Concise Tank Balance Changes

[Shurrikhan]

Shield Swipe's current iteration is actually my problem with OGCDs in general. "If it lit, hit." Shield Swipe in its old iteration was a stopgap, used primarily to manage TP with minimal potency loss (As it was less than the average). The pacify was useful, but like most other interesting effects, most things were and are immune to it.

Agreed. I so badly wanted them to do just about anything else with Shield Swipe. I feel like it was so close to living up to at least something, especially in dungeoning. Even before, at a 2.4 GCD, it would allow you not to clip your Goring Blade (previously 24 seconds' duration), which was at least of mild use. Instead it really did become almost obligatory to hit it as soon as possible, as long as you wouldn't have to wait 25% of its CD to give it another use within Fight or Flight. (Admittedly, I did get a tiny little grin out of the third use in the FoF window if I got (the old version of) Spear.)

And it's both. We need action diversity, and with those diverse actions, they should hold up to one another. Though thinking on it, you technically could put Scourge back in and it'd be "unique" if only because all the others got removed too, but I don't find anything all that interesting about hitting a DoT every 30 seconds.

It's less that it was a DoT, and more that it hit for a ton. Think of it like Deathflare: It's pretty, it's huge damage, and it gave a niche advantage. (SMN briefly became the god of (wasteful) PvP burst and remained the god of AoE. And of most things caster-related. DRK, in turn, became the master of cleave-damage among tanks; Decimate was barely a bonus, and Fracture extremely limited, and Paladin's FoF-Goring Blade spread and 10 AoE pps off Circle of Scorn were no joke, exactly, Salted Earth, Scourge, and Dark Passenger let DRK revel in lower-count AoE.)

[Kabooa]

I think that is our primary disconnect.

When it comes to the tanks, I don't care much for the potency. I care about impact. Thinking on it further, that is the bigger sin with Reprisal compared to Low Blow. The impact isn't noticeable. It's a Dark Arts hit, and a damage debuff, but if the reduction doesn't save a healer GCD or prevent a death, it's not all that different from a Veil that breaks but you're still at 95% health.

I am an old mind tank. I'll play the tank they want me to here, but I wont' like it.

I won't lie and say big numbers don't get some childish glee (Black Mage For Life) but in this regard, Scourge fails. Because it's a DoT. It adds up to a big number, sure, but ultimately it's just a lot of little numbers.

Honestly, bring Scourge back as a 500 potency aoe Weaponskill that costs like 500 TP and I'll take that. If you found it fun to be a Cleave tank, then by golly, I'll sign off on that. The animation lines up for it, and it gives Dark Knights a TP dump between Blood and MP dumps.

[Shurrikhan]

"Hitting slightly more than a Fell Cleave" is also a strange qualifier. That's a weird niche, don't you think? That was my thought. That was how you wanted to qualify them. I instead chose mine. "DoTs stronger per GCD than a combo line" because that's what every other comparable, stand alone, sans mechanic non-combo DoT is.

Okay. But that's not remotely the topic I was discussing, and I believe I made that clear. Fell Cleave was a sort of "gold standard" of damage to be dealt in a single GCD. It was iconic. I did not pick the analogy arbitrarily.

I'll admit, I could have been clearer when discussing the other open DoTs available to melee. My point was that few others are so often able to flex their use of their DoT. Touch of Death and Mutiliate are both low pps advantages, allowing them to be delayed a few GCDs if it means securing greater potency elsewhere in their rotation. Phlebotomize, being strong, but rigidly bookended by the rotation, could not be, which is why I did not include it. It is not, in practice, an open DoT. Once work has started on a focus target, it was part of the DRG's combos, firmly embedded in its rotational string (HT, ID, Db, CT, FC/WT; Pb, TT, VT, FT, FC/WT) until playing in low-count AoE with a GCD of 2.33 or less (for extra Geirskogul from 3x CT management and dropped Pb).

They did compensate. But whether or not that compensation is wanted is another matter.

Mind the italics. Consequent. There was no consequent compensation. No part of what we got had anything to do with what was taken.

Low Blow in raids I steadfastly hold my ground we aren't losing anything with its loss.

Fair enough. I personally liked its synergy with Anticipation and Dark Dance (whereas Bulwark could provide no such gameplay for the CD-bound Shield Swipe), but I'll wholly admit it turned into pure oGCD damage there, which was a bit disappointing.

