Rogue - Assassin Changes

[redoubt]

Bonuses to Maximum Dodge increase the cap beyond 25%.

Bonuses to Dodge don't increase the cap beyond (25% + Maximum Dodge)

Bonuses to the Maximum Dexterity Bonus for armor don't increase the cap beyond (25% + Maximum Dodge)

Sev~

Thank you. I will use this specific verbiage as I read now.

Follow up question: Is it your intent that a pure rogue has a cap of 25%? I ask because I do not see anything within the rogue trees that increases Maximum Dodge. A player could choose Halfling for +3 and the guild buff for +2 and get a cap of 30%, but those are the only options I have found so far.

I would still like to request that Nimbleness, from the Assassin core, increase Maximum Dodge while its stacks are active. Thank you for adding this to Measure the Foe.

[Wizza]

Any chance Killer stacks could expire one-at-a-time like other Enhancements instead of all at once? Or is that a purposeful limitation?

And THIS. PLEASE.

[Severlin]

Thank you. I will use this specific verbiage as I read now.

Follow up question: Is it your intent that a pure rogue has a cap of 25%? I ask because I do not see anything within the rogue trees that increases Maximum Dodge. A player could choose Halfling for +3 and the guild buff for +2 and get a cap of 30%, but those are the only options I have found so far.

I would still like to request that Nimbleness, from the Assassin core, increase Maximum Dodge while its stacks are active. Thank you for adding this to Measure the Foe.

Assassin's Measure the Foe would increase Maximum Dodge by 10 at full stacks for 10 seconds.

Thief-Acrobat will get +6 to Maximum Dodge from three cores, and Momentum Defense can add up to 10 more for a total of 16.

Nimbleness would add too much if it increased Max Dodge; Measure the Foe and Momentum Defense lock out tier 5's from other trees.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Any chance Killer stacks could expire one-at-a-time like other Enhancements instead of all at once? Or is that a purposeful limitation?

Purposeful.

Sev~

[redoubt]

I would also like an answer to this:

Its not everything, but I found this in the Acrobat thread of the Official Turbine Discussions:


Tier One

Sly Flourish: Bonus weapon damage increased to 1/2/3[W]. Rather than having the attack reduce threat, the enhancement comes with a passive ability that reduces the threat of all attacks by 5/10/15%. Cooldown reduced to 8 seconds.

Faster Sneaking: Removed (bonus moved to the Assassin tree)

Fast Movement: You now move 10% faster. This does not stack with Fast Movement from Barbarian or Monk.

Sev~

So some fast movement is there to take if you are interested in speed.

I had originally thought that my assassin would be completely out of the TA tree (which would save me some AP), but now I'm going to try to fit:
- Sly Flourish 3 (for threat reduction)
- fast movement (need to keep up with the group)
- sublety3 from T2

If I find myself close to 10 points spent I may try to get:
Tumbler: You also gain +2 to maximum Dodge.

Overall, I am liking the reorganization of assassin and the bits I understand about TA.

[Wizza]

Purposeful.

Sev~

Why? What's the point? It's a very bad skill when the stack falls at once, it's very hard to build it as well. Literally every single other ability in the game acts in that way, why not Killer?

[redoubt]

Assassin's Measure the Foe would increase Maximum Dodge by 10 at full stacks for 10 seconds.~

I'm with you. Takes an assassin at 25% dodge up to 35% dodge for 10 seconds.


Thief-Acrobat will get +6 to Maximum Dodge from three cores, and Momentum Defense can add up to 10 more for a total of 16.~

I've starting reading that thread this morning. Good stuff. I'm jealous some of it isn't in Assassin. ;)


Nimbleness would add too much if it increased Max Dodge; Measure the Foe and Momentum Defense lock out tier 5's from other trees.

Sev~

No issue with the lock out. That's pretty standard.

Could you comment on how you see Nimbleness being used going forward?

I ask because I find getting to the 25% dodge cap to be easy enough. In the past I've even dropped dodge and used the "semi-permanent" dodge from shadow charges to get myself back up to cap. Because nimbleness does drop out, I don't see myself building a character to sit at 15% dodge with the intent of having nimbleness take me up to 25%. I see a distinct difference between nimbleness and the SD shadow charges as I can hold the shadow charges as long as I don't shrine.

[Wizza]

Its not everything, but I found this in the Acrobat thread of the Official Turbine Discussions:



So some fast movement is there to take if you are interested in speed.

I had originally thought that my assassin would be completely out of the TA tree (which would save me some AP), but now I'm going to try to fit:
- Sly Flourish 3 (for threat reduction)
- fast movement (need to keep up with the group)
- sublety3 from T2

If I find myself close to 10 points spent I may try to get:
Tumbler: You also gain +2 to maximum Dodge.

Overall, I am liking the reorganization of assassin and the bits I understand about TA.

I'll be sneaking most of the times. It doesn't work while sneaking > my assassin does not care about Faster Movement.

[Ovrad]

Bonuses to Maximum Dodge increase the cap beyond 25%.

Bonuses to Dodge don't increase the cap beyond (25% + Maximum Dodge)

Bonuses to the Maximum Dexterity Bonus for armor don't increase the cap beyond (25% + Maximum Dodge)

Sev~

If we build a toon specifically focused on dodge, the best we can hit is about 30%, and that's in lv 20+.

Meanwhile, a level 1 fighter that puts on pants has more than 30% damage mitigation from free PRR.

I wish this was balanced better...

[IronClan]

I'll be sneaking most of the times. It doesn't work while sneaking > my assassin does not care about Faster Movement.

Why wouldn't it? Every other speed boost makes base sneak speed faster.

[Wizza]

If we build a toon specifically focused on dodge, the best we can hit is about 30%, and that's in lv 20+.

Meanwhile, a level 1 fighter that puts on pants has more than 30% damage mitigation from free PRR.

I wish this was balanced better...

Exactly what I was thinking. The buff to Measure the foe is too short and too temporary to be any meaningful. Rogues need a full-time 40% dodge to even come close to where the other melees are.

[IronClan]

If we build a toon specifically focused on dodge, the best we can hit is about 30%, and that's in lv 20+.

Meanwhile, a level 1 fighter that puts on pants has more than 30% damage mitigation from free PRR.

I wish this was balanced better...

Your rogue that puts on pants has 20% mitigation from free PRR... but also a higher chance to be missed than the guy with higher PRR. and is also probably saving against nearly all elemental damage.

[Severlin]

If we build a toon specifically focused on dodge, the best we can hit is about 30%, and that's in lv 20+.

Meanwhile, a level 1 fighter that puts on pants has more than 30% damage mitigation from free PRR.

I wish this was balanced better...

Rogue's light armor has 10% damage mitigation, and they get Evasion. That fighter just killed their maximum dodge ~5% when wearing those pants. So the fighter loses tons of dodge and Evasion and gains 20% mitigation through PRR.

Sev~

[redoubt]

I'll be sneaking most of the times. It doesn't work while sneaking > my assassin does not care about Faster Movement.

8(

I've not had a rogue with fast movement at the same time, so I've never tested that. Why does it not apply when in sneak?

The wiki page on sneak doesn't even talk about the speed penalty and neither the haste nor fast movement pages say they don't apply when sneaking.

[Severlin]

8(

I've not had a rogue with fast movement at the same time, so I've never tested that. Why does it not apply when in sneak?

The wiki page on sneak doesn't even talk about the speed penalty and neither the haste nor fast movement pages say they don't apply when sneaking.

Fast movement should apply while sneaking.

Sev~

[Wizza]

Rogue's light armor has 10% damage mitigation, and they get Evasion. That fighter just killed their maximum dodge ~5% when wearing those pants. So the fighter loses tons of dodge and Evasion and gains 20% mitigation through PRR.

Sev~

lol please. Evasion. Last time I died from a Spell that could be evaded on my SORCERER it was the 2008.


8(

I've not had a rogue with fast movement at the same time, so I've never tested that. Why does it not apply when in sneak?

The wiki page on sneak doesn't even talk about the speed penalty and neither the haste nor fast movement pages say they don't apply when sneaking.

When I tested some years ago (yes, a long time ago), it was not working while sneaking. No idea if that changed or not.

[redoubt]

Fast movement should apply while sneaking.

Sev~

Thank you for the clarification.

[Wizza]

Fast movement should apply while sneaking.

Sev~

Cool, I'll be sure to check it when Lama hits.

[IronClan]

The buff to Measure the foe is too short and too temporary to be any meaningful. Rogues need a full-time 40% dodge to even come close to where the other melees are.

The buff to measure the foe is indeed too short to care about, 10 seconds? who cares, however 40% dodge on a toon that also gets 25% incorporeal from best ED, and within about 15% of the mitigation from PRR, while also having Evasion, would be straight out OP. I could see making it a little easier to get low 30's.

[Wizza]

The buff to measure the foe is indeed too short to care about, 10 seconds? who cares, however 40% dodge on a toon that also gets 25% incorporeal from best ED, and within about 15% of the mitigation from PRR, while also having Evasion, would be straight out OP. I could see making it a little easier to get low 30's.

I'll settle for ~35% FULL-TIME, with some super short buff to bring it over 40%. Not some 10s buff that requires you to sneak for 5 seconds to even enter the 30s.

[Ovrad]

Rogue's light armor has 10% damage mitigation, and they get Evasion. That fighter just killed their maximum dodge ~5% when wearing those pants. So the fighter loses tons of dodge and Evasion and gains 20% mitigation through PRR.

Sev~

Oh sure light armor/no armor wearer get evasion. But heavy armor wearer get free MRR at the same time as PRR, and there's no roll on MRR.

[IronClan]

lol please. Evasion. Last time I died from a Spell that could be evaded on my SORCERER it was the 2008.

So you don't raid or do anything in Epic I take it?

[IronClan]

Oh sure light armor/no armor wearer get evasion. But heavy armor wearer get free MRR at the same time as PRR, and there's no roll on MRR.

A well made Assassin has a 95% chance to take zero elemental damage. Are you really bringing up MRR?

[Wizza]

So you don't raid or do anything in Epic I take it?

Name me some deadly spell that can be evaded that is actually a thread when we have 50+ Resist and tons of Elemental absorption items. There are many ways to deal with them, they are not a threat.


A well made Assassin has a 95% chance to take zero elemental damage. Are you really bringing up MRR?

In a game where most of the threats come from Melee damage, yes. He should. PRR is king in DDO, noone cares about Evasion.

[bbqzor]

Purposeful.
(in regards to stacks of Killer fading)

I want to, again, point out that this is the wrong intention. Old blitz was a less restrictive mechanic (you had to get kills, but missing a window didnt lose everything), and that was still difficult for many people to use. This is like a punitive version of that, and that was corrected to be less punitive itself. Why cant this be corrected? Maybe lower the DS to 3% per stack (stacks parallel martial past lives, and so it caps at 12% not 20%) but allow it to fade one stack at a time so it can actually be kept up well. As it stands, its hardly worth buying up unless you extensively solo or are lower level. In the upper levels its extremely difficult to maintain given that all players generally have a good supply of "finisher" type damage sources, and the rogue tends to move slower (if/when sneaking) or have to engage smarter (has to attack flanks instead of wading in) limiting access to kill shots. Its just not very playable as you level up to 20 and beyond. Any comments on how this is a good thing, or if you can please reconsider it in light of these concerns? It looks good on paper now, but its pretty rough in practice when measured alongside equally built and capable characters of other classes... its just not a "team friendly" ability. I wish it was, because its great flavor and a good effect. But losing everything at once just isnt practical or fun, and a smaller bonus that was maintainable would be better.

[Wizza]

(in regards to stacks of Killer fading)

I want to, again, point out that this is the wrong intention. Old blitz was a less restrictive mechanic (you had to get kills, but missing a window didnt lose everything), and that was still difficult for many people to use. This is like a punitive version of that, and that was corrected to be less punitive itself. Why cant this be corrected? Maybe lower the DS to 3% per stack (stacks parallel martial past lives, and so it caps at 12% not 20%) but allow it to fade one stack at a time so it can actually be kept up well. As it stands, its hardly worth buying up unless you extensively solo or are lower level. In the upper levels its extremely difficult to maintain given that all players generally have a good supply of "finisher" type damage sources, and the rogue tends to move slower (if/when sneaking) or have to engage smarter (has to attack flanks instead of wading in) limiting access to kill shots. Its just not very playable as you level up to 20 and beyond. Any comments on how this is a good thing, or if you can please reconsider it in light of these concerns? It looks good on paper now, but its pretty rough in practice when measured alongside equally built and capable characters of other classes... its just not a "team friendly" ability. I wish it was, because its great flavor and a good effect. But losing everything at once just isnt practical or fun, and a smaller bonus that was maintainable would be better.

Because reasons. Melee whined way too much for their blitz and 250% damage and how they couldn't live without it but when it comes to Rogues and some Doublestrike bonus on-kill, noone cares and it becomes OP. I think we should nerf Rogues to be honest.

[Thar]

Rogue's light armor has 10% damage mitigation, and they get Evasion. That fighter just killed their maximum dodge ~5% when wearing those pants. So the fighter loses tons of dodge and Evasion and gains 20% mitigation through PRR.

Sev~

AC increase probably negates the dodge change. The prr if they add a shield negates the evasion. I take maybe 50s from spell damage and have close to 200 prr on pally/monk vs using light armor evasion and taking 2x the damage in melee and 90% missing spell damage with evasion.

heavy armor is a win vs light armor and evasion. it's make evasion useless if you can slap on other armor as those amounts are easily healable.

[IronClan]

Name me some deadly spell that can be evaded that is actually a thread when we have 50+ Resist and tons of Elemental absorption items. There are many ways to deal with them, they are not a threat.



In a game where most of the threats come from Melee damage, yes. He should. PRR is king in DDO, noone cares about Evasion.

It's hilarious the amount of Forum DDO going on in this thread. A rogue can get to within 15%-20% of the PRR mitigation of a DPS oriented heavy armored non-S&B toon... while being missed a hell of a lot more often, and having Evasion.

Have you really not been breathed on by Lady Vol or Elemental bursted by the Abbot, breathed on by disciples or T1, given the boom, fought Miior? I've seen plenty of people die to Deathlords in EE Deathwyrms, and Dragon breath in Fire peaks. The Lich Lords in EE GOP didn't get your attention? Hell doesn't even have to be EE GOP lol. No idea what content you play or what difficulty but for 8 or 9 years up to a few months ago Evasion was the single most powerful splash in the game if you weren't a CHA build... Now of course it's useless because we're in Forum DDO land, where anything that isn't the shiniest and newest is rubbish LOL.

The truth is Assassin by virtue of almost being forced to use SD (and thus getting 25% incorp) probably should have less dodge by a considerable amount than T/A and Mechanic. If you want to make a argument that a 16+ level Rogue T/A should be able to get 40% dodge because the only way they can get 25% incorporeal is to be in lousy SD or drop 2 rogue levels and take 6 monk levels for shadow veil; then I will whole heartedly agree with you on that. But that belongs in the T/A thread and not this one. Assassins and 14 or lower Rogue Staff builds are almost guaranteed to have 25% incorp.

[Blackheartox]

It's hilarious the amount of Forum DDO going on in this thread. A rogue can get to within 15%-20% of the PRR mitigation of a DPS oriented heavy armored non-S&B toon... while being missed a hell of a lot more often, and having Evasion.

Have you really not been breathed on by Lady Vol or Elemental bursted by the Abbot, breathed on by disciples or T1, given the boom, fought Miior? I've seen plenty of people die to Deathlords in EE Deathwyrms, and Dragon breath in Fire peaks. The Lich Lords in EE GOP didn't get your attention? Hell doesn't even have to be EE GOP lol. No idea what content you play or what difficulty but for 8 or 9 years up to a few months ago Evasion was the single most powerful splash in the game if you weren't a CHA build... Now of course it's useless because we're in Forum DDO land, where anything that isn't the shiniest and newest is rubbish LOL.

The truth is Assassin by virtue of almost being forced to use SD (and thus getting 25% incorp) probably should have less dodge by a considerable amount than T/A and Mechanic. If you want to make a argument that a 16+ level Rogue T/A should be able to get 40% dodge because the only way they can get 25% incorporeal is to be in lousy SD or drop 2 rogue levels and take 6 monk levels for shadow veil; then I will whole heartedly agree with you on that. But that belongs in the T/A thread and not this one. Assassins and 14 or lower Rogue Staff builds are almost guaranteed to have 25% incorp.

Let me ask you a question to answer for wizza, have you ever played a sorc?

[Blackheartox]

Sev i have a question, can you try to tell me why are you kinda.. Not being genereous to lv 20 capstone for rogue?
Let us compare


This one is from paladin kotc

Champion of Good: You gain +4 Charisma and 10 Melee Power. The bonuses granted by Courage of Heaven are increased by an additional +2. Your attacks now deal 7d6 additional Light damage. Any weapon you wield is considered Good aligned for purposes of bypassing damage reduction.

This one is from barbarian frenz berserker
Storm's Eye: Activation Cost: 100 Hit Points. Cooldown: 3 minutes.Activate: You gain +1 melee damage. This damage bonus gains one stack every six seconds, up to 25 stacks. This ends when you are below 50% health.
Passive:


+4 Constitution
+10 Melee Power
When raging your melee attacks have a 5% chance to deal 400 bludgeoning (http://ddowiki.com/page/Bludgeoning) damage. This damage scales with 100% Melee Power.


Moving on to bard:
Evasive Maneuvers: Evasive Maneuvers: +2 CHA, +2 DEX. While Swashbuckling (http://ddowiki.com/page/Swashbuckling), you gain the Evasion (http://ddowiki.com/page/Evasion) feat, +1% Doublestrike (http://ddowiki.com/page/Doublestrike), 1% Doubleshot (http://ddowiki.com/page/Doubleshot), +1 Attack Damage, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.



And this is what you proposed




Deadly Shadow: You gain +2 Dexterity and +2 Intelligence. You gain +4 Sneak Attack dice. You gain +4 to Reflex saving throws.

I kinda dont see a reason to do a pure rogue that is focused on dps and will prolly just do a ranger rogue fighter to maximize my sneak and actually get some survival.
I dont know, just trying to understand why you arent making pure rogues interesting.
Assasinate is not as effective as brute dps is nowadays so going pure is not as effective as a lets say 13 rogue 6 ranger 1 fighter or similiar





Also reflex?
A pure 20 rogue rly needs 4 reflex? What for?




At least either give some on vorpal thing, or some kind speial poison dot or poison burst that is untyped or no fail on reflex 1s.
Whatever, since picking 20 levels of rogue is alrdy a huge hit to selfsufficiency

[Wizza]

It's hilarious the amount of Forum DDO going on in this thread. A rogue can get to within 15%-20% of the PRR mitigation of a DPS oriented heavy armored non-S&B toon... while being missed a hell of a lot more often, and having Evasion.

Have you really not been breathed on by Lady Vol or Elemental bursted by the Abbot, breathed on by disciples or T1, given the boom, fought Miior? I've seen plenty of people die to Deathlords in EE Deathwyrms, and Dragon breath in Fire peaks. The Lich Lords in EE GOP didn't get your attention? Hell doesn't even have to be EE GOP lol. No idea what content you play or what difficulty but for 8 or 9 years up to a few months ago Evasion was the single most powerful splash in the game if you weren't a CHA build... Now of course it's useless because we're in Forum DDO land, where anything that isn't the shiniest and newest is rubbish LOL.


Lady vol: point taken. One spell in a raid where only in EE it's deadly. Alright, I can go with this.
Disciples dragon breath: second point taken because the element is random mostly. Also few of these around, just in Mask of Deception and a rare in Thunderholme IIRC.
Given the boom? You mean the one that I can tank on my Sorcerer if you just twist Energy Sheathe and equip a PLIS every 10 seconds to avoid the debuff?
Miior? That can be soloed by anyone using some team work and patience? Because you surely know how her debuff works ;)
Deathlords? They use Disintegrates and Horrid Witting. Both non evadeable.
Dragon breath: equip fire shield and fire absorption and you can take their fireballs as well.
Lich lords: use disintegrate and non evadeable force damage.

Good try. Keep trying tho, I like this game. I agree, evasion was good UP TO A FEW MONTHS AGO. Not since they re-worked PRR/MRR, not since they introduced Champions. Keep up with the times.



The truth is Assassin by virtue of almost being forced to use SD (and thus getting 25% incorp) probably should have less dodge by a considerable amount than T/A and Mechanic. If you want to make a argument that a 16+ level Rogue T/A should be able to get 40% dodge because the only way they can get 25% incorporeal is to be in lousy SD or drop 2 rogue levels and take 6 monk levels for shadow veil; then I will whole heartedly agree with you on that. But that belongs in the T/A thread and not this one. Assassins and 14 or lower Rogue Staff builds are almost guaranteed to have 25% incorp.

Almost guaranteed? How? Being forced in a very bad Destiny? OMG YES PLS, I WANT TO HAVE 25% INCORP AND HAVE A BUGGED DESTINY. HOORAY!

[CrackedIce]

The ability to give the Poisoned state to enemies works on any hit. The on-vorpal effects are legacy and we wouldn't want to pull them from existing rogues.



Yes, as we do passes on additional trees these enhancements will be combined as they have here.



The intent is that the debuff works on bosses and has no saving throw assuming they have gained the Poisoned state from the original attack.



See my comments above. The "Poisoned" state is transferred to enemies without a save - even bosses unless they have poison immunity.



With Nimbleness the Assassin is likely to be at Dodge cap or near to it.



Sev~

I would rather see assassin get spell like abilities to help with damage mitigation such as improved invisibility and 15% incorporeal.

[Qezuzu]

I would rather see assassin get spell like abilities to help with damage mitigation such as improved invisibility and 15% incorporeal.

I suggested a few pages back that it should contain things that raise Bluff/Hide/MS skills, some implementation of Ghost Sound (Noisemaker), a Flaming Sphere (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/453250-Flaming-sphere-scroll-Fan-Club-thread) clone, etc. There are a lot of nuances with stealth that a lot of people don't know about, even I will occasionally stumble upon a spell/ability/clickie that's very handy with stealth... if you want to buff stealth, you should at least make the tools that push stealth to its limits more obvious.

I would at least like to hear Severlin say they at least considered implementing Assassin spells (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Assassin#Assassin_Spell_List), even if they decided not to use them.

[CThruTheEgo]

Assassins really only have two main weak points currently (three if you care about multiclassing them, but I don't so I'll leave that to others to deal with). 1) Their damage mitigation is weak and 2) their dps is far behind bard/paladin.

Damage Mitigation:
A pure assassin can already reach dodge cap easily enough, so I don't see the point of the additional dodge you propose. Assassins are currently doing fine in the damage avoidance department. What they need help with is damage mitigation. Even with max damage avoidance, if you have low PRR, then you're going to take some heavy spike damage. Couple that spike damage with poor self healing (and no, heal scrolls are definitely not sufficient for the current endgame, so having UMD does not qualify as good self healing) and you can find yourself having a hard time recovering.

Solution: Increase the light armor mastery bonus to 5/10/15 PRR, or at the very least 3/6/10. I saw you increased it to 2/4/6, but that's still not significant at all. Thematically, this makes more sense imo. Light armor mastery makes me think you've learned to maximize the protection you get from light armor (i.e. damage mitigation, not damage avoidance). So this should be more about PRR than dodge. If you think a straight increase in PRR to the current version is OP, then take the dodge part away entirely and just make it 5/10/15 PRR.

You offer an interesting alternative to damage mitigation in the form of the melee power debuff, but I have some questions about that. Do all mobs have melee power? If they start with 0 melee power and get the debuff, do they end up with -10 melee power? Basically does this reduce mob damage whenever it is used? Also, as a mob debuff, this is effectively a buff to other classes, many of which may not need it (e.g. bard, paladin, fighter, barb) and only further shifts game balance in favor of them over an assassin. I like the idea of a debuff to mob damage instead of straight PRR on an assassin, but consideration needs to be taken about how that affects other classes and overall game balance. Some more damage mitigation alternatives would be nice (e.g. a paralyzing poison, obviously with a save that would be effective in endgame content and would continue to be effective once the level cap is raised to 30).

DPS:
If I remember correctly, you yourself, Severlin, stated that bard/pali were the new baseline, so a comparison to them is warranted at this point. Assassins measure up just fine when compared to any class that has not had a revamp yet, but they are far behind bard/pali/barb. I've played an assassin, swashbuckler, and paladin at endgame (see the links in my sig for the assassin and swashbuckler if you want specifics about the builds) and there's no question that the assassin is behind the other two (I won't even go into how my swashbuckler is much better at assassinating than my assassin, and the assassin has a 74 DC so it's not a problem with the build).

Solution: Add some melee power in the tree somewhere. Put 5 melee power in the capstone and make stacks of measure the foe fade 1 stack at a time every 6 seconds. About 3/5 of an int based assassin's dps comes from sneak attack damage. The fact that melee power already affects sneak attack damage provides a simple solution to increase their dps and still have it based primarily on sneak attack damage instead of crits like bard, paladin, and barb. Measure the foe fading 1 stack at a time would make those bonuses more consistent, and that's not a bad thing if we're trying to bring assassins up to the same level of power as bard/paladin/barb. It would give assassins a reason to be in sneak mode at least some of the time while making these bonuses last long enough to actually be relevant without having to spend too much time in sneak mode.

TWF:
I also have to add that TWF being behind every other style is most definitely part of this discussion and certainly belongs in this thread because it is the obvious fighting style for an assassin. There's no point in talking about an assassin revamp if you ignore that they use an inherently weaker fighting style that is in need of a revamp as well.

Solution: The simple and obvious solution is to add melee power just like the other styles get. Considering that swf gets not only 1.5 stat damage, but also 30% attack speed, in addition to 10 melee power, I really don't understand what the problem is with giving twf 10 melee power.

Sneak Mechanics:
The same needs to be said about sneak mechanics, no point in revamping assassin if you ignore that a core feature of the build is broken. No other class or build has a built in incentive to sneak, so a sneak mechanic revamp is definitely warranted. It works fine in a group but not solo. Here is what should happen, and did at one point in the game's history, so it really shouldn't be that hard to get back to it. When I assassinate one mob, his buddies in the local vicinity should go into search mode and start looking for me. Maybe they should even get a bonus to spot and listen. They should NOT automatically detect and agro on me, which is what currently happens. This really doesn't make any sense. It is possible to shed agro of melee mobs with appropriate tactics (lose line of sight and go into sneak mode again). But the automatic agro is especially problematic when it comes to archers because once they agro on you, there's no going back into sneak mode since every arrow breaks you out of sneak mode. This really needs to be changed. The ideal fix would be to make it so that when you drop into sneak mode, they don't automatically know where you are even if they were agroed on you when you went into sneak. Again, give them a bonus to spot/listen, but, thematically, an assassin should be able to slip into the shadows and disappear.

Capstone:
The capstone needs some adjusting. Blackheartox's summary of the new capstones (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/456558-Rogue-Assassin-Changes?p=5554843&viewfull=1#post5554843) pretty much says it all. The proposed assassin capstone is pretty weak in comparison. Dex is useless for a pure assassin and they already have more than enough reflex save, so drop both of those completely.

Solution: Make it +4 int and, as mentioned previously, add 5 melee power.

Execute:
This is far too weak to be useful at endgame. My initial thought is to turn this into a second assassinate ability, effectively giving assassins two instakills, but I don't know how to do that effectively and with balance.

Nicely Done:
Great job on giving assassins the option to move at full speed while in sneak mode. This will greatly enhance practical gameplay in groups. Also, nice job on reducing the animation of assassin's trick. I never use that ability as it currently is but I will with this change.

Looking forward to a revamp of my favorite build. Thanks for the discussion Sev.

[Mryal]

Peraphs a bit off topic but cant not mention.


Deathlords? They use Disintegrates and Horrid Witting. Both non evadeable.


That alone alredy makes any heavy armor MRR setup better than an evasion based character.



Lich lords: use disintegrate and non evadeable force damage.


This is just a bonus.

Now what if new content follows this trend? wich it probably will.I cant be the only one who sees that MRR is > evasion for the simple fact it works vs all and not vs one type of spell.

[Powerhungry]

~ Assassinate is already a fairly good ability so we won't be buffing the DC in this tree, but instead we will be looking to have items that add to the DC in greater amounts that currently possible in the next few updates.




Disappointing.
As I pointed out in another post, Bard Coup de Grace can easily attain significantly higher DCs than assassinate.
If not raising the DCs in the tree, at least make it usable on targets that are susceptible to Coup de Grace as well (removing the stealth requirement), as I also mentioned in an earlier post. They're Assassins, they should be at least as good at single target killing as a bard...

[Pehtis]

My suggested change to Assassin Tree enhancement is as follows:

The problem with rogues in general is their lack of survivability. Happy to be squishier than other classes as long as there were some options to survive in higher level content. This is where dodge comes in. Dodge begins to become less relevant in high level content due to not surviving the hits you receive.

My proposal is a simple one. Add the dodge number to PRR/MRR of any class that has EVASION as part of their core CAPSTONE. Therefore it is only available to light armour/robe wearers. The increase is no where near game breaking and is simply a useful tweak during level 20+ content. This will also provide an extra incentive for any pure builds. It's a balanced approach without making them overpowered.

My thought behind this proposal is since I am in the process of dodging anything, the hit I DO receive should be like a serious grazing hit (just a flesh wound :) ). Limiting this kind of damage mitigation to those classes with Evasion keeps it balanced. Hence Assassins would benefit.

Many splash builds will complain it should be much lower of course. I will leave that to the Dev's to decide, if they like the idea enough to implement. Rangers (oh I so want this on my tempest), Monks, and some Bards will also find this useful if included in their trees as well.



Adding dodge number (at whatever number or level) to PRR/MRR is not a good idea for damage mitigation purposes, and in keeping with the theme?

[levy1964]

I tell u something, take yourself these prr and MRR and put, know wherer u should put xD
this is a rogUe ppl. Rogue who have low prr, who have low save to is what decided in by playing this class. chellange (yea when u start create toon u do not see "chellenge" name in character creation?). do u really wanna have a rogue with good prr / MRR ... save? GO PLAY PALADIN, everything related to prr / MRR it's good as it is, with the exception ..... dodge. let us styleplay be other, rogue mitigation should base only on Dodge dmg/attack , this is only what we need is a defensive boost. i know i have right becouse my mix with tempest survivie holy **** / sick / truck damage from the boss in the thrill on the hunt (when other class with not so bad prr are still scared to figh face to face), and can stay / tank this beast even if the boss use this "AoE" dmg hit like truck, even there's a dog who daze my , I can still fight Effective there (without trap). u can ask how to tank him with possible 49prr, When every hit also 1/3, 1/2 hp bar ... I tell u my little secred, it's name "robe" and "elabotarry parry". adding something similar to rogue, and the problem of "ohh but it's not viable on EE, need a boost us whoa" are SOLVED for pure.

btw. don't takie it seriusly this is my private opinion

[janave]

Defense:
Dodge cap increase

Utility:
1 CC that applies a longer bluff + massive slow 25/50/75% ( 3-6-9% on bosses)
Poison weapon imbue for self and allies
Move all your aggro to selected friendly target clicky 30s cd.

DPS:
Allow lvl20 rogues with a T5 in assasins to crit with their SA using their weapon multi + whatever else applies to multiplier like over crit. +1 (the t5 with a req* to have 20 rogue levels, not working in multiclass)

Instakills:
Capstone 19-20 perma vorpal range, 15-20 vorpal range on the 1st attack from stealth (every 1minute).

[Full_Bleed]

That is an interesting thought.

We used to have auto-crits on held mobs. Maybe something similar could be brought back for assassins. At the same time, it could not be wide open. Nothing that would make taking X levels of rogue the new FOTM. When we had auto-crits I made maiming rocksplitters for my casters and even my cleric. Held mobs were dead mobs.

