DRK - Excessive Dark Arts

Why was it decided that players want to use Dark Arts before every attack? When I'm soloing, I find myself mashing the button 3-4 times per DPS rotation, or every other one.

The way Dark Arts was back in 3.0 was fine; at the end of a combo, or with Carve and Spit for the damage <-> mana tradeoff. Dark Arts and Abyssal Drain could only be used about 3 or 4 times, and Dark Passenger was on a cooldown.

At that point, usage of Dark Arts was a choice for effect. Now, it's just a button we spam for damage. Why??

Yea its out of control. Imo it devalues the animation

If you don't want to use it on every dps rotation, or every other one, then don't.

Seriously, it needs reworking. At the very least remove it from Siphon Strike. I don't want to go through entire 4.0 patch cycles spamming this.

Maybe give it charges like aetherflow?

You're mashing Dark Arts now, but when you hit 70 and have The Blackest Night, it curbs Dark Arts usage. Its still more than we were doing in HW, but it does calm down.

Yea im not sure why they added it to syphon strike tbh, to add more choice perhaps? i very rarely get the opportunity to DA my syphon strike at 70 because i have so much more to spend it on xD
personally i think that more choice would be better served in something like the form of a Dark Passenger that has a watered down Scourge DoT so that it would still be viable in single target aswell and also give more options in regards to how you spend your MP, while also adding a small layer of complexity by adding back in dot managaement to some extent.

Its an active DPS increase. So instead of just pushing Berserk or FoF and reaping the benefits, you have to press the button multiple times to get the boost. Honestly its much more engaging. Its a love-it-or-hate-it kinda thing, but its far from being a problem that needs addressed. There are far more pressing issues to worry about with the tanks and DRK right now.

If you don't like mashing lots of buttons DRK was never for you, in 3.x or now.

Also considering how much the job has been simplified and child-proofed in the expansion, if it weren't for actively managing your DPS with Dark Arts, cries of DRK becoming 2.x PLD would get even more shrill.

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Originally Posted by MoarLegion

You're mashing Dark Arts now, but when you hit 70 and have The Blackest Night, it curbs Dark Arts usage. Its still more than we were doing in HW, but it does calm down.

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Only it doesn't, since outside of using it for defense or using it to get an easy 50 blood for Delirium, TBN is a damage loss.

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Originally Posted by VenKitsune

Yea im not sure why they added it to syphon strike tbh, to add more choice perhaps? i very rarely get the opportunity to DA my syphon strike at 70 because i have so much more to spend it on xDpersonally i think that more choice would be better served in something like the form of a Dark Passenger that has a watered down Scourge DoT so that it w
ould still be viable in single target aswell and also give more options in regards to how you spend your MP, while also adding a small layer of complexity by adding back in dot managaement to some extent.

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Dunno why you don't DA Syphon considering you just get the mana you spent on it right back unless you were incredibly low. The playstyle is fine, but after reading so much of the changes, it bothers me how you have such an active boost in damage and yet DRK still deals the least amount of damage compared to the other two tanks. (Why is the Greatsword wielder doing less than the Sword and Board class?)

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Originally Posted by GunZLegend

Dunno why you don't DA Syphon considering you just get the mana you spent on it right back unless you were incredibly low. The playstyle is fine, but after reading so much of the changes, it bothers me how you have such an active boost in damage and yet DRK still deals the least amount of damage compared to the other two tanks. (Why is the Greatsword wielder doing less than the Sword and Board class?)

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Paladins are broken. Don't lament something that's going to be nerfed.

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Originally Posted by GunZLegend

Dunno why you don't DA Syphon considering you just get the mana you spent on it right back unless you were incredibly low. The playstyle is fine, but after reading so much of the changes, it bothers me how you have such an active boost in damage and yet DRK still deals the least amount of damage compared to the other two tanks. (Why is the Greatsword wielder doing less than the Sword and Board class?)

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Because you DA syphon still only gives you one DA worth of mana. When you also have Soul Eater, Carve and Split, and Blood Spiller fighting for a DA, as well as TBN also using a DA worth of mana, its a no brainer why you wouldn't always use DA on syphon strike. Syphon strike is the -last- thing you'll use DA on.

Try to think about the class as a whole before posting.

nvm post deleted the forum redirected my answer on an other topic after logging in.

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Originally Posted by Galgarion

Paladins are broken. Don't lament something that's going to be nerfed.

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Because breaking a class done right for once is just that much easier than fixing the others.

/clap

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Originally Posted by Alyx

Why was it decided that players want to use Dark Arts before every attack? When I'm soloing, I find myself mashing the button 3-4 times per DPS rotation, or every other one.

