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

That is a dank Enmity set. Holy crap. 95 enmity. That makes that pulling Absorb-X 1248 CE. That's almost a naked Flash.
Which begs the question: does anyone know how Dread Spikes works with enmity? You lose CE from taking damage, for sure. But does the drain count as healing or damage for gaining CE? Or does it count as both? :o
I know that when I'm on BLU and the enemy uses Dread Spikes it makes me uncontrollably angry. :P

The spikes themselves generate no enmity whatsoever.

got my rag!!! now the hard part which do I AG first... rag or apoc?

That is a very difficult question, I would say rag for pure dmg, but apoc isn't far behind and offers more utility.

That's easy, Rag.

It's a question of when you are using each one, Rag is for doing actual damage in buffed group fights, Apoc is for soloing lower level stuff with your trusts. Between those two the AG upgrade is going to be far more significant on Rag as accuracy is extremely important in group content.

Doesn't Ragnarok open up more skillchain possibiliites for apex group. Does Apoc do the same?

They both get massive acc, apoc can solo both light and dark sc, rag cannot.

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about DRK or has ever played it.

You do know that Apoc has higher accuracy than Rag right? 7 more accuracy to be exact.

You know what, *** it I'll go through this all over again.

Scythe Weapon Skills of suckage

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Insurgency

Insurgency, 4 hit WS with really shitty WS mods and fTP scaling.

20% STR 20% INT

With moonshade at 1000TP you have a grand total of 4.1875 fTP 1.1875 +1.0 x 3
and Multi-Attack procs are an additional +1.0 fTP .
3000 TP is 6.0 + 1.0 x 3 for 9.0 fTP . This is just plain bad, really bad. It's low WS mods are a death sentence in this age of iLevel stat vomit where you can double your base WDMG from WSC prior to the fTP multiplier. What makes it worse is the fTP scaling is only on the first hit and with it deriving over half it's power from additional hits you can't just stack WSD or TP bonus to exploit it.

Next up

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Entropy

Jesus did SE *** this one up. 4 hit fTP transfer with a 85% INT mod. Yes *** INT, the stat that's least present on high end DD gear, right next to CHR. INT is something you want on a magic based WS due to dINT boost and MAB gear tending to have INT. This would be a pretty good WS if it was STR instead.

1000TP with moonshade is 1.075 fTP per hit for a total of 4.3. Multi-attack procs add another 1.075. 3000TTP is 8.8 fTP with each multi-attack adding another 2.2

Now for,

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Cross_Reaper

Cross Reaper, the only decent Scythe WS. Two hits with the first scaling fTP and 60% STR 60% MND. At 1000TP + moonshade it's 2.5 + 1.0 fTP, at 3000TP it's 8.0 http://fTP. What makes this slightly better then the rest is that it's 60% STR mod allows for stacking STR to boost and most of it's damage is on that first hit so +WSD helps a ton (you know DRK gifts). The 60% MND mod is just kind of there, I don't recommend anyone go out of their way to put it on but if you get some MND on some STR / WSD / Attack / ect.. loaded gear then it's a nice bonus. This is how Insurgency's WS mods should.

And the last two are special use scenarios.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Quietus

SE almost, almost, made a decent WS here. If only the defense ignore function was higher then it would do really nice on high level targets. One hit 3.0 fTP WS with 60% STR 60% MND. At 1000TP with moonshade it ignores 15% defense which is similiar to a 17.6% attack boost, too small to be of use. At 3000TP it's a 50% defense ignore, which is the same as a 100% attack boost, much more useful but nobody's going to waste 3000TP on this. If it's defense ignore was 30/50/70 then it would be a solid situational WS, as it stands it's just kinda bleh. Two saving graces are one hit for stacking +WSD and 60% STR for boosting.

And the most overblown WS in the history of FFXI

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Catastrophe

Catastrophe is like Quietus, one hit with no fTP scaling. It's 2.75 fTP but with a 40% WS boost from Apoc we can treat it like a 3.85 fTP WS for this comparison (Multi-Attacks till get the 40% WS boost so they act like 1.4 fTP hits). The mods are 40% STR / INT, not as bad as insurgency's but not as great as Cross Reaper. Really useful for replenishing the user's HP allowing them to solo lower tier content without trusts or cause the WHM to get less efficient cures.

