The game was still loading, and Shen Huai typed on the public screen to ask.
——Does anyone have any questions?
【Yes!! Please recommend skill points for Assassins to rank up in the S5 season!】
【Cang Yu God, I just want to ask, can we still play Assassins in this version without the Fatal Strike? How should we play it?】
【I’ve given up on using Assassins to reach King rank… Just getting to Brave rank is enough… Please guide us, Cang Yu God!!】
A series of questions on the screen were almost all related to the Assassin class because Shen Huai’s best class was the Assassin.
From the one-hit Assassin in the S2 season, the infinite immobilization in S3, to the dual cultivation of poison and magic in S4, Shen Huai could be said to have pioneered new ways to play Assassins each season, developing them into ranking-up black technology.
But not everyone could do this; otherwise, everyone would be a god just by watching the live broadcast.
The Assassin class, with its flashy skill combos, stealth mechanics, and no mana consumption, became a popular choice for ranking up as soon as it was introduced in the S2 season. Especially in 1V1 arenas, it was invincible, with more than half of the top 100 players in solo arenas being Assassins.
As a result, the game officials began to make adjustments to the Assassin class repeatedly. With continuous nerfs, by the middle of the S3 season, the Assassin’s solo arena ability had rapidly declined, and the overall win rate had dropped to 47%!
When the new class Qi Master appeared in the S4 season, with the defense of a melee swordsman and high skill damage and control knockback, the Qi Master dominated the solo arena. The Assassin, already in an awkward position in 6V6 team battles, could no longer hold its ground in 1V1 arenas and almost disappeared from the arena.
Currently, including professional teams, there are very few Assassin players, and it’s rare to see the scene of Assassins wielding dual blades in official matches and high-level games. In this environment, Cang Yu’s Assassin has become the last beacon of hope for Assassin players!
Shen Huai typed a confident reply on the public screen.
——Of course, Assassins can still fight; it’s just that the lower limit has been raised.
Raising the lower limit means increasing the difficulty of skill operations. To deal the same high damage as before, you need even more advanced skills.
But… what??
The Assassin’s lower limit is already the highest among all classes, okay? Look at the version’s overlord Qi Master, who can rank up to Brave with eyes closed and face-rolling the keyboard, and we Assassins, stuck in the Warrior rank, still have to show off our skills?
Can it get any worse?
The game had already loaded into the character selection screen. On the screen stood several characters of different classes, with an Assassin in the center, dressed in a black tight suit and wearing a half-silver mask, standing gracefully on a rock, holding two sharp short blades that glinted coldly.
Shen Huai clicked on the Assassin with his mouse, chose to enter the game, and simultaneously clicked on the arena.
In “City of Despair,” the arena ranks from low to high are Ranger, Righteous, Warrior, Brave, King, and Divine Might, with each rank divided into high, medium, and low levels, requiring different arena points.
The arena has three modes: solo 1V1, duo 2V2, and team 6V6. Shen Huai chose the arena 1V1 without hesitation.
【Wow… The new season has just started for less than a month, and the god is already at Divine Might rank??】
Seeing someone ask in the live broadcast room, Shen Huai typed in the game public screen.
——Yeah, I don’t have time, so I hired a booster.
【………………】
【God, being so honest will get you reported…】
【Daring to openly admit hiring a booster, you’re probably the only one on the internet, huh, very 6, that’s very Cang Yu.】
【Someone can actually be a booster for Cang Yu God?? I just want to know if their hands were shaking when they took the order!】
【Please recommend a studio!! I also want to stand shoulder to shoulder with Cang Yu God!!】
Thinking of his booster, Shen Huai had a smile on his lips.
——You can’t hire them.
The fans exploded again.
【Damn! Am I being mocked by Yu God?】
【Yu God, aren’t you afraid we’ll report you for pulling aggro like this?】
【What a lousy streamer, we’re not fans anymore! Report, report!】
The PVE and PVP gameplay of “City of Despair” are both excellent. In PVE, players need to craft or purchase their own weapons and equipment. In the PVP arena, players choose from a unified equipment pool upon entry, ensuring fairness in the arena.
Shen Huai still chose dual blades for the Assassin class’s weapon. The advantage of dual blades is high attack and critical damage, but the downside is the inability to equip a shield, reducing the character’s defense and health. But Shen Huai unhesitatingly gave up the single short blade and chose one with increased attack speed among the dual blades, also opting for a combination of attack speed and movement speed for other equipment.
After selecting the equipment, he began to allocate skill points and general talents for the character’s class. The game has eight classes, and except for the new Qi Master class, each class has four different skill branches. Since skill points are limited, players can generally only choose to major in one skill branch and minor in another, and the talent page is the same.
The game officials of “City of Despair” adjust each class every year based on player feedback from the big data platform and the performance of players in professional leagues to achieve game balance. The adjustments are mainly made by directly adjusting class skills and indirectly modifying talents.
In the S4 season, the talent “Fatal Strike” allowed snipers relying on ultra-long-range sniping to shine. So at the start of the S5 season, the new talents released by the officials removed “Fatal Strike,” which was originally an adjustment targeting snipers but also dealt a heavy blow to Assassins who relied on “Fatal Strike” to increase damage and barely survive.
When the season update was released last month, Shen Huai fell into deep thought upon seeing the announcement.
The talent effect of Fatal Strike was to deal higher damage to enemies with less than 50% health. For Assassins, whose skill damage had been repeatedly nerfed, it was a lifeline. Now that Fatal Strike was removed, it was indeed very difficult for Assassins to deal damage.
But looking at the latest talent system, he pondered repeatedly and finally came up with a feasible plan, and today was his first battle to put this theory into practice.
