Rogue - Assassin Changes

[CThruTheEgo]

After trying out the changes this week, playing my assassin does not feel much different after the revamp than before it. So I have to ask the question: why did you all bother doing this revamp if nothing substantial was going to change?

My critiques of the revamp:
-I'm still falling behind party members while sneaking. Yes, I am sneaking faster, but if I'm still falling behind the group, then what's the point?
-I'm still squishy and have horrible damage mitigation.
-I still have the same weak self healing.
-DPS is nowhere near high enough to offset the weak defenses and self healing. My dps is still far behind every other revamped build. In fact, the only noticeable difference in my dps comes from blitzing, and that shouldn't be a requirement for good dps.

My suggestions for further changes:
-Remove the sneak speed penalty altogether for assassins. As stated many times by many people, this does not affect the assassin's power or game balance. All this does is increase the assassin's enjoyability factor while in a group.
-Lower the cooldown of shiv to 6 seconds. Tempests get a 6 second bluff clicky. Why wouldn't assassins?
-Change the bluff animation to not have any delay, like shiv currently does. If you change this, then you don't need to lower the cooldown of shiv (although I'd still question why tempests get a shorter cooldown on a bluff proc attack).
-Remove the pause after activating assassin's trick. There's about 1 second after activating assassin's trick where you just stand there not doing anything. I'm not sure why this is still here.
-Measure the foe should fade 1 stack at a time every 6 seconds for reasons already stated earlier in this thread. I get that you want this to be a "surprise" boost after dropping out of sneak mode but, as I predicted, it's easy to keep up by dropping into sneak mode for 1 second out of every 10 seconds. So it is really a consistent buff that is simply tedious to keep up. Changing it to fade 1 stack every 6 seconds removes the tedium and, in all likelihood, would result in the vast majority of players having less than max stacks most of the time.
-Something has to be done with lethality. It is in epics where assassins need the dps boost, so this is the ideal place to do it. After playing with the changes, I have changed my opinion that lethality should proc an assassinate check on a vorpal. Instead, I think lethality should improve sneak attack dps somehow, either by allowing sneak attacks to crit, or having them be affected by 200% melee power. As an aside, you said you were going to provide the details of exactly what lethality currently does. Unless I missed it, we never got those details.

Other questions:
-Does assassin's mark require a poison strike to land (i.e. enemy fails their save), or is it just a successful hit that's needed? In other words, is assassin's mark still applied (so that I gain the benefits of weakening strikes and deadly strikes) when an enemy succeeds their saving throw against the poison strike?

Changes that were done well – thank you:
-Shiv as a bluff clicky. Bluff on demand was long overdue.
-Assassination cooldown reduced to 12 seconds. It's noce to be able to use this more often.
-Measure the foe builds one stack every second. This makes building it much less tedious.

Thanks again for the continued discussion Sev.

[slarden]

It is interesting for me to reflect on the overall assassin tree changes/rogue playstyle from before U19 and since then:

• Before U19, assassins ran with WoP rapiers or something unusual to that extent; they were extreme flavor builds. Mellkor's INT assassin seemed completely crazy but the EMGs at least were using INT to damage at that time (if I recall correctly).
• U19, it was a big buff, with knife specialization, free proficiency with kukris and more. Dex was used for to-hit and damage, and builds took weapon finesse for light maces against undead (looking at CThru's Hassan Assassin as an example).
• Harper tree, assassins gained INT to hit and damage, KtA and some melee power from the Harper Tree along with some extra ability score boosts.
• U25, assassins have received yet another big buff featuring melee power, bonuses to assassinate, etc.

Yet, it never seems enough to satisfy pure assassin aficionados. Is it something inherent to the class, a mere tweaking of the enhancement line, or something more profound?
Perhaps:

1. In comparison to the 'training wheels' classes like paladin and bard CDG, it falls far behind on the former's DPS & defenses and the latter's DC (and defenses).
2. quests tend to favor massive amounts of mobs as required kills with endgame bag-of-hp bosses or non-assassinatable enemies.
3. the player base's demands for an EE raid-worthy capacity of every class, so rogue assassins included must be able to handle such endgame content.
4. lack of interesting gear, such as only a few epic Improved deception weapons and boosters for assassinate

Why else? Just ruminating. Not even sure I agree with the above points but then I do not play endgame content.

Personally, my reluctance in playing a pure assassin resides on a) the defensive side and b) the uneasy feeling like I still need some specialized gear that I do not have, e.g. I have only 1 EMG, no Agony, no nice pony.

Thoughts?

The issue with rogues is that survivability got worse with the introduction of champions (specifically the fort bypass) and they benefited the least of just about any class from the armor up which is the reason champions were introduced. I hardly notice champions on my barbarian, druid, favored soul or paladin. My wizards aren't impacted since they were all converted to harmor or adamantine plating.

