Assassin PvP

Note ~ This shouldn’t be used for PvE content, if you need a dps guide for Assassin in pve, check out my PvE Assassin guide.

 

The spec:

 

61 Assassin/15Bladedancer/0ranger

 

Legendaries:

 

[*] Master of Poisons ~  Allows for more Serpent Strikes in your rotation, also passively increases the damage of your DoT’s by 85%

 

[*] Poison Malice ~ Increases Poison Buff damage done by 275%. This effect can be recast during its duration to refresh the effect. Each time its refreshed your poison damage is reduced by 25%

 

[*] Thread of Death ~ Allows stealth abilities to constantly be used out of stealth

 

Side Steps ~ Increases movement speed by 15% for 12s

 

Shadow Shift ~ Reduces the cooldown and damages enemies when you port through them up to 640% of your attack power

 

[*] ~ These will remain the same for all different variants, and as such won’t be listed in the variants to save space ~ Changes to off souls will be mentioned.

 

Pros:

 

• Two Movement Utilities

• Permanent Stealth ~ Unless cancelled or taken out of stealth

• Two Disconnect Abilities + Planar Strike 20m range

• Decent Mitigation (moreso against Physical attacks - See Side Steps)

 

Cons:

 

• No cleave

• Lacks long-term disconnect potential

• Requires wise use of your CC’s

 

Alternative Specs

 

61 Assassin/11Bladedancer/4Riftstalker

 

Shadow Shift ~ Extra port

 

Loses an interrupt and dps, but you gain some health. You also gain an extra buff in the form of Planebound Resilience which acts against a buffer against purges (although that’s not much of a problem with Assassin anymore, the only buffs that can get purged in this spec is Poison Malice)

 

Call: Razorbeast

 

Less HP, more damage

 

61 Assassin/11Bladedancer/4Shadeborn

 

Side Steps

 

Strangulate ~ Debilitates the target for 4s.

 

Higher dps, has the option to pick a pull or another debilitate. Lacks disconnect.

 

61 Assassin/11Sab/4Shadeborn

 

Flashbang ~ Debilitates up to 3 targets for 4s

 

Strangulate ~ Debilitates the target for 4s.

 

Stun Sin, has the chance to chain stun a player for 16s due to Flashbang and Strangulate ignoring immunities (if the player has a break free then the player can break free)

 

Masteries;

 

• 61 - Soul Steal - The only one you should be using, your dots (impale, puncture and jagged strike) will apply a debuff to the mob (Hemophilia) that increases the damage taken from you by 1.5% per stack, stacks up to 3.

• 62- Revitalize - Everything else in this section is pretty much worthless for assassin, so revitalize is the best choice for the increased healing taken.

• 63 - You have 2 choices here. You can either go with Juke and Run - Which helps on disconnects with a 12% increased movement speed - Or you can go with Boundless Energy to help with energy drain - Usually if you have Fervor or Living Energy draining isnt an issue, so I went for Juke and Run.

• 64 - Repetitive Strikes - Increases the Duration of Expose Weakness by 40 seconds and does the most amount of damage compared to the other masteries in this row.

• 65 - Energy Manipulation - Doesn't really need explaining - Has the highest dps increase. (When parsing use Planar Conservation as this spec can get easily drained)

• 65 - Planar Variation - The other option that you can take. PV is very good for a self heal, whereas Energy Manipulation is strong for ST bursting players down. Your choice.

 

Gearing in PvP:

 

Main Gear Pieces:

 

Head : Slayers gear + bis dream orb

Cape : COA cape + rune + dream orb

Shoulder : COA armor + rune + dream orb

Chest : 988 main stat (upgrade from 914 gear in wf box)

Gloves : Slayers

Belt : Slayers + Dream Orb

Legs : 988 main stat (upgrade from 914 in wf box) + rune

foot : Slayers

Earrings : SPE earrings

Neck : Nightmare Tide neck (Doesn't matter which) + rune + dream orb.

