I've reserved judgement on the new DK design for the most part till now. I've voiced my general distaste of the direction the DK seems like it might take ESO visual design. I'm not a fan of making ESO "cartoony", as I've loved its visual style for over a decade. So many online games are cartoony, and I in non-trivial part chose ESO because its existing (pre-DK redesign) art design was so exceptional. However, as I have played the game for a while here with the new DK visual design in place, and nearly every tank of every dungeon, trial or NM run playing DK now....I've encountered a real world practical problem with it that I feel needs to be called out:

The new DK visual design UTTERLY DOMINATES the visual field in every single fight!

It is so out of place, so in your face, and so BROAD in many of its effects and animations, when there is a DK in the fight, you KNOW it....but worse, you cannot really tell that there is anything else going on. The effects are broad...as in, wide, large, field-encompassing. Their ultra bright fiery red nature means they cover everything in an impenetrable field of color that does not generally represent any prior effect in ESO, and one that obscures just about everything else. In many fights, I struggle to see the red circles/bubbles on the ground indicating enemy AOE fields, I often struggle to find my teammates areas, and its often hard to notice critical NPC actions as well.

The DK is loud, noisy, intrusive, obnoxious...and unwantedly cartoonish vs. ESO's existing beautiful art design....but most importantly, it is DISTRUPTIVE and OBSCURING of the field of play! This is a mechanical problem with the design of the DK. It disrupts the gameplay. I thought at first it was just because it was new, and I wasn't used to it, but as I've had time to reflect on how the DK effects and animations affect the field of gameplay in battles of any kind, its clear now that this is much more than simply getting used to something. Critical information is being obscured all the time, and it is hard to see anything else because the DK is non-standard in look and feel now. Fire, from any other source, FITS within the world, and never seems to obscure gaming information. Like aoe circles charge lines or anything like that. Its softer in color, not as dominant, still plenty visible...but it INTEGRATES with the game environment.

The new DK DOMINATES the game environment. I am quite sure all the DKs love it...but it IMO has a fundamental impact on real-world gameplay and gameplayability...that it warrants bringing up. Perhaps its already been brought up...there are so many threads on these forums its hard to find anything specific. In any case...more and more, I find I am just frustrated playing in groups with a DK. I don't know why such a "loud" and "intrusive" visual design was chosen like this, hopefully this is not a "We are done and won't be changing anything" situation, because I feel the DK needs tuning, and hopefully this will prevent similar gameplay field dominating visual redesigns in the future.