Surviving as an Assassin in hard mode/"elite" PVE

Oh...assassin...I do love your hefty DPS, sweet dual wielding daggers, and sleek armor...but from my experience you just don't have the durability to fit into hard mode missions/dungeons without putting enormous stress on healers or accumulating a massive death penalty. Or could I be mistaken?

I'm not entirely new to playing as an assassin, I've gotten mine halfway through Factions and have completed a decent chunk of Eye of the North. I was planning to make the assassin my eye of the north character, but started reconsidering once I realized I was dying. ALOT. And this was in normal mode. My assassin was dying to things that my warrior would have shrugged off laughingly.

The skills I generally bring along are: Golden fox strike, wild strike, death blossom, Moebius, critical agility, critical defenses, shadow refuge, and asuran scan

TL;DR: I'm asking for advice from "experienced" assassins. What advice do you have, as far as techniques and skill selections for surviving, while still dealing enough damage to fit your role as a damage dealer? In your opinion, do assassins have a place in "high end" PVE (hard mode, EOTN dungeons)?

Get the Ele/Mo or N/Mo heroes to Prot Spirit you when H/Hing.
Reject monks and convince elementalists to Emo heal/bond with humans.

Tbh drop Crit Defense and take "Finish Him!" or Twisting Fangs. Mobs should absolutely not be alive long enough for Crit Defense to matter.


And yes. Make one of your heroes cast prot Spirit on you (for better results have your heroes' PS binded to a key on either your mouse or to a key on your keyboard).

Critical Agility + Blessed Insignias should make you about as durable as a hammer warrior on average.

Or you can just bring an ER ele along to PS/PBond you...

Quote: Originally Posted by RunBeagleRun

The skills I generally bring along are: Golden fox strike, wild strike, death blossom, Moebius, critical agility, critical defenses, shadow refuge, and asuran scan
Golden fang+Wild strike are near useless, if something actually stances, tab. Jagged+Fox fangs

Moebius is redundant and if you actually get it off you're doing it wrong.

Also what john said, also shadow refuge

bring SoH at a spec of least 10 on hero, PS yourself on aggro.

Monks.

Really, that's all every profession needs. There's no super secret tactics or skills that pro assassins use, all you need is decent monks, decent positioning and possibly an ally target step.

Pack SY!. Micro Prot Spirit. Done.

Quote: Originally Posted by IronSheik

Golden fang+Wild strike are near useless, if something actually stances, tab. Jagged+Fox fangs

Moebius is redundant and if you actually get it off you're doing it wrong.

Also what john said, also shadow refuge

bring SoH at a spec of least 10 on hero, PS yourself on aggro. This is good advice, I was doing some VQ in luxon territory during the double rep weekend and I went the critical scythe route and didn't have much problem. Most stuff just blew up, but obviously with most areas of the game you need to tailor your build to what you are facing. Some areas may require more self heal and some none at all.

Quote: Originally Posted by Bobby2

Quote: Originally Posted by RunBeagleRun

Dont play like a warrior thats the most impt rule for me.

I was able to observe 2 assassin players in our guild over some vanquishes and hm dungeons. I call one of them "expert" and the other "inexperienced". The expert was GWAMM by the way, and always refused to play Shadow Form. Both were using the same builds - the inexperienced copied the build from the expert. The build contained Critical Defences as the only defensive skill. In some runs the inexperienced was with us, in some other runs the expert. And in some runs both.

The expert almost never died. He didn't take too much damage, either. The inexperienced on the other hand died on almost every mob. Sometimes I was playing monk, and even with protection, it was often not possible to keep him alive at all. I conclude the difference is not the build. It is the equipment and the player's skill.

Some weeks ago, I started an assassin myself, since it is one of the last 3 classes I yet had to play. I tried to survive.

I found out this:

- An assassin is not a tank (if he doesn't use Shadow Form). He is a damage dealer with only a light armor enhancement compared to spell casters. So don't act as a tank if you don't have a dedicated tanking build. Enter the battle after someone else opened combat with his minions or as a warrior.

- high health (I have 570) means you are less likely targeted by the enemy AI when it chooses its target. This means no superior runes and a maximum of 1 major rune. Take an IAS instead to increase the damage, which increases the damage of your default attacks as well.

- take armor increasing insignia. The expert tells me he has Infiltrator's insignia on all pieces, since piercing damage is (in his opinion) the damage he gets most when he is under attack and must retreat to survive. He didn't choose Nightstalker's insignia, since this is without effect as soon as you retreat being under attack. And during retreat, you need increased armor most.