I think that is our primary disconnect.

When it comes to the tanks, I don't care much for the potency. I care about impact. Thinking on it further, that is the bigger sin with Reprisal compared to Low Blow. The impact isn't noticeable. It's a Dark Arts hit, and a damage debuff, but if the reduction doesn't save a healer GCD or prevent a death, it's not all that different from a Veil that breaks but you're still at 95% health.

I am an old mind tank. I'll play the tank they want me to here, but I wont' like it.

I won't lie and say big numbers don't get some childish glee (Black Mage For Life) but in this regard, Scourge fails. Because it's a DoT. It adds up to a big number, sure, but ultimately it's just a lot of little numbers.

Honestly, bring Scourge back as a 500 potency aoe Weaponskill that costs like 500 TP and I'll take that. If you found it fun to be a Cleave tank, then by golly, I'll sign off on that. The animation lines up for it, and it gives Dark Knights a TP dump between Blood and MP dumps.

Alright. Yep. I get that. I too prefer impact, but, for now, most of our impact will be through damage, so I'm taking what I can get, and finding enjoyment in the nuances of that where I can.

[Sapphidia]

I'd like to see one of the tanks a lot MORE focussed on reactive procs. Reactive procs on being hit are one of the best ways of balancing the DPS output of a tank class, as you can load them up with high damage reactives to keep their DPS up when they're facing a boss, but then this DPS component gets taken away when they're just DPSing the back of a boss waiting to tank-swap in.

I'd like to bring up the design of the Guardian class in Lord of the Rings Online (at least how it was designed when I played it on release). I always felt like it was a very elegantly designed tank class as it solved a big problem with how you can have a tank hold threat when turtling but also do great damage solo without making DPS classes irrelevant. The Guardian was designed to use a Sword and Shield when tanking, and a two handed weapon when soloing. It had a large number of reactive skills that would only light up when you Blocked or Parried an attack.

The thing was, all of the "After a Block" skills were high threat, medium damage abilities that often used the shield to bash the target, whereas "After a Parry" skills were all high damage skills with no bonus threat. The choice was simple. When soloing you'd use a 2h weapon and your personal DPS was increased due to parrying attacks and using the parry reactive. However, you couldn't tank with a 2h weapon because so many threat-holding abilities needed you to be blocking with a shield. Also, because you needed to be attacked to proc a lot of these, you'd only hit your max dps output soloing when things attacked you. You couldn't take the DPS spot in a party because your damage would be lower when attacking things from the back. Conversely, when tanking you would be both blocking and parrying constantly, and it opened up the gameplay of "do i use a high threat block reactive or a high damage parry reactive".

A system like the above would work fantastically for a Paladin Oath redesign and a DRK grit redesign, as a possible alternative to feeling obliged to tank in Sword Oath or without Grit. A lot of people like the thematic idea of Sword Oath actually making the paladin put his shield on his back and use his sword in "hand-and-a-half" style, losing access to blocking and block reactives but gaining the sword oath procs. What if the Paladin was given enough high damage or high threat Block Reactives that they'd push out more dps tanking in Shield Oath than Sword, provided they were attacked frequently enough. You could even have entire combos of TP-efficient on-GCD skills that open up after blocks rather than just an off gcd push-when-it-lights-up button.

Parry Reactives for DRK just seem to be a thematic part of the class somehow... Reprisal may not have seemed interesting but it gave DRK an identity. If you wanted to get rid of Grit feeling like the crappy stance it is, make it simply an off-gcd toggle that only boosts threat, nothing else, or remove it entirely and make Blood Price generate threat when used. Then to make up the damage reduction loss, why not have a parry reactive that gives a personal damage reduction like Inner Beast. This would create an interesting dynamic where DRK doesnt necessarily have a "tank stance" - but when being attacked as long as it can force parry procs it can sustain an average damage reduction self buff. This would contrast with the Paladin's always-on Shield Oath reduction and the zero reduction for a Warrior that gets solved due to the "heal it back more easily" of Defiance.

Reactives are a GOOD THING, as long as they're done in an interesting and meaningful way, because they solve so many tank design issues:
- they translate defensive stats into offensive power. Block/parry more? Do more reactives. You could legitimately replace Tenacity with block/parry chance and have people want to use them.
- they allow tanks to do more damage when actually tanking so their design doesnt require them to output as much DPS as a DPS class on a static target
- they give variety and things that light up in a rotation that is always much simpler than DPS classes as tank kits have to be filled with "rarely used tools" like Sentinel and Divine Veil.

