C9 Shadow PvP Skills and Build Guide

C9 Shadow PvP Skills and Build Guide by abysss

Hi guys, I’m Abysss, a Shadow in US server, and as I see, many people are asking for a Shadow skill build/ guide.

Today I’m making one, I’m not a pvp pro, I don’t have much experience, but I hope I can help you guys.

Let’s talk about Shadow’s Pros/ Cons first:

*Pros:

_ Good movement speed, fastest attack speed in the game, high mobility.

_ Above average damage, can perma combo, has some nice buff.

_ Skills are cool, some skills deal massive damage.

_ Balance in PvP, as well as PvE.

*Cons:

_ Short Range

_ Fragile, can die in a few hits.

_ No blocking at all.

_ Require skills / good connection to play.

If you use Shadow well, you can beat any other classes, but if you’re bad, you gonna get your ***** kicked.

*Skill Build/ Explanations:

This is my build, maybe you guys won’t agree at all, you guys can leave some comments to tell me your thoughts.

– Actions:

_ Dual Vital Thrust: Max.

It can deal good damage, and it can be used to connect combos, low cooldown, bleeding effect, so why not ?

_ Dual Chain Strike: Lvl 1.

Pretty useless in PvP, I only use it to cancel Turn Slash, but it make 4 hits, so you can use it to create combos in PvE, to increase your Style

_ Lift Kick: Lvl 1.

Honestly, I haven’t touched this skill for a while. It deals little damage, you don’t need it to connect your combo, but it can be a catching skill.

_ Dual Turn Slash: Max.

Deals decent damage, it can connect combo or catch your enemy, and it has invincible frames that you can use to dodge projectiles.

_ Dual Flying Shatter Kick: Lvl 5.

You can chase/ flee with this skill, and it can be used in a combo, Lvl 5 so you can have the Air Dual Flying Shatter Kick.

_ Violent Shadow: Max.

Best Shadow skill, deals massive damage each hit with bleeding effect, and it has 4 hits. Semi-Super armor. And this one have quite long cooldown, so make it counts.

_ Hide: Lvl 1 or skip it

I don’t have it, I don’t like it, because your enemy can use an AOE skill to hit you. You can give it 1 lvl it you want.

_ Shadow Decoy: Lvl 1.

Range classes shooting at you ? No problem, this skill will make you invisible ( yes you can move) and start your combo. Becareful, this skill only works after 1 second actived, and it won’t work with some skills.

_ Envenom: Max.

Sweet buff in PvP, deals damages every hit. This skill make your combos deadly, but the cooldown isn’t that great.

_ Rising Slash: Lvl 5.

Semi-super armor, damage is fine, it has 3 hits, and it sends you and your enemy to the air, great to start or connect combos. Lvl 5 so you can have Shadow Talon.

_ Shadow Star: Max.

Big damage, stun, good range, you can use to start a combo. Notice that you have to charge about 0.5s to shoot it out. 1 tricky point about this skill is you can charge at a direction, and shoot it at another direction, so you can fool your enemy. Semi-super armor when charging.

_ Vital Spiral: Lvl 1.

Semi-super armor, makes 7 hits, and the last hit deals big damage. You can control the direction, the speed of the skill, but it’s hard to hit perfectly. Has charge time, watch out.

_ Ankle Cutter: Max.

2 hits, can hit enemy on the ground, slowing effect and bleeding, decent damage. The second hit knocks enemy away, so it can be used to ring out. Usually use to connect combos, or start combos.

_ Deceptive Cutter: Max.

Deals great damage, first hit stun the enemy, the second hit send him to the air. Awesome skill I say, but I won’t recommend you to use it to start your combo, since your enemy can counter the first hit. Use it to connect combos.

_ Shadow Haste: Max.

Faster is better, right ?

_ Barbed Shadow: Lvl 1 or skip it.

20% crit is cool, but the crit cap is 70%, if you have 60% crit already, don’t level this skill.

_ Shadow Talon: Max.

Semi-super armor, has 5 hits, pulls enemy in and the last hit knock the enemy away. It has charge 0.5s charge time, so it can’t really be used in a combo.

_ Poison Storm: Max.

7 hits, good damage, slowing and bleeding effect, can be used to start or connect combos. And it looks awesome ( with semi-super armor).

– Commands:

_ Dual Dagger Expertise: Max or skip.

