DRK tier 2 merits

[Khrno]

wut?

I said: "it pails in comparison to having the acc boost up for 20% more of the time"

As in, going from a 7:30 recast to a 5:00 recast, will increase the amount of time the ability is up from 40% of the time to 60% of the time. Or, a 20% increase in the time it can be up.

Not a 20% boost in total accuracy. <.< How would merits even effect the boost in accuracy? lol

Oh sorry, I missread that, I thought you were saying the Acc boost was 20%, somehow didn't read the time part ; ;

Wasn't talking about merits affecting the acc rating tho, just the total amount being either 1 or 5 merits, so sorry for the misunderstanding.

Anyway the rest of my post is just my personal opinion based on experience and LS ciscumstances :D

[RKenshin]

It's no problem, figured it was just a misread. :D

At least you didn't mix up your pails.

[Khrno]

I didn't know by definition what a pail was (didn't understand the 'buckets' joke, blame it on my spanish :D), so I googled it and this came out:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...a_adambomb.jpg

Ah remembers of the chilhood.

[kayn]

Seconded, almost... I actually think that it should be 5/5 DE, and 5/4 DB.

5/5 DE is basically your own meritable form of Aggressor, which is an amazing ability to have regardless of what you use DRK for.

4/5 DB is perfectly fine as it is too. It's not hard to get the extra haste to bring you to the cap, and with it only active for 30 seconds every 5 minutes (or at best, every 4:10), it pails in comparison to having the acc boost up for 20% more of the time. Regardless of what you use DRK for.

It's actually 4% needed, don't forget about the 1024 scale.

Once again I fail at read > comprehend > post.
I thought he'd put the focus on DE not DB.
I agree w/ RK.
4/5 DB should get you to the haste cap w/ a decent merpo.
DB's effect degrades extremely fast w/ fewer merits.

[Khrno]

4/5 DB should get you to the haste cap w/ a decent merpo.

Final Fantasy is not only about meriting, remember that. And most people level either WAR or BRD as merit job not DRK for that matter, so you have to think on everything you do, all the available resources and support you will have on most ocations before saying that 4/5 DB is best just because that's how you cap in a merit party.

[kayn]

Final Fantasy is not only about meriting, remember that. And most people level either WAR or BRD as merit job not DRK for that matter, so you have to think on everything you do, all the available resources and support you will have on most ocations before saying that 4/5 DB is best just because that's how you cap in a merit party.

I won't disagree with that but my personal view is to maximize my performance.
So I merit for the optimal situations. Maybe because I do have those "optimal" setups available to me I'm spoiled. But in those situations I'm going to have the advantage over people who don't have those merits.

[Khrno]

Well that's pretty cool, I wish everytime I went to Aerys, Sea, Limbus, Salvage, etc, I had 2 BRDs in my party ._.

[kayn]

Every time I'm in one of those places I'm on PLD or BRD so it's not too big of an issue.

[Khrno]

Yea I know, PLDs get all the love /sulk

[Meat]

i did 5\5 db in the hopes that this supposed "relic boost" greater than 80% haste cap for apoc owners.

Depending on jse i'd still do 5\5 db for zerg

[Mojo]

Final Fantasy is not only about meriting, remember that. And most people level either WAR or BRD as merit job not DRK for that matter, so you have to think on everything you do, all the available resources and support you will have on most ocations before saying that 4/5 DB is best just because that's how you cap in a merit party.

Even without two bards in your party or max Haste or whatever, the Diabolic Eye merits are still going to be better than the additional Haste that last Desperate Blows merit offer. Accuracy is even more important on HNM and other such events. The only possible situation where it would be better to have 5/5 Desperate Blows is if the only thing you ever did with your DRK is zerg.

[Not Kuno]

I'm happy with my Muted Soul/Desperate Blow merits. I never have that bad of an acc problem where I'd want to drop either of those merits just for a bit more accuracy. It's good for zerging and normal drk use.

[Max™]

I didn't know by definition what a pail was (didn't understand the 'buckets' joke, blame it on my spanish :D), so I googled it and this came out:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...a_adambomb.jpg

Ah remembers of the chilhood.

