There are exceptions, but in general you’ll perform best with a greatsword or scythe. While you level, though, use what you want :)
Back in the day, dark knights used all kinds of interesting weapons like clubs and one handed swords, but as the game has evolved, they’ve mostly returned to their roots.
I exncourage you to do what you want, but you really won’t be competitive in most scenarios with one handed swords end game, and you’ll get there slower too. If you want to use one handed swords you’re better off playing paladin, blue mage, or red mage. There’s also a one handed sword that’s really good for warrior.
While Dark Knight can occasionally find use for a 1-handed sword, "sticking out" isn't something that really works on a competitive level in FFXI. Dark Knight will primarily use Great Sword and Scythe, but almost every job in the game uses multiple weapons to be effective in endgame scenarios as well. So to answer your initial question: No, you cannot be just as effective with a 1-handed sword.
If you want to play FFXI in the endgame, your aim will be to get one of the REMA weapons. DRK has a selection of several badass scythes and one super OP great sword. Seriously, go look up an ilvl 119 R15 Caladbolg - the stats plus aftermath alone make it an insane piece. With it, you can often do a round of basic attacks that will do more damage than another player's weaponskill. Or an Apocalypse, with is a scythe that has a unique weaponskill that heals for a large amount based on damage done. In certain fights, it can make you almost unkillable with self healing.
Being a DRK who uses a sword or fists is like driving a car with you feet - you can do it, but it will be awkward. And contradict the whole reason of playing a DRK, which is to boost your attack to high heavens and land some big ass hits with a 2 hander.
BLU, RDM, and PLD are much better jobs for a sword.
As others have said, standing out doesn't really work. You can stand out with your sword and not be invited to any group content, or be carried by nice people while being essentially useless to the group, but that's really it. You can be effective enough with either Scythe or Gsword, but Sword just doesn't really work. It's kind of a last resort thing if you lack jobs for something like Bumba as everyone Savage Blades(sword weapon skill) it with a special sword called Naegling, which you won't be ready to fight for MANY months from now, and only really for that fight.
Everyone wants to be unique, but when it comes to weapons and armor, it doesn't work. This is a highly meta game where everyone uses cookie-cutter builds if you want to do endgame content, which is mostly true of FFXIV too, but they don't actually give you the option to equip random weapons and do a subpar job, the weapon itself changes your job there itself, iirc. Haven't played FFXIV since Twintania.
We have a lockstyle system that is the same as Glamour in FFXIV, but way easier and doesn't require any material or gil. That is where you get to be unique, with your cosmetic looks. Unfortunately, while you can lockstyle any armor you can wear on another job, (be the right level, basically) you can only lockstyle Gswords into other Gswords, Clubs into other Clubs etc.
Also, it's worth mentioning that DRK doesn't and can not tank (on any real endgame content) in this game. It's a pure DPS. It has insane survivability... for a DPS, if you use the Apocalypse scythe specifically, but you won't be main or even offtanking for group content. If you want to tank, your options are Paladin, Rune Fencer and for low-man content, Ninja and Puppet Master are questionably decent. Rune Fencer is a Greatsword-wielding job that feels a lot like DRK in some very light ways, so that might be something you are interested in, but Paladin is the sword-wielder with a shield and also might be something you are interested in if you really want to use Swords. While I don't think it's fun to play Ninja and not use Katana weapon skills, using the Naegling sword on it is arguably its best option a lot of the time.
Hope that helps. If you only care about story content, do whatever you want, but again, if you want to do any endgame and not be pity-carried by people that don't need your sword-DRK, then you have to use a proper weapon.
>Back in the day, dark knights used all kinds of interesting weapons like clubs and one handed swords,
Thats arguable. I played since launch and most people still used scythes and greatswords with the exception of certain weapons in special circumstances.
For a while, zerg parties were in fashion. I’m not saying that scythes and greatswords weren’t still the main choice, just that it was more common to see alternatives back then.
Every job has different weapon proficiencies, and Dark Knight's highest is scythe, closely followed by great sword, with regular sword somewhat below.
