Is it me or is there DRK hate in the community?

[fuz]

Sushi as it seems, lets you hit ~14% more. It doesn't give you more accuracy--it changes how much you actually hit for. If you had a 10% hit rate, eat sushi and you will hit 24% of the time. Likewise if you have 75% hit rate, eat sushi and hit for 89% of the time.


It affects ranged attacks as well. However, unlike melees, rng actually has more of a choice in food. Since rng has so much acc from equips and passives, and ranged attacks are not as susceptible to def penalties, they can choose between acc food or attack food in more situations than a melee can.

For melees, anything that is IT, sometimes VT requires sushi (depending on your skillchain partner). It's rare nowadays for melees to use attack food, which is sad. I certainly hit more often and get much more TP to rush that SC, but my normal hits drop ~40% in damage without good attack food. However, sushi still nets more total damage in less time per battle (because of faster tp gain), so I have no choice but to use sushi.

It's like all my attack bonuses are for nothing since I am rarely able to get a % boost on them with food or berserk (which makes a huge difference on drk, but not enough to overcome the low acc). Greatsword is a pretty horrible DPS weapon as well, which I dislike using but am pretty much forced to since a drk is just WS and stunner.

[kuu]

Sole give 5str.

There wasn't a rush for str before food change. ally bracelet was main for switch in WS SATA.

Now it's used everywhere.

There is a rough forumla on another thread about how WS work. The str rush has certainly changed the way melees do business.

Almost everything relating to str has been slowly but surely going into the center role where once acc gears dominated.

Rangers on the other hand is still resevered to the more traditional racc gears + attack food. Maybe if they move to str gear also, I don't know, hasn't happen anywhere i know.

[Jei]

There are rangers starting to go for STR in both gears and food too. Especially after 70 I think when they got their final range ACC boost ability.
A little discussion here.
http://ffxionline.com/forums/showthr...threadid=51413

And depending on how much evasion the mobs have, rangers do eat ACC food too from time to time. especially that annoying Torama.

[ibroyles]

It depends on what you're fighting I think. Most of the times in my static (PLD THF RNG WHM RDM and one pickup, usually BLM) we like to fight mobs which give 250 base xp, for a chance to get C5 ~400. We would go harder but with PLD tank it gets a little harder to fight 300 XP base mobs. Anyways, in that setup the RNG usually eats Squid(or Sole) Sushi. He still has very good gear, but without sushi unfortunately Slug Shot has very low accuracy. I don't have parses but lets just say Slug Shot -> Barrage -> Slug Shot doesn't work so good at keeping C5 unless every one of those hits connects.

On the VT-IT range mobs, yeah I'll forget using sushi and start using ATK+% food. On the other hand, the RNG still likes using sushi. Maybe those toramas (even at VT-IT) just reinforced this habit..

Rangers do have their weaknesses, even at 200% tp, awesome gear, and eating Squid Sushi they will still sometimes miss WS. DRK/THF and THF on the other hand, we never miss WS

[kumaeru]

Originally posted by kuu
Sole give 5str.

There wasn't a rush for str before food change. ally bracelet was main for switch in WS SATA.

Now it's used everywhere.

There is a rough forumla on another thread about how WS work. The str rush has certainly changed the way melees do business.

Almost everything relating to str has been slowly but surely going into the center role where once acc gears dominated.

Rangers on the other hand is still resevered to the more traditional racc gears + attack food. Maybe if they move to str gear also, I don't know, hasn't happen anywhere i know.

Meat kabobs had +5 str, Bison Steak has +5 or 6 str, Yellow Curry even has + str. Sole sushi is only loved because of what fuz said earlier. massive accuracy boosts.

The reason for people having +str gear is due to the fact that their WS has a +str modifier. Spinslash has a 30% Str and 30% Int modifier, Spiral Hell also has a 30% Str and 30% Int modifier. Crossreaper I believe is 30% Str 30% Mnd. The most obvious choice to boost damage is having +Str.

There was no sudden rush for +str gear, most melee's already knew it. Rng do eat accuracy food. I know more rng that eat accuracy food over attack food.

Alky's were always a wanted item for Drk. And usually now, you see Rng with more +agi and +str gear than +r.acc. Of course this is just crazy with Seiryu Kote's and Kirin's Osode. giving them +25 Agi and +10 Str alone.

[kuu]

Never said sole was use as an attack food, it's just that providing str gives some of it besides acc.

Pre food change, str was 2nd class citizen. You can't fight what you can't hit was the old saying.

Now anyone(relatively) can hit if they eat sole, so the focus changed, and gave melees much more creativity.

On balance, this was one of the main sticking points of rangers because they had naturally more then enough racc (sidewinder not withstanding). dual wield archers, bow, af, etc,

Now it's definitely more level playing field.