Not much is different today with held mobs though. A held mob is still a dead mob.

My first pass at an implementation of your idea would be to put it in "Knife Spec".

Knife Specialization: You gain a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier with daggers and kukris. Daggers also gain a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Threat Range.

OPTION 1:
ADD: You automatically crit on helpless mobs when using a dagger or kukri.
- this is likely the highest damage option.

OPTION 2:
ADD: +2 range/+1 multiplier on helpless mobs when using a dagger or kukri.
- this is likely the #2 damage option. It will produce slightly higher max crits, but significantly less often.

OPTION 3:
ADD: you do 2x sneak attack damage to helpless mobs when using a dagger or kukri.
- this is likely the lowest damage option. It also plays on the sneak attack concept which is very much a "rogue thing" flavor wise.

How to keep it balanced?
1. Assassins have poor crowd control and little means to produce a helpless state. It would need to stay that way, or narrow the range of states the auto-crit would apply too.
2. It has to stay the knives. Opening this up to other weapons would be too powerful and would set up a 5 rogue FOTM. People have complained that "knife spec" is too weak. This could be ONE way to boost it.
3. Heavy analysis of the actual math BEFORE going forward at all.
4. Knives have poor base damage and crit profile.
5. Any additional damage does not get to "double dip" with the +50% helpless damage already in the game. i.e. if you are getting auto-crits, you don't get auto-crits AND then 50% more on top of that.

Again, this is just an initial pass at an idea. I'm intrigued by the concept of assassins being "the best at killing helpless targets." This is brainstorming.
Interesting options.

Something that scaled a little more gradually could be put in the "Knife in the Back" core (which is pretty useless to most Assassins since they're all using Harper Tree for INT to damage now).

[redoubt]

Assassins really only have two main weak points currently (three if you care about multiclassing them, but I don't so I'll leave that to others to deal with). 1) Their damage mitigation is weak and 2) their dps is far behind bard/paladin.

Damage Mitigation:
A pure assassin can already reach dodge cap easily enough, so I don't see the point of the additional dodge you propose.

Solid, well thought out comments as usual.

On the topic of dodge, I just noticed this in Sev's OP:

Light Armor Mastery: (1/1/1 AP) While wearing light armor you gain 2/4/6 to maximum dexterity bonus of your armor. (This also affects maximum dodge.) You also gain 1/2/3 Physical Resistance Rating.

NOTE: "This also affects maximum dodge." This means you can push the dodge cap to 31 now just using the assassin tree. More if you put points into thief acrobat (or halfing or etc...) This is HUGE in my opinion, so thanks for this one Sev!

Next on dodge, I can still see rogue being capped, even at 31 most of the time. I still see this as an opportunity to have nimbleness in the core enhancements raise the maximum dodge whenever it adds to dodge. (And go back down with it of course.) Without raising maximum dodge with each stack of nimbleness, I see this as a wasted enhancement. The assassins will already have max dodge and the stacks of nimbleness will NOT add dodge due to the cap. (The enhancement Measure the Foe recognizes this limitation already and it raises the maximum dodge.)

[Dreppo]

I like Janave's suggestion about assassins being able to vorpal on 19-20. I would straight add that in as part of the assassin capstone, which is still lacking compared to pally/barb/bard capstones. Notice how this naturally synergizes with the level 18 core Lethality.

I also have an idea for an ability that makes the knife specialization aspect of the tree more interesting. This would allow assassin + ninja spy to have a little bit better synergy (right now they don't have any specialized weapons in common), and just more build options in general. I would put this ability somewhere in the upper tiers (3, 4, or 5). Probably cost 2 AP if put at tier 3 or 4, but 1 AP if put at tier 5.

Selector (choose one):
Option 1 - Daggers and kukris are considered centering.
Option 2 - Daggers and kukris are considered spellcasting implements.

[Alisonique]

Assassins really only have two main weak points currently (three if you care about multiclassing them, but I don't so I'll leave that to others to deal with). 1) Their damage mitigation is weak and 2) their dps is far behind bard/paladin.

Damage Mitigation:
A pure assassin can already reach dodge cap easily enough, so I don't see the point of the additional dodge you propose. Assassins are currently doing fine in the damage avoidance department. What they need help with is damage mitigation. Even with max damage avoidance, if you have low PRR, then you're going to take some heavy spike damage. Couple that spike damage with poor self healing (and no, heal scrolls are definitely not sufficient for the current endgame, so having UMD does not qualify as good self healing) and you can find yourself having a hard time recovering.

Solution: Increase the light armor mastery bonus to 5/10/15 PRR, or at the very least 3/6/10. I saw you increased it to 2/4/6, but that's still not significant at all. Thematically, this makes more sense imo. Light armor mastery makes me think you've learned to maximize the protection you get from light armor (i.e. damage mitigation, not damage avoidance). So this should be more about PRR than dodge. If you think a straight increase in PRR to the current version is OP, then take the dodge part away entirely and just make it 5/10/15 PRR.

You offer an interesting alternative to damage mitigation in the form of the melee power debuff, but I have some questions about that. Do all mobs have melee power? If they start with 0 melee power and get the debuff, do they end up with -10 melee power? Basically does this reduce mob damage whenever it is used? Also, as a mob debuff, this is effectively a buff to other classes, many of which may not need it (e.g. bard, paladin, fighter, barb) and only further shifts game balance in favor of them over an assassin. I like the idea of a debuff to mob damage instead of straight PRR on an assassin, but consideration needs to be taken about how that affects other classes and overall game balance. Some more damage mitigation alternatives would be nice (e.g. a paralyzing poison, obviously with a save that would be effective in endgame content and would continue to be effective once the level cap is raised to 30).

DPS:
If I remember correctly, you yourself, Severlin, stated that bard/pali were the new baseline, so a comparison to them is warranted at this point. Assassins measure up just fine when compared to any class that has not had a revamp yet, but they are far behind bard/pali/barb. I've played an assassin, swashbuckler, and paladin at endgame (see the links in my sig for the assassin and swashbuckler if you want specifics about the builds) and there's no question that the assassin is behind the other two (I won't even go into how my swashbuckler is much better at assassinating than my assassin, and the assassin has a 74 DC so it's not a problem with the build).

Solution: Add some melee power in the tree somewhere. Put 5 melee power in the capstone and make stacks of measure the foe fade 1 stack at a time every 6 seconds. About 3/5 of an int based assassin's dps comes from sneak attack damage. The fact that melee power already affects sneak attack damage provides a simple solution to increase their dps and still have it based primarily on sneak attack damage instead of crits like bard, paladin, and barb. Measure the foe fading 1 stack at a time would make those bonuses more consistent, and that's not a bad thing if we're trying to bring assassins up to the same level of power as bard/paladin/barb. It would give assassins a reason to be in sneak mode at least some of the time while making these bonuses last long enough to actually be relevant without having to spend too much time in sneak mode.

TWF:
I also have to add that TWF being behind every other style is most definitely part of this discussion and certainly belongs in this thread because it is the obvious fighting style for an assassin. There's no point in talking about an assassin revamp if you ignore that they use an inherently weaker fighting style that is in need of a revamp as well.

Solution: The simple and obvious solution is to add melee power just like the other styles get. Considering that swf gets not only 1.5 stat damage, but also 30% attack speed, in addition to 10 melee power, I really don't understand what the problem is with giving twf 10 melee power.

Sneak Mechanics:
The same needs to be said about sneak mechanics, no point in revamping assassin if you ignore that a core feature of the build is broken. No other class or build has a built in incentive to sneak, so a sneak mechanic revamp is definitely warranted. It works fine in a group but not solo. Here is what should happen, and did at one point in the game's history, so it really shouldn't be that hard to get back to it. When I assassinate one mob, his buddies in the local vicinity should go into search mode and start looking for me. Maybe they should even get a bonus to spot and listen. They should NOT automatically detect and agro on me, which is what currently happens. This really doesn't make any sense. It is possible to shed agro of melee mobs with appropriate tactics (lose line of sight and go into sneak mode again). But the automatic agro is especially problematic when it comes to archers because once they agro on you, there's no going back into sneak mode since every arrow breaks you out of sneak mode. This really needs to be changed. The ideal fix would be to make it so that when you drop into sneak mode, they don't automatically know where you are even if they were agroed on you when you went into sneak. Again, give them a bonus to spot/listen, but, thematically, an assassin should be able to slip into the shadows and disappear.

Capstone:
The capstone needs some adjusting. Blackheartox's summary of the new capstones (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/456558-Rogue-Assassin-Changes?p=5554843&viewfull=1#post5554843) pretty much says it all. The proposed assassin capstone is pretty weak in comparison. Dex is useless for a pure assassin and they already have more than enough reflex save, so drop both of those completely.

Solution: Make it +4 int and, as mentioned previously, add 5 melee power.

Execute:
This is far too weak to be useful at endgame. My initial thought is to turn this into a second assassinate ability, effectively giving assassins two instakills, but I don't know how to do that effectively and with balance.

Nicely Done:
Great job on giving assassins the option to move at full speed while in sneak mode. This will greatly enhance practical gameplay in groups. Also, nice job on reducing the animation of assassin's trick. I never use that ability as it currently is but I will with this change.

Looking forward to a revamp of my favorite build. Thanks for the discussion Sev.

Simply enough : spot on

[brzytki]

Purposeful.

Sev~
Why, oh why?


Sev i have a question, can you try to tell me why are you kinda.. Not being genereous to lv 20 capstone for rogue?


That's my question as well. +2 DEX is meh for INT-based assassins, but it's ok for DEX-based ones (if there are still some of them, i guess F2P people), +4 reflex save is meh as well. There's nothing really appealing in the new capstone. You just added some marginal benefits and called it a day.

Please add something meaningful to the capstone. You don't even have to look at post-pass capstones, which are obviously far superior, look at the acrobat capstone - it's clearly better then the assassin one. If you don't want to widen the multiclass gap even further, don't add DC to the capstone but maybe doublestrike, MP, on-vorpal proc or something similar.



I had originally thought that my assassin would be completely out of the TA tree (which would save me some AP), but now I'm going to try to fit:
- Sly Flourish 3 (for threat reduction)
- fast movement (need to keep up with the group)
- sublety3 from T2


Is there really a need for this? I mean Sly Flourish (15%), Shiv (15%), item (20%), SD (20%), Subtlety (40%). IF all of this stacks, you'll be somewhere around 28% threat generation. Between this and Imp Deception i'd think some of those APs wasted.

[noble_pirate]

so assassin's capstone even after revamp cannot be compared to previous update's capstones - KotC and FB...

where is +4 to ability (INT) ? where is +10 melee power? my main rogue still in sadness ((

[CThruTheEgo]

Peraphs a bit off topic but cant not mention.


That alone alredy makes any heavy armor MRR setup better than an evasion based character.



This is just a bonus.

Now what if new content follows this trend? wich it probably will.I cant be the only one who sees that MRR is > evasion for the simple fact it works vs all and not vs one type of spell.

Except that MRR does not work against all. It does not reduce force damage. Disintegrate does untyped damage and is affected by force spell power, so MRR does not do anything to protect against it. Horrid wilting does water damage and is affected by MRR.

Your point is still valid that MRR is better than evasion and I agree with it (it's the reason I wear heavy armor on the pure ranger in my sig), but the example of disintegrate is not accurate.

[Nothingtoseehere]

A few points

ASSASSINATE:
I am overjoyed to hear you won't be changing the assassinate formula or adding any substantial bonuses to the DC, I think a little more available from gear (stacking augment?) is all it needs +2-+4 and gear is where it should be done.
Though to help alleviate the concerns of the 'buff assassinate DC' group (and since IMO it makes perfect sense as well as giving assassinate a unique edge again in a game full of insta kill clones) make it so that Death Block/Ward doesn't stop assassinate. You really have to work hard to get a good assassinate DC it should be rewarded greatly. (It would also be cool if you could 'assassinate' red/purple nameds, while killing them outright breaks the game completely some cool feature could be added for those cases where they fail the DC? I think it would be awesome anyway though probably not enough time for that right now but a good future change at the very least?? :) )

CAPSTONE:
As everyone is saying I also think the capstone is rather... lacklustre. IMO this is the perfect place to put something big to bring Assassin DPS back up. It needs full Rogue so won't effect balance with multiclasses and needs to reward you to give competition to multiclassing.
I would propose something that effects your Sneak Attack damage be added. Also the dex and reflex are fairly weak.
eg. SA can now crit based on weap, a heap more SA (or spread more out across assassin/base rog class) and/or SA effected more by Melee Power (say 200% or something), or the lvl 18 core rather than capstone which is also in need of a boost.

eg. Deadly Shadow: +2(0) dex, +2(4) int, +4 SA dice, Your SA damage is now effected by crits and 200% melee power.

Hardly unreasonable to get the odd crit for ~700 SA dmg at lvl 28 when I was in a group with a lvl 19 pally who could crit for 10k the other day.

CORES:
Nimbleness is also useless since dodge cap can be hit easily enough without it so it needs a rethink.
On that note thanks for doubling the PRR on Light Armour Mastery but it still isn't much at all...

Core lvl 1 and 3 are also very weak only giving dex to hit/dmg which almost all assassins superseed with int to hit/dmg from harper.

Most of the Assassin cores are just plain weak and could all use a buff/rethink.
Core 1: add some scaling benefit based on Action Points spent in tree or Rogue lvl or something (SA dmg/scaling? sneak speed?)
Worst case you can just chuck SA, MP, DS and or dodge/dodge cap on cores though other more inventive options are also appealing.

DAMAGE:
I think the above ideas cover damage well enough though adding say 1d6 SA die per core or some other option might help.

DEFENCES:
Assassins PRR is sitting at about the right level I think but probably needs a little more.
Dodge is the assassins main way of reducing incoming damage, but as it stands it isn't enough. If I read Light Armour Mastery right and it does raise dodge cap by 6 this is a brilliant start but needs more. 33 dodge cap with ship buffs isn't enough with their (intentionally) low PRR. Perhaps make nimbleness a passive bonus to dodge cap or stacks to 5 giving both dodge and dodge cap or something.
I strongly disagree with people suggesting some form of concealment/incorporeal bonus to miss chance as those bonuses are easy to obtain via gear and most assassins will already have.

STEALTH:

Sneak Mechanics:
The same needs to be said about sneak mechanics, no point in revamping assassin if you ignore that a core feature of the build is broken. No other class or build has a built in incentive to sneak, so a sneak mechanic revamp is definitely warranted. It works fine in a group but not solo. Here is what should happen, and did at one point in the game's history, so it really shouldn't be that hard to get back to it. When I assassinate one mob, his buddies in the local vicinity should go into search mode and start looking for me. Maybe they should even get a bonus to spot and listen. They should NOT automatically detect and agro on me, which is what currently happens. This really doesn't make any sense. It is possible to shed agro of melee mobs with appropriate tactics (lose line of sight and go into sneak mode again). But the automatic agro is especially problematic when it comes to archers because once they agro on you, there's no going back into sneak mode since every arrow breaks you out of sneak mode. This really needs to be changed. The ideal fix would be to make it so that when you drop into sneak mode, they don't automatically know where you are even if they were agroed on you when you went into sneak. Again, give them a bonus to spot/listen, but, thematically, an assassin should be able to slip into the shadows and disappear.
This. I know you don't have time for a stealth revamp right now but so I'm not asking for that, rather I am asking for you to find something you can do as a quick 'band aid' patch for this that can tide us over until you have time to fix this, if that is at all possible.

THREAT REDUCERS (and increasers):
If these can all be tied into toggles of somesort so you can turn your threat reducers off if you are the tank or turn threat gen bonuses off if your not tanking this time etc. it would be a good change I think. I never take these on my Rogue since sometimes he tanks so he needs at least normal threat even though mostly he doesn't want aggro.

P.S. I would also like to add my voice to the 'make Killer fade 1 stack at a time group' since as it stands on live right now getting that fully stacked up/maintained even for a short while is nigh on impossible. Though making assassin damage competitive with current top DPS builds (I mean if you think about it assassin should have the highest single target DPS of anyone, though partially situational) would possibly help with attaining stacks and is my preferred route. (I like that it isn't a 'guaranteed' bonus but think right now it is just not providing enough up time.)

Thanks you so much for giving Rouges a look in and for keeping us informed

[CThruTheEgo]

Disappointing.
As I pointed out in another post, Bard Coup de Grace can easily attain significantly higher DCs than assassinate.
If not raising the DCs in the tree, at least make it usable on targets that are susceptible to Coup de Grace as well (removing the stealth requirement), as I also mentioned in an earlier post. They're Assassins, they should be at least as good at single target killing as a bard...

Assassinating on a bard is too easy and, honestly, I don't want my assassin to play that way. An assassin can already reach a DC that is effective everywhere in the game, so the only reason to provide more DCs is for multiclassing.

I would prefer that sneak remain a requirement of using assassinate. That's part of what makes assassins a unique playstyle. If you take away that requirement, it will play much more like a swashbuckler.

So personally, I don't really care if bards are better at assassinating since assassins are already good enough and I'd rather they not become another easy button or have their unique playstyle considerably altered.

[CThruTheEgo]

Your SA damage is now effected by crits and 200% melee power.

I'd be fine with one of these but not both. Both is too much imo. Alternatively, just add more melee power to the tree since it also affects sneak attack damage.


I think the above ideas cover damage well enough though adding say 1d6 SA die per core or some other option might help.

I'll second this. Many of the cores are lacking.

[dualscissors]

Sneak Mechanics:
The same needs to be said about sneak mechanics, no point in revamping assassin if you ignore that a core feature of the build is broken. No other class or build has a built in incentive to sneak, so a sneak mechanic revamp is definitely warranted. It works fine in a group but not solo. Here is what should happen, and did at one point in the game's history, so it really shouldn't be that hard to get back to it. When I assassinate one mob, his buddies in the local vicinity should go into search mode and start looking for me. Maybe they should even get a bonus to spot and listen. They should NOT automatically detect and agro on me, which is what currently happens. This really doesn't make any sense. It is possible to shed agro of melee mobs with appropriate tactics (lose line of sight and go into sneak mode again). But the automatic agro is especially problematic when it comes to archers because once they agro on you, there's no going back into sneak mode since every arrow breaks you out of sneak mode. This really needs to be changed. The ideal fix would be to make it so that when you drop into sneak mode, they don't automatically know where you are even if they were agroed on you when you went into sneak. Again, give them a bonus to spot/listen, but, thematically, an assassin should be able to slip into the shadows and disappear.



I posted this earlier in the thread and didn't receive any confirmations.

The instant agro from all mobs in the room upon assassinating thing you are mentioning was something that I *formerly* experienced a couple months ago. However, after one of the updates or fixes, I am not experiencing this anymore. I would have said that it was fixed.

Hundreds of times now in Epic content I've assassinated mobs that are standing right next to other mobs. They don't even blink - just like it was long before. The whole room no longer auto agros after one of their buddies drop.

Is this complaint something assassins are still experiencing?! I don't see how unless Turbine covertly sent just me a valentine fixing the assassinate-agro problem.

[CThruTheEgo]

I posted this earlier in the thread and didn't receive any confirmations.

The instant agro from all mobs in the room upon assassinating thing you are mentioning was something that I *formerly* experienced a couple months ago. However, after one of the updates or fixes, I am not experiencing this anymore. I would have said that it was fixed.

Hundreds of times now in Epic content I've assassinated mobs that are standing right next to other mobs. They don't even blink - just like it was long before. The whole room no longer auto agros after one of their buddies drop.

Is this complaint something assassins are still experiencing?! I don't see how unless Turbine covertly sent just me a valentine fixing the assassinate-agro problem.

My playtime has been limited recently and I've been focused on another character, so I haven't played my assassin in a couple of months. Next time I log in I'll test this to confirm. They've changed stealth/agro mechanics in the past without any notice or mention in release notes, so I wouldn't be surprised.

[IronClan]

Peraphs a bit off topic but cant not mention.


That alone alredy makes any heavy armor MRR setup better than an evasion based character.



This is just a bonus.

Now what if new content follows this trend? wich it probably will.I cant be the only one who sees that MRR is > evasion for the simple fact it works vs all and not vs one type of spell.

How many times is it going to have to be pointed out that MRR doesn't reduce force damage before you guys figure it out? At least Wizza can admit Evasion was still great a couple months ago, so he's only a small cognitive step away from realizing how ridiculous it sounds to say it's useless (made useless by something that wont even mitigate half the damage Evasion does, that's a neat trick). Sadly the Forum has no shortage of Forum DDO players. BTW neither the Liches nor the Deathlords cast only force. If you think that you're probably playing too much Forum DDO.

BTW MRR doesn't reduce Force damage.

PS. Still no

[dualscissors]

How many times is it going to have to be pointed out that MRR doesn't reduce force damage before you guys figure it out? At least Wizza can admit Evasion was still great a couple months ago, so he's only a small cognitive step away from realizing how ridiculous it sounds to say it's useless (made useless by something that wont even mitigate half the damage Evasion does, that's a neat trick). Sadly the Forum has no shortage of Forum DDO players. BTW neither the Liches nor the Deathlords cast only force. If you think that you're probably playing too much Forum DDO.

BTW MRR doesn't reduce Force damage.

PS. Still no

Giving people the benefit of the doubt - which is generally a good practice in life - it strikes me as an honest mistake to not realize that force/untyped damage is exempt. (Hopefully now that it's been pointed out here a couple times, it's clear.)

I made the mistake in thinking MRR affected Disintegrate too, until it was pointed out. My forums post count should be low enough that no one mistakes me as a "forums player."

The erroneous notion simply takes having a toon with low MRR that is getting chewed up by certain kinds of spells and incorrectly thinking that high PRR/MRR toons have an advantage with this particular spell (that they don't actually have).

[Nascoe]

Giving people the benefit of the doubt - which is generally a good practice in life - it strikes me as an honest mistake to not realize that force damage is exempt. (Hopefully now that it's been pointed out here a couple times, it's clear.)

I made the mistake in thinking MRR affected Disintegrate too, until it was pointed out. My forums post count should be low enough that no one mistakens me as a "forums player."

The erroneous notion simply takes having a toon with low MRR that is getting chewed up in a Disintegrate and erroneously thinking that high PRR/MRR toons have an advantage with this particular spell (that they don't actually have). No accusation other than that is necessary.

Sure, I don't think anyone should just talk someone down for a mistake. But when people are arguing that MRR and PRR are too strong and keep using spells damage that is not really affected to show how evasion isn't much good currently especcially in recent content, it DOES take the point made from being a realistic discussion towards just beating on an issue to make your point.

Afterall, most people give the impression that they know what they are talking about and have tried it, but when your point is then supported by something that doesn't actually affect it .... well, not a strong argument, is it. If you don't, then don't use that as an argument, and don't hop on a bandwagon set rolling by someone else.

[SamaelBael]

I'd be fine with one of these but not both. Both is too much imo. Alternatively, just add more melee power to the tree since it also affects sneak attack damage.

I disagree with the addition of melee power. SA can be used ranged too. How about melee&ranged power, similarly to the harper tree but +1/+3/+6 due to the missing spell power?

[brzytki]

I disagree with the addition of melee power. SA can be used ranged too. How about melee&ranged power, similarly to the harper tree but +1/+3/+6 due to the missing spell power?

Like it or not, but assassin is mainly, almost entirely, focused on melee. And he doesn't talk about harper-like enhancement line but about putting MP in cores because they are weak. We will be getting an MP line in the tree (Damage Boost changed to MP). Ranged Power will most likely be in the mechanic tree.

[CThruTheEgo]

I disagree with the addition of melee power. SA can be used ranged too. How about melee&ranged power, similarly to the harper tree but +1/+3/+6 due to the missing spell power?

I can see your point, but nothing about assassin really has anything to do with ranged. The tree is melee based so I'm not sure that ranged power really has a place. Plus, harper is currently the only source of enhancement based ranged power. I would expect it to be added to various trees with the ranged pass. I don't think they should be adding in ranged power piecemeal with the individual tree revamps. It should be done all at once for proper balance (not that balance has ever been achieved in DDO, but no reason not to keep trying, I guess). I would expect to find ranged power in the mechanic tree, whenever that one gets updated.

[Wizza]

How many times is it going to have to be pointed out that MRR doesn't reduce force damage before you guys figure it out? At least Wizza can admit Evasion was still great a couple months ago, so he's only a small cognitive step away from realizing how ridiculous it sounds to say it's useless (made useless by something that wont even mitigate half the damage Evasion does, that's a neat trick). Sadly the Forum has no shortage of Forum DDO players. BTW neither the Liches nor the Deathlords cast only force. If you think that you're probably playing too much Forum DDO.

BTW MRR doesn't reduce Force damage.

PS. Still no

You missed my point completely. The point is that Evasion is not that good anymore, not with all the absorptions and resistances we got, not with the new MRR system that makes you absorb damage even if you haven't evasion :rolleyes:

Noone splashes Rogue or Monk for evasion anymore, they don't give a c*** about it for the above reasons. If I don't die on a 20 Reflex toon, that must mean something, precisely that spells (evadeable spells to be more precise) are not much of a danger ;)

[redoubt]

Movement speed and sneak:
Make acrobats fast and assassins fast in sneak. Some good changes on this have already been taking place. Thank you. Because the cores are still lacking a bit you could add to each core:
+10% sneak speed
+10% chance to hide from tremor sense/blind sight while sneaking
+10% chance to activate switches/levers etc without exiting sneak.

Measure the foe:
Add 5% sneak speed per stack (yes, if you get all the sneak speed bonuses you will sneak faster than your normal movement, but these are assassins (just make sure it does not total to faster than the other fast movements). They should "appear" out of nowhere. Speed is key to this and also just to keeping up with the group in today’s game.) Have the stacks expire one at a time.

On Dodge:
Great work on light armor mastery, but Nimbleness needs to add to dodge cap with each stack. Expire ONE stack at a time (not all at once.) This will have assassins who seek out high dodge numbers floating in the 33-43 range. Here is how it would look:

Assassin goes into stealth at 33 dodge. Measure the Foe builds up and dodge goes to 43%. When the melee starts the assassin is pulled out of stealth and the MtF stacks begin to decay, but the Nimbleness stacks start to build. The assassin will likely bump briefly up to around 50% dodge as Nimbleness builds, but MtF has not completely faded. This is the time when the assassin needs it most as this is when the most mobs are still alive. Nimbleness caps out and MtF fades and the dodge number is back at 43%. Back into stealth before the next fight, nimbleness fades away and MtF takes over again. Back to the start.

On Damage:
As others have mentioned, bleed and venomed blades scale poorly.

Venomed blades:
reduce cost to 1 AP per
1d4/1d6/1d8 per 5 rogue levels, scales with melee power

Bleed them out takes too long to build up useful stacks. Drop the cooldown to 4 seconds. Increase bleed damage to (and still scales with melee power):
1d8 at rogue 5
1d10 at rogue 10
2d6 at rogue 15
2d8 at rogue 20

Killer needs to expire one stack at a time.

Execute: Melee Assassinate attack: +3[W] damage. If target is below 30% health, deal 500 damage. This damage scales with 200% Melee Power. (Cooldown: 15 seconds)
Raising the % is good. Add a second check against the assassinate DC: if below 30% the attack triggers an assassinate attempt even if not in stealth. If not assassinated, deal 500...

Knife spec:
This is a very narrow category of weapons. Keep it narrow, but boost the bonus. Some options include:
+1W
+1 threat range (assassins are very good at making accurate hits)(This would be a total of +2 threat)
+1 multiplier (this would be a total of +2 now)(I think the first two options are better for an assassin than this one though.)

On Defense:
Light Armor Mastery changes are a good start.

Deadly Shadow:
25% chance to hide from See Invisibility and True Seeing

An assassin’s weak spot is enemy’s with See Invis and even more so, with True Seeing. Completely negating this would be a mistake, but a way to build some defense to it would be nice. (Sort of like fire elementals with protection from cold.)

On Assassinate:
As many have said a boost is needed, but only a small one. The discussed small bonus on items is a great way to do this. You could also add a SMALL bonus in the capstone:

Deadly shadow: add +10 hide/move silent. +2 INT (total +4), +1 Assassinate DC. -10% threat.


Outside the box:

This would be instead of the more mundane versions of increasing damage listed above. Adding them would be too much. (This is an idea posted by another that I build on.)

We used to have auto-crits on held mobs. Maybe something similar could be brought back for assassins. At the same time, it could not be wide open. Nothing that would make taking X levels of rogue the new FOTM. When we had auto-crits I made maiming rocksplitters for my casters and even my cleric. Held mobs were dead mobs. Not much is different today with held mobs though. A held mob is still a dead mob, but because all damage is boosted.

Assassins do not have a lot of ways to create a helpless state. They depend on others to create the helpless state and then pounce upon their victim. Within Knife Specialization you could add:

OPTION 1: You automatically crit on helpless mobs when using a dagger or kukri.

OPTION 2: +2 range/+1 multiplier on helpless mobs when using a dagger or kukri.

OPTION 3: you do 2x sneak attack damage to helpless mobs when using a dagger or kukri.

OPTION 4: Assassinate chance on helpless mobs similar to what the bard has, except the rogue can’t create the helpless state. Does not require stealth.

To help keep this from going overboard:
1. Assassins have poor crowd control and little means to produce a helpless state. It would need to stay that way, or narrow the range of states the auto-crit would apply too.
2. It has to stay the knives. Opening this up to other weapons would be too powerful and would set up a five rogue FOTM. People have complained that "knife spec" is too weak. This could be ONE way to boost it.
3. Heavy analysis of the actual math BEFORE going forward at all.
4. Any additional damage does not get to "double dip" with the +50% helpless damage already in the game. i.e. if you are getting auto-crits, you don't get auto-crits AND then 50% more on top of that.

[Erofen]

Why, oh why?

+2 DEX is meh for INT-based assassins, but it's ok for DEX-based ones (if there are still some of them, i guess F2P people), +4 reflex save is meh as well. There's nothing really appealing in the new capstone. You just added some marginal benefits and called it a day.

Im wondering this question but for a different reason.

The assassin tree is full of stuff that allows for dexterity, but they make the t5 that the tree is named after int based. Can this please work like some ED trees to use the best of the 2 or a multiselector? I dropped this t5 to splash more into Thief Acrobat, because my dcs just sucked. I don't want to be pigeonholed into using the new harper tree (yes I own it) just for that one ability to be decent.

[CrackedIce]

Movement speed and sneak:
Make acrobats fast and assassins fast in sneak. Some good changes on this have already been taking place. Thank you. Because the cores are still lacking a bit you could add to each core:
+10% sneak speed
+10% chance to hide from tremor sense/blind sight while sneaking
+10% chance to activate switches/levers etc without exiting sneak.

Measure the foe:
Add 5% sneak speed per stack (yes, if you get all the sneak speed bonuses you will sneak faster than your normal movement, but these are assassins (just make sure it does not total to faster than the other fast movements). They should "appear" out of nowhere. Speed is key to this and also just to keeping up with the group in today’s game.) Have the stacks expire one at a time.

On Dodge:
Great work on light armor mastery, but Nimbleness needs to add to dodge cap with each stack. Expire ONE stack at a time (not all at once.) This will have assassins who seek out high dodge numbers floating in the 33-43 range. Here is how it would look:

Assassin goes into stealth at 33 dodge. Measure the Foe builds up and dodge goes to 43%. When the melee starts the assassin is pulled out of stealth and the MtF stacks begin to decay, but the Nimbleness stacks start to build. The assassin will likely bump briefly up to around 50% dodge as Nimbleness builds, but MtF has not completely faded. This is the time when the assassin needs it most as this is when the most mobs are still alive. Nimbleness caps out and MtF fades and the dodge number is back at 43%. Back into stealth before the next fight, nimbleness fades away and MtF takes over again. Back to the start.

