General

@hangwithhung: i will edit this when i'm on my computer and not my phone but i will first state that if your hp drops too low from the bleed, the skill does not turn off.

EDIT: 1st thing, the 20% consumed upon use = 4% dmg not sure why it's not 5% but not that big of a deal imo. You can achieve max % dmg from the skill in a few seconds because hp consumed from your exceed skills also raise the damage. The skill is not that hard to maintain with the use of nether shield and forbidden contract. the final damage buff is nice but it is not the shining factor of the skill. It's the blood pools that really add to your damage. but let's be real most bosses just ohko anyways so it doesn't really matter how much hp you have.

I feel like it's not a skill that can be maximized very well to be honest.

Assuming that the -4%HP = +1%DMG gained INCLUDES the -20%HP required to activate the skill:

You'll need to maintain 60% HP for your damage output to hover at +10%. For a DA at MaxHP (which I believe is 500k HP), that means you'll only be doing an additional 10% dmg 25 seconds into your constant loss of HP. For a DA with far lower HP (for example, I only have 130k or so) this will only take me 13 seconds. The trade off is that for a DA at HP cap, they have much more HP to buffer their DA from dying. My character, on the other hand, might end up dying in twenty or so seconds if I don't find a way to regain my HP. If I'm reading the notes properly, your damage can only increase by 24%; if you let your HP drain any more and the skill cuts off. That means you're going to be constantly monitoring the now minuscule HP bar to make sure you're getting optimal damage. If you let the HP bar drop below the 0.99% of your MaxHP, the skill cuts off and you're now waiting ~130 seconds until you can reactivate.

I was about to say that the only redeeming aspect is that if you're good at managing your HP, this is a sustainable skill that isn't "bursty" and that you have a constant +10% to +24% damage output, but then I just saw the notes for mages and all that happens with them is that by consuming 2% MaxMP per hit, they get an additional 10% damage output off the bat. This means that if they are constantly healing (and they can heal in full, mind you, not just 1% MaxMP no matter what potion they use), they can pretty much be at 90% MP all the time, never risk dying with such a large MP pool to soak up all the hits with Magic Guard, and still receive a consistent +10% damage boost. Meanwhile DAs will have a far more difficult time maintaining that same damage output with the risk of dying if they're not careful enough with their healing.

But this is all just theory I'm spouting here, cos I haven't had a chance to test the mechanics in game. Can anyone confirm/deny any/all of what I just wrote? That'd help me make the decision to either stay/switch from DAs because at this point, the endgame is looking pretty stale...

lol demonic frenzy is a stupid skill, i want to reach lvl 210 for the lvl 3 link skill but i dont want to use this skill training bcuz is pretty dangerous for my exp to die if i get distracted

oh my...who thought this was a good idea...

@chros: you won't heal more than 4k per potion depending on your max hp most likely less, because of the healing reduction inflicted from frenzy.

@vexsilver: you need to always have shields on won't be able to always keep 100% hp, but it will keep you from dangerous levels of hp.

Spam potions?