Feedback Dark Knight Skill Changes

If anything doesn’t the short duration or high frequency of dispels encourage active DK play / less muling? If HB was a longer buff or couldn’t be dispelled it would be quite a bit easier to mule.

 

We can also just not allow multiclienting in boss runs xd

 

This is true, but high frequency dispel also hurts active DK players because having to constantly recast their buffs also hurts their dpm.

In auf, there is 1 attack that needs to hit you in order to cause a dispel, and another is a 2 minute timer full map dispel which will always hit you. Because the first one is more common and conditional, the attack may "miss" a DK if they had iframes from something else, whereas it may or may not miss a squishy ranged team mate due to either their avoidability or iframes. So you have a weird situation where different people are getting dispelled so you either have to keep track of every single party member who needs hb or cast hb every time the dispel attack is used.

Auf heben spams this attack very frequently, by the way, so a DK fighting this boss will lose a lot of dpm just spamming hb / recasting their buffs all the time (forgetting that they are probably not zerking as well). The other warriors can tank auf touch to avoid getting hit by the dispel so they don't really have this problem. I guess the DK could also tank the boss and zerk if they controlled perfectly, but then the range players (people who would typically need hb) would get dispelled and the dk might be too far away to buff them. Having to constantly walk back and forth would also hurt the DK dpm as well.

So we are in a limbo where we don't want to mule dk because it is aids because of the dispel, and we don't want to bring actual DK players because they are crippled so badly by the boss mechanic that they may as well be a mule.

The constant dispels is just as much of a liability for the DK as it is the player who is dependent on the hyper body.

 

I do agree that the constant dispel attack from auf creates this weird issue for DKs and HB-reliant characters/classes, where a lot of the time or downtime is caused due to rebuffing and playing safe. I do think that changing the attack to not always dispel but maybe 20-25% of the time but doubling it's damage from 1.8-2k to 3.6-4k can still retain the threat of a possible dispel whilst not completely rendering HB and other characters (mostly low washed shads, ranged and mages) to be severely handicapped.

Sorry for the off-topic reply but since it involves DK/DK utility in a specific fight it might be somewhat relevant.

 

A low chance to dp will only create a HT like situation where someone didn't notice the boss dp'd and dodged it, thus not rebuffing anyone until the rest of the party yell at them, which is fatal when said buff is HB ie. people's literal lifeline.

 

What if HB gave extra damage for the first X seconds after HBing your party (make it not work on solo), to make up for the time lost running around and HBing people?

 

A more elegant solution would be to simply remove the cast time of hb, kind of like shadow star. Then there's no longer damage loss from having to rebuff the skill.

 

State of server (for classes)
First of all i would like to say that because of hp washing the strength of warriors (having high hp) has become less unique since attackers can reach these high numbers of hp themself now.
DK will notice this change over time even more, since their biggest partyskill becomes less relevant over time.
So the state of warriors is not great, where i would consider DK the worst and paladin the best.

Feedback on the feedback so far:
i am a lvl 200 DK main (it's rough) and I've seen a couple suggestion pass by and on two of those suggestion i would rather not see it happen:

1) No to making DK a cleave powerhouse (cleaving more mobs, let cleave deal more damage)
2) No to making DK a tank support class

Let me explain why
1) Like Akash said end game DK is one of the worst classes and bosses are 80% single target-oriented, so buffing cleave wouldn't help end game DK

2) As much as i would love to see iron will useful or hb undispellable. All these changes will make DK's even more of a buff mule. Also making it a tank support class would mean that no DK would zerk since they are in a boss run for buffs specifically. Zerk is a skill that screams damage, you put in the risk you get the damage. I see zerk as a crucial DK skill and don't think DK should fit a support role.
It feels more hybrid with zerk and hb, where the support part of hb becomes more irrelevant over time.

Small example:
If you want to do your solo content like papulatus or ravana, then cleave or being a support tank would slow this content down. It should not take longer than it already does.


