How to Play Your Level 80 Assassin

This mini-section of the PvP guide I'm working on is one of the most important parts. Due to the seriously unhandleable amount of ingame tells I've received and the glut of level 80 assassins complaining about how they are bad in PvP I've decided to post this early, and interrupt my Corruption guide (part 2 and 3 are still on the way, though...) One important note is this really applies to level 70+, lower than 70 just isn't that important to me PvP-wise and it's a completely different animal.

Special thanks to Kimbo and Grehm on Tyranny for helping with all of the testing.

Two things I want to make perfectly clear:

I have all of the respect in the world for those of you who sent me tells attempting to be a better player. I've had level 80 assassins in rival guilds sending me tells saying they just needed to work on their pvp and wanted to know where to start, I've had level 20's and 30's sending me tells asking for help getting better at leveling. I really think these players, the people sending me tells asking how they can get better, sending ideas to me to test, helping me get better, or bouncing ideas back and forth with me are really the people that I'm posting this for.

I have absolutely zero respect for anyone posting about how you're class is terrible, how you're garbage, how you're quitting, rerolling a ToS, whatever. You aren't putting forth any effort, you aren't contributing anything, you're basically chicken little two weeks into the games release. You are claiming the class is doomed, claiming 99% or some equally ridiculous number pulled from thin air of assassins are having equally frustrating play experiences, though you have no idea. Basically, you're worthless. This blog is not about getting hits, or generating traffic, as you can see I have zero advertisements and have no monetary motivations for driving traffic to my blog. This blog is about helping players that have a desire to help themselves.

All that being said, here is the excerpt from my PvP guide:

How to Open - The Most Important Part of Any Engagement:

One thing you need to understand or grasp before you begin engaging in PvP whether it be 1v1 or GvG is how the PvP in this game works right now. The general feeling that I get PvPing post 70 is there is a strong kill or be killed attitude.

It's strikingly similar to how World of Warcraft arena was early on during Season One. No one had substantial resilience gear and there was no arena water so you had to simply kill or be killed.

So you have a system in AoC where you win or lose a fight in around 15 seconds in general. There are classes HoX, Conqueror, and Ranger that can literally one shot you. There are classes that should they root, stun, or knock you down will win almost all of the time. How do you deal with this? Well, the simple answer is you stunlock them to death, and if they're not dead by the time stunlock is up- you immune yourself to CC, if they're not dead halfway through CC immunity, you run away.

This brings about a very important question (and at this point in the game, the most important question, and that is in what order do you use your skills during the first 10-15s? This is by far the most important part of the fight and if you're not doing it textbook you're going to have serious problems. I've done a lot of testing, Kimbo and Grehm have let me attack them for hours on end, and this is basically what we've come up with. I'm crediting Kimbo with the first step in this combo, he's the real pioneer, I just happen to be the one willing to try every single combination until I find out what works the best, put it in excel, and the put it in a blog.

As of right now, this is very rudimentary. I mean that literally, in that... I have a feeling for what works best- but I haven't been able to test it on every class extensively to find out which open works best on which class. So I'm going to give you the generic how-to, and you can wait for the full write-up with class breakdown and different combos to use.

1.) Use Lunge
Using this skill will bring you out of stealth.

2.) Use From the Darkness
You will charge the target, stun them for 3s, and your hit will resemble a sneak attack in damage while granting you a soul fragment. You get +25% on the mainhand lunge and you get an extra large offhand hit which on occasion hits for more than the mainhand but they're usually pretty comparable. There are three things that will add greatly to the success of this Lunge->From the Darkness combo and are detailed below.

2.a.) Movement
You CAN NOT From the Darkness a moving target. You absolutely have to wait until they are standing still. If the target is standing still From the Darkness will work correctly almost all of the time. If the target is moving, it will barely ever work correctly.

2.b.) Distance
The distance you charge with From the Darkness can have an effect on your success. It gives the player a fraction of a second to move and screw up your attack. You want to open up at the minimum range so the From the Darkness travel time is a little as possible.

2.c.) Practice
Practice opening like this on mobs, it works just as well and you'll get a feel for the timing of the following steps. THIS IS IMPORTANT.

3.) Grim Corruption
At this point, you have one Soul Fragment and you're on top of a target that should be at 70-50% health (depending on class... usually closer to 50% health...)You want to fire off Grim Corruption as quickly as possible. You will intially be surprised at how many people die from simply Lunge-FTD-Grim Corruption, but don't let it get to your head... a lot of classes won't.

4.) Death's Gaze
Using this will use your first soul fragment. This skill has a chance to stun OR fear. This doesn't skill and From the Darkness have no immunity conflicts. You can even switch up Step 3 and 4 if you're having issues with timing, but I don't suggest it because it lowers the power level of the combo quite a bit. What you're essentially doing here is Cheap Shot (From the Darkness) into Kidney Shot (Death's Gaze). If you land Death's Gaze after Grim Corruption and the stun from From the Darkness is still up, the target will not move when feared. If you land it while the target is not moving, they will not move generally. I've found that in PvP it tends to stun more, and in PvE it tends to fear more, but that's basically irrelevant. The next step is a choice in playstyle and also depends on which class you're playing against.

5.a.) Avatar of Death / Excellent Balance
At this point you should have one soul fragment left. You should use your last soul fragment to pop Avatar of Death (anti CC) and you should pop Excellent Balance. Avatar will protect you for 20s, and Excellent Balance for 10s. This will make you immune to Stun, Knockdown, Root, etc. I then move to 5.b.) though the skills can be exchanged, if you're playing super aggressive and don't think the person will get a chance to CC you or you think they're going for a heal over CC.

5.a.) Corrupting Strikes
During Death's Gaze as well I'll often pop Corrupting Strikes, which costs a soul fragment, if I happened to generate an extra during my combos. I do this so that when I fire through Swift Strikes I have > 20% chance to OH hit all of the Swift Strike hits. This isn't necessary but it helps, and after you do this you will be out of Soul Fragments until you land other combos.

5.b.) Swift Strikes
During Death's Gaze after I've blown my anti-cc I start working on Swift Strikes and go for the kill with it.


From here, I evaluate the situation. If I think I can get the kill I continue, use leeches, etc, if I don't, I run. There are exceptions. There are classes where you need to open differently, but as a whole this should increase your success significantly. Sometimes I'll Impede Life during Death's Gaze, sometimes I'll force a healer to blow their 1 minute heal cooldown and the run away and reset the fight so I can kill them while it's not up. These are class dependent decisions that I'm not including in this snippit of my PvP guide. There are a lot of little things here that are dependent on the situation but those first 5 steps are what will make you notice an immediate, significant, and sustainable power difference.