DRK the least chunkiest or is it just me?

[Ekimmak]

It would be nice if DRK got an earlier level ability that's "TBN, but self-targeted and weaker" to help with early levels.
But apparently, early levels are meaningless because they aren't cutting edge, current raids.

[ArianeEwah]

It would be nice if DRK got an earlier level ability that's "TBN, but self-targeted and weaker" to help with early levels.
But apparently, early levels are meaningless because they aren't cutting edge, current raids.

And my question is why? There are enough tools to over mitigate dungeon trash and previous boss fights by a mile. You literately have Rampart, Shadowskin, Arm's Length, and reprisal at your disposal. If you're dying still with all of those it more than likely means one of the following.

A. You're not using cool downs correctly
B. You're not up to date on your gear.
C. Your healer is letting you die (A and B applies to them as well)
D. You're missing a game mechanic from one of the monsters.

Assuming your character some how doesn't have a built in weakness.

Their demand is justified. Well sure, DRK has 'enough' tools for mitigation, but it's not a 'balanced' amount of mitigation.

PLD has Sheltron very early now, even before HW content; WAR has Thrill of Battle as an allround heal(/buff), and gets Equilibrium, and Raw Intuition way before level 70; and our newcomer GNB has Heart of Stone, Heart of Light, and Camouflage on top right before 70.
DRK is the only tank before level 70 WITHOUT a short mitigation CD or even aoe raid wide ON 70!

And Dark Mind doesn't cut it. Magical only is useless when you face physical enemies. Every other tank has CDs for both kinds of damage.

This is frustrating and disheartening when you play DRK on lower levels and know you have LESS than any other job on your role.
It's destroying the (fun) experience of this job (and leveling is taking a great amount of experience of a job), and should be changed without destroying current end game balance.

[Seku]

Their demand is justified. Well sure, DRK has 'enough' tools for mitigation, but it's not a 'balanced' amount of mitigation.

PLD has Sheltron very early now, even before HW content; WAR has Thrill of Battle as an allround heal(/buff), and gets Equilibrium, and Raw Intuition way before level 70; and our newcomer GNB has Heart of Stone, Heart of Light, and Camouflage on top right before 70.
DRK is the only tank before level 70 WITHOUT a short mitigation CD or even aoe raid wide ON 70!

And Dark Mind doesn't cut it. Magical only is useless when you face physical enemies. Every other tank has CDs for both kinds of damage.

This is frustrating and disheartening when you play DRK on lower levels and know you have LESS than any other job on your role.
It's destroying the (fun) experience of this job (and leveling is taking a great amount of experience of a job), and should be changed without destroying current end game balance.

And? You just said it yourself Drk has enough mitigation. Which yet again goes back to my starting question why. If not having a single button to press every 2-3 minutes is making the job not fun for you, maybe it's you and not the job. DRK has way worse problems then it's cool down's at the moment, more so given FF14's meta. The only thing that you've said that makes any sense is that Dark Mind needs to get a re-work. Which has been known by the community for a long time.


So please, tell us why DRK should get another button to press every 2-4 minutes for no reason other than just to have it, instead of asking the devs to I don't know, re-work the class so that it's not boring and has a more interesting Kit over all that pushs DRK away from being a WAR clone and why they should re-work their abilities to fit into content that is old and most can be cleared by low man groups?

[DRKoftheAzure]

And? You just said it yourself Drk has enough mitigation. Which yet again goes back to my starting question why. If not having a single button to press every 2-3 minutes is making the job not fun for you, maybe it's you and not the job. DRK has way worse problems then it's cool down's at the moment, more so given FF14's meta. The only thing that you've said that makes any sense is that Dark Mind needs to get a re-work. Which has been known by the community for a long time.


So please, tell us why DRK should get another button to press every 2-4 minutes for no reason other than just to have it, instead of asking the devs to I don't know, re-work the class so that it's not boring and has a more interesting Kit over all that pushs DRK away from being a WAR clone and why they should re-work their abilities to fit into content that is old and most can be cleared by low man groups?

In terms of mitigation, DRK has no real mitigation outside of Shadow Wall, which you might as well make Sentinel a Role action, and most of the tank imbalances come from Role Action as whole, and it mostly affects Tank and Physical Ranged DPS roles and role actions tanks should only have are Provoke, Arm's Length, Ultimatum, and Shirk. But that's just me...


And as far as raid buffs are concerned, DRK and/or PLD will not bring RDM and/or MNK to the party because of Embolden/Brotherhood only affecting everyone else's Physical Damage dealt, especially since we don't if Living Shadow counts as physical damage or magical damage or both or if it's even factored in at all, which is why I believe Living Shadow should be tied to Darkside maintenance and have last as long as you have Darkside up(while reworking Brotherhood and Embolden affect all damage dealt instead of just one type of damage, maybe add haste effects as well to those skills). But, again, that's just me...

[BarretOblivion]

In terms of mitigation, DRK has no real mitigation outside of Shadow Wall, which you might as well make Sentinel a Role action, and most of the tank imbalances come from Role Action as whole, and it mostly affects Tank and Physical Ranged DPS roles and role actions tanks should only have are Provoke, Arm's Length, Ultimatum, and Shirk. But that's just me...


