Quote Originally Posted by Sacrilegion View Post
It's honestly at a point where it needs to be reworked from the ground up or deleted as a job.
I don't mean to offend, but I hope that everyone who is desiring a full-blown rework understands that DRK has already received a redesign, so any subsequent revamps will likely result in the job losing even more iconic 3.0 abilities without adding any suitable equivalents. The reason 5.0 didn't preserve Dark Arts and the playstyle associated with it was because casual players hated how prevalent Dark Arts became, how it was nearly weaved into every oGCD window. They bemoaned how the frequent oGCD spam hindered their ability to slot in oGCD tank abilities, and the developers ultimately addressed their issues by removing Dark Arts completely and replacing it with the more costly Edge/Flood abilities. Dark Arts wasn't reworked - it was abandoned, and I have little doubt flavorful skills like Salted Earth (and the new Salt and Darkness) will simply be removed to appease casual fans and have their potencies shifted to other oGCDs, further diluting DRK's original identity.

My point is this - why would Square redesign DRK after stating they are happy using 5.0 as a base for DRK going forward? Why would they purposely include reverions to a design they felt the average player disliked, and one that was certainly less balanced than the 5.0 iteration? Don't get me wrong, I loved 3.0 and 4.0 DRK, but I understand that we will never see a return to those playstyles; that it is increasingly more important to provide feedback on what is feasible to change instead of beating a proverbial dead horse by ceaselessly demanding a reversion to an era the developers are clearly not keen to return to. Blood Weapon's window is too tight, Living Dead is still objectively the worst tank invuln, and DRK's non-shielding sustain is nearly non-existent - these are all desired changes that would dramatically improve DRK across all forms of content while being practical to achieve within 6.0's lifespan.

3.0 DRK is not coming back. The sooner the community accepts this fact, the sooner everyone can move on and begin to find enjoyment in the job again. As job balancing becomes more and more important to the developers with each expansion, I completely understand role homogenizing is becoming a huge concern, but I believe we can find solutions to DRK that respects the direction Square wants to steer the job into while establishing an identity for it other than "the job that people main for years, yet continuously bitch about".

Please, if simply for the developers sake, let 3.0 go.