Knives

Knives have the fastest and cheapest swings in the game, and they are the only weapons that hit an unaware enemy for 6 times damage, where everything else manages 3.

Combat

Pros

• 6x damage against an unalerted target, double what any other weapon gets from the same opening. A knife build is really a Sneaking build with a finisher attached.
• A swing costs 4 to 14 stamina, the cheapest in the game, and the 3-hit combo takes 1.74 seconds, the fastest of the melee classes.
• The primary attack does not move you at all, so you stay exactly where you chose to stand. Nothing else lets you hold a position that precisely.
• The secondary lunges 5 metres forward for 3x damage and 4x knockback. That is how the class closes the reach gap instead of living with it.

Cons

• 1.8 metres of reach, the shortest in the game. A polearm hits from 3.2, and a Fuling does not wait for you to close in.
• Slash and pierce together are the worst pairing in the game for finding weaknesses. Nothing is weak to slash at all, and pierce is the most resisted type there is.
• A low ceiling: the Nord Dagger stops at 150, and even the Frostfire Dagger only reaches 222. Once the opening backstab is spent, you are fighting with the weakest numbers of any melee class.
• 2 block armour is effectively none, so the build is committed to a shield or to never getting hit.

Builds

The opener is the build. Level Sneaking first, because it works off the light where you stand: at skill 0 an enemy's view range is halved in full darkness, and at 100 it drops to a fifth. Land one backstab at 6x, and from there you are in a normal fight with a small weapon.

Wear dark armour and carry no torch and no glowing sword. The Mistwalker and the Jotun Bane both raise your visibility by about a fifth just by being drawn, which undoes the skill you have been levelling.

Then add a shield. A knife contributes nothing on defence, so the off-hand is your whole guard. The shield replaces the knife's block values entirely, so take a buckler for parrying.

The secondary is your escape as well as your approach. A 5 metre lunge for 3x damage and 4x knockback is also 5 metres you can put between yourself and a pack.

Knives are made at the Forge, the Black forge, the Workbench and the Frost Foundry.

The skill is Knives, and it levels by use rather than by choice.

Best Knives

Build	Weapon	Image	Key Figure
Hardest hitter	Frostfire Dagger		222 damage across all types
Cheapest to swing	Flint Knife		4 stamina a swing
Best guard	Butcher Knife		2 block armour
Longest lasting	Frostfire Dagger		400 durability

Notes

• The 6x applies to an enemy that has not noticed you, not to one busy attacking someone else, so it is a Sneaking mechanic rather than a positional one.
• The primary combo lands 1x, 1x and then 2x, so the damage sits in the third hit, and the whole combo takes 1.74 seconds.
• The primary's knockback of 10 is the lowest in the game, which keeps a target inside the combo instead of pushing it out of reach.

All Weapon Categories

All Knives

*stats displayed are item's base values. See upgrades under each item for item stats per level.

Name	Image	Slash	Pierce	Elemental Damage	Stamina	Block	Durability	Crafting Materials	Crafting Station	Spawn ID
Butcher Knife		-	-	-	5	2	-	2x Wood 4x Tin	Forge	spawn KnifeButcher
Wooden Knife		1	1	-	4	12	200	-	-	spawn KnifeWood
Flint Knife		5	5	-	4	-	200	2x Wood 4x Flint 2x Leather scraps	Workbench	spawn KnifeFlint
Copper Knife		12	12	-	6	-	200	2x Wood 8x Copper	Forge	spawn KnifeCopper
Abyssal Razor		20	20	-	8	-	200	4x Finewood 20x Chitin 2x Leather scraps	Workbench	spawn KnifeChitin
Silver Knife		25	25	12 Spirit	10	-	200	2x Wood 10x Silver 3x Leather scraps 2x Iron	Forge	spawn KnifeSilver
Black Metal Knife		34	34	-	12	-	200	4x Finewood 10x Black metal 5x Linen thread	Forge	spawn KnifeBlackMetal
Skoll and Hati		45	45	-	14	-	200	4x Finewood 10x Iron 10x Black metal	Black forge	spawn KnifeSkollAndHati
Frostfire Dagger		62	62	10 Fire, 88 Frost	14	2	400	1x Nord Dagger 20x Bloodgold 1x Frostfire Essence	Black Forge	spawn KnifeGold_FrostFire
Nord Dagger		75	75	-	14	2	400	1x Cast: Nord Dagger 5x Liquid Frost	Frost Foundry	spawn KnifeGold
Thunderblood Dagger		80	80	45 Lightning	14	2	400	1x Nord Dagger 20x Bloodgold 1x Thunderblood Essence	Black Forge	spawn KnifeGold_BloodLightning

All Categories