xDeadly's Venom Assassin Guide

Getting alot of pms about how Venom Assassins work so I decided to make this guide. I'll try to make the guide as short as possible because I hate writing walls of texts.

Pros:

1. Most DPS out of all the trees.
2. Strongest DoT out of all the trees.
3. Many strong debuffs.
4. Pitch can silence.
5. Low cooldown skills.
6. Doesn't rely on crits.
7. Wanted in many parties.

Cons:

1. Slow moving when in stealth.
2. Least CC out of all trees.
3. Squishiest out of all the trees.
4. Hard to kill ranged classes.

Talent Notes:

Mysterious Spike: very useless talent, as a venom assassin you will never need to use Assassinate. Your Thrust of Pain has shorter cool down and does way more DPS.

Strike of Pain: awesome talent. Increases your DoT from Nightmare Termination for 100% which is very high.

Sudden Strike: improves your main skill, Trust of Pain.

Pain of Nightmare: great talent, less time wasted making agony orbs.

Killer Darkness: optional, 40 dark mastery can sometimes be helpful.

Hurried Pain: need this to reduce cooldown of ToP for faster DPS and agony orbs.

Lurking Sting: optional skill, not worth it til lvl 60+, hits less than ToP but more than Throat Seal but makes agony orbs. Will get a acc increase talent later on which is quite useful in PvP.

Shadow Evasion: another useless skill, the eva bonus from Shadow Protection lasts long enough.

Dual Stings: optional, good at low lvls, will be useless at 70+ because its much easier making agony orbs.

Advanced Lurking Sting: you will need this if your more focused in PvP, reduces cooldown of Lurking Sting and increases its acc by alot.

Toxic Strike: makes your finishers reduce targets def, useful in PvE.

Pain Strike: max this skill ASAP. The talent says Pitch can silence with 3 agony orbs, but it can silence even without agony orbs.

Pain Amplification: optional, if you want more attack you can get this, really useful for 70+.

Art of Darkness: optional, you wont need this talent if you know how to use potions.

Advanced Blade of Hypnosis: useless talent, you dont need to sleep any mobs in PvE as a sin, and you'll only need to sleep once in PvP.

Human: Lurking Impact: you will need this if youre getting Lurking Sting, will make it hit almost as hard as ToP.
Kindred: Blood Burn Strike: kindred version of Lurking Impact, but increases the damage by a lower % and drains a % of your hp to make it into damage.

Darkness Poison: useful talent for slowing targets in PvP.

Hypnosis Theory: again, you wont have to sleep any monsters in PvE.

Amplified Endings: great talent, increases damage of finishers.

Strength Fortification: it looks like a good talent, but its really useless, it only increases your base attack, meaning your attack without gears and weapons.

Offense Break: great for both PvP and PvE, helps the tank be able to take less damage.

Secret Art - Agony: you will need this to make agony orbs in PvP and PvE.

Intensified Nightmare: optional, great in both PvP and PvE. The 70 talent Abomination will make this talent useful.

Advanced Art - Agony: great talent, reduces cooldown of secret art agony, and adds a chance to add another agony orbs.

Agony Manipulation: useless talent, theres better talents that increases your damage than increasing your defense.

Seed of Agony: you will need this talent no matter what, very useful in both PvP and PvE, but it doesnt work in World Bosses. The 70 talent Abomination will increase the % of hp the target loses.

Darkness Expert: similar to Offense Break, but reduces the targets masteries instead of attack. Also increases your dark skills' damage.

Venomous Blade: optional, great for PvE, but not in PvP. It looks like a high chance to activate this talent, but its really low if you try it in game.

Abomination: this talent made my jaw drop, now you are able to hold 7 agony orbs along with 3 blast orbs. More DoT from your finishers, and more damage they will do. It also acts as a buff for many talents such as Seed of Agony, Intensified Nightmare, Mutilation, and Strike of Pain.

Mutilation: great skill, the 1% hp loss per second is more useful than you think. Abomination will make this talent easier to activate.




Gears and Gems

PvE: if you focus more on PvE than PvP then your best bet would be Mighty Stout or Shrouding Stout gear. Or you can wear sets that gives lots of attack and HP, the 70+ gear sets for sin gives alot of attack and hp. Main gems you will need are Ragefires and Bloodstones, If you decide to +9 gears or higher you can add Eagle Eyes, Goldsparks, and Twilights.


PvE belt.


PvP #1(accuracy and hp): if youre in a PvP server then most people in your server will be stacking evasion, even warriors lol. Stacking Mighty Stouts in PvP is fine, but it becomes useless if all you do is MISSMISSMISS. I used to have full Mighty Stout and Shrouding Stout set for PvP and it worked well at lower lvls, but now 1/2 of the Eyrda Server population are going evasion builds. SO to counter that, I decided to go full Precise Stout set. Main gems you will need are Eagle Eyes, Goldspark, and Bloodstone. If you have any more gem slots fill them with Ragefires and Twilights.


PvP pants. (Mistshroud is there because I needed bag space, its going to be replaced with a ragefire soon)


PvP #2(accuracy and evasion): if you decide to go hybrid venom/dark or full eva venom to have more survivability in PvP then you would want to wear Precise Agile gear. If you want most of the population to miss you, then you would need over 300 evasion, so you will need lots of Mistshroud gems, with Bloodstone gems. Other gems you would need are Eagle eyes, Ragefire, and Twilights.


PvP evasion off hand.


