Category:Assassins

Cold-blooded killers of the most ruthless kind, assassins are lethal either with a bow and arrow, or a simple dagger. Calculating and cerebral by nature, they are known to use a wide variety of methods to murder their victims.

Assassins learn many of the same skills as the rogue class, but generally don't stoop to stealing, picking pockets, or other basic thuggery. They also have the ability to use bows, and learn many archer skills, but never those pertaining to hunting or survivalism. Assassins combine these other classes' skills into one wholly unique and lethal package.

To illustrate their calculating nature, assassins have a Prime statistic of Intelligence.

Abbreviation: Asn.

Prime Requisite: Intelligence.

Assassins in General

Assassins have the damage skills of both rogue and archer with some new skills mixed in, but they lose some of the utility skills of both as well (such as: rescue, portal, exploding arrow and picklock). They also get less hitpoints than both their parent classes, but get more mana. They have more INT and less DEX than archers or rogues since Intelligence is their prime attribute. Assassins can run like a rogue (stabber) or like an archer. Assassins need to stab with a poisoned piercing weapon to have a chance at insightful strike, which will raise their reputation. Because of this an assassin who is concerned about reputation will want to collect a lot of poisons for their primary weapon. In January 2014 a quest was added where Assassins can take on "contracts" once a day, the reward for which is one point of reputation.

Assassins don't get refresh or invigorate and can run low on moves easily using alertness. So carrying something like the mushrooms (which give endurance as well as rejuvenate) found in Pariah's Paradise or cotton candy found in Carnival is wise. Also, once available, the spell Endurance can help.

Assassin Creation

Assassins are a remort class available only to lord archers, rogues and shadowfists. Ideally a race that has a positive mod to stealth and, if playing at all as an archer, archery. If planning to run lord a race that has a melee damage mod as at lord most assassins stab.

These creatable races are good for Assassins:

• Centuar - very good arc bonus, bad stealth⁽¹⁾
• Drow - good arc bonus, stealthy, low TNL
• Elf - good arc bonus, stealthy, low TNL
• Human - low TNL, no racial mods
• Kzinti - very stealthy, no dmg or archery mods
• Lizardman - low TNL, no racial mods
• Orc - both melee and archery dmg mods, low TNL

⁽¹⁾ Bad stealth can be mitigated to a degree with stealth gear.

Assassins at Lowmort Tier

Training

The same as most classes train wis, con, int then dex or str.

Practicing

Practice most of the skills as you get them. If going the archer route you can Sneak Attack using a bow for decent damage. Insightful Strike is a must as this allows you a chance to insta kill mobs with Murder, Backstab and the like when wielding poisoned piercing weapons, and is also the only way of raising your Reputation level – aside from the "contracts" handed out once per day by Assassin Of The Hand.

Worshipping

If your going to be a rogue like assassin - Tor. (Tor nerfs archer damage)
If your going to be a archer like assassin - Roixa/Werre. (both nerf stab damage)
If you want to be balanced between the two assassin styles - Durr or Atheist.
Also, remember that worship affects crafting skills such as poison weapon and fletch.

Fighting

Soloing:

This can be done like an Archer or a Rogue. Using a crossbow with archer gear using Sneak Attack can be an effective way to solo the early levels due to the damage done with sneak attack and a crossbow. When the Assassin has learnt Lethal Aim at level 30 starting a fight with Vital Shot targeting the mobs eye with a piercing weapon and then swapping to a crossbow can also be effective.

Tanking:

Usually done in tank gear using piercing weapons for Sneak Attack or Vital Shot at level 30 learn Lethal Aim and start fights with Vital Shot targeting the mobs eye.

Hitting:

Best done in Archer gear using a longbow, but can easily be done using Hit gear.

Assassin Prestige Options

None.

Assassins at Hero Tier

Training

The same as Lowmort.

Practicing

Devoting

Fighting

Soloing: Usually done in full hit gear (dr) in stabber mode. Fights can be started with 'vital shot eye' if the assassin has low hp or the mob is quite large. Once of sufficient size however backstab should do enough to make most mobs go down fairly quickly. And, as long as the primary weapon is poisoned, backstab will give a (small) chance for an instant kill.

Tanking: Once of sufficient size this can be done the same as soloing, i.e, in hit gear (dr) and opening with backstab. With one or two decent hitters in the group most mobs should go down very fast. It's worth noting that assassins do not get rescue or portal so a groupie needs to handle those tasks. Assassins do get arrow dodge, which is nice when facing mobs that wield ranged weapons.

Hitting: Assassins can do some of the best hitting at hero, having the consistently high damage of an archer combined with the damage bonus of sneak attack. If, as usual, done as an Archer, you should try to use Sneak Attack with your kill trigger. You can set a secondary trigger to just do a kill if the sneak fails. Aimed Shot also is nice, better than held shot. Aimed is kind of like vital for bows, but it does more than vital with piercers. Once snipe is learned longshots will also be better.

Assassins at Lord Tier

Most assassins stab at lord. Some switch between dr gear for initial stab and archer gear for the rest of the fight. Having a bow and ammo is handy for long shotting mobs into rooms, you might want to conserve poisons on your weapons and prefer to use a bow after the initial stab as archer damage with aimed shot in lord hitgear is not far off the damage done with weapons.

At lord 100 the assassin can learn Slip but does not learn Disengage, therefore Slip has to be used in a couple of different ways.

• If not the only stabber the assassin can rest before a group enters a room with a mob in so the assassin can slip into the room to stab.
• When the group is fighting multiple mobs, when a mob dies the assassin maybe able to walk out of the room to slip back in for the stab. This depends on the area as in maze areas walking out of a room doesn't necessarily mean you can walk back in.
• If there is a Priest in the group the assassin could arrange for the priest to cast Innocence on them so they can walk out of the room to slip back in, again be careful of maze areas.

Regarding archery, Assassins do not get scattershot, instead they have aimed shot, which does a bit more damage than normal. However, this damage is pretty mediocre. It can be used like vs eye to blind mobs and significantly reduce damage done, though.

Like any lord with Quickstrike, Assassins can use Quickstrike and Vital Shot mid-round at lord level to target eyes and blind (those mobs that have eyes anyway).

Assassin Remort Options

Several remort races are good for Assassins (pretty much the same that are good for Rogues).

• Demonseed - arc bonus, very good stealth, small dmg mod
• Drider - very good arc bonus, good stealth
• Griffon - decent dmg mod, negative arc mod
• High Elf - good stealth, very good arc mod
• Minotaur - terrible stealth⁽¹⁾ but very good dmg mod, negative arc mod
• Troll - bad stealth⁽¹⁾, decent dmg mod, racial revive
• Tuatar - very good stealth and arc mods
• Imp - at lord, very good dmg mod and pretty good stealth

⁽¹⁾ Bad stealth can be mitigated to a degree with stealth gear.