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Assassin Guide
Author: 0000000
Server: Ares - USKO
Race: El Morad
###### Ultimate Rogue Assassin guide by 0000000 #######
Introduction
Im writing this because a lot of people ask me for help with random things, and i wanted to have it all collected together for when i stop playing. Most of the information is fairly obvious and common knowledge to experienced players, but i hope everyone finds something new.
Why me? It is slightly pompous and egotistical to write a definitive guide to a class, but i am pompous and very egotistical so im fine with that. If you think you know better, come on Ares and fight me. I can save you some time, you will lose. Since i got lvl70, no rogue or warrior of any level has been able to tank it out with me without dying. And it isnt because of godly items or cheats, it is because the assassin class at 70 is immensely powerful and has unrivalled healing capabilities, and unrivalled damage capabalities. Anyway, on with the show...
////////Part 1, Skill bar setup
You must use every skill you have. If you are level 55 or higher, you must use all 7 skills, otherwise there will be a large gap in your combo where the opponent can heal up and even light a cigar while they wait for your spike. People naturally assume that they have to fit all 7 on their main bar, neglecting other important skills like minor heal and pots. WRONG.
Im gonna throw this idea out of the window. You are going to use 2 skillbars for your combo. Now it doesnt really matter which buttons you use for which skill, aslong as you have these things:
1) HP pot, soul pot and minor heal all near each other, in the same places on each skill bar.
2) Skills overlapping.
You need to separate the skill bars into 2 parts, the left hand and the right hand. It should be like playing the piano. You train your left hand to combo independently, and your right hand is free to monitor your HP and mana. Since you are using 2 bars, the pots and minor heal should be in the same slots so that you dont have to change position mid combo.
As for overlapping, i say this because it is sometimes difficult to predict when your spike is ready when using 2 skill bars. Obviously if you have 7 skills, you are going to have 3 places empty on the 2nd bar, so use 3 overlapped skills here so u can monitor their cooldown. Here is my skillbar setup pre lvl70:
F1: spike, thrust, pierce, cut, stab, HP, soulpot, minorheal.
F4: shock, jab, spike, thrust, cut, HP, soulpot, minorheal.
i only use F4 because it is easy to reach without thinking, on my keyboard.
//////////Part 2, COMBO
This is the only thing that 99% of sins care about, and i remember scavenging the MYKO forums for clues on this secret technique when i was trying to teach myself. Everyone knows the principle to comboing. There are basically 3 methods:
Skill - w - r
Skill - r - r
Skill - s - r
Each of these methods does EXACTLY the same thing and i can combo just as fast with each. You have to practice all of them so you can do them equally well, they each have their own good purposes. i originally used skill - r- r whilst holding down "w" (the same method as 411), but i had a problem in that i would accidentally hit one too many r's, or one too few, and thus mess up the sequence. You shouldnt have to think about your combo, which is why i dont like this one. This is the best combo for cancelling priests' heals, but i think it is not the best for much else. For tanking most people, use Skill - w - r. this is extremely simple, you can transfer to the running combo quickly, and you are always pressed up against the opponent if he decides to run away. The only use for the Skill - s - r combo is when you are tanking an archer. You may have to hold down "s" for slightly longer to get more distance, if the archer has a strong arrow shower.
So how do some people hit so fast? There is NO secret. It is just timing and practice. The (skill-w-r) itself can be done as one motion, you dont have to wait between each hit. However, after you "R", you must wait half a second before using the next skill otherwise you will get skill failed. If you can get the rhythm of this just right, the hits will roll off fast and people will be calling you a hacker in no time.
Now the tricky part, running combos. It is very hard to explain how to do this. The method is just to hold down "w" all the time, and as you get in skill range, use a skill, then as you bounce against the opponent use an "r". I usually use 2 r's in between every skill, but this is only for timing, you dont have to cancel the skill itself. You may notice then every time u touch the opponent, your skill animation cancels since you are holding "w" (a cancelling key). You have to practice this, a lot. Sometimes i really mess this up, and get people saying that im shit etc... sometimes i get it just right and the same people say it is a macro. You have to accept that it is very difficult and you will not get it right every time.
////////// Part 3, Healing
This is the most important part in my opinion. Assassins are unique in that they have UNLIMITED healing capacity, well... almost
First of all, look at your mana bar. Subtract 1920 from your total mana and remember this number, this is your critical point, the low-fuel number :P.
