So I'm looking for a good cast order suitable for a heroic-geared assassin to increase my parses. I'm looking for a good FFU chain, and what kind of order is good between assassinate refreshes. I'm averaging about 30 mil in a group, but know I could do better with some knowledge. What's some of yours, why, and your average parse with it? Thanks for your opinions.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/assassin-casting-order.546546/ https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/assassin-rotation.540301/
Assassin CA's really don't do anything, just cast temps and watch tv while auto attack goes off. Hit assassinate if you're feeling not lazy, but no more.
It's quite difficult to lay out a concrete casting order as there are many variables. Biggest of those would be of you have ethereals and /or hammer. Another is if you're using right/left/dual prestige specs.
Dead serious, I do nothing but afk auto attack every raid. It's fun, try it, you get 350+ mil dps easy doing that.
are these threads outdated? i cant tell which ones should be used or not since a bit of opinions are thrown around with no straight answer. I am also a returning player and Im just trying to figure out what the hell to do again.
More current: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/assassin-cast-order.564265/#post-6266186 Ignore my post #3 in that thread because the links in post #3 point to SOE links which Daybreak removed. Also, depending on how much DPS your group does (or if your fervor eth procs), you might actually skip a few, some or most of the pre-FFU chain abilities. You really want your Shadow to be first most of the time to take advantage of your damage. My comments about using WDB prestige (instead of potency) during superlag fights work (for me) if you're getting 3.5s+ autoattacks. What I mean by "work for me" is lag is still screwing over stealth abilities and my FFU chains, but at least I'm getting autoattack hits in... On another note, we had much less lag tonight for some odd reason (even with my EQ2 client hitching or something) so I was able to use left-side prestige really well on most fights. I hate the rare nights like this because they're such a tease.
I'm currently using a dual spec for Prestige tree. I have a reset rune, but no fervor ethereal. I was kind of hoping for some more updated information than the 3 year old posts I've found (and that someone re-linked above), considering some of the dynamics of the game have changed (like, how much cb, wdb, pot, ab mod, dps, and multi attack matter now, and the introduction of fervor....). My stats are okay I think: Crit Chance:1777.6% Crit Bonus:1307.1 Potency:1953.1% Fervor:12% Ability Mod:92,698 Hate Mod:0% Reuse Speed:100% Casting Speed:100% Recovery Speed:30% Spell Reuse Speed:0% Spell Doublecast:0% DPS Modifier:556 Attack Speed (Haste):392.7 Multi Attack:1,093 AOE Auto Attack:100% Strikethrough:0% Accuracy:0% Flurry:76.6% Weapon Damage Bonus:128 S Weapon Damage Bonus:115 In a decent group, CB gets boosted to 15-1700, and pot over 2k. I was curious, since I'm still new-ish to the class, if there were something about the temps, or some combos I've not thought about to help me reconsider the way I do damage. Thanks for the links though. The pages were very short, but I did experiment a little with the small amount of advice I found there.
The stat changes and gearing were pretty well covered in the ToT Assassin Gearing guide thread about halfway down the first page of the scout sub forum. But these won't make a drastic change to casting order as the spell efficiency order is still the same it was three years ago. Temps have different durations, cast them in such a way so that your ffu chains are maxed. Use the hardest hitting ca's available in between chains. Debuffs work better if applied up front and dots take time to work. Just reading the spell info will give you good information to determine which take priority when available. There's no one best way for all but the info linked and written above is still valid. There are quite a few knowledgeable sins on here, but Jrel and Kluxor post more class info than many and are a good place to start.
Your stats are average. I don't think you've done a lot of infusing if your cb is that low. Could you post your eq2u profile? MA being that high isn't drastically important unless you regularly get BC, in which case having AE auto at 100 is a waste. Scout conversions now are pretty minimal in the grand scheme of things. I like that you have a decent amount of AB mod, you have 20k more than my sin but mine has 500 more static cb/pot before the prestige effects. I don't have any ethereal effects/items yet I put out 50-70m dps regularly following the guidance of those posts I linked. And my gear isn't amazing. Some good pieces and some average. Sins take a little time to build up their dps, but you have the most important rune with the reset rune, which helps a lot. You should really be double/triple the parse even without the Ravaging rune.
