DK Questions

[Shughurd]

Trip or Bash for lagging an enemy as Drow? (if no flying/protective shield)
Twohanded for damage or dual weaps?
Do DKs still get cure light?

[bassball]

I think trip would land way more often, but the lag for each hit would be less...
I've always found that dual wielding is better for damage because you get more chances to hit them, instead of three or whatever, you get four.. I don't know, I like dual wielding... as for the cure light, I have no idea

[Shughurd]

Well twohander gets the double enhanced damage, but dual wielding gets the legacies going and gets you double strike. So i can't really choose.

[Blarg]

dual wield will get you a bit more damage but limits you to one defense. Cure light is gone so you need to rely on items or vampiric touch for heals

[Shughurd]

[jaran]

Personally if you are fighting an enemy who is likely to be trying to cast spells during combat (shaman, invoker, etc) then i'd trip - lands more often and if they are casting you will lag them a bit....

Otherwise i guess trying the odd bash isnt a bad idea..

With damage, same sort of idea, against spell casters always dual wield, against others probably stick to two handed.

[Davairus]

Well the reason you are having trouble deciding is simple. Its that the way to play dark-knights is very situational. Its incredibly sensitive to details. For instance, if you were to combat a drow invoker, you'd want to poison him to sap his low strength and tear that mace away. You'd want to plague next to keep his health low when he eventually gets away (he will). Most dk would charge in and just silence with a big damroll, but there's actually a more effective way to adminster punishment.

Then another example would be vs a warrior. Dual wield or two-handed? How about just drop your pants and take it in the ass? Absolutely no way do you want to go with either of those. The reason for this is they are going to dirt kick you. And you will be stuck with crap tanking for its entire duration, not doing much damage back. Plus both those styles are vulnerable to lags from overheads and sideswipes. Where is your damage coming from? Spells. Fireball especially. The dirt/lag combo will screw you over. Shield is the most effective way, with 1 or 2 taps of unholy strength all it takes to be able to enhance your one-handed with a frenzy spell on top.

Those are very two different approaches and it is the same with all the other classes - you really can't just generalise things into "ok do i use bash or trip" as they're situational skills.

[Slade]

18 str bash (which is already not a very optimal skill to use without hobble compared to the other things you or other bash users can do, unless you are like a giant or something who feels like being retro) vs 24 dex trip (also not the most amazing skill but decent).. gee I wonder. Bash would only be worth a shot against a gnome, another weak race caster without protective shield up, someone weakened, etc. Trip if you can, and you don't necessarily need to go overboard with either one - try to get in more affs, mals, murders, maybe a dirt, etc.

Before matchup issues:
All three types give you two defenses. Dual wield with legacy defense is improved by unholy armor, which is not bad because it works on weight rather than one of your crappy stats like str or wis - that means you can use a pure offense offhand weapon like whip, and get the same defense from ward that you would using a more defensive offhand weapon. Set parry last I heard was dex which is a solid defense for you. Shield block stats are bad and that shouldn't be your preference - drows are slightly more burst damage than humans who can get away with more shield use if they can keep themselves from being dirt pinned all the time.

Overall your preference should be: (1) Dual Wield [part of the reason you even play a drow DK] (2) Two hander (3) Shield

However then you get into the big and many exceptions:
Dual wield - Smart fighters or thieves may pull a bow on you which is the worst matchup in the game - avoid at all costs
Dual wield - Typical fighters will look to overhead against you, if you can regularly flee upon wind up then its not the end of the world but you're likely spamming spells and skills so you can't rely on that and you shouldn't be in this matchup too long
Dual wield - All other scenarios try to acquire and often use your best dual wield combo

Two hander - Typical fighters will look to sideswipe you, the lag the damage isn't terrifying but it adds up more than you realize and you should try to avoid this
Two hander - All other scenarios are safe and its a very solid all around choice. If your two hander is beastly and your one hand weapons suck go ahead and use the two hander.

Shield - You lose significant offense without gaining much defense so you should avoid going this route when possible
Shield - Typical fighters will instantly barrage you, and possibly follow that up with a long lasting shield disarm, leaving you already short of some offense and now with just 1 poor defense.

All styles - Make sure your weapon (or main hand) isn't something causing you to get raped by 2h clobbers. The other two rogue skills aren't as horrid but try to avoid those if you aren't holding up well against them either. Other than clobber though generally speaking worry more about pressing your strengths against them than trying to defend against sidestep or uncanny.

Wildcard for all styles - None of the three options is very safe against fighters. However one thing that can help you with that is a cursed weapon. Cursed weapons won't be raked or disarmed, nor should you suffer the lag time from such a hit. That means you are only taking damage - from an overhead thats still a good bit - for a sideswipe some but not quite as bad. Forget about cursing dual wield because they can use bow and bow users don't need a gimmicky skill to kill you, they just start instantly raping you on the spot. What would work very well though is a cursed two hander. Not sure if they have the strength for it but Mourneblade would be a beast of a DK weapon, otherwise get the best 2h you can and make do, you get the solid overall strengths of two hand style with a high average weapon - and in return you only get sideswiped for some damage but not lag, and hobbled for no effect except follow up bashes and trying to flee if you need to. Take care here on weapon damage type though - don't lock yourself into a cursed physical weapon when you are aiming to kill a giant, etc. Doing this also defaults them to using shield against you, which is the least threatening of their options.

