Assassin solo run

[freddfranca]

Hi guys

I’d like tô know your toughts about an Assassin solo run.

What would be more strategical and more rewarding, a SC Assassin melee or a sniper , probrably MC with Bleak Walker?

 

edit: @BoeroerI saw in another topic you talk about an Assassin/Skaen. Could you tell me more about it? 

Edited June 2, 2021 by freddfranca

[Not So Clever Hound]

Assassin multi can be great with Cipher, Devoted, Bloodmage, Bleak walker. In most cases ranged is more powerful/convenient but melee can be fun. I’ve posted in this forum solo mindstalker and swashbuckler full builds that I can share later or that you can search (on my phone now). 

SC Assassin is a god if he can get good duration on Vanishing Strike and take advantage of Gambit. An assassin that can actually stay in combat. I’m playing one now with the 2 unique spears and stacking cabalist gambeson, strand of favor (no abuse) and Mari crudia. It’s really fun to have like 12sec of vanishing strike every use and have 4 uses per fight + full gambit refund. However it’s annoying in melee as certain enemies tend to wander around in combat when they can’t see you so you lose time chasing or get “miss: out of range”.

So in general the typical Hit n’ Run tactic is more convenient but isn’t for everyone. It’s the easiest/fastest with bloodmage using fire spells and stacking +PL and/or with blightheart or engoliero do espirs. Massive AoE assassination and you can also complement with hard CC and multiple smoke veil to take down an entire battlefield in one go. 

[Elric Galad]

35 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

SC Assassin is a god if he can get good duration on Vanishing Strike and take advantage of Gambit. An assassin that can actually stay in combat. I’m playing one now with the 2 unique spears and stacking cabalist gambeson, strand of favor (no abuse) and Mari crudia. 

Don't forget Ooblit pet. It comes late and is only available to MC (or Eder, but Eder can't be an assassin) but it is the most effiient for Vanishing Strikes.

[freddfranca]

I already looked at your devoted/assassin Guide, it’s great BTW.

I am trying the SC Assassin, I considered follow your build and go for an Axe, but I decided go only assassin.

[Boeroer]

Solo runs with Assassin tend to be hit-and-run (or hit and vanish) approaches. 

In the vanilla game I think Assassin/Tactician with Dragon's Dowry the way to go because you'll become Brilliant as soon as you use Smoke Veil - which means you can use Smoke Veil every time after a shot to reload in peace and get back the Guile needed for the next Smoke Veil. No running needed. At least it used to work that way. No idea if invisibility triggering Brilliant was patched out but I think not. Against pierce immune foes you might want a backup weapon - e.g. Eccea's Arcane Blaster or Essence Interrupter or whatever. 

Ranged Assassin/Bleak Walker is very good in the beginning but I find it to lack dmg output in the later game. You won't be able to one- or two-spot most enemies rel. early which means you'll have to resort to DoTs like Gouging Strike + Brand Enemy eventually. Might as well switch to melee then and use Lover's Embrace, too. 

Assassin/Skaen is cool thematically but overall not overly exciting, Shadowing Beyonds of the Priest is implemented quirkily and breaks on DoTs which is meh. - Besides that it's just a Priest + Assassinate who has to vanish from combat to survive.  Except if you abuse Barring Deaths Door + Salvation of Time + Brilliant of course. Then it's a bit like God mode. Or "Major Avatar"... Use a Death Godlike for thematic and PG reasons. You can then use invisibility all the time for highest DMG output.

Assassin/Bloodmage with Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure can CC enemies into the stone age without getting revealed and then finish with high impact DMG spells + Shadowing Beyond or Smoke Veil. With Healing Gloves and Wall of Draining you'll have enough health for Blood Sacrifice. 

All in all the Assassin/Tactician way may be the most easy to play and straightforward. I didn't try it myself for long (only until mid game) but I saw an impressive video by @Kaylonwho introduced this combo some while ago. 

 

 

[Boeroer]

8 minutes ago, freddfranca said:

I already looked at your devoted/assassin Guide, it’s great BTW.

I am trying the SC Assassin, I considered follow your build and go for an Axe, but I decided go only assassin.

SC Assassin with Community Patch can be bonkers with dual mortars. That is with Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak. You use Vanishing Strikes (maxed INT, all duration boosters available) and then Gambit. Best used against crowed mobs, so lure them somewhere with a trap or so.

Just run right into them in order to unlock Backstabs with mortars. Stunning with the Cloak helps that they don't run around then.

