Warrior BattleCat's guide to Dark Knight

NOTICE* this guide is still a work in progress

Table of contents:

1. Introduction
2. Pros and Cons
3. Creating a spearman
4. About weapons, Spear vs polearm
5. Skill builds
6. Leveling up a spearman
7. Washing a spearman
8. Bossing
9. About my journey as a DK

Introduction

Greetings to all my readers, people from time to time ask me questions about Dark Knight. I recently browsed existing Dark Knight guides and they didn't align with my point of view so I'm going to dump all my Dark Knight knowledge here.

I will be going over; pros and cons of a Dark Knight and what one can expect creating a Dark Knight, different skill builds (Polearm vs Spear), strategies and maps to train at, how to wash a Dark knight, Dark Knight in bossing.

Lastly I will share my Dark Knight experience and all the mistakes I made along the way.

Pros and Cons of Dark Knights
Pros:

• Very easy to wash.
• Has Hyper Body which is a very useful party buff that gives 60% max HP & MP.
• One of the best 3rd jobs in the game.
• Very strong cleaver (cleave = hitting multiple targets at once).
• People will want you in their boss runs because you provide HB.
• Spears and Polearms, and their scrolls are cheaper than most meta weapons.

Cons:

• Low range and 0 class mobility.
• Struggles with accuracy to hit enemies at the lower levels.
• The theme of Dark Knight is sacrificing HP in order to deal more damage which makes it a dangerous class to play, you will die often.
• You have to constantly manage your hp and use different potions while doing so to maximize damage output, making pots costs very high.
• Multi-client unfriendly, unlike Night Lord or Marksman, you can't put your attack on a macro and stop paying attention to your client, while multi-clienting.
• Weak single target damage compared to other classes.
• End game bosses are bad content for Dark Knight. The theme of sacrificing HP for damage just doesn't work when the boss does too much damage.
• Often muled in end-game bosses. Dark knights do about 40% of the damage a single target damage class can deal, so people generally prefer to lose a bit of damage and take a Dark Knight mule into the boss run, that way they split the rewards between one less person, which means less people will take you to their end game boss runs.

Creating a Dark Knight

Creating a warrior you always want to roll a 10 INT start, going for this 10 INT will yield a lot of mana in the long run and is a good quality of life investment even if you don't plan on washing.
Leveling up, put all your points into STR until you hit 35 STR, afterwards start adding DEX up to 20 so you could hit low level monsters. Go to Perion and become a warrior.
As Dark Knight you want to keep your dex as low as possible so don't go over 40 dex, even with 40 base dex you will still be missing PQ enemies but that's fine because the reason you are missing is largely because of the level gap and not your accuracy. As a new player you will be missing every now and then before you get your first big helmet (zakum/scar), you can consider buying amorian baskets which give +40 accuracy for 10 minutes.


Spear vs Polearm

Dark Knights can use 2 different weapon categories, the Spear and the Polearm.

When using an attack your character will use a random attack animation depending on the weapon you are using, spear and polearms share the same 2 animations Poke and Slash. With a spear in hand the Poke animation does more damage and with polearm in hand the Slash animation does more damage, there is 40% chance for a Poke and 60% chance for a Slash.

Slash:

Poke:

Dragon knights (3rd job) can use 2 different animation locked attacks, Crusher (Poke) and Fury (Slash), the Crusher is better for bossing and attacking a small number of enemies while the Fury is better for grinding and hitting a large number of enemies. Thus making spear better for bossing and polearm better for grinding.

In terms of market value spears and spear scrolls are much more expensive than pole arms because this game mostly revolves around bossing.

Weapons

When choosing your weapon you have to take into account the speed of the weapon, normal weapons do the same damage as slow weapons with 10 more weapon attack do, the Normal speed weapons are: boards, maple weapons, skis, event items and alchupiz. The rest of the spears and polearms are slow. That is why you will see slow weapons only in the end game weapons section. Something important to note: any weapon you are using that is not an end game weapon is just temporary so don't invest too much into getting every single upgrade.

