Shadowhunter PvP Build Guide

Introduction

The Shadowhunter is Lost Ark's demonic class. Her unique Identity allows her to transform into a demon, giving her access to high damaging skills. She has two different playstyles that can revolve around ranged combat or melee.

In PvP, the Shadowhunter relies on quick catches with her dashes and long range engagements. She's a hit and run specialist that goes in when the time is right and escapes with ease. Finding the right timing of engagements are crucial to succeed on this class. She ranks high in the PvP tier list for her ability to be an extremely mobile ranged class, that doesn't sacrifice damage because of her demonic form.

This article assumes you have a Character with a minimum level of 26 before transitioning to it. Check out the Shadowhunter Leveling and 1-50 Leveling guides to reach Level 26.

Check out the General PvP Guide for a better understanding of the arena systems in place.

Core Skills

• Demonic Slash is your main mobility skill.
• Sharpened Cut is a great engagement tool with how fast it teleports. Be ready to adjust if you miss or they dodge your skill.
• Thrust Impact is a close range damage skill. Use it when opponents are down or connect it off another skill.
• Demonic Clone and Rising Claw are your main defensive tools with Knock Up. Note that these skills only have Paralysis Immunity.
• Grind Chain is your main long range poke skill with a slow attached to it.
• Piercing Thorn is your other poking skill. This one Knock Up enemies and does good damage.
• Demon Vision is your main crowd control skill.
• Demonize is your Identity skill that transforms you into demon. Your demonic form grants you a new set of skills and Paralysis Immunity. You gain full Immunity during the initial transformation and while using Cancel Demonization.
• Ruining Rush is your main mobility skill in demon form. Use it to engage enemies, but be cautious as you do not have any Push Immunity skills.
• Death Claw and Gore Bleeding are mainly used as combo fillers to keep opponents locked up.
• Destruction decent damaging skill that creates an area of effect in front of you.
• Leaping Blow is a high damaging skill that crowd controls opponents on contact. This skill is unprotected so be careful when using it.
• Blood Massacre is a highly damaging skill. It's hard to catch opponents in it without setting up for it.
• Gate of Eruption is your main Awakening skill which creates a field that crowd controls enemies and then Knocks Up. Great skill for zoning, peeling or damaging enemies. When opponents are caught in the skill, use a high damage skill towards the end of the animation.

PvP Builds

• Team Deathmatch (3v3)
• Team Elimination (1v1)
• GvG

Team Deathmatch (3v3)

Combat Stats

750 Swiftness, 250 Critical for more poke focused damage.
750 Swiftness, 1 Critical 249 Domination for general damage.

Standard

Demon Grip

Alternatives

• Piercing Thorn can be swapped with Magick Control or Rotting Zone.
• Demon Vision can be dropped to 7 for Rising Claw.

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Normal Form Combo

1. Engage with Sharpened Cut or Demon Vision.
2. Follow with Demonic Clone.
3. Briefly walk forward before finishing with Thrust Impact, else it won't connect. Using Rush also works to connect the skill.
4. Note: If you need to extend a combo when the opponent is on the ground, you can auto attack (LMB) 3 times, wait for the spin, then auto attack a third time to perform a dashing attack that will lift them up again (wait till you see the purple flash before LMB again).

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Demon Form Combo #1

1. Engage with Ruining Rush.
2. Follow with Gore Bleeding

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Demon Form Combo #2

1. Engage with Leaping Blow.
2. Finish with confirms Blood Massacre.

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Gameplay

• Focus on playing near the outskirts of the map and poke around with Grind Chain and Piercing Thorn.
• Demon Vision is a great peeling and initiation tool. Hitting this skill allows you to go into your Sharpened Cut + Thrust Impact combo. If you find yourself missing with Thrust Impact, get closer or use Rush.
• When the match starts, you can rush forward with Demonic Slash to gain positional advantage. Try for picks with your long range skills.
• Use Demonize when you catch an opponent without Stand Up to connect Blood Massacre or any high damage skill.
• You can use Demonize to get in and start a Demon Form Combo. Be wary that none of your skills have Push Immunity.
• Your main defensive skill with Paralysis Immunity are Demonic Slash, Demonic Clone and Rising Claw. You are still vulnerable to knock ups and crowd control.

Team Elimination (1v1)

Combat Stats

750 Swiftness, 250 Critical for more poke focused damage.
750 Swiftness, 1 Critical 249 Domination for general damage.

Standard

Big Combo

Alternatives

• Builds are fairly flexible. You can add in Grind Chain if you want more poke.
• Demon Vision with Darkness Release is also an option for Knocking Down opponents.

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Basic Combo #1

1. Engage with Sharpened Cut, Slasher or Demon Vision.
2. Follow with Demonic Clone or Thrust Impact.

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Basic Combo #2

1. Connect with Demonic Clone to knock them up.
2. Follow with Slasher as they are falling down.
3. Finish with Thrust Impact or Decimate.

