Ellucidate's Guide to Demon Slayer

Guide in 'Warrior' published by elluci, Oct 21, 2023.

This guide will not particularly focus on the early levels of game play, but catered towards those that are more interested, and planning on establishing their DS as their main. I will be looking over various character set-ups as well as some game play mechanics.

1. Rate This Guide
  
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  Introduction
  
  Hello, my name's Elluci (IGN: Ellucidate) and I have played Demon Slayer (DS) since their release in January of 2012.I believe I am fairly proficient in the class, but not as much as Bane or Demon. They number 1.
  
  Is this the class for me?
  
  For those that are looking for a new main, or want to learn about DS, I will cover some of their pros and cons.
  
  They are a Resistance warrior class that does not use mana, but instead a system called 'Demon Fury' (DF). This is used to cast various attacks or buffs. In order to maintain your DF, a combination of regular attacks, skills and buffs are used.
  
  Game play wise, they are very straightforward in their bossing and mobbing, and have excellent mobility and utility and in my opinion, one of the strongest classes in MapleStory.
  
  Pros:
  + Easy and straightforward to play.
  + Lots of free built in stats (%IED, boss damage, crit on main skills).
  + Bossing is extremely strong, and mobbing is definitely top-tier also.
  + Extremely mobile warrior (built in glide mechanic, capable of double jump, up jump, rush and teleporting (more on this later)).
  + '13th' link skill (because you experience their useful link of 10/15/20% boss damage).
  + Very tanky/difficult to kill.
  + Hits weapon soft speed cap if using FAST weapon (all but sweetwater), and hard speed cap with additional attack speed source (DSI).
  + Amazing utility/survivability (has rush, amazing boss teleport skill, bind, heal, invincibility frames, IED debuff/exp/drop buff skill, damage reflection/cancel bypass).
  + Have one of the strongest pairing of hyper skills (90% 'shadow partner' and excellent fury restoring skill with high vertical range).
  + Majority of skills have a medium-high horizontal and vertical span.
  + Exceptional 5th job skills.
  + Cool aesthetic.
  + Skills do lots of lines, which is satisfying to look at.
  + Capable of taking on a lot of bosses quite early compared to many classes/does not require as much range/damage to take on certain bosses.
  
  Cons:
  - Early game is a bit awkward until you hit 160 for the hyper skill (game play is awkward revolving around spamming Demon Lash to restore DF).
  - 'Long' skill animations (not as bad with hard attack speed cap).
  - Since you do so many lines, it makes the boss/mob you are fighting more difficult to see.
  - Punished HEAVILY if you die frequently/cannot control your character very well.
  - Have a fair amount of skills with cooldown you should maintain.
  - Mobbing compared to other classes is subpar.
  
  Do you like what you see?
  If you are interested, feel free to explore further in this guide. I will cover how I build my character, some skill commentary and some game play mechanics.
  
  Contact:
  If there is anything regarding MapleStory you want to ask me, I have a Discord server (inactive) where you may ask me anything, and my Discord IGN is Ell #3883 if you want to PM me. I also frequent the MapleStory subreddit, and in game most of the time (IGN: Ellucidate) if you want to DM me there also. I am also in the Demon Slayer discord (DM me for invite link if interested).
  
  Resources:
  I have a YouTube channel where I upload irregularly of random things (minimum damage bosses, solos, 'niche' content etc.) at.
  Learn from the BEST:
  Best DS in the world BIG FAN
  Thanks for checking out the guide! If you have any questions, I frequently stream my game play over on the Twitch platform. You may ask me questions regarding DS or even general MS game play.
  
  elluci, Oct 21, 2023
  
  TriHard, Ando, Krylon and 1 other person like this.
2. Guide Author elluci, Find all guides by elluci

Build

Note: There are many images/gifs contained within this section, so may eat a lot of bandwidth.

Table of Contents
Demon Slayer Ability Points
Demon Slayer Beginner Skills
Demon Slayer First Job
Demon Slayer Second Job
Demon Slayer Third Job
Demon Slayer Fourth Job
Demon Slayer Hyper Skill Builds
Demon Slayer Fifth Job

Note: Some skills are not mentioned as there is not much to say (e.g HP Boost, Mastery skills, Maple Warrior etc.)

Demon Slayer Ability Points

Auto-assign, pump it ALL into STR.

Demon Slayer Beginner Skills

Skill Name	Skill Level	Description
Demonic Blood	1	Start off with Lv. 20 Ambition/Willpower in your traits AND 100% regular stance.
Fury Unleashed	1	Demon Slayer's link skill that you can give to other characters (10/15/20% boss at Lv. 70/120/210). You will receive the benefit from this skill as well as additional fury absorption when fighting bosses.
Curse of Fury	1	Absorb fury from eliminating monsters. Also has a chance to increase your damage by 100%, and restore 5% HP at a 1% proc chance.
Dark Winds	1	DOUBLE UP JUMP: firstly jump, then quickly tap your up arrow key twice. You can control the distance you want to up jump depending on when you tap the up arrow keys during your jump projection (more on this later). GLIDING: firstly jump, then tap the jump key again and hold it. Release your jump key to break the glide. FLASH JUMP: firstly jump, then double tap your left/right arrow keys. You can control the distance you double jump depending on when you tap the arrow keys. LOCK: Right click to lock your movement to flash jump only. When you double tap your jump key, you will flash jump. You can still up jump, but not glide. I recommend locking while training, but unlocking while bossing.

Demon Slayer First Job

First Job Skill Allocation

Demon Lash (1)

Shadow Swiftness (MAX)

Agile Demon (MAX)

HP Boost (MAX)

Demon Lash (MAX)

Grim Scythe (MAX)

First Job Skill Commentary

Skill Name	Skill Level	Description
Demon Lash	10	This will be your main fury manager/restorer until you get the Hyper Skill Cerberus at 160. Once you unlock 5th job, the skill Demon Awakening will enhance the damage dealt with Demon Lash and this will become your main bossing skill, and can be used as another mobbing skill. You will only use regular Demon Lash (outside of Demon Awakening) to proc the Hyper Passive: Reinforced Duration when kiting the boss/boss is invulnerable.
Grim Scythe	15	NEVER use this skill. The start up time and wind down time is long and awkward. You are stationary while this is cast. You are better off spamming Demon Lash in my opinion.
Agile Demon	20	Passive +2 attack speed booster, also gives strength. Very nice. You will hit the soft speed cap if using a FAST weapon (anything but sweetwater).
Shadow Swiftness	10	I would max this as soon as possible. It is better to get used to the typical speed/movement of DS. Also improves your reach on certain skills/attacks since you have higher jump.

Levelling to 30 is quite fast, so it shouldn't matter that much if you don't follow this skill allocation.

Everything should be maxed at the end. Probably best to kill everything with Demon Lash, so spam the heck out of that Attack key.

Demon Slayer Second Job

Second Job Skill Allocation

Barbed Lash (MAX)

Soul Eater (1)

Dark Thrust (1)

Chaos Lock (1)

Outrage (1)

Weapon Mastery (MAX)

Physical Training (MAX)

Outrage (MAX)

Dark Thrust (MAX) or

Soul Eater (19)

Soul Eater (19) or

Dark Thrust (MAX)

Chaos Lock (MAX)

Vengeance (9)

Second Job Skill Commentary

Skill Name	Skill Level	Description
Soul Eater	19	I wouldn't really use Soul Eater at all due to the reasons similar to Grim Scythe, but it still has a pull effect which has a niche use in some cases. You can forgo Soul Eater in this skill allocation, and max it out towards the end with Vengeance.
Dark Thrust	20	Horizontal dash movement you will use a lot in mobbing and bossing. This has been improved where the delay between rushing has been significantly reduced.
Chaos Lock	10	A unique teleport skill that no other class has. Influence direction of teleport by pairing with arrow key, but generally still chaotic if lots of mobs around. Teleport behind a mob/boss when facing away, or teleport in front of the mob/boss if facing towards it. If you cast this after your lashes when Demon Awakening is active, the cast delay is reduced. Chaos Lock is more applicable for bossing, but its still fun to teleport to the closest mob sometimes, but otherwise just use your up jumps and glides to get around. You can also use it to re-position yourself for mob clear if you've killed all the surrounding mobs. If you get displaced (like Lotus's bounce/VHilla's knockback or if you jump too high) you can use this to cancel the trajectory.
Vengeance	9	There's no practical use for this skill. The damage reflected from getting hit is negligible, and when you are more funded, you will be avoiding hits or guarding from mobs. This does not proc on bosses, which is the important thing.

I believe there should be a point into Barbed Lash already, if not then put that one in. Generally, when you job advance for the first time, you want to play with some of the new skills you have, thus Soul Eater/Dark Thrust/Chaos Lock. Then you want to put 1 point into Outrage as soon as possible for a nice +ATT boost and a bit of critical chance. Eventually, you can max it after your other passives (mastery/training).

