So Drks getting rekt 3 expacs in a row great job devs

[Rithy255]

The thing I don't get is that all of the changes basically align with shit I read on these very forums two years ago.

Bloodspiller spam is gone, thats what made people compare it to WAR. If using 3 things after a buff in a burst window makes it a WAR clone then GNB and PLD are also wars and your inner release is replaced with No Mercy/Fight or Flight.
This is the first expansion in a long time DRK has not recieved a new oGCD, and instead it got 4 new GCDs.
Infact the ammount of weaving has gone down, which was also complained about a lot in early endwalker, BW Delrium merger and plunge to this new chaos control dash are how they did it.

I'll even go so far to say it would not surprise me if it gets a trait DRK gets, or even the ability of the new Shadowwall directly gives DRK some sort of regen or healing, as that was the last major thing people bitched about early endwalker.

"4 new gcds"
When in reality it's gotten 1, that you press every 120, these different GCD's don't matter if A: You use it once per minute/2minute & its just a CD gcd or B: One that just cycles into another GCD, It's just visually a difference it plays a cool animation it doesn't actually effect gameplay.

This is my issue when I say I want more gcds, I don't mean meaningless buttons or visual gcd's I want it's rotation to be different then 1, 2, 3 + spend gauge & press 120/60 burst buttons, which every tank falls under.

[Absurdity]

"4 new gcds"
When in reality it's gotten 1, that you press every 120, these different GCD's don't matter if A: You use it once per minute/2minute & its just a CD gcd or B: One that just cycles into another GCD, It's just visually a difference it plays a cool animation it doesn't actually effect gameplay.

This is my issue when I say I want more gcds, I don't mean meaningless buttons or visual gcd's I want it's rotation to be different then 1, 2, 3 + spend gauge & press 120/60 burst buttons, which every tank falls under.

That unfortunately seems to be SE's current design philosophy for tanks in general, all flash and zero substance. Just throw some new flashy visual effects and animations onto the same stale "press button to do big numbers, X seconds cooldown"-skills they've been shoveling into our troughs for the easily impressed to gobble up, partially since Shadowbringers but certainly since Endwalker.

And judging by all the reactions of talking heads on Youtube and Twitch it clearly still works, because they're all acting like more VFX clutter with the bare minimum of actual player input is somehow the best thing since sliced bread.

[GoatOfWar]

The thing I don't get is that all of the changes basically align with shit I read on these very forums two years ago.

Bloodspiller spam is gone, thats what made people compare it to WAR. If using 3 things after a buff in a burst window makes it a WAR clone then GNB and PLD are also wars and your inner release is replaced with No Mercy/Fight or Flight.
This is the first expansion in a long time DRK has not recieved a new oGCD, and instead it got 4 new GCDs.
Infact the ammount of weaving has gone down, which was also complained about a lot in early endwalker, BW Delrium merger and plunge to this new chaos control dash are how they did it.

I'll even go so far to say it would not surprise me if it gets a trait DRK gets, or even the ability of the new Shadowwall directly gives DRK some sort of regen or healing, as that was the last major thing people bitched about early endwalker.

I don't think you got 4 new GCD's, i think you only got 1.
There's no reason to believe it's anything other than a new animation set for your Bloodspiller spam after Delirium.
It's the same as Warrior's infuriate turning Fell cleave into ''not Fell cleave''

[Valence]

What's the difference between spamming bloodspiller (1 button) and spamming a consolidated 3 step combo ala confiteor (still 1 button)? None in terms of input, it's just visual. But I'll grant you that it's marginally better since you spamm 3 instead of 5 (like warrior has since the last expansion). That's less spamm, so it's already something. I think players are too dumb to be given more inputs to use inside delirium/confiteor/inner release/etc, I guess. We're just apes that can't manage more than one button.

I wish the heat blast spamm was gone on MCH as well tbh. Those types of combo/gameplay are just total brain rot.

[Absurdity]

The difference is the 30 second cooldown making Gnashing a downtime filler as well and the fact that GnB needs to build up resources instead of just pressing the "Hurrdurr burst damage"-button, in execution they're identical.

[HatSkeleton]

At this point I think I’d take literally anything over the incredibly basic rotation DRK has right now. I don’t think it’d even be hard to give it a mildly interesting rotation, you could just shuffle some CDs around at the very least. Iirc DRK has 60% or more of its damage tied up in one 20 second window each minute, so surely it wouldn’t hurt to give it the tiniest crumb of activity outside of burst.

