Curse

martian tristar · Jul 09, 2006, 12:49 PM // 12:49

The what? yeah flourish assasin. What makes assasins hard to play, usually because you have to wait all the time for your skills to recharge so you can get your chain in.

However unlike warriors assasins dont need elites to kick ass =) So I build a PvP arena knockdown assasin, tried it out, find tuned the synergy and now I feel its close to perfect.

A/Wa

dagger mastery 16
Critical strikes 11
Deadly arts 9

+8 energy armor

daggers +15% dmg while health above, zealous + health mod
daggers +5 energy, zealous + health mod

Skills setup:

Mark of instability: For 20 seconds, the next time you hit target foe with a dual attack skill, that foe is knocked down.

Black lotus strike: Must strike a Hexed foe. If it hits, Black Lotus Strike strikes for +10-27 damage and you gain 5-17 Energy

Twisting fangs: Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Twisting Fangs strikes for +10-18 damage and struck foe suffers from Bleeding and Deep Wound for 5-17 seconds.

Scorpion wire: For 8-18 seconds, the next time you and target foe are more than 100' apart, you teleport to that foe and that foe is knocked down. This spell has half the normal range.

Falling spider: Must strike a knocked-down foe. If it hits, Falling Spider strikes for +15-31 damage and target foe is Poisoned for 5-17 seconds.

Horns of the ox: Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Horns of the Ox strikes for +15-27 damage. If struck foe is not adjacent to any allies, that foe is knocked down.

Flourish: All of your attack skills become recharged. You gain 1 energy for each skill recharged.

res signet

The weakness of assasins lies in that when an attack misses, your chain is interupted and you have to wait until your skills recharge. No longer this is necessary. You push flourish and TaaTaaaaa all your skills are recharged, and flourish recharges 8 seconds later well in time for your next attack.

Now the skill setup, as one can see no recall etc. making this assasin build slightly less strong on the defensive sight. However, offensive this guy is great. How is this skill setup meant to be played? I tried to get as much synergy of the skills as possible, offering maximum flexibility. Several chains are possible, and they have been made as independend to eachother as possible.

First the main chain attack:
Mark of instability, very rapid cast time allowing you to jump right in. Use black lotus strike, which is an off hand attack. This attack when hits, put back your energy (almost) to its maximum and skips the lead attack. After black lotus, hit with Twisting fangs (dual attack), which gives +17 dmg, deep wound + bleeding + knock down (->MoI). While your target is sitting on the ground follow up with falling spider, which is an off hand attack, again skipping your lead. This poisons your target and adds 36 dmg. As your foe is getting up you finish of with the dual attack horns of the ox, which does +31 dmg and again knocks your target down and leaves him sitting on the groun with poison + bleeding for another couple of seconds.

This is usually enough to kill anything even warriors with 100 armor. If the chain is interupted somehow, run away use flourish get back in. The problem is flourish recharges your attack skills but not your hexes. So we need to bring two hexes enabling us to place attacks at regular intervals. The second hex is scorpion wire,
which brings us to the second possible attack chain:

First we cast scorpion wire. You run in use black lotus, twisting fangs and then get out quickly, run to safety. Possibly with some warriors chasing you. Just when they are about to catch up you reach 100' mark (aproximatelly 1.5 agro buble radius) and you teleport to your target putting him on his ass. Quickly follow up with falling spider and horns of the ox which puts him down once more.

3rd short attack chain,
cast scorpion wire, run away to safety. Teleport kicks in, falling spider + horns of the ox.

The nice thing about this build is you can fail, without having to wait a long time for the recharge. You miss, flourish, setup the same attack chain again. Usually the hex is still on the guy. Scorpion wire is a nice trick to catch those running guys. Energy is no or little problem with this build. Where flourish sucks for wars, it rocks for assasins.

Basically, one can build all kinds of flourish assasins, I just happened to chose a knockdown build.

edit: Played this assassin in HA (yeah we had a build with an assassin and it worked). I did modify the build a bit. Scorpion wire takes to lang to cast and is removed before you can get out of range for the skill to kick in, so I changed the skill to mark of death. Also enables you to use it at the same time as mark of instability to increase the pressure (deep wound + mark of death reduce healing significantly).

Loki Seiguro · Jul 09, 2006, 01:01 PM // 13:01

awsome man. this build is now what i will use for my sin

the build that i use for my sin is A/N which im sure you know what the necro side is for. but the only problem i have is energy management.

