Class/Skill 60% Berzerk for Dark Knights

Drks suffer an inherent disadvantage when it comes to bossing in comparison to the other classes in the game (except for Mages). They currently a hard cap at 15k HP with Berzerk while every other class in the game has the means/potential to be more survivable than Drks. Even Bowmasters or NLs, while yes, they have to wash and wash a lot, can still be more survivable than Drks in the very end game. This is why a 60% Zerk should be implemented into the game, speaking from experience as a 200 Drk in other pre-BB server.

Some tangible examples where the 15k disadvantage is glaring:
1. Zakum. - We know that Zakum will spam 1/1's, seals, and stuns. Paladins and Heroes, Buccaneers too probably, can avoid this by tanking the body. By constantly tanking the body, they are eating 4k - 7k damage per tap, while avoiding 1/1s, seals, or stuns, and maintain constant DPS. Drks, on the other hand, can not Zerk reliably while tanking Zakum body. Even with Achilles, the body will consistently tap a Drk for 6 - 7k damage, and the best potion a Drk can use is a Reindeer milk. They have a much higher risk of dying by trying to Zerk and tank the Zakum body as opposed to the other Warrior classes, so the safest way that they play is by standing with everyone else in the party, and eat the 1/1s, stuns, and seals. And as such, their DPS lags behind other melee classes by a considerable margin.

2. Anego, Bodyguard - Drks can't Zerk reliably/if at all in these bosses. Now there is that video of a Royals Drk zerking Anego, eating 15.5k damage but still surviving, but the pains needed to go through that are unreasonable in comparison to the rest of the melee classes. And in parties with a bunch of damage numbers, it's not very easy to see when bosses might do specific animations that do specific amounts of damage. Paladins and Heroes, however, can safely tank high hitting bosses and doing full DPS.

3. Pink Bean - obviously this boss is not implemented. But conceptually speaking, its the same. On the actual Pink Bean phase, Pink Bean spams stuns. He spams attacks that just hurt a lot. A lot a lot. A Drk can not Zerk. But again, other classes can wash to survive and do full DPS, NLs can wash to have high HP AND have super high avoidability, and other warrior classes can tank Pink Bean's body, which does about 20k touch damage. In this scenario, not even 60% Zerk is enough for Drks to reliably do Pink Bean well.

4. Auf Haven - I haven't played Auf Haven, so idk if it's same for me to assume that Drks don't have a good time, t hough I'm leaning that way.

Examples where this disadvantage does not matter - CWKPQ, Bigfoot, (and I believe Toad and Krexel too). Any boss that doesn't do more than 5k damage or can be fought withoutt eating attack after attack is manageable with a 15k Zerk.

The easiness of other classes able to boss comes from the fact that they can use potions that to heal full HP. However, that threshold is much harder for Drks because ideally theyre using Reindeer milks and they're drinking a ton more Reindeer milks than a Hero who chugs Honsters. There is no magical potion that heals Drks to 50% only.

Why 60%? At 60% Zerk, Drks can effectively fight with 18k HP. This enables them to manage larger amounts of damage by more bosses because they can now easily use Ginseng Roots, the potion that heals 40% HP. Thus Drks now have more tools, more different kinds of potions to help manage Zerk against more stronger bosses. And with even much much stronger bosses, there's an argument for that Zerk to even need to be at 70%.

An underrated point of increasing the Zerk threshold - leveling at lvls 120-130 for a low washed or unwashed Drk is much more manageable. If all a generic casual Drk has is Zerk 20 and 18k HP, he's only playing with 7200 HP and that's a nightmare to handle your Zerk threshold if grinding against mobs that do 3k - 4k damage. If that magical number becomes 9k it's much easier at Zerk 20. DKs, while the best 3rd job class, quickly turn into the worst 4th job class in terms of DPS because every other class gets new toys to play with. This was an inherent shitshow in GMS, and still is now if a Drk doesn't wash, and back then it was very dejecting to see your lvl 130 Hero friend do much more damage than you as a lvl 130 Dark Knight. And your lvl 140 Hero friend just makes you look like a child when you can't Zerk as a 140 Dark Knight.

