Can we remove the Dark Arts Treadmill?

Some ideas are interesting. But I can't agree with everything.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tex_Mex

Overview:
These changes sought to meet the following goals:
1) Remove Dark Arts Spam - Obvious
2) Increase DRK Burst Potential - I accomplished this by remaking Dark Arts into a DPS Cooldown that also resets the Carve and Spit CD. This combined with the Changes to Blood Weapon and Darkside will result in a powerful window that allows for increased Bloodspiller usage.
3) Improve the Soul Stealing Theme of DRK - This was done mostly with how I reworked Darkside and with the new ability I added (Soul Rip). This gives me the feel of stealing the essence from enemies, and then being able to heal the DRK, it's allies, or unleash it back with Bloodspiller/Quietus
4) Maintain or slightly increase Damage Output to offset the loss of Dark Arts - Accomplished mostly with potency increases
5) Rework Blood Price - This ability is underwhelming against single targets and and is also locked behind Grit. My changes addressed both of those things by removing the stance requirement, and making the MP restore percentage based. These changes basically turn Blood Price into an interesting Defensive CD that deals some damage and restores some MP. It is totally usable out of Grit as well, making it an all around better ability IMO. It does not increase DPS if you are not getting attacked, making it a great MT role, but relatively useless as an OT.
6) Maintain Enmity generation capabilities both while in and out of Grit - Many enmity skills were tied to Dark Arts, so I did my best to keep them in place and relevant
7) Add a little bit of additional party utility to the DRK kit - This was done through the new skill Soul Rip. The HP and MP Restore being available to another party member adds an interesting twist to utility. The MP gain is pretty big, but it is also a DPS loss to use, since that blood doesn't get to be used on Bloodspiller or Quietus.
8) Maintain the DRK feel of needing to manage 2 resources (Blood and MP) - Adding the MP drain back to Darkside keeps MP management relevant.
9) Line up Cooldowns in 60 second intervals - With the increased power of Blood Weapon, Dark Arts, Delirium, and Blood Price, increasing their CD's was the best option in order to keep them from getting too strong.

---

1) I understand many people hate the DA spam, since it's not compatible with high ping and requires higher APM during the Blood Weapon window. Though it's a part of what makes the job fun for me. If I want to play a slower tank, there's already WAR and PLD. Is a spammy tank that bad ? I mean, are people complaining about NIN being too fast for example ?

2) Basically DRK Requiescat

3 & 4) The change that would make me drop the greatsword and take the sword and board instead. Current DRK design is that you generate mana to power most of your damaging abilities. You actually have to think when to use your mana, to either not starve or overcap. "Mindless DA spam DRK" is basically a bad DRK. By removing current DA and making it into a random trait, you remove all that aspect from DRK. And it's random. Please no MCH procs on DRK.

5) I agree that Blood Price would need some love. A MP regen based on damage received would make it great against tankbusters. A kind of counter-attack "if you hit me hard, I'll hit you harder".

6) The enmity on Plunge is not that great actually. But the current DA Power Slash is a melee LB3 worth of enmity, and that is actually useful. Though having to rely on MP when you desperately need aggro might be difficult at some times.

7) The idea of Soul rip is cool, but comes at the expense of the most powerful skill. Imagine something similar on Warrior: who would use Equilibrium if it would cost a Fell Cleave ? It could be viable if it actually gave back 2400 mana to the DRK with the current DA gameplay (so converts blood into mana, gives back health to self or ally).

8) My second main concern about your idea. Unless the MP drain from Darkside is stupidly huge, there won't be mana management. Outside of the drain, the only abilities that would consume mana are TBN and Dark Passenger (which is 1 min CD). On the other hand, you gain mana from Blood Weapon (which is buffed further by Delirium, current iteration is around 4000 mana per use, now extend its duration from 15 to 45s and you get more than 10k mana every other Blood Weapon), Syphon Strike (1200 MP every 3/4 GCD), Blood Price. There's no mana management in this. Just drowning in the mana, without any way to spend it, while spamming TBN on cooldown.

9) 40 / 80 seconds burst windows are a bit difficult to align with party buffs indeed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Megguido

1) I understand many people hate the DA spam, since it's not compatible with high ping and requires higher APM during the Blood Weapon window. Though it's a part of what makes the job fun for me. If I want to play a slower tank, there's already WAR and PLD. Is a spammy tank that bad ? I mean, are people complaining about NIN being too fast for example ?

---

Out of curiosity, if Dark Arts had no animation lock, being blendable with latter animations, would that be a turn-off for you, or a best of both worlds?

Besides that question, agreed on all points.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Out of curiosity, if Dark Arts had no animation lock, being blendable with latter animations, would that be a turn-off for you, or a best of both worlds?

Besides that question, agreed on all points.