Max out your mastery/passives as soon as possible and eventually move on towards the skills you will use more frequently later on (Dark Thrust/Chaos Lock) and then the useless skills.

For mobbing, I would still spam Demon Lash, and get around the map using Dark Thrust/Chaos Lock.

Demon Slayer Third Job

Third Job Skill Allocation

Demon Lash Arch (MAX)

Judgment (1)

Raven Storm (1)

Carrion Breath (1)

Vortex of Doom (1)

Focused Fury (1)

Max Fury (MAX)

Focused Fury (MAX)

Possessed Aegis (MAX)

Black Hearted Strength (MAX)

Insult to Injury (MAX)

Raven Storm (MAX)

Max 1, other 2 at 19 (depends on what you use).

Third Job Skill Commentary

Skill Name	Skill Level	Description
Judgment	19/20	Not a fan of Judgment, due to large DF consumption and being very slow to cast. Once you hit 4th job, you will never use this again.
Vortex of Doom	19/20	Not that good. The pull from both directions has a very limited range and has a decent fury cost. The intention is to combo it with Judgment or Carrion Breath. I personally would rather move myself to one side, then Dark Thrust to pull mobs.
Raven Storm	20	Use this skill for the invincibility frames. It lasts around 2 seconds which is slightly shorter than Dark Metamorphosis. I wouldn't use this skill for healing unless absolutely necessary.
Carrion Breath	19/20	Similar to Judgment, however this is a good key down skill if you want to be lazy for things that spawn endless amount of mobs in a fixed location (e.g Dimension Invasion).
Black Hearted Strength	10	Good defensive skill, makes you tanky so its harder to die to mobs. Abnormal Status it offers is nice.
Insult to Injury	10	Not initially useful unless you use Carrion Breath in 3rd job. Becomes extremely useful in 4th job+ where one of your main bossing skill inflicts slow and benefits from this passive, or hitting targets with Demon Cry status infliction.
Focused Fury	18	Initially, you want a point in it as early as possible to get that extra attack speed and damage. After maxing Max Fury, max this as soon as possible.
Possessed Aegis	10	Good guarding skill which restores some HP and Fury, but guard does not trigger against most boss attacks since they use %HP damage attacks, which is a shame.
Max Fury	5	You want to max fury as soon as possible. Not only do you get more fury from hitting things with Demon Lash, but you also passively generate 10 DF every 4 seconds.

You may choose not to put a point into Judgment, Carrion Breath and Vortex of Doom initially, and straight up allocate your points as: Raven Storm (1) > Focused Fury (1) > Following Skill Allocation similarly > Allocate to those attacks last.

Again, I would still use Demon Lash. I generally refrain from the other mobbing skills. Raven Storm occasionally if you find yourself running out of HP. Max out those other passives as soon as possible as they're quite useful in improving convenience/damage/defense. Max out the attacks last.

Demon Slayer Fourth Job

Fourth Job Skill Allocation

Demon Thrash (MAX)

Infernal Concussion (1)

Demon Impact (1)

Boundless Rage (1)

Binding Darkness (1)

Demon Cry (1)

Obsidian Skin (1)

Dark Metamorphosis (MAX)

Barricade Mastery (MAX)

Boundless Rage (MAX)

Demon Cry (MAX)

Infernal Concussion (MAX)

Demon Impact (MAX)

Leech Aura (MAX) or

Maple Warrior (MAX)

Maple Warrior (MAX) or

Leech Aura (MAX)

Obsidian Skin (MAX)

Binding Darkness (MAX)

The Demon's Will (MAX)

Fourth Job Skill Commentary

Skill Name	Skill Level	Description
Infernal Concussion	30	This is your main mobbing skill. Has very good horizontal and vertical span. Attack is in two parts, the initial cast which does 1 line of damage (based on critical rate), and then explodes to do 5 lines of damage (100% critical rate). This skill can now be cast while in the air.
Demon Impact	30	This will be your main bossing skill outside of 5th job skills. It also inflicts a short slow, which helps with kiting the boss. Also synergizes with 'Insult to Injury' for that extra Final Damage. You could consider using this for mobbing somewhat also, but I would recommend using it against 6 or 7 mobs at most.
Demon Cry	30	Use this whenever you can when mobbing. During bosses, make sure to maintain this debuff to proc 'Insult to Injury' as well as the %IED debuff. Make sure to kill bosses/reward boxes with this debuff active for the extra drop/experience. It can also be a good indicator to show where the boss is when they 'disappear' (e.g Chaos Vellum/Pierre, Lotus etc.).
Binding Darkness	20	This is your bind, use for bossing mostly or an extra mobbing skill every 2 minutes. Gives a good amount of %IED from the passive which is nice. During some bosses, you can interrupt bosses mid animation if its a pretty lethal attack (VHilla would be a good example). Can save you from casting an iframe and buy you some time if your iframes are on cooldown.
Dark Metamorphosis	30	Max this skill first. Not only is this a %damage buff, but also summons these little balls which you can smack the enemy in the face with to boost your damage a bit. The skill also has inbuilt invincibility frames when cast (about 3 seconds). Use your best judgement on when you want to use this skill, for damage/efficiency and or survivability This skill will also allow you to avoid damage reflection/cancel when the enemy casts it ONLY when you have the point into the hyper passive. SITUATIONAL: SP reset and leave at level 1 if struggling to survive as the cooldown only increases with higher levels (not recommended).
Boundless Rage	15	Skills won't consume DF. When used, Demon Cry's cooldown goes from 14s to 7s so it is good to use while grinding. During bosses, you won't have to worry about DF management as much while this is active, and can all out buff before bursting (use ALL buffs/skills). Affected by buff duration.
Leech Aura	9	Restores %HP from %dmg dealt to mobs, has a cooldown in restoring HP. This can be placed on pet's auto buff, and is quite useful. If you recast this, you can benefit from the heal again, bypassing the cooldown. Saves you a lot more than you think, especially if you have healing familiars, surviving lesser %HP attacks becomes an afterthought.
Obsidian Skin	30	Improves tankiness. Does not reduce the damage taken from %HP attacks most bosses cast, only regular mobs.
The Demon's Will	1	Clear most status infliction and makes you immune for 3 seconds to incoming statuses. Only useful when bossing (eg. Will, Black Mage, Gloom etc.)

Everything should be maxed at Lv. 140. You want your main attacks first. If you fight Zakum at this level, use Boundless Rage, clear arms with Infernal Concussion and use Demon Impact when there is 4-6 arms, or the body is left. You should gain some levels from this and put into the skill allocation or whatever you want.

Max Dark Meta/Mastery first for more damage. Afterwards max Boundless/Demon Cry/Infernal Concussion for stronger mobbing capability. Demon Impact is maxed afterwards, and isn't generally used much for mobbing, but more for bossing. The mobbing skills are prioritized in order to reach 140 faster since you wouldn't be bossing that early. Max the rest of the other buffs/passives that give more defensive capabilities.

Demon Slayer Hyper Skill Builds

Actives

Skill Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Blue Blood	Permanent toggle that gives you 90% final damage. This skill doubles the typical lines on your skills, where the afterimage lines do 90% of the initial lines. Does not affect summons (Spirit of Rage, Orthrus, Will/Seren node, soul summon etc.)
	Cerberus Chomp	Use only to recover fury when fifth job skills are on cooldown. Damage is similar to Demon Impact but with extra boss/IED built in, so mildly better, but easier to hold Demon Impact for simpler gameplay. Good vertical and OK horizontal range.
	Demonic Fortitude	Extra 10% damage active buff.

Passives

I believe Demon Slayer's hyper skills are more towards enhancing their bossing capability. When mobbing, you won't utilize the hyper passives as much except in 5th job when you use Awakening, but they shine when it comes to bossing.

Build 0 (OPTIONAL) Lv. 140-160

Note: If you don't mind resetting your hyper skills at 160, follow this. This build is more for convenience until reaching 160. If this isn't a big deal for you, ignore this.

Skill Icon	Passive Name	Description
	Demon Lash - Fury	Since you will have to use Demon Lash until 160 to restore your fury, you should have a point into this to restore more DF to cast your other skills, so you don't Demon Lash as often.
	Demon Lash - Reinforce	Even though you would be using Demon Lash not as frequently as before due to the 'Fury' hyper passive, might as well squeeze in some extra damage.

Build 1 - Casual Lv. 160-200

You can consider this build if you think you will take a while to get to 200.

