The Spellslasher assassin is primarily designed to shutdown and destroy spellcasters by combining blackout and powerful condition inflciting dagger attacks. This build can be used very well in the random arenas providing you keep on the move and in gvgs it can solo npcs to a degree but is best suited to to incapacating mesmers and monks.

Attributes and Skills

Assassin / Mesmer	Attribute Rank
Dagger Mastery	12 + 1 + 3
Critical Strikes	8 + 1
Domination Magic	10

Resurrection Signet

Jagged Strike

Temple Strike

Horns of the Ox

Falling Spider

Death Blossom

Dash

Blackout

Equipment

• Armor: You need at least 35 energy to pull of this combo so I recommend full shrouded amour. If you want more defenses take some nightstalkers amour but this can make it hard to pull a combo chain off quickly. Superior vigor is needed to counteract superior critical strikes. You can also take some Rune Of Attunement's for some more extra energy.
• Weapons: Zealous daggers can be a great help and having plus 5 energy can make it easier to spike your combo. If you want to lengthen the dazed duration take silencing dagger tangs this can make all the difference. Take a plus health dagger handle.

Usage

Find an opponent and hunt him down then pull of your attack chain however remember that horns of the ox only knocks down opponents not adjacent to allies so if they are adjacent to allies use death blossom instead to cause multiple damage. If you are attacking a spell caster then wait just until the dazed condition is about to wear off and use dash to quickly get to them and use blackout to add another 5 seconds of incapacitation. While temple strike recharges spam jagged strike and black out.

Counters

• Any anti melee hexes i.e. spiteful spirit reckless hate price of failure will render you useless.
• Being blind will also make you unable to attack.
• Severe energy drain can prevent you from using your attack chain quickly enough to make it effective.
• If you are crippled you can’t keep up with your target and they will just run away.

Variants

If you want self healing you could siphon some points into shadow skills and take shadow refuge and as an elite use beguiling haze. This will daze spellcasters to if you interrupt them. For a a better get away you an also take Death's Charge or any other shadow step skill you like.

Notes

If you see an RC prot or Marty go for them because if you place the dazed condition on someone else it will most likely be removed.