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

Where do you get 700 TP bonus from?
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Warcry

edit:
ah...
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Savagery

Why isn't this on warcrys page?

It's 5/5 Savagery merits giving 500tp bonus to warcry + Relic119 mask adding another 200 = 700tp bonus. This combo is an absolute must and the boost it offers to high ftp scaling weapon skills like resolution make WAR warcry one of the best zerging job abilities in the game.

blood rage, higher double attack rate etc

Blood Rage only adds crits, specifically it's +40% Crit Rate for 60s and shares buff slot with Warcry so only one can be up at a time.

The only benefit WAR really has over DRK (Warcry notwithstanding) is WAR's extra ~27 DA from JT / Merits and Gifts.

Warcry / Blood Rage are the reasons I consider Warrior the best DPS job in the game. Not only does the job have access to Crit and high fTP WS's on multiple damage types, high attack, high Multi-Hit, but it's super damage buffs are party wide and help to improve everyone's damage.

Yeah I think people underestimate the power of Insurgency with Lib. I think they also underestimate how easy it is for a DRK to get 3000tp starting from scratch .. it doesn't take as long as you may think (Abs-TP, Soul Enslavement, Meditate etc). Also while you build for it you are letting the tank get hate. I do this frequently in high tier battlefields; build to 3000 slowly so I can back-to-back WS later.

Magic accuracy and the absorb effect is also a great bonus to have. I tend to do fights where I'll have a GEO and a Haste 2, but not super buffed with a GEO, BRD and COR. Granted, if I had that many buffs I would be begging for my Ragnarok as the AM3 on Lib wouldn't be so effective. Also when I do an Absorb with a Lib and it resists, it's because of the mobs traits and not because I missed.

The issue with spamming Reso is the pulling of hate. It's not too bad for a Warrior, they can switch to defensive mode rather quickly, whereas a DRK is going to need a Drain III boost, dread spikes, and possibly drop things like Last Resort and Berserk (if using /war). I remember back in the voidwatch days when we spammed Reso to our hearts content as we had infinite amount of temp items and couldn't die with our Fanatic's Drinks, we could abuse Reso as we weren't killing our healers MP. As always, it's not just about the damage, it's whether you do enough damage compared to the tanks enmity.

In the case the party does not need a tank and has super buffs, then sure I can see Reso spam being awesome. I've played scythe and GS at various stages over the past 12 years, and I never feel more vulnerable than I do when I Reso spam. Again it's all depending on many factors:

1) Are you using a tank to keep hate off you? Yes? Perhaps don't want to spam Reso and pull hate, it's not a race against the clock, it's keeping damage consistent without going overboard.

No tank? Probably better off with Lib or Apoc depending how much damage you're taking and support. Lib gives you many nice absorbs to make up for the lack of support, but if you're taking too much damage you may want to Apoc if the fight is short.

2) Under 60 second fight and no way to build TP quick? At that point does it matter which you use? I suppose you could spam Reso and kill it slightly faster if you value every second. Lib is going to see least use here, but as Bloodlusty said, Apoc is excellent for short encounters and Reso spam is going to be as good if not better (depends on support).

3) A fight with an awkward mob who gives plenty of debuffs, Lib is going to have a slight edge as the AM3 will help you through annoying status effects. Slow, Attack Down, Amnesia, many different debuffs will quickly kill attack speed and WS frequency while Lib works through it all. This is definitely going to be a longer fight so it's more about survival and consistent damage over pure zerg methods.

4) Anguta Cross Reapers is something I can't say much about, but I'm interested to know how it stacks up against Lib. It's likely to be better than Lib in highly buffed fights which don't last long, but by then you're probably considering Reso spam or Apoc.

5) Need to make skillchains for MBs? Lib is amazing for this. Very easy to solo Darkness for mages, or you could do multi-step sc if that's your thing (cos' no mages to MB). But as soon as you find a mob who resists skillchains (like that Ambuscade a couple months ago) you'll switch to Insurgency or Reso spam. Either will work fine, again depending on your buffs and the length of the fight. Shorter fights will prefer Rag, longer fights will prefer Lib.

