DRK redesign details explained

[Dragonkat]

So I'm surprised this hasn't come up but after watching larryzaur's media tour vid one glaring fact stood out.

Current syphon strike mp regen 2400
Current TBN cost 2400

ShB Syphon strike mp regen 600 in the vid
TBN cost 3000

So when is a stealth nerf not a stealth nerf? 80% generation reduction. Are you KIDDING me?!?

And stalwart soul AND blood spiller under delirium are the same??? I'd need the full 5 ST hits just to equal one of these new mp sinks during a boss battle? Or at least 5 trash pull mobs assuming quietus hasn't been nerfed to heck and back too.

Before we even also talk about how this mp regen combo also from what I could see is an aoe with a flat 600. so to use it now we have to trade off not using the 123 so we lose out on the buffed blood gauge build up at the end of the 123 for what???

So our resource generation got destroyed.

Our ability to keep our barrier up has been destroyed. And all we got for it was the gimmick of free hits from an attack with a 2 sec cool down that's meaningless when you are gonna see it one or twice a pull at best because of the obscene mp cost and no generation.

There is zero synergy between the kit's 70+ abilities between the clunk of shadow clone being a glorified dot and having to choose between our resource genration types with TBN no longer giving blood. And stalwarts MP regen being a joke under the current numbers.

Overall gameplay has been slowed to a crawl and endless 123 with the occasional extra burst from blood weapon, which again is good about once every coule trash pulls. and even with the double 600 + 600 syphon gets under it + mp ticks you're barely breaking the 3000 mp mark.

I've been trying really hard not to get snippy about this (you should have seen my original post before a friend said about it "enjoy your perma ban from the forums") But this is just... I don't even know what to say at this point.

[Tint]

So our resource generation got destroyed.

Yeah, in an attempt to reduce the Dark Arts spam I guess. Otherwise we would be back to spamming Edge of Shadow every combo. But sadly that came at the cost of not being able to spam TBN as well.

And now, with the reduced mana regeneration, a TBN wich does not break will be a major loss. In SB we lose basically 140 potency. That's not the end of the world. In ShB we will lose 500 potency AND we risk to drop Darkside. Wich further means we have to spend the next MP on Edge of Shadow instead of TBN, even if we need TBN for mitigation.


And now we look at GNB and WAR, whose short on demand cooldowns come with no cost at all...

Please remove the mana cost from TBN, increase it's cooldown to 25 seconds to bring it in line with GNB and WAR cooldowns, let it still procc Dark Arts for free Edge of Shadow use to reward proper mitigation, and give us a REAL rework of the job next expansion please... >.>

[WhyAmIHere]

...give us a REAL rework of the job next expansion please... >.>

We should not, before 5.0 is even out, be even thinking of "well it's broken again, might as well wait til 6.0," or more accurately "it's not as good as it could be when the tank options other than DRK are so much better, might as well wait til the next expac" again.

[shao32]

WAR has been reworked mid expansion in SB we should aim to this too, show our complains over DRK gameplay and general desing and offer clear feedback to make it possible.

Wait 2 whole years to get a proper design for DRK it's just to much.

[Duskane]

they changed 2 moves on WAR in SB hardly a rework

[shao32]

They literally rework WAR burst phase, the way they manage they resources and general planing over inner release with several adjustment in the potency on all his kit.
It's perfectly a rework, the gameplay pre 4.2 it's not comparable to the gameplay after 4.2

[Freyyy]

they changed 2 moves on WAR in SB hardly a rework

But it completely changed the rotation and made it easier but more fun and without clunkiness.


We shouldn't have to wait for another expac. Shadowbringers came with the promise of a proper DRK rework, which -as of the build that was shown- is a blatant failure (good ideas, terrible execution). They HAVE to change this. DRK had issues since its release, but at least in HW it was an absolute blast to play despite it being kind of ghetto. In SB it lost part of its job identity and became kinda braindead (on top of being just a worse job than the other two tanks). ShB DRK is just SB DRK but slower and with flashier animations, with even less job identity. It's just getting worse after each expansion. They can't let that happen any longer. It wouldn't require a lot of work either I think. Just put Power Slash back with another interesting effect (maybe make it extend Darkside instead of MP spenders and make Souleater hit harder), give us the Blood Weapon haste effect back, increase Syphon's MP regen but not too much (we don't want to spam EoS just like we used to spam DA), make Delirium different to Inner Release and I think most of the job's issues would be fixed.