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Gameplay

• The Standard build in 1v1 focuses on the same principles as 3v3. Focus on getting good trades and engages with Sharpened Cut.
• Big Combo revolves around comboing Rising Claw into Howl. With the new changes to Scream of Fury, you'll be able to do big damage with your a short simple combo. Sharpened Cut > Rising Claw > Howl (while they are mid air)> Decimate. You can even add in a Thrust Impact if it's safe for pretty much 60% of their health. Be agile with Demonic Slash. You can even be fairly aggressive with it as hitting an opponent with Numbing Effect guarantees most trades to be in your favor.

GvG

Heavy Armor

Keen Blunt Weapon

Spirit Absorption

Raid Captain

Demonic Impulse

Crisis Evasion

Gameplay

GvG is more chaotic than Arena battles, so you rarely have the opportunity to do long combos. This mode is more about zoning/interrupting objectives and assisting allies. Do your best to coordinate with your team and stick together. Refer to 3v3 section for more gameplay tips.

Please refer to the GvG Islands and GvG Builds Guide for more information!

Heavy Armor Equipment

Spirit Absorption

Judgment

There are no actual combos listed here compare to the other PvP builds because the build is built around zoning/interrupting objectives and mostly assisting allies. Since there will be more than 8 enemies on the field, it'll be really hard to pull off a long combo with many spells and attacks being unleash on the field.

Basically, use the skills base on the situations. Holy Land, can be use for annoying enemies on the objectives as it can prevent enemies from trying to capture the objectives by interrupting the capturing animation from the damage ticks that the ground effect does, and it helps in mass fights were the enemies can't stand on top of your allies for more than 3 ticks before they get stun by the skill.

GvG can be a lot more chaotic than Arenas as theres more than 3 opponents rushing into the fight, Paladin's role usually be sticking close to the backlines or allies immobile range classes to assist them if they get group on, while also play around from their range since the build is kitted with more range skills than Arena builds.

GvG Engraving

Priority

• Heavy Armor Equipment-engraving] level 3 increases all defense for higher survivability. Moreover, armor shredding debuffs doesn't affect the bonus defense increase effect from the engraving.
• Spirit Absorption increases attack speed and movement speed by a significant amount at level3 engraving effect which will help with positioning and getting skills cast out quicker.
• Judgment level 1 increases duration of Sacred Executioner by 100% to 40 seconds. Additionally increases sword skills damage and identity gauge gain rate.

Additional Choices

• Cursed Doll since Cursed Doll doesn't affect a player character, this is the next best engraving for damage increase in general. Furthermore, Island PvP disables consumables so the penalty isn't too penalizing and GvGs consumables are very limited as well which eventually player will run out consumables quick as well.
• Divine Protection, Fortitude and Strong Will these are the engravings to stack for maximum defenses.
• Raid Captain is also another good damage engraving option for Island PvP and GvGs since players will be stacking high Swiftness stats for having fast animation casting speed and general movespeed as well as more cooldown reductions then stacking with Spirit Absorption will max out 140% movesment speed cap which will grant the max 18% damage increase from Raid Captain.
• Champion's Tenacity Island PvP with disabled consumables and the very limited amount of consumables in GvGs means a lot of the time the player spent being damaged and unable to heal up, so this engraving will help give some boost to damage while the player is below 50% health pool.
• Shield Piercing self-explanatory; usually well coordinated guilds will stack lots of classes that has team shield or personal shields, this engraving will help a little from shield stack pushes.

• Basic Game Plan;
  • there's no actual combos listed here compare to the other PvP builds because the build is built around zoning/interrupting objectives and mostly assisting allies. Since there will be more than 8 enemies on the field , it'll be really hard to pull off a long combo with many spells and attacks being unleash on the field. Basically , use the skills base on the situations.
  • Holy Land, can be use for annoying enemies on the objectives as it can prevent enemies from trying to capture the objectives by interrupting the capturing animation from the damage ticks that the ground effect does, and it helps in mass fights were the enemies can't stand on top of your allies for more than 3 ticks before they get stun by the skill.
  • GvG can be a lot more chaotic than Arenas as theres more than 3 opponents rushing into the fight , Paladin's role usually be sticking close to the backlines or allies immobile range classes to assist them if they get group on, while also play around from their range since the build is kitted with more range skills than Arena builds.

• Basic Combo;

• Basic Combo;

• Basic Combo;

• Basic Combo;

Summary

• Keep your enemies and teammates within vision, Demon Vision and Gate of Eruption are great peeling skills.
• Use your Demonic Slash to get advantageous positions..
• Remember your Push Immunity skills and escapes.
• Abuse FoV (Field of Vision) by and keeping your opponents horizontal from you so you can hit with long range skills.