The Assassin Guide

Nagamorph - Harshlands

Raving Slash
Range melee
Mana 5.6+7*Skill lvl
Channel 0.1second
Cast 1.5second
CoolDown 8.0second
Weapon dagger
Require Cultivation Spiritual Adept

Deals a damage equals to your basic attack plus
(-) physical damage.
Increases own movement speed by (30+2*skill level)%. Lasts for 3 seconds.

Costs 30 Chi.

This skill ups your movement speed for 3 seconds after being cast. Most would wonder why it has such a strange effect. This is what I would call an "Execution" or "Final Strike" type move. This skill is meant to be used as the very last attack on a monster so you can quickly get into striking range of the next monster. You don't exactly have to finish a monster with this skill. If Puncture Wound is still active and this move does not kill the monster, progress to the next monster anyway because the sliver of health will be bled away from Bleed. As for the item drops, you can always pick that up after 2 or 3 kills, only the most desperate of people will wait patiently to steal from you.

i rly cant understand how 3sec speed can help u b:shockedb:angry

Group B: High Priority, Keep up to date, but not at the cost of Group A
Raving Slash (lvl 9)
Tackling Slash (lvl 29)
Focused Mind (lvl 19)
Rising Dragon Strike (lvl 49)
Inner Harmony (lvl 59)
Wolf Emblem (lvl 9)

High priority for raving slash?

Lusca - Sanctuary

lol it cuts down on time spent running between mobs

but it's still pretty useless imho

Komedi - Raging Tide

Thanks for this wonderful guide!

ArkToNE - Harshlands

Doing an update on player focuses and skill priorities based on those focuses. Haven't finished the math yet, not enough people to interview to get the #s to figure out the math formulas with.

Mer_Lina - Sanctuary

The guide is just a guide to help you along your way. It's not the end all be all of what you can do with your class. Btw, as far as I can see it, Sins are MP & Skill intensive class. If you wanted to reserve the amount of MP usage and go with regular attacks, might I suggest going Fist BM. ~thanks~

With that said I just wanted to throw my 2 cents for things I found useful to a Sin.

Combo: For non-aggro pure melee mobs
1) Tackling Slash>Puncture Wound>Deep Sting>Spark Eruption>Either Rib Strike or Slipstream Strike(to finish)>any other skills you like

Note: If successful on Tackling(to immobolize) and Deep(to sleep), the only time a mob will hit you is after your Rib Strike or Slipstream. Chi gain from Tackling goes to offset the cost in Deep Sting. If you need a Chi before combat use Shadow Escape.

2) invest in a +mp +%xp tome. I use a level 2 +6mp +2%xp tome and it has helped me a lot in mana savings, especial with a little meditation as needed.


Like I said, my Sin(still in 30's) is not high enough to test everything, so will not preach about anything I have not tried on my own. Well that's my 2 cents for now, thanks for listening to my rant. lol.

Phoenix - Dreamweaver

1) Tackling Slash>Puncture Wound>Deep Sting>Spark Eruption>Either Rib Strike or Slipstream Strike(to finish)>any other skills you like

Either I'm on crack and stupid, or the bleed from Puncture Wound will wake up any target you try to sleep.

To any Sin over 59, this works for me: Rib Strike > Adv. Spark Eruption > beat to death. Mix in chi gaining skills as needed. Bleeding is a waste of time on regular mobs as they'll be dead before your spark wears off. Even before Adv. Spark eruption, you should still be getting enough chi to Spark Erupt on every mob, and it's still faster and more efficient to do so. Adv. Spark eruption just makes the kills faster.

Or you could use Chill of the Deep and needlessly waste MP on skill-spam, when such tactics are better suited for PVP anyway.

Lusca - Sanctuary

Phoenix - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Either I'm on crack and stupid, or the bleed from Puncture Wound will wake up any target you try to sleep.

To any Sin over 59, this works for me: Rib Strike > Adv. Spark Eruption > beat to death. Mix in chi gaining skills as needed. Bleeding is a waste of time on regular mobs as they'll be dead before your spark wears off. Even before Adv. Spark eruption, you should still be getting enough chi to Spark Erupt on every mob, and it's still faster and more efficient to do so. Adv. Spark eruption just makes the kills faster.

