[sp4rk]

I just hit 30 and I am stuck in a huge conumdrum. I have been lokoing at melee classes that are more than Autoattacking and WS (I lvled warrior to 30 and I have been bored out of my mind). I know Drk has all the black magic spells to keep you busy outside of autottacking and WS. But my friend currently has a 75 Drk, and not really sure if having 2 in our static group would be any good once we all hit 75.

So my next choice would be Drg. I love the fact of having a pet, the soloing capabilites, and the general look of the Drg job looks awesome. But it seems that Drg suffer from the same ole' Autoattack/WS symdrome that the war job suffered from except with a couple of jumps useable every coupld of minutes. That is my only downside to this job is that I think it may be liek my war in terms of the combat.

Any advice/suggestions/comments on this would be awesome! Once again thanks and I love this forum!!

[Yellow Mage]

Well, if you like Ranged attacks (as in, pressing a macro over and again with proper timing as opposed to auto-attack), then you might be interested in Ranger, but definitely look over at Corsair as well: that job, if handled properly, can do quite a bit of damage, and has so much more up its sleeve to back it up.

Of course, if you feel that shooting gil isn't your cup of tea, but are still interested in pet classes, then try reaching outside the mainstream for Beastmaster and Pupppetmaster. Of course, in a typical party situation, the Beastmaster might just feel to you like more auto-attack, but at least you'll have more to do with your pet (and much more pets to choose from) than Dragoon. As for Puppetmaster, to put a long story short, if you think you're only auto-attacking alongside your automaton, you're probably doing it wrong.

If you're feeling a little too mainstream to bring in some pets to your party play, but still want to add in some magic to your frontline repertoire, then Blue Mage might be for you. Or, if you're daring enough, you could try Red Mage, Paladin, or even White Mage as well, but be warned that the community generally has not looked upon those jobs primarily for damage. While they may look at Blue Mage that way mostly, though, please please please for the love of all that is good know that you can do far more than just damage if you choose the path of the Blue Mage.

And really, this list is not complete without Dancer. Autoattack + WS are just about the opposite of the norm for that job, but as the focus is not on those kind of attacks, so is the focus not very much on doing a lot of damage.

Finally, there's nothing stopping from leveling Dark Knight if that's really what interests you. Who knows, you and your friend both being Dark Knights could end up working for the better, in the end. Heck, for all we know, parties with multiple Dark Knights could even become the next big bandwagon fad amongst the community (although, that's a rather extreme scenario).

Ultimately, it's up to you to decide what you want to be, and theoretically, none of us could have much impact on which job *you* like playing.

[Armando]

Most DDs are autoattack/JA/WS on timers when they're partying. You can either suck it up or try COR (has to take care of buffing while it DDs) or BLU (uses a combination of melee, physical spells to do damage, with some use of a small number of miscellaneous spells to support the group.)

Technically DNC too but DNC hardly counts as a DD.

Oh yeah. Stay faaaaaaaaaaaaar far away from MNK.

[sp4rk]

Yeah Im just worried about the whole combat thing. Drk seems fun in the sense that you are are doing other things while drg kinda seems like you arent doing much other than your jumps.

[Celeal]

But remember MP is required for magic, and there is a cost to refill the MP that is consumed. In a typical experience party situation, the MP refresh priority for DRK is very low. Within the spell list of DRK, there are only a few useful spells that is worthwhile to use: Drain I/II, Aspir, Absorb-ACC, Absorb-TP, Stun... the rest of the spell like nukes, sleep, etc you should left them to the mages.

I think BLU is closer to what your are looking for, or even DNC, COR, PUP too.

[ShadowHolyFlyingDragon]

I found DRK/SAM extremely fun with Meditate and Absorp TP. DRK gets several JA's they can use, and you can cast spells for absorb, though, I only ever used STR, DEX, and ACC. I never really mb'ed unless I was bored becuz the dmg on it is less than a scythe swing.

You shouldn't have to worry about MP problems if you manage your mp well and get the MP gorget and use sanction refresh. Course you can always bug your rdm to refresh you too. :-)

I thought DRK was a huge blast because I loved using souleater. I usually subbed NIN until 60 and could spam souleater like there was no tomorrow, but I was playing Galka and the HP use didn't affect my pt drastically.

Playing /SAM gives you access to a bunch of JA's so it helps relieve the feeling of autoattack/spam ws which I can't happen to stand on MNK.

The super fun time I had with DRK was in the 70s in Caedarva PTs. I -loved- medi, asb-tp, ws, ws, ws lol. I remember the highest dmg I got with a brd in pt eating sushi on Souleater was 1995 on a fly.

OH yeah... and drain2ing and getting like 1900hp was super dope to me haha