Assassin

The Assassin is one of three Hybrid vocations in Dragon's Dogma. Hybrid vocations are exclusive to your main character, the Arisen. It costs 1,500 Discipline Points (DP) to switch to this vocation.

Description
The Assassin is the most versatile vocation in Dragon's Dogma. He or she can wield daggers or one handed swords, combined with either a short bow or shield. These assets  can be changed on the fly to suit current combative needs. Since the Assassin has access to four combat elements, it is only natural that he or she comes equipped with a multitude of skills that pertain to whichever weapon you choose to wield. T he Assassin is  a  unique blend of the Strider and Fighter vocations that concocts the ultimate fighting machine.

Primary Weapon: Sword /Daggers

Secondary Weapon: Shield /Bow

Strengths and Role
Weapon Masters: Able to use the sword or daggers, and shield or bow. Use a 4 weapon combinations to suit your playstyle or needs.

Deadly Toolkit: Wielding paralyzing toxins, fatal poisons, and devastating explosives, Assassins use all the tricks of their trade to cripple or eliminate their enemies.

Defensive Attacks: Some skills like Clairvoyance and Masterful kill are actually counter-attacks and can be used as defensive measures to avoid or reduce damage, as well as a viable means to attack.

Invisiblity: Assassin's skill Invisibility prevents them from taking damage from both Physical and Magick attacks as long as the skill is active, or until stamina runs out. They still have access to all their other abilities while cloaked which makes it even more deadly. It doesn't prevent grabbing however.

High Mobility: While wielding the daggers they have access to the dodge roll and the double jump skills and still has access to high levels of stamina and climbing power. This makes them able to easily move about the world and the battle field.

Highest Strength Growth: Assassins have the highest Strength growth of all vocations in the game, making them useful for increasing your physical power as you level up.

Weaknesses
Lowest Melee Class Defense: The Assassin has the lowest overall defense in the melee class vocations.

Small Skill Set: Due to having four weapons, you don't get the variety other classes have with skill sets, the bow and shield are especially small, however they have unique and useful twists.

Skills
Augments: 25600 DP Core: 10000 DP Bow Skills: 12900 DP Dagger Skills: 46400 DP Shield Skills: 21800 DP Sword Skills: 36000 DP

Total: 152700 DP

Tips and Tactics

 * The Assassin like the Strider, Ranger, and/or Magick Archer are effective against flying foes, especially against a Wyvern, aggravating Wights, or a Drake due to their heart being easily target; but with the Assassin, they have a greater output of damage when the foe is taken down as compared to its sub-classes but are only hindered through their climbing unless you have the necessary core skills and augments for the Strider and Ranger classes. They are more flexible in battle tactics.
 * If you want a long living Assassin, then it is recommended that you obtain the augments from the Fighter and Warrior class first and decide how to balance out your class with the bow and dagger.
 * In addition, to their diversity in weapons and tactics, they have good stamina usage (depending on Augments obtained before hand) due to their light armor once enhanced.
 * Make use of the Assassins defense "moving" abilities such as the Forward Roll and Double Vault core skills, which gives him/her the abilities to dodge AOE foes such as the Chimera, Wyrm, Drake, Wyvern, Cockatrice, the Wight, and so on.
 * Although venturing out at night is more dangerous than during the day, an Assassin can acquire Augments, such as Bloodlust or Sanguinity, that activate at night only, which make the assassin a more formidable vocation. Therefore an Assassin is not as limited to only day-light hours as other classes, and of course any Vocation can benefit from these Augments, should you choose to change Vocations.

Trivia

 * The Burst Strike sword move is identical to the Stinger sword attack performed by Dante in the Devil May Cry games. The director of Dragon's Dogma, Hideaki Itsuno, was also director on Devil May Cry 3 and 4.
 * It has been argued that the Assassin class is the best in the game. However, only some skills and augments of the Assassin are actually the best in the game, and it is these augments such as bloodlust that make other classes equally as good.
 * Based on Stats upon leveling, the Assassin has the most potential for damage, beating Sorcerers by one magic each level(not to mention spells have casting time compared to instant physical attacks). An augment or two I.E. Warriors bastion and Assassin's Autonomy easily cover what defense you'll need. Pretty much every class in the game has useful Augments and as Augments can be used with other classes they don't have much to do with which class is the best.