A/W NightFall Spike Assassin

I've been using a very similar build. The only slight variation I used is I swapped frenzy out for burst of agression. Burst has a length long enough to finish your spike, and the loss of adren has no downside for sins. Frenzy, even with a cancel can be very risky for a sin.

Burst of Aggression would deff's be a preferance... seeing ass sins already have a low AL for a melee class frenzy wouldnt make things any better. I agree that HoTo is not necessary, i would reccomend blades of steal as the finisher.
In order i reckon: Shadow Prism, black lotus, Twisted Fangs, Black Spider, BoS. = gg

I still like flourish mixed with spike sins. It just makes it so u can spike so often its not even funny, in that case the hex u would use would be siphon speed which has a ridiculously low recharge.

this bar is just ridiculous in random arenas. you can run in, spike someone, and run out... it's amazing.

i run burst of aggression instead of frenzy, and blades of steel instead of horns of the ox. if you do:

shadow prison - black lotus - twisting - black spider - blades of steel

blades of steel will trigger for the full +50 x 2 damage, hitting for 88ish on each attack on a soft target.

since you don't need a cancel stance for burst of aggression, i put 7 points into shadow arts and take feigned neutrality, which is the skill that saves your ass while waiting for shadow prison to recharge for your next spike. it's got enough healing/armor to not need a monk to heal you after spiking.

but any monk who is prepared for such a spike can just remove shadow prison before the second offhand attack can land.

I would use 2 majors (DM and CS) and up CS to 13. That and Burst of Aggression. Siphon Speed too. No Frenzy, no Dash. I may actually miss Dash though

This should be in the assassin section. This is for team builds, this one is just individual.

Also , that combo has already been stated in the good ol' sin section. Works like a charm.

Variant Skill Bar.

Shadow Prison {Elite}
Black Lotus Strike
Twisting Fangs
Black Spider Strike
Blades of Steel
Burst of Aggression
Dash/Feigned Neutrality
Ressurection Signet

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God damn, you know how many of these I see in Random Arenas now?
Tip for you monks who have problems with these sinz, bring Hex Breaker.

shadow prison - burst - lotus - horns - spider - fangs - deadly paradox - feigned neutrality.

That is what you do, you pop in, obliterate something, go into neutrality and run around till combo is back up. Its so fun.

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I run a similar build:

Siphon Speed
Shroud of Silence
Burst of Aggression
Black Lotus Strike
Twisting Fangs
Black Spider Strike
Blades of Steel
Dash, Signet of Toxic Shock, or Rez Sig

Both builds accomplish the same thing but mine trades off shadow step for caster shut-down.

Been using a similar build as well, main difference is the attribute division (chain is changed as well, dual attacks have been switched).

It's good enough in RA, i keep getting compliments from mainly necro's (don't know why, but they seem to notice it the most, monks are second)

As for support... meh, Feigned Neutrality is decent, some morons just keep pounding me for naught... don't need sup or major runes, so I have loads of hp... oh, and really.. don't need that much support, I've gotten plenty of glad points with the build, 1/3 of which with hardly any healing in the team.

Same here, this build was around already during the previews as soon as people saw the potential combinations.
15 DM
13 CS
4 Deadly (no need for anything higher)

Vamp Daggers during spike

Shadow Prison
Burst of Aggression
Black Spider Strike
Horns of The Ox
Black Lotus Strike
Twisting Fangs
Wild Blow/Iron Palm/Expose Defenses
Rez

Horns as the first Dual is a must otherwise they have too much time to react and ofc when jumping/being jumped by another similar spiker the HotO can interrupt nicely and save you. Iron Palm at the end has interrupted a Zealous Benediction or such spike saver countless times for me. Wild Blow is pretty nice against touchers and all sorts of stance users. I keep changing between the two. ^^

Self-heal is a waste of slot imo in this build. Better leave that to a monk and make sure you have a utility skill that helps you get more kills.

