The real reason DRK players are upset

[Sazuzaki]

lmao wow, these are actually good complaints that belong in the 5 percent with one which I agree is a valid issue the others not so much.

I will never discuss Living Dead with anyone random on the internet cause at this point its pretty much like debating Pro Life or Pro choice. Neither side will budge. The flavor of this skill is too good I dont care how inferior it is to the other invulns.

Sad thing is tho, most people complaining about DRK probably don't even get the nuances to to the issues you've brought up. I still think you're being glib with it Just being functional tho.

Everything mentioned from their message has been and is still being talked about on here...

Anyways, Living Dead is still badly designed. Maybe if it gave all attacks 100% lifesteal or stopped you from taking ALL damage when in Walking Dead like HG, it might actually be a good skill without taking away flavor. But what flavor is even left of this job from a gameplay perspective? TBN maybe, but having a job based around ONLY off globals kinda sucks ngl. Honestly, I would be content if we just had another GCD to alternate between, or mini burst phases if BW was only on a 30 second CD.

I mean, I'm glad to see you're enjoying the class at the very least. Hopefully they can please both player types in a future rework and stop the lazy BS.

[Pibz]

Member when DRK was a cool and unique MP tank back when it was introduced? I member. I also remember disliking the first bastardization that happened in Stormblood, and the utter gutting when they made it even utterly generic and bland in shadowbringers, which they have doubled down yet again...

I mean at least we got blackest night in stormblood, which didnt make up for the rest but it was something... in shb we got a crappy dot that they want us pretend is an actual NPC summon... in exchange for any remaining semblance of job identity we had ... which was... yikes.. and now we got.. dark passenger back (i mean "shadowbringers".. yeah.. yay..) ?! Seriously?....

Just give it back to us, please.

[Ryaduera]

Member when DRK was a cool and unique MP tank back when it was introduced? I member. I also remember disliking the first bastardization that happened in Stormblood, and the utter gutting when they made it even utterly generic and bland in shadowbringers, which they have doubled down yet again...

I mean at least we got blackest night in stormblood, which didnt make up for the rest but it was something... in shb we got a crappy dot that they want us pretend is an actual NPC summon... in exchange for any remaining semblance of job identity we had ... which was... yikes.. and now we got.. dark passenger back (i mean "shadowbringers".. yeah.. yay..) ?! Seriously?....

Just give it back to us, please.

It's not necessarily a bad thing that DRK has changed, it did have some unhealthy aspects to its gameplay that needed changing, but they just ended up taking everything it had and gave it to something else and turned the job into something extremely basic, simplistic, and incoherent. TBN has gone from being a boon, to being a crutch that puts a heavy tax on what mitigations DRK is allowed to have. Still no excuse for how braindead the offensive tools are though.

[Pibz]

It's not necessarily a bad thing that DRK has changed, it did have some unhealthy aspects to its gameplay that needed changing

I disagree on this. It wouldn't have been bad if the changes themselves weren't bad. I'm not opposed to change, i'm opposed to how they made the class more generic and took away the interesting mechanics. I wouldn't have minded if they reduced the amount of punishment you got for not performing absolutely optimally if they had just not gutted the core class design (ie kept it a mana tank with its own identity, instead of being just another power stack builder and spender)

Still no excuse for how braindead the offensive tools are though

I'm glad the community seems to agree on this. Despite what i wrote i have essentially zero illusions about them reverting the class back to HW.
It'd be great if the devs listened, though i'm not keeping my hopes up.

[Ryaduera]

I disagree on this. It wouldn't have been bad if the changes themselves weren't bad. I'm not opposed to change, i'm opposed to how they made the class more generic and took away the interesting mechanics. I wouldn't have minded if they reduced the amount of punishment you got for not performing absolutely optimally if they had just not gutted the core class design (ie kept it a mana tank with its own identity, instead of being just another power stack builder and spender)

This is kind of what I was getting it. At the time PLD was the physical tank with blocking only working on physical attacks and old Rage of Halone, DRK was the magical tank for Dark Mind and old Delirium. They changed PLD to be more of an "every tank" but they never gave DRK the same treatment.

