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

I have had countless people refer to catastrophe as "misstastrophe," I knew there was an acc bonus to single hit ws, I did not however know it was all ws getting the same bonus on the first hit.

At any rate, I have had people show me their ws sets many times over with apoc or whatever weapon and they all have one thing in common. Most ws sets I see have about 1k acc in them. Doesn't seem too bad even with the bonus of +100 acc most ws sets I see are hovering at 1.1k. (but still not even hitting 1.2k)

I have sacrificed in many of my sets the mod on the ws for acc and greatly increased dps just off the simple fact I am not whiffing ws.

Last thought: someone asked me to post my apoc sets a while back, I haven't done so because I feel I am not that good with scythe since I lean more towards GS for dmg and only use scythe as solo.

I am working on setting up scythe and rules in my lua for a ws +3hit for apoc which has greatly increase my dps, but I am a beginner in lua at best and looking for help on the rule for when I have sam roll to adjust the gear to increase my DA with that specific buff.

I also feel my scythe ws sets are not all that grand either, but I am using the scythe more and more to get to a point where I am more proficient with scythe before I start telling people what gear to use. Generally I am still watching the forum for other peoples scythe sets to build/learn off of them.

tldr: saevel taught me something about ws acc I didn't know, most of the people that show me their sets still lack acc in ws sets, and I don't know scythe as much as I want to just yet.

That WS Acc is actually what makes WS's like Cross Reaper, Insurgency and Upheaval annoyingly difficult to gear for vs Resolution, Entropy or Torcleaver. Single Hit high fTP WS's we get all the damage from that first hit with it's acc bonus so can take that into consideration for gearing +WSD. Multi-hit WS' need to land the extra hits so we don't take the WS Acc bouns into consideration. But WS's that have high fTP on first hit and still have multiple hits screw us over by forcing us to split between WSD and Accuracy. The +100 acc was added years ago, it was one of the first big game mechanic updates back in 2004 or 2005 I think.

Personally I try to avoid using single hit WS's in multi-step SC's just because I absolutely hate when that 5% kicks me in the ***.

So I am making an apoc right now and doing ambuscade....

I will be making 2 DRK mantles. As an apoc drk what are the two i would want? Assume tp phase mantle and ws mantle.

2nd question. Anyone regret getting apoc and not rag? I havent turned in currency but i have enough for either technically but apoc was always a dream.

Get every Dark Knight weapon. There are no ragrets when it comes to Drk.

Mantles I got 20dex/acc/att/double and 20str/acc/att/ws damage

nah this will be the last relic AG I do haha, getting very burnt out on the grinding for them :D if I do another REM it will probably be a mythic but thats way in the future (1 yr+)

What's the verdict on Smite?

Any of the new gear any good for drk? I was just thinking the earring for high acc set, but rest seems meh. What was the consensus on the belt?

Belt is worth getting.

Also, if you can afford them, these are probably worth getting

Question. Is drain and aspir affected by Magic burst dmg augments? I have quite a few and could probably push my drk to the 40% cap. I would assume not, but technically drain does dmg when it lands on MB, so?

It's is affected by MBB.

Apoc is a fundamental for DRK, in my opinion. It opens up access to content you might be overlooked on. Catastrophe is a great weapon skill that reduces the amount of support you need.

Unsupported Apoc is a better weapon in my opinion.
Supported by GEOs and BRDs, Corsairs and healers, Liberator pulls ahead. But not by as much as some people would have you believe. I'd also like to mention that Ragnarok isn't that far ahead either.

I've been playing around endlessly with all 3. I've been an Apoc drk since 2006 and RAG DRK/WAR since 2009. If I ever lost them, I would put everything on hold and re-get Apoc first.

Having said that, if you're after the absolute premium and want to get to the highest level of dps for DRK, Liberator is your choice.

Liberator is probably the most fun you will have in the game on any job if you're like me - want to destroy the competition, enjoy being able to cast magic and melee.

Coincidently, people asking about the new gear and its usefulness for DRK - It, combined with the freakish Dark matter augments I got today from the campaign have allowed me to effectively build a 1350 accuracy 3hit liberator.

I'm still tweaking it a bit, I have started updating my Lua, but only managed to incorporate some of my new gear by the time I had to get to SR.

The results were astonishing for me - faster TP gain than my rival, for the first time he said "WTF your tp gain is insane"
Its also closed the difference in damage between me and him significantly as now its a matter of who engages first that wins parse.

(Watch the TP bar =)

Rag can gain tp like that and has a much stronger weapon skill. Also has higher base acc, and AM on Rag boost the white dmg through the roof.

Huh...

Rag pulls way ahead, a lot ahead just because Scythe WS's suck so hard. The recent attack buff just pushed GS ahead even further. The only thing Scythe is good at is making 4~5 step Darkness SC's and COSPlay in town.

Need a drk parse competition between Saevel, Thorva and Primex......

I doubt I can beat saevel, he has HQ abj, I don't and that is a huge bonus on ws. Would be interesting to go up against a solid scythe drk though. Just hard to parse anything with today's content, nm hp in comparison to dmg dealt.
Would also need to see difference in weapons starting at 0% tp and 300% tp. Downfall is mythic falls behind when acc is needed and you start at 0% tp.