At any time whilst pking, DO NOT LET YOUR MANA GO BELOW THIS NUMBER. The only exception is when you are intending on /towning, and you chug all your mana in a last ditch effort to get above 50% HP.
golden rule: MANA IS MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU THAN HEALTH. Why? mana IS health. if you run low on mana, you are limited to the same crappy 720 pots as everyone else, and are liable to die like a retard. If you keep your mana high, you can light feet, magic shield, cure yourself and MINOR HEAL, all vital parts of staying alive in PK.
Now what is minorheal-combo? well i didnt coin the name, but someone on the forum did for me spamming minor heal only during whole fights. All this combo is, is comboing with the left hand, and spamming minor heal/soulpotting with the right hand, non-stop, very fast. Its that simple.
It isn't however the best method of healing. The best, and hardest method of healing, is using 720pots and minor heal at the same time. Treat this as your default healing strategy. Now the difficulty is knowing how fast to minor heal. If you go too fast, your mana will run out and you wont be able to soulpot since you are busy chugging HP pots. If you go too slow, you will die. You have to keep a steady pace with the minor heal at the start. Use HP pots constantly whilst you are minor healing, and focus on your mana bar. As soon as your mana approaches your critical point, hit a soul pot. When i am within 500mana of my critical point, i speed up the minor heal to compensate for the fact that i am not using an HP pot. Now this does not seem so hard right? Do this at the same time as comboing at full speed using 2 skill bars. You do need long fingers
Your focus should not be on watching the hits in your info box, it should be rigidly on your HP/MANA bars. You should be anticipating exactly when to speedup minor heal and use a soulpot.
If you are coasting along and your opponent is struggling, only use HP pots. Forget about complex healing and just concentrate on finishing him with fast combos. If YOU are struggling, calm yourself down, and concentrate on getting your mana high. Remember that high mana = high HP. When you are struggling, use 2 fingers on your right hand to spam minor heal and soulpots together and the same time, as fast as you can. You need to keep doing this until you get your mana high again, and you can switch back to the usual healing method.
A lot of people assume i put minorheal on right-click, and hold ctrl to use it way faster than normal. I dont. Why?
- I think it is bug abuse and lame
- If you minorheal that fast you will just go below your critical mana point way too fast.
You can only minorheal as fast as you can use soulpots, so there is no point using this rightclick bug since you just end up waiting for your soul pot to cooldown. Using my method, i heal faster, use less soulpots, and spread the healing out so i dont have a gap that im not healing.
//////// Part 4, advanced party tactics
I am going to assume that you are pking as part of an 8-man party. You probably do not have the best items, or super-high level, so you have to be careful and stick to your job. Firstly, consider the threat from each party you fight, and adjust your defense armours accordingly. If you see 3 strong warriors all using raptors, chuck on the spear defense, as much as you have. If you see a bunch of sins, use that dagger helm (you should really use it all the time unless you have top uniques and high level). You get the idea. It doesnt matter if your attack gets lowered a lot, your role is to pick off redballers with a quick combo, and to attack the main targets, cancelling their skills. Your are not the main damage dealer, leave that to warriors and paper mages.
Who are main targets? Well i used to have a little order i used with my old clan to determine this:
1) Full healer INT priest
2) Debuffer battlepriest
3) Debuffer INT priest
4) Light Mage
5) Other mages
6) Warriors
7) Anyone else
Sometimes you will fight against a party whose mage is teleport-happy, and simply runs around tping his priests if they even get scratched. Call his name early and kill this guy first.
So you know your targets, as you approach the party, you should be stealthed and at a wide angle to the side, to avoid any AoE spells or debuffs. Time your run so that just as you see the purple gas go over your target, you are pounding the crap out of them with your combo. If you are not getting backup from your party, and you are getting attacked, RUN. Just run in circles, it is GOOD for your party if you are taking the agro. They are going to have a hard time killing you, and you are diverting their attackers from your own party. This is why i dont list rogues as targets, killing them doesnt accomplish much, and is usually a big waste of time and debuffs.
If you are losing a fight, or if you know you are running into a strong party, play defensive. Stay at the back near your priests, and be ready to cure them and minor heal them. if any assassin starts tanking them, attack him so he runs away. Your priests will be too busy curing/healing the warriors and mages to look after themselves, so you have to help them.
////////// Part 5, 1v1 tactics
Ill keep it simple:
-Archers, use your skill-s-r combo, try to avoid their full arrow shower if you can. They cannot minor heal so all you have to do is beat their pot rate, it should not be too hard. If you are styxed, hit soulpot FAST whilst walking backwards. They will try to shower you right after a styx, this is when you are vulnerable.
