[Guide] Assassindom part.2: feats to avoid

After 1.6 there are only handful of viable builds, the rest is just gimmick. You can check out comprehensive build list right here http://forum.assassinshideout.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=47.

So does it mean that I shouldn't pick feats that I like for my build? I have been an advocate of "specc what you like" for a while now, but I highly recommend being picky about your set of feats: not all are worthy.

All of the following feats are working, bug free and with proper tooltip - they are just not good enough compared to the rest. Feating them in will create a scenario where you are willingly lowering your DPS/survivality for mediocre gain.


Flurry of Blows - ever since offhand nerf (1.5) offhand rating is nothing to show off. The flurry of blows has very low proc rate and even lower duration. In other words: if this baby procs off in pvp encounter you can call yourself lucky. More so, in order to make this feat viable, you have to max out FoB because even with  3/5 in doesn't even stack up to Deft blades"


3/5 Flurry of Blows - 7% offhand chance, low proc and duration

3/5 Deft Blades - 6% offhand chance, passive buff that is always "on"

Flesh rot and Lotus weapon - the hallmarks of Lotus assassins are now this bloated, costly feats that in given pvp scenario might add no more than damage than a white hit. Before 1.6 those feats were "tier openers" which means feating them in was mandatory in order to progress further down the lotus tree. Also in 1.5 assassins fights were longer in general and thus those feats had more time to add some damage.

In 1.6 rot and weapon lost both of their functions: those are neither mandatory not helpful in short, dynamic pvp encounters.

Dark weapon and dread weapon  - same thing as above applies to dark and dread except the fact that those were never mandatory for assassins.

Matter of fact Lotus and Dread weapons are even worst than their lower tier counterparts simply because those need quite an offhand rating to proc. So since assassins main source of offhand - Flurry of Blows - blows, consider those "no-no" feats.


To sum it up:

- low proc rate (especially on Lotus and Dread weapons)

- low damage

- damage is spread over time (no use in fast fights)

- very high cost in feat points

Crippling weakness and Corrupted poison - both of those feats are mandatory for unlocking high end feats - Curse of Lotus and Vampiric nature. If you do not plan to unlock those end tier CC then not  a single point should be applied. Not only 1/5 adds such a mediocre gains like 5% more snare power, but you have to keep in mind that both crippling and corrupted effects will be consumed by any miasma applied. For example: if you went GC + Soul Strike then your upgraded snare effect would last on your target for about....oh, 1-2 seconds?

Unholy strength - This feat used to be popular back when it awarded...10% damage boost to SS. When it got nerfed to 5% it was never popular again, even when SS was assassins main source of DPS. Needless to say, in 1.6 reality where SS is sub par to GC/SDS + miasmas this 5% boost is even less desirable, especially for 5/5 investment.

Poisoned Blades - ah the Poisoned Blades, the most stupidly underpowered feat for the gimpiest combo ever: lethargy. This debuff gives 20% fizzle chance which means that your target has a chance to fail on his casting. The problem is that in order to apply this effect you have to land lethargy combo which does stupidly low amount of damage. Furthermore: assassins already have amazing tool for dealing with casters: GC + Lotus Dart. Not only this will apply 100% fizzle (aka silence), but also will damage and buff your target (wrack).

The tooltip says that this feat increases area of effect. Since lethargy's effect is considered a cone, Poisoned blades most likely only widenes the cone horizontally, but not vertically.

Example:

\/ Normal lethargy's cone effect

\      / Poisoned Blades upgrade

 If this feat was upgrading our reach (vertical upgrade to cone effect) and lethargy was fixed (meaning: it would do something as opposed to "jack shit") it would be a great tool to catching up with runners and keeping your distance while low on health. Lets just hope that lethargy will get some sort of revamp in expansion. Who knows? *cough*.

The Silver Atrium event - spoilers may occur

The second even in AOC history is live and let me tell you:  it beats the night of lost souls, which is no high praise, but a compliment nevertheless.

The event revolves around new expansion story line and you get a chance to:

a. lay eyes on Khitaian boobs for the first time

b. kill people from the foreign land for the first time

The story

The event uses up old content (villas) and introduces new location -the market. I am going to spoil this for you: the Silver Atrium is not an very secret organisation of assassins (oh thank you FC for that), but a very special market. In this place where people from across Hyboria come to deal...in deeds! The gold is worthless in here and your value is measured in your willingness to accept the bizarre and do the unthinkable. Just going around an talking to "traders" shows that the devs have put in the work to maintain the strange vibe of this place with each of NPCs. In other words: this event actually has a story behind it. It is a nice change from the "cheesy" story line of Night of Lost Souls, which was proper for the Halloween, but still felt very much like "Tales from the crypt" and not "Conan lore"

The rewards

As usual: silly social wearable and consumables that everyone gets, tries out, haves a short laugh and trashes. In other words: crap. I dream of events that will let you re-do the content to get truly unique stuff. Wouldn't it be cool if you had a small chance of some recipe dropping or like a unique tattoo pattern to proudly display on your back?. Just getting some silly items, like every single other person on the server, seems like a poor reward.

The rumors

Word on the streets (of Old Tarantia) is that the very day this event ends the ROGS will go live. It is because you can claim the quest letter only for 44 days and several game retailers have already put up ROGS for sale with 11-14 of may as release date. I am definitely hungry for more quality story telling as provided in the event.

To sum it up:

Pros:
- story line

Cons:
- zero replayability,
- same rewards for everyone,
- poor rewards,
- no challenge at all,

More content in Boredom Kingdoms

After couple of days of Shrines of Bori(ng) I can honestly say that it is a failure. I like the tokens system that came with 1.7 and I think it has been well implemented with quest system for minigames. Nuff said.

