Caster Sin

[KingOfPain]

Surel Surlosol was running a similar build suggested by Soul Flayer most of her way to the Survivor title. I usually delete toons who don't make it to Indomitable Survivor, but I am having so much fun with this Sin I wasn't upset when she died half way to Indomitable, and I am keeping her Part of me was happy that now I can tweak and play her to the max without worrying about survival. Plus, she still has 20k to pay back to the coffer

And, she looks cool too. I have been known to delete toons halfway because I don't like the look anymore.
Armor - Exotic armor dyed deep purple except gloves and shoes in red
Weapon - Insightful Ghostly staff of Enchanting, and Sadi's Benediction (not shown)



Introducing a new tactical position and builds: Half Ranger. These characters play inbetween the front and mid line and often end up in melee range.
There are 2 major variations to my Half Ranger build.

The Paradox Caster draws its power from having only one attribute line to pump, leaving a lot of attribute points to do whatever you want: more damage, defense, AoE effects, party support, etc..

The build - A/x
Caster weapon with as much energy as possible
Armor - Your choice. Go with +energy if you find yourself running low on energy. I chose more defense since I will be at the front line and in melee range part time, and have no energy problem yet
Deadly Arts 16 (12+4)
Perfect fit for Mez secondary for Arcane/Echo

Deadly Paradox - All of your attack Skills are disabled for 10 seconds. For 5...16 seconds, your Assassin Skills activate and recharge 50% faster.
Cost 5, Recharge 10
This skill is a Stance and cannot be removed by enchantment removal. Not being an enchantment is both good and bad. It cannot be lengthen by +encht duration items/skills, otoh, there is no cast time and cannot be interrupted, and can be activated while performing other actions
Low cost, fast activation, fast recharge

Disrupting Dagger - Send out a Disrupting Dagger at target foe that strikes for 10...37 earth damage. If that foe was activating a Skill, that Skill is interrupted. This Spell has half the normal range.
Cost 5, Cast .25, Recharge 10
Even a fast cast Mes will have a hard time matching a Paradox Caster in the interruption department, and damage to boot. Fit it with Arcane Echo and/or Echo and you will have a non stop interrupter.


Crippling Daggers - Send out a Crippling Dagger at target foe. Crippling Dagger strikes for 15...51 earth damage if it hits, and cripples moving foes for 3...16 seconds. This spell has half the normal range.
Cost 5, Cast 1, Recharge 5
Not much use against foe rushing you but still good for kiting and to slow down foes rushing the back line. Unmatched crippling spammability.

Dancing Daggers - Send out three Dancing Daggers at target foe, each striking for 5...37 earth damage if they hit. Dancing Daggers has half the normal range. This skill counts as a lead attack.
Cost 5, Cast 1, Recharge 5
111 damage (non-stop with Arcane/Echo) ~per sec (including after cast) for only 5 energy - what more can I say?

Augury of Death - For 5...37 seconds, the next time damage would drop target foe's Health below 50%, you inflict a Deep Wound for 5...21 seconds and shadow step to that foe. This Spell has half the normal range.
Cost 5, Cast 1, Recharge 12
Okay, don't abuse this in PvP else it will get nerfed It's a feature, not a bug, WarBlade So shut up about it until I have some more fun 37 second duration means you can spam this ahead of time... The kicker to this hex, however, is that it can be cast on a foe already below 50% health and have Deep Wound kick in right away. So mostly I end up using this as a finishing move rather than a precast.

Iron Palm - Target touched foe suffers 5...41 damage, and if that foe is suffering from a Hex or Condition that foe is knocked down. Iron Palm counts as a lead attack.
Cost 10, Cast .75, Recharge 20
I use this (for now) since its in the same Deadly Arts attribute, and I need a point blank skill when AoD kicks in. Not too bad of a choice but higher cost and recharge than all other skills. Substitude with a PBAoE skill (Shockwave, anyone?).

