Not your usual assasin

Hello all, I am a big fan of the assasin, since factions has released I have declared myself an Assasin enthusiast. :-)

THis doesn't go without saying, I have played around and experimented ALOT. I have tested many of the common assasin builds, from the A/W, A/Mo, R/A, and A/E. After playing some of the more common builds for a while, I started trying some things on my own. I noticed that on each of the common sin builds there was one of 2 types. The heavy offensive and not so defensive (A/E, A/Mo, A/W), and the heavy defensive and not so offensive (R/A). I made it my mission to find a build I feel is balanced enough that in dmg it can kill anything, and in defense it doesn't have to worry about a warrior adrenaline spiking it. It has took me many variations of the build, but I think I have found it.

I present to you my A/Me.

Attributes:

Dagger Mastery: 7+1+1
Critical Strikes: 12+2
Shadow Arts: 8+1
Illusion: 8

Skill Bar:

Shadow Refuge
Distortion
Caltrops
Iron Palm
Horns of the Ox
Falling Spider
Twisting Fangs
Res Sig

NOTE: I sub Shadow Escape for res in alliance battles, and such things.

Equipment:

1 pair of vamp daggers of fortitude (3/1 and +30hp)
1 pair of zealos daggers of enchanting (1/1 and +20% longer enchantment)

How to play?

Alot of players play the assasin with hit and run tactics, this build isn't much different only in the respect that it doesn't shadow step and LITERALLY HIT and RUN. I find a quick shatter/drain fixes AoD VERY FAST and gets very aggrovating at times, its become IMO the #1 assasin counter. This also causes problems for players running Pheonix Strike, no enchant = no Pheonix = NO DMG. So I decided to use the good old fashion run in and attack method! Simply go for your target, and start slashing away. Now, to compensate for the lack of element of surprise, TIMING becomes much more critical in this situation, and PRESSURE techniques becomes your best friend. Ok, so you have your target how do you use your skills? Well, Iron Palm is alot of fun to spam, since its a touch skill it can't be evaded/blocked, and with 14 critical strikes it inflicts 80 damage.

If you want you can run through your skills, and not worry about energy, cause I find it REALLY takes care of itself in this build. So feel free to run through your skills for the first attack, if your going against a half decent monk you won't kill it though, so don't get dissappointed! The key here is to inflict enough pressure on the monk that it burns through its energy, and you catch him at the right time and nab the kill. Caltrops helps for this, ESPICIALLY for fleeing targets, keep those critical strikes on their back, and they are sure to feel the sting just from regular attacks.

I do not know about any one else, but I personally like timing my Horns of the Ox skill so to capitalize on a potentially weakened character. I will usually wait for my target to be down about 20-25% (80-75% hp left) before I actually attempt, and expect a kill. If I am on a monk whos at around this margin of Health, and I find them using Guardian, I will usually try and use my Horns to interupt their Guardian and inflict all the dmg I can and try and get the kill. If it doesn't kill the monk they usually return with prot Spirit and a RoF or two. For those of you who aren't counting, thats 15-20 energy, the monk spends in about 1-2 seconds thus bringing them down (if they were at full) to around 30 or so energy.

If they have other players taking damage, so its pretty likely they are dropping in energy pretty quick and having trouble maintaining it. This contributes to the pressure I spoke of earlier. It causes the target to move, relocate and spend less time attacking/casting on your team or theirs. Keep the pressure up, and with some helpful support, a kill is certain to happen.

What if a warrior attacks me?

Well, first thing is first, throw up Distortion and try and stay on your target, cause as long as your hitting something your getting ATLEAST 1 energy per hit, and with critical hits thats +4 energy per critical. You only lose 2 energy per evaded attack so your energy won't get bombed to bad so long as your hitting something. When neccesary use distortion and shadow refuge. Its important your attacking when shadow refuge ends for that extra heal, and its also important to have that +20% enchantment mod that way you get another second of Shadow Refuge so its a total of 5 seconds of +8 regen with a heal of 52 (or something like that) at the end so long as your attacking.

If you find yourself a popular target and need to run, then its advised you do so as we all know assasins don't handle alot of dmg well so your best bet is to run and kite! If you find a warrior or two chasing you, put yourself in position with them where they are the closest foe to you, and hit "C". This will target them while they are chasing you, now use Caltrops to cripple anyone and their dog who is chasing you. You may now run off and heal safely. Once healed and rdy to get back in there get back into battle!

