Deathblade Guide for Lost Ark

Are you up for a new class? If yes, then the Deathblade class is the next class you have to try. Offering a mix of low HP, heavy-hitting damage, and swift movement, this class requires you to be on top of your game to come out unscathed in every battle. If you want to know how to use the Deathblade class to conquer any Lost Ark content, then this Deathblade Guide for Lost Ark is your holy grail.

Deathblade’s Characteristics and Identity Skill

The Deathblade is one of the two Advanced Classes under the Assassin class. They wield Dual Blades, and a Longsword strapped to their back. They wield tremendous damage with these three blades in close combat, delivering death to their foes with a thousand cuts. 

While their high DPS seems so attractive, this class requires many skills to use effectively. The first reason for this is their low HP, this class is one of the squishiest in Lost Ark. Hence, you need to utilize their fast speed to make sure you don’t get killed in the heat of battle.

Also, using them when playing solo could be a Herculean task. Because they do the most damage with Back Attacks, you’ll need to change position constantly to deal maximum damage. However, their Super Armors, which help boost their movement speed and prevent them from getting CC’ed, is a huge advantage.

Once you can master how to dart in and out of battle while delivering heavy-hitting strikes, using the Deathblade class becomes a lot easier.

Now, let’s discuss their identity skill. The Deathblade’s Identity Skill is the Deathblade Trance or Deathblade Trance. However, if you’re using the Surge Engraving, you can further enhance your Identity skill as the Engraving helps to replenish your Death Orbs (explained in detail later).

The Deathblade has to fill up its Death Orbs by inflicting damage on foes to activate the Death Trance. They have three of these orbs and can activate the Deathblade Trance once you fill up one of these Orbs. However, if you fill up all three Orbs, you can use the Deathblade Trance skill for a more extended period.

Once you exhaust your Orbs and the Deathblade Trance skill ends, you can activate the Deathblade Surge the next time you use the Identity Skill. The Surge increases your burst damage immensely when you slam your sword into the ground. Also, it gives Push Immunity. However, once you activate the Surge, it completely exhausts your Death Orbs.

Although you don’t get to fill up your Death Orbs while in the Deathblade Trance, you can start filling them back up immediately once you exhaust the Orbs. This is an advantage for you against other classes that have to wait for the customary 30-second cooldown period.

Deathblade’s Skills and Tripods

After maxing out your Deathblade character to Combat Level 60, you get access to 20 skills, including 18 Normal skills and 2 Awakening Skills. If you’re an experienced player, you’ll know you only have access to 8 skills while playing. Also, you can customize these skills by unlocking their Tripods. These Tripods can help inflict more damage or fill up your Death Orbs faster.

Let’s go through 8 of the best Deathblade skills to use and their Tripods:

• Spincutter: You unlock this skill at Combat Level 10. You can use this skill for engaging a mob of enemies. Allowing you to move 5 meters in a specified direction, the skill makes the Deathblade spin around its axis rapidly and inflicts damage to surrounding enemies. You can use this skill twice in a row. Tripods you can activate with this skill include Triple Spin, Quick Prep, and Open Weakness. The Open Weakness skill increases the damage your team members can deal for seconds and also reduces the cooldown period of the skill. Spincutter has a cooldown of 12 seconds.

• Dark Axel: You unlock this skill at Combat Level 12. When activated, the Deathblade jumps 6 meters in the specified direction while spinning in the air and pushing enemies back. This skill is perfect for escaping from a horde of enemies while leaving their HP significantly affected. The best Tripods for this skill are Quick Pace, High Axel, and Corkscrew. High Axel increases the distance of your jump by 4 meters while the other skills combine to increase damage dealt. Dark Axel has a cooldown of 12 seconds.
• Soul Absorber: You unlock this skill at Combat Level 14. It makes the Deathblader charge up the Longsword with energy and lunges it towards foes. The energy blast launches them into the air and causes considerable damage. The best Tripod to use will include Ice Cold Hands, Halve, and Wide Angle Attack. The Ice Cold Hand skill freezes your foes for some seconds while the other skills increase the lunge range and add a heavy-hitting slash attack. Soul Absorber has a cooldown of 16 seconds.

