to Future DRK Players

[Shin96]

-snip-

It's a loud minority of course. Because it's my fault the majority of players in this community are unable to voice their concerns or become vocal about their opinions.

Every job in this game has a certain amount of players disliking it on different issues. Some may seem benign, others found through experience. Here is the truth: No one is going to be happy indefinitely. You will always find people "crying" about all kinds of issues anyway. The question is what they are concerned about, and thus far I see alot of dismissal by people that only care about their own opinion. Before anyone accuses me of hypocrisy, please take a look at the Dark Knight Megathread I created. The first post involved questions about what people like, what they want changed, etc. I didn't force my way of thinking on anyone, for instance. I encourage people to create an appreciation thread as well, everything is fine in my book.

I also have been critical of people that said they enjoyed the job, but that's because they call it perfect and nothing ever is. Even the most balanced job has issues worth talking about, wether the majority likes it or the minority doesn't really matter.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying 5.0 DRK if you want my statement on this particular issue. My biggest problem is the lack of variety in combos, the 1-2-3 spam has never been more true than now. Spamming Bloodspiller doesn't alleviate the issue either. If they can find a more engaging playstyle I would set aside my preferences easily. So it's mainly Delirium and the Souleater combo that irks me.

I am surprised at the sheer amount of mini dictators I see across these forums lately. If given the power, they would delete about almost any thread that doesn't agree with their superior opinions. Of course the developers will cater to the majority but that doesn't mean we have no right to voice our opinions. These forums exist for a reason.

No one is ruining anything. The only people I see ruining things are people trying to stoke division between players to sabotage the conversation, for whatever reason.

[Sazuzaki]

They really should stop with all the reworks and design the job for people who actually like to play it - which are a lot, I see many DRKs in the game.

Just to start off, we request reworks for a reason. 3.0 DRK relied too heavily on being MT to boost its DPS. 4.0 DRK was just full of annoying and clunky Dark Arts spam. Dark Arts still should've never been removed, they just handled it HORRIBLY and decided to blame all of it on Dark Arts alone. 5.0 gutted the job to death and removed all identity from it, except for TBN. If they just stopped making bad decisions and returned to the roots of the job (being a magic knight by enhancing and altering your greatsword skills with dark magic) then it would be done.

The only reason people are playing it is cause of the surge of new players who've never heard about what the game was like before. Its got a super cool aesthetic, cool animations and TBN. Hell, I loved DRK when I started in ShB. Then I unlocked Delirium and it was an instant turn off. I remember laughing how they thought spamming 1 button was a good design choice. Turns out I wasn't the only one. Then I learned what the past expansions were like, and boy was the job shattered for me. Not saying the job is *horrible* rn, but even new DRK players that I've seen and asked still think 5.0 Delirium is hot garbage. Inner Release fits Warrior's losing control theme, but as for DRK? Any skill like that is just taking you back to lvl 1, where you're just mashing a single button until like lvl 2 or 4. It's not even direct critical hits. PLD Req. is actually unique and interesting with its range and magic reliance, and it has a finisher. 5.0 Delirium was a lazy rework of the skill, and could've been done much better. The community has made up fixes themselves that aren't even that much of reworks of the skill, but still infinitely better.

That raises my other point, we aren't even asking for a for full scale rework anymore. They can easily find a middle ground between people who like the job now, and people who liked it in the past just by changing up a few things:

*Don't make Delirium a copy of Inner Release
*Reduce some oGCD timers like Blood Weapon, Carve and Spit, and Abyssal Drain a little bit. Make make us use our oGCDs more often.
*Lower level TBN that upgrades into lvl 70 TBN

Of course we want more than just those three, but if they JUST do that in EW, It'll be such a good start and maybe you would stop seeing so many DRK complaint posts. DRK's only fun mechanic is TBN, other than that, the job is just boring 1-2-3 use everything on cooldown. Don't even get me started on pre-70 levelling, that was just a chore on its own.

[Lyth]

...

Just because a job design works well for a given expansion doesn't mean that it would work well in a different expansion.

Heavensward DRK worked well for 3.x. That's not because it was the best designed job. It just worked well for its time. It wasn't without flaws. If you used Dark Arts with Dark Dance, for example, you'd boost your evasion. But DRK relied on getting hit (especially by autos) in order to get Blood Price ticks, as well as to get parries to trigger Low Blow resets and Reprisal procs. There were many parts of the design that just clashed with each other. In addition, a lot of players at the time either didn't realize that spending MP on defensive Dark Arts buffs cost DPS to use, or didn't mind doing so. Some of the job's highlights, such as being the only tank with a gap closer, are things that we are less excited by now because it's a standard across all jobs. And I think most importantly, players were willing to overlook a lot of faults because it was a relatively high DPS job which was also viewed as relatively high skill to play.

