For assassins: A/W 12+3+1 Dagger, 12+1 crit strikes, 1 tactics!
Equipment is obviously whatever armor and zealous daggers.
Flashing Blades, Watch Yourself, Critical Eye, Jagged Blade, Wild Strike, Death Blossom, Horns of the Ox, Rez Sig OR Signet of Malice OR iway (yeah iway is fun but not exactly the best)
This is really the only assassin build I could stand to play.. Flashing blades + watch yourself makes you comparable to a warrior as a tank. Between crit eye and 13 crit strikes you should not run easily run out of energy to combo. You assassins who take 1 lead attack that has a 20 second recharge make me sick. Wild strike is a must of an offhand attack. Jagged Strike is flexible with unsuspecting strikes but unsuspecting is 10 energy and if you'd rather not worry about energy. Death Blossom is a must dual attack. Horns can be substituted for critical strikes.
For you expertise assassins. R/A 10+3+1 expertise, 8+1 beastmaster, 12 dagger
Equipment is +10 in stance armor and again zealous daggers (maybe even vampiric never tried).
TF/BF, jagged strike, wild strike, death blossom, horns of the ox, moebius, comfort animal, charm animal.
You can get rid of the pet if you want but I like my spider. Basically you use TF for the increased attack speed and then you just spam combos using moebius to recharge your dual attacks.
No healing on either of these builds, if you want healing go back to playing your wammo, these builds do what they are supposed to do in a group of 8 and thats dish it out. Both of these builds are comparable to a TF axe war meaning they are very impressive dps (I wish I had a dps counter to get true statistics). If every assassin used the build I provided above, assassins wouldn't have such a bad rep.
The only way to use daggers.
TadaceAce
Lambentviper
well death blossom isnt a must, but the aoe damage is nice for pve.
IMO i dont really get a good vibe from this thread, and you seemed to have typed it with a "matter-of-fact" bossy attitude that implies if you dont run this build than you suck at GW because this is the only build thats good.
But thats just what i get from it...
**EDIT**...oh, and not every assassin gets to start out with Flashing Blades. In fact, i dont think any do. So would assassins still not have a bad rep then? cuz im pretty sure you dont get flashing blades ANYWHERE from Shing Jea until the Temple Mission area.....sooo maybe if everyone used there head to think before they posted more often, you wouldnt have just gotten such a bad rep
IMO i dont really get a good vibe from this thread, and you seemed to have typed it with a "matter-of-fact" bossy attitude that implies if you dont run this build than you suck at GW because this is the only build thats good.
But thats just what i get from it...
**EDIT**...oh, and not every assassin gets to start out with Flashing Blades. In fact, i dont think any do. So would assassins still not have a bad rep then? cuz im pretty sure you dont get flashing blades ANYWHERE from Shing Jea until the Temple Mission area.....sooo maybe if everyone used there head to think before they posted more often, you wouldnt have just gotten such a bad rep
Siren
I'm sorry, but as soon as I saw Horns of the Ox I stopped reading. That's a dickish way of saying it, but I don't know why people aren't realizing that Horns of the Ox sucks as a KD. Your target needs to be isolated for it to work. Your target is rarely isolated enough for it to be a consistent KD.
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Flashing blades + watch yourself makes you comparable to a warrior as a tank
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And you're causing crap damage because you don't have Deep Wound. Drop Jagged Strike, because you'll be able to grab Bleeding from Twisting Fangs later in the combo. Drop Wild Strike and go /W for Wild Blow.
You know what? I don't think it's even worth the effort to try to save your build in this form. lol. It's such a jumbled mismatch of attack skills with no real skill synergy that I wouldn't even call it a respectable cookie-cutter build.
Horns of the Ox is taking up space. You've got no Deep Wound infliction. Your lead attack sucks, but you think it's good because of the cost and fast recharge. You're negating stances with an off-hand (which makes no sense when you think about it). Watch Yourself is doing jackshit in this build; going from 0 to 1 in Tactics doesn't help the 5-second duration, and 5 seconds isn't all that impressive...so that's another waste of a skill slot.
...so yeah. This build doesn't wow me at all.
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PvP can still be used anicdodely.|
you assassins who take 1 lead attack that has a 20 second recharge make me sick.
