Ranger/Warrior - Assassin of Ascalon

SquallyMoses

Ranger/Warrior - Assassin of Ascalon

This guide is compiled from my experiences in both Old Ascalon and New. I tried experimenting with what I considered your typical Ranger/Warrior. I tried to focus on making my Ranger/Warrior an Assassin type character. Keep in mind that the Assassin excels in working alone, attacking one enemy at a time, and is mainly intended for PvE. This doesn’t mean an Assassin doesn’t work well in a group; they just don’t have much to offer on the form of support.

Primary Class
I started with a primary Ranger. This is because, of all the available classes; the Ranger and Necromancer are the only ones that seem to be considered, “outsiders,” of civilization, and being an Assassin is not a readily accepted profession.

Secondary Class
I chose Warrior for my secondary class mainly because of all the other classes available; the Warrior most fits the role of an Assassin.

Ranger Attributes

0% Beast Mastery: Beast Mastery skills allow the Ranger to tame and control pets, augmenting the animals' attacks at higher ranks. A beginning Assassin will benefit from the added support an animal companion provides. The animal companion will keep the melee types preoccupied while the Assassin can “snipe” from a distance. Though an expert Assassin should eventually abandon their animal companion and any points in Beast Mastery. This is because as you progress, you will run into larger groups of enemies where you will need to get in a quick kill then retreat. Your pet will usually be surrounded and perish, leaving you alone and with a –5 penalty and some wasted skill slots. 0%

40% Expertise: Expertise reduces the energy cost of attack, preparation, and trap skills by 4%/rank. Expertise is the most important attribute for the Assassin. This is should always have the highest point distribution. Against large groups, Expertise will enable the Assassin to get in real quick ranged attacks, and then make a quick escape. This keeps the Assassin alive as he can make a quick getaway when things go wrong. A large group becomes much easier to dispatch when you can quickly remove their healers/mages with quick attacks and escapes.

20% Marksmanship: Marksmanship reflects the Ranger's extensive training with a bow, giving him the ability to make a variety of special bow attacks. Where Expertise enables the Assassin to make quick attacks, Marksmanship ensures those quick attacks will do enough damage to defeat your intended target. Otherwise, you will make no progress defeating those tough groups.

30% Wilderness Survival: Wilderness Survival represents the Ranger's experience with surviving in the harsh outdoor climates, providing him with the tools to lay traps for his enemies and augment his bow attacks. This is where the Assassins ability to stay out of harms way really shines. This skill is second only to Expertise. Wilderness Survival helps in evening the odds when taking on superior foes, and since the Assassin works alone, they need every advantage they can get. 30%

Warrior Attributes

10% Swordsmanship: This attribute affects the Warrior's proficiency at wielding a sword and using sword related skills. All Assassins should be handy with a blade, but this is the least important attribute for an Assassin. You can also equip a Buckler when using a sword, which helps to alleviate the Assassins weak defense, especially when fighting melee types. Swordsmanship comes in handy when facing groups of medium to low difficulty opponents that do not require too much strategy. The melee types can be softened up with bow skills, this will also build up your Adrenaline, so when the enemies get too close, switch to sword and quickly finish them off using Adrenaline based sword attacks. This saves mana, which will be used to heal and quickly finish off the leftover ranged attackers. 10%

Things to remember
The Assassin usually works alone. Don’t waste skill slots with support skills, and don’t depend on others to save you when things go bad. The Assassin excels at killing individual opponents. Don’t waste skill slots with attacks that damage multiple enemies; traps are the exception, and sometimes a necessity. The Assassin also must be able to quickly deal out lots of damage to individual enemies, with minimal damage to himself. Master the “Hit & Run” strategy. Use skills that compliment each other, eg.; Sever Artery then Gash. One causes your opponent to bleed, the other deals extra damage if target opponent is bleeding.

On more than one occasion, my Assassin was the only survivor to escape insurmountable odds, while everyone else lay dead. On some of those occasions, my Assassin single handedly succeeded in wiping out the army that decimated my teammates. It takes a lot of practice, and mastering the timing of your skills to play an Assassin, but I was very satisfied with this build.

Hieromancer

where did you copy/paste from?

SquallyMoses

I originally wrote this in MS Word. Got tired of not being sure of spelling. Also used www.gwonline.net for info I couldn't remember from the last BWE.

Invincible37

sounds like an interesting build