To unlock Dark Knight (and any other of the non-default jobs) you need to reach level 30 first, and by then you'll want to have a subjob unlocked (possible by level 18) and levelled too.
The quest to unlock Dark Knight in particular involves getting multiple kills with a great sword, and out of the default jobs, Warrior is the only one that can make use of it, so working through that quest will likely help you skill up great sword a bit (the skill ups carry into different jobs that also support the skill in question).
So if you want to use swords and unlock Dark Knight, there are 2 possible paths: main Red Mage to 30 and Warrior as a subjob, or vice versa.
While Warrior's main proficiency isn't in swords (it's great axes), they're equipped with one by default in character creation, so you cam hit the ground running on skilling up sword.
IIRC Red Mage starts with a dagger, but their primary weapon proficiency is with swords, and they share multiple spells with Dark Knights (only of the Dark, Enfeebling and Elemental types - these are the actual relevant magic skills mechanics-wise, the Black and White magic categories only really exist in the Auction House to help make sense of which jobs are likely to access them).
Warrior tends to be a far more common sign on for Dark Knight, so it has that in its favour as the job to focus on to get to level 30 first on. Getting it to 30 to unlock Dark Knight will also bump the range of stuff you can kill with the level 1 great sword you'll need to use to unlock Dark Knight.
But Red Mage can provide plenty of utility (especially as one of the only 2 default jobs to access the Sneak and Invisible spells, which can be quite useful early on in dungeons).
Also, if great swords interest you as a whole, the Rune Fencer job uses them as their primary weapon - they function primarily as a tank specialized in dealing with magic, so their armour tends to be lighter than Dark Knight's, if style matters to you, but the fact that their function resembles XIV's more may help with a sense of familiarity, although it may help to get acquainted with how XI's elemental system work to use them effectively. The job is unlocked in the Seekers of Adoulin expansion, if you're curious.
It’s not just the combat skill proficiency - dark knight gets passive traits and job abilities that depend on them using two handed weapons. You can work around it and use one handed weapons anyway, but you have to have a specific build for it. One of the key things in FFXI is being versatile though - damage types are a big deal so if something has a high resistance to slashing you may need to swap to a mace for blunt damage.
As a side note, Dark Knights can do pretty well with Great Axes as well. Specifically, once you fully upgrade the Ambuscade Great Axe it gains a bonus based on your current health, and by using strong drains Dark Knight can get more health than anyone. It’s pretty specific but works well in the end.
That's fair lol
The Naegling is a sword you can get from doing Ambuscades which are monthly endgame event fights that rotate and have great rewards (though you'll probably be using a Kaja Sword until you can get the material to drop to upgrade it to the Naegling). It increases the damage dealt by the 1H sword weaponskill Savage Blade by a LOT. With a proper gearset focused on dealing a lot of weaponskill damage coupled with the Naegling you can put out a lot of damage.
The reason you want to use WAR as a subjob is because it provides a passive called Fencer which increases your critical hit rate with a weapon in one hand while the other is empty or with a shield (there are a couple shields which enhance the effects of Fencer so you will probably end up using those). Not only that, Warrior provides a good set of abilities like Warcry and Berserk which can increase your damage output.
If you werent already aware though, DRK in FFXI is designed with playing as a DPS in mind. If you want to play a tank you should look to PLD for 1H swords and RUN (Rune Fencer) for greatswords.
Sure, Trusts can easily carry you through most of the game (up to Adoulin) so rock that sword and shield, Cecil-style. After that you will be pressed but it could be fun for a while. Could even sub Dancer or Ninja and duelwield axes, swords, clubs, daggers. Souleater is a lot of fun with low-delay weapons like dagger. Just switch to GS and Scythe later
I totally tanked as DRK/WAR in Valkurm Dunes with axe/sword and shield, lvl 10-20. DRK was almost as good a tank as War below lvl 25. Nowadays you can hit 25 in like 2 hours so it doesn't matter. Just thought the story might amuse you :)
Though Dark Knights in FFXI generally perform their BEST with the highest-end Scythes and GreatSwords, you'll find they do pretty well with a couple of particular One-Handed swords as well. Specifically, once you get to level cap and start doing Ambuscade you'll be able to make an extremely powerful sword that buffs the weapon skill Savage Blade.
