Introduction
The army of Shadows is one of Jinwoo’s most powerful tools in this game, granting a lot of CP, support and Shadow authorities that can help complement your builds and win your battles.
With the addition of Shadow Armament, the army gained a significant amount of power, while also unlocking new support skills.
Unfortunately, the resources needed to invest in the armaments are quite limited and hard to come by: Shadow echoes require traces of Shadow and Abyss Crystals are obtained weekly from playing power of destruction and battlefield of time.
The goal of this guide is to give you a general idea of what Shadows might be the best for your current needs, while also giving you an outlook of their usage. It’s important to note that the Blessing stone Monarch Domain was recently buffed, vastly increasing the power of Shadows when summoned. In addition, we also got the addition of Shadow skills level up, giving us an even bigger boost in power. That being said, Shadow skills currently are just a small increase in power and damage for most Shadows, so we advise to level them up evenly to pad your battle power to avoid being below the recommended threshold.
Let’s break down the different Shadows you can unlock in the game and how important they are during your progression.
- We define ‘Early game’ as your first completion of story mode and the lowest tiers of dungeons and WOBL (Vulcan, easy Baran).
- We define ‘Mid game’ hard mode progression for the later chapters, as well as completion of WOBL Baran and the easy mode for Deimos.
- We consider ‘late game’ finishing hard mode, proof of strong Dungeons/WOBL and Deimos hard mode. As more get released you can consider that to be the current endgame.
Igris
Being the first Shadow you summon, everyone has access to Igris and should invest in him.
When starting out he provides a powerful critical hit rate authority that will be invaluable when you are still working on your gear and cannot hit 50% critical rate easily.
Igris doesn’t offer damage increasing debuffs, but his skills deal a decent amount of damage and his armament skill - unlocked with the weapon - can paralyze the opponent for a few seconds.
His weapon is quite simple: it adds critical rate and critical hit damage to your Shadows.
Igris falls off a bit in the midgame (when you start having a proper build and don’t need more critical rate) and comes back as a powerful late game Shadow when you are tackling the hardest content in the game, like Wobl hard mode.
When your level is below the enemy, even if you hit the suggested CP benchmark your critical rate will actually not be as effective, so the extra crit from Igris ensures your runs will be much more stable. Because of this, it’s not a bad idea to invest in Igris armament, considering it will make him more powerful when facing hard content.
- Early game: 4 out of 5 (get him to knight rank asap)
- Mid game: 2 out of 5
- Late game: 5 out of 5 (promote to general, unlock armament, invest in it. If you run Igris it means you need extra crit rate and all the extra power will help getting through those first WOBL Hard clears when new content drops)
What teams should you use Igris on: any team that needs extra critical rate for consistent damage, especially SJW missions.
Tank
Our next Shadow, Tank, is a bit of a situational Shadow. It doesn’t have a super useful Shadow authority, but it can be useful if you want to buff your light team raw damage, as adding more defense is going to be useful for Thomas Andre and Gunhee if you don’t need other stats.
It also lacks debuffs that can amp up your damage and only brings a 1 second stun to the table.
Tank’s weapon is mostly a stat stick, adding more defense penetration and damage against normal monsters.
He’s an early/mid game Shadow that gets easily replaced given the other Shadows can provide far more valuable authorities. Its main usage is in WOBL using a light team - if you don’t have Beste unlocked yet, or if you somehow don’t need more defense penetration.
- Early game: 2 out of 5
- Mid game: 1 out of 5
- Late game: 1 out of 5 (one of the last Shadows to get to general to increase your army of Shadows level cap)
What team should you use Tank on: mostly teams that scale on defense where you somehow don’t need the other Shadows in this list.
Iron
Another Shadow available since early access, Iron has been a mainstay of most parties since the release of the game - and for a good reason.
His Charge, Iron! skill inflicts a 12% def down to the target for 10 seconds, making him a super useful Shadow to have regardless of the situation. He also adds a small shield to the other smaller Shadows. In addition to this, obtaining Iron’s weapon will grant him a new skill that creates an area of effect that reduces the damage of Shadows within the zone by 30% while also granting them [Super Armor]. Also, this inflicts another defense down on the target for 10 seconds.
He’s a Shadow that is useful at all stages of the game because he only needs to be promoted to ‘Knight’ to be useful early game and when you promote him to General rank then he unlocks another source of def down while making your Armor of Shadows more tanky. His Shadow authority is ok, adding more HP% to the team.