Hope you have fun this build, and we will discuss the Mark of Rodgort/Lava Arrows/Deadly Haste Caster (there's got to be a good name for this build) when I have time to post again.

PS: is a Divine Ghostly Staff (the perfect weapon for what's coming up. And it looks good too. Yes, you have got to look good no matter what you do ) easy to farm, how much are people selling that for?


KoP

[DamadmOO]

You mean the green Divine Ghostly Staff?

It has a very small chance of dropping and it only drops in the last part of the hardest area in DoA (Foundry). A run in a normal group takes at least 3 hours and i think it has a chance to drop of less then 10% each run.

There are more of those Ghostly Staffs which drop in the same area but with another requirement. I think those staffs can be used as well and are a lot cheaper to buy.

The Divine Ghostly Staffs is around 100k+10ecto for quite some time. While you see the other Ghostly Staffs for around 30k i think.

[Seijin]

Augury of Death - For 5...37 seconds, the next time damage would drop target foe's Health below 50%, you inflict a Deep Wound for 5...21 seconds and shadow step to that foe. This Spell has half the normal range.
Cost 5, Cast 1, Recharge 12
Okay, don't abuse this in PvP else it will get nerfed It's a feature, not a bug, WarBlade So shut up about it until I have some more fun 37 second duration means you can spam this ahead of time... The kicker to this hex, however, is that it can be cast on a foe already below 50% health and have Deep Wound kick in right away. So mostly I end up using this as a finishing move rather than a precast.

The description is similar to the Dervish's skill Faithful Intervention:
If damage drops your Health below 50%, Faithful Intervention ends. When Faithful Intervention ends, you are healed for 30...126 Health.

I've seen critter AI use this at below 50% health and then they get a health boost as it ends immediately. I think they have to get hit to trigger the effect though. But that happens anyways since i'm targeting him.

Augury of death works similarly. You can precast it to cause deep wound when their health drops, but you risk getting it removed. Alternatively you can do what you've been doing which is cast it when they are below 50% health. If you don't hit them after hexing them though, the deep wound won't take effect. Also it won't instantly kill them because they'll have at least 1 hp left, but that shouldn't be a problem since your group is probably targeting it anyways.

I don't see how it could be a bug, otherwise the Margonite Reapers are abusing it too with Faithful intervention.

Cool build, I'll have to try it out. If you can, post the template code.

[FoxBat]

Yeah, I thought when KoP was talking earlier, he meant the deep wound insta-triggers upon cast, instead of needing a hit to manifest. (You'd need an additional hit anyway to kill someone with deep wound) The logic of all these skills is that after taking damage, its checked and if it's lower than the threshold, it activates. Note that degen won't trigger these, not sure about life stealing or sacrifice.

[soul]

These are the builds I came up with that KoP's is based off of:

Owhk0pebYMqjWzNLx2ROwFoZ+iB (Augry/Palm, "Deadly Augry")
Owhk0pebYMqjWDi9m3ROwFoZ+iB (Entagling Asp/Signet of Toxic Shock, "Spitting Asp")

Of course, /Rit and 'Flesh of my Flesh' was just for a hard res over signet.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Life Stealing won't trigger the effect since technically it's not damage. I would guess life sacrficing works the same way, but I'm not 100% sure there.

[KingOfPain]

Code - OwZToYP/nZHp1wZOQ38RkHlmBA
Deadly Arts - 12 +4
Fire - 12
Shadow Arts - 3 +1

Disrupting Dagger - 37 Earth Dmg, interrupt
Initial attack while closing in on target. It's usually activating skills when you get there

Dancing Daggers - 37 Earth Dmg x 3
Main Dmg

Lava Arrow - 56 Fire Dmg x 3
Main Dmg

Crippling Dagger - 63 Earth Dmg, Cripple
Initial attack while closing in on target (or monsters running away), buys time to do more dmg or move around when rushing melee monsters.

