The Definitive Dark Knight Guide

[Xenosan]

I can't post my findings now, but keep in mind reapplying Darkside has an mp cost of roughly 12 seconds worth of uptime mp drain. Dropping dark side and reapplying it before 12 seconds is a loss of mp.

My testing:
Feedback welcomed, my results may be slightly different so either I'm missing something, character race/PIE levels are causing differences. idk.. done for now lol

IMO it's better to go by ticks than by seconds,

(185 Piety : 6930 MP)
----------------------------
In Combat Regen (Darkside turned off)
-265** + (138 per tick * 4 ticks) == +287 MP

287 - 442 (Cost of reapplying Darkside) == -155 MP

~ Net total of -155 MP for dropping DS for 4 ticks.

In Combat Degen (Darkside left on)
-127 per tick [12 seconds == 4 ticks] == -508 MP

~ Net total of -508 MP for leaving Darkside on for 4 ticks.

( -155 > -508 )

Don't get MP back turning Darkside off for 4 ticks, but did reduce MP depletion from -508 MP to -155.

Trying just 3 ticks:

-293 MP for turning DS off for 3 ticks before reapplying.

Darkside left on for 3 ticks: -381

-293 > -381

There's still a bonus of 88 MP in favor of toggling Darkside - even with just 3 ticks.

2 ticks tho is a loss (which makes sense. 2 ticks is practically turning it off, waiting for the CD recast & an extra third of a second server tick then turning it back on).

The recast on Darkside is 5 seconds, which is ~1.66 ticks. Another 1.33 ticks should be enough.

**I cannot identify the cause, nor replicate it consistently, but when deactivating DS, 265 MP is sometimes consumed as it's turned off, ticks non-withstanding. It's the same number whether in combat or not. And it doesn't always happen. It may be the Darkside's degen imitating an arbitrary server tick. IE: deactivating DS at 7 seconds is 2.33 server ticks, the game subtracts -265 for you being 33% into a third tick before applying the native, no Darkside regen at tick 3 (the 9 second mark, 2 seconds after).