In Darkness Rises, your character power is largely determined by your gear, costumes, and upgrades. When it comes to actual combat, however, it’s your skills and how you use them that matters the most. Regardless of whether you prefer PvE or PvP and assuming that your character power is up for the challenge, choosing the best hero abilities can make the difference between a win and a loss.

Of course, the game AI will encourage you to upgrade all of your skills as soon as they become available. Our advice, however, is to spend your Skill Points conservatively and to max out three favorite skills before leveling anything else. What, exactly, should these skills be? That’s what this guide is all about.

Prioritize PvP over PvE Skills

PvE encounters in Darkness Rises can be somewhat difficult, but are usually fairly easy to complete so long as you have the recommended power. As such, it’s not too important which skills you use during adventures, dungeons, and raids.

This allows you to prioritize skills that are most useful in PvP combat, where each stun, slow, or DMG decrease can actually make a difference. Bear this in mind as you decide which abilities to spend your SPs on and, if necessary, put a couple of levels into other skills until your favorites are unlocked.

Best Warrior Skills

Main Ability: Tornado Slash

Additional Skills: Savage Pounce, Breaching Blade Aura

For warriors, Tornado Slash is the best option for combos thanks to its AOE effect and high damage. In order to ensure that it lands on target, you should cast it only after you connect with Savage Pounce (slow effect) or Breaching Blade Aura (stun effect).

Notice that Tornado Slash also has a slight push-back effect, which can be a double-edged sword. In Team PvP encounters, you can use this ability to push enemies outside of the ring, which will count as a kill. However, you should always avoid casting Tornado Slash at an opponent who was stunned by another teammate as this could put the former out of reach and decrease your overall damage. If possible, use the ability to pin enemies against a wall and throw in a few auto attacks before they get back on their feet.

Best Wizard Skills

Main Ability: Lightning Grip

Additional Skills: Judgment Flash, Blade Tornado

Disables are all the more important for wizards because they never want to get up close and personal with their opponents and need the additional time to establish the right distance. Lightning Grip is a skill with a relatively low damage output, but the fact that its cooldown is so low actually increases a wizard’s overall dps.

This ability also temporarily disables the opponent when it lands, which makes it easier to connect with Judgment Flash (knockback effect) or Blade Tornado (stun effect). If you find that the range for Blade Tornado is inconvenient, you can switch it out for Scatterspell (stun effect), which has a lower damage output, but is easier to land.

In general, you should avoid casting all three spells in one bout. Instead, use combos of two and additional auto attacks. Start with Lighting Grip, then use one other ability and take advantage of the disable duration to throw in your high damage basic attacks.

Best Berserker Skills

Main Ability: Glacial Snap

Additional Skills: Prey Snatcher, Grapple

Berserkers are great at dishing out big damage and Glacial Snap is the best nuke in their arsenal. It has a high damage output, coupled with a nice slow effect that can help both the berserker and his or her teammates chase a low health opponent. To make sure that it connects with your target, cast it after you connect with Prey Snatcher (mid-range pull and stun effect) or Grapple (long-range pull and stun effect).

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Prey Snatcher and Grapple are meant to be used alternatively as soon as Glacial Snap comes off cooldown. Berserkers are fairly slow to move around the arena, so your best chance is to learn how to anticipate enemy movements and try to bait their attacks. Once you evade their first ability, you have the opportunity to cast your combo and finish them off thanks to the berserker’s higher dps output.

Best Assassin Skills

Main Ability: Backstab

Additional Skills: Thunder Fang, Dancing Blades

As an assassin, landing the perfect Backstab is the key to winning a confrontation with another player. The ability has a decent damage output and will stun your opponent, leaving them vulnerable to both your auto attacks and your combo skills. The cooldown on Backstab is fairly long, however, which makes it all the more important to make sure you land it right.

Your nemesis, from this point of view, is the other player’s ability to evade. To ensure this doesn’t happen just as you use Backstab, you can bait them to evade early by throwing an auto attack as soon as you enter their field of vision. If it works, they’ll end up being positioned right behind you and you will have the perfect opportunity to use your ability.

Once you connect with Backstab, you can follow up with either Dancing Blades (stunlock effect) or Thunder Fang (airborne effect), both of which are excellent nukes and will temporarily disable the opponent. Dancing Blades is also a good back-up plan in case you miss your Backstab and you can even cast all three in a combo if your enemy is pinned against a wall.

Best Archer Skills

Main Ability: Wind Walk

Additional Skills: Multishot, Supernova

Since the archer class was introduced to Darkness Rises, it has been slightly off balance in the sense that its damage output has been and continues to be higher than that of other heroes. As an archer, you want to take advantage of this by using your strongest nukes. Before you let your arrows rain down on your enemies, however, you’ll need Wind Walk to close the gap.

When used properly, Wind Walk will bring you in range of your opponent for the perfect combo. Once it lands, you can pair it with both Supernova (airborne effect) and Multishot (knockback effect). If they connect, the latter two can push a great deal of damage between them and they can also be followed by auto attacks if the other player is pinned against a wall. The result is usually devastating.

If there’s one thing that all of these combos have in common, it’s the fact that they must be executed with precision in order to work. This might be difficult to achieve on a regular device while you race to drag your fingers from one button to the other and often lose track of the enemy’s position in the meantime.

However, landing your combos becomes a breeze if you play Darkness Rises on BlueStacks and make the most of the Keymapping Tool. See for yourself!

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