Questions

[afasdfasdfasdf]

<p>Rolled up an assassin and have him up to level 10.  Have been having lots of fun running around in Timorous.  Having been playing mmos for years and have always shied away from stealth/dps toons, so I'm kind of excited to try one.  In the past I have favored healers healer/hybrids and tanks.  I am returning to EQ2 after a long absence and am really impressed with the improvements to the game.</p><p>I was going to roll up a brigand and was all set to, but tried an assassin on a lark.  Wow!  I am loving it.  From researching I understand brigs are better soloers but I am willing to give it a spin anyway because the assassin class just really grabbed me as being that cool.</p><p>Finally, to my questions.</p><p>1.  I tried crafting with a warmup toon I have been fooling around with and it is fun but I don't know that I would want to grind on it long term.  Do I really need to?  Specifically I am wondering about arrows, and more importantly poison.  Do I need to make my own or is it easy to come by it from vendors are on the AH.  What I'm asking I guess is the time investment of crafting worthwhile?  </p><p>2.  I understand that the str line is the first AA everyone goes for, and I think I will too.  The wis line with smoke bomb looks very cool to me.  How is that?</p><p>3.  Other than evac, do we get any other utility spells?</p><p>4.  Do we have a signature talent, kind of like the brigand ruse or the monk feign death?</p><p> Sorry for the noob questions and thanks in advance for any replies.</p>

[Herculez]

<p>To answer your questions the best i can (74 assassin, casual play style):</p><p> 1. Any craft profession is worth while, arrows and poisons are easily obtained on the broker, usually for fairly reasonable prices even for the rare poisons.  arrows i only use the best store bought for my tier, we arent rangers and the only time i use arrows is to pull when my back stabs are down,  either the flanking arrow shot + double shot+ auto ranged attack 1 time, or the back arrow shot with double and auto.  Both of those combos can put mobs at 60-70% life even at lvl 74 if your using a good bow with top tier arrows and poison.  If you are seriously interested in at tradeskill, try jewel crafting to make your own adept 3's, and as a side benefit the combos produce 2x dust needed to craft rare potions and poisons, 2 dust is enough for 20 potions/poisons.  Buddy up with an alchemist and you can make your spells and get your poisons made cheaply.</p><p>2.  Your right, str is the first line most assassins go down.  I would go 6 to the str, 4 into the next 2 abilities, then max melee crit to 8.  This should unlock the final str ability which you need to take.  This will reduce the cool down timer on your 3 min backstab to 2 minutes, and your 15 min back stab down to 10 min.  After that line go Int 4/4/4/8.  The increased spell crit % affect your poisons, and more importantly your mark spell.  If you havent learned already, mark is one of your most powerful skills and will contribute strongly to your dps.  After that switch over to your assassin tree.  I took 5 ranks each to improving the dmg to my 3 dot bleed skills, and 5 ranks to improving the % chance of mark triggering and once i had the 20 pts spent i took the final bleed ability which reduces a mobs max hp by 5% for each active bleed on it.  Other assassins prefer to go for repeated stabbings which is also a very good choice.</p><p>3.  Not much in the terms of utility except an apply poison line which allows you to poison a single allies weapon so long as they are not a rogue or predator.  Other wise the only thing we have to really cast on others is a hate transfer.</p><p>4.  Signature talent would have to be decapitate line.  This spell is the longest cool down we have, 15 minutes without aa bonus, 10 minutes with.  The dmg it does is quite powerful though not on par with what a wizard can do (and much faster i might add).  But it is very helpful non the less in a tight situation.  My current level of this spell is decapitate adept 3 and it deals out 7000-13000dmg.</p><p>One thing to try and learn early is the cheap shot backstab combo.  If you get good at this combo you can execute a stealthed backstab even during solo combat.  Hotkey cheap shot, the spell you have that must be used from behind or flanking that also puts you into stealth once used (masked attack line), and your high dmg back stabs (eviscerate, killing blade, decapitate and the 10 sec refresh one) all together on a hot bar.  During a fight the first thing i do is pull the mob from range using the method mentioned  in #1.  When mob closes to melee distance i immediatly use a heroic opportunity using the constriction line opening spell (the one that looks like a dagger slashing someones wrist) followed by the flowing wound line (bleeding palm icon).  As soon as that is finished i use my mark spell and then it is time for a stealth combo.  use cheap shot on the mob and immediatly move thru/around the mob and use your stealth inducing attack.  As soon as you hit stealth use whichever backstab you feel is most needed, i typically use the eviserate line if its up (1 min refresh) or the 10 second refresh art if eviserate is down.  If the mob is at high health when you begin this combo you might use killing blade line (3 min base cool down) or even decapitate line (15 min base cool down). This combo will be key to soloing as an assassin, and in combination with an upgraded mark spell can leave you in green/yellow health solo against yellow mobs even in RoK.</p><p>One other thing you didnt ask but is a decision you will have to make eventually is what kind of poison to use.  You can use mutiple poisons at once, one red and i believe one blue or puple with it.  The big decision is which red (and by red i mean the icon color).  There are 2 main dmg dealing poisons, Caustic, and Hemotoxin.  Caustic deals all its dmg in one blow, hemotoxin does it over time.  On the surface, hemotoxin looks like it does more dmg, but most assassins, myself included, prefer to use caustic.  The reason behind this is the sheer volume of procs you get off of these poisons which if i remember correctly is 5.0 procs per minute average.  Because they proc so often most feel that the hemotoxin over-rides itself to often to be effective as it takes the initial proc dmg, and 2+ ticks of dmg before a hemotoxin poison does as much dmg as the proc off of a caustic (if it runs its full course a hemotoxin does initial dmg and 6 ticks).  It is entirely up to you but i think most would agree that master crafted caustic is the way to go here.</p><p>I am sorry for listing arts that are available to me at 74 as i know you dont have them yet, but i do not remember the names of the versions of that would be available to you so that is why i included the icon description or cool down timer as these never change within a line of spells.</p>

