sword/spell dark knight?

[Taskmage]

I just finished leveling my dark knight sub for red mage. I hated it at first but eventually warmed up to it, not only for the satisfaction of solidly outparsing almost every DD I met as a tarutaru :evil:, but also for the support I was able to offer through dark magic and the additional techinical diversion of being able to magic burst. The most fun I had as drk was opening a fight with a beetle with Absorb-VIT, dropping Shadow of Death to open for a brutal SA Sturmwind Fragmentation, MBing with the blms and then draining back all my invested mp with an Aspir or two.

So I'm thinking with the proper preperation (read: nice gear, juice, and merits), maybe drk could be the type of spellsword damage dealer that seems to be the dream of every new player. No, you probably couldn't do this as your first job to 75, but that doesn't mean I couldn't still have some fun with it. ^^ So tell me what you think of this: Black mage sub — {Magic Attack Bonus} {Can I have it?} Dark knight actually has pretty respectable elemental magic skill (better than a rdm's). It's true that our spell progression is weak, but that doesn't mean our lower level nukes can't still be useful. Smart blms fall back on lower level spells to ration hate and conserve mp, we can use them to supplement our melee damage. MAB gives makes our spells 20% more potent. Really, the reason I push this is that in my last party the whm's Aero was outbursting mine. -.- I can't stand for that. Also this would increase the damage of Drain and Aspir, which are already quite decent spells but not quite decent enough for most drks to consider using them often. The loss of Berserk or Sneak attack would hinder my melee damage a bit, and I wouldn't be popping any ZOMG1337 Guillotines, but that doesn't really bother me. I've been opting for /thf lately primarily to lower my damage output, since I don't seem to have a problem ripping hate off most of the tanks I've had even without using any JAs. A lower natural hate profile just suggests to me that I might be able to actually use Last Resort and Souleater and recoup that lost damage. /rdm might be better from 40-59, for a better balance of melee/magic stats, fast cast, and possibly rapier belt. Rapier belt? I'm getting to that. Sword/shield — A few reasons for this. The first being simply that slow two-handed weapons give me fits. I'm always wondering if maybe I'm standing just a little out of range and that's why I'm not swinging, and of course when you miss after waiting 9 seconds it's excruciating. Hang on, I've got better reasons. >_> The thing that made me start considering using a one-handed weapon is Charging Shield (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/4252). My main gripe with Drain isn't its damage or its cast time but its accuracy, and with the precious little magic accuracy+ gear we get, the best way to do that is to pile on dark magic skill. That shield isn't available til 63, but there are some other decent stat-boosting options until then. Wizard's Shield and Royal Knight Army Shield stand out. Dark knight has a natural B- rating in sword and access to all of its weaponskills. With full sword merits (which I'm already working on for rdm and blu) I would have the equivalent of an A- rating for most of my drk's life, and at the end when it falls noticably behind I can patch it with Suppanomimi. Drk has access to a number of nice swords such as Combat Caster's Scimitar and most of the new caster-oriented scimitars that are being introduced for blu. Sword WS have considerably better skillchain potential than great sword or scythe, which a lot of people don't seem to care about but I enjoy nonetheless. With Vorpal Blade I'll be able to close Distortion or Fusion, so I won't have to wrestle with other melees about holding their TP to make a skillchain happen. Also, if I'm not mistaken, the damage added by Souleater is the same regardless of the delay of your weapon, so a fast sword can take much better advantage of that skill than a ponderous scythe.Hmm, I thought that list would have more points than that, but I ended up covering most of my other points in the process of explaining my sub and weapon choices.

Opinions? Assuming I gear and equip swap properly for TP gain, spells and WS, could I use this setup and still be a competitive DD? I realize that by using an unconventional setup my invite rate will probably suffer, but since any drk leveling I do past this point will essentially be for S&G I'm not really concerned with that. I just want to have fun and be effective. I'm pretty sold on the fun part of this setup, so the only question is whether it will be effective or not.

[Celeal]

I never tried drk/blm, but tried drk/rdm at level 32 in G.C, becasue the party setup was light on healing side. Those Regen and Cure helped. I MB'ed a few Distortion for fun too, but those tier 1 nuke is about the same dmg as my melee. There as a few times link/pop/aggro/train and I attended to Sleep the link, but resisted all the time (bat resisted dark element, beetles were at the high-end of IT, it was a time when mob won't de-spawn during train/link situation), ended up getting the hate and zone the link. I don't think I was able to land slow/paralyze/blind as drk/rdm either. (I did not have gear to swap for magic casting either)

Hopefully my brief experience on low level drk/rdm helps~

As for sword and shield, honestly I am not sure if a drk has that luxury or not. It is because trying to cap Scrythe and Great Sword are painful process to me. If you joined good exp. parties at low~mid levels, your drk may level up before your weapon skill is capped.

IMHO, cap those A+/A- weapon first before playing with other weapons.

[Taskmage]

Yeah leveling great sword and scythe is a pain. I pretty much gave up on keeping them both leveled in the jungles. Even using only scythe, my skill usually only barely manages to cap before I level again. I figure once I hit 50 or so I'll take care of those skills by joining coffer hunts with my drk, but until then I'm going to have to come up with a more creative solution. :worry:

I subbed whm through Valkurm and was happy with it. At that level I was a real jack of all trades, pulling, DDing with melee, then turning into a nuker if the crabs buffed too much, and backup healing if the whm got low or things got rough. Fun stuff. I found I ran into far more situations where I was happy to have Cure than ones where I wished I had Provoke, especially since there's precious little else to do with our mp at that point. I figure I could have kept doing that through Qufim and probably Yuhtunga, but I switched to war at 21 since healers were easier to find then. Maybe /whm might become useful again at 42 when we get Cure III, but I dunno if anyone would care by that time tbh. We might be able to backup heal, but we're invited to dish damage, so I was looking at using a mage sub to that end. That does make a fair arguement for using rdm post-60, since the upgrade from MAB1 to MAB2 isn't that large and the healing spells could be useful. Thanks for that thought. :)

[Omniblast]

I just finished leveling my dark knight sub for red mage. I hated it at first but eventually warmed up to it, not only for the satisfaction of solidly outparsing almost every DD I met as a tarutaru :evil:, but also for the support I was able to offer through dark magic and the additional techinical diversion of being able to magic burst. The most fun I had as drk was opening a fight with a beetle with Absorb-VIT, dropping Shadow of Death to open for a brutal SA Sturmwind Fragmentation, MBing with the blms and then draining back all my invested mp with an Aspir or two.

