Assassin Skill List

Critical Strikes
Black Lotus Strike
10 Energy, 30 Recharge
Off-hand Attack. Must strike a Hexed Foe. If it hits, Black Lotus Strike strikes for +1...+25 Damage and you gain 5...17 energy

Critical Defenses
10 Energy, 1 second cast, 30 Recharge
Enchantment spell. For 4 seconds, you have a 25%...45% chance to "block". Critical Defenses refreshes everytime you land a critical hit.

Critical Eye
5 Energy, 30 recharge
Skill. For 10...30 seconds, you have an additional 1%...6% chance to land a critical hit when attacking. You gain 1 energy whenever you score a critical hit.

Critical Strike
5 energy, 12 recharge
Dual Attack. Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +1...+8 damage and results in a critical hit.

Dark Apostasy
10 energy, 2 cast, 30 recharge
Elite enchantment spell. For 10...30 seconds, everytime you successfully make a critical hit, you remove one enchantment from your target. If you remove an enchantment in this way, you lose 10...5 energy or Dark Apostasy ends.

Locusts' Fury
10 energy, 2 cast, 30 recharge
Elite enchantment spell. For 10...30 seconds, you have an additional 20% chance to double-strike

Palm Strike
10 energy, 3/4 cast, 12 recharge
Elite skill. Target touched foe takes 5...53 damage. This skill counts as an off-hand attack.

Sleeping Wound
5 energy, 1 cast, 10 recharge
Elite hex spell. For 5...17 seconds, if target foe is suffering from bleeding or from poison, that foe suffers Health degeneration of -2.

Sharpen daggers
5 energy, 2 cast, 20 recharge
Enchantment spell. For 10...30 seconds, all of your critical hits cause bleeding for 5...13 seconds

Unsuspecting Strike
10 energy, 10 recharge
Lead Attack. If this attack hits, you strike for +1...+25 damage. If your target was above 90% Health, you deal an additional 10...34 damage.

Dagger Mastery
Black Mantis Thrust
5 energy, 12 recharge
Lead Attack. If this attack hits, you strike for +5...+17 damage. If target foe is suffering from a Hex, that foe is crippled for 3...13 seconds

Blades of Steel
5 energy, 20 recharge
Dual Attack. Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +1...+6 damage for each recharging dagger attack.

Death Blossom
5 energy, 12 recharge
Dual Attack. Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Death Blossom strikes traget foe for +10...+22 damage and all adjacent foes take 10...22 damage.

Desperate Strike
5 energy, 10 recharge
Lead Attack. If you have less than 25%...61% health, you deal +5...+41 damage.

Disrupting Stab
5 energy, 15 recharge
Lead Attack. If this attack hits, it interrupts target foe's action. If that action was a Spell, it is disabled for 3...9 seconds.

Exhausting Failure
5 energy, 10 recharge
Dual Attack. Must follow an off-hand attack. Target foe's action is interrupted. If that action was casting a spell, target foe suffers from Exhaustion.

Falling Spider
5 energy, 10 recharge
Off-hand attack. Must strike a knocked-down foe. If it hits, Falling Spider strikes for +5...+29 damage and target foe is Poisoned for 5...17 seconds.

Flashing Blades
10 energy, 20 recharge
Elite stance. For 5...17 seconds, you have a 50% chance to block incoming attacks while attacking.

Fox Fangs
5 energy, 10 recharge
Off-hand attack. Must follow a lead attack. Fox Fangs cannot be "blocked" or "evaded" and strikes for +5...+17 damage if it hits.

Golden Lotus Strike
5 energy, 20 recharge
Lead attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +1...+16 damage. If it hits a target that has no enchantments, you gain 3...9 energy.

Golden Phoenix Attack
5 energy, 8 recharge
Off-hand attack. Must strike an enchanted foe. If it hits, Golden Phoenix Attack deals +10...+26 damage.

Horns of the Ox
5 energy, 12 recharge
Dual Attack. Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Horns of the Ox strikes for +5...+13 damage. If struck foe is not adjacent to any allies, that foe is knocked down.

Jagged Strike
5 energy, 6 recharge
Lead attack. If Jagged Strike hits, your target suffers from Bleeding for 3...8 seconds.

