(Don't) Fear The Reaper: A Dark Knight Guide

Awesome job getting this updated after all these years. Got one question .. double attack +10 better than WSdmg +10 for Insurgency?

Also I noticed no Regen or Refresh sets. It's difficult to make decent sets for both, so I found sticking them together as an Idle set to be easier. Refresh augment on the Ody hands. Legs and Feet could be replaced if you get lucky with Refresh on Ody/Valor as well.

ItemSet 342269

I would put double attack above wsdmg on insurg, you are already getting a wsdmg bonus from the weapon itself. I could be wrong I still haven't finished lib, been really lazy on it so I can't test it.

The mythic boost for their associated WSs is a separate term from WSDMG, and thus does not devalue it.

Good to know.

It also applies to all hits individually. Mythic bonus, that is.

Which allows Liberator to outperform Anguta, despite the high fTP scaling on the first hit.

The trick is finding out if WSDMG on the bloated first hit or 1.3 fTP multi-attack procs (with Liberator) win out. And I'm currently too lazy to math that out.

Yeah I would be interested to know which one wins out as I have mantles for both situations. No rush though. :) Unless someone tells me how I can do the math myself and I give results.

+3 body finally..... just need that damn ammo to drop still 3 months not seen it even drop! Going to finish calad before it lol ;D

just wondering if an excelsis ring would work instead of an archon ring for drain sets?

You can use it, but archon is better. Until you get it why not?

Regen/Refresh sets were set as "under construction," as I was going through items to build each set. I'll put this one up instead.

edit: holding off on that, I just noticed the backpiece has reduced movement speed. no go for running around. <_<

Can you say Lugra Cloak +1?

sets.idle = {
ammo="Seething Bomblet +1",
head="", body="Lugra Cloak +1",
back="Xucau Mantle", neck="Sanctity Necklace",
hands="Sulevia's Gauntlets +1", waist="Flume Belt +1",
legs="Carmine Cuisses +1", feet="Amm Greaves",
ring1="Sheltered Ring", ring2="Paguroidea Ring",
ear1="Odnowa Earring +1", ear2="Genmei Earring"}

Personally I am not dropping ilvl for 1 regen.

There is also a +3 regen UNM neck.

well TBH I have never in my career as drk said "hey I need regen/reresh idle". I guess you can have it, and I 'kinda' do from gear I already own (lugra+1, chirich, bathy collar, sanctity neck, etc). I just never have mp issues on drk anywhere... in reisen/escha the vorseals are more than enough cap mp after any casting. On apex mobs "maybe" you could argue it, but crabs I can aspir once every 30 mins and cap mp in a cast lol, on anything non aspirable I guess you could make a case, but will you be "idle" on these mobs lol?

I idle almost always in mov speed/DT, simply for the fact that it would take minutes of regen idle to recoupe what -dt set would have prevented in the first place if I was say, pulling mobs, running aggro, etc.

Argh, I keep forgetting about that cloak. I blame my bias against Cloaks. <.<;

So i decided to make an enmity toggle for drk, I have been meaning to do so for awhile. Which spells do you suggest casting for tanking on drk? I was thinking stun as primary, then maybe abs? I am unsure what the "ideal" spells for hate would be past stun on drk.

Also I am struggling with being able to have my Ign+2 head on during souleater now. How would I go about getting that into my lua?

DRK can't rely too much spells for hate generation, as most of the good black magic hate tools were nerfed into the ground years ago. The only quasi-noteworthy enmity spells you have access to, so far as I know, are Stun (same enmity as Flash) and Absorb-TP (apparently 320CE/320VE; all the other absorb spells are 1/640).

what about sleep/break? I assume stun will be plenty for the needs but who knows, hell nukes are technically insta cast anymore maybe those?

I am at +80 enmity is all, lot of room for improvement. Is there a known cap?

Sleep is one of the spells that was nerfed (Sleep, Sleep II, Dispel, Blind, Blind II, Bind). It's 1/300 now. Break doesn't have an enmity value listed on BGwiki, so I'm not sure there.

Gear enmity cap is +200.

damn thats good/suc lol... SO basically its Stun and Abs-tp that you can use for hate? so I got to find 200 enmity! 120 to go lol .... I think thats impossible to hit on drk but I can see getting +100 overall, not terrible to a pinch stun to pull hate.

