Curse

Miyamato · Jun 01, 2006, 08:01 PM // 20:01

K well here is a build i thought of, its ok, the main prob is recharge time. So i am throwing it out there so ppl can play around and make it better.
Here it is:

Jagged Strike or Desperate Strike
Entangling Asp
Seeping Wound
Black Lotus Strike
Twisting Fang
Shadow Refuge
Enduring Toxin or Recall or a running skill
Rez

Because of the upcoming update, i want to get more varied builds out there.

Cryptic Quote · Jun 01, 2006, 11:01 PM // 23:01

This is just somthing i have noticed, don't take offense to this personally, but I have noticed quite a few Assassin's out there who make no effort to incorperate there secondary class skills at all in their builds. The objective is drop them quick and get out, and the base class skills all point you in that direction, but the effectiveness of the assassin in my opinion truly lies w/in your secondary class. That class should define what you are gonna do with that assassin, with a monk secondary focus on adding in smiting damage, bathazaars would be extremly nasty on an assassin cuse when they run you can keep blinking right up next to them... HOLY OWE :-D or you could focus entirly on making your assassins never die... If you go warrior, bring a secondary weapon, and put it to use by switching weapons for an extra effect, or even become a stance tank assassin (which would be nasty!) Necros, mark of pain + Double strike plus lotus blossom = monks crapping themselves... OR for that all so common, my assassin takes too much damage, u can heal yourself AND deal damage at the same time, and never take pressure of your foe. SOOO many options and builds are available, i think thats part of where so many assassins truly fail, is in the utilitzation of their secondary.. Give it some thoughts guys :-D

Yobz · Jun 01, 2006, 11:13 PM // 23:13

Bit off topic of OP but in response to Cryptic Quote...

I think one of the main problems with assassins is the number of skill slots taken up by attack skills. This is mainly due to chaining attacks. You need a lead to start your offhand to lead to a double strike. Three slots taken up so far, but if any of those has too long a recharge time, you may need to double up on one of them ie take a second lead attack. Mix in on shadow stepping skill, res signet, possible sig of capture. It doesn't leave a whole lot for a secondary profession.

However, not all assassins need to use daggers and associated attacks.

Minion masters have changed this way since the nerf, and are mainly just pure necro builds now.

DieInBasra · Jun 01, 2006, 11:30 PM // 23:30

Seeping wound is a pretty bad elite, vunerable to both condition and hex removal, as well as being a relativly small amount of degen, since it caps at 10 and you have 7. If you want assassin degen just take jagged strike as your lead or use high critical and sharpen daggers and take apply poison. That's 7 easy degen. Take Seeping Wound if you really feel the need to, but AoD is a pretty big part of the reason Assassins are good.

Bloodied Blade · Jun 02, 2006, 02:41 AM // 02:41

...I never felt that condition spamming was really for PvP. I always feel that any pvp degen other than hex spam is too easy to counter (Mend Condition anyone?).

Good Luck with this but I don't see it getting much mileage without an external source of true damage or a shadow stepping skill.

@DieInBasra: If you're gonna use apply poison on an assassin, use R/A because the energy cost for apply poison is insanely high...

EDIT:

@Cryptic Quote: Some assassins are already making good use of their secondary (myself included), but you may want to look at *why* all assassin skills are used: Balthazar's Aura can't crit and costs 25e, a hefty cost for an assassin whose max possible energy is ~37 (+5 daggers with shrouded). Mark of Pain causes AoE scatter in PvE and most importantly *it does not damage the target you cast it on* (that would own if it did...MoP, dual shot spam/flurry). I would think that an interesting secondary to experiment with would be monk or mesmer... several things come to mind- CoP, Healing Hands, Mark of Protection, Fragility, million degen hexes, interrupts... On top of the hefty choice among secondary skills, the assassin must take into account that they generally need 3-4 skills just for attacking, Shadow Refuge (healing, can be swapped for secondary skill), a Rez signet, and 1-2 shadow stepping skills. That's already 6-8 skills. AoD can be used so that there is room for a secondary skill, and a 3 hit combo can be used. That leaves room for only 2 skills from the secondary, one of them usually being condition removal...

Case in point: If the assassin has **room** for another skill, there is only usually room for 1-2 skills anyway, and many of the skills that the assassin can choose from are either unfavorable when conbined with melee or cost too much energy to be viable.

DieInBasra · Jun 02, 2006, 09:06 PM // 21:06

Quote:

...I never felt that condition spamming was really for PvP. I always feel that any pvp degen other than hex spam is too easy to counter (Mend Condition anyone?).

Well, condition spamming one person is kinda useless, yeah, but once you get 4+ people at 7 degen, it starts to hurt. And if it's removed, well, you're spamming it, so it's going to go back on.

Quote:

If you're gonna use apply poison on an assassin, use R/A because the energy cost for apply poison is insanely high...

Depends on the build, really. If you have high crits and crit eye, then things might be differant. 15e/24 seconds is about half your natural regen, yeah, but there's alot of ways to get energy back.

Let's say AoD, Jagged, Golden Lotus, Twisting, Apply, Refuge, Critical Eye and ressig. Degen spam and has the ability to spike with your party every 15 seconds, not bad. Still has the mobility of a AoD-Horns/Twisting sin, if not the direct soloing damage and surviablity, and adds something differant to your group.