Ideas to improve ShB DRK's gameplay (Please SE)

[Freyyy]

Hello fellow tanks/DRK mains. (And hello Square Enix, if you happen to read this)

Since the media tour embargo has lifted and the highly anticipated DRK rework got revealed, a lot of people including me have expressed their dissatisfaction in the tank forums.

I'm not going to list every issues people have with the incoming iteration of the DRK job here, but I will link you to some posts in other threads in order to summarize it :

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post5000392

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post5002292

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post5000824

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post5002685

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...25#post5004725

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So now let's get to the main topic of this thread. Since we got all these informations, I've been thinking about how the devs could "fix" this rework without spending an eternity on it. I want it to be reasonably achievable within one or two patches after release. I've had multiple ideas, one of which is briefly mentionned in one of the posts above. I'm going to put a little more details on that.

I'm not going to go into potencies; this is very easily adjusted. What I want is more engaging gameplay for the job. Performance is important but it's just changing numbers.

First off we have to make the "maintaining Darkside" idea an actual thing gameplay-wise.

Then we have to implement another combo besides Souleater, because right now ShB DRK's GCD rotation is gonna feel like a WAR without Storm's Eye. Just straight up Path spam with Fell Cleaves here and there outside of Inner Release window.

We can hit two birds with one stone on both of these issues. There is my suggestion :

- Bring Power Slash back as a Darkside extender. Make it combo off of Syphon Strike so that we don't lose MP regen.
- Make EoS/FoS pure damaging MP spenders.

That's a step in the right direction, but that's not enough. It'd just make us change our combo finisher once every 30sec. So I thought about something like that :

- Power Slash should only extend Darkside. Not give it.
- Instead of having Edge/Flood of Darkness automatically upgrade to EoS/FoS at level 74, make them upgrade in-battle through job mechanics.

How do we make that happen ?

- EoD/FoD would give Darkside, but they have the same MP cost and lower potency than EoS/FoS. Going in Darkside would then upgrade them to EoS/FoS, which in exchange don't give Darkside anymore.
- Power Slash would then be used to extend Darkside. Stalwart Soul for AoE rotation (maintaining Darkside being a non-issue in AoE doesn't really matter).

Failing to extend Darkside properly would lead to losing EoS/FoS potencies by forcing us into using EoD/FoD to reapply it on top of losing Darkside's passive bonus damage. It rewards good rotation just like NIN with Huton and Armor Crush.

That's already a lot better. Then just give us Blood Weapon's haste and lower CD back, and change Delirium. Maybe instead of enabling free Bloodspiller spam, enable free EoS spam, that way it's a little different. You'd go GCD > EoS > GCD > EoS > GCD > EoS > GCD > EoS instead of just Bloodspiller five times. Again, potencies can be tweaked, I'm not going into complex DPS calculations.


This first part would be enough to make the job more interesting.
But you know what would be ideal for a lot of DRK mains ?
Getting back the HW feel of the job in some way.

Luckily as of the writing of this I came up with something for that :

Put EoS on a 30s CD, give us Dark Arts back as a button and make our MP regen rate similar to HW's in terms of % per minute (If you have to bring back Darkside's MP drain then do it). No more DA Syphon Strike or DA Plunge.
Only Souleater and Carve & Spit. No spam.

This would bring back the old MP priority system. We used to have that, remember. DA C&S was 350 potency for 1 DA, DP was 150 potency for half a DA, and a DA on SE was worth 140 potency. It led to DA C&S > DP > DASE priority (when it came to single target at least). So every 30 seconds you had to account for the MP needed for DP, and every 60 seconds you had to account for a DA on C&S. The rest of the time you'd just be using DASE to prevent overcapping, but it was far from spammy since we also had the Delirium combo.

In ShB, such a system would then be EoS > DA C&S > DASE. Every 30s you'd have to think about having the MP for an EoS, every 60s for DA C&S, and then you'd use DASE to prevent overcapping.

TBN could stay as it is in the current ShB build. DA could be spent on EoS as well to make it free, on top of having all the other effects.
Delirium would put EoS/FoS on a 2sec cooldown for 10seconds while making it free. Huge oGCD spamming burst window instead of GCD like Inner Release.

We'd still have the Blood meter, Bloodspiller and Living Shadow with all that. You'd then have Darkside, MP and Blood to manage, that way DRK would be the oGCD-heavy resource management tank once again for real. BOOM, job identity bois.


If I was able to come up with that in ten minutes of thinking, then the devs can pull something similar if not better in a month, or even within one or two patches after ShB's release.

