What's going to be the strength of Dark Knights now?

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Originally Posted by TheCount

Mind you we also don´t know even if they have done something about the MP management of Dark Knights either. We already had to constantly juggle that because of how quickly that depletes and now we get an extra mechanic on top of it. So that becomes a MP juggle and Dark Blood mechanic while also tanking and trying to optimize your dps and whatnot, to me it seems like the other tanks will have to do a lot less for the same or better result judging on what i´ve seen. Warrior doesn´t even have to deal with their thing anymore and just have that rage bar of theirs instead.

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Glad I am more meat shield and care less of my tank dps.

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Originally Posted by DWolfwood

Not much will change with the meta. DRK/WAR will still be the party comp for most world clears, calling it now.

DRK just got their own version of Inner Beast, albeit even better. DRK/WAR combined have not lost much together. PLD will be nice for groups not knowing what to expect, and for the majority of raiders who actually need the help surviving.

They've basically given everyone more to work with.

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I agree with this.

PLD/DRK or PLD/WAR will be for "safe" runs where some of the members aren't quite as confident.
DRK/WAR will be for world first clearers and more serious groups.

Hmm considering that right now Pala brings the most damage, tankyness and utility i fail to see how a comp without him is viable...

Even if pala gets nerfed or the other 3 buffed, pala will still have the most utility and the most durability since the job concept is the "iron wall" and i doubt they are gonna implement new skills in the span of a few week if the last build is from april, so Darkest Night is the only utility skill for Drks and is not a good idea for balance to make it ridiculously strong to compensate only having that.

Unless things change, we will probably see always a Pala on any compo or even Pala+Pala if the lb is not needed asap for X reason.

Dps wise:
PLD has 562.5 potency/GCD,
WAR has 458.7 potency/GCD,
DRK has 430.6 potency/GCD,

With those numbers aside for LB issues why even bother to bring a Drk/War?

those numbers are counting with tank stance or stanceless? PLD still has no method to avoid the penalty that other tanks have. To my view those new changes simply allow pld to play thte ot spot.

Pld/War meaty comp
War/Drk burst comp
Drk/Pld balanced comp/ magical centralized fight

The difference is enough for a Paladin without sword oath to outdps Warr/Drk on damage stance :(

So basically Paladin deals the most damage as MT and as OT with more tankyness and utility to boot.

yeah, DRK lose his identity as the magic tank with the removal of the int debuff and buffing PLDs magic defense, DRK lose his identity as the counter-tank with the removal of reprisal and low blow procc and he lose his identity as the damage-maintank, since he is now the weakest of all tanks. he is still good in aoe situations, i think that's it. that's the strengh of Dark Knights now - aoe dps and selfheal with abyssal drain.

That's what happens when you let a whole expansion exclude paladins. Now the other 2 go to being second rate citizens.

luckily these numbers are from the april version and have most likely been changed.

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Originally Posted by Adventica6

That's what happens when you let a whole expansion exclude paladins. Now the other 2 go to being second rate citizens.

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Paladins were mostly excluded from certain endgame fights though, right?

I remember back before WAR got its revamp during the 2.0 era, they weren't even liked in normal dungeons. The stigma that "wars are way way harder to heal than paladins" still remains to this day.

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Originally Posted by Ragology

I remember back before WAR got its revamp during the 2.0 era, they weren't even liked in normal dungeons.

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And it took only one patch to fix them entirely with major changes on their skills.

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Originally Posted by Ragology

The stigma that "wars are way way harder to heal than paladins" still remains to this day.

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SE can't be blamed for people living in the past. Truth be told, I'm impressed on how many people seems to have already joined the OP PLD bandwagon :p

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Truth be told, I'm impressed on how many people seems to have already joined the OP PLD bandwagon :p

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http://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/fanki...wBFDHTffip.png

... so what else should we do in the mean time?