And as far as raid buffs are concerned, DRK and/or PLD will not bring RDM and/or MNK to the party because of Embolden/Brotherhood only affecting everyone else's Physical Damage dealt, especially since we don't if Living Shadow counts as physical damage or magical damage or both or if it's even factored in at all, which is why I believe Living Shadow should be tied to Darkside maintenance and have last as long as you have Darkside up(while reworking Brotherhood and Embolden affect all damage dealt instead of just one type of damage, maybe add haste effects as well to those skills). But, again, that's just me...

???
What is TBN not classified as a mitigation tool? Dark mind still has its uses in magical fights... which gee 2/4 of the fights in eden are all magical making DRK really good there. Plus... TEA is almost all magical, I would kill for an extra 20% mitgation for free every minute.

[ArianeEwah]

snip (pressing buttons?)

I don't know where you get that I demand buttons to smash?

I could spam Dark Mind vs everything... it would do literally nothing in most cases, but at least I have buttons to click?

I don't know if or how long you experienced Heavensward, but there DRK had the same amount or even more of mitigation than any other tank (excluding invuls).

WAR: Raw Intuition, Vengeance, Thrill of Battle, (Storm's Path [all])
PLD: Bulwark, Rampart, Sentinel, Sheltron, (Rage of Halone [STR/physical only])
DRK: Dark Mind, Dark Dance, Shadowskin, Shadow Wall, Reprisal, (Delirium [INT/magical only])
You also had Foresight, Bloodbath (MRD/WAR) and Awareness (GLA/PLD) as cross class actions.

Now back to the present, let's list what unique actions every tank get before lvl 70 (exluding 30% mitigations and invuls):

PLD: (Passive block since start) Sheltron [35], (Clemency [58])
WAR: Thrill of Battle [30], Raw Intuition [56], (Equilibrium [58]), Shake It Off [68]
GNB: Camouflage [6!], (Aurora [45!]), Heart of Light [64], Heart of Stone [68]
DRK: Dark Mind [45], (Abyssal Drain [56])

DRK lost Dark Dance as Anticipation, and Reprisal, PLD lost Bulwark, and WAR lost... nothing. GNB even gets its first unique mitigation action at level 6! And their hot/heal before 50, too! This is huge for dungeon runs, or level 50/60 content. Having a disadventage for 2 out of 4 expansions leaves a bad taste.

Additionally, they nerfed DRK in SB hard, (TBN was okayish) gauge generation was a mess (1 per physical hit during BW, 4 per tick in BP, some awkward number in Salted Earth yada yada), Dark Arts usage was awkward and overused, aoe damage before Abyssal Drain was abysmal low (lol at 50 pot on Unleash), and SE did not buff ShadowWall, DM or DP until late into expansion, while still ignoring that DRK was missing additional mitigation AND damage on lower levels. WAR and PLD got buffed since start, or shortly after the launch. DRK was undertuned/underperforming, even on SB endgame content.

Dark Mind needs to be avaiable sooner and get a physical mitigation bonus/trait, or SE needs to add another physical mitigation skill similar to Dark Dance.

tl;dr: It's not about having more buttons to press, but having abilities at your disposal. DRK is missing those when synced lower than level 70.

[Seku]

???.

I don't care about WAR, GUN, PLD and the amount of defensive cool downs they have in this argument. Your argument is that DRK should have more Defense cool downs below 70. You've yet to explain WHY they need it when they already have enough, by your own admission. If DRK has enough cool downs, why should they get more below 70.

And yes I agree, drk needs a better over all kit. But their defense is in check both at and below the level cap.

[Magnedeus]

I swear this is really poor job design. So drk is only good if they're tanking content lvl 70 and up because they have TBN. Anything below that and they are bad because they don't have it. On top of that there is no way to tell what attacks against you are physical or magical in order to use defensive cd's in certain fights. I honestly don't know what people see in this job.

[Nedkel]

I swear this is really poor job design. So drk is only good if they're tanking content lvl 70 and up because they have TBN. Anything below that and they are bad because they don't have it. On top of that there is no way to tell what attacks against you are physical or magical in order to use defensive cd's in certain fights. I honestly don't know what people see in this job.

Well its not like everyone play sub 70 lvl content all the time, and it was worse in SB because you had TBN at max level only, shadow wall had lower duration, there was no passive 20% tank buff and even more aoe damage drk had in sb on low lvls was 60 potency on one skill.
Drk now is a ton better at low lvl than he was before.

[shao32]

Well its not like everyone play sub 70 lvl content all the time, and it was worse in SB because you had TBN at max level only, shadow wall had lower duration, there was no passive 20% tank buff and even more aoe damage drk had in sb on low lvls was 60 potency on one skill.
Drk now is a ton better at low lvl than he was before.

That's not true, sub level 70 have way more sustain with Abyssal drain spam, have tank stance 20% damage mitigation so there was the same considering how nerfed the tank damage is now, higher MP economy, better dark mind when magic adds are present like sprites and dark passenger blind effect so it's not worse only bad ppl don't using his tools properly.

Now it's more simplified and DRK only have rampart, shadow wall, a nerfed dark mind and a buffed reprisal witch I consider it's worse compared to the level of self sustain/mitigation and passive options (blind) use to have witch has been overcompensated with even more dependency on TBN instead of design properly dark mind thanks to they obsession to keep it magical only.