Curse

Iraqalypse Now · Apr 21, 2006, 04:29 AM // 04:29

a couple points:

first, the 5 hit attack string kind of sucks - if they block one move, the whole combo gets ganked. Lots of small attacks with better recharges are better.

Second, even if ranger/assassin is better than a straight assassin, the assassin primary gets to pick any class as his secondary profession. That means he can go /warrior with 8 tactics for "fear me", he can go /mesmer and bring hex breaker and blackout, and he can go /necro with weaken armor for comboing with the "if hexed" attack skills.

Third, there are some critical strike skills that I can see becoming something that you want to bring. I think the biggest one is Dark Apostasy - that much enchantment control can be seriously ZOMG WIN in a pain train situation, it can make focus fire targets pretty much un-prottable.

Fourth, critical strikes/critical eye/zealous daggers is more than enough for energy managment on an assassin.

Whoever said that you can get kills with 8-9 dagger mastery is kinda retarded, srsly, you want to max out dagger mastery as much as possible.

Also, I think going with Leaping Mantis Sting + Jagged Strike + Wild Strike for your two lead attacks and offhand attack is a really nice setup. Jagged Strike with judicious target switching can make some good pressure situations when the other team is short on condition removal. Also, wild strike is kinda nice for the +damage, as well as the incidental bonus of cancelling an enemy stance. The recharge and energy costs are very low as well, 5en on all three skills, recharges are 8sec for Leaping Mantis Sting, 6sec for Jagged Strike, and 4sec for Wild Strike. That means you can get to the dual attack stage more often, even through block/evade/blind etc. And that means your Twisting Fangs or whatnot is going to land lots more often.

Note that this setup leaves your elite slot open - I built it for when I wanted to run a dark apostasy build, though other options are pretty valid as well. Temple Strike + Blackout is another good option, although less so since you aren't going to have times when all you are doing is waiting for recharges.

Ken Dei · Apr 21, 2006, 05:55 AM // 05:55

"Whoever said that you can get kills with 8-9 dagger mastery is kinda retarded, srsly, you want to max out dagger mastery as much as possible."

I'm not retarded. I was pointing out don't NEED 12 DM to kill people. Of course you want it as high as it can be, but different builds will require different levels of it. I've killed vast amounts of people with 8-9 DM, it's about the skills and how you use them more then the attributes.

Oh and it's spelled "Seriously," I figured you might want to know that since you are so obviously the be all and end all of all things Assassin, Builds, and PvP in general.

/Sarcasm

Now that I'm done insulting the minor amount of stupidity in your post, let's move onto the things I agree with.

-Shorter, fast recharging combos are better, definite agreement there.
-A primaries will have some interesting tricks the R/A can't proform because of secondary choices, also very true.
-Went digging around the skill listing again to investigate Dark Apostasy, since monks/casters will generally be the priority targets for Assassins, you're most likely right that this skill could become a staplemark of Assassin builds.

I see that a lot of builds revolve around simple Dagger Mastery/Shadow Arts skills. I might suggest investigating the red headed stepchild, Deadly Arts. A lot of them seem weird at first but combo them correctly with other skills and they're far better then a straight Dagger Mastery combo.

SparhawkJC · Apr 21, 2006, 08:59 AM // 08:59

Sorry Ken but you do need 12 in your DM to get the full listed damage of your weapon. Having 8 or 9 in it means you're not doing full damage, less chance of critical, and less damage when you do critical. No self respecting melee type is going to run with less than 12 in their weapon att.
You'll never see a Thumper (closest current build similar to R/A) with anything but 12 in hammer mastery. You're already at a disadvantage only being able to put 12 in a seconadry attribute, why would you want to gimp yourself anymore by putting less? The only reason that some rangers can run with 9 in their weapon att is because the majority of their damage is coming from the wilderness survival line.