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Originally Posted by Bhearil

Dps wise:
PLD has 562.5 potency/GCD,
WAR has 458.7 potency/GCD,
DRK has 430.6 potency/GCD,

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Damn but like where are the calculations? You can't just not show your work and post numbers? It's like math class? xD Considering how easily SE nerfed certain abilities for DRK, I doubt they'd make PLD the overall best tank in terms of dps AND mitigation...unless they wanna go back and "rebalance" them next patch after all the complaints lol

Didnt do the maths myself but found a few links :

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ur-information
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=698917636

Logically those numbers SHOULD change on release, but question is how much and if it will worth it or will just create a new X/Y tank meta leaving Z tank on the trash bin

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Originally Posted by Marz_kid_EST

Considering how easily SE nerfed certain abilities for DRK, I doubt they'd make PLD the overall best tank in terms of dps AND mitigation lol

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You greatly overestimate whether or not they care. At this point the whole "balancing" thing isn't at all what they are doing. They didn't "balance" whm, and they didn't "balance" the tanks. If anything the amount of imbalance makes it appear as if they simply didn't have time or resources to add a tank and healer to this patch so their excuse was, "we're going to balance!" and then they immediately get called out for a bunch of things not adding up. We all get this is subject to change... but 2-3 months out of an expansion I should not be seeing numbers that show PLD being OP in EVERY area (physical dmg, magic dmg, mitigation, pt mitigation, self healing, pt healing, etc). They didn't balance anything, they just created a new super tank like WAR was. It's frustrating.

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Originally Posted by Bhearil

Dps wise:
PLD has 562.5 potency/GCD,
WAR has 458.7 potency/GCD,
DRK has 430.6 potency/GCD,

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562.5pot/GCD is insane? Paladin's biggest window is only during the Holy Spirit spam + Requiescat, those are about 500pot/GCD but not certainly the GB>RA>RA, even less potency overall in Shield Oath.

If we go by the number itself, 20% penalty from ShO is enough to bring down the whole Holy Spirit spam to about 420pot each GCD. Then GB>RA>RA>GB period + FoF with ShO is somewhere around 310pot/GCD (over 12GCD + the end tick from GB). 562.5 potency/GCD is ridiculously high.

DRK at 430.6pot/GCD seems a bit too much as well. While DRKs should have easier time to stance dance that they can get more damage from the Blood Gauge + 20% Darkside, 430.6pot/GCD seems too high. Hard Slash is like 150pot (180pot with Darkside), Syphon Strike is 250pot (300pot with Darkside), 430.6pot/GCD means that you have to keep using DA but you are never in this state where you have all the mana to keep using DA and DRK's highest potency is DA+CnS (450pot without Darkside).

Those were calculated as off tank values from what I can see. War in Deliverance full time, DRK with darkside on and grit off, PLD in Sword Oath.

Fast - Riot - Goring - Fast - Riot - Royal - Fast - Riot - Royal loop

(150+230+540+150+230+360+150+230+360) / 9 = 266.7

Autos every 2.24 seconds (weapon speed).
GCD on tanks is currently 2.44. PLD hits 1.09 times per GCD, * 100 pot = 109

266.7 + 109 = 375.7

Circle = 250 (100+150DoT), 25s recast. 250/25 = 10/second. 10* 2.44(GCD) = 24.4

375.7 + 24.4 = 400.1

Requiescat = 350, 60s recast. 350/60 = 5.83/second. 5.83 * 2.44 = 14.23

400.1 + 14.23 = 414.33

Fight or Flight increases all physical damage (all we have covered so far) by 30% for 30 seconds every 60 seconds. In other terms that means +30% * 50% uptime = +15% average.

414.33 * 1.15 = 476.48

Turn on Sword oath:
((2.44/2.24)*150)-109 = 54.39 more, not increased by FoF.

476.48 + 54.39 = 530.87

Before Holy Spirit is even accounted for.

A good question for dps calculations.... while doing Holy Spirit since that is a spell... does it remove or delay auto attacks?

I can't say I've ever smacked an enemy with an auto attack and then cast a spell with less than gcd and then count my number of auto attacks .

Also I don't think the war or drk numbers counted in auto attacks

You raise a fair point and I lack the skills to fully simulate a PLD rotation with POT/GCD.

