What did your favorite job used to play like?

[OdinelStarrei]

I appreciate that the first post in this thread is about old DRK. Since there was already a small explanation of how it used to work up above, maybe I could give a more personal story about being a DRK main, rather than just saying "used to be good, is bad now."

In the beginning, I was actually a WAR main in HW, because my cotanks were usually always DRKs, even though I played both pretty evenly over the expansion. I loved WAR though. Back then, instead of having the Beast Gauge, we had Wrath and Abandon stacks (Defiance/Deliverance). It took five stacks to execute Inner Beast under Defiance for mitigation/healing or Fell Cleave for damage. Anyone who was around back then knew how OP WAR was, Fell Cleave became the job's identity for a reason, even if it probably wasn't the right move in hindsight. You got stacks by using combo enders, certain CDs, and I think Maim as well. Berserk was pure damage up with a pacification after it's expiration, so the strat was getting three Fell Cleaves under Berserk with a not so optional Fracture DoT on the 9th GCD. This was all well and good, and it pushed managing your stacks to make that possible each minute. WAR was flexible. In Stormblood launch, WAR got the Beast Gauge, functionally doubling the Wrath/Abandon cap from five to ten at 100 gauge (back to back cleaves were now possible without Infuriate) with Berserk still existing as a damage buff. All Inner Release did was half your gauge costs for all moves for 20 seconds, I think? So that 5 Fell Cleave stuff WAR has now was still there, but you had build up gauge first to ensure you went into it at 100 going into IR, FC down to 75, Upheavel and Onslaught down to 55, FC to 30, FC to 5, and then do some GCDs to regain enough gauge, FC to empty yourself out, and use your Infuriate for a free 50. We also still had back then Enhanced Infuriate, so the more you Fell Cleave'd, the more you could Infuriate.

I thought this was super interesting, because you'd have a "side" burst when Berserk was up, but IR wasn't. Every other Berserk was the IR 5 FC dream cleave time. Proper gauge management was the key, and once they removed the gauge cost on switching stances (don't know who thought that was a good idea), WAR was a really fun job to play. But because of design and the addition of Direct Hit, WAR's damage was highly variable, even among people with the exact same gear. Essentially, if you DH-Crit more Fell Cleaves, you just did better than other people who may have actually played better than you overall. This was a problem with WAR's damage profile, too much potency was loaded into those Fell Cleaves. So, even though 4.1 WAR (my favorite version of the job with old IR, but current Shake It Off), was balanced, it was changed in 4.2 to be it's current DCH, free five FC version with Berserk removed.

This is where the problems started. I loaded into the game that patch day, and was glad WAR's damage was now normalized, but the management between bursts I was looking for was pretty much gone. So, I put down my axe. I still played WAR occasionally, but I fundamentally disagreed with IR, I was not a fan of how easy it was to execute and five GCDs of pressing the same button was a bit boring after awhile. It wasn't exciting like how getting the random crits were before, even if it was for the best. My static had long disbanded by that point, so I was free to play other jobs, and by other jobs, I mean DRK. As Rei posted early on, DRK was the mana engine. It was fast, it's skills were unorthodox in comparison to literally every job in the game. Before my static imploded in Deltascape, I went double DRK with the other tank in some normal Deltascape raids for a bit of friendly competition. TBN gives 50 guage on break with a shield THAT big? Isn't that a huge RDPS gain for the healers? I started thinking, "What if I could max my usages of TBNs, not just for the healers, but to make sure I was getting as many Bloodspillers on the boss as possible? End phases on them? Burst single target under raid buffs if I could get the break in time? It'll keep my mana from overcapping as well, just trading it for blood. There's potential here." My co-tank had never thought of that when I asked him. (casual static) That was the beginning of the journey.

