Deathblow Striker Build Guide

Welcome to the Deathblow Striker Build Guide! This build focuses on generating Esoteric Orbs then consuming all at once to unleash powerful bursts of damage with Esoteric Skills. It's a back-attacking builder-spender playstyle centered around burst damage. This means your positioning plays a key role in how much damage you deal.

Outside of that, Deathblow striker struggles to deal quick Stagger and Destruction mainly due to long cooldowns, but it's okay in long checks.

Want a more fast paced and dynamic playstyle? Check out our Esoteric Flurry guide.

Builds

Raids

Chaos Dungeons

Need some tips for general content? Check out our Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides.

• Sky Shattering Blow is your Counter and a main Esoteric Orb generator.
• Moon Flash Kick is another Esoteric Orb generator. Using it from long range can serve as a gap-closer but reduces the amount of orbs generated.
• Vicious Tiger Dance is another of your main Esoteric Orb generators.
• Storm Dragon Kick is a mobility tool that also serves to stack Adrenaline, and provides a small amount of Esoteric Orb.
• Lightning Whisper is your Crit Synergy, as well as a party-wide Attack Speed buff. It's also a main Esoteric Orb generator and a Destruction skill.
• Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges, Esoteric Skill: Blast Formation and Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike are your "spenders", they consume the Esoteric Orbs generated to deal massive burst damage.

Alternative Skill, Tripod, and Rune Options

Vicious Tiger Dance

• Focus Hit - It fastens the animation a lot, allowing for smoother gameplay but requires you to have all 5 Wealth runes (1 Legendary, 2 Epic, 2 Rare) and high Specialization (1825+). You also need to rearrange Wealth runes in the following order:
  • Wealth in Vicious Tiger Dance.
  • Wealth in Moon Flash Kick and Sky Shattering Blow.
  • Wealth in Storm Dragon Kick and Lightning Whisper.

Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges

• Hoseunggyuk - Alternative option which provides more damage, but reduces hitbox size making it harder to land in some enemies.

Check the Rune Guide for more details on Runes and how to obtain them.

This build is optimized and meant to be used only in Chaos Dungeons. For Ebony Cube please use a Raid build.

• Esoteric Skill: Call of the Wind God is your main lesser monster clearing tool.
• Esoteric Skill: Blast Formation is a good front-cone skill that deals high damage to elites.
• Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike and Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges are your main Boss killers. Alternatively Ultimate Skill: Potent Heavenly Kickis also strong to kill the 2nd floor Boss.
• Lightning Whisper and Lightning Kick are your main Esoteric Orb generators. They're also good against lesser monsters.

Recommended Engraving Setup

While you can freely experiment with any engravings you want for this content, here's a recommended setup, based on the Engraving Support system:

• Preemptive Strike causes your attacks to deal immense amounts of damage to monsters that you haven't attacked yet, making it ideal for Chaos Dungeons.
• Contender is a stacking Attack Power effect that increases in strength once you kill a monster, making it ideal for Chaos Dungeons.
• Raid Captain provides damage based on your Bonus Movement Speed, synergizing well with the Buff Nodes scattered throughout Chaos Dungeons.
• Cursed Doll increases your damage with essentially no drawback in Chaos Dungeons.
• Esoteric Flurry allows you to make better use of Esoteric Orbs.

Gameplay & Skill Rotation

This build focuses on dealing massive amounts of burst damage with your Esoteric Skills. Skills like Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike, Esoteric Skill: Blast Formation and Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges make use of all your Esoteric Orbs to boost their damage and hit really hard.

As for your Identity, there's no special interaction other than that of the engraving.

All attacks with a Back Attack affix receive +10% Crit Rate and +5% Damage when they land on the target's back-side indicator. It is important to position yourself accordingly as much as possible in order to take advantage of this.

Managing your skills in a proper way to not over-generate Esoteric Orbs is a core part of Deathblow's gameplay, proper skill combos will result in efficient use of your resources.

Striker Identity

Deathblow engraving provides an additional Esoteric Orb (4 total). It also makes all Esoteric Skills consume all your available orbs, increasing their damage by 35% per consumed orb.

Basic Rotations

The general idea of this build is to pair 1 Esoteric Orb generation combo with 1 Esoteric Skill. Since combat may alter which skills you use and in which order, they're listed as examples below.

Esoteric Orb combos

+

+

+ +

• Each line represents a different combo that you can use to generate 4 Esoteric Orbs (given you have the appropriate stats, runes and tripod levels).
• In case you miss one of the skills, or have them on cooldown, Vicious Tiger Dance + Lightning Whisper or Moon Flash Kick + Sky Shattering Blow can also generate 4 Orbs.

