Thread: Should Dark Arts Come Back in 6.0? If so, What Should the Skill Do?

Originally Posted by Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai

in this case, what if Dark Arts was brought back but Blood Weapon's "haste" not brought back?

The haste is actually one thing I really liked from Blood Weapon since it made Dark Knight the fast Tank. Hell, one suggestion that I've seen mentioned before, and one I'm all on board for, is to make DRK perma fast through a trait. I'd love it if DRK was always on something like a 2.2 GCD. Nowhere near as fast as the fast DPS Jobs like MNK or SAM, but not as slow as the other Tanks. The problem is that such a GCD ain't exactly oGCD friendly when it comes to double weaves for people with high ping as mentioned. Still, I miss going fast and we don't currently have a Tank with a fast GCD so I'd like to see DRK return to that playstyle, either through Blood Weapon going back to it's original form or through a trait.

it goes off-topic from the thread topic, but I do intend to respond...

I do not have ping problems, but I have huge lag and latency problems, as my internet connection is just shy of being trash, most of the time... I like to think of Dark Knight as what GunBreaker is not, a "fast" Tank that is always double-weaving, not only double-weaving in a short burst window, so I definitely have.. concerns, when it comes to speeding up GCD, but I do also agree with you! I also feel like Dark Knight should be a "fast" speed-type Tank, and would love if Dark Knight was more like my head canon of it, rather than the mostly trash that is the ShB Dark Knight disgrace.

it is one reason why I came here into the FFXIV forums, and have been making some noise in threads. I read else-where that unless these Dark Knight threads have a lot of views and comments, they will be ignored. Dark Knight players need to spend a lot of time trash-talking current Dark Knight and talking with each other about what we want Dark Knight to be, if we are to have any hope of the dev team bothering to take notice, long enough to actually examine these threads and hopefully listen to what is being said and discussed.

Having a faster GCD paradoxically works out to your favor if you're playing with higher latency. Everyone tends to stick to single weaves outside of the opener. You'd prefer something closer to the Stormblood version if you lived next door to the servers, simply due to having a lot of mandatory double weaves despite having an overall lower APM.

I don't think that Stormblood has anything to do with this discussion. Dark Arts in Stormblood is just potency. Shadowbringers is just a more streamlined version with a fresh coat of paint on it. You can achieve the same effect with tuning. Reduce both the potency and MP cost of Edge/Flood by 1/4. Congratulations. You now press the buttons 4x as much to achieve the same effect as you did previously.

I like Heavensward's take on Dark Arts as an idea. Dark Arts expands your action list out to give them new, situational functionality. But players here vocally dislike situational abilities. The expectation is that every action be versatile in every situation. Take an ability like Inner Release for example:
- Removes resource costs from actions
- All attacks are critical and direct hit
- Nullifies stun, sleep, bind, heavy, knockback, and draw-in effects
- Extends Storm's Eye
- Summons a Lalafell butler to offer you a beverage of your choice

Compare it to the following ability, released on the same job in the same expansion:
[Ability Name Redacted] - Removes most detrimental effects

Nobody puts up with situational abilities anymore. Everyone enjoys playing a job that offers reward for effort. But if you make them choose between the two, they'll pick reward over effort every time. Right now, DRK needs to improve on the reward side of things.

Originally Posted by Lyth

I like Heavensward's take on Dark Arts as an idea. Dark Arts expands your action list out to give them new, situational functionality. But players here vocally dislike situational abilities. The expectation is that every action be versatile in every situation. Take an ability like Inner Release for example:
- Removes resource costs from actions
- All attacks are critical and direct hit
- Nullifies stun, sleep, bind, heavy, knockback, and draw-in effects
- Extends Storm's Eye

Seems to have only gotten more dull with each addition. Admittedly, swapping the chance to Crit, DHit, or both for, effectively, a higher base potency didn't cost much enjoyment, but it did make certain raid buffs less rewarding, if only due to obvious oversights (no converted effectiveness for chance in excess of 100%, just as with the likes of Bootshine and Life Surge since ARR).

Tangential:

Personally, I like having to know a fight or its present contexts well enough to determine what my best spender is, so long as those spenders aren't just spenders (Senei vs. Guren, for instance) and the best choice isn't painfully lopsided or predictable.

It's just a matter of in-practice balance (which is of course easier spoken of than made), really.
If it's always worth using Dark Arts on Dark Dance, for instance, it just makes Dark Dance feel unnecessarily unresponsive ("bloated") since it'd require precasts to reach what feels like the "normal" effect.
If it's almost never worth DAing, that feels vestigial (once again "bloated"), too.