But the Shrines reward you for NOT doing pvp.

Here is how stuff goes down:

Get a group that will farm the mats well, about 6 does this fast enough.

Grab resources, one shrine, chain-sacrafice and get 6 tokes, 1200 xp, 6000 renown. Sweet.

What you don't want to do is to get sucked into somekind of pvp encounters. Bori is not impressed with pvp! That is right: the freaking god of war rewards the humble ones that do not spill innocent blood.

Allow me to elaborate: pvp slows your gathering, god forbid if you die and drop precious resources.

If you are attacked "guerilla style" by 2-3 guys then just get togehter, track them down with ranger and kill off. But what if you face equal or bigger group? Damn, guess you will have to bring more people. That means: less tokes, less xp.

The conclusion is: not doing pvp is an ideal scenario where you can farm tokes at optimal rate. FUN? That's Bori for ya!

This creates all sort of funky scenarios where Fury PvPers are transfering to Hyrkania(RP-PVE)so they can farm in peace. Either that or you have to log on in the morning, when gamers with jobs (TM) are at work.

You can check out offical feedback thread that is like 26 pages of complains.

The question is: did FC pushed this content too soon or what? On Aquiliona (RP-PVP) the Bori is being constantly impressed by 2-3 guilds that have naped each other and farm in peace (so do I for I am in one of these guilds). Not in that alliance? Guess you are screwed out of PVP T2.

Fury, on another side, is one massive battle ground where people gain 1 token per several hours. Feeling like droping 500 HOURS into getting 1 pvp ring? I don't think that is going to fly in my world.

I don't think that Bori will stay this way because it is unplayable right now. Can't wait how Game Director will handle this one because simply saying "some people like it" won't cut it. 

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Bombay assassin vs re-rollers

It's been a while since last quality Bombay Assassin producation. I think you will enjoy this one.

Have you seen freshly dinged assassins doing nothing but GC+soul strike?

Bring Ice and Scotch: welfare pvp gear and 1.7

Still got that ice? Bring Scotch now for I am lvl6 and AOC yet again cheated me out of my gear (or "epeen" to be exact). Back in the day when I hit pvp lvl 3 by doing minigames (which by that time gave no xp for winning or losing) that feat was meaningless. Large chunk of server's population was just farming each other and lvl 3 gear was nothing to show off. 

Lets forward that 1 year into the future. After months upon months of endless grind I had to make 14% more xp for pvp lvl 5. Then came the Bori and the 1.7 and changed the rules. All of sudden I am 15% into lvl6 and pvp 5 gear is neither uncommon nor really hard to get.  In other words: you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

If you had huge epeen from having pvp lvl5 gear then it has been officially cut off and feed to the dogs. PVP 5 is meaningless now. Shit, guess I gotta kill more people now.

If you rage quited the AOC because of pvp xp farming abuse and Keshatta - this is the time to come back.

With that put aside, the 1.7 brings very unique twist on pvp (atleast compared to what we were used to)

1. PvP tier 2 = tier 3 pve or better 

About damn time. You get the proper pvp gear by doing pvp. Assassin's armor is looking gorgeous, almost celestial compared to pvp lvl 5 NIPPLE SET  What's not to like?

2. Tokens!

There are 4 quests for minigames, one for each map. By doining the quest (winning the minigame) you get 1 token. Quests are on cooldowns so no farmy-farmy premades. The quest have put all the maps in the rotation so no more HV horror, because there is no point in playing just one map (no rewards).

You get the other type of tokens for doing Bori content. For pvp items you need pvp xp, and both type of tokens (some minigames ones, and LOADS of Bori tokens). This I like. The system rewards consistency in pvp, prevents abuse (naked RP won't yeld any tokens and pvp xp alone is meaingless) and takes your attention away from pvp xp farm - it is all about winning now. 

3. Bori vs Keshatta

I like Bori content so far. There is no point comparing it to Kesh. I need to do a lot more of Bori to have a strong opinion thou.

The Excremental walks the earth

Remember Dogma? It had the "Shit Demon", an "excremental" formed out of the excrement of all who were crucified at Golgotha when they died.  Yeah, so I feel like The Excremental walks the earth again, but this time he is formed from shit that is coming out of people's mouths.  

The sad part is that I shouldn't be twitching about someone posting "Sin can have all cc types and chain cc together to cc you longer than any demo can", but I do and it's gets under my skin. I can't rember when was the last time I posted something on the forums that was not a guide. Somehow every thread can be turned into "as assassin issue" and how can you debate someone who writes "sin is the most retarted class to play atm besides necro pet"? (granted, miss spelling "retarded" is fucking cool). You can't so I don't. This kinda excluded quite a number of people (active assassins) from either forums, class or even game. I am almost, ALMOST sorry for asking for a revamp. Guess this is a classic example of "be careful what you wish for".

We asked for DPS, glass canon, in-your-face close up pwnage and hell - we got it. It was easy to predict that tuned up assassins would turn into wow rogue and yet we failed at that.

Just a heads up: this might NOT be the best time to resub if you are an assassin. Let the dust settle a little and come when xpac is out.

The Hour of the Dragon read by M.Saletta

Without doubt Hour of the Dragon is one of best REH's creation featuring King Conan. Age of Conan takes place shorty after events portrayed in "hour of the dragon" so this should be "must-to-read" position for any aoc player (except those dumb, illiterate ones, you know who you are).


However if you are to busy to read anything except forums (which you are trolling for hours) then http://dragonhour.blogspot.com/ is a place to be.

Mr. Morgan Saletta put a lot of work into recording himself reading "the hour" in plain, clean English. Check it out.