Just a quick note, while I am using your quotes, I am not arguing against or at you. I am simply commenting on the topic you are addressing or using what you said as a springboard for my own thoughts.

Quote Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere View Post
1) DRK could do with a 4th GCD combo so it isn't 123 the entire fight.
I agree that DRK needs something to break up the 1-2-3 combo rotation more, but I disagree about the solution being adding another combo-ender weaponskill. I just don't see what another combo could bring that is meaningful that isn't something that another job already does with one of their combos. Debuffs were removed entirely, so that is a no-go. A buff like say moving Darkside upkeep to said combo just mimicks Storm's Eye on WAR. A DoT is just like PLD's other combo. Trying to rejigger resource gain by splitting it between different combos would likely really mess with the job in a bad way. So really what does that leave us with? Pretty much nothing asides from just trying to shoe-horn another combo-ender in just because.

Instead I think a potentially good direction that DRK could go in to break up the combo rotation monotony is to look at and take some inspiration for how GNB breaks up their standard combo rotation, by providing enough resources frequently so that basically every combo rotation is accompanied by a cartridge spender.
Now I'm not necessarily saying that DRK should get 50 Blood every combo rotation, although that could possibly work if done in tandem with other changes, but I believe that increasing the frequency of Bloodspiller usage would likely be more effective at breaking up the Soul Eater rotation and making the job feel "faster" than having another combo-ender weaponskill.

Quote Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere View Post
1)
2) RI is SiO fodder yes, and Nascent is good, sure. But TBN being the strongest single target shield means bupkis if you use it and it doesn't break. (had this argument before that it's uSeR eRrOr so many times, idc.)
Oh boy, I've got some thoughts on this topic.

TBN is a great skill and very powerful, but there are discernible caveats that make the argument that it is "hands down the best defensive in the game" questionable. I mean it can be argued as such, but there are counterpoints that too often get ignored. The main being of course the one that you mentioned which is that TBN needs to break or it is a heavy dps loss, which means that it should only be used when it is sure that it will break. This means that there are situations where you will avoid using it entirely where other tank's can still use their short recast defensive abilities for some defensive benefit and no potential drawback. As I have said before there are situations where it can save the tank more HP than the other tank equivalents, there are situations where it will save approximately the same amount and there are situations where it will save less even to the point of saving none since it can't be used.

I also find the argument that gets thrown out "well if you aren't taking enough to pop TBN then you didn't need it" asinine. Sure you may not have "needed" it but by that logic then neither would the other tanks have needed their short recast defensives that they can still use and benefit from. It's quite the double standard.
Then when you think of that argument and combine it with another argument that I see come up, "TBN is so powerful it can sometimes stop you from taking any damage so it is like a Hollowed Ground you can use frequently". For starters if you are using TBN in situations where it is negating all or around all damage, you are either having it not pop and taking a dps loss or you are dancing on a razor's edge and may have gotten lucky but that won't always be the case. That and if you are taking so little damage that TBN negates basically all of it, then according to the first argument I referenced, aren't you taking so little damage that you didn't need it anyways, therefore negating the second argument.
There is no doubt that TBN is a very powerful defensive ability and in harder content where it will break consistently most of or all of the time it's probably the best of the short recast defensives, if you ignore the incredible self-heal potential from NF which will likely be a bit worse in some instances and way better in others. However, some of the arguments leveled against it make no sense when actually scrutinized.

As for the statement they made about Raw Intuition being trash because of how powerful Nascent Flash is, that logic is incredibly flawed. Yes if you look at WAR and only WAR, then RI looks like a waste of an ability since the majority of the time NF will be more beneficial but that is only because of how powerful NF is. Then if you look at the other tank short recast defensives RI is pretty on par with the rest, which would point to NF being the outlier, meaning that RI isn't actually "trash" but that NF is just insanely good.
Honestly in regards to having a weak short recast defensive, GNB probably has the most room to complain, what with HoS's 15% damage reduction (5% less than RI) and 7s duration (only 1s more than RI).

Quote Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere View Post
3) You literally contradicted yourself here. DRK's damage IS baked into a 10s window, it's just not as good as IR. As well, BW is still awkward to time to get all 5 hits for the full 50 blood, whereas Infuriate is instant 50 gauge, so there's no chance of missing out and only getting 40 resource.
Yeah, I have no idea what they were talking about there either.
DRK's primary burst is 10s long on a 90s recast and is comprised of spamming their hard-hitting resource GCD attack 5 times, virtually exactly the same as WAR. In fact that is one of the most common complaints against Delirium.
Also, like you alluded to, Blood Weapon is very similar in terms of output to Infuriate in that it gives you enough resources for an extra Blood attack and an extra Edge/Flood, while Infuriate instantly gives you enough resources to then use on an upgraded version of your Beast attack. Essentially Blood Weapon is just a buggier (since that 5th attack doesn't always register in the window) version of Infuriate stretched out over 10s instead of being instant. It's also not like it really changes up what you do during those 10s, you are still doing the same rotation, you just get more resources from doing it.

Yes, Living Shadow is somewhat different since it is on a 120s recast, but it is a single button press every two minutes. I mean I like the ability and all, but it isn't some huge divergence in game-play that makes DRK vastly different than WAR. A little different, yes. A lot different, no.

Lastly, Edge does allow DRK to spread out their dps a bit more that WAR, that is true; but you better believe that any remotely competent DRK is trying to squeeze every Edge they can into those 10 seconds under Delirium.

So yeah, DRK most definitely follows the same general 90s cadence that WAR does.

Quote Originally Posted by WhyAmIHere View Post
SE: How do we fix LD, players?
1: ADD CONVA EFFECT
2: DONT MAKE IT AUTO KILL YOU
3: CHANGE % OF HEALING REQUIRED
4: CHANGE WHAT THE EFFECT DOES
While there is variance and a level of disagreement on how to address the problem with Living Dead, I believe that there is fairly unanimous consensus on the foundation of the problem, that a defensive ability shouldn't be able to actively kill you.

As for the suggestions referenced, 1 and 3 are effectively the same and basically just reduce the healing requirement. These suggestions however have a couple of problems with them that to me at least are a deal breaker.
First is that it still leaves in the death penalty which I feel is an unnecessary complication. You are already only reducing damage taken once you hit 1hp and you can still take damage during that time if healed. The healer not having your hp high enough when the ability wears off should be what kills you, not the ability itself and that shouldn't require ridiculous last minute burst healing equal to your entire hp pool.
Second is that reducing the required healing makes cleansing the death effect easier but that is not the only thing that gets cleansed, the invulnerability goes with it. That means that it is also easier for a healer to accidentally cleanse the DRK too early which at best means they get less out of the ability and at worse leads to the DRK's death.

As for 4, the only real different effect that I can recall seeing coming up is replacing death with a weakness state, and that also is not acceptable to me. Why should we accept some arbitrary negative attached to the ability when none of the other do? Are we all suffering from some sort of weird Stockholm syndrome-like affect where we feel like we have to punished by the ability?

To me 2 is really the only option that makes sense. Just simply get rid of the death penalty but keep the aspect of healing to a certain % of total hp dispelling the invuln effect. That way you get the benefit of a ease-of-use cushion at the beginning to hit 1hp, but then the healer has to be somewhat careful about their healing so that they don't accidentally cleanse it. A little wiggle room upfront and a little caution towards the end to balance it out. Best of all, the ability itself won't kill you.