Let's farm some FoW Spiders! (Sin Style)

Hi all, I have recently been experimenting with my assassin quite often and have decided to take on the task of making an assassin fow beach soloer! But.... if you hadn't figured it out yet, this is alot tougher than I thought and so I decided to see if the gwg community had an ideas/suggestions that they could contribute to this.

Alright than, here is what I've tried so far....

A/Me
Armor: Infiltrators Armor (+15 vs piercing)
Weapons: +5 energy axe with a +7 vs physical AND 45/2 while enchanted shield
Attributes: 16 Shadow Arts (3+1), 12 Illusion
Skills:
Illusionary Weapon
Physical Resistance
Shadow Refuge
Heart of Shadow
Death's Charge
Shroud of Distress
Dark Escape
Utility (I used Illusion of Weakness)

Running: This build makes the running very simple, with dark escape you take half dmg and so you can easily get past the shadow army.

Driftwood: These guys are very easy to take care of this build (though warrior build is much easier....) Use heart of shadow, shadow refuge and deaths charge to keep your health up while using IW to take out the driftwood 1 by 1. Note: you can use IW and keep Dark Escape up (allowing you to take half dmg while attacking) b/c you never actually "hit" with IW! Once dark escape runs out, use physical resistance. Both of them reduce about the same amount of dmg but unfortunatly you can't have 2 stances on at once, so switch them on and off.

Dryders: These guys are tough, they have both shatter enchant and drain enchant so be sure to stack IW under 2 enchantments =/ (hope for some good timing shadow refuges and make sure you keep up shroud of distress)

Skales: Run... just run.... don't attempt to fight them at all.

Spiders: Have not reached yet on this build. Assume the dmg won't be to much as long as they are pulled 4 at a time or so. (You ideally have 133 armor (70+15+40+8[half from 16 armor shield]) plus -2 since you are in a stance. I assume you will be taking 7-10 dmg from them but am not to sure on those figures.


A/Mo
Armor: Infiltrators Armor (+15 vs piercing)
Weapons: Daggers of Shelter (15% while enchanted, armor +7 vs physical)
Attributes: 11 Dagger Mastery(1+2), 11 Shadow Arts (+1), 12 Healing Prayers, and 3 Critical Strikes (+1)
Skills:
Healing Hands
Vigorous Spirit
Healing Breeze
Golden Lotus Strike
Golden Phoenix Strike
Horns of the Ox
Heart of Shadow
Dark Escape

Running: Once again, running past shadow army = no problem, haven't tried to get to cave yet (due to unlucky err7s...)

Driftwood: As opposed to the last build you take alot more dmg than usual. Unload your golden, golden, horns combo on one with vigorous spirit on. Use healing breeze and heart of shadow for quick heals when healing hands is on the recharge. Since you are taking a big amount of dmg though the dmg can tend to out dmg healing hands. If this is happening simply activate dark escape when you use healing hands (make sure you don't attack during this time).

Dryders: Easier to kill than the a/me build since you can kill them without relying primarily on enchants to do DMG.

Spiders: err7'd before I got to attempt them....


So, those are the 2 builds I have attempted so far. If anyone has any comments or suggestions on how to improve the builds or if you have a build that you think would work better than those two please post here or try out the build yourself and post the results. I'm very interested to see if anyone else has been trying this.

quick edit/random thought: maybe a a/w using all the basic skills of a warrior fow farmer? hmm... will try soon

Oh, and please do not post things like "lol n00b, sins cant solo fow, they are teh suxx0rz!!!!111!!11!" Only constructive critisicm and such is welcomed...


The Phantom

Nice thoughts, but I fear IW wont work well on spiders, as you wont interrupt their healing springs... (ur attacks miss)

you a/mo might have a better chance, I recon there is no mana for live vicav..

no need to interrupt healing spring the dont cast it if you are close enough.
The lack of absoption might be a problem... but you can get at least -2 fron the shield so maybe it doesnt matter.

