The Current state of DRK

[Arrius]

Definitely had the healers work more when I was running dungeons with the Dark Knight.

[Zimmerson]

One suggestion I would have is more in line with completely revamping it to resemble more what the job is based off of, a job that uses its own hp to deal major damage.
I know that's what the blood gauge is meant to represent, but I think having high risk/high reward would be a lot of fun, and it could have more self sustain to keep itself alive in a pinch
However I don't know if it would really work in an mmo setting, as cool as the idea sounds to me in my head

As much as it would be cool to use ones own health to deal DPS, I don't believe it would be a good idea in PVE. For example, BLM back in the day had an ability called "Convert" that allowed to converted 20% of your HP into MP. This often ended up with BLMs dying to raidwides due to the lack of HP.
If this was a thing for DRK - it would make main tanking for DRK difficult, or force it into an off-tank role. I love playing MT so it'd basically be unviable for me to use this to it's full potential due to being hit by auto's and mechanics, which can pack a punch. You could argue that - "Just mit more", but you'd end up burning through your mitigations that you would want to save for something like M3S's 6 back-to-back Tankbuster hits.

This change would also force the healers to watch your HP more and have to be more proactive in keeping you alive, lest the DRK dies. Last thing you need is for a DRK to be greeding for extra damage before being given a bloody nose by the boss/enemy before murdering either the DPS/Healers or the co-tank that didn't mit for a tankbuster as they weren't expecting you to die.

[DaveFishnomer]

Yes yes yes, nobody cares about DRK, we are scuffed, it's been like that since StB, move along.

[Zimmerson]

Yes yes yes, nobody cares about DRK, we are scuffed, it's been like that since StB, move along.

So you believe that not even bothering to continue to try to raise this issue is the right course of action?

[DaveFishnomer]

So you believe that not even bothering to continue to try to raise this issue is the right course of action?

No, raise it all you like, I believe that it's pointless, the devs has made it crystal clear they dont give a shit about many aspects of the game, DRK being one of them

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Please, for the love of Hydaelyn, enough with the Oblation merge suggestions... if you guys want yet another Holy Sheltron, Bloodwhetting or Heart of Corundum (multi layer mitigation) and don't to weave mitigation as much, please play the other tanks and leave TBN and Oblation separate.

Making Oblation have more spice and flavour, I'm all for that. Maybe Exaltation style expiration heal, maybe HoT, maybe Bloodbath effect. But don't take away the flexibility of Oblation by letting me use it independently of TBN on self or other targets, the flexibility of choosing how much mitigation I want to apply to self for busters.

...and don't touch TBN's CD man... that 15s CD actually gives me a lot more freedom to save someone and then have it for a buster soon after myself.

As for Dark Mind, I'm not convinced making it 15% generic mit is the way to go. I'd prefer addle-style 10% physical, 20% magical mitigation.

[OdinelStarrei]

So you believe that not even bothering to continue to try to raise this issue is the right course of action?

It's coming from a place of precedent. Everyone on a fundamental level agrees with you. The job is awful now, and depending on who you ask, the job has been awful for a long time. They aren't saying to you specifically, "You are wasting your time, stop annoying us with your rework pleas" but instead "You are wasting your time, stop doing Square Enix's job for them, and they aren't going to listen to you, because we've been complaining for literally years now and haven't been listened to."

Think about it man. Something like Living Dead, was a poorly designed skill at the outset of 3.0 that only got worse and worse with time. We didn't get a resolution to that until 6.1. Blood Weapon issues after the rework were constantly complained about for years before they got fixed, and then they BROKE it AGAIN when they nerfed it this expansion and combined it with Delirium, something that has an entire different intent than Blood Weapon used to, even if they were used at similar times. Maybe if they kept BW at a 40 second CD, they would have remembered what the skill's original purpose was.

