Perfect Suppression Shadowhunter Build Guide
Last Updated:July 20, 2024|Change Log
Welcome to the Perfect Suppression Shadowhunter Build Guide! This is a consistent-damage class with lots of multi-hit skills that disables the Demon Form entirely.
Perfect Suppression revolves around generating Shadowburst Meter with your Intrude skills (often called builders) and spending it to boost specific Human skills (often called spenders). It also has several stat spreads and even alternative relic set options, providing different ways of playing around the same core concept.
Outside of that, Perfect Suppression inflicts decent amounts of Stagger and Destruction but it may fail to deliver in very short checks since her utility comes from the amount of skills cast.
- Good mobility
- Easy to learn
- Small Hitboxes
- Lack of Paralysis Immunity (Nightmare/Dominion)
- Positional Gameplay (Entropy)
Want a simpler playstyle based on Shadowhunter's Demon Form? Check out our Demonic Impulse guide.
Builds
Need some tips for general content? Check out our Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides.
- Cruel Cutter, Grind Chain and Spinning Weapon are your Spender skills. They consume 20% of the Shadowburst Meter with their Encroachment Release tripods, but in return deal much more damage.
- Demonic Clone is one of your main Shadowburst Meter generators.
- Rising Claw is your Counter skill and generates a bit of Shadowburst meter. It also provides Destruction.
- Piercing Thorn is your 4th most damaging skill (after the 3 spenders), it doesn't generate meter.
- Howl is your Synergy skill, generates good amounts of Shadowburst Meter and it also provides Destruction.
- Decimate is your 5th most damaging skill, and it also generates a bit of Shadowburst meter.
- Gate of Eruption is your Awakening skill. It generates good amounts of Shadowburst Meter, but its animation is long (if the enemy moves out, it doesn't generate).
Check the Rune Guide for more details on Runes and how to obtain them.
Need some tips for general content? Check out our Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides.
- Cruel Cutter, Grind Chain and Spinning Weapon are your Spender skills. They consume 20% of the Shadowburst Meter with their Encroachment Release tripods, but in return deal much more damage.
- In this setup, Spinning Weapon and Grind Chain are your Conviction and Judgement triggers. Be aware of the internal 30 seconds cooldown of these runes.
- Demonic Clone is one of your main Shadowburst Meter generators.
- Rising Claw is your Counter skill and generates a bit of Shadowburst meter. It also provides Destruction.
- Piercing Thorn is your 4th most damaging skill (after the 3 spenders), it doesn't generate meter.
- Howl is your Synergy skill, generates good amounts of Shadowburst Meter and it also provides Destruction.
- Decimate is your 5th most damaging skill, and it also generates a bit of Shadowburst meter.
- Gate of Eruption is your Awakening skill. It generates good amounts of Shadowburst Meter, but its animation is long (if the enemy moves out, it doesn't generate). You need to cast it during the Conviction + Judgement effect to reduce its cooldown even further.
Check the Rune Guide for more details on Runes and how to obtain them.
Need some tips for general content? Check out our Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides.
- Demonic Slash is your mobility skill, as well as a Move Speed self-buff through its Nimble Movement tripod. It deals Destruction.
- Cruel Cutter and Demolition are your two Shadowburst Meter spenders. They also deal the most damage.
- Thrust Impact and Sharpened Cut are secondary damage skills. The first moves you back a little, the second moves you forward.
- Decimate is another damage filler skill, but also generates a bit of Shadowburst Meter.
- Howl is your main Shadowburst meter generator, as well as your main Synergy skill.
- Rising Claw is your Counter skill, it also deals Destruction.
- Gate of Eruption is your Awakening skill. It generates a lot of Shadowburst meter, as long as the enemy stays inside its zone.
Alternative Skill, Tripod, and Rune Options
Rising Claw and Howl can be replaced with Slasher and Demon's Grip.
- This provides you with a ranged and faster meter generator, giving more meter per second but reducing your meter generated per skill. This also forces you to take another Synergy skill (Slasher) to maintain good uptime.
- This also lowers your overall Destruction and Stagger.
- Additionally, you need to move your Bleed rune to Slasher and your Conviction rune to Demonic Slash.
Demonic Slash
- You can take the Chain Charge tripod. This gives you two charges which makes easier to maintain Nimble Movement up, but causes you to use more mana and doesn't allow you to move through the boss.
