[Guide] Choking powder

The choking powder (powder for short) is a major perk available only to assassin class via AA tree.

The powder takes two slots on your alternative bar, consumes 2 shards upon use and has 2m cool down.

When applied it:

- stops any combo or spell in progress (animation/casting)

- prevents any spells from being cast for 3s (silence)


First I have to say I truly love this perk and IMHO it is the best stuff we can get from the assassin class AA tree. It greatly buffs up survivability (via preventing the combo/spell from pwning your ass) can act as anti cc (preventing cc from being applied to you) and as a form of cc (not being able to attack/cast is being cced in my book)

Accessibility

Powder requires both lighting fast reaction as well as good timing. Having powder bound under accessible key is vital! Make sure that you can use the powder via one of the keys that are close to the ones that you are using form movement. Please note that powder is heavy on shard consumption and that it will be hard to support this perk without going hybrid and having 2 means of instant shard regeneration.

Stopping combo/spell

First make sure that you have "timer bar" switched on via settings. This little bar will show you what your target is doing. When it comes to spells use powder at the very last second of casting so your opponent will waste time and stand still while taking the punishment. When it comes to combos its quite the opposite: use powder as soon as combo animation starts because you need to reduce the damage as much as possible.

Stopping the CCs

This is the main part of my love for the powder. What is the very first thing your opponent will try to do when he comes out of your cc like fear/stun? He will try to CC you back and there is not a thing you can do about it because he has 5s immunity to major cc (it prevents the dreaded CC-lock). Well the powder doesn't count as any type of cc so it is not affected by immunities . You can do 2 things as your opponent comes out of cc: 

If he is melee - wait for his CC animation to start. Great example are the barbarians who's animations are very easy to recognize.

If he is a caster/assassin - apply the powder at the last second of CC duration (observe his characters posture - when the CC is over he will stand straight for a second) so your opponent is affected by the 3s silence.


Couple of more examples:

Bear shamans - they just love to go out of CC and use their stun to aoe CC and heal them self up. Choking powder not only denies them the CC but also the much needed heal

Hox - the powder can stop hoxe's transformation which brings aoe stun.

Tos - the powder can stop the red shield from being applied to the caster

DT - the powder can stop the aoe sword stun (easily recognizable animation)

the list goes on


Powder as AOE

The powder has cone aoe effect so even without any timing it is a great thing to pop in front of fighting crowd (perfect for minigames) and you are bound to affect the outcome of the skirmish. Powder also can bring people out of stealth. Right now the most sure method of popping out of hide is death's whirlwind, but that very heavy on shards so the powder, while not as reliable, can yield same results with lower shard costs. Furthermore the powder can be a great "run away tool" - use it just before you are going to "leg it" to avoid the nasty "stagger" cc being applied because your back is turned.


Powder in solo PVE

When used against mobs it will stop them for 1 second which, when pounded on by several mobs, can be a life saver. Other than that the mobs do have their own casting/combos (specially tamarim's tigers mobs which have a combo called whirling blades) so the usage of powder is same as in pvp.

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. 

Dagger and a bowl of rice ep.6: Hyrkanians

I have crushed bones for the Last Legion in the defence of the empire. I have been cutting throats for the ill-gotten money of Brittle Blade. I have slain the innocents and read their guts on the altars of Yun. I have basked in the light and glory of the most serene of goddesses.

Finally I have lost myself in the sea of bullshit that are Hyrkanians.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with this faction? If anything they have been positively insulting towards me from day 1, they are boring as hell, in no way they are involved in the story on any level. The only reason why I am putting up with that bullshit is because I want their pair of daggers. The day I got them I will use it to slay their war chief and fuck off to betray them with Wolves faction.

Here is what Hyrkanians can offer you: (*minor spoilers*):

- the don't know anything about what the hell is going on,

- enjoy the big ass village the size of small city that everyone denys acknowledge (what? Hyrkanians in the empire? Impossible!)

- bland, soulless NPCs with bullshit attitudes,

- wide range of bullshit quests including:

1. ride around the camp on the horse (weeeeeeeeee.....)
2. ride around the camp on the horse and shoot stuff (weeeeeeeee............)
3. beat the horse into submission (errrrrr.............)
4. allow the snakes to munch on your ass (what??)
5. find the mirror that gets lost every night across the map (did it ONCE)
6. kill 10 random creatures for meat (EPIC!)

In short: the Hyrkanians faction feels like the Wolves just needed the damn enemy beyond the great wall. The "story" revolving around them is poorly written and the quests are unimaginative. Furthermore the mount reward from this faction is a Swift Horse with a paint job.

If this faction doesn't have anything you might want then avoid joining them at all cost.

Quick look at social update

While trying out latest idea for a build (full blown failure BTW) I have discovered that there is a hidden content on TL server that patch notes did not mention:






Racing track

This area has been both on live and TL servers for a while now (from 1.6), but it's finally imlemented in full on TL. Get a group, pay the fee and pwn people on the track.
Just don't try horse burn-out, or drifting ..Tokiyo style.

Neat little thing.

Avenue of Roses
At first I have only noticed NPC standing at the doors. My first thought: PLAYER HOUSING!
I have ran like hell to both Khemi and Conarch to see if other Hubs got similiar stuff, but it was nowere to be found.
The guard told me that I ain't coming in without the permision from Mr. PvP.
"PvP? That guy must be in Bori, hitting rocks" but then I have looked up: there is a party in the roof and no one is invited!

Ofcourse that stupid NPC was no match for the seasoned explorer such as myself and soon enought I was standing on top of that building.

I guess you can watch some NPC dance, fire off fireworks and buy a keg. This place will be PERFECT for "goth poetry night" type of RP events! And by that I mean THIS. Oh and you can buy rotten cabbage to throw at poor Rpers. I am sure some of you will spend a fortune on this: FC, there is your chance for another GOLD SINK!!!



Ok so perhaps latest patch has a social theme: can one expect social tab for items too? I sure deduce that!