Dark Arts Bloodspiller

Do you treat it the same as Siphon Strike where you only use DA on it if you're going to cap on MP or are you supposed to DA every Bloodspiller as much as possible like Souleater?

You only want to dark arts the critical hit / direct crit ones unless you will clip your max MP... Maybe we should whine that our dark arts aren't always criting and we can get forced directcrits for our dark arts? :rolleyes:

It does feel pretty bad to use dark arts on a souleater for no crit/direct then no dark arts on your next one and it crits. Buhuhuhuhhhhhh SE PLS critical onry.

DA guaranteeing crits would be nice and would bridge the DPS gap. I guess.

What if Bloodweapon did that for all hits while under it instead?

It's not a bad idea, but I would like to put that effect on dark passenger instead, if only so there is a decent reason to use it. Remove, or halve, the mp cost of DP, and remove the blind effect (counter intuitive when you use blood price). The affected target will suffer guaranteed critical or direct hit damage, for the next X seconds, for blood spiller and quietus. Use that DP on a group, then DA+quietus that group for a nice chunk of pain plus mp regen. If you use it on a single target, such as a boss, then using DA+blood spiller would be nice, too.

Not only would DP be more usable, but it would give good synergy towards the blood-using skills.

Dark Arts Bloodspiller Bonus (out of grit): 140 potency.
Dark Arts Syphon Strike Bonus: 140 potency.
Dark Arts Souleater Bonus: 200 potency.
Dark Arts Bloodspiller Bonus (in grit): 250 Potency.
Dark Arts Carve and Spit Bonus: 350 potency.

If you imagine Dark arts to be an off-GCD action of the same potency as the boost it is granting, your priority list is Carve and Spit >>>> Bloodspiller (Grit) > Soul Eater > Syphon Strike = Bloodspiller (No Grit)

You actually do not want to use Dark Arts on Bloodspiller unless you are absolutely about to cap MP or you are tanking in Grit. This works out nicely because bloodspiller is off the GCD, so it's good to save your ass if you've got blood weapon up and are gaining too fast. Add in a Blackest night and you can safely keep your MP below the cap during Blood Weapon.

Save MP for Carve and Spit and Souleater as much as possible outside of Grit. Dump into Blackest Night, Syphon Strike or Bloodspiller if you are going to cap. In grit, save MP for Carve and Spit and Bloodspiller. Dump into Souleater.

The heal on souleater is pretty pathetic at the moment so I wouldn't prioritize DA into it while in grit. I would still pump Bloodspiller in Grit to provide the extra DPS. I think it would be amazing if DA souleater significantly increased the heal, to provide us with a choice of DPS or sustain.

Bloodspiller isn't oGCD.

I'm not sure where you're getting that Dark Arts is contributing 200 potency to Souleater. Are you comparing the non-combo dark arts potency to the combo version?
And by Bloodspiller being not a part of the GCD, I'm assuming you mean that it doesn't interrupt a combo chain, not that it's off-GCD, yes?

Oh yeah my mistake on both accounts.

I was accidentally looking at the DA uncomboed to DA comboed. So it's actually 140 for soul eater and bloodspiller is on GCD.

On reflection then.... outside of grit it is irrelevant which ability you DA provided you DA Carve and Spit on cooldown. In grit, all DA after C&S should go into bloodspiller where possible.

The core is basically just decision making in order to not to cap mp or blood. Keep both below the cap (or at least not above the cap) and DA carve and Spit on cooldown and I think that's about it.

It only makes a difference if you are in grit. If you are in grit, DA BS adds more damage than DA+Combo action. In grit you want to DA every BS you can unless it prevents you from doing something even more powerful like a DA Carve and spit, or leaves you without MP for a tank buster.

Regarding potency numbers only, I do agree with you guys. DA adds 140 potency for both Soul Eater and Bloodspiller (without Grit). However, what about the real damage you gain with DA?