Somewhere around that change, my war could rampage (thanks to borrowed str gear) for 600-700 while my ranger counterpart had to sidewinder for 800-900. Sure i'm not going to out damage him, but given out repective differences in team tactics it's a lot more better then before food change where I would usually kick rampage at 400-500, and he would do his 800-900, still.

A drk that would stick out in the "thick" set for acc, snipers, etc, before can now throw in some creativity and go str instead. Though at my servers price point, perhaps not, but hey, it used to be good.

[kumaeru]

A drk should be bound to his Hauberk. And a war should be also up until he reaches lvl 73-75 and has the opportunity to get Adaman Hauberk or Kirin's Osode. The Haubergeon/Hauberk series of equipment give the best stats for the melee jobs that can use it.

The playing field is still not level.

Even at +60-70 accuracy you could find drks that say it's not enough. War's do not need accuracy as much as drk this is a given. And rng do not have more than enough r.acc. You can use Af body, dual hawker+1's, dual behemoth rings, crimson scale gloves, and dusk pants and still whiff shots and sidewinders. I've tried with Rng, using Gendawa+1. Also it's not just about +str for melee. It's about the balance of str, attack, accuracy. I sold the only Settler's Cape on Midgard about 2 days ago (2mil ;x) all because it had -10 attack. If it didnt it would have been an amazing cape due to it's +10 accuracy.


There is nothing better than thick set unless it's Cursed Adaman. For a drk to throw in "creativity" would need to work around the thick set. The move from snipers to +str rings did not come from food change. It came at lvl 65 from lvl 225 and Quest WS for Scythe and Greatsword. Str modifier boosts the damage for these WS greatly.

Balin's Sword is a better Spinslash Sword, with higher base dmg and even +4 str on it. But you will still find Drks going for the more expensive Balmung due to the +accuracy and +attack.

When a drk loses accuracy in one are of equipment he should look to replace that loss in another area. And creativity is not all +str. Most knowledgeable drks would know they not only need a ballance of accuracy, but also a balance in attack and str. If drk only boosts Str, they will have high cap dmg and still a pretty low average dmg. This is the same for all melee. The drk's who fully melee in Vampire Cloak are plain hurting their own output, by losing 20 accuracy 10 attack 6 str and 6 dex. Due to not being able to equip headgear.

Midgard has always been one of the most expensive servers for anything, but you still will find people finding the best setup's for all jobs.

[kuu]

You're going into an area where most people would step lightly, while you out right deem it true.

Wars do not have that much more acc then drk.

Sidewinder will wiff on anything, I know ranger who wiff on a monsters 30 levels below them. It just happens.

You assume a lot, but people are starting to go their own way, and some are saying it's better.

Even the numbers people have study under shows that having too much acc can be a bad thing. acc>all is old school thinking. May not be wrong, but may not be right anymore either.

[Macht]

Oh man, I can't believe there's still this hate trying to say RNG is the strongest. With most of the newer gear released RNG is only the strongest from 55-71, right at 55 we get sidewinder and E-Bow so we have a rediculously HUGE boost to power at that point.

Once a player like a WAR or SAM hits 71 they have just about all the same stuff a RNG has but with more options to dish out even better offense to defense strategies. They get nearly all of the RNGs best abilities along with the RNGs strongest WS.

Go with WAR and you can match up gear that makes you well balance in range accuracy and range attack, something that a RNG is forced to choose 1 of the two but can't obtain both to well equal point (If they try they just end up slightly better then WAR, which doesn't become so noticable then).

Then the WAR also can gear up for a defense that a RNG could never possibly achieve, even with the carapace set a RNGs defense falls way short. Then you have SAM the masters at TP add on Barrage and they become even more sickening with that ability. They do it right and slap on their 2hr they can get out like 5 or 6 Skillchains nearly non-stop.

The only thing that really makes a RNG seem so much more powerful is the utsusemi. Of course though you do any ???/NIN with the utsusemi and it can do insaine stuff, I still think the key thing that's putting all this out of wack is the Utsusemi. The change they had done to it I think was definatly needed but I still feel it needs tweaking, maybe even start to a point were it's effects as ???/NIN can alter depending on the main.

That way they can just introduce gear to make the Utsusemi back to that equivalent for those certain jobs. Then a job like the RNG if they want to still keep such an ability would have to trash some of their Ranger ability in terms of accuracy and attack. Done right I'd think it would balance the RNGs right. They are already pretty well balanced with RNG/WAR if I try to go all out without a good hate holder, or someone who can get the hate back. I run a very high chance of having that mob turning me into a fine paste.

