Fearless leveling build for Umbralist

Probably the greatest challenge for Umbralist is how the game can be quite brutal for melee classes in higher difficulties. At least half of the ability points should pretty much always go for stat that increases health as enemy level scaling has plenty of spikes with enemy attack and spell-power values which can quickly diminish damage reduction from defense and resistances or effectiveness of dodge.
Due to this you should also be looking for better armor, boots, gloves, harness with higher defense and resistance values.

Unique to Umbralist is that the class starts off with Splintering strike which is really good for quickly killing multiple weaker enemies. For survival and other hit and run tactics Umbralist can use Umbra form to not only lose enemy aggro but also turn invulnerable for several seconds which is great for waiting for skills and potions to cooldown.

Umbralist has access to two really good auras Mark of slow and Phantom stance from very early on. Former is arguably the best crowd control skill in the entire game slowing the movement speed of enemies in to a crawl for as long as they're marked by shadow mark(s). The latter will make improve the damage bonus from ambush from 100% to 150% and increasing the duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. What makes ambush very powerful is that unlike many percentage based damage bonuses ambush also affects flat damage bonuses from enchants.

When at Industrial port you should avoid looting the Domovoy corpse as it drops one of the best Umbralist daggers in the game. Items scale to player level in this game so picking up it up at max level (100) will give you the max level version of the item

## Levels 1-20

Start by unlocking Splintering strike, Mark of slow and Umbra form with the listed power-ups. After that you should focus on leveling your main attack skills Splintering strike and Shadow rend. After that You can level up Mark of slow and Umbra form for extra crowd control, survivability and more frequent ambush. At level 19 you can save up the skill-points to have 6 skill-points at level 20 to unlock tier-2 skills for all listed skills.

Gameplan for Umbralist early on is to run to group of enemies and spam Splintering strike until the group is dead or one runs out of mana. Against more dangerous groups one can use Umbra form with Umbral sactuary to get 3 seconds of invulnerability on top of the 100% damage bonus from Ambush. Against bosses you can use Shadow rend with Shadow word power-up to instantly apply 9 shadow marks on them resulting in 90% slow with just level 1 Mark of slow.

The aura Mark of slow reduces enemy movement speed by 10-40% per shadow mark. Both Splintering strike and Shadow rend apply shadow marks to enemies on hit making the effect easy to apply. The aura doesn't however reduce the attack speed so you should still be vary while near enemies as well as be cautious against enemies that can pull you in middle of large groups of enemies.

Since the skill Splintering strike has great Enchantment modifier you should try to find dagger with high weapon damage and also look for rings and amulets with flat damage enchants like +x to fire/ice/lightning/poison damage (element doesn't matter). Umbralist daggers have probably the highest weapon damage in the game so be on the lookout for better weapon every time you visit town or Romany camp after rescuing the shopkeeper.

You should but half of the ability points to Corporeal presence and half to Blade sorcery. Mainly because we need health to survive enemy blows and defence to mitigate the damage as much as possible. Luckily both of these stats also improve damage output by increasing critical damage bonus and melee damage.

**Perks:**

* Veteran hunter
* Ghost whisperer

## Levels 20-40

Tainted dagger and Splintering strike will be our main attack skills going forward. Leveling up Tainted dagger to at least level 5 for the extra distance should be a priority early on. Now when you should level Splintering strike depends on whether you have access to Quintessence and some capacitive essence as it allows us to negate most issues that would come with higher mana usage.
There's no need to hurry as it deals good damage at level 5 so you could wait all the way up to level 35+ to max it out.

Maxing out Phantom stance should be another priority as it greatly increases our damage output giving us total of 5 seconds ambush duration and allowing us to deal 250% more damage which will lead to some silly damage with the critical damage bonus from Corporeal balance and enchantments. Trail of darkness is great 3 point wonder that allows us to trigger ambush bonus more often and apply up to 30% vulnerability to enemies with the Cursed trail power-up leading to even more damage. While the damage from poison trail isn't bad the only real reason for leveling it to level 5 is to access Shadow jolt at level 40.

The Mark of vulnerability aura may seem weak at first but at level 5 it'll apply 2.7% vulnerability per shadow mark meaning 27% more damage against enemies with 10 shadow marks. Combine this with vulnerability from Trail of darkness cursed trail power-up, Katarinas Curse blast and ambush bonus to melt away enemies with a lot of health.

Gameplan here is to use Umbra form or Trail of darkness to get ambush bonus and deal as much damage during those 3-5 seconds as possible using Splintering strike and Tainted dagger. Pop up Shadow shackles for some extra damage, shadow marks and slow when near enemies.

Be on the lookout for items that provide you with more DPS and Protection as weapon damage scales really well for Umbralist. You can also jump between Secret lair and Markovna shops to look for better items and Quintessence. Keep bumping Corporeal presence and Blade sorcery for damage, health and defense.

**Perks:**

* Veteran hunter
* Ghost whisperer
* Scholarly ghost
* Gunslinger
* Alchemist

## Levels 40-60

There's no need to do any respecing here as we will focus on leveling Shadow jolt as it has great synergy with Splintering strike and all our auras. With the Shadow touch power-up we can instantly mark large groups of energies with up to 9 shadow marks. In addition Shadow jolt will also freeze these enemies giving us time to quickly dispose the frozen enemies using Splintering strike and get all the spent rage back. Shadow jolt has great masteries that decrease the cooldown and increase the area of effect distance making it great to level up to 7 with these masteries asap. To get most out of the Shadow jolt we will also level up the Mark of vulnerability aura that will give 4% vulnerability per shadow mark which will extend to nearby enemies. Mark of slow is already really powerful at level 5 so it can wait until much later.

After those we will unlock and level up Wraith strike which will allow us to deal heavy damage to single targets. However the greatest reason to get Wraith strike is the fact that it'll allow us to re-enter cloaked form on kill allowing us reset the ambush duration. We will ignore the masteries for now as skill level is far more important with Wraith strike.

Gameplan is to pop Shadow jolt with Shadow touch power-up if you have the rage, run close to group of enemies and start hammering Splintering strike. When Shadow jolt is on cooldown you can use Trail of darkness or Umra form skills to trigger ambush bonus. When things get dangerous you can enter cloaked form to escape and hold ctrl to avoid attacking any enemies. Once you have Wraith strike you can use it to kill monster with low health to re-enter cloaked form.

Keep updating items like in 20-40 and try to have enough defense and resistances to migitate more than 50% of the damage. Keep adding points to Corporeal presence and half to Blade sorcery for more health and defense. Don't forget to upgrade amulets, rings and belts for resistances, all attributes etc.