New raids like MOD EE deal out massive amounts of damage (Death Knights) to try and make a challenge for the classes benefiting from armor up. Assassins have fallen behind defensively since armor up but benefited simultaneously from the harper tree - but overall they feel far behind where they were pre-U14 when improved evasion was a useful defense and sneak attack damage was significant.

The devs indicated for flavor reasons they don't want to buff rogues defensively even though the 3 previous class passes buffed those classes outside their class flavor. In some ways I am glad because I don't assassin to be an easy button, in other ways I feel like if they want to keep rogues as the squishiest of all classes when factoring in all forms of defense/healing they should at least buff dps.

The devs indicated they are cautious about buffing rogues based on video evidence we don't get to see which is most likely a build using LD and possibly even splashing other classes to maximize DPS - but certainly it can't be a pure rogue in shadowdancer.

If the devs did nothing else I can live with it, but you can't help but look at bards and notice they are better than assassins in every major category. It seems there should be some advantage to playing a rogue besides trapping which is available to any splash build with 1 level of rogue or arti. The rogue advantage isn't dps, insta-kills, defense or self healing for sure. This biggest spell damage at end game doesn't use a reflex save, but rather a fort save. Again that favors high hp high fort builds - not rogues for sure.

As I said before I am happy with the improvements made and I am even happier with the cautious approach to avoid making rogues over-powered. I just feel that assassin is a work-in-process at the moment and not a finished product.

[CThruTheEgo]

I gotta say I agree with the last few posts from slarden, Kayla93, and Saekee. Well said by all and a good summary of the current state of assassins.

[CThruTheEgo]

LOL! I just saw that harper agent will be on sale this week. Well played Turbine. Well played.

[FuryFlash]

- they are the only one melees without GOOD self heal options (scrolls dont count as good)

I don't think this is 100% true. Unless I'm mistaken, fighters still don't have any self healing in enhancements or otherwise. Admittedly, fighter is one of the only melees who hasn't been revamped yet, so who knows what we'll see then.

I honestly thought they would at least add a 'health regeneration while sneaking' to assassin or something of the sort in the changes.

Unrelated, I'm personally interested as to what the outcome of the patches will be. From the mostly disappointed forum response to these changes, I would guess it will be pretty big, so we may yet see self-healing and other changes.

[brzytki]

It would be good if Sev posted things they are considering adding in the follow-up patch, so that we can voice our opinions and possible suggestions a week before it hits live.

I haven't had the time to actually play after U25 went live, so no significant feedback from me yet, but when i get the remaining 3 mil xp to cap i'll run a few tests in Cabal to see just how much of the impact those changes have on the DPS side and compare to what i had before the update.

The only things i noticed are:

• Shiv not having threat reduction in the description
• LAM not having Max Dodge in the description although it grants it
• Fast Movement claims "+19% Celerity bonus" on a capped rogue in effects log (not sure if it only gives 19% or the numbers in effects log are fudged as usual)

[Severlin]

It would be good if Sev posted things they are considering adding in the follow-up patch, so that we can voice our opinions and possible suggestions a week before it hits live.

Yes. We will have some proposed changes on this thread soon.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Other questions:
-Does assassin's mark require a poison strike to land (i.e. enemy fails their save), or is it just a successful hit that's needed? In other words, is assassin's mark still applied (so that I gain the benefits of weakening strikes and deadly strikes) when an enemy succeeds their saving throw against the poison strike?

The Mark should apply on a hit regardless of whether or not the saving throw is made for the other effects.

Sev~

[Augon]

the faster sneaking, I totally agree with. The assassin should be able to stay in the shadows and keep up with anyone - makes sense for the class.

The self healing, however, I do not agree with - but I don't agree with that for any class that is not a healing class. I don't think it is a good thing to have each and every class be able to self heal. each class has its advantages and its disadvantages and if every class can self-heal, then what the motivation to have healer classes in the party? I know there are arguments both ways, and I realize that I am in the extreme minority on this point, but that's the way I feel.

I certainly don't see any logic to sneaking providing healing. I could see some logic in an assassin being able to tamper with potions and thus getting better healing effect from them - maybe it could be based on UMD skill and rogue level. Perhaps even being able to get beter healing from scrolls and maybe faster casting and cool downs from them. Perhaps even be able to use scrolls without equipping them the way potions can be used.

I think increasing ways for an assassin to not take damage is more in tune with the class than healing. improving dodge, evasion, etc

I would also like to see improvements to breaking Fort on Assasinate.

