[C] [A/Me] Psychic Skirmisher

This is a remix of my Psychic Assassin build. That build was unfocused, with no clear role. This build plays a dual role of warrior hate and caster interruption.

Critical Strikes: 10+3
Dagger Mastery: 10+1+1
Deadly Arts: 8+1
Shadow Arts: 6+1
Domination: 5

Psychic Distraction, 10e 1/4 2s *elite
Spell. All of your other skills are disabled for 8 seconds. If target foe is using a skill, that skill is interrupted and disabled for 8 seconds.
Hex Breaker, 5e - 15s
Stance. For 66 seconds, the next time you are the target of a "Hex", that Hex fails, the caster takes 22 damage, and Hex Breaker ends.
Critical Eye, 5e - 30s
Skill. For 32 seconds, you have an additional 6% chance to land a critical hit when attacking. You gain 1 Energy whenever you score a critical hit.
Critical Defenses, 10e 1 30s
Enchantment. For 6 seconds, you have a 68% chance to "block." Critical Defenses refreshes every time you land a critical hit.
Golden Lotus Strike, 5e - 15s
If it hits, this attack strikes for +17 damage. If you are under the effects of an enchantment, you gain 9 Energy.
Mantis Touch, 5e 3/4 15s
Must follow a lead attack. Target foe becomes Crippled for 14 seconds. This skill counts as an off-hand attack.
Blinding Powder, 5e 1/4 20s
Must follow an off-hand attack. Target foe becomes Blinded for 9 seconds.
Siphon Speed, 5e 1 5s
For 11 seconds, target foe moves 20% slower and you move 20% faster.

Psychic Distraction is the cannon around which this build is wrapped. Granted enough energy, this one spell can interrupt anything, every two seconds. Energy is a serious issue, though, at 10e a pop- and because Psychic Distraction disables every other skill on your bar for 8 seconds every time you use it, it can be hard to actively manage your energy. However, if you can find a way to work around these restrictions, this spell has the power to completely shut down a caster.

This is why I have chosen the Assassin. With Critical Strikes at 13, each critical hit produces 3e, with (at 12 DM) a 29% chance of crits. Critical Eye bumps that up to 4e with a 35% chance. These are serious numbers, and if the Assassin is allowed to autoattack freely, can produce an extra 4.4 pips of energy.

The problem is that no one ever gets to do their thing without someone else trying to kill or disable them. As Siren pointed out in my Psychic Assassin thread, prot and melee-hate will ruin my energy income. Hex Breaker is my defense against hate, making it a trickier (and more expensive) proposition to hex and cover on this character.

My solution to prot is to simply attack the part of the team that doesn't get protted- the Warrior. Even assuming the Warrior is in range of a friendly monk, they're absolutely rock bottom on the prot priority list. Now the usual problem with this is that I'll do no damage to speak of, and the warrior will just turn around and kill me. For the first, no problem; I'm doing damage to the team as a whole by spitting out interrupts- fueled by the crit energy from autoattacking the warrior. For the second, Critical Defenses. With [zealous] daggers of enchanting, I'll get 7 seconds of 68% block every time I land a critical hit (which I do on 35% of my autoattacks). The high rate of blocking makes the Assassin an unproductive target, except against Hammer Warriors with irresistable blow.

So that's how the Warrior doesn't hurt me, let's go over how I hurt the Warrior. Siphon Speed slows the Warrior while speeding the Assassin; movement control is another defense the Assassin has against the Warrior. Mantis Touch applies cripple, and from the description, doesn't appear to be touch range (despite the name). Either way, you can siphon a second warrior while mantis crippling the one you're hitting. Finally, Blinding Powder puts down a 9 second blind, with a 20 second recharge. This is more consistent blinding than anything except for a Flashbot.

Last but not least, Golden Lotus Strike is a lead attack to open up Mantis Touch -> Blinding Powder, with a little bit of energy management attached.

Still, you get shut down for 8 sec from PD, m8. That's a lot on a melee character. I think, if you so want to inter with PD, at least add some mobility options to get your butt out of the fire when it starts burning. Warriors can survive an 8 sec shutdown since they tough cookies, Rangers can do it too since they are well... ranged, but Assa isn't a class that can really afford being incapacitated for 8 sec without any mobility options.

Warriors will be in your backlines, and I'm pretty sure this is a GvGish build(I'd sub hexbreaker for ressig, and try fit a convert somewhere in your build), so you'll be right next to your monks. There isn't a real reason to be self-sufficiant there, but he's packing critical defenses anyway, which should be up constantly unless he has to stop attacking, so he'll be fine.

I had read this build a few days ago, maybe earlier last week, and something sounded weird, but I couldn't put my finger on it until now.

If your attack skills are getting disabled from Psychic Distraction, you're not getting to use any WarHate. The Cripple and Blind should get removed fairly quickly, and if any character on the opposing team is bringing Charge! or Windborne Speed, Siphon Speed won't be that much of a snare. Whether at 20% or 15% (I've seen it differently at different places), I don't know how effective it would be. Plus, it would probably be a priority hex removal in the first place.

