Rogue - Assassin Changes

[FlaviusMaximus]

My apologies for asking a question I could probably find an answer to in this thread, but the thread is now 62 pages long and...my god...

Have any changes to Lethality (core 18 - the vorpal effect on a 20) been announced for this update?

[brzytki]

My apologies for asking a question I could probably find an answer to in this thread, but the thread is now 62 pages long and...my god...

Have any changes to Lethality (core 18 - the vorpal effect on a 20) been announced for this update?

The only changes we are getting (that are not on Lama) are +5 MP to 4th core, +5 MP to 5th core and a reduced assassinate cooldown to 12 sec.

[FlaviusMaximus]

The only changes we are getting (that are not on Lama) are +5 MP to 4th core, +5 MP to 5th core and a reduced assassinate cooldown to 12 sec.

TYVM. Shame Lethality isn't being adjusted, but I like the changes you mentioned.

Tried to + rep. Apparently I need to spread the love some more first.

[slarden]

Right now we are going through the player feedback and DPS videos. We are seeing different results (Assassins are closer to the top builds) and we need more time to figure out why.

Our plan is to take the time to recreate the tests we are seeing and make changes based on those, but we will need a couple of weeks to do that. We have a patch planned in 2-3 weeks where we will be doing more changes to rogues.

For now we changed Assassinate to 12 seconds and boosted Melee Power by a total of 10 by boosted the 4th and 5th cores by 10 each.

Sev~

Assassins are near the top DPS against bosses when sneak attack damage is getting through and they are alive. When you factor in a full dungeon there is a no way rogues are anywhere near the top of the heap as far as DPS is concerned. Rogues are squishy and have weak self-healing and DPS is really low when you are dead. Sometimes rogues have to exit combat temporarily to avoid dying. Rogues have no AOE attacks.

I like the 12 second assassinate cooldown and the MP boost - that makes sense.

I stopped watching most of the player videos demonstrating DPS when I realized most appeared to be rigged to demonstrate what the maker of the video wanted to prove. Just a slight tweaking of how mortal fear is abused makes a huge difference.

[slarden]

The only changes we are getting (that are not on Lama) are +5 MP to 4th core, +5 MP to 5th core and a reduced assassinate cooldown to 12 sec.

And many AP costs reduced and some things in the tree improved.

I prefer the approach they took vs. making assassin an easy-button. All they did was give it a slight buff which was nice.

[Full_Bleed]

All DC based builds are gear dependent, that's just how it is.

Again, false equivalency. And you acknowledge it later...

The difference between assassinate and other DC based builds in mid epic levels is primarily in the scaling of gear. Spell focus items progress throughout epics and there's also stacking augments as well as an epic feat. The solution is to spread out the bonuses currently available to assassinate so that it's not basically 0 from 20-27.

And without a commitment to provide equivalent gear--and proliferation of said gear--there is no equivalency. Since I do not see readily available focus, augment, or feat options on the horizon I am left to conclude that the assassin carries a more onerous burden to achieve success for a more narrowly focused and marginalized ability (that just happens to be their namesake).

A gimpy +6 assassinate dagger being touted as a kind of solution, for example, is only further illustration of the problem and a continuation of a pattern of indefensible exclusivity. Why must assassins have so few choices? And why must they be such *bad* choices?

It is just astounding to me that this is so readily accepted by the rogue community. The embrace of gear dependance with such a poor selection at their disposal is... baffling.


I'll shut up and go farm my veneer now.

[Bobby88888]

Right now we are going through the player feedback and DPS videos. We are seeing different results (Assassins are closer to the top builds) and we need more time to figure out why.

Our plan is to take the time to recreate the tests we are seeing and make changes based on those, but we will need a couple of weeks to do that. We have a patch planned in 2-3 weeks where we will be doing more changes to rogues.

For now we changed Assassinate to 12 seconds and boosted Melee Power by a total of 10 by boosted the 4th and 5th cores by 10 each.

Sev~

Thank you.
Reducing the CD gives assassinate at least a little edge over other melee insta kills, though still has nothing on a PM. Thanks
Core 5 is still really weak, while i appreciate you gave us something I would really rather not see more and more MP being thrown at things to try solve problems. Rouges damage should come from SA. On live right now probably around a third of my assassin's damage come from SA, on Lam it is even less. I would rather see it as about 2/3 from SA damage or at least around 1/2. Though for 2/3 you would need to rebalance things a lot there so not realistic. MP boosts normal damage mroe than SA damage simply because we do more normal damage than SA damage.

