Assassin/Ninja Help Understanding Assassin Builds

Hello. I have for a while now been using the Morph set, and have been looking to stray from it in favor of an interesting, fun build. I've been looking through these forums in search of one, but most builds I've found either use multiple Hive items (I already have one item, I'm not levelling a whole new character for another.) or Mythics (too time-consuming), as well as little to no explanation of what's going on. A lot of builds seem to have many negative IDs and negative elemental defenses, which strikes me as odd/risky (and with my current understanding, not appealing).

Per title, I am seeking for an explanation of a lot of the recoccuring builds I've seen in most threads here.
I would like a description of what each build aims to do, how it does that, its playstyle, and a brief summary of any advantages/drawbacks. An explanation (or avoidance, I suppose) of any acronyms would be also be appreciated.


Much appreciated,
a92b

 

um i guess what u mean is ur looking for build with full explanation about how it works, so ill throw a melee build here for a start. (Bad English)
https://wynnbuilder.github.io/#4_0VI07N0kT0VN0Jf0BK0BI0OP0Gc001B002I1J1g00000
Aims: High Average DPS
How is it possible: Use a super slow attack speed weapon and use armor and accessories that have Attack Speed Bonus to stack the attack speed to super fast.
Playstyle: Tierstack
My not pro comments (I'm not a builder myself but I wish I can try my best to help others): This is a quite decent Flameshot Hilt TFA build, having high ehp and 25k dps is pretty good. But Flameshot Hilt don't have any powder slots to use courage or curse powder special to boost its damage. Also it have quite a lot of negative elemental defenses but doesn't really matter unless its above 300. You don't have to worried negative health regen because it have been cancel out.
If you want to use powder special I recommend this Bygones ETFA build.
https://wynnbuilder.github.io/#4_0VI0ZS0kT0720Jf0BK0BI0Ji078110t001G131g00001000CO
Same as above, have better elemental defense (-300 thunder def but as I said doesn't really matter), higher dps and can be boosted using courage, in exchange of less ehp (79k ehp is enough for raids, that's what I am using).
For Element Hive items you can beat each division's boss twice and use 2 fragments and the item to exchange it back to tokens. For Master Hive items, you can directly change the item back to tokens.
Hope my explanation helps. I will get you another build and explain it here again once I got my time. Have fun.

 

Thank you for the explanation. I probably should've worded it differently, but by "playstyle" I meant something along the lines of "What I have to do to make the build work" or "How the player should approach combat;" for example, I currently tackle combat by smoke bombing targets and alternating between spin-attacking and normal melee, while keeping smoke bomb active (I avoid multihit because I play with another person, so multihit often serves to slow us down).
I would say stuff regarding what attacks (and if there's an order to do them in) to use, how close/how to move relative to enemies, etc. would define "playstyle" for me.
Thank you again for the explanation, and from what you mentioned about the Hive, I can obtain multiple items on a single character without having to transfer from another?

 

For the build I mentioned you just need to butterfly click (or jitter click or whatever) the left button for it to work.
Your playstyle is called spellsteal which means doing damage using spells with a bit melee hit for mana steal for sustain.
You can try to practice mutihit cancel which required you to cast spin attack right after mutihit. This will make mutihit do no knockback and thus allow to keep constant dps.
The spell cycle is vanish(dmg boost)-smoke bomb-spin-spin-mutihit(immediately cast spin again if you’re gonna do mutihit cancel).
No. You need to do the quest on a different class to obtain the tokens again, what I meant to write there is to tell you that the ways to exchange a hive item for a different hive item.
Sorry if I misunderstood what you type because I’m not a native English speaker and English is not the main language in where I live.

 

Before we even start, I'm going to refer you to some resources to help guide and clarify questions you might have as you read my explanation. This is quite a long read, so I would not be surprised if my descriptions don't suffice, if my explanations are unclear, or if I just end up saying completely wrong info. If you need any extra clarification, you can contact active class builders on the #class-builds channel on the Wynncraft discord, or you can post a reply asking for clarifications. Anyways, here's the list of resources:

uWynn: Made by SayaDuck, uWynn is a great info guide that has general class build terms on it, and a whole writeup on Powders, among other things. It's a great reference. Click here for a redirect.