So I practiced. First on dummies, immediately realizing just how fast I was pressing buttons, over twice the actions per minute I was on WAR. No matter where I was in my rotation, there was some kind of non-standard oGCD timer I needed to press, Blood Weapon, Delirium, Sole Survivor, Dark Passenger if I was overcapping too quickly to dump with Dark Arts. I was very interested, because I had always intended on playing DRK as my main job, but this was the first time I was actually able to in real content post-HW. Instead of high damage burst like WAR, I had to be consistent. I had to BECOME speed, and my only speed limit was 0 MP. After practice, I would load into dungeons and be literally invincible due to the Abyssal Drain > BW Quiteus > TBN > Abyssal Drain loop, DRKs were rare, and healers were absolutely shocked, how incredible they told me, seeing my HP yoyo from half to full over and over and over again, without any intervention on their part. Good DRK's were rare, and I was starting to become one. It was euphoric, honestly. By this point, I was full edge. Sigmascape drops, and DRK gets more changes, TBN gets longer duration to break easier, think this is when Dark Mind just innately gave 30% magic up without needing Dark Arts, other things. SE was actually touching the job, like how they were touching PLD and reworking WAR, so I was confident each patch potentially bringing something exciting to incite more players to the job. But in O6S, there was a moment that solidified me not as a DRK main, but as a DRK fanatic. PUG, weekly reclears. Cotank joins on WAR and asks me to switch off, nicely. I comply, O6S is primarily magic anyway, and I was looking for more DRK experience in Savage anyway. Few minutes pass, I Living Dead the stack marker per the standard strats at the time, and we're at that point in the fight where the boss goes to the NE side of the arena and places that MASSIVE tankbuster prey (Last Kiss) on a DPS you need to pass to the OT. However, the WAR isn't there. He's dead. And there's only me, taking double autos after a Demonic Shear tankbuster with another one coming in about twenty seconds. In total, I'm looking at multiple instances of high single target and raid wide damage with no Shadow Wall and no Living Dead.

There's only one option to save the DPS. I go into the marker position to take the prey. The DPS hesitates, I know he was thinking, "This guy is going to die, he can't take all this damage!" But he passes it to me anyway. Sole Survivor procs right after one of the AoE raid wides for some desperately needed health, I throw on Grit and Blood Price, Rampart, Dark Mind, Awareness and just start TBNing everything. AoE casts, I'm fine, TBN'd. The WAR is up at this point to take one set of auto attacks, but it's too late, I already have the prey. Prey explodes with another AoE on top, I'm fine, TBN'd again, Dark Mind coming in hot. Here comes that last tankbuster. Reprisal it! TBN'd I'm fine. This whole time my blood gauge is going wild, I'm just Bloodspilling nonstop from the constant +50 from TBN breaks, I have to BS under Dark Arts to avoid losing too much potency, good thing Syphon Strike gave increased MP under Grit or that would've never been possible. I came out of that fight shaking, people said "jesus christ how did you not die from all that damage when the WAR died."

At this point, I had fallen in love. No other tank would've survived that much burst damage without heavy healing support, but while I was internally freaking out, my character was just "meh, all good, i got it, nothing personal kid." I don't think I even dropped to a 1/3 of my HP. That level of defense, that ability to adapt and for my whole mentality to switch on a dime to pure survival from pure speed, I know I'm romanticizing it, but it was intoxicating, I could not get enough of DRK from that day onward and so I continued to push myself further.

Fast forward to Alphascape, and I've become peak DRK. Coming into the raid tier late after a hiatus, I have many fond memories of planning mitigation maps with my WAR cotank to assure we were maximizing TBN's shielding to reduce tank stance usage, being the 100% go to answer for any magic damage in the tier, getting super into GCD-manipulation with Bloodspiller and planning mana around my NIN's trick attack windows, getting as many DA boosted GCDs inside of it as possible. Researching vods of other DRKs who played a bit differently to get more perspectives. But the person who I really respected was my AST. My AST knew I loved DRK, and unlike the rest of my team, I loved going FAST. That's right, Sanic builds used to exist, I'm talking 2.32 GCD recast WITHOUT Blood Weapon. I came out of Eureka Hydatos with a +400 Skill Speed Relic, I was obsessed with fast. So during Omega M/F prog, the stars aligned, and he gave me an Empowered Arrow under Blood Weapon. I was on fire. My GCD hit the game SkS cap of 1.96 recast. I was pressing buttons so fast, gaining mana so fast, I couldn't even double weave without clipping anymore. MNK GL4 level speed, while I had to move the boss and do tank stuff/ mechanics, and manage my mana, oh man I made mistakes, I clipped for sure, but it was delightful.

