Curse

LaserLight · Mar 29, 2006, 06:49 AM // 06:49

“Gatling Daggers”
A/W
General Damage Dealer

Critical 9 (10)
Dagger 12 (16)
Deadly 9 (10)
Shadow 0 (1)

Wild Blow
Black Lotus Strike
Repeating Strike
Critical Eye
Siphon Strength [E]
Siphon Speed
Death’s Charge
Dash

Weapons: Vampiric Daggers, +damage vs Hexed

Playstyle: This is a build I basically dreamed up in all of two minutes and would like to see if it works at all, even just in theory.

In theory, at least, this sucker can do a lot of nasty things. Basic strategy is to cast your Siphons, then Death’s Charge in. At this point your Energy is starting to look a little low-ish, so we both recharge it and set up our real attack with a Black Lotus Strike. Then we get to Repeating Stabs. As fast as you can volley them off. Your enemy moves 30% slower than you do, so he can’t run away. You have Wild Blow, so he can’t Stance-defend himself. And with Critical Strikes, maxed Dagger, Critical Eye, and Siphon Strength, your critical hit ratio has to be damned close to a hundred percent. I’d be surprised if less than four of five Repeating Strikes is a critical hit. Given that and Repeating Strike’s added damage, and the fact that Siphon Strength acts like a whole wad of Superior Absorbs rolled into one, and I could foresee this build taking down anything in the game.

Anything. Even Warriors.

Since your Energy is already taken care of, I decided to add Vampiric tangs to the daggers used instead of the typical Zealous, though of course you should have a Zealous set on standby. But in this case, the Vampiric daggers (with +15% to Hexed) add even more nutty damage to your barrage of Repeating Strikes. So, adding it up:

80+ Crit ratio
+21 damage per Repeating Strike
+3 damage per hit

Sounds like a blast to me. What do you guys think?

Siren · Mar 29, 2006, 07:08 AM // 07:08

My only thought at this point would be how would Repeated Strikes do? By that I mean, if somehow one of them missed, would the entire chain break, or would you just not be able to use Repeated Strikes, and have to move on to the next attack in the chain?

Other than that...looks like fun. I wonder if there are any safe attack speed boosts? Frenzy and Flurry seem to be the only ones with Warrior secondary, but perhaps there's something in Assassin...because attacking faster as well with a build like this, perhaps swapping out Dash, considering that keeping up with your target will be pretty easy with the Siphons, the Assassin's generally fast(er) run speed, and Death's Charge if absolutely necessary, would be insane.

LaserLight · Mar 29, 2006, 07:26 AM // 07:26

Heh...there is no next attack in the chain, Siren. My skill stream consists of Black Lotus Strike and a truckload of Repeating Strikes. So if the Repeating misses, I'm screwed until it recharges. Thus, the absolute necessity of Wild Blow.

Assassins, unfortunately, do not possess an in-class IAS stance - it's a flaw many consider to be a major failing of the class. And you're right - I'm not dealing with either Frenzy or Flurry. While an IAS would, indeed, rock hard with this sort of build, the vital skills don't allow one I'd consider viable. Which sucks.

Also. Assassins don't run any faster than any other class without a speed boost. Every class covers ground at the exact same default speed - it's part of the game's balancing. And while Siphon Speed does let me keep up with my target, Dash lets me get away from the three Whammos and the conventional Dagger Master bearing down on me like the Wrath of God

.

LightningHell · Mar 29, 2006, 08:49 AM // 08:49

2WW FTW. Or just for out 3WW for Rout.

Nice, would have to try it out later, no comments yet since I'm not commenting till I have a chance to try it out. Which is when Factions comes out. U_U

glountz · Mar 29, 2006, 10:32 AM // 10:32

Use Zealot's Daggers. Replace Dash/Wild blow by Frenzy. Hit repeated strike.... repeatedly while in Frenzy.
Smile as you killed your opponent in less than 5 secs.

suiraCLAW · Mar 29, 2006, 10:49 AM // 10:49

What about sharpen daggers in place of dash? 12 secs bleed each critical hit (+ wild blow counts as one).

siphon speed is buffed btw (it steal 20% speed boost now)

Yukito Kunisaki · Mar 29, 2006, 04:03 PM // 16:03

20%?! W0W...

I like the idea, although I liked the 4 swing idea better, [full combo leading to Moebius strike]

But this idea makes your sin look like a 'stay till death' type then a 'quick kill and vanish ninja' type...

Then again, maybe I can explore something else eh? ^_^

having 16 daggers when the runes are implemented usually means I MUST HAVE a dagger elite in there...

Sorry, for me and practicality, having 16 in your main stat usually demands [usually mind you] the elite be linked to it, but I think I'll give this sucker a whirl...

Assassin has every skill he needs in his primary skill set to deal with anything [except hexes/conditions] so my A/N ideas should be quite close to this...

Myodato · Mar 29, 2006, 06:13 PM // 18:13

I like Siphon Strength, but what made you choose it over Way of the Empty Palm ? Free Repeating Strikes is hard to argue against, and whilst more criticals is very nice, Way of the Empty Palm is far superior for energy management, and the extra damage of a critical hit against higher AL targets is not huge compared to the +damage of Repeating Strike.

And Frenzy is a must, especially when you have something like Dash to get you out of trouble if somebody tries to take advantage of your Frenzy usage.