It buckets in comparison.

This makes me smile.

[Sekkite]

Aside from HNMs, where do those of you supporting Diabolic Eye need the accuracy for if you have good gear? Aside from a few mamool jas, I've not heard of anything supporting meriting to 5/5 it other then it's great to have because it is a meritable aggressor for DRK, which is circular logic.

[kayn]

Yesterday I did a merit party at the mamool staging point (south camp) w/ a brd, a cor, a rdm, 2x mnks. I was on drk/sam.
buffs were haste, 2x march, hunter's roll and chaos roll. My acc was excellent on coreal subs.
My gear was what some would not call optimal.
perdue scythe, pole strap, bomb core (someday to be replaced w/ bomblet)
ace's, chiv chain, brutal/ethereal
askar, homam hands, sniper's, ulthemea (how ever you spell it)
abyss cape, swift, homam legs/feet.

What 5/5 DE will do is allow my pt to do away w/ +acc buffs such as hunter's roll or madrigal. 3 minutes of DE, 1 min of abs-acc will give me 1 min every 5 w/out an acc boost. I can eat meat, I get to have dbl attack on a body piece instead of acc and I get buffs w/ a dmg focus instead of acc.

While the reality is that other jobs may require the acc buff, I won't. So at the very least I get to :3

[Khrno]

The only possible situation where it would be better to have 5/5 Desperate Blows is if the only thing you ever did with your DRK is zerg.

If that the only thing someone does as DRK, that person must likely has a 1-handed weapon (KC, MK, Ridill), thus taking me back to my point once again but this time not for survibality but just for pure damage purporses, 20 Acc more at the cost of 200+/- HP?

If you are zerging something with a job that you only use at that moment of the week, most likely is that you will have SV songs on and Feint, I can only see the use of mini zergs in JoL not having SV songs?

Those 20 Acc do not justify the lost of so much HP if you have near best gear, if you don't I see how it can be way more usefull than MS. But when you are over 80% with Sushi on HNMs.

Talking about Mamool merits, a parser from monday, I had 90% Acc, granted the second brd was doing Madrigals everytime there was a Lurker and that's only like 10-15% of the time at that camp? But he would do Minuets rigth after, I was on meat, am I still in need of a 5/5 DE?

Just to round up my opinion is, if you have the best gear and the merits (Scythe) there is no need to get DE, If you don't have best gear, or maybe do but don;t have Scythe merits, then go ahead and get it 5/5, otherwise a MS/DS combo, or just MS will be a better choice.

[Mojo]

If that the only thing someone does as DRK, that person must likely has a 1-handed weapon (KC, MK, Ridill), thus taking me back to my point once again but this time not for survibality but just for pure damage purporses, 20 Acc more at the cost of 200+/- HP?

If you are zerging something with a job that you only use at that moment of the week, most likely is that you will have SV songs on and Feint, I can only see the use of mini zergs in JoL not having SV songs?

Those 20 Acc do not justify the lost of so much HP if you have near best gear, if you don't I see how it can be way more usefull than MS. But when you are over 80% with Sushi on HNMs.

Talking about Mamool merits, a parser from monday, I had 90% Acc, granted the second brd was doing Madrigals everytime there was a Lurker and that's only like 10-15% of the time at that camp? But he would do Minuets rigth after, I was on meat, am I still in need of a 5/5 DE?

Just to round up my opinion is, if you have the best gear and the merits (Scythe) there is no need to get DE, If you don't have best gear, or maybe do but don;t have Scythe merits, then go ahead and get it 5/5, otherwise a MS/DS combo, or just MS will be a better choice.

If someone only used their DRK for zerging, that doesn't guarantee that they'll be using a 1-handed weapon. I also stated clearly that Diabolic Eye would be foolish to use for a zerg in any situation, I don't really see what you're trying to get at by bringing that up.

Also, having the best gear available does not unseat Diabolic Eye from being the better choice. The 5 minute recast timer works out perfectly for EXP. It's always going to be up for the mobs that you need it for. Beyond that, there are situations where no matter what gear you have, your accuracy will not be capped naturally. In those cases(which there are many of), the gains from putting that last merit into Diabolic Eye is simply going to eclipse those from Desperate Blows.

