Assassin

Assassin Matchups
The Defninite PVP Basics - How to Fight Every Class Properly

Brought to you by Mephs and the Assassins of <Elitist By Natur>

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Preface

1. Introduction

This is a basic guide to our best/worst pvp matchups, how to basically PVP including some tips on what to watch out for, what to prepare with, and how to stay on top of your game so you aren't just roadkill in the abyss. I should note that a lot of these topics and concepts are covered in F8L Fool's compendium in the korean PVP'er interviews, most of which are great tips but are incredibly hard to decipher in their broken english translations, and use of the original skill names. This guide is designed to sort of give a more understandable perspective on these concepts.

2a. Preparation (ESSENTIALS) - Items you should not leave home without

Lesser Healing Potion


Healing pots are the most quintessential item in your inventory. Always carry about 500 of them at any given time. No less, more is acceptable however. If you do not have any in your inventory you WILL VERY LIKELY PROBABLY FAIL AT KILLING ANY RANGED CLASS, PERIOD. Okay, so what is all the hype about these healing pots? They remove roots, dots, snares, pretty much any debuff in the game, but only 1 of said debuff. These will both be a life saving tool, and also an offensive tool for you to get the job done. This is what lets you avoid getting cc'd and destroyed before you can really react. It will save your life if you are being ganked, it will let you catch someone trying to kite you, and so on and so forth. YOU NEED THESE TO PVP. Every class does, but it should be of note that if you are disabled (i.e. stunned or polymorphed) you cannot break it with this. Keep a note of this.

Life Potion
Regular Life Serum


Serums give instant HP (burst healing), and regular pots give a heal over time effect that comes out a bit higher once the full duration is used, healing-wise. Being that these are both on the same cooldown, you need to know when to use which one, and why one might be better against one class while the other will be more useful against another. Keep a good stock of these on hand all the time, pot chugging is just as important in this game as playing right. Especially as an assassin, these will let you stand up in a 1v2, if you play smart. If you are going to go on about "I'm too honorable of a PVP'er to use pots" then stop reading now and go die in the abyss for hours but don't complain that its the class that is at fault.

2a. Preparation (OPTIONALS) - Items you don't necessarily need but give you an even greater advantage

Anti-Shock Scroll


These are highly underestimated. Ever been frustrated with sorcerer's stoneskin? This essentially does the same thing. VERY useful to have handy, and the cooldown is not shared with pots, etc. You should always keep a nice stock of these if you want the upper hand.

Running Scroll


20% more speed for 5 min, if you don't want to use sprinting, or you really want to be able to keep up in an air fight, pop sprinting and this and go to town. You'd be silly not to use these. Relatively low level alchemists can make them, and they're not too hard to make, but the mats are a little painful to come by. (single farm nodes that aren't common) - make as many as you can and save your zircon to make them. I may have missed similar items but anything that gives you a speed increase is AWESOME.

Grilled Monitor Aether Steak


Foods (not necessarily the above), but you want Attack/HP food if you really ballin and have the money to spew on it. Gets a little costly if you die a lot, but they're nice to keep on when out in the field.


3a. Gear - Why we need it

As a melee class, we are extremely, EXTREMELY gear dependant. You can't kill anything with underlevelled weapons, no manastones socketed, and 100 crit rating. Make sure you update your gear every 3 levels or so, if you are using top tier items they may last you longer than 3 levels, depending on the item. Most blues will last you 5-6 levels, epics will last you up to 10 before equivalents become available. No matter what the need, ALWAYS UPDATE YOUR WEAPONS FIRST, then your armor. Weapons make you do more damage (obviously), and the armor is mostly defensive in stats.

3b. Gear - Farming for it

Craftables are an easy way to upgrade to the top tier for your level, since all professions can gather any item and most items are abundant throughout the game. When thinking about a future craftable, make sure you pick EVERY node you come across, even if it isn't related to your needs. You can always sell some of the off-normal items for more money to buy other items. Example: You need titanium for some new daggers, but there are all these gold nodes around, make sure you pick the gold nodes and sell the HG Gold (~5-10k a piece on Siel), and then you can just buy up titanium with the profit! Also, make sure you keep your aether gathering CAPPED. I cannot stress this enough. All equipment craftables require aether crystals, especially HG ones. The top tier nodes drop these pretty frequently but you have to level it.

