Salted Earth and other questionable changes.

[Xenosan]

...

I see where you're minds at and I felt the same a bit..

Though the difference I'd like to see return Soul Survivor as well, and put that and (new) AD as Bloodspenders, that way Blood would have a little more depth.. Using/refreshing Survivor or AD (single target or aoe) with blood and using Bloodspiller and Q and filler..

But I guess we have the new capstone instead, which is like a temp SwordOath or something.. But still like previous patches DRK is all about adding potency it seems, not multiplication modifiers (other than DS). So we'll see how much it even matters to align these new 'burst' skills together in windows, or if like previous drk stays relatively static

..Remember they said diddilly about Siphon Strike and Blood Price change in Stormblood, ever. Just ninja'd that into relase, I'll take all prerelease notes with less than a grain of salt.

The most obvious reason is that the damage (and blood gen) was applied elsewhere.

Yep don't worry, SE got your back.

They can always buff the DS buff like they did in SB

[Valic]

I still say turn DRK into an MP berserker. While darkside is up and denies all MP bonuses from the outside, being below 50% MP grants a speed/GCD reduction buff, and 20% damage while granting specific skills different purposes. Create a skill called Blood Pact, that reverses the value of your MP with a cooldown of 30 seconds, allowing you to turn 80% MP into 20%, and vice versa. Dark Missionary while below 50% grants the party a damage boost of 10% for 10 seconds, while above grants a mitigation buff. Carve and Spit while below 50% MP grants you the regular damage bonus and MP regeneration, while being above 50% uses slightly less potency but puts a 5 second damage down on the monster its used on. Salt of the Earth below 50% grants you small MP returns per enemy hit, while above grants you HP returns. Abyssal drain while below 50% MP deals a high aoe potency, while above decreases it's potency and grants it an HP steal like before. Quietis while below 50% grants you MP back per hit, while above puts a damage down debuff on enemies. Same for Bloodspiller. Make Blood weapon specifically just give back MP so it becomes a utility of when you want your MP back or need to adjust it up faster than syphon strike. Make Delirium how it was for blood weapon but at 80 make it also apply a duration buff to Living Shadow.

Keep everything else the same and bam, you've got a DRK who utilizes high damage by keeping it's MP in between 1% and 49% that can utilize the TBN dark arts procs when it doesn't have enough MP for Edge/Flood of darkness to keep darkside up.... Meanwhile being higher on MP allows you to expend more for mitigation and utility for when you need to actually be a consistent tank for yourself and the party while also easily using up MP to get back into the former state. The balance would require you to learn how long you can let yourself stay below a threshold of MP before you lose your darkside buff or be viable to your party's support/mitigation/utility. Lore-wise that fits the "drink too deep and it'll consume you" stuff from the very first job quest warning you about how you need to control it. Probably needs a couple more small adjustments so you're not specifically trying to keep exactly 45% MP to stay within range of dealing damage or being a tank but I feel like this would at least grant us back our job's identity of control based on necessity of the situation and wouldn't need to copy another job for it. Wed sill have TBN, Rampart, Dark Mind, and Shadow Wall as our own mitigation buffs, could even up the cooldowns of DM/Shadow Wall a little so you'd have reason to use your alternate damage mitigations.

Just a rough draft but I already like it infinitely more than the "to the point" discount WAR we are in ShB.

[LegolasT]

It's not just my opinion, check the other thread here that mentions how badly DRK has lost it's identity. It's many people's opinions.

You people do recognize most of the player base don’t even bother with the forums anymore so for you to say a messily post of about 30-50 speaks for the entire 2 million +active community is a extreme long shot. Your opinion stands for the minority in this forum that’s all it is your opinion. I read some of these ridiculous dark hate comments complaining about “identity”.. wtf do you people want it’s a tank it’s job is to tank. When It comes to mitigation now it has self heal capabilities it lacked in the past. It uses mp more then any other tank as a DRK in final fantasy lore should. It guards against magic damage which all bosses in this game now do most of if not all the time. It’s now a very powerful tank even with the similarities to war but with its own style and much more difficulty to reach max potential then war so enough with the I speak for most DRK and saying every drk feels your opinion cause we don’t speak for yourself and say it’s from you but don’t speak for others.

[Valic]

You people do recognize most of the player base don’t even bother with the forums anymore so for you to say a messily post of about 30-50 speaks for the entire 2 million +active community is a extreme long shot. Your opinion stands for the minority in this forum that’s all it is your opinion. I read some of these ridiculous dark hate comments complaining about “identity”.. wtf do you people want it’s a tank it’s job is to tank. When It comes to mitigation now it has self heal capabilities it lacked in the past. It uses mp more then any other tank as a DRK in final fantasy lore should. It guards against magic damage which all bosses in this game now do most of if not all the time. It’s now a very powerful tank even with the similarities to war but with its own style and much more difficulty to reach max potential then war so enough with the I speak for most DRK and saying every drk feels your opinion cause we don’t speak for yourself and say it’s from you but don’t speak for others.

