Today we will introduce a great
ELOA Assassin Warrior PVP guide by Kassariane, who has spent a lot of time in the Blood Battlefield, learning the hard way. By the last day of IBT, Kassariane got 64% and 92% winning rate at 1v1 rank and 2v2 rank respectively, and this guide is based on his own interpretation of the assassin class and experiences. You can also check out the full thread
here.
Table of ContentsThe SkillsGeneral PvE situationsPvP- Combos Overview
- Combat Scenarios
Talents- Dagger
- Webbed Claws
- Scythe
- General
The skills
Knowing your skills perfectly is a must if you want to get anywhere. I will explain each skill in decent detail here and add even more details in the following sections. As most of you know assassins use three kinds of weapons - a dagger, webbed claws and a scythe. The styles are respectively called Asssassination, Chaos and Execution.
Dagger / Assassination
In this stance you gain 3% attack points and your critical hit chance goes up by 200 (2%)
Heinous Blow - 1
Heinous Blow is your strongest damaging skill with a very low cooldown (6 seconds). It can also be upgraded to do extra damage and heal you for 10% of damage dealt. This skill is great in PvE as it can heal you up really quickly when you fight multiple enemies. In PvP it is a fairly risky skill, as you are stationary while you are under the animation and it is quite hard to hit as it is frontal line attack. It is very rewarding when you do hit it without getting caught or dispositioned though. 6 seconds cooldown.
Gale Sword - 2
You perform a short-distance charge forward, dealing damage to everyone you hit, slowing them. Can be upgraded to increase the charge distance and decrease its cooldown to 10 seconds. It is a great harass and escape skill. It can also be used for re-positioning. While charging, you are immune to damage and crowd control effects. 14 seconds cooldown, 10 fully upgraded.
Guide to Twilight - 3
This skill allows you to jump into air and throw "wires attached to daggers" on the ground, slowing enemies hit. If the enemy is already slowed (by Gale Sword for example), it will immobilize them. Can be used in PvE to deal damage around you.
Using this skill in PvP is risky because it is stationary, so I try avoid using it. However, it can be valuable in certain situation as it hits in full circle around you, which only few of your skills do. 10 seconds cooldown.
Fast Movement - 4
Jumps backwards while throwing a dagger in front of you. Great skill, useful for harassing your opponent while getting some distance between you. 14 seconds cooldown.
Shadow Hiding - Q
Your only control effects escape. When used, you break free from all crowd control effects (except silence!) and gain 50% evasion rate and 20% movement speed. Priceless skill, make sure to never waste it. Can be used both defensively and offensively, the latter being very risky but potentially deciding. 23 seconds cooldown.
Handle Strike - W
The only stun & silence skill in the dagger skillset. When successfuly hit, your opponent is stunned for 2 seconds and silenced for 1 extra second (actually 3 seconds silence, but the first 2 are a stun). This skill is very hard to hit considering you need to be really close to your opponent, but it is probably the most rewarding skill to hit as the followup combo (specified in further section) can kill anyone provided their escape is on cooldown.
Can be upgraded to decrease its casting speed at the cost of its damage. The point of this skill is to disable enemy, not to damage them. 14 seconds cooldown.
Wild Dance - E
You spin around for a fairly long time and then you push every enemy around you very far away. This skill is useless in PvP because of its super long cast time, you would probably get stunned before finishing the casting. It could be used to prolong some combos but I believe there are better alternatives to use.
It can be upgraded to ignore 50% of damage received while casting. 21 seconds cooldown.
Explosive Darts - R
Throws a bomb on specified spot. The bomb explodes, throwing darts into four directions. The damage is fairly low but it is a useful harass skill and kite skill. 25 seconds cooldown.
Webbed Claws / Chaos
In this stance you gain 200 evasion (2%) and 3% movement speed.
Incision - 1
Short-distance frontal attack that deals very good damage and applies bleeding. Pretty useful in PvE as filler and to apply bleeding to bosses. In PvP its use is limited to stunned / frozen / downed enemies as it is pretty much impossible to hit when your enemy isn't pinned down. 6 seconds cooldown.
Weasel Blade - 2
This skill shoots three blades in front of you. Excellent skill both for PvP and PvE. Can be upgraded so the last hit applies bleeding, which makes this skill even better. This skill is what will inflict the most damage on your enemies.
While it is a ranged skill, you will find yourself using it at melee range after disabling your opponent, spelling almost certain doom. 10 seconds cooldown.
Clawhand - 3
Vital skill, a stun. Stuns everything in front of you, has double the range of dagger stun, but is actually harder to hit unless you are willing to make yourself vulnerable for a moment. Can be upgraded to stun for 3 seconds (originaly it's 2). 14 seconds cooldown.
