Thread: DRK QOL changes for 5.4

Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

Well, we tried. But based on the responses from other UI questions, especially that one about magic/physical attacks being more recognizable, I highly doubt anything would've come from it. Shame too, would've meant a lot for DRK to get mentioned at all, but we're just gonna have to wait until 5.4 proper, since the second live letter will be more focused on the 2nd part of Bozja, Firmament, and other things that don't include job changes anymore.

Even if we don't get any changes, keep your eyes on the MNK rework. This falls a little bit out of scope of the thread, and it's coming from someone with only adequate experience of the job, but I have concerns about the statement of "GL was too hard to upkeep." This doesn't SEEM right to me, because the problem with MNK isn't that GL was too hard, mainly because of FS changes and SSS, it was that a few of the skills in MNKs kit were entirely situational and didn't integrate well into it's core rotation, on top of Anatman openers existing at all, that nonsense is absurd. If someone has more experience in this department, feel free to correct me here.

Darkside upkeep and not blowing all your mana on DA spam wasn't hard either, but both of those things got similar treatment, with similar wording. To me personally, it's starting to become really apparent that SE doesn't actually solve problems with "contentious" job design lately. It's more like they remove the problem instead of actually fixing it. This proceeds to leave gaping holes, because they don't adequately fill the design space with anything as a reasonable substitute. They've been trying to remove Energy Drain on SCH for like two expansions now, but then they never put in an Aetherflow dump, so they have to put it right back in!

First of All, you are very right about this statement, and I too probably apply as someone with a monk/ex monk friend or two with limited knowledge past 60 of the job, but am under the understanding that yes, that is what they are also doing to monk(making GL a natural job trait, and not something that works the way it was designed to. But monk was sort of in a different situation, it seems to me. We were just conversing tonight about some things, and he pointed out that all the new skills monk got past probably 60 were to "alleviate" the GL issue, but in dumb weird ways. MNK may actually have been in a more severe situation, then the people who just didnt want to turn DS off in between pulls. Lets face it, thats literally what it seemed like to me, and i consider myself a mediocre level skilled player, and had no issues with the way DS was in HW up besides the occaisional aspiring AST ressing you and expecting you to grab packs of adds off them immediately. Alot of mnks skills seem to be focused on really dumb ways to hold onto GL, like i believe one of them is so dumb they have to just g pose or the flashfreeze wears off if they so much as take a step. Really dumb stuff, it seems. I have just seen enough of these expansions now to almost believe that its a joke if your main job is picked as the poster job for an expansion. When that happens(WAR at ARR laumch, DRG beginning of HW, MNK in SB, and DRK in ShB.) you had best put down the job, and find a new one to play.

Originally Posted by cactuarzzzz

Living Shadow is 2100 DOT for 50 blood gauge every 144s. Unaffected by Darksides but can still cri and benefit from some raid buff if anyone can manage to fit it in the buff window.

It sure is, Cactuar, it sure is

Originally Posted by cactuarzzzz

It isn't that they don't have time or manpower. Yoshida is hell-bent on trying to make WAR a DRK, a life drain tank in disguise.

Everybody have 24 hours a day to spend equally but what did Yoshida and Job Dev team prefer to spend it with rather than fixing GNB sound effect and DRK's horrible design?

Look no further than 5.35 update :

Well I was actually surprised DRK made it in 3.0 because i felt like 2.0 WAR was literally the closest they would come to a DRK and that idea was gone. You make a good point, guess they still are trying to make WAR the health steal tank, at least in pvp.

Originally Posted by Lyth

I don't get the sense that the dev team actually understands how any of the jobs work as a cohesive whole beyond their initial release. The worst examples of this occurs during expansions, where they nearly randomly rip out essential abilities to make room for new ones. Fingers crossed that it all works out. They really need to hire a team large enough to take on management of all the jobs that they keep adding.

Speaking of speed boosts, removing the speed effect from Blood Weapon was a really bad idea. It really changes the feel of the job. They should have kept it on as a Darkside effect instead.

Speaking of speed boosts, I wonder how many DRK knew that DRK and WAR play style swapping didn't just only happen recently in this patch? it has already been done by Yoshida since Heavensward era.

Counter mechanic is warrior/berserker's play style while Life steal belong to DRK.


https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Retaliation

Originally Posted by cactuarzzzz

Speaking of speed boosts. I wonder how many DRK notice that DRK and WAR play style swapping didn't just only happen recently in this patch? It has been done by Yoshida since Heavensward era.
Counter mechanic is warrior/berserker's play style while Life steal belong to DRK.
https://i.imgur.com/aLUsVNU.jpg

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Retaliation

There is also the ability that grant berserk called Assault used by the Warrior in X-2.
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Mad_Rush

I can tell you exactly what went wrong in HW new jobs designs, and this also applies to Astrologian at the time. Not so sure about machinist actually that job was an absolute mess as well. But with the tank and healer in particular, they felt that that the previous 2 worked so well together, that the new tank/healer should just be able to half/and half. This is why you got AST with scholar stance, or whm stance, and DRK being kind of like a PLD, but sort of not really like warrior, but somewhere in between the two they hoped. Yhey werent designed with the actual jobs in mind, besides the AF gear. They were designed to be fill ins, cause the previous set up worked so well. You cant make a franken job work so much. They had to buff AST to the moon because of this philosophy, and DRK well...they had to give everything it did unique, to the other tanks which really isnt saying much besides having a int debuff on enemies, and a gap closer for all, was sort of its only identity besides boosting some abilities with MP to barely be in the middle DPS wise, but sometimes they could get up there.

HW is when the chain of event that leading to this community split began. Some DRK firmly believed that counter/haste is DRK's true identity while some WAR believe that life drain is their birthright.

