Dark Knight and the Dev Team

[Urteil]

Since the dev's seem to be talking about possible changes with Corsair rolls etc, could we get some Dev feed back or a moderator assurance that the suggestions in the Dark Knight thread (the official proposition thread) are being looked at?

Or that they are aware how terrible the job is in its current state?

Putting this in the general area so it can be easier seen as I doubt in the crypts of the Dark Knight forums the dev's /ever/ go there or that it would see the light of day otherwise.

[rog]

You may want to include a reminder of what drk was, since they probably forgot.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Or that they are aware how terrible the job is in its current state?And what exactly is this terrible state you're refuring to?
How bad can a job be when it can one shot an IT without add death?

[Ramsos]

DRK just got tactical parry, how much more of a buff do you want?!

[Siiri]

I believe DRK is considered the weakest melee job currently. It really needs a buff, and not a magic based one either. Something like adjusting last resort and giving it the same length and recast as berserk would be a start, and then go from there.

[Neisan_Quetz]

DRK just got tactical parry

Job's fixed guys, there is obviously absolutely nothing wrong with DRK when SE is just handing out superflous job traits to pad the list because the job is clearly in the best situation it has ever been since the game's inception, I don't understand why you people can't see this.

[Siiri]

Job's fixed guys, there is obviously absolutely nothing wrong with DRK when SE is just handing out superflous job traits to pad the list because the job is clearly in the best situation it has ever been since the game's inception, I don't understand why you people can't see this.

What's sad is the dev team so out of touch and whiffs so bad on every drk update they may actually think its fine.

[Ramsos]

Job's fixed guys, there is obviously absolutely nothing wrong with DRK when SE is just handing out superflous job traits to pad the list because the job is clearly in the best situation it has ever been since the game's inception, I don't understand why you people can't see this.

Glad to see someone else noticed!



In all seriousness, at the very least they need to give drk a decent multi-hit critical WS. Atm, the only thing drk has that lets them even remotely come close to another DD is torcleaver. Torcleaver is a fine WS, but wtf @ having to stack VIT for a drk ws? On that note, wtf @ mnd mods on just about every scythe ws?

[Atomic_Skull]

They don't need to give DRK a critical hit WS they just need to give DRK a 30 second JA that causes the first hit of the next WS to be a critical hit.

Use with Spinning Slash or Torcleaver. DRK is fixed.

[Siiri]

They don't need to give DRK a critical hit WS then just need to give DRK a 30 second JA that causes the first hit of the next WS to be a critical hit.

Use with Spinning Slash or Torcleaver. DRK is fixed.

Its much more than that. Its the DOT portion too. They need new job abilities that enhance melee damage as well as improved weapon skills. Also, scythe is DRK's A+ weapon, not G. Sword. Its pathetic that DRK's best scythe weapon skill is still Guillotine.

[Atomic_Skull]

Its much more than that. Its the DOT portion too.

How is DRK's dps worse than DRG or WAR's?

[Tsukino_Kaji]

How is DRK's dps worse than DRG or WAR's?I have no idea what they're talking about, all of the DRK I see have been top tier.

[Atomic_Skull]

I have no idea what they're talking about, all of the DRK I see have been top tier.

DRK WS suck in Abyssea. When a THF can out WS DRK with Evisceration without SATA something is seriously wrong.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

DRK WS suck in Abyssea. When a THF can out WS DRK with Evisceration without SATA something is seriously wrong.But I never see that happening. lol
And no, it's not that the THFs suck.

[Harukusan]

Why don't we leave abyssea out of this? Abyssea isn't going to be the end all of FFXI, and if it is, please tell me now so I can finally quit. DRK has no immediate issues, the problem is that other jobs received major updates that currently shine in Abyssea. While they are still great outside of Aby, DRK can still meet and often beat other jobs if you're actually good at it. DRK doesn't need a super crit WS for spike damage. Honestly, I understand Quietus isn't something that met peoples' expectations, and I'm a bit disappointed as well. Why would you implement MND (DRK's WORST basic stat) into ANY weapon skill used by this particular job? In fact why would you implement MND into ANY weapon skill for ANY job? That's just a terrible way of saying "F YOU" to people who enjoy the job. Well that didn't stop us from using Guillotine all these years. I actually like using Quietus... in Campaign Battles... and other irrelevant crap... Spike damage isn't DRK's best feature any more, but DPS isn't out of the question yet. Perhaps with extended Last Resort duration it can be the strongest DD as I envision it.

[Dooom]

Why don't we leave abyssea out of this? Abyssea isn't going to be the end all of FFXI, and if it is, please tell me now so I can finally quit.

You may want to quit then, or at least take a break until the next update, as Abyssea *is* the focus of 95% of FFXI these days. And in Abyssea, drk is only good for blue procs. And I say this as someone who really enjoys playing drk.


But I never see that happening. lol
And no, it's not that the THFs suck.

You may want to look harder, then.

Drk fix for Abyssea: Make Insurgency be a crit-based WS. Let the fun times roll.

[Urteil]

And what exactly is this terrible state you're refuring to?
How bad can a job be when it can one shot an IT without add death?

I pray with every atom in my body, and ether in my soul, you are being facetious.



The problem with Dark Knight is a lack of abilities that holster its damage dealing and survival capabilities. The job has no survival options while other jobs do, Ninja, Thief etc ...every other martial job ever. . . .



Dark Knight has the following JA's:

Blood Weapon - Make this usable with 2 handed weapons only, and a 10 minute ability, meritable down to 8 minutes. I think after 8+ years its time we got a real two hour, because if you did this it would start fix the HUGE problem below:


Souleater - Should be renamed to; Hold my hand while I minimally increase my damage and require another job to cure me, while every other job in the game has no JA which kills them and requires somebody else to be present to work at 100% efficiency.
The only one I can think of that 'requires' somebody else is Sneak Attack/Trick Attack, and even then it doesn't kill you.

Last Resort - Mock Berserk with a neat haste effect, that wears off before I can not regret spending 500k exp into merits circa 2008.

Arcane Circle - Whatever.

Weapon Bash - Good, I guess. Why does the Samurai one have Plague . . . I honestly think the development team is on hard drugs.

Dark Seal - Yea this is great, for all those dark magic spells with cool debuffs and that do large amounts of damage I don't have.

Nether Void - Did you fire the guy that gave us this? For doing the right thing?

Aracane Crest - Fuck you, Square Enix. Is this a sick joke?




While survival is not what Dark Knight should be striving for it needs a little bit of help in this department, ESPECIALLY since our ability to put on the hurt doesn't even come close with our ability to die.


Sure I can macro on 42% PDT on my DRK and swing Caladbolg around in ATK/VIT Ws gear, and I can macro shadows and play the Utsusemi Roulette, however there is nothing nativley to the job that really gives it an edge in.....anything.

Not only that but Dread Spikes has a horrible duration, and isn't nearly as strong as it should be when you think about what other jobs have COUGH, BLUE MAGE, COUGH.

We should have had Drain III a long time ago with Drain and Aspir II popping up in the 50's. Considering anything worth a shit resists them anyway or is darkness based.


TLDR; We either need a drastic boost to damage to make up for how crappy our self sufficiency is, or we need a way to stay alive longer through spells, job abilities or defensive tweaks, and or some more expansive dark magic.

Its really stupid how well other jobs can pull it off, I'd settle for just a fraction of that especially when I see Blue Mages running around QC'ing things for 5k damage, then curing themselves, then spamming Cocaine-Blink.

You really can't do something as tiny, as meaningless as giving us Drain III, or make Torcleaver a crit WS, or a crit WS in general, and then you made Sanguine Blade a Sword WS. . .

What the shit is wrong with you SE?

[rog]

while every other job in the game has no JA which kills themNinja...?

Also, dread spikes, stun, drain, etc.

[Alhanelem]

DRK is only probelmatic in abyssea because of the lack of a scythe WS that benefits from Razed Ruins. Outside of abyssea, it's fine.

[Harukusan]

DRK is only probelmatic in abyssea because of the lack of a scythe WS that benefits from Razed Ruins. Outside of abyssea, it's fine.

Sub THF and force crit with sn... hahaha I can't say that with a straight face

[Atomic_Skull]

The problem with Dark Knight is a lack of abilities that holster its damage dealing and survival capabilities. The job has no survival options while other jobs do, Ninja, Thief etc ...every other martial job ever.

What's the commonality of all the jobs you just listed.

Oh that's right they are all 1H DDs.

2H DDs get 3 ATT for every 4 STR and 3 ACC for every 4 DEX. So now you want them to be more damaging than 1H jobs *and* have the enhanced survivability that 1H jobs have as well?


Tell you what, you can have enhanced survivability if 1H jobs can have the same 4:3 ATT/ACC calculation 2H jobs get.

[Seriha]

Basically support making Insurgency a crit WS.

Otherwise, the big problem I've witnessed of the DRK community is that they'd pretty much give up all its magic for more martial prowess if they had the choice. That's not all that unsurprising given how mediocre DRK's magical side actually is on top of things like Hasso/Seigan from /SAM (Ya know, the /NIN of two-handers) adding further to (re)cast penalties, thus diminishing the precious damage people oh so cherish over utility. It's a bit of an inverse to the Melee RDM issue, really, and testament to how SE's early forays into hybrid jobs weren't all that great.

[Alhanelem]

DRK has plenty of useful magic. You don't use it all the time, but there are times when it comes in handy. Endark was one of the things meant to rectify that, and I think it helps. DRK doesn't need more martial prowess, they already have it. The only reason DRK seems underwhelming right now is because of the current metagame of abyssea.

[SNK]

imo a Guillotine should have had crit mods a long time ago..

[Duelle]

DRK has plenty of useful magic. You don't use it all the time, but there are times when it comes in handy. Endark was one of the things meant to rectify that, and I think it helps.Endark should have also come into play in the 60's, with a tier II coming it at 85. Absorb spells are something of a joke in the greater scheme of things, not to mention the laughable elemental spells that are just cluttering up our spell lists.

[RaenRyong]

I support this thread.

Us receiving Occult Acumen and Tactical Parry is almost infuriating. My reaction when I read the patch notes on Tactical Parry was literally to just look at the screen in dumb disbelief and uttering "what the hell?".

It's been covered in this thread already but, just to restate:

1. Give us a worthwhile critical hit weaponskill
2. If our JAs are going to sacrifice aspects of ourselves, make them far more powerful
* as an extension of this, I argue that DRK using Souleater should be the most powerful DD in the game because no other DD literally has to damage themselves to do damage. Without Souleater for the purposes of balance I feel it should be below WAR and other pure DDs, although not by a mile...
3. Magic. Make it worth casting - possibly allow us to swing while casting. We don't care about elemental magic. We're not asking to be WAR #2 but the reason most of us don't really care about our magic is because it sucks. Since it sucks, and has sucked for a long time, essentially DRK becomes "WAR with Stun" to serious DRKs. Endark is pretty good but shorten its casting time or allow us to cast while meleeing! Dread Spikes is pretty good.
4. More specialised but: Caladbolg delay is hideous and the weaponskill/weapon itself is a joke compared to Fudo/Masamune. Please put some StoreTP on it or adjust the delay!
And there's probably more but I forget :(

And no, DRK is not fine outside Abyssea. It's just not AS far behind.

[Zeroth]

The thing I hate most about drk is the amount of enmity it generates, pulling hate off of other DDs while doing less dmg.

What kind of shit is that?

[Venrymel]

I support this thread.

Like many others, it gets people's thoughts and ideas more easily to the eyes of SE's FFXI development team.

