Dark Knight merit party thoughts

[Ceiyne]

I'd like to get some thoughts on things that would be helpful for a DRK75 to perform better in merit parties. It's unlikely I'll go to gods/HNMs/etc. with my DRK as my other jobs are usually more in demand in those situations (plus I don't have a KC yet!).

Things like...

Merits: What Group 1 and 2 merits do people find have worked best?

Gear: I have Hauberk, Hecatomb Harness, and Homam Corazza to choose from. I'm not likely to get an Adaberk any time soon. I feel like my best damage comes from meleeing in Hauberk or Corazza and WSing in Heca (usually Scythe/Guillotine). Any suggestions here?

If it matters, I usually sub SAM. I can go /WAR but then I pull even more hate and have no protection. I can go /NIN but then I give up all of the boosts I get from /WAR or /SAM. So /SAM seems like a good middle ground.

[Ichthyos]

Not really what you asked, but if you team up with a good NIN and THF, you can /WAR and go all out.

[Eaglestrike]

Not really what you asked, but if you team up with a good NIN and THF, you can /WAR and go all out.

Or find a DD pld and he can DD as well as heal the DRK

[RKenshin]

Or just use a PL!

And for merits, IMO it's best to go with the following:

Group 1
Souleater Recast x5
Last Resort Effect x5

Group 2:
Muted Soul x3
Diabolic Eye x2
Dark Seal x1

Although, honestly Muted Soul isn't all too helpful when you're doing massive damage in the first place. Not much of anything else that's really good anyway though.

[Fng]

merit parties are not about doing the best damage, its about mitigating damage so the mages are able to keep haste, dia and dispel working.

The question is, If you could chain infinitely with /pup would you choose /pup as your sub?

Edit: Or doing enough damage that the monster can't live long enough to do anything substantial to you.. (wafik's 2 Relic burn parties w/ MNK and THF)

[Bagel]

The question is, If you could chain infinitely with /pup would you choose /pup as your sub?

Is this... some sort of trick question?

[Onizuka]

Pt'ed with a drk/thf that out DD'ed everybody lolz, hauby+1 everything else homon and turban for head, death scythe+1, guilo spam, was pretty cool to see a drk pwn war and mnk obviously they weren't pimp but none the less he did a good 700-1k guilo and 1400-1700 with SE. Only drks I've seen work in merit where mostly drk/sams third eye hasso med, plus with ab-tp/dread spikes/drainI/II. You can be a monster.

[Loren]

I think the DRK job is overall better suited to bringing down large prey in a controlled fashion as opposed to pure DoT meat grinding, which is why merit parties seem awkward at times.

My best experiences with a DRK have been in Troll parties with a two tanks who stand opposite each other for old fashioned SATA. This was a semi-static with me as THF/WAR and a DRK friend who had /THF but not /SAM available at the time. I know this flies in the face of merit party strategy, but he was using Martial Blade -> 100 TP -> Absorb -> SATA G.Strike at 200 TP for 2k+ damage every time. If he used it after Shark or Ku, it would cause a SC for an additional 1500-2000 damage. We'd get into patterns where NIN and WAR would WS to kill a squishy troll, then me and DRK would SC to kill a PLD or overbuffed RDM troll.

On the other hand, if you're in a more typical "Utsu burn" with a single RDM as the only caster, please put away the Souleater. ><; Or at least limit to once per 10 minutes when Convert is up so he can use the remaining stash of MP to cure you without forcing him to rest afterward.

[BRP]

RK, has Muted Soul ever helped you in situations when you use Soul Eater without a WS? Like normal melee hits(no not Kraken ). (Not that I see a DRK doing this often enough to matter...)

[Ceiyne]

I think I'm sorta with Loren on Souleater... I tend to avoid using it in merit parties. While it's fun to see the big numbers I don't like to suck up too much MP. XD

From the comments on merits so far it sounds like I'm mostly down the right path. I have 2 Diabolic Eye, 4 or 5 Last Resort Effect (at work now and can't remember), and at least 1 Muted Soul.

