Tiger Assassin (A/R Build)

[stonebreaker]

I hope this idea hasn't been duplictaed elsewhere in the forum. I looked through the first six pages or so and didn't see anything alluding to it. So what the heck, I'll post it.

This is defnitely just a concept only. I was unable to try the FPE to test out the Assassin class. I have some definite concerns with this build, but I post here to get some feedback and recommendations from the community.

Critical Strikes: 12 (11+1)
Dagger Mastery: 16 (12+4)
Deadly Arts: 6 (5+1)
Beast Mastery: 4

- Locusts' Fury [Elite] (Critical Strikes)
For 30 seconds, you have an additional 20% chance to double strike.
Energy:10 Cast:2 Recharge:30

- Black Mantis Thrust (Dagger Mastery)
If this attack hits, you strike for +21 damage. If target foe is suffering from a Hex, that foe is Crippled for 17 seconds.
Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:12

- Jungle Strike (Dagger Mastery)
Must follow a lead attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +21 damage. If it hits a foe that was Crippled, it does +33 damage.
Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:12

- Twisting Fangs (Dagger Mastery)
Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Twisting Fangs strikes for +12 damage and struck foe suffers from Bleeding and Deep Wound for 21 seconds.
Energy:10 Cast:0 Recharge:12

- Siphon Speed (Deadly Arts)
For 9 seconds, target foe moves 15% slower and you move 15% faster.
Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:5

- Tiger's Fury (Beast Mastery)
All your non-attack skills are disabled for 5 seconds. For 7 seconds, you attack 33% faster.
Energy:10 Cast:0 Recharge:10

- Critical Eye (Critical Strikes)
For 30 seconds, you have an additional 6% chance to land a critical hit when attacking. You gain 1 Energy whenever you score a critical hit.
Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:30

- Antidote Signet (Ranger other)
Cleanse yourself of Poison, Disease and Blindness.
Energy:0 Cast:2 Recharge:8

The biggest issue that jumps out is energy requirements. A lot of these skills aren't cheap. My thought is to use Zealous Daggers and hope the criticals will keep my energy high. The folks that tested the Assassins in the FPE, what do you think of their energy management abilities?

The other negatives (that I see, there may be others):

- No self-heal
- No defensive skills
- Limited Condition removal (but you can deal with some of the worst ones)

The idea is fast and furious offense. This of cousre will be limited by the energy requirements. If it's too energy-intensive and cannot be sustained, obviously this type of build is a bust.

So all you great and knowledgable Assassins come out and give me your thoughts!

[Symbolic Self]

This is a good bread and butter assassin dps build with a good spike. But I suggest dropping a point from dagger mastery, and raising critical strike to 13 so you can hit the 3E/crit breakpoint. Zealous will probably be overkill at that point, unless you're running tiger's constantly. Spread the rest of the points however you want.

Also, since you're not going with rez I'm assuming that this isn't for the arenas where rez is pretty much mandatory. In that case I suggest dropping antidote signet. Take expose defenses instead. You can use it to make sure your spike connects, or to fake out the enemy monks. With the new 1s cast this is a solid skill, and you've already invested in deadly arts.

[arredondo]

stonebreaker:
Well, since you were looking around, perhaps you missed this:

http://forums.gwonline.net/showthread.php?t=393163

I meant "Shadow Arts: 11" for the misuse of "Deadly Arts: 11" in the build writeup. It's pretty much the same concept, instead using Frenzy for the IAS stance. By the third page I think I figured my peak damage to be an average of 65+ DPS with everything up and running.

You do need some type of defense... a melee Assassin with low armor is committing suicide without someway to reduce damage or repair it. Poison/Disease/Blindness removal isn't enough. You can try to fit troll in, but that makes you lower DPS to support four att. lines. You can drop Crit. Eye for Assassin defense... but Critical Defenses is all you can consider when not going into Shadow Arts (or diversfy your lines with the DPS drop as mentioned).

Symbolic Self has it right... go up to 13 CS if you want to get max use of its benefits. I think you should go down to L8 myself and you'll have more points to spread (+2E per crit needs a minimum of L8 CS). That's what I did in my build to get 11 in SA.