Or you could use Chill of the Deep and needlessly waste MP on skill-spam, when such tactics are better suited for PVP anyway.

i guess you must be on crack and stupid cause the bleed doesn't wake a mob up =[

Vidalaire - Heavens Tear

DoT's don't wake up a sleeping mob. Only direct damage will wake it up. I've slept a mob and had a psychic cast Torrent on it and it didn't wake up.

Nagamorph - Harshlands

Phoenix - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Either I'm on crack and stupid, or the bleed from Puncture Wound will wake up any target you try to sleep.

To any Sin over 59, this works for me: Rib Strike > Adv. Spark Eruption > beat to death. Mix in chi gaining skills as needed. Bleeding is a waste of time on regular mobs as they'll be dead before your spark wears off. Even before Adv. Spark eruption, you should still be getting enough chi to Spark Erupt on every mob, and it's still faster and more efficient to do so. Adv. Spark eruption just makes the kills faster.

Or you could use Chill of the Deep and needlessly waste MP on skill-spam, when such tactics are better suited for PVP anyway.

If u use puncture and then deep sting the mob will be slept for deep's duration unless u hit it. As far as i know, DoT's dont wake a mob up.

Drake_Nexus - Lost City

i love the guide im a pure dex build and using some of the combos ive seen on here i barely take enough damage to notice the squishyness so ty ppl for all the combo postsb:victory

ragealot

I have tries the combo u sugested but the reg attack u can not put in combo so does this combo work that has been sugested

ArkToNE - Harshlands

Made a few critical updates. Added a few notes with certain skills. Rebalanced Earthen Rift. Re-evaluated 2 spark skills. Found the mathematical formulas for Subsea Strike and Headhunt.

Kristoph - Lost City

I really have to wonder about your level, a lot of comments make it look like you haven't even gotten past tusk town yet.


Puncture Wound - does half assed damage once you get to 6x, not even worth using over melee anymore

Shadow Walk - even if you like pvp you dont have to level this... I love pvp and never use stealth in it honestly, not yet anyway, there's more important skills

Wolf Emblem - at lv60+ you should have over 15% critrate already, and it's pretty cheap... if you don't get this to at least lv5 you're just silly

Windpush - you use this skill on cooldown... it's cheap too. During grinding, while running around in town, and very often in pvp, this skill is DEFINATELY worth leveling. I got this to 5 early on and I use it all the time

Deep Sting - another cheap skill to level, should get it to 5 or so at least since it reduces your failure rate by a decent amount. If you're going to waste 50 chi, you don't want it to fail

Focused Mind - godly no matter what you're fighting, I maxed this and I keep it on whenever I can during grinding, swamp mobs hurt and you often end up getting ganked, this skill will allow you to sit there and just kill everything without worrying about death.

Throw Knife - you completely missed the fact that leveling it is cheap and adds range... which is amazing for a skill that allows you to lure. Means you can avoid half damage in swamps in the water, etc. Leveling it is worth it because the extra damage can save you a lot of time from certain mobs that will run away on death, and mine at lv5 only barely killed some of them

Tackling Slash - again, it's pretty cheap and even at lv5 you're already up to 7.5 seconds worth of paralyzing... this skill is definately worth leveling even if the damage (increase) isn't very good

Throatcut - uhm, yes, you can move if you're sealed


And lol, none of your focuses apply to me.

ArkToNE - Harshlands

Puncture Wound is efficient in long battles only post 60. Which is why it's at the end of the combo.

Shadow Walk leveling is mostly for people who are uncharmed, that and those that PvP without a charm seem to like the MP cost reduction.

Wolf Emblem leveling would depend on priorities. At the moment, no monster I can think of last long enough to do 2-3 hits. The crit damage probably would be nice, but not at the cost of Power Dash, which increases Rate.

Windpush, again, is purely optional. Besides, if you're running around town, Maze Steps would be the better choice since you can build chi without attacking. Even then I just fly around since I -DO- have those ridiculously overpriced (but fast) wings.

Deep Sting can actually be skipped in most situations. The damage growth is too low and the spirit can be used for Tackling Slash or Rising Dragon Strike, even Earthen Rift is a better choice knowing that Assassin Amp/Rift parties exist.

