DRK dmg questions

[Drogen_Shomuro]

Given a typical xp mob at 65+, which does more total damage (combat dmg + WSes) on average, on any given fight. A drk using...

GS, SCing with Spinning Slash
Scythe, SCing with Guillotine
Scythe, SCing with Cross Reaper

With any sub of your choice, and ignoring any PT implications (i.e. hate, skillchains).

Some numbers to backup opinions would be appreciated.

[Artemuller]

Ignoring pt hate and skillchains
From my experience as a drk/war Guillotine and Crossreaper
have been more beneficial than Spinning
Slash as a single ws.
Reason I grouped Guillotine and Crossreaper together-
Guillotine without buffs can get weak(under 400dmg)
however with proper buffs like
berserk+last resort(around 7-900dmg)
or
souleater(1000-1600)
and absorb strength
It can do more dmg
Crossreaper on the other hand since
is not as much hits, doesn't take full advantage
of souleater. However for normal without buffs
have high chances of good dmg.(500-700)

Spinning Slash is a nice ws, however it's most
beneficial as a closing skillchain. (single ws wise 400-700)

Others experiences and opinions may be different,
just my input

-Arte

[darksquall88]

Spinning slash that does 400-700? wow I'm glad I chose hume

but seriously, you should go drk/thf 60+ war doesnt benifit as much /thf... and by 65 you shouldnt really be using guillotine anymore.... cross reaper owns it

SATA cross reaper does about 700-1200... I've seen it do more (by me) on It mobs with 200+ tp...

spinning slash on the other hand should never do less then 800 assuming you used SATA... the ws itself isnt that good without a thf sub

Spinningslash's do anywhere from 800-1000 with just my str gear
900-1100 with last resort
and 1000+ with souleater

my Highest on an exp mob was 1524 with a 1524 light skillchain

hope that helps

[fuz]

It will depend on the type of mob then. If it's high IT, and you're not doing a lvl3 skillchain for some reason, then I'd place my bets on drk/war with a scythe, using cross-reaper. Going all out with berserk and souleater would yield a lot of damage, if unrealistic-ly.

However, on low IT/VT using guillotine yields better results, especially with a bard. Cross reaper and spinning slash seem to cap out in damage, and are particularly pathetic with war sub. I can get guillotine to hit 600-1000 without trouble on these mobs, while cross seems to hit 400-700, spinning slash, 600-900. Souleater is particularly well paired with guillotine of course, hitting 1300--maybe 1500+ if a double attack goes off. I have only been in one PT that I could do this, and it was great fun.

[Artemuller]

darksquall, thanks for the suggestions
I gotta lvl up my thf
Spinning Slash has been most impressive
in my opinion when closing a 3 ws light skillchain
ex. Red Lotus Blade > Raging Fists > Spinning Slash

-Arte

[gix]

so like on golems...
sa spin... 900-1200 dmg
sa cross... 700-1000 dmg?(dunno don't think i've used scythe)
guillotine haven't used in xp pt since lv61ish, and honestly it's pretty gimp unless you going to do war sub then you're going to die.

[Drogen_Shomuro]

So far people have only been posting WS dmg. I assume that Scythe would be better combat dmg?

So, If you were being parsed over a 30 minute period beating on a typical xp mob (as in, typical evasion and defense) with any weapon and subjob of choice, and ignoring hate and skillchains... what would you do to do the most dmg, and why?

Factoring in stuff like:
-Scythes having better dmg ratings
-SA stacking better with 1 hit WSes, like Spinning Slash
-Souleater stacking better with multihit WSes, like Guillotine or Cross Reaper
-Not having to use SATA to survive

You don't have to stick with one WS either. You can say, "I'll use Guillotine with Souleater every 6 mins, but Cross Reaper the other times" or even, "I'd use Soul Eater + Last Resort + Cross Reaper when those abilities were up, then switch to GS and SA + Spinning Slash." Consider every WS and ability combo you can think of.