Weapons by level
Level 1+: whatever, preferably something that has accuracy on it
Level 25+: Pig Illustrated, very good weapon because it is max speed and has accuracy on it.
Level 33+: Orange ski which can be obtained from Fire Raccoons in japan.
Level 43+: Maple Impaler or Maple Scorpio, maple weapons are better than skis and boards because of the accuracy they give, but are a lot more expansive.
Level 45+: Black Surfboard, check out the lib to find where it drops
Level 48+: Guan Yu Pole Arm, it gives 30 accuracy which is very high.
Level 55+: Bullseye Board or Green Ski, these two are gacha rewards, you buy them in the free market
Level 64+: Maple Soul Spear or Maple Karstan, maple weapons are better than skis and boards because of the accuracy they give, but are a lot more expansive.

End game weapons
Sky ski - A level 85 normal spear that for the longest time was considered best in slot spear for dark knight, 2nd highest level normal speed spear, only obtainable from gacha, highest clean weapon attack is 99. If you are a new player and struggle with accuracy: buy a low weapon attack sky ski and scroll it for accuracy.
Purple Surfboard - A level 95 fast polearm, the best in slot polearm for dark knight, it has fast speed which means you don't need speed infusion when using it, only obtainable during summer event, highest clean weapon attack is 104.
Alchupiz - A level 150 normal spear, comes in two versions Timeless and Reverse, the timeless being a better version of the reverse, The best in slot spear for dark knight and highest level normal speed spear, can be obtained from Pink Bean or by crafting in Temple Of Time, this is a leveling gear which means it will gain its own EXP and upon leveling up will get +0~2 STR/DEX/weapon attack, reverse gear levels up 3 times and timeless gear levels up 5 times, highest clean weapon attack is 102 and with perfect leveling 112 weapon attack clean.
Flairgrave / Speargrave - A level 115 slow spear, the best slow spear, can be obtained in Neo Tokyo either from bosses or crafting, highest clean weapon attack is 115.
Dragon Faltizan - A level 110 slow spear, can be obtained from Horntail or by crafting in Leafre, highest clean weapon attack is 112.
Pooh Pooh Shovel - A level 105 slow spear, not sure where you get this… probably gacha, a weaker version of Dragon Faltizan, highest clean weapon attack is 110.
Pinaka - A level 100 slow spear, this drops pretty much everywhere, a weaker version of Dragon Faltizan, the reason it is on the list is because of how cheap buying clean Pianka is, highest clean weapon attack is 107.
Stormshear - A level 100 slow spear, it is the same as Pinaka but you get it from CWKPQ bonus room.
Diesra - A level 150 slow polearm, comes in two versions Timeless and Reverse, the timeless being a better version of the reverse, can be obtained from Pink Bean or by crafting in Temple Of Time, this is a leveling gear which means it will gain its own EXP and upon leveling up will get +0~2 STR/DEX/weapon attack, reverse gear levels up 3 times and timeless gear levels up 5 times. Never invest your money into crafting one, you should be able to find them for sale for quite cheap in shops that sell pink bean drops, although this is a slow weapon the sheer amount of attack it has makes it worth considering.

Skill builds

Beginner
Max out nimble feet, the only movement related skill warriors have until they get a mount at level 70
snail toss, you don't really need this because warriors easily clear maple island
recovery, meme skill just use potions (if you are a new player sell your fame in the FM to afford pots)

1st job
Level 10: +1 power strike
Level 11: +1 slash blast +2 improved HP recovery
Level 12: +3 improved HP recovery
Level 13 - 16: +10 improved maxHP increase + 2 slash blast
Level 17 - 22: +17 slash blast +1 power strike
Level 23 - 28: +18 power strike
Level 29 - 30: + 6 endure

Power strike: 20/20
Slash blast: 20/20
Improved maxHP increase: 10/10
Improved HP recovery: 5/16
Endure: 6/8
Iron body: 0/20

In the first job you get access to one of the best skills in the game improved maxHP increase, we want to max that asap but in order to not feel like a beginner after our first job advancement sneak in a point into slash blast, speaking of slash blast will be the main skill you use until level 70, a great 6 target attack with a very short range. Power strike is just an empowered version of the normal attack.
Endure has been changed in MapleLegends, it has a % chance to make it so your pot consumption doesn't actually use up the pot (only works for pots that give HP or HP & MP), this skill will lower pots costs. you'll have some extra points in 2nd job and you'll max it.

