Shadow Daggers Bladedancer Guide
Last Updated:April 11, 2025|Changelog
Welcome to the Shadow Daggers Bladedancer Guide. Do you want to go fast? Well it's hard to go much faster than this build thanks to its very high movespeed, a short cooldown on Shift and most of our damage coming from skills with the movement tag. In fact, it hardly ever wants to stop! You would think with so much speed there has to be a downside, but the Shadow Dagger Bladedancer also has great damage and excellent defenses. It truly has no weakness, making it one of the best builds in the game.
To deal our damage we proc Shadow Daggers from Umbral Blades, Smoke Bomb, Shadow Cascade and Synchronized Strike. Despite using so many skills we're able to maintain the high speed playstyle by casting Umbral Blades with Shift and Shadow Cascade through both Shift and Synchronized Strike. This minimizes our need to stop, keeping us on the move even while we blast through enemies.
Shadow Daggers has excellent scaling from Siphon of Anguish, Carcinization of Momentum and Smoke Weaver, but this build scales so well that none of them are necessary to get sufficient damage and survivability.
Overall, Shadow Daggers Bladedancer is a great build for any type of content. It excels at clearing Monolith Echoes fast but the speed and tankiness also make it great for Dungeons and Arena. If you like the playstyle, you really can't go wrong with this build!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 60 Character. Reach Level 60 with our Bladedancer Leveling Guide.
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!
Skills
Umbral Blades
Umbral Blades applies 3 Shadow Daggers ailments per second and persists for 5+ seconds. We cast it through Shift with Umbral Remnant plus Lasting Presence and Dancing Shadows. Since we're scaling Shadow Daggers damage and not Umbral Blades we can convert it to Cold for the Chill.
Passives
Passives provide powerful effects that dictate the playstyle of a Class and its Masteries. Remember that you can allocate Passives on the first half of all Masteries regardless of the one you chose.
- Since we're almost always moving Evasion is a huge damage reduction buff.
- With the right gear and the Haste buff from Agility we can spend a lot of time well over 100% Movement Speed, making the damage buff from this node very strong.
- Blood Dance and Melee Damage Leeched as Health from gloves are our primary sources of sustain so get this passive as soon as possible.
- Crit Multi is hard to come by so All In is a huge damage buff. Shadow Daggers always crits so there's no downside here.
- Swift Assassin and Once provide extra benefit since Shadow Daggers has both Melee and Throwing tags.
- While Pursuit is a decent damage buff, the main benefit it provides is Movement Speed.
- Thanks to Focus Fire and Wound Maker we don't need to worry as much about taking Dodge or Critical Strike Avoidance modifiers in the Monolith of Fate.
- Perfection stacks provide large buffs to damage as well as Armor and Dodge from Confidence. We also take one point in Exuberance to double our stack generation.
- If you play hardcore, investing in Death's Door is always an option for additional DR. Note that unlike stamina the DR from this node only kicks in once you're already at low health. This means it won't protect from potential one shots when you're above the low health threshold.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
To maximize both our damage and defenses we want to keep moving as much as possible. This means a healthy dose of Shift and Synchronized Strike while using Smoke Bomb strategically when we're safe from getting hit.
Skill Usage/Rotation
- Stay on the move and use Shift on cooldown
- Use Synchronized Strike against tanky enemies and packs. Make sure to use the skill directly on top of them for maximum Shadow Daggers stacks. When in extended fights against enemies with DoTs make sure to use it at least every 4 seconds to maintain Crimson Shroud stacks from Crimson Storm.
- In extended fights, find a safe spot near enemies to cast Smoke Bomb. Try to stay in the Smoke to gain damage from Smoke Blades.
- If the enemies become overwhelming, use Decoy to taunt them and buy some time.
- If mana is getting low use Shift a few times in a row before using Synchronized Strike again.
Mapping
- Run to the objective using Shift on cooldown. Most of the enemies nearby will be killed from Shadow Cascade and Umbral Blades. Shifting near enemies will make it easier for Umbral Blades to find its target.
- Use Synchronized Strike on Rare enemies along the way. This should one shot them most of the time.
- Upon reaching the objective:
- If it's a single enemy cast Smoke Bomb then continuously cycle between Synchronized Strike and Shift until they are dead.
- If it's a group follow a similar strategy by using Smoke Bomb on cooldown near large groups or tanky enemies, then target enemies with your Synchronized Strike/Shift rotation. If you run low on mana Shift a few times in a row without using Synchronized Strike. If you start to feel overwhelmed at any point use Decoy.