Ravage - 4
Deals damage to enemies in front of you. This skill alone is useless, but combined with clawhand it's deadly as it knocks down stunned enemies for 2 seconds. 8 seconds cooldown.
Raid - Q
Escape / harass skill. Allows the user to teleport short distance, dealing damage upon teleportation. Vital skill for escapes, kiting, harassing and re-positioning. Can be upgraded to increase the teleport distance. 23 seconds cooldown.
Foresight - W
Moves backwards 4 meters to charge before rushing forward 7 meters with a spin. This skill is difficult to judge. It can be upgraded to silence enemies for 3 seconds which makes it useful, but hard to use as you basically only charge forward 3 meters and the casting time is very slow, giving your opponent plenty of time to react and can ultimately put you into very unfavorable position right in your opponent's face. 15 seconds cooldown.
Botomless Pit - E
Spins around and knocks down anyone still standing near you when you finish. It can be used in PvE to handle big groups of mobs. As for PvP, it can be used to prolong some combos, but there is a better alternative most of the time. 20 seconds cooldown.
Double-edged Sword - R
Increases your critical hit chance by 40% for 7 seconds but increases the damage you receive by 40%. In PvE, a nice skill to increase damage of your dagger burst. In PvP, a big no-no. Sure, you might get in a critical hit if you get lucky, but you might as well receive huge damage if you mess up. 20 seconds cooldown.
Scythe / Execution
While using scythe, you receive 5% extra damage to named bosses and hit rate +200 (2%).
Frost Blade - 1
Forward cone attack. Freezes opponent for 3 seconds, low damage. One of the main skills to handle big groups of mobs in PvE. A very good skill in PvP as well, but should not be used alone as it is quite slow. Can be upgraded to increase the casting speed. 14 seconds cooldown.
Wild Storm Dance - 2
Spins around, hitting anything near you three times, dealing heavy damage. You can move while spinning. 10 seconds cooldown.
Swamp of Pain - 3
Creates a "swamp" below your feet that periodically deals damage to enemies standing within it, 5 hits. Can be upgraded to deal 6 hits and also to deal additional 40% damage to frozen enemies. A great skill with great upgrades both for PvP and PvE. 16 seconds cooldown.
Division - 4
Creates a circle of confusion at designated spot, making anyone it hits run around randomly for 5 seconds. Not very useful in PvE, but very good harass skill in PvP, it can also setup your enemy for easy pull (mentioned later). 18 seconds cooldown.
Rest - Q
Encloses you into ice coffin, absorbing damage equal to 50% of your HP, making you immune to crowd control effects and removes some DoTs like bleeding, 6 seconds duration. Can be cancelled prematurely by moving. Also increases your health recovery by 500%.
Can be upgraded to absorb up to 100% of your HP and increase your HP recovery by 750%. A great skill to avoid disasters and taking a breather. 33 seconds cooldown.
Spirit Harvest - W
Throws a huge icy scythe in front of you, pulling anyone you hit to yourself. Can start a nice combo, but it can also put you into a very bad situation when used against some classes. 18 seconds cooldown.
Death Trap - E
Creates a mine at desired location. Activates when an opponent stand on it, dealing decent damage. Decent harass skill due to its low cooldown, but easy to avoid. It can be used in some arenas to force enemies go the other way (like putting it in the middle of two fire pits). 3 seconds cooldown.
Wave of Traces - R
Improves your and your party members' evasion by 15% for 7 seconds. Can be upgraded up to 25%. Nice buff to have. 1 minute cooldown.
General PvE situations
When you are leveling, you will most likely want to pull some mobs, switch to scythe and use your 1 to freeze the pack. After that you will want to use your 3 to create the swamp and then follow-up with your 2 to spin to win. This should kill pretty much any pack while leveling. If not, you can switch to claw and use your 3 for stun, 4 for knockback and 2 to finish them off. You can also alternate, depending on your cooldowns and you can use dagger 1 for lifesteal when necessary.
When fighting bosses, the primary goal is to have bleeding attached, so using your claw's 1 & 2 is fairly important. It is also good to use your scythe 3 (swamp) and spin when you are sure you won't get hit. Another nice damaging rotation is to use claw crit buff (R) and then switch to dagger and use 1, 2, 3 and 4 in this order.
PvE is fairly simple, the only complication that comes to play are the bosses' skills and behaviors.
PvPCombat Scenarios
Now that we know some combo possibilities and we also know how cool the sure-kill combo is, let us come back to ground and look at how this all actually works (not) in reality.