- btw what are the healing skills in your build. i didnt see any so i was wondering if it is like a pvp only kinda build or pvp/e build

martian tristar · Jul 09, 2006, 01:13 PM // 13:13

I tested this only in PvP, Ra/Ta arena's. In this particular setup I dont use any healing skills. Basically you select your target, wait for the apropriate moment, go in and kill. Once they are in the chain, the knockdown prevents them for doing anything and only outside healing/prevention can safe them.

One could use a more defensive build by for example substituting falling spider and horns of the ox with some heal spells and remove scorpion wire and replace it with another hex. That saves up a whole atribute three for flexibility.

I do recommend to put dagger mastery at 16 though, to get the attack speed bonus.

Yanman.be · Jul 09, 2006, 02:39 PM // 14:39

Looks alot like the Yanssassin, only I swapped Flourish and Moebius Strike. I prefer Moebius Strike because it allows you to chain more.. dual > off hand > dual.

Pretty solid.

Celab · Jul 09, 2006, 06:27 PM // 18:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yanman.be

Looks alot like the Yanssassin, only I swapped Flourish and Moebius Strike. I prefer Moebius Strike because it allows you to chain more.. dual > off hand > dual.

Pretty solid.

but with yanssassin you dont need to stop temporarely to use flourish.

I never realy liked scorpian wire, mainly because i dont know how far 100' is ingame.

dargon · Jul 09, 2006, 11:01 PM // 23:01

And with Moebius if you goof it and use it before he's below 50%, well you just wasted it

martian tristar · Jul 09, 2006, 11:28 PM // 23:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celab

but with yanssassin you dont need to stop temporarely to use flourish.

I never realy liked scorpian wire, mainly because i dont know how far 100' is ingame.

I dont know the yanssassin

Yeah, moebis is extremelly conditional though. Target dies too early, you wait a long time. Chain gets interupted, you wait a long time. Target gets healed above 50 % you wait a long time. You need to get so many hits in before you can even use moebis.

To 'stop' using a 1 second flourish is a good thing, assasins dont tank. I dont know why you think you need a chain longer than the current chain. Once you got that chain in your target should be dead or you should be out. Flourish >>> Moebis strike.

Scorpion wire, 100' = 1.5 agro buble radius. Again a very safe skill. It allows you to get in and get out and get in again. But if you really dont like this skills put in another hex. Like I said its a flourish assasin, you can put in all kinds of skills.

Yanman.be · Jul 10, 2006, 09:18 AM // 09:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by dargon

And with Moebius if you goof it and use it before he's below 50%, well you just wasted it

You can still hit him and let it count as an offhand attack, wait a bit and there will be a dual attack recharged.

Celab · Jul 10, 2006, 04:23 PM // 16:23

horns of the ox, which is 8 seconds, you can then use falling spider, twisting fangs would have recharged by then, so youcan use that. moebius recharges 3 seconds later. So you can get 3 (not including double strikes) hits in, then moebiusing for recharge.

Yanman.be · Jul 10, 2006, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Sounds like Celab is backing up my Yanssassin huh.

Legendary Battousai · Jul 10, 2006, 06:44 PM // 18:44

build would work well in coordination with a necro (possibly team arena) where hexes would be easily found. One suggestion is to take out Scorpion wire because it allows someone with it on them to drag you into aoe, traps or just to their backline where it might be difficult to get away. Other than that, the build would work just fine.

Celab · Jul 10, 2006, 07:14 PM // 19:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yanman.be

Sounds like Celab is backing up my Yanssassin huh.

Kind of, but its still flawed.

You need 6 skills to do the ganking. 1 is a rez, and 1's a what? Wild strike? no heal, shadow refuge, no condition removal or stance removal, theres nothing in RA which will fit unless you take out rez

why you need a very good monk with AoD constantly on you. AoD = aura of devotion.

Plus today its gotten me 5k faction and another glad point.

Batou of Nine · Jul 10, 2006, 09:59 PM // 21:59

i have actually been tinkering with a flourish build for a while myself and the OP's build is close to what i use. I cant stand Moebius because it is incredibly conditional, and whats worse, it has to hit the target to work. So to add to the list of limits to Moebius, target has to be under 50% hp, if your combo kills the target before you can use Moebius, AND since it is a "on-hit" skill, a combo is plenty of time for some1 to react with a blocking/evading stance or spell, or for yourself to get blinded....