I have not had a chance to play my assassin since the changes (He is too low to run epic TOEE and to high to run Heroic TOEE and all my guildies just want to run TOEE right now. lol) but before the pass it was not unusual for my assassin to lead the kill count with a party of almost any mix that didn't include sorcs. Sometimes arti's would beat me since they could kill at a distance. but fighters and barbs would usually fall below my Assassin. A couple of my guildies play bards and Assassins and bards make a great team. fascinate the whole group and one takes one side with CDG and the other takes the other side with Assassinate. Its kinda ridiculous really.

If played correctly, assassin is a great sub-class.

[Candela90]

I don't think this is 100% true. Unless I'm mistaken, fighters still don't have any self healing in enhancements or otherwise. Admittedly, fighter is one of the only melees who hasn't been revamped yet, so who knows what we'll see then.

I honestly thought they would at least add a 'health regeneration while sneaking' to assassin or something of the sort in the changes.

Unrelated, I'm personally interested as to what the outcome of the patches will be. From the mostly disappointed forum response to these changes, I would guess it will be pretty big, so we may yet see self-healing and other changes.

Oh, yup, I forgot about fighters. They also have no healing. So only 2 melee classes with no reliable healing are rogues and fighters. Well fighters at least have tons of hp/PRR/MRR and some CC, but no self heal is just bad for both of them...

Anyway I think most here agrees that needed rogue buffs are:
1. Int to hit/dmg with light weapons (ins ref. to cap would be nice too)
2. Reliable self heal option (as scrolls are not really that useful anymore, btw idea above me with using scrolls without equipping like potions based on UMD would be awesome)
3. CC option for int AND dex builds.
4. Poison DC revamp to be usefull in EE too.
5. Shadowdancer revamp so it gives better boost to rogues than simply being in LD...

Some more survivability also wouldnt hurt, but those 5 are main issues.
Furthemore - rogues should be better instantkillers than bards.

About self healing - I agree with some that it doesnt really fit the "rogue" theme and is not very logical - but giving self heal to barbarians and making paladins and bards awesome dpses - both with good self heal and cc options just endangered the balance, and well. melees with no self healing and CC are left out and no matter how you buff them it'll never be as good as being able to reliably heal themselves.

[patang01]

The Mark should apply on a hit regardless of whether or not the saving throw is made for the other effects.

Sev~

Is there a visual effect of this at all?

[CThruTheEgo]

Yes. We will have some proposed changes on this thread soon.

Sev~

Looking forward to it.

The Mark should apply on a hit regardless of whether or not the saving throw is made for the other effects.

Sev~

Great! Thank you for clarifying.

[dualscissors]

My short list:

1. With the recent changes DPS doesn't strike me as underperforming necessarily *because of Assassin* so much as DPS in Shadowdancer is a bit too low compared to Legendary Dreadnought. Boosting DPS more in the heroic Assassin tiers/cores won't change the SD vs. LD ratio. You'd be more viable in SD...or more super-powered if you double-downed on LD.

So shouldn't a DPS problem with SD vs. LD be addressed in Shadowdancer?


2. Fix DCs for "Poison Strikes." 10 + 1/2 rogue + Int caps DCs in the 40s. "Shadow Dagger" has a base *18* + 1/2 rogue...which caps you at a mid-50s DC. Both are not viable in EE at current formulas. Fixing both of these grants a little more control over the field, and nicely amounts to just changing the formula and it's done.


3. Lethality is a core 18 ability. Core 18 abilities should always be rewarded with something very good. Lethality resulting in +100 damage on vorpal is really really really pathetic when weighed against many-1000 HP mobs.


4. Still very squishy and heal scrolls are a bad option in EE. I'm okay with some degree of squishiness compared to other classes, but I find once I get in HP trouble options are extremely limited (i.e. abandoning the fight and spend a lot of time scrolling and rejuving). Reductions in agro is very good in groups, not possible when soloing, though.

Heal scrolls have been cited as the rogue's intended go-to advantage, but heal scrolls just are too cumbersome to use and not strong enough to be viable with end game EE mobs and champs.

I'm not sure what a modest fix would be here.

[brzytki]

I did some calcs to determine exactly what was the average damage per hit, per AP, assuming 100 melee power, of some of the damage enhancements. Here is what I found:

Average damage per hit, per AP spent, with 100 melee power:
venomed blades rank 1: 7.5 damage per hit
venomed blades rank 2: 3 damage per hit
venomed blades rank 3: 3 damage per hit
sneak attack training: 3.5 damage per hit
critical mastery: 1.8 damage per hit

That's a good idea. I'd throw in Deadly Strikes which with 100 melee power comes to a little more than 4 damage per hit per AP. But it's not on trash, only on monsters that cannot be killed faster than 6 seconds (Poison Strikes cooldown), so one might say it's even lower damage per hit per AP.