So I'm thinking with the proper preperation (read: nice gear, juice, and merits), maybe drk could be the type of spellsword damage dealer that seems to be the dream of every new player. No, you probably couldn't do this as your first job to 75, but that doesn't mean I couldn't still have some fun with it. ^^ So tell me what you think of this:

Black mage sub — {Magic Attack Bonus} {Can I have it?} Dark knight actually has pretty respectable elemental magic skill (better than a rdm's). It's true that our spell progression is weak, but that doesn't mean our lower level nukes can't still be useful. Smart blms fall back on lower level spells to ration hate and conserve mp, we can use them to supplement our melee damage. MAB gives makes our spells 20% more potent. Really, the reason I push this is that in my last party the whm's Aero was outbursting mine. -.- I can't stand for that. Also this would increase the damage of Drain and Aspir, which are already quite decent spells but not quite decent enough for most drks to consider using them often. The loss of Berserk or Sneak attack would hinder my melee damage a bit, and I wouldn't be popping any ZOMG1337 Guillotines, but that doesn't really bother me. I've been opting for /thf lately primarily to lower my damage output, since I don't seem to have a problem ripping hate off most of the tanks I've had even without using any JAs. A lower natural hate profile just suggests to me that I might be able to actually use Last Resort and Souleater and recoup that lost damage. /rdm might be better from 40-59, for a better balance of melee/magic stats, fast cast, and possibly rapier belt. Rapier belt? I'm getting to that.
Sword/shield — A few reasons for this. The first being simply that slow two-handed weapons give me fits. I'm always wondering if maybe I'm standing just a little out of range and that's why I'm not swinging, and of course when you miss after waiting 9 seconds it's excruciating. Hang on, I've got better reasons. >_> The thing that made me start considering using a one-handed weapon is Charging Shield (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/4252). My main gripe with Drain isn't its damage or its cast time but its accuracy, and with the precious little magic accuracy+ gear we get, the best way to do that is to pile on dark magic skill. That shield isn't available til 63, but there are some other decent stat-boosting options until then. Wizard's Shield and Royal Knight Army Shield stand out. Dark knight has a natural B- rating in sword and access to all of its weaponskills. With full sword merits (which I'm already working on for rdm and blu) I would have the equivalent of an A- rating for most of my drk's life, and at the end when it falls noticably behind I can patch it with Suppanomimi. Drk has access to a number of nice swords such as Combat Caster's Scimitar and most of the new caster-oriented scimitars that are being introduced for blu. Sword WS have considerably better skillchain potential than great sword or scythe, which a lot of people don't seem to care about but I enjoy nonetheless. With Vorpal Blade I'll be able to close Distortion or Fusion, so I won't have to wrestle with other melees about holding their TP to make a skillchain happen. Also, if I'm not mistaken, the damage added by Souleater is the same regardless of the delay of your weapon, so a fast sword can take much better advantage of that skill than a ponderous scythe.Hmm, I thought that list would have more points than that, but I ended up covering most of my other points in the process of explaining my sub and weapon choices.

Opinions? Assuming I gear and equip swap properly for TP gain, spells and WS, could I use this setup and still be a competitive DD? I realize that by using an unconventional setup my invite rate will probably suffer, but since any drk leveling I do past this point will essentially be for S&G I'm not really concerned with that. I just want to have fun and be effective. I'm pretty sold on the fun part of this setup, so the only question is whether it will be effective or not.

I remember when I first started this game, a discussion that DRK/BLM is very, how does a JP put it, selfish.

I'm not sure quite why it's selfish, but that was the word used. I remember that Akosygin said it was a very powerful set up.

Other than that, I'm not sure why it's such a bad set up. Hell, if DRK can go DRK/NIN, with kraken clubs, why not? I say you try it once in a exp party and let us know what's wrong about it. Maybe you'll pull too much hate and end up dying a lot, but atleast you did it for a good cause!

[Lmnop]

Selfish is multi-attacking weapons and Haste build, feeding the mob billions of tp/second. It's true that DRKs are at a point where their hate is so great that more DD from sub is not what they need. However, Drks already don't keep up with many other DDs (it's not their job to be #1. It's their job to be #2 and make everyone else look better. You could say they sacrifice #1 DD ability to improve the entire party's performance. At least, that's what it's designed to be, except for that whole non-scaling unique debuffs thing).

/rdm doesn't really offer any melee stats (/whm would give you higher VIT and STR growth, for instance). So really, /rdm is just a means of getting cures with your MAB, and Gravity would be cool to have. Oh, and you'd have slow/paralyze but I can only hope someone else is taking care of that.

Meh, I'd static with one that I knew and trusted but I'd prolly never invite one.

[Taskmage]

Does whm really give higher str growth than rdm? I wouldn't have figured that was so.

Cure would really be the only thing for /rdm then. Drk's enfeebling skill is teh sux. I've never gotten sleep to stick and even poison if it lands wears off almost instantly. Dispel would probably be usable but blowing a chunk of mp once a minute to not get +10 acc from gravity would just make me cry.

It's a shame drk has no native enhancing skill to take advantage of enspells.

[Armando]

Hm...looks decent on paper but the potential losses are painful. Regarding /BLM, you have to ask yourself: How much of your total damage output is your casting currently taking up? I can't answer that question, obviously, so I wouldn't know what to think of it. Just keep that in mind - is a 20% boost to that portion of your total damage worth giving up boosts to the other two aspects of DRK (meleeing and WS?) Also remember that the heavier your reliance on magic, the slower you'll gain TP, and on top of that the more MP you'll have to recover (though you probably knew that!) Even if you can indeed squeeze enough damage out of your nukes, you'll have to consider that loss as well.

As for sword...well...to be frank, I believe there's better options. Early in the game, Great Axe wins, no questions asked. There is simply no arguing with -40 Evasion (which in turn gives way to being able to stick Acid Bolts for a further -12.5% Defense, on top of that.) Early on, Sword WS are just "bleh." Fast Blade is remotely decent, but nothing stellar; you can get similar numbers out of a Shield Break. Burning Blade and Red Lotus Blade are...ok...nothing stellar either. Flat Blade...skip that. Shining Blade and Seraph Blade aren't really any stronger than the previous two, just Light and MND-based rather than Fire and INT-based. Circle Blade, skip that. Spirits Within...nah. Ok, so it gets good at Vorpal Blade, but you also get Guillotine at 60 (right?) 4 Scythe swings obviously put 4 Sword swings to shame. Plus, there's no swords really worth it before 34.

The only thing similar to what you're looking for that comes to mind and has good potential working is DRK/BLU. Wrote a bit about that on the SMN/BLU thread (http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/summoner/63457-smn-blu.html#post658400), if you're interested. But even then I would discourage sword use for most situations ^^;

[Celeal]

Maybe post level 62, DRK/RDM can handle Dispel (rare and situational), but I never seen that in parties ^^;

But to be honest, I think DRK/WAR or DRK/THF can handle magic just fine without /blm or /rdm, for the core minimum amount of magic (just Drain, Absorb-TP, a few Stun, maybe Aspir). If I see a DRK/BLM in my party uses dark staff and go thru Absorb-MND, Absorb-INT, Absorb-STR, Absorb-VIT, Absorb-AGI, Absorb-DEX, I would be like .... huh, there is a "bone" (undead) in my party (O_o)?

[Taskmage]

Great axe would've undoubtably been superior to anything I've used hiterto, but that skill lagged way behind as I left Qufim and put a level gap between my war and drk. Between trying to keep great sword and scythe leveled, I was never able to go back and recover my great axe skill to a usable level.

With that weapon out of the equation, sword stacks up fairly well against scythe ws, which suck as bad or worse, and great sword ws, which aren't that much better. The other night I had an odd party at 35 that contained a pld/nin trying to be DD already. She didn't keep up with myself and the sam in DoT of course, but her fast blade humbled my poor SA slice. Another thing to consider is that red lotus blade is affected by MAB, which most sword users don't have. It actually escaped my attention until I was playing with weaponskills on rdm and noticed that my burning blade is situationally stronger than my fast blade. That's with MAB3 of course, but still that first tier might make enough of a difference to bump those skills up to goodness. The same is true for the crappy scythe WSes that nobody uses.

