Today, I'll run you through the best builds for the Knight in Heroes vs Hordes.
I'll cover the necessary gear, weapons, and jewels to turn this one-armed homage to Monty Python into the wave-cutting Lawnmower Man he was always destined to be.
But know this: clearing a path forward isn't easy.
Your right thumb will get carpal tunnel from the spinning and orb walking required to maximize the caped crusader's abilities.
Your brain will hurt from deciding which build is correct for the given situation.
And your friends will all make fun of you for using the starter hero 5,346+ runs in the game.
But, if you put your ego aside, you too can perfectly balance the Knight's famous versatility to shred through all 370 chapters like a weed whacker at a dandelion convention.
It's time to rev up your Lawn Mower and mow through the hordes. Welcome to the Knight Hero Spotlight.
Let's first give you a crash course on Knight gameplay.
A hero so versatile the devs weren't sure if he's a tank, fighter, or just a fat dude who enjoys spinning, the Knight combines massive amounts of armor and a sweeping attack with incredibly slow movement speed.
Unlike some other heroes that require no skill expression, your thumb will get a workout when playing with the Knight. He's (She?) is an A+ early-game hero that requires you to interact with the game to maximize progress.
While every 5th attack does damage in a whirlwind around the knight, the other four attacks only damage in an area in front of him. That means early in the game, the way to maximize DPS for the knight is to orb walk.
While orb walking is incredibly technically difficult in games like League of Legends and DOTA, in HvH, it's really simple. You run away from hordes when you aren't attacking but then turn around and hit them during attack animation.
Here, let me show you.
I'll zoom in really close so that you can see this incredible display of skill.
The other massive display of skill expression is using Dragon's Breath effectively. And when I say massive, I mean small. It also happens to be my nine-year-old's favorite part of the game.
Ready, set, spin!
The faster, tighter spins, the more damage it does, and the longer into things like coin rush you can go.
Spinning like this maxes DPS with fire breath. Because of its uptime, it's a tremendous early-game weapon when you have no sources of cooldown. You just have to put the effort in.
And honestly, if you need to max DPS in the late game, you'll still be taking the Lawn Mower for a spin.
Moving onto the best gear for the Knight.
Unlike other heroes, I used the Knight's two main gear builds until the very end of hard mode.
| Helm: Rogue | Gloves: Rogue |
| Chest: Rogue | Necklace: Rogue |
| Boots: Ranger | Ring: Rogue |
The first build is the boring Standard Max DPS build.
This build complements the rogue set with the ranger boots.
But if you want to break the rules of HvH standard mode, you can try the Flag Pole build.
| Helm: Knight | Gloves: Knight |
| Chest: Knight | Necklace: Knight |
| Boots: Knight | Ring: Knight |
The build lets our gallant Knight plant his banner on the battlefield like a glorified flag pole as the horde beat their heads against it.
You load up on knight gear in every slot. You rely on the Knight's ultimate shield and general damage reflection to do the bulk of the damage. While that happens, you search the field for a cozy corner to plant your flag, not move, and attempt to out-heal the horde.
What's a cozy corner? Nooks in every field that limit horde access from one direction. You'll find the most famous cozy corner in The Library. A stack of books next to a pentagram, combined with the vertical map, means the horde can't breach your defenses.
However, every map has some obstruction you can back the Knight up against. I've used everything: farmhouses, graves, vampire coffins, pianos, and cacti to stop the flow of horde.
I will say there's some risk to becoming a human flagpole for progression. But if you can get enough experience in a chapter to reach vampire aura + armor tome, it will allow you to clear a surprising amount of content.
You can mix and match these two builds to find a balance between defense and offense in the early game. And as always, feel free to use your highest-level gear, even if it doesn't fit in the set or makes you lose a set bonus.
As I mentioned earlier, you can run both builds into the late game.
Onto the optimal weapons and tomes for the Knight.
There are three main weapon builds to know:
The priority for Max DPS in both the early and late game is your primary weapon - the sword. Because the Knight's ultimate procs off the sword-hitting horde, maxing your sword increases your offense and defense.