DRK's community was a little small and often meme'd on, but it was passionate about the job, passionate about talking about it, spreading the word, making people look at it and say "This isn't for everyone, it's hard to control at first, but if you fall in a specific niche of player, you'll love it, just try it, the skill ceiling is SO high!" And that niche was me in every single facet of the word. I made a lot of DRK friends, anyone remember "DA TBN" and how just saying that would immediately start an argument?

Of course, when we got the first ShB trailer with DRK as the focus job, my brain practically exploded. "THIS IS IT! THE YEAR OF THE DARK KNIGHTS! IT'S HAPPENING!" I was in Vegas at the time, not at Fanfest, but I felt it all the same. We had a whole wave of new people come into the job after seeing that, and we were so glad to teach more players how to play the fastest job in FFXIV. I took a lot of "apprentices", for lack of a better word, people who wanted to see what we saw in DRK, people came to me as someone who really understood it, they wanted to learn. And I got more friends as a result. Months later, Media Tour comes out, YOU CAN SUMMON FRAY, I LITERALLY DREAMED ABOUT THIS, YES YES YES YES YES YES.

But it wouldn't last.

The only reason I have a forum account now was to protest the changes to DRK in ShB when the Media Tour came out. I wrote a lot of posts, detailing the destruction of the MP economy, the removal of being fast, and the worst thing, the Delirium and BW changes. Those topics are deleted now, but I still have writings stored somewhere of those pre-ShB initial thoughts. I had already designed a theoretical opener, and my worst fears were confirmed. WAR's and DRK's GCD rotation and burst timings were practically identical. 4.2 Inner Release had come back, but this time, but as a worse version, removing a skill I really liked, devaluing Bloodspiller as a counter attack gauge dump device, and as a result, making me Dark Warrior. My journey as a tank main had come full circle. I tried to escape Inner Release after it ruined WAR for me, only for it to ruin DRK for me an expansion later. I know how crazy this sounds, but it felt like SE directly said to me, "Stop having fun with this job, we're making it WAR, we know you don't like 4.2 WAR, we don't care, and there's nothing you can do about it. "

People ON THE FORUMS said I was insane at the time for being so reactionary, "just wait and try it" but I knew SE wouldn't change the fundamental overhaul if they had already designed a new job UI and mana "economy" for these changes. FFS, we HAD an ENTIRE section on GNB and how it was different but appealing to a higher skill set of players, other jobs got IN-DEPTH explanations on how the ShB expansion was going to change them, and what did DRK get from the developer team? "Summon your inner darkness!" and that's the last thing we've heard about DRK since. Pre-release ShB about a 2 minute cooldown that does nothing but damage and has no job interactivity. BW bugged and only has 9.66 duration instead of the 11 like new Delirium? Nothing for a year now. No design docs, no acknowledgement from devs about the concerns pre or post release.

So when I loaded up ShB the first day, and I tested my "theoretical totally not final" rotation on a dummy, I knew the dream was dying. Then I swapped to my WAR, did pretty much the exact same button presses, for the same result. Then I knew the dream was dead. So I removed all those greyed out actions off my hotbar on DRK, except for Dark Arts. I placed Dark Arts in a spot on my hotbar I didn't use, because I wanted a reminder that I loved this job at some point in time.

