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

You will lose white damage though and it will even out almost completely. The only piece that has some visible dps impact over 5/5 Sakpata is I think flamma head (can't check now). Ofc this is with samurai roll.

White damage doesn't matter
You might lose white damage
White damage doesn't matter
You might lose white damage
White damage doesn't matter
You might lose white damage

It depends how much white damage you lose to get how much ws frequency. WS frequency is worth more on most jobs, but we are usually talking about huge gain to white damage against small lose to ws frequency. This is even more important on setups with good potential in white damage benefiting or not loosing dps while holding TP to 1500-2000 like Caladbolg DRK.

With AM3 Caladbolg and this "best time to WS" set:

sim shows:
2844 DPS with white damage and
10528 DPS with WS
Total sim damage in 20h is around 204.8M white damage and 758.1M WS damage and total DPS is around 13373. Avg TP to WS time 2.874s

with AM3 and this set:

sim shows:
3717 DPS with white damage and
9849 DPS with WS
Total sim damage in 20h is around 267.6M white damage and 709.2M WS damage and total DPS is around 13566. Avg TP to WS time 3.276s

This is btw with Aria and without GEO, so not only PDL in gear has relatively lower impact than without Aria, but also I'm marginally below the attack cap with all this PDL, because when I add GEO I get 300 DPS more :) Not to mention Vim's Torque with Great Sword is as problematic as Schere.

White damage setup has not only better overall DPS, but also massively higher defensive stats. It's not even competition in my eyes.

Was kinda wondering about Triple Attack on DRK. It can get a sizeable amount. Like something like this.

ItemSet 400075

I know the MEVA's kinda garbage, but get -41% PDT, -31%DT and 17% triple attack.

You could also glass cannon and get 20% triple with Hetairoi Ring and Clotharius Torque.

Or is Triple just not worth it on DRK?

I'm just having a hard time self SCing consistently even with /sam with just my Trusts as I work it towards Master, and looking for something that gets more consistent/faster TP.

Or should I just give up on that... OTL

That set is really strange for a number of reasons, but generally I'd say don't focus we exclusively on a single stat, like maxing DA or TA, or only getting STP. A mix is often best, and comparing individual pieces to their own slot is helpful.

Why seething bomblet over coiste? Do you think 1% TA is better than, for example, 6 more STP from dedition?

Are you having trouble during LR, or when LR is down? While LR is up, you should be swinging very fast. When you say you're having trouble self skillchaining, are you talking about 2 WS in a row, or like..4 or 5 steps? It gets significantly more difficult as you go on so it will depend on the SC.

It's really hard to be sure what the problem is, but it's very unlikely that focusing exclusively on one stat is the answer, IMO.

Edit to add: also for apex mobs, they generally aren't very dangerous so you don't have to pile on DT. I'd swap the neck for something more offense-oriented, especially if you're having trouble skillchaining. Even possibly vim torque, if your trusts can handle the healing.

Well I haven't tried this particular set at all, but Seething is in there for gear haste. With Coiste, the set only reaches 24% gear haste. (I also don't have a stage 4 Helheim yet, let alone a stage 5). Just an idea I'm presenting.

Issue I'm having currently is whether LR is up or not, occasionally can't do double light or double dark like I'd like to. My DRK isn't really kitted out, and only at 520ish JP, so currently I use either R15 Ragnarok or Agwu's Scythe. I like to do Scourge > Reso > Torcleaver for double light, as it'll kill Apex Poxhound in one go of it. Great Sword has more of a struggle than Scythe, but Scythe occasionally struggles too with Entropy > Cross Reaper > Quietus (for funzies). My current TP set is more along the lines of this, though I'd been swapping some pieces around to experiment earlier:

ItemSet 400076

You could try to get enough STP to save a swing. DRK without buffs is probably the job id consider worrying about that kinda thing as while it's got high attack speed, it lacks what other jobs got over the yrs like 100% DA, bunch of unlinked jumps for quick TP, zanhasso and theres only so much you gain from that extra JA haste(13% ideally)

I like Triple Attack gear with Foenaria-4 since it has 4% Triple Attack on it. That's what my "DRK Normal TP" set on the last page was, and sometimes I flip between Hetairoi and Petrov. I like the DA on AF legs over Sulevia (10 extra swings vs 8 extra swings), but the DT addition from Sulevia adds bulk so it's interesting. I don't fancy using Seething for it though, and Clotharious/Balder is not enough TA for me to care. TA for DRK is cool for your glass cannon/messing around/farming UNM/Limbus130/Sortie Objectives sets, for everything else I go with Sakpata's. You really don't miss a whole lot of dps with it.

