Ele/Assasin

I got my pre order and in the little book that comes with it they write about possible combinations that players can use. What attracted my attention was the ele/assasin. the booklet says the ele can be deadly buy using the assasins shadow step skill to teleport into enemies, unleash some point blank fire skills like inferno and then tele back. Well this seems ok in theory but how long of a cast time does the ele's fire spells have? They don't cast very quickly.

So it would seem that the following could happen: ele teleports in and begins casting a spell, the spell takes forever to cast and in that time the ele gets owned by the monsters/player that they are trying to cast the spell on. Does this make sense?

I also kinda laughed at a picture in my head of everyone in PvP using the shadow step skill and the battles become everyone teleporting in and out trying to get sneak attacks and not going toe to toe anymore.

Anet's just encouraging eles to unleash the tank within them x_x

I tried the premade Ele/Ass in the last Preview event. Now, I know the pre-builds aren't the best, but I got myself killed faster than with any other build. The teleport in and out while unleashing massive damage didn't work for me. I didn't do enough damage to kill anything, and by the time I ported back, some warrior was on my tail. I had no energy left to do anything, and died.

Now, maybe in the hands of some uber-player this could work, but frankly I had much more success with casting Rupture Soul on my spirits with the Ritualist pre-build... (Blind and massive damage.)

The other tips listed sound more viable.

Some of the more interesting ones:

Mesmer/Assassin: Not sure why this would be better than a Mesmer with the normal Distortion. (Basically, same concept as the Ele/Ass)

Assassin/Warrior: Sacrifice armor for energy and more crits?

Ranger/Ritualist: Summoned weapons FTW.

Warrior/Mesmer: exploits "some of the new Mesmer skills that interrupt enemies and knock them down."

Well inferno and flame burst casts v quick :S

Ya I read about the warrior/mesmer and thought there still may be a chance to rivive my trusty hammer warrior who has been on retirement for about 3 months now.

I think I will wait and see how the ele/assasin goes before i change to it. I like my ele/mesmer as she is . Wonder how an ele/ritualist would work? Probably not very well but who knows.

inferno and flame burst are 3/4 sec casts
flame burst might be 1 sec

From my brief experience with Ritualists, I had more problems waiting for skills to recharge than with energy. If you wanted to sacrifice your max level of Rit skills, I would go with Me/Rt (fast casting, Mantra of Recovery?) or a Ra/Rt (Expertise, Oath Shot?).

If you've played in RA and TA recently, hammer wars are dominating. I brought mine in near the start of the new fad, and because of the new update, hammer wars can be absolute dervishes of destruction - the main change being the much more rapid build up of adrenaline possible with some skill combos.

It was too bad that the teleport "cancel whatever you do" when you activate it. I tried to use EQ -> drop teleport enchant *teleports* -> AS, but that didnt work because EQ get cancel the moment I remove the enchant and teleport.

Lava font sux for actual dmg.

Phoenix = too slow

Flame burst + infero = not enough

I suppose, people need to learn WHEN to jump in and PBAoE, not just randomly jump in for suicide. If you jump in between couple warriors with half life (and they thought the would be fine for another 10 sec with their stance up), they could be in deep trouble.

Mesmer/Assassin is going to be almost ludicrously nasty. Two words.

Teleporting Blackout.

Use the Aura of Displacement, which is the quickest-recharging teleport skill the things have, blink in and unleash your Blackout, then cancel the AoD and blink out. No chance for retaliation from the enemy and doesn't even require points in Assassin attributes. Could pour them into Mesmer stuff, be easy to get to the 8 Illusion breakpoint. I'd forsee them running some of the Shadow Arts healers as well - Shadow Refuge and Distortion combined would almost assure the Mesmer's safety from attacks. SOmething like this, I'd imagine.

Me/A - Black Flash
Disruption/Lockdown

Attributes:
Domination 12 (16 w/mask + Superior)
Shadow Arts 10
Illusion 8 (9 w/Minor)
spare points in Fast Cast (+1 w/Minor)

Blackout
Energy Burn
Signet of Weariness
Aura of Displacement [E]
Conjure Phantasm
Illusion of Haste
Shadow Refuge
Swing Slot (Viper's Defense for me)

Or something like that. Maybe some of those knockdown interrupts instead of the Illusion skills, but I figure that if I'm running 8 Illusion anyways, I may as well get some work out of it :P

I think it'll be effective with a little tweak and practice. I'm think of trying a E/A water ele so I can slow down the enemy when they run and other stuff with Frozen Burst and etc. You could also go half earth and fire with spells that cast fast and do lots of damage.

I like it! Looks like my Mesmer might need a new secondary...

I did not get the chance to play the new classes on the preview weekend so I am wondering about the assassin's teleport abilities.

When I read the Shadow Step descript, it indicates increase in moving speed rather than actual teleporting.

So for Aura of Displacement, the descript mentions that you "shadow step" to target foe, does that mean increase in speed or teleport? As for the return trip, I am quite convinced that it will be teleporting.

There are a lot of lame things in both this preorder and the older preorder. Builds are usually the worst...you noticed there wasnt IWAY but there was a suggestion of 8 fire elementalists spiking with AOE.

...

Best teleportation skills from Preview:

-Viper's Defenses. (causes attacker to be poisoned, teleports you away)
-Return. (cripples foe, adjacent foes, teleports you away.)
-Death's Charge. (teleports you to target, you gain health if they have more health.

Worst Teleportation Skills:
-Shadowstep: (Don't know how many times I KILLED a assassin because they used this. They'd use it and I'd just go back and stand where they activated it, when the skill ended, they showed up, I killed them.)
-Heart of Shadow: The low amount of heal isn't enough to grant this one a skill slot.

That's just my opinion.

I can't believe you fail to mention Scorpion Wire! How could you!? NOOOoooooo....!!
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I guess I was bored.

Yeah, like Anet telling us to use Elementalists will automatically make them better in PvP...

Note to Anet: Fix the class, then we'll play it.

humm ok i was thinking about that, thn i remembered that hy were eles we have little armor, if we get cought by wars before we teleport back, were going to take alot of dmg. Ele/a is not for me

hm..i wondered about that, but mainly as i was wondering if a charater with assassin secondary could still use daggers, and if they could...would they be able to equip one single dagger and an off hand item?

(then my ele could actually use a dagger, like a real Mage hehe)

Anyone can use daggers, although you would need the necessary reqs to exploit any bonuses.

I'm pretty sure daggers are two handed, so I don't think you can only equip one.

well the one handed was prety much about the whole reason i wondered and thought about having an *anything*/ ass char....

specialy since they probably still have that gods auful run anyway lol