Yet again no promised DRK rework

[Khalithar]

Snip

You misunderstand.

I was referring to fixing the reason why drk doesn't have a place in either of those spots. I've cleared savage mode, I know how the tanks work.

The "fix" that was I was referring to specifically, is the fact that War/Pld have way too much synergy and are objectively better than any other tank combination in the current savage mode content. Until they fix that, there is no reason to bring a drk because War/Pld work far too well together. If you stack them up against each other at 70, Drk and Pld are more or less balanced and just about even in the dps they pull and their personal mitigation but in situations where you need two of them? War/Pld is far too good.

Most complaints are about DRK's kit and just the overall feel of the job. You spend nearly twenty levels with next to no cooldowns that aren't role actions. Their first innate cooldown isn't even useful in most situations. Then you spend a little more than twenty more levels with again pretty much no mitigation until 70.

I'm aware of this.

However, you don't need tons of mitigation in level 50 content. For better or worse, SE balances around the level cap. Not saying that's good, not saying that's bad, but it's what they do. Whenever issues of job balance come in to play I focus on how they perform at the level cap and how they perform in the most difficult content. As is, EVERY job is viable for ex dungeons and other throwaway content, it's always balance in savage mode that folks tend to focus on.

[TaiyoShikasu]

Whether or not the job is able to clear content isn't the issue. Even meme jobs like SAM and BLM can clear content, none of the issues the job has come from an inability to get through content.

[DaulBan]

You misunderstand.

I was referring to fixing the reason why drk doesn't have a place in either of those spots. I've cleared savage mode, I know how the tanks work.

The "fix" that was I was referring to specifically, is the fact that War/Pld have way too much synergy and are objectively better than any other tank combination in the current savage mode content. Until they fix that, there is no reason to bring a drk because War/Pld work far too well together. If you stack them up against each other at 70, Drk and Pld are more or less balanced and just about even in the dps they pull and their personal mitigation but in situations where you need two of them? War/Pld is far too good.

While I certainly agree that WAR/PLD is the best comp, I do think it's a bit over-emphasized how good the comp is. As a direct comparison, the two things you lose going from WAR to DRK are DPS and Shake, the former more useful than the latter. If you're willing to give up that DPS -- which is going to depend a lot on your personal performance with WAR as the DRK -- then the only remaining thing is shake. Shake is good, incredibly so. It, along with galvanize effects and veil sort of break the speedkill meta with how it helps generate LB.

While that is true, in the relatively casual play that most raiders operate the 4k-8k shield may or may not really have a material effect on raid survival. In most cases the damage that it would mitigate is just as easily managed by several different healer cooldowns that they have on tap as well. Between healer CDs, reprisal, and DPS role actions, the difference in resilience of the group is pretty minimal. Case and point DRK in World First UCoB and UWU. They're very strong data points to indicate that the lack of shake is not a crippling issue.

As such, I'd reiterate that while WAR/PLD is better than DRK/PLD (with slim exceptions) the difference between the two is mostly a matter of DPS, not a matter of surviving. The issue of not bringing a PLD is its own bag of bones, in part because PLD tech is just too good for the rest of the tanks. But really that's more of a 'cover' conundrum than anything else.

[Khalithar]

As such, I'd reiterate that while WAR/PLD is better than DRK/PLD (with slim exceptions) the difference between the two is mostly a matter of DPS, not a matter of surviving. The issue of not bringing a PLD is its own bag of bones, in part because PLD tech is just too good for the rest of the tanks. But really that's more of a 'cover' conundrum than anything else.

These are the two other issues I actually forgot to mention and I'm glad you brought it up as the two tie in together. War/Pld have the highest dps together by a slim margin on paper, however, Cover/Tempered Will is useful in 3/5 encounters for allowing the warrior to stay on the target without having to break off which actually allows the combo to push their DPS even higher since their uptime and DPS would be higher than any other combination.

That ties in to the other issue, the DPS meta we have right now. I won't go too much in to it since that's outside the scope of this thread, but right now every encounter favors the raid maxing out their DPS in all scenarios. Then when you factor in the higher dps and the utility on top of that? I think War/Pld is too good and has too much synergy right now.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

PLD is the OT, WAR is MT, this ain't even an issue to be addressed and probably won't be addressed either.

Fun fact - depending on the encounter it can actually be smarter to tankswap with the PLD once so he tanks the boss after a WAR / DRK established enmity for him, or dare I say it swap multiple times to not sit on cooldowns.

