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

If you're ever in a situation where you honestly need to gear for that much accuracy, get better buffers, or don't attempt what you're trying without proper buffing/debuffing.

I'd rather throw a RDM into a setup and easily need 100 less accuracy than that set shows in lieu of more STP,MA, or even DT depending on needs.

he still misses 1/20 ws.

I forgot about the dex bonus on grounded, so that's 8-13 acc depending on unity position making it acc +44-49 vs the static 45 on the cape, so if you're in unity: pijue the ambu cape wins across the board, for everyone else, -4 acc for 10da? no contest. the 10 extra hits against something per 100 swings with -4 acc means grounded only wins if you're under 40% accuracy.

Not sure what you mean exactly, but Apoc haste is ability haste, so it wont cap your equip haste with gloves. Ofc it doesnt really matter for Last Resort up and 40%+ magical haste, because you only need 15% equip haste then to cap, but it will matter for LR down, because even with Hasso and Apoc, you need 16.5% haste in equip to cap with capped magic haste.

Ofc it doesnt matter for that set, because it still has haste on legs and feet, but just clarifying this in general.

Whats the best Hybrid set for drk with Calad?

Taint's DRK Hybrid looks like it'd work with Calad too:
ItemSet 371816

I'd be curious on using Flamma vs Sulevia in the hands slot. If that's a hybrid set, you're trading STP+6 and crit rate+8 for -5DT and DA+6.

This is what I use for DRK Hybrid:

ItemSet 376666

Catastrophe gear question... I just made an Apoc. Currently grinding away on trials but I already have all the mats to get it to AG 119 stage and enough detritus to get a good start on r15. Scythe is kinda new to me though, so looking to put together some solid WS sets.

I see the set in the "high end" thread uses 4/5 Ratri+1 (and AF+3 body). I have the NQ Ratri pieces, but no +1s. Are the NQs generally still worth using as 'next best' alternatives, or should I be looking to something else?

If there are certain Ratri +1 pieces that are just SO good I might look into them more (and understanding prioritization would be nice), but TBH I'd like to try to put my limited gil toward other stuff (finishing Apoc augments to R15 being the first priority).

FWIW, my other existing options include:
*5/5 Relic+3 set
*AF+3 legs
*All Ambu +2 armor
*Valorous and Odyssean gear, including: Valorous Mask (Acc+32 Atk+17 WSD+8% aug), Odyssean Gauntlets (STR+8 Acc+7 Atk+23 WSD+5% aug), Valorous Hose (STR+3 Acc+30 Atk+11 WSD+5% aug).
*No real DRK 119 Abjuration +1 gear to speak of (uh... I have Emicho +1 DW hands?)

Thanks in advance!

If comparing the options of NQ Ratri vs others-

body: as you pointed out, AF3 body already is preferred over even HQ Ratri, so that would be my first thought.

legs: relic+3 legs are a great option still until only slightly edged by the Ratri+1 legs most discover when introducing them into existing sets. I do prefer the Ratri+1- but in many ways due to the extra STP giving more carryover TP after WS.

feet: HQ Ratri Feet function not only as a Scythe WS piece, but an incredibly important part of your DS/NV Drain 3 set to allow fulltiming of the boosted HP with /jas. So at least this set has great dual purpose to help justify the cost. I'd say get these first. If not going the HQ route, Sulevia+2 would be a solid alternative.

head/hands: probably augmented Odyssean gear, in particular hands as they have that built in 2%WSD before augments. You'll have a hard time getting similar accuracy, of course.

I prioritized feet/head as my first +1 ratri purchases, and then hands, and lastly, the legs.

ItemSet 364349

You’ll also want a ratri free set. That +DT just isn’t worth it in some scenarios.


Updated with some missing new items.

5% PDL is better than 5%WSD at attack cap (because of higher diminishing returns on WSD on DRK) and Stinger also has higher STR+INT, so at attack cap its for sure better.

It also effects any additional hits while WSdmg does not. With fighter's roll it pulls further ahead.

First off, thanks to all of you for the tips! Assuming no Ratri +1 use, I guess I'm thinking of the below. Basically, still going 3/5 NQ Ratri over the alternatives (particularly Odyssean/Valorous) but taking relic legs over NQ Ratri. Anything I'm noticeably off on?

Cele's tip on starting Ratri upgrades with feet seems like a good approach. Prob will do that as my next upgrade once I get Apoc R15 finished up.

ItemSet 376711

Good call, thanks for the suggestion. I assume some of that set is slightly outdated on the accessories (Thrud/Lugra+1, Sailfi +1), but otherwise I think I'm gonna go with something very close to your suggestion. Will use my Valorous Mask for now (WSD+8%/Acc+32/Atk+17 augs) until I get Stinger Helm +1, which is now added to my UNM gear list!
ItemSet 376712

These sets look fine. The accessories you mentioned are still more or less BiS as well. NQ Ratri is fine as a placeholder if your goal is to upgrade to HQ. In a non-Ratri WS set, DM augmented (or really good Fern stone augmented) Odyssean/Valorous are basically the current ceiling.

