Good Assassin Skill lineup?

for A/MO i'd sugest something like...

mark of instability
shadow of haste
black mantis thrust
jungle strike
twisting fangs
purge conditions (removes all conditions, doesn't require pts in any monk attribs)
Shadows refuge (so you don't have to spend pts into heal)
rebirth or resurection (again, neither get any beter if you put pts in monk attribs.)

put your shadow arts at a level that will allow shadow of haste to end at or near the same time your combo is done... if you put it too high it will take too long to pull you out without takeing dmg.

the combo doesn't realy matter, go with what you like the best.

throw mark of instability and hit space to start chargeing at your target, use shadow of haste enroute, then go through your combo as soon as you get there. soon as your combo is done, haste will teleport you back where you cast it, out of harms way. - this won't net you a kill first trip through the combo, but will seriously damage your target enough for your casters to finish offf in 1 hit, or for you to run back at him as soon as your combo is recharged.

get rid of conditions and heal away any dmg you might have taken after you tp out of the fight. Thank you so much. Ill look into buying those skills. As soon as i get the money...lol.

Dunno but when I see one without step out, they generally stuck in the mobs and die shortly.

Question: Why 3 Lead Attacks? only 2 leads....and unsuspecting is a big 10 energy which you dont need to waste to lead on a target that is already under 90% health

Yeah...WildMouse, that lineup u suggested...dont most of them use 10 energy? Im tryin to get 5 energy for all of em if possible. yes they do, but like i said whatever combo you choose is irrelevent.

a standard jagged strike, wild strike, death blosum - is a 5-5-5 combo that works just as good as any of the others.

mark of instability is a totaly optional slot, - there are plenty of enchants and hex's in the sin line up that only take 5 E that can easily replace it. way of the fox, way of the lotus, heart of the shadow, blinding powder, siphon speed, impale, endureing toxin, danceing daggers, crippleing dagger, and assassins promise are all good replacements for that slot and only cost 5. - or you can even throw in a forth attack.

the important thing to remember is the formula that i put in my first reply.

3-4 attacks
a retreat teleport or other type of dodge
shadows refuge
condition removal
resurection

it's the stragedy built by the last 4 slots that makes your sin effective, the first four can be anything you want.

-- you want to limit the time you are exposed to dmg - and to do that you have to refian from supper masive combos, and carry teleports or dodge's.
--you need a way to remove conditions, because they screw up the sin more then any other class.
--you need to refrain from haveing too many heals so you don't spend the whole fight standing around healing while people pound on you.
--and it's good ediquite for everyone to bring some sort of rez.

i just choose MoI for this example because it'll knock down your target when you use the dual and reduce how much dmg you'll take.. and i choose those attacks because they work well together with the hex. - but those four slots are all just personal prefrence stuff. if you like stacking conditions bring attacks that cause em, if you like dealing direct dmg bring those, if you like disrupting and knock downs bring those - either way when everything is said and done they all produce relitively the same results.

stick to the formula and you'll find dozzens of practicall builds. whatever combo you choose to deal dmg with isn't very important - it's the stragedy that's important for the sin. - learn too avoid dmg and deal out spikes and you'll be a successfull sin.

if you go to the home page, there's a link to the skills list so you can pick out the type of attacks you want to play.

Can someone give me an idea of how much in each attribute i should put?
useing the forumila that i offered -

critical strikes high enough for at least a +2 (don't go higher unless you want to go all the way up to +3)
shadow arts high enough for your SoH to time out at the end of your combo
bump dagger mastery as high as you can
put the rest into deadly arts.

1. For solo henching, don't forget to bring a longbow! No attrib point longbows have a max of something like 8-11. Worth carrying. Makes solo henching fun and smooth.

2. Also remember that double clicking on a party member name will make your char run to them. When Return is recharging, this usually works very well. 1) shift-ctrl-space: will call a target and send your henchies in without you attacking, thussly produceing the same result as useing a long bow. - the main point you're makeing here (and it's a good one) is, when henching you do want to send your bots in first. - the sin works best if he/she is the last one to get into the fight, how you start your henchies off is just personal choice.

2) return is absolutely the worst teleport the sin has, by the time you figure out you need to use it you are way down on health and have to take your concentration away from fighting/dodgeing to find a freind that is out of harms way, click on their name, and then throw the spell.... AoE and Recall are a little better, as you only have to break concentration long enough to double click that little ass encahntment box - but again you don't generaly go to disenchant untill your hurtin pretty good.......Shadow of Haste is what i recomend because it is fire and forget, and it will pull your butt out of danger as soon as you've used up all your attack skills, long b4 you've taken any heavy dmg - --you're better off healing away a little bit of dmg and hanging out with your casters while your combo recharges, then you are runing around behind enemy lines, waiting for attacks to recharge, untill you're nearly dead.

This attack chain is overkill for almost any situation besides 1 on 1 scrimmaging against another assassin, but I thought I'd share it, since it's wowed so many guildies.

Seeping wound{E}->shock->falling spider->death blossom->black lotus strike->twisting fangs

This build, like I said, would generally be overkill for PVE, but it's a killer against specific enemies 1 on 1. You probably could replace shock with horns of the ox. Isnt shock an ele skill? That wouldnt really work for me...i only have 20 energy cuz my weapon has -5 energy, and if i know my skills correctly, most of those are 10 energy. :-/

WildMouse...the skills u gave me just dont work that well. I have a good weapon, im lvl 20 and here are my attributes.

Dagger Mastery - 13
Shadow Arts - 11
Critical Strike - 10

I just dont do that much damage. Ill put Haste on, go in, do my combo and Haste always finishes too early, and I cant get it any higher without lowering Dagger Mastery, or Critical (which i dont want to do), or buying a Sup rune (which i dont want to do either). But I guess if worse comes to worse and I cant find a suitable skill lineup, ill lower Dagger Mastery or Critical.

