Dual Attacks

Looking at the assassin's dual attacks there is only 1 choice of what to use. Twisting fangs is hands down the best dual attack. It does as much dmg as most of the other attacks and stacks bleeding and deep wound.

More disappointing is there is no Elite. If assassins are made to do lethal strikes very fast then why is there no dual attack elite.

Just stick with Temple Strike and be happy. Starting off with Fragility and Black Mantis strike is fun to stack 5 conditions on the enemy.

Horns of the ox is a decent dual attack, but what makes it decent is really falling spider. Of course if you just used the trip out of deadly strikes isntead (which is a spell) you would get the knockdown and poison rolled into one without needing to build up to a dual attack.

The palm attacks are kinda interesting too, but the eliete one in critical strikes seems a little out of place and i question how useful it is. Sure you can skip to the dual attack, but you basically give up using the ones that apply bleeding, interupt, or a conditional cripple effect in doing so. 2 of the dual attacks are nice, there rest are kinda forgetable. I think there is a interupt daul attack that causes exhaustion if it interupts a spell, but i cant think of any others atm.

The palm strike is also independant of an attack chain. ye can use it anytime ye need to apply pressure, since it doesn't have to follow anything. Or, if ye need it to, ye can incorporate it into a typical chain. For me though, its real use is as a damaging alternative to Moebius Strike in a five-hit string. Hit yer initial Lead/Off-Hand/Dual combo, then hit Palm Strike, then hit another Dual. A real killer using this strategy would be:

Unsuspecting Strike - Wild Strike - Twisting Fangs - Palm Strike - Death Blossom. Or similar. Given the pitiful supply of off-hand attacks the Assassin has access to, and Palm Strike gives players the option of bolting those two extra attacks on the end of any skill stream you please is most likely why it's Elite. Hell, you could even keep the (mostly cool) Shadow Blade skill stream and just tack Palm Strike and your choice of Dual on the end of it for some truly immense damage.

Hm hm...and if ye're willing to sacrifice yer entire skill bar for it, ye can use this:

Caltrops
Unsuspecting Strike
Jungle Strike
Twisting Fangs
Palm Strike [E]
Death Blossom

Given the huge situational damage both Unsuspecting and Jungle Strikes can do, along with Palm Strike's own direct 50 or so damage and the fairly painful Death Blossom finisher, you could pretty much annihilate anything that breaths with one single skill stream, provided your Caltrops and Unsuspecting Strike hit a fresh foe. Tack Death's Charge or Shadow Step on there to get to the foe quickly and you could easily shred your choice of victims. Want to blow away the enemy's primary healer? Death's Charge up, blast him dead. 'Course, then you have the problem of escaping from several irate foes, but...well hey, as long as the Monk's gone you're good anyways :-P

You can mix up the combos with different skills to fit your own styles and the needs of teammates, as long as they are properly aligned, of course. I kinda find Desperate Strike a nice one for the extra damage because anyone with Asn profession will be a prime target, especially Mesmers and Necros. Putting up conditions is nice too, but successfully completing a combo that kills a caster or Assassin in one set is really satisfying...to me, anyway.

Repeatable strike also works well for variety in chained attacks.

The only problem with assasin primaries and long chains like you listed is energy. Personally i found disrupting strike->temple strike-> repeating strike more than good enough as a r/a. Id use mantis touch as a snare as needed as well, since those non-attack skills do not interupt the chain. I havent really found anything that im satisfied with as a assassin primary. The only use i could think of for critcal palm would be to be able to use it with impale frequently, but again you got distance and energy issues. Personally as a assasin eliete id rather go with the enchantment that makes the cost of offhand and dual attacks free, if i was doing a long chain combo setup.

Moebius is kindof a dual attack elite, since it has to follow a dual attack and is basically the "next in the chain". I guess that was their thinking?