Focused mind I can live without for a little while, not at the cost of so many other skills that can be learned and used. Tidal Protection will actually serve you better in PvP in the long run anyways. As for the time you want to max this, there's already other skills that you should have your eyes on.

Knife Throw is cheap and yes it adds range, but I rely more on Genie for more complicated matters and the damage per spirit given from genie is greater than damage from Knife Throw. Besides, if you puncture wound before they run, you get better damage results.

Tackling Slash for immobilize, not paralyze. 7.5 seconds is cool, but I still haven't encountered anything that requires longer than a few seconds. There's already far too many skills that allow you to pin monsters down.


That and you definitely seem the Defensive Focus type.

As for throatcut, I've never seen the opposing player actually move when this was cast on them.

Mako_Shiruku - Sanctuary

Everytime I see this guide, it gets better.

But I have a question: Could you come up with a skill list for people that use a hybrid of your 'focuses'? As you know, some people wont agree with it, but this is for people who don't know.

ArkToNE - Harshlands

Most people have hybrid/mixed focuses, the focuses are there for single track thinking. There's just too many variants and too heavily dependant on what you need, so it's best to weigh what appeals more to you.

Lusca - Sanctuary

ArkToNE - Harshlands wrote: »

As for throatcut, I've never seen the opposing player actually move when this was cast on them.

you must of met dumb players =x or you have used tackling before throat cut

seal only stops you attacking not your movement

ArkToNE - Harshlands

Alriiight, all the major formulas complete. Look forward to the next installment for Assassin Comparison.

ArkToNE - Harshlands

Updated some skills and added a small PvP section.

Kriticalhitz - Raging Tide

Toneshifter - Harshlands wrote: »

You all do know that Assassins should use normal attacks to cause the most damage? just get rising dragon skill and inner harmony and you should be able to double spark alot.

headhunt is indeed a very good pvp skill, just like shadow teleport.
shadow tele to them, use rising dragon, double spark, genie windshield (+10% atk speed) and normal hit them to death, this worked fine of every LA and Robe so far.

I only see a problem in HA venosb:cute

personallyi dont see how hard HA veno is.. just more defence b:surrender guess ill need to find a HA veno and pk b:chuckle

Phoenix - Dreamweaver

Kriticalhitz - Raging Tide wrote: »

personallyi dont see how hard HA veno is.. just more defence b:surrender guess ill need to find a HA veno and pk b:chuckle

Then you've never fought a 9x heavy veno. I hit 9x BMs for a paltry 150-250 damage. I hit 9x Heavy Venos for about 100-130.

Kristoph - Lost City

ArkToNE - Harshlands wrote: »

Blademaster: Tidal Protection for Axe Wielders, Focus Mind the others. A difficult class to defeat, but not impossible. If you can, start the fight at max distance since your max Knife Throw will have an outstanding 35 meters range and keep kiting them until they can no longer be kited. Much like Barbs, you want to lower their physical defense with Tangling Mire, Stun Lock, and be sure to Rib Strike them. Also note that another way to kill them is with Metal Genie Skill named Rumbling Thunder. If you strike them with Power Dash level 10 at level 80 or so, you'll have a good 60% chance of landing a critical hit on top of triple damage if target is on ground and double if you are close to them (1200% Genie Damage on crit).

Your only real chance of killing a Blademaster with physical attacks is going to be sparking with tangling mire, wolf, etc. You don't want to be stunned out of that. You're better off ALWAYS using Tidal protection. 50% chance to avoid Aoelian, Roar, Occult Ice, Heaven's Flame, any other kind of genie debuff, and so on. BMs don't do enough damage per hit to be a threat, it's their ability to stun most of the time. Fist BMs do have high DPS, but that's what rib strike is for. You don't want to be hit by a dragoned True Emptiness either, it'll most likely kill you. I rather go with the 50% chance of dragon not working than the 25% chance of TE hitting 1.


And no, don't use knife throw, use stealth to catch them off guard, lower their HP with whatever will allow you to do so without dying, then force stealth out to prepare for the real kill. (Assuming they have a charm, you'll want to get them to ~60% HP before sparking or something similar.