Rising Claw
- You can take the Weak Point Detection tripod if you are running a setup without Adrenaline.
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.
- Grind Chain is your main skill to clear lesser monsters. It has big radius and can be casted pretty often.
- Cruel Cutter is your main damage skill to take down the Boss in the second floor.
- Piercing Thorn, Howl, Decimate and Demonic Clone are good skills to clear lesser monsters and also Elites.
- Demon's Grip is used to generate Shadowburst Meter for Cruel Cutter.
- Demonic Slash is used to move around and quickly destroy third floor's crystals.
- Gate of Eruption is your Awakening. You use it to activate Dominion's set effect for lower cooldowns.
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.
- Perfect Suppression increases your damage as well as your meter generation.
Gameplay & Skill Rotation
This build focuses on cycling between generating Shadowburst Meter and using it. Some of the skills lack Paralysis Immunity, meaning they can be interrupted easily by certain boss attacks.
You can't activate Demonize in this build, but you can utilize the Shadowburst generated to greatly increase Spenders damage.
Perfect Suppression increases the damage of Normal Skills by 20%/28%/36% and the Shadowburst Meter generation of all skills. It disables Demonize.
Depending on your relic set and playstyle choice, you have to play around different bonuses which adds a bit of complexity considering you also have to manage your Shadowburst Meter, Cooldowns and in some cases even Mana.
Shadowhunter Identity
You need to play around the Boundless MP state. Trying to force it and keeping it as long as you can to have lowered cooldowns, leading to a "piano" playstyle.
Basic Rotations
Opening Rotation
- Using skills in this specific order helps you get into Boundless State faster but also line up your cooldowns in such a way that your second set of spenders is already inside this state and benefits from the reduced cooldowns.
- As with any Boundless build, certain support tripods or mana regeneration sources can mess with your Boundless uptime, so always try to spam all your skills to maintain it for as long as possible.
- Remember to keep your Damage Amplification Synergy applied at all times. Be careful of not getting Howl's animation canceled, since it lacks Paralysis Immunity.
- Avoid using your spenders with less than 20% Shadowburst Meter, as they lose too much damage.
Stagger Check Rotation
- Stagger checks vary in length so you may need to cast more skills apart from the recommended ones here. Remember to use a Whirlwind Grenade if required for faster stagger.
You need to keep track of your Conviction and Judgement internal cooldown (30s) and your Awakening cooldown, and trigger both together to maintain high uptime on the set effects.
Basic Rotations
Standard Rotation
- Since you need to cast your Awakening to activate Dominion's effect, and you need to do it during the Conviction and Judgment window for the reduced cooldown, you need to track your Awakening's cooldown and Judgment's internal cooldown of 30 seconds.
- If your Awakening cooldown is less than 30s, you can switch the order of Spinning Weapon and Grind Chain to prevent triggering Conviction (and by consequence Judgment) until your Awakening is ready.
- Remember to keep your Damage Amplification Synergy applied at all times. Be careful of not getting Howl's animation canceled, since it lacks Paralysis Immunity.
- Avoid using your spenders with less than 20% Shadowburst Meter, as they lose too much damage. Unless you need to trigger Conviction and Judgment.
Stagger Check Rotation
- Stagger checks vary in length so you may need to cast more skills apart from the recommended ones here. Remember to use a Whirlwind Grenade if required for faster stagger.
Positional damage is your main goal so you need to chase the enemy's back all the time to benefit from the +10% Crit Rate and +5% Damage bonus, as well as from the relic set positional boost.
Basic Rotations
Standard Rotation
- This rotation assumes you start with some Shadowburst meter. You can use Gate of Eruption at the start of the fight for this, and then maintain your gauge with your normal generators.
- Use Demonic Slash at the start of the rotation to apply your Damage Amplification Synergy and your Nimble Movement self-buff.
- Proc Conviction and Judgement with Rising ClawCruel Cutter.
- Unload the rest of your damage skills, ideally in the listed order to keep cooldowns aligned.
- Avoid using your spenders with less than 20% Shadowburst Meter, as they lose too much damage.
Stagger Check Rotation
- Stagger checks vary in length so you may need to cast more skills apart from the recommended ones here. Remember to use a Whirlwind Grenade if required for faster stagger.
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.