Bossing
- Use Smoke Bomb on cooldown as long as it's safe to do so.
- Synchronized Strike into the boss and then immediately Shift away. Continuously do this as long as you have enough mana.
- If you're low on mana Shift a few times without using Synchronized Strike until your mana refills.
- Use Decoy in emergencies when you need a breather or to keep adds off of you.
- Shadowslip from Shift gives us invulnerability while Shifting. This can be used to strategically avoid telegraphed attacks
- Multiple Umbral Blades cannot hit the same target, so when fighting large groups of enemies try to spread them around to maximize damage.
- Incapacitate from Shadow Cascade is our primary source of Frailty. Make sure powerful enemies maintain max stacks by using Synchronized Strike and Shift near them. One rotation will be enough to apply three stacks.
- Don't underestimate the power of Smoke Bomb. Along with applying Shadow Daggers it is also a major source of Armor Shred through Eroding Fumes and Swirling Fog and gives us a huge damage buff through Smoke Blades. On top of that, we get an immediate stack of Silver Shroud from Moonlight Bomb which guarantees we Dodge the next attack. The dodge can be used strategically to avoid telegraphed attacks and push DPS instead of disengaging.
Learn more about how to maximize your gameplay in the Build Scaling section of this guide.
Learn about the Gear, Gear Progression, Empowered Blessings and Idols for the Shadow Daggers Bladedancer Build.
Gear
Gearing in Last Epoch revolves around finding Items and then using the powerful Crafting System to enhance them. As long as an Item has Forging Potential left, players can upgrade or modify their Affixes up to Tier 5. However, the powerful Exalted Tier Affixes are drop only and can't be modified by players.
Using the correct Item Bases allows you to make use of their amazing Implicits, this is fundamental for gearing efficiently. Combine Implicits, Passives, Idols and Blessings to cap your Resistances and other defensive layers, while fitting as much Health related Affixes into your gear as possible. Plan ahead for your next upgrades and consider the final Empowered Blessings of your build while gearing. Finish up by farming Uniques with Legendary Potential and Sealing Affixes into Exalted Items to unleash all of your build's power!
Here are the Stat Goals for this build:
- Capped Resistances
- 50-60% Endurance
- 4000+ Health
- 60%+ Dodge Chance (Pre Buffs)
- 3000+ Armor (Pre Buffs)
- 50%+ Armor Shred Chance
- 175+ Flat Phys Damage
- 200%+ Physical Penetration with Shadow Daggers
- 200%+ Critical Strike Multiplier
- 50% - 75%+ Movement Speed (Pre Buffs)
- 100+% Increased Mana Regen
- 30%+ Armor Mitigation Applies to DoTs
Gear Progression
Milestone 1
Aim for good Item Bases with two valuable T5 Affixes. The Defensive rolls on T5 Suffixes are very important at this stage as they can easily cap all your Resistances when combined with Item Implicits, Idols, Blessings or Passives. Get a Weapon with double T5 offensive Prefixes as soon as possible.
Milestone 2
If you don't have Smoke Weaver yet, make sure your Critical Strike Avoidance is capped. Remember that Woven Flesh is always an option early on. It can be farmed by killing the Abomination in the Fall of the Outcast Monolith Timeline.
Milestone 3
Get a good pair of boots with Movement Speed. Fit as much Health into your gear as possible. Hybrid Health and Increased Health are extremely valuable, but can be hard to find early on. Use regular flat Health until you find them.
Milestone 4
Fit any Increased Shadow Daggers Effect wherever you can without sacrificing too much defense. If you have any Large Shadow Idols with Increased Shadow Daggers Effect and don't need your idol slots for resistances, or were lucky enough to find one that also has Elemental Resistance use them.
Milestone 5
While you look for this basic set of gear, start farming your Empowered Blessings and continue to look for any Idols that can help you cap all of your Resistances momentarily or increase your Damage output. Be on the lookout for Stout Lagonian Idols with good rolls of Increased Health and Added Health. Use them as soon as you no longer need those slots for resistances.
Milestone 1
Get your resistance Blessings so you can open space on your gear for other stats.
Milestone 2
Make sure you have enough Mana Regeneration to sustain a high number of rotations between Synchronized Strike and Shift.
Milestone 3
When all of your core Defenses are covered, start working on your Damage. Get Chance To Shred Armour on Hit on your Engraved Gauntlets. Also get Dexterity, Critical Strike Multiplier and any extra Increased Shadow Daggers Effect you can fit into the build.
