Making Discipline of Magic play make Mages

[Ark_mage2]

There has been a lot of talk about class uniqueness and what exactly it means. I think one of the areas in most need of changes are the Discipline of Magic classes. The distribution of spells among the classes seems to be the aspect that most people are focusing on, and while I think that is a very big deal, something I haven't heard mentioned is the basic attacks that CON and THM have. Spirit Dart and Phantom dart essentially break the classes. Both attacks require no MP and deal an unreasonably high amount of damage. Personally I have found that I mostly just spam these basic attacks when fighting enemies, with a few spells and buffs/debuffs thrown in. One of the reasons I always loved playing as a Mage class in the past was their focus on a variety of spells that catered themselves to different enemies and different challenges. The current system makes Mages play the same as DoW classes for the most part. I would suggest replacing them with a basic "attack" ability that deals damage more in proportion with their strength, meaning very little. With the newly regenerating MP Mages have more than enough MP to spend on a variety of spells in battle, and they should use it.

Of course I could be wrong, and I am really interested to hear what everyone thinks?