pve: Triple Chop Assassin

June 18, 2015 edit: set alternate three as default build. Got rid of some of the clutter versions.


So I have been using this build for the last few days and really enjoying it. It produces very high damage and is versatile.

Little history (can skip this). I usually play a Earth Shaker warrior but I have never been entirely satisfied with it. Warriors have the lowest energy regen in the game and often times I found myself out of energy with a bunch of mobs on me and me kind of sitting there auto attacking (and of course I pretty much always have my ritualist hero cast splinter weapon on me so not casting an aoe skill sucks that much more). I wanted to create a build that felt similar to the warrior but with better energy regen. Assassin was kind of the obvious choice. The surprise for me though was that this build significantly outperformed the various warrior builds I use. The 45% critical chance and permanent ias (with no downside and extra armor) is really nice. I will admit that I am cheesing the build currently by using "I am the strongest!" instead of "Save yourself" ("Save yourself!" - which is pretty much a mandatory skill).

When I first made my build I made an Earth Shaker Assassin but it played awkwardly due to poor adrenaline regeneration so instead I decided to take advantage of the assassins limitless energy and go axe.

The Build

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"For Greater Justice"
Cyclone Axe
I am the strongest"
Way of the Master
Critical Agility
*Death's Charge
Whirlwind Attack
Triple Chop


*Shadowstep can be replaced with Dash. Dash is actually kind of nice since it has such a short cooldown time if mobs are spread out you can decrease your downtime


Alternative 1 - More single target dps
Replace "I am the strongest and "For Greater Justice" with Dismember and Malicious Strike". Dismember inflicts deep wound Malicious Strike hits harder with deep wound. Its decent not actually super fantastic but for mainly single target fights its very viable.

Alternative 2 - More Defense
Replace "I am the I am the Stongest" with "Save Yourself" For some hardmodes or higher end areas this will be the default

Alternative 3 - More self defense:
Replace "I am the Stongest" with Critical Defense for permanent 75% block chance.

Attributes:
12 +1+1 Critical Strikes
11 Axe Mastery
Tactics 6

Gear:

Blessed Insignia: I like this over more health just makes you less spikey
Ideal: Req 6 tac shield -2 while enchanted +45 health while enchanted. This is kind of a very expensive option. Another option is just to find a low req inscribable shield from a weapon smith (Jokanur Diggings has one that gives 10 ar) and use that instead. If you do that you can put 12 into axe mastery which is kind of nice (but not that significant that I would take that option over the higher armor shield).

The build is very easy to play buff yourself up, shadow step into the middle of a large pack of mobs and spam aoe skills. Because of the high energy regen the build feels very spammy which I will admit, I like.

Anyway, thanks for reading
~red

I had something similar to that build awhile back. I don't recall having EN problems or building adren with enough crit strike chance, a zealous axe mod and extra attack speed. I didn't invest into tactics mainly because of crit defenses.

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Critical Eye
Critical Agility
Way of the Master
Furious Axe
Dismember
Triple Chop
Whirlwind Attack
Critical Defenses

-My issue with Triple Chop is the recharge. Sure, +40 damage is nice, but "For Great Justice" will allow you to use Whirlwind Attack more often. In fact, I'd argue TChop is weaker than it's non-elite equivalent. I haven't checked the numbers, but I'd be reasonably confident you're better off building your AoE spam around FGJ+WA and keeping your elite slot free. No idea if there's anything special you could do with it, though you could always upgrade Dismember to Eviscerate.

-Have you considered "Fear Me!"? Not sure how much effect it'd have or whether you could fit it in (which I doubt), but if you're going to spec Tactics for the shield it's something to consider. Maybe there's some spammable high energy skills that you could fuel with a super high crit chance that you could build around.

I agree the recharge time is long but what I like about the skill is that when tied with the 45% crit chance, the skills hits like a truck (without the crit yeah it a meh skill) in fact that's what makes it shine with this build - its a good opening skill that softens groups of mobs up considerably. With splinter weapon cast on me most grouped mobs die really fast even on hardmodes. Its the 1,2,3 of it that packs such a wallop. Go in Triple chop>Cyclone axe>Whirling Attack and stuff is either dead or really low health.

The big comparison that I draw is from warrior Earth Shaker build. The Triple chop feels faster and having three aoe spamming skills for splinter weapon that you can cast in quick succession is very nice.

I do agree though that "For Greater Justice" is almost mandatory since it means more Whirlwind Attacks if needed and I am going to change the build default to reflect that.