Come on Square Enix. Yoshi, please dude. It's not that hard is it ?


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Tank mains, DRK mains, your feedback is appreciated.

Edit : English isn't my first language, I have a pretty good level but my grammar might be somewhat inaccurate sometimes, so sorry if that's the case.

[Mithron]

I like a lot of these suggestions and completely agree HW DRK was best DRK. I also really miss Scourge's animation.

[shao32]

Those are a bunch of good ideas, works better on keeping DRK identity that the 5.0 design.

5.0 delirium should die in hell, it's the most lazy rework I saw ever, DRK need more combos and deeper interaction between the skills and stop giving the job brainless mechanics like darkside/delirium.

And no less make dark missionary cover all types of damage and give DRK a self heal that they can rely on.

[Freyyy]

Yeah I haven't mentionned Dark Mind & Dark Missionary still being magic only, because to me it's not the biggest issue about the job. Don't get me wrong, I think that having damage-type specific defensive CDs is obsolete since they made PLD able to block magic, but I made this thread mainly to address the pure gameplay and job identity aspects of the job, rotation-wise. Tweaking Dark Mind & Missionary is easy and it isn't gonna change how the job plays or feels, it's just gonna make it a better tank.
Same for LD. It deserves some change but it's not gonna make or break the job except if they put it on a 1min CD or some crazy shit like that which obviously won't happen.

[shao32]

Yeah yes I agree, saddly SE don't care much about this kind of threats but I will fully support any gameplay change.

[kashi11]

I love all of these changes. Good job! The only thing I caution about is DA on this version of EoS/FoS. It just seems like it would lead to double weaving problems as well as you have to look at MP costs, if EoS is free under DA, is DA more expensive or less expensive then EoS, and if it's less expensive then you always use it before EoS and it could create crazy double weaving problems under delirium. Instead of doing DA this way, I would suggest something like this.

DA is still is a passive buff indicated on the Job gauge, however you gain a DA for maintaining Darkside for 30s giving you a free EoS/FoS. (think enochian and BLM foul)

When the Blackest Night breaks, have it reset the recast timer of EoS/FoS.

[Freyyy]

In my mind everything would cost the exact same amount of MP just like it is right now. It's what the devs seem to have in mind with DRK so I won't go against that. Dark Arts making EoS/FoS free with my suggestions is just there for it to not conflict with the new TBN breaking effect. They could also make TBN free with 25sec recast and make it so that breaking it doesn't matter anymore but it would be deleting a cool DRK gimmick again (which they've done enough of).

[kashi11]

Would DA increase the potency of EoS or just make it free? If it only makes it free there isn't much of a point, because it costs the same.

And if it does +140 potency Delirium would look like this:

GCD -> DA, EoS -> GCD -> DA, EoS -> GCD -> DA, EoS -> depending on how much MP you get back it would continue to double weave the next 2 GCD and if not it would just finish without the DA. That much double weaving during a burst window is super unfriendly to people with high ping.

[Danelo]

Additional combo: Power slash combo finisher off of siphon strike. Power slash applies a dot. Dot has a percent chance of triggering dark arts, when darkside is active, which allows a free eos/fos in addition (in addition to TBN procing it).

Raise dark missionary to 20% magic shield or preferably make it 15% all damage shield.

Dark mind back to 30% magic mitigation. (again, like most seem to feel, I would prefer no damage specific mitigation CDs)

LD reworked.

A reliable heal more akin to equilibrium.

[Freyyy]

Would DA increase the potency of EoS or just make it free? If it only makes it free there isn't much of a point, because it costs the same.

The point would be just like it will be with the current ShB DRK that was shown at the media tour. Having Dark Arts proc when TBN breaks in order to refund its cost. Dark Arts making EoS free is the only thing it does right now, with my suggestion it also exists as a skill and has different effects. You wouldn't be manually using DA to have a free EoS because there would be no point like you said, but you'd be using it with the other skills and still have the free EoS proc possible from a TBN breaking, while also being able to use that same proc for a Souleater or a Carve & Spit.

Power slash combo finisher off of siphon strike. Power slash applies a dot. Dot has a percent chance of triggering dark arts, when dark side is active, which allows a free eos/fos in addition (in addition to TBN procing it).

Well I thought about the idea of Power Slash just giving us a DoT but it wouldn't help giving an identity to DRK. It'd be a Goring Blade clone. And having a chance to proc DAs with its ticks would make the job very RNG and I don't think we'd like it that much. RNG with Low Blow procs was fine because it was 100 potency, but RNG with a 500 potency proc might be too much.