Rogue - Assassin Changes

[Donny_b]

Players have an infinite number of builds to experiment with. This includes DC insta kill through bard. You dont need rogue to do this.

You suggest that assassins should also have stunning fist because you like it.
Others want a no fail DC without any real build investment (skill based DC).
Others want fast movement.
Others want instant full heals (everybody else has them, right?)
Others want the same melee dps as top tier builds

Pretty soon all characters can assassinate, and every single DDO build plays exactly the same.

Just because you like an ability does not mean that every class needs to have it. Having different classes be able to do different things, with different strengths and weaknesses leads to variety. Giving everyone everything does not.

Okay the rest of that i get, but how are you gonna compare a ridiculous dc of a bard instakill that not only has the option to get four off the bat at game start, one per pevek and modified by charisma, but can also easily get a 20 item 4exc etc etc? That's an illogical comparison

[nokowi]

Okay the rest of that i get, but how are you gonna compare a ridiculous dc of a bard instakill that not only has the option to get four off the bat at game start, one per pevek and modified by charisma, but can also easily get a 20 item 4exc etc etc? That's an illogical comparison

Here is the fundamental problem. Trying to make all builds the same. Each build should be different.

Bard was revamped as the easy entrance into EE that would prove that melee could be viable. Bard serves a very specific role in DDO. Why Bard? Emotionally, I am guessing some dev's play bards in PnP and have a special love for them. More logically, bard was the melee class that needed the most buffing at the time. Bard gives players a place who want to enjoy a melee instakill with infinite cross-class build possibilities without having to go find gear or develop expert skills. (Not meaning to offend here, there are certainly bard players with expert skills).

DC assassin gives a place for experienced players who want to challenge themselves. This includes finding the right gear, and making real build sacrifices. It involves developing more skills than are needed for other classes.

Is this fair? Not if you are set on playing a DC Assassin but feel the challenge is too hard. It is completely fair if you ask the more general question "Can I play a melee DC insta kill character with infinite cross class possibilities" - YES! Bard

By making DC assassin like bard, you remove a space for people who want the challenge without providing much for those that want less challenge.

Believe me, I argued loudly against the current Bard mechanics. One of the big reasons was that players would expect the same thing. In my opinion, bard could have been made very viable and powerful without giving them special rules. At this point, I have no desire to change bard. I want to prevent the same thing from happening to assassin.

[Saekee]

When I mean a fix at epics, I mean something else to scale from level 21+. The difference between a level 19 rogue and a level 20 rogue with capstone and shadowdancer is +11 DC (+12 if the int bump goes to an even number).

Assassins need new level 21+ gear to compete. Stacking more stuff at level 20 will just make leveling on epics irrelevant. That is one of the reasons that almost no one stay at level 28 for too long. The power between a level 20-23 and 28 character is just too similar.

Nibel I would like to add to this how important it is to have an improved deception weapon & item. The latter is easier to get; the former rather grindy. And there are no improved deception weapons in heroics. Nokowi's vid on deception reminded me how powerul this combo is for rogues for both offense and defense. That is why my Twilight Blade uses tier 5 of Harper.

Severlin,
You are right, they are not the same. You want stealth to be relevant, but the game is prejudiced heavily against stealth, even in solo play.
1. Any interactions break sneak and invis.
2. objectives that require mass killing
3. doors that "magically" unlock when EVERY mob in the room dies.
4. most champions have see invis or true seeing (hey, if we are talking "stealth" and not just "sneak" this counts!)
5. No way to avoid tremor sense or blind sight (also things I've suggested in this thread.)
6. masses of mobs that spawn around you when you cross a specific location in the quest. (We should be able to "stealth" past, open the door and "stealth" on by without the mobs ever spawning, but Turbine won't let us.)

These are things that are killing stealth. I'm happy to address them. In fact, I'd love to address them, but that is not what this thread is about.

