Curse

Shiva SsBip · Nov 03, 2006, 10:27 PM // 22:27

Please Help! I need a build for Zenmai and I have not yet played an assassin.
I got her some cool 'sin gear I've been carrying around for awhile, but I need help setting her skill bar.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much!

Yanman.be · Nov 04, 2006, 10:44 AM // 10:44

What's Zenmai?

Bale_Shadowscar · Nov 04, 2006, 11:44 AM // 11:44

Assassin Hero.

I'm not sure about a really good build for her. I've not really experimented but apparantley she isn't very good at getting combos done well, so I gave her the Palm Strike Elite (Counts as an offhand attack), and then some dagger attacks such as Twisting Fangs.

Yanman.be · Nov 04, 2006, 11:48 AM // 11:48

Dagger elites? Twisting Fangs isn't elite. I'd go with Flashing blades, or at least make him a bit more resistant...you never know what AI will do. You can always try the signet build few topics down there!

Hyunsai · Nov 04, 2006, 01:00 PM // 13:00

Zenmai uses extremely well this build:

Unsuspecting strike
Wild strike
Critical strike
Distracting blow (Warrior no attribute)
Critical eye
Heart of shadow
Shadow refuge
Rez

Really, no problem, very nice damage output, and uses well the interrupt and self heal...

Yanman.be · Nov 04, 2006, 04:19 PM // 16:19

You could also wiki the assassin henchmen used in Factions, and use that build.

Warlord Martin · Nov 04, 2006, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yanman.be

You could also wiki the assassin henchmen used in Factions, and use that build.

First of all, terrible idea. There's a reason you were never supposed to take the Assassin hench in Factions . . .

Secondly, I can give one of my preferred builds, but I warn you it includes both Factions and Nightfall skills. It is:

Assassin's Promise, Death's Charge, Black Spider Strike, Twisting Fangs, Disrupting Dagger, Siphon Speed, Shadow Refuge, Rebirth.

Dagger Mastery: 10
Deadly Arts: 9
Shadow Arts: 8
Critical Strikes: 9
Protection Prayers: 3

It's fairly straight-forward; I've observed Zenmai and she uses the build correctly. It's designed to deal a massive spike with lots of degen, and no pause between targets. However, it is less effective against creatures with no flesh such as The Drought, Droughtlings, and Djinn. Against those, your poison and bleeding won't work, but they still accept deep wound I believe.

If someone should wish to use the combo on their own sin, the first 4 skills are set in the order you use them. Siphon Speed is used as a cover hex, to prevent kiting, to escape, or should your Assassin's Promise be recharging. Fairly useful as casters will now kite. Disrupting Dagger is intended to prevent any self-healing from your target. Hope that helps.

random.name · Nov 05, 2006, 07:37 AM // 07:37

I have the same problem with Zenmai. My major problem is that I have never played sin, so dont have any skills unlocked. I need to go farm balth faction first to unlock them :/

Glider of chaos · Nov 05, 2006, 08:21 AM // 08:21

Crit Barrager and she will be ok

Shiva SsBip · Nov 05, 2006, 02:16 PM // 14:16

thanks for the ideas guys!
I appreciate your help!

gestalt · Nov 06, 2006, 07:23 PM // 19:23

I started using this last night:

A/D
Scythe mastery 12
Critical strike 15
Earth Prayers 3

[skill=text]Mystic Sweep[/skill]
s[skill=text]Reap Impurities[/skill]
[skill=text]Malicious Strike[/skill]
[skill=text]Way of the Assassin[/skill]
[skill=text]Critical Eye[/skill]
[skill=text]Critical Defenses[/skill]
[skill=text]Sharpen Daggers[/skill]
[skill=text]Mystic Regeneration[/skill]

build has a lot of room for variations, some other possibilites:

take out critical eye or malicious strike as they may be necessary to keep up crit defense and swap in:

[skill=text]Conviction[/skill]
[skill=text]Assassin's Remedy[/skill]
[skill=text]Guiding Hands[/skill]
[skill=text]Harrier's Haste[/skill]
[skill=text]Harrier's Grasp[/skill]

Keep in mind conviction and way of assassin are both stances and may not play nice together.

