Perilous Assassin
Stealth-and-poison striker - open from hiding for a burst, stack venom, and re-melt into the shadows.
Overview
The Assassin is the stealth striker. Its passives make you better at hiding, let you take more steps while stealthed, and raise your effective Poisoning - the toolkit for opening a fight from the dark with a poisoned blade. The forks lean into burst-from-hide, venom escalation, and vanish-and-repeat.
It is built on Hiding, Stealth, Poisoning and a melee weapon skill. If you like picking your moment, hitting once for a lot, and being gone before the reply lands, this is the class.
Passive Bonuses
Always on against monsters, scaling with your Assassin level. Maxed at level 14:
| Bonus | Per level | At level 14 |
|---|---|---|
| Hide success chance | +2% | +28% |
| Stealth steps | +1 | +14 (the Stealthy fork adds another +1/level) |
| Effective Poisoning | +2 | +28 |
| Damage taken | -1% | -14% |
Signature Procs
Two procs fire off your own attacks against monsters. The weaker triggers at 0.2% per level (2.8% at 14); the stronger at 0.1% per level (1.4% at 14). PvM only.
- Garrote (weaker): stuns the target for 2 seconds and opens a 10-second bleed ticking 0.5% of its current HP per second (capped at 25 damage per tick per class level).
- Toxin (stronger): an incurable poison for 30 seconds, ticking every 3 seconds. Strength scales with level - Lesser at 1-2, Regular at 3-4, Greater at 5-6, Deadly at 7-8, Lethal from 9 up.
Fork Abilities
At levels 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 you pick one of two, permanent for the build. Each costs Contract Marks (10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70).
| Level | Option A | Option B |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Stealthy - +1 stealth step per level (stacks with the passive) | From the Shadows - +5% damage per level on your first hit out of hiding |
| 4 | Venom - 1% per level on a hit to upgrade the target's poison one tier, up to Lethal | Kidney Shot - 1% per level to stun the target for 2 seconds on a melee hit |
| 6 | Guild Dues - 25% chance a dropped class coin becomes a Contract Mark instead | Contract Kill - +3% gold per level and +1% of the base rare-drop chance per level |
| 8 | Shadowmeld - 1% per level to re-hide instantly after a melee attack | Marked for Death - your first stealth hit marks the target: +15% damage from all sources for 8s |
| 10 | Shadow Step - [ShadowStep: teleport next to a target within 15 tiles, still hidden, 60s cooldown | Assassinate - passive: your first hit from stealth deals 300% damage + Lethal poison whenever it is off its 3-minute cooldown, no command needed |
| 12 | Stalk - +5% damage for every step you took in stealth before striking, up to +50% | Garrote - 25% chance that an attack out of stealth opens a bleed worth another full hit over 5 seconds |
| 14 | Vanish - [Vanish: gone in a puff of smoke, 120s cooldown | Undetectable - you can run while stealthing without giving yourself away |
Two Garrotes. The level-12 fork shares its name with the weaker proc. The proc is the stun-and-bleed that rolls on any hit; the fork is the stealth-opener bleed you buy.
How It Plays
PvM. Open big, then manage the poison. From the Shadows plus Marked for Death makes your first strike from hiding brutal; Shadow Step closes the gap and keeps you hidden into it; Shadowmeld lets you drop back out and do it again. Venom and Toxin stack an unshakeable poison that finishes what the opener started. Assassinate is the boss-opener - a 300% stealth hit with guaranteed Lethal poison that fires by itself every 3 minutes. The passive Poisoning boost means your applied poisons land harder across the board.
PvP. All the damage bonuses, procs, poison upgrades and the active commands are PvM only and are explicitly gated off while you are PvP-flagged - so the Assassin does not carry its burst into a player fight. Its hiding, stealth-step, Undetectable, Shadow Step, Vanish and Stalk bonuses switch off with it, leaving only base Hiding and Stealth. The class is a hunter's kit, not a ganking one.
Coins & Leveling
The Assassin spends Contract Marks. Earn class XP worth 10% of the gold your kills drop (active class only), fill the bar, then pay the Assassin Guildmaster the target level times ten in Contract Marks per level (about 1,050 for the full climb to 14). Fork abilities cost extra coins. Coins drop for everyone off tough monsters, and Prism Coins cover any class coin you are short.
Not Locked In
Your first class is free and instant. Changing later takes a 2-minute channel (hold still, take no damage) plus a cooldown between swaps. Each class keeps its own level and forks, so leaving and returning does not reset your Assassin.
One character can also hold multiple skill builds through the Personality system - two slots to start, up to five for gold or Ether Charged Powder, swapped with a 2-minute channel (a fresh slot starts your skills at zero to retrain). A stealth build and a caster or tank build can share the same character.
Crafted Class Item
Contract Scroll. A charged scroll you craft and use to place contracts on marks. Double-click it and target any wild creature to put a contract on it, one active at a time; each contract spends one of the scroll's twenty-five charges, and the scroll is used up at zero. Townsfolk and tamed creatures cannot be marked, and a mark you already hold will not take a second scroll. While the contract holds, your own attacks on that target deal +20% damage, and killing it improves your chance at a rare drop. The contract ends when the mark dies.
How to make it: Inscription, no skill requirement: ten blank scrolls, one beeswax, and one Contract Mark (a Prism Coin can stand in for it). One craft makes one scroll with twenty-five charges.