I don't know how you want us to respond, but I will tell you that if you are sneaking/stealthing around, then my paladin and the other 4 in the party will RUN past you and kill everything in the room before you arrive. This is why I say stealth does not work well in groups. Its the same problem with fascinate. Groups don't have the patience or the appropriate awareness of how to deal with fascinated mobs. THAT, and the monte hall dps we do clears ROOMs so fast that no other tactic is needed.

Of course stealth works better when solo. CC is likely not needed in most quests. With the use of patience and proper single pulling of mobs you can kill things one at a time. This is only place left for the actual stealth game today. (Again, I'd be happy to discuss ways to invigorate the stealth game, but in another thread.)

Hi redoubt, I agree with this list. For #1, I address some solutions here:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...de-Assassinate

I agree with you and HATE #2 & #3. It is as if we are forced sometimes to be bulls in a China shop.

#4 does not affect stealth, just invisi--which could be used to pull champs out of a group by luring them while invisi and out of stealth.

For #5, wraith form & its equivalent in Shadowdancer should not trigger either tremor sense (you are floating!) or undead life sense (at least for the PM shroud, although the SD version also suffers 2x light damage--so maybe it is implied that one's life force is inverted).

[nokowi]

Nibel I would like to add to this how important it is to have an improved deception weapon & item. The latter is easier to get; the former rather grindy. And there are no improved deception weapons in heroics. Nokowi's vid on deception reminded me how powerul this combo is for rogues for both offense and defense. That is why my Twilight Blade uses tier 5 of Harper.



Hi redoubt, I agree with this list. For #1, I address some solutions here:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...de-Assassinate

I agree with you and HATE #2 & #3. It is as if we are forced sometimes to be bulls in a China shop.

#4 does not affect stealth, just invisi--which could be used to pull champs out of a group by luring them while invisi and out of stealth.

For #5, wraith form & its equivalent in Shadowdancer should not trigger either tremor sense (you are floating!) or undead life sense (at least for the PM shroud, although the SD version also suffers 2x light damage--so maybe it is implied that one's life force is inverted).

I love all these limitations but I can understand that I am the crazy one I would like these limitations to be balanced by ... something! For me this is simply having better melee insta kill than a bard.

[Arkantios]

1. INT based assassins I am familiar with.
2. I had a dex based assassin a long time ago. Cthru convinced me to go INT based instead (even before harper.) Can you elaborate on the existing DEX based assassins?
3. Can you please elaborate on the build that assassinates and runs in Fury of the Wild?
4. Same, but for LD.
5. Assassinate is a melee only skill.

Nokowi earlier mentioned that #4 was a LD Assassin build. I personally don't like fury all that much and shadowdancer is more of a utility destiny to me. I enjoy shadowdancer, believe me on that, but I like the extra prr from blitz, the haste boosts, extra action boosts, attacks, etc. LD is what my SneakATank (Pure 20 Human rogue) build runs in most of the time with twists like stealthy and maybe an int for the dc's, sense weakness for the extra damage, and rejuv cocoon because I was awesome and made a t3 tf qstaff healy stick. I haven't been it in a while so I didn't have the top notch gear for it so I had an Assassinate DC in the higher 60's because I didn't sacrifice everything into Int and whatnot. It never bothered me though because I enjoyed having aggro on mobs mostly because I have cleave/great cleave with several deception procs, a decent prr, good reflex, good hamp, and a radiance guard GS item for the fun of it. Most of the time I still get top of the kill count because I switch between running in and tanking everything via imp deception/(insert other damage mitigation thingamajiggers here) and sneaking around, jumping over my party members and other mobs to do some flying assassinates when it's off timer.

People need to have more fun with their builds and stop complaining so much. We really don't need that much of a dc boost honestly. Maybe +1 - +2 here or there but like several have said before, instead of pushing this into enhancements, we could just have higher level items with the DC's on them. Make them 25-28 because there's no point in increasing the DC till then. Also, decreasing the cooldown on assassinate and/or adding a bit more doublestrike into the tree would severely add to how useful it is. DC's aren't everything.

