User:NieA7/Build:A/any Critical Fox

This PvE build is built around the Assassin's primary attribute, Critical Strikes. Using Way of the Assassin and Critical Eye to raise your chance of a critical hit to about a 77% chance per hit, and Critical Defenses for a near-permanent 75% chance to block, nearly every hit you land will net you +4 energy. Using a skill chain of unblockable attack skills, you can be sure to consistently get your damage through.

Attributes and Skills

 * Your optional slot is quite flexible, but there are a few especially good options, most of which will be based on your setting (PvE or AB).
 * Resurrection Signet is obviously an important choice in PvE, but near-useless in AB.
 * Way of Perfection is useful as a long-term heal, and can serve to keep Way of the Assassin active (the downside is the short duration and small heals at lower levels of Shadow Arts).
 * Critical Eye will grant a huge boost to energy-management, not to mention the sizable extra Critical Hit chance.
 * Siphon Speed is a huge boon in AB especially, allowing you to chase down other Assassins and force one-on-one fights (which is an optimal situation for this build in many cases).
 * Expunge Enchantments is a very useful enchantment removal skill, which will serve well in AB (though not so useful in PvE). Especially deadly against Elementalist Tanking builds and 55 Monks.


 * If survival is an issue, you can go A/D and switch Shadow Arts for Earth Prayers (see Variants, below). The A/D variant loses a bit of the original build's flexibility, but more then makes up for it in pure staying power.

Equipment

 * Nightstalker's Armor is recommended.
 * Daggers with an "of Enchanting" mod is best, and preferably a "+15% while enchanted" or "+15% while in a stance" mod. Daggers of Xuekao may be the best green daggers for this build.
 * The build's defense is high enough that you'll be able to afford the HP loss from adding Superior runes to the build. A Superior Daggery Mastery can increase both your damage output and your critical hit chance by a small amount. You should always be careful with having too many high-end runes on a single build though, as the health loss might outweigh the offensive boosts.

Usage

 * The build centers around keeping three key skills up at all times: Shroud of Distress, Critical Defenses, and Way of the Assassin. In the heat of battle, you'll need to remember to check your status bar often, and make sure to keep all your skills up as much as possible.
 * When first initiating battle, activate Shroud of Distress as you charge. Right before you engage, activate Critical Defenses (make sure not to activate this skill too soon, or you run the risk of not getting a critical hit fast enough to recharge it). Once you engage, activate Way of the Assassin. Be careful when first starting this all, as you will lose a pretty sizable chunk of energy. Once you get a few hits in, your energy should recharge quite quickly.
 * Make sure to use your attack chain often, as it will deal a large amount of consistent, unblockable damage thanks to your high critical chance. Keep an eye on your status at all times. When anything starts to run out, make sure to re-activate it right away. Pay special attention to Critical Defenses in particular. When your target dies, make sure to switch to a new target as quickly as possible to keep Critical Defenses up.
 * Shroud of Distress serves two major purposes here; keeping Way of the Assassin active, thanks to its long duration, and also granting you a very sizable amount of evasion when your health gets low. At seven Shadow Arts, it should last for 44 seconds (not counting any bonus from Daggers of Enchanting). This should be more then enough to last the duration of the battle, and the recharge time is one second longer, in case you need to re-activate. With your Enchanting Daggers, you can easily keep it up constantly.
 * Keep in mind that you have an increased chance of a critical hit when attacking lower-level monsters (this increased chance is more easily noticeable when attacking creatures around level 10 or below). Target a nearby spirit or a weaker monster if you're in desperate need of a critical hit (Ritualist Spirits are normally easy to find in AB).
 * When facing foes with Enchantment removal, keep in mind that Critical Defenses will almost always be the first to go, regardless of the order you activate your enchantments. This is because whenever you land a critical hit, Critical Defenses will re-apply itself, thus moving back to the top of the list. If you know that you're going to be losing an enchantment, it's probably a bad idea to get yourself in a fight with another melee character.