Simply put, there's too many scenarios in the game where a Dark Knight functionally becomes a Dragon Knight. There exists scenarios where a Dark Knight can never Zerk and there's nothing they can do about it. A very good argument can even be made where this should never happen (which is why we see Zerk increased to 100% in bigbang but thats a shitshow), but an upgrade from 50 to 60% makes a huge diffierence in more scenarios.

Now we know that in Royals, Drk received a slight buff in Achilles, going from 15% damage reduction to 20%. We know that originally, Zerk 30 was 40% HP and is now at 50%. While these buffs are welcome, it can still not be enough, especially when new content is added into the game.


Some common counterpoints that people make:
1. "git gud"
Well I'm sure we all know why that isn't a real argument. It is unreasonable to expect every Drk in the game to play with super awesome mechanics and Zerk perfectly in every kind of situation and thus they can't complain. It's Maplestory. The average person would rather reroll after playing 150 levels of a Drk, which is undesirable outcome.

2. It reduces the risk that inherently comes with Berzerk.
This point can be both true and false. A player should always be watching their HP, whether their Zerk is20%, 40%, or 80% because Pet Auto HP likes to fuck you over more than you think. Increasing the threshold doesn't change that. Furthermore, by increasing this threshold, it could potentially open up more circumstances in which Drks can Berzerk, therefore open up more scenarios where they do need to watch their HP more critically, whereas these scenarios before a Drk just didn't Zerk at all. And with a 60% Zerk and making Ginseng Roots much more viable, it adds another dimension to maintaining Berzerk, so it's not as if increasing this threshold will make Drk a braindead class .

3. Drks don't need to wash as much while NLs and BMs need to wash a lot more.
While true, NLs and BMs are never capped until 30k. Royals is an end-game server. NLs and BMs straight up become more survivable than Drks with enough investment. There's nothing that Drks can do to become more survivable while maintaining their Berzerk threshold. They are stuck with 50% no matter how rich or pro they are. Furthermore, this doesn't address the discrepancy of Heroes/Paladins/Buccaneers in comparison to Drks. They also don't need to wash as much, but are definitely much more survivable in the end game, and are much more preferable bossers. I mean you could literally ask anyone whos ever played Dark Knight, the vast majority of them would tell you its tons less painful doing it as a different warrior class.

4. Drks have HB, a very valuable party skill, and thus they should see some setback.
So in other words, a Dark Knight to be a Hyper Body mule is acceptable. I'm sure that will convince people to play Drk. "I'll just get to lvl 140 just to be an HB mule. It is Mulestory after all, so what does it matter?"
A Dragon Knight's DPS is really underwhelming compared to the other classes, if they can't Zerk they are effectively Hyer Body mules.



Writing this post makes me want to reroll into a Hero. This is so sad.

In the meanwhile, can we get rid of this stun on Roar? It would actually allow this skill to be used to manage HP thresholds.

 

I don’t play classes to do the most deeps, but I enjoy playing my DrK. I may not be able to do Auf with it or white single-target bosses, but I like being a multi-target class that shines in specific situations like CWK and HT. As a 200 DrK, I think it’s a fun class. Don’t have to fixate so much on being able to access all the content possible with your first attacker. Also Toad is quite engaging

 

Roar doesn't stun as far as I know.
Tl;dr all the other warriors hits more than drks (in your point of view) and you want to hit more than then. Just look some heroes threads with people complaining about heroes sucking while drks shine everywhere and it's more of the same. If you want more dmg with 1 key make a hero, even a pally (people loves pallies now) or a ranged, if not that is how playing a DrK should be. This is like a CB complaining about the speed and technique they need to drop mesos bags while NL just have to press a single key and flash jump.

 

I fail to see how much worse Heroes are in comparison to Drks. In my experience they've always been equal in DPS.

Do their skills just do less damage or something?

So yes, perhaps Drks are stronger than Heroes in many situations, but in the other situations its not just Hero being better than Drk, it's Drk being unplayable.

