Dark Knight Discussion

[Niiro]

Simple math: 150+220+300 < 150+250+280

^

Weapon skills come in combos >_>

[Sho]

Personally, I feel that Dark Arts is probably a little too high on the MP cost. Also, I would like to see the cooldown for Blood Price reduced to 30s instead of 40s.

I have a feeling that the devs want us to make implicit use of Dark Arts boosted Power Slashes to maintain chunks of hate between Souleater or Delirium combos.

[Kiarax]

Yeah I boost Power Slash a lot, especially since I tank the majority of stuff without Grit. Haven't tested how much extra enmity it gives but anything that lets you buy more time to spam Souleater is huge, kinda shrugged off the bonus effect when I first read it but the Souleater combo is so much stronger than Power Slash you want to be doing all you can to get it out as much as possible.

[kisada]

i am kinda hoping that they highlight the buttons which combo with dark arts after you use it to boost. not sure why they didn't put that in, perhaps in the future.

also was thinking about it a bit. there are times when you get MP drained just enough that you can't use DA on your souleater, so you're forced to do a normal delirium combo and then continue on the next rotation after your MP is ok.

wouldn't it make sense to just drop the 3rd hit in syphon so you can get MP back faster?

2-hit syphon strike combo is 200 potency avg per hit
3-hit syphon strike combo is 226 potency avg per hit (using delirium)

you would lose 26 potency every time you went for a two-hitter, but it is potentially made up for by getting back on track with MP faster and getting back to DA souleaters sooner, rather than later.



just ballparking it here but i think the equation is something like:

extra MP gained from using 2-hit syphon combos only (compared to finishing for 3 hits) = X amount of DA/souleaters gained

damage lost from not finishing 3rd hit (26 potency lost on avg) = Z

then the damage you gain from X has to be > Z


or something like that. seems out of my pay grade to figure it all out. maybe someone else has some thoughts?

[FHT]

He was saying he was pulling hate from a WAR MT as an OT DRK which should not happen, ever. Also you fail to account for the fact that Syphon Strike is 250 potency compared to Spinning Slash's 220.

Simple math: 150+220+300 < 150+250+280

If you are OTing as DRK you will never use Power Slash. It's all DA Souleaters unless you lack the MP then you use Delirium.

Didn't understood it like that, my bad.

[Ferien]

i am kinda hoping that they highlight the buttons which combo with dark arts after you use it to boost. not sure why they didn't put that in, perhaps in the future.

also was thinking about it a bit. there are times when you get MP drained just enough that you can't use DA on your souleater, so you're forced to do a normal delirium combo and then continue on the next rotation after your MP is ok.

wouldn't it make sense to just drop the 3rd hit in syphon so you can get MP back faster?

2-hit syphon strike combo is 200 potency avg per hit
3-hit syphon strike combo is 226 potency avg per hit (using delirium)

you would lose 26 potency every time you went for a two-hitter, but it is potentially made up for by getting back on track with MP faster and getting back to DA souleaters sooner, rather than later.



just ballparking it here but i think the equation is something like:

extra MP gained from using 2-hit syphon combos only (compared to finishing for 3 hits) = X amount of DA/souleaters gained

damage lost from not finishing 3rd hit (26 potency lost on avg) = Z

then the damage you gain from X has to be > Z


or something like that. seems out of my pay grade to figure it all out. maybe someone else has some thoughts?

Need to take into account the fact that you're still recovering MP with a Delirium combo, minus the MP drain you suffer from the extra GCD spent in Darkside, so it gets complicated. It might make more sense to consider the finishers as existing outside of the combos for the purpose of theorycrafting, but the most important thing we need is a rough estimate of the MP costs. I'm going to make a few assumptions below based on what I've eyeballed, and if anyone can come back with hard numbers it'll make my life easier...

Since MP costs scale with max, this is what I'm basing my numbers on: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/9364/
Dark Arts: ~1053 MP (~25% of max MP)
Darkside: -105/tick (half of the Darkside cost), +60/tick standard refresh, for net -45/tick (this seems wrong)
Syphon Strike: ~800 MP restored per hit

Delirium test: if MP>1188 use DA+SE, otherwise Delirium
Syphon-only: if MP>1143 use DA+SE, otherwise restart combo

Delirium hovers around 252 potency, Syphon-only hovers around 249.

So given my assumptions, infinite TP, and ignoring Blood Weapon, Blood Price, and the difference between SkS and MP Refresh rate Delirium is ~1% better.

[Voyage1970]

Does Syphon Strike really scale that well post 50? As of right now at 51 Syphon Strike gives exactly 50% the cost of Dark Arts. From your numbers you're basically getting a free Dark Arts use every combo and when you balance that with Blood Weapon and possibly tossing in an Ether/Elixir every now and then I can see you easily doing nothing but DA Soul Eaters forever.