[CThruTheEgo]

Sev, I'd love to know what you think of these and if any of them are still an option.

This is just a quick summary of the changes I would still like to see implemented. Altogether, these changes would increase the power of the assassin to make them more competative with the other revamped classes, but without turning it into an equivalent easy button and without significantly altering their unique playstyle. In fact, many of these changes would facilitate their playstyle and revitalize them to the lethal killers they were when the level cap was 20.

1) Increase sneak speed: As stated previously, giving assassin at least 100% base movement speed does not increase their power in any way, but it does increase their compatibility with groups. Drop faster sneaking altogether, or move it back to acrobat for other rogues to use, then add to each of the first five cores a 10% reduction in the sneak speed penalty, so by the level 18 core an assassin would have no penalty. I can't think of any reason why this shouldn't happen. If taking faster sneaking along with these reductions would be considered too fast (and I think it might), then make them mutually exclusive. Maybe each of the first 3 cores locks you out of 1 rank of faster sneaking, and vice versa, so by the third core, you wouldn't be able to take faster sneaking at all.

2) Measure the foe fade 1 stack every 6 seconds: Under the current proposal, it will simply be tedious to drop into sneak every 10 seconds to keep the buff up. Changing it to fade 1 stack every 6 seconds would still require dropping into sneak every so often to keep it up (more often, in fact, if you want to keep it maxed), but would not require extreme micromanagement to get any benefit from it at all. Less micromanagement means more fun. I think this would also encourage being in sneak mode for more time overall, which certainly fits thematically.

3) Decrease cooldown of assassinate to 12 seconds: This is not too short and will enable the assassin to use its defining ability more often. Decreasing the cooldown will make assassinate more competitive with coup de grace without simply raising the DC. Having a shorter cooldown on assassinate also encourages assassins to be in sneak mode more often.

4) Scale lethality into epics by proccing an assassinate check on vorpal: On vorpal, perform an assassinate using the assassinate DC. On failed save, target is killed instantly. On successful save, target takes 10d6 additional sneak attack damage. The extra damage on a successful save comes to an average of 1.75. On an assassin with an essentially no fail DC, this change would effectively preserve lethality by having it scale appropriately into epics. It would essentially maintain the same effect as it does in heroics. I don't see why this shouldn't be the case.

5) Change deadly shadow: I think the capstone should provide +4 int, +1 assassinate DC, +4d6 sneak attack damage, 10 melee power. This provides a total of +3 DCs on a pure assassin, which is 2 more than we currently get.

6) Increase light armor mastery PRR to 5/10/15: While I appreciate the melee power debuff, I still think a slight increase in more consistent damage mitigation is necessary. An additional 9 PRR is not going to amount to much, but it will help assassins in the area that they most need it.

[redoubt]

It was a +6 supreme tome actually and I have been playing for 5 and a half years, that character is 1 of 9 and you can easily get ~1200 TP a life without first time bonuses these days so I have built up a lot of TP over the years, not to mention favour farming each sever to 100 fav. Getting enough for a +6 supreme on the 20% off sales is easy enough and when you have nothing better to spend it on why not
But I probably should have adjusted numbers for a +3 tome to dex/con and +5 to int which gives ~70 int still, 36 or 38 dex and 36 or 38 con

I know you can earn TP across a number of characters and a number of lives. You post made it sound like your FIRST life character earned enough to buy them (i.e. you were using it as an example of what a first life character could earn.)

[redoubt]

Actually there are a lot of places that sneaking (successfully, low hide/ms doesn't work) will not spawn mobs/activate them at all. Of course the rest of the group blunders through moments later and sets them all off but you can skip spawning a lot of mobs by having the entire group successful sneak past.

Agreed. And that further illustrates my point that the game is stacked against actual stealth play in groups.

In that situation, the stealth character should be able to open the door for the group or disarm a trap or take some other action that makes the path clear for the group. That is the reward for slowing down and waiting for a stealthy character to do their part.