Another basic technique really with any build, and is also fun with this one is pulling players away from their monks. In 4v4 this is especially easy when warrior is tailing you. Don't cripple them, let them chase you out of monk range, throw on distortion, and unload on them this build handles warriors very quickly. Of course as always, its a good idea to time your horns of the ox for Heal Sig interupt to get a quick kill, otherwise the warrior stays alive long enough for the monk to get in range and you will find yourself in 2v1 battle.

On another note, Caltrops is a very useful skill Offensively, and Defensively. For both you, AND your team mates. I find myself MANY times using caltrops on the assasin(s), warrior(s), and TOUCHER(s) that are chasing my monk around. It gives your monk a chance to beath and some time to maybe regain some energy they might not have.

Well, thats pretty much my guide on how to play my assasin. I like it alot, and its my favorite build. Feedback is appreciated

I would go 13 critical, and more dagger mastery..but that's just me ^^.

I only go with 14 critical and 9 dagger mastery because its alittle more dmg

you only lose 3 dmg when going 9 dagger instead of 10
and gain 7 dmg when doing 14 critical dmg instead of 13 :P

I know its only 4 dmg, but hey higher chance of a critical hit and iron palm goes from 75 to 80 :P twisting fangs goes from 18 to 19.

Incase your wondering how I did math:

HORNS = -2 cause it is a dual attack
SPIDER = -1
Total = -3

Palm = +5
Fangs = +2 cause it is a dual attack

Wanted to make sure didn't cause any confusion there ^^*

P.S. I just noticed, this is for PvP, and its in PvE FORUm, very sorry ^^*

actually PvP and PvE builds come through here so i think you're fine.

as for no shadow steping because of enchant breakers, you can get around it with shadow of haste, which is nice because you can set your shadow arts to a level where it times out with the end of your combo. you still have to run in, but getting out is automatic.

you can also put recall on your monk - that way they have to break the enchant on him instead of you. --- and of course use dodge stances instead of teleports all together.

with Me as your secondary, have you tried any class combo set-ups? Iron palm is fun, and i'd bet twice as fun set up on an echo. and Me has some pretty good interupts in case's where you haven't gotten through your comob enough to be able to use ox.

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Its a great build, but I don't get whats so unusal about it. Just looks like every other Horn of ox > falling spider > twisting fang to me. distortion is a good mix, however, you have no form of condition removal, if you get blinded, poision..etc (which happens alot these days) you are pretty much out of action.
Its just me, but i still don't really like the horn of ox comobo... way too conditional in its usage.
Not trying to flame, just pointing out some of the weakness in this build.

Palm Strike = Touch Skill, it never misses

Also, Horns of the Ox sux on most assasins because they roll right trough their combos. This build isnt ment for getting in, and getting out killing someone in 2 seconds. It is about pressure, and timing your skills that way they are more affective.

Remember, its not the skill set that makes the build, its the player that makes the build, and ultimately decides how good/bad it is with the tactics he/she uses to play it with.

^^

Umm...HotO is normally amazing on a build that's designed to use it well. I can understand you building for tanking (distortion I'm happy you're using instead of wasting an elite)... just, if you want to do pressure, why not use something else? The assassin does best when used in hit-and-run, and while the player does make a huge difference, it won't stop you from being in range of a damage dealing caster.
If you're having a lot of luck with this build, then I congratulate you. The one thing I would do with your build though is to swap Caltrops for something like Dash. I just find that cripple is removed to fast in pvp and that since your combo is delivered in a short amount of time that you would be better suited to using a speed boost to complete it than crippling your target. That way you can still keep following them if you so desire and can just accelerate to deal damage.

That is why i noted I sub shadow escape in many times for res in some battles, but caltrops for a speed boost is good too.

Ah...there's one problem with Dark Escape though, it ends when you hit them. Caltrops should be fine 90% of the time, but with practice I would think that dodge would be a bit more useful. If you didn't use Palm Strike and were using Iron Palm, I would understand your use of caltrops because with Caltrops + Iron Palm you're set up for Falling Spider --> Twisting Fangs.

Good Luck with your build.

Thx for feedback everyone its great hearing these things

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