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This PvE build is built around the Assassin's primary attribute, Critical Strikes. Using Way of the Assassin and Critical Eye to raise your chance of a critical hit to about a 77% chance per hit, and Critical Defenses for a near-permanent 75% chance to block, nearly every hit you land will net you +4 energy. Using a skill chain of unblockable attack skills, you can be sure to consistently get your damage through.
Way of Perfection is usable as a long-term heal, and can serve to keep Way of the Assassin active (the downside is the short duration and small heals at lower levels of Shadow Arts).
Another Dual Attack, such as Critical Strike, will provide more energy management and a critical hit on-demand.
When playing with a normal party, energy isn't a big deal for this build. It's probably a good idea to switch out Critical Eye in favor of a resurrection skill.
If survival is an issue, you can go A/D and switch Shadow Arts for Earth Prayers (see Variants, below).
Daggers with an "of Enchanting" mod is best, and preferably a "+15% while enchanted" or "+15% while in a stance" mod. Daggers of Xuekao may be the best green daggers for this build.
The build's defense is high enough that you'll be able to afford the HP loss from adding Superior runes to the build. A Superior Daggery Mastery can increase both your damage output and your critical hit chance by a small amount. A Superior Critical Strikes rune may also be helpful. Be very careful when using runes though, as anything more can be counter-productive.
Usage[ | ]
The build centers around keeping four different skills up at all times: Shroud of Distress, Critical Eye, Critical Defenses, and Way of the Assassin. In the heat of battle, you'll need to remember to check your status bar often, and make sure to keep all your skills up as much as possible.
When first initiating battle, activate Critical Eye and Shroud of Distress as you charge. Right before you engage, activate Critical Defenses (make sure not to activate this skill too soon, or you run the risk of not getting a critical hit fast enough to recharge it). Once you engage, activate Way of the Assassin. Be careful when first starting this all, as you will lose a pretty sizable chunk of energy. Once you get a few hits in, your energy should recharge quite quickly.
Make sure to use your attack chain often, as it will deal a large amount of consistent, unblockable damage thanks to your high critical chance. Keep an eye on your status at all times. When anything starts to end, make sure to re-activate it right away. Pay special attention to Critical Defenses in particular. When your target dies, make sure to switch to a new target as quickly as possible to keep Critical Defenses up.
Shroud of Distress serves two major purposes here; keeping Way of the Assassin active, thanks to its long duration, and also granting you a very sizable amount of evasion when your health gets low. At seven Shadow Arts, it should last for 44 seconds (not counting any bonus from Daggers of Enchanting). This should be more then enough to last the duration of the battle, and the recharge time is one second longer, in case you need to re-activate.
Keep in mind that you have an increased chance of a critical hit when attacking lower-level monsters (this increased chance is more easily noticable when attacking creatures around level 10 or below). Target a nearby spirit or a weaker monster if you're in desperate need of a critical hit.
When facing foes with Enchantment removal, keep in mind that Critical Defenses will almost always be the first to go, reguardless of the order you activate your enchantments. This is because whenever you land a critical hit, Critical Defenses will re-apply itself, thus moving back to the top of the list. If you know that you're going to be losing an enchantment, it's probably a bad idea to get yourself in a fight with another melee character.
Counters[ | ]
There are a few counters, but most of them are too narrow to consider a real threat. Your main worry is Enchantment removal and the Blind condition. When Blinded, your best bet is to get out of combat. Without a critical hit, you'll lose Critical Defenses and be easy prey for most attacks. Enchantment removal can also get rid of Critical Defenses, but this can normally be fixed by killing whoever's wielding the enchantment removal.
Variants[ | ]
For superior self-healing and defense, consider going A/D and switching all of your points from Shadow Arts into Earth Prayers. This will allow you to use Vital Boon and Mystic Regeneration (replacing Shadow Refuge and Shroud of Distress). The large Block chance granted by Critical Defenses, in addition to the +9 Health regen provided by Mystic Regeneration (at 8 Earth Prayers and with all three enchantments active), should serve to keep you alive for a much greater amount of time, especially against other melee classes (don't forget the +72 maximum health bonus you'll gain from Vital Boon). Your attribute points should be reordered, like so:
Attributes and Skills
Critical Strikes
11 + 2
Dagger Mastery
11 + 1 + 2
Earth Prayers
8
This variant works much better against melee foes than casters, and the quick recharge times on the Dervish enchantments means you don't suffer nearly as much against foes with enchantment removal, as it's not a big deal to simply re-cast one of your cheaper enchantments to keep Way of the Assassin active.
If a Dervish secondary isn't what you're looking for, Assassin's Shadow Arts attribute has plenty of tricks to boost your survival even higher. Drop your Critical Strikes attribute down to 11 and add a Major Rune of Critical Strikes (11 + 2), and drop Dagger Mastery down to 10, keeping the current rune and headgear setup (10 + 1 + 2). This will allow you to boost your Shadow Arts attribute all the way up to 10.
You'll need to switch out Shroud of Distress for Way of Perfection, and switch Shadow Refuge for Critical Eye. With your Shadow Arts all the way up at 11 (10 plus the minor rune), Way of Perfection lasts 28 seconds out of the 30 second recharge, and grants a 32-health heal every time you land a critical hit. With Critical Eye as well, you'll gain tons of energy, and everything up and running grants you a massive critical hit chance, which will keep health and energy topped off during nearly any fight. The optional slot can be anything, but preferably you'll want to bring either a resurrection skill (when in a party), Shadow Refuge as an out-of-battle self-heal (just in case), or even Sharpen Daggers to add bleeding to the attack chain. If enemy casters are a problem, you can bring Disrupting Stab or Disrupting Dagger, both of which are nice, easy interrupts skills (D. Stab can also help to start your attack chain, while D. Dagger won't mess up the chain if used halfway through).
In some cases where the unblockable chain isn't needed, good options as a replacement attack chain are attack chains like Golden Phoenix Strike, Horns of the Ox, and Falling Spider, or maybe a chain with Jagged Strike, Wild Strike, and Death Blossom for faster damage. Using Golden Phoenix Strike will also allow you to use just itself and a Dual Attack, thus leaving you an extra skill slot as well.
Going A/E will allow you to replace a skill (preferably Shroud of Distress) with Conjure Flame/Frost/Lightning, which will not only enable Way of the Assassin (thanks to the fact that they're Enchantments with a long duration), but grant an additional +1...17 damage per attack. This of course will require a slight investment into the Fire/Water/Air Magic attribute, and your Daggers will need the corresponding Elemental damage modifier (Fiery/Icy/Shocking) in place of the Zealous tang.
In some cases, a speed boost is a nessessity for catching foes. Seeing as Way of the Assassin is a stance, using a speed boosting stance such as Dash will hurt your build in the long run. The Assassin has access to quite a few speed-reducing Hexes, such as of Shadowy Burden and Siphon Speed. Dervish secondaries have Featherfoot Grace at their disposal. And Elementalist secondaries can use Flame Djinn's Haste, Storm Djinn's Haste, or even Burning Speed as a non-stance speed boost.
Assassin / Any
