Shades & Wraiths

Shades are hostile spirits and the main prey of the Hunt. Wraiths are their elite cousins: more health, harder hits and better loot. You fight both in your own private Polis runs, and in the waves of an Erebus Tear.

Where to find them

• Private Polis runs. Open /polis, pick an area level and enter. Shades unlock at Fund I, wraiths at Fund IV. See Forgotten Polis Runs.
• Erebus Tears. A tear in the overworld spits waves of shades and wraiths until its Tearkeeper falls.

The old public Polis, where everyone shared one world of shades, is gone.

Melee and ranged packs

Shades spawn in packs of 5 to 10. Each pack fights one way:

• Melee shades and wraiths.
• Archers (Shade Archer, Wraith Archer).
• Mages of one element: Frost, Flame or Storm.

Archers and mages have 60% of a melee one's health. Erebus Tear waves bring archers and mages too.

How tough they are

• Their health and damage scale with the area level of your run (or the tier of the tear).
• Shades and wraiths have no damage reduction. Your damage lands in full, and their health was raised (2.5x at launch) to match.
• Each shade or wraith in reach hits you on its own timer, about once every 1.25 seconds. A big pack hurts more than one shade, so pull carefully.
• Their melee reach is 3 blocks.

What works against them

• Monster Hunter and every other increased damage bonus apply to all sword and axe hits.
• Execute (below 50% health), Judgment, Melee Splash, Electrocution, Maneuver, and Deathbringer and Riposte on wand and bow shots all work on them. Enchant procs leech life off them, and Giant Slayer uses their real max health.
• Defensive armour enchants and offhands work against them: Cactus, Acid Blood, Painkiller, Aether Aegis and others, the PvE damage reduction on the Spectral, Olympian and Skipstone trims, and Shockwave knockback.
• Elemental Mastery reduces the hits from Flame, Frost and Storm projectiles.
• Rift Wound bursts on them, and Skipping Stone skips on to the next enemy after a shade kill.
• The Wraithheart offhand and your Hunter Tree are built for them.

Loot

Shades and wraiths share one loot list that scales with the area level. Preview it from the Polis Loot button in /polis, including the level each drop unlocks at.

• Boss essence is the main drop. Which boss's essence you get depends on the area level. See Area Levels & Boss Essence.
• Enchant Dust and Trim Removers are uncommon extras.
• The Spectral armour trim is the rare chase drop.
• From area level 80, shades also carry the Skipstone armour trim and the rarer Skipstone wand trim. Wraiths don't drop either.
• Wraiths drop the Wraithheart offhand, more often at higher area levels.
• Shades and wraiths can drop the Shade pet.

Every kill pays Hunter XP, and your first kills each day pay extra. See Daily Bonuses.

Other notes

• /shadetop ranks the server's top shade killers.
• Clue scrolls and quests often ask you to kill shades and wraiths.
• Requiem Powder does not clear Erebus Tear shades.

Version history

v4.0.0 (Map 4)

• Shades and wraiths are now fought in private Polis runs with area levels instead of the shared T1 to T8 world.
• New ranged packs: archers and Frost, Flame and Storm mages, with 60% of a melee one's health. Erebus Tear waves bring them too.
• Every shade and wraith hits on its own timer, once per second each, and each hit deals 80% less damage than before. (v4.0.2 slowed them slightly further.)
• Shades and wraiths have 2.5x health and no damage reduction. Their reach is 3 blocks, down from 4.
• Loot is one shared, level-based list you can preview before you go in.
• Monster Hunter and every other increased damage bonus apply to all sword and axe hits on them. Defensive enchants, offhands and trims now work against them.
• Trim Removers are 3x rarer, the Spectral trim about 5x rarer overall, and Enchant Dust drops less often.
• Hunter Points became Hunter XP.
• Requiem Powder no longer clears Erebus Tear shades.

v3.0.0

• The Ancient Roads are gone. The Forgotten Polis is the only alignment zone, and shades no longer spawn on the Roads. /warp roads and its warp entry are gone with it.
• Twice as many shades and wraiths roam the Polis at once, on top of the previous map's increase.
• Shades no longer drop Ancient Energy. Their other drops are correspondingly more common.
• The Spectral armour trim drops over 6x more often from shades and wraiths.
• The Skipstone armour trim drops 5x more often from shades, and the Skipstone wand trim 2x more often, exactly 5x rarer than the armour trim.
• Enchant Erasers have been removed from the game, so they no longer drop here.
• Shades and wraiths were removed from /events, which now lists timed server events only.
• The Wraithheart's Soul Siphon now Leeches as Life over time instead of healing instantly.

v2.0.0

• Shade and wraith tier access now scales with your mining level instead of Hunter rank, and you can pick which tier to farm in /hunter, left-click to raise, right-click to lower.
• Hunt tiers are now aligned to boss progression (Lamia / Echidna / Thanatos / Hephaestus), with Hephaestus tiers now starting at mining Lv 102/103.
• Shades and wraiths now spawn in packs of 5 to 10 spread evenly across the Polis, with a more-than-doubled population, and they chase you down ledges.
• Hunt loot was rebuilt around boss essence + Motes + boss keys (fewer-but-stronger essence at higher tiers), with ~50% more essence overall.
• Added the new Wraithheart offhand (3 tiers, drops from Wraiths), plus Trim Removers and tier-scaled Enchant Erasers; T7/T8 now hit 25% harder.
• Replaced Hunter ranks with the Hunter perk shop, and reduced the Defiler and Wanderer bonus-roll chances.