New update, new subjob?

[Kagato]

As we all know, with 3 minutes of Last Resort, that's 3 minutes of Desperate blows, which at 5/5 is 3 minutes of 25% haste. We have a self-sustaining 50% haste now without the need for a subjob to do it.

What does this mean? It basically means Hasso is now a waste of time. The +STR and ACC bonus it gives doesn't warrant continued use when we don't need the Haste it gives.

So, without Hasso, that basically leaves us Meditate, Sekkanoki, Store TP, and Seigan/Third Eye.

IMO, not even Seigan/Third Eye is worth it when we can just /NIN for Utsusemi and not take a hit to our magic recast. So that leaves Meditate, Sekkanoki and Store TP.

Now lets break those down. Sekkanoki is great to save extra TP. But when you really think about it, there's no real need for it since you should be using your Weapon Skill once you hit 100TP anyway. Honestly, I can live without it.

Meditate, I can also find myself living without. Sure, it's great to build up for a fast WS, but with how quickly we attack now, not to mention VV having regain, it just seems like we don't need it as much as we used to.

Now we move on to the big one: Store TP. This, honestly, is what is keeping me reluctant to try a new subjob. Store TP is important in order to maintain an xhit build with less need for gear. Losing /SAM means losing 15 Store TP IIRC.


So, what's the alternative? Well, I believe /WAR is. Stacking Berserk on Last Resort, throwing in Warcry, and having quite a lot of Double Attack will have us swinging quite often while hitting hard in the process and while having 50% haste for 3 minutes every 70 seconds (if you merited LR recast time). Thats a lot of swings, all done quickly, which makes for some serious DDing power.

However, is it enough to dump /SAM for? Perhaps /NIN is the way to go? Or maybe even /BLU to add some magical haste and defensive capabilities?

I'd like to hear your opinions: /SAM, /WAR, /NIN, /BLU, or anything else. What's your opinion?

Note: Be respectful towards everyone's opinions, please.

[noodles355]

What does this mean? It basically means Hasso is now a waste of time.

What about the 2/5ths of your Damage where Last Resort isn't up? Even only needed for 40% of the time, Hasso will still be a significant boost to your DoT.

Edit:
With 25% gear haste and the whm haste spell, adding hasso is an increase of 20% to your DoT for the 2 minutes out of 5 that Last Resort is down. That equates an 8% increase in your total DoT.
If /Sam's STP is needed to help you achieve a 6hit then the STP will add around a 6-9% total boost depending on yout TP:WS split ratio. If you need /Sam's STP for a 5hit, that boost will be around 8-12%

Adding Warrior's Double Attack on top of Brutal, Pole Grip and Atheling Mantle will be an increase of 9.1%. Most of Berserk's Affect will be lost to the attack cap more often than not, as will Agressor to the Acc cap. Conclusion: /War will have slightly better DoT but sacrifices it's defence through losing Seigan.

Subbing /Blu to be able to Haste yourself is a fairly poor idea. You would be better off having competant mages who keep you hasted themselves. /Blu also has some defence bonuses however Cocoon at least is a spell with a bit of a long cast time and fairly short duration meaning you will be losing out on many potential melee swings by keeping it up.

/Sam will still give a significant boost to your DoT. You lower /sam's effectiveness by 12% by changing from 100% Hasso to 2/5ths Hasso. Sam however still remains a strong SJ due to it's added defensive capabilities.

The likely conclusion will be: If you need /Sam's STP for a specific X-hit build, then it is the subjob to use. If you don't, it will probably still be the subjob to use as it still offers a lot to you offensively whilst giving you defensive abilities too. Something which the other SJs dont. /Nin will remain as it is now: A tanking sub for difficult NMs.

[Dart]

I really don't see our SJ choices changing all that much. Maintaining a 4/5/6 hit with all this haste is what will give us the most significant boost to our total damage out of anything /war offers.

One sub, in abyssea only, that not nearly enough drk's try out is /mnk and CS tanking. Maybe now with the added haste and doing more total dmg will allow us to hold more hate and fully utilize /mnk. Its fun and useful when it works.

[Jar]

/SCH GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Gradd]

99.5% positive /sam is still the way to go in terms of raw damage.

NIN I hate passionatley its the worste SJ in the game for DPS, anytime you stop to cast ichi/ni (especially ichi) its hurting your DPS, if I am tanking on DRK inside of abyssea I prefer /mnk. If I want shadows I will just play NIN and not get hit at all x: Pleeeaaaaaaaaaaase don't argue getting hit by nukes either or TP moves, even MNKs (good ones) MNK/WAR to everything, getting hit by a measly nuke inside abyssea isnt an issue anymore. WHM has nearly infinite MP shadows are just dumb to me. I play WHM alot probably more than all my other jobs right now and I can tell you subbing /nin is pointless, the only damage tanks really take from these days is from TP moves/Nukes and 1 cure 6 is usually enough to fill that HP right back up and seconds later your MP is back to 100%.