Just got home and I've thought of a quick a/w skill set that could work.

A/W (axe varient)
Attribs: 12 Axe, 10 Tactics, Rest in Shadow Arts (+4 from mask)
Triple Chop
Executioners Strike
Penetrating Blow
Dolyak Signet
Healing Signet
Shroud of Distress
Dark Escape
Shadow Refuge

A/W (Sword Varient)
Dragon Slash OR Hundred Blades
Final Thrust
Galrath's Slash
Dolyak Signet
Healing Signet
Shroud of Distress
Shadow Refuge
Dark Escape


Equipment for both= 15% while enchanted axe or sword (b/c of shadow of distress) with +7 armor mods vs physical and a zealous hilt. The shield should be a 45/2 stance shield.

I think that either of these builds have a decent chance of sucess. =/
Oh and is Dolyak Signet a strength or tactics attribute? I'm tired and I think it's a tactics skill but correct me if I'm wrong

The Phantom

Dolyak signet is strength based.

ill give you a cooky if you get this to work, sounds fun :P

I agree, a whole box of cookies.
Could AoD work? Step in, combo off and kill a spider, then step out and heal up.

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I tried AoD'ing with just grawl... You would need a massive dmg combo if you wanted to pull off a one combo kill against a spider. Plus, for farming I view AoD as a waste of an elite.

Oh and since Dolyak Signet is strength I think replacing it with something like shield stance or defensive stance would be ideal. If we get favor I will try out the a/w build asap and update this post.

The a/w sounds like the best idea, since the shield al is only worthwhile when its attribute req is met. Maybe try an a/me with that skill that makes you basically invincible(I don't remember the name) along with arcane echo. Then when it ends, run away :P

Edit: Double Posted on accident, ignore.

If you are referring to shadow form (the skill where you are invinicible for about 17 seconds than lose all but 44 health...) meh... Arcane Echoing it only gives you 34 seconds which IMO does not give you enough time to kill a spider than run to a "safe spot." Plus, you'd only be killing one spider per echo'd shadow form and would be extremly time consuming.

Oh and I logged on to see the message "Europe has taken the favor of the gods away from America!" Grrr....

Phantom, I tip my hat to you for finding a way for Assassins to solo FoW. I haven't had the time nor the patience to even begin working on it and you just dropped it in front of me. Unfortunately I may have actually deleted my assassin because I couldn't use her to generate any income that a warrior or monk couldn't do ~100x better/faster.

For the A/Mo- Have you tried dropping HotO for Death Blossom in favor of its extremely high damage output? HotO I have found only shines when you follow it with Falling Spider and another Dual Attack.

I wish you luck.

-Blade

EDIT: Maybe an A/E (just some possible skills)

Conjure X
Silver Armor
Armor of Earth
shockwave
Aftershock
Blurred Vision
Inferno
Lesser Eng Glyph
Double Dragon
Crystal Wave
Teinai's Crystals
Wards
Teinai's Wind
Whirlwind
Arc Lightning (with water hex)

My personal favorites are from the water line- Blurred Vision, Ward Against Harm, and Conjure Frost (+ armor, they hit you less, you hit for more dmg).

Good Luck!

A/E is definetly a possibility. If you could take out a group of spiders at once instead of one at a time it would definetly be faster than any warrior solo build. =/

Perhaps even a critical barrager with critical defenses? Though I think the adjacent spiders will use healing spring if you are not right next to them...

ya i think death blossom would work better, im gonna try that once i decide to try it lol. If you could fit in falling spider somewhere of course youd bring hoto but if u cant blossom should work better.

Video plz :]

Flashing blades + phys resist is your best bet imo.... Then the issue is healing + a combo that does not use conditions.

Sorry to say, but they both don't work. Yes, I just tried them. The A/Me build didn't have enough defense (Got hit around 20's) and the second one, once HH was gone, I just completely got shredded. Nice try though.

try A/rt,
Rt has some nice spells like resilient weapon(+5 regen, +24 armor at 11 restoration)

@guildwarsnerd, were you maintaining shadow refuge and Shroud of Distress in combat?

