Table of Contents: Context Why play shadower? HP Washing SP/AP Conversations Skill Points Ability Points Training Locations Meso bombing mechanics Bossing mechanics and calculations Equipment talk Conclusion When I made my shadower, I followed this shadower guide. A few years ago, shadowers were a class you avoid playing. When I used to join zak runs from people smegaing "R>Attackers", it was common for them to deny me (including times where they would reply "sorry, we are R>attackers only"). But that guide was written in 2014 and now is quite outdated with all the changes that have happened since then, shadowers are now sitting in a good spot. Consider this an updated version of that guide that will hopefully be a one-stop shop for any aspiring shadowers out there. Why play shadower? Shadowers are a very middle_of_the_road class in terms of damage. For single target damage, they do okay. For multi-target damage, they do okay. They aren't the strongest in terms of dealing damage, but they are not, by any means, the weakest either. I think Royals has done a great job balancing the classes, and every class shines in something. Here's what makes shadowers shine: Shadowers don't rely on SE or SI for damage. They can do what they need to do without relying on party buffs. Shadowers are a pretty self-sufficient class. SE only increases shadower damage by ~5%? I'll do the math one day but it's very minimal. SI doesn't affect shadower dps, a dagger + booster is already max speed. Shadowers have very high survivability. Meso guard blocks 50% of damage taken Shadow Shifter (maxed) will let you dodge 30% of hits Luk being your primary stat means you will naturally have high avoidability. Basically, you rarely get hit. And when you do get hit, you only take 50% damage. This includes 1/1's in bosses, you take half damage instead. You can do a lot of unique things Assaulter makes you pretty mobile in vertically tall maps with lots of platforms Stacking shadowers in a party allows unique boss runs, especially in horntail, bga, and auf haven (example all shadower horntail run) Parties love smokescreen (I mean, 90 seconds of not taking any damage is pretty nice). You don't really have to buy leech as a shadower Meso Explosion allows you to self train starting at 3rd job Assassinate looks really cool with nx weapons that have slash effects (just my opinion though) The short answer: yes, you should. But only a little bit. 12k hp is enough for shadowers to do almost every boss Royals has right now pretty comfortably. That isn't to say that you shouldn't wash more, or that you have to wash to that much. In fact, I barely washed my shadower at all. I was able to SED horntail just fine at 8k hp as long as I paid attention to my timers. I just recommend 12k hp because it makes life much easier. When you are deciding what your hp goal is, look at the hp needed to survive certain bosses and divide that by 2. Also consider the bosses where hyper body will be available to you (making you even more tanky). You can also future-proof your shadower by washing to 30k hp, just be prepared for the cost since washing a shadower is the same as washing a night lord. I'm not going to go in depth on how to HP washing there are already guides and resources available for that: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/night-lord-shadower-hp-washing-above-20k-hp.146816/ https://royals.ms/forum/threads/hp-washing-for-new-players.41129/ https://royals.ms/forum/threads/hp-washing-calculator.111127/ There are also other ways of gaining HP, such as quests and equips. https://royals.ms/forum/threads/water-from-the-spring-of-youth.124038/ https://royals.ms/forum/threads/com...ir-of-life-reuel-hp-quest-guide-lv150.178648/ Ability Points Prioritizing of ability points should be towards wearing your equips. In the end, you want to be able to wear a Dragon Kanzir and a Dragon Kanjar . Both of which require 75 str and 150 dex. So you should plan accordingly. It is important to note that with equips, you can achieve the minimum stats required to wear these end game equips while having 4 base str and 25 base dex (min dex required to be a thief), which is the end game goal for shadowers (maximize base luk so you benifit from MW20 more). Skill Points Disclaimer: this is just my opinion on what should be leveled up. I'll try to justify my opinions in this section as well. I don't go into the order of which skills should be leveled up, but hopefully you can make that judgement yourself after reading this section. 