Just how key are criticals?

How key are critiacal strikes. Thats an attribute I've mainly looked over. I have put points into it(10), but don't use any skills. Now I, being an AoD assassin, am looking into critical eye and critical defenses, in replace of my substitute slot(caltrops right now) and Gold phoniex strike( I use it for energy). What would you all say?

well personally i LOVE critical eye, i find it very key to energy management, i use

unsuspecting strike
jungle strike
twisting fangs
critical eye

for my offense, i have somewhere around 30% chance to crit, so eveyr 3rd hit is a crit in theory, i use crit 13 the rest in dagger and shadow, this allows 4 energy per crit, and i basically can keep endlessly going through my combo, so id say crits are important, besides who doesnt like more dmg

How many points in crits? How do you get 30% dude thats freaking awesome. Do you have a really nice pair of daggers?(havent looked over crits much sorry )

Quote: Originally Posted by Trixz How many points in crits? How do you get 30% dude thats freaking awesome. Do you have a really nice pair of daggers?(havent looked over crits much sorry ) Attribute:Critical Strikes: For Each rank of Critical Strikes you have, you gain an additional 1% chance to critical hit.

Skill:Critical Eye: For 10-30 seconds, you have an additional 1-6% chance to land a critical hit when attacking. You gain 1 Energy whenever you score a critical hit.

16 Dagger Mastery and 13 Critical Strikes:
With 16 Dagger Mastery your chance to land a critical hit is about 20%.
13%+6%+20%=39% chance to land a critical.

And you should know that weapons don't matter in this game, because everyone can get max damage weapons by making a PvP character.

Thanks, and true about the weps, but what about Shadow refuge, how do you self heal?

Well it seems to me the assasin could run into serious energy management problems, even though their energy regen is high.

Now for any starting assasin energy management will probably be a major issue.

And offcourse a primary assasin has the 2 advantages any primary proffesion has; the runes of that proffesion and offcourse the primary atribute.

Now, I was wondering what is more important to an assasin; quickly repeating skills without energy problems, or runes and the primary attribute?

Now if you have a build that relies on the quality (number of damage done, or duration) of a skill, runes come in handy, but when you're a basic assasin, that simply attacks, wouldnt it be better to repeat skills, and take the minor loss of damage for granted? I believe so.

And about the primary attribute; you would indeed gain a lot more skillsm and chance to inflict acritical hit, which is quite important for an assasin.

But hey, if you would be an ele or a necro, and you would points into energy storage, or soul reaping, and with dagger mastery, you would still have a fair chance of inflicting a critical hit, but also have loads of energy.

So correct me if I'm wrong but making a E/A or an N/A could probably be more effective for new assasin players.

Quote: Originally Posted by Trixz

Tbh critical strikes is a weak atribute with only a few good skills in(twisting fangs)and using it as energy management is just overkill.Zealous daggers and attacking normaly gives you plenty enough energy.

Well, you made a good point. But it seems to me that the sin's greatest defense can be or can result from his offense( blinding powder). And thats why I brought up this point about criticals. Critical defenses and critical eye seem like good ways of defending yourself. Your idea of more energy is intriuging, but every E/A ive seen drops faster then and A/*. I'm sure theres a combination, but I like my characters skin alot and intend on investing in criticals .

Quote: Originally Posted by felinette

I use

15 dagger
11 shadow
11 critical

critical eye
way of perfection
critical defence
sharpen daggers

all of those skills are highly Critical pros...

way of perfection +28hp +1 energy on critical hit, 64hp if attacking
critical defence 68% block for 6 seconds, auto renew on critical
sharpen daggers cause bleeding for 18sec on critical

I have at the least a 20% critical hit chance (wish i knew exact what dagger ads to critical chance)

with 15 dagger i have a 30% chance to dbl strike

and nothing beats dbl striking with a critical

I also use Daggers of Xuekao which gives 20% longer enhancements and 20% chance for Armor Penetration and of corse +15% dmg while enchanted...

to be these daggers beat zealous or any other... they allow your enhancements to stay up indefinately which means always haveing a block chance alway haveing bleed always having hp on hit and energy...

I never run out of energy unless i do something stupid...

and with 11 shadow i have 9 tic heals as well with all the crits im throwing and armor penetrations with my health on crit hits and energy gain at 4 tics with a +3 energy on crit hit i am able to keep myself usually above 50% health...

allows for high dmg combos and high defenses

to answer the OP's question though...

critical strikes can be replaced but definately not as effective as having them to begin with...

way of perfection
critical eye
critical defence
sharpen blades

all have a 5 energy cost with 30 second or indefinate duration with critical strikes all provide combined effectiveness on each strike... seriousely each crit strike in the manner causes bleeding heals you 28hp, deals more dmg, recovers 3-4 energy, and refreshes crit defence for 50+ block chance... and you cant forget that a dbl strke critical is twice the effectiveness

secondary skills can replace the above but at a higher energy cost or less of a duration and most definately not simultanious with 1 strike

i would personally say that dagger mastery and critical strikes is what makes the assassin actually work as a class itself...

