Dark Knight Adjustments (that were) Scheduled for October

[ManaKing]

One the way to 99. RDM got Saboteur, Spont. Addle more Fast Cast and serves a function in the alliances I use for the events my shell does, and level V of its resistance trait.

On the way to 99 DRK got two levels of tactical Parry and Scarlet Delirium, with a kind nod to Nether Void and Endark.



RDM is fine, it is a job that serves many functions adequately. Some far better than it should for having access to all that it does.

Lol they made LR 3 minute duration and made DRK a top tier DD. You're right, DRK got nothing. As other people have pointed out, AO is going to be more useful in the future because they are changing Elemental magic for everyone. Good thing DRK has max levels of that trait and RDM has exactly 0 and can wear a belt or /DRK if they want to touch it.

If you were going to complain about how much RDM got you could at least site it's actual buffs. Temper, Healing Magic Adjustments, and Elemental Magic adjustments that are incoming. Only one of them is RDM specific. RDM is a good job, but don't try to pretend it got more than DRK did. Anyone that plays DRK now (bandwagon most likely) is because DRK got all sorts of goodies that make it very viable as a replacement for the role that WAR and SAM used to dominate.

That being said, I fully support Dark based nukes and FC for those Dark Based nukes. I say FC for dark based nukes because DRK recasts are terrible. Absorb spells are terrible utility and SHOULD be adjusted. You are getting magic buffs with the upcoming change to elemental magic, but it's not the custom tailored adjustment you were hoping for, which scares you because SEs rate of job adjustment is very slow. DRK and RDM are in similar boats in this regard because they have good things on their job; but other things, specifically job defining things that were 75 Era, are very broken and/or useless.

[Demon6324236]

Slightly different story between RDM & DRK is that RDM was never told about any updates, where as DRK had this announced more than 6 months ago with no sign of progress from SE's side. I can understand the want for an update, because this entire adjustment seems like it has the dreaded Cait Sith Syndrome.

[Economizer]

RDM has exactly 0 and can wear a belt or /DRK if they want to touch it.

RDM/DRK would have been a big deal if SE was willing to budge on Last Resort working for 1h jobs.

Still, we can math this out (120 Delay on a TP calculator does 4.5TP, which is the value RDM/DRK with the belt can get).

With a Sword/Dagger/Club and a perfect TP set you can get 5.9TP/100MP solo, 6.0TP/100MP with a SAM in your party, 8.2TP/100MP with a SAM and a COR, 8.3TP/100MP with a SCH or other source of ice weather, and a grand total of 8.5TP/100MP if you jump in Campaign on top of all this. More likely you'd be getting something like 5.4 in a mixed nuking set, or 7.2 with a COR backing you up while you wear a mixed nuking set.

If you lock your weapon to the 17 Store TP Thibron (something I didn't consider for DRK with the 12 Store TP Basanizo or the Great Sword variant, although the problems that arise by using it are higher for DRK), you could push to a more extreme 6.7~9.3TP/100MP depending on your buffs and if you're in Campaign Battle or not, or even top 6.1 in a mixed nuking set and even get around 7.9 with a COR in the same.

Essentially we'll find that Occult Acumen is a total crapshoot for RDM, even if you equipped a Twilight Cloak you'd only be getting at most somewhere around 50TP for dropping a MP hungry nuke/enfeeble. Under current conditions a Red Mage will be sacrificing some damage on a nuke with a balanced set just to get a 9.2TP, and with a totally crappy nuking set and perfect conditions at most 15.9TP. Even when they adjust nukes and a Thunder IV only takes six seconds (less due to Red Mage's Fast Cast), you'll find it only kicks back 11.5 TP when doing a balance of damage.

Occult Acumen would be a total game changer for Red Mage if it got some chunks of the trait naturally though. Give it up to Occult Acumen IV (a tier below Dark Knight) and you'd be able to get over 20 TP from a Thunder IV without bothering on Store TP or even a belt, but with a focus on TP you'd be able to get something like 38 TP, or essentially be able to dump out a Fire IV, Blizzard IV, Thunder IV to get a weapon skill with Samurai Roll being able to allow the Red Mage gear nukes better while still achieving three or four nukes to a weapon skill.

Even just having the same tier as a Scholar does now would be a significant change though, allowing a Red Mage to either dump nukes for weapon skills until they run out of MP (which would be fairly fast) or at least toss in a nuke here or there in low haste situations to make weapon skills happen that much faster.

I can understand the want for an update, because this entire adjustment seems like it has the dreaded Cait Sith Syndrome.

As a final note, no changes will be going through until SoA comes out, and possibly later. I'd imagine that the spell changes could easily go through as SoA comes out though, they were detailed quite nicely with exact numbers to much applause.

[Demon6324236]

No no no, the adjustment I was talking about is the DRK one, so far as I know little detail was given on that. I was not meaning the Elemental Magic adjustment, if it was done with SoA though that would be fantastic. They did originally say something about DRK Fast Cast though, just no word in a long time, thats why I said it has Cait Sith Syndrome.

[ManaKing]

Native AO on RDM would be a big deal because you could go RDM/DNC and Death Blossom > Reverse Flourish > Spontaneity > Tier IV nuke > Requiescat > Tier IV Nuke. You might not even need Spontaneity after the update. You could also go DB > KOTR for Light if you so desired.

And yes RDM/DRK would have been a big deal if they didn't keep LR's Haste for 2H ONRY. MNK/DRK, DNC/DRK, and NIN/DRK would have been particularly potent as well. RDM wouldn't get the pure killing power that the other jobs get because of it's skill caps and gear selections, but it also would have picked up a nice chunk of spells and utility. RDM/DRK is still my favorite job combination in the game, but you'll see me RDM/DNC in a group, just because the utility and damage are better.

It shouldn't surprise people at this point that SE is slow to come out with improvements for jobs that it never had a plan for in the first place. The best we can hope for is that AFTER they get done with the broad strokes, HOPEFULLY they will do the fine tuning that most jobs are hurting for. If they think EVERY job they currently have doesn't need a least a little adjustment, then they are just misguided.

Merits are also still a travesty and should be looked at.

[Ramaza]

Native AO on RDM would be a big deal because you could go RDM/DNC and Death Blossom > Reverse Flourish > Spontaneity > Tier IV nuke > Requiescat > Tier IV Nuke. You might not even need Spontaneity after the update. You could also go DB > KOTR for Light if you so desired.

And yes RDM/DRK would have been a big deal if they didn't keep LR's Haste for 2H ONRY. MNK/DRK, DNC/DRK, and NIN/DRK would have been particularly potent as well. RDM wouldn't get the pure killing power that the other jobs get because of it's skill caps and gear selections, but it also would have picked up a nice chunk of spells and utility. RDM/DRK is still my favorite job combination in the game, but you'll see me RDM/DNC in a group, just because the utility and damage are better.

It shouldn't surprise people at this point that SE is slow to come out with improvements for jobs that it never had a plan for in the first place. The best we can hope for is that AFTER they get done with the broad strokes, HOPEFULLY they will do the fine tuning that most jobs are hurting for. If they think EVERY job they currently have doesn't need a least a little adjustment, then they are just misguided.

Merits are also still a travesty and should be looked at.

2nd the motion about RDM merits. Make them scrolls not merits but then again, with the way RDM is losing spells to other jobs update by update, they may give those over to SCH, WHM, and BLM as well :/