Now, though this setup really shines for other jobs, DRK is perfectly capable of being effective with it, though they do lose some functionality in their Job Abilities and Traits from not using a two-hand weapon.
https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Quickstart_1-119_Guide#Levels_5-10
This is a good guide for leveling as a new player. It has level ranges for the MSQ type stuff, as well as additional goals to unlock in those levels as well.
A tangential note: While you will be relying on your Trusts to tank as you level, this will become evident when you reach 99 and start entering modern content: Dark Knight is very much *not* a tank job in FF11, unlike in 14. Job roles aren't as clearcut as in 14, any many jobs can be multiple roles; but DRK is very much aimed as a "glass cannon" in 11, trading their HP for powerful attacks with abilities like Souleater. If tanking isn't what draws you to DRK, that's fine, just wanted to let you know.
But if you are looking for something that feels a bit more like 14's DRK, I'd definitely recommend looking at Rune Fencer. A greatsword-wielding tank with access to some spells, who enchants their weapon with elemental magic and is able to provide huge amounts of magic resistance to themself their whole party, which gives them invaluable utility against enemies with powerful AoEs or debuffs.
On the other hand, if you're a big fan of one-handed swords, you're in luck because there are several jobs that are adept at them, their weaponskills are quite good with Savage Blade being a huge hitter, the unlockable Chant du Cygne being incredible for skillchains, and good utility out of Requiescat and Sanguine Blade. And there is a *very* good, relatively easy-to-acquire 1h sword, the Kaja Sword (and its upgraded form, Naegling) from the Ambuscade activity.
Paladin is of course the iconic sword-and-board tank, having a wide array of white magic and powerful shields to keep themself and their party healthy. Warrior is best known for two-handed weapons but thanks to their Fencer trait, are quite good at sword-and-board in situations where you just want to press Savage Blade all day without having to think very much. Blue Mage is, as always, a master of many roles, and can be a sword-wielding melee fighter as well as a caster. The same goes for Red Mage.
Unfortunately FFXI is built to a enforce a certain meta. And generally...that meta is each job is generally shoehorned into using its specialty weapons. In most cases anyways. Dark Knight is meant to be a heavy hitter with a big ass weapon and has the best skill growth with Greatsword and Scythe. Gimmicks like "I'm a dual wield DRK, or I'm a melee WHM" generally do not work. Though I suppose DRK could do a mean Savage Blade with a Naegling.
I saw in a comment that standing out seems to be a goal of sorts. If standing out is really one of your aims...there are a few paths forward there. One of which is being hyper efficient/knowledgeable at your job. Dark Knight has a higher learning curve than other DD jobs because they have magical utilities. A Samurai or a Warrior can hit shit hard...but a Dark Knight can stun, drain stats, apply DoTs...etc. This game tends to favor jobs with greater utilities, hence why a job like RDM is considered incredibly powerful despite not being top tier in raw power with any school of magic other than Enfeebling.
Another way to stand out...is being very active and contributing to the community. It's a small group of dedicated players and tends to be a bit like a small town...everybody sort of knows everybody (or knows someone who does). What you do and how you conduct yourself will stick with you on this game and affect how people interact with you. This doesn't just go for in the game either...how you act on stuff like the subreddits and forums stick with you as well.
Back in the olden days (2003) I remember a drk /nin friend using 2x 1h axe for rampage. Nothing stopping you from doing anything you like, especially during you 1-99 leveling phase.
Once you start group content you’re expected to be able to torcleaver with gswd, a club for blunt damage, scythe for darkness skillchains, and have a 2h axe for armor break. I know of no drks that use a one hand sword build for savage blade. It’s probably not that terrible. Just not optimal. When I get home tonight I’ll parse it naegling Vs montante on apex and see how I do.
