The real reason DRK players are upset

[Ryaduera]

So we all have seen that there's a very loud group of people (myself included) that are very upset with Dark Knight gameplay, and then there's also people saying that it's fine the way it is. Rather than making a thread about the possible fixes for this, I'm going to break down what exactly has Dark Knight's so upset in the first place. This is not a request for a rework, this is not a list of suggested changes, this is just a look at what exactly has our edgy big sword guts cosplayers so upset.

I'm going to get this out of the way right away, I see a lot of people saying DRK is fine because it has such high damage output. The thing is, most people picking the tank role put more value on their chosen classes defensive abilities. We want to play tanks, not DPS. Big numbers don't matter as much to us, only making the enemies numbers smaller. DRK will find its way in statics because as an off tank in a decently capable group, the damage it brings is pretty good and TBN, while no longer the best defensive cooldown in the game, is still valuable, especially when stacked with the other tanks defensive cooldowns, since damage reduction increases shield efficiency. The problem is very specifically -not- the balancing of the job.

The real reason DRK players are upset is simple. Let's start with Reprisal! It's a role action now! It used to be a DRK only action triggered when the DRK successfully parried. RNG was not good, sure, but the skill got taken away from DRK, reworked, and given to every tank regardless of what that tank could do on top of what they already had.

Low Blow used to have a potency tied to it and was also a DRK exclusive ability. This got taken away from DRK, nerfed by removing the potency, and given to every other tank as well.

Dark Dance was a cool and unique mitigation tool. It increased parry rate, and if you used old Dark Arts with it it also increased evasion. This was a cool gimmick, but relying on RNG for parrying or evading was deemed poor design so they removed it (along with bulwark for PLD). But then they reworked it so it increased parry rate and reduced all damage taken by 10% so it was at least going to always reduce damage taken. The only problem is... they gave that skill to Gunbreaker instead.

Dark Mind will always be a skill that people dislike because the situations in which it's actually good are very few. But it used to have either a 15% or a 30% reduction based on if you used Dark Arts or not. Now, it's down to a 10% damage reduction, meaning not only is the reduction value less than it was, it's also worse than every other tanks mitigation tools that are of a comparable value. Raw Intuition and Camouflage reduce -all- damage taken by 10%, so not only is it the same value as other similar mitigations, it is only -occasionally- useful. The only tank that doesn't get a similar mitigation to boast about is the PLD but the passive shield makes up for a lot of mitigation and can proc a block at any point ever. This does, however, mean that even when Dark Mind is useful, it is still less useful than the other mitigation tools.
EDIT: This was incorrect. The skill is a 20% mitigation. Thanks to those who pointed out this error. THat being said, being limited to exclusively magic damage is very limiting.

Sole Survivor was poorly designed. Full potency coming from killing an enemy was a little strange of a design choice, but it would have been easy to rework it to be a reliable self heal. Instead, it was removed, and every other tank has over 1,000 potency of heal every 30 seconds at almost no cost while DRK has to now deal with Abyssal Drain being OGCD and now not even a good use in a boss fight because of the shared cooldown with C&S. DRK used to pull from MRD for cross class skills and take bloodbath, so it had self heals, and even when it was able to do this it still wasn't the self heal tank, Warrior was. Keeping the heals wouldn't have taken that identity from them. Now, Warrior is back to being a self healing monster, but DRK didn't get anything. Even the tank with the second least amount of heals has more effective healing abilities than DRK. But, DRK parse is padded with Abyssal Drain and Souleater, I just wonder what percentage of that parse data is overheal...?

Dark Passenger could have stayed. Shadowbringer could have been a Dark Passenger II just like Spirits Within turns into Expiacion. Instead, they slapped a bandaid on a DRK favorite disappearing and expected us to say thank you, may I have another? Sure it has two charges, glad we asked for another I guess.

It doesn't stop there either. While we're talking about DRK getting ripped off offensively in every way except for potencies (DRK damage is pretty high right now) we should mention DRK used to have Scourge. A GCD DoT that needed to be woven into your rotation. That was removed, but that sounds an awful lot like Sonic Break on GNB, doesn't it? Actually, there's a lot of "GNB has what DRK had" so what other similarities can we pull? Well, Dark Arts used to be used between every GCD for DRK basic DPS combo (which is now their only combo) which sounds an awful lot like continuation, doesn't it? DRK is also the only tank with only 1 combo. Technically GNB has more than one combo, but even if you count the entirety of the Gnashing Fang combo as 1 GCD, GNB still has four other GCD's to use in their rotation. DRK has 4 total GCD's to use. It feels bad.

