Thread: TBN & WD probably wont be fundamentally changed (in 6.xx)

We see lots of points about how the DRK kit fights itself and suggestions for how to make it not fight itself, but many of them don't take into account the work and flare that has been put into the jobs.

Square puts a lot of work into making the jobs feel different even if they are largely homogenized in capabilities, and one of those things that have a big visual impact is the job guages themselves.

Suggestions to make TBN free for example, don't take into account that TBN could no longer grant Dark Arts, and DA is baked into the job guage itself. And you can't just say "ok then have it grant dark arts and be free" cause that blatantly is a dps increase.

Its not like they couldn't reduce or remove the dps loss in other ways, but the suggestions we keep seeing tend to either neglect the Dark Arts mechanic job-flavor (it doesn't matter if you scoff at job flavor, the devs definitely value it), or are just a blatant dps increases.


Similarly with Walking Death, they put effort into it and its an interesting difference like superbolide. In theory it has the potential to be the best oh-shi button in the game cause you have 10 seconds to *catch* your invulnerability, and your invulnerability *starts* when you reach 1 hp. Thats actually... really awesome. Plus again, they put a lot of work into it.

So while they might (and probably should) change TBN and WD in 6.xx, the suggestions to fundamentally change them are probably just doomed to be howls at the moon. Of course all suggestions are likely just to be howls at the moon, but the suggestions to fundamentally change them are especially howling at the moon.

So like, the chance of missing out on an Edge/Flood of Shadow is definitely intended, but that doesn't mean that TBN couldn't be more forgiving.
Likewise the ability to still die with Walking Dead is intended and probably won't be removed, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be more forgiving.

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

... They completely overhauled Ninja's entire Mudra system last expansion; changing them from oGCDs to GCDs, which fundamentally changed the job's rotation. And they did this during Shadowbringers.
Changing Walking Dead or scrapping it completely wouldn't even be a fraction of the aforementioned changes I just listed.

Making a comparison to this, Ninja DPS was close to Dnc DPS parses, it was horribly bad and groups couldn't clear E4S till they switched it out for first week. Drk being able to clear content easy, and unpopular opinions on it's current rotations isn't going to make SE completely overhaul it.

@OP

TBN is fine the way it is. It requires you to know roughly how much damage goes out and at what times. That ought to be basic knowledge for any instance you actually know how to tank. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised to see the MP cost unnecessarily removed and the recast nerfed to 25 seconds because Xeno seems to have planted that idea in some players' heads. The 'Dark Arts' gauge is completely superfluous and is a wasted UI design element, much like the Living Shadow duration timer, but it's no big deal whether they're there or not.

Oblation is what really needs to be looked into, because it's completely underwhelming. Single target 10% DR on a 60s recast is really poor for a level 82 ability. Now if it upgraded TBN at level 82 to absorb a portion of the damage mitigated as HP, Dread Spikes style, then we might be talking. Tuning the exact amount would be tough though.

Living Dead has a multitude of problems, and the dev team made a commitment to addressing them during the last Live Letter because there was a fairly significant and widespread backlash against its design. You can read about what the issues are here. Alternatively, you could always try fully levelling the job and experience some of them for yourself.

Did he even unlocked DRK job before writing all this?

While I'm not going to respond to the snark, or defend things I never said; the point I was trying to convey is that the suggestions we keep getting from players in videos and forum posts are often not tweaks but wild, fundamental changes that would end up impacting way more than just the abilities they are discussing.

In this very forum there are suggestions for DRK changes that are "Simple" .. and have a table of contents followed by a novel.

Its fun to daydream and all, and we can call things superfluous and bad design all we want, but thats just an opinion.. we aren't devs and they didn't make it the way it is on accident.

Just saying, maybe think inside the box, and not rewrite the entire tooltip is all.

Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

Fundamentally, I do agree with part of your post. Far too many people think that its even in the realm of possibility the devs will do radical changes to DRK's job kit and how it operates before 7.0 and not just simple tweaks.
But at the same time, for an ability like Walking Dead that is so fundamentally broken and negative, it's very easy to radically change how the ability works and make it far more usable and player friendly without even adding or re-writing the tooltip:



Unless the backspace key is broken on every computer at Square Enix HQ, they can radically change WD into a usable ability by wiping out a single IF statement and nothing else. No thought or game design doctorate needed.

Otherwise, FortenightShade has pretty much all of my opinions summarized. Flavor is always welcome in a job's kit, but not at the detriment of its usability. They tried to be unique with Walking Dead in a simpler time of the game's lifespan, but content design and job balance has rendered Walking Dead an active hindrance rather than a benefit, and it has no place in today's FF14 design.

I know many would not like this, but this is coming from someone who plays with a healer or I am the healer. Walking dead is fine when it is in that combination, yes it sucks it kills you but pulling it off in a pull is so satisfying and would be sad to see it go. Though this is not the optimal scenario for many players and I understand that is why it is disliked so much. If I were to fix it I would give that small boost for the drk to be able to heal out of it right now if you use it on a trash pull and use abyssal drain you are part of the way there. I am unsure what you could do but I think that would be kind of fun to figure out rather than taking those moments away from people who are synergizing well with their team mates. It is similar to holmgang and superbolide but with more of risk where they have options to heal themselves after their invulns giving healers time to react maybe give life steal on something other than your 1 2 3 rotation.