As a result of that risk and throwing money along with it, I kind of think I deserve that damage potential. I just find it a bit unfair that a RNG/NIN could be such an equal when all they are using up is their money. Then again though when I look at the potentials of what a WAR and SAM can do with a good bow at 71 it kind of doesn't bother me as much. Still though for insainse damage RNG/WAR really tops it, but we are a very suicidal group especially when you end up a tank and THF that can't keep hate right along with a WHM that for some stupid reason thinks it a good idea to cast curaga II while fighting

[fuz]

Str is mostly used by 2h weapon users to boost WS, it's rarely used to boost normal melee hits where attack is much more efficient. Unlike str, attack has an exponential gain in damage until you hit the cap. Say a 20% attack boost, about +80 attack from food with 400 base can boost my damage maybe 40%. Consequently, stacking all my +str equips and using absorb-str for +40 str won't net me near the increase on normal hits, but it will help with WS. That is why we have swap macros instead of just leaving str equips in. Yes I do hit harder with lots of str, maybe 10-20% harder--which is totaly worthless if without my acc equips I miss 20-30% more, in addition to slowing tp gain.

Really, melee rarely (drk virtually never) hit an 81% accuracy rate to max out the benefit of sushi (about 95% max hit rate). If we could easily hit 95% hit rate and exceed it, that's when we start pumping in attack and str gear instead of acc. However, the difference between 94% and 95% hit rate which seems an insignificant 1%, is actually 17% more melee damage, and 17% more tp (the difference between 5% and 6%). Hit rate also has an exponential increase in damage like attack, only you get TP as well. That's why everyone is so accuracy crazy when WS (which pretty much ignore def) are half or more of your damage output.

SE pretty much damnned all melees (especialy drk and drg) by reducing the significance of regular hits and making them depend more on WS. Which is where the infamous swap tactic in alliance fights comes in. Instead of being icing on the cake, WS are the cake and we don't have any more icing. (not that I acutally like icing irl... but I hope you get the point)

[fuz]

Well, for the rng hating it's not really hate at rng, more like hate at drk for not being up to rng (or even war) standards, in most battles.

It sort of gravitated to rng since it's the most obvious standard which DDs are compared to. But drk doesn't really compare very well to any DD at late to endgame. At lot of small issues add up to put drk close to last place in utility and DD.

I'll re-cap.

In exchange for lower def and high emity generation, our DD capacity is roughly equal or lower than other jobs. Our spells are supposed to make up for it, but instead they interfere with DD rather than help (from high cast time, limited effect, and MP cost). We don't have the sheer melee capacity or accuracy to match any job except sam, and due to slow TP gain, our high damage WS are roughly equvalent, or much lower in value than other jobs which gain TP faster.

We sacrifice tp gain and melee damage for /thf, give up WS power with hate control for /war. Drk just can't seem to shine in any role besides stunner. The downsides aren't very pronouced in exp PTs, but they break the job on tough fights.

[Macht]

Originally posted by fuz
Well, for the rng hating it's not really hate at rng, more like hate at drk for not being up to rng (or even war) standards, in most battles.

It sort of gravitated to rng since it's the most obvious standard which DDs are compared to. But drk doesn't really compare very well to any DD at late to endgame. At lot of small issues add up to put drk close to last place in utility and DD.

I'll re-cap.

In exchange for lower def and high emity generation, our DD capacity is roughly equal or lower than other jobs. Our spells are supposed to make up for it, but instead they interfere with DD rather than help (from high cast time, limited effect, and MP cost). We don't have the sheer melee capacity or accuracy to match any job except sam, and due to slow TP gain, our high damage WS are roughly equvalent, or much lower in value than other jobs which gain TP faster.

We sacrifice tp gain and melee damage for /thf, give up WS power with hate control for /war. Drk just can't seem to shine in any role besides stunner. The downsides aren't very pronouced in exp PTs, but they break the job on tough fights.

Ok, put in that way I can see better. I guess I'd have to agree then, but I still haven't seen to many posts about tests on the newer DRK gear that's been released to get a view of what it does to effect their job. Until all aspects have really been checked then I always tend to have a policy of error on the belief that they've still got great unfound potential.

[fuz]

The problem is of course, 'potential' doesn't make me more useful overall, and won't increase my invite rate.

I'm really against SE's recent trend of releasing difficult to obtain situatational gear. It's like they're making a half hearted attempt to fix jobs, but aren't willing to comit the permanace of actually chaging the job stats/abilities at the core. So now we have this (yet another) ludicrously expensive armor set as a semi-fix, giving SE an excuse to ignore us (and other jobs) again. As if the equip swaping isn't getting out of hand already, the majority of drks will never get the set. So it's not an equal change to all--only the hardcore will get a taste of what a drk might be able to do with spells, whereas every rng has great damage right from the job with easy to obtain equips.

[kumaeru]

The new Drk JSE can be a good set in terms of stats. Giving a good balance of Attack and +str. Will you see people dropping every piece of +accuracy equipment thinking that Sole Sushi will keep them happy? no. Kunuwu ore is still a hard thing to get, as its only known to drop from Ouryu 18 player BCNM. Plaestron still wont beat out hauberk, unless Drk's Magic abilities are boosted.