Spoiler: Hybrid build (recommended)

2nd job
Level 30 - 37: +20 Polearm Mastery +2 Polearm booster
Level 38 - 39: +4 polearm booster +2 iron will
Level 40: +3 iron will
Level 41 - 50: +30 hyper body
Level 51 - 55: +14 polearm booster +1 spear mastery
Level 56 - 62: +19 spear mastery +2 spear booster
Level 63 - 68: +18 spear booster
Level 69: +2 endure +1 "free"
Level 70: +3 "free"

Polearm Mastery: 20/20
Polearm Booster: 20/20
Hyper Body: 30/30
Iron Will: 9/20
Spear Mastery: 20/20
Spear Booster: 20/20
Final Attack: Spear: 0/20
Final Attack: Polearm: 0/20
Endure: 8/8

Mastery skills are a premium source of accuracy, a much needed stat for any warrior, maxing it out makes you miss less and the mastery itself gives you a little boost of damage by increasing the minimum damage you can hit. After that we go for booster which doesn't take a lot of points to be effective, we put in just enough points so it would be up for a minute. Next up is Hyper Body, at this point we maxed the core 3 skills for 1 weapon and we start working on the other. After the 2nd weapon we max out endure and end up with 4 "free" points you can put anywhere EXCEPT final attack, having points in final attack will reduce your damage later on in the game because its animation will take time that could be spent executing a stronger attack.
Going for polearm first is just a recommendation of mine but you can go spear first if you want.

3rd job
If you followed my Leveling up a spearman guide and found yourself priest friends you can consider maxing out dragon roar before dragon fury: polearm.

Level 70: +1 Dragon Fury: polearm
Level 71 - 80: +29 Dragon Fury: polearm +1 sacrifice
Level 81: +2 sacrifice +1 dragon roar
Level 82 - 91: +29 dragon roar +1 spear crusher
Level 92 - 101: +29 spear crusher +1 dragon fury: spear
Level 102 - 111: +29 dragon fury: spear +1 dragon blood
Level 112: +2 dragon blood +1 power crash
Level 113 - 119: +19 power crash +2 elemental resistance
Level 119 - 120: +3 elemental resistance

Dragon Fury: Polearm: 30/30
Dragon Roar: 30/30
Spear Crusher: 30/30
Power Crash: 20/20
Dragon Blood: 3/20
Elemental Resistance: 5/20
Dragon Fury: Spear: 30/30
Sacrifice 3/20
Polearm Crasher: 0/30

You absolutely want to max out each weapon's strong attack (Spear Crusher and Dragon Fury: pole arm), dragon roar is a very useful skill for grinding, even outside of grinding it can be used to lower HP to zerk thresholds, power crush is a must have when facing certain bosses and the rest of the points are put into qualify of life skills, I personally prefer spear fury over elemental resistance because I like having a skill that can deal with a large amount of summons during boss runs.

Dragon blood has been reworked in MapleLegends instead of giving 12 weapon attack by periodically sacrificing a small amount of HP, it restores percentage HP. maxed out this skill will heal you for 5% of your HP every 4 seconds for 120 seconds with a cool down of 180 seconds. It was useless before the change and still useless after it, it wouldn't even help much with pot costs.

Sacrifice was also changed to do % HP self damage instead of % damage dealt self damage

Spoiler: Spear build

2nd job
Level 30 - 37: +20 Spear Mastery +2 Spear booster
Level 38 - 39: +4 Spear booster +2 Iron will
Level 40: +3 Iron will
Level 41 - 50: +30 hyper body
Level 51 - 55: +14 Spear booster +1 Iron will
Level 56 - 60: +14 Iron will +1 endure
Level 61 - 70: +1 endure +29 "Free"

Polearm Mastery: 20/20
Polearm Booster: 9/20
Hyper Body: 30/30
Iron Will: 20/20
Spear Mastery: 20/20
Spear Booster: 20/20
Final Attack: Spear: 0/20
Final Attack: Polearm: 0/20
Endure: 8/8

Mastery skills are a premium source of accuracy, a much needed stat for any warrior, maxing it out makes you miss less and the mastery itself gives you a little boost of damage by increasing the minimum damage you can hit. After that we go for booster which doesn't take a lot of points to be effective, we put in just enough points so it would be up for a minute. Next up is Hyper Body, at this point we maxed the core 3 skills for spear, the only thing you need now are 2 points in Endure and you are left with 29 "free" points you can put anywhere EXCEPT final attack, having points in final attack will reduce your damage later on in the game because its animation will take time that could be spent executing a stronger attack.