Skill Icon	Passive Name	Description
	Demon Impact - Reinforce	More damage for your main bossing skill/situational mobbing skill.
	Demon Impact - Extra Strike	Definitely essential. Not only is an extra line so good, but with Blue Blood, the line is essentially doubled.
	Demon Lash - Reinforce Duration	The final damage bonus is really nice for other skills. I generally use this in boss fights when kiting, or the boss is invulnerable.
	Dark Metamorphosis - Enhance	You want this, especially when you have extended fight with bosses that are capable of physical damage cancellation/damage reflect (Horntail, Pink Bean, Empress, etc.)

Choose between either of the two:

Skill Icon	Passive Name	Description
	Dark Metamorphosis - Reinforce	Generally when fighting the early-mid game bosses, you can stick closer to the bosses and benefit more from this hyper passive. This is the one I would go with.
	Demon Impact - Reduce Fury	Not a bad alternative, I know many people use this passive. Your DF cost for Impact decreases to 3 per cast. Although Cerberus/Boundless Rage is enough to maintain your DF, it is more of a convenience.

Build 2 - General Post 5th Job

This will be the hyper passive set most people should be using in my opinion.

Skill Icon	Passive Name	Description
	Demon Lash - Reinforce	Makes Demon Lash during Demon Awakening even stronger.
	Demon Impact - Reinforce	More damage for your main bossing skill off fifth job/situational mobbing skill.
	Demon Impact - Extra Strike	Definitely essential. Not only is an extra line so good, but with Blue Blood, the line is essentially doubled.
	Demon Impact - Reduce Fury	Since Demon Lash - Reinforce Duration has been removed, there aren't that many viable alternatives. This one isn't bad since your DF cost for Impact decreases to 3 per cast so it is very convenient off Awakening.

Fifth point contenders:

Skill Icon	Passive Name	Description
	Dark Metamorphosis - Enhance	You want this if you have extended fight with bosses that are capable of physical damage cancellation/damage reflect (Horntail, Pink Bean, Empress, etc.) If you can wipe these bosses out with ease then this passive is not useful, and consider the following substitutions below.
	Dark Metamorphosis - Reinforce	Generally when fighting most bosses, you can stick closer to the bosses and benefit more from this hyper passive.

Would go for Dark Metamorphosis - Reinforce since all the other hyper skills are not that useful. This is the best out of the available options, but will not make a significant boost in damage, but a slight increase nevertheless.

Demon Slayer Fifth Job

V Matrix Setup

These are the skills that I frequently use on my V Matrix. Due to my high level, I have most skills I need without needing to switch around. I have Erda Nova on standby (incase I miss bind), and substitute them in depending on what I am doing (bossing/grinding).

Most importantly, you want to establish your perfect trio-nodes. You also want to obtain all Branch/Class specific 5th Job Skills, and then some Common 5th Job Skills (Decent Skills, Rope Lift, Erda Shower). Max out your class specific fifth job skill nodes, then trio nodes first (or spam boost cores for a sufficiently high level on your skills eventually transitioning to trios), your 5th Job Branch/Class specific skills, and then your 5th Job Common skills.

Fifth Job Skill Commentary

Skill Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Demon Awakening	This is the skill node you're handed when you job advance. It is EXTREMELY strong and really satisfying to use, especially looking at the aesthetic. Increases your critical chance, and your Demon Lash has additional %IED and %boss. Use this whenever it is up. Spawns a Cerberus Chomp every 8 seconds which does not set your Cerberus Chomp hyper on cooldown.
	Spirit of Rage	Big fat serpent dragon thing that covers a huge horizontal and vertical span. It thrashes around and damages mobs around every second it is active, and during the climax does a huge load of damage. It is a good bursty type of skill that isn't a true burst. I would couple this with Binding Darkness to make sure the snake gets it's hits off. All of Spirit of Rage's attacks are at 100% critical chance, with 50% IED while it is active. Not affected by Blue Blood.
	Orthrus	Summons two Aku Aku looking things that attack frequently. The first Aku attacks more frequently, but doesn’t hit as hard and has lesser span of attack. The second Aku takes longer to attack but hits harder and has a respectable horizontal and vertical range. These guys attack the moment you enter battle stance, and will generally attack from then on at the 2/3 second intervals regardless if there’s an enemy present or not. All of Orthrus attacks are 100% crit chance with +50% IED. Not affected by Blue Blood
	Demon Bane	Demon Slayer's burst skill. You must use Demon Awakening prior to casting this for the additional 90% final damage. It is also recommended that you bind also before casting to ensure all of this lands. You are invulnerable for the entire duration. (FUN FACT: did you know this skill was named after the first character (IGN: Bane) to liberate a Genesis Weapon in Global Maplestory, who was a DS? I just made that up but it sounds entirely plausible.)
	Otherworld Goddess's Blessing	Kind of like a mix of Weapon Aura and Defender of the Demon. The final damage it offers is nice, and the random blessings can be great too. Though its not too reliable if there's a certain blessing you want. The attack blessing has a wide span and hits extremely hard. The damage reduction blessing stacks with Mastema as well. The DF recovery blessing is nice, though I don't really notice the recovery in the heat of battle, and there is a abnormal status cleanse, which is similar to the recovery blessing . Anyway, expect to be pleasantly surprised when you get the occasional unexpected blessing you need.
	Weapon Aura	Very strong buff, not only does it increase final damage and %IED, but it fires off a wave every 4 seconds that does good damage. Has high up time and low down time, making this a valuable node to place early.
	Defender of the Demon	Catbae that occasionally attacks things. Has a respectable horizontal range it covers. Has a second effect where they cast a protective buff over you that reduces all %damage 2 times. The buff lasts 6 seconds, and has a 10 second cooldown for the buff to refresh. Definitely worth using especially during boss fights, as it will save you quite a bit.
	Impenetrable Skin	This skill provides SUPER knockback resistance (you will not get knocked back from Magnus/Lotus/Damien etc's knockback skill.) and %damage stacks for every time you get hit. This can be used prior to bursting to build up damage stacks, and be a defensive skill for knockback bosses. You won't receive the effects for very long since it takes a while to build up stacks. The passive additional strength it offers is nice, and is affected by potentials.
	Erda Shower	An additional mobbing skill which is nice for grinding. With the addition of the fountain version, this skill should be in every class's V Matrix for mobbing.
	Rope Lift	The extra vertical mobility can be useful in rapidly progressing vertically. If you fail your Up Jump, this is a good back up which covers a lot of range, and easy to use. You can combo Up Jump with this for extreme vertical coverage (useful in a floor in Oz). There's no reason to not take this in Spirit Savior since more mobility = good there. The passive +25 all stat at max level is also a nice bonus that is affected by potential.
	Solar Crest	Additional summon attack skill after you successfully defeat Chosen Seren. Large initial AOE, then spawns an emblem that follows you around to hit 2 enemies. Be wary of the %HP cost, as you will be taken extremely low when using with other skills
	Decent Holy Symbol	Gives additional EXP and drop rate. Good node for when you are grinding, or doing bosses.
	Blink	Randomly teleports you to a spot in the map, or if used and held in the air, lets you float for up to 5 seconds. Ground blink is a last resort gamble to get you out of a guaranteed death situation, but the more useful application of this skill is to stay in the air. You can use glide after you let go.
	Decent Speed Infusion	You will only see the effect of this only when using a Monster Park Green Potion. Your attacks become significantly faster which reduces one of the cons of the class, while improving your damage output. DS require one attack speed source, and by using this, you can hit the hard attack speed cap.
	Decent Sharp Eyes	The additional critical chance helps with Cerberus Chomp and Dark Metamorphosis to improve your damage a tad. The +%critical damage it offers is amazing. Your other skills (Demon Impact, Infernal Concussion, Demon Awakening) generally have 100% critical chance, or boost your critical chance very high so the additional critical damage is great.
	Decent Advanced Blessing	Just the additional 20 attack buff is useful.
	Decent Combat Orders	Additional skill level buff that boosts your 4th job skills to MAX Lvl+1, giving a little additional damage/duration on buffs.
	Will of Erda	Extra abnormal status cleanse/3 second status immunity skill (like Demon's Will). Useful in certain boss fights, though the long cooldown is a drawback. Would not be a priority node though. If you have spare nodes, or if you need an 'oh shit' button to slap for troublesome abnormal status bosses, then use this.
	True Arachnid Reflection	Similar to Solar Crest. Additional summon skill that attacks enemies. Decent damage dealing skill for single target bosses but has a long cooldown. The initial break has a particularly large hitbox and hits a lot of enemies, but the spider legs that attack frequently aren’t extremely strong. I believe the legs only hit 1 mob at a time so not necessarily great grinding, but still useful. Be wary of the %HP cost, as it will take you surprisingly low when cast with other skills.

Of course you want to have your boost nodes for your skills and max them out. This should span across 4 node slots total.

Special cores can be used/substituted for the least valuable node slot depending on your situation.

