Available after completing the Blade of Darkness. "To strengthen themselves in battle, not only have these outlaw warriors mastered the ways of numerous weapons, but they have also acquired certain black magic spells to torment their enemies."
Strengths
Naturally high Attack stat from multiple Attack Bonus traits. When Warrior is subbed, Dark Knights are capable of unmatchable melee strength.
Soul Eater ability boosts melee damage output to very high levels.
Dark Knights have the ability to both cast Stun and use the stunning ability Weapon Bash, which can be of tremendous assistance against heavily-damaging enemy abilities and spells.
Highly proficient in use of both Scythes and Great Swords, both highly-damaging weapons. Also able to make use of many other weapons, such as Great Axes, Swords, and Axes.
Basic proficiency with ranged weapons, in conjuction with status-affecting bolts—allowing extra support opportunities.
Though specializing in melee combat, can effectively be offensive through magical and ranged attacks as well.
Can open and close virtually every Skillchain between the two primary A-rated weapons. Skillchain-closing Weapon Skills have impressive force. High-level Dark Knights (often subbing Thief for Sneak Attack) can close Light Skillchains with Spinning Slash to produce a tremendous amount of damage.
When Warrior is used as a subjob, the Dark Knight gains access to Berserk, Double Attack, and Warcry at the highest levels. These abilities can increase a Dark Knight's Damage per Second past its already high levels.
High-level Dark Knights with a subjob of Ninja are capable of soloing a great deal of enemies normally not soloable by many other jobs.
Weaknesses
Relatively few innate defensive capabilties available; A Dark Knight's offensive abilities leave him or her dangerously open to enemy attack with virtually little defense. (Many pieces of high-level damage-dealing equipment also reduce Evasion, further exacerbating the problem.) As Dark Knights deal damage, they also generate Enmity—causing fatal damage to many careless players of this job. Most Dark Knights sub Thief at Level 60 for use of Trick Attack to offset possible Enmity; other Dark Knights use Warrior sub at these levels, and exercise "manual" methods of hate control instead (in addition to Defender if neccesary); still others sub Ninja, particularly in situations where direct damage is a danger (though only if said damage can be absorbed by Copy Images).
Many Dark Knights also use the Thief subjob both before and after Level 60 for Sneak Attack, which allows them one reliable Critical Hit every minute if standing behind the enemy. This can also boost Weapon Skill damage, creating a high amount of damage in one strike. However, use of the Thiefsubjob in this manner seriously robs the Dark Knight of Attack, drastically reducing his or her Damage per Second in favor of a psychologically pleasing damage total and not much else—a fact that players of high-DPS jobs (Ninja, in particular) are only too happy to point out with comparative parser logs.
High-delay weapons—together with only one Accuracy boosting ability (Soul Eater) and use of frequently-needed Dark Magic—cause Dark Knights to be some of the slowest TP builders of all melee jobs. If a Warriorsubjob is used, TP gain can still remain competitive; Dark Knights with a sub of Thief, however, become the slowest TP-building melee characters. TP gain has been helped to some minor degree in recent updates, however, with new Food capable of boosting Accuracy (such as Sole Sushi) and Accuracy-boosting equipment (Optical Earring, Venerer Ring, Jaeger Ring), though this by no means definitively solves the problem.
Weapon Skills used to open Skillchains can be relatively weak in effect until endgame. Dark Knights are typically better-capable of closing a Skillchain than opening one.
As the Job Ability Soul Eater drains the user's HP with every attack, its use can be very dangerous at early levels, and may not be particularly efficient until mid to high levels. When combined with multi-hit weapon skills such as Guillotine, it can amount to suicide.
Dependent on high cost equipment, particularly when endgame nears and players become more selective. A pair of Sniper's Rings and a Haubergeon, for instance, are requested by some higher-level parties.
Elemental and Enfeebling Magic levels are relatively low. In addition, Dark Knights recieve Elemental Magic later than both Black Mages and Red Mages. Elemental Magic is typically only used in Magic Bursting for maximum effectiveness.
Capping Dark Magic skill can be difficult, but neccesary, as it controls the effectiveness of Aspir and Drain. Drain is available for Dark Knights to learn at Level 10 (two levels before a BLM), and is often used to raise Dark Magic skill. The Absorb- series can and is also used for raising skill, as soon as it is obtained. Repeatedly casting Tractor on a KO'd Level 1 "volunteer" (said volunteer accepting the Tractor each time) is a third option, though more "hands-on." (Bio is usually cast by other mages, and is typically not an option.)
Absorb- series spells have a very long casting time; while casting, a Dark Knight will not be able to attack, thus lowering the Dark Knight's ability to gain TP—though the effects of some Absorb- spells (particularly Absorb-STR and Absorb-DEX) can more than make up for the loss.
A Dark Knight may be required to heal for MP after battle, as they can often be assumed to be the last priority of any job with MP in a Red Mage's Refresh order. Because of this, many Dark Knights carry juice or Yagudo Drinks to reduce effective downtime.
