Welcome to the Lightning Shadow Erika Leveling Guide. Erika's second hero trait runs on Aember technology. This allows her to record the largest Shock on herself and use it to supercharge Feline Figure, dealing damage to nearby foes. Lightning Shadow is highly mobile and excels at running circles around enemies, in essence your greatest defense is not getting hit in the first place. This Lightning specialist uses movement speed to scale damage making for fluid gameplay.
| The leveling guide is intended to take your character to Level 80. This is the last level with unlimited free respec points. Be sure to check the final section of the guide for recommendations on how to transition into the Endgame! |
- Catgirl
- Very fun Playstyle
- High Scaling Potential
- Squishy
- Melee Leveling
- Have to manage multiple buffs
Check out the Complete Story Walkthrough for tips on how to complete the Campaign.
Treasure Troves
Treasure Troves are a way to super-charge your leveling experience. They give vastly more experience than regular zones and yield exclusive Legendary items. You need to complete each of them once for a Talent Point. For an easier leveling experience, you repeat the Treasure Trove until you're 8-10 levels above the zone, then rush through the next few areas. Follow your side quest to find the Treasure Trove locations.
Keep an eye out for the following Legendary items as you clear Treasure Troves.
- New Ear Hills (L7): Look out for Pentagram Astrolabe, Lonesome and Rock Lizard's Skull.
- Nectar Valley (L16): Look out for Boor's Iron Crown and Omniscient Prototype.
- Dawn Avenue (L27): Look out for Omniscient Prototype, Lightning Conductor Armor is a reasonable alternative.
- Sanctuary of Solitude (L35): Look out for Omniscient Prototype.
- Silver Sands' End (L44): Look out for Chain of Resistance, Endless Night - Prototype.
- Hall of Grandiosity (L54): Here you should farm to level 60 to reach your next Hero Trait before completing the campaign. Look for Thunder Branch.
- Endless Night - Prototype is a great item that enables dexterity stacking once you find swords with the "Lightning Damage per Dexterity" modifier.
Leveling Tips and Tricks
- Your first active skill slot (top left in the Skills menu) is your "Main Skill," this matters because many items and Hero Traits have effects that only apply to the Main Skill.
- If you're ever in doubt of where to go, click the campaign quest on the left of your screen and a golden path shows you the way.
- This guide assumes you get most of your levels through Treasure Troves and rush to the objectives in other zones for maximum efficiency.
- When allocating Pact Points, prioritize Life first, then select Damage nodes until you fill the section. If you have leftover points, put them into Drop nodes as you begin farming the Netherrealm.
- Complete all 10 Levels of the Hero Forge to unlock all of your Hero Trait abilities and gain 6 additional Talent Points.
- All support gems become available from the Skill Shop at level 55. At this stage cross reference with the embeds to make sure you're set up for the Netherrealm.
- In Chapter 3 gear you find comes with varying amounts of Energy, after changing your gear, be sure to go to the Energy Menu under Skills to reassign missing Energy.
Equipment & Stat Priorities
Look for these Offensive stats on weapons:
- %Elemental Damage
- Lightning Damage added to Attacks
- Physical Damage added to Attacks
- Attack Speed
- Critical Strike Chance
- Movement Speed
Look for these Defensive stats on armor:
- Max Life
- Max Life %
- Elemental Resistances
- Erosion Resistance
Core Skill
- Thunder Spike is a Shadow Skill that converts 100% of the skills Physical Damage to Lightning Damage. It settles shock additional times when the Shadows critically strike an enemy.
- Electrocute is a curse skill that causes the enemies to take additional Lightning Damage. Activate it on Rare enemies and bosses, until you unlock Terrain of Malice.
- Compound Source is our main way to quickly regenerate Life and mana whenever needed.
- Burst of Anger grants a large additional additional Attack Speed buff that refreshes when you defeat an enemy.
- Leap Attack and Spiral Strike are interchangeable dependent on the weapons you find. Spiral Strike is the faster option if you are looking for more speed.
Leveling Progression
WARNING: The following levels are a guideline, you might complete the quest/unlock the Skill a few levels early, or a few levels later!
Move to slider at the bottom to interact with the Tool
Move to slider at the bottom to interact with the Tool
Use the Embed to the left to follow along with Support Skill progression!
- Level 1: Support Thunder Spike with Haunt.
Equip the following as you obtain them:
- Level 3: Support Compound Potion with Residues
- Equip Spiral Strike or Leap Attack based on your weapon.
- Level 7-11: Support Thunder Spike with High Voltage.
- Level 12-16: Equip Resurrection Warcry
- Level 20: You unlock access to all of your Active Skills.
- Replace Resurrection Warcry with Electrocute.
- Equip Burst of Anger
- Bull's Rage is the highest damage Empower skill, however it sacrifices a large portion of life. Replace Electrocute and use a potion after every Bull's Rage if you want more damage and less survivabilty.
- Level 22: Support Thunder Spike with Added Physical Damage.