---

The shorter the animation, the better. Though I don't think any ability has no animation time (even ninja's mudras are like 0.5s lock) ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Megguido

Some ideas are interesting. But I can't agree with everything.1) I understand many people hate the DA spam, since it's not compatible with high ping and requires higher APM during the Blood Weapon window. Though it's a part of what makes the job fun for me. If I want to play a slower tank, there's already WAR and PLD. Is a spammy tank that bad ? I mean, are people complaining about NIN being too fast for example ?

---

This is a fair assessment. The changes I suggested would undoubtedly slow the class down quite a bit. I don't necessarily mind the class being fast paced, but I don't like the playstyle of just spamming the same ability over and over. I'm not sure how to implement a system that would reduce the spam without slowing down the playstyle though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Megguido

2) Basically DRK Requiescat

---

The only thing even remotely similar to Requiescat is the damage increase. These skills are nothing alike at all. Requiescat moves the PLD into a casting rotation for a short time. I did not add any sort of casting to the DRK.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Megguido

3 & 4) The change that would make me drop the greatsword and take the sword and board instead. Current DRK design is that you generate mana to power most of your damaging abilities. You actually have to think when to use your mana, to either not starve or overcap. "Mindless DA spam DRK" is basically a bad DRK. By removing current DA and making it into a random trait, you remove all that aspect from DRK. And it's random. Please no MCH procs on DRK.

---

I do agree that the design I suggested would reduce the difficulty of the class, but I did not add any sort of procs to the class whatsoever. The base rotation stays exactly the same, just the Dark Arts spam is removed. While RNG is present, it is very minimal. The only thing it affects is how fast the blood gauge fills, and considering all of the blood abilities can be used without breaking a combo, the overall effect of RNG is minimal. I also added effects to the redesigned Dark Arts skill that completely remove the RNG for the duration, making the jobs opener always exactly the same.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Megguido

6) The enmity on Plunge is not that great actually. But the current DA Power Slash is a melee LB3 worth of enmity, and that is actually useful. Though having to rely on MP when you desperately need aggro might be difficult at some times.

---

I did include an increased emnity effect if powerslash is used while under the effect of Bllod Price to try and maintain the capability of a DA PS. Though this incarnation is admittedly less reliable since Blood Price is not up all the time. That being said, I did design blood price so that is is only useful if you are being hit by something so that it would not effect the OT in any way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Megguido

7) The idea of Soul rip is cool, but comes at the expense of the most powerful skill. Imagine something similar on Warrior: who would use Equilibrium if it would cost a Fell Cleave ? It could be viable if it actually gave back 2400 mana to the DRK with the current DA gameplay (so converts blood into mana, gives back health to self or ally).

---

I agree that it would be more of an Oh Crap button. But the fact that it can be used on an ally gives it something that Equilibrium (or any other tank skill) doesn't have. The ability to restore mana to a party member. This could be used for all sorts of cool things, like giving a caster a little more wiggle room. I didn't intend for it to be used all the time, I just wanted there to be an option that provided some utility that other tanks don't have, while still sticking with the Soul Stealing theme of the DRK.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Megguido

8) My second main concern about your idea. Unless the MP drain from Darkside is stupidly huge, there won't be mana management. Outside of the drain, the only abilities that would consume mana are TBN and Dark Passenger (which is 1 min CD). On the other hand, you gain mana from Blood Weapon (which is buffed further by Delirium, current iteration is around 4000 mana per use, now extend its duration from 15 to 45s and you get more than 10k mana every other Blood Weapon), Syphon Strike (1200 MP every 3/4 GCD), Blood Price. There's no mana management in this. Just drowning in the mana, without any way to spend it, while spamming TBN on cooldown.

---

This is definitely a fair criticism. The mana costs and mana restoration amount of abilities would absolutely need to be modified in order to make something like this work. I agree that if everything were left the same, MP management would be a joke.

I appreciate your feedback! It definitely gave me a few things to think about. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Out of curiosity, if Dark Arts had no animation lock, being blendable with latter animations, would that be a turn-off for you, or a best of both worlds?

Besides that question, agreed on all points.

---

I like this idea quite a bit. I hate it when the Dark Arts animation overwrites the animation of cooler looking skills. The animation lock would also reduce the double weaving issues a bit, but it would still be highly ping reliant.

i have an idea. so SE wanted to make DRK easier accessible by removing the automatic mana drain from Dark Side and their solution was a manually mana drain through Dark Arts (wich makes Dark Side redundant to be honestly). but now a lot of people hate the Dark Arts spam (i have long adapted and see nothing wrong with it anymore, however...).

so, i would say they should put the mana drain on Dark Side back into place, but instead of an automatic drain, it drains a little bit of mana everytime when you use an attack skill (excluding auto attacks). So you don't drain mana automatically over time anymore, wich should make the job easier to play compared to HW. the Dark Arts spam is reduced and the whole mana managing of DRK is still in place and has not to be rebuild completely.

they could also add a failsafe mechanic in form of a skill wich regens mana but consumes Dark Side and puts it on a cooldown. so you lose out on damage, but you have mana to activate tank stance and use your aoe enmity skills if necessary.