Milestone 4
As you finish up your Empowered Blessings keep a decent Health pool, capped Resistances, Endurance and Critical Strike Avoidance. Your goal is to have items with 4 valuable T5 Affixes, also known as T20.
Milestone 5
While they are not mandatory, Siphon of Anguish, Smoke Weaver and Carcinization of Momentum have insane synergy with this build and you should start farming them now. Siphon of Anguish can be easily farmed from Shade of Orobyss. Smoke Weaver and Carcinization of Momentum are random world drops.
Milestone 1
Upgrade your T20 set up with Exalted items, high value Sealed Affixes or ideally both. Obtain the Affixes included in the Planner, but prioritize the indicated Item Bases for their Implicits. Make sure to Seal highly efficient low tier Affixes. Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use is a priority on your belt to remove DoTs.
Milestone 2
Farm Smoke Weaver, Siphon of Anguish and Carcinization of Momentum with Legendary Potential. Aim for the indicated Affixes in the Planner for each slot.
Milestone 3
Focus on finishing your Idol set up. Prioritize well rolled Increased Shadow Daggers Effect or Health Prefixes depending on whether you need more offense or defense. On your suffixes use Elemental Resistance as needed and switch to Increased Armour Shred Duration when resistance capped. Keep looking for double health Stout Lagonian Idols at the highest possible rolls.
Milestone 1
Keep upgrading your gear with Exalted Items and Sealed Affixes. Get every stat in the right place and in the correct Item Base. Min/Maxing your gear in Last Epoch can be pushed to the extreme as Items with multiple Exalted Affixes are technically possible.
Milestone 2
Get as close to perfect rolls for all of your Empowered Blessings and find all of your desired Idols with the best in slot Prefixes and Suffixes.
Milestone 3
Seal as much Dodge Rating on your belt as you can to further juice up your defenses. Be on the lookout for a pair of Eternal Gauntlets with Experimental Experimental Armour applies to Damage over Time on them. This is a big boost to your DoT damage reduction while also provide a ton of armor.
Milestone 4
Continue farming Siphon of Anguish, Smoke Weaver, and Carcinization of Momentum with the maximum Legendary Potential you can find. Now is also the time to start farming for Nihilis, Null Portent and Razorfall. Remember that some of these Items are extremely hard to get with multiple Legendary Potential. Good luck with the chase!
Learn the basics for crafting gear with our Beginner Crafting Guide.
Check our Unique Item & Set Farming Guide and learn how to get them!
Want to know more about Legendary Items? Check our Legendary Guide!
Blessings
Completing a Timeline in the Monolith of Fate lets you choose one of several randomized Blessings from its unique pool. Their benefits are permanent and persist even outside of the Monolith of Fate.
Empowered Blessings are a fundamental part of all builds, so getting the correct ones for each is key.
The sooner you reach Empowered Monolith, the faster you can start farming your desired Blessings!
Normal Blessings are not important as they are eventually replaced by Empowered Blessings. However they can still be a great source of Resistances, Critical Strike Avoidance or Life Leech for your build early on.
Pick up these Normal Blessings on your way to Empowered:
- Echo of Solarum
- Bastion of Divinity
- Survival of Might
- Persistance of Will
- Protection of Heorot
- Resolve of Grael
- Heart of the Caldera
- Body of Obsidian
- Bones of Eternity
Note: Don't target farm Normal Blessings. Get to Empowered Monolith as fast as you can.
Reaching Empowered Monolith unlocks all the level 100 Timelines and the ability to farm Empowered Blessings. Unlike Normal Blessings, these need to be farmed until you get the desired ones for your build. It is extremely important to get this set up as fast as possible to free up affix slots on your gear. Remember, the more value you get from your Blessings, the easier it is to craft efficient gear!
These are the core Combat Empowered Blessings for this build:
- If you are lacking Resistances, start with Grand Echo of Solarum or Grand Resolve of Humanity.
- If you are lacking Endurance, start with Grand Embers of Immortality.
- Go for Grand Bulwark of the Tundra next to get a big damage reduction boost.
These Empowered Blessings are flexible and depend on your current needs and goals.
These are valuable Empowered Drop Rate Blessings for this build:
- Grand Sight of the Outcasts is very valuable to help you find Large Shadow Idols with Increased Shadow Daggers Effect and Elemental Resistance or Increased Armour Shred Duration. Once you find all your Idols, you can switch to the Grand Winds of Fortune and focus on Uniques instead.