Jungle Strike
5 energy, 12 recharge
Off-hand Attack. Must follow a lead attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +5...+17 damage. If it hits a foe that was crippled, it does +1...25 damage.

Mantis Sting
5 energy, 8 recharge
Lead Attack. If Mantis Stings hits, target foe takes +5...+17 damage. If this attack strikes a bleeding foe, that foe is crippled for 3...13 seconds.

Moebius Strike
5 energy, 10 recharge
Elite off-hand attack. Must follow a Dual-Attack. If it hits, Moebius Strike strikes for +5...+29 damage. If you strike a foe whose health is below 50%, all of your other attack skills are recharged.

Nine Tail Strike
5 energy, 12 recharge
Dual Attack. Must follow an off-hand attack. Nine Tail Strike cannot be "blocked" or "Evaded" and strikes for +5...+13 damage if it hits.

Repeating Strikes
5 energy
Off-hand attack. Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +5...+17 damage. If it misses, it takes an additional 15 seconds to recharge.

Temple Strike
10 energy, 12 recharge
Elite Off-hand Attack. Must follow a lead attack. If this attack hits, target foe is interrupted, Dazed, and Blinded for 1...7 seconds.

Twisting Fangs
10 energy, 12 recharge
Dual Attack. Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Twisting Fangs strikes for +3...+9 damage and struck foe suffers from Bleeding and Deep Wound for 5...17 seconds

Wild Strike
5 energy, 4 recharge
Off-hand attack. Must follow a lead attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +5...+17 damage and target foe loses all stances.

Deadly Arts
Assassin's Promise
5 energy, 3/4 cast, 45 recharge
Elite Hex Spell. For 5...13 seconds, if target foe dies, you gain 5...17 energy and all of your skills are recharged.

Crippling Dagger
5 energy, 1 cast, 20 recharge
Spell. Send out a crippling dagger at target foe. Crippling Dagger strikes for 5...41 earth damage if it hits, and cripples fleeing foes for 3...13 seconds. This spell has half the normal range.

Dancing Daggers
5 energy, 1 cast, 5 recharge
Spell. Send out three dancing daggers at target foe. Each striking for 5...17 earth damage if they hit. Dancing daggers has half the normal range.

Dark Prison
10 energy, 1 cast, 60 recharge
Hex Spell. Shadow step to target foe. For 1...6 seconds, that foe moves 33% slower

Enduring Toxin
5 energy, 1 cast, 10 recharge
Hex spell. For 3 seconds, target foe suffers -1...-3 health regeneration. If that foe was moving when Enduring Toxin would end, Enduring Toxin is renewed for another 3 seconds.

Entangling Asp
10 energy, 1 cast, 20 recharge
Spell. Entangling Asp must follow a lead attack. Target foe is knocked down and becomes poisoned for 5...17 seconds.

Expose Defenses
10 energy, 2 cast, 10 recharge
Hex spell. For 3...9 seconds, target foe cannot "block" or "evaded" your attacks.

Expunge Enchantments
10 energy, 3/4 cast, 30 recharge
Skill. All of your other non-attack skills are disabled for 10...6 seconds. For each skill disabled in this way, target touched foe loses one enchantment.

Impale
5 energy, 1 cast, 15 recharge
Hex spell. For 10...30 seconds, next time target foe is hit by a dual attack, that foe is struck for 10...58 earth damage.

Iron Palm
5 energy, 3/4 cast, 20 recharge
Skill. Target touched foe suffers 5...41 damage. Iron Palm may be used as a lead attack.

Mantis Touch
5 energy, 3/4 cast, 15 recharge
Spell. Must follow a lead attack. Target foe is crippled for 5...17 seconds

Mark of Death
10 energy, 1/4 cast, 20 recharge
Hex Spell. For 4...9 seconds, target foe gains 20% less benefit from healing.

Mark of Instability
10 energy, 1 cast, 20 recharge
Hex spell. For 10...30 seconds, the next time you hit target foe with a dual attack skill, that foe is knocked down.

Scorpion Wire
5 energy, 2 cast, 30 recharge
Hex Spell. For 8...18 seconds, the next time you and target foe are more than 100' apart, you teleport to that foe and that foe is knocked down. This spell has half the normal range.