[Effie]

<p><i>arrows i only use the best store bought for my tier</i></p><p>Store bought arrows can't compare to player made arrows... they aren't even close.</p><p>Compare:</p><p><b>PLAYERMADE: </b>Adamantine Bodkin Arrow: +126 Piercing damage, +10% hit bonus</p><p><b>PLAYERMADE: </b>Adamantine Field Point Arrow: +74 Crushing damage, +5m range, +30% hit bonus</p><p><b>PLAYERMADE: </b>Adamantine Broadhead Arrow: +192 Slashing damage, -5m range, 10% hit penalty</p><p><b>VENDOR:</b> Adamantine Arrow: +67 Piercing damage, 5% hit penalty</p><p>Even the worst playermade arrows blow away the vendor purchased... the kicker is that the vendor purchased arrows are nearly 7s. You can usually get playermade tier 7 arrows for 5-6s at the broker.</p>

[jasinner]

74 assassin (casual raider)1.  Probably the most profitable tradeskill is Alchemist so you can make your own poisons.  The necessity of buying poisons keeps us poorer than most classes and making your own will can save you lots of plat fairly quick.  Now-a-days, its relatively painless to get a high level tradeskiller so its not too much of a time investment.  In addition, alchemists can always make money selling potions which are always equally in demand over the life of an expansion as well as the fighter spells.2.  If you are looking to maximize DPS Str is a good first line to go down.  Wis looks cool but really doesn't add any dps (especially because it doesn't work with our concealment line which I'll explain later)3.  Our only utility is our Hate transfer and to a lesser extent our Apply Poison ability which you first acquire at level 50 something.  Hate transfer is our biggy.  Basically at m1 level 19% of the hate you generate is removed from you and given to the group target of your choice.  This makes assassins a good candidate for the MT group in raids because we can make lots of hate for the MT to hold agro.  It is also equally useful for this reason in group settings (basically it will keep the enemy on the tank only).  Unfortunately, swashbucklers also get a hate transfer and because they generate much much more aoe damage, they are generally preferred for the MT group hate transfer.  Our hate transfer is group only and unfortunately doesn't work on pets.Our apply poison adds a poison proc to a non-poison users weapon, again, only within your group.  In raids it can account for 10% of a tanks damage which is useful as it helps the tank maintain agro.  In addition, it can be placed on any other random person in your group to just add extra dps.Thats it.   Assassins have about the least utility of any class in the game.4.  Signature talent?  I'd say for the brigand its Dispatch but I might be mistaken <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.  Closest thing we get is called the concealment line.  You get concealment at level 50 something.  What it allows you to do is chain all of your backstabs in a row by placing you in stealth after you use every one.  It last ten seconds and as an added bonus it decreases the hate garnered from these backstabs by 40% at m1 quality.  It allows us to do some massive burst damage without getting killed.  In addition, our level 80 spell "fatal followup" utilizes the concealment chain by doing an attack that varies in damage based upon the number of stealth attacks used in the last few seconds.------None of the classes have any personality until at least 35 and some classes much later than that.  Assassins are actually very generic and boring to use up until the 50's.  If you plan on spending a lot of time solo, assassin is not a very efficient choice.  Assassins are one of the worst soloers in the game because our strong attacks require being behind an enemy and in stealth which is hard to do while fighting them.  In group and raid settings we are moderately desirable.  We can put out top notch DPS but require much attention and knowledge of the class.  Assassin is not a class you can play well while you are watching a movie or doing homework.  It is this challenge that makes assassins fun to play.

[afasdfasdfasdf]

Hey thanks for all the really great replies!  My guy is up to 13 almost 14.  Last night while questing I saw what people were talking about with stealth getting interrupted in multiple encouners.  I will think more about the crafting, just not sure if I want to invest the time or not hehe.  If I have a hard time getting groups and am having a hard time soloing I suppose I could always roll up a brig.  Thanks again everyone for the knowledgeable and well put advice.