Hell, if you want to think in terms of maxed gear, you might as well think in terms of maxed buffs. 10% from Hasso, 25% from equipment(Catastrophe!), 15% from Haste, 20% from Marches(We'll compromise and say no Soul Voice), and 20% from Desperate Blows. This exceeds the current Haste cap by 10%, making that final Desperate Blows completely unnecessary.

[Fryte]

For those who say Muted Soul is worth upgrading, what situations does this come in handy? Hate-clearing NMs are the only instances I can think of. On merit mobs if you Souleater, no amount of -enmity is going to save you from the 1700 Guillotine you just did, assuming of course, the monster didn't explode into tiny bits after its face was ripped off with your scythe. Also, where do you find mages that let you use Souleater? All of mine vow to stop healing me if I use it. Only time I don't hear complaints about Souleater is when I pop it for the extra Accuracy from the JSE (and extra DMG obviously) to push down some annoying ultra-evasive monster and even then, I usually have Dread Spikes up and am trying to pull hate to pull the free 600-800 damage out of it. Shame it doesn't show on the parser.

As for why Diabolic Eye, I use Ares' Cuirass full-time on DRK. The refresh (and sanction refresh) are barely enough to sustain my MP casting Dread Spikes every time recast is up. Sometimes especially at Mamools, my accuracy leaves something to be desired. (It's still like 88-90%, but I COULD HAVE MORE.) Of course, I never got into the habit of casting Absorb-Acc. It never really seemed worth the delay unless something needed to be pulled because our tank was asleep or not targetting fast enough. So +20 accuracy for 3min for "free" seems like a good deal, plus it can be a nice boon for those fucking thief mobs.

As for the -hp from Diabolic Eye, I could care less. It's always been a bit of a playstyle of mine to play the classes/jobs with the least HP and the most magic. As a taru, diabolic eye puts me under 1k hp, but that's where the fun begins and I never really had any HP to begin with. Firespit followed by Rushing Drub killed me before Diabolic Eye and it'll kill me after.

Of course, I use my DRK mostly for merits, Salvage, and random stuff where mages are unwanted. I don't ever get to use it on big NMs where spikes of damage from Souleater'd WS's would add up enough to pull hate from the PLDs tanking (this of course, the only thing I can see Muted Soul being useful for.)

Also, if you don't need the Accuracy from DE, you can take off Abyss Cape and plaster on an Amemet/Forager's or switch from fire bomblet to bomb core or whatever other combination and get more ATK instead and make use of DE that way.

[Kaeko]

If you assume full MS merits is -50 enmity during Souleater, it might be pretty useful in some cases. Full LVL5 Dirge is -21 enmity. Just stack those 2 and you're getting basically 25% of what you'd normally get.

I'm not saying its useful to merit but could be something to look into? - enmity stacking gives you increasing returns when you near the -100 mark, so -50 enmity isn't all too useful when you're doing 2000+ damage shots, but continuing to stack it can lead to some pretty nice results. Add Dirge and maybe sub in Novia earring or something and you can get nearly 1/5th hate. Add in -4 merits if you happen to use -enmity merits and it's like 1/6th. Starts to really give good returns.

Also, I don't really know if MS at full 5 merits is -50. I'm just assuming it's at least 50, no clue what the first level gives because it's nearly impossible to find a DRK with MS merited.

[Tulun]

I'm currently 5/5 DE, 1 Drain II Seal, 1 DB, 3 MS (I regret meriting this, I never jumped on the Rune chopper band wagon as well). I'd likely switch over to 4/5 DB, whenever I get around to getting another 19 merits.

Diabolic Eye is the shit, hands down. I've sworn off sushi completely and my acc is still awesome. I find the lower hp is generally irrelevant or simply requires your mages to be just a bit more on the ball(which on Mamools should be automatic anyway... Fire spit and a crit hit following could do 1200+ dmg).

Hell, with souleater, Absorb acc and DE, you can never be without some sort of accuracy bonus... That is just awesome.