New DRK is awful. Here’s why and what could be done about it.

[Satarn]

(Before I start, I’d like to address the “this isn’t the final build, things may change” line – yeah it’s not, which is why I am giving my feedback now, so perhaps we can actually get some changes sometime within the first raid tier. Also I might be kind of edgy here, but I am a DRK, writing about how upset I am with DRK. I believe certain amount of edge is appropriate.)



Allrighty, so we have officially seen all the tooltips and frankly the DRK “rework” isn’t just bad – it’s downright embarrassing. I don’t gladly trashtalk on devs, because I know they’ve got a ton of work with the new expac, but honestly it looks like whoever worked on DRK completely missed the point of majority of feedback and decided to do a complete 180 on a job that simply needed some tweaks and new skills, to add depth to its gameplay and make it more useful. I might’ve not played SHB yet, but anyone who’s played all 3 tanks long enough and possesses half a functioning brain, can probably see where this is going.

We asked for more identity, we asked for more meaningful resource management, we asked to be more unique from other tanks. A lot of people asked for something closer to Heavensward DRK.

What we got is complete removal of our identity and blatant homogenization. The MP management which allowed us to be flexible and decide when to burst via resource pooling, has been replaced with timed burst windows, just like every other tank. Darkside remains a permanent no-brainer buff, because anything we can spend MP on, extends it. We can’t manipulate our GCD with TBN+Bloodspiller anymore. They even took our speed away!

“I like playing DRK, it’s fun.” But this is no longer DRK.

Shadowbringers Dark Knight is basically a discount Warrior with worse tanking tools. One could say “well Warrior is a popular job, so how is this a problem?”. The problem is that while SB Dark Knight has been considered the worst tank for nearly entirety of the expansion, it was still played by people. We knew we’re weaker in almost every way and yet we still played it - because it was different. SB DRK has been a flawed job and we all had issues with it, but even with all these problems it was still more enjoyable than WAR and PLD to us. To completely murder this playstyle and replace it with more of the same, is doing a disservice to all of us who stuck with it in SB - the people who the rework was supposed to be for. To add insult to injury, a good chunk of SB DRKs has been ex-WAR mains, who switched jobs after revamp of Inner Release in 4.2. And now this gorramn mechanic has followed us, as the new “delIRium”. What the actual hell.

Alright, this is the end of the rant part. Simply complaining does not solve the problem. Onto the actual solutions then.

First, we need to ask what was the gameplay identity and appeal of the Dark Knight. What was it that made us play it in the first place?
I’d say two major things:
1) Fast-paced playstyle that made DRK stand apart from other tanks, achieved by higher attack speed in Blood Weapon as well as lots of ogcd weaving.
2) Flexibility letting us decide when we want to burst depending on the situation, coming from the resource management mechanics and more sustained dps.

Below I propose changes to the Media Tour version of Dark Knight, that keep in mind those principles, as well as the issues which plagued us in Stromblood. They also aim to be plausible to apply within a short span of time – as much as I’d love some fancier stuff like another combo, procs and so on, that is simply not realistic and thus doesn’t serve to solve the current problem.
There is also a valid possibility that applying all this would put the job either ahead or behind other tanks in dps output – that can easily be “band-aided” by modifying the Darkside bonus value and perhaps readjusted via potency changes in later patches.

The(yet another) rework:

Existing actions which need to be returned to their exact state form Stormblood(potencies, resource gains*, cooldowns, everything):

Hard Slash
Syphon Strike
Dark Mind - you can’t seriously nerf DM while buffing WAR mitigation like it’s no tomorrow, including Holmgang for some reason and increasing PLD’s viability as MT as well. It’s blatantly unfair considering it’s magical mitigation only – having a more niche cd is great for decision making, but it needs to have enough strength advantage to compensate.
Salted Earth
Quietus
Dellirium - guys, seriously.

*MP gains on Syphon Strike, Blood Weapon, Quietus and Delirium need to be adjusted to keep same proportions as SB versions, while taking the new static MP pool vs 3k MP costs into account.

Existing actions which need to be adjusted to be closer to their Stormblood versions or in other ways:

Souleater - return SB potency and lower blood gauge gain back to 10, but keep the 300 potency healing regardless of Grit.

Blood Weapon - return the old MP and blood gain as well as duration and cooldown, but keep the speed buff removed(don’t worry, this will return in another way).

The Blackest Night – keep the new shield effects, but replace Dark Arts proc with the old 50 blood gauge gain upon breaking. This returns TBN+BS’ satisfying identity as a counterattack and gives us option to manipulate our gcd again.

Bloodspiller – return potency to 540 to keep TBN+BS dps neutral with EoS+weapon skill.

Abyssal Drain – replace healing per target with flat 1200 potency heal and add charge feature. AoE scaling is way too niche and basically worthless in most raid situations. Due to damage potency, Abyssal Drain will also suffer from the same wasted-cast issue as gap closers do if held for its utility - adding a charge would solve this problem.

Carve and Split – replace the MP gain with an MP cost of 3000 and make potency 450. This returns CnS to its old role as a high potency dps cd which we need to save MP for(which adds to the MP management), but without issues caused by relying on Dark Arts like before.

New Shadowbringers actions and features which need to be adjusted:

Edge of Darkness/Shadow – remove the interaction with Darkside and lower potency to 120(EoD) and 140(EoS). This is our new Dark Arts. It preserves the MP pooling mechanic of old Dark Arts, but is way less spammy and more engaging due to MP needed for Carve and Split and Darkside upkeep. It also avoids DA’s forced double weaving issues, by being an independent damaging ogcd and is overall less clunky.
As much as I liked the concept of DA being a skill modifier, SHB changes to enmity and tank cooldowns have made it irrelevant and thus not worth its many issues.

Flood of Darkness/Shadow – reduce the potency to 100(FoD) and 120(FoS). This is our Darkside upkeep skill in single target and an MP spender during AoE. It reduces EoS spam and makes Darkside upkeep more engaging.

Darkside – rise the damage buff up to 20% to be consistent with old skill potencies and return the “MP regeneration stops during battle and Refresh statuses granted by others have no effect” quality, to keep our MP gains controlled as before. Lastly, add an attack speed boost effect that used to be part of Blood Weapon. With Dark Arts replaced by Edge of Shadow, we got rid of the forced double weaving and should be able to enjoy constant speed boost without gcd clipping issues. It also makes keeping up Darkside visibly more rewarding.

Stalwart Soul – remove MP gain and reduce the blood gauge gain to 10, in order to keep it in line with other blood gain skills and make the Quietus' MP recovery function important again.

Dark Missionary – make the damage mitigation work for both magical and physical attacks. While most raid damage is magical, limiting DRK’s utility with zero trade-off is simply unfair, given every other tank’s utility has universal use.

Living Shadow – remove the blood gauge cost. It’s already got a long cooldown and we’ve got enough other blood spenders with return of old Delirium.
It is currently unknown to us how does the damage of this skill work exactly, but it appears highly inconsistent, which is not good. If that is indeed the case, the shadow’s rotation should be adjusted to always perform the same order of actions with fixed potencies. The skill animations could remain random, but damage output and single target/AoE effects should be consistent with each use.

In closing, I ask people who agree with my conclusions and proposed solutions, to support the thread, so maybe we might be heard by SE. It’s a faint hope, but it’s better than sitting there doing nothing.
If you disagree with me and love the SHB rework... Well I have no right to tell you what to think or silence your voice, but please consider this: you could simply play WAR to very similar effect, likely with way more power, so maybe let us have something else? Some of us have given up WAR, so it seems like a fair trade to me.