Talents

Talent Calculator is still down, but I will post 3 different builds when its back up.



PvPvE tactics

PvE: In PvE you would want to keep your DoT on your target for as long as possible. Thats only possible if you can create Agony Orbs quick. You will need to spam Thrust of Pain, [SIZE="1"]and Throat Seal if you're 70+ with Abomination[/SIZE], as much as possible, use Secret Art - Agony and Lurking Sting if you need to. You will also need to keep the target debuffed.


PvP: In PvP you will want to control your enemy before using DoT on them. First thing you do before starting a duel is to use Secret Art - Agony for the agony orbs. When you stealth DO NOT SLEEP, you will need to save this when you use Shadow Protection. Ranged classes are going to be harder to kill than melees.

Vs Warriors: The warrior will most likely to cast Roar(AoE that removes stealth) first to knock you out of stealth. First thing you cast is Pitch to silence and slow them then follow it with Flair, lvl 70 sin skill with disarm, [SIZE="1"]really useful against warriors and marksmans[/SIZE], so they wont be able to charge you. Then follow with a Throat Seal and Dark Nightmare to silence them and reduce their resistance and also put a Seed of Agony on them. Before you use your DoT with NT, make sure you at least have 2 Agony orbs, so use ToP if you need to. When they try to run away, use Deadly Chaser before they can charge you. Make sure you use Pitch and Flair everytime they cool down. Save your Shadow Protection for when they use Blade of Reflection, and then sleep them and collect wrath orbs.

Vs Marksman: First thing you use is Flair, while disarmed the marksman cannot use any skill, then use Pitch then another silence with Throat Seal and Dark Nightmare. DoT with NT. Save your Vicious Intention for when they use Weakening Cloud, their AoE acc reduction, so you wont miss.

Vs Assassins:
Vs Venom: whoever pitches first will win most likely, follow with Throat Seal and Dark Nightmare then a DoT.
Vs Edge: most likely the edge sin will use dark nightmare to silence you first. Pitch them before they can then use Throat Seal and Dark Nightmare. If they silence u after that get away from them til your Pitch is ready again then follow with another Throat Seal and Dark Nightmare then finish with a DoT.
Vs Dark: make sure you cast Vicious Intention and Secret Art Agony before the duel. This is very important because THEIR HP IS VERY LOW. First thing you do is Pitch followed with ToP and a DoT with NT. Then RUN. Wait til Pitch is ready then use it followed with Throat Seal and Dark Nightmare. If they cast Swift Evasion, use Shadow Protection then sleep. Dark sins should be the easiest to beat because of their HP is terrible.

Vs Vampires: Keep them silenced with Pitch and Throat Seal + Dark Nightmare so they cant enter vampire form, save DoT til they have 1/2 hp left. Save Shadow Protection for when they use Feast. Will be easy to kill them with more wrath orbs.

Vs Protector: This will probably the hardest class to beat. Fight them the same way as vampires. Save Shadow Protection for when they use Rocky Protection.

Vs Bard:
Vs Water: Same way you would fight a vampire, they are hard to kill at 70+ because of ice blocks and slows. Venom assassins arent built to fight these kind of classes so it will be hard to counter their slow.
Vs Light: Keep DoT on them, most likely theyll be trying to run and heal the whole duel so make sure you collect wrath orbs, they wont slow as much as water and their dmg wont be as hard as water.

Vs Mage: same way you would fight a vamp, but use DoT first, as their HP is very low, they will be mostly try to run and slow you in a spot but not as hard as a water bard, save Deadly Chaser for when they freeze you.



Moneymaking

It will be easy making money as a venom assassin. Most people think I cash shop but I dont lol. People will want you in instances and you will be able to solo Nightmare Queen.

[SIZE="3"]Nightmare Queen[/SIZE]
This quest is for lvl 60+. Usually it takes a party to kill it for 5 minutes, but as a venom assassin, you will be able to solo it for 3 minutes. This method can either be good or bad depending on economy of your server, its really good if your in Eyrda because Prisms sell for alot.




Requirements:
Lvl 65, Lvl 1 fisher, Lvl 1Talent Seed of Agony, Lvl 3 Scavenging, 15k+ HP, 200+ evasion, HP5S and MP5S, HP and MP pots,


1. Grab quest by pressing 'G'. Buy Raisingers Dream at Water Observatory, make sure you buy alot. Go to the Crescent Pond at Immaculate Oasis and use fishing. It will take a while to summon it, usually after 5 Raisingers Dreams.
location of NPC selling Raisingers Dream.

2. Use MP5S and HP5S.

3. Kill. Really easy process, just make sure you have 4 agony orbs before using Nightmare Termination. Just spam ToP 4 times before using NT and just do that over and over. Keep Seed of Agony on her the whole fight. Keep yourself at full hp by using HP pots

4. Sometimes she will spawn Nightmare Essences at both the ends of the pond, just kill them with ToP, if you dont they will sleep you.

5. ???

6. PROFIT

7. Repeat


one of the best drops Ive gotten, sold for high $$$

Most of the time she will drop Recharging Star Shards and Scroll of Prophets which u can sell. Any crap gear you get you scavenge for Prisms. Once you get enough money, you can buy gear and gems, increase masteries, switch over to Edge, a more PvP focused tree, or stay Venom and keep making monies.



Guide almost finished, just waiting for talent calc to go back up. Comments and feedback welcome.




***Once again credit to xDeadly of Eydra Server***