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

Thoughts on Mujin Band for a WS ring? Assuming Resolution, and that you're closing the skillchain, 5% damage seems to beat any other ring option.

edit: Sulevia's Platemail +1, too. Seems like 6% damage will beat Argosy Hauberk +1 path A, right? This gets a bit cloudier because of the effective 6% DA on Argosy.

edit: the math doesn't work out on these.

Its the best 30% of the time and 2nd best 70% of the time.


Most people haven't got a clue. Apoc is bad ***.

Apoc is a lot of fun and I still use it when I'm on drk which isn't that often these days. Like you scythes are what first brought me to the job nothing like swing a massive bladed hook on a stick lol. I haven't 119v3 mine yet but I hear it's a lot better now especially if you need the acc since it has 60 and another 15 with aftermath up.

I'd say make the weapon for the job you like/play the most first.

STR rings like Ifrit+1 or the one from Escha Suzaku will be better always for 3 reasons:
1) they increase the base damage of Resolution (the WS mod is 85% of STR)
2) they increase physical WS damage by inflating the fSTR term in how physical WSs are calculated
3) they increase attack, which Resolution always has a penalty for.

Losing WS damage for SC damage will just result in a weaker SC as SC damage is based of the final WS damage dealt and the number of WSs.


Similar reasoning with why the Platemail sucks for anything other than its DT.
SCdmg+ is generally a stat that's not favored over WSdmg+ or QA/TA/DA, as previously mentioned, SC damage is based on WS damage; and those increase WS damage, which increases SC damage.
Specifically why it's worse than Argosy+1 for Resolution:
Less STR. (Augments with 12 or 15 more STR)
Less Attack. (Augments with 20 attack)
No DA. (This increases Reso's damage as fTP is transferred to each hit. Also, with any other piece of Argosy+1 you get 9%DA... and that's not even taking into account what DA the other piece in the set is using. Just the 2/5 set bonus and the 5% base on Argosy+1.)

edit: I'm wrong. Sorry about that.

Couple of things glossed over I'd like clarification on (sorry im new):

How can you fulltime Souleater with Apoc
When you say its hard to die with Apoc, reasons? Is it the capped haste which lowers drain timers?

Making an apoc after I finish gs, so would be interested in learning the stuffs. Not interested in making a mythic.

Well the hp Souleater takes goes out before Catas hp recovery kicks in so you lose 0 hp. The only thing you will lose hp on is any auto attacks but the hp recovery effect will give you more hp back anyway. So every time Souleater is up you can use it for the full duration without really having to worry about killing yourself.

I highly recommend always having meds to help remove buffs, I have made the mistake in the past relying on mages to para/poison/erase me and end up dead or very low dps. Now I carry stacks of meds at all times, especially in situations with souleater up it makes it more so vital to need to not be debuffed when using catastrophe in order to keep your hp up.


Hard to die because apoc replenishes so much hp per ws, with MB drain 2/3 you have low end hp of 4k, some people have enough of a drain set to hit 9,999 hp. (that alone is hard to kill) at 1200 jp with gear your dread spikes will do 105% of your total max hp. That means if you have (let's use that low end 4k) 4k hp * 1.05 means your dread spikes will absorb 4.2k dmg. If you have 8k hp you will have an 8.4k dread spikes. So 4k-10k dread spikes, with weapon bash, stun, catastrophe and -dt gear with capped haste, you will out live lots of plds. (I got stuck soloing Arciela on wave 3 on drk with apoc -dt, she was a raging *** and popped 5 nm's in under a minute killed 5/6 of pt)

Drk with Apoc is insanely hard to kill. Furthermore just running cata/souleater with buffs makes you a hard hitting monster.

Edit: you need empy body 119 to maximize dread spikes potency

So Catastrophe spam is basically the ws of choice with apoc? And how does it compare to Resolution, numbers wise. I see the diversity in weapon choice is pretty neat

This post alone is making me want to reactivate my character.... FFXI Dark Knight is pretty much the most fun I've ever had playing a video game.

