How exactly does Soul Eater work?

[Lone Dragon]

I've heard it works on a % of your HP.

Is that % added to your attack or something?
Not really clear on it...

I've heard it's 15% of your HP,
but I don't remember that well.

Help me out here.

[Socrates]

10% of current HP drained from the dark knight.

with AF helm, HP drained is 15%.

if i'm not mistaken, AF helm is lv 60.

[Mithrael]

To add to what socrates said, that amount is added directly to damage, completely regardless of defense. So when crabs do their special defense where you hit for 0, engage souleater and hit for ~100, then ~90, then ~70, etc. assuming you aren't healed every time.

FYI: I've only seen one monster so far that souleater didn't work! went to go fight PLD AF1 for a LS-mate and egaged souleater to make the fight quicker. Souleater was completely disregarded. I still lost the HP like I should have, but my damage was identical with and without Souleater up... did about 40dmg per swing.

Anyone know of any other mobs that do this?

[Xephoid]

Elementals

They also at least have resistance to souleater. I tried souleater on elementals, the damage didn't go up by up at all if any. That's the only type I have encountered that does that.

[Mithrael]

Hmm, the PLD AF1 mob is an earth elemental. I've never used souleater on another elemental, but if it does the same, i guess that's just a trait of elementals. I'm going to have to experiment on other stuff that's very physical resistant and see if it's similar.

[Izual]

As far as I know, it only doesn't work on elementals. It also might not work on the prime summons, but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet (I've only fought garuda so far, and we were low level so she gave us a hard time ). I'm also wondering if maybe it doesn't work on some HNM's? If it did, it seems like drks would be pretty useful in HNM fights.

[supertle]

souleater is the cream and butter of a DRK's power
it upps attack like crazy and if activated too early, you'll draw too much attention from all the dmg you're dishing out, in addition if u have berserk activated, and your equip gear for Attk, a drk is quite a soft target with souleater + berserk

from experience, i notice everytime i turn up souleater, it seems like my accuracy is boosted also, sometimes i pray i miss with souleater on b/c the dmg is a bit too high
really not sure about that though, i just feel that way

[Xephoid]

know when to take a pause

with souleater. If you hit 3-4 times in a roll, time to take a pause and cast a spell or two. Drain works, but if it's not resisted, you do drain alot of HP (my record is 216 on a VT, 19X on an IT). If that's the case, cast another weak spell, such as bio or abs-stat. Don't chop away at the monster none-stop, especially if you did a good job acquireing +Acc gear. You land 4-5 hits on the mob in a roll, it's EXTREMELY likely you will draw hate away from the PLD, and that's also when you are likely to have only 1/2 HP left, and get one shotted.

And another thing. Guillotine + souleater, is very dangerous. It's better not to do it unless you are sure to kill the mob with it. You lose half of your HP with 1 WS, and the hate spike so sharply, it's an almost guarenteed to turn the mob.

[Lone Dragon]

To DAMAGE? No friggin wonder. ._.

Hmm...So a Galka really would be the best at the job (minus the MP bit, but do they really need that?)
Interesting how they made it so the race that came up with the job story-wise actually has a strength in it.
I thought that they just slapped the Galka in for an origin.