• Earth Cleaver: You unlock this skill at Combat Level 20. When activated, this skill causes the Deathblade to hold the sword with both hands and launch a powerful attack. The best Tripods for this skill are Push and Weak Point Detection. The Push skill makes the Deathblade dart 4 meters in the specified direction, hence, increasing the impact of the attack. The Weak Point Detection makes the skill affect stronger foes or those with Push Immunity. You can add Leap Attack to complete the tripod. This makes the Deathblade push the Longsword forcefully into the ground and increases the crit rate.
• Head Hunt: Unlocked at Combat Level 20. When activated, the Deathblade hits the enemy with the sword’s hilt, which pushes them back. They then launch another attack which adds further damage and stuns them for a second. This skill is perfect against foes with Push Immunity. The best Tripods to use with this skill include Weapon Destruction and Enhanced Strike. Both tripods activate a debuff which reduces the Attack Damage and boosts your attack damage. The last Tripod should be between Enhanced Stun and Weak Point Detection. Enhanced Stun increases the length of the stun, while Weak Point Detection increases the damage potential by 50% against Push-Immune foes. Head Hunt has a cooldown period of 18 seconds.
• Turning Slash: Unlocked at Combat Level 28. When activated, the Deathblade dashes forward in the specified direction and launches two sword strikes. The best tripods for this skill include Enhanced Strike/Open Weakness, Triple Stun, and Tenacity. Enhanced strike increases the damage inflicted on foes from the two strikes. You can substitute it with Open Weakness, which increases the damage your whole team does when the skill is activated. Triple Stun adds an extra strike to the move while Tenacity gives you the Push Immunity Super Armor. Turning Slash has a cooldown period of 15 seconds.
• Blitz Rush: Unlocked at Combat Level 40. This is one of the heaviest damaging skills Deathblade has. When activated, the Deathblade launches a barrage of attacks with the daggers. After this, it then launches a final attack with the Longsword. However, you have to charge up the skill before activating it. If you’d like to activate the skill without charging up, using the Vital Point Hit and All-round Tripods would solve that and increase your crit rate, although reducing the damage done. However, if you’ll prefer the more significant damage, you can replace one of them with Charge Enhancement. Finally, you can use the Shadow Rush as the last Tripod. This uses a shadow of your character to launch an extra attack which does additional damage.

• Void Strike: Unlocked at Combat Level 50. This is another devastating attack in Deathblade’s arsenal. This skill alone can take out regular foes completely while inflicting heavy damage on stronger enemies. The Deathblade launches an upward attack on opponents after charging the Longsword when activated. This launches the enemies in the air, and the Deathblade follows up with another attack that inflicts even more damage. The best Tripods for this skill include Fist Darkness, Dark Explosion, and Orb Control. This combo increases the overall damage and Death Orb energy you get with every strike.

Other skills you can use include Moonlight Sonic (Tripods: Shade Sonic, Quick Prep, and Burning Hands) and Maelstrom (Tripods: Overwhelm, Dark Order, and Orb Control).

Deathblade’s Engravings

Every Lost Ark Advanced Class possesses Engravings that add special skills to their arsenal. You have to complete endgame content like Guardian Raids, Abyss Dungeons, and Chaos Dungeons to access these skills.

There are two types of Engravings: Unique and General Engravings. Every Advanced Class has two Unique Engravings which are unique to them. For the Deathblader, the Unique Engravings are Deathblade Remaining Energy and Deathblade Surge. I’ll go through the characteristics and downsides of both Engravings and then explain the best General Engravings to use when playing Deathblade.