Your temps are: Deadly Focus / Honed Reflexes/ Exacting/ Frontload. DF and HR will help you proc Caustic Weaponry which should be in the top 5 of your parse. Exacting enables your short reuse CAs to hit harder. Frontload doubles all your trigger chances and adds more poison damage. The other information at that short link is a culmination of previous years of debate on rotation order. Arclite made a mostly well-done post, I added my 2cents worth, and then Kluxor posted at the bottom what to do with Ethereal weapons. You don't have to follow it per se. Depending on how fast a group is burning through a heroic zone, I might just hit my charms and temps (or not at all), skip the debuffs, and go right into Shadow > FFU Chain. Then I will go into temps/debuffs, and bleeds (dots) before cycling back into another FFU chain at the 30 second mark. If it's a long hard fight, get your bleeds/dots in first to debuff the mob's max health. Death Mark / Impale / Gushing Wound (or Bleedout) / Quick Strike / Stealth Assault.
I've done a handful of infusing. Mostly just up to standard on most pieces, only infusing (with infusers, never plat) what I expect to not change any time soon. I do usually get BC, which is why I upped my MA. Is it too high? Should I reforge out of it some? Why is AE auto 100 a waste? Shouldn't it be 100 always (on every class?) (and if not, what should it be?) ? I dual-spec'ed the Prestige tree because I didn't care about any of the bottom abilities. However, getting the reset rune may change my mind, as I have yet to re-try the left side again with it. Also, does flurry matter at all? You're saying mine is a bit low eh? I will aim to correct this a little more. Thank you. Is this a 5 CA chain, or 7? Do you burn PFT and IPS (to try for another assassinate) in the same chain or do you stagger IPS for another chain after CA refresh? Do you use Deadly Focus and Honed Reflexes at the same time and stack them together, since they are on the same refresh timer? Or do you stagger them? Caustic Weaponry is usually in my top 5, but it doesn't seem to hit for much it seems(not more than 15%). I'd like to learn how to keep this up longer. Thanks all for the information and for being very helpful. I really appreciate your time.
BC gives 20% AE auto too, so if you're already sitting at 100 you'll be wasting the equivalent reforge of it. The MA conversion on it is very good, so keep your MA high. I only questioned it if you don't get BC, as the scout conversion in prestige will only net you about 300 potency at 1000MA from memory. Not bad, but if you're sacrificing other stats to get that, I personally don't think you should. If you get BC regularly, then it's worth it. Flurry definitely matters, and as the sin myth buff gives good flurry, you should be near cap in group settings (ie with temps and stuff). It's good to aim for 90 flurry imo and temp/group buffs to attack speed will cap you out at 100.
It's a 7 at the start. You can IPS for a refresh if you want, but Fatal Followup will only count Assassinate once towards FFU's final damage. If you think the mob will die fast because of the group's DPS, then go ahead and try for another Assassinate. Otherwise save it for the next chain. Yes, both at same time. And remember to use Exacting and Frontload before your chain. For Caustic Weaponry to work well, you must be hitting every CA possible while the temps are running. (Your Shadow will take advantage of it as well). 15% of parse is fine considering my autos are only 6-10% of my parse. To further complicate things, on a long fight (or things you know will die in 10 secs or 40 secs or multiples thereof), gauge how fast the mob is taking damage and how fast your FFU chains cycle and then try to get your best FFU chain at 29% or less. You'll do 15% extra damage on all attacks when the mob is under 30% health. Depending on how far another DPS is ahead of you, this may or may not be worth it. Usually I don't think about this unless on a long burn or really short burn.
Thank you Regolas and Jrel. You've both provided useful information to the questions I've had. This will change my orders a slight bit to compensate for what I've learned from you both, but me and my assassin thank you! I think this concludes the brunt of my questions for the moment, though I can probably foresee more later. Happy hunting to you both in the world of Norrath!
Could someone do a full breakdown of the skills? I am new to the game and I don't understand what goes into the IPS and FFU chains people always talk about.
It's basically all the attacks that require stealth. But a sin has so many that they can't get them all into one chain as their stealth ignore buff (predators final trick/in plain sight) isn't long enough in duration. Fatal Followup (FFU) gives greater damage the more stealth attacks you did 10s prior, so you use that ability at the end of your chain.
