Please revamp Assassin I (aka ditch poisons)

[Aeneas]

Can we please stop pretending there is any reason to be an assassin rogue before level 12 and skipping straight to assassin II? The Assassin I enhancement is pretty worthless still. Please just ditch the stupid poisons; nobody bothers to use them, they barely work, and they're lame on top of all that.

Is there any chance we could get something mildly useful? For instance, nobody uses daggers. They're pretty terrible as melee weapons (exceeded only by the mighty light hammer). Remove the whole poison idea and give assassin 1 rogues x3 crits with daggers. It would give us a medium threat range weapon (that we didn't need to burn a feat we can't afford to lose - EWP: khopesh) with a decent multiplier that is kept in check by the low base damage vs other exotic or martial choices (khopesh, dwarven axe, warhammer, heavy pick, etc.) After all, nobody hears assassin and thinks "i bet he's using a khopesh". The dagger should be the weapon of choice for a stealthy killer, not a 3 foot long hooked sword.

This would make assassin 1 a great deal more attractive in that it isn't just spending 2/3's of your level 6 AP's for an extra backstab die and a confirm critical bonus. the acrobat and mechanic lines both have very useful and tangible reasons to take the first tier, make it so for assassins and bring a little flavor to the viable weapon selection in the game in the process.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

It also gives +1d6 sneak

[supp3nhuhn]

You just want a free khopesh

Assassin is the most popular pre of rogues by far, no reason to buff it more just because one of the tiers has a not so great active ability.

[jurzey]

Assassin 3 is so awesome it more than makes up for the assassin 1.

I love rolling 20's and watching things die.

Yesterday while playing i walked up to a group of 3 mobs. I assasinated 2 of them and then rolled a 20 as my next roll and the third died.

Although i would really like to have more visibility of whether or not the poisons are working. Does the mob geta poison symbol over his head when it works? I have seen nothing.

[umli123]

i like the idea. It would make dagger usable to make damage, not just carried by casters for extra spell points And still be just ok weapon, 1d4 19-20 x3.... Far from kopesh, but about as good as rapier

[Aeneas]

Assassin 3 is so awesome it more than makes up for the assassin 1.

I love rolling 20's and watching things die.

Yesterday while playing i walked up to a group of 3 mobs. I assasinated 2 of them and then rolled a 20 as my next roll and the third died.

Well that's kinda my point. Nobody cares about assassin at all until they get to at least level 12 and can assassinate things. The first tier is useless and if you're taking assassin 1 instead of mechanic or acrobat you're wasting AP's. Rogues are an extremely feat starved class and spending one of those feats to acquire proficiency in a high multiplier weapon can be a tough pill to swallow. This alternative would provide a small dps bump to anybody that has even a small amount of strength, with the possiblity of making a low level critical hit deadly by adding 50% to the base damage and burst effects.

Although i would really like to have more visibility of whether or not the poisons are working. Does the mob geta poison symbol over his head when it works? I have seen nothing.

I haven't tried using them in a very long time, but i think the mob sorta changes color for a second like when you hit them with destruction or crippling.

Comments in yellowgreen.

[Qezuzu]

IIRC the poisons have a 19 FORT save, AKA useless in anything above lvl10 pretty much.

However, Tier II and III are so powerful that there really is no reason to buff Tier I. A +35 fort save or die every 15 seconds if you manage to get into sneak mode for a few seconds, built-in Vorpal weapons*, and +3d6 SA DMG are just fine the way they are.

*RadII weapons counts as Vorpal in the hands of an assassin. It is pimp. Club of the Silver Flame does too but not if you're aggroed by your target.

[Angelus_dead]

I made a suggestion to fix the poisons so they're useful:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=243120

The idea there is to make poisons into powerful single attack actions, rather than weak boosts that last for 150 attacks.

Buffing dagger crits is also somewhat reasonable (and in fact is slightly included in that link). Giving Assassins a free khopesh-profile weapon (that's light for offhanding) is not reasonable though...

[Razcar]

I don't think the devs would be keen on totally scrapping the poisons, since they have the code, icons, tool-tips etc done for them, they are "there". They'd probably be more positive to keeping Assassin poisons but making them more potent, i.e. useful, instead. Maybe their DC's could scale with level or get boosted by Int - something akin to what A_D proposed.

[CrescentCalling_5]

Forget buffing tier 1, just lower the AP cost and scrap poisons until Turbine comes up with a poison system that actually works.

[Dylvish]

I have to be honest... I love the idea with the daggers. You could for example, as part of the Assasin I pre, give daggers & kukri X3. It would make 2 weapons that are almost never used currently, viable in game. It would also fit concept much better for those of us who actually care about things like that (yeah, I'm one ). When you think of someone being assassinated, its usually with a poisoned dagger, or a crossbow bolt. You rarely picture or hear about someone being assassinated with a 4 foot long blade.

It would not be over buffing, or game breaking in any way (base damage would actually go down) that I can think of, yet would give a great new dynamic to the PRE. You would have a rather defined set for each: Repeaters for Mechanic, Quarterstaff for Acrobat, and Daggers for Assassin.

Good one.

[Aeneas]

I initially thought about saying daggers and kukri's, but the crit range is too large on the kukri's and would cause a serious problem. They'd be like mini SoS's. Dagger is nice because no particular race gets a bonus with it, rogues get it for free, and they're often available for very little plat.

I don't think it's fair to say that this move would be "giving" rogues a khopesh profile weapon for free. The PrE is pretty costly in terms of AP's and does prevent you from taking some useful low level enhancements which would be far more helpful in your average content at that level. I do however understand that their might be some outcry from non-assassin rogues about how they have to spend a feat to use a 19-20 x3 weapon. In light of this possibility, perhaps assassin 1 could grant something similar to the frenzied berzerker super crits.

