Overview
Deande is a “Stealth” “Assassin” that isn’t really that stealthy. She only has access to the stealth condition through one of her skills, which is on the longest non-Ultimate cooldown in the game; in fact, of the 4 characters in the game that can stealth (Deande, Pendles, S&A, Oscar Mike), the only character that Deande can be stealthed for longer than is S&A (and only if S&A don’t take the helix that increases the duration of their stealth), and, even with helices, she can’t stealth as often. She’s basically tied for the crown of the least stealthy of the “Stealth” characters (Oscar Mike doesn’t even have the Stealth descriptor and he’s better at it than anyone except for Pendles).
Still, this doesn’t make Deande bad. In fact, she’s got a broad suite of capabilities that makes her exceptionally powerful and adaptable: she’s got excellent sustainability due to lifesteal (which can be made even better with helix choices), excellent burst damage through a variety of skills and helix options, good mobility, and some debuffing and control options that seem weak but can be exploited with great returns.
As such, I find it most effective to think of her less as a “Stealth” “Assassin” and more as a “Versatile” “Assassin” (which, comically enough, would pair her up with Whiskey Foxtrot, who is actually her boy toy), with Stealth as one of the *many* tools in her repertoire.
Just like with any other generalist, the secret to playing Deande properly is adaptation: since Deande lacks any real strengths, always seek to fight an opponent where they are weakest (and use your tools to get them there): harass your enemies until you’re sure of a kill and then take them out. Only take risks if Holotwin is recharged (or soon will be) since it’s your only real way to escape.
Abilities
Tessurim War Fans (main):
Deande’s basic attack.
A series of 5 wide horizontal slashes that all deal the same damage. By default, she heals herself for 15% of any health damage dealt by the attack.
Tessurim War Fans (alt):
Deande’s alt-fire.
Deande throws her war fans (they reappear immediately so they never actually run out), in a right>left>both pattern. The fans thrown follow a barely curved but largely straight line until they get to about mid-range, after which they skew heavily in the direction they originated from (the fans thrown by her right hand skew to the right and the fans from her left skew to the left) to such an extent that, at long range, you lose a *lot* of accuracy and only half of your attacks will actually go to the same spot (since the left and right fans have different destinations, even when thrown at the same time).
The ranged combo takes about the same time as the default melee combo but each thrown fan deals at most 80% of the damage dealt by a melee swing (beyond short-mid range, the damage per fan starts dropping off). Since you only get 4 attacks per combo and each fan deals less damage thrown than as a melee weapon, you’ll get, at best, 64% of the DPS at short-mid range that you would at melee range; at long range, it gets even worse because you’ll take a massive hit due to range penalties *and* you’ll only be able to hit with half of your fans, at most.
Just like her main melee attack, Deande heals for 15% of any health damage dealt by her fan.
The Element of Surprise:
Deande’s passive.
It’s pretty self-explanatory: Deande’s gets a 25% increase to her damage for 5 seconds after her stealth (from using Holotwin) ends (technically, she’s got it while in stealth, too, but she can’t attack while stealthed), whether it ends by her being revealed (by an opponent), her attacking, or the duration expiring.
Holotwin:
Skill 1.
Deande goes invisible, flips backwards, and a clone appears in her place and begins attacking and will continue to attack for 8 seconds. The clone has 20% of her current health (and shield) and displays the same hp/shield percentages that Deande had when she created it. Its target priorities and tactics are somewhat wonky and unpredictable so don’t expect it to do a lot. When the clone dies or its duration expires, it explodes and deals damage to all nearby enemies.
This skill has some weird stuff going on with it. The clone’s melee/ranged damage is considered attack damage and is improved by Attack Damage gear, however it is *not* considered to be Deande’s damage and does not include any buffs (such as her passive) that Deande herself might have (though it still benefits from her gear). The explosion, however, is actually skill damage (and gets buffed by Skill Damage gear) and *does* benefit from any buffs that Deande might have (including her passive). As such, unless your clone survives for a very long time (doubtful but possible), the explosion will deal 25% more damage than it actually says you would do.
Burst Dash:
Skill 2.