Any other skills do not have much practical use, and have been omitted.

Trio Nodes

The skills that you will be frequently using consist of:

You want to max these 6 skills, as they are your main mobbing/bossing skills. This should span across 4 node slots across your V Matrix.

The trio-core I have consists of:

and

The first three are bossing cores, and the latter are mobbing cores. During bossing, I may choose to unequip the Infernal Concussion/Demon Cry/Dark Metamorphosis trio core to substitute for other more useful cores.

Nodes are hard to come by early on. Do not worry about getting these exact trios. As long as you boost these 6 skills two times each, across four node slots, then that is good enough.

Node Slot Enhancement

You have the ability to enhance a certain node slot by up to 5 levels. You obtain 1 point per level past 200. The numbers in the brackets means the skill node has been boosted.
I will go over the priority list for enhancements and my reasoning for so.

Priority

Skill Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Demon Awakening	Enhancing this is the better choice first, because it is extremely strong, The duration, and damage is higher, and offers more critical rate.
	Demon Bane	Makes your burst stronger so you can deal the most damage in a shorter time period. You should be able to land all of this, especially when using your bind.
	Spirit of Rage	Quasi burst skill. The game prioritizes burst meta, and the damage it offers is huge. With good understanding of boss mechanics and bind, you will get most, if not all of this out on a boss. Though Orthrus is another great option, if you wanted to squeeze as much damage as you can in as little time possible, this would be it.
	Orthrus	Not a burst skill, but enhances your constant damage dealt. Even though this is an extremely strong skill, I would do this last out of the class specific skills.
	Trio Cores	Pretty self explanatory, these are your main skills you will be mainly using in compliment with your fifth job. Its imperative that these be as strong as they can.
	Weapon Aura	I would take this over Otherworld's Goddess Blessing. Offers final damage, %IED and an aura that is consistently fired out, and has a longer duration.
	Otherworld Goddess's Blessing	Mainly the final damage that it offers. Higher level offers a little bit more duration and stronger effects which is OK.
and	True Arachnid Reflection/Solar Crest	The main ones have been enhanced, so now its time to take care of the lesser stuff that isn't as beneficial but still is OK. Offers more damage and that's about it.
	Defender of the Demon	A little bit longer in duration, effects may happen more frequently, and damage is boosted a tad. Honestly you could go either way of choosing True Arachnid Reflection or this one first.
	Impenetrable Skin	Last one before common skills. Can offer a bit longer duration which can be useful if you need it for bosses, then enhance this over the above 2. Not sure if the damage tick per stack is higher also. Also offers a bit more extra stat when enhanced.
	Common Job Skills	Blink first for more ATT, Rope Lift for additional stat, then do DSE/DSI second just because of the extra 5 stat. This should exhaust all remaining enhancements. If you have DHS, substitute for any node slot for additional drop rate.

Priority:

When you first hit 200, you should have all your class specific fifth job skills.

At 205: Slot in

Decent Speed Infusion and always boss with a MP Green Potion.

At 210-225: Slot in

and

at the very least to max out.

At 230-245: Slot in

At 245-300: Slot in

Up until 245, the skills listed are mandatory as it will boost your damage a lot. After 245, you have mainly defensive skills, and miscellaneous buffs/skills that increase damage mildly. I have prioritized them in what offers more damage boosts, but you are free to swap around any skills depending on what you prioritize.

Substitutions:

for

- If you are doing daily/weekly bosses with ease, then you can switch for more drop rate and convenience.

- if you are fighting difficult bosses and need an extra abnormal status cleanse, substitute for a node you think is the least valuable in your situation.

- extra bind in case you miss, or if you want to bind the boss ASAP.

Skill Info

Note: There are many images/gifs contained within this section, so may eat a lot of bandwidth.

Table of Contents

Demon Slayer Fifth Job (Continued)
Demon Slayer Hyper Stat Point Allocation
Demon Slayer Inner Ability
Legion Board Configuration
Demon Slayer Link Skills
Other Useful Build Resources
My Keyboard Layout

Demon Slayer Fifth Job (Continued)

Priority:

Skill Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Infernal Concussion and Demon Cry	Pretty self explanatory, these are your main skills used for grinding in compliment with your fifth job. Its imperative that these be as strong as they can.
	Decent Holy Symbol	Of course more exp and drop would be better while grinding.
	Erda Shower	An additional mobbing skill which is nice for grinding. The fountain install skill makes this a mandatory grinding core.
	Character Building	Gaining additional experience is always nice. I'm still unsure about how to proc this since the wording is weird. This is 1 of the only 2 experience cores, and procs more often than Rune-EXP.
	Spirit of Rage	If you are in regular server with access to frenzy, then this would be a lot better. Normally though, it would be OK since mobs have around a 6.5-7 second respawn time. This would only be good to cover 2 cycles in this case.
	Orthrus	Strong as hell. Geryon's range is quite huge and is the main one to kill things. You can fly around with Dark Metamorphosis and it will proc them both to hit things around you.
	Otherworld Goddess's Blessing	Mainly the final damage that it offers. The explosion damage from the blessing has a huge range.

These are the main ones to have. You are pretty much set for grinding once you have all of these.

If you are solely grinding at 200, these are the only nodes required to train efficiently.

- your main mobbing skills. Once you have this you are pretty set.

- more exp and drop for nodes is essential.

- the Erda Fountain's install skill makes mobbing more convenient, so you definitely want this too.

Once you have more slots, you can slot in the other grinding node priorities, and other damage buff/skills to further improve efficiency/damage if needed.

Demon Slayer Hyper Stat Point Allocation

For optimization for your hyper stats (and more), make sure to check out DelusionDash's Calculator Guides.

Bossing Preset: 5 DF > Damage > Boss Damage > Crit Damage > Ignore Def > Attack > HP (odd number) > Critical Chance (if <35%) > STR > DEX

Five points into DF will be more than enough. Damage/BD/Crit Dmg/IED are self explanatory. Once you start running low on points, use what you can on attack. Put points into HP to ensure your HP is an odd number. This is important due to spaghetti coding. and %HP damage attacks rounding down to the whole digit. For example: you can get hit with 2 50% HP attacks and still live with 1 HP (eg. 30001 HP takes 50% HP twice (15000 and 15000) -> live with 1 HP). If your critical chance fully buffed is less than 35%, put points to bring it to at least 35% for full critical chance when using Demon Bane. Spare points go into STR and DEX.

Grinding Preset: DF > Damage > Normal Monster Damage > (OPTIONAL: AF (if early game and required)) > EXP > Critical Damage > Attack > Critical Chance > STR > DEX.

Get a few points into DF as always. Damage and normal monster damage are self explanatory. If you lack arcane force, put a few points into that, otherwise forgo it and go into EXP. Rest of points go into damage (critical damage, attack). If you are capable of one shotting with the first part of Infernal Concussion, more critical chance is valuable for that. Spare points go into STR/DEX.

Demon Slayer Inner Ability

First line - 20% boss damage. Most beneficial inner.
Second line and third line - Unique (7-8) %damage to abnormal status mob AND Unique (5-10)% chance to skip cooldown.

Boss damage line is first as it is quite a valuable stat, and will help you hit harder during bosses. The abnormal status damage to mobs synergizes well with DS so that is a no brainer. Lastly, skip cooldown is nice as it can potentially skip your iframes (Raven Storm/Dark Metamorphosis) and Boundless Rage for training. In regular server, if you have Firestarter Ring/Ring of Torment, cooldown skip works for that too.

How about ____ inner ability line?

Inner Ability Line	Description
Attack	This is the inner ability I would use for more offense on a 2nd/3rd line (replace cooldown skip). Not affected by potentials, so its not as impressive.
+1 Attack Speed	Most classes benefit from the +1 attack speed inner, however, as you can hit the hard speed cap with one attack speed source (Decent Speed Infusion) this isn't required.
+1 Targets Hit	This sounds nice, but in reality, most bosses do not have multiple parts, and if they do, DS's bossing skills hit enough targets for that. In a mobbing situation, this should not make a significant difference as Infernal Concussion can hit up to 15 mobs, and other skills do a respectable amount. You will not always be hitting that many mobs all the time, and even if you do, you will have to wait for the mob respawn timer.
Critical Chance	Compared to all the other attack/combat related inner abilities, this one is the least beneficial due to all the critical rate built into most of DS's kit. Of course this helps when Demon Awakening isn't active and boosts your Demon Cry/Dark Metamorphosis/Cerberus, but the other inners chosen benefit damage/gameplay overall.
Buff Duration	Extends the duration for Boundless Rage which is nice for training. Outside that though, its not that good. It can extend the duration of damage ignore if you have the hyper passive point into Dark Metamorphosis, but once you obtain fifth job and get a tiny bit strong, you will tear through those bosses like paper.
Item/Meso Rate	Can't go wrong if you have this. Not really applicable for bossing, but for training.

