Lost Ark Deathblade Build: PvP & PvE Guide

Deathblade is one of the many classes available in Lost Ark. It is one of those classes that requires you to get up close and deal high DPS damage, quite similar to the Striker. Therefore, it’s a great class for players that love fast-paced combat and like moving around the arena quite a lot. Without further ado, let’s look at how you can maximize your experience by looking at the Best Lost Ark Deathblade Build.

Deathblade Builds

Deathblade is part of the assassins in Lost Ark, and they use dual blades alongside a long sword. These two weapons allow the Deathblade to deal a lot of damage up close. Meaning it is the polar opposite of ranged classes like the Gunlancer.

But due to their relatively lower health, players using Deathblade are expected to move around quite often to avoid getting hit. This also works in their favor as Deathblade is capable of racking up quite the combos when played right. With that said, let’s look at the skills that will benefit you the most in your Deathblade builds.

Deathblade PvP Build Skills

Bear in mind that PvP builds and PvE builds tend to differ from each other. In PvP, you don’t have to worry about leveling up to first get skill points and then to invest them into skills.

You can directly get any skill that you want. But with that said, you should still pick the best skills that suit Deathblade and not ones at random. Here’s a good set of skills that you can consider using for your Deathblade Build in PvP.

Spincutter

Spincutter will primarily be the skill that you can use to move around the arena. As the name suggests, you spin around with your blade and approach your targets or anywhere in a 5-meter radius. You can inflict up to 25000 damage and use the skill 2 times in a row. Being able to use it twice means you can get around quite far, a total of 10 meters in one single direction.

To make the skill even faster, you can invest in Swift Fingers. It will increase your attack speed by +15%.

Dark Axel

Yet another great skill to have for maneuvering in the arena. Although Spincutter was more to just get around, Dark Axel is a skill that you can use to close the distance between you and an enemy. That is because when you use Dark Axel, you can jump 6 meters forward. Upon landing, your Deathblade will deliver a powerful slash with their Longsword. It is great for knocking enemies back and, overall, a great move to start off any fights.

To make the skill stronger, you can invest in Swift Fingers to increase attack speed by +15%. Then you can get Tenacity to get Push Immunity during the aerial attack. And lastly, you can get High Axel to increase the moved distance by +4 meters. But it does remove the last longsword attack.

So, it’s up to you to decide whether you want the extra distance in exchange for the final blow or not. But considering you’re moving around in the air where not many enemies will be able to get to you, having the extra distance for mobility can be quite helpful.

Surprise Attack

Yet another skill that you can use for mobility. Surprise attack lets you dash forward 4 meters and slash at enemies with your dual blades, dealing up to 25k damage.

You can add Wide-Angle Attack to increase the AoE radius by 20%. You can then get Excellent Mobility to increase the moved distance by 2 meters. Finally, you can get Trailing Sword Burst. This allows you to create a sword burst that lasts for 1s at the place where you charged up the move.

Essentially it creates a radius, and any enemy near it gets knocked back. If you use it against the wall of the arena, enemies will continue to get hit by the sword burst and get additional damage dealt to them.

Upper Slash

Now coming onto some of the offense-based skills, we have the Upper Slash. You start off the move by delivering a swift slash with your dual blades. And then you slash upwards to create a tornado that can inflict up to 24k damage and launch enemies into the air.

You can get Sturdy Armor to reduce any incoming damage by 40% while you use the skill. You can then choose Large Twister as the second Tripod. It will add a third attack into the move, which will allow you to deliver a rising slash with a longsword and create an even bigger twister. The move will also knock enemies further into the air. Lastly, you can get Tenacity to be granted Push Immunity.

Head Hunt

Head Hunt allows you to hit enemies with the Hilt of your Longsword to push them back. You then follow up with a 4-meter forward dash and strike on their head to deal up to 25k damage. You also stun the enemies for 1s.

You can add Quick Prep to reduce the cooldown by 2 seconds. Quick Hunt will let you skip the Hilt attack and let you hit more quickly. Enhanced Stun will increase the stun duration by 3 seconds.

Turning Slash

It is a great move to close up the distance between your enemies. You swing your Longsword twice as you move 5 meters forward and inflict 37k and 30k damage. You can then easily follow it up with any of your other skills, such as Upper Slash, to create a great combo. Because of this combination, it is a must-have for any Deathblade Build.

For the Tripods, you can get Excellent Mobility to increase the distance by +1 meter. But if you use a concentrated attack, you can get an additional 2 meters. You can then add Tenacity to get Push Immunity and Triple Run to change the move into a triple spin attack. The triple spin will increase the damage b +70%.

