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

I've never done Odyssey or Sortie before, or have any segments is the problem : o. Though I do have access

I agree with everything above.

I've done a shitload of melee Sortie, including Aminon runs and 8/8 bosses. DRK is fine, it does good damage, but SAM, WAR, and DNC are just plain better. DRK can kill Aminon (we did it for months that way) but DNC is just plain better. If you're looking for a strat that can work, DRK is fine. If you're looking for the BEST strat, you don't bring a DRK.

We used Soul Enslavement cheese for a while on F/H and it's pretty nice, but kiting is much safer and more consistent.

Also Sakpata is ridiculously good, don't waste time, gil, energy, and inventory space on gear you're going to toss later on. If you have a group capable of doing Sortie, you can do V0 of every T1, T2, and can clear V0 Kalunga. He's a joke. Or, since it looks like you're on Asura, Buukki can do it for you.

Either way, get Sakpata and wear it all the damn time, it's incredible.

edit: saw your message above. Start doing Odyssey, on a regular basis. It makes a ton of gil and there's a SHITLOAD of useful gear in there. Plus it's fun (IMO)

I could be misremembering, but I'm sure you can do the ROE quest for Moglophone II x3 (think its like touching the goal in ABC Sheols) and you get one free entry into Odyssey. Best to do 2-3 fights and get clears off that if you're looking for gear and devoid of segments, since you need 3 KIs to even enter the zone, so you'll be locked out if you only go in for Kalunga/Sakpata's set.

Is Sakpata R0 that much stronger to use in all 4 of those sets?

Sheer DPS no. But a dead DD does 0 DPS and as you progress meva and DT become more and more important.

If you're doing Sortie basement without Ody/Empy+2/3 armor you're begging to be killed.

Sakpata is malignance on steroids, might not be the strongest dps set but it makes you incredibly sturdy while still being 2nd best in most slots at worst

Even in my janky -DT set X_X?



>< kk, I'll have to progress ABC over the next couple days then.


In terms of my 4 gear sets, would you all just throw Sakpata in for all 5 armour sets in each gear set?

Carrying all that stuff around to potentially swap to when doing trash mobs is just inventory- IMO. And high risk.

Two sets, one normal with Sakpata and maybe empy body, and one high acc which swaps accessories not armor is enough.

Of the older armor sets flamma feet/head+2 still perform very well, just no defenses on them compared to sakpata, at r0 acro is also going to be better offensively but again, no defense(and low acc tbh if that's a concern), so like dodik said you can make 2 sets with sakpata being your primary defensive/hybrid set and some of the more offensive pieces being in your non-hybrid

That being the case, as blu i almost never leave my hybrid set these days, even on trash being able to bypass most debuffs, and just taking really low dmg from everything makes stuff much easier imo.

Just the sucky part of making a whole new tier of 119 and making it both heavily offensive as well as defensive, just kind of invalidated much of the older stuff bar some pure glass builds

If starting DRK in 2025..
No real time or group to advance in Sortie, I really can't do more than +2 all my Empy on all my jobs solo.

Is it worth making a Caladbolg/Aeonic scythe, or mythic scythe? I can do the majority of Calad or mythic solo. Not really looking to min-max since I have a ton of other jobs that are much further along, but I do want to start working on DRK more seriously as it was always my fav job.

I do have Montante +1 and when I was doing Dyna D runs fully augmented, it was keeping pace with other DRKs using mythic scythe / calad, just a little bit below.

Calads always going to have a space for just raw dmg, aeonics also not at all bad for general scythe useage as just abotu all scythe WS scale very well with TP, mythics the best(barring prime maybe) pure DPS scythe aswell as your best abs-stick so can't go wrong with any of the 3

Caladbolg is what will get used the most when you get it. Having a scythe around is nice for Entropy (MP restore), but it doesn't stack up well against Torcleaver for raw damage unless you are solo skillchaining.

