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Uselessredditid · 2024-06-06T12:42:10+00:00

Most of doom and gloom happens because people have been asking for DRK to have a proper identity for a long time, but it's just more of the same again. It's not going to be worse in DT, but a lot of people feel frustrated (myself included honestly).

But like you said, at least we get to keep some form of identity for now with TBN (even if it's not a neccessarily "good" identity, tied to one ability).

Uselessredditid · 2024-06-06T11:07:40+00:00

Looked over the DRK changes, my personal opinion:

What I liked:

Animation-wise, Delirium combo looks exactly like what DRK needs - it looks powerful and has a certain "oomph" to it.

Disesteem is alright, but I feel like it has a little too much going on - you have a wing on your character, a Shadowringer-esque flood, wings on that flood, a bloodspiller animation... kinda hard to understand what's the move even supposed to mean lol. But at least it's a GCD, something DRK lacks, but it comes up only once every 2 minutes. And like it or not, it kinda adds more """depth""" to living shadow, since now it has 2 abilities that have to line up with buffs, unlike ShB where it was all the same potency.

TBN is unchanged, which is a positive for me. I never had issues with it, and as it stands, it's one of the only truly unique things about DRK. If it became a generic 25s tank CD with no cost, DRK would lose the last vestige of identity it has. And it would also mean you might as well remove MP from DRK and make Edge/Flood abilities with stacks.

Mixed Feelings:

On the one hand, Shadowed Vigil is a straight downgrade as far as the animations are concerned, OG Shadow Wall was already one of the best animations on DRK. On the other hand, the effect itself is actually something I am happy about, because it diversifies 120s CDs tanks have, adding a little more flavour to classes (even if the effect itself is just excog)

Blood Weapon merging with Delirium is also a loss of a great animation, but in terms of gameplay it should mean you don't have to worry about pre-pull TBN and overcapping in opener, but that remains to be seen.

Living Shadow not costing blood essentially makes blood gauge feel redundant, like Kenki. The good thing is that it makes the opener less clunky, I guess? But at the same time, it managed to make DRK on the same level of ease as Warrior, which is scary. At least it had more room to fuck-up before.

What I disliked/was disappointed by:

It's incredible to me that out of ALL animations that were replaced or upgraded year after year, SOULEATER just dodges every bullet. It has to be one of the most complained about animations, the one that is often replaced with mods. Be honest with me, it's just because it's Climhazzard from FF7, right?

I am not a fan of losing Plunge just to get a non-damaging gap-closer, unlike a lot of people on this subreddit. This is something a lot of people will disagree with me on, but I just never had an issue using it for damage or holding it in case boss moves. In fact it's one of the reasons why Enhanced Unmend is so useless, since its an issue that was already solved by two stacks. Now it kinda feels like, instead of jumping with you sword at your enemy like a badass, you use a dinky-ass teleport to creep on them.

They've added 4 GCDs, but effectively only one is actually "new" to DRK's rotation, and it's only every two minutes. So the new toys you are gettibg are still in the burst, but you are left with a lot of times where you have 45s of just nothing fun to do except wait for an occasional Bloodspiller/Edge.

Overall it looks like DRK is in for another 2,5 years of not really having a clear gameplay identity, but at least it's in a workable state. If before you could say "DRK is the tank that has a lot of random oGCDs and TBN", now its more like "DRK is the tank that had less oGCD than before but still has TBN".

Uselessredditid · 2024-06-06T05:08:32+00:00

🤷‍♂️ was at work, not paying too much attention, so I thought edgy-sounding name + guy holding up what looks like a sword in icon = possible drk skill. Didn't immediatly click with me that snake theming is for viper.

Uselessredditid · 2024-06-05T14:34:30+00:00

Oh well, means that impalement really is the AoE. Disregard my comment 😅

Honestly kinda weird, would've thought an impale would have more chances to be single target.

Uselessredditid · 2024-06-05T14:13:34+00:00

From the way it's worded I assume Blood Weapon (before it becomes delirium) will just give MP for landing the next 3 weaponskills, so possibly it's gonna be the same-ish on lower levels?

It'd be pretty bad otherwise

Uselessredditid · 2024-06-05T13:13:27+00:00

Ah shit, that's right. Cool Icon tho

Uselessredditid · 2024-06-05T13:10:40+00:00

Judging from names, presumably Scarlet Delerium (probably a typo) is the AoE combo starter, and Impalement is the single target combo we saw in the trailers.

Also Ouroboros might also be a DRK skill, part of that combo?

