User:Xiay/Top PvE Build

The Basic PvE Dagger Build
This is the classic death blossom spammer. It uses a short attack chain to deal lots of damage allowing other skill slots to be used to help keep you alive. The synergy (linking) between skills and your weapon set is great with this build. With so many good variations seen bellow this build can be used effectively anywhere in the PvE environment. It can also be adapted for some PvP (mainly AB) but actual PvP builds are listed elsewhere.

Attributes and Skills
[build prof=Assassin/Secondary DaggerMastery=11+1 ShadowArts=8 Criticalstrikes=11+1+1

[][Way Of Perfection][Critical agility][critical defense][critical eye][golden phoenix strike][death blossom][moebius strike][shadow refuge] [/build]

Equipment
Energy and health runes/insignias

Slashing damage 7-17 with Zealous tang and +20% longer enchantments and +5 energy.

for more information or further justification for this weapon set see What Daggers To Use?

Usage and Build Stats
Cast enchantments from left to right, critical defence dose not last long so cast it just before battle where possible. Use shadow refuge when health starts to drop (after you have lost about 50 health or straight away if u have big degen).

If your target has enchantment removal consider casting way of perfection after critical defence so that gets striped instead as it is not as important.

This build has high DPS (damage per second) - from spamming death blossom - the actual DPS is around 50 - 70 tested on the master of damage in the battle isles

Average DPS 59

Energy Management - good to excellent

Survivability - good - can maintain 75% blocking enchantment and has health gain = aprox 20.5 per second when in combat against a lvl 20 enemy.

Counters & solutions
Melee Hate - ie, , , NOTE: use Hex removal to solve these problems - hex removal can be expensive so get party monks to take it, and only remove particularly bad hexes like ones above.

Blind - this will prevent you hitting which means no critical strikes which means critical defence goes down fast - which often means one dead assassin - So if you are likely to get blinded a lot (like in Shards of Orr Dungeon) and your party monks are heros/henchies (and are not capable of effective condition removal) consider taking assassins remedy as it removes the condition (blind) before you hit despite the skills description. see bellow.

Variants
/ Dervish Skills - for extra health and  for health regen. Due to the recent "Un Nerfing" of Mystic Regn for PvE this has become very powerful as you can maintain constant +10 health regeneration. (health regen caps at 10 but if all goes to plan you will actually have 15 regen this means even with the odd hex or condition your health will still be going up fast.) Swap points out of shadow arts and put into earth prayers - Swap out Shadow Refuge and Way Of Perfection. Also if you face enchantment removal put vital boon on last as you gain lots of health when it is striped. you can also use to remove vital boon and then re cast vital boon and rend again for fast phenomenal health gain. for this you will need to ditch critical eye this can cause some minor energy managment problems however it provides phenomenal Survivability.

/ Monk Skills - for good health gain per attack (regardless of weather it hits or is blocked etc) This needs 8 points taken from shadow arts and put into healing prayers, should always be used with increased attack speed from critical agility. is another option for further health gain at the loss of a certain amount of energy management. Note you can have a hero healer take Vigorous Spirit so you don’t have to change your build, that way you gain even more health if you hero has 13 healing prayers. Although this may mean "micro management" to ensure it is cast on you when you need it.

/ Warrior Skills - - This is a Kurzick (or Luxon) Warrior skill - This is a great skill for an Assassin as you gain loads of adrenalin from hitting fast and you don't need it for any of your other skills - so rather than waste it put it into the shout "save yourselves" this gives other party members +100 armour for a short amount of time, this equates to almost 85% damage reduction!! It’s also good as it does not slow down your chain of attacks at all as it is a shout. If 2 or three people use this skill it can be kept up constantly even at low ranks (in Kurzick/Luxon title). If using this skill swap out Critical Eye. Although this won’t improve your own survivability it will help your party greatly meaning the monks won’t be under as much pressure and can heal you more.

Hex Removal skills - including for Hex heavy areas.

Speed boosts - like or  (usually in place of critical eye or Way of Perfection).

Resurrect - I personally tend to carry resurrection scrolls in my inventory to save a slot on my bar but if you think you need a res for whatever reason swap out critical eye or way of perfection for or  etc.

Condition removal - (usually in place of critical eye or Way of Perfection) Use this if enemy mob spams conditions like blind or burning, other conditions are not too problematic and you can just "power through" bleeding or poison etc also weakness only effects you inherent damage which is normally very little anyway.

Unlockable strikes -  lead and  off hand - Replace Golden Phoenix Strike and (Critical Eye or Way of Perfection) - Add these unblockable strikes where enemy mobs have lots of blocking (for instance earth wards against melee). If the enemy just blocks a little change target.

Need to add conditions? - is an easy way to make your target bleed, and as it causes bleeding on every hit, condition removal wont help your target as bleeding is applied so often. If using sharpen daggers swap out critical Eye and make sure you cast it before entering combat. The ranger skills apply poison or poison tip signet could be added by an Assassin/Ranger to give poison to the target, for this you would swap out critical eye, you may want to put points into wilderness survival but its not necessary as the signet gives 8 seconds of poison and apply poison gives 3 but refreshes on every hit. However these skills don’t make much difference to you damage output and are not really worth taking.

Ensuring a Critical Strike - Critical Eye and high dagger mastery and high critical strikes ensures that the chance of a critical strike occurring before critical defence runs out is very high, however against opponents with high level or high armour the chance drops, so if you need a guaranteed critical strike change critical eye for  or if your an Assassin/Warrior use. Wild Blow is very good for taking down Shiros powerful stances without inturupting your dagger chain (spamming). Replace Critical Eye with this skill if u want to solo Shiro in HM.Dead Shiro

Damage Boost - can add a big damage boost to surrounding enemy's, - however you would need to put points in Challaling magic instead of Critical Strikes and this would mean a lose of energy management, coupled with the fact you would be casting splinter weapon allot your energy management would be a problem, other weapon spell can also be useful for a list see here &gt;. If you are an Assassin/Necromancer taking will help kill your target or taking  will spam AoE shadow damage to others. However this will often cause enemies to flee. This again will need points in Curses which will cost you energy management or survivability depending where you take the points from. Note rather than take these skills yourself you can take a hero with them. The Triple NecromancerPvE Hero team build allows all the skills to be used and makes a great complement to an Assassin.

Notes about the build

 * If you dont have Nightfall, you will not have access to the skill critical agility. If this is the case try adding one of the variation skills above.


 * If you need to gain Sunspear Rank fast to make Critical Agility powerful go to the Sulpherous Wastes and "farm" Sunspear points by killing Alem the Unclean in Hard mode (if you have it) under Sunspear bounty. for more details click here (note this is the Light bringer farming guid but it is used for LB & SS farming)


 * Very High Level or High Armour enemy's - Its not really a counter but worth including in the notes section. If fighting enemies like destroyers in Hard Mode where they are lvl 30 your chance of landing a critical strike falls (considerably) because critical strike probability is dependent on your enemy's amour and level, this means you will gain less health through Way of Perfection and makes your chance of refreshing critical defence fall greatly. Therefore make sure you are using critical eye or take critical strike see above for more details, also see Info on Critical Strikes -&gt; Understanding Critical Strikes.


 * If you dont have 100K alliance faction to get the skill "Save yourselves" you can get it quickly by repeating Dual of the Houses quest outsdie the north exit to Bauru Academy (remember to take frozen soil), or repeating the quest Securing the Forest or by doing Alliance Battles. Make sure you raise alliance reputation when cashing in the reward. This gives you double faction making it much faster. Amber (or Jade) and passage scrolls are not worth much now anyway.