Moonlight Sonic

Moonlight Sonic can work as your main damage skill as it is capable of dealing 155k damage. Upon using the skill, Deathblade creates a dark purple radius. Any enemy in that radius gets attacked by the sweeping slash and gets pulled closer to Deathblade, allowing you to follow up with any other move.

To make the ability stronger, you can get Fist of Darkness for the Dark element and increase damage by +15%. Sustain Enhancement will allow you to charge up the attack. Doing so will double the duration and increase the output damage by +50%. Shade Sonic will allow you to move faster and attack more, increasing the overall damage by 70%.

Blitz Rush

A great knockback skill and great for targeting enemies right in front of you. You can charge the attack and then move 5 meters forward to attack enemies. Overcharging the move will let you attack with your dual blades and follow up with a longsword slash that knocks back enemies and deals 72k damage.

You can use Vital Point Hit as your first Tripod to increase Crit Rate by 15%. All-round will let you shorten the charge-up time. And Shadow Rush will make it so that an afterimage ends up attacking instead of you. That means you can stay in the same position, and your afterimage will lunge forward instead.

It will also let you increase damage by 40%. Blitz Rush is great to make a close-range class have some mid-range attacks. But if you are looking to go fully mid to far range combat, consider: Lost Ark Sharpshooter Build

Awakening Skill

For your Awakening skill, you can use Flash Blink. It lets you dash 12 meters forward, slashing through any enemies in the way. Any enemy in the path gets 334k damage dealt with them and gets launched into the air, dealing extra damage. That is a lot of damage dealt. But if you are looking for a class that regularly dishes out great damage, check out: Lost Ark Berserker Build.

Deadblade PvE Build Skills

By the time you reach level 60, you will have a total of 20 skills for your Lost Ark Deadblade Build. But of course, not all of those are worth investing in. As you can only invest into so much in PvE, here are the skills that you should consider.

Spincutter

Allows you to move 5 meters in a spinning motion towards your enemy or anywhere in the arena. You can use the skill twice in a row and deal up to 11k damage.

You can make the skill stronger by picking the Open Weakness Tripod. It will allow you to increase damage output from all party members by +3% for 10 seconds. Frontal and back attacks will also get a +9% buff. But it is important to note that these buffs only kick in once you get a hit with the Spincutter.

You can get Quick Prep to decrease the cooldown by 4 seconds. For your last Tripod, you can get Triple Spin to increase the number of attacks to 3 times in a row and increase the max combo count by +1.

Dark Axel

Another great skill is to move around the map. It is actually quite similar to one of Gunslinger’s skills. Both allow you to jump over enemies and close distance between them. For Deathblade, you can use Dark Axel to jump 6 meters forward and land a powerful slash upon coming down. Though you will see that in the Tripods, you can actually benefit from not having that final slash.

For the Tripods, you can get Quick Pace to increase your movement speed by +20% for 3s as soon as you complete the Dark Axel skill. Corkscrew will allow you to increase the distance by +3 meters and inflict +20% damage. Lastly, High Axel will remove the final slam attack.

Instead, it will let you jump higher and move +4 meters in any direction. It works great as a mobility skill. Additionally, you push enemies back with 1707 damage whenever you initiate the skill, so you will not be losing any sort of damage output opportunities.

Soul Absorber

A great skill to inflict damage at close range. You can use Soul Absorber to charge a powerful thrust attack to inflict 1381 damage. But if you overcharge it, you can deal 5518 damage. Great for targeting enemies directly in front of you.

You can use Wide-Angle Attack to increase the stabbing attack range by +30%. Ice Cold Hands will let you change the element of the attack to water. It will make it so that you can freeze enemies if you overcharge the skill. The fact that enemies get frozen for 3 seconds means that you can use the skill and also create sufficient distance and prepare for the next attack.

Lastly, you can get Halve as your third Tripod. Halve allows you to follow up the thrust attack with a forward slash attack to deal +100% damage. Being able to freeze enemies is great. If you are looking for another build that utilizes such tactics, consider reading the Lost Ark Sorceress Build.

Earth Cleaver

Earth Cleaver is another great skill for up-close damage. It allows you to perform a powerful vertical slash with your Longsword to inflict 3302 Damage. Not only that, but it also slams enemies into the ground.

You can get Push to dash 4 meters forward, knock away enemies and deal +15% Damage. You can pair that with Weak Point Detection to increase damage to Push-Immune enemies by +40%. Lastly, you can get Leap Attack to jump 2 meters forward and slam down with a downward cut using your Longsword. It also increases the crit rate by +100%.

Moonlight Sonic

Moonlight Sonic is great for dealing with multiple enemies. It allows you to create a sweeping slash that spans in a circular radius and deals 6333 damage to enemies inside. Additionally, it pulls enemies closer, allowing you to follow up with another attack.

