High End Sets Advice/Suggestions/Ideas/LUA

Just thought id share some of my sets and thoughts.

To start off i am by no means a forum junkie so forgive me for how ugly this is going to be.

Considering this forum title is for High-end sets i'm letting you know all these sets are for use in end game content. being in said end game content having end game buffs should be a automatic given. "Haste capped" and the normal Cor rolls "Samurai's Roll"
"Chaos Roll"

IMO a DRK without Apocalypse is not a DRK AT ALL! i do not stress over X-hit doing so will almost always cause you to sacrifice things in a negative fashion and if you are decently geared it should not matter to much if you are adequately buffed for High-End Content.

Primary TP set
ItemSet 374031

Argosy all path D
Back DEX+30 ACC+20 ATT+20 DA+10 DT-5
Yields-
ACC 1204
STP 49
DA 52 Argosy effect
Haste 30% overcapped

Cala AM set
ItemSet 374034
Valorous Mail
ACC+35 ATT+38 DA+4 VIT+7
BACK
DEX+30 ACC+20 ATT+20 DA+10 DT-5
Yields
QA 6
TA 9
DA 39
ACC 1175
STP 21
Haste 26

Universal DT set
ItemSet 374036
Apoc Acc 1244
Redmption Acc 1195
Cala Acc 1177
Back
DEX+20 ACC+30 ATT+20 DT-5 haste+10
DA 44
DT -50
STP 24
Haste 28 overcapped

This is my go to set for DDing and not getting one shotted. i leave this on if im unsure i want to hit the Oh Sh!t button.
Or fighting mobs that counter or AOE.

Oh Sh!t Button
ItemSet 374038
This is basically my -DT set but with Apoc. The purpose of this set is to survive and lose hate.

i have a macro that puts on Apoc and PDT set.
once hate is lost i hit the same macro and i put everything back on i was wearing prior to hitting the macro the first time.

If you don't pace yourself you will end up dead doing no DMG and losing all buffs waiting for next roll/song rotation.

Oh Sh!t Catastrophe
ItemSet 374039
Acc =1219
STR+302
INT+122
STP +17
DT+1
WSD +53
Physical DMG limit +10
Back STR+30 ACC+20 ATT+20 WSD+10 DT-5

WSing in Ratri will get you one shotted This set is not intended to do MAXDMG This set is intended to do some DMG and keep you alive until you lose hate. i stick with -DT on the cape because you never know what tp move you might get hit with.

I did not post here to stir things up with people, only share my sets and how i view playing DRK in end game content.

yes some of these sets could be better in small ways.
yes i have a AM set for Cala some would disagree with this. i personally enjoy it, large spikes of TP gain happen frequently.

having a backup plan for not wanting hate helps.

=/

being a drk means you make it explode before you do die. and then when you dont, you die. thats the life of a drk. cmon son

FTFY

Mithra does front flip which is nice, but afaik all other races just do a lame jump with moon's gravity destroying the feel of impact even further.

Yo im gonna say it people over value quadruple attack.

I view it as 1 better than TA :D

Trying to understand why Carmine Body/AF Head is listed over Lugra Cloak as BiS for drain? Is it a magic accuracy issue, and shouldn't the augment put cloak securely ahead?

ItemSet 374280

I think the hands legs feet would shuffle around kinda depending on what weapon you’re using and AM up/down but I really like this set up for the DT dd set now. The 5 haste on augmented seething is really helpful assumed augments for odnowa and seething

Puts you right at 25 haste and 45 pdt and like 37 mdt

I think it's a lot more nuanced then that, specifically in how the max HP buff works.

If you do another super Drain III while the buff is up, the new max HP will overwrite the previous max HP regardless on which is higher. You can see this in action, super drain III a mob, wait a minute or two, drain II another mob and cry as the HP vanished. What this means in practice is that DRK with max HP duration over 5 minutes can just overwrite the buff and maintain it indefinitely. This is important because Jesus DRK, going full hog, can be a glass cannon. That max HP buff is DRK's real defense, and it doesn't need to be this ridiculous number either. Nothing is going to kill you once your past around 4K HP, 3.5K if you have a good healer.

Seeing this, many would rather have indefinite guaranteed survival then having higher HP and a window where they are vulnerable. Losing some HP from having Ratri kinda sucks, but having a larger window to reapply the defense that lets you go wild is worth it IMHO.

I'm starting to notice a lot of crit+ gear lately...
Has anyone been bored enough to test a crit built with a rag yet?

Quick math with JSE neck, odin body, flamma hands and AM up gives 54%. 64% with rolls, or 69% w/ thf in party. Slightly curious if we could hit 100% now...

ItemSet 374317

100% crit rate without outside buffs.
What would be the point tho XD (fun maybe :P)

Caladbolg with AM3 is still better for melee even with 24% less crit rate. Some swaps to multi attack pieces would also probably bring better melee dps even at cost of crit rate.

White damage is too diluted at this point to matter.

I wish they would retool damage to make the balance between Tp/WS more balanced so we could toy around with such ideas.

You are kinda right, but there are scenarios where melee build is faster. Mostly at something like Omen or Odyssey farming imo. When I used Ukonvasara it was simply faster to drop enemies with 2-3 (or 1 in Omen sometimes) attack rounds than deal with WS ja delay and/or animation lock (I dont use JA0). Its also kinda frustrating when on THF for example, you drop a mob to 15% hp in Odyssey and then you need to either WS again or melee it down which is slow (you get 3000TP by the time its dead). With white damage build, you would maybe WS a little later, but then you would more smoothly finish the mob with melee and proceed to the next one faster with TP ready for WS.

