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The difference between the stick and the knuckle is that the stick is not actually meant for combat. While yes you can attack with it, sticks were fragile and didn't have the endurance. That and they are slower in attacking than the knuckle. The knuckle is generally the battle assist's weapon of choice, when paired with a shield, faster in attacking and was more durable. As of v11 though, there no longer is weapon durability, which is nice.

For an FS assist, you should really just try focusing on sticks, and only to a certain point (Stick of Roritoren or CW stick) are both fine sticks, if you can find and afford one. sweatdrop Knuckles don't usually work extraordinarily well with FS assists, as the majority of your points initially go straight into INT so your buffs last long and you have the mp points to buff two or three players in a row early on and keep going. xP

No true FS assist puts points into STR, and not usually into DEX either. Loads of INT, and some STA. This makes for slow, hard solo killing with a knuckle anyway, so you're better off trying to find a partner 19 levels higher than you and partnering with them to "leech" exp in exchange for buffs and healing for them. :3

I love the assist class, but I prefer my BP over my RM. Just because it's so time-consuming looking for a partner. D:

Mazele gave you a pretty good answer, insofar as what should be more important to you, but it's still good to keep a decent knuckle with you at all times. Accidents happen, and you might find yourself in a situation where you're getting agro-rape and no one is around to kill the mobs for you (it's happened to me; at level 65 with a level 43 knuckle I couldn't take care of some Ivillis puppets fast enough to get away from them before more came at me...spent almost ten minutes trying to get away before a blade showed up and saved my butt...). So yeah...having a decent knuck helps sometimes. And the difference between knuckles and sticks: knuckles have the same attack as sticks of the same level, but they attack much faster. However, they don't have the hit +15%, which might be a problem before you have accuracy and cannon maxed. Also, you can't use most of an assist's buffs with a knuckle; the only ones you can use are self buffs. Sticks are for all of the other buffs. Most assists have both a knuckle and a stick, as far as I've seen. ...Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe the +15% hit of the stick makes up for the lost attack speed, over time. I'm not too good at figuring that stuff out. ( rofl watch, I took all of that time to write this post...and I was completely wrong. If someone could confirm or deny this, it would be appreciated >.>; I'd hate to see someone waste some penya 'cause some noob said that a knuckle might be useful...)

A knuckle for an FS or RM definitely isn't as important as a stick, and usually it's okay to just wait until one drops (if your partner is willing to share), but having a knuckle that's fit for your level never hurts...(Unless it costs your entire budget...which is possible if your partners don't share with you. O_<)

Oh, and you might want a knuckle during your 2nd job change (assuming you will be RM), because for some reason, you end up doing a lot of fighting for that one, and the fighting is a lot harder because you aren't a fighting class. (You will want either another RM, FS, or someone who has rooting or sneaker (and your own few stacks of starcandy) to kill the Venel Guardian.)

I love my BP, I had always wanted one because with my Psykeeper I felt like I had to constantly by MP pots just to level and I always ran out of MP while Gianting. I made my BP a couple months ago and now it's level 75.

I restated to a cookie cutter build on my BP not too long ago.

Last night I finally got the last piece of my Alext set to +6. The suit was +4 when I bought it, and it only took three Spro's to get to +6.

And I sold my Gknuckle and bought a Historic Knuckle instead. It's made leveling a lot easier for me.