Shen Huai skillfully allocated the skill points and talent points, and the fans in the live broadcast room were surprised to find that Cang Yu’s skill branch this time was completely different from before!
In the past two seasons, no matter how varied the skill points were, relying on poison attacks to inflict bleeding status was always the mainstream playstyle for Assassins. But this time, Shen Huai completely abandoned this branch and instead chose a skill that briefly appeared in the S2 season—Bloodthirsty Dual Blades!
This is a passive skill for Assassins. After choosing Bloodthirsty Dual Blades, using skills and normal attacks will consume additional health (no longer consuming when below 10%), dealing higher damage, and the lower the health, the higher the damage dealt.
This skill description sounds powerful, but in reality, for Assassins lacking control skills and having fragile bodies, it’s akin to slow suicide. Plus, after the S2 season, Assassin damage was reduced, and they could no longer rely on a burst of damage to kill in one go, making this skill even more useless, and basically, no one used it.
The dual cultivation of poison and magic to deal bleeding damage was a playstyle pioneered by Cang Yu. Is he going to abandon his own creation this time?
The audience in the live broadcast room couldn’t help but get excited because they had reason to believe that the name “Cang Yu” would never let them down!
The game entered the matchmaking interface, and soon Shen Huai was matched with a player of the same rank, whose class happened to be the solo king praised in the forums for the last two versions—the Qi Master.
【GG! Encountering the arena boss right off the bat.】
【Cang Yu God, crush him! I haven’t dared to play solo arenas recently, it’s full of Qi Masters!】
【Qi Master is the version’s top dog, even Cang Yu God might have a hard time… Especially with Cang Yu God’s new talent skills, this match is more for practice…】
The opposing Qi Master was also surprised; he had been playing the arena all day and hadn’t encountered a single Assassin.
【Everyone】【Qi Master Rank Up Steady】: ??? Assassin??? Did I encounter a national treasure??? This is Divine Might rank, right?
Shen Huai ignored him, his slender fingers hovering above the keyboard, carefully reviewing the skills he had just adjusted.
【Everyone】【Qi Master Rank Up Steady】: Damn, really an Assassin? A Divine Might rank Assassin? I was scared into thinking I was on a smurf account! Is there still someone playing Assassin…
【Everyone】【Qi Master Rank Up Steady】: Why aren’t you talking? Are you an actor? Dropping rank?
The viewers in the live broadcast room couldn’t stand it anymore.
【This guy is so annoying… What’s wrong with Assassins? Who says Assassins can’t reach Divine Might! Cang Yu God’s Assassin is the best in the server, okay?】
【He doesn’t even recognize Cang Yu God’s ID… He’s the real rare national treasure…】
【Waiting for Cang Yu God to slap him with skill!】
The Qi Master on the other side said a bunch of things, and out of courtesy, Shen Huai opened the chat box.
【Everyone】【Cang Yu】: …
Pressing the Enter key, Shen Huai lightly jumped onto the arena.
The 1V1 map is a fixed large arena, with a pillar in each of the four corners, and stairs in every direction. Below the stairs is clear lake water, in other words, it’s a water arena.
The Qi Master was already standing on the arena. Since Assassins can stealth, he moved very cautiously, circling forward and occasionally firing a Qi Cannon in front of him.
He was cautiously probing when he saw an Assassin openly flipping onto the arena.
Qi Master: …
Wasting so much mana, and you didn’t even use stealth.
Shen Huai used a “Thrust” skill to charge at the Qi Master. The Qi Master, being a Divine Might rank expert, knew that a frontal attack would almost never result in a combo. He quickly used the skills Dragon and Tiger Capture and Thunder Palm to knock Shen Huai into the air.
These two skills not only knock the enemy into the air but also keep them suspended for 1.5 seconds, while the Qi Master took this opportunity to fire Qi Cannons from a distance.
The Qi Cannon is the Qi Master’s main damage skill, with a cooldown of only 0.5 seconds and very low mana consumption. It can seamlessly connect and target airborne enemies. Basically, as long as you use a skill combo to knock the enemy into the air, you can mindlessly fire Qi Cannons, which is why the Qi Master is criticized for being simple to operate yet dealing high damage.
This set of Qi Cannons directly took away 30% of Shen Huai’s Assassin’s health!
Shen Huai immediately activated the “Stealth” skill to enter stealth mode, circled behind the Qi Master, and used “Soul Capture” to stun the Qi Master in place, then unleashed a big combo “Death Mark – Assassinate – Blood Blade – Heart Stab – Dark Sword.”
The Assassin’s class feature is combos, and the combo effect triggered under the Death Mark is that the fourth attack within the next second will definitely crit, dealing 200% actual damage!
If it were in the S2 season, this set of damage could at least take away 30% of the enemy’s health, but now with the reduced Assassin damage and Shen Huai’s talent not focused on attack power, the Qi Master on the other side only lost 15% of his health, while Shen Huai lost 5% of his health due to the bleeding effect of Bloodthirsty Dual Blades.
The Qi Master, freed from control, used Dragon and Tiger Capture and Thunder Palm again to throw Shen Huai into the air, followed by 3 consecutive Qi Cannons and then unleashed the ultimate Thunderous Full House!
Several blue Qi Cannons shot from a distance, punching the Assassin, and Shen Huai didn’t dodge, taking the Qi Master’s entire ultimate head-on!
This time, his health was down to 7%, while the Qi Master’s health was still at 85%, the overwhelming difference almost sealing the defeat!
The viewers in the live broadcast room were shocked.
【Damn! Am I about to witness Cang Yu God being slaughtered by a random Divine Might Qi Master??】
In front of the computer, Shen Huai looked at his flashing red screen, finally showing a few serious expressions.