Dragoon/Dark Knight

[korosu]

Would a DRG/DRK but a good combe what would be the pros or cons? Would a DRG/SAM be better? Or maybe hehe a DRK/SAM or SAM/DRK? I really want to be an Dragoon but if it doesnt sub well if any of the other jobs I want can anyone recommend a good combo with either Drg, Sam or DRK?

[Cobalt Katze]

I'm currently leveling DRK to see how well it subs with DRG, so I'll get back to you on that one.

About a samurai sub with anything, it won't be useful until you are level 60/30, because the TP charge ability isn't learned until 30 with SAM.

Dragoon isn't really a great sub unless you like jumping a whole lot.

DRK in general is more of a main job as well, like DRG, but I'm willing to give it a spin just for the hell of it.

[Dumpty]

cool, i was also wonder about that

[Ruuk]

Cobalt did you try the DRG/DRK combo? how well did it work?

Im looking to be all out damage basicly, and with super jump ill be able to dump away all my hate.


So did it work well?

[Ruuk]

Bump, has anyone tried this combo? how does it work?

[Dnarris]

I was rather curious into finding out where your research lead you on this combo Cobalt. Did Drgn/Drk work out okay or did it completely bomb, and thus no posts?

[struck]

How old is this post.. July?! Drg/Drk isn't good don't do it.

[Viz]

I don't understand so many of these criticisms for certain combinations that have not been tested in any depth. The multi purpose wyvern is the best wyvern a dragoon can get, combining the abilities of both the curative and attack wyverns, with only a delay in its curative breath and the inability to cure afflictions. AND it is only available for those with a paladin or dark knight subclass.

The reason a dark knight subclass is much more appealing that a paladin subclass is that the dark knight abilities and spells are offence related.. and what does the dragoond o? Attack.. you could subclass with a paladin, but they would be defence orientated.. rounding off your characters abilities instead of focussing on what the dragoon does best - attack. If youlook at the dark knight ability lists, the ones that would fall under the subclass would still be 'useful' to the dragoon even if they are at half strength.. so why is this a silly option?

Any subclass is going to have half strength abilities - the samurai may allow more tangible strength but that is at the cost of the wyvern which does half the damage of the dragoon everytime he hits. If the multi purpose wyvern does that plus cures and you get all the benefits a dark knight sub class gives as well (no matter how small you 'believe' they are), does that not make the Dragoon-Dark knight combination a valid one?

Think of the number of combinations in this game - I doubt US players have really been able to test a small fraction of them and are just guessing at many of the others.. the Japanese have many odd combinations that seem to work well for them. I ams ure we will find a year or two from now that these 'oh no' combinations uddenly become realised as more valid as time passes :)

But anyway if you have any specific criticisms from what I have said about the Dragoon-Dark Knight combo (withsoecific reference to the multi class wyvern as well as the Dark Knight multi classed abilities), please tell me :)

:thumbsup:

[Viz]

Here is a summary:

Dragoon 60/Dark Knight 30:

Has:

-Multi purpose wyvern, exclusive to dk and pal subclasses only - as well as the benefits of the attack wyvern (does half the damage of the dragoons attack but the elemental attack varys), it has the healing abilities of the curative wyvern (available when the subclass is any magi class). However the wyvern heals a little later in terms of health % and does to cure afflictions.

i.e Considerable attack per round and emergency healing benefit to both you and the group.

- Strength increases via stats as well as the physical damage passive abilities (you get up to the second version of three possible). You also ge the first of two resist para abalities and 'aracna killer' that helps with damage against magical enemies.

-The last active dark knight ability is lvl 30... you therefore manage to get all the abilities (so as a subclass, you are missing on no active abilities.. however paladin subclasses miss out on one). Last Resort and Darkness are especially import here - both improve attack dramatically at the cost of defence, and the dragoon's defence does not matter considering it is not the main tank.

-The spell line will be limited to version one of each of them i.e poisonga 1 and these spells are not that useful i.e mana pool is low but you can still use these spells none the less in a pinch if you want, and there are some that can be useful i.e bind i.e root, aspir and lvl 30 sleep.

Sure the spells is probably the biggest factor to why people are saying that it is not the best subclass since they are wasted at higher levels but there are still those handful of spells mentioned above that even if possible to be cast once or twice due to low mana pool, can save lives or make the difference if they stick.

----

The idea is of course that your subclass needs to be raised to lvl 30 - if you don't enjoy playing it, then its not worth going through an arduous time just because it happens to be the few that supposedly compliments your main class best.

I intend to do this:

Red Mage to 18 (easy to learn game, get groups at start)
Then Thief to 15 (simply for gil as well as just learning the game).
Then Red Mage to 30
Unlock Dragoon class via Quest
Unlock Dark Knight Subclass via Class and Subclass quest
Level Dark Knight to 30 with thief or red mage as a subclass
Then Level Dragoon to 30 with Dark Knight as a subclass.