Siren · Mar 29, 2006, 08:30 PM // 20:30

Good call. So only Black Lotus and Repeating Strikes? Jesus. lol. It's like a fun gimmick build then? It seems like a gimmick build. The damage output largely depends on Repeating Strikes, so Diversion would ruin your day if a Mes managed to catch Repeating, eh? You're nuts, man. I don't think this is a practical build for that reason, but I can see the build being effective provided you don't run into stuff like Diversion.

If you went A/Me (thoughts on that change below), you could work in Hex Breaker, which would take care of Diversion more often than not.

Regarding Warrior, I don't think Frenzy is a good choice for an IAS stance. Some are suggesting it, but if you get targeted while you're Frenzying, things won't turn out well. You could always figure out a way to work-in Shadow Refuge for even just Frenzy mitigation, but you're running with only a minor rune in Shadow, and Shadow Refuge will only bring you back up to taking normal damage. So I don't think it's worth it at all, which makes Frenzy pretty useless, too.

Flurry just sucks in general, apart from safely building Adrenaline...which is pretty useless if you're not using Adre, heh. With a reduced damage output from Flurry...yeah.

I'm not sure where I saw it suggested, but Expose Defenses might work well in this build. Might not exactly replace Wild Blow, since Wild Blow has the same recharge as Distortion, which makes it the perfect stance killer there. Unless the timing of the two attacks is disrupted. You'd basically need to use Wild Blow immediately as you see Distortion "going up." If you catch it one or two seconds after it, your Wild Blow is going to be two seconds behind the next one, too.

If you'd be able to kill the target in under 4 seconds, then you're golden. If not, however, Expose Defenses may very well be worth consideration. It's got a solid duration, solid recharge, and a 2-second cast time, but if you use it in-between the Siphons and Black Lotus, it could be devastating.

I'd imagine it overrides Distortion, right? It might be able to replace Wild Blow, which then would free up your secondary for /Me perhaps.

Yukito Kunisaki · Mar 29, 2006, 08:34 PM // 20:34

whoo, hot stuff...

Doesn't expose defenses take a while to cast though?

Unseen Fury was an idea if you can land blinding power. Says 2s. on the guru listing but I dont' know if that's true or not...

A sin that can't be blocked/evaded = a very very deadly sin...

Siren · Mar 29, 2006, 08:47 PM // 20:47

Expose Defenses (from what we can tell from unconfirmed skill listings) takes 2 seconds to cast. That's not all that bad. That's pretty good, considering. Two seconds of your time for a hex that prevents evasion. Its duration is good, probably able to cover its recharge. Of course, unless someone can get a picture of the skill at 12-16 Deadly Arts, we can't know for sure.

The more I think about it, the more I like Expose Defenses as the stance-killer. While Wild Blow does it and nabs a critical hit at the same time, Expose Defenses is sounding positively nasty.

Unseen Fury is nice, but it's linked to Shadow Arts, and it seems like having a max Shadow Arts attribute is the only way to go for it. 45-second recharge with a (possible) max duration of 30 seconds.

It's a stance, too, so that's subject to stance-killers. Though it's one of those none-too-obvious stances I think. Sure, if they've got Guardian or Aegis up and you're still striking through it, your target will be going "WTF mate?" but I don't think they'll think you're using a stance.

Problem with Unseen Fury is that this build is running with 1 in Shadow Arts, too.

Yukito Kunisaki · Mar 30, 2006, 02:10 PM // 14:10

true, dropping crits and deadly to 8 would give plenty for Shadow points however...

But that might kill your breaking points in your skills, I'm not sure where they are at this point in time...

Evilsod · Mar 30, 2006, 09:34 PM // 21:34

Yeah that builds really not as awesome as you think....

I'll introduce you to my Inep/Degen mesmer or my SS/Insideous/Enfeeble necro. Lets see you finish me off with your spamming then?

Seriously on the last PvP weekend special i owned your type for hours on end for the hilarity of seeing plenty of numbers appear over A/Ws heads

Hell my warrior could probably kill you, remove hex or plague touch (depending on 2ndary) and a well placed Disrupting Chop and your build is down for the count.

SparhawkJC · Mar 31, 2006, 06:01 AM // 06:01

It's quite easy to come in here and spout off how your warrior hate build will shut Gatling Daggers down. Owning assassins last PvP weekend is nothing to brag about. Hell I took plenty of them down myself with my W/E. These people had at most a couple days to try out their build in the PvP environment with access to only a few skills. That's like saying hey I'm awesome because I beat a cripple in a race around the block.

LaserLight · Mar 31, 2006, 09:09 AM // 09:09

Hm hm...everything ye said is true, Sod, on one condition.

That condition being that I, as a Gatling Daggers player, is as stupid as the vast majority of FPE idiots.

And that condition is starkly absent here.

I'm not going to be attacking through Spiteful Spirit or Insidious Parasite. Ineptitude/Degeneration would do the trick, but then it's a matter of Siphon Speed, Dash, and recover. And Warriors? You could indeed shut me down, if I bothered attacking you when there are so much more lucrative targets to hit. Like Monks or Ritualists or other such defenseless squishies.

Not saying Gatling Daggers is perfect or even that good. Honestly, I know it's mostly a gimmick build, because Repeating Stab is a gimmick skill. But please don't assume I'm stupid just because the Assassins you fought were. Because, see?

I took down an assload of Warriors, Necromancers, Mesmers, and the lot in the FPE. With my Assassins. The One Woman Bloodstorm scythed down enemies left and right and sideways, without troubles. All it takes is smarts, and once we've had three months to shake the Assassin around, I can guarantee you that interspersed evenly amongst the idiots will be some absolutely deadly players.

And then the guys who thought of the class itself as bad because of the caliber of its players will be in for a nasty surprise