Shameful Fear
10 energy, 2 cast, 20 recharge
Hex Spell. For 10 seconds, target foe moves 10% faster than normal. For each second, if that foe is moving, that foe takes 5...17 damage.

Shroud of Silence
10 energy, 3/4 cast, 30 recharge
Elite Hex Spell. All of your Spells are disabled for 15 seconds. For 3...9 seconds, target touched foe cannot cast spells.

Signet of Shadows
1 cast, 30 recharge
Signet. Target foe takes 5...29 damage. If your target was Blinded, that foe suffers an additional 15...51 damage.

Siphon Speed
5 energy, 1 cast, 5 recharge
Hex spell. For 5...13 seconds, target foe moves 15% slower and you move 15% faster.

Siphon Strength
15 energy, 2 cast, 30 recharge
Elite hex spell. For 5...10 seconds, target foe deals -15 damage with attacks and all of your attacks against that foe have an additional 33% chance of being a critical hit.

Way of the Empty Palm
5 energy, 1 cast, 30 recharge
Elite enchantment spell. For 5...17 seconds, off-hand and dual attacks cost no energy.

Shadow Arts
Beguiling Haze
10 energy, 1/4 cast, 20 recharge
Elite spell. If target touched foe is casting a spell or suffers from Exhaustion, that foe is interrupted and becomes Dazed for 5...10 seconds.

Blinding Powder
5 energy, 1 cast, 20 recharge
Spell. Must follow an off-hand attack. Target foe becomes blinded for 3...13 seconds

Caltrops
10 energy, 1/4 cast, 20 recharge
Spell. Target foe and all foes adjacent to your target are Crippled for 5...13 seconds. Caltrops has half the normal range.

Death's Charge
5 energy, 1 cast, 45 recharge
Spell. Shadow Step to target foe. If that foe has more health than you, you are healed for 40...112.

Heart of Shadow
5 energy, 1 cast, 15 recharge
Enchantment spell. For 60 seconds, the next time you would take damage you are healed for 15...63 health and Shadow Step to a random nearby location.

Mirrored Stance
5 energy, 2 cast, 30 recharge
Hex spell. For 10...30 seconds, whenever target foe enters a stance, you enter the same stance.

Return
5 energy, 1 cast, 20 recharge
Spell. Adjacent foes are crippled for 3...7 seconds. Teleport to target ally.

Shadow Form
5 energy, 1 cast, 60 recharge
Elite enchantment spell. For 5...17 seconds, all hostile spells that target you fail and all attacks against you miss. When Shadow Form ends, lose all but 5...41 health.

Shadow Refuge
5 energy, 1 cast, 8 recharge
Enchantment spell. For 4 seconds, you have 50% chance to "evade" attacks. When Shadow Refuge ends, you are healed for 30...102.

Shadow Shroud
10 energy, 1 cast, 20 recharge
Elite Hex Spell. For 3...8 seconds, target foe cannot be the target of enchantments

Shadow Step
10 energy, 30 recharge
Stance. For 5...17 seconds, you 25% faster than normal. When Shadow Step ends, you return to the location where you activated Shadow Step.

Shadowy Burden
10 energy, 2 cast, 15 recharge
Hex Spell. For 4...9 seconds, target foe moves 25% slower and while target foe has no other hexes, that foe loses 20 armour against your attacks.

Shroud of Distress
10 energy, 1 cast, 45 recharge
Enchantment spell. For 30 seconds, if you are below 50% health you have a 15...63% chance to evade attacks.

Unseen Fury
5 energy, 45 recharge
Stance. For 10...30 seconds, you cannot be "blocked" or "evaded" by Blinded foes.

Viper's Defense
5 energy, 10 recharge
Stance. For 30 seconds, the next time you are struck, you teleport to a random location nearby. The foe who struck you is poisoned for 5...17 seconds.

Way of Perfection
5 energy, 1 cast, 30 recharge
Enchantment spell. For 10...30 seconds, when ever you successfully make a critical hit you gain 10...30 health.

