Hoss

At that level, I would imagine the best bet will still be to run the concealment chain as often as possible. The more you practice, the better off you'll be when you start raiding. If you're pulling too fast to use it every time (and I hope you are), just pop temp buffs on the other pulls and then worry about a casting order for the rest of your arts.


-h

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Benji

If mobs in groups are lasting long enough for a full conceal chain, his dps won't mean shit anyway because his group sucks.

icKx

It's all relative man.

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Vailezee

bah cut that crap out, hes lvl 55, not anywhere near a raid right now. and if he does have time to get through a conceal chain at 55 there is something wrong with the group.

start with something small.. your mark works well.. then your bleeding abilities .. there are various ways of getting yourself into stealth but the deagro that drops you into stealth is by far your best bet at that level as you will dump some agro before you put on a big hit. usually by the time you have your bleeding abilities on and a good stealth hit in there isnt much time left before the mob dies, and if you keep alternating the way you get into stealth it will work well for you at the group level. but dont forget your deagros, they will be important as you gain bigger hits.

also be careful who your listening to. concealment chain at your level will most likely only be at maximum usefullness against named mobs. BTW advice from peeps who think MT group is > Mage group should be nut kicked.

sam_mcduff

DPS is all relative. Looking back leveling up I really didn't have a clue what I was doing, but for the most part I still out parsed everyone in the group. Even now I can get into an instance run and I'm often supplying half the groups dps.

Talking with a uber assassin, in raid he mentioned an assassin should be contributing 8-10% of the raid's dps (did I get it right uber assassins?) I found this extremely helpful, I'm not as concerned at hitting x amount of dps zw, but rather am I doing what I should be doing compared to everyone else. The problem is, you can look good (when really you suck) because the rest of the raid sucks even more. Does anyone have a % of dps an assassin should be contributing in a group?

As you level, get behind the mob, throw all you have and you'll embarrass most toons. That said, it doesn't help you play your toon better.

Groups frustrate me cause often the mob is dead before I can get any sort of chain of CA's in, but I often cycle between the conceal chain and DOT's/non invis attacks. This serves me well.

I also have my hotbars set up as follows:
Conceal, Mask (to ensure quick invis), pinpoint, Invis Dot, the two invis attacks that are on one min timer (I can't think of the name) the two min invis timer, execute, then slate (open cone aoe). This way, as soon as conceal is up, I run the whole chain with whatever is up. I leave slate to the end as it's the longest casting one (this way if something goes wrong, conceal breaks, mob moves etc, I get in as many as possible for Fatal followup). Once you get fatal followup (at 80) add this ability at the very end.

I have a second mask and pinpoint as well. The reason for the second version is I like to keep them separate, and it's down with my dots. Cast these everytime they're up. If you do the math, over 1 min this is a very high (probably one of the highest) hitting CA cause it's usable every 10 secs.

Don't forget your debuffs. They're a pain in the ass as they take time to cast (when you could be doing damage) but, with the last tests I ran, they add 10%+ to you dps as your other CA's will hit harder.

People will argue, DOTS or Conceal first. I waffle on this, but most would agree, if it's going to be a longer fight, get your DOTS in first. This will also keep you alive if your tank sucks and is having trouble with agro, as they can build agro longer before you slap the mob with the conceal run.

Jeeden

I got some tips:
1.Randomly hotkey your CA bar to your keyboard.
2.Drink a fifth of Vodka (or two, do as see fit).
3.Proceed to smash your face into the keyboard.
4.You should top the parse, if you are not, then smash your face harder, or repeat step 2.

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sam_mcduff

You just describe how I played my assassin for the first 76 levels, I've since traded the vodka out for a nice wine... cause I'm a more mature, refined assassin

On a serious note, I have heard of people completely rekeying their abilities so each ability is a keystroke (ie conceal is t, mask strike is y, pinpoint is u etc) Sounds like a lot of work, but I can see how once you learn it, it would be a lot faster.

Vlix_Oasis

I am no uber amazing assassin. However I have been raiding quite awhile and think I know my class well. I think a characteristic (cause once I got it, my DPS jumped) was knowing what CA is gonna refresh before your even done casting the previous one. So essentially your constantly "queing" your next CA.

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Jeeden

true.
I also have CAs with similar reuse timers next to each other.
also nice to have HO, squeeze, scarring blow close.
But of course I do all of this by bashing my face while borderline alcohol poisoned.
10kdps ftw. and I'm not uber at all One day, if VP patterns ever drop, or lifespike
/wrist.

I'll laught if I get Woven BP before Vaanir!

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Benji

The best method for increasing DPS is to hotkey all of your CA's to a single button and mash it as rapidly as humanly possible. (Well, I suppose technically you only *need* to hit it every .375 seconds or so, but still.)

This way, you're automagically casting a CA that is up and ready every time and there's no down-time trying to decide what to use. Also, it works best if all your temp buffs are hotkeyed on a second button. (IE: Hotkey 1 = every CA, Hotkey 2 = Conceal/etc)

Chapel taught me this strategy early on and I used it to full effect all the way through VP. It's a very good tactic.

(PS: Jeeden, you've probably already got better gear than I do and you've been raiding with AS like 1/3 of the time I was. That kind of makes me sad.)