(Don't) Fear The Reaper: A Dark Knight Guide

From my experience Liberator is way better than Anguta. You get tp almost instantly and spamming ws or sc is more fun. When LR goes down on Anguta or Rag it really slows you down. With Lib it's no big deal.

Ya I never struggle when solo with trust to do 3-4 steps with any weapon really (capped haste is capped), and anguta ends with 99k umbras quite often, many fights it died on the 3rd step since the darkness can do easily 60k+ with anguta.

This is not to say liberator is "bad" its to say liberator is a great weapon for pre fight buffing, then you swap to a real DD weapon like anguta if you must use a scythe. Heck an AH scythe is even better dps wise.... so kinda not worth getting lib UNLESS you are a drk fanatic who wants to catch em all! Or does a lot of pre fight buffing.

I have a lot of fun with Liberator, but always tend to fall back on Anguta. The TP phase appear to be just as fast. (Maybe because I 5 hit Lib and 4 hit Anguta?)

Liberator looks better. So use Anguta--But lockstyle it as a Liberator.

One very cool thing with anguta also is a 3 hit setup is fairly easy to obtain, your not doing that on Lib w/o big sacrifices.

Liberator is a fun toy nothing more, I’d take anguta everyday of the week over it, which hurts.

I'm still gonna get lib at some point but anguta I feel is gonna be superior for dd and apoc for survival if you're using a scythe

I was a drk way back when and ive just come back last month i'm just about to finish AGing my Apoc and ive been looking around at 4 hit TP builds. Now I've seen posts that say it's STP+72 that's needed and some that say +82 so which one should I be aiming for without sam's roll but /sam?

It depends on the TP you get back from your WS.
I get about ~180 back from Cata and ~190 from CR when using Apoc. So I'd need +78 (as /SAM) to get TP back with 3 hits.

can anyone tell me about the best (NQ) Cross Reaper set

Assuming no rare drops or items costing >5m, probably something like,

Weapon/Grip/-/Seething Bomblet (+1)
Ratri/Ele/Ishvara/Moonshade
Ratri/Ratri/Ifrit/Ifrit
WSDMG+STR Ankou/Caudata/Ratri/Sulevia +2

To be fair i'd just use Azagarth's set that he has on the other topic. The hardest piece to get out of that in my opinion would be Regal Ring which ironically is the only piece I currently don't have yet. The only other pain in the *** piece to get was the moonshade earring because of how annoying wotg storyline is to complete.

sets["DRK_CROSS_REAPER"] = {
sub="Utu Grip",
ammo="Knobkierrie",
head="Ratri Sallet",
neck="Fotia Gorget",
ear1="Moonshade Earring",
ear2="Ishvara Earring",
body="Ignominy Cuirass +3",
hands="Ratri Gadlings",
ring1="Niqmaddu Ring",
ring2="Regal Ring",
back="Ankou's Mantle",
waist="Fotia Belt",
legs="Ratri Cuisses",
feet="Sulev. Leggings +2"
}

I wouldn't call that an "NQ" set, though, with all the Omen pieces that can't be solo'd and cost millions to buy from a merc.

I kinda had issues with choosing Ratri Head/Legs over Flamma+2 and Sulevia+2. Thoughts on that? 9TA is sure to give some nice spikes over time.

So, I just picked up some Ratri Gadlings +1, and I have a dilemma I'd like for you guys to weigh in on.

I'm considering using them on my Torcleaver Set I use when attack is uncapped and I have plenty of accuracy, instead of my Odyssean Gauntlets (augmented with 8 DEX and 8% WSDMG via Dark Matter). Damage and accuracy wise, they perform almost identically, with the Odyssean having 1 more accuracy and Ratri +1 winning in damage by about 0.3% (basically negligible), so I was looking at the other stats.

It'd basically be Skillchain Bonus +5, Damage Taken -10% vs Enmity -10, MEVA +42.

The Skillchain Bonus is nice, since Torcleaver does Light so much, and not getting hit extra hard from the Ratri +1 would be cool, but the Enmity -10 would be good too, as I usually have problems with stealing hate from tanks. I have -5 in merits, so that would be an ~11.7% reduction in enmity from my WSs.

What do you guys think?

