Lost Ark Shadowhunter Guide: Build, Skills, Engravings

Here is a beginner friendly guide to the Lost Ark Shadowhunter.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

Lost Ark has plenty of classes available at launch, all of which are eerie, interesting, and thematically different. One of those that are exceptionally unique is the Lost Ark Shadowhunter, a class that uses a mixture of melee, and ranged assassin weaponry, and the powers of demons. If you’re interested in the Lost Ark Shadowhunter class, why not check out this handy guide? Here you get to see some Shadowhunter builds, common skills, and the best engravings that really make the class pop.

Read More: Lost Ark Classes.

Please note, this Lost Ark Shadowhunter guide is a decent starting point for beginner’s. The purpose of this guide is to give you an introduction to the Shadowhunter gameplay styles and build paths. This is you can get an idea of whether this class is for you.

Lost Ark Shadowhunter Guide

The core of this Lost Ark Shadowhunter Guide will explore all the most common builds and skills you can expect in the class. The idea behind this is to give you an insight into how this class plays at the end game, which will help you determine if this class is right for you.

In addition, this Lost Ark Shadowhunter guide will help break down any jargon, making it easier for you to understand the facets of the class. To do so, we will go through the Shadowhunter’s skills, along with their tripods to give you an understanding of how to build and play the class. Moreso, we will give you an idea of the best Shadowhunter engravings and gems, which will let you know what skills and buffs you want to really make this class run wild

Lost Ark Shadowhunter Identity Skill

First up is the Lost Ark Shadowhunter’s Identity skill. This Eerie class in Lost Ark has an identity skill or two, which is how the class gets her unique powers only she gets. The Shadow Huner is the ability to turn into a demon, unlocking a whole new set of skills. You will eventually fill a gauge up as you get yourself in combat. When you fill that gauge, you can turn into a big demon, unlocking new ways to jump into combat, claw, and whack enemies with some incredible powers.

It is a very fun class, with lots of different styles in mind. We will show you the skills you can expect to use in the human and demon forms.

Lost Ark Shadowhunter Skills and Tripods

Unlike most classes, the Lost Ark Shadowhunter has two different builds they can run. The builds depend on which class engraving you want to run. There is an engraving that enhances the power of your demon form, increasing your crit rate while in demon form. 

Meanwhile, the other Shadowhunter class engraving increases the damage of your human form skills, but prevent transformation. This build allows for a mixture of ranged and melee playstyles. The best bit is both Shadowhunter class Engravings are viable, so you can play whichever you prefer.

Once you have a class engraving in mind, you can then make a build. We will highlight the sort of class engravings and skill engravings you should expect from them.

One other thing, The Lost Ark Shadowhunter has a significantly lower amount of super armors. Super armors are defensive buffs you can get when you press your damage skills. If you want a CC immunity effect, then you need to opt into the tripod section. 

We recommend learning the fight you are doing, paying attention to the CC you can expect, then tripod into a counter. However, that is for much later on in the game when you get more familiar with the gameplay mechanics.

Lost Ark Shadowhunter Demon Build

This Lost Ark Shadowhunter Demon build is all about utility and ult generation. Not to mention it does decent cleave damage and boss damage. When you begin to tripod these skills, you are mainly looking for CC generation, added mobility, and ideally better resource generation.

Howl is a very important skill as it grants 12% damage buff to the enemy for six seconds to all party members It also increases your demon from regen by 100% when it lands per enemy hit. You want to use this skill as often as possible. You need to also save this for just before you turn into your demon form to really make that demon form unleash hell. It is worth saying the Demon Form is one of the best PvE classes in Lost Ark.