Funny, that. My lead attack is actually an off-hand that costs 10 energy and has a 25-second recharge, and yet my build will outperform yours in every single way. lol
Vecte
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Originally Posted by Siren
I'm sorry, but as soon as I saw Horns of the Ox I stopped reading. That's a dickish way of saying it, but I don't know why people aren't realizing that Horns of the Ox sucks as a KD. Your target needs to be isolated for it to work. Your target is rarely isolated enough for it to be a consistent KD.
Why are you perpetuating the stereotype that Assassins want to be tanks? The only time I play a tank is in emergencies, when I need to take aggro away from the Monks. And you're causing crap damage because you don't have Deep Wound. Drop Jagged Strike, because you'll be able to grab Bleeding from Twisting Fangs later in the combo. Drop Wild Strike and go /W for Wild Blow. You know what? I don't think it's even worth the effort to try to save your build in this form. lol. It's such a jumbled mismatch of attack skills with no real skill synergy that I wouldn't even call it a respectable cookie-cutter build. Horns of the Ox is taking up space. You've got no Deep Wound infliction. Your lead attack sucks, but you think it's good because of the cost and fast recharge. You're negating stances with an off-hand (which makes no sense when you think about it). Watch Yourself is doing jackshit in this build; going from 0 to 1 in Tactics doesn't help the 5-second duration, and 5 seconds isn't all that impressive...so that's another waste of a skill slot. ...so yeah. This build doesn't wow me at all. Funny, that. My lead attack is actually an off-hand that costs 10 energy and has a 25-second recharge, and yet my build will outperform yours in every single way. lol I agree with you in some of the things you say, but I do disagree with your views on Horns of the Ox. Seriously people, just because you have to choose a secondary profession doesn't mean you need to use it. Believe it or not, some classes are quite a bit better if you only use your primary attributes. I have set up a few builds that can basically turn an assassin into a temporary tank, but I hate them. They are plainly stupid, and they take away the true way you should play an assassin. If you need to pick up temporary aggro while a tank is being resed, you can easily do it with out standing right on top of your enemy. You can still use the basic hit and run tactics, and hold the aggro while the tank is being resed. If for some reason your entire party is for some ungodly reason without a res, and you have no option but to try and tank, if you have the monks there, you will survive mate, even with the paper thin armor. The amount of damage an assassin puts out on any class of monster in pve will outway the aggro from a monk's heals. Please people, for my sake, and most assassins out there, try using just assassin attributes, I can almost garuntee you won't go back to anything else once you do. Now, on to Horns of the Ox. Hoto is an extremely useful skill, with or without the KD. It costs 5 energy, only has a 12 sec recharge, and has the chance to knock the enemy down of course, if they are isolated. In the later, and even earlier parts of the game, assassins should be shadow stepping to the squishes, namely monks/mesmers/mages, etc. These classes rarely ever stand close together. The programmers arn't gonna place a group of squishes together, just to watch um all get nuked to death buy one Meteor Shower, etc. Yea, this can happen sometimes, but idealily they are isolated just enough for Hoto to work. If you can put one person between two, then they are far enough apart for Hoto to work, and I HAVE tested this. Now, when these assassins should be shadow stepping to the monks at least, or running to them, after the group has been aggroed, knockdown becomes very useful, especially against those monks. Enemy monks will try to save themselves before they try and save a team mate, I see it happen all to often. When you can knock them down to disrupt them, and cause around 80-100 dmg as well, then you have a good skill. Yes, of course, there will be those times when you just cannot knockdown your foe, but you still are going to do a high amount of damage. If you are pveing, check with your group to see if it is ok not to bring a res. If it is, then your setup should be as follows: Lead -> Offhand -> Dual attack (Hoto is a good choice) -> Offhand that follows a Dual attack (ex. Falling Spider/Moebius Strike) -> Dual attack (DB is an excellent one) This gives you 5 offensive moves, a Shadow step, a run skill, and a self heal(or if you trust your monks, a res even). I wouldn't recommend using to many skills that cost 10 energy, unless yoiu have high critical strikes, other than that, try and use attacks that cost 5 energy and not to large of cooldowns(although, cooldown really doesn't matter if you have Moebius strike). Also, if you find that you can't knock the opponant down, then just break the chain and jump to DB. You will still get a 3 skill combo, and some nice aoe to boot.
