[moogle pwnt]

title basically says it.. i was just wondering can drk's solo any? thanks

[Murphie]

Any job can solo from 1-10. Many jobs can solo from 10-20 or beyond depending on the skill of the player, gear, etc. But it is slow going.

FFXI is really a party based game. While there are more solo options these days, DRK isn't one of them.

[Tsrwedge]

Google is your friend. (Pro tip: searching for "FFXI DRK solo" might give some good results).

[Malacite]

Oh hey you're the guy who asked about what job to play right?

It's kind of a long answer. In the early going, yes, because you'll be destroying mobs in 1-2 hits. But like every other job, it gets harder as you go up.

DRK does get some nice tools as you level up though to help you solo:

Dark Knight - FFXIclopedia - a Wikia Gaming wiki

Lv 10: Drain (Drains the mob's HP to restore your own)
Lv 20: Aspir (Same but for MP)
Lv 37: Stun (Very nice if you're fighting anything with nasty TP moves)
Lv 62: Drain II (Drains more HP than Drain, and if you're full when you cast it it temporarily raises your max HP)
Lv 71: Dread Spikes (Any physical hits you take automatically get drained back from the mob up to 50% of your max HP at the time you cast it)


When soloing you'll want to use either WHM or DNC as a sub (if going for EXP) and THF sub for farming at 30+ (for treasure hunter)

[MrMageo]

Any Job can Solo at any level

However you wont be taking on mobs that you would if you were partying
{(.ex BST/DNC(after Waltz)/PUP,SMN(Lengthy Kill)BLM(Most Go the pet route)}

you will find yourself sitting in places scraping by on EP mobs at higher levels as the /check for EP-IT only takes lvl into account. SE designed this to be a party game hnce its classification as a MMORPG. It is possible but will require tons of time and headaches.

[IfritnoItazura]

Short version:

After Lv.10, DRK mostly exp in party setting.


Long version:
If one really want to solo exp, there are ways to do so, by using /WHM, /DNC, or /BST (if one's BST is at same level as DRK or higher). Or, can just level BST, and forget DRK.

Solo all six standard jobs to Lv.10 first; the drops from that will probably bring in enough gil to fund one job to Lv.30, and give a rough idea of how much fun (or un-fun) soloing in FFXI is.

[Ninjitsu]

You know, I don't have real issues soloing with DRK/BLU. Blu has some REALLY nice tools that make a fight MUCH easier for a DRK.

DRK generally has high attack, bad defense, and poor HP recovery tools, but BLU can help with all of that. BLU compliments DRK well enough in my opinion to make soloing tolerable. Keep in mind that my experience is limited to 45 (almost 46) and below so far.

/BLU, I can:

Equip spells that give me STR(+DMG per hit),DEX, and VIT (less damage)
Equip wild oats and sprout smack to slow the mobs (might not need it) and lower their VIT (more dmg)
Equip cocoon, which gives me a big defense boost, especially coupled with def food.
Equip and use Sandstorm and battle dance as needed to gimp mob hit rate
Eat defensive food to get even more defense
You can use the blood drain, drain, bloody bolts, and pollen for healing as needed.

I have no trouble beating down mobs (EP/DC) solo this way without too much downtime, but you do need to get some MP back every few fights this way. When you are high enough, you can equip a dark staff to speed up MP recovery too.

I'm not sure that /WHM is any better or worse, but I think /BLU works well given all of the utility.


Just a few thoughts on this subject. I'd be interested to see how people feel the other combos compare to this.

[Lunaryn]

I don't have BLU available for IC reasons (BLU is a Big Deal (tm) in our continuity), but definitely don't discount the usefulness of DRK/WHM. While I find /WHM tends to be difficult to use effectively on most melee jobs, it works well for DRK because it complements abilities well, and you have a good native MP pool to work from. While I would recommend /DNC for soloing most melee jobs (and it's become my sub of choice for a lot of things on THF), /WHM definitely works much better for DRK. DRK/DNC is IMO more useful for small parties where you have a number of frontliners-with-MP and no refresher (e.g. our DRK-PLD-BLU trio). Aspir Samba can be a useful substitute there, and you still have TP healing/debuffing if needed.

[Armando]

Regarding /BLU:

Base stats don't affect performance much in the quantities that they're available; any +stats gained through spells will affect you negligibly. Stat boosts should be the very last reason to equip a spell. Likewise, debuffs like VIT down won't improve your performance enough to warrant using them solo, where the only person damaging the mob is you, and that MP could've been spent doing more damage or healing yourself. This goes double when fighting EP mobs because they don't last long, and you'll find yourself having to use MP on trivial debuffs too often.

