Assassins do a ton of damage with the right circumstances, it's easy to create these circumstances.

The most common way is to Dash into a group of mobs and use Inferno into Chill to freeze that group.

After that procede to slice them up from behind for massive damage.

Here is the skill order i'd recommend, obvious if you find skill shrines go ham with those extra skill points.


1. Endurance --------- 13. Death Strike
2. Toughness --------- 14. Blast
3. Endurance --------- 15. Blast
4. Inferno --------- 16. Blast
5. Chill --------- 17. Stealth
6. Inferno --------- 18. Death Strike
7. Inferno --------- 19. Chill
8. Death Strike --------- 20. Chill
9. Vitality --------- 21. Focus
10. Vitality --------- 22. Vitality
11. Focus --------- 23. Poison/Fortitude
12. Focus --------- 24. Poison/Fortitude
25. Poison/Fortitude


Basic Attack A basic attack which does not use SP and is capable of backstabbing.
Dodge Dash Skill.png

The attack's hitbox extends a little bit beyond the animation, obviously you'll want to get behind a mob and backstab. Note that you have to be behind the mob, not to the side and distance doesn't matter. I sometimes change my normal attack with Ninja Stars since they can backstab as well.

Dodge/Dash [HOLD BLOCK] Dodge. [BLOCK+Direction] Dash forward and through enemies. Invincible while dashing.
You are completely invulnerable in the middle of your dash, and they aren't lying. Does non-scaling damage which doesn't proc gem effects or otherwise. Master this. Oh you also block, but only get 2 blocks, avoid losing those blocks since you can't dodge otherwise.

Tier I


Toughness [PASSIVE] Increase total Health Points.
Endurance Skill.png
It's health, but only 100 per tick, get 2 in this and eventually 3. Not a high priority because health gems give 800 per gem.

Endurance [PASSIVE] Increase total Special Points.
Only get this is you're really low in SP, Focus takes care of our sp needs.

Tier II


Ninja Star Throw ninja star(s). Dashing through enemies will target them for the next volley and slow on hit.
When you dash through an enemy, it gives them a mark, but the mark is consumed once you use your Ninja Stars. You throw one Star for each mark and you can ackstab with the Stars, thus marking alot of mobs and getting behind a strong one can deal a decent amount of burst damage.


Inferno Hit nearby enemies with flaming fury. Chance to Burn.

This skill doesn't mention at all that at higher levels your attack also produces a lingering AOE effect, a wall of flame, however mobs can't get hit by both the blast and the wall of fire. The fire does seem to do more damage then the inital blast, but both cause on fire status reguardless.
Chill Skill.png

Chill Hit nearby enemies with chilling ice. Chance to Freeze.
Combo with Inferno since burning enemies have a 100% to freeze. Easy backstab targets. Later on mobs will be immune to both effects, but this is still a good damaging potion.

Tier III


Vitality Heal yourself and nearby allies with this revitalizing balm.
At low levels it's underwhelming, at higher levels it has a more noticable lingering Aoe heal effect that ticks at 50 hp each, which increases by 50 each level.


Death Strike [PASSIVE] Increase damage of Backstab Attacks.
This increases your damage massively, base character levels also increase Backstab damage. Core skill so get this when you can

Tier IV


Resolve [PASSIVE] Increase Health Point regeneration rate.
Vit potion does a better job then this, but get this when you have PS to spare
Focus Skill.png

Focus [PASSIVE] Increase Special Point regeneration rate.
Massively increases SP regen to the point that it becomes nearly impossible to run out of sp. Point points in as a needed


Fortitude [PASSIVE] Increase all resistances (except Physical.)
Increases your resistance to crippling status effects /stun/freeze/etc. With this maxed and a resist all charm, you'll rarely get inflicted. Doesn't increase resistance to damage.

Tier V


Blast Hit nearby enemies with explosive force. Chance to Stun.
Does more damage the closer the mob is to the attack, has a chance to stun. Really good damage and best to use at the end of Infero+Freeze since it also knocks them back.
Poison Blade Skill.png

Poison Blade [PASSIVE] Poison enemies with your attacks, making them weak to elemental and physical damage.

As cool as it seems, it's nearly useless late game. The only mobs that really give you trouble are the ones that resist status effects, including poison.

Tier VI


Stealth Make yourself invisible for 13 seconds. Attacking [Level] times will end invisibility.
Confusion Skill.png
Not the same as invunerablity and if a mob is about to attack anyways, they'll continue with thier attack. Still massively useful since you can catch your breathe and heal or get in a few potion spams.

Confusion Confuse enemies into attacking everything, including their own allies.
Never get this until late game, it has many problems, however it's situationally useful against mobs that are immune to your typical status effects, aka the skeletons you encounter late game. That's their only use and even then it takes a lot of work to get it to work.

