Any more up to date assassin guides out there?

Your best bet would be to ask on the forums, as you are now.

Most sins who post here will give you the best answers.


For me, this is the priorities of how I maxed my skills:

Highest priority: Rib Strike, Dagger Devotion

Next highest: Earthen Rift, Subsea Strike, Tackling Slash, Focused Mind

Level these steadily (don't need to max right away, but leveling them is very helpful): Wolf Emblem, Shadow Walk/Escape, Shadow Jump, Tidal Protection, Cat-like Tread, Knife Throw, Windpush, Maze Steps

Level these after you've maxed out the previous listed: Deaden Nerves, Rising Dragon Strike, Deep Sting, Headhunt, Throatcut, Power Dash, Slipstream Strike, Chill of the Deep

Level these when you have extra spirit/coin (meaning you probably won't be using these skills often): Puncture Wound, Raving Slash, Twin Strike


Keep Inner Harmony at level 1 until you reach 89, or get triple spark. With Tackling Slash and Rising Dragon Strike, level 1 Inner Harmony is more than enough for chi below level 89.

Level up Sharp Observer if you're going into PvP early. This also means you'll want to level up Throatcut/Slipstream Strike/Chill of the Deep/Headhunt/Shadow teleport/Focused Mind/Tidal Protection early on too.

If you're PvE, what I said above is what I did.

Hope this helps ^^

i agree with everything, except i like to level puncture wound early on, i like to shadow jump > tackling > puncture > normals. works great on mobs...and squishies (at low-low level pvp)

What Skai said is pretty accurate imo. I might change order a little. Rib and devotion are the 2 skills to keep lvled at all times, for the rest it's more personal. If you follow that, and arrange a little according to your own fealings, you can't go wrong.

Only comment I would at is to lvl slipstream and/or puncture wound. It will make the early lvls a lot easier, even if later on they loose their use. It's not that much spirit anyway.

@ Olbaze : I think earthenr rift ans subsea are really important. I even put them on 1st priority for myself. It's highly noticable if a sin doesn't have them maxed if you fcc. Only got 2 aoes, so better make them do tons of damage. I also find Tackling slash, knife throw and maze steps very usefull. The immobilize is something I use a lot. Knife throws use of lvling is it's range imo, and it's our only ranged skill. The anti-stun on maze steps is very usefull on bubble boss and dragoons. I guess besides rib and devotion, all skills are highly subjected to personal preference. Just out curiosity, which skills did you put as main priority to lvl?

You know, the sticky's not out of date. We sins have been around about 2 years now and that thread's only 6 months old. Heck it's compiled from even older guides. There haven't been any changes to our class except 79, 100, and celestial skills, but I think those have been added to the sticky.

Olbaze - Sanctuary wrote: »

I also don't see any need to level up Tackling Slash, as 99% of the time you use it, it's for the chi and not for the effect.

Are you speaking for yourself or the entire sin population? Until recently I forgot that Tackling Slash was even a chi builder. I actually use it for it's effect, and TS+Throatcut= one more full stun and our disposal.

Phoenix_Eye - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Hello , recently i started to play my sin again ( trying to see if i can farm some money with him). he goes really good , but i have some issues on skills.

I have read both the sticky guide and Skai's post. My questions are :
1) should i lvl my stealth skills . im into PVE , so the only usefulness of them would probably be boss fights (shadow escape) and FF (to kill the shade).

Yes, you should level your stealth skills. If nothing else, leveling them reduces the mana per second cost to keep them running. I can permastealth without buffs with TT90 boots, TT80 belt, Nature's Breath, and lvl 10 stealth skills. They're also pretty cheap to level.

Phoenix_Eye - Heavens Tear wrote: »

2) should bloodpaint be lvled . it's our most useful skills along with ribstrike , but the only things that changes is the duration and mana cost. Do squads usually expect it to last long ( cause i can just go and reuse it to buff Tank and others). or keep it at 1 till i get the Demon book for it.

Maybe get it up to 5 or 6, if you want. I think that's about a half hour. In my experience, not everyone remembers that low level Blood Paint only lasts 15-20 minutes and they'll just let it wear off and not let you rebuff them, even when you try to 2 or three times. This usually happens in FCC where everyone's trying to go as fast as possible; it's not that bug of a deal in BHs.