My input:
the character of DK should stay intact which i consider the following:
1) Dragon class (dragon roar, spear crusher with dragon animation) + needs use on dragon blood
2) Zerk (since zerk requires you to risk your life, you should actually be able to deal damage and make this a dmg-orientated class)
3) HB (a damage-orientated class with a partybuff, just like bucc,mm,bm)

HB: the skill should stay dispellable, the cast animation is pretty quick (if its possible i would love it to be quicker) i think the biggest problem with this skill is the reach as its really short (not that it matters, because in HT my party is somehow always scattered around the map). I must say a couple days ago someone got stunned and dispelled in auf haven and she was dashing to him, without hb he was dead. Moments like that it's nice to save someone with hb, so it should stay dispellable so u can have moments like this.

zerk: First i want to point out that on all the pb runs i went (different guilds) AND the one i watched that like 70% of the deaths were DK. If you can find statistics i would not be surprised
to see total deaths per class that DK would be on top. Zerk is so risky but not that rewarding yet. I agree with OVV it should get a way bigger buff (we are also reliant on SE+SI)
The amount of focus you also need to have for boss runs that can be over 1h long is also super draining. I honestly think this should become alot more rewarding or DK should just be a mule class (which i hope it wouldn't turn into)

aura of beholder: the new zerk changes made this not only useless, but also created a new anti-synergy. I still don't know if i should take out all my skillpoints on this skill or wait for potential changes. What kind of changes i am not sure. This skill is known for saving pots (at bosses not really noticeable, but when i used to farm in memory lane 5 (before quad mages came and ruined PoT price and helm int price) it was not bad. So maybe make it absorb damage to save pots. I honestly don't know yet how to fix this, need more time to think.

dragon blood: i would really like for this skill to be useful again
suggestion 1 --> make it like concentrate so dragon blood gives 25atk and then goes on cooldown for 10minutes or whatever time
suggestion 2 --> make dragon blood give u iframes with big cooldown (maybe smoke like) if thats to much then maybe make it give alot of dmg reduction (90%?) with also big cooldown

note: all these numbers are changeable ofcourse.

Extra Suggestions

Spoiler: 1 clown idea for aura of beholder

Aura of beholder this idea is crazy and not realistic but i wanted to throw it out anyways. Since DK's are dying so much i was thinking of making this skill allows you to make a mistake. If you take lethal damage it would bring you to 1hp instead of 0hp and then the skill goes on cooldown for 2hours? (TL doesnt work, its kinda like totem of undying from minecraft).
This alone is crazy, but i thought if you trigger this you get a STR debuff of -50str or -100STR for 10min, only dispellable by death. So you can say i just die anyways so i can do more damage after ress or you see that ress is important and you play hb mule again for the debuff duration. Once again i put this off topic, because i honestly don't know yet how to create value of aura of beholder again IF we keep the zerk changes.

Spoiler: 2 HT platform

Please fix the top right platform of HT, so cleave don't need to position perfectly on 1 pixel to hit right head and mid head T_T

Spoiler: 3 rage buff

Honestly think that warriors should be buffed, everyone looks at DK and are almost ready to deny a buff, because it would be unfair to heroes. I really wouldn't mind heroes being buffed i wouldn't mind rage being +25atk (this might start the conversation about ciders becoming useless, but i'm more worried of heroes and dk's becoming useless than an item becoming useless).

Spoiler: 4 monster ring buff for warriors

I have suggested this before, but i think Monster ring should have speed,jump and accuracy since warriors need those stats the most (they dont really need the hp from monster ring).

Spoiler: 5 shadow partner undispellable

Summons are undispellable, which is amazing i can keep beholder at the auf dispell spam. I have noticed that my NL friends struggle to keep their shadow partner and personally i think that shadow partner should be considered the summon of Nightlords as it even requires a summoning rock. So i wouldn't be against having shadow partner undispellable.

