Assassin

At a glance

1. Damage is crits from behind. Heart Gore fires only after a Critical Hit (5 s cooldown; rank 16 resets it on a crit), and Rear Smite, Ambush and Triniel's Dagger all pay more from the back.
2. Insignia Explosion cashes in Insignias. Savage Roar, Savage Fang, Ambush and Exploit Weakness's clones stack 1–5 Insignias; press it every time it's ready.
3. Burst in one window. Illusive Clone (no Heart Gore cooldown, +20% of damage dealt as extra damage; 10 s at rank 1, 20 s at 20), Swift Contract (+20% Combat Speed) and Savage Fang (5 Insignias) all have 60 s cooldowns since Oct 28.
4. Skill points stop at rank 10. Daevanion adds +4 (14 total); rank 16 needs ring lines and Arcana too.
5. Priority: Heart Gore, Insignia Explosion and Quick Slice to 20; Savage Roar, Storm Rampage and Ambush to 16.
6. Stigmas: Illusive Clone, Swift Contract, Triniel's Dagger, Savage Fang (95%, 95%, 88% and 77% of top global players); Evasion Stance while you learn a fight, Throw Shadowblade for farming.
7. Macro: Insignia Explosion, Heart Gore, Storm Rampage, Ambush, Savage Roar, with Quick Slice held on left mouse; Savage Roar keeps its default right-mouse slot.
8. Passives: Rear Smite, Assault Stance and Exploit Weakness to 10, then Impact Hit and Determination.
9. Gear: damage lines on the weapon and guard (never skills), Heart Gore, Insignia Explosion and Quick Slice lines on the rings, Rear Smite and Assault Stance on armor and jewelry.
10. Spend what is closest to its cap first: Shugo keys (3 a day, cap 12) and Odyle Energy.
11. Use only the game's built-in macro. Mouse macros and third-party tools get accounts banned; Korea lengthened the Savage Roar → Heart Gore cancel delay on Sep 16 to stop mouse macros.

Where the Assassin stands

• Global standing (sources split, A to B): shugo.gg rates it A for PvE (Oct 3 data: top damage in Korean endgame logs, a party damage buff, behind casters on early global meters), MeinMMO A for its burst, metabot B (Nov 4: fewest multi-target attacks, positional) and mobalytics B (Oct 15). metabot and MeinMMO rate it S for PvP; Korea and Taiwan rate it A for PvE.
• Global Combat Power (Nov 8): metabot's typical level-45 Assassin reads 152K. Across the eight classes it reads Assassin 152K, Cleric 143K, Sorcerer 141K, Chanter 136K, Templar 126K, Ranger 124K, Gladiator 119K and Spiritmaster 100K. These follow whichever characters metabot tracks and move from day to day (on Nov 4 the Templar read highest at 134K; on Nov 7 the Spiritmaster read 123K), so treat them as a rough band. The top 25% start at 187K, the top 10% at 212K and the top 1% at 267K (1,273 tracked); EU 135K, NA East 162K, NA West 149K. Assassins were 14.1% of the global top 1,000 by CP on Oct 6 (2nd).
• Damage (Korean meter, Nov 8): median 1.22M for all players (1st of 9; Templar 2nd at 1.10M), 1.25M at 400K+ combat power (1st) and 1.50M at 600K+ (2nd, behind the Gladiator's 1.61M); on Oct 20 it was 1st in all three. The Korean brackets use Korean combat power (the top-80 Korean median is about 1.12M against 268K on global), so read them as a ranking.
• Damage (global meter, AionFlex): below 300K CP the Assassin indexes 88 typical and 87 top in Shattered Arkanis and 87 and 90 in Deus (100 = all players), 7th of 8. Sources split: the Korean meter puts it first.
• What a party wants: Defense Break (−12% Defense, −30% at rank 10 and −50% at 20 for 10 s on Staggered or Impact-hit targets), Savage Fang's 50 Stagger (100 at rank 10), Storm Rampage's damage on Staggered bosses and Triniel's Dagger's +5% to the boss's cooldowns. Assassins are in 41% of Arkanis, 39% of Deus and 66% of Ludra clears (AionFlex).
• Weaknesses: the fewest multi-target attacks (7), damage that depends on standing behind the boss, and a fragile body (base HP 5,702 at 45 against 6,202 for the Gladiator and Templar). metabot rates it Damage 5, Survivability 2, Utility 2 and Ease 2 (Hard).
• Weapon: a dagger with a guard in the off hand.

Current patch: what has changed

Global: the Oct 5 launch and the Oct 7, 9, 14 and 21 patches list no Assassin changes; the global client already has Korea's Sep 23 state. Korea's Oct 7 patch raised skill presets from 3 to 5; global timing is unknown. The Oct 21 patch (Oct 20 PDT) added Krao Cave and Draupnir on Hard (2,600 item level) and a new Ariel Daevanion board (see Gear score milestones), raised the Abyss player cap and Abyss boss HP, and fixed title effects that didn't match their tooltips. The Oct 28 patch (Oct 27 PDT) raised the Assassin's base HP at 45 from 4,702 to 5,702, raised Heightened Sixth Sense's HP to 1,000 / 2,000 / 4,000 at ranks 5 / 10 / 20 and cut Illusive Clone's cooldown from 90 s to 60 s, so it now comes back with Swift Contract and Savage Fang (metabot's stigma guide still lists 90 s). The same patch cut boss Attack and HP in Expedition and Transcendence, added Urugugu Canyon and Vakron Sky Island on Hard (2,700) and raised crafted gear's Amplify caps. The Nov 4 patch (Nov 3 PST) opened Abyssal Forge: Ludra, made Draupnir, Vakron and Horn Den Exploration pay like Conquest, added always-succeed True and Star Dragon recipes, pet souls from Expedition and Transcendence, and Chaotic Outer Reshanta (PvP with equalised stats); no class changes.

Level-by-level checklist

Follow the yellow main-story quests to 45; they pay 97–99% of the EXP. Each sealed dungeon clear also gives 2 Daevanion points, 2 skill points, 15,000 Kinah and 1,250 Enhance Stones. Levels 30–39 are slow, so fill the gap with sealed dungeons.

The last column is the highest rank you can buy by the end of each band. A skill learned by level 17 gains a rank every 3 levels (rank 8 at unlock level + 18, rank 10 at + 24); skills learned at 21 or later have no gate. Skill points run 16 at level 10, 61 at 20, 111 at 30, 171 at 40 and 203 at 45.

Leveling extras: don't open the Journal Duty tab before level 45 (a launch bug delays Duty content until the day after you reach 45); collect 40 feathers early (120 shards) for an amulet upgrade; clear hideouts at levels 15, 20 and 25; at the cap, do the Shugo activities and a map sweep. a2g's start build takes Quick Slice, Savage Roar, Insignia Explosion and Heart Gore to 12 and everything else to 8.

Leveling playbook (a2g). Packs: Savage Fang (5 Insignias), Insignia Explosion, then Whirlwind Slice; Throw Shadowblade resets on a kill for the next pull. Elites: get behind, then Ambush, Savage Roar to stack Insignias, Insignia Explosion and Heart Gore on crits. Keep Quick Slice on left mouse for MP, and take the weapon to about +10 while leveling.

After 45, in order:

1. Regional quests (accessory and rune slots).
2. Every remaining sealed dungeon.
3. Strongholds (Noble Belt scrolls).
4. Conquest, gated by total item level: Krao Cave and Draupnir at 700, Urugugu Canyon and Vakron Sky Island at 1,400, Fire Temple and Ferocious Horn Den at 2,100. Run the highest you qualify for.
5. Transcendence from item level 1,600 (stages to 2,500) for Arcana; see Transcendence dungeons for which one to farm.
6. Nightmare (Pantheon fragments) and Abyss (stigma shards, Daevanion resources).
7. The Ludra raid (Abyssal Forge: Ludra, open since Nov 4) needs 2,800 item level for Normal and 3,000 for Hard; until then, the top steps are Krao Cave and Draupnir on Hard (2,600) and Urugugu Canyon and Vakron Sky Island on Hard (2,700).