Still, I think there's something to be said about what is essentially 531 potency per GCD while ignoring what seems to be an extremely power asset of their kit (+20% magic windows in which 420 potency Holy Spirits become 516 potency).

The current combo average plus autos is 375.7 (430.09 in SwO). If you beat that by any amount it increases the POT/GCD. 516 vastly beats that.
EDIT: Side note, under the values from the media tour, a PLD with sword oath on only using his combo skills, no oGCDs or Fight or Flight, will tie for damage with a DRK going HAM. All of the potency values *need* to be adjusted.

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Originally Posted by BlackironTarkus

lots of calculation

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By doing the same addition on current PLD, here's what I find.
FB-RB-GB-FB-SB-RA-FB-SB-RA = 2320/9 = 257.78
Same auto-attack damage (I didn't see any change in Stormblood), so 109
Same Circle Of Scorn, so 24.4
No Requiescat
FoF with only 1/3 uptime, so +10%

(257.78+109+24.4)*1.1=430.21

Adding Sword Oath (With no change, IIRC), it's 430.21+54.39 = 484.6.

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Originally Posted by Bhearil

PLD has 562.5 potency/GCD,
WAR has 458.7 potency/GCD,
DRK has 430.6 potency/GCD

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So, in the end, even the current PLD apparently have a higher average potency/GCD than what theorycraft shows on future WAR and DRK.

Between HW and SB, WAR lost Fracture and Internal Release and gained Inner Release, Onslaught and more frequent Infuriates. Berserk was only smoothed in the end and the pacification was removed. I'd hardly consider all of this a "nerf", yet we all know that current WAR can do noticeably higher DPS than current PLD.

So, maybe, just maybe, theory is not that close of actual field testing.

Test ........

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

By doing the same addition on current PLD, here's what I find.
FB-RB-GB-FB-SB-RA-FB-SB-RA = 2320/9 = 257.78
Same auto-attack damage (I didn't see any change in Stormblood), so 109
Same Circle Of Scorn, so 24.4
No Requiescat
FoF with only 1/3 uptime, so +10%

(257.78+109+24.4)*1.1=430.21

Adding Sword Oath (With no change, IIRC), it's 430.21+54.39 = 484.6.

So, in the end, even the current PLD apparently have a higher average potency/GCD than what theorycraft shows on future WAR and DRK.

Between HW and SB, WAR lost Fracture and Internal Release and gained Inner Release, Onslaught and more frequent Infuriates. Berserk was only smoothed in the end and the pacification was removed. I'd hardly consider all of this a "nerf", yet we all know that current WAR can do noticeably higher DPS than current PLD.

So, maybe, just maybe, theory is not that close of actual field testing.

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Not sure where the drk and War numbers came from. Making the following assumption I came out to 495 for drk.

All ogcds are used on cooldown
Not in grit
Da is ONLY used for carve and spit
Only use souleater combo:

2640 (4 SE combos)
+ 500 scourge
+144 low blow
+ 150 dark passenger
+ 350 salted earth
+ 200 plunge
+ 225 carve and split
=323 *1.15* 1.0375+ 109 (auto attack) = 495 per gcd currently

Further uses of dark arts on souleater in 30 seconds will increase potency of 10 per use.

For future drk making the following assumptions:
All non gauge ogcds are used on cooldown
Da is only used for carve and split
Bloodspitter is used at the 50 gauge mark without using blackest night
No grit
Only soul eater combo
2720 (basic combo)
150 ( dp)
350 ( salted earth)
225 (carve and split)
200 (plunge)
475 bloodsplitter
= 316* 1.2* 1.0375 +109 = 502

Further uses of da every 30 secs will increase potency by at least 10

My conclusion? Dark knight overall damage remained close to what it was potency wise. Tanking out of grit was removed, and some extra party utility was added.