TLDR
Warriors are in a rough spot, they can use some buffs.
DK even worse --> End-game DK needs to be more rewarding (single target wise), especially when you zerk.
some skill changes are needed on aura of beholder and hopefully make dragon blood useful.
and some extra suggestions click to see for yourself ^

Sorry for not exactly following the discussion format and hopefully we come to a good solution for the state of DKs.

 

Sry for posting twice in this but I can't get possible Berserk formulas out of my head. While the new formula was a step in the right direction, I don't feel like it does all things successfully yet that a revamped Berserk should do.

From what I'm gathering and my own experience, those are three things:
1. Give moderate damage increase even if only slightly below MaxHP. This would improve DK damage at bosses that deal a ton of damage such as PB.
2. Give the old 100% damage increase at a reasonable HP threshold.
3. Give high damage increase at really low HP. This would be an actual buff to DK damage at bosses where maintaining very low hp is possible.

Now to adress each point and why current Berserk doesn't really do it yet:
1. From what people are reporting in this thread, the damage output at a level where Berserk is safe too use at PB is to low, or conversely, if trying to go for lower HP, DKs die.
2. While the new formula is mostly a buff, for some reason the damage at below 55% HP was actually decreased from 100% bonus to 94%. As was pointed out in this thread, this does come up in some rare situations and since DK clearly doesn't need nerfs the threshold to do 100% bonus should be restored to what it was or even increased.
3. 110% is way too low of an increase over 100% to justify going to that low HP. Since we are talking about bonus damage in the first place, this corresponds to a total of 5% increase in total damage (2.1/2=1.05). This is way too low to incentivize playing at that dangerous threshold and frankly it might as well not be there at all.

I think that a good Berserk formula should incentivize going lower and lower if possible, while also making damage not completely garbage at higher HP. In addition, I think that the new formula is too difficult to work with and not as satisfying as having a few noticeable thresholds where your damage goes up.

So here would be my own garbage numbers for a revamped Berserk. Please take with a grain of salt, idk how to do balancing but these basically summarize how it should look in my opinion:
<=90% HP: +50% increase to damage
<=75% HP: +75% increase to damage
<=55% HP: +100% increase to damage
<=30% HP: +125% increase to damage

 

I think broader scaling for Zerk would be good, the current buff is great, but broader will be even better.

What can go overlooked is the potion cost for training and bossing. For newer and younger Drks this is extra relevant as they don't do great damage and thus it makes training at someplace like 1-2F or 3-4F not feasible because of how many potions they have to burn for little in return. How would it be in 5-6F if it takes a Drk like 6+ crushers to kill a gold monk, but burns through 2 -> 3 potions?

Broader scaling would allow for more efficient use of potions that makes the training progress in early 4th job to be not so rough and force players into less viable or just not viable at all training areas.

 

lf > guinness world record jackhammer dark knight zerk enthusiast Fishy

 

I agree with others that the high risk in general outweighs the reward of zerking.

I like the ideas proposed that increase zerking damage substantially while at lower hp thresholds. Like someone mentioned before, I think from 100%-20% the current berserk damage curve is fine, but I do believe that at 20% hp or lower the bonus should stop scaling and switch to a flat, substantially higher value, similar to how the old berserk was.

I also believe that synergy between certain skills in the dk's skill set can be improved. The biggest offender is aura of the beholder. The heal on this skill is completely counter productive to zerking, and I believe it needs to be reworked.

I like the intention of the skill improving DrK survivability, and believe this goal can still be accomplished by reworking its bonus to damage resistance.

Iif it were up to me, I would rework the skill into damage resistance that scales off of the amount of remaining health. This would mimic berserk in the sense that the lower one's remaining health is, the stronger the value of the damage resistance would be.

It would look something like this:

Aura of the beholder: increases damage reduction based on remaining hp.
Level 1:
100% hp: ignore 0% of incoming damage
0% hp: ignore 10% incoming damage

Max level:
100% hp: ignore 0% of incoming damage
0% hp: ignore 40% of incoming damage

The idea being that the lower the hp bar of the DrK, the more damage negation they have, encouraging the risk-reward playstyle that is inherent in berserking. This would flip aura of the beholder from being counter-synergistic to pro-synergistic with it's berserk counterpart.

