Curse

Lord Ertihan · Jul 07, 2006, 09:02 AM // 09:02

Admittedly, this grew out of a project that wasn't the best idea. But sometimes good ideas can grow from bad ones. To fully understand just how this build came to be, it's best to first understand how it began.

Now before I begin, I have yet to test this build in GvG (where I believe it could have the greatest impact). This is unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable, since my guild does not really allow for much experimentation in GvG. As such, it would be best if someone in a guild more condusive to occasional experimentation to test this out in a real GvG setting to see whether or not it is feasible. It has achieved moderate success in Team Arenas and Random Arenas, but that is not neccessarily indicative of the power of the build itself, neccessarily. Nonetheless, I shall present the build "as is", and let you be the judge.

Right! So history first. Well, the build first began back in early 2005, pre-Factions. I had been considering the various implications regarding a skill that wasn't commonly used at the time: namely, Skull Crack. Now, I had many reasons to like Skull Crack. It was an interrupt that cost no energy to use, caused daze, and was admittedly very fun. But unfortunately there were many glaring drawbacks to the skill, not least of which were its status as an elite skill (precluding many other excellent warrior elites), it's slow use time, and the ludicrous amount of adrenaline required to activate it.

Of course, Anet decided to give it a little buff, making it activate in 1/2 second (instead of on next attack), and reducing its adrenaline cost. Nonetheless I still couldn't find any build that it would fit. The only possibility that appeared to me was perhaps a warrior spamming frenzy, who may be able to gain adrenaline quickly enough to use the skill. But a frenzy using warrior may as well carry Eviscerate (or, after Factions came out, Dragon Slash), and Skull Crack really didn't make the cut.

So what about warrior secondary? Well, the problem there was that most warrior secondaries had much better builds. Really the only class that commonly used warrior as secondary in PvP was Rangers, and they used it with hammers (and far prefer either Devestating Hammer, Backbreaker, or Ferocious Strike to Skull Crack for very obvious reasons). Now I COULD have made a sword-wielding R/W with high Beast Mastery, Expertise, Tiger's Fury, and Skull Crack, but let's be honest with ourselves. Such a build isn't really neccessarily particularly good, since what other interrupts could we bring besides this? And while I toyed with the idea (the build I had floating around involved bringing Hamstring, Skull Crack, Distracting Blow, and a pet), it didn't pan out quite as well as I had hoped.

The problem, as I had discovered, was that the build just wasn't efficient. And if you were going Ranger primary, you might as well use Tiger's Fury with Expertise ... it would be a big waste of a primary class if you didn't. But even so, it didn't seem particularly useful, and you lacked a decent self-heal since Wilderness Survival wasn't very high. I needed something better. Enter the Assassin.

Now there are very many advantages that the Assassin brought to the table, not least of which was their amazingly fast attacks. The Assassins had chances at double strikes (very useful if your goal is to gain adrenaline quickly). The Assassins also attack very quickly (at least as quickly as swords and axes, although at the time I had heard a rumor that their base attack speed is even faster than that, which is all the better). They have an excellent supporting line (Shadow Arts), with a good self-heal and something far, far superior to Hamstring (Caltrops). I had found my base class. The fact that Critical Strikes also provided me with energy every now and again didn't hurt.

So, let's begin with the skills, then I shall explain how the skills determined which stats and runes to use. The most important skill is Skull Crack, which was the basis for making this build (basically, it was a challenge to myself: try to make a build using Skull Crack that didn't suck).

So, the list is as follows (and like my Guide to the Assassin in PvP thread, I will explain each one in detail):

Flurry
Distracting Blow
Skull Crack
Caltrops
Shadow Refuge
Dark Escape OR Rush
Sharpen Daggers OR Critical Defenses OR something of your choice
Ressurection Signet

So here is the explanation:
Flurry:
So people are wondering, perhaps, why I chose Flurry over Frenzy. I did not see the neccessity of doing that much damage (and indeed, even under Flurry my daggers were not THAT bad at doing damage, and they attacked ridiculously fast). Since the purpose is disruption instead of damage, I decided that Flurry was the best choice. In conjunction with a zealous pair of daggers and some Critical Strikes, energy has not yet been a problem.

Distracting Blow:
What can I say? It's one of the best disrupts since Distracting Shot. It's really very useful, and it's good to interrupt things such as, say, Troll Unguent. Not much to say here, except that Distracting Blow should not be forgotten; don't forget you have this and neglect to use it!

Skull Crack:
The basis of the build. With Flurry up nearly all the time and with decent double striking capability, coupled with the already quick attacks of the assassin, Skull Crack should be up almost all the time. The timing is the key here; if you're not very good at interrupting in the first place this isn't the build for you. But if you're decent at it, Skull Crack with its new 1/2 second use time can catch most 1-second spells (Orison is fun to catch with this). The Daze is dangerous too; I've caught Reversal multiple times with the Skull Crack daze + Flurry fast attacking.