[Septimus]

On the other hand, if you're in a more typical "Utsu burn" with a single RDM as the only caster, please put away the Souleater. ><; Or at least limit to once per 10 minutes when Convert is up so he can use the remaining stash of MP to cure you without forcing him to rest afterward.

No, use the Souleater, just don't expect to get healed. Or raised. That is the most obnoxious thing ever when there is only one healer in the party.

[Tulun]

I rarely, if ever, use Souleater in exp/merit parties. You pull out huge numbers, sure (esspecially /war and double attack a Guillotine), but it's about sustaining MP for constant pulling. Depending on your set up, you might be able to do it sometimes, but I usually only do it for fun, or trying to slaughter something like a Mamool Ja Thief mob quickly.

I personally use drk/nin or drk/war most of the time when exping, but your sub will again heavily depend on your set up and where you exp. I've found I can get away with drk/war in spots like Azouph Isle, because of how fast the mobs should be dying, even if you take hate, the mob will be dead moments later anyway.

There really isn't an ideal sub I'd say for DRK, you have to be flexible for your target exp zone and set up. I'm not a fan of /sam, but mainly because I think that the other subs are giving for more bang for your buck. (this is just my opinion )

DRK specific merits, actually, don't really seem to be a huge help for meriting. Last Resort re-cast and effect seem to be the most you could twink out for meriting, but I'd just do effect + souleater timer myself. Category 2, the best is Muted Soul, but you shouldn't really be using Souleater in merits >.>. You'll still likely take hate anyway even with -30 emnity.

What it comes down too is that we aren't war's; we aren't going to burn as fast as a good WAR can, but we can do well and suit the party in different ways. On Colibri recently, I subbed /thf to TA Guillotine our tank, to lessen the likeliness of food being stolen from other DD. That sort of thing can really help an exp party along.

[Sess]

On the other hand, if you're in a more typical "Utsu burn" with a single RDM as the only caster, please put away the Souleater. ><; Or at least limit to once per 10 minutes when Convert is up so he can use the remaining stash of MP to cure you without forcing him to rest afterward.

No, use the Souleater, just don't expect to get healed. Or raised. That is the most obnoxious thing ever when there is only one healer in the party.

Ever since Drain II update this really hasn't been as big an issue. I get about 1650 - 1700 Max HP on your average exp mob. Then with Souleater go down to 900 after Guillotine. Plus you can always use Drain I and save your healer some MP (although their first reflex is to mana dump on you because with 1700 max HP your at orange HP around 900)

[hexagram23]

No, use the Souleater, just don't expect to get healed. Or raised. That is the most obnoxious thing ever when there is only one healer in the party.

If using Souleater once every 5 minutes is a huge hassle for a mage, the mage probably sucks anyway. Not that I would use it every single time it's up but a healer is going to heal and raise or they get the boot. People act like mages can't be replaced in a party.

[hexagram23]

Oh and one more thing.

It's been a year or two since I've seen an EXP Chain die because someone ran out of MP, so that's a poor excuse.

9 times out of 10 you can't chain because you either run out of mobs because the area is over camped, or the puller isn't doing his job. MP (or a lack thereof) is irrelevant in those scenarios.

[Loren]

I sympathize with DRKs because Souleater really is strong, it's just sooooo high maintenance.

I think it actually works better as a DoT ability than a WS enhancer. Activating it is a hate spike, then delivering a 1500+ WS that takes half your HP results in an insurmountable hate spike plus a healer heart attack. If I'm midcast on something else, you're liable to get Firespitted to death before I can target you.

On the other hand, if you activate Souleater before engaging the mob, you get no hate for activating it, and can enjoy 7-8 enhanced swings that deal more damage overall. It still taxes MP but is less likely to result in a wtf death.

[Septimus]

No, use the Souleater, just don't expect to get healed. Or raised. That is the most obnoxious thing ever when there is only one healer in the party.