Lambentviper
And i also enjoy watching TadaceAce complain about the bad reputation of assassins as tanks then he goes and spread the word "yay look everyone! be a tank!"
Tachu_Rice
Horns of the Ox is not very usefull unless chained with Falling Spider and it is good for people that run, but wht the HELL would you compair Assassins with Tanks? Thats the main reason peopel don't let them into groups. What makes you think that they will take your word that tou are a tank? its jsut stupid people use Assassins for Well generators in Deep and Urgoz, thats about it..... althought i play an assassin myself, i have NEVER compaired Assassin with a tank, My assassin can bean jsut about anyone 1v1 so i look for peopel that have jsut died and pick em off near their rez or either cap groups.
ALSO a Pet Assassin is too hard to manage, worrying about the order of chaining your skills and HP is enough
Siren
Vecte, regarding Horns, be that as it may, it's still wasting a skill slot here, because as a straight-up Dual Attack, he's not getting any mileage out of it, particularly when something like Twisting Fangs is the superior Dual Attack by far. With Horns, he's getting a Dual Attack damage and possible KD. With Twisting Fangs, he's getting Dual Attack damage and Deep Wound+Bleed infliction. Now, yes, Horns costs 5E, while Twisting costs 10E, but other than that, those skills are identical. Both have a 12-second recharge, if I remember correctly.
For the purposes of this discussion, the only advantage Horns might have over Twisting Fangs is 5E. That's it. But when you consider the "side effects" of the skills--the added bonuses--you've got slightly better damage from Horns and a possible KD, whereas you've got a guaranteed Deep Wound and Bleed from Twisting. Sorry, but unless Horns is used in a dedicated KD build, I should never, ever see Horns where Twisting Fangs ought to be. And the Deep Wound is critically important, because it effectively multiplies your damage output. It's similar to an attack chain of... Mark of Instability-->Twisting-->Falling Spider-->Death Blossom vs MoI-->Death Blossom-->Falling Spider-->Twisting Fangs When you try those two combinations and compare them, damage output is severely gimped because you're waiting till the very end to inflict Deep Wound with the second chain. When the target still has that extra 100 health, Falling Spider and Death Blossom aren't going to be as effective, because 30+80 damage out of 400 or so just isn't as dangerous as 30+80 damage out of 300, due to the max health of the target. I suppose it's a kind of ratio thing. What does this have to do with Horns? Same principle applies. If you're looking to do damage with a Dual Attack, Twisting Fangs is the way to go. The Deep Wound and Bleed are invaluable in dropping a target, and if you happen to combine MoI with Twisting-->Falling Spider, you've got a very deadly combination, because you've got Deep Wound, Bleed, then Poison, with an actual physical damage output that's been multiplied through the Deep Wound, and the 8 degen/16 health per second that's draining 300 health as opposed to 400 health. So all of that is why I have a chuckle when I hear about people still using Horns. It's a substandard skill from just about every perspective I can think of. Comparatively, it's got crap damage because of no Deep Wound. Its energy cost isn't that big of an advantage, especially in properly designed builds. Its KD is too conditional to be consistent. It barely synergizes with anything apart from Falling Spider, and even then, through proper build design, there's better Falling Spider skill synergy out there. So now why use Horns over any other Dual Attacks? Honestly, I don't know. Regarding your suggested attack chain, bypass the Lead. ~_^ SilverSlave
Twisting Fangs has a 15 second recharge.
Horns of the Ox is a perfectly valid skill for an energy conscious knockdown build. It has low energy cost, decent damage, knockdown and only uses one skill slot. If you're playing an assassin designed to pick off soft targets and stragglers then catching someone on their own is not hard and you're getting maximum effect from HotO. You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.
Siren
Then its recharge is only three seconds longer, which I don't feel is a major issue, because Twisting Fangs outperforms Horns generally, again going back to the Deep Wound/Bleed infliction.
