Palm Strike combos

[Patccmoi]

I used Palm Strike quite a bit in the FPE, and here's some combos i liked (and some combo ideas i didn't try myself). It does lots of damage, and can't be blocked/evaded at all and doesn't use any Lead Attack, allowing for 2 Dual Strikes close to one another.

Here's some ideas:

Mark of Instability
Way of the Fox
Palm Strike
Critical Strike
Falling Spider
Twisted Fangs

Use Way of the Fox so your 3 next attacks can't be blocked/evaded (not sure of attribute).

Throw Mark of Instability on your target, and do Palm Strike-Critical Strike (target is KD)-Falling Spider-Twisted Fangs.

Nothing can be blocked/evaded, and you do KD + Poison + Bleeding + Deep Wound, and a damn lot of damage with Critical Strike, Falling Spider and Twisted Fangs extra damage (and Palm is something like 50-60 clean damage that ignores armor).

You could use it in a simpler way without Mark of Instability and go for:

Palm Strike
Horns of the Ox
Falling Spider
Twisted Fangs

You get a similar result, only Horns of the Ox requires your target to have no adjacent ally and isn't a sure crit, so possibly less damage than Critical Strike and your combo is not 'assured'.

Ofc, in the first combo tough Critical Strike can be replaced by any dual attack you want. Nine Tail Strike would do a lot of damage for example, more than Critical Strike if it crits, and can't be blocked/evaded on its own so maybe you can risk not using Way of the Fox. Exhausting Assault along with Palm Strike can allow you to easily interrupt/exhaust targets. Death Blossom also has really high damage and AOE.

There's lots of easy combos you can do. The advantage of this is that they're all fast, and the big damage comes before they can really see what's happening. There is no Lead Attack-Off Hand giving them time to react. It's Palm Strike-Dual Strike, knocking your target right away.

If you have other ideas of nice combos with Palm Strike, share them :)

[shaktiboi]

A/Me build. Let's call this archetype an "SOS build". 5 slots for the following skills in the following attack sequence:

Mantra of Signets > Palm Strike > Blinding Powder > Signet of Shadows > Signet of Shadows for a 200-point opening damage spike, which you can follow 12 seconds later with Palm Strike > Repeated Strike and just keep spamming Repeated Strike till you run out of energy or Repeated Strike finally misses. This leaves you two slots for nice Assassin utility skills.

There's another "SOS build" that relies on a non-elite lead and off-hand attack to replace Palm Strike, which enables you to insert the elite skill Echo into the chain. This lets you fire off 3 instant repetitions of SOS, which is the big damage dealer at 70 points per use. I don't like that version as much because it eats up two slots that I think you need for utility skills, and the setup takes longer, and the lead/offhand attacks can be squelched.

[Phoenixtech]

Way of Fox, Impale, Iron Palm, falling spider/temple strike, twisting fangs, mobius strike (if going with falling spider).

Something like that was one of my setup during the FPE.

[arredondo]

More info on SoS spamming here:

http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?t=391484

Nice build Pat. With my Mesmer, I am fearful of any Assassin that can do his damage despite my Distortion. Yours seems to maximize unevadable damage really well. I don't understand two things though... how are you getting two Dual Strike skills, and how does WotF work for Critical Stike if it is used up by Palm Strike (an off-hand "attack" despite the skill label)?

I'll add one to the mix. I have had an early draft Palm Strike build on paper for a few days, but honestly I can't "publish" it until I literally test it out to see how it works. I'm still understanding how the Critical hits affect the characters attack flow, so I don't yet know the best support skills to plug in until I see the numbers in action. Anyway, here's what I have so far...