I made 2 runs at this over weekend, and then ran out of time, I was using a A/Me
toon, and got a couple of horrible spawns and did not make it to the cave, but I was
able to take on the first two groups of driftwoods and the dryder and took them out
pretty easily. Seems like it will be tough at the cave tho, am looking forward to seeing
someone clear the cave, I went and made my Assassin into a "55" over the weekend
and works awesome, hit the troll cave alot for XP, got 47 elites on the sin now, I love
the necro elites, this is the build I run in the troll cave :

Dark escape, Bath spirit, essence bond, blessed aura, prot. spirit, spirit bond, shield of
judgement, zealots fire,

With dark escape, no dieing on the run, cast ZF right before SoJ ends and spam PS
and SB until SoJ is back up, I got a 15^50 cleaver (req. 10), lol.......

at 16 shadow arts, shadowform + arcane echo nets you 41 seconds of shadow form, with a +enchant it nets u about 45 seconds, which should be well enough for any assassin to finish a spider off, though this is probably not the way to go

Aura of displacement, odd idea, an assassin is able to kill a spider in less than 15 seconds I bet, but I don't know if u can survive that long without shadowform. (start with bleeding, spider uses melandru, wildstrike it, follow up with twisting fangs, some new opening attack, wildstrike again/other offhand, use some deadly dual attack.., if you can poison somehow, even better)

barrage might be an idea, dont worry too much about healing spring, if you time it right, ur barrag interrupts all, healing spring has 2 sec cast time, barrage about 1 sec using time, arrow fly time is neglicible at such short range.

I think I'll cap flashing blades tonight and than try out a build revolving around that. I figure flashing blades+flurry+critical defenses+shroud of distress should give me a huge chance to evade.

Flurry and Flashing Blades are both stances, so don't stack with each other...

As an assassin the Critical Barrager idea wouldn't probably function 'cause you would have no self heal...

Maybe some build with Melandru's Resilience/Troll Unguent/Critical Defences would work, but I guess it would be extremely slow...

well W build is too much faster and much more safe so if you're doing it just for the challenge with the A/E build just doit with an E less armor =>more challenge anyway forget about the A/W builds cuz even if you boost tactics stances will not last long enough
sounds fun anyway gl to making this work

I'll be working on it more when nightfall comes out and I see the new skills thinking a a/p might work though I won't be putting much into it until the actaul release.

I used a slightly different build a few months ago (a/me) i could make spiders easily, but trust me... spiders are hard, the best run i could only kill 3, i contemplated posting it, but decided against it seeing as it didnt work.
My method of killing the dryders was to put images of remorse ( the one with -xx when attacking + degen) and spam my healing skills while shooting it with a vamp bow ( didnt have an illu wand), good luck on the build, i'm gonna try a different varient when we get favour.

Illusionary Weaponry will interupt healing spring cause if u look at the discription its says u do no dmg in melee which means u still hit them

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their ai makes them not use healing spring, IF you are close enough to them, this is how the triple chop + cyclone axe build works, you ball them up REALLY REALLY REALLY close and keep cyclone axe and triple choppingthem, heres example of killing several while they are close together, but im in CLOSE RANGE! :



as you can see, you see several drops REALY close to each other, meaning ive already killed several in this little ball, proving that they dont use healing spring, if you are close enough to a group of them, so iw will work, just gotta be in melee range

So this build can be good for spider, with Dash/Dark Escape or Shourd of Distress without Res sig

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/A/W_Axe-assin

For the equipement, an axe, 15 always with enchantments and enchantement during 20% longer is better, and a shueld like Malinon's one too.

If someone want to test :d

i dont have a sin so i cant try, but would unsuspecting strike+way of the empty palm+repeating strike+death blossom work?

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