Everquest 2 Assassin Guide

10. About this Guide
I hope this guide helped you in your travels through Everquest 2. If you are interested in more information for Everquest 2 or other MMORPGs, take a look at the EQ2 category on our site at http://eq2.killerguides.com. We would also appreciate in case you take the time to rate this guide and leave a feedback in the member area of our site at
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EverQuest is a Registered Trademark of Sony Online Entertainment.

Everquest 2 Assassin Guide

If you have a trade, buying the rares low, and the extracts low, and making a final
product and selling for 50% more than you paid actually works really well for earning profit. I earn about 2 platinum a day this way on the side spending about an hour or two a day checking the brokers for cedars and extracts to make into shields and bows as a woodworker.
Harvesting resources is also a good way to earn money. Everywhere you go, just
spend the time to harvest what you can see, and you can just throw all the resources in your vault on the broker at an equivalent to what the lowest person is selling for and usually have money by the end of the day. Harvests seem to be gaining value once again. Six hours of harvesting at the tier 5 zones can yield you about 1-3 platinum a day if you sell the harvests at 5s each. For the Tier 6 resources, the Succulent Roots and food items just seem to fly off the shelves. Harvest all you can of these for lots of money.
Last way to make some money is by spending time in a spot harvesting
collectibles. The vampire fangs in bloodline chronicles, glowing shards, and enchanted bones all sell for several gold pieces on the broker. Obelisk of Lost souls is a great place to harvest collectibles. It does require having access to the inside of Obelisk of Lost souls. The quest starter to be able to enter the actual obelisk is started from a scroll next a corpse where you zone in. If you have access inside, at level 50 you can take a left walking down the passageway and continue that direction through the twist and turns until you get to a large room with a lot of shadowed man around the sides. These should be all grey to you. In this room spawns question marks. They can appear anywhere from 5 seconds to 5 minutes after you harvested the previous one. Harvesting collectibles there can yield you about 50 gold an hour.

Everquest 2 Assassin Guide

drops for over a platinum a day. Tradeskill writs take longer, but you can also earn a lot of money doing this as well. It seems random whether it gives you a lot or the normal amount of money when you complete a writ, but at tier 5, I can create ten Vision Totems of the Bat as a woodworker, which cost me approximately 3 gold to make, and the reward is either 6 to 18 gold. The problem is that you can’t always get the writ you’re looking for, and they can take much longer than the writ that requires you to make totems.
Farm named mobs. There are several places where named mobs consistently
pop given time and killing of the placeholders. Lavastorm beach is one of these places. You can keep killing the mobs on the beach until the Fire Toads pop, and every 2 hours Foulgil the Rotten spawns, and he can drop a metal chest with a fabled necklace, or just a stinkhoop which is an earring that sells quite well on the broker because of the high wisdom and poison resist it has. Doing this has yielded players 2-3 platinum in about 5 hours.
Another place to do this is Nektropos Castle. Both Nektropos and Nektropos: The
Return, are full of named mobs. These will require a group to kill as there is no place to kite these around, and standing toe to toe with named mobs can be suicidal. The original Nektropos castle has the 6 sisters which have a high drop rate of tier 4 rare harvests, and I’ve personally seen them drop a metal chest several times. Unfortunately the drop rate is random, which means you can have nights where you make out with 5 platinum worth of rares, or not see a single one the entire time you are there.
If you have a group, then hitting the different instances for chances at metal chests
can also yield some gold. These zones would be The Menagerie, Icespire Summit, Maiden’s Gulch, Sanctum of Fear, and Sanctum of Fire. Also check on Iceberg and Tundra Jack in Everfrost, and the Seraph of the stags that spawns at the world tree in Everfrost. If the group is really good, then you can give the golems and wolves in Drayek’s Chamber a shot and the first encounter in the Firemyst Gully epic as well. The first encounter in Firemyst Gully actually repops after about 15 minutes, and has a pretty decent drop rate of metal chests. The money received depends on the amount of players you have with you and the drop rates are quite random. I usually earn about 40 gold a night when going through all the named mobs and instanced zones if I don’t win the lottos for the rare harvests if they drop.
Another way to make money is to watch the brokers. If you watch them daily, you
get a good idea what items are valued at. Buying low and selling high is a practice that can yield you profit. Look specifically at items like ebon, rubies, and opals. This is not a guaranteed way to make money, and is definitely not for everyone. It also comes with the risk that you may not be able to sell back the item you bought for a higher price.

Everquest 2 Assassin Guide

As of right now, there is a bug of sorts where if you duel a player that is much
lower level than you, you will do massive amounts of damage. It’s possible to get hits up to 90k while dueling a level 3. This may get changed in the future, but it is how most players are getting their records for the highest melee hits.