You have a good point, Phades. Energy is a big problem with long chains like that, and myself personally, I prefer a simple lead/off/dual combo. What I was trying to do was illustrate the usefulness of Palm Strike and why it was Elite. Hm hm...Disrupting/Temple/Repeating x Lots sounds like fun as well. And even there, Palm Strike could be yer best friend. Just have Palm and Repeating on the skill bar to do yer damage and you could save all six of your other slots for tecH skills. Hm hm...I'm seriously gonna have to cap that sucker ASAP when I get Factions.

when i made an assassin, i only used like 2-3 of the chain attack skills, i used the unexpected blow lead -> temple strike -> a non-evade/dodge dual, then the rest was critical skills that increased my chanced of landing a critical and bleeding when i do land a critical and warriors cunning

Everybody loves Temple Strike

I would not under any circumstance want to trade out temple strike for palm strike. Repeating by its self isnt that hot and it sucks out the energy fast if you arent a ranger. The sad thing is the assasin needs longer recharge times in order to build up energy to use the combo again. There are a few good offhand and lead off attacks that i would simply not pass up in favor of palm strike as well. The dual attacks are just not that good. Applying bleeding and deepwound is nice and all, but its not that great compared to say, eviserate.

The critical dual attack can do 150+ damage.

Palm strike sucks compared to good builds that do way more damage against warrior armor with attacks, even normal attacks.
Palm strike needs at least a 50% damage increase to be comparable. It's only advantage is that it can't be evaded or anything, and ignores armor. But armor ignoring doesn't matter much with how much assassins can do.

and how does repeating stirke sick the energyf rom you? I made an assassin that could do unsuspecting, foxfangs, twisting fangs, moebius, then repeating strike 5-8 times before running out of energy. Use zealous and critical eye ffs.

Temple is nice. But it's far from all that an assassin has. It's just what people noticed with their shallow views. It's only effective agianst people unprepared for it, still. IF it does become Fotm then there is just oging to be more stuff to make them miss, which there are counters to but that'll lwoer your damage. And it's not like fraiglity won't be removed unless you cary stuff to burry it, which means more damaging attacks. Theory vs practice.

Energy is less of a problem with assassin than any other class unless you're shackled, then you're screwed unless you can remove or someone else can.

You were getting lucky energy gains then. When i used critical eye with 15 in crits, i wound up with 0e rather fast as an assasin primary.

use zealous.

I was....

odd then. Yuo where simply unlucky? Because after killing enough to gain 27k faction during the event, i wasn't having a problem.

I wouldnt count on luck to be the only factor for something like energy management. You can get "lucky" and modify a 5e cost to 1e cost, or you can always have a 5e cost skill cost 1e/10e cost 3e while regening at 2 pips worth and have a better innate defense. The assasin route i ended up running dry at times, while the ranger route i always had energy to do whatever i wanted.

Back to the dual attacks.

Steel blades looked interresting. Didn't get a chance to try it.

The critical strike dual doesn't do as much dmg as you stated. If it did you had some buffs or weaken armor on that target. At 14 daggers my criticals were doing (33-40+7)*2=80-94. Don't know how you came up with 150+ dmg w/o having something increasing your dmg or reducing the targets armor.

That still doesn't compare to twisted fangs. Usually hit 17-24*2=34-48. Add in deep wound (100 on avg) and that's 134-148 with 20% heal reduction and 6 dps from bleeding. Only down side I saw was the condition order. Bleeding is applied first then deep wound. You would need to cover that up with another condition or it gets removed quickly.

Temple strike was ok. I preferred locust's fury over it though. I had a 48% to dual strike. Used with IAS I rarely got a chance to use my attack chains before the target was dead. Be ready to see some major abuse when combined with orders.

On palm strike its going to used for touch rangers. It also has some upsides. Both have a 3/4 casting which is faster than your attacks, ignores armor, and cannot be "blocked" or "evaded." The elite is much stronger than you think. Instead of doing a 3 skill chain you can use 2. Since it counts as an off-hand you go straight into your dual attacks. Since its a skill it has no aftercast to delay your dual attack. Its more of a quick finisher move w/o using up your entire energy bar.

