Skills to lvl vs Skills that sux

RedHawkShade - Lost City

ok just curious for input from a higher lvl sin. Which skills are good to max out and which are only good at the begining. Also if anyone knows the use of raving slash that would be nice too

Super_Trout - Dreamweaver

There is no use to raving slash.

I could give you my input, but you asked for higher level, so I'll just sit back in the shadows. b:surrender

Firefeng - Dreamweaver

Raving Slash is useless.

Cap Slipstream, Rib Strike, Puncture Wound, Dagger Mastery, Wolf Emblem, Focused Mind, and Earthen Rift. There are a bunch of other PK-oriented skills that you should cap like Cat-Like Tread, Sharp Observer, Chill of the Deep, Headhunt, Throatcut, Deep Sting, Tackling Slash, and Tidal Protection that you'll want to cap eventually if you plan on PVPing. All three of the lv. 59 attack skills are awesome and should be capped, but they're also pretty damn expensive. Having more than one skill point into Inner Harmony makes setting up certain PVP combos easier, but it's still pretty awesome at skill level one.

The following skills are all skills which work great with just one skill point: Shadow Walk, Shadow Escape, Bloodpaint, Deaden Nerves, Knife Throw, Rising Dragon Strike, Shadow Jump, Shadow Teleport, Windpush, Maze Steps. Hold off on putting more points into these until you get the priority skills capped.

Twin Strike and Raving Slash require one point to get higher skills. After putting one point into each of them, forget about them unless Sage/Demon skill books make them less useless.

If you want a specific order for upgrading skills, I won't give it to you because you'll be so low on spirit, you'll get what skills you can when you can. I will say that I always capped Dagger mastery and Rib Strike every time it was up. Slipstream is also a low-priority cap; I only use it with skill spamming coupled with Chill, and I only skill-spam when I get bored, because I want to see a really big number pop up on my screen.

Slashreaver - Heavens Tear

the 2 main are slipstream and the bleed effect puncture wound i believe. ribstrike being one you also what handy to slow down increased type mobs atttack. bother wise the first 2 are you main the rest of the skills eh. thers 1 that increses you doge but your mostly dex anyways. amnd the other increses your chrit same thing apllys your mostly dex anyways. so i say those 3 plus your aoe skills. later levels you got other handy skills like one that really brings your chi up and at 59 of course learn your stun.

skyxiii

I'm not too keen on leveling slipstream.
Imho, slipstream would fall under what the OP stated as "only good at the beginning". At lv 10, slipstream will deal base + 100% weapon + ~2900.
A quick comparison to another skill like Rib Strike (base + 100% weapon + ~3900 + Important Status Ailment that can be used on bosses) kinda shows that slipstream isn't too great at higher lvls. I'm 7x and I have slipstream at lv 1, but I've been doing great.

Here's what I would recommend leveling for higher lvls~
Attack: Headhunt, Throatcut, Tackling Slash, Rib Strike. You can do Puncture Wound here if you want too.
If you have extra spirit/coins, you should level up your aoe Rift. Power Dash is really awesome too as it grants you 8 seconds of critcritcrit.

For Buffs, prioritize leveling Focused Mind. If you want, level Wolf Emblem too because it's cheap.

Level your stealth skills at your own discretion. This almost entirely depends on how you will be playing the game. If pvp, then you should definitely invest in them.

Slashreaver - Heavens Tear

slipstream is a awesome skill you can hit for 4k damage at level 10 and even more as your get better daggers and that's non crit. i didnt rule our rib strike eyther its a good 3rd attack if dealing with increased i also max that. also puncher wound drains 4k and level 10 you you got 8k worth of damage in 2 attacks. and with the sins delys in skills you wanna use as little as possible and start meleing it down. at 43 the 2 skills as a mob near death no ribstrike used. oh and i forgot abought the skills that gives on hp on hit you only need level 1 of that however. higher levels just increase its time. that sacked with life powders = easy mode.

ribstrike may surpass slipstream at higher levels but if your skipping the pvp skills you will have the sp for all 3 with points to spare.

skyxiii

Maybe that's why we have different opinions. I'm building for PVP. I dunno, I just considered slip a waste because it seems attractive at lower levels, but it's just that it doesn't cause any status ailments that gets me. I can't find room for it in my combos. But yeah, to each their own. I'm just telling the OP that I haven't had any trouble to the 70s without it.

Rib Strike is almost essential in PVE because besides amping, it's the only other ailment you have that works on bosses. Slowing its attack by 50% for the squad helps out.

Slashreaver - Heavens Tear

oh i agree. when i face a increased type i use it to slow there attack.i also use life powders and that skills that leeches hp. its sin easy mode.

