Jayad
10-17-2006, 03:11 AM
<DIV>The new guild I'm joining didn't have room for a Ranger, so instead I have betrayed to an Assassin. I have kind of thought about doing that for a while, since I would not really have an opportunity to get the top end bows. I don't particularly like or dislike rangers vs. assassins, so it seemed like a good move. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My impressions so far, with almost all adept1/app4 skills and mostly legendary gear pieces from KOS instances & claymore line:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <OL> <LI>Positioning as an assassin is far, far more important on mob switches. Whereas as a Ranger, your tank kinda has to do the work for you (or you'll be fighting among the next group of mobs)</LI> <LI>DPS has been pretty good for not really having any skills or idea of what I'm doing, other than ranger experience. (doing about 600-700 typically in a group without buffs)</LI> <LI>Poison, procs, and auto-attack seems less important based on my parses than they are with Rangers.</LI> <LI>You don't have to waste 8 AA on just getting casting timers down</LI> <LI>Seems like poisons proc less. I think this may just be because my haste is gone. In terms of procs, haste > dps. On the other hand, on raids I expect I can get haste buffs more easily than I could get dps buffs on my ranger.</LI> <LI>Suddenly, my resists & STA look a lot lower than they should be. You definately were less concerned with defensive stuff as a Ranger. Yes, you have to joust as a Ranger, but it changes your primary "job" location. However, I don't think the whole jousting thing will be a big deal. You just need to plug in timers. Having a joust timer seems like it will be a necessity now as opposed to a good idea.</LI> <LI>Chaining CAs correctly is even more important for assasins than Rangers. But you don't really miss auto-attacks. </LI> <LI>Overall, the CAs for Assassins seem a lot better. There are very few that really don't seem worthwhile. The "ancient teachings" ones are very nice and a good match. </LI> <LI>Stealthing matters a lot. If you don't have a stealth-skill/chain up, your dps suffers. </LI> <LI>The skills you get from AAs are actually useful since you're in melee range without dancing the perfect distance dance.</LI> <LI>Both the hate transfer and apply poison buffs are very useful</LI></OL> <P>I may do another update in a few days after I have some more experience with the changes. I'm guessing right now that I cuold come close to matching my ranger's DPS on raids even with adept3s without a lot more skill. The new guild has both a very good ranger and a very good assassin, so I will have a great measuring stick. </P> <P>Some of what I've noticed I'm sure may be incorrect - it's still all very new. It's especially weird that everything seems so similar but ends up working slightly differently, just enough to throw you off.</P><p>Message Edited by Xney on <span class=date_text>10-16-2006</span> <span class=time_text>04:12 PM</span>