Now for the competition, what else can DRK use to kill an annoying monster.

Firstly,

Torcleaver

Torcleaver, one hit high fTP scaling WS with 80% VIT mod. At 1000TP with moonshade it's 5.43 fTP with any MA's only adding 1.0. At 3000TP it's 10 fTP . VIT is more useful then INT but not as useful as STR. VIT can be a bit annoying to gear around but since it's a one hit it's easier then on Upheaval and it's WAY easier then trying to ratchet shitty INT into the picture.
Congrats you just beat every Scythe WS, and this isn't even the strongest alternative.

Now for sex,

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Resolution

Resolution, five hits with fTP transfer and 85% STR mod. That's right, 85% STR, the best mod to have for a heavy DD WS. It's fTP scales with TP and transfers to all hits, making it easy to exploit. At 1000TP with moonshade you have 5.57 fTP with any Multi-Attack procs adding another 1.114 fTP . At 3000TP you have 11.25 fTP with any Multi-Attacks adding another 2.25 fTP . Only negative is the -15% attack penalty but this is the DRK forums and the last thing DRK's have a problem with is getting attack. And besides SE just gave DRK another 15% attack to go with it's already overloaded attack stat.

Special mention

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Scourge

Scourge, one hit WS with 40% STR / VIT and 3.0 fTP . With the 40% WS boost we can treat it like 4.2 fTP with any Multi-Attacks being 1.4. 40% STR is decent and VIT is a better WS mod then either INT or MND. Scourge is only really used for activating Rag's AM or as a Fusion linker for a multi-step light SC on Great Sword.

Out of all these WS's, Torcleaver and Resolution are the two easiest to exploit via min-maxing. Entropy would be pretty solid if it's WSC was STR or even VIT instead of INT.


Most of the DRK's here remind me of that old 2004 era DRK who did Berserk, Last Resort, Soul Eater, Blood Weapon, Warcry, 3000TP Guillotine for a big number, then declared themselves the best because their one number was higher then the five everyone else put out. Even though they had the lowest total damage in the group.

This is why Scythe is so shitty. The weapons themselves are great but the WS's suck so much *** that you might as well be using Staff and Shattersoul. No amount of emo crying, COSPLAY dressing is going to change that. SE is the only ones that can change the situation by altering the WS mods and fTP scaling of those weapon skills to make them somewhat competitive. And Resolution isn't even the greatest WS, it's just highly exploitable with specific gear heavy DD's have access to.

Just for shits and giggles let me introduce two other WS's that stomp all over what Scythe has.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Vorpal_Blade

Vorpal Blade, 4 hit (5 if Dual Wielding and you should be if using this) crit WS with fTP transfer and 60% STR.

This is a miniature CDC but with a WS mod that's more favorable to heavy DD's. The base fTP is 1.375, with moonshade your looking at 1.575 per hit, 5 hits for a total of 7.875 fTP and any Mult-Attacks adding another 1.575. Crits are nice but your really just stacking STR and Multi-Attack and spamming it at 1000TP. I've done really big numbers with this WS. DRK has access to a ton of nice Swords now a days. Tanmogayi +1, Flyssa +1, Reikiko, Firangi and some others.

And just for comparison to all the above

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Chant_du_Cygne

CDC,

Three hit (four if dual wielding) critical WS with fTP transfer and 80% DEX mod. fTP is 1.632 per hit, 1.832 with fotia for a total of 7.328 fTP and each Multi-Attack proc adding another 1.632. 80% DEX WSC is great for BLU as it ensures a +15% dDEX crit bonus and is easy to get a hold of.

Good deflection, I'm correcting you on the statement you made, which was false. That statement was that Rag has an accuracy advantage over Apoc. The opposite is true.

You have selective attention.

