Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

[Karinya]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

Yeah, except WAR gets defense bonus, defender, and one less attack bonus than drk, but war has 0 problem out damaging DRK even though every JA/JT we get is towards damage.

Parse results, anyone? With equal level, equal quality equip and food, and the most damaging subjobs possible for each. This claim has come up over and over on this thread and other threads, and I'm still waiting for real evidence of *any* damage gap, let alone the dramatic one some people are implying.

Absorb-STR is worse than Drown because the stats wear down pretty fast making it more and more useless until it finally wears off, and lasts a shorter time than Drown. Ninutsu seems to get resisted less (depending on mob) than a RDM's enfeebles. Hell, a 75 nin can cast his spells on a VT mob and get hardly any resists, without any gear effecting his ninjutsu skill, meanwhile I have capped magic skills, with dark magic skill+ but get resists left and right?

I think you have some selective memory here. As a RDM who sometimes has to recast spells after the ninja is resisted (because of his long recast times), trust me, they get resisted plenty at 75. (And I think they *do* have some +skill gear, although I don't know if they wear it.)

Possibly Absorbs don't gain enough in strength as you level, and should either be improved through skill and INT, or tier II absorbs introduced. (The introduction of a magic acc bonus trait, which has also been suggested, would help them too.) I'm not opposed to improvements in DRK magic, I'm just saying their physical damage is fine for a job that also has other useful functions.

Basically, if DRK is improved, I want to see it improved in a way that makes it more unique, not a clone of WAR. Improve the magic, the utility, let them do the damage they already can do without committing suicide. If they can do 90% of the damage of a WAR and also weaken mobs, stun powerful spells and attacks and heal themselves (even to a limited degree) with Drain - they're fine. If you want a pure DD that's always at the top of the damage list, it's right over there. (points at MNK and RNG) DRK is a hybrid of DD and other functions, and IMO, should remain so. Accordingly I see enmity as DRK's #1 problem (it forces them into the /THF sub even when they could do better with another sub) and possible decline of spellcasting effectiveness at high levels as #2.

Some of these may already be on the drawing board - either in gear, in spells or in new abilities/traits. (On the other hand, if you look at the jobs that can wear the Crow set, DRK seems deliberately snubbed - PLD would never want it, and THF only for solo if at all, yet both of those can wear it; but DRK, RNG and BLM which often draw excessive hate can't. Maybe SE feels DRK, like RNG and BLM, would be too powerful with the ability to avoid enmity...)

[Langolier]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

Karinya, you cannot be serious. There are parsers all over the internet and it's been talked about for months. WAR/NIN crushes DRK/WAR in EXP. It's just a fact. Ofcourse even an idiot wouldn't need a parser to tell them that. I can see it just by watching them fight. When the other guy is building TP faster than you, hitting almost as hard but three times as often and twice as fast... When he can freely pop WS's every time they are up and take no punishment for it... He is out-damaging you.

I agree with your overall opinion though. I would much rather see DRK's utility and magical side increased as opposed to their damage. Though I still think Last Resort and Weapon Bash are do for logical updates to them functional. Blood Weapon I can live with. I've lived with it so long that I realize the advantage I have over most other jobs as a DRK is that I am more pressured to develope a good strategy for any mission, bcnm, ect because unlike them I don't have an "Oh shit!" button. Souleater is indeed a powerful weapon and if utalized properly a sweet tool for HNM, even without a multi-hit weapon. So I can live with Souleater being something that I keep in reserve too.

However it'd be nice if I could actually enfeeble and debuff the mob in some way that wouldn't completely destroy my role as a melee. Thus the two spells I suggested (incase anyone in this thread named one of them first, I brought those spells up months ago, thanks). I'd rather not steal from Red Mage, but I do think Dispel would fit DRK quite well too. It would be nice if we had higher enfeebling skill and access to more enfeebling spells. Hell, even Warp and Warp II would be nice to have (I know, they're enhancing, but there's no reason that can't change :p) simply because it would make things more convenient for everyone to have another job that can D2. It'd nice if DRK had a signature DEF-down spell they could cast on mobs that stacked with acid bolts and dia. That would actually make us a "DD enabler". I'm pretty smitten with my Magic Burst Bonus traits too. They would give us a "Magical" boost in the "Raw damage" side of our job. We certainly wouldn't be a clone of WAR that way but we'd still be a force to be reckoned with.