In that Ambuscade I found myself taking hate off Blue Mages, but luckily the Acrolith wasn't very strong so I could spam Insurgency all day. Reso spam probably would have done better as it was a short fight .. but it's not like I couldn't get to 3000 for AM3 in a matter of seconds, and that's only using a GEO for support.

Numbers are just numbers in this game. I always tell people this. Yes, you can mathematically say "Reso Spam Is King", but it's not always the best option for the party, you have to think about the buffs, the mob, and whether your support can handle it. Not every party has a WHM, and even when they do it doesn't mean that WHM enjoys healing you more than everyone else.

We could just say "use your Drain III", but what if the mob resists dark magic? What if something else happened to restrict you from getting the HP boost? We never have perfect conditions in this game, and when we do it doesn't matter which weapon we use as the fight is short and the enemy isn't dangerous enough.

6) Accuracy. Are we using DRKs on T4 Reisenjima NM? Are we using it on Tumult Curator? If we are, sure thing use ya Rag or Apoc as every little scrap of accuracy matters. But when you start fighting anything lower you'll find equipment is enough. Perhaps I ain't pitted my DRK against anything "challenging" yet, I've never had issues with accuracy on my Lib. With the new smite values, using my max acc set won't feel so bad. I ain't used my max acc set since I got mythic, and I'm still waiting for the day when I'll be forced to use my max acc set with sushi +1.

There's so many situations I'm not going to go into anymore. All I'm going to say is, DRKs weapons are finely balanced and if you love the job enough you'll be looking to get Lib and Rag (at least) so you have a choice. Apoc is great for those short fights, but I don't understand why anyone would AG one to make quick fights slightly quicker? A fun toy of course, frees up the healer a bit, makes Souleater more available, but it's only going to pull ahead for sixty seconds. I don't have one .. but going off what Bloodlusty said I can't find the motivation to build one.

Can we just agree that having Rag, Lib and Apoc covers all bases? Caladbolg and Redemption don't have a place anywhere, it's all about those three. I got Lib as it does everything well, while making Absorbs and other spells a guaranteed hit.

Or perhaps I'm talking crap? Bloodlusty has all the weapons so I'm going to believe his feedback before anything else. Lib is not a waste. Rag is great but has drawbacks. Apoc is a fun toy which has a niche use. The rest are nice to have but you won't AG them.

I don't play DRK but there are so many wrong in the above post.....

If you are a DD and not trying to do as much dps as possible, then what are you doing?

If you are a tank and you can't hold hate,what's the point to use a tank?

If you are a whm and you don't cure people, what are you doing in pt?

The point of "doing more dps" as a dps job is not because a few sec faster win is zomg important, but because as a dps player we value our performance in pt. And the job of dps is, well, dps? Thus there's absolutely no reason to aim for less dps when you can do more. Same goes for healer and tanks. A good healer will keep people alive, na and hasted while bad ones complain about having too much work.

Its already 2016 and people still promoting "let's do less dmg so we can heal less" or "let's do less dmg so tank can hold hate" on the forum like 2008.

No situation is perfect. No party is perfect. No player is perfect.

And I was not promoting anything. I was talking to the other DRKs and was waiting on a response from Bloodlusty to see if he agrees with my points. If he turns around and says my points have no merit and I should hang my head in shame .. then I will. I don't need to say more.

You misunderstood, I'm not assuming every player is perfect. But a couple of situations that you proposed aren't ideal to aim for lesser dps either.

You claim "does it matter which you use in under 60 sec fight" because a few sec faster kill doesn't matter. What does it have to do with who you play with? People aim to get as much dps out as possible not because 5 sec faster kill is zomg make or break, but because as a dps player dealing as much dps as possible is part of the job.

You claim "whm isn't happy to cure drk more than everyone else" what's so "unhappy" about doing the job?

You are basically promoting dps do lesser dps and whm heal less from what I'm reading.