Elemental Defenses Explained: Also by SayaDuck, this is a great explanation of elemental defenses in Wynncraft. I'd recommend watching the video, and reading the thread. Click here for a redirect.

The Atlas Inc. Discord: Unfortunately I'm not able to post this as per forum rules, but send me a PM if you'd like an invite. There's a lot more resources there as well (which will likely clarify if the other resources didn't) for this specific question that you might want to read up on as well.

Class Building 101: It's slightly dated, but this forum post will likely clarify, and also explains some things probably a lot better than me. It also has some great resources on it as well.

oh and also there's more than just saya behind the info in the threads, just that i'd rather not add "+ various contributors" to every post lol

Spoiler: How Hive Gear Works + A Question From Me

Hive is split into 5 divisions, each one corresponding to an element type, and Master Division. Each Hive division and it's corresponding gear can be used together with other Hive pieces, but there is an exception: Hive items from the same division are mutually exclusive (you can't wear two). The reason for this is so that people who don't have 2+ classes with Hive (like you) aren't disadvantaged if builds use multiple Hive items from the same division. Anyways, let's look at an example build:

https://wynnbuilder.github.io/#4_0K90RZ0r50K50TQ0K00OJ0og05n0c0t1h1w061g00001006CC
WynnBuilder build:
> Sparkweaver
> Medeis
> Vaward
> Silt of the Seafloor
> Draoi Fair
> Intensity
> Diamond Hydro Bracelet
> Tenuto
> Black [t6f6f6]

In this example, you have Earth, Thunder, Water, Fire spellsteal (spell based damage with an emphasis on mana steal sustain) Black, or more commonly shortened to ETWF (first letter of each element). Note that I am using 3 Hive items:

Sparkweaver, from the Fire Division
Silt of the Seafloor, from the Water Division
Intensity, from the Master Division

Yes, all 3 of these are Hive items, but because they are all from different Hive divisions, the build works because the build does not use Hive items from the same division twice. If you tried to use a build with, for example, Sparkweaver and Cinderchain (which are both from the Fire Division), you would gain massive debuffs that would make the build simply unusable.

The thing that I didn't really get was how you mentioned you only have "one" Hive item. You should have 6. A catalyst for each division (Earth, Thunder, Water, Fire, Air), and the Master Catalyst. If you threw them away because you thought they wouldn't be important, then well that's a shame, because as of right now the only way to obtain another set of these catalysts is to level another class, and you've made it clear that you won't be doing that.

Spoiler: Explaining a Build (Spellsteal Black)

I'd really love to explain the different types of builds, but if I were to go in depth on multiple build archetypes, this forum post would be extremely long. So, I'll only be analyzing one build. If you want an analysis of a different build archetype, that'll have to wait.

Again, we'll be analyzing spellsteal Black, but this time a different variant from the one seen in the Hive Gear explanation.

https://wynnbuilder.github.io/index.html#4_07R0RZ0Jh0Aw0TQ0K00OJ0og05n0P0t1h1s001g00001006CC
WynnBuilder build:
> Cancer֎
> Medeis
> Cinderchain
> Curador Boots
> Draoi Fair
> Intensity
> Diamond Hydro Bracelet
> Tenuto
> Black [t6f6f6]

Aim of the build: Spellsteal (spell based damage with an emphasis on mana steal sustain) with slight tank lean while still providing good damage, and emphasis on sustainability (heals outside of potions).

How is this achieved?

Spoiler: Tank/Sustainability

In this case, two items with tank/sustain capabilities are used; Cancer, an item with an above average 5200 health and 390 HPR (health regen raw) and Curador Boots, boots that offer decent amounts of HPR, HPR% (a modifier to HPR), LS (lifesteal), and MS (mana steal).

Spoiler: Damage

Damage is achieved through 3 items (that aren't the weapon itself).

