Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Assassin Resurrection

So, I'm back from my gladiator run. I'm playing my Assassin again and there are a few things I would like to cover.

Female Attack Speed:

Funcom has stated in no uncertain terms that the "white damage fix" is in, and that they've normalized it. The "combo damage fix" is significantly more complicated and will take awhile.

Okay, the way I understand it is they didn't adjust animations at all yet and they simply made white damage normalized (ie we swing slower as female characters, we hit for more damage...) The problem with this, especially when PvPing is that a lot of time is spent white swinging (ie slower swings) so you can build up combos, the combo time itself doesn't actually matter much (it still matters)- because when it lands, if you don't move... all of the hits land regardless of how fast the combo fires off.

So, this fix isn't really acceptable... not to mention the fact that if I press Q for LL attack, and then strafe and press Q for LL attack, the animation is still significantly faster resulting in 2-3 additional LL attack swings every 15s. Now, I'm still leaving this up in the air until we see the final fix but as of now I'm not impressed.

Full Lotus PvP:

I did some mild testing tonight with this spec:

Full Lotus Build

It's been quite an interesting experience. The build definitely doesn't have the one shot "oomph" that you get every 1 minute with full corruption/corruption hybrid but it certainly has its perks. The build for me has been mostly about DPS'ing someone (even healers) until their hots drop/they've used their big heal, throwing down curse of the lotus (so they don't re-hot themselves) and going in for the kill.

The DoT damage does add up if you have SDS IV/GC 4/GC 3/Lotus Weapons/Flesh Rot/Kidney Shots... I went primarily with spell invulns in the general tree due to the fact that I don't (and haven't really had) any problem with melee classes as it seems to come down to skill/knockdown resist cooldowns a lot of the time.

One PoM fight in particular went about two minutes where we were sparring back and forth... all of the sudden he didn't have HoTs on and his big heal/immunity was down. ~15s later he was dead on a Kidney Shots->GCIV/SDSIV/SSX.

Takeaways:
Female attack speed is still up in the air.

Everyone needs 5 points in Excellent Balance. I don't care WHAT spec you are, having 5 points in this talent is invaluable.

Escape Artist really is extremely useful, despite how much I've ignored it in the past. It's more useful I feel in a full Lotus build where you don't have From the Darkness to close the gap when the root wears off. In a full corruption/corruption hybrid I still see it as "fluff."

Curse of the Lotus is extremely fun/easy to use- the AOE fear/ranged fear catches most people off guard and it's a good way to make sure HoT's run their duration.

As expected, Swift Ending and and even moreso Assassination at 80 are extremely potent when combined with Flesh Rot/Lotus Weapons/Deft Blades. I knew this at 60 when I first tried them out, but wanted to reaffirm this position at 80.

Lotus Overdose is much how I originally predicted- more or less a stamina regen skill, which if you use correctly can also be used for burst. That being said, I've used it for mostly keeping ahead in stamina and chasing people down.

8 comments:

Farquaad said...

Evii, what are your thoughts on Sabotage Armor? is it really worth 5 points?

Viia said...

Going to go into Sabotage and talk more about full lotus tomorrow if I get time at work.

Gaas said...

just wondering,invulnerabilitys work in pvp?

craylon said...

playing lotus myselve at 75

atm im thinking about a good pvp build. with your build i wonder about a few points:

1. corrupted body
my experience was that it didnt activate that often and a lot of times pvp was over bevore i could make use of it.

2. accelerated
since i usually use gc and 2 different sds the combos are recharged even without spending points on accelerated

3. sabotage armor
i never used that. do you like it ?

in general my best moments are when i die at the end of a 1vs1 but 2 sec after the opponent gets killed by the lotus dots (wich imho could be eevn stronger and last longer)

in pvp im still insecure about:

1. flesh necrosis
doesnt seem to do huge damage compared to a normal hit especially at the end of the pvp when assasination and other stuff would be in effect

2. impede life
is that even a pvp combo or is it only for raids ? how much less hp does the enemy regen if its in effect ?

Anonymous said...

Evii, why on earth don't you have second wind?

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Viia said...

Andrew,

Why on earth would I need Second Wind? Between stamina potions/Lotus Overdose I regen stamina at a rediculous rate and rarely find myself running out if I'm conservative while jousting (and I usually am.)

The better question would be why do I have sabotage armor or some of the other filler feats, and the answer is more or less: I was testing them out.

Farquaad said...

i always thought of a Second Wind as more of a Raid spec talant. would you agree with that?