Assassin's "Assassinate": still useless?

[HallowedOne]

At first, when I had read that the death effects had been redesigned for U9, I became happy for my Dex/Int rogue assassin experiment - afterall I was having a lot of fun doing tactical assassinate's on casters and even melee's alike

But then I went and read this...

Melee death effects on items (and the rogue assassin enhancement) have been redesigned.

• For targets with more than 1,000 hit points, vorpal no longer kills and instead hits the target for 100 points of bane damage. If a creature has less than 1,000 hit points, the vorpal effect is applied on a confirmed natural 20 as before.

Then I was... wait, this is STILL gonna be useless: for my assassinate to work, I will have to beat down those epics mobs and THEN stealth AND THEN assassinate! Which is like, as a sorcerer, casting waves of Meteor Swarms then DD'ing and waiting for a Meteor to fall of the sky to kill them!

Now, I realize that it is a powerful ability - but then, aren't everyone getting powerful abilities this update? Sorcerer's multiplying their damage? Pale masters doing AoE Energy Drains + WoB's?

At the moment, there is only 1 melee weapon on the game that favor's a rogue with high int score, which, while being pretty decent, isn't a DR breaker, so their DPS on occasions when it is needed would become lower because of the weapon switch needed.

For Assassinate to work, you need to attack while stealthed, a major drawback when you consider that many mobs will probably spot you on Epic and how hard it is to do Stealth on this game.

Now, the TL;DR Version Question I'm asking is:
Would a piercing Assassinate be REALLY that powerful? Does anyone think that with this rogues would solo epic quests? What is the big FEAR of letting assassinate *assassinate*?

[Alanim]

As far as I know, a rogue's assassinate can vorpal any mob now, because it's at the cost of time.

Assassinate can work on a full hp mob and I think even in epic now is what I'm saying, if I wasn't clear enough up there :P.

[HallowedOne]

I read again the release notes and it is still not clear to me - for me, Assassinate seems to be going to work like a Vorpal on U9.

[Alanim]

That's true.


Very close, but we're still letting vorpals do something.

We've removed arbitrary inherent death wards from virtually all non-boss monsters in the game, and changed instant-kill weapon effects to:

1) Kill the monster outright if it's at or below 1000 current hit points.
2) Deal a chunk of damage (that varies on effect type - vorpal deals more damage than disruption, but does it 1/20th as often) if the monster is over 1000 current hit points or is a boss. For example, if you 'vorpal' a monster that's above 1000 hit points, it will deal 100 extra untyped damage.

This cap is based on current hit points, not total hit points, so a damaged monster becomes vulnerable to weapon based instant death effects.

Assassin III is treated as a vorpal weapon, so is now hit point capped but now has an effect in high level content. Assassin II is treated as a death effect with an opportunity cost, so does not have any hit point related restrictions. You can go ahead and assassinate epic monsters (or monsters in previous death warded dungeons), but be warned that we've also reduced the penalty epic trash has to their saves from the minion debuff (and chopped their hit point to about half of what they were before).

There we go

[siver]

It's like this: There are two assassinate effects. One, you get where every swing, if you roll a 20, the mob falls over dead. That's the "vorpal" assassinate effect. The other, you have to sneak up to an enemy, click the ability, and you try to kill him instantly. That I'll call the "Slay Living" assassinate effect.

The "Vorpal" assassinate effect now works in the exact same way a vorpal weapon does. If the mob has 1001 hp, you roll a 20 while you sneak attack, it takes an extra 100 damage. If your next swing also is a 20, then the mob is now dead.

The "Slay Living" assassinate effect works like the Slay Living, or any other death spell. You sneak up to the mob, click the ability, and if the mob fails the save, then it falls over dead, even if it have 7,349,294 HP when you did it.

Death ward and death block effects can still negate these powers, but most enemies except special bosses (red named, for example) have gotten their default death immunities removed. This means you can now happily murder epic mobs all day long if you want.