Energy regain should be decent, but consider using Zealous knives just to make sure. Try to go for L7 in Beast to get 8s of IAS from Tiger's Fury instead of 7s. For 10E a use, you want the most out of it. Try this for your point spread, keeping in mind what I mentioned:

Dagger Mastery: 15
Critical Strikes: 8
Shadow Arts: 9 (or Wilderness:8 for Troll Uguent +7 regen)
Deadly Arts: 8
Beast Mastery: 7
(2 left over)

You can now fit in a defense/healing skill for Critical Eye if you wish. Keep both if you are in 12v12 or GvG with rez support. Other than that, I guess we'll all make tweaks to our builds once we can actually test them finally. :smiley:

[Symbolic Self]

Heh, I saw that build, but I don't want to read through the huge mess that thread has become. IMO any assassin taking warrior secondary must must must take rush. This skill combined with the assassin's insane adrenaline generation means you have a constant speedboost, even with no points in strength. It also gives you something to cancel frenzy into, should things go south.

[arredondo]

I was responding to the OP since he said he looked around... the main build is still in the first post so he wouldn't have to wade through the text (I edited post above to make the response clearer).

I gave my reasons for not having a Frenzy cancel in there just yet (I net -4 damage vs. a -100 damage attack under Frenzy), but no need to debate it here. I just want to test my idea first, then I'll add Viper's Defense as my stance cancel if needed. Once I test it, I'll repost the thread to gut out all the unnecessary stuff.

[stonebreaker]

Arredondo, yep I missed that because I was looking for A/R builds that had been posted, not A/W builds. I am not a fan of Frenzy whatsoever. Too much not to like about it (in my opinion anyway). But I suppose the concepts are the same between the two ideas, so I should have looked a little closer. My bad.

Thanks for the feedback. Need to tweak it a bit more it looks like.

[MaximumSquid]

I'd switch some stuff around to get 7 in beastmastery if you can. It will make it last 8 seconds which will only give you a 2 second downtime between uses.

Your're also have no self heal or cover enchant for your elite

You can solve both by putting points into the shadow arts line to get either shadow refuge or way of perfection.

Shadow Arts also has the better cripple utilty in my opineon. I'd drop siphon speed for caltrops or shadowy burden.

So maybe something like this:

9 beastmastery
15 dagger
9 shadow arts
9 critical

Locust's Fury {e}
Tiger's Fury
Caltrops or Shadowy Burden
Golden Pheonix Strike
Twisting Fangs
Signet of Malice or antidote signet
Way of Perfection or Shadow Refuge
Ressurect Signet

30 second locusts if you have +20% longer enchantments on your weapon
Tiger's will last 9 seconds so you'll only have 1 second of downtime
The self heal skill will fuel Pheonix Strike which bypasses a lead attack

/all i got

[arredondo]

Arredondo, yep I missed that because I was looking for A/R builds that had been posted, not A/W builds. I am not a fan of Frenzy whatsoever. Too much not to like about it (in my opinion anyway). But I suppose the concepts are the same between the two ideas, so I should have looked a little closer. My bad.

Thanks for the feedback. Need to tweak it a bit more it looks like.

No problem... in the end I may like your version better. Tiger's Fury does have some positives to it. I just worry about its drain on energy without testing it. Comparing the two we have:

Frenzy = 16s of IAS for 10E
TF = 8s of IAS for 10E

We'll see how it goes.

[Symbolic Self]

Don't worry about the energy arrendo. With 13 CS, locust's, critical eye, and zealous you get some rediculous energy regen.

Bonus from criticals: 1.80 E/sec
Zealous: .8 E/sec
Base: 1.33 E/sec

Attack skills (assuming you spam them once every 12 secs): -1.66 E/sec
TF: -1 E/sec

As you can see your energy cup floweth over. You don't even need zealous. You're getting enough energy from criticals alone.

[Syes]

I used a Beastial Fury (new name, old skill) A/R a lot during the FPE, including with Locusts Fury (fun to capture that one :p). I'd just like to say, that (depending on attack skill choices) you don't need 13 CS, you don't need Critical Eye, and you don't need zealous daggers. The only thing you do need is to make sure Fury is up as much as possible. 7 secnds is not enough, 10 is of course preferred but perhaps a little too costly. I think I had 9 seconds, and that seemed fine.