Thing is, I'm not really concerned with losing Berserk and Sneak Attack and melee stats. SA right now adds maybe 60 damage to my total every fight, and Berserk is a no-no unless I've got an above-average tank. Using those subs, I'm actually forced to hold back my JAs to stay under the hate line, and I still parse as top DD most of the time. Bumping down my normal damage a bit or losing those tools just gives me more breathing room to use the tools I still have, the way I see it.

/blu is definately the sub for soloing for skillups while lfp. Prebuffing with Cocoon and throwing Head Butt after every swing gives me enough survivability that I could solo Ts at 30, though admittedly there was still a chance I'd get double crit or something and taste dirt. Against DCs and EMs it's solid and Pollen helps to reduce downtime nicely.

I don't think I'd bring /blu to a party though. It's missing that element of MAB that I'm after to enhance my existing spells, and I don't want to dedicate the amount of mp necessary to spam blu spells enough to make a significant contribution. To the end of keeping TP up, I'd be relying on juice and aspir when possible to cover my absorbs, drains and MBs.

Thanks for the input, though. ^^ I'll consider more carefully what the balance is between my physical and magical damage. I sure wish I'd stored my last few parses somewhere. :(;

[Armando]

Ok, so what level is your DRK? If you've made up your mind, I certainly won't try to discourage you; but there are points where you may be better off with Scythe/Great Sword rather than sword. For example, if you have the resources to get Wind Fans, Gust Sword should put up a lot of added effect damage...I believe Spider-Dan had done a test with Hydro Chopper or Hydro Cutter, whatever the 30-ish Hydro Pump-based Great Axe was called, in a Garlaige Citadel party. The added effect was 30-ish, and had a ~25% proc rate.

[Icemage]

The Gust weapons all have a very useful add effect proc, especially for the level they appear. I'm not sure that it makes up for the difference in DPS/utility vs. Great Axe, but it at least repairs some of the shortfall.


Icemage

[Taskmage]

I used Reppus with Kilo Fans on my nin til 40 and the added effect was quite impressive when it went through unresisted. I think 30ish would represent a 50% resist on the effect, but resists were quite common. My recollection of the proc rate is considerably lower than 25%, but since Reppu are much faster weapons perhaps their proc rate is adjusted accordingly. I only burned two stacks of fans between 32 and 39 to give you a general idea. I think Hydro Cutter is the best axe for its level pumps or not, but Kilo Pumps are hard to find. I'll give it a try when my war reaches that level in any case.

My drk is 37. I wouldn't say I've made up my mind. I haven't even decided definitively that I'll continue to level drk, but I'm playing with this idea in case I do. So far I've been given some good things to think about, but nothing that looks like a red flag that this definately would be sub-par or unworkable.

It seems that the main concern about my choice of sub is the loss of Berserk or Sneak Attack, which I think will trade evenly or better for stronger drains and MBs and more liberal use of Souleater and Last Resort. My philosophy on that is that the loss of one or two job abilities is negligable in the scenario that I'm not able to use all my JAs to their full potential anyway, which has been my experience so far except for the blissful 20 minutes where I had a good pld and a good thf at the same time. Whether that pans out in practice is something that only experience will show.

Regarding my choice of weapon, the problem is that I'm trading down from the utility of Shield Break in early levels and the damage of Guillotine in later ones. On the former point I have to concede, Shield Break is incredible. The only reason I haven't been using great axe is that I let the skill slip too far behind and I was in a hurry to complete drk sub asafp to meet the expectations of my new dynamis linkshell, thus didn't want to take the time to go back and recover it. My current project is war 21-37 to for nin sub, so if/when I return to dark knight I'll have the option of using g.axe until the early 60s, when Guillotine, Vorpal Blade and Charging Shield become available. I think it's fair to say that Guillotine will beat Vorpal Blade in raw damage. I'm looking to two things to hopefully overcome that difference: One, that Vorpal Blade has useful skillchain properties. Closing a level 2 skillchain essentially adds 30-60% to the WS's damage, at least that's how I'm treating it on paper. I don't know what the actual resist rate is. Second, using a low delay weapon essentially doubles the damage output of my Souleater. Correct me if I'm wrong on that point; I may not have a proper understanding of Souleater's mechanics.

At any rate, it'll be a while before I try this. I still need to finish sword merits to give my dark knight an acceptable skill rating, and it'd be well advised for my to finish my war sub before continuing whether I decide to use it or not.

[Icemage]

DRKs aren't nearly as limited at later levels (40+) since PLD and NIN both have better hate gaining tools and tricks by that point. Pre-37 yes. But Ninjas gain Utsusemi: Ni which lets them full time tank at 37, and Paladins gain Flash (though to be fair you also get Stun at that level which balances that scale).

By the time you hit level 60, DRK/THF no longer has much of a problem due to Trick Attack, and you'll have had Defender for a while if /WAR.

Vorpal Blade will not make you happy as a DRK. By the time you get it, your ATK and ACC scores will have fallen far behind what it would be with either Scythe or Great Sword. As a multihit WS, you'll be hard-pressed to make Vorpal Blade land for respectable damage.

Regarding Souleater, you lose 10% of your current HP to do that much add effect damage. This does work with multihit WS, which is why WHMs around Vana'diel have a queasy feeling in their stomach whenever they see a DRK activate Souleater + Guillotine since they're losing 10 + 9 + 8.1 + 7.3 = 34.4% of their HP just from using it with the WS, plus another 6.7% if they're /WAR and get a Double Attack - and with that much damage, there's likely a hit coming right at them in the next combat round.

I'm actually of the opinion that one of the best all-around subs for DRK these days is /SAM. You get Third Eye at 30/15, Zanshin at 40/20, Hasso at 50/25, Meditate at 60/30, and Seigan at 70/35. All of which are very useful.


Icemage

[Taskmage]

Sword skill for Vorpal Blade isn't really an issue, since I'm taking full merits in that as a precondition before even considering the weapon for drk. At 62 I should have 7 active merits, giving me 215 sword skill vs 212 scythe or 211 great sword. Many swords drk has access to have an accuracy bonus as well, though I haven't done any in-depth analysis as far as whether the swords with acc bonuses would necessarily be the best swords at their respective levels.

The shift in the hate situation after level 37 is the most worrisome thing brought up so far. I'm largely justifying the loss of job abilities on the basis of not being able to use them without generating too much enmity. If that changes and I'm able to cut loose with subjob abilities more freely, I'm going to have to answer to that if I want to continue believing blm is a competitive sub.

Data from my last party, based on human memory unfortunately rather than stored logs: I do 450 melee damage a fight, plus 50 damage from Aero MB and an impossible to measure amount from Drain. This is on low-IT bats and beetles in GC. (No, I wasn't draining the bats.) Unfortunately I have no idea how much my Thunder MB was doing, but as a sample to test with let's just keep the low MB and say I was able to drain a generic mob.

I have a reasonable belief based on a high capped result and a presumed 90% resist that Drain hits in the 150 range when unresisted, and I was always able to drain twice a fight. Resist rate of Drain is all but impossible to determine because of the way it's logged. For the sake of arguement, I'm going to assume that the average resist rate of drain is the same as the average hit rate of the party's warrior with a great axe and no sushi, so 56% effectiveness. 300 x 56% = 168 + 50 from the MB = 218 average magical damage vs the 450 physical damage. MAB1 will increase the smaller number by 20%, adding 43.6 damage on average to each fight.