What would you to to MAXIMIZE your own dmg output?

[fuz]

To maximize damage, I'd probably need a hell of a lot of merit points in -enmity. It's all fun and stuff to rant on about theroretical damage with no possible drawbacks, but it really does you no good, as hate always becomes a factor before your damage output does. As it stands, I have no problem pulling hate just berserked and hitting with a scythe. I am rarely able to use souleater as it's almost instant death. If I had no hate issue, war sub would probably yield more damage than thf sub if I could use all my abilities with no worry.

There are a few other things to do, like cast bio2 and poison2--both have the potential to add 200-300 damage if unresisted. It's one of those things that never show up in parsers. They are quick to cast and rather brutal in DOT. Very painful have both stuck on you in balista.

Stacking two opposite absorbs, like vit & str, or agi & dex works very well, often I find these work better than last resort.

As for thf sub, I find that it actually parses out about the same as war sub most of the time, except on VT and below. (I usually have to hold back when using war sub.) But I find /thf works much better on the significantly higher level mobs, in particular regards to high defense mobs. It also negates the hate issue and lets you pretty much use the job to the fullest in most cases; if relevent to you or not (it is to me).

Scythe versus gsword, scythe is pretty much made for war sub. It naturaly hits much harder, and has cross reaper to deal with high level mobs, guillotine for low level mobs.

Gsword works well with thf sub, and that's about it. With thf sub, the normal hits are... incredibly pathetic for some reason--2/3 to 1/3 the damage of a /war scythe hit. Has that one hit wonder with SA+spinning, but the only real reason it is worth it, is because of the skillchain damage which can double it--so it's not really pure solo damage. I'd have to give /war with the scythe the award for singular damage.

Which brings me to my last comment. None of it matters since you almost always fight as a team. The output of the whole pt is more important than just your own damage. Certain combinations of jobs and their abilities allow damage that is much greater than everyone going crazy soloing. More often than not, it means a little self sacrifice and sucking up thf sub.

[Drogen_Shomuro]

Well, I bring this up to see if there was some way to work around the drawbacks of maximizing your own dmg output, other than subbing thf.

Just playing with hypothetical situations; In my mind, I was wondering if a drk/war going all out with Berserk + Souleater + Last Resort + Cross Reaper > SATA Wheeling Thrust to the PLD > another SATA Shark Bite to the PLD or the DRG would be a deadly combo, since you have a drk maximizing his own dmg, a drg maximizing his dmg, and a thf maximizing his dmg. Hate would be thrown away thanks to to other SATAs, and you get the nice 3 WS light chain.

Once, I PTed with a drk that didn't have Spinning Slash, but he told me Guillotine was better than Cross Reaper. He alternated between Souleater + Guillotine and Last Resort + Guillotine, but he still didn't always pull hate using that. In this particular PT, we didn't have a blm, we were pld, rdm, smn, drg, sam, drk. Thus, our chain was Guillotine > Tachi: Gekko> Wheeling Thrust, for Light. The Drk had to SATA to the Sam, who then WSed and Provoked to turn the mob, then I planted hate back onto the Pld with SATA Wheeling Thrust. Even without MBs, this chain pretty much owned the gobs in Bibiki.

So I wondered, if you had a drk/war using Guillotine (assuming Guillotine is better, I really don't know), followed by A rng using Slug Shot (which I'm certain is best Marksmanship WS), then followed by a drg with SATA Wheeling Thrust or a war with SATA Mistral Axe.... How awesome would that be?

So, this is why I ask all the questions. I'm curious if:
-The extra Fragmentation dmg (30-60% of the Slug Shot dmg)
-The extra DPS output of a scythe-wielding drk/war compared to a GS-wielding drk/thf
-The extra DPS output of a rng using Slug Shot instead of Heavy Shot
-The fact that either the drk or the rng is pretty much guaranteed to turn the mob for SATA, versus other situations where a drk's partner may not always turn the mob.

