Early Assassin Builds

Well there's no sub forum for the assassin quite yet but I'm sure this thread can be moved. I've played with my assassin for about 9 hours today experimenting with loads of different skills and such, and I was a bit alarmed to see so many people hating on assassins. Within the first 4 hours of their existence scores of people were dismissing them as useless mainly I'm guessing because they don't quite understand combos . While I completely realize that many of these smacktalkers are, well, noobs, it still distresses me to find an attitude like that so prevalent around the pvp areas in such a short amount of time.

Well hehehe, sorry for the digression, but here's one of my early builds that I used for taking on mostly other assassins but also the occasional warrior who wanted to 1v1:

Initial casting of Viper's defense followed by an Unsuspecting Strike and Fox Fangs. Then a casting of Blinding Powder followed by a Death Blossom and a Moebius Strike. I also use Disrupting Stab for interruptions mainly of healing skills and Temple Strike which has proven to be quite effective. Typically the Moebius Strike will hit and all the attacks will recharge so I pretty much have a clear path to the kill. I haven't lost to any assassins in 1v1 yet but most didn't really seem to know what they were doing anyhow. I'm pretty excited for the expansion of individual skillsets over the weekend to see how the challenge level rises and what all people come up with once we all get a bit more experienced with the new professions.

While this probably wouldn't be a build I'd drag into HoH I just wanted to throw out one of the early one's I've come up with for A/W 1v1's and also to encourage everyone to post all that they've come up with after getting more familiar with the assassin.

Lol, it took me awhile to get used to the fact that you HAVE to use combos with the assassin.
I think a lot of players dismiss them because they don't understand how to use them. Those of us who game a lot with guild groups understand the importance of build and combos. The mesmer character is the same. The best damage is done with a certain combo and order of skills.
The normal, "I will cut you down" player (usually eles and tanks who, although benefit from combos, do not have the same large incentive to use them) will try and assassin, decide they suck, and never touch them again. This, I believe, is a good thing.

i love my shadow step/mantis sting. ty to run from me, u will die. unless ur healed, of course

Hm hm...I've been unlocking a few skills myself, though I'm not a horribly efficient faction farmer. Ones I've messed with are Entangling Asp (bleh...waste of a thousand faction), Death's Charge (on an A/W preset. Not bad, but tends to get me killed), Critical Eye (cool :-P), and Death Blossom (meh. Take it or leave it).

Playing around CA and such today, I saw a lot of Assassins, a few Ritualists, and a few weird Ranger variants. Of the above, the offensive Ritualists tended to be nonfactors (probably a combination of lousy skills and lousy Rit players), the healing Ritualists were annoying as hell, and the Assassins were, to an incredible degree, stupid. I did see one A/Mo who managed to basically take out my entire team virtually unaided. Dude was indestructible...Healing Hands, Healing Breeze, Assassin evasion skills. I fought him alone for a bout three minutes, with everyone else dead and both ReSigs used, before just laughing and saying "alright, I give :-P". Aside from him though, just a lot of A/W premades, and a lot of dead Assassins...

Until you face someone with ice, illusion, or cripple snares. In which case you attempt to give chase, but only to teleport away from the person placing yourself even further away from hurting them. Shadow step is not the skill to chase people with.

Many people like myself used SS necros and such to farm the Ass Warriors for faction today. Bear that in mind.

Death's Charge is fun to use with Shadow Step.. Fire up Shadow step and get in range for Death's Charge. Teleport to your target, land a combo chain or 2, and before you're in any real danger, you'll be teleported back by Shadow Step.

Works wonders against those annoying ritualists hiding behind their spirits, or against people on ledges and such.

Lol, that other damned sneaky new class!!!

Quoted for truth, I was being **ABUSED** by a crippling anguish mesmer in CA last night, it was brutal ... same usual situation: just me and the mes left, everyone else dead, res sigs used ... naturally, I got my Assassin hind-end handed to me, but even during the part of the fight where other people were alive, every time i'd go after that mes she'd just slap crippling anguish on me and kite.

EDIT: oh, and

And those height-advantage rangers you always seem to see on the island map that run up top to range you from above

the new classes arent taht good, and the a/r owns almost every class. i NEVER lost a 1vs 1 with a/r.

I have been playing since yesterday morning, and I have only come acrossed one assassin that was successfully able to kill me. That doesn't mean that the class sucks or anything, it just means people need time to learn how to fully play the class. Most people learn to play their character through PVE first anyway (or maybe that's just me?)

It could also have something to do with the fact I was playing as a pure water ele...hehe. I sometimes wonder what it feels like to be constantly slowed and under blurred vision the whole match. :P

I think that the preconception that assassins are a rather poor class stems from the number of people playing the premade A/W template, and not having any skills unlocked; once people make real assassins, this view point will likely change.

Lucky for me I theorize more than I actually play.

