Issue with TBN

[Interovegas]

The benefit of TBN is that it is strictly and immediately better than all other short cooldown mitigation. This is not a spell with a payoff, rather its a busted spell that reduces your damage if you use it improperly. The proponents of TBN in this thread are saying in one way or another that they (and myself included) would much rather have a busted spell that is more complicated to use than a straight forward spell that is easy to use with less payoff. They also argue that if a player is looking for straight forward, no drawback abilities they should play a different class (like say paladin whose invulnerability is only held back by a long cooldown).

[Cabalabob]

The benefit of TBN is that it is strictly and immediately better than all other short cooldown mitigation. This is not a spell with a payoff, rather its a busted spell that reduces your damage if you use it improperly. The proponents of TBN in this thread are saying in one way or another that they (and myself included) would much rather have a busted spell that is more complicated to use than a straight forward spell that is easy to use with less payoff. They also argue that if a player is looking for straight forward, no drawback abilities they should play a different class (like say paladin whose invulnerability is only held back by a long cooldown).

Yes, it’s better, and in the highest end of content where it’s obvious deficiencies are mercilessly beaten out of it it does fine. But what about the other 99% of content in the game? In dungeons I’ve had bosses use stack mechanics on me and I soloed them with TBN and it still didn’t break, it’s kind of ridiculous.

My point being it doesn’t scale down well. You can argue “if you’re not taking enough damage to break it then it doesn’t matter” but that’s bs. If the other tanks are using their mitigation tools to reduce damage and DRK’s is TOO strong to even use it, then how is it better anymore?

THAT is why I say it needs to be adjusted to be less penalising OR have a scaled back second CD that shares a recast more in line with the other tanks skills to use when you can’t use TBN.

[Interovegas]

Yes, it’s better, and in the highest end of content where it’s obvious deficiencies are mercilessly beaten out of it it does fine. But what about the other 99% of content in the game? In dungeons I’ve had bosses use stack mechanics on me and I soloed them with TBN and it still didn’t break, it’s kind of ridiculous.

My point being it doesn’t scale down well. You can argue “if you’re not taking enough damage to break it then it doesn’t matter” but that’s bs. If the other tanks are using their mitigation tools to reduce damage and DRK’s is TOO strong to even use it, then how is it better anymore?

THAT is why I say it needs to be adjusted to be less penalising OR have a scaled back second CD that shares a recast more in line with the other tanks skills to use when you can’t use TBN.

Your points are well reasoned, and certainly DRK suffers when syncing to low level content now. However, TBN is level 70+ and so the amount of content where you can use TBN and it's not relevant is not that great. (Because it absolutely still holds value for SB ex trials, raids and ultimate content if you seek to do those synced).

It's pretty awful for FATEs and the DRK is bad on the whole for FATEs with very little independent sustain.
It's only viable in dungeons when tanking wall to wall, but the nature of the mitigation is hard on healers when your hp is falling through the floor every 5 seconds.
Can't speak to PvP.

Particularly your comment about when TBN is too strong to use properly cuts at its worst design flaws. It feels terrible for your mitigation to be so strong that its impossible to use correctly. When I tackle solo de-sync content to pursue glamours I see myself die by 1000 cuts to bosses that the WAR and PLD can easily sustain through.

It comes down to my personal preference though that I'd rather have abilities that are very strong in top end content because the overall difference in performance when handling overworld mobs or low difficulty content that is between 70 and 80 just isn't that significant.

[TheRealQuah]

Yes, it’s better, and in the highest end of content where it’s obvious deficiencies are mercilessly beaten out of it it does fine. But what about the other 99% of content in the game? In dungeons I’ve had bosses use stack mechanics on me and I soloed them with TBN and it still didn’t break, it’s kind of ridiculous.

My point being it doesn’t scale down well. You can argue “if you’re not taking enough damage to break it then it doesn’t matter” but that’s bs. If the other tanks are using their mitigation tools to reduce damage and DRK’s is TOO strong to even use it, then how is it better anymore?

THAT is why I say it needs to be adjusted to be less penalising OR have a scaled back second CD that shares a recast more in line with the other tanks skills to use when you can’t use TBN.

Job balance should be done around the highest level of content. Why do you care if you lose DPS in a dungeon because it doesn't break. It's a dungeon. Skills shouldn't be balanced around casual content, it's not difficult to see why that would be a bad idea.

[Fynlar]

I am down with the idea of making Dark Arts a free crit/dcrit since people seem to think TBN's amazing mitigation (considering how short of a cooldown it's on) isn't enough of a reward as it is.

Just, please, don't repeatedly stand in 100k+ damage aoes just for the sake of activating TBN. I've had a couple DRKs like this, and they're only slightly less irritating than the BLMs that will never move out of their Ley Lines no matter what.

[ashwich]

I am down with the idea of making Dark Arts a free crit/dcrit since people seem to think TBN's amazing mitigation (considering how short of a cooldown it's on) isn't enough of a reward as it is.

Just, please, don't repeatedly stand in 100k+ damage aoes just for the sake of activating TBN. I've had a couple DRKs like this, and they're only slightly less irritating than the BLMs that will never move out of their Ley Lines no matter what.

you can't realistically expect people to not stand in aoe every chance they get to pop TBN, if it's made DPS positive. That's the reason you can't reward TBN with damage.

[TheRealQuah]

Look at it this way:

If you use nascent flash, heart of stone or sheltron you’re only benefiting from it.

If you use it “wrong” you may not get as much benefit out of it but worst case scenario you get no mitigation and the skill goes on cooldown (or you wasted gauge in sheltron’s case but gauge isn’t spent on anything better so it’s basically the same). If you use it right you mitigate a lot of damage.

With TBN if you use it “wrong” you don’t get as much benefit and you lose dps, if you use it right you mitigate a lot of damage.

See the problem? There’s no reward over the other tanks for using it right, but there’s extra penalisation for using it “wrong”. It’s a cooldown, using it “wrong” should be penalisation enough, it shouldn’t also punish you on top of that.

I understand wanting unique job mechanics, really I do, as a PLD i was very sad to see cover as our primary way to mitigate busters go with the expansion. But it’s not a unique job mechanic, it’s just extra punishing for no realistic benefit, there are better ways for TBN to be unique that actually make it more of a boon when used right, not just extra punishing when it’s not.

As an example, increase the cooldown to 25 seconds, but make it free of cost, remove the dark arts effect and add “if you break the shield it instantly resets the cooldown”. As a bonus.

Not this again. Learn when you need to use it. If you're incapable of that it's not the fault of the skill. Stop advocating for dumbing down classes to make it easier for poor players.

[shao32]

From my point of view the biggest problem of TBN is the 500p punishment, on SB was way better and fair since you only lose 140p, for one unique mechanic that DRK still have and make It overall worse.

[TheRealQuah]

From my point of view the biggest problem of TBN is the 500p punishment, on SB was way better and fair since you only lose 140p, for one unique mechanic that DRK still have and make It overall worse.

TBN only "punishes" you for poor play.

Every class has a mechanic which "punishes" you for poor play. Shall we remove all of them. The game has already gone too far in the way of catering to bad players. Please no more.

[shao32]

TBN only "punishes" you for poor play.

Every class has a mechanic which "punishes" you for poor play. Shall we remove all of them. The game has already gone too far in the way of catering to bad players. Please no more.

Can you please point where i say they should remove It? I just say 5% of extra shield at the increase of 360p to the punishment was pretty harsh and the old 20% 140p punishment was way better and acceptable.