DRK with 1hand sword?

[Username2]

I was just wondering how bad this combo is?
I see this 1 lvl73 drk/war in town all the time and he uses a shield and sword, and a lvl 60 drk/nin with swords.
I know this setup would be more of a Damage over time setup.
Im just wondering cause im not a big scythe or greatsword fan.

[fuz]

It's not bad, but it's not great either. B- proficiency hurts later on, but because of the numerous attack bonuses drk gets, 1hs does decent damage.

The WS however, don't do much damage because the attack is much lower than a 2h weapon. This is where the big difference of damage comes into play, and what makes 1h weapons sort of useless for dealing good damage, especially on IT stuff.

Drk does get most of the 1hs skills, so it is worthwhile to level it up, but don't do so at the expense of your scythe and 2h sword skills.

[Mithrael]

DRKs 1-hd sword skill is good for a few things.

Farming. Your damage will quickly cap almost everywhere you farm, so you don't get much benefit from using your scythe (delay is longer and you're losing the top-end of your damage curve anyway). You can tell your damage has hit the soft cap when your criticals do exactly the same amount every time. Right now on farming mobs, I hit for 180-220, and crit for 258 with scythe. With sword I hit for 100-140 and crit for 180-ish.

HNM battles. The Spirits Within with full hp/tp does very good damage regardless of the mob's defense. Though if you're fighting something you want to keep silenced, you're going to want guillotine.

Combined with your 2-hr and souleater. Fast swings with 10% of your hp added to damage. Each swing with this active should be a bit more than a swing of your scythe, but at twice the speed. You recover all of the hp lost from souleater, and the hp from your normal damage every hit. People say this is incredible with duel weild.

1-hd sword is not great for leveling. Accuracy is a huge problem. By level 55, your sword skill is a fair distance apart from your scythe/greatsword skill. That means crap for accuracy. The other problem is that your damage is a combination of both your STR and your weapon DMG multiplied by your Attack over the mob's Defense. If you take the time to work out the math, Assuming your attack is the same (which it won't be since your sword skill is lower than your scythe/greatsword) you would end up doing more damage with your scythe.

Against anything VT and lower, sword would probably be just fine, but against your standard leveling mobs, you won't be getting the performance you were hoping for.

[Username2]

Great info thanks for the help.
Right now im a Taru 60whm/blm
Also 35war 20monk 20thf 20nin.
I really wanted to stay war and get the AF. but i get trashed all the time by N/A players.
They dont invite me cause im a WAR (to them that means tank not damage dealer).
Ive only been in Japanese parties from lvl 30-35.
So I was thinking of going drk so I can get invites.
I dont like the scythe WS. Well untill you hit lvl 60
I like GS but ive never realy seen a drk use 1 high end so I have no idea how good they are.

Sorry i have trouble making my mind up sometimes.

[Mithrael]

Greatsword weapon skill are no better and no worse than Scythe from lv.49-54.

Slice ~ Hard Slash
Dark Haverst ~ Frostbite
Shadow of Death ~ Freezebite
Power Slash ~ Vorpal Scyhte
Shockwave ~ Spinning Scythe

I don't have Crescent Moon yet, so I can't comment on it. But basically, the weapons skills damage is very similar across the board, though you get them in a different order.

Greatsword does get spinning slash though, which ends up a light renkei, while scythe gets to end up a dark renkei. From what i understand (from reading some other posts on this board) light renkei is generally more desirable.

I'd recommend sticking war out to at least lv.45 if you can bear it. There are never enough around, and it seems to be a very rewarding job. At least on our server, the WARs are never sitting in jeuno looking for a group, it's only the DRKs, DRGs, and the occasional SAM.

[Dalmonth]

every drk/nin I've spoken too are happy with the fact they deal massive damage

[Anya]

And what level were they?