Is it me or is there DRK hate in the community?

[fuz]

drk/war for merit points is pretty frigging powerful. Everything is easy to kill at this point, so skillchains usually slow things down. It's like valkurum all over again--WS whenever you can.

If anything your average sam, not drk is going to slow down a merit point PT since their regular melee damage is a bit lower than other melees without the special katanas.

Anyways, being proficient in an exp/merit PT but absolutely sucking in everything outside is a horrible situation that drk, drg, and thf share.

Yes, drk has a slight edge in some things, but the downsides are too great. Souleater, a drk's job-defining skill is often too dangerous to use, with too many downsides compared to the benefit (fast, def ignoring damage). It could be an awesome ability, but it's hampered by the high mp cost (healing or stoneskin) per damage and the greatly increased probablilty of death from unusually high enmity generation. If anything, when undead spirits start flying from me, I'd expect my target to run away or freeze, not turn around and smack me with a critical for more than I'm hitting for. But that's just me :p

As for closing WS, war can close darkness almost as well, with much better regular hits and higher survivability. Sam can't close for for as much damage, but they can pull light and dark at a much faster rate at almost the same damage. Not to mention they can fall back on ranged attacks should it come to that.

Monk can of course "nuke" for very repectable damage that ignores def like souleater. Drg can absolutely destroy a drk in damage if left in a PT to accumulate hits from the wyvern and himself.

But hey drk can stun. Like a rdm/drk or blm which have a lot more utility.

[kuu]

Remember at almost any point in the game you will be restricted to 6 party members more times then not.

I would like to sub every job, but it's not happening.

The best blink tanker you can get isn't a nin/war. It just has to be like that because you need to keep hate.

Every jobs covers a certain area of a 6team tactic, Don't forget that.

I can do 1.5k damage is pointless if you die in 2 hits, nor is being the best curer if you have no debuff possiblities.

For example, SMNs don't do anything good, but they have 1 thing. They get free hate via avatar. This alone proves to be invaluable if you properly use it.

[fuz]

So I guess the question is, what makes a drk invaluable versus other classes? Is there anything a drk can do that is truly exploitable?

We've heard stun, but rdm/drk and blm can do that too, not to mention their support spells and likely better damage on the part of the blm, which works at range.

Souleater and other buffs for damage? Yay, just get a friggin ranger for more consistent output that doesn't drain HP or require MP, spike enmity, hits at range, and has utsusemi as a backup for def. Hey, they even have shadowbind for more fun. They pretty much rule on anything that doesn't have a resistance to range attacks, which is all but a handfull of monsters. But this is common knowlege already.

Absorbs? Is the short effect duration, long cast time, high resistance, high mp cost and moderate to low stat drain worth the trouble on anything over IT+? Maybe that new JSE gear will help, if it was actually possible to obtain for normal people--which means no, absorbs suck, literally and figuratively.

Regular damage? Just what DD job isn't able to match or trump drk in most conditions?

SMN can not only get hate-free damage, but they are very self sufficient with whm or rdm sub--boosting def and being able to heal. Can swich roles from offense to healer/buffer with just an equip swap. BST can sort of do the same in offense with lower MP cost, but decreased versatility due to a low MP cap which means they are strictly damage dealers (aka, stupid melee) for the most part.

Sure drk can cover certain areas in a PT, but there are other classes that cover the same areas that can do just as well, if not better.

[kuu]

So I guess the question is, what makes a drk invaluable versus other classes? Is there anything a drk can do that is truly exploitable?

We've heard stun, but rdm/drk and blm can do that too, not to mention their support spells and likely better damage on the part of the blm, which works at range.

I'll re-itterate, wait just say the same thing:

You are limited to a 6 member pt more often then not.

Having a rdm/drk means not having a blm/whm sub. Having a blm stun means, not sitting, nuking, etc.

Having a ranger means not having [imput proper job] for light. Having a Ranger = no SATA hate control, post 60.

You can say throw in a thf, or not have a war or say the blm that can predict futures, etc but in the end you'll be trying to justify something that is un-attainable.

I really groan when this NA style "tricked out"or exploitable theory rears it head. Where's old fashion team work, and being creative at making a good battle plan.

"I'm sorry I can only sidewinder barrage sidewinder. It's what rangers do after all. My last pt did it, and it's my way or the highway" does not may you a good slot in the 6team pt.