This skill make your basic atk deals 100% damage. You can skip it to save SPs, if you love basic atk, max it.

_ Evasive Roll/ Evasive Attack/ Evasive Dash/ Rising Attack/ Double Jump/Shadow Step: Max the hell out of them.

_ Grab Throw: Max or Lvl 1

Some people prefer lvl 1, but I suggested maxing it out, because you gonna use it a lot.

_ Crouch: Lvl 3 or Max ( depend on SP)

This skill is pretty sweet since it can dogde projectiles, and have invincible frames. While crouching, you can use skills that don’t need to be assigned in hot keys ( like Rising Slash, you can’t use hotkey to use it, but you can press back + F to use it).Lvl 3 to get Air Steal.

_ Eagle Kick: Lvl 1

Use to connect or start a combo, this is the best skill to connect combos.

_ Scythe Break: Lvl 1.

Use to dogde, create distance, I don’t use it much, but it will be helpful sometimes. Has invincible frames.

_ Dual Air Shatter Kick: Lvl 1.

Chasing or fleeing. The second hit of this skill is like eagle kick, it will send enemy to the air.

_ Rising Combination: Lvl 1.

Use with Rising Slash/ Violent Shadow to connect combos.

_ Kneeling Crash: Lvl 1 or 2, 3, depend on your SP

Hits enemy on the ground, send them to air, great way to connect combos. The higher lvl the skill is, the higher the enemy bounce.

_ Air Steal: Lvl 1.

Teleporting skill. Can use to fool your enemy, pretty cool. Invincible frames.

_ Dual Vital Cut: Lvl 1.

It adds an important hit to Dual Vital Thrust that use to connect combos.

_ Dual Double Turn Slash: Lvl 1.

Adds a second hit for Dual Turn slash.

_ Swallow’s Touch: Lvl 1.

Another grab to connect combos, which is great. Can be used to ring out enemy.

_ Izuna Drop: Lvl 1 or skip.

Looking cool, but kinda useless. I use it to finish combos.

_ Dual Shadow Dash: Max.

Your main catching skill, this skill has invincible frames. Max it for further dashes.

– Passives:

_ Max all the Mastery, if you have enough SP, max the HP. Crit and MP don’t worth maxing.

_ Violent Assault: Say no to this skill, not effective, but need a lot of SP.

*PvP Guide:

The guide here is from my own experience, it’s not perfect because I haven’t entered any ranked match yet, I haven’t seen many Pro yet, I will update this part.

Thanks to Aphonia, I understood about armor judgement, I’m gonna quote it here:

-How to start a combo:

Basically, to start a combo, you have to force your enemy to use his/her evasive dash first. To do this:

_ Perform a ground combo:

This sounds crazy, but yes, this is 1 way to scare your enemy too. Some guys I fighted, they use evasive dash instead of evasive attack. If they use evasive attack, try to time your Shadow Decoy, then do ground combo again. But only do this when the ping is good.

_ Perform a fake combo:

Use the skills with short cooldown, connect them. Some guys use dash right when I touch them. Some just wait a bit, then dash away. Thank you for wasting your dash

_ Use skills that hit many times:

With semi super armor, like: Vital Spiral, Shadow Talon, Poison Storm, Rising Slash. Lots of people will dash away because they don’t wanna get hit too much.

*Catching your enemy

Shadow has many ways to catch people:

_ Shadow Star: I use this a lot since it deals great damage and a stun. Just Shadow Star > Shadow Dash Grab.

_ Eagle Kick: If you aim the kick well.

_ Shadow Dash + Grab: Simple but effective. With the invincible frames, you can dash through a lot of things, like scout’s bomb, shaman’s soul chase,… and grab them. You can dodge the projectiles/ skills with Crouch’s invincible frames, then normal attack + dash, pretty good if you do it right.

*There’s a trick with this skill, I’m gonna tell later.

_Shatter kick/ Air shatter kick: The ground shatter kick will kick your enemy away, and you can shadow dash grab them. While the Air one will make your enemy bounces in front of you, you can even do a “double Eagle Kick” with this skill.

_  Invincible frames: Yes, use these invincible frames to get close to your enemy. Effective with range classes, since their melee is bad, once you get close to them, they will get panic, and you can easily catch them and send them a nice combo.

There’s still many ways to catch your enemy, the ways I showed above are the ways I use the most.

*Combos:

Once you catch your enemy, and they have no evasive dash. What will you do ? Perform your combo!

