Knife Throwers are cloaked ninja-like enemies who throw a flurry of three kunais at the player. These enemies are only found in high difficulties (1 BSC and above) in many biomes such as the Prisoners' Quarters, Slumbering Sanctuary, and on occasion in the Forgotten Sepulcher. Other areas where Knife Throwers are found include the Prison Depths and the Castle,
Behavior
Knife Throwers are ranged enemies, who cloak themselves in invisibility until they have been engaged directly. Thus, they can easily fire at the player before being seen if one is not being attentive of their invisible outlines. Knife Throwers only have one attack, which is a flurry of three kunais aiming for the Beheaded. These enemies are best handled by reflecting their projectiles with a shield parry. In particular, the Parry Shield can make short work of them and any surrounding enemies. On the other hand, they can be a lot more dangerous when the player does not hold a shield. For this type of situation, it is advised to bait them into throwing their kunais at one direction, and quickly roll to attack them from the back.
In addition to being invisible and their kunai attacks, Knife Throwers can perform a dash to get away from the player. Indeed, they have no close-range attack and are therefore vulnerable to melee weapons, provided the player can get close enough.
Development
Knife Throwers are also known as Kunai Masters, which is their name in the game files. Kunai Masters have been present in the game assets long before the release of v1.0 of the game, but were not implemented before the Rise of the Giant DLC. Back in early access, the Kunai Masters could be fought through the use of modding, and were Dark Trackers which threw kunais with their sword attack.
Today, the appearance of Kunai Masters is a lot different, but is reminiscent of the general ninja theme surrounding the Dark Tracker's design.
Notes
- Knife Throwers were added with the v1.2 update, aka Rise of the Giant DLC in March 2019.
- Knife Throwers used to be able to change direction during their 3-projectile combo briefly during the alpha of v1.2