Spoiler: Medeis

Medeis is a 30 SP chestplate with great identifications for TWF style builds. It gives 10 SP for Dexterity, Intelligence, and Defense, making it very powerful (few armor pieces match this amount of skill points). It also gives Spell Damage% (spd%), Thunder Damage% (tdmg%), Water Damage% (wdmg%), and Fire Damage% (fdmg%), with all respective ID's having up to 20%. Now you might say, "But this item has extreme negatives for Earth and Air damage!" And you'd be right! But we aren't using Earth or Air damage as a main source of damage, and even with spell conversions the damage loss is negligible.

Spoiler: Cinderchain

Cinderchain gives great damages to Thunder and Fire, which is what our weapon of choice, Black, uses. It also has good skill points (10 in dex, 7 in def), and also has an added bonus of 10 spd%. Like Medeis, this armor piece also has the same harsh negatives for Earth and Air damages, but as stated in the Medeis explanation, those don't matter.

Spoiler: Intensity

Intensity is a ring that is as simple as it gets; it gives 425 health, 15 spd%, and 15% damages in all elements. It's designed to be a damage slap ring, and it does its job well.

Other Information:

Spoiler: Approaching Combat

As a general tip for assassin, start by engaging enemies with Vanish. Always. Vanish provides a 2 second damage boost (80%) for 2 seconds after coming out of it. Learning how to use Vanish is an essential part of any Assassin's kit. Cast Multihit when coming out of vanish, then do 2-3 Spin Attacks while your enemy is being multihitted. After this, you can cast Smoke Bomb, or start the cycle again. That's just my personal spell combo, there exist many variants. If you have a hard time with that combo, don't worry, it's all practice.

A more concise form would look like this: Vanish>Multihit>Spin>Spin>Smoke>Repeat/Smoke as needed.

As for mana, your main sustainability comes from mana steal. Mana steal only procs on melee hits. So while you're doing the spell cycle, try to also get melee hits in. It might be easier to start with a melee hit, then cast Multihit to get your melee hits in while not losing any DPS, but optimally you should try to get melee hits inbetween spells.

Spoiler: Advantages and Drawbacks

There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages of this build, but I'll point out a few that you specifically highlighted.

Advantages:

• High sustainability (800 HPR is extremely high)
• Nice EHP (55k EHP will allow for some slight facetanking)
• Decent damage (It's a bit on the lower side, usually offense oriented Black builds will reach 6.5k+ unboosted Spin Attacks at the very least, but it's still pretty high (and higher than morph black!)

Disadvantages

• Slight hinderance in movement - -6% walk speed, shouldn't be a problem with Vanish's speed 5 but it hurts)
• Elemental defenses aren't too hot - -300 earth defense is obviously not ideal and is on the high end)
• No positive mana regen - although Assassin works well with spellsteal, the optimal Assassin build would actually use Mixed Mana (should be self explanatory), but with a lean towards mana steal
• The mana steal is quite low if you have high cps - most builds are built around the assumption that you have average cps (6-7) so yeah lol

Spoiler: Other explanations/Summary

So isn't the build bad because of the various issues you pointed out?

Not necessarily. Yes, the elemental defenses aren't the best. Yes, the negative mana regen sucks. But for one, elemental defenses don't matter that much (they still matter, and -300 earth defense is quite harsh, but it doesn't make or break a build) The negative mana regen also doesn't make or break a build. It's just annoying outside of combat, but in combat, Vanish cancels mana regen ticks, so it isn't much of an issue. The mana steal being low is an actual problem though; if you click fast, it simply won't be enough mana, so there will be downtime, which means lost damage. I wouldn't say that these 3 things make the build suddenly bad though. In hindsight I should've picked a better spellsteal black build to analyze (I'm writing this at the end if that wasn't obvious enough), but I already wrote all this so yeah.

Why do you use Tenuto, an item that gives negative attack tiers? Aren't faster attack speeds better?

Again, not necessarily. It's a bit hard to explain, but I'll try my best.

