Greatsword Build

I see. I wasnt sure if 8atk would compare to 1 STR on Kaiten due to the Attack needs.

Thanks for infos.

lol my cheesy scythe ws set

Before you rant on about the gear let me do it for you
"get perdu/magian, get gorget, bomblet, hauby +1, some str earring, foragers, go augment warwolf belt x100 to get an augment of +4 acc or something."

but besides that,to me, my acc is good, and on the high end when all 3~4 hits connect, my guillotines are roughly 850~1400. and when its complete whiffs, its like 138~450. but when i do insurgency, high end when all 3~4 hits connect 950~1700 and when i whiff its like 350~600. iono. I should keep a log of 10,000 ws's

I don't rant at people (or at least I hope I don’t), I just offer advice if they ask, so here goes.

First things first, that scythe needs to be changed. Guillotine’s damage isn’t modified by TP and so all that scythe is doing is increasing the silence duration. Grab a Tred or NQ Death of the AH for 10k and you will do a lot better, nearly any other scythe you could find would beat the one you use currently.

By my estimation you have 395 accuracy (assuming 0 scythe merits) which puts you a little low for birds, a Potent Belt or Virtuoso belt and maybe a acc ring instead of the Flame would be enough to push you over 400 which is going to mean 95+% of your WS land 3+ hits. This is when Guillotine shines.

The low WS numbers should account for less than 2% of your total WS if you have capped acc. The only other thing that can really drop your WS average is overkilling the mob. If you over kill with a single hit WS the log will show the full damage, but if you overkill with a multihit all the swings after the mobs is dead will instantly miss (as you are swing at a dead mob).

This scythe may why you are seeing slightly better numbers from insurgency, but I can guarantee you, it is a weaker WS. With a large enough sample of parsed fights you will see the averages tend towards the mathematically derived numbers and (w/o Martial scythe) insurgency is ~10% lower damage. Even accounting for the 100 TP difference Insurgency will still be ~5-7% behind guillotine.

well i had a death scythe and it was a similar situation. and i got 3 merits in scythe. iono. maybe its cause i'm mithra? lol low mnd

I am a mithra (with 5/5 INT merits for my BLM) and Insurgency doesn't keep up with Guillotine.

I have done the math for Taru with INT merits and the only time Insurgency gets close to winning is at 250-300TP.

As I said eariler, Insurgency has a lower mod (20% vs 25%), lower fTP (0.5 vs 0.875 @100 TP) and the same number of hits.

Actually, if you can make a 7hit with Martial sword, that would be a good choice.
Depending on what you fight tho, if it's a very high-def mob, and you'll use ground strike for the higher attack bonus, this would probably win I think.
But for normal stuff I guess 6hit Naglering or Algol would be your best bets.
As for WS gear, dont skip attack. Idk about you, but personally, when I used GS, it was for a reason, and it's not sure spinning will cap atk. (Mobs had too high defence for scythe to do the job well enough)

Edit: Aurum Cuirass helps you alot with xhit builds when it comes to GS, not too hard to make 6hit even with a 480 GS if you own one of those babies.

True, I forgot about Martial sword.

If you can 7hit with it then it is pretty competative and very strong in any situation where you aren't full time engaged (DI amongst other things). It makes DRK play a little like SAM.

The more buffed you are the more worthless greatsword is due to the fact the point of spinning slash is the bonus attack. When you close in on max pdif you will do more dependable numbers with scythe. Most likely if you find scythe numbers to be inconsistant then it is due to a poor WS gear set. Birds for example you need 407 accuracy to be max acc. You will pretty much never hit 407 without madrigal, or ebody, or diabolic eye. Justice torque is also a poor gear piece for scythe do to the fact the returns in capping accuracy is generally greater than the bonus you gain from the attack. This may be different in situations where you are extremely far from capped Pdif(Hnms, JOL, etc)I would pretty much leave greatsword asside for HNM/gods/jailers. Oh and Martial sword is trash, the base damage you lose is far more valuable than the gains u get from TP bonus. Naglering is prob the best greatsword overall for hard mobs followed very closely by subduer. The reason for subduer is that critical hits general have a higher return when your pdif is at very low values. (IE. normal hits do 20ish, crits do 100ish) Algol is complete garbage, 3% of the time its the best weapon in the game and that's it lol.

Actually, I think I'm going to agree with Kvazz and Argettio.

It's not really trash... the TP bonus gives it a boost of 20% to spinning slash WS dmg just like Hagun to gekko for SAM.

Yes Base damage is lower, but even after adding in the higher base dmg of the other GSs, Martial TP bonus still gives it an ~14% boost to spinning slash over the other GSs.

Naglering's attack often times may do little to nothing for WS due to the cRatio bonus on WS.

Further, a 7hit with 444 delay does 1 extra hit/melee swing on the way to 100% TP, while still getting to 100% TP around same time as a 6hit with 501 delay. (difference is less than a second with 42% haste or more) (Martial actually has a higher DPS than Naglering too, but lolDPS though.)

