Merits For DRK? (What Should I Merit)

you know firsthand I'm a career whm, thanks for telling me stuff you know I already know? lol

souleater is a fantastic source of enmity, so I still don't understand your point; a drk should be using souleater whenever possible while tanking. (you know that a big part of drk's ability to tank is derived from its dd potential, so like...what.)

Actually that's an interesting point I didn't consider. Assuming you use soul eater every time its up the recast timer would be better than LR effect. This becomes even more so since it makes LR 4:30 recast and SE 5:30 Recast, meaning you can stack the two more frequently. At high levels of haste desperate blows almost doubles your attack speed, so pairing the two would be a massive damage buff for 30 seconds compared to a marginal increase seperately. So you'd be able to overlap the two every 5:30 instead of every 6:00. Or If you used each ability everytime it was up then:

First use free overlap
SE recast: 6min LR recast 4.5min

4.5 min out, use LR again. recast time now 9minutes
6.0 min out, use SE again. Recast time now 12min

9min out use LR again. Recast time now 13:30min out
12 min out, use SE again. Recast time now 18 minutes

13.5 min out, use LR again. Recast time now 18 minutes.

Overlap time: every 18 minutes for optimal use.

Merited times:

First use: free overlap
SE recast: 5.5min LR recast: 4.5min

4.5 Minutes out, use LR. Recast time now 9minutes
5.5 minutes out, use LR. Recast time now 11 minutes

9 Minutes out, use LR. Recast time now 13.5 minutes
11 minutes out, use SE, Recast time now 16.5 minutes.

Overlap time: no overlap, would require non-optimal use of ability.

You ofc can wait to overlap the abilitys but that would be worse than using the abilitys every time they're up. Also, if the ability times become staggered such that you can't use the abilitys with overlaps as frequently that would also decrease your damage.

Lets assume that SE and LR each double your damage for that period of time. (not really a stretch, its pretty massive). SE will double it for twice as long.

Combined, they multiply your damage by Four. (Attacking twice as fast and for twice as much).

Seperately, souleater increases damage by twice as much for a 1 minutes period. LR increases it by twice as much for a 30 sec period.

SE is every 6-1min duration minutes without merits so:
1/6 minutes = 16.7% of the time active and double damage:
+16.7% damage overall.

SE is every 5.5 -1 minutes duration minutes with merits so:
1/5= 20% of the time active and double damage:
+20% damage overall.

LR is every 4.5 -.5 min duration so:
.5/4.5 = 11% of the time active and double damage:
+11% damage overall.

Conclusion: Lowering the recast timers on SE is about a 4% increase in overall damage.

KEEP IN MIND THIS IS A MODEL AND NOT 100% ACCURATE SO STFU. Also, keep in mind I didnt count for decaying damage of SE as you lose HP per hit. So that 4% would be even lower.

Now if you were to raise the LR effect I doubt it would be much different than a 4% increase, and you could use the ability freely. Also keep in mind the overlaps. I don't think SE is worth meriting in this case.

good points; I talked it over with my linkshell's resident apoc drk and he agreed with the LE recast/effect merits. I mathed out the damage increases a little differently, but the end result is the same. he thinks the SE recast merits would be viable with an apoc, but since the likelihood of being able to use SE at recast isn't high, LR would be more useful on average instead. thanks for having a look for me :D

I agree, with apoc its a bit more doable because cata stacks with SE. So you dont really have the HP decaying problem quite as badly. I'm actually considering changing mine to test it out.

Since I'm keeping a point in each for the spare ability in either case, I can't get either DE or DS below 7:30 recast. I don't think I have any desire to use either of them even that often.

With proper gearing, the only time you should really need Dark Seal is a mob you aren't going to be fighting more than once every 15 minutes, but even having two Dark Seals in 15 minutes isn't gonna make a difference over just one if the fight goes that long. Likewise with Diabolic Eye; any mob you might plan to make use of it on isn't going to be fought more than once every 15 minutes, and these days if you're meleeing it you're probably zerging it anyway and want the HP for Souleater nor is the fight likely to last longer than three minutes anyway.

This leaves putting Diabolic Eye up as support for certain gearings, but we still only have ace's hose as a big exchange of Accuracy for Haste, most other suggested DE swaps are silly things like STR rings.

I think Muted Soul is a bit underestimated in application even if it lacks any immediate purpose, mostly relating to only using it for Souleater. Some serious digging later and it appears to be applied to everything while Souleater is active, not just Souleater damage. I'm still not sure if it also affects the initial hate spike, but the consensus was always that Muted Soul sucked because it doesn't (though one should be popping SE pre-engagement anyway), but Muted Soul affecting the initial hate is fine too; I'll take the time to test it (since I still doubt anyone actually merited it high enough to check).

Too often I get a good beating on the tail end of one mob but immediately have hate again on the next one because I NV-Drain 2'ed to recover. Putting an additional use to Souleater, which I hardly use enough as it is since I'm not one of these crazy *** who dual-boxes their own dedicated external healing, is definitely worthwhile. Throwing on -30% enmity for things other than Souleater sounds like a sweet deal.