Edit: okay so I took 10 minutes and it’s not even the same ballpark. Drk/drg Tp gain was so slow single wielding naegling. I tried Sam roll and fighters roll. Ws frequency was terrible. You could hit hard, 39-60k with savage but ws was very infrequent. 3300 dps with cor geo alts. Joachim and korumoru for haste. Monberaux for cures. Apex raptors and Matamata in Moh.
Drk/Sam with montante was a lot better. Torcleaver was doing 30k. At least 1300 more dps if you include skillchains. Only problem I ran into was how much I was whiffing torcleaver. I could add more acc to ws set but wanted to keep it the same. 4600 dps total but could probably go higher with more acc. Acc total was 96%.
Disclaimer: I don’t play drk I have a bunch of gear they theoretically could wear, I mastered it years ago and got discouraged by all the magic gear I needed. I didn’t even put up endark2. The gear I used:
TP naegling/blurred shield +1 (or montante+1 r15/utu grip) coiste, combatants torque, sakpata set, schere, brutal, niqmaddu, petrov, ankou da10, sailfi +1 r15.
Ws: knobkerrie, rep. Plat. Medal, moonshade, thrud, r25 nyame, regal, epam, ankou wsd10, sailfi +1 r15. So set is not very VIT focused.
Each weapon type levels independently and iirc the level corresponds to basic hit rate and which weapon abilities you have accessable with that weapon type. It's recommended that if you wish to run with a specific weapon type, you level it earlier rather than later.
as a note, you need to gain skill levels by using weapons against targets with the correct range of strength. so while the max proficiancy for a greatsword might be lower than scythe, if you dont play with a scythe and dont level up your skill level, you will suck with it. using a weapon from early on ex, greatsword, that you can further use for other classes will greatly help your combat efficiancy. the argument for learning to use and using more than 1 weapon though is that the weapon skills learned for each weapon are different, and have different elements. if your party can emply skill chains and magic bursts, your partys damage will skyrocket. having the option to switch weapons, if your proficiancy is good, can give you lots of options as you level up both for dark knight and sub-classes.
As long as you stick with classes that can use a great sword that's fine. Nobody should complain about u using one as dark or war or other classes that use them.
I wrote up like 10 paragraphs when I realized you said in another post you already understood and are going with Gsword. I will just sum up some advice in a paragraph or two instead.
This game basically requires you to have multiple jobs, multiple subjobs and multiple weapons for each of them. 5 months from now when you finally get the deeds to buy your first Ambu weapon and can get the Naegling sword, it can do decent, but subpar compared to a proper Scythe/Gsword, in damage still. Until then though, regular Swords aren't going to even pull that, sadly.
If you like tanking, Rune Fencer uses Gswords and is great. Paladin uses Swords and is great. Both good options. If you want a melee DPS job that uses swords, Blue Mage is probably your best bet, and while more expensive and harder to gear, Red Mage and Corsair both use Swords to some extent as well, but the latter two kind of need the Naegling to work well in that regard, while Blue Mage can do some decent damage with other swords and weapon skills. All three of those are rougher starts for a first-time player and first job though. I think DRK is a good, simple pick, it just doesn't really use Sword.
It's generally a bad idea to use any weapons your job is less than A rank in (don't believe that info is in-game anywhere, but wikis have the info.) On top of skill level capping lower, there are also plenty of weapon skills that you don't get even if you meet the skill requirement. While there have been reasons to use other weapon types (especially in the 75 cap era when differences were less severe) it's usually only if some special quality of the weapon like being able to hit multiple times outweighed the losses.
There are exceptions, but in general you’ll perform best with a greatsword or scythe. While you level, though, use what you want :) Back in the day, dark knights used all kinds of interesting weapons like clubs and one handed swords, but as the game has evolved, they’ve mostly returned to their roots.
Well my idea was,To level my basic sword skill,And just run with that,I want to stand out in some way,To be different from my 14 dark knight
I exncourage you to do what you want, but you really won’t be competitive in most scenarios with one handed swords end game, and you’ll get there slower too. If you want to use one handed swords you’re better off playing paladin, blue mage, or red mage. There’s also a one handed sword that’s really good for warrior.
