Curse

rusticgamer · Mar 07, 2012, 01:48 PM // 13:48

I recently started an A/Mo and at 1st I found it quite enjoyable but now I fell like I am kind of weak, in both dmg and def.

My current BASE stats are :

Critical Strikes : 11
Dagger : 10
Shadow Arts : 5

And my skills are :

Jagged Strike
Fox Fangs
Death Blossom
Way of Perfection
Critical Eye
Shadow Refuge
Orison of Healing
Rebirth

Can anyone tell me how I can improve my def and dmg? Are my skills good, I fell like I don't do as much dmg with the combo like I did with the 1st skills I received : Unsuspecting Strike -> Fox Fangs -> Twisted Fangs. I have all the expansions Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall and EotN, but atm I'm playing factions and haven't reached the point where I can travel to other land. I am lvl 18 but it won't be long until I get 20.

So any tips, builds, advice, criticism is well received.

Also if anyone could include a build where I can have one heal maybe from Mo it would be amazing. Sometimes I find that Shadow Refuge recharges just to slow.

synbios_kun · Mar 07, 2012, 02:34 PM // 14:34

Assuming that you're just starting off without any elite skills, I would suggest that you do away with the heals(though you can keep the rez for the meantime). Let your henchmen do that for you.

floodwig · Mar 07, 2012, 03:25 PM // 15:25

if you want to keep a self heal, i'd suggest something like vigorous spirit, as an assassin this can be a powerful heal with double hits and how much you are attacking. live vicariously also does the same thing, you can even use both of them!

Thenameless Wonder · Mar 07, 2012, 04:54 PM // 16:54

If you want to beef up your health, instead of orison of healing and shadows refuge (which neither one is ever used in a meta or commonly used build simply because there are better alternatives) replace these two with mending (kinda fun but not used for effectiveness), better yet will be vigorous spirit. As an assa you will be attacking twice as fast and landing hits as such so vigorous spirit will work wonders for you. It has a low cast time, low energy and long duration so just pop that on before battles for your heals and leave the rest to your party. Drop rebirth unless you feel unsure about the general well being of your team. Most cases you won't need it if your team set up is good.

Right now your combo is the meta combo, good damage in a short recharge. Until you get some elites and other campaigns, more combos will not be available. Moebis strike + death blossom can chain forever and palm strike can start offhand combos which are usually full of knockdowns

KotCR · Mar 07, 2012, 09:40 PM // 21:40

If you don't have any heroes you can rely on and are still stuck with hench, then I'll second that Vigirous Spirit is a great self-heal to use, when combined with fast Assassin attack speeds. Under no circumstances should you ever really use Orison of Healing, it's just a bad skill, even for Monks in most cases (and it heals almost double with them due to Divine Favour). Shadow Refuge and Vigirous Spirit should be more than enough to keep you up and fighting though.

As for you attack skills, believe it or not, you are actually doing more damage with your current setup. It just doesn't seem like it because you are lacking the Deep Wound from Twisting Fangs (Deep Wound is basically an automatic one-off +100~ damage that makes the target harder to heal also). You must also remember that Death Blossom hits in an AoE, Twisting Fangs doesn't.

But honestly, the best solution you could have would really be to take Death Blossom, and Twisting Fangs, if you want that single-target umph again. You can kick off ending your chain with Twisting Fangs, then for repeat attacks on the same target use Death Blossom, using Twisting Fangs once on each new enemy target, but also to help you out with taking down those occasionally tough and resilient Boss monsters.

rusticgamer · Mar 08, 2012, 09:25 AM // 09:25

Thank you for the tips they really helped. Yes atm I am still stuck with henchman and as for vigorous spirit that is a prophecies skill. Can I take it in factions or do I have to move to tyria (ascalon, lions arch, etc) to get it??

synbios_kun · Mar 08, 2012, 11:05 AM // 11:05

It's in Lion's Arch, yes. Well, you could quest up until you reach Kaineng, then do the quest that allows access to LA, grab the skill and go back to Cantha.

weezl · Mar 10, 2012, 05:00 PM // 17:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by floodwig

if you want to keep a self heal, i'd suggest something like vigorous spirit, as an assassin this can be a powerful heal with double hits and how much you are attacking. live vicariously also does the same thing, you can even use both of them!