Its just way too limiting for me... Flourish is much more versatile as with the energy return, and i have been having fun with several different Assasin/Flourish builds in Alliance Battles...

Just my 2.

Kyle · Jul 11, 2006, 02:19 AM // 02:19

nice idea. I would love to try it but it will be some time before my assasin can cap flourish

Ruhern · Jul 11, 2006, 06:39 AM // 06:39

Nice build, but seriously, this CANNOT kill 100AL in one string. Unless they have many Superior runes. But the average 100AL will not die from this combo alone.

Nonetheless, nice build. I have a similar (and stronger KD build, which is why I know this one cannot kill a 100AL in one string without assistance from others) but it lacks the mobility of this build. Good job.

martian tristar · Jul 11, 2006, 08:24 AM // 08:24

First of all I really dont want to make this a flourish sin >> yansassin thread. Firstly thats childish, secondly I dont still dont know the build (sorry still didnt read it, I will soon) besides its similar to mine and uses moebis, thirdly my build plays completelly different than a moebis assassin, so I dont see the point in comparing in that fashion. If there is any discussion here it is about moebish vs. flourish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celab

horns of the ox, which is 8 seconds, you can then use falling spider, twisting fangs would have recharged by then, so youcan use that. moebius recharges 3 seconds later. So you can get 3 (not including double strikes) hits in, then moebiusing for recharge.

So there you allready made my point your self, you COULD do this and than this and then this and then this and then finaly this and then this, then kick in a this and IF all goes well you end up with all your skills recharged. Yup in that respect, IF your target would just stand there doing nothing this would be a way superior chain, however, this is in no way going to happen.

Target can die during your chain
moebis or ANY skill can miss (evade/block)
knockdown can be prevented
Moebis recharge all skills is conditional, you need your target to be below 50%
and... your energy can run out or be denied.

considering hex:
scorpion wire, you dont have to use it, I first used impale but the synergy with fallen spider/ox is better with scorpion wire. I like it, you can do whatever you want however. In general a target will not have the time or choice to lure you into any trap or AoE since I decide when I pass that 1.5 agro buble radius. You can actually decide not to do this. I can imagine though people find scorpion wire a bit hard to play.

Considering the 100 armor: I tested it on the island of the unnamed, the armor dies 1 or 2 seconds after the attack is done if I recall correctly. You have to consider the fact that bleeding and poison keep doing their work. Further more remember that a fully tanked warrior has more than 100 armor as in atleast 116. And like I said it usually enough to kill of a warrior, as I did many times, not always =) But if you want I can rectify this statement :P

Thanks for the replies

Celab · Jul 11, 2006, 04:40 PM // 16:40

Point taken, and with moebius it has become annoying at times to kill someone (mostly casters, monks) before the chain. Ill try the flourishe when i get 3k faction, should take too long.

But a disadvantage of florishe is that it takes 1 second to stand still and cast. In this one second your oppoment could have ran away and you being unable to catch them unless you use scorpion wire, if its rechareged. You could use scorpion wire then flourishe...

But with moebius, that strike can be the strike which kills them, allowing you to decide upon a new target.

A fun thing to do when your being chased is to use scropion wire on someone, then death charge to someone else. should auto take you back, knock them down and then falling spider combo

Xx Invictus xX · Jul 11, 2006, 04:45 PM // 16:45

I love this build lol

I find scorpion wire hard so i swapped out that for siphon speed then i use flourish Black lotus strike and twisting fangs again. By then instability is usually recharged to start over. that way can flourish then siphon speed and catch up to them. oh i took out horns of ox and use blades of steel.

great job on this idea. and if warriors dont get healed they are dead lol.

Thanks martian

EDIT:

with scorpion wire i would run away usually press "r" to auto run then as i got teleported back id continue running away from foe... maybe that is my problem... lol

Rancour · Jul 12, 2006, 09:58 AM // 09:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celab

But a disadvantage of florishe is that it takes 1 second to stand still and cast. In this one second your oppoment could have ran away and you being unable to catch them unless you use scorpion wire, if its rechareged. You could use scorpion wire then flourishe...

True, it takes 1 second to cast but then again, your opponent won't be expecting you to use Flourish in the midst of battle.

Celab · Jul 12, 2006, 02:20 PM // 14:20

plus it doesnt count as a off hand attack, so you cant use horns of the ox or twisting fangs.