Fatal Claw Engraved Skills
Charge by hitting. Named skills only — no fake tier list.
Engraved Skills are the Imprint School’s gift and the infected world’s theft: absorb a magical skill, then fire it when the bar is honest. The charge rule the community and the combat design agree on is simple — hitting fills the skill. That is why Irbes phase-two copies are a mana engine and why punching air during Ortrinde is how you die with a full heal and an empty spender.
This page names skills that patches actually mentioned. It will not catalogue Stone Shatter or Fatal Strike. For charms that change how you play while the bar fills, see Cabitz Builds. For the mutations that get you into range, see Mutated Abilities.
Charge, spend, do not invent cooldowns
Public notes do not give a universal cooldown table. What they do give is a duration rewrite for one famous skill and a handful of bug fixes that reveal how skills interact with Blink and air currents. Play the loop:
- Create contact with claw, Lyani’s Claws, or adds.
- Watch the Engraved Skill become available.
- Spend it on a real body (or a clump), not on a vanished Enma afterimage.
- Repeat. Empty bars are a play error, not a gear score.
Boundless Focus is a Cabitz, not an Engraved Skill, but it lives in the same mana conversation: aerial wall hits were not supposed to refill you.
Snaga’s Lightning Chain
Snaga’s Lightning Chain is the best-documented Engraved Skill in the entire Early Access paper trail.
Duration patch (1st Expansion): base duration 3 seconds with +1 second per target became base 1 second with +1.5 seconds per target. Translation: the first zap is shorter; extra bodies in the chain pay you more time. Clumps (Irbes copies, packed canyon infected, Kannir swarms) are where the new formula sings. Single-target bosses pay less duration unless you have extra victims.
Blink patch: you could use the chain consecutively on a monster after Blink. That was fixed. Do not plan a Blink-reset infinite on one elite. Blink to live, then earn the next chain with hits like everyone else.
Use Lightning Chain as crowd glue and as a boss extra when adds spawn. It is not a published kilovolt number. If a room has one tanky named enemy and no extras, expect a short window and get back to clawing.
Reien’s Covenant
The 1st Expansion added a new wolf-related Engraved Skill: Reien’s Covenant. That is the entire official mechanical paragraph. Flavour says Sorr, Higasha, Enma, Sorron. Practical use: have it charged before Tenshukaku if you can, spend it on the wolf that still deals contact damage, and do not assume a hidden racial bonus this wiki invented. If you never found it, Enma is still beatable with Blink and patience — the covenant is a named option, not a gate.
Black Canyon’s Imprint School is the broader reason wolf and lightning skills can coexist on one cat. Trial of the Imprinter is a Steam achievement in that storyline. Skills and trial are cousins; complete both when the Carox asks.
Extermination Protocol
Extermination Protocol is real. A patch fixed using it inside an air current so Kisha would not keep sliding on the wind. Practical rule: do not treat Protocol plus quarry updraft as a movement tech. Fire it as a combat spender on a target you can still see. If you are in Strigine winds, get feet or a wall first.
We have no official damage type, radius, or cooldown to print. If the in-game description says otherwise, trust the pause menu over this sentence.
Inherited Skills and other named verbs
Steam wants you to acquire an Inherited Skill. Journals, Codex entries, and Iedart’s Aisare research sit beside combat skills without being spenders. Do not dump every toast into this page. If the game labels something Engraved, it belongs here. If it labels something Inherited, learn that tutorial when it appears.
Boss-shaped advice without fake loadouts
- Irbes: clump copies, chain Lightning, refill, repeat. This is the teaching fight for the whole system.
- Ortrinde: hits are scarce if blades control space. Blink to create a claw window, then spend. Empty Lightning Chain during a blade storm is a common wipe.
- Canyon / Imprint rooms: extras exist so you can chain. Pull packed, not one-by-one, unless the elite one-shots you.
- Enma: Covenant if you have it; otherwise any charged skill on the real wolf. Illusion is a spend-whiff machine.
- Kannir / marsh: toxicity fights the clock. Spend on the boss, not on scenery. Silver Chain is a mutation-side tool; it does not replace an Engraved bar.
For full arena notes, use How to Beat Early Bosses and How to Beat Late Bosses. For where the Imprint School physically sits, use Black Canyon on All Areas.
If a skill in your menu is not on this page, keep it. The catalogue is incomplete on purpose. Name, charge-from-hits, and the three documented skills are the honest core; the rest is for your Codex and your save file, not for a fan-made DPS tier list.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common questions.
How do I charge Engraved Skills?
By hitting enemies. Clumped targets (Irbes copies, packed rooms) fill the bar faster in practice. There is no public hit-count table.
What changed on Snaga's Lightning Chain?
Duration went from 3 seconds base plus 1 second per target to 1 second base plus 1.5 seconds per target. A later patch stopped recasting it on the same monster immediately after Blink.
Is Reien's Covenant required for Enma?
No. It is a wolf-themed skill added in the 1st Expansion. Useful in Higasha, not a published DPS gate.
Can I socket two copies of one skill?
Official notes do not describe duplicate sockets. Cabitz hold charms; Engraved Skills are a separate menu. Follow the in-game UI instead of an invented cap.
Does Extermination Protocol launch me on winds?
Not anymore. Using it in an air current used to keep you moving with the flow; that was fixed. Treat it as a combat skill.
Where do Engraved Skills come from?
The store page says you absorb them in the underground. Black Canyon's Imprint School is the lore home. Specific drop tables were not published.