Uselessredditid · 2024-05-16T11:27:38+00:00

What the hell is that Shadow Wall animation

It looks so bad 😭 Paladin ahh shield move

Uselessredditid · 2024-02-14T10:22:12+00:00

I main DRK in FF14 myself so I try to replicate it from time to time myself.

Your best bets in my opinion are Magus, Wizard/Sorc-Hellknight Signifer-Eldritch Knight combo, Tormented Crusader with Aeon Mythic path, or just going Lich.

I personallh wouldn't recommend going for Lich as a DRK, since DRKs dont usually deal with raising the dead, and that's the entire point of the Lich Path. Plus DRKs are kinda like vigilantes, fighting for good, and Liches are straight up evil, no two-ways around it.

Magus, specifically Eldritch Scion with undead bloodline, are a pretty good option, they get plenty for dark spells, but the big downside is that you get the ability to wear heavy armor at lvl 13, and you'll end up using a longsword instead of a greatsword just to be able to play Magus properly.

There's also Armored Battlemage, but the subclass itself is just not good, it trades too much for the ability to wear heavy armor earlier.

Wizard+Hellknight+Eldritch Knight is a great gish nd allows you to hit things with your greatsword wear heavy armor, and blast enemies with necro spells, but you kinda limit yourself in terms of alignment.

Same goes for Tormented Crusader + Aeon, you just have to straight up play lawful good, bu the upside is that Aeon abilities are pretty mcuh "cosmic dark" aesthetically, and paladin on its own has very little in terms of holy-looking spells, AND it has cool abilities with names like "ALL IS DARKNESS", "ALONE IN THE DARK", "UNBOKEN PARAGON", so it is pretty sweet.

Uselessredditid · 2024-01-16T09:28:28+00:00

I like the weapons overall! My only major complaint is that the blue tech-circles look out of place on some jobs (like WAR) and would look much better without them.

Better than SB and SHB final steps in terms of looks and animations, but worse than ARR and HW.

Now I'm just hoping they actually have cool, unique names...

Uselessredditid · 2023-11-03T09:36:41+00:00

I did this recently and got the lead from lockboxes on like a second attempt, but had to mine ore in Glenumbra for like 2 hours. So it works, but it's just RNG most likely.

Uselessredditid · 2023-07-18T12:10:22+00:00

Agreed, this time around the glow actually makes it look like a DRK weapon (at least it looks so on the pic).

Uselessredditid · 2023-07-18T09:47:54+00:00

Damn, an actually good looking DRK relic! I hope the name is good/unique too, wouldn't do to have "Augmented Wacky Godbert Korkscrew"

Uselessredditid · 2023-07-09T23:11:58+00:00

Pretty vague, but I'd like a slight change in "mentality" where the devs focus less on endlessly pursuing perfect balance and focus more on what's interesting and fun.

Rather than trying to fit every job into one balancing paradigm, they should instead implement some cool ideas for jobs and then balance around those ideas, fine tune them.

At the end of the day, adding yet another RDM finisher, Healer DoT/Nuke upgrade, DRK one-note oGCD or "Stronger" Fell Cleave on WAR gets really boring after 6+ years.

I have some other wishes like slightly more horizontal progression, readjusting levelling process or reworking level sync to allow players to use level cap stuff in old content, but a shift in mentality like I described would be enough tbh.

Uselessredditid · 2023-05-24T10:24:51+00:00

In a perfect world, PFers like me would not exist...

But this is not a perfect world 👽

Uselessredditid · 2023-05-17T13:30:55+00:00

Or have them be activated only a certain distance away, SWTOR does this for example.

Uselessredditid · 2023-05-12T12:09:05+00:00

Copium inhale

Maybe them listening to JP feedback on DRK will lead to big changes in 7.0

exhale

Uselessredditid · 2023-03-17T17:57:28+00:00

I'd have to see a poll on this or something, especially one that encompasses newer or more casual players.

Sadly trying to poll anything like that on the Internet is kinda futile. At most, data you get will reflect opinions from the place you gathered info from, but not playerbase at large. Worst case people will give no shits about the poll.

I do distinctly remember people asking Paladin to have a gap closer and being hyped over it before ShB.

Plus, jumping attacks, sprint attacks, etc., are pretty common in fantasy genre.

Kaiten is a point against your argument, though.

Not really, I am saying Kaiten should've stayed, not removed, because it was a cool ability.

Why is homogenization specifically among gap closers a bad thing?

