Atmas For DRK

If you are looking to solo on drk inside abyssea. Drk/mnk is by far the best choice. With RR/GH/RL atma you are golden to tank anything with a WHM support and solo most of the weak mobs with little to no down time.

Id like you to explain to me why RR/SS/apoc is such a poor choice for a caladbolg drk. Keep in mind i used to rock RR/VV/apoc and theres wasn t that much of a difference, except for the regain when your standing on the sidelines(if that applies)

vv rr apoc nuff said

I don't know because being that I usually am on the sidelines til grellow is done, I never do not use VV. On top of that, I'm only a 7 hit build until I get my WotG earring. I need the regain for that last little bit of tp. I could use carbonara for the extra store tp but then I'm losing considerable amount of attack.

Shouldn't fSTR be capped on DRK without VV in abyssea? If you're using Caldabolg, what's the point then?

most ppl likes the regain and attack resulting from the 50 str. I don't know, I am not a big fan of VV myself so. I can see it being extremely useful when you are sidelined during proc, but that's really about it for Caladbolg.

Edit: and DA sorry.

i would so bind>grav>bliz5 you just cause you think its funny to beat the blm's up

The blm is my cousin so all's fair. He was sitting 30 inches away from me and crying about how "even with manawall and buffs it took 3 seconds to chop through him due to aftermath and haste"

It really was funny (especially because due to him being a taru all my swings were over his head)

Not always. fSTR is dependent on Monster VIT. You can cap on one monster, and not another.

The other point is the Attack bonus, along with double attack and regain. Considering a huge amount of Caladbolg's DMG output comes from the aftermath, it's nice to have regain active while you move from place to place, that also saves Meditate for actual battles.

This is all good and all but it doesn t explain why SS is such a poor choice for a caladbolg owner in a non sideline situation. I do understand the situational use of VV, but i do not understand the "poor choice" of SS

~16% is huge?

Sanguine Scythe has little value to any DRK except the +HP for Souleater, which a Torc build utilizes less effectively (see: lack of multihit WS option). With the uncapping of +CritDamage it has a little more value to WAR and such, but still sucks for DRK unless you're /THF in which case you've got other issues...

Pumping only 65% (critrate) of 40% (TP phase) of your damage by ~20% (SS +CritDmg) is a paltry 5.2% increase, all estimates just for example. This is fairly low compared to other atma, like Griffon's would give you 60% (WS phase) * 20% (+WSDmg) = 12% increase.

STR has less value to Torc DRKs as well, because once fSTR caps it does nothing for them, TP or WS. Toss in three-minute Last Resort and the LR Effect merits a Torc DRK should have and even the Attack+ loses value very quickly. VV should remain a staple for non-Torc DRKs of all sorts. Roaring Laughter is an apt replacement when going /MNK.

Anyone who thinks they're capping accuracy full time in Abyssea on every target without buffs is a bint. Razed Ruins is a very decent source of Accuracy on top of being a double bonus to crit rate and crit damage. Torcleaver/Quietus don't require (much) accuracy, being single-hits, such that they can forego Razed Ruins for this purpose (I say 'much' because it still has value when wanting DA/TA procs on WS, still gotta land those secondaries).

Note then how Torcleaver is thus the exception for SS, VV, and RR utilization. These are still good atmas for DRK, Torc is just an outlier because of it's VIT mod and most desirable setup.

~~~

DRK/MNK with RR/GH/RL and a high base damage isn't just for soloing. I've blown through an Amarok or two on it (and a few beers at the same time, still not sure how I finished PLD body) recently, and it makes disgustingly (like 'hurry the fack up with that yellow proc') short work of lesser NMs, like Iktomi with only a DNC healing me (whom was having trouble with him solo). 600-650 damage counters do not *** about.

I was thinking it but wasn't gonna say it lol. I'm really not a fan of bringing massive amounts of people to Abyssea, too much hassle.

I have caladbolg and I usually use /thf with RR/SS/VV. Open with 300% Last Resort+Souleater+Blood Weapon And SA+Torcleaver for 4-7k and watch sparks fly lol. I def wouldnt say SS is not good for DRK. Capping crit dmg for those aftermath hits is a must imo, I have had crits for 2.5k+ so Im guessing set bonus stacks with aftermath which is nice :P

stopped reading at /thf

Same. Textbook case of BNS at any rate.

I'm gonna try out that /mnk with RL, and GH. As for RR i have been testing stacking damage increasing equipment and atma. With capped haste and triple attack 27% and RR atma i can pump out crits for 600-700 fairly often and get the occasional 1200-1400 critical hits with relic proc. Im still a few coins short to finish my bale set +2 but once i finish that ill tell you what i get.

RR should always win for Over all DMG, if the acc comes into play then even more. with ODD crits it pulls a head even more

Yeah /MNK is almost pure melee and counter damage. RR will be the largest boost with +CritDmg already on GH. WSing to self-heal with your Apoc would just be insane and you could definitely solo some NMs for lulz (I ripped 20% off Adumbla without a single heal with this setup).

Consider: RL gives STR, GH gives AGI, RR gives DEX. It's like a perfect combo.

Also, Boost for WS. Handy.

well im shitting this place up with grand noobinism trying to post my gearsets an get some advice, almost expect to get laughed outta ffxiah in a moment >_>;; lol
TP



Torcleaver



this is with LR an rcb;atma are apoc/rr/a&o
getting good returns but wanna maximize where i can

I'm workin on Scythe empy atm (already have GS)

This is what I got
TP:

WS:


With VV RR apoc

Also look into atma of the Lion sometime the -HP on A&O can kill you


and GS sets too :X
TP:

WS LR down:

WS LR up:

Scorpion Queen is 20 stp. I was thinking of playing with this using SQ AoA and AAO. 4 hit build with ~25% chance to single hit into 100 tp?

If stp caps at some point it would totally piss in my cheerios, but I was thinking of dicking around with this as a shits and giggles sort of thing.

cadushi grip works like the Eisen Grip, pre-nerf, if you need to boost your delay to meet a new x-hit build.

So, if you used that grip and a redemption with this build, would it still be viable to 4-hit? Is that going to be just a waste of time because of the atma choices and aftermath?

I don't have a cuirass so I can't even play with this yet.

I really have no idea. I haven't the time or the inventory space to pursue novelty builds on the chance they might be awesome.


I usually make it a point to try something before I render a verdict other than the theoretical pros-cons. So yeah, I tried /THF the other day with RR, SS and Apoc.


Total waste of time, even the 8k opening Torcleaver on Kutharei didn't make it worthwhile.

what do you think of Drk/War with caladbolg for abyssea?

We'll it's promising that I didn't get an immediate Nightfyre "No you're dumb and here's why" response ;3 I don't mind farting around testing novelty builds in my free time, but I was kind of looking for one of those:

"I can already tell this wont work because STP caps at 60" or "The dps inherently with blah blah because of math" etc. I'm just looking to get some opinions on this while i start farming zeni (i need aurum for other options anyhow, so its not a complete loss if this build will be ***).

Subbing war does close to nothing for drk these days.

Only situation that comes to mind, is maybe an Absolute Virtue burn, but that's wasted, since Volkom specifically asked about Abyssea.


I'd rate DRK/MNK higher than DRK/WAR in Abyssea, samurai and ninja are about the only worthwhile subs at the moment.