I didn't realise that GW: Fraction was already out. :shy:

So how good are assassins? I've read the description that assassins wear lightweight armour. Won't this mean they die too easily and too often ? Can they handle 1 on 1 fights with ease ? What about a mob of monsters? Anybody have any first hand experience in using them?

That would be me.

The main problem most assassins have is they try to out heal the damamge they get when in combat. Their armour is AC70.

Assassins need to get in spike the damamge and get out. They are not designed to tank or absorb damage.

That being said I have 2 good builds that I use with my A/Mo and a A/Me

A/Mo
12 DM (10 + 2)
13 CS (10 + 3)
9 Protection Prayers
8 Deadly Arts (7 + 1)

Assassin's Promise
Black Lotus Strike
Twisting Fangs
Golden Phoenix Strike
Death Blossom
Protective Spirit (max 10% damage for 16 sec, 19 with 20% longer enchant)
Shielding Hands (damage taken -13 for 10 sec, 12 with 20% longer enchant)

Open Slot
For open slot, good options I saw are
Death Charge to get to target fast
Dark Prison for same reason but also have an extra hex in case AP fails
Impale to have an extra hex and add some damage
Mend Ailment to get rid of blind/cripple/etc. and heal yourself decently if you have more than 1 condition
Spirit Bond so that any really big damage (bosses) will heal you. This makes you basically immune to bosses (and most ele spells) as long as you keep PS-SBond up.
Rebirth for obvious reasons
Signet of Capture if you need it

Cast Prot Spirit on yourself and cast Shielding Hands ON TOP (so that Prot Spirit is taken into account first, this way max damage taken = 10% - 13). All the big nuking damage (I’m looking at you ele bosses!) will be reduced to around 35-40 damage, allowing you to laugh it off. All low damage will be reduced by 13, which is very good damage reduction.

Now just combo mobs, doing AP-BLS-Twisting-GPS-DB. If you're not sure you can have the kill in 10 sec (duration of AP), start with GPS which you can use at anytime with your enchants and just throw AP when the kill is safe not to waste it.

AP will always recharge your Shielding Hands so there is no downtime on them or nearly! AP + BLS + Zealous daggers + 13 Critical Strikes is also fairly ridiculous energy management so don't worry about casting PS-SH when required. They're both .25 sec cast too so it's not annoying having to recast them unlike 1 sec cast enchant (Shadow Refuge...)

If you screw up your AP, you're not out of use for 45 sec unlike the usual '1 big combo' AP builds, since you can still use your GPS every 8 sec with your dual. If you picked an extra hex as 8th skill you can also keep using BLS when needed, and just use AP to recharge everything once it's ready. You won't have the fast recharge on Shielding Hands, but Prot Spirit will still recharge fast and it's the most important one.

My Other build is:

Profession: Assassin/Mesmer
Name: AE-Condition Bomber
Type: PvE
Category: AE-group condition delivery
Attributes:
Dagger Mastery 12 (11 + 1)
Shadow Magic 8 (7 + 1) or 9 (8 +1)
Critical Strikes 13 (11 + 2)
Inspiration Magic 5 (optional)

Gear:
-green Ceremonial Daggers is what I use
-Shrouded Armor (bonus energy needed)

Skills Set
1 - Black Mantis Sting, Jagged Strike, or Unsuspecting Strike
2 - Wild Strike, Jungle Strike, or Fox Fangs
3 - Temple Strike {E}
4 - Twisting Fangs
5 - Epidemic (required)
6 - Return (Teleport-retreat)
7 - Shadow Refuge (self healing)
8 - Ether Feast (optional, more self healing), Way of the Lotus, or Critical Eye

This build is specifically designed to deliver blindness, daze, bleeding, and deepwound to a large group of opponents. Yes, it is very energy intensive, but once your assassin delivers its payload, most monster groups collapse very quickly, being unable to hit and cast spells while losing a large chunk of health.

<font color="cyan">Factions has been out a LONG time.

Nightfall is out next week.

But I dont have factions so I cant comment.</font>

Actually its only ben out for about 5 months [img]smile.gif[/img]

Unless you really want to play those classes skip it and get nightfall.

<font color="cyan">I'll still probably get factions before I get nightfall.</font>

You mean assassins should pay like guerilla warfare? Hit and run method? I can see that this can be done when partying as other people can tank the monsters. But how do you do this when you are soloing and there's nobody to tank you?

A/Mo ? I remember when I was playing my R/Mo. Most people will yell for me to stop shooting with my arrows and stand there to heal them instead. Do you have such problem with your A/Mo ?

<font color="cyan">I have a N/Mo and I dont usually get that.

Secondary monks are not designed to heal the entire party, they are mainly there to sustain life on yourself.

Secondary monks CAN help out, like I try to do, but I leave the majority of healing up to the partys main monks.</font>

Yeah, the other day I was out with my r/mo helping husband with a Titan's quest and the party leader referred to myself and to Budha (he was playing his wammo) as "monks" who needed to "bring all the heal they [we] had". I informed that *I* was not a healer, I was a superior marksman.

Throughout the quest, Lili Rebirthed the party endlessly - that's the only monkly skill she uses conidering that her Unguent is at +9 (higher than she could get Breeze).

My nec/mo, however, ran Blood and she nearly always was at least back-up healer for missions, often primary healer due to skillful use of wells and monk skills.