How skills level up (and how to reach 16)

Skill points only buy ranks 1–10 (13 points to rank 8, 21 to rank 10). Everything above comes from the sources below.

Daevanion alone reaches 14, never 16. Rank 16 needs two more levels from rings or Arcana. No global skill cap is published (client tables run to 40): the theoretical ceiling for an active is 10 points + 4 Daevanion + 4 gear + 8 Arcana = 26, and the Ariel board adds no ranks. Top global players average 14–17 on their main skills.

Rank 16 adds only part of the damage listed here (the "+% Attack" part doesn't grow). Its real value is the specializations: Heart Gore's reset on a crit, Quick Slice's guaranteed crit, Insignia Explosion's −3 s and Storm Rampage's −1 s to all cooldowns. Base damage from the client tooltips:

Priority:

1. Skill nodes for core skills on every board (12 points per active for +4).
2. Heart Gore, Insignia Explosion and Quick Slice lines on both rings.
3. Parchment lines on the same three (Parchment rolls all of them), Compass lines on Savage Roar, Storm Rampage or Ambush.
4. Stop at rank 8 on skills where you only want one specialization.
5. Treat 12, 16 and 20 as the breakpoints (a2g); 13 or 15 isn't worth chasing.

Point budget. Maxing every active and passive to rank 10 costs about 460, so spend in this order (cheap early ranks first, ranks 9–10 last):

All seven rows fit inside the 203 points from levels alone; sealed-dungeon and regional-quest points go to Determination, Ambush Stance, Heightened Sixth Sense and the utility skills.

Active skills

The last column is the share of 5,819 top Korean PvE Assassins with the skill at rank 16 or higher, then 20 or higher (Korean data); in brackets, the average rank of 1,161 top global Assassins (metabot).

On a dummy (Arthars, via a2g), Heart Gore does about 30% of the damage and Insignia Explosion about 25%; every other skill is 6% or less. Back uptime is 100% on a dummy and 60–80% in real fights.

Specializations

You have three slots, which open at rank 8, 12 and 20. Each option has its own minimum rank (8, 12 or 16), so at rank 16 you fill two slots from options up to 16.

Guides number options differently; read the tooltip.

Passives

Each rank adds the same amount, but ranks 9–10 cost 4 points each, so take the key passives to 8 first and Rear Smite, Assault Stance and Exploit Weakness to 10 later. Sources split on order: teivor (questlog) ranks Rear Smite, Assault Stance, Impact Hit, then Exploit Weakness; a2g rolls Rear Smite, Exploit Weakness, Determination and Impact Hit on gear and skips Apply Poison and Defense Break. Target is the rank to buy with points; fillers get ranks 2–4 (1 point each) only if points are spare.

Stigmas

Global has four slots (22, 27, 32, 37) and stigmas level to 20; Korea goes to 25. Any stigma fits any slot (the slot column is top players' layout), and the rank 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 bonuses unlock on their own.

• Global top players (metabot, 1,161): Illusive Clone 95% (average rank 16.7), Swift Contract 95% (14.6), Triniel's Dagger 88% (10.9), Savage Fang 77% (9.4), Throw Shadowblade 49%, Evasion Stance 45%, Shadow Walk 36%.
• Upgrade order (sources split): a2g and Nellan97 take Illusive Clone to 20 first, then Swift Contract 15 → 20; XifanGG goes Swift Contract 10, Illusive Clone 15, Swift Contract 20, then Illusive Clone 20. All agree on the targets: Illusive Clone 20, Swift Contract 20, Savage Fang 15, Triniel's Dagger 10 (200 shards).
• Korean rates (owned at 20+, Korean data): Illusive Clone 92%, Swift Contract 88%, Triniel's Dagger 81%, Throw Shadowblade 80%, Savage Fang 75%, Evasion Stance 73%. Stigma Shards: Abyss shop (200), Nightmare shop (52,500 fragments for 35), Shugo shop (10,500 tokens for 35).

Rotation and macro

Set up: most-liked community builds now put the macro skills in one or two stacks and run a 1–2 step macro over them, held with left mouse; a macro step presses a whole slot (see Community builds for this class's stacks). The per-slot layout below is the simpler fallback: give every macro skill its own hotbar slot first (see Hotbar setup). Then open the Skill menu (K) → Macros → Add Macro, add the skills in the order shown, and bind the macro key under Settings → Key Settings → General → Gameplay → Macro. Bind it to a side mouse button and hold it together with left mouse, so right mouse keeps the bar's last slot (see Hotbar setup). Use 10 ms between steps and turn on Skill Queue.

• Opener (XifanGG, via a2g): Illusive Clone and Swift Contract, Shadowstrike for its +20% Crit Damage, Savage Fang, then Triniel's Dagger right away to cut your cooldowns. For the next 20 s it is Heart Gore after Heart Gore; use Flash Slice to stay behind.
• Burst together: since Oct 28 Illusive Clone, Swift Contract and Savage Fang all have 60 s cooldowns, so press them in the same window, and never spend Illusive Clone on trash.
• Stay behind: Shadowstrike, Flash Slice and Infiltrate all put you behind the target; keep them for positioning, not damage. delcatta sets the Boss Orientation Indicator to Back (Esc → Settings → Info Display → Combat).
• Stagger: Storm Rampage only fires on a Staggered boss; there, every hit takes 1 s off all cooldowns at 16, which brings the buffs back.
• Keep the stigmas by hand: Arthars presses all four himself so the buffs don't go off out of sync; j0ei never puts Shadowstrike, Flash Slice or Infiltrate in the macro.
• Mana: Quick Slice and Heart Gore each restore 100 MP.
• Use the game's built-in macro only.

Hotbar setup

• Left mouse: Quick Slice, held together with the macro key. Right mouse (RMB): Savage Roar, the Assassin's default right-mouse skill and the macro's last step.
• Q (get behind): Shadowstrike, then Infiltrate after a Dodge. E: Flash Slice, to move to the target's other side.
• Buff key 1: Illusive Clone, then Swift Contract on the same key; press it twice. 2: Savage Fang. 3: Triniel's Dagger, straight after the buffs.
• Macro slots 4–7 and RMB, in step order: Insignia Explosion, Heart Gore, Storm Rampage, Ambush, Savage Roar.
• 8: Whirlwind Slice, then Shadow Fall (Stunned targets only), pressed by hand.
• Swap-ins: Evasion Stance and Throw Shadowblade are optional stigmas, and each takes the key of the stigma it replaces: Evasion Stance takes Savage Fang's key 2 or Triniel's Dagger's key 3, and Throw Shadowblade takes Savage Fang's key 2 in teivor's and alan218's farming builds.
• Reach: hand-pressed skills take the keys closest to WASD (Q, E, then 1–3) and the macro steps take the far ones, since the macro presses those for you. Put the most time-critical skills (the moves that get you behind the target) on Q and E.
• Defiance can't be slotted: the stun break fires with Space, so it never needs a bar slot (sources split: some questlog builds still stack it).
• Stacking: a slot holds up to four skills. A press fires the lowest one that is ready; if it is on cooldown or its condition isn't met, it falls to the next one up. Put cooldown and conditional skills at the bottom and spam skills on top.
• Stacks and macros: a macro step presses a whole slot, so a step on a stacked slot fires that stack's first ready skill. Top community builds put the macro skills in one stack (usually right mouse) and hold it with left mouse, or run a 1–3 step macro over stacks; see Community builds, and test it on a dummy.
• Keep out of the macro: the four stigmas (the buffs go off out of sync), the dashes that put you behind the target (Shadowstrike, Flash Slice, Infiltrate), and emergency skills.
• Slots: the bar has 12. The last four are Q, E, left mouse (LMB) and right mouse (RMB). Every class starts with its basic attack on LMB and a second skill on RMB (T is RMB's keyboard key). Put the macro on a side mouse button so RMB keeps that skill; binding the macro to right mouse pushes the slot onto T. Rebind slots under Settings → Key Settings → Quickslot, and treat this layout as a suggestion.