If you're looking to kill soft targets and stragglers...why would you choose Horns over Twisting? When you're attacking someone who presumably is not going to be well-defended (which is what a straggler is), do you want to knock them down or kill them? If you want to just get a KD, fine. Have fun (even though there are much more devious, diabolical, and effective ways to KD a target). But in terms of outright killing a target? Even a straggler? I can't think of a worse combination than Jagged Strike/Unsuspecting Strike/Death Blossom/Horns. Deep Wound is critical. If you don't believe me, try running those two attack chains I listed earlier. There's very clearly a more efficient attack progression, and that progression one, includes Deep Wound, and two, inflicts Deep Wound before the heavy-hitting attacks. If you want to talk damage, Death Blossom shats all over Horns, and it costs the same, in addition to having the same recharge, in addition to providing AoE damage. All Horns has is a highly conditional KD. That's it. And it's not worth bringing just for that. Bloodied Blade
Can someone just banish this thread to the 5th dimension or something? Assassins are not tanks and should never be built as one. They tank in only the most extreme circumstances when it is absolutely required.
Lambentviper
yeah, this build has gotten to far off topic and could probably be closed without takeing away from the greater society
TadaceAce
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Originally Posted by Lambentviper
And i also enjoy watching TadaceAce complain about the bad reputation of assassins as tanks then he goes and spread the word "yay look everyone! be a tank!"
Like it or not if an assassin is going to hold his own in damage or usefulness in a party he can't play hit and run and has to stay in battle.
Horns of the ox is like +35 damage dual attack for 5 energy and a quick recharge, screw the knockdown, the knockdown is just a bonus. Twisting fangs is 10 energy... and if your not using jagged for the bleeding already your using unsuspecting which is also 10 energy... If you can spam combos of that cost your my hero cause I know I can't with 13 crit strikes and zealous daggers. Daggers do jack damage, the only way to do damage as an assassin it to spam cheap energy combos. You can't use skills like mark of instability - lotus - twisting - spider - blossom along with an assassins promise in there. One it takes forever to unload and your guy likely dies before you even finish your combo. Two if you miss assassins promise there goes your only lead attack for what, 45 seconds? Three your gonna get destroyed with no defense. Any assassin thats not using flashing blade IN PVE is a newb in my book. By the time you get to twisting fangs if your group is focusing fire at all, the target is almost dead. Thus you get virtually no bonus damage from the bleeding, and deep wound on a near dead target is completely useless. Keep in mind this is strictly pve! When discussing energy from assassin skills you have to keep in mind gain. With 13 crit strikes, zealous daggers, and crit eye. Costs are: Horns of the ox, Max -3, Minimum +5 Twisting Fangs, Max -8, Minimum 0 Horns of the ox is much more cost effective. At 16 dagger mastery: horns of the ox is +31 damage At 13 crit strikes: twisting fangs is +17 damage. For twice+ energy to equal the damage the bleeding would have to last about 2.3 seconds before the target dies GRANTED your not using jagged strikes. The deep wound I guess alone will make up for the extra damage if the opponent has at least 150 life left.
Siren
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Originally Posted by TadaceAce
Like it or not if an assassin is going to hold his own in damage or usefulness in a party he can't play hit and run and has to stay in battle.
