n00b Q: Dark Knight vs. Paladin

[Nueinx]

Hey all. I'm a new player, and trying to get a bearing on the game as to how I want to handle job advancement. So I was wondering if anyone could give me a basic break down of the main difference between what a Paladin and a Dark Knight do here in FFXI. In my old game (EQ) they are basically the same job of tanking and uber aggro management. But not so sure here, so could anyone explain? And just so you know before hand, I've read through both their forums, and would ask there, but there's no forum for cross-class discussion=/

[neighbortaru]

Re: n00b Q: Dark Knight vs. Paladin

PLD = tank
DRK= damage dealer

[Tan'o]

Re: n00b Q: Dark Knight vs. Paladin

PLDs tank and hold dmg so the rest of the PT can basically let loose.

DRKs are heavy DD using lots of spike-dmg abilities.

[Nueinx]

Re: n00b Q: Dark Knight vs. Paladin

Spike damage? Is that basically instant damage? Sorry, not used to that term lol

[Armando]

Re: n00b Q: Dark Knight vs. Paladin

Yes, you could describe it as instant damage. It's basically doing a large ammount of damage in a short period of time (usually all at once) rather than constant, steady damage.

[Aeni]

Re: n00b Q: Dark Knight vs. Paladin

For DRKs, there's two operative modes. It's totally subjob dependent.

For burst damage, DRKs sub THF. At later levels (30+) a DRK can gain access to Sneak Attack. This guarantees that a hit used with this job ability will be a critical one. Obviously, when it is paired with a weapon skill, it becomes devastating. However, you don't see many DRKs sub this job because the actual weapon skill used in this combination is Spinning Slash, a level 66 (225 skill) Great Sword weapon skill. It has, I believe, the highest damage modifier of any weapon skills (Meaning at 100% TP) and scales smoothly at 200% TP and 300% TP increments. Since at these levels you get access to Trick Attack, you can dump some pure damage onto another player at no expense to yourself. This is especially important when ending a level 3 skillchain, which normally produces between 1,000 to 3,000 damage (ws -> spinning slash -> light), depending on many factors and can usually account for 70% or more of the total skillchain damage (including MB)

For consistent damage, DRKs can sub WAR. The per hit damage is nicely amplified with Berserk and weapon skills can get that extra punch with Warcry (At 70+) However, weapon skills like Spinning Slash do not fare well because of the lack of critical hit chance and Spinning Slash has terrible accuracy against exp type monsters.

Anyway, go here for Dark Knight discussion:

http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/dark.knight/

Go here for Paladin related discussion:

http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/paladin/

People are generally helpful, but please do us a courtesy of reading through the forums first (Use the search function to make this easier) and then posting any questions that you have not found the answer for. There's at least one FAQ stickied in each forum for their respective job classes and should get you up and running.