Dark Knight Megathread

[Archwizard]

If you want to see 'Dark Arts' in its original form, you would likely need something similar to MCH's PvP Analysis ability.

Ryu is right in that it would need to be free from resource costs and utility/defensive exclusive, or else the highest damage choice always wins out. The downside is that it reduces your weave space, although it could equally be implemented as a proc buff.

There is another flaw with the approach overall, however.

Analysis works because all of the skills it affects are on a short enough CD as to be basically rotational. Even in the case of the original Dark Arts, most of the skills it affected were also rotational or usable on-demand -- as was Dark Arts itself, provided you had the resources to spend on it.

If you have a CD which has the sole purpose of augmenting other CDs, particularly in a utilitarian sense to make them slightly stronger, then the second we have an issue from double-weaving the question will become "Why even have that bloat? Why not just roll the augmented effect into those CDs' base effects?"
Even on a charge system, it also creates a potential issue of CD misalignment negating the ability to use Dark Arts the way you would want, particularly if Dark Arts is usable on multiple abilities with differing CDs that you don't use in a normal alignment (such as a burst window).

Something we could rip from the original Dark Arts, however, is that most of the skills it affected either gained utilitarian effects or had them amplified: increased healing, inflict blind, bonus enmity. We could use a similar principle on a revival skill to prevent the above issue (augment on-demand combo skills and MP spenders), and provided that its effects avoid altering damage potencies and don't come out to a calculable damage gain, we maintain its use as a utilitarian skill.

Or, we go back to more of a classic Dark Arts system and make it the primary spammable MP spender so you can affect CDs at will without worrying about alignments. Still would have double-weaving and probably makes MP management way less interesting, don't recommend.