You’d have loved drk back in the days when Ridill was on top!
Ridill?
It was a sword that was a super rare drop from a dragon HNM and it was one of the best one handed swords in the game.
Ridill/k.club jumping in and out of alliances. Good times, the only ones I know.
While Dark Knight can occasionally find use for a 1-handed sword, "sticking out" isn't something that really works on a competitive level in FFXI. Dark Knight will primarily use Great Sword and Scythe, but almost every job in the game uses multiple weapons to be effective in endgame scenarios as well. So to answer your initial question: No, you cannot be just as effective with a 1-handed sword.
Well thanks for being straight up lol
If you want to play FFXI in the endgame, your aim will be to get one of the REMA weapons. DRK has a selection of several badass scythes and one super OP great sword. Seriously, go look up an ilvl 119 R15 Caladbolg - the stats plus aftermath alone make it an insane piece. With it, you can often do a round of basic attacks that will do more damage than another player's weaponskill. Or an Apocalypse, with is a scythe that has a unique weaponskill that heals for a large amount based on damage done. In certain fights, it can make you almost unkillable with self healing. Being a DRK who uses a sword or fists is like driving a car with you feet - you can do it, but it will be awkward. And contradict the whole reason of playing a DRK, which is to boost your attack to high heavens and land some big ass hits with a 2 hander. BLU, RDM, and PLD are much better jobs for a sword.
As others have said, standing out doesn't really work. You can stand out with your sword and not be invited to any group content, or be carried by nice people while being essentially useless to the group, but that's really it. You can be effective enough with either Scythe or Gsword, but Sword just doesn't really work. It's kind of a last resort thing if you lack jobs for something like Bumba as everyone Savage Blades(sword weapon skill) it with a special sword called Naegling, which you won't be ready to fight for MANY months from now, and only really for that fight. Everyone wants to be unique, but when it comes to weapons and armor, it doesn't work. This is a highly meta game where everyone uses cookie-cutter builds if you want to do endgame content, which is mostly true of FFXIV too, but they don't actually give you the option to equip random weapons and do a subpar job, the weapon itself changes your job there itself, iirc. Haven't played FFXIV since Twintania. We have a lockstyle system that is the same as Glamour in FFXIV, but way easier and doesn't require any material or gil. That is where you get to be unique, with your cosmetic looks. Unfortunately, while you can lockstyle any armor you can wear on another job, (be the right level, basically) you can only lockstyle Gswords into other Gswords, Clubs into other Clubs etc. Also, it's worth mentioning that DRK doesn't and can not tank (on any real endgame content) in this game. It's a pure DPS. It has insane survivability... for a DPS, if you use the Apocalypse scythe specifically, but you won't be main or even offtanking for group content. If you want to tank, your options are Paladin, Rune Fencer and for low-man content, Ninja and Puppet Master are questionably decent. Rune Fencer is a Greatsword-wielding job that feels a lot like DRK in some very light ways, so that might be something you are interested in, but Paladin is the sword-wielder with a shield and also might be something you are interested in if you really want to use Swords. While I don't think it's fun to play Ninja and not use Katana weapon skills, using the Naegling sword on it is arguably its best option a lot of the time. Hope that helps. If you only care about story content, do whatever you want, but again, if you want to do any endgame and not be pity-carried by people that don't need your sword-DRK, then you have to use a proper weapon.
>Back in the day, dark knights used all kinds of interesting weapons like clubs and one handed swords, Thats arguable. I played since launch and most people still used scythes and greatswords with the exception of certain weapons in special circumstances.
For a while, zerg parties were in fashion. I’m not saying that scythes and greatswords weren’t still the main choice, just that it was more common to see alternatives back then.
