MapleStory Dark Knight Skill Build Guide - Remastered Destiny Update - DigitalTQ (2024)

Dark Knight is the 4th job Explorer Warrior class in MapleStory that wields pole arms and spears to attack enemies. The class was once the most popular in the whole of MapleStory, with the 3rd job class Dragon Knight now no longer existing (it has since been renamed to Berserker due to the skills being completely revamped). Dark Knight is one of three paths players can take as an Explorer Warrior.

Dark Knight Overview

• Warrior - First Job Skill Build
• Spearman - Second Job Skill Build
• Berserker - Third Job Skill Build
• Dark Knight - Fourth Job Skill Build
• Dark Knight - Hyper Skills
• Dark Knight - Fifth Job Skill Build
• Changelog

As an original class of MapleStory, Dark Knights sit between the defensive Paladin class and the hard-hitting Hero class. Dark Knights have gone through a rough transition from being the most popular class in the early MapleStory years. Their 4th job when first released was very crippling (it required you to have low HP in order to do high damage!) and other classes overtook them as the best training and bossing classes in the game. Then they went through a complete revamp in MapleStory Red update, which removed many of their well-known attacking skills such as Dragon Buster.

All Explorers got a major revamp in the Destiny V.233 Patch update, including Dark Knight!

That being said, the revamp also boosted their overall damage and gameplay mechanics. Like most classes, they also have a Flash Jump skill for greater mobility.

Training wise, Dark Knights are decent mobbers with their main attacking skill Dark Impale. The class works best when it can jump around the map slashing at mobs with Dark Impale due to it's wide range and fast animation cast. Not to mention it does up to 6 lines of damage per hit! Dark Knights have great survivability due to their ability to steal %HP from mobs on attacks.

Bossing wise Dark Knights have some great skills. A combination of Sacrifice and Gungnir's Descent means you can hit bosses really hard damage wise. They also are able to "cheat death" using their 40 second i-frame skill to get invincibility. Whilst their Hyper Body skill does give +60% HP to all party members, it's no longer needed due to boss mechanics now using HP% attacks. 5th Job skills also help increase the viability of Gungnir's Descent by reducing the cooldown of Sacrifice and also add more map control with cooldown large-area attack skills.

Explorer Warriors can job advance into either Dark Knight, Hero or Paladin.

• Weapon: Spear
• Job: Warrior
• Class: Explorer
• Shared Cash Shop Inventory: Explorer Jobs
• Legion Block: +Max HP (1%/2%/3%/4%/5%)
• Link Skill: Invincible Belief (+restores you HP when your MAX HP falls below 15%)
• Primary Stat: Str
• Inner Ability: +1 Attack Speed

Warrior First Job Skill Build

You can max all your skills in 1st job. Follow this skill build:

• Slash Blast (+1), War Leap (+2)
• War Leap (MAX)
• Slash Blast (MAX)
• Upward Charge (+1), Leap Attack (+1)
• Warrior Mastery (MAX)
• Upward Charge (MAX)
• Leap Attack (MAX)
• Iron Body (MAX)

First job Warriors use their Slash Blast mobbing skill to power through the early levels. War Leap is their Flash Jump skill and should be gotten to a decent level so that you can get around maps much faster for training. Iron Body and Warrior Mastery are both passive buffs.

With the revamped Explorer patch, you get two new skills for vertical mobility called Upward Charge and Leap Attack.

Skill Description & Overview

Icon	Skill	Description	Type
	Slash Blast	Consumes MP to attack nearby enemies all at once.	Main Attack Skill
	War Leap	Use while in the middle of a jump to jump even farther. The higher the skill level, the farther the jump.	Flash Jump Skill
	Upward Charge	Charge through the air to attack the enemy. Can also be used by pressing the upward arrow key plus the attack key.	Secondary Attack Skill
	Leap Attack	Ambush the enemy by rapidly dropping to ground from mid-air. Can only be used if there's a platform within range below you. Use along with a left or right arrow keys to drop yourself diagonally. Can also be used by pressing the downward and left or right arrow keys plus the attack key, instead of manually activating the skill.	Secondary Attack Skill
	Warrior Mastery	Trains up your warrior basics to increase Movement Speed, Jump, Max HP, and Max Movement Speed. Also grants a chance to resist knockback.	Passive Buff
	Iron Body	Boosts DEF and Max HP by a set percentage, and decreases damage taken when hit by enemies.	Passive Buff

Spearman Second Job Skill Build

You can max all your skills in 2nd job. Follow this skill build:

• Spear Sweep (+1), Evil Eye Shock (+1), Weapon Mastery (+1)
• Weapon Mastery (5)
• Agile Arms (MAX)
• Spear Sweep (MAX)
• Weapon Mastery (MAX)
• Final Attack (MAX)
• Evil Eye Shock (MAX)
• Hyper Body (MAX)
• Iron Wall (MAX)

Spear Sweep is your new main attacking skill as a Spearman. Get your Agile Arms skill up to a decent level before you start maxing out Weapon Mastery to give you that extra attack speed, Physical Training and Final Attack for some great damage buffs. Your Evil Eye Shock skill is pretty decent; it activates in short bursts to damage mobs around you.

