Assassin

“	They have been a part of the Inotian continent for a long time. With many rigorous training courses and real battle skills, they hold the strongest independent combat powers on the continent.	”
	— In-Game Description

Basic Information

The Assassin class is a fast attacker, who has the ability to use two weapons. Whilst the Assassin's attacks lack in power, the Assassin makes up for in speed and agility. This makes the Assassin class a decent character to start off with, however the lack of power may provide a problem on the future.

Assassin
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Playstyle	Stealthy Dual Wielding Melee Highest Burst Damage 3rd Highest DPS
Str	9
Dex	15
Vit	11
Int	7
Men	5
Weapon/Shield	Daggers Long Swords Axes Shields
Armors	Leather

Starting Stats

Strength	9
Dexterity	15
Vitality	11
Intelligence	7
Mentality	5

Abilities

Primary

• Continuous Slash - Attack enemy 3 times with high critical.
  • 3 quick attacks, each with the same damage formula. Cooldown of 4 seconds.
• Spiritual Blade - Mana recovers for a certain amount when attacking enemy.
  • Every time the user (auto?) attacks an enemy, they gain a certain amount of mana. Cooldown of 18 seconds.
• Poison Touch - Adds 'poison element' to weapon for a certain period of time, and increases 'activate chance'.
  • The user has a chance to poison the enemy when attacking. (Needs to be tested what the poison damage is based on) Cooldown of 30 seconds. The poison apparently deals 1/8 of the damage value, and can stack on itself.
• Assassin's Sword - Attacks enemy's vital point. Low accuracy; but when in 'whist' accuracy is high. (Activates Poison Element to 100%)
  • A single attack with high damage and a 100% chance to poison should it hit. Designed to be used after Whist, which gives it higher accuracy as well increases the damage done. Cooldown of 8 seconds
• Dark Attack - Approaches enemy quickly and attacks all nearby enemies.
  • AOE attack, though the range is rather small (relative to other AOE attacks in the game). The user teleports behind the nearest enemy and then attacks. Cooldown of 4 seconds.
• Freeze Extreme - Attacks enemies around with 'cold energy' added to sword. Enemies attacked are 3 seconds slower.
  • The user summons a large amount of 'cold energy', then attacks everything around them. Applies a cold debuff, which decreases the Movement Speed and Attack Speed of every enemy affected by a certain amount. Cooldown of 6 seconds.

Secondary

• Whist - Hides body to boost attack rate. Increases accuracy of the assassin's sword.
  • The user becomes temporarily stealthed. While stealthed, he can no longer be targeted for an attack, although any attacks in progress will still hit. The user can be hit by AOE attacks while stealthed. If the user attacks while stealthed, their next attack will have its damage increased by a certain amount, and if the next attack is Assassin's blade, it also gains an accuracy increase. However, attacking while stealthed removes the buff.
• Blade Deflection - Increases parry chance, and 30% damage to enemies when parry succeeds.
  • See the description. Needs to be tested whether "30% damage to enemies" refers to the user's damage or the damage of the enemy.
• Energy Bodhi - Instantly improves physical abilities. Increases 'left-hand activate chance' and 'attack rate' for a certain period of time.
  • For a short period of time, all damage dealt by the user is boosted. The user's chance to attack with their left-hand weapon is also increased. Basically a DPS buff.

Passive

• Twin Blade - 'Left-hand weapon activate chance' rises, and 'critical damage' increases when using daggers and/or sword weapons.
  • Increases the chance to use user's left-hand weapon and also increases the critical damage dealt
• Dark Sense - Whist is unsealed, and increases evasion rate for a while.
  • When the user leaves stealth from Whist, their evasion chance increases for a short period of time.
• Fortitude - When evasion or parry succeeds, skill cool-time is initialized.
  • The user has a certain chance to reset the cooldowns of all their skills whenever they evade or parry an attack.
• Flare - When attacks are inflicted, goes back to 'whist' for a certain chance.
  • Whenever the user (auto?) attacks, they have a certain chance to automatically use Whist (free of cost). Main and left hand attacks have their own chances.
• Deep Breath - Increases 'energy bodhi' time, and increases 'evasion chance' during 'energy bodhi' time.
  • Increases Energy Bodhi's duration and adds a evasion chance when using Energy Bodhi.
• Shadow Phantom - Increases critical chance of attacks when in 'whist'.
  • Increases Crit Rate of Whist's buffed attack.

