Formerly known as the Impatient Assassin build. Has been further optimized and then repackaged to cater to the general readership after discovering that most people like to press fewer buttons more fast! AWESOME.
The purpose of the AWESASSIN BUTTON build is to allow for quick access to and slotting of all four active abilities, beeline for passives related to increasing stamina so that you can spam your awesome abilities ASAP, and then get the boring DPS passives later.
tl:dr AWESASSIN summary:
Active abilities: Stealth, Hidden Blades, Shadow Strike, Twin Fangs
Passive abilities: Beeline to dance of death by level 9-10, ignore all other second tree passives, beeline to Cull the Herd, only get stamina and DPS passives in first tree. tl:dr AWESASSIN summary over.
Advantages of this build:
1. All offensive active abilities obtained and upgraded by level 7 for faster access to ability spamming at low levels
2. No purchase of unused active abilities, only passives are obtained between levels 12-20
3. Obtain and use the same straightforward ability rotation with minimal use of stealth from levels 9, 10, or 12 onwards
4. Faster ability spamming thanks to shadow strike reducing all cooldowns. More Hidden Blades! AWESOME
5. Fully benefits from higher crit chance found on equipment or cunning (0.5% crit chance per rogue promotion)
6. Armor penetration on equipment is a bit less trivialized due to less use of Ambush armor penetration passive
Disadvantage of this build:
1. Not as much DPS as some builds at higher levels due to less utilization of Ambush and not using Deathblow or Knife in the Shadows
2. Not as much survivability as builds that have I Was Never Here and Flank Attack due to much less stealth spam
3. Shadow Strike has bad tracking and should only be used on enemies not moving or that are moving towards you
4. No decent AoE, whereas deathblow builds can do decent AoE. Must exactly time twin fangs and shadow strike attacks on mobs that are being grouped up by Static Cage or Pull of the Abyss.
5. Everyone will think you don't know what you are doing when they see you using Shadow Strike
Abilities, listed in order of recommended progression from level 1 to 20 (does not need to be followed exactly. Other progressions may be preferable depending on many variables such as weapon damage, difficulty played on, and playstyle):
level 2: First Blood
3-4: Hidden Blades upgraded (if you want more DPS at the expense of the build being mostly done at level 12 instead of level 10, get Cull the Herd after Hidden Blades FOR MORE AWESOME HIDDEN BLADES DAMAGE)
5-6: Shadow Strike upgraded (can be skipped until after obtaining Dance of Death)
7: Twin Fangs upgraded (can be skipped until after obtaining Dance of Death and Shadow Strike, should be skipped if level 1 in reliable perilous team)
8-10: Dance of Death. Build pushes the same awesome buttons the same way from level 10 onwards.
11-13: Stealth and Cull the Herd. Stealth upgrade first if you are too impatient for stealth animation. Cull the Herd first if you want more DPS over instant stealth animation.
14-20: Order for the last five abilities is entirely up to your preference. Looked Like It Hurt for more ability spam, Cripple for slowing enemies, Sneak Attack for more flanking crits, Bloodied Prey for more DPS if you tend to be able to keep your HP high, and Throatcutter for more DPS vs. low hp enemies especially bosses. I usually go in the order listed above.
From level 10-20 (or 12-20 if you got Cull the Herd early), the awesome button rotation is the same. Stealth, run ahead of the team to get behind enemies, wait for enemies to aggro team, hidden blade something (do this before running behind enemies if your team ran ahead of you NOT AWESOME), twin fangs something, shadow strike something's flank, and then use twin fangs again which should be off cooldown thanks to shadow strike flank cooldown reduction. Run around and poke things from the back while waiting for cooldowns to finish, and run away if they decide to look at you until they find someone else to bother, because you aren't going to be running back into stealth constantly to break aggro as is possible with some other builds.
If you see enemies grouped in very tightly, such as if affected by Static Cage or Pull of the Abyss, Twin Fangs and Shadow Strike can hit them, but the timing must be exact. Shadow Strike can reduce your cooldowns by 4 multiple times if multiple enemies are hit in the flank in this manner.
If you are not being completely captivated by pressing your three awesome buttons and hear an enemy rogue cloaked nearby, shadow strike is a good emergency knockdown against them. Shadow strike can also be used as emergency knockdowns against many other enemies, and ideally should be used when you haven't been hit yet so as to benefit from damage bonus. It doesn't have to be used only behind enemies, use it as an emergency attack if necessary and save hidden blades and twin fangs for targets they are most suitable for.
If you are in a reliable perilous running team and playing as a level 1 AWESASSIN, it is highly recommended to skip twin fangs upgrade and not get cull the herd early, so that you can have Dance of Death by level 9 (which you should get after most successful perilous runs).
Now go forth and be an AWESOME BUTTON MASHER!
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