9.2. Maximize Your DPS
The main reason why people put an assassin in their group is to deal damage.
Through out this entire guide I try to demonstrate the most efficient way to deal the most damage for the least amount of effort. When you apply everything I’ve put in this guide, your dps should be on par or greater than almost any other class in this game. So briefly I will summarize the high points of increasing your overall dps.
Focus on strength once taking agility to 200 self buffed. More strength means
more damage. Find everyway possible to raise your strength as high as possible. An imbued bloodstone ring of strength can be purchased on the broker for around 20 gold on average, and has a right click ability of raising your strength by 14. You don’t need to keep this ring equipped to have the strength buff. The tier 6 version increases your strength by 22.
Use player made poisons. They do much more damage than store bought
poisons, and if you can afford it, pick up the rare crafted ones.
Control your agro. If you’re tanking the mob, you aren’t dealing the damage you
should be. Use surveil and evade every time they come up. If the tank is stifled or stunned, don’t use abilities until he is able to use taunts again.
Honed Reflexes and Murderous Focus work extremely well together. These two
skills even work better when fighting a piercing immune mob. You will still dish out tons of damage, even without using your combat arts.

9.3. Making Money
There are a lot of different ways to earn massive amounts of money in this game,
but almost all of them require you to spend extra amounts of time doing nothing but earning that extra money. This turns a lot of people off on the idea, but it’s quite possible to get over ten platinum a week if that is your only focus. Here are several ways to make money.
Spend your time doing writs. This is what a lot of people do when they hit 50 and
aren’t raiding. They can spend hours a day just killing solo mobs, and selling the loot that

Everquest 2 Assassin Guide

9. Secrets of the Assassin
9.1. Highest Melee Hit
One of the questions I get asked most often by other assassins, even ones on
other servers is how I got such a high melee hit. There are a lot of things that have to be working in your favor for you to have a shot at the highest melee hit on your server, or world wide. I’ll list off everything I do that allows me to consistently get the highest hits with Condemning Blade.
First off, in order to do the most damage possible, you have to have the most
strength possible. This means that you have to have equipment that focuses solely on buffing your strength, and be grouped with classes that are also buffing your strength. So shamans, druids, berserkers, and bards are the classes you’ll want to group with. If you can get all four, that would be most preferable.
So now you have the strength, then you need to have the highest possible version
of your highest damaging attack. For this case, Assassinate, if you can’t get a Master 1 version off of the broker, then I suggest using a ruby or rhodium and getting an adept III version of it made. Assassinate Master 1 personally dropped for me in the heroic arena in the Splitpaw Adventure Pack. Not only that, I’ve personally witnessed it drop there twice!
So now you have the strength, you have the highest version of the attack possible,
what now? Well you need to fight something with low mitigation. Low mitigation does not necessarily mean take a group of high level players to buff your strength and kill a level 3 mob. While this can work, it can take you a long time before you get that max hit, and with a 15 minute recast, you’ll be hard pressed to find one of each class who will stay there with you keeping you buffed. That means you need to use your highest attack on a mob of the mage class since they have the lowest mitigation.
Even with the mob’s little bit of mitigation, you will still need to debuff their
mitigation to the point where when you do hit; it will do the most damage possible. So a brigand running all of their debuffs before throwing Assassinate at them will help greatly.
Mask of Night (puts you into stealth)
Just because all of these situations are correct, does not necessarily mean you will
automatically get the highest hit either. You have to keep doing this. Right click and examine the skill. What is the maximum damage it can do with your strength where it is currently? Is it higher than your server high melee hit? If so, keep at it. You’ll get it eventually.

Everquest 2 Assassin Guide

Also, the ability to use crushing arrows can never be overrated. They are hardly
any mobs in this game immune to crushing, so it’s almost always a sure bet that you can hit them just fine ranged with rounded arrows.
To become a woodworker, you must first be a craftsman. You choose to be a
craftsman and woodworker at levels 9 and 19 at the Coalition of Tradesfolke building in West Freeport. The best way to level through craftsman and woodworking levels is buy constantly making the highest level totems you can make. You can then try and sell them on the broker, or just sell them to the merchant in the tradeskill instance. If you harvested the materials yourself, you will always make a profit this way.

