Trying to understand the complaints about DRK

[TouchandFeel]

The reason many people dislike the current implementation of Dark Arts, myself included, is that it lacks impact and choice in it's usage.

Outside of a few exceptions, DA provides a flat +140 potency boost to single target skills most of the time you are using it. Most of the other skills that provide something more or something different are on a timer and will make up a very small percentage of your overall DA usage.
Because of there being little to no difference in the result of how you use DA most of the time, it leads to it's usage feeling very repetitive and hence the "DA spam" complaints. Pressing a single button over and over with little to no thought since there is no relevant choices to be made just to approximately break even with what the other jobs accomplish doesn't feel fun, it feels like busy work. As a result it doesn't feel like skillful execution of DA is a factor nor is there any real reward for doing this busy work.

Also keep in mind that many of the abilities you gave as an example, such as Plunge, were only just changed with the most recent patch and that the DA complaints have been going since the release of Stormblood, so a lot of momentum has built behind these grievances that are not going to be stopped fully by a few changes.

I also disagree that people want DA changed to make DRK "faceroll ez", in fact many DRKs that dislike the current way DA functions want more complexity added to the job by changing DA in different ways such as how I argue for more additional effects to be added to the DA effects of GCD abilities so that they are not just simple +140 potency effects but instead present differing tactical choices for what ability to DA over another. Sure there are some that argue for DA to become more simplified or to just be done away with altogether, but many of us that want DA changes also argue against such proposals.

As for APM, bring it on. It was the high APM and "speed" of DRK that got me in to it in Heavensward. I just want all those extra button presses to have actual intent and meaning behind them, not just to have to be done "because ...".