DRK QOL changes for 5.4

[Lyth]

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I think MMOs don't really allow for much in the way of hit stop. FFXIV has a longer GCD than most in order to allow for elaborate animations, but weaving often tends to cut that short.

Even if Bloodspiller was animated with a punchy hit stop in the same vein as the aesthetically similar Braver (FF7 Remake version), the tail end of the animation would likely get clipped by Carve and Spit or Edge. It works on WAR because most of the action happens on the GCD, so there's time for that sort of wind-up.

I don't think there's a good alternative to button spam on burst windows. You could go the GNB route and assign six unique keybinds that only ever get used during burst, but if hotbar real estate is presumably at a premium, I'd rather see those go towards abilities that get used more frequently. I think the best compromise would be to have Blood abilities generate MP and vice versa, but that would just be a fancy way of doing the same thing. I personally wish that Delirium had gone the Bunshin route as I had originally suggested back in Stormblood, but I think that's unlikely.

[ADVSS]

First thing that'd need to happen is the expansion-tradition of redesigning Delirium.

LMAO you're not wrong

Bloodspiller, though? You swing your sword around and then slam it on the ground, actually lifting yourself up while you do it... Yet for some reason this doesn't really convey what should be a viscerally-satisfying animation. Maybe it's the random-ass "darkness beam" that pops up alongside it?

Either way, I'm just tired of "now you can spam X or Y skill at no cost!" design. It's boring to me. I think Lyth summarized it pretty well up there. Reason I loved HW's version of DRK is that it was an endless onslaught of bladework and dark magic, but it felt like there was variety to it? Idk. I'm sorry. I realize that I'm not explaining myself very well but yeah, I am... not very happy with the current iteration of DRK.

Edit: I also miss 3.0's version of Darkside. I LIKED having to maintain my MP up.

I actually get what you're saying. I havent been able to figure it out myself. The animation is rather quick but also can cut into you being able to spam it, sometimes. Its flashy and should be cool, but it feels exctremely unsatisfying. Of course...this is even more when you have someone on WAR do Fell cleaves next to you. and compare the numbers. Either way, its just not as satisfying. Sounds flat or like something that should be a SAM sound effect, and just..either too flashy or too long. I did think just making it Braver would be nicer, but spamming it 5 times would probably ruin that as well.

[OdinelStarrei]

Hello friends. I've gotten myself a fully augmented Haste set, and the more I play with it, the more I realize how much a higher GCD recast timer fixes a few QoL issues by merely existing. I think most of us will agree that the most infuriating thing about playing DRK right now (not designing DRK) is Blood Weapon. Yes, Delirium is pretty lazy, and slower mana economy etc etc. But those are arguably intended, if uninspired, portions of the kit. At a basic, everyday-usage level, Blood Weapon is a frustrating skill that frequently loses 5th hits with when forced to briefly disengage or at low amounts of skill speed, prioritizes the second weave position in a double weave even more heavily than delirium does, and of course needs max Blood for the quicker Bloodspillers/Quietuses to get all five hits in AoE situations. A sub 10 second duration will do that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0_QZ3ug3jo (That's my house in the background!)

Sure is a shame bundy unsubbed because I'd totally ask them to edit that video into the OP under BW changes, that's exactly why it's like this, minus client side application versus server side verification nonsense.

Having full haste drops my weaponskill recast down to 2.18, and the spell recast down to 2.25. This is very comfortable, because this gives more flexibility during your weaves. It's now possible to use both Delirium and Blood Weapon in the first weave slot and still get all five hits pretty easily, regardless of the GCD action. Haste also serves as a small direct DRK damage buff due to slightly increased resource gain. (1 extra GCD every 11 or so GCDs.) I don't think this is AS fast as we used to be, the APM certainly isn't there without chugging auto-ethers and solemn clarity like I posted before, but if you'll excuse the feelycraft, it does feel a bit better to actually play without having the massive disadvantages running SkS DRK does in relevant content. I think of all the tanks, the DRK playstyle benefits more from GCD speed increases via Haste than anyone else, even GNB with GF cooldown reductions. I realize this flies in the face of the commonly suggested Bunshin treatment, but more food for thought. Man, I really hope that one day I can stop complaining about this skill/job in general!

Darkside should give actual Haste over a damage buff, don't @ me. What I would give to get information on the future.

