Hello everyone and welcome to our Lost Ark Shadowhunter PVP Guide! Here you will see the best PVP Stats, Skills, Builds and Gameplay so you can unleash your inner speed demon. Get out there into the Arena and slay out on the battlefield rising up the Ranks! We’ll be covering everything you need to become a true competitor for future Competitive Proving Ground Seasons!

Best Shadowhunter PvP Stats

PVP in Lost Ark can pit you against a multitude of different Classes. When it comes to duking it out in the Arena whether it’s in the 3v3 Team Deathmatch setting or Elimination. As a result you may have to change stats to match your playstyle or the compositions you’re coming up against.

Lost Ark Shadowhunter PVP Guide Standard (Recommended)

  1   Crit
249 Domination
750 Swiftness

This stat spread is the gold standard across almost every class in Lost Ark PVP. More often than not you will max out Swiftness to the 750 cap as it is the best PVP stat. This is primarily due to Swiftness increasing Attack Speed, Movement Speed and cooldown reduction. This is essential when competing versus other players. Where each and every action and the speed to do it can be the difference between winning or losing.

Domination is a common stat to put 249-250 points into as your primary source of damage increases. The damage is gained from hitting targets that are crowd-controlled or debuffed. In PVP your teammates (or even you yourself) will constantly crowd control or CC your opponents.

As a result you will be seeing a consistent damage increase throughout the match. Finally Crit for the last point to round out the spread. This is to enable the ability to Crit at all. Without this point you forgo landing critical strikes on your opponents entirely.

Demonic Transformation Variant

1   Crit
100 Specialization
149 Domination
750 Swiftness

Moving away from the standard, there are plenty of alternative you can take in both skill builds and stat spreads. Specialization in PVP assists you with resource recovery rates, Awakening damage and Identity ability effectiveness.

In the Shadowhunter’s case, we’re getting use out of all three of these increases. With this spread you’ll drop a tiny bit of damage increase for the opportunity to gain more Identity gauge.

Specifically this gives a decent increase in your chances to obtain a second Demonic Transformation. Typically in PVP you will get a maximum of two Identity gauge usages if played correctly.

Heavy Crit Variant

250 Crit
750 Swiftness

Another popular alternative used by top Korean players (even in the Royal Roaders Esports scene!) and myself included is the heavy Crit variant. This build plays into the Shadowhunter playstyle which consists of playing at a mid-range landing poke, disruptive CCs.

Once these pokes land you will often find yourself moving in to land a short combo and then use mobility to get back out. This is essentially a hit-and-run playstyle. As a result of this you gain a lot of benefits landing crits with the poke as you will get the most out of those short trades.

The main allure of this variant however is the power play potential. Not only do you have a close range quick burst skill in Thrust Impact but also your entire Demonic Transformation skillset to abuse.

In this form you have a lot of damage skills that – if a Crit occurs will destroy any opponents. Therefore in this sense, the heavy Crit variant actually holds a lot of viability and is worth trying.

Crit/Dom Hybrid Variant

100 Crit
150 Domination
750 Swiftness
Finally, another variant that opts to use a lot more Crit than most typical builds would. This build however plays a much safer game and dips into both Crit and Domination as a result.

Skill Build and Tripods

Shadowhunter players have access to a plethora of incredible skills. Many of them are your core however the flexibility options in terms of skill switching is fairly decent. Of course we will see a constant adaptation to the meta and balance patches in the future so expect things to change over the months or years.

However, we currently have a fantastic build, of which has been self-tested but also a recurring build used by top Korean PVP veterans. This build will have you dropping huge damage and winning many games:

With this build you have great tools for practically every scenario. Tools to catch opponents and start combos such as Grind Chain and Demon Vision. Also mobility cooldowns such as Sharpened Cut and Demonic Slash and finally, your hard hitters Demonic Clone and Thrust Impact. Gate of Eruption will always be your best choice of Awakening. This is because you can build your entire Identity gauge for Demonic Transformation.

Note: Another option with this Shadowhunter build is to replace Demonic Clone with Demon’s Grip using the Swift Fingers, Numbing Effect and Giant Grasp Tripods. This skill swap typically is geared towards organized teamplay as you will have to coordinate with your teammates to get the most out of pulling opponents in towards you.

Another optional build with Shadowhunter is to opt deep into the poke side of the Shadowhunter’s gameplay loop. While the mobility and much of the core skills remain intact, you lose out on some of your hard hitting fire power in exchange for a lot more ranged zone control. While this is not the recommended build I do believe you have a viable strategy with it and have a lot of fun with it. 

Gameplay

As a Shadowhunter, the aim of the game is to be not only a strong DPS mid-ranged class, but also play a dual-role as the poke disruptor and damage carry for your team. You will have the tools to set-up not only yourself but your teammates with decently long ranged poke skills that double up as soft or middle tier CC and as a result net you and your team a ton of kills.