- have a high critical strikes attribute. The expert tells me he has 13, he uses a zealous dagger and has 25 energy in his pool. Since the build also increases the chance of a critical hit (he uses Way of the Assassin+Critical eye), almost every hit is critical and returns 5 energy. This is in fact infinite energy, even with this tiny pool of 25. I tried it, and it is true. Just a few default attacks and your pool is from 0 to 25 and you can immediately recast all the good PvE skills in mid-battle (Pain Inverter, EVAS, ...)

- cast Critical Defences immediately before a fight or after entering the fight. It will keep up itself by each critical hit, and since you boosted your critical hit chance, it is possible to keep it up constantly up during a fight.

- always look on your life bar and retreat if you loose to much life. Or if Critical Defences is gone and still reloading and you are under heavy attack.

- At the start of the fight, don't run straight to the enemy that is farthest away from the front line, even if it is a priority target like a monk. You pull your own monk into the enemy mob with this if he has to heal you.

- Don't start the combat by jumping into the middle of an enemy mob by using a shadow step. This is like saying: "Here I am all alone, kill me". If you want to use shadow steps, use it during combat and after the enemies have already chosen their targets. This way you don't pull all of the enemy fire on you.


You still depend on monk support of course, but it is fun to play assassin even in more damage-heavy areas.

Mantain Critical Agility, aim for high HP and make your minions get the alpha strike (the first hit when the enemy group enters your bubble). Those things make you invisible. As if you were a ninja. But not really.

Try Jagged Strike + Fox Fangs and Flashing Blades instead of Moebius and Crit Def.

Quote: Originally Posted by Silmar Alech

- An assassin is not a tank (if he doesn't use Shadow Form). He is a damage dealer with only a light armor enhancement compared to spell casters. So don't act as a tank if you don't have a dedicated tanking build. Enter the battle after someone else opened combat with his minions or as a warrior. I wouldn't call 105-110 armor light armor enhancement compared to spell casters.

You should be using Critical Agility no matter what, and that alone puts you at the AL of warriors, practically.

All you need after that is a decent monk, like Ark said

I avoid using SF and have VQ'd many areas, including Sacnoth Valley being the only melee in the team. I have found IAU really useful in all cases as well as Critical Agility. Also have a shield set to swap to in case your taking too much pressure. It helps if your monk also has SoA as well as Prot Spirit against many foes it is a real life saver.

Silver

I usually run a/d crit scythe. Crit agility is decent, and IAU is nice. If you want to spec 8 into earth magic you can run Conviction too, a pretty useful/long-lasting stance.

1. Play a Warrior
2. Use Shadow Form
3. Have an imbagon that can upkeep SY! 24/7, or multiple SY!.
4. E/Mo E-renewal prot spammer that can cast prot spirit/spirit bond every 5 second on you without energy problem, so you don't have to worry about strips or monk trying to "conserve" energy. (To spam glimmer of light instead -.-)
5. Have rit lord(s) that can spam shelter.
6. N/rt healer necro, amazing reflex at dropping urn and healing with infinite energy.
7. 3 Monks or more, one of them bound to remember to keep prot spirit on you.

Ya, I don't trust human monks, and I hate microing. So these are my solutions when playing as Sin. IMO glass cannons is a flawed concept in a team based games anyways.

Thanks alot for the advice everyone. Thanks to your help I've really grown attached to my assassin now. I've found that keeping protective spirit micro'd on myself keeps me alive much longer, I've adjusted my play style to avoid being the first into battle, and I find that I am able to keep my team buffed with "save yourselves!" almost constantly with the amounts of adrenaline I'm producing, keeping them alive and therefore keeping me alive!

Quote: 1. Play a Warrior Um...first of all I've tried warrior-ing, in fact I beat nightfall, most of prophecies and most of factions with my warrior. I grew immensely bored of it though..yes skills like hundred blades are great...but playing a warrior is so simplistic in my opinion....rush in, auto-attack, 1 2 3 buttons on keyboard, rinse and repeat. Not to say playing as an assassin really requires loads of skill, but at least it requires actively paying attention to which phase of your attack chain you are currently on and making sure you aren't trying to soak up the brunt of a mob's damage.

Anyway, thanks everybody

well, having played sin for a week after having gotten my war to gwamm, i can say a few differences between war and sin.

first, warriors can soak up damage, sins cant. an assassins job is just that, to assassinate things. while the minions are up front, i usually like to sneak up on a monk or boss and unleash whatever deadly combo i can on him.

the playstyle of a warrior is to run in, soak up some damage (not tank) and pressure (aoe splinter gogogo) as best they can. ive tried this on a sin, and even with prots, id still have to use my shield set.

tl;dr i can say 3 things about sin as an experienced melee player.
1) bring a defensive set incase you get aggro
2) dont catch aggro, just do the most damage you can or spike (discord proc) a high priority target
3) play smart, take out high priority targets first. doing so will effeciently kill the enemies and prevent the battle from lasting too long... aka you having to bring a shield set. (see 1)