Legion Board Configuration

For a comprehensive Legion guide, please refer here

The benefits of placing each class on the Legion Board can be found here.

You want to prioritize critical damage pieces (Jett, Hayato, Shade) > Mercedes (cooldown reduction) > Boss Damage (Kanna, DA) > Wild Hunter (chance to deal increased damage) > IED (Blaster, Beast Tamer) > Critical Rate (Night Lord/Marksman) > STR/DEX Stat (most warriors, STR pirates, archers, DEX pirates) > Miscellaneous (Zero for +%exp, Mechanic for buff duration, Phantom for +%meso obtained, Corsair +% summon duration).

A good milestone to aim for at the very least is 6,000 levels on your Legion Board. This unlocks the entire board. Aim for critical damage and boss damage if you boss, normal monster damage and bonus exp if you grind.

If you can go for 8,000, aim for critical damage, boss damage and IED if you boss. If you are grinding, go for normal monster damage, bonus exp and critical damage (with some in critical rate if you want).

This is my current Legion board setup for a bossing configuration.

This is a Legion board setup for when I am grinding.

You can use this legion solver resource made by Xenogent for placing your own board.

Note: These legion boards contain pieces that may not be available to obtain now (from the Lab server, 2 additional pieces).

Demon Slayer Link Skills

These are the link skills my character currently uses (bossing):

Link Skill Commentary

Skill Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Elementalism	More damage is good!
	Light Wash	IED is very important for end game bosses, you want to be sitting at a relatively high amount like say 93%+. Every percentage thereafter is around a 3% final damage on the bosses. Keep in mind most of your bossing skills have innate IED built in, as well as the boost node bonus. This should put you at a good spot.
	Wild Rage	More damage is good!
	Judgment	More critical damage is good!
	Unfair Advantage	At the very least, you benefit from the additional damage from hitting abnormal status mobs, since this synergizes well with Demon Impact/Demon Cry. Even more if you are fighting something below your level.
	Spirit of Freedom	At max level, you have 8 seconds of invincibility after respawning which definitely helps you to get back in the field and DPS without threat. The 8 seconds of invulnerability can be used to do your best to burst the boss much down as possible, coupled with bind, that’s essentially a full Spirit of Rage duration length without worry about the boss's movements.
	Solus	If you are in combat stance, you build %dmg stacks. This is essentially like Kanna/DA's link skill,.
	Terms and Conditions	Good skill for bursting. Pop this before you unleash all your skills to maximize burst.
	Empirical Knowledge	Gives damage and PDR stacks which are both very useful stats!
	Thief's Cunning	Additional damage upon debuffing an enemy, which synergizes well with our kit. Affected by server lag, with high uptime/low down time. Another damage link skill.
	Time to Prepare	Its like Thief and Ark's link skill together, but a bit worse. Decent link to have, but if you want to replace a link skill, this would be the first to go.
	Focus Spirit	Gives boss damage and critical chance, which are both beneficial!

Alternatives (replaces Kain's 'Time to Prepare'):

Skill Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Core Aura	Requires rerolling, maintaining, and locking of stats, Should be better than Xenon's %All Stat link skill, and Cygnus's ATK/Abnormal Status stat wise. I prefer to keep Kain's link skill for convenience.

These are the link skills my character currently uses (grinding):

Link Skill Commentary

Skill Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Phantom Instinct	Good to have if you can OHKO mobs with the first part of Infernal Concussion/Demon Cry.
	Elementalism	More damage is good!
	Wild Rage	More damage is good!
	Judgment	More critical damage is good!
	Unfair Advantage	More damage on monsters below your level. May not be useful if fighting higher level mobs. Additional damage to mobs with abnormal isn't too relevant as you're most likely one shotting mobs.
	Tide of Battle	Permanent damage buff if you keep moving, which you would be doing when grinding. Note the distance travelled when using Chaos Lock to the teleported mob also registers for a stack here.
	Rune Persistence	Good training link skill, longer rune duration gives more exp for faster levelling.
	Solus	If you are in combat stance, you build %dmg stacks. This is essentially like Kanna/DA's link skill,.
	Elven Blessing	Good training link skill, gives more base additional exp for faster levelling.
	Thief's Cunning	Additional damage upon debuffing an enemy, which synergizes well with our kit. Affected by server lag, with high uptime/low down time. Another damage link skill.
	Nature's Friend	Good training link skill, gives you more damage against normal monsters.
	Focus Spirit	Use this for additional critical chance to help with OHKO first part of Infernal Concussion/Demon Cry

Alternatives (replaces Cadena's 'Unfair Advantage', Critical Rate Links('Focus Spirit'/'Phantom Instinct'):

Skill Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Bravado	Helps OHKO mobs easier. I think this is only good if you OHKO, if not, critical rate links may be better.
	Combo Kill Blessing	If you OHKO everything without issue, might as well get more exp from combo orbs. The higher level you are, the less it gives, but its something.
	Time to Prepare	Can help with OHKO, but not all the time. Worth a shot.

Other Useful Build Resources

Additional Character Setups

I will be going through the secondary, and another important equipment piece that is important for DS. I will not be going through equip by equip on what you should have, because most classes will typically be the same (CRA, Absolab, Arcane, Superior Gollux etc.). There will be mention of other miscellaneous things to enhance your gameplay/character also.

Ruin Force Shield

Some people prefer using the Princess No secondary, due to the extra DF it offers, but mainly being the next best secondary that can be reasonably obtained. The extra DF is nice, and you could take out points in hyper stats due to that, but the extra DF that Princess No's secondary offers is not necessary with Blue Blood becoming a permanent toggle. You do not have to worry about maintaining fury as much

The Ruin Force Shield offers a nice 10% Final Damage which helps out your damage quite significantly. However, it offers less DF (less than the Force Shield of Extremes), however the DF issue is not so important with the Blue Blood changes. It has the built in amplified damage. Some attacks that do not typically one shot you start becoming one shots (e.g Hard VL's Ground Pummel skill, CZak's full map blast during last phase etc.).

Personally, I use the Ruin Force Shield. Not only was it the secondary I obtained first, but I love hitting harder on bosses/seeing a higher damage range. While the amplified damage makes things more difficult to survive, it forces me to control my character better and to learn to make better decisions during the fight. For example, I've soloed Hard Will/Verus Hilla without healing familiars during my liberation missions with the 10b damage cap.

I am strong enough that I do not have to worry about certain skills that one shot me in the earlier bosses. Most bosses in the mid-late game have skills that one shot anyway. For DS, if you have at least 1 HP you are good to go. You have excellent sustain from your skills Raven Storm and Leech Aura. Pair that with a healing familiar and potions, you are extremely difficult to kill unless one hit KO attacks are used. Bind can also be used to stall time for your iframes to come back up.

If OHKO skills are used, they can be avoided if you can control your character very well AND understand the boss mechanics/animation. If not, you always have your backup of Dark Metamorphosis for invincibility frames and Raven Storm. Some attacks can also be cancelled with the use of bind mid animation of boss casts (HLotus Knockback, VHilla Purple/Green bone attack).

Since the introduction of more harder bosses and their mechanics, Ruin Force is looking less appealing. Though personally I don't find too much issue/die out in the boss fights. If you do choose to still use it, you will need to have a great understanding of the boss you are fighting, and your class.

Lucid Earrings

Note: This item is obtained on in regular servers through Marvel Machine. Not accessible for Reboot.

This item lets you to cast another bind which lasts 9 seconds, with 120 second cooldown. This does not share bind cooldown with Binding Darkness, so you can bind with that, and use Lucid’s Nightmare afterwards for a combined total of 19 seconds of bind. If you can obtain this, it is extremely useful. By locking the boss down guaranteed for this timeframe, you benefit from Spirit of Rage getting off all its hits, and also do not have to worry about the bosses attack so you are free of worry to DPS the boss to your heart’s content. An additional bind can buy you some time for your iframes to cooldown which is useful.

Transparent Damage Skin

One of the issues with DS is their line generation. With Blue Blood, one of your main bossing skills generates 14 lines (with the point into the hyper passive). Since this is flooded so frequently, this makes it difficult to see where the boss is, and any animations they are casting (particularly watching out for Chaos Von Bon's OHKO Jump attack). If you can grab a hold onto one of these, this will help you get a clearer look on the boss you are fighting.

The drawbacks about using this damage skin is that you cannot see your damage. You might not want to see your damage because you are accustomed to your typical output, but having your damage output in view is good for reminding yourself if you forgot to reconfigure your character (such as Link Skills, Legion, Drop Rate gear instead of damage etc.) or to refresh any buffs you use during battle. This is especially important in an intense tide of battle, where you may overlook many buffs you usually cast and refresh, and lose some damage output.