On Damage:
As others have mentioned, bleed and venomed blades scale poorly.

Venomed blades:
reduce cost to 1 AP per
1d4/1d6/1d8 per 5 rogue levels, scales with melee power

Bleed them out takes too long to build up useful stacks. Drop the cooldown to 4 seconds. Increase bleed damage to (and still scales with melee power):
1d8 at rogue 5
1d10 at rogue 10
2d6 at rogue 15
2d8 at rogue 20

Killer needs to expire one stack at a time.

Execute: Melee Assassinate attack: +3[W] damage. If target is below 30% health, deal 500 damage. This damage scales with 200% Melee Power. (Cooldown: 15 seconds)
Raising the % is good. Add a second check against the assassinate DC: if below 30% the attack triggers an assassinate attempt even if not in stealth. If not assassinated, deal 500...

Knife spec:
This is a very narrow category of weapons. Keep it narrow, but boost the bonus. Some options include:
+1W
+1 threat range (assassins are very good at making accurate hits)(This would be a total of +2 threat)
+1 multiplier (this would be a total of +2 now)(I think the first two options are better for an assassin than this one though.)

On Defense:
Light Armor Mastery changes are a good start.

Deadly Shadow:
25% chance to hide from See Invisibility and True Seeing

An assassin’s weak spot is enemy’s with See Invis and even more so, with True Seeing. Completely negating this would be a mistake, but a way to build some defense to it would be nice. (Sort of like fire elementals with protection from cold.)

On Assassinate:
As many have said a boost is needed, but only a small one. The discussed small bonus on items is a great way to do this. You could also add a SMALL bonus in the capstone:

Deadly shadow: add +10 hide/move silent. +2 INT (total +4), +1 Assassinate DC. -10% threat.


Outside the box:

This would be instead of the more mundane versions of increasing damage listed above. Adding them would be too much. (This is an idea posted by another that I build on.)

We used to have auto-crits on held mobs. Maybe something similar could be brought back for assassins. At the same time, it could not be wide open. Nothing that would make taking X levels of rogue the new FOTM. When we had auto-crits I made maiming rocksplitters for my casters and even my cleric. Held mobs were dead mobs. Not much is different today with held mobs though. A held mob is still a dead mob, but because all damage is boosted.

Assassins do not have a lot of ways to create a helpless state. They depend on others to create the helpless state and then pounce upon their victim. Within Knife Specialization you could add:

OPTION 1: You automatically crit on helpless mobs when using a dagger or kukri.

OPTION 2: +2 range/+1 multiplier on helpless mobs when using a dagger or kukri.

OPTION 3: you do 2x sneak attack damage to helpless mobs when using a dagger or kukri.

OPTION 4: Assassinate chance on helpless mobs similar to what the bard has, except the rogue can’t create the helpless state. Does not require stealth.

To help keep this from going overboard:
1. Assassins have poor crowd control and little means to produce a helpless state. It would need to stay that way, or narrow the range of states the auto-crit would apply too.
2. It has to stay the knives. Opening this up to other weapons would be too powerful and would set up a five rogue FOTM. People have complained that "knife spec" is too weak. This could be ONE way to boost it.
3. Heavy analysis of the actual math BEFORE going forward at all.
4. Any additional damage does not get to "double dip" with the +50% helpless damage already in the game. i.e. if you are getting auto-crits, you don't get auto-crits AND then 50% more on top of that.

Most of these points are very grounded and shows a good understanding for what the assassin should look like.

I do not think that knife specs should have added Crit modifiers but should have the bonuses that original holy sword had. Think they were 1W and +2 enhancement bonus. Knives s already have low damage

[Nothingtoseehere]

[QUOTE=CThruTheEgo;5555282]I'd be fine with one of these but not both. Both is too much imo. Alternatively, just add more melee power to the tree since it also affects sneak attack damage.

I have no idea how it would balance out which would obviously need to be checked/done, was just throwing ideas out there. I was also concerned it might be too powerful , then I remembered that even with both you would still be way behind on the DPS curve. Though it could be say 150%, 200 was just a placeholder value, or just add a more melee power to the tree (I think most damage should come from SA though shouldn't fall into the trap of making all damage come from SA). As long as they get at least one but (and I think the crits on SA would be more interesting/unique) it would be a huge boon to rogues and well needed. If the power of the capstone would be considered too much then put one on the lvl 18 core and one on capstone. Both need high investment into both Rogue and Assassin so multiclasses dipping in for them won't be a thing and lethality core is very weak as is. In the end I don't mind if 1 or 2 of them are implemented, as long as it is done right and Rogue DPS gets a solid boost.

"I disagree with the addition of melee power. SA can be used ranged too. How about melee&ranged power, similarly to the harper tree but +1/+3/+6 due to the missing spell power?"
I disagree that any ranged power should be added to the tree (except maybe make the action boost a multi selector). Though perhaps having SA damage scale off Melee Power or Ranged Power, depending on which is higher would be a good change. Though that might better belong in the mechanic discussion.

[Qezuzu]

+10% chance to activate switches/levers etc without exiting sneak.

I would never want to rely on chance if I'm trying to solo a dungeon with minimum kills, I'd just keep using Flaming Sphere scrolls, glitterdust, etc. Either make it so you never break stealth when opening levers (i.e. make stealth boring and easy) or just don't.

Great work on light armor mastery, but Nimbleness needs to add to dodge cap with each stack.

Killer needs to expire one stack at a time.

These please

Execute: Melee Assassinate attack: +3[W] damage. If target is below 30% health, deal 500 damage. This damage scales with 200% Melee Power. (Cooldown: 15 seconds)
Raising the % is good. Add a second check against the assassinate DC: if below 30% the attack triggers an assassinate attempt even if not in stealth. If not assassinated, deal 500...

The damage should scale with epic levels at least, if an insta-kill effect isn't added

Assassins do not have a lot of ways to create a helpless state. They depend on others to create the helpless state and then pounce upon their victim. Within Knife Specialization you could add:

You can use Balanced Attacks


..

[redoubt]

..

I must have missed it. Where in the assassin, or even rogue trees, is balanced attacks?

[Severlin]

Execute: Melee Assassinate attack: +3[W] damage. If target is below 30% health, deal 500 damage. This damage scales with 200% Melee Power. (Cooldown: 15 seconds)
Raising the % is good. Add a second check against the assassinate DC: if below 30% the attack triggers an assassinate attempt even if not in stealth. If not assassinated, deal 500...

The damage should scale with epic levels at least, if an insta-kill effect isn't added


I've seen a couple of comments like this; the quoted ability already does scale into Epic. That's the whole point of the addition of Melee Power; so heroic abilities scale into epic. If you see "scales with X% Melee Power" that essentially means "scales into Epic levels."

Sev~

[Chaios]

However, if you really wanted to make rogues masters of dodge...
That was only a paraphrase of something another poster had written. Among the classes in general, Monks should be the masters of dodge, among the rogue enhancement lines, Acrobats should be the masters of dodge. Assassins should be masters of stealth. I agree with the person who wrote that Assassins should have Hide in Plain Sight somewhere in their enhancement tree. But I do not agree that Assassins should be the world's fastest sneakers. It makes more sense to me if they had a "Sneak sprint boost" rather than an always on sneak speed enhancement.

I will politely disagree...
I understand what you're saying about class homogenization, and I agree. It's not unreasonable to expect people to multiclass to obtain features that are more naturally associated with one class but that work well with a particular type of build or style of play. I agree with the idea that Assassins should find threat reduction easy to obtain, but I don't believe that adding permanent threat reduction should be a consequence of investment in the tree.

Regarding the 2wf discussion that is emphatically not happening in this thread. I notice some posters asserting that 2wf is "the natural" way for an assassin to fight. The natural way for an assassin to fight is not to fight, but to hide in the shadows until the target is within range, place a hand over the targets mouth, slip an icepick between the appropriate vertebrae, drop the body and fade into the shadows. The way of the assassin is to murder the unsuspecting, not to run wildly flailing with a weapon in each hand through brightly lit passages filled with witnesses.

In fact, there should probably be a bonus to assassinate associated with wielding only one weapon.

[Qezuzu]

I must have missed it. Where in the assassin, or even rogue trees, is balanced attacks?

It's an ability from Primal Avatar.


I've seen a couple of comments like this; the quoted ability already does scale into Epic. That's the whole point of the addition of Melee Power; so heroic abilities scale into epic. If you see "scales with X% Melee Power" that essentially means "scales into Epic levels."

Sev~

Well you are right, but mob HP scales up faster. What is an Assassin going to have in terms of melee power: 24 (x8 levels) 24 (x6 Shadow Dancer let's just say even tho it sucks) let's say 6 from Harper? so 54, and you get 30 of it right at lvl20. I forget what "scale 200%" means exactly, the damage adjust was either 200+MP/100 (execute does 1.5k) or 100+2xMP/100 (Execute does 1k). In either case, for an active ability with a 15s cooldown and a contextual requirement, and that requirement being "the mob is already pretty close to dead," with how it currently scales it's not an appealing ability (especially because the difference between under 30% and slightly above 30% can be a bit fuzzy).

This especially true with Venomed Blades. I only use it because it's a toggle. It's far more effective in heroic, where 1d8 is not the smallest fraction of a mob's HP. It's not supposed to be a powerful ability, I get that, but what I mean is that just because it technically scales into epics doesn't mean it's useful in epics IMO.


But I do not agree that Assassins should be the world's fastest sneakers.

Assassinate and Measure the Foe are the sole reasons in the game for why you'd want to use Sneak in a party in the first place so why not?


Regarding the 2wf discussion that is emphatically not happening in this thread. I notice some posters asserting that 2wf is "the natural" way for an assassin to fight. The natural way for an assassin to fight is not to fight, but to hide in the shadows until the target is within range, place a hand over the targets mouth, slip an icepick between the appropriate vertebrae, drop the body and fade into the shadows. The way of the assassin is to murder the unsuspecting, not to run wildly flailing with a weapon in each hand through brightly lit passages filled with witnesses.

In fact, there should probably be a bonus to assassinate associated with wielding only one weapon.

That bonus to single-weapon Assassinate would need to be pretty hefty because you need to use TWF to get double assassinates.

[draven1]

I've seen a couple of comments like this; the quoted ability already does scale into Epic. That's the whole point of the addition of Melee Power; so heroic abilities scale into epic. If you see "scales with X% Melee Power" that essentially means "scales into Epic levels."

Sev~

So, it's bugged now.
I saw only 500 dmg on execute on 54 melee power, lvl 28. Always 500 dmg.
When other melees can crit 3000+ or 6000+ on auto attack & 10k+ on smite, it's just useless now even it worked properly.
It also breaks attack animation chain, so, it's not the gain on DPS, actually, it's HUGE LOSS of DPS.

500 dmg on situational active attack is a joke like 2d6 dmg on shadowdancer EPIC MONENT.
That's why no one use 'touch of death' now, either.

I rather see execute affected by crits. 500*3(usual assassin crit multiflier)*1.5(melee power)=2250
This skill requires a lot of player's attention(a.k.a player skill) to use properly because of hp limitation.
But, still inferior than usual AUTO-ATTACK crits for blitzers :(

How about boosting 200% or 300% melee power & affected by crits on execute?

So, 500*3(melee power 200%) = 1500 on normal hit.
Or 500*4(melee power 300%) = 2000 on normal hit.

500*3(usual crit multiflier)*3(melee power 200%) = 4500 on crit hit.
Or 500*3(usual crit multiflier)*4.5(melee power 300%) = 6750 on crit hit.

[Full_Bleed]

As others have mentioned, bleed and venomed blades scale poorly.

Venomed blades:
reduce cost to 1 AP per
1d4/1d6/1d8 per 5 rogue levels, scales with melee power

At 6 AP, I don't take this thing. 8% of our action points. That seems like a pretty bad investment for the return.



Bleed them out takes too long to build up useful stacks. Drop the cooldown to 4 seconds. Increase bleed damage to (and still scales with melee power):
1d8 at rogue 5
1d10 at rogue 10
2d6 at rogue 15
2d8 at rogue 20
I take this to cycle in the 3W attack. The bleed damage (as it is right now) is pretty meaningless at higher levels.



We used to have auto-crits on held mobs. Maybe something similar could be brought back for assassins.

Assassins do not have a lot of ways to create a helpless state. They depend on others to create the helpless state and then pounce upon their victim. Within Knife Specialization you could add:

How bards and barbs are better at killing helpless targets than assassins, I'll never understand. I know we're not supposed to compare epeens, but thematically this just makes no sense. The assassins knowledge of anatomy coupled with precision strikes should be far superior.

[redoubt]

It's an ability from Primal Avatar.



Right... its a T3 twist, because as an ASSASSIN, most will be in Shadow Dancer because it gives INT.

Its a lot to assume that all assassin's can even afford a T3 twist. When that is the prevailing answer to assassin CC, I think its safe to say that assassin's do not have good CC abilities.

(I was just yanking your chain a little, hope I didn't offend.)

[Full_Bleed]

Right... its a T3 twist, because as an ASSASSIN, most will be in Shadow Dancer because it gives INT.

Its a lot to assume that all assassin's can even afford a T3 twist. When that is the prevailing answer to assassin CC, I think its safe to say that assassin's do not have good CC abilities.
Further, it's an "on vorpal" ability that only lasts 2 seconds.

Worst. Crowd. Control. Ever.

[redoubt]

I've seen a couple of comments like this; the quoted ability already does scale into Epic. That's the whole point of the addition of Melee Power; so heroic abilities scale into epic. If you see "scales with X% Melee Power" that essentially means "scales into Epic levels."

Sev~

I understand what you are trying to do here. If an assassin had significant melee power I might agree. But I don't see how "scales with 200% melee power" matters much when I only have 50.

Take venomed blades. Right now it costs 6 AP and gives 1d8 poison damage. 4.5 average. Scale that with 50 melee power and you get 6.75. Again, if I was at 200 melee power and got 13.5 it would be better, but still not worth 6 ap.

I'm one of the people who talked about abilities not scaling, but I didn't specify into epic. Both venomed blades and bleed them out scale poorly even in heroic levels. If you made these two abilities scale up in dice during heroic levels and then scale up with melee power in epic, I think you would have created a couple of desirable enhancements.

I think execute scales fine because of the 3W and chance for 500 damage (though reports are coming in that the 500 is not scaling, so that part needs to be fixed.) I just though it would be cool to make this also an assassinate attempt if below 30%. That would scale very well into epic because at the low levels the 500 damage will be more than 30% of the mob hp and in epic you would get a chance to "finish off a mob" that has more than 500 with the assassinate proc, but still get the 500 if it fails.

[CThruTheEgo]

I've seen a couple of comments like this; the quoted ability already does scale into Epic. That's the whole point of the addition of Melee Power; so heroic abilities scale into epic. If you see "scales with X% Melee Power" that essentially means "scales into Epic levels."

Sev~

Perhaps a better way to phrase it is to say that epics don't scale well, particularly epic elites. When trash mobs have 10k+ hp and boss mobs have 100k+ hp, a mere 500-1500 damage on a 15 second cooldown is pretty useless. Execute is definitely not worth taking, no matter how you try to frame it.

Why not make it a secondary assassinate ability? I mean, it is called execute, and you're certainly not executing anything with 500 damage multiplied by 200 melee power.


Regarding the 2wf discussion that is emphatically not happening in this thread. I notice some posters asserting that 2wf is "the natural" way for an assassin to fight. The natural way for an assassin to fight is not to fight, but to hide in the shadows until the target is within range, place a hand over the targets mouth, slip an icepick between the appropriate vertebrae, drop the body and fade into the shadows. The way of the assassin is to murder the unsuspecting, not to run wildly flailing with a weapon in each hand through brightly lit passages filled with witnesses.

In pure theme, sure I'll agree with you, but not in practical application in DDO. Because when you're beating on a purple/red/orange named that can't be assassinated, you have to resort to raw dps, and in that situation twf is the obvious choice for an assassin. Also, because of the amount of sneak attack damage that assassins do, if you're not dpsing between assassinates, then you're neglecting a great deal of the build's potential.

[Blackheartox]

Further, it's an "on vorpal" ability that only lasts 2 seconds.

Worst. Crowd. Control. Ever.

Lol, do we play the same game?

[Wizza]

I've seen a couple of comments like this; the quoted ability already does scale into Epic. That's the whole point of the addition of Melee Power; so heroic abilities scale into epic. If you see "scales with X% Melee Power" that essentially means "scales into Epic levels."

Sev~


I understand what you are trying to do here. If an assassin had significant melee power I might agree. But I don't see how "scales with 200% melee power" matters much when I only have 50.

Take venomed blades. Right now it costs 6 AP and gives 1d8 poison damage. 4.5 average. Scale that with 50 melee power and you get 6.75. Again, if I was at 200 melee power and got 13.5 it would be better, but still not worth 6 ap.

I'm one of the people who talked about abilities not scaling, but I didn't specify into epic. Both venomed blades and bleed them out scale poorly even in heroic levels. If you made these two abilities scale up in dice during heroic levels and then scale up with melee power in epic, I think you would have created a couple of desirable enhancements.

I think execute scales fine because of the 3W and chance for 500 damage (though reports are coming in that the 500 is not scaling, so that part needs to be fixed.) I just though it would be cool to make this also an assassinate attempt if below 30%. That would scale very well into epic because at the low levels the 500 damage will be more than 30% of the mob hp and in epic you would get a chance to "finish off a mob" that has more than 500 with the assassinate proc, but still get the 500 if it fails.

Severlin, it's probably you who don't understand well. Making it "scale with X% Melee Power" doesn't make an ability suddenly good, it's as easy as that. The same goes for Venomed Blade: it costs 6 APs and it's still trash in epic levels. How to fix both of them:

1) Execute: lower the threshold to 50%. 50% is WAY easier to spot and allows for more than only using this ability once per mob. Second: increase the damage done to 1000 or scale it with 300% Melee Power

Interesting option: after a certain threshold, and I could accept 30% here, it will just insta-kill a mob with no save or even add an Int-based save. It has a 30s cooldown, it needs to be worth to spend points into this ability. Execute gives me the idea that after a certain threshold, this ability finishes off the mob.


2) Venomed Blade: LOWER THE AP COST. It should be 1/1/1. Second: make this into 1d10, 2d10, 3d10 that scales with Melee Power. This would make it a 12 dmg on average with 50 Melee Power, which is the double of the ability that we have now and it is much better for the cost.


The same goes for Bleed them out. This ability should be a passive with a 50% chance to stack on every hit, just like Vulnerable debuff IMHO.

[amsharkwei]

Core abilitie 5 :Lethality: Any sneak attack that also counts as a vorpal strike (attack roll of 20 followed by critical confirmation) that you make will kill most living targets.

this is useless in Epic level

rework it !

Lethality: Any attack have 5% chance make an Assassinate effect on your target(use your Assassinate DC).

[Hafeal]

This has been my experience on my level 28 assassin as well:
So, it's bugged now.I saw only 500 dmg on execute on 54 melee power, lvl 28. Always 500 dmg.When other melees can crit 3000+ or 6000+ on auto attack & 10k+ on smite, it's just useless now even it worked properly.It also breaks attack animation chain, so, it's not the gain on DPS, actually, it's HUGE LOSS of DPS.500 dmg on situational active attack is a joke like 2d6 dmg on shadowdancer EPIC MONENT. That's why no one use 'touch of death' now, either.I rather see execute affected by crits. 500*3(usual assassin crit multiflier)*1.5(melee power)=2250This skill requires a lot of player's attention(a.k.a player skill) to use properly because of hp limitation.But, still inferior than usual AUTO-ATTACK crits for blitzers :(How about boosting 200% or 300% melee power & affected by crits on execute?So, 500*3(melee power 200%) = 1500 on normal hit. Or 500*4(melee power 300%) = 2000 on normal hit.500*3(usual crit multiflier)*3(melee power 200%) = 4500 on crit hit. Or 500*3(usual crit multiflier)*4.5(melee power 300%) = 6750 on crit hit.

[CThruTheEgo]

2) Venomed Blade: LOWER THE AP COST. It should be 1/1/1. Second: make this into 1d10, 2d10, 3d10 that scales with Melee Power. This would make it a 12 dmg on average with 50 Melee Power, which is the double of the ability that we have now and it is much better for the cost.

I like your suggestions for execute, venomed blades, and bleed them out, and I'll second them, but your math is a bit off here. 3d10 is an average of 16.5 damage per hit, which is still not OP.

[Wizza]

I like your suggestions for execute, venomed blades, and bleed them out, and I'll second them, but your math is a bit off here. 3d10 is an average of 16.5 damage per hit, which is still not OP.

My bad. Never been good at DDO math :)

[Saekee]

The natural way for an assassin to fight is not to fight, but to hide in the shadows until the target is within range, place a hand over the targets mouth, slip an icepick between the appropriate vertebrae, drop the body and fade into the shadows. The way of the assassin is to murder the unsuspecting, not to run wildly flailing with a weapon in each hand through brightly lit passages filled with witnesses.

Great stuff Chaios!

[Saekee]

I'd like to highlight an earlier suggestion again (was that your's Quezuzu?) to add SAP as a bonus feat in the assassin cores. If it is early, like even the third core, it will aid low-level assassins. And it scales into epics!

This makes sense given some of the more useful bonus feats in other trees like deflect arrows appearing in tempest and swash tree--it is hardly a game breaker and fits with role of assassin

[Xionanx]

I've seen a couple of comments like this; the quoted ability already does scale into Epic. That's the whole point of the addition of Melee Power; so heroic abilities scale into epic. If you see "scales with X% Melee Power" that essentially means "scales into Epic levels."

Sev~

Once again I am left staring and the screen.... Please for the love of god, play your game. Op in what you consider to be an optimal assasin build, and then go do an EE quest.

Several pages back, I posted that even going to 500% melee power with these abilities is pointless, but I'll try to demonstrate with "math" why that is.

Asssasin - VS Epic Elite "Peasant" with 0 DR 0 Fort and 20,000 HP who is blind, deaf, and paralyzed. (20,000 HP is fairly common I think HP wise in EE mobs)

I'm just going to assume the assassin somehow magically always does max damage..

Venomed Blades - 1D8 Poison Damage on hit, equal to 0.0004% total monster health. (need to hit monster 2500 times to kill)

Bleed Them Out - (assuming max stacks AND infinite duration because you are applying it 100% of the time) 5d6 Damage every 2 deconds, equal to 0.0015% total monster health. (will take 1333 seconds to kill monster, or 22 minutes)

Execute - 500 Damage on hit, once every 15 seconds, when monster has less then 4000 HP (20%) or 6000HP (30% proposed change), will take 120/180 Seconds to "finish off" target.

Now, lets add 50 Melee power, which as I understand it works by 100+MP/100 * Damage done. And then the "Scales with melee power" takes that result and then multiplies it?

Venomed Blades - Normal MP scaling to my knowledge so 8 damage becomes 12

Bleed Them Out - 200% MP so 50% x 2 = 100% damage bonus = 60 Damage ever 2 seconds if "Max"

Execute - 200% MP os 50% x 2 = 100 Damage bonus = 1000 Damage every 15 seconds if below 30% health.

Which are all still way too low in proportion to the monster HP. Execute going to maybe 600% melee power might make it better. The "Dots" and venom need something like 800% melee power to be worth the AP IMO. That, or Rogue needs to get a LOT of melee power just passively added to its tree. something like an additional 10 melee power per rogue level for just being a rogue

[Thrudh]

Right... its a T3 twist, because as an ASSASSIN, most will be in Shadow Dancer because it gives INT.

Its a lot to assume that all assassin's can even afford a T3 twist.

If you're running epic elite, you should be able to afford a T3 twist. If you're running epic hard, you don't need a T3 twist.

[Thrudh]

Further, it's an "on vorpal" ability that only lasts 2 seconds.

Worst. Crowd. Control. Ever.

You obviously have never used it...

With TWF, it goes off quite often, and even though it says only 2 seconds, monsters have an animation when they stand back up, so they are really out of the fight for a good 4-5 seconds usually.

But you're right that helpless state doesn't last very long... It would be nice if the helpless state lasted for 4 seconds at least.

[amsharkwei]

Fighter's capstone gives +15%double strike
it's means +15% damage
in Epic level ,it's also +15% damage

Rogue's capstone +4D6 sneak attack
in Epic level ,4D6 damage is nothing

hehe

[Gothdom]

As a pure rogue assassin, I do so little damage that I'm ashamed to join groups for Epic Elite questing.

Most of it is I try to assassinate something (which misses more than not) then try not to die in the melee... or I have enough armor and evade to solo something (obviously not at EE level, maybe EH) but it takes an hour and a half to kill something.

I don't know what pushes you not to add a little more DC to assassinate. As for melee damage, I don't need to become a slasher like the barb is, but do more than what is proposed that's for sure.

[depositbox]

Assassin capstones of 18 and 20 have got to be better. Assassins should have high assassinate DCs. Shouldn't they? It makes the game more diverse. Take the champions with adrenaline, true seeing and fort reduction. You dont really want to stand in front of it and get hit twice. Give that set of buffs to all orange names. Even heavy armored toons wont really sit in front of something like that.

Assassins bring an insta-kill option to those encounters. Because they will never be able to stand in front of it and take even the first hit in most cases. Do the same for monks and QP. If bards with warchanter and swashbuckler (frozen fury and coup de grace) have not showed you how really meh those abilities are in the grand scheme of sitting in front of a red named and dpsing it down. They need to excel at their niche otherwise why bother playing one.

[Severlin]

I understand what you are trying to do here. If an assassin had significant melee power I might agree. But I don't see how "scales with 200% melee power" matters much when I only have 50.


Um, you know that something that scales with 200% Melee Power does *double* damage if you have 50?



Take venomed blades. Right now it costs 6 AP and gives 1d8 poison damage. 4.5 average. Scale that with 50 melee power and you get 6.75. Again, if I was at 200 melee power and got 13.5 it would be better, but still not worth 6 ap.


Well, it scales with 200% Melee Power so it would actually jump to 9 per hit.



I'm one of the people who talked about abilities not scaling, but I didn't specify into epic. Both venomed blades and bleed them out scale poorly even in heroic levels. If you made these two abilities scale up in dice during heroic levels and then scale up with melee power in epic, I think you would have created a couple of desirable enhancements.

I think execute scales fine because of the 3W and chance for 500 damage (though reports are coming in that the 500 is not scaling, so that part needs to be fixed.) I just though it would be cool to make this also an assassinate attempt if below 30%. That would scale very well into epic because at the low levels the 500 damage will be more than 30% of the mob hp and in epic you would get a chance to "finish off a mob" that has more than 500 with the assassinate proc, but still get the 500 if it fails.

Players tend to underestimate the effects of lots of little damage boosts but in total they can be significant. It will also continue to scale as players accumulate Melee Power on new gear.

The damage boost is appropriate for its place in the tree. Venomed Blades is too expensive though, it should be 1/1/1 AP for its effect.

Sev~

[redoubt]

If you're running epic elite, you should be able to afford a T3 twist. If you're running epic hard, you don't need a T3 twist.

The following are all just from heroic enhancements and not from caster trees. (You can add to this bard songs and druid melee attacks that can stun.) Yet, somehow a T3 epic destiny twist is the answer to rogue CC. Even if it is good CC (which people seem to disagree on), look at how much CC is available to other melee (and one for archers) in the heroic levels by comparison. I think it is pretty clear that I am correct when I say that ROGUES do not have CC.

Tantrum - 50% AOE KD

Knockout: Ear Smash puts enemies to sleep for 6/12/18 seconds. On Vorpal, enemies are stunned instead. Bug: Causes no-save helplessness for 6/12/18 seconds. Works on undead and constructs.

Visage of Terror: Terrorize up to six enemies, killing them with fear if they fail a Will save vs 10 + Constitution modifier + half barbarian level. Enemies who make their saving throw are paralyzed with Fear for six seconds instead. Doesn't affect bosses. (Cost 1 Rage. Cooldown: 30 seconds)

Low Blow: While Swashbuckling and wielding a Buckler in your off hand, activate to perform a shield bash with +2 Critical Threat Range and Multiplier. On hit, knock down affected enemy for three seconds (Perform + d20 saves for the Knockdown). Costs 10 Spell Points.

Slap in the Face: While Swashbuckling and wielding nothing in your off hand, activate to deal 1 Bludgeon damage. Damaged enemies can't cast spells for 6 seconds and are stunned for three seconds (Perform + d20 saves for the Stun). 18 second cooldown. Costs 10 Spell Points

The Frozen Fury: Make a melee attack with +(1/2/3)[W] damage. Affected enemies must make a Fortitude save (10 + Charisma modifier + 0/one-quarter/one-half Bard Level + Stunning modifiers) or become frozen solid for number of seconds equal to half of your Bard levels. Cooldown: (12/9/6) seconds. Cost: 1 sp. Bosses cannot be frozen.

Spinning Ice: Attack all enemies around you for +(2/3/4)[W] damage. Each affected enemy is frozen solid if they fail a Fortitude save (14 + Charisma modifier + 1/2 Bard Level + Stunning modifiers) for a number of seconds equal to your half your Bard level. Bosses cannot be frozen. Increased ranks increases how much Bard levels contribute. Activation cost: 6/4/2 SP. Cooldown 45/35/25 seconds.

Shield Champion: While shield is equipped: +2 attack, +2 damage, +5% doublestrike, +1(W), an additional +5% (total 20%) Combat Style bonus to Melee Attack Speed, and shield bash stuns 5% of the time DC (10 + 1/2 Character lvl + strength modifier + stun bonus)

Stunning Shield: While shield equipped, Activate: Melee shield bash with shield for [+1/+2/+3] (W) attack. This attack stuns enemies unless Fortitude save vs DC(10 + highest ability modifier + character level + stunning bonuses). 30 second cooldown.

Shield Charge: While shield equipped, Activate: Rush forward in a line, delivering a shield bash to every creature hit. Each enemy is knocked down for [+2/+4/+6] (W) damage. The knockdown is negated on Fortitude saving throw vs DC(20 + highest ability modifier + class level + bonus to trip attacks).

Flash Bang: Ki Bomb Spell-Like Ability: Throws a fragile eggshell imbued with ninja magic that explodes into light, blinding opponents for 6 seconds on a failed reflex save and momentarily dazing opponents on a failed fortitude save. Both saving throws have DC equal to (10/14/18 + Monk Level + Wisdom Modifier). (Activation Cost: 20 Ki. Cooldown: 30 seconds)

Smite Tainted Creature: Ki Melee Attack: You have the ability to expend Ki to deal devastating blows in melee against tainted creatures. You gain twice your Wisdom modifier to your attack roll and a damage bonus based on your monk level. A tainted target will be locked in a tomb of jade on vorpal attacks (attack roll of 20 followed by critical confirmation) on a failed Will save (DC = 10 + Wisdom modifier + your monk level). Extraplanar Aberrations or Undead must succeed at two consecutive Will saves to avoid their fate. (Activation Cost: 15 Ki. Cooldown: 15 seconds)

Jade Strike: Ki Melee Attack: You perform a melee attack that is anathema to tainted creatures, that increases their physical damage vulnerability by 10% and reduces their fortification by 25%. A successful Will save negates this effect (DC = 10 + Wisdom modifier + your monk level). This ability only functions on aberrations, extraplanar creatures that are not classified as 'Lawful Outsiders', and undead. Creatures that are both extraplanar and either aberrations or undead receive double this effect. On critical hits, a tainted target will be locked in a tomb of jade on a failed Will save (DC = 10 + Wisdom modifier + your monk level). Extraplanar Aberrations or Undead must succeed at two consecutive Will saves to avoid their fate. (Activation Cost: 10 Ki. Cooldown: 15 seconds)

Tomb of Jade: Ki Melee Attack: You perform an attack that encases a tainted target in a tomb of jade on a failed Will save (DC = 10 + Wisdom modifier + your monk level). Extraplanar Aberrations or Undead must succeed at two consecutive Will saves to avoid this fate. (Activation Cost: 25 Ki. Cooldown: 1 minute)

Kukan-Do: Ki Activate: You lock gazes with an enemy, stunning them for a short period of time on a failed Will save (DC 10 + Charisma modifier + Monk level). Any effects that modify your Stunning Blow or Stunning Fist DC's also affect this ability. Sightless creatures are unaffected by this ability. (Activation Cost: 25 Ki. Cooldown: 15 seconds)

Paralyzing Arrows: Arcane Archer Imbue Toggle: You imbue your arrows with paralyzing force. On Hit: Target is paralyzed. (Will DC 18/22/26 negates.) (Activation Cost: 20 SP. Cooldown: 10 seconds)

[redoubt]

Um, you know that something that scales with 200% Melee Power does *double* damage if you have 50?

