Why Dark Knight?[]
When you imagine a 2007 era Dark Knight, it may evoke images of Linkin Park playing in the background while Kraken Clubs are swingin and beating down an innocent Absolute Virtue. It could also evoke memories of that one Dark Knight you partied with that just couldn’t control his Souleater usage and constantly killed himself. Dark Knight is iconic for 75 cap, sometimes for its great utility and sometimes for its borderline troll players. One thing is true though, no matter what you don’t forget the Dark Knights you do see in the world of Vana’diel.
On Eden, Dark Knight finds a home as a heavy DPS job that brings moderate amounts of support to the party with things like stun and enhancing the effect of chaos roll. It can also be played as a tank at end game levels, relying on spells to generate aggro and mitigating damage with dread spikes, drains, and utsusemi. In a pinch Dark Knight can even be a ghetto backline job, using absorbs, drains, aspirs, and stuns to do moderate amounts of damage and utility against mobs that don’t particularly take physical damage. Flexibility is the key to Dark Knight’s usefulness, in general the job struggles to keep up with the best DD jobs like Samurai or Warrior, but people still love to have them around just for the mixture of support and damage. This also means that compared to my previous guides, Warrior and Samurai, there is much less black and white to Dark Knight's play style. This job is a "learn by doing" job for sure, you yourself need to figure out how to fit in a dread spikes between pulls without losing any DPS uptime, or when is appropriate to stun vs just allow things to go off so you can squeeze out more damage. No one likes a Dark Knight that sacrifices all damage in order to support, but no one likes a Dark Knight that never supports either, balance is the key to this job.
Abilities[]
Blood Weapon (1) 2:00:00 Recast - When activated Blood Weapon drains HP equal to amount of damage done to the enemy for every swing connected.
This is a strange 2-hour ability to be honest, it's pretty weak for normal play just allowing you some cheeky healing every time you hit that is very unlikely to save you from death. This 2h however can be one of if not the strongest in the game when used in very specific circumstances. With Souleater up you would usually lose 12% of your HP with every auto attack, but when paired with Blood Weapon you will heal all of that HP back making it do no damage to you (this does not work on WSes). With fast swinging weapons, many buffs, and against specific mobs, a Dark Knight can achieve unimaginable burst damage with this ability combination in what is commonly called a "zerg". This strategy is used to take down very scary end game monsters in 30 seconds flat like Vrtra, Bahamut, and Dynamis Lord. See the Zerging section for more information on this playstyle.
Arcane Circle (5) 10:00 Recast - Increases resistance to arcana
A pretty weak ability, if you remember to use it while fighting any arcana-type mob you and your party members will have a chance to intimidate the mob.
Last Resort (15) 5:00 Recast - Increases your attack by 15% and lowers your defense by 15%
This ability is okay, it's a relatively strong temporary attack boost you can slip in before a big WS. Usually you will want to use this on cooldown just for more stats. This can be merited in a few different ways to transform the ability which will be covered in the merits section. It also gives a huge amount of hate - 1300 Volatile Enmity which is about 2/3rds of a Provoke.
Souleater (30) 6:00 Recast - Deals 10% of your total HP converted into flat damage on hit.
This is probably the Dark Knight "signature" ability, it allows you to add massive amounts of damage to every swing at the cost of your own HP. Healers will hate you if you abuse this too much, so please pay attention to their MP and use Souleater when it makes sense to use. With weaponskills this will trigger on every hit of a WS, so if you use a 6 hit WS you will drain 60% of your entire HP pool, so be careful. As mentioned in the Blood Weapon paragraph, this can be combined with that ability for some crazy shit. You can increase the HP convert from 10% to 12% with one of the three Souleater enhancing items (AF Head, Gloom Breastplate, or Sable Cuisses). Souleater also adds +25 accuracy while its up, which can help offset accuracy loss from Souleater enhancing items.
Spells[]
Drain (10): Dark magic spell that drains HP from the enemy, this is actually a pretty strong nuke and you will use this a lot. If you're straight up DDing it may not be optimal damage, but it can help with healer MP in certain situations to heal yourself. Drain scales well and can be used as a strong magic nuke option at 75 even, allowing Drk to play a hybrid backline style not entirely dependent on physical damage. This spells damage scales with Dark Magic Skill up until a cap of 300 and then stops, after that just gear for magic accuracy via INT, skill, and raw magic accuracy items.
Bind (20) & Sleep (30): If you have Enfeebling skilled up this can be useful to cast in weird situations, like a mob link or over pull.
Stun (37): Probably the most useful spell that Drk has, it has a .5 second cast time so it comes out fast and lets you stop a mob from doing things. This is the #1 utility ability that Drk has access to, you can stun giant -aga spells, pecking flurries, lock a mob down so it doesn't Mijin Gakure or Astral Flow, or just stun to let someone get shadows up. This is such a strong spell and learning to use it correctly is integral to being a useful Dark Knight. This spell also generates very high amounts of Enmity and can be used as a way to get snap hate.