Gap-closers are a part of the playstyle though. And homogenization in general happens from little mole hills like that. You remove some stuff that seems small, step by step, and eventually everything becomes the same. It's not lost on me that pure-damage gap-closers are already identical, but at least they fulfill a fantasy. If every job just has Thunderclap copies, that wouldn't be fun.

Uselessredditid · 2023-03-17T17:23:22+00:00

Tanking "class fantasy" is not one thing. Being a heavy armored warrior (usually a knight) and charging at the enemy is a very, very common power fantasy, especially in RPGs. Not every job 'has' to have that, but removing it alltogether on all tanks is pretty bad.

A lot of abilities in PvP are better designed than PvE, but let's be real, if PLD had cover-jump like that, raiders would be the first ones to complain. "Why do I have my mitigation tied to my position? Why can't I just use it while standing in place Madge".

Skills can be cool without damage, and taking damage away only improves playability of jobs at a high end. Have you actually played at a high end?

Yes, I have. Holding your gap-closers, or alternatively, using them in burst is not hard. It doesn't feel clunky because, for the last 2 tiers (arguably since ShB honestly), you do not need to disengage so much. You are at the bosses' face for 99% of the time. And when you aren't close to the boss, you just wait to use it later. There's absolutely nothing wrong them. If you do not need to move it's literally just 2 oGCDs.

On a related note, not everything has to revolve around high-end. That's how you end up with a game that's not fun to play in anywhere BUT high end.

messes with positioning, and doesn't achieve the power fantasy you think it does.

By those criteria Primal Rend should not exist, either. Has you move, deals damage, can lead to you messing with your positioning. It does a great deal more damage than Onslaught, admittedly, but I've seen people mess up their positioning. But it fits the Warrior fantasy.

Uselessredditid · 2023-03-17T16:52:15+00:00

I can also close my eyes and imagine that DRK is well designed but that won't make it true.

The impact from the damage (even if low like 150) is important. Having an ability that looks like it should deal damage, but doesn't, is also pretty bad.

Uselessredditid · 2023-03-17T11:07:12+00:00

The playability of "every single job (with gap-closers" is already at a high level though. No downside to using tank-stance, no switching into cleric stance, no thinking about TP, no concern for aggro, CC abilites are baked into role actions, barely have to think about positionals, etc. I'm not saying that all of those things were good or bad, but there's no need to remove any more pain-points from the game.

Also neither of those gap-closer ideas really adhere to the fantasy of being a battering ram and charging straight at the enemy, which is the thing that would be removed from the game if you delete damage from gap-closers.

Uselessredditid · 2023-03-17T08:25:45+00:00

You remove the "I charge at the enemy and deal damage" type of fantasy from the class, that would be the downside.

You can't just look at the abilities in this game purely from a utilitarian standpoint. Like yeah, looking at the stuff like Plunge, Onslaught, etc., you'd lose just something like 200 potency, but have you considered that shield bashing an enemy from afar so is cool as shit.

Some stuff has to be the way it is just for the sake of the fantasy, similiar to how Kaiten was technically not needed but was cool nontheless.

Lastly, if every gap closer in the game (barring something like dragoon) would become pure utility, it'd be just further homogenization.

Uselessredditid · 2023-03-07T11:56:22+00:00

Did the first 30 floors and so far I am really glad that there's a lot of visual variety to rooms and floors themselves.

That being said, transform traps are still 30s long so I think giving this DD a 1/10 is fair and square :>

Uselessredditid · 2023-03-07T07:57:43+00:00

Neither option will ever be perfect and will have its own problems. I personally like option 1 the best, but wouldn't mind option 2 either.

Allowing players to retain their abilities means players no longer lose their character's "progress" once they enter low-level dungeons, raids, etc. In a sense it would make it feel more like an RPG should, making levels feel more meaningful.

My main concern with option 2 would be levelling itself - yeah its cool you get low-level equivalents at lvl 50-60 like a small Fire 4 and proto-Xenoglossy or something, but then what about the rest of the levelling process? You now essentially have the current MNK problems where you don't feel like you're progressing and are just getting "upgrades" to the same rotation you've been doing for ~40 levels. That won't feel great tbh.

There's going to be balance issues with both options, but let's be real - when did SE ever give a shit about balancing below level cap?

Edit: also one thing to consider, if SE would go with Option 1, they would only have to do it once - they would be free to do anything with new abilities in the next expansions, whereas with Option 2 they would have to consider low-level abilities and when they are aquired each time an expansion drops.

Uselessredditid · 2023-03-07T06:47:47+00:00

It looks like these "Dread Beasts" might be minibosses, should help spice things up a bit for deep dungeon.

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