THIS IS NOT UPDATED FOR UNCHAINED MOST OF THE INFO IS INCORRECT NOW

*This guide assumes you have some basic knowledge of the game

*Keep in mind the armor/weapons I list are the ideal ones you'd want, for some things I give more than one option and that's for you to decide which one you want to use

*If you're playing on fresh start I'll list the gear to aim for in the gear section

Description:
Darkrunner is one of the most mobile classes other than Primeval. Most people and guides will tell you it's a "glass cannon" class with little to no survivability (and it can be) but that is almost entirely based on your gear choice. I prefer taking a Strength/Stamina set (Obs leather) over a pure Strength set (Flame) because I like to play Darkrunner as more of a fighter style class than a glass cannon class, however, gearing this way doesn't lessen your damage output by much and the amount of melee attack you get using a Flame set is simply not worth losing the health an obs leather set gives you (I explain this more in the gear section below).

Weapons:
One of the great things about Darkrunner is that it can adapt and use what ever melee weapon you want to an extent. That being said I do not recommend ever using any type of axe as a main hand, axes are a terrible weapon choice for darkrunner and all melee, they have 20% damage scattering, which means your damage will be very random and inconsistent, however serp axe as an offhand is very good

Armor:
Again, like weapons, Darkrunner can use most armor types depending on who you're fighting but I'd recommend maining an obsidian leather set (Explained in the gear section). If you really want to minmax for every match up feel free to get a plate and cloth set.

Awareness, Spacing and movement:
Be aware of your surroundings. Sometimes you will have to watch multiple enemies health bars at once and watch their buffs/debuffs and know how to react accordingly. Darkrunner is about fluidity, learn to weave in and out of range constantly and move away as you attack.

•Don't stand near a witchcraft class after you do a rotation

•Don't be out of range (12 meters) or range (20 meters) but in archer range (28 meters~)(50m with hatred skills), wait for a gap closer to get in range

•Don't stand near a darkrunner if you know they haven't used , or try to use your opening skills first

•Don't waste your cool downs on someone with up especially with the changes to you can no longer step attack step attack over and over

•Don't , or if you're far away from an enemy or dropping down in arena because you won't even have enough time to walk to them before the buffs are gone

•Don't stand near someone with witchcraft if they haven't used

*just use common sense*


Skills:
•BATTLERAGE:

- now grants delirium for every enemy hit with the 3rd swing of the attack so make sure you finish the attack completely, this can also be used to instantly gain delirium in a RvR fight

- can now only be used AFTER you are ccd and no longer breaks bubble or TK and does not reduces physical damage so this skill becomes much more valuable

- should only really be used against casters no since you can extend the duration by 20 seconds for each player you kill

-, , and can no longer be used while immobilized / snared

- can now be used while under telekinesis or while bubbled making it very valuable against witchcraft and occultism

- 3.0 changes this skill a lot adding 15% physical damage reduction decreasing debuffs by 35% but movement speed increase is removed (while active)

- If you're dual wielding then take this over the piercing passive in shadowplay but if you're two handing take the piercing passive


•SHADOWPLAY:
- no longer combos with overwhelm so it's only used for healing reduction if you want to spec it

- can be used for a blood frenzy combo I'll list in the rotation section or to interrupt an enemy. I only use it to interrupt casters though

- is now invaluable due to the changes with your gap closers, this is your only defense against snare

- 3.0 changed this so that it does 98% more damage while in stealth making assassinations easier

- now gives attack speed (while active)

- 3.0 makes this skill incredibly invaluable changing the cd to 18 seconds but REMOVING the chance to reset

- 3.0 changes this skill increasing its range by 10m while under drop back making it a great skill for getting away as well as initiating

- now gives attack speed and more crit than dual wield proficiency so I take it until I have t3 eternal auramancy gems then I get both


•AURAMANCY:
- I cannot stress enough how much better thwart makes this class and all melee, make sure you always have this up, Attack speed is king, don't be a turtle, be a kanyo.

- can now only be used AFTER you are stunned or impaled and no longer reduces magic damage

- use this defensively or getting up from a knockdown. You can also use it to wait out shackle or make a 1v2 a 1v1 for a short while but sometimes a DR only needs that few seconds to finish someone off

- This point doesn't need to be specd when you get T3 eternal gems for thwart duration

Specific Situations

•Fighting Darkrunners (mirror match)
DR vs DR comes down to who parries the most or who gets shackle off first

Fighting Tanks (Redoubt)(Blighter, Abolisher, swiftstone)
aka the win button (Shout out to my boy rischie). This skill makes you irrelevant to the game for 20 seconds. prevents the enemy from being knocked down and can negate all damage entirely due to the block rate increase. If your enemy pops redoubt, make like your class and run.
If you aren't able to kill your opponent in one rotation then you have to use your speed to get away and reset. Sometimes it can take 3 or more full rotations to kill a geared player, in this case just be persistent, go in get the knockdown first and get out, stealth if you have to reset the fight. You won't always be able to kill everyone in one rotation.