Especially with Caladbolg losing that 7-hit (its bad enough we have to use such a high x-hit build) just seems like too much to me, and LR is down for like 70 seconds you still have hasso during that time frame which doesnt make hasso completley useless.

If you are tanking on DRK for whatever reason /mnk is a very good choice of sub job, you can get a decently strong counter rate with GH/RL, I have 2boxed the majority of NMs in the game DRK/MNK with my WHM mule before I leveled NIN it works surprisingly well if you want to play DRK and tank.

If a mob or NM has a high enough HP pool to last Sekkanoki is very strong, Torcleaver >>> Torcleaver >>> Light can knock quite a bit of HP off a NMs health.

I just can't see /war winning out on anything, between Food Last Resort and Stalwarts you should be hitting the attack cap on the majority of things.

[Urteil]

I really hate /sam.

I use it, but I really fucking hate /sam and how every DD has to use /sam.

I am never going to sit here and say that /sam will not provide the most melee damage in the shortest amount of time possible.

However I find shadows are often more reliable than Third Eye and by reliable I mean comparing a piece of plastic to steel door. In low man situations 3-5 people I say that a skilled Dark Knight with a competent fast cast set (Oh shit already stepped into the realm of impossibility here) can live far longer because DEEPS doesn't mean doodle if you are dead.

But if you have the luxury of a WHM throwing cure VI around like its going out of style, /sam all the way.

[Rezeak]

I think /WAR will be situational because u should be able to cap pdif with just LR,Endark and Food

Sad thing is if ya in a party that doesn't haste you /WHM is the best sub....

Either way i'll proly stay on /SAM for sekkioni and meditate and use /WAR and /THF sitituationaly

[vedder]

i agree with gradd an dart on this /war just isnt adding quit enough to us to let go of /sam but its nice i can now ride seigan third eye with lr up for dding ..........

[Cruentus]

All of the below makes note of what a job at level 99 can do. I know we aren't there yet, but it's nice to plan ahead.

Let me go over every potential support job choice for a dark knight here fairly quickly, then. First, as we all know, the dark knight's job is to make things dead. Very, very dead. Let's see what helps with that.

Ninja as a support job grants access to ninjutsu, up to 150 ninjutsu skill to use it with, Dual Wield III, Subtle Blow III, Stealth, and Resist Bind II. The ninjutsu we get is basically everything that's not new and not Group 2 Ninja Merits. With a ninjutsu skill of 150 at best, the only useful ninjutsu is Monomi: Ichi, Tonko, and Utsusemi. None of this helps with our damage output at all, unless you're stupid and not using a scythe or great sword, in which case, you're either new (and thus can't really be blamed for your idiocy yet) or you're beyond remedy. Stealth is a joke, pretty much all Resist Status job traits are a joke (especially with only two tiers of it), and that leaves Subtle Blow, which is okay, but unnecessary, unless you're up against something that spams really, really nasty TP moves. This is purely a defensive support job, and since the job of a dark knight is to make things dead, it's a stupid choice, especially when you're getting your ninjutsu interrupted at least half the time due to 150 skill.

The current support job star for dark knights is the samurai. Store TP II, Resist Blind III, Demon Killer, and Zanshin for job traits, plus Hasso, Seigan, Third Eye, Sekkanoki, Warding Circle, and Meditate as job abilities. First of all, having two tiers of Store TP in job traits alone is amazing, and Zanshin comes in handy in case you whiff. Demon Killer and Warding Circle can come in handy at times, since there are demons that need to be killed. Seigan and Third Eye is a decent defense that, while unable to deal with magic, certainly helps with any melee assault, potentially more than Utsusemi can. Then there's Hasso, which is extra STR and Accuracy, even if we don't need the Haste. Remember, the dark knight's job is to make things dead. Hasso helps. Meditate is an almost-instant 60% TP, which means more weapon skills in less time, and Sekkanoki lets us create our own skillchains, which we can magic burst ourselves. You could go Sekkanoki, Infernal Scythe, Guillotine (thus creating Compression), and Drain II, and hit 2500 HP outside of Abyssea. Against an NM, you could go Guillotine and Spinning Scythe for Fragmentation, then magic burst it with Stun for an extended duration. The only drawbacks are the penalty to spellcasting with Seigan or Hasso up, but with a recast timer of one minute, you could just take it off, cast your spell, and use the ability again.

