DRK issues - another thread

[Kogeta-Shizuha]

I know people are talking about this already, but I hope to increase the chance of devs noticing the issues DRK has and taking a look at the job. DRK has been my favorite tank job since Heavensward, but it has felt like a budget WAR for ages now.

I'm not someone who knows a lot about job balance or job design. I just want to point out issues that have been bugging me about the class and some possible suggestions for those issues. Please feel free to correct me or chime in with your own points or suggestions.

1) Plunge/gap closer (Enhanced Unmend)
Plunge was removed yet the 'enhanced unmend' trait is still in the game?
This was already an incredibly lackluster trait to begin with, but it is literally useless now. On top of that it feels unfair that DRK and GNB get their damage removed from their gap closers while WAR and PLD get to keep it.

2) Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain
Abyssal Drain is only useful in dungeon packs and even then it's still only worth using it from what, 4 targets and up? I don't see why Abyssal Drain couldn't be separated into a healing ability to make DRK's sustain stronger. It could be a life steal ability with a certain amount of stacks for example.

3) Dark Mind being magic defense only
Before lvl 70 DRK feels weak defensively and Dark Mind only reducing magic damage taken doesn't help with that. It's not a bad skill, but why is DRK still the only tank with a magic defense only skill?

4) Dark Missionary being unlocked at lvl 76
WHY does DRK unlock Dark Missionary as late as lvl 76? GNB's equivalent skill is unlocked at lvl 64. WAR also gets 'Shake it Off' at level 68 and PLD gets 'Passage of Arms' at lvl 70.

5)Mana management is non existent.
At the moment it takes absolutely 0 effort to manage your mana while this was the core mechanic of DRK in the past. You just use Edge/Flood of shadow for damage and you sit on 3000 mana in case you need a TBN.

6) TBN is only risk, no reward
The concept of TBN is cool to me, but when the reward for breaking a TBN is just a proc of Edge/Flood of Shadow with the exact same potency, then what's the point? Instead a broken TBN proc could give you a small potency increase on your next Edge/Flood of Shadow, some life steal or a small shield. At the moment when using TBN there are no rewards, only risks.

7) Salted Earth and Salt and Darkness
Why couldn't this just be made into a similar ability to what it's like in PvP currently for DRK? While you stand in Salted Earth it will slowly heal you or perhaps reduce damage taken.

8) DRK and the 2 minute burst
At the moment I believe the only reason you'd bring a DRK to clear content is because it performs well in buff party compositions because of the 2 minute burst. I believe the main reason for this is because DRK can sit on resources and release them all during the burst. This however leads to DRK being nothing but a 1-2-3 combo job outside of bursts.

[noumen0nn]

5)Mana management is non existent.
At the moment it takes absolutely 0 effort to manage your mana while this was the core mechanic of DRK in the past. You just use Edge/Flood of shadow for damage and you sit on 3000 mana in case you need a TBN.

6) TBN is only risk, no reward
The concept of TBN is cool to me, but when the reward for breaking a TBN is just a proc of Edge/Flood of Shadow with the exact same potency, then what's the point? Instead a broken TBN proc could give you a small potency increase on your next Edge/Flood of Shadow, some life steal or a small shield. At the moment when using TBN there are no rewards, only risks.

Points 5 and 6 are inaccurate, but they are both issues for different reasons than you've listed.

• The "save 3000 MP" method is for beginner DRKs and following it will make you do pitiful damage under buffs. The actual method is that you should *only* spend mana outside of buffs in order to not overcap MP or to keep darkside up. The real issue is, there used to be more flexibility as to when and where you could spend mana, but since our MP regen has been nerfed by 2400 MP per 2 minutes, when to use EoS is much more rigid.
• The "reward" for TBN is that you can break one to prevent mana overcap, thereby holding an extra edge of shadow into buff windows. A good DRK can map an encounter in a way such that every single edge spent outside buffs can come from a TBN proc, which massively increases the party's survivability, and still fit 5 edges into burst. Again, the real issue is that our severely nerfed MP generation means that we've lost the flexibility of TBN use. Aside from the one you break before your 2 minute window, you can only TBN twice between every buff window now; any more than that and you will contribute less damage under buffs, thereby punishing us for using our most unique and effective defensive tool.

[d3adh0g]

Being playing for a month now after a 1.5 years hiatus.