Phoenix_Eye - Heavens Tear wrote: »

3)About the lvl 79 skills , which ones are recommended , i like the healing one , but dont know if it worths it (no exp with sin before).

Not really, no. Healing Trance is good the help in the 100 second wait rooms in Cube, but that's about it. Food will be more effective elsewhere. Condensed Thorn on the other hand can be rather helpful. It allows you to do more damage to heavies and mobs/bosses with increased physical resistance or low magic resistance.

Olbaze - Sanctuary wrote: »

Outside of PvP, the only uses for Tackling Slash are chi and the effect. The effect itself is only useful on lower levels and the increased mana cost is not worth the duration on lower levels.

At least that's my personal experience.

And I have never used Throatcut in PvE.

I use it on the Bishop boss in FCC sometimes. They spawn right before HH finishes cooling down, so I Deepsting > TS > Throatcut (because Silences make mobs run away). At least, this is what I used to do when we squads I was to kill the bishops before they tried to stun again.

Empu - Sanctuary wrote: »

Why didn't any of you use tackling slash in bh79? The immobilisation is 1 of the longest ingame (longer then clerics skill). On the runner mobs it's great. Also great to pin runner mobs in an aoe. I think it's a very useful skill and use it fairly often pve-wise.

Personally I don't believe that runner mobs justify maxing the skill.

I use it on the Bishop boss in FCC sometimes. They spawn right before HH finishes cooling down, so I Deepsting > TS > Throatcut (because Silences make mobs run away). At least, this is what I used to do when we squads I was to kill the bishops before they tried to stun again.

On 95+, with any decent squad, Dreadindra dies before he gets to summon more than 1 bishop, or even that.

As for what I did on my assassin:
Max Dagger Devotion, Rib Strike, Focused Mind, Wolf Emblem
Enough Shadow Walk and Catlike Tread to be invisible to mobs in FBs
Other priorities: Inner Harmony, Earthen Rift, Subsea Strike, Shadow Jump

As for the reason why I don't have maxed Earthen Rift and Subsea already: because it's not worth it at this point. In FCC, generally, on any aoe pull, I can only get off 1 aoe and then the mobs are dead. Which aoe I use depends on the squad: If there is another sin, I use rift, if not, I use subsea. But since all the mobs die after I barely get off 1 attack, I really don't believe that I should spend 1m on leveling my Rift or Subsea. It's not gonna make a difference unless I run into a bad squad.

Similarly, I don't have maxed Inner Harmony because it's not going to make a difference until I have 2.0 aps, because at that point I can permaspark by using Sage RDS, TS and IH in the right order.

For the record, as a Sage, my highest priority skills were/are Dagger Devotion, Bloodpaint, Focused Mind, Rising Dragon Strike, Inner Harmony and Wolf Emblem.

@ Olbaze : Kinda funny our priorities are so different, since I'm sage also. Well, I always tend to spend spirit as soon as I get it, and feeding exp only to genies, to get all my skills to 10. Meaning I only need to decide which ones to lvl first. Still, my order seems pretty different from yours :P

As for how my sin actually looks like:
Sage skills: Dagger Devotion, Windpush, Bloodpaint, Rib Strike, Focused Mind
Maxed skills: Shadow Jump, Shadow Walk, Wolf Emblem
Rest between 1-9[/QUOTE]

:O Not maxed more? I'm kinda surprised you only maxed out a few. I know I'm a "skill addict" and even max out every skill of my toon to the point of getting them to sage lvl eventually. I'm not sure why you didn't lvl the others (coins/spirit?), but I'd say you handicap yourself. Or come to a point when you want to do something else (soloing fcc maybe?) and find you got to lvl a lot to do so efficiently (both aoes, tidal protection). It's really a strict minimum you lvled there :O

Olbaze - Sanctuary wrote: »

I do have a few comments on those.

Firstly, I wouldn't rank Earthen Rift and Subsea as second-highest priority. Granted, they're good for FCC and TM, but that's really all they're good for. Heck, I still have level 8 Rift and Subsea.

I can agree with you here, but seeing how a sin would be doing FC until at least 100/101, and that their only AoEs are these two, I maxed them out as soon as possible.

I also don't see any need to level up Tackling Slash, as 99% of the time you use it, it's for the chi and not for the effect.

I actually use it more for the effect more than the chi, even though sometimes I do use it for the chi (on bosses that seal when spark effect is still there).

