WARs and DRKs

[Burningskull]

I keep hearing people say DRK needs a rework or something cause it's to similar to WAR. After switching between all the tanks while farming items for relics I think it's WAR that needs something. DRK, GNB, and even PLD have 2 oGCD attacks while WAR has 1 that not only costs beast gauge but is on a cool down timer. It's gap closer also costs beast gauge instead of having charges so you can't use it at the beginning of a fight. It's AoE opener is a cone instead of a circle so when you are pulling mobs in a dungeon you have to line them up instead of running into the center and grabbing them all. Biggest complaint is also that it's kinda boring to play. DRK has to worry about MP and Blood, GNB gets to combo every 30s and PLD has a melee rotation and a magic rotation. WAR has Infuriate which is basically just Kassatsu, and Inner Release which just lets you spam a weaponskill over and over with a critical direct hit. So I feel like WAR needs something added or reworked over DRK imo. Granted, I don't main tanks.

[shao32]

DRK lost his gameplay identity as a resource management job in order to become a simplified WAR with a small oGCD spam window, i feel absurd and insulting removing DRK gameplay so he become a WAR so WAR can become another thing.

WAR getting more stuff on top of what it have doesn't mean being reworked, they could add it more oGCD and more skills for inner release, and allow me to tell you that no, DRK never worry about MP and Blood right now, Blood is use it as soon you have 50 and have a cap of 100 to comfily spend it whenever you want without think about it and MP works in a 1 min cicle, basically just load and shoot, DRK doesn't have internal mechanics to worry about outside of TBN since everything is just use them on colddown and spend an absurd amount of time doing soul eater combo and his inner delirium window wich overall is way less complex than WAR mechanics that at least you see they do something together and make his skills feel conected.

DRK is the one that need a rework in a lot of parts like Darkside, Delirium, MP economy, Blood system, ect... WAR is boring for my own taste but the job is solid and if need something more then can be easily add it on top of what it have since it's a more complete job and his kit reflect that independent of how easy is to manage.

[Absurdity]

Overpower being a cone is not only completely fine but can actually be more effective than circle aoes because of it's increased range, you just need to use it differently.
If you are pulling trash packs in dungeons for example you simply sprint through the pack and overpower behind you, when they initially aggro to you they will naturally bunch up and it becomes easier to hit all of them with your cone.

I agree with warrior needing a rework but just adding 1-2 more oGCDs will not fix it, you simply have 2 more buttons that you press on cooldown every 30-60 seconds.


One of the fundamental issues with warrior being so boring is unfortunately it's "signature" ability, Inner Release, because it boils the gameplay down to spamming a button 5 times for 10 seconds and then nothing but a "press 1-2-3 and occasionally 4" filler phase for 90 seconds.

[TouchandFeel]

DRK, GNB, and even PLD have 2 oGCD attacks while WAR has 1 that not only costs beast gauge but is on a cool down timer.

WAR has a second GCD combo and variants to their two big gauge based GCD attacks that they unlock with an ability. DRK doesn't have them so does that mean DRK is worse off than WAR? The answer is no, not inherently because such a comparison is lacking in the greater context of the kits as a whole and the differences in play-style between the jobs. Supposing that WAR has inferior game-play because it has less oGCD attack abilities is the same.
WAR is tilted towards having hard-hitting GCD attacks where DRK is more tilted towards having more oGCD attacks. Neither of those are inherently superior or inferior to the other, they are just different and different players will gravitate towards one or the other based on personal preference.

It's gap closer also costs beast gauge instead of having charges so you can't use it at the beginning of a fight.

The gap closer being on the Beast Gauge and making it basically DPS neutral allows you to only need to use it when you actually need a gap closer. With the other gap closers also being DPS gains, that means that players will want to and need to use them for their damage which could lead to a situation where a gap closer is needed but not available because it had been used for its damage and is on cooldown.
Another slight bonus of the WAR gap closer is that it can act as a Gauge dump to prevent over-capping Gauge and therefore losing some potential DPS if Upheaval is on cooldown and not available to use instead, or if you are saving Upheaval for an upcoming burst period.

It's AoE opener is a cone instead of a circle so when you are pulling mobs in a dungeon you have to line them up instead of running into the center and grabbing them all.

The cone of Overpower is 8y in length as opposed to the 5y diameter of the circular AoE weaponskills; so while you have to aim a bit more, which honestly is not hard at all, you are able to hit targets farther out which means that you don't have to group the mobs quite as tightly. Also when doing mob pulls, I often am able to get out my initial AoE a split-second earlier with WAR than with DRK because I can do it when they are still in front of me instead of having to wait until they are fully surrounding me.
The 8y cone is not inferior to the 5y circle, they are just different and have separate pros and cons.

Biggest complaint is also that it's kinda boring to play. DRK has to worry about MP and Blood, GNB gets to combo every 30s and PLD has a melee rotation and a magic rotation. WAR has Infuriate which is basically just Kassatsu, and Inner Release which just lets you spam a weaponskill over and over with a critical direct hit. So I feel like WAR needs something added or reworked over DRK imo.

