Went back to the LOTUS

So I did it - after 3 days of testing on um...test server - I have finaly made a switch from hybrid to Lotus/general and I am loving it. It was a major decision for me because, which I have mentioned already, I am now 13g per respecc. Thats right kids, 13g and that is shitload of gold to make with broken economy and lack of place to grind, but I digress...
Before I go deeper into lotus things let me tell you why I did the switch:

1/ I was getting more and more bored with hybrid (same goes for corruption/general) - I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just doesn't feel right. We, assassins, are NINJAS and NINJAS do cool shit like going posion on your ass and NOT colecting soul shards to unleash some bull shit unholy powers. Here you go, boredom.


2/ Everyone does the hybrid thing - yep, clicky on assassin passing by and chances are he has unholy stance on. The reason I went assassin in the first place was because it was least played class, and now I want to play least played specc with my least played class. There is something stupidly ELITIST about lotus tree that makes you feel LIKE A BADASS when you manage to specure your kill with it. I think it's because GOOD players like Mephwnet lotus and made it look like it was GOD MODE. Well, it isn't but you can still feel good about being lotus specced.

3/ PVE - My pve experience right now is limited to Villa runs (still hoping for that sweet ePiXXXs drops) and hybrid made those runs like a cake walk: tons of ress, tons of heals. When I was testing out lotus in villas and my experience was vastly diffrent: you cut through mobs like no tommorow, but at the same time you have to think out your attack, plan on what skills/feat you will use etc.. With hybrid I did: FTD, Pot, golden lotus, Vampyric, SS till everyone is dead. There are not enough mobs to take you down if there are no ranged/casters involved - Hybrid can in fact outheal any damage done by melee NPC. Lotus can't do that and this is why sneaking up on 3 guards and taking them out is f-u-n (for me at least).

4/ CC in PVP - knockback, root, snare, fear, charm - it what makes hybrid assassins sad. Single point invested in the general tree will not protec you from the mean CCs that are flying around in pvp like aids in a hooker bar (quoting Mephs here ;p).
I got tired of dieing due to CC and not being able to do anything about it. I can't count how many times ranger got away from me because he rooted my ass. Also I have a lot of pleasant memories attached to "lotus escapes" - lotus assassins are masters of getting out of "the shit". I got nice story about by escape in PVP, but it is a story for another post. CCs got me very frustrated with my assassin gameplay over last 3 weeks to the point where I was considering a re-roll.

5/ Damage output - can't mess with lotus when it comes to damage. Period. While hybrid does very well in terms of damage output it is lacking vs heavy armor. Lotus has something fun for everyone - kidney shots rip any armor and lotus overdose provides largest dmg buff in both trees. Those are cooldown skills, but the "bread and butter" of lotus are passive procs "assassination", "swift ending", "lotus weapon" and so on. There is a lot of stuff "in the background" that will help you do your job while hybrid basicly gets you lunge to use at will and the rest needs shards. So - more freedom and more right tools for the job.

6/ hybrid means duel - hybrid is very good when it comes to 1v1 duels. It's a fact. Lotus assassins are not as badass because we can't defend against stuns (which barbs are known for) and we don't have enough of melee ress to soak damage when we are stuned.

So here you go, consider the above when picking your specc.
The plant in the foto is....golden lotus. What a shock!

Evii of Tyranny

To my heart's content I have discovered that world wide famous Evii of Tyranny is back and postin'!
To tell you the truth: I got into „assassin bloging” because Evii quited quite a while ago, leaving big empty spot that no one was filling.
I still remember how 6 moths ago I was reading up all of Eviis posts, trying to learn „the deadly arts”. Evii did most of feat testing/explanation back in the days, and his leveling guides were rigorously followed by assassins on all servers, myself included.
Glad to see you back Evii!