I 100% agree that the current implementation of Shield Swipe is boring. That doesnt mean that Reactives in general are bad. I think whilst Warrior has a really nice rotation that doesn't really need them, both PLD and DRK feel very clunky when it comes to swapping out of tank stance, and both of them feel thematically suited to being given 2-3 meaningful reactive skills each.

[Chrono_Rising]

Current Reprisal is by far superior to that Reprisal. You can certainly say that you plan for Old Reprisal, but that planning takes an element of chance. It is entirely possible to not parry in the prior time window so you can line it up, especially since the Parry stat was avoided like the plague, and even with Dark Dance, you're looking at a more-often-than-not just not parrying.

Your memory seems to be incorrect. I looked back in time at a physical fight on a 3:45 second fight I had 7 uses of reprisal, seems we parried more often than you think. We couldn’t parry magic, and that was a justifiable issue for that iteration of the ability, but dark mind only has a 1 minute cooldown for a reason. Of course, a number or people suggested fixes for this based on expansions of our current kit.

But it's okay, because it lasted 20 seconds. Odds are you can smash it and cover a majority of the "Plan to use it defensively and offensively" windows, and in the lethal times you don't, it's not like you weren't going to use a cooldown anyways.

Sure, of course that 20 seconds can sometimes include autos, cleaves, and raid wides all of which can benefit from additional mitigation in particular for the party.

It being OGCD only cements it further. Just hit. There's no reason not to. You aren't guaranteed a parry in the coming window to extend its use, and waiting on it is just throwing potency down the drain.

Unless holding it for 5 seconds stops a use it isn’t necessarily a dps loss, and if it helps heal through a critical time, or saves a dps from a hard hitting dot then why wouldn’t that be worth it? Of course you need to plan it out but blanketing it with holding it for any duration is a dps loss isn’t the picture either. Yes, most of the time it was up use it, but it felt good to weave and make that split second decision.

Haymaker's use is more that everything worth mentioning eventually became immune to everything. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure it was a 30% slow, with a baseline potency of 170, no positional requirement. In other words, Haymaker on a Monk felt great when it was available, which is basically the opposite of Reprisal on Dark Knight for me. It took the worst part about playing melee (Something facing you) and let you bash it for near full positional power. It was a complete warping of the usual dynamic between DPS and enemy. Throw on Featherfoot and you haymaker this stupid thing in the face over and over again.
A "useless" ability for raiding, sure, but a substantially powerful action outside of that. It had impact that you didn't have to check the Logs to confirm.

This is the difference between the two abilities, but this is opinion. Just as yours is. That is why I opened with "We'll disagree here."

This whole paragraph seems to way over romanticize a skill that is even more useless with the addition of true north allowing you to do your entire rotation on an enemy facing you. However, since I see haymaker as only ever being useful in solo content which dies so fast it is hardly worth mentioning I’m just going to move on.

Reprisal was just another button to hit when it flashed up, same with lowblow. It was OGCD after all. The only thing lost with their removal was the animation (Huge) and where you push the button (Not huge). I don't miss it. At all. Not in that iteration. I miss the animation more than I miss the action, and admittedly, I miss counter attacks on Tank, but in this regard TBN / Blood Spiller / Quietus fill that thematic hole better than Reprisal ever did.

Again, I disagree that reacting to procs isn’t fun and adds an element to the class. Its why we have oGCDs, just pressing a GCD action every 2.5 seconds would get stale quickly. You are allowed to have your opinion, but what you are saying applies to every oGCD action but only seems to justify getting rid of certain ones, there has to be more.

I miss the "useless" ability more because, as I said, it filled a glaring hole in the Monk's kit, both mechanically (Because content exists outside parties) and thematically (Why the hell does a Monk -not- have skills specialized for face beating?).

Like how reprisal added fluff mitigation for a dark knight that also doubled as raid utility in physical fights? Like how Monk has true north as a role skill to specifically to ignore positionals?

Ultimately, that's my issue with "Scourge Back, Reprisal Back, Low Blow back". It's like, really. You could cycle the animation on Dark Arts to include those three and it would effectively be the same. Throw Dark Arts in three different places and change their icon via Macroicon for maximum nostalgia.

