AMBUSH! (A Theory build)

As I was doing PVP last night, I noticed something very exciting that I had to write this blog at 3am GMT+8 right before I slept.

TL:DR
Ambush can be maximized and inflict more damage.

So, I was gathering tokens for the day to get that wolf tail from the PVP master but I noticed something.

My build and items were not that good, okay? So, I would miss on my sinx colleagues, sometime on Snipers, but would deal least damage (and probably be dead) on LKs. The class that I would deal most damage would be on a HighWizard or a HighPriest. But while I was playing, I realized and theory-crafted something.. Something I haven't tested yet, but proves possible based on the data that I have.. So I Just want to share this and hope that somebody out there who, has zenny, can try.

I noticed the skill 'Ambush' (or 'Shadow Attack' or 'Back Stab'). We all know (at least all sinx) that this skill inflicts stun if you are in hide status.. but that stun status would not really apply IF your target has high stun-resistance. Believe me, I tried, but the stun doesnt really proc atleast 70% of the time. This could be based on the stats of the opponent, I am not sure but more probably, it is. The noticeable thing here was that, this skill does 3 hits and the stun status applies on the last hit.. Since the skill has that special attribute that it applies 100% damage when in hide status, it doesn't really affect the stun. This means, the stun ability mentioned on this skill is not 100% due to the stun-resistance built by the opponents status.

So, here are the information that I could somehow, confirm:

1. Stun from the skill Ambush can be resisted. It is not applied 100% like what it says on the skill info, but the skill damage hits 100% though.

2. If you use the skill Ambush while hiding, the damage applies but you won't be revealed (cancel hide) if the stun doesn't apply. - THIS HAS BEEN DEBUNKED. I've confirmed that if the skill hits, your hide will be cancelled but with a delay.

With the above information, I tried to analyze the runes that we have and may have concluded something significant AND worth trying. I am willing to try this myself but if someone out there who has the right skill levels and conditions, please do try.

Here are my theories:

1. Ambush can be deadly in PVP.

Since the skill does 100% damage if you are hiding, its supposed to multiply your damage by 2. This has been confirmed by my good friends in discord and below is a screenie from them:

Please note: Back Stab and Ambush is the same skill and that the above was used with a normal katar.

2. Ambush runes apply to final damage.

This has yet to be confirmed but I will try to get the runes for this skill. Below is the calculation to get the ambush runes.. they are cheap to get since they are very near. Not only that, if the above diagram is to be taken into consideration, then the calculation for Ambush damage should be:

250% (ambush skill dmg) * 2 (when hidden) + 30% total skill dmg

if simplified, should be 500% + 30% = 500% +  150% of  skill damage = total of 650%

3. Ambush will work perfectly with stun runes.

As you know, there are 5 runes that add damage to stunned targets and since Ambush inflicts stun and once it does, the stun runes will deal additional damage to whatever skill you will use next. These runes add a total of 35% damage to stunned targets, not to mention that they are very near the above diagram as well. Take a look:

In case you're wondering, the above diagrams are from https://romelde.github.io/RuneBFS/#class/3.

Now, ambush can be used by any type of sinx. Regardless of your build, the runes can be applied on top of it, too. Below is the path that I might take, taking Double-Attack runes into consideration. You can copy it if you are a DagSin but if you're a CritSin, you might need to generate your own:

I hope these information become helpful to you. I hope it inspired you to try Ambush, and if you did, please place a comment below or lets talk about it in discord. Cheers!

Dagger Assassin

A not-very-detailed article about being a DagSin.

NOTE: (11-13-2018) This article is one year old and a lot has changed since I left ROM CN. I am currently playing in ROM SEA and if I find time to update this article with the latest information on how to maximize being a dagger sinx, then I will. Thank you!

 This build is based on the Double Attack and Double Blade skills. Double Blade (or Piercing Blades) is a dagger-type only skill that gives 25% chance to reduce physical defense by 50% for 4 seconds. The duration overlaps so having a good attack speed makes it trigger nicely as if the effect doesn't go away.

Aside from the fact that the equipment of this type is cheaper than katar types, the recent update gave a whopping 40% additional damage to DA, thanks to the guild runes. Yes, I know, its a bit expensive if you calculate for the items you'll need to contribute to get the right runes but let me tell you, it's all worth it when you achieve that 40% additional damage to Double Attack. And, please take note that the usual items requested as guild contribution can be looted while grinding or can be bought from NPCs. Except for the miniboss/mvp items, of course, getting those medals are like exchanging your loots directly for power.