I'm not as well versed in the dynamics of melee damage so I'm going to be generous and call a % increase in attack the same as a % increase in damage. Berserk gives a 25% bonus 3/5 of the time, so we'll call it a 15% bonus all the time. 450 x 15% = 67.5 damage added per fight. Bah, except that number was pointless to calculate since that 450 damage includes two sneak attacks, and +% attack most certainly does not translate directly into +% damage ... The real number is sure to be lower, but I have no idea how much lower.

It's too late at night to be doing this kind of thinking. I'll get back to it in the morning. :wasted:

[Icemage]

With full merits for Sword, it looks like you'd get Vorpal Blade one level EARLIER than unmerited Scythe would receive Guillotine (Level 59 DRK caps Sword at 191, plus 5 capped levels of Sword merits = 201, Guillotine you'd get at level 60 at 201 skillcap).

Berserk doesn't really add 25% to your damage, but it does do a lot. The net effect really depends on how far up the damage tiers the extra Attack score places you.

Nonetheless, however much or little it does, it still does more than /BLM's MAB+10, which basically gives you maybe 5 extra damage per typical spell per your numbers given above.

While we're on the topic of spending MP, it's very likely that you're better off spending MP on Absorb-AGI or Absorb-VIT - not only does it help your damage/accuracy, but the rest of the party as well (this value isn't easily quantifiable, and depends on the stats of your party members).


Icemage

[Celeal]

*a bit off topic*

Since you mentioned leveling war to 37~ and have a feeling of unable to use Beserk to the full extend while leveling DRK/WAR, my suggestion is:

If you have a chance, try to perfect war/thf as DD from level 30 to 37, with capped G.Axe. Not only try to deal the most damage, but also try to take the minimum damage (avoid death, downtime, mp sink, etc). It should give you a taste of lvl 60 DRK before your DRK reach level 60 ^^;

The key is timing. Focus on how to decrease the duration of each battle without causing downtime. A well timing of spike damage, or DoT boost, or nerf (cancel JA or swap in defensive gear), is the 1st priority. No need to focus heavily of parser's number at this moment. Once you take care of timing, your damage output will be great.

Although my experience of DRK is short, but when I was leveling DRK/WAR from level 30 to 35, I don't really had issue for leaving Beserk on full time, leaving Last Resort on full time, or having Soul Eater active for long time (or even full time occasionally).

[Lmnop]

It is cool that MAB applies to elemental WSs. And in those levels, I found (through other's DRKs) that Shadow of Death or whatever seems much more consistent and potent than Slice and pretty much anything else scythe or greatsword can do in those levels. To that end, MAB would enhance it even more, which would be quite nice.

I had forgotten to mention the obvious in my last post: Axe. Axe/shield or dual axe. Level 48 comes around and a single viking does a lot for your acc. Rampage @56, though axe in any form for Exp is kinda weak as of 60 with Guillo.

Dispel at 64/32 would be helpful, and there's one more cool thing a wee bit later: Stoneskin 66/33 (or is that Phalanx, making Stoneskin 68/34?). The great thing about Stoneskin is that it apparently counts as HP for fueling Souleater. Even though I think the number taken is based off of your normal current hp, not current HP + SS HP. If I'm right about this... it'd actually make your Souleater more potent - especially in the case of WSs - as your 2nd hit would take just as much hp and add just as much to damage as the first hit. I don't think your half leveled SS could hold up much more of a beating than that though. Also, you're Taru, right? People often look at that as a disadvantage for SE damage, but it actually makes it easier for you to leave it on for its whole duration and get more bang for your buck. Thus, lowering the neccessity for Berserk.

More stuff that I forget, here.

[Taskmage]

Berserk doesn't really add 25% to your damage, but it does do a lot. The net effect really depends on how far up the damage tiers the extra Attack score places you.
Nonetheless, however much or little it does, it still does more than /BLM's MAB+10, which basically gives you maybe 5 extra damage per typical spell per your numbers given above.
While we're on the topic of spending MP, it's very likely that you're better off spending MP on Absorb-AGI or Absorb-VIT - not only does it help your damage/accuracy, but the rest of the party as well (this value isn't easily quantifiable, and depends on the stats of your party members).
IcemageI'd heard that pDif is tiered, but I don't really understand it. The physical damage calculation page on the wiki doesn't seem to refer to it. Anyone care to explain?

Again referring to the wiki, blm's first trait gives MAB+20, which fits with my experience. My Aero MB hit in the low 50s, the whm's Aero MB hit in the low 60s. If it were only for MBs then it certainly wouldn't be worth it, but where I expect the MAB to shine is enhancing Drain, which I estimated as hitting for 150 at level 37. If I could increase my magic accuracy to the point that Drain was landing accurately for full damage, then adding 20% to the 300 point magical component of my damage would certainly be competitive with adding 15% to the 400 point physical component of my damage.

The problem is that I'm assuming much about the damage of my dark magic. It's practically impossible to tell exactly how much damage drain is doing. Hoping to get a clearer picture of that Drain damage I keep banking on, I set out to do some tests to determine exactly what Drain's damage function is, but I became quickly frustrated. I started by stripping my 75rdm/blm naked, using Convert to give myself very low HP, and Draining 5 Tiny Mandragoras. I expected Drain to behave similarly to elemental magic, with consistent damage when unresisted, possibly with a sliding D value based on Dark Magic skill. I cast 5 Drains and got 5 very different numbers: 61, 131, 210, 156, and 122. This completely baffles me. With 200 skill on my rdm, it seems absurd that I would be resisted four out of five times by level 1 mobs. Even if they are resists, the numbers don't fall into the commonly accepted tiers of resistance. I'm going to collect some more data later, but a besieged started as I was staring at those numbers, and I'm still trying to cap divine magic ...

As far as Absorb-VIT and Absorb-AGI are concerned, absolutely. After I got them I always opened with those spells on beetles.It is cool that MAB applies to elemental WSs. And in those levels, I found (through other's DRKs) that Shadow of Death or whatever seems much more consistent and potent than Slice and pretty much anything else scythe or greatsword can do in those levels. To that end, MAB would enhance it even more, which would be quite nice.
I had forgotten to mention the obvious in my last post: Axe. Axe/shield or dual axe. Level 48 comes around and a single viking does a lot for your acc. Rampage @56, though axe in any form for Exp is kinda weak as of 60 with Guillo.
Dispel at 64/32 would be helpful, and there's one more cool thing a wee bit later: Stoneskin 66/33 (or is that Phalanx, making Stoneskin 68/34?). The great thing about Stoneskin is that it apparently counts as HP for fueling Souleater. Even though I think the number taken is based off of your normal current hp, not current HP + SS HP. If I'm right about this... it'd actually make your Souleater more potent - especially in the case of WSs - as your 2nd hit would take just as much hp and add just as much to damage as the first hit. I don't think your half leveled SS could hold up much more of a beating than that though. Also, you're Taru, right? People often look at that as a disadvantage for SE damage, but it actually makes it easier for you to leave it on for its whole duration and get more bang for your buck. Thus, lowering the neccessity for Berserk.
More stuff that I forget, here.Shadow of Death really surprised me. When I got it in the jungles it did crap damage compared to Slice, as did Nightmare Scythe. I suggested a Shadow of Death > Sturmwind skillchain in GC and sucked it up as my WS did an awesome 9 damage, but took some comfort in the fact that the SC and MB damage was more than recovering my lost WS. When we tried the same thing on a beetle, I was stunned to see my SoD hitting for 100+ damage when my Slice had only been doing 60 or so. I dunno what changed. Maybe my jungle party was just overcamping.

