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

[Marxam]

Bring Back Dark Arts (3 stacks) on a 60 sec recast with 2 charges similar to Infuriate. It can cost MP or not depending on if TBN gets changed to a charge system (30 sec recast, 2 charges) and no MP cost, but here's a decent way of bringing it back while still maintaining that hard-on for being a WAR clone.

-DA buffs actions and abilities giving them utility or buff. It functions similar to IR change in EW where certain skills will use it automatically and has a long duration before it expires without using a stack. It only affects a limited tool set and no ogcd offensive actions to avoid more spamming. DA UI on job gauge increased to 3 to represent that DA is active and has stacks available to use.

Examples of weapon skills and actions are exclusively affected by Dark Arts, each action/ability uses one DA stack:

-Siphon Strike gains double MP
-Soul Eater reduces recast of Living Shadow by 5 seconds
-Unmend restores HP, cure potency
-Stalwart Soul restores HP, cure potency
-Dark Mind increase to 30% magic dmg reduction
-Shadow Wall gets counter-attack to magical spells, 65 potency

Generally the idea is that you use DA and have time to spend it on actions that you need and no double weaving of 4.0 DRK

[Ryaduera]

Perhaps you are right. Again, I never played 3.0 DRK. I just kept listening to the veteran 3.0 and 4.0 DRK players and formed my opinion here. Since a lot of DRK players did not like the Dark Arts spam in 4.0, I suggested that it'd only be an oGCD with charges to prevent spam.

However, having Dark Arts take away Darkside timer is a good idea. A great idea. Although, I do think this idea would fit better if BW got it's haste buff back.

Back in 3.0 you had to really balance your Dark Arts usage to keep Darkside up because Darkside was passive mana drain and Dark Arts was an active mana drain. There were, however, burst phases when you would end up with heavy loads of MP to unleash (hah, get it? Unleash?). Darkside was essentially the same as it is now, but you actually had to maintain it. As it stands in the current system there is nothing to maintain. Someone smarter than myself did the math and in an ideal boss fight, including downtime, you overcap on Darkside by 12 minutes for every 10 minutes. This is with every 3000 MP being used on flood/edge either directly or breaking TBN. Even if you don't break TBN every time, that's still a massive overcap. In short, if you somehow manage to drop Darkside, you must be griefing.

But also there's a matter of intent. Dark Arts had a very short cooldown, it could be weaved every GCD. That was a little too much in some cases, but what it did have was intent. If Dark Arts is tied exclusively to 30 second cooldown based on Darkside, you can't really use it with the same type of intent. Yes, it can be timed, and yes, 30 second windows are usually ones that fall in line anyway, but the feeling of "Dark intentions" the class is meant to have leaves when it's on a hard timer like that. You used to chain Dark Arts with MP regeneration when you knew it was time to punish the boss.Tying it to consume Darkside means you will put it back into the burst phases it used to have since the idea is no longer to just dump your MP as soon as possible just to gain DPS, but you would have to alternate Edge/Flood with your new Dark Arts, build your MP back up over time, and have Dark Arts ready for when you want it to be ready.

I do like the idea of keeping it on a charge system, however, as during the downtime between bursts you could, theoretically, keep gaining Darkside and then consume it for a charge of Dark Arts in preparation for another burst phase, then start a burst phase with full Dark Arts and the ability to refill even more. This does, however, mean potency somewhere else would have to give, but if it adds something actually interesting to DRK then I'm fine with that. The job already has 0 mechanics that are actually meaningful.

And yes... Blood Weapon needs to be fixed.

[Dragotani]

- Remove Delirium as it is.
- Remove Carve and Spit as it is.

-Using bloodspiller or quietus gives you 2 Stacks of 'Delirium'. Maximum of 6.
- Add Dark Arts button. Converts Delirium Stacks into Dark Arts stacks.
- Dark Arts changes your GCDs, buffs their damage, adds MP regen and small lifesteal.
- Hard Slash > Power Slash
- Syphon Strike > Scourge (Applies the original dot)
- Souleater > Carve and Spit

Obviously just random spitballing, I'm not a numbers/timing person. Would buff Unleash and Stalwart Soul. Could change Flood of Shadow into Dark Passenger? Edge of Shadow into something else?