Change isn't necessarily a bad thing, but Dark Arts version of Dark Dance was pretty unhealthy design. I remember leading massive dungeon pulls at minimum ilvl and leading with DA> Abyssal Drain until my MP was low, which took forever with Dark Price, and then just going into DA> Dark Dance and just not taking damage ever. This is one of those too good kind of things (like we're seeing in Warrior right now, actually.) But Dark Dance got fixed and put on GNB. Tying a mitigation and DPS too (reprisal) to parry RNG was bad, they fixed it and removed the DPS to make it a role action. Change isn't bad... these changes were. They didn't have to remove the core design, they just wanted to, but they also didn't replace it with anything so the core concept is just...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBa5mdxWUAUd9zO.jpg

I'm glad the community seems to agree on this. Despite what i wrote i have essentially zero illusions about them reverting the class back to HW.
It'd be great if the devs listened, though i'm not keeping my hopes up.

The people that disagree seem to be looking for a simple class to optimize, DRK players are just wondering why it has to be them because the class used to be hard to optimize, but also you have to already be level 50 and play through the entirety of ARR to even access it, so giving it a visible skill expression shouldn't be a lot to ask for... Having an Entry level tank is a great idea but for it to be entry level it has to be... well... accessible upon entry...

[Danelo]

It's not necessarily a bad thing that DRK has changed, it did have some unhealthy aspects to its gameplay that needed changing, but they just ended up taking everything it had and gave it to something else and turned the job into something extremely basic, simplistic, and incoherent. TBN has gone from being a boon, to being a crutch that puts a heavy tax on what mitigations DRK is allowed to have. Still no excuse for how braindead the offensive tools are though.

TBN was never meant to be a huge shield as it was in shd and to a lesser extent in ew. It was meant to be a tool for moving mp to blood for more damage. That concept of one hand washing the other regarding its skills seem to be gone unfortunately.

[Kalaam]

The way TBN changed from SB to SHB made it keep more or less the same usage. When broken you get enough ressource to use on a powerful attack (Bloodspiller/Quietus in SB, Edge/Flood in ShB). Just that in SB you still got the ressource at the end of the effect, if I recall correctly.

I am not sure when they moved it from giving blood to a free edge/flood, I guess a quick oGCD slash gives a better "counter attack" feeling and it's not a bad idea but this made TBN lose on potential versatility. In ShB, if it still gave 50 blood, it could have been used to summon Livind Shadow if we so chose.

[Satarn]

The way TBN changed from SB to SHB made it keep more or less the same usage. When broken you get enough ressource to use on a powerful attack (Bloodspiller/Quietus in SB, Edge/Flood in ShB). Just that in SB you still got the ressource at the end of the effect, if I recall correctly.

I am not sure when they moved it from giving blood to a free edge/flood, I guess a quick oGCD slash gives a better "counter attack" feeling and it's not a bad idea but this made TBN lose on potential versatility. In ShB, if it still gave 50 blood, it could have been used to summon Livind Shadow if we so chose.

I'm pretty sure the main reason they've changed it, was because so many people kept saying it's "a loss", because they couldn't wrap their head around a skill that becomes dps neutral over the course of a fight rather than instantly - hence now it's very obviously refunding itself in the same resource. Honestly, the entire SHB rework screamed "we think DRK players are idiots", from TBN, through the MP rates calculated just so for the 1 minute burst and nothing else, ending with Darkside being an "upkeep" buff that's virtually impossible to drop.

Also old TBN was part of resource management mechanics and we can't have those, because that's too hard as well.

TBN was never meant to be a huge shield as it was in shd and to a lesser extent in ew. It was meant to be a tool for moving mp to blood for more damage. That concept of one hand washing the other regarding its skills seem to be gone unfortunately.

20% HP shield was honestly already pretty damn strong and at the same time not too strong to be unbreakable in casual content. Not to mention since not breaking it was only a loss of about 140 potency as opposed to whooping 500/460, you were far more inclined to just toss it at someone for safety when things got dicey. Imo SB TBN was way better designed overall. The only change for good was that it no longer gets weaker when used on people other than the DRK.

[Danelo]

“ The only change for good was that it[TBN] no longer gets weaker when used on people other than the DRK.”.

Indeed. DRK is suffering on many fronts. Really, most of them except for DPS. But, like so many have already eluded to, that can be change by the flick of an intern’s wrist. I cringe to say it but, again, DRK needs a rework. I cringe only because SQEX has moved further away from the majority of the playerbase on DRK ever since it’s inception. I’m still hopeful for something more than another bandaid.

I really need SE to come out in their view of all the complaints regarding DRK. It seems like the right time given the forum threads. I can respect if SQEX would come out and say “we disagree with players on x, y, z and this is our vision for the future”. I just want a honest response and valid justification for why beyond theme when all sorts of themes have been changed - That goes double for DRK.

[Kalaam]

I mean, to quote Yoshi-P himself "Listen to the complaints, if players are complaining it means they still care"