You're right, that's why I brought it to reddit and several discords too. There are several who can't seem to argue that DRK hasn't lost it's identity. Read the other post again to understand the plight if you're just gonna say a tank is a tank. There's a reason we have 4 tanks, rather than just paladin. In any case, I said there's a lot, I didn't ever once say I was speaking for everyone, I only said there are MANY. You guys sure get defensive and assume I'm speaking for you fellas in the "many". I'm not going to explain what someone else has already very clearly defined is the problem with DRK. Also I'm not posting hate, I only claim it's lost it's identity as my opinion.

[WhyAmIHere]

You people do recognize most of the player base don’t even bother with the forums anymore so for you to say a messily post of about 30-50 speaks for the entire 2 million +active community is a extreme long shot. Your opinion stands for the minority in this forum that’s all it is your opinion. I read some of these ridiculous dark hate comments complaining about “identity”.. wtf do you people want it’s a tank it’s job is to tank. When It comes to mitigation now it has self heal capabilities it lacked in the past. It uses mp more then any other tank as a DRK in final fantasy lore should. It guards against magic damage which all bosses in this game now do most of if not all the time. It’s now a very powerful tank even with the similarities to war but with its own style and much more difficulty to reach max potential then war so enough with the I speak for most DRK and saying every drk feels your opinion cause we don’t speak for yourself and say it’s from you but don’t speak for others.

Man, you really don't get how DRK operates do you?
>Identity? it's a tank that's it's identity
WAR, PLD, and GNB are also all tanks. Each one does something unique to their kit. PLD is the guard of the sultanate, or whatever cause the Free Paladins choose to defend; WAR has IR which is an evolution (now) of Berserk, which was it's identity now and still is (being the berserking hulk of a beast); and aside from the shell system we're not fully educated on GNB's identity beyond job lore from SE (A school of fighting passed on through the generations in Hrothgar society to defend their Queen). DRK? "Control your inner darkness and don't let it consume you; fight to defend the defenseless and those you love" is the lore from the job storyline. What in it's Shadowbringers kit even comes close to exemplifying that?
>it has a self heal that it lacked
No, it had better self heal in AoE... which is gone. Souleater's HP gain should've been grit unlocked in stormblood. Sole Survivor, as small a heal as it was, is also gone now too.
>it uses MP more than any other tank
. . .Do you not know what PLD does?
>guards against magic damage
Yeah, and now so does GNB, and oh yeah literally all tanks mitigate magic damage, WAR and PLD just mitigate physical AND magical. This "anti-mage" thing is good in the DRK PvP kit with Bloodspiller silencing whoever it hits (haven't seen the 5.0 PvP changes, so if that's changed oopsie), but beyond DM, DM2, and TBN, what about DRK screams "anti-magic?"
>it's powerful and it's similar to WAR but not really
. . .
How powerful it will wind up remains to be seen. That's ignoring any potency buffs/nerfs that'll come as patches happen. But "does a thing like WAR but in it's own way?" You're right! 123123123123123 is not the same as 123124124124124123. At least we don't just press the same button 5 times in a row... wait...
>it's harder to reach its potential compared to WAR
WAR has to maintain Eye for it's damage boost. It's a GCD that requires knowing when to refresh it. DRK has a one-and-done oGCD to refresh Darkside. How is that harder to pull off? Oh right, they nerfed DRK's MP regeneration beyond Del and BW windows. On the note of Del, yeah it sure is nice to have lost the haste buff from BW, and gotten a copied effect from WAR's kit on a skill now twice reworked.
>dont speak for others when not everyone shares your viewpoint
Fair point. However, as much as there are people that find 5.0 DRK to be exciting now, there's plenty more, and a more vocal portion of this section of the forums, that disagree. If you feel 5.0 DRK will be fun, then fine, hope you enjoy it. And I'm being serious with that. As long as you will concede that, by and large, more people in the tank section that post somewhat regularly are not satisfied with 5.0 DRK.

[shao32]

snip

Ok I will make it easy for you, I'm a DRK main since 3.0 and I fell in love since them, now since idk nothing about you personal experience I will assume you are a DRK main since 3.0 too and have you reasons to like the job for equality of the example.

So the job change during expansions and I really really dislike the direction they take with the job bcs his gameplay is nothing like it was in the past but you are ok with this, so why my opinion or others opinion about how DRK works now doesn't matter? We can't complaint about it? The job can be ok in terms of performance compared to other jobs but nobody here is talking about that because we don't care about that, our concerns is about how DRK works to get that performance and we highly dislike it, and we are in our right to complaint about it.

