Dagger Assasin Skill build

This article is going to be straight forward and would only focus on the skill build for dagger assassins. I know that you guys have been looking for a skill build comparison of Katar vs Dagger but unfortunately, I don't have enough experience in using Katars that I can't really say what skill build is best for them. Sorry!

Let's break down the skills into three sections - thief, assassin and sinX.

(photo grabbed from ragnarok.wikia.com)

Thief skills

Double Attack 

- the main skill used by dagger assassins. At level 10, it gives 50% chance to cause 200% damage to an enemy.
- there are guild runes, 4 in total, that give additional 40% damage to double attack. It is a MUST to get them first whenever you can.

Ambush

- very useful in PVP
- using this skill while in a hiding status (including the overlapping hide status caused by Advanced hiding) has a chance to stun the enemy and cause additional 100% damage.

Flee (Dodge) and Hide

- these skills needs no explanation and it is essential to an assassin regardless of the build

Optional skills: (Envenom and detoxify)

You can choose not to use ambush and use the skill point on Envenom and/or detoxify. There is an assassin skill that compliments Envenom (adds 40 ATK). Detoxify is proven useful in PVP/WOE as it cleanses poison brought about by other assassins.

Assassin skills

Piercing blades

- gives a 25% chance to cause -50% ignore def to an enemy for 4 seconds. Since assassins have decent attack speed, this triggers nicely. It is the main reason why dagger builds are based on ignore def item sets.

Strengthen Poison

- gives 40 ATK when you cast Envenom level 10.

Sonic Blow

- one of the main skills for Assassins. deals 600% or 800% (not sure with SEA) physical damage.
- in classic Ragnarok Online, this skill is exclusive to Katar users but in ROM, this can be used regardless of the weapon being used.

Sonic Acceleration

-although the description says that it adds 100% damage to Sonic Blow, it actually doubles the damage up to 1200% or 1600%.
-this skill also add accuracy (Hit) permanently. +30 hit at Lvl 5 (max)

Back Slide

- a utility skill that is helpful in both PVP and PVE. Slides you back up to 5 meters and immediately enters hide status for a few seconds. This status is different from the actual Hide skill but works very much the same - ambush causes stun, etc.

Optional skills

The above list will actually take up your 40 skill points but if in any case you don't feel like getting any one of them, the other available skills are:

- Venom Dust (or Venom Diffusion in SEA), causes damage to the area around you. If the target is poisoned, it scatters the poison to any nearby monster, inflicting poison status to them as well. I once used this when I started and it is pretty helpful when you are 'mobbing' - or when you attract a lot of monsters and kill them simultaneously.

- Poison Kunai to be honest is NOT economical in any way possible. uses one poison bottle (thats' 500z bro!). It inflicts poison (100% success on mobs) and has a long range. Effect is different on PVP because of the resistance from stats and/or equipment/skills.

Assassin Cross

Enchant Deadly Poison

- an essential skill for any type of assassin.

- Adds 30% physical attack for 40 seconds. The cooldown is also 40 secs which means, if you have the right SP recovery set then you can put this skill in auto then have unli EDP while grinding!

Slash (aka Execution Slash)

- Disclaimer: the damage of this skill has changed since I stopped playing. And I'm not so sure if the damage in ROM CN is the same in ROM SEA.

- deals 800%(?) physical damage to a single target and increases your next normal attack damage to 200%

- if this is used to a target who's health is less than 30%, then it will deal twice the damage.

- This means, if your target's HP is less than 30% then you will hit 1600% and your next normal attack (also works  on double-attack) damage (non-skill) will deal 200% of your physical attack.
-I'd like to point out that you might want to keep this skill at level 1 for grinding purposes. I find it cheaper to use in terms of SP consumption than Sonic Blow. 

Advanced Hiding

- this extends the effect that allows hide-only skills. For example, grimtooth or ambush's double damage. grimtooth can only be cast when you are in hide status, same with Ambush, it deals double damage when used in hide status. This skill lets you use those hide-only skill effects at certain period after Hide was worn off (21 secs max).

- this also deducts the movement speed penalty when you are in Hide status (-20%)

Optional skills

Soul Breaker - the calculation for it's damage is a bit complicated. Please see the skill description for more info. I had planned to build a dagsin around this skill - an INT-STR build. But at that time when I was still playing in CN server and it was just EP2, the items needed, especially the Dagger (Fortune dagger) was not a viable option and I had a limited amount of zenny at my dispense (zenny is hard you know). This would have been a very fun skill to use - it was long range, and also dealt both physical and magical attack. But, even with a dedicated item for it (the fortune sword), prioritizing this skill was not very economical.

Meteor Assault - This is a useful skill since assassins dont have much AOE skills. It deals 440% physical damage around you and has a 25% chance to inflict debuffs (stun, bleed, blind). the chance doubles when you cast this skill in Hide status.

Stay tuned for Guillotine Cross skills!

I did not mention the Katar-only skills because it is pointless to a dagger sinx build article.

You might also be interested in these topics:
Katar vs Dagger
Dagger Assassin
Ambush (theory build) 

Parties!

I have noticed that a lot of players are having a hard time looking for parties for specific tasks - 300 mob tasks, quests, Endless tower, Rifts. Here, I'd like to teach you guys how to make use of the Party UI so that instead of shouting in the world chat to look for parties, to just use the internal UI to find them.

The party UI is almost straight forward - you click on the green button to create a party; invite friends to create a party, refresh the list; apply for specific parties, and the highlight of this article - the buttons on the left. They actually refer to the parties that are setup specific for the tasks. Here's what they are for:

1. Nearby

The default setting when making a party is set to 'nearby'. It shows all parties within the map unless they are set for a specific task such as Endless Tower, Training grounds, Dojo or Rifts.

2. Endless Tower

This needs no explanation but when you click on this button, it shows all parties within your current channel that are set for endless tower. It also shows the floors where the party is set to start. This makes it easy for anybody to apply and find other players that wants to go ET and with their specific target floors.

3. Training Grounds

For those who don't know, the training ground is where you get poring coins (these are the pink colored coins you use to purchase headgear blueprints). It is also a good place to train your PVP gears because the puppets you fight are with stats allocation like real players.

4. Dojo

The Dojo is also known as the Guild dojo; it can be accessed within the guild hall. You can only get loots once though, but you can help a guild member finish them and get friendship cards.

5. Rifts

Rifts are those lightning-like things that you see on the maps that give very good loots (Earrings, Gloves, Rings, etc) depending on which one you decide to take. Beware though, as the level of the rift rises, so are the mobs that are in them.

By using this button, you will be able to filter the parties that are planning to take specific rifts. click on the one that you'd like to enter then apply. The parties here are also on the same channel that you are in, so there's no need to worry about it.