Dark Arts Trick >:)

[JayCommon]

Hello fellow Dark Knights,

I did look to see if there were any obvious thread titles on the first page to see if this has been brought up, so sorry if this topic is already being discussed elsewhere.

As I have been running more and more content on my DRK, I have noticed something very peculiar. I'm not sure if this is working as intended, but it doesn't seem like it should.

I've been toying around with openers. DRK seems to be a much more consistent DPS then warrior, albeit lower in general. When off-tanking, we can keep Blood Weapon on CD, and we don't normally have MP issues. When checking my numbers in a 3min parse, I was able to use Dark Arts for every single Souleater/C&S. We won't talk about the glaring TP issues, because there are other threads dedicated to that.

DRK lacks burst, but we don't need it because our Souleater/C&S have real high potencies when paired with Dark Arts.

So let me actually get into why I created this thread. Since the lack of burst, as long as you get into your rotation as quickly as possible you should easily be able to maintain whatever DPS you can do right off the bat. The discussions I have seen about DRK opener have been relying on opening with a Dark Arts Carve and Spit so Dark Arts will be back up for the first Souleater.

So what I have found to happen, won't actually increase your DPS of your opener, but it will increase your available MP and I believe is the reason why I could Dark Arts literally every single ender of my rotation for 3mins before I started getting low. So far as best as I can tell (on PS4, so can't parse but have had some parsers give me their feedback and confirm what I say looks like it is happening), this is what I'm doing and what's important will be in bold type:

Scourge > (oGCD) Blood Weapon > Hard Slash > (oGCD) Plunge > Syphon Strike > (oGCD) Dark Arts > (oGCD) Carve and Spit > Souleater > (oGCD) Salted Earth

Technically, my opener clips a half of a GCD by using Dark Arts and Carve and Spit before going into Souleater. But the reason behind this, is because the Dark Arts buff hasn't completely fallen off yet. As much as I've tested this, if you pull off your transitions as quickly and cleanly as possible: Dark Arts is affecting the potency of C&S and Souleater with the same application of Dark Arts.

Without the proper tool to gauge and monitor this myself, I ask if fellow DRK's that can use these tools confirm or deny. If this is true, you can save about 1800MP off your opener by just not starting with the DA/C&S and waiting to pair it with the first Souleater. I am pretty sure it's true though, because I know what the moves are supposed to hit for. I used this technique while on the training dummy last night and critted both of them back-to-back = C&S 2750 Souleater 2390, with the same single application of Dark Arts.

Being able to pair them together like this allows you to not use 1800MP out of a normal rotation solely dedicated to getting C&S back out as soon as possible. You are only ever going to "not use it" for a max of 2 GCD's to get it to pair again, and I've noticed that it actually lines up pretty well so you don't have to really wait at all to be able to combo it.

Would love to hear some feedback and see if others are experiencing this as well.

[Rhaja]

So my question is, can you do this with our other oGCD abilities? Because I want to try this out but I need the monies from my job ;__;

[Kiteless]

I figured this was already pretty commonly known. For what it's worth, I do actually quite enjoy waiting for just the right moment to unleash everything at once. Hopefully this bug ends up becoming a feature.

[JayCommon]

I figured this was already pretty commonly known. For what it's worth, I do actually quite enjoy waiting for just the right moment to unleash everything at once. Hopefully this bug ends up becoming a feature.

It's definitely possible. I only check forums while I'm at work and I took a week off when HW released, so I was just playing the game lol. The few DRK-related threads I have seen here on the official forums has several variations of the same opener being used and commented on, however I haven't seen anyone make mention of this nuance. It's also why it doesn't make sense to use DA/C&S at the beginning because it is just a colossal MP waste, which I have seen several people advise others to do. So if it's widely known, maybe...but definitely not fully known by all.

The tooltip suggests this is broken, though. It isn't supposed to work this way, but for now we can take advantage of it

So my question is, can you do this with our other oGCD abilities? Because I want to try this out but I need the monies from my job ;__;

From the reddit post I just read it looks like this will work with many other skills, but it was only noticeable to me (without a parse) just by seeing my numbers from the damage based moves. It seems like it has something to do with a longer animation being clipped by a shorter one and the game thinking you had Dark Arts up for both seperately...or something along those lines.

[Rhaja]

And watch this be patched well before WAR's getting crit heals while in Raw Intuition XD

Welp, got something to look forward to playing with in a few hours

[Kiteless]

For what it's worth, even with this little trick, we can barely keep up with WAR damage as it is for very long. And after that, our damage goes so low as to be non-existent, thanks to our horrible resource management tools. If they were to actually take this away, there'd need to be some serious gains made to make up for it.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

This sounds like an exploit, and not something I would rely on. =(

[JayCommon]

And watch this be patched well before WAR's getting crit heals while in Raw Intuition XD

When I heard that worked I lost it. That just sounds so conceptually broken it's not even funny, but it's awesome that it works like that and I hope they don't change it.

For what it's worth, even with this little trick, we can barely keep up with WAR damage as it is for very long. And after that, our damage goes so low as to be non-existent, thanks to our horrible resource management tools. If they were to actually take this away, there'd need to be some serious gains made to make up for it.

Yeah, Unmend/Unchain while DPSing is so bad, and you can't even do that if you are going all out with your Dark Arts usage (like you should if DPSing) because you're going to be low on MP right when you run out of TP. We just need an Invigorate. We obviously won't get to cross class with DRG because of BfB, but we need something equivalent to Invig on DRK or we won't be flexible enough to ever be an off-tank. I love the versatility of DRK and being able to pull off both tank aspects efficiently, but TP is definitely an issue that needs addressing.

[Ditto]

Scourge > (oGCD) Blood Weapon > Hard Slash > (oGCD) Plunge > Syphon Strike > (oGCD) Dark Arts > (oGCD) Carve and Spit > Souleater > (oGCD) Salted Earth

Technically, my opener clips a half of a GCD by using Dark Arts and Carve and Spit before going into Souleater. But the reason behind this, is because the Dark Arts buff hasn't completely fallen off yet. As much as I've tested this, if you pull off your transitions as quickly and cleanly as possible: Dark Arts is affecting the potency of C&S and Souleater with the same application of Dark Arts.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Fairly sure it's a bug, but if SE takes it away from us, we'll be doing less DPS than we are now, and that will turn into a problem. We're in a sweet spot with damage, just below War, and idk where compared to a Pld cause Pld seems all over the place. A lot of people know about this, C&S has a long enough animation before the hit actually occurs to where you can animation cancel it straight into souleater and land both of them so close together that Dark Arts will effect both hits.

[ZanzhizExaverion]

Double Dark Arts is currently a bug, you can replicate it by performing two actions very quickly, the first one you click has to be a LONG animation and the second a SHORT animation. For example you can go Dark Passenger > Souleater / Power Slash > Dark Dance/Mind / Havent tested Carve and Spit because I'm only 54, and I assume this will be patched out in the next balance patch.