[dunklezhan]

it may not be clear from the release notes, but I'm sure I read an eladrin post about this where s/he confirmed that the 1000HP limit does not apply to 'active' abilities like assassinate unless the target actually has deathward/deathblock

Suggest you check out the lammania dev tracker, scroll back three or four pages, or alternatively search all posts by Eladrin within Lammania.

[HallowedOne]

Eh, ignore this thread completely

[dunklezhan]

Found this, eventually. Bold emphasis mine.

That's true.


Very close, but we're still letting vorpals do something.

We've removed arbitrary inherent death wards from virtually all non-boss monsters in the game, and changed instant-kill weapon effects to:

1) Kill the monster outright if it's at or below 1000 current hit points.
2) Deal a chunk of damage (that varies on effect type - vorpal deals more damage than disruption, but does it 1/20th as often) if the monster is over 1000 current hit points or is a boss. For example, if you 'vorpal' a monster that's above 1000 hit points, it will deal 100 extra untyped damage.

This cap is based on current hit points, not total hit points, so a damaged monster becomes vulnerable to weapon based instant death effects.

Assassin III is treated as a vorpal weapon, so is now hit point capped but now has an effect in high level content. Assassin II is treated as a death effect with an opportunity cost, so does not have any hit point related restrictions. You can go ahead and assassinate epic monsters (or monsters in previous death warded dungeons), but be warned that we've also reduced the penalty epic trash has to their saves from the minion debuff (and chopped their hit point to about half of what they were before).

Note that some monsters still cast Death Ward or Mass Death Ward. That hasn't changed, and if they actually have the spell on, it'll stop death effects as expected. We just removed the blanket immunity most high level trash had.

For the monks out there, Void IV is not considered "zero opportunity cost". By that phrase, I meant "instant death effects that just sort of happen out of the blue, not because you actively chose to push a button and paid a cost in ki, spell points, or time (like Assassinate)". For the spellcasters, there have been some changes to a number of death spells, mostly increased damage on save and changed cooldowns.

[Draccus]

Assassinate (the Assassin II activated ability) works better now.
Assassin Vorpal Death Strike (or whatever the new name for the Assassin III ability is) is nerfed in non-epic quests but better in epic quests.

I tested Assassinate in Epic VoN1 and was able to assassine the epic bugbears 3/5 times with a DC of 38. Prior to U9, you couldn't assassinate any epic mob, period.

I also tested the Vorpal Death Strike in Epic Claw of Vulkoor and was able to insta-kill Warlock Sobrien once he was down to about 2% health. Prior to U9, I couldn't instakill him at all.

[HallowedOne]

Yeah, my main concern was with the Assassinate ability, not the Vorpal Strike.

BTW, is Assassinate still proc'ing on both weapons?

[.Revenga.]

Assassinate (the Assassin II activated ability) works better now.
Assassin Vorpal Death Strike (or whatever the new name for the Assassin III ability is) is nerfed in non-epic quests but better in epic quests.

I tested Assassinate in Epic VoN1 and was able to assassine the epic bugbears 3/5 times with a DC of 38. Prior to U9, you couldn't assassinate any epic mob, period.

I also tested the Vorpal Death Strike in Epic Claw of Vulkoor and was able to insta-kill Warlock Sobrien once he was down to about 2% health. Prior to U9, I couldn't instakill him at all.

This would mean we can assasinate the Warlock Sobrien? take the wiz hireling with enervate, lvl drain, assasinate, be done with it? Would be fun, should improve time of running it too :-p

[Trillea]

This would mean we can assasinate the Warlock Sobrien? take the wiz hireling with enervate, lvl drain, assasinate, be done with it? Would be fun, should improve time of running it too :-p

It should work as long as they don't bump him up to red named. Although enervate may make Sobrien aggro on the hireling and beat him down quickly, so I don't know how many enervates you will get off..

[Junts]

I read again the release notes and it is still not clear to me - for me, Assassinate seems to be going to work like a Vorpal on U9.

You're misunderstanding the release note.

Assassin 3 has a passive ability where all vorpal strikes, regardless of weapon, can instant kill. This exists on live, right now, but is irrelevant becuase of death immunity. This ability will function as described.

