Introduction
The Deathblow Striker is built around the Class Engraving Deathblow which amplifies the damage of your Esoteric Skills Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike and Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges.
This build focuses more on burst damage than the Esoteric Flurry Striker. Here you'll hit higher numbers in a shorter time, which is optimal against bosses with high mobility. But at the same time, missing your burst damage Esoteric skills leads to a huge DPS drop. This build relies on Crit and proper positioning to benefit from the Back Attack modifier. Ultimately this is a high skill build that requires boss knowledge to succeed.
They focus on the Specialization Combat Stat to increase the damage of their Esoteric and Awakening Skills and the rate they gain Elemental Orb.
Strikers are a burst synergy class because of the Attack Speed buff and Crit Chance debuff provided by Lightning Whisper. Synchronizing these with your team is crucial for inflicting maximum damage.
This build guide assumes you have a Character at Level 50 before transitioning to it. Check out the Striker Leveling and 1-50 Leveling guides to reach Level 50.
Check out the Esoteric Flurry Striker for an alternative Striker playstyle.
Check out the Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides for an introduction to their content.
Raid Skill Build
- Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike and Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges are used as the Esoteric Skills for their upfront burst and higher single target damage.
- Sky Shattering Blow is usually used as a Counter Attack and also provides massive attack speed and Movement Speed buffs.
- Lightning Whisper generates large amounts of elemental orb and provides an 8% attack speed buff to everyone in the party. It also debuffs your target with an 18% higher chance to be critically struck.
- Moon Flash Kick and Vicious Tiger Dance are great gauge generators, especially when paired with the Wealth rune.
- Storm Dragon Kick is great for procing rune effects since all 3 attacks count as casted skills. It's great to pair with the Rage rune for a higher chance to proc the Attack Speed and Movement Speed buffs.
Alternatives
- For Awakening you can choose between Ultimate Skill: Explosive Heat Awakening for more higher Stagger check and Ultimate Skill: Potent Heavenly Kick as they deal roughly the same amount of damage. Ultimate Skill: Potent Heavenly Kick is usually what players go for though for it's shorter animation lockout.
- During Tier 1 and Tier 2, Swift Wind Kick can be replaced with Flash Heat Fang for slightly more damage and lower Esoteric Meter gain, or Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike for a 2nd orb spender skill to do more burst damage if you have enough Specialization. Having a few Wealth runes helps comfortably charge 4 orbs.
- During early skill points stages, Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges can also be replaced with Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike for higher damage, but with a slight charge up time.
- When you have 1580+ Specialization with all the high grade Wealth runes collected and also fully upgraded all the Esoteric Meter gain Skill Trees(e.g. Esoteric Extortion), Sweeping Kick can be replaced with Esoteric Skill: Blast Formation for higher damage outside of Lightning Whisper window since it benefits from Deathblow effect and Esoteric Skills damage increase from high Specialization. Esoteric Extortion is needed on Lightning Whisper, if you want to use the Triple Spenders variant.
- Sweeping Hidden Dragon is another mobility skill.
Gameplay and Skill Rotation
Deathblow gameplay involves generating 4 Elemental Orbs for increased damage with your Esoteric Skills. Storm Dragon Kick is your go-to skill for dodging in and out of bosses attack patterns or mechanics. Moon Flash Kick can also be used as an emergency escape since it has a decent travel distance built in. You sacrifice massive Esoteric Meter gain by doing so.
Main Damage Rotation (Below 800 Specialization with limited or no Wealth runes)
- Generate 3.5 to 4 Elemental Orbs from Moon Flash Kick, Sky Shattering Blow, Storm Dragon Kick, Swift Wind Kick and Vicious Tiger Dance
- Lightning Whisper
- Sweeping Kick
- Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges or Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike
- Start over by generating 3.5 to 4 Elemental Orbs before using Lightning Whisper
Try to save Sweeping Kick for when Lightning Whisper is up. Otherwise use Sweeping Kick anytime if its Cooldown is too far apart from Lightning Whisper.
When it's difficult to perform the full rotation, prioritize Lightning Whisper with Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike or Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges.
During skill downtime, hold down the movement button while tapping basic attack repeatedly to perform a basic attack cancel.
Stats Priority
Deathblow Strikers run both Specialization and Crit, but prioritize Specialization since it boosts Esoteric Skills damage and increases Elemental Orb generation. It allows the Striker to get the 4 orb maximum faster (the 2 extra orbs grant a tremendous 70% damage increase) while also increasing Awakening Skill damage.
Engravings
Class Engravings provide powerful stat boosts that dictate the playstyle of a class. Battle Engravings are generally used to increase damage. Below are the recommended Engravings for this build.
Check out the Engraving Guide for more details.
Starter Engravings
- Deathblow allows Esoteric Skills to deal massive damage because of the 2 extra orbs (level 3 effect 35% x 2 = 70% more damage).
- Master of Ambush since Strikers rely on Back Attacks for the extra 10% Crit Rate, this engraving adds extra damage on top of it.
Add-On Endgame Engravings
- Keen Blunt Weapon* requires at least 60% Crit Rate to make use of its bonus. Thankfully, you receive a free Crit Rate stat boost from Lightning Whisper.
- Spirit Absorption helps players that aren't comfortable with slower Attack Speed and Movement Speed.
- Adrenaline is the last choice if the player can fit in a level 1 or 2 engraving for some extra Crit Rate, since Storm Dragon Kick can get 3 stacks by itself.
Advanced Engravings
Note: The Advanced Engravings are the Best in Slot setup for Tier 3 content. The penalties attached to these can be hard to overcome for new players. Only use the following engravings if you are experienced with the boss fight!
