Caladbolg Or Apocalypse

Half the time at NMs there is someone else there camping it (often botting) that'll let you join and afk. You get the credit for killing it if you're in the same party.

But... but...

If you and the other guy clear the NM trials at same time, then you gonna compete for the abyssea trophies and metal plates.

The only way to have peace is to track down the other IP, figure his geographical coordinates, send emails to threaten his family, force him to leave FFXI so you can leisurely farm abyssea.

If the other guy doesnt give up the game, we gonna need to resort to more physical measures, but lets hope we dont need to go that route, its bothersome to dispose the body. And some cops can be more annoying in certain cities.

This is the new meta for playing on Asura?

I don't know about love, but I definitely see Torcleaver more than I see my closest family and friends.

I'm sure others have said it and in all seriousness, do both

Personally I'd start with caladbolg, but definitely do both.

Caladbolg will allow you to perform well in endgame content. Apoc will not (no, omen isn't end game anymore) Apoc is a toy for solo and if you take dark seriously, you will eventually get the prime scythe and then regret the gil you wasted on the mediocore toy. Unless you have absolutely no ambition to ever do Endgame as drk, Caldabolg is the clear winner and then it's still the winner because you will kill things 3 times faster.

For solo, you would still use Apoc over Foenaria if target resists light skillchain, but is weak to darkness.

This guy also said that Liberator isn't worth it and I outparsed Caladbolg constantly with mine.

There is no one-weapons-fits-all scenarios. Build them all.

You say that already having it. To make it now if you aspir to get the prime, for those rare occasions in a solo situation where darkness would be that much better then just bulldozing through with Origin is a waste of gil.

Sure, but on the other hand, "if you take dark seriously", then you would want Apocalypse anyway and making one doesn't slow your progress on Primes, since they are "free" and take 1hour a day max.

Also keep in mind with trusts buffs on something with Apex Toad stats, Origin won't beat Catastrophe by huge margin (Around 5-15% depends if Foenaria IV or V), unless you will hold TP, but holding TP barely increase DPS and in the instance of doing 3steps, you can't really hold TP that much anyway. Foenaria really requires capped attack and TP bonus buffs to make that damage/dps skyrocket.

DRK and RNG are expensive ***. You get what you pay for.

I love when people say "I outparsed X weapon with my Y weapon, clearly Y is better." It's like, no man, you played against someone that either wasn't trying as hard as you, isn't as good as you, doesn't have the gear you do. You would do even more damage if you used X weapon instead of Y weapon...People want to be special so bad by using off-meta stuff. There's a reason it's meta.

It's like a guy in my LS that would rant and rave about how Aeneas is better than Twashtar because he outparsed Twashtar users in Dynamis. Then someone came in and shut that nonsense down next run.

Liberator might win out in white dmg, but every time I've seen a Liberator vs. Calad DRK, caladbolg DRK wins out by around 10% dmg (that's right, I parse as I'm curious about the dmg comparison). And even solo, Torcleaver > Torcleaver wins out.

Liberator might win out in white damage? Waaaaaaat

How on earth would Liberator win white damage with Torcleaver doing x3 white?

Again, it all depends on the content. Liberator has absolutely no trouble firing off back to back 1750+ Insurgency, which is very powerful. Toss in some 3000 Cross Reapers in there whenever you hit 3000.

Also, you can't use the arguement that Torcleaver > Torcleaver = Light because any big buff situation you aren't self SCing. Even if you want to try that arguement Liberator has devestating 4 step double dark Insurgency > Entropy > Quietus > Quietus. All very strong WS

One thing I always see people use when comparing Apoc to Calad is that Catastrophe is weak, but you still have access to all other WS. Apoc is only beat in terms of base damage by Prime and Aeonic. Cross Reaper is VERY strong with Apoc.

CR is just strong in general at higher TP, apoc doesnt really do anything to improve it, aeonic/empy/even dyna-d path c would do more for it

Well yeah, but also Aeonic has 500 TP bonus which is...pretty good for most Scythe WS...Prime has way more atk, PDL, STR/INT, a better ODD/ODT, and triple attack, plus a much better WS.

Apoc isn't totally useless, but having high base damage is very low on the list of stats that make a weapon good in 2024. Having OK base damage and no other redeeming qualities makes Apocalypse far from a contender in terms of DPS.

