Introduction
If someone were to define Destroyer's playstyle in as few words as possible, they would describe it with "slow", "tanky" and "burst".
To deal massive burst damage, Destroyers generate Cores using Concentration Skills like Heavy Crush. They then spend these cores by using Gravity Release Skills like Perfect Swing, dealing extra damage based on the number of cores consumed.
Virtually all Destroyer skills have Paralysis or Push Immunity. Gravity Release Skills also generate a massive shield when used, preventing damage if timed during Boss patterns. If that wasn't enough, Endure Pain reduces all incoming damage by up to 90%, acting as your God Mode skill in emergencies.
Rage Hammer Destroyers suffer from long cast animations for Gravity Release Skills and low mobility. Super Charge is used as one of the main Engraving choices to supplement slow cast speed as most of your Gravity Release Skills are charge skills.
Destroyers also have access to Defense Reduction debuffs from their skills for team synergy. Furthermore, they become one of the only two classes with Taunt.
Rage Hammer Destroyer isn't for everyone. The heavy burst damage makes this build appealing for some, but players might not like how "slow" the class feels. Because of this, you focus more on negating damage taken rather than dodging attacks. Fear not, as any negatives are remedied by Destroyer's built in kit and Engravings.
Check out the Gravity Training Destroyer Build Guide for an alternative Destroyer playstyle.
This build guide assumes you have a Character at Level 50 before transitioning to it. Check out the Destroyer Leveling and 1-50 Leveling guides to reach Level 50.
Check out the Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides for an introduction to their content.
Raid Skill Build
- For your Awakening skill, Big Bang deals massive damage and you have 50% damage taken reduction during it. The downside is that you will barely be able to move and no Gravity Meter will be generated.
- Spacebar is an important tool for canceling your animation recovery after using a skill. But this sacrifices your mobility option.
- Heavy Crush is your low cooldown Core generator skill.
- Jumping Smash is your gap closer while also applying a defense reduction debuff.
- Dreadnaught is used as your Counter property, but can also act as a defensive button to tank through attacks with Tenacity and Toughened Body.
- Full Swing and Earth Eater are your main Stagger Check skills. They have fast animation start-up and deal higher Stagger Damage than Perfect Swing and Seismic Hammer.
- Endure Pain is used for setting up your main burst skills, Perfect Swing, Full Swing and Seismic Hammer. You can also you this as your defensive button to tank through attacks. This is important as Destroyer lacks mobility. He makes up for this with the ability to tank through attacks by taking reduced damage. This also acts as your taunt skill, so be careful of accidentally taunting the target towards your raid members. This skill will not save you from one shot mechanics.
Alternatives
These are the following skills that can replace Jumping Smash when you know how to correctly position in fights and don't need a gap closer anymore.
Note: Make sure to get the Armor Destruction Skill Tree option, if skills with it have been replaced with another skill.
Skill Tree options will be shown in the tooltips for the skills below.
- Power Strike provides a slightly faster Counter, with a defense reduction debuff if Dreadnaught is on cooldown. Unfortunately, the skill has no Paralysis Superarmor. *This is the recommended switch when you are experienced enough to not need a gap closer for positioning.
- Gravity Impact provides a quick animation Core Generator. But you have to change Dreadnaught's Skill Tree from Tenacity to Armor Destruction to apply a Defense Reduction debuff. This makes the skill riskier to use, as you lose Push Immunity Superarmor.
- Power Shoulder is an alternative choice for a gap closer with faster animation.
The following skills can replace Earth Eater. You sacrifice damage output and a massive Stagger Check for more utility and safer gameplay.
- Running Crash applies a Stagger Damage increase debuff on target. You might find this useful for Stagger Check mechanics as all allies will deal increased Stagger Damage.
- Power Shoulder can be used as an additional gap closer until you feel comfortable without one.
Gameplay & Skill Rotation
Destroyer gameplay revolves around generating 3 Cores with Concentration skills to enhance Gravity Release skills. Gravity Release skills deal the most damage when consuming 3 Cores. When using your spenders, you have to be extremely cautious with positioning and knowledgeable of damage of boss mechanics. Since using your spenders will give you a massive shield, you need to be able to judge whether you can tank damage trades.
Hypergravity can be used in survival situations as it has massive 60% max HP shield , 30% damage taken reduction and immune to all Crowd Control during it. But it can't tank through wipe mechanics.
The Basic Rotation:
- Jumping Smash* > Heavy Crush > Seismic Hammer
- Dreadnaught > Heavy Crush > Perfect Swing**
- Jumping Smash* > Heavy Crush > Full Swing
- Dreadnaught > Heavy Crush > Earth Eater
(*) You can replace this skill with Power Strike.
(**) You can use Endure Pain to get 3 Cores immediately to use Perfect Swing with it's Push Immunity superarmor.
Reminder that if you need to cancel any skills recovery animations, you can do it with Spacebar.
Example: After using Seismic Hammer, cancels the recovery animation as soon as you touch the ground with Spacebar then Endure Pain to regain 3 Cores and continue with Perfect Swing.
Stagger Check Priority:
- Earth Eater
- Full Swing
- Seismic Hammer
- Jumping Smash
Note: Destroyer has a lot of skills with Mid-High Stagger Check but you have you judge carefully when to use them. For example, Perfect Swing is a High Stagger Check skill, but it is also 1 of your highest damage skills. There are other skills that deal higher Stagger Damage without needing to put one of your damage skills on cooldown.
Stats Priority
Rage Hammer Destroyers prioritize Crit and Specialization for the burst damage on their Gravity Release Skills.