Fighting healers (Argent, Paladin, Templar)
The key to fighting healers is persistence, the fights you'll have with most healers are very methodical, you have to know the timings for their heals, notice when they're about to heal and get a knock down just before, if your timing on chaining your trip locks is solid you'll be able to keep them down for a good 5 seconds.

You'll want to keep using and next to them and if you have it to reduce healing

Usually healers will getting up from a knock down or coming out of so you can them to interrupt it and give yourself some time for skills to come off cool down.
If you aren't able to leech to wait for cool downs just and most healers will try to through it which isn't smart but its good for you. And sometimes all it takes is a million to kill them
When fighting healers with vitalism/auramancy specifically, be wary of because you can use or for an interrupt or alternatively trip them

Fighting Witchcraft (Hard counter to Darkrunner)(Daggerspell, Arcanist)
This is where canceling shines (this does not mean frenzy on shadowblades). Against witchcraft your goal is to dodge or bait or stealth , once you do that you can usually get the kill but until you fight a god tier daggerspell you won't know how much it really counters Darkrunner

Fighting archers (Primeval, Stone arrow)
Archer fights are all about spacing and closing the gap. If you them as an opener and they away you immediately to close the gap. being close to an archer reduces their damage. For stonearrow this is different, since they have you have to either before they use it or bait it out and stay at a distance until its down. However once a stonearrow has used they will most likely and then to wait for cool downs and get a jump on you by overwhelming out of it so stay at or distance to be ready to go in as soon as its down to catch them before they . If you their and they have a sleep cloak the only thing you can do it try to get away but at the same time stay in range to be able to catch them going into stealth because for some reason defense classes can't fight without having up

As you probably can see from all of this, Darkrunner is very gimped and countered by a lot of classes, it's not easy but it's a low skill floor, high skill ceiling class. But if you're good, Darkrunner has the ability to kill any class.

After playing darkrunner for 2+ years I've played every viable type of darkrunner there is and I'll list them all here and explain the pros and cons of each one

•Full melee attack runner
This type of build goes fully into strength(flame set) trying to maximize the melee attack you can get while sacrificing crit rate and health, this type of build is pretty bad imo. I can't justify the amount of health lost for the amount of melee attack gained.

•Fighter style/balanced darkrunner
This type of build is very decent and is what I played the majority of the time I've played this game. This build balances strength and stamina to have survivability while still maintaining decent melee attack power by using an obsidian leather set. with full strength migration you still have very high melee attack but to really effectively pull off a high melee attack darkrunner with no crit chance you need upwards of 1700-1800 melee attack which is only achievable by having a legendary 2H or better so this is only the second best type of Darkrunner imo

•Full Crit Runner
This type of build sacrifices health and a bit of melee attack to have extremely high crit rate with a full gale set. However, this requires full strength migration to get 100% melee accuracy but by doing so you will have upwards of 70% crit rate all the time with having 100% crit rate if you back stab.
This type of build is VERY gear dependent and does not work effectively unless you have a legendary t6-7 2H to make up for the loss in melee attack and a gale set and full strength migration

•Hybrid Crit runner
This is the build I will be running on fresh start because It will be very hard to obtain a full gale set.
With this build I will be running DW katana/sword, t4-5 obsidian leather with dahuta cap gale bow and lunafrosts as well as full agility migration which will give me ~58% crit rate all the time and ~93% crit rate when I back stab with
This build allows me to still have a decent amount of health while maintaining a very high crit rate while at the same time being cheap enough to build on fresh start

There are many different "rotations" for Darkrunner depending on the class you're fighting but the more you fight a particular class the more you will learn to adapt, take your losses as a way to learn from what you did wrong and a way to better your self for the next fight.
The best way to learn different rotations and different things to do in certain situations is to watch streams or videos and watch how people play and break down what they're doing.