Lets discuss where this type of Sinx gets its power..

First of all, Stats. Since you don't have to invest on LUK, the only stats you'll need to fill in are STR and AGI. In the end game, if Level 99 is released, you can achieve STR99 and AGI99. With that, you can choose your equipment to either add more damage or increase your ASPD to the max (480%).

Equipment. The arsenal for DagSins are cheap. Below are the items that would most likely extract the raw power needed for daggers:

Weapon: Tier 3 Ebone Dagger [2] (Pront dagger)

EDIT (Sept 28, 2018): there was an update (episode 2 or 3, I guess?) for the equipment lines with HolyDagger that gave them massive amount of stats. The upgrades required somewhat rare items such as MVP items but all of them can be farmed or purchased from the auction. So, this means a Tier 3 Ebone dagger is now inferior to an upgrade HolyDagger. But still, while going for that upgrade, a tier 3 Ebone is still useful while collecting the needed items for the HolyDagger upgrade. Again, what you read next is not all correct but may still be useful so I'm not removing it.

- compared to a HolyDagger which is the final tier of this weapon, its cheaper to slot this one. The additional slot would give way to either race damage, elemental damage or other subsidiary functions through cards like auto-regen 30 sp (magnolia card, for unli EDP or SB) or auto-SB (injustice card). Why go injustice? The card is cheap and triggers nicely if you have enough (or max) attack speed. Remember, you'd only have to focus on STR and AGI, so 480 ASPD is possible. Not to mention that this dagger (ebone), would only require 90 STR points (total) to give you an additional 15% PATK if it reaches tier 3. In HolyDagger, you'll have to reach 120 STR just to get that 15% physical attack bonus or 150 STR for the 20%. Not to mention that  HolyDagger has that ability to add 30 ATK by chance which can be stacked up to 3x, having a total of 90 ATK but the additional slot in ebone makes up for the lost PATK chances. This has been proven effective by Heridl, who is currently the God of Daggers in discord. He currently uses this dagger with two Dessert Wolf cards and he can out-damage crits made by high-level crit sins in GH.

UPDATE: Heirdl now uses Twilight tier 2 [2] with 2 Minorus cards (explined below).

Why dessert wolf card? It gives you 25% more damage to small-size monster. Now you might be wondering, why wouldn't you choose Mino card which gives 25% to large.. right? Well, that's the first option. Since it's so expensive, you will opt to increase your damage on the category that you already have 100% damage instead of compensating that 50% penalty on large-size monster. Heridl is currently using a Tier 2 Twilight [2] with 2 Minorus cards. Why tier 2 only? Because Twilight already gives 25% damage to large and making it tier 2 will give another 5% making it 30%. Now, add the 2 Minorus cards, the item itself has a total of 80% to large. Now if you do the math, 50% penalty is already cancelled by this item plus you get a 30% additional damage to large monsters. This is preferable for boss hunts (BH) since majority of MVPs are large size which is actually his, and everyone else's target.

Now, you see the technicality of the DagSin build. You can read more below about the equipment set for this build if you are still leaning towards building one.

Off-Hand: Rose Princess Bracer

- this item gives 'ignore 25% defense'. So, to add it to your Double Blade Force skill, you have -75% physical defense. You can opt to slot this but it is all up to you. You might be wondering if you can opt for the tier 3 too but, 25% is achieved only on the final tier, which is this item. (from Bloody Floral Bracelet).

Armor: Tier 3 Tights or Grand Thief Clothes

+15 Ninja Suit II is the ultimate armor for all types of Assassins IMHO. but if its not +15, you're better off using tights or grand thief clothes (GTC) if you're a DagSin.

Tier 3 Tights gives you all the goodies like 8% physical attack just like Mountain Ranger tights but assassins don't really need the last ability which is 'increase the affection of INT on Falcon Damage' since we don't have that and, Mountain Ranger tights can only be equipped by the sniper class.

Now, to compare this with GTC is a long-discussion but we at the thief channel always comes to an agreement that its only a matter of preference. GTC gives you +10 STR, +5 Agi and MDEF 20 which would really help if you want to reach 150 STR for the 20% physical attack bonus from HolyDagger.

Garment: Ancient Cape or Rider Insignia

- ancient cape will give you an additional -15% pdef, added to your Double Blade Force skill that gives -50% pdef (25% chance) and your off-hand (-25% pdef), you will have -90% ignore pdef. Let that sink in.

- now, Heridl opted to use Rider Insignia because it gives 20 Crit Shield. this is important since some mobs (like deviruchi) do Crit Damages and having 20 Crit Shield helps a lot with that. Not to mention that if you pair this with Rider Shoes, you will get a bonus +15 Flee.

Shoes: Feral Boots or Rider Boots or Geffen Boots

- Feral Boots, because they are cheap and it gives +2 agi aside from the 5% movement (which, most of the shoes does)

- Rider Boots if you're going for the Rider Insignia (+15 flee, if paired)

- Geffen Boots, cheap to slot, and makes unli EDP possible. This is the current item that I use, which has an Eggyra card on it. Eggyra card gives INT+2 and SP Recov +5. Assassins have nothing to do with INT, we usually have 0. By default, no matter what you do, a sinx would end up with 400+ SP and that, gives us 4~5 SP recovered every 8 seconds when attacking (4 seconds when sitting). Add that up with the Geffen Shoes and Eggyra card, you should end up with 13~14 Sp recov, enough to cycle and give you unli EDP since EDP cooldown is 40 seconds. Do the math and you'll see, after the cooldown of EDP, you'll have enough Sp to cast it again.

Accessories: Tier 3 Flower Rings [1] or Matyr's Leash [1]

- Matyr's leash scales nicely when refined compared to Flower rings. it means, a +7 matyr's leash gives more ATK than a +10 Flower ring. (sorry, no exact detail but a lot has proven this, that's why chinese players have matyrs leash on them)

- its a must to put a Greatest General Card on one of the accessories for Dagsins. its 3% chance to add 10% damage on final damage for 60 seconds. Final damage means, the 10% is added to the damage you make after your atk calculation is calculated versus your opponent's defense.

Next topic: Dagger Sin Skill build

There you have it. If you have further questions, just join us in discord by clicking on this link then look for #thief. See you in-game!

Katar VS Daggers

An understanding of the two types of Assassin and their basic builds.

TL;DR: Choosing your type of assassin is a matter of preference.

I know, there are a lot of builds for SinX, but, this is an essay discussing the builds based on the weapons that we use. Being in the thief channel on discord all day while at work, had me noticed a lot of new thieves asking this same question over and over again. To be honest, the choice is all about preference. You'd only need to know the strengths and weaknesses of both builds to know which one you prefer. There are those who like the crisp sound of Crits while others, such as myself, prefer the hissing sound of Double-attacks (DA).

So, enough description and let's get on with the discussion.

DISCLAIMER:

i. I've only tried the Katar build for half a day but I'll try to discuss both builds equal on this post. I think I have enough info on Katar builds from reading a lot of discussion on the #thief channel in discord and those are what you'll be seeing here pretty much. So if you see anything that is incorrect here, please correct me by posting a comment. Thanks!

ii. I will not discuss stat builds and items on this blog as that topic is a totally different discussion on its own. I tried, and got information overload. You might want to ask for specifics on the #thief channel in discord for elaboration.

Katar Types

Primary Stats: STR AGI LUK

Sub-builds: 

(a) Damage Output/high PATK

(b) Pure Crit, high CritRate

Main Highlights:

• High crit via equipment, skills and enchantments
• Can opt to add vit or use cat's blessing set for added flee and HP
• Can be all-around, regardless of opponent
• High damage output, decent flee and attack speed
• Equipments are mostly expensive due to demand in auction

These types of assassin use Critical damage. Knowing that Crit Ignores DEF and Flee, this build can apply enormous damage to the opponent may it be PVE or PVP. The skills on Assassin and Assassin Cross heavily compliments critical damage, critical rate and katars, that's why this is the conventional build. Skills that increase your PATK when using katars, increase crit rate, increase crit damage and katar-specific skill Grimtooth (rarely used) are what composes this build.

