User:Sedres

Well, looking at the DRK entry, there doesn't seem to be much assistance available for young budding Dark Knight's with regard to equipment. I suppose in all honesty, there's not a great deal to remember, and a number of updates have changed a fair bit around, so let's start with the simple stuff.

Let's start with the begining.

As a Dark Knight, your role is to do physical or melee damage. Because of this, the stats that take priority are STR (Strength), DEX (Dexterity), Acc (Accuracy) and Atk (Attack). The August '07 update made STR and DEX all the more important as 1 STR/DEX now equals 1Atk/Acc respectively for two handed weapons (single handed weapons require 2 STR/DEX = 1 Atk/Acc).

STR and DEX gear can be difficult to acquire, however, and some armour pieces can provide alot of either atk or acc (such as the Bomb core or Life Belt). It's also worth noting that although STR = Atk and DEX = Acc, the reverse is not applicable. The difficult part will be complimenting all of these stats into your equipment, no one is more important than the other. STR and Atk rely on one another to be effective, and although DEX = Acc, you will find more Acc available to you than DEX in terms of equipment.

STR increases your maximum physical damage cap, that is the maximum amount out damage you can do with a physical attack. Atk gives you the potential to reach that cap. If you think of STR as the roof of a house, then the amount of Atk you have is basically the ladder that allows you to climb up to the roof. Because of this, there's no point piling on the STR gear, if you don't have the Atk to reach the cap. At the same time, there's no point piling on the Atk, because your maximum damage potential will be hindered by a lack of STR. However, it is worth mentioning that DRK has a number of "Attack Bonuses" available to it, so later on STR will become slightly more important, as your Attack Bonus will compensate for some missing Atk gear.

A word on subjobs.
Personally I have only ever used 3 subjobs: WAR, (Warrior), THF (Thief) and SAM (Samurai). There are other potentially useful subjobs such as DRG (Dragoon) and BLM (Black Mage), but the benefit's of these jobs are not so obvious, and having no experience in using them myself I can't say if they are or are not of any use. So, I'll stick to what I know, and for now just mention what job trait's or abilities are useful to DRK.

WAR: The most typical sub 1-50, but arguably the best sub to increase your Damage over Time (DoT), even through to lv75. WAR

Typically from levels 1-50, your subjob of choice will be Warrior, but can last all the way to end game. Warrior is arguable the best sub for DRK for it's Damage over Time (DoT). The WAR stats compliment the melee stats needed for DRK, and a number of WAR job abilities are very useful.:

lv30 Berserk: Increases your Atk by 25% of your base stat, whilst reducing your defence by the same amount. Being a damage dealer, you care not for defence, so this is a great way to improve your DoT.

lv50Double Attack,Defender: Double Attack, as well as Berserk, is the reason /WAR is such a useful and popular sub. This job trait gives you a 10% chance of throwing two melee hits in the same turn, increasing your DoT. Defender, not useful for damage output, but if you manage to pull hate away from the tank it'll help reduce damage by increasing your defence. Just be sure to erase the effect after the tank re-establishes hate, as it work in the reverse of Berserk. lv70Warcry: Another ability which increases your Atk base stat by a percentage. Not as useful as Berserk, as it only improves your Atk by about 5%, has a short duration, and can pull hate away from the tank. However, every little helps.

THF: The only real reason to sub THF is post lv66. At lv60, The THF job abilities Sneak Attack and Trick Attack are available, and at lv66 you can acquire the Great Sword (GS) weapon skill Spinning Slash. In the correct party set up, the SATA Spinning Slash combination can be devastating, as well as solidifying hate onto the tank providing you have the usual "first voke" set up. The problem with /THF is you lose alot of DoT.

lv30Sneak Attack: Garuntee's your next hit to be a critical hit, providing you are directly behind the mob. However, you need to make sure if you use it at this level, that it's either the killing blow or that your tank will be able to regain hate afterwards, otherwise you're going to pull alot of hate and likely get yourself killed. Sneak Attack also doesn't stack with elemental weaponskills, limiting it's use. lv50Flee: Increases movement speed for 30 seconds every 5 minutes... useful if you need to run away to a zone or whatever. lv60 Trick Attack: This is where the fun kick's in. A great tool to help your tank maintain hate if properly used, as well as insuring you yourself don't pull hate when you use it. As mentioned above, this can be used with Spinning Slash (and other none elemental WS) for high damage.