Start with 8 CS, max DM, as much Beast Mastery as you can afford, load up your skill bar and go play. If you don't have enough energy to use all you skills as much as you want, then swap one for Critical Eye. You're not losing out if you don't have the energy to use it.

(btw, Vampiric daggers ftw).

[Bobross]

One thing to consider when thinking about how much energy tiger's fury will cost you, is how much energy it'll give you. Faster attacks means more attacks, which means more chances for crits, which means more energy. I worked this out a while ago and I think I figured that after the energy it gives back with 13 crit and crit eye, it winds up costing like 2-3 net energy.
With zealous and locust's fury I'm sure it works out to be at least free if not actually giving you a net energy bonus...so energy considerations should not be much of a factor except when considering, that your combos may not be as front loaded as you'd like them to be.

[Bobross]

Ok, now I've got the time to run the numbers, so borrowing from shakitoboi's dagger faq, lets look at what the total cost for tiger's fury with locust's, critical eye, crit strikes 13 and dagger mastery 12:


+Pips = [(Crit Chance % x Energy Bonus) / Dagger Speed] / 0.33

chance to crit given 12 ranks in dagger mastery:


16% at 12 ranks (1+[1.25 x 12] = 16)

Chance to crit given 13 ranks in critical strikes - 13%

16% + 13% = 29% With critical eye running, it goes up to 34% chance to crit with each hit.

.34 crit/hit x 4 en/crit = 1.36 en/hit

Now for the speed calculation:


Dagger Speed = base speed / [1 + (Attribute x .02)]


so the (attribute x .02) is your chance of doing a double strike here. Since our dagger mastery is 12, this is 24% but we've also got locust's fury running, so this goes up to 44%. Our base speed is normally 1.33 but with tiger's fury it goes up too. so that's now 33% faster. So we're doing 1 attack/second (or 1 second/attack...to use shakitoboi's units).
so 1/1.44 = .694 seconds/attack or 1.44 attacks per second!

Back to the energy calculation:

so 1.44 hit/sec x 1.36 en/hit = 1.958 en/sec.

or shak's way,


+Pips = [(Crit Chance % x Energy Bonus) / Dagger Speed] / 0.33

1.36/.694 = 1.958 en/sec.
1.958 en/sec /.33 = 5.935 "pips"

So now we know we're getting 1.958 total en/sec from attacking



+4.4 Pips (1.44 energy per second) for 12 ranks in Dagger Mastery, 13 ranks in Critical Strikes and Critical Eye running full time during battle (([0.35 x 4] / 1.07) / 0.33). The 12 ranks of Dagger Mastery gives you 1.07 dagger speed and a 16% base crit chance. The 13 ranks in Critical Strikes gives you 3 energy bonus and another 13% crit chance. The Critical Eye gives you 1 energy bonus (stackable), plus another 6% crit chance (stackable). Your total crit chance is therefore 35% and your total energy bonus is therefore 4. Total Pips = 8.4 when auto-attacking

in this scenario, shakitoboi would get 1.308 energy/second from attacking.

So locusts fury + tiger fury adds an extra .65 energy/second that you generate from attacking. lets say you can keep tiger's fury up for 8 seconds, and locusts up for 26, then in those 26 seconds, let's just look at the first 20...for simplicity's sake, I'll underestimate the energy savings this way, I know...but it's more complicated if you have them overlapping at other times.
So for those 20 seconds, you've casted locust's fury once, and tiger's twice. so you've spent 30 energy. during that time you've gotten 16 seconds of ridiculous attack speed, and 20 seconds of decent attack speed from locust's alone. So that's 16 seconds x .65 energy/second = 10.4 energy returned. Now this doesn't takeinto account the other 10 seconds of slight increase you'll get from locust's fury, which would amount to 1.472 energy/second (using the methods above) for a net gain of .164 en/sec. so 10 x .164 is another 1.6 energy.