[Smasholays]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

My 75 NIN friend has 0 Ninjutsu+ skill, and when we XP whether on buffalos, or the IT mobs in Lufaise he get's resisted maybe once every 10 casts. Of course there are exceptions and times where he will get resisted every other cast, but when he has no gear to effect it, it seems kind of off.

If you don't think war/nin outdamages drk/thf or drk/war at high levels, you have to be either really stupid or really blind. The only reason drk/thf MAY get close to war/nin is because war/nin has to wait for us to use the abysmally low damage mistral axe. If the war/nin is offhanding joyeuse? Don't even fucking try to keep up, and joyeuse isn't as rare as people want to think. DRK/WAR will hit more often, but will lose the power for a high damaging ws.

war/nin parties work on the same principle rng/nin parties did. Do a lot of damage, and take no damage for it. Do you see any drk/nin parties around? No, because they don't work.

[Omni]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

did someone say nin vs pld?

/em puts on his wonder clomps and readies to jump in...

jk.

as far as nin resists, i wear 0 +skill gear and get resists like smasholays talks about. i've never focused on ninjutsu skill before and never really had trouble landing enfeebs unless im fighting some IT+++ mobs.

[Lmnop]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

actually, i've seen people talk offhandedly about drk tp-burn parties before. I even saw mention of a chain 50 in sky which seemed kinda rediculous. It's called Emoburn

[Armando]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

Lol Emoburn...that's pure gold. You just made my day.

[Aeni]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

hey Aeni! News Flash!

Dark Knights are not intended to be the biggest damage dealers the game has to offer

Stop right there. Re-read what you just posted, because it's a load of garbage. Don't believe me? From SE's own game manual ...

Similar to warriors, dark knights can wield a wide variety of weapons. However, these outcast knights have taken the path of black magic to turn battles to their favor.

Just reading out the description, you have this feeling of the loner, the rogue knight, with the ability to not only melee as well as a warrior, but using black magic, to top the warrior in the damage department.

I rest my case.

If you're casting Abs-Dex because you feel that "Drk Abs spells are more for self-buffing, not debuffing" then GTFOff of Dark Knight right now.

Read what I posted above. You missed so much of my posts that I feel that you're the one who's skimming posts. I've said it before, DRKs can use their abilities to cripple, but if that is all that we can bring to the table, then what is the real worth of DRKs? You have BRDs and RDMs that can enfeeble a lot better, since their enfeebling is direct and not just to the base stat. Also, any DRK can tell you that Abs are worthless after the 60s. I can sink an Abs-STR and it does nothing to mitigate the damage to the PLD. I also don't see any real gain in my offense either. Abs-AGI doesn't even affect evasion (Sure, the IT might lose his high evasion check, but don't let that fool you for one second ...) Maybe if SE gave us Abs-Accuracy, Abs-Attack, Abs-Defense, Abs-Enmity, Abs-Evasion, Abs-Magic Atk/Acc, Abs-Magic Res/Elem ... that might change.

After all the fanboy RNGs cried and went BLM or WAR, my friend decided to level RNG -- he's only been outparsed once. Point? I can't wait 'til something similar happens to warrior so I don't have to deal with 13 year olds who want to be uber by making my job look bad.

You're friend must be leveling his RNG with some pretty bad parties. I've never been outdamaged by any - I mean any - RNG since the nerf bat was swung at the job. Well ... I haven't partied with an all-gun RNG yet since the nerf, but you'd have to be insane or an extreme gil-buyer with the bullet prices on our server ...

Also ... let me reiterate. If you think WAR/NIN isn't even a tad bit broken (The term used by a friend describing a situation in Magic, The Gathering when an extremely powerful card is deemed broken) then you need your head examined.

This means I'm still advocating for a nerf to /NIN. Remove the effectiveness of the off-hand ... is that so much to ask for?

[Lmnop]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

you quote some parts but conveniently leave out the parts where I agree with you.

like here...

