Small adjust that should make the DRK nice

[Violette]

Remove the Dark Arts effect on Dark Dance and change the 20% evasion to 20% parry, effectively making it a 50% parry with Dark Arts. I don't want to dodge attacks especially when I have Blood Prince up.

I would also give the "Walking Dead" state an aura similar to Darkside so the healers can easily see that the tank is gonna die soon if he's not topped off.

Actually, replace Darkside effect with your sword pulsing black and make the current darkside effect show you when you're walking dead

Everyone happy

[Rhaja]

Proposed Changes:

Grit: Lower MP cost by half and disable the aftercast delay. Stance Dancing should really be rewarded for this class, not penalized.

Reprisal: Allow manual use via Dark Arts only when Grit is off. This allows DRK to contribute to defense while OTing.

Dark Passenger: Lower MP cost by half or even more. This is simply worthless outside of dungeon pulls.

Dark Dance: Increase base Parry bonus, and instead of a Dodge buff, give it a 5-10% damage reduction OR increase Parry even more when used with Dark Arts. Dodge is unreliable and is therefore worthless to a Tank.

Considering that their DPS is pretty high when OTing or MTing, I can live with slightly weaker buffs like Dark Wall, Shadowskin. In addition, these change don't encroach on PLD or WARs strengths. DRK has several damage tools and does far more than gain enmity and pop CDs for tankbusters, so whatever changes are made, please keep the theme intact.

I can very much get down with these suggestions. As an OT MP is not an problem, not by a long shot, so using a Dark Arts to force reprise wouldn't be much of an issue . And as much as I like the idea of evasion, I would definitely take more parry over it.

[Xyphon]

Alright, after finally hitting 60 DRK I feel I gotta pretty good idea about how the class works. What they should really change is deliriums INT, to perhaps "magic defense down".

I feel that would fit the theme of drk alot more, and would also give them plus for being a tank in a raid. I also wouldn't mind seeing some more skills getting dark arts boost, like sole survivor. On bosses where there are no adds spawning, sole survivor is pretty much useless. In fact unless I saw wrong, you don't get hp/mp back if you use it on a boss (the debuff still shows though). So some kind of single target use for it would be nice.

I also feel that some of the mp costs need a bit of a tweak, maybe lowered by 10-15% in cost. If you get down to like 100-200 mp, and don't do your mp rotation...bye bye darkside. I understand the necessity for maintaining mp at all times, but due to some mechanics...such as tank swaps that can be really brutal. I also feel carve and splits mp regain is kinda...meh. Its only about 1k from all the testing I did with it.

It would be nice if the mp regain also worked while under the effect of dark arts. That way it would help cover some cost of dark arts @_@

[Faytte]

Dark Dance added dodge chance should be changed to 10% mitigate all, and base parry should be 30, 40% with trait.

MP costs need a review across the board, especially for grit.

Blood weapon should gain a larger CD (1 minute) but be used regardless of grit.

Blood Price should generate mana based on a % of damage, not on the amount of hits (making it more useful when raiding vs dungeoning).

Unleash should not become moot when you get Abys Drain.

Salted Earth should be a halo/aura effect, not a targeted aoe.

The trait that procs free mends is largely useless--replace.

[Giantbane]

The trait that procs free mends is largely useless--replace.

You mean unmend > free unleash?

It's actually not useless. In longer FATEs i'm frequently running out of TP, especially with Grit off using blood weapon. In this case, it's best to start throwing in some unmends to let your TP refresh. Problem is you're eating at your mana pool so fewer dark arts. Here the free procs of unleash are quite useful for being able to do damage while you regen TP without spending precious mana.

[Rhaja]

Dark Dance added dodge chance should be changed to 10% mitigate all, and base parry should be 30, 40% with trait.

MP costs need a review across the board, especially for grit.

Blood weapon should gain a larger CD (1 minute) but be used regardless of grit.

Blood Price should generate mana based on a % of damage, not on the amount of hits (making it more useful when raiding vs dungeoning).

Unleash should not become moot when you get Abys Drain.

Salted Earth should be a halo/aura effect, not a targeted aoe.

The trait that procs free mends is largely useless--replace.

Pretty sure the most useless trait we have is the one that improves shadow skin to twenty percent instead of ten >_>. The free unleashes help out. Seen it proc more times than not.

[ReyShinkirou]

it's funny that the one thing i wanna see changing the most is Darkside visual effect

[Armo]

I also feel carve and splits mp regain is kinda...meh. Its only about 1k from all the testing I did with it.
It would be nice if the mp regain also worked while under the effect of dark arts. That way it would help cover some cost of dark arts @_@

About Carve and Spit: I was really disappointed in this level 60 skill. It has 60 seconds cooldown for 100 (dark arts 450) potency and gives mana back. The problem is it gives only 800+ mana and hits like a wet noodle. Even with dark arts I've only seen 1500+ hits and for some reason it almost never crits. I've got item level 165 gear and I feel it's not enough. Yesterday I critted 450 with it without using dark arts! 450 crit with 1 minute cooldown and 800 mana back... that's bad imo.

In the description of the skill it says it's a "treefold" attack. Maybe it should actually do the damage three times it at the moment does?

About Blood Price and Dark Dance: There is an awkward situation where I need mana and after using blood price I get hit hard and need to mitigate damage and I use dark dance resulting less mana ultimately resulting darkside to drop leading me unable to use dark dance or dark mind since they require darkside to be on. Dark dance doesn't work well with blood price, especially when you've got slow hitting or casting boss. Maybe blood price should be just mana/tp regen and dark dance parry increase/damage reduction and eye for an eye type of debuff for mob.

[Rhaja]

Just something I was thinking about on the drive to work.

Reprisal isn't really much of a utility for the party because it can only be activated while your taking damage, making it closer to a reactive defensive CD. Something I was pondering was what if the effect didn't stick to the enemy you attack, but yourself instead? So instead of the enemy doing ten percent less damage, you take ten percent less. This would make more sense in large pulls, and it's lack of use when your not the one getting smacked.

[BadRNG]

I feel that would fit the theme of drk alot more, and would also give them plus for being a tank in a raid. I also wouldn't mind seeing some more skills getting dark arts boost, like sole survivor. On bosses where there are no adds spawning, sole survivor is pretty much useless. In fact unless I saw wrong, you don't get hp/mp back if you use it on a boss (the debuff still shows though). So some kind of single target use for it would be nice.

INT down is there so they have a plus for being in the raid. Not every group has a monk. They specifically tried to homogenize classes a bit in the expansion so different group compositions could get the important fight changing buffs, whether it be int down or protect boosting mdef. That's my main problem with Reprisal too, it's there so you can have SP without a WAR but it's no where near as good as SP since it cannot be relied upon nor used while OTing.

As for Sole Survivor, I agree it could really do with a use on bosses. My idea would be to give it a 10% increased damage taken on target when used under Dark Arts. It fits with the theme of the skill (the debuff is already called "Another Victim"), and it wouldn't be overpowered at all with it's 2m cooldown - NIN's debuff already does great damage on top of only being 1m cooldown.