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Ok, I finally found some time to finish it, and even if kinda basic, I hope this could help you with the assassin section of this guide...well, here we go!!!
ArminVanBuuren’s DCZ Rogue guide
First of all I need to set this clear…this isn’t entended to be an ultimate rogue guide, since I don’t have the uniques or ultimate gear to give the respective feedback to do recommendations about pking with it. This is more like an average geared guide of how to kill and not get killed in DCZ.
Skillbar set up.
Even if some would think skillbar setup could be done as a main topic in this guide I think every single player should set up by himself its own skillbar. Why? Because some players use special skillbars due to some limitations they might have (some may be left handed or some others may find difficult comboing with 2 hands on the keyboard). Due to this, I’d just mention what’s necessary to have in every rogue’s skillbar according to my own personal opinion.
• I consider completely necessary to have both pots in main bars, HP and Soul. Why? Because since you are continuously switching bars then you’ll need to have it set up in those primary bars so you don’t have to switch to a third bar just to HP pot (just as I’ve seen many players do).
• Not less than 4 skills in every bar, so you can have a consistent combo all the time. Note that the skills every rogue has at lvl 59 are 7, so having 4-4 would allow you to use them all in your combo.
• Until now with all that was mentioned above, you have already set up 6 buttons of your skillbar, allowing you to set up the ones left onto what you need the most according to your needs and playing style (i.e. some might add dual minor healing as some might add light feet-minor healing to those buttons, is up to you).
Even if I know most would use a different bar, I'd explain in here how I use my own skillbar, even if would result a bit complicated to some people, because I just combo and pot with my left hand, having the right hand on the mouse the whole time.
I play using F3 and F1 as my main skillbars for attack, being F3 the one I begins my combo with. This is just because I'm used to play like that, every single player (if not known by some) can set up the skillbar as they want.
F3 (from 1 to 8)
Light feet, HP pot, Soul pot, Stab, Cut, Pierce, Thrust, Spike
F1 (also from 1 to 8)
Light feet, HP pot, Soul pot, Cut, Thrust, Spike, Jab, Shock
F2 (from 1 to 8)
Stealth, Lupine eyes, Blood drain, Vampire touch, Cure curse, HP, Soul, Illusion
F4 (from 1 to 8)
Swift, Wolf, Minor Heal (right clic), Magic Hammer, Acid pot, Styx, Evade, Safety
I know some may think minor healing in right clic is not pretty common and may be even not so versatile. But I use it like that just because having the right hand all the time on mouse allows you to have a better movement control on your character, so you don't lose a running pray just because you were running straight just behind him because of using WR to follow him (I've known some people having this mistake). Apart from this, minor healing with right clic, if controlled correctly, can heal you faster than the minor heal on the keyboard, without messing up your combo and is not as fast as dual minor so you don't run out of mana if done properly.
Comboing.
Although everything has been said by the 0000000's rogue guide, I'll explain the 3 methods in here too, even if I just use 2 of them (WR Skill doesn't work for me, I have my hand on mouse all the time).
rr skill
This is the most common combo, and in my opinion, the most versatile of the 3 (also the one I use the most). It works for every single skillbar set up or hand movement you need to use while comboing. Even if you are not so experienced, you can use it by using rr hits to time yourself (3 fast r-hits between skills may cancel the animation and hit one r to the enemy).
sr skill
This is the basic combo against a good archer (if you see the archer is not dealing any significant damage with arrow shower, just minor heal the hell out and tank him 'till he drops). It also works against melee players, since the step back you give while comboing might mess up the enemy's criticals from time to time (I had to learn this the hard way though).
wr skill
Even if I don't use it pretty often, there's something I can say about this. While dueling or tanking someone you know might lose against you, having the finger ready to press W would help if the enemy tries to run away. Having the mouse handed helps to me, but has a little delay while trying to move to the enemy's direction, so having WR pressed when he starts escaping helps a lot to catch up with any light feeting rogue that might want to avoid dead.
As for the healing part of comboing, I'd just say that the tips given by 0000000's guide also work for Ardream. However, having less than 2.5k mana would be a problem, so I'd soul pot as soon as I see 700 mana left only while minor healing continuously (1000 if being running hit by many rogues).
Equipment.