I don't think Dark Knights are where they should be. I think the edge of their Abs Spells prolly becomes less... sharp by at least 60. I think the level cap was raised and ninjas and dark knight's magic got left behind. I'm not going to discuss ninja, but I don't think it'd be too overpowering for the DRK ABS spells to just scale better so they drain more @75 than they did @40...

you didn't see that but you then tell me all matter-of-fact:

Also, any DRK can tell you that Abs are worthless after the 60s. I can sink an Abs-STR and it does nothing to mitigate the damage to the PLD. I also don't see any real gain in my offense either. Abs-AGI doesn't even affect evasion

Other than that, let's tackle this one issue at a time.

Enfeebling
Bards can cast elegy, so if they can do that, obviously rdm + brd is useless, right? I mean, bard has slow, no need for rdm to use slow, para, gravity, right? Obviously, that's crazy talk. Dark Knight is no different.

If you have a RDM and a BRD, you're gonna stack slow + elegy for mega-slow, you're gonna paralyze the mob, you'll gravity, if nin tank, he'll be blinded. Now you're looking at a very unhappy monster. If Dark Knight is in the party, why wouldn't you want to cripple the monster even more? Now when he does swing, it's less accurate. He can't defend against attacks as well as he should via agi or vit down... Anyway, I can toss in years worth of RP statements for what the dark knight does to the mob and show how he uses black magic to turn the battle in his favor.

Once again though, I do feel that the ABS spells lose their edge, which is odd since drain and aspir never lose theirs. They're the only spells that seem to keep scaling, even if it is rather slow.

Damage Dealing
Dark Knights are similar to warriors in the vast array of weaponry they can use, but that doesn't mean they have to have all the same weapon grades. The relevant ones are scythe, greatsword, sword, axe and greataxe. On top of those, they're at least proficient with almost every other weapon in the game. Meanwhile Dragoons get spears, staves, clubs(the bad ones) and crap-tastic swords...
Monks get Hand-to-hand, staff, and club.

That's where the similarity to warrior is. They are almost as versatile in weapons, and they wear the same types of armor.

For some reason, you think that being an Outcast makes dark knights more potent than any other in the game. Black magic is there to turn battles in their favor the same way Rdms use buffs and debuffs to turn battles in their favor!
If this were the case, what the hell would monk, dragoon, ranger, and warrior* have going for them?!?!

I hope I haven't offended you Aeni, but please try to understand what my point of view is before leaping to the conclusion that everyone disagrees and is probably your mortal enemy.

*Warriors can indeed be tanks. I'm one of the few wars that enjoys tanking. However, not only are people's minds closed to war tanking, pick-up parties do not have the support required to make a war a 1st rate tank. In many party layouts, a dark knight with some defense gear would tank just as well (war has lowest Vit rating. Even Ninja and Dark Knight have better Vit) I bet. I've tanked chain #5s w/out bards before, but it's extremely hard to convince people to actually pay attention to exp.

One more thing: War/nin is overpowered. But Nin/war is just as bad. Unji/Unsho ninja about keeps up with ridill warrior. The difference is that there are about 40 ridills among 500 thousand accounts. Unji/Unsho can at least be bought.

[nanatsu]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

Stop right there. Re-read what you just posted, because it's a load of garbage. Don't believe me? From SE's own game manual ...

Similar to warriors, dark knights can wield a wide variety of weapons. However, these outcast knights have taken the path of black magic to turn battles to their favor.

Just reading out the description, you have this feeling of the loner, the rogue knight, with the ability to not only melee as well as a warrior, but using black magic, to top the warrior in the damage department.

I've been keeping tabs on this thread since war is one of my favorite jobs. I want to point out that in no way does that manual description insinuate that drks should still outdamage war in the damage department. Learning black magic to turn the battles to their favor does not mean that their melee abilities would not suffer because of it. Neither does it mean that a drk would have to excel everyone else in melee dmg in order for the black magic he learns to be of enough use to put him over the top. I think you're just putting too much of your own interpretation into the description and not taking it for what it's worth at face value.

That description is only saying that Drks have melee and black magic at their disposal. Nothing more. It doesn't say that combination makes them more powerful than anyone else in the melee damage department. it doesn't say it makes them weaker. It just says they know black magic in addition to being knights. They're similar to warrior but the only similarity pointed out in that description is with the number of weapons usable, like Lmnop said. That description doesn't even say they have the highest melee ability...you're just interpreting it that way.

In any case I do agree that war/nin is over used and abused and that a /nin nerf is a good idea.