I do not know exactly how FFXIV's formulas work, but I am thinking with just simple math. Potency acts like a base for our damage that can be multiplified by buffs, gear, debuffs, CH, DH, etc. So if DA would add 140 potency for both skills we should prioritize to use it in our skill with the highest base potency (Bloodspiller). This way we will have a larger number (540 of potency instead of 440) that will be more affected for the multiplification factors and will result in a larger dps gain when synced with raid buffs like Trick Attack, Littany and Chain Strategem.

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Originally Posted by Xan_Kriegor

Regarding potency numbers only, I do agree with you guys. DA adds 140 potency for both Soul Eater and Bloodspiller (without Grit). However, what about the real damage you gain with DA?

I do not know exactly how FFXIV's formulas work, but I am thinking with just simple math. Potency acts like a base for our damage that can be multiplified by buffs, gear, debuffs, CH, DH, etc. So if DA would add 140 potency for both skills we should prioritize to use it in our skill with the highest base potency (Bloodspiller). This way we will have a larger number (540 of potency instead of 440) that will be more affected for the multiplification factors and will result in a larger dps gain when synced with raid buffs like Trick Attack, Littany and Chain Strategem.

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Youre on the right track but stepped off at the last step. Potency can be thought of as the 'base' amount of damage which is multiplied by Weapond damage, Str, Det, Ten, can crit/DH, etc using some formula junk. With that in mind every point of potency translates to X damage. Lets say (for example) that 1 potency after going through the math blender becomes 10 damage. So a 300 potency skill would do 3,000 damage. 140 potency would do 1,400 damage. Etc.

So every use of DA (for combos that add 140 pot) will add 1400 damage. If you use that on BS (out of grit), it will also add 1400 damage.

Hard slash: 1500
Syphon Strike: 2500+1400
SE: 3000+1400
BS: 4000+1400

Lets say you have enough MP to do ONE DA during a full SE combo+BS (out of grit). So your doing SE combo+BS. Base potency for the entire 4 GCD set is 150+250+300+400=1100 potency. Gear math blender=11,000 real damage. Now add in DA.

Put it on BS (strongest action)
150+250+300+(400+140)=1240 potency=12,400 'real' damage

Put it on weakest action (syphon)
150+(250+140)+300+400=1240 potency=12,400 'real' damage

You multiply ALL potency by the same amount based on gear etc. So it doesn't matter where the potency is added. 140 potenct is always the same amount. This is why in grit, DA BS adds 175 potency, but only 140 on combos or non-grit BS. Carve and spit DA adds 150 potency.

So you should always use DA on Crit BS 1st and foremost because it adds 175 potency, not because the combined potency of BS+DA is higher, but the DA itself is higher. Then next on C&S because its +150 potency. Then if none of those are up, use it on a regular combo or non-grit BS for 140 potency.

Potency always has the same value so just get the most potency you can from the MP on DA. The combined action+DA potency doesn't matter, just the DA portion itself.

Buffs in this game are multiplicative. So I did some questionable math for Direct Hit Crits of SE vs BS with meta comp. If you land DA SE within the buffs it's around 1098 potency but if you land DA BS it's 1348 potency. So the 100 potency difference becomes 250(ish). I included Darkside's initial 20% damage as well.

Basically C&S > BS > SE> SS.

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Originally Posted by RLofOBFL

Buffs in this game are multiplicative. So I did some questionable math for Direct Hit Crits of SE vs BS with meta comp. If you land DA SE within the buffs it's around 1098 potency but if you land DA BS it's 1348 potency. So the 100 potency difference becomes 250(ish). I included Darkside's initial 20% damage as well.

Basically C&S > BS > SE> SS.

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They are multiplicative, and therefore associative. It doesn't matter what order you stack everything up in.

2x5x3 is the same as 5x2x3. 2+5+3=5+3+2.