Hyper Body and Iron Will are both useless at this stage.

Skill Description & Overview

Icon	Skill	Description	Type
	Evil Eye Shock	The Evil Eye releases a terrifying scream that deals damage to nearby enemies.	Passive Buff
	Spear Sweep	Swings your spear to pull in enemies and stun them.	Main Attack Skill
	Weapon Mastery	Increases Spear and Polearm Mastery.	Passive Buff
	Agile Arms	Increases Attack Speed and Strength.	Speed Attack Skill
	Physical Training	Increases STR and DEX through sheer physical training.	Passive Buff
	Iron Will	Steel your resolve to bolster your defenses.	Buff
	Hyper Body	Increases Max HP and Max MP for a short time.	Buff
	Final Attack	Chance to deliver an additional hit after a direct attack skill. Must have a Spear or Polearm weapon equipped.	Passive Buff
	Evil Eye	Summons an Evil Eye, which heals you regularly when it is near. Can be toggled On/Off.	Toggle Skill

Berserker Third Job Skill Build

You can max all your skills in 3rd job. Follow this skill build:

• La Mancha Spear (+1), Cross Surge (+1), Evil Eye Shock II (+1)
• Lord Of Darkness (+1), Evil Eye of Domination (+1), Hex Of the Evil Eye (+1)
• La Mancha Spear (MAX)
• Cross Surge (MAX)
• Lord Of Darkness (MAX)
• Evil Eye Shock II (MAX)
• Evil Eye Of Domination (MAX)
• Hex Of The Evil Eye (MAX)
• Rush (MAX)
• Endure (MAX)

La Mancha Spear is a slow attacking skill. It's great on small maps, but on larger maps it can feel very cumbersome to use. In third job you get two great buffs: Cross Surge (+50% passive final damage!) and Lord Of Darkness (+30% Crit Rate, +8% Crit Damage!). Your Evil Eye starts to become more useful too, with three new buffs being applied to it. You may want to consider putting a point into Rush, but I rarely used this skill.

Skill Description & Overview

Icon	Skill	Description	Type
	La Mancha Spear	Spin your spear to attack enemies in front of you.	Main Attack Skill
	Cross Surge	Increases final damage proportional to current HP for a short time. Also reduces damage taken proportional to reduced HP.	Buff
	Rush	Dashes forward and pushes back multiple monsters. Can be resisted by some monsters.	Secondary Attack Skill
	Lord Of Darkness	Increases Critical Rate and Critical Damage, and grants a chance to recover HP during the attack.	Passive Buff
	Hex Of The Evil Eye	Your Evil Eye periodically buffs you and your party members.	Passive Buff
	Evil Eye Shock II	Empowers Evil Eye Shock, increasing its damage.	Passive Buff
	Evil Eye Of Domination	Summons an Evil Eye to freely attack nearby enemies. Your Evil Eye's attacks will not cause you to take damage from attack reflection.	Passive Buff
	Endure	Enhances your Abnormal Status Resistance and Elemental Resistance.	Passive Buff

Dark Knight Four Job Skill Build

You can max all your skills in 4th job. Follow this skill build:

• Dark Impale (+1), Final Pact (+1), Barricade Mastery (+1)
• Dark Impale (MAX)
• Barricade Mastery (MAX)
• Final Pact (MAX)
• Revenge Of The Evil Eye (MAX)
• Dark Resonance (MAX)
• Maple Warrior (MAX)
• Gungnir's Decent (MAX)
• Power Stance (MAX)
• Heros Will (MAX)
• Magic Crash (MAX)

You now have access to your best mobbing skill in Dark Impale. The updated Dark Knight has a lot more passive buffs added to it, so it's best to max Barricade Mastery and Final Pact as soon as possible.

The rest of the skills are more useful during bossing; Final Pact will give you a 40 second i-frame and Gungnir's Descent are great bossing attacking skills. Magic Crash and Power Stance will also make bossing more relaxing.