But I'm just wondering if there's some other lineup I could use that uses skills with 5 energy and possibly one 10 energy skill.

I feel like im being a pain in the ass, and i appologize. This is just so difficult!

Thanks.
You could always try a different skill. Haste is basicly a time version of AoD but can be replaced if you dont have AoD. You dont need a skill to run in faster or teleport in. I would say you do need a skill to teleport out of battle. Such as return or recall.

WildMouse...the skills u gave me just dont work that well. I have a good weapon, im lvl 20 and here are my attributes.

Dagger Mastery - 13
Shadow Arts - 11
Critical Strike - 10

I just dont do that much damage. Ill put Haste on, go in, do my combo and Haste always finishes too early, and I cant get it any higher without lowering Dagger Mastery, or Critical (which i dont want to do), or buying a Sup rune (which i dont want to do either). But I guess if worse comes to worse and I cant find a suitable skill lineup, ill lower Dagger Mastery or Critical.

But I'm just wondering if there's some other lineup I could use that uses skills with 5 energy and possibly one 10 energy skill.

I feel like im being a pain in the ass, and i appologize. This is just so difficult!

Thanks. don't worry bout it, you can't learn without asking questions.

if haste is ending early with 11 shadow arts, i'd suspect you are either - useing it too far away, wasteing time between when you cast it and when you start your combo (i.e. casting it, before you've picked a target), or have too big of a combo.

considering that you're trying to follow a well proven formula, i'll assume you don't have too many attacks... with useing shadow of haste, don't throw it and then run after your target. - instead, what you want to do is pick your target and hit space to start running at him - then just before you are in casting range of any enemies (i.e. just before they are in your agro circle), hit Soh. it will fire while you are running, then you can hit your first combo skill and it will wait untill you are in mele range before it will do the attack.

if you cast it before you've picked a target, you waste time when selecting your target. if you cast it too far away, you waste time from the longer trip. you want to cast it when you're just out of casting range, and while you are already running at your target.

if you're still haveing trouble with SoH, you might want to switch over to recall. with recall you throw it as an encahant on your monk long before the fight, and once you've finished your combo you just drop the enchant and tp back.. this is not as good as shadow of haste, as you lose one pip of recharge from the enchant and only can only realisticly use it for two targets each fight ( as you have to recast it each time you tp out, and energy does become a bit more of a problem) - but it is a good way to practice the timeing of the rest of your stragedy, once you get the timeing down you'll have a better grasp at where you want haste to be at.

also, i've never been a big fan of maxing 3 attribs. you only need enough pts in them to make your skills usefull. limiting yourself to 3 attribs means you are spending more pts with each increase and getting less bonus from them, and often times limits what skills you can carry - more on this l8r.

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the attribs on my sin primary (which is a A/N) are as follows.-

blood magic: 7
curses: 6
dagger mastery: 13 (11+2) - +2 from major rune
deadly arts: 8
shadow arts: 4 (3+1) - +1 from minor rune
critical strikes: 8 (5+3)- +1 from mask, +2 from major rune
with 1 unused pt.

combo is
golden lotus strike (useing demonic flesh for the needed enchant)
wild strike
death blosum

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the attribs on my sin secondary (E/A) are...

fire: 11 (10+1) - +1 minor fire
storage: 12 (8+4) - +1 mask(arua), +3 sup.
dagger mastery: 9
deadly arts:2
shadow arts:4
also with a major vigor.

my combo for this build is
jagged strike
fox fangs
repeating strike (repeating strike will lead into it's self so you can throw 2-3 in a row untill SoH tp's you out)
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back to talking about haveing only 3 attribs-

don't be afraid of useing runes, a sup rune for your dagger mastery will net you more dmg with DM skills, and give you an aditional +6% chance at double strike. - if you're worried about loseing 75 health, then just get a major viggor and recover some of the loss. - and minor runes are cheap, and don't take away health, beter off useing em instead of nothing.

however, again playing this formula you shouldn't need to worry much about the health loss from the runes anyway, as you're not exposed to takeing dmg long enough to lose much heatlh. with my A/N build i sacrifice 20% max health (ontop of the two majors) for every fight useing demonic flesh, and with my E/A i sacrifice heath by way of setting myself on fire for 5 seconds in order to use burning speed. - even with useing runes, and sacrificeing health in fights, i rarely get below 50% health, let alone die - and net as many (if not more) kills then my wars.

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as far as dmg goes, deadly arts increase's the dmg you do, and you don't have any pt's in it.

critical hits is only netting you +2 energy between 8 and 13... when you have it set at ten, you are in effect spending 24 attrib pts for only a +2% chance to crit hit. - IMO that's too expensive for very little benifit.

if you drop crit hits to 8, you can bump deadly art's up to 6 with 3 pts left over. thussly increaseing your dmg and only sacrificeing 2% crit hit chance.

furthermore, 4-5 in shadow arts has been perfect for both my builds to get my combo to time with the end of haste. - i suspect once you start useing it enroute you'll find that number (or close to it) works for you as well - if/when you do, dump the rest of that into deadly arts also.

ther realy isn't one combo that is any better at dealing dmg then any other... if you go with direct dmg, you do a srtreight spike and then are done: if you go with stacking condition you do very little dmg off the bat, but build it up as time goes on - either way they ammount to the same dmg when everything is said and done.

The sin deals his dmg through fast 1 shot combo chains, and unless your running 6+ attacks (which will get you killed), you're not going to be finishing off a target in one trip through your combo... generaly it's your job to take a huge chunk out of someone, so your casters can finish them off - or you have to run in and do the combo a second (and sometimes a 3rd) time.

keep working at it, you're on the right track.