Rogue - Assassin Changes

[CThruTheEgo]

Like always - people are doing it wrong.
The trick is to reduce your total HP to about 250.
That way your cocoon instantly heals you back to full and even CSW potions heal a significant percentage of your HP.

Why, Eth, have you not graced this thread with your clearly superior wisdom and experience sooner? Imagine the state rogues would be in if you'd been here from the beginning.

[Saekee]

Any thoughts on the melee power set bonuses from epic ToEE? I have very little info on it. Seems like an armor/weapon set? Will the AssassinKiss (just thought of a nice nickname for it with an abbreviated Assassin) be included as part of the set? The barb threads say the sets will add up to 26 Melee Power.

Assassins really need that improved deception on at least one weapon for offensive and defensive reasons. Might make gearing tricky if AKiss does not make the set bonus.

[Shadow_Jumper]

Like always - people are doing it wrong.
The trick is to reduce your total HP to about 250.
That way your cocoon instantly heals you back to full and even CSW potions heal a significant percentage of your HP.

Ah yes. I remember running on my first life, 280 hp rogue mechanic. That was the glory days of lvl 20 cap though. When you only needed around 300 HP for EDQ

[redoubt]

Gianthold elite went well. Assassinates and DPS were both solid. I let either another player or a hire get agro before I approached any mobs; this aspect is working well.

On the other hand, hide/move silent seem weak. I have max ranks and the normal ring of shadows (+10 to hide/silent) and GH. Highest for this level appears to be either crafted or the elite ring of shadows, both at +13. If there is not someone around to get the mob's attention, I am getting spotted about half the time if I am not approaching from a roughly 90 degree cone directly behind the mob.

Orchard went pretty good as well. Obviously less assassinates, but with a melee alacrity trinket (crafted) and ghost touch disruptors, I did okay.

Moving into level 15 quests on elite, the Missing chain was a little different. I was having difficulty with timing it seems. I got very few double assassinates and missed altogether much of the time. There did seem to be some random hitching and possibly higher than normal latency (though my monitor showed normal latency numbers.) This leads me to believe that assassinates have a very small window to work in. A small increase in latency can create a huge decrease in performance. I do not know if this is the assassinate function itself or if it is related to the TWF hit box size.

DPS wise, my character is benifiting from:
+3 to weapon enchancement (arcane past lives)
+3 damage (monk past lives)
+3 to hit (fighter past lives)
+9% doublestrike (martial past lives)
A small increase in scaling of abilities like SA, Venomed Blades, and Bleed Them Out would be good I think. Characters without these past life advantages may find DPS just on the short side.

Defensively, I get:
+15 PRR (Divine past lives)
+9 PRR (PDK past lives)
+6 AC (martial past lives; not that this one matters much.)
If I don't have agro, its not a big deal, but as soon as I get agro, I get hit hard even with the extra PRR from past lives. I agree with CThru's suggestion of upping Light Armor Mastery to 5/10/15. I also think MTF should raise MDB and Max Dodge.
Nimbleness needs to be fixed, but is a known issue.

Healing:
Still lame. I cannot reliably use heal scrolls yet even with max ranks in UMD. Even if I could, stepping out loses lots of DPS. Assassin requires lots of cure potions or a hire. I'm looking forward to cocoon.

Deathward & Deathblock:
I still lose a lot of assassinates to this. If I try to examine the monsters before I move in, I lose too much time and the rest of the party will have them below half and I don't like assassinating them at that point if I can avoid it (I don't like wasting their dps nor my assassinate.)

I would like to see some sort of better visualization of DW/DB when I am in sneak. That could be putting the DW symbol overhead any mob with DW/DB or putting in over their face in the focus orb. Either one would give me the ability to quickly determine that assassinate will not work on them so I can move to a more suitable target.

[HuneyMunster]

Gianthold elite went well. Assassinates and DPS were both solid. I let either another player or a hire get agro before I approached any mobs; this aspect is working well.