Stormblood DRK did not work well for 4.x. It was a relatively low DPS job which was viewed widely as relatively low skill to play. It also unearthed a lot of the underlying weaknesses in Heavensward's design, because players were starting to realize that Dark Arts = Potency, and weren't willing to use a lot of their kit because they were gated behind DPS losses. If you look at the 4.3 changes, a lot of them just added the 140/168 potency as standard to every time you pressed the Dark Arts button. It's actually not rocket science to see why Edge/Flood replaced it. I have a really hard time taking people seriously when they claim to have loved Stormblood DRK back in the day, because a lot of those exact same posters were campaigning to get the job changed during 4.x.

I think that if you took either of these jobs and just copied them into the current expansion, players would be extremely unhappy. The game has changed. All the other jobs have changed, and no job exists in a vacuum. So you can't silence discourse on the job. It has to evolve with the game.

Regardless of whether you like the aesthetic choices made, it's hard not to see Shadowbringers DRK as a more streamlined, synergistic version of the job compared to previous iterations. I suspect you'd see a lot less complaints if it wasn't a lower dps tank for the second expansion running. Would I like to see a speed buff again? Yes. But maybe the solution is to do something situational like Reaper does, dropping to a 1.5 s GCD in Avatar form. Would I like to see a different aesthetic on Delirium? Probably, but every tank has a one button spam window now, especially with GNB's combo being turned into a single button. And I absolutely, definitely don't want to go back to Stormblood's Delirium, which was the most awkward, most ineffectual 'burst' window of all time. You do not burst by increasing the duration on something. You burst by increasing the potency. Whoever designed that was delirious. I'd sooner lose Delirium over Salted Earth, if they ever reverted that change. Players across all language forums wanted to burn it with fire during Stormblood.

Do I want to see Living Dead changed? Definitely. And I want the dev team to actually talk about invulns and the impact that they've had on fight design to date, rather than avoiding the topic. I actually want to see invulns removed and an emphasis placed on learning how much to actually mitigate.

This is not a generational thing. The game changes, and the jobs have to change with it. I think if Warcraft classic proved anything, as much as players think they want to go back to earlier points in time in an MMO's history, they actually don't. Keep your memories of Heavensward and Stormblood. But you'll think more fondly of them if you let them stay in the past.

[Hierro]

I have a really hard time taking people seriously when they claim to have loved Stormblood DRK back in the day, because a lot of those exact same posters were campaigning to get the job changed during 4.x.
[...]
And I absolutely, definitely don't want to go back to Stormblood's Delirium, which was the most awkward, most ineffectual 'burst' window of all time. You do not burst by increasing the duration on something. You burst by increasing the potency. Whoever designed that was delirious.

I loved Stormblood DRK, like my own son! I still maintain the job was fine back then. Plunge was the anti-knock back needed. For all encounters designed, including ucob and uwu, DRK's lack of a raid-wide mitigation CD like dark missionary did not adversely affect a party's success. Still, arm's length and dark missionary are welcomed additions.

DRK wasn't meant to burst with delirium. It was meant to go fast! Don't you like Sonic games, old friend? Don't you like going fast? YOU GOTTA GO FAST!

[bundythenoob]

snip

you bring a lot of interesting points about the HW/STB DRK kits being disjointed, but at the same time you are dismissing valid complaints about the SHB DRK kit being disjointed, which has been a topic of major criticism and concern. are you suggesting you have absolutely NO problems with Salted Earth being nerfed as well as losing blood generation which connected it to our kit? Abyssal Drain losing its mana cost and being placed on a long cooldown rather than being changed to be stronger in single target? Quietus/BS being reduced to spam rather than well timed resource generation skills? are you suggesting that the ONLY thing that needs to be addressed for DRK is Living Dead, and not the lack of impact that a lot of the abilities have besides muh stronk tbn?