Ephemerai - Sanctuary

So I'm a skill spammer, and that gets really expensive (MP pots... @__@), BUT... random comments! =D

- Raving slash is pretty much useless (to me, at least). I believe it was intended so that you can use it just before your target runs, so you can easily catch up to it.. but I've never really used it, never bothered to time it correctly to make it useful lol.

- Slipstream is VERY nice at lower levels, at ~70 it's sort of on par with Ribstrike, though (as previous poster(s) have mentioned) Ribstrike has a useful debuff and Slipstream has none.

- Bleed is nice Get Puncture Wound leveled up if/when you can afford to, it helps on buffed (increased defense, increased life, etc.) mobs a bit, and it's just nice for a skill to be doing extra damage while you smack away at the mob, lol.

- Once you get around 60+, if you want to do well at Public Quest, make sure you level up your AOEs (Subsea Strike and Earthen Rift) and your Focused Mind. It'll help you a bit -- AOEing probably gets you the best contribution, just make sure other people have aggro. In the case that you steal a little aggro, having Focused Mind on helps you escape some damage.

- Tackling Slash + Throatcut can act together as a stun of sorts (Throatcut makes it so the target can do nothing except for run, but Tackling keeps them in place so they can't even do that ;D), and that works very well along with lvl 1 Shadow Teleport and Headhunt as a sort of stun lock =3 Very useful for certain mobs.

- Bloodpaint's stealing 2% of your damage on the mob as HP may seem a little useless at first, but it becomes very useful as your damage gets higher and higher =P Especially if/when you AOE (imagine stealing 50-100 HP from every mob you hit at the same time...) while other people are tanking the majority of the mobs xD

- Wind Push and Maze Steps help you to catch up to running/kiting mobs, as do Shadow Teleport and Shadow Jump. BUT note that Maze Steps protects you from movement debuffs AND from STUNS! This could be very useful if you can time it well, though I don't know how that'd be possible if you get jumped by a stunlocker @_@

- Knife Throw actually helps a bit, but again only if you time it well.. they can interrupt boss AOEs, but the cooldown time sucks.

skyxiii

NO WAIT GUYS. I GOT IT! The use for Raving Slash!
You're about to die...
Shadow Escape is on cooldown...
Not enough chi to stun/sleep/seal opponent...(b:sweat)
Not enough chi for maze steps & wind push is on cooldown........(lol...)
So you use raving slash and run away b:victory.

Lol yeah, maybe raving slash was just meant for low level escaping/chasing. Hope it becomes more useful in sage/demon =\. Speed increase for 15 seconds b:dirty?

Hey!! This just in:
Got it from part of the patch notes:
"Assassin
Assassin's Chi gain per attack increased from 4 points to 5.

Changed the effect of Assassin's skill Raving Slash into reducing target's movement speed.

The Assassin's skill Bloodpaint has a longer duration.

The Psychic's skill Bubble of Life radius increased from 5m to 15m.

The Assassin’s skill Shadow Teleport and Shadow Jump can be used in any area"

Ballistixz - Heavens Tear

u guys need to max slipstream because once ur the lvl to max it ribstrike will be doing lower dmg then slip stream for quite awhile. so it would be of best intrest to max it. its irreplaceable as a pve skill. rib strike puncture wound and slip stream will be ur 3 main pve atk skills so why not max it? tackling slash is also good to max for kiters altho it dont do much as much dmg as slip and rib or bleed but it still does decent dmg.

Slashreaver - Heavens Tear

well we all agree on the 3 main attacks hear lol we just all have a different style on how to use them.

skyxiii

Nah, we don't all agree because I discourage slipstream, but everyone else here seems to like it, so yea, to each their own. Reaching 7x and looking back, I don't regret not using slipstream at all, but OP - I can't stress the importance of tackling slash enough. I regret not leveling it up sooner. Against pure melee wraiths, this skill can be used to stop them from attacking you at all for the duration of the immobilization while you wack away at it. It has other extremely practical applications as well, like keeping kiting wraiths stationary and chi gain.

wolfyyy

No point leveling tackling imo. For the majority of the mobs, they are pretty dumb. That means, when you do tackling as your first attack against any mobs that runs, chances are, it'll stay rooted to where it is even after the immobilzation ends.

Slipstream will ALWAYS be one of the core ability a sin will be using even at 90ish and above. Reason being, though Slipstream deals lesser damage than Ribstrike, it has very little execution time. Ribstrike's casting animation takes a tad too long.

You're better off investing on late game skills at this point of time -> Headhunter and Power Dash - these two skills will eat up practically all your spirts from now on.

skyxiii

I'm sorry, but I really think that's taking it too far.