Put another way in Drk language
150+250+300+(400+140)=1240
150+(250+140)+300+400=1240
150+250+300+(400+140)=1240
They all equal 1240 potency.

Whatever gear you have then multiplies that 1240 potency to the exact same amount of damage.

As long as a DA bonus is 140 potency, its the EXACT same as any other action that also gives 140 potency. There is no secret advantage in using DA on Soul eater instead of Syphon strike. Crits/DH don't matter either. A crit adds 45% damage. A DH adds 25% damage. 140 potency will always add the same % of damage regardless of the size of the base potency of the action you attach it to.

Your wording can confuse someone in that crit doesn't matter when it does. Criting with Dark arts will add additional critical damage, same with direct and even more so on a direct crit. This is why it feels bad when you use dark arts on say a souleater but it doesn't crit, the siphon strike you didn't use dark arts on before it DID crit though and you lost a chance at more damage. Hence the whole buhuhuhhhh dark arts crits pls SE.

Aana has the right of it, I believe. Provided the base potency is additive with the dark arts potency bonus, it is irrelevant what you multiply through. The additional damage provided by dark arts will always be the same.

If you crit with bloodspiller compared to a syphon strike crit, the additional damage from dark arts is still the same. No matter how many different buffs or stats you have, the extra damage from dark arts is the same whichever ability you use. The two potencies are treated separately.

For there to be a difference, there would need to be a second variable value that changes depending on which ability you use. Crit damage is a constant multiplier, no matter how high.

The additional potency will always be the same, the additional damage will not for criticals, directs, and direct crits. You add 140 potency you add that much worth of damage. You critical, you add 140 potency worth of damage and 140 potency worth of critical damage.

If you dark arts a souleater but it doesn't crit, you basically only got the 140 extra potency worth of damage. If you had used dark arts on the syphon strike that did critical before it though, you would have also received 140 potency worth of critical damage alongside the 140 potency worth of damage dark arts normally brings.

I don't know how to explain it any better.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

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What you are saying versus what Aana is saying are two completely different things.

Yes, the added potency from DAing an attack will factor into the extra damage provided if that attack is a crit/dh/dh+crit.
This is commonsense and nobody is arguing against that.

What Aana is talking about, and is correct in, is that the additional damage provided by a DA is the same across the different abilities in which DA just adds a flat +140 potency, whether or not they are crits/dh/etc. as long as they are being compared in the same state.
The additional damage provided from a DA is the same between a regular DAed SE and a regular non-Grit DAed BS.
The additional damage provided from a DA is the same between a crit/dh/etc. DAed SE and a crit/dh/etc. non-Grit DAed BS.

That is what is meant by "it doesn't matter if the attack is a crit or not". The relative additional damage provided by a DA is a flat value across SS, SE, BS. There is no really "better" one from an additional damage perspective to use your DA on. The only thing that results in any sort of priority is additional factors such as the miserly self-heal from SE or the Grit bonus to BS.

Personally, the fact that this is such a wash and the difference or reasons to choose one ability over another to DA is virtually non-existent is a huge problem with the design of DRK and makes DA more monotonous and "spammy" feeling as an ability, as well as just making the job feel overall less fun due to a lack of choice and potential strategy.

I'll try with maths.

given that:
x = weapon damage. Constant. This is for clarity and arguments sake, since it could be included in 'm'
m = some (multiplicative) multipliers, whatever you want, temporary or permanent. Constant in any given isolated situation depending on your buffs.
c = crit damage multiplier, just for arguments sake. Constant value given by stats.

DA Syphon Strike: (250x + 140x)mc = 250mcx + 140mcx
DA Bloodspiller: (400x + 140x)mc = 400mcx + 140mcx

the "140mcx" is the same regardless. This is the bonus damage provided by Dark Arts. You can see the "c" component is also present and constant regardless. The total damage of Bloodspiller will be much higher on a crit, even moreso with crit multiplier, but the part of that damage that is increased by Dark arts would be an identical increase if used with Syphon Strike.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

Your wording can confuse someone in that crit doesn't matter when it does. Criting with Dark arts will add additional critical damage, same with direct and even more so on a direct crit. This is why it feels bad when you use dark arts on say a souleater but it doesn't crit, the siphon strike you didn't use dark arts on before it DID crit though and you lost a chance at more damage. Hence the whole buhuhuhhhh dark arts crits pls SE.