Since haste gear is so stupidly easy to get these days, the aftermath of Catastrophe isn't a huge deal. Catastrophe is VERY powerful, but Quistes and Spiral Hell are pretty boss with 2000%-3000% tp also.

The only thing I don't like about Liberator..... is not being able to Catastrophe haha.

Cata is not the ws of choice, your fTP is much higher on Cross Reaper. Numbers wise, nothing compares to reso, which blows for the longest time I was getting way better numbers with torc and because of that it became my favorite ws. But even with monster gear I can't get torc to keep up with reso anymore.

High end numbers I see with lackluster ws sets. (I know for a fact my ws sets are way behind)

With Apoc AG
13k-ish cata (9k avg)
19k-ish entropy/quietus (9k avg)
25k-ish cross reaper (15k avg)
With Rag AG
13k-ish Scourge (11k avg)
32k-ish Torc (15k avg)
49k-ish Reso (18k avg)

This is just an eyeball memory of my recent battles, keep in mind that some of these ws increase drastically with tp (i.e. reso/cross reaper) and current buffs.

edit: Generally I only even use apoc when things go south, but I have both AG Rag/Apoc which isn't an option for so many people, I am not saying one is greater than the other, one will deal more dmg but you are likely to rip hate off the tank and die, the other will still deal dmg but also has an added utility of swapping from hasso to siegan as well as the hp replenish of cata.

Very informative. Thanks Thorva. That description of Apocalype and all of DRK's goodies is pretty exciting, to say the least.

Oh, extra notes,

I almost never use souleater without running apoc. I trust very few whm to cure me while spamming multi-attk + reso with AG rag.

Another thing, I almost never need the use of pur acc sets or even diabolic eye when using AG apoc/rag. Pop a sushi and so far have been fine with acc, and that goes as far as saying I do fights that my cor needs to use acc gear with sushi and my drk only needs sushi.

Full acc gear no buffs I get 1357 acc with AG Rag. Never really checked with full buffs as I can't think of a single time I have used diabolic eye since I made AG, especially with souleater. (Not saying you can't with the hp bonus you get now though)

Full buff cor/brd/geo/DE/SE/Hasso/Sushi/AgRelic yeah.... you are breaking 1.6k easy with "meh" gear. Like I said though, wouldn't know actual acc I get full buff as never once had cor/brd/geo in same pt much less ran Diabolic Eye.

Also keep in mind the haste forms drk can use, entrust haste can hit 29.9% with skill/gear/merits. MG gives you 15% and both of those can stack with Haste 1/2.
Haste 1 is 15%, haste 2 is 30%
Brd can give you 19% (Check me, not 100% on that one)

Magic haste caps at 43.75%
Gear caps at 25% (need 26%)
JA caps at 25% (LR will give you 25% so no need for hasso)
Hasso is 10% (JA haste)
Apoc AM is 10% (JA Haste)

So make sure your JA all correspond.
No need running Apoc AM, Hasso and LR all at once, that will put you over JA haste cap and do absolutely nothing for you.

Aside: Has relic aftermath been changed to refresh itself yet?

Been that way since at least 2012 which is the year I got my first relic, and it indeed overwrote itself then. Not oldschool knowledgeable enough to know if that was always the case or not.

Is there any escha stuff that drk can solo w.o apoc? Been wanting to try just not sure

Just try them all, you might get lucky, you might not.

It didn't. I might be thinking of Mythics though.

That is entirely dependent on your trust, your level of skill/gear and on some nm's just plan how lucky you get.

Can drk solo escha nms? Absolutely, be prepared for trial and error on some of them though.

Is there a general list of what's easier to solo vs others? Say no access to august and floating around 1100+ acc with no buffs/food

Your best bet is to start with Escha-Zi'Tah T1 Gaes Fete NMs. They will be the easiest to solo with trusts. Just work your way up. If you really want to solo these nms, you have to be okay with dying a lot.