I like the idea of Critical Defenses, though similar to Siphon Speed, it's going to be a priority removal when your enemies figure out what's going on.

I don't think you're going to get much mileage out of Golden Lotus Strike, either, because of the need to be enchanted, and the fact that Psy.Dis is going to be disabling your enchant skill.

I mean, I'm expecting the skill use vs Casters to be the following:

Hex Breaker-->Critical Eye-->Critical Defenses-->Psychic Distraction

Vs Warriors, the following:

Hex Breaker-->Critical Eye-->Critical Defenses-->Siphon Speed-->Golden Lotus Strike-->Mantis Touch-->Blinding Powder

Those two skill progressions aren't very compatible. They go in completely opposite directions, using skills that don't complement each other in the least. In fact, the skills almost nullify each other, because they have such radically different respective philosophies and applications behind them. Not to mention you're looking at massive Tab/Shift+Tabbing here.

In order to run a WarHate Assassin, you can't bring Psy.Dis., and in order to run a CasterHate Assassin, you can't bring WarHate. This build is the second version where you try to incorporate Psy.Dis into a primary Assassin, and while you have slightly better e-management, the build ultimately suffers still, because there is still no effective way to utilize Psy.Dis using Assassin primaries. Despite your best efforts with the revision, the build is still schizophrenic to a fault.

You've given us two different builds based around the same general idea, and both builds seem horribly ineffective. I think that's testament to the incompatibility of Psy.Dis with primary Assassins. It's similar to trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. As much as you finnagle it, it's just never going to fit.

If you've got your heart set on Psy.Dis, look around to see what E/Me can do with it. I suspect that the Assassin profession itself doesn't matter to you...you just want to create a build that can rock out the Psy.Dis. Assassin is not such a profession. Elementalist is, absolutely.

Heh...spot on, Siren. I've got a prototype E/Me on the boards centered on Psydissing people. Uses Arcane Thievery/Larceny to passively disable skills without needing constant reapplying, Aura of Restoration for self-heals, and a few tecH skills which aren't critical to the build (Blackout and the like). Looks rockin on paper, much more effective for Psydissing than either the Assassin or Skirmisher. Sorry Swordfisher, I just don't think you can Psydiss effectively with an Assassin. You do great work everywhere else, but this isn't gonna fly.

That and autoattacking the Warrior while simultaneously targeting and interrupting the caster's every move seems like a superhuman feat of multitasking to me. Your energy battery ad your actual purpose are focused on different targets, and both require constant attention to make work. No good, Fish.

E/Me's the way to go for Psydissing. May not like it much, but Assassins just don't do it well. They're awesome for a lot of other things, but this isn't one of them.

The Warrior Hate aspect of this build is as simple as it gets- once every 15 seconds (or so, blinding powder is 20r) I lead-cripple-blind. That's my offensive warrior hate. I don't expect it to last for the full 15 seconds til I do it again, but then again, neither do I care. I've unloaded my WarHate and can then focus on my double duty, interrupts.

Quote: vs Casters, the following:

Hex Breaker-->Critical Eye-->Critical Defenses-->Psychic Distraction

Vs Warriors, the following:

Hex Breaker-->Critical Eye-->Critical Defenses-->Siphon Speed-->Golden Lotus Strike-->Mantis Touch-->Blinding Powder

Those two skill progressions aren't very compatible. I'm going to do a little magic trick here; watch the birdie.

Hex Breaker-->Critical Eye-->Critical Defenses--------------------------war-hate-------------------------------------->Psychic Distraction
Hex Breaker-->Critical Eye-->Critical Defenses-->Siphon Speed-->Golden Lotus Strike-->Mantis Touch-->Blinding Powder-->caster hate

The top one is the vs. caster, the bottom is vs. warrior. But looking carefully shows us that they are the same thing, just happening at different times. After I blow my WarHate load (in about 5 seconds flat), and it's all recharging for 15-20 seconds, I go to caster interrupt mode, while passively autoattacking the warrior. I don't have to try to switch between the two at all; the skills I have that are relevant to the warrior are done with.

Quote: Originally Posted by swordfisher The Warrior Hate aspect of this build is as simple as it gets- once every 15 seconds (or so, blinding powder is 20r) I lead-cripple-blind. That's my offensive warrior hate. I don't expect it to last for the full 15 seconds til I do it again, but then again, neither do I care. I've unloaded my WarHate and can then focus on my double duty, interrupts. Once every 15 seconds you're crippling and blinding. That's barely WarHate...in fact...that's barely anything. Even if WarHate isn't your goal with this build, your "WarHate" is still completely laughable...to the extent that I don't even consider it WarHate.

Quote: I'm going to do a little magic trick here; watch the birdie. Watch me break the birdie's neck, then stab at the actual "trick."

