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Thread: Assassin help

  1. #1
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    Oct 2018
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    Default Assassin help

    I just recently stumbled upon this amazingly wonderfully frustrating game. Can someone give me some tips on running an assassin including race, weapon choices, talents etc...

    My thoughts are to dual wield daggers and use them for throwing as well since they get bonuses with daggers. Thematically I think that sounds pretty cool but does that work for the whole game? Race-wise I was thinking maybe dark elf or human. My confusion is I'm worried about stretching myself thin trying to focus on talents that improve my dual wielding as well as my dagger throwing. Anyways I don't want to go through restartitis so a basic assassin road map would be appreciated. Thanks.

  2. #2
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    Human, drakeling, and ratling are all solid choices for assassin. Dark elf is not too great, as the only thing going for them is their starting armor, which doesn't fully compensate for their bad toughness and terrible shop prices.

    Outside of a handful of weapons that are rare or difficult to get, dual wielding is garbage. You lose a massive amount of DV from not using a shield, attacking takes a lot more time, and weight penalties restrict the weapons that are practical to use. Assassin dagger throwing is nice at the start, but the lack of stacking ammunition makes it not such a great long-term strategy.

    For talents, the safest bet is going for the PV line (Hardy -> Tough Skin -> Iron Skin -> Steel Skin) and the speed line (Quick -> Very Quick -> Greased Lightning). Get Healthy first unless it's a month of the Candle character. If you want to improve your dagger throwing you can get generic missile talents (Good Shot -> Keen Shot -> Eagle-Eyed and Quick Shot -> Lightning Shot), and then also make use of more plentiful types of missiles.

    For weapon choice, it's generally best to just use whatever is your current most damaging weapon, instead of choosing a weapon group you want to use beforehand. The dagger backstabbing bonus is neat, but you really need a reliable way to get backstabs (darkness or blindness) to make the most of it.

    Other miscellaneous assassin tips:
    • Talk to the village elder before the druid. You want the starting quest that allows you to get Healing.
    • Get crowned early. Assassin has an incredibly good set of crowning gifts.

  3. #3
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    Oct 2018
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grond View Post
    Human, drakeling, and ratling are all solid choices for assassin. Dark elf is not too great, as the only thing going for them is their starting armor, which doesn't fully compensate for their bad toughness and terrible shop prices.

    Outside of a handful of weapons that are rare or difficult to get, dual wielding is garbage. You lose a massive amount of DV from not using a shield, attacking takes a lot more time, and weight penalties restrict the weapons that are practical to use. Assassin dagger throwing is nice at the start, but the lack of stacking ammunition makes it not such a great long-term strategy.

    For talents, the safest bet is going for the PV line (Hardy -> Tough Skin -> Iron Skin -> Steel Skin) and the speed line (Quick -> Very Quick -> Greased Lightning). Get Healthy first unless it's a month of the Candle character. If you want to improve your dagger throwing you can get generic missile talents (Good Shot -> Keen Shot -> Eagle-Eyed and Quick Shot -> Lightning Shot), and then also make use of more plentiful types of missiles.

    For weapon choice, it's generally best to just use whatever is your current most damaging weapon, instead of choosing a weapon group you want to use beforehand. The dagger backstabbing bonus is neat, but you really need a reliable way to get backstabs (darkness or blindness) to make the most of it.

    Other miscellaneous assassin tips:
    • Talk to the village elder before the druid. You want the starting quest that allows you to get Healing.
    • Get crowned early. Assassin has an incredibly good set of crowning gifts.

    Thanks Grond!!! I appreciate the tips. This game is fantastic but quite frustrating as well...in a good way. How does stealth and backstab work exactly? Does backstab only trigger when the monster is in an 'uncaring' state? Do any other stats affect a successful stealth and backstab check? Lastly you definitely recommend Healing over Herbalism?

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by cbarchuk View Post
    How does stealth and backstab work exactly? Does backstab only trigger when the monster is in an 'uncaring' state?
    For basic backstabbing monsters do indeed need to have an attitude of uncaring (or friendly/peaceful). Having a high Stealth score means that more hostile monsters will start out uncaring, and a high Backstabbing score means that attacks against uncaring monsters are more likely to become backstabs.

