(Don't) Fear The Reaper: A Dark Knight Guide

If you have the inventory space, sounds reasonable to me.

Would give you WS options too.

That how long they last against my Ukoi121 without a single geo, and just trusts,... so its not really saying much.

I think it is. I didn't time it, but just knowing my WS frequency it would have been taking me 24-30 seconds per mob I was killing.

I'd say that is pretty good for a weapon that was completely free and took me 15 hours to make start to finish.

I could kill just as fast with wallmart greataxe and the 2x geos.
Point Apex mobs dying in 20-30 seconds isn't anything special.

I didn't have any Geos, just trusts. As a I bolded. Qultada, KoH and Joachim.

Change of topic is nice in comparison to what it was....

Anyway, yes, if you have the invent space by all means get as much gear as it takes to optimize your sets. If you have sam roll on cor you will need less sTP in gear and more DA instead. Some of those aug pieces can get some serious +acc/attk/str augs for your reso sets, other pieces can benefit from sTP, DA, or wsdmg%.

Having too much gear is not a real issue if you intend to main a job (or at least spend a decent amount of time on it) you have invent and 2 wardrobe spaces. Manage your invent effectively (meaning don't carry around your pup gear at all times if you are on drk) and you will almost never have invent issues even with 20 pieces of augment gear.

2 sets of each with current invent options, you are talking 20/240 space. Not even 10% of your invent space.

So one sTP build set, one DA set, one str mod ws set, one with ws dmg throw in sulv +1 when needed, jse gear, a few grips, some earrings/belts/rings/ammo. Whatever you need for your build, still going to be hard to cap out on 240 invent slots unless you are just terrible at managing invent.

No before some jack-wagon comes along and takes what I said out of context, no I didn't say you can't have more than 240 pieces of gear for one job, but don't carry dual-wield gear on drk if you plan on using scythe. (Yes I have seen effective 20k savage blades on drk/nin and get decent acc too) Don't carry +vit rings if you plan on using scythe. If you bring apoc for emergency swapping from gs to stay alive, plan ahead.

I know I rarely use Dacnomania, therefore I leave it in MH.

If you follow the quotes he wasn't even talking to you he was talking about the guy with the drg sam geox2 cor and w/e. Killing apex mobs in 20mins.

After several years, I've decided to come back to my one true love, Dark Knight. I'm about 2000 plutons away from a Ragnarok 121, so I thought I'd start working on overhauling the rest of my DRK gear.

Would there be anyone able to share updated gear sets for a Ragnarok? The closest I've found scanning the latest pages on this topic was this guy, who seems to have a DRK/SAM 5hit TP set, and a Torcleaver WS set. Is he on the right track? Would a different build be more optimal? What would the gear and/or augments look like for a Resolution build?

Thanks ahead of time for the feedback.

That's irrelevant. His claim is that there isn't anything special about killing an Apex mob in a CP party with an Aeonic. I agree. Except at the same time he quoted ME where I am doing the same thing with just trusts. This is what my reply is aimed at, I omitted Saeval's portion of the quote specifically because it had nothing to do with what I was talking about or the point I was making.

Can you show me a video of a Walmart gaxe using WAR killing apex monster in 20-30s with trusts? Not the low lvl ones either,

Better idea, take the conversation to the war forum.

Past several pages have been talking an awful lot about job not titled in this thread. Thread needs to get back on track so that people that want to know about drk don't come into a post full of other crap.

<.<

This is an example of someone trolling you guys.



There isn't, he's *** with you guys. Apex Bats are level 128~130 with an attack down TP move. An unbuffed DD simply won't have a high enough cRatio to kill that fast nor would they be swinging fast enough to consistently SC. Now Apex Raptors you can do that on, assuming the trusts do march's and not ballads. Still not going to be 20s, more like 45~60 without frailty.