If it doesn't work out as I want, I have the red mage subclass just waiting.

(123 levels)... jeez...

And then from then, its happy journey for Dragoon to 60

Such a long journey, thats literally months of play... everyone is looking at the end result but not the journey.. has to be enjoyable on the way folks ;) With this combo, I will alter have a choice.. I can always sub my Dragoon with Red Mage too if I want (also a very viable subclass, nice thread somewhere on this forum on that) for situations when I don't want to sub it with Dark Knight.

End result Dragoon with multipurpose wyvern (I don't think anyone really knows how good this is at highest levels since there are probably next to none Dragoon/DK), and increased attacks via DK Subclass as well as Last Resort and Darkness (kick ass?) Abilities. Looks great, why chastise due to a few spell losses due to low mana pools and lower spell circle usage? Yeah so my Dragoon/Dark Knight can't cast as well as a full Dark Knight... he can cast a handful of spells once or twice when they can really make a difference i.e sleep.



:thumbsup: Did I mention I can wear either of the coolest armours too then? :P

[Tsumikiri]

I think that it would be better to start as a Warrior so that you can level up your spear. Here's what I plan to do:
*Start with warr, level it to 18 and then do the subjob quest
*Switch to either thief (for money) or Monk (So the warr will have more HP and stuff) level it to somewhere between 15 and 20
*Go warr/monk (or thief) till about 30 (most likely a lil bit higher) and do the quests for all of the classes that I'm interested in.
*Switch to one of the new classes and level it to 10 (Repeat with the other classes)
*Then decide which classes I liked best and choose wich should be the sub and the main class
*Start playing like there's no tomarrow!

i plan to be a Drg/Sam or Rdm or Drk

[Niexist]

I'm really curious about a couple of things with this combo.

For instance would weapon bash work? Could the physical attack ups surpass the warrior's strength? I could imagine darkness+pentathrust would be insanely damaging.

I was planning on raising my dragoon as drg/sam, but this really has piqued my interest. Perhaps it's time to change my sub...

[struck]

Penta Thrust doesn't do insane damage any way you use it.

[Niexist]

I am honestly having a hard time seeing why dark knight wouldn't be an excellent sub for dragoon. Let's look at some stat comparisons between drg/war and drg/drk.

We all know the main strength of war as a subjob is added str, and thus higher attack.

Level HP MP STR DEX VIT AGI INT MND CHR
70/drk 1226 76 73 62 66 61 54 54 62
70/war1244 0 73 62 65 62 51 55 64

Interesting isn't it? same STR for both warrior sub, and dark knight sub. the other main stats match up pretty well too. Vitality is slightly higher for dark knight. Slightly lower agility, but that is just 1 point off on each.

So stat-wise we are looking at an almost identical subclass. So we are left purely with who has the best skills. Something I'm not really experienced with enough to give comparisons on the two.

However if anyone has any real data on this (hard numbers) please post them.

[Viz]

It looks nice to me.. these are definitely my plans.. I mean at the end of the day, the char would be far from gimped even if for some reason it doesnt pan out just as you wish. I still think its a lot more of a reasonable choince that a dragoon/samurai when the 'silence concentration' skill that you wish for lies at the very end of the game 60/30 - thats one heck of a wait for your combo to be realised!

Thanks for the warrior tip though in gaining spear skill up before I choose dragoon class... I hadn't thought about that since it means that as soon as I start dragoon'ing', I won't actually have much spear skill at the start. Mmph.. its just that I don't have much interest in the warrior class you see, so I don't actually want to just play it just to get spear skills up. Surely it isn't that bad just to learn spears when I actually became a dragoon?

[Viz]

Also do remember, subbing warrior won't get you a the multipurpose wyvern, which is one of the best benefits to the dark knight sub... heals from your wyvern (can be upped from 30% health to 40% heals with item too).

[Niexist]

Yeah exactly Viz, I forgot to mention the main point to subbing drk somehow lol. I mean the all-purpose wyrven is awesome, and it is at the very LEAST comperable to a war.

[Viz]

I think this whole thing is just so sweet in terms of the fun factor.. look at it this way:

Red Mage - to lvl 18 (fun, easy to use at start).
Thief - to lvl 15 (subbing red mage, easy combo, quick money!)
Red Mage - to lvl 30 (with thief sub, subbosed to be a great combo)
And then you:

Unlock Dragoon class and
Unlock Dark Knight class.

Your play time can now be divided between your:

Dragoon levelling up to 30 with a red mage subclass

OR

Dark Knight levelling up to 30 with a thief subclass

(both not only fun but actually good choices if you can believe it).

