Assassin?

[Ring]

Keep in mind the attack speed cap was raised by quite a bit, even while dual wielding. So attacks like Calc Strike and Psionic Touch are much better now than they were before. Procs like Dual Wield and Shield procs are only bottlenecked by your attack speed.

Ok, now I'm curious, let's try to calculate which is better BTW, what's the attack speed cap now??

Let's say your character does 100 damage with one hit and with attack speed 100% hits once per second (mind you, this is purely theoretical, nothing to do with the real thing). Now let's compare the two skills, shall we??

CALCULATED STRIKE: 1 hit in 4 will do 256 dmg (100+156) and 103 pierce. Also, 1 hit in 12 (approximately) will add 84 damage, +95% pierce or 180 bleeding (over 3 seconds, so 60 DPS). So those 12 hits will do the following dmg:
(9x100)+(3x256)+(3x103)+(approx. 100)=2077 in 12 seconds (1 hit/second)

ONSLAUGHT (numbers in brackets mean charge levels):

110(1)+115(2)+119(3)+126(4)+131(5)+137(6)+142(7)+1 50(8)+(150x4)=1430 So even if we add the +16% attack speed bonus for Ardor, which would give us another hit in those 12 seconds, it only comes up to about 1580 (as compared to almost 2100 with Calculated Strike). Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner

I know the above is a very crude calculation, and can only be looked at as approximate values, but yup, I believe it proves that Calculated Strike wins hands down when it comes to damage.

However, I think I'd still prefer Onslaught because of all the nice passive skills it grants (a 35% reduction in speed and a significant reduction in armor and defensive skill is nothing to sneer at). I guess it all depends upon the player's style. Some are more aggressive, others prefer defense.

EDIT: Hold on, mistake in calculations spotted.

EDIT2: Ok, that should do it.

[raduneo]

Nice comparison!

I don't find Harmstring that useful though. It only slows down movement speed. I'd rather invest those 6 points in something else.

And also keep in mind that the piercing damage from Blade Honing stacks with Calculated Strike, AND that the effective damage dealth to an enemy from Piercing Damage is usually higher than that coming from physical damage (especially on higher difficulties when armors increase significantly!)

It is true though that the Synergy from battle standard might help you there, I use it for my Spellbraker to increase the amount of health converted per attack with my Labrys of the Betrayer. Combined with Dark Covenant and Synergies, and Deathchill aura... I don't even need Life Drain anymore

[Ring]

keep in mind that the piercing damage from Blade Honing stacks with Calculated Strike

I left Blade Honing completely out of the equation, since we're dealing with an Assassin here, and the same bonus applies to both Onslaught and CS.

[raduneo]

Than consider just the fact that you get more Piercing Damage with CS than with Onslaught. (it's true that it's not very helpful against some enemies, like Skeletons particularly)

[Ring]

Which is precisely why I said that CS is the winner when it comes to damage, but sometimes damage isn't everything. It's hardly a secret that the Hunter has the highest DPS at his disposal, but if DPS (especially pierce) was everything, all characters would be running around with Thorny Mauls. Preferably in Dual Wield

[raduneo]

I know damage isn't everything. My Spellbraker isn't a Dual Wielder. (and I did try to re-spec and see how Dual Wielding would work). I chose to focus more on Defense with him, and it's working nicely so far (end of Epic Egypt).

[Vince]

I'm playing Epic as an assassin, and I appreciate the good posts.

I had noticed that when using "Dual Wield," it didn't matter which hand I held the weapons in. It appears that, unlike Diablo, you don't have a "primary hand."

I am using various pieces of equipment that give me five extra levels on every skill. So I have used every passive skill, because 1 skill point gives me six levels.

I have also not been impressed with "Hamstring." I'm not sure if it works on every hit.

[smokes]

I have another question (surprise surprise!)

I am trying out Onslaught at the moment, but the energy cost is so high (I have 350 energy with buffs from my Gfs wanderer). Atm I'm using Soul Feast as my main hand so I get energy leech from mobs with energy which helps a lot, but what happens when I replace this weapon? How do I keep up with energy costs? Especially using War Wind which has a huge energy cost for an Assassin.

[raduneo]

To Vince: Harmstring only affects enemy movement speed, and usually when you're in melee combat, you don't move anymore. You just fight the enemy on the spot, so the skill isn't that useful for close combat. (unless you're a spear user, then with the longer range you could aford to move a bit back and forth between your enemies).

However, this skill has quite a bit of potential if you play a characters using bows, since you really don't want the enemy to reach you, and with the 55% chance to pass through enemies from Puncture Shot (Hunting tree), your arrows will slow down more than one enemy at a time.

To smokes: Personally, I would put a few points into Energy as well (6 or 8 should suffice), and what really helped my melee characters was relics that give you "Mana leech" (you can get it from Spectral matter, and as a bonus for many other completed relics/charm).

And lastly, Warwind helps A LOT when you have mana-leeching capabilities, you can fill an empty mana pool in seconds! (provided that the enemies you used the skill on have a mana pool...)

[Infares]

Marksmanship/Puncture Shot is also a left click attack, unless you're talking about charging up Onslaught and then using Marksmanship before it peters out.

Seems like a waste of points to me.