Talent Builds
Raid Build
CMQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA4BmZMLGegBAAAAAmtBLzAAAAAAy2YmxMzYMzMzsNz2MzMMzMzMzwMjxAYgNYY0AQWGwmBAzMA
This is the standard build used in prepatch raids. It does feature a lot of new AoE talents that might be unnecessary for players in certain fights, so we recommend you experiment! Talenting into things like Caustic Spatter and Crimson Tempest is not very costly, as the alternatives are quite cheap. In pure single target, instead go for Improved Poisons, Doomblade, or the second point in Lethal Dose.
Mythic+/Open World
CMQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA4BmZmZxwDMAAAAAwsNYbGAAAAAQ2GzMmZGjZmZmtZ2mZMegZmZmxwMjxAYgNYY0AQWGwmBAzMA
For the Mythic+ build, we’re sticking with Fatebound for prepatch. With the changes to the hero talent, it now boasts respectable AoE while also having slightly better single-target on bosses. With Fatebound’s low effort, passive gameplay, it’s the perfect pairing for all cleave-centric content. Simply Bleed with Crimson Tempest and go!
Class Talents
On the Class Tree, there’s nothing incredibly stand-out, but the last three rows are important to keep track of. Thistle tea is an auto-proc for energy that you do not need to keybind. Additionally, Cold Blooded Killer is currently bugged and failing to trigger in some situations. We instead opt for the passive Supercharger while waiting on a fix. Deeper Strategem is a must-have in order to boost finisher damage and avoid overcapping combo points.
There are also numerous new damage-centric passives higher up on the tree. These are easy to take and should be on the way as you go down the tree towards the capstones. The most notable of the new talents is Swift Salsher, which now grants additional attack speed equal to your haste.
Spec Talents
Important Spec Talents can be split into 3 parts: resources, aoe, and single target
For resources, there are some new additions to the tree, as well as a hefty rebalancing. Most notable of the bunch is Venomous Wounds. This talent has gotten insane nerfs and now provides roughly a quarter of the energy it used to. To compensate, some new talents, like Motivated Murderer, have joined the spec tree, providing a significant boost to passive regen. Assassination should be slightly slower than it was in Season 3 of War Within, but not by much. This will improve with gear and apex talents as Midnight’s full release approaches.
For AoE, Assassination has two main tools and some passive additions. Caustic Spatter and Crimson Tempest are your bread and butter talents for dealing with multiple enemies at once. Crimson Tempest works the same way Indiscriminate Carnage did in The War Within: smart targeting any enemies that do not have bleeds already, and copying your longest-lasting bleeds onto them. Caustic Spatter cleaves your poisons, envenom, and even Kingsbane in decently large AoE around your target, keeping your AoE high even before your bleeds have been spread. To help increase AoE damage even more, Thrown Precision is a great tool that increases the crit rate of Fan of Knives, but also spreads more poisons. Scent of Blood still exists as a passive gain to agility in AoE, and the addition of Avulsion allows for even stronger Ruptures.
In Single Target, Assassination has learned new tricks as well with the addition of Regicide’s Reward and the choice node between Poisoner’s Drive and Inspiring Strike. Envenom is the name of the game, and even Rapid Injection has seen a notable buff, asking players to chain envenoms together. This theme continues into the Apex Talents.
Apex Talents
Assassination’s Apex Talents are as follows:
- Energy gain when Envenom’s buff fades
- Simple buff equal to 10% mastery
- Simple buff equal to 10% mastery
- An additional source of damage on Kingsbane that frontloads some extra damage, grants combo points, and ramps Kingsbane fast.
The first and last Apex talents here are the most interesting, with Apex1 giving a decent amount of energy, roughly equal to other strong talents like Dashing Scoundrel. In order to properly play around it, players will want to max out the buff from Apex1, and then let Envenom fade on purpose in order to get the most energy possible.
The last apex talent is very straightforward and simply allows Kingsbane to ramp faster by instantly giving 10 poison stacks and 5 combo points towards a fresh Envenom immediately after using Kingsbane. This might not be the strongest damage source on your damage meter, but its effects are far-reaching, and the increase to Kingsbane’s damage is notable.
Hero Talents
Deathstalker is mostly unchanged from its War Within counterpart and revolves around a debuff on a single target called Deathstalker’s Mark. This mark cannot be moved in any way and gets applied with 3 stacks. Every finisher used against the target will remove one stack from the mark, and eventually lead to Darkest Night, a powerful Envenom buff that will reapply the mark and start the cycle anew.
The Quality of Life from this hero talent is frankly atrocious, and managing the mark, especially in AoE is a nightmare. Even if it's ahead in sims, it’s not recommended purely for the pain of playing around it.
Fatebound on the other hand is a completely passive hero talent that flips a coin every time you finish with 5 or more combo points. No matter if the coin flips heads or tails, you’re still a winner! Following up the original coin flip talent is some additional weighting of the coin to keep a streak going, and passive increases to Envenom and Caustic Spatter. It’s a low-impact, no-tracking-required hero talent that manages to do all content incredibly well with no pain points.