yahat

Yet Another Hero Assassin Topic/Thread/Team

So I got like 16 zones in proph left to squish on my warrior( just the desert and the south shiverpeaks, 6-8 man areas, cantha's already done, then i'm off to elona) and I've been mixing it up to keep things interesting. While annihilating the 4 man areas I came to a realization that just about as long as I can keep SY! up by whatever means my party is almost invincible. This kinda lead me to consider heroes that I had previously rejected while playing my casters and ranger, like the fragile assassins. With 100AL and backed by the right support I figured I might turn them into little death machines, and I was kinda surprised. If I CTRL+Space my target they will hit it and follow me into the fight. This won't work in the 4 man areas as is but seems like it might eventually hurt stuff in the 6+ man areas.

Me:

[asuran scan][enraged smash][pulverizing smash][counter blow][auspicious blow][drunken master][save yourselves!]["For Great Justice!"]

Tweedle Dee(zenmai):

[Shadow Shroud][Black Lotus Strike][lotus strike][twisting fangs][disrupting dagger][critical eye][inspirational speech][leaders zeal]

Tweedle Dum(anton):

[Golden Fox Strike][Wild Strike][Shattering Assault][Way of the Lotus][disrupting Dagger][critical eye][inspirational speech][leaders zeal]

The Master:

[Jagged Bones][Animate Bone Minions][Death Nova][Withering Aura][Mark of Pain][Foul Feast][Convert Hexes][Signet of Lost Souls]

Then throw in whatever local monk, mesmer or whatnot and get some.

First, I love that hammer bar for the 4-6 man areas with those stupid grawl monks and centaur protectors. I scan, go up to em in a drunken fury, crit em for 200+ when they try to run, hit em for another 100 with pulverizing, then finish them with auspicious and find something to knocklock with counter blow.

Odd thing, I was flipping through skills on the wiki and I saw [Inspirational speech]. I wondered if they would use it on me at all, and when the fighting starts they do spam it on you on recharge, great for helping me with SY! and my other adrenal stuff. You have to micro it between fights but you can keep charged between fights if you do. I bet if you put it on heroes with high energy and no adrenaline they'd use it on you too. They also use leaders zeal well enough, we move as a unit if I call the target and there's usually minions around so they get the full effect. They hit anything that comes along with D-Dagger, no real energy issues.

Few issues that need to be resolved, in tweedle dee's bar, she's to slugish with the chain, she'll do it, just stuff might be dead by then and her first 2 skills will be recharging. I need to find shorter recharging stuff they can use or figure out a macro or something. I had shroud on disable so I could use it on call, My scan or MoP or whatever the mes hench has is enough of a starter for black lotus, but the rest of the chain isn't fast enough.

Second issue, The gold fox>wild strike>shattering assault may not be cutting it on anton, I thought it might work similar to chuck the [ebon vanguard assassin support] guy, but he's slow on it. SA might be to expensive to get off before way of the lotus ends on him.

I'm thinking just [jagged strike], [exhausting assault], and setting them up with [locust's fury] or [seeping wound], This way they at least hit stuff a lot, which they seem to like to do, maybe make it bleed a little, and they have a couple extra interrupts which the AI is insanely good at. Maybe throw in dancing daggers too. I have to test drive it. Barring that I might see how they do with the chuck combo(iron palm, fox fangs, nine tale strike, but I'm concerned about iron palm's recharge, I don't know how they handle assassin's promise).

I am pleasantly surprised by inspirational speech though, might try that on other heroes who don't need adrenaline.

I really like you figuring out [Inspirational Speech] I'm going to use that for sure!
They look creative and they may work. But I think you need more support in 6-man. One healer probably won't be enough.

One preliminary question - why Shadow Shroud? I never thought of it as a particularly useful hex for PvE. Surely a more spammable hex would be more useful?

[enraging charge][enduring harmony][for great justice][dragon slash][brawling headbutt][steelfang slash][save yourselves][sunspear rebirth signet]

maintain save urselves constantly while retaining decent dmg output and the capability to keep a single target (monks ) on their ass constantly with stonefist insignia and kd's (aka d-slash, brawling, d-slash, brawling, d-slash, etc. etc.)

steelfang isnt super necessary and neither is sunspear rebirth if u would prefer something else. 1st 6 skills are the shit though, dont change em ;-)

[inspirational speech] is a good idea.
I wonder what you might do running an [assassin's promise] build with [ebon vanguard assassin support] and [save yourselves], plus your sin heroes.

^I thought of that but I never seem to get around to capping assassin's promise.

about the d-slash thing, I made the E-smash bar because I did cantha and most of the maguuma jungle and kryta with the sword thing, kinda wanted a change and when it came to running down the centaur protectors I thought "Gee i kinda wish I had bulls strike... hey wait... didn't they make that one hammer thing like bulls but it gives you tons of adrenaline per hit and half the recharge of bulls..." and It's now my new favorite toy.

[Shadow Shroud] was just in case I needed to deal with stuff like dolyak masters, grawl or something that needs to die, but gets mega proted by stuff that can maintain healing hands or mark of protection forever. It's an option, but not nescessary. I couldn't really decide on what elites to give them, I thought about the power is yours or cautery sig even, but I have something figured out, the last 4 skills are the same, D-Dagger, Crit eye, speech and zeal, but on Zenmai I put:

[Fox's Promise][Jagged Strike][Golden Fang][Death Blossom]

It's kind of like a faster charging twisting fangs or sever gash for assassin's, she's a sadist with golden fang, just psychotic and on anton:

[Seeping Wound][Unsuspecting Strike][Fox Fangs][Twisting Fangs]

I tried to replicate chuck's vanguard chain but if something dies their combo is bottlenecked. Anything above 8 seconds recharge is just not viable on heroes for lead and offhand attacks... With what I gave them above, the 2 cheap quick recharging leads and offhands they became raging beasts. I intend to try out more stuff in the lead slots, and will get around to trying that exhausting assault. Everything was bleeding, everything was DW'd everything was dying, I had to micro the dual attacks occasionally but more often then not I glanced over and they were using them regularly. I just squished snake dance with these guys. Had some complications as about half the foes use smiting AoE, occasionally I'd hit a bad patroll or pop the azure things that don't bleed and get rolled by the holy going through SY!(side note, when the blessed griffons would try and do symbol of wrath or balthazar's aura the anton and zenmai would actually run away from it wait for it to end or till they got prot and heals then go back in, I was stunned... the wipes occured when the giants or azure shadows KD's us and they couldn't run), but we got though it with a few clovers. They ate the giants and trolls for lunch though, and the summit. May not be discord but it's interesting.

I'm kinda wondering how D/P heroes would do with that speech skill and leaders zeal, maybe give mox something besides orders spam to do...

Withering Aura is better off replaced by Enbeebling Blood on your MM bar.

A/Ps as simple DB/MS spammers should be better that your OP, especially if you fit one with golden fang, but D/P looks much better on paper.

Since you are investing to motivation, you can abuse them for some more motivation instead of [Leaders Zeal] or even assassin elites.

[build=Owlk0xeyIeqUZGx3Bj+zOyP2no8G]
[build=Owlk0xeyIeqUZm/zBj+zOi92nIHG]

I tried enfeebling blood, it never seemed to be where I need it, with withering aura I'm guaranteed energy when I hit with auspicious.

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