To Prestige or not to Prestige?

[Fleebag]

So I got my rogue to level 7 only to realize I haven't really paid any attention to prestige class enhancements. My rogue is strength-based with TWF and Khopesh proficiency. He's human and has about 20 str, 17 dex, 14 int. Hes got pretty decent skills, low but usable UMD, and does alot of damage in a group. I like to play him just as a combat rogue, with trap skills. I think of this as a 'thug' subclass.

Looking at the prestige enhancements, it looks like thief-acrobat is the only thing close. Given that I won't be using staves at all, is this worth it? Am I missing out by not getting a prestige enhancement or building towards assassin?

[Mav145]

I don't really know what your ultimate goal is here but how could you resist the automatic vorpals at level 18? That sounds to me like it is the perfect fit for your build.

What did you miss along the way that closed out assassin to you?

[Tuney]

None of the Rogue PrE's require feats just AP costs. Mechanic is generaly used in the lower levels due to most rogues not being pimped out in equipment and tend to run quests a few levels above their heads.

Assassin line is about pumping out sneak attack damage and extra critical hit damage and Acrobat is more about the knockdown immunity and Showtime being frosting and the Stave speed as flavor.

[Symar-FangofLloth]

Prestige!
Really, you get so much out of taking one.
You could Assassin for more damage (the Assassin 1 poisons are a waste if you're trying to apply the poison, IMO, but you get +to-hit with sneakattacks and +crit confirm while active, and you'll get passive +crit damage anyway). Later tiers will increase the crit damage, and you'll eventually (at level 18, Tier 3) get free vorpal attacks on natural 20s with sneak attacks.
Acrobat is okay; more Uncanny Dodge, an optional way to use Haste Boost to get a large movement and Dex bonus for a full minute. And later tiers give even more Uncanny Dodge and immunity to knockdown/slippery surfaces. (And there's no 3rd tier yet! Think what that could bring.) Plus faster quarterstaff usage, if you ever decide to use one.
Mechanic is generally considered subpar, but it's nice at low levels when you can often wind up doing quests above your level and undergeared. It's just a basic +trap skills passive boost; though you can heal warforged barely with it. Tier two grants a Construct Smite, but I've never heard anything about it, as most people don't use this line.

[Fleebag]

Oh well assassin seemed combat oriented, however it relies on stealth alot. I find in most parties I rarely get to stealth attack anything. Stuff just moves too quickly for that. It didnt seem to fit the 'thug' style of play, but I'd appreciate thoughts on that from folks who have tried it.

[Creddi]

Just a tip for you in response to your last comment... you do not need to be stealthy to get sneak attack damage! You just have to *not* have agro, something you likely want to avoid anyway. As long as someone else whacks something first, you will almost certainly be getting quite a bit of sneak attack damage in.

Think of it as poking them when they are distracted rather than actually attacking while sneaking .

[Fleebag]

Right but according to this page:
http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Class:Rogue

Assassin II (granted, this is a ways away) requires stealth to activate the Assassinate ability. Did I get this wrong? Perhaps I can just tap stealth mid-fight and then tap this ability?

[Auran82]

Right but according to this page:
http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Class:Rogue

Assassin II (granted, this is a ways away) requires stealth to activate the Assassinate ability. Did I get this wrong? Perhaps I can just tap stealth mid-fight and then tap this ability?

You can either sneak in behind them and assasinate, or in the middle of the fight, hit stealth, then assasinate.

[chaos_master]

In my experience, Assassinate is fun, sometimes useful, but generally unneeded after level 14-16. It's just too slow to go to sneak mode and do an attack that at those levels won't really have a meaningful success rate, when you know your next shot will be in 20 (not sure) seconds.

Assassin III is the real deal for Assassins - all you need to do is NOT have agro, as someone else above noted, and you have the chance to vorpal everything. And at those levels, vorpal is pretty much the most useful prefix you can have on a weapon.

[Draccus]

First, here's my quick assessment of the three levels of the Assassin PrE

Assassin I - not worth the time it takes to type this.
Assassin II - Extremely situational in group and loads of fun solo.
Assassin III - Epic Win

So logic would say to take the PrE. However, I would NOT take Assassin I until much, much later than it's available. It's technically available at level 6.1 but I think it would be a mistake to take it that early because of the enchancement requirements. Assasssin I requires Rogue Skill: Hide II and Rogue Skill: Move Silently II. Those enhancements are a relative waste of APs at low levels. Instead of burning those 6 APs, I'd use them for maxing Haste Boost, Sneak Attack Training, Sneak Attack Accuracy, Racial Toughness, and racial melee enhancements.

Once you have all those maxed, add Hide II and MS II right around level 12 when you can take Assassin II.

[Jay203]

the question should be "why the hell not?"

[Murderface]

i dont think its that much of an issue if you dont take prc levels you still advance and get high lvl abilities problem with ddo is you stay your same class get the same high lvl abilities yet have more abilities along with the high lvl abilities for any class
for example if i wanted to go fighter then frenzied bezerker i would miss out on those extra fighter feats giving them up for fb abilities in ddo you get all the feats and the prc abilities without missing a step so yes its probably not a good idea to forgo prc sspecialy for melee classes

ok here is a better example since you cant be fb and fighter in this game lord knows why cuz everyone knows in other dnd games fighter is the best if you plan on getting a prc in early lvls and multiple ones at that since most prc have feat prereqs

so lets say you want a tempest 3 build ok in this game it takes 18 lvls of ranger in pnp or other dnd games it would go something like this
6 ranger lvls get your prereq feats then switch over to tempest take 12 lvls of that and lets say for the sake of it you take 2 more ranger lvls

the problem is with only 8 ranger levels you dont get evasion you dont get high lvl bark skin. you dont get 30 elemental resistance also no fom yada yada yada so its perfectly normal to say hey i like rangers abilities better at lvl 20 ranger then a multiclass prc which would only allow you to get the prc abilities whatever they are

therefor in this game it would be dumb not to get a prc because instead of sacrificing ranger abilities you just add to them only maybe sacing a few enhancments which are obviously not as good, unless it sucks like deepwood sniper or something else dumb which for every melee class they have one excelent prc and the rest are meh

[Bitterbarb]

Assassin 1 poison isn't what it could be, but I use ThoughtBurn quite often... works like a charm, especially if you miss your assassinate, and end up having to melee a pesky caster/cleric mob that keeps healing itself.

Assassin 2 = Assassinate, which is great. You don't need to 'sneak' up to the mob.. just need to let someone get agro first, quickly pop into stealth, and pop off your gank. One shotting a Beholder is most rewarding.

Assassin 3, while I have just gotten there myself, seems to be pretty fun. Wait for the melee to start, then run in stabbin' and slabbin'. Mobs drop like flies.



As others have mentioned, I specced as a Mechanic until about level 8-ish, then I started concentrating on the Assassin pre-reqs. I was late getting to Assassin 2 (got there at level 14), but made it to Assassin3 on time (18).

As fun as an Assassin is, the Acrobat sounds like fun. The way of the mechanic is, unfortunately, somewhat pointless. There isn't many traps I can't do at Assassin 3.

[rimble]

You can either sneak in behind them and assasinate, or in the middle of the fight, hit stealth, then assasinate.

Or even if that's not your style just ignore Assassin II and enjoy your free vorpals from Assassin III. You have that Assassinate tool so I think it would be better for you to learn to use it, but you don't have to.

[Fleebag]

Thanks all - this is useful.