User:Ananzi/Evaluate/Critical Strikes
Dark Apostasy[edit]
Elite Enchantment Spell. For 3...14...17 seconds, every time you successfully land a critical hit, you remove one enchantment from your target. If you remove an enchantment in this way, you lose 10...5...4 Energy or Dark Apostasy ends.
Starting out with this one (since it's the first in alphabetical order). I've looked at this elite before, for a Crit Archer build I was doing. Removing an enchantment with every crit is very powerful in PvP, especially considering the attribute this skill lies in, but the problem is the e-loss. Yeah, it can be negated at high enough crit strikes, but if your not gaining energy from crits, you are still losing energy. Sins don't have a whole lot of energy anyway, and coupled with this skill's fairly high energy cost and duration that's only a few seconds past its recharge, it's going to require a good bit of re-applying. One build this skill would work quite well in, I think, however, is in a Spear Crits build with adrenaline based spear attacks. As a PvE sin or a sin who wants to use all sin skills, it's skippable.
Late note: I just realized this is an enchantment spell, and so can be removed or punished by every profession. Makes it even worse.
Another note: Except paragons. Strange. Even Monks have Scourge Enchantment and Warriors Magehunter's Smash. I guess they forgot to include Magehunter Spear.
Locust's Fury[edit]
Elite Enchantment Spell. For 10...30...35 seconds, you have an additional 50% chance to double strike while using daggers.
This skill isn't well liked by the Assassin community. I think it's a great skill with plenty of potential (love the name too), if a skill that doesn't fit with the general picture of Assassins. There are tons of possibilities:
/Monk with Judge's Insight and Strength of Honor
/Elementalist with conjure spells
/Ranger with Apply Poison
/Ritualist with weapon spells (Or a Rit hero)
And when you add that to Critical Strikes skills like Sharpen Daggers, Critical Agility and Critical Defenses, and to PvE only skills like "I Am the Strongest"or Great Dwarf Weapon it works quite well. The one problem is that using this elite is boring. All you do is basic attack and maintain your skills (snore). But it's still a decent option.
Palm Strike[edit]
Elite Skill. Target touched foe takes 10...54...65 damage and is Crippled for 1...4...5 second[s]. This skill counts as an off-hand attack.
Palm Strike has two uses: 1) To skip quickly to a dual attack without needing a lead attack and 2) to knockdown a foe in combination with Trampling Ox. Mainly, it's the second one.
I don't like this elite. The damage is negligible and the condition is weak in PvE and doesn't last very long. Mantis Touch gives the same length of Cripple as this skill at 16 Crit Strikes....at rank 0. The one thing that makes this skill okay is it's ability to be combined with Trampling Ox. It's good at what it does.....but nothing else.
Seeping Wound[edit]
Elite Hex Spell. For 1...6...7 second[s], target foe moves 33% slower. That foe takes 5...21...25 damage each second while suffering from a condition. This spell has half the normal range.
From what I can tell by piecing together discussion for this skill, it's gone through three different incarnations. First it was a regular range hex spell that gave weak degeneration when a foe was either bleeding or poisoned. While that makes more sense with the name, the effect was weak. Then, it was changed to a 5e, half-range hex that slowed by 50% and dealt damage every second when your foe was suffering from a condition. That was so strong that it became the main Sin skill in PvP. Then it was nerfed into it's current form. I wouldn't touch this in it's current form. The effects it gives is, as my Aikido sensei says, is strong-strong, but the energy is too high since you have to be a sin primary to use it. Deadly Haste will make this maintainable, but the energy is still too high. Nah, don't use this.
Shattering Assasult[edit]
Elite Dual Attack. Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, you deal 5...41...50 damage and target foe loses one enchantment. This attack cannot be blocked.
This is a strange skill. The damage on this skill scales with your dagger mastery and the daggers you are wielding and is affected by armor. It's still a pretty nice skill though for PvP, and it's unblockable. The energy cost is a tad high, but not too bad. Good for a spike.
Way of the Assassin[edit]
Elite Stance. For the next 20 seconds while wielding daggers, you attack 5...17...20% faster and have a +5...29...35% chance to land a critical hit.
Likely the best (and most used) Critical Strikes elite. This makes it easier to maintain Critical Defenses or Critical Agility and gives you stronger e-management. Yes, the IAS is weaker then that of Critical Agility and won't stack, but Critical Agility is PvE only and is an enchantment spell (easier to strip then a stance). This skill is okay in pve, but it's even better in pvp where the extra e-mangement comes in handy against Memers and the like.