Graphic Settings

Use a Skill Effect Transparency of around 80%-100%. While this doesn't affect your transparency for your lines, it does for your skills. This is especially important for Spirit of Rage, since it spans such a large range, it also overlaps on top of mobs/bosses. This is a screenshot of a time where I forgot to adjust my transparency settings in Lucid. As you can see, it sits on top of Lucid and a golem. I'm lucky to survive since nothing really happened in the duration of Spirit of Rage.

I personally keep my transparency very high because I am still able to see the span of my skills and whether Dark Metamorphosis is active, while being unobtrusive in general game play.

Monster Farm

Note: This feature is not available on Reboot

This content was Nexon trying to cash in during the FarmVille craze. Monster Life has received some updates recently to make it manageable to do nowadays. Be prepared because this is something that will require a lot of time and resources to get fairly established into. The rewards are not really worth the time investment, but to strengthen your character even further, you want to utilize every aspect within the game.

Here are some of the potential bonuses you can expect to gain from doing Monster Life.

Here is a comprehensive video guide on Monster Life that will go through the important aspects to get started.

Other Skills

Skill Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Will of the Alliance	Gives 5 all stat and attack.Here is a video guide on obtaining this skill. Although it is quite old, it should follow similarly. You need to have the quest 'The Outside World' completed (from DS's Resistance questline).
	Empress's Blessing	The OG link skill, gives 30 attack. Max this by getting any Cygnus Knight to 150 and talk to Neinheart to raise the level to 30.

There are some additional useful skills available from doing Mushroom Shrine. Here is a guide to unlocking the following skills:

Skill Icon	Skill Name	Description
	Takeno's Blessing	Heals you up to full HP, but does not work in potion restriction bosses (Will 2nd Phase/VHilla). Though it says invincibility, this works similarly to Bishop's Holy Magic Shell (blocks Lotus purple balls, Will phase 1 dimension crack). The only applicable use is if you are on potion cooldown, but you need to heal. Has a 30 minute cooldown so can only be realistically used once per fight.

Professions

- Advanced Weapon Tempering: Use 2 Magic Whetstone to gain +5% critical damage for 40 mins. The additional critical damage is nice, especially since most of our skills have innate critical chance.

While the Accessory skill is nice, it only saves 1 life with a long cooldown. During a boss fight, it is inevitable you will lose some lives, however 1 life may not make too much difference in the battle when there is a life counter (unless in Lotus) of 5/10/15. I would find the weapon crafting skill more beneficial, and to just improve character control/boss understanding to compensate.

Traits

Lastly, utilize the Traits system located in the Professions tab.

The most important traits to focus on for damage are Insight and Ambition.

Insight offers ignore elemental resist, This is a bit different to how IED works. How this works, is particularly for bosses, they have a certain amount of physical damage reduction (PDR) at 300% (380% for Grandis bosses), but have the physical element (100%). The ignore elemental resist goes straight for the physical element, instead of the PDR. IED works against the PDR (eg. 90% IED will mean you take out 270% of the PDR, so they still have 30% PDR you are hitting against, and will take reduced damage). TL;DR ignore elemental resist is kind of like a stronger IED effect which lets you hit a little bit harder. This may be a bit incorrect and am I unsure whether this mechanic has changed recently.

These traits are difficult to level up since the only way to gain EXP is from harvesting from ores with the Mining profession (insight) and the Herbalism profession from flowers (empathy).

Ambition is an extremely easy trait to level up, just by doing whatever bosses that are available. There is a cap to obtain 500 EXP for all traits a day, so if you want to level this faster, keep track of all Ambition EXP earned from defeating certain bosses, and get as close to the daily limit, then doing a boss that provides a huge burst of EXP (such as Pink Bean or Arkarium).

There are also trait items that give EXP to each trait, +5 EXP each, or +30 EXP for the premiums that do not contribute to the daily cap. You can obtain these from certain events, or rewards from Monster Collection expeditions.

Monster Park is also an option, obtaining coins and exchanging them for the Pocket item, giving 30 EXP to all traits. However it is not worth it because it is quite costly, and the potions are more useful to purchase.

If you obtain any Trait Boost potions, I would highly recommend pumping them into Insight if you have the option. The other traits are easier to level, and do not offer anything that beneficial in terms of improving your character's damage.

My Keyboard Layout

This is my current keyboard layout for training. You may use this as a reference for what skills are typically used, and where its placed. There are of course different preferences for each person, so change yours accordingly to what is most comfortable for you.

Hotkey 1 - Firestarter Ring (reg server cash item)
Hotkey 2 - Elunarium Power (EXP) (legacy training item)
Hotkey 5 - Ring of Torment (reg server cash item)
Hotkey F12 - Monolith (reg server cash item)

This is my current keyboard layout for bossing:

Hotkey 2 - Ring Activation (Tower of Oz ring)
Hotkey B - Aeonian Rise (Genesis Weapon iframe)
Hotkey F12 - Monolith (reg server cash item)

Gameplay

Note: There are many images/gifs contained within this section, so may eat a lot of bandwidth.

Table of Contents
Demon Slayer Mobility Mechanics
Demon Slayer Mobility Combos
Demon Slayer Skill Mechanics
Demon Slayer Skill Rotations
Demon Slayer General Gameplay

Demon Slayer Mobility Mechanics

Double Jump

This is pretty much a faster range glide substitute. I use this interchangeably with short range glide to cover the distances I need. Sometimes, it feels smoother to use this than glide. You can control the distance you move by double tapping the forward/backward arrow keys in the jump projection.

Double Jump's distance has been buffed to cover longer distances, but the above gif's are still applicable. It now has faster momentum, allowing you to traverse a longer trajectory. The following shows the glide momentum from double jump vs regular jump.

Sometimes, there are situations when you could consider using this over glide. One example would be bumpy/jagged terrain such as in Spirit Savior. Here is a not good example of when you could use it. Honestly, it is more easier to cover this ground with the Up Jump+Glide mobility combo.

In this gif, I use double jump in Spirit Savior to reposition myself to a better location for drop down on top of the trapped spirit.

Another time I use this in Spirit Savior. If i used glide, I would probably project a further distance to the right, which I wanted to avoid since there were 2 spirits in good positions to the left.

Gliding
One of the mobility options DS have is gliding. This can be used to slow down your descent, travel horizontally slowly, or horizontally quickly if you need (requires momentum).

Another nifty aspect is using momentum to propel your glide. In these examples I am using a conveyor belt and springboard.

Here is an example of using the momentum for gliding from the springboard in Spirit Savior.

Sometimes you may have too much momentum, so you want to cancel it and revert back to your normal glide speed. I typically do this by holding the arrow key while in projection of movement, and start my glide when I want to cancel my momentum.

Practicality

Good horizontal movement. Glide from a high spot to move really far.

In this example, I use glide to stay in the air for as long as possible to avoid the dragon in Lucid, and Dark Metamorphosis for the invincibility frames. It is possible to glide long enough to avoid the dragon's breath, but it is difficult. If I had only used Dark Metamorphosis in that time frame, I may have still died since the invincibility may not be long enough to withstand the dragon breath.

Up Jump

You can control how far you up jump depending on when you double tap your up arrow keys. You want to learn to control this because this is useful in some boss fights (e.g Magnus/Lotus who spawn debris at the top of the map). Also some maps have an invisible ceiling, so when you up jump, you'll fall back faster to the ground.

You can use up jump after using the momentum from the torrent zones in Chu Chu (or any other places where you are in a river kind of terrain).

In large vertical maps, you can combo your up jump with Rope Lift, or vice versa.

Practicality

From this old video, I used up jump to avoid Magnus's knockback skill.

Avoid Empress's tornado skill by up jumping.

You can use this to avoid Vellum's fireball attack. Honestly, if you have time to avoid it like this, you have the time to Chaos Lock/rush to safety.

You can avoid Chaos Pierre's hats whenever there's a situation when its pretty much unavoidable. This can be done also for Chaos Vellum's rocks.

Rope Lift

When using Rope Lift, sometimes you may overshoot the distance. You can control the distance you move by either tapping the Rope Lift key or Jump key after you have sent out the hook.

Practicality

This is especially good to use in Spirit Savior, where even the slight, precise movements are integral for a good run.

Demon Slayer Mobility Combos

Up Jump + Glide

Probably the only practical combo. I use this ALL the time when travelling places to cover a lot of horizontal ground.

Taking the double jump example, this is more convenient in reaching your destination.

Some maps have an invisible ceiling in the wall. You want to control your up jump so you don't hard hit it, since you will fall faster. When you glide, you can project a larger distance. Notice the difference in height. Had this been a longer map, I could glide a further distance.

You can also restart your glide while in the air (can be useful in Lotus).

