You did it, Squeenix. I didn't think you could, but you did.

[UnitedWeSTand]

Disclaimer: This is based off the available information. If it changes for the better before release excellent. I make this post in the hope that more attention to the problems will encourage just such an outcome.

You made DRKs even more boring to play then you did in Stormblood. We have less skills AND less traits then the other tanking classes, we only have ONE primary combo finisher, and we spend well over half our time simply generating resources so we can use the only cool abilities we have because you ripped our primary resource generators apart. No more Blood Price and Blood Weapon is a measly 10s duration with a whopping 60s cooldown and TBN is unreliable at best.

I made a quick and dirty rotation calculator for my main class using the available information about the new abilities and...it's not encouraging. I mapped out what the first minute of a fight would look like as far as DPS rotation went and you spend a good half of your time just rolling through the Hard Slash -> Syphon Strike -> Souleater combo over and over because you don't have the resources for literally anything else.

My calculator for reference: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Feel free to point out any numbers you think are wrong, Internet Citizens but I tried to make it as accurate as possible and even calculated in passive mana regen since I think we get that back now.

On top of that, you made DRK mitigation even WORSE then it was in stormblood while increasing the other tanks. Dark Missionary is just a worse <insert party mitigation ability from any other tank>. Dark Mind is just a worse <insert self 20% mitigation from any other tank>. The only decent mitigation we have is TBN and the shield is actually almost too strong for its duration now and if it doesn't break we've just lost a third of our mana that we could have used to increase our damage output. So we're stuck holding a third of our mana in reserve the entire fight waiting for when we KNOW the shield will break or using that mana for an extra Edge of Shadow and eating the tank buster with our face.

I truly hope the numbers or the abilities that have been revealed so far are wrong because as it currently stands, DRKs will be spending well over half the fight spamming their Souleater combo with nothing to weave between GCDs because they don't have enough resource to use any oGCDs especially after their opener is over with.

[Maneesha]

about the combo, this was always the case, 70-80% of the time drk spammed hard slash>syphon strike>souleater.
about blood price/weapon its kinda the same(?) instead of blood price you will use delirium i guess or simply blood weapon, since it works in deff stance too. the resource management kinda changed since every class now has 10k mp, its new and i couldn't test, so i don't want to speculate on that.
the "magic tank" thingy they wanna keep and the way they design some skills.. i don't fully agree with the devs on that. dark mind nerf was weird, i could see they want to streamline the numbers, but it only works on magic so they could have let it as it was, dark missionary : there comes the "magic tanks" stuff and the skill is simply the weakest of the 4 tank support skills imo. so yeah i agree with you, i hoped it would have been a tbn for the raid (like shake it off) with some perk for the drk maybe, but a 15% magic dmg reduction is weak ( not that it cant be used in the raid for the aoe dmg if its magical,what it usually is, but still...) compared to the other tank skills which all involve magical and phys dmg.

[UnitedWeSTand]

about the combo, this was always the case, 70-80% of the time drk spammed hard slash>syphon strike>souleater.
about blood price/weapon its kinda the same(?) instead of blood price you will use delirium i guess or simply blood weapon, since it works in deff stance too. the resource management kinda changed since every class now has 10k mp, its new and i couldn't test, so i don't want to speculate on that.
the "magic tank" thingy they wanna keep and the way they design some skills.. i don't fully agree with the devs on that. dark mind nerf was weird, i could see they want to streamline the numbers, but it only works on magic so they could have let it as it was, dark missionary : there comes the "magic tanks" stuff and the skill is simply the weakest of the 4 tank support skills imo. so yeah i agree with you, i hoped it would have been a tbn for the raid (like shake it off) with some perk for the drk maybe, but a 15% magic dmg reduction is weak ( not that it cant be used in the raid for the aoe dmg if its magical,what it usually is, but still...) compared to the other tank skills which all involve magical and phys dmg.

Sure, in SB we still did the same combo rotation, but we could at LEAST weave in Dark Arts here and there to break the monotony of 1,2,3, 1,2,3. Now, we don't generate enough resource to allow us to do anything other then the same three skills over and over again. That's my main complaint about that. I don't really mind not having a large number of GCD skills, but for god's sake give me something else to play with to keep me from falling asleep at my keyboard >.>

[Chrono_Rising]

Taking a look and comparing the tanks across current dps, mitigation, utility, self-healing, and invulns and Dark Knight is either 3rd or 4th every time.

Blood weapon doesn't depend on stance, but was quadruple nerfed - Cooldown time increased 20 seconds, active time reduced 5 seconds, haste effect removed, oGCD procs removed. One of the few skills which had some synergy within the kit and the remaining synergy has been removed. I hope this is reconsidered. Lower the cooldown to 30 seconds, add back the haste effect, and give back the oGCD procs.

Blood price has been outright removed. Which further guts out blood generation.

Delirium bloodspillers are giving us 200 mana, which is 1/3 of what we need for an actual cast of Edge of Shadow.

Shadow Clone is underwhelming. It is dealing what appears to be flat damage, if you take a look the damage it is dealing with the skills it is doing have 0 correlation with what you are doing or the potency of those skills. Is this even effected by darkside? I appears no.

Our oGCD spam has been reduced to Edge of Shadow, which has been greatly slowed down by lackluster mana regeneration.

