What have you done?

[Freyyy]

MP is harder to generate, but we barely have anything to spend it on. As long as you keep at least 6,000 MP in reserve you can basically spam whatever you want when it comes to the shadow moves and still easily have enough to use TBN when necessary. We basically have nothing to manage anymore other than dark side which it ridiculously easy to keep up. One combo, nothing to manage, a shallow tool kit, I’m just not seeing the complexity you’re referring to.

Keeping 6000 MP in order to use EoS/FoS and still having enough for TBN in case of a need is MP management. HW was very close to that. You usually kept enough MP so that your next DA use wouldn't put you at risk of losing Darkside because 0 MP. Also, you can hardly "spam" anything with 6000MP. You use Edge then TBN, it's not spamming. Hell, even using Edge twice in a row isn't spamming. Do you know what spamming is ? Delirium/Inner Release/Requiescat windows.

I think that keeping Darkside wasn't intended to be a deep mechanic to begin with in ShB. They just reverted it back to HW's state but in a different way. In SB you didn't have to think about Darkside at all, it was just toggle and forget. In HW you used to have to not brainlessly use your MP to prevent going down to near 0 and losing Darkside due to MP drain. Now Darkside still costs MP, but instead of being over time, it's kept up when you actively use an MP-costing ability to do so. So instead of having to prevent MP going down to 0, you now have to prevent having the specific Darkside timer going down to 0, using MP to do so. Both are easy and not deep. Both are just about using MP correctly. Did it need that fancy new gauge timer ? No, I agree.