Not claiming that it's the best, but I don't think it's trash, specially with Meditate and Absorb-TP favoring it as well.(best GS right now is probably the new Salamand sword with Occasionally attacks twice,I don't have one but it seems that the OAT is a 40% proc on these Magian weapons, according to some tests on BG.)If acc is not a problem with a good 7hit setup, it is at the very least competitive like Argettio mentioned, and IMO. Also yeah, should be good for stuff like DI too etc. It's a pretty underrated/overlooked GS IMO. (can also just be bought from AH)

I do agree though, Scythe IS better than GS for most(all actually) lower end stuff, specially the more buffed you are etc. but everyone should know this by now...

There is a few maths heavy threads on BG about Martial Sword and it is a reasonable contender. Its not as over powered as the hagun, but its along those lines.

In any fight where you aren't engaged full time or for some reason your DoT is reduced then it does very well.

The problem is, in the above situation you would take a SAM and do better damage.

Do you know the math for that 14% increase or no? I've parsed it a few years ago when I hit 75 drk vs subduer and it lost by a wide margin. Just curious.

My Tp Set,

6 Hit as /sam. Swap body for Ares or Haub if other sub.

And for GSD Ws


I know I need a better ammo, but I don't really have the money to spend on it as I'm saving for other items on jobs I play more often (as much as I'd love to play Drk more v.v). And I could use some more STR in ws, I use mol ring cause I have the scythe and don't want to buy a whole extra ring. +7 GSD merits.

w. turban + huab + Bomb Core?

Rose strap and hauby +1 would be better for TPing. DA returns are less than impressive after a certain point. I'm not sure why you use ares hands, are you going for a double attack build and trying to finish the set?

Alkyoneus's Bracelets if you can afford them or farm them

Martial sword will get decimated unless you 7 hit it.

And 7 hitting it isn't that easy and relies on some new(ish) armour (Aurum body etc)

also blitz ring if your accuracy is capped

I've finished my set a long time ago but only use it for scythe. I play mage more then I do any other job, DRK being my least played... lately only in campaign. I know where I need upgrades for ws, hands being one of them, but they're low on my priority list and I'm happy with what I have now. And I love my double attack rate >.>; I notice it a lot dispite what math may tell you.

Rdm in merits, rdm or mnk in salvage, rdm to events... rdm rdm rdm lol, just showing set for OPs sake

Bomb Core is around 50k now and gives you +12 attack in ammo slot. You mentioned something about ammo slot in your previous post

I should prolly regear my drk..it's been on the back burner for years now. Once I get Homam legs maybe it will be time to bust it out again.

For Scythe ws which would be a better pick for ws'ing..

Alky > Heca > Af1+1 (I would naturally think to use Heca first but this is probably wrong.)

And same question for head ws set?

Champion's > Af1+1 > Askar (Did not mention Ncap because I don't have it yet..)

**Champion's with str4 WsAcc15 Acc10 Attk10 <- I know I know.

For Spinning Slash Alk dont use them for Scythe ws still with AF+1

Think of it this way for GS you need to stack str on and is like the YGK for sams

For Scythe need accuracy

That's what I was thinking as well..next question for drk af+1 upgraded. If I have Heca Hands and feet that I use for ws and Champion/Askar for WS. Which AF+1 peice should I pick up first? Hands > Feet > Head?

Since you are elvan guillotine is your friend, since we have hax mind

af+1 hands and feet are for guillotine, use feet over heca if your accuracy on par

Save the head af +1 for GS if no nhead.

It really depends what you like to use most GS or Scythe

if you have heca feet i would not bother with af feet+1. Go for hands, and head. Head for what ever reason you want it for really.

Remember if you do so need to request af to store it. It is not that important though.

One more thing, did you invest in any black set gear? like hands , head, feet, and legs? I mean this for the absorb casting. Some people say casting would not be worth it to invest in them ;/.

Scythe..I never really liked using GS (I can if needs be I have Nag and Algol but really only for town gear.)

For Scythe I'd use Perdu..

Drk TP
Drk WS

WS has some odd things that I would look into changing but would be fairly accurate as far as gears I'd use.

**I don't know how to make it so the gear shows automatically..so sorry for the links**

meh still get +1 hands first even if you have heca hands, they seem better than heca hands for scythe. I probably would go for pallas/alky for GS ws.

Its on the bottom of the Item set page foo, below the shown macros

Hahaha..never seen it before lol
WS

TP


I can rotate some fairly useless gear in and out if it helps..and no I don't have any of the Black gear for drk..I should get legs for ws.

Acc ring instead of Flame or blitz if acc capped.

You look like a noob showing that ws set lol, put some more str in there! (neck/legs/earring/head). If not gorget than use your kubira beads, and legs use black cuisses, put the new bushi you got in there, anything more than str 4 on head would be better. In my opinion, but i'm a noob so i'm just talking out of my *** lol :)