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It feels bad to see your BS crit and you DA a syphon, but you cant hindsight an ability RNG crit. There is just as much chance to crit the syphon strike that you skipped DA on. But you still lost the same 'crit damage' from the DA regardless of which one crit. 140 potency that crits (+45% damage)will be 203 potency of damage DA added. It doesn't matter which action you add that too. SE, BS, Syphon will all get 140 pot from DA or 203 pot from DA if it crits. Crits/DH don't have ANY bearing on when you should use DA.

Theres a common misconception that critting the higher potency action somehow makes DA better to use on it. All it does is 'feel' better because we like seeing big numbers, but you aren't actually doing more damage. Feelings do not a parse make.

So Dark Arts is additive? Well crap.

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Originally Posted by RLofOBFL

So Dark Arts is additive? Well crap.

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Well the tooltips imply that it is directly additive. They directly increase the potency of your abilities by a set amount.

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Originally Posted by RLofOBFL

So Dark Arts is additive? Well crap.

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Yup. Whatever the skill says "DA +XXX potency" is just that. Adding flat potency. No % bonus or anything like that. So the one that adds the most potency (Grit Bloodspiller, Carve and spit) you should prioritize over the 'standard' +140 potency stuff. If choosing between the 140s, take your pick, they are all the same.

You guys are correct, my bad.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

Personally, the fact that this is such a wash and the difference or reasons to choose one ability over another to DA is virtually non-existent is a huge problem with the design of DRK and makes DA more monotonous and "spammy" feeling as an ability, as well as just making the job feel overall less fun due to a lack of choice and potential strategy.

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I completely agree with you. It is for sure a design flaw. I liked the idea of choosing carefully which skill I would spend my mana. But it doesn't matter. It is just a dumb design.

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Originally Posted by Aana

Crits/DH don't have ANY bearing on when you should use DA.

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I guess our overall thought process towards this is where we disagree. There is no bearing on when it should be used till you didn't use it missing the critical or direct with it and lost potential DPS assuming you had the MP for one, it should have been used there. Having no control over it does not justify it, otherwise we wouldn't have had warriors whining about not criting during their berserk windows. It is what it is.

Don't know, I agree that there's no way of knowing when to best use it but to say it has no bearing is probably more than I can agree with. That's like saying using it during littany, battle voice, or chain strategem is irrelevant since crits don't matter but they do.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Do you treat it the same as Siphon Strike where you only use DA on it if you're going to cap on MP or are you supposed to DA every Bloodspiller as much as possible like Souleater?

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If you have the MP to press the shiny DA to buff Bloodspiller: do it. Basically like Souleater.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

I guess our overall thought process towards this is where we disagree. There is no bearing on when it should be used till you didn't use it missing the critical or direct with it and lost potential DPS assuming you had the MP for one, it should have been used there. Having no control over it does not justify it, otherwise we wouldn't have had warriors whining about not criting during their berserk windows. It is what it is.

Don't know, I agree that there's no way of knowing when to best use it but to say it has no bearing is probably more than I can agree with. That's like saying using it during littany, battle voice, or chain strategem is irrelevant since crits don't matter but they do.

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Hindsighting what crit and didn't crit is an utter waste of brain power. You cant predict it so it shouldn't inform your decision when to use the skill. All you can do is play the statistical average game. The misconception im talking about is purely the idea that base potency of the skill you DA somehow makes DA better or worse. It doesn't. +140 potency on a 400 pot skill is not somehow better than +140 pot on a 250 pot skill. 140 is 140 is 140. There is no difference whatsoever. Of course you should use more stuff under litany. When I say crit doesn't matter I mean this weird idea that the chance to a DABS somehow makes DA better to use on BS than syphon.

