shaktiboi
14-04-2006, 18:15
Based on the line of reasoning in my Why Siphon Strength (E) is the schiznit for PvP (http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?t=394064) thread, I offer up my idea of a fun and successful PvP Assassin primary build archetype. Note that this archetype hinges on a 10-second recharge time for Siphon Strength, which might not actually be the case when Factions is released. But assuming the recharge time really does stay at 10 seconds, I think this build is a winner. Even if Anet tries to nerf Siphon Strength because everyone's using it, and they push the recharge back up to 20 seconds, it still works great in this build because I get the most bang for the buck by using it only once every 20 seconds as a starter for my alpha strike.
One thing to make clear up front. This build is not a solo-killer. It is not focused on spike damage. I personally feel that spike builds for Assassins are too fragile. Instead, this is a build for team players who are okay with the idea of assisting kills, not being the killer.
The basic idea of this build is that you are the surprise shutdown factor on a team. Every 20 seconds, you can teleport directly to the side of any teammate, cripple their target, poison their target, and then kill-assist with very high auto-attack DPS (coupled with the 8 HPS degen of your long-lasting poison). Nothing in the build has a recharge time longer than 20 seconds, so you're limited only by your energy regen rate, which is why I chose to use 12DM/13CS versus 16DM/8CS. You have a 3.07 EPS regen rate for 9 out of every 11 seconds during battle, and a 1.44 EPS regen rate at all other times during battle.
You have the fastest, cheapest condition removal if you get blinded or crippled, both of which totally shut down your own DPS output and more importantly your energy regen.
You have the fastest, cheapest hex removal if you get nailed by Dulled Weapon, which shuts down your uber crit rate (you can bet we'll see this used a lot in PvP).
Your teleport can work in both directions: to get you into battle quickly or to escape from a bad situation. It's also the fastest-recharging TP available.
You have a solid, fast-recharging self-heal that you can use in or out of battle. It also provides very strong damage mitigation during 4 of its 8-second recharge cycle.
You have a useful, cheap skill to ensure that your cripples and poisons never miss, but it's not so useful that you will miss it badly in PvP that require a rez. So you have a non-essential skill that can be swapped out for a rez, if needed.
Here's the build, and then after that I'll tell you how to run it.
Relentless Shutdown Kill-Assist Archetype
Assassin/Monk
Level: 20
Critical Strikes: 13 (12+1)
Dagger Mastery: 12 (8+4)
Shadow Arts: 8 (7+1)
Deadly Arts: 9 (8+1)
Way of the Fox (Shadow Arts)
For 23 seconds, your next attack cannot miss.
Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:3
Return (Shadow Arts)
All adjacent foes are Crippled for 6 seconds. Teleport to target ally.
Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:20
Siphon Strength [Elite] (Deadly Arts)
For 9 seconds, target foe deals -15 damage with attacks and all of your attacks against that foe have an additional 33% chance of being a critical hit.
Energy:15 Cast:2 Recharge:10
Black Mantis Thrust (Dagger Mastery)
If this attack hits, you strike for +17 damage. If target foe is suffering from a Hex, that foe is Crippled for 13 seconds.
Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:12
Entangling Asp (Deadly Arts)
Entangling Asp must follow a lead attack. Target foe is knocked down and becomes Poisoned for 14 seconds.
Energy:10 Cast:1 Recharge:20
Shadow Refuge (Shadow Arts)
For 4 seconds, you have a 50% chance to "evade" attacks. When Shadow Refuge ends, you are healed for 78.
Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:8
Smite Hex (Smiting Prayers)
Remove a Hex from target ally. If a Hex is removed, foes in the area suffer 10..70 damage.
Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:15
Purge Conditions (Monk other)
Remove all Conditions (Poison, Disease, Blindness, Dazed, Bleeding, Crippled, and Deep Wound) from target ally.
Energy:5 Cast:0.25 Recharge:20
Running the build
Note: If you need a rez, swap out Way of the Fox for the rez. Or, if you really feel you need Way of the Fox, you can swap it for one of the condidtion or hex removers, or even for the self-heal, depending on the make-up of your team and whether you'll think you can count on another teammate to keep you healthy and de-hexed and de-conditioned.
Start with Way of the Fox and stay on the periphery of the action. Look for a teammate who's got somebody engaged (or work with a partner or two).
Wait for your full 25 energy to come back from your natural regen.
Once you've got 25 energy, cast Return to jump to your teammate.