This is something 0000000's guide wouldn't add since he had the most desired rogue equipment possible at that time (everything but the shell set). In this section I will not only talk about uniques (since most of us already know which ones are better I will just mention them). But, I will mostly talk about Armors and maybe some advantages/disadvantages from some unique weapons for Ardream.
First of all, being the assassin a melee it's strongly recommendable to have high AC (duh!), so I wouldn't go with FPs+8 unless having some top uniques to make up for the AC loss the FPs+8 imply. Since rogue will always be part of the fight, I'd go with no less than Chitin+7 set (if possible +8). Of course, if possible to get FPs+9 could be ideal, due to the high defense it has (not as good as Chitin+8, but better than Chitin+7) and also gives a pretty high Dext bonus which would pump your character's AP.
Now here’s something new. Even if used mostly by priests, I find weapon defense armor an important piece of the rogue’s equipment, mostly in Ardream (even if having Iron Set).
Knowing this, the most important defenses in Ardream are just 3: Dagger, Spear and Club. Almost no one uses Axe/Sword (at least in Ares) and if yet bugged, Arrow defense would not work (besides, that would only be used when tanking archers, which would not be as common as tanking any other melee players).
Dagger defense has only available the Helmet, FP, Plate and lower (+6/25) in older servers and Upgradable Chitin helmet in all servers (+7/15, +8/17). This is a MUST, due to 75% or so Ardream's population being composed by rogues (talking about assassins only eh).
Spear defense in older servers can be gotten as rare armor as helmet, boots and gauntlets, each having +5/20. However, this defense can be tricky, since you'll need to wear all the pieces to get the specified amount of defense (so you have to wear them all to get the 20% spear damage reduction). For all servers there's also available the upgradeable spear boots, which give 20 spear defense in +8, having the advantage of not reducing the total AC so dramatically as by wearing the rare set (however, somehow I'm still convinced the rare set works better).
Club defense. This one is not so common not because would be difficult to get, but because by using it you'd be sacrificing lots of AC (in case of rare defenses) due to the rare defenses just coming in Pad and Pauldron, so if you have FP pads and pauldron you'd be sacrificing the AC for Club defense, which can be useful while fighting a club wielder, but not if fighting some clubs and then being hit by any spear/dagger user. However, the Chitin option is a good one if you can get your hands on it, since the pauldron in +7 already has 20 club defense, and +8 has 25 club defense, keeping the AC up so you can still deal with multiple enemies.
Now let's talk about the shields (Yes, I said shields). I'm not referring to the unique shields, due to being Chitin and Scorpion Shield the only ones a rogue could wield being +0. Even if not pretty common, I decided to sacrifice a single point in Dext and add it to Str so I can wear the +3 paper shields (small shields) which have 24 weapon defense, which could be your life savior in many situations. Besides, at lvl 59 Dext gives not such a high ap bonus per point, so it would be hardly noticeable.
Almost forgot to mention. Goblin Chitins if not the best armor, can be pretty helpful, specially against mages due to the 32 points to every single resistance that matters in this game. Keep pads and pauldron in your inventory just in case (unless you want the almost 300 HP bonus you get from them, you can wear them all the time then).
…and finally, PvP.
Being this a pretty loooong guide, we are almost at the bottom, the pvp tactics.
Tactics would vary a bit depending on how are you playing, soloing or in a party. Usually, I see running parties of 5 sins, 2 priests and a mage in Ardream, but no one can deny that the rogue has dual tasks while in party: supporter and attacker.
As mentioned by 0000000, the rogue (or at least one of them) must protect the priests, being ready to minor heal and cure the priests if necessary (that way the priest has no need on stopping the party healing to cure himself). Also, the rogue can make the enemies get distracted by fake debuffs used by rogues. How's that? Well, rogues have a skill called Illusion (which most say is lame to be used in vs, but in party is great). If casted while unseen, you can throw it to any warrior, rogue or mage to distract the healer, due to him seeing it as a debuff in party screen. It also prevents criticals from the rogues tanking the priests or any members from your party, which give you some more time to hit them and whether kill them or make them run away from your priests.