Absorb-STR (Or any stat) (31-43): These are very situational spells that allow you to steal a mob's stats and apply them to yourself. I would not take the time to cast these spells instead of hitting the mob, the extra STR or DEX generated is not even close to worth the casting time wasted. The true use for these spells is on things you can't melee, you can enfeeble a really powerful enemies INT so your Blms can have more accurate nukes, or VIT so your Rngs can hit harder, and so on. Support basically.
Absorb-TP (45): This is a a fun spell, it allows you to steal TP from the enemy and give it to yourself. This spell has a high level of skill expression, as the more TP the mob has the more TP you can take from it, so if you learn to read battle pacing and mob TP generation you can get some really nice Absorb TPs off. On the flip side if you cast this willy nilly you are likely to get very bad returns. In actuality you are better off not casting this spell in most situations because the damage gained from just hitting the mob and generating TP the old fashioned way is just straight up better damage, but in some situations it is worth using.
Drain II (62): Drain II acts like drain, but with a twist! For every HP drain II returns over your max HP, it will temporarily increase your max HP for 1 minute. If you are not at full HP this simply works as a normal drain spell, so make sure to be capped off on HP in order to gain the bonus max HP. This is exceptionally useful for boosting the damage of Souleater, in party play you could Drain II the mob before popping souleater for extra bonus HP% damage. It also has a higher damage cap than drain, so you can hit for 400+ damage in max sets. Like Drain, the damage on this spell scales with dark magic skill up until a cap of 300 skill then stops.
Dread Spikes (71): The coolest and most fun "spikes" ability in FFXI, Dread Spikes once cast causes you to drain HP from the enemy every time you're hit equal to the damage the mob does to you. Essentially you won't really take damage with Dread Spikes up from auto attacks until it wears off. The potency of Dread Spikes is based purely on total HP, which means you can macro in as much HP as possible before casting it for maximum total damage absorbed. The spell only lasts 1 minute, so it can be frustrating to use, but when timed correctly is exceptionally rewarding.
Merits[]
Category 1
I should preface this by saying that category 1 is a mess of a category, and is still highly debated by Dark Knights in discord channels and forums everywhere. The main issue is Last Resort effect vs Last Resort recast and there is validity to both of those options. Even Souleater recast can be situational. Follow your heart and merit what works best for you in category 1 because lord knows there's no right answer.
Souleater Recast - Lowers the recast of Souleater by a minute, putting it at 5:00 with full merits. I personally think this is a good choice for a category 1 merit, allowing you to get to your next big souleater WS a minute earlier, or if your lucky enough with enough backline you can ride the whole souleater duration. That said if you find yourself unable to use souleater on cooldown because of MP constraints, maybe it's not the right merit for you.
Last Resort Recast - This lowers Last Resort's recast down to 4:10 with max merits, which sounds great, more Last Resort who could be mad at that. The problem is that if you are stacking Last Resort and Souleater togethor, this staggers the timers and can lead to waste. Is it better to use them seperately and take the lower recast? Maybe. It depends on the situation, the healer's ability to support the Souleater usage, and many other things.
Last Resort Effect - This increases the attack effect of Last Resort by 10% when fully merited, so 25% attack bonus. This is good, but you also have to remember that attack does cap at some point, and in many situations the +15% attack alone on Last Resort is enough to hit that point. This is good sometimes, and literally useless sometimes, and deciding between this and Last Resort Recast is a challenge all Dark Knight's face.
Arcane Circle Recast/Weapon Bash Recast - Worthless.
Category 2
Dark Seal - Pretty good one point wonder, this works much like Elemental Seal where it gives you massive magic accuracy bonuses when casting 1 dark magic spell. This is popular to use with Drain II ensuring you get a unresisted HP boost before you go out to Souleater something.
Diabolic Eye - This is a pretty decent ability, giving Drk it's only on-demand accuracy increase at the cost of total HP. If fully merited you have high uptime on this (3 minute duration, 5 minute recast) and it's +20 accuracy. This can be used either as an on-demand accuracy boost against mobs with higher evasion (Like a Thief mob in Dynamis) or you can swap out accuracy gear for more offensive options when its up (Like Toreadors Ring into Blitz Ring) either way is good. Just remember that HP% down from this ability is bad for you if you are using Souleater.
Muted Soul - This merit gives you -10 enmity when Souleater is up per level. I don't recommend this, as when you are using Souleater your damage output should be so insanely high that you will likely pull hate anyways. Also most of the time Souleater is either deleting the mob or the mob is unable to act when being attacked via stuns so it doesn't matter if it's facing you.