Regarding DRK's solitary existance as a job with "death causing" abililties:

Ninja...?White Mage? Under the right circumstances, Benediction makes RR very handy. I miss the days when R3 and RR3 were liked for their improved EXP regeneration as much as their improved HP return. I'm sure people will agree campaign battle and Abyssea have been the causes of this, but the two additions have also given much to the game to be enjoyed.

Further, I can remember Lv70+ EXP camping in that lovably annoying Myre known as Caedarva, as the party's WHM, and losing SAM to their awesome capabilities over and over again. It was an ultimately entertaining challenge to my healing ability that—every so often in our hours long runs at that camp—maintained its ability to force the group to take a break from battling every once in a while.

Back to whether or not SE's FFXI development team is paying attention:
Whether or not this forum was created merely to passify, if you will, the irritated players into continuing their involvement in FFXI, I'm sure people would agree that it is more fun to speculate at what improvements can be made—indeed, to any job—than to fester in a pot of irritation over the perceived problems that this forum was created to help SE's FFXI development team learn about and/or fix.

Especially at this point, when there are nine levels yet to be published; but even at any point, as adjustments are constantly being made and SE has, on numerous occasions, stated whether a job—or any aspect of the game—works in a way that pleases its creators.

From what I can gather from this thread alone, it seems that DRK is in need of a stronger set of spells. As there is gear in place to increase MND, perhaps there are ways that MND can actually relevantly help an adventurere choosing to be a Dark Knight.

I do know this: MND is associated with Water, which is tied to Poison, among other spells.

Perhaps there is an existing ingame correlation yet to be discovered between the attributes and such ailments. Short of that, it could be worth some resistance to white magic spells. As a tangent example: While Barsleep has a much debated worth, it's a necessary component—read: complication—to the game; positive numbers (the mere fact of that existence) as a defense against sleep.

I used to wonder why PLD AF1 didn't have any MP assistance in it, but each set of job-specific gear improves a different group of each job's abilities, spells, et al.

At the idea that DRK can't perform many of its, logically, self mutilating abilities and survive without the assistance of other jobs, I point out that the developers try, in many different ways, to encourage and require players to participate in group activity.

As the Japanese say: ganbatte^^

[RaenRyong]

I do know this: MND is associated with Water, which is tied to Poison, among other spells.

Poison is INT-based.


At the idea that DRK can't perform many of its, logically, self mutilating abilities and survive without the assistance of other jobs, I point out that the developers try, in many different ways, to encourage and require players to participate in group activity.

Absolutely.

So why would someone participating in a group activity given a choice between DRK and OtherDD choose DRK given DRK is going to require a lot more mage attention and stand a higher chance of dying if it uses its self-mutilation abilities which are necessary for it to still be below the damage of OtherDD?

[Malamasala]

If you ask me, SE should have been boring and given all jobs same set of WSes. Not entirely of course, but things like:

All weapons having a stun WS.
All weapons having a multi hit crit WS.
All weapons having a MP drain WS.
etc.

That way nobody could ever really complain that SE missed giving them a vital WS. (Since all weapons would have different elemental WSes, I guess you could complain on your element)

[Atomic_Skull]

If you ask me, SE should have been boring and given all jobs same set of WSes. Not entirely of course, but things like:

All weapons having a stun WS.
All weapons having a multi hit crit WS.
All weapons having a MP drain WS.
etc.

That way nobody could ever really complain that SE missed giving them a vital WS. (Since all weapons would have different elemental WSes, I guess you could complain on your element)

That would seriously gimp jobs that use low damage weapons like THF. They need WS with higher mods to keep up.

[Rambus]

Can we get rid of the sarcasm? How can you be surprised SE is not fixing drk? Many people sound like the job is fine.
(stopped reading after first page)

[Kagato]

Anyone who thinks the job is fine is not a career DRK.

Anyone who claims DRK is fine and is also a career DRK is lying, an idiot, or fooling themselves.

There is a huge topic on the Dark Knight forums. Two in fact, that I made, that explains what modifications the job needs in order to catch up. So far having 2 stances (like Hasso and Seigan), one for Melee stuff and one for magic stuff. Melee, we get a longer Last resort duration, stronger perry, higher crits, but weaker and slower Dark Magic. Magic stance would work the opposite way.

We're not overbuffed, everyone's happy, and no more DRK fail.

If anyone, including forum staff, is interested in what topic I and Urteil mentioned, here it is:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/729-The-official-Dark-Knight-adjustment-and-suggestion-topic.

I seriously hope SOMETHING gets done.

[Malamasala]

It is hard to think something is wrong with DRK when so many claims the solution is a multi hit crit WS. That just makes it sound like you get less out of razed ruin atma and that is all.

[Rambus]

Anyone who thinks the job is fine is not a career DRK.

Anyone who claims DRK is fine and is also a career DRK is lying, an idiot, or fooling themselves.

There is a huge topic on the Dark Knight forums. Two in fact, that I made, that explains what modifications the job needs in order to catch up. So far having 2 stances (like Hasso and Seigan), one for Melee stuff and one for magic stuff. Melee, we get a longer Last resort duration, stronger perry, higher crits, but weaker and slower Dark Magic. Magic stance would work the opposite way.

We're not overbuffed, everyone's happy, and no more DRK fail.

If anyone, including forum staff, is interested in what topic I and Urteil mentioned, here it is:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/729-The-official-Dark-Knight-adjustment-and-suggestion-topic.

I seriously hope SOMETHING gets done.

I know drk needs big updating, PLD does too but the comments I ran into sounds conflicting and confusing.

comment to general not to you Kagato:

limit or get rid of sarcasm please, I do not think it passes well to some people and people to other languages.

like comment on drk is OP because added effect can kill mobs, really? no that is not right.

[Flunklesnarkin]

Kind of sucks that souleater is gimped on anything that matters

[Supersun]

limit or get rid of sarcasm please, I do not think it passes well to some people and people to other languages.

What other languages are reading the English board O.o

[Seriha]

Kind of sucks that souleater is gimped on anything that matters

Can kinda blame the Kraken Club for that. :/

[Flunklesnarkin]

Can we get rid of the sarcasm? How can you be surprised SE is not fixing drk? Many people sound like the job is fine.
(stopped reading after first page)

Please stop posting rambus.. you bring no value to the discussion.

[Taint]

A crit WS only starts to fix DRKs problems. They are also the only melee job that doesn't have JA or trait to enhance WS frequency and DoT. Jumps,Hasso,STP,DA,TA,DW,MA,Counter,Retaliation,SATA,Pets,Zanshin are all spread across melee jobs to help their output and to help their WS frequency. Before the haste cap a top DRK could hit 86% during LR which gave it a slight edge for 30 seconds every 4:10 but now that thats gone DRK it left swinging the slowest weapons and using the worst WSs. Torclever might be a decent WS but compare it to any other Emp and its down right crappy and a lot of that has to do with the jobs that can use it. Anyone that says DRK is fine inside or out of abyssea is just trying to cockblock any attempt to get it fixed.

[Zeroth]

I also like the fact that anything given to DRK is then nerfed later on down the road.

Souleater, Drain, and now Absorb TP have all been nerfed in some way.

[RaenRyong]

It is hard to think something is wrong with DRK when so many claims the solution is a multi hit crit WS. That just makes it sound like you get less out of razed ruin atma and that is all.

They changed WAR Raging Rush to crit and didn't do the same for DRK Guillotine in one update. Why? I don't know. I like to think SE deliberately keeps WAR overpowered but that's another topic. Critical weaponskills are generally by far the best in terms of raw damage output, so Razed Ruins or not even updating Guillotine to make it critical would be a significant increase in its damage.

[Malamasala]

Well, I also think they keep WAR overpowered by choice. Mainly because everyone thinks that unless it is the best DD, it is just a subjob. There are no other options, just black or white.

I also didn't understand why they kept so many level 70 avatar pacts out of the crit WS update. Ifrit's BP for example is useless on everything in the game except open mouth goldfishes. SE seems to always just update some jobs and leave others to rot.

Of course, Summoner gets a lot of updates so you can't say they are forgotten, they are simply misunderstood since almost all updates add the wrong things. (5 bucks on next update not having any Summoner armors. At most it will be a BLM/WHM/SMN armor with +7 summoning skill and the rest MAB and cure potency)

[Olor]

I think both DRK and PLD really need some love. They are not really "needed" for anything these days. And I agree - if a player has a skill which increases their attack at the expense of damaging themselves - they should have top tier damage after using that skill.

[Kagato]

A crit WS only starts to fix DRKs problems. They are also the only melee job that doesn't have JA or trait to enhance WS frequency and DoT. Jumps,Hasso,STP,DA,TA,DW,MA,Counter,Retaliation,SATA,Pets,Zanshin are all spread across melee jobs to help their output and to help their WS frequency. Before the haste cap a top DRK could hit 86% during LR which gave it a slight edge for 30 seconds every 4:10 but now that thats gone DRK it left swinging the slowest weapons and using the worst WSs. Torclever might be a decent WS but compare it to any other Emp and its down right crappy and a lot of that has to do with the jobs that can use it. Anyone that says DRK is fine inside or out of abyssea is just trying to cockblock any attempt to get it fixed.

Oh, you mean people like this guy:


You guys do know that from a Melee damage standpoint DRK is one of the top DD in and outside of abyssea?

the only difference in damage between us and a war is WAR has better weaponskills (not empy) and they ONLY win inside abyssea with RR taking affect..

we dont need fukin berserk to cap PDIF.. and giving us super last resort would make us so overpowered....

If you want to keep up in abyssea on DRK you need to get one of the empy weaponskills.. just like to be a good WAR you need Ukko's and a good sam has Fudo.......... the WoE version even..

Stop askign for some crit weaponskill to be handed to you and go work and get a good weaponskill yourself..

By saying we're one of the top DD in/out of abyssea, that our Last Resort is just fine, and that we need an Empy Weaponskill to keep up (lolQuietus. At least Torcleaver is trying) is stuck in some whacked out world of delusion. And you know what's sad? There are people who actually believe this.

[Frost]

Idk, I like Dark the way it is. In Abyssea, if you want a Crit Hit WS, just use swords, axes or even g.axes(for Cleaving). You don't ALWAYS have to use a scythe or g.sword. Drk's get access to pretty much everything a War gets, and then some, so comapring Darks to War is kinda moot.

Dark is a hybrid class, it has a lot of uses other than "MONGO SMAAAAASH!". 99% of the Darks out there REALLY want to be playing Warrior, because there's absolutely no difference between how 99% of Darks play Dark and How a War plays War, except for aesthetics.

That's not to say there's NO differences between them. Just that people rarely use the stuff that separates Drk form War. I rarely if ever see Drks cast anything besides maybe Ab-TP. Most of them only see the job abilities and seem to ignore they got an MP pool. Do you know what Ab-Agi does for a group? It drops the mob's agility, aiding in the overall crit-rate of the entire group. Ab-Acc, is like another Blind that stacks in addition to Blind, Ab-Dex drops that accuracy even further (not so noticeably though). And dare I remind you, did you know Dark can actually sleep stuff? Never seen that cross a Darks' mind when an add is sitting there whacking on someone (Or aggro something and choose to die instead of sleep it).

SE keeps trying to corral Darks into casting more, and I wish they would, but I will admit, Dark does have a few "Head Scratchers"... Elemental Magic is kinda too low to be Useful. Why would I cast Aero III when I can hit a mob 3x in the same amount of time, do 5x as much and be 3/5's of the way to a weaponskill? If the elemental spells were incorporated/combined with the Ab-Spells in some way, like say instead of having Ab-Dex and Thunder, instead give Ab-Dex a thunder property that absorbs dexterity and deals thunder damage. It would be a lot less insulting than an elemental spell thats out damaged by something a healer could toss out while goofing off.

