[Hippie]

It's hard to argue that Cobra stance doesn't slow magic down, and this complaint seems centered on the idea that somehow being a Destiny Soldier forbids you from pumping your Resistance. Tactician has one of the best repertoires in the game for spells and skills, and Black Knight is intentionally weak against magic.

I run a BK/DH Matador build with a focus on damage and tanking. My RES sits just short of 50%, and even then the Magical damage I take ranges from absurd to complete doom. I could easily take Cobra to fight Magic users, for sure - but that would mean that I would have to change up my entire build for that to happen to begin with. Cobra requires high dodge to be able to reliably dodge always, thus meaning I need to spend a lot of points into CEL and LUC, and change equipment to meet a certain threshold. That's where I would say this point falls. How can I counter magic with Cobra if that would mean I'd have to give up tanking? That alone makes the build not viable, but I'll get to that point more in-depth soon.

This feels more like an issue with your individual setup, than a weakness of the class tree in general. In no regard are you doomed if you can't kite a mage, and your movement options are arguably as strong or stronger than Blink with access to Charge , Charging Strike -> Retreating Swipe, Winged Serpent, Retaliate, or Hanging. Reaver and Tactician are both handily capable of matching damage numbers against an Evoker, Hexer, or whatever flavor of mage you're facing; again, I recommend you invest more points into Resistance.

If I can't kite a mage, I'll be eating up all the damage they deal to me. If I try to kite a mage, they'll catch up easily and dish out the damage that even with 50% RES I struggle to survive. Black Knight is terrible at the cat and mouse game, and specially when you're meant to be the cat and you're forced to run. Retreating Swipe is incredibly good for movement, I won't lie, despite the Momentum it eats up. Winged Serpent is likewise good if you've spared some points for Cobra. Retaliate and Hanging won't help you kite, though. Even with near 50% RES, Magic damage is my bane, no matter where it comes from. Be it a Kadouha with nearly no light attack built and such.

It's telling that BK struggles with Magic damage from anyone who isn't slower than you (and that's a lot of people we're talking about) while Martial Artist gets plenty of damage reduction for both physical and magic damage. When the class that is supposed to tank gets outdone at tanking by the mobile class, there's a problem to be found there, but perhaps an issue of it's own.

As previously mentioned, Black Knight as a class is designed to be weak against high mobility and magic damage. Your sub-class can help mitigate this weakness, but doubling down on the class' strengths to build yourself an iron wall with no movement options is obviously going to mean you'll struggle in those circumstances. That is by design: a Void Assassin who has a negative crit chance against you, and can't survive a string of autohits, would be in the same position as you are when trying to catch a nimble mage.

There's a difference between a counter and complete doom. I've fought classes that counter me before, and it's fair to say that the odds are tilted way in their favor than in mine - but those are fights I can still win if I manage to outplay whoever I'm fighting. Then, much like I mentioned in a previous thread with MG shells, there's complete doom. Bringing up the example I did back then; when an MG starts spamming ice bullets at me, that's the end of the entire fight for me. I can't move and I'm forced to sit around for a good few rounds taking damage until I die.

Fighting a Mage, Evokers specifically, feels much the same to me. There's only so much running I can do when I'm one turn away of taking 800 damage. By no means I say that BK should become Evoker's counter just because I find myself getting nuked every time I fight one, but the fact that there's not really much you can do about is why I made this thread to begin with. Magic should be a counter to Black Knight, but not so in a way that means it's a game over from round 0. Even folks that run Winged Serpent face a hard time against magic as I do.

This conclusion is terribly narrow, and really seems to be drawn off of a lot of faulty assumptions. Silence isn't the end all be all of fighting mages, and there has been a great deal of discussion over the years on how oppressive silence is against pure casters. You're free to disagree with my assessment, but my personal thoughts on the matter are that you are demanding a means to fight against a class counter without having to change your setup to compensate.

Build Resistance, use items that give %resistances, and don't run a Black Knight/Matador DH with the expectation that you can stomp on your hard counters as much as you stomp on the physical damage dealers you counter.

My expectation is not to stomp my hard counters, my expectation is to not be wiped a round or so in. I'm no PVP savant; even I know that it plays like rock paper scissors.

Perhaps saying Silence is required is mistaken, I can say that much. Silence can still be played against fairly easily. In the case of a Destiny Mage, a Heron Feather can make a good difference. And though a perhaps worse example, considering the context of this thread, a Curate can outright cure and become immune to Silence right away.

The point I'm trying to make here is that how terribly weak BK/DH plays out against some classes is just outright pitiful. Again, I understand the concept of counters. But being outright doomed from the start feels like it shouldn't be a thing to begin with. The PVP system feels like it was designed to play in 4v4s where everyone fulfills a different role rather than 1v1s, where it's a gamble to see who you have to fight.

I stand firm on the point that Black Knight needs at least a way to fight a mage. From the countless fights I've done against mages and with the RES I have already, the damage I seem to be taking is still absurd. Whether Silence is the way to go about it or not is up for debate still.