Way of the Fox
5 energy, 1 cast, 3 recharge
Enchantment spell. For 10...30 seconds, your next attack cannot miss

Way of the Lotus
5 energy, 1 cast, 20 recharge
Hex spell. For 10...30 seconds, the next time you hit a foe with a dual attack, you gain 5...13 energy.

No Attribute
Aura of Displacement
10 energy, 2 cast, 15 recharge, 1 maintain
Elite enchantment spell. When you cast Aura of Displacement, Shadow Step to target foe. When you stop maintaining Aura of Displacement, you return to your original location

Dash
5 energy, 15 recharge
Stance. For 3 seconds, you move 50% faster

Recall
15 energy, 2 cast, 10 recharge, 1 maintain
Enchantment spell. While you maintain Recall on target ally, nothing happens. When Recall ends, you Shadow Step to that ally's location.

Signet of Malice
1 cast, 45 recharge
Signet. For each Condition suffered by target foe, you lose one condition

Spirit Walk
5 energy, 1 cast
Spell. Shadow step to target spirit.

heh, just spam the keyboard since most of the attacks 3/4 casting.

Hmm....I have some interesting ideas forming, Just wondering if the application will be as good as idea.

Temple Strike + Chained Repeating Strike = major hurt on casters. Also, I really don't see much in the Critical Strikes line that interests me, so a Ranger/assassin might be the way to go for expertise. Of course, the Assassin has a better energy pool, but still, expertise is just be so useful.

Especially with Traps and shadow arts.

Deaths Charge, Traps, and Return seems like it would be kind of interesting.

seem a bit over powering skills......

they're not overpowering

if they miss one in their chain its all messed up...throw in a block or interrupt and they are SOL for a few seconds on at least half their bar

susamage. they are not that overpowered. because for now only
assasin mesmer seems to work.

but the thing that you miss when it s not followed by ... say off-hand sucks..

Order of the vampire assasin is not working. Though : 6 assasins, 1 monk and 1 order is working very well

as for trapping.. I tried it.. That thing is way overpowered yes. But the assasin skills are not overpowered.

Heart of Shadow, Exhausting Failure, Shroud of Silence, Siphon Speed, Beguiling Haze, and Vipers Defense all look really interesting.

Can anyone tell me (my computer is broken) how heart of shadow and vipers defense stack? uber tanking seems to be the key, but do you transport twice, does only one work, etc,? Sorry, i really want to know -.-

Thanks for the skill post.

lmao, echo'd scorpion wire for mass kd
combine it with falling spider for more fun

Not in the slightest. If anything I can easily see ANet buffing the assassin between now and release, or in a patch after the release.

Skills are great if you can use serpent's quickness to have them recharge in time to run your combo again.

Shadow Step and Aura of Displacement...mmm...i can think of some great fun


I also love the assassin because ive always wanted a character who can repeatedly give out conditions to shut an opponent down. The current "Melandru's Fangs" R/A build is very good at this...heheh.. yaaaayy


Ok, now for the assassin's weakness.

Wary Stance (warrior, tactics) will easily shutdown any Assassin combo. Enough said.
Spiteful Spirit is great to use as you can watch the Assassin literally kill itself.

Way of Empty Palm + Repeated Strikes looks fun, as does Scorpion Wire, Siphon Speed, Enduring Poison, Viper's Defense, and Dark Apostasy.

The only problem I can see with assassins is evade/block spells and stances.

Any chance these conditions that can be dealt via the assassin skills can be spread via epedemic? I can see a lot of fun with a A/Me build. Esp if you hit your target with Fragility before going into a combo dealing multiple negative conditions....

Assasin primaries are rediculasly easy to kill. Rangers playing as assasins are a different story though and do not run into the energy problems that assasins have over time. It kinda sucks after doing 1-2 chains of attacks and going to do it a third time, but come up dry after the lead or offhand attack.

The only way to run an assasin primary is with zealous daggers, I think. I've never run into problems useing those.

Wow. Yes it is. I tried out assassin and a necro used it on me. I had about 5 or 6 spitefuls go off before I could even stop myself.

lol, and there were people saying that the assassin would be way over-powered. hehe. Assassins, IMHO, are good but they need to watch: 1) energy, and 2) conditions and hexes.

