In order for elemental magic (and by extension Occult Acumen) to be feasible, DRK would have to instant-cast it. That's not feasible, but if you act now you can make more reasonable changes that will give DRK a more versatile role.

The four basic changes I'd propose:
1) Decrease the casting time of all dark magic (including Endark but excluding Dread Spikes) to be equal to Stun. - You could do this through a job trait like Elemental Celerity or Divine Benison.
2) Eliminate Stat-Drain decay. - Kind of an unnecessary mechanism, don'tcha think?
3) Double base Absorb duration. - It's pitiful at the moment.
4) Increase the cap on absorb-stat spell potency (up to 30?).

At the end of the day, what do you have? DRKs that cast Absorb-STR, Drain II, and Endark more than once a month. Heaven forbid they use the spells you gave them. If you fail to do number 2~3, I don't think absorb-stat spells will really see use.

Other more off-the-wall ideas:
* One of the problems with Absorb spells is that you're forced to choose between enhancing yourself (Absorb-STR) or helping the party (Absorb-VIT) from a feasibility standpoint. You could counter this by introducing "Siphon-VIT" and "Siphon-AGI", if you wanted. Siphon VIT would steal a monster's VIT and turn it into STR. Siphon-AGI would steal a monster's AGI and turn it into DEX. Problem solved.
* Absorb-Attack (You get +Attack, monster gets -Attack) and Absorb-Haste (You get Haste, monster gets Slow) would both be assets to DRK. The latter one might be useful even if you don't make the four changes recommended above, and would give DRK a magic Haste source for better lowmanning.


It would be interesting if you could figure out the number of times DRK-specific spells have been cast since 75 and compare it to other Spells. I would bet that Blizzard IV has been cast more times than all the absorb spells combined.