Daevanion boards

Buy the blue nodes for Heart Gore, Insignia Explosion, Quick Slice and Savage Roar first (that gets the big three to 14), then the orange corners, then the green passives (Rear Smite, Assault Stance, Exploit Weakness, Impact Hit), routing through Attack and Crit greys. Costs: grey 1, green 2, blue 3, orange 4; each node must touch one you own. Percentages are pick rates among 1,259 top global Assassins (metabot).

metabot's editorial text starts with Nezekan's Assault Stance and Exploit Weakness pairs, then Zikel's Defense Break; its own top-player data puts the big three's skill nodes and the corners first, as above.

Recommended board setups

Numbered nodes are phase 1: buy them in that order, starting next to the center star. Outlined nodes are phase 2. Faded nodes with a red X are skips; a dimmed node without an X is only a connector. Global corners give +1.5% each.

Layouts are from the metabot global planner. The four PvE boards hold 570 points; this plan spends 379 of them (phase 1: 262, phase 2: 117), which leaves about 37 of the roughly 416 you can earn for extra Attack or Crit greys. Crystals come from leveling (~136), sealed dungeons (~122), regional quests (~58) and the Shugo and Nightmare shops (50 each per character).

Ariel board (added Oct 21): a sixth board whose points come only from Daevanion Crystal: Ariel, morphed from Ariel Fragments from all four Hard Expeditions (Krao Cave and Draupnir at 2,600; guaranteed in Urugugu Canyon and Vakron at 2,700); 100 fragments make one crystal (+1 gear score). Cap: 30 per character in the patch text, 30 per dungeon (120) per two community guides. Layout: 152 nodes and 232 points, with PvE Damage Boost and PvE Damage Tolerance cores, smaller PvE stat nodes and no skill nodes; nobody can fill it yet.

Gear

Attack and Crit first, damage lines on the weapon and guard, Heart Gore, Insignia Explosion and Quick Slice lines on the rings, and Rear Smite and Assault Stance on armor and jewelry. Sources split on stat order: metabot ranks Attack, Crit (cap 50%), Back Attack Damage Boost, Accuracy, then Evasion (cap 30%); Korean top players rank Back Attack Damage Boost, Attack, then HP.

• Weapon and guard: Might, Combat Speed, Weapon Damage Boost, Multi-hit and Damage Boost; never skill lines (a2g).
• Skill lines: rings carry Heart Gore (43 of 45 questlog stages), Insignia Explosion (42), Quick Slice (39) and Savage Roar (12); armor carries Rear Smite, then Assault Stance; earrings Assault Stance, Rear Smite and Impact Hit.
• Accessories (top global Assassins): Kromede jewelry, Noble Belt (91%), Revelation Amulet (90%), Clash Rune (98%).
• Back Attack Damage Boost is a rare Superior manastone roll that ignores the target's Block from behind; keep it whenever it appears (metabot).
• Theostone: Tiamat's Rage for PvE, a low-chance, high-damage single-target proc (metabot).

Arcana: Parchment rolls Quick Slice, Shadowstrike, Heart Gore, Whirlwind Slice, Shadow Fall and Insignia Explosion; Compass rolls Savage Roar, Ambush, Storm Rampage, Flash Slice, Infiltrate and Defiance; Bell rolls Heightened Sixth Sense, Apply Poison, Assault Stance, Ambush Stance and Revitalization Contract; Mirror rolls Exploit Weakness, Rear Smite, Impact Hit, Defense Break and Determination; Chalice rolls any skill. Chase Parchment for the big three, Mirror for Rear Smite and Exploit Weakness, Compass for Savage Roar, Storm Rampage and Ambush, and Bell for Assault Stance. Top global Assassins run Chalice of Vigor (61%), Parchment of Vigor (43%; Magic 16%), Compass of Vigor (37%; Magic 22%), Bell of Magic (43%; Vigor 16%) and Mirror of Vigor (41%; Magic 18%). a2g runs four Primal Vigor cards.

Crit, back attacks and Accuracy

• Heart Gore fires only after a Critical Hit, so Crit drives the whole loop; metabot caps crit chance at 50%. Exploit Weakness (+290 Crit at rank 20), Quick Slice's rank-16 option (always crits) and Savage Fang's rank-20 bonus (guaranteed crit) all feed it.
• Back attacks: Rear Smite adds Back Attack and PvE Damage Boost, Ambush and Triniel's Dagger add +30% from behind, and Swift Contract's rank-10 bonus multiplies Rear Smite by 1.5. Expect 60–80% back uptime in real fights.
• Accuracy comes fourth in metabot's order. Hits from behind can't be parried, and Quick Slice's rank-16 option ignores Block and Evasion.
• Evasion is your only defensive stat worth chasing (cap 30%); Heightened Sixth Sense adds +200 and heals on Evasion.
• Check your parry rate per boss in the in-game Combat Analysis.

Gear economy

Gear by item level (level 45). Only item level moves at the cap. This table is per piece; the dungeon gates under "After 45" use your total item level.

• Craft chain: True Dragon Lord (62), Splendent (70), White (78), Splendent (86), Wise (94), Splendent Wise (102). Each step has a 25% chance of the Splendent version. Asmodian names: Star, Dark, Ebony.
• Mastery: True Dragon Lord pieces need crafting mastery 55 or 60, and mastery stops at 50 until you finish the upgrade quest.
• Don't waste: Enhance Stones on Common or Rare gear, or on Legend (blue) pieces you'll replace (the belt and amulet are the exception); Superior manastones on gear you'll replace; restarting a craft (upgrades carry enhancement, amplification and soul binding forward); Abyss Points on Potential, which gives only PvP stats.

Enhancement (Unique gear, max +15). +10 is guaranteed. +11 to +15 succeed 65, 50, 35, 25 and 20%, with +5% after each failure. A failure only costs materials. Expect about 22 attempts, 15M Kinah and 191,000 Enhance Stones to reach +15 on item level 102 gear. Keep the weapon at +10 until you have the final one. Amplified Enhancement comes after +15: its steps succeed 66, 50, 33, 25 and 20% (with pity), and item level caps it at +1 for 54–62, +3 for 70 and +5 for 86 and up. Since Oct 28, crafted Dragon Lord gear has the same caps (True and Star +3, White and Dark +5), and Gear Transfer can move enhancement from Expedition gear onto crafted gear.

Soul binding (Unique gear only). It unlocks random stats and makes the item untradeable. The first step costs 30,000 Kinah and 10 Soul Codex, the tenth 632,000 Kinah and 102 Soul Codex. Rebinding costs 300,000 Kinah and 3 Soul Codex.

Manastones. Slots by grade: Common 1, Rare 2, Legend (blue) 3, Unique 4 (amulet, belt and rune have none). Jewelry takes Soulstones from the same pools. Engraving fills every slot at once for 500–2,000 Kinah by gear grade and can't fail, and each line adds gear score (+1 grey to +4 yellow).