Axe suffers from the same problem as sword in that drk only has a B- rating in the skill, so at higher levels you'd need merits in it to stay effective. I'm already meriting sword for my rdm and blu, so picking up axe is out. If anyone has experience with merited axe on drk, I'd certainly like to hear it though. Any wisdom that could be drawn from that could probably be applied to sword as well. I've heard of people having success with dual swords too, to my surprise at the time.

Yup, I'm taru. I'm meriting hp too for what it's worth. I hadn't really considered the effect of my max hp since there's not too much I can do about it. I can't swap in hp gear before Souleater to enhance it unless I'm getting healed at the same time, and if I leave it on I'd be forfeiting other valuable gear so I'm pretty much stuck with what I've got.

Stoneskin is an interesting idea, but I don't know if it'd work. Stoneskin has a long cast time so it'd have to be done outside of combat for you to stay effective, and with no natural enhancing skill, a drk's Stoneskin wouldn't be able to absorb that much. That sounds like a fun thing to try out later as rdm/drk though. I wonder if Phalanx applies to damage taken from Souleater.

[tdh]

Being Elvaan, using my already pitiful MP pool to nuke just wasn't an option. For a Taru, your MP pool and higher INT might allow you nuke higher, but as I've always said, DRK's lack of MAB is what makes it a waste of MP.

I attempted to MB in the 40's but the low damage and eating away at my MP for Stun, I gave it up. (We experienced almost exclusively on Goblins.) DRKs can wear the Moldy Earring, but that's +5 and isn't going to up damage that significantly, and of course you're talking about Lv.37 - not Lv.47.

You mentioned going with Sword due to Skillchain options but only the difference in the Skillchain is who you're going to partner with. DRK could do Distortion with SAM, THF, and DRG using Great Sword. Scythe gives you Distortion with RNG, DRG, and SAM. Scythe can do Fragmentation with a few jobs but you're generally going to give up doing bigger damage for yourself to open for somebody else. Sword gives you Distortion with a few options, or doing less damage for Fusion. So you're still working with similar options, and having similar problems. Everybody wants Distortion at that level, and Sword means no THF at that level.

DPS wise, I'm not sure if Sword damage would keep up with Scythe or Great Sword. I've never tried it myself, but I loved Scythe so much I gave up on Great Sword in the early 30's. Only to regret it when I was frantically trying to catch my skill up when I took DRK back up.

With maxed Sword Merits you will be able to do some damage with Sword, and throwing in spells you may actually come close to a DRK w/ Scythe's total damage, but at what cost? Parties in those lower levels still, thankfully, rely on Skillchains to speed up kills. You will lag behind in TP build from spell casting.

As far as Souleater + Sword and Souleater + Scythe/GS I don't think Sword would keep up. The other night in EXP we had a link, and then our MNK disco'd. I popped Souleater and Blood Weapon. Each hit did 255 - 300dmg. A Sword, even with it's lower delay, isn't going to add up to 4~5 Scythe hits for that much damage. (The only time I've used Souleater w/ Sword I was RDM/DRK. 1007dmg with Souleater Vorpal Blade, and then I canceled Souleater.) Either way, I don't think it's worth using Sword until you get Vorpal Blade.

Thinking back to Lv.40, I sub'd THF. Most of my SA Slices were right around 200dmg. With Souleater I could push that to 400dmg. As /WAR Slice can range from 60dmg to 250dmg, but keep in mind at that level there are really only two "awesome" WSs. I mean check out the big hitters.

Lv.30 Sturmwind
Lv.33 Viper Bite
Lv.41 Raging Fists
Lv.49 Penta Thrust
Lv.55 Sidwinder
Lv.55 Slugshot
Lv.55 Rampage
Lv.60 Guillotine
Lv.60 Sickle Moon
Lv.60 Raging Rush
Lv.60 Dancing Edge
Lv.60 Vorpal Blade
Lv.60 Blade: Jin

DRK doesn't enter that list until Lv.56 when they get access to Rampage. So damage will be erratic and will cost all of your toys to break into the 300's, but if you can open/close a Skillchain that allows big MBs, you're still doing your job.

Ultimately you can do that job with a Sword, but I think your DPS would be lower and your reliance upon MP would slow you down further. If only my DRG was Lv.47, we could test it out together, but I'm too broke to level THF sub let alone DRG! lol

[Lmnop]

Sturmwind's 24ish. And yes, if a Sword has 60% less delay, then it'll get 60% more damage out of Souleater. Your per-hits with SE on will be lower, but not proportionately. Gotta love S-E: Give the class who works best with one big hit (THF) WSs that attack multiple times and low delay, while the class that works best swinging as fast as possible uses the slowest weapon in the game.

As for Axe: at level 59, just using one axe, you'd have 7 lower acc than Scythe. However, that one Axe would be a Viking axe (or 2). That's +10 accuracy. So now it's 3 ahead of Scythe/Greatsword (they're the same at this level as +s/-s don't exist 'til 61). If you have Vassago's for +5 acc, Scythe comes out ahead 2 acc. But, you're still using Vorpal Scythe instead of Rampage. Axing is very situational, and thus it's extremely understandible to not care about it just for this situational range. Basically, 48+ I see it as equivalent to Scythe. I see it as better than Scythe 56-59, but once you hit 60 it's just fun for Ballista.

[Taskmage]

If you have 40-cap gear for your drk, we can go head to head in Pso'xja or Riverne A01 and see how it parses out. That would be the best possible test. I need to get 9 more merit points and 3 more levels with drk before the comparison would be meaningful though, so it'll be awhile.

In the meantime I can try to make some sense of Drain. Seriously, wtf with those numbers? The damage range is worse than melee. What's that 210? A crit?

[Armando]

I'd heard that pDif is tiered, but I don't really understand it. The physical damage calculation page on the wiki doesn't seem to refer to it. Anyone care to explain?*puts on his Professor Daravon hat.*

PDIF is calculated through a set of formulas. But let's not get ahead of ourselves! First, you need to know your "level corrected" Attack/Defense ratio. As you may know, if a mob is at a higher level than you, then your damage, hitting rate, and magic accuracy take a hit. In the case of damage, your real Attack/Defense ratio is gimped by a certain ammount (0.05) for each level the mob is higher than you. In other words, your level-corrected Attack/Defense ratio is calculated as [Insert your "real" Attack/Defense ratio here] - (0.05 * [Insert # of levels the mob is higher than you here.]) Note that this only goes one-way - we don't get a damage bonus for being higher level than the mob (though it's possible that this same restriction applies to lower level mobs trying to hit us!)