So for that 30 energy you spent to attack really fast, you've gotten back 12 energy from criticals alone. Yay! But wait! you said you're gonna take zealous daggers, right? Well during the time you're attacking with zealous daggers, you gain 1 en/hit if you're getting 1.44 hit/sec so in that 16 seconds with both running, you've gained 23.04 energy from attacks! And during the extra 10 seconds with just locust's you were attacking for 1.08 hits/sec for 10 seconds so thats 10.8 energy!

So total we've gained 33.84 energy from attacks in 26 seconds from zealous, but how much more is that then what we'd normally get? well, normally your attack rate would be 1.07 sec/hit according to shakitoboi, or .935 multiply that by 26 seconds and we've got 24.31. So a difference of 9.53. Also remember you're losing energy at a rate of .33/second for zealous, but this affects both, so for determining the difference, I can leave it out.

Right so now with all of this running tiger's 2 times and locust's once gives us an energy bonus of 9.53 + 12 = 21.53. Just from tiger's fury and locust's fury! They've cost quite a bit as well...so subtract 30 energy form that and you'll see that it has cost 8.47 net energy to keep tiger's fury running for 16 seconds and locust running for 26...not bad no?

So what does this tell us? Well these skills are much more affordable than they look at first, I think locust's probably works out to be a better value if you're only going to take one, but seriously, considering the dps value that you're getting out of this combo, these skills are deffinitely worth the small cost that you wind up paying. Especially considering the fact that they essentially give you an extra attack every 2 seconds or so...

I also realize that all of this is conditional...you have to actually hit every time you possibly could attack during this 26 second period for these numbers to be accurate...this will likely never happen, so the actual cost may work out to be something like 15 energy...but even that isn't bad for the damage that you're doing over this period of time. So don't be discouraged by the energy cost, and try it out...I bet you'll like it!

[stonebreaker]

Ok, I decided to refine the build a little bit. For previous posts it sounds like energy management won't be as big an issue as I first thought, so I can drop some points out of Critical Strikes and potentially drop Critical Eye altogether to give me a little more utility. How does this build look?

Critical Strikes: 9 (8+1)
Dagger Mastery: 15 (11+4)
Shadow Arts: 9 (8+1)
Beast Mastery: 9

- Locusts' Fury [Elite] (Critical Strikes)
For 25 seconds, you have an additional 20% chance to double strike.
Energy:10 Cast:2 Recharge:30

- Black Mantis Thrust (Dagger Mastery)
If this attack hits, you strike for +20 damage. If target foe is suffering from a Hex, that foe is Crippled for 16 seconds.
Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:12

- Jungle Strike (Dagger Mastery)
Must follow a lead attack. If it hits, this attack strikes for +20 damage. If it hits a foe that was Crippled, it does +31 damage.
Energy:5 Cast:0 Recharge:12

- Twisting Fangs (Dagger Mastery)
Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, Twisting Fangs strikes for +11 damage and struck foe suffers from Bleeding and Deep Wound for 20 seconds.
Energy:10 Cast:0 Recharge:12

- Shadowy Burden (Shadow Arts)
For 8 seconds, target foe moves 25% slower and while target foe has no other Hexes, that foe has 20 less armor against your attacks.
Energy:10 Cast:2 Recharge:15

- Tiger's Fury (Beast Mastery)
All your non-attack skills are disabled for 5 seconds. For 9 seconds, you attack 33% faster.
Energy:10 Cast:0 Recharge:10

- Way of Perfection (Shadow Arts)
For 25 seconds, whenever you successfully make a critical hit you gain 25 health.
Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:30

- Shadow Refuge (Shadow Arts)
For 4 seconds, you have a 50% chance to "evade" attacks. When Shadow Refuge ends, you are healed for 84.
Energy:5 Cast:1 Recharge:8

I replaced Siphon Speed with Shadowy Burden. I love the concept and spammability (is that a word??) of Siphon Speed, but you should be able to keep your target perma-Crippled (another made up word??) and don't need to spam Shadowy Burden repeatedly.

Way of Perfection and Shadow Refuge give me some healing and evasion, so hopefully that will keep me alive a bit longer.

I moved some points around and got Beastmastery up to 9 so Tiger's Fury will last 9 secs.

I think this might be a more viable build overall. Not quite as nice in the energy replenishment or critical department, but not disasterously lowered from the first build.

Thoughts?