Still don't see why there is not 1 elite dual attack. Moebius Strike is probly the worst elite they have. You have to do a full chain minimum of 3 hits which is hard enough to do normally. Then you have to hit with a 4th attack, have the energy for it, and after it recharges your skills you have no energy to spam another combo.

That's typical at this stage of the game. People like to get creative with numbers to weave some tales of greatness that never happened.

At 16 Dagger / 10 Critical Strikes, an average autoattack with a dagger hits for 33.7. That's extremely comparable to a sword's 34.1, or an axe's 35.5 - as it should be since they all have the same attack rate. If you go all out with a 16/13 spec, your average attacks will hit for 34.4, right in the middle of warrior autoattack damage.

Assassin criticals can hit harder than Warriors because of the occasional dual attack. A double-critical from a dual attack without buffs deals 76 damage.

That's just the numbers, theorized and tested on the punching dummies. What to make of them is your own business.


Deep Wound isn't something that you try and make stick most of the time, it's something that you want to be lethal and kill your opponent outright. The condition order is inconvenient, but not really any sort of issue. I can can you really argue with Sever + Gash in one skill?


You've nailed that skill dead on. I think far too many people are focusing on making really long skillchains to beat upon a helpless opponent with, when that's largely irrelevant in competitive PvP. The blocks and evades always pop up once you're on a good target, and unlike a warrior a single block or evade is deadly if you're trying to execute a skillchain.

Palm Strike never misses, is extremely fast, and sets up your target for Eviscerate, I mean Twisted Fangs. For a quick finisher on a target of opportunity, it's exactly what you want. I would not be surprised at all if it ended up being the elite of choice for 8-man Assassins.

Temple Strike is an excellent skill and it shines in places like the arenas where you're usually going 1v1 with a monk, where the disruption from the daze is outstanding, and your target is generally unlikely to get healing or protection from an outside source. It's similarly good in the longer skill chains that you can get away with in arena for many of the same reasons. That Temple Strike is so good in 4-man has done a lot for its popularity. But that success is not neccessarily going to translate into 8-man formats, where multiple monks minimizes the effectiveness of a single, short term daze. I'm not saying it's going to be bad there, but it won't be as exceptional as it is in the arenas.


Probably because any elite dual attack would have to be significantly stronger than Twisted Fangs, and Twisted Fangs is strong enough to be an elite in its own right. That skill is dangerously close to Eviscerate in raw power as is, after all. (Eviscerate hits for 81 on average plus the Deep Wound, Twisted Fangs hits for 71 plus Deep Wound plus Bleeding.)

You were absolutely right in the original post, that there's only one dual attack to use. The reason you'd ever use any of the others, is because you wanted a second dual attack on your bar.

But if people really want an elite dual attack, what you'll probably get is Twisted Fangs at 1...15 instead of its current 1...10 incarnation and an elite tag. Which, in all fairness, would probably be a good idea considering the power of that skill.


When I look at Moebius Strike I see what should be a popular PvE attack skill. Enemies rarely block, or have monk support, so you can unleash whatever long combo you want in their face with Moebius Strike to chain it even deeper. Flashing Blades falls into the same category - I expect that skill to be just as, if not more popular than Gladiator's Defense is now. Different skills exist for different purposes, the trick is figuring out what has a place where.

Peace,
-CxE

I've been thinking about this, and I'm still a bit concerned that Temple will still, at the very least, cause GvG to start using 3-Monk teams. It seems to me that a team with 2 Warrior + Assassin w/Temple Strike teams would be able to fairly easily kill any 2 monk backline in seconds. It would take a good portion of your team to do. But at the same time, it would essentially be spiking the monks without being weak against splits the way spike teams usually are. Or just run 2 Assassins with one teamed with a Warrior to shut them both down long enough to kill one.

Any comments on this from the GvG experts (which I definitely am not)? If that doesn't seem plausable, then it really isn't a threat at all in 8-Man, and will just end up like a lot of other skills/builds that only work when the skill slots are in more limited supply.

i can see daze being very usefull in gvg split builds, but there is an obvious counter.