Level 126 rabbits have somewhere around 1100 defense, these are 2~4 levels above them so ~1200. cRatio caps at 3.75 so 4500 raw attack needed if no defense down debuffs. With just Dia III (trusts only) you are looking at 1020 defense and 3825 attack needed to cap. A real GEO (900 +Dunna) using frailty is -28.3 defense without any JA's used, with Dia II added you get -38.3 defense for 740 defense, meaning 2775 attack to cap. That is why GEO is required to do decent melee damage on these monsters, they simply have too much defense. A (WAR or DRK) going in there would have 1200~1300 normal attack and 1620~1755 with Berserk/LR up. That gives a 1.5 ~ 1.6 cRatio which is going to be putting out very low numbers.

Yeah GEO is that OP as a buffer. GEO-Malaise does ridiculous things for magic damage, GEO-Frailty does the same for melee damage. Fury is really nice but it's Frailty that can do stupid things for damage. Hell we didn't really need that second GEO as I prefer to take a BRD but none were available, so we stuck him on Indi-haste to cap our melee's.

Swing Hard or Die Trying. j/k (not really)

Seeing as I know I'm one of the few people here not using a RMEA I can only speak that perspective. That said...

@Keimontague The above Ragnarok set looks pretty good. I might change out the Ganesha Mala for a Lissome Necklace though. Quadruple Attack +2 is nice but it comes at the cost of a Accuracy. Small nit pick but every point of accuracy counts on DRK in my honest opinion.

I only used it for easy comparison due to me already doing the DA vs STP calcs on it (without including the damage +20) and it had very similiar builds for Rag as DRK.

Outside of that, DRK and WAR play very differently. DRK really needs a darkness SC to MB NV DS Drain III, and Scythe is far easier to do that on then GS.

As Thorva already stated yes it's perfectly viable to have more than one set of Valorous/Odyssean for different situations as long as you have the inventory space to hold them. I don't quite remember who had posted it but I only recently realized Odyssean boots can be used for a MAcc set. After I've tossed 5 or 6 pairs to the reclaimer for points.

Anywho... to make a long answer short, if you have the space and manage your inventory well enough it's perfectly fine. Enjoy!

Odyssean Boots are also BiS for fast cast on DRK, along with Odyssean body. I have 6% FC on both and it's pretty dope.

Those are decent TP and Torcleaver sets for low accuracy needs. Stuff with higher accuracy needs, you might want to check out this ffxiah link to up to date item sets and gearswap scripts. It is mainly for Scythe, but you can use it for Ragnarok as well. Ruaumoko's first TP item set is what you should strive for. You might have to tweak how much Store TP and Double Attack you have for the set.

nah im not *** with anyone. with 2 x GEO's I can kill an Apex bat in 20-30 seconds using a 242 AH Great Axe.
As I said I regularly do that with just Uko's i121 and no geos. With 2x GEOs, any i119 Great axe > Uko.
All you have to do is self sc. There's a video of me doing it already up in war forums with trusts.

You won't have the cRatio to do that unless you prebuffed or blew WC while having 2000+ TP at the start. Apex Bats have, like most other 128~130 monsters, ~1200 defense and you don't have anywhere near the ~4000 attack necessary. They have ~150K HP, even with a four or five step Radiance your WS's won't be nearly powerful enough to make strong SC's. There isn't even a large difference between 269 Ukon and the other 242 GAXE's and your not even using the bestter 269 weapon. An extra 50 STR isn't going to magically make you able to consistently kill a level 128~130 Apex monster in under 20 seconds, ~60 seconds possibly but not under 20. The March's from trust are +0 so both will give you 15.7% haste which caps you with Haste II, assuming the trusts don't decide to give you ballads, paeons or madrigals instead. Furthermore you won't have the 200+ point barwater to mostly block the attack down and instead would have to hope the trusts removed it before you WS'd to continued your SC.

Again this has jack ***to do with weapons, it's just down to basic stats that you simply won't have which is how I know your bullshitting everyone. With our super buffs doing the three step SD -> Shoha -> Fusion -> Drakes -> Light would leave the Apex Bat at 10~25% HP which is why the SAM closed with Fudo and ended the fight. No way your underbuffed trust soloing *** came anywhere close to that kind of damage. Next your going to tell us how you "solo" T3/T4 Reis NM's with trusts.

Ooooh looks like I have some cRatio changes to look into. Why does nobody tell me something that fundamental got changed three months ago?

I like how "that thing people argued was still true about overcoming level correction with more attack but were totally wrong about back at 75 cap in 2010 after Aug 2007" is now true.