I'll also second this.. any class with physical damage and skills which increase attack speed will benefit from vigorous spirit (assuming they don't have inherently better skills in their primary profession...). I've taken an axe warrior into lots of situations with vigorous spirit and seen good benefit from it.

Its always better if you can have heroes tailored to the situation, but if you aren't there yet, vigorous spirit is a great alternative.

Kunder · Mar 10, 2012, 05:14 PM // 17:14

Get to Nightfall ASAP and get Critical Agility. By far one of the most important Assassin skills, both defensively and offensively.

Jagged/Fox Fangs/Death Blossom is by far the best PvE sin combo you can use. To support it, you want IAS from Critical agility. Moebius Strike can also increase DPS by a bit, but its fairly marginal and there are other good Elite options. Further options include going A/E for Conjure Weapon, which adds a good +15 damage per hit if you have the appropriate elemental weapon. Other than those, other characters need to support your damage through things like Splinter Weapon (+50 Damage to ajacent enemies per hit, from channeling rit), and Strength of Honor (+25 damage per hit, from smite monk).

Defensively, healing yourself is generally enormously wasteful. Physicals should simply take damage mitigation skills and let the healers heal. Specifically, Critical Agility (notice how this skill does everything?) will reduce damage by 25-35%. If you need more defense, Critical Defenses will make 75% of enemy attacks miss. These will offer far more protection than any healing you could do.

Vigorous spirit is an OK skill, one of the few I would consider using early on if Critical Agility/Defenses isn't available, but its still 10x better to have a monk with 14 healing use it on you and then protect yourself rather than using it yourself with a weak amount of healing prayers. Get to Nightfall/EotN and pick up some heroes so you can put it on your healer's bar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rusticgamer

Thank you for the tips they really helped. Yes atm I am still stuck with henchman and as for vigorous spirit that is a prophecies skill. Can I take it in factions or do I have to move to tyria (ascalon, lions arch, etc) to get it??

You need to get to Prophecies to buy it, but if you unlock it through other means (PvP faction or another character on the account) you can then give it to your character through using a monk skill tome, which you can easily buy off other players for pennies.

rusticgamer · Mar 10, 2012, 08:51 PM // 20:51

Ok the good news I got Vigorous spirit and I went to EotN and got Vekk and the beardy monk (the dwarf). Now I wish to ask a few questions. I already decided to get both Critical Agility and Defenses and my skill bar seems full. Should I just drop the monk skills and stuff? 2nd I saw that my friends and guildies seem to have a lot of A/Me. Are they any good? Should I change my profession into Me? They seem very usefull in PvE.

Kunder · Mar 10, 2012, 09:29 PM // 21:29

A/Me is just a very specific farming build. Mesmer has literally nothing worthwhile for an assassin otherwise. Unless you count Illusionary Weapon, but its basically a joke build.

Do give Ogden Strength of Honor as I mentioned earlier. +25 damage per hit is pretty insane, especially as Death Blossom gets +50 since it double strikes. You can easily have him with a 15/11/11 split that still uses Vigorous Spirit (possibly even Live Vicariously and Blessed Signet for energy) along with Strength of Honor.

fireflyry · Mar 12, 2012, 02:12 PM // 14:12

Lose the Rez and drop Shadow Arts.

Critical Agility will change the whole way you play.Just roll a A/W dagger spammer build, spam "Save Yourselves!", and steamroll the whole game.

rusticgamer · Mar 14, 2012, 10:08 AM // 10:08

Ok...1st I captured Asasssins Promise...and was dissapointed...while it seems good it's not much of a deal. I almost never run out of energy so I think it's stupid to keep it. However I felt dissatisfied with my dmg so I took more attack skills.

ATM my build looks like this :

Jagged Strike
Palm Strike ( works really REALLY well)
Fox Fangs ( use it with DB)
Twisting Fangs ( with PS for boss or single target)
Death Blossom ( use it with FF for multiple targets)
Way of Perfection (will replace it with I Am The Strongest!)
Shadow Refuge (might replace it with Way of Perfection/the Fox or You Move Like a Dwarf!)
Vigorous Spirit (will replace it with Critical Agility when I get my hands on it)

So what do you say? Am I doing good in replacing those skills? As for Save Yourselves! it seems that my party members get the bonus, do I get it too or just my pt?