[Langolier]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

The problem is DRK has weaker melee than a WAR, weaker defense, and weak magic to compensate for it.

Why exactly would a Warrior forfeit all of that for it?

I assumed that if a Warrior was a balance of offensve and defense, then a Dark Knight was a Warrio who got rid of that defense and turned it in to yet another offensive ability. Be it magic or melee. Either way, a Dark Knight should at the very least have the same melee power as a Warrior. However in place of the Warrior's higher defense armors and defender, he has magic oriented armor/spells or even better +attack armors.

Instead the DRK got weaker melee power, weaker defensive power, and... weak magic.

It's not balanced and it doesn't make sense.

I find it odd that SE thought DRK's stacking Last Resort + Berserk, something which left their defense in the gutter and kept them exposed... was overpowered, but letting a Warrior pop up shadows so he can go Berserk and tear the mob to shit without fear of death is just fine.

The same as melee jobs spamming their multi-hit weapon skills was overpowered, but letting alliances of BLM's cream monsters and BCNM's that take hours of planning for melee in just a few seconds is 'clever'.

It's a load of bull, and nothing more.

[nanatsu]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

As I understand it, DRKs only have a weaker melee if a war used a particular sub with a particular gear setup. Otherwise, with a pure DRK vs a pure WAR with no subjobs, shadows, or dual wielding, DRK is probably more likely to come out on top. However, it is the players bastardization and exploitation of the /nin sub that allows warrior to do what it does.

DRK does not have weaker melee than war unless (according to you guys) the war subs nin and uses dual axes. In that case eventually, (after many levels) War starts to pull ahead in damage.

WARs def is not that much greater than DRK. WAR gets 1 defense bonus. DRK has nore vit than war. The difference is in gear. DRK's have access to some of the same high def gear that wars have, but DRKs gear choices don't allow for much defense. But then, that's how it is for all DD, even DD war. DD war survives better not because of better defense, but becasue of shadows.

You're using the job description as justification when the job description tells and shows you diddly squat. And when you guys do reference the job description you use incomplete and biased comparisons and analogies. You have a stronger argument just focusing on the subjob. For all intents and purposes, it's /nin sub that's giving war all this power right now. Without it, war would not have much advantage at all, or at the very least they'd be on equal footing.

[Smasholays]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

Uh no, because DRK relies heavily on it's sub, and its not just WAR that can outdo us - they are just the easiest to compare to. If it was DRK and WAR with no sub, they would still out do us because they get double attack, berserk, aggressor. Maybe once every 6 minutes we could outdo them, only to end up dying because we have no way to transfer hate. /nin sub just makes it all the more obvious, and that's what 98% of people sub even if /thf is better for WAR at certain levels.

[Langolier]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

Exactly. DRK's job abilities are crap. That's the problem.

I don't use Last Resort, or Arcane Circle, or Weapon Bash, or Souleater very much. I rely on SATA with a WS or Berserk and Double Attack for DoT (as well as decent Weapon Skills).

If I'm doing SATA I will cast two Absorbs in addition to the usual Drain/Aspir + Stun combo.

That's it.

Poison, Poison II? Useless. Sleep and Sleep II? Limitted use. Bio and Bio II? A sin to cast them.

Elemental spells? A drain on my MP.

And no, Warrior gets access to armor with a hell of alot more defense on it than does DRK. At the same time though they get all good DD armors too. (well, I guess we get Homan now)

In some ways, WAR screws PLD almost as badly as they do DRK.

It should be that WAR does not get quite the same calibur DD armor as DRK, and not quite the same Tanking armor as does PLD. Instead it is the opposite and WAR gets the best of both worlds, sometimes even better than what the PLD and DRK get.

Can't really blame WAR though. SE could have tossed them a few better tanking JA's or traits to help them fullfill their role as a mediator between damage and defense. If I had designed Warrior, I would have done this:

Berserk and Defender, right on.

Attack Bonus 1, Defense Bonus 1, Evasion Bonus 1, Accuracy Bonus 1.

Aggressor, right on. Then in place of Warcry I would give them something to boost Evasion.

Double Attack, right on. However I would give this to DRK and PLD too.

For DRK, they'd get Last Resort, only it would have modifier of 50% and a durration equivilant to half of that of Berserk. Same recast. No hate-spike.

