Assassin CA cycle?

[methodicllama]

hey guys, i just started raiding with my assassin and was wondering if there was a preferred CA cycle or certain debuffs that <b>absolutely </b>need to be up as often as possible on a raid target like with my wizard. likewise, are there any CA's that i shouldnt even bother using at all as i have with my wizard or is it just everything and anything as often as its up. thanks for the replies.

[Kokus]

<cite>methodicllama wrote:</cite><blockquote>hey guys, i just started raiding with my assassin and was wondering if there was a preferred CA cycle or certain debuffs that <b>absolutely </b>need to be up as often as possible on a raid target like with my wizard. likewise, are there any CA's that i shouldnt even bother using at all as i have with my wizard or is it just everything and anything as often as its up. thanks for the replies. </blockquote> Your most consistent damage will come from your bleed abilities.  Mark, Cloaked Assault, and the 3 single target DoTs.

[methodicllama]

yeah ive been using those 3 as often as they are up. ill be sure to use that ae as well. thanks for the tip. any others would also be greatly appreciated.

[Kokus]

<cite>methodicllama wrote:</cite><blockquote>yeah ive been using those 3 as often as they are up. ill be sure to use that ae as well. thanks for the tip. any others would also be greatly appreciated. </blockquote> I think that right there should be a big boost.  Zone wides show the largest % of my CA damage comes from Mark, then Cloaked Assault.

[Jvaloth]

<p>Dont forget to tab through the mobs and hit them with bleeds if you already have your bleeds on the primary target.  (And arent mezzing encounters etc).  </p><p>Every little bit of dot tickage helps.</p><p>Also if you have a slower speed primary (for procs)  try and time your CA's inbetween your auto attack cycles  to maximize DPS.  Spamming CA's can slow down your DPS since you arent getting auto attack procs/crits when doing so.</p>

[Fetish]

<p>I am completely new to the world of assassin.  My old main was a dirge and I never had to really worry about DPS.. poisons.. CAs.. etc.  I was very lucky to get to 70 quickly, nicely geared through raiding and have had 100AAs for a while now.  </p><p> My problem is.. I am having real issues trying to figure out what order to do my CAs in.  No matter how hard I try I can only get about 900-1100 on the parse.  I was very lucky to hit 2200 twice but cant get back to that point.  I am constantly getting my butt handed to be by our ranger and brig.  I get tossed between the MT group and in a group with a dirge.  <which seems to help the most>  </p><p> I would love to talk to someone about what order to use my CAs.  I have been reading posts in this forum and I have some ideas of what to try but its still I am coming up short.  Any suggestions would rock and help me go in the right direction.  </p>

[Jayad]

<p>Well, I can tell you how I do it.  Maybe it will work for you, maybe not.</p><ol><li>Start with Intoxication before fight.  Stealth. </li><li>Cloaked Assault from stealth to begin.  (usually)</li><li>If it's a group of mobs, I'll backstab and use Slaughtersault.  I often have to reposition myself to get most of them in the cone.</li><li>Mark </li><li>Debuff mob's mitigation & poison, if they aren't gonna die too fast.</li><li>At this point I'd cast the haste & dps buff and/or exacting if I want to use them.</li><li>Cast Crippling strike and all the DOTs, plus Freezing Strike</li><li>Sinister strike (if it will work)</li><li>Cast concealment when there is a CA up which can hit, for example poison combination</li><li>Rip off all the backstabs in order</li><li>Cast anything that refreshes.</li></ol><p>To really hit high dps, you need good gear (esp. the top weapons), crit boosters, good str, and decent buffs.  Without some of those things, it will be hard to break 1500 much.</p><p>I don't usually worry too much about pausing and waiting for strikes.  Although I don't really chain them all in a row, I cast them pretty fast.</p><p>In my guild, if I cast too much damage in the first few seconds I will peel the mob, so the casting order takes that into account a little bit.  There is a big spike of damage after about 15 seconds.</p>

[Siclone]

