Dark Magic Build (Worth it?)Follow

Yes. I would consider a good Dark Magic set just as important as a worthwhile TP set for DRK.

For Drain, Drain II, Aspir, and Absorb spells, they get progressively more potent and accurate with more Dark Magic Skill. A decent skill set will improve the chance of Absorb-TP working (though not the amount of TP you steal).

Stun is perhaps the only spell that does not necessarily need a pure skill set as it's so accurate anyway.

I think the main issue is balancing skill with a good amount of Haste to reduce recast timers, as these are huge for dark spells. Probably as a DRK you'd need to edge more towards skill because you won't have the luxury of using Dark/Pluto Staff for its accuracy (unless you're not DDing).

Dread Spikes is a little different. Your max HP modifies the amount you can drain back, so I cast that with a focus on HP and Haste.

A good rule of thumb (at least from a BLM's point of view): If you can't get skill in a gear slot, aim for Haste or magic accuracy. (Of course, this is up for debate. You may prefer to use Walahra Turban or AF helm; you may prefer Homam legs over relic legs, etc. It really depends on the spell and how tough your enemy is.)

Edited, Feb 6th 2010 1:41pm by Secretkeeper

Haste will not make you cast faster, it will only lower recast times. If you believe casting becomes a waste of time then you contradict your own advice as haste will only allow you to cast more.

Try to always prioritize skill first, this not only makes em more potent it also reduces resists. This means you get more effect (averaged) per cast which means less casting total or a better return for your time / MP. Haste is next after Skill / Mag.Acc gear.

I detest that I can't use absorb tp and drain(2) on colibri...they are so much better at it than I am @_@

That's a bit exaggerating, I don't use absorb tp too much, almost can say rarely, and I have no problem keeping up with SAM on ws usage. But I do see your point. It is all depended on situation and playing style, if you have alot of haste on you, it is best not to cast. I bet you the Drk that used absorb tp properly and got 94 WS out of it would have had 80 something WS without casting. You are comparing a bad player to a good player that's all. I am all about casting absorb tp, but I am not crazy enough to cast it everytime it is up.

Yeah, just a bit of a novelty, and hilarious if they mimic it onto one of your party members instead. I don't do colibri for these exact reasons.


I also figured out that other DRK was /NIN though too, seeing as he casted Utsusemi a few times. Having all the toys does not equate to skill or intelligence, it usually just means you can leech sh*t on RDM (which was what every pimped DRK on Bahamut did, usually with the results you see here). He was also using GS part of the time (Nagel, but not likely 6-hit on /NIN).

SAM1 was 4/5 Usukane and still outdamaged me severely just because of average WS damage.

You failed to guess that the DRK with 94 WS was yours truly.

But before you discount using Absorb-TP as often as possible, this was a snail's pace of using Absorb-TP. Just 35 castings in 150 minutes, or averaging more than four minutes between each. Its easy to see it in KParser though:

Player               # Melee Hits   # Retal.   # WSkills   Min Hits   Max Hits   A.Mean   H.Mean   Median   Mode 
Raelia                        314         0           94          1          7     3.34     2.53        3      2

Yes, I averaged 3 swings per WS. 314 melee swings is 5200 TP, 52 WS account for an extra 863 TP, (You can recurse this further even, eight more WS is 132 more TP, etc). You can attribute about 60 WS to melee alone. 40 meditates is 2400 TP, 24 WS. Theres your 80 WS guess. This leaves, at minimum, ten WS attributed to Absorb-TP, not counting overages, over-meditating, etc.

Thats still no less than 10% of my total WS damage from Absorb-TP. I broke over 50/50 WS:Melee ratio as I tend to, so thats a 5% damage increase from a 2-second casting time spell used 35 times, not even close to riding the timer, nor did I do so well with Meditate (3.75 minute average).

I'm very picky and deliberate with my Absorb-TP usage. I rarely bolo more than one in ten. 30 good applications for 60-90 TP in this 150 minute timeframe is a little underpaced for me actually, compared to how I use it in Campaign.

But thats only a 28tp average return, which I would consider crap. On the high end, I could have had 30 WS from Absorb-TP (eyeballing, this is much more the case), averaging 85% return.