Now all that being said paladin doing gb- ra-ra-gb-ra-ra-gb-hs combo will be:
60 sec scale
7457.5(basic weapon skill combos)
2580 (Holy Spirit)
600 spirits within
300 requicast
= 457 + 109 (auto attack) + 54 ( sword oath)
=620 pot/gcd

If a dark knight can throw in blackest knight on cooldown to get in another bloodsplitter then he can get to 540 and then charge each bloodsplitter with Da he can get to 580. That's a total of 5.5 DA's per 30 seconds . It can be done but will take a lot of resource management

I will note that all these calculations are for single target only. At 3+ mobs a drk blows a paladin out of the water dps wise

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Originally Posted by Bdyer

A good question for dps calculations.... while doing Holy Spirit since that is a spell... does it remove or delay auto attacks?

I can't say I've ever smacked an enemy with an auto attack and then cast a spell with less than gcd and then count my number of auto attacks .

Also I don't think the war or drk numbers counted in auto attacks

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I think you can auto attack, considering the cast is only 2 seconds, while recast is 2.5. theorectically, you could fit in something during that half a second.

DRK is difficult to do base calcs on because if you spend 2400 mp on TBN to gain a bloodspiller you have lost approx 140 potency from otherwise spending it on a Dark Arts.
Bloodspiller is 380 base, so you gain an attack that hits for essentially 240 after balancing it out.

So your combo goes from
Hard (150) -> Syphon (250) -> DA SoulEater (420) at 273 average with 2400 mp spent to:
Hard (150) -> Syphon (250) -> SoulEater (280) -> TBN (380) at 265 average with 2400 mp spent.

Additionally this pushes your combo out by 1 skill.

If you spent 4800 mp you can do:
Hard 150 + Syphon (390) + Souleater (420) at an average of 320
(TBN +50 blood) Hard 150 + Syphon (250) + Souleater (280) + Bloodspiller (520) at an average of 300.

Bloodspiller is a straight up DPS loss if you have MP to spend.

Now where it gets interesting is when you don't have MP to spend.

Assuming you have 100 Blood saved up and you've hit a window where you can't spend MP on dark arts, the question now becomes does it improve.
Hard/Syphon/SE is worth 1200 mp from the vids, or 400 mp each, requiring two syphons to gain a dark arts.
Hard->Syphon->SE->Hard->Syphon = +140 potency
If you add bloodspiller into that the average goes down to 300mp each.
Hard->Syphon->SE->Bloodspiller->Hard-> Syphon = +140 potency.

Spending no mana, the combos work out to:
150+250+280 = 226.6/gcd
150+250+280+380 = 265/gcd

So you gain 38.4 average, but lower the average MP you gain, so you have to add that.

150+250+280+(70) = 250/gcd
150+250+280+380+(70) = 282.5

Or an increase of 32.5.

But you can't spend any MP explicitly for getting bloodspillers, or you lose 140.

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Originally Posted by BlackironTarkus

Bloodspiller is a straight up DPS loss unless I'm missing something.

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You are, because of this :

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Originally Posted by BlackironTarkus

Additionally this pushes your combo out by 1 skill.

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It doesn't matter that you "pushes" your combo. The potency of basic Bloodspiller (380) is higher than the average potency of your SoulEater combo even with two Dark Arts (150+390+420)/3 = 320, and that's even before considering that Bloodspiller ignores Grit's penalty. In the end, it's always a DPS gain.

and also because of this :

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Originally Posted by BlackironTarkus

Hard (150) -> Syphon (250) -> DA SoulEater (420) at 273 average with 2400 mp spent to:
Hard (150) -> Syphon (250) -> SoulEater (280) -> TBN (380) at 265 average with 2400 mp spent.

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In your first example, you use 3GCD, in your second, you use 4. So, you first example should be HS -> Syphon -> DA-SoulEater -> HS at 242 average potency.

Is The Blackest Night a DPS loss with its mana cost ? Maybe. But not having the Blood Gauge to use Bloodspiller sure is a DPS loss, so TBN help compensate for that.
And the primary use of Blackest Night is to mitigates big hits, which is still supposed to be your biggest concern over DPS.

If you completely ignore bloodspiller your average is 150+250+280/3 = 226 with no dark arts.
If you add bloodspiller in where you can your average for that combo set is 150+250+280+380 = 265.

