Riddle...

[Draconis]

Heh, I already do this.


You see, Scythe average strike is roughly every 8 seconds. This allows me to throw in either a Drain, Aspir, or a couple of really fast elemental spells real quick.


However, that having been said.....


Dark Knight's get most of their strength from their Dark Magic. Namely, Bio, Drain, Aspir, and the asorb line of spells. This is what powers us. It makes us stronger, deadlier, and just downright nasty to behold.

Yes, The elemental spells are nice. However, they should be used Sparingly. I mean, even for me as a Mithran Dark Knight, Casting elemental spells consumes ALOT of my mana pool for what I consider a Dismal return. And by Dismal I mean hitting mobs for 20-30 dmg per spell. This is fact. Mithra Don't suffer an Intelligence hit last I checked. They are on Par with humes. I bet even a Tarutaru Drk's elemental spells still would not compare to a Black Mages, regardless of race.


Part of the reason why is because of the huge lack of Intelligence boosting gear. You see, one of the friends in my linkshell back when he was 33, had like...oh dear god...over 70 Int. That is as close to what it was that I can remember. His MB and regular dmg for his spells was absolutley ungodly. He also had the unique ability to CRIT mobs with his Magic. Doing at times 300-400 damage with various spells. It was just....insane.

Note, this was a Tarutaru black mage.

As a Dark Knight, we are moreso forced to focus on our Accuracy and attack, as our main role is to deal damage via melee, and Magic inbetween strikes. That role is defined as I see it, by this manner.

Elemental Spells solely for Magic Bursts. This is when they actually do something decent. It is very satisfying to Magic burst immeaditley after I use my weapon skill for 40-60 dmg in addition to my weaponskill and the skillchain effect.

Dark Magic: Asorbs, Aspir and Drain. This is mostly what you will use these for. To help the party kill the mob faster is your main goal. Usually asorb Agility is good to go for this, and then Asorb Mnd etc.

Enfeeble: You won't get much use out of this maybe save for Poisonga for those annoying Ninja Beastmen mobs, Poison, and Sleep. To be honest, I've let my enfeeble fall behind because I'm not subbing Rdm right now. It seemed I had better luck keeping elemental, Enfeeble and Drk magic capped with Rdm subbed. But now that I am subbing War, well, it's proving difficult. Usually we chain mobs so fast that by the time scythe and Dark Magic caps, it's 500 exp tnl. Really frustrating.

Without all of the intelligence boosting gear to power our elemental spells, it just really doesn't do much at all. My advise is to reserve your elemental spells for Magic Bursts. This is where they come in handy I feel.


My 2 Gil.

Good riddle btw

Draconis

[fuz]

This is no secret to me either, since I do the same.

If you can time it correctly, you can start casting right before a hit, and because of the lag, still hit.

[phr0st]

I don't think this necessarily qualifies as "the revolutionary secret of the dark knight". Pretty much everyone does this, in fact, you can time so that the the swing animation doesn't even finish before you start casting, and the mob still takes damage from the swing. I'll have to use fraps to show you what I'm talking about.

But everyone listed above is right, we don't really have the MP or INT to really spam elemental (or any spell) spells.

[Tonkz]

..... I was hoping for a real answer to the riddle.

[Akidon]

Ah...interesting. Maybe it's just my server, for I've yet to see any DRK use this tactic. I suppose it's not revolutionary, but it'll boost the overall damage of some DRK's who didn't know about this.

[Crowzukin]

While it is cool sometimes to MB as a DRK, it is not worth it. Elemental magic uses too much of our already low MP pool for minimal returns and often times you will get resisted, so usually you do more damage just by hitting with your weapon. A DRK's MP is best saved for Stun, Absorbs, Drain/Aspir, etc.

Besides, as seen in this thread, RDMs don't seem to like to give Refresh to DRKs

If you have MP to spare though, then whatever.

[Tonkz]

"While it is cool sometimes to MB as a DRK, it is not worth it. Elemental magic uses too much of our already low MP pool for minimal returns and often times you will get resisted, so usually you do more damage just by hitting with your weapon. A DRK's MP is best saved for Stun, Absorbs, Drain/Aspir, etc."

Agreed. Drain can do more dmg then any of my elemental spells and how much does it cost? 21 mp + it heals me. Umm lets see... water II 51 mana and does a half ass job for damage. Elemental magic get resisted too often for it to do any real damage. Only fun to MB them.

"Besides, as seen in this thread, RDMs don't seem to like to give Refresh to DRKs"
Yup.
This "strat" would just piss of the red mages. Half of them don't want to refresh you anyways especially when you're burning more MP then the PLD. I doubt this strat would add much damage anyways. If you have to rest after each battle for full MP, you're probably losing a lot of TP. Most redmages have a cycle for their refreshs. They do something like uhhh PLD>Themself>WHM>BLM or something, and cast refresh on a DRK maybe every 3-4 battles when they actaully NEED it. They don't enjoy having to refresh 5+ people constantly.

There are times when you get a rdm that doesn't care ... but when they do, get ready to rest.

A drk isn't even considered half a mage ... casting spells after each slash pretending you are wouldn't make you one either.

one more thing... Im still confused about the ending of the riddle ...
What 5 things balance?

[Akidon]

True, they are knights, but magic for DRK's was implemented there for a reason, and I believe DRK's should try to utilize it the best they can. As for the 5...I meant the five races.

[univox]

I've never been in the position where this is even remotely possible without disrupting the experience flow.

If I end up with the task of pulling, resting for all the MP I would have blown on elemental spells would just prevent me from getting the next mob fast enough to keep the chain going.

If another member happens to be pulling, I'd be killing TP which I gain slow enough as it is. This cuts back on the frequency of skill chains I can participate in, which in turn prevents the BLM from magic bursting as often which happens to outshine the damage I do from casting my gimped elemental spells in the first place.

And yes we do get magic for a reason. Nuking with elemental spells isn't it though and there's no riddle to solve to figure it out as SE made it easy to see. Dark magic that either comes at an earlier level (drain, aspir, stun) or is exclusive to the job (all the absorb spells).

[Evol]

Ah darn I was hoping this was a real riddle. :/

[fuz]

Even if drk were to suddenly get an A+ in elemental skill, it would barely be worth casting them. We don't use mage boosting equips, and thus have a large drop in int compared to a blm, or even a rdm. Our spells are highly resisted and often do little damage. Later on when lvl 2 spells are necessary, we lack the MP to use them effectively.

Even as hume, with the 2nd highest int of all the races, I still get plenty of resists on drain and aspir (our A+ skill) on IT mobs. Aspir is not sucessful enough to substantiate sustained casting, even if I go alternate drain-aspir-drain-aspir.

That said, it can be useful if you can MB with a spell a mob is weak to. In best case scenarios, a good lvl2 MB can equal the damage of a regular hit--heck, sometimes more than 3 times the damage.

The biggest drawback from all this casting is that it dealys swing time, reducing our TP build rate which is obviously, quite slow already.