Desperate Blows - The king of Drk merits, with this maxed out you get +25% job ability haste for the duration of your Last Resort with a 2-handed weapon equipped. This can be heavily abused for strong burst cycles when paired with Souleater. It's hard to overstate just how important this merit is, and it should always be your first capped job merit. One cool thing most people don't know about this ability is that with 5/5 you don't need to use Hasso while it's up (because job ability haste caps at 25%) so you can use Seigan+Third Eye for defense.
Recomended: 5 Desperate Blows, 1 Dark Seal, 4 Diabolic Eye.
People typically ask for a recommended meriting order so I try to add one into these, personally I think its super subjective as your needs vary based on what you do, but here's my take:
Desperate Blows 5 > Scythe Skill 8 > Critical Hit 4 > Dark Seal 1 > Diabolic Eye 4 > Souleater Recast 5 > Last Resort Effect 5 > HP 8 > STR 5
Sub Jobs[]
Core Sub Jobs:
Samurai is Drk's highest DPS sub job for normal play as a melee DPS. The biggest reason for this is the ability Hasso, which is a 100% uptime +10% Haste, +10 Accuracy, and +5 Strength. Haste is by far the most important stat in the game, especially if you are stacking it on top of other haste gear and buffs, so the DPS increase from +10% alone is absurd. The second reason is the passive Store TP you gain off traits, which allows a scythe Drk to gain TP in 6 hits instead of 7, and a great sword Drk to gain TP in 7 hits instead of 8. Samurai sub also offers defensively utility in Seigan, which allows you to mitigate most incoming single target attacks. Other perks include Meditate which grants you free TP and Zanshin which offers a low chance to swing again if you miss. The only "problem" with Samurai sub is that with Hasso or Seigan up you cast 100% slower, but it's easy enough to cancel them before you start a cast. This is the sub you want to have, it may not always be the right choice because Ninja sub offers significantly stronger defenses, but if you can you should sub Samurai.
Ninja is the other major sub for Drk, it offers basically zero offensive power but has unmatched defensive ability that in 75 cap play is exceptionally necessary at times. This power comes from the spell Utsusemi, both versions of it, which puts a buff on you that absorbs incoming damage. When played correctly you should take almost no damage when subbing Ninja as you can rotate between Utsusemi: Ni and Utsusemi: Ichi for nearly fulltime coverage. The only thing you have to worry about is AoE magic, which will instantly clear your Utsusemi and do full damage, and some AoE weaponskills which can pierce shadows or clear certain amounts of them. This is also the sub job you will use for any tanking.
Niche Sub Jobs:
Warrior is the sub job you will use while leveling before Samurai comes into play. Seeing as you don't get hasso till 50, War is your go to sub from 30-49 if you don't need Ninja for defenses. At 30 you will gain access to Berserk which is a +25% attack buff with a 3 minute duration and 5 minute recast.
Ranger is the sub job of choice before Warrior! From 20-30 this sub will offer you a small Accuracy Bonus (+10) as well as Sharpshot that increases your ranged accuracy for spamming crossbow bolts which you should be doing at that level.
Dragoon is purely a zerging sub job, it does offer some non zerging benefits like Jump, Attack Bonus, and Accuracy Bonus, but overall none of those will be better than the subs listed above. Where Dragoon shines is Wyvern Earring, which is a +5% haste earring that can only be active when subbing Drg. This is the best sub job for all levels of zerging because the haste only gets better the more you have, and in zerg situations you are at very high haste levels to begin with.
Thief is not a good sub job in my opinion, and I put it here purely to talk about why you shouldn't use this. Many people remember using Thf as a sub in era in order to drop giant single hit WSes like Spinning Slash with Sneak Attack forcing the WS to critical hit. This playstyle has almost entirely vanished on Eden, as with proper gearing and buffing, even on the hardest mobs you will likely have buffs and be able to just sub Sam or Nin to melee the mob down, which results in far more damage than the spike of SAWS. Maybe your LS will have some use for this sub, but I've been playing on Eden for a long time now and have used this playstyle almost never.
Leveling Tips[]
Dark Knight is a strange job while leveling, Scythe, the signature weapon, is actually really bad until level 60 and even casting spells is largely a waste of time. Dark Knight while leveling is going to use a combination of Great Axe and a Crossbow. The Great Axe gives you access to strong weaponskills; Shield Break, as the first WS you learn, applies -40 evasion to the mob when used (not guaranteed, and based on combat skill level so keep it skilled up) which is one of the largest DPS increases you can possibly have for a party at low levels. Later on Sturmwind is a very powerful 2-hit WS and can really put the hurt on mobs; also because it's multi-hit it synergizes very well with Souleater. Crossbow is exceptionally powerful at lower levels, if you have the proper crossbow and gear you should be able to hit harder and faster than your 2 hander by shooting bolts. Dark Knight has a very low Marksmanship skill (E), but honestly skill levels don't matter too much until the 50s or 60s.