Summary: Dual wield when you can. An exceptional cursed two handed weapon (probably magical as well) is a great choice because it is also effective against casters and what not but is your best option against fighters.

[Grayden]

Trip will land more, but it also lags you, and that sucks.

Grayden Grim of the Bloody Fields of Flesh

[Shughurd]

Woot, thanks Slade/Dav, i haven't been around for a while, so i forgot way too much.

Basically, most of the stuff i had figured out already, i only asked twohanded/dualwield comparison if i woulda wanted maximum DPS for like ranking or beating up a caster. I guess flail+whip combo would be the most uberness vs any caster/thief/gnome. And i needed to know if bash actually works with as crappy STR.

I'm prolly going with two-hander vs warriors for damage, switch as they switch to maintain combat/weap advantage. Twohanded will give you better def than shield block. You will actually pull some damage and if warrior would wanna get advantage, he would be wearing shield+onehander, sideswipe is'nt that much of a concern. Maybe i'll pick up a decent twohander axe and ravage em good.

Anyways, i'll figure it all out, i'm always thinking out of the box when it comes to PK innovativity so it would be fun to learn/test everything.

[Davairus]

Dual wield flails is obviously the best melee dps, especially against mage, that goes without saying. But if you want to do a burst of damage to ANY player quickly (which is what a dark-knight excels at - they can pretty much beat down anyone unprepared, very fast) the big ones are initiating with polearm/charging, fireballs, charmie, chasing with unholy frenzy pumped dual wielded murders. In situation such as these, it just takes one lucky bash/trip to spell the end for the opponent, and with unholy frenzy and your defences, time is not on your side. So both those lag skills can be critically important to time well. Timing is more important to worry about than their success rate/lag duration. Just make sure to use them to close kills, otherwise be doing damage. Dark-knight is an assassin and isn't prepared for a drawn out fight where he has to switch to counter weapons, etc, he'll lose that unless his opponent is stupid. Just begin strong and powerbomb them quickly. You cannot be engaged in "honorable" fighting with this class. Its always dirty.

[jaran]

[Mandor]

pretty simple really. This is the recipe of success for Drow DKs.

take an invoker/shaman mix. remove all protective uber spells like weapon ward, sanc.

take a warrior. gimp defenses and offenses, and HP.

take drow, extremely low weight carrying capactiy, thus making your armor and weapon choices even worse. now mix drow and the gimped warrior. already bad defenses though good hitting power but not much damage, and now altered by the gimp warrior status. you need that weight to carry the heaviest armor to give you your unholy armor buff. now you have no capacity for consumables and a reliable mix of weapons, since you are a mage without weap ward, or alternatively a warrior without many defenses and now very little capacity to carry. counterintuitive but we'll take it. also dont forget the weapon and combat style types that you are vulnerable to without having much choice but to take it all from the person you're fighting. they will always have a way to cheese you while you're trying to cast.

add in the negative effects of being a melee class and having to use flying scrolls because you spent all your trains on HPs just to have a little more necessary survivability like a mage, instead of putting them into moves like a warrior would, but hey, without that extra 100 hp you wouldnt get those lucky kills every now and then.

add a charmie that WILL turn on you.

its even easier to get mal and mental protection these days. in a fight where you must kill fast, failing a spell 3 times means your death. if you are smart, you run on the first fail, lose the element of surprise completely, stay away to recharge your hp/mana/move. come back in and try again, possibly starting the process all over. and you may or may not be constantly hunted while trying to regen, depending on who you attacked.

add the unholy strength spell and consumables, and you become like a necromancer, needing lots of time to prepare for a very short fight that could go either way, with the addition of being even more vulnerable after the fight for a while, not to mention that as mana is one of your major concerns, the already agonizingly slow regen is made even slower by the drain effect.

now set on puree and you have a drink that will make you a winner if you chug it asap, or will kill you if you drink it any slower.

guerrilla fighting thats more taxing physically and psychologically on the guerrilla than the enemy is basically what it amounts to. gl.

(hint: peruse the complete list of dead drow dks in the graveyard and the archives. they all have a negative K;D ratio, and I simply cant believe that not one of them was an actual competent player who has been around since the game started and should know how to play)

on a more serious note though, initiate with whatever you can deal the most damage with. spells on warriors (dont bother initiating on an actual warrior with physical weapons, their defenses and possible counter will make you pay for that), dual wield on mages. dirt kick is reasonable cause of your high dex, but never initiate with it. its a good way to exit a fight and either get some distance or some healing in before going back in. disarm should probably be saved for non warrior fighter classes.