And lastly our game play has been greatly slowed down thanks to a heavy handed removal of oGCD and lengthening most of the oGCD abilities we had. Was salted Earth really that powerful that it needed a 15 potency reduction as well as a doubling of the time it is inactive?

All of this trim for what? To make sure we are last in dps?

Looks like we will have another expac of Dark Knight being worse in show.

[Bhearil]

Dont forget that even using an unrealistic 2.0 cd on the DRK you earn 2500 mp without using cds each 30 seconds(2x3=6 seconds per rotation for 500 mp so in 30 seconds you get 5 rotations). Even adding 1k per 30 seconds with regular mana regen, it means that realistically speaking you barely get enough mp to keep darkside on unless your burn skills that give you mp. That means that the DRK apm is gonna be extremely low compared with before which is a turnoff for many DRKs

[shao32]

i still don't get it, why was necesary copy paste inner release on DRK? DRK is in a bad position (based only in what we saw and can change) but his desing it's even worse, why this obsesion to add a burst window to spam you strongest attack 5 times in a row? this mechanic become so generic it's no longer fun or entertining, WAR have it, PLD have it and now DRK have it, whats next? 6.0 add this mechanic to GNB so we make all tanks equally boring now? im starting to feel 5.0 DRK need a new rework and it's not even out.

[Basrasa]

This is not okay. Square Enix needs to be informed of this and it needs to change ASAP.

Bring back Power Slash as a second dps combo, put Scourge back either in the second part of Power Slash combo or like it was in heavensward. Put Dark Passenger back as an ogcd without mana cost a la C&S. Make ajustements to how BW works with blood gauge and how we generate mana (Power Slash combo way more powerful but no siphon so we have to think how to manage those combos to not lose Darkside etc...). Well make anything as long as we stay active with our brains and not spam 123 with C&S and Quietus/BS aside while refreshing EoS.

This looks so boring, I can’t comprehend how Yoshida can say in an interview that they always ask themselves if a class is still fun to play after they change it and pull up the worst gameplay DRK had in 4 years of existence oh god you fucked up this job big time.

Meanwhile GNB gets (imo) the most entertaining gameplay of the 4. I’m on the edge of switching and it pisses me off.

[Nivarea]

While all of the news skills are not bad ideas, I like Edge being a Shinten-like ability for exemple, some changes are just heartbreaking for a long time DRK main, going against what the job identity has been since its inclusion.

The DRK has always felt to me like a busy tank, with a focus on ressource management and keeping our oGCDs rolling. I hate how Blood Weapon is greatly nerfed in the ShB media preview, in every way. It doesn't make us go quicker anymore, has a shorter duration and a longer CD, and now only Weponskills genereate ressource, not even autos. It just seems awfull compared to how it was before. I don't like the fact that Delirium is basically an Inner Release for DRK, I don't want the job to become a WAR 2.0 (or 0.5 to be more realistic). Being, for a second expansion in a row, the only tank with only ONE offensive combo (and only one combo this time) will feel awfull, at least Dark Arts added a bit of veriety to it. Abyssal Drain as a 60s cooldown and our only (weak) "self heal" ability outside of Souleater is also disapointing. I finally can't understand what warranted such a heavy handed nerf on Salted Earth, it never felt overpowered at all.

Edge of Shadow/Flood of Shadow and the Darkside management akin to Blood of the Dragon or Huton is a good idea on paper. BUT, the balance of keeping Darkside up seems too easy because of how much a single Edge add to the timer, and paradoxically, because of how gutted the Mana gain seems to be, we can't even use Edge that much. Blood Generation also seems less interesting than what it was in Stormblood and its potential is not exploited at all. It's sad, it had so much potential...

I'm neutral to the clone. I love the animation, the link with the DRK lore, but its execution, from what we've seen, seems boring. Just press the button and keep your rotation rolling, that's it. You can't interact with it (I can accept that) and it don't seems to make you gain more ressource either (at least from what I can see on the videos from the media-tour),contrary to Nin Bunshin, which is more problematic considering how little we generate. Not bad, just... boring, and I'm sad to say that about an ability which invoke Fray.

Defensive wise... Well, Dark Missionary being magic only seems weird when it got the same duration and the same reduction than GNB Heart of Light, which works on all type of damage. Otherwise, it's the same than Stormblood, with a buff to TBN (which almost seems too strong for its synergy with Edge/Flood, a weird feeling) and a nerf to Dark Mind (unnecessary, but well, it's not so bad). Living Dead is still the worst Invuln (well, arguably, Superbolide can compete here), but that's nothing new.

I will try the job, try to feel how it works, maybe I will like it? I dunno. I can at least say that, on paper, the rework seems really disappointing playstyle-wise. I really hope Square can improve it a bit before the launch, and if not, that they will listen post-launch to player feedback...

[Kanitezz]

I miss Delerium’s animation.

[Rollout]

I have to agree, Dark Knight feels extremely oversimplified at this point. Edge/Flood of Darkness/Shadow just appears to be an upkeep buff, a la Straight Shot or Hot Shot, which SE has done away with for those respective classes.
If they wanted it to be a maintenance buff, I'd rather it be something along the lines of Warrior's Storm's Eye and make Edge of Darkness/Shadow a combo finisher, so we're not stuck spamming Souleater all the time.
Make it a caveat that Darkside can only be activated with Flood of Darkness/Shadow and make it a longer cooldown, to make it more punishing if you mess up and drop Darkside.