hardly ever being used.
4) Dark Passenger is now basically the same as just using DA on a single target (slightly less if you consider slashing debuff) and has enmity increase, so now it will be a normal part of my DPS rotation. More threat increases while outside of Grit are definitely welcome.

So all in all, the core playstyle of the class is still clunky as hell, but at least more of it makes sense now. I wish our DPS would've seen a little bit more of a buff, considering how much harder DRK is to play optimally than the other 2 tanks, but it certainly could've been worse.

This glass half full mentality is exhausting...... lol

[Hierro]

I wish our DPS would've seen a little bit more of a buff, considering how much harder DRK is to play optimally than the other 2 tanks, but it certainly could've been worse.

DRK's DPS was fine. It was on par with PLD. Is that so bad? And really, DRK is so much easier to play than PLD. You just don't cap out on blood or mana, and slam you CDs the moment they light up. Wow! PLD has to make sure to keep up their strict rotation.

Peronsally, I'm disappointed they didn't increase Plunge's range to match onslaught.