I highly doubt anyone would tell you to shut up and hang your head in shame, at least I wouldn't. But when I see people go out and promote lowering their performance to make everyone else's life harder I just gonna say something. After all this isn't a solo game, this is mmo and you are pt with 5 other people. DPS players with "it's ok if Im not hitting hard enough so Im not gonna try hard" is exactly the reason why many PUG ambuscade has terrible killspeed, or terrible whm complaining about having to haste and cure people then rage quit pt because they can't afk leech points.

I still consistently swap back and forth between apoc and rag,

1 I also swap to -dt gear all the time and end up tanking. Most tanks have an issue keeping hate off drks. Not all, most.

2 Pretty sure I said that months ago

3 Slow, Attack Down, Amnesia, will crush you on any weapon, amnesia up, rag is better option because of crit ODx2.5, slow up. probably better off with AM3 mythic, really hard to find out stuff like that because those are special circumstances.

4 I haven't messed with aeonic scythe, haven't even finished first round of aeonics, my ls has a serious conflict of schedules. not even making scythe first because I was never impressed with entropy as a ws. As for CR spam, I was saying do that with apoc long ago, so I can see the validity with aeonic.

5 All drk weapons are easy to sc with

6 I almost solely use rag for t4

Caladbolg/redemption don't have place? I will give you redemption, but not caladbolg, the only real thing holding caladbolg back was the same issue lib had for a while, acc. Now the eva nerf is out which brings caladbolg up.

Pretty much all of the r/e/m/a weapons have their place on drk. I will still make them all, I will still find time and ways to use them all.

Just because you get a slight advantage in one key aspect of the job on one weapon, doesn't come close to making the rest of the weapons remotely close to obsolete.

Make the weapon you want to make, gear properly, play right. You will still be a solid DD.

The point I was trying to make was that there's a use for almost all the REMAs on DRK so you can't just say one is best and should be the only one you use. Like any job it's nice to have choices for situations. With the absolute perfect setup, perfect tank, perfect healer, perfect buffs, you're going to lean towards Reso Spam of course.

That shouldn't dissuade anyone from making a Lib or an Apoc, as they have unique traits you won't find using a GS. I love the fact that we can use so many different weapons, for a long time it was only about Great Sword and Scythe was useless. Obviously Scythe WS still needs tweaking, but so do many other WS.

A DD is always trying for the best damage, while at the same time you have to survive. Sometimes I'll run with a WHM who hasn't played in a while. Sometimes the mob is too awkward for DRK to tank (which is why we have a pld) so the last thing you want is to tank. There's a time to zerg with infinite buffs, and a time to chip away consistently. I can't be the only one who has had to manage damage with enmity to win a fight? I can't be the only who has done a fight with a less than optimal party?

The fact we have 3-4 different weapons to pick from shows how versatile DRK can be. Does anyone else think it's great? Perhaps it's just me. I'm not here to get into an heated argument over it, it's not that important. I'm just here to enjoy talking to other DRKs seen as my server literally has like .. two of us.

I made no comment regarding the weapon itself, nor who you play with. I only made comment about your opinion of "killing a few sec faster doesn't matter" and "whm is unhappy if he has to cure one person more than another"

I find it logically doesn't make sense, personally.

I just want to cut my life into pieces and use last resort.

Ok I'm sorry, it was more of a question to other DRKs with different weapons available. In short fights I guess the weapons are quite close? I can't claim it as fact til I try it myself. Others have said Apoc is great for the first minute, but any longer you're going to want something else. Lib does need the 3000 tp to get it going, but I don't think it's too long to wait, some might underestimate the TP gain from job abilities and spells.

Reso numbers might be so great now that using AM3 on Lib won't match up in any scenario. I was thinking about making mythic for my COR, but the recent update encourages me to finish Rag and put them against each other. As for the whm comment, it was more for situations where a DD manages their damage so the PLD keeps hate and doesn't put stress on the casual whm (or trust) and is the only DD. I liked Thorva's comment:

"1 I also swap to -dt gear all the time and end up tanking. Most tanks have an issue keeping hate off drks. Not all, most."