- Take Grand Subtlety of Slaughter to help you farm Smoke Weaver.
- Lastly Grand Memory of Masters and Grand Hope of the Beginning helps you find more Rogue Increased Shadow Daggers Effect Shard.
Learn how to farm Blessings fast with our Advanced Monolith Strategies.
Idols
Idols grant your character bonuses when equipped in the dedicated Idol Container. Unlock all the slots of your Idol Container by completing the Campaign and some of its Side Quests. Remember that some Idols are Class specific and you won't be able to equip them with other non-compatible Classes.
These are the Idols recommended for this build:
- Look for Large Shadow Idol with Increased Shadow Daggers Effect or %Health and Elemental Resistance or Increased Armour Shred Duration. Use Shadow Dagger Prefixes If you need damage, otherwise go health. For suffixes take Elemental Resistances until capped then go with the Armor Shred.
- You also want four Stout Lagonian Idols with %Health. Look for flat Health Suffix or Resistances if needed.
- Increased Stun Chance
- Increased Stun Duration
- Health
- %Health
- Vitality
- Armour
- Physical Resistance
- Cold Resistance
- Elemental Resistance
- Lightning Resistance
- Necrotic Resistance
- Poison Resistance
- Void Resistance
- Increased Armour Shred Effect
- Chance to Shred Armour on Throwing Hit
- Chance to Shred Armour on Melee Hit
- Dodge Rating if Hit Recently
- Mana Efficiency with Synchronised Strike
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Idol Slots.
Learn how to be efficient with Idols with our Advanced Idols Setups Guide.
Build Scaling
This build is focused around consistent and fast paced movement with lots of large Shadow Daggers crits clearing everything in our path. The playstyle needs high Movement Speed and Dodge because when we're going fast and not getting hit we're at our best with all of our buffs up. We also want to ensure that we're taking the right stats to scale Shadow Daggers so Flat Damage, Crit Multi, and Physical Penetration with Shadow Daggers are what we push for.
- Flat Melee/Throwing Damage: With 450% Added Damage Scaling from Shadow Daggers we can never have too much Flat Damage. Thanks to Shadow Daggers having both Melee and Throwing tags the Passive nodes Swift Assassin and Once will provide a double benefit. Try to get Melee Physical Damage on a Legendary Smoke Weaver to really boost your damage!
- Physical Penetration With Shadow Daggers: Since we don't get Physical Penetration anywhere else in our build and we're only scaling Physical Damage, this stat effectively works as a multiplier for all of our damage. Prioritize your helmet and get as much as you can on your idols without sacrificing too much HP. If you're incredibly lucky and get a Wings of Argentus with LP, see if you can get insanely lucky and put a tier 7 Increased Shadow Daggers Effect on it to effectively double your damage!
- Increased Mana Regeneration: Synchronized Strike is very expensive and we want to be able to spam it as much as possible. We need a large amount of Mana Regen to make this happen so this is a priority, especially early on. Get as much as you need to make the build feel good. The passive Spell Breaker is always an option if you feel like the build needs more.
- Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your Crits deal. We get 75% for free from All In. Stack the rest on gear. You can add a Legendary Li'raka's Claws if you can fit it in. The gloves only give Throwing Crit Multi but it's a huge amount so the damage increase is noticeable.
- Chance To Shred Armour on Hit: Each stack of this Ailment reduces enemy Armour by 100 for 4 seconds and stacks infinitely. Enemies have 0 Armour by default and it can go into the negatives. At -1000 Armour a target takes 23.7% increased Physical Damage, while at -4000 Armour it takes 57.2%. With the amount of hits the build has, the stacks ramp up quickly. We get a lot of Armour Shred from our skills, so with some Increased Armour Shred Duration on Idols and 50-100% Chance To Shred Armour on Hit on our gear we can easily shred over 10k Armour
- Dexterity: We get both Increased Damage and Dodge Rating from this stat. It's not a priority in gearing and we can get most of our Dexterity from passives, but fitting this in wherever we have room is a nice bonus.
- Increased Damage: We get so much of this from Passives, Dexterity and Smoke Bomb that we don't really need it on our gear.
- Evasion and Wings of Argentus: We're moving constantly and only stopping when it's safe, so these two sources provide a tremendous amount of reliable Damage Reduction. As long as you don't make a mistake and take a big hit while standing still you're very resistant to damage.
