A Guide to Shadower [2025]

Welcome to my Shadower guide!

With Shadower becoming the most meta job in recent years, it deserves a new and up to date guide.
Despite being popular, much of the information about Shadower (especially in the late game) is not public, and often isn't too accurate or even speculative.
The reason for this is partly because of Assassinate being a buggy skill that behaves weirdly in many different situations.
It’s important to me to have all the information in place and to have a single thread everyone can refer to.

Some of my goals for this guide include:
- Explaining where Shadower fits in the meta.
- Explaining what purpose a Shadower will fill for you, and help you decide if you should make one.
- Shedding light on things that are less known about the job, such as damage comparisons between the combos, buff effectiveness and end game bossing methods.
- The guide will be more focused on mid/end game and bossing specifically. Less on early game and leveling.

I will explain the main qualities of the job to help you better understand if you should make one, or why it's as popular as it is:
- The strongest single target melee. It will be stronger than Buccaneer in the late game, and will only fall short of Night Lords and Corsairs.
- The strongest 4-target job in the game, which is the most common target count in bossing after single target (Horntail, Zakum, VL Gargoyles etc.).
- Has Smokescreen, which gives you and your party 1.5 minutes of immunity. Combined with Time Leaps, this created a Smoke + TL meta that lets you effortlessly attack inside smokes for the majority of the time.
- Has very high avoidability and 30% success rate on Shadow Shifter, which is higher than the Night Lord version. With these and Smoke Screen, your character barely gets knocked in bosses.
- Gives you easy access to Horntail, as Shad HT is a popular way to kill that boss on the server at the moment. More on that later.
- While not being the best job for every boss in the game, it does well enough in all of them, which makes it easier to find parties.
- Has decent damage with entry level gear which makes it beginner friendly.
Despite that, it’s an expensive class in the end game (2 perfect weapon slots instead of the regular 1).
You also need to keep in mind that the Assassinate 30 skillbook is one of the most expensive books in the game, so it will cost you a bit to max it.
- Washing is expensive, but more optional than other jobs due to Meso Guard (halves the damage you take). Relying on Meso Guard will leave you vulnerable to dispel, but you can slowly work on your HP with HP quests while still being able to boss in the meanwhile, which can be good if you don’t have the meso to wash right away.
- Has methods that will let you do more damage with added effort, so even with lower gear you could be on par with more geared players in different situations.
- Meso Explosion has the highest DPS in the game on any target count, though it is often expensive to use and it also takes a lot of extra effort and risk in some bosses.




1st job - Thief:
Nimble Body - Passive skill that gives 20 accuracy and 20 avoidability at max level.
Keen Eyes - Increases the range (distance) of throwing stars, Shadowers don’t use claws but you will need this skill maxed for event bosses.
Disorder - Decreases the W. def and W. att of a monster. In practice this skill is used to de-aggro bosses, which will be demonstrated in the Auf section. You will only need this at level 1, but you will be leveling it to 3 to unlock Dark Sight.
Dark Sight - Become invisible, useful to not take touch damage from monsters and bosses. It is also a requirement for Assassinate later on in 4th job.
NOTE: This will not protect you from every type of attack in the game, bosses can still kill you inside Dark Sight.
Lucky Seven - Throw 2 stars. This is the main attack for Assassin, and for you it will not be useful at all (unless you went for the Sindit path). Put 1 SP in this just in case you want to do LPQ.
Double Stab - Stabs twice quickly, your main dagger attack until 2nd job.

In this job, you will not be able to max your attacking skill because the passives and Dark Sight are too important to skip for later on in the game.
If you want to choose the Sindit path, feel free to tweak the build to your liking, this won’t matter much, this guide will not focus on Sindit.
Skill them in this order:

Level 10: +1 Double Stab
Level 11-13: +8 Double Stab [9], +1 Lucky Seven [1]
Level 14-20: +20 Nimble Body [MAX] +1 Disorder
Level 21: +2 Disorder [3], +1 Dark Sight [1]
Level 22-28: +19 Dark Sight [MAX], +2 Keen Eyes
Level 29-30: Keen Eyes +6 [MAX]

2nd job - Bandit:
Dagger Mastery - Passive skill that increases mastery (stabilizes damage range and increases your overall output) and accuracy with a dagger.
Endure - Recover a little bit of HP and MP when hanging on ropes/ladders. This skill is generally useless.
Dagger Booster - Active buff that increases your attack speed with daggers. +2 speed at max level.
Haste - Active buff that increases your party’s speed and jump, you will be at max speed/jump with this maxed.
Steal - Attacks a monster and steals one of the items in their drop table at a certain success rate. This includes monster cards and quest items (such as cold heart for I/L’s Blizzard prequest), and for that reason this is a very useful skill later on.
You can party with your other characters and help them hunt hard quest items or cards that way.
This is not an aoe mobbing skill like in some other oldschool servers, so do not max it early for that purpose.
Savage Blow - Attacks one enemy multiple times (6 times from level 21 and up). Your main attack for this job.

Level 30: Dagger Mastery +1
Level 31-32: Dagger Mastery +4 [5], +2 Dagger Booster
Level 33-35: Dagger Booster +9 [11]
Level 36-45: Savage Blow +30 [MAX]
Level 46-52: Haste +20 [MAX], Dagger Mastery +1 [6]
Level 53-57: Dagger Mastery +14 [MAX], Dagger booster +1 [12]
Level 58-60: Dagger Booster +8 [MAX], Steal +1
Level 61-70: Steal +29 [MAX], +1 Endure [1]

3rd job - Chief Bandit:
Shield Mastery - Doubles your def gain from shields. Useless since Khanjars only have about ~5 def.
Assaulter - Dashes through a monster, damaging and stunning it. Great skill for repositioning in bosses or to move fast in maps with mobs.
This has decent vertical range and you can jump + Assaulter in multiple situations, such as in Horntail wings/arms phase.
Pickpocket - Leaves some meso on the ground when you attack monsters. This skill is very useless because it drops a small amount of meso that will not be useful for bombing, you can skip it.
Meso Guard - Active buff that uses meso to reduce the damage you take by 50%. Do not forget to have a few millions on you when you boss if you intend on relying on this skill to live.
An important thing to note about this skill is that only the duration changes (a little bit) with levels, the reduction is 50% even at level 1. For that reason we will have a value point in it early on.
Meso Explosion - Explodes the meso dropped on the ground to deal damage. Attacks up to 6 targets.
This is the strongest skill in the game if enough meso is dropped, more details about this later.
Chakra - Recovers some HP using a small amount of MP, a decent skill to heal in dojo but useless anywhere else.
Level 3 is also required for Meso Guard.
Band of Thieves - A multi target attack skill, hits up to 6 targets when maxed. This is your main mobbing skill until you unlock Boomerang Step in 4th job, and even then you will use Band of Thieves in combination with it.

