Sunday, January 25, 2009

Return from the exile


As I got closer and closer to the pvp lvl 3 (3k left) my experience with assassin got more and more crappy. At one point it got so bad that I respecced corruption/general and later hybird (which was just dumb because it made things worse, a lot). I have decided that I will either make "things" click with the assassin again, or I will just quit. In order to do some "mental cleansing" I took a break from the live server and went to the test live. After messing with diffrent lotus/general speccs I have came to the conclusion that it wasn't really the specc, but a matter of executing your combos and key setup in general.


Ask yourself these questions:
1. Do I land my combo steps or do I miss a lot?
2. am I tripping over my fingers, misspressing things?
3. am I dodging hits, or do they all land on me?
4. Does my UI give me clear view of whats is on CD and whats not?
5. Do I need all my CDs to win a fight?
6. am I often going face2face with classes that I really should not? (aka conq)

Needless to say the list is made out of my experience. I have also asked myself questions from my micro vs macro post - do I really *NEED* all of those "clicky" feats? Are they helping me or are they just bringing my DPS and performance down?

I have done TONS of duels, zerg, jumps etc. on test live and here are my conclusions:

1/ combos - I have redone my directional attack keys so to NOT to trip over my fingers. The default ones are good for static PVE "tank and spank" encounters, but I found them too cumbersome in the PVP. Perfect execution of a combo is way more important that having buffs feats close to your finger tips. If you can both MOVE and EXECUTE a combo, you are on the right track.

2/ I have always used the default UI (for many reasons), but I have never put my clickables in the right fasion: buffs/heals/defences/CC/Anti CC. Instead I had all those feats spread around my screen which wasn't really helping me to judge on what is at my disposal in given scenario.

3/ I have shaven off my most beloved feats: antrophy and brutality. You really should focus on the *CORE* of assassionation: SS and SDS with some GC debuff. In minigame scenario mere second can decide if you will get the kill or get CCed, so by the time I managed to land antrophy (very sluggish to fire off and land for some reason) I could get one SS in. Also the Vile Posions deserved a second look as they go with my "passive synergy" mindset: SDS will benefit from Vile Posions, GC debuff and Corrupted Body which has clear advantage over Antrophy (2 minute cooldown is just waaaay too long).

If you get stagnat with your assassin - re-invent yourself, look for the key issues, ask questions and find solutions that will help you take it "to the next level". The specc is important, but the most important is how you setup your keys becuse it is where all things "assassin" begin and end.

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