Deande charges forward and attacks in attacks in a horizontal semicircle (roughly 180*) directly in front of her. The damage is, by default, not that impressive, but it does apply a debuff to any target hit by it that reduces their damage taken by 30% for 6 seconds *and* it can crit. It can be heavily tweaked by helices to make it a *much* more powerful attack.
Blink Storm:
Ultimate.
Upon activation, Deande stops moving, takes a stance, and begins charging. While charging (and for the entirety of the attack, in fact), you assume a third person perspective, right over Deande’s shoulder and are able to aim the attack (it’s a thin cone) by turning. After ~2 seconds of charging (a progress bar replaces your reticle), Deande will disappear and hit up to 5 enemies in the cone, dealing a little bit of damage and stun them for 3 seconds. After this initial hit, Deande will unleash 10 attacks distributed as evenly as possible across every target in the cone (if there are 5, each will get hit by 2; if there are 3, 2 will get hit 3 times and 1 will get hit by 4) over the next 3 seconds. After completing all of these attacks, Deande reappears where she was standing before and goes back to fighting as normal.
Deande doesn’t really disappear completely; she can be damaged and affected while performing the attack. The implementation makes it so that she’s virtually impossible to hit with single target attacks but well placed AoEs can still hit her (and a stun or silence can, and will, affect her and end it prematurely).
Against a single target, the damage is pretty impressive (even if the DPS is a joke: remember, you’re charging for 2 seconds and then dealing the remainder over 3 seconds, and you’re not able to do *anything else* during this time) but, against a group, it’s pretty pathetic.
Because you have to spend ~2 seconds standing still before you’re even able to attack, this is an incredibly dangerous attack to use so *make sure you’re safe before using it*. It’s made even more dangerous by the fact that the stun ends before Deande reappears, so Deande is incapable of moving to defender herself for 2 seconds before the attack and for a fraction of a second *after* the attack. In PvP, the risk can be worth it because you’re stunning the target(s) for 3 seconds while you deal damage to them; if you can coordinate with the rest of your group, you can set up kills extremely effectively. In PvE, this attack is extremely bad because the hardest targets (bosses) are immune to the stun (and can easily kill you while you’re standing still charging) and, since the damage happens over a long period of time in which you’re not able to do anything else, the DPS is laughable. Since the damage is distributed across targets, it’s not even useful as an AoE.
TL:DR Only use this in PvP and *only* use it when you know it’s safe and, preferably, when allies are able to capitalize on the stun. Pretty much any other case is not only a waste but actively reduces your performance.
Helices
Level 1: Double Trouble v. Wonder Twins v. Ground Zero
Recommendation: (PvP) Ground Zero or Double Trouble; (PvE) Any
DT allows you to control the direction that Deande jumps whenever she uses Holotwin (it also increases the jump distance). The direction defaults to backwards, but, if you’re moving, Deande will instead jump in that direction instead.
WT only applies to the clone’s melee/ranged attacks which are pretty laughable by default (they deal 25% damage and, assuming it’s dealing health damage, you’re getting 25% of that, which is only 6.25% of your normal DPS and only while the clone lives). From a numerical standpoint (e.g. the amount that it actually improves the stuff a specific area of performance), it’s definitely the *worst* of the options here but, if you’re not interested in controlling the jump from Holotwin or turning Burst Dash into a completely different skill, this is the choice to go with.
While GZ’s description is written to suggest that it just makes Burst Dash into an explosion, in reality, it changes Burst Dash into a complete different attack. Deande no longer dashes when she uses it (she jumps up and hovers a little bit), it is no longer an instantaneous single attack (the damage is separated into 3 ticks, once every .25 seconds), and it is an explosive AoE (so it can no longer crit and it ignores obstacles like carried shields). The only things that remain the same are the total damage and the debuff.
In PvP, turning Burst Dash into an AoE makes it much more useful and the loss of the ability to crit is actually something of a benefit, since crits against players suck (50% additional damage instead of the 200% that you get against most NPCs) and carried shields are actually highly problematic.
Level 2: All Safeties Off v. Refined Emitters
Recommendation: All Safeties Off
First off, the description of both of these helices is wrong. ASO actually *doubles* the melee/ranged damage dealt by your clones (the explosion damage is unaffected), allowing it to deal 50% of your damage (up from default 25%). RE actually increases the health of your clones by 50%, giving them 30% of your hp/shield at the time of activation rather than 20%.
