Feedback The State of Dark Knights and Moving Forward

Personally from having only played bowmaster to lv 180 and never having touched a warrior, it seems option 2 is better because option 1 seems too complicated.
OP asked about essential aspects of dk identity, to me as a ranged attacker dk class identity is providing hb and do decent dps. This server has every endgame player vote for 1-2 years to make a 30k ranged attacker which completely breaks the class identity of every ranged attacker and makes hb almost completely useless endgame. In my dream scenario every player's hp is reset, hp washing is made impossible, every player is forced to do the hp challenges and every nl, sair and archer will need hb for pb, auf and other endgame content.
This will never happen or if it would, it would make many people angry, but how is a 30k hp nl ever a healthy part of maplestory?

I quit my archer with enough mp for a clean 18k hp many years ago and hp washing is not the reason why I quit, but hp washing does seem to me the main reason why dk can't have its own class identity. Hero cleave should beat out dk cleave and pally ST should beat out dk ST. dk should be slighly less dps than hero/pally and bring usefull buffs to the party.
Since hp washing will probably never get removed I would go with option 2 for the berserk rework and give dk a better pt buff than hb since hb is useless to endgame players.
If dk gets a usefull pt buff and dk mules become a problem remove avoid gain from luk after 50 or so total luk. A normal attacking dk would probably not get more than 50 luk from equips anyway.

 

In my opinion Dark Knights should preserve it's core identity but Berserk needs some extensive rework. As a sweaty HT Bishop, DK and Bucc player I don't really know what it's like to just hold down 1 key and out DPM everyone else so I don't really know what it would take to make people more interested in playing Dark Knight, but here's my idea of making the class more fair to play:

• Make Berserk an active skill only: No cooldown, same duration or roughly the same duration as Combo Attack. When active and over 50% HP grants 100% bonus attack. When active and under 50% grants 130% bonus attack (could also make it an attack curve ranging from 100% to 130%, the lower the higher bonus attack you get).
• Repurpose Aura of the Beholder to work as some sort of shield: Passive skill, when a Dark Knight is under 50% HP and receives a fatal blow, Aura has a chance of keeping the Dark Knight alive at 1 HP/1 MP, when this happens the Dark Knight gets 'punished' by Berserk being dispelled or getting dispelled all together (could also give them a debuff such as 'Berserker's torment' in proposal #1). Level = 4% chance keeping the DK alive when under 50% HP, level 25= 100% chance of keeping the DK alive when under 50% HP. This skill won't work over 50% HP so if a Dark Knight gets hit too hard at a higher HP (eg. Horntail's tail), will immediately die.

All the values and HP thresholds mentioned above are just examples, it would need some testing to keep DPM values balanced of course, but I believe it would make this class much more accessible and easier to play for everyone and also more rewarding for more experienced players, keeping the risks of being 'punished' if you push your abilities too hard.

 

its kind of off topic and I'm sure it'll get some hate but until the blatantly overtuned NL's are properly balanced (nerfed) there is no reason to ever play a class that carries risk. The BT claims "class identity" while a 30k NL is the tankiest, easiest to multiclient and realistically highest dpm class in the game. It doesn't even require much funding to outperform other classes, and only needs 1 buff which is easily muled. 10 man PB is being done and if it hasn't already, is very close to clearing, due to all the highly funded NL's, meanwhile I doubt 30 funded drks could even clear a run.

You're indirectly relying on nostalgia factor to carry the Drk class in a world where drks have very little practical applications outside of Cwkpq, and their demand for HB. Sed changes in HT killed all Melee classes, only introducing risk and loss of single target dpm via RA status.

It's easy to look at a class and feel its lacking when NL's are still so heavily favoured by the balance team in the eyes of being Neckson's flagship class.