There are many, many ways how you can fight and they will vary depending on who you fight. Not just their class, but certain people. I fought one blood knight and he had completely different playstyle than the other. Let's look at some options:
Battle InitiationKiting
Assassins can kite. It is not as effective as other classes', but you can do some nice things. The main skills (the only) are: Dagger-R, Scythe-4, E and possible, but risky claw-2. The goal is to throw bombs (scythe-E) in the path of your opponent's movement, making them step on it and lose decent chunk of their health. You can incorporate claw-Q, dagger-2, 4 and scythe-Q as escape / rest skills while your kiting abilities are on cooldowns.
Having kiting as your only method of fighting is not sufficient. The ranged skills can be used at certain points in fights and they can be a deciding factor of your victory, but you should be able to do more than that.
Pulling
While kiting, you can attempt to use pull and proceed with "improved scythe combo" (W, 1, 3, 2). The pull is considerably easier when your opponent is confused by scythe-4. Do not do this against blood knights that have their silence charge off cooldown, as they will charge into you and they will silence you and it will hurt you, a lot.
Harassing
Your dagger kit has some very nice harassing skills. You can charge into enemy and then instantly jump away (2, 4), leaving them slowed, making your dagger-R, scythe-4, E very easy to hit. Or a make it a nice opening for a pull and scythe combo. You could also use your claw-Q to teleport and then proceed with dagger harassing, for more damage. But you put one more escape skill to cooldown, so you have to be ready to use scythe-Q if you fail your harass and opponent catches up to you.
Ending a fight
Of course, you could keep combining the previous three methods and slowly drain your opponent's health, but that is often unnecessary and not that hard to counter, so you will need to be able to do more than that.
To end a fight, you need to land a stun (dagger-W or claw-3) at the right moment. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because:
- You can miss
- You can get stunned instead
- Your enemy can use an escape skill
Let's look at the evasion skills of others.
Blood Knights can "jump out" of your crowd control skills, snipers can do the same. Psychics have their godmode, which ignores all crowd control effects for a duration and makes them strong. Mages have their red shield which not only absorbs damage, but ignores crowd control effects as well.
For blood knights, you really have to get them twice within the timeframe of 23 seconds (cooldown of their escape skill), otherwise they have no reason to "waste" their evasion. Same goes for snipers. Using your scythe pull is a good way to achieve this - scythe combo isn't enough to kill people, so is okay to have it escaped from.
Psychics tend to use their godmode offensively, which is perfect for you as you can use your scythe-Q and simply wait their godmode out, going offensive right when it's over. Same goes for mages. Do not attempt to fight them if you see them using these overpowered skills, just run away or coffin away and take a break.
In case of assassins, you need to make them waste their dagger-Q, but some assassins use it offensively as well, so it is not all that hard. Worst case scenario you just have to CC them twice in 23 seconds timeframe.
What to do when you are stunned
When you get stunned, you have a problem. You can cancel all CC except for silence by using your dagger-Q, but remember that it only cancels *one* CC effect that is active and if you get hit by the next one coming despite your boosted evasion, you are dead meat. That is why it is good to know the skills of your opponent and know when they have used their last CC skill in their current combo - that is the time for you to break out with dagger-Q and if possible, stun them with your dagger-W for combo or just run away.
In case you get stunned and your dagger-Q is on cooldown, you can keep spamming scythe-Q and pray that you will survive. But making a comeback from this situation is very hard.
Other classes' playstyles and your reaction
Blood Knight
Probably the hardest opponent for me, but it might just be because Kyle and SAKABOOM are very good at playing their class. The most problematic thing with blood knight is that they can completely counter and punish you for pulling them, as they have charge that silences you, and since you pulled them you put them in a great position to deliver some pain.
If you are going for pull, make sure their silence charge (it's purple) is on cooldown. Nice way to achieve this is by charging them with your dagger-2. They will "counter"-charge you most of the time. None of you will get damage but he won't be able to use this annoying skill for a while.
Kiting is quite effective against knights, but make sure to save some escape skill if they get too close.
Psychic
Psychics take a while to learn how to fight them, but are easier to deal with than knights, thanks to their limited mana resources. Psychics will try to kite you with their little beasts, make sure not to fall for that. The most dangerous skills to watch out for is the golden spear which applies a 10 second long DoT. If you get hit by that, use scythe-Q to remove it.
The other dangerous skill is godmode, they turn black and ignore your CC skills. Use scythe-Q and wait it out or just run away.
Some Psychics might love kiting too much, in that case opt for claw-Q; dagger-2, 4 harassing or try to pull them.
Mage
Unfortunately I didn't get to fight mages too much, but same strategy as with psychics can be applied. Just watch out for their reddish bubble that ignores your CC effects. Pulling them works out good most of the time.
