Tier 4 Deathblow Striker Build Guide
Last Updated:November 12, 2024|Changelog
Welcome to the Tier 4 Deathblow Striker Build Guide! This build focuses on generating Esoteric Orbs then consuming all at once to unleash powerful bursts of damage with Esoteric Skills. It's a back-attacking builder-spender playstyle centered around burst damage. This means your positioning plays a key role in how much damage you deal.
Outside of that, Deathblow striker struggles to deal quick Stagger and Destruction mainly due to long cooldowns, but it's okay in long checks.
- Easy to Learn
- High Defense
- Melee
- Positional gameplay
- If you're unsure when to transition, our Ark Passive Breakpoints guide could help you decide whether you should return to the Tier 3 Guide or continue.
- Want a faster and more dynamic playstyle? Check out our Esoteric Flurry guide.
- For more information on some of the systems that make up your build, check out the guides below:
Builds
Skills Setup
- Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike, Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges and Esoteric Skill: Charging Kick are your Esoteric Orb spenders and main damage skills.
- Sweeping Kick, Lightning Whisper, Vicious Tiger Dance, Moon Flash Kick and Sky Shattering Blow are your main Esoteric Orb generators.
- Sky Shattering Blow is your Counter skill, as well as your Blessing of the Wind Self-buff.
- Vicious Tiger Dance and Lightning Whisper are your Weakness Exposure Synergy skills.
- Lightning Whisper also provides 10% Crit Rate to yourself, and Lightning's Blessing party Synergy.
Skills Setup
- Esoteric Skill: Call of the Wind God is your main lesser monster clearing tool.
- Esoteric Skill: Blast Formation is a good front-cone skill that deals high damage to elites.
- Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike and Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges are your main Boss killers. Alternatively Ultimate Skill: Potent Heavenly Kickis also strong to kill the 2nd floor Boss.
- Lightning Whisper and Lightning Kick are your main Esoteric Orb generators. They're also good against lesser monsters.
Recommended Engravings
- Preemptive Strike
- Contender
- Raid Captain
- Cursed Doll
- Magick Stream
This build is optimized and meant to be used only in Kurzan Front. For Ebony Cube please use a Raid build.
Identity & Gameplay
This build focuses on dealing massive amounts of burst damage with your Esoteric Skills. Mainly alternating between Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike and Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges since using one Esoteric Skill resets the rest (or reduces its cooldown in the case of Esoteric Skill: Charging Kick) thanks to Orb's Blessing.
As for your Identity, there's no special interaction besides that of the engraving.
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 to take advantage of this.
Managing your skills properly to not over-generate Esoteric Orbs is a core part of Deathblow's gameplay, proper skill combos will result in efficient use of your resources and clean cycles.
Striker Identity
Rotation
The general idea of this build is to pair 1 Esoteric Orb generation combo with 1 Esoteric Skill. Since combat may alter which skills you use and in which order, they're listed as examples below.
4 Esoteric Orb combos
+
+
+
+
+
+
- While not listed above, another possible combo is Sky Shattering Blow + Vicious Tiger Dance + Storm Dragon Kick.
- These combos assume you have the proper amount of Specialization and all relevant Abundant Resources and Esoteric Extortion tripods maxed.
Example Rotation
- This example is aimed at maximizing the uptime of your Blessing of the Wind and Lightning's Blessing tripods on your spenders.
- Every spender used consumes 4 Esoteric Orbs, and at 16 orbs consumed you gain the Orb's Blessing buff which further boosts the damage of your next Esoteric Skill, ideally consumed with Esoteric Skill: Charging Kick.
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 to maximize this build's potential, listed according to their priority.
Damage Gems
- Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike
- Esoteric Skill: Tiger Emerges
- Sweeping Kick*
- Moon Flash Kick*
- Vicious Tiger Dance*
Cooldown Gems
- Sweeping Kick
- Lightning Whisper
- Sky Shattering Blow
- Vicious Tiger Dance
- Storm Dragon Kick
*Note: These gems are have very low priority as they represent a very small part of your damage.
Engravings
Engravings are a core part of your build. You can equip up to five at a time, freely swapping between them.
Recommended Setup
- Grudge
- Adrenaline
- Cursed Doll
- Ambush Master
- Super Charge
Alternative Setup
- Grudge
- Adrenaline
- Cursed Doll
- Ambush Master
- Keen Blunt Weapon
Engravings Information
- Super Charge affects Esoteric Skill: Lightning Tiger Strike and Esoteric Skill: Charging Kick, increasing their cast speed and damage at the same time. These two skills are roughly 70% of your damage.
- Keen Blunt Weapon provides more damage than Super Charge, but lacks the casting speed increase.
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 Specialization 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
Specialization
Crit
Ambush
Precise
Fervor
Hammer + Wedge
Superiority
Alternative Bonus Rolls
Hammer (without Wedge)
Wedge (Without Hammer)
Assail
Weapon Power
Strength
Elixir
The recommended Elixir Set for this build is Master.
Critical can be used in the Standing Striker build for more damage when you have additional sources of Crit Rate like bracelet effects, Tier 4 Accessories or other Crit Rate Synergies.
Credits
Written by Sekwah
Reviewed by Perciculum