Boon + cop

I used personnally Mantis+TEmple+Twisted in 4v4 arenas.
With zodiac and zealous of course.
DEadly. If I managed to link those on a guy, I used frenzy just after, either to interrupt ultra faster or to finish the warrior while he was missing me.
Used lotus method for chain starter as well as energy management.
I think temple is a bit overpowered, not because it applies dazed, but because it applies dazed AND blind, so it is useful against any opponent in the game (it's amazing that you are only concerned about dazed and not blind which the ranger's and warrior's -and now assassin's greater pain).
Twisted is not, because it is a dual attack, you have great odds you never manage to place it, and its cost is something you have to deal with.
As it is a topic on dual attacks, it says that dagger mastery allow you to place dual attacks instead of regular attacks.
I had 16 Dagger mastery (32% chances of dual attacks) and did never saw anything like double damage.
Bad luck, or too subtil effect?

i used wit a/r apply poison, perfect weapon(bleeding), and critical eye, for buff
for attack i had was all 3 disrupting skills wich gived enemy: bleeding, poison,blind,daze and crippling= all dead! only warriors were 2 strong, did 2 much dmg(axe). for def i had troll, dryders def for 8 sec. and rez.
that was actually the strongest build that u could make in event! im sure of it! ive beated EVERY assasin i faced! EVERY! even 3 at once!
some can take milandrus, its very usefull against assasins.

*sigh*

Considering it is similar to using blackout or a gale chain to lock one target out, then combine it with the ability to teleport to the intended target, i dont see how a ~8s shutdown on each monk will not be that effective. Between that and shroud of silence, i cant imagine how CoP will not be on every monk's bar. Granted, gale and blackout are more difficult to compensate for, but the parity is not that far off.

I understand the concern, but honestly this won't change things too much from the way they are right now. A team of 3 Gale Warriors can stunlock a Monk for a good 20 seconds or so while they all beat on him. Two Warriors and a Temple Striker would be an 8 second shutdown (or close to it), though it's a bit less reliable - need to have cripple and daze and all that stick and that can be tricky when the brunt of the opponent's defenses are all being thrown at your target. Basically the Gale Jail is stronger, but two Warriors and a Temple Striker is comparable and doesn't require the same overhead, so I'd expect it to be popular.

Sticking a Temple Striker on an off-Monk, at least on paper, is comparable to a Hammer Warrior that would previously have that kind of job - the Assassin is front loaded so he can run over at any time, the Hammer has to charge adrenaline on an off target, but knocklocks are stronger. The job is still the same, disable for a short time (via knocklock or daze), and apply pressure while doing so. Temple Strike recharges more quickly than the knocklocks so that's another plus.

If you just want to disable the Monk without the pressure, you're better off just having a Domination Mesmer sit on his face during a spike.

So I guess the best way to put it is that Temple Strike is comparable to the existing options, and does have a place, but it certainly isn't about to revolutionize GvG.


Honestly the thing that lets you get away with a two Monk backline these days is Boonprots. Those give you the flexibility that you need from your monks, with 'enough' healing to get by, and they're much more resilient to shutdown (RoF / Draw / Prot Spirit / CoP / Boon all fight Daze, Migraine, and knocklocks reasonably). If you want to run more traditional backline characters (Word guys and Boonprots), you absolutely need block stances on both of your Monks, and a whole lot of shutdown to keep them from just getting obliterated.

I'll tell you this much, though - when I see a team with a boonprot and a healer, I smash the prot first, because there's no way for a healer to keep up with the kinds of damage being dished out these days without turning into an infuse turret, and, well, you can punish that. =)

Peace,
-CxE

<EDIT>

I've had a change of heart about this skill since last night. If you just want an Eviscerate, and want to use your Elite slot to get it, just use Eviscerate. Twisting Fangs is good, but it's Sever/Gash, something that you'll use as an alternative to Eviscerate because want a different elite on that character (usually "Charge!" for a sword Warrior, perhaps Temple Strike for an Assassin). In any case I no longer think that Palm Strike will be that hot, because that character just looks like a bad Axe Warrior. It might see some fringe use if a build needs an assassin but not an assassin elite for some reason, but it certainly won't be mainstream. Assassins will be run for Temple Strike, maybe Shadow Shroud, or something that makes them a distinct character with a specialized job in any case.