So, anyways, once you have your level-corrected Attack/Defense ratio, you plug that into the formulas for minimum and maximum PDIF found in VZX's FFXI Doc (http://www.freewebs.com/vzx-01/index.htm) (Damage Related -> Normal and Physical WS Damage Calculation -> pDIF). The cRatio in that section refers to your corrected Attack/Defense ratio. As you can see, the appropriate formula varies according to what your cRatio is (thus, the tiers.) I made a graph that shows how PDIF range (and average PDIF) changes as your cRatio goes up. Just bear in mind that I'm Excel-retarded, and thus the average PDIF at the beginning should actually be lower (I calculated the average PDIF as (Max PDIF - Min PDIF)/2, but this doesn't take into account that the lowest possible PDIF ranges go into the negatives. The negative values are, of course, changed to 0, but because there are multiple possible negative values, then 0 is that much more likely to show up, dragging the average down.) You can see it here! (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/Doval/NewPDIF.gif)
As far as Souleater + Sword and Souleater + Scythe/GS I don't think Sword would keep up. The other night in EXP we had a link, and then our MNK disco'd. I popped Souleater and Blood Weapon. Each hit did 255 - 300dmg. A Sword, even with it's lower delay, isn't going to add up to 4~5 Scythe hits for that much damage. (The only time I've used Souleater w/ Sword I was RDM/DRK. 1007dmg with Souleater Vorpal Blade, and then I canceled Souleater.) Either way, I don't think it's worth using Sword until you get Vorpal Blade.Sword + Souleater damage excedes (Insert two-handed weapon here) + Souleater damage based on the principle of adding a static, huge number to your damage that many more times. The damage Souleater adds to any swing done to an EXP mob will outweigh the damage of the swing itself, so in general, the more you swing, the more damage you get done.

You are right in that there are many points in the lower level in which the sword selection is weak and the DPS of the weapons available are inferior to that of their two-handed counterparts. Then again, Great Sword and Scythe selection aren't spectacular early on either. This is why I mentioned earlier that you should remain flexible and take advantage from the strongest weapon available at a given level regardless of what type of weapon it is.

Regarding Drain: Perhaps it's random by nature? That's what I make of your results, in any case. Also, I thought Drain wasn't influenced by MAB?

[Celeal]

But Drain has 1 minute timer.... and imho, the practical use for drain is to relief healer's burden, not for primary damage.

Seems like your drk/blm approach is similar to what a BLU DD does: using sword and cast magic. drk/blm's nuke may work on VT mob, but I have my doubt of the nuke from drk/blm on IT mob. MAB from /blm alone won't cut it.

I imagine a level 37 drk/blm's nuke, is like a level 37 blm using a scythe (or a sword) and ACC/ATK/STR gear instead of INT+ gear and wand, and use the lower tier nuke as the level 37 drk uses.

A DD BLU may perform better then drk/blm, a level 40+ nin/blm or nin/rdm who spam Ni elemental wheel may perform better as well.

[Taskmage]

*puts on his Professor Daravon hat.*zzzzAlso, I thought Drain wasn't influenced by MAB?That's part of what I was trying to determine. I was hoping to get an explicit formula of the damage so I could see what exactly affected it and possibly project how the damage would grow as I leveled. I guess I can still do that, I just need to take a much larger sample.

[Armando]

I know that S-E officially chaged the mechanics of Drain at some point. I was looking through the Japanese release update notes, but haven't found anything yet, and it's getting late. By the way, translators crack me up. "It returns" (see: Back) never fails to make me laugh. Of course, then there's BST's "Treat it Kindly," and BRD's "Triumphant return march of the glory." Oh man...

[tdh]

I'll have to test it, but I still don't see how Souleater w/ a Sword can out do Souleater w/ a Scythe. Usually land 4 or 5 hits with Souleater and a Scythe. Doing 250 min, that comes out to 1,000 to 1,250 dmg. Against an EXP mob, I just don't see Sword keeping up. I'll have to find a way to test it this weekend though.

As for Drain, from what I can tell, MAB from my Moldy earring has been effecting damage... but keep in mind damage is so erratic for all I know it wasn't actually doing anything for me.

I was just on the boat to Nashmau and pulled a 188HP Drain off a Pugil, and then a minute later did a 33HP Drain. Mob was EP to me. Half hour later, I was taking the boat again, and fought a Crab on the boat. I fired off a Guillotine, cast Absorb-TP and recieved 98% TP back. So I don't think we have anyway in knowing what's a non-resisted Drain.

And yes, I do have Lv.40 cap stuff. We'll need a tank~ish and Healing Magic. But we can test it. I'll bring a Great Axe too. DRK/THF with Great Axe would be pretty mean in those Lv.40 cap areas.

[IfritnoItazura]

I never tried drk/blm, but tried drk/rdm at level 32 in G.C, becasue the party setup was light on healing side. Those Regen and Cure helped.

I think you misremembered; RDM doesn't get Regen until Lv.21, so DRK/RDM won't get it until Lv.42.


I MB'ed a few Distortion for fun too, but those tier 1 nuke is about the same dmg as my melee. There as a few times link/pop/aggro/train and I attended to Sleep the link, but resisted all the time (bat resisted dark element, beetles were at the high-end of IT, it was a time when mob won't de-spawn during train/link situation), ended up getting the hate and zone the link. I don't think I was able to land slow/paralyze/blind as drk/rdm either. (I did not have gear to swap for magic casting either)

I only did the /mage thing in Valkurm Dunes (/WHM), and at that level my capped enfeebling skill meant I could land Paralyze better than most RDM's and WHM's I had in party. >_>;

In Crawlers Nest (as DRK/WAR), my Sleep was never resisted (I was faster than the RDM's on sleep reapply), and my MB wasn't exactly impressive, but still better dmg/sec than a scythe swing.

On beetles, I can Aspir on pull, making it practical to toss out Absorb-AGI at times since I can get in another Aspir or two per battle. Mostly, I used my MP for Drain--the damage may not be consistent, but its average is in the 50's. Considering that means 50 HP healed and 50 HP damage for 21 MP, it's a better than 4:1 HP:MP ratio, and therefore awesome.

Thing is, I'm not really concerned with losing Berserk and Sneak Attack and melee stats. SA right now adds maybe 60 damage to my total every fight, and Berserk is a no-no unless I've got an above-average tank. Using those subs, I'm actually forced to hold back my JAs to stay under the hate line, and I still parse as top DD most of the time. Bumping down my normal damage a bit or losing those tools just gives me more breathing room to use the tools I still have, the way I see it.

I didn't check on Berserk's effect that carefully, but looking at my parser result from my Lv.36-38 party I did noticed a pattern: I'd outdamage the BLU/NIN for 2-3 fights in a row, then he'd out damage me for the next 1 or 2 fights.

The JP BLU was perpectually drunk on yagudo drink with much better melee accuracy (about 10% higher than me--he was eating sole sushi, and must have capped sword to my lagging Great Sword and Scythe skills. I run out of squid sushi in the last hour of partying and was using rice dumpling.

I was also using Berserk full time, though, and that fits nicely the pattern top DD switching back and forth I was seeing. (Couldn't use Souleater as much; it's only worth it for chain#4 or #5 when mages have MP to heal.)

(Interesting side note: even with all the yagudo drinks and spell spamming, a little more than half of the BLU/NIN's damage was from melee and weapon skill. Looks like BLU really is the melee'ing mage every new player wanted from sword and magic type RPG games.)

Berserk really helps out the damage, from what I can tell.

I think where a DRK is supposed to be is at the boundry of the hate line; it's okay to take a step over every so often--WHM and RDM's are supposed to heal, and Drain is one of the best use of MP before (and even after) getting Absorb-VIT and Absorb-AGI.

My party had a strange set up of PLD + NIN at the end, and it was great ducking behind the PLD so she could Flash or shield bash the mob when I use Last Resort or just use Cover if I'm using Souleater while the NIN main tank away most of the mob's attack. (i.e. Sometimes on chain #4 mob the healers have enough MP for me to use souleater!)

