Curse

The Fox · Apr 24, 2006, 02:19 PM // 14:19

My first build post ever.

Basically, I wanted to use death blossom a lot in PVE. What do you all think? Suggestions would be appreciated. After some changes this is more energy intensive. Hey, if you're not using it then it's going to waste! They all cost 5 energy each and have fast recharges.

Stats - 8 critical strike, 15 dagger mastery, 11 shadow arts, 4 tactics

1.) Golden Lotus Strike - If it hits, this attack strikes for +20 damage. If it hits a target that has no Enchantments, you gain 10 Energy. (lead)
2.) Golden Phoenix - If you are not enchanted, this skill fails. If it hits, Golden Phoenix Strike deals +30 damage. (offhand)
3.) Death Blossem - Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Death Blossom strikes target foe for +25 damage and all adjacent foes take 25 damage. (duel)
4.) Mobius Strike - Must follow a Dual Attack. If it hits, Moebius Strike strikes for +35 damage. If you strike a foe whose Health is around 50%, all your other attack skills are recharged. (offhand)
5.) Distracting Blow - Swipe your weapon at the target, dealing no damage but disrupting the target's current action (and the actions of foes adjacent to your target).
6.) Way of Perfection - For 28 seconds, whenever you successfully make a critical hit you gain 28 Health. (enchantment)
7.) Shadow Refuge - For 4 seconds, you take half damage. When Shadow Refuge ends, you are healed for 96. (enchantment)
8.) Watch Yourself - Party members near you gain +20 armor for 7seconds.

Strategy - Bypass lead attacks to get to the duel attacks faster. If way of perfection is stripped one can easily pop up shadow refuge long enough to get a strike with golden phoenix.

EDITED: I changed some stuff.

I would like comments on the health management, energy management (w/zealous daggers assumed), the damage, and the overall effeciency of the build. Does this look like a viable build that would help the team in general? Hopefully, it can tank to a degree and help other tanks, while doing decent AOE damage and getting in some interupts.

SparhawkJC · Apr 24, 2006, 04:37 PM // 16:37

Switch out Golden Lotus strike for something else. Since you're going warrior secondary bring Wild Blow. Leave the interrupting to mesmers and rangers and switch distracting blow for a teleport. If you're going to put that many points into shadow arts you might as well use it for something more than an enchant and a self heal. Death's charge/heart of shadow for some more health and increased mobility.

Do you really need to put 4 into tactics just for Watch Yourself? Take those 10 atts and buff up something else, bring rush for an 8 second speed increase that recharges in a couple hits.

The Fox · Apr 24, 2006, 04:49 PM // 16:49

I'd be inclined to say your post had a pvp mindset.

I like those suggestions! Thank you for the feedback. I think they'd be great if taking this to the arena or some other pvp.

1.) The attributes points in tactics were just leftovers.

2.) Golden Lotus was for more energy to use distraction blow more often. When you consider their use with Mobius Stike, the energy gain could be significant due to the faster recharge.

3.) Although Wild blow will help against stances and will provide more critical hits which give 2 energy and 28 heath, I'm not sure if it's worth losing distracting blow. Not every PUG has a mesmer. LOL Do those things actually exist in PVE? hehehe j/k.

Consider having say 7 trolls beating on someone and using distracting blow. If they were hitting for 15 damage a swing then one would have just prevented 105 damage. Taking down the healers in PVE is probably the most critical elements of pve, which also makes me want to keep distracting blow.

4.) I like the sound of rush. However, an assassin's armor isn't that great and watch yourself could be spammed for the whole team. For PvE, once a big group is engaged there isn't much need to move around, since they don't run away.

LaserLight · Apr 24, 2006, 04:50 PM // 16:50

Actually...not bad. Though if you're bypassing lead attacks, why do you have one?

Golden Phoenix seems to be the top choice for slapping people with dual attacks free of leaders, though I still like Black Lotus myself. Admittedly, here your Dagger is twice as high as your Critical so Black Lotus would end up kinda sucking. Still, Golden Phoenix works as well and is a bit easier to pull off.

Moebius Strike is cool for the dual-Moeb-dual chain bit, and the recharge attempt explains Golden Lotus, but if you're smacking things like Kappas or Wallows, you're not going to get the recharge first series. Still, looks workable.

It's the support crowd I want to talk about here. At 8 CS and without Critical Eye, you're snaring only half the Energy your critical engine puts out, and it's not critting enough to be completely reliable. The mass Zealousness from DB helps, but only in crowds, and having fought a great many of them in the FPE, I can say with surety that Assassins Don't Like Crowds. Way of Perfection will help a ton, but only if your criticals are flying like raindrops in a storm. I say dump either Distracting Blow or "Watch Yourself!" for Critical Eye, though if ye didn't need it for Golden Phoenix I'd say pitch Shadow Refuge instead. Whatever you dump, get Critical Eye on there. It won't be a massive crit rate boost, but it'll help, and each crit will be worth more.

Pretty good stuff, some flaws but neither crippling nor non-mitigatable ones. Should work cool.

The Fox · Apr 24, 2006, 05:27 PM // 17:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by LaserLight

Assassins Don't Like Crowds.

Mine has to like crowds because that's where the most damage from death blossom is achievable. How do you think the build looks for health management with just the watch yourself, way of perfection, and shadow refuge? I don't plan on this being a solo build, so a monk should be able to throw a few heals my way.

Question - is this build's damage output significant? They greatly reduced the stats of death blossom since the FPE.

QUESTION - If I swap out something for critical eye I'd get 23 seconds of +1 energy per critical and an extra 4% critical chance. How much increase in damage would this extra 4% give if I was hitting ~ 75% of the time? This is just a guessed % to use, based on the theory that at least 20% of the time I'll be moving or casting, while at least 5% of the time I'll just plain miss with attacks.

This may be very inaccurate but here's my attempt at some math.

23 seconds of fighting will net about 19 hits if attacking all of the time (23/1.2) note - 1.2 is just a guess at the dagger attack rate with the added double strikes.

Then you have to consider not attacking all of the time to get an adjusted number of 14.25 hits = (19 * .75) yet another estimate as stated from my remarks above.

Now estimate criticals with a very optimistic % of (1/3) to get ~4.75 criticals in those 23 seconds with critical eye. Even if i double that number of critcals i'd only be netting about 5 extra energy from the +1 energy per critcal after adjusting for the initial 5 energy loss to cast the skill. This makes me think that only one lead attack with Golden Lotus Strike would be about equalivant to this energy gain. (yes i know i'm not factoring the extra 4% of criticals that are not achieved and therefore don't give the +2 energy from having 8 in critcal strike.)

Disreguarding energy concerns, I don't think that extra 4% will make or break the way of perfection.

Question - With a 20% enchant mod would shadow refuge round up to 5 seconds? (4 * 1.2 = 4.8)

EDITED: Well I forgot about the bonus from the mask. This means all my numbers are wrong. I'd probably just sink the +1 mask bonus into dagger mastery. hehehe 1.0 attack speed yeah!