- Level 26-54: Continue filling out supports on your utility skills. Now, the goal is to slowly add on Supports and Auras as you gain Energy and levels.
Level 55: At this point you have access to every skill in the game, continue to follow the embed shown as you gain more Energy.
To learn more check out the Skills and Passives Guide.
Talents
WARNING: The following levels are a guideline, you might complete the quest/unlock the Skill a few levels early, or a few levels later.
Move to slider at the bottom to interact with the Tool
Goddess of Hunting
Begin with 24 points in Goddess of Hunting, this tree has bonuses focused on Lightning Damage, Dexterity, and Attack Speed.
Bladerunner
This tree is insane for Erika as it has many bonuses to Shock. It also grants Lucky damage which is particularly powerful for builds adding Lightning Damage.
Ronin
Ronin gives you more flexibility with your mana costs along with providing 75% chance for and additional Shadow. Falling Leaves is also a huge damage boost as once you convert to Dexterity stacking, your damage is not reliant on the flat damage inherent to the weapon.
There are tons of different Talent Trees to explore, if you want to learn more about this robust system check out our Talent Tree Guide.
Traits, Relics and Memories
Hero Traits
Level 45: Thunder grants up to 50% additional damage based on how many times Feline Figure has settled Shock recently.
Level 75: Static Meteor is the only choice here until you get an Activation Medium: Rhythm for you main skill. It causes your feline figure to also settle Shock on your character making you a lot squishier until you get a relic to avoid Shock damage.
Level 90: Lightning Walker makes your damage scale with your Movement speed by increasing the number of times Feline Figure settles Shock damage
Relics and Memories
Look for any combination of the following stats on your Hero Relics and Memories;
| Butter Kitten Perpetual Motion Machine Hero Relic | Static Furball Hero Memories |
| Become Immune to Shock Damage | Increased Chance to Trigger Feline Figure |
| Gain % of Hit Damage as Base Shock Damage | Additional Max damage each time Feline Figure settles shock damage |
| Gain Base Shock Damage based on Increased Movement Speed | Increased highest recorded shock damage |
| Attack Speed |
To learn more, check out our Hero Relic and Hero Memory Guide.
Pacts
To learn more, check out our Pacts and Pets Guide.
The Netherrealm
Racing through your Netherrealm quests as quickly as possible results in you becoming under leveled for the required zones to progress further, stay within 3 levels of the zones you're completing to avoid a harsh experience penalty. Check out our How to Progress the Netherrealm if you're unsure of anything.
Here's a list of things to do while progressing the early stages of the Netherrealm;
- Level 60: the Trade House is unlocked. Be sure to read and understand our Trade House for Beginners Guide before making any big purchases.
- Higher item levels of gear come with higher quantities of Energy. Look to improve your current gear with items that have increased energy so that you can use more Support Skills.
- Utilize Prototype Crafting and Enchanting to greatly increase the power of non-legendary gear you come across. It costs very low amounts of Flame Dust and Flame Sand to lock 1 good affix in place and reroll up to 4 new modifiers.
- Farm for your Voyager's Journey set bonus.
Transitioning to Endgame
Weapon
- Search Beacons or the Trade House for items with any of the following modifier on One Handed Swords.
- Lightning Damage added per Dexterity
- Dexterity
- Critical Strike Damage
- Gear Critical Strike Rating
- Lightning Damage added to Gear
- Increased Physical/Elemental Damage
- Additional Shadow Damage
- Additional Shadow Quantity
- Base Shock Damage
- Craft the items using prototype crafting until you have the Dexterity stacking mod as well as 2 of the other modifiers listed.
- Enchant the item with a 5th modifier.
Remaining Gear
Focus on crafting the remainder of your Armor and Jewelry with the following goals in mind;
- Cap all of your Resistances at the 60% maximum.
- Reach a high amount of Dexterity. Aim for about 600 to get started.
- Have a healthy Life total of roughly 3500.
- Increase your Physical or Lightning damage
- Increase your Attack Speed
Legendary Items
Leveling
- Thunder Branch is a large early game damage increase, be sure to empty your offhand whilst using.
- Endless Night - Prototype sets your Dexterity to 750 which enables the Dexterity stacking modifier early game.
Set Items
As you complete the Netherrealm you encounter Chaos Cards that provide a Set Item. These items are very powerful at a base, and provide powerful set bonuses. Be sure to farm the following Voyager's Commemorative Set Items;
- Voyager's Commemorative Boots
- Voyager's Commemorative Brooch
- Voyager's Commemorative Cape
- Voyager's Commemorative Cufflinks
- Voyager's Commemorative Goggles
- Voyager's Commemorative Pinky Ring
- Voyager's Commemorative Strap
Continue the Journey
Congratulations on completing the Erika Lightning Shadow leveling guide! To continue your Endgame journey check our Build Database
Other Resources
Leveling Build Guides
Credits
Written by: Milkybk_
Reviewed by: Tenkiei