Tips, Tricks and Tactics

Stat Points should mainly (if not completely) be allocated to DEX; besides giving the most per stat for an Assassin, it is also used for calculating Evasion Rate and is a multiplier for Assassin's Sword damage.

Skill Priority

It is highly advised that you max out Assassin's Sword, Whist and Energy Bodhi. This is because Energy Bodhi > Whist > Assassin's Sword is the main combo for an Assassin and results in the maximum damage in one hit.

Other than those three, it is advised that the rest of the skill points are used to maximize either Active Skills or Passive Skills.

For active, maximize Freeze Extreme (for aoe damage + slow) and possibly Spiritual Blade (if mana is proving to be a major problem).

For passives, technically all of them are good - half of them buff Whist and the other half buffs DPS in various ways.

Against Regular Enemies

If simply trying to move around the map without being attacked, just take out the mercenaries and use Whist to freely go about without taking any damage.

Whist + Assassin's Blade will easily OHKO regular enemies, or at least do a sizable amount.

Whist + Freeze Extreme is a powerful waveclear, which should weaken enemies if not kill them outright.

Against Bosses

As an Assassin, Kiyan's burst damage is unrivaled. However, he also has very low endurance; forcing him to either use his burst or run until he can use it again - near the end, bosses deal such high amounts of damage that the only choice he has is to run or die. Thus, to survive a long fight, Kiyan needs high damage (fewer opportunities for the boss to attack Kiyan), high evasion (to avoid as many attacks by the boss as possible), and high physical resistance (to reduce the % of the damage taken from the attacks that DO hit). Having high health helps, but is not needed.

Whist + Energy Bodhi + Assassin's Blade is the main way to burst down a boss. Use Freeze Extreme to slow down the boss and reduce their dps. Always have some mana in reserve, and try to keep Whist off cooldown, especially if the boss is capable of easily killing Kiyan.

Some skills have niche uses, like Blade Deflection (to temporarily increase survivability and damage), Poison Touch (for the poison DOT), and Dark Attack / Continuous Slash (simply to do damage and possibly combine with Whist if Assassin's Blade is down). That being said, they are secondary options, and should not be relied on. They should especially NOT be spammed lest Kiyan runs out of mana.

Some bosses, especially later on, are simply impossible to fight head on (without massive amounts of farming / usage of GEMs to buy the best equipment). In these cases, the best options are to either employ a hit-and-run tactic, or have party members that are very good at soaking up damage / drawing aggro while Kiyan depletes the boss's health.

Hit & Run: This has 2 variations: with mercenaries, and without them.

Solo method: Use Whist, then just as Whist is about to run out, use Energy Bodhi then Assassin's Blade, then use Whist again right after you damage the boss. Rinse and repeat as necessary. If you cannot use Whist right after using Assassin's Blade, run for your life. Or at least until you can use Whist again. Assuming that the boss can't OHKO you and that you don't severely mess up, this strategy is foolproof as long as you have revival scrolls and mercenaries - take a break or drink a potion while under the effects of Whist if hurt and keep chipping away at the boss until it drops; and if you die, summon your mercenary and have it hide while you resurrect Kiyan.

With Mercenaries: Doing this, hiding via Whist is actually detrimental to the plan. You're spending your time doing one of two things: either bursting down the boss / drawing its attention, or running like hell while your allies are busy piling onto the boss. Later bosses are more or less immune to this; when the boss eventually turns its attention to your allies, they will be slaughtered, leaving you the lone target. You can then either hide and revive your allies to be slaughtered again, or go solo, only summoning your allies when you need to revive Kiyan.

Standing your ground: This requires the usage of tanky mercenaries that can absorb lots of damage without dying. It helps a lot if they can do damage on their own and/or can sustain themselves.

Warriors, Black Knights, Warlocks (that can summon Hell's Pawn and maybe Bard), and Rangers (that can summon Beast Companion) can all fill the role of a Tank. Having Priests on hand that can heal the tanking party member as well helps a lot too - especially if they're tanky as well.

The best tankers are Warriors (if they have the right skills like Insanity Thrills), Rangers (they can summon Beast Companion, which resets aggro per hit, as well as Spirit of Nature, which heals all allies) and possibly Priests (lots of heals, stuns and Celestial Armor, which negates all damage done the the Priest for a small time).

By the last part of the game, it is possible to solo bosses with much preparation. See Lone de Grim's video(contains spoilers), where he solos the endgame bosses without moving or using any potions, all while his health remained above 90%.