Curse

SparhawkJC · Apr 02, 2006, 09:20 PM // 21:20

Alright guys here it is the big cheese of the assassin combo. Most likely this is the skill that will be dealing the most damage in your attack. You guys know the drill I'm going to list the skill descriptions and my thoughts on them. Feel free to chime in.

Critical Strikes:

Critical Strike - Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +10-26 damage and resuslts in a critical hit. 10 energy, 6 recharge

My FAVORITE dual attack. Ensures two crits in a row AND adds damage on top of it. The cost only comes to 2 energy if you're running critical eye and zealous daggers on top of the energy you gain from critical strikes. Sure it doesn't have a condition to go along with it but when you're dealing over 100 damage with it who really cares?

Dagger Mastery:

Blades of Steel - Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +5-12 damage (maximum bonus 50) for each recharging dagger attack. 5 energy 20 recharge.

Some people have found ways to make this skill useful. However I find the extra damage too conditional and the recharge too long. If you've been following my posts so far you know I don't like to put skills with recharges over 10 seconds in my combos.

Death Blossom - Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Death Blossom strikes for +15-35 damage against target foe and all adjacent foes take 15-35 damage. 5 energy, 12 recharge

Just another example of how crappy Hundred Blades is as an elite. We get to do the same thing with a non-elite skill. I didn't try this one over the preview weekend but can anyone confirm whether or not the damage is applied twice? If so this is a really powerful PvE attack, though less useful for PvP.

Exhausting Assault - Must follow an off-hand attack. Target foe's action is interrupted. If that action was casting a spell, target foe suffers from exhaustion. 5 Energy cost, 1/2 cast time, 8 recharge.

Pretty sweet anti-caster attack. Paired with Temple Strike you can put both daze and exhaustion on someone. And you're not even punished with energy cost or recharge time. Make that boon prot monk hate you for life! I think this skill may be tweaked by the time factions comes out though.

Horns of the Ox - Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Horns of the Ox strikes for +15-27 damage. If struck foe is not adjacent to any allies, that foe is knocked down. 5 energy, 12 recharge.

Pretty useful if you want a knockdown as an assassin. With our dependency on energy for our comboes we can't really incorporate gale or shock into our skill bars because of the exhaustion unlike warriors. That's ok though because I would prefer to leave the knockdown to the warriors anyways.

Nine Tail Strike - Must follow an off-hand attack. Nine Tail Strike cannot be "blocked" or "evaded" and strikes for +15-35 damage if it hits. 10 Energy, 10 recharge.

People have been ragging on this skill on the forums lately but it isn't that bad. It makes your dual attack unblockable and will add a total combined extra damage of 70 at 12 dagger mastery when all is said and done.

Twisted Fangs - Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Twisting Fangs strikes for +10-18 damage and struck foe suffers from Bleeding and Deep Wound for 5-17 seconds. 10 energy, 15 recharge.

AWESOME dual attack. Has better spike damage than eviscerate. the +10-18 damage is applied to both attacks so this adds 36 extra damage, deep wounds, and bleeding for 17 seconds at 12 dagger mastery compared with 34 extra damage and 17 seconds of deep wounds with 12 axe mastery for Eviscerate. Also it's not elite.

Alright well I think that's all of them. I really love what a-net did with these skills. Almost all of them are useful to a degree, though I think Critical Strike and Twisted Fangs are definitely a notch above the rest. Critical Strike for those that want to be able to spam their combo again after it's over and Twisted Fangs for those that want something dead in one run. Feel free to add your thoughts and criticisms.

LaserLight · Apr 03, 2006, 12:19 AM // 00:19

Run 13 Critical Strikes, Critical Eye, and Zealous daggers and your Critical Strike comes out free after initial investment. Pair that with a Moebius Strike and you can pull off a vicious attack. I can definitely see skill streams combining Critical Strike, Moebius Strike, and Twisting Fangs for some insane damage. In fact, gives me an idea...

Anyways. Death Blossom will be nuts in PvE/12v12, where that AoE damage will really come into play, and someone running a modified Fang of Melandru-type thing with five or six dagger attacks can make Blades of Steel evil. Horns is good for single pursuit builds, and Nine Tail...well, it kinda sucks compared to the others, but only because it's really not that special :-P

Anyways. I figure that we're gonna see a truckload of Twisting Fangs, only slightly less Critical Strikes, a bunch of Death Blossoms, and token numbers for the other dual attacks. Those three are going to be the big-ticket moves, though. They've got the most general utility with Assassins in general, and Twisting Fangs especially is just too potent to readily pass up for anything less. Only Critical Strike's near-free heavy damage and Death Blossom's heavy AoE make them worth ditching Fangs, and even then it's almost more a matter of recharge than anything else. Fangs just reloads too slowly for my tastes.