And if SE really wants Darks to be more valuable to parties, AND cast more, give us an ability that allows Darks to share their absorb spells with a party member(s). How nice would it be to have a Dark cast Aspir, or Drain and have it shared with a tank? Like a "Trick Attack" for magic. Just put a party member between you and a monster, cast Ab-Acc, you get accuracy and so does your buddy. Or just an Aura ability: you Absorb Strength, and anyone within x yalms gets the Str buff too.

[Gradd]

Casting magic (yes even absorb TP) hurts your over all DPS and isn't worth it in any way, that is why you do not see DRKs casting their spells.

[Therin]

DRK would be easy to fix with the coming updates. It's not nearly as far behind the other jobs as people think it is - it's solely that Atma makes critical-based jobs so overpowered that any two-handed DD without a critical WS is subpar. Outside of Abyssea, where the playing fields have been leveled, DRK is only slightly behind, if at all, other DD jobs.

Also, the differences between DRK and WAR are much more than aesthetic as a previous poster suggested. DRK has much greater survivability. I know that, even with Apocalypse, my WAR is much stronger than my DRK in terms of straight damage output, but I feel paper thin and vulnerable when I play WAR because I don't have any ability to regain health, stun the enemy, or use Dread Spikes as a buffer.

DRK can be easily fixed by making more use of its job abilities such as Souleater (perhaps a trait at 95 that lowers the downside to Souleater, so that it takes only 5% of your health, rather than 10%, yet deals the same damage as before), and perhaps the addition of job abilities that allow, or force, critical hits on weapon skills, or additional effects on regular attacks (low chance, say 10%, permanent Endrain is what I'm thinking of).

[Flunklesnarkin]

lower souleater timer to 1 min and ungimp souleater ;o

[blowfin]

Get torcleaver, sub thf. Problem solved.

[Flunklesnarkin]

Thats hardly a solution blowfin... I can't think of any other job whose main weapon is worse than a secondary weapon


edit... but i suppose GA could work.. if they gave drk an A- rating in great axe

then it would be problem solve >_>

[blowfin]

Well if youre going in with a main weapon mindset like that of course its not a solution. Why do you have to be swinging a scythe the whole time to be happy on DRK, its 7 skill levels difference at lvl 90 between GS and Scythe and hardly worth even considering them as main or otherwise.

Also, the GS is the easiest empy to get (with GK and Gun), improves the performance of DRK substantially and you get to crit your WS every 30 seconds if you sub THF.

[Flunklesnarkin]

A jobs best weapon shouldn't be B- rated ... heck even whm ( considered a non DD job) gets a B+ in its main weapon club

Give Drk an A- in GA and it would be fine to say problem solved imo...


edit.. oh and its not 7 skill level differences between GA and scythe at 90

GA caps at 325 .. scythe caps at 361

[Therin]

you get to crit your WS every 30 seconds if you sub THF.

This is irrelevant if your DoT is halved by changing your subjob.

[Olor]

GA caps at 325 .. scythe caps at 361

he said Great Sword... not Great Axe... I believe:


Well if youre going in with a main weapon mindset like that of course its not a solution. Why do you have to be swinging a scythe the whole time to be happy on DRK, its 7 skill levels difference at lvl 90 between GS and Scythe and hardly worth even considering them as main or otherwise.

Also, the GS is the easiest empy to get (with GK and Gun), improves the performance of DRK substantially and you get to crit your WS every 30 seconds if you sub THF.

[blowfin]

A jobs best weapon shouldn't be B- rated ... heck even whm ( considered a non DD job) gets a B+ in its main weapon club

Give Drk an A- in GA and it would be fine to say problem solved imo...


edit.. oh and its not 7 skill level differences between GA and scythe at 90

GA caps at 325 .. scythe caps at 361

Sorry, there was a typo in my post which read GA rather than GS. Even still, the original post did say that there was a 7 skill level difference between GS and Scythe, not GA and Scythe.

Just to note, isnt Rampage spam the way to go for good numbers for DRK in Abyss? At least for EXP. At least until you can get hold of the Empy GS. Why is swinging a 2H weapon that important that people overlook other options.

[Kagato]

Idk, I like Dark the way it is. In Abyssea, if you want a Crit Hit WS, just use swords, axes or even g.axes(for Cleaving). You don't ALWAYS have to use a scythe or g.sword. Drk's get access to pretty much everything a War gets, and then some, so comapring Darks to War is kinda moot.

Dark is a hybrid class, it has a lot of uses other than "MONGO SMAAAAASH!". 99% of the Darks out there REALLY want to be playing Warrior, because there's absolutely no difference between how 99% of Darks play Dark and How a War plays War, except for aesthetics.

That's not to say there's NO differences between them. Just that people rarely use the stuff that separates Drk form War. I rarely if ever see Drks cast anything besides maybe Ab-TP. Most of them only see the job abilities and seem to ignore they got an MP pool. Do you know what Ab-Agi does for a group? It drops the mob's agility, aiding in the overall crit-rate of the entire group. Ab-Acc, is like another Blind that stacks in addition to Blind, Ab-Dex drops that accuracy even further (not so noticeably though). And dare I remind you, did you know Dark can actually sleep stuff? Never seen that cross a Darks' mind when an add is sitting there whacking on someone (Or aggro something and choose to die instead of sleep it).

SE keeps trying to corral Darks into casting more, and I wish they would, but I will admit, Dark does have a few "Head Scratchers"... Elemental Magic is kinda too low to be Useful. Why would I cast Aero III when I can hit a mob 3x in the same amount of time, do 5x as much and be 3/5's of the way to a weaponskill? If the elemental spells were incorporated/combined with the Ab-Spells in some way, like say instead of having Ab-Dex and Thunder, instead give Ab-Dex a thunder property that absorbs dexterity and deals thunder damage. It would be a lot less insulting than an elemental spell thats out damaged by something a healer could toss out while goofing off.

And if SE really wants Darks to be more valuable to parties, AND cast more, give us an ability that allows Darks to share their absorb spells with a party member(s). How nice would it be to have a Dark cast Aspir, or Drain and have it shared with a tank? Like a "Trick Attack" for magic. Just put a party member between you and a monster, cast Ab-Acc, you get accuracy and so does your buddy. Or just an Aura ability: you Absorb Strength, and anyone within x yalms gets the Str buff too.

I don't like to be mean, but I have to. This entire post is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Let's break it down:

1) You got DRK and WAR swapped. It is WAR who has more weapon versatility than DRK, and uses those weapons better too. That is why WAR is always wanted over a DRK for red procs.

2) lolMongo Smash. Did you know that the only way to do such a thing is to use Souleater and Last Resort together? Once we do that, we probably run even with WARs and MNKs as far as DoT, only we're actually dying while doing it and they're not.

3) DRKs don't want to be WARs. Actually, no SMART DRK wants to be another WAR. What good DRKs want is something that makes them stand out and have something that is actually needed and better than another job. Did you know BLMs have the same Dark Magic skill as us? Thats right. We can't even beat BLMs in a magic category that we're supposed to specialize in.

3) Casting during a battle greatly reduces our DPS and overall DoT. If we're not supposed to physically engage an enemy, such as against NMs in Abyssea or other such events, guess what we do? Stun. Sadly, so can other jobs, making us not as valuable. Sure, we can also cast absorb spells to weaken the NM, but Absorb decay is so high on NMs that it wears off quickly even if we have capped Dark Magic, fully merited, and have a Dark Magic set. So sure, we can cast Absorb-ACC. It'll give any ordinary big NM...oh...10 seconds of "blind." And did you know our ability to sleep things is usually overshadowed by other mages in the group? both BLMs and RDMs do it better than us. We only have to use it if we're the only ones that can, and seeing as how our actual enfeebles list is small, chances are a DRK who didn't lvl another mage job with more enfeeble spells won't have a high enough skill to land Sleep in the first place.

4) Our Elemental Magic skill isn't too low. We have the 2nd highest in the game. It's the spells themselves that are too low. We only have as high as tier III.

[Frost]

"My truck is suppose to be a race car! How dare you tell me it can haul things! If I help people and put stuff in the truck bed I can't go fast!"

You're missing the point of my post. First of I said most people that play the job act as such, not that I believe it should be done as such. Second, I am not confusing the versatility between the jobs as stated. Reread what I said. Third, Read, don't skim in the future. And finally reread the metaphor in the opening of this post and hopefully you can see where I am coming from.

[RaenRyong]

sub THF.

no

/thf can be up to 40%+ weaker than /sam.

[Kagato]

"My truck is suppose to be a race car! How dare you tell me it can haul things! If I help people and put stuff in the truck bed I can't go fast!"

You're missing the point of my post. First of I said most people that play the job act as such, not that I believe it should be done as such. Second, I am not confusing the versatility between the jobs as stated. Reread what I said. Third, Read, don't skim in the future. And finally reread the metaphor in the opening of this post and hopefully you can see where I am coming from.

Rereading your post now.

...

Yup. My post still stands.

[Rayik]

Idk, I like Dark the way it is. In Abyssea, if you want a Crit Hit WS, just use swords, axes or even g.axes(for Cleaving). You don't ALWAYS have to use a scythe or g.sword. Drk's get access to pretty much everything a War gets, and then some, so comapring Darks to War is kinda moot.

Dark is a hybrid class, it has a lot of uses other than "MONGO SMAAAAASH!". 99% of the Darks out there REALLY want to be playing Warrior, because there's absolutely no difference between how 99% of Darks play Dark and How a War plays War, except for aesthetics.

That's not to say there's NO differences between them. Just that people rarely use the stuff that separates Drk form War. I rarely if ever see Drks cast anything besides maybe Ab-TP. Most of them only see the job abilities and seem to ignore they got an MP pool. Do you know what Ab-Agi does for a group? It drops the mob's agility, aiding in the overall crit-rate of the entire group. Ab-Acc, is like another Blind that stacks in addition to Blind, Ab-Dex drops that accuracy even further (not so noticeably though). And dare I remind you, did you know Dark can actually sleep stuff? Never seen that cross a Darks' mind when an add is sitting there whacking on someone (Or aggro something and choose to die instead of sleep it).

SE keeps trying to corral Darks into casting more, and I wish they would, but I will admit, Dark does have a few "Head Scratchers"... Elemental Magic is kinda too low to be Useful. Why would I cast Aero III when I can hit a mob 3x in the same amount of time, do 5x as much and be 3/5's of the way to a weaponskill? If the elemental spells were incorporated/combined with the Ab-Spells in some way, like say instead of having Ab-Dex and Thunder, instead give Ab-Dex a thunder property that absorbs dexterity and deals thunder damage. It would be a lot less insulting than an elemental spell thats out damaged by something a healer could toss out while goofing off.

And if SE really wants Darks to be more valuable to parties, AND cast more, give us an ability that allows Darks to share their absorb spells with a party member(s). How nice would it be to have a Dark cast Aspir, or Drain and have it shared with a tank? Like a "Trick Attack" for magic. Just put a party member between you and a monster, cast Ab-Acc, you get accuracy and so does your buddy. Or just an Aura ability: you Absorb Strength, and anyone within x yalms gets the Str buff too.

You don't have DRK levelled, do you... Know how I know?

Elemental Magic is kinda too low to be Useful.

DRK Elemental Magic rating is B+, it's higher than a freakin' RDM, and equal to a SCH using Dark Arts. The skill is fine, we just have no native MAB do do anything with it. So our Fire III lands just fine, it's just does less damage than a dagger swing, and takes 10x as long.

If SE wants us to cast more spells, give us a damned reason to cast them! Occult Accumen was a start, but why on earth am I going to spend the time to cast a spell, possibly get interrupted, do crappy damage, and get back 2 or 3 tp, when I could've swung my scythe/GS, done MORE damage, NOT get interrupted, and gotten back around 19-ish tp?