Each attack speed has its own mana steal chance to proc (a proc is an activation) (this is obviously to balance out so that super fast doesn't have the same mana steal proc chance as super slow, that'd be unbalanced). The values are as follows:

Attack Speed (per second)
Super Fast: 4.3
Very Fast: 3.1
Fast: 2.5
Normal: 2.05
Slow: 1.5
Very Slow: 0.83
Super Slow: 0.51

there's jank to this btw, click here if you want to learn more about it

Chance for Life/Mana Steal
Super Fast: 7.8%
Very Fast: 10.7%
Fast: 13.3%
Normal: 16.3%
Slow: 16.6%
Very Slow: 40.2%
Super Slow: 65.4%

So how does this have to do anything with why we use Tenuto? Simply put, consistency. While it is true that in theory, Super Fast would be the most optimal attack speed for damage and mana steal, it simply isn't feasible to get out 4 clicks per second while also getting out your spells inbetween. And all while doing it consistently. This is why we use Tenuto, because it makes our weapon Super Slow. While it technically isn't optimal, in reality, it is actually is optimal, because it becomes far easier to get out 1 extra left click per 2 seconds while casting spells (you'll tend to do it already just by misclicks), and it procs Mana Steal more consistently, at around a 2/3rds chance.

There's also another reason why we use Tenuto, and it's for weapon powder specials. It's the exact same concept as with mana steal; while it is true that super fast is technically optimal, it's way more consistent (and feasible) to get out 1 extra click per 2 seconds.


This took me about 3 (?) hours to type. I only reread some of it, so any class builders out there want to read the whole thing and shame me for spreading misinformation? I'm bound to have wrote something wrong considering I didn't even reread it. It'd also be nice if any class builders could also elaborate on some things, this took me 3 hours and I wanted to be done with it so to be honest I shortened some explanations, and also probably skipped some entirely.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my (hopefully) in-depth explanation of just one archetype of Assassin builds. As always, if you need clarification, don't be afraid to ask. That's it, and maybe I'll make a better writeup on another Assassin build.

 

i think the main misunderstanding regarding “only 1 hive item” was in reference to not understanding how the transmutation merchant works. you can exchange hive items at its respective division on the other side of the merchant that has the items. you need to kill the final boss of the division 10 times (and keep the tokens) as well as having the item you want to exchange. the transmutation merchant requires both the 10 boss tokens and the old item, and once exchanged, you will receive the token for that respective division, meaning you only need 1 item/token from each division. this doesn’t apply for master tokens/items which can be exchanged without having to rebeat Qira. does that help at all?

 

Thank you for helping me to explain what I mean XD. It’s quite hard for me who have difficulties understanding and writing English to explain all these complex stuff (cultural problems).

 

Thank you for the explanations and external resources; I'll read into them.

To clarify my confusion with the Hive items: I have one Master item, and was aware of the ability to exchange it for another item. However, I had stored the elemental vouchers in my bank and forgotten about them. At some point, I came to believe you could only acquire 1 item across all the Divisions. Apologies for the confusion

 

Amazing response, you should give it a read if you can but don't get too stressed trying to take it in all at once. People on the forums/discord will always help you if you have any questions.

Just one thing I'll elaborate on is: You specifically asked Assassin and it's playstyle, you'll notice that a lot of assassin builds make use of Mana Steal, and have Super Slow melee attack speeds. The reason that super slow melee attack speed is efficient for using mana steal is explained in Tator's response above. I'm here to elaborate on why it's efficient for Assassin to use mana steal in the first place.

Assassin's 2nd spell Vanish makes you invisible from mobs, and because it also gives you a temporary but immense dmg buff, it's a skill that needs to be utilized to the fullest. It's one downside however, is that you do not regen mana while vanished. However, mana steal will proc even when you're in vanish mode (because using your melee attack will automatically put you out of vanish mode).

So, the most basic attack pattern is: You vanish - Get close to the enemy while vanished coz you're invisible - spam spells with the mana you currently have - melee attack with super slow attack speed for a high chance to proc manasteal - vanish again, and take a moment to assess the situation again and regather yourself. How you make use of / adjust this pattern in battle will vary on your mana/hp situation during the fight, that's up to you and your skill :)

This is the playstyle that we call "Spellsteal", and it's by far the most generic and efficient playstyle for Assassin given the nature of its 2nd spell.

 

This was really helpful to me as a new player. If you do have any other analysis of other builds/classes do let me know. Thanks a lot!