There are some fights where using Liberator for the TP overlow is preferred, like if you need to stagger something with skillchains. I got mythic because I love scythe, but I cannot deny the raw power that is Caladbolg. Apocalypse is for emergencies, and Anguta is for Cross Reaper... if you need that for some reason.

Where does Apoc fit within all that? Looking at Sylvebits weapons for instance, and assuming trial/empy/mythic WSs are unlocked, seems their spread is pretty solid.



Caladbolg is such a staple, an amazing GS to have.

Granted at r15 you can do fairly well with cata spam but it's still going to be the weaker of the remas for dmg when all things are equal, just has really good sustain

As said above, Calad will get the most usage. It's just easier and the damage from Torcleaver is too good, esp since you can put AM3 up without having a weaker WS.

That said, I got smacked down a few years ago here for commenting that scythes weren't great and I've since come to see the error of my ways. IMO there is more value on them than the community may place, but they are right that Calad is just easier and often will outparse most scythes.

Since that discussion, I've found scythes have value and I was in groups that were willing to let me experiment. Apoc's survivability is obvious, but also Cata damage isn't bad and neither is the ability to SC easily with it. Multi-step SC damage if you are solo as DRK can also be really good, but that's a rare-ish thing these days where a mob lives long enough to get through a long SC sequence that matters.

Redemption is a very high white damage weapon, crits can do great damage, but it's contextual: Quietus damage isn't good enough against most mobs (high def mobs are a possible exception) but putting up AM3 and spamming Cross Reaper can outparse Torcleaver in situations. I did a pretty extensive comparison of damage vs Kalunga (v20 and v25) using both with the same group and Redemption outparsed Calad consistently every run by ~300-400dps. Same against the lower tier slashing weak mobs, I never did try it against Mboze but I wouldn't hold out for good results there esp with Darkness being so dangerous.

You also have the benefit of using Schere Earring to greater effect than almost any other job by using a scythe, again something that becomes more valuable in higher tier content. The ability to refresh your MP for the earring, but also for spells like Absorb-Attr can be helpful in longer fights, but again those are less common these days outside of a few and I'm not sure that (aside from Schere) it's make or break.

I've also found higher Sheol C floors (4-5) can get better results with Redemption than Calad, but it's really dependent and variable, sometimes it does better and sometimes it doesn't. I used it in Sortie in a few experiments but I didn't think it outshined the others dramatically enough, as I hinted earlier.

Most of these are pretty endgame oriented and situational, enough to justify making at least Apoc IMO, but the rest YMMV. Some folks just aren't willing to let you try anything new and in other cases they are just objectively worse. IMO it's worth having them but not at the cost of Calad, which is what you'll end up using most of the time (and Naegling for that matter).

Hm okies. So I really shouldn't be bothering with like.. an AM3 set or general purpose set it sounds. Then the next logical step in my gearing journey really is Ody/Empy+2/3 :S.


Regarding REMAs real quick; are there really groups that won't take a DRK if theyre using like... a REMA other then Caladbolg :/?

Hm okies. So I really shouldn't be bothering with like.. an AM3 set or general purpose set it sounds. Then the next logical step in my gearing journey really is Ody/Empy+2/3 :S.


Regarding REMAs real quick; are there really groups that won't take a DRK if theyre using like... a REMA other then Caladbolg :/?

Depending on the group you're trying to get into, some will not take a DD without a Prime, even.

Depends on the AM, for empy sakpata basically has you covered, high MA, high PDL, can maybe throw in odin's body piece if you want a good crit boost if you dont mind the meva loss, but as far as armor pieces go sakpata's great.

Mythic's a bit more of a pain to work in while keeping safety to the point that yeah, sakpata's good there too, you take a bit of a hit to TP phase but again, super sturdy.

For both of these kinds of sets you still have accessories to swap around potentially but yeah.


It's asura, 5 +9 song brd with r35 nyame for ambuscade V1 N, YMMV on pug groups but for the most part they wanna follow the meta, still for general stuff they typically just ask for r20~25 nyame rema DD far as i ever see.