It's simple. Have Occult Accumen give us tp comparable to a weapon swing. Make the casting time comparable to weapon delay, and give us the tp associated with it. I'll happily cast spells all day if I can get that tp that my weapon would get.

[Urteil]

Idk, I like Dark the way it is. In Abyssea, if you want a Crit Hit WS, just use swords, axes or even g.axes(for Cleaving). You don't ALWAYS have to use a scythe or g.sword. Drk's get access to pretty much everything a War gets, and then some, so comapring Darks to War is kinda moot.

Dark is a hybrid class, it has a lot of uses other than "MONGO SMAAAAASH!". 99% of the Darks out there REALLY want to be playing Warrior, because there's absolutely no difference between how 99% of Darks play Dark and How a War plays War, except for aesthetics.

That's not to say there's NO differences between them. Just that people rarely use the stuff that separates Drk form War. I rarely if ever see Drks cast anything besides maybe Ab-TP. Most of them only see the job abilities and seem to ignore they got an MP pool. Do you know what Ab-Agi does for a group? It drops the mob's agility, aiding in the overall crit-rate of the entire group. Ab-Acc, is like another Blind that stacks in addition to Blind, Ab-Dex drops that accuracy even further (not so noticeably though). And dare I remind you, did you know Dark can actually sleep stuff? Never seen that cross a Darks' mind when an add is sitting there whacking on someone (Or aggro something and choose to die instead of sleep it).

SE keeps trying to corral Darks into casting more, and I wish they would, but I will admit, Dark does have a few "Head Scratchers"... Elemental Magic is kinda too low to be Useful. Why would I cast Aero III when I can hit a mob 3x in the same amount of time, do 5x as much and be 3/5's of the way to a weaponskill? If the elemental spells were incorporated/combined with the Ab-Spells in some way, like say instead of having Ab-Dex and Thunder, instead give Ab-Dex a thunder property that absorbs dexterity and deals thunder damage. It would be a lot less insulting than an elemental spell thats out damaged by something a healer could toss out while goofing off.

And if SE really wants Darks to be more valuable to parties, AND cast more, give us an ability that allows Darks to share their absorb spells with a party member(s). How nice would it be to have a Dark cast Aspir, or Drain and have it shared with a tank? Like a "Trick Attack" for magic. Just put a party member between you and a monster, cast Ab-Acc, you get accuracy and so does your buddy. Or just an Aura ability: you Absorb Strength, and anyone within x yalms gets the Str buff too.


There's good and bad here.

I get a very gray feeling.

[Cruentus]

They don't need to give DRK a critical hit WS they just need to give DRK a 30 second JA that causes the first hit of the next WS to be a critical hit.

Use with Spinning Slash or Torcleaver. DRK is fixed.

That would be better as a job trait.


Why don't we leave abyssea out of this? Abyssea isn't going to be the end all of FFXI, and if it is, please tell me now so I can finally quit. DRK has no immediate issues, the problem is that other jobs received major updates that currently shine in Abyssea. While they are still great outside of Aby, DRK can still meet and often beat other jobs if you're actually good at it. DRK doesn't need a super crit WS for spike damage. Honestly, I understand Quietus isn't something that met peoples' expectations, and I'm a bit disappointed as well. Why would you implement MND (DRK's WORST basic stat) into ANY weapon skill used by this particular job? In fact why would you implement MND into ANY weapon skill for ANY job? That's just a terrible way of saying "F YOU" to people who enjoy the job. Well that didn't stop us from using Guillotine all these years. I actually like using Quietus... in Campaign Battles... and other irrelevant crap... Spike damage isn't DRK's best feature any more, but DPS isn't out of the question yet. Perhaps with extended Last Resort duration it can be the strongest DD as I envision it.

Um, because balance has to be maintained throughout the game? Come on, use your head, please. How would you like it if people demanded "Warrior or get the hell out" of you, and your melee jobs amounted to Dark Knight and maybe White Mage? And this is concerning most of the good stuff that's out right now.


What's the commonality of all the jobs you just listed.

Oh that's right they are all 1H DDs.

2H DDs get 3 ATT for every 4 STR and 3 ACC for every 4 DEX. So now you want them to be more damaging than 1H jobs *and* have the enhanced survivability that 1H jobs have as well?


Tell you what, you can have enhanced survivability if 1H jobs can have the same 4:3 ATT/ACC calculation 2H jobs get.

You clearly have no idea how much more lethal a weapon is, when you compare wielding it with one hand to wielding it with two hands. Two-handed weapons should beat out one-handed weapons every time.


DRK has plenty of useful magic. You don't use it all the time, but there are times when it comes in handy. Endark was one of the things meant to rectify that, and I think it helps. DRK doesn't need more martial prowess, they already have it. The only reason DRK seems underwhelming right now is because of the current metagame of abyssea.

I personally find this post hilarious. We have the first three tiers of single-target elemental magic, which does crap for damage coming from a job that has no Magic Attack Bonus, and Occult Acumen gives us maybe a fifth of the TP we'd get for swinging a weapon in the same amount of time, plus the weapon would do more damage. Then there's our enfeebling magic, which is just Bind (one of the most useless spells in the game), Poison II (Red Mages do it better), and Sleep II (see Poison II). Our Absorb spells decay over time and take too long to cast, Dread Spikes isn't even worth a darn, and Endark overwrites additional effects on your weapon, like the Twilight scythe's Death. You could argue that we have Stun, but so do Black Mages, and they have equal skill in dark magic to us.

I repeat, there must be balance. Right now, there most certainly is not balance, considering Dark Knights are a joke in Abyssea.


Get torcleaver, sub thf. Problem solved.

Um, not at all. We need to NOT rely on a support job for anything, thanks. People need to learn that a support job's just there to support, and not, "THIS OR YOU AREN'T WORTH CRAP!!"

As it stands, it's DRK/SAM, or we aren't worth crap. This must change by making Dark Knights better, and there are several parts of the job that need to be fixed.

The next thing we know, you'll be suggesting that we use a dagger 90% of the time.


Thats hardly a solution blowfin... I can't think of any other job whose main weapon is worse than a secondary weapon


edit... but i suppose GA could work.. if they gave drk an A- rating in great axe

then it would be problem solve >_>

Again, not really. We have an A+ with a scythe. We need to be using that. Or would you expect a Paladin to be using a staff 90% of the time, hm?


Sorry, there was a typo in my post which read GA rather than GS. Even still, the original post did say that there was a 7 skill level difference between GS and Scythe, not GA and Scythe.

Just to note, isnt Rampage spam the way to go for good numbers for DRK in Abyss? At least for EXP. At least until you can get hold of the Empy GS. Why is swinging a 2H weapon that important that people overlook other options.

Even Torcleaver's a joke compared to every other Empyrean Weapon Skill, sans Quietus, and that's just sad for us Dark Knights. You need to do a lot more research into this matter before you even post again. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

[blowfin]

Do DRK's consider drain and drain II as actual damage? Or does it all have to come from the Scythe?


no

/thf can be up to 40%+ weaker than /sam.

Well then stop complaining about not being able to crit your WS if you won't sub the appropriate thing to do it?

[Dooom]

Well then stop complaining about not being able to crit your WS if you won't sub the appropriate thing to do it?

The aim of having a crit-hit WS is to do damage. Should a drk sub thf, they hurt their overall damage by far more than they gain from being able to crit-hit their WS. One step forwards, two steps back.

[blowfin]

Should a drk sub thf, they hurt their overall damage by far more than they gain from being able to crit-hit their WS. One step forwards, two steps back.

Well, put it this way. I think DRK's chances of suddenly getting a JA to crit the first hit of a WS is very highly unlikely, seeing as it already exists and is a JA for THF. I'm all for constructive ideas but that one is kind of silly.

[Dooom]

I don't think anyone was asking for a JA to do that, just for a crit-hit WS.

[RaenRyong]

Do DRK's consider drain and drain II as actual damage? Or does it all have to come from the Scythe?

Drain and Drain II are utility tools. As damage tools, they are terrible.


Well then stop complaining about not being able to crit your WS if you won't sub the appropriate thing to do it?

What other job has to cripple itself for a critical WS?

[Therin]

Here's an idea I posted on the DRK forums that I think should be looked into:


Job Trait: "Crippling Blow" - Occasionally doubles the damage of the next physical attack to strike an opponent. (5-10% rate, can process on a missed hit, can process on weapon skills, but only on the first hit.)

My idea with "Crippling Blow" was that it would process like a critical hit, like this:

First attack round:

Therin's attack deals a crippling blow!
The Forest Hare takes 200 points of damage.

Then, since the monster is "crippled", the very next attack from the same player would deal double damage. This would be a little more interesting that just straight up doubling the damage occasionally and would force more user input. For example, if you waited to weapon skill until after you saw the message, your WS would force double damage.

This would be a low activation rate, 5 or 10%, so it wouldn't be overly powerful I think.

I'd be happy with a straight up double damage trait too, of course, but I like the idea of making jobs more complex and engaging.

If you wanted to make DRK more party friendly you could even open it up to allow "Crippling Blow" to apply to other jobs. So, the DRK processes a "Crippling Blow" attack and then a SAM uses Tachi: Gekko immediately after, and his Gekko does double damage. This would make DRK more interesting and allow it to do more damage, both directly and indirectly (by allowing another player to deal more damage thanks to the DRK with "Crippling Blow").

If they implemented this idea, we'd be seeing inevitable DRK gear with bonuses like "Crippling Blow"+5%, increasing its chance to activate.

[blowfin]

I don't think anyone was asking for a JA to do that, just for a crit-hit WS.

People were plainly asking for a JA to do exactly that.

[Unctgtg]

I Rarely use Guillotine ;) but yes Drk is at the bottom of the Totum pole

[Seriha]

I don't think DRKs are helping their cause when they start saying stupid things like a dagger swing does more damage than a T3 nuke. Lies and gross exaggerations like that pretty much make the rest sound like whining.

Martially, I'll just reiterate that Insurgency should be a crit WS. During the TP phase, at best I'd offer DRK a trait that grants a high chance of attacking again after landing a critical hit. If we're gonna dabble into the whole Combat Casting idea, that's something RDM and PLD should be getting their hands on, too, with RDM being the best at it if it winds up being tiered.

Magically, I could maybe see up to the MAB2 trait. DRK should have Auto Refresh just like PLD, as Aspir isn't always an option. A trait to greatly enhance nukes on MBs has also been considered in the past, as well as a JA that could make a T3 function like a T4 with the T3's MP cost and (re)cast time. I'd also be okay with simply getting a DRK-specific nuke that does similar, maybe a bit better on MP costs and cast time. The decay rate on Absorbs should be abolished and their overall potency needs to scale better. Absorb-TP should be more like 3/4 the mob's TP unresisted instead of 1/2. I'd be okay with Dread Spikes absorbing maybe 1/2 to 3/4 a blow if it lasted for 5 minutes. And this is just me babbling off the top of my head.

Overall, we all know Abyssea's skewed job perception. I don't forget DRK being the go-to zerg job for damn near everything pre-Einherjar (and even then it was moderately useful at times). I saw DRK tanks on HNMs, tanked some low-man activities myself, and was rarely excluded from the pink pecker phase of birds EXP. DRK isn't a bad job. It's just not popular for Abyssea due to the lack of crit WS on their main weapon(s) and limited proc selection. Meanwhile, for those itching for more and more and more melee prowess, all I can suggest is a job change. Like it or not, the magic is not going away, as that is part of what makes DRK a DRK and it SHOULD be used more often.

[Flunklesnarkin]

People were plainly asking for a JA to do exactly that.