Horns of the ox is like +35 damage dual attack for 5 energy and a quick recharge, screw the knockdown, the knockdown is just a bonus. Twisting fangs is 10 energy... and if your not using jagged for the bleeding already your using unsuspecting which is also 10 energy... If you can spam combos of that cost your my hero cause I know I can't with 13 crit strikes and zealous daggers. Daggers do jack damage, the only way to do damage as an assassin it to spam cheap energy combos. You can't use skills like mark of instability - lotus - twisting - spider - blossom along with an assassins promise in there. One it takes forever to unload and your guy likely dies before you even finish your combo. Two if you miss assassins promise there goes your only lead attack for what, 45 seconds? Three your gonna get destroyed with no defense. Any assassin thats not using flashing blade IN PVE is a newb in my book. By the time you get to twisting fangs if your group is focusing fire at all, the target is almost dead. Thus you get virtually no bonus damage from the bleeding, and deep wound on a near dead target is completely useless. Keep in mind this is strictly pve! When discussing energy from assassin skills you have to keep in mind gain. With 13 crit strikes, zealous daggers, and crit eye. Costs are: Horns of the ox, Max -3, Minimum +5 Twisting Fangs, Max -8, Minimum 0 Horns of the ox is much more cost effective. At 16 dagger mastery: horns of the ox is +31 damage At 13 crit strikes: twisting fangs is +17 damage. For twice+ energy to equal the damage the bleeding would have to last about 2.3 seconds before the target dies GRANTED your not using jagged strikes. The deep wound I guess alone will make up for the extra damage if the opponent has at least 150 life left. Sorry, but your entire post there is mind-numbingly simplistically stupid, and has proven to me just how much you need to learn about smart Assassins. Hit me up in-game sometime (My Assassin's IGN is Arianna Starr) and I'll show you what my Assassin's Promise build can do, and how quickly I can annihilate 90% of the PvE battlefield without my party doing any focus-firing. I guarantee you that your build does crap damage. Just like I guarantee you I can drop targets faster than you can, and then kill the next target faster than you can, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that I can kill 2-3 targets (and start working on my fourth) while you're still piddling on target #1 or 2. Oh, and by the way...this is all from PvE, and nowhere will you ever find Flashing Blades in any truly respectable Assassin PvE build. Because Flashing Blades sucks. I can easily count a dozen better Elites across all the attribute lines. Your build sucks. Get over yourself. Drop Unsuspecting if you're still using it. Drop Jagged Strike, because Bleed means jackshit at the start of your combo...the fact that you're even still using a Lead Attack hurts my brain. I agree with previous posters. This thread needs to get locked, because it had absolutely zero credibility at the very first post. Kyle
[sarcasm]
Sorry to say this guys. but i guess im a noob. I do not run flashing blades in my PvE assasin nor in my PvP assasin. Seeing as im in battle for roughly 5 seconds i dont need it. /sarcasm and if a warrior can kill me in those 5 seconds then props to him. I stopped reading his post when he said "Flashing blades + watch yourself makes you comparable to a warrior as a tank." As others have said thats hows that you have no idea how to be an assasin. Just picture this in your head. Assasins can be compared to ninjas on a scale. They are both sneaky and kill things and get out. Now you wouldnt see a ninja sneak into the targets house via the roof and then kill his target only to walk out the front door to have the whole house beat on him. No he would go out the same way he came in without anybody realizing anything happened. And as for the Hoto vs. Twisting Fangs debate im saying it depends on what your trying to do. The 10e of TF is scary to a few. Im not going to even get in the middle of that debate though. Kijik Oni Hanryuu
I just use a modded AoD+GPS cookie cutter build and it gets the job done, tho I do hope to get moebius somewhere along the line and make a new build using that, and siren you have a point bu HoO is not useless, especially for stragglers since usually when they see you the try to run :/, and I use twisting fangs as insurance that they die. Anyway just my twio cents and yes thsi forum should be locked and we can start a HoO vs. TF thread.
LaserLight
Been a while since I dropped in here. Good to see that the intelligence in the Assassin forums is just as peak as ever >_>
*Slaps Tadace* 'Only way to use daggers'? Funny, I've seen lots of ways to use daggers, and not one of them involves this particular method. Me, I'm a fan of the Shock>Spider>Fangs method Bloodlight Blade uses off in Last Pride. Standard GPS>Horns>Spider>Fangs combo is good too, if a bit situational for me. Assassin's Promise has promise too (pun only slightly intended), though I prefer AoD for my Elite. Ye know what makes me queasy, man? A build that uses two skill slots - a quarter of your available skills - for junker skills there solely for the purpose of getting to a dual other than Twisting Fangs. Yeah, Jagged and Wild have their place in a build, but it's not an Assassin primary. it is, in fact, better to use those in a Temple Striker R/A build, where they allow you to level Bleeding and the bit of extra damage from Wild while your real skills are recharging. Even then, it's a sub-optimal solution. As for Flashing Blades...yeah, when do you pick that up again? And anyone that would run Flashing Blades, with such fun tricks as AoD, Assassin's Promise, or even Way of the Empty Palm or Palm Strike in certain trick builds available, is an idiot. It runs totally counter to what an Assassin is and should not be an Elite, let alone a desireable skill. Posting builds like this is one thing, Ace. Posts like this, where you brazenly claim that your build is the answer to all Assassins' problems and that anyone that disagrees with you is a moron, are another altogether, and not needed. Perhaps we wouldn't be chewing you out so bad if you hadn't started this, eh? Does-it-Matter
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Originally Posted by TadaceAce
Like it or not if an assassin is going to hold his own in damage or usefulness in a party he can't play hit and run and has to stay in battle.
