How to kit out your Deathblade for adventures in Arkesia
What is the best Deathblade build in Lost Ark?The Deathblade is one ofLost Ark’s most intriguing character classes, with a popularity that belies a surprisingly low base damage stat. Perhaps it’s the Deathblade’s cool appearance that gets so many players past her shortcomings; after all, how many times in life do you get the chance to wield three swords at once?
There are no truly bad character choices in Lost Ark, and like any other class, the Deathblade can play like a dream with the right build. On this page we’ll give an overview of the Deathblade’s skills, levelling guide, and which bonus class and engravings to choose when you reach the endgame.
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Best Lost Ark Deathblade build: Overview
The Deathblade’s weapon set is made up of three swords — a duo of short daggers and a longsword — but unlike with Gunner character classes, you won’t be in charge of manually switching between them. Instead, the Deathblade’s identity skill and the nominal linchpin of her build is the Death Orb.
The Deathblade carries three Death Orbs which (re-)charge during combat. Activating a Death Orb triggers the Deathblade Arts skill effect which does the following:
The base duration of a Death Orb is 10 seconds; but if you choose to activate multiple orbs simultaneously, all effects (barring movement speed increase) stack for the combined duration.
To be perfectly honest, the main advantage of the Deathblade is that she’s an incredibly fun class to play. The lack of manual weapon switching might be seen as a downside if you’re into micromanaging during battle, but the fact that other factors determine weapon selection gives you the chance to just really enjoy some satisfying hack-and-slash combat. However, the downside of this class is definitely her base attack power when not under the influence of Death Orb, which leaves something to be desired. However, her impressive attack speed and fast cooldown times make her a force to be reckoned with in PvP, which goes a long way towards making up for her PvE shortcomings.
The Deathblade’s normal skills are overwhelming focussed on offensive attacks. Since you can’t switch between her double daggers and longsword at will, skill selection is your chance to focus on one weapon choice or the other if you find you have a strong preference.
By the time you reach Level 50 you should have accumulated about 250 skill points, which is enough to put together a balanced normal skill build to take your character into the endgame. For the Deathblade, we recommend choosing a few favourite skills and going all in on their enhancements, as in the following:
Lost Ark characters start out with a decent suite of early-game abilities, and new skills unlock fairly frequently as you progress through the first 20 or so character levels. Gaining XP and levelling up gives you skill points that you can spend on improving skill levels and unlocking “tripods”. Tripods are enhancements to skills that become available at skill levels 4, 7, and 10; applying one gives that skill a new secondary function. Every tripod has three options for you to choose from.
There’s a limit to how much you can customise any Lost Ark character’s build until they reach Level 50 and you gain access to endgame Engravings and Awakening skills (see below). Until that point, the path each class takes will be relatively linear; so throughout the early game, selecting your normal skills and their enhancements is the key to setting up a build that’s to your liking.
Once a Lost Ark character reaches Level 50, you can apply Engravings to them. Engravings are part of Lost Ark’s endgame content, and allow you to apply a variety of buffs and boosts to customise your character’s kit a little more. As well as generic engravings available to all characters, every class has two “class bonus” engravings unique to them. Effectively, these let you pick a subclass for them to specialise in.
The Engravings for the Deathblade class are Remaining Energy and Surge, which come with the following bonuses:
Both are good choices, though the apparent complexity of Surge, coupled with the excellent PvE benefits offered byRemaining Energy, mean that most players prefer to opt for the latter. However,Surgeis easier to use than it is to explain, so if you like the sound of what it has to offer, don’t be put off from incorporating it into your endgame build instead — it has the potential to deal the largest amount of damage the Deathblade is capable of in a single attack once you get the hang of it, making it a solid choice for late-game PvE and PvP combat.
The number of engravings you can equip is variable, and depends on the engraving slots you have available. Class-specific bonus engravings require LearnedEngravingslots, which you unlock by reading books you accumulate throughout your adventures in Arkesia.
Meanwhile, the two “generic” engraving types that can be equipped by all classes (damage boosts and utility buffs) are equipped according to how many engraving points you have available. Your number of engraving points is based on a combination of your character’s equipped accessories (such as necklaces, earrings, rings, etc.) and their Ability stones, all of which can be picked up as loot or from merchants throughout the game. Shuffle your loadout until you’ve maxed out your engravings points to 35 and you should be able to equip about three generic engravings in addition to your class bonus.
The following engravings supplement a Deathblade skill particularly well:
In addition toEngravings,accessory items in Lost Ark (necklaces, earrings, and rings) are your source for Combat Stats. These substats can have a major effect on your character, and it is important to target gear with the right stats for your build. Deathblade should look for Specialization while leveling, to help build up the Art Meter faster. Crit is a nice secondary stat, increasing your critical strike rate and damage.
While most classes will adjust their Combat Stat priorities based on their class Engraving choice, Deathblade keeps it simple. Specialization and Crit remain your two best stats on both Surge and Remaining Energy. This makes it easy to transition into your endgame Engraving spec.
Like Engravings, Awakening Skills become available once a Lost Ark character has reached Level 50. Again, there are two options to choose from, and unlike with Engravings it’s not an either/or proposition: you can unlock both Awakening Skills if you’d like, although you can only equip one at a time.
The Awakening skills for the Deathblade are:
Both of these Awakening skills are such strong choices, it’s hard to know which one to keep equipped by default. However,Blade Assaultis a little more tailored towards PvP content, whileFlash Blinkmakes for a better choice in PvE, so which you keep on your hotbar should depend primarily on the type of combat you plan on engaging in.
Since you need to be at Level 50 to take advantage of most of Lost Ark’s character build materials, be sure to check out our guide tolevelling up fast in Lost Arkto help you get there as quickly as possible. The Deathblade works best on a balanced character roster, so have a look at ourLost Ark classes tier listto help you pick a strong set of alts for her to play off of.