• Attack, Defense, Accuracy, Evasion, Crit and Crit Resist each roll about 10% of the time; Combat Speed and cooldown stats can't be rolled.
• Rerolling overwrites the old stat and consumes the stone. Enhancing keeps stones; dismantling gear destroys them.
• Use regular stones for PvE; Abyssal stones split a third of rolls onto PvP stats.
• Lesser stones drop; Alchemy crafts the rest. 5 Lesser, 3 Spiritstone Powder and 2 Professional Ink make an Intermediate (mastery 20), with a 20% chance of a Superior; the dedicated Superior recipe is 30 Intermediate, 10 Powder and 2 Exceptional Ink at mastery 85.

Theostones (Epic and Unique weapons only). A weapon engraving with a chance to proc on attack; identical stones don't stack.

• PvE pick (Assassin): Tiamat's Rage, a low-chance, high-damage single-target proc; your fast hits rarely run into its 1-second activation cooldown (metabot).
• How to get them: the 3 regional quests per faction (Rare chest plus 100,000 Kinah each), the Abyss Trade Shop Selection Chest (35,000 Abyss Points), the Season Shop (17,500 Oath Coin, limit 10), the Arena shop (1 Arena Token, 5 per week) and Daeva Pass.
• Upgrading: combining gives Rare to Epic 11.1% and Epic to Unique 9.1%; Unique stones come only from combining.

Consumables. Battle Enhance Scroll gives +10% Damage Boost and +10% Damage Tolerance for 5 minutes (quests, achievements and attendance, or the Season Shop for 6,000 Oath Coin, limit 10 per account; the shop closes Dec 16). Courage Scroll gives +10% Combat Speed for 5 minutes (1,000 Kinah). Food is defensive only.

Check your numbers in game. Use the in-game Combat Analysis for parry rates and rotation. Third-party macros and tools risk bans, and I can't confirm third-party meters are safe.

Essence Extraction (gathering)

Essence Extraction is the game's one gathering skill: Ore, Gem, Log, Herb, Cooking Ingredient and Odyle nodes in Verteron, Altgard and Chaotic Lower Reshanta (Odyle also in the Expeditions). It feeds crafting (Dragon Lord gear, manastones) and the Radiant Odyle that unseals dungeon wings. Each node gives two to four extractions; the minigame fills a blue Success gauge against an orange Failure gauge, and your odds improve with use.

• Cap at Novice 50: proficiency stops at level 50 until you finish "[Upgrade] Essence Extraction Specialty Skill" (Korius for Elyos, Alzirr for Asmodians): extract one Splendent Ruby from a Ruby node (Elyos: around the Verteron Fortress Ruins; Asmodians: near Quay Campsite and Calderon Canyon) and hand it in. Professional runs 51–100.
• Fast proficiency: Orichalcum, Raydam, Azpha and Odyle nodes. Odyle sits in the air, and running out of flight stamina cancels the extraction. Since Oct 28, gathering needs level 45 and is capped at 1,000 extractions per server per day.

Points. Every proficiency level gives a Common point (45 by level 50, 95 by level 100). Specialty points come every 10 levels, two at 50, 80, 90 and 100 (6 by level 50, 14 by level 100).

Levels 1–5 cost 1 to 5 points (15 per skill, Novice); levels 6–10 cost 5 each (25 more, Professional).

• Novice: all three to 5, which is exactly the 45 points you have.
• Professional: the 50 extra points max two skills. Take Lady Luck and Proficient Handling to 10 (both fire on successes, and the ×2.5 or ×4 boost likely multiplies Proficient Handling's gain) and keep Delicate Touch at 5; swap it in if failures keep ending your extractions on high-level nodes. This split is my reading of the tooltips; no guide publishes one.

Specialty skills. Every node type has the same tree, 7 points to max: Seeker (1 point, shows that node type on the minimap), Plentiful Harvest (3 levels: 10, 20 or 30% chance of double materials) and Appraiser (3 levels: 10, 20 or 30% chance to reroll to a higher grade; for Cooking Ingredients it rerolls the quantity). Only level 1 of each opens at Novice, and 14 points max two of the six trees.

Check in game whether the points can be reset before you commit.

Gear score milestones

Gear score is the item level shown under your character level, and it gates almost all level-45 content. Climb it in the order below: each bracket lists what opens, what to do and what to skip.

What counts. Every equipped piece's item level, plus +1 per enhancement level, +5 per Amplify level, manastone lines (+1 grey, +2 green, +3 blue, +4 yellow), +1 per Daevanion point spent, +40 per Clash Rune, +3 per Rare Theostone, and Arcana cards (+20 / 40 / 60 / 80 by grade, +1 per card level). Each Ariel crystal adds +1. Soul binding, skill points, Stigmas, titles, pets and Genus Insight, the Pantheon and the closet raise Combat Power only; sources split on whether wings add gear score.

Gates are from the global client data (metabot, Corpus). Some creator videos quote 1,500, 2,200 and 2,700 instead; the client wins.

Combat Power

Combat Power (CP) is the server's own rating and NC hasn't published the formula. It weights attack over defense (Korean estimates: Attack 1.25, Defense 1, secondary stats 0.25, about 100 per 1% stat). Gates check item level only, but party finders ask for CP, and global CP runs about a quarter of Korean CP.

The targets are AionFlex entry CP (the 25th percentile of players who killed the boss, Nov 7). The cheapest CP comes from Stigmas, Daevanion points, titles and Genus Insight, which need no new gear.

Raising Combat Power, easiest first

CP also counts systems that gear score ignores, so the cheapest gains need no new gear. Work down this list:

1. Spend every point. Unspent skill and Daevanion points are free CP, and Daevanion nodes opened track CP almost as closely as item level (median 98 nodes in the bottom fifth of players, 255 in the top fifth).
2. Level your Stigmas. Each Stigma Shard spent is worth about +100 CP, and filling all four can add 20K+; Korean figures put ranks 1–5 at about 0.9K per stigma, 5–10 at 2K, 10–15 at 3.5K and 15–20 at 6K.
3. Collect titles. Every title you own counts, not just the three you wear: titles owned track CP almost as closely as item level (median 44 in the bottom fifth, 191 at the top). Sightseer, Rift and Monolith titles are quick, and artwork titles (Journey's Path, Hero's Footsteps, Click) come with normal play.
4. Collect wings and pets. Owned wing effects, pets and Genus Insight add CP without gear score; pet souls now drop in Expedition and Transcendence runs.
5. Put a Theostone on the weapon and the guard. The guard is the one people forget.
6. Favour Attack when a roll is a toss-up. Korean estimates weigh Attack and main stats at 1.25 per point, Defense 1, secondary stats 0.25, HP 0.05, and percentage lines (Damage Boost, Boss Damage) about 100 per 1%, so offensive manastones and Arcana move CP most.
7. Then enhance, add Arcana and Amplify. Average enhancement rises from +1.7 below 60K CP to +9 at 110K+; about 5 Arcana cards separate players over 90K from those under 70K, and Amplify shows up only above 90K. A higher-item-level weapon is worth about +4,000 CP and Statue: Transcendent Bakarma about +1,000.

CP rates stats, not play: spreading points over more skills can raise it while weakening your build, and tanks and healers score lower than damage dealers of the same strength. Don't break a build to chase the number; groups that gatekeep on CP usually exempt Clerics.

Level 45 to 1,000: finish the free gear

• Story and quests: finish the main story and the last Ascension and Abyss quests for the Spiritforged weapon (Unique, 45), guard and bracelet.
• Clash Runes: open both rune chests from the Verteron or Altgard regional quests; at +40 each, two runes alone carried one creator to 1,000.
• Belt and amulet: Stronghold scrolls (2 per home Stronghold) take the Noble Belt to +10, and Monolith Resonance scrolls (one per home Monolith level, so feed it Empyrean Trace feathers) take the Revelation Amulet to +10; enhancing them always succeeds. Then Substance Morph each one (Alt+H → Gear; at +10 and unequipped, always succeeds, returns at +0) from Rare (item 13) to Legend, the blue grade some guides call Epic (item 36, +23 each).
• Spend: every Daevanion point (+1 each), and the Spiritforged weapon to +10 (about 406,000 Kinah and 16,000 Enhance Stones).
• Odyle: bank it for 1,400, where Vakron and Urugugu pay more per point, but never let it reach the 560 cap.