Here is a good practical example of this mobility in play. In this gif, Lotus is using his ground laser attack, and coming towards me for the inevitable knockback skill. My hands are tied, so I used this to survive. Navigate through the falling debris, otherwise it will knock you off. You can use this to jump over Damien's Cheetos attack also, towards the end of its duration to put some damage on him earlier.

Double Jump + Glide

Good way of travelling horizontally fast now that Double Jump's speed has been increased. Probably better than Up Jump + Glide in maps with a ceiling to travel. May be around the same with spamming Double Jump, but less effort.

Miscellaneous Combos

Here are a few demonstrations of miscellaneous mobility combos. Personally, I never really use these.

Glide + Up Jump

This one is a bit difficult to execute. In this example, I am definitely not going to land on that platform, so I use the little height boost that Up Jump provides to get on top. Don't think this is one I've ever used in general gameplay.

Glide + Double Jump

If you use double jump forward, it provides hardly any more distance ahead. You can use this in the opposite direction you are gliding to cancel out the movement. This can be useful in Spirit Savior.

Here's an example where this can be used in Spirit Savior to better position yourself.

Demon Slayer Skill Mechanics

This section will cover the skills that you would use, their range and situations when to use them.

Soul Eater

This skill is rarely used, however I find that it has the longest horizontal span among DS skills and use it during Tower of Oz 13F. The pull it has is quite nice if there is something you want to keep in place, or bring forward. The range of the skill is about:

A good example of this skill is in Hilla, who spawns the tower that pulls you in. You can use Soul Eater to pull Hilla in range to continue smacking her.

Dark Thrust

You will be using this pretty much all the time, helping with maneuvering in maps for mobbing and bossing. The horizontal range is quite decent, and is quite a fast skill to move you from one side to another. When it comes to uneven terrain, this skill will move you forward sometimes, other times not. The range is about:

The delay in between rushing has been significantly reduced. If you need to traverse a large horizontal map, holding this down is the way to go.

During bossing, you will use this to avoid certain attacks or to keep your distance from the boss. Especially notable examples include Magnus and Lotus, where the horizontal mobility is amazing for helping to avoid the falling debris. This skill for some reason also helps avoid Von Bon's jump attack skill:

Chaos Lock

The skill offers AMAZING utility against bosses. If you stray away from the boss, you can use this to get back right in there. The movement it provides can offer some escape in sticky situations. This skill can also be used during mobbing to teleport to another area. Use the directional key to influence which way you port over to, but keep in mind this skill is still random for the most part.

During bosses, if you use Chaos Lock while facing towards the boss, you will end up in front of them. If you face away, you will end up behind them. Nothing personnel kid.

Here is an example where I deliberately leave one mob in the top left corner, and clear the rest of the mobs before repositioning myself back in that corner.

The teleport range it offers is quite extensive. Here is an example in Chaos Vellum. You can pretty much teleport from one side to another when he uses his flame laser.

Another use for Chaos Lock that may not seem intuitive is in Lotus's first phase. Chaos Lock and be used to avoid the lasers. Also note that, using Chaos Lock after a full cycle of Demon Awakening lessens the cast time, so if you need to Chaos Lock, do it after the cycle.

Lastly, here is a good example on how Chaos Lock's utility can save you from a bad situation. Notice how I am in a bad position, with the blue balls ready to burst, and the sword about to come all over me. Chaos Lock gets me to a better position where I can evaluate my position to get to a safer spot.

Raven Storm

Since the change of this skill, I use it almost exclusively for the invincibility frame it offers, and rarely for heal. The iframe duration for this skill is shorter than Dark Meta, about 2 seconds.

Infernal Concussion

This is your main mobbing skill. This comes in two parts: the initial blow that knocks enemies into the air, and the explosion damage that has 100% critical chance.

The range of the skill is around:

Jump cast this skill to cover more ground. In this example, Infernal Concussion only covers the mobs at the bottom. By jump attacking, i can also clear the platform above me.

This can now be cast when you're airborne, giving you more coverage.

You can also use jump attack going downwards. A good example of using this is in Lachelein's Clock Tower. Downward jump attack Infernal Concussion is done for me by holding down the forward and down arrow keys, then pressing Jump and Infernal Concussion at the same time. (Special thanks to the best DS in the world for teaching me this trick).
UPDATE: This no longer continuously casts if you hold down the keys, it must be input every time when down jumping.

You can use this skill preemptively to kill some mobs you know are about to spawn. This can save you a tiny bit of time. A place I use this in is Dojo. Notice it is used right before King Clang spawns:

Generally you wouldn't use Infernal Concussion during bosses. Here is an example where it is good to use, and probably only this example.

Demon Impact

This is your main bossing skill. You pretty much always use this except during Demon Awakening. A very good ranged bossing skill that also cover a little bit of distance behind your character. This is an amazing bossing skill since it also hits multiple targets, and is good for bosses with many parts (Zakum, Horntail) or those that have pesky summons (Arkarium, Pink Bean, Lucid). Not only can you kill these minor parts, but do damage to the main body also. The range of this skill is about:

Knowing the range of this skill is extremely important so you can know when you can use it and hit the boss, but also pace yourself.

Jump attacking is also a good habit to get into. In this example, I am fighting Chaos Pierre. If I had stood still, the Red Pierre would have caught up and be on top of Blue Pierre, and I wouldn't be able to hit him. Notice I also keep my distance to prevent HP loss and to not hit the Red Pierre while hitting Blue Pierre. There are many other cases such fighting Chaos Von Bon, Lotus etc.

Demon Cry

A good mobbing skill that covers a lot of ground. Cooldown decreases from 14 to 7 seconds while Boundless Rage is active. Offers a nice %IED debuff which is nice, and an EXP/drop buff. To show you an idea of how far its reach is:

The debuff is a good way to tell where the boss is going to appear in some cases, such as Chaos Pierre, Chaos Vellum, Lotus etc. In this case, Chaos Vellum has the debuff and is preparing to fire his laser. I rush to the left to see if the mark is there, and if not, I can expect him to be on the right. I use Chaos Lock to port over to him.

You have to be smart about when you cast this. It has a long cast time, so you can get punished if the boss is able to attack. Use this when the boss is attacking and you are out of their range. This is the Infernal Concussion gif. I use Demon Cry at the end to get the debuff on him so I can hit him harder after he comes down. In a party setting, try to use this more often since you will have a lot of members benefiting from that extra %IED.

Binding Darkness

Immobilize the enemy for 10 seconds. Very nice, since some classes do not have an inbuilt bind, they would need to use the Erda Nova node. This helps save a node slot on the V Matrix. Has a medium vertical span and a pretty good horizontal span.

You can cast this skill while in the air. Sometimes I choose to use this during Damien when he goes into the air to shoot the Cheetos, and he ends up glitching out and stops the attack. You essentially have free reign in this time to hit him then.

Dark Metamorphosis

This skill has multiple purposes. It is a damage buff that also summons two purple balls that attack the enemy.

Another function is the invincibility frames it offers. You want to cast this before you take/it registers the lethal hits, otherwise you will still die and it will look like you are still in casting for this animation. Taking again the Lucid screenshot in the Gliding section:

With the point into the hyper passive, you can ignore damage cancel and damage reflect. This is an example in Chaos Horntail where he has damaged cancelled, so I use Dark Metamorphosis to negate it.

To know whether you have this effect active, there is a little bat icon above your character. When this effect is about to wear off, it will start to flicker.

If you prefer the invincibility frames from this skill, consider using a Skill Point Reset, and put only one point into Dark Metamorphosis. The cooldown is only at 30 seconds at level 1, and you still benefit from the invincibility frames. You essentially sacrifice damage for survivability.

Demon Awakening

This skill is EXTREMELY strong. Use it whenever it is off cooldown for mobbing and bossing. It enhances your Demon Lash's damage and enhances your %IED and %Boss Damage. Covers a further horizontal and vertical span and also spawns Cerberus Chomp every 8 seconds which does not share cooldown with the Hyper Skill. You want to get to know this skill's span for various bosses such as Chaos Pierre.

To give an idea how far this skill spans, here is an example in Lucid. Something to note also is the range of the aura from Weapon Aura. It has a high horizontal range.

The long range attack allows your to keep your distance against say Lotus. In this clip, I keep my distance from Lotus because he frequently casts his super knockback skill which I want to avoid.

Spirit of Rage

DS's got a HUGE snake. Pretty good horizontal span, and high vertical span. Very good skill to use for mobbing, especially coupled with increased mob spawn rate (Frenzy). During boss fights, find a good opportune time and burst the enemy by using Binding Darkness and this skill (and any other burst skills you can fit in).

Here in Lucid, I have placed down Spirit of Rage in a region that covers a lot of ground, so it would still hit Lucid most of the time. I coupled Binding Darkness here to do a bit of burst to her.

