Table of Contents:

A quick and aggro-proof Darkness Assassin Tanking Guide by Fuyri, updated with BiS stats for Dread Forged gear. Fuyri is an Assasin Tank from The Bastion and currently raids with Suckafish doing 8-man content. Watch this Fuyrious Assasin below:

BIS STATS (until Nightmare of Fortress and Palace)

Endurance

Target: 3749

Endurance increases the amount of damage you can suffer before being defeated (Health Pool). You want to spend available points on defensive stats over endurance because it only increases your TTL and not mitigation. A certain amount of endurance however is required to avoid getting 1 shot but you will obtain this by just using the BiS gear.

Shield Chance

Target: 940

Increases the chance that incoming energy or kinetic attacks will be reduced by your shield. This is the least efficient of the defensive stats, but is present on all tanking gear.

Absorption

Target: 1193

Increases the percentage of damage prevented when an attack is absorbed by your shield. This is the most efficient defensive stat for assassin tanks due to the extra 20% shield chance obtained through dark ward.

Defence Chance

Target: 462

Increases the chance to avoid incoming ranged and melee attacks. Another great defensive stat, however unlike shielding attacks this only works on white damage and not tech/force attacks

Accuracy and Alacrity

Target: 0

While these stats can be found on some tanking gear they are terrible you should not have any.

For questions about BiS stats join the discussion here. To read more on the reasoning behind these stats, check out his spreadsheet below.

OFFENSIVE ABILITIES

DEFENSIVE ABILITIES





UTLITY ABILITIES

3-TAUNT-ROTATION

Single taunt — AoE taunt — Single taunt, lasts for about 18 seconds. Unless you are saving your 3rd taunt (aka the 2nd Single taunt) then you should have aggro for at least 18 seconds in the beginning of the fight no matter what. If a DPS pulls after those 18 seconds, it could mean any or all of these things:

He did not threat dump (Bad. The best time for a DPS to hit his threat dump is after he sees the taunt debuff on the boss. This is something everyone should be doing in the hardest tier of PvE content)

He does not have guard

All his abilities were critical hits

Keep in mind though that their threat dump is on a 45 second cooldown. In fights with a lot of target resets where their threat dump or your AoE taunt is off cooldown, you may need to be extra vigilant in keeping aggro on the mob.

1) ROTATIONS: SINGLE TARGET OPENER

A good opening for a tank is one that gives you great initial threat while enabling you to get and keep all your important buffs/debuffs active. Each point here represents a Global Cooldown (GCD), as some abilities are off the GCD you can cast them at the same time and in this situation they’ll fall under the point but you should click the first (or top) one first. The taunts listed in the openings are also optional and should be used when wanting extra early threat at the risk of not having the taunt available while it’s on cooldown.

The Start



1. Dark Ward & Force Pull

2. Wither

3. Discharge (& Taunt)

4. Shock

5. Thrash

If Energize procs:



1. Shock

2. Recklessness & Force Lightning

3. Wither (& AoE Taunt)

If no Energize procs:

or

Thrash again or if “Conspirator’s Cloak” procs use Maul. Then check again for the energize proc.

If 2 attacks without an Energize proc:



1. Recklessness & Wither

2. Force Lightning

3. Shock (& AoE Taunt). After this go into your single target priority.

2) ROTATIONS: SINGLE TARGET PRIORITY

1. Check Dark Ward buff is active.

2. Check Discharge‘s Accuracy Debuff if on the target.

3. If you have 3 stacks of Harnessed Darkness use Force Lightning.

4. Use Wither.

5. Use Shock.

6. Assassinate if the target is below 30% health.

7. Maul if Conspirator’s Cloak proc is active.

8. Thrash if you have >35 force.

9. Saber Strike if you have <35 force.

3) ROTATIONS: 10-METER RANGE

There are some specific situations when it’s best to stay at 10m distance from your target, This will not allow use of any of your melee moves but there are a couple of others you can use to fill the gaps. A good example of this would be Nightmare Operations Chief (because of his melee Flashbang) and Nightmare Dread Guard Council (on Ciphas to push past the Force Storm phase).

Watch it below:

1. Check if Dark Ward buff is active.

2. Check Discharge‘s Accuracy Debuff if on the target.

3. If you have 3 stacks of Harnessed Darkness use Force Lightning.

4. Use Wither.

5. Use Shock.

6. Use Discharge.

7. Use Overload (only use this if all targets it will hit are immune to CC).

8. Use Force Slow.

9. Use Electrocute.

Optional. Use Crushing Darkness. This is optional as you may suffer from pushback when casting making it the less effective than it originally looks.

4) ROTATIONS: AOE THREAT

When Tanking multiple opponents within a small area you want to prioritize your AoE moves (Wither and Discharge) over the rest of your rotation. Holding aggro is more difficult in this situation so maximizing threat is more important than getting the highest self healing possible. Here’s the new priority system.

1. Check Dark Ward buff is active.

4. Use Wither.

2. Use Discharge.

3. If you have 3 stacks of Harnessed Darkness use Force Lightning.

5. Use Shock.

6. Lacerate giving you an almost guaranteed refresh on your shock.

7. Force Pull or a taunt any mobs that peel off to the raid.

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