[BigErkyKid]

Alright, so here are my suggestions:


- Add the healing barbs got to the assassin tree: if the best AOE melee in the game can have it, why not assassins.
This could be tweaked. For instance, on kill and on successful sneak attack.

- Add the current MP and what not enhancements as it is.
This seems fine, also the out of stealth boost seems good in terms of the general theme

- Reduce assassinate CD to around 6 seconds.
I would hardly call it OP when in 6 seconds the top classes have killed a PACK of mobs

- Improve one strike abilities they have
Execute should be more powerful. Maybe remove the HP requirement and have the 500 damage scale with MP. It would not hurt to reduce the cool down.

[redoubt]

Sev, I'd love to know what you think of these and if any of them are still an option.

This is just a quick summary of the changes I would still like to see implemented. .

Great summary and 6 great ideas! I'm in!

Sev, how about you?

[dualscissors]

Sev, I'd love to know what you think of these and if any of them are still an option.

This is just a quick summary of the changes I would still like to see implemented. Altogether, these changes would increase the power of the assassin to make them more competative with the other revamped classes, but without turning it into an equivalent easy button and without significantly altering their unique playstyle. In fact, many of these changes would facilitate their playstyle and revitalize them to the lethal killers they were when the level cap was 20.

That's a strong list in summary. /agree

[brzytki]

Btw guys, Lama is open now, so you might want to jump in and check it now.

[Severlin]

Sev, I'd love to know what you think of these and if any of them are still an option.

This is just a quick summary of the changes I would still like to see implemented. Altogether, these changes would increase the power of the assassin to make them more competative with the other revamped classes, but without turning it into an equivalent easy button and without significantly altering their unique playstyle. In fact, many of these changes would facilitate their playstyle and revitalize them to the lethal killers they were when the level cap was 20.

1) Increase sneak speed: As stated previously, giving assassin at least 100% base movement speed does not increase their power in any way, but it does increase their compatibility with groups. Drop faster sneaking altogether, or move it back to acrobat for other rogues to use, then add to each of the first five cores a 10% reduction in the sneak speed penalty, so by the level 18 core an assassin would have no penalty. I can't think of any reason why this shouldn't happen. If taking faster sneaking along with these reductions would be considered too fast (and I think it might), then make them mutually exclusive. Maybe each of the first 3 cores locks you out of 1 rank of faster sneaking, and vice versa, so by the third core, you wouldn't be able to take faster sneaking at all.

We will watch for Lamannia feedback on this. Keep in mind that the low hanging Acrobat speed boost should affect overall speed including stealth. While we have some room for improvement, I don't think we want stealth to provide a speed boost over unstealthed speed.

2) Measure the foe fade 1 stack every 6 seconds: Under the current proposal, it will simply be tedious to drop into sneak every 10 seconds to keep the buff up. Changing it to fade 1 stack every 6 seconds would still require dropping into sneak every so often to keep it up (more often, in fact, if you want to keep it maxed), but would not require extreme micromanagement to get any benefit from it at all. Less micromanagement means more fun. I think this would also encourage being in sneak mode for more time overall, which certainly fits thematically.

Measure the Foe is not meant to be a constant buff which is why it doesn't fade away. We want it to feel like the Assassin is really good in those first 10 seconds of surprise and confusion among foes, and then they are back to normal in the next round. It's our best representation of pen and paper's surprise round.

3) Decrease cooldown of assassinate to 12 seconds: This is not too short and will enable the assassin to use its defining ability more often. Decreasing the cooldown will make assassinate more competitive with coup de grace without simply raising the DC. Having a shorter cooldown on assassinate also encourages assassins to be in sneak mode more often.

We have been discussing this as an option. If overall performance of Assassin is too low then this is a buff we can consider. As an aside, we don't want to buff Assassinate for the sole reason that CdG is better, as that ability is probably over-performing.