Caltrops:
Used to slow down the enemy, you might also use it to cover the Daze from Skull Crack. Caltrops has the added advantage of being a spell, not an attack, and having an excellent 1/4 use time. This makes it, in my opinion, just plain better than Hamstring, which was at one point my crippler of choice (which just goes to show how noobish I was back then). You use Caltrops when someone is running away that you don't want to run away. Don't worry, half-spell range is still pretty far, and if you think it's too small a radius, try to remember: most warriors have to be in bloody melee range to cripple. Compared to them, you've got it really good.

Shadow Refuge:
What can I say? If the build had been ranger/warrior, there would have been no room for wilderness survival and Troll Unguent. Although in my honest opinion I find Unguent superior to Refuge, this spell is still an excellent self-heal, and indeed the ONLY one you're going to get that's worth anything. Use it when hurt, and combined with your run skill and Caltrops you should be able to escape most dangerous situations.

Dark Escape OR Rush:
I had initially tried this with Rush. It worked really well, since Rush was even easier to charge than Skull Crack, you could have it ready at a moment's notice. The problem was that this was only true if you've been attacking someone. It doesn't help with, say, runners, and it doesn't last very long. In addition, it doesn't have Dark Escape's half-damage tech, and taking it would mean that you pretty much only have Shadow Arts for Shadow Refuge alone, which seemed kind of a waste. There are reasons to take either Dark Escape or Rush, depending on how you feel about the situation at hand; I have a personal preference to Rush myself, especially in high-combat situations. Nonetheless I've tried Dark Escape and I can't deny its usefuless for ... well ... escaping.

Sharpen Daggers OR Critical Defenses OR something of your choice:
This was really an open slot, although I suggest either Sharpen or Crit Def. Sharpen Daggers is the answer to the question of how to cover your important daze and cripple. Since the bleeding is constantly re-applied, it will constantly put pressure on enemy monks trying to get rid of your conditions with mend. If they use draw, it could be worse for them; I can't imagine how pissed an E/Mo with draw would be if he found he had drawn bleeding, cripple, and daze

. That's sure to ruin his day. Critical Defenses is nice because it's so likely to get reapplied. Because your attacks are so very fast, critical strikes happen often, and you can have decent defenses without much investment. The problem I ran into with Critical Defenses, though, is that it can be inconvenient to keep up at times.

Ressurection Signet:
... Please don't tell me you don't know what this is for. If you don't, leave the Guru right now and never return.

So, now that we've gone over the skills, let's look at the attribute setup:
Critical Strikes (Assassin Primary Attribute): 12 +1(rune) = 13
Dagger Mastery: 8 + 1(mask) +3(rune) = 12
Shadow Arts: 10+1(rune) = 11

As you can see, the setup is heavily geared toward having decent energy regain (with the Critical Strikes) and decent double strike and damage with the 12 Dagger Mastery. Another possible build involves dropping the Critical Strikes down to 8 (the minimum required to gain 2 energy per critical hit), and pump Dagger Mastery as far as it will go. It all depends on how many 10 energy skills you choose to bring.

The blades will be Zealous. With Flurry and Zealous daggers, plus Critical Strikes kicking in every so often, I can assure you that energy will not be a problem.

So, how does the build work? It works by being very mesmer-like, only more up-close and personal. Unlike Mesmers, you have a good chance of providing good support damage (Flurry doesn't reduce damage 100%, you know), and you provide good suppression on enemy casters.

One last issue I had was whether I should've used Beguiling Haze instead of Skull Crack. I'm not sure; but the question goes even deeper; if Beguiling Haze works better in this setup than Skull Crack, then Skull Crack really DOES suck; even in a build designed around it, another elite works better...

Yanman.be · Jul 07, 2006, 09:25 AM // 09:25

Yes Skull Crack on sins is nice.

Normall I run a pretty standard hoto fs tf combo, with my elite skull crack..

I do 1 combo, and my skull crack is charged..ready to pwn the next boonprot ^^.

suiraCLAW · Jul 07, 2006, 09:28 AM // 09:28

Interesting build, but I wonder what this dude needs to replace: it hasn't got enough damage output for a warrior and it hasn't as much utility as a dom mes.

Still: it will probably do what it should do: interrupting all skills and spells.

Comparison of the build: migraine mes with a icy sword and spinal shivers.

edit: try these attributes
critical strike: 11+2
dagger mastery: 10+2+1
shadow arts: 10+1

Cursed Steelbringer · Jul 07, 2006, 11:47 AM // 11:47

Basically it could be a nice build, the problem I see first and foremost are that 90% of the monks in pvp are boons, and a single CoP would make all your effort useless.
Another thing im not sold on is the really low damage from this build..you wont kill much with it....on a healing monk i can see this working because hell never get off his 1 sec spells..but never on a boon prot

I like the attribute spread from SuiraCLAW definitely better, you should put your runes on your high attributes to save points.