I really hope that you can refocus assassin damage at least to be mainly SA damage but still mediocre if your not getting SA damage off for any reason. IMO core 5 giving SA damage crits is a good way to do this since heroics are mostly fine but really any boost to SA damage is good. I would rather see you adding SA dice than MP everywhere in the Assassin tree though perhpas making SA scale more with MP (either innately to benefit all rogues or in say core 5) will at least mean all the MP bonuses wont reduce the proportion of damage that is SA damage even though it probably wont increase it.

At any rate I imagine there will be more discussion/feedback in a few weeks after you have looked into it more so I will wait until then to provide more feedback so we can at least see what we are looking at.

[Full_Bleed]

Sometimes rogues have to exit combat temporarily to avoid dying.

Sometimes? I am often the last man standing when things go south specifically because I am so well trained to tuck tail and run at a more appropriate point. It is a skill I think every good rogue needs to master sooner rather than later.

That said, I am not entirely against the notion. We are rogues after all.*

But, yes, when damage mitigation requires yielding the field it does seriously impact our output in a way that comparative dps tests can not accurately measure. So allowing our flame to burn brighter when we are present is justified.

If they want accurate DPS in the wild, lets get a "Total Damage Done" stat in the report card. Kills and controlled DPS tests only measure particulars, not the whole.


*Note: This is why I would never turn down a dodge buff. Every second counts when you are running for your life.

[Bobby88888]

<EDIT> because there was an error in my idea but I am redoing it the same without the error. This may require more work to implement than I initially thought due to the little error but it still seems like a good way to go to me.

What if DB was made to not effect assassinate (and the orange named innate DB effect) and either orange named mobs were given a save increase OR in coding assassinate to ignore DB, rather than outright ignore it make it so DB gives a save bonus against assassinate rather than immunity (say +6 as a completely random figure). The whole assassinate formula and DC increases via items, enhancements and EDs might need to be revised.

The idea here is that it becomes easier for those who can't or don't want to invest in the absolute best gear for assassinating to be able to assassinate certain things reliably while those that do invest will be able to get more mobs/orange nameds.
In newer content mobs have higher saves than older content mostly, so we have the moderately invested assassin (ie little effort put into gear) who can get reliable assassinates in older content and moderate success rate in newer content on trash mobs. While the heavily invested can easily get trash mobs on older content and has moderate success on orange nameds in older content with reliable assassinate on trash in newer content and moderate success on orange nameds in newer content.

The more you invest the more you get back but if you don't have the +6 tome, or the raid items/mythic veneer, or harper, or are in an off ED etc you can still use your class feature well but you can't get as much from it as the assassin who has invested in all of those.

ie. Those that don't invest will find trash mobs to have the challenging save threshold whilst those who do will find the orange named mobs have the challenging save threshold, whilst for newer content moving forwards the trash might have the challenging saves for the invested assassin and the orange nameds have a very challenging save threshold.
And now we have a tiered assassinate system so that those who can't get the top gear or don't want to can still actually use their defining class system effectively but those who have invested in it can use it to much more devastating effect.

***NOTE*** Make sure DW still blocks assassinate and that DB/orange named DB effect doesn't block it. Having DW block it keeps the tactics of picking targets more and is a good thing. (ie. Take out the priestess before she can cast mass DW to block your assassinate.) DW is a temporary, more powerful version of DB so its protective magic is stronger and can deflect the killing blow enough to save your life though you still suffer 'massive' damage (10d6 SA damage for failed assassinate if that isn't too much work to do though that is hardly massive, if too much work just no effect is perfectly fine.)

This seems like a cool, flavourful way to go with the assassin and also means you wouldn't have to give the assassin as much raw DPS since their assassinate ability has been increased, a new update to a class that isn't just inflating damage numbers and/or attack speed will be refreshing and a good new path to head down. Consider that if an Assassin could assassinate that orange named miniboss in the next room, maybe, just maybe, the group might wait in the one before while they take him out before the priestess next to it can cast mass DW on him. Unless ofcourse they are a zerger who could blitz cleave the room to death in under 3 seconds but that is the whole problem of just lumping on more DPS to everyone. Might add some tactics back to group play at least.



I would still like to see more SA damage added to assassin but or rebalance their damage so at least half or more of their damage is coming form SA damage rather than less than 1/3 of it coming from SA damage. Which is another problem with throwing MP at rouge to make it more in line with the current game, it just widens the gap between the % of damage coming from SA and the % that is other damage.

