In this game guide you will find many useful tips for playing for Shadowhunter class.
Gameplay FAQ
General
Why should I play this class?
In one class you have two drastically different builds to pick from: one is a non-positional, high survivability, and unique transformation build, while the other focuses on your human form, boosting skill damage with your identity gauge.
How does my identity work?
Shadowhunter utilizes a Shadowburst gauge, this gauge is filled by using your skills and the amount of gauge generation is based on the Specialization stat. Demonic Impulse heavily relies on this for entering transformation state, once the gauge is full they can transform, once they de-transform they regenerate a full gauge and repeat. For Perfect Suppression certain skills can utilize the built up gauge for more damage increase since you are unable to utilize the transformation state.
What are the key pieces of my build?
Runes
Demonic Impulse really benefits from Wealth Runes and high Specialization to build gauge with less skills.
Perfect Suppression makes good use of Conviction + Judgment runes to help with mana management and cooldowns.
Skill Points
While skill point potions are nearly useless for Demonic Impulse — since demonic skills aren’t levelable — they help to boost Perfect Supression’s damage a bit further with level 11/12 spenders and hard-hitting skills.
Demonic Impulse
What relic set is better, Hallucination or Salvation?
Both Hallucination and Salvation are viable for all content in the game. With that said, once the minimum requirements are met Salvation is generally stronger than Hallucination as long as stacks are maintained.
Hallucination with Crit as a Secondary stat is mathematically better than Salvation Crit, but without the Attack Speed and CDR from Swiftness (or just ATK Speed from Salvation) it’s easier to miss skills due to boss movement.
After we get Elixirs (with Voldis), there’s 2 “Elixir Set” choices you can pick from:
- Master: Provides up to 7% Crit Rate and 8.5% Additional Damage at level 2
- Repentance: Provides 12% Damage on Crit (not the same as crit damage) at level 2.
Since all builds run Adrenaline in one form or the other, and we have high crit rate due to Demonic Impulse engraving (and/or Crit secondary stat, Hallucination relic set), the ideal choice for us is Repentance. In the case of Salvation, it is still a better choice due to Additional Damage from Master being additive to Salvation’s bonus, Yearning and Weapon Quality.
This elixir benefits more the higher you go on crit rate, therefore Hallucination+Crit gains a slightly bigger boost than Salvation+Crit. This can translate into more damage in ideal scenarios, but at the cost of QoL (in the form of move speed or attack speed).
The TL;DR would be:
- Pick Hallucination + Crit if you’re chasing the ceiling (or if you’re failing to keep up Salvation stacks)
- Pick Salvation + Crit for a slightly lower damage ceiling but an increase in comfiness
- Pick Hallucination + Swift if you like to zoom zoom around (:D) at the cost of damage
How much Specialization is enough?
All you can get. Spec is everything for Demonic Impulse.
It’s our only true way to scale outside of gems/engravings. It provides damage and transform duration (which means even more damage), allows us to spend less time in Human Form by reducing the amount of skills used to transform and you never have enough of it.
How important are tripods to this build?
They only matter to the extent of being able to transform in one rotation; if the spec and tripod requirements are met they do not provide value beyond that. The non-gauge generation tripods listed as a lower priority exist solely for quality of life.
Entropy Perfect Suppression
Raid Captain and Keen Blunt Weapon efficiency
Raid Captain is easy to cap if you run Demonic Slash’s tripod Nimble Movement, since it provides up to 30% Movespeed for a few seconds. But if you want to run alternative skill setups where you drop Demonic Slash to Lv.4 or don’t like to be tied to a strict rotation, you need at least 1400 Swiftness (with Yearning Lv. 3) to make it a ~16% damage engraving.
For Entropy builds Keen Blunt Weapon efficiency drops a bit due to both providing additive Crit Damage. You’re usually picking between KBW and Cursed Doll, which also loses efficiency when paired with Adrenaline. Having about 82% Crit Rate makes them equal (if you’re running Adrenaline 3), but KBW gains more from crit synergies.
1 Spender? 2 Spenders? 3 Spenders?
Entropy runs 2 Spenders (Cruel Cutter and Demolition) since there’s no worthy 3rd spender with the back attack affix. Using any of the other spenders in place of damage skills (like Decimate or Thrust Impact) translates to less damage overall.
Counter / Gauge generation alternatives
This is more of a personal choice.
Slasher vs Rising Claw
With the new tripods, Slasher has become a utility skill. You can use it for synergy + nimble movement uptime, and with a CD gem it can even be used to upkeep adrenaline all by itself. This is specially handy for crit-heavy builds since they lack move speed for Raid Captain. But it also has the downside of lower gauge generation.