...would be more advantageous than having your standard Provoke + Wheeling Thrust, SATA Spinning Slash to the pld, then have a blm MB. Most of my parsed fights show that a blm only averages 100-200 more dmg per fight than the top melee DD, so if you can't find a blm, then why not opt out for one of these nifty 3-DD combos that have the potential to do equal or greater dmg?

If not, then I guess it's just something interesting to try on someone's AF 3 mob or something =p

But since you say subbing thf parses nearly the same as subbing war, I guess it doesn't really matter. I can't really come to a conclusion, I'm just throwing out some food for thought based on an experience I had, and some thinking I've been doing.

[fuz]

The difference in damage that a blm does is that blm can regulate damage output to be conservative on the first few chains, then go all out on the later ones when time is important. Melees for the most part, can't do this. Exceptions are drk and ranger of course.

I'm getting from you that the drk was subbing thf, which is pretty difficult to pull hate as, especially off a pld. using /thf and going with guillotine isn't a good way to go, and regular hits suffer greatly with the lack of berserk. If a drk is opening a skillchain, there is little reason for one to sub thf and put up with sub-par hits and slower tp gain, since he can't make use of the skillchain damage (which /thf is all about).

Guillotine is just as good as cross or spinning if the mobs are low evasion, and low in def. This usually requires a bard to be in the PT to pull off. With a bard, /war using guillotine will match a SA+TA cross reaper, and still have better regular hits, and gain tp faster. Not quite as powerful as SA+spinning, but scythe hits quite a bit harder in regular hits.

[kumaeru]

Lvl 65 = Porcesionaires and Flies usually.

Crossreaper (with Thf sub) and Darkness will take them down quite fast. Especially when you are introduced to lvl3 renkeis and seeing 100%+ Renkei bonus' are just.. wow. First time I did 1000ish crossreaper and 1000ish darkness and saw a crawler die before anyone realized was quite "wow".

Of course Guillotine are still good on Procs and Flies. Even when given the chance to do Darkness with Scythe, if PTing with a Rng it would always be Guillotine > Sidewinder to maximize PT efficiency.


Just recently I was in a PT on Golems at Ullikumi camp, Nin, Drk, Rng, Smn, Brd, Blm. Renkei was Guillotine > Sidewinder. We were all 75 also. My guillotines were quite decent, not the greatest but still some damage. Around 700 was avg dmg Guillo on golems, and Souleater would put it from 900-1000ish (didnt have AF helm on me at the time either). Strange though that even with not having the greatest of renkei's we were still able to clear the entire room and camp in the middle where Ullikumi pops without much worry of aggro.

To go back to the original question, I personally prefer Gsword and using SA Spinslash. I've seen Crossreaper give me poor damage to the point where I can rely on Spinslash to give me what I want always. Also that and more mobs higher up are weaker to Light bonus's than Darkness. Because getting higher Renkei bonus still allows drk to be a step up.

I do however switch to Scythe if I plan on doing things like Souleater + Guillotine or to gain as much TP as possible due to the fact that Scythe skill is higher than gsword. I usually only do this gods or hnm if/when its needed/or not renkei'ing/or just plain having fun.


If you want to maximize damage, +Str + Attack mainly. Having +Str will increase the damage of Crossreaper and Spinslash and their quest WS's. The reason why normally we stick to what we do instead of doign Guillo like every 6 min, is because we cant TP up like crazy. We save out TP for the renkei's which is needed more.

With close to +60 accuracy and hardly ever missing on Golems I could barely keep up with TP gain on Rng with Scythe, of course then Rng would just barrage and screw me -.-;.

With around 48ish Accuracy with Sonic Belt, Dusk Hands, and Dusk Feet, I was able to keep up TP gain with a Mnk fairly consistantly with a Greatsword on weaker bones in KRT though.

On both situations I did have Haste or Hastega (from garuda) on me on occasion, not all the time.