[ADVSS]

Having full haste drops my weaponskill recast down to 2.18, and the spell recast down to 2.25. This is very comfortable, because this gives more flexibility during your weaves. It's now possible to use both Delirium and Blood Weapon in the first weave slot and still get all five hits pretty easily, regardless of the GCD action. Haste also serves as a small direct DRK damage buff due to slightly increased resource gain. (1 extra GCD every 11 or so GCDs.) I don't think this is AS fast as we used to be, the APM certainly isn't there without chugging auto-ethers and solemn clarity like I posted before, but if you'll excuse the feelycraft, it does feel a bit better to actually play without having the massive disadvantages running SkS DRK does in relevant content. I think of all the tanks, the DRK playstyle benefits more from GCD speed increases via Haste than anyone else, even GNB with GF cooldown reductions. I realize this flies in the face of the commonly suggested Bunshin treatment, but more food for thought. Man, I really hope that one day I can stop complaining about this skill/job in general!

Darkside should give actual Haste over a damage buff, don't @ me. What I would give to get information on the future.

Is this with/without sks being used and does it even stack in bozja? I meld a ton of sks to get that extra hit in under delirium, and -sometimes- can activate a hit and nearly get to half animation then it just decides to not finish with the hit due to server tick issues or ping or something. The spell speed issue with the aoe clipping is just a personal nuisance of mine really, but i agree in DRK case having a general speed increase(or as was mentioned before maybe in another post about truncating sks/sps into the same skill would definitely fix that issue.

[Lyth]

There is always going to be a trade-off between a shorter GCD and double weaving. You can't determine this objectively because it will always depend on how close you live to the server. The only way to guarantee a five hit Blood Weapon/Delirium for everyone is to have them apply for five consecutive hits (i.e. Bunshin).

That being said, having DRK be the 'faster GCD' tank feels good.

[Agner]

I actually get what you're saying. I havent been able to figure it out myself. The animation is rather quick but also can cut into you being able to spam it, sometimes. Its flashy and should be cool, but it feels exctremely unsatisfying. Of course...this is even more when you have someone on WAR do Fell cleaves next to you. and compare the numbers. Either way, its just not as satisfying. Sounds flat or like something that should be a SAM sound effect, and just..either too flashy or too long. I did think just making it Braver would be nicer, but spamming it 5 times would probably ruin that as well.

My honest opinion for part of this is due to not only that, but Fell Cleave's damage hits with the animation, whereas Bloodspiller's damage (and part of the hitting sound effect) happens as the animation is still winding up, then the actual attack crashes down. I don't know if I'd call it a subtle difference, but it's definitely been a bothersome thing to me personally for some time—and I dunno the actual logistics on changing that sort of thing. I remember talking about this before but it was probably on discord and not forums.

I feel like we've gotten to a point where all of the skills look good in a vacuum, but watching them work in conjunction with each other it sometimes looks like a visually inconsistent mess. It just sort of feels like the character is flailing in the weirdest directions possible. There are fighting styles that could be described like that kind of loosely and would look cool, but it'd have to look more... intentional, I guess. My main point is that it just feels animated very randomly.

[ADVSS]

My honest opinion for part of this is due to not only that, but Fell Cleave's damage hits with the animation, whereas Bloodspiller's damage (and part of the hitting sound effect) happens as the animation is still winding up, then the actual attack crashes down. I don't know if I'd call it a subtle difference, but it's definitely been a bothersome thing to me personally for some time—and I dunno the actual logistics on changing that sort of thing. I remember talking about this before but it was probably on discord and not forums.

I feel like we've gotten to a point where all of the skills look good in a vacuum, but watching them work in conjunction with each other it sometimes looks like a visually inconsistent mess. It just sort of feels like the character is flailing in the weirdest directions possible. There are fighting styles that could be described like that kind of loosely and would look cool, but it'd have to look more... intentional, I guess. My main point is that it just feels animated very randomly.

THIS exactly this, the damage just pops out at contact with the button press, but then the animation lock appears, as noticed. Dunno why or what makes the difference with FC, but that is certainly one of them for sure. Recently hit 80 on PLD, and Atonement makes me just wonder about Blood Spiller entirely. 550 pot plus 400mp regain with 3 stacks/uses immediately after 1 full combo, vs 600 potency for 50 blood(3 consecutive soul eater combo's without BW) Know the general argument is to not compare the tanks to what they have/dont have but its kind of hard to ignore things that differ esp for tanks that both rely on MP for their damage. IDK I feel like that wouldve been nicer for those filler gaps than what we have atm after blowing all cd or something similar.

