DT DRK Feedback - A shadow of its former self?

[Nivarea]

I know there is the DRK megathread, but the feedback got a bit long as I wanted to be as comprehensive as I could.

I gave some time playing DT and levelling all tanks before trying to make an opinion on DRK. I’m not one to make many posts on official forum, but I felt that DT DRK needed feedback.

For context, I mained DRK since HW and found fun in all its iterations, be it the array of oGCDs of HW, the DA spam of SB or the intense burst windows of ShB/EW. While I have my preferences with the pre-ShB DRK, I’m not against the more “modern” version we’ve had for 5 years now and can’t deny that its design works well with how the game works.

DT DRK is a continuation of what DRK became after ShB, that much is clear. It is also, in my opinion, sadly the worst version of the job we've got, a bit of a hollow version of what it’s been for the last 5 years.

The Good:
- The new Scarlet Delirium combo feels good, the animation feedback is impactful.
- Disesteem is good, it’s finally a new GCD, with range and power, that gives Living Shadow a tiny bit of importance. Unfortunately, it’s also only pressed once every two minutes.
- Shadow Vigil, while not the best upgrade from 30% mitigation among the tanks, is good and the heal synergize well with Living Dead.

The Bad:
- The merging of Delirium and Blood Weapon is bad and was unnecessary. We lost two stacks of blood and MP management, and while on the blood side it’s not a big deal because of the removal of the Blood requirement of Living Shadow, the nerf to the MP generation is much more felt because…
- We lost one MP spender per 2mn. It’s a hit on both our offense and our defence, because TBN is linked to our MP.
- The removal of a MP spender every 2mn, the two plunges and the new Delirium cost us a lot in APM, puting DRK on the same level as WAR (!) on the number of buttons you press every minute. It doesn’t feel right at all.
- The removal of the Blood requirement for Living Shadow means that we don’t even have to save up blood for it, making the gauge a simple Bloodspiller gauge – the same problem WAR have with its Beast gauge.

What about TBN? TBN is fine. While I can understand the frustration with its cost, it is also the last bastion of skill expression the job has. I’m against changing it if we don’t get something else to actively think about. Improve it by making its requirement for refunding less punishing or adding a new effect? No problem. Removing the MP cost and putting it on 25s? No way. We don’t need more homogenization on tanks than what we have now.

I’m ambivalent on Shadow Stride. While I liked Plunge, mostly for its animation, I also value non-damaging gap-closers as something useful and flexible.

I’m finally not really interested in the sustain aspect of DRK, it didn’t change, but I wasn’t really bothered with it before.


So yeah, the problem with DRK can be summarized as losing more than it gained (which is not something unseen for DRK), and while the new abilities are cool, they, in no fashion, compensate for what we’ve lost. DRK historically has been a busy job, or at least a high APM one. That’s the reason I came to like and main DRK, the reason I stayed on it all throughout the extensions even if it changed a lot between StB and ShB. For it to become arguably the least busy job of all tanks feels, to me, a bit disheartening. It’s the least fun it’s been, and that’s my main issue, I don’t really care for its performance.

The changes made the biggest downside of the job since ShB even more glaring, being the completely non-interesting filler between bursts that feels even longer and more boring now, while its strength, the manic burst window, have also been neutered.

While DRK is still fine as being a job that works and still pump-up good numbers, especially after the 7.05 buffs, it is also the worse it’s been on the mechanical and fun aspect for the player. Compared to what other tanks got, well… DRK got the shortest end of the stick since all others, even PLD who got not much because of the 6.3 rework, only gained things with DT. I waited to play all other tanks at 100 before to be absolutely sure that this feeling was not unwarranted.

So, what to do?

-First, more MP.
It doesn’t matter how, but we need more MP. At least give us the two blood weapon stack we’ve lost, but even then, with Disesteem being a new GCD with no MP generation and with the removal of blood requirement on Living Shadow, we would still be under ShB/EW MP generation. If it was my call, I would buff MP even more to force spending it more, even outside burst windows, but to each their own.

