Should Dark Arts Come Back in 6.0? If so, What Should the Skill Do?

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Most of my old Dark Arts remaster ideas have hit either the "but that would be a damage loss" wall, or the "but that would be a liability" wall, so I am not certain at this point, how to design Dark Arts... Other than a boring or dull design that would kill the point of my attempts to re-design/re-master the ability... while on the other scale, my ideas also hits the "lazy and simple preferred" wall.
A (common?) issue brought up against if old Dark Arts were to return, is that some people express(ed) that it should not be a liability... (A lot of/some?) Dark Knight players would prefer that Dark Knight is "just as easy" and requires just as little effort, as the other tanks, while Dark Knight actions have to be equal to the other tanks, without Dark Arts...

so.. like, Dark Arts is not allowed to have offensive or defensive effects, under those limitations, because other tanks do not need to use a additional ability, for their defensive strength and damage potential to be as good as other tanks, and Dark Arts is also not allowed to cost MP or other resource(s), like BlackBlood gauge, under those limitations; as (a lot of/some?) Dark Knights do not want Dark Arts to be a liability or a "damage loss", or a necessity that the Dark Knight is reliant on(SB DA spam = ew.)...
to re-design Dark Arts under these guidelines has proven difficult, as a Dark Arts like this would be.. not much of interest, and little akin to the iconic and fun old HW Dark Arts... hieh, I am not certain how to re-design Dark Arts...

My #1 most lazy idea at the moment, that may fit the bill, would be if Dark Arts is a oGCD ability with a CD, no resource cost, and its effect only slightly alters the effect of a action, changes what a action does, but this change has to fit every afore-mentioned guideline, or adds self-healing effects to actions; while Dark Arts itself could be either a short duration "all GCDs/oGCDs used in its duration" passive buff, or the action is a "stacks"-style passive buff that has you spend its limited stacks/uses at leisure.

here is a quote of a comment that I did post a few pages ago, to use as a reference and share my own idea again... any way, my actual response:

Perhaps Dark Arts should be given a cooldown? Maybe have a recast timer like TBN (15 seconds). It'll still cost MP of course, but having a 15sec recast timer would solve any worry for Dark Arts spam. Heck, I wouldn't mind Dark Arts and TBN working in conjunction with each other.

• Both skills would share the same recast timer.
• Dark Arts would be used for offense while TBN is used for defense
• Dark Arts would still enhance a few skills like it did back in 3.0 and 4.0.
• TBN would work the same as 5.0. If the shield broke, it grants "Dark Arts". But instead of giving the player a free Edge or Flood of Shadow, you are free to use a Dark Arts enhanced skill. This rewards players for playing well defensively.

I don't know. I never played HW or StB DRK, but I still want to contribute to the discussion. I really would like to see the real Dark Arts come back.

mn.. your idea does look good, I suppose... first of all, it looks like we agree about to place a CD on Dark Arts, and we share the line of thought about that would deal with the spam issue at least a little bit... And I like the idea of Dark Arts and The Blackest Night shares CD, and function as a choose-one pair... on the other scale, pure offense Dark Arts could be a thing, but I will also mention again a point that I have made several times in other threads.

The Blackest Night's if broken bonus being a offensive bonus.. is a literal liability to the Dark Knight, and in my opinion, is a awful design. the mockery of Dark Arts that The Blackest Knight has, needs to be deleted, and in this case(your idea, I mean) where we give up on how old Dark Arts did function, to make it a pure offensive buff, then my idea that The Blackest Night needs to be pure defense, becomes relevant to your concept.

Change the if broken bonus of The Blackest Night to be either further defense or a HP-restore related effect, then.. going with your idea, we can have pure offense Dark Arts and pure defense The Blackest Night, and since they would share CD, this would be a matter of forced choice, always Dark Arts unless you need The Blackest Night, which I think would work out well enough, as far as design goes.

what do you think of this?, CurrentLemon. I think that it would be a good idea, to merge my lazy idea with your more thought out idea, so I would see fit to have your opinion. And, of course, the opinions and input of other Dark Knights would be good, as we all need to work together, to create a concept that we can all agree on.