I did not. I actually had created a new thread on the subject in the general discussion because it was not making sense to me that you continued to hold up "scales with 200% melee power" as a fix. I've since been informed that it is not a cap to useable Melee Power, but rather a multiplier of it.



Well, it scales with 200% Melee Power so it would actually jump to 9 per hit.

I see that now.


Players tend to underestimate the effects of lots of little damage boosts but in total they can be significant. It will also continue to scale as players accumulate Melee Power on new gear.

The damage boost is appropriate for its place in the tree. Venomed Blades is too expensive though, it should be 1/1/1 AP for its effect.

Sev~

Reducing the AP cost will help.

Are there items in game with Melee Power on them?

[bbqzor]

Venomed Blades is too expensive though, it should be 1/1/1 AP for its effect.

Finally. Been saying this (or that the dmg needs to go up to match 2 ap) since it came out. Thanks. Even with melee power it was way behind, this will make it actually pretty good, most people will be trying to find points for it. Good change.

[HatsuharuZ]

If possible, could you please add the ability to use daggers and/or kukris as ki weapons to this tree? Currently, a monk/rogue build can only be unarmed, use shortswords and and q-staves and remain centered. This change would only affect multi-class builds, but I feel that it doesn't make sense for monks to be able to use shortswords and not daggers, which are smaller and lighter.

[Saekee]

If possible, could you please add the ability to use daggers and/or kukris as ki weapons to this tree? Currently, a monk/rogue build can only be unarmed, use shortswords and and q-staves and remain centered. This change would only affect multi-class builds, but I feel that it doesn't make sense for monks to be able to use shortswords and not daggers, which are smaller and lighter.

Though I am splashing these two in my current build and a future one, I think that would be OP. Lots of things like handaxes could be centering for a monk but the limiting factor is there for game balance.
The epic midnight greetings is centering, anyway (as its crummy heroic version).

Speaking of which, any chance of updating the midnight greetings? I would add keen to the epic version since rogues go IC: piercing so often for the better named daggers like Agony and Guardian of Liturgy for heroics.

The heroic is a complete joke. i would make it like the Tiefling's Assassin blade.

[Mryal]

If possible, could you please add the ability to use daggers and/or kukris as ki weapons to this tree? Currently, a monk/rogue build can only be unarmed, use shortswords and and q-staves and remain centered. This change would only affect multi-class builds, but I feel that it doesn't make sense for monks to be able to use shortswords and not daggers, which are smaller and lighter.

No.Just no.Monk/rogue should be using shortsword or unarmed.Thats what they did for ages before enhancement changes.What needs to be done is fixing the actual subpar unarmed/handwrap combat.TRing my monk tank to SNB pally was necessary, granted it was fun for the first month.But iwant my monk back, i dont wanna be playing unbalanced classes.If anyone needs a melee buff, if any tree neds revision, its ALL monk trees , and its monk.Much more than rogue that turbine is doing, and even more so than ranger wich people are asking for.




Why not make it a secondary assassinate ability? I mean, it is called execute, and you're certainly not executing anything with 500 damage multiplied by 200 melee power.



This.And the ability sucks, this whole low % mechanic sucks tbh.Theres no pratical way to tell if the mob is in 30% hp or less other than approximate guessing.Some other form of assassinate or some form of burst damage would fit the tree more.
I also think that people are underestimating venomed blades.

[HatsuharuZ]

Though I am splashing these two in my current build and a future one, I think that would be OP. Lots of things like handaxes could be centering for a monk but the limiting factor is there for game balance.
The epic midnight greetings is centering, anyway (as its crummy heroic version).


How so? shortswords are 1d6 weapons while daggers are 1d4 weapons, and both have the same crit profile.

[Fedora1]

How so? shortswords are 1d6 weapons while daggers are 1d4 weapons, and both have the same crit profile.

Assassins get a higher crit profile with daggers. Knife Specialization.

[slarden]

I can see your point, but nothing about assassin really has anything to do with ranged. The tree is melee based so I'm not sure that ranged power really has a place. Plus, harper is currently the only source of enhancement based ranged power. I would expect it to be added to various trees with the ranged pass. I don't think they should be adding in ranged power piecemeal with the individual tree revamps. It should be done all at once for proper balance (not that balance has ever been achieved in DDO, but no reason not to keep trying, I guess). I would expect to find ranged power in the mechanic tree, whenever that one gets updated.

I agree with not making rogue trees something that helps ranged builds outside of the mechanic tree. There are a few really solid ranged builds that splash 4 rogue for sneak attack + no mercy to stack with sense weakness.

If the idea is to help builds with a high # of rogue levels rather than splashes, ranged power shouldn't be a priority.

[slarden]

Assassin capstones of 18 and 20 have got to be better.

Agreed - some doublestrike + fortification bypass in the assassin capstone would be nice. Perhaps +2% doublestrike and +5% fortification bypass?

[Zengar]

This.And the ability sucks, this whole low % mechanic sucks tbh.Theres no pratical way to tell if the mob is in 30% hp or less other than approximate guessing.Some other form of assassinate or some form of burst damage would fit the tree more.
I also think that people are underestimating venomed blades.

If you're dealling with a monster whose type is in the manual, the ability to see their HP is one of the account level rewards. Not a perfect answer since there's a lot of stuff out there that isn't in the manuals yet, but it is there. As for practicality, I reached that point with one monster type before I reached epic levels with a character that was level 12 when the manuals first came out. By the time I TRd, I had added a couple more of the common types. Yes I wasn't playing this character exclusively, but it does give some idea on the time frame.

[redoubt]

Severlin,

What is your overall vision for rogues and in specific for assassins?

Where do you want them to rank in offense?

Where do you want them to rank in defense?

I ask because I see posts discussing paladins and bards as having both the best defense and best offense at the same time. Similarly, I've read discussions about the huge gap in mitigation on a rogue without having top tier offense. Most seem to think that it would be okay for a rogue to have a weakness in mitigation (as it currently does), IF it was the highest melee DPS (but most do not feel it is even close to bard, barb or paladins). Where do you want the rogues to fall in these sorts of discussions? If we better understand the goal you have in mind, we may be able to provide better feedback on how well the changes are or are not achieving the stated goals.

[Severlin]

Severlin,

What is your overall vision for rogues and in specific for assassins?


Assassins should be fun for players who enjoy that type of play style.
The do good damage in a group because they can deliver lots of sneak attack damage when monsters are focused on others.
The are fun solo because they have good burst out of stealth and lots of tricks, but they are harder to play than, say, barbarian.

(Rogues also have a lot of non-combat advantages.)



Where do you want them to rank in offense?

Where do you want them to rank in defense?

I ask because I see posts discussing paladins and bards as having both the best defense and best offense at the same time. Similarly, I've read discussions about the huge gap in mitigation on a rogue without having top tier offense. Most seem to think that it would be okay for a rogue to have a weakness in mitigation (as it currently does), IF it was the highest melee DPS (but most do not feel it is even close to bard, barb or paladins). Where do you want the rogues to fall in these sorts of discussions? If we better understand the goal you have in mind, we may be able to provide better feedback on how well the changes are or are not achieving the stated goals.

We are more interested in "is this class fun for people who like that playstyle" than ranks. I suspect any discussion about ranks will involve a lot of "how do we define the ranks?" and "by what criteria are we ranking the class?" Some people will rank classes by speed in which they can complete content solo but that's not really a criteria we'd use. Some might use face to face survival times. How do we add the ability to disarm traps to rankings? That question will, I suspect, vary from player to player and be totally arbitrary. Discussions of ranking will like devolve quickly into areas that are not productive.

Sev~

[CThruTheEgo]

Sev, I see you added spinning staff wall to acrobat. That solves the damage mitigation problem for acrobats, but what about assassins? They still need some way to handle spike damage. I offered some suggestions in this post (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/456558-Rogue-Assassin-Changes?p=5554985&viewfull=1#post5554985).

[Monkey-Boy]

interested in "is this class fun for people who like that playstyle" than ranks. I suspect any discussion about ranks will involve a lot of "how do we define the ranks?" and "by what criteria are we ranking the class?" Some people will rank classes by speed in which they can complete content solo but that's not really a criteria we'd use. Some might use face to face survival times. How do we add the ability to disarm traps to rankings? That question will, I suspect, vary from player to player and be totally arbitrary. Discussions of ranking will like devolve quickly into areas that are not productive.

Sev~

Nonsense, just rank them on a 1-10 scale. If you guys mapped that stuff out BEFORE making bards/pallies/barbs godmode you wouldn't have put us in the mess was are in now.

Traps are irrelevant, nobody will care about traps unless they are actually dangerous enough to kill people.

[CThruTheEgo]

Assassins should be fun for players who enjoy that type of play style.

...snip...

We are more interested in "is this class fun for people who like that playstyle" than ranks.

I am glad that this is how you are looking at it. Assassins specifically have a unique playstyle, and I personally don't want to see that changed. But the game has changed such that spike damage is a problem that needs addressing. I don't think assassins should have tank like PRR, but they need some sort of damage mitigation to manage the spike damage that they will inevitably get. No amount of damage avoidance will help with that problem.

[draven1]

Assassins should be fun for players who enjoy that type of play style.
The do good damage in a group because they can deliver lots of sneak attack damage when monsters are focused on others.
The are fun solo because they have good burst out of stealth and lots of tricks, but they are harder to play than, say, barbarian.

(Rogues also have a lot of non-combat advantages.)

Think why most advanced assassin players left their favorite class. Because it's not fun anymore even if you like that type of play style.
It seems DDO does not support that type of play anymore.
Good damage? When other melees can rofl-faceroll the hardest content solo, what's the point of good damage of assassin?

Assassin doesn't have good damage even in group now.
My assassin have almost every source of damage & sneak attack for 95% situation & assassinate 1 or 2 mob every 15 sec, but, he can't literally catch other melees now. I myself can kill faster & easier with other classes even I was an assassin for 6+ years.

Yup, rogues have lots of non-combat advantages. But, WHO CARES IT when everyone can self-heal, rez, bypass traps, better survivalability?



We are more interested in "is this class fun for people who like that playstyle" than ranks. I suspect any discussion about ranks will involve a lot of "how do we define the ranks?" and "by what criteria are we ranking the class?" Some people will rank classes by speed in which they can complete content solo but that's not really a criteria we'd use. Some might use face to face survival times. How do we add the ability to disarm traps to rankings? That question will, I suspect, vary from player to player and be totally arbitrary. Discussions of ranking will like devolve quickly into areas that are not productive.

Sev~

Was this assassin fun? YES. But, it's not now. You can see many good assassin players left their favorite class, including me.
Don't gimp assassins because they can disable traps.
Actually, traps just slow assassin who is the slowest in DDO. Almost no one cares about traps except xp bonus.

[Fedora1]

Yup, rogues have lots of non-combat advantages. But, WHO CARES IT when everyone can self-heal, rez, bypass traps, better survivalability?



Was this assassin fun? YES. But, it's not now. You can see many good assassin players left their favorite class, including me.
Don't gimp assassins because they can disable traps.
Actually, traps just slow assassin who is the slowest in DDO. Almost no one cares about traps except xp bonus.

So what made assassins fun before?

And if the only "fun" class now is the max dps, self heal, and zerg through content without slowing down, then why should you play an assassin rather than a pally, bard, or barb?

Everyone is asking for is the same thing for every class. So why have different classes if they all play the same way?

1. Fast movement.
2. Max dps.
3. Max damage avoidance or mitigation.
4. All classes do everything equally well (or rather my favorite class must not be behind any other class in any area).

So the style is enter quest, run max speed w/o slowing down as you kill all mobs, end quest, get xp. Check the stop watch to make sure it was faster than the other class (which I don't play). If it was slower, it is gimp and not worth playing this class anymore.

-draven this is not aimed at you, I just used your post since it was the latest in echoing what many have stated.

In a PvE game, such as DDO, it is less important that all classes be equally good at all things or even 100% perfectly balanced IMO.

[draven1]

So what made assassins fun before?

And if the only "fun" class now is the max dps, self heal, and zerg through content without slowing down, then why should you play an assassin rather than a pally, bard, or barb?

Everyone is asking for is the same thing for every class. So why have different classes if they all play the same way?

1. Fast movement.
2. Max dps.
3. Max damage avoidance or mitigation.
4. All classes do everything equally well (or rather my favorite class must not be behind any other class in any area).



If you saw my previous posts, I didn't request 3, 4.
Actually, I posted nerf requests for other over-powered aspects of the game.

I requested an assassin should be squishy, but deadly & nimble. That fits 1,2, but not 3,4.

An assassin will not be FOTM builds by any means, because their DPS is tied with sneak attack, not just raw auto-attack DPS & they are not good at facerolling contents with insanely high hp, saves, PRR/MRR, with insane DPS.

Assassin game play need tactical thinking, not fitting mindless zerg FOTM at all.

[Thrudh]

We are more interested in "is this class fun for people who like that playstyle" than ranks. I suspect any discussion about ranks will involve a lot of "how do we define the ranks?" and "by what criteria are we ranking the class?" Some people will rank classes by speed in which they can complete content solo but that's not really a criteria we'd use. Some might use face to face survival times. How do we add the ability to disarm traps to rankings? That question will, I suspect, vary from player to player and be totally arbitrary. Discussions of ranking will like devolve quickly into areas that are not productive.

I am SO glad you are in charge...

This is exactly the right type of thinking...

[Thrudh]

Everyone is asking for is the same thing for every class. So why have different classes if they all play the same way?

1. Fast movement.
2. Max dps.
3. Max damage avoidance or mitigation.
4. All classes do everything equally well (or rather my favorite class must not be behind any other class in any area).

So the style is enter quest, run max speed w/o slowing down as you kill all mobs, end quest, get xp. Check the stop watch to make sure it was faster than the other class (which I don't play). If it was slower, it is gimp and not worth playing this class anymore.


This. Exactly this. I am so glad Sev isn't listening to the people who play like that. Because those are the people who are bored out of their minds... And it's their own fault.

Instead of trying to play differently as a rogue, they want the devs to change rogues so they can play the exact same way they play a barbarian... Don't do it devs!

[oradafu]

This. Exactly this. I am so glad Sev isn't listening to the people who play like that. Because those are the people who are bored out of their minds... And it's their own fault.

Instead of trying to play differently as a rogue, they want the devs to change rogues so they can play the exact same way they play a barbarian... Don't do it devs!

If the Devs actually supported Rogues with quest design that allow non-brute force in the game, such as sneaking, then maybe players would be playing that way more. You can't fault players complaining about such things when mobs are HP meatbags, spawn in clustered groups, all of them must be killed before advancing the quest while the endgame leans heavily Undead and Construct. Add in there that Champions have thrown a heavy wrench on top of everything.

Examples of poor quest design: The whole Druid's Deep chain consists of killing all mobs, instead of a few key mobs, to advance. Epic Necro4 consists of almost exclusively anti-sneak attack mobs.

Quests either need to be designed smarter or more diverse. As I said before, this was a similar problem Paladins had before their pass. And here's a hint, if Undead and Epic Animals were to switch places, we'd be talking about almost exclusively the same mobs: Constructs, Elementals, Plants.

[davmuzl]

Assassins should be fun for players who enjoy that type of play style.
The do good damage in a group because they can deliver lots of sneak attack damage when monsters are focused on others.
The are fun solo because they have good burst out of stealth and lots of tricks, but they are harder to play than, say, barbarian.

(Rogues also have a lot of non-combat advantages.)



We are more interested in "is this class fun for people who like that playstyle" than ranks. I suspect any discussion about ranks will involve a lot of "how do we define the ranks?" and "by what criteria are we ranking the class?" Some people will rank classes by speed in which they can complete content solo but that's not really a criteria we'd use. Some might use face to face survival times. How do we add the ability to disarm traps to rankings? That question will, I suspect, vary from player to player and be totally arbitrary. Discussions of ranking will like devolve quickly into areas that are not productive.

Sev~

I think the idea of a ranking would be good to define a role in a group and to make sure every class has their moment to shine.
Let's say we have a "tankyness" rating like this (and you obviously don't have to agree with my ranking at all - it is just how I see the classes we currently having matching up):

1. Fighters and Paladins are the classes you want to have when it comes to tanking an endgame raid boss on the highest difficulty.
2. Barbarians, Monks and Druids can also build tanky and will be able to survive pretty well but not enough to take on the strongestt endgame bosses.
3. Rangers,Clerics and Favored Souls are able to stand against most enemies without worrying too much about being killed imediatly but will have to split in other classes if they want to survive an extended fight or more than one enemy.
4. Rogues , Wizards and Sorcerers generally have to be very careful and want to make sure that they either stay away from the enemy or that the enemy isn't attacking them.
Not really sure where I would rank Bards and Artificers but I would put them in the lowest tier, just from my personal experience.

Of course this doesn't mean, if you are playing an arcane spellcaster as an example, that you end up with no options for defense at all but it means that they generally have to invest more to make it work. Also I am thinking here about what options the classes have available and just playing a Fighter or Paladin wouldn't mean you are automatically a good tank but it means they end up on top if they want to invest.

The same kind of ranking we can make for DPS(sustained and burst?), healing, CC and "utility" or "group related"(stuff like trap disabling, monk finishing moves, buffs,...) and I think it could be very productive, because then we can compare the ranking to how classes actually perform in the game and find out what classes are too weak and what classes are to strong in a category.

That being said I like your "vision" of the assassin but it would be great to have it as an intro to thread and I would actually love to know what your vision if for all the other classes and enhancent trees.

[CThruTheEgo]

So what made assassins fun before?

And if the only "fun" class now is the max dps, self heal, and zerg through content without slowing down, then why should you play an assassin rather than a pally, bard, or barb?

Everyone is asking for is the same thing for every class. So why have different classes if they all play the same way?

1. Fast movement.
2. Max dps.
3. Max damage avoidance or mitigation.
4. All classes do everything equally well (or rather my favorite class must not be behind any other class in any area).

So the style is enter quest, run max speed w/o slowing down as you kill all mobs, end quest, get xp. Check the stop watch to make sure it was faster than the other class (which I don't play). If it was slower, it is gimp and not worth playing this class anymore.

-draven this is not aimed at you, I just used your post since it was the latest in echoing what many have stated.

In a PvE game, such as DDO, it is less important that all classes be equally good at all things or even 100% perfectly balanced IMO.

The basic playstyle of an assassin has not changed, but the game certainly has, and an assassin has to adapt to those conditions. If a first life paladin with hand me down gear can zerg at full speed through EE Stormhorns with no regard to how much agro he is drawing, kill everything without even trying, and survive being surrounded by a dozen mobs, the assassin in that group is going to have to adapt or will get bored. So will every other class/build btw, but this thread is specifically about assassins. It's not about keeping up with the Joneses, it's about keeping the class fun to play while playing with the Joneses, because you're going to encounter them.

As I've said numerous times, I don't want rogues to become invincible from damage mitigation like a paladin is. And yes, assassins are not supposed to get agro, but it does happen, and when it does, mob damage is so inflated now that this is a problem that can't be ignored. Increasing the PRR from light armor mastery to 5/10/15 and incorporating more debuff options, like the melee power debuff from poisons, would not turn assassins into another easy button, but it would be just enough of a boost to their survivability to allow them to function better in the current endgame.


If the Devs actually supported Rogues with quest design that allow non-brute force in the game, such as sneaking, then maybe players would be playing that way more. You can't fault players complaining about such things when mobs are HP meatbags, spawn in clustered groups, all of them must be killed before advancing the quest while the endgame leans heavily Undead and Construct. Add in there that Champions have thrown a heavy wrench on top of everything.

Examples of poor quest design: The whole Druid's Deep chain consists of killing all mobs, instead of a few key mobs, to advance. Necro4 consists of almost exclusively anti-sneak attack mobs.

Quests either need to be designed smarter or more diverse. As I said before, this was a similar problem Paladins had before their pass. And here's a hint, if Undead and Epic Animals were to switch places, we'd be talking about almost exclusively the same mobs: Constructs, Elementals, Plants.

Well said. Don't build content that requires certain characteristics of any build and then completely ignore those characteristics when you're revamping a class.

[davmuzl]

Think why most advanced assassin players left their favorite class. Because it's not fun anymore even if you like that type of play style.
It seems DDO does not support that type of play anymore.
Good damage? When other melees can rofl-faceroll the hardest content solo, what's the point of good damage of assassin?

Assassin doesn't have good damage even in group now.
My assassin have almost every source of damage & sneak attack for 95% situation & assassinate 1 or 2 mob every 15 sec, but, he can't literally catch other melees now. I myself can kill faster & easier with other classes even I was an assassin for 6+ years.

Yup, rogues have lots of non-combat advantages. But, WHO CARES IT when everyone can self-heal, rez, bypass traps, better survivalability?



Was this assassin fun? YES. But, it's not now. You can see many good assassin players left their favorite class, including me.
Don't gimp assassins because they can disable traps.
Actually, traps just slow assassin who is the slowest in DDO. Almost no one cares about traps except xp bonus.

I am leveling a shadar kai assassin at the moment and it has been a lot of fun so far. He is only level 17 at the moment so I don't know how things will go in epic levels and it also means that the time I've been playing him so far is quite short but I can't complain about the DPS and I'm not slower than everyone else.

[CThruTheEgo]

I am leveling a shadar kai assassin at the moment and it has been a lot of fun so far. He is only level 17 at the moment so I don't know how things will go in epic levels and it also means that the time I've been playing him so far is quite short but I can't complain about the DPS and I'm not slower than everyone else.

It's epic elites, specifically upper level epic elites, where any notion of game balance tends to fall apart completely. That's just the result of the conditions of epic elite though.

[Fedora1]

An assassin will not be FOTM builds by any means, because their DPS is tied with sneak attack, not just raw auto-attack DPS & they are not good at facerolling contents with insanely high hp, saves, PRR/MRR, with insane DPS.

Assassin game play need tactical thinking, not fitting mindless zerg FOTM at all.

Agreed.


If the Devs actually supported Rogues with quest design that allow non-brute force in the game, such as sneaking, then maybe players would be playing that way more. You can't fault players complaining about such things when mobs are HP meatbags, spawn in clustered groups, all of them must be killed before advancing the quest while the endgame leans heavily Undead and Construct. Add in there that Champions have thrown a heavy wrench on top of everything.

///snip///

Quests either need to be designed smarter or more diverse.

Very good points.


Don't build content that requires certain characteristics of any build and then completely ignore those characteristics when you're revamping a class.

Agreed.

[Qezuzu]

Assassins should be fun for players who enjoy that type of play style.
The do good damage in a group because they can deliver lots of sneak attack damage when monsters are focused on others.
The are fun solo because they have good burst out of stealth and lots of tricks, but they are harder to play than, say, barbarian.

(Rogues also have a lot of non-combat advantages.)



We are more interested in "is this class fun for people who like that playstyle" than ranks. I suspect any discussion about ranks will involve a lot of "how do we define the ranks?" and "by what criteria are we ranking the class?" Some people will rank classes by speed in which they can complete content solo but that's not really a criteria we'd use. Some might use face to face survival times. How do we add the ability to disarm traps to rankings? That question will, I suspect, vary from player to player and be totally arbitrary. Discussions of ranking will like devolve quickly into areas that are not productive.

Sev~

No one cares about traps beyond the XP bonus, and it's something that can be achieved with only one level of Rogue. Until you make traps that can actually kill players, let alone if you somehow make it required to have a heavy investment of Rogue/Artificer levels to disarm them, this is not much of a factor. Even then people will just die and rez past them.


So what made assassins fun before?

And if the only "fun" class now is the max dps, self heal, and zerg through content without slowing down, then why should you play an assassin rather than a pally, bard, or barb?

Everyone is asking for is the same thing for every class. So why have different classes if they all play the same way?

1. Fast movement.
2. Max dps.
3. Max damage avoidance or mitigation.
4. All classes do everything equally well (or rather my favorite class must not be behind any other class in any area).

Dealing damage, avoiding damage and healing from damage are basics of the game. Rogues are average in damage and sub-par in the damage avoiding/healing, which is a problem, but no one wants them to be on-par in every area. It makes sense that they can't take a hit well, but to compensate they should have the best damage or close to it. In other games there's an actual distinction between Tank and DPS classes, this isn't the case in DDO which is a problem because why play the class that does damage and can't take a hit when you could play a class that can do both?


This. Exactly this. I am so glad Sev isn't listening to the people who play like that. Because those are the people who are bored out of their minds... And it's their own fault.

Instead of trying to play differently as a rogue, they want the devs to change rogues so they can play the exact same way they play a barbarian... Don't do it devs!

lol

If you're grouping with a barbarian or Paladin or basically any good "thug" build there's not much room for playing like an Assassin. If you pause to disable a trap you end up a quarter mile behind. Stealth is useless when every mob is gonna get killed anyway.

Here's how I play an Assassin in a group: I zerg as hard as I can to keep up with the rest of the group. The time I spend in sneak is just enough to use Assassinate and approach groups of enemies if I come to them earlier than the rest of the group. With the current pass this will also include maintaining Measure the Foe.

At least this is my experience. As far as I'm concerned, currently, there's no fundamental differences between how a Rogue in a party plays and any other melee, except the Rogue does less damage and needs to leave combat more often to heal. The only real differences are Assassinate and, uh, that's it, and there's a lot of content where Assassinate doesn't work. That and aggro management, but that sort of comes naturally when you're the only one without cleaves :rolleyes: also there's improved deception and threat reduction, aggro management is hardly an afterthought.

Now in solo and organized shortman you can do a lot of cool things, people may know I'm a fan of minimum kill runs, and an increase to how much damage Rogues can do doesn't threaten that. What does threaten that is poorly designed quests where every other mob is a required kill. That and spiders.

I want to second CThruTheEgo that I don't want Rogue to become an overpowered win button. Not just because it would be boring, but because it would be unhealthy for the game in the long run. But the devs shouldn't be restricting themselves so much that 6 PRR is considered adequate for a T5 ability, or that taking unmanageable spike damage is just an "intended weakness" of the class.

[Xionanx]

If we are not talking about making the Rogue "Statistacly comparable" to other melee DPS and are instead talking about making it fun...

Then you will have to do what I have been saying needed done for YEARS now.. pretty much the whole game needs a complete rework from the ground up. You need to pull a SWG "Combat Overhual" and spend a good year reworking every single mechanic in the game, in secret.. and then just drop it on everyone.

Seriously:

Attack animation speeds for ALL classess have always been an issue.
MOB AC, HP's, TO hit bonus's, etc.. have ALWAYS been an issue
Player HP's AC, etc.. have ALWAYS been an issue.
so on and so forth..

Basically, when the game LAUNCHED it was BALANCED for level 8 content.. and it worked fine for level 8 content.. but power creep.. power creep.. power creep.

The game as it is now is an unbalanced abomination of "house rules" shoe horned into a "D20" system corpse..

I would be perfectly OK with just outright scrapping the D20 system entirely, and completely reworking everything to be relevant to "todays" DDO. I mean.. who still takes HAGGLE?:p

TOO Ambitious a task? How about "The Great Nerfing" where you stick with the current mechanics but you nerf the **** out of EVERYTHING.

NO Skill bonus's on gear
NO +HIT bonus's on gear
NO +Damage from "Damage" gear
AP benefits scaled back significantly (I wouldn't mind seeing the AP system dropped entirely, and just let people play a class using just what the class gives.. THEN ROGUES MIGHT BE MORE USEFULL)

Could you picture it.. a game where you level to 20 and you only have like 120HP a 40AC and can only hit a 45AC on a natural 20... rather then having a +60 TO hit bonus :rolleyes:

[FuryFlash]

Was this assassin fun? YES. But, it's not now. You can see many good assassin players left their favorite class, including me.
Don't gimp assassins because they can disable traps.
Actually, traps just slow assassin who is the slowest in DDO. Almost no one cares about traps except xp bonus.

Hi draven. This isn't meant to be rude or mean or anything, just want to make sure that you are well informed. When you say, "Almost no one cares about traps", I would most certainly not agree. The people who do not care about traps are the people running builds with great PRR and MRR or (yes, it still exists :)) evasion + reflex. And while browsing the forums may lead one to think that everyone is running elites with the best builds in the game and not having any difficulty, this is not true for the majority of the game's population.

Since we are talking about changes to assassin that will affect everyone, it would be best not to group everyone into the same category. As I believe has been stated before in this thread, balancing classes isn't only about DPS and survivability, it's about having fun and being able to use your class skills, like trapping. Taking trapping for example, I personally find that I need a trapper to survive many traps in elite quests if I'm not playing my paladin, or another class that has been recently "balanced". So, do not throw away this skill as simply slowing oneself down.

Thanks for reading, again, not meant to insult, just give my opinion and remind everyone that all players should be considered, not just the people on the forums.

~FuryFlash

[Pehtis]

Fee fie foe fum. Is this the smell of a powercreep thread.

No, no, no, no! Definitely not!








Assassin tree should be redesigned like Chuck Norris FoTW.

[draven1]

Fee fie foe fum. Is this the smell of a powercreep thread.

No, no, no, no! Definitely not!








Assassin tree should be redesigned like Chuck Norris FoTW.

But, Chuck Norris is already in DDO. The barb/pally/bards

Didn't you realize Chuck Norris use 'Coup de Grace'? :D

[HatsuharuZ]

But, Chuck Norris is the barb/pally/bard in DDO

Didn't you realize Chuck Norris use 'Coup de Grace'? :D

That's not Coup de Grace, that's his auto-attack.

[draven1]

That's not Coup de Grace, that's his auto-attack.

Yup, I missed that point.
With his 1-20/x99 crit :D

[Bobby88888]

Firstly I want to add my voice to the ‘make traps deadly again’ group, for too long have we lived free from the shadow of the dreaded trap!
And on that note...Having had nothing better to do and wanting to try help you help Rogue for us I figured I would have a go at redoing the tree myself. It is far from perfect and I havn’t looked at balance anywhere near as much as I should but I only have so much spare time :). At the very least it shows my ideas well and helps with some improvements. Most of the buffs happen slowly over time or are in the T5/core 18/capstone to lock out multi-treeing and to put the buffs mostly for epics. Many of the values probably need adjusting but that is what this whole phase is for. Some values I wasn't sure about, such as ammount of MP per core and % bonus of MP to SA etc but feel free to suggest better values for any of them.

I hope this helps.

Core Abilities:
Knife in the Darkness: AP cost: 1, Rog lvl 1. You gain proficiency with Kukris. You may now use your dex mod to hit with Daggers and Kukris. Additionally you gain 3 Melee Power, 1% dodge bypass and 5% fort bypass per core in assassin tree.

Dagger in the Back: AP cost:1, Progression:5, Rog lvl 3. You can now use your dex mod for damage with kukris and daggers. If you have Weapon Finesse feat this also applies to weapons you can use your dex mod to hit with. (doesn’t work with handwraps/unarmed).

Assassin’s Trick: AP cost: 1, Progression: 10, Rog lvl 6. Target looses 25% fort and their Sneak Attack immunity (with all other proposed changes) You gain 1d6 SA die.