I'm not going to call you any names or anything, just going to point out that your logic in running less than 12 DM is pretty flawed.

mega_jamie · Apr 21, 2006, 10:54 AM // 10:54

personally I am intending on making a R/A for spiker / trapper and show stepping out of the situation, excelnt lurer, infact probably the one the best lure builds going, since you need expertise to drop so many traps and not short yourself out.

I also intend on making an A/* because assasin looks cool. I will probably make the R/A first, let all the Narutos realise they cant wammo an A/Mo and then think myself a clever A/Mo build and go with that.

At the PvP event I played the generic Assasin / * (was it monk? or something else) build given ,and played pure assasin from it. First random arenas I hit I was faced with a warrior in what looked like FoW armour bearing down on me, honestly being the first time i had ever PvPed I was a bit worried, but even using the generic skills I could take him out, if one good combo didnt work then I just put on the run skill, led the warrior miles from the battle and shadow stepped back, allowing me to either charge him with no monk behind him / near him for support, and finish him off, or turn on a weaker ally of his.

This is why imo a A/* is going to be better, if played right, but I think an R/A will also work very good.

Ken Dei · Apr 21, 2006, 06:15 PM // 18:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparhawkJC

Sorry Ken but you do need 12 in your DM to get the full listed damage of your weapon. Having 8 or 9 in it means you're not doing full damage, less chance of critical, and less damage when you do critical. No self respecting melee type is going to run with less than 12 in their weapon att.
You'll never see a Thumper (closest current build similar to R/A) with anything but 12 in hammer mastery. You're already at a disadvantage only being able to put 12 in a seconadry attribute, why would you want to gimp yourself anymore by putting less? The only reason that some rangers can run with 9 in their weapon att is because the majority of their damage is coming from the wilderness survival line.

I'm not going to call you any names or anything, just going to point out that your logic in running less than 12 DM is pretty flawed.

A.) So, if I have a req. 8 set of daggers, I still don't get the full dmg at 8, that makes no sense at all.

B.) To my knowledge, the rate of criticals is tied to Critical Strikes Attribute.

C.) You can argue the supposed "flawed" nature of my logic all you want. But that's an arguement you'll have to continue with the dead bodies I left strewn across the various battlefeilds.

Because, those bodies are the only proof I need that a "self-respecting melee" can go into battle with less then 12 attribute and do just as well as anyone else.

swordfisher · Apr 21, 2006, 07:06 PM // 19:06

You get the minimum damage from a max weapon at weaponmastery 9. At 12 you get the full damage from a max weapon. Above that, you get bonus damage at a rate of diminishing returns, and additional chance to land a critical strike. 12 weaponmastery gives you a base 16% chance of a crit, 16 weaponmastery gives you about 21%.
So, for example, having Dagger Mastery/Critical Strikes at 16/13 gets you about the same crit% at 15/14, but slightly more damage on your weapon attacks (and a little more damage on your attack skills).

SparhawkJC · Apr 21, 2006, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Ken I'd like to direct you to this link, read it and then understand why running with anything less than 12 on your weapon mastery is just plain silly.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...nics-id674.php

The base rate of critical is determined by your level of weapon mastery. Critical Strikes acts to supplement that base level. You keep on quoting this "stream of bodies" that your 8 weapon mastery was able to cause. Maybe a screenshot for the rest of us peons? Because I mean it's quite easy for me to claim that I soloed EvIL AND WM by myself but no one is going to believe me without proof. What you have isn't proof, it's hearsay. If you're talking about PvE consider this, if Chinese Bots can solo high level parts of the game it's not really that much of an accomplishment.

Ken Dei · Apr 21, 2006, 10:44 PM // 22:44

Thank you for the enlightenment regarding how weapons work. I do wish now that, I had taken screenie during the FPEs. But I didn't, and I won't expect you to take my word because you don't know me well enough.

So, I will be satisfied with my new knowledge of weapons and the fact that regardless I did well with theoretically "sub-par" stats. Thank you for the patience with my stubborn nature.