1st Job: TLDR: I recommend (you can always make your own judgements on what you want) Max dark sight, max nimble body, 1 in lucky 7, the rest into double stab or disorder (or if you want to be a sin/dit, the rest into lucky 7) in any order that you feel comfortable with Double stab will help you kill things, so it's important to level this up. Some people max lucky seven instead and be sin-dits until midway through 2nd job. I prefer double stab because you can't spam lucky 7 inside a bunch of mobs (like in cpq). Also, since you will be using a dagger in the future anyways, why not use a dagger the whole time? Do note that lucky 7 is useful in some events (specifically the balloon popping event) so it can be nice to have 1 point in that. Dark sight is probably the only 1st job skill that you will use all the way til end-game. That's because it is required for you to use Assassinate, which is your main single target dps attack. This is a must max. Nimble body is the last skill to max since extra avoidability is nice I personally would throw any extra skillpoints left over into Disorder. Mainly because when you use it on a monster, it stops that monster from casting spells. If you are getting leeched through your early levels, I would even prioritize this over double stab because of the utility. -- Someone told me that you probably won't have any extra skillpoints if you maxed double stab. 2nd Job: Dagger Master, max this if you want to do damages Dagger Booster, let's you achieve max attack speed so you want this Haste, movement speed and jump, you want this too I believe everyone will agree with maxing the above skills. This is where I differ from a lot of people Steal, max this for utility. It has some niche uses (it works on golden mushroom, white ghost lady, you can also use it to farm crimson woods). Steal allows you to steal an item from a monster (with a given success rate). It can be repeated until you steal an item. You can steal an item from a monster's drop table. After you steal an item and kill the monster, it won't drop that item again (it gets removed from that monster's drop table). Let's use a concrete example. Crimson Trees drop two things, Crimson Wood and Crimson Tree Monster Cards. Crimson woods have a ~60% drop rate. So 6/10 trees you kill will net you a wood. I equip a pico pico hammer and spam steal on the trees (40% steal rate). Meaning every 3x I use it I'll steal an item. The item I steal is based on the drop-rate of the item (crimson wood has a much higher drop rate than the monster card) so I would steal a crimson wood almost every time. This means that, instead of a 60% drop rate for crimson woods, I actually have a 99% drop rate. For golden mushrooms, using steal can possibly let you steal an item that the golden mushroom wouldn't have dropped if you just killed it. Pretty cool right? Endure, useful if you hang on ropes a lot (like when you are waiting to get seduced in horntail) Savage Blow is what bandits are known for, and a skill I don't prioritize. You can level this instead of endure if you want, but it's only worth getting to lvl 21 for the 6 lines of damage (useful for pinning/some event bosses such as the lunar new year dragon). 3rd Job: Meso Explosion is the bread and butter skill of chief bandits. It lets you self train without buying leech. I'll into more detail about this skill in the meso bombing techniques section later on. Chakra is only useful in Mu Lung Dojo, allowing you to heal your HP in exchange for MP. You need to have at least 3 points in this before you can get meso guard, but if you have extra ability points while in 3rd job, it's nice to put them into this. Meso Guard, you MUST max this. It will block 50% of damage in exchange for mesos (and not too much mesos either). Band of thieves is the first mobbing skill you get! Max this because it goes really well with boomerang step during 4th job Assaulter gives you amazing vertical mobility. There are a lot of select maps (such as Shao temple) where you can move through them really quickly. Most notably, you can use horntails arms and wings to jump back onto a platform where you can attack from. Pickpocket is sadly very useless in Royals. Shield mastery makes you tankier when you wear a shield, somewhat useful 4th job: Boomerang step is your main multi-target attack. It hits up to 4 targets and has a really big horizontal range. This skill alone makes shadowers one of the best classes to attack horntail because you can hit 4 targets at the same time on the right side. This skill is also very great for grinding. You also have some invincibility frames (iframes, frames where you can't get hit) when you use this. Assassinate is your main single-target attack. You must be in dark sight to use this skill. Shadow Shifter allows you to dodge attacks with a given success rate. When maxed, it allows you to dodge 30% of the time (so 3/10 hits won't hit you). Combined with shadowers having naturally high avoidability, you don't really get hit too often (I use about 100-150 hp pots in a normal horntail run while I am the seduce target). Smokescreen is amazing. It creates an area where anyone in your party who is an that area won't take any damage. At level 30, the range is pretty big. This skill allows shadowers to have very unique strategies when it comes to bossing. Taunt increases the drop rate and exp of the monsters you hit with it, in exchange for increasing their defenses. Super useful when grinding or farming. This combined with boomerang steps makes shadowers a top teir (second only to mages) farming class. Ninja ambush doesn't do much. Some ninjas attack monsters around you for a certain amount of time, but it does less damage than your basic