"Slipstream will ALWAYS be one of the core ability a sin will be using even at 90ish and above. "

I've made this combo that renders the target almost completely useless barring genie/pots, and by the end of that combo, the cooldowns for the skills are up and you may repeat the combo cycle immediately. Never do I use slipstream in the combo. I consider every skill executed in the combo to be a superior skill to slipstream.

It's completely alright if you think it's a useful skill, but saying it's ALWAYS a core ability of a sin, especially claiming that it'll be that way for 9x without knowing demon/sage effects is kinda pushing it.

Tackling Slash's immobilization effect is not only used for kiting wraiths.

Think about these scenarios:

Immobilize a melee wraith from a range and fire off all your ranged skills at it while it stands there and is unable to attack you.

Stealth yourself or Sleep the melee wraith. Center your sin directly into the wraith, that is, move your character so that it's standing almost exactly where the wraith is standing. Perform Tackling slash, and in many cases, the wraith will not be able to attack you while frozen, and you can simply wack away at it.

DD character steals aggro on an elite wraith in an instance. Using tackling slash, you can hold the wraith in place while both you and the DD can attack the wraith for the duration of the freeze. If the DD has aggro but the wraith is immobilized and far away from him/her, the wraith wont be attacking anything, assuming the wraith doesn't have a ranged attack/it's range can't reach the DD player.

So leveling Tackling Slash is worth it =\.

TurismoX - Lost City

I use Slipstream Strike a lot, most likely because I'm low-mid level though..

I find it useful as a damage dealer, though you can't deny that Tackling Slash and Rib Strike are both superior moves, if both are on a cool down though, perhaps Slipstream Strike would be useful.

When we get our demon/sage moves, Slipstream will probably be a lot better, I'm going to assume it'll gain more damage?
Since that's all it does, doesn't have any status effects?

Ephemerai - Sanctuary

It'd be amazing if they add status effect for sage/demon version, but I'm not gonna hold my breath on that =P

Tackling is definitely a must, it is VERY useful...

skyxiii

So since we agree on everything, will you marrys me b:chuckle?

RADD_RATT - Harshlands

whats not to like about slipstream? are you mental? sure it wont be as useful when your 90+ but by that time the spirit you spent on it is about 2 hours worth of grinding. so you didnt lose much. m 73 and i still use slipstream.... a lot.

and just wanted to point this out. sinse everyone i talk to on vent and in game seem to think wolf elmblem is all that and a bad of chips. its just an ok skill. its exactly HALF as good as you think it is. it raises your rage damage by X% well...that % is exactly accurate becasue its out of 200...not 100. hit c and look at your stats. you will notice it says rage damage at 200% meaning your crits do exactly double damage. now use wolf emblem and hit c again. now its 200+x% (depending on if you leveled the skill or not) so its only making your crits X% more powerful where X is the % of your REG hit. and NOT your crit hit. which isnt really all THAT much

Ephemerai - Sanctuary

It'll be pretty useful if you're critting a lot at high attack speeds. I haven't bothered leveling it up or using it at this point, since I skill spam with chill on anyways and my crit rate isn't high enough that I crit a lot while spamming skills xD But for endgame I'm willing to bet that it'll be pretty useful, especially when at max -- combined with power dash and -interval gear, it'd probably kick a lot of **** =P

skyxiii

RADD_RATT - Harshlands wrote: »

whats not to like about slipstream? are you mental? sure it wont be as useful when your 90+ but by that time the spirit you spent on it is about 2 hours worth of grinding. so you didnt lose much. m 73 and i still use slipstream.... a lot."

No. I'm not mental. Please be respectful of other peoples opinions. Just because you use it at 7x, and like it, doesn't mean that I'm mental because I'm 7x + dislike it + don't use it/have it @ lv. 1.

Zevrahn - Heavens Tear

ya i have to agree.
the raving slash is balogna...

Firefeng - Dreamweaver

RADD_RATT - Harshlands wrote: »

and just wanted to point this out. sinse everyone i talk to on vent and in game seem to think wolf elmblem is all that and a bad of chips. its just an ok skill. its exactly HALF as good as you think it is. it raises your rage damage by X% well...that % is exactly accurate becasue its out of 200...not 100. hit c and look at your stats. you will notice it says rage damage at 200% meaning your crits do exactly double damage. now use wolf emblem and hit c again. now its 200+x% (depending on if you leveled the skill or not) so its only making your crits X% more powerful where X is the % of your REG hit. and NOT your crit hit. which isnt really all THAT much

Critical hit = normal hit with an attack level of 100. Using Wolf Emblem effectively adds 30 attack levels on crits for the duration of the skill.

Oh, it's just so terribly mediocre...Yes, I'm being sarcastic.

skyxiii

Hey Zevrahn, Raving Slash now slows the opponent instead of increasing the sin's own movement speed. It only lasts for 5 seconds though b:cry. I can't see it being extremely useful, especially compared to Tackling slash, because of it's melee range and short duration.