Sword
Dragon's Breath
Fire Orbs
Bombs
Ice Wand
Boomerang
Divine Aura
As I mentioned earlier, Dragon's Breath is S+ in the early game through level 250HM or so. You need to spin to win to maximize the impact, but it can single-handedly carry any champion.
Combine that with fire orbs, bombs, plus one. The plus one could be ice wand, chain lightning, divine aura, or boomerang. Divine aura turns the Knight into a classic Paladin because the evolved Vampire Aura lets you heal through an insane amount of damage during your ultimate. But you lack so much damage you'll feel more like a squire sparing with a wooden sword.
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Damage
Cooldown
Area
Duplicator
Movement
Life
Recovery
Depending on your last weapon, mix and match the last tome to evolve it.
Late game substitutes chain lightning for dragon's breath but maintains the same plus ones. My choice for the plus one is the Ice Wand; just don't tell my wife?
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Cooldown
Area
Duplicator
Damage
Movement
Life
Recovery
Depending on your last weapon, mix and match the last tome to evolve it.
Now let's climb the Flag Pole.
With the flag pole build, you're going to do as much damage as, well, a flag pole, but you'll be able to take anything the hordes dish out at you - including elites. This build prioritizes armor + dive aura to create a flag pole so strong a titan couldn't rip it out. The build goes something like this:
Sword
Armor Tome
Divine Aura
Dragon's Breath
Fire Orbs
Bombs
Getting to vamp aura is the giant spike here. If you can get to it, you beat the chapter.
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Armor
Recovery
Damage
Area
Duplicator
Cooldown
Enough about flag poles. Let's bedazzle our Lawn Mower Man with some jewels.
Jewel priority for Knight is very straightforward, following the best practices for most heroes. The jewel priority is:
Ultimate Charge
Ultimate Duration
Vulnerability
Cooldown til 60%
Area
Projectile (P)
Explosion
With the right jewels, you'll be the most coveted lawn mower in the neighborhood.
Run cooldown jewels until it hits 60% in the detail window. You cap cooldown at 60% because you get 30% from cooldown tome. 90% is the max cooldown cap in Normal, Hard, Arena, Boss, and Guild modes.
Then comes Area. Knight prioritizes Area of Effect highly because of the interaction with his sword, which charges his ultimate. There is a soft cap on Area Of Effect when the inner ring of 4* Fire Orbs hits the side of the screen. But that's not a worry until you have Heroic gear.
You can also consider a high-level weakness jewel for the Flag Pole build. I normally only run that in NMM, but it can help the flag pole survive.
Into the forge and the Knight's path to maintain A+ status into End Game content.
In terms of how I build his forge, I opt for Swing and 10% AoE at 1 star, sharp edge for bleed in everything but NMM at 2 stars where you'll take the slow chance, and then I'd go heavy blade at 5*, but I don't think it's worth the 3000 extra super tokens at this point.
Getting the Sword upgraded to Runesword at the 4* star level is a game changer. The increased area of effect, damage, and pushback unlocks the Lawn Mower Man. The Knight's weapon goes from a weed wacker to a weed ender of worlds. Each swing takes up half the screen, making his ultimate near permanently active and doing a ton of damage.
But, you'll have to fork over 5500 super tokens unless you get the Sword in rotation. And, unfortunately for you, it came up a couple of months ago, so it might be a year or two before it's back in the Arena.
That's the price you'll need to pay to play the knight during the end game.
The best pet for the Knight is your highest-level pet. Typically, that means the Pyrokraken or Emberpaw. I got the Hydro Basilisk after 300+ eggs. The highest-level pet should do the most damage.
Knight has no disruption (Freezes, Stuns, or Slows) in his kit until 2* weapon forge, so you can use pets to add some. Earthstriker's slow passive is my favorite, but Aquastriker can also work.
I typically pair one of these disruption passives with a damage passive from my second-highest pet. Right now, I use Emberpaw for the circle of damage.
You can go full DPS and stack Pyrokraken or Owl in the second spot if you have them. The Hydro Basilisk 20% crit chance for pets is technically the highest DPS passive, but you have to have a Hydro Basilisk to spare. And mine's too busy spraying weed killer to help out as a passive.