All good stuff there. I have to admit that Temple got my attention the first time I went through the Assassin skills and Palm Strike didn't. I just wanted to make sure that people didn't rip unnecessarily on a skill that really does deserve its Elite tag. After all, a Palm Strike->Twisting Fangs Hits for Palm's 50~ damage then lays on Twisting Fang meanness, with virtually no worry of missing the chain halfway through. For Assassins looking to use a good number of their quirky supporting skills while retaining an effective attack, that would be the ticket.

Still, the whole kil-da-munk thing is an issue, but I wonder what replacing that third backline Monk with a Ritualist would do for everyone's calulations. Short of stripping away the Spirits altogether, there's no effective way to pressure Ritualist healing into self-preservation mode, and if things get stuck doo deep in the muck, a Ritualist threatened by a pressure build, or a Ritualist looking to protect the Monks being smacked by the entire offensive arm of the enemy Guild, could start Rupturing all his Spirits. If your guys are caught in the thick of a spirit forest, say goodbye to your offensive arm. Especially with both a healing-oriented and a damage, oriented Ritualist spawning both sets of Spirits on the field. That could end up as well over a thousand potential AoE spike damage in the form of big glowy creature-shaped bombs.

I think if you had switched your skills around you would of been singing a different tune. The basic template they setup is horrible but if you use the hex that gives 10 energy for a dual hit instead of that stupid stance hex I think you would of found that getting off the whole chain isn't all that unlikely. With 4 pips energy regen the worst that happened usually is I had to change targets several times till I could catch someone without enough defenses to stop the chain. Not to mention there were several skills that couldn't be evaded or blocked if you looked at the skill list. You could make the whole chain unevadeable right up to Moebius Strike if you wanted too. There were even skills to make offhand/dual attacks free energy. It might seem hard to use but when you can install kill a monk during 3s of knockdown from nearly full health it needs to be hard to use.

Unevadeable doesn't mean unavoidable. I know the skills you're talking about, and they can't hit through Blind any more than Twisting Fangs can. They can hit through block/evasion stances, yeah, but when Factions and its Assassins hits, we're gonna be seeing a few less evade stances and a lot more Blind. In which case, you'd want yer Elite to either be something that could hit through BLind (like Palm) or something worth trying to hit through Blind (like Temple).

Really, the only reason Moebius Strike is Elite is because it's apparently Anet's policy to make any instant recharger skill an Elite.

Don't be so quick to go back on that Ensign. Assassins have some powerful hexes and dagger throwing skills. The have more vesatility than a warrior can ever hope for just from their primary class. Using 2 skills slots for a spike is very well worth the space. Using death's charge or other shadow steps you can stay in the backlines and add support then tele to target to spike. Retreat after target is dead.

SShhhh.....don't hint that twisted needs to be an elite. I like the skill never complained about it. Just saying the other dual attacks should be comparable or some what near it.

Twisting fangs is a nice standalone spike dual attack, but if you're on a team with an axe war running Eviscerate, it seems really bleh. If you're spiking the same target as the Eviscerate guy, I would much rather use Death Blossom. At 16 dagger mastery it does +24 or +26, I'm not exactly sure. It adds that to both hits on the dual attack. Plus it's only 5 energy so you are more likely to have enough energy to pull it off as compared to twisting fangs.

That's the beauty of twisted fangs. You are no longer restricted to running Evicserate on your warrior. With more skills coming for core classes I can't wait to see what new sword adrenaline skills we get. Hopefully a new sword elite. I don't think you can get much better than eviscerate for an axe elite.