ASO is the best choice here because of the Holotwin’s limited duration: ASO makes the clone more powerful while it’s alive while RE makes the clone harder to kill; since it will die at the end of the 7 second duration *anyway* making it harder to kill doesn’t end up improving its damage utility. The only reason to take RE is if you don’t care about the damage dealt by the clone and only way it for the extended distraction (which is valid in PvP) but it should be mentioned that it is *still* a very squishy thing so, at best, you’re buying it an extra second or so of life (if that).
Level 3: Fan Appreciation v. Uppercut v. Leechsteel
Recommendation: (PvP) Uppercut or Leechsteel; (PvE) Leechsteel
Deande’s fan damage is pathetic compared to her melee damage and is only really effective up to mid range anyways so improving it isn’t really giving you much help. If you want to build for a ranged Deande (which can be done), don’t expect good performance out of this.
Uppercut adds an additional attack (a finishing move) to Deande’s melee combo that applies a 1.5 second wound debuff (reduces healing received by 60%) and deals the same damage as all of the other attacks in the melee combo. Deande’s default attack speed isn’t fast enough to keep this wound debuff up constantly (it’s closer to 50% uptime), but, if you stack a lot of attack speed, you *can* improve it significantly. The increase in damage per combo (due to the extra attack) is roughly equal to the increase in animation time for the entire combo (due to the extra attack), so this ends up having negligble effect upon your DPS. This is worthless in PvE because NPCs don’t heal and it’s not a DPS increase so it quite literally does nothing (well, it gives you a fancy looking finishing attack, but that’s purely aesthetic).
Leechsteel increases Deande’s lifesteal with both her melee and ranged attacks by 10%, allowing her to gain 25% of health damage dealt as life. It dramatically improves Deande’s ability to sustain herself over long fights, which is what PvE is pretty much all about. In PvP, if you don’t need to wound a target, the ability to stay in a fight longer is definitely valuable (though not as valuable as turning the knob on healing a target down by a crapload).
Level 4: Calculated Risk v. Drain Dash
Recommendation: Any
CR is exactly what it sounds like: a calculated risk. It can *dramatically* increase the damage that Deande can deal with her Burst Dash but will make her much squishier by eliminating her shield with every use. This isn’t as bad as it might initially seem since Deande has excellent life steal via her non-skill attacks. In both PvP and PvE, it’s excellent for getting kills but, when used improperly, it can easily get you killed.
If you don’t like the idea of increasing both the risk and reward of Burst Dash, DD is excellent, especially since it reduces the risk commensurate in using Burst Dash by making it heal you *a lot*. Keep in mind, even though it doesn’t say it, you only get health damage returned as life.
Level 5: Silent Strike v. Beast of Momentum v. Roguelike
Recommendation: (PvP) Silent Strike; (PvE) Roguelike
For PvE, slows and increased mobility aren’t really particularly useful because enemies don’t really move around enough to be a problem. For PvP, enemy players *do* move around and act annoying. While improving your damage may be appealing, keep in mind that Roguelike only applies to *melee* attacks made to a target’s back for 3 seconds after you leave stealth (that’s 3 conditionals); SS will simply prevent an enemy from getting away from you so that you can actually kill them (because it’s on your ranged attack as well, you can use it to get to a fleeing enemy as well).
BoM is bad mainly because it’s a measly 10% increase in movement speed and only lasts 5 seconds following a kill, which is half of the move speed and half of the duration of what Whiskey Foxtrot gets from his similar helix (which is also a level 5; keep in mind, I’m not saying that it’s bad because of this; I’m just providing a source of comparison: 5 seconds is not that long and 10% move speed is not that much).
Level 6: Burst Brawler v. Ire’s Echo v. Escape Plan
Recommendation: (PvP) Any; (PvE) Burst Brawler
I recommend BB for PvE because, while Burst Dash’s damage and Holotwin’s explosion damage (the numbers that are tweaked by BB and IE), Holotwin is on a much longer CD so you will be using it a lot less;. Also, if you took Calculated Risk, BB will multiply the damage you get from your shield breaking, making it much more efficient (and powerful). EP just isn’t worth it in PvE because you don’t really need to move quickly after using Holotwin to stay alive; NPCs just ignore you without even trying to hit you when you’re stealthed.