Using Souleater on the timer, every timer, is just asking for disaster, which is very DRK.

Dark seal is now ***anyways. The main use of it before was a Drain II before a zerg. Zerging is pretty much dead now. Also, by the time drain II would actually go off the mob would probably be dead. This game is effectively too easy for zerging :/

You should be using soul eater everytime its up at least for one WS and then cancel it. If your mage cant cure you 1k HP every 6 minutes then you should find one who isn't an idiot.

Muted soul is pretty horrible tbh. These are the end game applications for drk:

1. ***DD
2. Best tank in game

Hmmm. Think that undermines one of those a little...

Depends on if Muted Soul affects the initial VE or not, which has been long postulated to be 'no'.

Enjoy your 72% of a voke that bleeds down in 21 seconds. You'd be better off spamming Boost.

"DRK tanks with CE" I might hear you on, but you don't need Souleater to push or even cap CE, nor should you want it up if you're doing so.

Everything matters. You have to approach it from the question of whether its an overall positive or negative.

I wouldn't touch Muted Soul.

Having Souleater active is a massive way to gain CE in a hurry, due to the damage output.
"DRK tanks with CE" sounds like outdated information, before they nerfed the CE generation of most DRK spells. (Bind, Sleep, etc.) This flat out means that DRK's main source of CE is damage. (Correct me if I'm wrong here.)

It's like saying that -50% Enmity on Sentinel is a good thing.

5/5 LR effect
5/5 LR recast

5/5 Desperate Blows
and
5/5 Muted Soul
or
1/5 Dark Seal
4/5 Muted Soul

Desperate Blows: should always be 5/5 cause you'll inevitably be /nin, /thf /war or even /sam with seigan on instead of hasso. It's a massive DMG increase, especially fully hasted!

Dark Seal: The only time you'll ever need more than 1 merit in this is if you're doing endurance fights with NMs where the fight lasts for more than 5 minutes. 95% of the time, Nether Void will net better results, and in the other 5%, they should both be used.

Muted Soul: Perfect for zerging! Cuts down on all that hate you get from using souleater, which is where most of your dmg comes from in any zerg. Plus, it keeps you alive longer when you pop souleater pre-guillotine. Everyone else will call it crap but IMO, its very worth it.

Diabolic Eye: Only good if you throw 5/5 merits into it. Even then, you need two TP sets and two WS sets so you can adjust for the temporary increase. Or you can Diabolic Eye for 3 min Souleater for 1 min and them Absorb ACC for the last min. But given what I use dark for, Muted Soul benefits me more.

There is nothing particularly wrong with Muted Soul. The merit works, and does what it was designed to. If you want to maximize your damage without pulling hate, go for it.

Unfortunately, why would you ever want to do that? DRK is much harder to kill than a WAR, so wouldn't you WANT to keep things off of them? This is relevant in non-zerg situations.

Muted soul barely benefits YOU and YOU alone, at the sacrifice of those around you. Very DRK-ish, I guess... Even so, a good DRK zerg (who zergs anymore anyway?) should easily pull hate WITH max Muted Soul. So.. the merits are rather wasted anyway.

Nonsense...

Drks will ALWAYS parse higher than any other job in a zerg. WARs and SAMs always grab the initial hate spike. Muted soul simply keeps the hate on them as long as possible, which is where it should be. As long as its on them, DRKs will keep hacking away, causing more and more dmg. DRKs want to be the LAST person the NM looks at during a zerg. Especially post blood-weapon, when souleater increases your vulnerability. Muted soul is movement in this direction.

As for regular melee, I just don't buy the hate loss argument. If you're using Guillotine with souleater (which you should be) you're doing it what, once every 6 minutes, once every 12 weapon skills? There is plenty of hate left... trust me.

Muted Soul merits? Never heard of such a thing.

if muted soul didn't require souleater to activate that would make drk awesome for DD

That sounds like a pretty whimpy way to zerg. (Why are we zerging again? Abyssea is hard okay.) It's also a highly irrelevant way to zerg if you are doing it properly (as per current mechanics) with Perfect Defense. Also, unless you are rocking a K-O.club, DRK won't be winning parses against properly built SAMs or WARs (Or MNKs?)

You're -only- using Souleater to WS? Why not just use the full duration of it for more damage than silly e-peen Guillotine? Did you even read this thread when it was explaining more complicated merit allocations for overlapping Souleater and Last Resort (Desperate Blows)? It sounds to me like you either need to man up and do some REAL damage, or find better healers.

Actually drk is an unfavorable job in zergs for several reason:

1. The difference between base melee damage and pure HP zerg damage is tilted in favor of melee damage. (Favorable to use high base damage weapons with good stats compared to Mkris)

2. A lot of the current mobs in the game now have out right or limited resistance to souleater.

3. Zerging in general is pretty much dead. You'd be meriting something that has nearly no effect. If you use SE on a WS and you pop a 2k guill you're still gonna pull hate. Most likely if you're using it on weak mobs they'll die so quick that hate accumulation is moot.