Pros
• Damage/DPS - Assassin DPS is probably one of the best for backstabable mobs. Against non-backstabable mobs, ours is only slightly higher then a sorceror. Warriors have us beat for safer single target damage.
  
• AOE - With 3 different potions that deal damage around you, you have more burst AOE then even a sorceror and can elemental combo with those potions.
  
• CC - With 4 different potions to cause status effects and even posion to guarantee that your potions inflict those status effects.
  
• Survivablity - Dash/dodge, Guard, Vitality Potion, and Stealth Potion give a massive amount of surviablity.
  
  Cons
  
  
• Utility/Healing - You do nothing for your other party memebers aside from some healing, which a Crusader does better.
  
• Melee - You have some ranged capabilities, but you'll always have to dive right into melee range to deal your single target damage.
  
• Positioning - It's sometimes a pain or impossble to backstab a mob, risky even as well.
  
• Reflexes - Your own reflexes to dodge an attack or to guard just in time come into play moreso then the other classes.
  
• Survivablity - If you can't dash and your potions are used up, your a sitting duck, just waiting to die.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRccDrOGgz4&t=12m6s Here's a vid of me fighting the final boss while carrying the team. 12 minutes in

- Always keep moving around, dash if you even remotely think that an attack is coming your way since sometimes mobs will decide to attack you with a ranged attack of screen..

- Always start with Inferno potion before you use Chill, burning enemies have a 100% chance or so to freeze.

- Elemental Gems (mostly Ice) are massively useful and can trigger with your potion attacks.

- The closer mobs are to your potions, the more damage they take, i've had a hell knight take up to 6k damage from a point blank blast potion before!

- Sometimes a backstab is too risky to attempt, it's pointless if it gets you killed, spam potions instead.

- Posion in retrospec is kinda worthless, it only seems to trigger with a melee attack, and usually your already backstabbing that mob because it's already frozen. Anything else that resists freeze is already resisting poison.

- Confusion is pretty bad in general. It has a 50% chance to not work all the time, you can already take out trash mobs with your other potions, the duration is only good for as long as their alive, they target randomly which could still include you, and it makes them unpredictable, especially when they miss their target thus making it easier to get hit when you try to backstab.

- Ninja stars can replace your basic attack if you're not confident in backstabbing mobs at melee, you can backstab at range, and still do more damage then a sorceror, especially so if you fire off multiple shurikens by targetting multiple mobs with dash.

What you want to focus on is....

• Fire Damage - Fire damage from a Opal gem causes enemies to not only take fire damage, but have a chance to burn, when an enemy is burning, they have a 100% or so chance to freeze from any ice attack, thus getting a fire gem is important.
  
• Ice Damage - With a Sapphire gem you have a chance to freeze with any attack. More freezing is better.
  
• SP - getting just enough SP (500 or so) to spam your attacks, focus will get the rest
  
• Damage - Your damage stat scales with all you abilities. Get as much of this as you can after your can prevent yourself from getting 2 shotted.
  
• Health - You'll get hit eventually, best to get enough health to not get 2 shotted. 1500-2500 is enough
  
• Physical Resist - get this after you have enough health. Try to max this up to 75%, any higher is a waste.
  
• Resist all - With a epic charm and the Fortitude skill maxed, you'll have enough resist to not get screwed over by status effects as often. (Useless against op poison aura though)

Reommend stats for the gear.
Note: Having a slot for Gems is extremely important. Gems give significant bonuses, recommended gems are Ice Gem - Chance to freeze Ruby - 800 HP, Diamond - 50 damage, and Onyx - 20% Resist Physical.

You get Gem slots guaranteed from crafting as well as some other bonuses.
Head - Blue and lower helms give some sp and other resists, only interested in the gem slot here so pick whatever. However, the best helm is probably the auto revive helm for Epic, [Frostbite (arena)]

Amulet - Health or Damage for your extra bonus on your amulet.

Chest - The Physical Resist stat with slot is very important, with just a certain crafted blue and Onyx slotted you can achive 55% Physical Resistance!

Weapon - Damage and more damage, ignore the health since the HPtoDamage ratio is better spent on Gems with Health. (aka 1000 health vers 100 damage, but gems only give 50 damage yet 800 health)

Ring - HP or Damage, for the extra bonus.

Charm - Resist ALL (Non-Phys) Unless you have maxed out status effect resistances in other forms. Then critical damage instead.

For skill level increases, either put that on DeathStrike or the potions.

Thank YOU for checking out this guide, if you have questions or concerns, go ahead and leave a comment and i'll try to answer it with my limited knowledge.

~ Farkon (ExtremeRagin)