3rd job
If you followed my Leveling up a spearman guide and found yourself priest friends you can consider maxing out dragon roar before Spear Crusher.

Level 70: +1 Spear Crusher
Level 71 - 76: +14 Spear Crusher +4 hold the points* (from level 16 to 20 the skill hits only 1 target, so hold your points and use them only when you can get to 21+)
Level 77 - 80: +15 Spear Crusher +1 sacrifice
Level 81: +2 sacrifice +1 dragon roar
Level 82 - 91: +29 dragon roar +1 Dragon Fury: Spear
Level 92 - 101: +29 Dragon Fury: Spear +1 elemental resistance
Level 102 - 108: +19 elemental resistance + 2 dragon blood
Level 109: +1 dragon blood + 2 power crash
Level 110 - 115: +18 power crash
Level 116 - 120: +15 "Free"

Dragon Fury: Polearm: 0/30
Dragon Roar: 30/30
Spear Crusher: 30/30
Power Crash: 20/20
Dragon Blood: 18/20
Elemental Resistance: 20/20
Dragon Fury: Spear: 30/30
Sacrifice 3/20
Polearm Crasher: 0/30

You will max out both spear attacks starting with the stronger one Spear Crusher, dragon roar is a very useful skill for grinding, even outside of grinding it can be used to lower HP to zerk thresholds, power crush is a must have when facing certain bosses and the rest of the points just fill whatever, I personally prefer dragon blood because sacrifice isn't animation locked and is very inconsistent damage wise.

Dragon blood has been reworked in MapleLegends instead of giving 12 weapon attack by periodically sacrificing a small amount of HP, it restores percentage HP. maxed out this skill will heal you for 5% of your HP every 4 seconds for 120 seconds with a cool down of 180 seconds. It was useless before the change and still useless after it, it wouldn't even help much with pot costs.

Sacrifice was also changed to do % HP self damage instead of % damage dealt self damage

Spoiler: Polearm build (not recommended)

2nd job
Level 30 - 37: +20 Polearm Mastery +2 Polearm booster
Level 38 - 39: +4 Polearm booster +2 Iron will
Level 40: +3 Iron will
Level 41 - 50: +30 hyper body
Level 51 - 55: +14 Polearm booster +1 Iron will
Level 56 - 60: +14 Iron will +1 Endure
Level 61 - 70: +1 Endure +29 "Free"

Polearm Mastery: 20/20
Polearm Booster: 20/20
Hyper Body: 30/30
Iron Will: 20/20
Spear Mastery: 20/20
Spear Booster: 9/20
Final Attack: Spear: 0/20
Final Attack: Polearm: 0/20
Endure: 8/8

Mastery skills are a premium source of accuracy, a much needed stat for any warrior, maxing it out makes you miss less and the mastery itself gives you a little boost of damage by increasing the minimum damage you can hit. After that we go for booster which doesn't take a lot of points to be effective, we put in just enough points so it would be up for a minute. Next up is Hyper Body, at this point we maxed the core 3 skills for polearm, the only thing you need now are 2 points in Endure and you are left with 29 "free" points you can put anywhere EXCEPT final attack, having points in final attack will reduce your damage later on in the game because its animation will take time that could be spent executing a stronger attack.

3rd job
If you followed my Leveling up a spearman guide and found yourself priest friends you can consider maxing out dragon roar before Dragon Fury: Polearm.