Counters

 * There are a few counters, but most of them are too narrow to consider a real threat.
 * Enchantment removal and the Blind condition are your main worry. When Blinded, your best bet is to get out of combat. Without a critical hit, you'll lose Critical Defenses and be easy prey for most attacks. Enchantment removal can also get rid of Critical Defenses, but this can normally be fixed by killing whoever is wielding the enchantment removal.
 * Degeneration or anti-melee curses do a good amount of damage to this build, as do spiker elementalist setups; your high block chance only affects melee attacks, so spells are a weakness. Shadow Refuge will only do so much against degeneration, and you don't have any hex-removal in the main build (consider using skills from your secondary to fix this).

Variants

 * For superior self-healing and defense, consider going A/D and switching all of your points from Shadow Arts into Earth Prayers. This will allow you to use Vital Boon and Mystic Regeneration (replacing Shadow Refuge and Shroud of Distress). The large Block chance granted by Critical Defenses, in addition to the +9 Health regeneration provided by Mystic Regeneration (at 8 Earth Prayers and with all three enchantments active), should serve to keep you alive for a much greater amount of time and especially against other melee classes (don't forget the +72 maximum health bonus you'll gain from Vital Boon). Your attribute points should be re-ordered, like so:
 * This variant works much better against melee foes than casters, and the quick recharge times on the Dervish enchantments means you don't suffer nearly as much against foes with enchantment removal, as it's not a big deal to simply re-cast one of your cheaper enchantments to keep Way of the Assassin active.
 * With this setup, you can add yet another good choice for your optional slot; Pious Restoration, which grants you a quick and simple way to deal with Hex skills. Make sure to activate Vital Boon just before though, so you can take full advantage of the large health gain when you remove it. This also reduces the risk of removing Critical Defenses by mistake.


 * If a Dervish secondary isn't what you're looking for, Assassin's Shadow Arts attribute has plenty of tricks to boost your survival even higher. Drop your Critical Strikes attribute down to 11 and add a Major Rune of Critical Strikes (11 + 2), and drop Dagger Mastery down to 10, keeping the current rune and headgear setup (10 + 1 + 2). This will allow you to boost your Shadow Arts attribute all the way up to 10.


 * You'll need to switch out Shroud of Distress for Way of Perfection, and switch Shadow Refuge for Critical Eye. With your Shadow Arts all the way up at 11 (10 plus the minor rune), Way of Perfection lasts 28 seconds out of the 30 second recharge, and grants a 32-health heal every time you land a critical hit. With Critical Eye as well, you'll gain tons of energy, and everything up and running grants you a massive critical hit chance, which will keep health and energy topped off during nearly any fight. The optional slot can be anything, but preferably you'll want to bring either a resurrection skill (when in a party), Shadow Refuge as an out-of-battle self-heal (just in case), or even Sharpen Daggers to add bleeding to the attack chain. If enemy casters are a problem, you can bring Disrupting Stab or Disrupting Dagger, both of which are nice, easy interrupts skills (D. Stab can also help to start your attack chain, while D. Dagger won't mess up the chain if used halfway through).


 * In some cases where the unblockable chain isn't needed, good options as a replacement attack chain are attack chains like Golden Phoenix Strike, Horns of the Ox, and Falling Spider, or maybe a chain with Jagged Strike, Wild Strike, and Death Blossom for faster damage. Using Golden Phoenix Strike will also allow you to use just itself and a Dual Attack, thus leaving you an extra skill slot as well.


 * If Blinding skills are a common occurrence, skills from other professions, such as Remedy Signet (Paragon), Antidote Signet (Ranger), Mending Touch (Monk), and Sight Beyond Sight (Ritualist) are easy to add to the build with no investment into other attributes.


 * Going A/E will allow you to replace a skill (preferably Shroud of Distress) with Conjure Flame/Frost/Lightning, which will not only enable Way of the Assassin (thanks to the fact that they're Enchantments with a long duration), but grant an additional +1...17 damage per attack. This of course will require a slight investment into the Fire/Water/Air Magic attribute, and your Daggers will need the corresponding Elemental damage modifier (Fiery/Icy/Shocking).

Templates
Below is the skills template for the A/D Variant: