Guide The Exhumation of Trickster

Trickster.
We all know it.
You probably don't love it, though.

From what I've heard, Trickster is... an archetype.
An archetype where you soak up damage, and waste your clones away.
An archetype that deals no damage.

Well what if I told you...
You're playing Trickster wrong?


Chapter 1 - Introduction to Trickster
First, let's go over Trickster.
Trickster is an archetype that appears, on the surface, to be reliant on soaking up damage and using clones to deal damage and confuse damage.
Let's cover a few major abilities.


(Thanks to @FrozenEarth for Trickster screenshots!)

Mirror Image allows you to summon clones when you leave Vanish.
These clones have a chance of soaking up damage, a (clones out) / (max clones) % chance. Remember this, this will be important later.

Despite this being a small, yellow ability, it's much more important than you believe.
This is all I have to show you for major abilities for what I'm about to explain next.

I believe Trickster relies on switching between 2 different "states", if you will. A state where you focus on dealing damage and dodging attacks, we'll call this the "DPS" state. Another state where you try and survive and soak up as much damage as possible. We'll call this the "tanking" state.

Chapter 2 - The DPS State
Let's go over, in chronological order, how Trickster is played.
Trickster's fights begin with casting Mirror Image. This enters you into the DPS state.
Since you're more likely to lose clones the more you have, you have to focus on dodging attacks while dealing damage with your clones.

Since your clones repeat your spells, you can use them to deal damage, such as Multihits and Spin Attacks from ~10 blocks away from your enemy if you have Far Reach. However, you would need good aim and spacial recognition to execute this, so good luck.

In the second image, he was in vanish, sorry.

If you feel like it, you can give Lure to yourself with Delirious Gas (gain a status effects that makes mobs aggro you while in your smoke bombs), causing one of your clones to die and use Last Laugh to make it cast Spin Attack, dealing great damage with decent AoE.
However, after taking lots of damage, you lose your clones. What happens next?

Chapter 3 - The Tanking State

Now, your essentially in a mission of Objective: Survive.


Have some offhand weapon that has great sustain, like Sreggad, and start maximizing your sustain with it.
Meanwhile, look at your Status Effects.
Mirror Image (assuming you have Forbidden Art) has a cooldown of 40s. Sandbagging can reduce this by -3s every ~1.5s tops if you always take hits less than 5% of your max HP. This means that besides the time while you're in your DPS state, you'll probably be in this tanking state for 20s tops.
In this state, do not attempt to dodge. Just try to facetank and absorb the damage in a attempt to proc Sandbagging. This also works with Delirious Gas, giving yourself Lure to increase the damage you absorb.

Use bonus health from Diversion that you get at the end of your DPS state to help yourself survive, if possible.

Once Mirror Image is off cooldown, return to the DPS state.

Chapter 3 - The Exceptions

However, this postulate of how to play Trickster brings up a few issues.
Namely, Delirious Gas. It seems like it belongs in the DPS state, until you see this caveat.

Delirious Gas is inherently counterproductive.
Yes, it increases your damage and restores the negative damage bonus Echo gives you. However, this also draws enemies to you. Even if you transfer it to enemies, there's still the risk of having you leave the DPS state faster, which you want to stay in as long as possible.
If you're willing to play more risky and try to transfer it to enemies, it may be worth it if you can pull it off. But generally, this is counterproductive.


Diversion is also extremely counter-productive.
The overflowing health is useless in the DPS state if you're dodging attacks, as it'll be unnessecary and won't help you upkeep your clones.
It may have use if you kill an enemy when switching from the DPS state to the tanking state, but that's a very rare situation from what I predict.

Chapter 4 - Conclusion
Trickster is a very high skill-floor archetype, requiring you to know your surroundings. You have to switch between maining DPS and trying to facetank with life sustain at a moment's notice. You have to dodge attacks and swerve around. You have to get the range just right, working with your clones to deal massive damage.
If you play it as either just maining DPS or pure facetanking, you're probably not getting the most mileage out of trickster.
I have not tried it personally, but I'll get my friend Enderae to try it out soon, and post results in Chapter 5.

Thank you for reading, and have an amazing day.

Spoiler: Ping List

@Namakobushi
@Earthbrine
@Enderae
@FrozenEarth (thought i'd ping you anyways since you helped with quite a bit)

 

this is a good thread until you realize endi doesn't play trickster

 

shut your mouth

 

Certified acrobat endistic moment.

Imagine not playing trickster (ignore the part where i havent touched my assassin since like 1.20)

 

endi does not have a level 100 assassin either !!

 

whats your point

 

I notice it wasnt brought up here at all but trickster has easy to access Marked and More Marks- this is a huge dps increase and goes hand in hand with delirious gas.

 

It's called Trickster because it is tricky to play and causes massive perplexion to the player.

 

obligatory horror reference

What exhumation is this, what rotten fruit, what be-stitching of parts?

 

spirit bow non :(

 

trickster cool until 20 fps

 

ima tank but look at my skycrypt

or until it crashes the server

 

ew eman 5 (juju non soon ewwww)
black hole with 6 clones when ur teammate is on cib parkour is very fun

 

lol
cant relate, dont do CIB (cib sucks)