I have Liberator winning on my DPS sheet, then Rag then Apoc.
The gap between Liberator and Rag is greater than the gap between Rag and Apoc.

Are you accounting for OAT procing on Insurgency and the 40% boost to its DMG which Resolution does not have?

Huh WTF... I never made that statement...

You are only seeing what you want to see

My statement


To any sane rational person, this would be a comparison of when you would use each. Both of the AG upgrades add accuracy and they are so close as to be indistinguishable. So the question becomes one of "in which situation would the additional accuracy be more useful?" To which I state that buffed group fights would see a bigger benefit as accuracy is really important there while soloing with trusts wouldn't as your already likely to be capped there. Thus upgrade Rag to AG first as it provides a large increase in actual usage scenarios.

This is why DRK's are frowned upon in general, too emo and refusing to think rationally about stuff in favor of just COSPLAY in town while complaining that they can't go melee stuff.

Your likely doing something wrong, like assuming 3000TP instantly appears out of thin air, is on the entire time and the Rag is forced to waste that 3000TP on something shitty like Scourge.

Rag Reso spam absolutely crush's Lib spam because the fights long over before Libs had a chance to exploit it's AM3. Virtually every melee fight I have is over with in 60s, the few outliers are due to something like Amnesia / Terror / Dispel getting through and making the fight take 90 seconds.

3000TP Lib -> 1 x Insurgency!

3000TP Rag -> 3 x Resolutions!

If you are forcing them to start with 3000 "free" TP, then Sekkanoki exists.

3000TP Lib -> 1 x Insurgency!

3000TP Rag -> Sekkanoki -> Resolution x 2! Or even Scourge + Resolution since the first WS won't get the TP Bonus from Moonshade and some people really like the AM1 effect, though honestly I find it a waste of time normally. The gear simply doesn't' exist to exploit Scythe WS's. Now if SE were to make something that looked like HQ Argosy but with an additional 40~50 INT on each piece, then you might get somewhere.

Thus Liberator starts in the negative for damage potential and needs time to eventually pull ahead. Of course if you give the NM infinite HP and give the Liberator free 3000TP every three minutes, eventually you'll pull ahead but that's not a realistic usage scenario. Lots of Mythics suffer from this problem. DPS Spreedsheets were designed to optimize gear in infinite fights, not compare two different weapon builds.

Great Sword sucks *** for SC compatibility. It's mostly Fragmentation followed by more Fragmentation. Torcleaver is Distortion / Light but it's one hit nature is undesirable when Magic Bursts are your primary damage source. Scythe on the other hand is a multi-hit WS in three out of the four T2 categories.

Fusion - Insurgency
Distortion - Cross Reaper
Gravitation - Entropy

It's only mission Fragmentation, and Great Sword takes care of that. This makes Scythe the better choice for SC + MB Apex parties as your own personal damage doesn't matter, only your versatility. In buffed group melee fights its the opposite, your damage becomes incredibly important and versatility isn't nearly an issue. Nobody should be making an AG weapon for Apex Parties.

I believe liberator wins out of all DRK selection in both dmg and WS frequency, last time we parsed together prime on lib drk and me on blu, our dmg was literally the same in several WSs we did at the same time (ranging from 25-30k) and not only that, his 3-hit build with big acc (like 1350something, forgot the exact number) is plain insane.

I think people should judge on events based on their experiences rather than number crunching, as odinz said about liberator, the weapon has dmg bonus to insurgency and the multihit can proc as well boosting the dmg even more.

And to top it all, prime has everything for drk, all gear +1 and any setup you can imagine so yea, i see lib drk being number 1 now and if they boost scythe WSs, it will be just stupid lol.

On the other hand for what i've seen in action, RAG shines more on war than drk but in both cases, lib drk wins.

P.S.: Last parse was with an idris geo and lolqultada, it was like 3am lol.

Your spreadsheet is probably missing WS delay if you're running this at 80% haste and all other things equal. WS saturation was the Achilles' Heel of OAT Fulgurante in Voidwatch and a 2-3 weapon is only asking for more. There is a point where WSing a little bit harder outweighs WSing a whole lot more. If you're properly considering WS saturation (two whole seconds per), Liberator probably isn't pulling ahead.