[Derio]

If you bring back the 3.0 animation. Then it should be a regen or burst heal since it looks like you are syphoning darkness from the aether around you.

[Shin96]

If you bring back the 3.0 animation. Then it should be a regen or burst heal since it looks like you are syphoning darkness from the aether around you.

I don't think they'll bring back anything. Clearly this job is designed for people not to have fun.. how dare you have fun. As a DRK you need to be miserable in conjunction with the storyline.

[currentlemon]

Okay, some new ideas for Dark Arts based on all the feedback so far.

The skill Dark Arts is obtained at level 40 alongside Edge of Darkness. This will introduce new players to the Dark Arts mechanic.

Dark Arts will play along with the Darkside timer. The timer will slowly fill up the DRK's Blood Gauge (will explain later). If the Darkside timer is up for at least 30secs, the DRK will gain a charge called, "Blood Rune". These "Blood Runes" work similar to Black Mages Enochain and Polyglot system. As long as the DRK's Darkside timer is up, DRK will eventually receive these "Blood Runes" which they can use to cast Dark Arts.

What will Dark Arts do?

• It's an oGCD.
• Applies a self-buff that lasts for 15secs.
• While DA is active, it will "alter" DRK's GCD combo.
• While DA is active, a handful (but not a lot) of oGCDs will receive DA bonuses.
• Applies a Haste buff on the DRK

What of the traits?

• Level 50: Obtain Dark Arts Practitioner - Upon entering an instance activity, DRK will have one "Blood Rune" ready for use.
• Level 60: Obtain Dark Arts Practitioner II - Receive a second "Blood Rune" charge.
• Level 70: Obtain Dark Arts Mastery - Upon entering an instance activity, DRK will have two "Blood Runes" ready for use.
• Level 90: Obtain Dark Arts Mastery II - Receive a third "Blood Rune" charge.

Upon activating Dark Arts will grant a new GCD combo. They won't be new skills you add to the hotbar; but rather, these skills will temporarily replace the GCD skills that DRK currently has while DA is up. These skills are:

• Soul Eater becomes Power Slash.
• Syphon Strike becomes Scourge.
• Hard Slash becomes old 3.0 Delirium skill renamed Spinning Slash.

What are the tool tips for these new GCD skills?

• Power Slash delivers an attack with a potency higher than hard slash Soul Eater.
• Scourge is a DoT ability.
• Spinning Slash delivers a high potency attack with a 3% magic vulnerability down debuff on the enemy.

Will you get these skills right away?
No. You earn them by levelling.
At level 50, Soul Eater can become Power Slash if Dark Arts is used. If Soul Eater has 400 Potency when using the GCD combo, then Power Slash will have a potency of 450. Basically, at early levels, you'll be spamming Power Slash for 15secs while DA is up until you receive the next GCD ability.

At level 58, DRK receives Scourge.
At level 66, DRK receives Spinning Slash

The new GCD combo will be this: Power Slash > Scourge > Spinning Slash (3, 2, 1)

As for the oGCDs affected by Dark Arts
Dark Mind receives a 20% mitigation bonus for Physical Attacks
Dark Missionary receives a 10% mitigation bonus for Physical Attacks
Carve and Split will recovers HP
Abyssal Drain will recover MP

Other Changes.

I mentioned the Blood Gauge earlier in my post. Simply put, I do not like the Blood Gauge mechanic. In my opinion, it really doesn't do anything for DRK aside from using Bloodspiller, Quietus, and Living Shadow. I think the Blood Gauge and Darkside timer should MERGE into one mechanic. That way, DRK won't be so similar to WAR.

As for the skills that rely on Blood Gauge? Here are the changes I recommend.

• Living Shadow will simply be an 90sec oGCD skill
• Bloodspiller and Quietus are simply GCDs that can be comboed into.

Let's take Bloodspiller for example. I'd like to see Bloodspiller as a 4th GCD skill that can be used after Soul Eater and the old 3.0 Delirium skills.

