PLD vs. DRK- Pros and cons

[Tatsuhara]

I was wondering if anyone could help me decide whether to be a DRK or a PLD. I'm leaning more towards DRK, for the ability to use some black magic, so I would b able to do magic bursts. But I really just want to know the strengths and weaknesses of both. :P

[Spiritbear]

Pld are Meat Shields. Drk is DD. That is the main difference you need to take into account when picking between them. Decide if you would rather be a Tank or DD.

My personal choice would be Pld.

[Tatsuhara]

Hm... Okay. Then from what you told me of DRK being a DD, I'll go with DRK.

[Spiritbear]

In my opinion Drk is the uber DD. The only downside to Drk is they have very little defense, unlike Pld that is all defense and doesn't hit nearly as hard as a Drk.

Drk and Pld are opposites. Drk uses Black Magic and hits hard, Pld uses White Magic and takes hard hits.

[Murphie]

As a DRK, I'd suggest saving your MP for Absorbs, Drain/Aspir and Stuns, and leave the Magic Bursting (if it happens at all) to the mages. Even as a Taru you wouldn't be swimming in the MP, and you can really put it to much better use than casting elemental nukes.

Seriously though, PLD and DRK are completely different roles in a party. If you're interested in DD, you should really be comparing DRK to other jobs.

[Mhurron]

I Magic busted with my DRK in Qufim. It made me laugh and cry at the same time, laugh because I was MBing on a skillchian I just participated in yet made so little damage with, but cry because the BLM couldn't hit the MB to save his life.

[Theyaden]

I was wondering if anyone could help me decide whether to be a DRK or a PLD. I'm leaning more towards DRK, for the ability to use some black magic, so I would b able to do magic bursts. But I really just want to know the strengths and weaknesses of both. :P

Drk for LP lyrics in your macros's j/k

Seriously though a darkknight is going to fall into the damage dealer heading.
This means you add to faster kills of the mobs and get to see the big #'s for your damage spikes which feel good.
Paladin your a tank which means your invite rate is going to be better since there tend to be shortages in both healers and tanks. you won't get the big damage #'s, but if you do well you'll be the whm's and blm's best friend since they can do their job with a more generious hateline.
do you like being the one holding the mobs attention (without having the pt mad) or do you prefer inflicting hurt on the mobs?

[Tatsuhara]

Crawlingggg in my skinnnn~!!
lol

[Taskmage]

Honestly though, last party I was in with my drk, the whm was MBing for more damage. ._. Just forget about that part and stick to slicing things.

[Tatsuhara]

Okay, I was thinking along RDM now that I have RDM at 16...

[Taskmage]

No reason you have to choose what you want to be for the rest of your FFXI life. If you're happy with what you're playing, stick with it awhile. If you're getting bored, try something else and if you like that, play that instead.

[Tatsuhara]

RDM is so much fun though, and I'm really enjoying it. But not so much now that I can't even play. >_>

[Susurrus]

I never really understood why SE even bothered to give DRKs nukes. You get Thunder II 72. I recall when playing DRK that I hit for more damage than my highest nuke.

[LoneGamer]

As has been said previously, Paladin is a tank and Dark Knight is a damage dealer with some utility spells. If you want to deal damage with both weapons and spells, then Blue Mage would be the way to go. Red Mage falls into a heavy support role as you advance to higher levels.

[Taskmage]

Well, there are lots of situations pre-Dispel where it's nice to be able to switch over to magic damage to finish off a fight after the crab or the beetle buffs itself up to the point where it's shrugging off melee. Drk was probably designed with that idea of damage versatility in mind and it just didn't pan out in practice.

[Icemage]

Square-Enix really needs to either give DRK some teeth with their elemental magic or remove it altogether. Thunder II at 72 is beyond lame when you have what? D rank Elemental? Good luck landing a nuke without being resisted, even on a magic burst as a DRK.

DRK is a slow power hitter, pure and simple. Tons of damage, and not much else.


Icemage

[LoneGamer]

DRK have B-rank Elemental. Their nukes are more accurate than RDM, but RDM nukes do more damage.

[Aksannyi]

My husband doesn't nuke as 75 DRK, not because his nukes (basically) suck, but because he's never really used Elemental magic, and his skill is probably as underleveled as my Divine magic is.

[Taskmage]

Yeah, ironically drk get quick accurate low-damage magic compared to rdm's harder hitting whiff-prone nukes.

[tdh]

My husband doesn't nuke as 75 DRK, not because his nukes (basically) suck, but because he's never really used Elemental magic, and his skill is probably as underleveled as my Divine magic is.Fortunately, my Elemental Skill was cap'd for DRK until Lv.70 (I believe.) due to RDM. I now use Besieged to cap my Elemental Skill nice and quick so all my magic is cap'd.

I've always thought DRK should get at least one Magic Atk Bonus trait, but I always wanted it more for Dark Magic spells, not Elemental Magic. Of course MAB doesn't effect Dark Magic. (/angry) So casting any of the spells is a waste of time. You'd be much better served swinging that Scythe than wasting the time for a 90dmg Thunder II. Especially when the Scythe can do 120+dmg a hit by itself, and it's about the almighty TP. Even with Moldy Earring and the AF2 that has MAB+10 (The body I ~think~.), DRK nukes just aren't worth the time not spent building TP.

I've yet to find a real use for my Elemental spells outside of some AF quests, and even then with the addition of Drain II, you can forget Thunder II!

[Taskmage]

I was thinking the other day that drk should get Dark Holy - quick casting, high power nuke with a long recast time and damage based on dark magic skill. I guess Drain II fills those criteria pretty well though.

[Icemage]

The main reason RDM nukes don't suck is because they can wield Elemental Staves. That makes up for a big difference in skill ranks.


Icemage

[Taskmage]

But the only reason we can do that is because our melee skill has been historically underrated, and isn't counted on when we come to a party. Not to say that isn't the right choice since staves play to our strengths whereas melee equipment doesn't really.

I think drk nukes are probably in the same position as rdm melee. A drk could probably sub blm, wield staves and DoT with elemental magic, coupling Absorb-INT and Burn to create a huge fINT to help offset their limited options for MAB gear. This is all just fanciful musing though. It's more intuitive, more aligned to our current party setup dogma and probably more effective to gear drk for melee spike damage, playing to their strengths, than to take a magier route that would be more reliant on refresh support.

I think it's only ended up that way because that's what the players have done with the job, though. Had drk been taken up as a more flexible melee-caster type of job early on, maybe the items and updates from SE since then would have been friendlier to that approach. I think the corselet set definately says the possiblity exists.

[Lunaryn]

I've only leveled DRK in a permanent static so far, but I'd say that, particularly if you have a source of refresh, the nukes aren't useless. You have a fairly good Drain, particularly if you have an opportunity to MB off of Compression or Gravitation, but the first-tier nukes are handy for a while, because you can cast them without significantly delaying your swings. At the moment, I can MB for about half the damage that our BLU does, and I get twice as many opportunities for it now that the BLU is self-skillchaining (BLU performs Fusion, PLD and I perform Distortion or Liquefaction depending on my weapon).

What race were you looking at? Galka will make very minimal use of DRKs magic while Tarutaru will want to make the most of it to keep pace.

By the way, have Signet up at all times if possible. Resting without losing TP is a handy option to have between chains.