 

-As A Dark Knight main, I don't care about the berserk identity i don't get why there is so much focus on that. Anyways here's some issues and suggestions.
- Iron will is useless please give it some usefulness maybe 10% damage reduction
- Sacrifice is a skill I use solely to get back to low hp besides that it sucks idk maybe remove and add in a NEW skill or rework it so it can be used against DR idk its really bad
- crusher is sorta slow maybe increase the speed?
-polearm pure drk's are a meme so please dont think too hard about polearm drks
-in GMS you can be 100% hp and still do damage i dont see why we cant have the same in Legends. Every other character does damage and survives etc why are we punished for actually paying attention to our class??? Maybe change hex of beholder to increase weapon speed or crit ??
- dragon roar could use a stun
- Maybe buff the speed of spears our weapons are gated heavily behind gachapon and PB that is sorta nuts ngl or/also increase the range of attacks

For a class that needs both SI/SE to deal optimal dpm the juice isn't worth the squeeze. The meta is currently around NL's because they're one of the best classes in the game who can dual attack i dont mind not being able to mule multiple DKs but whats the point of choosing a drk in late game content?

Those are my suggestions. If you solely focus on damage the class still will face its fundamental issues of just being a mule and also not dealing damage for those that play. It is laughable the damage Drks do at late game bosses ( Auf you are a liability, if you are lower than 21k you're not only dealing lower damage but also going to die :'] as you cannot pin it.

PB drks arent even considered lmao only useful for HB

Most of Neo tokyo you cant pin its odd . Core Blaze not only do you rely on si(live everywhere else) but you also have no stun so its doable but why not pick another warrior who can do what you do BETTER while also remaining 100% hp ( TBH I REALLY WANT TO BE 100% HP WHILE DOING DAMAGE )

 

sorry to burst yall's bubbles but i would accept a dk player to a 10 man run, contingent on them bringing enough supportive logistics. my original 10 man plans revolved around having a non luk dk to hb. the class just suffers heavily from stigma and selection problems and if we're honest with ourselves, the problem is dk damage floor being too low relative to other classes. i would suggest investing in some gear.

but that said, i'm also pro buff, yolo right

 

i think what youre saying doesnt go against what ppl are saying. Of course ANY class is "viable" if they bring enough mules to support everyone. But the thing is NL can double attack, and DK can't, AND theyre also much more risky. Also, just because you personally would accept DK in whatever-man pb doesnt make them any better as a class. And even in your "original plan," you needed DK for the HB, meaning if there were no attackers that didn't need HB? DK is no longer necessary.

 

it was for the mages actually

 

fair enough.

But what i dont understand still is in option2, how are you supposed to get to 35% hp to activate berserk on hard hitting bosses? just auto pot the whole time? move hp auto pot bar over ever time DK need to activate it?

edit: nvm im dumb lol thx ovv

 

You can roar and sacrifice to go below auto HP thresholds.

 

To be fair, damage reduction would be helpful in not just the context of zerk viability but also just survivability in general, i.e. when getting sed. Heroes and paladins, for instance, have power guard to help with tanking clone touch damage when getting sed into them while DKs have nothing to help mitigate that damage.

 

First of all i want to say that there are a lot of problems with the current state of DK and I'm glad we are trying to tackle this and also sorry if i suggest things that are being said already.

INTRO - why I picked DK
For me DK was known for the cool weapons the spears and the pole arms and warrior weapons in general have that something special. Especially sky ski had some nostalgic factor with it coming with the DK's dragon animations. That is what DK was all about before level 100. After 4th job it was all about berserk. The whole idea of being low hp to go into this state 'berserk' is what i think of as DK. That's why i think DK should be a class with risky gameplay by being low hp to deal damage. I for sure never thought of DK as being an easy class to play when i started DK (i have always played NL before DK).

