Drg/drk minizerg

[shirak]

Reading the Dark Knight zerg threads got me thinking about if drg/drk could do something similar with Spirit Surge. So I explored this briefly, but am coming up short on the delay calculations translating to damage over 1minute of souleater. This might not be worthwhile but I'm curious if we can get near 10k per 1min given ideal circumstances.

Anyways here's a beginning

Drg/drk mini-zerg

Galka Drg/drk
Base Hp: 1433
Love Halberd: damage 60/delay 396
Fenrir’s Stone/Virtue stones: HP 30
Gigant Mantle: HP 80
Rho necklace: HP 30
Cassie Earring: HP 50
Intruder Earring: HP 40
Walahra Turban: HP 30 Haste 5%
Wyrm Mail +1: HP 33 Haste 2%
Dusk Gloves +1: HP 22 Haste 4%
Bloodbead Ring: HP 75
Bomb Queen Ring: HP 50
Speed Belt: Haste 6%
Homam Cosciales: HP 26 Haste 3%
Homam Gambieras:L HP 31 Haste 3%
Carbonara: HP 175
2105
*15% (SS)= 2420.75 *5%(SE) = 121.0375(SEd) + 60(Bd) = 181 (Souleater + base damge)

Not sure where to go from here on the delay calculations (how many swings/ 1min souleater).

A few observations:
-You could start the zerg out without a wyrven (2105HP) and call when at <1000HP and Spirit Surge to gain the 15% + around 1000 health from the wyrven.
-at this point you also gain 25% magic haste
- jump/high jump before SS, and after (4 more attacks)
-after SS will need dedicated healer to keep HP up
-without Blood weapon, damage will fluctuate as HP goes up/down

Does anyone want to take a crack at seeing how much damage this could output?

[fndragon]

Not to burst your bubble at thinking outside the box, but DRK main is used for bloodweapon to eliminate the need of a staff of 20 WHM's out of party spamming Cure V's at you.

Also, DRK has their Tier II merit Desparate Blows that gives them haste above and beyond the ability of any other job to help cap out Soul Eater's DoT.

I'd say the amount of HP you can get on DRG is good, but you'll still need quite a few WHM's to make it through alive.

On a related note, can you do a similar thing using the Bard ENM 60 item, "Getsul Ring" that gives an enchantment of +20% HP for a while? I can see it now: BRD/DRK, Getsul Ring, and M.Kris.

There's a reason the MNK/DRK works, too. And you still need a few dedicated healers to make it work.

[nightmaric]

Don't think a Love Halberd will attack as often as you'd like it to get the desired effect.

That's why Kraken DRK and Hundred Fisting MNK/DRKs make it work. Aside from the fact that a Blood Weaponing DRK won't need spam heals.

[shirak]

Right, its apparent that it won't be comparable to a drk zerg (at the very least a drk will ouput 20% (15% desperate blows + 5% more SE) more), but for a drg, it might be a viable damage burst.

You could for example:

SE/LR/SJ
J/HJ
melee to <1000 hp
SS (for a gain of +1000 + 15% hp)
HJ/J
whm drops 1 cureV
melee till maybe 500 or so and SJ (the healer)(minizerg fini)

More than anything I was curious "given ideal circumstances" how much burst/zerg damage a Drg/drk could output.

[Dammerung]

DRG is there primarily for Angon. You fill in the other spots with DD that don't need an army of babysitters.

[Evelyn]

I'd think that Joyeuse would be be a better weapon if only for the lower delay.

[ringthree]

Yes, it would work in general. It would need more maintenance, but not as much as a Kraken DRK not using Bloodweapon. Someone else suggested this before but I don't know if they tested it.

[Merkury]

idk if your forgetting only half of the HP taken from SE is converted to dmg when your /drk. So with that 2000 HP your only getting 100 dmg added per hit and losing 200 hp still. So to get that 10k total damage your shooting for its gonna take you about 100 hits IF you could stay at full HP. which would take 20,000 HP worth of cures. In all honesty its just not practical to even try to setup or do. Stick to drg/war and using 2hr to spam jumps, ws's and whatever with higher DMG weapon if you want burst damage w/o needing whole shell to cure you.

[Stromgarde]

It's not a bad idea. Think not along the lines of comparison to DRK, but rather that you're going to have him there anyway for Angon, what else can he do in 30 seconds?

[Dammerung]

It's not a bad idea. Think not along the lines of comparison to DRK, but rather that you're going to have him there anyway for Angon, what else can he do in 30 seconds?

Sub SAM and spam WS?

[shirak]

People dont have to like this idea, I'm just curious about the limits of this.

idk if your forgetting only half of the HP taken from SE is converted to dmg when your /drk. So with that 2000 HP your only getting 100 dmg added per hit and losing 200 hp still.

I took the 5% added damage not 10/12% ionto account if you read closer.

So to get that 10k total damage your shooting for its gonna take you about 100 hits IF you could stay at full HP. which would take 20,000 HP worth of cures. In all honesty its just not practical to even try to setup or do.

This is a good point, 10k damage perhaps won't be achievable. I wonder then what would be under a sustainable drg/drk SE+SS.