Then at 30/30, you push the dragoon onwards and you have the choice between the dark knight or red mage subclass whenever you wish. And even with this easy plan, you'll get lots of oos and aahs as being a dark knight with a big spear on his back and still actually being able to perform in a group. Bring it on I say :)

[Niexist]

I'd really like to know it what way this doesn't stack up to warrior. Let's just exclude the spells just pretend you get none, you have the multi-purpose wyrven, same str as war. Most likely more atk up. In what way is this inferior to war?

[pug]

none that i can see, and also it seems the main reason people sub war is for provoke, and as a drg you shouldn't need that at all

i'm still going to go drg/thf, but at some point i might switch over to drk and lvl that to sub it with drg. you're brought up some interesting points here as to why that'd be a pretty good combo

[Ayako]

The multi purpose Wyvern thing isn't all that great. You need someone to be 1/4 HP after your spell goes off to get the Heal Breath out, it usually doesn't work out. Not to mention the times it will be dead from area attacks.

[Niexist]

but with the dragoon helm the wyrven heal breath is usable at 40% which is just 10% less than 50% which is the pure heal wyrven, it's like you get tons of attack power, nearly best heal wyrven, and str/hp that nearly matches a warrior

[Burzum]

Basically you have to determine whether... with /sub DRK vs. /sub war if 1 atk up == double attack and if last resort/darkness is more worthwhile than Berserk?

Also i would say that basing your choice of /sub off your 2-hour ability is prob. not something that would be recommended...

[Niexist]

Well you have to understand the dragoon's entire AF armor is based around their 2 hour. about half of our power comes fromt hat 2 hour, and generally when my wyrven dies, and I'm not grouped I log until it comes back.

Oh, and you get 2 passive atk ups, Last Resort, Weapon Bash, and Darkness as your advantage as drk.

[Awntawn]

Oh, and you get 2 passive atk ups, Last Resort, Weapon Bash, and Darkness as your advantage as drk.

Weapon Bash does 20 damage at level 70 ^^; It's only for disrupting spells, and it barely ever works.

Berserk alone beats all of the other attack ups.

Then dual swing buries it in the ground.

[Bulwyf]

Some high level dragoons on Valefor have told me that they don't bother or at least do not concern themselves with their wyverns in high levels due to the area of effect damage you will often see. The dragon simply can not live long enough to be of much use. I am hoping they are at wrong to some degree but I think it is only fair to mention this in this string since the main selling point of subbing DRK would be the multipurpose wyvern.

I am hoping at some point they allow you to heal/buff the wyvern.

[Niexist]

Originally posted by Awntawn


Weapon Bash does 20 damage at level 70 ^^; It's only for disrupting spells, and it barely ever works.

Berserk alone beats all of the other attack ups.

Then dual swing buries it in the ground.

Awntan do you have hard data indicating this? What you are saying is berserk alone beats Darkness AND Last Resort. Seems a bit off to me, but please post your hard numbers on these 3.

[Aldo]

last resort stronger than berserk, lasts only 30 seconds. darkness lasts only 1 minute. berserk lasts 3 minutes.

[Ayako]

Recent memory leveling...

Kuftal and Terrigan. Robber Crabs have an area attack that will kill the Wyvern eventually. The Draken Mail regen isn't enough to keep up.

Bohyada. Those flies, forget it, 2 fights, if not 1, Wyvern dead.

Sorrow Valley. Peryton area wind attack will kill the Wyvern.

That's just since the high 50s. Planning all your strategy around the Wyvern, especially for something as unreliable as Heal Breath, is foolish. The "Wyvern Does Half your Normal Attack" thing is false, too. Yesterday in my party, I was doing consistent 83-95 with normal attacks, Wyvern did 18-28, breath for 80.

I'll let Awn discuss the merits or lack thereof of the DRK abilities, since he knows them better than me.

Samurai is far and away the best sub after 60. 3 or 4 Pentas > anything you can do with last resort or the like.
Just messing around in my leveling party netted me this the other night (in Sorrow Valley on a Raptor):

Do Meditate, 60 TP charging. Do Penta before the TP charging starts for 5 hits and 489 damage. Jump for 120, High Jump for 81, TP hits 100% within 3-4 seconds, do Skewer for 268, Renkei effect damage for 198, 2 Wyvern Breath for 158 each. TP charge was still going, so I ended up with 65 TP back from it, and got off another penta later. That isn't really recommended regular strategy, since you need everything to hit, but it's just an example. At 65, you can start and finish a level 3 renkei.

DRK and PLD just aren't made to be sub jobs.

[Niexist]

Thanks Ayako, that was exactly what I was looking for =). I'm not sure what direction I'm taking my drg, but yes sam is probably the best sub for a drg.

[Methos1226]

I'm really enjoying my drg/drk right now, but i was aware that i would probably be changing my sub to sam once i hit 60. It was my plan from the beginning, but i gotta tell you, drk as sub for lvling so far has been awesome, and i'm not even at the first drk Attack Bonus yet.