(Don't) Fear The Reaper: A Dark Knight Guide

Oh Quietus, I keep forgetting to unlock that one. Is it even worth it when you've got Apoc and every other WS?

Yes.

Quietus actually isn't bad if you're in a high buff situation and fighting a high level target.

The thing about Insurgency is that it has the rare and very much desired Fusion category, which means it is an excellent Skillchain linker with WSs' like Resolution.

Not a DRK but I've seen an Apoc DRK push out some very good numbers with Insurgency aswell. I'm genuinely curious to what Insurgency looks like on an AG Liberator with AM up.

Bloodlusty has some videos up running AG lib with insurgency spam.



As for Scythe ws, if you don't have Lib, your bread and butter will be Cross Reaper. You won't use anything else outside of chains or entropy for mp, cata for hp/ja haste.

Apoc is no joke, I find if the fights are under 1 minute in length I generally do better with Apoc than Rag, but once that 1 minute mark hits I pull way ahead with Rag. That is assuming I don't have max tp to start, if I have max tp to start Rag wins.

Hey guys, a lot of people seem to misunderstand what it is that Consume Mana actually does. Basically it takes your MP and gives you a 10% DMG boost TO BASE DAMAGE.

Its particularly useful for single hit WS. Like this one...


^Regular Torcleaver.


^Consume MP up.

Has "Many" videos up running insurgency spam :P

Silence Galka!

Feels like forever since someone posted some updated gearsets. Anyone willing to do that? I feel like I'm missing certain possibilities in my own sets and I ain't played much in the past month.

Oh and Insurgency rocks. With Liberator it does just fine.

Outside HQ abj mixed with reisenjima augment gear, there is no updated sets. The same gear is still in effect. I don't think that will be changing for a while. We might get a few macro pieces, but I think until SE decides to roadmap new content we are looking at staying in the same sets we currently have.
So unless SE rehashes old content and brings out 119 versions of salvage, ultima/omega etc. We aren't changing many pieces of gear.

Personally I am still holding on a thread of hope to merge all our jse sets into 1 set to clear up invent. Take the highest stat of each piece to make the new piece of gear.

I.E.
AF head +1
DEF:116 HP+41 MP+23 STR+28 DEX+19 VIT+25 AGI+19 INT+20 MND+17 CHR+17 Attack+18 Evasion+33 Magic Evasion+32 "Magic Def. Bonus"+2 Dark magic skill +17 Haste+7% "Souleater"+2
Relic head +1
DEF:114 HP+76 MP+23 STR+30 DEX+14 VIT+30 AGI+14 INT+12 MND+12 CHR+12 Accuracy+15 Attack+15 Evasion+33 Magic Evasion+32 "Magic Def. Bonus"+2 Haste+7% Dark magic casting time -10%
Adds "Enhances 'Dark Seal' effect"
Empy head +1
DEF:115 HP+41 MP+29 STR+32 DEX+16 VIT+21 AGI+16 INT+18 MND+14 CHR+16 Evasion+36 Magic Evasion+37 "Magic Def. Bonus"+2 Haste+7% Scythe skill +28 "Double Attack"+4% Set: Attack occ. varies with HP

New reforge would be
DEF:116 HP+76 MP+29 STR+32 DEX+19 VIT+30 AGI+19 INT+20 MND+17 CHR+17 Accuracy+15 Attack+18 Evasion+36 Magic Evasion+37 "Magic Def. Bonus"+2 Haste+7% Scythe skill +28 "Double Attack"+4% Dark magic skill +17 "Souleater"+2 Dark magic casting time -10% Adds "Enhances 'Dark Seal' effect" Set: Attack occ. varies with HP

Nothing overwhelming, but enough to assist and clear some invent space.

No I meant, as some players would have had time to get more equipment and augment them .. their sets may have changed because of that. Due to certain augments making other pieces come to life after some random luck. I wasn't asking if we had any new gear, but rather how DRKs are using the gear we currently have in the month of September. Everyone's choices are going to be different depending on augments and weapon choice.

Yeah, I know. I was just sharing hopes and dreams.

Honestly gear is dependent on the luck of the augment for everyone. Nobody will ever see BiS sets for tp because of it, get capped haste, get xhit, then go for multi-attack. Quad>trip>DA

Yes I'm aware of that. Still, it doesn't hurt to see other players gearsets so we can have some clue. The more posted the better, it gives us more to work with.

Liberator

Need a store TP build 72 total including /SAM to hit a 4 hit, or WS + 3 hit (However you wish to do the math). This gives non stop Insurgency spam once AM3 is up and running

Rag/Apoc

Need a double attack set

WS sets

Specific Stat boost WS sets for each WS
ARGOSY + 1 for end goal
Heavy WS damage set for single hitters. I tend to favour this option over the above for most things (personally)

Dark Magic set for Drains and aspirs

Absorb set for ....

