Feedback Dark Knight Skill Changes

This thread is gonna be the first one of a series of class-focused discussion topics, aimed at collecting both direct feedback, from the MapleLegends community, about specific class change ideas, and new potential ideas and solutions to the core problems of each job.

Today's focus will be on Dark Knights.

Dark Knight​

Dark Knight (DK) is a melee cleaving class. Its skillset revolves around the concept of "high risk : high reward", due to Berserk damage increase on low HP, Dragon Blood's bonus damage at the cost of health drain, and so on.

Our Anniversary/Summer patch saw, among other changes, a rework of Berserk formula, that turned it into a ramping bonus damage the less HP the DK has, as opposed to a flat 0-100 increase under 50% HP.
We aimed at doubling down on the scaling design; in doing so, however, we also highlighted the contradiction that DKs face when being incentivized at keeping their HP at a minimum, while needing to have enough HP to survive stronger and stronger bosses (like the recent introduction of Aufheben).

On another note, being the class with the most impactful defensive party buff, Hyper Body, limits the power and strength that we can feed DK, which in itself goes against the Berserk fantasy of great power at the expense of survivability.

While a Dark Knight can be fun to play, there are definitely some viability problems that can't be overlooked.

We would like to collect ideas and suggestions about what could be tweaked and what direction we could lean towards.
While any constructive input will be appreciated, here are some prompts to facilitate the discussion:

• What's your overall view on Dark Knights?
• What is the class lacking currently?
• How could Dark Knights be improved?
• What changes would make Dark Knights more interesting/fun to play?

As part of the feedback, we would like to encourage the consideration of a few key factors that we want to always keep in mind, when planning changes:

1. Active gameplay should be promoted.
2. The class should maintain its unique identity.
3. The class should fit our v62 Maple server direction.

Please do accompany any suggestion with proper justification and details.

Here is a list of past DK suggestions, that can be referenced for ideas, or in order to highlight any interesting and fitting ones that we could use:

Spoiler: Past Suggestion

https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/dark-knight-skills-synergy.47041/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/dark-knight-buffing-ideas.46842/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/aura-of-the-beholder.46855/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/an-identity-for-dark-knight.46565/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/a-thought-on-dark-knights-survivability.46175/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/make-drk-zerking-more-palatable.44348/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/change-hex-of-the-beholder-discription.44578/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/buff-dks-sacrifice.44120/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/increase-iframes-from-warrior-rush.43368/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/warrior-buffs-other-silly-ideas.43101/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/make-hyper-body-skill-last-longer.40358/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/inde...d-loop-for-hex-of-the-beholder-rebuffs.40145/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/warrior-balanced-change-thread-all.36721/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/buff-berserks-damage-bonus.30509/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/dark-knight-bitching-thread.27014/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/my-next-skill-changes-wish-list.29224/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/dragon-blood-improvement.25709/
https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/a-few-suggestions-to-revive-the-drks-class.24113/

We look forward to your contribution; we aim to begin a new series of well-thought and meaningful skill changes, and the community input has proven to be a key element for this many times already.

Thank you for your interest!


EDIT: Adding link for the 20th February 2023 skill changes for DK here