Hey all! I've been mulling this over for a while as I level my tanks, but with the advent of 5.1 I'm a bit surprised that DRK got nothing but the universal Reprisal and Big Cooldown™ changes. I think it's mostly in a good spot right now, but I feel there's a few sticking points that make it hard to recommend. Right out the gate I'd like to say that I can't speak for every aspect of its gameplay at 80 having not quite capped it yet, so some of this will be extrapolation on current gameplay.
Midgame AoE for DRK is rough right now. Unleash starts strong and Flood is very good in early dungeons, but the other three tanks very quickly catch it and then overtake it on trash. DRK has no AoE combo until 72 when even GNB gets theirs in the 40s, and Quietus is not only weaker than other spender offerings, but sparsely usable until 72 as well. WAR also doesn't get gauge off of Mythril Tempest until 74, but has the benefit of Infuriate to give it free uses, and Delirium is a strictly worse IR. Blood Weapon doesn't actually grant blood until two levels after you get Quietus, and even then you won't get 50 blood out of it in AoE. Requiescat has 12s duration because of spell recast on tanks, Blood Weapon should as well. Salted Earth is just... bad. Its closest analogues (Bow Shock and Circle of Scorn) without exaggeration are twice as effective, accounting for CoS cooldown. It's also a floor effect.
To continue, DRK gets TBN at 70; TBN itself is strong enough that from a balance perspective this was/is fine. The problem is that Abyssal's rework has left a pretty huge gap in DRK's defensive kit until then. In SB, Dark Arts Abyssal was a nice way to smooth out trash pulls; now that it's effectively just a cooldown, having it all be one spike of healing makes it much less consistent to work with despite its raw numbers. In SB I could pull all of Shisui between 1st and 2nd bosses with Abyssal as sustain, and now even being more liberal with cooldowns and with experienced healers that pull is nearly undoable. DRK's AoE situation compounds this, since less outgoing damage on it than other tanks means pulls last longer than they would.
These are points I'm absolutely willing to be wrong on (please feel free to correct any of my wilder misgivings if I have them), but I feel like at least some QoL attention could get thrown DRK's way like what level you get skills at and Blood Weapon duration, especially if it's meant to be the expansion's "image" class. Thanks for reading, and happy tanking!
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Midgame AoE for DRK is rough right now. Unleash starts strong and Flood is very good in early dungeons, but the other three tanks very quickly catch it and then overtake it on trash. DRK has no AoE combo until 72 when even GNB gets theirs in the 40s, and Quietus is not only weaker than other spender offerings, but sparsely usable until 72 as well. WAR also doesn't get gauge off of Mythril Tempest until 74, but has the benefit of Infuriate to give it free uses, and Delirium is a strictly worse IR. Blood Weapon doesn't actually grant blood until two levels after you get Quietus, and even then you won't get 50 blood out of it in AoE. Requiescat has 12s duration because of spell recast on tanks, Blood Weapon should as well. Salted Earth is just... bad. Its closest analogues (Bow Shock and Circle of Scorn) without exaggeration are twice as effective, accounting for CoS cooldown. It's also a floor effect.
To continue, DRK gets TBN at 70; TBN itself is strong enough that from a balance perspective this was/is fine. The problem is that Abyssal's rework has left a pretty huge gap in DRK's defensive kit until then. In SB, Dark Arts Abyssal was a nice way to smooth out trash pulls; now that it's effectively just a cooldown, having it all be one spike of healing makes it much less consistent to work with despite its raw numbers. In SB I could pull all of Shisui between 1st and 2nd bosses with Abyssal as sustain, and now even being more liberal with cooldowns and with experienced healers that pull is nearly undoable. DRK's AoE situation compounds this, since less outgoing damage on it than other tanks means pulls last longer than they would.
These are points I'm absolutely willing to be wrong on (please feel free to correct any of my wilder misgivings if I have them), but I feel like at least some QoL attention could get thrown DRK's way like what level you get skills at and Blood Weapon duration, especially if it's meant to be the expansion's "image" class. Thanks for reading, and happy tanking!
Continue reading...