The way Dark Arts was back in 3.0 was fine; at the end of a combo, or with Carve and Spit for the damage <-> mana tradeoff. Dark Arts and Abyssal Drain could only be used about 3 or 4 times, and Dark Passenger was on a cooldown.

At that point, usage of Dark Arts was a choice for effect. Now, it's just a button we spam for damage. Why??

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At this point they should use it like a let's say x second effect that last for a syphon strike and soul eater.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Because breaking a class done right for once is just that much easier than fixing the others.

/clap

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Exactly this. PLD is in a great spot and is perfectly balanced; its only that the other 2 tanks are undertuned and should be brought up to PLDs level, it shouldn't be the other way around. DRK and WAR need adjustments, not PLD.

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Originally Posted by Tila

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Yup, and as a result i rarely find myself using DA on syphon strike unless it's during a Delirium + BW window or if i can get a whole load of mana back quickly by using sole survivor on a add or something and even then i rarely use it. i simply dont understand the choice behind making Syphon strike being able to be enhanced by DA.

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Originally Posted by VenKitsune

Exactly this. PLD is in a great spot and is perfectly balanced; its only that the other 2 tanks are undertuned and should be brought up to PLDs level, it shouldn't be the other way around. DRK and WAR need adjustments, not PLD.



Yup, and as a result i rarely find myself using DA on syphon strike unless it's during a Delirium + BW window or if i can get a whole load of mana back quickly by using sole survivor on a add or something and even then i rarely use it. i simply dont understand the choice behind making Syphon strike being able to be enhanced by DA.

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I think it was something made for lower level tanking where you would have excess mana.

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Originally Posted by Lannybaby

If you don't want to use it on every dps rotation, or every other one, then don't.

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Is this even a serious answer? Because if it is, you should be ashamed to call yourself a dark knight.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Its a love-it-or-hate-it kinda thing, but its far from being a problem that needs addressed. There are far more pressing issues to worry about with the tanks and DRK right now.

If you don't like mashing lots of buttons DRK was never for you, in 3.x or now.

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I actually loved DRK in 3.0 once I got good at handling it, it was very rewarding and satisfying to play. 4.0 DRK however does not feel rewarding, satisfying or fun to play at all, and the spamming Dark Arts is the biggest problem for me in 4.0, far more so than PLD or WAR, and I play both PLD and WAR regularly. Not complaining about it until they do other stuff is silly, because they're going to fix all three at the same time. They're not going to emergency balance patch a single class, they're going to wait until every class gets adjusted in a big single patch and do it together, so leave feedback now so they can make the adjustments we want.

I like the way it feels in single target and keeps things busy without being needlessly convoluted like before with the plethora of ogcds that were fire and forget. The only thing I'd change is remove Dark Arts from Abyssal Drain and have it boost Salted Earth and Salted Earth will drain health from enemies instead.

I would rather them buff DRK and WAR than nerf PLD. DRK needs scourge back

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Originally Posted by Raim

The only thing I'd change is remove Dark Arts from Abyssal Drain and have it boost Salted Earth and Salted Earth will drain health from enemies instead.

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Why would you do that?

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Originally Posted by MiniPrinny

Only it doesn't, since outside of using it for defense or using it to get an easy 50 blood for Delirium, TBN is a damage loss.

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People keep saying this but I fail to understand how. You're taking 140 potency of MP and turning it into 380 potency, the MP cost of which is paid for by the time you can even use TBN again. You're only delaying 1 SS/SE combo per minute, or half a dark arts and 10 blood, so you're not delaying your mp regen by any significant amount.

Provided you always have CnS paid for, I cannot understand how turning 140 potency into 380 as often as possible is a DPS loss.

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Originally Posted by EusisLandale

Why would you do that?

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Because its clunky to have to DA before every move compared to just having the HP drain effect realistically obtainable over time for each pool and come as a solid, constant pace.

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Originally Posted by MoarLegion

People keep saying this but I fail to understand how. You're taking 140 potency of MP and turning it into 380 potency, the MP cost of which is paid for by the time you can even use TBN again. You're only delaying 1 SS/SE combo per minute, or half a dark arts and 10 blood, so you're not delaying your mp regen by any significant amount.

Provided you always have CnS paid for, I cannot understand how turning 140 potency into 380 as often as possible is a DPS loss.

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You're not taking 140 potency and turning it into 380 because that 380 is on the GCD. DA is basically a 140 potency off-GCD.

Whenever you're mathing how much of a potency gain something that is on the GCD is, you have to weight it against the existing average potency per GCD.