Stop trolling.. people are asking for a critical hit weaponskill... you are the only person going on about /thf >_>

[Ramsos]

They don't need to give DRK a critical hit WS they just need to give DRK a 30 second JA that causes the first hit of the next WS to be a critical hit.

Use with Spinning Slash or Torcleaver. DRK is fixed.

This was on the first page of this thread.

[blowfin]

Stop trolling.. people are asking for a critical hit weaponskill... you are the only person going on about /thf >_>

I'm not trolling, and you're wrong.


They don't need to give DRK a critical hit WS they just need to give DRK a 30 second JA that causes the first hit of the next WS to be a critical hit.

Personally I don't see the problem when I've seen screenshots of critical hits from DRK's that made my jaw hit the floor. I don't see a problem when the Empy GS is so easy to get. There doesn't seem to be much wrong with DRK's potential damage output at all. Maybe in Abyss, but what do people care about Abyss beyond EXP for anyway? DRK lacks many of the procs that make the more desirable DD's just that. If you expect to get by as a DRK main in Abyss you sure as hell better have put some effort into your job, thus you should have the GS empy (or better) really.

[RaenRyong]

Personally I don't see the problem when I've seen screenshots of critical hits from DRK's that made my jaw hit the floor.

One good WS per minute does not a good DD job make.

[blowfin]

I'm not even talking about the WS.

[RaenRyong]

A DRK/THF using Gswrd has nothing really going for it BUT the WS...

[blowfin]

A DRK/THF using Gswrd has nothing really going for it BUT the WS...

Since when are we suddenly talking about DRK/THF.

You seem to be trying to put a lot of words into my mouth. Please don't.

I mean, you might have a point if I said "ALL DRK'S SHOULD SUB THF 100% OF THE TIME. LET IT BE WRITTEN". But I clearly didn't.

[Gokku]

lol this post has been moved due to emo loldrks *hey guys hwo knows if they bring back distortion skillchains you... wait nope not needed then either*

[Dart]

imo a Guillotine should have had crit mods a long time ago..

this X1000000000

been saying this on drk forums for awhile and it turns into a monkey shit fight at the zoo.

edit: i''m also game for insurgency being crit based, jesus just something!

axe/ridill should not be my top weapon choice for dmg in abyssea

[RaenRyong]

Since when are we suddenly talking about DRK/THF.

You seem to be trying to put a lot of words into my mouth. Please don't.

I mean, you might have a point if I said "ALL DRK'S SHOULD SUB THF 100% OF THE TIME. LET IT BE WRITTEN". But I clearly didn't.


Get torcleaver, sub thf. Problem solved.

=> implying Torcleaver and DRK/THF fixes DRK
it doesn't

[Frost]

You don't have DRK levelled, do you... Know how I know?

DRK Elemental Magic rating is B+, it's higher than a freakin' RDM, and equal to a SCH using Dark Arts. The skill is fine, we just have no native MAB do do anything with it. So our Fire III lands just fine, it's just does less damage than a dagger swing, and takes 10x as long.

If SE wants us to cast more spells, give us a damned reason to cast them! Occult Accumen was a start, but why on earth am I going to spend the time to cast a spell, possibly get interrupted, do crappy damage, and get back 2 or 3 tp, when I could've swung my scythe/GS, done MORE damage, NOT get interrupted, and gotten back around 19-ish tp?

It's simple. Have Occult Accumen give us tp comparable to a weapon swing. Make the casting time comparable to weapon delay, and give us the tp associated with it. I'll happily cast spells all day if I can get that tp that my weapon would get.

I do have Dark leveled. It's actually one of my favorite jobs to be honest.

What i meant by "Too low" wasn't our skill level, but the tier of spell. And you pretty much outlined the reasons why I said it. My argument was horribly worded.

[Alhanelem]

There's a problem if your tier 3 spells are doing less damage than the 2 melee swings you'd probably make in that time. You should be able to do more than that.

[blowfin]

=> implying Torcleaver and DRK/THF fixes DRK
it doesn't

Once again, taking what I said out of context to your own end. I was directly replying to someone who was asking for a JA to give DRK crit on the first hit of a WS.

[Harukusan]

Um, because balance has to be maintained throughout the game? Come on, use your head, please. How would you like it if people demanded "Warrior or get the hell out" of you, and your melee jobs amounted to Dark Knight and maybe White Mage? And this is concerning most of the good stuff that's out right now.

Clearly someone didn't even read my post, which is fine. I don't take offense to illiteracy.

What I implied was that I don't consider Abyssea to be an actual part of the game. More like a bonus level where you can go batshit crazy on everything and get the best gear to-date in about a week's worth of effort, or less. Abyssea is not going to last forever, so when it dies down, I believe everything will be back to the way things were before. Basically pre-Abyssea, if you were actually good at a job, people would invite you to use it regularly. If we're lucky, we can go back to that. Now, if you aren't a specific job that meets the standard of Abyssea, people treat you like shit and make you the bench warmer. That's basically what everyone is saying about DRK right now. DRK is the one sitting on the side. For now. Everyone should just calm down and think about what the future actually holds, not try to adjust the current situation.

Think about it, do you believe this is the first time DRK has been on the bottom of the barrel? 2004 it was lolDRG and lolDRK and RNG was the leet DD. RNG+NIN+THF+BLM+RDM+WHM = win PT all! omg guys Sidewinder + SATA Dancing Edge + Blizzaga 2 we can get chain 5!! Of course back then some people thought BRD was pretty useless too, and look what's happened to that! BRD is losing the interest of most people again as well.

Did you all forget that just before Abyssea, DRK was one of the most popular jobs to be used as a DD and often times a tank for many situations, especially low-manning HNMs and other similar events.

This is just another phase in the world of FFXI. It'll all be over soon.

[Taint]

Get torcleaver is a terrible way to fix DRK....GS is one of the more terrible DD emps, scythe being the worst.

To Therin: DRK is not good outside of Abyssea, with the addition of some nice AF3+2 and every job capping haste its getting left standing still in every zone in the game.

[Rayik]

I don't think DRKs are helping their cause when they start saying stupid things like a dagger swing does more damage than a T3 nuke. Lies and gross exaggerations like that pretty much make the rest sound like whining.

Martially, I'll just reiterate that Insurgency should be a crit WS. During the TP phase, at best I'd offer DRK a trait that grants a high chance of attacking again after landing a critical hit. If we're gonna dabble into the whole Combat Casting idea, that's something RDM and PLD should be getting their hands on, too, with RDM being the best at it if it winds up being tiered.

Magically, I could maybe see up to the MAB2 trait. DRK should have Auto Refresh just like PLD, as Aspir isn't always an option. A trait to greatly enhance nukes on MBs has also been considered in the past, as well as a JA that could make a T3 function like a T4 with the T3's MP cost and (re)cast time. I'd also be okay with simply getting a DRK-specific nuke that does similar, maybe a bit better on MP costs and cast time. The decay rate on Absorbs should be abolished and their overall potency needs to scale better. Absorb-TP should be more like 3/4 the mob's TP unresisted instead of 1/2. I'd be okay with Dread Spikes absorbing maybe 1/2 to 3/4 a blow if it lasted for 5 minutes. And this is just me babbling off the top of my head.

Overall, we all know Abyssea's skewed job perception. I don't forget DRK being the go-to zerg job for damn near everything pre-Einherjar (and even then it was moderately useful at times). I saw DRK tanks on HNMs, tanked some low-man activities myself, and was rarely excluded from the pink pecker phase of birds EXP. DRK isn't a bad job. It's just not popular for Abyssea due to the lack of crit WS on their main weapon(s) and limited proc selection. Meanwhile, for those itching for more and more and more melee prowess, all I can suggest is a job change. Like it or not, the magic is not going away, as that is part of what makes DRK a DRK and it SHOULD be used more often.

I'm not saying magic should go away. I'm fine with being a hybrid caster, all I'm saying is give us a reason to cast one of our terrible spells in the first place. Maybe T3 damage versus a dagger was an exaggeration, but really, not by much.

I think they were on the right track with Occult Occumen. As it is it's not worth it, but it has potential. Bottom line is, most of our nuke spells take longer to cast than a normal attack, give a laughably pitiful return on tp(I realize no other job gets even that, but their spells actually do something), use mp, and can be interrupted. Why bother with all that garbage when I can just swing my weapon?

DRK Elemental Magic; IMO, fix it or remove it.

I love DRK. Even with all the Abyssea hullabaloo, and my other jobs that are more in demand that I'm always asked to come as(WAR, etc), I still consider DRK my main. Has been for 4 years. I want to see this job get the respect it deserves. Right now, we're the laughing stock of FF, with all the "emo" references and Q_Q faces. I'm all for other jobs getting their time in the spotlight, but that doesn't mean our job has to get trashed with garbage updates and nerfs to already weak spells(Absorb-TP).

There has to be a way all those other jobs can get their moment without us getting sand kicked in our faces.

[Rezeak]

Since the 75-->90 additions SE has add nothing useful except endark but that fall null and void because it can't stack with some other additional effects like haste samba or the death proc on twilight.

Really my problem with what the Dev team is that in one hands they say "We're gonna encourage DRKs to use magic" then add something really useless like occult acumen then next update tactical parry my response to that kind of stuff is DON'T BOTHER i'd rather you add 1 good thing or nothing to DRK than 4-5 useless things.

Honestly if the dev team wants DRK to be a more solid magic user then they need spells that do a decent amount of DMG or spells that augment our WS/melee DMG enough for them to be worth casting.

And if thats too much effort then just fix our WS dmg and tweak souleater/last resort and give us some new Job ability or Job trait for our melee.

Really at the end of the day Absorb-TP/Drain I/II and stun is a good set of spells for a melee maybe put in a drain III and Terror and call it done for DRKs magic then lets us compete with other melees dmg wise.

[Harukusan]

You know what I find funny? The fact that the mods are blatantly ignoring the DRK forums. By ignoring I mean just not posting anything or shedding any light on these matters, I'm sure they're all reading these (they probably have to). But at least they step in on other threads to let people down, as SE has been doing for several years, even before FFXI. I guess we just can't get our hopes up about anything creative and interesting. Of course knowing DRK's misled reputation, they'd probably be afraid of everyone killing themselves from the disappointment.

[Anathiel]

...wow you guys seriously made me not want to come back to the game now. lmfao wow....that's just heart breaking hahaha. well hopefully we can get some information shined on this situation. please mod's tell us if anything is being planned for drk?

[Anathiel]

okay somebody just gave me the low down on what's going on with DRK. please for the love of god give the job a buff lol. we're not asking for much, just asking for a level playing ground.

[Frost]

You know what I find funny? The fact that the mods are blatantly ignoring the DRK forums. By ignoring I mean just not posting anything or shedding any light on these matters, I'm sure they're all reading these (they probably have to). But at least they step in on other threads to let people down, as SE has been doing for several years, even before FFXI. I guess we just can't get our hopes up about anything creative and interesting. Of course knowing DRK's misled reputation, they'd probably be afraid of everyone killing themselves from the disappointment.

Why should the dark forum get special treatment? Have you seen any developer interaction in the other job forums?

Only Drg and Cor have; Cor because one of its abilities is being worked on atm, and Drg because a thread was moved from general, that had an easy to answer question.

The devs are busy with more pressing issues at the moment I'm sure.



Cater to Darks who only recently became deficient? Or work on releasing new content and fixing jobs that need balancing more urgently?

And Darks only became deficient by proxy, because other jobs that were neglected for years finally got a boost.

Get some perspective...

[Anathiel]

Recently became deficient eh? I seem to remember back in 2005 getting kicked out of pt's because they found a rng. Or looking for a party for days before finally getting proficient at making my own parties before I got a static. Oh, and not being able to get into zilart or promathia missions. Right I guess this has only happened recently.

