How to play Drk 1-37?

[Rappa]

war sub actually raises your defense as compared to any sub that isn't nin (gets you Defense Boost trait at lvl 20 on your main job). The only reason wars can sub whatever they want to is because they can't sub war. Berserk > anything at lower levels, including shadows. If you're consistantly pulling hate enough to need shadows or die, you're doing it wrong. Don't spike your damage at the start of the fight and you won't die, pretty straightforward. Oh, and it's nice to have voke for emergencies. Who do you want to die, the melee or the mage? Voking to save your whm's life is a good thing.

 

[Khajit]

Being that 30-37 theres a good chance your gonna be xping on bats, how does that help plus drain just gets you more hate that adrk dont need.

Then get the hell out of the shitadel. Also they have beetles there too that you can aspir/drain.
and as for hate you dont need? Yeah you're Wsing at the start of the fight with SE&LR ect arent ya? WS when you can almost kill the thing and get back the last bit of hp back via drain.

 

[Vilurum]

Those +enmity merits probably don't help either. Enmity merits are really either for dedicated tanks or dedicated non-tanks, people who like to play both sides are often better off not touching them either way. If they do, then they have to adjust their playstyle to match (i.e. try extra hard to hold hate when levelling PLD or NIN with -enmity, or go extra easy on hate as a damage dealer or healer with +enmity).

Subbing NIN is certainly an easy way to compensate for the extra hate caused by merits doing the exact opposite of what you want (for that particular job), but that doesn't mean it's good advice for people who *don't* have that extra hate concern (which, since most people don't merit enmity either way for the reasons I already gave, would be most players in the game).

 

[Blackchaoshero]

stick to this failsafe strategy btw. hit it till it falls over. don't die. Never try to tank.

 

[CmdrFly]

My loldrk is still at 41 anyone have a war at 41, compare drk/nin to war/mnk with a great axe i bet you i will win.

If you wanna talk damage jobs, compare drk/nin to war/thf at those levels. War/mnk ain't what it used to be.

 

[K. Ishitar]

Matchuu jacked my thread wtf? lol

question about aspir: does it work on the majority of mobs? most dont seem to have no mp if they arent mage or beetle I've only seen it work on a few mobs

 

[Ruffyreborn]

Matchuu jacked my thread wtf? lol

question about aspir: does it work on the majority of mobs? most dont seem to have no mp if they arent mage or beetle I've only seen it work on a few mobs

A couple mobs that have MP are Beetles, Crabs, Wyverns, Colibri, Weapons, etc. There are a couple more exp mobs, but I cant recall them atm

 

[Mishaela]

I'd recommend /RNG over /DRG for DRK from 20-29. The two big things /DRG gives is Jump and Attack Bonus, (which DRK can get on it's own) - subbing DRG for only Jump makes it considerably less useful than /RNG's 10 acc.


*Edit* Got distracted, fixed post. ><

 

[Ruffyreborn]

Can SJ's abilities stack?

Like DRK's Attack Bonus 1 and DRG's Attack Bonus 1...

I think Im a little too used to BLU not being able to stack on many Job Abilities, and just need to know

 

[Mishaela]

Can SJ's abilities stack?

Like DRK's Attack Bonus 1 and DRG's Attack Bonus 1...

I think Im a little too used to BLU not being able to stack on many Job Abilities, and just need to know

Unfortunately no, traits of same level don't stack =/ It'd be nice to get something like Clear Mind VII on SMN/WHM or WHM/BLM. But then this'd also mean some insane amount of MAB from BLM/RDM and RDM/BLM, so I can easily see why this wouldn't be a good idea.

Also...

Drks have souleater and last resort, o thats right its great idea to lower your def down with /war and have no shadows, already when you use JAs that generate too much enmity in the first place.

Without /WAR then all they'd have is Last Resort, which is what, a 1/9th duration Berserk? Not exactly a good substitute. At lower levels you're gonna want to have all the attack/accuracy you can get, and knowing how most go for sushi nowadays at the earlier levels, you only really get Berserk to work with.

Also, who said you needto dump all your JAs at once? If you get such horrible hate from using all your JAs at once, you could...you know...split LR and Berserk times.

 

[Makelith]

Without /WAR then all they'd have is Last Resort, which is what, a 1/9th duration Berserk? Not exactly a good substitute. At lower levels you're gonna want to have all the attack/accuracy you can get, and knowing how most go for sushi nowadays at the earlier levels, you only really get Berserk to work with.

Also even merited is considerably weaker than zerk ever will be. Plus if you wanted to merit last resort well you would have to merit the timer and potency equally, but souleater being so much more useful takes up 5 merits so you only get a 2 potency 3 timer (just what i did). Where as zerk is already very good and can have its recast concentrated upon.

Think about like what if War had to merit Bergressor recast AND potency?

