Best Kim Chul Build Guide – Solo Leveling: ARISE OVERDRIVE

by JFFK · December 5, 2025

Welcome to our Kim Chul Build Guide for Solo Leveling: ARISE OVERDRIVE.

In this guide, we will explain how each one of Kim Chul’s skills work and how best to use them. We will provide more general tips for how to get the most out of Kim Chul.

We will also include a build guide for Kim Chul. While Hunter builds aren’t as widely customisable as Sung Jinwoo, you can still customise your equipment and level up your skills. We’ll walk you through these so you can find the best items and prioritise the best skill upgrades first.

Please note that this guide is currently a work in progress. It will be updated over the course of Arise Overdrive’s early access period and following on from the full launch of the game.

ARISE OVERDRIVE Kim Chul Guide Table of Contents:

Kim Chul Skill Overview – SL Arise Overdrive

Here is an overview of Kim Chul’s skills in Solo Leveling: ARISE OVERDRIVE, and how to use them.

Basic Skills

Vanguard

Chul swings his hammer and shield violently.

This is Kim Chul’s light attack, and it can be activated with left click. You can chain the attack together several times to get different attack animations. The final strike in the chain knocks the target to the ground with a powerful Stagger.

Suppression

Chul strikes the ground with his hammer and flips it. The rising earth throws enemies upward.

This is Chul’s heavy attack – press C to activate it. It staggers enemies in a decently sized AoE. Heavy attacks have a very short cooldown, so you can spam this to cause havoc and send enemies flying around.

Shield Jump

Chul charges in and slams down his hammer from mid-air. A Shield proportional to Kim Chul’s Defense is granted to himself and his allies in the impact area.

Press Q to activate Shield Jump. It does a decent AoE Stagger and generates a damage shield to protect nearby allies.

Fierce Roar

Chul gathers energy into his shield to pull in nearby enemies, then slams the gathered enemies into the ground. He inflicts Provoke on hit targets, causing them to attack him for a short period of time.

Press E to activate Fierce Roar. This staggers enemies and allows you to taunt them, forcing them to attack you. With this skill, you can use Kim Chul as a tank.

Special Skills

Iron Will

Chul gathers energy in his shield, charges forward, pulls in nearby enemies and slams his shield into the ground. Using this skill temporarily decreases nearby enemies’ Attack.

Iron Will is a Support Skill, which means it is only available when Chul is supporting Sung Jinwoo, not when you are playing as him directly. It can be activated when Jinwoo uses Deflect Combo Attack or when there are three or more normal monsters nearby.

Smash

QTE Skill. Chul charges in quickly, and after striking with his shield, he slams downward with his hammer. When he uses this skill, he grants a Shield proportional to his Defense to the entire team for a long period of time.

Chul automatically uses Smash when you switch to him with Left Shift when prompted. Make sure you are in a good position to make the attack connect before making the switch.

Oathbound Shield

Synchro Chain. Chul strikes the ground with his shield, causing the ground to erupt in a forward-flowing wave.

Oathbound Shield is Chul’s Synchro Chain skill. He uses it when you press T (when prompted) to activate your Hunter party’s Synchro Chain; all Hunters in the party will then activate their Synchro Chain at the same time.

Faction of the Shield

Ultimate Skill. Chul creates a circle of shields around himself and protects his allies.

Press R when your ultimate is charged to activate Faction of the Shield. It deals damage and staggers nearby enemies, then creates a Shield Zone that decreases the damage taken by allies and grants them a damage shield proportional to Chul’s Defense stat.

Unique Skills

Dash Combo Attack

When tapping the Basic Attack Button after performing Dash, the user can use Dash Combo Attack.

Back Dash Combo Attack

When tapping the Basic Attack Button after performing Back Dash, the user can use Back Dash Combo Attack.

Deflect Combo Attack

When tapping the Basic Attack Button after performing Deflect, the user can use Deflect Combo Attack.

How to Play Kim Chul

Despite his gargantuan appearance, Kim Chul’s attacks don’t deal very much damage. He fits firmly into a support tank role, with heavy emphasis on staggering enemies and protecting allies.

However, notice that many of Kim Chul’s skills come with additional scaling based on his Defense stat – some of them deal extra damage based on how high his Defense is, and others grant allies a damage shield that is proportional to his Defense stat. This means that you are incentivised to select equipment for Kim Chul that will boost his Defense stat by as much as possible.

Kim Chul’s Overdrive mechanic is quite unusual, because it can also be activated by other members of the party when Kim Chul isn’t being actively played. The overdrive is not activated manually, but is automatically activated when the player (either as Kim Chul or as another member of the party) uses Deflect Combo Attack.

When activated, the Overdrive hits the enemy, decreasing their Attack stat and boosting the duration of the next Stagger effect applied to the same enemy.

Kim Chul’s Overdrive is recharged by 1 slot whenever he or another team member uses Deflect.

Kim Chul Skill Upgrade Priorities – SL Arise Overdrive

As mentioned above, Hunter skills in Solo Leveling: ARISE OVERDRIVE are split up into Basic Skills, Special Skills and Unique Skills. Of these, only Basic and Special Skills can be upgraded. The upgrades are done in groups – for example, you upgrade all Basic Skills at once, rather than upgrading the skills individually.

It is generally more important to upgrade the Basic Skills rather than the Special Skills, because the Basic Skills are used much more often (this group includes your Basic Attack, Heavy Attack and the skills activated by pressing Q or E). So if you have to make a choice between the two, always go for Basic Skills.

In practice, however, it is usually easier to upgrade them in a balanced manner, upgrading both groups to rank 2, then upgrading them both to rank 3, and so forth. This is because each tier is significantly more expensive than the last, so rushing a full set of Basic Skill upgrades usually isn’t possible unless you’ve played through the whole game without doing any upgrades.