Great lets do that, while we are at it lets also include the differences in potency, effects, durations, proc mechanics and resets. Might need some updates to bundle the SB additions as well to make it seems alike a cohesive whole.

You want to make the Dark Knight unique and different, I am all for it, but you don't do that by taking three steps back and just plotting on the two fluff damage OGCds and the bleed that everyone had.

I agree, build on what was so that the job feels like an evolution rather than a tear down and rebuild. Stormblood should have brought additions and built on these systems rather than trashing them.

[Kabooa]

This whole paragraph seems to way over romanticize a skill that is even more useless with the addition of true north allowing you to do your entire rotation on an enemy facing you. However, since I see haymaker as only ever being useful in solo content which dies so fast it is hardly worth mentioning I’m just going to move on.

Again, I disagree that reacting to procs isn’t fun and adds an element to the class. Its why we have oGCDs, just pressing a GCD action every 2.5 seconds would get stale quickly. You are allowed to have your opinion, but what you are saying applies to every oGCD action but only seems to justify getting rid of certain ones, there has to be more.

Like how reprisal added fluff mitigation for a dark knight that also doubled as raid utility in physical fights? Like how Monk has true north as a role skill to specifically to ignore positionals?

Great lets do that, while we are at it lets also include the differences in potency, effects, durations, proc mechanics and resets. Might need some updates to bundle the SB additions as well to make it seems alike a cohesive whole.

I agree, build on what was so that the job feels like an evolution rather than a tear down and rebuild. Stormblood should have brought additions and built on these systems rather than trashing them.

1. Probably why Haymaker was ultimately removed. Unless I'm mistaken, we didn't have an iteration of True North until Stormblood. But I'll say that moving into leveling in Stormblood as a Black Mage, I would have given anything for that 20% slow they took away with Lethargy.

2. Purely reacting to procs itself is muscle memory. Procs that force thought are fun. Reprisal did not do this for me. Thundercloud does it for me because I'm working against multiple considerations. Shot procs do it for me as it inherently changes the value of Quick Reload, and to a lesser extent Reload. Low Blow in dungeons did this for me because you could literally make a Paladin blush at the sheer amount of damage you stop, for effectively no cost.

Low blow in raids, pfft. Hit the button. No considerations. Dark Arts by Gucci.
Reprisal? Hit the button. 7 times over 3:45 seconds means you basically slammed it on cooldown, with a variance of 5-6 seconds between proc and use. That could be "tactically holding it to use to ensure maximum coverage", or "I just didn't !#%ing parry that time."

3. Well, you still have that "Raid utility", only now it's weighted better. Also pfft. "I forgot how to punch this guy's face despite doing it for 15 seconds."

4. Make them interesting and sure.

5. Sure. I think we can all agree Tanks in general need a bit more to them. I'd prefer that direction go into active decision making than blindly smashing Low Blow whenever your 20% to parry procced the 20% chance to reset.

[Chrono_Rising]

1. Probably why Haymaker was ultimately removed. Unless I'm mistaken, we didn't have an iteration of True North until Stormblood.

I believe that you are lamenting the loss of a skill which was replaced with something far better for the exact same reason.

But I'll say that moving into leveling in Stormblood as a Black Mage, I would have given anything for that 20% slow they took away with Lethargy.

This has nothing to do with the conversation so far. Are you trying to say Lethargy is now an equivalent of reprisal as well?

2. Purely reacting to procs itself is muscle memory. Procs that force thought are fun. Reprisal did not do this for me. Thundercloud does it for me because I'm working against multiple considerations. Shot procs do it for me as it inherently changes the value of Quick Reload, and to a lesser extent Reload. Low Blow in dungeons did this for me because you could literally make a Paladin blush at the sheer amount of damage you stop, for effectively no cost.

Low blow in raids, pfft. Hit the button. No considerations. Dark Arts by Gucci.
Reprisal? Hit the button. 7 times over 3:45 seconds means you basically slammed it on cooldown, with a variance of 5-6 seconds between proc and use. That could be "tactically holding it to use to ensure maximum coverage", or "I just didn't !#%ing parry that time."

Way to completely ignore the context. You said parry procs din't happen because parry was a bad stat, I give evidence of being able to parry without slotting it in HW. You want timed uses of reprisal? See o6, o7, o11, and o12s. Also its 110 potency more than dark arts. Lets get rid of salted earth as well for exactly the same reasons you are giving. You aren't saying anything doesn't apply to nearly every oGCD. Work FoF into the GCD potency along with spirits within and requiscat, work the damage of inner release into the potency of Fell Cleave along with upheaval, take the potency off plunge so that it can be used as a gap closer, just tweak the potency of Dark Arts. Why is Dark Arts appealing? Why not take that away and just work the potency into the GCD.

