Palm Strike for General PvE

The last time I checked up on the issue, the king of PvE assassin builds was DB+MS and looked something like this:

[golden phoenix strike][death blossom][moebius strike][club of a thousand bears][save yourselves][critical eye][critical defenses][critical agility]

Giving up a 4th skillslot for the attack chain to use [golden fox strike][wild strike] in place of [golden phoenix strike] gives you a reliable starter on a 4 sec recharge.

The most well-founded criticism of DB+MS is that restarting the combo every time your target dies takes a big hit out of the DPS.

Now, the question that comes to my mind is: "Now that it has a 4 sec recharge, can we do better with Palm Strike?" It seems like going straight to death blossom with no wind up every 4 sec ought to at least have some possibilities.

Can we take
[palm strike][death blossom]+X and beat [golden phoenix strike][death blossom][moebius strike], or
take
[palm strike][death blossom]+X+X and beat [golden fox strike][wild strike][death blossom][moebius strike]
for death blossom spammage rate, after taking into account the effect of the target dying and having to restart the chain?

I look forward to hearing your suggestions.

generally no, because palm strike is very slow (3/4s cast and 3/4s aftercast). moebius will out hit it every single time.

Restarting the combo does NOT take a big hit out of your DPS... all you have to do is use [Golden Phoenix Strike]... and then on to [Death Blossom][Moebius Strike]

If you're theory-crafting, which you probably are, you probably didn't realize that [Moebius Strike] recharges [Golden Phoenix Strike].

or that moebius does not actually need to recharge anything, since death blossom and moebius both have 2 second recharges and will be available very quickly.

yeah, your basically working towards spamming death blossom + moebius. so the first 1-2 skills are just to get that chain started. and if your foe isnt under 50% hp, then 8 seconds is a long time to wait as a sin if you want to get a chain going of hard hitting skills.

in pve, when making builds, i generally tend to think, what skills will give me the highest dps over an hour, then over the next 10 seconds.

Quote: Originally Posted by IcyFiftyFive

If you're theory-crafting, which you probably are, you probably didn't realize that [Moebius Strike] recharges [Golden Phoenix Strike]. Like Stanzhao said, if you don't manage to MB your target under 50% hp, you don't get your GPS recharged, and you're stalled for 7 sec. This doesn't happen so frequently that it's build breaking, just often enough that there's some room for improvement on the standard DB+MS.

However, so far it doesn't seem like Palm Strike is the way to get there.

Everybody I know uses [golden fox strike][wild strike] over [golden phoenix strike] and you should too ([critical defenses]? oplz)

Quote: Originally Posted by Chthon The last time I checked up on the issue, the king of PvE assassin builds was DB+MS and looked something like this.. Check again, I'd substitute [golden phoenix strike][critical defenses][critical eye] for [golden fox strike][wild strike][critical strike]. Club is decent, but asura scan doesn't leave my phys bars for the most part.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon It seems like going straight to death blossom with no wind up every 4 sec ought to at least have some possibilities. Removing [golden fox strike][wild strike] means you won't be going anywhere beyond palm strike if the target's blocking with a stance.

In some rare cases you dont run into blocking stances...but it doesnt matter [golden fox strike][wild strike] > [golden phoenix strike].

Quote: Originally Posted by Saraneth

Check again, I'd substitute [golden phoenix strike][critical defenses][critical eye] for [golden fox strike][wild strike][critical strike]. Club is decent, but asura scan doesn't leave my phys bars for the most part.



Removing [golden fox strike][wild strike] means you won't be going anywhere beyond palm strike if the target's blocking with a stance. Swapping [golden fox strike][wild strike] for [golden phoenix strike] I'm fine with. I don't think block stances are nearly as big a problem as you make them out to be. But I can see the faster recharge potentially being worth the extra skillslot.

As for swapping [critical strike] for [critical eye], I think it's a bad idea. Either skill gives you ample energy and either skill is adequate for maintaining Crit Agility. However, Crit Eye gives you a slight DPS increase by giving you more a few more crits; while Crit Strike gives you a slight DPS decrease by taking the dual spot away from DB every so often.

In any event, that's all secondary to the main point of this thread -- can Palm Strike be used to spam DB as well or better than MS? It seems like the consensus here is "no."

[build prof=A/W dag=12+1+1 cri=12+1 sunspear=10][Golden Fox Strike][Wild Strike][Death Blossom][Palm Strike][Critical Eye][Critical Agility][Save Yourselves][No Skill][/build]

This is an OK build for some situations. When H/Hing in normal the lazy way, very few things last long enough under the focus fire to get a good moebius alternation going- and things can die 1 or 2 seconds after your lead, meaning you are stuck waiting for the recharge on your next mob. With this build, you can alternate lead->offhand->blossom and palm->blossom. Palm strike+aftercast takes about as long as the lead->offhand under IAS, and the recharges sync up exactly so death blossom is used every 2s, but you now have the freedom to switch targets every 2s too. And palm strike is easy to cap in Bukdek Byway, while new sins will either need to buy a tome/faction or wait till vasburg armory to use moebius.

Still when moebius actually triggers the <50 condition, whether facing tough monsters or being off-target, and you can hit blossom faster than 2s under IAS, it really shines. And the impatient wanting 2s skill combo can always do something like [Jagged Strike][Wild Strike][Golden Fang Strike][Death Blossom] and use any elite.

If there was a dual worth using other than Death Blossom, there would probably be more possibilities... albeit Mobeius would be good there too anyway. Still, I love being able to finish off those afflicted sins who fire up a shadow form right near death.

Quote: Originally Posted by Bobby2

Everybody I know uses [golden fox strike][wild strike] over [golden phoenix strike] and you should too ([critical defenses]? oplz) Pretty much wins the thread for me.

[Palm Strike] is bad for PvE if you ask me. Why do you need to cripple the enemy ? its an NPC, a monster, with AI aka Artificial intelligence, its not gonna run far from you.

if you wanted [Palm Strike] for its armor ignoring damage, why not take the armor ignoring damage from [Death Blossom] AoE ?

i usually run [golden fox strike][golden fang strike][death blossom][moebius strike]

I run something like this: [palm strike][trampling ox][falling lotus strike][death blossom][optional][asuran scan][critical agility][shadow refuge]

Optional:

[Pain Inverter][Save Yourselves][Mending Touch][Air of Superiority][Critical Eye][Impale][A Touch of Guile][Way of the Fox][Way of the Lotus][Frenzy][Flail][Heart of Shadow][Death's Charge]

[Dash] in PvE is a wasted skill slot IMHO unless you are a runner, so I don't even use it in PvE.

[Way of the Fox] for when you know you'll be facing mobs with lots of [Whirling Defense], and other assorted annoying stances. Personally, I usually ignore those and let my heroes deal with them while I focus on casters.

[Death's Charge] for a nice shadow step to priority targets like monks or ritualists.

[Heart of Shadow] if you will be facing MM opponents -> prevents body-blocking from their minions (very useful in areas like Eternal Grove explorable).

[Asuran Scan] only leaves my bar if I am running Perma.

Works pretty well for me. I can alternate dual attacks while I wait for [Falling Lotus Strike] to recharge. This build does silly amounts of gank if you target properly.

I use the [Moebius Strike]+[Death Blossom] Spam build as well, and also the Perma. It all depends on what I want to get accomplished at the time. I have found that the Moebius build doesn't do so well in certain dungeons that I farm, however.