Dark Knight bitching thread

Personally I love the class, but it does come with many caveats especially when it comes to bossing, and what one can reasonably expect to do.

DKs can thrive when it comes to the general killing of mobs, it's probably what they're best suited to at this point. Spear Crusher deals great, consistent damage, with the added mastery from Beholder you can expect to 1ko most mobs up to around Skelegons/Petrifighters once you hit the end game, and 3ko anything at Shaolin given the accuracy. It's quite slow but at the same time very effective, and as a mixed Pole-arm/Spear DK the speed of farming can become exceptional given you 1ko the mob with Pole-arm Fury.

Given the fact that there aren't really any mobs that hit above ~4500, DKs can generally farm anything they'd like without risking death. This means that pet pots can stay at 15%, or 4500 HP at 30k, giving them the same access as everyone else when it comes to general killing, with a pet able to prevent death in almost all circumstances around the maple world.

DKs also thrive in HT, where the rewards generally outweigh the cost in Reindeer Milk and other potions, especially because those potions are only needed for about a third of the fight. Generally for every Horntail I spend around 700k-1mil for Reindeer Milk(5k heal) and Ice Creams(2k heal), on top of the Ginseng Roots(40% heal) and Sorcerer Elixers(1500 MP). Overall it puts the cost of killing HT at around 1.4-1.7mil generally on a DK. It's probably the highest cost of any class[Bishop might be close] to effectively kill HT but at the same time it's still manageable and still worth fighting.

Personally I find HT to be the most fun content in the game. On a DK its challenging, but not impossible, and there aren't any random mechanics to kill you[Those deserve their own section...], with enough knowledge you can master a lot of the nuances of Maple.

But for every other boss worth killing in the game, there are many issues.

Spoiler: Zakum

Generally the first real boss that people kill. A DK can do well against Zakum Arms but afterwards everything is fairly awful.

-There's a good chance you won't be put in the main party. A lot of people just want the DK around for HBing zhelm buyers and if that's the case you can't expect any real exp. Even if you are in the main party a lot of the time the rest of the party wants healing, so they send you to the other half of Zakum where getting knocked back puts you in danger of dying to touch damage.
-You can't face tank Zakum's bodies because you need to stay in zerk range. This means that you will be getting stunned often and if you are away from the bishop you will be using 100-150+ All Cures during the fight.
-Getting stunned is a massive DPM decrease, one that other warriors can dodge by face-tanking Zakum the whole fight, Shads can use i-frames, Shifter, and high avoid to dodge, and NLs also have their Shifter and high avoid. DKs are left with the other ranged characters in constant stuns. They can try to potion up->rush body->exit body but overall that still leads to a large dip in DPM from correcting yourself.

Spoiler: Scarlion

Another of the first bosses people kill. The first 2 bodies are a snoozefest but the third has awful damage for DKs to try to pot.

-There is no way to reasonably pot for the third body. Because his close range magic attack hits around 5-6k, and bodying him will hit you for around 7k, you need to leave pet pot above that, and there are no cost effective potions in the game to accomplish that. So it's generally best to leave pet pot at 25% unless you want to use a ton of Reindeer Milk and spend 5-7k mesos on every hit. Using Ginseng Roots to heal will leave you with up to 19.5k HP, which will ruin zerk but also only cost ~1k per hit.

Spoiler: CWKPQ

CWKPQ is decent but there are moments where the DK can just randomly die in the boss fight.

-When the Warrior boss buffs himself he begins to deal ~5k-6k touch damage. Again, using the only cost effective pot could lead to just dying due to the fact that you'd want pet pot at 15% to zerk properly. You could stick it at 20%, but there'd still be instances when you aren't zerking and because he doesn't always deal the higher damage you end up wasting a lot of potential unless you manual pot every time you see yourself around 6k. The buff is fairly random so one minute you could be okay and the next dead. There might be an animation for the warrior buff but it's hard to see in the kill pile.

Spoiler: Pianus, Papulatus, Krexel, Ravanna, Samurai

Pianus good. Just don't rush the boomers.

ok boomer

Pap good.
Krexel is lol
Ravanna good
Samurai good, but his lightning max hit is around 5k, but it has a fairly long animation you can prepare for

Neo-Tokyo time

Spoiler: Vergamot

-I didn't see a very large difference in DPM when it came to zerking and attempting to preserve my HP by ducking and just outright tanking the attacks without zerk. I guess the difference is that one is a lot more work. For the third body you have to dodge the attacks, so I guess that's the only one you should really zerk and dodge at. Other melee classes have the benefit of being able to tank and continue fighting, so their DPM is significantly higher there.
- Verga maxes around 10-11k damage? Not sure anymore but that's what I kept my HP above, and since I didn't want to spend significant amounts of money I chose to dodge the attacks. Tanking attacks and potting back to zerk would make for effective DPM but at the same time would cost a significant amount of money to accomplish, likely 2.5mil+ per kill in supplies.

Spoiler: Dunas

Dunas is actually fine.

-There are a lot of low hitting attacks and a few high hitting ones so it isn't so expensive to be dumping Reindeer Milk down your throat, and the high hitting attacks generally synergize well with pet pot anyways, so when you're struck with a big attack it brings you low enough that the Ginseng Root activates and you don't need the Milks and you stay within zerk range.
-Watching for Damage Reflect while also watching your HP is doable, and sort of fun at the same time. It makes for a decent challenge.

Spoiler: Nibergen

Nibergen is okay, but I'd like to test him a bit more before saying anything really certain about him.