DRK's dual-resource game-play doesn't actually require that much management and isn't really all that deep. In contrast while WAR only has one resource to manage in it's gauge, which too isn't too deep, it has other nuances to it's game-play that DRK doesn't such as a buff to upkeep that is tied to a second combo-ender, their gauge attacks shaving time off of their 60s resource/mini-burst ability Infuriate, insane self-healing with Nascent Flash, as well as some other things. You also bring up Inner Release as a major weak-point of WAR game-play, but DRK's equivalent Delirium is virtually the same, at least on the primary negative point you brought up about Inner Release.
So again, the points that you bring forth are overly focused on differences that you feel are lacking on WAR while ignoring what other things WAR does have and the greater context of the whole kits for the two jobs you are comparing.

However, I will agree that I think WAR could use some love in the game-play department and that it can feel a bit simple or boring overall. This however is not a zero-sum situation where only WAR or only DRK is in a state worthy of needing changes to improve their game-play, they both do.
This is something that I talked about a good amount when Shadowbringers first released, that due to a hefty amount of reworking of the WAR and DRK jobs, it seemed like the time and resources allocated to those jobs for this expansion were mostly used up with the reworking part; while PLD, which was not reworked, only moved forward and evolved and GNB, being new, was just built from the ground up to that level with no rework effort draining away time and resources to keep it from reaching the mark. To me WAR and DRK just felt like they were an expansion behind in terms of the level of their game-play. This is one of the major reasons I disagree so heavily with the cries to completely rework DRK again, because it is likely to just get caught in this same situation where all the time is spent changing what was already there and little to no time is spent moving the job forward.
So, imo, both DRK and WAR need a bit more focus and love from the dev team to bring their game-play up to speed with PLD and GNB.

[Burningskull]

You also bring up Inner Release as a major weak-point of WAR game-play,

I didn't actually say it was a weak point. Just that it and Infuriate were kinda boring since it's the only things WAR has.

[TouchandFeel]

I didn't actually say it was a weak point. Just that it and Infuriate were kinda boring since it's the only things WAR has.

That seems like a strangely unimportant point of contention in the grand scheme of the topic and conversation, but okay.

Calling it out specifically and saying it is boring is saying it is a game-play weak-point.
If an aspect of something is boring, it is less enjoyable. If it is less enjoyable, it is a point of weakness, a weak-point, in the enjoyment of how said thing plays, the game-play of it.
So if something is boring, especially if enough to call it out specifically, it is therefore a weak-point of the game-play.
Their logical relation within this context makes them virtually interchangeable, so while you didn't use the exact words the contextual meaning translates over between the two.

[AC9Breaker]

I agree with you OP. Drk feels way more satisfying to me then War. The only time I usually prefer to play war then any of the other tanks is in Bozja and trying to chain blood rage lost action.

[DaulBan]

snip

I mean, completely unrelated to DRK I think it'd be neat if WAR was more fun to play than it is now. It's not like there's a line to the 'make more gooder' booth, if a job sucks hard and there's a way to remedy that it should be remedied regardless of what the other tanks are like.

[Lyth]

I think that DRK very much appeals to players who are used to games with a faster baseline GCD. That's why a lot of us miss the old Blood Weapon haste buff and would like to see it become baseline. Your higher oGCD usage also helps to fill this gap somewhat because it effectively 'halves' your effective GCD. You press a button between every button at baseline.

WAR is the BLM equivalent on tanks. That's a pretty deliberate aesthetic choice as well. Much, much more of your damage is weighted on the GCD. If anything, I think WAR should have fewer directly damaging oGCD abilities than it does now, replaced by more oGCD effects that charge up your next attack to get you bigger numbers. Same result, different playstyles and aesthetics.

[Marxam]

Technically both WAR and DRK are a far cry from what they used to be though DRK got the worst of it, having the most removed skills out of any tank. It's literally a one trick pony with TBN, which is a great cd but if you compare DRK in 3.0 to 5.0 its literally night and day.

At least WAR has stayed consistent though it was constantly nerfed so the other tanks can catch up to it. DRK used to be on par with WAR for self sustain heals but that's gone. Though I think the crux of the argument goes to Delirium. In 3.0 it was combo ender lowering INT. In 4.0 it extended Blood Weapon or Blood Price timers. In 5.0 it acts like Inner Release but without the benefits of 100% DHC, negating knockbacks or status immunes.

Honestly this expansion for tanks has been a half step compared to the significant changes that previous expansions had. It's a lot of reworking skills rather than adding new ones for these two tanks. WAR got nothing new if you played in 4.0 since its tool kit just to reworked and recycled. DRK finally got an aoe combo, but at lvl 72. Though personally I knew something was wrong with all the tanks when the only new defensive cd from 70-80, between PLD, DRK, GNB and WAR was Dark Missionary.