Level 70: +1 Dragon Fury: Polearm
Level 71 - 80: +29 Dragon Fury: Polearm +1 sacrifice
Level 81: +2 sacrifice +1 dragon roar
Level 82 - 91: +29 dragon roar +1 Polearm Crasher
Level 92 - 101: +29 Polearm Crasher +1 elemental resistance
Level 102 - 108: +19 elemental resistance + 2 dragon blood
Level 109: +1 dragon blood + 2 power crash
Level 110 - 115: +18 power crash
Level 116 - 120: +15 "Free"

Dragon Fury: Polearm: 30/30
Dragon Roar: 30/30
Spear Crusher: 0/30
Power Crash: 20/20
Dragon Blood: 18/20
Elemental Resistance: 20/20
Dragon Fury: Spear: 0/30
Sacrifice 3/20
Polearm Crasher: 30/30

You will max out both polearm attacks starting with the stronger one Dragon Fury: polearm, dragon roar is a very useful skill for grinding, even outside of grinding it can be used to lower HP to zerk thresholds, power crush is a must have when facing certain bosses and the rest of the points just fill whatever, I personally prefer dragon blood because sacrifice isn't animation locked and is very inconsistent damage wise.

Dragon blood has been reworked in MapleLegends instead of giving 12 weapon attack by periodically sacrificing a small amount of HP, it restores percentage HP. maxed out this skill will heal you for 5% of your HP every 4 seconds for 120 seconds with a cool down of 180 seconds. It was useless before the change and still useless after it, it wouldn't even help much with pot costs.

Sacrifice was also changed to do % HP self damage instead of % damage dealt self damage

4th job
Level 120: +1 rush +2 berserk
Level 121 - 130: +28 berserk + 2 power stance
Level 131 - 136: +18 power stance
Level 137 - 139: +9 maple warrior
Level 140 - 142: +1 beholder +8 aura of the beholder
Level 143 - 146: +10 power stance + 2 aura of the beholder
Level 147 - 148: +6 aura of the beholder
Level 149 - 151: +9 beholder
Level 152 - 153: +6 achilles
Level 154 - 155: +5 hero's will +1 achilles
Level 156 - 163: +23 achilles +1 hex of the beholder
Level 164 - 171: +24 hex of the beholder
At this point do whatever you feel like, you are a big strong and independent mapler, go for monster magnet or aura of the beholder or mw30 or rush
Rush: 1/30
Berserk: 30/30
Maple Warrior: 9/30
Power Stance: 30/30
Beholder: 10/10
Aura Of the Beholder: 16/25
Hero's Will: 5/5
Achilles: 30/30
Hex Of The Beholder: 25/25
Monster Magnet: 0/30

Going for rush first is something all warriors should do, rush is a very useful utility skill that moves enemies, good for grinding and bossing, because this is a utility skill its damage doesn't really matter so you don't max it early. After that comes berserk, the iconic class defining skill of Dark Knights, you straight up double your damage by maxing this skill. Stance gives warriors the ability to not get knocked back after being hit which is very useful for bossing after adding only 20 it's decent enough to start prioritizing other skills, next up Maple warrior 9 will give you the biggest boost of damage however if you plan on receiving maple warrior from another one of your characters or your party you can skip this. Summoning the beholder gives you access Aura of the Beholder. Aura of the beholder in this server gives an attack speed boost +1 speed at level 6 and +2 speed (same as SI) at level 16, after squeezing the value out of "cheap skills" we will get back to maxing out stance, after it we will get back to Aura for the +2 speed followed by Beholder for the extra mastery. Achilles is very good on Dark Knights because taking less damage makes berserk more manageable. Hero's will is something you only need against seduce. The first boss that uses seduce and can reliably kill you while seduced is Horntail, so get Hero's Will around level 155. Lastly, hex of the beholder gives you some stats, the notable ones are: 50 avoid, 25 accuracy and 15 weapon attack.

Aura of the beholder has also been changed, instead of healing you for % HP every few seconds, it will reflect 100% of the damage dealt to you back to the attacker, for some reason the damage reflected is calculated before achilles. When an enemy hits you they receive damage equal to ~117% of damage they dealt. this skill has been changed yet again now it still does the damage reflect and on top of that gives attack speed and stun chance on Fury attacks.