Why bother speaking to developers who don't listen, don't care about the job, and never interact with the community of mains who have at the very least, have made it consistently obvious that no one is happy with the job or the constant nerfs and borderline malicious treatment? You have better results running yourself headfirst into a brick wall then trying to get these developers to develop a fun, engaging, and unanimously accepted Dark Knight playstyle or admit their decisions post-rework have been nonsensical and unexciting, and that's me being generous. They don't want us to manage gauges, because they removed Darkside, removed MP management, and removed Blood management. They don't want us having a fast APM or inputs per minute, because they removed Blood Weapon GCD haste, removed or consolidated our oGCDs, slowed down our openers and killed Skill Speed Dark Knight viability. They don't want us having multiple combo strings or really any kind of GCD centric playstyle either because the last GCD DRK gets before the one-and-done Disesteem is Fell Cleave Minus (having all it's originality killed in the rework) at 62. Just 1-2-3 until whatever is left of a Dark Knight's grey matter slide out of their ears.

So where does that leave you and the rest of us DRKs? Someone who is putting more effort into Dark Knight design, conceptualization and discourse then the developers do. And you aren't even being paid. So give up. The developers certainly did. It's for the best.

Pathetic job.

[Derio]

JP doesnt see DRK knight has an issue. If anything devs will take the low player count numbers and think the job is too hard to play compared to other tanks and dumb it down even more.

It took 7 years for them to fix Living Dead, and 8 years to fix blood weapon stacks. And it could be 8 years until TBN is upgraded.

[Zryn]

DRK and TBN is advertised as this tank that can throw out TBNs/mits more frequently due to its reduced cooldown but losing mp generation is literally a nerf to TBN and if you have one not pop it feels even worse now.

I would really like to see Carve & Spit and Abyssal Drain's cooldown untied from eachother. Abyssal Drain is a button you literally never use currently because most people will just play war or another tank in dungeons anyway. Change Abyssal Drain to PLD's holy spirit where doing your 123 will give you a proc for a free one (and put this at a lower level since the removal of plunge and mp generation nerfed DRK in all legacy content). This would help a lot with self-sustain and make the people that complained about the reduced oGCD's happy. You could also add stacks to it where you could use your 123 multiple times (lets say up to 3 times for example) and each stack will increase the damage and healing of your next drain, that way you dont HAVE to use it after your 123 and can use it when you actually need it.

As for TBN, if our mp generation is not improved then this really is counterproductive for what TBN is supposed to be, it needs to either have its mp cost and edge proc removed and instead make it feel more impactful (25sec CD + some type of heal for example), or reduce the mp cost of edge and tbn to like 2500mp or something. In my opinion having a chance for a dps loss because of the use of a mitigation is really dumb, no other tank has anything like that.
Salted Earth and Salt and Darkness also feels awful to use, they should do something more than just damage, like a regen if youre standing in salted earth and a big heal when you pop salt and darkness, for example.

Also for the love of god please put Dark Missionary at level 70 or below like all the other tanks. Bringing a DRK into ucob or uwu is just griefing your party. Oh and increasing Living Dead heal potency just a tad since if youre running 2.5 and proc LD right after a gcd there is a chance you wont heal yourself to full, which is just dumb.

Changes similar to these would help dark knight IMMENSELY.

[noumen0nn]

I am begging everyone to stop asking for DRK's mitigation to be "brought in line" with other tanks.

DRK's offensive kit is in a boring state, and that does need to be addressed (which, quite frankly, restoring our MP per min to it's former amount would solve like 90% of the issues). But seriously, why are we asking for more homogenization within the tank role? DRK is currently the only tank whose defensive and offensive kits have any interaction, with TBN. Is it frustrating that this offensive connection can limit TBN's power? Sure. But needing to be deliberate about when and where you use TBN is engaging and fun.

Furthermore, the common complaints about Dark Mind and Oblation are just misinformed. The current savage tier has physical tankbusters in 3 out of the 4 floors, but does this make DRK unviable? Not even close. Rampart + Shadowed Vigil + TBN is more than enough for all of them. Meanwhile, when you do have magical busters, DRK becomes practically immortal. Remember when we were soloing the shared buster in P7S and taking no damage? Then with Oblation, people complain about it being "weak" or "half a cooldown", ignoring the fact that its power is in its ability to target party members paired with its multiple charges and low cooldown. If you're dealing with an extremely heavy raidwide in a savage or ultimate, TBN on the caster + both Oblations on the healers means the party can afford to save a mit cooldown for somewhere else. No other tank can do this.

The common meme about DRK right now is that it's just a scuffed WAR. Currently, the only thing keeping that from being literally correct is the fact that TBN isn't a generic, 25-second 0-cost cooldown. So please stop asking for it to be one.