Current situation
Currently level 150+ DK are mostly being used as mules (HB mule, LUK DK). So buffing HB duration or making iron will useful will just make DK mules stronger. I don't know how to buff party buffs without making dk mules stronger tbh. The class DK needs alot of tweaks and i will suggest a couple (I still need to think of other unsolved problems that DK's are stuck with, but thats maybe for later). First let's look at berserk:

Maplelegends Berserk v1.0
Zerk30 used to be active under 50% and later 55% hp, which would be 16500 HP if you were 30.000 HP. This would mean that on 16501 HP you were twice as weak as being 16500 HP

Maplelegends Berserk v2.0 (current one)
Introduction of scaling zerk and active zerk. This change was really good for both the sweaty DK and the casual DK. As the sweaty DK can try to min-max. While the casual DK that zerks now on 20k instead of 8k would be like a 30% damage difference instead of 100% like on old berserk v1.0

Maplelegends Berserk v3.0 (new suggestions)
Regarding the given solutions:
#2 Even though most people seem to like this one, i find it the lesser of the 2 options. You can be full hp during passive and active state, the only moment you need to be a bit risky is getting under 35% to activate the active zerk (Which also could be a problem on bosses that hits over 35% hp dmg).

#1 If i understand correctly you are able to have no downtime on the torrent/might if u don't right click it. Which can be intense by getting 1/1 the whole run (unless you choose to stay 15000hp+ on torment state)

Personally I am not all to sure yet on these new suggestions, so for now i will suggest some tweaks on current zerk (v2.0) and general dk issues.

Spoiler: 'Small sidenote about heal+zerk with v3.0'

I also would like to quickly point out that these changes sounds nice for the bishop+dk combo with heal, but i did like the moments where i yelled at the bishop for healing me and then later the bishop healed me on purpose because i yelled. This is a classic DK moment and it should stay like that in my opinion. Also it is not full free heal with these changes, on #1 you can't heal in sub 15000 hp torment stage and for #2 he needs to drop to 35%hp to activate it, so that's extra communication needed when to stop healing.

SUGGESTIONS:

1) pet pot change possible during fights (being damaged)
This is QoL for all classes, but during bosses i use different pots, but changing them with less than 100 avoid on DK is very tricky
2) active zerk have button to cancel it AND ON CANCEL ALSO STRONG DISPELL
For the one that don't know, but by pressing active zerk currently you are able to remove the status stunned (or any other status except sed and death right now), but sometimes
when u press this active zerk and get stunned right after you are sad. So someone suggested a button to take off active zerk if this happens please add a strong dispell on it
So if you get stunned after pressing active zerk, you can click it again and sacrifice your active zerk duration by not being stunned.
3) introduction of a 30% hp pot? 20% sushi 40% ginsen root
I believe there is no NPC right now that sells 30% hp pot (It could be the coca cola 30% hp added in coke town as my friend Disney suggested) also a very big issue for DK
is pot cost, maybe lower the price of sushi since this pot is mostly used by DK
4) can't get poisoned in 1/1 in active zerk
Being poisoned in active zerk is Russian roulette
5) slight damage buff
Being fully focused to zerk and try to deal damage to have equal or slightly less than another 'sh*t' class hero (sorry heroes)
6) pin possible on dk on half damage compared to other classes?
I see that for NT pinning is important and i don't like seing crusher being 2 lines, so i honestly don't know a good solution, so hopefully someone comes with a better suggestion.

~will add more suggestions over time

 

Not a DK, but I have a line of thought:

Certain classes have useful skills that apply to bosses. Hamstring can limit boss movement (BM). Blind can limit boss hit chance (MM). What if we give DK a useful debuff like a skill seal, attack speed decrease, the ability to cancel WC/MC/DR once in a while or a weakening ability that increases crit chance/damage for a boss if the attackers have a crit chance above 0%? (making them useful when a party already has a SE)

 

deadknight

 

Perhaps my view is different because I don't believe zerk is an inherently flawed mechanic. Rather, washing is the flawed mechanic and is forcing issues downstream. In an equal washing world, dk would have the ability to wash to much higher hp than the same 30k as every other class in this game (or at least be allowed to benefit from the 1.6x hp provided by their own HB). If data types weren't a thing and DK specifically had the ability to use their own party buff, a 30k*1.6=48k hp dk would have a 55% zerk threshold at 26.4k hp. I could still claim that even that is less than what other classes achieve via washing, but as the logical extension of the "classic ms" design, it's also *enough* for literally everything the dk should expect to get hit by, with a sizeable buffer.