3c. Gear - Farming Aethers

Farming aether is probably the biggest pain in the *** in the game, period. For one, you probably only get enough time to farm one node before you are out of flight time (pre-30). To counter this annoyance, bring
Wind Serum
in droves. If you are going for a long farming session, have an alch make you about 100 of them (they take aether crystals, which you'll farm a lot more than you need while gathering aether, so put those excess to use!). While farming, watch your air time. Once it exceeds the amount that your pot gives (in this case, +24 flight time), pop it then and there. This allows you to stay in the air twice as long, since the cooldown will come up 2 more times before you HAVE to land. Pop the pot everytime the CD is up until you have to land for a rest. You should get about 2+ min of air time per go if you do this, and use 2 pots per excavation. This will not only let you farm aether faster, but also the wind pots can be useful in flight combat for the same reasons.

Note: An unprepared opponent may try to flee from you by flying, but if you have wind serums, he will eventually have to land, whereas you will not. These are just handy for abyss in that respect. Even if they do have serums, you will be able to match them toe for toe in flight pursuit with these using the same tactic (pop whenever the cd is up and initially when you are -24 on your flight timer)
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3d. Gear - What we want

Daggers and swords are our primary weapons. However there is so much confusion about which to use in what hand and what stats to look for.

ABOVE ALL ELSE, YOUR MAIN HAND SHOULD BE A DAGGER. I'm not gonna get into specifics but basically your crit mod is based on your main hand. Daggers have 2x the crit mod of a sword, so this is common sense that a dagger goes in the main hand. Now, if you are at the soft cap for critical hit rate (440), without a dagger, then go with a sword main hand for the better damage and also for the stats. Most of the time swords have better overall stats than a dagger, but crit is so important to us. Most of the time you should roll DAGGER/SWORD, but DAGGER/DAGGER, and SWORD/SWORD may be a better selection depending on what items you have.

Really, just use whatever you have the best of. If you have 2 orange sword with +Attack Speed and 2 blue quest daggers, I'm inclined to say go with the swords over the daggers at all, since they're leaps and bounds better.

4. Titles - SPEEEEEEEEEEEED

Any title that gives +% speed is the best thing you can get. There aren't any really amazing +crit or +attack titles so I prefer to go with the elusive + speed stat, since very few items early-mid game have it, and we need it. Currently my personal favorite is "Savior of Eiron Forest"


Melee PVP In Aion

1. Basics - Life as a Melee in Aion

Sucks. The net code of this game is horrendous at times, but that does not mean we are useless. Melee suffer great disadvantages when it comes to both ground and air combat, mainly because of the way our attacks do not register properly or just the plain fact that some things we can't use while moving.

Nonetheless there are ways to get around it, and it will take practice, as well as some situational awareness to overcome the pitfalls. First, lets prepare by configuring our game properly.

FIRST, turn off Auto Facing (this automatically faces you towards your target while they move) its under the main game options as "Disable Auto Approach". The game has a ****** tendency to be slower at this automatic facing than you will be. So scrap it.

SECOND, turn on "Show Target's Target". You want to know who your target is targetting. This will give you the initiative to prepare if say, that assassin or gladiator you're poking at turns from your friend to you, or a sorceror is targetting you for a CC.

THIRD, turn on "Show Target Distance". This will let you know your actual distance to the target, so you won't be in the dark and wonder why you're getting "Too far" errors all the time. <-- VERY VERY IMPORTANT FOR FLIGHT COMBAT.

FOURTH, learn to control movement/facing with the mouse. DO NOT KEYBOARD TURN. Reaction time is everything in PVP, if you keyboard turn, you cannot react with the same precision as someone who uses a mouse, its a grave disadvantage. It may feel wierd at first but practice with it until you are comfortable.

FIFTH, bind all your abilities to keys. This is just as important to reaction time as mouse-movement. Don't click your abilities.

2. Predictive Chasing

You probably have run into issues while PVP'ing. Spammed with "Too Far Away" messages and the like. Don't worry its not just you. As I mentioned the net code in this game is horrid. So to overcome this problem, we need to always try to predict where our target is going. Its not that we can't keep up, its that we just aren't close enough according to the server.

While attacking, run ahead of your target a little while attacking, attack as if they're about a foot in front of where they appear to be. This includes in flight, try flying alongside them or fly "through" them as you attack to ensure you get your attacks off. This is mainly how we handle flight combat to do damage, if you auto-chase your target it goes by your client's information, not the server's, so it will inevitably fail you. I'll post a follow up video describing this in better detail.