Skill | 1st Tripod | 2nd Tripod | 3rd Tripod |
Cruel Cutter | Double-Edged Stike | Encroachment Release | |
Grind Chain | Critical Blow | Chain Attack | Encroachment Release |
Spinning Weapon | Quick Prep | Instant Disposal | Encroachment Release |
Demonic Clone | Fist of Destruction | Enh. Release Encroachment | |
Rising Claw | Quick Prep | ||
Piercing Thorn | Vital Point Hit | Encroachment Discharge | Advancing Thorns |
Howl | Encroaching Power | ||
Decimate | Quick Prep | Weak Point Detection | Cruel Hand |
Tripods written in bold text are your highest priority, make sure to level them first!
Skill | 1st Tripod | 2nd Tripod | 3rd Tripod |
Cruel Cutter | Magick Control | Earth Attack | Encroachment Release |
Thrust Impact | Deep Thrust | Spectral Explosion | |
Demolition | Weak Point Detection | Wave Attack | Encroachment Release |
Sharpened Cut | Enhanced Slash | Vertical Slash | Critical Cut |
Rising Claw | Quick Prep | Critical Blow | Grasp of Death |
Howl | Encroaching Power | ||
Decimate | Quick Prep | Weak Point Detection | Cruel Hand |
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.
Damage Gems
- Grind Chain
- Spinning Weapon
- Cruel Cutter
- Piercing Thorn
- Decimate
Cooldown Gems
- Grind Chain
- Spinning Weapon
- Howl
- Piercing Thorn
- Decimate
- Cruel Cutter
Damage Gems
- Demolition
- Cruel Cutter
- Thrust Impact
- Sharpened Cut
- Decimate
Cooldown Gems
- Cruel Cutter
- Sharpened Cut
- Thrust Impact
- Demolition
- Decimate
- Howl
For more information on where to obtain gems and how to use them, check out our Gem System Guide.
Stat Priority
Perfect Suppression utilizes Crit and Swiftness, with the exact amount depending on your gear as well as your personal preference. For both Nightmare and Entropy, you can practically pick any stat split, but you need to take care of some specific values to avoid wasting stats and therefore you need to adjust your engravings and setups around it. Here are some examples:
Swiftness helps to reduce cooldowns and allows for faster boundless cycling, while also providing damage through move speed for Raid Captain.
Crit provides damage consistency and allows you to have better damage per cycle.
Swiftness Setup
- Swiftness + Crit
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Crit
- Crit
- Swiftness + Crit
This distribution aims at reducing cooldowns for faster cycles and easier uptime on Boundless, increasing your damage per second (but decreasing the damage per cycle). It also overcaps Atk/Move speed during Boundless, leaving you room for Mass Increase.
Crit Setup
- Crit + Swiftness
- Crit
- Crit
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Crit + Swiftness
This distribution balances your Crit Rate in such a way that your Spenders are at ~85%, leaving room for a bonus bracelet roll and a synergy. All of this, while still being Atk/Move Speed capped during Boundless.
Swiftness is the primary stat. It's used in all your accessories to reduce your Awakening's cooldown so you can have maximum Dominion uptime.
Crit is a secondary stat. It provides damage consistency.
Dominion Setup
- Swiftness + Crit
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Swiftness + Crit
This is the only viable setup since you need to reduce your Awakening's cooldown to match your Dominion buff duration, trying to have as little downtime as possible.
Swiftness helps to reduce cooldowns while also providing damage through move speed for Raid Captain.
Crit provides damage consistency and allows you to have better damage per cycle.
Swiftness Setup
- Swiftness + Crit
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Crit
- Crit
- Swiftness + Crit
This distribution aims at reducing cooldowns for faster cycles, increasing your damage per second (but decreasing the damage per cycle).
Crit Setup
- Crit + Swiftness
- Crit
- Crit
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Crit + Swiftness
This distribution balances your Crit Rate in such a way that you are at ~80%, leaving room for a Synergy and potentially a bracelet bonus roll.
Gear Set
Nightmare Set
To activate this set bonus you need to cast your awakening at least once. It has two states: Magick Addiction and Boundless MP. Magick Addiction provides damage and reduces skill mana cost by 50%, but skills also use 7% of your maximum mana every time you cast them; Boundless MP provides Cooldown Reduction and Atk/Move Speed, while increasing your Mana regeneration per second.
You want to maximize the time spent in Boundless MP.