Just because you fail miserably as Drk doesn't mean that it is impracticle. I'm pretty positive it is you that sucks, especially if you are advocating the use for dual wielding anything.

 

[Ravic]

Just a few things to add.

1) Elemental magic is crap, don't cast it and save MP for drain/aspir or cures if you sub Whm.

2) Use a great axe and get an axe belt at 30. You'll have a higher skill than a War main and Sturmwind beats any WS for Scythe/Great Sword, and pretty much any other weapon at that level. (I know it's been stated, but it can't be stressed enough.)

3) Don't listen to Matchuu.

 

[K. Ishitar]

second question why is dwing axes on war (24-37) wrong?

 

[Khajit]

second question why is dwing axes on war (24-37) wrong?

There are several reasons.

You only get 10% dual weild and crappy bonuses until lv 50 when the nin sub reaches lv 25 and gives you a 15% bonus. Now 10% dual weild is such a small change to the combined delay of both your axes that you literally wont get in an extra swing at the cost of getting less tp for the hits you normally do. There also isnt any haste gear and rdm cant haste pre 48 so theres no way to speedup your swings enough for the dual weild to even get the extra hit in if you were thinking of that route pre 50. Whm can haste ya but being hasted to get in extra hits on something you suck at blows.

Until viking axe at lv 48 none of the other axes give anything worthwhile as a boost pre 50 when dual weild actually does almost start to matter

Axe ws suck. I hear avalanche axe can be considered decent but so far for me it's not been too impressive as I'm used to my 400ish sturmwinds. Sturmwind blows it out of the water.

Also you have to cast utsu ichi as a war/nin so the one time in a really long fight you might get the extra swings/dot in you are gonna be casting ichi up instead and thusly still swing the less than or just as many times as if you had only had one axe on.

 

[Mishaela]

second question why is dwing axes on war (24+) wrong?

Slightly less axe skill which means slightly less attack/accuracy which hurts enough on it's own; granted, with axe merits, your axe skill will in fact be the highest skill, but not everyone has such access...but this is in fact a relatively negligible point, to a degree.

Lack of Berserk is sortof the major thing - it can potentially slaughter your DoT since if the enemy cons high defense, your hits won't surpass your weapon's base damage. Soul Eater -> Raging Axe truly shines in terms of damage, but only if the two initial plus offhand hit all connect. Honestly, you could just sub WAR and use a 1h axe and still get good Soul Eater -> Raging Axes while also having Berserk, if that's your cup of tea I suppose.

Personally, my main issue with /NIN so early on is you're sacrificing a virtually vital melee JA for a chunk of unneeded survivability. It's biggest use (asides the already mentioned extra hit in WSes from dual wielding) seems to be for fast Soul Eater hits, to dump out heavy damage in short time - sortof unnecessary in an XP party. The Dual Wield delay reduction is also virtually inexistent at this point, making it hardly better than using just one axe or just sticking to Scythe or Great Axe.


Sorry if I'm missing or overlooking something.

 

[Ruffyreborn]

Also even merited is considerably weaker than zerk ever will be. Plus if you wanted to merit last resort well you would have to merit the timer and potency equally, but souleater being so much more useful takes up 5 merits so you only get a 2 potency 3 timer (just what i did). Where as zerk is already very good and can have its recast concentrated upon.

Think about like what if War had to merit Bergressor recast AND potency?

Im never going to merit the recast on Last Resort... Unless I have everything else thats more useful merited. Itd be nice if SE lengthened this ability to 3 minutes...

I did, however, merit the potency, and now instead of a 15% boost, I get the 25% boost, when stacked with Berserk gives you a hefty 50% boost to your attack, which when also paired with some attack food, sets you HIGH over 700

And for an ability that lasts just 30 seconds... Gross, I wish SE would lengthen it to 3 minutes...

 

[CmdrFly]

Sorry if I'm missing or overlooking something.

He's talking about war main you [insert witty but inoffensive insult hinting that Mish doesn't know what she's talking abou... oh wait, here's one!] woman.

 

[Mishaela]

He's talking about war main you [insert witty but inoffensive insult hinting that Mish doesn't know what she's talking abou... oh wait, here's one!] woman.

So he is...ha. --;
...Why'd he go from asking about DRK to WAR?

 

[Dethan]

Axe ws suck. I hear avalanche axe can be considered decent but so far for me it's not been too impressive as I'm used to my 400ish sturmwinds. Sturmwind blows it out of the water.

Never use Avalanche in exp pt lol. Raging axe to spam and Spinning axe for Skillchain.

I've Done 400+ in my 40's

 

[CmdrFly]

So he is...ha. --;
...Why'd he go from asking about DRK to WAR?

Don't ask me, he's in Aud's LS. God only knows what happens to those people but they never come out the same.