Capping it at 40% damage reduction is just a suggestion, but I think it makes sense because hero/pally already have power guard that reduces damage by 40%. Setting this as the maximum value for the proposed DrK scaling would ensure that their damage reduction remains weaker than their hero/pally counterparts, while still having some degree of potency at zerking levels. This change also preserves the initial intention behind the skill of improving DrK survivability.

 

At first I hated new zerk because it felt extremely inconsistent, but then I realized it was its interaction with other skills what annoyed me. I really like the idea of aura rework towards damage absorption that has been posted here. It's a great way to go with the logic/identity of the class in my opinion. I don't feel aura like that big of an issue in terms of healing because we don't "need" to keep up a fixed threshold anymore, but the damage absorption approach would be way better of course. On the other hand, I would like Sacrifice to be a more consistent skill when it comes to hp managing. Mine is level 18 and it just randomly absorbs different amounts of hp when I use it. At toad, for example, while being at 15k (I like to zerk under 15k for animation) sacrifice sometimes takes me to 11k and other times to 6k... so yeah. Roar is great when you need to lose a huge amount of hp quickly, but sometimes its not ideal due mobs during bossing (CB for example) and also a high risk of instantly dying right there. I've been considering taking out sps from aura and putting them into Sacrifice so it reduces the HP% absorption but I don't know if that will do based on my experience with the skill. Regarding zerk itself, I do enjoy the new zerking! Feels very versatile. While, as I said before, it kinda makes threshold pointless, it allows me to put in some extra damage without being strictly under half HP; however, reading these posts made me realize how much effort I invest in lets say... pb! vs the reward I get out of it. Zerking is damn cool and a drk was a childhood dream for me (194 rn lfg) but yeah, risking it all to get damage waayyyy below other classes that are miles away from pb's butt is not fair at all. Zerking can be very draining at end-game bosses. Low HP aside, keep in mind aura/sacrifice issues, pet not 100% healing and pot delay (it is a thing, yeah)... the bet scales exponentially against us! And also just like regular players we have to care for pb's sed and/or auf's love in general. I personally try to zerk as low a possible so I can contribute as much as I can to the run, so I think that changes focused on survivability/defense/damage would be great. Aside from that, maybe a slight increase to spears range would help? That way we are not too close to bosses with touch damage that could one shot us while zerking.

 

I think old zerk and new zerk both have pros and cons. What if instead of changing zerk more, re work HB. HB is supposed to be an essential buff but with HP washing a lot of people don't even care if theres a dk in a run. As I've heard "it's nice to have". If HB could provide the HP increase like it does now, and also some sort of defense buff. Not sure it's possible but what if HB gave def based on base hp a player has, so lower HP non washed characters received more def and high hp washed chars don't get as much. The increase in def could also allow dks to stay in zerk more consistently and not be quite as risky during harder hitting bosses. Just a thought I had today.

 

if buffed to relevance, youll end up with a party comp that looks like this: 1 18.5k foot pedal dk and 5 magicians or shad with each player playing 3 chars. dk just becomes a better mule (assuming the def stacks with beholder)

 

