Dark Knight -> trash before 65/66?

[soyama]

Subject rash to get attention

My drk is 61, usually before 60. i (like to think) outdamaged a few jobs(I know drk isn' all about damage)

But after 60 and until 66 most jobs outdamage us right?

In my last party, i ran a parser for first time.

in 39 monsters i did an average of 890dmg pr fight.
I forgot to equip my amemet mantle the first 15 fights.(I just got out of bed)
and used republican army mantle instead.

I had an hitrate for 66.9%
My spells tend to stick 50% of the time, with capped dark magic.

Equipment i have:
Head: Valkyries mask.
Body: Haubergeon
Legs: Lv55 ryl.kng.breeches.
hands: Ryl.kng. gloves
feet: AF.boots(any better?)
Rings: Fluorite rings(sold snipers to get haubergeon, mistake, snipers rose 100k in price 3 days later, haubergoen dropped 100k
earrings: Assault, spike.
neck: Ryl.army collar.
Ranged: Lightning bow
Back: amemet mantle
Weapon, vassago/zweihander.

Sums to 29 accuracy with gs, 34 with vassago.
+15 dexterity with gear, and +15 when absorb-Dex sticks.

This gear should be ok right? HITrate for those 39 mobs was as stated almost 70%
Doubt it would be much higher with snipers. wich i don't feel like bying anymore, since 600k for those craprings isnt worth it,
Thats atleast my opinion.

I was stuck using vorpal scythe in party, since we had a thf too. and thf+drk don't go together

Thf mostly outdamaged me, only by a little thou. and my ws did 90-260, usually 160ish.
Blm outdamaged me when he wanted too, as it should be.

Waah! dark knight sucks

Guillontine is a completely useless ws! it don't chain with anything, I was actually slowing this party down i think.

Guillontine does like 140-800 dmg on the mobs we fought,
Mostly raptors at valley of sorrows. lower dmg on perytons
while mb from distortion did 200-400 after how well thfs dancing edge hit, so I doubt any thf would like to chain with pld for example. so i could go solo.

So this is what i should epect between 60-66?
I try to avoid partying with thf's if i can.

But my sickle moon isnt that strong either, Haven't tried with war sub, or with souleater. but with thf it does between 300-450ish.

Only tried it in 1 party, so not very sure of its general damage yet.

I can only long for 66. when i have ws's that chains well, and do good damage.

Kinda unconsistent post. and i Apologize for it, written as i talk to several customers at the same time on the phone, (customer support for ISP) :p

Summarized:

Dark knight is weak between 60-66?
Is my gear ok?
Is snipers worth it, when i already hit for 65%+ ?

omg seeking party takes forever when you are european

[gix]

sickle should do ~400-500 to end distortion. that's not thf dmg but it's respectable if you don't have one.

[RELIC]

Sadly, Dark Knights really arent as great at putting out damage before lv66 as we would like, even with top notch gear. That is why you absolutely must have the best gear possible... Get those snipers, your usefulness to the party will go up. Don't feel bad about pt'ing with thieves though. Just do your job very well, set up SATA quickly and efficiently, macro equip phalanx rings for when you have to take hate, make good use of your dark magic, and use souleater to guarantee chain 5's. If you are very efficient and your exp/hr numbers show for it, I feel that is much more important than just putting out big numbers for yourself. If you are closing the renkei with THF sub, buy some STR rings and macro them to trigger with your sickle moon... your damage will rise. Also, utilize souleater freely, since you dont have much hate without WAR sub, along with Flee to guarantee chain 5's.

After lv 66, even though we do fierce damage with spinslash and light renkei, you can parse your damage and compare it to other DD and still find that you are not outdamaging them by much. You'll see that about half of your damage comes straight from the WS. Despite this fact, dark knights are useful because you can bust out a huge renkei at the beginning of a fight and finish a mob in seconds. Also, you can utilize souleater to ramp up your damage by a large amount in a short time. Having this kind of burst damage +Flee from THF sub makes it relatively easy to hit chain 5's, 6's, and on rare occasion, chain 7's! This is what defines DRKs imo... Until you hit 66, just try to be as flexible and efficient as possible to make yourself as useful to the pt as you can. Remember... your usefulness isnt limited to the numbers you put out, but how you contribute to the PT as well. Hope this helps.

[soyama]

hmm

Get those snipers, your usefulness to the party will go up

even if my hitrate is at 70% was higher than the two thfs. we had in the party, I should still get them? doubt I Would hit more with them, I will lend a few from a friend and run a parser again. to compare test results.

And those rings are not worth 600k

Thanks for responce so far.

Let me just say i play a galka, mp is at 111 with mask on.
I don't have mp issues mostly.
fire off a absorb-agi at start of fight, or either abs-vita or abs-dex, then build tp, and abs-vita before SC if i havent used it.

I am not concerned about me doing big damage, I'm more concerned about me having to use such a weak WS that our skillchain itself becomes weaker.

[kumaeru]

It's not so weak, but after the TP change for multi hit ws' it did hurt.

Starting Fragmentation with Guillotine is a very good thing, especially when you can start it and have Rng or War end it with either Sidewinder/Slugshot or Raging Rush.

[soyama]

aight, got some more excuses

Another exp party, this time valley of sorrows too, will try out on torama's soon enough i reckon.