3. Well, you still have that "Raid utility", only now it's weighted better. Also pfft. "I forgot how to punch this guy's face despite doing it for 15 seconds."

I would not agree that the 10% down on a tank buster, cleave, auto's and a raid wide is made up by tbn or the 5 seconds on current reprisal. You are making this claim and as I said earlier not providing any back up for it.

4. Make them interesting and sure.

Ah, now we have strings attached. Does it also have to be interesting to you or do the numerous people already asking for them back count enough to say they found them interesting? You are entitled to your opinion that they are not interesting, but enough with the continuous reposting of you not personally finding them interesting. We got it, and I'm positive others found it plenty interesting.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

Reactive procs on being hit are one of the best ways of balancing the DPS output of a tank class, as you can load them up with high damage reactives to keep their DPS up when they're facing a boss, but then this DPS component gets taken away when they're just DPSing the back of a boss waiting to tank-swap in.

I strongly disagree. Players will inevitably lean towards maximizing the tanking uptime of the reactive tank, and how effective that strategy ends up being will have to depend upon the fight. Take O10S, for example. If the reactive tank happens to get more or less phases to tank, then its DPS will fluctuate accordingly; that's not balanced.

Reactive damage can be fun and interesting, but an over-reliance on it will inevitably cause major imbalance depending on the fight.

[Kabooa]

I believe that you are lamenting the loss of a skill which was replaced with something far better for the exact same reason.

This has nothing to do with the conversation so far. Are you trying to say Lethargy is now an equivalent of reprisal as well?

Way to completely ignore the context. You said parry procs din't happen because parry was a bad stat, I give evidence of being able to parry without slotting it in HW. You want timed uses of reprisal? See o6, o7, o11, and o12s. Also its 110 potency more than dark arts. Lets get rid of salted earth as well for exactly the same reasons you are giving. You aren't saying anything doesn't apply to nearly every oGCD. Work FoF into the GCD potency along with spirits within and requiscat, work the damage of inner release into the potency of Fell Cleave along with upheaval, take the potency off plunge so that it can be used as a gap closer, just tweak the potency of Dark Arts. Why is Dark Arts appealing? Why not take that away and just work the potency into the GCD.

I would not agree that the 10% down on a tank buster, cleave, auto's and a raid wide is made up by tbn or the 5 seconds on current reprisal. You are making this claim and as I said earlier not providing any back up for it.

Ah, now we have strings attached. Does it also have to be interesting to you or do the numerous people already asking for them back count enough to say they found them interesting? You are entitled to your opinion that they are not interesting, but enough with the continuous reposting of you not personally finding them interesting. We got it, and I'm positive others found it plenty interesting.

1. Yes, I'm lamenting the loss of a counter attack with gameplay weight behind it. Just like I lament prior Shield Swipe. It's almost like these two actions represent a category we need more (Actions that take some thought) while old Reprisal and New Shield Swipe represent what we need less of (It lit, hit).

2. !@#% in stormblood !#@%ing hurt. A 20% slow is significant when you aren't plodding around in plate armor. I used lethargy because I -didn't- MSQ stormblood as monk, so the amount of my face being punched was on -Black Mage-, but one can easily extrapolate that desire to wanting something to punch you in the face less to another Job that had an appropriate response to said face punching.

3. I said parry procs aren't guaranteed to happen. Which is why you -likely hit the ability the moment it flashes up-. At most waiting until the end of the current timer. Which based on the amount of times you hit the ability in the time frame given is likely what happened. "Context."

4. Given the absurdly high uptime on it, we can move forward in Stormblood knowing that encounters are designed around the lack of near permanent 10% reductions. Reprisal in its current form is superior as it no longer relies upon parries to activate, it is useful against all damage, and it can be tailored specifically around where your party struggles most.

5. Salted earth functions in an enemy centric fashion that Leylines does to Black Mage. It creates a specific area you play around and work with. The target's movement and mechanics that in turn force you to move play around this -gameplay-, that this zone you have thrown down is of interest to you for whatever reason, and -adds consideration-. It is entirely possible to miss some or all the benefit by hitting Salted earth the moment it comes up.