If you want your ranger+nin+thf combo because it's the best thing since forever, go ahead and try. It's not the end all to winning.

[fuz]

People always gravitate towards the most efficient route first, anything more difficult, or necessitating creativity is shunned. Certain classes are chosen first for a PT because they are more beneficial to the goal of a PT or alliance in what is usually--killing mobs fast, with low taken damage and low downtime. (We all know the popular invite jobs.) Drk simply does not contribute to that formula as much as some other jobs, particular in regards to the limited use of certain skills like souleater, the slow TP gain, and the moderate to high MP cost of limited effect absorbs. Drk requires more from the PT to perform, while contributing less to the fast killing in more than a few circumstances. BCNMs and HNMs in particular, drk isn't really needed--or at least not enough to support the large population of drks (and other melees) that exist.

Ranger is good because they have excessive potential for the job. When hate is less of an issue, rng can reach further into damage and scale up (granted, that's about all they can do, but they are undeniably good at it, and on most every mob). Drk on the other hand is almost always playing at maximum potential (as is for most melees) and possesses no potential for growth. They can move across and shift horizontally to a different niche from /thf WS damage to something like pure melee damage with /war, to more of a caster with enhanced absorbs from /blm with special equips. However, they can't move up in any specialized role since drk is capped very severely in each.

It's not about just teamwork to cover drk's downsides, drk itself has more downsides than other jobs--being only special in a few situations, with more difficult to grasp benefits. (We kill crabs well on a positive note.) Moderate damage with absorbs to boost total group potential sound good, but don't really work as advertised. Slow TP gain, low accuracy, and barely acceptable defense (if even that much) counteract in a way to turn drk into a situational melee. The only balancing factor is stun. Remove the necessity of stun, (e.g. gobs that spam bombs too fast, or abilities that go off too quick like cursed sphere) and drk is a sub-par job.

I personally think that the drk job needs a bit of tweaking from S-E to separate drk into a more special role of a melee/caster that works better in all situations. You may not believe me or think I’m an idiot, but we all have our opinions and I accept that. Suffice to say, my invite rate from random, to LS, to friends when a serious battle is going to occur speaks pretty well as to how valued drk is, and it’s not very high.

[kuu]

Ranger is good because they have excessive potential for the job. When hate is less of an issue, rng can reach further into damage and scale up (granted, that's about all they can do, but they are undeniably good at it, and on most every mob). Drk on the other hand is almost always playing at maximum potential (as is for most melees) and possesses no potential for growth. They can move across and shift horizontally to a different niche from /thf WS damage to something like pure melee damage with /war, to more of a caster with enhanced absorbs from /blm with special equips. However, they can't move up in any specialized role since drk is capped very severely in each.

Errr no, no, and umm probably not, and, no.

I'm not going to beat a dead horse, it's been done. Job vs Threads has been around since forever.

Rangers do what Rangers do best, they have glaring holes, you work around them. Same for Drk.

[fuz]

And I'm saying that the glaring holes are uneven between the jobs. A specialist is much easier to cover than a generalist since all you are expected to do is one thing very well. Drk doesn't do it's one thing--damage very well, nor does it do enough in others (spells/stun) to make up for it when things get rough.

You need more workaround for drk than you do rng. Why is that so and is it really fair? Hell with utsusemi, does rng really have any glaring holes?

[kuu]

You need more workaround for drk than you do rng. Why is that so and is it really fair? Hell with utsusemi, does rng really have any glaring holes?

No Drk's don't need more workaround then rangers.

Arrg it's back to the "Tricked out" mentality again. I give up.

And people wonder why NA can't get pts....At least JPs have creativity.

[Langolier]

Originally posted by kuu
No Drk's don't need more workaround then rangers.

Arrg it's back to the "Tricked out" mentality again. I give up.

And people wonder why NA can't get pts....At least JPs have creativity.

What in the hell is that supposed to mean?

FACT:

Rangers make exp come in faster.

FACT:

DRK is weaker than Ranger in every way.

As I said, we depend on our SJ to be effective. Without it we are useless.

There are only four things we take from our Main Job:

Aspir, Drain, Stun, and our end-game Weapon Skills.

While our Weapon Skills are strong, they aren't radically stronger than other classe's weapon skills, and they will get them off far more often.

I suppose the Absorbs are marginally useful...

The only thing really balancing Ranger is the money, and after enough time it doesn't balance it...