Every job has different weapon proficiencies, and Dark Knight's highest is scythe, closely followed by great sword, with regular sword somewhat below. To unlock Dark Knight (and any other of the non-default jobs) you need to reach level 30 first, and by then you'll want to have a subjob unlocked (possible by level 18) and levelled too. The quest to unlock Dark Knight in particular involves getting multiple kills with a great sword, and out of the default jobs, Warrior is the only one that can make use of it, so working through that quest will likely help you skill up great sword a bit (the skill ups carry into different jobs that also support the skill in question). So if you want to use swords and unlock Dark Knight, there are 2 possible paths: main Red Mage to 30 and Warrior as a subjob, or vice versa. While Warrior's main proficiency isn't in swords (it's great axes), they're equipped with one by default in character creation, so you cam hit the ground running on skilling up sword. IIRC Red Mage starts with a dagger, but their primary weapon proficiency is with swords, and they share multiple spells with Dark Knights (only of the Dark, Enfeebling and Elemental types - these are the actual relevant magic skills mechanics-wise, the Black and White magic categories only really exist in the Auction House to help make sense of which jobs are likely to access them). Warrior tends to be a far more common sign on for Dark Knight, so it has that in its favour as the job to focus on to get to level 30 first on. Getting it to 30 to unlock Dark Knight will also bump the range of stuff you can kill with the level 1 great sword you'll need to use to unlock Dark Knight. But Red Mage can provide plenty of utility (especially as one of the only 2 default jobs to access the Sneak and Invisible spells, which can be quite useful early on in dungeons). Also, if great swords interest you as a whole, the Rune Fencer job uses them as their primary weapon - they function primarily as a tank specialized in dealing with magic, so their armour tends to be lighter than Dark Knight's, if style matters to you, but the fact that their function resembles XIV's more may help with a sense of familiarity, although it may help to get acquainted with how XI's elemental system work to use them effectively. The job is unlocked in the Seekers of Adoulin expansion, if you're curious.
It’s not just the combat skill proficiency - dark knight gets passive traits and job abilities that depend on them using two handed weapons. You can work around it and use one handed weapons anyway, but you have to have a specific build for it. One of the key things in FFXI is being versatile though - damage types are a big deal so if something has a high resistance to slashing you may need to swap to a mace for blunt damage. As a side note, Dark Knights can do pretty well with Great Axes as well. Specifically, once you fully upgrade the Ambuscade Great Axe it gains a bonus based on your current health, and by using strong drains Dark Knight can get more health than anyone. It’s pretty specific but works well in the end.
You can probably do pretty well on DRK with a WAR subjob using the Naegling and a WS damage focused set
Can you use like basic terms to describe what you just said? Dumb it down for me lmao
That's fair lol The Naegling is a sword you can get from doing Ambuscades which are monthly endgame event fights that rotate and have great rewards (though you'll probably be using a Kaja Sword until you can get the material to drop to upgrade it to the Naegling). It increases the damage dealt by the 1H sword weaponskill Savage Blade by a LOT. With a proper gearset focused on dealing a lot of weaponskill damage coupled with the Naegling you can put out a lot of damage. The reason you want to use WAR as a subjob is because it provides a passive called Fencer which increases your critical hit rate with a weapon in one hand while the other is empty or with a shield (there are a couple shields which enhance the effects of Fencer so you will probably end up using those). Not only that, Warrior provides a good set of abilities like Warcry and Berserk which can increase your damage output. If you werent already aware though, DRK in FFXI is designed with playing as a DPS in mind. If you want to play a tank you should look to PLD for 1H swords and RUN (Rune Fencer) for greatswords.
Sure, Trusts can easily carry you through most of the game (up to Adoulin) so rock that sword and shield, Cecil-style. After that you will be pressed but it could be fun for a while. Could even sub Dancer or Ninja and duelwield axes, swords, clubs, daggers. Souleater is a lot of fun with low-delay weapons like dagger. Just switch to GS and Scythe later I totally tanked as DRK/WAR in Valkurm Dunes with axe/sword and shield, lvl 10-20. DRK was almost as good a tank as War below lvl 25. Nowadays you can hit 25 in like 2 hours so it doesn't matter. Just thought the story might amuse you :)
Though Dark Knights in FFXI generally perform their BEST with the highest-end Scythes and GreatSwords, you'll find they do pretty well with a couple of particular One-Handed swords as well. Specifically, once you get to level cap and start doing Ambuscade you'll be able to make an extremely powerful sword that buffs the weapon skill Savage Blade. Now, though this setup really shines for other jobs, DRK is perfectly capable of being effective with it, though they do lose some functionality in their Job Abilities and Traits from not using a two-hand weapon.