Personally, I think we're too attached to the idea that there is supposed to be such 'risk' baked into the DK kit. The more I look at it, classic dk in classic ms had much less risk than we're willing to admit. When HT was *the* endgame, a level 155 version of the dk listed in the chart would have 9,871 hp or 15,971 hp with hb. A 50% zerk threshold would put their effective hp at just shy of 7.9k hp. For reference, that's already higher than the 200 NL WITH HB (7.75k), and we havent even factored in achilles. So what extra risk does the zerking dk have over the equivalent paladin w/o hb (9.8k hp) that doesn't also literally explode 200 NLs w/ hb? I can only think of skill issue jumping into heads and empowered wing slap. Sure there isn't much margin for error, but this is also the lower extreme (155, 50% zerk, no hp gear, no achilles) against *the* endgame boss of yesteryear. The same 200 dk would have 10,272 "zerking" hp and achilles, capable of 50% zerking straight through even the empowered wing slap. At worst, I see the problem lying in insufficient qol to properly maintain between 50% hp and whatever hp is going to kill. This is the so-called "risk" we're comparing against, when dk likely *was* the third most popular class.

After several iterations of (new content deals higher damage to threaten range classes->wash/add hp gears so range chars can tank everything again-> new content with even higher damage), dk thresholds shrink further and further and enter the point of being 1-shot while zerk. This is the "risk" we know of today, and why we believe zerk is fundamentally flawed. The 200 dk @ 55% zerk has 16.5k effective hp, warriors without hb have 30k hp, and clean challenge NLs w/ hb have at minimum 19.2k (more with generous hp gears and extra levels). And this isnt even peak range hp. Achilles ain't covering this one, lads.

We've created this bastardization of what we believe dk used to be under the premise that they're supposed to be less capable of taking ranged characters using the buff that they provide. That it was normal to be exploded by spam damage, (non-bf) touch damage, or any other-non telegraphed attack. Zerking isn't inherently flawed, hp washing and dk's inability to wash to scale into the challenge meta (let alone the 30k range meta) is inherently flawed.

Tl;dr: The "risk" of zerking is a construct we've created ourselves due to warriors' inability to wash to the extent that other classes can. If we can't (or won't) give dk HP, damage reduction is the next way to emulate it and return to form.

 

Hi =) I have a 130 DK and I look forward to the changes and playing with them.

I think the first proposal is nice in the sense of having a buff-debuff, which is consistent with the idea of berserk being someone out of control. The main problem people raised here is that the debuff is too complex.

With that in mind and trying to simplify the debuff, my idea is that Berserker’s Torment makes the DK lock in place, so he can't walk/move at all (even getting hit) for 10-20 s.

This way the debuff, when used correctly, is like a 100% Power Stance. But if used in the wrong place/time you can't walk to the boss. This could also open DK to be a sed target, and when used reactively, you get seduced and continue hitting (differentiating it from just a better Power Stance).

This way, the risk is not on survivability, but on damage.

And the Berserker’s Might seems nice the way proposed, just a 60s buff on the damage.

This post is focused on Berserker, but the suggested 2hit crusher with buffed damage so DK is less dependent on SE and can pin NT bosses would be interesting also.

 

I think option #1 takes away the signature mechanic that DK players probably identify with; Dk should be tanky but also provide high rewards proportional to the risk they take.
Currently it feels like the ammount of risk a DK needs to make in order to effectively DPS is disproportional to the reward.

Option #2 sounds better, however I feel like a better direction would be to gradually decrease damage taken based on missing HP, so for example sitting at 50% hp could for example result in additional 50% damage reduction (just naming something here).
This would effectively increase the health pool of a DK, but would still keep the high risk high reward concept alive as you need to have proper knowledge on what kind of hits you can take based on the ammount of health missing.
Additionally I feel like perhaps the bonus damage curve could be scaled a bit further there to provide a higher reward, for example have a 100% baseline dmg increase with an additional x% dmg bonus per n% hp missing, further emphasizing the risk vs rewards concept of the class.
Right now it feels very lackluster compared to other classes with regards to how much risk you need to take to not even get relatively close.