Well I did decide to do both rag and apoc. I havent been able to AG either, but im like 10mil away from getting rag :D already rocking apoc. Apoc is lackluster atm but AG really transforms it from what I have seen. Cant wait!

I doubt I will ever go for liberator so, but with both rag and apoc I dont see the need.

Could you please post that 1350 acc setup? i cant get jack for augs from dark matter.

Scythe won't beat GS, there simply isn't the WS gear in existence for it. INT is such a shitty mod for Entropy and that's the one that is heavily exploitable. The other two, Insurgency and Cross Reaper suffer from their own issues regarding fTP and MA procs. Resolution on the other hand is basically Sex. It has a really high STR mod, fantastic TP scaling, and copies fTP so MA procs are really great. STR is important because not only does it double dips as both WSC and fSTR but the best heavy DD gear is loaded with it. Other mods become cumbersome to work in, this is something I experience on WAR dealing with Upheaval's VIT mod. My Resolution set has a ***ton more accuracy, attack and multi-attack then my Upheaval set. This is the reason why I was able to pull out my Blurred Lance and destroy this months Ambuscade fight using Star Diver.

Reso's only weakness is the -15% attack, which hurts RUN but is negligible to WAR and DRK due to their insane attack buffs. When was the last time you thought to yourself "you know, I could really go for some more attack right now". DRK is actually in a great place SC wise due to Torcleaver, so GS has a solid 4~5 step double light SC to go with it's 4~5 step double dark SC from Scythe.

Apoc's absolute best feature is the +60 accuracy. Accuracy means something now. I swear the next DRK I see using Cata on CL135 content is gonna make my head explode.

Easiest way to fix Scythe is to adjust their WS mods.

Insurgency should be 50% STR at least and have it's FTP doubled.
Cross Reaper needs to have it's FTP doubled.
Entropy needs a total overhaul, it should go from an INT mod to a STR mod and be Damage Varies with TP - becoming a Scythe version of Resolution with different skillchain properties.
Quietus should be a Darkness elemental weapon skill that operates like a weaker version of Leaden Salute, somewhere between it and Infernal Scythe.

Scythe's strongest gimmick is how HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE powerful Dacnomania is with 9999 HP and Souleater/Blood Weapon. That's the only time I've come anywhere near close to Saevel's WAR.

Drk getting the full 5 tiers of smite helps it overcome that -15% attk penalty of reso. That and the -delay of LR would help drk close the gap between war beserk/warcry buffs and double attack. I would love to see where I stand against saevel at some point, but at 200+ mil for 5/5 hq abj and the rarity of them even being sold pushes me onto the maybe one day in the future. As for now, I know I can't beat an AG Rag with hq abj, just no chance in hell. The difference is way too large.

So tempted to jump to Asura (Home of the big boys) lol

Scythe, Great Axe and Hand to Hand WS's need a major overhaul. There is lots of utility but not much offensive power and no WS's that can be exploited for large damage. Great Sword, Pole Arm, Sword, Axe and Dagger all have single hit high fTP WS's and multi-hit fTP transfer WS's which are easily enhanced through gear. I've gone WAR/NIN using swords and done 20~30K Vorpal Blades or 15~22K Eviscerations with daggers. So it's not really the jobs as much as the Weapon Skill's available and how they can be exploited. I'm beginning to wonder how a DRK/NIN with my Swords would do spamming Vorpal Blade in HQ Argosy gear and other assorted STR / crit / MA gear that all heavy DD have access to. 1.375 fTP per hit that copies with 60% STR mod, belt + gorget make it 1.575 and 4+1 means 5 basic hits for 7.875 fTP . A DA or TA proc would just add another 1.575 per hit instead of the usual 1.0.

A note on haste and DRK's access to it.

It's now 2016, everyone has access to capped haste. Desperate Blows and Apoc are no longer special in this regard.

256/1024 is equipment which is now piss easy to get, I think I have somewhere north of 27 or 28% in my base TP set.

448/1024 is magic haste and is easily reachable in any group that includes a GEO and / or BRD. Anything worth doing will include a BRD or GEO, seriously there isn't a single event that doesn't require one or more of those jobs. Nobody cares what damage someone does while soloing with trusts or fighting 75 era content, nobody.

Hasso is 10% (can't find out if it's 100/1024 or 102/1024)

The delay floor is 205/1024 which is 20%. This means 820/1024 is the highest value of haste that's possible. Furthermore Dual Wield acts like haste for those jobs and is now so plentiful that anyone can get floored delay.

So any 2H job can get -804 ~ 806 haste values which is 78.5 ~ 78.7% haste. DRK's grand advantage is 14~16/1024 or 1.5% haste. Further any DW job can hit the 205 floor by simply using /NIN and 11 Dual Wield worth of gear.

That is why Apoc's haste AM and LR's DB effect are worthless. The creation of Ioskeha Belt was the final nail in the coffin of potential (not capped) gear swaps. It's now all about exploiting and enhancing a weapon skill.