bummed down

I am bummed the fuck down.
One thing is that I am not seeing any other assassins participating in minigames and it is a big change because I used to know 3-4 „regular” assassin pvpers. Bad omen.
Now for the main reason I am bummed: casters are totaly OP right now. Mind you, I hate words like OP, IMBA, or L2P (that one drivers me crazy), but I find no other word that will fit to describe the current state of the game. I have screenshots of TOS criting me for 3562 dmg with my 3600 buffed HP pool. I have necros doting me up and doing 1001 crit dmg per ticks WITH my Lotus blood proc up (giving 95% immunity to spells when someone crits you with them).
And to top this off: minigames seems to be dominated now by groups consisting of atleast 2 casters, 2 healers and randoms (BSes for example). Needless to say those groups rip apart ANYTHING thrown at them (except groups consising of 2 casters, 2 healers and randoms, BSes for example).
So I am getting the feeling of being the lone assassin in the casters game.
Head down to Kruella blog to see screenie of necro racking up 96 kills in a minigame.
I was all about upgrading necros from „free kills” (that is what they used to be in 2.0 pvp) to „DPS”, but things got slighty out of hand. I won't even comment on TOS.
Regardless of my whining I am sticking with the assassin (as I dont have/want alts) and the AOC itself because I am sure it will be a great game one day.
I just had to vent this crap ;]

nerf avatar of death...

Time for another bombay assassin - nerf avatar of death.
Obvious inspiration for this was this outstanding threadthat has been going for weeks now and just won't die. Imagine this: casters whine about our 3 minute cooldown avatar of death when TOS crited me for mere 3675 dmg today...AOD could save me from that, right? Not...

Oh yeah, clearly this is the best specc...

What is the best specc for pvp? I sometimes get whispers from people "what specc r u?" and when I tell them (it is no mistery - it is classic hybrid)they are suprised and say "I tried that and it sucks, xxxx is clearly better". This got me thinking "how do you define best specc"? I would argue that there are basic 3 builds: lotus/general, corruption/general and lotus/corruption aka hybrid and all other builds are merely a variation of those - which one "rox the sox off"? Let's go over them really quck:

Lotus/general - great surviviality (Lotus got me safe out of most extrime group gank situations thanks to lotus bomb), amazing passive procs resulting in outstanding damage output

Corruption/general - increased resistance to melee damage, ability to deal quick bursts of damage, great buffs

Lotus/Corruption - best of both worlds for a hefty price - almost defenceless against CC and knockbacks (something that xxx/general speccs can deal easly with).

So how people are rating the builds? Exacly the same way I used to: when asked "why do you think xxxx is best?" I get same anwser "because I played with it yesterday (for 3 days, week, with guild etc.) and I owned hard". People try one specc, get into the minigame and loose it for one reason or another, and,oh what happens? Yeah - LET'S BLAME THE SPECC! You are starting to go over it in your head "if I had Lotus I would so won this fight" and so on. You can't lose the "big picture" which is: you can't specc for every situation, you can't specc for stupid team, fat fingers,bad timing and your own lack of good judgement. The point is: there is no best specc - go with the one you like and stick with it. I have read few forum posts where people were swearing how much they love lotus, but they are using "stupid corruption/general" because (here it goes) "it is the best specc".

You can have tons of heals, but that ranger will root ya and kill your hybrid build, corruption assassin might face soldier with ease, but it lotus assassin who will take all casters to school with 10% magic ress and lotus blood spell immunity. Get my drift? You will never have it all, so respecc few times, check the vibe of each tree, find what you like and enjoy your pvp - soon enough you will know what to do.

And to prove you that "it can be done, baby" here is already classic "Best at both worlds" pvp video by legend himself - Meph. This video is pre-gems era (so pre pvp 2.0 also) and shows assassin KICKING SOME ASS with both trees. Meph was really ahead of his time as he was landing almost all of his combo hits (back then combo preloading was standard for all melees) so his style is in fact closer to current 3.0 patch.

Now is a good time to start an assassin alt

You were thinking about getting an assassin alt for some time now, but never got around doing it because the very thought of re-doing Tortage 1-20 content gives you the creeps, right? Relax, now you can power level though 1-20 lvl with style thanks to this great thread by Neronitheus who shows you how to "[Spoiler] Level 1 to 20 in a day".
It is breakdown of all Tortage quests which are do-able in a stream so you can get from zero to hero in a couple of hours. Both hot and sexy.