Based on what you've told us, the absolute last thing you should be worried about is not getting into groups that want you to have Caladbolg. Your overall gear is going to carry you much further than any one individual weapon will. I'd focus on that before even worrying about getting the weapon people "want" you to have (if that's even a thing).

Better question is what content you want to be doing. Calad is a pretty staple weapon for Drks.

Your anecdotal evidence has convinced me, time to build another meme weapon.

Building meme weapons is literally the game
If you aren't building meme weapons, what are you even doing here?

If we're talking about running content up to lvl135 or so then maybe glass cannon TA/QA tp sets with ambuscade/abjurations/dm augments or other low magic evasion "outdated" pieces of gear can still work, but for anything like lvl140+ content, Ody gear/empy+3 etc magic evasion/defensive stats are so good that wearing glass cannon tp sets will just make you hella squishy and your group could suffer for it, if you end up dying or you're the only one taking 1000 AoE dmg when rest of the team takes 200-400

For these reasons i wouldn't say Ambu+2 gear "still performs very well, just no defense on them compared to Sakpata"...as you make it sound like it's no big deal when in reality it's an insanely huge deal.

In 2025 unless you're starting out and cannot get high m.eva gear like Ody sets/empy+2-3/Malignance etc. yet, wearing hybrid DT/high m.eva tp sets is a MUST imho.

I know it's tempting to still use FLamma head+2 or other gear with Triple ATk, Store TP/DT etc in a TP set but ultimately it's not worth it as a trade-off, to TP slightly faster or to increase DPS/WS frequency by a bit if that makes you hella squishy and extremely susceptible to debuffs etc.

As a WHM main, i beg you, stop using glass cannon tp/ws sets in high end content <3

why would Redemption be a meme?? that thing is a beast when in proper hands/scenario/setup.

Sure, Foenaria exists and Quietus not scaling dmg with TP kinda sucks, but still I feel like with all the PDL/crit/stats and powercreep we got, Redemption is far from being a meme weapon, unlike many relics and a few empy/mythics instead xD

It’s not too tough to build capped mdt and pdt while still utilizing a flamma piece or two. You also don’t always need the MEVA, certainly a “know the fight” and wear gear accordingly. Killing faster is sometimes safer than stacking meva when you wouldn’t have enough to do anything or it doesn’t do anything either way. Having a DT0 set with valorous mail in 2025 is a joke though. Baseline sets should have capped mdt with shell at the very minimum and some PDT.

I have done 8 of the sortie bosses and I don’t think you need full sakpata for any of these bosses. I use a combination of Hjarrandi, Sakpata and Flamma. I tried full MEVA against triboulex but I didn’t notice any less enfeebles landing and we actually killed it a bit slower.


Stoppppoo I can only do so much chloris. ;-;

Basically I only use 1 piece of gear (Flamma head on DRK) and fill in the rest with Sakpata most of the time.

That Triple Attack/Store TP is very nice. With the new HTBF cape giving you 50MEVA it won't hurt so bad now sacrificing a head slot imo.

Depends what you are fighting though. Even in D Dyna/Omen I love resisting stuff.

Maybe i worded it poorly but so long as you keep your DT capped, which aint too difficult these days with all the dump of DT gear, you can typically keep your received dmg fairly low even with 1-2 pieces of non-ody/sortie gear. You're losing 7 magic def bonus in those 2 pieces for example, meva's fair but atleast for sortie it seems like basement NMs have stupid high macc, even run can struggle to bypass some effects.

Think it more comes into play with fetters which are breath dmg and so shell aint covering that, in those cases yeah full sakpata might be needed and/or a DT or MDT cape(least in the past augmented MDT was also BDT)

Otherwise i think most jobs are fin with 1-2 pieces. Not like the days of old where people ran around in full argosy or used that NNI DA/TA/QA body