-Second, decouple Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit.
This coupling came in EW, probably to remove a button push from burst, but given where we are now, we can separate their timers again. I would not be against a change in recast time either, it would help with downtime.

These are the more urgent changes that are easy to make and would at least put us closer to ShB/EW version of the job.

If we feel bolder, here are some other changes that would help a bit to make DRK filler more bearable:

-Separate Blood Weapon and Delirium
Them being not coupled made them more flexible and gave a tiny bit of skill expression.

-Reducing Delirium recast to 30 or 40s
I’m more for 40s, to not make it the same timer as GNB Gnashing Fang, but the idea is to reduce the downtime between Delirium windows while still have it line up with the 2mn timer. Bonus, it’s a boost to resource generation if it’s not decoupled from blood weapon.

-Reduce Salted Earth recast to 45s
It was the recast timer in both Stormblood and Heavensward and it would make it more important to “manage”. Why 45s and not 40 or 60? Because I like it not being forcibly aligned with the 2mn windows.

-Reduce the cost of MP spender to 2500 or 2400 MP
Less cost equals more uses and forced uses outside of burst, while making TBN less punishing.

These are some ideas to explore while not changing the job fundamentally, but I’m not expecting many changes during DT patch cycle, at most the two stacks of Blood Weapon and maybe a separation of Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit. I still think that putting some mostly “realistic” ideas out there can still help and we can still hope that Square surprises us in a good way. Of course, you would have to balance potencies if you do some changes but it’s not my problem here.

I do hope, at least, that if Square doesn’t improve DRK for DT patch cycle they will take our feedback into account and improve it for 8.0, if not rework it again. DRK needs to be a busy job, like GNB is, if not even busier.

For this savage tier, I did choose to play GNB because DRK didn’t felt as good as it used to. I know that I’m not alone in this. I would love to play DRK for the next Ultimate, but if nothing changes, that’s unsure. I may or may not, I don’t know yet.

It’s still DRK. But it’s also a shadow of its former selves.

[CKNovel]

I do agree TBN is fine, it can be annoying to deal with but do we want to lose something to homogenize the tanks cooldown even more?
However i feel like the Edge of Shadow spam is unecessary and too repetitive... But why not, let's continue as if we want to spam Edge.

If anything I believe they should add Scourge and Plunge as GCDs on cooldown (20/30s) that gives back MP or Dark Arts, and that Dark Arts should be stackable.
It works for MCH who does a lot of 1 2 3, it should work for DRK.

If we want to reestablish Blood Weapon and Delirium, we should do it correctly instead of having both buttons always being pressed together.
Put them on different cooldown with different effect, it would be pointless to unmerge them if we go back to EW DRK.

As for Salted Earth... Even if we reduce its cooldown that's still a terrible skill that makes no sense in DRK's kit.

[Nivarea]

However i feel like the Edge of Shadow spam is unecessary and too repetitive... But why not, let's continue as if we want to spam Edge.

While I do agree that we could have more variety than spamming Edge of Shadow, I wasn't proposing a total rework and kept the current DRK framework. I did like spaming Dark Arts during Stormblood tho, so I might be on a different wavelenght than you on this.

If we want to reestablish Blood Weapon and Delirium, we should do it correctly instead of having both buttons always being pressed together.

No disagree here, that's why I specifically mention only delirium and not blood weapon, even if we split them again. It could be the oposite, with blood weapon getting a recast time reduction and Delirium still being on 60s also, doesn't really matter to me tbh.

As for Salted Earth... Even if we reduce its cooldown that's still a terrible skill that makes no sense in DRK's kit.

Again, I'm working with the current DRK framework, so I'm using what skills we have. I do find some interest with salted earth, since it's rewarding good positioning on bosses you can move, but I can understand not liking it.

For what you've proposed with Scourge/Plunge, it's interesting, but would necessitate a rework, which was not my intention here. I could propose idea for a total rework, of course, but I'm mostly focusing on short-term feasible changes. But know that I'm not at all against that kind of changes.

[LoadedVirus]

Let's put it this way, if Warrior used a two-handed sword I would ditch the Dark Knight and never think about it again. Alas I like big swords and black armour.