When you spend a DA's worth of mana to get an extra BS by using TBN, you're only getting a net 240 potency (380-140). And that 240 potency is exactly 10 less than the average PPGCD. Ergo, its a loss. Yes its a small one, but its a far cry from the "spam TBN on CD to proc more Bloodspillers because its a 380 potency gain!"

Honestly someone should delete this thread. The problem with DRK isn't our DA usage, its that we're the lowest tank DPS and offer less utility than PLD.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

The problem with DRK isn't our DA usage, its that we're the lowest tank DPS and offer less utility than PLD.

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I feel the same, the dps problem is that we cannot spam Dark Arts enough to match the potency increase achieved by Warrior and Paladin. For dps, I think drk needs more ways to regenerate mana for more dark arts or moving our GCD blood skills to oGCD skills. What do you think?

I also think shadow wall needs either more time, more utility or a shorter cool down (mitigation of vengence, cooldown time and duration of sentinel, and 0 utility) but thats a different post.

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Originally Posted by Raim

Because its clunky to have to DA before every move compared to just having the HP drain effect realistically obtainable over time for each pool and come as a solid, constant pace.

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Abyssal Drain 120 per 2.5, Salted Earth 75 per 3. Over 21 seconds that's 960 and 525. 435 is the potency gain Salted Earth would need to have to match Abyssal Drain in a situation where you have to do it every move.
Realistically though, outside of some stupidly huge pull, about 30 attacks coming in between every Abyssal Drain, you won't be able to keep it up.
Overall though, we're not going to come across many if any situations where we need constant healing from Abyssal Drain which means we also won't need constant healing from Salted Earth. What we do see is situations where we need a big chunk of health NOW so AD being faster than periodic damage means it's the superior option there.

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Originally Posted by Chrono_Rising

I feel the same, the dps problem is that we cannot spam Dark Arts enough to match the potency increase achieved by Warrior and Paladin. For dps, I think drk needs more ways to regenerate mana for more dark arts or moving our GCD blood skills to oGCD skills. What do you think?

I also think shadow wall needs either more time, more utility or a shorter cool down (mitigation of vengence, cooldown time and duration of sentinel, and 0 utility) but thats a different post.

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Here is what I would do:

1. Make Shadow Wall last 20 seconds (instead of simply buffing the % or shortening the cooldown - this will make it unique and not simply a clone of Vengeance/Sentinel)
2. Add a CD exclusive to tank stance or with an MP cost (something that costs DPS) that increases our Parry rate and has a 50% chance to proc a -10% damage taken (like a personal Eye 4 an Eye buff) that makes up for the loss of the old Dark Dance+Reprisal synergy and gives us a Clemency/IB equivalent. Currently DRK does not have one of these extra CDs that costs damage but rounds out our CD suite, whereas WAR and PLD do.
3. Double the potency of Plunge, Carve and Spit, and Salted Earth, and increase their recast times by 15-20s. This will be a DPS gain, reduce oGCD bloat, and bring us up to speed in DPS.

If DRKs don't do enough damage, that's an easy and natural fix that will happen over time. Spamming Dark Arts however isn't something they'll naturally change unless enough people complain about how much they don't like it. That's the point of this thread. It isn't "buff DRKs they suck worst tank" or anything like that, it's how we fundamentally play the job and its style versus other jobs, that's what really matters way more.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

If DRKs don't do enough damage, that's an easy and natural fix that will happen over time. Spamming Dark Arts however isn't something they'll naturally change unless enough people complain about how much they don't like it. That's the point of this thread. It isn't "buff DRKs they suck worst tank" or anything like that, it's how we fundamentally play the job and its style versus other jobs, that's what really matters way more.

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The point is a lot of us LIKE the DA playstyle. A lot of us LIKE having to actively boost individual hits with extra timed button presses. Its like doing a Smash attack in SSB. In terms of plain-old muscle memory and the way the job feels in your hands, a lot of us find it engaging, fun, fast paced, and exciting. If you don't want to play a job that requires so many button presses, there are others out there. Its like saying Bloodletter procs feel bad on BRD. They don't. They're amazing.

For me, DA is a button that makes me feel like I'm exploding with power and needing to press it often to keep from losing control and overflowing. Its exciting trying to keep your MP down during BW and Delirium BW windows.

This is not a problem with the job. It is not something that NEEDS fixing. And considering that it is something that makes the job unique, I don't want to see it go away, and again, there are a fair few things about DRK right now that are ACTUAL problems and do need to be addressed. This just really isn't one of them. If anything the jobs playstyle and general feeling in the players' hands is one of the few things they did right in the expansion. Most jobs in this game press a button every 60-90s and and go about their rotation. DRK has to actively press this button to reap the benefits and that is what makes it exciting.