Deathblade Surge

With the Surge Engraving, you can access the Deathblade Surge special effects regardless of the number of Death Orbs you have. This means you can activate the Surge play style even if you have just one Death Orb. When you activate the Deathblade Trance in the Surge mode and use Normal skills to hit enemies, you get access to the Surge Enhancement effect. The Surge Enhancement comes in stacks that are maxed at 20 stacks. What the Surge Enhancement stacks do is replenish your Death Orbs once you exhaust the Death Trance meter. 

Once you get between 14 and 20 stacks before you exhaust the Death Trance, you get your three Death Orbs fully replenished. This means you can immediately reactivate the Death Trance. In other words, your Deathblade Surge buffs are up far more often, giving you an edge over opponents.

However, this is not the only advantage of using the Surge Engraving. If you upgrade it to at least Level 2, each stack of Surge Enhancement increases your Attack Power by 0.5% and increases the damage done when using the Engraving by 7.5%. At maxed stacks, Attack Power increases by 10%, while Surge Damage increases by a staggering 150%! Imagine all that damage inflicted on opponents.

In terms of skills, you can use the skills and Tripods explained earlier. Even if you want to make any alteration, ensure Void Strike and Maelstrom are included in your skills. These two can fill up 1 Death Orb when activated.

Combat Stats

When playing Surge, you should share your Combat Points between Specialization and Crit. The combination increases the crit rate and reduces the cooldown period of your skills when in the Deathblade Trance mode. Also, they boost the amount of Death Orb energy gained when you land a successful Normal skill hit.

Characteristics

• Helps to replenish Death Orbs using the Surge Enhancement stacks.
• Increases Deathblader’s Attack Power and Surge Damage.
• It can be activated even when not all Death Orbs are filled.
• It can also be activated when you use the Death Trance a second time.

Downsides

• Exhausts all your available Death Orbs once activated.

Deathblade’s Remaining Energy

This Engraving is more popular since it has more buffs than the Surge. Its first perk is that it doesn’t consume your Death Trance meter for the first 2 seconds after activation. It also increases your Attack and Movement Speed and Surge Attack Power.

The extent to which it increases depends on your Surge Level and Remaining Energy Level.

• At Remaining Energy Level 1: Increases Attack and Movement Speed by 6% and Surge Attack Power by either 8%, 16%, or 25%, depending on your Surge level.
• At Remaining Energy Level 2: Increases Attack and Movement Speed by 9% and Attack Surge Power by 10%, 20%, or 30%, depending on your Surge level.
• At Remaining Energy Level 3: Increases Attack and Movement Speed by 9% and Attack Surge Power by 12%, 24%, and 36%, depending on your Surge level.

For Remaining Energy Engraving, you follow the same combat stats, skillset, and tripods as Deathblade Surge.

Characteristics

• When using this Engraving, the Death Orb meter decreases after 2 seconds.
• Increases Attack and Movement Speed and Surge Attack Power depending on Surge level.
• Prioritizes Specialization and Crit in Combat Stats.

Downsides

• Consumes all Death Energy Orbs when activated.
• Does not replenish Death Orbs.

General Engravings

This section will go through five of the best Lost Ark General Engravings to use with either of the Unique Engravings.

1. Master of Ambush: This Engraving increases the damage you can do from successful Back Attacks (5% from Level 1, 12% for Level 2, 25% for Level 3). 
2. Grudge: This Engraving increases the damage you do to bosses by 4% at Level 1, 10% at Level 2, and 20% at Level 3 and increases the damage you take by 20% at each level. Before using this Engraving, it’s best to upgrade it to Level 3. Also, you must be good at evasion due to the squishy nature of the Deathblader.
3. Super Charge: This Engraving increases the charging skills’ speed and the impact of incoming damage taken at each level. (8% charging skills speed increase and 4% incoming damage increase at Level 1, 20% charging skills speed increase and 10% incoming damage increase at Level 2, 40% charging skills’ speed increase and 20% incoming damage increase at Level 3). Another skill that requires you to put the Deathblader’s mobility to good use.
4. Cursed Doll: This Engraving increases Attack Power and decreases Healing but excludes Natural Recovery from the reduction. (At Level 1, increases Attack Power by 3% and decreases Healing by 25%, At Level 2, increases Attack Power by 8% and decreases Healing by 25%, At Level 3, increases Attack Power by 16% and decreases Healing by 25%).
5. Keen Blunt Weapon: This Engraving increase the amount of critical damage you can cause. However, it also decreases your Damage extent by 20% at all levels. However, the critical damage extent increase with each level (10% at Level 1, 25% at Level 2, and 50% at Level 3).