Also, depending on what genie you're using, Thunderstorm could be better. It's stronger than Rumbling thunder assuming you have like 50 dex/str or more, but it's for on the ground instead of in the air. Also, you could try using Subsea followed by Harmony and Power Dash before using a genie skill. Not sure if Wolf Emblem works on genie skills.. but if it does, use that as well. I'd probably stick to combining Tangling Mire and Occult Ice with sparking.

RedPeach - Lost City

Thx ArkToNE for the Guide ^_^

For the rest who didn't agree with the Guide and meant to flame him instead of giving building/positive comments, I suggest you make your own Guide so we can compare whose Guide is the best.

Xirel - Harshlands

Honestly I do not get the whole commotion over this guide. It covers the basic builds and it gives a basic overview of the skills. The writer does inject opinions of the class, build and skill usage and so it is for the reader to digest the information that is useful.

There are several talking points where sins are concerned and what follows is simply my own observations based on my experiences.

1) The pure dexterity build does indeed seem to make the most sense for this class. Sadly I sank 17 points into vitality before I realized this. The assassin has several skills that make any reliance on hp or pdef from vitality useless. I still continue with this character though because the 17 vit points do not significantly alter my damage output but then again neither do they enhance my survivability.

You see in PvP (Pk etc) I find that my skills are far more valuable than my stats. That is why I can successfully take on any class I have encountered so far and hold my own (more wins than losses right now). As far as grinding goes my kill speed is excellent and a combination of bloodpaint and focussed mind helps keep me alive (along with pot usage - manufacturing your own pots helps reduce pot cost).

2) Where the issue of chill of the deep is concerned, that is a personal preference. For me I love the skill and use it both in PvP and PvE. On the other hand I have met many an assassin based on attack speed. Of course in Pk or a duel they suffer somewhat. In my opinion if you want to go for attack speed a fist BM is more suited to that role due to its higher hp/pdef. Sure for PvE it can be extremely mana efficient but in PvP an assassin who is not using their skills is severely limiting their combat ability. Not to say attack speed sins won't use skills at all but they are still limited.

Remember for a second (if you PvP often) that the dynamics of a fight can change very quickly and many classes have skills (not to mention genie skills) that can change a straight forward brawl into a downright embarrassment for you. For me so far going the route of attack speed = death in PvP. I've encountered enough Pk and dual situations in my 47 levels on the harshlands to know this. Its a bit different to when I play on my bm. I rely heavily on my skills with the obvious downside being that I am a mp junkie.

3) Due to low hp, winning for me boils down to killing smart and killing quick. First is being able to maximize my damage. So as far as skills go I like to keep my high damage skills up to date. As far as the other skills go you need to determine for yourself how they can help you. For example I don't level raving slash or deep sting. Lets look at deep sting, its an excellent anti spell cast skill but its damage component is limited, so it makes no sense to use spirit points at my level on it other than to get level 1. The sleep is 5 seconds regardless. How about raving slash? At my level I have no real use for it. It has a purpose yes. Its an extra speed boost and I keep it on my skill bar just in case but most times I can shadow jump my opponent and either kill them or die before they attempt to escape. Many times fights involve jumping or are in the air: run speed is useless there. It was useful though versus a few exploding mobs I fought earlier.

Another skill argument I see is puncture wound. Well bleeds are pretty annoying when stacked (my bm would know) but direct damage skills are exactly that, they get straight to the point. That said at my level puncture wound is awesome however later on I don't anticipate it will be a big part of my offense either in PvP or PvE. So should you level it? Thats up to you, mine is lvl 9 since I still got a lot of mobs to kill but in PvP its not a priority skill.

Knife throw is a skill I would not underestimate. It is quick, it is ranged (very good range too) and very importantly it is not chi dependent. This is one of those overlooked skills that players who PvP more often will know how to use and when to use it. Only 70% chance at max but that could be a 70% chance to not get 1 shot and to save your deadened nerve from being used too quickly. Should you level it? depends on how good you are at identifying when someone is channeling and how often it happens. For PvE only people I would ignore it since deep sting can cover mobs magic skill usage but for PvP I would level it when I can.

I could go on but I will not.