Key point: Stay one step ahead of your opponent, pretend like they are a few yards in front of where they appear to be.

3. Kiting

Its something we have to do against other melee, love it or hate it as an assassin there will be times where something goes horribly wrong, or we just can't tank our target. A lot of our PVP ability is the fact that we can keep a target stunned for a long period of time. Unfortunately a lot of these stuns are on CDs that means we cannot spam these abilities. Kiting is a tactic to avoid taking damage while we are essentially limited to auto attacks, which is easily what will get you killed, staying and trying to poke at someone with your daggers while they get major damage off on you.

The trick to Assassin in PVP is dealing damage when opportunity knocks, and avoiding it when the dice are against you. The more you PVP the more you'll become keen to knowing when to kite and when to stay in. Basically play more and get used to these situations, kite when necessary (against melee classes) and use your distance as time to get your stuns back up. Stuns also will help you kite in that it gives you a few seconds to get some distance. This will also be shown on the follow-up video.

4a. Awareness - Your opponent's buffs

This is another pitfall a lot of noobs fall into, not paying attention to the game around them and tunnel-visioning their target. First things first, watch your opponent's buffs like a hawk. Become familiar with the icons of each ability that you need to watch out for. If you aren't sure what a buff is on your opponent, mouse over it when you have them targetted and take the time to memorize them as best you can. There will always be those icons you eventually learn to recognize immediately, but you must do this so that you know how to turn a fight in your favor.

For example, Templars have an ability that increases their resist to stuns (Sorc have this also!), so obviously you don't want to waste a stun when they have this up. All you have to do is pay attention to their buff icons. Most abilities are short duration, but I'll go over "things to watch for" when I get into class match ups.


4b. Awareness - Faking

You may run into smart casters, sorcs and spiritmasters that know a thing or two about the game and/or don't suck at PVP. Many of your defensive abilities can be baited by "faking", that is, they start to cast and then cancel the cast before it finishes, provoking you to use your Focused Evasion or Aethertwisting, then burning through it before lighting you up. Be really keen about not blowing your cooldowns too quickly and watch to see how the opponent plays. If you know he's good at faking, you have to play mind games with him, make him think you'll take the bait, but don't, this may not always work out because you can't read his mind, but if you know your enemy and know what his playstyle is like, you in turn will also become a better player and stand a better chance against better players.

4c. Awareness - Cooldowns

Just about every ability in the game has a cooldown. Keeping an eye on your own cooldowns is just as important as keeping an eye on your opponent's buffs and timing their cooldowns in your head. You probably can't do this perfectly but knowing the cooldowns of certain abilities will help you avoid them or counter them. Every class has a number of abilities to be careful of, the trick is minding their cooldowns.

For example, the cooldown of a Templar's "Inescapable Judgement" is 30 seconds. Your Focused Evasion is 30 seconds. This is the ability you always want to save FE for, so knowing that you used FE for their last "GET OVER HERE", you can assume that if FE is up, so is his pull ability. Use this same method of thinking to avoid key abilities against your opponents. Sorceror's CCs are another thing to keep in mind for cooldowns, though a good sorc may make it hard for you to completely avoid these abilities.


4d. Awareness - Predicting

Many instant abilities aren't as easy to avoid as casted ones, like a sorceror's Tree curse, or a large nuke that does a lot of damage. In the case of a instant ability you need to predict when they will use it, or track external conditions. For example, when would a Templar most likely use Judgement? When you are kiting him, of course! This requires knowing your enemy as well, if he's relatively quick on judgement use, pop FE preemptively sooner than you might normally, but knowing that he may or may not use it while you are kiting is essential to fighting him. Knowing that if you are in close range to a sorceror, he will try to root you, have your finger on your healing pot ready to go. Knowing that he will probably blink away if you get in range again (you will if you healing pot his roots), save your ambush to close distance and stop him.

This predictive playstyle is not 100% guaranteed to work, but like anything if you play more, you'll get better at being one step ahead of your opponent just by knowing what abilities are typically used at what times by most classes. Sometimes it can smack you in the face if you try to overthink a noob opponent. You may preemptively react to an ability they use but because they're so slow to use it or to react themselves, you either waste your efforts or are better off just "noobslamming" them to death.