4 pieces Dominion Set
This set is an alternative option that changes the playstyle. It also requires you to cast Awakening, but this time you need to cast it every time it is available because its buff only lasts for 2 minutes. It provides Damage, Cooldown Reduction to your skills and Awakening, and also awakening charges.
2 pieces Nightmare Set
You need 2 pieces of Nightmare in this setup, to help with Mana usage and to get a bit more damage.
Entropy Set
This provides you with Damage, Crit Rate, Crit Damage and most importantly, a huge boost to positional damage skills.
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 some can be used at level 1 or 2 in addition to the others, after reaching item level 1540 and unlocking Ancient Accessories.
Relic Gearing Build (5x3)
- Perfect Suppression
- Grudge
- Adrenaline
- Keen Blunt Weapon
- Raid Captain
Ancient Gearing Build (5x3+1)
- Grudge
- Adrenaline
- Keen Blunt Weapon
- Raid Captain
- Cursed Doll
- Perfect Suppression Lv 1
Engraving Explanations
Core Engravings
- Perfect Suppression grants damage to Normal Skills as well as increases your Shadowburst meter generation. It's usually used at level 1 except in full Crit setups, in which you pick it at level 3 to drop Adrenaline to level 1.
- Adrenaline provides an additional source of Crit Rate and Attack Power. It is fairly easy to upkeep. Typically used at level 3 except in full Crit setups.
- 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.
- Raid Captain is a pretty good option since we gain Move Speed from Boundless MP state and Swiftness.
Add-on Engravings (Pick 1)
- 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 good option since 4 skills in our kit have Crit Rate tripods.
- Mass Increase is a good alternative to Cursed Doll, but the attack speed penalty may result in more skills being canceled by boss attacks due to the lack of Paralysis Immunity. You can negate the penalty at >1400 Swiftness during Boundless state (Nightmare only).
Level 1 and 2 Engravings
- Adrenaline should only be dropped to Level 1 when you're running a setup with Crit in all accessories, as to avoid being too close to maximum Crit Rate. It can be used at level 2 in all setups.
- Perfect Suppression is a very good Level 1 option in every other accessory setup. It's the ideal level 2 engraving, but this requires a 9/9 Ability Stone.
Relic Gearing Build (5x3)
- Perfect Suppression
- Grudge
- Adrenaline
- Ambush Master
- Raid Captain
Ancient Gearing Build (5x3+1)
- Grudge
- Adrenaline
- Ambush Master
- Keen Blunt Weapon
- Raid Captain
- Perfect Suppression Lv 1
Engraving Explanations
Core Engravings
- Perfect Suppression grants damage to Normal Skills as well as increases your Shadowburst meter generation. It's usually used at level 1 except in Crit setups, in which you pick it at level 3 to drop Adrenaline to level 1.
- Ambush Master provides a huge boost to positional 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.
- Raid Captain is a pretty good option since we gain Move Speed from Nimble Movement and Swiftness.
Add-on Engravings (Pick 1)
- 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 an alternative in setups with >82% Crit Rate, having even higher potential with Crit Synergies.
- Adrenaline provides an additional source of Crit Rate and Attack Power. It is fairly easy to upkeep. Typically used at level 3 except in <1200 Crit setups.
Level 1 and 2 Engravings
- Adrenaline should only be dropped to Level 1 when you're running a setup with >1200 Crit (or >1350 at level 2), as to avoid being too close to maximum Crit Rate.
- Perfect Suppression is a very good Level 1 option in every other accessory setup. It's the ideal level 2 engraving, but this requires a 9/9 Ability Stone.
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 - Crit and Swiftness. 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.
Optimal Bonus Rolls
Swiftness
Crit
Circulate
Ambush (Entropy only)
Fervor
Hammer
Hammer + Wedge
Alternative Bonus Rolls
Precise
Assail
Superiority
Wedge (without Hammer)
Weapon Power
Dexterity
Check out the Bracelet Guide for more details.
Elixir
In setups with <1000 Crit, the recommended Elixir Set is Master. Otherwise, the ideal option is Critical.
The recommended Elixir Set for this build is Master.
The recommended Elixir Set for this build is Critical.
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.
Check out the Card Guide for more details on how to obtain cards and interact with them.
Early Game Damage Card Set
End Game Damage Card Set
Credits
Written by Sekwah
Reviewed by Starlast