The build I recommend maxes Meso Explosion as soon as possible for power leveling, but if you prefer a different path feel free to change it and go for BoT first.
In the end, we will be adding some points to endure because Shield Mastery and Pickpocket have no use.

Level 70: Meso Explosion +1
Level 71: Chakra +3
Level 72-81: Meso Guard +1, Meso Explosion +29 [30]
Level 82: Assaulter +1, Band of Thieves +2
Level 83-92: Band of thieves +28 [MAX], Assaulter +2 [3]receive
Level 93-101: Assaulter +27 [MAX]
Level 102-108: Meso Guard +19 [MAX], Chakra +2 [5]
Level 109-117: Chakra +25 [MAX], Endure +2 [3]
Level 118-120: Endure +9 [12]

4th job - Shadower:
Maple Warrior - A basic party buff that increases base stats (+10% when maxed). Every job gets this.
Taunt - Hits 6 mobs, increasing their drop rate but also reducing the damage they take.
This is a very useful skill for Rose Garden (increases bee spawns) and for card hunting, but you will sometimes need an extra hit to kill the mob where you wouldn’t normally.
Taunt doesn’t work if it kills the mob, so make sure you don’t use it as your finisher or on an extremely low HP mob.
Requires level 10 Shadow Shifter.
Assassinate - Attacks a single target 3 times. Your main single target attack.
If interrupted in any way (with a directional arrow click, by chatting or by using pots/attack potions), it dashes and deals a critical hit at 90% success rate for a 4th attack.
Assassinate also ignores damage reflect, you can attack through it without taking damage.
Requires being in Dark Sight.
Hero's Will - A basic active skill that cures Seduce. If you have Hero's Will 10, it will cure every negative effect and will also cost 1 mp, meaning you will be able to use it after getting seduced and getting hit by 1/1. Every job gets this skill.
This is the place to mention that HW10 has extremely high value on Shadowers, due to the mass seduce content they tend to run, such as Auf, Shad HT, VL etc.
If you can afford it, it will definitely speed up your runs by reducing the cooldown from 5 minutes to 3, and it will make them a lot safer for you too.
Shadow Shifter - Passively avoid attacks, at a 30% chance when maxed. Helps you passively reposition less and saves you from certain death sometimes.
Venomous Stab - Applies poison to your attacks at a certain success rate. Doesn’t work on bosses which makes it a mostly useless skill in Royals.
Ninja Ambush - After casting it, random ninjas will attack 6 monsters around you. This deals just a tiny bit of damage and also requires a prequest.
This is a useless skill and you shouldn’t bother getting it.
Boomerang Step - Attacks up to 4 targets twice. This is your main mobbing skill.
Has a pretty long i-frame and will be used as a dodging skill in different situations (mostly in Von Leon).
The i-Frame starts right when you click the skill, so it’s very easy to use.
Smokescreen - A party skill that sets off a smokescreen in a wide area. All party members inside the smoke will not take any damage from (almost) any source.
This works on all boss attacks, and also on environmental damage, which means you can even use it to skip certain parts of Zakum jump quest for example.
The only damage you will take inside Smokescreen is from reflect (relevant for Dunas V1, Auf Haven clones etc.).
Smokescreen will also not protect you from status effects that don't do damage, such as seal and darkness.
This skill is most commonly chained together in Shadower parties.

The skill build for Shadower is a bit more trivial than other jobs as you only have a few skills that are required for bossing and LHC.
Skill them in the following order:

Level 120: Assassinate +2 [2], Boomerang Step +1 [1]
Level 121-130: Assassinate +28 [MAX], Boomerang Step +2 [3]
Level 131-139: Boomerang Step +27 [MAX]
Level 140-149: Smokescreen +30 [MAX]
Level 150-159: Shadow Shifter +30 [MAX]
Level 160-164: Maple Warrior +10 [10], Hero’s Will +5 [5]
Level 165-174: Taunt +30 [30]

From this point, max whatever you want or whatever you can afford, the order will not really matter.
If you are rich and want to go for MW20 or HW10 before Taunt, feel free to do so, but it is optional.
All the other skills that are left are somewhat useless, so just max whatever you feel like from this point.
The goal of this specific build is to help you get your damage combos and max Smokescreen by level 150 for LHC, and max Taunt by the time you will start doing Rose Garden.



You should aim for 25 base DEX and 4 base STR, with the rest in LUK.
However, if you are missing a small amount of DEX/STR to equip your LUK gear at level 200, it's not a bad idea to temporarily put some points into base DEX/STR until you can sort your stats eventually.
Since MW20 will give you +99 LUK from 990 to 997 base LUK, it's ok to have some base DEX/STR to equip pure LUK gear, as long as you don't go below 990.

*DEX/STR do not give "fake range" like they do for Night Lords. The range you will get from them will actually benefit your damage.
For Shadowers, 2.77 DEX/STR = 1 LUK roughly (for average range, not max range).



Unlike other jobs, Shadowers don't rely on SI and SE.
You will reach max attack speed with just booster, so the only benefit of SI in your party is not having to click booster.