Hand Mortar unlocks Deathblows via Blinding Smoke, Fire in the Hole jumps around. All hits rolls in <2m range will apply the Backstab dmg.

Against single targets obviously use something else. The fastest setup is nice -  for example Pukestabber + Marux Amanth + Miscreant's Leather + Abraham + Blackblade's Hood and so on. Although Pukestabber prevents you from using duration+ food, so maybe do some math or tests first which approach has the better outcome (+duration food or alcohol). If you use food stacking that's a no brainer imo. You want to deal as many Backstabs during VS duration as possible. With Gambit also Sun & Moon + fast offhand weapon is great (three chances to crit and very fast recovery).

[Not So Clever Hound]

7 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Don't forget Ooblit pet. It comes late and is only available to MC (or Eder, but Eder can't be an assassin) but it is the most effiient for Vanishing Strikes.

That's right I forgot about it since I'm usually doing FS super late. With it I should be able to reach 15+sec Vanishing Strikes, which lets you go nuts with multiple Gambits AND move around if enemies go back to their position. Nice!

[Haplok]

On 6/3/2021 at 7:40 AM, Not So Clever Hound said:

So in general the typical Hit n’ Run tactic is more convenient but isn’t for everyone. It’s the easiest/fastest with bloodmage using fire spells and stacking +PL and/or with blightheart or engoliero do espirs. Massive AoE assassination and you can also complement with hard CC and multiple smoke veil to take down an entire battlefield in one go. 

I general I agree with most. Except the focus on Fire spells. My experience has been that Fire spells are not that good. Well, maybe Delayed Fireball, but I think its tricky to use. Was next to impossible to use effectively with Assassinate in Turn Based mode.

Otherwise Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst does A LOT more damage then any Fire spells for multiclass characters.

[Not So Clever Hound]

2 hours ago, Haplok said:

Otherwise Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst does A LOT more damage then any Fire spells for multiclass characters.

That's fair, to be honest I prefer that too.  e.g. Arkemyr Dazzling Light to lure & group enemies out of combat > Shadowflame from stealth > come close and MPPB/Second Shadow Flame/Second MPPB with the Ghost Blades procs of Engoliero = ouch. It doesn't get any more Arcane Assassin-ish than that . Actually Pernicious Cloud can be a nice fast complement to this strategy too for the huge AoE, long Reflex debuff and high DoT but in my experience things die too fast for it to really matter.

When you time right a Delayed Fireball while stacking +5 extra fire PL + scion of flame + crusted swordfish & Assassinate though, the fire damage can get bonkers as well.

[Haplok]

Well, granted this was in Turn Based, real time would be different. But 5 most used damage spells on my spellblade were:

1. MPPB (duh)

2. Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar (despite no Assassinate - its just that good!)

3. Ninagauth's Death Ray (it'd work far worse in real time I guess... and couldn't benefit much from Assassinate)

4. Chain Lightning (for Deltro's Cage lash)

5. Ninagauth's Shadowflame (mainly as an opener)

 

Lots of Ninagauth's Teachings there. And... no Fire. In real time I guess I'd try to use Delayed Fireball a lot more. Still, 1 of 5 - not enough for me to focus on.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Haplok

[Boeroer]

No Death Ring from invisibility on near death enemies? I find the instakill-feature quite nice at times. 

[Not So Clever Hound]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

No Death Ring from invisibility on near death enemies? I find the instakill-feature quite nice at times. 

Well it would be awesome indeed if it wasn't competing with MPPB on the same PL  which will do more damage overall to everyone and kill Near Death foes too. Apart from the insane DMG and PEN of MPPB, in my opinion it is always better to target REF vs. FORT. Enemies that have more REF than FORT also have less health so you will still annihilate them with MPPB even without Critting like a maniac. On high FORT/low REF enemies, you will do huge damage from invisibility with the Crit % from Assassinate and Overpen bonus.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[freddfranca]

I am planning an Assassin blunderbuss build. Maybe pair with Paladin (for FoD) Or even Ghostheart ( the nice ranger acc passives). What are your thoughts?

[Boeroer]

That an Assassin is best combined with a caster.  

Assassin/Paladin is a nice endless DoT combo though - one of the easiest ways to solo the game without using unintended mechanics.  

[Reent]

2 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

That an Assassin is best combined with a caster.  

Assassin/Paladin is a nice endless DoT combo though - one of the easiest ways to solo the game without using unintended mechanics.  

