Assassin

Description

Strong physical attacks cut through your enemies. Evade your foes and strike from the shadows with agility and stealth.

The Assassin fights with rage, strikes fast and from hiding, and avoids being hit rather than taking it.

How it plays

Stealth hides the Assassin from its enemies, so it picks when a fight starts. Sever makes the target bleed for 10 to 15 seconds; Stab is the main attack, with Melee in between, which costs nothing. Hamstring stuns for up to 5 seconds (it breaks when the target is attacked), Distracting Throw hits from afar to pull an enemy, and Blade Storm hits up to ten enemies around it. Assassin's Vigor raises its strength by 15% for 5 minutes: keep it up.

What to train

Strength for damage and Agility for critical strikes and dodging melee attacks, which is the Assassin's defence; Stamina for health and rage. Intellect lowers its rage costs. Spirit gives it little.

Talents

One tree keeps it alive: Flexibility (dodge), Thick Armor, Discipline (fewer critical strikes against it), Channel Energy (less physical damage taken), Focus (less rage for every attack) and, after Focus, Improved Stealth: enemies notice it at half the distance and its first strikes on them have 50% more critical strike chance. The other tree is damage: Improved Strength, Improved Stab, Improved Sever and after it Bloodletting (more critical strikes on bleeding targets), Pain and after it Penetration (enemies' armour counts a quarter less), Improved Bladestorm. Bleed and critical strikes go together: Sever, then Bloodletting and Pain.

Overview › Classes › Assassin

Stats

What training each stat gives a Assassin. How much grows with the stat; the game's training window shows it for your own character.

Stat	Gives
Stamina	Health Increase Rage Increase
Strength	Physical Damage
Intellect	Magic Damage Rage Cost Reduction
Agility	Physical Crit Chance Dodge Melee Attack
Spirit	Magic Crit Chance Healing Absorb Magical Attack Health regeneration every 5 seconds while out of combat. Rage regeneration every 5 seconds. Halfed when in combat.

Spells

Every spell of the class as its spellbook lists it, with the level it is learned at. New spells and ranks are learned automatically on reaching their level. A number that grows with each rank, such as damage or cost, reads X: the spellbook in the game shows it for each rank and for your own character.

Spell	Level	Type	Cast time	Cooldown	Range	Effect
Melee	-	Physical	Instant	1 second	1 Space	Basic melee attack dealing X damage. Costs no rage.
Stab	-	Physical	Instant	2 seconds	1 Space	Run your weapon through your enemy dealing X damage, while consuming X rage.
Sever	-	Physical	Instant (over time)	5 seconds	1 Space	Slice your enemy causing them to bleed for X damage over 10 to 15 seconds, costing X rage.
Stealth	-	Buff	Instant	2 seconds	1 Space	Turn nearly invisible hiding yourself from enemies.
Assassin's Vigor	20	Buff	Instant	1 second	1 Space	You are consumed by a burst of energy, increasing your strength by 15% for 5 minutes.
Blade Storm	15	Physical	Instant	10-5 seconds	2 Spaces	You wield your weapons quickly, inflicting great damage on surrounding enemies causing X damage, consuming X rage. Hits up to 10 enemies; past 5, each takes less.
Distracting Throw	4	Physical	Instant	3 seconds	10 Spaces	Hurl your weapon at your enemy from afar causing X damage, consuming X rage.
Hamstring	10	Physical	Instant	20 seconds	1 Space	Hits for X and stuns your opponent for 0 to 5 seconds. Stun breaks when enemy is attacked. Costs X rage.

Talents

Talents cost 1 Talent Point a piece; a character receives 1 Talent Point every 10 levels. A talent under an arrow requires the one above it learned first. Every point in a talent adds the same again: 2%/4%/6% is what one, two and three points give.

Tree 1

Improved Agility

5 ranks

Increases total agility by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%.

Thick Armor

3 ranks

Increases armor gained from items by 5%/10%/15%.

Flexibility

3 ranks

Increases your chance to dodge physical attacks by 4%/8%/12%.

Discipline

3 ranks

Decrease critical strike chance of physical attacks against you by 10%/20%/30%.

Focus

3 ranks

Lowers rage cost of all hostile attacks by 4%/8%/12%.

Channel Energy

3 ranks

Decreases physical damage taken by 4%/8%/12%.

▼

Improved Stealth

1 rank

Stealth reduces enemy detection range by 50% and increases critical strike chance by 50% on unsuspecting enemies.

Tree 2

Improved Sever

3 ranks

Increases the duration of your sever by 1/2/3 ticks.

Improved Stab

3 ranks

Increases your critical strike chance with stab by 10%/20%/30%.

Improved Strength

5 ranks

Increases total strength by 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%.

▼

Bloodletting

3 ranks

Increases critical strike chance by 10%/20%/30% on bleeding targets.

Pain

3 ranks

Increases your critical strike chance of all hostile attacks by 2%/4%/6%.

Improved Bladestorm

5 ranks

Decreases the cooldown of your Bladestorm attack by 1/2/3/4/5 seconds.

▼

Penetration

1 rank

Reduces the effect of your enemies armor against your attacks by 25%.

Talents (in-depth)

Tree 2 should be prioritized first to maximize damage. the talents on Tree 1 aren't terrible per say, but they wont benefit you as much early on.

Tier 1

Tree 2

• Improved Stab is the top priority as its your most reliable ability at the start. There is no reason not to increase your critical chance by up to 30%
  
• Improved Sever is also important, but no equally so even though its required to learn Bloodletting (and increase crit chance on bleeding targets).
  
  • You need to invest 3 points to even unlock the ability to rank up the next talent. 30% critical chance on stab has way more tangible value than a longer bleed at face value
    
• Improved Strength can be easily skipped as it will take much later before you actually see any benefit from the increased total strength.

Tree 1

• Improved agility falls into the same pitfall and actually suffers even more. definite skip for now
  
• Thick Armor increases your armor from items, but Flexibility has a chance to completely dodge them. Also Thick Armor has a similar issue as Improved Strength/Agility
  
  • Flexibility wins, but since you need 2 more points to access Tier 2 talents Thick armor is easily the next choice

Tier 2

Tree 2

• Despite needing only 5 points to unlock tier 2 talents, Assassin should maximize the ranks of both Improved Sever and Improved Stab before ranking up Bloodletting first (over Pain).
  
  • The critical chance increase on bleeding enemies completely beats out Pain's general critical chance increase.
    
• Improved Bladestorm is actually ridiculously good.
  
  • The only issue is the rage cost you will eventually overcome.
    
  • Therefore theres no rush to rank this up yet.

Tree 1

I want to mention that while Assassin has plenty of talents that deal with physical damage, it has no innate defense against magic damage.

• Therefore Focus is easily the most useful tier 2 talent on Tree 1. It'll indirectly increase your damage by reducing the cost of abilities.
  
  • The 12% rage cost decrease also makes for great value when compared to actually investing into intellect
    
• Personally between Discipline and Channel Energy, the latter feels more enticing. Its sorta hard to determine how much less physical damage you actually take from decreased critical hits taken when compared to a tangible damage decrease.

Tier 3

Tree 2

• Penetration is a straight forward talent that allows you to deal more damage. Nothing wrong with reducing defense.

Tree 1

• Improved Stealth is a solid talent bogged down by the fact you have to invest in a defensive tree over an offensive one. Think of it as a late game goal.