As for Sneak Attack, I've never used it with DRK, but I had experiences with WAR/THF. Aside from the "Oh Geez I better use Defender" kind of Sturmwind damage, the SA is used to boost accuracy, and gain TP faster. In fact, the slower your weapon (*cough* scythe *cough* Great Axe *cough*), the more useful SA is. If you're only using SA once a battle as DRK/THF, you're not using it right--this ability can add a lot of damage for a smart and alert player. ^_-

Berserk and Sneak Attack are great tools for DRK, and I'm not sure it's worth trading either for MAB, Elemental Seal, and more MP (esp. for a Tarutaru).

BTW, I didn't have (too much) trouble using Berserk full time, where as Souleater almost always ends chain, and Last Resort always gets me slapped by the mob unless there's PLD. As nice as as Souleater is, it demands a nearly perfect party, and I find any strategy based on getting more use out of it in exp settings to be suspect.

For the amount of damage and enmity Berserk seems to add, it's better for DRK than Last Resort and Souleater, sad to say.

[Icemage]

BTW, I didn't have (too much) trouble using Berserk full time, where as Souleater almost always ends chain, and Last Resort always gets me slapped by the mob unless there's PLD. As nice as as Souleater is, it demands a nearly perfect party, and I find any strategy based on getting more use out of it in exp settings to be suspect.

For the amount of damage and enmity Berserk seems to add, it's better for DRK than Last Resort and Souleater, sad to say.
My experience watching DRKs at all levels supports this.

Riding the hate-line is the core of most DD jobs. Some jobs just have better tools than others (DRG is excellent at riding hate, since they have High Jump, Super Jump, and a Wyvern to share hate with). Dark Knight is probably the worst DD at controlling hate since the JAs draw so much enmity.


Icemage

[Taskmage]

Bah.

40whm/20drk … Min Drain: 42 … Max Drain: 77 … Avg. Drain: 62.90 … StdDev: 11.60 (18.44%)
{42, 44, 44, 52, 54, 56, 56, 57, 63, 65, 67, 68, 68, 70, 71, 75, 76, 76, 77, 77}
40whm/20blm … Min Drain: 39 … Max Drain: 81 … Avg. Drain: 58.45 … StdDev: 12.44 (21.29%)
{39, 42, 42, 45, 48, 51, 51, 52, 54, 56, 58, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 69, 71, 80, 81}

Did 20 drains each with whm/drk and whm/blm. Both had 63 dark magic skill; /drk had 43 int and no MAB; /blm had 45 int and 20% MAB. My drains with /blm actually did an insignificant amount less damage than my drains with /drk. Drain and presumably Aspir are not affected by magic attack bonus, so the biggest reason I wanted to sub blm to drk is based on a false premise.

/blm would still provide 20% more damage to magic-based weaponskills and elemental magic, but you'd probably better off using physical weaponskills and enhancing them physically as is the norm, and nudging elemental magic from uselessness to questionable utility isn't a good enough reason on its own.

I still haven't given up on the possibility of sword though. I'll do some testing with it in a month or two after finishing my merits and leveling to 40.

Oh, incidentally .. I did the same sample on my rdm and got these results:

75rdm/37blm … Min Drain: 61 … Max Drain: 220 … Avg. Drain: 163.00 … StdDev: 40.15 (24.63%)
{61, 118, 122, 130, 131, 138, 143, 147, 148, 156, 178, 183, 187, 188, 197, 197, 198, 208, 210, 220}

[Nazo]

I took my 43 drk out for a spin tonight for the first time in ages. I was a bit concerned when the leader asked if I'd manage going /rdm for some extra support but it worked out alright. As we only had a whm and 5 melees they wanted me to try some debuffs; with drks not-greak enfeeble skill and my taru's naturally low mnd I didn't think I stood much of a chance, but opening with absorb-mnd I was able to land paralyze about 70% of the time and on the rare occasions we got links I was able to sleep them with little problem.
My melee dmg took a bit of a hit, especially with the extra casting but I still turned the mob from our pld a few times and the reduced casting times for the absorb spells are great. So only situationally useful, certainly but it worked out much better than I thought it would.

[eva00r]

Hey, stop comparing things at low levels. If you wanna do some testing, try it with lv 75. The game mechanism is TOTALLY changed. A taru dark depends a lot on absorb spells to make them stronger, not elemental spells. /BLM isn't working just because /WAR /THF or /SAM is much better. You need to think about defensive capability, not only offensive. DRK is VERY easy to overhate and as a taru, you can be dead within 3 hits. If you're happened to wear Plastron set and pop Last Resort and Diablolic Eye, as my friend does, you're very vulnerable for any damage taken.

Sword vs Scythe
1) 276 scythe skill vs 240 sword = 33 attack and 33 accuracy differences.
2) Guillotine, Cross Reaper, Spiral Hell > Vorpal, by far

MB?
225 elemental skill sucks badly while rdm, blm can push their elemental skills to 275-300. That's 50-75 magic accuracy differences. Thunder II cap is around 300ish damage so it isn't worth it at all. 2 swings from scythe can do more damage than wasting your swing time casting MB, or if that swing is a critical swing .. it's almost 300 damage per hit.

Other subs ?
/WAR
Double Attack = 10% more damage output
Berserk = roughly 20% more damage output
Defender to use when you're overhate

/THF
SA = Guarantee crit every a minute or 150 more damage with normal crit
TA = Guarantee safety

/SAM
Hasso = +10 acc, 5 str, 10% haste
Seigan = Roughly 200-500 damage dodges
Store TP 15% and Meditate = 1 more guillotine every 3 minutes

[IfritnoItazura]

Hey, stop comparing things at low levels. If you wanna do some testing, try it with lv 75. The game mechanism is TOTALLY changed.

Taskmage was talking about his leveling plan; how should he get through "low levels" for DRK is the topic, I think.

[Shinhiryu_Kage]

In the low levels, I thought the regular premise was that you can try a bunch of different subs and it won't affect you too terribly much when it comes to any job you play. (Well, maybe the exception of WHM/WAR, but then would it not "really" work, like in dunes? XD w.)

Its just that after like, level 50 or so, when accuracy and mob evasion + defense come into play, its when you need to get more DPS and accuracy because the playing curve increases. Monsters get some kind of boost in their strength defense.

I think the idea of playing DRK/BLM is really sweet and I'd love to play it myself, but I think, just eyeballing figures and knowning how melee works from personal experience, it would really suck big time as far as dps is concerned. I mean, I know it doesn't seem like Scythe is that great of a weapon to most people, but, if you get enough accuracy+, those big hits are nice to bust out in a short amount of time. It reminds of me of like a short-term melee spike damage. It's really helpful in the short-term. Any big two-hander weapon is, I think. DoT is definitely cool though. Just, scythe has its uses too even if they aren't maybe visibly apparent.

Elemental Skill on DRK is B+ and 256 @LV75. They don't have terribly awful skill and imo it felt like when I bursted it was better than a RDM but not as powerful as a BLM, so their spellcasting is certainly usable to compensate and add to existing damage.

But to solely base the class off of this skill and go w/sword, I think is subpar. Any melee class struggles w/dps on weapons if their skill rank is less than A- and this is concerning both accuracy and damage. That's my opinion anyway. I mean, when it comes down to regular leveling, sure, maybe you can get away with a drk/blm w/sword/shield/nuking.... however, when emergencies come and you need to kill something quick... would DRK/BLM be up to the task? Not to mention trying to max out your XP / Hour factor that most ppl are fond of.