I like a lot of the suggestions here, and I agree with a few that stand out to me:
-give DKs a better def. stat (through skills or something else) to allow them to zerk more safely.
-Make zerk do more damage. It honestly sucks how low DK DPM can get even with low HP zerk. Make the damage increases larger at lower att or make higher HP zerking possible for better survivability. Maybe a mix of both.
-keep the HP healing from aura but buff dragon's blood to give it more att so it's more worth it to use AND uses up slightly more HP than aura heals so you still have to pot. Keeps the risk/reward that DK has. Also maybe give aura a def increase property for the DK? That'll help survivability of DKs so we won't have to pot constantly with increasing pot prices.
-Buff rage on Heros alongside the DK damage buffs to keep them somewhat relevant, and potentially make Heros more relevant as a whole. It would make ciders less relevant or outright outclass it, but wouldn't that be a good thing? Ciders are MUCH more expensive now and would give Heros a nice advantage. Would help bring down costs of pots in general. They also take a lot of use slots so there's that as well. As someone else in this thread said, better for an item to become irrelevant than for an entire class to become such.
-Remove the cast time on hyper body so DPM doesn't go down as often as it otherwise would. Keep the animation obviously but remove the cast time.
-I like the idea of the 3rd job skills swing or stab depending on what weapon you're using. Would make grinding easier as you won't need to rely on not one but two expensive weapon equips to get by. Spears aren't exactly cheap and neither are Purple Surfboards. The change could also make pole arms more relevant with purple surfboard's speed being higher than that of sky skis. Surfboard meta when?

 

1. What's your overall view on Dark Knights?
They have [Hyper Body] buff and [Berzerk] that makes them special, other than that are the same.

2. What is the class lacking currently?
They lack of [Berzerk] to be user friendly, it seems like you need to risk your life to have the same or lower dmg than those high class attackers. So it doesn't makes DK stand out at all. Why play a DK if you can play other better damage class? I am a DK myself, I haven't reach end game but it's just my thoughts. (No offense to DK class)

3. How could Dark Knights be improved?
Just my thoughts, remain [Berserk] at it is. But add another sub buff in [Berserk] whenever they receive a huge % of damage, they get's [Berserk] buff full for an amount of time and if they risk their hp at the same time it extend that duration. I think this is best way to compensate for their risk and so on. (The coding might be hard, but just my suggestion)

4. What changes would make Dark Knights more interesting/fun to play?
Same as my 3rd question answer, have risk and benefit at the same time.

Maplelegends is doing great to even the other class and make changes, love it.

 

I'd like to see perhaps an additional skill added if possible to replace aura of the Beholder or keep the same name and change the description of the skill. Current aura of the Beholder totally contradicts the new zerk mode. Maybe if the drk takes damage that would otherwise kill them, bring their health down to 1 and gives zerk a damage buff once passive skill is activated(which has a cool down) where for say.. 20-30 seconds the drk is in extreme zerk mode, can't die and damage increases)
Skill then goes on cool down. Maybe something like smoke screen cool down / duration.
Kind of like what Tryndamere on league of legends has. Making the aura of the Beholder protecting drk for the next 20-30 seconds from all incoming damage..

I'll keep brainstorming.

 

Can take my input with a grain of salt as I never played this class past 3rd job as I don’t feel like enduring the low HP gameplay while shuffling a bunch of potions. I played Hero and Paladin to lv200 on other big server.

- What’s your overall view on Dark Knights?

Probably the best out of the three Warriors in terms of comfortable gameplay into 4th job (and it's clearly the most popular of the three in terms of playrate). Hyper Body is the strongest buff in the game and is a core skill in grinding, party grinding, and later bosses for team survivability. They have their core damage skills in third job compared to Hero/Paladins, which allow them to be more fun to play as Power Strike/Slash Blast feel bad in comparison.

Always love having this class in a party if possible for smooth boss runs (or grinding).


- What is the class lacking currently?

What Dragons Knight lack is consistency in gameplay. In the state of Nostalgic pre-BB gameplay, Drks are always in a weird state of balancing as they offer Hyper Body, the strongest buff in the game, making them a supportive Tank but has to go glass cannon to have effective damage in 4th job. Hyper Body just takes up too much of their budget to make their Berserker gameplay a realization while trying to maintain Nostalgia (and combat HP washing). They will always be terrible with moderate~high risk & low~moderate reward in Nostalgic Maplestory. If you buff Drk to be too good, then they’ll eclipse Heroes/Paladins while having better utility. It’s no wonder why the other hyped up server in development decided to nerf HB and give Hero/Paladins party-Tank skills in exchange for making Dragon Knights a truly offensive top-tier class that rivals NLs/Sairs.