The other thing, is that all of the potency we lost from Reprisal and Low Blow got distributed to our extra DA casts. So without DAing extra abilities not only would they have to put that potency elsewhere, but they would also have to give us some other mana dump that we have to use just as often or completely retune our mana returns (again), lest we be unable to keep our MP down.

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Originally Posted by MiniPrinny

Only it doesn't, since outside of using it for defense or using it to get an easy 50 blood for Delirium, TBN is a damage loss.

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prior to 4.01 it was a 15dps loss outside of grit. with the damage increase to Bloodspiller more information is needed.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

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Yeah, nah its lame. Some of us don't want to spam a "do more damage on next ability" ability before every attack whenever MP gets high enough. The way the animation looks fit with the way it worked in Heavensward. DRK was better when DA was something used once in a while to give yourself bonus DPS, not something to power up every move constantly.

Like someone said it devalues the animation. It clearly wasn't meant to be a spam move judging by the fact it taxes MP and has that dramatic animation. Honestly the job seems messed up and needs major fixes in general. Clearly something just went wrong and after it's not the expansion posterchild anymore maybe they didn't bother to make it play properly especially at lower levels.

I haven't got to 70 yet but most of the dungeons are still low level ones, even if it fixes then there's still going to be DA spam in lower levels.

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Originally Posted by _Pigzig

I haven't got to 70 yet but most of the dungeons are still low level ones, even if it fixes then there's still going to be DA spam in lower levels.

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Get it to 70. You don't get to spam DA nearly as often, and honestly, design at level cap is what matters. Anyway, you personally not liking it =/= design flaw.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

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I think "some" people like it and "a lot" of people don't like it, thus the point of this thread. It doesn't feel anything like a smash attack in SSB, it feels like "oh boy here's this annoying tacked on mechanic I'm forced to do all the time for no good reason." Smash attacks require thought, proper reactions and judgments, this is just a throwaway button. Dark Arts DID feel like smash attacks in 3.0, but now it's just a Falco's B. DA needs to be higher MP cost and have fewer abilities associated with it for it to "feel good" to use. I'm totally fine if they go back to more 3.0 version of DRK, THAT was fun and exciting and made DA feel good and impactful. 4.0 DRK feels very clunky and not well thought out. It feels like "Oh I dunno' how to change this class, let's just change it for the sake of changing it even if it sucks."

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Originally Posted by Mithron

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I agree. I mean, DRK has a lot of problems and this is subjectively one of the minor ones, but it's become less of an impactful action because of the fact that you basically spam it all the time now. It's just very boring and has no decision-making aspect to it anymore. Feels like Squeenix basically looked at DRK and said "I heard you guys liked using Dark Arts, well now you can use it all the time!"

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Originally Posted by saber_alter

prior to 4.01 it was a 15dps loss outside of grit. with the damage increase to Bloodspiller more information is needed.

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To this day, I still dont understand why it was a potency loss in 4.0.
our SE combo is 680 total potency for 3 GCD, so 226.67 potency average/GCD. Even with the old 380 potency from BS, that was still ~153 potency gain from BS over 140 from DA.
It was a small difference and given that you do take the risk of TBN not breaking (if you don't time it right or at the right opportunity), DA is much more safe to use.


Personally, I love the DA design. it's burst damage through mechanical input rather than passive dmg buff. It feels very engaging, especially since we have less oGDC than 3.0.
I really love 4.0 even though I think DRK could need a slight damage boost overall but that's just tweaks on potency numbers and maybe extending TBN duration to 6 sec (same as Inner Beast and equivalent of 2 server ticks).
The class itself is solid IMO.

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Originally Posted by Shinkyo

To this day, I still dont understand why it was a potency loss in 4.0.

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Because every three Bloodspillers that you use means one fewer Souleater combo, one fewer Syphon Strike worth of MP, and one fewer Souleater worth of Blood.

One Syphon Strike gives you half a Dark Arts worth of MP; Dark Arts is worth 140 potency, so that's a loss of 70 potency, down the line. One Souleater gives you 10 Blood, which translates to extra Bloodspillers down the line.

Taking the opportunity costs into account, it was a slight loss. Now it's either a slight gain, or at worst DPS-neutral, assuming you break every shield and never go over your Blood cap.

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Originally Posted by Crater

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Thank you for the clarification!
personally, I'd still use TBN as much as possible (for every damage spike) even with a small DPS loss because it just feels so good to plan the shield and use BS as a reward :-)