Warrior as a support job is all about making things dead as well, it's just more of a "kill or be killed" style, since it has only one defensive job ability. The job traits you get with this are Resist Virus II, Defense Bonus, Fencer, and the infamous Double Attack. For job abilities, you get Provoke, Berserk, Defender, Warcry, and Aggressor. There are also some weapon skills that you can only access as a warrior, or with warrior set as your support job, but they're really only useful for weakness targeting in Abyssea, since dark knights should be almost exclusively using Guillotine, Insurgency, Torcleaver, or Spinning Slash for sheer damage. First, with Double Attack as a job trait, that's a 10% chance of it, and since it doesn't matter if your first hit actually hits, Double Attack outclasses Zanshin. Warcry enhances the attacks of you and your party, and Berserk is basically a second, weaker version of Last Resort (assuming you did your merits correctly). Aggressor is a handy accuracy tool, since dark knights shouldn't need to evade, especially not when you have Dread Spikes up. That just leaves Defender, which is worthless to a dark knight 95% of the time. All in all, this is a great choice, especially if you're using a pole grip and/or a brutal earring. Whether or not it can outclass samurai as a support job, however, will require actual testing. It should also be noted that the dark knight and the warrior have the best STR of all jobs, so putting them together creates the highest possible base STR...not that this matters much, but I thought I'd point it out.

Thief as a support job gives you Resist Gravity II, Evasion Bonus II, Treasure Hunter II, Gilfinder, Flee, Steal, Mug, Sneak Attack, Trick Attack, and Hide. This is useful solely for farming, and not for damage dealing. Gilfinder, Steal, and Mug all prove that much. Evasion Bonus and Resist Gravity are useless, and Treasure Hunter should be left to the thief as a main job. As for job abilities, Hide is only useful when you're running away, Flee doesn't increase your damage output, and that just leaves Sneak Attack and Trick Attack. Sneak Attack makes a critical hit certain when you hit from behind, making it useful if you can position yourself correctly. Since dark knights draw a whole lot of enmity, this will be rare. Trick Attack should only be used from behind your tank, and that's if you have one. That being said, it's kind of handy if your Dread Spikes are down/useless (given that undead monsters are immune to it), and your Last Resort and/or Souleater are still up. It's not nearly enough to warrant using it, however.

As a support job, blue mage gives you Burst Affinity and Chain Affinity, which lets you use your blue magic to either magic burst or skillchain. Chain Affinity is obviously more useful, since dark knights have black magic already. Then you also get a ton of blue magic, but you can only use up to 14 spells at a time, and their combined blue magic points can't exceed 30. You get everything from Sandspin to Jettatura, but several of the blue magic here is really just Aspir, Drain, and Stun all over again. Sure, you get your own healing and Haste spells, but with 150 blue magic skill, DRK/BLU suffers from the same problem as DRK/NIN, and that is you're going to get interrupted at least half the time if you have hate. On top of that, your enfeebling blue magic (like Head Butt) is mainly governed by your blue magic skill, which is 150 at DRK99/BLU. This means it won't be working very well at all. As for blue magic combinations, the only really useful ones are Mysterious Light and Metallic Body (Max MP Bonus), Healing Breeze and Sheep Song (Auto Regen), Sound Blast and Cursed Sphere (Magic Attack Bonus), and maybe Poison Breath and Awful Eye (Clear Mind), which you can add Soporific to. I'd say to set spells to get Attack Bonus, but as a dark knight, you already get five tiers of that, making the blue magic version worthless. As you can see, this is a very magic-oriented choice, and clearly not the best. With 150 blue magic skill, your blue magic is pretty much restricted solely to buffs and healing, and it's likely to get interrupted. Leave blue magic to those who take the blue mage job to level 90.

Scholar as a support job is even more magic-oriented than the blue mage, but it's also more useful on that side of the spectrum. With Dark Arts, your enfeebling magic skill goes up, and almost all of your magic gets a bit of a boost. You also get Parsimony to halve your next spell's MP cost, Alacrity to cast your next spell in half the time, and Manifestation to make your next single-target spell an area-of-effect one (but this doubles the MP cost as well). The bad part is that you only get two Grimoire charges, and you get one back every two minutes, which is a bit slow. You do get Klimaform, however, which is dark magic (so the A- skill a dark knight already has comes in very handy), and helps your magic accuracy when combined with Firestorm, Hailstorm, Rainstorm, Sandstorm, or Windstorm, unless you get lucky on the weather without using your white magic. You also get Sublimation to help restore your MP, which works well alongside Stoneskin, Regen II, Aspir, and Aspir II. You also get Resist Silence II, Clear Mind II, Max MP Boost, and Conserve MP, and I guess you shouldn't forget about Light Arts and the white magic buffs you can get (but you shouldn't waste Grimoire charges on Light Arts stratagems). Addendum: Black gives you Dispel, also. All in all, this is a very good support job for the magic side, but a dark knight should be focusing on melee damage, making this a good choice solely for Besieged, and only when you want to increase your magic skill levels.

So, all in all, warrior and samurai win.

[Kagato]

I disagree with BLU not being so useful. For survival's sake, it adds a lot of options. The only blue magic spells that wouldn't really be too beneficial are the ones that take a long time to cast mid-battle. Otherwise you can chuck out a stun and then cast it.

Urteil would know more on the subject than me since he plans on giving it a shot. Otherwise, I'm in full agreement with what's written there.