Assassin Heroic Dungeon DPS

[Yraapt]

<p>Do you guys have any suggestions on how to raise assassin DPS for heroic dungeons where you are usually fighting groups of monsters?</p><p>This last June I got a group of friends together to play EQ2.  Templar, Conjurer, Shadowknight, Swashbuckler, and Assassin(me).  We spend our grouped time doing heroic dungeons, typically fighting groups of monsters.  At the beginning my DPS topped out the parses, but somewhere around level 40 the Conjurer and Swashbuckler passed me up.  Lately, unless we are fighting a single target that takes a while to kill, my DPS is horribly low by comparison.</p><p>I have read that assassin's are supposed to be king of DPS, or at least in a very close running for the title.  Does this only hold true when fighting raid mobs that take longer to kill?  If anyone has any suggestions on how to raise assassin DPS in heroic dungeons I'm all ears. </p><p>For the predator tree I have gone with Str and Int.  For the class tree I have Excessive Bleeding and Frontload.  I am 2 APs away from Repeated Stabbing.  I am wondering if I should put some points in the Stamina line to get Spinning Spear and Surrounding Attacks to help fighting multiple mobs at once?</p><p>As for gear I went with the leather hidebound MC over the chain incarnadine because I was thinking that +melee crit > all.  Is that true?  I am pretty much a broke noob.  Any suggestions on gear obtainable by the 5 man group described above or something I should start saving my plat for?</p><p>Thanks in advance</p>

[Brimestar]

<p>My PvE bretheren can correct me on this, but I wouldn't go down STA unless you are on a pvp server. My pve spec (Im a lvl 80 assn with 140 AAs so bare with me)...Is STR and AGI all the way and down the INT line with 6 points in poison crit. Someone made a very valid point which I saw that the end line of AGI will up your DPS alot more than the end line of INT (due to the 35% increase in cast). And to be quite honest, it does make a huge difference. In the assn tree, I'm all the way down in Bleeding, Physicality and Poisons.</p><p>Some questions to be asked is what is your STR at? Are you using Adept 3s for your main CAs or something else? Your hard hitting CAs should be Adept 1 minimum and if you want to rock the parse; adept 3 or mastered. Granted thou, it can get expensive, so harvest alot or make rich friends. But the MC gear should keep you in the running until you get to T8.</p>

[Soulforged]

<p>If you're strapped for cash, the biggest gear upgrade you'll find in single slots are your weapons, keep those as mastercrafted current tiers.</p><p>Best AA spec for PvE dps is str and agi down to ends, int down to full crits.</p><p>stat orders:</p><p>Str>int>sta>agi>wis</p><p>Other stat orders:</p><p>Melee crit and +CA damage > All else.</p>

[Yraapt]

<p>I am level 75 at the moment.  My Str is 508, my melee crit is 30% and my double attack is 8%.  Every CA is adept I or higher, I've started buying adept III when I can afford.  You should be able to click my sig if you want to see what I'm wearing.</p><p>I guess what I was wondering is if there was a way to improve assassin DPS on multi-mob fights.  The problem as I see it is that I only have to 2 CAs that hit multiple targets, so when we pull a pile of mobs (which is pretty much all the time) I spend most of my time mowing down 1 mob while the swash/conj go nutz with their AEs.  Then comes the parse and I look like small potatoes... </p><p>Thats why I was wondering about the Sta line.  You do raise a point about the end of the Agi line for faster casting.  I had ignored it because I rarely use my bow, but I will give Agi a shot and see how i affects things.</p><p>Thanks</p><p>Yraapt</p>

[-Arctura-]

