Everyone knows Dark Knights, the spear-wielding behemoths of Maplestory. Their ability to push mobs around and early 3rd job skills deal damage to multiple targets makes them easily one of the top non-mage mobbers. In addition, they dish out high DPS despite not being a Night Lord or Corsair for relatively cheap funding compared to those two classes. Not only do they have multi-targeting attacks and high DPS, but they also have Hyper Body, a skill that vastly increases the health pool of their party. The Dark Knight skill set makes the class highly desired in end-game bosses such as Zakum and Horntail. Noting this, it is clear why so many people have decided to flock towards creating a Dark Knight. All this, however, comes at a great price for anyone who decides to create a Dark Knight: Berserk. Berserk is a skill that increases a Dark Knight's damage based on how much health they are missing. At level 30, it increases damage by 200% whenever a Dark Knight is below 50% health. This effect is negated when their health pool returns to a higher state. This stops Dark Knights from using a variety of potions open to other classes. Elixirs, Ginger Ales, and Power Elixirs (all common potions for other classes) would bring a Dark Knight's health over 50% because they heal for a percentage based upon maximum health. As such, players have adapted by only healing up to a point below 50% health, utilizing health potions such as Melting Cheese, which recovers 4000 HP, or Reindeer Milk, which recovers 5000 HP. This, however, is where the problem lies. Melting Cheese and Reindeer Milk are both milk-based products. Milk has a disaccharide called lactose, which many people are allergic to. According to the U.S. Natural Library of Medicine, approximately "65 percent of the human population has a reduced ability to digest lactose." Dark Knights can consume upwards of 1000 Melting Cheese or Reindeer Milk throughout the duration of their Horntail expedition. What if, however, the Dark Knight was lactose intolerant, like much of the population is? Over-consumption of lactose products can lead to "abdominal pain, bloating, flatulence, nausea, and diarrhea" to sensitive groups. This could lead to disastrous consequences, causing Dark Knights around the world to fall ill, possibly even during a boss run. Some might say, but what if they just consume other HP potions? The available potion are not very promising. The closest thing below Melting Cheese is an Ice Cream Pop, which heals for a mere 2000 HP. On top of healing for far too little, it also contains ice cream, another milk product that possibly contains lactose. The closest thing below an Ice Cream Pop is a Barbarian Elixir, which heals for a mere 1500 HP. How can you expect Dark Knights to carry around massive amounts of Barbarian Elixir just because they are lactose intolerant and can't eat one of the more popular food choices? Let's suppose a Dark Knight consumes 1000 Reindeer Milk throughout a boss run. This means they have healed for 5 million HP. How many Barbarian Elixirs could restore the same amount of health? A lactose-intolerant Dark Knight would require 3334 Barbarian Elixirs, about 3.3 times more than what they would need to hold for Reindeer Milk. This takes up precious USE inventory space. 34 USE spaces are needed for an amount that could be compressed to 10 USE spaces had they been able to use Reindeer Milk. Maplers are only given 96 USE slots and 34 slots are taken up by Barbarian Elixirs. That handicaps Dark Knight players to 62 USE slots that must be used to hold attack potions and valuables like scrolls. This puts Dark Knights at a direct disadvantage below all other classes, not even to mention the amount of button pressing a Dark Knight would have to do. Let's say a Dark Knight has 30K HP with Hyper Body. He is fairly good at managing Berserk and is at 15K HP at Horntail. However, he is then hit by a 1/1 skill by Horntail. To return to 15K HP, he would have to drink 10 Barbarian Elixirs, pressing the same button 10 times while a lactose-tolerant Dark Knight would only have to drink 3 Reindeer Milk. The lactose-intolerant Dark Knight had to press his HP potion key a whopping seven more times than a regular Dark Knight, possibly missing out on DPS by accidentally drinking 11 potions and disabling Berserk or possibly even dying to Horntail's attack dealing 8K damage because he only managed to drink 5 Barbarian Elixirs before Horntail was already ready for another attack. In conclusion, Dark Knight a is literally unplayable class, and reasons listed above are why I have not made one. I strongly urge staff to create an alternative to Melting Cheese or Reindeer Milk, an HP potion that is not a milk product.
I like the DrK because it’s one of the only classes that requires you to be attentive and your skill playing it can significantly impact your DPS. Corsair and Shads being the other two. Basically what I’m saying is I take Lactaid
Haha this one was a good read, indeed. However, since most of the information in here is supposed to be scientifically backed up, I have to point out some errors. I do this for the common good of the MapleRoyals community, so that new players can make an informed choice, when choosing class (based on whether or not they are lactose intolerant) Dark Knights can actually use Ginseng Root (The black potion recovering 40% HP) at Krexel. Setting Pet Auto HP to make it heal at <10% HP ensures you'll be healed when below 3000 HP (If you have 30K HP) which is quite neat. I use 2~4 of these drinks during a whole Krexel Run (and no other potions except Heartstoppers and Sorcerer Elixir). I would also like to thank my friend, the Beholder. Has anyone ever researched what's in a Power Elixir? Now, let me tell ya that's some weird stuff too... Anyway, in the country I'm from only about 3% of the population is lactose intolerant. Now, does that mean MapleRoyals discriminate certain people groups? Wrong there. You can travel to the beautiful Singapore and buy Satay from Alwyn. Eating it will be a very pleasant experience and also recover 2600 HP (!). I actually believe this is a healthier option than ice cream. During Zakum fights, however, Ice-cream pops are very refreshing and nice to have, because it's hot down there. (Especially when you get hit by a burning pillar - take some time to enjoy a cool ice cream pop while watching the "stunning" Zakum statue) Barbarian Elixirs are small bottles, and you can fit more of compared to big jugs of Reindeer Milk. I'd say 23 USE spaces are needed to carry 3334 Barbarian Elixirs. Now I feel it's time staff does anything about this, because it's a health issue that will cause harm to many if not aided in time. Maybe we should bring back up the discussion about Honey. Honey is a might fine treat, which recovers a perfect (30%) amount of HP. It's also quite healthy, and it tastes better than Barbarian Elixir (what's that brown juice anyway...?)
People have almond allergies too. I feel like this doesn't fix the problem, just makes it a problem for different people. Tree nut allergies happen to be the most common allergy within children and adults. This option, however is out of the question for bosses such as Horntail and Zakum, who can deal more than 3000 HP, leaving Ginseng Root as an inferior beverage. I deeply apologize for my lack of research on certain topics; as stated above I have not made a Dark Knight nor do I plan to make one until these problems are properly addressed by the staff. I should have had the foresight to interview those who main Dark Knight and will properly research issues such as these in the future.