4) Scale lethality into epics by proccing an assassinate check on vorpal: On vorpal, perform an assassinate using the assassinate DC. On failed save, target is killed instantly. On successful save, target takes 10d6 additional sneak attack damage. The extra damage on a successful save comes to an average of 1.75. On an assassin with an essentially no fail DC, this change would effectively preserve lethality by having it scale appropriately into epics. It would essentially maintain the same effect as it does in heroics. I don't see why this shouldn't be the case.

I don't know why Lethality doesn't list the effect, DC, etc. That is something I should probably fix so players can discuss it.

5) Change deadly shadow: I think the capstone should provide +4 int, +1 assassinate DC, +4d6 sneak attack damage, 10 melee power. This provides a total of +3 DCs on a pure assassin, which is 2 more than we currently get.

Deadly Shadow on Lamannia provides a +2 to Assasinate DC.

We want to support Dexterity based Rogues who are Assassins, especially since the tree itself gives Dexterity to hit and damage with daggers/kukri. We wouldn't make the capstone only Intelligence. It's already enough of a disadvantage to lose out on Assassinate DC.

6) Increase light armor mastery PRR to 5/10/15: While I appreciate the melee power debuff, I still think a slight increase in more consistent damage mitigation is necessary. An additional 9 PRR is not going to amount to much, but it will help assassins in the area that they most need it.

The vision is that Assassin isn't meant to be a passive mitigation tree. Their mitigation will come from debuffs. If you need passive mitigation you will want to splash it.

We are looking into how much of an issue on shots are for rogues since they have lower hit points. It's a big discussion point in the player's council as well. If we address it we'd more likely add functionality to Improved Defensive Roll to cut back specifically on those big hits rather than adding more passive mitigation.

Sev~

[Erofen]

We want to support Dexterity based Rogues who are Assassins, especially since the tree itself gives Dexterity to hit and damage with daggers/kukri. We wouldn't make the capstone only Intelligence. It's already enough of a disadvantage to lose out on Assassinate DC.

Sev~

You say they are at a disadvantage and you want to support them, but you do not try to remedy part of the problem by adding dex to assassinate. All of the super high dex numbers like 70+ are from multiclasses (shuricannons specifically which do not even use melee much) which would not have an effective dc anyways, or temporary boosts from potions with heavy ap investment. I am trying to enjoy these changes but dex based just feels worthless at this current state in the game. Thanks for all the effort being put in.

[Severlin]

You say they are at a disadvantage and you want to support them, but you do not try to remedy part of the problem by adding dex to assassinate. All of the super high dex numbers like 70+ are from multiclasses (shuricannons specifically which do not even use melee much) which would not have an effective dc anyways, or temporary boosts from potions with heavy ap investment. I am trying to enjoy these changes but dex based just feels worthless at this current state in the game. Thanks for all the effort being put in.

I understand what you are saying, but I also agree with feedback that an Intelligence based Assassin has to pay the price to dip into Harper and pay a feat tax to function using Intelligence. If we changed Assassinate to be also Dexterity then it kills the hard choice between Dexterity and Intelligence that exists on in the current revamp.

Sev~

[draven1]

Measure the Foe is not meant to be a constant buff which is why it doesn't fade away. We want it to feel like the Assassin is really good in those first 10 seconds of surprise and confusion among foes, and then they are back to normal in the next round. It's our best representation of pen and paper's surprise round.

So, is blitz meant to be a constant buff? But, not measure the foe & killer?

I don't know why Lethality doesn't list the effect, DC, etc. That is something I should probably fix so players can discuss it.

Giving assassinate chance to every 20 roll may be over-power. I think Sneak Attack crit on crit is proper for Lethality enhancement.

The vision is that Assassin isn't meant to be a passive mitigation tree. Their mitigation will come from debuffs. If you need passive mitigation you will want to splash it.

