Human or Demon? The Shadowhunter in Lost Ark fights with great blades and occasionally transforms into a demon. MeinMMO author Anny Bader takes a closer look at her and explains what to expect from the Shadowhunter.
What kind of class is this? The Shadowhunter, in English Shadowhunter, is one of two subclasses of the Assassin. She wields a sword in each hand, which allows her to deal damage to her opponents quickly. She also possesses a few attacks that can be performed from medium range.
Her armor and hit points are lower compared to other classes, which means she takes a lot of damage. She is even one of the classes with the lowest hit points in the game. Additionally, outside of her demon form, she is relatively immobile and has long cooldowns on her evasion abilities.
For what content is she useful? The Shadowhunter shines in PvE as she deals significant damage and quickly defeats a large number of opponents. If she takes too much damage, you can first evade and use her mid-range attacks. The class is ranked A-Tier on our PvE tier list.
On the PvP version of the list, she is in the B range. She is not bad, but also not perfect in PvP. Due to her diversity, opponents can hardly predict what the Shadowhunter will do next. You can use this to your advantage.
How to play the Shadowhunter
The special feature of the Shadowhunter is the so-called Shadow Burst Bar, her identity ability. When this is filled, you can press Y to transform the character into a demon for a few seconds. To fill the bar, you must use penetrating abilities. These include Demon Clone and Rising Claw.
In demon mode, you benefit from the demonic abilities that deal significant damage and have large AoE fields. Additionally, the transformation heals 20% of your current HP and gives you 20% increased movement speed. You are also immune to staggering as a demon.
After a while, you transform back into a human. The cooldown before the Shadow Burst Bar can be filled again is 30 seconds.
All skills of the Shadowhunter
Demolition: Costs 80 mana. Lunge forward and deal damage to the opponent. Usable up to 3 times in a row, dealing more damage each time.
Brutal Cross: Costs 61 mana. Swing your weapon forward and knock opponents away.
Piercing Thorn: Costs 91 mana. Spikes shoot out of the ground within a radius of 12 meters. (Penetrating ability)
Demon Grip: Costs 85 mana. A demonic claw shoots forward and pulls foes to you. (Penetrating ability)
Demon Sight: Costs 101 mana. Death Ray (chargeable) to deal as much damage as possible. (Penetrating ability)
Demonic Clone: Costs 67 mana. Become a large demon briefly and hit the opponent twice. (Penetrating ability)
Demonic Strike: Costs 61 mana. Shoot forward to deal damage multiple times. (Penetrating ability)
Decimate: Costs 108 mana. Call forth demonic arms to deal damage to your opponent.
Rising Claw: Costs 67 mana. Lunge forward and throw opponents into the air. (Penetrating ability and Counter Skill)
Swift Cut: Costs 45 mana. Perform 3 forward slashes.
Sharp Cut: Costs 85 mana. Move forward 9 meters while spinning quickly and dealing damage.
Brutal Cut: Costs 85 mana. Throw your weapon forward. Opponents in the air will be pushed back into the air on a hit.
Howl: Costs 114 mana. Deal damage to opponents and frighten them for 2 seconds.
Chain Slash: Costs 67 mana. Throw your weapon like a boomerang, dealing damage in both directions.
Slasher: Costs 53 mana. Swing your weapon up and down, dealing damage in both directions.
Impact Slam: Costs 85 mana. Pull opponents closer with a shove of your weapon, and then push away from them. Both deal damage.
Whirling Weapon: Costs 101 mana. The weapon spins and deals damage. Usable multiple times.
Whirling Jump: Costs 80 mana. Spin and jump while striking multiple times. Pushes opponents away.
Skills in Demon Form
In the Shadowhunter’s demon form, your abilities generally have no mana cost, so you can spam them as much as you want.
Ruining Sprint: Lunge forward and perform a claw attack.
Death Claw: Claw attack followed by an upward strike.
Destruction: Release latent energy within you. Deals an enormous amount of damage.
Bloodletting: Multiple claw attacks while moving forward.
Jumping Strike: Jump towards the opponent and slam into the ground to create a shockwave.
Blood Massacre: Explosion that deals an enormous amount of damage.
You will also receive your awakening, your ultimate, at level 50 after completing a quest line. For the Shadowhunter, this ability is Gate of Eruption. It summons a large demonic eye that explodes, dealing massive damage.
The Shadowhunter in the Level Process
How should I distribute my first skill points? When distributing points, it’s important that you never need to raise the skill levels higher than level 10. Skill Level 4 is needed for the first tripod, Skill Level 8 for the second, and Skill Level 10 for the third.
Level 12: At the beginning, place 4 points in Demonic Strike and 4 points in Demonic Clone.
Up to Level 21: 48 points in Impact Slam to deal high AoE damage.
Up to Level 29: 20 points each in Brutal Strike and Demonic Clone, then additional points in Brutal Strike until the ability is at level 10.
Up to Level 38: At level 36, you unlock Sharp Cut. Then place 20 points in it.
Up to Level 45: 48 points in Howl for maximum AoE damage.
Up to Level 48: Place the remaining points in Demonic Clone to reach level 10.
By the way, you can reset skill points anytime for free if you don’t like your playstyle. For example, you might prefer Demonic Clone during the leveling phase and replace Brutal Strike with it.
The Best Builds in the Endgame
In the endgame, there are two different play styles for the Shadowhunter. You can ultimately choose between human and demon, each having its own advantages and disadvantages. However, both builds primarily focus on generating as much demonic energy as possible, but spend it differently.