Quote: Originally Posted by sinican

Quote: Originally Posted by felinette

Quote: Originally Posted by hyro yamaguchi Well it seems to me the assasin could run into serious energy management problems, even though their energy regen is high.

Now for any starting assasin energy management will probably be a major issue.

And offcourse a primary assasin has the 2 advantages any primary proffesion has; the runes of that proffesion and offcourse the primary atribute.

Now, I was wondering what is more important to an assasin; quickly repeating skills without energy problems, or runes and the primary attribute?

Now if you have a build that relies on the quality (number of damage done, or duration) of a skill, runes come in handy, but when you're a basic assasin, that simply attacks, wouldnt it be better to repeat skills, and take the minor loss of damage for granted? I believe so.

And about the primary attribute; you would indeed gain a lot more skillsm and chance to inflict acritical hit, which is quite important for an assasin.

But hey, if you would be an ele or a necro, and you would points into energy storage, or soul reaping, and with dagger mastery, you would still have a fair chance of inflicting a critical hit, but also have loads of energy.

So correct me if I'm wrong but making a E/A or an N/A could probably be more effective for new assasin players. Nuh uh. Between the low Dagger Mastery (yes, 12 is low) and lack of CS, your damage will suffer heavily. Energy Storage is not as good as you seem to think. Soul Reaping can be good in pve and certain rare pvp situations, I guess. But Critical Strikes also gives you energy as well as damage.

If you want more energy for your assassin, pump your CS up to 13 and take Critical Eye and zealous daggers. If you want more energy than that, you're probably doing something wrong - assassin skills aren't that expensive.

If you really really really want more energy for your assassin skills, at least go R/A, not E/A or N/A. Expertise is stunningly good at energy management, and you'll be getting more armor instead of less. And access to Tiger's Fury.

Quote: Originally Posted by NatalieD Nuh uh. Between the low Dagger Mastery (yes, 12 is low) and lack of CS, your damage will suffer heavily. Energy Storage is not as good as you seem to think. Soul Reaping can be good in pve and certain rare pvp situations, I guess. But Critical Strikes also gives you energy as well as damage.

If you want more energy for your assassin, pump your CS up to 13 and take Critical Eye and zealous daggers. If you want more energy than that, you're probably doing something wrong - assassin skills aren't that expensive.

If you really really really want more energy for your assassin skills, at least go R/A, not E/A or N/A. Expertise is stunningly good at energy management, and you'll be getting more armor instead of less. And access to Tiger's Fury. My build is based critical strikes, low dagger mastery isnt a huge problem really, you don't do much normal hits, but thats not the intention of my build. A quick critical combo and a follow up, then back out. Unsuspecting strike at 16 critical strikes is something like 30+45 xtra damage, and twisting fangs is a hell lot of damage. I use palm strike as well simply because its an awesome spell. I have 9 dagger mastery, just so I meet my weapons requirement, which allows me 11 shadow arts. From dagger mastery I use that unblockable/evadable off hand attack. From shadow arts I use that skill that gives me 28 health per crit for 28 seconds. Critical Eye almost never leaves my build and I use either shadow of haste or return to get back to safety. In heavy degen zones I pick shadow refuge too. For equipment I use a shrouded midpiece and leggings, rest of my armor is the basic one (yeah because its cheaper and I didnt need the +1 energy bonus on those pieces I thought) and zealous daggers.

However, Ranger is a good Idea but A/R is cool too, Stormchaser is a pretty effective energy management + hunting skill. And troll unguent is cast just before you shadow step into the enemy lines. (can't be shattered, yayay)

And if you want to go on another path:
16 crits
12 markmanship
rest in whatever u like
barrage + critical eye + sharpen daggers + distracting shot + sig of cap + sig of res + favorable winds + (most usually troll unguent) makes for an never ending stream of barrages and distracting shots, in 2-3 hits most of the enemies are bleeding as well Note: this build is made for PvE mostly

I do not wish to criticize other in a bad way, I just want to spread my idea on it

Criticals are very nice. As an assassin I use quite a bit of energy, so at 13 criticals +3 energy works out well.

I would run criticals at the minimum breakpoint for the +1, +2, and +3 energy.

To the above posters who talked about expertise and so on. Critical strikes provides enough energy management that I never really have problems, and it also doubles your damage, which can result in some amazingly high hits as an asssassin.