[Ferien]

Does Syphon Strike really scale that well post 50? As of right now at 51 Syphon Strike gives exactly 50% the cost of Dark Arts. From your numbers you're basically getting a free Dark Arts use every combo and when you balance that with Blood Weapon and possibly tossing in an Ether/Elixir every now and then I can see you easily doing nothing but DA Soul Eaters forever.

It's certainly possible that I'm wrong, but I distinctly remember numbers above 700 for Syphon Strike. It's also possible that the refresh scales based on damage dealt, in which case Grit, level, and gear would probably account for the difference. This is all based off of my (admittedly shitty) memory though, so real numbers will help tremendously. I'll throw the calculations into GDocs as well once I fix a few of the formulas.

e: And if the MP gain from Syphon is simply half a Dark Arts (or 5% of Max MP) then the numbers change to ~241.5 for Delirium, ~234 for Syphon.

[samalis]

Does Syphon Strike really scale that well post 50? As of right now at 51 Syphon Strike gives exactly 50% the cost of Dark Arts. From your numbers you're basically getting a free Dark Arts use every combo and when you balance that with Blood Weapon and possibly tossing in an Ether/Elixir every now and then I can see you easily doing nothing but DA Soul Eaters forever.

884 right now with 180 weapon. max MP 6926. DA cost 1768

[Ferien]

884 right now with 180 weapon. max MP 6926. DA cost 1768

Any change with Grit on or off? That's two for 50% of DA cost.

Also, I'm pretty sure I've got the number completely wrong for base MP regen per tick while in combat. Was using 60 but just remembered that's the TP number. .06*MaxMP looks way higher than it should be as well, though I'm probably just seriously underestimating the per-tick cost of Darkside. It's been a long time since I had to think about these numbers.

[Ferien]

Okay, revising for +2% MP per tick while in combat, Dark Arts at approximately 25% of MP, Syphon @50% of DA, and Darkside's drain at approximately 2.5% of MP. Still looking at a 3% difference in Delirium's favor.

Darkside's drain is unconfirmed and DA/Syphon are approximate-but-close-enough, but increasing the Darkside drain just makes Delirium better. Syphon needs to do about 80% more damage in order for them to be even.

Still need to scale for regen rate vs GCD.

[Niiro]

If Siphon Strike works like Riot Blade the MP recovery is the same regardless of max MP or damage.

[samalis]

Any change with Grit on or off? That's two for 50% of DA cost.

Also, I'm pretty sure I've got the number completely wrong for base MP regen per tick while in combat. Was using 60 but just remembered that's the TP number. .06*MaxMP looks way higher than it should be as well, though I'm probably just seriously underestimating the per-tick cost of Darkside. It's been a long time since I had to think about these numbers.

Same without grit, Niiro is probably right. Carve and spit is 884 as well but I rarely ever use it without DA.

[Ferien]

Sounds good. The numbers are approximately right, then, but I'm not taking into account sources of MP regen outside of Syphon Strike. Based on the numbers I ran, Syphon-only spikes above Delirium on the first and second DA+Souleaters, but then falls behind. That's 8 GCDs if you count from the decision point or 10 if you count from the last Souleater before you run out of MP. If you can regen enuogh MP that you only have to do two Syphon-Only combos before getting back into the swing of things (which should be reasonable given the CD on BP and BW, tougher if OT) then Syphon's better, otherwise Delirium is.

[kisada]

interesting analysis, thanks for that.

i did a bit of rough work myself yesterday. overall it was pretty close, but it seemed like delirium was better by just enough that you're better off just finishing it off. seems like similar results. i think C&S makes it a bit more complicated but i can't tell how just yet without actually having gotten there yet.

for the moment i'm just finishing with DL if i get the chance, but for the times i'm pretty empty right before a pack with no hope in sight i've been just going 2-hit to try and get myself out of a jam for future packs/pulls, which might end up being the only real application for just doing a pure syphon-ending combo.

[Niiro]

Also worth noting that trying to 2-step Siphon would be absolute murder on your TP anyway.

[Ferien]

Also worth noting that trying to 2-step Siphon would be absolute murder on your TP anyway.

Right, which is already a very real problem.

It should also be noted that it never really catches up, that it simply spikes whenever Souleater is used and is otherwise worse for every other move. There may be an ideal rotation given perfect ability and item usage but the potency difference is small enough that I'm just going to call it for Delirium.

[Avarice]

For those unaware, Dark Arts is bugged. If you activate Dark Arts then use an oGCD move (Carve & Spit or Dark Passenger), and at the same time spam a GCD that benefits from DA (such as Souleater), both gain the boost from the single use of Dark Arts. It might get patched in tonight's maintenance (I hope it doesn't).

[Seravi Edalborez]

Probably the animation on the former doesn't resolve fast enough. Working as unintended.

[Voyage1970]

Kinda like how pre-patch you could drop a Demolish on MNK when GL was just about to wear off but as long as you activated the WS before the timer went away you still kept GLIII. Pretty much just the same inconsistencies showing up with animations and when and where their skill effects actually happen. They changed MNKs WS shit (much to their chagrin) but DRK is getting the same "benefit" MNKs used to get.