As for SE, things are a little more complicated:
- SE is actually a debuff for Assassinate, it will make you do around 4.5% less single target damage with your regular combo. That means you should click your SE buff off for single target content.
- SE does buff your multi target skills correctly, so for multi target content such as LHC, Zakum arms etc. you can use it.
- If you are very strong and your Assassinate starts hitting damage cap (won't be relevant for most players), SE becomes a buff again since the benefits to Bstep will be greater than the damage reduction to Assassinate.

For more details, check this thread, here.



Before diving into the different macros, it’s important for you to know how to change your quick slots, in order to see your Smoke/Echo/HW cooldowns without changing keys.

1) First, open your key config, and click this button:

2) Then, click the key you want to swap, it will glow in yellow. Then click whatever key you want to swap it to:


Now, for the macros themselves:
Shadower has different macros for attacking, depending on the amount of targets.

- For single target, you should be using the Assassinate + Boomerang step combo.
As mentioned before, you need to be in Dark Sight in order to go into Assassinate.
If you have low ping, set up your macro in this order:

If you have high ping, set it up this way:


Generally, people from Asia, Australia, South America and the USA west coast should be using the high ping macro, as the server is located in the UK.
If you wanna check which macro you should be using, just set up the high ping macro first and try using it.
If you get stuck in Dark Sight and the macro doesn’t go through, it means your ping is low enough to use the low ping macro.
*You can use the low ping macro as a high ping player, but you will just do less damage as exiting Dark Sight will be delayed.

It’s sometimes believed the high ping macro does more damage, but this seems to be false and both macros will do similar damage if used on the correct ping.
Don’t do anything like using a VPN to increase your ping to switch to the high ping macro, it won’t be wise as you can get stuck in Dark Sight and die sometimes on the higher ping macro.

Additionally, there is a method to deal more single target damage than your regular combo:
1) Start your normal Assassinate + Boomerang Step combo
2) Interrupt it with a directional arrow to dash into the mob/boss
3) Click Boomerang Step
*If you use the high ping combo, you will not need to click Boomerang step, since your combo starts with it anyway. Just start a new combo.
4) Repeat

That way, you will do >3% more damage than the regular combo in exchange for a little added effort.
It’s worth noting that once your range is really high (over 14k clean), this combo becomes identical to the normal single target combo in damage, but that does not mean its useless:
If you get knocked by any boss that is on a flat map (such as Von Leon, Rose Garden boss, area bosses etc.), you should dash back into them and then use a Boomerang step.
That way, you will maximize your single target damage on the boss and won’t spend DPS by just walking back.
Demonstration:

For more details + extra math and charts about this macro, check out this thread, here.

- For attacking 3 or more targets, set up a Boomerang Step + Band of Thieves macro, like this:

If you hold an arrow while spamming this macro, you can slowly walk a bit between hits, it’s useful sometimes.


- Attacking 2 targets is a bit situational:
You will situationally use either Assa + Bstep or Bstep + BoT combo depending on what your party is doing.
For example, in Horntail head A+B, most people will do Bstep + BoT, while one person will do Assa+Bstep.
In Scarga, you will want to Assa + Bstep to target Targa over Scarlion and so on.
However, a detail worth noting is that Assa + Bstep has the superior DPS on 2 targets, it does around 6.6% more total damage.

This means you should do the following:
1) If you are attacking a 2-target high HP boss and you just want to maximize your 2-target DPS, you can use Assa+Bstep (for example, you can do that in Scarga and alternate which boss Assa targets each body - more on that on the Scarga section).
2) If one target will die much before the other when you use the Assa combo (Horntail head A+B for example), you should aim for both of them to go down at the same time instead and prioritize and Bstep + BoT combo.
Ensuring you get to attack 2 targets for the longest time possible will gain you more DPS, even while using a combo that is technically weaker.

Spoiler: How it was tested

The testing method includes spawning 2 fresh castle golems, and then killing them with the different combos.
We used smoke and pinned it on a Bucc without gear that can’t deal damage just to ensure no hit was missed.
After that, we figured out the DPS for each combo (for the 2 target portion only) using this:

And that’s how we got the 6.6% difference figure.

Golem videos:



Thank you @ZJZJ and @PinaColadaPirate for helping with this test.

Meso Bomb is the highest damage skill in the game, and it can hit 6 targets.
It does not depend on your range at all, but only does damage depending on the amount of meso you dropped.

The size of the meso bags you should drop depends on your priorities. Above 5k-6k bags the damage only goes up by a little bit, so it’s not cost effective to do more, but if you are trying to squeeze every little bit of damage at any cost, you might do that.
To understand how much damage Meso Bomb will do, please refer to this chart from the older Shadower guide, credit: this guide

Spoiler: click

This is generally used for 3 different things:
1) Power leveling in 3rd job.
2) Helping you do things that you normally couldn’t with a low level of gear.
For example - you can solo Shao with a lower range than normally possible, or secure tail kill in Horntail within 1 smokes in a lower range party.
3) Trying to kill end game bosses as fast as possible, be it for speedruns or just for not failing a run when the DPS is low.
The DPS from max meso bags (50k), is roughly 1.04m which is absurd.

Spoiler: 50k bags dps test

Check this thread to see how it compares to the top players of each class in the server -> here.

To meso explode, follow these steps:
1) If you want to be attacking while dropping meso (relevant for Von Leon, Horntail tail, Shao etc.), make a copy of your single target macro, and put it on V:

If you are bombing Bigfoot as a low level Chief Bandit, leave the V key open or put Dark Sight on it.
2) Decide on the size of the meso bag you want to drop. Pad it with 6 0’s to the left if its a 4 digit number, or 5 0’s if its a 5 digit number.
For example:
- 0000005000 for 5k bags.
- 0000050000 for 50k bags.
3) Copy that number, then open your inventory somewhere on your screen that won’t obstruct your view and click the meso icon like so:

4) Place the OK button directly on top of the meso icon:

5) Hold CTRL+V and spam click the ok button:
Video demonstration:

6) Bomb the meso.

