DRK Question - Dark Arts

[MikeZulu]

On big mobs dark arts abyssal drain is nice health regeneration.

[Jonnycbad]

Dark Arts+Abyssal Drain I find is very pointless. Even on a large pack of mobs, you're getting back like 2500 HP which is virtually nothing and it costs like 40% of your MP to do. You could do it like once for kicks, but I'd rather use it for Dark Passenger or even with Dark Dance. With DA+Dark Dance I see multiple Miss/Dodge messages every second, definitely saves more HP loss, than DA+Drain recovers.

[Syzygian]

Dark Arts+Abyssal Drain I find is very pointless. Even on a large pack of mobs, you're getting back like 2500 HP which is virtually nothing and it costs like 40% of your MP to do. You could do it like once for kicks, but I'd rather use it for Dark Passenger or even with Dark Dance. With DA+Dark Dance I see multiple Miss/Dodge messages every second, definitely saves more HP loss, than DA+Drain recovers.

If you're tanking enough mobs to get 2500 HP you likely don't have anything better to use the MP on while BP is ticking. In dungeons you can easily pull 3-4 packs, soloheal yourself while BP is up, and then prep a DA and syphon combo for DD and/or DP as BP wears off.

It gets exponentially more useful and easier to use the more you pull, since there's more stuff hitting you for MP and more mobs being hit for heals.

I tend to pull so much that if i don't DA+AD, BP recovers MP faster than my nonDA ADs can spend it.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I turn Dark Arts off when i'm mass pulling now. Its not really worth the mana you lose. You will get more damage using your aoes.

[shao32]

I turn Dark Arts off when i'm mass pulling now. Its not really worth the mana you lose. You will get more damage using your aoes.

thats darkside, no dark arts, i dont know why i reply you already.

bloodprice in a mass pull give you infinite mp to dealt infinite abysal drains so, is worth it.

[Syzygian]

I turn Dark Arts off when i'm mass pulling now. Its not really worth the mana you lose. You will get more damage using your aoes.

If you're doing "mass pulls" and burn through say half of your mana doing the pull, Blood Price will recover that in a matter of seconds. Its wholly unnecessary to turn ***Darkside*** off in combat.

The key is to use your tools efficiently. Hit lone mobs with Unmend, tag distant groups with AD, and run through groups in your path with Unleash. You can even Plunge to the next group, or tag something with Scourge mid-pull.

Unless you're pulling mobs that spam ground-targetted AoEs and rarely AA, a mass pull, which I consider to be 8+ mobs, will pump about 1000 MP back into you per second. This means no amount of AD spam will result in a net loss of MP over the course of such a pull while BP is up, so DAing AD, or keeping Darkside on, is an afterthought.

Here is some rough math:

If you pull 8 mobs that AA you once every 3 seconds, pop BP on cooldown, use C&S w/o DA (which you should in an AoE scenario), and spam Syphon combos while BP is down, you have nearly 25K MP to burn through every minute. We'll call it 23K to account for any stuns you or the group throws out during BP. If you're not keeping Darkside up and spamming DA-boosted skills and AoEs, that's a waste.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

If you're doing "mass pulls" and burn through say half of your mana doing the pull, Blood Price will recover that in a matter of seconds. Its wholly unnecessary to turn ***Darkside*** off in combat.

The key is to use your tools efficiently. Hit lone mobs with Unmend, tag distant groups with AD, and run through groups in your path with Unleash. You can even Plunge to the next group, or tag something with Scourge mid-pull.

Unless you're pulling mobs that spam ground-targetted AoEs and rarely AA, a mass pull, which I consider to be 8+ mobs, will pump about 1000 MP back into you per second. This means no amount of AD spam will result in a net loss of MP over the course of such a pull while BP is up, so DAing AD, or keeping Darkside on, is an afterthought.

Here is some rough math:

If you pull 8 mobs that AA you once every 3 seconds, pop BP on cooldown, use C&S w/o DA (which you should in an AoE scenario), and spam Syphon combos while BP is down, you have nearly 25K MP to burn through every minute. We'll call it 23K to account for any stuns you or the group throws out during BP. If you're not keeping Darkside up and spamming DA-boosted skills and AoEs, that's a waste.

I like to go into the easier instances these days and literally pull everything with DS down. Honestly though, on the Japanese forums a lot of Dark Knights seem to be complaining about Darkside and Dark Arts costing way too much for its benefit unless its solo.

Honestly with the Tank Changes, I feel like Blood Weapon should be able to be used in Grit.

[JackFross]

I like to go into the easier instances these days and literally pull everything with DS down. Honestly though, on the Japanese forums a lot of Dark Knights seem to be complaining about Darkside and Dark Arts costing way too much for its benefit unless its solo.

Honestly with the Tank Changes, I feel like Blood Weapon should be able to be used in Grit.

Assuming "unless its solo" implies using it in single-target situations.

In large (8+) pulls with Blood Price running (even with just 3-4 mobs and a non-WHM healer or a smart WHM) your mana is limitless enough to allow you to DA whatever you damn well please. If you have few enough mobs that you're not taking meaningful damage, you don't WANT to DA+AD anyway - you only do that in situations where health falls faster than you realistically regenerate it, and in those situations you have so much mana from BP that you just will still have full mana when BP drops. I usually will settle into my pull, pop whatever CD I want for the BP duration and then settle into AD spam with DA if needed. When BP is falling off, I'll DA>Unleash>DP>AD until mana is low (with CaS here to get extra mana back). I've been still pulling 1000+ on the larger pulls in Antitower, even with the nerfs, while in Grit.

And, frankly, I don't care what people on the JP forums are complaining about. I have never had issues where I feel DA+shit is not worth my time outside of single-target situations. The biggest issue is just how limited your Mana is while in single-target with Grit on. The best way to change this would just be to decrease the mana cost on Grit. We don't need BW in Grit to fix anything.