Siren · Apr 03, 2006, 07:59 AM // 07:59

Yeah, I lean toward Critical Strike, Exhausting Assault, Horns of the Ox, or Twisting Fangs. So far, not much else really comes close.

Critical Strike is the all-around solid dual attack. Two hits, plus criticals means a nice energy return, as well.

Exhausting Assault becomes completely nuts in a Temple Strike build.

Horns of the Ox is perfect for strays (Horns-->Falling Spider).

Twisting Fangs is nice damage, Deep Wound and Bleed.

Good stuff. ^_^

Myodato · Apr 03, 2006, 06:09 PM // 18:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparhawkJC

Death Blossom - Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Death Blossom strikes for +15-35 damage against target foe and all adjacent foes take 15-35 damage. 5 energy, 12 recharge

Just another example of how crappy Hundred Blades is as an elite. We get to do the same thing with a non-elite skill. I didn't try this one over the preview weekend but can anyone confirm whether or not the damage is applied twice? If so this is a really powerful PvE attack, though less useful for PvP.

I was too busy enjoying using it to document too much, but here's a little example of Death Blossom's potential.

That was at 14 Dagger Mastery and with 3/1 vampiric Dragon Scythes (hence the +/-3's). There are 4 mobs within range (target+3), and damage is done of 52,47,3,3 on main target (fairly low as an example of main Death Blossom damage), and 38x2 on the 3 nearby's. I guess the -10 must be my pet.

(Black Moa, of course

)

You'd really need a very well constructed build to persuade me there is any better choice for PvE.

As for PvP, you'd have to go a long way to find a warrior who doesn't take deep wound, so any damage focused Assassin should really be taking Twisting Fangs. I would definitely agree that Critical Strike (energy management) and Exhausting Assault (caster-shutdown) have a place in the right builds, but I don't expect them to be as widely used as the first two I mentioned.

Yukito Kunisaki · Apr 03, 2006, 06:59 PM // 18:59

Twisting Fangs has my vote for best dual attack right above Critical Strike...

3 words: Bleeding Deep Wound

I see Critical Strike as more of a dps vs. spike and as a sin, I don't want to be around for more than 5s. before I run like a pansy...

unholy guardian · Apr 03, 2006, 09:46 PM // 21:46

do assiasins get pets? or are those just new ranger pets, kidna a stupid question but ive heard things from both sides =D

Myodato · Apr 03, 2006, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by unholy guardian

do assiasins get pets? or are those just new ranger pets, kidna a stupid question but ive heard things from both sides =D

You still need Charm Animal, which is a Ranger skill, but doesn't matter whether you're Ranger primary or secondary (though Ranger primary potentially better with pets of course).

As an interesting alternative, a friend of mine went A/N with Flesh Golem. Not sure it was a well thought out or balanced build, but he seemed to like it.

Spoony · Apr 06, 2006, 09:49 AM // 09:49

*yawn* well i think theres no best dual attack, but all of those dual attacks have their good sides and bad sides. Just pick what fits best into ur build, theres probably no chance that a dual attack isnt connected to the other skills(offhands, leads, Look Siren's Comment), well xcept for nine tail.

bleh · Apr 09, 2006, 09:05 AM // 09:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparhawkJC

Death Blossom - Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Death Blossom strikes for +15-35 damage against target foe and all adjacent foes take 15-35 damage. 5 energy, 12 recharge

Just another example of how crappy Hundred Blades is as an elite. We get to do the same thing with a non-elite skill. I didn't try this one over the preview weekend but can anyone confirm whether or not the damage is applied twice? If so this is a really powerful PvE attack, though less useful for PvP.

the only difference is that hundred blades hits target foe twice combine that with good dmg buffs and it is still a good skill plus it "hits" more times in total so you gain more benifit from that but for the aoe dmg i must agree blossom is kick ass.

I think the main reason hundred blades is elite is because they can't think of a good way to stop people using a hundred blades + iw combo (which would hurt like hell )