DRK adjustments idea

[RinaB]

I know the DRK class rework discussion has been done to death and a lot of people have gone to great lengths to rebuild the entire job. i think the devs have done their big rework with 5.0 and will most likely only make small adjustments to the current iteration of DRK. Since that's the most probable course of action I really wouldn't mind seeing some potency buffs across the board to make DRK more competitive dps wise (especially salted earth) but I think it wouldn't be too much to ask to have abysal drain combo off of stalwart soul for a proper aoe combo.

[RinaB]

I cant edit my post so I wanted to clarify that obviously they would need to lower the cure potency on abysal drain if it were to combo off of stalwart soul or they could leave it as is and add something new.

[OdinelStarrei]

Small adjustments is being optimistic at this point.

Anyway, this is probably not fine for a few reasons.

DRK's damage is fine. It's more than fine actually, all the tank damage is so close to each other it comes down to a per encounter and personal comfort level on which tank to take. DRK in particular, with proper raid buff utilization with Edge of Shadow, can put out very respectable ADPS numbers, and adjustments to any of the core skills or even the MP regeneration rate can have some pretty wide reaching consequences. Even boosting Salted Earth by a flat 10 potency is in actuality a 60 total potency buff per enemy. Regardless, you're never going to hit enrage because you brought a DRK. Offset that very minor DPS discrepancy in the tank role by optimizing Edge, and TBNing for your healers to throw out more of their 1 button nuke skills, the raid DPS will increase either way.

On the other side of the coin though, if you did make Abyssal Drain into a GCD action, you've actually nerfed DRK. Stalwart Soul is incredibly powerful, not because of it's potency, but because it generates 600 MP and 20 Blood in 2 GCDs with a potency gain at two targets vs Souleater combo's 3 GCDs. This is why Stalwart Soul's actual potency is low in comparison to other tank AoE combos. While other tanks only have one AoE dump option that will consume resources, DRK has two via Flood and Bloodspiller at 2, Quietus at 3+, meaning the actual burst damage is quite high. This is without talking about Quietus under Delirium giving more mana than usual, Living Shadow AoE scaling, etc etc. Even outside of offensive based skills, combining this with the passive MP regen, you can TBN, do three Unleash Combos, and have generated enough MP to TBN again on cooldown, which I think is more advantageous than healing outright due to TBN's power right now. We don't have any real multi-target fights in the tier, but this AoE kit advantage was huge in content that does have multiple targets.

When you add a 3rd GCD, all you've really done is add unneeded self-healing, for the most part, and delayed the MP and Blood acquisition. While I do miss Abyssal Drain being a dedicated GCD, making it into a combo action without considering the benefits Stalwart Soul's quick 1-2 regeneration gives us won't make DRK better offensively or defensively. Maybe instead we can lean into oGCDs like Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit having multiple charges like on MCH.

[Kabooa]

When you add a 3rd GCD, all you've really done is add unneeded self-healing, for the most part, and delayed the MP and Blood acquisition. While I do miss Abyssal Drain being a dedicated GCD, making it into a combo action without considering the benefits Stalwart Soul's quick 1-2 regeneration gives us won't make DRK better offensively or defensively. Maybe instead we can lean into oGCDs like Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit having multiple charges like on MCH.

I'd be more in favor of using it as an example template of a different type of Charged action.

It'd still be an Ability, however it'd be an MP ability that's always available. It'd gain a charge that reduces the MP cost to 0 every 60 seconds though. Effectively the same, though the 'always available' version of it might need to be reduced.

[Tranquilmelody7]

I feel most DRKs are at least hoping for a rework of Living Dead with the next expansion.

It still feels really bad to have the entire class reworked yet have the worst tank CD in the game not receive any adjustments.

Personally, I think DRK is quite strong in terms of performance while gameplay design needs a bit of work(Primarily Delirium).

[shao32]

I won't call what the dev team did to 5.0 a rework when basicaly has consisted on remove every unique element of his gameplay and sustituted with a WAR element, all being said that don't stop them to give a 180º like they did with BRD in HW-SB so no lose hope. All being said DRK doesn't need a dps buff like other said, the job is competitive number wise and in my opinion Abyssal drain always worked way better as a independent skill that act as a MP dump and i belive it should be like that again, the current desing it's boring and uninteresting and dodn't make it justice considering how fun was the skill before.

The most probable course of action the devs should do is removing or reworking Delirium, the skill has never get so much hate before and no matter where you look everyone literally have a problem with the current desing, even the JP forums has create dedicated threat to change it, so yeah at least Delirium and the whole blackblood system should get a rework from the feet to the head next expansion since it's the biggest behavior on DRK gameplay, and i hope they change other aspects of the job at the same time like increasing the MP generation and make Darkside and Living shadow being more involved mechanics to fix the absurd downtimes the job have.

[RinaB]

You lot have made really good points. I main DRK and think its fine, I felt SB was a complete mess but I was just thinking of minor changes to improve the class outside of the whole "bring back DA spam!!" argument. I dont think the devs will be paying too much attention to us DRK mains and I agree with living dead being basically useless and in need of changes. So if you sat down at SE and were told to make adjustments to DRK what would you do? I think big pull aoe DRK is currently pretty good and more fun then other tanks but single target is where it gets boring. I dont think DA spam is the answer, perhaps lowering the blood cost of current abilities and adding a new one or making a blood gauge combo?

[Bhearil]

Basically we are playing "Dark Warrior" with both Warrior's good points and flaws (aka yawning in boredom pressing 1-2-3 and refreshing damage buff until you have your burst window ready again)

The issue stems that SE though that WAR gameplay was what tanks should aspire to and pidgeon holed all tanks on that gameplay style like it or not ( DRK is the most blatant clone, while others like GNB and PLD still retaining a bit more of flavour for now) instead of solving the flaws on other tanks. It wasnt that WAR was the best tank, it was that the other tanks were more flawed and less suited to the "kill fast before enrage" metagame where damage is everything once you learn the dance steps of the fight

[Absurdity]

The issue stems that SE though that WAR gameplay was what tanks should aspire to and pidgeon holed all tanks on that gameplay style like it or not ( DRK is the most blatant clone, while others like GNB and PLD still retaining a bit more of flavour for now) instead of solving the flaws on other tanks. It wasnt that WAR was the best tank, it was that the other tanks were more flawed and less suited to the "kill fast before enrage" metagame where damage is everything once you learn the dance steps of the fight

One of the big issues was probably that they received a lot of positive feedback with warrior's rework in 4.2 which lead them to the conclusion that this should be the design template for every tank. What SE obviously didn't keep in mind is that the rework wasn't some kind of holy grail of tank design but instead it was just a lot less of a mess than 4.0-4.1 warrior...the fact that it performed well dps-wise probably also contributed to the positive reception of the rework.


But since ShB boiled their warrior design down to it's very core you very quickly notice that the core is about as interesting as watching paint dry.

[currentlemon]

One of my main issues with DRK is Stalwart Soul. All other tanks get their 2nd AoE skill around level 40, yet DRK has to wait until level 72? Ridiculous! It's so stupid! Introduce the skill at an early level like all other tanks and then give it a trait at a later level that allows the blood gauge to fill.

The other thing that bothers me is, of course, Delirium. Like what shao32 said, it has to either be reworked or removed. Though we may have to wait until the next expansion comes out in order for that to happen, sadly.