 

Hi, I have been maining a Drk on my whole time in this game wich is a bit more than 3 years, sadly i have to say that i strongly disagree with several things you have said.
I wont come to harsh on you, since you pretty much think exactly like me when i just started here, not to point that i get the concept of "If doesnt matter if its more expensive to wash other classes, at least they have the option" but again theres a general missconception of most classes here, and drks are one of them. With all of that, when i requested a buff on drks several years ago in terms of tankiness or usability, pretty much everyone said no, and I gave up on that matter, but i decided to not give up on Drk, no matter how meme it was. Thanks to that ive learned that this class is all about skills, and creativity, once you open your mind you will find out that theres almost nothing impossible here.GIT GUD sounds rude, be creative its better. But let me explain you a few things about Drks:

-Almsot all you said USED to be true, "It does not make sense to live with such a hard mechaninc for no reward" that was 1 of my main arguments in this thread https://royals.ms/forum/threads/sug...drks-have-been-buffed-irrelevant-post.161656/ who get us buffed, not only in achiles, also in terms of DPS since also zerk got buffed from 200 to 210% which is an small buff for newer drks, but its pretty generous for the decently funded ones. From that poin onwards the arguments like "Heros have an easier time doing zak bcs they can avoid everything just by tanking the body"(wich is true btw) is compensated by, "yes, but youre still hitting decently more", now theres actually a reason to play drks over heros, but due that restriction, theres still a reason to play heros over drks, thats called balance. Nowdays Drks are glass cannons compared to heros. On regards Zak, yes its harder than heros pallys to manage, but in return you get more dmg, you dont have to replicate the others warrios gameplay to be viable.(Sadly YT videos got deleted, but drks can also avoid stun in zak with another method)

On Pretty much all the other bosses theres barely a difference between playing a drk and a Hero, you just have to pay a bit more attention(rmeber you will be hitting more almost all the time) the only few exceptions are the other ones you mentioned:

Anego: With 20% achiles theres actually another way to face it, but its undoublty harder than all the other class
BGA. Its actually zerkable aswell, but just like anego its not a walk on the park(heros arent exactly better here too, since they need an insane amount of acc or use pops to actually hit, while we have more natural acc)
Auf: I actually was about to reply a joke on your other thread, i wont, ill just say that many ppl think its impossible to zerk there, not gonna lie, i haved a hard time learning how to, but nowdays i can trio/quad easily(even duo) and not only learned how to zerk, im able to duo atack there.... so, be careful b4 say something is impossible..... ye, its harder, but compareed with the other warriors , especially heros, we have many advantages over them....

Drks are not for everyone, but for some kind of players they are really enjoyable, but on top of that they deal a decent amount of dmg in most situations and brings some utility( HB-Power CR-and now Monster magnet), I do care about DPS, and if played correectly a drk is not something to joke about...

So, this:

Is just a lie......
Theres barely 2 or 3 of these scenarios, and ofc even in those there plenty of things we can do about it. Im not guessing, i have done plenty of anegos (with both strategies) Ive zerked several times on BGA dying 2 times at most(pls gms gimme silent nx starts to give t my nl firends so i can stop dying here), theres actually another strategy that i havent tried yet to zerk here. I withed 8k+ NLs in zak several times. And i do duo atack on auf almost daily witouth having problems(except today, thanks to whoever decide to keep DR on auf clone while spwaning it next to auf body) Also soloed Dunasv1(was a living nightmare but still). And the DRk im using ..yes is my 1st atacker here..... So yeas, theres a reason to GIT GUD.

Now, this means everything is ok? Not exactly . IMO the relationship between all the warrs is actually balanced now. But in general terms, both drks and heros are still a little behind compared to most classes, that breach just became a little bit closer with LHC and monster magnet new use, but instead of buffing jobs, i would like to see some little things to make multitarget role a bit better, but even witouth this, is not like drks and heros are trash or something...

To finish, changing zerk to 60% would change NOTHING, drks do not need more tankiness, just, as well as heros, need more places to shine.

On regard to get rid of roar stun...honestly could be used for farming, but still nowdays it doesnt need the stun balance, this is a change that can be made....

 

Washing a warrior to 30k hp is far more cheaper than the ranged classes. I'm a Lv169 Bowmaster and I have stopped playing because I cannot simply afford my wash right now. There's no point of comparison here.

The same could be said about Marksman and their 4th job main attack skill that turns them into 3rd job attackers every 4 seconds. This server is weird

You could as well use Sacrifice and adjust its level depending on how much % HP you need to lose to keep Zerking.

