Another, probably final, Sin build...

My PvE sin along with my wife's are in pretty deep trouble as of late... PvP is definitely out of question here since we're both PvE addicts and love the cameraderie [vs. glory hogging, etc.] that comes with PvE, so before you mention something, this is with PvE in mind, where not every enemy has perfect counters for things...

With that in mind, here we go...
Using the idea that Sin primary stat resembles a Ranger's Primary stat [indeed, to me, a sin is like a melee ranger... ] I've come up with some 'fast blast' damage builds designed to seriously maim an enemy and leave them with nearly 10 degen and deep wound to boot. Since a sin wasn't designed for up front killing, I've decided on the more bleed/poisonous death ideal to lead to victory...


Here's the idea:
A/N [could be /X to you guys]
13 Critical Strikes
16 Dagger Mastery [with +3 crit rune, so cheap to get ^_^]
4 Shadow Arts, er whatever... [all runed up, etc.]

Black Lotus Strike
Twisting Fangs
Falling Spider
Critical Strike
Mark of Instability
Aura of Displacement {E} [also for +15% enchant based daggers]
Plague Touch
Res Signet

As you can see, the brunt of this build is about landing a very high ranking 13 Critical skill bunch of attacks in full succession. To be used after a fight is well under way and the sin has chosen victim to snipe... AoD {E} fits well with the recycle time of BLS. After my runs with a sin, sins do NOT attack until after everyone has engaged a mob and AFTER it's safe to blaze in without fear of getting beat down... Your experience maybe different from mine but I see sins as 'snipers' in a way...

Idea is straightforward so long as enemy is occupied and doesn't remove Mark of Instability. Cast it first, then AoD in...

Let lose with BLS into Twisting Fangs, now they're Bleeding, Deep Wounded, and on their ass. Falling Spider and Critical Strike allows you to regen a hefty amount of energy and then you can cancel AoD and wait for your handiwork to kill...

I was thinking of using Death Blossom for the final strike instead of Critical Strike but I'm not sure if blasting a mob with a sin is a good idea... [ya know, sin's don't tank, in my method of gaming anyway]

Ideas? PvE methods to killing faster than this build? If there's a way to do more damage to one foe and still have energy to spare, [or no energy if a combo is that intensive], I'm all eyes and ears...

Thanks for the help! ^_^

p.s. would switching the stats: 13 dagger/16 critical be a better idea since you'd not only get more crit, but there are more crit strike skills in there than dagger mastery and I'm not sure if the dmg bonuses for the two work well in either case. As a warrior favorite, I'd think 16 dagger, 13 critical is better, but with 3 of the strikes in Critical stat, I'm questioning it's effectiveness...

in my opinion this build is too slow
black lotus strike lacks spamabilty 20sec recharge is too much in pve considering the other attack skills you chose can only be activated if they meet a condition.

many times your targets will also be targeted by someone else who will deal a decent amount of damage and your target is dead in 5 seconds leaving you waiting in the background for recharge and until you find a new target...

i think the best combos in pve are fast spamable ones like unsuspecting strike + wild strike unless you face those tough brotherhood warriors where conditions and hexes are the best way to deal with them.

I'd agree with Lenixo... BLS is a very powerful skill sure... but its recharge is ridiculous. Normally this wouldn't be so bad... but its your 'effective' lead attack. With this skill as your lead it effectively makes your entire combo have a recharge of 20 seconds with it.

This is partially why GPS is always going to be better... the conditional of BLS means you must bring a hex, wasting another skill slot. GPS is an enchantment which with AoD makes no difference at all.

Imo to make this build better remove Falling Spider and use Golden Pheonix Strike. You lose Poison... but most things in factions are dead before then anyway. It does however mean you have a more spammable method of introducing the combo.

GPS, Horns, Falling, TF will always be 1 of the better combos. Due to GPS having a reasonably low recharge and that you can always skip out Horns/Falling if need be. This will always be my favourite combo for PvE.

Assassin role for the lose!!

Machine gun sins seems to be the only shot then eh?

I'm definitely sticking with the poison aspect though, sin + poison works well with our preorder weapons...

So Golden Phoenix eh?

I guess the recharge was designed specifically to make it less 'cheesy'. I mean, it does do a hefty amount of dmg and gives back a very nice chunk of energy, but with such a recycle time, said energy can't be used... [gah*, what a loss...]

Now Assassin's Promise comes to mind, problem? It's a shitty elite... ah well...

Alright then, it's a very lowdown dirty shame that GPS, Horns of the Ox, Falling Spider, Twisting Fangs is apparently the ONLY sin combo any sin should bring and if you bring anything else, you're a dumbfark...