Or maybe not.

Anywhoo, I think the Assassin premades are just what the name says without the "in". Totally crap. No offense.

Degens are a nightmare to assassins I found early on. Run up to a necro or mesmer and you're dead plain and simple.

Anyone having problems with energy ? I cant spam dagger skills with an assassin primary as often as I would like but with a primary ranger and 14 points in expertise I never run our of energy when I use those same skills. They should buff the critical strike attribute a little.

I was fairly successful with my assassin technique. I created an A/Mo and used a hit and run teqnique. I would fight an opponent and when i was low on health i would teleport away, heal myself, and then run back. What was really fun was in team arenas vs trappers i could just teleport over their traps .

I agree the assassins are somewhat low on energy. I especially hate how I can never pull off more than one combo even if I get the skill recharge.

Assassin is an intresting class from my observation a lot of people out there are playing them like a warrior and ignoring the speed stealth, and agility aspects of them.

Assassin has repalced sword warriors as the best condition spammer with their easy to apply cripples, bleeding ,and deepwounds. Unless Arenanet does a major revamp of the swordsmanship line I see very little reason to even consider playing a sword warrior of anytype (Besides final thrust which compared to some of the assasin skills looks blah)

In terms of damage I would guess with the proper combo Assassins have better spike than your stadard axe warrior but would probabaly have lower overall constant dps because of energy issues.

Not sure which armor is best for the assassin yet the zodiac shroud armor really helps with energy and I'm leaning towards it. the infilatrators armor is looking tempting with the extra 15 armor when attacking (which should be always on an assassin). Tried out the sabetouer armor but since it only protects against slashing damage thought it was a poor choice. the 20% shorter deep wound and bleeding seemed intriguing to me till i realized at most it will shorten deep wound by 3-5 seconds and the condition will still last at least 10+ seconds which should be more than enough time for a decent player to reapply it.


heres my assassin build its not the best but seems to work for me

16 (12+4) Dagger Mastery
11 (10+1) Critical Strikes
9 (8+1) Shadow

I recommend using a Zealous PvP Sai of Fortitude for Energy

Mantris sting (Anti-kite Skill)
Temple Strike {E}
Repeating Strike
Twisting fangs
Shadow Refuge
Shadow Step
Disrupting Stab
Res Signet

Cripple them with Mantis strike
Blind and Daze them with temple strike
Spam repeating strike till they get low
finish off with Twisting Fangs
interupt with disrupting stab or if mantis sting misses

Weakness
Big Energy issues
cant really use any skills for 12 sec if Temple Strike misses

Strength
can solo any monk with Out CoP pretty easily


Ritualists are overpowered right now but only because few players realize they are healers and fewer still realize that with out their spirits they are nothing. Once people realize what each spirit do and how to piroritze the important spirits i think their major weakness will start to be exposed. I Also see their lack of mobility as a major weakness that might lead to a lot of defensive strategys down the pipeline.

I wouldn't say Ritualists are overpowered...

Yesterday, I basically deemed ritualists as very strong. Today I don't see it the same way. They are balanced just like any other class. The key is to know (like what you said) what spirits to kill, what their powers do etc. Couldn't take em yesterday b/c I didn't even know what their freaking spirits did lol. Now, though, knowing probably 50-65% of their powers (not all as I only know the ones I've seen used, and the few I looked up for reference) they aren't going to be game "breakers".

Assassins have lots of potential. Just need to get the a/w out of the arenas and people will start noticing that. Temple strike as of now from my knowledge is the most efficient way to daze a spellcaster. FYI that's 3x casting time and every time they're hit their interrupted when casting spells. Even with CoP if you have two melee on them they have a good chance of not getting it off.

Also check out some of the renewing skills (the degen one, the block one). Since most monks kite damage, the degen one would work great both as a way of keeping their health declining and as a cover hex.

I just had a scary idea; W/A with Gladiators Armor and Flourish.

Golden Lotus Strike
Fox Fangs
Death Blossom
Jagged Strike
Flourish
Rez Signet
2 Skills of your choice

Use Flourish to recharge your skills and get tons of energy. I'm not an Assassin but Flourish + long recharge skills sounded cool.

Assassin/Warrior
Load up on Critical Hits and Axe Mastery
Huge amt. of damage.

Next combo is only sort of assassin:
Mesmer/Warrior
Load up on Illusion
Take Illusionary Weaponry and Flurry
Take daggers (faster att rate)
Boom there you go!

Probably not the first to suggest it, but spent a good amount of the day fooling around with an A/Me IW build. Higher dagger mastery allows for an extra strike with the daggers adding a decent amount of IW damage. Death's charge makes a nice addition for both healing & surprise. Would post the specifics, but it's not hard to figure out, and i'm sure you all can think of better variances.

Also, N/A Dark AOTL dark bomber was relatively fun with the teleport to target skills.