 

As a person who suggested ramping damage mitigation for current berserk in an earlier post, I think that the appeal of the challenge of a drk is the hp management more than the possibility of dying to non-telegraphed or unseen touch damage in 1-hit from zerk hp range. This HP management, in my opinion, is the core to the "challenge" of being a drk and in order to maintain this HP% minigame while doing damage, there should be less punishment for participating in it. Below is an example of the ramping damage mitigation I'm suggesting:

Spoiler: Ramping Damage Mitigation

Let's say at each of these percentages, we take a total of 15k HP:

HP% | Damage Taken% (mitigation) | HP Total (before damage) | Damage Taken Total | HP Total (after dam)
100%| 100% | 30k/30k | 15k | 15k/30k
80% | 80% | 24k/30k | 12k | 12k/30k
60% | 60% (mitigation stops ramp) | 18k/30k | 9k | 9k/30k
40% | 60% | 12k/30k | 9k | 3k/30k
20% | 60% | 6k/30k | 9k | -3k/30k (dead lol)

The numbers for mitigation and should change for balance reasons, but I think at least this would maintain what i believe the appeal of the drk challenge is, which is hp management

That being said, if this isn't the general opinion of the appeal of challenge of a drk, then I definitely agree with your point that the threshold should be changed or not there at all. As others have pointed out, the HP needed to get max damage for zerk is too little for later game bosses and makes drk undesirable as an atker, so the only way to maintain drk as a cleave class would be to give them some additional utility alongside zerk being a passive damage boost (not better than hero range) at an above HP threshold instead of a below HP threshold then give them some more party utility buff (in my original suggestion, it was changing Iron Body to provide 10% damage mitigation instead of wep/mag def)

 

Heya, Pinaka here! DK main since '16 and I figured I'd answer the questions and give my thoughts on the proposals, as well as propose my own idea on berserk (and potentially other ability) changes as well.

TLDR;
Both proposals water down the gameplay experience of 'zerking', but if I had to pick one I'd choose #1 for doing so less. Ideally berserk can be reworked to be a more lenient mix of the two proposals, and maybe a few other adjustments.
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Q&A

Spoiler: Q1

What do you think are the most essential aspects of a Dark Knight's identity?

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In my opinion Dark Knights' class identity have always been about HP. This starts with their stat growth and the Hyper Body skill, then extends to 3rd job with 4/6 of their active skills using HP as a cost (in vanilla v62, not including duplicate attacks for spear/polearm). Most notably, Sacrifice and Dragon Roar consuming large chunks of % HP values.

In 4th job, Dark Knights don't get any new attacks but instead buffs via Beholder and Berserk. The entire identity of 4th job Dark Knights is in Berserk, making it all about managing your HP values and being rewarded for it. Without this aspect, Dark Knights lose their identity. It's not like Dark Knights don't want to zerk, it's just that the risk is not worth the reward currently.

It's worth mentioning that with HP washing being so prevalent in the late/end game, Dark Knights start to lose their unique identity of being the big HP class.

Spoiler: Q2

Given the desire for increased accessibility, what do you think is an appropriate skill floor for Dark Knights?

I think every class should have a relatively low skill floor to perform at a basic level and not be a burden to the party. After all, 90% of the gameplay for a majority of classes is holding down a single button while your character kills bosses 20+ minutes at a time, maybe with some repositioning sprinkled in there. Dark Knights should be no exception for that without either reducing their damage back to 3rd job or the risk of death.

Spoiler: Q3

Are the gameplay risks of the first and/or second system appropriate given our playerbase and the current structure of content in MapleLegends?

While both proposals as I understand them are less risky to play than DK in its current state, they still seem unnecessarily punishing for what they are.