Class Engraving A: Perfect Suppression
What does the engraving do? If you choose this class engraving, your character can no longer enter demon mode.
Nevertheless, the build focuses on building demonic energy to then use it as a boost for normal abilities. 20% of the demon energy is consumed to empower a few of your attacks for up to +200% more damage.
When equipping, pay attention to the stats Critical and Swiftness, with Critical being the more important of the two.
A disadvantage of this playstyle is that you only have one awakening ability since the others are tied to demon form.
Which engravings do I use? Master of Ambush is worthwhile in this build since many of your attacks deal more damage from behind anyway. Additionally, Adrenaline and Reckless Blunt Weapon are beneficial as you are relying on a high critical rate.
Which collectable cards are important? To further increase your critical rate, at the beginning you should focus on the Howling Rock card set. It consists of Armel, Seria, Solas, King Thirain, Kharmine, and Delain Armel.
The optimal set is Light of Redemption, which consists of rare cards. Thus, it will be expensive later, but worth it. The set consists of Shandi, Azena, and Innana, Nineveh, Wei, Balthorr, and Thirain. With a 6-piece set with 30-piece awakening, the cards grant you 8% more Holy Damage and convert all your damage into holy damage.
What abilities do I use?
| Icon | Ability | Level | Tripods |
 | Demonic Strike | 7 | Enhanced Damage Swift Movement |
 | Brutal Cut | 12 | Magic Control Ground Attack Ambush Release |
 | Impact Slam | 12 | Swift Thrust Deep Thrust Spectral Explosion |
 | Demolition | 12 | Weak Point Detection Wave Attack Ambush Release |
 | Sharp Cut | 11 | Enhanced Strike Vertical Strike Critical Cut |
 | Rising Claw | 10 | Naive Honesty Concussion Grip of Death |
 | Howl | 10 | Enhanced Damage Ambush Strength Scream of Anger |
 | Decimate | 12 | Quick Preparation Weak Point Detection Brutal Hand |
 | Gate of Eruption | Awakening |
What does the rotation look like? Your rotation begins with the awakening Gate of Eruption to fill your entire energy. Then you use Howl so that the opponent takes 6% more damage for 8 seconds.
Then follow up with your burst skills. However, you should not have more than two of these in your build, as otherwise, you will run out of energy and cannot regenerate it quickly enough. The burst skills include Demolition, Brutal Cut, Whirling Weapon, and Swift Cut.
After that, use other skills to bridge the time until you have gathered enough energy again. Now the rotation can restart.
Class Engraving B: Demonic Impulse
What does the engraving do? With this class engraving, you choose to play as a demon and focus entirely on the Shadow Burst Bar. As a human, you want to switch back to demon mode as quickly as possible, as this is where you deal the most damage.
Since you are agile as a demon, the Swiftness value in your equipment is less important here. Instead, focus on Critical and Specialization, with the latter being more important than Critical. The more Specialization you have, the faster your bar fills up.
The problem with this engraving is that in tier 1 and 2, you do not have enough Specialization to fill the entire bar with one rotation unless you use your awakening Gate of Eruption.
Which engravings do I use? Because this build relies on Specialization, you can use Adrenaline for more Critical. Additionally, Hit Master is beneficial as almost no demon skills deal more damage than frontal or ambush attacks. Later, you can also rely on Reckless Blunt Weapon and Spirit Absorption combined with Overlord.
Which collectable cards are important? The collectable cards do not differ from the other class engraving. To further increase your critical rate, at the beginning you should focus on the Howling Rock card set. It consists of Armel, Seria, Solas, King Thirain, Kharmine, and Delain Armel.
The optimal set is Light of Redemption, which consists of rare cards. Thus, it will be expensive later, but worth it. The set consists of Shandi, Azena, and Innana, Nineveh, Wei, Balthorr, and Thirain. With a 6-piece set and 30-piece awakening, the cards grant you 8% more Holy Damage and convert all your damage into holy damage, meaning you deal a smooth 8% more damage.
What abilities do I use?
| Icon | Ability | Level | Tripods |
| Demonic Strike | 10 | Enhanced Damage Swift Movement Chain Charge |
| Impact Slam | 12 | Swift Thrust Deep Thrust Ambush Strength |
 | Demonic Clone | 12 | Nerve Strike Fist of Destruction Enhanced Ambush Release |
| Rising Claw | 10 | Naive Honesty Giant Hand Grip of Death |
 | Demon Sight | 12 | Concentrated Release Ambush Strength Instant Discharge |
 | Demon Grip | 11 | Swift Fingers Ambush Strength Outstretched Hand |
| Howl | 7 | Swift Fingers Ambush Strength |
| Decimate | 12 | Swift Fingers Weak Point Detection Brutal Hand |
| Gate of Eruption | Awakening |
What does the rotation look like? In human form, you try to fill your bar quickly. Just before switching to demon form, you use Howl. Now you use the demonic abilities that are enhanced by Howl by 6%.
As a demon, you then use the appropriate abilities and try to manage the cooldowns effectively. Blood Massacre, Jumping Strike, and Bloodletting in succession, for example, are a suitable start.
When the demon mode ends, the rotation starts over.
What do you think of the Shadowhunter? Have you played her and reached the endgame? If so: What playstyle have you chosen? What skills do you use? Or is the Shadowhunter not for you and do you prefer one of the other classes? Feel free to leave us a comment here on MeinMMO!