4e. Awareness - Level Gaps

You can't see your opponent's level in open PVP. This is such a handicap because you may attack someone thinking they're low level, only to get your **** pushed in. Best advice is this:

Someone +3 your level has a LARGE advantage over you, just because their armor defense will be skewed higher, their evasions and resists will be a lot more frequent, and they will do amplified damage against you because of the opposite reasons. This is why you really need to update your gear all the time, to stay ahead of the curve, but most people dont so that is when you can take someone +3 to you. Typically though, avoid fighting anyone more than 2 levels over you, unless you're feeling brave and really want a challenge. Iif your target is resisting a lot of your stuns, they may be a lot higher than you, but one way to be sure is to keep aion's "Armory" open and search their name before attacking.

5. Aerial Combat

Since everyone still cries about how bad it is, let me just preface this with the notion that I do agree melee mechanics in the air suck. That isn't yours or my fault, but obviously someone who doesn't have to be in range on a 3rd coordinate plane to kill something is at a large advantage. Luckily, we are not without hope.

Things to note about aerial combat: Most classes lose a lot of abilities that otherwise would work on the ground only. Us included, but we lose mainly Ambush, and Aerial Shackle. That is it. This is, obviously a pretty hard blow to us being that we need our stuns to do well against most classes. That said, just keep in mind that most aerial locks dont work in the air at all so you have one less thing to worry about from other classes as well.

Second, most people chase hopelessly when the enemy is kiting them in the air. USE A BOW, AND A GOOD ONE AT THAT. Your bow needs to be up to date as well to do maximum damage while you aren't in range. You might think this is insignificant but trust me, you will quickly learn how valuable your bow is in the abyss.

Third, bows have the innate ability to stun when you crit. Keep this in mind till you get Throw Dagger that you do have a way to stop someone long enough to get in range and carve them. If they keep running and dont turn to try and fight, this is how you catch them primarily. Takes practice.


Matchups!

1. VS Gladiators

a. General Info

Gladiators are pretty much the "Tunnel Vision" pro class of the game. Able to deal efficient damage, soak a good amount of damage, and just tunnel vision a target to death without much thought or strategy. These are a dangerous match and largely a fight vs. a gladiator will be very RNG dependant. They have few CCs to be wary of, but most of their "CC" is in the form of RNG based crit knockdowns. Every time they crit it has a chance to knock you down. They also have an air shackle attack and airslam ability which does some hefty damage. Otherwise nothing is too big of a deal.

b. Abilities to Watch For

(Snares/Roots)

Use a healing pot to get out of it ASAP.

Unwavering Devotion I


Lasts 1 min (ouch!), cooldown is 3 minutes. You'll pretty much never land a stun while this is active. Once this is up you need to kite, restealth, and wait, hit him with a bow while you kite to keep poisons or damage outgoing.

Charge I


This will be the only way they can catch you directly, this is ideally when you want to be ready to "tank" and have FE up. You can also rest assured they will use this if you start to kite. If they get kind of close, Ambush and run away till the charge wears off. Hopefully you'll land the stun, but if not, then use FE and try to stun again with the resulting dodge. They only have 10 seconds to catch you.

Aerial Lockdown

3 min cooldown Air Shackle, instant ability. You need to be a little predictive with this one. It hurts, but its a 3 min cooldown. If he hasn't used it yet, be assured he probably will, or might start a fight with it, so try to evade the intial air attack if you can. Once that is blown, you have little to worry about besides his anti-stun.

c. How to Win

Most of the time you want to open guns blazing. Ambush, flurry, etc. and lay into them as much damage as you can before they can even move. Then start kiting once you're out of ammo. The idea is to let them get as few hits in as possible, and only attack when your cooldowns or high burst damage are available. The only thing we really can't win against is if they have Unwavering Devotion up (anti stun), mainly because without our stuns we have little to fight back with.

Watch for Unwavering once they can get it, this will be your downfall since we require stuns to win against a gladiator. The best way to fight them while its up is to kite and only attack momentarily while you have your free dodges available to you. Healing pot out of snares/binds when possible, and while kiting make sure you keep the sidestep evasion buff up. It will be pretty hard for them to hit you. Once the 1 min timer is up, lay into them, stun stun stun and usually all the kite-evade damage you did will give you enough of a window to kill them.

When they charge, either FE and tank it, or ambush stun them once they get near and try to keep the stun as long as possible going to waste the charge cooldown. Be aware that at any time they have a great chance to perma stunlock you to death just as easily as you can do to them, so its very RNG against glads. If they get a perfect KD, Air shackle, KD, KD you are pretty nyerked.

