DRK tier 2 merits

[Xrave]

35+43.33=78.33. You need ~2% Haste in gear now with SV'd marches and about ~10% Haste in gear with NQ marches.

However most of the pieces of haste gear already have the best HP on them as well making you not need as many DB merits in a zerg situation. The real benefit of DB is actually during non-SE times when you can take off the haste gear and use attack/STR/DA gear instead.

[Taisaijin]

dark seal is not that great due to the very high recast time

and spending more merits to lower it is not worth it

aim for muted soul and desperate blows definately

[RKenshin]

Even with the best gear and even with relic, you can always benefit from the extra acc of Diabolic Eye in just about any situation where you wouldn't cap accuracy while naked. If you don't think you can, then you're not doing it right.

I have just about the best gear and I'm still short of the cap for most normal situations, and frankly, I think too many people are waay too used to and happy with not being capped if it means they can do something more visually and noticeably effective (even though it often doesn't result in higher DoT) in its place. If you're at 90% acc, it does not mean you're fine, you're still 5% less effective than you can be. And guess what, by being 5% short of the cap, all that extra HQ gear and haste and buffs you have ends up 5% less effective, because you're flat out missing the hits from that gear 5% more of the time than you should be. Relic scythe and all HQ gear? Why get all that and hurt yourself by completely negating the extra damage you're doing per hit from all that awesome gear, by missing hits an extra 5% of the time?

And if you are already capped at 95% without DB in a situation, then odds are you could sacrifice accuracy in gear and add more to your damage (Ares instead of Adaman, Flame instead of Sniper, Turban instead of Ace's, etc).

In the end, the fact is though that a decked WAR usually sits at almost the same amount of accuracy as a DRK does, and you'd be a pretty odd WAR to not use Aggressor.

[Turambar]

In the end, the fact is though that a decked WAR usually sits at almost the same amount of accuracy as a DRK does, and you'd be a pretty odd WAR to not use Aggressor.

I nominate this for "best summary of the thread".

[Force-Attuned Krogoth]

It's all in how you play the job. I rarely spend a solid 30 seconds just attacking with no interruptions such as absorb-TP, guillo/spinnyslash, or the mob dying. Consequently, I place dark seal at higher priority than desperate blows. Though I do agree that, unless you're going pure zerg, the defensive abilities of drk make it hard to find a use for muted soul. When I get around to tier2 merits (need to finish dark magic first) I'll probably end up with 5/5 DE and DS.

Disclaimer: this is the opinion of someone who is more likely to be placed on thf than drk on zerg-worthy NMs.

[Khrno]

Well I just put my first 2 merit upgrades into DE (and took 2 MS down), I'm being influenced by the dark side (RK :D) to see for myself how is to be at 20 Acc more and 250 HP less ._.

[Alistaire]

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.

It should be -50 @ full, there was a thread titled something like "beyond -50 enmity" and had the theory that more -enmity had increasing returns, similar to haste beyond 50, but I think that was debunked.

[Nameless]

In my LS, I am never full in HP in raid. Most of the time I see myself sitting at 1100/1400. I think the mages in my ls don't really look at what your max HP is, they only see that I have 1100 and that should be enough. So in that case, popping a DE isn't going to hurt in term of HP. To me, it has no effect other than when I zerg, but I don't use DE when I zerg so it is irrelevant.

Having DE capped for a while now. One thing I must say, for some reason it doesn't seem to effect my ws accuracy and furthermore, it actually kinda make me miss more. I am not exactly sure why or perhaps they nerfed the one hit ws accuracy in the zeni NM patch. But I have been missing alot of Spinning slash lately, and it happened after I got heca cap to replace AF+1 helm (which is around that time). Not sure why, and I wonder if others feel the same way.

[Khrno]

Haven't had any issues with SS/GS, even w/o DE, but still nothing worth noticing. Maybe you have been on a string of unlucky misses.

[Turambar]

Where's the "delete post" option on this new forum, anyways?