The main build is what I will run when I have t3 eternal auramancy gems (you can run this DW or 2H)

This is 2H build to run if you don't have at least 2 t3 eternal auramancy gems


This is an alternate 2H build for blood frenzy that you must have t3 eternal auramancy gems to do effectively


Here's a DW build to run if you don't have least 2 t3 eternal auramancy gems

**NOTE** everything I list is what I would want, you don't have to get exactly what I say, you can mix and match different weapon types and armors

Imo Divine is the minimum grade you should have on every item, especially for pants

Armor
•Silent shadow cap Melee damage
or
•Dahuta cap For movespeed back stab damage and crit rate
•Silent shadow jerkin Physical defense
•Silent shadow breeches Magic defense
•Silent Shadow fists Melee crit damage
•Silent shadow boots Melee parry rate
•Dark warrior's guards (7 set serp guards)
•Divine Delphinad desert belt With Lucid eternal auramancy lunagems (This is the minimum belt I recommend)

*Fresh start armor*
You can either go with full GHA armor
or you can go with 4 GHA and 3 Greater Palace cellar armor

You can upgrade these pieces to celestial by using abyssal shards and a few other mats you get from running greater dungeons

Cape
•Delphinad Arrowflash Cloak With strength / stamina stats
You can also run the Delphinad flaming arrowflash cloak if you're stacking crit

Costume
Idealy you'll want a costume with any 5 of these stats
•Magic defense
•Physical Defense
•Melee attack
•Melee critical damage
•Melee critical rate
•Backstab melee damage


Shileds
•Obsidian v2 shield(Voidspell) to switch to if you get slept to reduce the meteor cheese combo damage
•Kraken shield
-Shields should only be swapped to if you get slept or knocked down or are about to take a lot of damage, you should always initiate dual wielding or 2 handing

Weapons
Darkrunner can use almost any weapon, there is no best weapon for this class.
End game you can use multiple weapons to adapt to who you're fighting at the time.

2H for big damage
DW for more utility and versatility

For a two hand nodachi is best for ayanad and greatsword is best for obsidian imo but I think dual wield is better over all because of the options you have

-Any of these for a main hand
imo Katana outshines shortspear because of the recent changes but shortspear is still very good
•Moonsong razor (t7)
•Ayanad katana Flame or Gale is good
•Fatesealer (t7) the stam / thwart stack one is best imo but it's still pretty bad
•Earth Shortspear Earth or gale are both good

-Any of these for an off hand
•Dancing Queen This is the best affordable offhand
•Cold Anguish This for crit chance
•Searing Oath This is an alternat option for damage reduction
•Endless Thirst this is the best possible offhand imo if you can get it

-Either of these for a twohand
•Kingsbane The charge distance is better than the overwhelm version imo
•Flame Nodachi For ayanad

*Fresh Start Weapon*
The weapon you'll want to aim for is a mistsong which you can get by upgrading any t1 greater dungeon weapon to a t2 and then upgrading the t2 into an arias autograph to unseal ANY mistsong weapon regardless of the weapon upgraded

*I recommend getting a unique greater dungeon weapon drop and regrading to at least celestial before upgrading to mistsong

-This for a twohand
•Doomshadow nodachi once this is t2 it gains an active effect that increased damage and attack speed but decreases defense slightly

-Either of these for a main hand
•Stealthfang
•Wrathsmite axe *note these are t4 versions* This can be dual wielded with the weapon below for a pretty crazy damage boost to the already insane active effect
•Superior Wrathsmite axe


Accessories
•Rank 13 halcy neck Because of the defense changes this becomes better than lightning neck
•Lightning necklace For defense pen
•Wave Earring For damage reduction
•Gale ring For defense pen
•Flame ring for attack speed
•Flawless Dream Ring

Bow
•Flame bow For melee attack
•Gale bow For crit chance

Instrument
•Anthem of battlerage Along with attack speed training this lute decreases you battlerage cooldowns by 1 second or more, on some skills

Glider
•Sloth Glider For mobility

•If there are multiple options it is up to you to decide which is better for you
•Most Lunafrosts can be bought from the honor vendor and luna gems are bought from the honor vendor or crafted from the handicraft kiln
•Ideally you'll want to full socket lunagems once you get your armor to celestial or higher

Keybinds




•The G buttons correspond to the side and top buttons on my Logitech G700s Mouse
•1-5 are my actual number keys and 6-0 are rebound to my mouse buttons
•I rebound S to back drop because its a good keybind and backpedaling is slow
•I have my CC breaks and on my mouse
•My { and } keys are bound to left and right on my scroll wheel for and scroll up is glider boost and space is sloth back roll
•To back flip straight toward someone you have to jump while holding rightmouse down>middle mouse(viewfront)>

Options

Live stream: twitch.tv/kanyon
Youtube: Kanyonmountain





Example of primeval chase fights
Example of purge baiting

Use this if you don't have t3 eternam auramancy gems


Use this if you do