I won't attack Ranger though. I learned my lesson on Allahkazam when it comes to that... Ranger is sacred in some way. Especially RNG/NIN.

[neighbortaru]

i wouldn't say sacred... just a hella lota fan bois.

[Jei]

Originally posted by kuu
And people wonder why NA can't get pts....At least JPs have creativity.

It's not about creativities... there are a lot of bad NAs around giving everyone bad impression even among NA ourselves.... So during JP prime time, most JP want to PT with JP only (around 6PM-3AM JST)

Other time, you'll see a lot of JP in NA PTs, many many cross language PTs can be found. My play time varies a lot depending on my job and class, I have been in game pretty much at every hour possible so I can guarantee you on this.

Just my experience, 1/4 NA PTs are great, 2/4 are acceptably nice, 1/4 will be be filled with a$$holes and n00bs you'll get sick of PTing for a few days.

[fuz]

No Drk's don't need more workaround then rangers.

Arrg it's back to the "Tricked out" mentality again. I give up.

And people wonder why NA can't get pts....At least JPs have creativity.

If drk, as an all inclusive package as a job (with all skills and equips) is currently an equivalent of rng please tell me why my invite rate is so much worse despite spending more, not less gil in equipment than my rng friends? If we are equal as you proclaim, then why doesn't drk get picked just as often? If we are just as easy to accomidate and bring just as much to a PT, why not see alliances stuffed full of well rounded melees instead of rngs and blms for DD?

Being creative, no matter how much is not going to make things equal in a game derived mostly through mathematical performance. Spending more work, more gil, more time in a job to be equal to another DD equivalent is bad enough, but after all that and still take place as a solid underperforming job as drk is ridiculous. Even JPs are not inherently inclined to be more creative--they will still take that seeking rng first over a drk, take that brd over a rdm, and probably nin over pld. It's just that when there is no choice, they seem to make better use of the scraps left on the table.

[Drogen_Shomuro]

Originally posted by Langolier

FACT:

DRK is weaker than Ranger in every way.

First of all, I dont fully agree with this statement, but assuming you somehow manage to find some lead designer's notes that say they made rng>all, you still have to consider the implications of a drk's role outside of who can do more dmg than who.

Take a look at a renkei chart. Rng's best WS, sidewinder, is located in the "Reverberation" slot. Logically, the best partner WS to make a renkei would be something in the "Induration" slot, to make Fragmentation. What are the best WSes in that slot? Guillotine and Tachi: Yukikaze.

Given this, you can have either 2 rng doing Sidewinder > Sidewinder for a crappy Reverberation + Water MB... Or, you can have a drk + rng or a sam + rng do Fragmentation and give your blm the choice of doing either Thunder or Wind, depending on the situation.

You can even take this concept into lvl 3 skillchains, in which the dmg multipliers and MB options are even greater. 2 rngs cannot make light or dark. A Rng and a Drk can. A Pld and a Drk can. A Drg and a Drk or a Mnk and a Drk can make both.

For that matter, there are only two jobs that can make a lvl 3 SC by themselves, a whm using an icarus wing, or a sam using his 2 hour.

While our Weapon Skills are strong, they aren't radically stronger than other classe's weapon skills, and they will get them off far more often.

Your WS can be radically stronger than other classes' weapon skills, and even if they aren't radically stronger, they are still stronger. Applying this concept to skillchains makes drk one of the best closers in the game. Remember that the Renkei effect dmg is directly proportional to the closer's dmg. In this situation it's worth it to have a Drk spike his dmg with Souleater or Last Resort to increase renkei dmg. I'm not a Drk, but take a look at my sig for an example of the potential renkei dmg has.

As I said, we depend on our SJ to be effective. Without it we are useless.

You can't ignore the implication of subjobs. If Rngs couldn't have a subjob, they'd be screwed up the wazoo. For that matter, a rng is limited to one subjob: nin. the only other viable subjob is war, but doing any more dmg without blink is plain suicide.

Eh? But what's this? You say that a Drk is equally suicidal when using Souleater? Well, that's what your subjob is for. Because you don't deal dmg through ranged attacks, you have the option of subbing thf to pass hate. This capability is two-fold. Not only does it save your life, it saves the life of the blm who is doing 1k MBs by stacking an assload of hate on the tank, or some other melee that can hold hate temporarily until the tank can recover.