- Early game: 4 out of 5 (get him to Knight asap)
- Mid game: 3 out of 5 (leave him at Knight rank unless you have a lot of Traces of Shadow, as it’s best to promote Shadows with powerful authorities at this stage)
- Late game: 4 out of 5 (get him to general. unlock his armament. No need to level it up asap)
What team should you use Iron on? Any team you play, Iron will be there as a slot 2 or 3.
Blade
Our first SLA original Shadow, Blade is a powerful early game Shadow that quickly falls off as we get better options. In the beginning of the game it was the prime ‘speedrunning’ Shadow due to the usefulness of the atk bonus, but the lack of useful debuffs and overall damage make it fall off hard.
The Shadow itself hits moderately hard thanks to its critical damage buff, but there are better summons for damage oriented setups. His only debuff is a 1 second stun, just like Tank. Overall, it seems Jinwoo didn’t miss out much not summoning him outside of the feeling of not completing your Pokèdex.
- Early game: 3 out of 5 (nice attack boost until you get Beru)
- Mid game: 2 out of 5
- Late game: 1 out 5 (one of the last Shadows to promote to General to increase the level cap of your army of Shadows)
What team should you use Blade on? Any team needing more attack before you unlock Beru.
Tusk
Releasing close to the official launch of the game with Alicia, Tusk is a powerful Shadow capable of boosting your core damage. His skills deal a moderate amount of damage and with his armament he can also inflict burn on the enemy every 3 seconds for 30 seconds.
Tusk is similar to Igris, one of the so-called ‘Main’ Shadows that are mostly used for their authority and not for their performance as a member of the squad. Therefore, he lives and dies with the meta and the units that benefit the most from his authority: as of now, the biggest Tusk enjoyer was Alicia, who dominated the early months of SLA as the queen of the game before the release of Mirei. However, the devs quickly began introducing elemental focused endgame stages, which quickly phased Alicia out of the meta also due to the increase of freeze resistance. Because of this, Tusk is currently not very useful, but this may change in the future as we get more hunters with different kits, new modes, SJW weapons based on core attacks and rebalances.
- Early game: 3 out of 5 (Tusk can be very useful when tackling Vulcan WOBL if your main dps is Alicia)
- Mid game: 2 out of 5
- Late game: 2 out of 5 (can upgrade to General after the other Main Shadows are maxed to futureproof your account or if you really like Alicia)
What team should you use Tusk on? Water team with Alicia and Meilin is pretty much his only team so far
Bigrock
Another SLA original summon, Bigrock is a fan favourite that boosts basic skill damage. Between some powerful Hunters that can deal insane skill damage (Mirei) and the ability to buff Jinwoo’s basic skills (like Magnifying slashes, Double down) it’s not difficult to see why it’s been dominating the scene. All his skills deal damage to the enemy and honestly, you bring him mostly for his Authority.
Bigrock is a Shadow that shines in midgame and can be used even in late game, making it a safe choice for investment.
- Early game: 2 out of 5 (early on you may lack the necessary firepower to benefit from this)
- Mid game: 5 out of 5 (most valuable Shadow when progressing in mid game, especially when farming WOBL Baran)
- Late game: 4 out 5 (still valuable but his Shadow Armament is not very good, lowering his overall rating)
What team should you use Bigrock on? Any team that relies on skill damage, mostly Wind team with Mirei or SJW teams focused on skill damage.
Cerbie
The goodest doggo of them all, Cerbie is our third SLA original Shadow and it seems third time's the charm given it’s one of the strongest Shadows in the entire game. Cerbie is similar to Iron where it’s used not for the authority but for their subskills: his main gimmick is inflicting the [Combustion] debuff, dealing damage every 3 second and increasing the damage taken by the target by 5%. Did we mention Cerbie has up to three skills that can inflict this debuff? This guarantees its application on every phase you summon Cerbie (not stackable!), cementing Cerbie as one of your Army of Shadows mainstays - usually, it will be Main Shadow+Cerbie+Iron, as their debuffs are really invaluable.
Cerbie’s Authority raises Critical Hit Damage by 8% at max - useful, but as a stat crit damage runs into diminishing returns past 180% and it becomes very easy to cap compared to crit rate, especially when you are facing enemies ahead of your level. In contrast, his weapon is very useful, giving Cerbie yet another combustion source, bumping the total up to four. Improving the armament also boosts Cerbie’s skill damage, making it a solid investment given you’ll likely keep this pupper in your lineup for a long while.