...

Just no. Stop, this is why everyone laughs at DRKs.

Any time spent "building to 3000" is time that could of been spent doing 3 weaponskills. By saving up you begin in a damage hole that you must dig yourself out of. Lib can barely do it after about two minutes. Insurgency sucks ***, it's low WSC prevents stacking and it's weird fTP prevents exploitation. The only reason it seems good is because of how extremely BAD other Scythe WS's are. No amount of positive thinking or "the power of friendship" will change that. Cross Reaper gets a situational use because of its crazy fTP over 2k with very nice WSC growth. If you have Anguta +moonshade and a friendly WAR doing WC then your hammering out +1450 fTP CRs for crazy damage. Otherwise your stuck with shity WS's so you can COSPLAY.

Resolution on the other hand crushes everything else. Great WSC growth, Amazing fTP growth and easily spammable. It's like hearing a BLU refuse to use swords and CDC in preference for Black Halo.

No, people laugh at drk because other people think there is only one way to play a job. (edit: and people are clueless and think drk is stuck in lvl 75 era can't hit anything and takes too much dmg) Nobody is debating that reso is the stronger ws, nobody is debating Rag doesn't beat other weapons.

All people are saying is that there are more decent DD options than Rag/Reso only.

Most the people in this thread are career drks that just don't care about the fTP or WSC anymore, they are tired of hearing it. They are only sharing their experience of a weapon they have and a playstyle they enjoy.

I have spammed 50k reso on 150 content and spiked 60k+ reso on the same content with drk using rag, nobody cares. I still use apoc often even in 150 content. It varies on what I am doing or need at the time.

All drk weapons are a solid option. Just because they aren't the perfect Saevel way, doesn't mean people can't be effective on them. Stop with the "you're bad because you don't play the way I want you to," mentality.

The whole point to this game is to have fun, if you have fun on mythic who cares, if you have fun and your are effective, there is no reason for debate.

Fun is subjective though. If someone had fun losing parse obviously it's not others business.

But it's a different story to pop on the forum and promote said playstyle in a dps discussion.

Outside of utility situation dpsing in FFXI is really just math and numbers. You aren't magically deal more dps with playstyle thats mathematically weaker.

In FFXI everything is situational and choice making which I agree, and I can understand people choose apoc or lib due to certain reason, such as sc purpose or hp drain etc.
Such reasons are at least logical and objective to justify dps lose.

But "I have fun" is not an objective choice, it's subjective. And I personally don't think personal taste should be involved in a dps discussion.

Scythe is A+.
Club isn't blus A+
So it isn't a fair comparison at all!
Anyways, resolution needs to be nerfed or scythe needs to be buffed

Also, all I know is anytime encounters started to turn into <1m zerg fests, the game immediately stopped being fun. So I'd NEVER gear or play around situations like that existing, personally.

Career drks fully optimized using mythic or apoc will hardly slow down a fight. They will still be either the top of the parse or damn near it. Even in terms of only 3k dps which is plenty easy for a drk to hit, anything being melee zerg will hardly have the outcome effected overall. Gain an extra 20-30 seconds to the fight, who cares.

I'm going to sound like an *** but it has to be done again...at least the source came from his own video channel so it's not like I did something unethical.




It is okay if you don't care.

It is not okay to pop on the dps job forum forum and promote whatever play style resulting dps lose.(20-30 sec longer in a 60 min fight is pretty big dps decrease, mind you. It's literally 50% increase in kill time)

There are people out there seeking information to dps better, and promoting information that results dps lose on the forum aren't helping anyone. Just because some ppl enjoys losing parse and do lower dps, doesn't mean everyone else enjoy the same thing.

Again, it's your $13 a month and if you have fun losing parse, or make your teammate spend more time every run. But it's a different story to try and convince others to do the same.

20-30 seconds extra could result in a WoC Benediction. No thanks.