Yup, squishy, but deadly. I think the best mitigation method for rogues are using their GUTS & WIT
I like to see more aggro management methods(Bluff, Diplo, sometimes Intim) & some roguish CC(SAP, hamstring, slicing blow) here.
It's really too hard to get enough social skill points for harder EE contents like stormhorn. Even with full skill point to social skill, +20 bluff, diplo gear, some extra cha gears doesn't make much difference on harder EE contents. It seems just always fail on that social skill check whether you fully invested for it or not.

We are looking into how much of an issue on shots are for rogues since they have lower hit points. It's a big discussion point in the player's council as well. If we address it we'd more likely add functionality to Improved Defensive Roll to cut back specifically on those big hits rather than adding more passive mitigation.

Defensive roll & slippery mind are the last bastion for squishy rogues. It should let rogues narrowly escape brushes with death like its description.
Sadly, it's currently not. I think granting some temporary hp & dodge on successful reflex save would be helpful for that emergency situation. Also, granting some additional will save on 2nd roll for slippery mind, too.
Threshold for defensive roll should be raised.

-----------------------------
I like to add something here.

Let assassins use hide skill to keep sneak state like concentration skill for casters.

It's very annoying to lose assassination chance by just 1 single weak arrow. Even missed or dodged arrow can break sneak.

Casters & Divines can cast in heavy rain of arrows,
but even if that arrow deals just 1 damage,
it can be enough to break well skilled master assasin's assasination chance.

Casters & divine can use even no fail casting with quicken.

[Saekee]

You say they are at a disadvantage and you want to support them, but you do not try to remedy part of the problem by adding dex to assassinate. All of the super high dex numbers like 70+ are from multiclasses (shuricannons specifically which do not even use melee much) which would not have an effective dc anyways, or temporary boosts from potions with heavy ap investment. I am trying to enjoy these changes but dex based just feels worthless at this current state in the game. Thanks for all the effort being put in.

A lot of those big dex numbers were getting them from the shadow toggle that gave +6. That is being fixed back. Otherwise the extra boost comes from Wind Stance and Tenser's, basically.
I love Dex builds but really do not see Dex being used for assassinate. Dex builds get the small advantage of having better AC, and if they splash monk they get Wisdom to AC as well (and they save the insightful reflex feat). The build in my sig multiclasses as a 13rogue and gives up assassinate for other goodies. I think that is the way things should go--all INT for the pure assassin or splash around with Dex and give up assassinate. Tons of mobs in the game can't be assassinated anyway and it is useless on red named mobs.

[draven1]

A lot of those big dex numbers were getting them from the shadow toggle that gave +6. That is being fixed back. Otherwise the extra boost comes from Wind Stance and Tenser's, basically.
I love Dex builds but really do not see Dex being used for assassinate. Dex builds get the small advantage of having better AC, and if they splash monk they get Wisdom to AC as well (and they save the insightful reflex feat). The build in my sig multiclasses as a 13rogue and gives up assassinate for other goodies. I think that is the way things should go--all INT for the pure assassin or splash around with Dex and give up assassinate. Tons of mobs in the game can't be assassinated anyway and it is useless on red named mobs.

But, giving up assassination is too much sacrifice for dex builds.
Because AC isn't so useful now, & even you decided to invest AC, you may not reach AC threshold that is useful for EE.
Heavy armored defenders can have benefit from AC, because they can wear heavy armor for AC & they also get huge PRR/MRR, AC from gear & enhancement. But, not dex fluffy builds.
On DPS wise, both int & dex builds are very similar.

[CThruTheEgo]

Thank you very much for the response and continued discussion Sev.

We will watch for Lamannia feedback on this. Keep in mind that the low hanging Acrobat speed boost should affect overall speed including stealth. While we have some room for improvement, I don't think we want stealth to provide a speed boost over unstealthed speed.

I agree that stealth speed should not be faster than non-stealth speed. That is why I suggested making the speed reductions in the assassin cores mutually exclusive with faster sneaking.

