[C] [A/Me] Black Siphon

Critical Strikes: 7+1
Dagger Mastery: 11+3+1
Deadly Arts: 8+1
Shadow Arts: 8+1
Domination: 6

Siphon Strength, 15e 1 10s *elite
Elite Hex Spell. For 9 seconds, target foe deals -15 damage with attacks and all your attacks against that foe have an additional 33% chance of being a critical hit.
Blackout, 10e 1 12s
Skill. For 4 seconds, all of target foe's skills are disabled, and all of your skills are disabled for 5 seconds.
Way of Perfection, 5e 1 30s
Enchantment Spell. For 25 seconds, when ever you successfully make a critical hit you gain 25 Health.
Leaping Mantis Sting, 5e - 8s
Lead Attack. If Mantis Sting hits, target foe takes +20 damage. If this attack strikes a fleeing foe, that foe is Crippled for 16 seconds.
Wild Strike, 5e - 4s
Off-Hand Attack. Must follow a lead attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +20 damage and target foe loses any stances.
Twisting Fangs, 10e - 12s
Dual Attack. Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Twisting Fangs strikes for +15 damage and struck foe suffers from Bleeding and Deep Wound for 13 seconds.
Blinding Powder, 5e 1/4 20s
Spell. Must follow an off-hand attack. Target foe becomes Blinded for 3...13 seconds.
Rez Sig.

This build is a utility threat to warriors and a damage threat to casters. Siphon Strength boosts the Assassin's crit rate to about 60%, even with only 8 in CS. This kicks up the autoattack value a notch and intensifies spikes. Additionally, Way of Perfection heals for 25 every time a hit criticals, providing some passive healing (WoP lasts 30 seconds if you cast it with a 20% enchanting hilt out). Leaping Mantis Sting is used as a snare, though it's harder to pick up that cripple without a speed boost. Wild Strike is, though maligned, still useful for removing stances- not every stance is an evasion stance. Twisting Fangs is for awesomeness, lending some spike ability. Blinding Powder is further to-hit hate, reducing the ability of warriors rangers and assassins. Finally, Blackout is a pain for casters, even at only four seconds, and it wipes adrenaline from warriors.

Wild Strike could be subbed for another offhand, perhaps Fox Fangs. Blinding Powder is nice, but effectively an open slot- siphon speed is a reasonable option, and if you sub in a hex it might be worth using Black Mantis Thrust instead of Leaping for the more reliable cripple.

looks good an original ill have to try it

I like the build from a philosophical standpoint, that is to say, I like the idea of an Assassin beating up a Warrior and stealing his lunch money, or at least tripping him up, but with some of the new Necro skills in Factions...WarHate has been taken to a new level from the Necro standpoint, so I wonder why tailor the Assassin for occasional WarHate.

The problems I see with this are...well, one is the biggest reason I'm still not sold on Blackout in general. At max Domination, or closer to it, I love Blackout, because the disable time ratio weighs in your favor, even though it's usually 1:1. You know you're using Blackout on your target, so you're prepared to take the hit to your skills. The target doesn't.

I don't know. Blackout in this build just seems odd, like it's been misplaced. To nuke the target's Adre, definitely. I'm all for it. But I'm trying to figure out where and when Black Siphon would use it. Not at the start of the chain, and not in the middle of it, obviously.

So at the end? Tag a Warrior with...Cripple, an Off-Hand, Blinding Powder, and then hit them with Blackout? I'm not feeling it. Seems like an awful lot just to Blind and Blackout.

I do like what you said about Blinding Powder being optional, because I think there are more efficient ways to Blind Warriors (Ranger Throw Dirt+Oath Shot comes to mind, and of course, FlashBots). Plus, I think the Rangers and Eles can get more mileage out of their respective Blinding skills.

If the description for Siphon Strength is entirely accurate...then you've got a really nice anti-War skill already. I could see what you're trying to do with the combination, using Siphon Strength to drop out the Warrior's auto-attack DPS, then Blackout to negate their Evis/Exe, but what about...going Necro secondary instead? Perhaps for Enfeebling Touch. ~_^

And the beauty of Enfeebling Touch is that, like most of the Curses line, it requires a relatively low attribute point investment for even a significant performance output. You could theoretically swap points around from Domination, balancing them into Deadly Arts (the meat of your build as far as I'm concerned) and Curses and find yourself with one hell of an Assassin utility build.

What's even greater about Enfeebling Touch is that it does damage, too. True, it might make more sense to use Enfeeble (lower recharge), but then again...Enfeebling Touch also does nice damage (18 Curses, it's doing 50-something!)

Now that I think about it...yeah. Go to A/N, bring Enfeebling Touch in place of Blackout, rebalance the skill set a bit, replace Blinding Powder with Siphon Speed, bring Black Mantis Thrust as your Lead and Jungle Strike as the off-hand, and...yeah. I think that's it. Your damage output vs squishy targets just increased significantly, I think.

Plus, if you decide to drop Blinding Powder, you've just freed up Shadow Arts to pump some more into CS, Deadly, and whatever you decide as your secondary (I'm leaning toward Necro). Using Twisting Fangs, I'd recommend boosting CS a bit higher, too. You'd want some more bang for your buck with it.

So yeah. I like the build, but I think it can be polished and streamlined a bit. Nice work though. I always enjoy seeing your devilish little mind at work. haha

Your attributes are just spread out too wide, Fisher. Five lines is really pushing it, especially for Assassins.

I'm going to agree with Siren and say to spec in Enfeebling Touch and take out Shadow Arts. Yeah, you lose your self-heals, but with Weakness on your side the only guys liable to kill you before you kill them are in for a nasty surprise. With Siphon Strength and Weakness affixed to them, any Warrior is slammed. Also leaves you two slots for skills, and I do believe Siphon Speed should have one of them. No 'Black Siphon' should be without it, methinks, especially since you have no speed boost of your own. Would help with getting cripples off of Leaping Mantis as well. As for the last slot, if we're going /Necromancer with a bit in Curses, how's about lugging around Shadow of Fear/Faintheartedness? Either one would make Warriors cry on top of Siphon Strength/Speed and Enfeebling Touch and would allow you to decimate them, so long as their hex removal was working. Yeah, now we're getting into the realm of a Cursemancer, but why not? Assassins have that lovely energy pool anyways, why not abuse it?

Something to think about, anyways.

nice build, the attributes are a bit far spread, and could be made more linear and effective by switching some skills.

But i like the idea and now have something to run for my next 3k faction farm

Wow. Bumpage.

*Chuckles* With the big boost Siphon Strength just got, this should work better if focused properly. Just the thing you needed, eh Fisher?

heh, i love hexing warriors and seeing their attacks do 0-6 damage

one again, nice build

Siphon STR is pretty expensive so I'd recommend getting critical eye for that extra 1 energy when hitting that hexed target with 33% extra chance of crit.