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

[Marxam]

6.0 is coming this fall and I want to get this discussion going for DRK players new and old.

Should Dark Arts make a comeback in the next expansion?

I never had the chance to play HW or SB DRK. Only Shb. But man, from what I keep hearing, I missed out. On a lot. But regardless on the state of the job in older expansions, I firmly believe that Dark Arts SHOULD make a come back and replace Inner Release... I mean, Delirium as the job's staple skill.

But what should the new Dark Arts skill do though? Players, casual and hardcore, didn't really like spamming the skill over and over again. So perhaps something can be done to appease the masses? Perhaps have it cost blood gauge instead of MP? Maybe allow Dark Arts be used to open new combo routes for the job?

I'd love the skill to make a grand comeback in 6.0, but what can be done so that Dark Arts can appease everyone and prevent the massive "spam" backlash that occurred in Stormblood?

Rose tinted glasses for sure but the job was very distinct from the other two. DA was great in concept but it applied to too many skills with no cohesion and it was very expensive to use but applied great utility when applied properly. I mean buffing Dark Mind with DA gave you a 30% magic def cd every 60 secs where as PLD had to wait 180 secs for Sentinel and WAR had to wait 120 secs for Vengeance to negate the same magic tankbuster. DA also had a great animation but the job had other perks like low blow procs, aoe utility via Dark Passenger and even Blood weapon which ironically acts similar to GNB's cartridge combo, giving the DRK a sks buff making the job feel fast and sometimes too fast to weave DA. This is where I assume most of the complaints came from.

[Juzjuzz]

Dark arts was fine in stormblood just too spammy. Flood/edge and shadow are less spammy but still repetitive imo and if you use tbn you want to break it and avoid loosing 1 flood/edge of shadow.
I think DA needs to be another way to spend mp 1rst, that's the most important thing. Then it can be like sb or hw or just the new and only way to increase dark side's duration.
And for the speed of the job, it feels a little bit too slow but that's because you don't do mutch. When the burst window is finished you just wait, that's my biggest problem with drk and other tanks.
Keeping the tbn revenge mecanic and transform it into something more powerfull than edge/flood of shadow is a good idea too.
I think the blood gauge should change as well (too close to warrior), maybe something that you can spend over time for procs idk xD.

[Jandor]

Dark arts was fine in stormblood just too spammy. Flood/edge and shadow are less spammy but still repetitive imo and if you use tbn you want to break it and avoid loosing 1 flood/edge of shadow.

Dark Arts in StB wasn't that spammy in general, what made it feel bad to me was when you had to squeeze it onto oGCDs between a set of GCDs that also used it.

If they'd dropped the DA oGCD skills it would have felt fine IMHO.

[Xenosan]

Dark Arts in StB wasn't that spammy in general, what made it feel bad to me was when you had to squeeze it onto oGCDs between a set of GCDs that also used it.

If they'd dropped the DA oGCD skills it would have felt fine IMHO.

Agreed also it just didn't seem right for DADM DADD and DADP to be necessary since they already have recast associated with them and the gains felt baseline necessity (risk vs reward analysis). In HW DP was a DPS gain over DA for single target, but I think that was nerfed in SB, making DP/DADP DPS neutral since we could DAQ, if anything DP/DADP in SB was to prevent over-capping before a Delirium/C&S->Syphon. I didn't mind DACS tho it felt worthy of MP economy

Pity the DM improvement didn't come sooner

[Marxam]

Fitting DA + C&S in between a Hard Slash and DA + Siphon Strike while blood weapon was active with haste was mildly annoying and probably even worse for players with bad ping. DA only really needed to buff combo enders and Dark Mind and the ogcd skills could have just have their effects tied to either which stance was active or just built right into the skill. The concept of DA is excellent, buffing offensive and defensive skills when you need it, but no lets get rid of that nonsense and make the job a poor mans WAR with only one combo. Noticing a trend when it comes to great ideas but poor execution so it gets removed rather than take criticism and improving on it. Real shame newer players won't get to see some of the awesome animations DRK lost.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Fitting DA + C&S in between a Hard Slash and DA + Siphon Strike while blood weapon was active with haste was mildly annoying and probably even worse for players with bad ping. DA only really needed to buff combo enders and Dark Mind and the ogcd skills could have just have their effects tied to either which stance was active or just built right into the skill. The concept of DA is excellent, buffing offensive and defensive skills when you need it.

in this case, what if Dark Arts was brought back but Blood Weapon's "haste" not brought back? Dark Arts would at least give us more oGCD to play with than, for the most part, just Edge/Flood of Darkness/Shadow spam. I have mentioned it in other threads... I had a idea that makes DarkSide less mindless, and maintaining it more interesting, by putting Edge/Flood of Darkness/Shadow on a short CD(no more spam), reduce how much time they grant and extend DarkSide down to 15 seconds, and make other oGCDs also grant and/or only extend the effect of DarkSide.
with this done, bringing back old Dark Arts could make current Dark Knight more fun and interactive, as we could juggle various oGCD, instead of just spamming the same oGCD, to keep DarkSide active, while Dark Arts would either not be connected to DarkSide and only act as granting buffs and/or bonuses to GCDs and oGCDs, or some the Dark Arts bonuses to oGCDs could even be what makes those oGCDs extend DarkSide by only a little bit.
(like, say.. 10 or 15 seconds).

current DarkSide is boring and dull. for the most part, it will only wear off if the Dark Knight either allows it to, or does not maintain it on purpose.

[Beddict]

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.

[Shurrikhan]

Fitting DA + C&S in between a Hard Slash and DA + Siphon Strike while blood weapon was active with haste was mildly annoying and probably even worse for players with bad ping.

Such was only necessary if/when relative MP generation was excessive. You may remember we had little to no forced double-weaves in HW. Such occurred only if we had to Souleater (for its trivial self-heal) or Power Slash (for enmity that should already have been margined plenty high) immediately after prepping a DA for a defensive ability, which was next to never.

[Recon1o6]

Dark arts in HW was excellent, the problem was dark had too little mp restoration if it got killed by for example living dead. The debuff heavy playstyle and resource management was what a lot of longtime drk players love.

SB as detailed earlier felt more spammy despite its cost increasing to just above 1/3 of the mp bar because there were no other spenders worth using it on. SB drk did gain some excellent actions, noteworthy ones being another victim and TBN which personally to this day is the best unique skill drk ever got. Nevertheless some people liked it because it had a haste effect.

[FoxCh40s]

Dark arts in HW was excellent, the problem was dark had too little mp restoration if it got killed by for example living dead. The debuff heavy playstyle and resource management was what a lot of longtime drk players love.

SB as detailed earlier felt more spammy despite its cost increasing to just above 1/3 of the mp bar because there were no other spenders worth using it on. SB drk did gain some excellent actions, noteworthy ones being another victim and TBN which personally to this day is the best unique skill drk ever got. Nevertheless some people liked it because it had a haste effect.

God HW Dark Knight was so f***ing amazing. Just alll this glorious combo-y think on your feet, pull the whole damn dungeon and laugh in the mobs face as you spammed Dark Abyssal Drain.

It was just so..... *chef's kiss*