You might argue that 3 (+ another 3 if lucky) shadows on a rng is enough for a tank to recover hate, but that's very risky. It's not too tough for a rng to get taken down by an aoe, followed by badly timed double attack + mob special ability. Even then, it still doesn't save the blm or even whm from picking up hate.

The only reason rngs are regarded as better, is because it actually takes skill and coordination for us melee DD to produce better dmg. There's alot of melee out there that don't play their jobs very well, whereas anyone with half a brain can just sit around hitting alt+D, with the occasional Sharphot, Barrage, and WS.

This is interesting. I just spent this entire post defending Drks, who used to be the bane of a Dragoon's existence. =p At least there's no more Drg vs. Drk bashing.

[Langolier]

Originally posted by Drogen_Shomuro
First of all, I dont fully agree with this statement, but assuming you somehow manage to find some lead designer's notes that say they made rng>all, you still have to consider the implications of a drk's role outside of who can do more dmg than who.

Take a look at a renkei chart. Rng's best WS, sidewinder, is located in the "Reverberation" slot. Logically, the best partner WS to make a renkei would be something in the "Induration" slot, to make Fragmentation. What are the best WSes in that slot? Guillotine and Tachi: Yukikaze.

Given this, you can have either 2 rng doing Sidewinder > Sidewinder for a crappy Reverberation + Water MB... Or, you can have a drk + rng or a sam + rng do Fragmentation and give your blm the choice of doing either Thunder or Wind, depending on the situation.

You can even take this concept into lvl 3 skillchains, in which the dmg multipliers and MB options are even greater. 2 rngs cannot make light or dark. A Rng and a Drk can. A Pld and a Drk can. A Drg and a Drk or a Mnk and a Drk can make both.

For that matter, there are only two jobs that can make a lvl 3 SC by themselves, a whm using an icarus wing, or a sam using his 2 hour.

This might hold up if lvl 3 SC's were needed for great exp. Strange that an all-RNG party can get more exp though, don't you think? Also at end-game the SC's are needed anyway. So DRK's one specialty in parties is gone and we become a less effective WAR.

This still ignores the fact that RNG hit harder...

Hit more often...

Can enfeeble better...

Gain TP up the wazoo...

Can do higher burst damage and survive it better than we can.

RNG doesn't need /nin to be effective. Or /war for that matter. Losing /nin would just mean they'd have to play it safe like the rest of us.

Your WS can be radically stronger than other classes' weapon skills, and even if they aren't radically stronger, they are still stronger. Applying this concept to skillchains makes drk one of the best closers in the game. Remember that the Renkei effect dmg is directly proportional to the closer's dmg. In this situation it's worth it to have a Drk spike his dmg with Souleater or Last Resort to increase renkei dmg. I'm not a Drk, but take a look at my sig for an example of the potential renkei dmg has.

The heavier damage other classes do outside of weapon skills kind of overshadows it in the end.

A WAR subbing THF can land some nice Steel Cyclones, and still do crazy damage with his melee attacks.

I just don't get it. SE makes a specialized class, but that class only barely edges out a 'generalized' class in certain situations.

The only reason rngs are regarded as better, is because it actually takes skill and coordination for us melee DD to produce better dmg. There's alot of melee out there that don't play their jobs very well, whereas anyone with half a brain can just sit around hitting alt+D, with the occasional Sharphot, Barrage, and WS.

What's your point? Taking more effort on my part to equal what a numb RNG can do doesn't balance anything. Players will, rightly so, gravitate to the more effective class. RNG is more effective 90% of the time because it requires less from the party to be effective.

This is interesting. I just spent this entire post defending Drks, who used to be the bane of a Dragoon's existence. =p At least there's no more Drg vs. Drk bashing.

DRK and DRG are both pretty crappy... in my opinion.

No reason to hate one another, plenty of scraps to go around between the two of us.

[Jei]

I just invited a Drk for skillchain level 67 against skeletons in Gustav. But not many levels that we can level on those things heh.

My next PT to Boyahda, my leader went with 2RNG and a nin tank set up. Interestingly 3 PTs around me all have Nin+2RNG set up.... Leaving all other DDs sitting in town.

So regardless of how you look at it, Ranger is still the preferred choice for the more common levelling spots. I mean ppl level at boyahda all the time but levelling on Bones are kinda a rare thing anyone does at all. And for the former case ranger is superior in any way.