The Deathblade in Lost Ark is one of the two Advanced Classes you can pick for Assassin. This femme fatale utilizes three weapons in conjunction — two light Dual Blades and one Longsword — and the power of Chaos to dispatch her enemies in a blink of an eye. If you enjoy going fast and dishing out DPS like selling hotcakes, then you should pick Deathblade and continue reading this guide on how to play the Lost Ark Class.

How to Play as Deathblade in Lost Ark

Pros:

  • High and fast critical damage
  • Good area-of-effect and crowd control options
  • Has a lot of moves with super armor
  • Pretty overpowered, all things considered

Cons:

  • Low HP
  • High cooldown timers
  • Easy to whiff and miss back attacks
  • Low staggers
  • Need specific Engraving and Runes for Remaining Energy playstyle

As an Assassin Advanced Class, Deathblade is known to be a rather frail Class. Nevertheless, her defensive and health limitations are compensated for by her excellent single-target and area-of-effect skills, which allow her to easily cut through mobs.

By successfully dealing damages to foes, her Identity System resource, Death Orbs, builds up. Once either just one or up to three Orbs are filled, they can enter the Death Trance (also commonly referred to just as “Art”) state by pressing the Z key, which grants immunity to crowd control effects, buffs her damage, restores Mana, and reduces cooldowns.

While in the Death Trance/Art state, a Deathblade then can activate her Death Orb key a second time, unleashing the Deathblade Surge move that deals damage based on the number of Orbs and knocks down enemies. After triggering Deathblade Surge, she will automatically exit her Death Trance.

Deathblade Class Engravings Guide in Lost Ark

Similar to the other classes in Lost Ark, the Deathblade has two class-specific Engravings that you can get when you reach level 50:

Surge

While in Death Trance/Art, Deathblade can stack Surge Enhancements (up to 20 times) while attacking enemies using skills. Surge Enhancement boosts Deathblade Surge damage by 7.5% per stack. And then once you’re out of the Death Trance/Art state, the Death Orb will be refilled depending on how many stacks of Surge Enhancement were obtained.

The goal for this playstyle is to quickly gain stacks of Surge Enhancement and the best way is by using multi-hit abilities. According to a 1590+ level Deathblade player in the Korean server YOLADE, the optimal rotation for a Surge Deathblade can be seen in the video above or as follows:

  • Fill 2 Death Orbs
  • Press Z to enter Death Trance/Art
  • Use Spincutter 3x
  • Wind Cut
  • Death Sentence
  • Earth Cleaver
  • Void Strike
  • Maelstrom
  • Blitz Rush
  • Stack the Surge Enhancement effect using the remaining skills.
  • If you stacked 20 Surge Enhancements, use Deathblade Surge, and you should already gain 3 Death Orbs again.
  • 14 stacks also filled your Death Orb meter just past 2 Orbs
  • Repeat

Remaining Energy

  • 14 stacks also filled your Death Orb meter just past 2 Orbs

While in Death Trance/Art, the Death Orb meter won’t be consumed for 2 seconds. And when she uses Deathblade Surge, she’ll gain Movement Speed, Attack Speed, and Attack Power buffs for 30 seconds, depending on how many Death Orbs were consumed.

You would want to quickly have all 3 Death Orbs available and immediately use Deathblade Surge. And try sneaking in a back attack in the 2 seconds time frame for getting the maximum amount of buff. This is the optimal rotation for Remaining Energy Deathblade according to YOLADE (or watch it in action in the video above):

  • Use Spincutter 3x
  • Maelstrom
  • Soul Absorber
  • Void Strike
  • Blitz Rush
  • Moonlight Sonic
  • If you have 3 Death Orbs at this point, unleash Deathblade Surge
  • You should be getting the Remaining Energy buff
  • Repeat

Spincutter is a self-buffing move, giving you increased front/back attack damage and debuffing target. Meanwhile, Maelstrom will boost your party’s Movement and Attack Speed. With that in mind, try successfully hitting Soul Absorber and Void Strike during the Maelstrom buff.

Aside from that, YOLADE also highly suggests that you should:

  • Engravings:
  • Have level 3 Supercharge and at least level 1 Remaining Energy.
  • Adrenaline and Grudge are also preferable, and Grudge must be at level 3.
  • Runes:
  • Wealth is a must
  • While Bleed and Galewind are the best Sub-Runes you can get.

Lost Ark is now available on PC via Steam.

  • Have level 3 Supercharge and at least level 1 Remaining Energy.

  • Adrenaline and Grudge are also preferable, and Grudge must be at level 3.

  • Wealth is a must

  • While Bleed and Galewind are the best Sub-Runes you can get.