Say you, have 41% HP left, receive a hit that eats 30% of your HP, you have 11% HP left, Heal 40% with Ginseng Root, so you have 51% HP, you could use Lv20-21 Sacrifice which uses 10% HP of your HP, theoretically you would be back at 41% HP able to Zerk again in this scenario. I don't play Dark Knight so I haven't tried this myself but at least Sacrifice doesn't have the 2s cooldown issue, as long as Sacrifice hits something, you'll recover faster than waiting the 2s cooldown after Roar. The problem I see with this is that each boss does different amounts of damage, and even within the same boss they can have attacks that deal varying amounts of damage. And it's not like you could SP 3rd Job Reset every time you need to adjust Sacrifice to meet a specific HP quota after healing before every boss run.

At Level 1, Sacrifice consumes 20% of your MaxHP on hit (it needs to hit something or you won't lose HP)
At Level 10-11, uses 15% HP
At Level 20-21, uses 10% HP
At Level 30 consumes only 5% HP

Another solution to make DK more playable is change how Dragon Blood works as right now it's an useless skill, I would suggest changing it's effect so it synergizes with Berzerk.
Dragon Blood: Eliminate Attack Buff increase so it can be safely used while an Att potion is already in use.
Dragon Blood: Decrease HP steadily each second until the user's HP is below 50%, stop draining HP once HP is at 49% or lower.
Dragon Blood: Increase duration (ideally same duration as Booster or HB/Stance)

 

I would really like the change on dragon blood... the animation looks really nice and I felt kind of sad when the meta is not to bother with that skill...

 

I don't really play anymore but from a logistics perspective this argument is pretty weak. If changing it does nothing but affect a small amount of players who take some kind of fulfillment from an unintended difficulty curve just so they can tell other players to get good, then maybe those players don't really have the best interest to the longevity of the game.

 

There's two types of reaction when told something is hard and you can't do it:

1) Give up before even trying, or maybe the second it gets hard.
2) Hate being told something is impossible and struggle until you can do the impossible.

I haven't tried Anego yet on my Drk, or the Neo Tokyo bosses cause I'm lazy. But I can 2-attacker my Drk and Sair, while also running 4 other mules. People told me that was impossible, but I decided I would decide what was possible, and here we are.

Look: no Drk would complain about that buff, including myself, but really, it isn't necessary. I zerked on GMS completely unwashed back in the day. Staying alive with 15k HP is pretty much a joke most of the time, there are like 3-4 bosses in the game where it's a challenge. It's SUPPOSED to be hard.

You can play 95% of the end game content, and be an absolute god at CWK, HT, and Zak arms, and be competitive at most other bosses (I white high level geared NLs at Krex and Shao often enough). If you REALLY want to fight Anego while zerking, or Boss 2, well, "get gud"--go and try, and fail enough until you get it right. That's the point of it being challenging.

If you want the game to be easy, roll an NL. Just uh, save up a lot first f3

 

I'm maining a DRK currently, and I've mained the other 2 Warrior classes as well.
Most of what you said is true, a lot of end game bosses simply can't be zerked all the way through the fight, and they particularly shine only when attacking multiple targets.
However there is ways you can maintain zerk, and alot of it has to do with timing the bosses' attacks. I've heard DRK's can actually fight PB by timing hits.
Also, about avoiding the Zak Stuns, a very good way to do this ( I even did this on Hero and Pally) is to stand close enough you can take damage from his body by pressing down on your keyboard. There's no actual need to continue tanking the body.

 

Nexon did that buff, I would say the life from 4th job to big bang was mainly 50%, which I'm pretty sure didn't have these bosses anyway lol, at least in GMS.

Zerking isn't hard, pets make it trivial, you figure how much damage a boss does to you, you put an auto pot that immediately buffers it, any difference you manual potion with (in my experience) with like 1-2 potions (typically micromanager with unagi/pops). When you talk about Showa bosses and Auf, you're most likely doing pre-potion hits that get you out of zerk; memorize the timing between attacks and potion before the hit.

So why raise it? Because it changes nothing but the ability to survive a one shot more reasonably for the average player, like most players on this game are on shitty <$500 laptops with ping from other worlds, Maplestory just wasn't a game designed for hairline triggers like this. I don't care but it just comes off elitist (Not your post, nor is the following directed at you specifically) when players just tell them 'git gud", like bro you play maple fucking story, take off your pet auto pot or put on a blindfold if you're thirsty for such a low bar challenge lmao

 

Most bosses on royals are auto pot-able on dark knight with the exception of 3 bosses iirc and I think can be mastered if you know the attack animations well enough. In my opinion, increasing the berserk's threshold to 60% just kills the dark knight identity that some people pride on this server and just makes them a over glorified Hero.

