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

I completely missed that ammo in that set. You are obviously right. With that change tho, this set is only 0.8% ahead of Sakpata R0 for uncapped attack in exchange for 270 meva, 5 counter, 5 subtle blow II, 6MDB, 132 DEF and +10% cure potency received, so I would say its not worth it XD

Sakpata R20 is significantly ahead in dps on top of everything else that I listed above and another 10% subtle blow and Occ. inc. resist. to stat. ailments +10.

Is the Hjarrandi set ever worth using on drk?

I'm using Hjarrandi as I ain't gotten around to Sakpata yet, but I can see it being good for some Liberator AM3 sets even with that. It all depends on what you have.

Yea I use it in am3 set for lib right now its a good set to have for sure.

Its good for rag also.....
...if you are using it to one shot trash in lvl75 content because you can't be bothered to get AM up on anything...

Sakpata is amazing, but its not the only tool we get on DRK. And it is exceedingly low in STP, something that the Odin body can be a huge help (while remaining safe) regarding, and fits nicely with Liberator's Aftermath. I also use the Helm these days as a better source of double attack than non-augmented Sakpata Helm in builds for empyrean weapons and at times Apoc. Certainly, once I get the chance to throw some RP at that particular piece, the "+DAdmg" will be quite nice, but right now I'm focusing on the hands first.

Options like augmented Seething Bomblet+1 and Tempus Fugit certainly make using the Odin head/body options much more feasible while staying at haste cap.

5/5 Sakpata is great, but it's still situational.

According to my spreadsheet, the purely highest DPS set when attack capped (using an Empy AM3 weapon) is R20 Sakpata body/hands/legs, and Flamma +2 head/feet. The DPS difference over 5/5 Sakpata isn't amazing (about 2%) and it loses the MEVA/Subtle Blow, but the Flamma +2 has noticeably more accuracy and DEX.

5/5 Sakpata is relatively inaccurate just because of how low its DEX is. Even at R20, 5/5 Sakpata is about 40 less accuracy than my normal set (Flamma head/feet, Dagon body, Sakpata hands, AF+3 legs), and someone who only has R0 has even lower acc than that.

The much lower DEX can also mean significantly less critical hits, which is important in Empy AM3 sets, especially if using the Sakpata for the MEVA and not for the PDL; my standard set with only Sakpata hands has 54 more DEX than 5/5 Sakpata, which can mean a difference of up to 15% crit rate.

Whatever I do I can't get more dps with Flamma head/feet. Flamma Feet +2 alone is almost 1% ahead, but Flamma Head on top of that is always DPS loss, even if I set it for dDEX sweet spot. Do you set R20 and do you have Double attack Damage functionality in your sheet?

Tho not sure why are you talking about this here when this discussion wasn't about DPS. It was about hybrid set with 50%PDT (and 50%MDT with Shell).

I have both enabled, yes. If your WS set is weaker that what I'm using for attack capped situation (or using Redemption instead of Caladbolg due to different white damage balance), then the STP on the head will matter less and might turn it from a slight gain into a slight loss. Either that, our buff selection differs, or one of us have calculation errors.

Having 50% PDT is not a requirement of a hybrid set, only that you have enough to put it in between a pure DPS set and a pure tank set (though the set is also max DPS when fully capped). Those 5 pieces puts you at 37%, and has more accuracy and DPS, so it depends on if you need all that PDT or MEVA for the current situation (and no, you don't always need the MEVA of 5/5 Sakpata in a hybrid set).

We need to leave it here for now. Totally dont have time to investigate this.


Yeah, but his focus was still on defensive set and with that in mind, even assuming your calculation is right, 2%DPS definitely isn't something worth getting hit for 26% more physical damage (not counting 96DEF and 18VIT differences, so its more than that) and losing 134 MEVA, 6MDB, 10% Subtle Blow and 5% Counter.

The 2% is only when you're fully attack capped, which happens less than you'd think even when buffed. The difference is noticeably higher when not capped, the higher accuracy (~20-30, depending on augment level) is sometimes needed in heavy Sakpata sets so you can squeeze in another minuet instead of a madrigal, and the higher crit rate matters a lot more when not fully capped. It's all situational.