Trinkets : Warmonger Trinket (You can get all 3, swap to which is necessary)

Rings : 621 stats from Reapers Box

Seal : Agile Slayers Seal (From Rift Store)

Weapons : Slayers Dirk/Skullcracker + Bow + Prophetic Runes. ~ Eternal Weapons do not work in pvp (and get downgraded to less stats than pvp weapons)

Focus : Challengers Focus of Assault

Essences:  All pvp 495 CP essences with 455 main stat

 

Synergy Crystal:

 

There is only one pvp crystal for dps

 

~ Combatants Crystal

 

Buffs:

 

• With 4.0, Keyen’s made all rogue Poisons unpurgable in pvp (based off a satirical comment I made in discord ~ you’re welcome)

 

Leeching Poison ~ Grants weapon ability attacks a 50% chance to deal an additional XXXX Water damage and restore XXXX health to the Rogue. Lasts 1h.

 

• This is your 2nd highest damaging Poison and is very useful because of the health regen.

 

Malicious Poison ~ Grants weapon ability attacks a 50% chance to deal an additional XXXX Water damage and return 2 Energy. Lasts 1h.

 

• Your hardest hitting poison, also helps with energy regen (which assassin suffers from)

 

Enfeebling Poison ~ Grants weapon ability attacks a 50% chance to deal an additional XXXX Water damage and causes the enemy to deal 10% less damage to the Rogue. Lasts 1h.

 

• Very important for pvp, as it has the 10% damage mitigation for you.

 

In my opinion, the only 3 poisons that matter for pvp, there are 2 more poisons that you can use should you see fit

 

Lethal Poison ~ Grants weapon ability attacks a 50% chance to deal an additional XXXX Water damage and increase the chance for an enemy to be Critically Hit by 5% for 15s. Lasts 1h.

 

• Should you feel the need to do more dps, this will be more beneficial than Enfeebling, as it gives the 5% crit chance, it’s down to you to decide which poisons you feel you should have going into a fight.

 

Virulent Poison ~ Grants weapon ability attacks a 50% chance to deal an additional XXXX Water damage. Lasts 1h.

 

• Higher damage than Lethal and Enfeebling but doesn’t grant any self buffs like damage reduction and increased crit chance, and for that reason I don’t use it in pvp..

 

Debuffs;

 

Lethal Poison ~ 5% Crit Debuff

 

Expose Weakness ~ Increases damage taken from the Rouge by 6% for 20s. Does not break Stealth. ~ Increased by Repetitive Strikes mastery to 60s.

 

Debilitating Dart ~ Debuffs the target. Weapon ability attacks from the Rogue on the target deals an additional XXXX Water damage, snares the enemy. Lasts 10s.

 

• A very strong debuff, its snare helps you chase down players and will also help with your burst.  

 

Combat buffs;

 

Poison Malice ~ Increases Poison Buff damage done by 275%. This effect can be recast during its duration to refresh the effect. Each time its refreshed your poison damage is reduced by 25%

 

Thread of Death ~ Whilst this allows you to passively cast stealth abilities out of stealth, it does not work on abilities with a stun ~ e.g. Paralyzing Strike, but you can still use Thread of Death how it was originally supposed to use, so you can apply ToD and cast Paralyzing Strike (see macro section)

 

Side Steps ~ Increases Dodge by 50% for 15s (increases movement speed by 15% for 12s as well if you picked the Legendary version)

 

• Dodge only works on physical attacks (see dodge tooltip). What is a physical attack? A physical attack is any attack that isn’t tagged with elemental damage (fire, water, life etc). You’ll find this mostly will work on Rogues (except NB and Shadeborn), Shaman (as half their damage is physical) and a few Warrior souls (Champion, Paragon, Warlord) ~ It won’t work on any mage or primalist soul, as they are all non-phys attacks.

 

Consumables for PvP;

Another main factor in PvE/PvP is consumables (assuming you want to try-hard), there are a few that you need to be in a guild for (and the guild needs to have spent points in that guild-perk, others are crafted and the rest from PA.

 

- Guild Perks (these require a Silver Artifact that can be bought from Guild Charter Magistrates in major cities, Meridian, Sanctum and TB)

- Killing Spree (PvP only)

- Blood Thirsty (PvP only)

- (optional) Planar Protection - Requires 1 Planar Charge.

- (optional) Sigils/Banners of Rage/Concentration (Sigils > Banners) - Banners have a 35m range from where they are placed - Sigils act as a buff (hit all raid/party members within 35m of you)

 

Consumables

- Atramentium Whetstone - Increases attack power by 1000 (per weapon, only allowed on mainhand and offhand - not ranged)

- Gedlo Riding Chaps - Increases mount speed by 10% for 4 hours - Usable on Legs.

