Demonic Impulse Shadowhunter Build Guide

Welcome to the Demonic Impulse Shadowhunter Build Guide! This build revolves around quickly generating Shadowburst Meter with your Intrude skills to transform into a powerful Demon (Z). Using quick slashes and scratches from her Demon Skills to deal consistent damage and generate enough stacks to unleash a powerful Bloody Piercing.

Demonic Impulse brings decent amounts of Stagger and Destruction, mixing both Demon and Human skills.

Raids

Kurzan Front

Skills Setup

• Demon Vision, Demon's Grip, Howl and Demonic Clone are your main Shadowburst meter generators.
• Decimate and Thrust Impact are backup Shadowburst meter generators.
• Rising Claw is your human form Counter, as well as a good Stagger and Destruction tool.
• Demonic Slash is your human form mobility skill, as well as a Destruction tool with two charges.
• Howl also provides Destruction and applies your Damage Amplification Synergy in human form.
• Blood Massacre, Leaping Blow, Blood Marsh, Gore Bleeding and Destruction are your main damage skills in Demon form.
• Death Claw is your Demon form Counter and also applies Synergy. It does decent damage.
• Ruining Rush is a mobility skill that also applies Synergy. It does decent damage.

Alternative Skill, Tripod, and Rune Options

Demon Vision

• Concentrated Release increases the Shadowburst Meter generated but also lengthens the animation. It's useful if you have low level Shadowburst meter tripods, or if you use Decimate instead of Demon's Grip to transform in 4 skills. This also allows you to drop the Wealth rune in Demonic Clone as long as you have more than 1711 Specialization, and add one rune to Destruction.
• Quick Release requires at least 1825 Specialization with one Wealth in Demon Vision, one Wealth in Howl and one Wealth in Demonic Clone. If you have a second Wealth rune, this breakpoint drops to 1767 Specialization.

Skills Setup

• Grind Chain is your main skill to clear lesser monsters. It has big radius and can be used pretty often.
• Cruel Cutter is your main damage skill to take down Bosses.
• The rest of the skills do high enough damage to one-shot mostly everything.

Recommended Engravings

• Preemptive Strike
• Contender
• Raid Captain
• Cursed Doll
• Magick Stream

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Warning

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

Demonic Impulse gameplay focuses on quickly generating Shadowburst Meter to Demonize, unleashing powerful Demon Skills and gathering 60 Chaos Sliver stacks to perform a brutal Bloody Piercing on the enemy. Upon completing this cycle, you go back into Human Form and the cycle repeats.

Your main objective is to constantly perform this sequence to deal consistent bursts of damage.

Activating her identity grants you the following:

• 20% Move Speed
• 30% Crit Rate
• Access to Demon Skills, whose cooldowns are reset upon transforming
• Paralysis Immunity during the entire transformation

All your skills in Demon form lack a positional modifier, meaning that you can hit them from any side of the boss without worrying about losing positional bonuses. Bear in mind that most of them are close range so you want to be near the boss.

Demonic Impulse Identity

Shadowburst Meter generation

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• Using skills in this specific order is recommended so you apply your party Synergy, Damage Amplification, as soon as possible and it also affects all your own skills.
• Beware of Boss attacks, since Howl and Demon's Grip lack Paralysis Immunity and if they're cancelled you won't gain any Shadowburst Meter.

Demon Form rotation

Pre-Bloody Piercing

• Using skills in this specific order at the start of your rotation is recommended because it allows you to maximize Blood Massacre and Leaping Blow casts if you have a high level Cooldown Gem or Swiftness as your secondary stat.
• Fit your Blood Marsh whenever possible.
• Remember to cast Gore Bleeding and Destruction as many times as possible, as soon as they are available.
• Also, remember to constantly apply Synergy with Ruining Rush and Death Claw.

Post-Bloody Piercing

You aim to use two Blood Massacre and two Leaping Blow per transformation, with as many of the other Demon Skills as you can to reach 60 Chaos Sliver stacks and unleash Bloody Piercing. Once that is done, you manually Cancel Demonization and start the cycle again.

[...] →

• After your initial sequence, cooldowns will come back at different times so you follow the damage priority order: Gore Bleeding → Destruction → Death Claw → Ruining Rush.
• If you have optimal uptime on the enemy, you will most likely have to wait a few seconds after using Bloody Piercing for Blood Massacre and Leaping Blow to come back.
• You must fill the gaps in your cooldowns with Basic Attacks since those also generate stacks and deal decent damage.

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 to maximize this build's potential, listed according to their priority.

Engravings are a core part of your build. You can equip up to five at a time, freely swapping between them.

Engravings are listed in order of importance.

Engravings Information

• Hit Master doesn't affect Fallen Ruin, Decimate, Howl, Demonic Clone or Thrust Impact. It also doesn't affect Bleed and Poison runes, therefore it has reduced efficiency.
• Raid Captain requires you to obtain additional sources of Move Speed to beat Hit Master.
  • Vernese Wine, which can be bought in Peyto or Fermata islands, provides 3% Move Speed, increasing Raid Captain efficiency but still not enough to beat Hit Master.
  • Stronghold Feast provides 5% Move Speed, increasing Raid Captain efficiency past Hit Master.
  • Rage runes provide up to 16% Move Speed for 6 seconds. They have a low chance to trigger.
  • You can combine all those sources to boost Raid Captain efficiency beyond what Hit Master offers.

Tripods affect your skills directly by providing utility, damage, cooldown reduction or gauge generation. You should level up these first:

• Demonic Clone: Enh. Release Shadowburst
• Demon Vision: Encroaching Power
• Demon's Grip: Encroaching Power
• Howl: Encroaching Power

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 your build. After that, you should be aiming for Special Rolls to get more damage. Here are the effects you should look out for, in no particular order:

The recommended Elixir Set for this build is Master.