Assassin
Assassins are tricky, and given how many playstyles they can go for it's impossible for me to give some general guideline regarding them. Just don't waste your escapes, aim your skill well and you should be fine. Try to make them waste their dagger-Q and then land your combo to finish them off.
Sniper
Same as mage, I didn't get to fight with snipers much, but they are a ranged class so they will try to kite you. Do not let them, close in and go for stun to make them use their escape. If they turn transparent then that means they used their evasion buff. When that happens, use your scythe-Q and wait it out. After that go for another stun or pull to finish them off.
TalentsDaggerHeinous Blow - Increase damage (10% per point) and increase mana cost (20% per point), max 2 points
A good talent if you can spare the points. I chose not to pick this in favor of other talents.
Heinous Blow - Lifesteal (5% per points), max 2 points
Excellent talent for PvE, lackluster for PvP. Lifesteal in general is pretty useless in 1v1 fights.
(If you do not believe me then here is some simple math: Let's say you have 5% lifesteal - which is something you don't have on level 25, but let's go with it. Your opponent has 13k HP. That means that by the time you have killed them, you have recovered 650 HP which is pretty insignificant number for whole fight).
Wild Dance - 50% damage absorbtion while casting
Useless in PvP, you do not get to use this skill much, if ever.
Heinous Blow - 40% extra damage to stunned enemies
Something that could be considered, but I do not use Heinous Blow on stunned enemies in my combos, so I did not get it. If you figure out your own combo and incorporate it in effectively, please share.
Handle Strike - 20% faster casting, 30% less damage
I got this, solely for the reason that Handle Strike is used as a stun, not damage-dealing skill.
Gale Sword - Charge distance increase
Great talent to have.
Gale Sword - Decrease of cooldown by 2 seconds / point, max 2 points
Great talent, being able to use the charge a few more times per fight can be crucial.
Fast Movement - Increases the range of the thrown dagger
Could be nice for people who have great aim and love the harass strategy. I did not get this one.
Webbed ClawsIncision - Reduces enemy's crit evasion by 5% per point, max 2 points
In PvE, a good talent to have to help your party deal more crits to a boss. In PvP it's useless as you do not get to hit this skill that often.
Foresight - Increases damage by 10% per point, increases mana consumption by 20% per point, max 2 points
This talent by itself is useless in my opinion, but it unlocks the talent below.
Foresight - Silences your enemy for 3 seconds
This is potentially another CC skill, but it is hard to hit due to the charge-up stage of the skill as mentioned in the skill description section. If you learn how to use it properly, it might be worth the 3 talent points (2 for prerequisite).
Ravage - decreases mana consumption by 10% per point, max 2 points
No.
Weasel Blade - Applies bleeding like Incision on last hit
Great talent, both for PvE and PvP. Probably mandatory for PvE.
Weasel Blade - Increases your evasion by 30% while casting
Not that great, you should not be in position to get hit while casting it anyway.
Clawhand - Stun duration +1 second
I didn't get it, simply because in my combos I use Ravage right after Clawhand, which downs the enemy so the 3 second stun wouldn't outlast the knockdown anyway.
Raid - Teleport distance +3 meters
I got this, simply because I love to be agile.
ScytheFrost Blade - Faster casting, less damage
Useful, just like Handle Strike talent. Makes your scythe pull combo more sucessful.
Spirit Harvest - Grants movement speed buff when successful
No, not really. You do not move after pull, you do a combo.
Rest - Absorbs extra 25% damage worth of HP per point, max 2 points
Useful in PvE when you need to survive boss' burst - like failing to get away from Guntara's pull. In PvP, less useful. I never got to situation where opponent broke my shield without the talent.
Rest - Increases HP regeneration to 750%
Could be useful in both PvE and PvP. Downside is that it requires previous talent to unlock.
Division - Increases the size of your confusion circle by 1 meter
I only noticed this talent's potential while writing this guide so I have not tested it, but it could be a very good talent for kiting.
Swamp of Pain - Extra hit, increased mana cost (20%)
Useful for PvE, mediocre in PvP.
Swamp of Pain - Extra 40% damage to frozen enemies
Yes, yes, yes. Must-have for both PvE and PvP.
Wave of Traces - Extra 5% evasion per point, max 2 points
The bonus by itself is nice, but the skill has one minute cooldown and lasts only 7 seconds, so consider well if it's worth it.
GeneralHP Increase
Good talent, nice to have on every class.
MP Increase
Useless, I never ran out of mana as an assassin.
Rolling
Useful for additional mobility. Not that awesome as rolling in this game is somewhat weird.
Movement Speed
Useful, but not something you can max on level 25 cap.