- Prophetic Chaps - Stealth Detection Radius +3 - Usable on Legs. Riding Chaps/Prophetic chaps do not stack - So pick the one you want.

- Celestial Padding - Reduces time to mount by 30%

- Pallasite Rune

- Sunken Tablet

- Searing Flame

- Soul Slice

- Atmospheric Mirror

- Salving Pod

- Prophetic Powersurge Vial

- Prophetic Healing Potion/Tonic

- Visionary Bottle of Critical Strikes

- Gedlo Curry Pot

- Atramentium Armor Plating

- Tuath’de Insoles - Increases movement speed by 10% Tuath’de Insoles and Ghostly treads do not stack.

- Ghostly Treads Stealth Radius +3

- Panacea - Really useful, removes all Poisons/Disease/Curses - Doesn’t share a CD with - - - Cleanse Soul (from War PA)

- Mercenary Recon Vial - Shows all (non-stealthed) enemies within the mini-map (very useful for watching certain points in pvp) - Can be bought from Rift store ] - Boosts - Scroll down to Tracking, it costs 6000 favor or 175 credits for non-patrons.

- Reliquary of Rage ~ This doesnt share a cooldown with old critpots (only a debuff) and has an unlimited use

 

Planar Attunement Consumables/Buffs

 

Currently there are no updated PoA PA buffs, but some don’t share a cooldown with the 4.0, so you can alternate these whilst the other is on cooldown.

 

- Renewing Pod (doesn’t stack with Salving Pod but doesn’t share a CD)

- Salvaged Tablet (doesn’t stack with Sunken Tablet but doesn’t share a CD)

- Petrified Barnacle Rune (doesn’t stack with Pallasite rune but doesn’t share a CD)

- Consuming Flame (doesn’t stack with Searing Flame but doesn’t share a CD)

- Abyssal Crystal (doesn’t stack with Soul Slice but doesn’t share a CD)

- Lashers Bane Mirror (doesn’t stack with Atmospheric Mirror but doesn’t share a CD)

- Confluence of Dust/Steam/Dusk/Nature/Storm/Cinder - When all 6 of these are applied they are replaced with Confluence of the Planes - But if you wanna look cool in PvP with 10000 buffs applied just leave one out so the buffs don’t get replaced

- Serrated Edge - PA version of Atramentium Whetstone - Is worse but if you’re cheap - ------ Serrated Edge only costs 1 Planar Charge per weapon.

- Weapon Aegis - Useful in PvE and PvP (Small HP buff)

- Fading Light - Another Break Free (you get it from Attunement of Dusk)

 

Stuns/other pvp stuff;

 

Stuns are influenced in PvP, the best thing you can do to help yourself in pvp is enable nameplates to always be on ~ Esc - Settings - Interface - Nameplate and change Player/Target/Hostile/Friendly to Always on

 

This way you can see extra information on when you can stun/root a player. A stun is a hard CC, along with pulls, roots are soft CC’s. Snares do not have their own immunity (so you can chain slow a person)

 

If you have nameplates on you will see stuff like this;

 

Which is what would show as your immunity for hard CC’s

 

And this;

 

 

 

Which is what would show for soft CC’s (roots)

 

Rift Immunities works like this, whenever you are stunned, you will gain double the amount of immunity time. So if you used Paralyzing Strike on a player, they are stunned for 4s, and will be immune for 8.

 

There are a few rogue abilities that currently ignore Immunities, and allow for a very long duration chain stun

 

Legendary Strangulate ~ Debilitates the target for 4s, ignores any immunity except Break Free/Fading Light

 

Legendary Flashbang ~ Debilitates up to 3 enemies for 4s (the target can be increased to 8 if you choose to go deeper into the Sab Tree)

 

Legendary Shadow Lash ~ Pulls the target to the rogue, you can use this at any time as it ignores DR

 

----

Not relevant to this guide but Stun Grenade (30points into sab) ignores all types of immunity and the target can’t break free from it

---

 

Very important that you get a hold of how to chain CC people, and keep an eye on the immunities they have up so you don’t go wasting your CC’s.