Thing would have turned out differently if WAR was given the ability akin to TBN/barrier in HW instead of life drain and DRK never have to grew attached to counter/haste play style.

There's a better way to fix LD without having to give DRK another life drain utility like NF or burn another cooldown just to cleanse the debuff.

Living Dead renamed to Living Shadow
Living Shadow = When HP is reduced to 1 while under the effect of Living Shadow, any further incoming damage will be converted to restore HP. [If HP reach 1 when LS's remain duration is 5 secs left you will get healed by incoming damage for only 5 secs of the remaining duration no more no less]
Visual Effect on DRK: When HP is reduced to 1, DRK's whole body will became silhouette that resemble the "Esteem"
Duration: 10s
Recast Time increase from 300s to 400s. Better to have a longer recast time ability but truely useful than to leave it as a burden as it is.

*Difference of DRK and NIN's Concepts.*
Ninja = Unleash a Shadow Clones.
DRK=Become one with Darkness/Shadow/draw the power from it.
Ninja may conjure a squad of their clones that obey their order to do their biding or create an illusion but DRK's darkness within is the entity that have a will of it's own. It can be subdued but will never be tamed and will never take order from anyone. You just can't summon them out and told them to kill enemy for you like a lackey. However, came out in the moment of crisis to prevent the host from death when he/she is on the verge of dying is another matter.


There's also another way to fix BW other than to make it bushin style.

Blood Weapon
Effect change from self buff and landing 5 gcd to instantly drain 3000mp [and 50 blood gauge with trait ability upgrade] from target. Still use the same animation just add the "drain" vfx&sfx like how soul eater syphon hp from target.
No more 2 processes, No more 60s + successfuly landing 5 gcd that require another *12s* [12s is equal to 1/5 or 20% of 60s].
Problem with successfully landing 5 gcd is if target became untargetable/immune, move away from DRK or DRK were forced to move away and miss just 1 gcd then you will lose some of that mp. No other tank have been tasked with both waiting for recast time and landing 5 gcd just to get the resource. And no tank should have to. It is a bad design.
Recast : 60s

And there's also another way to rebalance DRK mitigation.

Dark Mind
Effect changed from reduce magic damage recieve to reduce both magic and melee damage recieve by 20% like Rampart.
Upgraded to The Blackest Night when complete DRK LV 70 Job Quest "Our Compromise"
There's no need to make Dark Mind+TBN+Shadow Wall/Rampart possible. It is too OP for magic damage tank buster.

The Blackest Night
Barier reduced from 25% to 20% of max hp
Barrier break easier is not problem but when it DIDN'T BREAK IT IS A PROBLEM BECAUSE IT DOESN'T GIVE BACK MP AS DARK ART AND THAT RESULTED IN DPS LOSS. There's also already a problem with random parry rate that make the barrier harder to break

other job actions:


Abyssal Drain
Effect changed from restore hp with 200 cure potency for every targets hit by Abyssal Drain
to
Restore hp with 1200 cure potency on the fist target hit by Abyssal Drain.
Effect does not stack when hitting multiple targets with a single attack
[Heal more on single target but the maximum healing potency is limited to 1200. what we have now is the AD that give healing potency up to 2000 potency when hit 10 targets but only 200 healing potency if there's only a single target.]
Maximum range increased from 15y to 25y
Recast time remain the same.



Delirium

Allow the excution of Carve and Spit and Quietus without cost, restoring 3000 MP when landing either weaponskill.
Duration reduced to 6s from 10s

*Why Carve and Spit animation is better and should be a gcd that replace Bloodspiller: *

The weaving form CnS and Edge created X sharp slash at the end.


Bloodspiller Acquired at level 80 instead of Living Shadow
*Remove the initial warm-up/sword lift animation like this*

I

and make it faster like this instead

Type : Ability
Cost : 50 blood gauge
Delivers a critical direct hit to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 1100 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
Range : 3y
Radius : 5y
Recast : 120s
[What we have now is = Living Shadow total potency is 2100 unaffected by Darksides and the recast time is 120s. Esteem attack potency : 300, deliver attacks 7 time before disappeared, 3 of those attacks are aoe and all of attacks could cri and can also gain the benefit from raid buff]

Carve and Spit acquired at LV.62 instead of Bloodspiller.
Cave and Split
Potency : 500
Type : Weaponskill.
Cost 50 blood gauge.

Scourge acquired at LV.60 instead of Carve and split.
Scourge
Type : Ability
Potency : 200
Additional Effect : Restore [600] MP
Additional Effect : Damage Overtime
Potency : 60
Duration : 15s.
Recast Time : 60s

Salted Earth
Creates a patch of salted earth, apply "Cursed" status to any enemy who enter. [enemies only need to touch area of effect once and it'll stick to them until the duration expire like when a player hit by a poison pool aoe created by Dragon Boss in Brayflox's Longstop]
Cursed effect : Damage Overtime
Potency : 60
Duration : 15s *Duration can not be refresh or extend*
Recast Time : Reduced to 60s from 90s

If anyone did really completed the job quest : it all hinted to "Drain/summon/conjure" ability than a barrier. All the kid said was to remember him in the time of need after he's done with the "Drain/Siphon" experiment and the attempt to kill us.

If Thrill work like sole survivor it would have more synergy with berserk/IR.

[Marks target with the status Another Victim. If that target should be KO'd in battle, 30% of your maximum HP and 50 Beast Gauge will be restored. If the effect expires first, 20% of your maximum HP will be restored instead.

Additional Effect: Increases HP recovery via healing actions on self by 20%]

Duration: 10s


Equilibrium could be a real Equilibrium like it's name imply and "Creates a barrier which nullifies damage equaling damage dealt"

Nascent Flash could be a self burst heal like Equilibrium and swap place with each other instead.