Esoteric Skill Priority

• If Esoteric Skill: Blast Formation lands all hits, it should have higher priority than Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges.

Stagger Check Rotation

• In longer checks you can proceed with your usual combos to avoid desyncing skills.
• Remember you can also use a Whirlwind Grenade if you have one equipped!

Tripods and Gems

Tripod Levelling

Increasing the level of Tripods greatly enhances their effectiveness. You may only increase the level of 18 tripods at a time. Some of them cannot be leveled at all, or are left at level 1 - these tripods are omitted from the table, even if they are used. Here are the main tripods you should look out for in order to maximize this build's potential.

Tripods written in bold text are your highest priority, make sure to level them first!

For more information on where to obtain Tripod Amulets and how to use them, check out our Skill Tree System Guide.

Gems

Gems are another significant aspect of your build, as they directly impact the damage and cooldowns of your skills. You can equip up to 11 gems at a time. Here are the ones you should focus on in order to maximize this build's potential, listed according to their priority.

For more information on where to obtain gems and how to use them, check out our Gem System Guide.

Stat Priority

This build utilizes Specialization and Crit.

• Specialization is the primary stat. It increases Esoteric Orb generation and Esoteric Skill damage.
• Crit is a secondary stat.

Gear Set

Entropy Set

This set is optimal thanks to the large amounts of Crit Rate, Crit Damage, and positional damage it provides.

Check out the Gear Progression Guide for step by step instructions and early game gearing.
If you are interested in Sidereal Weapons, click here for more details.

Engravings

Engravings are a core part of your build. Typically, most engravings will be used at level 3, but there are some that can be used at level 1 or 2 in addition to the others, after reaching item level 1540 and unlocking Ancient Accessories.

Engraving Explanations

Core Engravings

• Deathblow is the core engraving of this build, adding the additional Esoteric Orb and increasing the damage of Esoteric Skills based on amount of Orbs consumed.
• Ambush Master is a huge boost to positional skills which comprise most of your damage.
• 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.

Add-on Engravings (Pick 2)

• Cursed Doll is a significant Attack Power increase at the cost of 25% healing. The healing penalty can be punishing for inexperienced players who are not familiar with boss mechanics, but it becomes easy to overcome with time.
• Keen Blunt Weapon is a decent alternative due to the high Crit Rate you aim to have.
• Adrenaline provides an additional source of Crit Rate and Attack Power.

Level 1 and 2 Engravings

• Adrenaline is optimal at level 2, but may result in a bit low Crit Rate at level 1 which can feel bad. Still a good choice.
• Ether Predator slowly provides Attack Power and defense, ramping up during the fight but requires you to pick up orbs and it's not as strong in shorter fights.

Check out the Engraving Guide for more details.

Bracelet

Bracelets provide beneficial effects to yourself or to your party members depending on the rolls they have.

The primary goal is to get the main stats used by this build Specialization and Crit. After that you should be aiming for Special Rolls to get more damage. Please note that this system is heavily reliant on RNG, and you should not expect to get much more beyond your main stats early on.

Check out the Bracelet Guide for more details.

Elixir

The recommended Elixir Set for this build is Critical. If your Crit Rate is lower due to running Adrenaline 1, you can take Master instead.

Check out the Elixir Guide for more details and general stat recommendations.

Card Sets

Cards are an endgame system that helps maximize your character's damage. Here are the recommended card sets for this build.

• Deep Dive is used early on as it is fairly easy to obtain.
• Light of Salvation is the standard endgame option, but it can take a long time to acquire 30-piece Awakening.
• Kazeros's Legion Commanders is used as an alternative to Light of Salvation, in content where enemies have a weakness to Dark Damage.
• Fate of the Lazeniths + Three Umar Families is the best option for Striker. It's only worth to use with both sets at max awakening level. You need to have very good back attack uptime and make good use of the elemental damage buff for it to be as good or better than Light of Salvation.
• Three Umar Families combined with A Voice Calls with is used as an alternative to Light of Salvation, in Guardian Raid content exclusively.

Check out the Card Guide for more details on how to obtain cards and interact with them.

End Game Damage Card Set

Optimal Damage Card Set

This card set combination is only used by Strikers, and requires max awakening levels in all parts to be as effective as Light of Salvation. It also requires you to have very good back attack uptime and to fit at least 1-2 spenders inside the Lazeniths proc.

Do not waste selector card packs or similar resources into unlocking this set, as it could gimp your progression in other characters.