Even something we simple as, say, a 40s Delirium and a standalone DoT or damage GCD with a 30s CD (hell, make Carve and Spit 30s or decouple Abyssal Drain and make it 30s). That would make it so you do your opener, 123 for a little bit, fire off your 30s thing, Delirium combo, 123 for a little bit and fire off your 60s and 30s CDs, Delirium combo, 30s thing, 123 for a little bit, and voila you’re back to 2 minute burst. Just the most basic barebones cooldown management, like not drifting anything that goes into 2m, or knowing when you should use or hold your DoT because the boss is about to be untargetable. I could care less about damage, nerf the bloodspiller potencies, I don’t care, just let me do something.

At level 100, I shouldn’t be staring at the same 3 attacks for something like 80s every 2 minutes, with 3-4 bloodspillers thrown in just to keep from overcapping. Beyond being unfun, it runs antithetical to this push from Square for aesthetically pleasing and flashy rotations over all else. I enjoy the super powerful burst and tiny bits of damage optimization you can squeeze out, but DRK’s downtime at level 90 is one of the most boring jobs in the game short of a healer with no one to heal. 123 of the same floaty, generic looking attack animations over and over. At least give us Power Slash or old Delirium back or something.

Making DRK the tank with a 40s action cycle could actually serve as a form of identity among the other tanks, since it wouldn’t be losing much damage except potentially its 60s personal burst under Mug (which it didn’t benefit much from anyways because DRK’s odd minute burst is anemic).

[Oizen]

I don't think you got 4 new GCD's, i think you only got 1.
There's no reason to believe it's anything other than a new animation set for your Bloodspiller spam after Delirium.
It's the same as Warrior's infuriate turning Fell cleave into ''not Fell cleave''

I mean if thats how you want to look at it, yeah.
But the community loves gnashing fang, and 2 years ago one of the biggest complaints EW DRK got for its addition was "even more ogcds", and people were mad that DRK wasnt getting a GCD finisher like Primal Rend. I remember the posts.
So seeing them focus on GCDs just feels like a response to that, and they eliminated the source of it being compared to Fell Cleave spam, at least according to everyone who views Gnashing Fang as anything different.

I just view feedback of this job specifically to be very schizophrenic, and a lot of people are either attached to the aesthetics and just want those aesthetics attached to another tank entirely, or alternatively people aren't willing to admit that Dark Knight does have things and advantages over other tanks in these arguments, or alternatively act like other tanks have these deep and engaging rotations when in reality they're all just sorta 123 spam until its time to do your job specific thing. I'll give you DRK has the biggest gaps between its job specific thing and 123 spam but I don't really view any of them in particularly good spots.

Like I've seen people say things like "Tanks shouldn't be so homogenized" and "TBN should be free and on a 25s timer" in the same sentence, so I can't say I'm surprised the devs barely listen to feedback on this.

[Kreyd]

Like I've seen people say things like "Tanks shouldn't be so homogenized" and "TBN should be free and on a 25s timer" in the same sentence, so I can't say I'm surprised the devs barely listen to feedback on this.

I think that's because the first is about gameplay, while the latter is about balancing. Look at Sentinel, Vengeance, Shadow Wall, and Nebula. They are perfectly the same abilities, including to all of them beeing learned at lv 38, aside from Vengeance having this tiny 55 potency retaliatory damage cherry on top because of...WAR I guess. Removing those 55 potency from Vengeance would not count as further homogenizing tanks imo, because they effectiveley already are the same abilities. But it would balance them.

Generally, I wouldn't say I'm disappointed in DT DRK (didn't expect much anyway), it's just sad in which state Tanks are, while melees clearly show that minor design differences can make huge impact on job identity.

[GoatOfWar]

Like I've seen people say things like "Tanks shouldn't be so homogenized" and "TBN should be free and on a 25s timer" in the same sentence, so I can't say I'm surprised the devs barely listen to feedback on this.

Whats funny is, the people most vocal about homogenisation were crying the loudest when any tank did something better than War.
It's genuinely hillarious to see people cry about Gnb's damage being slightly ahead of Warrior still, or Paladin somehow being more tanky than Warrior.
Some people going as far as to insist that War needs more mitigation because Xenos Christ said so.

[mallleable]

My stance hasn't really changed. I still think that DRK should be spending its own HP on attacks like it does in PVP which would require extensive changes to address survivability, and so that it can still function as a tank. Another DRK change I would like to see is that Plunge be put on the GCD, and have its potency, animation, and sound design beefed up while still retaining its its movement capabilities, and have it be an upgrade to Bloodspiller. I think DRK's attacks should feel slightly unwieldy, and dangerous, and being able to overcome their quirks will lead to a sense of mastery.