I did the math in another post to see what the acrobat speed boost actually contributed to sneak speed and, depending on the order in which the sneak speed penalty, faster sneaking, and acrobat speed boost are calculated, the resulting movement speed for a pure assassin with all of them is either 90% or 95% base movement speed. Either way, this is still way behind any other non-sneaking build with an enhanced movement speed. I think an assassin's sneak speed needs to be at least base movement speed. A removal of the sneak speed penalty, coupled with the acrobat speed boost, would put a sneaking assassin at the same speed as everyone else. All that does is allow them to play well with a group. It doesn't add any advantage to them.

Measure the Foe is not meant to be a constant buff which is why it doesn't fade away. We want it to feel like the Assassin is really good in those first 10 seconds of surprise and confusion among foes, and then they are back to normal in the next round. It's our best representation of pen and paper's surprise round.

Fair enough, but I have to ask, what's to stop someone from just dropping into sneak mode for 1 second out of every 10 to keep it at max? In this form, all it really does is reward those players that don't mind extreme micromanagement of short term buffs.

We have been discussing this as an option. If overall performance of Assassin is too low then this is a buff we can consider. As an aside, we don't want to buff Assassinate for the sole reason that CdG is better, as that ability is probably over-performing.

I'm glad to know this is still on the table. I don't want it because coup de grace is better, although I will say that it is wrong that my swashbuckler is a far better instakiller than my assassin, even though both are still fun. I want it because I think it is a good way to adapt assassins to the current game where old mechanics just don't quite meet the new standards. That is, after all, the reason for these revamps. This change, in particular, would help make assassins the lethal killers they once were.

I don't know why Lethality doesn't list the effect, DC, etc. That is something I should probably fix so players can discuss it.

Looking forward to the details and discussion.

Deadly Shadow on Lamannia provides a +2 to Assasinate DC.

We want to support Dexterity based Rogues who are Assassins, especially since the tree itself gives Dexterity to hit and damage with daggers/kukri. We wouldn't make the capstone only Intelligence. It's already enough of a disadvantage to lose out on Assassinate DC.

Fair enough, although I'm still not sure why you want to support dex based rogues in the capstone. I honestly think the dex to hit and damage in the first 2 cores are out of place because assassins are an int based build. I think the first 2 cores are fine for splashes that might want to use them so I don't think they need changing, but I really don't understand the point of dex in the capstone. There is absolutely no reason to go dex based as a pure assassin. If you're going pure as an assassin, then you're going to be using assassinate, which means you have to be int based. And I don't know why anyone would go pure and not use assassinate.

The vision is that Assassin isn't meant to be a passive mitigation tree. Their mitigation will come from debuffs. If you need passive mitigation you will want to splash it.

Fair enough.

We are looking into how much of an issue on shots are for rogues since they have lower hit points. It's a big discussion point in the player's council as well. If we address it we'd more likely add functionality to Improved Defensive Roll to cut back specifically on those big hits rather than adding more passive mitigation.

This wouldn't help assassins though. Being int based, assassins are forced into harper. Improved defensive roll in acrobat is 23 AP minimum, with a lot of those points wasted on an int based assassin just to be able to unlock it.

[Qezuzu]

Measure the Foe is not meant to be a constant buff which is why it doesn't fade away. We want it to feel like the Assassin is really good in those first 10 seconds of surprise and confusion among foes, and then they are back to normal in the next round. It's our best representation of pen and paper's surprise round.

If you're going this route, could the duration be bumped to fifteen seconds? This way its timer works better with Assassinate.

Also, this means that there's three bonus-over-time abilities whose bonus falls off all at once (MtF, Nimbleness, Killer) in the Assassin tree. It just seems a bit odd.

But, giving up assassination is too much sacrifice for dex builds.
Because AC isn't so useful now, & even you decided to invest AC, you may not reach AC threshold that is useful for EE.
Heavy armored defenders can have benefit from AC, because they can wear heavy armor for AC & they also get huge PRR/MRR, AC from gear & enhancement. But, not dex fluffy builds.
On DPS wise, both int & dex builds are very similar.

Dropping Assassinate also means you can multiclass without any real cost.