There is a niche method to maximize your DPS while meso bombing:
You can situationally swap the macro you are using while dropping meso mid boss fight to the multi target one.
This is a good thing to do if you want to be dropping meso while clearing mobs in Von Leon for example.
All you have to do is change your quick slots, have your single target and multi target macros on them as well as an empty slot for swapping.
Video demonstration:


As for the bombing itself, there are 2 things to keep in mind:
1) Meso Bomb will explode 20 bags per click.
2) You can bomb from very far away, this is the max range:




As mentioned at the start, this guide will be more focused on mid-end game and bosses, so it will not include an actual leveling guide.
If you want to grind all the way and not leech, check the guide directory for a leveling guide and for quests worth doing -> here.

As for specific tips for certain levels, do the following:
Level 72-81: Use Meso Bomb on Headless Horseman.
This should be straightforward to do and not as complicated as bigfoot, just look up a Phantom Forest guide on the forum and start hunting them.

Level 81+: This is where you should start bombing bigfoots, and this is also the reason you maxed Meso Bomb first.
In the past this used to be a level 70+ method, but it got nerfed.
It’s still the fastest and cheapest way to level, as you will get well over a whole level per Bigfoot, and it will only cost you 6-7m meso per kill.

Bigfoots are not easy to bomb due to their i-Frames and the fact they kill you in 1 touch, but I will give you the easiest and safest way, and just follow those steps closely:
1) Find a Bigfoot using a Phantom Forest navigation guide.
2) Aggro it by attacking it once safely with any attack, make sure it doesn’t touch you.
Alternatively, you can also equip a claw quickly to aggro it from range.
Dark Sight immediately after and walk to some open space.
3) Start dropping meso as demonstrated in the Meso Bombing section, but do it in Dark Sight.
A good amount would be 5k-6k bags as it’s the most cost effective amount.
200 bags or 1m meso a pop would be a good point to stop dropping and start bombing.
4) Walk away from Bigfoot to the left or right of the meso stack, make it walk after you, then walk to the opposite side of the meso stack and bomb Bigfoot once when it’s walking to you.
5) Dark Sight again and repeat.
Keep in mind that if you mistimed the bombing or stood too close to Bigfoot, you can miss sometimes, but that’s ok.

Video demonstrations:



There is a faster method, which includes pinning Bigfoot to the left wall and learning the i-Frame times to be able to spam bombing.
This method is a bit risky and requires some practice, but it’s much faster:
1) Aggro Bigfoot.
2) Drop meso near the left corner, with a small gap.
3) Wait for bigfoot to walk into the corner, all the way.
4) Bomb twice, it will pin bigfoot to the wall if you waited for him to be all the way in the corner.
5) Pause for a few frames, and wait for the frame where he turns around and his ass faces towards you, then bomb twice again.
6) Repeat.

Video demonstration:


77-99: Make sure to do Balrog Prequests and get your shoulder pad while you are in this level window. If you over level, this item will be locked until you make another shoulder mule on the same account, which can be frustrating.

Level 110+: Ellin PQ is a great way to level to 120, and also get your Ephenia’s Ring while you are at it.

Level 120+: Work up to doing all the regular daily bosses such as Papulatus, Krex, Zakum, Shao etc.

Level 150+: At this point you should be doing LHC daily.
With both of your attacks maxed together with Smokescreen, you should be able to find parties.
Take a look at the LHC section under bossing for more information.



I will go through the common choices you will face gearing your shadower, to help you better understand where to invest your time and meso.
I will be skipping gear pieces where the best in slot is more trivial such as belt, shoulder, earrings etc.
It’s also worth mentioning that I will not go through specific stats for each item and recommend a starting point, for that please browse the selling sub-forum and make your own assessments.
This section of the guide is not about how to progress with gear on different levels of funding, but more about guiding you on where you should focus your efforts.

Spoiler: Dagger and shield

While being trivial, I still feel like this section should be included so people don’t accidentally buy the wrong shield.
Your shield choice is only one, and it’s Dragon Khanjar.
It will require 150 DEX and 75 STR, which is either more or the exact same as the highest level daggers in the game, so you will not need more stats than that ever.
As a result, you can use any dagger in the game, only the attack matters.

Spoiler: HTP vs MoN

MoN is hard to make work on Shadower.
Not only do you need to reach 150 DEX, but your shield will also require 75 STR - while HTP helps greatly with reaching both goals.
HTP is the more comfortable choice for most Shadowers, as their range benefits greatly from the high STR/DEX/LUK and they also gain a lot more avoidability from it compared to MoN.

Another factor to consider is that Shadowers do not really benefit from the speed/jump from MoN unlike warriors, since you will be hasted anyway.
That said, for end game shadowers who either have very good CS’ed top/bottom/ear/face with triple stats, or those who have a fully scrolled +20 Auf Helm, MoN will be much stronger.
In short, do not bother looting MoNs on your Shadower until you are extremely wealthy and geared, just loot a decent HTP and focus on everything else first.

*Chaos scrolling your HTP is also an option, but ultimately even a good CSed HTP will not out-damage a MoN in the endgame, and will not be cost effective for the average player, you will likely just waste your meso where it could otherwise be more useful.

Spoiler: Top and bottom

This is the right moment to say that it’s beneficial to make your Shadower a male character.
Female top/bottom (especially the level 80 ones) are super rare, while the male equivalent is a common ULU drop.
If you go for male equips, your choices are very trivial, but if you chose to make a female shad anyway, try to avoid the level 80 Pirate equips if possible because they’re very expensive.
Get your hands on decent Osfa Pants, together with a lower level top, such as Umber Mantis, Maroon Moon or Blue Mystique (which is a Goby drop).
Alternatively, if you have a lot of DEX but you are missing some STR, you can go for a mixed DEX/STR/LUK bottom, such as Purple Osfa Pants that are common.
It will usually come with around 8 STR and 9 LUK clean, and can be easily scrolled to 14~ or so DEX.
Keep in mind that mixed stats bottom will not have great resale value, so only invest in one if you need them long term, and not just for temporary comfort.