All of these options are valid in PvP, however: Holotwin explosion damage is much more likely to injure legitimate opponents and slowing is an awesome effect in PvP; players will also often try and search out Deande after she uses Holotwin so dramatically increased move speed can save your life.
Level 7: Fan o’ War v. The Culling
Recommendation: (PvP) Any; (PvE) Fan o’ War
Regardless of mode, a majority of Deande’s damage is going to come from her melee attacks: it’s just how she’s designed because she’s a melee damage dealer. An 18% increase to where a vast majority of your damage should be coming from is an obvious choice.
TC, however, has some value in PvP but it requires some explanation. It only increases damage against targets that are weakened by Deande’s Burst Dash; no other weakening effects (Pacificer, Attikus’ helix, etc.) trigger the damage increase. Because it only applies to your own weakening effect, it basically turns Burst Dash into a temporary DPS increase. If you use Burst Dash as your exit attack from stealth, you’ll end up with an extremely huge DPS increase against the target of your choice for a short period of time. It makes you an excellent assassin, slightly better for that short window but worse for any other combat application than FoW.
Level 8: Deadly Reach v. Energized
Recommendation: Any
To me, this comes down to what helices you have chosen. If you took Calculated Risk, go with Deadly Reach: with CR, you want to use Burst Dash if you’re at max shield and you don’t want to waste it on a miss when you do use it. Since it takes at least 10 seconds (5 seconds since breaking or taking damage to get your shield recharging; 5 seconds for it to fill), if not more (increasing your shield to get more out of CR will increase that by 1 second for each 60 you enlarge your shield), reducing the CD is counterproductive because you’ll be waiting to use it anyways. If you haven’t taken CR, it’s up to you though, if you’ve taken The Culling, Energized will allow you to access that bonus significantly more often.
Level 9: Improved Holographics v. Deft Hands v. Lingering Light
Recommendation: Improved Holographics
Shield penetration just isn’t that good so I don’t recommend it. You can’t crit a target while they have a shield so you can even get the extreme burst with Burst Dash that could be possible and make it worthwhile. Targets with enough shield and low enough hp to make DH worthwhile just don’t occur often enough to make it useful.
IH gives you a 21 base CD on Holotwin, with up to 8 seconds of the clone (~38% uptime) and 3 seconds of your passive buff (~14% uptime). LL gives you a 28 sec CD with 15 possible seconds of clone (53% uptime) and 3 seconds of passive (11% uptime). The fragility of the clone (so it won’t often last the full duration) coupled with the increased access to the passive buff and additional clone explosion damage push IH over LL. If you can continuously have your Holotwin survive while having it deal a lot of damage, LL can be better, but it’s not a realistic expectation or common occurrence in PvP or PvE.
Level 10: Dopplegangup v. Gathering Storm
Recommendation: Dopplegangup
Assuming you can even kill something with Blinkstorm, the best that GS can give you is a 10 second reduction (which is either 2 minor or 1 major enemy). The base CD is 70 seconds and Blink Storm is *not* an attack you use anywhere approaching on cooldown so you’re not really getting anything useful out of it. Dopplegangup gives you a clone to attack your opponents while you’re bouncing around. It’s identical to your Holotwin clone (same damage, duration, etc.) so that’s a nice little chunk of damage, especially since it’s liable to beat up the targets you stunned with Blink Storm (and, since they’re stunned, they’re not gonna be killing your Holotwin).
Gear Stats
Deande is all about killing stuff. Offensive stats make her tougher to kill thanks to her native life steal but life steal doesn’t really do you much good if you die. I’ll go over all stats here, based on how I personally categorize them, and provide a priority list for each category.
Offensive
(Attack Damage>Attack Speed>Skill Damage=Critical Damage>Cooldown>Shield Pen>Recoil=Reload):
Attack Damage is the most important stat for Deande since a majority of her damage is from her basic attacks. Keep in mind, Attack Damage also augments your clones’ melee and ranged attack damage. If you want to go for a Skill Damage build (e.g. Burst Dash nuking) for PvP, you can ignore Attack Damage, but you won’t have particularly impressive damage normally.
Attack Speed is second to Attack Damage only because it has lower values.
