Probably A Tired "Yet Another DRK Rework Idea"

[SmurfinAinteasy]

So I already posted this on Azurite's DRK discussion video. I'm just putting it where more eyes can find it in the hopes of an actual discussion and not just a flame war.

I've been stewing on this rework of DRK since 6.0 when I was disappointed with the lack of direction the job had leaving ShB and entering EW. I figure this will be ignored but I'd like a discussion on it.

-Carve and Spit: give it the missing 1200 mana from BW to make it 1800 mana every 60s. This is just a fix for the current form of DRK, not associated with "my rework." If you give it charges, you're just steering into the "job identity" (if you can call face rolling your keyboard a job identity *looks at EW DRK*) that the Devs decided they didn't like.

First:
-Dark Arts: no longer a DPS timer to maintain, becomes an Ability again.
-TBN: no longer costs mana; now costs 5% current HP to give a 25% max HP shield to target and grants a 5 or 10% max HP heal (to the DRK) upon breaking. I'm torn on a 15 sec or 25 sec CD.
-------If not 5% current HP, then be a 25 sec CD for a no cost 25% max HP shield with a 5% max HP heal to the DRK upon breaking. But I feel that with the -5% current HP cost, TBN could keep the 15 sec CD. Also being "current HP" means that using the Ability would never kill you, if you have 1 HP and pop TBN, you would still have 1 HP upon using it plus a 25% max HP shield. IMO, the sacrificing of HP "for power" fits the job aesthetic much better than anything it currently does.

Second:
-Give DRK a Physical damage phase, building mana, and a Magic damage phase, spending mana with no mana regen.
-Dark Arts: Ability that changes all of DRKs Skills/Abilities to Magic damage (changes names and effects as well), heal self, and they all cost ~800 mana. Mana regen is stopped. DA is unable to be exited until you reach 0 mana. Have something like Disesteem act as a Flare/Despair type Skill that dumps your mana to 0 no matter how much you have but also be like Communio in that it is your strongest magic phase attack. DA has no cooldown or mana cost but cannot be activated if your mana is below 1000.
-Blood Gauge: keep it, but make it build only during Physical damage phase and only spendable during DA. Or only buildable and spendable during DA.
-Living Dead: the self heal on this could be reduced with the healing added to TBN and DA. I still feel like this invuln is missing the mark in how it works and job aesthetic. No suggestion on how to fix it currently.

Having to chop this into 2 posts.

[SmurfinAinteasy]

IMO, having DA without a cooldown or mana cost, but a mana requirement allows you to use it in emergencies to heal yourself or dump your DPS when you're frantically trying to beat enrage...is the idea behind it. I WOULD like to see DA cost 5% current HP to activate, because you're about to heal yourself a bunch, but I figure it would not be a popular idea and I doubt my TBN idea would be popular.

How would Delirium and Living Shadow work in this system? I'm not sure honestly. I'm not overly attached to LS, its Fray, woohoo, but it feels unremarkable to use. I love the current Delirium combo but there is no reason that the 1 2 3 could not turn into that during DA. Could just make Delirium boring like Bloodfest and Delirium be a 2 min CD that grants 100 Blood Gauge. yippee

The mana regen portion of this would take balancing especially since the Devs would have to trap it into the 2 min hallway that no one is allowed to leave. It would be interesting to see Abilities be able to be used in both physical and magic dmg phases, in that regard they would need to have shorter CDs like 30s or something.

That's all I can remember at this time.