What's your view on DrK vs Hero?

I have never played a DrK myself, but I do have friends that play them. I feel that for the amount of effort that they have to put in, they are too weak. I'm making this comparison mainly with the Hero class. I understand that some people may feel that Paladins may be in a worse position, but don't get me wrong, I also hope they will get buffed.

Spoiler

I DON'T EVEN PLAY DRK AND I ALREADY FEEL BAD FOR THEM

As with regards to DrKs, allow me to list my reasons for why I feel this way:

1) They have to maintain under 50% HP for Berserk in order to deal decent damage

• They cant just slap power elixirs on auto-pot, they have to control their HP
• For this reason, they have to put in way more attention while bossing compared to Heroes
• They are less survivable due to maintaining under 50% HP

2) Spears are suppose to have the longest reach among warrior weapons, but Brandish with a 2H sword has a seemingly larger hitbox than Crusher

• Brandish has longer vertical and horizontal reach than Crusher when using a 2H sword

3) Crusher has a longer delay than Brandish

• DrKs are less mobile and feel more sluggish in general while grinding mobs / bossing for this reason

4) Brandish is too convenient

• Hits 3 targets, same as Crusher
• Does comparable or better damage without the need to maintain below 50% HP

5) For the same budget, it is easier to get a better 2H sword than a spear

• STS available from NLC gach (more popular gach location) and Black Crow
• Sky Ski only available from Showa gach
• Faltizan only available from horntail and Perion gach
• Because of the above points, STS is more available than the said spears, more supply means cheaper and easier to get better scrolled weapons

Some people may say that they have Hyper Body, but I don't think that alone is enough to justify the amount of suffering they go through when mob grinding / bossing. Veteran players more or less have washed characters that don't need HB to boss.

For now, these are the reasons that I can think of. Please write your opinions, I want to know how the general community feels about this. Also don't forget the poll

 

While playing drk to lvl 200, I whited heroes who had similar or even higher funding in 99% situations. I personally think Drks are fine as they are .

 

I understand damage is one thing, but how about points (1), (2) and (3).
And maybe a bit about point (4), basically Brandish being too "easy".
What do you feel about that?

 

LF>drk buff @MoriForest keeps laughing at me when some nl 30 levels below me whites me

 

I want dragon's blood stacking with beholders att buff, that's all lol

 

nice man

 

The way I see Drk and Hero is

Drk

• Fun
• Risky but thrilling
• More rewarding with effective party buff
• Higher DPS than hero with full buffs
• Cheapest HP washing cost among all classes

Hero

• Easiest and safest to play
• Boring
• Less DPS than DRK with full buffs

I always suggest Hero to those who are less serious and prefer watching netflix and play semi-afk. On the other hand, I recommend drk to those who like challenging game plays. Since DPS is a major balancing factor when comparing attackers, I think heroes deserve those pros for having such boring mechanism ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

 

Hyper Body and levels lower than 140 is Drk advantage. If you want damage and good defense at the later levels then Hero would be the choice. It seems like a good trade off.

 

considering how a lot of people tend to leech atkers to 135 then actually playing those char, 5 levels compared to 60 levels from 140-200 seems a bit ridiculous.

 

Hi Sparky, I like both classes but currently playing a Hero (so whichever is stronger i'm also happy), but I have seen pretty contradicting replies in this forum in several threads, such as this, this, this along with this dps chart. It all points to different conclusions. I would like to know if you have anything to say about people who say Hero>DK for that matter? Have a DK friend who's also thinking about this and we are not sure which class is actually better, or equal. Thanks!

 

Well I think most people don't do a straight leech from 30-140, but even if everyone were to do that Hyper Body still has its perks. Drk's are still strong and most people find them interchangeable with Hero's at most bosses. Most people won't recruit a Hero for Castellan if they had it their way, but would do it for a Drk.