1,000 to 1,400: points, not drops

• Daevanion crystals: clear every sealed dungeon (2 each, +122 total) and the regional quests (+58). Feathers to Monolith level 16 give 36 Azphel crystals, and the Nightmare and Shugo shops sell 50 each (+100).
• Belt and amulet to Unique: take each Legend piece to +10 (+10 gear score each; about 1.58M Kinah and 63,000 Enhance Stones per piece), then Substance Morph it to Unique (item 65, +29 each). Unique also goes to +10 (+10 more each, about 5M Kinah per piece) when Kinah allows.
• Clash Runes to +1, then stop: +1 always succeeds; +2 is 80%, then 66, 50 and 33%, down to 10% at +10, and sources disagree on whether a failure drops a level or destroys the rune.
• Weapon, guard, bracelet to +10, with one grey or green manastone line each. The Spiritforged Guard comes from the Abyss (Forgotten Commander).
• Every Unique piece to +10: enhancing to +10 always succeeds, so finish the +6 and +7 pieces you already wear (+1 gear score per level).
• Fill every manastone slot: gear arrives with open slots (Rare 2, Legend 3, Unique 4; jewelry takes Soulstones). Engraving fills them all at once for 500–2,000 Kinah and can't fail. Grey or green lines (+1 or +2) are enough on pieces you'll replace; Lesser stones drop from named level-45 mobs in your home region and Lower Reshanta, and the Abyss shop sells 50 Lesser Abyssal stones a week (1,000 Abyss Points each). Fifty-odd slots at +2 is over +100.
• Swap leftover quest pieces for item-54 Unique: Draupnir Conquest drops Bakarma armor, and Krao Cave Conquest drops Berk necklace, earrings and rings (and Rupture weapons). Replacing an item-40 piece is +14 before enhancing; the usual weak slots are the helm, pants, necklace, earrings, second ring and a quest bracelet.
• Worked example (a 1,231 Chanter, Oct 15): +6 Unique gloves, boots, cloak and ring, a +7 bracelet, a +0 Legend belt and amulet, item-40 helm, pants, necklace and earrings, and few manastones. Finishing the +10s (+19), belt and amulet to Unique (+78) and green manastones cover the 169 it needed; two or three item-54 swaps add a margin.
• New content: start Ascension Trial (Easy), Subjugation and Arena; this is where parry rates first show up, so check Accuracy (see Accuracy).
• Skip: enhancing item-43 quest gear past +5, Clash Runes past +1, Superior manastones, or anything you'll replace at 1,400.

1,400 to 2,800: the full route

Odyle Energy sets the pace until about 2,500, then Kinah and Enhance Stones. A claim is one cube at 40 Odyle: regeneration pays for about 21 a week, the shop about 20 more (4 per character, 16 per server), and the Odyle Energy Boost mails 4 a day until Nov 10, so farm hardest now.

Times come from published drop rates and one creator's pace (2,500 in two weekly resets with membership; expect four or five without), not measured player data.

• Guaranteed picks: every 21 claims at Vakron and Urugugu, every 28 at Fire Temple and Horn Den. Fire Temple's never offers the weapon (3 vouchers, 2M Kinah and an off-class Enraged Kromede weapon, about 84 claims) and Horn Den's never offers the guard. Since Nov 4, Draupnir, Vakron and Horn Den Exploration pay like Conquest (same guaranteed-pick count, Amplify Stone Fragments, bound crafting materials), but their Kinah shrinks after 40 runs, to 20% from run 71.
• Gear-score math: a one-tier swap (54 → 70 → 86 → 102) is +16 at the same enhancement; +1 per enhancement level, and +10 → +15 costs about 12M Kinah and 130,000 Enhance Stones per item-86 piece for +5; Amplify (after +15) is +5 a level, about 6.3M Kinah and 58 Amplify Stones for three levels; manastone lines are +1 (grey) to +4 (yellow), 64 lines on a full Unique set; Arcana is +20 per grade plus +1 per card level (a full Unique set at +5 is 425).
• Crafting beats farming only for the weapon (about 240M Kinah to item 102, with 5 Soul Binding lines against Kromede's 3). Since Oct 28, Kromede and Nuakum enhancement can move down onto crafted gear, so enhancing them isn't wasted. Since Nov 4, True and Star Dragon gear also has an always-succeed recipe (bound, no Great Success).
• Bracelets stay at item 43 until Ludra; no other source has been found.
• Assassin: the weapon and guard carry the damage lines (Might, Combat Speed, Weapon Damage Boost), so take them before accessory picks: the Vakron Guard (2 vouchers) at 70 and the Nuakum Guard (3 vouchers; 37% of top global Assassins, average +14.2) at 86. The Enraged Kromede Silver Dagger is the item-86 weapon most top global Assassins run (29%, average +14.7); a crafted Splendent Ebony Dragon Lord Dagger (14%, average +15) is the 102 route.

2,600 and 2,700: Hard Expeditions and the Ariel board

• Krao Cave and Draupnir on Hard (2,600, Oct 21) and Urugugu Canyon and Vakron Sky Island on Hard (2,700, Oct 28): a 4-minute boss Frenzy timer and 3 revives per player.
• Rewards: a chance at Philosopher's Stone: Revelation (or pick it as the guaranteed reward), every Unique crafting material, Wrathful Mind, Will and Ego, Ariel Fragments (guaranteed at Urugugu and Vakron), more Kinah than Normal, and Expedition Hero Artwork. Hard achievements give Unique skins.
• Claims and checks: 40 Odyle per claim and 60–90 Ariel Fragments per final-boss cube (client data); the guaranteed pick comes after 28 claims per one guide (another says 14 at Krao Cave and Draupnir, 21 at Urugugu). Stagger Berk at about 50% and hide behind rocks for Wave of Fury; stop attacking during Lakshmi's reflection and before Raur's Counterstrike Stance; stack for Auldor's Tempest Strike; at Thamon, red means physical stops and purple magic stops. Entry CP runs 147–151K at 2,600 and 161–163K at 2,700.
• Ariel Fragments: Substance Morph turns 100 into a Daevanion Crystal: Ariel (up to 30 per character in the patch text; one guide reads it as 30 per dungeon) and 1 into 5 Enhance Stones with no limit.
• Ariel board: a new Daevanion board whose points come only from those crystals; 152 nodes and 232 points, with PvE Damage Boost and Tolerance cores and no skill nodes.