If you have all the options in the game and you don't need Catastrophe, you don't equip Apocalypse, period. That's why Catastrophe's strength (weakness) is important to Apoc's relevance. There is no reason to wear Apoc unless you want to use Catastrophe. Inb4 JA haste. Please try to come up with a party- or alliance-based scenario where the AM would make up for the shitty damage of the weapon.

I think if I had a Foenaria I would be quite comfortable tossing Apocalypse, barring future adjustments. At the VERY LEAST it would be in my mog safe and not wasting a space in my wardrobes.

Is multi-hit on a scythe not good white dmg? Are we saying Liberator beats out Caladbolg stricly with WS dmg?

Multi hit doesnt automatically beat out 50% triple dmg. It boosts the ws rate a good deal but its white dmg is minor by comparison

I thought this conversation was Apoc or Calad first... not I have every weapon and which is best lol.

I'm just on the pro Apocalypse side and listing the benefits. It's so easy to build both of those tho. Calad empy path has to be the absolute easiest/fastest to farm.

White damage should be all the swings between WS. Both weapons should have very similar amounts of swings between WS. So Caladbolg getting x3 boosts on those swings will pull it ahead drastically.

Dont recall making that comment (not saying i didn't) but also agree with it. See very few scenarios were liberator is worth the investment other then just wanting all drk weapons (which is completely fine btw). That said, yea, caladbolg will out dps it and drk is a DD for 99 percent of relvant content meaning more dmg = good. . Asorb stuff maybe but
swapping weapons for an absorb hinders the primary function of the job.

Back on topic. Mal summed up my opinion regarding apoc vs. Apoc is irrelevant now if you have a prime.

Liberator is awesome and Aria just made it better. It takes my biggest gripe with DRK which is TP gain and makes it a non-issue.

Will concur with that but, does it make it do more dmg then Caldabolg and it's am 3 which also got a huge boost from aria? Or atleast that's the question to the discussion within a discussion within a discussion O.o

Everything gets a huge boost from Aria. They're not suddenly great, it's Aria that's doing it.

Not like Aria does nothing for Calad.

Good point on Aria, it just really stands out on notably weaker WSs. Seeing 99999 Insurgency (not common) was quite surprising.

Posts like that gets me thinking how are people getting to those conclusions...

1. Insurgency and Cross Reaper are the same damage with Liberator at 3000TP
2. How is Entropy and Quietus a very strong WS, but Catastrophe is weak. I simply can't understand where are people getting this ideas. Both Entropy and Quietus with LiberatorR15 are weaker than Catastrophe with ApocalypseR15. Well Entropy is slightly stronger at 3000TP, but it's a huge dps loss to hold TP for it on 2nd step. This whole 4step is weak and Entropy > Cata > Cross > Cata 4step or simply Cata > Cross > Cata 3step are much better. If anything you would want to make Insurgency > Entropy > Cross > Quietus with Liberator. Advantage for Liberator here would be ability to push higher TP for Cross, so it would be quite potent.


Again I think people are not playing DRK and have some data from 2010. Nether Void + DS Absorb-STR with all the relevant gear is around +96 STR and the buff has like 7min duration when unresisted (and it's almost always unresisted, unless mob force resist with 50% or less resist rank). So it's not like you need to swap to Liberator every 30 sec to cast Absorb-STR. You can do it once at start and it will most likely last full NM fight (or two). You can even buff on some trash in Sortie and it will probably last all the running to the boss and whole fight.

Wow. That amazing. Truly. Yet Caldabolg still does more damage /shrugs. Does that make it worth wasting time and money to make a mythic? Depends on your perspective, time and income I suppose. You're not wrong but that's a huge price tag for a buff weapon that doesn't give you as much of a boost as your trying to make it sound. Again, nothing wrong with making it but I'd rather spend gil elsewhere.

Not sure what you mean here. You can switch to Liberator and buff yourself with +96 VIT for 7min and switch to Calad and spam Torcleavers.

Read edited version.

I think it's definitely worth investment for anyone prioritizing DRK. Especially that you don't need Afterglowed or R15 versions for that purpose, so it's significantly cheaper than full R15 mythic.