MapleStory Dark Knight Skill Build Guide

Posted on 23rd October 2020

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.

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.

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

Did you know?

MapleStory Explorer Classes can switch between jobs once they are level 101+. For example, a Dark Knight can job change to a Paladin. They can only job change to characters within their class branch (i.e. archers to archers, thiefs to thiefs etc). You cannot job change a Dark Knight to a Bishop.

To do job change, you can either pay mesos or use a Job Advancement Coin (which is usually given out during events). Speak to your 4th job advancement NPC in Leafre to job change.

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 (6)
Slash Blast (MAX)
War Leap (MAX)
Warrior Mastery (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.

Skill Description & Overview

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 further. The jumping distance increases as the skill level increases.	Flash Jump 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:

Piercing Drive (+1), Weapon Mastery (+2)
Weapon Master (5)
Weapon Booster (6)
Piercing Drive (MAX)
Weapon Mastery (MAX)
Physical Training (MAX)
Final Attack (MAX)
Spear Sweep (MAX)
Weapon Booster (MAX)
Iron Will (MAX)
Hyper Body (MAX)

Piercing Drive is your new main attacking skill as a Spearman. You will also get Spear Sweet as a secondary attack, but you'll rarely use it outside of your main mobbing skill. Get your Weapon Booster skill up to a decent level before you start maxing out Weapon Mastery, Physical Training and Final Attack for some great damage buffs. Hyper Body and Iron Will are both useless at this stage.

Skill Description & Overview

Skill	Description	Type
Piercing Drive	Deals a powerful strike to your enemies. If the enemies are close, also increases your Critical Rate	Main Attack Skill
Spear Sweep	Swings your weapon far to pull in enemies and stun them for a moment.	Secondary Attack Skill
Weapon Mastery	Increases Spear and Polearm Mastery.	Passive Buff
Weapon Booster	Increases the attack speed of your weapon for a short time. Must have a Spear or Polearm equipped.	Speed Attack Skill
Physical Training	Permanently increases STR and DEX through sheer physical training.	Passive Buff
Iron Will	Increases the Defense of party members for a short time.	Buff
Hyper Body	Increases the Max HP and Max MP of party members for a short time.	Buff
Final Attack	Grants a chance to activate an additional hit after an attack skill. Must have a Spear or Polearm weapon equipped.	Passive Buff

Berserker Third Job Skill Build

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

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

Skill	Description	Type
La Mancha Spear	Wields your spear like a windmill to deal damage and pierce nearby enemies.	Main Attack Skill
Cross Surge	Increases total 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	The Evil Eye lets out a scream to stun and deal damage to nearby enemies. Can only be used while Evil Eye of Domination is active. Unaffected by attack reflection.	Passive Buff
Evil Eye Of Domination	Evil Eye is summoned 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), Barricade Mastery (+1), Final Pact (+1)
Dark Impale (MAX)
Barricade Mastery (MAX)
Maple Warrior (MAX)
Sacrifice (MAX)
Gungnir's Descent (MAX)
Final Pact (MAX)
Magic Crash (MAX)
Power Stance (MAX)
Revenge Of The Evil Eye (MAX)
Hero's Will (MAX)

You now have access to your best mobbing skill in Dark Impale. Fourth Job doesn't actually provide that many passive buffs, so it's best to max Barricade Mastery as soon as possible. The rest of the skills are more useful during bossing; Final Pact will give you a 40 second i-frame, Sacrifice and Gungnir's Descent are great bossing attacking skills. Magic Crash and Power Stance will also make bossing more relaxing.

Skill Description & Overview

Skill	Description	Type
Dark Impale	Launch consecutive rapid attacks on multiple enemies.	Main Attack Skill
Sacrifice	Absorbs your Evil Eye to recover HP. Allows you to ignore enemy defense and increases boss attack damage. Gungnir's Descent cooldown will not be applied. Additionally, increases Enemy DEF Ignored effect permanently.	Buff
Revenge Of The Evil Eye	When hit, the Evil Eye has a chance to launch a counterattack toward the attacker and restore the Dark Knight's HP.	Passive Buff
Power Stance	Concentrates to hold your ground when struck, resisting knock-back effects permanently.	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	Grants a chance to remove buffs from affected enemies and prevent them from casting new buffs. Debuffs: Attack Power & Magic ATT Increase, DEF Increase, Obsidian Skin.	Passive 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	Drops an enormous, mythical spear from the heavens to deal damage. You can deal higher damage with greater Max HP.	Single Attack Skill
Final Pact	When your HP reaches your dark contract keeps you alive,#c granting temporary invincibility and allowing you to use Gungnir's Descent without any cooldown. However, you must eliminate the required number of monsters before time runs out, or you will be dragged into the Shadow Abyss. The hourglass will be displayed during the reactivation cooldown.Not affected by cooldown reset.	Iframe
Barricade Mastery	Improves Spear and Polearm proficiencies to their human limits. Increases Critical Damage and Attack Power.	Passive Buff

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.

Evil Eye - Damage
Evil Eye - Hex Reinforce
Gungnir's Descent - Reinforce
Gungnir's Guardbreak
Gungnir's 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

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