Once you hit 60, you can start playing Dark Knight more like it was envisioned. With a Scythe out you have access to Guillotine, one of the strongest weaponskills in the game. I would recommend you stop shooting your Crossbow at this point and focus on swinging with your Scythe and dropping massive weaponskills. You can also cast spells like Absorb-TP, which if timed well can give you huge chunks of TP to increase your damage and lower the mob's damage. Don't forget you can Stun/Weapon Bash pesky moves like Pecking Flurry or Cocoon. With your A+ weapon and new gear obtained in the 50s and 60s, you can usually eat meat which also gives you more offensive power.
Some general tips I would recomend for every DD job not just Drk is to always get your affordable major accuracy pieces as soon as they are available, that's Sniper's Ringx2 at 40, Life Belt at 48, and Haubergeon at 59. Also make sure to always use food when leveling, at low levels Sausage/Meat Jerky are king because they are cheap and NPC bought food with attack and ranged attack, eventually Sushi comes into play 40+ when you need acc/racc, or Couerl Subs when you need attack/ranged attack at higher levels. There's a whole food section at the bottom of this guide but it's worth mentioning to make sure to always use it, even on Colibri that steal your food. Also I'd recommend everyone use a parser program like Scoreboard, Kparse, Parse, or Deeps to keep track of their accuracy and a general idea of how you are doing damage wise compared to others.
Weapons[]
Apocalypse - The king of Dark Knight weapons, this is the relic scythe and is probably the single biggest power increase a relic weapon can provide to a job. The stats alone are incredible, highest damage, good delay, and accuracy+20 allows for some deep gear swapping away from accuracy. Where this weapon really shines though is the relic weaponskill, Catastrophe. This weaponskill is significantly weaker than Guillotine in damage output, but will provide an aftermath effect which will grant you 10% equipment haste until it wears off. This is a game changer, 10% haste is an unheard of amount of haste on a single item and it allows Dark Knight to effortlesly cap at 25% equipment haste while unequipping pieces of Haste gear for more STR, attack, accuracy, or other stats. Oh and I didn't even mention that Catastrophe heals you for a percent of damage done which makes you very hard to kill with this weapon and allows for some very aggressive Souleatering. Dark Knight is not even one of the most popular jobs on Eden, but Apocalypse is the most popular relic on the server, and for very good reason.
Triton's/Orichalcum Scythe - This is the staple Scythe for all Dark Knights on Eden. The NQ is super affordable, and the HQ is a little pricy but is not impossibly expensive. This scythe is just super easy, super good, and not beatable by current Eden scythes not named Apocalypse. This Scythe is only ever replaced by Perdu Sickle, a currently unobtainable weapon from high level assault rank, or if Tredecim Scythe is fixed. I wouldn't count on switching this weapon out anytime soon. Also please do not use a Death Scythe, its just not good.
Tredecim Scythe - This scythe is bad.....currently. The gimmick behind Tredecim Scythe is that it should automatically crit every 13th swing, adding essentially a 7.69% crit rate ontop of the weapon. When this works, the scythe will be amazing. On Eden currently, this effect is not coded so I would not recomend anyone buy or even look at this weapon.
Ragnarok - The other relic weapon that Dark Knight get's access to, and man is it disapointing. In theory this weapon has a lot going for it with tons of passives like an increased Critical Hit Rate, increased Critical Hit Damage, fast swing speed, bonus accuracy, all sorts of things. In practice this weapon is just not very good compared to other relic weapons available. The damage is abysmal and the exclusive WS Scourge is legitimately one of the worst weaponskills ever made with its CHR/MND mod. Ragnarok suffers from not having a good WS, which is why in later versions of FFXI where it was given a good WS, this relic became the best. In theory this puts out good white damage, but white damage alone doesn't make up for the huge lack of WS damage you will have with this weapon.
Gear Sets[]
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Stat Priorities: Store TP (Until 6 Hit ) > Haste > Accuracy > Attack > Strength.