 

~ Insert Kalerts for Break Free and Fading Light ~

 

Make sure you track these so you don't waste your cc’s when they are immune (whilst flashbang and strangulate ignore DR they do not ignore the Break Free and Fading Light immunity buff)

 

Assuming the target has no break frees available, this would be the optimal way to stun a player during a 1vs1 (if you went with the C C sin variant)

 

~ Start from Stealth -> Paralyzing Strike(4s) -> Strangulate(4s) -> Flashbang(4s) -> Thread of Death + Paralyzing Strike(4s) ~~ When the immunity of Paralyzing Strike runs out you can choose to either Foul Play or Slip Away+Paralyzing Strike

 

~ This isn’t all that important for Assassin, because of the lack of buffs that require purging, but for specs that have multiple buffs that are purgeable, it’s important to take this into account ~ Purges work in a first in-first out principle so the buff you apply first is the first one to get purged. You always do the most important buffs last.

 

Other useful abilities to have on bar;

 

• Leaping Plunge ~ Standard 30m charge.

• Flash of Steel ~ 20m Charge (can be increased to 30m if you choose to go into the Timed Focus mastery)

• [PA Ability] Vapor Rush ~ ogcd charge, 30m range (deals small amount of damage on hit) ~ requires 1 planar charge

• [PA Ability] Anathema ~ Reduces healing taken on the target by 10% for 30s

• Break Free + [PA Ability] Fading Light ~ I don’t macro break free’s as having them on a bar gives you more control over when you want to use them.

• [PA Ability] Cleanse Soul ~ Removes all hostile magical effects and makes the rogue immune to these effects.

• Foul Play ~ 4s stun

• Poison Gas ~ AE confuse for 6s (removed if damaged) ~ 6m aoe range

• Blinding Powder - 20m range confuse (removed if damaged) good for using on players you’re not attacking (if you’re in a 2vs1 situation for example)

• Weapon Barrage ~ 20m interrupt

• Hidden Veil ~ Delays the breaking of stealth from damage taken for 15s.

• Enduring Brew - Small ST heal + 30 Energy Boost

• Slip Away ~ Now perfect use for a getaway as you don’t need to use it for dps.

(And anything previously mentioned)

 

Macros (optional)

 

#show Blinding Powder

suppressmacrofailures

cast @mouseover Blinding Powder

 

I use this so I don’t need to target swap to stun a straggling player

 

#show Thread of Death

suppressmacrofailures

cast thread of death

cast Paralyzing Strike

 

Another stun ~ As stated previously you don’t need to use ToD for other stealth abilities, but you need to use it for stuns like Paralyzing Strike.

 

#show Assassinate

suppressmacrofailures

cast @self Energy Manipulation

//cast Call: Razorbeast

//cast Debilitating Dart

//cast Assassinate

cast Backstab

cast Savage Strike

cast Quick Shot

 

You can choose to put Assassinate and Debilitating Dart in the macro if you’re lazy, I like to use it after Deadly Strike (your main finisher) to get the 9% damage buff on it, and I use Debilitating Dart with burst CD’s, and as a slow utility. You can also put Serpent Strike in the macro too

 

Dps Abilities you should have on bar;

Deadly Strike ~ Main Finisher

Impale ~ DoT Finisher

Puncture ~ DoT builder

Jagged Strike ~ Strong DoT builder

Serpent Strike ~ Strong ogcd builder (if you’re not macroing it)

Assassinate ~ Strong builder (if you’re not macroing it)

Poison Malice

 

Rotation:

 

Assassin rotation is fairly simple, and using a priority order rather than an actual rotation.

 

Paralyzing Strike from Stealth

V

Deadly Strike at 5 combo points

V

Jagged Strike /w Deadly Dance

V

Serpent Strike /w Deadly Dance

V

Assassinate /w Deadly Dance

V

Puncture (DoT)

V

Backstab

V

Savage Strike

V

Quick Shot/Frag Bomb (depending on what version you go)

 

Whilst taking this into account you need to know when to use CD’s and CC’s effectively (Poison Malice, Debilitating Dart etc)

 

Hardest part about Assassin in PvP is effective CC. You’ll get the rotation down fairly quickly.  Knowing when to CC and who to CC will be what sets you apart from other Assassins in pvp.

 

If you decide to macro Serpent + Assassinate your rotation is basically spamming your builder macro, and re-applying dots as they fall off.