Spoiler: Eye accessory

For eye accessory, you have multiple great options:
Toad band: an item that was recently buffed and now drops more per run and is easier to get.
It comes with base LUK and STR (up to 8 each) and with 5 slots.
This item is usually used by people who have enough DEX already, and want their eye slot to be purely for LUK/STR.
If you need a lot of DEX, this should not be the eye of choice since it's really hard to hit high dex on it with scrolls.

Spectrum Goggles: Finding one with high dex is not hard (and not that expensive either), so you can use it to help you equip your items.
Recently, mixed stat goggles (STR+DEX+LUK) became more popular and you can find a pair on the market, but it won’t be cheap.
Calculate how much DEX you need, and try to get one that will cover that DEX and maybe give you some extra LUK if you can afford it.

LPQ glasses: Another item that was recently buffed and now comes with 5 slots.
It comes with 1-3 all stats.
This is a great item if you love grinding LPQ because it’s the only item in this slot that comes with all 3 stats clean, and it has decent CS potential.
It has 2 major downsides though, which are the reasons people don’t typically get them:
1) It can be very grindy and costly to keep trying to CS a good one.
2) Can’t sell it when you eventually want to upgrade your gear to pure LUK.

Spoiler: Face accessory

For face accessory the choices are a bit more trivial, your progress should go like this:
1) If you just started out and it’s not Christmas event yet, get a cheap Rat Mouth or Branch Nose scrolled with 6-8 DEX.
2) When the Christmas event starts, get yourself a Rudolph’s Shiny Nose, which is a 5 all stat 3 slots item. If it’s your only one, I don’t suggest CSing it, but you can just scroll it with DEX/LUK 60% scrolls depending on what you need.
Alternatively, you can also get a Sweet First Love for V-Day event boss, which is a 3 all stats 3 slots face.
3) Eventually, you will want a high LUK Maple Leaf, but that requires a lot of gaching for a high stat leaf and also a lot of funds to finish, so this is an endgame piece you will worry about much later.

Spoiler: Rings

Before we dive into the different ring possibilities, there are 2 rings that are a must and don’t have a real alternative, which are the Krexel Ring and 2 Carat Ring (for V-Day event).
For Krexel ring, just constantly grind until you get one that is decent enough to 60% + WS, usually a 6 main stat will do just fine.
After you get those two, you will fill the other 2 slots with whatever you can get.
Ephenia’s Ring is a good starter ring, because it gives 1 WA and 150 HP/MP and has no slots, so there’s no RNG involved. It’s a good filler ring until you can get a good Ifia’s or scrolled wedding ring.
Ifia’s Ring is a best in slot ring (up to 7 all stats, 1 slot), but will require a lot of Rose Garden grind to find a godly one and to CS it, so you will want to find a filler ring for the meanwhile.
Miwok rings (from summer event) are a solid choice for the early game, when you haven't finished looting all your best-in-slots yet. The DEX/STR will help you in the early level (though you’ll definitely replace that one later), and the LUK ring can even be your endgame choice if you manage to hit a 7-8 LUK on it.
Ring of Alchemist is usually a great choice for Shadowers if you are funded. It can come with triple stats as well and will help you to both equip your gear and skip some tedious grind for other rings.

Scrolled wedding ring (9 luk) is a niche endgame option if you have the meso to WS+10% 1-2 slots. This is usually an option kept for the very endgame, because you will need to have a good DEX/STR foundation to be able to equip this for free.
Just make sure you get the Moonstone or Star gem rings over the other two, because only those have 3 slots.

There are more event rings that give 1 all stats, though I will not recommend wasting your time getting them, as there are plenty other better rings for Shadowers and these will definitely not stay with you for long.

Spoiler: Helm

Do both your Zakum and Scar/Targa prequests, and do one of the following:

1) Get a decent INT Zakum helm, and keep it for leveling while you reloot Scar+Targa helms daily until you get a good scrolled one.
2) The same thing, but with INT Targa helm as your INT helm and reloot Zakum every day (this is the cheaper option).
3) If you by some chance get a godly Pierre Hat from Halloween event, then this could be your long term option too, but don’t count on it.

Beyond that Shads don’t have many options, as the WA hats are not relevant to you, and a 60% scrolled Auf Helmet will not satisfy your 3 stat needs.

Unlike most other jobs, it’s worth talking about +20 Auf Helm here, since it became a meta choice for endgame Shadowers.
If you manage to get through the clean 7 LUK helm grind, and the 140b~ ish cost, you will get the following benefits:
- 87 main stat, with 80+ secondary stats too, which will make equipping your items trivial and increase your damage a lot.
- Permanent max speed/jump, no need to use haste anymore.
- A lot of avoid.

Just keep in mind that if you go for a perfect Auf Helm, all your gear choices change accordingly to pure LUK ones, which are all extremely expensive and rare.

Before mentioning the different HP goals, you need to know that Shadowers wash with fresh AP, similar to Night Lords.
For specifics, please look for a washing guide on the forum and use Shiyui’s HP calculator, follow their steps closely.
As always, this guide will not be focusing on how to wash, but only HP goals.

To survive all content in the game with Meso Guard, all you need is 9.5k HP (including Auf’s double orb attack, Von Leon, Royal Guard and others.
However, in some bosses it’s extremely annoying to rely on Meso Guard, and you don’t want to be dying regularly in your runs, so it’s best to work towards 19k HP as soon as possible.
If you have the funding, wash straight to 19k+ by level 175.
If you are unfunded, just do Olaf, Ellinia HP quest and the daily HP quests all the way to 19k, it will not take so long.
Do not skip on playing Shadower just because of washing, it’s perfectly fine to be low HP and rely on Meso Guard for a few months until your HP is sorted.




For Arms phase, just stand in the middle of the right side first and attack as many arms as you can.
Then, move to the left side and do the same.
Finish whatever arms are left with your single target combo afterwards.
For the main body, attack with your Assassinate + Bstep combo or with your dash combo if you want to squeeze some extra damage.
There is really not much more worth noting in this boss.