Souleater is built into mine already, just need to add the same functions and create a set for it, then it overlays it over all of your engaged sets. (Keep in mind you will need a way to deal w/ the STP loss, so you may need to add something else to make up the STP)

Ya I have been looking at that :D lucky its only 5stp in my case which is fixed easily.

So picking up my AG calad tonight, since none ever post info on it, after I test and play around with it I will post my input about Caladbolg.

input so far...
Did A kyou tonight and very impressed. I would suggest this weapon for sure to any drk out there with a HQ setup. It does great and the ws are very consistent 25k~30k at 1k tp. Thats not bad at all considering the light sc too, having full buffs I can imagine would make this weapon just jaw dropping. I couldnt go all out, or heck even use LR because our tank was terrible (Pug). I did a few reso's too and its just not even close in dmg at 1k, only once you get over 2k for reso does it start to pull out over a 1k torc w/o some crazy buffs.

I then decided to see if I could kill an apex crab in 1 ws.... got dang close lol. It was 100% me with trusts, no mule geo etc. Just your normal buff trusts, and LR. Did a 27k to 36k torc, with 42k~ light. Right off which nearly killed it. Then I pulled an apex jagil, and just let the Am3 work on it.... seeing regular melee hits for 4-5k~ 50% of the time is very rewarding.

I then decided to See how high I could push my dps, so I soloed achuka. after 1 min roughly my dps was over 5k, and his hp 50% (just trusts again), this was very rewarding to see since he spams that attack down/stun move and -200 stats lol. I would not be shocked to see this weapon under ideal conditions break 9k dps.

overall this is all anecdotal, no math etc behind it. Maybe that will come later for now I am impressed. But if you ask me if its worth making, its clearly yes, rags just not touching it unless you need the acc.

One place that Caladbolg obviously fails is if you need the acc, I did notice on Kyou when he got evasive last few % that I was wiffing more than comfortable. I cant imagine this being a big issue on most things we fight in the game though, and see no reason you cant cap acc on T3 and below and most T4 mobs.

One other issue, and the more important one in my book. Torc is very consistent, but with said consistency you do not get spikes very often. Certain times you will have so many buffs that your tping to 200tp nearly instantly after your ws. In this scenario your probably looking at 30k avg on torc while reso could pull higher, lets say 40k as thats been my experience in perfect buffs. The only saving grace Calad would have in said situations is that white dmg, which on the 9 hits to 2k would close a large part of that gap + some.

Some have asked, so here is my set.
ItemSet 349370

Mantle is 30vit 20acc 10wsd
Head is 10str 15acc 5wsd
Hands are 9vit 14acc 5wsd
Legs are 8vit 29acc 4wsd

If you see something I haven't please let me know, it's possible to overlook gear. I plan to start heavily augginng again as I would like 15vit 25+acc minimum and 4wsd on each and will get if it kills me!The set right now has 278vit and around 1100 acc if I recall. Will check when I'm not typing from phone lol

Does pixie hairpin +1 help absorb spell potency and accuracy?

Potency NO, acc, not sure but I doubt it.

Either eay the best abs head is af+3

Figured a magic accuracy piece like Flamma would do better than Pixie. Unless the hairpin gives more than 28 magic accuracy?

would the Karieyh Ring be better?

Elemental MAB/Affinity is just for damage.

Yeah I figured as much, was wondering why the Absorb set on the guide makes use of hairpin and archon ring.

That's a good question. Pixie Hairpin +1 assumes you don't have Ignominy Head +2/+3. Since INT affects accuracy, the INT on Pixie +1 is higher than Ignominy +1, but with +2/+3 around the bend, I think it's safe to say that Pixie's more or less a pricey sidegrade now.

I'll have to update that set and add that subtext.

Yes, but by very little AND you couldnt take any other ring. Thus making it an unwise choice IMO, but if you really want it I say go for it :D

I just see so many better rings than that ring, so I never got it. I do however play 6 other jobs endgame ready, so it forces me to make difference choices. Thats my actual set, not the "ideal" , but I have yet to meet a drk with a better set and I doubt one exists no including the ring haha.