**Marty Silverblade** · Mar 15, 2012, 09:20 AM // 09:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by rusticgamer

As for Save Yourselves! it seems that my party members get the bonus, do I get it too or just my pt?

Quote:

Save Yourselves
Shout. For 4...6 seconds, all other party members gain +100 armor.

Keyword bolded. Other = not you. Fyi, this is easily testable yourself in-game.

synbios_kun · Mar 19, 2012, 09:02 AM // 09:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by rusticgamer

Ok...1st I captured Asasssins Promise...and was dissapointed...while it seems good it's not much of a deal. I almost never run out of energy so I think it's stupid to keep it. However I felt dissatisfied with my dmg so I took more attack skills.

ATM my build looks like this :

Jagged Strike
Palm Strike ( works really REALLY well)
Fox Fangs ( use it with DB)
Twisting Fangs ( with PS for boss or single target)
Death Blossom ( use it with FF for multiple targets)
Way of Perfection (will replace it with I Am The Strongest!)
Shadow Refuge (might replace it with Way of Perfection/the Fox or You Move Like a Dwarf!)
Vigorous Spirit (will replace it with Critical Agility when I get my hands on it)

So what do you say? Am I doing good in replacing those skills? As for Save Yourselves! it seems that my party members get the bonus, do I get it too or just my pt?

Assassin's promise is good to recharge long-recharge skills. Often, it's used by other professions for that purpose alone.

fireflyry · Mar 20, 2012, 05:35 AM // 05:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by rusticgamer

Ok...1st I captured Asasssins Promise...and was dissapointed...while it seems good it's not much of a deal. I almost never run out of energy so I think it's stupid to keep it. However I felt dissatisfied with my dmg so I took more attack skills.

As for Save Yourselves! it seems that my party members get the bonus, do I get it too or just my pt?

A promise build is more for the recharge of skills than e-management.If you add a shadow step and a good spike it's pretty much cast AP, shadow step, roll spike, kill, repeat.

Back in it's heyday it was the best build around but you get a lot more hex and enchant removal now so DB spam really surpasses it for overall utility and effectiveness.

As for SY! giving your PuG, henchies or heroes +100 armor equates to them only really needing to heal/support you.It takes any and all pressure off your team and if your rolling heroes all heals, support and prot will be thrown your way.

Try a hero team with it and support skills like Splinter Weapon, Strength of Honor or the like and watch mobs drop.

rusticgamer · May 05, 2012, 09:20 PM // 21:20

Okay after a while I completed my sin build based on experience. The tips were really help ful at first but I didn't find my needs staisfied.

So after a lot of time my build looks like this (looked for some time now lol) :

1. Jagged Strike

2. Palm Strike

3. Fox Fangs

4. Twisted Fangs

5. Death Blossom

6. "You Move Like A Dwarf"

7. Ebon Vanguard Assassin

8. Critical Agility

So my question is.....which dagger upgrades should I get. I am now using Shiro's blades but they can become really REALLY ANNOYING!!!!!

So I want to keep the 30 health on the daggers. But I want to replace the vampiric.

Also the daggers I want the upgrades, inscriptions on are opressor's weapons. Also should I put a dmg inscriptions on them or not?

synbios_kun · May 10, 2012, 03:19 AM // 03:19

Popular PVE upgrade configurations on daggers:

dagger handle - +30 health(of fortitude) or +5 armor(of defense)
dagger tang - zealous(gain energy per attack)
inscriptions - +5 energy("I have the power!")

Cuilan · May 10, 2012, 04:35 AM // 04:35

You sure "I have the power!" is used instead of "Strength and Honor" ?

Wielder Of Magic · May 10, 2012, 01:30 PM // 13:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

You sure "I have the power!" is used instead of "Strength and Honor" ?

strength of honor only boosts your weapons base damage.
daggers have the lowest base damage in the game, all the damage comes from armor ignoring + dmg from skills and buffs.

I'd rather have another 5 energy in the rare case I need it, then 1- 2 points of extra damage per attack that is not noticable.

So I think Synbios is correct.