Skill	What it does	Tripod 1	Tripod 2	Tripod 3
Sharpened Cut	Dash 9 meters forward and cut through targets. Infiltration adds an extra 6 meters to the dash.	Enhanced Slash	Infiltration Attack	Critical Cut
Demonic Slash	Deal damage several times with your weapons, slashing targets in front of you	Mobility	Nimble	Charge – adds a combo effect to the skill.
Demon Grip	Throw a demon arm forward and pulls closer to you.	Quick-Prep	Power
Demon Vision	Sending out a ray beam that knocks enemies back and does more damage based on charge length.	Release	Power	Instant Discharge – removes the charge mechanic on the skill
Spinning Dive	Spin and deep to the direction and attack when you land.	Excellent Mobility	Optional	Spinning Master
Demonic Clone	Your demon form strikes multiple times.	Vital Point	Fist of Destruction	Discharge
Rising Claw	Dash forward and knock your foe in the air with an uppercut	Quick Prep	Situational	Grasp of Death
Howl	AOE damage that fears enemies	Swift Fingers	Encroaching Power	Scream of Fury

Lost Ark Shadowhunter Human Build

This build looks somewhat similar to the Demon build. You still want to fill your gauge as there are skills that consume your gauge for added power bonuses. The key here is to make sure you are generating your Demonic gauge via your AOE attacks like Howl and Thrust while performing DPS with your non-encroachment release skills. When you have built up your demonic gauge, you want to use your skills with Encroachment Release tripods to deal huge burst damage. Don’t use them before as you won’t get the added damage bonus if you don’t have enough demonic essence stored.

Skill	What it does	Tripod 1	Tripod 2	Tripod 3
Cruel Cutter	Throw your weapon, dash and knock enemies in the air.	Nimble	Situational	Encroachment Release
Thrust Impact	Thrust your weapons forward. All the tripods add explosions that deal significant AOE damage.	Swift Thrust	Deep Thrust	Spectral Explosion
Demonic Slash	Deal damage several times with your weapons, slashing targets in front of you	Mobility	Nimble	Charge – adds a combo effect to the skill.
Spinning Dive	Spin and deep to the direction and attack when you land.	Excellent Mobility	Optional	Spinning Master
Demolition	Attack several times to deal damage. You can cast the skill again to throw enemies backwards.	Weak Point Detection	Wave Attack	Encroachment Release
Rising Claw	Dash forward and knock your foe in the air with an uppercut	Situational
Howl	AOE damage that fears enemies	Swift Fingers	Encroaching Power	Scream of Fury

Lost Ark Shadowhunter Awakening Skills

Every class in Lost Ark has two Awakening skills. If you’re wondering what the Shadowhunter Awakening skills are, they both do different things. The first is the human form version. This corrupts the surrounding area in demonic energy, which ticks damage to those in the area. Eventually, it detonates, dealing bonus damage and knocks enemies into the air.

The other Lost Ark Shadowhunter awakening skill is usable in demon form. You ascend into the sky and drill a laser into the desired location. Its energy then manifests and detonates on the space, dealing huge burst damage and knocking enemies away.

Lost Ark Shadowhunter Engravings

As mentioned, there are two Lost Ark Shadowhunter class engravings. These two engravings are called Demonic Impulse and Perfect Suppression.  Demonic Impulse is all about going crazy in your demon form and dishing out the most damage within that window. Meanwhile, Perfect Suppression is all about consuming that demonic energy to enhance your big damage skills in the human form. 

Choose which one you like and then get skills based on the tables covered in the Lost Ark Shadowhunter guide above.

After that, this class wants the generic DPS increase engravings like Cursed Doll, Adrenaline, Grudge. The Lost Ark Shadowhunter will not have to worry about the negative effects these class engravings bring. The reason why is because they have quite a few dashes in her kit, especially with tripod modifications. If you find you are going to get hit, chances are you have a way to escape and not have to worry about it.

However, if you are not comfortable with the risk, feel free to mess around with engravings until you are more familiar with fights. One of the safest options is the Heavy Armor engraving. This adds extra defensive stats to your character, ensuring your added safety in deadly situations.

Also, we highly recommend taking the Master of Ambush engraving. The reason why is because the Shadow Huner has lots of back attack skills that add extra damage to her skills. Since you have plenty of dashes, you can easily slide to the back of targets and get that extra damage out, especially in coordinated group content.

All in all, the Engravings you want are very similar to the Shadowhunter’s sister class, the Deathblade. You can learn more about Lost Ark Engravings here if you’re interested.

Lost Ark Shadowhunter Gems

You want gauge fill gems on Howl to really bolster that resource generation. Your demon form skills can also do with added attack speed and cast speed buffs to hasten the long animations. You’ll also want damage increase gems if you are going the human form for that huge burst damage on your gauge spending skills.