On a side note, the Assassin's Mark from Poison Strikes does not reset its timer. So, if you hit with Poison Strikes a monster that already has Assassin's Mark on itself, you've just wasted your melee attack and have to wait till Poison Strikes is off cooldown again. That needs to be changed so that Assassin's Mark resets its timer every time you hit a monster with Poison Strikes.

[redoubt]

Shadar-kai INT based assassin. Lots of past lives both epic and heroic, but not completionist.

Playing level 12 and 13 quests on elite as a level 14/15 pure rogue.

Shiv:
The damage bonus on this attack is good at this level. The bluff is also very nice. Anyone know if it uses the characters bluff skill or is it an automatic bluff? I think having it as a bluff check using your bluff skill would be great. This is a really good setup because it is very effective, but not random and requires you to use the attack at appropriate times to make the most of it. More like this please.

Measure the Foe:
Definitely an upgrade. I like that I can drop into sneak and keep the stacks up if I play it well.

Light Armor Mastery:
Good addition to the tree, but even with 3x PDK and 5x divine epic past lives and a +8 defense augment, I feel like I'm wearing paper armor.

Nimbleness:
I've seen it stack up a little, but if I'm playing like an assassin, this never gets past 3 or 4. i.e. Assassinate, shiv, kill, poison strike, kill. encounter complete. I'm not fighting groups big enough for this to every stack up. I'll watch in the future to see if I see this building up more when I'm just doing off-tank dps.

Sneak:
This is breaking too often. At level 15 I have max ranks, GH and the ring of shadows. I should be hard to find. Also, it should be much harder for AOE or stray arrows to pull me out of sneak. The suggestion for a rogue version of a concentration check for this is a good one.

Sneak speed. A pure rogue should be sneaking at the same speed as non-rogues of the same level who are not sneaking. Its what we do.

Its too hard to shake something once it finds you. Archers are especially onerous on this score. I was wandering the desert and would get an archer on me and it could keep me out of sneak forever. I would go around corners, sneak and come back and it would still have me even after breaking line of sight. Their ability to do this seems too strong. Once they know there is someone sneaking around, I'm find with putting them on alert with a small bonus to spot and listen, but there needs to be a way to break-lock with them so that they no longer know our position and have to search for us again.

Poison blades:
Okay at this level. Will watch to see if it performs as I level up.

Killer:
I like the buff, but in practice its not very useful. Same problem as nimbleness. If playing as an assassin, this buff never gets high and even when it does, it drops off before you get to use it. So far what I see is very brief. If I sneak up on a group of 4:
1. Double assassinate: 2 stacks
2. Shiv and kill shot: 3 stacks (I got two swings with +10%)
3. Poison strike, swing, kill shot (I got three swings with +15%)
Total of 5 swings with any buff from this enhancement. If keep to mob groups this size, which is recommended for a character with low defense and healing, this enhancement had limited utility.
As with nimbleness, I will watch it when I'm doing off-tank dps (but that's not very assassin like.)

[redoubt]

That's a good idea. I'd throw in Deadly Strikes which with 100 melee power comes to a little more than 4 damage per hit per AP. But it's not on trash, only on monsters that cannot be killed faster than 6 seconds (Poison Strikes cooldown), so one might say it's even lower damage per hit per AP.

On a side note, the Assassin's Mark from Poison Strikes does not reset its timer. So, if you hit with Poison Strikes a monster that already has Assassin's Mark on itself, you've just wasted your melee attack and have to wait till Poison Strikes is off cooldown again. That needs to be changed so that Assassin's Mark resets its timer every time you hit a monster with Poison Strikes.

How are you getting 100 melee power?

[nokowi]

We just gained some MP today from TWF. I am up to 83 MP live, and 103 after MtF. I do take all 9 MP from Harper.

I didn't realize poison didn't reset until after it finished. I was spamming it on reset anyway for the extra attack, but thanks for that tip!

[brzytki]

How are you getting 100 melee power?

I don't yet. I only calculated it with 100 MP in mind so that it'd remain in line with what CThru wrote. It wouldn't make sense if i listed Deadly Strikes with ~80 MP and compared it to his list which uses 100 MP as a base.

[Severlin]

Is there a visual effect of this at all?

An icon appears on the enemy if you are examining them, but it doesn't show a particle effect on the enemy.

On a side note, the Assassin's Mark from Poison Strikes does not reset its timer.

This is one of the things that will change - Assassin's Mark if reapplied will reset it's timer if it hasn't ended.

Sev~

[moo_cow]

-I still have the same weak self healing.

You should be heal scrolling for almost 500. You should be hitting cocoon for 150+. What do you have to complain about exactly? Or do you want barb healing where you heal 10000000 hp every 1 second.