Dark Knight where is my Identiy

[Shin96]

Dark Knight is fine.

That would be true if... it wasn't a fast-paced, hectic class with MP resource management. There once was a job with these aspects and it was called HW DRK.

Our current Dark Knight iteration is balanced, indeed. But it lacks essence and style. What used to be its own weight in this game was exchanged for a Warrior knockoff with an inferior Inner Release window, aka. Delirium. Bloodspiller and Quietus were never intended to be used in the same fashion as Fell Cleave and Decimate. Edge of Shadow and Flood of Shadow are also boring to use. Living Shadow is a glorified DoT with no interaction, a lazy attempt to downplay the misshandling of 5.0 DRK. Players were frustrated with Dark Arts back in 4.0, however I have never seen or heard that anyone wanted DRK to be like Warrior. Not even once.

Enjoying its current iteration is fine. Opinions differ but I've been playing this rework roughly since the start of ShB and god I have never been this bored. This job just screams lazy to me, like the developers think I'm so dumb and brainless I can't even manage a DoT. Just because the DRK threads are silent as of late doesn't mean we stopped having faith in a rework. Everyone has a favourite job/class in this game and for me it's DRK. So yes, this is a big deal to me and I refuse to see the logic in having a rip-off when Warrior is just as viable.

[Hierro]

Never forget what they took from you.

[shao32]

more like Dark Warrior is fine since is a perfectly funcional job, outside of his viability the job is on his worst state gameplay identity wise and needs help.

[FallenWings]

Played DRK in HW and SB. ShB DRK is fine. ShB Delirium is not fine.

[Lyth]

Nobody wants to main average, fine, or passible. Really enjoyable is just about the absolute minimum, but you should ideally aim for incredibly fun.

Delirium is mediocre, but Living Dead doesn't even get pass marks.

We already have an oGCD DoT. GCD DoTs tend to work out better on jobs that have a strict rotation. The exception might be is if you had a DoT effect that generated MP or blood over time, as the focus on DRK is resource management. But the more GCD dots that you manage, and the shorter the duration of the DoTs, the more fixed your rotation becomes. We have a lot of jobs with strict rotations. It's better for DRK to have a variable, dynamic one, for variety.

[Cetek14]

Answering the title - gone, reduced to atoms. Knowing Square I wouldn't expect any fixes, but I hope for them.

[Saefinn]

Dark Knight is pretty much a new job in ShB and yes, it plays a lot more like Warrior does and I don't like it either. This is speaking as somebody who was a WAR tank in ARR, swiched to DRK in HW and kept it in SB. If I wanted a WAR gameplay, I'd have stuck with WAR but what they did with DRK I liked and I found it appealing. Now they've stripped all of the elements that made me enjoy DRK and now whilst it flows smoothly, I'm in favour of the return of old DRK. To me SB DRK is the best compromise because it's a more user friendly version of the ARR one. I used to like that it had a technical aspect and that it took knowing how to play it to not be squishy and that you had an MP management focus mixed in that based on how you enhance your moves. Selectively enhancing your own abilities through Dark Arts to me was an interesting dynamic.

Now it's dead simple to play and I don't really have to think about anything and there's no technical aspect to it, the Dark Arts mechanic, which I felt was a part of its identity is now gone entirely. It flows better, sure but not near as fun. Now I tank on GNB, which is still less appealing to me than old DRK, but it is more interesting than current DRK.

Because we see similar problems with the healers I feel like SE need to embrace a varying the difficulty level between jobs, which we have had, but maybe even provide a rating. So DRK could be the hardest, and PLD maybe the easiest (as it's closest to a traditional tank).

That way they can keep a focus of its difficulty level and to manage expectations and to keep it consistent. At least then, people who want something more technical to play know to pick something with a higher difficulty rating and they will know they can stick with that. After all, they want to accommodate a larger range of players, it'd also communicate to people starting out what's a good job to start with and gives them something more suitable for them. If they still enjoy it when they have build their confidence they might stick with it or try for something more complex. This way, you have a game that's approachable for new and inexperienced and less-confident players whilst also accommodating the players who are more experienced or just want something a little more complex that they may have to think about.

[AC9Breaker]

can't make everyone happy.

[Shin96]

can't make everyone happy.

True. In this case only a few are happy because Warrior players continue to play WAR and DRK players are left with a job unlike anything resembling what it used to be. Stripped of its identity, toolkit and playstyle. What a waste of resources and potential. Trying to please people that couldn't deal with HW DRK because they can't git gud at the game. Again, the job is lazy. The coolest and edgiest tank happens to be the most boring in this expansion.

[Saefinn]

can't make everyone happy.

I feel like this argument should have been made before they changed how the job works, design a job and persist with its design philosophy as it evolves unless it's completely broken. Once you break consistent like that you end up with a situation like this where people like DRK as is are up against the people who like DRK as was.

And that said, you can please more people by having two jobs that play differently instead of two jobs that are very similar in how they play.