From what we have right now I have a build in my head of a degen pressure build using the assassin to pick off the weakest target from the backlines with shadow step then recall back to prevent overextending

Going to be some fun times ahead.

Hm hm...god I love it when intelligent people hold an intelligent discussion :-P.

Anyways. When I was unlocking skills, I unlocked Death Blossom as well, and can say that if you're not wanting to run Twisting Fangs (God knows why), or need a second dual attack on yer skill bar, it's pretty much the dual of choice. Stuff like Nine Tail Strike, Dancing Blades, and various others just don't compare to Death Blossom's punch. It doesn't give the Bleeding and Deep Wound that Twsiting Fangs does, but makes up for it with raw punch. Unsuspecting->Palm Strike (or Jungle, if you use Caltrops beforehand)->Death Blossom is worth a great deal of quick spiking damage.

The way Assassins are set up, I'm forseeing them living up to their class name in most GvG builds. Their battlefield mobility and heavy spiking makes them perfect for siccing on a single, vital target in order to cause some chaos. If you wanted an attacking Elite like Temple Strike or the ever useful Shroud of Silence, then run those, your skill stream, Death's Charge to get to your target, and then use Spirit Walk, targeted on one of your own team's Spirits, to escape again. Wait for recharge, then find the next squishy and exterminate.

What I think we're going to be seeing a lot of is W/A axemen using the Assassin teleportation skills to get to targets suddenly rendered even more helpless to escape. A Death's Charge/Shadow Refuge Eviscerator, or similar, could operate pretty damn well as a maverick unit. Or even a W/A just making use of Warrior armor to bolster Dagger attacks, though that would take a bit of work.

Hm hm...these teleportation skills are really, really gonna screw with the current PvP balancing. I really have no clue what the guys saying that Assassins are going to be PvP nonfactors are talking about.

Hi there!
Good posts. I used attribute line of deadly arts or something like that. There's an hex that makes your attacks unavoidable for 8 sec at medium attribute points, and has recharge 10 sec (all time usable if enough energy in pool).
I used this hex, mantis, off-hand that does more damage on crippled and the dual with 2 conditions. This with victory is mine (elite) that supplies me with energy/heal and zealous weapon go well in random arena at least.
Matter is i use 3 attribute lines and have nothing to put in criticals.
What do you think of this build?

I think assassins are going to have to choose in some ways. Upping daggers gives you double strike but doesn't enhance criticals. Upping critical has a little energy managment built in.

A critical attack is = to 65% penetration. Used calculator vs 60 armor till I hit 33 dmg which is avg for critical dmg on a normal swing. Add in +dmg from skill to calculate skill's dmg. With critical eye and max critical you can get a 22% chance to critical.

Putting points into daggers is like other weapons. To get listed dmg you have to be at least 12 otherwise you are doing less than the weapon's dmg no matter what the req is. At max with locust's fury you can get a 52% chance to double strike.

If you split the points 10/12 will give you a 10c/20ds. Baseline daggers at 12 so you get listed dmg. Spread the extra points where you need them.

I think this attribute spread will be very key for assassins when fitting them to a role. Req a lot more planning than a warrior that's for sure.

Were you looking to see the damage from an attack doubled? Or checking to see if the assassin swung twice?

I saw myself swing twice a great deal of the time, and lots of times one of those would crit.

I've gotta agree with everyone else, Twisting Fangs was my dual attack of choice for the weekend. The only other dual attack I used was Horns of the Ox, which when someone was alone it'd knock down... setting up for Falling Spider > Twisting Fangs. Bleeding and Deep Wound was too good, especially since you're right there swinging away to capitalize on the conditions until they're dealt with. The high damage bonus and poison from Falling Spider just became icing on the cake.

With Expose Defenses and Shroud of Shadows making sure people couldn't avoid the attacks without help, my R/A had lots of fun on Sunday.

I don't know if it was more fun tripping people with Scorpion Wire and then doing Falling Spider > Twisting Fangs.... but it ran very close.