Is Darkside worth using?

[pandabearcat]

Aside from having it up to use certain abilities, is it worth trying to keep this up indefinitely?

I ask because of the TP problems DRK has, and if we can alleviate mana usage, we can spend more of them on mana abilities, as awful as that might sound, to reduce tp reliance.

[Misha_Tameshigiri]

Is 15% more DPS worth having?

[Jamez82]

Always worth keeping up. More dps is always a good thing and blood price should bring in plenty of mana to never be mana starved.

Most of your mana goes towards Dark Arts anyways, aside from Unleash and Unmend. Dark Passenger is on a cooldown and Abyssal Drain is only useful on 4+ enemies (neither of those are worth it atm). So what exactly is there to use your mana on?

[JustARTificial]

There is no reason for Darkside to not be up once you've gained aggro. The only time Darkside should be off is when you need to gain aggro and can't afford the MP.

[pandabearcat]

Is 15% more DPS worth having?

You don't seem to understand the question.

15% dps while you have 0 tp is still 0 damage.

I was wondering that given the scenario where the fight is long enough that you run out of tp consistently, whether the added longevity from not using darkside offsets the 15% damage bonus. If you have to spam unmend/unleash to give yourself tp regen room, it may be better to have darkside off for that part at least.

[saber_alter]

You don't seem to understand the question.

15% dps while you have 0 tp is still 0 damage.

I was wondering that given the scenario where the fight is long enough that you run out of tp consistently, whether the added longevity from not using darkside offsets the 15% damage bonus. If you have to spam unmend/unleash to give yourself tp regen room, it may be better to have darkside off for that part at least.

quite a few of our abilites require dark side to even use, so it's useful to maintain regardless. turning it off to maintain MP while regaining TP isn't so bad of an idea however; it has a low cost to turn on, and it's off GCD. we still guzzle MP like it's nobody's business regardless sadly.

[Misha_Tameshigiri]

You don't seem to understand the question.

15% dps while you have 0 tp is still 0 damage.

I was wondering that given the scenario where the fight is long enough that you run out of tp consistently, whether the added longevity from not using darkside offsets the 15% damage bonus. If you have to spam unmend/unleash to give yourself tp regen room, it may be better to have darkside off for that part at least.

The MP difference between darkside up and darkside not up is very minimal. It's not like it regens that quickly in combat normally. Plus, the loss of MP to darkside can be easily restored by DRK's numerous MP regen cooldowns. One tip to keep in mind is that Sole Survivor can apparently be used on enemies as well(?), useful in fights with adds. If you're short on TP, you just deal with it for a couple GCDs. DRK isn't short on OGCD moves, and in fact is better off out of TP than the other 2 tanks.

[Ditto]

The MP difference between darkside up and darkside not up is very minimal. It's not like it regens that quickly in combat normally. Plus, the loss of MP to darkside can be easily restored by DRK's numerous MP regen cooldowns. One tip to keep in mind is that Sole Survivor can apparently be used on enemies as well(?), useful in fights with adds. If you're short on TP, you just deal with it for a couple GCDs. DRK isn't short on OGCD moves, and in fact is better off out of TP than the other 2 tanks.

It can ONLY be used on enemies. It's tooltip had the wrong description in the start, and they were quick to fix that.

Also no, a Drk isn't better off out of TP then the other 2 tanks.. lol

War has infinite TP as OT, and nothing stops them from hopping into Deliverance to equilibrium for a couple of gcd's as MT.
Paladins are in the same boat as us, save for they can still shield swipe I believe it is, at a more consistent rate than we can reset our low blow.

Any Drk that has to rely on blowing all of their MP when they run out of TP is just terrible. And not to mention, if you're out of TP as a Drk, you should be damn well near out of MP as well anyway, seeing as if you're really blowing through your TP as you would with Blood Weapon, the majority of those soul eaters should have been under the effect of Dark Arts. If not, you're hurting your own DPS.

But to the OP, yes Darkside is worth keeping up 24/7 really. You just have to learn how to keep your MP afloat to keep it going. There are only few times I ever drop it, and those are when I wont be able to hit anything for long periods of time. Even if you're out of TP, you can still auto attack.

[shinros]

There is no reason for Darkside to not be up once you've gained aggro. The only time Darkside should be off is when you need to gain aggro and can't afford the MP.

Pretty much this darkside should only go off if you are hurting for mp. If you run low on TP get one of the classes that help its restoration to use their skills on you or just spam unmend on long boss fights while TP get's back to reasonable levels.

[Scholar-]

{goad}

/10char