NatalieD · Apr 22, 2006, 03:42 AM // 03:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken Dei

C.) You can argue the supposed "flawed" nature of my logic all you want. But that's an arguement you'll have to continue with the dead bodies I left strewn across the various battlefeilds.

Which various battlefields, exactly?

LaserLight · Apr 23, 2006, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Quit fighting! Back on topic!

Alright. Primary Assassin beats secondary Assassin at Assassining for the same reason primary Necromancers beat secondary Necromancers at Necromancering. Runes and secondary flexibility. An R/A can't, for instance, use Wild Blow, or Weaken Knees, or Strength of Honor, or any of that cool stuff. A primary Assassin can. And let's face it, R/A don't go R/A for skills they go R/A for Expertise energy cost reduction and that's it. They might use a handful of Expertise moves, sure - perhaps a switch bow and Oath Shot, or the lovely Escape, or maybe even some Wilderness Survival tricks, but that's all they'll be - tricks. In the same way that a Bunny Thumper doesn't replace a normal Warrior, a Fang of Melandru doesn't replace a normal Assassin.

R/A is a class for lazy people who don't like active energy management. It can work, and does, quite well in fact, but the R/A is one character class, one skillbar type. The primary Assassin is dozens of each. Thus, R/A isn't better at Assassining than a primary Assassin, it's just better at R/A-ing.

Iraqalypse Now · Apr 24, 2006, 01:02 AM // 01:02

The ranger/assassin is better at using assassin skills, since it has rediculous energy management.

However, the topic of this thread is the statement that "r/a is better than a/*", and that is what you are getting at - although the r/a might be better at cranking out assassin attack chains, the assassin has more flexibility for using his secondary class and runes to be a better toon.

unholy guardian · Apr 24, 2006, 01:04 AM // 01:04

Lol i wish i didn't make this thread, because i love critical hits attribute now espcially combined with zealous daggars its plenty for energy

warrior secondary will sure help in pve and the stances could help in pvp probably too, espcially the ones that rely on adrenline because as an assassin you gain it so quickly

or like some said a/mo with some smite stuff in there, either way i plan to some caster hate lol espcially try to get those mesmers >_< i really don't like mesmers

NatalieD · Apr 24, 2006, 01:26 AM // 01:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iraqalypse Now

The ranger/assassin is better at using assassin skills, since it has rediculous energy management.

That's nonsense. The improved energy management doesn't make up for the loss of Critical Strikes and 16 Dagger Mastery, at least in most dagger builds. R/A may be able to crank out a few more skills thanks to Expertise, but the skills do so much less than they would for an A/*.

LaserLight · Apr 24, 2006, 01:34 AM // 01:34

Iraqalypse, the point I was getting at is that, no, R/A are not better at using Assassing skills than Assassins. Those big, expensive, unwieldy skill streams are unwise, and you're missing half of your damage output without Critical Strike's massive crit rate boost. The 'rediculous energy management' option Expertise gives is matched by Critical Strikes for an intelligent Assassin player. R/A get cheaper base cost, yes, but they do not get any Energy returns except what a pair of Zealous daggers can do for them. An Assassin primary can easily net four Energy a critical - in fact, it's pretty much the benchmark for the class. if you're not running 13 CS, you better have a damn good reason why. And with 13 CS and the excellent offense booster/energy management non-elite skill Critical Eye to further boost your energy returns, most of the time a skill going critical will actually, net, run cheaper than the same skill under Expertise, and that skill will also deal a pile more damage.

People championing the R/A as a superor character to an A/ are mssng the pont. All they see are the five-skill attack streams and the Bunny Thumper Reborn. Even normal Bunny Thumpers aren't a dominant character class, why would R/A Cuisinarts be a dominant class? Seriously guys, tactical flexibility here. R/A is the long Dagger streams and not that bloody much else.