We have a lot of combos, depend on how you catch your enemy.

Some easy combos:

_ Shadow Dash + Grab > Eagle Kick > 1 Normal Hit > Vital Thrust + Vital Cut > (Swallow’s Touch > Eagle Kick) > Violent Shadow > Poison Storm. This combo deals load of damage.

_ Poison Storm > Shadow Dash + Grab > Eagle Kick > 1 Normal Hit > Vital Thrust + Vital Cut > Kneeling Crash > Rising Slash >…

_ Rising Slash > Rising Combination > Ankle Cutter > Swallow’s Touch > Eagle Kick > Vital Thrust + Vital Cut > Shadow Dash + Grab > Shatter Kick >…

Ground combos:

_ Chain Strike > Vital Thrust + Vital Cut > Kneeling Crash > Grab..

_ Chain Strike > Shadow Star > Vital Thrust + Vital Cut > Deceptive Cutter..

And finally a crazy combo that guarantee a kill if you land perfectly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZbFbJPQu-4

_Shadow Dash + Grab > Eagle Kick > 1 Normal hit > Vital Thrust + Vital Cut > Swallow’s Touch > Eagle Kick > ( Kneeling Crash) > Rising Slash > Rising Combination > Ankle Cutter > 1 Normal Hit > turn back Double Turn Slash > Grab > Eagle Kick > look away + turn back Deceptive Cutter > Vital Thrust + Vital Cut > Swallow’s Touch > Eagle Kick > Rising Slash > Rising Combination > Violent Shadow > Poison Storm >… ( This combo is long, your enemy might escape before you finish it).

Some tips and tricks:

_ Crouch / Shadow Step can dodge almost every skills. ( other skills with invincible frames can do that too, but those 2 skills have fast “cast” time).

_ You can charge Shadow Star and shoot it at different direction.

_ You can do a Z / N move with Vital Spiral, try to hit your enemy with the last hit, it deals big damage.

_  Don’t use Violent Shadow randomly, make sure your enemy have no evasive dash and you can land all the hits.

_ Shadow Dash + Change direction: When your start the dash, hold your middle mouse, turn at the direction you want to change, release. Ta da ! This method can be use with Evasive dash too.

Tips when facing classes:

_ Blademasters: Deals massive damage, moving fast and have great armor/ HP, you may have a hard time with this guy. Once he catch you, he will end your life in a few seconds, so becareful. But sometimes, BMs run so fast, he will miss you, that’s your chance. Shadow Star or Dash into him, launch your combo. Or, many BMs I fighted love their “Counter Smash”, they use it when they knock me down, just simply get up ( not using rising attack), grab him.

_ Warriors: Like BMs, but these guys are slower, easier to deal with.

_ Guardians: Tough guys love their big shield. These guys will counter your attack anytime, so watch out. Try jumping around them, find a chance to make a grab.

_ Berserkers: People are complaining about this annoying guy. HUGE Damages, anoying combos are these guys bread and butter. But they’re still slow, both atk speed and movement speed. Once he miss his smash, jump in and start your combo.

_ Rangers: Since you’re fast, rangers will have a bad time shooting you. Move and teleport around, make him dizzy, when you get close to him, finish him !

_ Scouts: Many people say this guy is coward. Maybe, but you can easily kill him. Their bombs are not a problem, because of its delay and slow speed, you can just dash through them. Force the scouts to use their turrets, then dash through the bombs, give them a combo in da face. If he use his Fire Support, crouch to get out.

_ Sins/ Shadows: Depend on the players skill and connection. If you make a wrong move, you die, same for them.

_ Illu/ Ele/ Magic Taos: Your magical defense is bad, so you better not getting hit by their skills. But they’re fragile too, a small combo can take away half their HP. Try to get them when they’re casting.

_ Phys Taos: Ridiculous high damage, they’re extremely dangerous. Don’t let them catch you, or you will die. Keep Shadow Star/ Deceptive Cutter/ Shadow Dash Grab them until you can start your combos.

_ Slayers: They can catch you easily with their spin and grabs. Try to run away from them, til they use the star slashing thing, grab them at that moment.

_ Wardens: I don’t fight with them much, can’t really tell any tips. The only thing I know is when they’re hiding behind their Frost Wall, use the Shadow Dash trick to get them.

Some PVP Matches:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAaU7LvuwT4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvzZ6xeQYUc