Also, eating Defense food with Cocoon is redundant and ineffective. Unless you're naked or wearing mage gear, anything past a 25% boost in Defense is overkill. Cocoon already puts you well into the overkill zone, and against anything you would solo, Accuracy shouldn't be an issue; the ideal food is meat.

[Callisto]

Originally Posted by Armando

Also, eating Defense food with Cocoon is redundant and ineffective. Unless you're naked or wearing mage gear, anything past a 25% boost in Defense is overkill. Cocoon already puts you well into the overkill zone, and against anything you would solo, Accuracy shouldn't be an issue; the ideal food is meat.

The only situation I may disagree with this is doing VT~ or higher BST pets, which is viable for more than BLMs, where you're going to want to connect as many hits as possible as quickly as possible. I haven't seen any exact reports on how the new ToAU BST pets are in terms of their adjusted HP, but especially for a higher level DRK with Drain II/Dread Spikes and some defensive subjob capability like Utsusemi or Seigan/Third Eye that might be a pretty solid solo option.

[LadyKiKi]

I'm doing it right now, but not recommended for newer players, you need to learn the game a lot more first...

DRK/BST -Demo- Video

Download a video there if interested. But it requires you to do BST to 75 first. Otherwise, your other standard solo configurations include subbing jobs like Dancer, Ninja, Red Mage, White Mage, etc/

[Armando]

Callisto meant DRK EXP'ing off of BST bets, not DRK/BST. That's why he mentioned VTs and sushi.

Good catch on that one by the way.

[Durahansolo]

Originally Posted by Ninjitsu

You know, I don't have real issues soloing with DRK/BLU. Blu has some REALLY nice tools that make a fight MUCH easier for a DRK.

DRK generally has high attack, bad defense, and poor HP recovery tools, but BLU can help with all of that. BLU compliments DRK well enough in my opinion to make soloing tolerable. Keep in mind that my experience is limited to 45 (almost 46) and below so far.

/BLU, I can:

Equip spells that give me STR(+DMG per hit),DEX, and VIT (less damage)
Equip wild oats and sprout smack to slow the mobs (might not need it) and lower their VIT (more dmg)
Equip cocoon, which gives me a big defense boost, especially coupled with def food.
Equip and use Sandstorm and battle dance as needed to gimp mob hit rate
Eat defensive food to get even more defense
You can use the blood drain, drain, bloody bolts, and pollen for healing as needed.

I have no trouble beating down mobs (EP/DC) solo this way without too much downtime, but you do need to get some MP back every few fights this way. When you are high enough, you can equip a dark staff to speed up MP recovery too.

I'm not sure that /WHM is any better or worse, but I think /BLU works well given all of the utility.


Just a few thoughts on this subject. I'd be interested to see how people feel the other combos compare to this.

lol I used /BLU to solo too for a few levels (lvl 20 now, I used it around level 16-19ish when soloing.) I meant to post that awhile back but since nobody had brought it up I decided against it. I'd Cast Cocoon before fighting the mob toss in a Wild Oats and eat Meat Mithkebobs. When I'd WS with Slice it'd do a nice amount of damage to the mob possibly because of the Vit Down caused by Wild Oats. Use Dark Magic when possible and go from there. At level 18 you can equip Power Sandals which give +3 VIT, so with the +3 Vit from Cocoon being equipped, thats already +6.

Edit>>Fixed, Thanks LadyKiKi, I really wish i could access ffxiclopedia or ffxiah at work lol.

[LadyKiKi]

Originally Posted by Armando

Callisto meant DRK EXP'ing off of BST bets, not DRK/BST. That's why he mentioned VTs and sushi.

Good catch on that one by the way.

Yeh, I saw, but at lower levels even with shadows it'll remain slightly difficult, there's no way to dish out the damage extremely fast without suffering from damage yourself, based on what I have noticed and experienced.

As for ToAU pets, what pets are there? I can only think of 3 that actually applied in the previous update:

Mamool Lizard and Raptor
Fomor Bats (they link)

I'm not sure of the locations for the Mamool stuff but I believe I seen the lizzies in Mamook, no sightings of the raptor. Fomor Bats are outside of Whitegate but will link with the Fomor anyway due to it being sound linking.

Low level soloing of roughly 1-25~ is "pretty easy", especially now with the new EXP update with little downtime.

Durahansolo: Power Sandals

[Ninjitsu]

Just an update... I'm back up to level 63 and anytime I solo, I use /DNC. I can't imagine doing it any other way since it allows you to heal yourself with TP you gain on top of whatever you could be doing with drain, aspir, and bloody bolts.

Oh, and don't forget signet or you don't get an upper hand against the mob.