You have a point about I can't or others can't speak for all, and i didn't mean to (language barrier sorry) but doesn't change the fact a really big portion of the DRK community dislike this 5.0 version, and we want the job to being fun again like it was in the past, if you like new DRK for his new gameplay you have 2 tanks that please you, we don't need a 3° one.

[saber_alter]

-snip-

This is pretty much spot on. Despite this being the "DRK expansion" drk lost a lot what little identity it had. It has no self sustain anymore. it's magical mitigation was nerfed into the ground or is outdone by other jobs. and it no longer can go F A S T. Dark arts spam was stupid, but in 3.0 (and even 4.0) it at least had a flow to it.

Sure it's still got the flare, but it's otherwise just really straightforward MP management.
-Spam a 1-2-3 combo (like 2.0 paladin, remember that guys? everyone loved that!).
-use edge/flood to generate darkside/do damage (spammable attack that you probably don't even have to worry about bottoming out on unless you want to save some for tbn. oh wait that's just dark arts).
-use bloodweapon to generate blood/mp (Literally just a resource generation tool, no haste so it's lost the one thing unique about it).
delerium is now literally IR, but also generates mp (AKA the most boring ability in the game 2: electric boogaloo).
-a bunch of OGCD abilities that don't really interact with our resources beyond C&S, edge, flood, and LS. Abyssal drain is just a filler CD with a heal now. Salted earth is garbage in its current state. plunge doesn't get charge until post 70. Living shadow is a cool looking DOT on a 2 minute cooldown.
-not to mention the absurdly backloaded skill list. like our entire kit is close to 80 than it is to 1.

I don't have a "fix" for this right now since i'm like half asleep and it would probably be worse than what we have. It's probably going to be fun regardless, but DRK doesn't really have much to stand on it's own beyond visuals. Do i think i know better than the dev team? no, but i do have four years playing the job.

at least i still have my somewhat broken shield.

[Gemina]

I am intrigued by the DRK changes. That I can say with the upmost sincerity. It along with SCH are the jobs I am the most interested in what happens to my hotbars come Friday morning, and the playstyle adjustment going into content.

Salted Earth in it's SB state was one of those abilities that I use, but I don't like to; if that makes sense. It does nice damage and looks/sounds really cool, but I think what's up is having to lay a bubble down while I am tanking. Not an issue when OT, only MT. It's longer CD is a welcome change for me. From what I can tell, it is the only ability that lost potency; otherwise DRK has gotten potency buffs across the board on almost everything that causes damage. I think for the most part these potencies match current DA'd potencies, but not having to DA every single skill in their repertoire will make DRK feel a lot different widely because DA is what used to sap our MP, and we know will resort to EoS/FoS for this.

What raised an eyebrow for me was Abyssal Drain and TBN. AD was by far one of my favorite things to spam with DRK, and a DAAD felt extremely satisfying on large mob pulls. I also wonder if DRK has an overall DPS loss as a result of no longer being able to spam it. We have Stalwart Soul now, and both it and Unleash are MP free so I think I will adjust but will still miss it.

Popping TBN now grants Dark Arts, but can someone help me with what DA does now? I loved getting an instant 50 blood with well-timed TBN's. Actually I should say x3 Blood Spillers, but it looks like I still get this with the change to Delirium. And that kind of seems to be the thing with DRK, what is lost is somehow, someway made up in another way. SA no longer gives blood; Souleater now gives 20 instead of 10. Previously used TBN to get off more Quietas and Spillers; Delirium does this now. Blood Price is gone, but new methods of restoring MP have replaced it and don't require sacrificing DPS... and so forth.

I think a lot balances out, and DRK should be pretty fun to play. It's one of the most diverse jobs in terms of how people think it should play. One of its most identifying characteristics though has always been sacrificing HP to cause more damage, and I am not sure we'll ever get that version of DRK in FFXIV.

We didn't get AoE TBN, but we did get AoE Dark Mind, which some of us have been asking for. I know it doesn't help with physical damage mitigation, but it is a welcome addition.

[TouchandFeel]

Dark Arts

Dark Arts is now a proc given by breaking TBN that allows for a free usage of Edge or Flood.

[Danelo]

Conspiracy theory: SE is neutering the job bit by bit till there’s no one left playing it... then they’re switch it DPS.

Joking, but it sure seems like it. The job already looks like it’s gonna play slow as can be compared to previous installments. Why not do away with it and add the potency some place else. It’s just another click, that’s why. What a waste.

A scourge dot that you could spread would have been cooler. You could axe AD if you added a trait for scourge to give back a portion of damage dealt from scourge as a HoT. At least there would be something to do besides 1-2-3 in the downtime.

This rework seems more about giving DRK things it should’ve had in the previous expansion: utility. But even then it’s weaker than the rest. No new ideas. Not listening. WTH.

Seems like typical poster child treatment.