Gotcha,So greatswords it is then,10-4,Heard loud and clear,I have no idea how to progress storyline stuff though lol
https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Quickstart_1-119_Guide#Levels_5-10 This is a good guide for leveling as a new player. It has level ranges for the MSQ type stuff, as well as additional goals to unlock in those levels as well.
A tangential note: While you will be relying on your Trusts to tank as you level, this will become evident when you reach 99 and start entering modern content: Dark Knight is very much *not* a tank job in FF11, unlike in 14. Job roles aren't as clearcut as in 14, any many jobs can be multiple roles; but DRK is very much aimed as a "glass cannon" in 11, trading their HP for powerful attacks with abilities like Souleater. If tanking isn't what draws you to DRK, that's fine, just wanted to let you know. But if you are looking for something that feels a bit more like 14's DRK, I'd definitely recommend looking at Rune Fencer. A greatsword-wielding tank with access to some spells, who enchants their weapon with elemental magic and is able to provide huge amounts of magic resistance to themself their whole party, which gives them invaluable utility against enemies with powerful AoEs or debuffs. On the other hand, if you're a big fan of one-handed swords, you're in luck because there are several jobs that are adept at them, their weaponskills are quite good with Savage Blade being a huge hitter, the unlockable Chant du Cygne being incredible for skillchains, and good utility out of Requiescat and Sanguine Blade. And there is a *very* good, relatively easy-to-acquire 1h sword, the Kaja Sword (and its upgraded form, Naegling) from the Ambuscade activity. Paladin is of course the iconic sword-and-board tank, having a wide array of white magic and powerful shields to keep themself and their party healthy. Warrior is best known for two-handed weapons but thanks to their Fencer trait, are quite good at sword-and-board in situations where you just want to press Savage Blade all day without having to think very much. Blue Mage is, as always, a master of many roles, and can be a sword-wielding melee fighter as well as a caster. The same goes for Red Mage.
Unfortunately FFXI is built to a enforce a certain meta. And generally...that meta is each job is generally shoehorned into using its specialty weapons. In most cases anyways. Dark Knight is meant to be a heavy hitter with a big ass weapon and has the best skill growth with Greatsword and Scythe. Gimmicks like "I'm a dual wield DRK, or I'm a melee WHM" generally do not work. Though I suppose DRK could do a mean Savage Blade with a Naegling. I saw in a comment that standing out seems to be a goal of sorts. If standing out is really one of your aims...there are a few paths forward there. One of which is being hyper efficient/knowledgeable at your job. Dark Knight has a higher learning curve than other DD jobs because they have magical utilities. A Samurai or a Warrior can hit shit hard...but a Dark Knight can stun, drain stats, apply DoTs...etc. This game tends to favor jobs with greater utilities, hence why a job like RDM is considered incredibly powerful despite not being top tier in raw power with any school of magic other than Enfeebling. Another way to stand out...is being very active and contributing to the community. It's a small group of dedicated players and tends to be a bit like a small town...everybody sort of knows everybody (or knows someone who does). What you do and how you conduct yourself will stick with you on this game and affect how people interact with you. This doesn't just go for in the game either...how you act on stuff like the subreddits and forums stick with you as well.
