Lost Ark - Everything About Shadowhunter Class

After years of waiting, Western players will finally get their hands on the game Lost Ark in 2022. The game’s closed beta gave players a preview of Lost’s debut classes and ending system. Ark gives players a chance to find their main character class before launch. We will give you the overview of Shadowhunter Class

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Shadowhunter Class Overview

Shadowhunters, known as “Demonic” in Korean and Russian customers, are an advanced class of Assassins who have mastered the ability to transform demons. Shadowhunters rule the battlefield with their pair of winged tonfas, demonic-themed powers, and their true demonic forms.

Mechanically, Shadowhunters come in two forms: humans and demons. While in human form, you use melee and demonic attacks to harm your enemies. Damage dealt with any skill generates a meter of Shadowburst, demonic-themed abilities that provide more energy. When stats reach 100%, you can temporarily transform into a demon, increasing your health and movement speed while active. You can also switch to a new skill bar, accessing some of the hardest skills to hit in Lost Ark. But be careful: upon exiting your demonic form, you’ll have to wait 30 seconds before you can rebuild your Shadowburst gauge.

Overall, Shadowhunter class is an easy-to-play class that deals great damage and has some of the flashiest abilities in the game. It doesn’t have the best group utility when compared to other specs, but if you love the idea of cutting through hordes of opponents like a demon, Shadowhunter is the class for you.

Pros

Easy to play
Demon form is incredibly powerful
There are two completely different ending builds

Cons

Lacks Super Armor at most of its abilities, making it a tough PvP class for beginners
Demon builds are hard to play while leveling up
Human constructions require more effort to equipment

Shadowburst Mechanic

Shadowburst: Deal damage to enemies to create a Shadowburst gauge. Press Z when full to become a temporary demon. Once the transformation is over, you cannot regenerate Shadowburst for 30 seconds.

All Shadowhunters build a measure of Shadowburst by damaging opponents with their skills. The demon skills accessed in human form, called Intrude Skills in the game, grant Shadowburst progression. When the meter is full, press Z to transform into a demon, gaining 20% HP and movement speed while active. All of your abilities are replaced by six demon-specific powers, most of which deal massive amounts of damage.

When demon form ends, you will enter Static State for 30 seconds. You cannot accumulate Shadowburst mana while in this state.

Shadowhunter Engravings

Shadowhunter class has two exclusive Engravings, both of which affect how the Shadowburst mechanic works:

Demonic Impulse is a favorite for demon builds, allowing you to skip the 30-second wait between each transformation. Increased chance critical buff also strengthens your ability while in demon form.

Perfect Suppression is used in builds for someone who wants to bypass the demon transformation mechanism. Accumulating advanced gauges is invaluable towards certain Tripod skill upgrades that consume your Shadowburst meter.

Best Skills And Tripods

Each Shadowhunter skill is divided into one of four different categories:

Normal Skill: Attacks caused by your bladed tonfas while in human form. Accumulate a small amount of Shadowburst energy.
Intrude Skill: Demon-themed ability used while in human form. Generates a large amount of Shadowburst energy.
Demon Skills: Skills used while in demon form. They are also known as “Transformation Skills”. Not supported by Tripod upgrade.
Awakening Skill: Ultimate skill with a long cooldown. Not supported by Tripod upgrade.

Normal and Intrude skills can all be upgraded with a Tripod, a passive bonus you choose from the skill menu. Investing points in a skill will unlock Tripod slots. As the name implies, supported skills can only use three Tripod upgrades at a time — one upgrade from each Tripod tier.

Covering every skill on Shadowhunter would take quite some time, so we will only cover the best skills and Tripod in this section.

Best Normal Skills – Shadowhunter Class

Four Normal Skills stand out from the rest: Demon Slash, Thrust Impact, Destruction, and Sharp Cut. These skills are used in human-focused and demon-focused builds, albeit with different Tripods for both builds.

Demonic Slash is your main move skill, allowing you to dash in any direction. Pair this with a Mobile Tripod to avoid AoE attacks or enemy PvP attacks. Both late-game builds for Shadowhunter use this skill.

Thrust Impact is a primary demonic way of building Shadowburst watches. Group your enemies with Demon’s Grip, use Thrust Impact, then watch your meter soar.

Demolition deals an absurd amount of damage, to both party and boss. Both builds can use Destruction, although the human builds make better use of Destruction’s damage ability.

Sharpened Cut is your second move to escape danger, dealing a solid amount of damage in the process. Human constructions almost always use this skill, and demon constructions sometimes use it at the expense of the seventh Intrude Skill.

Best Intrude Skills

If you’re making a demon transform build, you’ll want to use most of the Intrude skills as they build up your Shadowburst gauge faster than your other skills. But for those of you who level up or play human building, there are three Intrude Skills you’ll want to consider using: Demonic Clone, Howl, and Decimate.

Demonic Clone deals massive amounts of damage while providing invaluable crowd control. If you can close the distance, immediately use this skill to stun or finish the target.

Howl is an amazing ability to build your Shadowburst gauge. Engage in intense battle before using this ability to get the biggest profit. It also debugs enemies with one of the T3 Tripod upgrades, making it an invaluable debugging tool for ultimate game content and PvP.

Decimate deals an absurd amount of damage. Demon constructions can do some massive critical hits, while human constructions get a massive 100% damage boost.

Endgame Builds

Unlike most classes in Lost Ark, Shadowhunter has two completely different but equally viable late game builds. Demon builds focus on transforming as often as possible, using Demonic Impulse Engraving to remove the 30 second cooldown between each cast. The human builds are more focused on using melee and demonic themed attacks to deal damage. Here’s a brief overview of how each build works and plays. You can find more in-depth views on these builds in our Shadowhunter best builds guide.

Demon Build

This build style focuses on using Shadowhunter’s demon form as often as possible. Achieving this will require 2 important things:

The harshness of the devil
Many Intrude skills

Since you have to build the Shadowburst meter first, you’ll want to focus a lot on the Tripod to increase your Shadowburst meter accumulation. Some common skills for this build include Thrust Impact, Howl, and pretty much any Intrude Skill. You’ll want to drop at least one of the seven Intrude skills available to Demonic Slash, preferably two so you can also run Demolition or Sharpened Cut.

The gameplay is wise, but pretty simple. Unleash as many of your skills as possible to hit the target, build your meter. When it’s full, instantly becomes a demon. Unleash your hordes of short cooldown skills to tear every enemy on your screen. This build’s human form typically plays in range to apply crowd control effects and boost their stats, while the demon form wants to stay pretty close to the action.

Human Build – Shadowhunter Class

If the name doesn’t make it go, the human builds focus on enhancing your Shadowhunter’s standard abilities while completely ignoring the demon mode. This build takes advantage of Perfect Countermeasures, disabling the morph in exchange for a stronger normal ability.

For this build, you’ll want to grab the abilities and Tripod that use your Shadowburst meter. Some good choices include Demolition, Rotating Weapons, and Ruthless Cutter. Demonic Slash and Sharpened Cut are also recommended because of their great portability. You can still run devil-themed skills with this build, so feel free to use Terror and Demonic Clone for extra damage and utility. When played properly, you will deal massive amounts of damage without having to focus on your Shadowburst gauge as often as when building a demon.