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

[Malthir]

Genuinely wonder if I can get a refund on my expac purchase. I'm tired of them destroying the class expac after expac, we've had a megathread about Drks being terrible and un fun for over 2 years now and the dev's have listened to precisely none of the feedback.
To sum it up

The community for the past 4 years:
WE HATE LIVING SHADOW is a crap mechanic that doesn't fit the class and is un fun.
We hate delirium spam that basically makes us a less fun warrior.
We have no self sustain for doing levelling content.
Pressing 3 buttons repeatedly for 10m is NOT ENGAGING,

Dev's response:
Best we can do, give you another button attached to living shadow, remove you blood weapon mechanic and give you 1 button to press for 10m.

[Rehayem]

Healers: first time?

[Oizen]

I like living shadow
I like managing the mp and blood, and delirium doesn't bother me.

[fulminating]

I like living shadow

Would you be willing to elaborate on this? It just feels like such a nothingy button to me.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Would you be willing to elaborate on this? It just feels like such a nothingy button to me.

A) It's an extremely thematic button for the job, considering the DRK story. Same reason why I quite enjoy TBN even beyond its gameplay purposes.
B) Compared to just any random DoT skill where you get a brief animation and then the effect of your DoT is basically invisible unless you're solo and/or parsing, it feels much more impactful to use since it attacks and moves on the battlefield, and its attacks appear as flying text adding to the impact. Also speaking as a former game dev, visual impact of a skill/move/ablity/etc does positively/negatively change how people perceive something. It's why hitstun is so nice in games and games that lack it often have people asking to have it added back in. Or even take FF14, where people laughed at Expedience because of how lackluster it was shown isually when the effect on it before nerf was broken.

Could it have a more direct impact on the kit? Sure. But LS is quite a unique skill in execution compared to traditional DoTs and thematics, it's not that much of a stretch for why people like it. Tons of more casual players go nuts over the huge powerful summons of Bahamut/Phoenix despite them also being effectively glorified DoTs.

[Malthir]

A) It's an extremely thematic button for the job, considering the DRK story. Same reason why I quite enjoy TBN even beyond its gameplay purposes.
B) Compared to just any random DoT skill where you get a brief animation and then the effect of your DoT is basically invisible unless you're solo and/or parsing, it feels much more impactful to use since it attacks and moves on the battlefield, and its attacks appear as flying text adding to the impact. Also speaking as a former game dev, visual impact of a skill/move/ablity/etc does positively/negatively change how people perceive something. It's why hitstun is so nice in games and games that lack it often have people asking to have it added back in. Or even take FF14, where people laughed at Expedience because of how lackluster it was shown isually when the effect on it before nerf was broken.

Could it have a more direct impact on the kit? Sure. But LS is quite a unique skill in execution compared to traditional DoTs and thematics, it's not that much of a stretch for why people like it. Tons of more casual players go nuts over the huge powerful summons of Bahamut/Phoenix despite them also being effectively glorified DoTs.

Unique in what way, it's literally a worse version of the machinist Mech Queen.
It's out highest damage output ability and it's basically press this button for an NPC to come do things
in fact it's not even an original copy because didn't ninja's have a clone that basically does the same things LS does but also better?

[Oizen]

Unique in what way, it's literally a worse version of the machinist Mech Queen.
It's out highest damage output ability and it's basically press this button for an NPC to come do things
in fact it's not even an original copy because didn't ninja's have a clone that basically does the same things LS does but also better?

me when the dps does more damage than the tank

[Valence]

Unique in what way, it's literally a worse version of the machinist Mech Queen.

At least your pet does AoE, ours still doesn't after 2 expansions...

[Malthir]

I like living shadow
I like managing the mp and blood, and delirium doesn't bother me.

I liked managing mana, when it was fun like back in heavensward, it's not managing now. it's press these buttons during your burst window then press 1,2,3 to get mana back, if you're every sitting at 6k mana you've done it wrong. that's it, that's not management.
Living shadow is a bolted on machinist mech queen cause they didn't know what to do with Drks, they were already working on reapers and knew they were going to be using the theme and stealing drks moves anyway, looking at you soul survivor.

Drks rotation is essentially (if starting without blood)
1>TBN> EOS>Delirium>bloodspiller>any 2 GDC moves>bloodspiller>any 2 GDC moves>bloodspiller>any 2 GDC moves. Now you press 1,2,3 for the next minute whenever you've got 50 blood use blood spiller and 2 gcd's. Use TBN anytime you see a tank buster and 2m from the start make sure you've got enough blood for living shadow and use Delirium, cycle repeats.

If it's on a wall to wall pull replace 1,2,3 with 4,5 aoe combo and bloodspiller with Quietus

That's functionally it, there's more fine tuning and people can be sweaty with spreadsheets, but that's 90% of what Drks do.

New expac
1>TBN> EOS>Delirium>bloodspiller>any 2 GDC moves>bloodspiller>any 2 GDC moves>bloodspiller>any 2 GDC moves. Now you press 1 for the next minute whenever you've got 50 blood use bloodspiller and 2 gcd's. 2m from the start make sure you've got enough blood for living shadow and use Delirium but wait, this time you get to use the new move they added to living shadow........ Man such a thrill to play Thanks dev's so glad I paid 50 quid for an expac and a monthly sub.

[Oizen]

Would you be willing to elaborate on this? It just feels like such a nothingy button to me.

In comparison to the sea of other nothingy buttons? Its fairly unique how it goes about it. Like would you magically like the skill more if it was a 2200 potency oGCD? Probably not right?

I guess I dont get the hate because a lot of DRK players like to complain about shit like this as if the other tanks are getting super revolutionary tools, and they're really not.
WAR got bigger fell cleave, its the exact same as regular fell cleave except its bigger, it doesn't even change how the job is played. Infuriate still does exactly what it did before, except with a bigger fell cleave.
GNB has a potency bump for its 30s ogcd.
Confiteor is probably the most impactful of the skills at this range.
By comparison summoning a second copy of yourself to spam a bunch of gcds over time seems more interesting to me than the others. Not terribly so, but I like it, and I think its more flavorful than just giving drk another damage ogcd.

Theres also been rare scenarios that the way it works end up saving my ass by acting as a psuedo ranged attack for Dark Knight which I find fun.

I liked managing mana, when it was fun like back in heavensward, it's not managing now. it's press these buttons during your burst window then press 1,2,3 to get mana back, if you're every sitting at 6k mana you've done it wrong. that's it, that's not management.
Living shadow is a bolted on machinist mech queen cause they didn't know what to do with Drks, they were already working on reapers and knew they were going to be using the theme and stealing drks moves anyway, looking at you soul survivor.

I mean yeah the game has been casualized over the years Im not going to fight that but TBN and its lower cd and mp cost is just inherently more engaging to me than the other tank mits. To me seeing how many times I can use TBN and where per fight while still carrying capped mp with a dark arts stack into a burst window is the fun part of dark knight.
It makes Dark Knight more fun to raid with than say GNB or WAR, and definitely more engaging to maximize. Don't know what else to tell you.