Why is my PLD stronger than my DRK?

I recently picked up DRK and reading through the tooltips, DRK seems stronger than PLD in every way, higher potencies, constant 15% damage increase, more oGCDs.

But in practice, my DRK seems to just do less than my PLD... someone parsed me on a dummy for 3 mins and my PLD did 1411, my DRK did 1402.

They are both wearing the same gear, both have i260 weapons (PLD relic, DRK shire). And DRK even gets naturally more STR than PLD!

So I can't figure out how i'm doing less on DRK. is Fight or flight just strong enough to make up the gap in power and push PLD above DRK?

You picked up a job recently and you're somehow less effective with it than a job you've had for a long time and you can't figure out why?

Really?

Were you using enough Dark Arts? Pop Blood Weapon, Salted Earth, Plunge, DA Carve and Split, and Dark Passenger whenever it came off cd? Reapply Scourge when they were about to drop off?

By comparison DRK needs to press more buttons to be as, or more effective than PLD. Also seeing as your PLD has relic weapon, which mean better substats, might play parts in it too.

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Originally Posted by Demus

You picked up a job recently and you're somehow less effective with it than a job you've had for a long time and you can't figure out why?

Really?

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You know what they say about people who assume? You make an ass out of u and me. I haven't played PLD for a long time, I rarely tank at all outside of occasionally doing dungeons, I just recently picked up tanking in general and decided to test them out before I played them seriously.

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Originally Posted by mosaicex

Were you using enough Dark Arts? Pop Blood Weapon, Salted Earth, Plunge, DA Carve and Split, and Dark Passenger whenever it came off cd? Reapply Scourge when they were about to drop off?

By comparison DRK needs to press more buttons to be as, or more effective than PLD. Also seeing as your PLD has relic weapon, which mean better substats, might play parts in it too.

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Fairly sure I'm playing the DRK decently. The shire DRK weapon is crit/det so it's not too much worse than the PLD if at all.

PLD: fast blade > spirits within > riot blade > fight or flight > goring blade > circle of scorn > RA combo x2 > goring combo. And then just repeats from there.

DRK: dark arts > hard slash > plunge > syphon strike > carve and spit > dark arts > souleater > blood weapon + low blow > scourge > dark passenger > hard slash > dark arts > syphon strike > salted earth > souleater > dark arts Souleater til low on mp > then swap to delerium. Then more or less repeat with tweaks.

You also don't have access to Blood Price and Reprisal while attacking the dummy which means less MP and OGCD ability. That's why we have so many wars doing their opener and drks taking over after the opener since them being in the MT role gives them more dmg possibilities.

A couple of things.

One, DRK benefits from taking damage. On a dummy, your not taking any damage so your MP is bot being restored from blood price. Neither are you obtaining Reprisal procs or stun resets.

Two, PLD is a much simpler job. Which means it's much easier to push the absolute max DPS out of then than DRK. You may think you have a solid grasp of DRK, but unlike PLD that follows a very basic rotation, Dark Arts can be applied in some interesting ways, such as using it twice in one Souleater rotation.

You'd be surprised how much an extremely small rotation change can change the dps on a DRK while a PLD really doesn't do anything out of the ordinary.

Cause in FF series the light (PLD) beats the darkness (DRK), that is why

Sounds like a rotation issue, even on a dummy DRK should be parsing above PLD given identical ilvl.

A couple tips: Make a salted earth macro /ac "Salted Earth" <t >, this puts Salted Earth down without needing to free aim, which makes it easier to put down oGCD. Keep 100% scourge uptime or as close as you can to it, and watch your MP.
One thing to think about is that Dark Arts Soul Eater is actually filler, you do it because you have the MP, and Dark Passenger/DACnS is on cooldown. When those are starting to come off CD make sure you have the MP for them.

Also, sounds like you just need more practice.

Probs give us your rotation for DRK so we can see what your doing as that might be the case.

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Originally Posted by Mirch

Cause in FF series the light (PLD) beats the darkness (DRK), that is why

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lol

That's why in the FF franchise with the exception of XIV DRK specializes in monstrous damage output at the expense of HP while Paladin's specialized in bulky defenses and defending others.

Record a video of you parsing on both and we can tell you what's going wrong.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

lol

That's why in the FF franchise with the exception of XIV DRK specializes in monstrous damage output at the expense of HP while Paladin's specialized in bulky defenses and defending others.

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http://i.imgur.com/FflohQi.gif

Drk beat Pld at dps, rotation issue

It could be a rotational issue with DRK, but PLD is pretty strong in Sword Oath.

You would want to look at it outside of a single target rotation though because PLD doesn't have much AOE, which is where DRK can gain even more ground.

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Originally Posted by ValentineSnow

DRK: dark arts > hard slash > plunge > syphon strike > carve and spit > dark arts > souleater > blood weapon + low blow > scourge > dark passenger > hard slash > dark arts > syphon strike > salted earth > souleater > dark arts Souleater til low on mp > then swap to delerium. Then more or less repeat with tweaks.

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Your dark knight rotation here isn't that great. You need to have better prioritization with your damage dealing abilities. For one, Scourge is of the highest priority. It flat up does the most damage in your entire kit. It should be the first ability you use. Your next highest damage dealing ability is Carve and Spit. You want to get out a DACnS ASAP, so you want to start with a DA -> Scourge -> CnS -> Dark Passenger, and then go into your DA Souleater rotation with blood weapon following right after hard slash.

EDIT: You should also keep in mind that, like other posts have mentioned before me, that you also lose out on DPS because you get no Reprisal or Low Blow procs. Additionally, you should be able to double weave oGCDs if you have them outside of Blood Weapon.

Amagiri is right -- a quick look at the potencies (Tooltips -- READ THEM) will show you that scourge, DACnS, and and salted earth deal some tasty deeps, which is why you'll want to use them ASAP. The longer you keep them unused while their cooldown has expired, the more damage-per-second you lose. An equally geared DRK and PLD would deal roughly the same damage on a dummy -- DRK will pull ahead by just a little.

For this purpose, I have included 2 parses on A12S SSS. DRK has i270 weapon while PLD has i265 weapon/shield, don't have an i275 blade to compare.

DRK:
http://i.imgur.com/UaAzj7b.png

PLD:
http://i.imgur.com/WchaJ3C.png

EDIT: gentle reminder to switch to DRK whenever you can. PLD IS NO MORE, JOIN THE DARK SIDE.

DRK should definitely be ahead of PLD on a dummy, but not by much, and it also depends where you end your parses. DRK has really sustained damage, it doesn't spike much, it's just constantly high damage. PLD on the other hand goes very high during FoF then drops when it wears off and goes low until FoF is back up. So if you're ending your parse during FoF that might be pushing your results in PLDs favour.

Amagiri's advice is sound, get those oGCDs on CD ASAP and keep them that way and don't let scourge fall off and you'll be golden. It's also important to note 2 things. 1. As has been said DRK gets more dps from low blows and reprisals than PLD does from shield swipes so against an actual enemy DRK gains even more ground. 2. DRK can go for way longer than PLD, a PLD bottoms out on tp after about 3mins on a dummy, a DRK can keep going for more than double that.

Just keep practicing DRK and you'll improve, it took me a while to get it down too, it takes a lot more work to play a good DRK than it does a good PLD.

Dark Knight guide.