While kiting keep poisons up to poke away at their hp slowly, and also watch your cds for a chance to stun. Go in, stun, do as much dmg as possible and then start kiting again. Maximize your time kiting and spend as little time tanking as you can. They are a tough matchup 1v1 if they're good, but you can still win if you play superiorly. While kiting you can use flight to your advantage to avoid their melee attacks in the same way anyone else avoids damage by flying erratically. Especially when kiting their stun resist cooldown, this is very useful.

You may also want to watch for any "shield" abilities that absorb damage, try to avoid tanking while these are up, as your burst damage will be wasted by the 100% block it gives. Mainly watch their buffs and kite a lot in between stuns.

2. VS Templars

a. General Info

Templars are extremely hard to kill, being the main tanks of the game, their primary role is to soak damage. And that means you will very likely not be doing a lot of it to them either. They mostly are hard to kill due to their HP recovery abilities, high armor, and lots of absorb abilities.

b. Abilities to Watch For

Inescapable Judgment I


Their trademark "GET OVER HERE" ability that forces you to them and stuns you for a short time. This is most likely to be used if you try to kite them, be aware that its on a 30 sec cooldown, and use your Focused Evasion specifically to avoid this ability. You should only tank on your terms, not theirs.

Unwavering Devotion I


Same as Gladiator's anti-stun, just kite till its over, though notably you can tank a templar much easier than a Gladiator due to their lower damage output, but don't rely on stuns to do it, just hit n run.

Charge I


They also have this. Same tactics as Gladiator.

Iron Skin I


Like the anti-stun, you aren't going to get much accomplished while this is up. THANKFULLY its a 10 minute cooldown. Just be aware that if they have it up, you're better off kite-stun-poking them.

Heals

They have self healing abilities, just use your pots if you have to match their healing. HOT pots are usually fine against Templars as they won't do high burst damage very quickly to you, so you can tank while a pot is active for the most part.

c. How to Win

Like gladiators, the key to killing a templar is largely based on kiting and using your stun timers, except with Templars save your FE for their drag ability. Much like fighting a gladiator, avoid them if their anti-stun is up, but they also have a few other troublesome cooldowns. All in all they're more of a pain in the *** to kill than a direct threat, as long as you don't let them get you in a drag/stun/snare rut. Use healing pots to get out of the snares and book whenever you're close to death to recover. They're a challenge but keeping your gear up to date, you should be able to handle them just fine as long as you have time to kill and lots of pots.


3. VS Sorcerors

a. General Info

Probably the most annoying opponent, sorcerors have just about every tool in the box to spoil your day real quickly. Between 2 snares, 2 instant roots, and several other ways to CC you, expect a challenge from a bad sorceror, and really expect to rage if you aren't up on your skills vs. a relatively good sorc. As they are such an issue, there a lot of things to keep an eye out for.

b. Abilities to Watch For

Curse of Roots I


Has a relatively visible cast time, but this will be their 'fight reset' ability which breaks on damage, but renders you useless if it isn't broken. Try not to get tree'd by all means, but also remember that while a tree, you have high magic resists, and won't be susceptible to an instant nuke while under the effects. You can't pot out of this either, so you either have to eat it or twist it. If you have a dot on you of any kind, dont bother to dodge this, as it will break instantly and also render the sorcer without an extra CC for a while.

Sleep I


Pretty much identical to CoR, except you're asleep instead of a tree.

Blind Leap I


Essentially a blink/mobility ability. We don't have snares so the cc removal isn't of concern, the problem is that it teleports them a good ways away from us. This is mainly what you want to save ambush for if you can.

Stone Skin I


You'll be forced to break down their initial stoneskin shield because it can negate stuns (Ambush, mainly) but with gear up to date you should be able to break it quickly in either an SA or swift edge chain given some good crits. This isn't terribly hard to remove once we get our dispel pattern explosion.

Boon of Clairvoyance I


Only a problem until you get advanced hide. If they pop this (and they will) when you stealth they will be able to see you for the duration. If you're too close to stay out of their range for the duration you have to just attack and hope something good happens at this point, because there's no point being stealthed, unless you can avoid them long enough.

Boon of Iron-Clad I


Especially pay attention for this one because it will nyerk up your stunlock if they pop it mid-chain, or if they have it up ensure that you save your stuns till its over. Works exactly like Gladiator's anti-stun, but only lasts 5 seconds instead of 1 min.