Skill Description & Overview

Icon	Skill	Description	Type
	Dark Impale	Launch rapid spear thrusts on multiple enemies.	Main Attack Skill
	Evil Eye Shock III	The Evil Eye lets out a scream that stuns and damages nearby enemies, then releases spectral shadows which deal additional damage. Unaffected by attack reflection.	Buff
	Revenge Of The Evil Eye	Evil Eye counterattacks the enemy. The Evil Eye periodically marks enemies struck by the Dark Knight with a vengeful brand which deals damage. Additionally, your deepened connection with the Evil Eye enhances Evil Eye Shock. Your Evil Eye's attacks will not cause you to take damage from attack reflection.	Passive Buff
	Power Stance	Concentrates to hold your ground when struck, resisting knock-back effects.	Passive Buff
	Maple Warrior	Temporarily increases the stats of all party members. Does not stack with Maple Warrior, Call of Cygnus, Nova Warrior, Hero of the Flora, President's Orders, Anima Warrior, or Rhinne's Protection.	Buff
	Magic Crash	Chance to remove certain buffs from affected enemies and prevent them regaining those buffs. Enemies hit will resist Magic Crash for 90 seconds. Buffs Removed: Attack Power & Magic ATT Bonuses, DEF Bonuses, and Obsidian Skin.	Buff
	Hero's Will	Hones your resolve to ignore certain abnormal status effects. Immune to Abnormal Status for 3 sec after use.	Buff
	Gungnir's Descent	Throws a mythical spear to deal fatal damage. You can deal higher damage with greater Max HP.	Boss Attack Skill
	Final Pact	When your HP reaches 0, your dark contract keeps you alive, granting invincibility based on the type selected in Accept Final Pact. Additionally, if you eliminate and successfully attack the required number of monsters for a set period of time after invincibility ends, cooldown will be reduced until the next contract. Not affected by cooldown reset. When HP is above a certain amount, permanently increases Final Damage, Speed, Critical Rate, and Critical Damage.	Iframe
	Barricade Mastery	Improves Spear and Polearm proficiencies to their human limits. Increases Critical Damage and Attack Power.	Passive Buff
	Dark Resonance	Resonates with your Evil Eye to unlock the power of pure darkness. Fully restores your HP and temporarily increases Final Damage, Ignore Defense, and Boss Damage upon using the skill. Additionally, increases Ignore Defense effect permanently.	Buff
	Accept Final Pact	Accept the contract with darkness. If HP becomes 0 while a selected pact is in effect, Final Pact will be activated. Cannot trigger while Final Pact is on cooldown. Requires Final Pact level 1 or higher. Can be toggled On/Off. To toggle on, use the skill and press the arrow key corresponding with the pact you want to accept. Use the skill again to toggle off.	Buff/Iframe

Dark Knight Hyper Skill Build

Hyper skills are available at level 140. You get Hyper Skill Points as you level towards 200, but not enough to max all the skills, so choose wisely. These skills mostly help increase the damage of your current skills.

• Final Pact - Damage
• Final Pact - Reduce Target
• Evil Eye - Hex Reinforce
• Gungnir's Decent - Reinforce
• Gungnir'sDecent Boss Rush
• Dark Thirst
• Nightshade Explosion
• Epic Adventure

Dark Knight Fifth Job Skill Build

Upon reaching level 200, you will now have access to the V Matrix, which acts as your new fifth job skills. Each class gets their own skills to use, along with boosting nodes to increase the damage of existing skills. To obtain new skills, you open up items called Nodestones, which drop from every mob in Arcane River. You have limited number of slots in your V Matrix, so you want to obtain perfect nodes for maximize your character's damage.

Dark Knight's Nodes should include:

• Speak Of Darkness
• Radiant Evil
• Calamintous Cyclone
• Darkness Aura
• Trinode: Dark Impale, Nightshade Explosion, Gungnir's Descent
• Trinode: Final Attack, Evil Eye, Rush

All 5th Job classes should try to also obtain these:

• Decent Holy Symbol
• Decent Sharp Eyes
• Decent Speed Infusion
• Erda Nova
• Rope Lift
• Weapon Aura

Skill Description & Overview

Icon	Skill	Description	Type
	Spear Of Darkness	Hurls a spear of utter darkness at the enemy. Direct the spear with the up and down arrow keys.	Cooldown Attack Skill
	Radiant Evil	Evil Eye reveals itself and blasts nearby enemies. Only usable while Evil Eye of Domination is active.	Cooldown Attack Skill
	Calamitous Cyclone	Swings a spear so fast it creates a dark storm and devaste the area in front of you. The final attack is unaffected by attack ignore and attack reflection.	Cooldown Attack Skill
	Darkness Aura	Unleash an aura of darkness that boosts your combat instincts and steals the life force from nearby enemies, then detonates that stolen life force. The aura of darkness reacts with already-present skill effects. Darkness Aura is unaffected by attack reflection. During the final attack of Nightshade Explosion and Calamitous Cyclone, it is possible to cancel the final detonation.	Cooldown Attack Skill

Changelog

06/09/2022 - Updated for Destiny V.233 Update

26/03/2021 - Added new 5th Job Skill from the Awake update.

23/10/2020 - First update