<cite>Jayad wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Well, I can tell you how I do it.  Maybe it will work for you, maybe not.</p><ol><li>Start with Intoxication before fight.  Stealth. </li><li><b><u>Cloaked Assault from stealth to begin.  (usually)</u></b></li><li>If it's a group of mobs, I'll backstab and use Slaughtersault.  I often have to reposition myself to get most of them in the cone.</li><li>Mark </li><li>Debuff mob's mitigation & poison, if they aren't gonna die too fast.</li><li>At this point I'd cast the haste & dps buff and/or exacting if I want to use them.</li><li>Cast Crippling strike and all the DOTs, plus Freezing Strike</li><li>Sinister strike (if it will work)</li><li>Cast concealment when there is a CA up which can hit, for example poison combination</li><li>Rip off all the backstabs in order</li><li>Cast anything that refreshes.</li></ol><p>To really hit high dps, you need good gear (esp. the top weapons), crit boosters, good str, and decent buffs.  Without some of those things, it will be hard to break 1500 much.</p><p>I don't usually worry too much about pausing and waiting for strikes.  Although I don't really chain them all in a row, I cast them pretty fast.</p><p>In my guild, if I cast too much damage in the first few seconds I will peel the mob, so the casting order takes that into account a little bit.  There is a big spike of damage after about 15 seconds.</p></blockquote><p>This goes with my question on my other post but you caste cloaked assualt even if its only one mob? Thats an AE atttack right?</p><p>I find this interesting, I dont have the raid experince as many of you, but it seems to me the risk you run is that the mob dies before you can get off your concealment chain.  If you did the chain first, then you would make sure the big hits landed and then the dots.</p><p>I understand that most of the DPS comes from the dots, but that is only because you use them more, you can get them off at anytime. Obvousily the most damage per hit comes from the back shots, in stealth. </p><p>I am not a number geek but, I always started with a big hit from stealth followed by the attack that gets you in stealth then another big hit, (that only takes a couple of seconds and makes sure you get at least two big shots in) then run the chain of dots, by the time your stealth hit was up again and you get get another big back shot in and then mabye final blow.  I mean allot of times you will hit every CA and wait for one to pop to use again anyway, so...</p><p> I also find that statement above this one that he changes off the main target to dot the adds, very interesting, I cant imgaine that doing anything but wasting time but I could be wrong.  Certainly not helping the raid, killing one mob as fast as possible is ideal in mulitiple target encounters.  </p>

[Jayad]

I very rarely switch targets. It may be a little better, but I'm often MA so I can't switch. One thing to consider is when you put DOTs on other mobs they aren't usually debuffed, so your DOTs do less damage. They're also relatively short duration, the only exception being Intoxication. Yes, I always open with Cloaked Assault, even on single mobs. It's not a bad dot in and of itself, and it's fast casting. I know some other good assassins who do things slightly differently, so you can probably get good dps in several ways. It's absolutely important that you get the DOTs off quickly because they take longer to go full effect. If the mobs are dying really fast then maybe it's differfent. I don't really change things up too much because there's not a lot of situations that require a change for assassins.

[whytakemine]

<cite>Siclone wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I find this interesting, I dont have the raid experince as many of you, but it seems to me the risk you run is that the mob dies before you can get off your concealment chain.  If you did the chain first, then you would make sure the big hits landed and then the dots.</p><p>I am not a number geek but, I always started with a big hit from stealth followed by the attack that gets you in stealth then another big hit, (that only takes a couple of seconds and makes sure you get at least two big shots in) then run the chain of dots, by the time your stealth hit was up again and you get get another big back shot in and then mabye final blow.  I mean allot of times you will hit every CA and wait for one to pop to use again anyway, so...</p></blockquote><p>It only takes ~10s to get off the concealment chain, so I wouldn't worry about the mob dying before you get it off.  Sometimes a mob dies in the middle of the concealment chain and I have to switch to the next to finish off my back attacks (assuming a group encounter), but since I use my big attacks at the start of concealment it's not that big a deal.</p><p> Waiting on your big attacks will net you more dps because the mob will be more debuffed than if you nuke immediately.  <--- Very important. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>My order is pretty close to Jayad's, with maybe a little more emphasis on landing debuffs and bleeds a bit earlier (slaughtersault and mark come after debuffs for sure).  </p><p>A brigand in the raid will help your dps out tons.  If they are calling out dispatch, you want to wait for the dispatch call to unload your concealment chain. </p><p>I disagree about it being hard to break 1.5k though.  I broke 3k on one of the corpuscles last time in DT, and I'm in pretty average gear (~700 STR raid buffed w/ a STR potion, adamantine dragonfang + wurmslayer, ~25% melee crits).    Zonewide was 1.5k, and that was with no miracles.</p>

