Dark Knight Awakening Discussion:

Which Core Skill Should I Take? 

Family Name: Blaqklight

Last Edited: 8/24/2021 @ 20:33 UTC

 

Good afternoon, adventurers! Lately I've been getting a lot of questions on discord and on stream about Dark Knight Awakening's Core Skills and which one is the best to take in various situations. Since there isn't one definitive answer, I figured that I would write a quick guide on the different core skills and discuss their pros and cons. Lets dive right in! 

 

Why should I listen to you? 

 

Excellent question! I won't pretend to be a master of the class, but: 

     1.) I've played BDO since launch and have played DK for over two years.

     2.) I've played both Succession and Awakening. 

     3.) I've done every type of PvP on it from 1v1s to RBFs and from T1 NWs up to Siege, so I'm confident in it's mechanics in various situations. 

     4.) I've been trained to play Awakening DK by some actual masters, most notably Peppr, who won the most recent class tournament and received the Gosu title. 

 

What are Core Skills? 

 

You can spend 50 skill points to activate one core skill at the bottom of the awakening menu after pressing K (default key bind to open skills menu). This will buff or modify the selected skill to have additional effects, usually adding a CC of some sort to a skill that did not have it before or adding protection to a skill that was previously unprotected. In regard to our class, Dark Knight has a total of SIX Core Skills to choose from. 

 

What do Dark Knight's Core Skills Do? 

 

1.) Core: Touch of Exploitation. This core skill adds a Forward Guard to Touch Of Exploitation IV, making it a protected skill from the front. Overall, Touch IV doesn't do a ton of damage (only 923% x3) and doesn't offer any utility other than a bound on last hits, of which there are four. One of the best things about the awakening kit is its ability to burst targets down from range. Since this skill is close range, offers low damage, and adds hardly any utility to our kit, I would NOT recommend taking this as a choice for a core skill in any type of PvP or PvE. 

 

2.) Core: Spirit Hunt. This core skill adds a Stiffen to Spirit Hunt III, causing enemies and players to be momentarily CC'd after a successful it. Spirit Hunt is a fantastic skill that is central to DK playstyle. Not only does this skill swap us flawlessly out of pre-awakening to awakening stances, it has a small dash, decent damage (1338% x4), and is a Super Armor skill, meaning we cannot be CC'd while performing the action unless we are grabbed. While having a Stiffen on Spirit Hunt might not be useful in Large Scale PvP (node wars, siege, GvGs with more than 10-20 people), this is a fantastic core choice for 1v1 duels and small scale PvP. 

 

3.) Core: Spirit Blaze. This core skill adds a Forward Guard to Spirit Blaze IV, making it a protected skill from the front. Unlike Touch IV, Blaze IV has decent damage (1205% x3, extra hit of 1205% x3, and a flow of 1205% x 7), critical hit rate of 100%, an accuracy increase of 5%, and floating on extra hits. If we were looking at just Touch IV Core vs Blaze IV Core, Blaze IV would be the better choice. Sadly, it is still a close-range skill and does not offer much utility in PvP, other than potentially adding some filler damage if other skills are on CD. With so many other good options, I would NOT recommend taking this as a choice for a core skill in any type of PvP or PvE. 

 

4.) Core: Shattering Darkness. This core skill adds a Stiffen to Shattering Darkness III, causing enemies and players to be momentarily CC'd after a successful it. Shattering Darkness III is the bread and butter of Awakening DK. It offers mobility, range, major damage (1351% x 7, Magic Hit Damage of 801% x 1, with a Max of 11 hits), a flow with more damage (1032% x7, Magic Hit Damage of 771% x 1, with a Max of 11 hits), 100% crit rate, 10% accuracy rate, a forward guard, and decent AoE spam. One of the things Awakening DK lacks is ranged CC options (other than Seed of Catastrophe IV) and this core skill increases the number of combo options we have tenfold. With this in our kit, we can combo more effectively in large scale PvP, catch duelists in 1v1s, and stun mobs as we grind. This is my TOP PICK for Core Skills and recommend taking this over most of the others. 

 

5.) Core: Seed of Catastrophe. This core skill adds a Super Armor to Seed Of Catastrophe IV, meaning we cannot be CC'd while performing the action unless we are grabbed. Seed IV is an incredible skill with tons of damage (1354% x7), a flow with even higher damage (1491% x 7), decent mobility, its our primary ranged CC, and serves as one of our main damage dealers. Normally this skill is completely unprotected, which is why adding a super armor to it seems like a fantastic idea. In my personal opinion, due to the far range this skill has, a good DK should only be popping this skill when it is safe to do so. Adding a super armor to it might be super comfy in large scale or RBF when many concentrated CCs are headed your way, but it takes away our possibility for an additional ranged CC, thus I do NOT think it’s a good option for our kit when Core: Shattering exists.

 

6.) Core: Spirit Legacy. This core skill adds a Stun to Spirit Legacy III, fully CCing the target on successful hits. Spirit Legacy III is a killer skill with a forward guard, tons of damage (1297% x8), crit hit rate of 100%, MP recovery, and a -20DP modifier on successful hits. This is a fantastic skill to add damage AFTER our target is CC’d, which makes it sound like this is a decent choice. Well, due to the current state of CC mechanics in this game, Stun effects are some of the most unreliable CCs to land/effect the target. I would only use this one with extreme caution and I’d argue that the others provide more utility in large scale and 1v1s.

 

TL;DR: SPARK NOTES?? 

Core: Spirit Hunt for 1v1s.

Core: Shattering Darkness for large scale.

Core: Seed of Catastrophe if you cant hit your CCs in large scale.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this! If anyone has any questions or comments, please let me know! I’m always looking for more people to theory craft with. Have a wonderful afternoon. 

Hi, thanks for the writeup. I would mostly agree, but I have to issue one correction in my opinion:
For PvP, your choices are exactly as you said, but for PvE in the higher end, especially Elvia spots, you will want to be using Core:Spirit Blaze. It is a great skill for filler damage, and by making it protected you can use it in a lot of situations. It can be a lingering frontal guard when you wait a bit between the slashes, so it is extremely useful when dealing with a lot of incoming damage and waiting for other skills to come up. Due to the buff it got a couple months ago, it also deals a nice amount of damage, even if not compareable to our actual nukes. But due to how little damage our pre awa skills deal in PvE, it is still a better choice to use blaze than one of the pre awa SAs or FGs.