Perhaps any natural 20 followed by a crit confirmation could add one to the weapon's crit multiplier or something along those lines. With flavor text for the enhancement reading something like, "Your studies into the way of the assassin have made your perfect strikes more deadly. In addition to 1-6 extra backstab damage, whenever a natural 20 is rolled and confirmed, your attacks deal an immense amount of damage and all critical multipliers are increased by 1."

[Dylvish]

I initially thought about saying daggers and kukri's, but the crit range is too large on the kukri's and would cause a serious problem. They'd be like mini SoS's. Dagger is nice because no particular race gets a bonus with it, rogues get it for free, and they're often available for very little plat.

I don't think it's fair to say that this move would be "giving" rogues a khopesh profile weapon for free. The PrE is pretty costly in terms of AP's and does prevent you from taking some useful low level enhancements which would be far more helpful in your average content at that level. I do however understand that their might be some outcry from non-assassin rogues about how they have to spend a feat to use a 19-20 x3 weapon. In light of this possibility, perhaps assassin 1 could grant something similar to the frenzied berzerker super crits.

Perhaps any natural 20 followed by a crit confirmation could add one to the weapon's crit multiplier or something along those lines. With flavor text for the enhancement reading something like, "Your studies into the way of the assassin have made your perfect strikes more deadly. In addition to 1-6 extra backstab damage, whenever a natural 20 is rolled and confirmed, your attacks deal an immense amount of damage and all critical multipliers are increased by 1."

I dont really see it as that big of an issue to be honest. Where as your crits are x3, your avg damage is 1d4+ instead of the nearest, which is 1d6+(usualy racials will add in for these), and most are 1d8, if not DA for the big 10 sider. Your crit range isnt increase (good point on Kukri, forgot about their threat range), just your damage when you do, which is appropriate. At low levels, its fantastic, at high levels it wont matter as much, as 1/3 of your crits are assassinates anyway.
Acrobats get damage bonus to their staves (yay for fixing the dex bonus), Mechanics get 2 exotic ranged weapons (some pple love their ranged killers) and pets / traps (terrible though they may be atm), Assassin gets... to make a dagger useable.

But hey, opinions vary. Im sure some would be upset by it, thats the nature of things. I still like the idea myself, and feel it would add in some great flavor to the PRE, and give daggers a good reason to be in game other than as mage batteries.

[jkm]

Can we please stop pretending there is any reason to be an assassin rogue before level 12 and skipping straight to assassin II? The Assassin I enhancement is pretty worthless still. Please just ditch the stupid poisons; nobody bothers to use them, they barely work, and they're lame on top of all that.

Is there any chance we could get something mildly useful? For instance, nobody uses daggers. They're pretty terrible as melee weapons (exceeded only by the mighty light hammer). Remove the whole poison idea and give assassin 1 rogues x3 crits with daggers. It would give us a medium threat range weapon (that we didn't need to burn a feat we can't afford to lose - EWP: khopesh) with a decent multiplier that is kept in check by the low base damage vs other exotic or martial choices (khopesh, dwarven axe, warhammer, heavy pick, etc.) After all, nobody hears assassin and thinks "i bet he's using a khopesh". The dagger should be the weapon of choice for a stealthy killer, not a 3 foot long hooked sword.

This would make assassin 1 a great deal more attractive in that it isn't just spending 2/3's of your level 6 AP's for an extra backstab die and a confirm critical bonus. the acrobat and mechanic lines both have very useful and tangible reasons to take the first tier, make it so for assassins and bring a little flavor to the viable weapon selection in the game in the process.

why don't we just make them a stance (like arcane archer imbue) and you burn a damage boost to go into the stance (and swap among them). they aren't all that good, but if you did this it wouldn't really matter all that much.

[Thoom]

/signed

Dagger bonuses would be a nice addition low level.

[QuantumFX]

Yes, the poisons can be made more potent. However, they are still useful on epic as they also give a +2 bonus to hit on sneak attacks and a +20 to confirm crits. 1 2

[Bodic]

ok the Poison stinks but the +2 hit and +20 confirm crit you dont like that?

If the Poison was a more visable damage Ie (paralitic,stunning, stoning) basically some type of damage you could see then it would be more worth it.

[Aerendil]

Agreed on the revamp of Assassin I, but disagree on the "ditch poisons" part.

Poisons as a concept is brilliant. It's just the implementation in DDO that is somewhat of a let down.

D&D poisons come in all shapes and forms, but most often in the form of damage or ability damage (or combination). No reason why Assassins, or perhaps even Rogues as a whole, couldn't have that.

There's also the possibility of expanding this to include a greater variety of poisons (such as those causing status effects such as daze, stun, paralysis, nausea, etc.).

Their effects, and the save DC, in DDO just don't cut it as they are currently implemented.

[Angelus_dead]

why don't we just make them a stance (like arcane archer imbue) and you burn a damage boost to go into the stance (and swap among them). they aren't all that good, but if you did this it wouldn't really matter all that much.

That would be less fun than the alternative: Making poisons an active melee attack with a long cooldown and a fairly powerful effect.

Doing it as a strong active attack would mean it's something the player can decide to use exactly when he needs it, and be happy when he's rewarded with putting the right debuff on a monster right when it's most helpful. To make it a non-expiring mode with a weak debuff and a low chance of ever working is like "Hey kids! Here's something bad, but you can have more of it forever"

[Draccus]

A_D, didn't you write up a fairly lengthy suggestion to revamp poisons a few months ago? I thought I had it saved as a favorite but can't find it. It's a bit out of date, as it was written before the assassin tiers gave +SA damage but the suggestions were excellent.