[Agner]

post

To me I feel like if we're to compare (much like you said, we won't get into "I want what [x] tank has!", but just for this sake) the burst spam abilities for DRK/WAR/PLD (BS, FC, HS), I'd rank them like WAR > DRK => PLD. Sound design does a lot for me and I just feel like Bloodspiller has always been a bit on the middling side of things in that regard. If you were to compare a move like BS to how our good ol' Power Slash sounded in terms of sound effect, I'd honestly put Power Slash over it, which is a bit of a problem to me. Sure, we didn't use it all that much, but achieving use of it was much faster than it ever was for BS.

I had made a joke about Bloodspiller being "dark arts plunge" back when the Stormblood job actions trailer was shown (and then they actually put in dark arts plunge, eventually... lol.), and I still say this somewhat jokingly, but maybe it would be beneficial to swap the animation to something with less buildup and more pure smackdown? Similar to plunge, except you obviously flip different/smack down much harder. Hey, if we want to go further and add uniqueness to it, maybe we could even have it act as a gap closer. Admittedly, that might be a little excessive with 2 plunge stacks in place, though. That said, Bloodspiller and Plunge do feel like two abilities in the DRK toolkit that weave together very well—like you've gone berserk and you're just completely slamming down on your opponent at this point with all of your might, weight, and magic.

Having said all of this, I still want Delirium completely out of the game, or as WhyAmIHere said, yet another expansion-tradition of redesigning the ability completely. Inner Release as it is, is fine on WAR to me, Requiescat is fine on PLD for working a little differently (MP requirement, finisher move is an entirely different blast of magic), but for DRK it's just excessively weird with no unique factor of its own past a measly 200 MP per hit. To reference another post (Lyth's), I'd prefer we have specific buttons for burst that don't just come down to copying GNB's continuation. I'm fine with Bloodspiller's existence as a gauge spender, but not in this way. If they want us to use it continuously, they should add something to it that makes us look forward to actually using it.

The other thing that irks me about Delirium is just the namesake. Back in HW as an int-reducing combo finisher it made a degree of sense, but in my field of study I think of it more like agitation/restlessness, hallucinations, slowed/heavier movement, that sort of thing. If anything, that sounds like a buff we should put up as a prerequisite for summoning Living Shadow and turning delusions into a reality through dark arts than it does "I'm gonna become an actual acrobat and pull off a million front flips", though maybe they took the "agitation" part a little too much into account.

/characterlimit

[Lyth]

You're always going to draw comparisons between similarly designed abilities, especially when one very clearly has something extra that the others don't, for no real reason except to be better. It's that 'Vengeance' design.

I've always wanted Delirium to work more along the lines of 'seeing double', with your hits producing some sort of multistrike effect (or possibly having some interaction with Living Shadow along these lines).

[ADVSS]

snip

Having said all of this, I still want Delirium completely out of the game, or as WhyAmIHere said, yet another expansion-tradition of redesigning the ability completely.

The other thing that irks me about Delirium is just the namesake. Back in HW as an int-reducing combo finisher it made a degree of sense, but in my field of study I think of it more like agitation/restlessness, hallucinations, slowed/heavier movement, that sort of thing. If anything, that sounds like a buff we should put up as a prerequisite for summoning Living Shadow and turning delusions into a reality through dark arts than it does "I'm gonna become an actual acrobat and pull off a million front flips", though maybe they took the "agitation" part a little too much into account.

/characterlimit

Can't agree more, I feel like delirium is just the cursed ability that gets changed entirely every expansion myself lol. And I agree I dont mind bloodspiller in small doses, but spamming it is increadibly terrible visually and audibly, wish there was a finisher for the burst at the least.
I agree delirium makes more sense as the ability that could summon fray while living shadow could be changed to be as enkindle, or a big nuke in that phase.

Edit: I dont mind blood weapon existing, but its hardly that great when comparing it to the speed increase it had. I keep thinking about atonement, how it sort of works, and i almost wonder if giving a stack of Dark Arts after a couple successful Soul Eater combo's, while decoupling it from the TBN pop would ruin DRK game play or not.Comparing the damage of Atonement to BS might be the simple way of looking at it, but to me it actually feels closer to a stack of DA - Free damage with mp gain, vs free damage proc that prevents massive mp use. Might be super unpopular, but it would let you use TBN more often without worrying about it getting popped. Problem I guess could be that MP management would be even easier.