8.4. Alchemy
Alchemists make a lot of their money buy making extracts out of the uncommon
harvests from each tier. These items like luminous stone, glimmering tooth, sparking flower, etc. are turned into extracts and used by crafters to imbue weapons, armor, and hex dolls. Alchemists also make fighter skills, but that doesn’t tend to help you out much as an assassin.
The real benefit to an assassin for playing an alchemist is the access to any type
of poison you want. There are several different types of debuff poisons like ones that lower physical mitigation, or poison resists, etc. There are also poisons that lower the mob’s attack speed. You can also make rare poisons from the byproducts of inks that are made from rare stones for adept IIIs.
The fact that almost every class needs to come to an alchemist either to make
extracts for gear, or inks for Adept IIIs, makes an alchemist a great choice for earning money.

Everquest 2 Assassin Guide

Granite Tomahawk quest requires rare updates from mining which you can earn while mining for the Dusty Blue Stone. These are both mined in the Thundering Steppes.
At 140 harvesting skill, you can start harvesting in The Enchanted Lands, and Zek,
The Orcish Wastes. The main money maker here is the glimmering tooth you can get from traps which are used for the manastone heritage quest. Opals and Ruthenium you acquire here should be used to upgrade your skills, and feysteel for your weapons, and then armor.
At 190 skill you can harvest in Rivervale, Lavastorm, The Feerrott, and Everfrost.
This is the place where a lot of people spend most their time when not in groups. The rares from these zones sell for the most like ebon clusters, which is used in the Bone Bladed Claymore quest, and can be traded often for an ebon equivalent like a shaped ebon coin, or bent ebon disk, plus extra gold. The rubies and rhodium should be saved for upgrading your skills, the ebon for your weapons, the cedar for a bow, and some 28 slot boxes to help carry all of your resist gear. The leather and cloth can be used to make +12 stat hex dolls from a tailor.
Finally at 240 skill, you can harvest in Sinking Sands and Pillars of Flame. In
Sinking Sands, you can harvest shrubs, trees, and roots all along the coastal area while the stones and fungi are lining the walls inside the Croc caves. In Pillars of Flame, stones tend to be lining walls, and trees tend to be near big trees like the two at the Northern area of the map where the Ashen Disciples are. The uncommon harvest is the Lambent Stone/Tooth/Flower. Vanadiums and Pearls are used for your Adept IIIs, and jewelery, and Cobalt for your weapons and armor. Ironwood is what you’ll want for your bow.

8.3. Woodworking
Woodworking can be very beneficial to an Assassin. For one, it provides you with
a cheaper alternative to attain arrows, including hunting and rounded arrows which deal slashing and crushing damage respectively. You can also make totems with many different types of effects.
The most beneficial totem in my opinion is the wolf form totems. They cost you
roughly 7 silver each to make, and easily sell on the broker for 50 silver or more. They have 5 charges of wolf form, which gives 24% run speed that lasts for 30 minutes. They also stack with Journeyman’s Boots, and Pathfinding to give you a total of 50% extra run speed. That is 10% faster than the 10 platinum horse!

Everquest 2 Assassin Guide

8. Crafting
8.1. Introduction
A lot of classes take up a tradeskill to help support their class. Assassins are
benefited mainly from two artisan classes; the woodworker, and the alchemist. Leveling an artisan class can also help you earn money, and fame. Also the tradeskill writs can give you from 3 to 9 times the amount of gold you spent making them if you harvested the resources yourself. I’d only recommend doing the writs if you are playing an alchemist though. Some writs as a woodworker can take you half a day to do.
The main reason why I recommend the Woodworker or the Alchemist tradeskill
class is because they both make consumable items (poison and arrows) that you use every time you group and raid. None of the other artisan classes will continue to support you over lengths of time as well as the Woodworker or Alchemist classes.

8.2. Harvesting
This is something I recommend starting from the very moment you walk onto the
Isle of Refuge. Several heritage quests like the Dwarven Work Boots, Polished Granite Tomahawk, Flowing Black Silk Sash, and the Ghoulbane require harvesting in at least one part of the quest. Also the Stein of Moggok, Bone Bladed Claymore, and Manastone require an item that’s harvested to complete the quest. Also continual harvesting will eventually yield rare harvests, which you can use to upgrade your equipment or sell for a decent amount on the broker.
So the first thing you need to do to raise your harvesting skills is to gather, forest,
mine, and trap (I wouldn’t bother with fishing unless you’re going to be a provisioner) in the Isle of Refuge and the newbie zones like the Sprawl. You need to raise all your harvesting skills to at least 20 before you can move on to the Commonlands.
The Commonlands is going to take the most of your time. I spent most of my time
running from the Freeport griffin station to the Nektulos griffin station harvesting everything in the way back and forth. You need to raise your skills to 90 to progress to Nektulos Forest/Thundering Steppes. You can also spend this time to start the Dwarven Work Boots heritage quest from Hwal Rucksif in the Keep of the Ardent Needle in Antonica, if you are at least level 20. That quest requires you to mine 100 ore, and forest 100 wood in Antonica.
Once you reach 90 in harvesting skills, you might want to consider starting the
Dusty Blue Stone quest which is the prelude to the Ghoulbane quest. Also the Polished