A year later, and I still have that greyed out Dark Arts action sitting there, reminding me of better times. I've tried every job in this game for hours on dummies and in Extremes. Nothing speaks to me the same way. DRK community is fractured, between people who swapped to GNB out of disgust, to people who constantly lament how DRK has devolved in comparison to it's former versions, to newer players who don't really understand why DRK mains are constantly miserable all the time. And that's the people who stayed. Everyone who I personally knew really did become GNB mains or they quit the game entirely. I'm the only DRK left out of my friend group and my FC who hasn't thrown the job stone in the damn trash can. Because I can't give up on it. I've tried to leave, and I can't.

I'm so miserable playing new DRK, it's so boring, it's so slow, but it's effective, and I'm the de facto DRK main, so that's what I do. DRK numbers have never been higher, but I doubt you'll find anyone at a high level say they LOVE the job like how we used to love it back in HW/SB. Every time I press Blood Weapon and the fifth hit fails, ruining what little mana management there is, I get angry because it didn't used to be like that. Every time I burst all my mana in opener, and then do absolutely nothing for 40+ seconds because mana regen is so slow, I get frustrated and bored. And every time I get a WAR co-tank, and our IR burst at 90 seconds looks exactly the same, EXACTLY THE SAME, I just feel empty. I wish I could fill the void with something like Ultimate, but I don't have the time or the confidence.

These constant negative feelings from myself, and other DRK players have made me go from loving XIV, to practically hating it, because the method of which I experience the game's combat mechanics are inherently uninteresting on my favorite job in the franchise. I see no real reason to improve myself as a DRK. Everyone plays the same, which plays the same as WAR. It all relies on crits and just NOT pressing buttons outside of burst, ironically placing us in the same issues as 4.1 WAR with the rotation of 4.2 WAR. The entire job is TBN. Much like how WAR is only Fell Cleave. TBN being so good carries the job to the detriment of the entire job's design.

And chances are, nothing will change this expansion. I can't even hope 6.0 changes things AGAIN. No tanks or healers have gotten any sweeping changes, and tanks in particular have not received a single adjustment in this entire expansion outside the SiO buff and the +5 seconds on the 30% CD. I hope for change, only to be disappointed again and again with silence, not just for me, but for healers and ranged and other tanks. Why does NIN get a rework and SAM a new job element but I can't get Blood Weapon fixed with a 1 second extension? Why won't they say anything? Why did they kill what I liked? Why? It'll be one year since ShB's release this month. And I have to deal with this shadow of another job for another year, at least. I don't want to.

World First UCoB DRK, at the time when the job was at it's worst in SB, when asked, "why did you play DRK, was it for the magic resistance or some other speciifc reason, why over another tank?"
"Because it was fun."

And if you were someone who said "HAHAHAHA DARK ARTS THE DARK ARTS SO FUNNY" and didn't even attempt to play the job
I hate you.

I should've been a PLD main. I wish I never played DRK at all.

[ReiMakoto]

snip

I feel this hard we have almost the same story, after hw I was salty about the drk changes so I moved onto WAR and really enjoyed it until 4.2 when the IR change happened, so I U-Turned back to drk which at this point had seen adjustment + I had a cooler head so I actually saw the fun in the new design and as you said got into gcd manipulation going into alphascape for some big returns. Then 5.0 BAM WE HEAR YOU LIKE IR SO IMMA PUT IT ON DRK.

I feel you on the feeling lost with classes thing too, every one of my favourite jobs playstyle has been patched out the game at this point, and I can just about enjoy GNB for tanking, but I can't get along with anything else anymore quite as much as I used to. Its weird to say, but theres not really any jank anymore in class designs, not like bad jank like monk anatman jank, but sorta janky playstlyes like guass barrel mch and dark arts drk or tornado kick rotation where its jank in the way that its different and takes some getting used to cos it doesnt behave like anything else and is a bit counter intuitive. But I suppose this is just the direction the games going in at this point. I kinda hope they stop removing different playstyles from the game going forward somehow, almost like different "specs" for the job, but the balance team is pushed enough as it is I guess.