=========================================

15 Critical Strikes
11 Dagger Mastery
11 Shadow Arts

Shadowy Burden (-25% speed snare, -20 armor - hex)
Way of Perfection (gain health with each Critical hit - enchant)
Critical Eye (higher chance at Crits - skill)
Palm Strike (leading off hand attack - skill)
Repeating Strike (spammable off hand attack that instantly recharges on hit)
Twisting Fang (Bleeding and Deep Wound - Double Attack)
Shadow Refuge or Dash (whichever is the better kite skill)
Rez
=========================================

I know I get +3 energy with each Critical hit and my idea here is to have as many Crits connecting with RS spam as possible before I can feel it's time for the TF finish. Critical Eye adds more Crit possiblities, but I'm not sure how much energy I'll get on average. The snare ensures I stay close, but it also improves my damage by 25%... that will make a difference on the damage of all the Criticals I plan to connect, but I need to see the numbers to calculate my average damage overall.

A lot of this is theory for now... I don't know how well I'll hold up with Way of Perfection when going toe to toe with a Warrior. Would Shroud of Distress (high evade % when at half health) be better in the long run? Shadow Refuge, or is that just for kiting (evade 50% and heal every 8 seconds).

Too much unknown, so it's unofficial for now.

[Nanashi]

Dammit, yer all makeing me jealous. If only I knew Palm Strike was so close to me from where I started out. Gahhhh, I only have it unlocked in pvp! :(

Still, these builds do look awsome and when I do get my chance I am going to cap that skill. So I'm going to have to keep this topic watched, that way I can try this build out when Factions goes live. :)

[MaximumSquid]

There are some other assassin combos that bypass the lead attack.

You have the offhand that hits knocked down foes and the offhand that hits hexed foes.

Sure you need to technically use your lead attack to hex or knock them down, but considering how crappy most of the lead and offhands are I'd be happy to use the 2 that don't suck to go right into a dual attack.

Keeping more with the flavor of the post I'm also keeping my eye out for Palm Strike builds

I haven't been able make a build yet to justify it's use, but i'm thinking there's got to be some unholy combo kicking around waiting to be tapped.

[Patccmoi]

Nice build Pat. With my Mesmer, I am fearful of any Assassin that can do his damage despite my Distortion. Yours seems to maximize unevadable damage really well. I don't understand two things though... how are you getting two Dual Strike skills, and how does WotF work for Critical Stike if it is used up by Palm Strike (an off-hand "attack" despite the skill label)?


Palm Strike is a skill. It counts as an off-hand attack for combo purposes, but it doesn't count as an attack for anything else. It's unblockable, goes through Spellbreaker, Life Bond, etc. It's the exact same as something like Shock or Touch of Agony. The only defense is don't be in range.

Two Dual Strikes come from the fact that Fallen Spider is an off-hand attack requiring KD foe. It doesn't matter if you don't use a lead on it, it's a straight off-hand just like Palm Strike, but unlike Palm Strike that has just no condition, this one requires your foe to be KD (and it's the only possible requirement. It doesn't work with a lead attack before). If you take a look at some skills, there is quite a few off-hand that don't require a lead attack, you just gotta check their requirement. It's not all 'must follow a lead attack'.

And you might not have seen Way of the Fox since last patch (maybe you just checked it in first beta?) but it's now next 1..5 attacks. 5 likely requires 12 investment in Shadow Arts, which is a lot, but to get 3 i'm sure it doesn't take something too big.

So not only is it not used by Palm Strike because Palm Strike is a skill and NOT an attack (not an attack-skill either), but with something like 6-7 in Shadow Arts it should work for the full combo.

But by checking the skills i noticed that Golden Phoenix Strike has changed now tough. It used to require that you hit an enchanted foe for a straight off-hand, but now all it requires is that YOU are enchanted and you hit with a straight off-hand.

So you could now use something like Way of the Fox (if possible at 12 for 5 attacks)-GoldenPheonix-Horn of the Ox-Falling Spider-Twisted Fangs-Moebius Strike. Right after, you can do Horn-Falling-Twisted AGAIN because Moebius is an off-hand that recharges all your attack-skills and must follow a dual.

It seems like you could do lots of things hehe. But Golden might be a good way to skip Palm Strike, using Way of the Fox + Golden to get a very similar effect. Allows you to use many other dual attacks, since Golden has a short recharge. Could allow for easy uses of Exhausting Assault. Or go for Empty Palm as elite, and considering ALL you have is off-hand and dual attacks, your full combo takes no energy to use...