- How could Dark Knights be improved? What changes would make Dark Knights more interesting/fun to play?

I see suggestions all over the place on how to buff Drks from either damage reductions or huge damage increases. This either makes Dragon Knights still too hard to play for the average person (in later content) unless they’re sweating their ass off or will blow out Heroes/Paladins in terms of viability… I also see a number of people super focused on making sure Drks are strong Pink Bean and Auf… I personally think that Dragon Knights shouldn’t be good everywhere.

With that said, in my opinion, the best way to improve Dragon Knights is just to smooth out their gameplay by simplifying them:

• Front load most of the Berserk scaling to be higher at 100% HP so that they’re a somewhat weaker Hero and reach “full” scaling at ~70% hp to be on par with Heroes.
• There should be a slight Zerk scaling increase as Drk goes lower in HP to still retain some of the old Zerk gameplay
• Give Dragon Knights some self-utility to make up for this change by buffing Dragon Blood (wealthy902’s suggestion) and changing Aura of the Beholder (into a survivability skill).

Hyper Body
– I agree with others on buffing this skill to have reduced cast time and a slightly bigger range. Can also give a longer buff duration (this aligns with the pre-BB buffs Neckson did) or make it become undispellable. (I’m aware that people will be against longer buff duration by saying it’ll benefit muling but its already being muled on rotation with HS anyways… so this is still just a QoL buff for active Drks)

Dragon Blood
– I’m in agreement with wealthy902’s suggestion of turning Dragon Blood into a 2% HP DoT in exchange for a self-buff attack boost that stacks with other attack buffs. I’d suggest making the change of having Dragon Blood do DoT damage until the player is equal or less than ~70% so that players can ease into full Zerk and be somewhat as a lever for the average player. Also, make sure it’s not able to kill the player (if it wasn’t already fixed).

Berserk
– Front load most of the Zerk scaling at 100% HP and scale it to “full” at ~70% HP. Will still give slightly more damage scaling at lower health thresholds to retain old Zerk gameplay (and reward skilled Drk players if they want to go lower hp)

Aura of the Beholder
– This should be turned into an active skill that ignores all damage dealt and debuffs for one minute (essentially a self-smokescreen) and has a cooldown of several minutes. This will allow Drk mains to achieve some of the high risk low hp Berserk fantasy, especially when paired with a Shadower.

There will need to be a better visual indicator to show when its active.

 

Hi I'm new to the server and I love the in depth suggestions here it's amazing!! I definitely plan on making a Drk when I'm able to.

I think the changes are super interesting and I just wanted to add my 2 cents. I am no where near as knowledgeable on these things as the people here. So here are some of my suggestions.

HyperBody
I've seen lowering cast time and I think that's a great suggestion. Maybe make it a skill that can not be dispelled but can still run out.

Iron will
I've felt this skill has always been underwhelming maybe buff the amount of defencive stats it gives and make it stackable with iron body.

Sacrifice
I think making it an slash or stab only skill based on the weapon used would be interesting so if you wanted to go PA only for fun you can use it for single target dmg. At least this way the skill has some kind of use besides lowering HP.
Maybe LVL 20 max?

Dragon Blood
Making it a toggle would be nice, it could give a stackable attack or flat / %Str bonus for current % HP like 2% every few sec or simply drain Mp.

Aura of the Beholder
I think the healing is nice but it can be counter intuitive when trying to Berserk at lower HP. I think it would be pretty cool If Aura gave a buff similar to Arans Combo Barrier, when below a certain % HP ( say 45-35% for example) Beholder reduces the amount of incoming damage for you and surrounding party members for a certain amount of time, during this time Drks can play more risky and Berserk at a lower HP to utilize the damage increase followed by a small cool down like 10 sec, This way Beholder can be useful when you want to be more risky for damage and help the overall party survival while actively zerking. I think this could help prevent becoming a high level HB mule and stay relevant late game as more people HP wash.