1.4 - 1.5 Assassin nostalgy

Recently I have tried doing Lotus/General for PVP and PVE. In PVP it was doing ok (far from what hybrid can achieve), but because of shard management it lost its Lotusy vibe.

In PVE I got my ass handed to me by mere 2-3 Chosain mobs (a laff for hybrid).


I do feel this strange nostalgy for old assassin and people claim it was the days of skill and fun. Was it really? I have a luxury of owning a blog where I can actually get my ass into time machine and see what 2008-2009 Slith thought of assassins:


this is what I remember about old 1.5 assassin
http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2009/09/assassin-boring.html
and this
http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2009/07/issues-with-lotus-before-we-go-16.html

I would NOT want to go back to that.

I do feel the nostalgy vibe creeping up on me (played for 3 days with Lotus/General last week), but speccing back to hybrid makes things fast, fun and bloody.I run from no man.

In 1.5 people specced Lotus because nothing else worked and this I how I felt about it: "It boils down to using EVERYTHING you have, whenever you can on whoever you can". My skill bars were non-stop on cooldowns and it was all about pre-loading GC for snare/debuff and pounding with SS rotation.

In 1.4 things were a little different, but again HYBRID reigned supreme.

If anything 1.4 HYBRID was biggest EZ-MODE we had so far:

1. leeches
2. avatar total immunity
3. Excellent balance (1/5)
4. lunge
5. all the goodies from lotus
6. super good off-hand feats
7. unholy armor!!!

1.4 hybrid was much more powerful, easy to play and noob friendly than even 1.6 assassin.

Allow me to remind you:

FTD stun->snap kick->avatar+leeches->death gaze as he gets up->SS->profit

I have made pvp lvl4 by killing people in Keshatta while they were surrounded by several other players: assassins unholy armor, magic res, total immunity to magic (lotus overload without CD on proc!) and total immunity to CC (avatar + excellent balance) made it possible.

Nowadays if you charge into group of players you will get your skull split.


Playing since may 2008 I obviously enjoyed every incarnation of assassins (remember when GC did not have snare? I bet you don't, reroller :D), but assassin revamp and Rise of the Godslayer exp pack made things much more fun, interesting and compared to 1.4 hybrid: challenging.

1.5 was bland, boring, unimaginative gameplay with gimped class: the challenge was playing in a way that made obvious design flaws less severe. You got less for same amount of effort.


I will remember the best about 1.4-1.5 and hopefully forget the worst, but I fully embrace what the revamp brought to the assassin table: the only problem is that there is just not enough time to kill them all.

Assassin's Hideout Podast - ep.20

So this is a special episode in which I have a co-host, I am not in my car and we have somewhat of audio quality to it.

Bladewall is a little off on the sound scale, but I don't want to get crazy with sound editors and tuned him down just a bit (you will still notice a difference between our sound levels)

done with ventrillo and audacity
show notes:
-recent patch
-assassin damage nerf
-ranger damage nerf

music in the background: Fatboy Slim - Kalifornia

In next show we will talk more about general Age of Conan news, but the podcast will always have assassin only parts.

LINK: http://www.assassinshideout.com/Podcast ... t_ep20.mp3

title of the post is a link to the podcast.

Assassin's hideout podcast - ep.19

show notes:

- patch 2.1
- new minigame map





title of the post is a link to the podcast.

[Guide] Liberation Perk [updated]

After the 1.6 patch which has brought assassin revamp the hybrid again reigned supreme after losing to lotus/general for patch (screw up) 1.5 period. Assassins have lost 2 factors that made 1.4 hybrid work so well even without any "dedicated" anti cc: avatar of death which gave total, global immunity to any form of CC (those were the days...) and unholy armor which made us so resistant to melee that CC lock down did not meant instant and gory death.

Lets forward to 1.6 and we have high damage, but low survivability class that relies heavily on dispatching the enemies while keeping them in lock down. It might not be a huge deal to guardian to be stunned for a couple of seconds, but 7s fear on assassin is a death wish.

The ROGS brought the AA system with it's perks.
Liberation perk which is granted to all rogues via archetype tree.

What makes liberation perk so great? Fully feated with 5/5 it grants:


+791 combat rating (buff for 15s)

CC break

Snare immunity (5s)

Root immunity (5s)

for

1 slot

2m cool down



Considering it's wide usage, damage buff and the fact that you don't have to gimp your damage/survivability by adding point to general tree in order to get escape artist/agile mind this is the KING of all anti ccs.


When to get it?

This is the first perk to get and max out. Period. There is just nothing in AA for assassins that would add as much as this perk does. I recommend spending one point in each of anti magic / anti cc perks until you can start adding points to liberation. Even with mere 1 point this perk still grants you all of it's anti cc abilities, but has a horrid, long cool down and low damage upgrade. Still it's great even with 1/5 so if you are aiming for other perks first ADD ONE POINT HERE!


PVP usage

There are 3 ways you can use this in pvp: preemptive anti cc, anti cc and damage buff.

Preemptive

Perhaps the most tricky and risky way of using liberation is taking advantage of that 5s window which is granted via immunity to snare or root. One of woes of fighting rangers are those damn traps which can also root you while charging with From The Darkness. If caught in FTD animation you will not only lose the element of "instantly-in-your-face", but also CD (FTD goes on cool down if stopped via cc) and the root that would be applied on your opponent. The 5s window is only good for that timed FTD, but it can secure you some kills.


Anti CC 

Brake the cc. No brainer.


Damage Buff 

Most of the time the damage buff that will come with this perk will be just an "extra something", but do not hesitate using it also as damage upgrade: combine it with avatar of death for an added health leeching power.Of course liberation must stay as your main ani CC, but your goal is laying down a kill through whatever tools and means and only 2 m cool down on liberation encourages it's wide usage.

Backstab
Liberation won't break your stealth upon usage. When I found out that I did't really know what to make of it: why having anti cc be usable in stealth AND NOT ACCELERATED?
An old cutter Pumpkins pointed out in comments that it can serve as backstabb damage upgrade. It sure does! You can also use avatar of death in stealth and even stack both aod and liberation buffs for bone crushing backstab!


PVE usage
To my surprise liberation won't break the CCs applied by mobs. Tried it on stun and root (you can get root webbed a lot in Kara Korum), but it didn't shake off the CC. Still you can take advantage of great damage upgrade for full 15s.