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

You can only absorb MP with Origin if the mob itself has MP to absorb.

If you need MP, just slap at least 1 point into Entropy, as it converts damage to MP.

I've already checked against mobs that have MP such as Crawlers & Crabs (PLD mobs). No MP was gained or restored.

I just made a set for casting Dread Spikes and have a question about the Dread Spikes potency effect on the Heathen's Cuirass (up to 55% for the +3 armor piece). Do you need to keep the Heathen's Cuirass equipped for the duration of Dread Spikes to continue getting the 55% bonus or do you only need to wear it at midcast? I'm assuming you just need it on at midcast but I can't find any specific confirmation of that.

Midcast

Thank you

So I saw on the JP wiki that Fallen's Sollerets +1 and up gave -20 enmity while equipped with LR active and wanted to see if that was indeed the case/if it was regular gear enmity or separate. Following the advice Martel gave in regards to testing enmity
https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/29127/random-question-thread-ffxi-related/980/#3782954

Took my brd and drk both /whm, set them to 0 enmity and had them both cast flash on a bee(brd 1st, then drk), with LR up/feet equipped flash from the drk would not grab hate off the brd. With it unequipped the bee would switch to the drk every time

moved the brds -enmity to -19, wouldnt grab hate. With -21 enmity the drk would pull hate again.

Used marcato dirge to cap both chars enmity and tried again to see if it went above the enmity cap, enmity was tied and the bee just went to whoever acted last on it

Upgraded the boots to +2 just to see if the -enm increased or behaved differently but there we no changes from the above

TL;DR; Fallen's Sollerets+1 and up give -20 gear enmity when equipped while Last Resort is active

Interesting find. Very weird that nothing in the description indicates it adds this. I wonder how many other pieces of gear in the game have hidden/latent stats that were never discovered or tested, because the conditions are vague or unclear.

Have Abyss +2 and Fallen 109 been tested for this? Maybe it's a part of the "Enhances Desperate Blows" augment? Or maybe if it's on 109 but not 99 it's just part of the "Last Resort"+1? Just spitballing based on commonalities in the item descriptions.

I can take the merits off at a later time since i was gonna double check muted soul anyway but think that's (so far) just adding the subtle blow aspect to the boots

Took Desperate blows merits off, same results as above. Put 2 merits into muted soul for -20 enm, did marcato dirge again with both at 0 enmity in gear with brd flashing then the drk, drk pulled every time. Added -5 enm to both as marcato iirc only bumps it up to -48 and tried again, same results

So desperate blows has no effect on the -enm aspect. And unless im doing something wrong muted soul may also just be strict gear enmity and not go above the cap.

Was Souleater active? Muted Sould only works during SE. And does Muted Soul's -enmity apply to actions that Souleater does not a activate on (non melee actions)? i.e. Souleater generates increased enmity per swing normally, but using Flash would/should not increase it's enmity (I guess you could test this). Therefore, I don't think Muted Soul test with feet would work unless you can somehow melee w/ SE and find a way to maintain a baseline hate on the first player, and test if SEMS swings without DB merits (to conclusively check if it's the Last resort or DB causing the reduced enmity). Not that it ultimately matters because nobody would use LR and not have DB merited, so the test is purely informational

So for desperate blows test i just took all the merits off, repeated the tests i did with the relic boots and saw no change with those, for the record i was at 5/5 DB before(was too lazy to change over)

For the 2 muted soul merit test SE was active(and just SE) of course when i did the above tests, and just to confirm it was gear enm and applied to non-SE swings like the relic boots effect i repeated what i did for boots, popped SE, aggroed a mob, brd flash and then drk flashed. with both at 0 enm the brd kept hate just like with the relic boots.

Now could MS have some kind of additional enm calc when swinging? That seems a bit much but possibly, I'm not currently able to accurately get hate enm amounts from dmg I dont think with just a drk and baseline brd alt.

Another thing I could have done and may do later on tonight was stack both and see if they add up to -40 and shift the brd to -39 and -41 to see if there's any changes there.

I understand there are unique situations where enmity+ can be useful on DRK, but are there any practical uses for -enmity equipment?

Same as any other DD; lower rate at which you cap hate. 20 on one piece is pretty nice and can pair it with schere for a pretty substantial enmity drop. Just a shame the piece has no offensive gains on its own. Still +10% DEF, 12~15 SB(assuming SBI since it came before the rise of SB II stuff), and -20 enmity all on a single piece isnt too bad utility wise

Well realistically I would rarely want to tp or ws in that just for -enmity but there are a lot of times I don't want to build unnecessary hate and a lot of DRK abilities come with a lot of enmity so I could see swapping it in with other -enmity items for JA activation when I don't want hate, maybe make a toggle for if I want + or - enmity for my JAs

Practical uses? I suppose I could see something like intentionally building Enm- into a Stun set, where that could make some real difference for a spell with such high enmity generation. Presuming the intent is to do that in situations where you want hate to remain on a tank, but DRK may try to stun some dangerous moves.

