Shadowdancer - Spear + Dagger PvE Build
- High Sustained DPS
- Good Burst Damage
- Versatility
- High Skill Ceiling
- Gear Dependant
- Limited Mobility
Overview
The Spear and Dagger PvE build focuses on delivering high single-target sustained DPS, making it ideal for dungeons and PvE events where maximizing damage against individual targets is crucial for a DPS role. Additionally, the build retains strong AoE potential with skills like 
Cyclonic Fury, which excel at dealing significant damage to multiple mobs during AoE farming or the trash-clearing phases of dungeon runs.
Attributes
Dexterity
Strength
Wisdom
PerceptionTo maximize damage, focus on Strength and Dexterity. Start by putting points into these stats and keep adding as you upgrade gear. This boosts crits, heavy attacks, and max HP. Go for 50 Strength and stack rest to Dexterity. Perception and Wisdom offer minor bonuses but are secondary and not nearly as important.
Skills
The Spear & Dagger build is a great choice for newer players that are looking to perform well in all PVE scenarios, capable of performing well without much experience in the game as long you stick to build's simple rotation.
Your main damage skills are 
Culling Arc but also Cyclonic Fury alongside 
Rising Slash. These are the skills you should be upgrading first for early damage increases. 
Vicious Fury and 
Javelin Surge pair perfectly with eachother as one is building ember stacks while the other spends them.
Keep enhancing your skills with 
Abyssal Cleave and the dagger abilities 
Cleaving Moonlight and 
Brutal Incision. Always start your rotation with 
Inject Venom to apply poison, which reduces enemy resistances and boosts your damage output. This skill also activates the 
Destructive Fang, increasing your critical rate when attacking poisoned enemies. As the stacks build up to 20, the effect becomes significantly stronger.
Brutal Incision synergizes well with poisoned targets, delivering extra damage and making it an excellent option for finishing off enemies. 
Fatal Stigma is another important skill to keep in mind as it pairs with the poison stacks to deal very high damage.
For passives, you should focus on upgrading 
Malice Surge for that extra heavy attack chance. 
Imposing Form matches well with the many attacks of the spear, buffing you a great deal. 
Retaliatory Strike is another important passive that increases your critical chance and is a very important skill for the build.
As far as dagger passives go, 
Assassin's Instincts and Destructive Fang add extra crit rate and lower defenses. Meanwhile, 
Wrathful Edge helps the build deal even more critical damage whenever you hit critical hits, pairing well with the multiple critical hit incrasing sources of the build.
Equipment
These are the first items you should strive for through the leveling period as they are very easy to get and upgrade or trait as needed. However, you shouldn't try to trait these items too much as you won't be spending too much time playing with this setup before you start changing pieces into the Midgame. The green accessories however are very easy to trait as you can craft many of them quickly in order to get the correct traits so you should consider traiting them until you change into purples. The same goes for the blue ring as you keep it for a long time.
This is the gear you should transition to once you're leveled to 50 and start grinding gear. It is comprised of gear you can get either from dungeons or by completing Litographs, they are relatively easy to trait up and you will spend most of the time wearing this set before advancing into the late game so traiting these items is very important and should be your main focus.
This is the current endgame gear you should aim for, and while it isn't easy to acquire, it offers great power without the need of acquiring archboss gear pieces. However, items like 
Tevent's Fangs of Fury or other archboss weapons are superior but difficult to acquire for the majority of players. If you do manage to get the archboss weapons for your build, feel free to use them over the weapons shown here.
Weapon Masteries
Ranged Defense |
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Magic Defense |
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Shield Block Penetration Chance  |
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Melee Evasion |
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Cooldown Speed |
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Endurance |
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Max Health |
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Debuff Duration |
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Movement Speed | ||
Damage Reduction |
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Melee Critical Hit Chance  |
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Mana Regen |
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CC Chance |
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Bonus Damage |
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Buff Duration |
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Ignite Damage |
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Damage |
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Melee Hit Chance |
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Skill Damage Boost |
| Melee Hit Chance |
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Movement Speed |
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Cooldown Speed |
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Max Mana |
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Damage |
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Skill Damage Resistance |
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Mana Cost Efficiency |
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Melee Critical Hit Chance |
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Added Attack Speed |
| Ranged Defense |
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Health Regen |
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Debuff Duration |
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Mana Cost Efficiency |
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Cooldown Speed |
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Evasion |
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Buff Duration |
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Ranged Defense |
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Weaken Resistance  | ||
Movement Speed |
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Melee Hit Chance |
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Off-Hand Weapon Attack Chance |
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Weaken Chance |
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Mana Regen |
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Buff Duration |
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Silence Chance |
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Mana Cost Efficiency |
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Melee Hit Chance |
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Cooldown Speed |
| Melee Critical Hit Chance |
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Damage |
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Off-Hand Weapon Attack Chance |
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Melee Critical Hit Chance |
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Cooldown Speed |
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Critical Damage |
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Damage |
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Skill Damage Boost |
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Added Attack Speed |
Spear: Invest 9 points into Face Off for extra Attack Speed and Cooldown speed while 9 points will go into Destroy for extra Skill damage boost. The last point will go into Charge for a bit of extra defense.
Dagger: Selecting Assassination for your Dagger is crucial as it provides a notable damage boost. Allocate 9 points into Poison for Cooldown Speed while the last point goes into Disguise.
Rotations
- Prebuff yourself with
Unyielding Sentinel & Inject Venom so all your follow-up attacks will also apply poison. Use 
Gale Rush to dash to the target and increase your attack speed. Put Fatal Stigma on the target/boss before using Cyclonic Fury to start stacking up poison on the target. Continue with Cleaving Moonlight to max out the poison stacks.
- Use Brutal Incision to maximize the damage done and lower its cooldown based on poison stacks before using Culling Arc. Use Abyssal Cleave to stun (or shock) the target and also increase damage done by Rising Slash.
- Finally, finish the rotation with Vicious Fury to build Ember stacks before spamming Javelin Surge.
Useful Information
- An alternative is to select Lady Knight Kamarshea as your guardian; it provides essential protection with its shield, which absorbs damage equal to 50% of your mana. While the shield is active, you also gain a 40% Cooldown Speed boost. Although the shield is valuable, ensure to maintain it for as long as possible to maximize the duration of the increased cooldown speed. Remember, the guardian will be lost if the shield is depleted, so be mindful of that!
Comments
We are seeking an experienced Build Admin for Throne and Liberty with a deep understanding of the meta across most weapons and game modes. Get in touch with Galaxian on Discord if you're a good fit for the role or know someone else who is. This is a paid position.
