Merit Adjustment And Speculation.

Im kinda scratching Desperate Blows here as nice as it would be to swing even faster. I'm kinda doubting they would focus on say Angon/Desperate Blows/

I'm expecting upgrades to Mutes Soul,Diabolic Eye, and Dark Seal.
Given they remove the shadow penalty from sange would I be correct to assume they may remove the hp penalty to diabolic eye? Some people may not mind if but it can make a difference in VW even with MDT gear on.

I don't really know how they can make Muted Soul not suck. Maybe if it generated no enmity at all with SoulEater up? It seems like they are going to make some nice changes. I only hope Dark Knight's get what they deserve.

They have said that group 2 that focus on effect will not be adjusted, DB is an effect, not a recast so it won't be adjusted.

You are looking at diabolic eye and dark seal only. Diabolic eye being the winner here as it might give up to 40 accuracy with 5/5 merit, which isn't a bad thing.

I was hoping they would make an exception to Muted soul since it is so useless (Maybe start a petition yo!) That aside the I'm looking forward to diabolic eye.

This, so much!

Accuracy isn't a problem for anyone who isn't geared like poo and knows how to food.

We also have an absorb for that, and its much better than wasting a group 2 merit category on it.


Unless they remove the HP penalty or gives something AMAZING, then it will be forever worthless.

should do away with dark seal and give us a damage +% boost for weaponskills

Fixed.

Thing is though the accuracy boost can help you adjust your gear into a more offensive build while still capping accuracy. (WAR Aggressor up builds from the old days)

On certain VWNM what if you could cap accuracy with your standard Abyssea build(3/5 AF3+2,Calm/Ace's Leggings) for the duration of DE.

The alternative without that accuracy boost would be something like
Zelus/Ace's Mail(or AugedAdaberk)/Homam Legs/Homam Feet Correct?

If it ever got that high of a boost to begin with or if it would let you justify putting Bale Cuirass+2 on in those situations.

Not factoring in drinks though.

A great place to start though would be getting solid data on each NMs evasions/AGI

On anything hard enough that you struggle for accuracy, it probably isn't wise to drop your max hp down.

I agree with this, for the most part.

Accuracy can be remedied with gear.
But, Dark seal helps land proc-spells on certain nms which can be a pain to land dark magic on.
And Muted soul, while allowing you to deal more dmg before you pull hate, could also be annoying if you actually need to tank.
(Probably would rarely use souleater while tanking, but still)

Think I'll stick with Muted soul still, personally.

Also, I love the HP I do get, and hate to use a JA to lower it (taru ftw :<)
Also, Stalwarts is usually possible to fulltime in VW, so acc rarely is an issue.

I kind of agree. I'm pretty sure the only things I've ever gotten close to missing somewhat-consistently are chigoes.
I figured everyone who takes time to actually skill up have little to no problems capping accuracy with just how high your skills can get now. Now, with this last raise in the level cap, our skills will be reaching a staggering 430ish with merits. If you're still stuggling for accuracy after that.. I don't know what to tell you other than go right ahead and get Diabolic Eye.

Personally, I've never bothered with the ability. The loss in hp while small, is still a pain. And with the ridiculous amount of acc our skills stack for two-handed weps makes it all the less useful.

Anyway, I really don't know how to feel about these "adjustments." Other than desperate blows, group 2 for drk has never really been extraordinary. Since there's only 2 things with recast, and desperate blows already being amazing, I can only see dark seal and diabolic eye getting potency buffs like you guys said.
It's something.. but doesn't really excite me.. at all, really.

If Dark Seal gave a potency to our next Drain/Aspir or something sure, but it only gives accuracy.

And past dark magic skill level 300 all we get for our dark magic skill is magical accuracy no potency.


Unless a different type of potency is added to diabolic eye/dark seal, or if by some grace of the infernal gods Dark Knight gets offensive dark magic worth casting.

Then we'd have something to look forward too.



Also 4 swings from my Apocalypse or 1-2 WS with Souleater up would make muted soul worthless anyway.

You probably don't have much of an accuracy problem against Zilart T3 VW because you have Apoc. I was doing a 4x Uptala last week and an Amano SAM was parsing without my knowledge. So at the end of the first fight, he told me that I parsed first. As a lowly Caladbolg drk (though consider pretty well geared), I was obviously shocked (no way I should outparse a Ukon war I don't care how good I am), but knowing how VW is, parsing on the top pretty much means you utilize your temp items well, and was able to live through the whole fight without dying. Luck also have to be on your side so you don't have to proc anything.

So while shocked, I asked one thing that is the most relevant and comparable in a parse, what was my accuracy? He was like, lol... it is 75%. Like you guys, I never thought I would have accuracy problem, skill capped merited, fairly well geared toward accuracy, using the ASA pants with +7 accuracy 3 haste instead of Calmecac for the exact reason. Yet I thought I would have 85-90 with the use of temp. item.

The problem with VW is that, you have monarch drink, you have save tp atma, you have regain atma, you have COR rolls, you are almost always WSing. Missing a bit here and there is not noticable, and as long as you are WSing nonstop, you think you are hitting 95% accuracy.

But anyway, long story short, after again parsing first for the 2nd and 3rd fight (but not the 4th, I guess the Ukon war woke up) while accuracy stayed at around 75% (with more use of diabolic eye based on the prior parse result). I decided that accuracy isn't something that I should assume that I am capped. That's why there is whole discussion in the Caladbolg build thread about how to cap haste, stay 7 hit, and net an extra 35-40 accuracy from gears.

For those who said on anything hard enough that you are going to have accuracy problem, you will need the HP. That's totally untrue. The only thing that is going to be hard now a day is VW (not really "hard" but high level mobs), and for that you have Fanatic drink. If your group is any good at proc, you should be under the effect for almost the entire fight. The same goes to other temp. items. I also don't want to make it sound like I was the only person with accuracy problem. The parser said he sometimes fall below 90% as well even with the +35 accuracy from amano, and most nonrelic nonpld (enlight is the next best thing for accuracy) jobs parse around 70-80% accuracy.

We have constructed a set that is good enough to solve the accuracy problem. However, while under the use of the new diabolic eye, I should be able to swap to more of a DA, TA, critical hit focus set. This isn't a good merit choice for apoc drk, never was, but it does provide a great option for the rest of us.

PS: good luck absorb acc on Uptala.

DE is definitely our best T2 behind DB.

MS has 0 use ever.
DS has barely any use. Its not even good for procs, since there are 10? DRK exclusive spells that don't land, how are you going to guess which one it is. If Darkness is a DRK spell you are better off just skipping it and continue to zerg the mob.

Diabolic Eye!

Your physical and magical damage is increased by 15% (at full merits)!

My group usually just uses sch/drk for absorbs and rarely ever have an issue landing any of them, except on pil. *** pil.