Skill Damage is good because Deande does have decent damage skills; they’re just on long CDs and have damage that isn’t quite high enough to really make augmenting them worth it.
Critical Damage is low priority because Deande isn’t stellar at scoring crits with her basic melee attack (because of the wide swings that need precise distance to avoid hitting a target on the side) or ranged attack (because of the general inaccuracy of the throws) and only Burst Dash is capable of scoring crits (assuming you don’t take Ground Zero).
Cooldown means more skill uses, but the values are so low (and you it’s generally best to hold on to skills rather than using them right when they come back) so it’s not really a huge improvement to your damage.
Shield pen is utterly rubbish. It’s only useful in PvP because most enemies in PvE don’t have shields (and no bosses have them; Rendain’s shield doesn’t care about shield pen). Still, it actually does something unlike recoil and reload. Recoil and reload are only useful as penalties to take on gear since they do absolutely nothing to her.
Special Note: if you take Calculated Risk, Max Shield turns into a viable but still extremely low priority damage stat. It’s barely above Shield Pen in general utility but, if all you care about is Burst Dash, it’s the top priority, along with Skill Damage.
Defensive
(Max Health>Damage Reduction>Max Shield>Health Regen=Healing Received>Shield Recharge=Shield Regen<CC Duration):
Deande doesn’t have a lot of hp/shield but she’s got the second best life steal in the entire game. While she doesn’t have the raw hp/shield required to make DR outright better than max health, max health is only going to be better over a short exchange. Especially after levels 3-4, when you can dramatically improve her life steal, the longer a fight gets, the better DR gets since it means her life steal is acting upon smaller amounts of incoming damage.
Max shield is worse than max health more than it usually is: Deande tends to stay in combat for long periods and, as such, has few opportunities to recharge her shield while she’ll be constantly recharging her hp via life steal. You can use Holotwin to vanish and allow your shield to start recharging, but you’re basically disengaging rather than actually recharging your shield in combat.
Health Regen and Healing Received are extremely low value because Deande already has loads of natural health recovery due to her life steal. The only real advantage these stats have compared to what she brings already is that it is out-of-combat recovery.
Shield Recharge and Shield Regen are low value because Deande tends to stay in combat for long periods of time. She’s small, agile, and can kill enemies fast enough that she may be able to avoid taking damage for long enough for her shield to recharge, so it’s not worthless, but it’s definitely not as valuable as everything else (especially since her lifesteal is generally going to be more than what you can get her shield regen up to).
CC duration is functionally worthless. CCs don’t last that long so the minute values of CC duration on gear basically mean nothing.
Mobility
(Move speed>Sprint speed>CC duration):
Move speed is useful in combat and out of combat and is increased by sprint speed. Sprint speed is only really useful outside of combat. CC duration reduces the duration of slows and stuns but is still absolutely terrible.
Economy
(Shards>Buildable):
Getting shards helps you buy gear as well as construct buildables. Buildable reduction makes them way cheaper, however. Something to consider is that I only find these stats remotely useful in PvP. PvE gives you shards like candy; unless you’ve got someone who bogarts all of the shards, every mission should provide a surplus of shards even if you have a triple legendary loadout (like I do for pretty much everyone). In PvP, however, these are absolutely amazing and can actually be the foundation of an effective strategy.
Legendaries
Gloves (attack damage):
Pacifier makes it harder to break your shield and makes your life steal more valuable since it’s acting on less incoming damage (remember: Pacifier does not trigger The Culling). Symbiotic Gauntlet syncs well with Deande’s life steal since she’s able to keep herself at max hp pretty easily. VoV is just pure face melting because it increases attack speed and, as a melee, you’re going to be generating those increased damage stacks like crazy. VoV is better than SG mainly because your damage won’t drop when you take damage, which is liable to happen.
Lenore’s Lament gets special mention. It’s not really stellar for Lenore because, while she does like attack damage and skill damage, she really doesn’t need the life steal: she brings plenty of it on her own. Furthermore, the life steal on Lenore’s Lament only applies to non-Jennerit and *only* to health damage dealt so it’s both weak and largely redundant.