Given how much they seem to fall over in combat versus how less-than-devastating they seem, I'd think that they'll get a few tweak buffs before release. Could just be inexperience with the class, but Assassins seem just a mite too easy to kill for a melee class. No question that an Assassin can hammer you hard, but they don't seem to be the ultralethal, avoid-at-all costs killers I was hoping for. After all, if you have barely over caster-level armor and no option for a shield on a dedicated melee class, you need to be hitting seriously hard. Like, half a health bar gone with one skill stream hard :-P. Course, maybe they can do that already and it's just that the presets suck worse than I thought.

With the right skills, right order, and none of them "avoided", the assassin can take down another play in one attack stream. They do do a lot of damage very quickly, and assuming the opposition has no buffs on him to begin with (with a little help from the team) the targeted enemy will go down. In fact I think perhaps with an assassin a team could target two opposition and take both of them down fairly quickly. I think the majority of the problem at the moment is that players don't really know how to use them. That will change in time.
Assassins do have the potential to be devastating, but it would take a lot of changes to make them over-powered. I wonder if the general community's fears that the class would be severely over-powered has resulted in the current status of assassins seeming useless to many players?

Well - not many people know how to use the Assassins properly. I too used Zealous daggers and it worked for me.

I'm surprised how not-overpowered and well-balanced the new classes are. And they really need a different playing style. Assassins work very well when dispatching single characters that strayed too far from the rest of the group. They can hit fast and deadly, stacking many conditions, knock-downs etc. before retreating. Their DPS are not overwhelming though, neither is their survivability. It's a perfect port of the "hit&run" tactic to GW. They simply are no warriors. If you want toughness AND straight-forward DPS, then go for W. I find it wonderful, that ANet managed to do another hand-to-hand combat profession that doesn't make Warriors obsolete in any way.

Ritualists are another thing. When fighting them you have to focus on killing their spirits quickly, because the ritualist's skills have long recharge times and long casting times. If you are stupid enough to let them spawn too many of them, well, it's your fault. On the other hand playing a Ritualist means watching their spirits very closely and micro-managing them. This is a very powerful and demanding profession, which can be almost too powerful all completely useless depending on who's playing it. =)

I've had a lot of success with the ritualist, but I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I've worked at it a lot, and a lot of players haven't yet worked out how to deal with the Rt. I'm not even sure if I could suggest a way, but taking them down is actually pretty easy, if a team focuses fire.

Seeing as how they're both stances, they don't stack.

Also, I'm a big fan of the Assassin. Not the A/W preset (godawful) but the R/A, on the other hand, can be ridiculously powerful when wielded correctly. Expertise means I never, ever ran out of energy, even without Zealous daggers.

Nice idea about the Serpent's Quickness though. I didn't even think of that. I'll have to toss that in and see how it runs.

I just wish I had all the skills unlocked so I could play around with them this weekend. Oh, well.

Erm, can anyone tell me why assassins and ritualist get 75 skills while it's confirmed that all other professions get 25 new skills? Or is ANet holding back a few skills?
Because it's a pretty big advantage the other classes have if they have more skills to choose from.

Do you know the chain is messed up from experience? The descriptions only seem to indicate the sequence of the chain, e.g. lead, off-hand, dual. I didn't see anything that indicated a missed attack in the chain breaks it.

Has anyone had chains broken because of missed attacks?

Yes. That's how chains work. When a skill says, "must follow x attack" (offhand or lead or whatever), if you try to use that skill without SUCCESSFULLY HITTING the opponent with the needed type immediately beforehand, it will miss.

For example, the R/A preset combo. Jagged Strike leads to Fox Fangs and then to Horns of the Ox. If your Fox Fangs miss (for whatever reason, like blind) and you try to use Horns, the Horns will do nothing. (miss).

I would argue in favor of quality over quantity. They have good variety as it is, having just mish-mash alternatives to crap they already have isnt needed, nor to they need to try and imitate any of the other existing classes anymore closely than they already have.

me... and then i got pwned by the leet DPS of the wariors who were constantly chasing me around. Yes, you have to be careful that all of your attacks in the chain hit, and for the A/W preset, to REALLY make use of the combo, they have to be hexed first.

Is it just me or is "Dash" about the most useless skill on the Assassin.