You can swap out an accessory for a Moonlight or two for up to 47% while still keeping higher accuracy than the 5/5 Sakpata set, if one wished.

Its hard to discuss this when we are talking about 2% difference in your sheet and on my sheet its actually no difference.
Im getting almost no gain (0.4% and it basically comes from feet, head is still DPS loss) when attack is uncapped too, because then PDL on Sakpata doesn't work, but +107 more attack over flamma head/feet does.

If you switch rings, you lose another DPS.

If you need accuracy in TP set, then acc swaps would have sense, but otherwise they wouldn't.
Also I can also play the situational game and say that 134 meva loss is huge and full Sakpata can easily save you from few sleepga, bind, paralyze, stun etc. and since we talking about ~2% DPS difference (tho I still stand with my sheet and Sakpata head being superior in dps), even one resisted 5 sec sleep/stun every 3 minutes will result in more than 2% gain.

I definitely wouldnt switch from 5/5 Sakpata to Flamma feet/head unless I would need accuracy and then I would first switch to Seething R15, Ioskeha +1, Mache +1 and Chirich +1. That's 3%DPS loss, but +~54 accuracy and I would keep all the defensive values. Also if you need accuracy, there is always Absorb-Acc and Absorb-DEX too.
Switch to Flamma is something I would only do if I would for some reason want to squeeze max DPS without being worried of any debuff and I would only switch feet tbh, because I still think Sakpata's head is better for both dps and survivability :P

EDIT:
How much
- white damage per round
- total double attack
- added white damage from 10% double attack damage
you have in your sheet with 5/5 Sakpata, AM3 Caladbolg

EDIT2:
Even with Dagon, Flamma head/feet, Ignominy legs and Regal ring, Dex is so low that you could count on capping dDEX only on some maybe up to 134lv non thf trash mobs.

My spreadsheet is bigger than your spreadsheet. Nerds. :P

Nah I only care to fix the error, if there is an error (or not simply settings difference). I don't care if its in my or Geriond's sheet.

Where the hell you landing absorb spells at in high end game? Also alot of people keep saying they spreadsheet where is this sheet because I see people saying drk is attack capped in endgame stuff when its not true most of the time.

Not sure if you noticed but both uncapped and capped attack was being discussed, but it was more about defensive set than max dps set, until Geriond extended it.

Where I land absorb? Well on Kalunga for example I use dsnv absorb vit for example for 3+ min of +90 something Vitality. Drain 3 is useless there anyway. In segment farming you can also easily do it without dsnv if you need it. I haven't used DRK for long time in Dynamis, but pretty sure you can do it easily in wave 1 and 2 and probably in wave 3 on pets. In escha you can totally abuse it by pulling something to gob, sleep it and absorb every stat with dsnv and resetting cooldowns with revitalizer. What other end game left? I guess in Ambuscade it will varies.

Nvm you talking using dsnv was gonna say wtf also not landed absorb in wave 3 with bis set without dsnv but don't wanna waste it on dsnv. Segments I feels aren't endgame mobs register lower than ambucade I feel. Escha zones yes you get over stat buffs from vorseals. Also just doing it in escha zones on mobs that aren't nm aint really endgame but I got what you saying. When people say they land absorb spells I think ***without dsnv then end up disappointed by the stuff they list. Make absorbs great again.

On the note of the attack capped I saw both were talked about but I dont need to talk about uncapped because your pretty much also uncapped. What I'm getting at is people saying they attack capped with just a bard and cor in stuff like wave 3 or nms in odyssey. Now show me these spreadsheets I need one to use.

Like I said you cant really do it on Fomors, because they resist darkness (unless maybe with skillchain and Rayke), but on wyvern or bombs it should be possible.


I meant that you can get +92 STR/DEX/VIT/MND/INT in Escha doing DSNV each on mob pulled to goblin that sells Revitalizer. Then with that buffs, then you can go pop NM.

Sometimes Drain III isnt needed or mob resist it too much and its not worth to use DSNV on few hundreds drain III, like in Gaol and then DSNV is best used with Absorb.

