Age of Conan Assassin PVE Guide

Age of Conan Assassin PVE Guide
by lighthawk on US forums

This thread is intended to help out assassins who are having problems in PvE situations. This is not intended to help out "I was jumped while taking on 2 mobs and I lost, how can I be OP and kill the attacker without losing any health or having any skill."

I say this not to be mean or presumptuous, but to point out that if you are actively trying to find a way to get better you will. If you are actively complaining with no attempt to better yourself, then you are at the mercy of funcom's whims. If they feel assassins need to be buffed then they might, but then again they might not because assassins don't need to be buffed to be playable.

On to the main section: PvE tips

Some of these tips have to do with playing the assassin, whereas some have to do with talents and abilities that are particularly useful. This guide is written from corruption eyes, so it may or may not be helpful for lotus users.

1. Has been said before, but turn off auto facing and position your mobs where you do damage on multiple enemies. You won't do your full single target damage to either, but combined you will put out more dps than your full single target dps.

2. Pop your heals early, but not too early. Potions have a heal before their hot, make sure you get the full advantage of it. Buy lots of potions, both stam and health, and buy food for stam and health buffs this decreases rest time by a lot. Also, don't be afraid to use your cooldowns. The cooldown period isn't that long. You will be able to use cooldowns most fights.

3. Learn the art of pulling. As an assassin one of our most powerful moves is SA, but sometimes you wont be able to use it. Figure out when these times are and pull with a crossbow, as you will still get initial damage even though it wasn't the strength of a SA. Also, the crossbow might be able to split pulls that your sneak attack would be unable to achieve.

4. Learn aggro ranges. This is important for our class because often you will want to sneak behind enemy lines and need to stealth in between 2 mobs. Get a feel for the range that they aggro you and if you don't think you can sneak in between them, then don't. Instead pull 1 mob, so you don't go in between them, lose stealth and get 2 instead.

5. If you are having problems taking multiple mobs, I STRONGLY recommend the talent unholy armor and getting any gear with + to physical invulnerabilities or + to resistances if that is what you are having problems with.

6. If the fight is going to be long with multiple mobs, use lethargy and slow death strikes before other combos. This will increase dmg output or decrease dmg input and the effect is multiplied if you hit multiple mobs.

7. Dark Weapons > Life Leech. Life Leech may heal a good amount when you first get it, but it doesn't get better with levels making it pretty useless for the long run, whereas DW does extra dmg on any attack except for offhand dmg making your average dps increase and it stays really good for a long time.

8. This may seem stupid to some, but learn to use soul fragments. There is a bar next to your health and stam that has 5 black gems, when they turn white you have that many soul fragments. Get them while in unholy stance and use a combo, or any attack may get a fragment if you have the spirit of nightfall talent. To those who think soul frags are stupid --> deal with it, it is a part of your class. If you reject them, then you are restricting yourself and limiting your options as to how to play the class. If you work with them, you can get access to a ton of abilities and ways to play. If you still can't stand them, don't rule out the corruption tree. There are ways of going into it and not having to use soul fragments and still gaining good abilities.

9. Excellent Balance. Get at least 1 point in it. Learn which enemies knock you down and hit it right after you go into combat with said enemies. Normally an enemy with knock down will either use it at the begining of the combat, or shortly after.

10. Double tap S. Adds 50% to evasion for 2 seconds. DON'T UNDERESTIMATE how good it is. This is the way to take multiple mobs. It's a quick pull back to regroup a group so you can multi hit them. You will take almost no dmg while doing it, and the loss of stam is worth it as it will take less stam to kill mobs that are grouped. Use this to single out a mob and pull it away from the main group.

11. Use LOS. Line of Sight in this game is really important. Say a ranger-like mob is attacking you with it's bow. Run behind a hut or wall, and the ranger will come to you. This will allow you to attack it without having to worry about getting close to it and pulling adds.

12. Target mobs that kill you fastest first. Casters and rangers seem to do a lot of dmg to us, so kill them first so they aren't allowed to do it for a long amount of time.

13. Be patient and use your head. Don't blow cooldowns in the middle of combos, attacks, knockdown, stun as that will waste said cooldown and the cooldown will still occur (with some exceptions, death's gaze as an example).

14. You don't have to stalk your target or get huge pleasure out of it, but don't rush in without thinking first. Rushing a pull and getting 3 adds is not smart and not how this class should be played.

15. Be aware of your surroundings. Look around for pats and adds. Use your left mouse key (if you haven't mapped it to something else) and constantly survey your surroundings while attacking a mob. This will help prevent you getting snuck up on by adds from behind, or pulling a boss who was sitting inside a tent.

16. Memorize your combos. Especially new ranks, as they change from rank to rank. Take some time attacking air with new rank combos to get a feel for the rhythm and the new key strokes. Memorize your combos, know where they are and what key you bind them to. Make the keys close together so you aren't dancing your fingers across the keyboard in a fight.

17. Keep attacking. Our normal attacks still do lots of dmg. Don't just wait for combos to pop up, keep attacking. Every little bit of dmg helps.

18. Don't be afraid to run if you bite off more than you can chew. Carry stam pots for that reason as well.

19. Don't get discouraged if you die. Contrary to popular belief, it happens to all classes.

20. Instead of taking mobs 1v2 or 1v3 or 1v4+, try taking them 1v1 but string them together. This will improve your survivability and will still get you the same exp in a shorter time period than other classes (because we love comparing our class to other classes). If you don't believe me, try it. Assassins can kill classes 4 lvls above 1 on 1 about 3 or 4 in a row without resting but with cooldowns. Then you rest up, cooldowns come back up and rinse and repeat.

21. Don't look at the color of the quests. Assassins can do red quests. Don't be afraid of trying them. You may die a few times, but it's a higher xp reward generaly. Don't do them the way other classes do. Stealth in there and take out the mob you need to kill and get out stealthily.

22. Know your limits, but don't be afraid to push them.

23. Know the range of your attacks. Impede life has a far range.

24. LUNGE! So many uses for this attack to greatly increase dps, so here's a few: Lunge --> Stealth --> SA (lunge lasts 20 seconds), hit the button for GC -> Lunge -> Perform Combo, same with swift strikes and other combos.

25. Active Block (default keymap: x), Use this and you will take a lot less dmg at the cost of stamina. Good uses would be to pop stam and health pots when at low health, active block and wait for health to get to a decent level again then continue the fight.

26. Carry different gear for different situations. For instance, + resist gear against casters, and + physical invulnerability gear for combat classes. +evade gear for fights and + stamina regen for traveling and out of combat. + hiding gear for sneaking through high level areas...

27. Target Minions last. Their dps is so worthless it is better to single dps the other target then kill it.

28. Running into water will make mobs run away.

29. Potions last for 1 minute! That's 3 fights worth for an assassin with no health or stam resting required. Like I said earlier make full use of your potions.

30. If you zoom in to first person view, you can manually aim with your xbow. This allows for greater range, less chance of adds and less chance of the mob pulling before you get the shot off. Hard to use against moving targets such as pats though.

I'll leave the tips there for now, as that is a lot to digest in one sitting. If any more tips come to mind, I will post them here. If anyone else has any then please post them so as to better myself as well as others. If you post hateful comments, I will not respond to them for reasons mentioned at the top. If you call me a kill stalker who sits around for long periods of time waiting for the time to strike, then you would be wrong as that is not what I do.

post:http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=74260