Skip to main content
MPStorysMAPLESTORY SERIES HUB

Knockback

From the MapleStory Classic Wiki, mirrored inside MPStorys

Knockback is the stagger a monster takes when it is hit hard enough, interrupting what it was doing and pushing it back a short distance. Every monster in MapleStory Classic World carries its own threshold, and the client records it as a plain number: the damage a hit has to reach before the monster is pushed.

107 monsters carry a knockback value. They run from 1 at the bottom to 6,750 on Jr. Balrog, and the value is listed in the infobox on every monster article.

Note: Yeti and Bain are Ossyria monsters. They are kept in the table because the thresholds come from the game files and show the curve at levels nothing else on Victoria Island reaches, but neither can be fought at Grand Launch.

Why it matters

A monster that is being knocked back is not attacking. On the low-level maps that means almost every hit interrupts almost every monster, which is a large part of why the early game feels forgiving. Further in, thresholds outrun the damage a single hit usually does, monsters stop flinching, and fights change character entirely without any stat on the monster page explaining why.

The threshold is not tied to the monster's HP. Stone Golem has 5,134 HP and a threshold of 975, while Yeti has 8,581 HP and needs 1,275. But Mushmom, with 34,440 HP, needs only 2,750, far less than its bulk would suggest.

How thresholds grow

The median threshold by level band, across every monster that carries one.

Monster level Median knockback threshold
1 to 9 1
10 to 19 30
20 to 29 62
30 to 39 100
40 to 49 225
50 to 59 325
60 to 69 375
70 to 79 1,500
80 to 89 1,725
90 to 99 2,025

The interesting part of that table is the step between the sixties and the seventies. The median quadruples in one band, from 375 to 1,500, having grown gently up to that point. Nothing else in the curve moves that sharply.

Examples

Monster Level HP Knockback threshold
  Snail 1 45 1
  Slime 6 115 1
  Orange Mushroom 8 142 1
  Ribbon Pig 10 172 25
  Wild Boar 25 510 50
  Cold Eye 40 1,894 175
  Wraith 48 2,350 225
  Croco 52 3,136 275
  Stone Golem 56 5,134 975
  Yeti 65 8,581 1,275
  Bain 90 27,948 2,025
  Mushmom 40 34,440 2,750
  Zombie Mushmom 50 53,640 3,750
  Jr. Balrog 80 325,400 6,750

Bosses sit well above ordinary monsters of the same level. Mushmom is a level 40 monster whose threshold is fifteen times that of Cold Eye, which shares its level, and this is the clearest single reason a boss fights differently from a field monster rather than simply lasting longer.

The five monsters at the very bottom of the range, on a threshold of 1, are Snail, Blue Snail, Red Snail, Orange Mushroom and Pig. Any hit at all staggers them.

What the files do not settle

The client stores the threshold and nothing else about how it is applied. It does not record whether the test is against a single hit or against damage accumulated over a short window, how far a knocked-back monster travels, or whether a multi-hit attack tests each line separately. Those are server-side behaviours, and this article does not guess at them.

Some skills interact with the mechanic directly. Dagger Mastery carries a chance to ignore knockback effects, and the archer skill Power Knockback exists to push monsters deliberately.

See also

Source:MapleStory Classic Wiki