Berserk this skill deserves its own paragraph, this skill has been reworked in MapleLegends more than once. In the original MapleStory a level 30 berserk gave 100% bonus damage when HP was under 50%, the first rework changed the HP threshold to 55% the next change made it so the damage increase is proportionate to your current hp, the lower you are the more damage you do with +100% damage at 50% (see chart below for more details), and added an active to the skill, 30 seconds duration 1 minute cool down, upon activation will dispell all debuffs except seduce (kinda random effect but ok), while active you get +120% damage and every attack that you receive will reduce your HP to 1, if you get hit while you have 1 hp you die. As controversial as it sounds, having this skill active in some end game bosses is safer than not.

Spoiler: Damage to % HP chart

(This chart is a estimate)

Berserk and Dragon Blood changes: https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/february-2023-balance-changes-explained.48858/
Aura and Endure changes: https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/february-2025-balance-changes-explained.57316/

Spoiler: Unlocking skills

Unlocking skills:
Berserk- step one go to wiz, take the quest "The great warrior sayram", he will ask you to go to Leafre to Tatamo, go kill Griefy, get the necklace and go back to Tatamo, he will ask you to go to insignificant being in Sleepywood, he will ask you to get a key and a shield, the key you get from jr. balrog after you get the key you go one map back out of jr.rog's map



When you have the key in your inv you can go into this portal, inside you have to kill all the jr.balrog and take the portal up and break the shield rock left of the far right. Go to wiz to



MapleStory Skill Quest - How to obtain "Enrage" [Before Big Bang Patch]

Stance- el nath pq, you start by getting a proposal from crimson balrog on the flight between orbis and ellinia. Call a 4th job mage friend or you won't be able to clear. Every class except pirates has a skill they can unlock in that pq so keep that in mind MapleStory Skill Quest - How to obtain "Power Stance" [Before Big Bang Patch]

Rush- get [Storybook] Indecipherable Book from Taurospear and go talk to manji in perion, he will tell you to go hunt 200 Charging Taurospear with another 120+ warrior, in a special map in sleepywood.



Hex/Blessing of the beholder- go to deep ludi and do buffon's and flo's quests

Leveling up a Spearman:

I don't support buying leech so if you wanna know about that go read other guides.
The best thing you can do is befriend a cleric around the PQ levels and grind with them starting from GS2. From 3rd Job the DK + Priest combo is mutually beneficial, the DK gets HS and the priest gets HB, generally grinding where the HS is always better than grinding solo.

The new player path
Level 10 - 13: do the job instructor's training
Level 13 - 18: quests around Perion, Nautilus and Ellinia.
Level 18 - 21: HPQ or pig beach
Level 21 - 30: KPQ / crows. These two options offer the best chance at making your first good meso, KPQ can give an overall INT 10% which sells for 3M and crow drop shoe jump 30% which sells for 4M.
Level 30 - 36: teddies in Ludibrium, if you didn't get any good meso up till now go back to crow
Level 36 - 4x: porkys in mu lung

The path of the PQ enjoyer
Level 10 - 13: do the job instructor's training
Level 13 - 20: HPQ
Level 20 - 21: kerning jump quest 1
Level 21 - 30: KPQ
Level 30 - 35: kerning jump quest 2, Nehal desert quest line and teddies
Level 35 - 45: LPQ
Level 45 - 55: EPQ
Level 55 - 68: OPQ / PPQ
Level 68 - 120: CDs in taipei tower
Level 89 - 120: Gallos in fantasy theme park
Level 95 - 120: Himes (dreamy ghost) in mushroom shrine

Washing a Spearman:

For dark knights having high HP directly links to the ability to do damage which is why it is very important to get that HP as high as possible as they are about to hit 4th job.
Washing a warrior is very cheap NX wise and not very damage taxing because you need low INT. I recommend washing a warrior for new players as well.
Don't know what HP washing is? Give this post a read

Warriors turn 4 extra MP into 50 extra HP as long as they are using fresh AP into HP. Without any washing warriors have around 8645 HP by 135, which means they need around 20000 bonus HP which would cost 400 fresh AP and 1600 bonus mana.

Warriors with their low mana pool suffer from excessive MP pot usage when fighting bosses that use Mana Burn, which is why it is recommended to get a high MP pool (around 5k).