2,800 and up: Ludra

• Abyssal Forge: Ludra opened Nov 4: Normal at 2,800 item level, Hard at 3,000, with a 1-hour limit per run; Normal drops the same item types as Hard at lower rates. The first 20 parties per region to clear Hard get titles, and anyone who clears either mode before Nov 24 gets Ludra's Nemesis.
• Drops: Ludra's weapon and guard, Abyssal Bracelets (Amplify up to 3), Sealed Abyssal Waves Wings and Artwork: Abyssal Ludra. Take a Gear Change Voucher as the guaranteed reward: Substance Morph turns one into a weapon selection chest, and 6 Ludra vouchers (or 3 Hard ones) make Ludra's Bracelet (Amplify up to 5); 2 Normal vouchers trade for 1 Hard voucher.
• Fire Temple and Ferocious Horn Den on Hard are in the client at 2,800 but locked (a Nov 4 hotfix removed the Hard option that briefly showed); the client also lists higher Conquest tiers and Korean raids at 3,500 and 4,300.
• Format: 10 players in two parties of five, 2 revives, and one counted final-boss kill a week (Wednesday reset); the bosses are level 75. As of Nov 7 there were 11 Eternal Ludra kills on Normal and none on Hard.
• Ready gear (community): Kromede weapon and Nuakum guard at +16 to +18, armor +10 to +15; for Hard, desolo targets +16 everywhere, +17 weapons and all 120 Ariel crystals. Parties ask about 175–190K CP for Normal and 200K+ for Hard.
• Reactor: break the auxiliary reactors.
• Rahu and Ketu (split boss): pass Rahu's SOS Bomb on (3 failures wipe the party); on Ketu the tank blocks the jump, face the red side and turn away from the blue, and the crystals give immunity.
• Eternal Ludra: berserk at 10:00; the red tower needs a blocker, then come two Bingo grids, a colour split and the Thunder Zone. The Reactor and Ludra details come from early-access and client data (mobalytics live guides), so expect changes.
• Loot: sites disagree whether the guaranteed voucher comes every 2 or every 4 kills, and a specific Ludra weapon drops at about 0.3–0.6% per kill, so plan on vouchers. A crafted Splendent Wise or Ebony (102) weapon matches a Ludra weapon's Attack at max enhancement with more lines, so the Ludra weapon is the no-craft route and Ludra's Heart and the bracelets are the real upgrades. Ludra Hunt titles have no stats.
• Assassin duties: stay behind the boss while the tank turns it, call stagger checks with Savage Fang (100 Stagger at rank 10), and keep Evasion Stance for telegraphed hits; Korea's Jan 7 notes let Evasion Stance answer Eternal Ludra's Red Mana Orb (Korean data). Watch the frontal, wing and tail animations and save your burst for the Groggy window after Bingo (expcarry). Assassins are in 65.6% of uploaded Ludra clears (AionFlex, 1,463 clears).

Rules for every bracket

• Spend Odyle on the highest tier you can enter, and never let it cap (560, or 840 with membership). Membership reportedly also allows two Odyle injections per Expedition or Transcendence cube (80 Odyle for double rewards) and makes Sanctuary cubes eligible; NC hasn't published global numbers.
• Open every Conquest and Transcendence cube: leaving one unopened burns the shared 10-per-week counter, and at 0 you can't enter until Wednesday's reset.
• Enhancement priority is weapon, guard, bracelet, then the rest; only enhance past +5 on gear you'll keep.
• Belt and amulet morphs are once per character per grade; the 20-per-server weekly cap added Oct 6 covers only turning Sealed Wings into Enhance Stones. Grades run Common, Rare (green), Legend (blue; some guides say Epic), Unique (gold).

Assassin at each bracket. At 1,000, the Spiritforged Dagger and guard go to +10 first. At 1,400, Vakron armor and guard (item 70) and an Aulamus Dagger; put Heart Gore, Insignia Explosion and Quick Slice lines on the rings. At 1,600, a Parchment comes first, since it rolls all three of those skills. At 2,100, the Enraged Kromede Silver Dagger from Fire Temple and Nuakum armor and guard from Ferocious Horn Den. Past that, questlog stages move to a crafted Splendent Ebony (7 of 45) or Wise (4) Dragon Lord Dagger; only one plans Ludra's Claw.

Transcendence dungeons

Season 1 (to Dec 16) has two Transcendence dungeons: Deus Research Base drops Bell, Compass and Chalice cards, and Shattered Arkanis drops Mirror, Parchment and Chalice. Farm the one whose card slots your build still needs; for the Assassin, start with Shattered Arkanis.

Best dungeon by class:

• Rewards: entry is free; taking the cube spends a reward count (1 per 12 hours, cap 14) and 40 Odyle. Every cube costs the same, so spend counts on the highest stage your group clears reliably.
• Sets don't decide the dungeon: both drop Vigor and Magic cards; the card slot does. The version you keep decides your Empyrean Lord stat (see Empyrean Lord stats and Pantheon). Duplicates extract into Mysterious Crystals, and 5 crystals and 2M Kinah transmute a Unique card of your choice.
• Party: 2–5 players; a player who leaves mid-run fails the dungeon for everyone. AionFlex entry Combat Power (25th percentile of players who killed the boss, Nov 7) is 80–81K at stage 1, 91K at 2, 109–110K at 3 and 134K at 4; most uploads predate the Oct 28 nerf, so post-nerf needs are slightly lower.
• Oct 28 boss nerf: stage 1 boss Attack −15%, stages 2–4 boss Attack and Damage Boost −10%, stages 1–2 boss HP −6.5%; base HP rose at the same time.
• Coming: the launch leaderboard closed Nov 2, with winners due Nov 9 and mail rewards by Nov 16 (top 10 per server and class: 35,000 Enhance Stones, 30 Unique Amplify Stones and a Philosopher's Stone: Revelation); Season 2 (Dec 16) adds Submerged Life Temple (client data).

Class fit uses AionFlex meter uploads from before the Oct 28 nerf; the damage gaps between dungeons are about 5%, so treat them as a lean, not a rule.

Wings and collection

Worn wings add stats; every pair you own adds a second bonus that grows to +10, even while you wear another. Pairs come in Elyos and Asmodian versions.

Ultimate Daeva Wings are free from the level-45 Ascension quest. The six dungeon-drop wings are Unique items from normal party dungeons, gated by your total item level for Conquest (700 for Krao Cave and Draupnir, 1,400 for Urugugu Canyon and Vakron Sky Island, 2,100 for Fire Temple and Ferocious Horn Den). They drop sealed and unseal with Radiant Odyle, and the drop is rare.

Wing ladder. Wear the best pair you own and keep every pair, because owned bonuses stack even while another pair is worn. The Daeva quest levels (22, 32, 45) come from a single guide, so check your quest log.

The item levels are your total, not a piece's, and match the Conquest gates under "After 45".

Which to wear (Assassin). On global (metabot, Nov 7) Ultimate Daeva leads at 17%, then Dark Veil 16%, Talisra 9.7% and Forest Spirit 9.6%; Korean top Assassins wear Talisra (52.7%, Korean data), and a2g and XifanGG rate Talisra best. Plan: Ultimate Daeva at 45 (free), Black Fragment (Crit Attack) at 700, Forest Spirit (Boss Attack and Boss Damage Boost) at 1,400, Dark Veil or Kromede at 2,100, then Talisra (Cooldown Reduction, Accuracy and Attack); Abyssal Waves from Ludra or Nightmare are the alternatives. Collect the rest as you go, because the owned bonuses stack.

Upgrading. Rare and Epic always succeed to +10. Unique is safe to +3, then 90, 80, 50, 50, 50, 40 and 30% to +10 (about 16.7M Kinah, 137 Sync Stones and 66,000 Enhance Stones). Enhancing never changes worn stats, and Unique wings gain only Flight Power from it; each failure adds +10% to the next try. Collect pairs before enhancing, and enhance only the Epic and Rare pairs whose owned stat grows (for example Spirit Wings' PvE Defense).

Titles. You have three equip slots, one each for Attack, Defense and Other, and a title only fits its own slot. Every title you own also adds a collection bonus (check your Title tab). Fill each slot with the best title you own and swap up as you progress. Top global Assassins run Unbound by Genus (Attack), Saint of Altgard (47%) or Verteron (29%) (Defense) and Through Hell and Back (Other); Rule All Creation is an 11% Defense alternative:

Asmodian counterparts (Guardian of Altgard and others) have the same stats; I only checked the Elyos quest names. The guide I read doesn't state the slot for Hello There or the Sightseer title; I placed them in Defense by their stats. Some titles also pay just for owning them: Unbound by Genus, Dominator of Dimensions and Hero's Footsteps each add +1% PvE Damage Boost or Tolerance.