If using Souleater once every 5 minutes is a huge hassle for a mage, the mage probably sucks anyway. Not that I would use it every single time it's up but a healer is going to heal and raise or they get the boot. People act like mages can't be replaced in a party.

If you are the ONLY healer in the party and the BRD is constantly pulling and therefor skipping Ballad 50% or more of the time, you don't have MP to waste on someone's e-peen. Period.

Burn parties get a lot of XP because people cooperate and do things for the good of the team instead of their own numbers. Monk/Warrior puts out higher numbers than Monk/Ninja, but they sub Ninja because otherwise they are gigantic black holes from which no MP will ever escape If someone decides that his/her big numbers are more important than maintaining chain, that person is the replaceable one.

[Therin]

If you've got a good healer you can easily leave Souleater up for the entire duration.

I only have two jobs, PLD and DRK, and I merit on both of them about an equal amount. Most of the time I bring linkshell RDM/WHMs to heal, and I never, ever cancel Souleater (I use it in conjunction with Seigan to mitigate damage).

Even leaving Souleater up, I've gone hours without the RDM ever needing to Convert. It's simply a matter of putting it up, anticipating attacks, taking a few Cures, dealing your damage and then draining most of your HP back after Souleater wears off. Perfect for speed-chaining 20k+/hour parties.

This is the way one of my RDM/WHM friends I merit with a lot looks at it: As a healer, you can't really do any damage in merits. You can, however, Cure the DRK while he leaves Souleater up. And by curing him, you're letting him do more damage.

If you've got three DDs with shadows who take virtually no damage (or even better, a PLD/NIN who can practically mainheal anyway), you will never need to convert unless you're fighting stupid shit that spams AoE or maybe Skoffins.

So yeah, if you've got a good RDM/WHM healer there's no need to cancel it (never use it in conjunction with Last Resort though, unless you RDM has a metric asston of MP and is ready to keep you alive). With WHM mainhealers or pick-up mainhealers you probably will have to refrain from using Souleater so much, but who brings either of those to merit these days, anyway?

On the other hand, if you activate Souleater before engaging the mob, you get no hate for activating it, and can enjoy 7-8 enhanced swings that deal more damage overall. It still taxes MP but is less likely to result in a wtf death.

This is very, very true. I'm primarily a great sword DRK so I can afford to WS with it and not kill half of my own HP, but normally when I use Souleater I use it before the fight begins so that it doesn't pull any hate, and then WS and leave it up for the duration while I continue to swing. Either that or I activate it when the mob is almost dead and another mob is already at camp, so I can put it up, WS, swing once or twice to finish it off and then just switch to the next mob quickly and get to work on that one.

[Tordall]

If you have 2 healers then you can use souleater. If you've got one healer and a bard/nin puller, then stay away from souleater.

Unfortunately for dark knight, even being able to keep souleater up isn't enough to put a dark knight at twice the damage of any other melee, and it's certainly not enough to let you keep a chain during the 4 minutes that you don't have it up.

The 'best' dark knights that I've merited with aren't the ones that have put up the biggest numbers, but are the ones that were able to help out with 'mob control.' E.g. stunning appropriately, sleep II over the bard's lullabies so the bard can start pulling again, etc.

As I've yet to see a dark knight outdamage a well geared ninja, war, or monk (including aberk/homom/ridill drks), so go with /war, /drg, or /sam for extra damage. If you're drk/nin you're damage output will suck anyway so you won't have to worry about shadows. That may change if I ever see a compelted apocolipse in an xp party.

[cassiraa]

No, use the Souleater, just don't expect to get healed. Or raised. That is the most obnoxious thing ever when there is only one healer in the party.

If using Souleater once every 5 minutes is a huge hassle for a mage, the mage probably sucks anyway. Not that I would use it every single time it's up but a healer is going to heal and raise or they get the boot. People act like mages can't be replaced in a party.

Die in a fire.


I guess you should sub WAR instead of SAM or NIN because you want to eke that little more damage out instead of making the party on a whole run smoother?