-Assassins, use your skill-w-r combo, and concentrate on keeping your HP and mana both high, you are going to be in for a long fight against a closely geared assassin. Most sins can combo to a good standard, so you must use your healing skills to put him under pressure. If your HP does not budge after his full combo, he will panic and try to combo faster, diverting his attention from his healing. It is amazing now, when i fight some sins that i used to think were strong, their combo is very fast, but they cannot heal under pressure at all, which makes them easy prey. They know who they are. If you are not making progress, be patient and keep concentrating on your healing. Your opponent on the other hand, will be neglecting his healing more and more as the fight progresses. Eventually he will make a mistake, and he will be forced to run away. Stay close to him and dont let up the pressure. If he is far stronger than you in level and items, keep him illusioned.
-Warriors, probably your biggest challenge is against high level warriors. If he is using a dagger helmet + 20 dagger uniques + lvl65, and if he is sliding you, you are wasting your pots. He is never going to hit you fast enough to kill you, and you will never kill him (unless he is retarded). If you tank him for long enough, he will realise he must tank you to have a chance. Use exactly the same principles as against an assassin. Remember that it is harder for him to regain HP once he is low, so it might take a while to drop his HP, but it WILL go down eventually. It is very easy to outdamage a 720potrate, i can even outdamage it against a warrior using a shield usually. If you are screamed or legcut, do these three things very quickly:
Magic shield > cure curse > light feet.
This stops him from legcutting/screaming you right after you cure. Remember that if your light feet runs out, and his legcut or scream fails, you will not be able to light feet for the duration of his skill. This is why it is extra-important to keep up lightfeet against a warrior.
-Battlepriest, A BP is not able to outpot your damage. As a result they have to periodically stop and 1920 heal themselves. You have to practice your skill-r-r combo so that you can cancel their heals every now and then. It just takes one cancelled heal to seriously fuck up a battlepriest. He will always be sliding you, so use your running combo and try to keep up the pressure on him. The more pressure you put on him, the more he has to stop and heal, and the less time he has to debuff you. If the BP does not have 1920 heal, and if you have adequate defense armours, he is as good as dead, you cannot lose.
One reason i like to get my base HP as high as possible is for fighting battlepriests. Half the time you will be parasited, and how much time you have to cure is dependent on your base HP. I have 2426HP base, and just over 2000 parasited, so when im using club/sword defense it takes the battlepriest maybe 4-5 judgements to kill me fully debuffed. This is more than enough time to cast a cure. If you are cocky like me, wait as late as possible to cure yourself, since when you cure parasite, it adds 1500HP +20% to whatever HP you are. So when i am almost dead, i cure and HP pot at the same time, and voila... ~2500HP regained!
-Mages, Most mages will slide you with a blade attack since you will be cancelling almost every spell they cast. It is not hard to outpot any blade attack by any method. The chances of dying are low, your only danger is being iced or stunned. Use your magic shield whilst you are stealthed, and try to get his HP low FAST, since when he is almost dead, he will just be trying to run away and pot, and he will not be trying to ice/stun you.
Now the only trouble i ever have with mages is when they use the new skill Manes of Fire. This is a failsafe skill like ignition, but the damage is nuts. It can be tanked though, i can tank a lvl70 paper mage with +8 lycaon staff using this skill. It is like tanking a high level warrior, so if you can do that, this should be no problem, the mage should die quite fast if he is tanking you.
And a lot of people ask me what Bloody Beast is like. Well, its really fucking good. It is between 450-650 damage on ANYONE irrespective of my attack or their defense. I can use 1 dagger and hit a lvl 70 warrior with 100dagger def for 450!. It has a 5second cooldown (less than half of spike). So against newbs, it is like pierce, but who cares about a newb who u kill in 2 hits anyway. Against strong assassins, warriors and INT priests, it is like spike, and sometimes harder. So overall against a strong opponent it is like having 3 spikes. As you can imagine, comboing with 8 skills (3 spikes) is extremely deadly and difficult for anyone to outheal. On mobs it does 1200-2000 damage, again, irrespective of the mob. So on dark mares it is like thrust, on some bosses it is like spike, and against WARDERS and KEEPERS it is THREE TIMES as powerful as spike. Yes i laughed my ass off when i saw the damage. Now you know why lvl70 sins ALWAYS get the warders
That is pretty much it! Remember there is no substitute in this game for level, items or skill. You need all 3 to be a good pker. So keep levelling, keep hunting for items with your clan, and keep practicing your combo and your healing.
-0000000
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