[Rufalus]

Weird, I missed that abyssal drain change to 60s cooldown. I think it's got something to do with overall changes to damage formula so we just won't need that much self sustain any more. War doesn't have self heal on steel cyclone and inner beast any more, which get permanent replaced by decimate and fell cleave by trait now.

[Bhearil]

Weird, I missed that abyssal drain change to 60s cooldown. I think it's got something to do with overall changes to damage formula so we just won't need that much self sustain any more. War doesn't have self heal on steel cyclone and inner beast any more, which get permanent replaced by decimate and fell cleave by trait now.

But WAR still DOES have great self healing using his new Nascent flash, Thrill of battle for extra hp and healing received AND a 1200 potency heal with Equilibrium. Meanwhile DRK has potency 300 heal on Souleater and Abyssal drain for 200 potency aoe heal each 60 seconds (which means you need at least 6 mobs to make it even with WAR Equilibrium). Its true that DRK has got a buff on Blackest Night from 20 to 25% hp, but considering how low is the mp gain now is not something you can use all the time (on average you get around 3kish mp each 30 seconds unless you burn cds that give you extra mp gain) unlike before, plus you get penalized A LOT if it doesnt break since the cost now is much harder to recover. Before you needed 1 souleater combo in Grit or 2 with just Darkside to recover the BN cost, now we need 6 frigging rotations to make the same and even having now natural mp regen(2k mp per minute) the cost is realy steep compared with before.

Honestly im not sure why the cd is still 15 seconds when most of the time you will NOT want to waste too much mp using it constantly and saving it instead for burst windows or tankbusters. Would be better to leave at 25 seconds cd like other tanks but having no cost, since even on optimal circunstances you should only use 3 BN back to back (first one putting the Darkside timer to 30, second to 45 and third to 60 seconds to not waste timer) and even then we are talking about 9k mp burned in 45 seconds having recovered barely half in the same time and even the mp regen skills are not that good to make up for the rest efficiently. That or DRK needs a bit better mp regen skills , not as much as you are forced to spam ala old Dark Arts to avoid overflowing but not as little as it is now

[Danelo]

The identity of the DRK as a "Magic Tank" is dead.

Its a failed concept as it is practiced in FFXIV. I think it could be cool but as it stands its the same thinking as 3.x with PLD being the tank that takes physical damage. The only saving grace for PLD was the majority of TBs and damaging attacks were/are magic based so SE had to right that wrong faster.

I wanted to specifically address Heart of Light (GNB) verses Dark Missionary (DRK) AOE raidwide shields as an example of this. Disclaimer: Maybe the tooltips I've found are incorrect. If that is the case the please if someone would link the accurate versions so I can avoid communicating bad info. As it stands I found this from a reputable source so I'm running with it. Heart of Light: Flat 15% damage reduction, duration 15sec., recast 90sec.. Dark Missionary: 15% magic damage reduction, duration 15sec., recast 90sec.. The radius of effect is the same for both. The result of being a "magic tank" is DRK being forced into the box of only blocking magic (not even being something it is good at when you compare kit of other tanks). The step towards homogenization is real. While I'm frustrated with that, it's not a deal breaker for me. Being that homogenization has occurred why not make theses both flat 15% damage reduction shields - "Magic Tank", thats why.

"Magic Tank" was an okay theme back in HW because it was piggybacked by other mechanics in the game like evasion tank and parry tank but that was then and those underylying themes are gone; Magic tank as a theme should be gone too. IF the dev team said DRK would excell at taking magic damage in addition to a bevy of on par CDs I could be okay with that (as other tanks should excell in different areas) but this isn't the case. Instead what we get is a model of DRKs that take magic damage at the level everyone else does and is subpar at everything else. And that is the heart of why "Magic Tank" has failed. Make Dark Missionary TBN-like that gives health/mp back or a flat damage resistance buff on par with heart of stone so it can be utilized as a personal CD for extra mitigation time allowing. Oh, why nerf Dark Mind? Fix that too or rework it to get away from "Magic Tank".

Magic tank is cool in theory but SE has failed to make it work. It's simply gives devs a reason to say that almost everything mechanically is magic damage focused therefore, since they are the "magic tank", we can make their overall kit subpar because DRKs, by the very nature of their job, benefit from game mechanics. This is why no rework has succeeded to resonate with the community, the underlying premise of the job is flawed so everything flowing from that will by flawed as well.