- Grudge* increases damage done while also increasing damage received. The engraving is a highly effective damage increase without needing specific positioning, making it worthwhile even with the penalty.
- Cursed Doll* is an easy Attack Power increase at the cost of 25% healing penalty. The healing penalty can be punishing for inexperienced players not familiar with boss mechanics.
(*)These Engravings should only be used at Engraving Level 3.
Optimal Setups
Engravings are listed in order of priority from left to right.
Standard
Alternative
Gear Sets
These are the specific gear sets for each tier.
Check out the Gear Set Guide for more details.
Notes :
- If speedrunning your alts, you can skip Abyss Dungeon Gear up to 1370 gearscore by just honing Chaos Dungeon Gear.
- If you're close to 1445 gearscore and were already doing Valtan/Vykas Normal Mode, you can skip crafting the Legendary Legion Raid Gears.
- If you have already crafted Relic Gears, hold onto them because once you unlock the Gear Set Conversion feature, you will be able to freely swap between Relic Legion Raid Sets.
"Play at your own pace" Route
Tier 1
340 gearscore
Seraphic Oath Set
460 gearscore
Boisterous Elemental Set
Tier 2
840 gearscore
Marvelous Earth Set
960 gearscore
Unyielding Will Set
Early Tier 3
1302-1370 gearscore
Twisted Dimensional Set
Tier 3 Argos Set
1370 -1415 gearscore
Preordained Diligence Set
Tier 3 Legion Raid Set
1415 - 1444 gearscore
Preordained Diligence Gloves & Shoulders
Demon Beast Strength 4 pc
1445+ gearscore
Earth's Entropy Set
Runes
Runes enhance Skills with extra bonuses. All Rune drops are account bound and have limited availability, so placement of Runes on the correct Skills is important. Below are the recommend parings.
Check the Rune Guide for more details.
| Skills | Runes |
| Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike | Galewind |
| Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges | Galewind Overwhelm |
| Sweeping Kick | Galewind Wealth |
| Moon Flash Kick | Wealth |
| Lightning Whisper | Wealth |
| Storm Dragon Kick | Rage |
| Sky Shattering Blow | Wealth Quick Recharge Bleed |
| Vicious Tiger Dance | Wealth |
| Swift Wind Kick* | Wealth |
| Sweeping Hidden Dragon* | Galewind Rage |
(*)additional skill choices base on level of gauge gain.
- Storm Dragon Kick is paired with Rage for a higher chance to proc the speed buffs because all 3 attacks counts as casted skills.
- Moon Flash Kick and Lightning Whisper are paired with Wealth rune since these skills generate the most Esoteric Meter in the build. Sweeping Kick can be paired with it as well if the player can't generate orbs efficiently. When you have high enough skill points to max out Sky Shattering Blow, it also can be paired with Wealth rune.
- As most other skills have long cast times, it is recommend to pair them with Galewind to hasten the casting time/shorten the animation. However due to the rune limitation in Tier 1 content, any runes can be slotted on the skills if you lack Galewind runes.
Gear Skill Tree
While Gems add benefits to skills, you can also increase the effects of Skill Tree themselves. Skill Tree levels go up to 5 and each level can increase the damage, cooldown reduction or buff that they provide.
For more information on how to add equipment Skill Tree and how to get them, please visit our Skill Tree System Guide.
| Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike | Single Strike Weak Point Detection Charged Kick |
| Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges | Quick Preparation Single Strike Ascension |
| Moon Flash Kick | White Flame Kick Excellent Mobility Full Moon Kick |
| Vicious Tiger Dance | Efficient Strike |
| Storm Dragon Kick | Excellent Mobility |
| Sky Shattering Blow | Blessing of the Wind Abundant Resources |
| Sweeping Kick* | Weak Point Detection Light of Justice Pure Excellence |
| Lightning Whisper | Esoteric Extortion Quick Preparation |
| Esoteric Skill: Blast Formation* | Weak Point Detection Flame Explosion Great Explosion |
| Sweeping Hidden Dragon* | Spiral Kick (Optional) Quick Prep |
(*) Optional skill choices.
Gems
Gems grant bonus damage and cooldown reduction to specific skills. You can only equip 11 of these Gems at a time so it is recommended that you prioritize the Gems for your most important skills.
Please visit our Gem System Guide for more information like how to create higher tier Gems.
Attack Gems
Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike
Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges
Sweeping Kick*
Esoteric Skill: Blast Formation*
Cooldown Gems
Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike
Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges
Vicious Tiger Dance
Moon Flash Kick
Storm Dragon Kick
Sky Shattering Blow
Lightning Whisper
Sweeping Kick*
Esoteric Skill: Blast Formation*
Sweeping Hidden Dragon*
(*) Optional gem choices.
Card Sets
Cards are an endgame system for maximizing your character. Below are the recommend sets for this class.
Check out the Card Guide for more details on how to obtain them.
Budget Card Set
Optional Card Set
Optimal Damage Card Set
Summary
- Deathblow Strikers dish out explosive damage with their Esoteric skills Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges and Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike.
- Apply Lightning Whisper before dealing damage to gain an attack speed buff and increased Crit Rate on your target.
- The mobility for Deathblow Strikers can be uncomfortable for some players due to having no Swiftness. Be careful with your positioning and use Storm Dragon Kick first attack + the generic spacebar dash to move around.
- The main stat for Deathblow Strikers is Specialization for the increased Esoteric Meter gain and increased Esoteric and Awakening Skills damage.
- Your priority Engravings to get to Level 3 are Deathblow and Grudge. Consider additional Engraving choices of Adrenaline for more Crit Rate, or Master of Ambush for extra damage.
Credits
Written by Rei
Reviewed by Raxxanterax
