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

^ This.

Plus if you are wondering which piece to work on first I would recommend doing body to +3. That WSD/ACC/ATT/Stat vomit is a huge boon to a number of our weapon skill's used. CR/Q/Torc/Cata all greatly benefit from what's mentioned above and coupled with WSD in our other slots. Even Multi hit WS's (Insurg/Guill/Entrop & sure Reso to some extent) benefit from the additional or secondary stat mod vomit.

What are the odds that SE increases hq abjuration stats? Long shot yah?

Just finished up RoV last night. I'll have a bit more focus in updating the thread now. TIME FOR MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC!



Thanks for the reminder, been meaning to answer to this. I'm still a bit rusty. I have this weird habit of thinking that INT can affect Drain/Aspir potency...

This is why I never really understand when people pay 200 mill for a set of HQ gear, let alone 300 mill for a single piece (i.e. Adhemar Bonnet +1, Amalric Doublet +1). Sure, its great equipment, but SE rarely ever revamps these pieces down the line. Instead, you could make a RME for 200-300 mill, knowing that SE will continue to update RME each time.

To be fair, they have slightly increased stats on all abjuration gear already, I think it happened with the release of Reisenjima.

Some people simply have the gil to drop on HQ gear. Whether they have an army of mules or were lucky enough to get a kupo shield. Other players are willing to put forth the time and effort to buy or even craft it themselves. Besides, if you already have the RME's you particularly enjoy, why not get the best gear to go with them?

I do agree with that. I should have clarified, my point was on what was on money well spent. I've seen very expensive HQ gear prices throughout my years playing ffxi, only to lose their Best in Slot value within a year or so due to SE releasing new/better gear. But yeah if you already have the RMEs you want and have extra gil to spend, go for the HQ by all means.

Just clarifying, INT doesn't even add macc to drain/aspir at all? I know it doesn't affect the potency , only dark magic/dark affinity-type stuff/drain+aspir potency do

Here I was thinking my yorium feet were hot toddy lol(7int 10macc and max drain/aspir augs) not that they're BiS though lol

Fairly sure INT always adds Magic Accuracy. If there was some special caveat taking INT:MAcc out of Drain/Aspir that's news to me.

ya I decided to just stay 4/5 now too.....


I felt the same "unsub" way you did. After last 2 months losing 250~mil on trying to HQ my own argosy+1 set. I decided to just farm my *** off this month and buy all 4 pieces, I did.... and now im feel like wtf -160mil more ontop of my crafting attempts. At first I thought well maybe the af+3 will be hard to get, and its not. Omen is fairly easy and once we know more im sure it will be no harder than a SR run.

I still think the fact it has high stp gives argosy+1 an edge on a few pieces, we still need to balance stp and whatnot, and the af+3 does have ***in terms of stp.

Don't unsub I'm sure there's some reason to hq abj gear still, as it's not like the af2/3 has stuff like DA/Stp etc, maybe I didn't look closely enough aside from pants body and w/e augments weapon bash is. And SE might revamp them again or something

If you were to go DRK to every Omen run, everyday, how long would it take for you to obtain just one +3 piece? So until then would you rather gimp yourself or try to be the best drk you can be? Food for thought.

HQ Argosy body is better then DRK AF3 body, DRK AF3 legs are better then HQ Argosy legs. You are using the legs substantially better stats to mask the weaker stats of the body.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Ignominy_Cuirass_%2B3

STR 46
DEX 29
Acc 50 (71 Acc total)
Atk 48 (82 Atk total)
WSD +10%


https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Argosy_Hauberk_%2B1

STR 46
DEX 41
Acc 40 (70.75)
Atk 60 (94.5)
DA +5% (7% if another piece is present)

HQ Argosy is better, same STR, same Accuracy, more Attack and substantially more Multi-Attack

Now for the legs

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Ig._Flanchard_%2B3

STR 50
DEX 15
Acc 49 (60.25)
Atk 45 (82.5)
DA +10%

https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Argosy_Breeches_%2B1

STR 55
DEX 23
Acc 32 (49.25)
Atk 52 (93.25)
DA +4% (6% with another item in the set)

That should make things clearer. DRK AF3 legs are definitely better then HQ Argosy legs.

You have made a mistake with how the set bonus works and only added +2% for both pieces instead of the +4% that it gets. HQ Argosy set bonus works as 4/2/2/2 (10%) and not 2/2/2/2 (8%), so each piece gets it's own 2% bonus as long as another piece of the set is present.

10% WS Damage isn't much on Resolution, best case scenario is a 2% increase and that's only if you have acc issues and get no multi-attack procs ever. If you have one DA then it's a 1.6% increase and if you have 2 DA procs (or one TA) then it's a 1.42% increase. 5~7% DA easily beats that. 10% WSD Would be much more noticeable on something like Torcleaver, Cross Reaper or maxed Insurgency.
DRK AF3 set is absolutely amazing for the Scythe Weaponskills due to it having a huge boost of STR, MND and INT, especially INT on all the pieces.(Finally SE, Finally!)