There is not much to say about this section, except for the usual tip for every melee job in the game:
Attack the 2nd eye in this spot, and you will not need to reposition since you’ll get attacked but not knocked out of place.



As for how to do the PQ itself and the rooms, check the CWKPQ guide -> here.
Just keep in mind that to clear the Thief room, you need a mount or 123 jump.
If you don’t have any jump equipment and you are at 120 jump with Haste and you have no mount, you might not be able to clear it.
Beyond that, I will only be talking about the boss stage.

In the boss stage Shadower is sort of a filler, you can do any role.
Ideally, you will want to be attacking the Mage boss on top, since this is where your DPS output will be optimal.
You can also use smoke for the middle of the top platform to help whoever is doing the Pirate boss.
Smoke right here:


You can also be a secondary bottom attacker together with a Warrior, you will do a decent job there, much better than a Bucc.
If you can’t find a Pirate boss attacker, or if your Pirate boss attacker disconnects, killing it yourself is not completely out of the picture.
It will dispel you often, but the only buff you really need to recast is booster, with a mule from below to MW20 you.
You can alternatively group the 2 top bosses together and just Bstep + BoT them.
This is by no means ideal, but it can be good to know sometimes.


The method for running Shao is straightforward, just hold your regular Assassinate + Bstep combo.
However, it's worth mentioning that Shadowers can easily solo this boss.
The minimum buffed range (meaning - with buffs and attack pots included) to solo comfortably is around 12.5k.
Demonstration:


*This has been tested multiple times and with both high and low ping versions of the single target macro.


When you use any melee attacking skill in the game, it will first target the oldest mob in the map.
For that reason, Assassinate will target whichever of the two bosses you summoned first.
Each one of the bosses has 3 bodies, and when a body dies and the new one appears, it counts as a new mob on the map.
You will want to target Targa as much as possible, since it's the more annoying of the two, especially in Body 3.
For that reason, summon Targa first, and then also summon Scarlion, and then use your Assassinate + Bstep combo for the whole run.

Spoiler: explanation

Targa B1 will be targeted first, then Scar B1, then Targa B2, then Scar B2 and so on…
In the end, you will have both bosses on their B3 with your attacks targeting Targa.
If you have a mixed melee/ranged party it can be a little different, since the melees will pin Targa while the NLs will mostly hit Scarlion, just adjust your order accordingly.

Dunas does about 15k damage max with reflect when it has the attack up buff, and this damage goes through your Meso Guard.
As I mentioned before, Assassinate ignores damage reflect, but you will still get hit by it because of the Bstep part of the combo.
If you don’t have the HP to survive that, just use a Dark Sight + Assassination combo only for this boss, and DR should not be a factor anymore.


Again, I’m not going to generally guide you about the boss, but only give you the Shad specifics.
Please read a Neo Tokyo guide before going into this boss blindly to be familiar with the boss mechanics.

Since there is nothing Shad specific to mention in Royal Guard, I will skip straight to Core:
In this stage, the boss summons a few waves of flying mobs at different HP thresholds.
It will summon a few waves at the 90% HP mark (technically it can summon from 90.9%), and then a few more mobs at 50% (again, technically 50.9%).
Those flying mobs can fly behind you and knock you into core, which has touch damage that you can’t even survive with 30k HP and Meso Guard.
For the reason, you should use all your smokes and TLs on this stage, first at 90% and then at 50%.
Attack the boss on the top right part of the map, here:

If you are out of smoke and mobs are about to summon, it helps to spread your shads, one on the top platform and one on the bottom, like this:

Just make sure you don’t dash into Core if you stand on the bottom platform…

Main Body:
In Auf main body, the strategy will depend on your party composition, but you will generally want to save all your smokes and TLs for the last 25%~ or so where the seduces to the left side happen. Also save your Hero’s Will for that.
Just attack up here for the whole fight:

You can just smoke the first clone at 70%~ HP, and smoke should be up again in time for the left seduces, unless your party is super strong.

For the first 2 clones, if one spawned on the top, your party can also decide to de-aggro Auf and focus the clone.
If that’s the case, just hit Auf with Disorder (the 1st job skill), and it will basically walk around not attack or cast any skills or seduce, which lets you kill the clone in peace.

If TLs are up, just use all smokes + TL starting from 25% HP.
If you have a ranged character in the party, smoke on this spot:


If the whole party is melee smoking up here is ok:

Just make sure the smoke is on the marked spot and not a bit to the right of it, because if there’s even a small gap between it and the wall the whole party can die.

If you run in a full Shadower party, you can also just do the whole boss on the right side of the map and spam as many smokes as possible.
This will save you some time since seduce will not send you to the other side of the map for the majority of the fight.
This is a pretty niche method and it’s not a huge time saver, so if there’s even a small risk for that to kill your party members just avoid doing it.


Before joining any LHC run, make sure you have the prequests done and the specific map unlocked.
Bearwolves - Under the Castle Walls 4
Golems - Tall Castle Walls 2
Prepare the attack pots mentioned in the recruitment smega (most commonly apples), and be ready to run for one full hour.
If you joined a Bearwolves party (which is rare these days), just go to the platform the party leader calls in the chat, and let your rushers rush mobs to the middle.
Smoke in the middle of the platform you are currently attacking whenever it’s up.

If you joined a Golems party, all you have to do is follow your party and attack in these 2 corners accordingly (circled in blue), and smoke on this exact spot (covers both corners) whenever it’s up (circled in purple):

It’s highly recommended for you not to walk to loot stuff in LHC because you will be wasting DPS, just do all your pet skills before you run and have 3 pets walking around looting for you.


In Rose Garden, having Taunt at level 30 can be very beneficial, but level 20 will also do alright.

First, clear the first 2 rooms by collecting the ETCs and talking to the NPCs.
When you get to the boss, it's highly recommended to use your dash combo here.
The map is flat, the boss knocks you back often and it’s just free damage to be dashing.
Don’t forget to dash back into the boss when it knocks you back and to click your Bstep after.