For the most part a character is something you play to enjoy. Some take their characters more seriously than others as they strive for perfection and dominance. As such each player has to know their play style as well as the limits of their PvP ability (if PvP is your focus). Spirit and money are a bit limited early on and that is why many guides like to help players decide when and on what to spend their money and spirit. At later levels its more a question of which skill is most suited to which situation as opposed to what is more important to level. I therefore find this guide to be apt to the task of making players aware of their choices. The manner in which the skills have been displayed and broken down into their various uses/builds (e.g. speed/PvP/def etc) and the description (though opinionated but already acknowledged by the writer) makes this one of the best writen guides in the Assasin section.

Tapion_ - Dreamweaver

This did clear up a lot of things for me. On previous assassins I did pure dex but I wasn't happy with the squishiness, and it was a little frustrating. The hybrid seems good, looking at the pros and cons. Thanks for this post, I was worried that nobody had posted a guide yet.

TruffleLove - Heavens Tear

I like this guild, even if its not to the 'pros' standards it definitely points people in the right direction as a stepping stone to figuring out how they will use the assassin. Its a lot trickier to use than people first thought. Everyone thought it was going to bump off the archer with no real consideration to the fact it was melee and therefore in harms way much more than the archer.

Personally I can't stand melee classes for most games solo because most games don't allow any sort of reach or type of movement while attacking. I find this very frustrating because targets can kite attacks with the most minute movements away. I've already had melee monsters kite me enough to stop my normal attack because I was too close even for them.

Kristoph - Lost City

Xirel - Harshlands wrote: »

2) Where the issue of chill of the deep is concerned, that is a personal preference. For me I love the skill and use it both in PvP and PvE. On the other hand I have met many an assassin based on attack speed. Of course in Pk or a duel they suffer somewhat. In my opinion if you want to go for attack speed a fist BM is more suited to that role due to its higher hp/pdef. Sure for PvE it can be extremely mana efficient but in PvP an assassin who is not using their skills is severely limiting their combat ability. Not to say attack speed sins won't use skills at all but they are still limited.

I disagree. Yes, Chill of the Deep is a very good skill and will help incredibly much against certain targets, but it will also cripple you at the same time.
High HP builds or BMs/Barbs will NEVER die to your skill spamming unless you get very lucky with the right skills. I personally hate Chill simply because I can't turn it off; I rather have access to melee at all times.

Your level is pretty low, though. Once you get to 60+ you'll notice that your melee damage output gets going properly. Still not amazing but it starts getting less and less effective to use skill spamming for grinding etc. On my lv7x sin I've caught arcane lv8x clerics/veno's off-guard (no plume shell etc) and melee'd them to death really fast. I do have -.1 interval gauntlets though. I skipped quite a few skills others would not, and pretty much went and worked on everything that supports meleeing/target control. Like maxing Deep Sting, Knife throw, Rib Strike and Tackling Slash.

Xirel - Harshlands wrote: »

Another skill argument I see is puncture wound. Well bleeds are pretty annoying when stacked (my bm would know) but direct damage skills are exactly that, they get straight to the point. That said at my level puncture wound is awesome however later on I don't anticipate it will be a big part of my offense either in PvP or PvE. So should you level it? Thats up to you, mine is lvl 9 since I still got a lot of mobs to kill but in PvP its not a priority skill.

Yes Puncture Wound is worthless at 7x, you're better off meleeing. Only time I use it now is pvp (sometimes) and the public quest boss; when it debuffs your attackrate and channeling skill spamming is the way to go.


Just felt like commenting. My experience playing a sin up to 74 on lost city.

ArkToNE - Harshlands

Finished the PvP section. Planning to add an Equipment section.

Xirel - Harshlands

Are sins really going to try targeting Barbs? I'm not trying to be the one class that conquers all here. I know what I can kill and I make sure I am good at killing them. Barbs? No. Thats not my job. Funny enough though I have killed all the barbs I have been challenged by so far.

ArkToNE - Harshlands

It's not necessary to take down barbs as an Assassin, but if you can make their charm tick often it'd irritate them enough and it's a punishment worse than dying. This especially applies to the few barbs that have roughly 20,000 HP or above. Even if you have 3k HP and die from a barb, it's not much of a shame if you tick only once and die while you tick their charm several times (though if they have around 20,000 HP, chances are they're already level 95 or above).

So, even if you cannot kill a barb, you can still make their life pretty miserable.