Nimbleness: AP cost: 1, Progression: 20, Rog lvl 12. +3 dodge and 5 PRR. On Sneak Attack, up to once every 2 seconds, you gain 1% dodge for 6 seconds. Stacks up to 10 times, fades 2 stack at a time.

Lethality: AP cost: 1, Progression: 30, Rog lvl 18. When you vorpal your Sneak Attack damage is now effected by your weapon Critical Multiplier. +1 SA die.

Deadly Shadow: AP cost: 1, Progression: 40, Rog lvl 20. +2 dex, +2 int, +4 SA dice. Your SA damage is now effected by 200% melee power.

**If applying Melee Power to every core is too much the lvl 1 and 3 cores are particularly unattractive since harper was released. Feel free to chuck Int to hit/dmg there if you want but otherwise give some larger Melee Power boosts there and smaller or no boost on other cores.

Tier One:
Poison Strikes I: AP cost: 1, Progression: 1. Opponents Struck by these attacks are effected by “Assassin’s Mark” for 10 seconds. A poison applies all effects of the ‘level’ achieved and all ‘levels’ below it (ie. On a crit target suffers 1d8 poison damage and 1d6 con damage). CD 6 seconds.

Hearseeker Poison: Melee Poison Attack: On damage: 1d8 pierce damage, On Crit: 1d6 Con damage, On vorpal: Heartseeker (-5% max HP)

Ice Chill Poison: Melee Poison Attack: On damage: 1d8 cold damage, On Crit: 1d6 Dex damage, On vorpal: Paralysis (for 5 seconds)

Soulshatter Poison: Melee Poison Attack: On damage: 1d8 force damage, On crit 1d6 Wis damage, On vorpal: Shattermantle (-100 SR for 10 seconds)
** My ideas for the poisons here arn’t that great but as it stands their only use would be for applying Assassin’s Mark, I’ve tried to give more incentive to them.

Dodge: AP cost 1, Ranks 3, Progression 1. +1/2/3 % dodge.

Shiv: AP cost: 1, Ranks: 3, Progression: 1. Melee Attack: +1/+2/+3 [W] damage and triggers a free (read no animation) aoe bluff check using your bluff skill. Passive: Threat generated by your attacks is reduced by 5/10/15 %

Sneak Attack Training I: AP cost 1, Ranks: 1, Progression: 1. You gain +1 SA die. (Or leave as is, I never felt +1 to hit was worth 1 AP though. (Halfling SA line is 1 SA die for 1 AP))

Stealthy: AP cost: 1, Ranks: 3, Progression: 1. +1/2/3 Hide/Move Silently and +25/50/75% movement speed while sneaking. (no fun being left behind while sneaking, if you think too much just make the old bonus numbers but I think combining these is a good idea)

Tier Two:
Poison Strikes II: AP cost: 1, Ranks: 1, Progression: 5. As Poison Strikes I.

Venomed Blades: AP cost 1, Ranks 3, Progression: 5. Poison Stance: On hit do 1d4/1d6/1d8 poison damage with weapon attacks. (Note scales with 200% Melee Power) Vorpal hits made while under the effects of Venomed Blades apply Assassin’s Mark to the target.
If target is currently effected by Assassin’s Mark damage is increased by 1 die step (ie. 1d6/1d8/1d10) or scales with 250% melee power? (I just think it would be cool to tie this into the Poison/Assassin’s mark line)

Bleed Them Out: AP cost 1, Ranks 3, Progression 5. Melee Attack: Deal +1/2/3 [W] damage and inflict 1 stack of Bleed on target, or 2 on crit and 3 on vorpal. Stacks 5 times. (CD 6 seconds). Bleed does 1d6 damage per 5 Rogue and Epic levels every 2 seconds for 14 seconds (scales 200% with Melee Power).

Sneak Attack Training II: AP cost 1, Ranks 1, Progression 5, Requires Sneak Attack Training I. As Above.

Action Boost Multiselector: AP cost 1, Ranks 3, Progression 5. Melee Power Boost: gain +10/20/30 Melee Power for 20 seconds. (CD 30 seconds)
Ranged Power Boost: As above but ranged power.
NOTE: If putting in Mechanic or too OP just drop Ranged Power option.

Tier Three:
Poison Strikes III: AP cost: 1, Ranks: 1, Progression: 10. As Poison Strikes I.

Critical Mastery: AP cost 1, Ranks 3, Progression 10. +1/2/3 bonus to critical damage and to confirm critical hits.

Shadow Dagger: AP cost 1, Ranks 3, Progression 10. Throw a dagger made of shadows at your enemy. Deals 4/6/8 d8 unholy damage and Blinds target on failed Fort save. DC 10/12/14 + Rog lvl + Int mod negates blindness. (CD 30/20/10 seconds). Scales with 100% Melee Power.

Sneak Attack Training II: AP cost 1, Ranks 1, Progression 10, Requires Sneak Attack Training II. As Above.

Dexterity or Intelligence: AP cost 2, Ranks 1, Progression 10. +1 Dex or Int.

Tier Four:
Weakness Poison: AP cost 1, Ranks 1, Progression 20. Your attacks against enemies under the effects of Assassin’s Mark reduce the Melee and Ranged power of opponent by 10 for 10 seconds.

Execute: AP cost 2, Ranks 1, Progression 20, Requires: Critical Mastery. Melee Assassinate Attack: Deals +3 [W] damage. On Sneak Attack: If target is below 50% HP, deal 500 bane damage, 600 on crit or 700 if vorpal. This scales 200% with Melee Power. CD 15 seconds. (50% is an easy to see marker compared to 30% etc. A good example is in FoT different ppl will often call out dragon or giant HP to be different at the same time. Alternatively do away with the health % to trigger).

Killer: AP cost 1, Ranks 3, Progression 20, Requirements: Critical Mastery (If both Killer and Execute can’t hinge off Critical Mastery drop Requirement here). When a target under the effects of your Assassin’s Mark dies you gain a +5% morale bonus to Doublestrike and Doubleshot for 15 seconds. Weak enemies will not always produce this effect. This stacks up to 2/3/4 times and fades 1 stack at a time (or stacks 2/3/5 or 2/4/6 times and all stacks go on expiration.)

Sneak Attack Training IV: AP cost 1, Ranks 1, Progression 20, Requires Sneak Attack Training III. As Above.

Dexterity or Intelligence II: AP cost 2, Ranks 1, Progression 20, Requires: Dexterity or Intelligence I. +1 dex or Int.

Tier 5:
Deadly Poison: AP cost 1, Ranks 1, Progression 30. Your attacks against enemies effected by Assassin’s Mark are treated as having 5 more melee power.

Assassinate: AP cost 1, Ranks 1, Progression 30. Stealth Melee Assassinate Attack: On Sneak Attack: Kills target instantly if the target fails a Fortitude save (DC 10+ Rogue level + Int Mod) Even on successful save target takes 10d6 additional Sneak Attack damage. Some enemies may have resistance or immunity to Sneak Attacks. This attack gives enemies within 5 ft of target a bonus to spot for a short time (bonus added after 2nd/3rd assassinate attempts).

Measure the Foe: AP cost 1, Ranks 3, Progression 30. For every 4/2/1 seconds that you remain stealthed you gain +1 to hit, your Assassinate DC, 2 melee power, 2 dodge, 2 maximum dodge and 2 maximum dexterity bonus. This effect stacks up to 5 times and lasts 10 seconds after you come out of stealth (the 1st stack lasts 10 seconds and each subsequent stack lasts 3 seconds. I dunno if that is possible to get in but I recon it is better. Otherwise the 10 seconds and all gone.)
Did Sev say the Melee Power was going to be boosted to 4/stack? If so apply that change here too.

Light Armour Mastery: AP cost 1, Ranks 3, Progression 30. While wearing light armour you gain +2/4/6 maximum dexterity bonus to your armour and to dodge cap. You also gain +5/10/15 PRR

Knife Specialisation: AP cost 2, Ranks 1, Progression 30. You gain a +1 competence bonus to the Critical Damage Multiplier with Daggers and Kukris. Daggers also gain a +1 competence bonus to Critical Threat Range. Your reach with Daggers and Kukris is also increased by 5 feet.


So for anyone thinking that is too powerful, maybe it is, but I am going to do a little math down here and maybe some recommended changes but ultimately this was to lay out my ideas more than to give the devs a tree to cut and paste (feel free to but). BUT if it is too powerful to start with the devs will probably fix it quickly whilst if it remains on the weak side it could be years before another pass, they simply don’t have time to revamp it twice.
PRR: You can get +20 PRR now for 77 PRR as a pure Rogue Assassin or 43.5% reduction. IMO 77 PRR is probably about right or perhaps a little low but I think that it will probably be alright. (though if the PRR from armour type changes go through more might be needed in here?). Rogues are traditionally more squishy and I agree with this, though for this tradition to hold true they need to do good damage...

DODGE CAP: There is +6 permanent boost to dodge cap in the tree with the 10 temporary possible from measure for a permanent dodge cap of 33 with ship buffs and 43 temporary. The temporary may be getting a bit high but it doesn’t last long so I think it might be alright.

DODGE: The tree lets you add +6% dodge all up, which by lvl 28 lets you get 23 from Rogue/Assassin and items alone which I think is good, maybe a few % low but passable.
Melee Power: There is 18 permanent Melee Power added over the cores with a further 45 (or 55, depending on the 2 or 4 per stack of Measure the Foe) temporary melee power in the tree. Assuming the Assassin is using max Melee Power at lvl 28 and in Shadowdancer; they will go from 51 to 69 permanent with 45 or 55 more temp. Barbarian can get 30 Permanent, 40/50 temp, so let’s say they get 70 so I think the 73 from Assassin is alright when you consider 55 of it is temporary. If too high can either drop the measure the foe bonus to 2 per stack or cores to 2 per core.

DAMAGE (SA): Lets assume I have 35d6 SA damage with the above 69 and 124 Melee Powers. Base SA dmg then = 122.5. With permanent MP= 207 + capstone= 414. As a standard SA it sounds good. Now we scored a vorpal, we can get a significant boost to ~1200 damage with a 3x multiplier but given mob HP in EE I think as a vorpal only this is OK.
Temporary: assuming full temp MP active: 274.4 ~ 70 increase, + capstone: 548.8 ~140 increase. Assuming we vorpal we get ~1650. This feels on the high side to me but we are running an action boost and 2 other temporary bonuses that had to be set up and chained together, so up to you. I think reducing the temporary Melee Power rather than to the vorpal or 200% effect is better if you take that route. (although a 175% or something might work?)

HEALING: Well I got no ideas on how to implement this for Rogue/Assassin. In fact I would be opposed to it if Rogue wasn’t the only one without it, even then I hesitate, since while even one class remains that way I can cling to the (vain?) hope we might go back and stop this madness.

OTHER: I would also like to specifically point you to the Killer, Execute, Deadly Poison and Nimbleness changes. As well as the Sneak Attack Training changes. These are some of my key points to apply to Assassin.

Thanks for bearing with me there through the wall of text but Assassin is my favourite build option and I’ve been thinking about ideas for it for a long time :D I may overdone it here but as I said better to overdo it and have it reigned back on Lam or in a patch then underdo it and not have the time to go back over it again for years.
Go ahead forumites, tear it to pieces lol.

[redoubt]

Sev, thank you again for remaining active in the thread.

Based some of the recent posts, I want to reiterate a few things:

1. I proposed some mitigation to tremor sense be put in.

2. Some percentage of immunity to True Seeing and See Invis (I suggested 25% in the captstone.)

3. I suggested (and others have also) that Nimbleness add to max dodge while it is active.

4. Many of us have suggested a mild bump in PRR from Light Armor Mastery.

5. The biggest change would be to bring assassin total dps (including SA and other add on damages) up equal or slightly ahead of the bard/barb/pali group.
--- one way to help with this is to increase damage on helpless targets. I proposed 4 options for this previously.

The vision would be somewhere just a little more survivable than a glass canon. Very good DPS when you do NOT have agro and the ability to take 2 to 3 hits without dying. (Compare that to my pali who does top rate dps and can take dozens of hits without dying.) If I was to rank them, I'd put assassins at #1 or #2 for non-magical dps and just above sorcs and wizards for survivability (not saying that is where they are now, but rather where I would put them.)

Under survivability you have damage avoidance, mitigation and healing. Rogue healing is poor (I've done it with scroll before, yes, its poor.) Avoidance via dodge is decent, but avoidance via AC is poor. Mitigation is poor. The things I think would be easiest to fix are:
1. avoidance: Stick with dodge. Get a well geared assassin floating between 35 and 50%. AC will continue to be poor.
2. Mitigation: Get rogues into the 40%+ mitigation range in epics. That's approx. 70PRR (not counting past lives)
3. Healing will continue to rely on out of class abilities and be poor.

Again, be an very good killer, but when things get pear shaped you only have a couple hits before you need to get out and heal up (but you can live through those couple hits).

I hope that the difference in bringing assassin up to its potential and making it an easy button are clear.
1. Yes, we are asking for top tier DPS, but the back side of it is being fragile.
2. Yes, we are asking for more mitigation, but really only 1/3 to 1/2 the PRR of the "tanky" builds. Just enough to stay alive long enough to exit combat and heal with our very poor healing abilities.
3. On the helpless damage, rogues would depend on others to make them helpless. Not only does this encourage team play and actually paying attention to what the others in your group are doing, but it also fits well thematically.

[General_Gronker]

Firstly I want to add my voice to the ‘make traps deadly again’ group,
Every time I see this, I can only think two things:
1. Quit running min-maxed characters with countless past lives and the best farmed gear and then expect the Devs to cater to your needs.
or
2. Start running content on settings that matter.

Why? Because for those of us who run elite, but aren't maxed to the max, the traps are still pretty **** deadly, and frankly, we're a more important part of the player base.

[Bobby88888]

Every time I see this, I can only think two things:
1. Quit running min-maxed characters with countless past lives and the best farmed gear and then expect the Devs to cater to your needs.
or
2. Start running content on settings that matter.

Why? Because for those of us who run elite, but aren't maxed to the max, the traps are still pretty **** deadly, and frankly, we're a more important part of the player base.

Just an FYI most of my toons are 1st life with sub optimal gear and builds. My toon with most PLs has 2. (Life 3)

That isn't to say they are gimps they just aren't as good as I could make them with more investment.

Based on this I STRONGLY disagree with you. Unless we are talking heroic, most heroic traps are alright.

[Bobby88888]

1. avoidance: Stick with dodge. Get a well geared assassin floating between 35 and 50%. AC will continue to be poor.
.

The only issue with a really high dodge is if we hit say 50% dodge then we have uncanny dodge for 100% dodge, ie unhittable. And you can use it over and over again.
On that note we need a higher dodge than currently but it cannot go too high.

[redoubt]

The only issue with a really high dodge is if we hit say 50% dodge then we have uncanny dodge for 100% dodge, ie unhittable. And you can use it over and over again.
On that note we need a higher dodge than currently but it cannot go too high.

The dodge above ~35 would be temp sources of dodge. I.e. Nimbleness and Measure the Foe.

I had explained once before how I thought this would look. I.e. Start at 33%, sneak and boost up to 43%. Start the fight and MtF starts to fade and Nimbleness builds up. Might briefly climb above 43 while nimbleness grows faster than MtF fades, but then you drop back down to 43 (33 base + 10 temp from nimbleness.)

Too high or about right?

[Bobby88888]

The dodge above ~35 would be temp sources of dodge. I.e. Nimbleness and Measure the Foe.

I had explained once before how I thought this would look. I.e. Start at 33%, sneak and boost up to 43%. Start the fight and MtF starts to fade and Nimbleness builds up. Might briefly climb above 43 while nimbleness grows faster than MtF fades, but then you drop back down to 43 (33 base + 10 temp from nimbleness.)

Too high or about right?

Honestly I'm not sure but 43% is where my proposed tree idea hit at max. It shouldn't be going any higher but. Sorry, I misunderstood before as a permanent dodge that high for some reason

[Ayseifn]

The only issue with a really high dodge is if we hit say 50% dodge then we have uncanny dodge for 100% dodge, ie unhittable. And you can use it over and over again.
On that note we need a higher dodge than currently but it cannot go too high.

Meld Into Darkness already does that for 15 secs/2 mins, not seeing the huge issue.

[Bobby88888]

Meld Into Darkness already does that for 15 secs/2 mins, not seeing the huge issue.

1 isn't terribly OP but with 2, or even 3 (its possible to get) it becomes very OP to be completely unhittible for ~1 min with about 1 min downtime. half of the time you are completely unkillable. Infact if you triggered them in the right order you could have over a min of 100% dodge every 2 minutes.

and people are complaining (I'm not saying it is unjustified) about pally high PRR making them virtually unkillable. PRR has nothing compared to 1 min of invincibility.

That is the huge issue.

[Urjak]

Here is the first draft of potential changes to the Assassin tree.

*snip*

Sev~

This looks all interesting, but tbh the question that bothers me most about Assassins:
Will Assassinate be fixed so that it works when soloing as well? (Currently it does not)

That would be the most important fix for Assassin in my oppinion

[brzytki]

Rogues also have a lot of non-combat advantages.

We are more interested in "is this class fun for people who like that playstyle" than ranks. I suspect any discussion about ranks will involve a lot of "how do we define the ranks?" and "by what criteria are we ranking the class?" Some people will rank classes by speed in which they can complete content solo but that's not really a criteria we'd use. Some might use face to face survival times. How do we add the ability to disarm traps to rankings? That question will, I suspect, vary from player to player and be totally arbitrary. Discussions of ranking will like devolve quickly into areas that are not productive.

Sev~

What exactly are those "non-combat" advantages?
Disabling traps? Yeah, right. Because everybody stops instead of facerolling through them like they never existed taking little damage if any (most of the traps can be avoided with good timing, elemental resistance/prot/absorption and PRR for physical ones significantly cut down the damage taken), not to mention it's not a unique ability (arti) and a lvl 1-2 rogue splash can take care of most traps in game.
UMD? In heroics it's good but in epics it's only a minor convenience, plus it's easy enough for everyone to get it for buffs since MotU.
Stealth? The only prestige that uses it is assassin and then it's mostly for Assassinate in group play.
Evasion? MRR.

See, if you'd made those rankings, even internally, the game wouldn't be such an unbalanced mess right now. Ever since MotU rogues have been losing their place on the DPS podium and with the new "balanced" pally, bard and barb it's only getting worse.
You've made pallies invincible with their high PRR, heals, high saves and high DPS with their Zeal and Holy Sword.

You've made bards similarly survivable with their displacement, dodge higher than rogues/monks, evasion, heals, fascinate and high DPS with their doublestrike, attack speed, often crits and best insta-killers in game with ridiculous Coup de Grace DC.

Lastly, you've taken away barbarian's "sponginess" by giving them more HP, more HAmp than any other class, on-hit/on-kill/passive heals (that scale with MP!! which you obviously slapped them generously with) and high DPS due to aforementioned MP, AoE cleaves and high crit profile.

Rogues are less fun now because they can't keep up with other classes (i mean literally, they are slower than other melees which is compounded by the need to sneak for 5-10 to increase their assassinate DC), lack of MP both in trees and in TWF feats, SA not scaling well in epics and absolutely lackluster ED DPS-wise with an Epic Moment not even deserving to be spat upon, no PRR/heals in trees or class features.
The movement speed issue is being addressed with the new enhancement in acrobat tree, we'll see if it's enough during Lama testing.

The lack of MP, i honestly don't get it why you excluded TWF while buffing all other fighting styles. Apart from epic levels, ED cores, Harper tree and new Measure the Foe (sneaking for 5 seconds every 10 seconds, yay!) there is no way a rogue can get more MP which is really confusing when we have a few attacks the scale with MP in the tree. Oh, wait, i forgot the Boost change, i'd rather have some passive MP.

The reason why assassins fall behind in DPS in epics while other classes see huge numbers is really simple - SA are not affected by crits. All other classes when they get +damage, it's added to the base which counts towards crits. With the crit profile of x3 or x4 (or even higher for barbs) they get almost all thier damage multiplied and then slap at least 100-120 MP from epic lvls, LD, trees and fighting styles and it's multiplied once more. Now we have an assassin with around 60 MP (which is really high for an assassin and requires heavy investment in harper tree) with low base damage weapons (which you've pigeonholed assassins into using to even stay competitive with all other classes) and all those 27d6 SA (average 94,5 dmg) is affected by 60 MP which gives us a whooping ~151 damage, let's count in 5% physical vulnerability from core6 SD and it's ~159 dmg. You think single target 159 SA plus base damage is good enough to keep up with a cleaving blitzing ANYONE?

No PRR/heals, that's pretty obvious, scroll healing mid fight is dead and no amount of dodge get you through spike damage.

[brzytki]

Hey, Sev edit OP because you placed Venomed Blades in T1 instead of T2. Also, you said you'll be upping MP in Measure the Foe to 4 per stack and PRR in Light Armor Mastery to 1/3/5, if it's still on the table.

And i have a question, does Light Armor Mastery increase max dodge cap, as in beyond 25%, or is it just a misleading sentence to trick us? I'm looking at the Spinning Staff Wall, where you explicitly stated that it increases max dodge cap and i'm worried all of us assumed LAM does too when it's not the case. If it doesn't, then it's a really bad T5 enhancement.



Light Armor Mastery: (1/1/1 AP) While wearing light armor you gain 2/4/6 to maximum dexterity bonus of your armor. (This also affects maximum dodge.) You also gain 1/2/3 Physical Resistance Rating.

Sev~


Spinning Staff Wall: (2 AP) Active: Activate to gain 50 Physical Resistance Rating for 20 seconds. Cooldown: 90 seconds. Passive: While wearing light or cloth armor gain 5% Dodge, 5% Maximum Dodge, and 5 Maximum Dexterity Bonus for Light Armor.

Sev~

[CThruTheEgo]

...a solid assessment of the proposed changes within the current state of the game...

Well said brzytki.

The same issues keep being brought up Sev. In this revamp, assassins are still missing an increase in their damage and damage mitigation.

Make light armor mastery grant 5/10/15 PRR and give us more debuff options like the melee power debuff from poisons.

Slap 5 or 10 melee power in the capstone and let stacks of measure the foe fade 1 at a time every 6 seconds. I think letting measure the foe fade 1 stack at a time is a great idea because it will create a condition that encourages assassins to be in sneak mode more often, and with the changes to sneak speed that will be a practical possibility. As mentioned, an alternative way to increase dps would be to make it affected by 200% melee power (even 300% wouldn't be too much imo when you consider the dps of a bard or paladin). Others have proposed allowing sneak attack damage to be crittable. I haven't done the math on that, so I don't know if that would be too much or not, but again, considering that my first life paladin with hand me down gear was critting for several thousand, I'm not sure there is a "too much."

These changes would not turn assassins into another easy button but would minimize the amount they currently lag behind other revamped classes. The unique playstyle of an assassin would not change and they would be a lot more fun for those who enjoy that playstyle, which you said was the main priority with these changes.

[Fedora1]

Again I'd like to reiterate one thing I think SHOULD be an assassin ability that might compensate if all the requests for dodge and PRR/MRR don't happen.

Give assassins either an innate ability (based on level) or enhancement chain that gives them:

1. The ability to remain stealthed when attacking (% chance after each attack or perhaps automatically remain stealthed with a stacking % chance of it being broken for each successful attack).
2. A permanent agro-reduction buff based on level or based perhaps a 2% reduction for every point spent in assassin tree or whatever).

[amsharkwei]

Core Abilitie 5:Shunpo
AP Cost: 1 Ranks: 1 Progression: 30 Requires: Nimbleness, Level 18 Rogue

Shunpo:Meld into shadow,teleport you at the back of your target immediately.(Cooldown: 15 second)(Range:30ft)
-This ability does not break sneak
-Can only actived while in Light or Cloth armor
-After useing shunpo,you gain 100% double strike chance for 2 sesond
-After useing shunpo,you gain 100% dodge for 2 second
-After useing shunpo,you gain full movement speed for 2 second

[brzytki]

Core Abilitie 5:Shunpo
AP Cost: 1 Ranks: 1 Progression: 30 Requires: Nimbleness, Level 18 Rogue

Shunpo:Meld into shadow,teleport you at the back of your target immediately.(Cooldown: 15 second)(Range:30ft)
-This ability does not break sneak
-Can only actived while in Light or Cloth armor
-After useing shunpo,you gain 100% double strike chance for 2 sesond
-After useing shunpo,you gain 100% dodge for 2 second
-After useing shunpo,you gain full movement speed for 2 second

Shadow step/teleport ability was discussed before MotU went live and Devs said it's not gonna happen for a simple reason - it'll be a magnet for bugs and exploits. If, for example, you'd use it on an enemy near a wall, you might end up on the other side of it, meaning outside of the map.

[dualscissors]

This looks all interesting, but tbh the question that bothers me most about Assassins:
Will Assassinate be fixed so that it works when soloing as well? (Currently it does not)

That would be the most important fix for Assassin in my oppinion

I'm not sure what is being articulated here. How does assassinate not work when soloing? I solo on my assassin frequently.

Are you saying that solo assassins having to wait 15 sec. to use assassinate again isn't doing enough assassinating to move quickly through content?

If the statement is about assassinating triggering auto agro from the room, that has been fixed.

[Saekee]

...I proposed some mitigation to tremor sense be put in.

...
Wraith form from Pale Master shroud and shadowdancer causes one to float. Tremor sense should not detect it. This, though, is a little bug in the stealth mechanics that ought to get adjusted--I would fix it there, not in assassin tree.

Spiders have incredibly sensitive feelers in their skinny legs, and oozes are just nerves and protoplasm pressed pancake-like onto a surface, so I think they should detect fat little crouching halflings, tiptoeing or not.

[Severlin]

Hey, Sev edit OP because you placed Venomed Blades in T1 instead of T2. Also, you said you'll be upping MP in Measure the Foe to 4 per stack and PRR in Light Armor Mastery to 1/3/5, if it's still on the table.

And i have a question, does Light Armor Mastery increase max dodge cap, as in beyond 25%, or is it just a misleading sentence to trick us? I'm looking at the Spinning Staff Wall, where you explicitly stated that it increases max dodge cap and i'm worried all of us assumed LAM does too when it's not the case. If it doesn't, then it's a really bad T5 enhancement.

Thanks. Fixed.

The dodge cap was a design note that didn't get removed when we grabbed the text for the post.

Sev~

[draven1]

Wraith form from Pale Master shroud and shadowdancer causes one to float. Tremor sense should not detect it. This, though, is a little bug in the stealth mechanics that ought to get adjusted--I would fix it there, not in assassin tree.

Spiders have incredibly sensitive feelers in their skinny legs, and oozes are just nerves and protoplasm pressed pancake-like onto a surface, so I think they should detect fat little crouching halflings, tiptoeing or not.

There is a bug in tremor sense.
If a rogue is in sneak & the other members aren't in sneak and walking in front of that rogue, spiders will ALWAYS be aggroed on that rogue, not on the other members of group.

Why spiders always be aggroed by the sneak guy even there are many other party members who aren't in sneak & are moving(making big noise & tremor) and nearer than the sneak guy.
It's really strange, because it seems non-sneaky running makes lessor tremor than sneaky walk.

I can understand this situation if the sneaky guy was at the front.
But, there were many party members at the front and they made lots of noise & tremor.
How can spiders just always ignore that huge near tremor, but how can spiders always sense very little tremor on far sneaky one?

[Severlin]

~ Added 10 Melee Power to the final core to help it compete with some of the other DPS capstones.

~ Added explicit Maximum Dodge to Light Armor Mastery.

Sev~

[brzytki]

The dodge cap was a design note that didn't get removed when we grabbed the text for the post.

Sev~

Wow, really wow...

So you initially thought that +6 MDB and 3 PRR was worth not only 3 APs but also a spot as a T5 enhancement?!

I shouldn't be surprised anymore...

[dualscissors]

Wow, really wow...

So you initially thought that +6 MDB and 3 PRR was worth not only 3 APs but also a spot as a T5 enhancement?!

I shouldn't be surprised anymore...

Well, they're listening to good points made by rogue players here and are making some tweaks. That they miss some things on the first couple go rounds is understandable when dealing with any fairly complex system of moving parts.

[Thar]

Well, they're listening to good points made by rogue players here and are making some tweaks. That they miss some things on the first couple go rounds is understandable when dealing with any fairly complex system of moving parts.

Hopefully Ranger gets the same love :) ... and soon...

[Severlin]

Wow, really wow...

So you initially thought that +6 MDB and 3 PRR was worth not only 3 APs but also a spot as a T5 enhancement?!

I shouldn't be surprised anymore...

If players are uncomfortable seeing enhancement passes during the raw inception phase and would rather us present to them a more polished version much later in the design cycle then we can also do that.

Sev~

[dunklezhan]

I felt a disturbance in The Force.



I find your lack of faith... disturbing

Sev~

*chokes*

Oh dear.

[CThruTheEgo]

~ Added 10 Melee Power to the final core to help it compete with some of the other DPS capstones.

Good stuff. Thanks for listening Sev. Now can we get rid of the +2 dex and change it to +4 int. No pure assassin goes dex based. The only reason to stay pure is to use assassinate, which is an int based ability, so dex is useless for a pure assassin.


~ Added explicit Maximum Dodge to Light Armor Mastery.

How about increasing the PRR to 5/10/15 to improve damage mitigation by a small amount? This is still one of the central problems that needs fixing.

[Wizza]

Good stuff. Thanks for listening Sev. Now can we get rid of the +2 dex and change it to +4 int. No pure assassin goes dex based. The only reason to stay pure is to use assassinate, which is an int based ability, so dex is useless for a pure assassin.


How about increasing the PRR to 5/10/15 to improve damage mitigation by a small amount? This is still one of the central problems that needs fixing.


What this guy said. Make this happen and I'll be mostly (not fully) satisfied with the changes.

[Saekee]

There is a bug in tremor sense.
If a rogue is in sneak & the other members aren't in sneak and walking in front of that rogue, spiders will ALWAYS be aggroed on that rogue, not on the other members of group.

Why spiders always be aggroed by the sneak guy even there are many other party members who aren't in sneak & are moving(making big noise & tremor) and nearer than the sneak guy.
It's really strange, because it seems non-sneaky running makes lessor tremor than sneaky walk.

I can understand this situation if the sneaky guy was at the front.
But, there were many party members at the front and they made lots of noise & tremor.
How can spiders just always ignore that huge near tremor, but how can spiders always sense very little tremor on far sneaky one?

You are confusing attack vs. attraction. It is attempting to mate, thinking that someone creeping along is cute spider.

Ok bad joke. That is an interesting point you make draven; sounds like some unusual coding. At some point there may be another thread on stealth again; please mention it again there.

[CThruTheEgo]

If players are uncomfortable seeing enhancement passes during the raw inception phase and would rather us present to them a more polished version much later in the design cycle then we can also do that.

Sev~

It is greatly appreciated that we are made part of the design process.

[slarden]

I really like the changes. It gives my rogue a very small boost while not providing too much power.

I am currently spending 42 action points in the Assassin tree. My AP costs are being reduced by 6 (Shiv + Critical Mastery) which allows me to take the new improved Stealthy from tier 1 and Damage boost from tier 2.

From the core I gain:
+2 Dexterity (useful only for skills)
+10 Melee Power
+4 Reflex Saves
Improvement to Nimbleness and Assassin's Trick

From tier 1 I gain
+3 hide and move silently
20% movement speed (from changes to both trees combined) from Thief/Acrobat Tree

From tier 2 I gain
Venomed Blade melee power scaling
30 Melee power damage boost

From tier 5 I gain
The boost to melee power and dodge from measure the foe is very helpful

Overall I am happy with these changes.

Does the passive threat reduction ability from shiv stack with the passive threat reduction ability from Sly Flourish?