Coupled with the 12 second assassinate CD it will help make assassinate shine again as the best insta kill in game even though it has the most conditions to get to use it.

[Full_Bleed]

Also I forgot to mention this but I assume Assassinate is flagged as a magical effect since DB and DW stop it (makes no sense that but oh well), so...

If the Magic flag was removed and the DC formula/enhancements/items that boost it were all revised then...

It does not affect assassination. Assassination is a Death effect.

Assassinate is specifically not magical, having just looked it up to double check. It is a "death" ability, as you would expect, so things that specifically work vs. death also work against Assassinate.

Death Ward and Death Block don't particularly care if the source of the effect is magical or not, just whether or not Death is involved. It's possible there is some text which is misleading in this respect, but I don't think it's likely we're going to soon make Assassinate work on all creatures with wards against death, of which Death Ward is only one kind. (Bosses, for example, have a similar but different ward against death that functions the same way.)

[Bobby88888]

It does not affect assassination. Assassination is a Death effect.

Ok sorry I missed that particular quote but I saw all the others and used the DB/DW descriptions to draw the logical conclusion, perhaps DB/DW should have their descriptions updated to be less misleading, not that it really matters on that front it has been that way forever. Shame really since I think that would have been a really good option to take if that was the case, though it might still be able to work but you just have to specifically code assassinate to function correctly with each of the different 'wards' which does increase the work and adjust the DC accordingly

Thanks for pointing that quote out to me Full_Bleed.

[slarden]

And without a commitment to provide equivalent gear--and proliferation of said gear--there is no equivalency. Since I do not see readily available focus, augment, or feat options on the horizon I am left to conclude that the assassin carries a more onerous burden to achieve success for a more narrowly focused and marginalized ability (that just happens to be their namesake).

A gimpy +6 assassinate dagger being touted as a kind of solution, for example, is only further illustration of the problem and a continuation of a pattern of indefensible exclusivity. Why must assassins have so few choices? And why must they be such *bad* choices?

It is just astounding to me that this is so readily accepted by the rogue community. The embrace of gear dependance with such a poor selection at their disposal is... baffling.

I'll shut up and go farm my veneer now.

I am not a fan of balancing assassinate through gear. It's problematic to regear to get the latest and greatest "top tier" assassinate item and depending on where it is slotted it could lead to some really bad trade-offs. As it turns out the mythic muffled veneer was about the best slot for an assassinate item. Necklace isn't bad either, but I prefer helmet. It is problematic especially if it's on a useless weapon like the first version I saw on Lamannia.

If the devs are stuck balancing through itemization I wish they would make assassinate +x augments that are 2 less than the top tier assassinate item available in game (so currently +4 augment with U25) so we can choose between the top tier item or accepting a slightly lower DC for gear flexibility.

As far as DC goes the top assassinate DC available in the game is 84 which would involve illogical choices gimping an assassin. My assassinate is sitting at 76 on Lamannia with only 4 ints selected in the Shadowdancer tree and with no twists, no yugo pot buff, no store pot or other consumable buff, no great int feats and only the +4 assassinate from mythic muffled veneer rather than the new item. It is currently beating my main character palemaster which has the same issue of having to gimp to increase DC.

Palemasters have often had the same issue with needing all the past lifes, raid gear, top tomes, yugo pots and rare gear to get a workable Spell penetration and DC although both are at a really good place right now. When U14 came out spell penetration on EE was impossible without past lifes and when eGH came out DC casting became very marginalized. Although PMs get bonus feats they are still very feat-tight with the spell focus and spell penetration feats often needed although the spell penetration feats especially have not always been needed and are currently unnecessary.

[CThruTheEgo]

Again, false equivalency. And you acknowledge it later...


And without a commitment to provide equivalent gear--and proliferation of said gear--there is no equivalency. Since I do not see readily available focus, augment, or feat options on the horizon I am left to conclude that the assassin carries a more onerous burden to achieve success for a more narrowly focused and marginalized ability (that just happens to be their namesake).

A gimpy +6 assassinate dagger being touted as a kind of solution, for example, is only further illustration of the problem and a continuation of a pattern of indefensible exclusivity. Why must assassins have so few choices? And why must they be such *bad* choices?

It is just astounding to me that this is so readily accepted by the rogue community. The embrace of gear dependance with such a poor selection at their disposal is... baffling.