Being able to Enmity+ or Enmity- on Stun would be pretty handy. Did anyone ever make an Enmity- set for DRK? If not, I can take a look later.

Practical use would be something like Kalunga, where stealing hate from the tank probably will result in a full dispel and wipe. You won't have /DRG there to drop your hate. In fights like that, damage isn't your issue, so I wouldn't have any problem full timing -50 enmity in gear with reduced offensive stats (plus Schere Earring, refill MP with Entropy) to reduce the risk of taking threat. Dirge is almost always unnecessary since you can make a small sacrifices in gearing for the benefit of reduced enmity. So it frees up a song in the process too.

What do you mean it's not necessary? Have you cleared Kalunga without dirge? I've always used it and in the past had MAJOR issues with DD capping hate, even with dirge.

Also consider if you want to free up this slot EVERYONE needs to wear capped -enmity, in both TP and WS sets, not just the DRK. I don't think it's practical and I'm sure the dirge will offer more power via gear options than the song would, across 4 melee characters.

The boots seem like a neat niche thing, but I don't think kalunga is a very good place for them.

Somebody was asking about an Enmity- set for DRK so just found what was highest in slot.

ItemSet 402700

I imagine it being beneficial to lower the hate of specific abilities and spells upon usage, but not something you would wear full-time. Agreed with Maletaru. You wouldn't drop Dirge as it applies to everyone.

Enmity- caps at 50. Dirge gives -32, so you only need 18. Schere bypasses this, so you can look for other pieces to ensure max enmity- for Kalunga. The feet during LR, or Ratri and Sash +1 in the set posted above would suffice.

Without Dirge and no LR, I would use everything except the Cloak and JSE Cape. A good enmity set that does not rely on those would be nice. I am going to make one.

Unfortunately was probably a fair bit more useful when 119(maybe 109 too) was fresh, as gear creep wasnt near as high and dds were a fair bit glassier so -20% hate decrease might not be so bad in exchange for maybe 2~DA or 3-4 wsd if i remember delve era gear proper

This only matters if everyone needs the dirge in the comp. Bard and Corsair surely won't cap hate on Kalunga ever, so it's whatever for them. Warrior might, but if both DRK and WAR wanted to, they could make dedicated -enmity sets and rock those fulltime, capping enmity reduction. I'm guessing if you use BLU in comp too, you probably don't cap hate there easy either. You get the benefit of a better song and make adjustments in your set accordingly. BRD/Cor dps would go up and the jobs that are already strong just get slightly less strong. I made a specific enmity reduction set for Monk on ambuscade way back to eliminate the need for Dirge in specific fights, it worked fine. Similar to a subtle blow toggle, it's not terribly hard to fit if you wanted to do it.

Edit: NVM it kinda doesn't really matter for the dark anyways. Our DRK capped hate through Dirge during our initial Kalunga clears. The real benefit would just be for the others to get a better song. Dark is too strong

Surely on Kalunga you're using soul voice, which means dirge is -64. It caps -enmity for everyone it hits, for every action they ever take.

And yeah, BRD and COR don't pull hate, now, with dirge. Double their hate (by not using dirge) and try again. They will pull hate.

Side note but hey: if you have an Earp COR, they don't really need Dirge since they can just rock Bayeaux Bullet for -enmity.

Oh yeah. Of course. I don't play BRD so I forgot SV just straight up doubles values. Considering other scenarios where we don't have Dirge in any form.

With LR: Fallen Feet (20), Cloak (15), Ratri (10) and Choker (5 / +8 enmity decrease) = 50

Without LR: Cloak (15), Ratri (10), Sash (8), Kuchekula + Novia (14) and Psilomene or Mephitas (3) = 50

Last Resort, Souleater and Stun are the only things I'd consider using enmity- for. I wouldn't want any in TP or WS sets. Being able to shave some enmity from LR and Stun is better than nothing in scenarios where you can't Super Jump and don't want hate.

Struggling to think of examples of where that would be, though.

Schere earring pretty much lived in all my TP sets.

Yes, but it doesn't count toward the cap. It apparently bypasses the cap, and is just an all-round awesome TP piece. Unless you need the MP.

Hi Kylos, long time no see. Hope you are well

Same to you man. I remember us talking DRK on here many moons ago, lol.