The only time that decision would be tilted was if you have a buff on for 1 more GCD and it will fall off. Well lets say litany is up on for your next syphon strike, but will fall off before youre soul eater. Your darn right you should DA the syphon. 140pot under litany is better than 140 potency not under litany. Or trick. Or balance. Or whatever. I figured that was obvious. The only time it would get more complicated is choosing between a higher DA potency with no buff vs a 140 potency with buff, but that's still just a math problem with an answer. EG: Brotherhood is up for SE, but will wear off before you SE>50 blood>Bloodpiller under grit (175 DA potency). Well brotherhood buffs 140 by 5% so that's 147 potency. Still less than 175 so save it for Grit BS. You can do similar things for any buff or combination of buffs in the game.

But outside of buffs falling off, theres no reason to choose this +140 pot vs that +140 pot.

The reason why the baseline probabilities of DH/Crit don't influence your decision to DA is due to the distributive principle of algebra. Let's say that a particular combo action does 'x' potency. The DA version of the ability does 'x+140' potency. If you DH, these become 1.25(x) and 1.25(x+140), respectively. The net gain from landing a DH on a DA combo action is then

1.25(x+140) - 1.25(x)
= 1.25x + 175 -1.25x
= 175

As you can see, this expression is independent of x. So it doesn't really matter which combo action you use DA on. You can think of it as equivalent to a 140 potency oGCD which can crit/DH independently of each combo action.

Now, if you're in a raid buff window, you want your biggest potency attacks to line up with it. So you want to maximise DA and BS usage when TA/embolden/litany/etc. are up, so that you make the most of the multipliers. These are two different scenarios.

While DA functions as "Additive" its not actually adding any damage to a base amount of damage.
Instead, the BASE damage is 140 higher.

So there shouldn't be an argument of additive vs multiplicative, since theres no numbers being combined.

I don't think there ever was an argument over the math and logic. I was just clearing up the idea that you want your dark arts hits to critical, direct, or direct crit as much as possible for the extra critical etc damage and if you have a scenario where you don't use dark arts on syphon strike and it crits but you used it on souleater and it doesn't, you've lowered your net gain from dark arts if you were able to use it on that syphon instead. My first post was just clearing that up. Then we went on a tangent about whether or not criticals have a bearing on choice since we have no control over them.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

crits

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While not being incorrect, the statement contributes nothing, as its just another way to say "Water is wet".
If I were to say, "If you were to Direct Crit every single attack, EXCEPT for the ones you used DA on, it would out damage a fight where you DH Crit only the DA abilities" it really serves no purpose.
(Not to be an attack on you.)
So everyone usually would assume your comment meant something deeper, because, why else would it be said?

It contributes to the idea that dark arts can increase the DPS disparity of RNG through the course of a fight. ACT does not show your Dark arts contributions that I'm aware of other than the amount of casts you had. We can't change anything if we don't discuss things first or at least acknowledge them. I get the feeling that this doesn't seem like a worthwhile thing to discuss at this rate though.

Either way a forced crit at the very least for dark arts with a bit lower potency would be stabler damage gains.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

Either way a forced crit at the very least for dark arts with a bit lower potency would be stabler damage gains.

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Ah, then it was me who misunderstood what you were saying then.
As for a forced crit, I don't really feel its needed. I know this is what SE did, to try and "fix" WAR, and while its not incorrect for WAR, DRK is the least bursty of the 3 tanks, so if anything, it would be better suited for PLD than DRK.

So technically this helps very little, other than make DPS numbers less random, which arent "that" random to begin with.
The ACTUAL burst of DRK isnt DA, but Blood Weapon, and to a lesser extent, Delirium/CnS.