Unless you need Burning Energy, do the first bonus room exclusively:
Taunt will decrease the damage you do to mobs, so for that reason first find out how many hits you take to kill a mob there with Bstep + BoT.
If it’s 4 hits for example, hit the stack of mobs 3 times, then use Taunt on them and finish them with the 4th attack.
You can alternatively completely skip Taunt and just mindlessly kill mobs, but Taunt will definitely save you time on average.

A few things to note are:
1) Use your mount to move faster whenever you are not attacking.
2) Use Assaulter as a finisher if you have a single mob left with low HP.
3) If you are strong enough for that, sometimes you can Assassinate + dash to 1 shot a single mob that is on your way, that way you can kill something while still moving.

Video demonstration of the bonus (the first 2 mins are cut because i have a 15 minutes limit, sorry):



Shad HT is a popular way to run the boss, and for a good reason.
You can get rid of the annoying parts of HT early on (the arms casting dispels/debuffs/sed) and you are inside smokes for a large portion of the run.
Shad HT does not necessarily mean there are only Shadowers in the party, it only refers to the method.
The parties often consist of Shadowers, Buccs, a Pally and often no bishop at all.
It’s also relatively fast on lower gear so it's not common for these parties to be more than 4-5 man.

The specifics of every run (when to use smokes, when to TL, attack order) will change every run according to the strength of the party and the party leader’s calls.
If you have not gained enough experience to lead a run yet, just keep joining runs that other people host, follow the leader’s calls and try your best to learn why certain things are done the way they are.

Some things will always be done the same though, all Shad HT runs will have the following things in common:
1) All smokes will be timed (using the servertime in-game clock, please enable it in settings before going).
You will also be assigned your place in the smoke order (s1, s2, s3 and so on…), usually by the HP mark order (the order of the Shads in the small window that shows your party members HP).
2) First smoke rotation will be used for the 1st prehead.
3) Tail will be smoked when the boss is summoned and will be killed first (if the party is strong enough, this is done in 1 smoke, otherwise the leader will call for a 2nd smoke).
This is the tail smoke spot, for the exact smoke timing check the video in the end:

4) Smokes will be used to 4-part the right side of Horntail and to rush the right arm, here:

From this point, the party leader will usually start timing smokes.
The correct time to smoke is about 30 seconds after the warning at a minimum (right arm only has 1 warning), the exact time it will sed depends on the party's DPS, so you can do it a little later if your party is slower.
After smoking, make sure the party is set to have all the vulnerable characters inside the smoke, hanging on a rope (buyer, bishop, crash mule, bucc etc.).
Please pay attention to your in-game clock and the calls.
For example, if your in-game clock says 13:50:30, and the party leader says “smoke 5120”, that means you should smoke when the clock shows 13:51:20.
5) Smokes will also be used to down the wing + left arm afterwards, here:

The left arm has 2 warnings unlike the right arm, the first one is for dispel starting, and the 2nd one is mass sed.
The left hand dies at -4.5% HP after its 2nd warning, and it does its first mass sed at -1% HP.
Therefore, it’s recommended to cast SS after the second warning.
In most cases, you will encounter two mass seds from the left hand.
All non-Shad classes will need to hang on the rope and use SS to avoid the first mass sed.
Meaning, if the 2nd warning happened at 33% HP, put the non-Shad characters on the rope at 32% and smoke.
6) Runs will always end at head A+B.
Use this Assassinate + Bstep spot:

Or this Bstep + BoT spot respectively:

The Bstep + BoT spot is very specific as you will have to be all the way to the right side of the platform.
The easiest way to get here is to dash with Assaulter from this spot exactly:

If your party members aren’t familiar with this spot, drop a coin on it so they can dash smoothly.
Sometimes Assaulter will not go through because head A is leaning down, just keep holding it until the head is back up.
When you reach the hit limit and your character stops attacking, just go back to the dash spot and use Assaulter again.
As for how to set up for head A+B:
- If your party only consists of Shads, just have 1 Shad Assassinate head A, while the others do Bstep + BoT on both heads.
- If you have a Bucc, have the Bucc on head B and put another shad on A.
Your goal is to kill both heads at the same time as much as possible. There is never a way that will 100% ensure that, but if you follow the method above it should be somewhat consistent.

Beyond that, the details are up to the party leader’s calls and the pace of your run.
That said, there are usually 2 strategies that are used in this boss.

Tail -> Legs -> Head C -> 4 Part -> Left arm + wing -> Head A+B:
After you go into the main body, stand around the tail with all characters that are in the smoke party.
Summon the boss and smoke on top of the tail as mentioned before.
At this point, right hand will spam annoying debuffs like seal and darkness, so if you have a player muling a bishop inside the smoke, just have them spam dispel to save you all from clicking ACPs all the time.
It’s also worth mentioning that if you get locked or use an ACP, you will dash forward, so make sure you have enough space and you don’t stand in a spot where you will dash out of smoke.

When the tail dies, some parties kill the legs. This is optional, but also safer.
If you don’t kill the legs, you will have more DPS when you kill the left arm later on, as you will be able to multi-target left arm + legs + wings together.
However, not killing the legs can sometimes kill your bishop or sed target if they're lower HP or if the party was not set up correctly, the touch damage from legs combined with mass sed can be lethal.

For the next phase, you will go up and attack head C until the boss HP bar shows 82.5% HP, or 82% HP if you have a Bucc in the party.
Change to 4-part attacking next, and stay there until the right arm is dead.
If you switched at the right HP threshold, head C and right arm should die at the same (ish) time.

Once head C and right arm are both dead, go to the left side and kill the wing and then the left arm.
Usually, you can just use 1 smoke for this part and use Hero’s will for the 2nd sed as it will only seduce twice at most.
If you have a buyer to protect or a bishop without HW, feel free to use 2 smokes.

When you reach head A+B, just kill them using the method I mentioned before.