Saevel needs to chill. Theory is theory. We're talking about <10% differences.

You are not your Relic Choice. You are not a beautiful and emo snowflake. Right now we get outdamaged by *** BLUs. Play DRK because you enjoy it, not because of numbers.

Looking to make an Apoc. Not sure if worth it since I probably wont be able to max it out until Next extra drop campaign is it still worth it to make even still?

Rag wins. It's not the weapon but how much the relative ws's can be boosted and exploited. And this is DRK vs DRK, WAR just crushes everything else in the game due to broke Warcry or Blood Rage in short fights.

Liberator is the old way of thinking. Getting 3000tp then fighting something for three to five minutes. Now everything I melee is dead in under 60s. All mythics lose in that situation.

Just reread and realized you have zero idea what your talking about. A "three hit build" would require 130 Store TP, which isn't currently possible. You probably meant "four hit" which is standard for all weapons over 500 delay. You need 72 Store TP for an absolute 4-hit, a bit less if you can reliable get more then 250 TP back from Insurgency. Rag is 431 delay and use's a standard 5-hit requiring 64 Store TP, again a bit less if they can reliable get more then 200TP back from WS. Over TP is a good think due to Resolutions great TP scaling. 431 delay Ragnarok swings 22.5% faster then 528 delay Liberator so there X-hit ends up with about the same WS frequency. The real difference is Rag having 54 ~ 69 more accuracy. Rag isn't even the best GS for Resolution spam but it's accuracy allows for more Multi-Attack to be packed in.

Anyhow this debate has been going on since SE first created Resolution and all the old DRK's went ape ***and threatening to toss their Scythes in the trash and unsubscribe in protest. SE really *** up Entropy and then further screwed both Scythe and Great Axe with lackluster WS updates.

Phuoc knows more about this game than people like you ever will lol. You didn't even know Scythe was DRK's A+ weapon a few posts ago and typed a wall of text to defend yourself.

I do have a 3hit build actually, its not impossible.
What's funny is if you watched the video you would have been able to deduce that much. Its also why I told people to watch the TP gain because right around August I jump from 400 tp return from Insurgency to 2700 in 1 attack round.

I've also posted the recent freakishly good augments I've gotten on Valorous feet, Odyssean legs, Valorous mask. Combined with the new gear that is available, a 3HIT build is within reach for those of us who are lucky. I happen to be lucky. We're sorry

That was disjointed and full of anger.

Guess you take that COSPLAY stuff to heart.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Samurai_Roll

You don't count Sams roll because it's unreliable. You might have 11, or 10, or 2, or 8, or even 9 depending how much the game is dicking with you. Spending four minutes as the COR constantly chasing 11's is a waste of time for a 60s fight. The Store TP will either bump you to the next notch or give you one hell of an overflow bonus. Another instance where game mechanics overwhelmingly favor Resolution.

X-hits are counted from gear, JT and anything you can put on yourself. Anything above that is just bonus damage.

But hey someone's gotta look cool in town right.

Why don't you just ask to see my 3hit?

I would like to see it because I want to see what is possible. My favorite thing about this game is the possibilities.

Sent.

why not just post it? id like to see too.

4HIT:
3HIT:

Just looking at it, he would have to have crazy DM augments on every piece of gear. Or a cor with you always. Assuming he is Ioskeha Belt/+1.

Being generous on the augments, and using dedition earring/Ainia Collar it is possible. But, without using those two you are looking at like

+7 from grip, +3 from ammo

And this is being generous on the STP augments of the gear

+10 head, +4 neck, +3 cessance, +5 Telos
+14 Valor mail, +7 Emicho +1, HQ rings x2 for +12
+10 Back, +16 legs and feet

That is still not enough to reliably 3hit lol


With Anguta, it would be more feasible, but you would have to dump gil/get lucky with DM augments

What about these babies?

Why is this news, 3 pages after I posted a video of me using a 3hit build in SR?
Also the lowest STP I have augmented is 8.