Tier 3 Predator Slayer Build Guide
Last Updated:November 5, 2024|Changelog
Welcome to the Tier 3 Predator Slayer Build Guide! This build revolves around quickly building your Fury Meter at the beginning of the encounter and entering Burst Mode, then fighting against your own identity to remain in Burst Mode for as long as possible, until you inevitably become Exhausted.
Predator Slayer excels at inflicting significant amounts of Stagger and Destruction, but her Counter capability can often be unreliable. Normally, you would have to build Fury Meter every time you want to enter Burst Mode. However, the Class Engraving changes how this process works, allowing you to remain in Burst Mode for significantly longer periods.
- Good defense
- Good mobility
- Easy to learn
- Positional gameplay
- Melee
- Reliant on party
Want a playstyle based more around burst damage? Check out our Punisher guide.
Builds
Need some tips for general content? Check out our Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides.
- Brutal Impact, Volcanic Eruption, and Guillotine are your main damage skills.
- Wild Stomp is your main Counter and your Synergy (Damage Amplification) skill, as well as your main way of maintaining your Burst Mode.
- Wild Rush and Furious Claw are generally used together to trigger the Conviction & Judgment runes, helping upkeep your high mana consumption.
- Punishing Draw is your back-up Counter skill, since most of the time Wild Stomp will be on cooldown.
- Fatal Sword is a versatile filler skill. It can serve as a damage skill, a Stagger skill, or a Destruction skill, depending on the situation.
- Execute is your Awakening. It is preferred over Ragna Break thanks to its ability to fill up your entire Fury Meter at the beginning of the fight, but both can be used.
Alternative Skill, Tripod, and Rune Options
Punishing Draw can be swapped either for Final Blow, using Quick Prep, Released Fury, Driving Hit, and Conviction, or for Mountain Cleave, using Quick Prep, Weak Point Detection, Flame Storm, and Focus.
- Both of these options offer slightly increased damage, at the cost of one of your Counter skills.
- In order to make room for the necessary tripods, you must lower Wild Stomp's Released Fury to level 1.
- In the case of Final Blow, you should also equip the Judgment rune on Wild Rush instead, and a Focus rune on Furious Claw.
Brutal Impact
- Charge Enhancement - Significantly increases the skill's damage, but it becomes a charge skill, making it slower to use.
Punishing Draw
- Purify - Allows you to cleanse your debuffs.
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.
- Guillotine is your main way to deal with both packs of lesser monsters and Elite monsters. Thanks to the Transformed Strike and the Inner Awakening effect of the Dominion Fang set, its cooldown should reset each time you eliminate monsters.
- Furious Claw, Final Blow, Mountain Cleave, and Volcanic Eruption are all good choices to deal with lesser monsters if Guillotine is not available.
- Brutal Impact is your main way of dealing with the Boss on the 2nd Floor.
- Wild Rush serves as a quick mobility option. It can also easily break crystals on the 3rd Floor.
- Execute is your Awakening. It is preferred over Ragna Break thanks to its ability to fill up your Fury Meter at the beginning.
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.
- Predator provides some extra damage and mana recovery throughout the entire run.
Gameplay & Skill Rotation
Predator Slayer utilizes her skillset to constantly assault the enemy with strong and swift blows, making Burst Mode her naturally preferred state throughout the fight. However, Bloodlust (Z) is disabled.
Activating her identity grants you the following effects for its entire duration:
- +20% Attack Speed
- +20% Movement Speed
- +30% Crit Rate
- Enhanced basic attacks
Additionally, your Class Engraving grants you the following effects during Burst Mode:
- +10/25/40% Crit Damage
- +3/6/10% of Fury Meter recovered on hit (1s cooldown)
- +1/2/3% of Maximum MP recovered on hit (1s cooldown)
Slayer Identity
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.
This build focuses on utilizing Burst Mode consistently to empower all of your attacks. However, every 3 seconds spent in Burst Mode, you gain a stack of Fatigue, increasing natural Fury Meter consumption by 10%. Inevitably, your Fury Meter will deplete and you will become Exhausted for 30 seconds, with each stack of Fatigue reducing this duration by 1 second. When Exhaustion ends, your Fury Meter fully recovers and you can enter Burst Mode again.
