Assassin Build thread

[-Shink-]

Shink, I appreciate your input but seeing how not every reader of this thread is as advanced as you are, would you mind to add a few explanations and/or examples instead of merely throwing out a 'timings matter' that is not helping me much.

Not advanced or anything,just have given it playtime.Sure i can explain in more detail but for example you can ask yourself ,when would you use overdose taking into consideration your combo rotations and the encounter you are in ?Don't have much time to type now,feel free to grab me in game some time and i ll be happy to answer anything that i have enough knowledge on.I am usually on Sinqq ,Krovac or Ashred.

[Shax84]

Both speccs looks great, but i'd recomend swift endings (usually gc and sds are near SS in damage)

A burst abillity like overdose is usually overrated, but i tend to use it because of some bosses with ads or hms with nukes.

IIRC flesh rot does slightly more damage than lotus weps. The other 2 (dark and dread) has much lower.

Keep in mind that feats that enhance combos with a % benefactor only improves the combo starter and finisher dps. Grim Corruption and Slow Death Strikes has around 340 finisher dps, and feating, would improve by 34 dps. Unholy Strength which improves Swift Strikes is also horrible to feat, five points spent to improve a filler combo dps by 22-24.

My Assassin has 471,4 dps on the attributes panel. Performing one of these combos with or without the combo enhancing feats would lead to the formula:

With Swift Ending: 471,4 + (340*1,1) = 845,4
Without Swift Ending: 471,4 + 340 = 811,4

Thats a 4% increase in damage on GC and SDS and 5 points spent for it.

With Unholy Strength: 471,4 + (473*1,05) = 968,05
Without Unholy Strength: 471,4 + 473 = 944,4

Thats a 2,44% increase in damage on SS IX (SS X will be lower..) and 5 points spent for it.

Again. These feats does not apply to anything else but the starter and finisher of the feated combo.

Taking another example of a random assassin from our latest raid this week. I have no idea if he feated this that we talk about or not, anyway, he was in combat for 24:30 and doing 1340 dps on average.

His Swift Strikes combos did 21,91% of his damage and the difference with/without Unholy Strength will be 2,44% of that number. And that is 0,53% extra total damage from SS to the total. For comparison, his Flesh Rot did 1,96% of his total damage.

The same math can be applied to his SDS + GC damage. These two combos had 13,09% of his total damage. 4% increase on that number is 0,52% extra damage from GC + SDS to the total. For comparison, improved fiery weapons had 0,47% of his damage.

With this Assassins total damage being 1 971 234 and if we say this number is without the two feats in question, that damage would increase by 1,05% and giving 20 697,95 extra damage.

If you cared to read this nonsense I think you can agree both these feats are filler points if there is nothing else you'd want to progress down the trees.

[Belatsunat]

So just to make sure I understand this correctly: Swift Endings does not increase the total DPS (base DPS + bonus from the combo) of the starter and the finisher of Grim Corruption and Slow Death Strikes, but merely the bonus DPS tacked on by the combo?

[Jerohn]

All combo improvements from feat tree increases just base dps of combo finisher - the numbers you see in description. AA combo improvements increases total combo dmg including stats from gear, other feats etc. So im not sure Swift Ending is better than Flurry of Blows or not but for myself i choose FoB. If you want to use khitan ranks of SDS and GC maybe its better to pick Swift Ending.

[Belatsunat]

That is ... really lame then. At least Flurry of Blows scales with gear, and Flesh Rot might indeed be better than Swift Endings.

[Jerohn]

Nah, flesh rot is total crap and very bad against classes with retribution dmg.

[CueQue]

Lots of good information, thanks Shax!

[Belatsunat]

Nah, flesh rot is total crap and very bad against classes with retribution dmg.

This is not as much of a concern as we are currently discussing PvE builds.

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On the same token, in what order would you rank the talents:

Unholy Strength
Dark Weapon
Precise Strikes

[-Shink-]

Don't take unholy strength at all,Same deal as swift ending with even less effect.

Dark weapons still filler points ,not bad for it though.Precise strikes is hard to calculate and i wouldn't bother with it until really higher tiers but that's personal preference.

[Halfdead]

Lets see a build that'll parse 2400 DPS then.