No more low ceiling for crits is nice too.

Yes cRatio is now different (again) for the different weapons. One hand is 3.25 with crits going to 4.25, two handed is 3.75 with crits going to 4.75. Statistically crits now have a little less value then under the old system but that is slightly made up with +Crit damage some 2H jobs have in Gifts.

4.75/3.75 = 1.266 (26% increase)
3.0/2.25 = 1.33 (33% increase)

That change is why a super buffed 2H DD can put out some extreme damage, 30~40K weapon skills. To reach this damage level DD's now need lots of +Attack and -Defense. Geo-Frailty + Dia + Fury + Berserk or Last Resort + Chaos / ect.

Just earlier today we did all the T1 and T2 NM's in Reisenjima using mostly 2H melee setups with GEO's doing their thing. Was a blast and we just kersplated everything, even made a new record on Old Shuch, 35 seconds now.

This explains my observation that Quietus doesn't suck anymore, though that's because I'm so far under cap again...


Those were the days...

So just finished some testing on Apex bats to get solid info


To reach cRatio cap on these bats you'd have to have 4387 attack.
With just Dia II (-10%) you would need 3948 attack
With Dia III (-15%) you would need 3727 attack

That is what you can get from trusts.

Geo with 900 Skill + Dunna would give
With Geo-Frailty (-28.3%) you would need 3142 attack
With Geo-Frailty and Dia II (-38.3%) you would need 2707 attack

Attack buffs include
Berserk / Last Resort = +35%
Chaos Roll (with +5 ring) = 40.6% (lucky 4) 46.8% (perfect 11), 56.5% (perfect 11 with DRK)
Geo-Fury = +48.2%
Warcry = +11.2% for 60s with 5min recast, also gives +700TP Bonus (the real reason to use it)
Misc static buffs = +100~200 base.

Nobody is reaching anywhere close to attack cap without a real GEO in the party. This is why we use GEO's for things, they double the damage output, sometimes more, of anyone in the party. Of course these days people think dual boxing a GEO mule is "soloing".

Just throwing this out there, but apex crawlers technically would be simpler even with their defense up buff. (They should also be the "lowest lvl" of the apex mobs)

That said, I can definitely concur on reaching 3727 attack with just trusts from my soloing sessions.

Apex raptors nearby, they don't have any defense moves (Cocoon is +100% from a Crawler giving it ~2000 defense). They give less CP and are considered the "Soloist's" apex mobs because they are much easier to kill then the bigger ones in Doh Gates. This was about an Apex CP party killing Apex Bats in Doh Gates, to which he claimed he could consistently kill those same bats in 20s or less with his WAR and just trusts. I called *** as I'm very familiar with all these camps and the stat requirements to kill them fast. He was making ***up to troll people.


Not outside of Abyssea / Escha Vorseals / Voidwatch temps. There simply isn't enough sources of +attack available. Trust BRD's are naken 99 BRD's with blank AH instruments. The Trust COR is rolling like an idiot with no ring on. Berserk / Last Resort is +35% from main job and you have around ~1300 base attack on anything worth hitting.

1300
+150 (endark II)
+40 LR JP
+62 (+ Minuet)

1552 * 1.35 = 2095 Attack, which is about what I expect a DRK to reach consistently on their own.

Unless your also using Berserk, like an idiot, then you could see ~2600 but would be taking 150% more damage, only useful if your killing monsters so weak they aren't worth discussing. But 3500+ at an Apex camp with just trusts, not happening.

Was this person named Concise?

I have a dex+atk/acc+da augmented ambuscade cape. Should I get the str+atk/acc+wsd or the str+atk/acc+da? This augmented drk ambuscade cape will be for my Resolution set.

P.S.I apologize in advance if I start any drama for our momma's. I just need to know if I was in the right or wrong for writing someone off as a dumbass.

DA. WSD is typically a poor choice for anything with more than 2 hits.

STR +20
Atk/Acc +20
DA +10

Technically a DEX one would be better for TP but I don't think it's worth making another cape over. The +WSD one is just for Torcleaver if you wanna do that.

Torcleaver cape is next month. XD