[ghtzxc]

Does anyone else think that perhaps that Assassin's Trick could use a little more work? With a 6 second CD, it's rather difficult to utilize sneak attack and double-assassinate on, say, hordes of undead. And perhaps the rogue would only be able to get a couple hits on the debuffed enemy in this case before it is killed, giving Assassin's Trick very little up-time when facing multiple enemies.

I do see it's powerful use however on high hp targets with sneak attack immunity/fortification.

What do you guys think? Is this a concern that other players or developers share?

Thanks!

[slarden]

If players are uncomfortable seeing enhancement passes during the raw inception phase and would rather us present to them a more polished version much later in the design cycle then we can also do that.

Sev~

I would think your approach is saving alot of re-work by getting feedback before the development is done. I hope it continues.

[nibel]

Good stuff. Thanks for listening Sev. Now can we get rid of the +2 dex and change it to +4 int. No pure assassin goes dex based. The only reason to stay pure is to use assassinate, which is an int based ability, so dex is useless for a pure assassin.

I would actually prefer if Assassinate was either Dex or Int, whatever you have higher (or a multiselector, if that is not possible). That would give an extra incentive for rogues to go dex-based.

[ToastyFred]

Good stuff. Thanks for listening Sev. Now can we get rid of the +2 dex and change it to +4 int. No pure assassin goes dex based. The only reason to stay pure is to use assassinate, which is an int based ability, so dex is useless for a pure assassin.



How about increasing the PRR to 5/10/15 to improve damage mitigation by a small amount? This is still one of the central problems that needs fixing.

Assassins get +2 to Int (not Dex) and +4 Sneak attack Dice for their Deadly Shadow capstone. It SHOULD be +4 Int + the Sneak Dice though. The Barbs and Pallies +4 to their capstone stats I believe and so should the Rogues.

I agree with the additional +PRR suggestion.

[brzytki]

If players are uncomfortable seeing enhancement passes during the raw inception phase and would rather us present to them a more polished version much later in the design cycle then we can also do that.

Sev~

Ok, i get it. Don't do that.

[CThruTheEgo]

I also want to suggest (again) making measure the foe stacks fade 1 at a time every 6 seconds. As it currently is (all stacks dropping after 10 seconds), the only thing preventing me from simply dropping into sneak every 8 seconds to keep this at full stacks is the tedious nature of doing so. I assume this would be possible, but micromanaging extremely short duration buffs certainly is not fun.

Having them fade 1 stack every 6 seconds means I'll still drop into sneak mode every so often to keep stacks up, but won't feel the need to micromanage in order to avoid losing all benefit completely. This option provides a more continuous benefit without requiring any micromanagement, which means a more fun playing experience imo.

Anyone else, pros/cons, for/against this?

[depositbox]

Rogues have UMD and don't have Rage preventing them from casting if they need a healing source.

Sev~

good luck trying to scroll yourself with casters and archers breaking your concentration check. it isnt as easy as it sounds. it requires kiting around in circles like you're in a nascar race, running for cover, and jumping in bizzare patterns. doable? sure. quickened heal/ccw/loh/recon it is not. not that every class should lay on hands and cast ccw or heal spell. ever consider why cocoon, devotion item/lore, empower heal feat, and hamp are must have for fleshies?


And please at the very least, rogues should have more loot luck than other classes to make up for not being able to steal(it's what they do). small meaningless thing that adds flavor.

[CThruTheEgo]

I would actually prefer if Assassinate was either Dex or Int, whatever you have higher (or a multiselector, if that is not possible). That would give an extra incentive for rogues to go dex-based.

I'd be fine with this also. But if it's going to remain int based, then there's no need for the dex in the capstone.

[bbqzor]

From tier 1 I gain
+3 hide and move silently -- Its not clear if this was replaced by sneak speed, or if sneak speed was in addition to the skills

From tier 2 I gain
Venomed Blade melee power scaling -- This is already on live, but the cost is reduced saving you 3 more AP
30 Melee power damage boost -- This is a nerf relative to damage boost (regular damage boost multiplies your melee power) but its to bring it in line with everything else so nbd

Comments above. Youd be wise to spend those 3 new AP on the Assassin's Mark line, or find room for them otherwise. What amounts to basically -10% to mob damage is pretty good.

Honestly I expect itll play out as the base dps to come up a bit, the burst dps to stay about the same, a more consistent access to dodge for hitting dodge cap by level cap, and some slight mitigation gains in effective prr. Assuming you have points for cross tree use, move speed will help sneaking be less of a drawback, which is good. Itll make rogues a little more dps when theyre not running boosts which helps with consistency and help make spike-outs less common as long as the rogue strikes first, so those are both good things.

Dumping the assassinate DC problem off on items is likely a mistake, but will see how it plays out. Bucklers and Light Shields got dumped the same way and theyre left crippled itemization wise. And without retroactive changes to scale existing items, it will be very difficult for the DC to really change much... they could add a +1 item from 1-15, or a +5-6 item from 29-30, but thats not going to really do much. Adding a +6 item or something in the 20-28 range without changing the time consuming to get DW Neck, or the practically impossible (as in, theres no practical way to approach it) to obtain Mythic Veneer would essentially be punitive by proxy to existing player efforts, and actual item revamps have been extremely rare, but what else can you do. Itll probably just remain the same status quo as it is now, with it being "difficult" to use in EE lets say.

I hope they examine the agro/functionality of assassinate. Wont be able to see until Lama. Right now it is *extremely* fickle on hitting more than one target, though the agro issues seem a bit reduced than they were previously. Somewhere recently some changes happened, but its still not "working right" like it did before the big stealth overhaul. I dunno what of that was intentional and not in patch notes, or just side effects of other changes (see str based fireball). But anything less than remaining stealthed, while hitting 2-3 mobs with assassinate, is a loss compared to the functionality it had previously. So hopefully that can get checked out. Im going to just keep assuming it wasnt an intentional change until I see in patch notes "yes, we made assassinate worse on purpose" so thats where Im coming from.

If they get assassinate working right again, and the items actually get revamped or something to address the DC practicality, things will be pretty good. But without that ability kind of firing on all cylinders, itll be tough for this tree to compete with other T5 choices. Just some thoughts, cheers.

[CThruTheEgo]

30 Melee power damage boost -- This is a nerf relative to damage boost (regular damage boost multiplies your melee power) but its to bring it in line with everything else so nbd

One benefit of this change is you can now use it with human damage boost, so this will save some AP by negating the need for a human assassin to go for haste boost from acrobat. Although damage boost + melee power boost is still less than damage boost + haste boost, but the saved AP should be a good tradeoff.

[redoubt]

If players are uncomfortable seeing enhancement passes during the raw inception phase and would rather us present to them a more polished version much later in the design cycle then we can also do that.

Sev~

Thank you for continuing to stay active and to let us see the early ideas and for actually incorporating some of our ideas.

For those complaining...
1. Sev is letting us see early stuff (didn't use to happen)
2. Sev is listening (hasn't happened in a long time)
3. Sev is incorporating some of our ideas. (Stuff we were shown used to be more of a preview than a discussion.)

If stuff looks raw, deal with it. He is letting us in on it early. Quit being insulting or we will lose this opportunity.

Thank you.

[brzytki]

I also want to suggest (again) making measure the foe stacks fade 1 at a time every 6 seconds. As it currently is (all stacks dropping after 10 seconds), the only thing preventing me from simply dropping into sneak every 8 seconds to keep this at full stacks is the tedious nature of doing so. I assume this would be possible, but micromanaging extremely short duration buffs certainly is not fun.

Having them fade 1 stack every 6 seconds means I'll still drop into sneak mode every so often to keep stacks up, but won't feel the need to micromanage in order to avoid losing all benefit completely. This option provides a more continuous benefit without requiring any micromanagement, which means a more fun playing experience imo.

Anyone else, pros/cons, for/against this?

I'm all for it. Assassins seem to be the only prestige with buffs that disappear all at once, not one stack at a time. Even if they are not the only ones (i haven't searched through wiki but i seriously doubt any has such abilities), they'll definitely be ones with 3 (!) of them - Nimbleness, Killer and Measure the Foe. Say "Hello" to your own microcosmos.

Shortening the time from 10 to 6 seconds seems reasonable since it'd be too powerful the other way.

[dualscissors]

This comes across as a threat, "agree with us or we won't give you a chance to comment". Can't be helpful. Your other post said that Acrobat was done except for spinning wall comments, so does that mean the assassin is at a earlier stage still?

It comes across as, "I'm not putting myself out here to be insulted for not putting out a perfect first draft, despite the fact I am going to great lengths to listen and make changes that you guys want."

I happen to think that's a pretty reasonable outlook. Disagreement is fine but frame it constructively.

[Nyata]

Good stuff. Thanks for listening Sev. Now can we get rid of the +2 dex and change it to +4 int. No pure assassin goes dex based. The only reason to stay pure is to use assassinate, which is an int based ability, so dex is useless for a pure assassin.
[...]


I disagree. assuming that any character can go fully INT based would be assuming that any haracter has access to the harper tree... which I think is not the case by a long shot. also it reminded me painfully of how long it took me to farm out the shard for the epic midnight greeting. pretty sure there is still a lot of finesse based assassins in the game. also asking to replace 2 dex with 4 INT is kind of brazen.

I agree, rogues need some big boni to be able to catch up with other classes again, but that's not it, that's a very individual and rather minor adjustment.

[Qezuzu]

I disagree. assuming that any character can go fully INT based would be assuming that any haracter has access to the harper tree... which I think is not the case by a long shot. also it reminded me painfully of how long it took me to farm out the shard for the epic midnight greeting. pretty sure there is still a lot of finesse based assassins in the game. also asking to replace 2 dex with 4 INT is kind of brazen.

I agree, rogues need some big boni to be able to catch up with other classes again, but that's not it, that's a very individual and rather minor adjustment.

Then have the capstone give +4 INT and +2 DEX.

[Nyata]

This comes across as a threat, "agree with us or we won't give you a chance to comment". Can't be helpful. Your other post said that Acrobat was done except for spinning wall comments, so does that mean the assassin is at a earlier stage still?

It's fairly obvious that a very rough, very vague, and very open for discussion first draft has been put out there, giving people a chance to put their opinion, concerns, and complaints in at an early stage. Sev is really active in this thread and taking the time to read and find the red thread in all of the quite diverse player opinions. he made a LOT of adjustments so far on the first draft, but of course he cannot go with everyone, and he has to keep some general direction (or directive?) in mind.

personally I think people are a lot more passionate about the assassin tree, because it is a UNIQUE playstyle. a playstyle that takes unique personalities to enjoy. so it makes it a lot harder to finish so much as a rough draft based on player input than acrobat.

[Phoenix-daBard]

People have a right to complain and to compliment, trying to muzzle them would only produce worthless input that wouldn't help designers.

Complaining is not the same thing as being insulting. It is perfectly fine to complain when something does not seem right. But if your post is just an insult it is best not to hit Submit Reply. That is what redoubt was addressing.

[CThruTheEgo]

I disagree. assuming that any character can go fully INT based would be assuming that any haracter has access to the harper tree... which I think is not the case by a long shot. also it reminded me painfully of how long it took me to farm out the shard for the epic midnight greeting. pretty sure there is still a lot of finesse based assassins in the game. also asking to replace 2 dex with 4 INT is kind of brazen.

I agree, rogues need some big boni to be able to catch up with other classes again, but that's not it, that's a very individual and rather minor adjustment.

I do not assume access to the harper tree. I went int based before harper was even released. You have to if you want assassinate to be effective in EE content. And yes, it should be built around the hardest content because lower difficulties are so easy you can do whatever you want and still succeed. This isn't my fault, it's just the resulting condition of the game when Turbine equated challenge with inflated stats. Besides, harper is so cheap it can be obtained solely from free TP earned through favor, and anyone serious about playing an assassin will get it because it's just that good for them.

And I'm not asking for +2 dex to be turned into +4 int. Check the capstone, both currently on live and the proposed change. It already offers +2 int. So I'm asking for a total of +4 int instead of +2 dex and +2 int. And as others have pointed out, other revamped capstones are also offering +4 stats, so I'm not asking for anything out of the ordinary.

[bbqzor]

One benefit of this change is you can now use it with human damage boost, so this will save some AP by negating the need for a human assassin to go for haste boost from acrobat. Although damage boost + melee power boost is still less than damage boost + haste boost, but the saved AP should be a good tradeoff.

Well, if you force yourself to go human (or half elf or whatever) yea. But thatll only work (presumably) until the races receive the same pass. Point being, its not really a "gain" as the post I referenced said, its more of a lateral move everyone is receiving. There are pros and cons (con, less overall dps, pro, generally easier to access ap wise, affects some skills like envenomed blades that %dmg wont, etc). I just dont see changes like that as real "changes", it wasnt an assassin specific thing. It wasnt part of a specifically assassin targeted balance decision. Its just part of the default pass anyone/everyone will get as they go through. Thats all, I find it helpful to separate whats being done on account of assassins (or whatever tree in question) and being done as a general change to the game engine.

[Failedlegend]

If players are uncomfortable seeing enhancement passes during the raw inception phase and would rather us present to them a more polished version much later in the design cycle then we can also do that.

Sev~

No please ignore the dissenters this style is much preferred

[redoubt]

This comes across as a threat, "agree with us or we won't give you a chance to comment". Can't be helpful. Your other post said that Acrobat was done except for spinning wall comments, so does that mean the assassin is at a earlier stage still?


People have a right to complain and to compliment, trying to muzzle them would only produce worthless input that wouldn't help designers.

You should really go back and reread what is happening here.

A poster said something to the effect of, "If you thought that was good you are stupid, but why should I expect any better."

In response, Sev pointed out that it is early in the design process and it was presented to us for feedback.

Many of us feel that poster was rude and likely did not understand what he was looking at. Let me give you a bit of history. In the not so distant past, discussion threads and lamania builds were really just previews. The devs would put their idea of a finished product out. in those days our feedback was mostly ignored.

Severlin has been taking a very different track. He is going out on a limb and showing us very early ideas. Early ideas are often rough and need to change. The danger for him is jerks who want to insult him and/or the team for those ideas being rough. And on the other side, if something is proposed, many people see it as a promise and then get all pitch-forky if it changes.

I for one am glad he is willing to take that chance and actually work with us. I think if you read this thread in its entirety you will see the many places he has already taken player feedback into consideration.

Finally, there was no, "agree with us or else". He said, quit being rude or I'll walk away from the conversation. Which is fair. We can disagree politely.

[Urjak]

I'm not sure what is being articulated here. How does assassinate not work when soloing? I solo on my assassin frequently.

Are you saying that solo assassins having to wait 15 sec. to use assassinate again isn't doing enough assassinating to move quickly through content?

If the statement is about assassinating triggering auto agro from the room, that has been fixed.

It was about that IF you are solo in a quest the damage portion of the assassinate attack triggered aggro on you => assassinate auto-fail. Since that bug was in the game for years, I stopped retesting this on every update/patch some while ago. Awesome to hear it got fixed! (Though THAT should have really made it into release notes!)

=> Well, time to undust my assassin then :D

[UurlockYgmeov]

If players are uncomfortable seeing enhancement passes during the raw inception phase and would rather us present to them a more polished version much later in the design cycle then we can also do that.

Sev~

doing this this way is great. really helps the end result!


I felt a disturbance in The Force.




*chokes*

Oh dear.

oh dear oh dear...

[slarden]

Comments above. Youd be wise to spend those 3 new AP on the Assassin's Mark line, or find room for them otherwise. What amounts to basically -10% to mob damage is pretty good.

Honestly I expect itll play out as the base dps to come up a bit, the burst dps to stay about the same, a more consistent access to dodge for hitting dodge cap by level cap, and some slight mitigation gains in effective prr. Assuming you have points for cross tree use, move speed will help sneaking be less of a drawback, which is good. Itll make rogues a little more dps when theyre not running boosts which helps with consistency and help make spike-outs less common as long as the rogue strikes first, so those are both good things.

Dumping the assassinate DC problem off on items is likely a mistake, but will see how it plays out. Bucklers and Light Shields got dumped the same way and theyre left crippled itemization wise. And without retroactive changes to scale existing items, it will be very difficult for the DC to really change much... they could add a +1 item from 1-15, or a +5-6 item from 29-30, but thats not going to really do much. Adding a +6 item or something in the 20-28 range without changing the time consuming to get DW Neck, or the practically impossible (as in, theres no practical way to approach it) to obtain Mythic Veneer would essentially be punitive by proxy to existing player efforts, and actual item revamps have been extremely rare, but what else can you do. Itll probably just remain the same status quo as it is now, with it being "difficult" to use in EE lets say.

I hope they examine the agro/functionality of assassinate. Wont be able to see until Lama. Right now it is *extremely* fickle on hitting more than one target, though the agro issues seem a bit reduced than they were previously. Somewhere recently some changes happened, but its still not "working right" like it did before the big stealth overhaul. I dunno what of that was intentional and not in patch notes, or just side effects of other changes (see str based fireball). But anything less than remaining stealthed, while hitting 2-3 mobs with assassinate, is a loss compared to the functionality it had previously. So hopefully that can get checked out. Im going to just keep assuming it wasnt an intentional change until I see in patch notes "yes, we made assassinate worse on purpose" so thats where Im coming from.

If they get assassinate working right again, and the items actually get revamped or something to address the DC practicality, things will be pretty good. But without that ability kind of firing on all cylinders, itll be tough for this tree to compete with other T5 choices. Just some thoughts, cheers.

My understanding is that faster sneaking from Thief-Acrobat is being merged into stealthy and faster sneaking in Thief Acrobat is being replaced by a general rogue speed boost (% based on rogue levels).

You are probably right that I should invest in the poison strikes line to reduce enemy damage by up to 10%. It can be useful against champs i don't assassinate. I will most likely try many different combinations out until I settle on a final build. I originally thought I would pass because the 2 biggest dangers I face is a champ that can bypass fortification in which case 10% likely won't matter in high level EE quests. The other is a mob of enemies in which case I use daunting roar which works well for 15 seconds. I've never been a big fan of the poison strikes because with an Int of 74 my DC is 52 compared to Daunting Roar which is 66. So I would be taking that solely for the damage reduction benefit.

I am not sure I see the same assassin DC problem you are describing. I can get a workable DC, but compared to swashbuckler I get less opportunities to use it due to the requirements. Sometimes it seems like stealth is broke when it shouldn't be but I guess it means an enemy rolled a 20 on their spot check.

Whatever the devs decide on I am fine with. I enjoy the character now and it's going to get a little better so I can't complain.

[Severlin]

It's not really my intent for that to be taken as "be rude and I'll walk" as much as "which producing style do players prefer?"

If a raw style where we communicate a lot is preferred that style has drawbacks. Because we talk with the players directly there is no editing or polish phase to our posts, and that means we are subject to typos, comments that lose context, and sometimes just flat out being wrong about something. This is especially true if we are posting late and/or from home to try to catch up with threads. Some players feel this type of interaction lacks a certain type of professionalism and I respect that.

If we go with a more polished communication style then each post to the players goes through an editing phase, information is consolidated into packages and carefully combed over, and players see a much more polished level of communication. This type of communication means that problems are filtered out and errors and typos that might erode player confidence are much less likely to occur, but it drastically reduces the amount of iteration that can occur during a more raw interaction with the devs. It also eliminates posts that directly reference player feedback.

I prefer as a Producer for the team to engage in the former, even though I know at some points we will have to correct ourselves and the players will see early information. If that proves problematic, however, then we as a team can certainly operate using the latter communicative style, and many producers and companies prefer that approach.

Sev~

[Myrddinman]

It's not really my intent for that to be taken as "be rude and I'll walk" as much as "which producing style do players prefer?"

If a raw style where we communicate a lot is preferred that style has drawbacks. Because we talk with the players directly there is no editing or polish phase to our posts, and that means we are subject to typos, comments that lose context, and sometimes just flat out being wrong about something. This is especially true if we are posting late and/or from home to try to catch up with threads. Some players feel this type of interaction lacks a certain type of professionalism and I respect that.

If we go with a more polished communication style then each post to the players goes through an editing phase, information is consolidated into packages and carefully combed over, and players see a much more polished level of communication. This type of communication means that problems are filtered out and errors and typos that might erode player confidence are much less likely to occur, but it drastically reduces the amount of iteration that can occur during a more raw interaction with the devs. It also eliminates posts that directly reference player feedback.

I prefer as a Producer for the team to engage in the former, even though I know at some points we will have to correct ourselves and the players will see early information. If that proves problematic, however, then we as a team can certainly operate using the latter communicative style, and many producers and companies prefer that approach.

Sev~

Put me down for the raw style...wait, that doesn't sound quite right

Thanks again for the open and frank discussion. It has been quite refreshing, informative, and enjoyable. We DDO players are a passionate lot, and this style of back and forth allows us to use our powers for good, rather than evil. Well, some of us anyway...

[dunklezhan]

It's not really my intent for that to be taken as "be rude and I'll walk" as much as "which producing style do players prefer?"

If a raw style where we communicate a lot is preferred that style has drawbacks. Because we talk with the players directly there is no editing or polish phase to our posts, and that means we are subject to typos, comments that lose context, and sometimes just flat out being wrong about something. This is especially true if we are posting late and/or from home to try to catch up with threads. Some players feel this type of interaction lacks a certain type of professionalism and I respect that.

If we go with a more polished communication style then each post to the players goes through an editing phase, information is consolidated into packages and carefully combed over, and players see a much more polished level of communication. This type of communication means that problems are filtered out and errors and typos that might erode player confidence are much less likely to occur, but it drastically reduces the amount of iteration that can occur during a more raw interaction with the devs. It also eliminates posts that directly reference player feedback.

I prefer as a Producer for the team to engage in the former, even though I know at some points we will have to correct ourselves and the players will see early information. If that proves problematic, however, then we as a team can certainly operate using the latter communicative style, and many producers and companies prefer that approach.

Sev~

In case it was unclear, I am supportive of the current style. I realised my last post could be read two ways. The way I meant it was the one where it's funny, not the one where it's criticism. I would much, much rather get a view of the creative process and feed into it. It makes me feel involved regardless of the fact that I'm an outlier in terms of 'average customer'.

[Qhualor]

It's not really my intent for that to be taken as "be rude and I'll walk" as much as "which producing style do players prefer?"

If a raw style where we communicate a lot is preferred that style has drawbacks. Because we talk with the players directly there is no editing or polish phase to our posts, and that means we are subject to typos, comments that lose context, and sometimes just flat out being wrong about something. This is especially true if we are posting late and/or from home to try to catch up with threads. Some players feel this type of interaction lacks a certain type of professionalism and I respect that.

If we go with a more polished communication style then each post to the players goes through an editing phase, information is consolidated into packages and carefully combed over, and players see a much more polished level of communication. This type of communication means that problems are filtered out and errors and typos that might erode player confidence are much less likely to occur, but it drastically reduces the amount of iteration that can occur during a more raw interaction with the devs. It also eliminates posts that directly reference player feedback.

I prefer as a Producer for the team to engage in the former, even though I know at some points we will have to correct ourselves and the players will see early information. If that proves problematic, however, then we as a team can certainly operate using the latter communicative style, and many producers and companies prefer that approach.

Sev~

i see a lot more positives than negatives when it comes to dev feedback. the kind of communication that is happening right now is more than welcome. some of us don't want to go back to those "dark ages" of little dev communication. it shows me a level of care and that you guys are reading/listening even if i don't like what you have to say. i always look forward to checking dev tracker several times a day to see what the latest news is.

[Bobby88888]

~ Added 10 Melee Power to the final core to help it compete with some of the other DPS capstones.

~ Added explicit Maximum Dodge to Light Armor Mastery.

Sev~

Thanks Sev this is some much needed changes. Also the 'raw' method is much better.



How about increasing the PRR to 5/10/15 to improve damage mitigation by a small amount? This is still one of the central problems that needs fixing.
I second this.

I also think that the DPS is sadly lacking. 10 MP is nowhere near enough. I would like to see either a increase in benefit from melee power to SA damage and or SA damage can now cirt (or only on vorpals if you thinking that is too much) or preferably both. Core 18 and 20 are the perfect place to put these as they are both lacking still (I recommend crit/vorp on 18 simply to keep it in the same vein theme wise)

Thanks Sev

[arkonas]

It's not really my intent for that to be taken as "be rude and I'll walk" as much as "which producing style do players prefer?"

If a raw style where we communicate a lot is preferred that style has drawbacks. Because we talk with the players directly there is no editing or polish phase to our posts, and that means we are subject to typos, comments that lose context, and sometimes just flat out being wrong about something. This is especially true if we are posting late and/or from home to try to catch up with threads. Some players feel this type of interaction lacks a certain type of professionalism and I respect that.

If we go with a more polished communication style then each post to the players goes through an editing phase, information is consolidated into packages and carefully combed over, and players see a much more polished level of communication. This type of communication means that problems are filtered out and errors and typos that might erode player confidence are much less likely to occur, but it drastically reduces the amount of iteration that can occur during a more raw interaction with the devs. It also eliminates posts that directly reference player feedback.

I prefer as a Producer for the team to engage in the former, even though I know at some points we will have to correct ourselves and the players will see early information. If that proves problematic, however, then we as a team can certainly operate using the latter communicative style, and many producers and companies prefer that approach.

Sev~




i prefer raw style approach. im happy you're just willing to talk. there are devs in other games where they wont listen to the consumers or just not care. then the games become broken and some unplayable. so ill take any talk with errors in it and you guys correcting yourselves then a polished more corporate look.

[Silverleafeon]

It's not really my intent for that to be taken as "be rude and I'll walk" as much as "which producing style do players prefer?"

If a raw style where we communicate a lot is preferred that style has drawbacks. Because we talk with the players directly there is no editing or polish phase to our posts, and that means we are subject to typos, comments that lose context, and sometimes just flat out being wrong about something. This is especially true if we are posting late and/or from home to try to catch up with threads. Some players feel this type of interaction lacks a certain type of professionalism and I respect that.

If we go with a more polished communication style then each post to the players goes through an editing phase, information is consolidated into packages and carefully combed over, and players see a much more polished level of communication. This type of communication means that problems are filtered out and errors and typos that might erode player confidence are much less likely to occur, but it drastically reduces the amount of iteration that can occur during a more raw interaction with the devs. It also eliminates posts that directly reference player feedback.

I prefer as a Producer for the team to engage in the former, even though I know at some points we will have to correct ourselves and the players will see early information. If that proves problematic, however, then we as a team can certainly operate using the latter communicative style, and many producers and companies prefer that approach.

Sev~

Well, to start with, I would go to streets of eveningstar, where the players are and listen to what they have to say about this Sev fellow. Your communication style and in depth intelligence is highly regarded. Or put bluntly, "I like Sev, we have a producer that talks to us instead of sitting in an ivory tower far away."

You are doing great, keep up the good work.

[Silverleafeon]

If players are uncomfortable seeing enhancement passes during the raw inception phase and would rather us present to them a more polished version much later in the design cycle then we can also do that.

Sev~

I'll say the same things I said on the PC when the same subject was brought up.

PLEASE bring things to us as early as possible and TALK to us as much as possible.
That is the best way for us to have a playing experience that was appreciated.
Even if it mean occasional pitchfolks and torches to let the team know where the thin ice resides.

[dualscissors]

Thanks Sev this is some much needed changes. Also the 'raw' method is much better.



I second this.

I also think that the DPS is sadly lacking. 10 MP is nowhere near enough. I would like to see either a increase in benefit from melee power to SA damage and or SA damage can now cirt (or only on vorpals if you thinking that is too much) or preferably both. Core 18 and 20 are the perfect place to put these as they are both lacking still (I recommend crit/vorp on 18 simply to keep it in the same vein theme wise)

Thanks Sev

10 MP on its own might seem underwhelming compared to certain super-powered melee machines. Also remember that at tier-5 Measure the Foe is adding +4MP per tick (up to 5x). That's another variable 4-20MP that will be up on assassin rogues for much of the duration of fights. Assassin's Trick will put on the table a more reliable source of 25% Fortification-breaking on pesky enemy types, and thus MP-boosted sneak attack.

I don't have the APs to take too much MP from Harper but some assassins will scrounge up a bit more there.

Does this still seem weak from the enhancement tree? Or is the relative weakness of DPS in Shadowdancer where the sense of assassins still being subpar in damage where a lot of this sentiment is coming from?

The way that I just framed MP derived from Measure the Foe probably sways me to what Cthru was arguing with regard to the MtF ticks vanishing 1 at a time, instead of all at once.

[Fedora1]

It's not really my intent for that to be taken as "be rude and I'll walk" as much as "which producing style do players prefer?"

My vote is for the way you are doing it here in this thread.

I've been impressed with the way you handle things so far.

[PermaBanned]

If we go with a more polished communication style then each post to the players goes through an editing phase, information is consolidated into packages and carefully combed over, and players see a much more polished level of communication. This type of communication means that problems are filtered out and errors and typos that might erode player confidence are much less likely to occur, but it drastically reduces the amount of iteration that can occur during a more raw interaction with the devs. It also eliminates posts that directly reference player feedback.I think you'll find that should anyone advocate for ^that^ style over the awesome level of interaction all y'all have displayed as of late, they'll be greeted with far more forks & torches than you guys ;)

[Sebastrd]

If a raw style where we communicate a lot is preferred that style has drawbacks. Because we talk with the players directly there is no editing or polish phase to our posts, and that means we are subject to typos, comments that lose context, and sometimes just flat out being wrong about something. This is especially true if we are posting late and/or from home to try to catch up with threads. Some players feel this type of interaction lacks a certain type of professionalism and I respect that.
Sev~

I'll take this one every time, warts and all.

[Thar]

It's not really my intent for that to be taken as "be rude and I'll walk" as much as "which producing style do players prefer?"

If a raw style where we communicate a lot is preferred that style has drawbacks. Because we talk with the players directly there is no editing or polish phase to our posts, and that means we are subject to typos, comments that lose context, and sometimes just flat out being wrong about something. This is especially true if we are posting late and/or from home to try to catch up with threads. Some players feel this type of interaction lacks a certain type of professionalism and I respect that.

If we go with a more polished communication style then each post to the players goes through an editing phase, information is consolidated into packages and carefully combed over, and players see a much more polished level of communication. This type of communication means that problems are filtered out and errors and typos that might erode player confidence are much less likely to occur, but it drastically reduces the amount of iteration that can occur during a more raw interaction with the devs. It also eliminates posts that directly reference player feedback.

I prefer as a Producer for the team to engage in the former, even though I know at some points we will have to correct ourselves and the players will see early information. If that proves problematic, however, then we as a team can certainly operate using the latter communicative style, and many producers and companies prefer that approach.

Sev~

Even if i disagree with some of the decisions, I appreciate the communication. And I can certainly out typo you! Any email can be taken out of context and people need to be patient.

I think we all agree that we appreciate that you are taking feedback from the masses. Maybe sometimes too much feedback is going into changes or too much of the loud voices of the few are going into changes, but much better than no communication, here is the change and we then complain it's not going to work... I believe (as i'm in software development too) that the earlier issues are brought to the team, the better the end result will be as the team can focus on other things rather than tweaking and adjusting later.

AND you work late all the time posting replys to us. +1 rep point...

get another few rep points for good a ranger pass :)

[brzytki]

Does this still seem weak from the enhancement tree? Or is the relative weakness of DPS in Shadowdancer where the sense of assassins still being subpar in damage where a lot of this sentiment is coming from?

The way that I just framed MP derived from Measure the Foe probably sways me to what Cthru was arguing with regard to the MtF ticks vanishing 1 at a time, instead of all at once.