This set has 407 accuracy with Hasso and Hume DEX. There's a lot of accuracy gear to play with in this set. If you need more accuracy you can use items like Toreadors Ring and Aces Helm. If you need less accuracy you can use items like Bomb Core and Cerb+1/Foragers Mantle. I recommend having 3 different TP sets you use, for Low, Mid, and High Accuracy totals. |
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| Alternative 1 | Alt 2 | Alt 3 | |
| Weapon | Orichalcum Scythe | Death Scythe +1 | Death Scythe |
| Grip | Mythril Grip +1 | Mythril Grip | Claymore Grip |
| Ammo | Bomb Core | RSE Sachet | |
| Head | Aces Helm | Optical Hat | |
| Neck | Peacock Charm | Chivalrous Chain | Wivre Gorget +1 |
| Ear1&2 | Assault Earring | Hollow Earring | Fowling Earring |
| Diabolos's Earring | Merman's Earring | Coral Earring | |
| Body | Adaman Hauberk | Haubergeon +1 | Haubergeon |
| Hands | Homam Manopolas | Dusk Gloves | Thick Mufflers |
| Ring1&2 | Toreador's Ring | Sniper's Ring +1 | Sniper's Ring |
| Woodsman Ring | Jaeger Ring | Venerer Ring | |
| Back | Cerberus Mantle +1 | Forager's Mantle | Amemet +1 |
| Waist | Swift Belt | Life Belt | Potent Belt |
| Legs | Armada/Adaman | Onyx/Black Cuisses | Dusk Trousers |
| Feet | Dusk Ledelsens +1 | Dusk Ledelsens | Amir Boots |
|
Stat Priorities: Accuracy (Until capped) > STR > Attack.
|
|---|
| Alternative 1 | Alt 2 | Alt 3 | Alt 4 | |
| Weapon | ||||
| Grip | Mythril Grip +1 | Mythril Grip | Claymore Grip | |
| Ammo | Bomb Core | RSE Sachet | ||
| Head | Hecatomb Cap | Maats Cap | Aces Helm | Optical Hat |
| Neck | Justice Torque | Peacock Charm | Chivalrous Chain | R.K Collar |
| Ear1&2 | Assault Earring | Hollow Earring | Fowling Earring | Diabolos's Earring |
| Merman's Earring | Triumph Earring | Coral Earring | ||
| Body | Adaman Hauberk | Haubergeon +1 | Haubergeon | |
| Hands | Black Gadlings | Chaos Gauntlets +1 | Hecatomb Mittens/+1 | Alky Bracelets |
| Ring1&2 | Toreadors Ring | Sniper's Ring +1 | Sniper's Ring | Flame Ring |
| Ruby Ring | ||||
| Back | Forager's Mantle | Amemet +1 | Amemet | |
| Waist | Potent Belt | Life Belt | ||
| Legs | Black Cuisses | Hecatomb Subligar/+1 | Dusk Trousers/+1 | R.K. Breeches |
| Feet | Black Sollerets | Hecatomb Leggings +1 | Hecatomb Leggings | Chaos Sollerets +1 |
|
Stat Priorities: Damage Taken > Physical Damage Taken > Parry > Evasion.
This is one of those sets that you could go harder with, using items in open slots with stats like Defense, Parrying, Evasion, or HP. Personally I want to keep as much offensive pressure as I can in my PDT set so I just choose to swap in specifically PDT pieces. This has very little alternatives and I wouldn't honestly even bother with this set until you have the HQ Darksteel pieces. It's not a lot of PDT like Sam and Mnk can get, but it might save your life from a 1 shot Eagle Eye Shot or something so I'd recommend having it. |
|---|
| Alternative 1 | |
| Head | Darksteel Cap |
| Body | Darksteel Harness |
| Hands | Darksteel Mittens |
| Back | Boxer's Mantle |
| Legs | Darksteel Subligar |
| Feet | Darksteel Leggings +1 |
|
Stat Priorities: Above 1 in every elemental Resist > Damage Taken -% > Magic Damage Taken -% > Magic Defense Bonus
|
|---|
| Alternative 1 | Alt 2 | Alt 3 | |
| Head | Green Ribbon +1 | Coral Visor +1 | Coral Visor |
| Neck | Jeweled Collar | ||
| Ear1&2 | Coral Earring | ||
| Body | Coral Scale Mail | ||
| Hands | Coral Finger Gauntlets | ||
| Ring1&2 | Merman's Ring | Coral Ring | Unfettered Ring |
| Gobniu's Ring | |||
| Back | Resentment Cape | Lamia Mantle | |
| Waist | |||
| Legs | Abyss Flanchard | Coral Cuisses | |
| Feet | Coral Greaves |
|
Stat Priorities: Dark Magic Skill (till 300) > INT OR Dark Magic Skill or Magic Accuracy depending on which gives higher total magic accuracy.