The new GCD combo for single target will be like this:

• Hard Slash > Syphon Strike > Soul Eater > Bloodspiller (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Power Slash > Scourge > Spinning Slash > Bloodspiller (3, 2, 1, 4)

Bloodspiller will do a high potency damage if used in a combo. For example, if Bloodspiller alone does 500 potency, then if the player does the GCD combo, the potency will be increased to 700.

Won't this affect the current Delirium skill?
No, not really. The current Delirium will remain the same, only this time the "stacks" you receive from the skill will allow the DRK to use Bloodspiller with the bonus potency damage without doing the GCD combo.

What about DRK's AoE?
I... haven't really thought about that yet. Need more time to think that one through.

[inhaledcorn]

So, the problem with the original DA was that you were basically forced to hit it. If you didn't, you lost damage. On top of that, it was an oGCD that could also affect other oGCDs meaning there was a lot of double-weaving that had to be done. It was just a very clunky system.

The way Sage is going about a similar DA mechanic with Eukrasia would be something I would prefer for DRK. Instead of just increasing damage, have DA provide other utility effects, like a DoT, HP drain, defensive buffs on self or party members, etc.

Like, DA Souleater to get Scourge.

DA Salted Earth to add a Regen to those in it.

DA Carve and Spit, Quietus, and Bloodspiller to get HP back.

DA Dark Mind to change it to a physical defense buff.

Edit: And have DA cost Darkside time since, as has been said, Darkside is something DRK barely even manages.

[Shurrikhan]

So, the problem with the original DA was that you were basically forced to hit it. If you didn't, you lost damage.

So are you with every ability, though.

Also, due to the Delirium combo not consuming DA, you could bank DA in advance, meaning that you weren't actually forced to double-weave.

Edit: And have DA cost Darkside time since, as has been said, Darkside is something DRK barely even manages.

But then we'd have it tied to a mechanic(?), but not really (because Darkside isn't really a mechanic, except if/when we actually want to use DA a lot in a short time for some reason, in which case we run out of Darkside if between raid-buff dump periods but only during those times)...

Why tie it to dung just to... try to salvage said dung?

[Hazama999]

I miss the mana drain Dark Side provided. Also miss the fact that if your MP hit zero, it'd take you out of Dark Side.
Keeping your MP wasn't really difficult for me, but I enjoyed the fact that the possibility of messing up and paying for it existed. The inconvenience of the MP drain also gave the job some distinct feel and flavor, which are aspects that, to me at least, contribute far more in my enjoyment of the job than does its performance on the balance against other tanks.

[inhaledcorn]

So are you with every ability, though.

Also, due to the Delirium combo not consuming DA, you could bank DA in advance, meaning that you weren't actually forced to double-weave.

What you're proposing isn't really Dark Arts, though. Additionally, you reintroduced the problem of putting more damage in Dark Arts skills instead of making them changes to current skills. I only proposed a Regen effect and Physical damage to Salted Earth/Dark Mind since DRK lacks self sustain and good defensives before TBN. Honestly, I'd rather see Salted Earth get that as a trait upgrade in EW to match the other tanks. As for Dark Mind, I'd rather it be its current effect on top of generating a bit of HP every time you get hit. Return Blood Price with the same effect only providing physical defense, And, to top it all off, have these cooldowns be castable on other players. This adds a lot of utility and self-sustain to a job that's currently lacking it. Additionally, my propositions weren't about adding more damage. It was about adding utility. Only Souleater under DA would technically be a DPS gain since it applies a DoT instead, but you would only DA Souleater if you need to refresh Scourge.

But then we'd have it tied to a mechanic(?), but not really (because Darkside isn't really a mechanic, except if/when we actually want to use DA a lot in a short time for some reason, in which case we run out of Darkside if between raid-buff dump periods but only during those times)...

Why tie it to dung just to... try to salvage said dung?

The problem with Darkside actions currently is that it's not something to sustain. You're right. However, if they reduce how much you gain through using Darkside actions and have Dark Arts consume a decent amount, then there becomes real choice. Have Darkside actions only gain 10s of Darkside while Dark Arts consume 10s, and now there's a real balancing act.

Additionally, DRK should have a cooldown that allows it to apply Darkside whenever it wants (maybe even returning the old buff button as a self buff but make it so that it can't be cast outside of battle).