Aether's Hold I


Like other CCs, and any other aerial shackle, this lets them get some heavy damage in while you're in the air. If you can avoid letting this go off, make sure you do so. And this is why...

Aether Flame I


Spammable. They can cast this about 3 or 4 times if you get shackled, which...quite frankly is nearly death and once you hit the ground it only gets worse. Luckily Hold is on a sizable cast time, so if your stuns are on point they should not get you with it.

c. How to Win

Open as hard as you can with swift edge, or SA, whatever it is you got to break their stoneskin down. You have to do this or the fight is lost. Once the shield is down, start stunning, but dont use ambush yet. Being a pure caster there is nothing to proc your counter/ww slash so you are stuck using aerial and pain rune to stop them for now. Save your healing pot for a root that could turn the battle. Most of the time once you break the root they will blink, be ready to ambush IMMEDIATELY and finish them there. Once their blink is wasted you have nearly free reign to finish them.

The thing about sorcs is that most of their power nukes require casting, so the main idea is to not let them get a cast off. Sounds easier than it is, but keep healing pots at the ready so you don't get nuked, and save Aethertwisting for the heavy nukes rather than the less dangerous CC (i.e. Sleep and Tree, since you will resist a good portion of their first nuke when they break you out of it). The main things you should save AT for are their aerial, large damage nukes, and the like, because that is what will kill you. Tree/Sleep isn't bad because most of the time you'll get broken out of it. The only time you want to stop these is if you're very close to killing them, and can't spare letting them reset the fight or getting away.

Also, watch your debuffs carefully, if you have a dot on you, and then you get rooted, you CANNOT break the root and the root will not break until they hit you with something. You may be better off trying to FE the initial dot as that will screw you up more than the root will in this case. Though this is more predict and pray, its your best chance of surviving an early root kill by eating that first dot.

You're both very squishy to each other, so often one good stun rotation will be enough to kill a de-barrier'd sorceror, but they can kill you equally as quickly if you let them aerial or root/nuke you. Its VERY important that you analyze each cast and make sure you know which ones to twist, and which ones to let go through and just tank it. Often times a healing pot is a better alternative to blowing AT on something silly like their mini nukes. Good sorcerors WILL try to bait your AT/FE and then when you're out of saves they will blow you up since you are defenseless. Don't let this happen, and learn which sorcs know how to fake, use that against them and make them waste time. The more time of a sorc's that you waste, I.E interrupting casts with stuns, etc, the easieir you'll find them to beat.

Its just as easy however to make a small mistake and die. Most are not nearly this good, but even the best sorcs are beatable.

Another strategy is to attempt to blow them up before they can get ANY casts off on you, i.e. AT. The initial rush will usually be enough to kill a mediocre sorc.


4. VS Spiritmasters

a. General Info

Spiritmasters (and their pets) are similar to sorcerors in that they can CC, nuke, and dot the hell out of you while they kite. I feel they are little bit more annoying since their damage is heavier in the form of DOTs than heavy nukes. The good side to this is that you can pot through their damage relatively easy. The bad side is that you're on a time limit to kill them.

b. Abilities to Watch For

Stone Skin I


Same as sorcerors, remove ASAP.

Fear I


This one's pretty big, make sure to AT this or you can be very easily killed while affected by it.

Spirit Substitution I


Transfers all damage they take to their spirit for 2 min. If they pop this just back off, its a 10 min cooldown and you will not get anywhere trying to kill them with this up. Attacking the spirit isnt really an option unless you have some help. But 1v1, its pointless.


c. How to Win

Pot out of their snares/roots and avoid fears at any cost. If they get a fear off you are pretty much going to be shut down until you die. The DoTs can be countered with HoT pots initially but dont be afraid to use a burst hp pot when needed. Treat them like sorcs but they can't teleport, so ambush and stun them to death when the opportunity arises. There isn't much else to them, one neat trick is that unlike sorcs you can proc counter stuns if they leave the pet on you, so be ready to have the 2 bonus stuns against typical SMs. Some better ones may not sic the pet on you because of the risk it generates, so its not a reliable strategy but most of the time the spirit's pet will proc those stuns for you.

Once more, save AT for the fears primarily, evasion if you have to, but you can kill them faster than a sorc usually once you catch them in a good stunlock.