Reapers Arcane Crest has heals attached to breaking the shield, it's a DPS. The DPS class has a mechanic similar to DRK, the effect is one that DRK players have been asking for, and DRK gets... Oblation. Deaths Design is Darkside but better since overcapping is a DPS loss which means you don't just blow your ability purely because you have the ability to do so. You have to actually think about where it goes in your rotation. Blood Stalk and Grim Swathe are Edge and Flood of shadow but better since they actually lead into something you can do, again calculating when to use said ability. Reaper is basically the Dark Knight rework we've been begging for. They has the ability to make DRK fun, they just chose not to because they wanted a new edgy boy on the block.

So yes, DRK players are upset, but it's not because DRK is bad or didn't get the same shiny new toys. DRK players are upset because DRK used to have those shiny toys until they were taken away from us, given to every other tank, reworked into better versions and put on a completely different tank, or entirely gutted for actual usability. Then, some of the offensive cooldowns were given a higher potency, renamed, and handed back to the player base and that was supposed to be enough. DRK feels bad in dungeons and that should be addressed, but that won't solve the issue of everything nice it had, every tank now has, but better, with the only exception being purely potency, but we've yet to see what the next 2-3 patches have for balance fixes (they almost never nerf anything on a savage release to avoid messing with world first party plans, we will definitely see tank potency adjustments in the future, we'll see then if DRK stays this drastically better in the DPS department.) But at least we have ENHANCED UNMEND BABY!

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

While you do bring a few good points I agree with and some I don't, I believe your opinions might be more appreciated in the DRK Megathread if you haven't posted there already.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ght-Megathread

I'm certain a lot of people agree with you, just that your opinion on the matter is more likely to be heard when posting in megathreads, as they are more likely to be read by the developers than small individual posts.

[Ryaduera]

While you do bring a few good points I agree with and some I don't, I believe your opinions might be more appreciated in the DRK Megathread if you haven't posted there already.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ght-Megathread

I'm certain a lot of people agree with you, just that your opinion on the matter is more likely to be heard when posting in megathreads, as they are more likely to be read by the developers than small individual posts.

I appreciate the concern, but this post is also intended to give perspective to players that may not understand what makes DRK so easy to dislike, not necessarily for the devs to look at. The megathread is better for player-to-dev communication whereas this is meant to be player-to-player communication.

[MagiusNecros]

That's a whole lot of words just to say "HW DRK was the best iteration of DRK".

[Ryaduera]

That's a whole lot of words just to say "HW DRK was the best iteration of DRK".

That's not at all what's being said here. What's being said here is that since Stormblood, as expansions go forward, more and more things are being taken away from DRK and given to the other tanks with nothing being given to the DRK to make up for this fact. It's not about how Heavensward DRK was, in fact even then it was pretty much PLD-WAR or bust save for very few encounters. It's not about what DRK was, it's about what they did to it making it worse than it's already sub-optimal identity.

[Rhais]

While I can agree with some of your overall points, you might want to double check some of the info in your first post. A few things you have in there are not correct.

[Danelo]

Dark mind is 20%, not 10% mrd as stated in the opening BUT all points remain. Forgot plunge getting passed out too.

[Danelo]

That's a whole lot of words just to say "HW DRK was the best iteration of DRK".

100% correct, it was flawed and awesome

[Ryaduera]

Dark mind is 20%, not 10% mrd as stated in the opening BUT all points remain. Forgot plunge getting passed out too.

I just double checked and you are right, I was operating from memory, my mistake. Edits made.

[Duskane]

another big issue is that the last real QoL that wasn't some universal role/expansion QoL was mid stormblood and that was to sole survivor and dark mind (one was deleted other reverted in ShB).

it just feels like Dark knight has been swept aside for 6+ years now,
living dead has been a massive complaint but answer we get is "because of lore" and "we have to be careful adjusting these Abilities" then proceed to buff holmgang every expansion.

Blood weapon literally does not work with DRK aoe and the stack system was gonna be a good fix for it but then "we haven't heard any complaints about blood weapon" "we play our own game".
list goes on with Tbn,Delirium,unmend trait etc etc.

most people will think Drk is fine because it's DPS is good
and i am expecting dev team to do nothing with Drk because it has world first clear on p4s and will think its fine too which is sad despite how flawed Dark knight in every area but Dps.