I've been proposing this solution for years: Unstack the haste categories (each multiples in its own step). Cap each category at 50%. Change all Dual Wield to JA category haste or keep it 25% cap. Remove 80% cap (not that it'd be reached anyway).

Now every category matters. Multiple magical sources matter. There's enough headroom to actually trade haste for accuracy and vice-versa. Apoc matters, LR matters, Hasso stacks. Dual Wield matters.

It's still subtractive haste, but at least nothing will be getting into the problem area of subtractive haste anymore.

Would change the entire game without nerfing anything too much (Except BLU. *** BLU)

Anytime - come to Ragnarok. Parse winner gets 20mil.

I respect both their opinions. Just because I'm getting different results from what they're reporting doesn't make me or them wrong.

I might be doing something wrong with Rag on DRK, or I could might have maxed out my Liberator build.

Gear wise, Sav and me have pretty much the same gear. He was nice enough to share his WAR.lua with me and the only real things I had to change were the augments.

A parse would be great - there's nothing else that keeps me attached to FFXI than to compete with other great players. Thankfully my friends have always been trailblazers in this game, and keep me on the edge. In fact, so much so that I would say I am an average player with average knowledge and skill but playing with such people and trying to stay within the same bracket as them pushes me to go beyond my own expectations.


To the subject, guys I'm just not getting these results you speak of with Rag. I am not seeing big resolutions, only 15-22ks.
My insurgencies spike at 30k, my expiacions 30k, my Uko's will get the occassional 36k, Catastrophe 15k, but Resolutions are consistently hitting for 20-22k on DRK. On WAR I do hit as high as 50k resolutions.

I'm not arguing, you could be and probably are doing something I'm not. What is it? Liberator is destroying Rag on DRK (not war- war is another story)

I'm at work, but today I'll post nothing but Ragnarok spam and show you the gear I use. If you've got pointers (meaningful ones) I'm happy to take them on board and we can do it here publicly for the benefit of all.

That is how I know your kinda sucking, probably due to reaction speed.

Insurgency is

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Insurgency

Four hits, doesn't copy fTP and has a REALLY shitty 20% STR 20% INT mod.

First hit is
1000 0.5
2000 3.25
3000 6.0

Then three extra +1.0 hits.

With moonshade you are looking at 1.1875 +1.0 +1.0 +1.0 for a grand total of 4.1875 fTP with two incredibly shitty mods. You aren't hitting jack ***for that.

But if you save to 3000TP you get instead 6.0 +1.0 +1.0 +1.0 for a grant total of 9.0 fTP, still with incredibly shitty mods but the Mythic bonus can compensate. This requires you to waste a lot of time getting there.

Now Resolution is 5 x 1.11 fTP at 1000TP with moonshade and belt / gorget. It scales crazy high at 3000TP but you generally want to spam it at 1000TP for maximum effect. But just for comparison lets do a 3000TP resolution.

1000 0.71875
2000 1.5
3000 2.25

That is per hit and Belt + Gorget add +0.2. 2.45 total per hit. Five hits puts it at 12.25 fTP with 85% STR and any addition hits are also 2.45.

So best case scenario for Insurgency is 9.0 fTP and 20% STR / INT with any DA procs adding 1.0. Resolution would be 12.25 fTP with 85% STR and any DA procs would be adding 2.45. But why would you hold to 3000, that's 3x 5.55 fTP WS's that could be used for a grant total of 16.65 with DA's being +1.11. By the time the Scythe user has build 3000TP for AM3 the GS user has already released three bigger WS's and is working on their fourth big WS. If you are starting at 3000TP then the GS user is still unleashing a bigger WS.

There isn't any remote comparison between the two. Great Sword absolutely crush's Scythe in practical use. If you are getting different results it's because either your sucking or your are seeing what you want to see. Scythe has no exploitable WS's and the average numbers are just bad in comparison.

Anyone who's on Asura feel free to contact me in game for a demonstration.

Also a note about Ragnarok, you don't use it for maximum Resolution damage you use it for it's really nice Accuracy, passive melee damage and access to Scourge.

AG Ragnarok
DMG: 304
Delay: 431
Skill: 269
Accuracy +60, Crit +14%

vs

Augmented Zulfiqar
DMG: 322 (297+25)
Delay: 504
Skill: 242
Accuracy +36 (15+21) Attack +31 (15+16) STR +11
WSD +5% (2+3) DA+2

That Zulfiqar will put out bigger Resolutions and Torcleavers.

Zulfiqar is available to anyone deserving to participate in this discussion.

I just got apoc and I am close to getting my rag. I would love to see it in action as the last time I have seen an apoc or rag being good was at mamol ja staging point.... very few players today would understand this haha (moreso apoc than rag)!

I also need tons of help on gear advice. I cant afford HQ abjs just yet but I am honestly considering lving a craft to make my own HQ abjs.

We can put a run together you can come on drk with apoc, I will bring apoc and gs. We will figure something out.

I came over here to join the cool kids, I got left out on all the reindeer games.
On a serious note, I think you are in the "big boy" category, you have put in tons of useful information regarding drk and especially Lib drk.

Exactly what I'm doing (but it started as just for BLU). It takes less time than you think, but still a while because of Guild Points.