Katars double the crit rate so most builds focus on increasing PATK and crit damage. Others prefer 100++ crit rate so they go for items that gives LUK stats. Other builds also rely on skills (assassin aura) for the crit rate (usually stays at 40 LUK only) then go all PATK on the items. Like I said before, its all about preference so if you wanna got all rate or all dmg is upto you. If you want to get best of both worlds though, you can opt to balance the rate and dmg by learning more about the skills and their limitations, and which items or equipment parts compliment rate or damage more then utilize them at the best setup possible.

A little bit more about the items, weapons and accessories are preferable (most of the time) to stay at tier 3 only as katar of quaking and flower rings give out the same PATK compared to their final tier which is Katar of Agent and Frozen Rose Ring respectively. If you're wondering why, the difference between Katar of Quaking tier 3 and Katar of Agent is only the Crit Damage +10% attribute. While Flower Ring tier 3 and Frozen Rose ring's difference is that insects will be non-aggressive to you.

NOTE: It's common for some items to be preferred on tier 3 only because slotting tier 3 items and having a (additional) card in it has more advantage (damage-wise) and is cheaper than slotting the final tier.

Another advantage of a Katar-type is that the size-penalty for damage is less compared to dagger types. Size penalty is as follows:

KATARS:

Small - 75%

Medium - 100%

Large - 75%

DAGGERS:

Small - 100%

Medium 75%

Large - 50%

About the CONS of Katar types, I don't really see any disadvantage of this build other than items that directly give CRIT SHIELD which, directly decreases the crit rate. So, for example, if you have 80 Crit and the opponent has Rider Insignia which gives CRIT SHIELD +20, then you will end up with 60 CRIT only, making it less for you to trigger CRIT.

Now, onto my build.. daggers!

Dagger Types

Primary Stats: STR AGI

Sub-builds:
(a) raw DMG
(b) -DEF build

Main Highlights:

• Highly technical when it comes to skills and equipment
• Medium to high difficulty in grinding
• Cheap build (item-wise)
• Can opt to choose between -def type with poison or raw damage
• Can be buffs-demanding to draw out maximum power

DagSins utilize Dagger Specific skills and make the best out of it. This build is way cheaper than CritSins especially when it comes to the equipment and could also be very technical since you will not only have more active skills to use, you will also be specific with the equipment and cards that you'll put on the slots. Besides, once you reach a point that your DA (double attack) hits harder than any other SinX around you, you will feel that dominant feeling over the area.

The skills we use are Double Attack, Dodge and Double Blade Force. Double Blade Force is a dagger specific skill that gives 25% chance to inflict -50% DEF for 4 seconds. Knowing that DagSins don't need LUK, they can have decent ASPD if they wish to focus on AGI over STR and with higher ASPD, Double Blade Force triggers more frequently.

Since we already have a skill that reduces DEF, we normally focus on adding more -def attributes in terms of equipment. Rose Princess Bracer  (-25%DEF), Ancient Cape (-15% DEF) and Nut On Head (-5%def)  are the usual equipment we add giving us a grand total of 95% ignore DEF (considering double blade is triggered). You could also add more -def thru Enchantment via the Cat in Geffen but be careful as this 'lottery' might get you caught up and before you know it, you've spent millions of zennies before you could get the -def enchantment. You can always check the auction for items that has those good enchantment and always be on the look out for those on sale as they are cheap, like 1/10th-price cheap.

DagSins also utilize other active skills like Slash and Poison Skills (Envenom, Poison Kunai and Venom Splash). Sonic Blow is also used with this build just like how you would on CritSins. There are others who prefer to use Sp recovery shoes (Geffen Shoes + Eggyra Card) and cards on weapon (Magnolia Card) to have unlimited EDP or auto-sonic blow (Injustice Card)

This build would also suggest hunting for the small-sized monsters in a map of your choice. Remember, if you check on the reference above, daggers can only inflict 100% damage on Small size monsters. So, with this in mind, you'd need to do your research on which monster to grind on when planning to switch maps. It's a bit of a bummer but this is to maximize the power of Daggers. So :blobshrug:.

If you are interested on this build, you can check this post about Dagger Assassins which discusses a little bit more of the build.

You can always visit the #thief channel in discord and ask away for any questions you have in mind about the type of SinX you'd like to build. Keep in mind, and what we always say, that your character is your own and building it is just half the fun of the game.