- Dodge: The stats Dexterity, Dodge and %Dodge allow us to reasonably reach between 30% and 40% permanent Dodge before buffs and on top of Silver Shrouds. Getting a well rolled Smoke Weaver makes a huge difference for Dodge scaling. Buffs can keep us above 60% most of the time with bursts over 80%. The Elusive Node on Shift provides a massive Dodge boost for 1 second. The passive node Confidence will reward good play with a large burst of sustainable Dodge while Once will help to make up for some of what is lost after a mishap.
- DoT Damage Reduction: Along with Evasion and Wings of Argentus which also provide reduction for dots, we have Prolonged Demise from the passive tree and Crimson Shroud stacks from Crimson Storm on Synchronized Strike. Needless to say, this build performs very well against DoTs!
- Silver Shrouds: As long as you have one up, the next hit you take is Dodged instead. You also gain 100 Ward per Silver Shroud once they proc to Dodge the incoming attack. Use Smoke Bomb in high intensity fights to get a free dodge, or if you want to maximize your damage on a boss you can always try to time their mechanic with it instead of running away!
- Glancing Blows: We only have 31% chance so this isn't a reliable source, but when it works we take 35% less damage from Hits with Glancing Blows. This equates to about 11% average damage reduction. Thanks to Shroud of Dusk we also have a 32% chance to gain a stack of Dusk Shroud when hit. Each stack gives us 5% Glancing Blow chance.
- Armour Mitigation: Before the Throne of Ambition nerf this build used to scale Armour to an extreme, but we can still get a lot of damage reduction here. With Grand Body of Obsidian, Increased Armour on our boots and Confidence we can get about 1700 Armour which equates to around 36% Physical and 26% non Physical damage reduction from hits.
- Shift: This dash gives immunity frames while it's used thanks to the Shadowslip node. Time this Skill properly to avoid incoming damage or potential 1 shots. It also provides a massive boost of Dodge on use.
- Decoy: Crazy support skill that Taunts. While Taunted, enemies focus the Decoy instead of attacking you. Can be used unspecced.
- Health: This build can stack a decent health pool despite not having double suffixes from body armour. It's very effective when combined with all the other defensive layers this Bladedancer has access to.
- Leech: Thanks to Blood Dance, Siphon of Anguish and Melee Damage Leeched as Health on our gloves this build has excellent leech. Even though we don't leech the throwing part of our damage it makes no difference since the leech we do have can top us off almost instantly.
- Chill: This is an Ailment that greatly reduces the Action and Movement Speed of your enemies. We get ours from Coldsnap Strike on Umbral Blades, which frees up a suffix slot on our gear for other defenses.
- Frailty: This Ailment reduces the Damage dealt by enemies by 6% for 4 seconds and it stacks 3 times. We get ours from Incapacitate on Shadow Cascade. This frees up a suffix slot on our gear.
- Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use: Cleanse all Ailments on Potion use. This is especially valuable for clearing high damage DoT stacks.
- Critical Strike Avoidance: Getting crit means we take double damage, so avoiding that is a must. Use this stat until you get Smoke Weaver, which will prevent enemies from Critically Striking through Blind.
- Endurance: At cap this stat provides us with 60% damage reduction for any damage taken below our Endurance Threshold, which is 20% of our maximum health for this build. By scaling Endurance we mitigate the risk of one shots and also provide ourselves with a chance to recover from DoTs by out leeching them at low health.
Our Damage Explained Article covers all you need to know to scale Damage.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Loot Filter
Loot Filters are critical in Last Epoch. Making sure you highlight all the related valuable Item Bases, Affixes, Uniques and Idols is crucial to ensure your character's progression. As your gear gets better, remember to hide the rules that are no longer useful to avoid screen clutter.
Here is the Endgame Loot Filter for this build:
Learn how to load and make Filters with our Loot Filter Guide.
Video Guide
Summary
Overall Shadow Daggers Bladedancer is a great build that can deal with all the content in the game and clear it faster than almost any other build in the game.
- Go very fast without sacrificing damage or survivability. The faster you go, the better!
- Fully embrace the playstyle of the build and enhance it with every component, making full use of the Evasion, Asuvon's Pact, Perfection and Confidence Nodes that reward you for going fast and not getting hit.
- Assassinate your enemies from up close!
- Use Decoy to distract and group your enemies. Take advantage of this to reposition and DPS.
- Take advantage of Smoke Weaver, Wings of Argentus and Siphon of Anguish to really turbocharge the playstyle.
- Shift can save you from incoming Damage. Time it perfectly for the Damage Immunity!
Credits
Written by McFluffin.
Reviewed by Lizard_IRL, Aristotelian