One Woman Bloodstorm - A/R 12v12 Killer

One Woman Bloodstorm
A/R
12v12 Damage-Dealer

Critical Strikes 9 (13 w/mask + Superior)
Shadow Arts 9 (10 w/Minor)
Marksmanship 12

Barrage [E]
Favorable Winds
Critical Eye
Sharpen Daggers
Caltrops
Viper’s Defense
Dash
Shadow Refuge

Weapons: mix of Vampiric and Zealous recurve and short bows

Playstyle: This particular Assassin was designed for 12v12 matches and the colossal mutual ganks that occur in them. More importantly, it’s designed to slam the bejesus out of its enemies in said ganks and do it in style.

First thing one notes when browsing over the One Woman Bloodstorm is the lack of a ReSiggy or other means of resuscitation. As the character is ideally meant for 12v12, and as bringing a resurrect skill into such matches is entirely optional, I chose to forgo it in order to add more useful skills. Such as skills that keep the One Woman Bloodstorm alive.

Second thing one notes is likely something of a non sequitur – Sharpen Daggers on a bowman? Well guess what, young grasshopper – nowhere in the skill’s description does it say squat about the critical hits needing to come off of dagger attacks XD. Which means that Sharpen Daggers is more like Sharpen Arrows, since your Barrages will spread Bleeding like a maniac every time you critical. Which, thanks to 13 CS and Critical Eye, you should do quite frequently. And they said Barrage couldn’t work with preparations…ye just need preparation and not Preparations is all.

Filling in the skills list is Caltrops, which again takes advantage of the mutual ganks common in 12v12 and spreads Crippled like a loony, Viper’s Defense (which I just knew would take off XP), the excellent Dash to go with the VD, Shadow Refuge because Shadow Refuge rocks, and Favorable Winds, though FW can easily be subbed out for most anything else. Really, the core of the build is Barrage, Sharpen Daggers, Critical Eye – the rest is up to you. Could even swap out Shadow Arts for Deadly Arts, or Wilderness/Beast, if ye wanted and probably still make it work.

Anyways, there ye go. Fun little 12v12 murder machine, all ready to go. At least, once Factions hits it is.

LaserLight, that is some awesome out of the box thinking right there! *Bows down in reverence*

that's a beautiful build. I never considered the assassin as a non-melee class due to its mainly combo attacks, but this makes it veeery different in both gameplay and effectiveness. You still utilize the assassin's "get in, kick ass, get out and keep yourself alive" ideals, but with a whole new twist. And if you have a good enough bow and enough crit hits, then that's some serious damage you're tweaking out with 14+ dmg per barrage per arrow. Great thinking!

Just got through combat-testing this sucker (though I had to swap Dark Escape for Dash) in a 12v12 match thanks to good ol' Balthazar and his still-glorious faction points. I could not, unfortunately, secure the Superior Critical Strikes rune the build would normally use, but hey, it worked well enough :-P

Holy Hell. Roughly two-thirds of my attacks, if not more, were critical hits, and the damage was nuts. 70 or so damage a hit with criticals and Bleeding bloody everywhere (XP). The build proved excellent for kicking Kurzicks out of control points, though it didn't end up making the best hunter for when said Kurzicks ran like mad. I was using a Zealous Shortbow of Defense for the most part and it did very well by me - took a Long with same mods for my backup option and that helped a bunch too.

I didn't tend to get attacked very much at all. In fact, this was the least-beaten-upon character I've run in these things yet. Assassins, it seems, don't draw much fire when they aren't all up in people's faces with knives. Of course, I was doing as much damage with my Barrages as I ever did with my knives, if not more, so I didn't exactly mind XD.

So yeah. In current testing, at least, thing works awesome. Even better than I'd dared hope. Not to mention Sharpen Daggers sounds mean as hell when ye activate it. Nuts man, just nuts...

Anyways, enjoy. Hope she helps you figure out not only how to slaughter people in 12v12 matches, but also to unlock the true potential of the Assassin.

Nice build, I may have to give it a shot sometime down the road. I'm glad they didn't make Sharpen Dagger dagger-specific, as this opens up more options for primary Assassins.

This is a beautiful build. I was just thinking about how an A/R would work!

A little off-topic, but sharpen daggers seems to work on anything, even wands and staves. (I tested because I was interested in a build very similar to the original).

Unfortunately, I never got around to testing an Assassin-bowman using Deadly Arts, with Siphon Strength as Elite (lots more criticals) covered by Expose Defences (cannot block or evade). Favourable Winds, Critical Eye and Sharpen Daggers would of course still feature, then just add a nice bow attack or two (especially interrupts. Mmmm, critical Savage Shot).

you just know the tombs barrage build is gunna change big time. looks like the making of a very good build will definatly have to try it out when factions is released

Great idea Can't wait to try it out

Ok, I know this is a late post, but is anyone else thinking a GvG build with this, like 3 of these, maybe orders too?

That would be scary stuff, that.

yes, extremely.

I love this builds, hands down it is (as it has been said) a very beautiful build.

/tearsofjoy

Hehe. I can't wait to try it. One of my favorite points is that it doesn't rely on the all-encumbering "death by super condition FTW necro omg touch skill" things that I keep having to read >.< and relies on good old bleeding and barrage. I think I'll lean towards less gambling things like this and away from hoping that you can degen enough by the time you get killed

bah, the brutal bombier premade is just as good, nothing to applaud about...

It's intresting...

Assassins energy pool isn't that big.

So you expect to keep spamming all these spells while spamming barrage?

Why can't you do R/A instead. Critical strikes aren't that great.

Plus you'd have expertise on everything. Would make a lot more sense to me.

Otherwise gj.

impressive :P

I saw someone using a build similar to this in the beta event, and it was fairly good. I'll have to try it next week.

I was running a sword assassin during FPE, and had noticed that Sharpen Daggers was odd being in Critical Strikes rather than Dagger Mastery. Didn't get to use it, however. And never thought of using a bow with it; only an axe. Sounds good, though I bet ANet will nerf Sharpen Daggers like Dwarven Battle Stance.

It's in critical strikes because its a skill that causes bleeding every time you cause a critical hit

I love it!

Critical Strike,a nd Critical Eye combo on a bow really impresses me, almost putting my Ranger out of work, so Zealot bow it must be since the lack of Experitise.

i was having a look through the assasin skills and thought the 47% block from Critical Defenses would be nice addition and since your spamming crital hits it should las indefinatly aslong as your barraging.

My question is did anyone try this skill out in the FPE and do you think it'll be worth swapping this in for one of the 'spare' skills

Quote: Originally Posted by Lady Lorwinia