Typically, you'll only need a strong spear. When bossing, you'll mainly be doing 1v1 damage and Spear Crusher is the best skill for Dark Knights to hit with.
There is a big difference (damage wise) between crusher and fury when using spear or polearm. Spear do more damage when you thrust the monster, and polearm do more damage when you swing at the monster (that's why it's a lot easier to level with polearm during 2nd job, and early 3rd job since you swing more than you thrust when you use power strike or slash blast). You should notice, in average, every 3 attacks with PS or SB 2 will be swing and 1 will be thrust. Spear crusher's damage will be around x2 more powerful than polearm crusher's (assuming same weapon attack, and disregard weapon speed). Vise versa, polearm fury will be around x2 more powerful than spear fury for the same reason.
Yes, I find that using polearm (purple surfboard in particular) is much easier and faster exp % over time than spear crusher at places like wolf spider, hime, ulu1, ulu2, skele, ToT, etc when you grind, and spear will be ideal for bossing. Hime for example, you can gather 5+ dreamy ghosts extremely easily, and I can kill 5+ with 3 fast speed swings with polearm fury instead of 4 normal speed thrust killing the same 5+ dreamy ghosts with spear crusher (assuming 2 hits kill 3 targets, and 2 more for remaining). Not to mention fury has longer reach than crusher, and there is almost no delay after you use polearm fury with purple surfboard.
I'd like to add on to that statement: -Spear crusher is superior in DPS to fury in all bossing situations. -(IMO) polearm fury with purple surfboard is superior in DPS in grinding/mobbing situation than sky ski crusher. -Sky Ski is the end game weapon for bossing. However, during training, sometimes it may be beneficial for faster exp % over time to get a slow speed spear with much higher attack that can cut down the # crushers K.O. by 1. For example, it is better (IMO) to have a slower speed spear to two crushers kill a monster than normal speed (ski sky) crusher to three crushers kill a monster. -Sky ski and purple surfboard are the ideal end game weapons for Dark Knight.
While I did understand what you've written it, since you've also said that it might be better to get a high atk slow speed spear , aka scrolled pinaka or dragon faltizan you ended up saying that sky ski and purple surfboard are the ideal end game weapons for dark knight. so for grinding the purple surfboard isn't superior to a spear weapon that can two or one shot a mob ? - if so then a dragon faltizan can replace the surfboard..
Sorry if my thoughts are all over the place, and mixing thoughts together. My ADHD + Abstract Random (google it) thought process doesn't help. To clarify: A good portion of dks and drks that I talked to are pure spear only, and/or nice scrolled purple surfboards are rare in FM. So my view on pure spear training is it may be good to have two spears: a sky ski for faster attack speed for higher bossing DPS, and a higher attack slow speed spear (prefer at least 10 weapon attack higher, or just stick with the sky ski) to cut the # hits K.O. by one for better exp % over time (I'll call it EOT from now on) For purple surfboard polearm fury training, it is better EOT than spear crusher training under the following conditons: 1. Your polearm (PA) need to be same if not higher attack than your spear. 2. You need to be able to easily gather 4+ monsters at all time with rush. 3. # of PA fury hits per K.O. = spear crusher + 1~2. What I meant by this is if it takes you 2 hits to kill a monster with spear crusher, it will be better EOT to use PA fury with purple surfboard if it takes no more than 3~4 hits to kill the same monster. Example will be a mob of 4~6 monsters, if it takes spear crusher 4 hits to kill them (2 hits per 3 targets) and it takes PA fury 3~4 hits to kill the same 4~6 monsters. If that's the case PA fury will win the EOT since purple surfboard has longer reach, fury has lower delay, and the weapon is faster than all spears with comparable weapon attack. I think my thought went all over the places again, but I hope this helps.
I'd also like to mention (not sure if this is commonly known) that I believe Dark Knight's berserker at lvl 30 turns on at 45% hp, not 40% listed out in the skill description because I have around 29.2k HP, and it turns on at around 13k hp. This allowed me to hunt big foot with berserker on and still able to tank a touch damage.
I'd do dex since dex gives a little attack and acc. If you're unfunded just look around in fm and buy 10 helm dex 100% for 1m each for now, and when you have more money do it with 30% and 60%.
DEX scrolls give +2 DEX (1.6 accuracy) per scroll, and Acc scrolls give +1 DEX (0.8 accuracy) and +2acc per scroll, so you get more accuracy using the Acc scrolls, predictably. Technically you get more damage out of using the DEX scrolls, but it's a very small amount. Since Dark Knights don't require any amounts of DEX to wear their equips, you're better off using Accuracy scrolls to scroll your Zakum Helmets, but they are harder to find.
Agree with statement above if you want to get more acc. However when I was using my dk/drk I got my z helm (average 15s and 16s stat, nothing fancy) at lvl 50 it was clean until I was lvl 8x before I dropped 10 helm dex 100% on it, and I never had acc problem where I miss monsters I was training at (FoG, GS2, WS, and started Hime at lvl 92). Michael is absolutely correct that helm dex does not give as much acc as helm acc, and the dmg increase is hardly noticeable, so it's really up to you on what you want to do.
Helm DEX 100% scrolls are definitely cheaper and easier to find than the rest, so there's no shame in scrolling your first Zhelm that wat until you can afford/manage to start relooting later on.
Thanks for the suggestions! Helm accuracy 60% is indeed hard to find in FM, Dex is more readily available. I guess at higher level accuracy should not be a problem any more though.
Correct, you shouldn't have any problem hitting basically anything and everything you want to hit when you have the zhelm. Especially when you start adding hex of the beholder, acc problem will truly become non existing.
Im still a little confused about HP washing as a dexless warrior. When you said "When HP washing, you'll want to add one AP into HP first and then start taking out MP via AP Resets into HP. After you've run out of MP, put back that one point into Str and you'll have HP washing successfully." does that mean every level i put one point into HP and all 4 into str?
