Group 1 meritsFollow

Been looking over the dark merits, and sadly I think everyone would agree, that we have some very nice merit options, some not game breaking, but at times we wish we could merit them aswell. ie there are times I wish I could weapon bash more(I abuse the timers on this more often than not) but I know compared to the rest it isnt much of a boost. I wish i could have -40~50 enmity on during SE, but again that doesnt help boost anything other than a *potential* survivability.

My curiosity is, if you could only merit one , between LR recast and effect, which would it be?

Now things to note, the reason why Im asking is because generally ppl pick recast/effect or SE+ something(I read the stickies o.o). I know a lot of the time ppl dont pick SE recast because they cant use it as much, so the timer recast makes no sense since you cant abuse the timer. However some have because at times they are in situations where they can. Personally I find it anytime I have to sub /nin I can abuse SE more often than not.

I would like to get opinions on what people think is the better of the two effect or recast of LR. And then see if SE recasts is for me, if not then I can demerit it and pick the other contestant.

Not only this, but knowing which of the 2 is better, helps me dump the merits Ive been hording, much faster (._.;)

recast and effect are both pretty good but its tough to choose because LR is a bit meh at times. Dont get me wrong its awesome for a ws boost, but outside that, I feel that the duration is really short and if it wasnt for desperate blows, outside of the att boost to a ws you dont get the full potential. *scenerio* you pop it, 2 other DDs ws and basically 2shot the mob, you auto engage, but the mob isnt directly next to you, but a few feet away, you run to it, then swing once or 3 times....LR wears(;_; ). If you were lucky you were only 1 swing away from a ws, if not....ya. Maybe its just my luck. For me I have like a little routine i do to best maximize my 5min time rotation of JAs. Basically I use DE at the start, then from there I use either LR or SE(if timer is up and hate/MP is fine) That way during the 2 mins DE is down, I can buff them up to maintain any potential I might of lost. So there are times I will just pop it to keep the timer within DE and SE(provided that I can use it) and not always have 100tp to make the best. Perhaps I should still try to aim for 90-100tp before i use to get the most?(good chance, majority of the time ill have chaos roll on me if that makes a dif).

Any tips, advice, opinions, and experiences welcomed. Thank you.

LR recast and SE recast (normally reserved for Apoc owners)
or
LR recast and LR effect

IMO those are the only 2 'viable' options.

LR recast should be a no brainer, as every DRK should have at least 3/5 desperate blows. Desperate blows is a 25-55% increase in your melee DoT and WS frequency for the 30 seconds it is active. (Depending on base haste and number of merits)

With a 5min timer it is up 10% of the time (thus giving a 2.5-5.5% overall increase)

With a 4min10second timer it is up 12% of the time (thus giving a 3-6.6% overall increase)

This is 20% increase in the amount you gain from desperate blows (which is a massive buff) and the extra attack.

If you can get away with spamming SE every 5mins (good back up in every event you do) then merit the timer. Calculating the exact amount of you gain from taking the timer down is difficult as it depends on race and your WS average, but it is safe to say that it will give more than 10% extra attack for 12% of the time, but only if you are able to use SE as soon as the timer is up. As Apoc owners can heal them selves with a WS that they use every 60 seconds they normally can spam SE (lucky them).

For the rest of us, there is LR effect. This turns LR into a bit of a monster, the haste from DB combined with the same attack as berserk. This will far out do any thing else.

Weapon bash is useful, but not worth giving up LR recast (although you could drops some LR effect for this if you really wanted to).

Muted soul is pretty lame. It is only active while using SE, if it worked full time then we could talk about it. Using SE creates nearly as much hate as provoke, and then you do a lot of damage... It just isn't enough to stop you getting hate unless you kill the mob.

Definately max LR Recast, thanks to Desperate Blows its just too good to pass up.
This is good advice, but the numbers are actually a bit low. With 3/5 DB +Hasso, or 5/5 DB, the minimum increase is from 0% to 25% haste, which is an increase of 33.3% attack speed, for an absolute speed increase of 1.333 times base. The maximum increase is from 55% to 80% haste, which is a 125% increase in attack speed, for an absolute speed increase of 5 times base.

