Flashing Blades -- a solution without a problem?

How does Mending make Vamp Daggers more practical ? Instead of sacrificing a pip of health which is regained entirely from attacking, you sacrifice a pip of energy. Just switch to a non-vampiric weapon between battles. Good point, but I think you might have responded to the wrong thread, mate.

I stopped using flashing blades a while ago in favor of critical defenses + wild blow. Flashing Blades gives you 50% block stance. Critical Defenses goes as high as 78% block at L16 critical strikes and can be maintained indefinitely so long as your assassin scores a critical hit every 6 seconds (wild blow's function). This also frees up your elite skill slot for more practical selections like temple strike, shove, glad's defense, or whatever you choose. Gladiators defense when you already have a 78% block? Bit of a waste - but I guess it could be used for when CD is down and recharging.

Temple Strike has been completely gimped by the nerf stick.

Shove is good with FS

Personally I'd choose AoD though. Or maybe Tainted Flesh (which I haven't capped yet). I do a lot of ABs and I find that hex/conditions are my main enemy (especially disease it seems atm) rather than melee. I've had an entire vertical screens worth of them on me lol. CoP can only remove so many. Maybe I should try Melandru's Resilience....

How does Mending make Vamp Daggers more practical ? Instead of sacrificing a pip of health which is regained entirely from attacking, you sacrifice a pip of energy. Just switch to a non-vampiric weapon between battles. Yeah, wrong thread, but Mending actually has three purpose in my build, so I could almost say that it is the center point of it. I use it to kill of the health degen and aswell as giving me a +1 health regen(3pts in healing), I use it PvP(when I don't need to bring a rez signet) with CoP to remove dangerous hexes or conditions and finnaly I use it to be always enchanted so I can use the Golden phoenix + Horn of the ox + falling spider + Twisting Fangs combo. With FL, Vamp and Mending, I've had situation where I was healing faster than a warrior/sin/ranger could damage me, because they kept missing me.

As for the -1 energy regen, this is hardly a problem. I get 4 energy points every critical hit I land with Critical Eye and the combo I use isn't exactly a fast recharging one, so I have plenty of time to build up my energy.

Critical Defense has it's own problem...

If you move from one target to the next target, it will end. I'm not sure if that statement is true... I'll probably have to check tonight and verify..... (I hope its not)

To my recollection, I believe I was able to maintain crit def even when I switch targets... as long as I'm able to land a wild blow on an enemy before the 6 seconds end.... I've tried it with higher lvl mobs in the monestary and its awesome... you've basically become a constant "ranger evasion tank", but instead you're an "Ass blocking Tank" ( )o( ) ~.^ Off course it has its weaknesses when it comes to enchant stripping, but so does every other build right?

With 16 on Crit Strikes, Crit def + Crit eye is such a nice combo IMO...

Critical Defense has it's own problem...

If you move from one target to the next target, it will end. This is not correct. CD has a 6-second duration, but if you back it up with wild blow (always critical-hits if you're not blind), then you can maintain CD indefinitely regardless of which target you attack (so long as you don't waste too much time running to the new target). CD works even better if you use 17%-20% enchantment duration mod daggers (like Daggers of Xuekao), which buys you an extra second.