A good starting point is to practice your positioning when playing the Shadowhunter. In PVP camera positioning is important. This is because you and your opponent will only have a limited FoV. Usually flipped about 90 degrees depending on which team you’re on. Consequently, keeping yourself at a decent range but also horizontal to the enemy means you’ll be at the top or bottom of their screen perspective. This allows you to get off surprise poke or crowd control catches.

Ideally when playing Shadowhunter you will be looking for the correct angle to play from. In the right position you can provide constant poke harassment. Not only does this build your Identity gauge, but also allows you to use your immense mobility tools such as Demonic Slash and Sharpened Cut to close the gap immediately after landing your poke.

The joy of this scenario is that once you’re in and dealing your quick damage, you can then Spacebar or use the second charge of Demonic Slash to immediately get back to safety and back into poke range. 

Another thing to note when it comes to the Shadowhunter playstyle is your Identity gauge. While some classes use their Identity for decent but small things, the Shadowhunter uses their gauge to entirely transform into their Demonic form. As a result you will have found that your skills change to a different set while in the transformation:

These skills are immensely powerful while you’re in the Demon form. You will gain access to a lot of quick but powerful swipes, a huge AOE nuke skill in Blood Massacre and a fantastic gap closer that also hard CCs in Leaping Blow.

To get the most out of this you will have to optimize your gameplay so that you almost always gain two transformations per match. To successfully do this look to hold your Awakening till the very late stages of the match. Doing this means you can naturally build your Identity gauge up through normal combat loops. Then you will use the transformation early to gain an advantage and then – after a 30 second cooldown period, find an Awakening opportunity.

If you land the Awakening on even one player, you will likely get a second transformation as your Awakening builds Identity gauge. However if you hit 2 or more targets with the Awakening you will instantly gain your second transformation. The name of the game here is momentum.

PVP Combos

•  Use either Grind Chain or Demon Vision to catch the opponent. Should either hit look to move in quickly with Demonic Slash (charge 1) or Sharpened Cut. Once you are in range you have a few options here, the full combo would be to follow the mobility usage with Rising Claw into Demonic Clone. To finish the combo step forward slightly (or use spacebar) and use Thrust Impact, and quickly use your mobility to jump back into the mid-range sweet spot – Demonic Slash (charge 2) or your spacebar will be the likely movement out. This is your bread and butter combo. You can however save some cooldowns and hold Rising Claw and go straight into Demonic Clone plus Thrust Impact, for example.

•  If you have opted to run Demon’s Grip, another quick combo you can pull off fairly simply is to throw out your Grind Chain – and if it hits, use Demon’s Grip to pull the opponent in and hit them straight away with Demon Vision to stun them. From here you have options such as hitting them with a simple Thrust Impact for example.

•  While this is not a direct combo from you as a player, something you can do is use your mobility and the fact your Thrust Impact pushes your opponent away to your team’s advantage. A good example of this is seeing your Wardancer teammate use Esoteric Skill: Call of the Wind God (for reference, the giant tornado that carries opponents) you can position yourself with your plethora of movement tools after catching an opponent, and proceed to Thrust Impact them into your teammates ability.

•  Your Demon form will have two combos, one is simply using Leaping Blow to engage and hit your opponent with the Earthquake CC, following it up with Blood Massacre for a quick but huge burst. The other combo is one that is currently underutilized but very strong, often netting you good damage, a long stagger duration and a free Stand Up from your opponent.

To achieve this you will have to use Ruining Rush to engage onto your opponent, follow this up with your Auto-Attack (your left or right mouse click depending on bind). Once the Auto-Attack chain is about to finish, follow it up with Death Claw and end the combo with Gore Bleeding. This will allow you to get decent damage off while staggering your opponent for a long time, but also get a free Stand Up. If they do not have their Stand Up however, you can then look to extend the combo with Destruction.

Summary Tips

1. Use Demon Vision and Grind Chain to poke, catch opponents, peel for and enable your team.

2. Mid-range is your domain. Only you can have such a strong control of this space as a Shadowhunter. Make sure to maintain the hit-and-run playstyle that makes Shadowhunter so strong.

3. Make sure to be optimal in regards to Identity gauge building. Hold your Awakening and gain your first Demonic Transformation through standard gameplay and use the Awakening later in the game for a momentum shift.

4. Never stop moving. Shadowhunter has fantastic mobility tools which allows you to stay safe, get across the Arena quickly and also keep your opponent guessing.

5. Your transformations are very important. Make sure to only try and use your Demonic Transformation engage tools when you are sure they can land. An example of this is looking for opponents with no Stand Up so you can full-combo them.

Thank you for checking out our Lost Ark Shadowhunter PVP Guide! As a result I hope this helps you become one of the best Shadowhunter players in Lost Ark! We will make sure that we update this guide in the future since Lost Ark can make any changes for the Class and PVP is always an ongoing shift of meta adaptations. Good luck out there in the Arena and climb the Competitive Proving Ground Season Ranks!