Is anyone surprised at this point?

[Absurdity]

There is exactly 1 encounter in this entire expansion where LD was somewhat useful and that was Titania Ex, but only if you 1. Had a healer that wasn't too trigger happy with their Bene and 2. your party had no coordination whatsoever. I wouldn't exactly call that a great track record.

[Lyth]

I remember this one. The two Fae Lights are spaced a little under 6 minutes apart. Of course, you're not going to see a second Fae Light now and you probably wouldn't need to invuln it either. That being said, the more useful invuln use for this fight was Superbollide on Thunder Rune (spaced a little under 7 minutes apart), and I'm fairly certain this also stopped being the case when Holmgang was buffed in 5.1 to have an 8 second duration instead of 6.

[whiskeybravo]

Downtime always benefits burst. Uptime always benefits sustain. But there has to be a trade-off. Otherwise you just have a high damage tank vs. a low damage tank, instead of burst vs. sustain. That's not a trade-off. You're just forced to take the higher damage option.

But this is exactly what's happening. WAR is ahead in fights with more downtime while GNB/PLD are ahead on uptime fights. The problem with DRK is the same it's been since the end of HW, it no longer has an identity. Like it's trying to be a combination of burst and sustain but falls short of excelling at either (maybe on purpose since it'd be too OP to have both the burst and sustain advantage...) IMO the most sensible option is to hone the burst aspect so we have 2 burst and 2 sustain tanks.

[Absurdity]

I remember this one. The two Fae Lights are spaced a little under 6 minutes apart. Of course, you're not going to see a second Fae Light now and you probably wouldn't need to invuln it either. That being said, the more useful invuln use for this fight was Superbollide on Thunder Rune (spaced a little under 7 minutes apart), and I'm fairly certain this also stopped being the case when Holmgang was buffed in 5.1 to have an 8 second duration instead of 6.

I was actually talking about Thunder Rune, iirc Dark Knight could take all of them with heavy mitigation on the first 2 and then LD if timed correctly.


But this is 1. a very niche scenario and 2. completely unnecessary if your party isn't blind.

[WhyAmIHere]

As someone who main DRK for 4 years from 3.0 and dropped for GNB in 5.0. There is literally no situation that LD is good.

Oh oh I have one!
In e10s, if you have healers that hate healing you like I did, If you pull and time LD juuuuuuuuuuuuuust right, you can LD both the 1st and 3rd tankbusters! But the timing is annoyingly tight, and you still take the first swing from the 3rd TB.

Sure.
I'm just here to vibe man.

Blood weapon is kinda jank in certain circumstances, and they didn't fix this, during a pandemic, months before a new expac, one they're facing withering internal pressure to really deliver on.
Bummer, but I have other things to be disappointed and frustrated with.




Sure, it's rough. But at this point what am I gonna do, complain and demand they change it? Nah, I'd rather they focus on End Walker.

Aight, that's fine. But Covid hit around what, February-April of 2020? ShB came out either June or July prior? NIN's redesign was when roughly?
Monks?

Using the covid pandemic as an excuse for them not addressing a problem that they adjusted on two other classes in the game reeks of laziness. If that's fine with you then gucci. I'm just tired of hearing "just wait til next time I swear it'll be better then baby I promise!"

[Lyth]

In fairness, LD is pretty good as far as healer CDs are concerned. Holmgang and Superbollide both have you burn Benediction. All you need for LD is Swiftcast (Raise).

The buff was to WAR's sustain, not its burst. Both DRK and GNB have a baseline lower potency combo compared to WAR after this change.

DRK in Heavensward and Stormblood has historically been the most sustain-focused tank at a time when sustain always lost out to burst. In Shadowbringers, it's suddenly burst focused, just in time for the balance to have shifted. But none of this really matters as long as they're consistent. If burst always is to win, then everyone is ultimately going to have to end up with Fell Chaos spam. If there's to be a trade-off, then yes, you will find jobs that have higher uptime requirements win out in dps once the fight is mastered. Skill should 100% translate into performance.

And that's what DRK players have really been asking for. This job was sold out the gate in Heavensward as the 'difficult tank'. That's why abilities like Living Dead have bizarre penalties attached. But that has to translate into some sort of a reward or benefit. I want to see the job have both a higher skill cap and a resultant performance edge when played well. And maybe that they iron out the jank while they're at it.

[WhyAmIHere]

That would be nice, but; we've got an understaffed team of developers that don't even play the jobs they're adjusting listening to players that don't play the jobs they're demanding adjustments to in the roles a majority of players don't even play.

[whiskeybravo]

Both DRK and GNB have a baseline lower potency combo compared to WAR after this change.

And? They both have a lot more than their baseline combo going on to compensate

[Bhearil]

In fairness, LD is pretty good as far as healer CDs are concerned. Holmgang and Superbollide both have you burn Benediction. All you need for LD is Swiftcast (Raise).

The buff was to WAR's sustain, not its burst. Both DRK and GNB have a baseline lower potency combo compared to WAR after this change.

DRK in Heavensward and Stormblood has historically been the most sustain-focused tank at a time when sustain always lost out to burst. In Shadowbringers, it's suddenly burst focused, just in time for the balance to have shifted. But none of this really matters as long as they're consistent. If burst always is to win, then everyone is ultimately going to have to end up with Fell Chaos spam. If there's to be a trade-off, then yes, you will find jobs that have higher uptime requirements win out in dps once the fight is mastered. Skill should 100% translate into performance.

And that's what DRK players have really been asking for. This job was sold out the gate in Heavensward as the 'difficult tank'. That's why abilities like Living Dead have bizarre penalties attached. But that has to translate into some sort of a reward or benefit. I want to see the job have both a higher skill cap and a resultant performance edge when played well. And maybe that they iron out the jank while they're at it.

After a tankbuster is rare that a Tank needs to be healed to full to survive next atacks, on GNB case healers have plenty of time to heal since every heal during the duration is effective health. On both DRK and WAR, the idea is to frontload heals at the end to avoid "wasting" healing, but Holgmgang doesnt kill you if your HP is not totally filled. Using Bene on Holmgang is an option but not needed, on LD case is either you waste tons of extra cds or use Bene, so the DRK doesnt kill himself

On War as long as you bring to a decent HP level you can heal him later (plus WAR has great self heals and cap himself the remaning HP without adding extra pressure to the healers)

[Lyth]

...

If your burst window is bigger than everyone else, your combo potencies and baseline GCD values outside of burst should be smaller than everyone else. Anything else is a recipe for Heavensward or Stormblood era tank balance. You can't have it both ways.