If you spent 2400 mp to get that bloodspiller however, bloodspiller is only worth 240, as spending 2400 mp on dark arts would have added 140 to another ability, becoming:
150+250+280+240 where you added it, instead of
150+250+420 if you didn't.

Over 5 combos (15 GCDS) you can dark arts them all.
Using the MP on DA gets you an average of 273.

If you include 2 uses of blood spiller (15 gcds = approx 30s, for TBN CD)
This goes to:
[150+250+280+380]+[150+250+420]+[150+250+420]+[150+250+420]+[150+380]
[1060]+[820]+[820]+[820]+[530]/15 = 270 average.

At the end of the day bloodspiller just.. isn't very good. It's minimal return, the further you go into a rotation the worse it just seems, and spending MP on it explicitly is outright out of the question unless someone needs that shield.

If we take 15GCDs as an example, we can either fit 5 SE combo OR 4 SE combo+3 Bloodspiller. You are spending 7200mana on 3 Bloodspiller.

5x SE combo: 680pot x 5= 3400pot + 420pot (3x DA for 7200mana)= 3820pot. You sit at 50 Blood Gauge.

4x SE combo + 3x Bloodspiller= 680pot x 4 + 380pot x 3 = 3860pot. You sit at 40 Blood Gauge.

Albeit small, Bloodspiller is a potency gain. We are yet to factor in Bloodweapon and Blood Price activation. Additional DAs is a flat potency up, which means that Bloodspiller should be used instead of DA-ing SE or Syphon.

We also need to consider that using Bloodspiller delays mana generation by 1 step each, which means that it might actually be a case where it's a tradeoff whether to do burst OR to sustain mana for more DAs later on. We also have no idea how much mana we will have because Darkside no longer drains mana while we also have Blood Price gated in Grit now. So we are at this stage where free Blood Gauge tentatively is used for Bloodspiller, Blackest Night usage helps compensate for the loss of mana through 1 Bloodspiller. Delirium is a potential one as well if we actually get back 2400mana for 1 DA activation but we shall see.

Edit: I was curious about the total potency on a longer rotation. I compare 3 rotations for 33 GCDs which fits the generation of 2 free Bloodspiller from 10 SE combo. New Souleater gramts 10 Blood Gauge iirc.

1st rotation: 10x SE combo with 2x Bloodspiller (free) + 1x Bloodspiller (Blackest Night, 2400mana)

680pot x 10 + 380pot x 3 = 7940pot

2nd rotation: 11x SE combo no Bloodspiller with 1x DA (2400mana)

680pot x 11 + 140pot = 7620pot

1st rotation does 320pot more than 2nd. What if we don't use

3rd rotation: 10x SE combo with 2x Bloodspiller (free), 1x Hard Slash (last GCD in 33 GCDs) and 1x DA (2400mana)

680pot x 10 + 380pot x 2 + 150pot + 140pot = 7950pot

You gain a net of 10pot for not using Blackest Night for Bloodspiller each time which in the larger scheme is just a minor DPS loss if you have to use Blackest Night.

Roughly compare it to the current DRK rotation with 33 GCDs:

Scourge x2 (500pot x2) + SE/Delirium combo x10 (avg 670pot x 10) + Hard Slash x1 (last GCD, 150pot) + Low Blow x2 (100pot x2) + DA x1 (to balance out as a 'fair' comparison, 140pot) : 8190pot.

Comparison: 7950pot VS 8190pot. The new value has yet to add the 5% from Darkside, whereas old value misses the RNG proc from Low Blow and Reprisal, also missing the data of how much mana generation from the extra Blood Price for additional DAs. Overall somewhat at the same power (tbc). The biggest difference between old and new is potentially the amount of DAs that you can get.

The big thing atm is how PLD is going to perform in a real fight situation. DRK is not under a tight timer whereas PLD needs the most uptime to keep channeling damage, PLD loses the most DPS in fights with downtime due to the double 60sec CDs that you need to keep using. WAR is somewhat on the mid side for this. As it stands I would say either bringing PLD or DRK will/might be determined by how the fights interact with players.