<p>(( Assassins are the dps kings, you just have to really be level 80 and have fatal followup to REALLY go heads above everyone else.</p><p>That and SUPER long delay weapons are best.</p><p>They hit harder, and proc alot more.</p><p>(4.0s delay and up)</p><p>Dont forget, drop your Deadly Mark / Death Mark FIRST, you can only cast those so many times per fight since the recast is long, so drop it right away, and hopefully you can drop it again at the mobs 50%, then again when the mob is 2% and it just might proc again before the mob dies *crosses fingers*</p><p>Also, you should be spamming your dots immediately too, right after your mark. Dont worry about debuffs if you are in a group, everyone else does that anyways.</p><p>Really only worry about Debuffs before you start your Concealment combo, to maximize your damage. But unless you are dropping your heavy hitters, save debuffs until after you have already pushed most of your buttons.</p><p>You would be just wasting time pushing debuffs when you could instead be autoattacking or putting out some dps.</p><p>If you see your dots come back, HIT them ASAP, stop what you are doing and throw your dots and death mark back on as soon as you see them up.</p><p>Dots take time to work, and if you hesitate even for a second you are wasting your dps and wasting your time.</p>

[Yraapt]

<p>Ya the following is pretty much my CA order.</p><p>Mark, dots, then concealment combo.</p><p>When fighting in heroic dungeons with a group usually the pull is dead by then.  Long delay weapons?  Sure I'll give them a shot.  I would have thought the low delay weapons would just hit faster, evening things out...</p>

[Brimestar]

<p>The more targets you have, the harder it will be to maintain DPS especially if the fight is drawn out really long, like the Overking fight....But cont to concentrate your DPS on one target (we're precision killers) You need to up your STR and its not so much for the bow for the AGI line, but getting to the end ability of the 35% increase in cast speed that is your DPS boost. Only time you should be using bow attacks is on the initial pull and when all your CAs are on cool downs imo.</p>

[-Arctura-]

<p>(( I rip up multi mob fights but only because i drop cloaked assault first, that really adds up to some huge dps <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>In multimob fights, if your healers are good you can disregard the MA and do your Stealth AEs first, then spam tab tab tab while hitting all your dots.</p><p>That will put tons of dots on every mob in the encounter, therefor you will outdps everyone except the most hardcore warlocks.</p><p>Ive outdpsed hardcore so called 'uber' warlocks, zerkers, etc  in RE2 on the Boar fights.</p><p>Its just all about dropping your aes first, and then spamming your dots and attacks on multiple mobs.</p><p>Even on multi-mob Extended fights like Mylex Vioren (sp) in VP, come out 1st or 2nd on the parse (other peoples parses since its a scattered fight and only multiple parses averaged out can give the true dps).</p><p>Its all about pushing all your buttons and switching to ranged when you have nothing else to do for a few arrow shots, thnen back in for melee autoattack.</p><p>(Note* Get a really good bow, ie. Dragonhawk, pvp-bow, .. even VexThorne is okay.   Something that hits uber hard is best. Its like a Mortal Blade every 9 seconds! )</p>

[Soulforged]

<p><cite>-Arctura- wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Ive outdpsed hardcore so called 'uber' warlocks, zerkers, etc  in RE2 on the Boar fights.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">The only way you'd beat a warlock who knew what they were doing is if they forgot to turn off their mythicals effect that turns their aoe spells into single target ones. </span></p><p>Its all about pushing all your buttons and switching to ranged when you have nothing else to do for a few arrow shots, thnen back in for melee autoattack.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">melee autoattacking w/ mythical > going out for ranged auto attack. If you can time them, then great, but you don't want to go out for more time than it takes to get off one ranged attack.</span></p></blockquote>

[bluefish]

<p><cite>-Arctura- wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>That and SUPER long delay weapons are best.</p><p>They hit harder, and proc alot more.</p><p>(4.0s delay and up)</p></blockquote><p>Uhm no ...longer delays do not affect procs .. procs are normalized .. if it says will proc 2.0 times a minute then that's all it will proc no matter what the delay.</p><p>and yes longer delay weapons may hit harder ( because of the higher min/max damage) but they also hit less often than a lower delay weapon .. now given that, when you do get a crit on a longer delay weapon the crit will be much higher due to the higher max damge of the longer dealy weapon which theoretically should seem to increase your DPS.. but also keep in mind that a lower delay weapon may appear to not hit as hard it will be hitting more often than the longer delay.</p><p>but again people need to understand that delay of the wepaon no longer affects the proc rates of the weapon</p>