[Snake]

Dark Imbue

Axe skill. Causes your Axe to extend with a dark blade similar to a scythe, increasing its Hit and dealing Dark magic damage (based on Dark ATK) when you hit an enemy with a basic attack or Ghost Axe skill. (Does not apply to gun attacks.)

Rank 1: Hit Bonus: 3, Dark ATK: 10%
Rank 2: Hit Bonus: 6, Dark ATK: 20%
Rank 3: Hit Bonus: 9, Dark ATK: 30%
Rank 4: Hit Bonus: 12, Dark ATK: 40%
Rank 5: Hit Bonus: 15, Dark ATK: 50%

It should be changed to:

Dark Imbue

Axe skill. Causes your Axe to extend with a dark blade similar to a scythe, increasing its Hit and dealing bonus Dark physical damage that ignores protection, when you hit an enemy with a basic attack or Ghost Axe skill. Attacking an enemy affected with Claret Call will extend the duration by 1 round, to a maximum of 5 rounds.

Rank 1: +5 Hit, 30% Dark ATK.
Rank 2: +10 Hit, 40% Dark ATK.
Rank 3: +15 Hit, 50% Dark ATK.

But if we're feeling bold and limiting, we could give it something new for its mere 3 round duration:

Dark Imbue

Sword, Polearm and Axe skill. Project a scythe of darkness from your weapon, increasing its Hit and dealing bonus Dark magic damage that ignores protection, when you hit an enemy with a basic attack or Ghost Axe skill. Defeating an enemy with a Dark Imbued attack will reap their essence, restoring your maximum HP based on Rank, up to a limit of 40% of your maximum HP. (Any healing that would put you above 40% HP is negated.)

Rank 1: +5 Hit, 30% Dark ATK, 10% Max HP recovery.
Rank 2: +10 Hit, 40% Dark ATK, 15% Max HP recovery.
Rank 3: +15 Hit, 50% Dark ATK. 20% Max HP recovery.

[Poruku]

It definitely needs a buff, personally I think the second suggestion is cool, though the healing should only be 1% per rank. Making it last a proper long time like 6 rounds would make it suddenly usable.

[Entropy]

Do keep in mind that if an axe basic hitter connects the hit with a dodgy that dodgy is usually straight up fucking dead within the next turn.

This skill has a very liable chance to go from "useless" to "fucking terrifying" on a DIME the moment it gets some actual consistency.

[Autumn]

Much of the dissatisfaction within ghost about axes come from the lack of basic attacking skills within it's kit that are exclusive to axes, Reaper Scythe deserves to be as it is but Cut Down is basically a dead slot, more like Duelist lacks Axe support as well, given that spears and swords get much better tools that help them actually attack things beyond 1 range such as Sidecut or Couloir.

Thus I don't really think Dark Imbue needs anything crazy, hell I barely even believe it needs a buff, but if you give it anything, give it back the 25 hit buff instead of just 15, and that'd pretty much set the skill back to where it was.

Its a hit buff and an on-hit effect at the same time, thats already crazy good, that rises above shit like Brine Blade or Elemental Augment in value quite immediately. Maybe it could be made to apply the on-hit effect to skills and spells outside of Ghost as well? Thats all I can see beyond simple numbers adjustments.

[Snake]

Don't forget that most axes have low base Hit.

[Poruku]

I think it would be a good skill if it simply lasted 5 rounds instead of 3. It's just almost unusable at 3, but at 5 it would be solid

[Sawrock]

make it last 2 rounds and it extends by 1 for each round you crit someone on

hehehehehehh

[Slydria]

I do think 5 Rounds would be nice. But I think the idea of changing it to physical damage instead of magic damage also makes sense since it helps Ghost build Claret Call a bit better.

[Raigen.Convict]

Full support of autumn and slys ideas

[Poruku]

Pog, dark imbue is good now!