Requesting minor adjustments for DRK: Mana & Disesteem

[Jian_Kimura]

So, I've spent a good amount of time playing DRK in ShB, EW & DT and love pushing it to its limit. Done Extreme/Savage with it. Done half the Ultimates with it (other half is DNC because lvl 70 DRK feels empty). Done speed run dungeons with it. Done 1 DRK + 3 DPS on expert roulette with it. Played the Irregular build in Bozja with it. Already, done the two EX DT trials with it and working on optimizing it while I'm reclearing the fights. Prepping for Arcadion once it hits.

DRK is currently in a pretty good spot rotational wise, but I think two band aid adjustments will make me be more happy with it for the rest of the expansion + patch, and I'll just crawl back into my DRK hole and never see the light of this forum.

Mana generation buff to Delirium.
Current DRK lost 1200 mp every minute due to losing 2 stacks of BW (20 blackblood, but w/e Esteem doesn't need it anymore), and I'm starting to feel the problem. I understand that I have to be more careful on my Darkside uptime, but I generally would like some extra mana to spot shield someone that somehow missed an AoE heal. Spot mitting helped me clear a lot of savage raids in the past (and saved a lot of people in dungeons), and it's a real good feeling. Losing the extra mana generation is an indirect nerf to DRK's support capabilities.

Also, the buff to mana generation for Deli will open a few more variances of DRK openers depending on the fight, which is something I love to do to push the most out of this job.

For the openers I use, it currently alternates between:
TBN (-3s) > Pull > Hard Slash > EoS/Living Shadow > Siphon Strike > Souleater > Delirium > Disesteem > Salted Earth/EoS > Scarlet Delirium > Shadowbringer/EoS > Comeuppance > Carve and Spit/EoS > Torcleaver > Shadowbringer/EoS > Bloodspiller > Salt & Darkness

or

Pull > Hard Slash > EoS/Living Shadow > Siphon Strike > Souleater > Delirium > Disesteem > Salted Earth/EoS > Scarlet Delirium > Shadowbringer/EoS > Comeuppance > Carve and Spit/EoS > Torcleaver > Shadowbringer/ > Bloodspiller > Salt & Darkness > Hard Slash > Siphon Strike > EoS

Notice the delayed 5th edge on the non-TBN opener?
Currently, when doing the non-TBN opener, I'm missing the 5th edge after the 2nd Shadowbringer because I'm short around 200-300 mana during that moment in time, and have to delay its use one-two GCD depending on my mana tick. The TBN opener (Or stepping in the bad to pop TBN pre-pull) doesn't have this weird issue, but if TBN doesn't break, I lose an edge.

So currently, I have to chose to delay my 5th edge or gamble on the chance to lose the 5th due to TBN not popping early, which is a lose/lose situation. Therefore, a minor mana buff will also certainly help with non-TBN opener, in which I usually use when certain bosses' auto-attacks doesn't hit hard enough to break TBN due to gear scaling. [1/2]

[Jian_Kimura]

Disesteem's potency should be somewhere between 1200-1600 potency instead of 800.

I'm a little confused as to why Disesteem, a 2-minute GCD finisher, has the same 800 potency as Torcleaver, a 1-minute GCD finisher. Meanwhile, GNB's finisher GCDs (Double Down/Lionheart) deal 1200 potency each, in which one is a one minute and the other is a two minute, and GNB can use both during their two minute burst. Probably I'm missing some extra math with the other tanks, but I've only leveled DRK to max so far but currently I disagree with the current potency.

If CBU3 wants DRK to being the bursty 2-minute tank job they envisioned, but not out compete GNB in persistent damage, they should buff Disesteem, but leave Torcleaver damage as it is.

That's my opinion on DT DRK so far, so you can take the suggestion with a grain of salt. [2/2]

[AvaloniaFallen]

Agree with both of these, the MP loss is super noticeable in dungeons too; I get to use TBN way less which is like. Why give me the 15 second cooldown if I don't have the MP gen to support it? And DRK doing less damage than WAR is crazy when we also have a lot less utility; we desperately need some potency adjustments somewhere bc right now there's no reason outside of flavor to play DRK.

[Karkarov]

So you are wrong about the MP loss. It is a straight up across the board nerf period. Over a longer fight you will lose multiple opportunities to TBN, a properly used TBN not only adds mitigation but gives a free edge/flood so you lost DPS too. Also no you aren't missing anything, Gunbreaker dps is flat better in a no contest kind of way than Dark dps. Warrior DPS is better than Dark DPS now. It isn't just because Disesteem has a massively stupid name and is too weak either, but it goes back to that loss of mana generation too and no more plunge. YES plunge was small but it was "something" and it was replaced with nothing.

Every tank got potency buffs and new damage gcd's, only Dark loss generation power on their most important resource. Mana.