Rogue - Assassin Changes

[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~

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

Shivassive 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

[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...

[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.

[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.