As for what you do with the rest of Category 1, thats best decided by your playstyle. LR Effect and SE Recast are the normal choices, WB timer can be invaluable for those that find themselves in critical situations routinely, arcane circle merits are for trolling purposes only.

Personally, I'm 5/5 Desperate blows, with 5/5 LR Recast and Effect, and have never regretted that configuration. I am wracking my brain over 4/5 Diabolic Eye 1/5 Dark Seal vs 5/5 Diabolic eye, however.

Souleater on a faster recast is a fickle thing, sometimes you're just not in the state or situation to be using it right-off, especially if you've 5/5'd Diabolic Eye and have a lazy mage when it drops.

10% more attack from Last Resort when you're swinging like a madman? Hell yes.

Swinging like a madman more often? @#%^ yes.


This.

Dark Seal is used on a cycle much longer than 15 minutes for the things its useful for (Opening Drain IIs at best, sticking Absorb-INT to make the BLMs <3 you maybe).

Muted soul could be nice if I knew for sure if it operated on all actions or just reduces enmity of just Souleater damage. You're going to have or be ripping hate anyway if you're dropping the SE-Bomb in most situations.

As mentioned, the haste cap for JAs is 25%. Hasso handles 10% of this so 3/5 Desperate Blows is sufficient to fill it out. 5/5 for alternate subs is an option, but not necessary to hit the new 80% total haste cap.

Diabolic Eye is a fantastic source of accuracy, and meshes well with Souleater usage with the same +Accuracy (meaning less gear mucking). Having it on for three out of five minutes is 20 accuracy you can plan to drop when its up.

What I meant by 'meshes well' is that you can be alternating the accuracy bonuses of Souleater and Diabolic Eye rather readily once you have DE down to the five minute timer, then its just a matter of compensating the same +20 accuracy for either. Precisely the latter of your summations.

Edited, Oct 2nd 2009 10:51pm by Raelix

Thats what I thought/was thinking. I have been able to use SE when its up more often than I had thought I would be. However this is also due to me being on /nin more than /sam. I pt during JP hours(Australian time atm) so /nin is obviously favored more(._. ).

Recast obviously seemed like a no brainer, but wanted to see if anyone had anything to say about effect, or atleast make a case for it other than "I choose it coz I cant abuse SE timers"


I wish we had more mp on drk :( or got refreshed more often than not. I cant keep Dread up as much as Id like. With dread spikes, you can abuse SE more often than not. Aswell as use hasso during LR with dread up.

Speaking of dread, uh.....might be a noobish question, but when you add the HP to it, does the HP gear only have to be on while cast the spell, or on for the duration. I usually just macro it in for the spell to go off and then back into my TP gear during the duration, I hope im not doing it wrong..... and im suppose to keep the HP gear on...

Edited, Oct 3rd 2009 7:12am by hitoseijuro

Its just your max HP when you cast it that determines the total amount drainable.

Its good to have a macro for this because Body Boosts and Giants Drinks work the same way, your current max HP. I find it good to have a HP set set for all of these things, but I prefer my Dark Magic+ set for Dread Spikes to ensure full procs.

For me Souleater recast would be the no-brainer, mainly because its 6 minute recast is weird and doesn't sync well with Last Resort, and fully meriting it would drop it by exactly 1 minute. Just what is needed. >_> Souleater is the more powerful ability in my eyes for general situations, anyways.

LR usually provides too little of an effect for too short of a time, other than zerg scenarios. But in those, LR recast is not really as important, cuz you're probably only going to be using it once anyways.

LR isn't really that great without DB so I would do that first.

Personally I just have a decent dark magic set in place of using dark seal and I like having 5/5 DB since I use /nin about as often as /sam and even when /sam it's nice to have 5/5 DB so you can use it with seigan and not really feel too bad about it.

Thx for the reply's guys. Guess i'll get to work on all those merits then. Should have em all done by this time next year hehe