Augury of Death - Inflict Deep Wound and teleports to target when its life drop below 50%
Finishing combo with Star Burst

Star Burst - 91 Fire to all nearby foes
Other skills works well too but that's all I have capped

Deadly Paradox - All Sin skills activate and recharge 33% faster for 16 seconds
Note: All skills on this bar is not considered attack skills

Feigned Neutrality - +7 health regen and +80 armor for 6 seconds, when you have to blow...

Note: Except Deadly Paradox, these are all low cost (nrg management) fast casting (more dps) skills.

Dangerously fun build


KoP

[Boro]

This has been a favorite char concept of mine, and since changes in the last years, I've got a few things to add here.

First are the elites, of which there are many to really add that extra spice that makes an assa caster so much fun.

Siphon Strength: 10e 10s recharge Elite Hex Spell. (5...17...20 seconds.) Target foe deals -5...41...50 attack damage. You have +33% chance to land a critical hit on this foe.
This spell disables assassins and fast-hitters. Combined with a weakness from an elementalist or necromancer skill, even double damage (factions, nf, eotn) fighter bosses can be negated to oblivion. If you use a half-ranged (deadly haste) bar, then you also have critical strikes to gain advantage of the 33% chance to crit the target and regain your energy (between bursts of casting).

Mark of Insecurity: 5e 10s recharge Elite Hex Spell. (5...21...25 seconds.) Causes 1...3...3 Health degeneration. Enchantments and stances expire 30...70...80% faster on target foe. Disables your non-Assassin skills (10 seconds).
When it was first buffed, it didn't disable non-assassin skills and totally ruined monks reliant on patient spirit for self-heal: Patient spirit didn't materialize on the monk at all. Combined with a scythe it was deadly.

Even without those two, it's nice to prevent protective enchantments from annoying your party (Sliver armor 3 seconds, Whirling Defense 9 seconds, lightning reflexes 4 seconds, Guardian 1 second, Aegis 2 seconds, Healing Breeze 3 seconds, for reference)

and finally:

Assassin's Promise: 5e 45s recharge Elite Hex Spell. (5...13...15 seconds.) You gain 5...17...20 Energy and all your skills recharge if target foe dies.
It is broken, plain and simple, when used with long-recharge front loaded damage skills. The only time it doesn't materialize is if it gets removed (happens sometimes) or the target dies while you are casting. When used with quick recharge assassin deadly arts, of course the energy returns gain precedence. It is the only deadly arts energy management spell, and can help keeping deadly paradox up.

Now for some builds with this in mind:

A/Me Promise daggers
high critical strikes (13) and deadly arts (15-16), runes and headgear focus on deadly arts.
Assassin's Promise
Deadly Paradox
Deadly Haste
Arcane Echo
Dancing Daggers
Cumulative 66% recharge on spells, 33% recharge on assassin's promise (when it fails) and arcane echo ensures maximum dancing daggers spam, at 1.25 seconds used per cast. With the recharge at 2 seconds, and arcane echo readily recharged by assassin's promise, as long as the enemies keep dying, you'll be able to pump daggers after daggers into the enemy. Season with more energy management or more support to taste.


A few more amusing/interesting combinations that cropped up while writing this post:

Guaranteed Criticals:

Way of the Master +33%, Critical Eye(+15%), Siphon Strength(+33%) and the passive 15% from 15 critical strikes totals to a 96% BONUS chance to critically hit (over your base chances, which depends on your and your target's level).
At 16 Critical Strikes, the bonus is 100% (+2 on Way of the Master, +1 on Crit Eye, +1 on passive).

Shadow Fang-Shatter Delusions yoyo: Go in, deal some damage, get out, target has deep wound. The possibilities aren't endless, but they are quite fun. Iron Palm-Entangling Asp quarterknock, mantis touch then get out. Signet of Deadly Corruption and Signet of Toxic Shock to finish them off, or Sadist's Signet to heal up on their suffering. Epidemic to spread the pain/love. Not a power-build, but definitely flavorful. Use with assassin's promise to offset the 45s recharge on shadow fang.