 

While we are at it let's make Marksman the new DPS and completely remove snipe cd

How about 55% then?

 

If I was king for a day I'd solve this by making mirror bosses that exchange high damage thresholds for mechanics and more extreme DPS checks, stricter timers/phases. Also kill the need for Hp washing for late game bossing, bam two birds one stone. If you're rich enough you can do both, get the same materials required for the circuit or just have two items(As in each boss has it's own auf circuit, same equip slot so you can't wear two different pieces of equipment).

 

What i meant is that from all the changes that can be done, this particular one, makes absolutely no difference, on low lvl bosses if deaths happens is just by a poor use or lack of experience(I remeber dying at zak constantly whn i haved to zerk at 11.5k hp, and now i can do it with 4k no probs) and those bosses where theres actually risk, i dont feel that 3k+ hp to manage is gonna make a difference...thats all. In other words, i dont think Drks need any change now, but even if they needed one, zerk at 60% is not the answer...

EDIT.- Posted from a pc that probably wont worth more than $100, with a hedious ping

 

You're thinking too much about "just surviving". 60% offers more potion variety to utilize better hp management. Last time I saw you on the subject months ago you were totally on the AUF couldn't be done bandwagon, and you pretty much just surrendered the fact well maybe it's jut not meant to be. Then another user corrected you, now all of a sudden it's everyone can do it because I can do it lmao

If it makes no difference then explain to me the con of increasing the threshold outside of, well, muh prestige. You can play the character on a 50% threshold, joe smalls over there with a 13 inch laptop screen can play at 60%, doesn't affect me, doesn't affect you.

 

Buff zerk to 60%.
Reverse the zerk damage buff & achillies buff.

The achillies buff made most mid - end game DrKs more confident to zerk in auf right now, its not just a selected few end game ones that does it.

Give it a try.

 

Yup i tought about that too, the very few bosses that could be easier to do with % pots dont need 60% zerk,
About that time, i was just calculating how to do it based on info and not by my own experience, that was a mistake. If i recall correctly i admitted my mistake in that very same thread(speak about things i havent tried yet), but ended up saying that even if doable, it has to be feasible. After that i started aufing till the point i found a way to zerk, but at the end I was not doing enough dps due to all the things i haved to watch to even being able to survive. My change of opinion did not came "all of a sudden" LOL, did you forgot after that thread achilles got buffed? that looked like a goofy buff at the time, but it turned out to be key for drks to be able to do something at auf. I just hope your argument is not going to "You were wrong b4, so you are wrong now too" Bcs thats...a falacy... you know?

To finish on that subject, lemme explain something:

If someone cant do something doesnt mean that its impossible.
But if someone can do something, then theres no chance to that thing being imposible, how easy it is is another story.

Your 2nd argument comes from the hard time many ppl have by using a bad computer with a unstable net.Not to count that, as sparky once said to me "we shouldnt make changes based on indivdual technical issues" but also lemme show you my equip:




Im able to duo client with this thing

If this was a sincere question, ill respond. Despite its always nice to be recognized by do something most cant, im not the kind of player that thinks a class is balanced bcs you can brag about how hard is to play, i respect ppl who said "Drks are for masochists" Or "Drks are just for a few ones" but im not one of them. So its not about that either. 1st of all theres no need to have a CON to make 60% zerk a bad idea, its enough to have no pros to not be a good change, but even with that it does have cons. The biggest one. Heros. The biggest difference between drks and heros is how easy is to manage and by consecuence how easy is to duo atack and to multiclient. If you make zerk easier, it doesnt make sense anymore for drks to be stronger than heros and this:

Would be the way to balance. OFC Joon was sarcastic, bcs if Heros are struggling now, with this, oh boy, they will undoubtly become useless, make drks weaker but tankier would actually leave heros no room ANYWHERE. Can you imagine? same difficultity with a better front range atack+HB+ a wider range crusher?Leaves no reason to make a hero. Theres other reasons..but this already too long