very confusing skill for me- knives

[Nightmare14]

ok so ive read here thatflat damage modifiers and resistance reduction found on weapons and shield wont transfer over to the knives and things ive read there have said that they do

and when ive triied using it with different characters using similar gear, one has done more damage then the other

can someone clear this up for me please ivetried searchng and yeah find too many conflicting answers

from Violos' Trapsin thread

KNIVES

• Standard and equipment bonuses all add up on your knives. So do special effects like leech, stun or reduced resistances. They are more like arrows than spell projectiles.
• The one exception to this are bonuses on weapons (and shields), which only affect knives via global %, or granted skills. Fortunately, there are affixes (e.g. Tyrant's) and relics (Thanatos, Achilles) which increase physical or total % nicely - if you want to focus on damage.
• Generally, the key to good knife damage is to stack as many flat bonuses of a type as possible on them, and then boost that same type(s) by many %.
  Tracker's Hood, for example, increases the knives' base pierce damage by 100% and grants another 40 flat lightning which, in turn, would profit from %lightning and, in this case, intelligence.
• Physical and pierce damage on knives do not care about str/dex. Yet this char should use those, especially physical, because they are already present and supported.
  Items like the Pendant Of Immortal Rage or Ares relics help here. Phantom Bane and Ring of Dexterity are worth a look, too.
• Battle Rage and its mod affect knives! Due to their numbers, this can be quite useful: Up to 80 points per knife (before +%) and 25% chance of another 300.
• Open Wound (chance of bleeding) works as well, as long as you carry a bladed weapon. In normal difficulty, blood/poison knives are a viable option.

The mechanics of Knives can be quite confusing. The best way to think of it is as a weapon replacement. So you will get the global bonuses (like +% Str or +% Piercing Damage) from your weapon (or shield, as that is a weapon too) but you won't get weapon-specific benefits like flat damage, resistance reduction or ADCtH. So no Knives of Harrowing, unfortunately.

You will get weapon procs such as Study Prey from Mbuti's because these are, bizarrely, considered non-weapon specific. Iirc almost all spells (Squall, VO, Eruption, Distortion Wave, Poison Gas Bomb, etc) will proc Study Prey, the only exceptions I can remember are the +% Health Reduction spells Deathchill and Plague. These do not proc Study Prey.

Similarly, you will get artifact procs on Knives too - Might of Hephaestus, Tyrant's Fist and so on. However, you only get the proc once on a Flurry of Knives, not nine times (ie once for each Knife).

The key with Knives is just to stack as much off-hand (ie non-weapon/shield) flat damage as possible. So things like the piercing damage completion bonus of Set's Betrayal, the flat Cold damage of Ethereal Veil, elemental damage from rings of Lightning/Frost/Fire, etc, will all boost your Knife damage considerably.

[Tyr]

The short answer is that bonuses from your weapon and shield slots generally won't affect knives, but everything else will (including dexterity, since the knives do piercing damage). The long answer includes the fact that there are specific exceptions. I remember Irma saying that the knives can proc Study Prey from Mbuti's Advocate, for example.

[Nightmare14]

ok thank you

so if i was to enchant a weapon with shen nong that resistance reduction wounld not be added to the knives?

[Tyr]

Nope. But Monkey King's (on jewelry) and items like The Frail will work.

[Nightmare14]

ok thank you again

[Irma2]

The mechanics of Knives can be quite confusing. The best way to think of it is as a weapon replacement. So you will get the global bonuses (like +% Str or +% Piercing Damage) from your weapon (or shield, as that is a weapon too) but you won't get weapon-specific benefits like flat damage, resistance reduction or ADCtH. So no Knives of Harrowing, unfortunately.

You will get weapon procs such as Study Prey from Mbuti's because these are, bizarrely, considered non-weapon specific. Iirc almost all spells (Squall, VO, Eruption, Distortion Wave, Poison Gas Bomb, etc) will proc Study Prey, the only exceptions I can remember are the +% Health Reduction spells Deathchill and Plague. These do not proc Study Prey.

Similarly, you will get artifact procs on Knives too - Might of Hephaestus, Tyrant's Fist and so on. However, you only get the proc once on a Flurry of Knives, not nine times (ie once for each Knife).

The key with Knives is just to stack as much off-hand (ie non-weapon/shield) flat damage as possible. So things like the piercing damage completion bonus of Set's Betrayal, the flat Cold damage of Ethereal Veil, elemental damage from rings of Lightning/Frost/Fire, etc, will all boost your Knife damage considerably.

[Nightmare14]

ok thanks

[Violos]

Dex does nothing for knife damage. Tested that once, but apparently the only place it ever increases it is in the converted piercing damage on direct weapon attacks.
- With its abysmal ratio of 100% / 1000 points, so even that is probably less than the extra damage it grants, indirectly, through better OA.


You can find more details on Irma's points in the Trapsin and Taser links below.