I know its 50% instead of 25-33%, but It really doesn't even matter.

for that extra umph its great.

But since everyone is pretty much an assassin or ritualist in the Random Arenas, i decided to bring my Martyr Monk in for some fun.

The stacked conditions of Assassins are usless, since they can be taken away in a second.

Dark Apostasy + Wild blow is going to a great way to help your warriors hit with their big attacks. I think this will be a very good way to take out a boon prot, because every wild blow (assuming you aren't blinded) is one enchantment removed, along with a decent chance (i think 40% range) of removing an enchantment on a regular hit.

I have been running an A/R (for tiger's fury). I tried frenzy, as I like that more than TF, but your armor does not even come close to being able to support that. Running this with zealous daggers provided pretty much all the energy I needed, much more effect than even, say, a frenzy sword user with a zealous mod. However, dps is lower than a warrior from what I have seen, and with the possibility of a dual hit added into the very fast attack rate, hexes that trigger "on attack" destroy you.

Maddie says assassins with an order necro work well, and I am inclined to believe him/her. The very fast attack rate means that orders trigger very often in those 5 seconds, you could possibly put out really high amounts of damage very quickly. Add in
and you should be able to kill just about anything fast.

I gave it a whirl, certainly you cannot use it like you use sprint, but it can get you to a target in a shorter time than just walking will, and it recharges quicker than, say, death's charge.

I find it hard to say yet if assassins are weak or not. I did not figure out that warriors could put out so much damage in a day, and I doubt I will fully figure out the assassin in one weekend event either. Remember, 4 W/Mos with mending and 4 monks was the team to have in the last few BWE's (or so I have heard anyway)

I should've made myself clearer. When I asked about broken chains, I meant that the chain is broken and would have to be started over from the beginning.

I have since learned that chains aren't broken (you don't have to start from the lead attack) For example if you have a lead-->off-hand-->dual chain and you miss your off-hand, you don't have to go back to a lead attack. If you had a second off-hand and it hits (within a given amount of time) you can continue with a dual.

hmm let me see if I cna find any ideas similiar or the same to the current Assassin skills that are on my thread earilier with ideas http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=80738

The Skill "Trojan Human"(which I thought of) is similiar to "Recall" that exists that means I PARTICIPATED IN MAKING THE ASSASSIN...kind of.

Ok I'm starting a list:

Suggested by: KelvinC
Similiar to: Return or any shadow step ability that targets an ally or foe.

Suggested by: ME!
Similiar to: Critical Eye

Well, some of the skills from Chapter 1 wont be available to people who bought only chapter 2, so they need to put in some skills to even it out.

hear me out on this one, cause this is for a fast attacking assassin that prob will work very will in PvE. This is a R/A.

*Impale- get a hex on ur foe that adds earth damg if u land a dual attack
*Black Mantis Thrust- Lead attack cripples foe with hex on them
*Jungle Strike- off-hand attack that does extra damg on crippled foe

those are first 3 attack sequence, now i looked at these finishing attacks and they both seem good, maybe include both on skill bar

*Twisting Fangs- dual attack that bleeds and deep wounds, this works great on foes with flesh

This next sequence i cannot confirm, but if the interpretation of the skill is correct, i believe it will work

*Horns of the Ox- dual attack that can knock down foe
*Falling Spider- attacks fallen foe for extra damg and poisons them

now i know Falling Spider is an off-hand attack, but the description clearly states that it is an off-hand attack that must strike a knocked-down foe, so my question is, can u use an off-hand attack without a lead attack? if so, i think this combo will work very well.

*Flashing Blades {E}- Blocks attacks to u using dagger skills, so it same category as all other attacks

*Skill of Ur Choice- the 8th skill can be a rez sig or w/e u want, but this slot is for u!

Dude...Falling Spider is used after Horns of the Ox in the Fang of Melandru preset. Take a peek around :-P

In response to Skeetman, I think that there are some off-hand attacks that require lead attacks first, and some that don't.

People make a lot of unfounded statements on this forum, so let me just check. On the listings on that page, it says that HoS is an enchantment and vipers is a stance. Are you sure that they are in fact both stances, and therefore its just a wrong desc?

They both trigger, though if I double-jumped it was unnoticalbe to my sucky computer.