A self-heal for DRK?

[Shadowskill]

I would love to see Carve n spit turned into another option for Dark knight to combo, Hard slash > Spinning slash > Carve n spit. make Carve n spit under no Dark Arts 450 pot damage with some MP absorb, while under Dark Arts could have it drain HP much like how Equilibrium works, have'n it gated behind Dark Arts limits the usage.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I would love to see Carve n spit turned into another option for Dark knight to combo, Hard slash > Spinning slash > Carve n spit. make Carve n spit under no Dark Arts 450 pot damage with some MP absorb, while under Dark Arts could have it drain HP much like how Equilibrium works, have'n it gated behind Dark Arts limits the usage.

Honestly Dark Arts is a poor mechanic. It turns most of our abilities into crap compared to other classes and has us take a ton of our Mana just to make said ability good.

[Phoenicia]

Honestly Dark Arts is a poor mechanic. It turns most of our abilities into crap compared to other classes and has us take a ton of our Mana just to make said ability good.

There is so much wrong in this post it I can't believe we're thinking of the same class.

What is wrong with a high cost MP if your mechanic revolves around spending MP then refilling it? It is not like you MP regen is lacking either.

For a comparison:

BLM has the whole Astral Fire mechanic and Flare. Astral Fire doubling MP cost on all fire spells and Flare eating all of your MP. Why isn't that a problem? Because BLM has Umbral Ice, a phase where they refill MP so fast any MP spent in AF is no longer an issue.

Now if SMN got Flare, it'd be screwed, since SMN only restores 20% of its MP per minute.

Now let's look at DRK, it has a plethora of MP restoring skills: Bloodweapon, Blood Price, Siphon Strike and C&S. All of them have relatively short CDs at 40s, 40s, every 2nd GCD and 60s. Yes, realistically you won't use Siphon Strike every 2 GCDs, but the option is there.

If you remove Dark Arts as a mechanic, then you have a PLD with great sword. Since there is no variety and you lose all the boosts form DA, you'd be a gimped PLD.

All of DRK's baseline abilities are good. Souleater is a 260 potency attack and heal and is not "weak". DD does what it does well and DA is a waste on it actually. Power Slash alone is still the highest aggro skill in the game at 300 x5.5. Unboosted Dark Mind is decent and in a lot of situations is enough. C&S restores good MP. How is any of these skills "bad"? DA just makes them better.

You probably only think these abilities are bad because their DA versions are just better. Why use DM at 15% when you can make it 30%? Why hit for 260 potency when you can hit for 400? But that doesn't make the base "bad", it makes the alternative better.

Personally I prefer if DA was more complicated and more choices like the C&S existed. DA currently "boosts" some of our abilities. C&S is the only "choice" of "Get MP" or "Do big damage". But as it is, it is still an interesting mechanic and the choices we make of "which skills to boost" and "when" add a layer of interesting play to the DRK.

If you think that is untrue, DRK is not a class you should be playing.

[StitchWork]

Only 57 DRK so far but it seems like DRK's are the squishiest of the 3 tanks.
Dark Arts MP cost definetly needs to go down but i manage with it. I think it would be cool to see them add something like Dread Spikes from FFXI to the list to help self heal easier.

[Ryaz]

Honestly Dark Arts is a poor mechanic. It turns most of our abilities into crap compared to other classes and has us take a ton of our Mana just to make said ability good.

That's my biggest problem with it-- the ridiculous mana cost. Yeah, that 400 potency Souleater is nice for damage and a self-heal, but not when it takes 1/4th of your mana while trying to keep AoEs going and keep Darkside going. It's not too bad for things like Dark Mind for the extra magic defense, but a 20% evade chance on Dark Dance is only ok and just adding Blind to Dark Passenger is pretty weak for the cost.

[Anger]

Maybe the DRK can have a magic shield that it summons and blocks physical damage too.

[Rhaja]

Maybe the DRK can have a magic shield that it summons and blocks physical damage too.

Hence the Galvanize effect I mentioned earlier =D. Hell, tie it to Dark Arts and make it as strong as Stoneskin XD

[TouchandFeel]

^^^
He was being sarcastic and making a snarky remark that equates too "maybe you should just give them what PLD has".

Best just to ignore such comments as they are just attempts by people to drag threads down.