Relic head is in the set, not AF. Relic head enhances Dark Seal by increasing the duration of Dark Magic by 10% per Dark Seal merit level.

Yup, pretty much just for fun or lulz. I could never imagine it being good damage for drk. I did see a thf with a crazy crit, but that's thf.

Ahhh so it’s a duration thing. Makes sense.

Max potency would be lugra though I’m guessing? Or is lugra not even really necessary to cap HP on a bursted drain 3?

Should Be pixie+aurum(acro?) body if I remember right.

Lugra Cloak is never ideal, because it blocks the head slot.
With Dark Seal up you want relic head for the duration bonus, and with it down you want Pixie +1 for the dark MAB which multiplies with other factors.
As for the body slot, its one of the weaker slots for drain. You can get drain/aspir potency on Yorium or Acro gear from Alluvion Skirmish, as well as on a Valorous or Odyssean body from Dark Matter augment. The other option is Carmine or Carmine +1, but that piece is pretty much just for the dark magic skill.

As for the running debate on whether Ratri+1 feet are worth it, I've had a DM augmented Valorous feet for a few years now, and the only time I ever actually use them over Ratri +1 is when I'm doing Avatar HTBF fights. Yes, Ratri+1 lowers my max drain a fraction, but I prefer the safety of keeping the HP buff full time, and the 15 second window to reapply DS/NV Drain 3 without losing the HP buff.

I've been telling myself for a long time now that I should stop being lazy and make a switch to change the feet, but with how rarely I actually need potency feet over Ratri+1, its honestly not worth the effort. I just comment the feet in and out of my lua as needed.

Speaking of cloaks, has anyone played around with Occult Acumen gear and Impact? Whatshisface just won't put out for me!

Dark Knight gets very little Occult Acumen gear, surprisingly enough.
Outside of weapon slots, is it really just Empy feet and Oneiros Rope?

In any case, some quick napkin math shows getting a 1000-2000 TP return on Impact should be quite achievable. With minimal gear a 1000 TP return should be pretty easy, with gear investment 2k becomes viable, but the bigger question is whether or not it is worth bothering with.

Yeah, its nice for those times when you are waiting on the mob, or stuck out of range. PD, Invincible, or waiting to engage a big NM (for instance, while the tank builds hate or the group buffs) would be reasonable times to use it.

Those were the only two items I noticed, aside from a Gsword. I believe its possible to get it on DM augs, but I'm not wasting inventory space on that.

My thought would be mainly for situations as you stated. When you are standing on the sidelines waiting for this/that/otherthing.
Between that and a meditate (assuming /sam), that's a very quick way to start out a fight with AM3 up.

I need to murder that wyrm some more and see if he'll put out for me finally. Any clue if the occult should be in precast or midcast?

you can totally put occult acumen on yorium gear, for the record.

Oh cool thank you for reminding me that gear exists! I always seem to overlook alluvion gear.
Since you'd only be able to do hands/legs, that would net another 20% bringing it to 195%TP/100mp.

Damn. Maybe we should complain to SE to give DRK impact naturally. This could actually be fairly useful when forced to be idle.

Would Occult Acumen give enough TP from T3 nukes to let you magic burst between multi-step skillchains while making up for the casting delay to keep the multi-step going?

Smells useless

Not in any meaningful way, no.
First off, if you are properly hasted meleeing for TP will always grant more TP than you could get with an Occult Acumen TP return off a T3 nuke.
Second, if you are stacking Occult Acumen for the nuke, it means you are cutting critical MAB and MBD gear, so your nuke is not going to land for a meaningful amount of damage.
Third, if you are stacking MAB and MBD gear you aren't stacking Occult Acumen, leaving you at a TP deficit.

Fully geared T3 magic bursts can deal a surprising amount of damage, its true. But melee hits and weapon skills do even more. This is why Dark Knight Elemental Magic spells have never been meaningful. Would I like to see Drk nukes matter? Yes, but I don't see that happening without a significant rework of the job, which is never going to happen.

The reason Impact is the spell of choice for Occult Acumen setups is because of its abnormally high MP cost of 666. Occult Acumen TP return is based off MP cost, the more expensive the spell, the more TP you get back. By comparison, Thunder 3 costs 91 MP. No other spell we get comes anywhere near Impact.

Now you have me curious how much a DRK could MB for...

But I'm going to assume its not going to be over 30k for the omen objective.

More than likely won't even be more than ninja nukes tbh personally you'd get much tp to even make this worth it.

Oh cool thank you for reminding me that gear exists! I always seem to overlook alluvion gear.
Since you'd only be able to do hands/legs, that would net another 20% bringing it to 195%TP/100mp.

Damn. Maybe we should complain to SE to give DRK impact naturally. This could actually be fairly useful when forced to be idle.[/quote]
Can't see a single endgame drk complaining about not having impact over getting se to fix the fact we can't absorb ***in wave 3. I'd much rather they fix absorb spells before new endgame stuff comes out

Oh, I absolutely agree. I'd love to see entropy swapped to STR instead of INT and almost anything to quietus. Absorbed to not decay... oh the list goes on i'm sure. But lets face it, Its SE and they just love to give us disappointment!!