    Do any other stats affect a successful stealth and backstab check?
    Not that I'm aware of, although being invisible will make Stealth more effective.

    Lastly you definitely recommend Healing over Herbalism?
    Yes. Technically Herbalism is the more powerful skill as you can farm healing herbs, but the quest is difficult to complete early, and playing without Healing is unpleasant.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grond View Post
    For basic backstabbing monsters do indeed need to have an attitude of uncaring (or friendly/peaceful). Having a high Stealth score means that more hostile monsters will start out uncaring, and a high Backstabbing score means that attacks against uncaring monsters are more likely to become backstabs.



    Not that I'm aware of, although being invisible will make Stealth more effective.



    Yes. Technically Herbalism is the more powerful skill as you can farm healing herbs, but the quest is difficult to complete early, and playing without Healing is unpleasant.
    My character is born under the candle sign. Is adding Healing on top of that still recommended?

  6. #6
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    Yes. Candle actually has good synergy with Healing. Candle increases the amount of HP regained when natural HP regeneration triggers, and Healing makes natural regeneration ticks more frequent.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grond View Post
    Yes. Candle actually has good synergy with Healing. Candle increases the amount of HP regained when natural HP regeneration triggers, and Healing makes natural regeneration ticks more frequent.
    Okay will do. So how can I raise my stats? I know herbs seem to be the main way to do that.

  8. #8
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    Most common methods:
    • Training Strength by being encumbered. Staying at Strained! can get you up 18 Strength.
    • Eating the corpses of buff things, such as ogres, dark orcs, and giants to increase Strength.
    • Eating morgia roots (4-5 at a time) to train Willpower and Toughness.
    • Eating the corpses of Toughness-draining undead to increase Toughness.
    • Using non-cursed moss of mareilon (2-3 at a time) to train Dexterity.
    • Casting spells of train Mana.
    • Drinking blessed potions of carrot juice to increase Perception.
    • Paying Garth to train various attributes.


    You can check out the attribute pages on the wiki for more detailed information.

  9. #9
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    Oct 2018
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    Hey Grond,

    So my Ratling assassin is level 18 dual wielding with the Serpents Bite. I'm enjoying the experience I guess but my character doesn't really feel like an assassin. Stealth and backstabbing seem largely useless. Dual wielding in most cases is a bad idea even though I'm still doing it. I'm now trying to improve my ranged abilities. I don't know what it is but I don't really seem to 'get' the assassin class in this game. The class just seems to lack focus and theme. I feel like I should've just gone with some kind of warrior class or maybe dark elf archer. Now a dark elf archer with Find Weakness sounds like more of an assassin to me or maybe even a ranger if I want to actually dual wield. I guess I just envisioned this 'sneaky' type of character. But even with 100 stealth and the stealthy talent rarely are monsters in an 'uncaring' state where they can be backstabbed. So yea I'm just not digging the 'feel' of the assassin class. Might have to start over and try something else.
    Last edited by cbarchuk; 11-04-2018 at 09:59 PM.

  10. #10
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    As I briefly mentioned previously, there are some ways to get backstabs on alert monsters. One is to blind them. This is generally reserved for bosses and other very difficult monsters, since it uses consumables (thrown blindness or cursed invisibility potions), but there is a reusable artifact phial that works for blinding humanoids. Not sure if this counts as being sneaky, but assassin can get a lot of mileage out of their extra backstabbing damage this way. Darkness also allows you to backstab monsters that can't see in the dark. Unfortunately, assassins are not particularly likely to find a spellbook of Darkness.

    If you want to start off using backstabbing, one idea would be orc priest. They're full spellcasters and thus are very likely to have access to Darkness early-on. Getting their Backstabbing skill to a decent value will take some work though. Archer feels more like bringing an assault rifle to a sword fight, but dark elf archer is quite a solid choice. On the other hand, if you think assassin lacks focus, you might be even more disappointed by ranger.

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