The idea is that you don't need as much as "a whole shell" because you are recieving at least 1000hp from wyrven + a cure V lets say.

Definitely appreciate the constructive criticism.

Think not along the lines of comparison to DRK, but rather that you're going to have him there anyway for Angon, what else can he do in 30 seconds

This is my thought exactly, how to get the greatest burst damage out of drg in the shortest time (and what are the damage and sustainability limits). Perhaps even for use in Nyzul Isle.

[Tomiko]

I tried this on Cerb about a year or so ago. It wasn't worth it. You're better off subbing War, Sam or Thf depsending on the situation.

[AoshiZ]

Right, its apparent that it won't be comparable to a drk zerg (at the very least a drk will ouput 20% (15% desperate blows + 5% more SE) more), but for a drg, it might be a viable damage burst.

The problem with this thought process is that a drk will be the job of choice to implement this. Viable damage burst scenario would only take into effect when there is no dark to take advantage of the situation. So is the situation you are asking for when there is no other DD but a drg available and you need a damage burst? (Mnk/drk is a more viable option than Drg/drk and the healing should be spent there)

Things that should also be assesed is the performance hit the party incurs from the needing to heal this inefficient Soul Eater attack. Could there have been less healers in the party and more DD? Does the damage being dealt justify the extra healing support needed?

From my experience, no, Drg/drk does not do that much damage and does not justify the amount of healing that is required. Not because Drg is sucky, but because souleater burst as a sub sucks so bad for 2 Handed weapons that swing slow. For short period burst damage /sam will outperform /drk with its extra TP per hit meditate and hasso (which goes nicely with the drg two hour).

Edit: Additional Comment
Since you're looking for numbers lets put the Haste build into perspective since all your gear up top has most of the premium haste gear minus the blitz ring:
If you're looking to swing alot and hit fast lets see the difference between with and without Hasso for Love halberd...

396Delay/60 = 6.6 Second swings with 43.3% magic haste, 24% equip haste (max for dragoon), 10% hasso haste = 1.498 second per swing
396Delay/60 = 6.6 Second swings with 43.3% magic haste, 24% equip haste (max for dragoon), no hasso = 2.158 seconds

With hasso you would be swinging 44% faster for free. To compare with souleeater, you would need to counter the extra 44% faster swinging damage and be healed at the same time. I've actually tested the haste build for drg... its great!

Edit 2: another note:
With spirit surge its actually really easy to hit the magic haste cap without soul voice songs.

[Gergall]

Right, its apparent that it won't be comparable to a drk zerg (at the very least a drk will ouput 20% (15% desperate blows + 5% more SE) more), but for a drg, it might be a viable damage burst.

Please don't take this the wrong way.

I think you are drastically underestimating the effect that Haste has when stacked to high amounts. The 15% haste from desperate blows will cause much, much more than 15% additional damage assuming that gear and magic haste are capped. Hasso is also used to tremendously increase the damage.

You seem to be thinking in terms of double attack (75% double attack would increase your damage by 75%, bringing you to a total of 175% damage) as opposed to haste (75% haste would cause you to attack at quadruple speed, bringing you to a total of 400% damage).

To put it another way, if a DRK only equips 22% haste gear instead of 25%, it will cost him thousands of damage.

I would consider DRG/SAM with Hasso for a mini-zerg, and replace that HP gear with DD gear.

[Tulun]

I'd say go DRG/WAR, get that +attack in there. /SAM is an option, too.

If you can store tp and have wyvern with some TP as well, you can easily pop off 3-4 WS in a zerg. With Angon, I'm sure you'll at least be throwing some of your weight in there.

[Jaybar]

Should always be going /SAM to zerg events. You're most likely getting triple soul voice songs with at least double march. Spirit Surge adds a small beneficial haste amount (not sure where it gets added to, equip or magic or maybe delay reduction). You will be pretty high up there in the swing/time.

You won't even need Angon unless the fight lasts longer than 1 minute (Can get a good 2 minutes worth of -20% defense down if you add Angon at the end).

DRG/DRK looks good on paper, but you need at least 5 healers spamming cure3 on you for the duration. I know I'm asked to CS+cure3 MNK/DRK sometimes on our JoLs. I'm not sure if the Love Halberd is a good weapon of choice, though, but what do I know, I have yet to try this method of zerging.

/WAR is strictly for e-peen. I don't think anyone uses it anymore for endgame. It's unreliable, especially in merits.

[AzazaelFenrir]

/WAR is strictly for e-peen. I don't think anyone uses it anymore for endgame. It's unreliable, especially in merits.

What do you mean unreliable? I go out /war for meripo and enjoy it. I would like to parse out a /war and /sam equally equipped to see which comes out ahead.

[Jaybar]

Because when you have to stop because your healer ran out of MP, that is unreliable.

[Seditedi]

Because when you have to stop because your healer ran out of MP, that is unreliable.

^
Go /SAM so you can actually avoid taking some melee hits.............................................. .. >_>

[AzazaelFenrir]

Because when you have to stop because your healer ran out of MP, that is unreliable.

So if you have a weak healer it is better. Most of the time when I am with LS mates it isn't a problem, it is just when I get the random invite that I play lifebar limbo.