Orthrus

Summons two Aku Akus that attack only when you’ve attacked. One attacks more frequently than the other, but are weaker than their counterpart and have less skill reach. Here is a screenshot at Mirror Touched Sea 2 of their attack range spans:

Nemea

Geryon

Generally, unless you start attacking, Orthrus will not attack. Here is a small sample. The moment I throw out an attack, Nemea attacked. Later on, Geryon attacks.

Demon Bane

Finally DS has a burst skill. Use this after casting Demon Awakening for +90% final damage for the skill. The skill has a long horizontal range, and extremely high vertical range.

Remember how I said that you would need to use your bind to get Demon Bane off? In this clip, I successfully get my Bane off without binding

Doing this requires good knowledge of boss patterns. In the boss Chosen Seren for example, her patterns usually go: lasers, rush or weapon aura, jab 2-4 times, repeat etc. The thing I'm looking for is the rush to come out so I can get it off. There is a cooldown with it as she does not endlessly spam it. I also put my character against the wall, in case she does rush, she will most likely rush into the wall. Things like this can be applied to other bosses, where you watch out for their invulnerable/rush timings (VHilla, Darknell, Lotus etc.).

The reason I do this is allows you to attack the boss more, and gives my iframes a bit more time to cooldown. In the Seren clip, after casting Demon Bane, I would use my bind afterwards. If I had cast bind and Demon Bane, I would have 2-3 seconds afterwards to attack her without interference. However, since I did not, I am able to bind after getting all of Demon Bane off, and DPS for another 10 seconds without worrying about her abilities. There is risk involved of course as she can always rush out and you will miss out some of the burst, but I believe it is safer, and more efficient damage wise.

Defender of the Demon

Your Catbae that protects you, and also attacks occasionally. I usually cast this whenever this is up, and more often or not, this saves your bacon a lot of the time. I believe Mastema only attacks in one direction, but has a pretty long horizontal span. Though not a good example, she is capable of occasionally mobbing a short distance vertically of one side.

This is footage of Defender of the Demon's defensive capability, taken from here (credits to Ch0 b0). As you can see, skills that typically OHKO you do not. This will help your survivability more than you think.

Otherworld Goddess's Blessing

Has 4 effects, will cast one randomly every few seconds.

The recovery one is nice, especially since it bypasses Will's potion restriction in 2nd phase, and Verus Hilla's one too. I personally don't notice it much, but its impact is there. For the physical damage reduction, I don't expect it but it helps tremendously. The reduction stacks with Defender of the Demon's reduction, so OHKO attacks may end up only scratching you. The abnormal status cleanse is something you don't notice or benefit from too much, but it is still useful (e.g bypassing stun from Lotus debris). Lastly, the explosion damage one is extremely strong, and has a huge range.

Demon Slayer Skill Rotations

Bossing

Before entering, cast all buffs/actives that you have/will use. Make sure Dark Metamorphosis is active, but you have it off cooldown to save you from any sticky situations early on.

Rotation when you first enter:

> > > > > > > > > > Demon Lash to proc the Hyper Stat Reinforce Duration > > > > Until wears off > > whenever available > Until is up > Repeat similarly.

Firstly use Boundless Rage so you can use all your skills in peace. Apply Demon Cry and use Call of Mastema at the same time. Next, you want to be use all the other buffs/summons before readying up your burst. I throw a Cerberus in there just because its fast and why not. Set down Spirit of Rage while the boss is mid animation. You want to do this to get extra time and hopefully get off all the hits from Spirit of Rage. Pop either bind first at the end of the boss attack animation and Demon Bane right after, OR Demon Bane first if you think you can get away with it, then bind right after. Continue hitting the boss, and apply Demon Cry when the debuff expires, until Demon Awakening ends. Switch to Demon Impact after. Apply the Demon Lash Reinforce Duration hyper throughout, and the Demon Cry debuff. Rinse and repeat until Demon Awakening and your other fifth job skills are up.

Of course during the battle, some skill cool downs will desync, but that's OK. As long as you're not wasting your buffs then it's fine. You can even hold onto some skills, but personally I just pop whatever the moment it comes up.

During the course of battle, maneuver yourself around using and . Keep your distance from certain bosses, and reposition yourself accordingly to minimize your chance of death.

Use the occasional at critical times to avoid certain OHKO attacks, or if you absolutely need to heal as a last resort, coupled with potions to keep yourself healthy.

Save and use for the damage buff, buff negation or invincibility frames when you need them.

I have some game play videos in the 'Gameplay' tab where I typically boss, so you can see how I cycle through my skills over there.

Grinding

Cast any buffs/actives/summons that you need while mobbing.

> > until expires > > whenever available > Rotate between and and > Miscellaneous summons buffs ( and and

Of course you will be using Infernal Concussion throughout as that is your main mobbing skill. You want to place Erda Fountain, and Spirit of Rage down to clear the map. Once Spirit of Rage expires, turn on Boundless Rage and use Demon Cry as often as possible. Use one of the three skills (Goddess Blessing, Orthrus, or Mastema) to help you clear the map while you jump around and Infernal Concussion. Use any other skills like Will/Seren skill, and Weapon Aura if needed.

Use your vast amount of mobility options to navigate the map you're on. Since your mobility is quite high, you should have no problem clearing most maps. Make sure to utilize jump attacks to cover even more range, especially for Infernal Concussion.

Using Boundless Rage is important mainly for cutting down the cooldown for Demon Cry. Less cooldown means more frequent spam and thus higher EXP/drop and clear rate.

Honestly you shouldn't run into problems mobbing, as long as you utilize all your fifth job skills and your mobbing fourth job skills you can't go wrong. Glide/Double Jump and Rush and Chaos Lock will ensure you to have a smooth grinding experience.

Demon Slayer General Gameplay

There are some old videos. At the moment, I am practicing some more bosses for cleaner runs.

I don't think I will have grinding videos since I have not grinded for a while and do not know the best rotation for many maps. Something I'm more inclined to do, is give bossing run downs about how to fight certain bosses. However I will not be working on these unless there is enough interest generated.

Demon Slayer's Spirit Savior Examples

Fighting Damien as a Demon Slayer

Fighting Lotus as a Demon Slayer

Demon Slayer Lucid Solo (Old)

Demon Slayer Hard Will Solo

Demon Slayer Hard Verus Hilla Solo

Demon Slayer Chaos Gloom Solo

Demon Slayer Hard Darknell Solo

Demon Slayer Black Mage Solo

Demon Slayer Hard Chosen Seren Solo
FAQ

Q: Which weapon is best to go for, 1H Mace or 1H Axe?

Choice does not matter. Both give the same attack, and weapon speed. They are pretty much identifcal. In terms of aesthetic, axe may look better, but this is objective. I believe 1H maces have more anvil options. In regular server, the only thing you may think about is the resale value for that weapon.

I can't think of some common questions about DS at the moment. Feel free to shoot me a DM or a message in the social media platforms I've mentioned, and I will answer them, and update the FAQ here.
Guide Version

4

Game Version

238

Changelog

Version 1
- Added miscellaneous text changes, and fixed minor formatting issues.
- Added 'My Keyboard Layout' and 'Quick Slots' section to visualize my current keyboard layout.

Version 1.1
- Fixed some hyperlink issues.
- Additional text in the FAQ section.

Version 2
- Updated for the latest version (v201-202)
- Added additional sections for the introduction of the latest fifth job skills and miscellaneous parts.
- Reorganized certain sections.
- Fixed miscellaneous minor text and formatting issues.
- New images to show enhanced node slots for the Bossing and Grinding/Farming V Matrixes, and reasoning provided.
- Added TL;DR Bossing and Grinding Hyper Stat Allocation priority.
- Mentioned Ark/Illium in the 'Legion Board Configuration' section.
- Added 'Solus' to the list of available link skills.
- Added 'Lucid Earrings' subsection in 'Other Useful Build Resources' section.
- Updated 'Skills Rotation' for the current version.
- Uploaded sample videos of Bossing and Grinding/Farming rotations.
-Fixed so hyperlinks/anchors work.

Version 3
- Updated some sections so it reflects the latest version of the game (v211, 16/02/2020).
- Added Spoilers to pretty much everything so it's easier to find certain sections.
- Reworked some sections (most notably, Demon Slayer Fifth Job) to condense some information a bit.
- Altered opinion on Inner Ability.
- Added Pathfinder to 'Legion Board Configuration'.
- Updated link skills section (contains Explorers),
- Updated 'Keyboard Layout'.
- Added/removed some gifs in 'Gameplay'.
- Updated 'Skill Rotations'.
- Added a few new bossing videos.

Version 4
- Updated lots of out of date things, version v238 latest patch.
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Ellucidate's Guide to Demon Slayer

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