PDT set for when you loose your bottle :P

Like Thorva states, its all about augments now. you need a mixture of VAL and ODY gear and LOTS of it. There is little point adding sets here as everyone's will differ

It feels like it's time for another /THF bump. This time I thought I'd post some figures against something a bit less fodderish than escha T2's and went straight for the juicy content, namely the only reisen T4 that warrants any sort of melee inclusion as far as I know, Erinys.


General DMG Screenshots. (4 of them rolled into one, Sorry I couldn't highlight the Torcleavers and sorry for the small image size, Tinypic was being true to its name)
Parse.
Here's some limited info on the fight. 14 man alliance. 4 THF's with varying subjobs (From what I can remember; Ajuri /DNC, Azzrael /WAR, Inx /SAM, Hikarushi /Dunno) one of which was dualing SMN.

Credit where it is rightly due, We would have timed out if not for Ajuri and their commitment and passion for THF which shows in the parse (AG Twash is legit) and none of the other THF's are slouches either.

Overall I felt I could have done a lot more dmg with slightly better augs on just about every piece that takes them. They're far from bad but nowhere near perfect and there's a lot of room for improvement but I'm happy that I was able to contribute as well as I did on the only Erinys run our LS has done so far.

Anyway just another option instead of having to go that extra mile CPing THF or pumping gil into it just for this particular fight.

Edit: Tried posting my itemset but it was causing the spoilers not to open.

Are you using a super tank for the adds? Also, could you make use of occult acumen to generate more TP or did it die before you ran out of TP wings? Lastly, were you using Consume Mana?

Yes, I wasn't aware it could be done without a supertank. Using occult acumen, Theoretically? Of course, I didn't test so no idea how magic resistant he is and what level of skill, m.acc/mab and occult acumen + would be needed to make it work (I was out of mp by the time I was out of tp wings) and I think that answers your third question. I'd use it as often as I could as long as I had mp up.

I'd imagine Occult Acumen would create more risk than reward unless you had enough Mewing going on.

Very true. Although there were periods of time especially during the end of the fight where ws's were fewer and further between each other. I guess it would be less risky then if you're being sensible and maybe the risk would be more rewarding.

I wouldn't want to be the person to test it though just in case it went pear shaped.

You just target one of the adds. It's not difficult for a tank to cast an enmity spell from time to time on a marked add. You're going to do dickall for damage, so you ain't gunna get hate. In regards to m.acc/skill all that ***, doesn't really matter. Unless you do 0 damage you get TP. If my corsair can get TP on Warder of Courage, DRK can get it from an add.
In theory you could probably get enough accuracy to hit adds with Entropy to recover MP, but if you can do that you might as well just TP on them too.

Dunno though, we just kill it with Beastmasters and we slaughter the adds at the start. Works pretty well. I don't really have the gear together to do T4s on DRK, and I dunno if I want to try either. What I want is to take down that goddamn wind *** aura it has.

It does matter. Everything matters, EVERYTHING! Even you Trulusia /comfort.

Ok putting the jokes aside for a second.

You do realise that's a possibility, right? Going by that logic because my BLM alt can land a 70 or so dmg aero through resists on WoC my DRK without having the right amount of m.acc/mab could theoretically hit for 0. That same logic could pass over to any of the reisenjima T4's. Also from the wiki page on Erinys for your own clarification "Possesses an extremely high resistance to all forms of magic damage."


That theory is pretty damn asinine. You'd be willing to sacrifice TP for a luxury JA? Seriously? TP is what wins this fight if you're using the sneak attack method. Which I was. There's also a reason no one was attempting to TP on the adds and I didn't ask why I just followed suit.


If that's the case why were you even interested in how the fight went in the first place or what JA's and traits I was taking advantage of? lol


Okay... If you're talking about what I think you're talking about then you are doing something wrong. That "aura" shouldn't be up to begin with. Mewing Lullaby and Light of Penance are your friends, make use of them.

Having fought Erinys more times than I can count to contribute to known knowledge about the fight, yes I know about it's damage reduction. But I also understand magic damage formulas, and I rather than theorizing that a hit would land for 0, I know that it won't. The adds don't have the same defensive stats as the main NM, in fact that are lower than WoC. I know this because we always kill the adds when we fight it.


No, the MP restoration is to continue using Occult Acumen to build to 3k TP. It should take about 28 seconds and cost 687mp or so to build 3k TP, but it's only useful after you have exhausted your supply of wings. Beyond that you have to land enough hits with Entropy to actually refill your MP. And if you can do that, you might as well just melee an add to build 3k TP. You'd probably have to use Ragnarok though, which isn't ideal.


Because I take an interest in anything that seems mechanically interesting to me. That's why my main job is PUP, and why I play WAR, DRK, DNC and COR. They have interesting mechanics to me. I have no desire to fight T4s on DRK because I see no reason it cannot be done. I was of the opinion forever ago that DRK was in a better position than most melee to do WoC and T4s because of Occult Acumen, but lack of a strong magical WS kept it from being too viable.

In regards to doing DRK/THF to kill Eryins, that I could easily do. I just have no interests because it presents no challenge to me.