I eat shadow prison spikers for breakfast on my RA farming Necro though. It's a bit too predictable and Spoil Victor + Insiduous Parasite doesn't forgive.

SS, Empathy, Spoil Victor, Insidious Parasite-> Assassins in general.

But it's not always that you find these counters in RA, in fact i don't find them as much as I expect to.

I agree with the above poster, Horns should always be used first.

horns makes the combo half-assed, if you're gonna spike go for extreme overkill damage!

shadow prison
burst of aggresion
black lotus strike - so you only need 20 energy to start the full combo, if this is the 2nd offhand, you need 30.
twisting fangs - apply deep wound as soon as possible!
black spider strike - cover deep wound! good damage too
death blossom - the most powerful dual while target is degening and deeply wounded = sure kill
malicious strike - if it's not dead yet
rez

2 dagger sets: vampiric(for everything else) and elemental(for warriors)

you should be the last to go in. let your allies engage in combat a bit. then dont pick a damaged target, pick a full health one and kill it. this combo has power to kill harder and faster than a monk can click on his ally and heal and they wont have a full health one preselected.

blindbots, monks, and targets with stances are last priority. of course they're gonna react. pick a target that cant do shit against you and spike the hell out of it. if you must target one of these just make sure they are distracted by something and dont see u coming.

as for other shadow prison spikers, let them attack first. if he targeted my ally since this combo is more damaging he will die before my ally. if he targeted me, i let him do his silly horns first then do my combo. he has a head start and he even casts feigned after, but i still win.

If you're going for "extreme overkill damage!" why are you using Death Blossom instead of Blades of Steel and why are you using BLS before BSS? The later also doesn't make sense in terms of energy management either.

And I fail to see how you can win 1v1 against someone using the horns version, moreso if you wait for him and then attack, you will be dead before you get to the second part of your combo. If you use your combo to jump someone spiking your teamate, you cannot stop them attacking so at best each team loses someone.

Worse: when I monk for an A/W assassin I aways put PS, Guardian and SoA on them before they call their initial spike. With PS and SoA, even if you hit all hits through Guardian (good luck with that) you can only do max (5+50)*(10/2) + 100(DW) = 375dmg, which leaves them 10 seconds degening at -7 while all your hits are hitting for 0 damage. With horns, you would also have failed to kill but you would have been able to save your teamate.

I also fail to see how your combo which lasts 3.5 seconds but without a single interrupt can kill anyone with a brain. What about a monk that Guardians? What about if they use CoP? It's all good to leave "blindbots, monks, and targets with stances" for last but are they going to stand still while you pound on their teamates (unless they are under very heavy pressure)? They must really have poor awareness. When I play anything with any sort of melee hate (even SF ele with Steam) A/W is my priority target because of the popularity of this build. And what makes it a killer build is the fact that Horns disrupts. 3.5 seconds is quite long for a spike and if they are free to react then you will fail against anyone half-awake.

The 40 (20+20) damage you lose with Horns instead of Blades of Steel is worth it because of the KD imo.

i stand corrected, BOS indeed does more damage.. i just realised it counts itself as one of the recharging dagger attacks.

i hit BSS 2nd cuz wound > poison. BLS first because prison+burst+BLS costs 20 and then you get 17 back, thus guaranteed you do full combo (..TF,BSS,BOS). if BLS was 2nd you need to shadow prison at almost 30 energy(more inefficient waiting around) or you wont do the full combo.

the same monk will survive the horns version and CoP or BL afterwards, same shit. and wound will be the first condition removed. unless he was already dying. but then i dont hit dying targets.. and if i did, why kd, i'd just kill it.

my pve char is 505H, 29E and she does survive the full horns version cuz its damage is mediocre. most things other than 60AL can take it, actually. my combo can insta-kill most 70AL and some 80AL(after additional normal hits).

you dont only lose 40 damage, you're wasting a low damage conditional kd dual on a non-deepwounded target. why do warriors eviscerate before executioner? same concept! that spells the difference between a kill and a half-assed attempt.