I don't know about you, but when I play DRK I expect to be on the hate list. Lol. I'd go with SC bonus because it's a given you're gonna have enmity regardless.

by NQ i meant no Ratri+1 ^^; Omen gear is not a problem

thats my set now:

sub="Utu Grip",
ammo="Knobkierrie",
head="Ratri Sallet",
neck="Fotia Gorget",
ear1="Moonshade Earring",
ear2="Ishvara Earring",
body="Ratri Plate",
hands="Ratri Gadlings",
ring1="Niqmaddu Ring",
ring2="Regal Ring",
back="Ankou's Mantle",
waist="Fotia Belt",
legs="Ratri Cuisses",
feet="Sulev. Leggings +2"

my question: is Ratri plate better than Ignominy Cuirass +3?
the Scythe skill+ is a big buff to dmg? or its not worth it?

Thx :D

Oh right 1 more question, Fotia neck/waist

or Prosilio Belt +1 and caro? Caudata?

thx

Fotias, and use +3 body. The scythe skill is just acc/atk for only scythe. It's pretty straight forward.

So with the campaign giving us a silver mog pell on Monday I'll be able to get another drk cape from ambuscade but I'm not sure what to put on it. I already have str+30 acc/att+20 and ws dmg+10 and this month's cape from ambuscade itself with dex+20 acc+30 att+20 DA+10. Mainly use AG Apoc as I prefer scythe over GS so would INT+30 acc/att+20 DA+10 be a good investment for my third cape or is there anything else I should be looking at before an entropy cape?

Fast cast cape
Tp cape
Reso cape
Torc cape
Entro cape
Cata/Cross cape
Perhaps a stp-tp cape as well for hit builds

Could do some niche ones for fun as well

I have more capes on DRK than most, but I have:

STR/ATK/ACC/WSDMG (Cross Reaper, Catastrophe, Quietus, Fell Cleave)
STR/ATK/ACC/DA (Resolution)
DEX/ATK/ACC/DA (TP)
DEX/ATK/ACC/STP (TP with Liberator, Impact for TP)
DEX/MACC/MDMG/FC (Armor Break, Full Break, Shockwave, Sleep, Stun, Absorb-Attr)
VIT/ATK/ACC/WSDMG (Torcleaver)
INT/ATK/ACC/DA (Entropy)
INT/EVA/MEVA/FC (Magic Evasion, Fast Cast)

I have almost all those except I choose to use int/macc30/mdmg/fc for the applicable AoE/status effect ws's and am finishing off an entropy one now and doing a stp-acc one this month. Maybe after that ill do a meva style one

So Im screwing around on Apex, switching weapons mid skillchain and its working well. it isnt very practical but its fun. Using Raetic Algol and Scythe together.

Reso->Torcleaver->Entropy->Torcleaver->Quietus for Double Darkness
Cross Reaper->Insurgency->Reso->Tor for Double Light
CR->Insurgency->Reso->Tor->Quietus for Double Darkness

I sorta feel like I'm August or something, how he changes weapons midfight.

its pretty fun since I end up having a ton of TP overflow.

TPing in this, dont care about Argosys lack of stats since Im keeping Drain 3 up and using trusts for Apex.

ItemSet 355459
Raetic Proc rate is about 50% for me

Curious what your dps is there, who knows maybe could be onto something lol

So I'm going to call this a 3 minute melee:


The first set involves multi step Skillchains to kill Apex Pugils.
My buffers were Koru and Sylvie. I had Hasso/Last Resort/Endark2 up as far as my Attack Buffs.

Heres where it gets interesting:


This was just pure Reso spam. There was a small delay turning off the parser for Raetic Algol. The DPS was about 3500 at the 3 minute mark.

For the Raetic Algol, I switched to Scythe to refill my mp. I swapped back and spammed Reso and repeated that.

The other numbers are from a Ragnarok without the AM up.
Also I didn't get a picture of it, but Raetic Scythe Spamming Cross Reaper/Refilling mp was around 3100 DPS.

Defense boost was pretty annoying on these. Some rarely used it, other spammed it one after another. It kind of skewed things a little.


Random Stuff

Does anyone happen to know if Onyx Cuisses give +10 seconds or +11 seconds to Absorb duration? BG Wiki claims the former, while the FFXIAH comment page for the item claims the latter.

are the sets on the main pages somewhat up to date?
i'm thinking of giving drk a shot.

Hard to say cause its also affected by skill now too. Ill go test in 5min for you as I have some on a mule, I prefer the eschite cuisses though since it has skill/macc/and in my case fc. Kylos and I were doing testing on fodder mobs as pre-buffing for fights, my absorbs last 5minxxsecs if you want more info ill get it for you

I already got it tested, thanks. My absorbs last >6 minutes (>7 with Dark Seal), and I was just wondering if I could edge out a second or two extra.