|
|---|
| Alternative 1 | Alt 2 | Alt 3 | |
| Weapon | Dark Staff | ||
| Grip | Bugard Strap | ||
| Ammo | Morion Tathlum | RSE Sachet | |
| Head | Chaos Burgeonet | Homam Zuchetto | Walahra Turban |
| Neck | Prudence Torque | Enlightened Chain | Mohbwa Scraf +1 |
| Ear1&2 | Phantom Earring +1 | Phantom Earring | Morion Earring +1 |
| Boroka Earring | Heims Earring | Magnetic Earring | |
| Body | Corselet | Demon's Harness | Blood Scale Mail |
| Hands | Blood Finger Gauntlets | Abyss Gauntlets | Homam Manapolas |
| Ring1&2 | Omnescient Ring | Diamond Ring | Eremite RIng +1 |
| Back | Merciful Cape | Federation Army Mantle | |
| Waist | R.K Belt +2 | R.K Belt +1 | Mrc. Cpt Belt |
| Legs | Abyss Flanchard | Jet Seraweels | Chaos Flanchard +1 |
| Feet | Homam Gambieras | Dusk Ledelsens +1 | Dusk Ledelsens |
|
Stat Priorities: HP > Haste
|
|---|
| Alternative 1 | Alt 2 | Alt 3 | |
| Ammo | Fenrir's Stone | ||
| Head | Wyvern Helm +1 | Wyvern Helm | Abyss Burgoenet |
| Neck | Tempered Chain | Shield Pendant | |
| Ear1&2 | Intruder Earring | Harmonius Earring | Pigeon Earring +1 |
| Crimson Earring | Pigeon Earring | ||
| Body | Crimson Scale Mail | Dusk Jerkin | Byrnie +1 |
| Hands | Pallas's Bracelets | Dusk Gloves +1 | Homam Manopolas |
| Ring1&2 | Harmonius Ring | Crimson Ring | Bomb Ring |
| Back | Marid Mantle +1 | Marid Mantle | Behemoth Mantle +1 |
| Waist | RSE Belts | Silver Moogle Belt | Marid Belt |
| Legs | Dusk Trousers | Prince's Slops | Homam Cosciales |
| Feet | Dusk Ledelsens +1 | Dusk Ledelsens | Marid Leggings +1 |
Zerging[]
With the introduction of the Haste cap all the information that was in this section became obsolete and a lot of the fun nuance in zerging removed. Just use a Kraken Club and Haste/HP gear.
Food[]
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Meat Mithkabob - All around cheap and easy attack food. This is your throw away food, it's so cheap you can use it in any situation without worrying about gil. It is also amazing for parties on Colibri, as they steal your food. |
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Crab Sushi - Treat this like an accuracy version of Meat Mithkabob. Good for colibri parties if you need the acc or really any event where performance doesn't matter much but you feel like you need to use food. |
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Bream Sushi - This food has lost its way a bit with Crab Sushi being introduced, no longer the cheapest sushi nor the best sushi. It fits a middle tier role if you want a better total accuracy food for a step up in cost. |
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Coeurl Sub - The next step up from a Meat Mithkabob, Couerl Subs have a higher attack cap and probably most importantly: ranged attack. This is a great food to use if you are still spamming your crossbow but have outscaled Rice Dumplings and don't need the accuracy from sushi. |
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Sole Sushi - The bees knees of sushi and also the most expensive sushi. This gives a juicy STR+5 for your weapon skills which are basically all strength modified. It does technically give a little less accuracy and accuracy % so make sure you are still capping your hit rate with it. |
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Carbonara - Carbonara is not going to give you the raw attack or strength that other foods do, and is relatively expensive. What it does do is give you the only source of a temporary store TP buff! Dark Knight doesn't generally need carbonara to hit new store TP tiers, but it's worth thinking about if you are having issues. The other side of this food is the HP+14% it adds, this makes Carbonara the best food for zerging because of the extra Souleater damage. |
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Hedgehog Pie - This is a 3 hour food and is going to be decently pricey but is quite amazing as an attack food! The cool part of this food is the temporary accuracy+5 which really can help out in a lot of events that you need that little extra boost like Dynamis. It also provides STR+6 which is very high and even some HP. Really quite a great food many people don't use/know about. |
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Hydra Kofte - Hydra Kofte is much in the same idea of Red Curry, another +150 attack food but this time you get a little defense boost to match it. This is also expensive, although less than Red Curry, and you do get more attack out of the Red Curry from the +23% vs +20%. This is definitely a neat food with a lot of application as a mixed defense/offense food though. |
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Rice Dumpling - A great low level food that provides a mixture of Accuracy, Attack, and Ranged Attack for your crossbow at low levels. If you can afford it I would recomend using this food from level 1 to level 40 or so until it starts to get out scaled by other foods. |
Tanking[]
Relatively few people play Dark Knight tank (we call it Slurp Mage in the discord) but it is an exceptionally good end game tank. To be clear, this isn't tanking via hitting the mob with your scythe to keep hate while casting shadows - while that play style is valid, it doesn't perform differently than normal play and isn't as effective on most higher-level mobs. Instead, Dark Knight tank is played in the same way that RDM/NIN or NIN/DRK is played at end game: you spam high hate generation spells to keep the mob's attention on you. Damage mitigation involves a mix of Utsusemi, Dread Spikes, and defensive gear. Some of the upsides to DRK tank are low cooldown stuns, pretty decent offensive output with Drain2/Drain/Dread Spikes, and probably the highest enmity generation capability of any job.