Proposal #1 is essentially 20 seconds of either Berserk's active ability as we know it currently, or healing above 50%, and next hit deals full damage through any resistances/achilles and risking taking an abnormally large hit and dying due to no 1HP safety net. I can see this happening a lot with 1/1 into honster auto pot. Not to mention a cooldown, which feels terrible if you have to cancel early due to things like seduce or weapon cancel and then are forced to wait instead of receiving the reward for the risk.

Proposal #2 is a bit less risky, since there is a baseline of bonus damage through berserk making the risk feel a lot more optional, but I have the same issue with removing all resistances and defenses. The cooldown in this proposal is even worse though, because the active buff can be dispelled by monsters unlike proposal #1. Not to mention the risk of death trying to get down to 35% (or whatever threshold it lands on) while fighting bosses that regularly do 15k+ damage. This will not solve the issue of Dark Knights constantly risking death to deal appropriate damage.

Spoiler: Q4

When considering the necessary skill required given the risk involved (particularly in the suggested systems as opposed to the current one and past ones), where should Dark Knight fit in with respect to other classes in terms of damage output?

If Dark Knights, a melee class that often have party members rely Hyper Body for their survival, are at risk of dying any second due to themselves or their pet failing to use a potion every second and jeopardizing an entire long boss run, then they should have competitive damage compared to the best attacking or utility classes in the game, Night Lords and Buccaneers. The constant risk of wasting 1 hour+ * each party/expedition member due to pet auto pot fail, lag, a sneeze, or hell, even saying "gz" in alliance chat would hardly be worth the few minutes that would be saved if Dark Knights had comparable DPS to Night Lords.

______________________________________________________________________

Proposal Thoughts

There are many ways to make Dark Knights not put themselves at risk of immediate death when utilizing berserk that don't overhaul the skill into something more or less unrecognizable, but these proposals aren't it.

Both proposals seem to water down the HP management aspect of berserk by making the player endure 20-30 seconds of taking higher than normal damage to be able to play another 30 seconds unhindered with max berserk reward. In practice, with the current iteration of active zerking it feels terrible to constantly shift from 30 seconds of focused gameplay to 30 seconds of relaxed gameplay and would prefer a toggle on/off whenever the player wants.

While proposal #1's gameplay feels like it's closer to what I'd like out of active zerking (being closer to a toggle), it is a lot more complex and punishing than it needs to be. I also like the baseline damage increase that proposal #2 had, but again, believe the active zerk gameplay is a lot less interesting in return. On top of that, both proposals would create points where it would be easy to die as a Dark Knight, and failing to solve the glaring issue with the class.

If I absolutely had to choose between #1 and #2, I'd choose #1 due to it maintaining the current identity of Dark Knights the best. That being said, I think the a combination and simplification of the two proposals could work out well, and due to how heavily 4th Job Dark Knights rely on berserk to carry their identity, we can look to tweak some other skills as well

______________________________________________________________________

My Ideal Berserk

Now hear me out, it might be crazy, but why shouldn't Dark Knights, a class whose identity is based on having loads of HP, be able to survive more than 1 hit?

It's worth noting that the passive of berserk should benefit a more casual style of gameplay, and using the active ability should be reserved for when you want to actively play. I think the current iteration does a decent enough job at achieving that balance, but the numbers just aren't there. Tweak the numbers, add a bit extra survivability to the class and I think it's in a good spot.

Spoiler: My Berserk Proposal

Berserk
Passive:
Increase damage based on current HP percentage using the following curve, where x is HP Percent, y is Bonus Damage Percent, and z is the skill level: y = -.003x² + (3 * z + 40), or y = -.003x² + 130 at max level

Spoiler: Formula and specific points at max level visualized via Desmos graphing calculator

Active:
Toggles active Berserk state on/off. Cannot be dispelled by monsters. Does not cleanse status ailments, but can be activated regardless of status.

During this state, players will lose all defenses, avoidability, and benefits of damage mitigation skills (eg. achilles, elemental resistance, etc), and damage will be calculated normally. If the player takes damage while their HP is 2 or more, and that damage would reduce their HP to 0, their HP is reduced to 1 instead.