 

Drk is quite rewarding to play however I've never played crusader or hero.
Having to stare at my HP all the time is a good skill for any class.
It's fun when players new to bossing freak out at how low my HP bar is on the party HP mark thing. Especially bishops since you can see how much they're resisting to spam heal like they normally would.
I would enjoy the range being superior to hero but I wouldn't say I've ever felt it was too short. When heroes attack krexel's left eye from underneath it just looks silly to me.
Good spears are expensive but for new players it's one of the cheaper classes to get 'average' gear and HP wash. With the tiny amount of INT required to get 30k w/ HB at 135 you can actually grind it the entire way to 135 and drk is one of the best classes for this with high HP, endgame attack skills in 3rd job and the always enjoyed HB buff.

Definitely at endgame it's one of the more difficult classes to play but for people whining about the game being 2ez make a drk/corsair f3

 

*plays hero and drk*
well i find drk more fun of the 2 classes but for the effort
Drk is unrewarded for the suffering
its almost like the case for sair n NL, but for the effort, sair is rewarded a lot more than NL (insane dismount plays stonk)

 

I think shiyui summed things up nicely in the 1st thread you linked. Key factor for DPS should be the stability which lacks for heroes due to charge combo. Even probability wise, drks benefit more due to 3 hits > 2hits that can trigger an extra crit with SE buff.

My opinions arise from personal experience, what I saw with my own eyes during my endless bossing period. Tbh, heroes on average would white drks in most situations because drk player needs to master the art of zerking and other techniques such as ducking in zakum in order to maximize the DPS potential, which does take a lot of practice and time compared to heroes who can simply, without any practice, press down a single key to deal substantially good DPS.

If we imagine a casual, low lvl exp zakum run with a hero and drk, chances are that drk recently finished HP washing and is equipped with a slow faltizan spear (120-130att) that he could find for a cheap price in fm. Hero most likely carries a 120~125 att ST that goes for a similar price as aforementioned faltizan. Once the raid begins, drk will struggle as he has to control his HP and worry about stuns while hero will comfortably stand in the middle of zak and spam 1 key. In such mediocre scenario, heroes would out dps drks with ease also thanks to the faster weapon att speed and absence of si buff.

Many will witness heroes outperforming drks till low-middle tier level but once both parties become experienced and enter late/end game, with additional buffs like si in provision, drk can definitely outperform heroes but they are relatively fewer in population so the general view may vary depending on the perspective.

These pictures describe the difference between Hero and Drk.

Early-Middle game


Hero begins with an upper hand because they hardly require any skill or technique to produce their optimum DPS. Meanwhile, Drk suffers during this period as they need to climb up from the pit of obstacles.

Late game

Drk (same goes for sair) can achieve higher DPS if they improve their skills but heroes will stay on the same ground because there is nothing to improve that can increase their DPS.

 

"Are DrKs too weak for the effort they need to put in?"

I voted that yes, they are too weak, but my only reason for saying this is due to the fact that Heroes exist.

The Dark Knight class is my least favorite out of all of the classes I've played in this server. I've spent quite a lot of time playing on Warriors in MapleRoyals and so far, my only disappointment has been in my Dark Knight(I've played Hero to 200 twice and Dark Knight to 200 once).

As a stand alone class they're actually pretty great. I wouldn't discourage anyone from playing the class if it's something they're interested in.

My disappointment in playing a Dark Knight comes from all of the time I spent playing Heroes beforehand. There was actually 0 noticable difference for me in regards to my straight DPS when playing the two classes other than the fact that one was high maintenance. Classes that would white/yellow my Heroes would do the same to my Dark Knight. There wasn't any increase/decrease to my Krexel solo/duo times during my casual everyday runs whereas I did notice the difference between Hero/Dark Knight and other different classes.

Another point to bring up between the two classes is that you're comparing Brandish to Crusher and Brandish is one of the most stupidly overpowered skills in terms of speed, range and mobility. They have a similar horizontal range but Brandish seems to have it beat in everything else. Brandish hits things that you'd never expect it to be able to reach.

In the group of people I regularly bossed with, nobody needed Hyper Body so that one huge pro to the Dark Knight class didn't really mean anything to me and was more of an annoyance whenever the rare rando needed it. If you're starting the game with a group of friends or make some along the way then Hyper Body is an invaluable asset that can't be overlooked.