Basic Rotations
Standard Damage Rotation
- Using skills in this specific order is recommended due to each skill's specific damage contribution, but due to differences in cooldown, they can often become desynced, so feel free to improvise.
- Remember to use Wild Stomp whenever possible. As long as the lingering effect can hit an enemy, it helps you remain in Burst Mode even if you can't actively attack. This also ensures that you maintain your Synergy as well as possible.
- Try to pair Wild Rush and Furious Claw together in order to trigger the Conviction & Judgment runes. Doing this before using other skills offers a cooldown reduction effect on them, but the main benefit is mana regeneration.
Stagger Check Rotation
- Using skills in this specific order is recommended for most stagger checks. However, each check can vary in duration, so you may need to readjust depending on that and your party's composition. 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.
Skill | 1st Tripod | 2nd Tripod | 3rd Tripod |
Brutal Impact | Weak Point Detection | Swift Execution | Fury Greatsword |
Volcanic Eruption | Leap | Released Fury | Bloody Eruption |
Guillotine | Quick Prep | Furious Blow | Flame Slash |
Fatal Sword | Rage | Weak Point Detection | Lights Out |
Punishing Draw | Released Fury | Chain Attack | |
Furious Claw | Quick Prep | Rage | Driving Hit |
Wild Stomp | Released Fury |
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
- Brutal Impact
- Volcanic Eruption
- Guillotine
- Fatal Sword
- Punishing Draw
- Furious Claw
Cooldown Gems
- Brutal Impact
- Volcanic Eruption
- Guillotine
- Fatal Sword
- Punishing Draw
For more information on where to obtain gems and how to use them, check out our Gem System Guide.
Stat Priority
This build utilizes Swiftness and Crit.
- Swiftness is the primary stat. It is required in vast amounts due to having naturally long cooldowns.
- Crit is the secondary stat. It offers damage consistency as well as synergizing well with your gear set and identity.
Standard Setup
- Swiftness + Crit
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Swiftness + Crit
Alternative Setup
- Swiftness + Crit
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Swiftness
- Crit
- Swiftness + Crit
Gear Set
Entropy Set
This set is optimal thanks to the large amounts of Crit Rate, Crit Damage, and positional damage it provides.
The name of your set will change every time you acquire a higher tier of gear, but the set effect will remain the same. Look for your set's keyword when recrafting it in order to find it more easily (e.g Entropy, Hallucination etc).
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)
- Predator
- Grudge
- Ambush Master
- Raid Captain
- Mass Increase
Ancient Gearing Build (5x3+1)
- Predator
- Grudge
- Ambush Master
- Raid Captain
- Mass Increase
- Adrenaline Lv 1
Engraving Explanations
Core Engravings
- Predator changes how your identity works, as well as enhancing its effects.
- 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.
- Ambush Master provides a massive boost to Back Attack skills, which comprise most of your damage.
- Raid Captain synergizes well with your Swiftness stat and your identity.
- Mass Increase provides a significant Attack Power boost, at the cost of -10% Attack Speed. This downside does not affect you, thanks to the various sources of Attack Speed in this build.
Level 1 and 2 Engravings
- Adrenaline provides an additional source of Crit Rate and Attack Power. It is fairly easy to upkeep.
- Ether Predator (Level 1) provides a ramping Attack Power and Defense effect as the fight goes on and you collect more ethers.
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 stat used by this build - Swiftness 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.
Optimal Bonus Rolls
Swiftness
Crit
Ambush
Circulate
Fervor
Hammer
Wedge
Alternative Bonus Rolls
Precise
Assail
Superiority
Weapon Power
Strength
MP Recovery
Check out the Bracelet Guide for more details.
Elixir
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.
- 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.
Early Game Damage Card Set
End Game Damage Card Set
Credits
Written by Raeinor
Reviewed by Starlast