I also don't quite see why the heck would you want to level up Knife Throw. It's pretty much a useless skill, as it's not high enough percentage to interrupt consistently and the damage is **** either way. The only time I find myself using it is to kill the Infernobird Soul in FCC.

Actually, Knife Throw is an amazing skill. It's a sin's only ranged attack, and it increases its distance with every level (35 meters at level 10). Not only that, but the demon version is VERY useful. It's 100% chance to interrupt target channeling, and that's very OP, especially in TW/PvP. 35 meter 100% interrupt is pretty amazing.

But I do agree with you about the interruption. Even at level 10, the 70% feels like <10%.

Similarly, leveling up Maze Steps is a bit weird. Yeah, it's a running skill, but so is Holy Path and Windpush. Again, I don't find myself really using Maze Steps too much.

Leveling Maze Steps is a huge priority in my book. Especially in PvP. Having the 100% speed increase while being immune to all stun/slow effects is great for getting out of tight positions. It's also a good other speed skill for getting around in instances. Combine it with Inner Harmony and your chi is good.

It's more of a PvP skill though. I like popping immunity apoth when I use maze steps (in tight positions). Immune to stun cancels the stun part of the apoth

Also, for PvE, skills like Throatcut and Headhunt are pretty much useless. I have both on level 1 and I don't recall using either.

That's why I said level those last. Of course before the skills you'd most likely never use in PvP or PvE though.

It's great to have them maxed though. I like to tackling slash to throatcut for another "stun" on a high healthed mob from time to time.

But of course they're more of a PvP skill.

Zendrago - Raging Tide wrote: »

ok guys #1 Riseing Dragon Strike= ur best chi gain at 150 chi
#2 i see noone has mentioned headhunt ijs u may want go go look demon headhunt up lolz

I think why ppl don't put riseing dragon strike at 1 is cause lvl1 to lvl10 is exact same chi gain. Since you use it for chi mainly, lvl1 or 10 doesn't matter. Ofc damage increases so yeah, lvling it is good. But not much a main priority, when you got skills where lvling increases the effect and damage on the skill.

Head hunt is personally the last skill I got to 10. Had it lvl1 till mid 90s I think lol. For pve the use is really limited imo. To prevent mobs to go after cleric or something, tackling slash is usually longer, no chi cost and does that job just fine. Only place I really regularly use head hunt is warsong fire on the pyro-looking mobs. Pve wise, the 1 sec extra on demon doesn't do that much either imo. Pvp the skill is really usefull, and demon version really good. I was lucky to get sage book recently so I learned it. Not using it all that much though. Based on pve, it's really one of the later skills I'd lvl.

_Skai_ - Raging Tide wrote: »

I level'd RDS, HH, and Throatcut as my last skills to be maxed, in that order.

For a Sage, that order might be a bit different, since most Sages would buy the 300 Advanced Mystical Page clip for Bloodpaint and it comes with Throatcut and RDS as well.

Personally I'm currently gathering coin for Sage RDS, as with my recently acquired TT99 boots and wrists, that'll get me a good chi cycle going.

Also, the only other reason to level RDS would be for the demon/sage variants. 5 less seconds on the CD for demon, and 180 chi gain instead of 150 for sage (correct me if I'm wrong). But that's just if you have the extra spirit/coin for that.

Well yes. Personally I view Tackling Slash in a similar light.

That's true Olbaze. That's what I did.

I think the main reason I leveled RDS was because I got the book from the clip from the Mystical Librarian. I still have the demon book for Throatcut in my bank, as I don't feel the need for leveling it at the moment.

And thanks Typhyse ^^

heeh good info in this thread, to bad you guys didn't worked together and made the ultimate Sin guide, better that the sticky one.

yeah trying a sin for a change, had to try that killing machine xD

:O Whoa I didn't have level 10 skills back when I started making videos!

Typhyse - Sanctuary wrote: »

For the record, Stella, our "Ultimate Sin Guide" in which everyone contributed is the sticky which RauI compiled.

Interestingly, the RauI guide not only has issues with the names of people (Typhyse, Typhese, TurboTaxi, TaxiTurbo), I am not quoted anywhere (b:cry) and there's even a link to this very thread.

Sadly, most of what I could contribute would be a total horror to read on the syntax allowed on the forums and I am not sure of the principle GMs have on links to outside sources in "guides".