I might be in the minority here, but I actually think that the STB version of DRK was superior to the HW version due to a few key aspects, such as having a more dynamic resource management playstyle with its mana and blood interactions, and the overall streamlining of the kit with regards to how mana and blood worked with your skills. losing some of those DOTs and the fun MT revenge mechanics did hurt, but I believe what we gained from STB far outweighed those losses, especially because we got to keep almost all of the DRK core abilities, like DA, AD, SE, DP, and BP.

while you are correct that a lot of the more hardcore playerbase realised that spending DA on defencive buffs was a DPS loss, you're also forgetting that a lot of the more casual to midcore level players utilised those in their daily activities, where the environment is a lot more hectic than in organised pugs/parties in which you can rely on timed heals to make up for the damage. a lot of times in leveling or roulette content, spending mana on defencive buffs could mean the difference between living or dying since not every healer has immediate responses to incoming damage. plus, you're forgetting the most important aspect.. we had branching decisions we could make (whether they be """good""" or """bad""") which was one of the hallmarks of the playstyle that differentiated it from PLDs stricter rotation and WARs GCD based playstyle. this made DRK objectively unique in terms of gameplay, and made it feel fun to engage with the kit in terms of job fantasy.

as for your comment on how "all other jobs have changed", it's not hard to see that from certain perspectives, some jobs seem to have regressed in SHB, and that others seem to have stagnated in EW. did PLD really need MORE finishers, especially ones that combo off confiteor of all things, rather than fixing sheltrons cost and duration (especially at lower levels)? did DRG need ANOTHER AOE as opposed to a way to ramp up their eyes or a way to refresh to disembowl like how SAM does? did MCH really deserve nothing but a chainsaw and shotgun? did BRD deserve to have its procs and party buffs removed in favour of ... whatever they got? did SCH deserve to get ignored and told there wasn't much to change, despite almost 2 years of criticism from SCH players? don't even get me started on jobs that regressed in EW... rip DNC, NIN, and SMN mains of old. titan egi will be gone, but never forgotten.

the main problem I see with your issue of invulns and their impact is not DRKs fault, but rather the fault of the devs refusing to hire more employees to fix the spaghetti code, which is why battle content is designed the way it is. MY problem with DRK, besides its atrocious leveling kit, is that disjointedness between its job fantasy and the bone dry gameplay that in no way complements the job fantasy. and the biggest problem I feel is plaguing this game, is the increasing movement away from the more "technical gameplay" jobs with unique XIV twists on them, and that said jobs keep getting dumbed down in gameplay for the sake of "muh traditional FF version"

sure, by all means go ahead and buff Living Dead, but without fixing that disjointed feeling, the job will still boil down to spamming all mana in burst window, spamming 1-2-3 for 60 seconds. but now you get peppered earth and a new flood follow up!



"there wasn't much we could really do with DRK"

[Axxion]

Square listen to the community as a whole and have a huge amount of internal engagement tools that gives them the feedback they need to balance jobs.

The 2 largest job related polls in ShB that the community did rated DRK as both the second favourite job (and favourite tank) and rated at a 7.7/10 for job satisfaction.

I'm so glad that SE doesn't listen to the insanity that is posted in these forums, if they did the game would be ruined.

assuming this from a official census and not some post from reddit correct?

[EmpyreanHelios]

It's not that bad. You still have Flood of Shadow (oGCD AoE), Salted Earth (oGCD DoT AoE), and Quietus (Gauge AoE), so the AoE rotation gets fairly fleshed out.

Now this is the real healer PTSD: Just having Unleash from lv 10 to 80.

Don’t give them any ideas or that’s going to be the 7.0 iteration.

“People complained about stalwart soul being level 72 so we just upgraded Unleash to Unleash 2 and deleted Stalwart”

[Bhearil]

Well we do have already The Blackiest Black Night as shown on the trailer sooo xD

[Sazuzaki]

Well we do have already The Blackiest Black Night as shown on the trailer sooo xD

I mean, I don't think anyone was really asking for another TBN. It's a cool addition but I and many many other would rather them focus on the other glaring issues.

[Bhearil]

I mean, I don't think anyone was really asking for another TBN. It's a cool addition but I and many many other would rather them focus on the other glaring issues.

I know, TBN is by far the best tank short defensive CD (and even a decent competitor to bigger ones), but is also the "curse" that makes the job look fine "because has TBN" despite behind all shiny animations its a Warrior Lite with an horrible Living Dead aka "Bring Benediction or waste tons of healing to back them up or the DRK kill themselves"

DRK outside a new defense skill, gets upgrades to long cd skills(Unless Salted Earth Simulacrum have lowered cds) which makes the gameplay virtually the same as before, which is not inherently bad, but at least make gameplay more dinamic and fun instead of having to spam Souleater combo 80% of the time with some OGCD sprinkled here and there