Arcane Circle and Arcana Killer too, I guess. However only if they provided a small damage bonus or evasion penalty vs the DRK or just via' the DRK being in the party.

Weapon Bash would actually work. Change the recast to maybe 3 minutes though.

Souleater I'd leave as is.

Then again, we have to ask ourselves if what we assumed about DRK was ever meant to be true.

After all, they did not just get DD-oriented traits and abilities, but they also got tactical abilities. Stun, Sleep and Sleep II, Bind, the theoretical function of the killer trait and circle ability. So I don't know.

This game would be so much better if Utsusemi had never been implemented.

[Lmnop]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

I like the idea of blink tanks, I hate the fact that they're above mp. I hate that "I pay more money so I'm better" bullshit. Everyone should be able to pay the same amount and thus, get about the same performance... but nothing's perfect.

In a party situation, if you have a DRK with no sub and a WAR with no sub, both as DD, the war would prolly win. Of course, the war's numbers are slightly better because of the presence of the DRK. All the way up to 60, the War would be making great fragmentations from Sturmwind being opened by Shadow of Death (not many DD that can open that -- and only DRKs get to do it with a WS designed for damage). As soon as 60 rolls around, it'd be guillotine to raging rush for more frag action. How about that? Dark Knights being useful instead of obsessed with their own damage output. Regardless of the effects of Abs spells, they'll be improving the warrior's numbers. Even if it's so small only a parser would pick it up.

You guys really should be comparing to dragoon or monk. those classes keep dealing damage and won't let up, and there's no balance issues like there are with war. What I mean by that is, there are many games where there's the "middle-man" job. The Versatile. If you've played 3rd edition D&D and actually studied the jobs, you see that it's useless to take Ranger past level 3 or so, and that bard is the jack-of-all-trades but basically sucks at everything. This is even worse in a game like FFXI that don't even really have an RP element tied to their classes.

Now, back to warriors: it's true that warriors have tanking and DD ability, but if they were second rate at both, they'd be equally useless at both. Because there's no room for second rate. It could be argued that they can tank while DDing, but ninjas can do that, and they're much less stressful. They're the exp tank of choice for pretty much everyone these days (I even see black mages say that right and left). People who are leveling warrior because they saw other warriors be awesome aren't in it for tanking, they're in it for DD. S-E knows this, most everyone accepts wars as DD only.

It's sorta like how a blm/whm can make an excellent main healer once they get cure 3 against mobs that they can aspir from, since they have conserve mp, rediculous amounts of clear mind, and can just aspir every once in a while. The point is that even though they can (basically same effectiveness as smn/whm, btw), people don't consider them as such, and so there's no need for S-E to nerf it.

My only point is that I don't want you guys to think of warrior's tanking ability when you're looking at their DD vs other jobs. with some +enmity, haste, and constant refresh, I wonder if a drk/nin could tank for exp parties since pretty much everyone's convinced that 2 Abs spells overcomes a voke. I've seen blm/nin tank in a merit party, I've seen Drg/whm solo EM, and have heard of RDM soloing Ose, Gration, Genbu, etc etc. I've seen a ninja wade through a gilseller's MPK train and just pop an utsu every minute and "lol" a lot. With all that's wrong with the game, what's really wrong with Wars being able to tank in parties that defy all logic by actually having all 6 members be somewhat intelligent?

[nazlfrag]

Re: Two-Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding

I want to hark back to the origional topic. Two things stuck out - complaints over damage over time and less-than-useful magic. It seems you are better at one-off damage, dosen't this balance the first issue?

On the second issue - magic adding no TP - it seems the perfect option would be an Absorb-TP type spell. THis is much cleaner than having spells gain TP (why not sub WHM and spam Cure for TP?). Also, a hate-reducing spell could be good, useful with your 2hr.

Complaining your magic is weak seems like a RDM complaining he can't melee, except you can occasionaly use your spells, not like the poor rdm & his sword ^^. The spells seem fairly useful - Poison does work, Sleep having limited use? Yeah, the kind that saves your arse. Gotta agree on bio tho, wouldn't want to overwrite that dia! Well sometimes you might..... nah. On elemental spells, hmm how many DD can MB a skillchain?

Well, this is an outsiders view, but I found this thread informative, and will definately pursue a DRK career - he's the RDM who can actually melee!