Drk/Thf

[Awntawn]

/THF is the only viable option for your standard conventional PTs, but once you hit 75 and start meritting, pt's start getting a little less conventional, but can still be better than normal pts... (Gotta love endgame. Shitty parties like almost don't exist anymore). For example, BLMs fucking own (1.7k damage MBs make me cry). If you can get 2 BLM in the PT, subbing THF is not worth it as /WAR will gain TP much faster to prep for MB, not to mention barely any mob will survive a full /THF skillchain + 1 MB, therefore the 2nd would be completely wasted.

[Ninjitsu]

Well, /sam worked for me on a few occasions where we wanted to crank up consistent damage a bit more.

We did:

WHM/BLM
RDM/BLM
BLM/WHM
PLD/WAR
RNG/NIN
DRK/SAM

We wanted to try and make more use of sidewinder damage and wanted to skillchain with it more to get more damage.

Guillotine + Sidewinder was very effective, and I was able to skillchain with the ranger every time. We were getting consistent chain 5's with this setup.

Another case where /SAM was useful was when we tried the following:

THF/SAM
DRK/SAM
PLD/WAR
DRG/WAR
WHM/BLM
RDM/BLM


The DRG would provoke @1, and the THF and I would bust off as many vorpal + dancing edges or power slashes + dancing edges as we could to keep the damage rolling. We made up for the lack of a BLM or RNG by increasing the skillchain rate. Hate wasn't much of an issue in the PT. We managed it fairly well and were getting chain 4-5 consistently in valley of sorrows.

/SAM in that case makes sense if you didn't have /THF. Otherwise, you might as well have done a /THF and guillotine yourself and stop using weak power slashes to feed dancing edge. The bad news is that /sam only gives you 60TP per meditate. That is still enough to keep you ready to skillchain every time though in cases where that is preferred.

I generally agree that /THF seems to make a whole lot of sense in most PTs after you hit 60 thanks to trick attack. For that reason, and after I got killed at Labyrinth of Onzonzo (spelling?) trying to pull that old voke @1 crap, I decided that I wasn't going to level DRK anymore until I got THF 30+.

Just my 2 gil on it.

[kumaeru]

60+ you do use Thf sub until you are like lvl 74 lvl 75.. where it doesnt take too much to take down Mobs and you just use something like War sub or Sam sub for faster TP so the Blms can waste it faster (as what Awn explained).

lvl 60-65 you mainly use Thf sub for Trick Attack if using Guillotine, althought Sneak attack helps a tiny bit it doesnt help too much. Trick Attack is there so you dont have to cry for cover.

However if you have Sickle Moon (you better >.>), SATA helps a lot for those powerful renkei bonuses.

lvl 65ish Crossreaper is good for closing Darkness renkei.. very nice on Flies and Procesionaires. However.. lvl 66 comes.. Spinslash is your godsend WS which everyone seems to love. SATA helps a ton on these 2 WS'.