Chanters are versatile incarnate and adaptable for (almost) any situation. Beat on that Assassin, he might be pretty suprised at what you can do with tat staff of yours. When grinding in the Abyss and very large red numbers hover over your head and you just killed a mob, dont panic! Calm yourself, and spam Healing Light, make sure your hot is up and you should be fine. Plenty of times Ive been jumped by a Ranger/Assassin/Sorceror and Ive simply suprised them by out-healing their DPS. The enemy normally sees Chanters as a more gimped class than we actually are. Once they realise they cant kill you, they will run/fly away. Most of the time, there isnt much you can do about that apart from wipe the sweat from your brow and carry on.
While there is a lot of discussion as to whether Assassins are better off stacking their manastones in favor of Battle of the immortals Gold, I still prefer going with Physical Crit first. Weapon choices come down to dual swords or dual daggers and Im finding a lot of this is personal preference. Daggers crit more often, however swords crit bigger numbers and I found that early on, the daggers were more useful but higher in levels, the swords seem to do more damage overall. In the end, youll really want to go with whichever offers the best stats and the highest quality that you can afford. If you generally use daggers and come across a fabulous sword, use it! You wont be missing out on anything but changing things up a little.