My goals behind the changes I'd like are to lower the skill/effort floor for playing the class. This means adding the 100% damage floor at 100% HP, but still leaving a desirable enough damage buff of ~120% should you choose to try to maintain your HP around ~50%. Or, if you would rather forego your defenses (and potentially a buffed/reworked Achilles) and toggle on active Berserk, you can guarantee the max 130% for slightly riskier gameplay*. This is intended to be lenient, allowing for relaxed gameplay like other classes without griefing as the DK. It would still be optimal to zerk, and with active zerk toggled you should be able to zerk at any content without immediate risk of death.

*Late game bosses where you are expected to take 15k+ damage regularly might be just as safe with active zerk. I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing though, because the whole point of this rework is to make Dark Knights not dead weight as an attacker in a party.

______________________________________________________________________

Other Ideas

Spoiler: Achilles Idea

I'd like for Dark Knights to have their own version of Achilles that scales with current HP percentage, to synergize with Berserk and allow for slightly more comparable survivability compared to Heroes and Paladins and Power Guard.

Achilles
Passive:
Reduce damage taken based on current HP using the following curve, where x is HP Percent, y is Damage Reduced Percent, and z is the skill level: y = -.0025x² + (0.5 * z + 25), or y = -.0025x² + 40 at max level

Spoiler: Formula and specific points at max level visualized via Desmos graphing calculator

I believe this change, along with the proposed Berserk changes will add an extra layer of safety and incentivize more relaxed gameplay. For reference, if a Dark Knight would currently take 18k damage from Aufhaben, they could now choose to maintain 50% HP (15k) and this updated Achilles would reduce that damage to 14,575.

Spoiler: Misc. Changes

Dragon Blood

Spoiler: Dragon Blood

It makes little sense to have a cooldown. I feel like this was added to make it annoying to use for Dragon Roar farmers, but it's realistically a negligible amount of HP gained and feels terrible to use in encounters where getting dispelled happens frequently. Each activation heals a total of 150% HP over 2 minutes. That's ~10k mesos worth of honsters. Having 100% uptime on this skill would save a small amount of mesos for one of the classes that uses the most (and most expensive HP:Meso) potions in the game.

At the very least if it MUST have a cooldown for balancing purposes, please adjust the uptime to 105 seconds and cooldown to 150 seconds, matching the rebuff timer of Hyper Body. In its current state it's a pain to remember the awkward timing when this skill is available, and is often forgotten about.

Potions

Spoiler: Potions

While on the topic of potions and costs, it feels terrible as a Dark Knight that if I want to use worse potions to maintain better Berserk damage I'm paying a lot more per HP restored than any other potion. The price difference between sushi and ginsengs is way too small compared to the amount healed. Sushi should cost a minimum of 2000 mesos each considering they are pretty much only used by Dark Knights.

Dragon Fury (swing) & Crusher (stab)

Spoiler: Dragon Fury & Crusher

A suggestion I've seen thrown around a bit is that Crusher should do more damage when hitting less targets. This could help Dark Knights become more desirable when bossing, where often cleave damage isn't as desirable, but a proposal I haven't seen is shifting the cleave power from Crusher and making Dragon Fury more desirable when doing content that cleave is beneficial.

Just throwing numbers out there, but say Crusher did 80%/100%/120% damage when attacking 3/2/1 target(s), and Dragon Fury was buffed to deal 100%/120%/140%/160% damage when attacking 6-4/3/2/1 target(s). Hopefully with the buffs from Berserk, this wouldn't make Dark Knights much worse in content like CWK where they are consistently attacking 3 targets with Crusher, but also potentially make Dragon Fury a viable option for more than just mobbing, as well as a niche option to potentially pin NT bosses with a high single target modifier.

 

I still think hyperbody should also give a pseudo powerstance to the party (10-30%) especially useful for platform bosses for uptime.
Also active zerk needs to just go away and just have a reworked passive version or if you insist on keeping it make it a FUN button to actually use. (pirate transform/boat).