Spoiler: Recommended wash

The recommended veteran player wash
Here the goal is to reach 30k HP and 3125MP (5k mp with HB). You will have 695 base MP by 135 which means you need another 2430 MP on top of the 1600 MP for the HP wash.

To do that you will put all of your points (except the 35str for 1st job) into INT up to 125 at level 30, from level 31 to level 33 you will add fresh AP into HP and take out of MP into INT up to 140 INT, from 34 to 55 you will MP wash and from 56 to 135 all fresh AP has to go into HP and then reset from MP into STR. At level 135 Reset 136 points from INT to STR.

This will cost 784 AP Reset scrolls which is 2,430,400NX which is around 405 days of voting.

Spoiler: Min-Max wash

The veteran player min-max wash
Having INT on classes other than mages sucks, which is why this wash plan only has 10 base INT, having to wait for your NX to pile up also sucks, this wash plan is called min-max because it minimizes base INT and NX costs while still reaching 30k hp.

If you have good enough INT gears, around +110 INT by level 50 you can use this plan. Make sure to ALWAYS level up with your INT gears on. Start washing from level 55 to level 135 after every level up, add all your points into HP and then use an AP Reset scroll from MP into STR. If you end up using all of your bonus MP slow down with the fresh AP into HP, put only as many points in as bonus MP you get per level up, for example if you level up with 120 INT you get 12 bonus mana which is enough only for 3 points, so put only 3 points into HP. At level 135 reset 6 points from your INT to your STR.

This will cost 406 AP Reset scrolls which is 1,258,600NX which is around 210 days of voting.

Spoiler: New player wash

The recommended new player wash
Add INT until you have 40 base INT, try your best to get your hands on items that give INT and wear them when you level up. From level 70 start putting fresh points into HP and taking points out of MP and into STR, keep doing that until you run out of bonus MP, at this point if you are still under 18750 base HP start blood washing,* if you are above start putting only as many points in as bonus MP you get per level up, for example if you level up with 120 INT you get 12 bonus mana which is enough only for 12 / 4 = 3 points, so put only 3 points into HP.

There are no exact calculations and numbers here, just get a feel for it as you go and stop washing when you think it is the appropriate time. After you have decided it is time, reset 36 points from INT to STR. it is highly recommended to keep washing after you hit 30k HP with HB

Spoiler: Challenges

The challenges route
If you really don't want any washing headaches, pick this strategy, the HP challenges are special quests that reward you with base HP for the price of locking your ability to add ability points to HP/MP. You will be slower than a player who is washing, you only reach 30k HP with HB at level 150.

If you ever find yourself at a point where you don't have enough NX to continue there are 3 options:

1. Blood wash: add the points into HP without taking them out, the points will sit there until you get enough NX or enough bonus MP.
   
2. Stop grinding for levels and grind for mesos instead, go to monsters that give less XP but drop valuable items
   
3. Make a different unwashed character while still voting for your DK, preferably something that can serve as a buff mule later on, for example Hermit for Haste and Meso Up or Priest for Holy Symbol.

Bossing:

coming soon

My Journey as a DK:

coming soon

 

Im gonna reply to a few topics mentioned in the comments
- HP pots
I'm a ginseng roots only DK so I'm a minority when it come to this topic, I will be adding an HP potions section
- HP thresholds & mana burn
Each boss will get his own spoiler card with all the info inside
- Elemental resistance
Enlightened me which attacks, I legit don't know which attacks my elemental resist can block to potentially save me
- Dragon Blood
To be honest I wrote what i wrote about dragon blood before even checking what it does when it's maxed out, but even after checking it i never bothered to change what i wrote
- Power Crash
I have a bias towards this skill because I spent 136 to 170 doing almost exclusively CWKPQ
- about MW
You clearly didn't read what I wrote and only looked at the points per level. I wrote this guide for first character DK players in mind, in the explanation of the 4th job skill points distribution I mentioned that MW can be skipped.
- magnet
Unless you are doing auf i don't see why you NEED it
- Aura
By the time you reach the end of my guide you've only just started NT, in 3 levels you'll have it maxed out anyways
- Direct questions
I'm not looking at the forums at regular intervals (sometimes even months), so if you want me to answer, contact me via discord shaul_carvalho

Thanks for all the kinds words, and the harsh feedback