Attack Chains

Hello all assassins!!! I have never really played as an assassin before so i thought i would make one and so far i think i'm doing quite well, but anyway, the other day i was looking for assassin builds on wiki and i found that a few of the the builds didn't have lead attacks but they still had offhand and Dual attacks so i was just wondering if you guys could explain this to me because i thought you had to start with a lead attack to make an attack chain.
Any help would be appreciated and thank you in advance

Well some offhand attacks require: knockdown foe, hexed foe, or even you being enchanted. If you can meet those requirements you can bypass the need for a lead attack.

Golden phoenix Strike is an off-hand that requires an enchantment to hit, instead of a lead attack, Black Spider Strike requires a hex instead, and falling lotus/spider require the enemy to be KDed instead. just helps with getting to the dual attacks faster, since they usually do the most damage.

Welcome to the world of being unpopular in PUGs!

Skipping leads is common: You'll find a lot of the OMG SINSPIKE builds are based around the concept of skipping the lead and using offhand-dual-offhand-dual in a chain, since duals usually do more damage so..put more of them in there!

A sample build that gets overused in PvP (no matter how often they try to nerf it), uses

[skill]Shadow Prison[/skill] to hex, snare and shadowstep to the foe,

then leaps straight to an offhand

[skill]Black Spider Strike[/skill]

follow with a dual + KD

[skill]Horns of the Ox[/skill]

exploit the KD to get another offhand

[skill]Falling Spider[/skill] or more probably[skill]Falling Lotus Strike[/skill] since they're already poisoned from BSS and you could use some energy by this point

and then finish off with

[skill]Blades of Steel[/skill]

since by that point you'll have lots of recharging dagger attacks so will get a lot of damage out of it.

Then maybe throw in [skill]Impale[/skill] if they're still standing, and then run the hell away.

Add in an attack speed increase, and you can do all of this pretty much as fast as you can run your finger across the number keys. Which is why a lot of people hate it, incidentally.

But yes: check skill descriptions carefully: if they don't specify "must follow a lead attack", then they don't need one.

Only leads you will probably see in PvP are from the mantis line for Trampling Ox

People use conditional off-hands to reach the duals quicker and increase spike damage, as shown above.

Thanks for the quick feedback guys!

used to be very nice and easy to use the famous combo of
BLS(when it was offhand)
Twisting fangs
Black Spider Strike
Blades of steel

though now adays you can just use
golden pheonix strike
twisting fangs
back spider strike
blades
that is a little expensive on energy though

Quite fun to use in PvE, too (when moebius blossom spamming ad infinitum gets tedious): combine with [skill]Assassin's Promise[/skill] as your hex, and you can usually repeat it as often as you actually need to.

I tend to avoid GPS when I can, though, since you can be instantly gimped by a single Shatter enchantment (unless you bring multiple enchants: shadow refuge is actually quite useful here, given the 8 sec recharge), and I lack nightfall, so my "I'm pissing around with AP" PvE build is usually

[skill]Assassin's Promise[/skill]
[skill]Mark of Instability[/skill] (since HotO nerf)
[skill]Black Lotus Strike[/skill] EDIT: don't believe the skill descrip here: this is now a lead, not an offhand
[skill]Wild Strike[/skill] (well, I needed an offhand, and I do love the stance removal)
[skill]Twisting Fangs[/skill]
[skill]Falling Spider[/skill]
[skill]Blades of Steel[/skill]
+ Self heal or res.

Which is decently spammable thanks to BLS and AP, though would be better off with BSS and FLS if I had nightfall and EOTN...but c'est la vie.

(having said all that, if anyone has improvement suggestions, I'm all ears: I'm not proud )


Ultimately, S S: (if you haven't gathered this already) the best PvE elite you could ever have on an assassin...pretty much unarguably, is [skill]Moebius Strike[/skill], which essentially will let you spam dual attacks indefinitely. If you combine that with [skill]Death Blossom[/skill], the usual dual of choice, you can produce ludicrous rapid AoE damage for as long as your target stays alive. Also, sorry: slipping into general advice here.

Quote:

or, he could do
[skill]Aura of Displacement[/skill]
[skill]Golden Phoenix Strike[/skill]
[skill]Horns of the Ox[/skill]
[skill]Falling Spider[/skill]
[skill]Twisting Fangs[/skill] or [skill]Blades of Steel[/skill]
And then you can add in maybe a self heal, a snare, and a rez?

Quote:

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In PvE, I sometimes run

Assassins Promise->"You Move Like A Dwarf!"->Falling Lotus Strike->Blinding Powder->Trampling Ox->Falling Spider Strike->Blades of Steel->Impale