Also possible to do this with daggers with maybe:

[skill=text]Golden Phoenix Strike[/skill]
[skill=text]Repeating Strike[/skill]
[skill=text]Death Blossom[/skill]
[skill=text]Way of the Assassin[/skill]
[skill=text]Critical Eye[/skill]
[skill=text]Critical Defenses[/skill]
[skill=text]Sharpen Daggers[/skill]
[skill=text]Mystic Regeneration[/skill]

or some other dagger combo, idea is to spam dagger attack with ~65% or 70% crit rate since you should get lotsa energy while maintain about 8 ticks regen and having 75% evade. So either bring a prot monk or make sure you have a few enchants for mystic regen as its great healing.

Not sure if scythe or dagger is better. I have a suspicion they both serve a purpose. But I need to get my assassin char to crossraods to really see the numbers.

This is a very nice high damage aoe condidtion spread with high survivability. All in all pretty nice, not the tank a warrior is but still highly nasty. Good thing is it only require 3 in earth to get good healing. And NPC pure assassin builds do not shadow step well.

gestalt · Nov 10, 2006, 10:31 AM // 10:31

I can confirm that a A/W variation on my above build is capable of tanking the end boss so many people have trouble with in the 2nd to last mission, Gates of Madness.

Build I used:

12 +2 crit strikes = 14
10+2 dagger =12
7+1 shadow arts = 8

+15% enchantment duration daggers

[skill]Unsuspecting Strike[/skill][skill]Wild Strike[/skill][skill]Wild Blow[/skill][skill]Critical Strike[/skill]
[skill]Way of the Assassin[/skill] [skill]Critical Eye[/skill][skill]Critical Defenses[/skill][skill]Way of Perfection[/skill]

I debated switching in or out Assassins Remedy and Sharpen daggers. Attack chain is based on the need for stance knockers and was chosen for recharge times not maximum damage and is spammable due to the roughly 70% crit + 4 energy per crit.

The damage was respectable she took out chunks, but not what I would call the large chunks an assassin can do.

I can confirm this works very well for taking out end guy as a lone tank with rest of party hanging back. Zenmai never went below 50% health, healed up nicely and never ran out of energy. I had her with saboteur's so she had 90 AL total versus slashing.

Not a great tanking build against heavy enchant removal. But a very nice one against stance removal as Way of ass is easy to reapply and crit eye is enough to maintain Crit defense especailly with the two auto crit skills.

I didn't use her as a tank for the rest of mission. Mostly do that as with my dervish Balth+regen+vigor build. She performed quite well one death when I got careless and let a demon group summon clones and she tanked some stuff when I messed up and died to some demons.

Defintely a useful anti melee build for PvE. I really like it as it combines offesne and defense and has nice variation with both straight up damage of bleeding degen.

Scourgey · Nov 10, 2006, 04:23 PM // 16:23

Probably the most useful build for her is Assassin/Necro:

Death Nova, Death Charge, Blood is power.

icedragon981 · Nov 12, 2006, 05:36 PM // 17:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scourgey

Probably the most useful build for her is Assassin/Necro:

Death Nova, Death Charge, Blood is power.

Now, now, give her a little more credit than that!

stueyman2099 · Nov 13, 2006, 10:27 AM // 10:27

my advice: get Koss, Goren, or Melonni instead.

gestalt · Nov 13, 2006, 05:04 PM // 17:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by stueyman2099

my advice: get Koss, Goren, or Melonni instead.

I would only use Melonni if you really awant Mysticism Build otherwise an A/D is what I would use. Mysticism itself is not all that uber and I think Crit strikes probably gives more energy back. Also the assassin insigs make the armor the same or better than dervish.

There is a lot of nice protection stuff in Earth prayers. If you want a dervish Hero Zenami can actually pull off some builds pretty well. Mirage cloak and mystic regen with Crit Strike and scythe attacks is pretty good.

Unless you want to use an Avatar, Mystic Vigor, or some of the holy nukes I would use A/D.