Assassin from Bombay

Everyone knows Bombay TV right? Just check it, no need to explain it here. Well once in a while I get the "bombay TV" vibe going where I just gotta make some assassin related movie for reason that are beyond my primitive reckoning.

I know that most of them are not funny to the general pop so you have to be REALLY HARDCORE assassin player to "get it" and still it might now be worth a decent "lol".

This is my oldie, bombay TV from the very begining of AOC where assassins where underpowered and pre-70 guardians were UNKILLABLE for us (you could chew on them for hours). Since very few of assassin community were +70lvl at that time the FTD (from the darkness) was this mythical holy grail of assassindom (there is such a word?) so everone wanted to be lvl 70 so they could finaly kill stuff...ah good times.

Check the life before you hit lvl 70
Here is my latest creation: The last Lotus assassin, in memory to my friend, Alex from Siths clan who was the last assassin I know of on my server - Aquilonia - to use Lotus specc and still get that lvl 3 gear. He is gone now.

Just so we are clear on this: lotus does work in pvp, but you can do better with other specc (hit Lotus specc problem compliation thread for great info on this subject)

Get out of lethargy and save the lethargy!

After 3.0 patch the lethargy combo got hit hard by the Funcom and right now it hardly got any usage (it can be easly replaced by other, superior combos both in terms of debuff and damage).

Hit the link for test forums thread that may or may not have been already noticed by Funcom staff (most likely it wasn’t ;p)

[Guide] Death's gaze

5/5 corruption tree feat
This used to be our fear/stun spell - it would randomly fear your target, or stun him, making him stand still. The problem was: the fear was making your target run around like an idiot and stun proc was low (I am not sure if it was charm or stun).

As of patch 3.0 this all changed. Now days Death's Gaze always fears target and debuffs him with snare, making him easy target.

Here is what you should know about death's gaze:

Get those shards!
It needs one shard. Period! If you want to get DG from the very start (which you should) you can easily get it from either stealth attack or FTD. GC is also a good opener for both snare stacking and shard generation.

Chain CC
Since death's gaze is the only fear spell available to Corruption/general, hybrid assassins it can be used to totally Chain CC all classes wearing light armor or less:

FTD(gain shard)->Death Gaze (Slow death strike)->Snap Kick (SS)

1/ From the Darkness opens the chain for both element of surprise and shard generation.

2/ After fearing your target use Slow Death Strike to deal good amount of damage over time (DOT) to spread you DPS a little.

3/ When your target is DOTed use Snap Kick to get him down and then unload on him your highest SS buffed with Lunge or corrupting strikes.

CC breaking (PVE)
As since patch 3.0 all mobs can break fear/charms when you deal X ammount of damage to them. With that in mind use DG on the last combo step (it will not undo your combo!) and then unload SS rather than fearing and going through all the combo steps because the mob will break free.

Combo/skill breaker
Death’s gaze works wonders as combo breaker. If, for example, barbarian is unloading his cyclone of steel on you, use DG to fear him and avoid massive damage being done to you. Same with POMs knockback, oraz heals.

Death's Gaze as snare
Since this feat has range of about "dubble tap forward" you can chase after your opponent and fear him up as you get close to him.

Snare stacking
Death gaze snare stacks with grim corruption snare so you can:
Grim corruption-> Death gaze

this will get your target from "slowly running away" to "baby crawl" speed.

Closing notes
- Death gaze is a spell - it can be resisted by your target.
- When fear breaks/ends so does the snare.
- If you have shard you can use DG while mounted.

Chillwhisper taking Assassins to school on DPS

Chillwhisper down at US boards made 3 new topics regarding maximizing your DPS with nice break down of every feat and combos. Great read!



Be sure to check out:

Feat Contributions to DPS
Chillwhisper's guide to calculating combo damage and DPS
Chillwhisper's New and Improved Combo Review

Hats off to the "main man" Chillwhisper for outstanding pice of work.

Nipple set gotta go!

our pvp t1 armor looks horrible on male avatars because of our assassin nipples proudly displayed for our opponents to quake in fear at. Not cool!

For full description and petition to give us re-modeling go to this link:
http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=40172

Now is the time to say no to man boobies, or for the next 500.000,00 pvp xp we will be the laughing stock until we get next tier armor…act now!