Totally subjective status of tanks from my experience:

WAR: Self healing machine. Lots of mits.
GNB: Decent mits, quite decent DPS.
PLD: Lots of resources for any situation. Decent mits.
DRK: I have a sword. Big one. That's it.

Seriously what have they done to DRK? Almost non viable as tank, boring to play and end of DPS and mitigation spectrum. TBN does not fix it. It is the BARe minimum to be a tank, though a very ill performing one.

[Oizen]

In general Dawntrail has messed up a lot of job balance, you think the balance spectrum would be Selfish = High DPS, Party Utility = Lower DPS, but its broken across the board.

7.05 has a lot of work to do.

[CasterSvarog]

Honestly DRK needs a full rework to be more then just ‘here’s WAR, but with worse everything except glam (subjective)’. DRK needs something to stand out from the other tanks again, PLD has its magic spells and physical attacks, WAR is brutal hard feeling hits, GNB is a DPS with mitigation, all DRK has is edge which isn’t even unique what with RPR being a thing.

Give it something to stand out, actions tying together to build up to get stronger actions, Bring Dark Arts back with a small rework to not be spammed like EoS is, have it change and buff actions to bring new effects to the table. People memed on how Shadowbringer was just Dark passenger, why not build on that, have Dark arts build stacks of dark arts, and each one can be spent on the many actions DRK has for new actions like changing Passenger to Shadowbringer. Would be a good way to bring back all those cool animations that got thrown into the trash over the years and that people have been begging for.l the return of.

I love how unique and cool DRKs aesthetic and story is, but I want the gameplay to actually match that level of quality instead of being WAR but worse in every way. Like the jobs uniqueness peaks at TBN breaking gives a free E/FoS. And it’s all downhill after that, especially when you learn that’s been lost over the years.

[Rithy255]

Being playing for a month now after a 1.5 years hiatus.

Totally subjective status of tanks from my experience:

WAR: Self healing machine. Lots of mits.
GNB: Decent mits, quite decent DPS.
PLD: Lots of resources for any situation. Decent mits.
DRK: I have a sword. Big one. That's it.

Seriously what have they done to DRK? Almost non viable as tank, boring to play and end of DPS and mitigation spectrum. TBN does not fix it. It is the BARe minimum to be a tank, though a very ill performing one.

How does WAR have "lots of mits" but Paladin/Gunbreaker only have "decent mits", I'd argue that both tanks have ever so slightly better mitigations and the main reason why warrior has the overall best kit is because Holmgang is very short making it the best invul by a mile.

Dark Knight also has solid mitigation their issue is that some of it only works in magic and it lacks sustain compared to other tanks. I think the best thing we can do for Dark Knight which makes sense is make it a top DPS pick for tanks and add more attacks in future expansions because currently its rotation is very boring.

[Rydia_Misuto]

I want back Stormblood DRK, straight-up. I want back Blood Price, I want back more than one melee combo, I want back gauge management as a mechanic that's meaningful, I want back salted earth having a use and being an aimed AOE, and I haven't had any fun tanking since Shadowbringers. Endwalker was the first time I let my sub lapse since 2.1 (and for 16 months, even) and I'm tired of what my favorite tank job has become. I was there leveling DRK day one of heavensward and I have waited patiently for five years, I'm tired of waiting and I'm tired of "next expansion we promise we'll fix it this time actually for sure."

It wasn't broken in Stormblood. Now they haven't just completely refused to add any depth back in, but they took Plunge from us, too? Plunge having stacks is just about the only good thing they've done for DRK since Stormblood, and now we don't even get Plunge anymore.

[AlucaDragonheart]

I want back Stormblood DRK, straight-up. I want back Blood Price, I want back more than one melee combo, I want back gauge management as a mechanic that's meaningful, I want back salted earth having a use and being an aimed AOE, and I haven't had any fun tanking since Shadowbringers. Endwalker was the first time I let my sub lapse since 2.1 (and for 16 months, even) and I'm tired of what my favorite tank job has become. I was there leveling DRK day one of heavensward and I have waited patiently for five years, I'm tired of waiting and I'm tired of "next expansion we promise we'll fix it this time actually for sure."

It wasn't broken in Stormblood. Now they haven't just completely refused to add any depth back in, but they took Plunge from us, too? Plunge having stacks is just about the only good thing they've done for DRK since Stormblood, and now we don't even get Plunge anymore.

They butchered the entire job just because people didn't like Dark Arts. Heavensward/Stormblood was the peak of DRK instead of the vastly inferior Warrior clone we have now.