Oh and Firefeng I think Atk. Level works a little differently, but I can see where you're coming from. Critical doubles the damage of an attack, but the attack that it's doubling is affected by many other factors like buffs/defenses/etc.
I think Atk. Level bypasses those things because it is calculated after everything else. Meh, I'm not sure, but I think having an Atk. Level of 100 would surpass landing a critical.

Kristoph - Lost City

Slipstream and puncture wound are almost completely useless past 70. Only time I'd use slipstream with it's crappy range is if I used chill of the deep, which I rather not, and happen to be close enough to my target to want to hit them with something that is weaker than rib strike etc and has no side effects whatsoever.

RedHawkShade - Lost City

hmm so what about aoe's are our 2 aoe skills worth lvlin or are they to be kept at lvl 1

Thinkalot - Dreamweaver

Kristoph - Lost City wrote: »

Slipstream and puncture wound are almost completely useless past 70. Only time I'd use slipstream with it's crappy range is if I used chill of the deep, which I rather not, and happen to be close enough to my target to want to hit them with something that is weaker than rib strike etc and has no side effects whatsoever.

Puncture almost useless after lvl 70 ?

So, you never do any bosses ? never any BH bosses ? Never do fights that take more then just 2 hitting something ?

Puncture wonld is imo an awesome skill to use. It drains hp WHILE you are fighting the mobs. Instead of doing damages with skills i do an extra draining dmg while i'm using my other skills. Not using pucture wound at all would be like giving up extra damage or saying "i don"t need crits".

ANY extra damage i can do to get a mob down, esp a longer fight, is very welcome. And fyi, you can also crit with puncture wound.

If you have 1000 sins on a server, then you'll have 1000 different opinions. But what one must not forget is to take into account the cooldown and casting time of some skills. While some skills might be useful in certain occasions and combo's, others will not be and vice versa.

Don't write a skill off just because it has less damage then another one. You can still use it in between combo's or to fill up the time gap of cooldowns.

Kristoph - Lost City

Thinkalot - Dreamweaver wrote: »

So, you never do any bosses ? never any BH bosses ? Never do fights that take more then just 2 hitting something ?

Puncture wonld is imo an awesome skill to use. It drains hp WHILE you are fighting the mobs. Instead of doing damages with skills i do an extra draining dmg while i'm using my other skills. Not using pucture wound at all would be like giving up extra damage or saying "i don"t need crits".

ANY extra damage i can do to get a mob down, esp a longer fight, is very welcome. And fyi, you can also crit with puncture wound.

If you have 1000 sins on a server, then you'll have 1000 different opinions. But what one must not forget is to take into account the cooldown and casting time of some skills. While some skills might be useful in certain occasions and combo's, others will not be and vice versa.

Don't write a skill off just because it has less damage then another one. You can still use it in between combo's or to fill up the time gap of cooldowns.

Uh, puncture wound fails because the bleed damage is static. Each "tick" is only about 4200/3 at max, and each of those 3 ticks gets heavily reduced by pdef at higher levels. The higher level targets you fight the less it'll do.

And really, why waste 2 seconds on some crappy skill if you can just melee and hit 3 times in the same amount, with a higher average damage since each of those 3 hits has a chance to crit or activate whatever effect your weapon has. As well as avoid any delay you'll have between 2 skills or between skill -> melee.

Mm I just tried hitting a random mob my level..

1. Melee only, did an average of 2300 per hit, with a 20% chance to crit. Average damage is about 8280ish.

2. Puncture Wound with lv1 fail of the deep, tried multiple times and did about 3400 on average. Bleed ticked 3 times for 930ish. With 20% crit, average damage is about 6870ish.


Uh yeah gtfo.

skyxiii

Kristoph - Lost City wrote: »

Slipstream and puncture wound are almost completely useless past 70. Only time I'd use slipstream with it's crappy range is if I used chill of the deep, which I rather not, and happen to be close enough to my target to want to hit them with something that is weaker than rib strike etc and has no side effects whatsoever.

Finally, a person that agrees with me b:thanks.

I can't even find use for it as combo filler :c.

Honitsu - Sanctuary

Why would you Puncture Wound with Chill of the Deep and not skill spam afterwards? Level 1 Chill of the Deep, even. |:

Kristoph - Lost City

Honitsu - Sanctuary wrote: »

Why would you Puncture Wound with Chill of the Deep and not skill spam afterwards? Level 1 Chill of the Deep, even. |:

...nobody said anything about skill spamming. I simply stated that I'd be wasting 2 seconds on casting this crappy skill for an average total damage of less than 7k. Instead I could be meleeing the same mob, hitting it 3 times in 2.1 seconds for over 8k total damage on average.