My general rule is if I can solo it on ochain pld, i can solo it on apoc drk. If I need Aegis to solo it, its going to be a tough solo on apoc.

Hard/fast hitting physical mobs are absolutely no problem for apoc. You have catastrophe, stun, dreadspikes and weapon bash to cycle through.

Clearly didn't read the question.


Thanks for the suggestion gruknor

Thanks for the info Thorva, that helps alot. I am still struggling gear haste as i dont have any +1 adj gears,s eems hard to cap gear haste.

First thing I would do when soloing escha nm's is pop a dark seal/nether void Drain 2/3 on a fodder mob and build tp while trust pre-buff you. Before popping nm I would cast dread spikes while you have Max Hp boost up.

The tp will help you stabilize the hate with trust at the start so you aren't chasing the damn things around if you don't use a tank trust. Make sure you are comfortable enough to do this without a tank trust, I don't want someone running in without a tank trust in skirm gear thinking this will be a cake walk their first try.

I would start with Wepwawet, seems to be the easiest without apoc. If you are comfortable there move on to Vyala the Coeurl, he really isn't that bad, just ride seigan/3e if things look crappy, if dread spikes is down make sure to 3rd eye right before casting your dread spikes mid fight, that will prevent you from getting interrupted from physical attacks.

The beetle can hit kinda hard and has some high eva if not dispelled, I wouldn't really recommend him for starters.

Tiger "can" be soloed by a drk with Valaineral and Amchuchu trust, the trick to prevent losing from trust tank getting one shotted is to actually split your tank casting. What I mean by that is your first cast would be tank, your next 3 trust would be support/heals and your final cast would be tank.

Party setup will look like this

You
Valaineral
Apururu
Koru-Moru
Shantotto II
Amchuchu

Or whatever trust you prefer.

When you do this and you position each of the tank trust on opposite sides of the ??? pop they will tank on different sides. This will allow one tank to die and the other tank to take over.
The longer the tiger is alive, like most escha/reisenjima nms, the harder they get. So it is up to you to balance your dmg to not take hate but at the same time deal enough dmg that the nms die relatively fast.



You don't need +1 abj gear to cap haste, if anything swap out ammo/belt/grip for a haste piece. Can pick up a quick haste there without major impact on your gear.


edit: always have remedies, panacea, echo drops (you have mp you need to be able to use it), holy waters

tl;dr if you're still using a tank trust, you probably aren't soloing anything that you can actually hit.

Not true, there are a few nm's that you can still solo once gear is higher without tank trust. 8k hp, dreadspikes, seigan/3e, and -dt can tank a lot of nms. Especially if you /war and have an enmity set.

The reason I said what I did and how I said it was to show that even in returning gear there is still a possibility to get your wins solo. The goal is to get people to try and obtain the thought process as well as the skill level to be able to do some semblance of endgame even without perfect gear.

Don't always need to /sam, you can do a bunch of different things on drk to change up your options. /rdm, /blu, /war, /sch, /sam, /pld everything depends on what you are doing and what you are comfortable with. Breaking the in-the-box thinking will get you a lot further than just doing what people tell you that you are capable of.

wrong thread - posted in up to date gear sets

Throve, would you mind sharing your set on Apoc or acc set?

I'm a bit curious how people are getting their Resolution's to go higher than their Torcleaver's. Normally I see 20-25K Torcleaver's, but when I go to Resolution it might hit 17~19K damage. The input would be greatly appreciated.

My current Reso set looks something like this:
ItemSet 344226
Valorous Mask: STR+5 ACC+36 ATK+23
Argosy Hands/Legs: Path D
Ankou Mantle: STR+20 ACC/ATK+20 DA+10

My Torcleaver build looks like so:
ItemSet 344227
Odyssean Gauntlets: VIT+10 ACC+36 ATK+29
Valorous Hose: ACC/ATK+19 WSD+5
Ankou Mantle: STR+20 ACC/ATK+20 WSD+10

Also, this is with a max dmg McBain (yes I know it's Macbain but that Simpsons reference though...)