But who needs Brand Enemy if he has Gouging strike? With Watershapers Focus you can get it on quite some enemies with one use of it.

Assassin/Casters+1

1 hour ago, freddfranca said:

I am planning an Assassin blunderbuss build. Maybe pair with Paladin (for FoD) Or even Ghostheart ( the nice ranger acc passives). What are your thoughts?

Blunderbuss... i rather use Red Hand and Watershapers Focus with Assassin, 2 attacks before reloading is nice to burst.

Never tried Blunderbusses, maybe Thunderous Report is something? Else i just don't see anything i want from Blunderbusses...

I'd rather use ranger than paladin, however i play in a way that i don't fight straight up, i "assassinate" enemies and reset the fight - paladin isn't that usefull for it, driving flight, ghostheart, more ACC sounds like a better deal

[Raven Darkholme]

16 minutes ago, Reent said:

But who needs Brand Enemy if he has Gouging strike? With Watershapers Focus you can get it on quite some enemies with one use of it.

Assassin/Casters+1

Blunderbuss... i rather use Red Hand and Watershapers Focus with Assassin, 2 attacks before reloading is nice to burst.

Never tried Blunderbusses, maybe Thunderous Report is something? Else i just don't see anything i want from Blunderbusses...

I'd rather use ranger than paladin, however i play in a way that i don't fight straight up, i "assassinate" enemies and reset the fight - paladin isn't that usefull for it, driving flight, ghostheart, more ACC sounds like a better deal

Tbf brand and gouging stack.

I'd personally prefer to combine assassin with casters too, or ofc sc, but paladin is a very nice class.

[Kaylon]

Assassin/Bleak Walker with Flames of Devotions and arquebus has the highest burst damage from stealth and can easily kill enemies one by one. He's also a very solid melee character with good defense and damage. It's also the only combo able to stack 3 infinite dots. 

[freddfranca]

@Kaylonand about the Assassin/Tactician? How does it works? I played a tactician/ascendant and was good, brilliant all the time. 

[Kaylon]

7 minutes ago, freddfranca said:

@Kaylonand about the Assassin/Tactician? How does it works? I played a tactician/ascendant and was good, brilliant all the time. 

Assassin/Tactician gains Brilliant while invisible and can restore his resources at any time. You can play it like a sniper

but also as a melee dps once you have Unbending. You can restore your resources either by becoming invisible, either by flanking all enemies  - you can apply gouging strike in an AoE with a mortar or flank passively all engaged enemies with Persistent Distraction.

 

[Boeroer]

6 hours ago, Reent said:

But who needs Brand Enemy if he has Gouging strike?

Somebody who fights enemies who use healing abilities infinite times (e.g. Torkar or paladins like Rathun Fanatics etc.). Gouging Strike will just prevent that combat ends - but will not be able to kill those enemies because its damage is not high enough to overcome the healing. And if barely can kill them it will take forever. 

Also Brand Enemy is an auto-hit - which makes killing totally overleveled enemies a piece of cake. One handed Lover's Embrace with a Gouging Strike from stealth (=extremely high ACC) followed by Brand Enemy (auto-hit): you applied 3 endless DoTs in a heartbeat and are left with 0 recovery. Time to vanish...

You can kill anything at even low levels as long as you can retreat. I use this build to have a solo character who can quickly obtain all sorts of items for export. There's nothing better for this imo because not many other builds can kill certain enemies that early in the game. 

I prefer Goldpact over Bleak Walker because with a good armor (usually Devil of Caroc for the additional Guile/Zeal) and Gilded Enmity I can easily stay visible after the initial attack from stealth and shrug off attacks. In the meantime I will apply Brand Enemy to several enemies who could potentially heal my main target (remember: Brand Enemy is an auto-hit and has fast cast/no recovery). This occupies them with healing themselves or each other and lets them forget to heal my main target. Since Brand Enemy only costs 1 Zeal you can apply it to a lot of enemies very quickly - then vanish. 
 

5 hours ago, Kaylon said:

It's also the only combo able to stack 3 infinite dots. 

Indeed. And that is enough even for enemies who heal a lot. I didn't meet an enemy who outhealed this combination. 

5 hours ago, Kaylon said:

Assassin/Bleak Walker with Flames of Devotions and arquebus has the highest burst damage from stealth and can easily kill enemies one by one.