I think more or less it's about done, but there are a few things i'd still change: Killer fading 1 stack at a time
CThru's change to Measure the Foe (fading 1 stack at a time, timer shortened to 6 seconds)
a way to better scale SA in epic levels (doubling MP on them or somehow being affected by crits) either as lvl 18 core or maybe in SD
+2 INT more instead of +2 DEX in the capstone
maybe upping PRR in T5 enhancement since we'll be losing 5 PRR anyway in the next update

And yes, Shadowdancer definitely needs some work in a few places.

[Cetus]

It's not really my intent for that to be taken as "be rude and I'll walk" as much as "which producing style do players prefer?"

If a raw style where we communicate a lot is preferred that style has drawbacks. Because we talk with the players directly there is no editing or polish phase to our posts, and that means we are subject to typos, comments that lose context, and sometimes just flat out being wrong about something. This is especially true if we are posting late and/or from home to try to catch up with threads. Some players feel this type of interaction lacks a certain type of professionalism and I respect that.

If we go with a more polished communication style then each post to the players goes through an editing phase, information is consolidated into packages and carefully combed over, and players see a much more polished level of communication. This type of communication means that problems are filtered out and errors and typos that might erode player confidence are much less likely to occur, but it drastically reduces the amount of iteration that can occur during a more raw interaction with the devs. It also eliminates posts that directly reference player feedback.

I prefer as a Producer for the team to engage in the former, even though I know at some points we will have to correct ourselves and the players will see early information. If that proves problematic, however, then we as a team can certainly operate using the latter communicative style, and many producers and companies prefer that approach.

Sev~

Former for daily exchanges, latter for announcements and "state of the game" type posts, obviously.

[Rautis]

~ Assassinate is already a fairly good ability so we won't be buffing the DC in this tree, but instead we will be looking to have items that add to the DC in greater amounts that currently possible in the next few updates. Commenting late on this one. I just hope that this will also cover other DC-wise lacking abilities in enhancement and maybe even ED trees. And I hope these also come on randomly generated gear/augments instead of getting a +6 assassinate DC item from the next raid.

[Qezuzu]

Does this still seem weak from the enhancement tree? Or is the relative weakness of DPS in Shadowdancer where the sense of assassins still being subpar in damage where a lot of this sentiment is coming from?

My own, current number for what damage my Assassin does at lvl28 is about 2.2k DPS; I've only measured it once a couple months ago, and was using full Blitz and haste+damage boost. I don't claim that it's the most damage an Assassin can achieve but given my gear and build it's probably close. It's a lot of damage IMO but it still falls quite short of the best builds, which also have better survivability by a wide margin so I think that's a problem.

30 Melee Power is actually quite a bit of damage though, but with some quick mental math the DPS might end up being below the curve still, maybe. It will still be very high though, as long as MtF is not expired which is why I would really like it to not fall off all at once like no less than two other Assassin abilities do...

[Bobby88888]

10 MP on its own might seem underwhelming compared to certain super-powered melee machines. Also remember that at tier-5 Measure the Foe is adding +4MP per tick (up to 5x). That's another variable 4-20MP that will be up on assassin rogues for much of the duration of fights. Assassin's Trick will put on the table a more reliable source of 25% Fortification-breaking on pesky enemy types, and thus MP-boosted sneak attack.

I don't have the APs to take too much MP from Harper but some assassins will scrounge up a bit more there.

Does this still seem weak from the enhancement tree? Or is the relative weakness of DPS in Shadowdancer where the sense of assassins still being subpar in damage where a lot of this sentiment is coming from?

The way that I just framed MP derived from Measure the Foe probably sways me to what Cthru was arguing with regard to the MtF ticks vanishing 1 at a time, instead of all at once.

Yes it still is weak.
Lets say my Assassin has 29d6 SA dmg and +12 or whatever static SA dmg and 24 MP from lvl 28, 24 from ED, 10 from capstone, 20 from MtF and 9 from harper for 87 total with 67 permanent. And that average dmg is say 500.
My base average SA dmg is 113.5. Multiply by MP gives 189.5 permanently and 212.2 with temp. Assuming we get 200% MP on SA and Crits on SA: Permanent SA dmg is 379 and temporary peak is 424. That gives total average dmg of 879 and temporary of 924. Pallys/Barbs/Bards still considerably out DPS that by at least 10x. Now say I crit, that SA dmg bumps up to 1137 permanent and 1272 temporary. Add base dmg and ~1600 dmg on crits or ~1700 temporary.
Ok so this time I vorpal. 1516 SA dmg and 1696 temporary. Add base dmg and ~2k and ~2.2k. This is still far less than Pally/Barb/Bard, who can acheive at least 5x that, but I think that has hit too high now probably for the Assassin, but without crits is too low. I personally don't want to see the assassin dmg go too high and ruin the class because of it.

So no crits is too low and crits is too high. How about we let crits but use crit = x2 mod and vorp = x3 rather than using weapon Multipliers (typically X3 crit and X4 vorp)
That gives us 758 SA dmg on crit/ 848 temporary for ~1250 dmg on my hypothetical Assassin and 1350 with temporary boosts.
On vorpal that becomes 1137 SA/1272 temporary, giving ~1650 dmg for vorp with 1800 possible with temporary boosts.

I think this is a good range for assassins to be in but if its too high making either just vorpal (with 3x or weapon multiplier) or just 2x for all crits and vorps reduces it down some more. Alternatively adjust the 200% MP up or down.
It still isn't the 5 digit hits of the pally/barb/bard but I think sitting at that point seems about right. You can get some meaningful DPS through SA, keeping it in theme with the class/tree without getting too much power.

That is just my opinion on the matter but at the very least I think one of the 2 should be implemented and the lvl 18 core is just worthless now and a good spot to put one. It used to be one of the best abilities but the game moved on and it got left behind. and the capstone could do with a bump too.

Sorry if the layout there is hard to follow.

[davmuzl]

Commenting late on this one. I just hope that this will also cover other DC-wise lacking abilities in enhancement and maybe even ED trees. And I hope these also come on randomly generated gear/augments instead of getting a +6 assassinate DC item from the next raid.

For Assassinate and similar abilities in the heroic levels it might be fitting to make epic levels count as class levels for the DC.

[amsharkwei]

I suggest put the "Assassin's Mark" in Shiv.

Remove the Poison Strikes
Because,if Poison Strikes give a "Assassin's Mark" on the target ,and the "Assassin's Mark" can not stacks,the T2 and T3 Poison Strikes will still useless

Shiv:passive reduces threat of all your attacks by 5/10/15%. The attack makes a Bluff check using your Bluff skill. And opponents struck by Shiv attack have an "Assassin's Mark" for 10 seconds.
With a bluff check,Shiv is a very useful ability,every one will put AP point on Shiv

[Pehtis]

Sev plz ignore the obvious trolls and drama queens. The raw style is appreciated.

My only concern with all these passes is game balance. I fear level 1 - 20 content is becoming trivialised with these passes. The recent ones to pally/barb/swash has created an uncomfortable benchmark to game balance.

What I notice is much of the assassin feedback revolves around not being as capable in post level 20 content. I agree with this, especially when refer to the new benchmark. This is why agree that any serious buff be focused on Core 4 & 5. Perhaps an extra +1 assassinate DC to Core 4 is all that is needed?











P.s. As an aside. Is there any reason you can't buff ED's by making them work with selected enhancements or rogue feats. That will keep the integrity of the enhancement trees during level 1-20.

[amsharkwei]

I suggest

-"Assassin's Mark" also reduce target's fortitude save for 1 per 5 Rogue level.

-When the target with "Assassin's Mark" below 30% health,the "Assassin's Mark" will explode and deal 25 damage per Rogue level.This damage scales with 200% Melee Power.
This help Rogue kill low health target, and also remind the "Execute" can be use now.

-Core Abilities 3: Assassin's Trick, should also mark the target with an "Assassin's Mark",and makes a Bluff check using your Bluff skill.

-Assassin's Trick replace the Bluff skill. (Or shares it's cooldown with the Bluff skill)
Sneak ? Assassin's Trick ? Assassinate will be a good combos-chain.

-If "Execute" hit a target with an "Assassin's Mark", it will decuse the "Execute" cooldown by half.

-If the target with "Assassin's Mark" below 30% health ,your any attack deal extar 1D6 damage per Rogue level.This damage scales with 200% Melee Power.


..................................

Rework the "Poison Strikes" as a passive ability buff the "Venomed Blades"

"Poison Strikes": choose one poison, this will buff your "Venomed Blades".

-Heartseeker Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 fort save (stacks 5 times), On Crit: 1d6 Con damage, On vorpal: -5% Hit Points, no save, no work with BOSS.

-Chill Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 reflex save (stacks 5 times), On Crit: 1d6 Dex damage, On vorpal: Paralysis, no save, no work with BOSS.

-Soulshatter Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 Will save (stacks 5 times), on Crit: 1d6 Wis damage, on Vorpal: Shattermantle (-100 Spell Resistance) no save, no work with BOSS.

[Seikojin]

I like the former. All around. I understand having more polish for announcements, release notes, etc.

[Linvak]

Well said brzytki.

The same issues keep being brought up Sev. In this revamp, assassins are still missing an increase in their damage and damage mitigation.

Make light armor mastery grant 5/10/15 PRR and give us more debuff options like the melee power debuff from poisons.

Slap 5 or 10 melee power in the capstone and let stacks of measure the foe fade 1 at a time every 6 seconds. I think letting measure the foe fade 1 stack at a time is a great idea because it will create a condition that encourages assassins to be in sneak mode more often, and with the changes to sneak speed that will be a practical possibility. As mentioned, an alternative way to increase dps would be to make it affected by 200% melee power (even 300% wouldn't be too much imo when you consider the dps of a bard or paladin). Others have proposed allowing sneak attack damage to be crittable. I haven't done the math on that, so I don't know if that would be too much or not, but again, considering that my first life paladin with hand me down gear was critting for several thousand, I'm not sure there is a "too much."

These changes would not turn assassins into another easy button but would minimize the amount they currently lag behind other revamped classes. The unique playstyle of an assassin would not change and they would be a lot more fun for those who enjoy that playstyle, which you said was the main priority with these changes.

As always CThruTheEgo, great points, great ideas. I can't really say that I look forward to better dps, nor can I completely reject it. In a way, I like being 1 out of about 3 dedicated assassin's on my server. The day I join a group with 1 or 2 other Rogues will be sort of off putting.

I fear for Rogue becoming an easy button like you mentioned. When I tried out Swashbuckler, it was truly boring being so successful while doing almost nothing. I truly don't see an issue as far as kill count goes as of now. Being able to insta-kill 2 things per group, and follow up with what I think is decent dmg keeps me ahead in most quests. I'm much more in favor of cleaning up assassinate and sneak mechanics then increasing dmg.

I think where people complain about dmg is mostly do to the fact that we can't just smash the keyboard and run into a group of mobs and start cleaving for 1000-3000 with almost no fear of dying. Barbs have a huge amount of health + big heals per kill, palis have insta heals paired with high defenses, while bards get decent PRR, high dodge, 24/7 displacement, and insta heals. I don't want to see rogue turn into this. We can't have a reliable insta kill (x2) and comparable dps/defenses. I like the utility and tactics we have to use in order to keep up with everyone. It's much more satisfying leading a kill count as rogue when no one was expecting it. If anything I'd love to propose better and more utility.

I was thinking about possible effects on sneak attacks other then stat dmg and increased dmg. What would you, and anyone else say to percentages of effects such as nerve severing (reduction in enemy attack/movement speed) or even something along the lines of Guardbreaking (one of the most broken effects in the game LOOOOL). 5% chance to daze enemy target on each sneak attack doesn't sound too OP to me (maybe even underpowered/useless) considering Bards get 25% which isn't limited to creatures that can be sneak attacked in the first place.

[draven1]

Core 1 : Knife in the Darkness: You gain proficiency with Kukris. You can also use your Dexterity modifier to hit with Daggers and Kukris

Core 2 : Dagger in the Back: You can now use your Dexterity for damage with Daggers and Kukris. If you possess the Weapon Finesse feat, this also applies to melee weapons with which you can use your Dexterity modifier to hit. This enhancement does not work with handwraps or unarmed attacks.

Both are pretty obsolete now, because of harper tree.
Almost every assassins who want to use assassinate for higher lvl will take harper tree for INT hit & dmg.

How about changing those 2 Cores to some roguish combat utility ability like "Sap, Slicing blow, Hamstring"?
Or just replacing dex modifier to int?

Usual rogues can't afford to get those feats, because of lack of feat slots, and it's not worthy to take those for a precious feat slot.
But, those feats have very roguish flavor, so I think it fits really well for assassin,
it will not give some DPS for assassins, but it will give some tactical options for them.
A small buff for those abilities is also good for it.

I'd like to see assassins using their GUTS & WIT to escape emergency situation rather than more PRR like other easy buttons.
Rogues are nimble, not sturdy :D

But sometimes nimble rogues can get really hard hit, so it would be nice to see defensive roll buff.
I want not to tie that defensive roll buff to certain prestige class like acrobat too much.
What if general defensive roll works at 50% hp, it can reduce incoming damage by 50% on successful reflex save,
but, acrobats can reduce incoming damage up to 80% by enhancement?
Numbers may need some adjustment for balance, but I think we can find some roguish damage migration method for it, not PRR :D

Lowering some requirement point for diplomacy & bluff in combat on higher EE quests might be also good, too.
It's too hard to get enough skills for most higher EE contents. So, it's near obsolete for end game.

ps> I appreciate you for open mind attitude for this discussion, Sev~ :D

[Soleran100]

..................................

Rework the "Poison Strikes" as a passive ability buff the "Venomed Blades"

"Poison Strikes": choose one poison, this will buff your "Venomed Blades".

-Heartseeker Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 fort save (stacks 5 times), On Crit: 1d6 Con damage, On vorpal: -5% Hit Points, no save, no work with BOSS.

-Chill Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 reflex save (stacks 5 times), On Crit: 1d6 Dex damage, On vorpal: Paralysis, no save, no work with BOSS.

-Soulshatter Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 Will save (stacks 5 times), on Crit: 1d6 Wis damage, on Vorpal: Shattermantle (-100 Spell Resistance) no save, no work with BOSS.


This would be awesome only if they kept venomed blades at 2 ap per rank and needing all 3 ranks to work and possibly even requiring us to spend ap on the actual poison lines.

But where I see the assassin fall behind like everyone else is in epics, in heroics they can rock pretty hard all things considered with the new passes on other classes.

[brzytki]

My own, current number for what damage my Assassin does at lvl28 is about 2.2k DPS

See, my guildies have made a DPS test after barb revamp. They tested many types of builds, like THF barb, TWF barb, SWF S&B pally, THF pally, SWF bard, druid exploiter, some rangers, LD vs Crusader. I don't recall exactly which build had what numbers, but ALL the builds had 2,5k+ DPS, some were even around 4k DPS or over. I had my main rogue on an Arti life at that moment so i couldn't join them but i'm leveling her up now back to cap so that i can run the test myself.

It's telling that a well geared capped assassin in a Legendary Dreadnaught destiny (that is heavily centered around damage and it's not designed for assassins) is doing half the damage of the top DPS builds. And to top it off, it's single target.

That's why we NEED something to make SA scale better in epics.

[Chaios]

Great stuff Chaios!
Thank you very much. Yet, instead of quitting while I was clearly ahead, I feel compelled to rejoin the discussion...

Assassins should be fun for players who enjoy that type of play style.
(Rogues also have a lot of non-combat advantages.)
Sev~
Some posts denigrate the Rogue's non-combat advantages as irrelevant, useless or worse. Assuming the characterization is meant seriously, I wonder what attracts those posters to the class at all.

1. I proposed some mitigation to tremor sense be put in. 2. Some percentage of immunity to True Seeing and See Invis 5. one way to help with this is to increase damage on helpless targets.
Rogue healing is poor (I've done it with scroll before, yes, its poor.) Avoidance via dodge is decent, but avoidance via AC is poor. Mitigation is poor.
3. On the helpless damage, rogues would depend on others to make them helpless. Not only does this encourage team play and actually paying attention to what the others in your group are doing, but it also fits well thematically.
I like proposals 1 2 and 5, except that in the case of immunity form sensing buffs like True seeing I'd prefer 100% but not constant. I would say that Rogue healing is more... Ironic than poor: I usually only need to self heal when I run with a party, and UMD usually works better for me than whatever other things my team mates thought was going to help them. I solo the same way any other slacker does: With a hire, unless I want a challenge or a particular screen shot or something.

I've read a lot of posts about about Rogue damage mitigation. I'm always happy for more, of course, but I haven't had trouble soloing anything in a long time, and I haven't noticed any embarrassing kill count or death count ratio's on any of my rogues.

Shadow step/teleport ability was discussed before MotU went live and Devs said it's not gonna happen...
I don't like teleport effects for heroic lvl Rogues, mostly because of my prejudice against giving Rogues innate magical abilities (even if such is found in certain prestige class versions of the Assassin, and of course Epic is different). But I like the idea of a stealth sprint to incorporate the idea the Rogue dodging form shadow to shadow too quickly for the average eye to follow. I'd rather have something like that than a blanket movement increase or a sneak speed increase. Give that back to the acrobat. I'd like a short duration, very fast sprint that only works in stealth but that recharges quickly enough that an Assassin using it everytime it came off cooldown could keep pace with bard of the same level. If it could make the rogue immune to True Seeing for the duration of the cool down, that would be cool too.


That bonus to single-weapon Assassinate would need to be pretty hefty because you need to use TWF to get double assassinates.
Actually, my bonus to single weapon Assassinate is the higher number of attacks per minute SWF gives over TWF. But I'm glad we agree that TWF offers an advantage that other styles don't.

It's telling that a well geared capped assassin ...is doing half the damage of the top DPS builds.
Barbarian should be the absolute uncontested master of melee DPS. Of course, he should still die peacefully to a well placed Assassin's blade. Unless his pet Cleric is awake, of course.

[Ayseifn]

Barbarian should be the absolute uncontested master of melee DPS. Of course, he should still die peacefully to a well placed Assassin's blade. Unless his pet Cleric is awake, of course.

Disagree, wish it went back to rogues to be honest.

Having to not have aggro is a pretty big deal, and I'd like that part played up more in this update, +200% SA damage in Shadowdancer would go a long way to help out here and wouldn't be game breaking. Probably wouldn't help rogues take the DPS crown either.

[IronClan]

Wow, really wow...

So you initially thought that +6 MDB and 3 PRR was worth not only 3 APs but also a spot as a T5 enhancement?!

I shouldn't be surprised anymore...

It's responses like this which make most developers justified in not participating in forums much less sharing early stage work in progress development.

There's always some ... one... that guy, who thinks he would poo gold bricks every time he sits on his porcelain throne.

They are humans bro get over yourself.

[brzytki]

Some posts denigrate the Rogue's non-combat advantages as irrelevant, useless or worse. Assuming the characterization is meant seriously...
I meant every word i said.


I've read a lot of posts about about Rogue damage mitigation. I'm always happy for more, of course, but I haven't had trouble soloing anything in a long time, and I haven't noticed any embarrassing kill count or death count ratio's on any of my rogues.
Scaling? You know that while soloing the quest difficulty scales down and when in full group it scales up, right? That's why it's harder to solo a quest with 5 people piking at the entrance than actually soloing with only you in the quest. And that's when the damage you take per hit can be quite deadly.


Actually, my bonus to single weapon Assassinate is the higher number of attacks per minute SWF gives over TWF. But I'm glad we agree that TWF offers an advantage that other styles don't.

From what i know you don't need TWF to double assassinate. I might be wrong because i haven't actually ever taken SWF on my assassin but i've seen some other knowledgeable posters say that's the case. Apart from that, with SWF your attack animations can be faster than TWF but it doesn't mean you get more hits per minute because TWF has 80% chance for an off-hand attack during each swing animation while SWF is just x1,3 faster swinging. I might agree with your one hit being bigger than one hit from TWF character due to x1,5 ability mod and free MP though.


Barbarian should be the absolute uncontested master of melee DPS. Of course, he should still die peacefully to a well placed Assassin's blade. Unless his pet Cleric is awake, of course.

Barbarian should be the absolute uncontested master of melee DPS only when they have no healing from their trees. That's just basic game tradeoff - characters with best DPS should have some trouble with survivability. Now pet Clerics are long dead. Haven't you seen the new on-hit/on-kill/passive healing enhancments barbs have? Or the insane amount of Hamp they were given? Or HP? Or those temp HP? PRR form heavy armor? Now look at the rogue, it was dubbed a glass cannon for a reason, it had poor defenses and healing but awesome DPS. In today's DDO they still have poor defenses and healing while their DPS is miles behind the other classes.

[bloodnose13]

first of all i think all shadowdancer like abilities, like shadow form like stance and bolt should dissapear from assasin tree, becouse those smell of shadowdancer....

second we need something to counter the sneak ai changes, hypotetical situation, a room with 10 enemies, assasin sneaks up to one of enemies, bit out of way, from back, and assasinates, IF:
A: target dies, 9 enemies instantly turns and sees sneaking assasin, pulls out bows and shoots him, still sneaking
or
B: assasin fails assasinate roll, and 10 enemies pull out bows and shoot the assasin............
....so either way it does not work
we need some ability that will give assasin an chance to sneak out of the area before being noticed, to make assasinate again into an attack that can be repeated more times if used right way.
maybe it should be an update to sneak ai again, to make enemies first walk ot the spot where one of them died, and tehn make search check, coupled with ability that would let assasin recover from failed assasinate attempt without getting attacked.

otherwise we will see only assasins that dont use sneak at all, and sneak only for quick assasinate attempt, seeing awfuly lot of those since changes to ai (often dead), assasins comfort zone lies in shadows (in actual shadows created by lack of light and not in negative energy clouds of doom!!!!), and it should be expanded on that.

third i think that assasin should get a little boost to attack speed (10% maybe?) when useing finesseable weapons, like daggers and kukris, twf with those seems awfuly slow.

[brzytki]

assasins comfort zone lies in shadows (in actual shadows created by lack of light and not in negative energy clouds of doom!!!!), and it should be expanded on that.

After reading this i thought of an ability that when activated could immediately produce a fog effect (like the cloudkill spell in terms of looks only black and smaller) around the assassin giving him bonuses to hide/ms and then triggering a backwards tumble. I think that kind of trick would be awesome.

[Failedlegend]

Question: Does a successful Assassinate still break stealth?

If yes, I think this should be changed so only a failed Assassinate breaks stealth, any assassin worth their salt should be able to make a silent kill...it shouldn't draw aggro imo.

I also think that TWF should no longer = 2 assassinates it artificially makes it superior to other fighting styles

[Xionanx]

It's not really my intent for that to be taken as "be rude and I'll walk" as much as "which producing style do players prefer?"

If a raw style where we communicate a lot is preferred that style has drawbacks. Because we talk with the players directly there is no editing or polish phase to our posts, and that means we are subject to typos, comments that lose context, and sometimes just flat out being wrong about something. This is especially true if we are posting late and/or from home to try to catch up with threads. Some players feel this type of interaction lacks a certain type of professionalism and I respect that.

If we go with a more polished communication style then each post to the players goes through an editing phase, information is consolidated into packages and carefully combed over, and players see a much more polished level of communication. This type of communication means that problems are filtered out and errors and typos that might erode player confidence are much less likely to occur, but it drastically reduces the amount of iteration that can occur during a more raw interaction with the devs. It also eliminates posts that directly reference player feedback.

I prefer as a Producer for the team to engage in the former, even though I know at some points we will have to correct ourselves and the players will see early information. If that proves problematic, however, then we as a team can certainly operate using the latter communicative style, and many producers and companies prefer that approach.

Sev~


I personally think RAW is the right direction for DDO simply because for years now it has seemed that the devs are not interacting with players at all, and also seem to make changes to the game with little to no knowledge of how the game is actually played.

Transitioning to RAW tho is going to be ROUGH.. the level of discontent on these forums for years of perceived neglect and indifference is going to put you constantly on the defensive with players as both adjust to the new style of communication.

I would highly recommend getting a copy paste addendum to add to your posts that states that any comments posted by you (or your devs) is not a recommendation for a change, a gauruntee for a change, etc. etc.. I have to use one every single time I post anything about FOREX trading.. looks like this:

Warning: This is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument.

But you get the idea, just a generic "we are just talking here" statement..

[RD2play]

Question: Does a successful Assassinate still break stealth?

If yes, I think this should be changed so only a failed Assassinate breaks stealth, any assassin worth their salt should be able to make a silent kill...it shouldn't draw aggro imo.



This is a good suggestion, although maybe it should also have a hide check or something. I mean your friend drops dead at least you will look around to see what happened, so the rogue needs to invest in his skills. SO you would lose sneak on failed assassinate, or when spotted after a successful assassinate.

[dualscissors]

Question: Does a successful Assassinate still break stealth?



That has been fixed. There was a period when dropping a foe made his friends notice and you had to quickly and stealthily get out of the kill zone or you'd instantly be discovered.

But now you can successfully assassinate and the enemy standing 5 ft. from his buddy won't agro.

[Contrex]

I haven't read the entire thread, so not sure if this has been brought up, but if you want me to be excited about playing assassin again, you need to remove the action delay after hitting sneak.

You used to be able to jump, hit sneak, and assassinate on your way down, then tumble out of sneak and continue your assault without slowing down. This sequence no longer works, as there is now a ~1s delay after hitting sneak, during which you cannot attack. As a result, maintaining an active playstyle as an assassin has become a chore and not at all enjoyable.

I don't know why the delay was added in the first place, but it's pretty much ruined my assassin for me.

[Qezuzu]

After reading this i thought of an ability that when activated could immediately produce a fog effect (like the cloudkill spell in terms of looks only black and smaller) around the assassin giving him bonuses to hide/ms and then triggering a backwards tumble. I think that kind of trick would be awesome.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Deeper_Darkness

Assassin spells plz


I also think that TWF should no longer = 2 assassinates it artificially makes it superior to other fighting styles

How about no

[Failedlegend]

This is a good suggestion, although maybe it should also have a hide check or something. I mean your friend drops dead at least you will look around to see what happened, so the rogue needs to invest in his skills. SO you would lose sneak on failed assassinate, or when spotted after a successful assassinate.

What if you recieve a penalty to your Assassinate DC each time you succesfully Assassinate someone as long as you remain in stealth (once you fail, exit stealth, enter combat or leave the quest the debuff clears)

Something like:

Elite: +/-3
Hard: +/-2
Normal: +/-1
Casual: No effect

It's either something like that or the devs have to create some sort of assassination mini-game to silenty kill and hide a body (not actually suggesting they do this)



How about no

Why not, personally I always thought it was a bug anyways...has a dev confirmed it WAI?

There's no reason having two weapons should grant 2 assassinates it's completely unbalanced.



You used to be able to jump, hit sneak, and assassinate on your way down, then tumble out of sneak and continue your assault without slowing down. This sequence no longer works, as there is now a ~1s delay after hitting sneak, during which you cannot attack. As a result, maintaining an active playstyle as an assassin has become a chore and not at all enjoyable.


Any chance of something like this being added to the Assassin Tree being able to silently move climb, jump and fall seem very Assassin like.

Also why no ranged assassinate, an arrow/bolt/throwing dagger through the throat is just as lethal as having your throat slit by a knife.

[Qezuzu]

What if you recieve a penalty to your Assassinate DC each time you succesfully Assassinate someone as long as you remain in stealth (once you fail, exit stealth, enter combat or leave the quest the debuff clears)

Something like:

Elite: +/-3
Hard: +/-2
Normal: +/-1
Casual: No effect

It's either something like that or the devs have to create some sort of assassination mini-game to silenty kill and hide a body (not actually suggesting they do this)

It'd be better if mobs in the vicinity of Assassinate victims got a bonus to spot/listen, which stacks and increases quickly. So you don't get auto-spot when Assassinating something, and you aren't able to clear whole dungeons without ever getting aggro.


Why not, personally I always thought it was a bug anyways...has a dev confirmed it WAI?

There's no reason having two weapons should grant 2 assassinates it's completely unbalanced.

It has functioned that way for the entirety of its existence. Everyone who plays rogue mentions that it works that way so it can't be like devs don't know.

Even if you think it's "unbalanced", halving the number of kills per unit of time Assassinate can provide is a massive nerf, which is NOT what the tree needs.

[CThruTheEgo]

10 MP on its own might seem underwhelming compared to certain super-powered melee machines. Also remember that at tier-5 Measure the Foe is adding +4MP per tick (up to 5x). That's another variable 4-20MP that will be up on assassin rogues for much of the duration of fights. Assassin's Trick will put on the table a more reliable source of 25% Fortification-breaking on pesky enemy types, and thus MP-boosted sneak attack.

I don't have the APs to take too much MP from Harper but some assassins will scrounge up a bit more there.

Does this still seem weak from the enhancement tree? Or is the relative weakness of DPS in Shadowdancer where the sense of assassins still being subpar in damage where a lot of this sentiment is coming from?

The way that I just framed MP derived from Measure the Foe probably sways me to what Cthru was arguing with regard to the MtF ticks vanishing 1 at a time, instead of all at once.

It's also the fact that the twf feats don't grant 10 melee power like the other styles. This is another thing that keeps assassin dps behind the curve.


For Assassinate and similar abilities in the heroic levels it might be fitting to make epic levels count as class levels for the DC.

Having +1 DC per level of shadowdancer seems to make more thematic sense, but then it also ties the build even more fully to that one destiny, which I know some have said they don't like.


I was thinking about possible effects on sneak attacks other then stat dmg and increased dmg. What would you, and anyone else say to percentages of effects such as nerve severing (reduction in enemy attack/movement speed) or even something along the lines of Guardbreaking (one of the most broken effects in the game LOOOOL). 5% chance to daze enemy target on each sneak attack doesn't sound too OP to me (maybe even underpowered/useless) considering Bards get 25% which isn't limited to creatures that can be sneak attacked in the first place.

I am all for some more debuff options. I think this would be a great way to boost assassin damage mitigation without just adding PRR. I don't know what would be ideal or how some of these would affect game balance or playstyle balance, but I'm definitely in support of such an alternative.

[redoubt]

/snip...

except that in the case of immunity form sensing buffs like True seeing I'd prefer 100% but not constant.

I think we are meaning the same thing. When I say something like 25% immunity to TS, I mean the mob would roll a d100. 1-25 and he does not see us at all.

Or do you mean an action boost type thing where you can activate the immunity to TS? I'd be afraid of this being too powerful because you would only activate it when you knew a mob had TS, spacing out your cool down timers. There would be a high probability of having it active any time you needed it, thus in effect you would have a 100% immunity if played right.



If yes, I think this should be changed so only a failed Assassinate breaks stealth, any assassin worth their salt should be able to make a silent kill...it shouldn't draw aggro imo.


So, I'll insert another shameless plug for my critical success version of assassinate.

Target mob has a save roll of 60 (fort +d20). If the assassinate DC is:
67+ it is a critical success. You assassinate with such skill that your target makes no sound and you position the body in such a way that no one around even notices the you or the kill.
61-66 it is a success. You assassinated your target and remain unseen. Enemy mobs get a spot or listen check to see if they notice you or the dead mob.
55-60 you failed. Mob has a W T F moment and begins to look for you.
54 or less you critically fail. Mob sees you, knows you just tried to kill him and points you out to all his friends. Stealth is locked out for 5 seconds.

Note: this would be for situations with un-agro'd mobs. In mass melee in a group where mobs are already agro'd on other players, this system would not need to be accessed.

[redoubt]

I am all for some more debuff options. I think this would be a great way to boost assassin damage mitigation without just adding PRR. I don't know what would be ideal or how some of these would affect game balance or playstyle balance, but I'm definitely in support of such an alternative.

I just had a semi-random thought on this. We've talked about debuffs to mob melee power, but what about an accuracy debuff? Some sort of attack that upsets the mob's footing or damages their weapon arm/grip? Might be too weak since AC on a rogue isn't great, but could affect bosses and make the tank for effective because the boss has a harder time hitting the tank?