attack. The only redeeming factor is it works through weapon cancel. Sadly it doesn't stack with other shadowers using it though. Venomous stab is not really useful for bossing, and only somewhat useful for grinding, I wouldn't do anything with this until you have no other options Hero's will is great to have since you will most likely be the seduce target for horntail. It's a nice lifeline to have in case something goes wrong. Maple Warrior is nice to have. Getting it to level 20 is nice so you don't have to rely on anyone else, but it's not necessary. This part of this guide is meant for those who are self training and not buying leech. You can ignore this if you are getting a leech. Level 14-20: I start at level 14 because your beginner thief lessons should get you there. The fastest way to get through these levels is doing the quests worth doing: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/quests-worth-doing.106856/ You can easily breeze through these levels with the orbis exchange quest if you have the funds. Otherwise train on bubblings. Level 21-30: KPQ is the way to go. A combination of that and more quests worth doing should easily get you to 30. Level 31-50: CPQ1 is still the most dominate and fastest leveling method for this level range Level 51-70: OPQ gives pretty decent EXP at these levels Otherwise, party training at The Forest of Golems is pretty good income/exp. Mysterious Path 3 is also a great party training spot Level 70-120: (speed leveling time) While other classes will have trouble leveling through these, you will actually get through these pretty quickly thanks to Meso Explosion. Crimson Guards is my preferred mob to train on since it's low risk and very casual. How to hunt crimson guards: Spoiler There are 3 main spots where you bomb the guards. Spot 1: left staircase (and the safe spot to stand). This spot will hit the guards underneath the staircase as well. Try it out, the range will surprise you. Spoiler Spot 2: Right staircase, you don't get hit on this staircase. Spoiler Spot 3: Top, near the portal. You actually don't get hit if you just stand here. You DO get hit if you hit the guards and they get knocked back into you (keep that in mind if you are unwashed). Spoiler Now that you know the spots, the goal is to hit at least 3 guards (and 1hit KO them) everytime you bomb. Don't spend too much time on one spot because you want to keep actively grinding to maximize exp (though if you want to save mesos, you can be patient and wait for them to group up). If you are washed and don't mind spending all cures, you can use band of thieves to mob them towards your mesos before you blow them up. Find yourself a priest friend with hs and you can level together even faster (as long as you are within 5 levels of each other). Hunting bigfoots is the fastest way to get through these levels. Here is a great guide on how to find them. Duoing himes is pretty good exp but it pales in comparison to the above methods in my opinion. But try them out to see if they work for you. Level 120-135: Bigfoots - keep going until you can boss!! Temple of Time - great income while grinding Golden Monk Training (credits to @LichWiz) Spoiler Here we go, a bunch of numbers. A lot of people are dissuaded from playing shadowers because they believe we RELY on this skill to do ANY damage FOREVER. I've talked to many shadowers who had this mindset. The cool thing is, at about 8k range clean (with MW), as long as you are on an onyx apple, you should do enough damage to match your meso explosion damage (assuming 4-6k bag drops) (no more need to meso explode!). Here's the meso explosion damage calculator from the original shadower guide: Spoiler TLDR: Most effective bag/damage is 4-6k bags. The most I would drop is 12k bags in any given scenario (which you can outdamage at ~9.2k range clean using an apple on a single target). But until you hit that range, it would be useful to learn the mechanics involved in meso explosion. Firstly, "speed bombing" from the original shadower guide no longer works. Every time you cast meso explosion you will blow up 20 bags (assuming there are at least 20 bags on the ground and ME is maxed). Secondly, you can drop mesos while attacking. Simply bind your attacking ability or in-game macro to your "v" button. When you hold down ctrl + v to paste the meso amount into your drop window and spam click, you will cast your ability in between dropping. (I'll add a video to demonstrate this later). Some things you want to note, you cannot explode mesos dropped by your party members (I think this is different than GMS). Also, if you are bombing mesos during a boss run, and you notice that your mesos aren't exploding but you are doing damage, go pick up your mesos. This is a WELL KNOWN bug and using it would be considered GLITCH ABUSE and would result in you getting banned. Don't use autoclickers, this is robotic play and will also result in you getting banned. In short, When you are hitting 1-2 targets, use this skill macro: -> -> (or if you have higher ping: -> -> , an explanation of why ping affects which one you use can be found