5. VS Clerics

a. General Info

Clerics aren't too much trouble for a geared assassin, the problem here is that gear will determine how well you do. You must be able to put enough pressure on them to make them heal, if they have too much free time to damage you you can eventually lose due to attrition on their part. The idea against a cleric isn't so much to blow all your stuns and kill them before htey can move (unless you can!), but to save that stun rotation for when they're up ****'s creek without a paddle, low on hp. That is when you want to finish them before they can heal. A good cleric will heal early so they don't get into this dangerous zone, but if you space heals out you can put some decent pressure on them to only stick to instant heals. If you waste all your stuns too early, they can free heal through your damage, so try not to blow your load all in the same hole, so to say.

b. Abilities to Watch For

Flash of Recovery I


This is really going to be your bane, but also is your cue to unload all you got. Once they pop this instant heal you have 30 seconds to finish them with spread out stuns before they can use it again. If done right, they should never get a full cast heal off.

Root I


Use your CC pot to escape this. I recommend only using a CC pot if you absolutely have to get out of the root, otherwise you can tank their damage if they try to nuke. If they're low HP when they root you, then break it and try to finish them.

Blinding Light I


An effective stigma but I haven't seen a lot of clerics that use it. If they hit you with this evade for the duration and just restart the fight, you will not be able to hit them at all while its on, unless you choose to go with the Oath of Accuracy stigma.

c. How to Win

Not too bad, the main thing you will get ruined by is their instant heal. Otherwise try not to let them get any other heals off, space out stuns as necessary but keep the damage coming and put pressure on them so that they either are forced to heal early or only rely on instants. If things go wrong (i.e. lots of stun resist) you can easily reset the fight because they have little ways to kill you quickly or stop you from escaping.

6. VS Chanters

a. General Info

Chanters, like clerics can heal, but they primarily are a melee class, with the added benefit that they use 2h staves and can knock you down with a good crit or two. They also do some decent melee burst damage. Approach these guys like you would a combination of a gladiator/cleric that doesn't hit quite as hard but can outlast you if you let him.

b. Abilities to Watch For

---Nothing of note I can think of...I don't fight many chanters, but the few I have didn't seem to do anything threatening.

c. How to Win

Pretty easy. Fight like you would a gladiator, but instead of unloading everything on them immediately, save at least one "instant" stun (preferrably ambush) for when they try to get the "panic heal" off. Use counter/whirlwind slash generously to keep them from hitting you and kite if they aren't trying to heal in between those stuns. Always save ambush to stop a sub-50% heal and then lay into them when its too late to recover.

I usually use aethertwisting to dodge their combo stun ability primarily, and FE just to proc a free stun most of the time. All in all they're hardly a tough match if you play smart. You easily outburst them just do not blow all your stuns too early.

7. VS Assassins

a. General Info

Mirror duels as an assassin depend on both the other assassin's skills and a large amount of RNG. Scout classes all dodge a hell of a lot, so expect that you will miss many attacks unless you opt for some accuracy over crit (I might recommend this later, but honestly it shouldn't be that big an issue). The primary way to approach another assassin is to know everything about your class that they might not. For instance, 99% of assassins probably do not know that Aethertwisting negates the stun component of Ambush, or Pain Rune, or Aerial Lock, or pretty much any pattern explosion.

You need to know, however, and counter his abilities with your own to win.

b. Abilities to Watch For

Ambush I


Instant stun, should go without saying that if you can juke this ability in any way, you come off on top. This isn't to say that they can't still lock you down, but usually assassins open with this immediately, so getting the jump and initial burst damage in is your greatest asset.

Binding Rune I


Early on this is just another stun, but late game this becomes an enormous source of burst damage for an assassin. You REALLY must watch their carves and count to 3 in your head, and know when they are going to use it. It is magic, so you can twist it, but normally you would twist to avoid Ambush. Alternatively you can FE the ambush and twist aerial lock, depends on how much attention your opponent is paying.

Aethertwisting I


As said, this can stop your pattern explosions and also your Ambush. Refrain from using either while this is up. Its short duration, but you should be aware of when they have it up.