TheOneMephisto · Jul 07, 2006, 01:52 PM // 13:52

This build isn't really good for taking down Boonprots. I would imagine this build would be awesome for messing with mesmers, eles, necros, healing monks, and smiting monks. However, I still think that a well-played mesmer could do more.

Warskull · Jul 07, 2006, 03:08 PM // 15:08

You exist solely as a skull crack bot. You have no threat outside of skull crack. For this to work you need to be able to do you assassin thing with the added bonus of skull cracking enemies.

Aug · Jul 07, 2006, 03:09 PM // 15:09

I was looking at Skull Crack last night as an Assassin primary, and I decided that Temple Strike just makes more sense to use. You might not be able to trigger Temple Strike as frequently, but at 14 Dagger Mastery you can keep it on your target ~33% of the time, regardless of whether they're casting at the time or not.

And I agree with others, the damage output you'll have just won't be that high, and it definitely won't be killing many Boon/Prots. I still haven't found a good Assassin build to take out a Boon/Prot solo. The best I've done is with my E/A using Conjure Lightning and a RtL -> Jagged Strike -> Shock -> FS -> Nine Tail Strike combo. But the E/A is really fragile, and after performing the combo 3 or 4 times is virtually useless due to exhaustion. It's a shame there aren't knockdowns in the Air line that don't cause exhaustion, or available to an Assassin w/out using HotO or going into Deadly Arts.

Cursed Steelbringer · Jul 08, 2006, 08:53 PM // 20:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aug

I still haven't found a good Assassin build to take out a Boon/Prot solo.

Use this, its gets the job done:

Shove
Falling Spider
Twisting Fangs
Iron Palms
Horns of the Ox
Impale
Heal Sig
Rezz

Chain is: Shove, Spider, Twisting, Iron Palms, Spider, Horns of the ox (if you wait 8 sec before horns you can chain spider twisting again)
Impale is usable before the combo or to start iron palms if you finshed the victim with the first three skills (which is the case if the target is not a monk or a warrior)

fb2000 · Jul 15, 2006, 02:41 PM // 14:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cursed Steelbringer

Use this, its gets the job done:

Shove
Falling Spider
Twisting Fangs
Iron Palms
Horns of the Ox
Impale
Heal Sig
Rezz

Chain is: Shove, Spider, Twisting, Iron Palms, Spider, Horns of the ox (if you wait 8 sec before horns you can chain spider twisting again)
Impale is usable before the combo or to start iron palms if you finshed the victim with the first three skills (which is the case if the target is not a monk or a warrior)

just stacking attacks doesnt work, u dont have a speed boost, the enemy can kite u basically _all day long_

Unsuspecting Strike -> Shove > Falling > Twisting usually does the job for me. u also have space for speed boost, rez, heal and an optional slot (deaths charge for me). i kinda enjoy unsuspecting, its low recharge, and a nice dmg if target >90% (im hitting ~60al for ~110dmg with it)

The Real Roy Keane · Jul 16, 2006, 12:26 PM // 12:26

Well done for trying, but a Choking Gas Ranger with Flurry, Distracting Shot and Savage Shot can do everything this build can, and do it better.

socrlax24 · Jul 17, 2006, 04:30 AM // 04:30

I quote Roy Keane in saying very nice go at an assassin build, but it seems to me that there are....

ah f**k it, nevermind its too complicated to explain to you without typing an entire novel about it

but i would like to add that you put alot of effort into this build, which i respect.

TheOneMephisto · Jul 17, 2006, 12:16 PM // 12:16

Hey socrlax, your guild's name wouldn't happen to mean "I know" in chinese would it?

-wonders how good he still is at chinese-

socrlax24 · Jul 18, 2006, 03:08 AM // 03:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Hey socrlax, your guild's name wouldn't happen to mean "I know" in chinese would it?

-wonders how good he still is at chinese-

i think it means something along those lines, i'll ask my guild leader, but i think it's really just an inside joke that they thought would be funny for a guild name.

neoflame · Jul 18, 2006, 03:11 AM // 03:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Hey socrlax, your guild's name wouldn't happen to mean "I know" in chinese would it?

Depending on accentuation, that is one valid interpretation.

socrlax24 · Jul 18, 2006, 03:24 AM // 03:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by neoflame

Depending on accentuation, that is one valid interpretation.

just wondering, do you by chance know if it has any other meanings??

Spura · Jul 25, 2006, 12:57 PM // 12:57

If you want daze, why not just take beguiling haze?? It's on demand instead of having to get adren(you'll have casters kick your ass while you build adren), it is 0.25 sec interrupt instead of 0.5 sec.

holden · Jul 27, 2006, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spura

If you want daze, why not just take beguiling haze?? It's on demand instead of having to get adren(you'll have casters kick your ass while you build adren), it is 0.25 sec interrupt instead of 0.5 sec.

shityeah. i voice from the past