The 'assassinate' ability, granted by Assassin 2, which costs time, requires stealth, and is a specific dc x or die effect, will function in epic exactly as its supposed to: dc x or die. However, you will have a very hard time having a high enough dc for it to land with the increased mob saving throws.

[.Revenga.]

It should work as long as they don't bump him up to red named. Although enervate may make Sobrien aggro on the hireling and beat him down quickly, so I don't know how many enervates you will get off..

I ve been using enervate from a hireling and then some flesh to stone scrolls lately to speed the fight up. Enervate doesnt seem to attract much aggro, although the results vary.
Sometimes the warlock aggro's the hireling after a few enervates and i ve had times he could go on as long as he could. Havent figured out what attracks the aggro.

Making him a red named would make solo'ing eclaw alot harder, as he can't be blinded then.

[Bodic]

assassinate shall work just like Wail, FoD, and Symbol:death all insta-kills even in EPIC no matter mobs HP provided they fail their fort saves.

Assassinate is a sneak only timed attack so it has a cost unlike a vorpal weapon.

my serchfuu is Weaksauce, but that did come from Eladrin IIRC.

[GoRinNoSho]

Will assassin 3 stack with vorpals for slashing assassins? I.E. 200 damage on vorpal sneak attack

[Soul-Shaker]

Assassin III vorpal strike does not do vorpal dmg. Well I tested it 2 patches(2weeks back) back but it only does the killing effect <1000 hp left.

Assassin III vorpal strike does not do 100 dmg when above 1000 hp. Since they gave it a new name from vorpal effect, I bet its WAI .

[Zero_Tolerance]

Assassin III vorpal strike does not do vorpal dmg. Well I tested it 2 patches(2weeks back) back but it only does the killing effect <1000 hp left.

Assassin III vorpal strike does not do 100 dmg when above 1000 hp. Since they gave it a new name from vorpal effect, I bet its WAI .

Well, reading dev notes about that, it must be bugged. Is it still not doing 100dmg on vorpal hit? And as asked above, does it stack with vorpal weapon's +100dmg?

[Rizzyn]

From the Notes:

Melee death effects on items (and the rogue assassin enhancement) have been redesigned.

* For targets with more than 1,000 hit points, vorpal no longer kills and instead hits the target for 100 points of bane damage. If a creature has less than 1,000 hit points, the vorpal effect is applied on a confirmed natural 20 as before.

It sounds like Assassinate III's vorpal effect SHOULD do 100 points of bane damage. If it does not, it should be reported as a Bug when you see it happen, or they'll likely miss it. I've a level to go before I can test this, but I'm half-way there. I've reported a few on the spot Bugs, and response has been fairly favorable -- a Monster or two trapped in a wall, odd Syntax from NPCs or weapon effects.

Overall, I've made very good use of Assassinate now that high-level mobs are not automatically Death Warded. Epic tests will have to wait, or be left to folks that are already there, as far as my abilities are concerned.

[Soul-Shaker]

Just tested again in epic chrono first devil blinded

(Combat): You attack Bazdor. You roll a 20 : you critical hit!
(Combat): You roll to confirm a critical on Bazdor. You roll a 10 (+68): Critical Hit!
(Combat): You hit Bazdor for 5 points of good damage.
(Combat): You hit Bazdor for 17 points of light damage.
(Combat): you hit Bazdor with Radiance Blindness.
(Combat): you hit Bazdor with Radiance.
(Combat): You sneak attack Bazdor for 105 points of pierce damage.

no 100 vorpal strike dmg let alone vorpal death strike in combat log.

Then here is after <1000 HP
(Combat): You attack Bazdor. You roll a 20 : you critical hit!
(Combat): You roll to confirm a critical on Bazdor. You roll a 7 (+63): Critical Hit!
(Combat): You hit Bazdor for 10 points of good damage.
(Combat): You hit Bazdor for 12 points of light damage.
(Combat): you hit Bazdor with Radiance Blindness.
(Combat): you hit Bazdor with Radiance.
(Combat): you hit Bazdor with Vorpal Death Strike.
(Combat): You sneak attack Bazdor for 112 points of pierce damage.
(Combat): You killed Bazdor.