My personal experience in playing a Dark Knight is that it felt like a crippled Hero. While I wouldn't discourage anyone from maining one over a Hero for the pros that they have, I'd definitely recommend playing a Corsair instead if you're thinking about playing one with the purpose of finding a challenging and rewarding bossing experience.

 

please make guide on what this looks like ty

 

DrK are way more fun to play I think. I can't really speak to their damage, I just know my DrK with a decent spear and my pally gear is stronger than my pally so they could be in a worse place.

Heroes are broken of course but they always have been- with the addition of Redners I hope we see some axe heroes come out of the woodworks, I know I'll be working on one once im done with classes for the semester.

I'd say both are also viable for bossing- DrK are obviously harder but HB is always nice to have around and you can use cheeses to heal and stay under your unbeserk threshold so it's not too bad.

 

personally i would really love to see each warrior class differing from each other so that there wouldn't be this kind of drk>hero and hero>drk debate that has been around since forever
like single target dominated by pally, double targets for heroes and 3+ targets drk

Sadly the reality is that brandish is so broken, the capabilities of heroes are pretty much comparable/superior to drk when it comes to damage, reach and multitarget. (pretty much in @Eli post earlier)

for the damage debate that has been going around, this is my take on it
The SE & SI benefits of crusher vs brandish can be calc'd from @Geyforlife calculator, where i tried calculating pretty much equalised endgame gear (60WA total glove cape shoes + 61str overalls n the usual end game stuff), along with gelts (spears benefit more from multiplier), and the result was very similar dpm with heroes at 15.83m vs drk at 15.4m - heroes advantage in theoretical standstill dps conditions.
however, even accounting for the loss in time from combo rebuild, heroes just need to have an uptime of around 97% to match a 100% perfect play drk from the above calculations.
given that brandish has a shorter cast time and that ridiculous reach - allowing easier adjustments, power guard's activation time makes up by the touch damage it reflects (along with shorter knockback), reaching that 97% would not be too much of a stretch assuming that both are putting in effort to prove their damage.

combo rebuild info: 0.63 sec per brandish (damage ignored), approximately 7 casts to rebuild, + 1.5 sec cast time for combo + keystroke gaps, total time = 5.91 sec, combo lasts for 200 sec so that is about 97% uptime
this is pretty much a perfect combo recast, but dont forget that heroes can use sword panic during the blinks at around 195 sec to compensate for excess time.

as for low support amounts like SE only with stoppers or similar, heroes benefit more from the availability of STS, the attack speed, along with power guard + stance reduction in knockback. this allows heroes to further reduce the combo uptime required to compete, whereas the drk still has to maintain 100%.

this would mean that for the same effort for both classes (more or less perfect play), both will have extremely similar damage at extreme conditions SE+SI+gelt+endgame, but heroes will have the advantage at the lower brackets.

If we look at the requirements for perfect play, heroes are pretty much jamming key and having to only rebuff perfectly
drk on the other hand, has to do the same, while maintaining berserk 100% (i count death as failing berserk), multiple manual pot, lowered boss survivability (anego slaps, HT touch damage), trying not to waste any crusher casts (missing = 0.81 sec lost vs brandish 0.63 sec), longer knockback adjustments (powerguard reduces touch knockback), poor pinning capabilities (try pinning anego solo), and other problems.

so is this fair for similar damage potentials? i dont feel that it is fair at all, its pretty much as if we are playing at sair 100% boat but dealing the same as NL, just not worth the effort for everything that is done, while the other has bonuses like shadow shifter and flash jumps (heroes have power guard + they dont need to maintain 50%hp)

 

I like that Redner's attack speed has been given +1 attack speed, but I think even that's not enough to encourage Axe Heroes cuz Brandish is still a slash-stab. And they lose a lot of damage on the stab

 

I don't think Drks have any advantage over heroes in terms of damage, without SI hero is almost always stronger and even with SI they are almost equal. The main advantages of Drks are HB and the power crash they have. The Drk's power crash is a lot better than the hero one, with longer range (it can easily crash 2 heads in HT while heroes only crash 1) and the ability to crash ATK buffs too (making it more safe for mages in HT who will need a lot less HP to tank a hit after dispel)