That parse was months ago. Heres a more recent one in Dyna:Jeuno, with very liberal usage and getting a Haste belt (lolHeadlong) since:

Player               # Melee Hits   # Retal.   # WSkills   Min Hits   Max Hits   A.Mean   H.Mean   Median   Mode 
Raelia                        136         0           51          0          7     2.67     2.26        2      2

22 from melee, ~25 with the extra WS hits in.
24 meditates, 14 WS.
This leaves 12 from Absorb-TP, meaning an average 50tp return with 24 castings and 23% of my WS damage.

If I averaged closer to a 50tp return in the first example, thats at least 17/94 WS that were from Absorb-TP, 18% of WS damage.

You can't dispute that a DRK/SAM WSing as often as a merited SAM main doesn't do anything for them. I was comparing the extremes really - maximum gear versus maximum casting.

As Haste goes up, your recast on Absorb-TP is only going to go down (Meditate sure as hell doesn't get this advantage). As long as you're in a multiple-mobs situation (Dynamis, Meriting, Nyzul.. anything but bosses/hnm), killing mobs faster is only going to present more opportunities for usage per what methods I storied out in my guide. Even at 50% haste, one swing is still over four seconds (casting time with Hasso/Seigan up) with a 501 scythe. As long as you have more than 16.6TP returned (and preferably greater than multiples of 16.6tp), you haven't lost anything but MP, and even doing less than 30tp absorbed (bare minimum to shave two hits after a full return Guillo) is hard with good methods. I almost never see less than 30 unless its a 0-10tp return because a mob decided to instacast Warcry or something.

Thats how Absorb-TP appeals to me: Its like a castable 0- to 2-hit build. It gets me WSing on mobs that I'd otherwise just be swinging away at because they're dead before I break 80%.

We are waaaay off topic here. Someday you guys will learn to shut the @#%^ up and trust me, or you get sh*t like this.

OP: Yes, you want a dark magic build. The only targets you have are 291 for Bio II 8/tick tier, and 'MOAR!' for Drain/II/Aspir. Use it for anything that uses Dark Magic Skill at all for always better or more consistent results.

Edited, Feb 7th 2010 11:50am by Raelix

Actually I think the real problem is getting too much return more often than too little. I have screenshots of 109-110 return ATPs at MJSP, meaning 130+tp and nothing good to do with it, and an extra swing will sneak in too. Just feels wasteful.

33mp every 1-3 minutes isn't too obscene. Thats about my peak rate.

Spamming the spell isn't the idea. A lot of the 'not worth casting' opinion can be attributed to sucking at casting the spell with good judgement.

No amount of haste is going to get you 70+tp in four seconds.


My Last Resort is up every 'next mob' after the recast is up, with prudent planning of Dread Spikes and Hasso to go with it (Dropping Seigan to cast Dread Spikes is important to keep the recast in check for this integration if you want to use it between Last Resorts too).

I don't use Diabolic Eye half as often as I might need it, its on a 15 minute timer with one merit still, but I average ~20 minutes between uses at MJSP in two different parties.

I'm even more lax with Souleater, usually because my parties are already too much strain on one WHM. I used it just three times in my party with Sara, because it was nigh 3am for everyone. I had two whole uses in either of those Dynamis parses above too. Probably an old habit about not using it that can drop dead.

Silly KParser, saying my minimum Meditate interval was 2:60. Confused the hell out of me.

Edited, Feb 7th 2010 1:32pm by Raelix

Alright, I'll spin it this way just for Aru's 'lost hits' argument, because I thought of this during a nap too.

If I had 66% haste (Full magical non-LR with my crap), every swing would be 2.99 seconds.

I run pretty basic in Dynamis if The Girl isn't with me, usually with just my 13% gear haste, hilarious I know. 7.65 sec swings.

If I consider the second parse, 24 castings for 12 WS, and never taking Hasso/Seigan down to cast, is 72 'wasted' seconds of melee time.

72 seconds at 13% haste is 9 swings

72 seconds at 66% haste is 24 swings.

I averaged 96 melee damage.