here, this is also the macro most shadowers would bind to 'v' when they are dropping and attacking at the same time) When you are hitting 3+ targets, use this skill macro: -> Now that you know the macro's, here's the math for why you use them in each scenario. Spoiler Using my same math from this thread: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/shadower-best-attacks.172133/ Using real numbers: let's say our range is 100-100 (flat). Max boomerang step is 600% damage and max assassinate is 950% damage. Band of Thieves is 250% damage Meaning, using boomerang step you will do 600 damage per line (so 1200 total) and assassinate you are doing 950 damage per line (so total 2850 for 3 lines), and band of thieves is 250 damage. In 10 seconds: Using boomerang + bot = 9 casts + 1 more boomerang step Using ds + boom step + assassinate = 5 casts + 1 more boomerang step So for 100 range flat in 10 seconds (on single target): bstep+ bot = 9(1200 + 250) + 1200 = 14250 ds + bstep + assassinate = 5(1200 + 2850) + 1200 = 21450 for 100 range flat in 10 seconds (on 2 targets): bstep+ bot = (9(1200 + 250) + 1200) * 2 = 28500 ds + bstep + assassinate (since bstep hits 2 targets here as well) = (6 * 1200 * 2 [boomerang step casts times 2 for 2 targetss]) + (2850*5 [5 casts of assassinate]) = 28650 So the difference at 2 targets is minimal, but it definitely takes at least 3 targets before bstep + bot becomes the optimal combination to use. A note that was brought up by this thread. I recommend that you have assassinate and normal attack binded on keys that are easy for you to reach. Being able to leave dark sight fluidly will improve your bossing experience as you cannot use any potions while you are in it. There are still a few situations where you will have to right click the dark sight buff at the top right of your screen to cancel it, but that is very minimal if you utilize these 2 key binds. There's also this interesting thing where assassinate doesn't get damage reflected and it is NOT A BUG!!! https://royals.ms/forum/threads/assassinate-doesnt-get-damage-reflected.168092/ So for bosses that damage reflect (like dunas 1), you should use -> Shadowers work well together (a good example is the all shadower horntail run I linked above), but they also synergize with buccs because of time leap . Having a combination of shadowers and buccs allows you to only require one bishop in BGA. I know there's a lot of other unique mechanics that I didn't cover, I'll try to add more some time in the future. Horntail Great guide on how to be a shadower in horntail: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/how-to-utilize-a-shadower-at-horntail.140472/ Horntail guide if you have a lot of shadowers: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/shadower-based-horntail-guide.181344/ The biggest shocker for a lot of people is that a horntail pendant is better than a mark of naracain for end game shadowers! However there are threads arguing for the other way (such as this one). Here is a thread doing some math arguing for htp. Here's why I think HTP is better than MoN. The first reason is, it gives you a lot of str/dex which makes it easier for you to wear your end game equips (kanzir/khanjar). The first thread argues that it is possible to hit 75 str and 150 dex without HTP while having 4str and 25 dex, which is true but extremely difficult to do (I believe their example included a 10str + 10dex face accessory). HTP makes it easier to get 4str and 25 dex (meaning the rest of your points are in your base Luk). This is IMPORTANT because MW20 increases your stats based on their BASE VALUE. So with MW20, the more base luk you have, the better. The damage increase you get from having more base luk when you wear an HTP will outweight the damage increase you have from wearing a mon (as calculated in the second thread). So, unless you can achieve 75 str and 150 dex via equips (while having 4str and 25 dex base) without HTP, HTP will be better than MoN. (MW20 is just that good). Other than that, these items will give you the biggest range increase: Dagger upgrade will increase your range the most, followed by shield upgrade. Afterwards, attack gear upgrades will increase your range the next most (shoes/cape/gloves). Gear that allows you to minimize your stats will increase your range a lot as well, I prioritize this at the same level as attack gear in terms of when to upgrade. As to many guides, this will have to be maintained in order to stay relevant and I'll try my best to do so. I'm open to feedback and suggestions as I'm sure the many shadowers have a lot of information they could share as well. There are some things that I haven't added to the guide yet (mostly because I haven't done the work for them yet). If you would like to contribute to this guide just reply your contribution and I'll do my best to add it in. Also, feel free to disagree with any points I brought up, I'm open to having discussions on anything I stated. Special thanks to @Marty for the original shadower guide @sparky95 For the bigfoot hunting guide bbb.hidden-street.net for images @PerfectSin and @Gossamer for the hp washing guides @Shiyui for the HP washing calculator @Kai and @Nivi for the HP Quest guides @BernieSandas for the quests worth doing guide @silv for the ping dependent macro thread @FuminoAya and @lolo123 For htp vs mon threads @FuminoAya for the shadower in horntail guide @Ayane for catching a mistake