Immediately cast Siphon Strength on your teammate's target and queue up Black Mantis Thrust. The target is unavoidably crippled for 13 seconds unless they or a teammate remove the condition. (Nothing you can do about that.)[br]
At this point you have 0 energy left.
Auto-attack the crippled target until you have 5 energy. This should take 2 seconds on average.
cast Way of the Fox on the target. This is important to ensure that your next attack is unavoidable.
Auto-attack the crippled target until you have 10 energy. This should take 3-4 seconds on average (3-4 autoattacks).
Cast Entangling Asp. The target is knocked down and now unavoidably poisoned. Note: Since the knockdown effectively interrupts the target, you might want to wait a few seconds to pop this off, if you think you might be able to interrupt a cast.
Now just auto-attack to build your energy back up to a full 25. Your alpha strike has taken roughly 5-6 seconds, so you've still got about 3-4 seconds left of 3.07 energy regen. Rather than recasting Siphon Strength as soon as it recycles, I'd normally choose to keep my 9-12 energy in reserve for any needed condition/hex removal or self-healing, and let my normal energy regen rate of 1.44 EPS work for me. If no healing or hex/condition removal is needed, you'll be back to full energy in about 10 seconds after Siphon Strength has worn off. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower.
About 20-22 seconds has passed since you began your alpha strike. Guess what? Everything is recharged and you can do it all over again.
One note about the teleport skill. If you can just run to the next target unawares, don't bother using it. Instead, save it for an emergency getaway.
Another note about whether to use Siphon Strength a second time during each assist. You *can* do it for higher DPS against a target that will take a long time to kill. It will, however, increase the total time until you're ready to repeat the entire alpha strike to 33 seconds. Me? I like being able to repeat this alpha strike 3x per minute instead of only 2x per minute. But again, if you have a really hard target that you're assisting with, it might be a good choice to pop off Siphon Strength a second time as soon as you get 15 energy back after casting your Entangling Asp.
Another note about using Way of the Fox a second time during your alpha strike. If you feel lucky, you can just skip using WoTF to ensure that your Entangling Asp cannot be avoided. This will shave 2 seconds off your total alpha strike cycle. IMO, using WoTF is mandatory only to ensure that your opening cripple can't be avoided.
This is the smoothest-running, most predictable/reliable, fastest re-cycling PvP build I can think of. You're not a superstar. You won't score the uber leet solo kills. But you will be one hell of an asset to your team, and you will be hard to kill, hard to shutdown, and fully effective most of the time. You will be the relentless, annoying mofo who pops up out of nowhere to assist with a kill, and you'll be damn effective at doing so. You'll be the "Oh S**T!!!" guy. That's what I call fun! :laughing:
One thing to make clear up front. This build is not a solo-killer. It is not focused on spike damage. I personally feel that spike builds for Assassins are too fragile. Instead, this is a build for team players who are okay with the idea of assisting kills, not being the killer.
The basic idea of this build is that you are the surprise shutdown factor on a team. Every 20 seconds, you can teleport directly to the side of any teammate, cripple their target, poison their target, and then kill-assist with very high auto-attack DPS (coupled with the 8 HPS degen of your long-lasting poison). Nothing in the build has a recharge time longer than 20 seconds, so you're limited only by your energy regen rate, which is why I chose to use 12DM/13CS versus 16DM/8CS. You have a 3.07 EPS regen rate for 9 out of every 11 seconds during battle, and a 1.44 EPS regen rate at all other times during battle.
You have the fastest, cheapest condition removal if you get blinded or crippled, both of which totally shut down your own DPS output and more importantly your energy regen.
You have the fastest, cheapest hex removal if you get nailed by Dulled Weapon, which shuts down your uber crit rate (you can bet we'll see this used a lot in PvP).
Your teleport can work in both directions: to get you into battle quickly or to escape from a bad situation. It's also the fastest-recharging TP available.
You have a solid, fast-recharging self-heal that you can use in or out of battle. It also provides very strong damage mitigation during 4 of its 8-second recharge cycle.
You have a useful, cheap skill to ensure that your cripples and poisons never miss, but it's not so useful that you will miss it badly in PvP that require a rez. So you have a non-essential skill that can be swapped out for a rez, if needed.
Here's the build, and then after that I'll tell you how to run it.
Relentless Shutdown Kill-Assist Archetype
Assassin/Monk
Level: 20
Critical Strikes: 13 (12+1)
Dagger Mastery: 12 (8+4)
Shadow Arts: 8 (7+1)
Deadly Arts: 9 (8+1)
Way of the Fox (Shadow Arts)
For 23 seconds, your next attack cannot miss.
Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:3
Return (Shadow Arts)
All adjacent foes are Crippled for 6 seconds. Teleport to target ally.
Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:20
Siphon Strength [Elite] (Deadly Arts)
For 9 seconds, target foe deals -15 damage with attacks and all of your attacks against that foe have an additional 33% chance of being a critical hit.
Energy:15 Cast:2 Recharge:10
Black Mantis Thrust (Dagger Mastery)
If this attack hits, you strike for +17 damage. If target foe is suffering from a Hex, that foe is Crippled for 13 seconds.
Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:12
Entangling Asp (Deadly Arts)
Entangling Asp must follow a lead attack. Target foe is knocked down and becomes Poisoned for 14 seconds.
Energy:10 Cast:1 Recharge:20
Shadow Refuge (Shadow Arts)
For 4 seconds, you have a 50% chance to "evade" attacks. When Shadow Refuge ends, you are healed for 78.
Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:8
Smite Hex (Smiting Prayers)
Remove a Hex from target ally. If a Hex is removed, foes in the area suffer 10..70 damage.
Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:15
Purge Conditions (Monk other)
Remove all Conditions (Poison, Disease, Blindness, Dazed, Bleeding, Crippled, and Deep Wound) from target ally.
Energy:5 Cast:0.25 Recharge:20
Running the build
Note: If you need a rez, swap out Way of the Fox for the rez. Or, if you really feel you need Way of the Fox, you can swap it for one of the condidtion or hex removers, or even for the self-heal, depending on the make-up of your team and whether you'll think you can count on another teammate to keep you healthy and de-hexed and de-conditioned.
Start with Way of the Fox and stay on the periphery of the action. Look for a teammate who's got somebody engaged (or work with a partner or two).
Wait for your full 25 energy to come back from your natural regen.
Once you've got 25 energy, cast Return to jump to your teammate.
Immediately cast Siphon Strength on your teammate's target and queue up Black Mantis Thrust. The target is unavoidably crippled for 13 seconds unless they or a teammate remove the condition. (Nothing you can do about that.)[br]
At this point you have 0 energy left.
Auto-attack the crippled target until you have 5 energy. This should take 2 seconds on average.
cast Way of the Fox on the target. This is important to ensure that your next attack is unavoidable.
Auto-attack the crippled target until you have 10 energy. This should take 3-4 seconds on average (3-4 autoattacks).
Cast Entangling Asp. The target is knocked down and now unavoidably poisoned. Note: Since the knockdown effectively interrupts the target, you might want to wait a few seconds to pop this off, if you think you might be able to interrupt a cast.
Now just auto-attack to build your energy back up to a full 25. Your alpha strike has taken roughly 5-6 seconds, so you've still got about 3-4 seconds left of 3.07 energy regen. Rather than recasting Siphon Strength as soon as it recycles, I'd normally choose to keep my 9-12 energy in reserve for any needed condition/hex removal or self-healing, and let my normal energy regen rate of 1.44 EPS work for me. If no healing or hex/condition removal is needed, you'll be back to full energy in about 10 seconds after Siphon Strength has worn off. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower.
About 20-22 seconds has passed since you began your alpha strike. Guess what? Everything is recharged and you can do it all over again.
One note about the teleport skill. If you can just run to the next target unawares, don't bother using it. Instead, save it for an emergency getaway.
Another note about whether to use Siphon Strength a second time during each assist. You *can* do it for higher DPS against a target that will take a long time to kill. It will, however, increase the total time until you're ready to repeat the entire alpha strike to 33 seconds. Me? I like being able to repeat this alpha strike 3x per minute instead of only 2x per minute. But again, if you have a really hard target that you're assisting with, it might be a good choice to pop off Siphon Strength a second time as soon as you get 15 energy back after casting your Entangling Asp.
Another note about using Way of the Fox a second time during your alpha strike. If you feel lucky, you can just skip using WoTF to ensure that your Entangling Asp cannot be avoided. This will shave 2 seconds off your total alpha strike cycle. IMO, using WoTF is mandatory only to ensure that your opening cripple can't be avoided.
This is the smoothest-running, most predictable/reliable, fastest re-cycling PvP build I can think of. You're not a superstar. You won't score the uber leet solo kills. But you will be one hell of an asset to your team, and you will be hard to kill, hard to shutdown, and fully effective most of the time. You will be the relentless, annoying mofo who pops up out of nowhere to assist with a kill, and you'll be damn effective at doing so. You'll be the "Oh S**T!!!" guy. That's what I call fun! :laughing: