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.