Reprisal is "It's lit, hit". Your own anecdote shows that. Even if you missed a tank buster, or a raid wide, or a high auto attack segment, odds are as long as you hit the button you gained almost all the benefit regardless of the timing.

You could remove the Potency of Plunge, but Plunge itself remains an integral and interesting part of the Kit. It can be utilized as a gap closer and in other ways to effectively cheat Mechanics that others can not. Now if you said "remove plunge" we'll !@#%ing riot.

Reprisal is "It's lit, hit."

FoFi and Reqqy Cat can be removed without any real detriment, sure, but that's more equitable to Blood for Blood, Raging Strikes, and otherwise any other % increase than it is to Dark Arts. They really just serve as giant signs saying "Do this now." and if they didn't exist, Paladin would still play the same, just like Dragoon and Bard would play the same sans Blood for Blood and Raging Strikes.

Darks Arts by contrast is ultimately part of the Dark Knight's resource management game. FoFi is not. I personally wouldn't say Reqqy Cat is of the same importance to Paladin's, mainly because if Reqqy Cat didn't exist, you'd still cast the same number of Holy Spirits, just at different times. (But probably still all in Trick Attack windows so what really changed)

Reprisal? "It's lit, hit."

Here's the thing. -I don't find Dark Arts spam appealing-. I just don't see the merit in moving the button press two slots over and calling it something else. This is at best a lateral shift and at worst regression.

6. This discussion is between you and me, so those other people should not factor in. Because "Numerous people" who do and numerous people who don't want them back exist here, as well as numerous people who don't care one lick one way or the other, and numerous people who didn't like HW Dark Knight, and numerous people who did, so on and so forth.

So for you, you don't need all that. You think it was interesting enough on its own. That's your opinion. I disagree with it.

I need more than that. I don't think it was interesting enough on its own. That's my opinion. You (and others) disagree with it.

[Chrono_Rising]

1. Yes, I'm lamenting the loss of a counter attack with gameplay weight behind it. Just like I lament prior Shield Swipe. It's almost like these two actions represent a category we need more (Actions that take some thought) while old Reprisal and New Shield Swipe represent what we need less of (It lit, hit).

Haymaker had 0 weight behind it and you are once again over exaggerating this skill. I quickly polled a few people who main monk, of the 10 people I asked 7 I had to remind what it was, 2 of the remaining thought it was still in the game but didn’t realize because they wouldn’t put it on their hot bar, and 1 went as far to say oh yeah, that trash move that was removed.
Real engaging gameplay. I’m sure we could make a monk post on a dps forum and see how many people want the move back, I’m almost positive no one misses it besides you.

2. !@#% in stormblood !#@%ing hurt. A 20% slow is significant when you aren't plodding around in plate armor. I used lethargy because I -didn't- MSQ stormblood as monk, so the amount of my face being punched was on -Black Mage-, but one can easily extrapolate that desire to wanting something to punch you in the face less to another Job that had an appropriate response to said face punching.

I have 4 alts all of which have made it through stormblood. No, it doesn’t hurt, and its really easy to get through all the content. Eureka you can make a case for things hitting hard and needing to get away. Yet another exaggeration.

3. I said parry procs aren't guaranteed to happen. Which is why you -likely hit the ability the moment it flashes up-. At most waiting until the end of the current timer. Which based on the amount of times you hit the ability in the time frame given is likely what happened. "Context."

The context isn’t what you make it up to be, its what was said. Since you seem to forget what you say so easily here is the quote I refer to.

… especially since the Parry stat was avoided like the plague, and even with Dark Dance, you're looking at a more-often-than-not just not parrying.

I used an example of getting 7 reprisals in a 3:45 second to dismiss this idea that it was difficult to get the majority of them. The point of this is not to prove that it is not just a “use it skill” it is to show that it is way more reliable than you are making it out to be.

4. Given the absurdly high uptime on it, we can move forward in Stormblood knowing that encounters are designed around the lack of near permanent 10% reductions. Reprisal in its current form is superior as it no longer relies upon parries to activate, it is useful against all damage, and it can be tailored specifically around where your party struggles most.

A good part of this is useless information: (1) you could always try to save it to put it up for where you needed it and (2) it was always useful against all damage so neither of these points are meaningless except as fluff. Current reprisal is good because you don’t need to set it up or plan for it in advance. You can use it, it is convenient and easy. That’s it. Old reprisal covered more damage when used properly.

