Why is my PLD stronger than my DRK?

[SpookyGhost]

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

[FallenWings]

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.

[CaedemSanguis]

Drk beat Pld at dps, rotation issue

[Judge_Xero]

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.

[Amagiri]

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.

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.

[DestroyerOfLargePlanets]

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.

[Sarcatica]

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:


PLD:


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

[Cabalabob]

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.

[Yeol]

Dark Knight guide.