Swords (attack speed):
VoZF is the gold standard of attack speed legendaries: the stacks last an extremely long time and are easy to acquire, and it provides an excellent stat in addition to the attack speed. It’s kind of a ♥♥♥♥♥ to get, though, because Rendain drops it. And Rendain sucks (longest mission in the game and he’s the very last boss). SEoA is much easier to get and is almost as good: the stacks can be stacked faster if you’re in combat and quick about it; move speed is, in my book, worse than crit damage though, but that’s personal preference.
Culling Spike is also worth mentioning since it brings attack damage along with the attack speed and augments your Jennerit allies a bit. The total attack speed provided makes it inferior to VoZF imo but it’s a legitimate choice. Fan of the Retreat is the “defensive” choice here. Offensively, the attack speed is inferior to the other 3 because it’s a lore legendary (which get junk stats) and cooldown isn’t an awesome stat, but, defensively, it’s amazing because it allows you to get your shield recharging quickly. If you’re building for a combat viable Calculated Risk build, you’ll want this.
Watches (cooldown):
Borrowed Timer can be powerful in PvP. Being able to activate Holotwin as soon as you drop to critical hp levels will save your ♥♥♥ plenty. Of course, the secondary stat is trash and Deande doesn’t have a whole lot of hp so the 10% window is rather small. Still, being able to use Holotwin aggressively and still know that you’ll be able to use it in an emergency is worth consideration.
I’ll mention a few others purely to caution people against using them since I can see the gears turning in some minds. Chrono Key was a popular option early on but, post nerf, I would never recommend it. Cooldown is useful, but the secondary stat is useless (heal power doesn’t affect life steal) and the legendary effect requires an obscene amount of damage dealt to see any returns. Even if you’re chewing through enemies, you’re not going to see enough to really make it worthwhile. Firmware Update has similar problems: low value secondary stat and Deande’s abilities have CDs that are *way* too high to really make effective use out of the legendary effect (for Firmware Update, you want at least 1 skill with a low CD that you will spam as much as you can). Aria’s Encore is another trap, mainly because it’s only good in ops, where basic attacks are way better, since that’s the only time you’ve got Ops Points to fuel the legendary effect.
Goggles (critical damage):
If you can manage to get crits reliably as Deande, this is worth it. You get attack speed to go with the critical damage and the special effect is quite nice. In PvE, a blind is basically a stun and, in PvP, it’s extremely disorienting to players.
Pauldrons (damage reduction):
Blissbeast is one of the best pure survivability tools in the game. It gives a lot of DR and, while health regen isn’t amazing for Deande, it’s not completely useless. Furthermore, because Deande doesn’t have a lot of hp, the legendary effect of the BSP will be triggered plenty often, without being problematic because you’re recovering from the damage through lifesteal too. Alamo-7 Armor has a worthless secondary stat and, although the cooldown time on the legendary effect is extremely long, it is *extremely* powerful (2 seconds of total immunity); combine this with the Borrowed Timer to either escape (with Holotwin) or turn the tables (with Blink Storm, trusting the 2 secs of immunity to keep you alive while you charge).
Injectors (health regen):
An excellent utility legendary that also helps out your team. You get health regen, increased damage, and a portion of all damage dealt (which should be a lot) is given to your allies as life. Considering Deande’s DPS as well as her existing life steal, this is more about helping your team rather than helping out yourself.
Armor (max hp):
Vigilance Link gives you 2 excellent survivability stats and makes your team more durable as well. Excellent for team players and more support minded people. Vampiric vestments will give you hp, more hp when you kill things, and more attack damage so that it’s easier to kill things. Normally, I wouldn’t recommend VV for PvP, but Deande can escape with Holotwin and is an effective assassin so it can be quite effective. Pain-2-Gain Re-Knitter has both of Deande’s best survivability stats and, as a character with extreme damage recovery as well as a helix that will break her shield, she’s liable to ratchet up those additional hp very easily, especially while clearing out minions.
Batteries (max shield):
Modernista is a good anti-ranged shield with a decent secondary stat. A good way to discourage snipers in PvP since you can avoid the first crit and hurt them in the process. One-4-All Shield Array gives you more shield, your allies more shield, and can stack up some shield penetration if you want to push a shield pen build, not that it’s very good. Voxis Core is a requisite for a skill damage build (especially a Calculated Risk build since it gives shield, skill damage, *and* bonus AoE), since the legendary effect is basically a 15% increase in damage if there’s more than 1 enemy nearby and does *amazing* things with all of Deande’s skills.