[Raydeus]

Did 20 drains each with whm/drk and whm/blm. Both had 63 dark magic skill; /drk had 43 int and no MAB; /blm had 45 int and 20% MAB. My drains with /blm actually did an insignificant amount less damage than my drains with /drk. Drain and presumably Aspir are not affected by magic attack bonus, so the biggest reason I wanted to sub blm to drk is based on a false premise.

I know it's a couple of days late, but I'm interested in this.

Can you tell me what were the days of the Vana week when you did these tests?

[Taskmage]

Regarding eva00r's post:

This is not a question of what subjob would be superior in merit parties or anything like that. My dark knight is only level 37, and I'm examining whether I could take a fun and different approach to leveling it and still be effective.

I think a lot of people read past the fact that I'm assuming full merits in sword skill for this experiment. I realize a drk's natural sword rating is much lower and that would become a serious hindrance at higher levels without merits. With merits, drk's sword skill would actually exceed its scythe skill until level 64 and its great sword skill until level 67. The primary difference between the weapons for most of a merited drk's life isn't a gap in attack and accuracy but a shift down in delay and base damage. The tradeoff seems to be, at least on paper, lower WS output vs higher Souleater effectiveness.

I will be the first to admit that drk MBs are largely decorative. Their damage can be comparable to our weapon, but at the cost of mp and tp. Not entirely a waste, but not entirely worth doing either. I mainly do them because it's fun to me. With a 20-24% increase in damage, they might be more worthy of use, but not at the cost of the tools other subjobs provide. The main reason I wanted to sub mage for MAB was to make Drain stronger, but since I've proven to myself that it doesn't work that way, it's rather a moot point.

What you said about elemental skill is largely irrelevant. Dark knight has a higher elemental skill rating than red mage. My rdm nukes with 220+32 = 252 elemental skill on Blizzard III outside of dynamis. Subtract 10 for any other element and add 7 if in dynamis. Drk's base elemental skill at that level is higher than that at 256, before even counting gear that enhances the stat. The real problem with drk nukes isn't our skill rating. It's our slow spell progression, lack of MAB, and our inability to swap in staves while still being effective in melee.

I pretty much understand the pros and cons of the more conventional subs you listed. I don't know if I'll use /sam for Hasso because I like my spells so much, and I don't want to add anything to their already painfully long timers. The detail of not having leveled it is also a deterrent. >_> From 37-60 I'll probably use /thf for any party that saddles me with pulling and /war the rest of the time for axe belt. After TA and better WS come into play, I'll probably go thf all the way.


Re: Raydeus

The tests with whm/drk were all done on firesday, and the whm/blm drains were all done on earthsday. All targets were Tiny Mandragora in west Sarutabaruta.

[eva00r]

Taskmage, You're wrong. Skill progression is really a problem for dark.

DRK's cap elemental skill is C = 225
RDM's cap elemental skill is C+ = 230 +15 from AF hat

While RDM can wield HQ staff which highly increase magic potency and accuracy (by 15%). DRK is nowhere near RDM in elemental nuking capability.

If you really wanna cast spell that much, do with a fighter sub. Swapping in INT bonus gear, Dark magic bonus gear and then cast Absorb type spells. You will run into a big mp problem after lv 45 because you have to spend 66 MP every 1 minute to absorb STR and TP. If you cannot Aspir the monster around you, you will need a RDM to refresh you also.

My friend's main job was BLM but he switched to DRK. He's taru by the way. But he de-leveled his elemental spell merits to dark magic skill instead. Right now casting time for absorbing spells are reduced to 2 seconds, and you can MB that with dark SC. So, do it to get even more TP.

[tdh]

DRK's cap elemental skill is C = 225
RDM's cap elemental skill is C+ = 230 +15 from AF hatThis is incorrect. DRK has a Lv.256 skill in Elemental Magic which makes that B+. RDM has a Lv.230 skill and equates to C+. The difference, as Taskmage has mentioned earlier in this post, and I in other posts, is that RDM gains a Magic Attack Bonus while DRK does not. (Even though DRK AF2 body (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/4372) does have MAB+10 on it, but at Lv.74 it seems a tad late.)

Taskmage:
I think we may need to retest Drain and Aspir, and scale it up a tad. Perhaps you, X and I could hit the Tunnel and test things. With Dark Staff, with out, me as DRK/WAR and then as DRK/BLM. You testing as RDM/WHM and RDM/BLM and X as BLM. The numbers you suggested earlier in the post seemed pretty high. I didn't have a 150dmg Drain until Lv.49~50. And those were very few and far between.

As RDM I've managed 210HP Drains in EXP, and last week I had a 201HP Drain Vs a VT Puk as DRK62. I don't think I've broken 100MP with Aspir yet, with RDM or DRK.

But I still think Drain is so erratic that we may not be able to fully test it and find out if MAB does make a difference, or is it just INT and your current Luck level that decides if you get a good or a bad Drain.

[Taskmage]

...I don't know where you're getting your numbers from, but ffxiclopedia, somepage and the skill cap chart I've been using for years all list drk's elemental skill rating as B+. tdh actually has dark knight and red mage leveled, so I'll trust his numbers. I think you may have gotten confused and read the enfeebling magic skill rating.

As I said before, drk's nuking problems aren't because of skill. A drk is actually more accurate than a rdm with elemental. The problem is they get higher tier spells, deal 20-24% more damage with the same nuke because of thier magic attack bonus trait, and can use elemental staves as you mentioned and as I mentioned in the post before yours.

If it wasn't made clear in my last two posts, I've already acknowledged blm is not a worthwhile sub and that war and thf will be better, so I'm not sure why we're even arguing about this.

I wish people would stop chanting "skill gap" and "refresh" seeing as I list weapon skill merits and juice in the first post as a given for this to work at all. RTFP...Drain testing is weird and time consuming, but I'm up for it. I'd still like to figure out exactly what role int and dark magic skill play in determining the damage. Even as erratic as the damage is spell for spell, if we take a large enough sample and compare the averages we should be able to see a trend.

I doubt we'll find out MAB does actually work though. On elemental magic, the difference is pretty apparent. If I were to take whm/blm and whm/drk out and cast Stone on a few mandies, I should see 42 damage every time with /drk and 50 every time with /blm. Since there wasn't a noticable increase with Drain I assume the effect isn't there.

About my 150 estimate ... that's probably best disregarded. At that point in the thread I was assuming dark magic behaved the same as elemental magic, with consistent output that fell into predictable tiers of resistance. I saw that one of my drains had done over 100 damage and another drain did only 15, so I assumed the 15 was a 90% resist and that the full damage would have been 150.

[Tisaragi]

To add some light to drain I have some numbers for you. A 42 point drain when your max is 77 isn't a full resist. At 75 my drains on exp mobs range from 16-250+ keep in mind this is without gear changes. As for dps nothing even comes close /war from what I can tell the lose of berserk and double attack is painful every time I have to sub nin. A decent drk/war can keep up with if not out dmg an average war/nin (avg. as in no multi hit weapons)

[Shinhiryu_Kage]

Thinking about it again, MAB shouldn't be a problem, comparing DRK to RDM, because there is MAB equipment out there that a DRK can equip and swap into a macro during spell casting. I would think that would help tremendously, not to mentioned swapping in INT gear too, no?