I would just like bloodspiller to feel good to press instead of being a minor dps increase simply to dump the blood we're accumulating. At this point it's literally a replacement for Scourge maintenance. Instead of spending a global on scourge, we're spending it on bloodspillers which are weaker but happen more frequently.

If they put bloodspiller OFF the global with no cooldown, just the high blood cost it has, that would be ****ing awesome, and we're sorely lacking ogcd usage now that they removed low blows and reprisals from our rotations.

One soul eater combo is HS150 + SS220+ SE280= 650.

Over 6 gcds, 2* soul eater combo = 1300 potency.
For arguments sake, add 6 DA uses= 6 * 140= 840.
Add them together and you get 2140 potency.

Now let's not forget you generated another DA from the 2 syphon strikes in the 2 soul eater combos so add another 140.

The total over 6 gcds and 7 DA'S is 2280 potency (if you somehow used 7 DAs).

Now if you used 6 blackest nights (same mp cost) and 6 blood spiller (6 gcds) you get 6*380 potency.

This totals 2280 potency.

I can't see where the dps loss is.

They actually break even.

3*BN+BS at 3GCDS = 1140 potency.

1*Souleater combo= 650 potency. 3 dark arts at 140 potency each = 420. Total is 1070 potency.

This looks like blood spiller is a dps gain but you only generate half a dark arts in 1 soul eater combo. The dps will break even over 6, 12, 18 GCD etc.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

I think you can auto attack, considering the cast is only 2 seconds, while recast is 2.5. theorectically, you could fit in something during that half a second.

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Afaik the auto attack timer stops while casting, so you would loose about one auto attack for each cast (a bit more actually).

Correct me if I am wrong about the timer.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury

One soul eater combo is HS150 + SS220+ SE280= 650.

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Syphon Strike is 250pot.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

Syphon Strike is 250pot.

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You're 100% correct. I was looking at spinning slash. It's a 30 potency loss per 3 GCDS.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

Albeit small, Bloodspiller is a potency gain.

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I think Bloodspiller is very important when you need to burst in a short window.
For example, in a fight like Ravana, you start by accumulating 100 Blood Gauge, allowing for 2-3 DA-Bloospillers when he takes increased damage. You can also time your Bloodspillers during a Battle Litany, or a Trick Attack...

And of course, the calculation is a bit different with Grit activated, even more with the effective increased effect of Dark Arts on Bloodspiller :p

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury

Example

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You example doesn't really fit since you can't use that much Blackest Night on a short window, and BN is not the only way to build your blood gauge.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

I think Bloodspiller is very important when you need to burst in a short window.
For example, in a fight like Ravana, you start by accumulating 100 Blood Gauge, allowing for 3 DA-Bloospiller back to back when he takes increased damage. You can also time your Bloodspillers during a Battle Litany, or a Trick Attack...

And of course, the calculation is a bit different with Grit activated, even more with the effective increased effect of Dark Arts on Bloodspiller :p

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Like what I mentioned Bloodspiller is a burst skill and most importantly a GCD that you can use with/without Grit, you don't always have to use it ASAP to get the most value. It would probably feel more awesome if we potentially can charge Blood Gauge prepull because Blackest Night tooltip just says when effect expired you get 50 of it.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

Like what I mentioned Bloodspiller is a burst skill and most importantly a GCD that you can use with/without Grit, you don't always have to use it ASAP to get the most value. It would probably feel more awesome if we potentially can charge Blood Gauge prepull because Blackest Night tooltip just says when effect expired you get 50 of it.

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Well, since no job can really pre-charge their opener, I don't think it will really be a problem. Instead of burst damage occuring on the very 1st GCD, they'll wait after a little set-up.
Time for the SAM to build its Kenki, the NIN to build its Nink, WAR to build its Beast, etc...

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

You example doesn't really fit since you can't use that much Blackest Night on a short window, and BN is not the only way to build your blood gauge.

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If you use 1 bloodspiller, you lost one potential heavy slash. Your second bloodspiller was a potential syphon strike and your third bloodspiller was a potential soul eater. If you look at it over the course of an entire encounter it makes sense.