-Standing in the cloud and attacking can lead you to take 10-11k damage randomly, happened once during the third body and there isn't really anything that can be done about it. His model just moves low enough during a key point in the iframes and just instantly KOs you. Positioning elsewhere may help, I haven't tried it yet.
-Sitting in the cloud is generally good for most of the fight because you're just constantly taking low amounts of damage that gets healed by Ginseng Roots. In that the fight is good, it's just in randomly dying from iframe shenanigans that makes it awful.

Spoiler: Nameless Magical Monster

There's no reason to even try zerking him currently.

-The entire fight you're bodying him, tanking the 5-6k damage and not being in the range of his magic claw attack, capable of dealing around 18k damage
-It's possible to zerk him, but you'd be spending around 5mil+ for the kill from all of the Reindeer Milks.

Spoiler: Toad

Haven't killed him yet. I heard it's possible to zerk a bit by timing his attacks though, but that's a fairly large hassle and micromanaging HP takes time and DPM away regardless.

If you bothered to read most of my ramblings you'd probably find one major thing linking most of these bosses together - the fact that zerking is possible but at the same time not viable to accomplish. This is because our choices for potions are either 12,000 HP for 2,100 mesos, 5,000 HP for 5,600[5,000 at the Haunted Mansion] mesos, and 2,000 HP for 2,300 mesos.

To continue zerking in most places it's necessary to spend 5,000 mesos to heal 5,000 HP because it isn't possible to stay in zerk range in most places by spending 2,100 mesos on 12,000 HP.

Personally I'd like to see the Triangular Sushi(plum) added to the potion shop at the Ninja Castle.

https://maplelegends.com/lib/use?id=2022007

They're already dropped by Nintos but farming any significant amount of them isn't worth the effort.

For the most part I don't really believe that Dark Knights really need any major buffs, they just need a sustainable method of healing themselves. At this point I don't want to be any stronger, I just want to play the content in the game with my friends without being punished. Much of the time it feels as though I am locked out of content because I believe that it's personally too expensive to play.

With Triangular Sushi a DK would be able to set their pet HP at 35%, and trigger once HP is lower than 10,500. That leaves a very fair amount of room between most of the max hits stated above and almost completely prevents the random luck deaths of Nibergen and CWKPQ. It's a lower healing potion too, and with hits over 6k damage you will still need to manually pot, likely with Melting Cheese and Ice Cream. But it would lower the costs significantly enough that it's fair to play almost every boss in the game.

yeehaw

DRK GANG

 

I wonder if a Timeless/Reverse Spear from the hardest boss in the game will finally be able to outdo some random winter sportsgear you win randomly from a capsule machine. SeemsGood

I forgot how awful it is because I'm still satisfied with my Sky Skis. I don't think anyone has bought or sold 120+ attack skis in months, to the point that B>120-125 attack skis is memed. Skis should at least be put in the winter raffle if they aren't added elsewhere.

And mob invincibility for Zakum doesn't work when Crusher hits 3 targets, the mobs explode upon impact. The platform for ducking is also far away from the body, I don't think there's even time to walk back there before the stun comes, especially with Crusher's long cast time.

 

I decided to personally demonstrate the divide between Sky Skis and speed 7 spears.

I put both of them on exactly equal footing. The Sky Ski was 100 attack and 3 strength, and the Pinaka was 112 attack and 3 str. (During the Sky Ski test I downgraded my gloves from 14 attack to 13 attack to compensate for the Sky Ski having 1 extra attack over clean perfect.) To simulate perfect weapons on bear with slightly better gear I chose to use a heartstopper for the test. It took me a few tests to get the @dpm -> stopper -> attacking down but I reset until I was satisfied that both trials were done ideally. Another thing to note is that the Flairgrave/Speargrave has 3 more attack than the Faltizan, but the Pinaka I scrolled for the test did quite badly and I could only get 3/7 60s to pass. If I had 4/6 pass I would have used a 100% scroll on the last slot.

Total attack of the Sky Ski - 200
Total attack of the speed 7 spear - 213
Total strength and dex - 1066 and 78

Sky Ski DPM -> 20.29mil
Speed 7 DPM -> 19.1mil

This gives the Sky Ski an overall 6.2% DPM advantage over a slow spear in perfect conditions. If the attack is increased any further, say with perfect equips/Apples, the divide will continue to grow as the proportion of attacks between the two weapons continues to diminish. There's even a fair gap in quality when comparing 121 att/13 str skis with no attack pot vs a 127 att/10 str speed 7 weapon with Beholder buff(Essentially making it 142 att/10 str compared to the skis.) The Sky Skis were still able to outperform a slow spear at a 20 attack deficit, and it would likely take ~123-125 attack clean on a slow weapon to be able to compete.

Sky Skis are the only real option if you want to break into the end game. The test I did wasn't completely perfect, but it's likely within any rounding errors. None of the new weapons released are even worth using, so currently DKs can only rely on the gachapon to get their end game weapon.

Frankly I'm lucky to have found mine for sale when I did. Nowadays the free market is incredibly dry for skis and there aren't any options for end game DKs. The Stonetooth market is similar but at the same time Heroes and Paladins have other options to pursue that are also valid, in Claymores/NT weapons/RKs/Crushed Skulls/shields. For the late game Dark Knight there aren't any differing options that aren't inherently inferior.

 

The Speargrave would be useful if it were given the same treatment as the 1h melee weapons. Speed 6 with a 125 dex requirement to equip. Maybe a few less attack as well, capping at 110-112 or something.

Currently dex is pretty mediocre on Dark Knights where accuracy scrolls tend to give more of a buff for cheaper. I really don't see much of a reason to optimize any dex gears after hitting like 200-210 accuracy, which is doable with 4 base dex quite easily.