[Harukusan]

Why should the dark forum get special treatment? Have you seen any developer interaction in the other job forums?

Because DRK is obviously played by special people, such as yourself. ;)

[Frost]

Recently became deficient eh? I seem to remember back in 2005 getting kicked out of pt's because they found a rng. Or looking for a party for days before finally getting proficient at making my own parties before I got a static. Oh, and not being able to get into zilart or promathia missions. Right I guess this has only happened recently.

Yes recently.

Really? Going to bring up Rangers? Really? You do recall they got nerfed to near extinction right? That's the worst example you could possibly come up with. You, as well as everyone got replaced by rangers because they were so ridiculously over powered at the time, and got "adjusted". Then everyone played Rdm, Blm, Nin, and Brd for about 3 years... Then they added the Two handed buff and pretty much every one-handed job fell to the wayside as Drks, Drgs, Sams and Wars got invites, casting off the one handers into exile for a few years(with a few exceptions).

Now, the pendulum has swung in the other direction, and the one hander jobs are enjoying a bit more of the limelight, but sharing said limelight instead of dominating it with those two-handers of yesteryear.

You guys make it seem like Darks are completely useless; like Darks are just under a melee Smn/Blm on the pecking order or something. I have no problem getting invites on my Drk or holding my own in a party nowadays. Most of the reason why I hold my own is that I adapt and enjoy the whole berth of the Dark job. And I'm not the only one having no issues. If you think it's so hard to play right now and that you're useless, while other Darks still holding top slots in a parse, getting invites on "your job", and don't see it as underpowered... You might want to think about maybe why YOU are having issues.

[Cruentus]

Clearly someone didn't even read my post, which is fine. I don't take offense to illiteracy.

What I implied was that I don't consider Abyssea to be an actual part of the game. More like a bonus level where you can go batshit crazy on everything and get the best gear to-date in about a week's worth of effort, or less. Abyssea is not going to last forever, so when it dies down, I believe everything will be back to the way things were before. Basically pre-Abyssea, if you were actually good at a job, people would invite you to use it regularly. If we're lucky, we can go back to that. Now, if you aren't a specific job that meets the standard of Abyssea, people treat you like shit and make you the bench warmer. That's basically what everyone is saying about DRK right now. DRK is the one sitting on the side. For now. Everyone should just calm down and think about what the future actually holds, not try to adjust the current situation.

Think about it, do you believe this is the first time DRK has been on the bottom of the barrel? 2004 it was lolDRG and lolDRK and RNG was the leet DD. RNG+NIN+THF+BLM+RDM+WHM = win PT all! omg guys Sidewinder + SATA Dancing Edge + Blizzaga 2 we can get chain 5!! Of course back then some people thought BRD was pretty useless too, and look what's happened to that! BRD is losing the interest of most people again as well.

Did you all forget that just before Abyssea, DRK was one of the most popular jobs to be used as a DD and often times a tank for many situations, especially low-manning HNMs and other similar events.

This is just another phase in the world of FFXI. It'll all be over soon.

Except that add-ons never get fully removed from the game. Abyssea will always be there, just like Dynamis, Einherjar, and Eco-Warrior. And I did use the phrase "right now." Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

First, don't imply things. Say what you mean instead of being sarcastic, and the only people who will misunderstand you will be the idiots who can't read. I.e., not me. Second, no, I don't believe this is the first time. I believe it's the first time in my time in Vana'diel, which is true, since I've had this game for a year. I'm working with what I know. Screw 2004. Finally, no matter what, balance is required in a game like this. If a job (like how DRK is right now) is useless compared to everything else, it needs to be fixed. There is no possible argument against this fact, and I will thank you to either help the situation by suggesting things that will actually help, rather than keep your attitude and help drag this thread down.

Now, to everyone... Try doing something constructive already. Instead of arguing with each other, try suggestions to fix the job. I'm getting really, really sick of this stupid one-upsmanship attitude everyone has.

[Flunklesnarkin]

while we are talking about drk.. i always thought drk should have some sort of spell similar to holy .. but drk based...

would be really fast to cast and could do a quick augment to your damage like holy.. maybe instead of calling it un-holy they could call it ummm.. Desecrate?

Then we could pretend like we are evil pld's >_>

[Zeroth]

I suggest they do something about scythe which SE said they would do 4 years ago...

[Rayik]

Yes recently.

Really? Going to bring up Rangers? Really? You do recall they got nerfed to near extinction right? That's the worst example you could possibly come up with. You, as well as everyone got replaced by rangers because they were so ridiculously over powered at the time, and got "adjusted". Then everyone played Rdm, Blm, Nin, and Brd for about 3 years... Then they added the Two handed buff and pretty much every one-handed job fell to the wayside as Drks, Drgs, Sams and Wars got invites, casting off the one handers into exile for a few years(with a few exceptions).

Now, the pendulum has swung in the other direction, and the one hander jobs are enjoying a bit more of the limelight, but sharing said limelight instead of dominating it with those two-handers of yesteryear.

You guys make it seem like Darks are completely useless; like Darks are just under a melee Smn/Blm on the pecking order or something. I have no problem getting invites on my Drk or holding my own in a party nowadays. Most of the reason why I hold my own is that I adapt and enjoy the whole berth of the Dark job. And I'm not the only one having no issues. If you think it's so hard to play right now and that you're useless, while other Darks still holding top slots in a parse, getting invites on "your job", and don't see it as underpowered... You might want to think about maybe why YOU are having issues.

Try getting a party invite on something other than trash XP mobs. Only reason DRK gets invites to Abyssea parties is to fill up space in an alliance. Nobody goes out of there way to get a DRK, it's never "Ooh! a DRK, grab him!" Have fun fighting NM's or actually accomplishing something besides XP.

Addendum: I've been a DRK main for 4 years, leveled RDM a year and a half ago just so I had something useful at events(and I enjoyed the job). Even when I low-man with RL friends and family, they NEVER ask me to come DRK. They'd rather have me on my gimpy full-perle, Abyssea-burned WAR with red procs(skills barely high enough for that) than my full geared out and merited DRK.

[Frost]

@Flunklesnarkin: FFXII had "Scourge" which was pretty spiffy, they could add it to this game, Drk only, Good idea on the concept though. Hell they coudl have given us the old school "Demi" I, II, III, & IV(?) spells as "Dark Spells" instead of weak elemental spells they did give us.


Try getting a party invite on something other than trash XP mobs. Only reason DRK gets invites to Abyssea parties is to fill up space in an alliance. Nobody goes out of there way to get a DRK, it's never "Ooh! a DRK, grab him!" Have fun fighting NM's or actually accomplishing something besides XP.

First fallacy: You assume it's not like that for any if not all jobs.

Second fallacy: You forget, it's might not be the job, it might be you.
(Not you specifically, just the proverbial 'you'.)

And final thought on this line of ill-conceived bovine excrement. Get better friends. If I want to come dark, I do. And I am welcomed to do so. Because I know my role, and how to play the job to benefit the group, and my friends know I know what I am capable of, and don't second guess my ability.

So in retort I have no issue playing Dark as it is, nor getting invites, nor participating in larger scale events on Dark. I know I am able to show people it's not a "Weak Job", and that's easy because it's not a weak job.


Addendum: I've been a DRK main for 4 years, leveled RDM a year and a half ago just so I had something useful at events(and I enjoyed the job). Even when I low-man with RL friends and family, they NEVER ask me to come DRK. They'd rather have me on my gimpy full-perle, Abyssea-burned WAR with red procs(skills barely high enough for that) than my full geared out and merited DRK.

Then your friends suck, and judging by their actions as stated here, they don't respect you. Considering you have a self-admitted:

"gimpy full-perle, Abyssea-burned WAR with red procs (skills barely high enough for that)",

I'd assume you don't respect you. Why level a job you have no interest in? Why not gear it up if it's needed? Why can't you make a case to go Dark, when, if War's being used solely for proc'ing, it's barely different?

The answer isn't "Dark is weak"...

And I think the statement that you have skills barely high enough to proc reds on war speaks volumes; because that statement holds a 100% truth to your dark too... They're the same skills used on both. If you give a shit, they'll give a shit.

[RaenRyong]

Melee BRD might be able to outDD DRK. I haven't done the math on it, but looking at it, it seems likely... inside Abyssea of course.

[Quetzacoatl]

Melee BRD might be able to outDD DRK. I haven't done the math on it, but looking at it, it seems likely... inside Abyssea of course.

BlueGartr tested that a long time ago I thought. But yeah, if a BARD can out-damage a Dark Knight, something is seriously wrong.

[Frost]

Melee BRD might be able to outDD DRK. I haven't done the math on it, but looking at it, it seems likely... inside Abyssea of course.

I assume you're just trolling, but I'll bite...
If a melee bard and Drk were in the same party, and both receiving buffs, there's no way a melee Brd could out-damage a Drk. If only for the fact a Drk gets access to every offensive ability that bard has, save for requiem, while having access to generally better gear.

[Gradd]

Calling Raen a troll your just making yourself look like a retard. x:

Other than Kirschy he has to be one of the most knowledgeable DRKs out there.

Even Kirschy says DRK is worthless and when she is saying that much, you know something is wrong.

[Frost]

Calling Raen a troll your just making yourself look like a retard. x:

Other than Kirschy he has to be one of the most knowledgeable DRKs out there.

Even Kirschy says DRK is worthless and when she is saying that much, you know something is wrong.

I said that post was a toll post just due to the absurdity of the premise, not that Raen is a troll.

I like Raen's posts, and usually agree with what they have to say, and even in the case that I don't agree with what they say, I respect their opinion, because unlike a seemingly large vocal group of people coagulating here on the forum that seem to be autistic or something, Raen seems to be able to formulate thoughts properly, and convey them in a meaningful, generally constructive, way.

Idk what I am doing different, that makes my Dark preform acceptably. I've given clues, and I HAVE seen other darks struggle, but it's generally due to them not adopting new ideas and game-play elements. I've been trying to be nice about it, but maybe that's not getting the point across.

[Urteil]

I like how the entire purpose of this thread was to get it attention in the main general forums because SE ignores us.

And now its back here.

I'm seriously considering spamming it into the main thread, until I get an answer besides it being moved.

[Urteil]

A DRK/THF using Gswrd has nothing really going for it BUT the WS...

Don't forget the death, -40% PDT and a Caladbolg isn't going to stop that quick sweet death due to my shit sub!

[RaenRyong]

I assume you're just trolling, but I'll bite...
If a melee bard and Drk were in the same party, and both receiving buffs, there's no way a melee Brd could out-damage a Drk. If only for the fact a Drk gets access to every offensive ability that bard has, save for requiem, while having access to generally better gear.

I am trolling in a way, in that I'm posting that to gain a reaction. The reaction I want is the initial disbelief and then when you realise that what I just said isn't that far from the truth, the next reaction I want is the "... wtf? Fix DRK".

We can either assume nonempyrean for both, or give them both empyreans (remembering BRD has full access to ToM daggers). Both cap haste, DRK can 5hit if Scythe, 6hit if Gswrd. Guillotine is 3.875 fTP and Evisceration is 6 fTP with critical potential. Assuming a base damage of ~200 for Scythe and ~120 for Dagger, 775 vs 720 relative units of damage, before criticals - so obviously when criticals are taken into account, Evisceration will absolutely rape Guillotine (not to mention I've assumed same WSC for both, when Razed Ruins atma (which both should use) will greatly favour Evisceration etc).