Rising Claw is a better counter (bigger hitbox) and does decent damage, while also generating more gauge than Slasher, but lacks utility. This is usually better suited for Swift-oriented builds since you cover the lack of nimble movement uptime with Swiftness.
Howl vs Demonic Clone vs Demon’s Grip
Howl provides more gauge generation per cast, and applies synergy. But it lacks paralysis immunity and has a long CD which means failing it is much more punishing.
Demonic Clone has lower gauge generation per cast, but shorter CD than howl which means more gauge per second. It also has Paralysis Immunity through its Naively Honest tripod, which makes it a safer alternative. It requires Lv.10 to reach the Enh. Encroachment Release (gauge generation) tripod.
Demon’s Grip is a newer alternative thanks to the buff to gauge generation it got. It has better gauge/sec generation than Howl (albeit lower than Demonic Clone), and while it also lacks Paralysis Immunity, it compensates with a faster animation.
Non-Positional Perfect Suppression
Perfect Suppression Lv.1 vs Lv.3
Perfect Suppression is a poor scaling engraving. It scales linearly (20% > 28% > 36%) and only buffs normal skill damage. This means that abilities like Decimate and Piercing Thorn –which are a considerable part of our damage– are not buffed by it.
Therefore, having other (more impactful/efficient) engravings and dropping it to Lv.1 ends up giving more damage.
1 Spender? 2 Spenders? 3 Spenders?
Nightmare builds have 3 good spenders (Grind Chain, Spinning Weapon, Cruel Cutter with the backattack-removing tripod) and can afford to run them all when paired with enough gauge generation.
Counter / Gauge generation alternatives
This is more of a personal choice.
Slasher vs Rising Claw
With the new tripods, Slasher has become a utility skill. You can use it for synergy + nimble movement uptime, and with a CD gem it can even be used to upkeep adrenaline all by itself. This is specially handy for crit-heavy builds since they lack move speed for Raid Captain. But it also has the downside of lower gauge generation.
Rising Claw is a better counter (bigger hitbox) and does decent damage, while also generating more gauge than Slasher, but lacks utility. This is usually better suited for Swift-oriented builds since you cover the lack of nimble movement uptime with Swiftness.
Howl vs Demonic Clone vs Demon’s Grip
Howl provides more gauge generation per cast, and applies synergy. But it lacks paralysis immunity and has a long CD which means failing it is much more punishing.
Demonic Clone has lower gauge generation per cast, but shorter CD than howl which means more gauge per second. It also has Paralysis Immunity through its Naively Honest tripod, which makes it a safer alternative. It requires Lv.10 to reach the Enh. Encroachment Release (gauge generation) tripod.
Demon’s Grip is a newer alternative thanks to the buff to gauge generation it got. It has better gauge/sec generation than Howl (albeit lower than Demonic Clone), and while it also lacks Paralysis Immunity, it compensates with a faster animation.
Keen Blunt Weapon for Swiftness builds?
Full Swiftness (4Dom2NM or NM6pc) builds have quite low “global” crit rate, with it coming from Adrenaline 3 and Crit Neck only (other than bracelet effects). With 650 crit stat and Adrenaline 3, you have roughly 38% “global” Crit Rate (~11.5% damage from KBW).
- But our Spenders and some skills have additional sources of Crit Rate.
- Cruel Cutter, Spinning Weapon and Grind Chain all have 20% additional Crit Rate built in their tripods, which puts them at ~58% Crit Rate (~16% damage from KBW).
- Piercing Thorns has up to 45% additional Crit Rate for a total of ~83% Crit Rate (~20.2% damage from KBW).
- Decimate, Rising Claw and Demonic Clone can have an additional 10% Crit Rate from back attacks (although this is min-maxing).
- Grind Chain also has a tripod which provides up to 90% additional Crit Damage, lowering KBW efficiency quite a bit to ~11.5% damage.
This gives Keen Blunt Weapon an overall efficiency of ~14.7% damage when accounting for all of the above (ignoring Decimate/Claw/Clone back attacks).
Now, let’s look at alternatives:
- Increased Mass, when paired with Cursed Doll and Adrenaline, has an efficiency of ~14.7% damage (same as KBW in this case), totally ignoring the attack speed penalty.
- If you’re already running Increased Mass and were to add Cursed Doll instead, Cursed Doll would have an efficiency of ~12.9% damage.
- Hit Master only affects ~80% of our damage, which makes it a ~12.8% damage engraving, well below KBW efficiency.
Increased Mass would be the only comparable option, right? Well, in this case yes. But also no. You need to account for all the ways where KBW can scale further: currently Crit Synergies, and soon Crit Rate elixir sets.
TL;DR: at best you’re adding a 10% attack speed penalty for the same damage, and at worst you’re losing damage when you have additional sources of crit rate.
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