I think Dark Knight and Gunbreaker losing APM is a shame

[Grimhilda]

I agree with some of the changes in theory, I think it is nice to have a gap closer that can actually be used for utility, and I think merging Blood Weapon and Delirium is an okay idea if it weren't for the nerf to MP generation.

My issue is that these changes come at the cost of APM, because there is nothing to replace the old buttons. Right now it seems that Warrior and Paladin are more appealing to players who prefer a lower APM rotation, while Dark Knight and Gunbreaker appeal to players who prefer higher APM, and the Dawntrail changes seem aimed at making Dark Knight and Gunbreaker more appealing to those who prefer lower APM.

Personally, the higher APM is one of the main reasons I like to play these jobs over Warrior and Paladin, and I just think it's unfortunate that the changes are at odds with that. I think having two tanks each that appeal to those two different groups of players was a good thing, and it's a shame to lose some of that in my opinion.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I'm gonna say, I don't mind losing Plunge and Rough Divide in a vacuum, but I hate the reasoning behind the replacement. If the reasoning was to remove potencies from all basic melee dashes (Intervene, Onslaught) and JUST MAYBE keep Plunge and Rough Divide as a secondary dash ogcd with maybe an extra effect, that would have been cool.

But the goal was to reduce ogcds on the tanks that are by design ogcd heavy. And now Paladin and Warrior get to retain damage on their dashes, Warrior with Primal Rend even gets to keep two and that is unfair.

Plunge was the original tank dash. Then every tank had to get their dash. Now DRK had to lose damage on theirs. Absolutely nothing DRK had remained sacred. We remain an edgy Warrior with magic shintens and our peak gameplay right now is making the best use of TBN without losing damage.

Yoshida speaks of 8.0 as the expansion to address job identity - I will live with DRK for the next 2.5 years and eagerly await that patch - if for no other reason than to check how they completely lost the plot what made DRK interesting in 3.X and 4.X.

Killing old job elements and replacing it with watered down systems of other jobs and an array of "attack with 120s that has no interaction with your kit other than being cooldown-locked" is not what I and certainly many others wanted for the job that actually had an organic action flow, action enhancements and speed buffs.

Only time will tell. Until then I just hope they will adjust the MP generation we lost with two stacks of blood weapon being removed and that TBN remains stalwart in this position - because the absolute last thing we need is to kill the last unique thing about DRK and make TBN a 25s recast no cost no proc barrier to appeal to barse frogs who lose damage because they're bad at using TBN.

[Lyth]

Your APM will be unaffected or marginally higher in movement heavy fights from the gap closer change, so this is just fight design dependent. The bigger APM (and DPS) impact comes from Blood Weapon being integrated into Delirium and the resultant loss of two Blood Weapon stacks, which is probably more worth drawing attention to.

I know of streamers who really want to push the claim that WAR is 'finally starting to catch up' in difficulty this time around, but WAR is still ultimately designed for a section of the playerbase that would be gated out of playing the game entirely if it wasn't so accessible and new player friendly. I think the average player isn't going to see significant differences.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Your APM will be unaffected or marginally higher in movement heavy fights from the gap closer change, so this is just fight design dependent. The bigger APM (and DPS) impact comes from Blood Weapon being integrated into Delirium and the resultant loss of two Blood Weapon stacks, which is probably more worth drawing attention to.

I know of streamers who really want to push the claim that WAR is 'finally starting to catch up' in difficulty this time around, but WAR is still ultimately designed for a section of the playerbase that would be gated out of playing the game entirely if it wasn't so accessible and new player friendly. I think the average player isn't going to see significant differences.

I don't understand Lyth, but where exactly is the APM unaffected into marginally higher in movement heavy fights from that change?

- Bloodweapon got folded into Delirium (-1 APM)
- Unless the MP from the lost stacks are folded in the remaining 3 stacks (600 -> 1000 each), that's -1200MP per minute (-0,4/min in EoS, unsure exact APM), also as you mentioned
- Disesteem is a GCD replacing a different GCD every 2min (+/- 0)
- even if I were to use my new dash on cooldown like I did with Plunge, that's still +/- 0. Without actual movement need, that is -2 APM discounting Enhanced Unmend trait
- our defensives only got upgraded so unlike with Oblation, we will continue doing the same as before.

At best, it is unaffected, at worst it is actually less APM than before and the additions are just visuals with higher potency that trigger from using two free cooldowns that take no resources or management (anymore).