I still think DA should increase the heal component on souleater by some amount. It would pose us with a question in grit as to if we want more flat DPS (DA bloodspiller) or more sustain (DA souleater). As it stands, the self healing bonus is too pathetic to bother losing DPS for in most cases. Given that we are allegedly the worst self-sustainers, this would be a nice change to help sustain. It would also give DRK a niche over PLD that it continues dealing high damage while spending mana on self-sustain... whereas paladin has to choose flat damage or self-sustain.

Warriors just seem nonsense right now. I'm trying to get the clear on O5S and warriors are frequently doing 4k dps. After ghost carriages they are on full health. As drk I have to use 2 cooldowns and TBN to come out of the carriages above 50% health

Alternatively DA SS could possibly grant a net gain in mp.. ie using DA SS restores more mp than DA costs, for mp sustain while mainting damage. More choice and reason to use DA in one ability or another

Its not necessarily a burst problem because dark arts is used throughout a fight and capitalized on usage instead of a window. When you use 50+ dark arts throughout a fight crits can play a significant difference. I'll attempt math even though I'm bad at it.

55 dark arts
140 potency
1.45 multiplier

55x140=7700 Say you crit 1/4 of those 7700x0.25=1925 1925x1.45=2791 so additional crit potency was 2791-1925=866.25

55x140=7700 Say you crit 2/3 of those 7700x0.66=5082 5082x1.45=7369 so additional crit potency was 7369-5082=2287

55x140=7700 Say you crit 1/2 of those 7700x0.5=3850 3850x1.45=5582 so additional crit potency was 5582-3850=1733

I guess its not a large potency difference but its there. I'm not going to attempt to compare it to the old berserk windows to try and justify forced crits though. If my math is wrong or calculations wrong, someone please correct me.

I'm really happy to read through this thread because now I can use DA on Siphon Strike regularly without fear. It'll make DA Carve and Spit a lot easier to do on controller on cool down.

I think Blood Spiller, Quietus and Delirium are really cool, but 3.0 DRK was by far the best class design this game ever had.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

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So the discussion is that it feels bad when DA doesn't crit because it is a limited resource action. However, that is not any different to any other class and their limited resources or cooldowns. Of course you want them to crit as often as possible. It's just part of the game mechanics.

I think I'd have to disagree with autocrits. While it does increase value from +crit-damage, it also devalues crit-chance. This is just making stats more complicated than necessary. It would be much easier to just do some flat potency increases to increase DRK DPS.

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Originally Posted by Rathael

So the discussion is that it feels bad when DA doesn't crit because it is a limited resource action. However, that is not any different to any other class and their limited resources or cooldowns. Of course you want them to crit as often as possible. It's just part of the game mechanics.

I think I'd have to disagree with autocrits. While it does increase value from +crit-damage, it also devalues crit-chance. This is just making stats more complicated than necessary. It would be much easier to just do some flat potency increases to increase DRK DPS.

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I agree with this statement.

But to humor the idea he proposes, I think the best way to deal with an auto crit like this, isnt the inner release style, but instead, a buff you turn on, that makes critting impossible.
Every time you "would" crit, a bar fills up.
This bar was the % chance you had to land that crit.
So lets say you have an 11% chance to land that crit, which was just canceled.
Your crit would instead do normal damage, and the bar fills up 11%.

Later, another crit will fail, and the bar will now be at 22%.

When you press DA, the next ability will now have a 22% chance to crit, removing the bar back to 0.
This is obviously worse, as its now a "chance" to happen again, and fail, when it would have worked before.

So the bar would need to go up to a max of 200%.
When using the ability above 100%, only a 100% is removed at max. (ends up acting like blood/beast guage, as 50% markers)

This is to pick and choose which abilities u want to crit.
And "technically" you could pop it earlier, though its risky, and unrewarding to do so.

This would feel similar to how DA functions, as a "1 time buff, before an action".