What's new? And I seriously think you should use BSS, not BLS first, because you won't need the 18e after you've used.. 10. You'll need it after you've burned through 20

friggin hell, do i have to spell it out for all you nublets?

Shadow Prison - 5
Burst of Aggression - 5
Black Lotus Strike - 10
*get energy back to do TF, BSS, BOS

5+5+10 = 20

Shadow Prison - 5
Burst of Aggression - 5
Black Spider Strike - 5
Horns of the Ox - 5
Black Lotus Strike - 10
*get energy back to do TF

5+5+5+5+10 = 30

You have to spend 10 for BLS before you get the energy back, genius.

With the first combo order, you get to do the full combo more often, which is more damaging and covers deep wound.

With the second combo order, which isnt even good, after your first full combo you run like an ass waiting for 30e before you do it again. OR you get two dagger attacks in, then you're mashing BLS, thinking "why isnt it coming out?" whilst "Not Enough Energy" is flashing at your idiot face.

...why not just use BLS - hoto - falling spider - fangs? You're relying on HotO anyway for part of your damage, and you still get the same effect out of it except that you need your target to be KD'ed for the 2nd half. It's not often that your target isn't KD'ed by a HotO unless you really didn't look at all to see if you were teleporting at the right time.

To an above poster (to futher prove to you should open with BLS):

BLS must hit a hexed foe, if you open with it, you do not require any points in deadly arts *other* than spare attribute points.

If you are using Burst of Agression, then you will spend 20 energy before BLS hits...you get the energy post-strike, so unless you feel like risking your entire combo to getting trashed by a simple energy burn / surge, you really shouldn't use it second (sure, you're safe by like 2-6 energy, but if you get energy burned you're screwed...gg). This is pretty much what happens-

Shadow Prison + BoA = -10e (-10e total, no boost from zealous)
Black Lotus Strike = -10 energy, but +18e on hit. + zealous is +19 (+9e total)
Horns of the Ox = -5e / +2e (-3e total)
Black Spider Strike = -5e / +1e (-4e total)
Twisting Fangs = -10e / +2e (-8e total)

Firstly...let's look at this: Monks run condition removal...Deep Wound is your most valuable condition...Why the hell are you not using Poison to cover your Deep Wound? Mend Ailment = useless if they can't remove the condition that will kill them 2 seconds later...heal from mend condition / dismiss = marginal.

Now let's actually look at energy:

You have a total spent energy amounting to -1e if you open with BLS (before your second combo, in which you have stuck all of your damage for some obscure reason...it's that way in the example for simplicity).

If you do it the other way (and decide that KD is for some reason still better than the extra overall damage it offers to a target under deep wound), here's what it looks like:

-5e -5e (Shadow Prison + BoA)
-5e -5e (Spider -> HotO)

****-10e -10e**** All your efficiency for the kill is loaded into this 20 energy combo right here. Honestly, the other two skills are there more for the "shock" (not the skill) value. They do decent damage, but the fear from being KD'ed + poisoned is much more effective (people play worse when they think they're about to get owned...).

1 energy burn / energy surge / any form of energy loss possible means that you now cannot likely perform the finisher to this combo. If you open via BLS + Fangs followed by Black Spider + HotO you guarantee that your deep wound is under IAS, making your supporting (and cover) condition come sooner. HotO's dmg also effectively multiplies by 1.2 (20%), increasing your chance to kill your target simply by reversing the order that you use skills in.

I really don't know how better to explain this...

These..... things... now infest RA and TA. Congratulations on giving birth to the new touch ranger

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1st of all this can NOT be the new touch ranger. it takes more skill to play AND is fragile(it can be modded tho). I also agree on BLS 1st b/c of the energy for the rest of u combo. and yes...if u have shadow prison(8 second hex @ 10 deadly w/ an IAS)dont use the KD from HotO b/c then ur relying on KD. try BLS-TF-BSS-BoS and that will kill just about ne1 if u do it quik enough and if their monk is busy