Advice needed for new DRKFollow

Hey guys I'm coming back to the game and always played a PLD. This time a buddy of mine has decided to be a tank and I'm going to go the DD route, so I've decided to be a DRK, that along with another friend who will be a WHM, so we will be 3 manning a lot of stuff

Anyways, it seems like I see a lot of DRK hate and I'm sure if played correctly DRK's can be just as competitive as anything else.

I looked over the stickies but all the posts seem so old so I'm not sure how relevant anything is anymore, so I have a few questions...

First of all what subs do I need? I'd assume /war, /nin, /sam but do I need caster subs as well?

How important are our nukes/debuffs? Should I use those or just concentrate on melee.

Any info would be appreciated, thanks a lot.

Arguable, the only subjob you need is /SAM, but I'd expect any melee to also have /NIN and /WAR leveled as well.

Number one priority for any melee job is to skill up every weapon their job can use. For DRK, you'll want sword, club, great sword, and scythe for sure. Great axe and axe are also useful, but should be done after the others. The only magic skill that's important is Dark Magic. Enfeebling is nice to have for landing sleep, but the skill is too low and DRK has other duties to focus on, so it's an optional skill.

As far as how DRK ranks in terms of usefulness, it's actually towards the top only because it has so many useful weapon skills. The job is seriously lacking in damage inside of Abyssea as it is just slightly behind WHM. Fortunately, damage output is not really the measure of DDs in Abyssea these days. The perfect DD jobs in Abyssea are WAR, MNK, and NIN as they'll deal a lot more damage and cover more weapon skills.

Spectral Jig always causes more problems than it prevents. Always.

It's ridiculously short duration has forced me to kill my way through thousands of mobs that idiots picked up because their sneak/invis wore in the center of everything. Unless I know the person and the extent of their skills, I never let anyone use spectral jig when I'm with them any more.

Spectral Jigs usefulness and reliability is directly proportional to the intelligence and focus of the person using it. I've never had a problem reapplying it in the middle of a pack of mobs that aggro.

If you don't trust it, don't use it. I always have a stack or so of oils and powders anyway for whem I'm not /DNC, but especially when in the WotG areas where you just want to get to Windhurst and the only Maw you have is Battalia Downs...Spectral Jig is amazing.

DRK has always had very situational subs. No subjob has been discussed in this thread that is useful in more than 1% of the entire game other than /SAM to the average DRK.* Using /SAM offers more traits that other subs cannot compete with for the majority of situations than just an x-hit build.


Also, DNC doesn't count for my statement. I agree it should be mentioned, but its usefulness is not DRK specific.

*It is possible someone has made that 1% their 90%

Hit things with the pointy end.

And finally, use the sharpened edge to slit open your wris-... wait, mustnotenforcestereotype, mustnotenforcestereotype.

Cut my steak into pieces, this is my plastic fork...

Cut my cake into pieces, this is my Raspberry Torte.