Just like Axe Warrior not bringing Eviscerate + Exe. Strike, you axe without that? Nobody will like you...

Stupid effectiveness niches, it's good that they're powerful, but when it gets to the point that there are no substitutes, then uh, so much for 'game variety' and 'skill vs. time played'...

Damnit, it's like unless everyone does the same 'most powerful thing', nobody is worth their effort and what sucks the most is, that I sadly have to agree...

Either I bring GPS, Horns Ox, Fall Spider, TF, or the sin becomes a piece of crap?...

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i have to respectfully disagree that assassin's promise is a shitty elite. like oljomo mentioned, it's a great hex to use since it allows you to use the more powerful off-hand skill that has a long recharge: black lotus strike. it just needs a little getting used to, that's all.

a pure sin AP build can be as simple as...
impale
BLS
AP
twisting fangs
iron palm
falling spider
shadow refuge
rez

impale is there to make sure you push your target to death via your twisting fangs. for me, impale is like "training wheels", helping you get a feel of when to cast AP. iron palm is there for the added KD/interrupt and along with twisting fangs, helps the degen. if you remove impale, you can add another utility skill that can help you along, perhaps from your secondary [plague touch].

anyway, concerning your build, MoI > BLS > TF plus FS > CS is a sure kill, sometimes overkill in PvE. the recharge rate is painful though and i can see why you'd want to AoD out of the battle. try and fit in shadow refuge in there somewhere, since a little self-healing never hurt anyone.

hope that helps.

3 issues I've been told about Assassin's Promise that led me to believe it's a shitty elite...

1. Enemy has to die in set time... Well, in high level pve, where monsters [to me] are an unfairly high lvl 24+, killing an enemy in that amount of time via 8 lvl 20s shooting at him/her doesn't seem likely, especially with enemy monks about.

2. Shatter Hex/etc.. Enemies are dumb, but they're smart enough to know what to remove, as in any hex? lol, don't know, not sure, etc...

3. Other members have said so and proven it with killing numbers + dmg formulas... ack*

I do like the idea however and have also come up with a 'nearly' unblockable Deadly Arts Sin...

But Assassin's Promise should be considered then eh? I think it only works best when using them looong recharge skills like ya mentioned, I'll look into it and have my own rendition of an AP build soon enough...

looks viable... but what do you do at the 20 sec down time?!

probably equip a bow and start shoot away, or use some non attrib 2ndary skills as utility (remove hex/ holy veil comes to mind... even mend condition depending on pve situations... comes to mind)

Assassins Promise is simply amazing. If used well. In my understanding, the Assassin does not use it as well as it could be. They have few long recharging skills.

Elementalists and Monks get the most use out of it, in my experience. It can be effective on any class though.

But, of course, dont make your build rely on a gimmick too much, and dont use it if they strip hexes.

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Woot, just tested this near solo-ready build for A/N!

muahahah!

16 Deadly Arts 0_0
8 Critical Strikes
9 Dagger Mastery [optional]
Rest to Curses

[elite to be capped later]
Primary Version - target dies thru degen, can kill in 4s. flat with a full party's help...

Dancing Daggers
Entangling Asp
Black Lotus Strike
Twisting Fangs
Shadow Refuge [possibly] or Impale if there's enough healing in party
Siphon Speed
Enduring Toxin
Soul Barbs

Another version: [more in close]

Iron Palm
Falling Spider
Twisting Fangs
Impale
Shadow Refuge
Siphon Speed
Enduring Toxin
Soul Barbs

The idea is to let Enduring Toxin rip enemy melee in half along with Soul Barbs, as they drop, get an Impale combo ready to finish off stragglers... I challenged 7 Brotherhood Knights back to back with these setups and found them to be quite invigorating.... [you're truely running ninja style back and forth watching their hp bars drop like rocks to nothing]

Probably not an original idea but I find myself in less danger now that I rely on armor ignoring attacks instead of dagger strikes that pretty much get written off as junk since dagger strikes dont' ignore armor and criticals just don't occur enough for me to be happy...

soul barbs because you have multiple hexes on them...good idea!

but what about barbs? i mean, it's a hex for BLS too and barbs is like a mini impale for all types of direct damage. good not only for you, but your tank as well!

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Thanks to recurring hexes mechanic, Soul Barbs rox the world!

Seeping Wound (Elite) at 13 crit strikes will give you additional -4 health degen for 18 seconds, if the target is poisoned or bleeding. Cost 5 energy, recharge 10 sec. Easy skill capture out of Senji's Corner on a boss vermin.