For the reasons outlined, Cerbie is one of the best Shadows to invest into at any stage of the game.
- Early game: 5 out of 5 (get it to knight rank asap)
- Mid game: 4 out of 5 (not a priority to promote to General, but still very useful)
- Late game: 5 out 5 (more debuffs, more skill damage, great armament to invest into overall)
What teams should I use Cerbie on? Any team, he goes with Iron as the preferred slot 2 or 3 for most setups
Kaisel
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Kaisel, descending in our Shadow guide with a Ultimate skill damage focused Authority.
Kaisel falls in the ‘Main Shadow’ group but unfortunately didn’t get much time to shine - his release was catered around Charlotte and Harper, but Dark never got a moment to shine besides WOBL Baran and even there, Wind ended up being the preferred choice due to most players having invested in Mirei plus the negative reception for the twins. In reality, Kaisel’s biggest niche is speedrunning - his skill damage is insanely high and its Shadow armament also boosts the damage dealt to bosses.
That being said, we’d like to remember this guide is meant to be a generic introduction to the different Shadows and to help players plan their investments - if you are speedrunning you most likely know already what to invest into and if you would like to try rank higher in BoT there are better resources provided by our valuable members of the SLA community on youtube, so check those out!
Considering his very specific Niche, we suggest investing in Kaisel later in the game or if you are using an Ultimate skill focused setup in WOBL.
- Early game: 3 out of 5 (get it to knight rank then stop)
- Mid game: 3 out of 5 (some low CP setups in WOBL function by stacking ultimate damage blessings, so Kaisel can help with them if critical hit rate is not an issue)
- Late game: 5 out 5 (if using for scoring high in specific content, otherwise 4 out of 5. Worth bringing to General but not a priority weapon outside of the outlined niches)
What teams should you use Kaisel on? Dark team with Charlotte.
Beru
The King of Ants, Beru is one of the latest Shadows currently added to the game and a strong contender for the best Shadow in the game as of now. Beru is considered a Main Shadow and provides a bonus to attack % and critical damage. That’s right - a double authority. On top of that, Beru has access to Min’s signature debuff Punishment, inflicting a 5% damage increase debuff to the enemy for 20 seconds. He also has access to healing, making Beru a very well rounded Shadow that can be brought pretty much everywhere as a Main Shadow. Alternatively, Beru can also be brought instead of Iron as a sub Shadow if you do not play Min/Lee Bora and already have enough sources of Def Down+Def Pen.
Unlocking his Shadow armament grants Beru a second skill that inflicts Punishment. It’s not necessary to invest into the weapon beyond that point, but it will vastly increase the damage you will do with him as well as the Army of Shadows given it will increase the defense penetration of your army.
- Early game: 5 out of 5
- Mid game: 5 out of 5
- Late game: 4 out 5 (when fighting enemies ahead of your level like in WOBL hard mode or when you need more crit rate Igris ends up being preferred to have a more consistent crit rate. No need to invest on armament)
What teams should you use Beru on? Any team that scales with attack as a main stat can use Beru and if you can use him, chances are you should use it unless you need specific main Shadow authorities.
Beste
Last but not least, Beste is a powerful SLA original Shadow focused on freezing enemies and dealing high skill damage. Her Authority grants the party up to 8% more defense penetration and she can grant the team an extra 10% for 20 seconds
Defense penetration is a stat that gained an increasing importance in the late game due to the fact some gimmick bosses require a lot of defense penetration in order to deal significant damage - that’s when Beste shines the most, granting you a way to put a dent through those HP bars before the timer runs down. Some Hunters also scale very well with defense penetration (like Yoo for example) and her ability to freeze enemies for a bit also offers nice synergy with water hunters like Alicia.
Her Shadow Armament is quite powerful, granting your Army extra attack and skill damage. It’s worth mentioning Beste has a lot of powerful skills that cover a significant area,making her great in stages with a lot of enemies to clear within a specific timeframe.
Considering defense penetration becomes a necessity only later in the game - or when facing specific content - she’s mostly a late game Shadow.
- Early game: 3 out of 5 (can be used with Alicia, but she likes Tusk more)
- Mid game: 3 out of 5
- Late game: 4 out 5 (unlock armament but no need to max it asap)
What team should you use Beste on? Light/Fire team in WOBL Deimos, fire teams where Yoo is the main damage dealer.