So DRK has capped Haste, BRD has capped Haste and some DW reduction on what are already extremely high DoT daggers. If we assume Kila +2 x2, 43dmg/190delay => 86dmg/304delay(after DW), giving a "DPS" of ~17 (ignoring the STR/atk/DEX/acc on the daggers). DRK using Woeborn (131dmg/528delay) has a "DPS" of 14.9. This is unfair, you cry! I should give DRK its top magian too. This is true, but you'll soon come to the depressing conclusion that you need a perfect magian with perfect gear to keep up with a rather mundane melee bard (albeit one with empyrean daggers).

I haven't factored Last Resort or Hasso, both of which should push DRK over BRD. In fact, most of this math is highly approximate and should not be taken beyond face value, and I haven't extended it to play with Torcleaver. What I just want to show is that DRK is not much better than a melee BRD inside Abyssea - if you performed these calculations with almost any other melee, BRD would be absolutely destroyed even at the initial premise.

[Frost]

OK now do all that and use Swords and Axes instead of G.Sword &/or Scythe.

I understand that Drks use Scythe/G.sword, but you don't have to.

Why was it so easy for everyone to use polearm on War and Sam on birds back in the day, and yet it's like pulling teeth to get a Dark to adapt nowadays?

Take Abyssea out of the equation, and you get your scythe/g.sword. Put it back in and you can do fine using crit WS that are available ot you.

[Rezeak]

I really don't think BRD can keep up with DRK.

It's a bit like Melee WHM which i mess about with sure it has a Crit WS and sure it can cap haste and all that but it just ends up trying to cap out attack and wasting alot of the time buffing it self.

As for the /THF thing honestly u can say it only has the WS but ur DoT isn't that much different + ur WS rate is like minus one hit which agian ism't that bad for a 7 hit weapon(not sure if ya even lose a hit). Really DRK/THF i'm sure beats /SAM if you in the sitiutation were you can land sneak attack WS 80-90% of the time. Ps u can WS in between the Sneak attack recast :O

As for survivablity most of the nasty stuff is AoE third eye isn't gonna help here and if you have hate long enough to die from the melee then all the DDs with u are slacking and u'd prolly be top DD /NIN anyway.

[Duelle]

DRK Elemental Magic; IMO, fix it or remove it.Inspired by Suikoden II, I've always wanted an ability that let DRK cast an elemental spell on themselves then transferring the damage to the enemy on the next auto attack or something.

[RaenRyong]

As for the /THF thing honestly u can say it only has the WS but ur DoT isn't that much different + ur WS rate is like minus one hit which agian ism't that bad for a 7 hit weapon(not sure if ya even lose a hit). Really DRK/THF i'm sure beats /SAM if you in the sitiutation were you can land sneak attack WS 80-90% of the time. Ps u can WS in between the Sneak attack recast :O

if you lose 1 "tier" of x-hit, that's WS frequency -20% (6hit => 7hit) or -25% (5hit => 6hit).

Hasso is some minor STR boost (damage+<1%), acc+10 (if used, 5%+ damage increase, if not then meh) and Haste+10% (15%+~ damage increase). Meditate is some minor damage increase on the order of ~3% depending on how much you hold TP. Zanshin is minor but there. AND it gives you defenses.

/sam absolutely rapes /thf.


OK now do all that and use Swords and Axes instead of G.Sword &/or Scythe.

I understand that Drks use Scythe/G.sword, but you don't have to.

Why was it so easy for everyone to use polearm on War and Sam on birds back in the day, and yet it's like pulling teeth to get a Dark to adapt nowadays?

Take Abyssea out of the equation, and you get your scythe/g.sword. Put it back in and you can do fine using crit WS that are available ot you.

Because our weapon lineups for both of these suck. Can't magian either of them.

[Jar]

Try getting a party invite on something other than trash XP mobs. Only reason DRK gets invites to Abyssea parties is to fill up space in an alliance. Nobody goes out of there way to get a DRK, it's never "Ooh! a DRK, grab him!" Have fun fighting NM's or actually accomplishing something besides XP.

Addendum: I've been a DRK main for 4 years, leveled RDM a year and a half ago just so I had something useful at events(and I enjoyed the job). Even when I low-man with RL friends and family, they NEVER ask me to come DRK. They'd rather have me on my gimpy full-perle, Abyssea-burned WAR with red procs(skills barely high enough for that) than my full geared out and merited DRK.

i brag about having a job merited too

and if that gimp war your talking about is better than your "fully geared" DRK you are doing it wrong.

[Jar]

I really don't think BRD can keep up with DRK.

It's a bit like Melee WHM which i mess about with sure it has a Crit WS and sure it can cap haste and all that but it just ends up trying to cap out attack and wasting alot of the time buffing it self.

As for the /THF thing honestly u can say it only has the WS but ur DoT isn't that much different + ur WS rate is like minus one hit which agian ism't that bad for a 7 hit weapon(not sure if ya even lose a hit). Really DRK/THF i'm sure beats /SAM if you in the sitiutation were you can land sneak attack WS 80-90% of the time. Ps u can WS in between the Sneak attack recast :O

As for survivablity most of the nasty stuff is AoE third eye isn't gonna help here and if you have hate long enough to die from the melee then all the DDs with u are slacking and u'd prolly be top DD /NIN anyway.

you sir GREATLY underestimate /sam...................

[Taint]

OK now do all that and use Swords and Axes instead of G.Sword &/or Scythe.

I understand that Drks use Scythe/G.sword, but you don't have to.

Why was it so easy for everyone to use polearm on War and Sam on birds back in the day, and yet it's like pulling teeth to get a Dark to adapt nowadays?

Take Abyssea out of the equation, and you get your scythe/g.sword. Put it back in and you can do fine using crit WS that are available ot you.

Axe/Ridill DRK is going to be better then a Scythe or GS DRK in Abyssea, but will continue to get PWNed by NIN,MNK,WAR,DRG,SAM,PUP etc. PA SAM worked because it took most SAMs from 6hit to 5hit and gave a multihit WS with a higher fTP then GKT WSs. As I've stated 20 times on this forum DRK has much bigger problems then a lack of critical WS. When people will perfect DRK gear say its trash, it probably is.

[Taint]

I really don't think BRD can keep up with DRK.

It's a bit like Melee WHM which i mess about with sure it has a Crit WS and sure it can cap haste and all that but it just ends up trying to cap out attack and wasting alot of the time buffing it self.

As for the /THF thing honestly u can say it only has the WS but ur DoT isn't that much different + ur WS rate is like minus one hit which agian ism't that bad for a 7 hit weapon(not sure if ya even lose a hit). Really DRK/THF i'm sure beats /SAM if you in the sitiutation were you can land sneak attack WS 80-90% of the time. Ps u can WS in between the Sneak attack recast :O

As for survivablity most of the nasty stuff is AoE third eye isn't gonna help here and if you have hate long enough to die from the melee then all the DDs with u are slacking and u'd prolly be top DD /NIN anyway.

/facepalm - the lack of game mechanic knowledge in the DRK forum is exactly why the job will be left in the dungeon.

[Unctgtg]

/facepalm - the lack of game mechanic knowledge in the DRK forum is exactly why the job will be left in the dungeon.

Agreed Taint.

[Kagato]

Axe/Ridill DRK is going to be better then a Scythe or GS DRK in Abyssea, but will continue to get PWNed by NIN,MNK,WAR,DRG,SAM,PUP etc. PA SAM worked because it took most SAMs from 6hit to 5hit and gave a multihit WS with a higher fTP then GKT WSs. As I've stated 20 times on this forum DRK has much bigger problems then a lack of critical WS. When people will perfect DRK gear say its trash, it probably is.

Agreed. A critical WS is kind of nice, but it's only for Razed Ruins. DRKs are lacking in FAR more ways than just a critical WS. We need fixed job abilities and more not-useless spells and traits.

[Rayik]

@Flunklesnarkin: FFXII had "Scourge" which was pretty spiffy, they could add it to this game, Drk only, Good idea on the concept though. Hell they coudl have given us the old school "Demi" I, II, III, & IV(?) spells as "Dark Spells" instead of weak elemental spells they did give us.



First fallacy: You assume it's not like that for any if not all jobs.

Second fallacy: You forget, it's might not be the job, it might be you.
(Not you specifically, just the proverbial 'you'.)

And final thought on this line of ill-conceived bovine excrement. Get better friends. If I want to come dark, I do. And I am welcomed to do so. Because I know my role, and how to play the job to benefit the group, and my friends know I know what I am capable of, and don't second guess my ability.

So in retort I have no issue playing Dark as it is, nor getting invites, nor participating in larger scale events on Dark. I know I am able to show people it's not a "Weak Job", and that's easy because it's not a weak job.



Then your friends suck, and judging by their actions as stated here, they don't respect you. Considering you have a self-admitted:

"gimpy full-perle, Abyssea-burned WAR with red procs (skills barely high enough for that)",

I'd assume you don't respect you. Why level a job you have no interest in? Why not gear it up if it's needed? Why can't you make a case to go Dark, when, if War's being used solely for proc'ing, it's barely different?

The answer isn't "Dark is weak"...

And I think the statement that you have skills barely high enough to proc reds on war speaks volumes; because that statement holds a 100% truth to your dark too... They're the same skills used on both. If you give a shit, they'll give a shit.

When you started in with the "Fallacy" talk, I was ready to just skip over your entire comment. This isn't Harvard Law, take your pretentious "high class" attitude and go get all those snazzy party invites on DRK(other than filling up space in xp alliances). It's ok, I'll wait.

"Get better friends?" you say? I play with my wife and brother. Doesn't get much closer than that. It goes both ways; my brother loves to play COR and PUP, but neither see any use in Abyssea. Events outside Abyssea? Sure, I'll come DRK and DD with the best of them. Lately we do a lot of Abyssea stuff, so DRK sits on the shelf. Anything DRK can do in Abyssea, WAR can do better. I do enjoy playing WAR, I already had it leveled pretty high, then I was offered a key person slot in a aby pt, so I went ahead and grinded it up to 90. Viola! Suddenly I'm getting invited to all manner of NM pops, Zone Boss runs, etc.

Try it for yourself. Put up your party flag on DRK, and see what kinds of invites you get. I'm willing to bet you get nothing other than {Worm}{Party}Abyssea{La Theine Plateau}{Do you need it?}

Have fun fighting trash mobs for xp all day. It's all you're gonna get to do.

[Rayik]

i brag about having a job merited too

and if that gimp war your talking about is better than your "fully geared" DRK you are doing it wrong.

I didn't say it was "better". I said it people would rather have it, due to having all red procs. Try actually reading a post before you quote it.

[Kagato]

I didn't say it was "better". I said it people would rather have it, due to having all red procs. Try actually reading a post before you quote it.

You ask for the impossible, good sir.

[Rayik]

You ask for the impossible, good sir.

Yep, I realize that. Never hurts to try, though.

Heck, maybe the Developers will see all the poo-flinging as an even bigger sign that DRK needs an update. Considering everyone here(apparently) is, or has been a serious DRK at some point, and even we can't come to an agreement on where DRK stands, shows the fluxed state the job is in. My DRK pales in comparison to some of the others in this thread, but that doesn't mean I don't love the job and care about what direction SE takes it.

[Rezeak]

you sir GREATLY underestimate /sam...................


/facepalm - the lack of game mechanic knowledge in the DRK forum is exactly why the job will be left in the dungeon.


Agreed Taint.

I never said /SAM was worse all i'm saying is that people overlook /THF ALOT...

I mean in constant melee yes /SAM will win i use it, it utter wrecks /THF i mean look by the time you go to sneak attack a mob try and an 8k WS it's prolly gonna be half dead and it's a waste of time.
Maybe if u could line up SA at liek 90% of the mobs HP there would be room for work crap out but the fact Sneak attack takes time to line up while a /SAM is WSing and gaining another 30-40 tp just makes me /shrug i'll go /SAM.

