DRK - Excessive Dark Arts

[SyzzleSpark]

I haven't got to 70 yet but most of the dungeons are still low level ones, even if it fixes then there's still going to be DA spam in lower levels.

Get it to 70. You don't get to spam DA nearly as often, and honestly, design at level cap is what matters. Anyway, you personally not liking it =/= design flaw.

[Mithron]

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I think "some" people like it and "a lot" of people don't like it, thus the point of this thread. It doesn't feel anything like a smash attack in SSB, it feels like "oh boy here's this annoying tacked on mechanic I'm forced to do all the time for no good reason." Smash attacks require thought, proper reactions and judgments, this is just a throwaway button. Dark Arts DID feel like smash attacks in 3.0, but now it's just a Falco's B. DA needs to be higher MP cost and have fewer abilities associated with it for it to "feel good" to use. I'm totally fine if they go back to more 3.0 version of DRK, THAT was fun and exciting and made DA feel good and impactful. 4.0 DRK feels very clunky and not well thought out. It feels like "Oh I dunno' how to change this class, let's just change it for the sake of changing it even if it sucks."

[Nuclearducky]

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I agree. I mean, DRK has a lot of problems and this is subjectively one of the minor ones, but it's become less of an impactful action because of the fact that you basically spam it all the time now. It's just very boring and has no decision-making aspect to it anymore. Feels like Squeenix basically looked at DRK and said "I heard you guys liked using Dark Arts, well now you can use it all the time!"

[Crater]

To this day, I still dont understand why it was a potency loss in 4.0.

Because every three Bloodspillers that you use means one fewer Souleater combo, one fewer Syphon Strike worth of MP, and one fewer Souleater worth of Blood.

One Syphon Strike gives you half a Dark Arts worth of MP; Dark Arts is worth 140 potency, so that's a loss of 70 potency, down the line. One Souleater gives you 10 Blood, which translates to extra Bloodspillers down the line.

Taking the opportunity costs into account, it was a slight loss. Now it's either a slight gain, or at worst DPS-neutral, assuming you break every shield and never go over your Blood cap.

[Shinkyo]

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Thank you for the clarification!
personally, I'd still use TBN as much as possible (for every damage spike) even with a small DPS loss because it just feels so good to plan the shield and use BS as a reward :-)