If you had said "Like it or not, if a Warrior..." then I'd agree. Only then.
Why do you want to make another class into a warrior when there already is a warrior class? If you want to tank, play a warrior. Look, we've put a lot of effort in to specifically making builds that are the furthest thing from tanking. And guess what? They work. The QuickStrike build will drop just about any PvE creature. The Cascade build is one of my favorite things to run in PvP just to annoy people, and its effective. Both of them take less than seven seconds to use. Other "hit and run" builds I've seen posted here play-tested as very affective as well. Do me a favor, look at the armor level of a tank, and the armor level of an assassin. Do you notice a difference? ANet did that for a reason, I believe. Yes, you CAN make your assassin have Tank-level armor, that doesn't mean you should. Hell, put the effort you're doing to raise your assassin's armor into raising your tank's, problem sovled. There is a reason assassins have "hit and run" spells. There's a reason assassin's are shown as "attacking quick and running" in the GW movies. Maybe it's cause its their role? TadaceAce
1. Quit talking about pvp, this is a pve discussion.
2. You guys are the reason people hate assassins, your hit and run builds do jack for damage.... 3. Bleeding... nothing removes conditions in pve... that 9 seconds of bleeding, if your target lasts that long, is 54 damage. Not to mention its totally unconditional. 4. Go play a TF axe war in pve... it already completely destroys any assassin build in damage, not to mention some guy playing hit and run. 5. Assassins promise is just... crap.... moebius and palm strike you can argue... assassins promise is junk. For one its completely unpredictable, you put it on a guy then the dredge gardener puts shielding hands on the guy and starts to heal him and hes not dying. Placing your entire build around a skill with a 45 second recharge if it misses is dumb. That happens and your assassins does less damage than a wammo for the next minute. 6. Get used to it people, assassins have to be compared with warriors cause thats what they can't help but be. They tank more than warriors unless your playing the rediculously stupid pve hit and run. Pve aggro is built to be determined by many factors, armor and distance from the enemy is 90% of it unless their is a lot of dp involved. You have less armor than the war, you always will, you fight at the same distance as the war, you always will. Get over it assassins can't help but take damage, its not possible to do any damage and not get raped with no defensive skills. If you think otherwise your delusional and don't understand what real damage or defense is about. Does-it-Matter
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Originally Posted by TadaceAce
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There's threads all over the place about it (if you really need me to confirm the obvious, I'll provide links). The reason assassins are rarely taken into groups, the reason monks use the line "kick the assassin or I'm gone" and the reason you can't seem to get... is because people play them like tanks and die really fast.
Quote: 3. Bleeding... nothing removes conditions in pve... that 9 seconds of bleeding, if your target lasts that long, is 54 damage. Not to mention its totally unconditional. Sometimes I wear mittens. So? Also, you are incorrect. Several monk monsters use anti-condition spells.
Quote: 4. Go play a TF axe war in pve... it already completely destroys any assassin build in damage, not to mention some guy playing hit and run. And then there's nukers, and spikers... If you want to do the ultimate dick waving of damage, there's always a bigger dog. That's really not the topic here.
Quote: 5. Assassins promise is just... crap.... moebius and palm strike you can argue... assassins promise is junk. For one its completely unpredictable, you put it on a guy then the dredge gardener puts shielding hands on the guy and starts to heal him and hes not dying. Placing your entire build around a skill with a 45 second recharge if it misses is dumb. That happens and your assassins does less damage than a wammo for the next minute. Every skill has a purpose, someone will find a use. I frankly don't use any of the three listed.
Quote: 6. Get used to it people, assassins have to be compared with warriors cause thats what they can't help but be. Maybe you can't help it, but those of us that know how assassins should be played (as shown by the various builds listed), disagree.
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They tank more than warriors unless your playing the rediculously stupid pve hit and run
Monks really don't like you, huh? Quote:
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