Lightning Shadow Erika Leveling Guide
Last Updated:October 25, 2024|Changelog
Welcome to the Lightning Shadow Erika Leveling Guide. Erika's second hero trait runs on Aember technology. 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 Spiral Strike to run around for fluid gameplay.
In our testing Erika fell very short of all other classes, due to Feline Figure being limited to triggering once per enemy. It cannot trigger again on the same target. With Numbed only lasting for 2 seconds at a baseline, this results in your Hero Traits doing nothing for your Single Target damage once the initial stacks have fallen off.
NOTE: It is unclear whether or not this interaction is intentional.
The leveling guide is intended to take your character to Timemark 7.
Level 90 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
- High Scaling Potential
- Very satisfying Playstyle
- Squishy
- Hard to Scale
- Melee Leveling
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 7-8 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 Rock Lizard's Skull, it has a large amount of maximum life and generates tenacity blessings. It is a good unique early on to bolster your defenses.
- Nectar Valley (L16): Look out for Born in Fire as a powerful defensive option. Desire of Survival is also a good option for defenses, but not as strong as Born in Fire.
- Dawn Avenue (L27): Look out for Boor's Iron Crown as it provides a powerful but conditional bonus to your damage.
- Sanctuary of Solitude (L35): Has nothing particularly notable for this build. You can still look for other useful uniques listed here.
- Silver Sands' End (L44): Look out for Steel's Lament as a powerful defensive option as it provides damage reduction and a decent amount of life.
- 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 as a powerful weapon for your early progression.
- Lonesome, Pentagram Astrolabe and Omniscient Prototype are all incredibly powerful items that can be found during levelling, but they are rare. If you find one of them, be certain to equip them. Omniscient Prototype is available after act 2, and the others can be found in every trove.
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 Resistance 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.
- 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
- Multistrike Chance
Look for these Defensive stats on armor:
- Max Life
- Max Life %
- Elemental Resistances
- Erosion Resistance
To learn how to easily find items with these stats, check out the Loot Filter Guide.
Core Skill
- Thunder Spike is a Shadow Skill that converts 100% of the skills Physical Damage to Lightning Damage. It applies a stack of Numbed when you hit with a cooldown of 0.5 seconds.
- 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 Limber Stretch
- Equip Spiral Strike or Leap Attack based on your weapon.
- Level 7-11: Support Thunder Spike with Electric Overload
- Level 14: Equip Burst of Anger
- Level 22: Support Thunder Spike with High Voltage
- 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
Bladerunner provides bonuses for numbed and lightning damage. It also grants Quick Advancement which provides a large damage bonus for your multistrikes.
The Brave
The Brave provides large bonuses to dual wielding increasing your damage significantly. Joined Force is especially powerful because it adds your offhand damage to your mainhand weapon, increasing your damage per hit quite significantly. Additionally, the tree grants multistrike bonuses for dual wielding as well, alongside Well Matched, resulting in a well rounded talent tree for damage.
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 and Memories
Hero Traits
To unlock your traits you must reach the corresponding level and then place a Hero Memory in the available socket. The first 2 memories are guaranteed to drop from the following Stage Bosses;
- Level 47 - King Lionheart - Lion's Pass
- Level 57 - Ordrek - Rusted Abyss
Level 45: Dazzling Lightning increases your maximum Electrify Stacks, enabling you to apply more stacks of Numbed with each proc of Feline Figure.
Level 60: Wild Lightning increases your maximum Numbed stacks while the Numbed stacks applied by Feline Figure last on the enemy.
Level 75: Charging Equation triggers your Feline Figure additional times at the cost of halving the numbed stacks applied by it.
Hero Memories
Hero Memories are required to activate your Hero Traits. Look for the following modifiers on your Hero Memories:
| Base Affixes | Random Affixes |
| Dexterity | Lightning Damage |
| Damage | Attack Speed |
| Max Life | Critical Damage with Lightning Skills |
| Movement Speed | Critical Strike Rating |
To learn more, check out our Hero Memory Guide.
Divinity Slates
When leveling Lightning Shadow Erika, look for any Divinity Slates containing these talents;
| Legendary | Medium & Minor |
| +1 All Skills' Level / Lightning Skill Level | Attack Speed |
| Additional Attack Speed if you have Crit recently | Dexterity |
| Own 1 Additional stacks of Agility Blessing | Critical Strike Damage |
| Converts 20% Phys Damage Taken to Elemental Damage | Movement Speed |
| % Additional Max Damage | % Dexterity |
To learn more, check out our Divinity Slate 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 gear you come across. It costs very low amounts of Flame Sand to lock 1 good affix in place and reroll up to 4 new modifiers. Legendary Gear with Legendary Aptitude allows you to roll mods and craft on those items well.
Transitioning to Endgame
Weapon
- Search Netherrealm Stages or the Trade House for items with any of the following modifiers on One Handed Swords.
- Prefix
- Lightning Damage added to Gear
- Physical Damage added to Gear
- Dexterity
- Additional damage applied to Life
- Suffix
- Chance to Multistrike
- Gear Attack Speed
- Melee Damage
- Elemental Damage
- Gear Critical Strike Rating
- Prefix
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. Dexterity provides 0.5% more damage per point.
- Have a healthy Life total
- 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 it.
- Thunder Manipulator offers great damage and are gloves you use far into the endgame.
Continue the Journey
Congratulations on completing the Erika Lightning Shadow leveling guide! To continue your Endgame journey check our Build Database
Credits
Written by: CoffeeBns
Maintained by: Void241
Reviewed by: Tenkiei