If you were to try to aim for a 5 hit, you'd need to bump your stp up by 22 or so with /sam compared to what you got in this set
ItemSet 400076

So something like vim torque(10), flamma head(6), dedition earring(8) over brutal. That's a nice acc drop though. Wasn't sure if you had rp into sakpata's gloves also so that could shift how much you need as well. Hanging around pox hounds vim could also be dangerous too, so could opt to jse neck +2 if you had that

Why use Emp+3 over Sakpata?

sakpata would drop him to 24% haste in that set, really the only bad part of sakpata; its haste is low. Could swap to sailfi belt though, though i personally still aim for 26% haste in sets though idk if its needed anymore

Gotcha so assume LR is down.

DRK really got shafted with AF,Relic and Emp for TP. AF3/4 legs are the best piece.

ItemSet 371816

That's my assumption at least, as otherwise you're way over haste. Though i can understand not using a LR up set if you got trusts for buffers, lose a march, get a haste 1 instead of a 2 and it screws everything up


Think DRK has just been shafted in general for TP generation compared to other 2 handers, gears just the cherry on top. Feels frustrating sometimes especially if you lack sam roll

Thanks for the input. Conclusion is that DRK's TP sets are shafted by developers on purpose. How dare they!

Fell back on this after consulting here and elsewhere.

ItemSet 400086

When I get up to ML5 gonna swap Dedition out for Crepuscular Earring or something. My Sakpata's R15 btw. I need to get some real Ody clears.

Leave it to DRKs to be a sakpata job that complains about not having good enough tp options.

Or a job with access to sakpata yet making any excuse not to wear it insisting on that damn Odin body instead.

Like the dead War on the floor.

I must agree with that. Having arguably best possible tp set in the game and trying to find reasons not to wear it is simply ilogical. Every DRG would kill for access to Sakpata.

this is for getting jp with little-no buffs, im assuming he has his acc capped as that would be the main reason he couldnt multi-step conistently, though thinking on it apex poxhounds with no real buffer could be hard to reach acc cap on possibly. But if so it becomes a matter of needing to get more TP a hit. Dont see an issue with having to compensate for that on trash tier mobs

My real complaint at the 431/432 delay great swords.

Oh Algols, how I miss you.

On the topic of Odin Gear.
I feel like the crit rate on Odin Body is a trap. As long as attack is capped, the PDL on Sakpata's boosts damage on every swing.

You have a constant damage boost over something that has a chance of happening.

It is a bit annoying that we don't have too many high MEVA/Store TP Options, but it's only really an issue for say AM3 Liberator.

It gets to the point that you just need to make it up via rings/accessory pieces.

My beloved

I was a proud owner of this.

As for DRK TP being shafted, yeah well maybe ambu+3 gear would be nice...

DRK tp gear is amazing. I think it's more a problem of DRK not being a SAM and he is trying to fight higher lv apex mobs with trusts and only 500+ JP and R15 Sakpata. He lacks stp from /Sam and Sakpata hands and neck. He lacks acc from gifts. I also hope he gets at least one March from BRDs.

This take is only relevant in Sheol Gaol or fights where MEVA is key for resists/ailment prevention. THe Odin body has -12% DT and the same MDB as Sakpata's. It also features +92 more HP. With 39 less defense (not an issue).

In this case, my DRK needs it to reach 5-hit with 431 delay weapon, currently.

This is literally just a case of, I have ML43 WAR and ML22 SAM, and good sets for them, and am used to far more consistently high TP gain. And it bothers me.

well 130 limbus mobs/VD ambu are apparently too dangerous to use non-sakpata/malig/nyame level gear so, be careful.

What is your acc sitting out in your sets also? As im wondering now if you are just not hitting the acc cap causing you to miss, which is more strict for drk in these conditions as theres not a guaranteed DA hit to fall back on or just huge TP on hit like SAM gets

In most recent set it's 1230 before food/hasso. Using Sublime +1, so it's up to 1345 or so. On higher end hounds, Sylvie switches to Indi-accuracy, and I don't miss much. I also use Absorb-ACC so that doesn't happen as much.

Went back with the 5-hit, 30% Datk, 7%triple, and wasn't having as much of an issue. Still pretty tight at times though for double light. But no issue anymore at all when LR up seems like, and with it down not as much issues either. 5-hit seem to be the answer.

If you are using Entropy with Scythe anyway, then you can also simply cast Impact for 1000+ TP return. Just need some solid FC gear and don't cast it with hasso up, so mostly during LR up, when hasso only adds few points of STR, so you can turn it off.

It's certainly a choice, not wearing Sakpata while you have access to it.

So that's about a 75% hit rate on the higher end poxhounds(unless my math is bad), with sylvie capping you when she swaps to precision. Surprised abs-acc lands on hounds also, but if you were to stay at that 75% rate, which i guess depends how often you end up with higher level hounds, i could see that being a core issue to you not being able to consistently multi-step

Just curious about the Hjarrandi breastplate use, is that just used to hit a certain xhit?