[Siclone]

<p>I am going to try this next time I raid, I dont think its a good group statergy cause the mobs die so fast and most times your just hitting what is up</p><p>how many mobs do you think there should be to make slaughter worth using then? </p>

[HellRaiserXX]

<p>I generally pop intoxication, pop exacting and then start in with the 3 non-stealth DOTs, Contriction, Mark.  By now the brigand has dispatched and I hit concealment, crippling strike and ring off the stealth attacks.  Use my remaining CAs that are up, refresh the dots, mark, and do masked attack-puncture blade until concealment is up again while using surveil to get off Cloaked assault as much as possible and keeping the dots on.</p><p>If its a grp encounter I start in stealth and hit cloaked assault, masked attack, slaughterassualt and then go into the regular routine. I prefer to stagger Exacting, Deadly Focus, and Honed Reflexes over several fights so for the most part I have one up at all times. You are better off to parse consistantly high over as many fights as possible than try to win the game in one fight, parse will be higher in a zonewide that way.  </p>

[ruperick]

<p>Ok im confused jayed "Start with Intoxication before fight"?? What exactly do you mean?</p><p>Here is my ca cycle atm when assist is called I rush in stealth and:</p><p>Cloaked assault-Malignent mark-Enmesh-Constriction-3 non stealth dot's-Freezing strike-Poison combination- Contrived weapon-sinister strike (if can use)-Crippling strike, keep dot's ticking and when dispatch goes off I use the concealment chain in this order, Decapitate-Killing blade- Eviscerate-Puncture blade-Jugular then if quick enough Cloaked assault again. Main thing is to spam malignent mark and dots as often as the come up for use again and pay close attention to brigand calling out dispatch. And, let's not forget people it's not only great gear but being in the right group as well. You can have the best gear in the game , get stuck in a [Removed for Content] group and your dps will suck. Anyway that's my take on it, but I like to think I learn something new about my class everyday to improve myself. Good luck and hope I helped you some! Cheer's!!</p>

[Jayad]

Since intoxication is a triggered CA, I cast it before the fight so I don't waste the time during the fight casting it. Assuming of course you have that CA at all.

[ruperick]

ahhh, the aa attack, but is that really worth the point?

[ModPlod]

Although never parsed it myself our other assassin reckons it averages about 2% zone wide dps during raid.

[Jayad]

For raiding, absolutely. It wasn't worth sacrificing spell crits or melee crits for in the past (while keeping perfectionist), but now you can have them all. Like pokemon. Intoxication is worth having purely for the debuff on tough mobs. The DOT can do a lot of damage on difficult mobs that take a bit to kill, such as nameds in EOF. Plus you don't waste any time during the fight casting it. So it's like free damage and a powerful debuff. I'd have to check, but I use it every time it's up and it was 1-2% of my dps. I even recast it during the fight if it's another tough mob that it'll stick on for a long time, although I haven't decided if this is a good move or not. As far as the 1500 parse, sure you can parse 1500 or 2000 now and then if you have your big damage up and the mob dies fast, but can you do it every fight? Can you do it on a 5 minute fight? Can you do it on a zone parse on a long zone? That's what I mean. Doing a 1500 zone with wurmslayer and dragonfang and 700 str is pretty good. One thing that people often forget when it comes to dps numbers is that higher raid DPS will improve your own dps quite a bit, since we can unload a lot of damage in a short period of time. i.e. if you did exactly the same thing and the raid dps goes from 15k to 25k, your own dps might go from 1500 to 1800 simply due to more of your damage being done in the period when the mob is alive. Another way to gauge yourself is to look at what % of the raid's DPS you did zone wide. If you're doing 9% or 10% that's good, depending on how much the raid is doing. If you're doing 11% or more (in a raid without too many fighters or such) you've kicked some butt.