I'm all about being the best I can be
I guess if it takes me six months to get legs to +3, then that's the amount of time I'll get to use this stuff.

Thing is, I'm more worried about the entire set becoming obsolete, as the +3 can be augmented even further. Unlikely, but meh.

yes i assume that if af doesnt beat it the relic+3 or emp+3 in the future will. Since we already have HQ argosy it will at least make clearing omen better ;D

thanks for the armor breakdown, seems upgrade path is legs<>body>rest , just all depends if you use scythe or gs more.

Full HQ argosy is 28% double attack assuming you use double attack augments, while you are right in mentioning the double attack values were off, the AF+3 body/legs with argosy 3/5 +1 comes out to 25% Double attack with more acc and 10% wsdmg.

I get that people have this notion in their head that wsdmg isn't that great on multi-hit, but I would rather have 10% wsdmg on the first hit of all my reso than having 3% more chance for DA proc. Anyone that has biffed the first hit of a reso knows that is where the majority of your damage comes from, especially with the loss of 100 acc on the next 4 hits of your ws.

I am still in favor of the AF+3 body/legs, the difference will be marginal at best assuming we ever take the time to test it, and it will save people 150+ mil (250+ on asura)

Assuming this is true and not a rumor, I would more than likey put money on AF+3 winning after augments.

Given how Utu grip works, the higher DEX on HQ Argosy is somewhat relevant as well.

Regardless how it stands now, most of us career drks are at 4/5 +1 (very few have body) so af+3 > NQ body by far and it doesnt look like omen will be to hard. This make aiming for HQ pointless now IMO. Again if you dont plan to do drk af anytime soon, then not a big deal, but if your one of those people you probably dont care much about drk anyhow or use it much :D This also means for most the body will be the best af to +3 first.

With that said its very clear SE intend to make the HQ abjs obsolete and very soon. We still have relic and emp sets to go, and if you think those wont outclass the af, then .... idk...

What I think is more important is getting an up to date spreed sheet. With this new high stats I am wanting to see how much the gap has closed now on reso and scythe ws's. Heck I am thinking torc may have just got the boost it needed to outclass reso with this update (ammo and body is alone 16% wsd). I know reso should probably still win, but the dmg will be pretty much the same with the new af+2 on reso, while scythe just got a shitton of stats to buff ws and the 10% wsd on body (along with tons of int/mnd/str )just gave cata/cr/quietus a huge hand.

Im still going to get the HQ body aswell as a AG caladbolg / redemption as its a goal and one I want to complete

caladbolg really seems nice if you can take the -75 acc hit I am sure it would outdo rag. Not to mention that torc just got a 16% wsd boost and huge stat vomit, it may just become the top ream for drk.

Im at work atm so hard to do any hard maths. Can someone do the following please

Argosy +1 head path A
Argosy +1 hands path D
Argosy +1 feet path A
AF body +3
AF legs +3
6% double attack set bonus

Vs

Full Argosy +1 head,body,legs,feet path A ,hands path D

Still working on mine. Crafting is slow work sometimes...

This interests me.



A glimmer of hope! I pretty much came to the same conclusion now is probably the best time to start working on Caladbolg as well. The accuracy drop hurts a bit but that's what Low/ Mid/ High Accuracy sets are for. And honestly after fiddling with Anguta for the last few days the Accuracy deprivation isn't as bad as I originally thought.

I know 2 drks that got torc this month and AG, they both have had positive experiences so far. However I know using my drk on T4 helms and stuff, I never feel I can really "sacrifice" acc, I normally am wishing I could find an extra 50 lol. My gears pretty good too. With that said I found I torc spam mostly now on stuff, Reso has its place on full out zergable mobs (kirin, woc) But helms dont die as fast and SC become a great source of extra dmg with all the blus etc. Reso's lack of sc power I think hurts it and torc is just nice, not to mention a "free" 100 acc on ws.

Honestly I think with the changes made torc is going to be king under best ws sets. The fact you can now have 260+ vit (310 with calad) AND 50%+ wsd at the same time, coupled with the new grips 10% dex mod... I know before reso won by a good chunk, but this good? I think not. Anyone more math savvy than me, please feel free to go at it, I personally would love to know before i pull the trigger on calad.

On my example mob, 5/5 Argosy +1 does about 1% more.

4/5 Argosy +1 with AF legs +3 is the best combo of those two sets, though.

New gear will help for sure but actually what makes Calad dmg good is AM and light sc dmg.
Torc dmg are a little less than Reso but white dmg and light sc does the difference.

anyone good with math care to run this for me?

difference between torc+caladbolg and reso+rag now?

I have a few weeks off working coming up. I'll try to pull together some testing numbers on things once I hit master on drk (with AG rag, calad, liberator, apoc) currently finishing AG redemption for fun but can put that aside to find out numbers between calad and rag on some stuff.

That's hard to do it with maths, i think.
Though, here are some damages ( same mob, same buffs)

http://imgur.com/a/T6XQk

No it isn't.

ok