Everquest 2 Assassin Guide

that has you kill 100 Nightbloods. The quest reward gives you a choice of boots, and the medium armor reward is the Mystic Boots of the Glade which have 360 magic resist.
For poison resist armor, the random armor drops in Living Tombs and Silent City
tend to have poison and disease resist. Also the Terror Wrought armor that drops in Poet’s Palace has 413 poison resist. The player crafted leggings tend to have poison resist. Beyond that, I’d recommend the Thulzite armor that drops in the Spirits of the Lost epic zone. They add 90 to all resists, and can help fill in for any resist that’s lacking. From Nektropos: The Return, Chalandria drops the web of Chalandria which is a bracelet with 5 stamina, 5 agility, 7 strength, 28 health, 37 power, 180 cold, 80 mental, and 180 poison. Two of those will help with poison resist. Also any of the belts that drop in Nektropos: The return also help with Poison resist. Be it Balthazar’s belt from the butler, or Unargin’s smithy apron from the blacksmith, or the belt of spider legs from Chalandria.
Venekor in The Temple of Cazic-Thule can drop poison etched armor. It is a full
set of medium armor, and Venekor is the only raid mob in the game that I’ve seen that has a full suit of medium armor on his drop table. The poison etched armor is decent, with a lot of agility on most pieces, but the lack of strength compared to other fabled items that share the same slots makes this set disappointing.
The fabled player crafted armor from the Secrets of the Armorer recipe book has
Rubicite Chain Leggings and Coat. The coat has 16 Agility, 17 Strength, 50 power, 43 health, 300 disease, 330 magic. The leggings have 17 Strength, 16 Intelligence, 45 power, 48 health, 330 poison, 300 cold. Neither have effects, but both are an increase to mitigation and strength over ebon. Almost any tier 5 fabled drop from a raid mob will be superior to these.

Everquest 2 Assassin Guide

If you are an assassin that loves to group, then try to focus more on strength than
agility. This will allow you to focus mainly on offensive damage, and the tank to take all the hits instead of yourself. Player crafted leggings, bracer, and chest piece tend to have the strength stat. For other slots, you’ll have to look on the broker quite a bit. Don’t hesitate to move down to light armor if you have to if it gives a big bonus to strength. A good example of a piece of light armor is the Helm of Null. It has 10 stamina, 10 strength, 35 health, 32 power, 400 disease, 200 poison, and 138 mitigation at level 50. Those aren’t very common stats for a head piece.
Most armor has a certain stat that they generally have per slot. For those trying to
increase strength, this can become frustrating to find a decent set of strength gear but there are pieces that do exist.
The Frozen Chain Boots that are used for cold resist, also have 8 strength. The
Spaulders of the Swamp have 14 strength on a shoulder slot which is amazing. The Earring of the Champion has 9 strength, and +1 to slashing. The Helm of Null is a light armor helm with 10 strength and stamina. All of these are fairly common on the broker.
For the raiding assassin, you will need different types of resist gear. Strength
should still be a priority overall, but you need to have a set of fire, cold, poison, and magic resist gear. You used to be able to fully mitigate nearly any type of effect from a mob with the proper resists. This is no longer the case, but if your raiding tactics require you to stay near the epic mob, you will need at least some resist gear to at least mitigate the damage as far as possible. 3k in a resist is more than sufficient to meet these ends. In the future, resists may mean more again, so don’t hesitate to snatch up extra resist gear as you find it.
For fire resist gear, I recommend the Sootfoot banded armor. They drop off of
goblins in Lavastorm, and have 225 heat resist, 90 divine, and around 50 power each piece. Beyond that, player crafted rings tend to have heat resist. The Flame Licked Stud drops in Nektropos: The Return, which has 270 fire resist.
For cold resist gear, I recommend frozen chain armor. It drops in Everfrost, and
each have 225 cold resist. Beyond that, the Halasian Medallion from the Icespire Summit quest has 315 cold resist. Most bracelets also have cold resist.
For magic resist, I recommend enchanted bramble armor. It drops in Rivervale off
of the Bramble Terrors, Withering Brambles, and the like. They each have 320 magic resist. Beyond that, I recommend the belt of spider legs from Nektropos: The Return which has 300 magic resist. Tobrin’s Mystical Eyepatch has 270 magic resist. It’s the quest reward from a heritage quest that starts in Everfrost. There is a quest in Rivervale