Just spit-balling a bit here...

[CThruTheEgo]

...some roguish combat utility ability like "Sap, Slicing blow, Hamstring"?

...snip...

Usual rogues can't afford to get those feats, because of lack of feats, and it's not worthy to take those for a precious feat slot.
But, those feats have very roguish flavor, so I think it fits really well for assassin,
it will not give some DPS for assassins, but it will give some tactical options for them.
A small buff for those abilities is also good for it.

I'd like to see assassins using their GUTS & WIT to escape emergency situation rather than more PRR like other easy buttons.
Rogues are nimble, not sturdy :D

I'd add improved feint to that list as well. The addition of sap has been brought up several times and I think it's a great idea. It has a nice assassin flavor and would add versatility, minor CC, and damage mitigation. Adding these to the cores is also a great idea, although not too low to prevent low hanging fruit for splashing. Maybe just rearrange the order of them, hamstring at core 1, slicing blow at core 2, improved feint at core 3, and sap at core 4.


Lowering some requirement point for diplomacy & bluff in combat on higher EE quests might be also good, too.
It's too hard to get enough skills for most higher EE contents. So, it's near obsolete for end game.

^This too.

[dualscissors]

I'd add improved feint to that list as well. The addition of sap has been brought up several times and I think it's a great idea. It has a nice assassin flavor and would add versatility, minor CC, and damage mitigation. Adding these to the cores is also a great idea, although not too low to prevent low hanging fruit for splashing. Maybe just rearrange the order of them, hamstring at core 1, slicing blow at core 2, improved feint at core 3, and sap at core 4.



^This too.

I'm not necessarily asking that Improved Feint be added as a freebie, but please take note that the animation time for Improved Feint is really long, and moving or attacking before letting the animation finish will nullify the benefit of the feat (i.e. it won't bluff anything).

It would be really cool if this perfect-for-rogue-CC feat was tweaked with the animation fixes to Assassin's Trick and the new Sly Flourish.

I took this feat and played with it for a while back in 2013-2014 and it's a really cool idea that is utterly unusable due to having to stand for 2.5 seconds for the animation to complete. This isn't something you can viably do with mobs swinging axes at your face.

While maintaining rogues as squishy but tricky, this option would give another source for trick-based CC for survivability.

[amsharkwei]

Add Epic level to the Assassnate DC
like Assassnate DC=10+rogue level+Epic level+INTmod+other
or
Every Shadowdancer Core Abilities +1 Assassnate DC,max+6 at cap

[Nokills]

Make an upgrade for the venomed blades maybe tier 5 that is like a nerve venom. This will give rogues some way to make mobs helpless. Also maybe cooler poison moves.

[ghtzxc]

I haven't read the entire thread, so not sure if this has been brought up, but if you want me to be excited about playing assassin again, you need to remove the action delay after hitting sneak.

You used to be able to jump, hit sneak, and assassinate on your way down, then tumble out of sneak and continue your assault without slowing down. This sequence no longer works, as there is now a ~1s delay after hitting sneak, during which you cannot attack. As a result, maintaining an active playstyle as an assassin has become a chore and not at all enjoyable.

I don't know why the delay was added in the first place, but it's pretty much ruined my assassin for me.

A more fluid sneak animation would make rogues so much more fun to play yes!! I support removing/decreasing the delay after sneaking =)

[CThruTheEgo]

Some posts denigrate the Rogue's non-combat advantages as irrelevant, useless or worse. Assuming the characterization is meant seriously, I wonder what attracts those posters to the class at all.

The value of trapping has diminished considerably. Others have already covered why so no need to repeat it. Effective UMD is now easy to reach on a non-UMD, non-cha based class, so it's value has also diminished. What other non-combat advantages does rogue have? Sneaking isn't exclusive to rogues and is of greater benefit solo than in a group, and it's benefit only goes as far as one enjoys playing that way because it certainly is not the most efficient in terms of completion speed. So what exactly are these non-combat advantages?


I've read a lot of posts about about Rogue damage mitigation. I'm always happy for more, of course, but I haven't had trouble soloing anything in a long time, and I haven't noticed any embarrassing kill count or death count ratio's on any of my rogues.

Damage mitigation is really only needed for upper level EEs. Anything below that, either level or difficulty, and it's really not needed. But damage mitigation is definitely needed in endgame, or upper level EEs, or whatever you want to call it.


Barbarian should be the absolute uncontested master of melee DPS. Of course, he should still die peacefully to a well placed Assassin's blade. Unless his pet Cleric is awake, of course.

Barbarians have never been the top dps. When level cap was 20, assassins were top dps among pure classes.


Question: Does a successful Assassinate still break stealth?

No.


I also think that TWF should no longer = 2 assassinates it artificially makes it superior to other fighting styles

I have not tested this personally, but it has been reported by a number of forumites that they have gotten double assassinates while SWF, so this does not seem to be exclusive to TWF.


That has been fixed. There was a period when dropping a foe made his friends notice and you had to quickly and stealthily get out of the kill zone or you'd instantly be discovered.

But now you can successfully assassinate and the enemy standing 5 ft. from his buddy won't agro.

Tested and confirmed, this is correct. I just went into EE Cabal on the assassin in my sig and tested agro mechanics with assassinate and stealth. Assassinating one mob does not alert all others present in the local vicinity. I was also able to double assassinate. When I was detected, mobs did not automatically know where I was. They would follow along my general path and swing randomly, but I was able to lose them by breaking line of sight. Now that I think of it, I did not test anything with archers. This would be good to know.

Stealth/agro/assassinate mechanics seem to be working as they should. Thanks for bringing attention to this dualscissors. I retract any comments I made to the contrary and apologize to Sev for mentioning it, but I will say that these mechanics seem to be able to change randomly with any given update, so it is hard to keep track of how these mechanics are working if you haven't played with them in an update or two.

[CThruTheEgo]

I haven't read the entire thread, so not sure if this has been brought up, but if you want me to be excited about playing assassin again, you need to remove the action delay after hitting sneak.

You used to be able to jump, hit sneak, and assassinate on your way down, then tumble out of sneak and continue your assault without slowing down. This sequence no longer works, as there is now a ~1s delay after hitting sneak, during which you cannot attack. As a result, maintaining an active playstyle as an assassin has become a chore and not at all enjoyable.

I don't know why the delay was added in the first place, but it's pretty much ruined my assassin for me.

I don't recall seeing this mentioned yet. I agree that making this more fluid with no delay would add to the fun factor, so

/signed


I just had a semi-random thought on this. We've talked about debuffs to mob melee power, but what about an accuracy debuff? Some sort of attack that upsets the mob's footing or damages their weapon arm/grip? Might be too weak since AC on a rogue isn't great, but could affect bosses and make the tank for effective because the boss has a harder time hitting the tank?

Just spit-balling a bit here...

Yeah I don't know about anything AC related. It's basically a mechanic that's never worked well so I, personally, would just prefer to avoid having anything to do with it.


I'm not necessarily asking that Improved Feint be added as a freebie, but please take note that the animation time for Improved Feint is really long, and moving or attacking before letting the animation finish will nullify the benefit of the feat (i.e. it won't bluff anything).

It would be really cool if this perfect-for-rogue-CC feat was tweaked with the animation fixes to Assassin's Trick and the new Sly Flourish.

I took this feat and played with it for a while back in 2013-2014 and it's a really cool idea that is utterly unusable due to having to stand for 2.5 seconds for the animation to complete. This isn't something you can viably do with mobs swinging axes at your face.

While maintaining rogues as squishy but tricky, this option would give another source for trick-based CC for survivability.

Good point and agreed. Shorten the animation and it would be fine.

[Saekee]

I'm not necessarily asking that Improved Feint be added as a freebie, but please take note that the animation time for Improved Feint is really long, and moving or attacking before letting the animation finish will nullify the benefit of the feat (i.e. it won't bluff anything).

It would be really cool if this perfect-for-rogue-CC feat was tweaked with the animation fixes to Assassin's Trick and the new Sly Flourish.

I took this feat and played with it for a while back in 2013-2014 and it's a really cool idea that is utterly unusable due to having to stand for 2.5 seconds for the animation to complete. This isn't something you can viably do with mobs swinging axes at your face.

While maintaining rogues as squishy but tricky, this option would give another source for trick-based CC for survivability.
Yeah this is one of those feats like whirlwind that works for wraps but nothing else (delay). On my vamp monk I have it--I hit it then spam cleaves on all the bluffes mobs around me. When weaponized it does not work. If I have a chance I will run some tests

[nibel]

I think we are meaning the same thing. When I say something like 25% immunity to TS, I mean the mob would roll a d100. 1-25 and he does not see us at all.

You know that True Seeing gives absolutely no help to detect a stealthed character, right? You are thinking about invisibility, that is not the same as stealth.

[Fedora1]

The value of trapping has diminished considerably. Others have already covered why so no need to repeat it.

I think it was stated that trapping is still relevant in heroics. I agree with that. And 1 level of rogue is not enough for many heroic elites unless maybe the multiclass is a ranger. Rangers are rare these days due to a somewhat weak enhancement line (not the worst, but quite a ways down the list) and the inferior fighting style of TWF.



Effective UMD is now easy to reach on a non-UMD, non-cha based class, so it's value has also diminished.

What has changed in the game to make a non-UMD/non-CHA class easier to reach effective UMD now than a couple years ago? What number do you consider effective, and why?



Damage mitigation is really only needed for upper level EEs. Anything below that, either level or difficulty, and it's really not needed. But damage mitigation is definitely needed in endgame, or upper level EEs, or whatever you want to call it.

So (not being snarky, just asking) in your opinion a first life pure assassin should be able to compete in EE content? Many argue that EE is for multi-life, very well geared, skilled players only, and I agree that is how it should be as well. So if we take that as a base for competing in EE, your epic destinies and gear should play a large role in being competitive. Otherwise don't we risk making EE completions standard and diminish their value? I have no issue running my 1st/2nd life toons through epics and never touching an EE, sticking with EN or EH. By third life and with good gear I feel ready to join groups in EE sometimes, depending on the quest.

I guess what I am saying is that I don't think a class needs to have everything available in its heroic enhancement tree (L1-20) to be able to compete 100% lock stock and barrel in end game EE content. That's where Turbine might need to tweak some destinies.




Barbarians have never been the top dps. When level cap was 20, assassins were top dps among pure classes.

But don't you think they should be?

[Saekee]

What has changed in the game to make a non-UMD/non-CHA class easier to reach effective UMD now than a couple years ago? What number do you consider effective, and why?

I think I can try to answer this one Fedora. The big change is the free across-the-board skill points for each epic level. That ends up being 7 or 8 by level 28 (and will only get higher with the cap move to 30). At level 20 one can easily equip good luck +2; high charisma can be slotted or swapped easily to start a quest with a scrolled Greater Heroism (which then adds the other +4); etc.; epic gear like Big Top, even if just at start of quest and other charisma-based skill boosting items; etc. etc. I still think max-UMD characters are relevant, though, since there will always be that higher-tier scroll (like the artificer ones) as well as their use in heroics.
I still struggle to have non-max-UMD characters scroll stuff in early epics.

[CThruTheEgo]

I think it was stated that trapping is still relevant in heroics. I agree with that. And 1 level of rogue is not enough for many heroic elites unless maybe the multiclass is a ranger. Rangers are rare these days due to a somewhat weak enhancement line (not the worst, but quite a ways down the list) and the inferior fighting style of TWF.

Traps in heroic for under-geared, inexperienced players are more of a problem than they are in epics, but they still are not a significant enough problem to say that a rogue's ability to disable them makes up for the worst damage mitigation in the game while still having behind the curve dps. Even in heroics most pugs I'm in just blaze right through them. Sometimes someone dies.

And yes, 1 level of rogue or arti is all you need for traps throughout the whole game. People have been doing it for years. Trapping is all about gear and knowing how to maximize your skills, not rogue/arti levels.


What has changed in the game to make a non-UMD/non-CHA class easier to reach effective UMD now than a couple years ago? What number do you consider effective, and why?

Saekee pretty much summed it up. A free 8 points of UMD handed out to everyone is huge. Gearing for cha/UMD is also easier, as Saekee pointed out. The value of those higher UMD scrolls, like artificer scrolls, is not enough to call this a significant non-combat advantage. I'll say this again, it's certainly not significant enough to say that it makes up for the worst damage mitigation in the game while still having behind the curve dps.


So (not being snarky, just asking) in your opinion a first life pure assassin should be able to compete in EE content? Many argue that EE is for multi-life, very well geared, skilled players only, and I agree that is how it should be as well. So if we take that as a base for competing in EE, your epic destinies and gear should play a large role in being competitive. Otherwise don't we risk making EE completions standard and diminish their value? I have no issue running my 1st/2nd life toons through epics and never touching an EE, sticking with EN or EH. By third life and with good gear I feel ready to join groups in EE sometimes, depending on the quest.

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here. I do not think past lives should be required for anything. A well made build, which includes gear, and a skilled player should be required however. Of course, simply having extra build points from past lives will make it much easier to have a solid build, but I still wouldn't consider that a requirement. If a first life assassin with a solid build wants to put the time in to work their way up to acquiring an ideal gear set, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to do EEs. I think that should be true for any class/build. No one should be able to just walk into any EE and pwn it without putting any effort into their character first. But if you put some effort in, whether that is through refining your build, acquiring gear, past lives, or some combination of those three, you should be able to contribute effectively imo.


I guess what I am saying is that I don't think a class needs to have everything available in its heroic enhancement tree (L1-20) to be able to compete 100% lock stock and barrel in end game EE content. That's where Turbine might need to tweak some destinies.

As far as this, I might tend to agree with you, but we have already been told that there will be no tweaks outside of the enhancement trees. And I personally don't want to wait an indefinite amount of time for them to get around to fixing EDs just so that one of the glaring problems with assassins gets fixed. Damage mitigation is a problem for assassins in high end content. They are updating the assassin tree. It should have some damage mitigation to fix that glaring problem. We've all been around long enough to know that there may never be an ED revamp. So now is the time to ask for what is needed.

The fact that the proposed PRR is in a tier 5 might mean it is more accessible to a splash, but very, very few builds are going to be taking assassin's tier 5s, so I don't think this is a problem and it is therefore in an appropriate place. It should not be in one of the cores because I think it should have the 3 ranks. And let's face it, no one is suggesting that assassins get tank levels of PRR. 5/10/15 in a tier 5 is not asking for much, but it is just enough to give assassins the boost they need. They will still be squishier than other classes, but won't have as much of a problem as they currently do. And I don't think 15 PRR available at level 12 will be game-breaking for heroics. I probably wouldn't even waste the AP on it until I had all my AP to spend (i.e. in epics).

The last thing I'll say is this - they gave barbarians self healing!!! Talk about anti-thematic to the class. So why deny rogues a tiny bit of damage mitigation?


But don't you think they should be?

No.

[redoubt]

You know that True Seeing gives absolutely no help to detect a stealthed character, right? You are thinking about invisibility, that is not the same as stealth.

You are correct, but I do mean True Seeing.

As rogues we rely heavily on concealment as part of our defense. My suggestion was to make it so we didn't lose that half of our defense to every mob with TS. (And its usually champions that have fort bypass and extra damage.)

On the sneaky side, that was the suggestion to add a % of bypassing tremor sense and ooze invisible seeing (or whatever that one is called) to the cores.

[Fedora1]

I think I can try to answer this one Fedora. The big change is the free across-the-board skill points for each epic level. That ends up being 7 or 8 by level 28 (and will only get higher with the cap move to 30). At level 20 one can easily equip good luck +2; high charisma can be slotted or swapped easily to start a quest with a scrolled Greater Heroism (which then adds the other +4); etc.; epic gear like Big Top, even if just at start of quest and other charisma-based skill boosting items; etc. etc. I still think max-UMD characters are relevant, though, since there will always be that higher-tier scroll (like the artificer ones) as well as their use in heroics.
I still struggle to have non-max-UMD characters scroll stuff in early epics.



Saekee pretty much summed it up. A free 8 points of UMD handed out to everyone is huge. Gearing for cha/UMD is also easier, as Saekee pointed out. The value of those higher UMD scrolls, like artificer scrolls, is not enough to call this a significant non-combat advantage. I'll say this again, it's certainly not significant enough to say that it makes up for the worst damage mitigation in the game while still having behind the curve dps.


I thought the quint-essential heroic level UMD scrolling was heal, which has a UMD40. I think waiting until L28 to get useful UMD for a non-UMD/non-CHA class does not negate a good UMD skill that rogues have available all along (or much sooner). In epics I agree UMD is easier to come by, but at the same time is not as needed due to destinies that make the UMD skill less needed (Cocoon et al).

Still I accept both your points on UMD, but we do seem to be jumping between what is useful on the way up vs what is needed in EE content (i.e. end game). It seems like on the one hand we are talking about end-game only and how these enhancements aren't good enough, vs the fact that at end game most of your power comes from destinies, not enhancements. It is indeed a balancing act for the devs (and players).



Traps in heroic for under-geared, inexperienced players are more of a problem than they are in epics, but they still are not a significant enough problem to say that a rogue's ability to disable them makes up for the worst damage mitigation in the game while still having behind the curve dps. Even in heroics most pugs I'm in just blaze right through them. Sometimes someone dies.

I have seen a lot of deaths in heroic elites due to traps (less since the MRR pass). So for zergers no problem maybe, but for maxing xp in a quest (whihc many people still do) you lose out on trap xp bonus and maybe on the zero death bonus. That alone does not make up for sub par dps or damage mitigation, I agree. But I think to say it is irrelevant is incorrect.



And yes, 1 level of rogue or arti is all you need for traps throughout the whole game. People have been doing it for years. Trapping is all about gear and knowing how to maximize your skills, not rogue/arti levels.

I have seen good gear and 2 rogue levels, combined with a high skill point class, do all traps, but I can't say I have seen it on a single rogue level at all levels of the game. Normally when I see a single rogue level they get locks not traps, but I will take your word for it though.



I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here. I do not think past lives should be required for anything. A well made build, which includes gear, and a skilled player should be required however. Of course, simply having extra build points from past lives will make it much easier to have a solid build, but I still wouldn't consider that a requirement. If a first life assassin with a solid build wants to put the time in to work their way up to acquiring an ideal gear set, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to do EEs. I think that should be true for any class/build. No one should be able to just walk into any EE and pwn it without putting any effort into their character first. But if you put some effort in, whether that is through refining your build, acquiring gear, past lives, or some combination of those three, you should be able to contribute effectively imo.

Well from all the forum rants I have read on "the game is too easy" or "hate champions" or "I want my favorite class to be more powerful" threads I think you are in the minority (not in a bad way) because up until your reply all I saw was that EE should be reserved for the elite of the elite, the uberest players, etc., which means several past lives and best gear according to others. I am somewhere in the middle of your reply above and the so-called uber-elitest crowd.



As far as this, I might tend to agree with you, but we have already been told that there will be no tweaks outside of the enhancement trees. And I personally don't want to wait an indefinite amount of time for them to get around to fixing EDs just so that one of the glaring problems with assassins gets fixed. Damage mitigation is a problem for assassins in high end content. They are updating the assassin tree. It should have some damage mitigation to fix that glaring problem. We've all been around long enough to know that there may never be an ED revamp. So now is the time to ask for what is needed.

The fact that the proposed PRR is in a tier 5 might mean it is more accessible to a splash, but very, very few builds are going to be taking assassin's tier 5s, so I don't think this is a problem and it is therefore in an appropriate place. It should not be in one of the cores because I think it should have the 3 ranks. And let's face it, no one is suggesting that assassins get tank levels of PRR. 5/10/15 in a tier 5 is not asking for much, but it is just enough to give assassins the boost they need. They will still be squishier than other classes, but won't have as much of a problem as they currently do. And I don't think 15 PRR available at level 12 will be game-breaking for heroics. I probably wouldn't even waste the AP on it until I had all my AP to spend (i.e. in epics).

I can see your point.


The last thing I'll say is this - they gave barbarians self healing!!! Talk about anti-thematic to the class. So why deny rogues a tiny bit of damage mitigation?

We need to be careful with this kind of thinking. It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye... Or until every class has to one-up the last class that got a pass. Rangers got a pass way back, and now they are already behind again.




No.

Haha! Agree to disagree. :)

[Nuclear_Elvis]

Although slightly off-topic, having seen the UMD discussion here -- a consideration at the macro level when it comes to Skills is the way that Harper's Tree has changed the game for melees and their Skill progression. A player can choose to max INT which also results in high point values for each level toward your Skills, which results in some classes spending lots of points in otherwise unobtainable amounts. This could apply to UMD or any other *asterisk labeled, non-core skill (that only raises .5 at a time).

[redoubt]

I have seen a lot of deaths in heroic elites due to traps (less since the MRR pass). So for zergers no problem maybe, but for maxing xp in a quest (whihc many people still do) you lose out on trap xp bonus and maybe on the zero death bonus. That alone does not make up for sub par dps or damage mitigation, I agree. But I think to say it is irrelevant is incorrect.

What if traps bypassed MRR?

PRR would still help with physical traps like blades and spikes, but MRR no longer protected against things like fire? Maybe phrase it the opposite of the great poison nerf. MRR protects against magical things, its not magical fire so MRR doesn't apply???



I have seen good gear and 2 rogue levels, combined with a high skill point class, do all traps, but I can't say I have seen it on a single rogue level at all levels of the game. Normally when I see a single rogue level they get locks not traps, but I will take your word for it though.


1 rogue/1 monk/18 ranger. I was able to do every trap. I don't run the build any more though, but not because of a lack of trap skills.

[brzytki]

By the way, i noticed today that it's been 20 pages of this thread and no one asked the Devs yet to finally fix assassinate to go through Deathward/Deathblock. I mean, we've been talking about it on and off for 6 years and still assassinate is considered a "magical death effect"...

[CThruTheEgo]

I thought the quint-essential heroic level UMD scrolling was heal, which has a UMD40. I think waiting until L28 to get useful UMD for a non-UMD/non-CHA class does not negate a good UMD skill that rogues have available all along (or much sooner).

Any class with a blue bar has built in self healing already (and if you build a blue bar class without taking advantage of its inherent self healing options, that's on you and is no fault of any class, a fleshy sorc may be the only exception to this but they won't have a problem scroll healing so it's a non-issue), so really only fighters, barbs, monks, and rogues need to even consider scroll healing. Barbs now have self healing options, so they don't need it. Monks also have some self healing that is sufficient for heroics. Fighters wear heavy armor which has significantly improved their defenses and diminished the need for a solid source of healing. They still need self healing of some sort, but not as much as they once did thanks to the armor up changes. Depending on the gear one has, a rogue will reach heal scroll levels of UMD in the early to late teens. Because rogues did not get a defense boost with the armor up changes, they do need a better source of healing in heroics than others. So I really wouldn't consider UMD healing in heroics an advantage for rogues so much as well balanced (it was, however, an advantage before the armor up changes and before barbs got self healing). Epics, however, is where that balance tends to fall apart, just like every other mechanic.


In epics I agree UMD is easier to come by, but at the same time is not as needed due to destinies that make the UMD skill less needed (Cocoon et al).

This also diminishes the value of UMD for rogues though, because they can get better healing elsewhere. I think it could be argued that because of the inflated damage from mobs and the time it takes to "cast," as well as the possibility of being interrupted, scroll healing in epics is the worst form of self healing currently. I twist cocoon on my assassin and rarely have to use scrolls, just like every other melee without built in self healing. So the value of a rogue's self healing option goes down in epics while their damage mitigation stays the same, and every other class except for monks recently got a boost to damage mitigation. Do you see now why I'm pushing for just a little PRR in the assassin pass?

UMD is certainly still worth taking on any class/build, but it's definitely not worth what it used to be. In fact, I'd argue it's now worth more for self buffs and raising than for self healing.


Still I accept both your points on UMD, but we do seem to be jumping between what is useful on the way up vs what is needed in EE content (i.e. end game). It seems like on the one hand we are talking about end-game only and how these enhancements aren't good enough, vs the fact that at end game most of your power comes from destinies, not enhancements. It is indeed a balancing act for the devs (and players).

Balancing for content from level 1-28 is a problem, I'm certainly not going to argue against that. A wide variety of complete trash builds will succeed quite nicely in heroics, but epics require more refinement and synergy. I think it's good that way tbh, because people who want to experiment with odd builds can do so. But this is exactly the reason why revamps need to be balanced around harder difficulty. If basically anything already works in the easier content, what is the point of doing a revamp if a class/build is not going to be viable/fun in harder content? The whole point of a revamp is to bring them up to speed with the current state of the game, isn't it?

Ideally these revamps should be done all at once. With the assassin revamp should also come a TWF and shadowdancer revamp, but that's not going to happen, as we've already been told. So if these changes are not going to be made elsewhere, then the enhancement revamps have to be balanced for EE, otherwise there's no point in doing them. But as I said before, no one is seriously proposing anything that will be game-breaking for heroics, 15 PRR at level 12 certainly won't be.


I have seen a lot of deaths in heroic elites due to traps (less since the MRR pass). So for zergers no problem maybe, but for maxing xp in a quest (whihc many people still do) you lose out on trap xp bonus and maybe on the zero death bonus. That alone does not make up for sub par dps or damage mitigation, I agree. But I think to say it is irrelevant is incorrect.

I never said it was irrelevant, and I don't think it is. The value of it has certainly diminished but it is not completely irrelevant. But it is definitely not enough of an advantage to justify significantly lower damage mitigation than every other melee and behind the curve dps than every other revamped class. The same goes for UMD. And since you mentioned it, all the extra xp available now (bravery bonus, streak, first time difficulty completion, daily bonus, pots are more common, etc.), as well as the xp curve rebalancing they did, has diminished the value of trap xp also.


We need to be careful with this kind of thinking. It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye... Or until every class has to one-up the last class that got a pass. Rangers got a pass way back, and now they are already behind again.

Agreed, which is why all I'm asking for is a little help to plug up the holes in the build without turning it into the next uberclass. Sev already added the 10 melee power to the capstone, which is good. Now we just need measure the foe to expire 1 stack every 6 seconds and boost the PRR from light armor mastery up to 5/10/15 and those holes should be filled in nicely.

Earlier in the thread someone suggested allowing assassins to pop out, like bugbears do, to heal up. I kind of liked that idea, but I do think it would be too much and I don't want to see the class become an easy button, so I didn't advocate for it. Rogues definitely could use a boost to self healing, but their self healing is "good enough" already. An assassin can get by with cocoon and heal scrolls. But their PRR is not "good enough" and needs more than the 6 from light armor mastery currently proposed. Too much wouldn't be a good thing either though, they just need a little boost is all.

[Bobby88888]

By the way, i noticed today that it's been 20 pages of this thread and no one asked the Devs yet to finally fix assassinate to go through Deathward/Deathblock. I mean, we've been talking about it on and off for 6 years and still assassinate is considered a "magical death effect"...

I was so sure I had mentioned this but it seems I forgot :)

But I totally agree. They can stop a magical compulsion to die but a dagger across the throat should be another matter entirely.

[HatsuharuZ]

By the way, i noticed today that it's been 20 pages of this thread and no one asked the Devs yet to finally fix assassinate to go through Deathward/Deathblock. I mean, we've been talking about it on and off for 6 years and still assassinate is considered a "magical death effect"...

So.... Freedom of Movement was once changed (nerfed) to only stop magical effects, perhaps the same argument could be applied here?

Now that I think about it, banishing effects and turn undead are considered death effects by Deathward effects as well.

[Ayseifn]

So.... Freedom of Movement was once changed (nerfed) to only stop magical effects, perhaps the same argument could be applied here?

Now that I think about it, banishing effects and turn undead are considered death effects by Deathward effects as well.

I'd be cool with assassinate working on deathwarded mobs, just put a 10 second or so immunity to it like neutralize poison does when cast. So get in before DW is cast or wait 10 secs or so to get the kill.

[Monkey-Boy]

Assassinate working on Orange mobs might actually make it worth something.

[CThruTheEgo]

Assassinate working on Orange mobs might actually make it worth something.

/signed. It used to work on them, not sure why it was changed.

[amsharkwei]

why not give assassin spell cast ability or some spell-like ability in assassin tree

LV1??disguise self???detect poison???feather fall???ghost sound???jump???obscuring mist???sleep??? true strike??

LV2??alter self???cat’s grace???darkness???fox’s cunning???illusory script???invisibility??? pass without trace???spider climb???undetectable alignment??

LV3??deep slumber???deeper darkness???false life???magic circle against good???misdirection???nondetection??

LV4??clairaudience/clairvoyance???dimension door???freedom of movement???glibness???greater invisibility???locate creature???modify memory???poison??

Assassin gain additional spell points by having high intelligence

[Torvaldsberg]

Another thought that applies more to early play than the end-game that most of this discussion revolves around...

It would be nice(since assassinate comes so late) for low level assassins to have some sort of 'from stealth' attack that would give them some sort of advantage in a fight. Whether it did significant damage, made the target vulnerable to sneak attack, caused some sort of debuff, etc. Anything to give a low level assassin a reason to sneak up to a mob and attack. It would be a nice way to get new-to-assassin players in the mind set and add something to the early levels. As is is now, an assassin doesn't really 'feel' like an assassin until level 12, which is fairly discouraging for a newer player.

It wouldn't need to be an instant death or anything unbalancing. Just something to keep the interest up. Maybe something like 'any opening attack from stealth has the chance(equal to intelligence or intelligence modifier) to do double the sneak attack damage or render the target susceptible to sneak attacks for 'X' seconds'. Something to give back the feeling we all had the first time we saw a kobold's death spin from the first arrow. At the lower levels, the percent of success granted by intelligence would be low, so it wouldn't be crazily over-powered. It could be limited to creatures with less than a specific number of hit die if there were concerns about it affecting later game play.

Just a though for giving the lower levels some excitement.

[Blackheartox]

Assassinate working on Orange mobs might actually make it worth something.

That would be cool, but ONLY if casters dont get necro to work as well.
Im considering my messing around with exalted necro sorc to be a real blast in fun when it comes to trash clear (and still way ahead of pm when it comes to boss dps)

[Monkey-Boy]

That would be cool, but ONLY if casters dont get necro to work as well.


Agreed.



Im considering my messing around with exalted necro sorc to be a real blast in fun when it comes to trash clear (and still way ahead of pm when it comes to boss dps)

Post details of your experience once you're broken it in.

[Severlin]

Some comments:

~ The randomized traps in ToEE will probably make a trapper with a good Spot skill valuable. Especially on Epic Elite.

~ We are considering making Weakening Strikes reduce Melee Power of enemies with an Assassin's Mark by 10 + 1/2 Rogue level. That means a level 20 Rogue will be getting an extra 20% mitigation.

Yeah, I know I said we were going to hold off on further changes until Lamannia but we've been talking about the discussions on Rogue mitigation.

Sev~

[CThruTheEgo]

~ The randomized traps in ToEE will probably make a trapper with a good Spot skill valuable. Especially on Epic Elite.

I'm glad to hear this. We have needed random traps for a long time now. As long as this is implemented well (i.e. enough randomness so they are not predictable after a few runs), this will really add to the fun factor of traps.


~ We are considering making Weakening Strikes reduce Melee Power of enemies with an Assassin's Mark by 10 + 1/2 Rogue level. That means a level 20 Rogue will be getting an extra 20% mitigation.

This is fantastic. I love this idea. This kind of mitigation better thematically than PRR. Thanks for listening and keeping us informed.


Yeah, I know I said we were going to hold off on further changes until Lamannia but we've been talking about the discussions on Rogue mitigation.

I must have missed where the assassin changes were done until Lam. Are you all considering changing measure the foe to fade 1 stack every 6 seconds instead of all at once after 10 seconds? Inquiring minds want to know.