But when it comes to NM i have found it has done far more damage because once we stagger red we try to do as much DMG as we can and the mob lasts like 10-30 secs so 1 300% Torcleaver will usally beat w/e would of done on /SAM in that time. (SA is easy to line up on terrored mobs)

Honestly disagree or w/e but it's not like i haven't tried /SAM and /THF alot i a never just use one.

As a side note if i was using Cala i'd use /SAM over /THF because the aftermath at 300% tp is a beast for DRK. (i'm using espafut +2)

Either way i use /THF for spiking my DMG over a short time and to gain access to dagger staggers if needed
and i use /SAM when i focus on Damage over time because like you all pointed out it wrecks /THF.

If trying to be versatile on one job is wrong i'm sorry.

[Kagato]

I never said /SAM was worse all i'm saying is that people overlook /THF ALOT...

I mean in constant melee yes /SAM will win i use it, it utter wrecks /THF i mean look by the time you go to sneak attack a mob try and an 8k WS it's prolly gonna be half dead and it's a waste of time.
Maybe if u could line up SA at liek 90% of the mobs HP there would be room for work crap out but the fact Sneak attack takes time to line up while a /SAM is WSing and gaining another 30-40 tp just makes me /shrug i'll go /SAM.

But when it comes to NM i have found it has done far more damage because once we stagger red we try to do as much DMG as we can and the mob lasts like 10-30 secs so 1 300% Torcleaver will usally beat w/e would of done on /SAM in that time. (SA is easy to line up on terrored mobs)

Honestly disagree or w/e but it's not like i haven't tried /SAM and /THF alot i a never just use one.

As a side note if i was using Cala i'd use /SAM over /THF because the aftermath at 300% tp is a beast for DRK. (i'm using espafut +2)

Either way i use /THF for spiking my DMG over a short time and to gain access to dagger staggers if needed
and i use /SAM when i focus on Damage over time because like you all pointed out it wrecks /THF.

If trying to be versatile on one job is wrong i'm sorry.

I can understand your side, actually. It's just there really isn't many situations that call for DRK/THF anymore. I've actually gone to an Isegbind low-man fight as DRK/THF because we thought that the occasional SATA Spinning Slash would be good every now and then, but it eventually stopped because I was too busy on stun duty anyway.

However, when a DRK isn't really DDing much and is mostly on Stun/WS duty, it's never a good idea to be /SAM due to the longer recast times. In a low-man run against something that casts -ga spells frequently, having Stun be ready in 30 seconds is better than having it ready in 1 minute. But typically I go to those types of events as /NIN.

So while I agree DRK/THF isn't really amazing much anymore, I would totally understand if you went to a NM as one. Just be sure to have some good regain atmas on to help proc or do your Spinning Slash frequently.

[Rezeak]

I'm using Torcleaver and yeah i'll use VV RR and Sea daughter (if i'm needed to stun i'll use Griffinclaw)

Either way thx for your reply i mean yea it situational and in my linkshell it works.

I think what alot of people miss is in abyssea the game is different from Linkshell to Linkshell and Mob to Mob i'm almost never in a situation where i'm needed to constantly melee so when pple throw up math that relates to that just makes me /facepalm cause it's not relative.

The only time this was relative to me was when i exped on DRK for the day they increased the lvl cap.

Basically noone i play with is going o Rezeak u don't understand DRK when i'm taking huge chunks out of NMs with well timed 6-16K Torcleavers (8k + 8k SC DMG)

Anyway saying that it's not like i play DRK/THF 100% of the time i also have my 5 Hit OAT/Def down Scythe build and my 6 Hit Torcleaver build (Espafut+2 delay) on /SAM there is a time and place for everything.

[Kagato]

I haven't made a def. down scythe myself so I really have nothing to say on that, but that OAT scythe looks good. Already was on my way to making one, but I quit since soloing Hippogryphs at 80 in Grauberg was too difficult. I could probably do it now, easy, but I just never really had any incentive to just yet. Too focused on getting armors and empyreans and just finishing a simple TP and WS set. From there I'll branch out and get more situational gears.

[Gradd]

Using stun recast timer as an excuse not to /sam because you are on stun duty is retarded. Its called don't use Seigan/Hasso Problem solved.

DRK/THF is horrible even at 75 it was garbage, its for Epeen nothing more nothing less.

/MNK will beat /NIN if you are put into a situation where you are suddenly tanking as well.

[Rezeak]

Using stun recast timer as an excuse not to /sam because you are on stun duty is retarded. Its called don't use Seigan/Hasso Problem solved.

DRK/THF is horrible even at 75 it was garbage, its for Epeen nothing more nothing less.

/MNK will beat /NIN if you are put into a situation where you are suddenly tanking as well.
DRK/THF for me was useful even at 75.

In Xarc.
I found after nearly 40-50 Dyna X runs DRK/THF beat my DRK/SAM in there infact it parsed as the highest DD or top 3 most of time i mean sure you can bash it but honestly if it's beating usukane SAMs and Ares WARs so it really comes down to this for me either all the all the WARs and SAMs that have played for 6 years at the time didn't know there job or DRK/THF acully functioned well.

On some Sea and Sky god it functioned well but after the STR = 0.75 attack thingy /SAM and /THF became so close /SAM won cause u didn't need to line up SATA unless we were slaming hate on 2 PLDs and i still went /THF for fun on Kirin.

Some ZNM /THF functioned well cause u could build TP on other mobs and just WS.

Anyway in my opinion it is situational and to overlook it would be silly.

Either way we just disagree as i said i have had experiences of it out performing /SAM through parses and such and yes it was extremely situational.

On another topic the OAT scythe isn't worth doing atm in abyssea you can get triple attack atmas which make the regular scythes perform better but outside it's pretty beastly considering it now has 96 base DMG ^^

[Semco]

And what exactly is this terrible state you're refuring to?
How bad can a job be when it can one shot an IT without add death?

All I know is, I couldnt kill Rani with a brew on DRK and I took my naked underlvled club WHM and whipped Rani and still had enough time to kill the cactus when I was done, there is something terribly wrong.

[Kagato]

Using stun recast timer as an excuse not to /sam because you are on stun duty is retarded. Its called don't use Seigan/Hasso Problem solved.

/MNK will beat /NIN if you are put into a situation where you are suddenly tanking as well.

You crack me up.

[Nariont]

You crack me up.

What exactly is funny or incorrect about that statement, just out of curiosity?

[Gradd]

Nothing at all.

I like you Kagato you have good intentions, but saying shit like "/sam is bad because it hurts your recast timers!" is just plain stupid. Don't use Hasso or Seigan when your on Stun Duty is that really so hard?

@ Rezeak

Your DD must have been pretty shitty overral if they were losing to you drk/thf or you are just exaggerating.

It is physically impossible for DRK/THF to even hold a candle to DRK/SAM in a high fast pace merit party/Einherjar type situation. DRK/THF is spike Damage nothing more nothing less, the over all Damage from /sam utterly shits all over /thf with very little effort.

[vedder]

w/e works hell i lvld my /thf sub cus there are times i believe that it actually might be more useful for some fights an situations then /sam, not sure if it fully out performs /sam but when my ls says we want ppl /thf for hate issues i give it to them like fighting lord ruth for strigoi rings is a recent example, we use plds in our shell because some of our crew are pld main and we're not leet asses saying hey you should <insert min/maxing here> cause why? better to have fun as a crew then force ppl into jobs that they dont enjoy on content that is easy

its not the CoP of old where i leveled rng to 30 an war to 50 just to beat it lol

sidenote @ kagato if u had issues with the hippos do u have npc healer leveled up an /pld? i used that an at 78 full perle (lolz) an i wrecked the hippos, just watch out for the NM thar, it likes to say "hai im hungry" quite a bit >_>

[Harukusan]

honestly every drk should just sub bst so you can charm people and pretend you're controlling their minds. it's drk exclusive

[Zeroth]

Whether you're on "stun duty" or not, it's still a pain in the ass trying to cancel seigan/hasso everytime you need to cast.They need to remove this penalty, drk is the only job this was intended to affect.

The only situation where drk/thf is viable is if you are putting hate on the tank, it's definitely not for dmg output.

[Kagato]

Whether you're on "stun duty" or not, it's still a pain in the ass trying to cancel seigan/hasso everytime you need to cast.They need to remove this penalty, drk is the only job this was intended to affect.

This is pretty much what I was getting at.

Saying "not subbing /sam is stuppid and you can cancel hasso/seigan" is a correct statement, but what makes it bad is that unless you plan on DDing, there's no reason to go /sam at all because you're not going to use hasso/seigan! At least with /NIN you can avoid a spell aimed at you or AoE spams. When fighting Kur, for example, his Body Slam would eat 3 of my shadows but I take no damage. If I went /sam, I'd have taken over 1k in damage, Seigan+third eye or not.

My point is, I want to have my defensive capabilities open and available at all times in my subjob when I'm not focused on DDing.

So, thats why I said "you crack me up." You were taking a jab at me for giving an opinion on a situational event rather than being respectful toward it but kindly offering your own counter-opinion. In other words, it was your choice of words if anything.

[RaenRyong]

/sam without using Hasso or Seigan or Meditate is still better than /thf.

[Kagato]

/sam without using Hasso or Seigan or Meditate is still better than /thf.

Not really the point.

[Gradd]

If you arent DD'ing then why are you on DRK? I'd argue come a more useful job if your only there for stun duty :/

[Kagato]

A few reasons:

1) DRK is your only job (I have PLD too, but lolPLD)
2) No one else has red triggers (DRK can proc most of what WAR can proc)
3) Even if you are DDing, maybe the NM has AoE spam, so Third Eye wont save you, making /NIN far more useful.

However, this only reinforces DRK's overall uselessness inside Abyssea.

[Flunklesnarkin]

Let drk be able to wield twilight knife >_>

thank you in advance devs ;o

[Kagato]

...Why? o.o

[Flunklesnarkin]

...Why? o.o

why not @.@

[Kagato]

Okie dokie +______+

[Rayik]

Last Resort got bumped up from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. I'd say that's a damn good start. :D

[RaenRyong]

I am so excited right now if they don't nerf Desperate Blows. Capped haste or damn close to 71% of the time is DELICIOUS.

[Glamdring]

Let drk be able to wield twilight knife >_>

thank you in advance devs ;o

u has issue with a scythe that casts Death? how many mobs-even NMs-you see carrying around stacks of holy water? (hint: only beastmen have pockets and not all of them!)

[Flunklesnarkin]

u has issue with a scythe that casts Death? how many mobs-even NMs-you see carrying around stacks of holy water? (hint: only beastmen have pockets and not all of them!)

I got no issue with the scythe

[RaenRyong]

Woeborn > Twilight!

[Apocalypse]

sure, by stats Woeburn > Twilight but as for cool factor Twilight > Woeburn :p

[Kagato]

inb4Jar XD

[Dart]

SOMEONE TURN ON THE JAR SIGNAL

[RaenRyong]

sure, by stats Woeburn > Twilight but as for cool factor Twilight > Woeburn :p

no argument here!

[Dart]

I'm a scythe collector and twilight would never see the light of day outside my moghouse. But for pure coolness factor. I want to put one on my manni. Wish I could make it dualwield scythes. Apoc/twlight!

[Kagato]

SOMEONE TURN ON THE JAR SIGNAL

http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/8549/batsignalr.jpg

[Rezeak]

I'm a scythe collector and twilight would never see the light of day outside my moghouse. But for pure coolness factor. I want to put one on my manni. Wish I could make it dualwield scythes. Apoc/twlight!

If i had Apoc this would be the case for any scythe.

[Urteil]

Fuck that shit, Onion Sword and Charging Shield.

[vedder]

lmao and then there was joy an happiness in the land of the drk