Pets and Genus Insight

Genus Insight rerolls pet stats; Owned Effects grow with how many pets you own. No pet is mandatory.

• Pet: pick a Fera pet (Fossa, Armadon or Tog) from the level 10 quest; only Fera adds ground mount speed. Five souls unlock a pet; level 2 takes 25 more and level 3 (the cap) 75 more, about 105 per pet. Each pet adds 500/250/250 Insight EXP (failed rolls add EXP too), and Genus Insight is shared by every character on the server.
• Stat priority: Double Chance (on global it rolls only in the Special board's slot 4; the 'levels 3 and 9' advice is Korean or Taiwanese data), Back Attack Damage Boost (Varian slot 4, in 6 of 9 questlog Assassins), Attack Bonus, Boss Attack, Accuracy, HP. No pet dominates among top global Assassins: Pagati 8.9%, Azure Flame Kumiho 6.9%, Swift Lugi 5.7%.
• Slot 4: Cogni = Damage Boost (most questlog builds; PvE Damage Boost also works), Fera = Weapon Damage Boost, Natura = PvE Damage Boost (Perfect Chance or Multi-hit as fallbacks), Varian = Front or Back Attack Damage Boost, Special = Double Chance.
• Other slots: 1 and 5 Max Attack; 2 and 8 HP; 3, 6 and 9 Accuracy; 7 Damage Tolerance or Endurance.
• Rolling: each roll costs 4 Soul Crystals and 1,000 Kinah; at Insight 10 a roll is Heroic 5% and Unique 15%, so a Heroic Double Chance is about 0.4% per roll. Level all five boards to 9–10 on unlocked rolls, roll Special first with rainbow crystals, and lock only slot 4 (and 7 for tanks); each lock raises the cost.
• Soul Crystals: Substance Morph (1 per 500 Kinah, 1,000 a week), the Festival shop (100 per 50 tokens, 30 a month), pet milestones (100 every 10 pets), Hidden Cubes, the Odylium Repository and the Ludra check-in (3,000). Pet souls drop in Expedition and Transcendence dungeons since Nov 4.

Empyrean Lord stats and Pantheon

For the Assassin: Time, Destruction, Illusion, Life, then Freedom; skip Justice, Wisdom and Space. Each point adds 0.1% to both of its stat's effects on global (Korea doubled it to 0.2%, and some sites show the Korean rate). You can't spend or reset these points: they come from items, and almost all of the difference between players comes from which version of each Arcana card you run.

• Arcana is the real choice. Each slot has a Vigor and a Magic version with a fixed stat (+20 at Unique, +1 per card level, so +25 at +5). Skill lines belong to the slot, not the version, so the version only changes the stat and the set bonus. Top global Assassins (metabot, Nov 7) run Chalice of Vigor (61%), Parchment of Vigor (43%; Magic 16%), Compass of Vigor (37%; Magic 22%, Death), Bell of Magic (43%; Vigor 16%) and Mirror of Vigor (41%; Magic 18%); a2g calls the Assassin the one class that must take Illusion on the Mirror. Sources split: Korean top players own Illusion only 15% (Korean data), against Destruction and Time 96%, Destiny 93%, Life 89%, Death 85% and Wisdom 84%.
• Sets: most top players run three Vigor and two Magic cards for both 2-piece bonuses (Primal Vigor +60 PvE Attack at 70% HP or more; Magic Armor restores 1,500 MP at 20% MP or less); only 32 of 144 run four Vigor cards.
• Colossus: take the Justice, Time and Destruction one: Zikel's Apparition (14,000 Phantasmal Fragments, +45 each; 140 of 144 top players run it), or Guardian Lord Nahma (+55 each) if you get the drop.
• Statues and artworks add only +4 to +10 each (the Pantheon holds 1 colossus, 4 statues and 12 artworks; you swap pieces, you can't enhance them), so buy them last; every questlog endgame build runs Statue: Transcendent Bakarma (Death, Space and Freedom +12; kill Bakarma 10 times in Conquest), then Asahr's Mirror (22 of 24 questlog builds) and Artifact of Eternity (20), then Statue: Kibelisk (10) or Fortress Guardian Notun (9); Artwork: Abyssal Ludra (a Ludra drop) appears in 5. Freedom statues: Gerod (8,000 fragments, +10), Wraith Giselle (5,000), or all 61 home teleports for Statue: Kibelisk (+10).
• Assassin Pantheon (questlog): Statue: Transcendent Bakarma (24), Zikel's Apparition (22), Asahr's Mirror and Artifact of Eternity (21 each), then Fortress Guardian Notun (13).
• Bracelets: Ascension and quest bracelets have fixed lines, but the Abyssal Bracelet (from Ludra; item 70 in questlog's global table, 86 per GameWith) rolls four Empyrean Lord stats at 9–17 each (up to +68), so look for Time and Destruction lines; 19 of 44 questlog characters wear two in some stage, and the common lines are Time, Destruction, Wisdom and Illusion.
• Currency: Phantasmal Fragments, mostly from Nightmare (up to 1,500 a run, and Instant Clear Tickets cost 30,000 Kinah since Oct 28). They can't be traded and carry over between seasons.
• Spend order: Stigma Shards and Daevanion Crystals first (Nightmare Trade Shop: 300 fragments per crystal, 50 per character; 52,500 for 35 shards), then the colossus, then statues and artworks, then wings and cosmetics.

The Assassin order comes from metabot's top-player Arcana picks (1,161 global Assassins, Nov 7) and the aion2-guides.info build; global top Assassins average Time 61.7, Justice 51.3, Death 45.8, Freedom 42.1 and Destruction 41.7.

Build variants

Party play

• Stay behind the boss and let the tank turn it away from you; Rear Smite, Ambush and Triniel's Dagger all need the back, and rear hits can't be parried.
• Defense Break (−30% Defense at rank 10 on Staggered or Impact-hit targets) and Triniel's Dagger's +5% to the boss's cooldowns help the whole party.
• Call your Savage Fang for stagger checks (100 Stagger at rank 10), and save Storm Rampage for the Stagger window.
• Keep Evasion Stance for telegraphed hits: the class is fragile, and a dead Assassin does no damage.

Events and what to prioritize

Almost everything in AION 2 refills on a timer and wastes anything past its cap, so the rule is: spend whatever is closest to its cap first. Daily and weekly counters reset at 16:00 server time (weekly on Wednesday).

Shugo Festival (hourly)

A rotating minigame that opens every hour (a Shugo icon and countdown appear beside the minimap; trust the in-game timer, since published schedules disagree). Entering is free; you pay one Reward Key per reward pick after you finish. A better placement gives more picks, but every pick still costs one key, and confirming a pick is final.

• Keys: 3 per day, cap 12 (21 with membership), shared by every character on your server. Keys over the cap are lost. Sources disagree on exact numbers, so check your in-game counter. Hidden Cube and Dimensional Invasion keys cannot be used here.
• Rewards at level 45: the participation package gives 50 Centuryroot Tokens and 700 Enhance Stones; the key package adds 1,200 Enhance Stones, three Soul Codex (bound), 800 Abyss Points and extra rolls, with a chance at unique gear. Reward pools are Chaos gear, Shade gear, Odyle, Refining Stones and Abyss Points.
• Token milestones: each of the nine games pays 20, 40 and 85 tokens at three participation milestones (1,305 tokens for all of them), and the general Festival track pays 30 tokens plus 10 Soul Crystals at 3 participations and 40 plus 10 at 10.