Yes, the high burst damage is also there from lvl 1 on and is especially nice in the beginning of the game before any endless DoTs are available.
 

 

[Reent]

5 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Somebody who fights enemies who use healing abilities infinite times (e.g. Torkar or paladins like Rathun Fanatics etc.). Gouging Strike will just prevent that combat ends - but will not be able to kill those enemies because its damage is not high enough to overcome the healing. And if barely can kill them it will take forever. 

Also Brand Enemy is an auto-hit - which makes killing totally overleveled enemies a piece of cake. One handed Lover's Embrace with a Gouging Strike from stealth (=extremely high ACC) followed by Brand Enemy (auto-hit): you applied 3 endless DoTs in a heartbeat and are left with 0 recovery. Time to vanish...

You can kill anything at even low levels as long as you can retreat. I use this build to have a solo character who can quickly obtain all sorts of items for export. There's nothing better for this imo because not many other builds can kill certain enemies that early in the game. 

I prefer Goldpact over Bleak Walker because with a good armor (usually Devil of Caroc for the additional Guile/Zeal) and Gilded Enmity I can easily stay visible after the initial attack from stealth and shrug off attacks. In the meantime I will apply Brand Enemy to several enemies who could potentially heal my main target (remember: Brand Enemy is an auto-hit and has fast cast/no recovery). This occupies them with healing themselves or each other and lets them forget to heal my main target. Since Brand Enemy only costs 1 Zeal you can apply it to a lot of enemies very quickly - then vanish. 
 

Indeed. And that is enough even for enemies who heal a lot. I didn't meet an enemy who outhealed this combination. 

Yes, the high burst damage is also there from lvl 1 on and is especially nice in the beginning of the game before any endless DoTs are available.
 

 

Rathun are fire Immune, so no use for Brand enemy.

I didn't find many enemies that survived Gouging Strike, Rathun i did single pull and simply killed them one at a time (for the bounty) one at a time they are pathetic weak even with 3 red skulls and bad equipement, Red Hand burst)

Torkar, i don't remember, its an easy enough encounter if you don't mind kiting - but sure, brand enemy would make it really easy.

 

I had one character that used Brand Enemy, he was quite tanky (large shield), the 0,4 sec cast time was enough to get enemies to hit a few times with CC if i tried to use it on more than one enemy, thats my experience with it, thats why i don't want to open a fight with Gouging Strike - Brand enemy more than once - shadow veil, maybe its a wrong impression and shadow veil is inherently different from running to a corner, but with my mindstalker i just tried to get away fast - 2 hits from red hand into shadow veil or 1 attack from watershapers focus into shadow veil - and it worked perfectly, i never had problems getting overwhelmed because i was knocked down or anything. Never missed more damage (okay, thats a lie, i'd have loved more damage against the Megabosses and a few others, but they died either way)

But sure, Paladin is never bad, i think the only characters that don't like Paladin as 2nd class would be "on getting killed" characters

[freddfranca]

Noob question: how do I know what spells I can cast from stealth? I will try the Assassin/bloodmage (or evoker).

[Boeroer]

All abilities that do an attack roll you can use from stealth (rule of thumb). 

Note that pulsing spells don't make as much sense to cast from stealth in most cases because only the first pulse will get the Assassinate bonus and it will also break invisibility with every pulse. 

Also the Assassin/Wizard's strength isn't always the damaging spell but also to cast a very potent hard CC from stealth/invisibility with high ACC and then follow up with  damage (can use invisibility in between ofc.). With Ninagauth's Shadowflame you have both at the same time - so that's a popular spell among most Assassin/Wizard players as an opener.

As a Bloodmage you can become invisible unlimited times per encounter in theory which I would prefer over Evoker's passive. Although an empowered Evoker spells from stealth can be very effective, too. Since you can restart combat at will most of times and also can use Brilliant + Wall of Draining the limited spells are not that much of an issue. 

Edited June 6, 2021 by Boeroer

[Haplok]

Evoker looses access to Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar, which is one of the best damage spells (even if not very compatible with Assassinate). As well as many other usefull spells (Chillfog!).

Also the biggest force multiplier for nukers is the Deltro's Cage helmet. And when you wear that and hit yourself with Chain Lightning, you do NOT want the effect to duplicate (and Evoker special could cause that sometimes).

In general damage-wise Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst rules for spellblade assassins. Delayed Blast Fireball might be good also, but the timing is tricky to use (its outright impossible to use it effectively with Assassinate in Turn Based mode)