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Introduction
If someone were to define Destroyer's playstyle in as few words as possible, they would describe it with "slow", "tanky" and "burst".
To deal massive burst damage, Destroyers generate Cores using Concentration Skills like Heavy Crush. They then spend these cores by using Gravity Release Skills like Perfect Swing, dealing extra damage based on the number of cores consumed.
Virtually all Destroyer skills have Paralysis or Push Immunity. Gravity Release Skills also generate a massive shield when used, preventing damage if timed during Boss patterns. If that wasn't enough, Endure Pain reduces all incoming damage by up to 90%, acting as your God Mode skill in emergencies.
Destroyers suffer from long cast animations for Gravity Release Skills and low mobility. Super Charge is used as one of the main Engraving choices to supplement slow cast speed as most of your Gravity Release Skills are charge skills.
With the latest balance patch, Destroyers also have access to Defense Reduction debuffs from their skills for team synergy. Furthermore, they become one of the only two classes with Taunt.
Destroyer isn't for everyone. The heavy burst damage makes this class appealing for some, but players might not like how "slow" the class feels. Because of this, you focus more on negating damage taken rather than dodging attacks. Fear not, as any negatives are remedied by Destroyer's built in kit and Engravings.
This build guide assumes you have a Character at Level 50 before transitioning to it. Check out the Destroyer Leveling and 1-50 Leveling guides to reach Level 50.
Check out the Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides for an introduction to their content.
Has God Mode ✔
High Survivability ✔
High Stagger Damage ✔
High Superarmor Uptime ✔
❌ Low Mobility
❌ Long Animation Start-up
❌ Requires Boss Knowledge
❌ Directional Attack Requirements
Raid Skill Build
- Spacebar is an important tool for canceling your animation recovery after using a skill. But this sacrifices your mobility option.
- Heavy Crush is your low cooldown Core generator skill.
- Jumping Smash is your gap closer while also applying a defense reduction debuff.
- Dreadnaught is used as your Counter property, but can also act as a defensive button to tank through attacks with Tenacity and Toughened Body.
- Endure Pain is used for setting up your main burst skills, Perfect Swing and Seismic Hammer. You can also you this as your defensive button to tank through attacks. This is important as Destroyer lacks mobility. He makes up for this with the ability to tank through attacks by taking reduced damage. This also acts as your taunt skill, so be careful of accidentally taunting the target towards your raid members. This skill will not save you from one shot mechanics.
- Full Swing and Earth Eater are your main Stagger Check skills. They have fast animation start-up and deal higher Stagger Damage than Perfect Swing and Seismic Hammer.
Alternatives
- You have two Awakening Skill choices here:
- Terra Break charges your Gravity Meter to 100% when used. This synergizes well with Gravity Training Destroyer gameplay, as you will want to get into Hypergravity mode as soon as possible to start hammering away. Be aware that this skill locks you in a long animation.
- Big Bang deals massive damage. The downside is that you will barely be able to move and no Gravity Meter will be generated.
These are the following skills that can replace Jumping Smash when you know how to correctly position in fights and don't need a gap closer anymore.
Note: Make sure to get the Armor Destruction Skill Tree option, if skills with it have been replaced with another skill.
Skill Tree options will be shown in the tooltips for the skills below.
- Power Strike provides a slightly faster Counter, with a defense reduction debuff if Dreadnaught is on cooldown. Unfortunately, the skill has no Paralysis Superarmor. *This is the recommended switch when you are experienced enough to not need a gap closer for positioning.
- Gravity Impact provides a quick animation Core Generator. But you have to change Dreadnaught's Skill Tree from Tenacity to Armor Destruction to apply a Defense Reduction debuff. This makes the skill riskier to use, as you lose Push Superarmor.
- Power Shoulder is an alternative choice for a gap closer with faster animation.
The following skills can replace Earth Eater. You sacrifice damage output for more utility and safer gameplay.
- Running Crash applies a Stagger Damage increase debuff on target. You might find this useful for Stagger Check mechanics as all allies will deal increased Stagger Damage.
- Power Shoulder can be used as an additional gap closer until you feel comfortable without one.
The Skill Tree and Alternative tweaks for Gravity Training build players:
- Perfect Swing's 3rd Skill Tree node can be swapped to Hour of Slaughter. You want this since Gravity Training gameplay is all about getting skills out as quickly as possible to generate Gravity Meter to enter Hypergravity.
- Earth Eater can be swapped for Neutralizer. You essentially are sacrificing a high Stagger Check skill for a faster animation skill.