4. This make the best use of souleater is as a CE generation tool for tanking. Muted Soul undermines that.

Merits for a post 85 cap drk would optimally be:

5 Last resort recast
5 Last Resort effect OR souleater recast(I discussed this earlier)
5 Diabolic Eye
5 Desperate Blows

Actually, I hadn't considered that, but thinking about it now, my enmity caps out quickly enough that I might be able to get three souleaters in in a battle before it stops mattering. So basically, I might cap enmity 2 minutes quicker at best. In places like limbus and dynamis spamming souleater at recast is fine, I guess, I just like having last resort effect because it's available any time I'm meleeing.

1) got any research to back up what you're saying? I mean I zerged Kirin with a Dweomer Scythe back in the day a few times and it did pretty well with a +1 souleater aug on it. But it never outdid my B.zag or M.kris. Does it apply to anything other than your apocalypse? Cause you know... not everyone has one. In either case Muted soul still keeps you alive longer during a zerg.

2) some do some don't eitherway they can all still be zerged... If I cant take advantage of my DRK in a zerg, then I usually go as one of my other jobs :P

3) Zerging is not dead. I still zerg plenty of stuff in my shell. Plus while you more than likely pull hate with a 2k guillotine the tank has an easier time getting hate off you and back onto themselves.

4) It certainly does undermine DRK using souleater as a source of emnity. But if I need to tank something I use my PLD. Not everyone has access to the tanking side of DRK.

Diabolic Eye just isn't worth it for me. What are you fighting that you need the ACC boost? You wouldn't fight an NM and give yourself a 15% HP penalty right of the start are you? You certainly wouldn't lower HP if you were looking to use DRK as a tank would you? The only time it makes great sense is for general melee. Even then its only useful if you get 5/5 merits in it and can either:

1) alternate gear in and out for when you have the acc boost and when you don't.

OR

2) run DE for 3 min, souleater for 1 min and Absorb Acc for the last. But even then you need to dump merits into SE recast instead of a LR option.

Zerging is a favorite part of being a DRK for me, Muted soul helps you zerg better. Win/Win

1. The point wasnt in direct reference to drk which still has good use of souleater. It was to reference that the disparity between drk and a warrior or sam in a zerg has been diminished greatly for that particular reason.

2. In these cases you can zerg but you'd be favoring the use of a normal weapon not a zerg weapon. This then leads to the question of whether drk is even the optimal DD for this situation.

3. Zerging is a joke if you still do it. I think we killed Jailer of justice in 10 seconds last fight. You can do dynamis in under 20secs. Kirin dies in 10 seconds. Its all just a joke.

4. PLD tanking is utter fail unless you're tanking sea jailers. DRK is a better tank for pretty much all end game mobs, and was before they even raised the level cap.

Well, if the main reason you use drk is to zerg then I feel bad that you're job is only useful for 1% of the overall game. However, that is your opinion and I'm not gonna argue it with you.

LoL dont feel bad for me, I love playing my DRK the way I do, I'm still a kick *** DD, even if WARs and SAMs have a higher melee DPS, they always have. DRK has other utility than just DD which is also kinda the point. Zerging was just the icing on the cake.

I'm sorry you feel shafted/disapointed by the direction SE has taken with DRK. Please keep in mind that it'll be a whole new game once we reach 99

SE's choices have not affected me in the least. I use drk primarily as a tank and secondarilly as a DD. The only issue I had was the nerfing of drk hate spells.

*reads up about Dark Knight in the other final fantasy games...*
*wishes that Drk's in FFXI can have*
- demi, Doom, Death, Charon, Black sky, status immunity spells, darkside
-moar abilities that consume hp to deal dmg
-allow drk's to have a floating weapon like their arch nemesis 'arcana'
-give drk an avatar mode. so like...a drk turns into a shadowlord-like being and becomes all glowy and stuff :3 with a giant sword/scythe and he's all like errrggg >:] or a pair of black wings to show for it
-increased dark magic potency/damage for drk
-take out muted soul as a merit and put it like..hp/dmg boost >.> so we can actually do 5/5 desperate blows 5/5 hp/dmg boost thingy
and make last resort a 3min duration

What would be cool is a job ability that makes Dark Magic/Blood Weapon effect undead or dark resistant monsters :(


Theres been to many times Ive been screwed lol.

Okay, so you guys totally missed my idea about putting Muted Soul to use for things other than damage to give Souleater a non-melee usefulness. I guess I'm the only DRK that doesn't go RDM to everything.

What usefulness?

Muted soul is worthless, its hard to believe people argue it being useful.

Paladin is dead RIP, I loved the job to death but its in the grave just as much as Ninja.

DRK MNK SAM WAR are the real Tanks in this game with the direction its taken, and killing your source of enmity with muted soul is just HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE.

Raelia no ***you only show up on Drk for every event its your only job, PLD doesnt count its dead. Go level a mage job see how long going Drk everywhere lasts.

PLD and NIN are still good, just more situationally than before.

DRG Everywhere got me some nice things D:

DDONRY! >:

PLD's good for... Yilbegan? Which never has a shadow anyway, who gives a ***. Pretty sure BLU could tank it better anyway. NIN's not horrible as a DD (capped haste, high DW, crit WS) but it's not great either and it can't tank anything anymore.