Low developer effort rework for the DRK Job

[Shin96]

Two years of feedback from EU and NA disliking drk did nothing, time to use exclusionary tactics xD

Maybe that's what they wanted after all. I mean someone had to check if things were viable enough, and that person just slapped an OK sticker on it without second-thought.

Don't agree with excluding DRK players but perhaps nothing else will get to these stubborn developers. We all tried and everyone is visibly exhausted.

[Shurrikhan]

Agree DRK feels like a budget warrior with no personality. Worst defensively

Leveling my second DRK now, I'm increasingly beginning to suspect that isn't the case outside of AoE, at least by any noticeable margin after being optimized, and even in AoE shies significantly below only Warrior. When you find mechanics enough in ST to break 3 TBN per minute, it still seems plenty/absurdly durable.

Though I wish its strength were exchanged partly from duration to percentile (arguably more powerful in any case where overlap wouldn't stop TBN from breaking), Oblation has offered a noticeable touch of flexibility, too. (Granted, I seem to get the most impact from it in keeping a multi-vuln-stacked party member just barely alive if/when TBN has already been used on myself.)

[Dauntess]

It's not just DRK. When theyve added healers and thanks, they've just been stealing abilities from current jobs and adding them to the new ones. They need to stop adding jobs and give the current ones their own identities.

[C0ATL]

Blood Weapon removed; it's just a (finnicky) free Edge/Flood per minute, basically bloat.
Darkside removed; potencies increased to compensate. It was a waste of gauge anyways.
Dark Arts is now just a proc that appears on your status bar, rather than requiring its own UI element.
Abyssal Drain and C&S given 2 charges, at 30s recharge time.
Blood Weapon removed; it's just a (finnicky) free Edge/Flood per minute, basically bloat.
Darkside removed; potencies increased to compensate. It was a waste of gauge anyways.
Dark Arts is now just a proc that appears on your status bar, rather than requiring its own UI element. Yes, it still highlights your spenders to show your next cast is free.
Oblation increased to 15% mitigation but its duration has been reduced from 10 to 7 seconds.
Abyssal Drain and C&S given 2 charges, at 30s recharge time.
Abyssal MP gen increase to 600 MP per enemy hit, C&S to 1800 MP (since it appears to hit thrice).
C&S heals for 600 potency (3 hits of 200 potency each).
Living Shadow reworked to have a far more responsive summon and thereafter reduce your damage by 25% while your shadow duplicates your actions at 50% effectiveness (for a net 12.5% damage increase from each action itself and 50% increase to Blood, HP, and MP generation). Duration reduced to compensate.

Like these changes. Blood weapon should be baked into Delirium. Its the same CD, and ppl use it at the same time anyway. Button bloat at this point. I wouldnt call it a minimalistic fix, since it removes 2 of the 'class mechanic gauges' and those would need to be replaced with something, just like all the other classes have.
Only issue I have with your suggestions is Living Dead being a longer Holmgang. The reason why I didnt include this into my initial post, despite thinking about it was because i dont want another ability taken from warrior , renamed, and given to the dark knight. No, I dont have a solution for a different working invincibility other than the ones already present, but I would really like LD to not be a copied ability.

All of that being said, my overall opinion on your fix is divided. It's weird, because despite almost all changes being good, I feel that all of them put together would lead to a very simple (and by extension a boring) job to play. Old SMN was clunky and weird sometimes, but at least it kept you on your toes. New SMN is a busy class, button wise, but empty. Dont want to denigrate summoner mains - its my fav job after DRK - but now its 'monkey see button light up. monkey press button.' and all we have to worry about is where we stand in fights. SMN is a very good example of overoptimization and simplification leading to a good spec, but unchallenging to play. I wouldnt like to see DRK end up in the same spot.

[Shurrikhan]

All of that being said, my overall opinion on your fix is divided. It's weird, because despite almost all changes being good, I feel that all of them put together would lead to a very simple (and by extension a boring) job to play. Old SMN was clunky and weird sometimes, but at least it kept you on your toes. New SMN is a busy class, button wise, but empty. Dont want to denigrate summoner mains - its my fav job after DRK - but now its 'monkey see button light up. monkey press button.' and all we have to worry about is where we stand in fights. SMN is a very good example of overoptimization and simplification leading to a good spec, but unchallenging to play. I wouldnt like to see DRK end up in the same spot.

That's fair, and I'd largely agree, hence the label:

Minimalist Fix (Not particularly satisfying, but far more workable, with the fewest steps and least bloat):

Removing a dead mechanic doesn't require immediate replacement, either. After all, it's doing literally nothing. We'd have delayed our first higher ppgcd skill to at least the second GCD anyways and it's thereafter damn near impossible to ever drop Darkside. Blood Weapon, moreover, is not a "class mechanic gauge". It's just a free Edge per minute, very finickily provided.

A more fun fix, however, requires fixing, in part, "what ain't broke" but is instead merely dull and unoriginal, which always ends up both more contentious and gutless when attempted without full awareness of contexts (which then requires a more thorough, identity-driven view of PLD, WAR, and GNB, too, insofar as they could similarly benefit from changes). Such seemed out of scope for a "rework that would require little developer effort", so I put its beginnings in the hidden text block below the 'quick fix and polish' suggestions.

[Sacrilegion]

Agree DRK feels like a budget warrior with no personality. Worst defensively and given how much I LOVED drk in stormblood I am so depressed at the state of it now, I had hope it would be better this expansion after ShB being a disappointment but nope. Until SE fixes this job I have no interest in playing with a drk as unless they get feedback from players saying they are unwanted in pf's and statics I don't think they will change a thing. Two years of feedback from EU and NA disliking drk did nothing, time to use exclusionary tactics xD

Man I have considered so hard just booting DRK players, but player shouldn't have to put up with it. Exception being they are terrible at it or start spamming unmend and plunge.

[Shurrikhan]

Man I have considered so hard just booting DRK players, but player shouldn't have to put up with it. Exception being they are terrible at it or start spamming unmend and plunge.

If a friend logs a random dungeon, I'll typically have as high of self-healing and damage absorbed on my DRK as my PLD and slightly more than on GNB. On WAR, my healers may panic heal (only because they don't realize I've Bloodwhetting/Nascent next GCD and will just Bene myself), but I can pace DRK's CDs to actually seem the least chaotic of the whole bunch, so long as packs (especially the first double-pull of a wing) die in a reasonable time.

In Ex trials, they do fine, in raids, they do fine. Kicking DRKs on sight would be more hysterics over the occasional bad DRK than anything to do with DRK's kit. TBN still absorbs more damage than Heart of Corundom both absorbs and self-heals until extremely high (average 10k+ over 8 seconds) would-be damage taken per second and will regularly outperform even Holy Shelltron's combined absorption and healing in existing dungeons. As the entirety of the effect scales with gear (Vitality), it also scales better than Holy Shelltron or Heart of Corundum. Bloodwhetting/Nascent is the only outlier; and yes, it's broken in AoE.