In regards to why taking the aura down is important... is that not obvious? It's because current fights rely upon abusing a mechanic in the game to prevent the NM from performing a TP move. It's cheap, boring and presents no challenge. SE HAS built a way into the fight of taking down the aura, which means there is no reason to rely upon resetting TP to win. Except that it's effective and people are lazy.

I've killed the thing plenty of times, I have two Aeonics as proof of at least that many kills, and plenty others from just helping with the fight when I can't be assed to farm the beads.

You definitely have more knowledge than me about both Erinys and m.dmg formulas. Like I said I've only fought him once. The idea of using occult acumen never actually crossed my mind at all if I'm honest until you bought it up so kudos to you because it's an interesting idea which I like the sound of. At the same time it doesn't mean I'm going to test it unless I'm permitted to.


My bad I get where you're going now. Yeah if I was to focus TPing on an add and had enough accuracy acumen would be irrelevant. If MP was solely for the purpose of consume mana I think using Entropy could still possibly work to keep it up depending on whether or not you can get to 3kish TP with GS before SA is up. Do you have an idea of what the acc cap is for adds?


Maybe I'm just old fashioned but I find the challenge is in the parse, also I think you've kind of challenged yourself there matey. If its "easy" and doesn't present a challenge then I'll give you one. Beat my parse of 571321 damage on Erinys with DRK. ^^



I personally find that pretty boring and not very challenging myself but that's just my opinion and I understand why people utilise it. I also don't see how 4 SMNs spamming mewing is any different than 4 BSTs spamming razors, if one is abusing a mechanic so is the other. They shouldn't have to take a morale stance on an ability they were GIVEN, especially one that is tailor made for this exact fight. I don't really want to go much further with what other job, or its abilities, is boring or "cheap" in a DRK thread, it detracts from its purpose so I apologise if I provoked that response but its better suited for somewhere else.

I completely agree with you that it's boring and cheap to just use Beastmasters. But we don't have a better or even really viable other method unless we figure out how to take down the aura.

In regards to the parse bit, I am not one to shy from a challenge, but I think it would be difficult to make a fair comparison because our party compositions are most likely going to be radically different. Aside from the fact that several people in my LS have Twashtar, Aeneas and Vajra, we also have three Idris GEOs and RMEA Bards. If you had access to those things also then if the party numbers are the same then I think we could get a more fair comparison. That said, I am not one to back away from a challenge. I'll get a pop together and give all those MEA THF's in the LS something to do.

I'm assuming DRK only did that well in the first place because the group wasn't coordinating wings every ~30 sec, or else something wrong with buffs/debuffs that made the fight last well after wings ran out. This is mostly based on the implication that you almost timed out. Either way, THF would lose the ability to make the most out of both SA and TA. More relevant information would be WS average and count, if you have those saved.

Perhaps I'm overlooking something, though. I'd be willing to do Erinys with your group at any point, with or without RMEA. (In general, I'm willing to help any group on Ragnarok with Erinys.)

As I am nearing to AG my APOC I have been thinking a lot of building my ws sets for scythe. Cata and the rest are more or less strait forward, or they dont change enough in dmg to stress about, but our bread and butter ws CR has me a little confused.

I have just been using my Reso set basically (Full argosy, and str) but I have been feeling that this may not be the best option. Am I wrong?

I was just messing around with gear I had on me and noticed that dropping from 267 str down to 204, I was able to add a little accuracy and 167 mnd. Now I know mnd and str even though they are each 60% mod are not equal. But realizing that for 62 str I could get 167 mnd (nearly a 3:1) makes me wonder if forgoing the full Argosy setup wouldnt be better? Or maybe even using my cata WSD set since most odys has a decent chunck of mnd and str on it might not be best?

What are you all using, whats your suggestion?

Good point. Maybe getting within 10.1% of your highest parsing THF? I dunno but I'm sure it will be easy to tell just how well you did in comparison by taking party setup etc into account.

I think we had two idris geo's and a cor but no rmea brd's (we have one but they were on SMN) If we'd had even one extra person during that run we would have timed out and one person less would have made the fight more comfortable. So it becomes a bit of a headache with Erinys on what to prioritise (I know you know this, just putting it out there) and what to sacrifice.

Personally it would be cool to read another DRK's experience with this particular fight and what they might do differently to reach a higher dmg output. Hopefully you're that DRK!

In general, the DD party went into the fight a bit unprepared. We didn't have a good idea of who was using what or when which like you said would have made it difficult for the THF's to take advantage of both SA/TA but that should be expected whilst trying something for the first time right? Sadly I don't have the ws.avg or count and in future I'll try to keep that information in mind. I'm still a forum noob (just a noob in general really) so don't hold it against me.

I'm pretty sure you would be welcome anytime Flip but I doubt we'll be doing Erinys again for at least a couple of weeks. If you want to help with other T4's though I'll happily point you in the direction of someone you can talk to about that, in-game. Cheers!

Hi Guys,

trying to decide which ws to gear for Ragnarok drk (Torcleaver or Resolution), in general Torcleaver > Resolution?

thx