Enmity in era caps at 10,000 CE and 10,000 VE. CE stands for Cumulative Enmity, this is enmity that doesn't degrade over time and you can only lose by taking damage, hate resetting moves, losing shadows, or being enfeebled. VE stands for Volatile Enmity, this enmity decreases at 60 VE per second thus you continually need to build VE in order to stay capped. These are Dark Knight's specific spells and abilities with their era CE/VE values:
| Spell | CE Value | VE Value |
|---|---|---|
| Stun | 180 | 1280 |
| Sleep II | 480 | 480 |
| Sleep | 320 | 240 |
| Bind | 1 | 640 |
| Absorbs | 1 | 640 |
| Poison | 1 | 320 |
| Souleater | 1 | 1300 |
| Last Resort | 1 | 1300 |
Generally speaking your goal is to keep Drain 2 > Drain > Stun > Sleep II on cooldown in that order, then fill the gaps with Sleep, Bind, and Poison between recasts. Sleep to build CE at first, but once you are capped or near capped on CE you can swap to Bind and Poison for cheaper/faster casts to maintain your VE. Try to setup Dread Spikes timings, where you can safely drop your shadows and let the mob hit you for a few rounds to take a bunch of damage, or you can save Dread Spikes for scarier parts of the fight when you think Utsusemi might not be enough damage mitigation. Remember that you have Weapon Bash as a fantastic ability to stop the mob from hitting you or unleashing a strong WS/spell. Souleater and Last Resort are great abilities to spike your hate at the start of a fight, after a hate reset, or when you need to rip the mob off someone - just remember to cancel them.
Gear-wise you will use a combination of gear already shown in this guide, as well as new sets for enmity generation and defense.
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Stat Priorities: Haste/Fast Cast (Until capped recast) > Enmity > Magic Accuracy/Skill/INT.
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|---|
| Alternative 1 | Alt 2 | Alt 3 | |
| Weapons | |||
| Head | Bahamut's Mask | Aegishjalmr | Hydra Salade |
| Neck | Hateful Collar | Enfeebling Torque | Dark Torque |
| Ear1&2 | Hades Earring | Loquacious Earring | |
| Body | Corselet | Crimson Scale Mail | Demon's Harness |
| Hands | Askar Manopolas | Dusk Gloves | Hydra Moufles |
| Ring1&2 | Sattva Ring | Snow Ring | |
| Back | Cerberus Mantle | Resentment Cape | High Breath Mantle |
| Waist | Swift Belt | Trance Belt | Warwolf Belt |
| Legs | Hydra Brayettes | Black Hose | |
| Feet | Dusk Ledelsens +1 | Hydra Sollerets | Askar Gambieras |
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Stat Priorities: Enmity
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|---|
| Alternative 1 | Alt 2 | Alt 3 | |
| Weapons | |||
| Head | Aegishjalmr | Hydra Salade | Rival Ribbon |
| Neck | Hateful Collar | ||
| Ear1&2 | Hades Earring | ||
| Body | |||
| Hands | Askar Manopolas | Homam Manopolas | Storm Manopolas |
| Ring1&2 | |||
| Back | Cerberus Mantle | Resentment Cape | High Breath Mantle |
| Waist | Warwolf Belt | Astral Rope | |
| Legs | Black Hose | ||
| Feet | Askar Gambieras | Heroic Boots +1 | Heroic Boots |
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Stat Priorities: Damage Taken/Physical Damage Taken > HP/VIT/Parrying Skill.
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|---|
| Alternative 1 | Alt 2 | Alt 3 | |
| Weapon | Earth Staff | ||
| Sub | Raptor Strap +1 | Raptor Strap | |
| Head | Darksteel Cap | ||
| Neck | Fortitude Torque | Orochi Nodowa | Tempered Chain |
| Ear1&2 | Bloodbead Earring | Pigeon Earring +1 | Crimson Earring |
| Body | Darksteel Harness | ||
| Hands | Darksteel Mittens | ||
| Ring1&2 | Bomb Queen Ring | Bloodbead Ring | Crimson Ring |
| Back | Boxer's Mantle | Gigant Mantle | High Breath Mantle |
| Waist | RSE Sash | Marid Belt +1 | Gold Moogle Belt |
| Legs | Darksteel Subligar | ||
| Feet | Darksteel Leggings +1 | Darksteel Leggings |
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Stat Priorities: Fire Resist > MDT > MDB > HP > INT.