I'll shut up and go farm my veneer now.

Again, you are misunderstanding the situation. It is not only straight DC bonus gear upon which DC based builds are dependent. It is also the DC stat gear. For assassinate that means int. Just because asassinate DC gear is more limited than spell focus gear does not mean it is any less gear dependent. My point still stands. And you have expressed a preference not to farm for either upper tier int gear or DC bonus gear, so your build will be limited based on that choice, which would be true for any DC based build you played if you made the same choice not to farm for gear.

EDIT: Also, I don't recall seeing anyone say that the limited assassinate DC bonus gear selections were acceptable. In fact, I've seen many suggestions on how to improve and expand them.

[CThruTheEgo]

Right now we are going through the player feedback and DPS videos. We are seeing different results (Assassins are closer to the top builds) and we need more time to figure out why.

Our plan is to take the time to recreate the tests we are seeing and make changes based on those, but we will need a couple of weeks to do that. We have a patch planned in 2-3 weeks where we will be doing more changes to rogues.

For now we changed Assassinate to 12 seconds and boosted Melee Power by a total of 10 by boosted the 4th and 5th cores by 10 each.

Sev~

Thanks again for the response Sev. I haven't followed any of the dps tests, so I can't comment on those. Does anyone have a link to them?

I'm glad to hear about the reduced cooldown. More melee power would not have been my first choice as a way to boost assassin dps, but I understand it's also probably the easiest for you all to implement. I'll take what I can get. Thanks again Sev.

[Faltout]

Ok sorry I missed that particular quote but I saw all the others and used the DB/DW descriptions to draw the logical conclusion, perhaps DB/DW should have their descriptions updated to be less misleading, not that it really matters on that front it has been that way forever. Shame really since I think that would have been a really good option to take if that was the case, though it might still be able to work but you just have to specifically code assassinate to function correctly with each of the different 'wards' which does increase the work and adjust the DC accordingly

Thanks for pointing that quote out to me Full_Bleed.

DB and DW are not misleading. They clearly say "death spells and effects".

[Bobby88888]

DB and DW are not misleading. They clearly say "death spells and effects".

Deathblock wiki entry says "death spells and magical death effects" which is what I looked at. So either the wiki entry is wrong or you are wrong but it doesn't matter in the end either way.

[Chi_Ryu]

DB and DW are not misleading. They clearly say "death spells and effects".

Not quite true. On an item Deathblock reads as: "The wearer of this item is immune to all death spells and magical death effects."

I'm not personally a big fan of Deathblock preventing non-magical death effects (such as the vorpal strike from Kai-Teng Fairuza in Litany... I was shocked when he killed me with a vorpal effect one time I forgot to re-equip my Cloak of Night). Fortification should protect against those, IMO.

[Faltout]

Deathblock wiki entry says "death spells and magical death effects" which is what I looked at. So either the wiki entry is wrong or you are wrong but it doesn't matter in the end either way.

Not quite true. On an item Deathblock reads as: "The wearer of this item is immune to all death spells and magical death effects."

I'm not personally a big fan of Deathblock preventing non-magical death effects (such as the vorpal strike from Kai-Teng Fairuza in Litany... I was shocked when he killed me with a vorpal effect one time I forgot to re-equip my Cloak of Night). Fortification should protect against those, IMO.

Yup. You're right. Death ward protects from effects while deathblock only from magical death effects. And I'm all for changing deathblock to actually check for magic flag in death effects

[Erofen]

Some things I would still like to see in this pass.

1. Dex to Assassinate
Int based is literally the only option if u want to be able to assassinate in high level content. Period.
A way to increase diversity would be to, while allowing dex to assassinate, change the existing core to int/dex to hit and damage with kukris and daggers, and add insightful reflexes to the capstone.

2. Sneak Speed
Please consider boosting this. If a rogue tries to sneak they are so far behind the group it is not even funny.

3. Sneak Attack ability
Keeping away from having agro can be difficult if u do not have harper capstone with improved deception or a few specific weapons/pieces of gear. Please consider to add improved deception to either t5 rogue or capstone.

4. Level 18 Core
This is useless nowadays. Please consider allowing this to let sneak damage crit or some other special improved type of vorpal effect.

Thanks for holding off on the rogue pass until the kinks can be worked out Severlin. It is a pleasant change in development.

[Saekee]

I read in an announcement yesterday that they will allow rogues to use their Wisdom for assassinate in order to encourage cleric splashes.