Gameplay & Skill Rotation
Destroyer gameplay revolves around generating 3 Cores with Concentration skills to enhance Gravity Release skills. Gravity Release skills deal the most damage when consuming 3 Cores. When using your spenders, you have to be extremely cautious with positioning and knowledgeable of damage of boss mechanics. Since using your spenders will give you a massive shield, you need to be able to judge whether you can tank damage trades.
Hypergravity can be used in any situation where you know the boss will not move so you will not miss any attacks.
The Basic Rotation:
- Heavy Crush
- Jumping Smash or Power Strike
- Perfect Swing
- Heavy Crush
- Dreadnaught
- Seismic Hammer
- Repeat step 1 and 2.
- Earth Eater
- Repeat step 4 and 5.
- Full Swing
- Repeat back to step 1.
Stagger Check Priority:
- Earth Eater
- Full Swing
- Seismic Hammer
- Jumping Smash
Note: Destroyer has a lot of skills with Mid-High Stagger Check but you have you judge carefully when to use them. For example, Perfect Swing is a High Stagger Check skill, but it is also 1 of your highest damage skills. There are other skills that deal higher Stagger Damage without needing to put one of your damage skills on cooldown.
Stats Priority
Rage Hammer Destroyers focus Crit to prioritize their burst with their Gravity Release Skills. While Gravity Training Destroyers focus Specialization to increase their basic attack damage during Hyper Gravity mode and also helps increases damage of Gravity Release skills.
- Hammer of Rage Build: Get 465-500 Swiftness for some comfy maneuverability, then get as high Crit as possible. At later end of Tier 3 optimization, it is possible to acquire 400-500 Specialization for damage increase in addition to 400-500 Swiftness. You will also want to aim for 1200-1400 Crit.
- Gravity Training Build: All accessories should have Specialization with Crit coming from your necklace and ring. It is preferable to have 700 Crit for at least 25% crit rate to optimize for engravings and gear sets. Optimal overall Crit Rate should be 70%.
Engravings
Class Engravings provide powerful benefits that can significantly change playstyle. Battle Engravings are generally used to increase damage. Below are the recommended Engravings for this build.
Check out the Engraving Guide for more details.
Starter Engravings
Rage Hammer
- Rage Hammer grants extra Crit Rate and Crit Damage based on the number of Cores consumed when using Gravity Release skills.
- Super Charge increases the charging speed and damage of Earth Eater, Full Swing and Perfect Swing.
Gravity Training
- Gravity Training increases Gravity Meter regeneration and increases basic attack damage and Crit Rate during Hypergravity.
- Barricade is an excellent engraving for Destroyer since they gain shields from using Gravity Release skills when consuming Cores. Both Rage Hammer and Gravity Training builds use this engraving. As the Gravity Training build uses fewer charging skills, this is the engraving choice to start out with for the build instead of Super Charge.
Add-On Endgame Engravings
- Master Brawler can be taken since the majority of Destroyer skills have Head Attack modifiers.
- Keen Blunt Weapon* is for high Crit Rate builds.
- Spirit Absorption increases Attack Speed and Movement Speed by a significant amount at Level 3. This helps you to position and cast quicker.
Advanced Engravings
Note: The Advanced Engravings are the Best in Slot setup for Tier 3 content. The penalties attached to these can be hard to overcome for new players. Only use the following engravings if you are experienced with the boss fight!
- Grudge* increases damage done to bosses while also increasing damage received from bosses. The engraving is a highly effective damage increase that does not require specific positioning, making it worthwhile even with the penalty.
- Cursed Doll* provides a significant Attack Power increase at the cost of 25% healing penalty. The healing penalty can be punishing for inexperienced players not familiar with boss mechanics.
(*)These Engravings should only be used at Engraving Level 3.
Optimal Setups
Engravings are listed in order of priority from left to right.
Rage Hammer
Gravity Training
Gear Sets
These are the specific gear sets for each tier.
Check out the Gear Set Guide for more details.
Notes :
- If speedrunning your alts, you can skip Abyss Dungeon Gear up to 1370 gearscore by just honing Chaos Dungeon Gear.
- If you're close to 1445 gearscore and were already doing Valtan/Vykas Normal Mode, you can skip crafting the Legendary Legion Raid Gears.
- If you have already crafted Relic Gears, hold onto them because once you unlock the Gear Set Conversion feature, you will be able to freely swap between Relic Legion Raid Sets.