Scythe might as well be C-

SE seriously screwed up when they made most of the WS's for Scythe. The WSC's are either too low, or using dumb stuff like INT. In order for a WS to be really exploitable it needs a WSC of STR/DEX/VIT with 50% or higher potency, STR is the best but the other two can work. The WS needs to either copy fTP or have single hit dramatic TP scaling for WSC abuse. Insurgency not only suffers from having shitty WSD, it also has it's fTP scattered over multi-hits with the scaling only effecting the first hit, meaning you never get the most out of either WSD or +fTP items. Cross Reaper has great WSC but the fTP is too low at 1K, needs 2K or higher to start hitting high numbers. Entropy would be amazing if it was STR/DEX/VIT instead of super-shitty INT. Then your left with the real dregs, Cata and Quietus. Both have good WSC but their fTP is too low and neither have TP scaling. The only benefit Scythe has is great SC property coverage enabling you to make multi-step SC's with other people, but never as the big closer.

For GS we have

Resolution, multi-hit copy fTP with 85% STR WSC and amazing TP scaling. Covers fragmentation and overall one of the strongest WS's in the game.

Torcleaver, single hit high TP with 80% VIT WSC and amazing TP scaling. Covers Distortion and Light, one of the stronger WS's but overall weaker then Resolution.

Scourge, single hit moderate TP with 40% STR/VIT WSC and no TP scaling. Better damage then Cata and Quietus and useful Fusion property. It's extremely important because it occupies the Fusion category which is critical for making multi-step SC's. AM effect is never worth bothering with.

DRK's job is to kill ***, not look cool walking around town pretending to be Batman. You kill ***by reducing it's HP to 0 and the more damage you do the faster you can reduce that HP to 0. No amount of crying, yelling or hoping with the power of friendship is going to change this. So unless your specifically there to do SC's with someone better then you, use your best Weapon with your best Weapon Skill and murder things.

Seriously DRK is the only job in the game where it's players prefer to do the exact opposite of what the job is designed to do. Like melee SMN and ***.

They don't care, as long as they get to look cool in town COSPLAYING Zeid or Batman. Or better yet their the ones who are asked to change to GEO, BRD, COR or WHM.

Yeah scythe weapon skills were mind boggling. When I first leveled drk I couldn't get over why scythe were so damn BAD. Until I got guillotine my WS were basically worthless, and even then that WS is bad once get more levels since it has no actual scaling. Cross reaper is my only real WS and it puts some pretty decent numbers, but it's still not a top tier WS and it's dumb to only have ONE decent ws on an entire weapon ;/ Entropy being int is depressing(coolest ws ever!) and insurgency just being..bad, sucks.

You can literally look at the wiki and descriptions of scythe WS and immediately realize "Wow, these all suck! Cross reaper is ok though and the only good one". So I have to ask, how are the devs not able to fix something so blatantly obvious to anyone with 2 working eyes? Actually, at least one working eye.

It was obvious after I made Lib that it can't keep up with Resolution. While I enjoy playing DRK, I also enjoy parsing.

Leveled Smithing on a mule, made a set of Argosy +1, and finished Rag. It's a night and day difference. Although now I prefer using WAR instead.

I can see why people call for a nerf. Mighty Strikes can produce some big numbers. DRK can't quite reach that high. If we're going to argue straight DPS, I'd start with moving to the WAR forum.

Zeid uses a Great Sword >_>;

And so did career DRKs. Closing Light with Spinning Slash so the BLM could MB for Chain#6!

When I'm there to push pure DPS then I'm usually on WAR but this is the DRK forums and they wear 95~99% the same gear. They also happen to share the same powerful relic and weapon skills though DRK has even more.

Ultimately this boils down to a small handful of people who want to feel unique and special. They would rather nerf themselves then risk not looking cool and edgy.

Fun tidbit, before 60 DRKs best weapon is Great Axe for Shield Break and Sturmwind.

1-56 great axe.
56-59 axe/axe
60-75 guillotine

Back in the day.