Trying to understand the complaints about DRK

[Argyle_Darkheart]

I don't think that's the best comparison. Sheltron can only be used to increase your DPS if Shield Swipe is off coooldown and if you would otherwise not proc it; TBN isn't gated like this (though it is gated, however little, by incoming damage). As for taking avoidable damage, there would little to no need for that when you can just cast TBN on someone else.

Would it be a huge issue if TBN was DPS positive? I don't really know, but it makes sense for it to be DPS neutral. The "issue" is that isn't, though I do think it's close enough.

[Chrono_Rising]

I don't think that's the best comparison. Sheltron can only be used to increase your DPS if Shield Swipe is off coooldown and if you would otherwise not proc it; TBN isn't gated like this (though it is gated, however little, by incoming damage). As for taking avoidable damage, there would little to no need for that when you can just cast TBN on someone else.

Would it be a huge issue if TBN was DPS positive? I don't really know, but it makes sense for it to be DPS neutral. The "issue" is that isn't, though I do think it's close enough.

To determine what the best comparison to TBN is on another tank you you need to go through all the possible options, which ever is the the closest is the "best". I don't see any suggestion for a better comparison so I cannot reasonable respond with a comparison.

When acting as an OT Shelton and TBN can be used similarly on yourself, used on unavoidable damage, and can be used with cover to again proc shield swipe when it would otherwise be unprocced. In that vein they are extremely similar, though TBN has a frequency advantage here since cover and unavoidable raid wides are less common than every 15 seconds. As a main tank, there is little to no reason to keep your guage at 100%, meaning there is no reason to not pop sheltron relatively frequently in most cases (somewhere in the range of once every 22 seconds) and some of those will undoubtably proc a shield swipe (especially keeping in mind that you can proc shield swipe when it is still on cooldown and use it once it comes off cooldown). The main point here is that there are more examples of them being similar in terms of active mitigation used for other attacks than are not, despite that there are such things as natural shield swipes and an extra block between the two of them.

If TBN were dps positive, lets say 10 potency, the only thing this would encourage would be to pop it more frequently making dark knight tankier. Would it mean additional casts? No, you are just replacing 1 dark arts with 1 TBN every so often for slightly more potency. Hardly game breaking. No one is going to be risking their life to stand in avoidable and potentially fatal damage for 10 potency, much like no one does this to proc an extra sheltron when off tanking.

Is TBN the primary issue with dark knight? I would say thats also no but I would also need a huge amount of space to write what is wrong with it. but if people feel more secure with TBN a small positive over a small negative then I don't think there is any real argument either way to change it from -3 potency a use to +3 potency a use, it fixes relatively little except that it turns the community feeling against TBN to a slightly more positive light.

[Rubytoe]

If TBN was actually dps neutral, then you could certainly throw it out on random autos. It's not.

The dps value of TBN is variable. In some cases the blood gain is greater than the MP cost, as tends to be the case during raid burst windows. On average, though, it works out to be a dps lose.

Also you have to think about all the healing your saving for your healers when your TBNing the autos as MT. 1 tbn is like saving a Cure II, and replacing it with a Stone IV. So in some cases i think it's a dps increase to your healer, along with the blood spiller it brings.

[Terkhev]

Also you have to think about all the healing your saving for your healers when your TBNing the autos as MT. 1 tbn is like saving a Cure II, and replacing it with a Stone IV. So in some cases i think it's a dps increase to your healer, along with the blood spiller it brings.

Not really. I stopped healing after Deltascape, so it might be different now (doubt it), but as SCH I barely ever had to use GCD heals for tank and my WHM buddy only used regen afaik. Regen, Eos, AoE heals and tanks self heal from Path (WAR) was enough most of the time. Occasional Excog/Lustrate and Tetra were enough when he got lower.
Sure, it will help healers in the long run, but it's far from being a whole GCD per TBN.

[Lyth]

Sheltron is a strict potency gain even without a Swipe Proc. The ability generates 600 MP (roughly 40% of a Holy Spirit), which translates into additional Holy Spirit uses. Oddly enough, having a defensive ability that is also a dps gain to use did not cause PLD's gameplay to fall apart at the seams. The universe did not, in fact, implode.

Ever since we sat down and calculated the relative dps value of blood and MP, there's been this unhealthy obsession in the community with balancing TBN's blood gain. Yeah, it's pretty neat how close the average values for 50 blood and 1 DA are. But is this really necessary?

The philosophy behind actions like Inner Beast or the old DA Dark Mind was built around making you pay to gain access to your defensive toolkit. But we've seen time and again that players avoid using abilities when they are dps losses. Perhaps we've got things backwards. Shouldn't you reward tanks for mitigating damage?

It's worth noting that Bloodspiller makes up a much smaller proportion of our overall dps than does Holy Spirit or Fell Cleave (most of our dps comes from Souleater). This is even before you account for the fact that the benefit of the ones generated by TBN are negated by the MP cost. I think TBN could benefit from being a potency gain.

[Aana]

Drk could use some QoL anti-clunk changes for sure. Addressing the anti-synergy of speed buffs and double weaves would actually help. When OT DPS mode it isnt bad really, but trying to use any defensive OGCDs while weapon is up is the stuff of nightmares. I suppose SE's 'plan' for that is you are supposed to tank in grit and therefore this situation never happens as you loose your speed madness. But that's just not how people play and I hope SE aknowledges how people ACTUALLY play jobs instead of how they designed them. They finally accepted ninja as a tank in XI after years, hopefully they aknowledge DPS stance tanking in shorter order and plan around that design. Would alleviate so many tank design issues.

People are still hung up on a couple (single digit) potency loss on TBN? /facepalm. Loosing -3 potency here, -9 potency there, gaining +6 potency over there a couple times a minute is not doing anything to you. It really isnt. Not when you are doing over 100 pot per SECOND. Using TBN 10 times in a 10 minute fight where you count your potency totals in the 10s of thousands is a grain of sand on the beach.

Tweaking TBN to be 100% neutral instead of the 99.9% what we have now doesnt 'fix' drk. It doesnt do anything at all to the state of drk as a job. If you think it actually affects you, its in your head. Let's stick to things that actually matter. Not PR stunts.

[DRKoftheAzure]

All they need to do is remove the damage penalty on Grit and make Blood Weapon/Blood Price usable whenever and maybe add more Grit bonuses since DRK would be the first tank to actually benefit from staying in tank stance with no real downside but people would think that's not balanced...

[Hierro]

people would think that's not balanced...

People already know that's not balanced.

[shao32]

All they need to do is remove the damage penalty on Grit and make Blood Weapon/Blood Price usable whenever and maybe add more Grit bonuses since DRK would be the first tank to actually benefit from staying in tank stance with no real downside but people would think that's not balanced...

you want to do that on all tanks to make it balance, i will love to see that but dont expect to happen.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

Sheltron is a strict potency gain even without a Swipe Proc. The ability generates 600 MP (roughly 40% of a Holy Spirit), which translates into additional Holy Spirit uses.

No. PLD isn't like DRK; more MP doesn't necessarily translate into more Holy Spirits.

Oddly enough, having a defensive ability that is also a dps gain to use did not cause PLD's gameplay to fall apart at the seams. The universe did not, in fact, implode.

No, it didn't, and neither would DRK, in all likelihood. But let's not pretend that a DPS positive TBN would be used like Sheltron--TBN's limiting resource is its cooldown, but Sheltron's is the Oath gauge.