"Play at your own pace" Route
Tier 1
340 gearscore
Seraphic Oath Set
460 gearscore
Boisterous Elemental Set
Tier 2
840 gearscore
Marvelous Earth Set
960 gearscore
Unyielding Will Set
Early Tier 3
1302-1370 gearscore
Twisted Dimensional Set
Tier 3 Argos Set
1370 -1415 gearscore
Preordained Diligence Set
Tier 3 Legion Raid Set
1415 - 1444 gearscore
Hold onto Preordained Diligence Set
1445+ gearscore
Earth's Entropy Set
Runes
Runes enhance Skills with extra bonuses. All Rune drops are account bound and have limited availability, so placement of Runes on the correct Skills is important. Below are the recommended pairings.
Check the Rune Guide for more details.
| Skills | Runes |
| Heavy Crush | Quick Recharge Bleed Rage Purify |
| Dreadnaught | Protection |
| Jumping Smash | Overwhelm Rage Protection Galewind |
| Endure Pain | Focus |
| Earth Eater | Overwhelm |
| Full Swing | Galewind |
| Perfect Swing | Galewind |
| Seismic Hammer | Galewind |
| Power Strike* | Rage Bleed Galewind |
| Power Shoulder* | Rage |
| Running Crash* | Rage |
- Rage is best used with a Core generator skill (e.g. Power Shoulder) so it can increase the speed of your main damage skills.
- Galewind is ideal for speeding up your highest damage dealing skills.
- Quick Recharge is used for skills closer to the end of your rotation for higher efficiency.
- Overwhelm is used to further improve the Stagger we apply, it is exceptionally effective when paired with Earth Eater.
- Focus reduces mana cost of skills.
- Bleed is a good filler rune to use on low cooldown skills.
- Protection is paired with Dreadnaught to allow you to soak some damage while Superarmoring through attacks. This also allows some safety measure when trying to Counter.
- Purify is best used on a low cooldown skill during specific boss encounters that will benefit from cleansing debuffs/dots effects.
(*) Optional skill choices.
Gear Skill Tree
While Gems add benefits to skills, you can also increase the effects of Skill Tree themselves. Skill Tree levels go up to 5 and each level can increase the damage, cooldown reduction or buff that they provide.
For more information on how to add equipment Skill Tree and how to get them, please visit our Skill Tree System Guide.
| Full Swing | Agile Movement or Quick Prep Scary Hammer Beast's Eye |
| Perfect Swing | Weak Point Detection Absolute Strength Intemperance(Hammer Rage) or Hour of Slaughter (Gravity Training) |
| Seismic Hammer | Quick Prep Absolute Strength Starving Strength |
| Earth Eater* | Enhanced Strike Earthen Rage |
| Neutralizer* | Powerful Shock Growing Gravity Gravity Control |
| Dreadnaught | Toughened Body or Enhanced Strike Violent Hammer |
| Jumping Smash* | Superior Change Smash |
| Endure Pain | Healthy Mentality(optional) |
| Heavy Crush | Law of the Jungle(optional) |
| Power Strike* | Agile Movement |
| Power Shoulder* | Objective Complete |
| Running Crash* | Agile Movement Enhanced Advance(optional) |
(*) Optional skill choices.
Gems
Gems grant bonus damage and cooldown reduction to specific skills. You can only equip 11 of these Gems at a time so it is recommended that you prioritize the Gems for your most important skills.
Please visit our Gem System Guide for more information like how to create higher tier Gems.
Attack Gems
Full Swing
Perfect Swing
Seismic Hammer
Earth Eater*
Neutralizer*
Hypergravity*(Gravity Training)
Cooldown Gems
Dreadnaught
Endure Pain
Full Swing
Perfect Swing
Seismic Hammer
Earth Eater*
Neutralizer*
Power Strike*
Jumping Smash*
Power Shoulder*
Running Crash*
Gravity Impact*
(*) Optional gem choices.
Card Sets
Cards are an endgame system for maximizing your character. Below are the recommend sets for this class.
Check out the Card Guide for more details on how to obtain them.
Budget Card Set
Optimal Damage Card Set
Summary
- Destroyer has high survivability in exchange for slow attack animations and low mobility.
- Concentration Skills generate Cores while Gravity Release skills consumes Cores to increase its damage and grants massive personal shield.
- Rage Hammer Build focuses on maximizing Gravity Release skill damage with a focus on high Crit. Specialization and Swiftness are added to increase damage and provide comfy maneuverability.
- Gravity Training Build focuses on generating Gravity Meter as much as possible. Non-charging skill tree nodes are taken instead. Instead of Crit, high Specialization is prioritized to increase the damage of Hypergravity's basic attacks.
- Even though, Endure Pain is your God Mode button. It can't be used to ignore 1 shot mechanics though.
Credits
Written by Rei
Reviewed by Yaen
Changelog
Adjusted Gearsets section to include Vykas parts. Article published. 