Macht, one would need to make the gear first to test it XD. I would love Black/Onyx legs :/

As fuz said, Drk give up pretty good dmg on swings and decent TP gain speed. for thf sub to give them better WS damage to get good Renkei effect bonus, and to transfer hate or not die. Thf sub hurts TP gain a lot. And even for CoP dragons Tiamat, Jormungand Drk/Thf is one of the best DD's because of that Thf sub and WS.

And for the record, Accuracy > All when you need to hit for extremly low dmg a swing because your WS is going to setup the renkei so Blms can burst on it. Or have you not hit 0-10 dmg per swing on a scythe or your greataxe even on an HNM. For drk if you get 1 dmg that gives you 12-13% TP you're happy your closer to doing your WS.

Rng on the other hand almost never see this hit for 0-10 dmg. Even on high def mobs. On Rng I hit for around 50 at the least.

Also when a Rng can hit close to 1000dmg or even past it on Kirin with a Sidewinder because of a Gendawa+1 which has the hidden no damage cap on WS effect, just blows it even more out of proportion.

And I haven't been assuming anything.

[Izual]

A lot of this thread seems like a bunch of drks whining they're not the best at everything to me. Many of the 'shortcomings' noted are greatly over-exaggerated or simply non-existent. So much has been said that it would be impossible to address every point brought up so I'll just summarize my own opinion on the matter. It seems there are two different areas being examined, merit point parties and HNM, so I'll address each separately.

First, merit point parties. Anyone complaining that drk is no good for endgame xp is full of crap. Someone mentioned that our DoT sucks compared to other jobs. Are you kidding? If you're comparing pure DoT, no skillchain ws when you can etc. then drk/war is fairly high up there. My scythe can hit 200-ish on xp mobs, factor in double attack and souleater and we're on par with any other melee class. Scythe is also a fairly high dps weapon, not to mention perfct tp ratio (exactly 100% after 8 hits). But pure DoT comparisons are pointless anyway. The average group will use us as a skillchain closer with /thf, which we're the best at in the game no contest. And contrary to what you may believe, the 'typical' frontline can still be very effective at endgame. I've seen 8-9k/hour with a plain old rng nin drk frontline, which I'm more than happy with. It seems like the only semi-valid point brought up was against ranger parties. I'll admit these are unbalaned, but that comes more from the nature of the job more than anything else. A ranger's DoT at 75, even when using sidewinder, is not leaps and bounds above any other DD. In fact their normal attacks on vt-it enemies aren't even that strong. Their burst damage with barrage/sidewinder coupled with the ability to attack from a distance makes those parties work. But again, non-ranger parties can still get great xp so I don't really see what the problem is.

Regarding HNM, there's a common view that drk is simply useless against all HNM except for stun in a few occasions. This is, to be blunt, completely fucking ridiculous. In any fight where kiting isn't involved, drk/thf can do huge damage. Some people mentioned slow tp gain, but if you're hitting pretty well it really doesn't take long to get to 100%. And 100 is all you need, because even at 100 tp SATA spinning slash is one of the most powerful weaponskills in the game. Yea samurai can get tp much faster, but their weaponskills at 200-300% tp are about the same as ours at 100%. Rangers do significantly more damage with regular attacks but their weaponskill damage is much lower. Not to mention /thf melee can put their hate on tanks and set up nice skillchains, which the blms can burst on without fear because you just put 2000 damage worth of hate on the tank.

The only type of fight where drk is lacking (indeed all pure melee classes share this problem) is on kited hnm. We have no way to deal a significant amount of ranged damage, so in this style of fight rangers and even monks are more or less completely superior to us. But even this can be overcome to an extent. If you actually manage to get tp and get your timing down, SA ws still hits just about anything pretty hard. You can even coordinate with your ls and pause kiting for a second to set up really nice skillchains. Tp gain is an issue, but you can get around this with sleep pots if you don't mind spending some cash. In fact, if you're determined enough and keep repeating this, you'll be putting out damage almost on par with a ranger (I said almost :p). Sure, this is sort of a work-around. But rangers, by the very nature of the class, are practically designed for this type of fight. Dark knights, by the nature of the class, are designed for close-range combat. Can't really complain that rangers are better than us in this situation, them NOT being better would be unbalanced. Point is, even in fights where we're lacking the most we still have the potential to seriously contribute, enough so that we're more than justified being there.

To be honest, all the drks complaining about end-game that aren't even there themselves should experience it first before crying for a job 'fix'. Me, I've done it all 20 times over by now. I'm well aware of our limitations, but also well aware of our potential. There are very few things that I believe should be changed with drk if anything. But hey, believe what you want.