My stats:
War subjob.

Soyama
Total Fights: 74
Average Damage: 1275,38
Average Percent: 31,93
Average Accuracy: 74,1

This is another drk in my party, he had same gear as me,except he had sniper rings instead of fluorite.
He was also elvaan, with thf sub. and palllas armlest instead of royal knight.

DRK nr2.
Total Fights: 74
Average Damage: 1336,7
Average Percent: 33,51
Average Accuracy: 78,19

Not that big a difference I would, not one worth 1.2 mill atleast

I would have expected it to be bigger on toramas. time will tell

[gix]

drk/war is a beast. try it sometimes with a thf or something
~1600dmg/fight

[soyama]

well

we had:
DRK/thf
Drk/war(me)
pld.
rdm/blm
whm.
blm
this party, as you see, my average isn't 1600 neither ones is.
i used guillotine, then he guilloed hate back onto pld( other drk)
worked quite well.
Highest dmg was 1786 withg guillotine with soul+last resort+berserk stacked. (Notice, should never be done)
I expected 1200dmg, was doing 800ish normally.
that mob went down fast.. 2500dmg from me that fight
nearly killed me thou, pld didnt use cover

Edit: with a thf in party they always want me to do vorpal scythe or something, for skillchain distortion ,and there goes and average of 600dmg out the window

[Gumbercules]

I did Vorpal Scythe -> Dancing Edge a lot, sure VS sucks, but that 800+ DE + Distortion DMG is worth it. Not like guillotine is that great anyway.

[Regulat0r]

Makes me wonder why I even bothered lvling DRK if everyone talks about how there not good before 66 and even when they hit 66 there not "excellent".

[fuz]

You need to consider the use of your spells as a benefit to the PT and not just damage. Every spell I cast means i'm missing a swing for my damage and tp, but it helps others enough that a little self sacrifice is ok. Bio2 can't be parsed, nor the uses of stun.

Also as a component of a party; war and drk go togeather well, but drk and thf don't. Thus certain melees can replace drk, but others help in a mutual arangement that is more significant than the single class itself.

[Kyo_SR]

Well as a fellow drk once myself, if your looking into the class as being a damage dealer, you should look to another class. Drk does "good" damage but not the main damage dealer. As its the most mindset of new incoming drks. Drks become a one hit wonder when they hit 65-66 basically. Drks is a team player, they cant solo much of anything ep+ even /nin the evade is so low that blinkage will be sucked up extremely fast, (as a lvl 66 mnk i had caped evade of my 74 drk) or out damage better then other classes but they can work with the party to accomplish the task. Such as keeping hate, and helping out with magic, every little bit to make the battle more easiler and lessen the burden on team members. As for damage dealers goes Rng is the true damage dealers everyone knows hands down, and Mnk is next and not far behind from that.

I know no one will agrue with me about RNG but, just to clarify Mnk does more because they are able to build 200%+ tp be4 a drk can build 100%. That means from the 9-10 hits that it took a drk to get 100% tp usually 9 if your not using Zweihander, they probabaly done 110-150 damage depending on what mob it is 990-1350. For the time a drk has done that a Mnk can already get up to 200% tp. That means 36-38 hits depending on if it was spartans, or avengers used. Damage from each of the hits is about 80-100 and 100+ if on bones. Dont think even have to calculate the damage between the 2 and when i play mnk i usually do 1 ws when i get 100% while waiting for drk. Reason for such a huge gap is probabaly because of the no /war missing out on double attack and zerk for consisent damage, but if a drk/war they missing out on the one shot damage.

[Crowzukin]

If I remember correctly I sucked major ass without a bard in the party. Luckily I had a bard in every party until 71 or so... but after that I had the Hauberk and thick stuff. Accuracy is important, but you're right... two sniper rings are not worth 1.2 mil.

/em remembers a year and a half ago when archer rings were 30k each

[soyama]

By all means

Dark Knight is a very usefull job, if you play it right.

Use absorb spells at right times and you increase the partys success, but decrease your own success

Then again dark knights is all about self suffering to help others, its the way we are ment to play.

Play dark and understand :D

I ment drk doesn't truly shine until 66, as far as i know.

That is when we get Spinning slash, and have cross reaper. and can chain lv3 renkeis very well.
Until 65/66 we don't have any GREAT ws to close weaponskills, only crappy ones to start em.

We dash out quite a bit of good damage thought
My pure melee damage when i party with thfs are about the same as the thf's total.
And drk aren't all about the big damage, its more about helping people function better.

If you want big melee damage, go MNK

What did i do to make the text work like this? lol

[Kyo_SR]

Originally posted by Crowzukin
If I remember correctly I sucked major ass without a bard in the party. Luckily I had a bard in every party until 71 or so... but after that I had the Hauberk and thick stuff. Accuracy is important, but you're right... two sniper rings are not worth 1.2 mil.

/em remembers a year and a half ago when archer rings were 30k each

Yea hehe i remember when i was drk and i got some of the best gear a drk can have. Balmung/Nagan got them for 3mil each back then, Dusk legs 2mil, Hauberk + thick set. The usually Royal, assault, snipers, bomb core. But then i noticed.... i farm millions upon millions to upgrade but my damage difference didnt show much of a change if any, thats when i threw in the towel @74 to try something else.