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!