5. Salted earth functions in an enemy centric fashion that Leylines does to Black Mage. It creates a specific area you play around and work with. The target's movement and mechanics that in turn force you to move play around this -gameplay-, that this zone you have thrown down is of interest to you for whatever reason, and -adds consideration-. It is entirely possible to miss some or all the benefit by hitting Salted earth the moment it comes up.

Ah so if the gimmick is keep the enemy in the circle it is engaging, if it is work out where to plan to use it and work to set it up then its useless. I find it ironic that you don’t see how arbitrary your lines are.

Reprisal is "It's lit, hit". Your own anecdote shows that. Even if you missed a tank buster, or a raid wide, or a high auto attack segment, odds are as long as you hit the button you gained almost all the benefit regardless of the timing.

Again, my point was to refute your idea that parry procs were somehow rare and we were unlikely to get the proc. There are multiple examples of turns where you would consider delaying your reprisal set up to line up with a mechanic or 1 minute and 3 minute buffs.

FoFi and Reqqy Cat can be removed without any real detriment, sure, but that's more equitable to Blood for Blood, Raging Strikes, and otherwise any other % increase than it is to Dark Arts. They really just serve as giant signs saying "Do this now." and if they didn't exist, Paladin would still play the same, just like Dragoon and Bard would play the same sans Blood for Blood and Raging Strikes.

The point being that pressing and timing these buttons in play is enjoyable to people. You might not like it as you have said multiple times but your logic will essentially reduce the game to removing all oGCD actions that aren’t “push now” buttons. While fine the GCD will come out as slow boring and get stale quick.

Darks Arts by contrast is ultimately part of the Dark Knight's resource management game. FoFi is not. I personally wouldn't say Reqqy Cat is of the same importance to Paladin's, mainly because if Reqqy Cat didn't exist, you'd still cast the same number of Holy Spirits, just at different times. (But probably still all in Trick Attack windows so what really changed)

More arbitrary lines. There is no reason dark knightneeds to manage mp. We manage mp simply by the design of the game, this could just as easily be removed and replaced with anything else much like blood is spent through mostly GCD actions, the only exception being delirium.

Here's the thing. -I don't find Dark Arts spam appealing-. I just don't see the merit in moving the button press two slots over and calling it something else. This is at best a lateral shift and at worst regression.

(1)Broke up spam of dark arts (2) had other uses besides damage (3) did involve some planning and shifting at higher levels of play. Just because you didn’t doesn’t mean others did the same.

6. This discussion is between you and me, so those other people should not factor in. Because "Numerous people" who do and numerous people who don't want them back exist here, as well as numerous people who don't care one lick one way or the other, and numerous people who didn't like HW Dark Knight, and numerous people who did, so on and so forth.

Yes, and yet you continue to come back with just flat wrong information and exaggerations of the usefulness of abilities like haymaker.
First we couldn’t have reprisal because its just a haymaker clone (it isn’t and even if it was it was done better than haymaker in terms of actually being put to use).
Then it was just bonus fluff built into the encounter damage formula and so made useless. A fact that you provide no back up for.
Now it’s a “just use immediately” button that had no other purposes. I point out that it does have other uses (holding briefly to time the hit, delaying to line up with buff windows, and oGCD enmity when needed) and that goes ignored. Its not just about opinions, opinions should be based on something.

All of these reasons boil down to “I don’t like it because I used it this way”, perhaps the issue wasn’t the skill, perhaps it was the way it was being used. Personally, I enjoy the multipurpose tool, and I enjoyed trying to time may abilities to fit into certain windows that would have more impact on my raid with reprisal. I enjoyed the not knowing it would proc and having to actively look for procs and resets. I enjoyed HW dark knight. I would like to see a class like it make a comeback. HW dark knight didn’t have super hard hitting windows, what it had was multiple little hits that ended up adding up, and that was a playstyle I enjoyed. Much like Monks enjoy that fast nature of GL, that play style of multiple oGCD actions lighting up and resetting at different times was entertaining and even at times felt chaotic as I tried to double weave.

You are allowed to want something different, you are allowed to want something streamlined to just be 1 button spamming. Others are allowed to ask for the old style to be returned. Yes, they are often times mutually exclusive. But lets at least not pretend its because haymaker is the only viable counter attack with debuff allowed in the game and it is a tragedy that its been removed.