...HW at least had the good sense never to offer DA as purely an offensive potency increase. Of course, back then we weren't also paranoid of compensatory offensive value for MTing. /shrug

Originally Posted by Lyth

I like Heavensward's take on Dark Arts as an idea. Dark Arts expands your action list out to give them new, situational functionality.

I also like the original HW Dark Arts a lot. the idea of a ability that does naught on its own, when activated, but every action that you use while it is up suddenly has a damage buff, extra effect, or just some manner of bonus, or even original HW Carve and Spit, with its effect being completely different in(high pure damage) and out(low-damage high MP gain) of Dark Arts, was amazing to me. I really want for the current Dark Knight to have the original Dark Arts back, and seeing Dark Arts bonuses on various skills, offering to do a interesting extra.

while as Shurrikhan mentions next, another great thing about original Dark Arts was that it was even not a "purely offensive" ability, as it also buffed defense skills, and helped with resource(just MP at the time)... it would be great to have the original Dark Arts remastered to fit with current Dark knight, though it better be remastered to still have damage, defense, and resource benefits... a damage-benefits only Dark Arts would just be a disappointment.

Originally Posted by Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai

... another great thing about original Dark Arts was that it was even not a "purely offensive" ability, as it also buffed defense skills, and helped with resource(just MP at the time)... it would be great to have the original Dark Arts remastered to fit with current Dark knight, though it better be remastered to still have damage, defense, and resource benefits... a damage-benefits only Dark Arts would just be a disappointment.

They tried this.. didn't work.. years of complaints on this forum can be read through.. The result is one of:

The defensive bonuses are unnecessary, promptly ignored for more DPS channeling.
The defensive bonuses ARE necessary, thus DRK takes a DPS hit in order to execute them.

Do the other tanks have to dip into their offensive resources/cool downs in order to strengthen their defensive CDs to adequate performance?

No. All that is done is gimping DRKs defense kit. Our current DA proc for consuming TBN is already close enough to the edge. No other tank has to concern themselves with their on demand mitigator potentially costing them DPS. They're just free. What is DRKs reward for this risk, that GNB/PLD/WAR do not share in? Nothing.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

If it's always worth using Dark Arts on Dark Dance, for instance, it just makes Dark Dance feel unnecessarily unresponsive ("bloated") since it'd require precasts to reach what feels like the "normal" effect.
If it's almost never worth DAing, that feels vestigial (once again "bloated"), too.

Thank you. I think the rose-tinted glasses are coming in hard in this discussion. Edge/Flood Darkside is such an improvement over where we've been. Looking back, if the absence of complexity is an issue, it's the removal of HW's Dark Passenger, which took priority over DA due to its higher pot, every 60sec, and HW/SB DAC&S, which also took priority over other DA effects just the same. Since those oGCDS were bound to cooldowns, and you want to fit as many of them as possible into an encounter, you wanted to prep MP for them as soon as they were available. That MP management is gone and it was also strictly for DPS optimization.

DA effects to increase a CD from 10% to 30% magic DR, or bonus enmity gen, or opening up a HP life-steal.. all things that the other tanks adjacent skills do for free.. no thanks we've moved on

Originally Posted by Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai

that reads to me to just be balance issues, not a fundamental design issue.

It is, but at the same time it's a balance issue that is very hard to avoid (has an increasingly thin balance point, often too thin to deal with varying situations) if the bonus given is merely "more of the same" (more SE potency, more PS potency, more DD effect, more DM effect).

While SE and PS at least had embedded secondary effects, and C&S, AD, and DP each had unique DA effects, the HW experience should have already made that clear. I think this is largely what Xeno is getting at. It's a balance issue, yes, but a balance issue that's so often made an issue because of a more fundamental matter.

Originally Posted by Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai

my thoughts on Dark Arts is that its effects should be neither the former nor the latter, and just be a bonus that makes a action either more interesting or have a additional effect. Dark Knight's defensive strength or offensive potential should not rely on Dark Arts or need Dark Arts, or else Dark Arts will just split all actions in half between the do and do not need Dark Arts groups.

On this I think we here almost all agree so far.

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

HW at least had the good sense never to offer DA as purely an offensive potency increase.

MP still translated to potency, even in Heavensward. Do you end your combo with Delirium, or DASE? All defensive uses of MP were dps losses. You could justify the use of DADM in a fight like A12S if it let you stay out of Grit. But you'd generally just solve that issue with a tank swap to avoid taking a dps hit.