Maybe these job adjustments coming up will give us 10m absorb durations, similar to how long bard sounds can be..or well, most any other huff by a whm or rdm for that matter. (do sch even exist anymore?)

*** the duration we just need to land it vs ilvl mobs and it not be resisted. Like I shouldn't have to use dsnv for absorb spells just to feel like I get some stats. Drk just needs quality of life buffs the duration would be nice but I just wanna be able to use my full kit on stuff like wave 3 or stuff like TC.

It's comparable to RDM saying he wants to be able to use every debuff on every mob. Whole magic in FFXI is based on resist, meva and elements. You asking to be able to land dark debuff on dark based mobs. Doesn't make sense. If everything would be susceptible to dark then everything would be just leaden spammed forever. I used dsnv absorbvit on Kalunga today and Torcleaver went up from 42-45k to 49-53k. I wouldn't call that a weak buff. We could use some reduce in dsnv cooldown tho. Like to 2 min.

I've not once said just dark based mobs. Im saying endgame ***without DSNV Which seems you missed it twice. Also everything is savage blade spam doesn't seem to be a big deal now. I said a weak buff WITHOUT DSNV. Why want a cooldown lowered on JA when we could just fix the damn spells in general. Kalunga isn't the only thing in the game. I'd like to see my stuff land out WITHOUT DSNV. What doesn't make sense is wanting a cooldown reduction on JA but not the damn spell itself. Which btw its a 1min recast time to have it be resisted and have to wait to try it again. No im not asking for it to be spammed but im asking for it to be changed to something like Impact where it can land but reduced outcome.

On another note where is that spreadsheet for drk

hey guys, came back from a long time break. with all these new gears came out, I am wondering what's the most update gear sets are look like, and for situation that has no /sam, think a drk with Lib fast enough to solo a 3 steps skillchain? thanks a lot

JA cooldown reduction would be better, because it actually make the absorb potent. Without NV and potency gear that you can wear only because of DS, it would absorb like 20+ stat, which is kinda weak. They cant really simply make it land unressited on everything, because how? By adding base +400 macc? Wouldnt help, because often its SDT that force resist. Bypass SDT? That's would be the first spell in game doing that, so probably it wouldnt be that easy to code it in sphagetti we have now after 19 years. You generally want something, but you really doesnt care how to do it, which is silly.

If they would make it like Impact, it wouldnt really give you anything, because then instead of resisting it completely, it would resist it to minimal duration, which would be around 11 sec base. It would be totally useless to even cast absorb for +29(44 with Liberator) stat for 15 sec duration.

Cooldown for both DS and NV reduced to 2min would work, because then you also take advantage of items, that boost those abilities and make the absorb spell worth it and you could full time one potent absorb even on stuff that resists it.

You know what this would make more sense in the grand scheme of things thinking about it now. All in all I just want something done about the other have of drks unused kit mostly absorb spells as I know we never gonna be nukers lol. Simonses have you tried out /drg at all I wanna try it out a bit.

The Subtle Sorcery JA makes the user bypass SDT (unless it's darkness on dark elemental-level high), so they could program that functionality into Dark Seal if they wanted.

He wants to have it as base functionality of the absorb spells (darkness btw), not added to Dark Seal lol

I know. You said they might not be able to do something like that without risking screwing stuff up, but they could do a lesser effect safely instead if they wanted to do something in that direction.

It'd be better overall to put it on Dark Seal anyway, since it'd mean you could get full potency Drains even on stuff like bats.

Yea basically I wanna be about to use absorb spells in content without having to use NV/DS Stuff like Absorb TP or ACC on non darkness base mobs getting resisted dont feel good. Maybe its because I want more from drk and wanna use more than just endark2 drain 3 with NV/DS or absorb VIT. Could be I been playing dark too long and need a new DD job to play who knows.

That would be cool, but will also make DRK op af. Only thing that would stop 9999 HP DRK would be Dispel. I dont think DD can be allowed to have such survivability everywhere and I dont want SE to potentially counter that later with giving full dispel to every mob in the endgame, because that would suck for every job not only DRK.