You can strengthen Moonlight Sonic by adding Burning Hands. It will change the element to fire. Because the element is fire now, you can deal burn damage every 1s for 5s. The burn damage accounts for 40 each second, and you can stack the effect x5, totaling to 2k damage. For the second Tripod, you can get Quick Prep to decrease the cooldown by 8 seconds (the initial cooldown is 27s). Lastly, you can get Shade Sonic to move faster and deal +70% more damage.

Maelstorm

Maelstorm is a great defensive skill and a must-have for all Deathblade Builds. It creates a tornado around the player to protect them from oncoming damage and also inflicts damage to nearby enemies for 6 seconds.

You can get Orb Control to increase the Death Orb Meter gain by +20%. Similarly, you can get Dark Order to increase your movement speed by 15% and adds Dark Order Buff of Attack Speed. It increases the attack speed by +20%.

Lastly, for the third Tripod, you can get Overwhelm. It will allow you to increase damage to Challenge or Lower enemies by 100%. You can also paralyze normal enemies with continuous damage.

Blitz Rush

Blitz Rush is a good mid-range attack. It allows you to move forward by 5 meters and inflict damage with your dual blades. If you overcharge the skill, you will be able to follow up with a longsword slash, causing 2934 damage. Deathblade has amazing weapons, but if you are looking for the best weapons in Lost Ark, consider reading our Lost Ark Weapons Tier List.

You can strengthen the skill by equipping Vital Point Hit as your first Tripod. It will allow you to increase your Crit Rate by +15%. You can then get All-round to shorten the charge-up time and always deal with the overcharged attack. Lastly, Shadow Rush will make it so that you do not move, but instead, an afterimage of yours deals the damage.

Void Strike

Void Strike is one of the highest damages dealing skills part of the Deathblade Build. You can perform an upper slash with your Longsword to deal 3091 damage and launch enemies into the air. If you overcharge the skill, you will be able to push enemies back and rush 5 meters forward to inflict 6187 damage and send them even higher into the air.

For your Tripods, you can get Orb Control to increase Death Orb Meter gain by +50%. Then you can get Fist of Darkness to add a Dark elemental damage and increase damage output by +30%. Lastly, you can get Dark Explosion so that the overcharged attack causes a dark explosion after a while.

It will send enemies flying into the air and inflict 70% damage. The Dark element from Fist of Darkness is great. Another Build that makes good use of it is the Wardancer. You can check out its in-depth build guide here: Lost Ark Wardancer.

Deathblade Build Engravings and Stats

To understand the Engraving of Deathblade Build, you first need to know how the Deathblade works in terms of class role and identity.

The Deathblade has the Death Orb identity, which is divided into the Death Art and Deathblade Surge. Deathblade Arts allow you to increase your attack power and speed as well as mana recovering. It also reduces the cooldown rate of your normal skills. The Deathblade Arts depend on how many death orbs (total 3) you have filled up at the time of activation. Of course, if you have all of the orbs filled, you will get the highest buff.

Deathblade Surge is something that is led into by the Deathblade Arts. If you activate the Deathblade Arts but then use your orbs again for another activation, you will go into Deathblade Surge, which also grants push immunity.

More importantly, it lets you deal a huge amount of damage by slamming your sword on the ground. Performing this move will consume all of your death orbs.

With that understood, let’s dive into the Engravings.

You have 2 options to pick from when choosing class engravings for the Deathblade Build. Those two Engravings are Surge and Remaining Energy.

Surge allows you to use Deathblade Surge even if all of your orbs are not filled up. When you enter Deathblade Arts, you can build up the power of your surge attack by using your normal skills. What this means is that whenever you use your normal skills and attack enemies while in Deathblade Arts mode, you will enhance your Surge attack. The enhancement stacks every 0.4 seconds and has 20 total stacks.

Remaining Energy is the second engraving that you use. Most class engravings tend to differ vastly in terms of their playstyle. The Paladin is an example of such. But with the Deathblade Build, you don’t have to change your playstyle too much, quite like the Deadeye.

That is because Remaining Energy also works with the Deathblade Orbs. More specifically, it gives you a buff where the orbs do not start to deplete until 2 seconds after activation of the Deathblade Arts. Additionally, when you activate Deathblade Surge, you will get a buff towards your attack power and speed for a certain time period.

If you need guidance on what your stats should look like, here’s a general outline.

The 0 simply means that those skills are not too significant, and you can invest in them according to your own preference. These stats will help increase the damage of Deathblade Surge and also increases the Deathblade Orb energy gained. You will also have higher crit rates and lower cooldowns for your skills while in Deathblade art mode.

With that, you now know everything there is to know about the Lost Ark Deathblade Build. If you are looking for more builds, consider reading: Lost Ark Scrapper Build