Each black night used was a potential 140 potency in the encounter.

For every 3 BN+BS you lose 30 potency as you lost an extra SE combo and 3 dark arts in that encounter.
This seems fair since you get a 20% hp shield in trade for 10 potency loss.

It doesn't matter that you can't fit them in a short window because it adds up in the duration of the encounter.

Any naturally created BS through SE and utility skills is a dps increase as no gcd has a bigger potency.

If we assume sole survivor has the 10% vulnerable down, squeezing 3 DA BS and a DA C&S would be the dps goal. Which will be available every 2 minutes.

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Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury

If you use 1 bloodspiller, you lost one potential heavy slash. Your second bloodspiller was a potential syphon strike and your third bloodspiller was a potential soul eater. If you look at it over the course of an entire encounter it makes sense.

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No, you don't "lose" anything, you "trade".

The calculation is very simple. A SoulEater combo does between 226 and 320 average potency per GCD (Depending on the number of Dark Arts you use). So, basically, any GCD that is worth more than 320 is a DPS gain in your rotation. Bloodspiller is never a DPS loss even witout Dark Arts compared to a full powered SoulEater combo, and even without considering Grit's Penalty.

To take your example step by step :
Bloodspiller vs Hard Slash = +230 potency (Hint : this is the main reason for the overall DPS gain :p)
Bloodspiller vs DA-Syphon Strike = -10 potency
Bloodspiller vs DA-Soul Eater = -40 potency

3 Bloodspillers vs a full powered SE combo = +180 potency

For the Blackest Night, it's a bit more complicated since you look at optimal MP management, and only field testing or long duration parse will actually offer a definitive answer. But, in my comparison above, I've excluded the MP cost of two Dark Arts on the Bloodspiller side, so you could technically use BN 2 times (Cooldown not withstanding) and build the last 50 gauge normally, and still come out on top.

One thing for sure, however, is that Dark Passenger is garbage, now :p

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

One thing for sure, however, is that Dark Passenger is garbage, now :p

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Am I missing something about DP? A 150pot move fot 2400mana is still better than a DA for 140pot? Not to mention it's oGCD.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

Am I missing something about DP? A 150pot move fot 2400mana is still better than a DA for 140pot? Not to mention it's oGCD.

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I'd say if you have the MP to spare, you're better of casting Balckest Night to fill your gauge.
But, technically, yes, it's better to use a basic SoulEater combo and DP than doing a SoulEater combo with one DA...

Frankly, even with the constant drain gone, it will still be a chore to optimize your MP consumption.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

No, you don't "lose" anything, you "trade".

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I agree the 2 BN+ BS and 1 natural BS is stronger than a full powered SE combo.

I'm basically stating that using BN 3 times to pop 3 blood spillers is a loss compared to a full SE combo because 3x 140 potencies from what could of been DAs plus the 70 potency of mp from SS (half a DA) is 30 less potency in both skill potency + MP potency. We can also consider that SE you traded for BS generates 1/5th of a natural BS (74 potential potency).

You may not be able to use 3 DA'S in that one combo but you can bank that extra 210 potency of MP for later.

Shouldnt we look at the MP gain from Syphon strike as Potency? (If you do, and assuming you use DA as often as you're able, you must remove the +140 potency you add into the equation from using DA)
(for the sake of simplifying)
DA equates +140 potency to any of the 3 skills used.
And syphon strikes Mp gain is half (unless Im getting the wrong number here), so it should be +70 potency to each syphon strike.
Anything that takes up MP, but doesnt directly add dmg, should be calculated as -potency for the MP cost (if its equal to a DA, then -140 potency in the case of TBN)

This should help make the equations easier to read.

(obviously things like ending mid combo, because boss jumps away or dies, changes which rotation was at its highest potency at the last GCD)

If TBN can be used when the boss jumps away, that adds a bit more possibilities, due to turning off Dark Side to gain MP back when the boss does this.
(I cant count the number of videos I watch where DRKs leave Dark Side on when Alexander freezes them in time, when you can get your MP back up during that, even more so if BRD was mid ballad, as they usually are.)