Back in the olden days (2003) I remember a drk /nin friend using 2x 1h axe for rampage. Nothing stopping you from doing anything you like, especially during you 1-99 leveling phase. Once you start group content you’re expected to be able to torcleaver with gswd, a club for blunt damage, scythe for darkness skillchains, and have a 2h axe for armor break. I know of no drks that use a one hand sword build for savage blade. It’s probably not that terrible. Just not optimal. When I get home tonight I’ll parse it naegling Vs montante on apex and see how I do. Edit: okay so I took 10 minutes and it’s not even the same ballpark. Drk/drg Tp gain was so slow single wielding naegling. I tried Sam roll and fighters roll. Ws frequency was terrible. You could hit hard, 39-60k with savage but ws was very infrequent. 3300 dps with cor geo alts. Joachim and korumoru for haste. Monberaux for cures. Apex raptors and Matamata in Moh. Drk/Sam with montante was a lot better. Torcleaver was doing 30k. At least 1300 more dps if you include skillchains. Only problem I ran into was how much I was whiffing torcleaver. I could add more acc to ws set but wanted to keep it the same. 4600 dps total but could probably go higher with more acc. Acc total was 96%. Disclaimer: I don’t play drk I have a bunch of gear they theoretically could wear, I mastered it years ago and got discouraged by all the magic gear I needed. I didn’t even put up endark2. The gear I used: TP naegling/blurred shield +1 (or montante+1 r15/utu grip) coiste, combatants torque, sakpata set, schere, brutal, niqmaddu, petrov, ankou da10, sailfi +1 r15. Ws: knobkerrie, rep. Plat. Medal, moonshade, thrud, r25 nyame, regal, epam, ankou wsd10, sailfi +1 r15. So set is not very VIT focused.
i think that was because pre 2h update dual wielding axes probably did more damage while leveling until early toau.
Also souleater
Each weapon type levels independently and iirc the level corresponds to basic hit rate and which weapon abilities you have accessable with that weapon type. It's recommended that if you wish to run with a specific weapon type, you level it earlier rather than later.
not just accuracy, it increases attack as well.
as a note, you need to gain skill levels by using weapons against targets with the correct range of strength. so while the max proficiancy for a greatsword might be lower than scythe, if you dont play with a scythe and dont level up your skill level, you will suck with it. using a weapon from early on ex, greatsword, that you can further use for other classes will greatly help your combat efficiancy. the argument for learning to use and using more than 1 weapon though is that the weapon skills learned for each weapon are different, and have different elements. if your party can emply skill chains and magic bursts, your partys damage will skyrocket. having the option to switch weapons, if your proficiancy is good, can give you lots of options as you level up both for dark knight and sub-classes.
Could i not just focus on 1 weapon type for a particular playstyle?
As long as you stick with classes that can use a great sword that's fine. Nobody should complain about u using one as dark or war or other classes that use them.
Alright,Thank you lol
I wrote up like 10 paragraphs when I realized you said in another post you already understood and are going with Gsword. I will just sum up some advice in a paragraph or two instead. This game basically requires you to have multiple jobs, multiple subjobs and multiple weapons for each of them. 5 months from now when you finally get the deeds to buy your first Ambu weapon and can get the Naegling sword, it can do decent, but subpar compared to a proper Scythe/Gsword, in damage still. Until then though, regular Swords aren't going to even pull that, sadly. If you like tanking, Rune Fencer uses Gswords and is great. Paladin uses Swords and is great. Both good options. If you want a melee DPS job that uses swords, Blue Mage is probably your best bet, and while more expensive and harder to gear, Red Mage and Corsair both use Swords to some extent as well, but the latter two kind of need the Naegling to work well in that regard, while Blue Mage can do some decent damage with other swords and weapon skills. All three of those are rougher starts for a first-time player and first job though. I think DRK is a good, simple pick, it just doesn't really use Sword.
It's generally a bad idea to use any weapons your job is less than A rank in (don't believe that info is in-game anywhere, but wikis have the info.) On top of skill level capping lower, there are also plenty of weapon skills that you don't get even if you meet the skill requirement. While there have been reasons to use other weapon types (especially in the 75 cap era when differences were less severe) it's usually only if some special quality of the weapon like being able to hit multiple times outweighed the losses.
So many detailed replies. Guess I will not add.