This set is used against mobs you specifically know will use fire spells/abilities, with this set and some buffs like Barfire/Fire Carol you can reduce the incoming damage to nearly 0. Examples of fights you would use this on are Tiamat, KS99 Wyrm, and Bahamut. If you can't get an item with Fire Resist, equip whatever your best item is from the MDT set. |
|---|
| Alternative 1 | Alt 2 | Alt 3 | |
| Weapon | Neptune's Staff | Water Staff | |
| Sub | |||
| Ranged | Cerberus Bow | ||
| Head | Wvyern Helm +1 | Wyvern Helm | Green Ribbon +1 |
| Neck | Jeweled Collar | Buburimu Gorget | Elemental Charm |
| Ear1&2 | Communion Earring+1 | Harmonia's Earring | Triumph Earring |
| Body | Scorpion Breastplate +1 | Scorpion Breastplate | Republic Harness |
| Hands | Tarasque Mitts +1 | Scorpion Gauntlets | Tarasque Mitts |
| Ring1&2 | Harmonius Ring | Malflame Ring | Triumph Ring |
| Back | Cerberus Mantle | Dino Mantle | Raptor Mantle |
| Waist | |||
| Legs | Crimson Cuisses | Dino Trousers | Raptor Trousers |
| Feet | Kingdom Boots | Sandorian Boots | Dino Ledelsens |
|
Stat Priorities: Ice Resist > MDT > MDB > HP > INT.
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|---|
| Alternative 1 | Alt 2 | Alt 3 | |
| Weapon | Fire Staff | ||
| Sub | |||
| Ranged | |||
| Head | Green Ribbon +1 | Choplix Coif | Gadzradd's Helm |
| Neck | Jeweled Collar | Elemental Charm | Sand Charm |
| Ear1&2 | Triumph Earring +1 | Harmonia's Earring | Omniscient Earring |
| Body | Tundra Jerkin | Feral Jerkin | Tiger Jerkin |
| Hands | Tiger Gloves | Mythril Gauntlets | |
| Ring1&2 | Omniscient Ring | Malfrost Ring | Diamond Ring |
| Back | High Breath Mantle | Ram Mantle | Wolf Mantle +1 |
| Waist | |||
| Legs | Tiger Trousers | ||
| Feet | Crimson Greaves | Feral Ledelsens | Tiger Ledelsens |
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Stat Priorities: Earth Resist > MDT > MDB > HP > INT.
|
|---|
| Alternative 1 | Alt 2 | Alt 3 | |
| Weapon | Wind Staff | ||
| Sub | |||
| Ranged | |||
| Head | Wivre Hairpin +1 | Choplix Coif | Gadzradd's Helm |
| Neck | Jeweled Collar +1 | Jeweled Collar | Elemental Charm |
| Ear1&2 | Nimble Earring +1 | Robust Earring | Nimble Earring |
| Body | Beak Jerkin +1 | Beak Jerkin | Weaver's Smock |
| Hands | Beak Gloves +1 | Beak Gloves | |
| Ring1&2 | Robust Ring | Maldust Ring | Topaz Ring |
| Back | Gaia Mantle | Beak Mantle +1 | Beak Mantle |
| Waist | |||
| Legs | Beak Trousers | ||
| Feet | Crimson Greaves | Beak Ledelsens +1 | Beak Ledelsens |
Looking Forward[]
The Eden developers have been nice enough to tell us what is in the pipeline and what we can expect as future events, which allows us to plan out gear ahead of time. We know that eventually Eden has plans to add Nyzul Isle, Salvage, Einherjar, Zeni NMs, and Dreamland Dynamis at some point. Nyzul Isle will add the Askar set which to be honest is not super good, the hallmark piece is the Feet which completely outclass Darksteel Leggings +1 for PDT and Coral Leggings +1 for MDT. The Head has some use as a WS piece if you lack other options, and the body is mostly not good for Drk but can see use if you absolutely don't need accuracy in your body slot. Salvage will add the Ares set which also is....okay. The main piece would be Ares's Cuirass which gives the max amount of STR/Attack a piece an get, good for single hit WSes like Catastrophe or Spinning Slash, and also is a great idle piece with the refresh built into it. Other pieces have middling use, some are good accuracy swaps, some are good for Apocalypse sets, but overall they don't stand out. Einherjar adds the two pieces of Valhalla gear, which are great pieces for PDT and tanking sets. Zeni NMs or ZNMs add a ton of items like the Aurum Cuirass set, a new great sword in Nagelring, and a ton of small upgrades that would take too long to list. Dreamland Dynamis will add Abyss Cape, which is insanely good for accuracy in your TP set, WS set, and even Magic sets. It also allows you to upgrade your relic armor to +1 versions which gives additional dark magic skill and stats.