Rather than AoD, you might consider experimenting with Shadow of Haste, paired with Dash which itself is a highly useful attack and escape spell too. SoH requires a bit of experimentation to make it useful, but you can teleport incredible distances with it. And if something strips it off you, away you go and the henchies usually just run back to you, the mob either breaking off, or being ready for further attacks.

When out with hench, I have also found a simple no-attrib longbow to be a wonderful tool. However you start the fight, stay well off at range plinking with the longbow until the mob is fully aggroed and the ele's and mesmers and necros have run their mana supplies down a bit.

In one extreme case, out solo with the hench in Mourning Veil Falls, I found myself up against that Rit boss. I killed all his minions, but I had no interrupt and my daggers were not so much as making a dent. So, I retreated fully out of range and let the hench recharge. I then opened fire on the lone Rit boss with my little no-attrib longbow and watched in amazement as the henchies, with my useless presence out of the way, killed him in about 40 seconds!

that shadow of haste/dash combo is really nice. I use death charge as well so I can also get in quickly if I want. That's three slots used, but I guess three movement enhancing skills aren't going to hurt in an assassin build.

Seeping Wound sounds quite good actually...

Assassin's Promise works with 16 Deadly Arts however so I suppose it becomes dependant on what you want...

Here's what I came up with today:

16 Critical Strikes
13 Dagger Mastery
4 Shadow Arts

Scorpion Wire
Falling Spider
Repeating Strike
Twisting Fangs
Moebius Strike {E}
Dark Escape
Heart of Shadow
Shadow Refuge

Just used it against the suit of armors in the Isle of the Nameless so I didn't work out the non-attacks parts, but it took out the 100 armor smoothly. Its health had always been below 50% so Moebius would recharge my other attacks and I'd use Repeating Strike again to finish it quickly.

I had an idea to switch stats putting Dagger at 16, Critical at 4, and Shadow at 13, but I didn't get to try that out. This would give greater surviving ability but I'm not sure how much an effect the low Critical would have. At this point, though, the target is poisoned, bleeding, and suffering from deep wound and Twisting would do +13 instead of +18 which isn't much.

Here's one of my favorites:

DA 15 DM 11 Com 7 SA 8 + change in CS

Iron Palm
Entangling Asp
Wild Strike / Fox Fangs
Shadow Refuge / Repeating Strike
Death Blossom
Mark of Instability / Impale / Enduring Toxin
Assassin's Promise {E}
Earthbind / Res Signet / Whatever

The point of this build is 2 fold. First it's a Get Down and Stay Down build, with up to 3 KDs in rapid succession. If you went with /Ri, you've got Earthbind down, so each of those KDs is 3 seconds long. What happens to a creature that's on its ass for 9 seconds (and poisoned)? It dies. If they didn't fall down the first couple of times due to Balanced Stance, your Wild Strike will remove it, then MoI and DB will start the hurt on them.

Second, with the addition of AP, you get 20e back if you kill them in 15 seconds. Cast it when the enemy is 3/4 dead, and it's a virtual guarantee that all your skills will be ready to go again, and you will have the energy to pull them off.

Earthbind will die quickly, but that's okay, because it will be recharged by AP. I find you can kill 2 enemies with 1 Eb, so the Energy cost is manageable too.

I tend to take just henchies along, and occasionally in missions I'm stuck carrying something, which bugged me to no end when all I had were dagger attacks, but you can still lay down a spirit and IP and EA don't require you to drop what you've got, so you can still be useful. Regardless of what's in your hands, you can be attacking through blind and stances and whatnot -- Something that people don't expect from an Assassin.

Shadow Refuge deserves a paragraph of its own. I initially thought this was a completely useless skill because it didn't last long enough or heal enough, and it had a deadly downtime. I put it back into my build a long time ago as a cheap Enchantment that can fire off GLS (no longer in my build), and when I added AP to my build, it became perminant. It is quite rare that any enemy lives longer than the recast time, so those 8 health pips are close to perminant. The occasional boost of 52 health just means that your Monks can pay a little less attention to you. A fact they find refreshing in a 'Sin. I find that it is worth the points you need to pull from another attribute, but you can pull it out and respec if you have faith in your Monk.

This build is also rather versitile. I find myself swapping out skills fairly often going from one explorable area / mission to another. Toss in Impale and RS if you need extra damage. I love chasing someone down in Alliance battles when they have 5 points of degen from Enduring Toxin. Do they stop so that it will end and brave your attack? Or do they run from you and eventually die of degen? I'm fine either way.

My points are fairly wide-spread. There are versions of this build that don't suffer from that problem -- use your imagination.

Enjoy!