I've been thinking an experimenting with Pixquizpan +1 R15 and a shadow of death build for Dyna. Anyone ever try something like this? Pixquizpan +1 with the UNM R15 augment gets around 60 MAB. Seems like best option for a scythe for something like this that I can see.

While I haven't used pixquizpan +1 specifically, I made a dedicated magic WS set for Dynamis San d'Oria maybe two years ago and it's been really good to have on hand. My LS does most things melee burned, Dyna included. This means for Sandy we're trying to pull on green eyes, but blue eye pulls and links are inevitable. So for my purposes I need a scythe that can pull double duty as strong physical or strong magical on a moments notice.

That being the case, I prefer Liberator as my go-to Scythe, though Anguta, Father Time (B), and raetic scythe +1 are all good options.
pixquizpan +1 certainly has strong MAB, but I would generally prefer a multiattack or TP Bonus Scythe for these three reasons:

1] Cycle Time is king. More TP = More WS = More Damage
2] TP overflow/TP Bonus is a big deal for Shadow of Death
3] All of the above options will also do better physical WS

Now, one thing you may have noticed from using magical scythe WS already is that Shadow of Death is pretty weak when used with under 2000 TP. While this does favor other scythes over pixquizpan +1, it actually does give the Unity Scythe a niche. Infernal Scythe has a static fTP which is much higher at 1000 TP compared to Shadow of Death's minimum value. Obviously there is a bit of a tradeoff here as well. Infernal Scythe slaps an attack down debuff on the target which is good, but Shadow of Death to Shadow of Death makes a Fragmentation skillchain which is also quite appealing.

In any case, having a magic WS set is useful.
The set shown in the High End Sets thread is pretty solid, here is my current set for reference:ItemSet 370426
Orpheus Sash is nice, but fortunately if you're making a set for Dynamis you won't need one as anrin obi and hachirin-no-obi will both outperform it with the permanent double dark weather present in all Dyna zones.
I know my own set could probably use some fine tuning, I will admit that optimizing magical WS is not my forte.

Hope this helps!

If anyone was curious about an Enmity set, for when you want to keep hate and damage dealing isn't enough (like on very physically/slashing resistant enemies, or enemies that reset hate), to my knowledge this set has the highest values outside of DM augments.

ItemSet 377153

This set gives Enmity +110 when your unity is in first place.

for 1000-1749, 2000-2749 tp do you still use moonshade earring for ws's that use the tp bonus or would you swap out with another earring like thrud or lugra +1?

How do you weigh enmity on gear vs. offensive stats that help generate enmity though? Like for the ammo, surely Orb+1 would help generate enmity to the extent that it outdoes a flat +2 enmity? Is that true for any other slots where there's enough acc/multihit/STP to take over enmity?

I highly doubt that is a set one would TP in to generate enmity. Its a set one would use for stun/provoke/other JAs (aside from JA enhancing gear) to make those specific actions generate more hate. For those actions, STP/MA/acc isn't relevant or helpful.

One would likely TP in at least a hybridized DT/TP set if not full turtle, depending on needs, with possibly some enmity in slots that are more flexible or aren't as strong in DD/DT stats.

TP scaling does not have anchor points. So you only need to swap moonshade for thrud/lugra at 2750+. I personally swap at 2800.

that makes sense

So the +250 TP bonus from Moonshade is still good for those intermediate amounts of TP? I'm not familiar with the maths but I thought Moonshade was just to get to 2k or 3k damage thresholds early. Guess I need to adjust gear sets

The TP bonus is applied to every amount of TP, whether you WS at 1000 or 1650. You essentially add 250 to whatever TP amount you have. This is extremely useful to weapon skills that scale with TP. If you WS at 2750, the fTP is replicated at 3000, even though you won’t see an Aftermath level 3. You don’t use your Moonshade at 3000, or like Taint suggests, 2800, because it generally won’t have an effect. If that makes sense at all.

Yeah the WS thresholds of 1k/2k/3k don't really matter as thresholds themselves for when damage scales with TP. Whenever a WS's damage scales with TP, in any capacity, each point of TP in between the thresholds helps, and the thresholds are just reference points for fTP

with apoc if you don't need the drain is it generally better to spam cata at 1k or cross reaper close to 2k?

To expand on this with a bit of visual (since I know that people grasp concepts better with visuals):
Your general fTP curve looks something to the tune of this:

fTP is a simple multiplier to the base damage of your weapon and the statmodifier of the WS... in case one didn't know.
This graph only holds true for something that states "damage scales with TP".
The 1/2/3k anchor points are just that. Anchoring endpoints for the scaling of the function of TP, and between those points fTP is linear.

For most WSs (there are exceptions) the jump in fTP from 1k to 2k is massive, while the jump in fTP from 2k to 3k is not as pronounced. Visually, that's the slope being greater from 1k to 2k than from 2k to 3k. This is why Taint is swapping out the TPbonus for stat+ at 2800, since the difference in the fTP between 2800 and 3000 is relatively minimal (as you can deduce from my shitty graph).

I could make a more accurate graph with actual numbers with actual fTP plot points.... but that's not really needed to convey the visual meaning. (and I don't feel like doing the basic algebra to determine the slopes atm)
Hope this helps you, Bigt. (and anyone else who might have never really understood how fTP works)

Thank you for explaining