864 damage, or 2304 damage, take your pick

Even capped 80% haste is just(lol) 40 swings for 3840 damage.

vs. 23% of my WS damage: 5627 damage. Could estimate the other way too, 509 average Guillotine 12 times is 6108 damage. I think this is just going to make me cast Absorb-TP even more aggressively.

"DoT is the bigger portion of your damage" is misleading at worst and facetious at best, especially from you Aru. Might be true with Apoc, but it should be every other DRK's goal to push their weaponskills as hard and fast as possible when /SAM. If DoT was that important, we wouldn't be wasting those precious seconds putting up Meditate, Seigan, or Third Eye either. I can even show you parses with far fewer Absorb-TPs cast where I dropped to a, personally considered, horrendous 45% WS damage. 50/50 is a good easy target for a 6-hit build, timely Meditate use, and a proper WS set.

Edited, Feb 7th 2010 8:04pm by Raelix

Some of us have very limited play time and can't really pick a shell so much as find one that will put up with their schedule.

This isn't directed at me but I'll answer anyway.

I abuse the sh*t out of my Souleater (and LR is pretty much used on the timer). I play DRK so rarely that I just like to have fun when I do... and fun involves liberal usage of said ability. :D Of course I only do it when I have a bunch of bored mages though. Sometimes with WHM's, especially if its a friend, I let them know I'm about to drop X amount of HP and can work out a little insta-cure V after a SE+Guilly. Followed by meditate and another SE+Guilly/cureV. Then an ABS-TP, couple swings, for a third >:D

When I can do this, is when I use DRK ^ So deliciously powerful.

Damnit now I want to drag the DRK out again. Gotta find some event where I'll be allowed too!

ALSO FIX MY INTERNET GRRR D:<

I just want to say you're amazing Kin.

you're the man ~

Let's have some fun with this:
35 Absorb-TPs @ 3 sec
17 Drains @ 4.5 sec
19 Drain IIs @ 4.5 sec

Total: 352.5 seconds of 'wasted' time casting.

Theres no easy way to estimate total engaged time since so many fights overlap in Dynamis. I received Haste a measly five times and used Last Resort a lethargic ten times (Silly reason: I was tanking as often as the main assist already, opting to hit it pre-fight instead). At most thats twenty minutes out of three hours that I had 15% haste on top of my 14% in gear, or 11% @ +29 haste.

15.65% average haste. 7.42 sec/swing. 47.5 swings. 132 damage average (114 damage corrected for accuracy).

6270 damage (5454 with 87% acc, consider PD mobs) and 798 tp.

versus

10490 damage (from spells alone) and 1791 tp.

With 66% haste? 117.9 swings. Its too bad Haste doesn't halve the casting times.

15562 damage and 1980 tp.

This argument for not casting at high haste does hold some water, but at the same time, with reduced recasts, you could cast Absorb-TP and Drains twice as often at best or at the very least expect more of them. I can also contest that my Absorb-TP methods ready me a Weaponskill at the best possible time to use it; earlier in the fight when theres still something to hit with it, rather than being a crapshoot for when or if you'll get that sixth hit on a given mob.

I don't even cancel Seigan for casting, yet, but I'm currently working up a complex Spellcast+Cancel rule that will kill Seigan for casting any time its recast is under 15 seconds, and instead of using Seigan whenever Third Eye is invoked to instead save casting it only for when Seigan is down and needed.

Other funzies: Single 'intelligent' macros for Single-hit and Multihit-WS based on what weapon I have equipped, so I don't have to change macros between Scythe and GS, Ctrl+3 will simply mean "Spiral Hell or Spinning Slash" and Ctrl+4 is "Guillotine if Scythe or Vorpal Blade when farming with sword".

This is why I play Dark Knight. It is far more technical and skill-oriented than any other straight melee job.

Edited, Feb 22nd 2010 12:08pm by Raelix

Nah, all programmed in C# in Spellcast .xml files. Does all that sh*t (WS gear, double swaps on casting) automatically. Where have you bee-... orite Afghanistan :3

G15s are for scrubs, and can't read data from the game to pull off the same sh*t Spellcast does, lolhax.

Edited, Feb 22nd 2010 4:44pm by Raelix

i've never messed with keybinding. the rest of it's easy once you get spellcast down.