When To Use Souleater.

You lose exactly as much as it adds. Period. Unless your /drk then its lose 10% only add 5%. That 1200 was mostly likely what guillotine? So mostly likely most the dmg was just from the ws.

Yes.

Unless you have gear that enhances Souleater and adds another 2% to dmg done. :P

You shouldnt really be using those WS, you should of kept your GA skilled with your scythe and use GA ws which are more useful and better for you than your scythe ws are til you can get guillotine at much later levels.

Soul eater is a case by case basis. Generally you wont see much use of it outside of last 30-20% mob health, SE+ ws (click off after) or SE+ swings no ws. You can get more use out of it however once you get drainII/dread spikes. Merit parties depends on what you sub, but in a good party and a competent mage, you can use it more than you could of lower levels. Gauge your party/mage and see how mp goes and then gauge how you do on SE. If anything you have weaponbash/stun/drain/drainII/dreadspikes/TEor(ni/ichi) to fall back on, in the right hands, drk is not as defenseless as people play them as.

In the end, be smart with how you play the job just like any other job.

I always used it with Guillo (or other WS before you get Guillo) to finish a monster and then clicked it off afterwards. As long as the enemy is at 25% or less, TP is at 100, and SE is ready I'll be using it. If I was told by someone in a party that I shouldn't be using an ability that I gain at lvl 30 until I get to 75 for endgame purposes I would either boot them for being an idiot, or leave.

It is when you know exactly how much 300hp is. Guillo +SE will take 40% of your health or 48% with enhanced gear piece. 300HP means you had 750-650HP. Even with 1500HP its still more than 600 HP loss after the WS.

Not saying you cant get away with it, but saying you dont lose that much health isnt true. You do, how much you lose is obviously depend on your current HP, but its still going to cut your current HP by a lot, even if its 100 Hp loss, that just means you only have 120 HP or so left....after a guillotine.

I used Souleater pretty much all the time. The added damage to the mob outwieghs the mp drain, but always click it off after your WS. Dont stack your Drk abilities, ie; Last Resort+Souleater, I find it is more efficient to stagger them so that you almost always have a JA to boost your WS's with. I have not used DRK in any event situations yet, so you would probably stack JA's on Bosses and stuff...

lvl 1-23, I use /mnk, and use Last Resort + boost+WS at 40-50% or less mob health.

lvl 24-59, can use /nin with ustusemi, /war or /thf at lvl 30+ for sneak attack.

lvl 60+ I use /sam 90% of the time. Third eye can save you. Med helps a ton for getting TP. Also can use /nin or /war depending on situation and party setup.

lvl 70+ is /sam all the way for me. Seigan + Third eye = win, can use /war also, and /nin gets ustusemi-ni at lvl 74.

**Things to note*

Dont use Souleater unless you are prepared and can handle tanking.

Pld lvl 35+ is your best friend. Pld gets Cover ability, which, if used, will allow the pld to take hits for you until the ability wears off, about um... 30sec or so I think, depending on the Pld's gear... Nin tanks are good, but can never hold hate on a souleater + ws, unless you are lvl 60+ and /thf and use trick attack.

DRK gets Drain II at lvl 62, try and use it before souleater since it raises your max HP, and therefore the max damage you can do.

As Drk/Sam or Drk/Nin, always use Third eye/Ustusemi Before using SE+WS, (something I seem to forget to do sometimes.. :/)

Use Souleater as the situation or party demands, without getting yourself killed...

half of this is crap,

take some real advice yo,
only take advice from people who leveled / merited DRK

not just cured a DRK ina pt mid 60'z and watched em die via souleater / stoopidity.

souleater is an awesome JA. use it often!
you will learn yourself.
when you spend as much time as others eating dirt to an EP kuza souleater.
then i guess you figured how not to use it.

+ @ 75 you can merit souleater enmity -10.

for a multi hit WS Drain 2 , or macro HP ++ gear in so the loss is minimal to your base HP.


its a live and learn ability, no forum can teach you the right way.
only scare you away from using it.

(look at the non DRK 75 post, just pissy mages)

I have started SE WS's with near damn 2K HP, had alil more fun and when it wore only lossed 300 hp out of all elvaan 1300. so eh.

use for the chain 6

Quick DRK Souleater death guide:

Pros:
Use souleater whenever you can, wherever you can. Get it fully merited so it times with last resort.

Always bicker for haste if it's not up, regardless if souleater isn't ready.

Cap your enmity merits and throw on some enmity gear. Bully the PLD and say "omfg get this thing off me, do your job and get hate you lowly voking scum."

Use DS+ Drain II liberally.

If it looks like your party is gonna die if you become a MP sink, Use it anyway, that will just make you enjoy it more.

If that main healer is giving you BS, make sure to use it to piss them off.

Get your hands on a kclub, put on mortal kombat music and switch over to the club after you WS souleater.

Caveats:
Never souleater on undead or magic immune (weapons floor in apollyon) unless you want to be a laughing stock. If you accidentally use it, tell them to **** off, you "used it for the accuracy boost".

I tend to use it with my 2hr more than any other time, or if I drain2 then guillotine for big dmg. Just be sure to abs-MND and STR first.

Edit: Also put up dread spikes in case you strip hate from tank.

Souleater + Blood weapon = awesome damage boost without consequence. Combine that with a multi-hit weapon and you're a damage dealing machine. This tactic is common in what is known as zergs.