Focused Evasion I


Same as above. Also note that it gives them a free counter-stun, so you can usually pop your FE in response to theirs and auto attack it off, that way when they try to use counterslash or ww you will dodge it and proc one of your own. This is kind of tricky to do and not always guaranteed since both of you swing pretty fast and an auto can easily "accidentally" eat it before the counter.

c. How to Win

Getting the opening stun is incredibly important. If you have searching eye and know an assassin is nearby pop it immediately and find them. If you know they will open with Ambush once they close in, bait it. Twist it and then respond with your own ambush. However, NEVER use your explosions while they have their own Aethertwisting up. Wait it out if you have to, or use a non magical stun to keep them down while its duration passes. The major key trick here is to get one good stun off, then lay into them and dont let them move as long as possible.

While RNG is a huge factor also, you still must make sure you get the opener. It is very luck dependant just because you can easily have several stuns dodged while theirs land every time, or vice versa, but to ensure victory MOST of the time, always get the first stun, and preferrably try to bait their ambush into your aethertwist, or use twist as protection against stuns if you need some extra time for a cooldown.

For even more smackdown, after you finish your opening, lay into them, and then spread your wings. Now, they're either dead or low hp, and they can't ambush, aerial lock, or even run because they're poisoned (they can't fly), you're moving quite faster than them, and they can't pop you with an insta-stun. You still have twisting up for if they try to pain rune, and FE if they try to counterstun at all. So this is why opening is extremely important.

8. VS Rangers

a. General Info

Rangers might seen threatening because they can hide like us, burst like us, and ambush people like us, but all said and done they're not that hard of a match for us really. Rangers do have some solid burst but beyond that they are particularly vulnerable in between cycles where that burst is down. While this is all true, it should be kept in mind that a fight against a ranger often will be all or nothing. They can very easily chase you down and excel in the air where we might falter a bit. The best advice is to remove snares and close distance ASAP every time they are put up, save FE for potential snares but mainly use it to proc a dodge and close distance for a stun.

b. Abilities to Watch For

Sleep Arrow I


Instantly disables you into a sleep state. Can be aethertwisted, but being an instant cast this can really set you up for trouble if they get it off. Not so much because of them, but because they may use it to escape while you're sleeping, or to trap you in place for a large group to gank you.

Binding Rune I


Early on this is just another stun, but late game this becomes an enormous source of burst damage for an assassin. You REALLY must watch their carves and count to 3 in your head, and know when they are going to use it. It is magic, so you can twist it, but normally you would twist to avoid Ambush. Alternatively you can FE the ambush and twist aerial lock, depends on how much attention your opponent is paying.

Entangling Shot I


The main snare, healing pot out of it ASAP.

Focused Evasion I


Being scouts, they also have this and can also counterattack stun (not likely that they will though). Don't blow an important cooldown if they have it up, but let a melee attack knock it off.

Snare Trap I


Any trap can be aethertwisted. Not likely they'll use them in combat but in case they try, remember you can twist them, and will need to.

c. How to Win

First of all, don't let them creep up on you. They have hide, and we can see through their hide. They can see through our hide as well, until we get rank 2 in which they cannot anymore. If they get the first strike, especially if they're already flying, you may be screwed. Watch your combat log primarily for rangers who hide nearby and you can prepare for them.

Next, keep in mind that they have a snare on a 16s cooldown. This is the ONLY thing that will really mess you up in the long run. CC pot it immediately and keep an estimate time in your head of when it will be back up again, try to FE it pre-emptively as most rangers will fire it the second it comes up again. You really have to kill them before they get you in a solid kite, especially if its an aerial battle.

If you catch them on land, they're really squishy aside from being harder to hit than most targets. They get a very short cooldown 200 evasion buff that's pretty spammable, so a little accuracy can help if you find yourself unable to hit rangers. Their frequent dodges can very easily mess up your skill combos too. Luckily you'll dodge them a lot too, and proc counterslash/ww very often so the main thing is to stay in melee range as long as possible and keep them locked down.

Finally, a little known fact is that their traps can be aethertwisted. They really don't use traps much in PVP, but when they do, you really have to be wary as the traps are powerful and can cost you the fight if you don't pay attention. If you see them lay a trap, make a note of where it is on the ground, or use Searching Eye to see it, and then either hit it with a bow (risky, takes time and lets them hit you), or charge into it and trip it with aethertwist up so it gets blown.

Otherwise, enjoy some easy AP. Most rangers you can beat 1v1 in aerial as long as you have cc pots and a health pot ticking, some may require a bit of creative LOS'ing in the air to fight off, but you can win if you bait them to get close to you.

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To be continued (still work in progress)

I'll make a video outlining a lot of this stuff sometime this week.