Tail -> 4 Part -> Head C -> Left arm + leg + wing -> Head A+B:
In this method, you will not be killing legs after the tail.
Just kill the tail and then proceed to attack 4 parts right away.
When the right arm is dead, kill head C, and then move to the left side.
Kill the left arm + wings + legs together.
Kill head A+B together.

If you do as described above, here are the approximate death timings for several major HT parts:
- The tail dies at around 95.5% HP.
- The right hand dies at around 53.5% HP.
- Head C dies at around 47% HP.
- After the left hand’s second warning, it dies at around -4.5% HP (as mentioned before).
These are approximate timings and may shift depending on the strength of single attackers in the party (such as Buccs and CR).
You just need a general idea of when each part dies so you can plan when to use your next SS.

This method is a bit faster because it eliminates the right arm faster and it ensures more efficient DPS on the left side of the boss, but it can also come with more risk of dying if any smoke is mistimed.

Check out this Shad POV from @wscentury to better understand the 2nd method:



Before going in , it’s important to be familiar with all the mechanics and boss dynamics.
Please refer to my Von Leon guide -> here.

Von Leon is where Shadowers shine, they are the backbone of every smooth run.
They have the best Gargoyles clear, paired with the best survivability in the game and very good single target damage.
Your chance to die from lasers is low, which is what makes it far less risky than other melees.

Outside of mobs, you should be attacking with your regular Assassinate combo.
If you get hit and knocked back, dash back in with your Assassinate dash, and click Bstep one time to perform the dash combo, then continue attacking as usual. This will be demonstrated multiple times in the gameplay video below.

Now for the different situations you need to deal with:

- When rocks appear, dodge them by walking to a safe place, dashing to a safe place or dodging with Bstep i-Frame if there's no choice.
Here is a demonstration of how to dodge rocks with Bstep (or any other skill really), just watch the rock waves in this video:

Assaulter is useful to reposition and get back to the proper side of Von Leon afterwards.
- When you see bird animation (roar), hold down arrow while in Assassinate. You will either dodge it with Bstep i-Frame or lay down right after and dodge it anyway.
If your character is inside Dark Sight when you lay down, that means there is a chance you interrupted your combo in the middle, and when you stand up Assassinate will go off, don't get caught off guard by this.
- When lasers start in Body 3, do not blindly go into the Assassinate combo anymore.
Try and get a feeling for when it’s safe to go into an attack, in a way that will leave you time to dodge the lasers with Bstep i-Frame or by jumping.
Even if you get hit by a laser, it's not a big deal since you will only get hit for 50% of your HP due to Meso Guard.
For that reason, use 100% HP alert to have your HP high enough to keep tanking hits while lasered.

As for mob clear:
Just use the Boomerang Step + BoT combo until they're all dead.
It's very straightforward and very effective, this is where you are most useful as a shad.
If you want to understand how to clear mobs with Meso Explosion, please refer to the Meso Bomb section earlier in the guides, and watch this gameplay too:

This method is not a must and is quite niche, but it can help you clear runs that otherwise would maybe fail, so it’s a good way to recover from bad runs.
In most runs, this will not be relevant.

Shad jail room is the same as NL.
Just jump up the platforms and then use Assaulter on the mobs to climb up.
At the top right corner, open the chest for the key and go to the portal to exit.
If you have issues with mobs being AFK outside of Assaulter range, use an alternative method:

Spoiler: Alternative jail method

Thank you @GreedyTW for this method!

To really understand how to run the boss, you have to first read the whole VL guide and also watch an entire VOD start to finish.
Watch this gameplay to have a better idea of the different methods I described:



- @ZJZJ for doing many many tests for this guide and spending hours proof reading and helping me when I needed, I really appreciate you!
- @MengQian for huge help with the Shad HT section, and also for providing me this wonderful bigfoot guide (which unironically helped):

Spoiler: click

- @PinaColadaPirate and @nut for giving me the resources i needed to make the banners myself, and for all the calculations used in this guide in the past and in the preset.
- @autismax , @TofuMasterD , @leishun and @Fill for proof reading the guide and correcting mistakes.
- @wscentury , @Lenick , @InfiniteJest , @nut , @Fish and Chips for providing videos used in this guide.

Thank you all, without you making this guide would not be possible

If you have any feedback or suggestions about the guide, please let me know, I’m always happy to gather more information from the community!

 

Happy to be the first to leave a comment@
Thank you and always nice to have your guide in the community bro, big help in a long run!

 

We needed this!

 

This is only if you care about max dmg, if you care about average it's 2.77

Should you use just bstep un-macro'd here, bstep macro'd by itself, or bstep + bot? If bstep + bot is best, would technically be adding a bot cast after each ass macro increase your ass macro dps too as an alternative (that would still work for the 14k+ shads)?

Glad you mention this, a lot of people tend to just assume 2 target = ass macro always because it's higher dps on paper.

The other benefit is more iframes on bstep bot, meaning you need to reposition less!

Please mention exactly which quests/maps are needed for bears/golems, I see a lot of people get confused about this (because there are multiple maps with those mobs, and not all are good to run on)

What's your experience with room 2? It has some very nice platform setups to assaulter around, so it makes movement a lot easier. I get roughly the same rates there as map 1 but I also don't really collect hard data on time for 20 bees to check.

If you do room 3 for BE, my experience is usually around 80 BE gained per 20 bee run.

Edit: also update your forum signature!

 

Thanks, fixed

just unmacro'd bstep. as far as i know bot is free damage when chained with bsteps, but will cause additional delay when followed up by assa, i guess its for the same reason the single target combo is assa+bstep and not assa+bstep+bot normally.
i can do some quick tests just to make sure and update it if i get a different result though.

done.

The same thing I said in my Bucc guide, basically the 2nd map seems the best for multi platforming and sounds like it would be the best on paper, but on average the 1st map is just faster.
There was a period of time where I only did the 2nd map for about a month or so, and that's my personal experience with it, if anyone has different data/method they want to share ill be happy to be proven wrong.

thanks!

Edit: also added some details to the Shad ht including HP thresholds, thanks @MengQian @wscentury