In exp parties, using Souleater is fun as hell when it comes to finishing off mobs or putting up really nice spike damage. Unfortunately, the amount of damage it does to you doesn't justify the amount of damage you put out unless:

* Your healer is able to keep everyone buffed and healed without skipping a step or needing to rest for MP (which is pretty rare in exp parties pre-75 unless you have a PL)

* You have one or more PLs that are bored and want to see some excitment.

* You are able to drain the HP back yourself so you don't cause unnecessary strain on your healers to cure you back up after you purposely took a significant chunk off your own HP.

Souleater is fun to use but remember that there is a price to be paid. Make sure those you are in a party with are okay with it, otherwise you will quickly become unpopular because you are purposely leeching MP that could be used to maintain haste/refresh/protect/shell/etc.

When it comes to exp parties, I would suggest saving Souleater for the "oh ***we might die" situations and extra damage is needed to finish the mob off asap. Even then, you'd have to gauge if it's worth keeping your HP to stand a few shots or put out the extra damage to kill it quicker.

That doesn't go to say you should experiment with it a few times at least to see how it benefits your character with the weapons used, buffs that are up, and gear you use to help enhance its effectiveness. After all, it's a game, so have fun with it... within reason ;)

***. Ridill is *** awesome. \^^/

Kclub > M.Kris > Ridill > B.Zaghnal (although I wonder if a 150 delay single-hit dagger would outparse Zaghnal tbh)

I used souleater when exping only when the PLD had sentinel ready.

Sentinel 5 min recast.
Souleater6 min recast.

If the pld did sentinel as soon as timer was up then I only souleatered once every 10 mins.

As a drk myself id say its obviously a situational ability. At lvl 30 (and lower lvls in general) you probably wont use it as much. Souleater takes a ton of hate, which, again, obviously increases your risk of death, and/or takes all a healer mp and slows pt down.
So untill your used to it and understand it better, (and even when u do) use it towards the end of a mobs health. Lot of ppl will use it with a weapon skill for an extra added effect and then manualy take the ability off right after. And if you get the timeing right the mob should die right their, or a hit after. Stick to that if your going to use it.

I don't use it unless I have defensive abilities ready and I've used Drain 2 so healer won't have to heal so much when max hp wears off. I never use it in meripos since it would most likely get me killed (Mamools for example)

while most of this advice is horrible (some of it's intentional, some of it I can't tell 'cause sarcasm doesn't translate over text well), the best I can give is be aware of everything. watch for your hp/enemy's hp/whoever's curing you mp/are there undead around? stuff like that, if all's good, go for it, if not "bend over, grab your ankles and brace for impact!"

Just make sure your drains are ready when you use it. Think of it kinda like SATA on a DD, it better kill the mob :P. If you macro in AF helm, then hit a guillotine, you will lose roughly 48% of your health (possibly more if you double attack the ws). If your dark magic skill is high enough, and the enemy isn't resistant to dark/undead, you can generally drain enough from the next mob (assuming your ws killed it) that your healer won't put a curse on you and your family.

Remember, souleater is based on your max HP. So if you drain II before hand, you'll do more damage, but you lose one of your drains to get your HP back. So just be careful, know your party, watch your surroundings, and use at your discretion.

Meh, quote won't work on Dameshi's post but;
So just be careful, know your party, watch your surroundings, and use at your discretion.

I retired dark almost as soon as I got it to 75, but as you get higher in level and watch other darks it is easy to figure out when to use it and when not to. It isn't that difficult.
At 30 just use it to finish the last bit of a mob so if you do pull hate you aren't a sink. SA-Sturmwind is probably the best bet around that level even if you ignore SE completely. It is a fun ability to be sure, but a dark who doesn't know how to use it will kill themselves and the healer as most tanks have no idea how to keep hate from it.

IMO a good PLD should be able to A. either hold hate after a DRK uses Sentinel, or B. lose it, but get it RIGHT back shortly after. I know I was able too as a PLD. Just so long as it wasn't used at the very beginning of the fight.

just after the tank uses Provoke if I'm at TP %100+, other than that, I don't use SoulEater.

Drain II over you max HP then souleater > WS. As guilly is multi hit you lose more hp then if you use spinning slash.

I promised my friend my first Guilly would be a souleater 300tp ws. I died instantly ^^

Dont use SE till you actually hit 75 as more often the not you end up dead or emptying your healers mp pool.

neevaarrr

Souleater is always a judgment call.... its on the player at that moment, but you need to be able to justify why. It's situational, your at the mega boss, and your going all out. To be sure you can complete a xp chain, and keep it going (around xp chain 5 or 6). If your tank is just so nasty there is no way you will take up to much of the healers time, you know you can kill the mob at that moment (or can blood knight tank it till death)........

before anyone ask what blood knight is, its just something I thrown in a macro to my static members so they know after the souleater+WS Stun with Drains/spikes(2hr) will follow.

Always put in party chat <SOULEATER> as well... you dont want to use it, and stay in blood red (can lead to undead aggro or death), but then again if you plan on 2houring after, say that too, I've seen people get cured up to full hp, right after a souleater>bloodweapon... and there isnt any room for hp to drain back

lol

shows what you know.

TP only increases silence duration on Guillotine.

yeah saving tp wont help guillotine, its not like other WS's.. You need accuarcy and strength, its a four hit combo, and if you have your damage display on log and screen, you will see if you miss a swing. That is the difference in spike damage, connect all 4 and you are at 1k dmg at least.

"First Guilly" it not like I was 75 for a year