I mentioned above some special equipment. If you got it all, there's a big chance for rogue to become the tanker. How come? Average rogues in Ardream can have more than 2k base HP, 800-900 AC (scrolled) and 1100-1250 average AP. With all that, rogues can tank too if helped a bit. If you get your hands on the full weapon defense equipment I mentioned (even the shields) your rogue can wear it all and tank the hell out of the enemy party being healed by a single 1920 priest. Even if sounds stupid, when a full party sees they cannot kill someone, they tank him altogether (which is funny). This happens mostly against turks, and due to the healing and the defenses, the rogue won't fall so easily, while the party can start attacking the enemy (tested already if you still wondering).
Enough said, let's go to 1vs1 tactic. However, these tactics are not for officialy arranged vs. since I don't believe in such a thing while in Ardream unless you ask it by letter, not by making me follow you or sending me pms (c'mon!!! how come people want us to understand what they want when all you can read is “%@&$/&?!#??).
Assassins.
The most common enemy in Ardream. Usually an equal, you'll need to focus the whole time in your mana. Even if difficult, try keeping consistent the minor healing, avoiding getting your mana below the middle. Save your HP pots for the enemy's spikes, because every other hits can be outhealed (usually the sins will hit a Spike R Thrust, dealing the highest damage possible, this is when you pot). As mentioned in the ultimate guide (you know which one) eventually the enemy will make a mistake, and getting low on mana, lose a hit or fail a potting, and that's the moment you take to get his HP down. Don't forget to have W ready to follow if runs away trying to avoid dead. Also remember, if the sin casts illusion on you, cast back and keep comboing him no stop.
Warriors.
Even if they are gonna hate me, warriors are not the hard ones in Ardream. There are just a few in fact that can give some trouble. Unlike at CZ, warriors have not Sword Dancing, they have Sword Aura, which deals less damage, but rogues still have their Spike, so there's an advantage in damage. Also, due to not being official duels, you can also wear your spear defense if needed (what? You want the nps, don't you?) and see how they try to escape from you. Almost forgot, try to keep on your light feet all the time, because if the warrior tries to legcut there's a big chance of keeping the light feet while leg cutted, and you'll still be able to follow the warrior if tries to escape.
Battle Priests.
Same with warrior, here BPs have not their main damaging skill. In fact, they have a disadvantage dealing damage, since none of their attacking skills is spammable, and the one that actually is deals too little damage to harm you. You just have to take care of their debuffs, and be quick at the cure casting to avoid losing too much HP in the process (usually, you'll have to care about parasite more than malice, unless you know the BP you face has great gear). The BP will try to heal himself when having less than half his HP, so keep comboing him while he uses his healing, if possible, use the lowest skills, so when the BP runs out of mana or gets it too low to heal himself you can use spike thrust pierce and cause him to drop the HP dramatically. Just keep pressing until you can force a mistake from him and voilà, 25 nps.
Archers.
OK, I agree, styx gives a kind of initial advantage to an archer in a duel, doesn't it? Well, if used correctly, styx can help the archer to gain some points against you, but you must remember that styx weight is 25, and Ardream archers have not as much Str as lvl 70 ones, so less styx, more mana for us. Depending on the archer their damage while arrow showering will vary, so if you see they hit less than 200 with every hit, you can tank them with no problem while minor healing. If their damage is 200-250 per arrow, use the sr skill combo and eventually you'll see the archer fall down. As said by the ultimate guide, archers cannot minor heal while attacking, they can just pot to outheal your damage, and you can take serious advantage of that.
Mages.
Even if most people says they are weak, mages can give you some headaches due to the current ice rates. Usually the mage will try to slow you first to start sliding after that. Same as to avoid warrior's legcut: keep your light feet on the whole time. Blizzard is the skill that freezes the most, along with Ice Blast, which are the only ones that can really cancel your light feet. Just keep your rogue close to the mage as much as possible, and get cure ready just in case gets to ice you. If the mage is a lightning one, you just need to keep your HP as high as possible just in case you get stunned, so you don't die while you are unable to minor heal yourself. Other than that, mages cannot outpot your damage if they are close to you, so just avoid the icing and enjoy your fighting!
I think that's the basic everybody needs to know as a sin in Ardream. I could explain a bit more about every single vs, but I think that everybody would vary their own tactic against every single player depending on their own play style. This guide is fully based in my own style and experience at PKing in Ardream. Hopefully this “mini” guide helps a bit to the full DCZ pk guide, and if someone has something to add, I’m fully open to feedback and other opinions.
ArminVanBuuren from Ares.
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its servers (+7/12, +8/15) XD
Pity that.
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