Enshrouded Assassin in 1.0: Dagger Skills and How to Skill Them
Published by the Enshrouded Builds team
Before 1.0, a dagger build had to spend points in two places: the dagger skills sat in the Warrior area, while the crit and stealth skills that make daggers work were on the Ranger side. Update 1.0 moved the dagger skills to the Assassin group in the Ranger area and gave daggers their own craftable armor. This post shows where everything is now and how to skill an Assassin, with skill values from the 1.0 game files (build 1267041) and quotes from Keen Games' 1.0 changelog.
Short version: the Assassin group now holds 15 skills, 7 of them for daggers. Unlocking the dagger special ability costs 7 points from an empty tree. Tiers 2 and 3 now have a craftable dagger armor set, and the dagger sets now upgrade melee crit chance instead of sneak attack damage.
What changed for daggers in 1.0
- The skills moved. Keen "moved dagger-related skills from the warrior area of the skill tree to the assassin tree, where it makes much more sense." A dagger build no longer splits its points between two areas.
- Craftable dagger armor. In the Revelwood and Nomad Highlands tiers, "the dagger sets could only be found as loot." Now "both the tier 2 and 3 have one craftable ranged combat set and one craftable dagger set each."
- A different set perk. "The dagger sets Assassin, Frostbite Slasher, Blood Feather, and a new set now have a melee attack critical hit chance improvement upgrade perk instead of a sneak attack damage increase." Crit chance helps every hit; the old perk only helped openers.
Every dagger skill in the Assassin group
All of these sit in the Assassin group of the Ranger area. The text is the in-game text at max rank:
| Skill | Cost | In-game effect at max rank |
|---|---|---|
| Dagger Mastery | 1 pt × 3 | Damage with Daggers is increased by 15%. |
| Dagger Specialization | 3 pt | Unlocks Special Abilities of Daggers. Press [Special Ability] to unleash a powerful Special Ability after generating enough Focus. Focus: Generate Focus by attacking. Focus can be built up with any weapon type and is used to trigger Special Abilities of weapons. |
| Expose Weakness | 4 pt | Critical Strikes with Daggers break the armor of enemies, applying a debuff which lets them take 25% increased physical damage for 5 seconds. |
| Venomous Blades | 2 pt | Increases the chance to poison enemies to 30% when using Daggers with the Venomous Blades perk. |
| Venom Mastery | 3 pt | Increases the damage dealt with the Venomous Blades Dagger perk by 100%. |
| Slice And Dice | 3 pt | After a Critical Strike with a Dagger, the base damage of your next Bow attack within 10 seconds is increased by 50%. |
| Quick Reflex Block | 3 pt | Briefly increases your Block value when blocking with Daggers, ensuring a near-miss parry reduces Stamina minimally. |
Two things stand out. Expose Weakness works on dagger crits, so crit chance is worth more on an Assassin than on most builds. And the poison pair, Venomous Blades and Venom Mastery, only does something with daggers that have the Venomous Blades perk, so check your weapon before you buy them (11 points to reach Venom Mastery from an empty tree).
The rest of the Assassin group
The group also has skills that aren't tied to daggers. Some are survival picks for a light-armor build, others belong to bomb or travel builds:
| Skill | Cost | In-game effect at max rank |
|---|---|---|
| Graceful Stride | 5 pt | Gain one point of Dexterity for every two levels of the Flame. |
| Backstab Mastery | 1 pt × 3 | Backstab damage is increased by 60%. |
| Thrust | 2 pt × 3 | Melee Piercing damage is increased by 30%. |
| Veiled Vigor | 1 pt × 3 | Increases your maximum Health by 9 times your Dexterity attribute. |
| Vile Concoction | 1 pt × 3 | Throwable damage is increased by 36%. |
| Shell Shock | 3 pt | Infuse your Ranged Explosives with Mana. They now stun enemies for 2 seconds. Cost: 8 Mana per stunned enemy |
| Airborne | 1 pt × 3 | Gliders consume 36% less Stamina. |
| Updraft | 4 pt | Jumping with [Jump] while gliding lifts you upwards. Can be used once per flight. Charge: As the Updraft charges before activation, the resulting lift is increased. A full charge grants you an additional boost. The charge is accelerated while inside your base. Cost: 100 Mana |
Veiled Vigor is the one most Assassins take: it turns Dexterity into health, which a light-armor build needs. Airborne and Updraft are travel skills that any build can use.
Sneak attacks, crits and Shroud time
An Assassin also draws on a few skills outside the group:
| Skill | Where | Cost | In-game effect at max rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sneak Attack | Core / Core | 3 pt | Perform a Sneak Attack by sneaking up to an unaware enemy and pressing [Contextual Action]. Sneak Attack deals +900% increased damage. Wands, Staves and Bows cannot perform Sneak Attacks. |
| Cutthroat | Ranger / Ranger | 1 pt × 3 | Sneak Attack Damage is increased by 300%. |
| Silent Stride | Ranger / Ranger | 1 pt × 3 | Increases your movement speed while sneaking by 60%. |
| Fatal Precision | Ranger / Ranger | 1 pt × 3 | Critical Strike chance is increased by 3%. Critical Strike damage is increased by 15%. |
| Survival Instinct | Ranger / Survivor | 1 pt × 3 | Defeating a Shroud infested enemy with a Bow or Dagger restores 9 seconds of Time in the Shroud. Time in the Shroud: Should this time run out, the Shroud will consume you. |
Sneak Attack doesn't work with wands, staves or bows, so the dagger is your opener. Survival Instinct pays off for both weapons an Assassin carries, and gives back Shroud time now that stacked Shroud time bonuses are weaker in 1.0.
How to skill an Assassin in 1.0
- Daggers first: Dagger Specialization for the special ability (7 points from an empty tree), then Dagger Mastery.
- Openers: Sneak Attack and Cutthroat, plus Backstab Mastery for fights that start without stealth.
- Crits: Fatal Precision and Expose Weakness (10 points from an empty tree).
- Health: Veiled Vigor and a few Constitution nodes, because light armor won't save you.
- Bow hybrid: Slice And Dice if you swap to a bow after a dagger crit.
Our planner preset has Dagger Specialization, Dagger Mastery and Backstab Mastery by the end of the levels 1–15 stage (65 points). Its full core: Dagger Mastery, Sneak Attack, Dagger Specialization, Backstab Mastery, Cutthroat, Expose Weakness, Graceful Stride, Venomous Blades, Venom Mastery, Slice And Dice, Survival Instinct, Veiled Vigor, Airborne, Ranger, Double Jump. Open the level 1–15 Assassin preset or the full level 50 build in the planner, and see the Assassin build guide for gear and playstyle.
Is the Assassin worth playing in 1.0?
It's the most demanding build on our 1.0 tier list, at B-tier: huge openers, but very fragile. 1.0 made it easier to build (one area, craftable sets), not easier to play. If you like daggers but want more safety, pair them with a bow like the Ranger does: the two share the Ranger area. For the bigger picture, read what 1.0 changed for each build and the 1.0 skill tree changes.
Sources & how we checked this guide
Facts on this page were last checked on October 20, 2026 against Enshrouded 1.0.0.2 (Steam build 1269579). Patch facts come from Keen Games' official posts. Skill ranks, point costs and percentages were checked against the in-game skill text exported from the 1.0 game files (build 1267041) and cross-checked with two independent community sources. Item names were checked against the official Enshrouded Wiki. Read our methodology.