Other General Engravings you can utilize include Sight Focus, Adrenaline, and Precise Dagger. It is worth noting that most of these Engravings come with downsides that could really affect your gameplay if you’re a newbie using Deathblade. Hence, if you want to utilize any, it is better to upgrade it to Level 3 before using it in battles.

Deathblade’s Awakening Skills

Like every other Lost Ark Advanced Class, Deathblades possess two Awakening skills: Flash Blink and Blade Assault. While both skills are similar in damage impact, Blade Assault is more aesthetically pleasing to watch. Let’s go through the mechanics of both skills:

1. Flash Blink: The Deathblade dashes in the specified direction while cutting through opponents in the way using all three blades. The impact of this knocks opponents into the air and causes additional damage.

2. Blade Assault: This skill requires charging up the Longsword and cutting through opponents mercilessly. Then, the Deathblade summons spiritual blades, which it hurls at foes and knocks them away from the Deathblade, thereby causing more damage. The spiritual blade mechanic occurs only when you hit the Perfect Zone.

Deathblade’s PvP Recommended Build

In PvP, you want to deliver as much damage as possible with each successful strike. So you need to make sure you stack up your arsenal with heavy-hitting skills. However, also remember that these skills tend to have longer cooldown periods, so it is advisable to use them late in the battle. 

Since your skills have long cooldown periods, it’s better to feed off your teammates’ battles and finish off opponents that are about to die. The skills you should equip include Surprise Attack, Upper Slash, Spincutter, Dark Axel, Head Hunt, Moonlight Sonic, Turning Slash, and Blitz Rush. 

Finally, your Combat Stats should be shared between Swiftness and Crit. Swiftness should take priority as it would help you evade enemy attacks while waiting on the long skill cooldowns. 

Deathblade’s PvE Recommended Build

In PvE content, you’re bound to have to fight through mobs of enemies. Hence, it is advisable always to keep your eyes on your health bar. Amidst all that slashing and damage, you might forget to check how much damage you’re taking, leading to unexpected death. To prevent this, you can also use your potion before the fight since they work overtime and reduce the impact of incoming damage.

Skills you should use include Spincutter, Dark Axel, Soul Absorber, Earth Cleaver, Moonlight Sonic, Maelstrom, Blitz Rush, and Void Strike.

When launching any skill, especially the heavy-hitting ones, make sure your targeting system is pointing towards a horde of enemies before execution. This is because the auto-targeting system of the game could target lone enemies at a time. This could lead to a massive loss of damage potential. With the higher cooldown periods that follow these skills, you’ll definitely regret that decision. 

Finally, after using your first cast of the Death Trance (Identity Skill), you should wait until the last Death Orb meter is almost exhausted before casting it a second time. This is because you get many buffs after the first cast, which can last you till the Orbs are exhausted. After the 2^nd cast, you get these buffs replenished. This way, you can put the buffs to good use. For Combat Stats, use the same one as the PvP build. 

Conclusion

Playing with the Deathblade character might be one of the most challenging things to do in Lost Ark. However, once you get the hang of it, you’ll definitely get to enjoy it even more. If you’ll love to become a beast with the Deathblade character, this is the perfect Deathblade Class Guide for Lost Ark for you.