The test in Isle of the Nameless is all well and good, but I think it's safe to assume that lvl 24+ monsters have quite a bit more than just 100AL [what's worse, some of the enemy warrior types bring Watch Yourself... ]

Thanks for the ideas however and the 3x knockdown build sounds like fun [too bad I already have a rit class and to make a rit secondary sounds redundant to me... that and /n rox my house...

After careful consideration of stat spread, armor ignoring damage, and probably, fun factor, I've tested this [with Impale in place of Assassin's Promise {E}, I'll cap it later] and found it to be perfect for holding the elite. What sucks is that if I can't knock them down [Wurm, etc.] I have to change the build to fit in Entangling Asp.

16 Deadly Arts
9 Dagger Mastery [does weap. req. affect things like 15% longer poison duration?]
8 Critical Strikes
2 Shadow Arts
8 Curses
[I can't seem to find the other Atb. Quest in Kaineng or nearby, I'm guessing it's later but I'm short on 2 curses right now ;_;]

Iron Palm [unblockable/dodgable armor ignoring dmg+kd]
Falling Spider
Twisting Fangs [full degen conditions here]
Assassin's Promise {E}
Shadow Refuge (if you have a good monk, something else from deadly arts)
Siphon Speed [doesn't seem to 'stack' if casted on multiple targets ]
Enduring Toxin
Soul Barbs

If you're in an area where KD is resisted, we need some unconditional skills [unblockable/dodgable helps too, you lack healing however so running like a madman definitely helps you stay alive and your foes die faster]

Dancing Daggers [may seem weak, but it's guarunteed about 90% of the time, depends on enemy's move speed, also spammable]
Entangling Asp [kd or not, you're poisoned for 20s.+]
Black Lotus Strike [darn, if only we didn't need so much energy to do...]
Twisting Fangs [need Deep Wound so they die 20% faster approx.]
Assassin's Promise {E} [Asp and BLS and such take a while to recharge]
Siphon Speed [RUN LIKE THE WIND]
Enduring Toxin [make them pay for chasing you or trying to escape]
Soul Barbs [couples with toxin for 23 extra dmg per 3s.]

On the news about testing Shameful Fear, I like the skill, but it's duration means you can only keep it up about half the time with its recycle and I seem to have run out of room on my bar, so even though it would complement the hex idea, it's inefficiency and lack of room on my bar kinda kicks it loose...

Just for laughs I used it in PvP RA on a warrior who used his res sig [killed the mesmer he ressed in about 3s.]

It's very amusing to see when he runs he dies, he stands still, [free rush down with Dancing Asp combo]

But I'm certain this build won't work against smart groups or high level pvp, but for just chaotic fun and PvE, this is the best armor ignoring build I've mad thus far with sin

[also quite safe since Dancing Daggers don't need you nearby, only Twisting Fangs...]

If only there was a sin skill where you can cause deep wound from a distance, that'd be cool.

The attribute quest you're probably missing is in Seitung Harbor, take it from Zunraa OR in Ran Musu Gardens, talk to Raitahn Nem.

And I love Deadly Arts builds, so kudos to you for one. Gonna try it out today.

Both attribute quests are back on the island, the one in Ran Musu Gardens is hard to find the NPC, so I'm going to bet that's the one.

Yukito, I've become well aware of your preference for /N builds over the last year or so. I love the Necro myself, although I can't help but think of Ritualists in the same breath. Replace Earthbind with Plague Touch or even Plague Sending. They won't stay down for as long, but they do go down. Remember that each KD is also an Interupt and you have 5 seconds to pull off the next attack in a chain. Wait until they start a skill then bam, down they go again.

Let the enemy give you the free DW. Is there a Warrior out there that doesn't carry it? So, why carry it yourself -- there are other skills to round out your bar. Throw it back at them, or someone else if you'd care to.

Both of them are on noob island?!

daymn...

Ran Musu or seitung Harbor eh? Ok, I'll check, need my 200 atb darn it!

sounds like the attributes are pretty much everywhere to me.But other than that it seems more like a spike.

Generally I found two builds that work VERY WELL in PvE.

With Henchies, I much perfer Assassin's Promise > BLS > Twisting or Death Blossom. The only trick is CAST ASSASSIN'S PROMISE WHEN THE MOB IS ALREADY HALF-DEAD. This way, you will never run out of mana and all your attacks are always on. If the mob is not lvl25+, use Unsuspecting Strike > Assasin'e Promise > BLS. Or whatever. The point is a) Henchys are good at focus fire, and b) cast AP when the mob is already down.

With humans that don't focus fire and are often less intelligent than henchys, I like to run a A/W build with critical defence and wild blow.