- Standard: Your priority is getting 1300+ Crit (before bracelet). The rest of the stats is preference. You can stack Specialization for more damage or Swiftness for mobility. Crit and Specialization for maximum damage or Crit/Specialization/Swiftness combo for a more balanced approach.
Bracelet
Bracelets provide beneficial effects to yourself or to your party members depending on the rolls.
Note: Bracelets should not be your top priority to optimize since it'll be much more efficient to optimize your other gear first. Bracelets are costly! So slowly build towards a Main Stat and a Sub Stat. Anything else is extra!
Check out the Bracelet Guide for more details.
Possible Special Effects to Roll:
Optimal
Combat Stats (Specialization or Swiftness + Crit)
Circulate
Fervor
Hammer
Wedge
Battle
Alternatives
Basic Effect (Strength)
Precise
Assail
Superiority
Sawtooth Blade
Weapon Power
Harvest
Expose Weakness
Dagger
Engravings
Class Engravings provide powerful benefits that can significantly change playstyle. 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
- Rage Hammer grants extra Crit Rate and Crit Damage based on the number of Cores consumed when using Gravity Release skills.
- Super Charge increases the charging speed and damage of Earth Eater, Full Swing and Perfect Swing.
Add-On Endgame Engravings
- Master Brawler can be taken since the majority of Destroyer skills have Head Attack modifiers.
- Barricade is an excellent engraving for Destroyer since they gain shields from using Gravity Release skills when consuming Cores.
- Grudge* increases damage done to bosses while also increasing damage received from bosses. The engraving is a highly effective damage increase that does not require specific positioning, making it worthwhile even with the penalty.
- Cursed Doll* provides a significant 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.
Option 1
Option 2
Gear Sets
These are the specific gear sets for each tier.
Check out the Gear Set Guide for more details.
Early Game
250-1100 gearscore
Providence Set
1250-1340 gearscore
Dimensional Battle Set
Early Tier 3
1340 -1414 gearscore
Erupting Waves Set
Piercing Gaze Set
Craft any combination of the legendary gear sets listed above and try to push to 1415 as soon as possible.
Tier 3 Legion Raid Set
1415-1490-1580+ gearscore
Entropy Set
The name of your set will change with every higher tier gearset you acquire, but the set effect will remain the same. Look for the keyword of your set when recrafting it so you don't easily get lost.(e.g Entropy, Hallucination etc)
Sidereal Weapon
Recommended Sidereal Unity Effects for your Seraphic Land of Despair are Thirain and Balthorr.
Check out the Sidereal Weapon Guide for more details.
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 recommended pairings.
Check the Rune Guide for more details.
| Skills | Runes |
| Heavy Crush | Quick Recharge Bleed Rage Purify |
| Dreadnaught | Protection |
| Jumping Smash | Overwhelm Rage Protection Galewind |
| Endure Pain | Focus |
| Earth Eater | Overwhelm |
| Full Swing | Galewind |
| Perfect Swing | Galewind |
| Seismic Hammer | Galewind |
| Power Strike* | Rage Bleed Galewind |
| Power Shoulder* | Rage |
| Running Crash* | Rage |
- Rage is best used with a Core generator skill (e.g. Power Shoulder) so it can increase the speed of your main damage skills.
- Galewind is ideal for speeding up your highest damage dealing skills.
- Quick Recharge is used for skills closer to the end of your rotation for higher efficiency.
- Overwhelm is used to further improve the Stagger we apply, it is exceptionally effective when paired with Earth Eater.
- Focus reduces mana cost of skills.
- Bleed is a good filler rune to use on low cooldown skills.
- Protection is paired with Dreadnaught to allow you to soak some damage while Superarmoring through attacks. This also allows some safety measure when trying to Counter.
- Purify is best used on a low cooldown skill during specific boss encounters that will benefit from cleansing debuffs/dots effects.
(*) Optional skill choices.
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.
| Full Swing | Agile Movement or Quick Prep Scary Hammer Beast's Eye |
| Perfect Swing | Weak Point Detection Absolute Strength Intemperance |
| Seismic Hammer | Enhanced Strike Absolute Strength Starving Strength |
| Earth Eater* | Enhanced Strike Earthen Rage |
| Dreadnaught | Toughened Body or Enhanced Strike Violent Hammer |
| Jumping Smash* | Superior Change Smash |
| Endure Pain | Anti-Gravity(Optional) Healthy Mentality(Optional) |
| Power Strike* | Agile Movement |
| Power Shoulder* | Objective Complete |
| Running Crash* | Agile Movement Enhanced Advance(Optional) |
(*) 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
Full Swing
Perfect Swing
Seismic Hammer
Earth Eater
Cooldown Gems
Dreadnaught
Endure Pain
Full Swing
Perfect Swing
Seismic Hammer
Earth Eater
Jumping Smash*
Power Strike*
Power Shoulder*
Running Crash*
Gravity Impact*
(*) 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
Budget Card Set 2
This card set does not replace Light of Salvation set or Kazero's Legion Commanders set, but it can be use if you're new to the game and has set to get your Light of Salvation/Kazero's Legion Commanders set +18 or +30 yet.
Optimal Damage Card Set
Summary
- Destroyer has high survivability in exchange for slow attack animations and low mobility.
- Concentration Skills generate Cores while Gravity Release skills consumes Cores to increase its damage and grants massive personal shield.
- Rage Hammer Build focuses on maximizing Gravity Release skill damage with a focus on high Crit. Specialization and/or Swiftness are added to increase damage and provide comfy maneuverability.
- Even though, Endure Pain is your God Mode button. It can't be used to ignore 1 shot mechanics though.
Credits
Written by Rei
Reviewed by Facefoot