What a PvE Assassin should buy with Centuryroot Tokens (in this order):

1. Daevanion Crystals (bound): 50 tokens each for the first 10, then 100, 200 and 400 (all 50 cost 10,500). This build's boards spend 379 points of the roughly 416 you can earn, so board points are the strongest upgrade.
2. Stigma Shards (bound): 300 tokens each, up to 35 per character, for Illusive Clone and Swift Contract to 20; Illusive Clone's window grows from 10 s at rank 1 to 20 s at 20, and the agreed targets need 200 shards in all.
3. Wisdom Stones (bound): 350 tokens in an event Festival shop per one guide; metabot's global shop data lists none in the Centuryroot Festival shop, so check in-game before saving tokens for them. Each stone is worth one skill point, which only helps until your key skills reach rank 10 (see How skills level up).
4. Soul Crystal packs: 50 tokens each for ×100, up to 30 per month per character.
5. Cosmetics (wings, pets, skins) last. Wings cost 2,100 to 8,350 tokens.

Korea's Oct 7 patch also merged the per-mode Shugo remnants into one "Masterpiece" remnant that converts through Material Conversion, and added Stigma Shards to the Abyss, Nightmare and Festival shops; global already sells them (Abyss shop 200 per character, Nightmare 35 at 1,500 fragments each, Festival 35 at 300 tokens each). Don't interrupt leveling for every hourly round; start farming it at level 45.

Daily and weekly priority order

Limited-time events right now (as of Nov 4)

Common mistakes

1. Fighting from the front: every front hit loses Rear Smite's bonus and the +30% on Ambush and Triniel's Dagger.
2. Splitting the burst buffs, or spending Illusive Clone on trash.
3. Putting the buffs or the dashes (Shadowstrike, Flash Slice, Infiltrate) in the macro.
4. Leaving Heart Gore below rank 16, or running too little Crit for it to fire.
5. Skill lines on the weapon or guard instead of the rings.
6. Neglecting Storm Rampage: on a Staggered boss its rank-16 option cuts every cooldown.
7. Using Triniel's Dagger for damage instead of right after the buffs.
8. Spreading Stigma Shards instead of finishing Illusive Clone and Swift Contract.
9. Gear lines on Apply Poison or Defense Break.
10. Letting Shugo keys or Odyle Energy sit at their cap. The weekly Odyle cube counter (one guide; unverified) also drops when you clear without taking the cube; at 0 you can't enter Conquest or Transcendence until reset.
11. Mouse macros for the Savage Roar → Heart Gore cancel, or other third-party tools.

Community builds (questlog)

The most-liked global PvE builds on questlog.gg's skill builder and character builder (checked Nov 7–8) mostly match this guide. Likes are small and many endgame stages are wish lists, so read them as community opinion beside the armory data above.

Where they differ from this guide:

• Stack setup: most run one right-mouse stack (Insignia Explosion > Heart Gore > Ambush > Savage Roar) under a 1–4 step macro (teivor, delcatta, l4z4i); Korea's ederhez macros Illusive Clone, Triniel's Dagger and Storm Rampage, and XifanGG puts Illusive Clone and Swift Contract on one key.
• Stigmas: Illusive Clone and Swift Contract at 20 in every endgame build; Throw Shadowblade 20 in the farming builds; Evasion Stance in about half the PvE builds.
• Ranks: Heart Gore, Insignia Explosion and Quick Slice at 20 in 6 of 7 endgame builds.
• Gear by stage: the Enraged Kromede Silver Dagger in 18 of 45 stages, then a crafted Splendent Ebony (7) or Wise (4) Dragon Lord Dagger; one stage plans Ludra's Claw.
• Arcana: four Vigor cards plus Bell of Magic, or Yuriko's three Vigor cards plus Bell and Mirror of Magic.

Sources

Korean data runs a couple of patches ahead of global; check tooltips after big patches.

• metabot Assassin class page (global client data) and top-player build stats (Nov 7)
• metabot Assassin skills (one page per skill, for example Insignia Explosion and Illusive Clone) and Daevanion planner (Assassin boards)
• metabot class tier list (Nov 4), stigma, Arcana and Theostone guides
• AION2CAL Assassin guide and class DPS by combat-power bracket (Nov 8)
• aion2-guides.info Assassin guide (Nov 3; Arthars Gaming, XifanGG, aLuckyRO)
• AionFlex class damage by dungeon and class presence in clears
• shugo.gg tier list, KR/TW tier list and Assassin skills
• MeinMMO PvE tier list and mobalytics PvE tier list (Oct 15)
• Official Oct 28 global update notes (Illusive Clone, base HP) (aion2hub transcription) and metabot patch notes (Oct 21 to Nov 4)
• aion2hub Korean patch notes: Jan 7, Jan 14, Feb 11, Mar 25, Apr 8, Apr 22, Jun 17, Jul 1, Aug 26, Sep 2, Sep 9, Sep 16, Oct 14 and Oct 21
• teivor's PvE Boss build (passive order) and the other questlog.gg skill builds and character builds (checked Nov 7–8)
• metabot Abyssal Forge: Ludra and expcarry Ludra guide; mobalytics Deus Research Base guide
• metabot wings list and mounts, pets and wings guide
• metabot gear progression, Theostone and Manastone guides, and the enhancement calculator
• metabot leveling guide
• metabot titles, dungeon, stigma, crafting and gear enhancement guides
• metabot daily and weekly checklist
• Official Korean update notes list
• AION2 Hub patch notes: Oct 7, Oct 5 launch and Sep 23
• aion2.blog Shugo Festival guide
• GameTruth Shugo Festival guide
• Official global Twitch Drops notice
• aion2game.com launch events
• MeinMMO on the removed Ludra raid and gaminghq.eu
• game8 Genus Insight guide
• game8 Phantasmal Fragments guide
• Sportskeeda Pantheon explained
• playnews.gg macro setup
• gamesfuze macro setup guide
• aion2timers stat calculator
• Corpus gear score guide: thresholds and what counts (Oct 10)
• Raid Relay gear score progression 45 to 2,100 (Oct 10)
• metabot dungeon guide: run order, entry limits, Ascension Trial gates (Oct 10)
• metabot content unlocks by item level
• Official notice: Server Transfer Products Info (Oct 9)
• Official Producer's Letter: Welcome to Atreia (Oct 9)
• Official notice: Update on Sanctuary Raid (Ludra)
• Official Oct 14 global update notes (aion2hub transcription)
• Official Oct 21 global update notes (Expedition Hard, Ariel board)
• Official notice: Ludra Awakens on November 4th (Odyle Energy Boost, Ludra events) and Halloween Twitch Drops
• metabot Transcendence (client data), wikily Deus Research Base and rewards and Shattered Arkanis
• mobalytics Shattered Arkanis guide; timesaver Transcendence guide
• raidrelay gear score, Conquest, Transcendence and Gear Transfer guides; aion2-guides.info progression
• metabot stats (0.1% per point, caps); Odealo best Arcana per class
• aion2tool global Combat Power ranking (sample selection; stats read from the official armory), allthings.how Nightmare Trade Shop, aion2hub Colossus: Guardian Lord Nahma and GamesFuze Pantheon guide
• Official Nov 4 global update notes (Abyssal Forge: Ludra, Exploration buff, crafting)
• AionFlex boss entry Combat Power (Nov 7)
• metabot Combat Power guide
• mobalytics Rahu and Ketu boss guides
• mobalytics Combat Power guide, allthings: how to increase Combat Power and elitegrindlab Combat Power
• Official announcements mirrored on Steam (events, transfer limits)
• allthings.how: Noble Belt and Revelation Amulet upgrades, Daevanion Crystal sources and Clash Runes
• GameTruth belt and amulet guide, Fextralife Clash Rune odds and daevaguides Krao Cave loot
• senseos.gg grade names and Amplify and Selphie: raising gear score (Oct 12)
• wikily.gg Essence Extraction skills and proficiency and Odyle specialty skills (the other node types share the tree)
• VGC Essence Extraction guide, playnews.gg Essence Extraction and selphie1999gaming Splendent Ruby quest