Vikturus

Just came back to eq2 from near 3 years of not playing and aa has arrived

so question how easy is it to get aa now im a level 40 assassin plus i know what lines i want to go down but does it matter which i go down first i mean predator or assassin tree which is more suited to grouping

I mainly plan on grouping and not raiding to much if at all i guess my main question is

how big are these aa things i mean are they a massive dps improvement or what?

Jayad

There's a lot of posts in this forum covering DPS - which would apply to groups or raids. The predator tree is where you want to put your points first.

shadow

Predator tree: If you don't plan on raiding I would actually suggest the str/wis, or wis/int lines. Your dps wont' be as high as str/int which IS the dps combo, but I found that the smoke bomb ability in the wis line really helps out alot when fighting grouped mobs. That's just my personal opinion, so I'm sure someone here will disagree. ;)

timmeh

str/int groups/raid..
str/sta group/solo

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Chox

Yup

Badb

If you're 40 now and can solo properly, you'll get aa in no time.
The best source of aa points = quests, namers you have on track
as mentioned above, predator line first. Then you can mess around with the hashishin line, which is more an "up to your taste" one.
even for soloing, i'd recommend str/int on the pred line. then frontload on the assassin one. Hit "frontload" = you can't die

Gonzo

Welcome back man, I am returning myself and this whole AA thing was really new to me as well. But I have managed to get to 95 AA now and tested myself and what alot are saying here is definitely true. For the KoS tree, STR/INT is the way to go. You will see a decent amount of DPS increase from maxing these too. I went STR:7,4,4,8,1 and INT:6,4,4,8,1 myself. The Imporved Crit chances and Blademaster are awesome. Intoxication is a really nasty Debuff as well.

The EoF tree is open to your playing style and I think how you would spend points depends on whether you plan to raid, group, pvp or solo. Theres alot on raiding as far as AA builds. For groups, I think the Tricks line is really nice (simply because 4 of the 6 do not work on epics). Malignant mark for groups is amazing but not much for raiding since the chances of it going off are increased with more people beating on whatever. I had 5 points in it and had to take it down to 3 because if it proc'd early I was gonna get my ass kicked. For Soloing, Deft Defense will make your life alot easilier but has no use when in groups/raid.

If your grouping alot, Cheap Shot, Apply Poison, and possibly Numbling Strike are worth upgrading. Cheap shot definitely since it's a great macro combo with Elude (same recast timer), and the upgrade will allow you some more time to regroup if you get hate.

As far as DPS, the Bleeding line is nice as far as DD but only Impale and Hidden Assault seem to add any signifigance to DPS. Malignant mark depending on raiding or grouping. Gash is pretty much the same damage as impale but the upgrade is smaller. Quick Strike's DoT is so small that 7% isnt jackshit. In the tricks line, Cripple and Mastery Strike are the only ones that add anything to DPS.

The 3 buff upgrades (Honed, Murderous Focus, and Exacting) are nice and add to DPS. The poison line is probably my personal favorite. Spikes and Hemotoxin is a pretty significant plus in the DPS category. Definitely upgrade those 2 regardless of playing style. Apply Poison and Ignorant bliss are both good for Hate Transfer but Apply is definitely better for upgrading since the transfer is much greater and more useful. I like Attribute Poison when dealing with Epics since it adds alot to my debuff poisons which I believe are very useful.