Curse

Haggard · Apr 22, 2006, 04:54 PM // 16:54

Ok i think we all know the general opinion is that daggers need some form of energy management, as the energy heavy combos are only partially made up for by critical strikes.
The R/A build with expertise to solve this worked a treat, but i've been thinking of some other, more unorthodox solutions.
Now both of these two ideas aren't primary assassins, but i feel they belong in this section, and hope they will earn a place alongside the R/A.

W/A - Endurance Assassin.

16/14 Strength
12 Dagger
(if you want heal sig or something lower strength a tiny bit for some tactics, but it still needs to stay quite high).

This build is based around the Strength elite, Warriors Endurance. For those unfamiliar with it, as it is currently not very popular or widely used, it gives you 3 energy every time you hit a foe with a melee attack for x number of seconds.

Now I havent fine tuned any exact build templates, but something along these lines should do:

Res
Warriors Endurance [E]
}
} 4 hit assassin combo (non elites with 5 energy for singles and 10 energy
} for dual attacks)
}
Strength Utility 2, or 5th dagger attack (must stack with the other 4
Strength Utility 1

Next build is on post below to break it up.

Haggard · Apr 22, 2006, 05:03 PM // 17:03

E/A - Prodigy Assassin.

12 (+1,+1) or (+1,+3) Energy Storage
12 Dagger Mastery

OR

9 (+1,+1) or (+1,+3) Energy Storage
12 Dagger Mastery
9 (+1 Earth)

Ether Prodigy is used for a large coverage of +10 energy regen, and investing in some Zealous Daggers would also keep levels very high. The fact that you have maxed out or very high Energy Storage also helps in those long battles.

Res
Ether Prodigy [E]
}
} 4 strike dagger combo
}
}

The last 2 depend on whether you followed skill set one or two above.

---------

If you picked the one with some points in earth, use the remaining 2 slots for either:

7. Extra Dagger Attack (must stack with others)
8. Earth Defence skill*
OR
7. Earth Defence skill
8. Earth Defence skill

*Possible Earth Defence skills - Armour of Earth, Magnetic Aura, Ward vs Melee, Ward vs Elements.

--------

If you picked the one with pure energy storage and dagger mastery, go ahead and bring 2 other nice dagger skills.

Myodato · Apr 22, 2006, 06:01 PM // 18:01

1. If the general opinion is that Critical Strikes isn't good enough energy management, you've been speaking to a different general people to me.

2. Warriors Endurance would be pretty much useless for a dagger user as there's a limit to the max energy it can take you to. To use high cost combos you need a good pool of energy as well as a way of getting it back quickly. Once you consider that if you took the same points you have in strength/daggers and put it is CS/daggers, you'll get 3 energy every critical hit all the time, without using an elite, and have a 30%+ critical hit chance, it seems a terrible choice of elite.

3. Ever see melee E/W's ? No, so why do you think a melee based E/A would work ?

suiraCLAW · Apr 22, 2006, 06:26 PM // 18:26

way of the empty palm > all other e-mangement elite's you want. (whe are speaking about assasins)

Elaine Donnerbalken · Apr 22, 2006, 07:36 PM // 19:36

E/W doesn't work because its the job of a warrior to stay at the frontline. Assassins arent there to tank, so its only a question if an E/A can spam enough attack skills to compensate its lower base damage.

But regarding emanagment, the Assassin has enough ways to be fine, in most cases zealous upgrade and a few points in criticals will be enough.

That means if you're not spamming continually skill in an effort to compete with warriors.

Haggard · Apr 22, 2006, 08:19 PM // 20:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Myodato

2. Warriors Endurance would be pretty much useless for a dagger user as there's a limit to the max energy it can take you to. To use high cost combos you need a good pool of energy as well as a way of getting it back quickly.

Warriors Endurance is a way of getting it back quickly.
Oh and you get the advatgae that you can have a warriors armour - definately a plus side if this can actually deal damage.

LaserLight · Apr 23, 2006, 09:37 PM // 21:37

Dude. You play Assassns in the FPE?

Critical Strikes + Critical Eye + Zealous Daggers = all the energy management you'll need. Trust me dude, these things critical like mad. I watched this carefully with my One Woman Bloodstorm, which would Bleed targets whenever I criticaled alongside the Energy spike, making it even easier to spot. I Energy spiked quite a bit, and my targets never stopped Bleeding XP. Nor did I actually run out of Energy unless I tried to abuse Caltrops a bit too much. That skill really needs to be 5e...

Anyways. Neither of these is tremendously good, though you get points for effort. But yeah, as Myodato said, you're speaking to the wrong guys about Critical Strikes not beng good enough

Iraqalypse Now · Apr 24, 2006, 12:50 AM // 00:50

Armor of earth does NOT belong on a meelee character, ever.