Quote: Hex Breaker-->Critical Eye-->Critical Defenses--------------------------war-hate-------------------------------------->Psychic Distraction
Hex Breaker-->Critical Eye-->Critical Defenses-->Siphon Speed-->Golden Lotus Strike-->Mantis Touch-->Blinding Powder-->caster hate Try it and I guarantee it won't work. The point of your build is CasterHate, and yet with the WarHate progression, it's easily 15 seconds (your attack combinations+need for energy return) until you can start hating on even a single caster for one spell/skill. That's absolutely abysmal strategy, and any good interrupter will tell you that.

Don't get me wrong, though; some interrupters may wait 15 seconds before interrupting anything. But that's because they choose to...because they have that kind of flexibility with their build design.

A/Me builds centered on Psy.Dis like yours do not have that flexibility.

Quote: Originally Posted by Siren

Quote: Originally Posted by Hella Good

Quote: start spamming Psy.Dis on the closest caster, while auto-attacking the Warrior, keeping in mind that type of target switch gives a nasty delay between attack/cast rates? I haven't tested, but if I can't get a .25 second interrupt off in .25 seconds because I'm attacking, that'll be the reason I shelve this build.

But the only reason I can think of to go E/Me for Psychic Distraction is that big initial pool. Because pretty much all the Ele E-management is elite, I'll probably have to rely on necro blood support to keep interrupting. Anyway, check out my [Me/N] Psychic Failure build for a psychic distraction mesmer that's self sufficient re: energy.

I love it when people make totally stupid builds using skills they haven't even had chance to properly test. At least with some of the Rit builds you can see how little testing you need (Grasping Was Kurrong spikes for example).

Just 2 things, PLEASE come visit my W/E hammer warrior. Irresistable Blow and Shock would just love to have you round. That should take care of your 6 seconds renewal for Critical Defences, now, the rest of the knockdowning goodness.

The 2nd thing, my basic mesmer build would like to say hello too, did i hear Empathy? Or better still my necro, its always funny watching Assassins rip themselves a new 1 with SS and Insideous. Hex Breaker really won't save you, the moment i realise your using it i'll waste a couple of Parasitic Bonds on you to use it up. The fact is using Psychic Distraction practically shuts yourself down.

Your an assassin, stop trying to become a mesmer. They are the anti-class class, your a quick damage dealer. Until you can properly get to grips with the skills you won't be doing anything useful.

Besides the more often i see A/x in RA/TA bringing Flashing Blades (or whatever that elite is) the more often i shall counter it with a rather obvious 'Wild Blow'. Also your really not fooling anyone when you use Shadow Haste, after the 3rd assassin has used it you'll chase them for a bit to make sure they can't stop for a quick self heal then go back to the original spot and wait for em to appear. Not to mention that Enchantments seem very much a no go area in Factions (Why do we even have bonders anymore, it seems every other skill removes enchantments).

Stow the attitude, Sod. Psydisser archetypes aside, Swordfisher's contributed some excellent prototypes to the Assassin forums and has offered valuable insights and advice. You, on the other hand, come in here and crack down on the first bad build you see just to toot your own horn. Yes, Wild Blow stops stances. How many Warriors carry it? Answer: next to none. Shadow of Haste? Funny, I haven't seen a Shadow of Haste in here in a month. It's either Dash, Dark Escape, or an out-class booster, typically Rush. As for enchant stripping, obvious answer: SMART PLAYERS DON'T RELY EXCLUSIVELY ON ENCHANTMENTS ANYMORE. There are Spell and Signet skills which DO work. So your Boonprot sn't God anymore. Deal with t - and get those Words of Healing and Infusers back out.

Good-bye, have a nice day, don't let the wallow bite your ass on the way out.

I have to agree with sod's first point, even if his post is so irrationally malicious that it's not even close to being acceptable... assassin's aren't seemingly built to be condition killers. They have skills that help their damage output rate by adding a lil bit of degen or blindness, but in reality, most of their skills are about jumping in and quickly disabling before the enemy could do anything, not running in, spamming some touch spells, hitting with a weak combo, and hoping they die before they chop off your head 0_o. I don't really put to much faith into these things (probably why I havent posted in this section for so long) because of that. I'd love to be proven wrong, just to show how versatile the 'sin can be, but at the moment, I can't really see these as being the best way to go.

Quote: Originally Posted by Evilsod

LMAO!! Oh man, that's rich, and completely accurate

Make it fatter.

Your using a skill that disables all cept itself for 8 seconds, now please pretend that i care what you 2 think. The more methods your think of to kill warriors the more methods we'll think to just laugh at you.

At least put your effort into making a build for something you can test in PvE/RA. Because the 'throw dirt' effect with a simple Mend/Plague Touch and your still getting your head pounded in. See how you can get a critical hit in 6 seconds when your blinded. Besides most team builds spread that widely are just gonna get your killed, just stick to what your good at, been a liability.

Quote: Originally Posted by Evilsod