Dark Knight Melding, Stat Priority, and Consumables — Dawntrail 7.1

This section details the various substats and general priorities for deciding the optimal gear, materia melds, and consumable items for Dark Knight. You can find specific, pre-made gearsets at the Dark Knight Gear page.

The priority for stats on Dark Knight is as follows:

1. Defense and Vitality (while leveling)
2. Weapon damage
3. Strength
4. Critical Hit
5. Direct Hit
6. Determination
7. Tenacity
8. Skill Speed

Comparing the value of different pieces is usually not difficult, though there are some nuances to be aware of.

Both Strength and Weapon Damage scale up predictably with item level. Because of the high priority of these stats, higher-level armor and accessories are usually better than lower-level equivalents, and higher-level weapons nearly always are. At endgame, secondary stats are typically only worth looking at for armor pieces and accessories if the gap between two pieces is about ten item levels or fewer. While leveling or when choosing between weapons, higher item level is better almost without exception.

Critical Hit, Direct Hit, Determination, and Tenacity all directly increase your damage in some way. Of these four, Critical Hit is the most desirable because it increases both the frequency and damage of your criticals. This dual scaling also means that each point of Critical Hit is more powerful than the last. As such, there is no cap on how much of the stat you want. Optimized sets usually have maximum Critical Hit on most, if not all, pieces.

Direct Hit adds a chance of dealing 25% more damage on a given attack. This bonus damage stacks multiplicatively with critical hits, making Direct Hit an attractive stat. Because tank gear past level 60 cannot naturally roll it, you will usually want to meld Direct Hit into any materia slot not already filled with Skill Speed or Critical Hit.

Determination is a simple multiplier on all damage dealt and healing done by you. It has very similar value to Direct Hit and is usually the second-best stat that can naturally roll on gear for Dark Knight. However, it tends to not to be prioritized over Critical Hit or Direct Hit for melding.

Tenacity increases your damage and healing in the same manner as Determination, and also offers double this value in passive damage reduction. While this sounds strong on paper, Tenacity is your last priority in most cases because it scales about 20% more slowly than Determination and the damage reduction rarely makes the difference between life and death. Still, the presence of Tenacity does not ruin a piece of gear at max level, and it is an attractive stat while leveling because the damage reduction can be noticeable in trash pulls and the damage loss is very minimal.

Skill Speed is generally the least desirable stat, as the majority of a Dark Knight's damage comes from cooldown skills and passive regeneration which are both unaffected by it. However, there are still cases where melding Skill Speed can be desirable. GCD speeds of 2.40, 2.45/2.46, and 2.50 are particularly nice to play on because they will prevent your GCDs and your oGCD cooldowns from both coming up at the same time and forcing you to delay one or the other. Skill Speed can be used to target those exact GCD speeds, or 0.01 seconds slower or faster to add some room for error.

The best food for Dark Knight varies by situation. While leveling, any food will do for the 3% increased experience gain. At endgame, the choices are Moqueca or Roast Chicken. The former provides Critical Hit and Determination, and the latter provides Direct Hit and Determination. While Roast Chicken is listed in the 7.05 BiS, Moqueca can be used at a theoretical single-digit DPS loss.

In addition to food, stat potions are important in situations where damage is a concern. The best stat potion currently available for Dark Knight is Grade 2 Gemdraught of Strength. If you are running level 70 content such as The Unending Coil of Bahamut or The Weapon's Refrain, Tinctures of at least grade three or four, respectively, will provide the full benefit. For The Epic of Alexander, Tinctures of at least grade six are required.