Boots (move speed):
I wouldn’t use them for PvE since you don’t need to slow enemies, but they’re useful in PvP since they let you keep up with enemy players exceptionally well.
Capacitor (shield recharge):
The only shield recharge item I’d recommend because of the incredibly powerful legendary effect that’s outright controllable with Calculated Risk. Skill Damage is somewhat less valuable if you’re building for attack speed (since attack speed is for a basic attack build and skill damage is generally reserved for a Calculated Risk build), but it’s a possibility.
Pins (skill damage):
The gold standard of skill damage legendaries. Attack speed (amazing) in addition to skill damage and a bonus effect that makes enemies take more damage after being damaged by your skills (absolutely incredible when stacked with her passive). This is the only skill damage item I would bother with for Deande.
Non-Legendary Gear
Loadouts
General PvE:
Vow of Zealous Fury, Vow of Vengeance, Blissbeast Skull Plate
A lot of damage and attack speed with a bit of DR and regen from Blissbeast.
Pure Damage PvE:
Vow of Zealous Fury, Vow of Vengeance, Bola’s Target Finder
Also known as the “My DPS is *way* higher than yours build”, you’re going for pure damage and attack speed, trusting entirely to life steal to keep you alive, with Holotwin available in emergencies. You can swap out VoZF for the lore legendary for a bit more skill damage and some shield recovery, but it’s not really that useful.
Calculated Burst Dash PvE:
Fan of the Retreat, Bola’s Target Finder, Voxis Core
A gimmick build concerned with capitalizing on Calculated Risk. You can hit insanely hard, especially if you crit with it, but you’ll be hurting elsewhere, especially since the Max Shield you’re getting isn’t working for survivability.
Pure Survivability PvE:
Pain-2-Gain Re-Knitter, Pacifier, Blissbeast Skull Plate
Pacifier increases damage dealt and gives you shield; the main advantage is the legendary effect which reduces the damage of enemies hit by 10%. Pain-2-Gain gives you a *lot* of hp and DR, as does Blissbeast Skull Plate. You probably won’t be topping the damage charts for the group, but I’m pretty sure you won’t be dying any time soon (or even requiring outside healing, honestly).
Basic Attack PvP:
Sketchy “Easy Money” (-heal power) or Erratic Shard Extractor (-reload), Vow of Vengeance, Vow of Zealous Fury
Free shard gen (either of those penalties are good because neither affects him) to allow you to afford the other 2. VoV and VoZF are simply the best damage legendaries you can get. If you have problems keeping people around, Boots of the Brute is the way to go instead of either of those (VoZF is better front end damage; VoV is better back end).
Skill Damage PvP:
Sketchy “Easy Money” (-heal power) or Erratic Shard Extractor (-reload), Bola’s Target Finder or Codex Fragment, Voxis Core
Free shard gen with a stat that doesn’t affect you, like always. Voxis Core is simply amazing and Bola’s or Codex Fragment, to taste. Bola’s is my preference because it also means that you’re better at setting up kills for your allies, but many assassins tend to prefer to kill on their own.
Razor’s Edge PvP:
Sketchy “Easy Money” (-heal power) or Erratic Shard Extractor (-reload), Borrowed Timer, “Alamo-7” Armor
Free shard gen allows you to afford the other 2 legendaries, which give you 2 seconds of invulnerability (once every 2 minutes) and instant skill recharge (once every 30 seconds) whenever you’re reduced to less than 10% hp. The point is to open with skills and either use Holotwin to flee when you get low and/or Blink Storm while invulnerable and safe to charge.
Fast Leveling PvP:
Erratic Shard Extractor (-reload), Erratic Tempestian Cred-Stick (-reload), 1 legendary
Build as much as possible to get easy xp and level up as quickly as possible. Make sure you stick around the fights as well so that you’re not sacrificing minion xp for build xp. The legendary is there for when you hit level 5 (or 10, whatever your goal level is) and don’t need to build for xp any more. I don’t mention any specific legendaries because there are a *crapton* that can fit in depending upon what you want and how you want to do it: VoV or VoZF for damage, Boots of the Brute for lockdown, etc.