[Lyth]

You'll still be pressing the button as an actual movement tool. Cast counts don't just include offensive actions, they include all actions, including weaved defensives and utility actions.

You're right in that it's going to be about a 2 APM loss specifically under pure target dummy conditions, but I think the reason for this change is to allow fight designers to move away from that, alongside smaller hitbox sizes. If fights are designed well, you'll still be pressing your movement tool button in the interests of maintaining uptime. I think the point going forward is that you should have a movement tool that you are using regularly for movement.

If it bothers you, work in Low Blow, Interject, Shirk, and Provoke into your rotation while maximizing your Arm's Length uses and you'll boost your numbers. If you have unused Shadowstride uses then be sure to burn those off as well. You'll still have much lower APM than a NIN who has on demand access to Shukuchi, or a VPR who has on-demand access to Slither (even after allowing for all that defensive fluff that inflates tank cast totals), but at least you can feel like you're keeping pace in the tank race.

I do think it's reasonable to talk about the change to Bloodweapon and Delirium's MP gains, but do I think the change to gap closers are really just there to bring tanks up to speed with everyone else, so that their movement tools are not a limiting factor for fight design. Sometimes change is resisted because people cling to what they know, rather than out of a desire to advocate for the best design. You'll have to remember that Onslaught was downgraded (in response to WAR player demand, no less) from a more modern Gyoten-style gap-closer to a traditional Shoulder Tackle style gap closer because tanks were still mentally stuck on ARR approaches to melee gameplay. I think it's time to break out of that mindset.

[Kaixern]

Plunge was the original tank dash. Then every tank had to get their dash. Now DRK had to lose damage on theirs. Absolutely nothing DRK had remained sacred. We remain an edgy Warrior with magic shintens and our peak gameplay right now is making the best use of TBN without losing damage.[/B]

I mean aren't you happy to have a "magic dash" with absolutely no visual identity whatsoever?
Aren't you happy to have your third "dark laser line attack" (what shall we have in 8.0? oh i can't wait ^^) that just looks and fell like an "upgrade" to the previous ones?

Sarcasm and despair aside, if i wanted to play a game with different classe/characters with almost no differences in gameplay and everything focused on vfx, animations and visuals in order to differenciate them, i would have gone to play Genshin or Wuthering Waves.
This is just sad when you look at many classes and how they were "modified"

From my perspective, from heavensward to stormblood the dark knight class changed
there was good and bad that happened to this class, but overall it changed, it was an evolution.
Of course depending of people opinion some liked it and other hated and even to this day i feel like there is no real right or wrong answer.
From shadowbringer onward it felt like a complete downward spiral

Can people enjoy this class now? Absolutely, and they have all the right in the world to.
Is this class well designed? nope.
Now it's just "viable", that's all there is to it
(and depending on the patch/expansion it does the biggest damage out of the tanks, such identity)

Also sorry in advance for the possible deviation of the subject.

[The_User]

It.s because they keep using the idea that would fix dark knight to create a new job instead if you wanna talk about how and why it begin with shadowbringer.

[Rithy255]

losing high apm doesn't really mean that much when the jobs are already boring 1, 2, 3 (spender) which is every tank design.

Like it or not tanks do need to weave in defensives and other stuff, but the issue is actually that their rotations are genuinely just boring.

[Derio]

Losing Blood weapon was ok for me, its the mp regen from it being combined with Delirium is what we hope to see adjusted in the final patch notes because that is a major oversight unless edge and flood potencies have been increased and I just missed it.

Plunge they literally could have just removed the potency from it and it would have been fine. Then you have enhanced unmend which is still a thing. The gap closers should at least allow you to jump to any target not just an enemy.

In regards to APM I see what they were trying to do. But DRK in particular, after the 2 minute burst you are literally doing 1-2-3 for the next minute until 1 minute burst comes back up and plunge was the filler. Now you dont have that and they didnt replace it with anything. DRK already feels bad before lvl 70. Now its just going to feel bad before lvl 96.

[Mostly_Raxus]

It.s because they keep using the idea that would fix dark knight to create a new job instead if you wanna talk about how and why it begin with shadowbringer.

Stormblood was the death of DRK, y'all just didn't bury it till ShadowBringers... oh look 2 generic attacks and a gauge (that are a single target / aoe clone of each other, that should be off the gcd...) at the cost of everything that made the class unique, but dont worry, warriors got to do as much damage as dragoons for 2 tiers.