This is what I use because my ping is stupid, but bear in mind that if you have low hp this might be dangerous depending on the boss if you aren't careful about stopping assassinate's dash (4th hit) by chaining it to the next macro, stopping the macro after bstep, or dashing in a direction you choose. Since the macro ends with assassinate, it will automatically make you dash forward if you aren't careful and the dash isn't interrupted by something else. Sometimes I type in chat or do stuff during the relatively long macro combo and fail to chain it properly so I end up dashing into the boss and taking touch damage. This is fine in zak but you don't want to be me and dash into core blaze 10+ times each auf run with the 20k+ touch damage. Nice guide and here's hoping for a mini section on how to ht/zak as shad and more on bstep-bot combo
This thread covers both of those topics: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/how-to-utilize-a-shadower-at-horntail.140472/
There is a mistake in the ability points part, things like DEX and LUK are abilities and you wrote them as skill points (and you wrote the skills as abilities too)
Great guide! Any chance you could show/explain how to properly bomb Crimson Guards? I've been at it for a bit but it's not too smooth yet
If you don't HP wash or use HP gear at lv70 don't bother trying at Crimson Guard, they 1hit KO you. It is also extremely risky if you fail to kill them in one shot because it may skill lock you, making you unable to cast Dark Sight. Elderwraiths at Evil Dead is the better choice since it auto aggro you, and they hit less than Crimson Guards do.
Thanks for the quick reply! I can actually tank 2 hits (I'm washing), but the skill lock is indeed slightly annoying if you end up with some %hp left on the mobs. I'll give the elder wraiths a try!
fantastic guide, Quokka, cheers for the shadower team! hope you're doing well, hugs and stay safe. ♥
@Kuun I added some pictures and some notes on how I grinded crimson guards. Let me know if you have any questions (got too lazy to film a video so it's screenshots for now)
Sweet! That's great thanks How much mesos do you recommend dropping? Think I might have been overspending lol
Oh man it's been a long time. I don't quite remember the exact amount for each level of meso explosion. The idea is you want to 1 hit KO them. So as many bags of 4-6k as you need to 1hit them would be efficient. Since you can survive hits, you can experiment
I might have my math wrong, but I believe SE adds about 10% damage to the Ass 30 + bs 30 combo. Without SE (950 x 3) + (600 x 2) = 4050 With (950 x 3) + ((600 + (600 x 2.4 x .15)) x 2) = 4482 *2.4 is SE dmg increase *.15 is SE % proc chance This is with my (i hope im right lol) assumed knowledge that SE only effects BS.
SE adds 40% damage to the skills damage number. So boomerang step goes from 600% to 640% for damage calculations (and assassinate actually also crits with SE, but we can't see it, our party members can though). (990 x 3) + (640 x 2) = 4250 which is about 5% increase. Hope this clarifies it for you
I've read through multiple threads saying that Sharp Eye is incorrectly stated in the game, thats why NL and archers can hit 3x their range? dont quote me :^)
NL's and archers benefit more from SE because they have built in crit into their kits already so they get a ton more damage because SE applies on top of that 2.4 from your calculation before probably came from critical throw + SE which is 200% + 40% damage increase
actually SE is suposed to work in adition,not like that, i wont the dmg formula for shadowrs bcs i dont have it in my memory, and cant look for it rn, but if a skill does 600% dmg for example, SE should add 140%+ on top of it, so its not x2.4 or 600+40, it should be 600%+140%= 740%. Base critical is extra 100% dmg, but SE gives an aditional 140%, thats why bms/mms if they do a normal 10k line for example critical for that line(with se) is 10k+2.4x10k=34k, same aplies for nls who have base critical aswell, a critical line with se is 3.4 times their normal dmg usually the bigger the % main atacking skill is, the less impactfull SE is...
Beautiful, thanks for clarifying, so in the end, the calculation for assassinate boomstep combo becomes: ( ( 950 + (140 * .15) ) x 3 ) + ( ( 600 + ( 140 *.15 ) ) x 2 ) = 4155 Which is actually less than a 5% damage increase I also did the math wrong from my original response (I blame distractions )
I think assassinate can't crit though (I never saw a shad crit and they said there is no crit), though I'm not sure if there is no crit at all or if there is a damage bonus but you can't see the crits visually
Me and another shadower tested this out in krex. It looks like it can crit, but you can't see yourself crit (your party members can see it though)