Good example was O6S - having to OT as a PLD is a nightmare compared to DRK and WAR. You need to save cooldowns for last kiss and thus can't invest a lot in the goddess' autoattacks which are stronger than chardanook's. Bulwark being a 180s cooldown adds to this quite a bit. On top of that Sheltron is awful to use against the goddess who mainly autos even while kiss is up - while against chardanook's frequent shears (that dont hit too hard individually) Sheltron is a godsend with 28% on a single hit.

Thus you have WAR or DRK taking goddess attacks and given their cooldown suite even without dark mind and raw int they are better off fending against the goddess' attacks by a long shot - and then there is also holmgang and TBN respectively.

[Hierro]

Good example was O6S - having to OT as a PLD is a nightmare compared to DRK and WAR. You need to save cooldowns for last kiss and thus can't invest a lot in the goddess' autoattacks which are stronger than chardanook's. Bulwark being a 180s cooldown adds to this quite a bit. On top of that Sheltron is awful to use against the goddess who mainly autos even while kiss is up - while against chardanook's frequent shears (that dont hit too hard individually) Sheltron is a godsend with 28% on a single hit.

A good work-around is to have healers and ranged to absorb first gale, and hallowed ground the 2nd kiss, to free up sentiel for first and third kiss. Only applicable if your rDPS is high enough to end before 2nd gale, but seeing as we're at the start of a new tier, none of it matters anyways.

[Deceptus]

Actually, they said in their previous interview about DRK (a few month ago, I will look this up, once I am at home and link it here) that they would not change anything about the job until the next expac. IIRC the reason was that a design/overhaul change would be too great and sudden for the design and balance team.

It saddens me too that DRK (and other jobs) are left unpolished. And while I think that at the end of an expac there should be no issue with balance, I would rather play a fun DRK just like in HW than a "balanced", but boring/annoying one.

They also didn't solve the tank accessories issue either, so we'll see in 5.0 what disaster they are creating next.

edit: Translated Patch 4.3 info from the game watch,dengeki,famitsu and gamer interviews.

We didn't get a tank or healer in SB because they wanted to balance what they already had and screwed that up badly.

Please forgive me if I don't give SE the benefit of the doubt anymore.

[Aana]

We didn't get a tank or healer in SB because they wanted to balance what they already had and screwed that up badly.

Please forgive me if I don't give SE the benefit of the doubt anymore.

'Screwing up balance' (even though all 3 tanks are the closest in overall performance at this very moment than they have EVER been since Drk was released, but hey, lets be angry!) isnt breaking a promise. SE stated they would not make fundmental/big changes until 5.0 and instead toss out smaller changes in the mean time. What did we get? TBN timer extension, Enmity buffs on multiple skills (PS, Plunge, passenger), shadowwall timer reduction, dark mind mega buff, Plunge animation reduction, salted effect delay removed, a swath of potency buffs on multiple occasions.

Wow. It's almost like they have been doing EXACTLY what they said they would. There have been a menagerie of 'small' changes that, when combined, have really moved the needle on Drk's performance accross the board on damage, enmity, mitigation, and QoL. The 'broken-ness' of drk is now focused on being 'clunky' and 'not fun' from not so long ago 'unplayable trash' job.

You dont have to like the changes, or how drk plays. But give credit where credit is due. SE has done exactly what they stated they would (make small changes in the meantime till 5.0) and what they have done (in little pieces over many patches) has dramatically improved Drk's function as a tank. Is it perfect? Nope. But its a helluva lot better than where it started. Each little patch of potency here, QoL there, mitigation buff there doesnt seem like much, but when you put all those little nibbles together SE took a big bite out of the crap pile drk was stuck in.

[whiskeybravo]

A good work-around is to have healers and ranged to absorb first gale, and hallowed ground the 2nd kiss, to free up sentiel for first and third kiss. Only applicable if your rDPS is high enough to end before 2nd gale, but seeing as we're at the start of a new tier, none of it matters anyways.

MT War can cover the first kiss and following shear with Rampart/TOB also... I've had to on occasion. Lazy PLDs

Back on topic.. SE never promised a rework? Least not for this expac. Already been covered.

DRK is definitely in a better spot with regards to tanking than it was at the beginning of SB. Most of what's left is simply adjusting the actual gameplay to something the community more thoroughly enjoys.

[Jandor]

Yet again no promised DRK rework.

No DRK rework was promised.