On the other hand, hide/move silent seem weak. I have max ranks and the normal ring of shadows (+10 to hide/silent) and GH. Highest for this level appears to be either crafted or the elite ring of shadows, both at +13. If there is not someone around to get the mob's attention, I am getting spotted about half the time if I am not approaching from a roughly 90 degree cone directly behind the mob.

Orchard went pretty good as well. Obviously less assassinates, but with a melee alacrity trinket (crafted) and ghost touch disruptors, I did okay.

Moving into level 15 quests on elite, the Missing chain was a little different. I was having difficulty with timing it seems. I got very few double assassinates and missed altogether much of the time. There did seem to be some random hitching and possibly higher than normal latency (though my monitor showed normal latency numbers.) This leads me to believe that assassinates have a very small window to work in. A small increase in latency can create a huge decrease in performance. I do not know if this is the assassinate function itself or if it is related to the TWF hit box size.

DPS wise, my character is benifiting from:
+3 to weapon enchancement (arcane past lives)
+3 damage (monk past lives)
+3 to hit (fighter past lives)
+9% doublestrike (martial past lives)
A small increase in scaling of abilities like SA, Venomed Blades, and Bleed Them Out would be good I think. Characters without these past life advantages may find DPS just on the short side.

Defensively, I get:
+15 PRR (Divine past lives)
+9 PRR (PDK past lives)
+6 AC (martial past lives; not that this one matters much.)
If I don't have agro, its not a big deal, but as soon as I get agro, I get hit hard even with the extra PRR from past lives. I agree with CThru's suggestion of upping Light Armor Mastery to 5/10/15. I also think MTF should raise MDB and Max Dodge.
Nimbleness needs to be fixed, but is a known issue.

Healing:
Still lame. I cannot reliably use heal scrolls yet even with max ranks in UMD. Even if I could, stepping out loses lots of DPS. Assassin requires lots of cure potions or a hire. I'm looking forward to cocoon.

Deathward & Deathblock:
I still lose a lot of assassinates to this. If I try to examine the monsters before I move in, I lose too much time and the rest of the party will have them below half and I don't like assassinating them at that point if I can avoid it (I don't like wasting their dps nor my assassinate.)

I would like to see some sort of better visualization of DW/DB when I am in sneak. That could be putting the DW symbol overhead any mob with DW/DB or putting in over their face in the focus orb. Either one would give me the ability to quickly determine that assassinate will not work on them so I can move to a more suitable target.

Sometimes the old epic ward is confusing as it gives impression that they deathward when they dont and can be assassinate. As for DW, I usualy only check champs, mostly for dmg buff and if the have true seeing.


This brings me onto another point.

As of now Smoke Screen items are the same as blurry items and it seems pointless having both effect existing. So I think that Smoke Screen items should work like Solid Fog in that True seeing does not negate it. Smoke screen gives a concealing smoke which implies its covers you in a cloud similar to solid fog while blurry just makes your outline become blurred.

[HuneyMunster]

Another option on MtF to what others have suggested. If either losing 1 stack at a time is not something that will not be implemented or adding a timer to it, then why not increase duration to 15 sec? If this is considered too long then 12 secs. This allows using assassinate cooldown to time how long is left on MtF and also leave a window of opportunity to get back into stealth and assassinate without having to wait up to 5 secs before using assassinate again at full effect.

[CThruTheEgo]

It's been a few days since your last post in this thread. Any chance we can get an update on what further changes you all are still planning or considering so we can provide feedback. Thanks for the discussion Sev.

[nokowi]

Healing:
Still lame. I cannot reliably use heal scrolls yet even with max ranks in UMD. Even if I could, stepping out loses lots of DPS. Assassin requires lots of cure potions or a hire. I'm looking forward to cocoon.

I think you should be able to reliably use heal scrolls by now if you build for it. Make a +6 Cha Skill item from shroud if you haven't already.

Level 16

19 UMD Ranks
6 Shroud
5 Charisma (10 +4 Tome +6 Item = 20)
4 Skill Tome
2 Luck
3 Lvl 16 Sypglass
4 Greater Heroism (Planar Gird, Scroll, etc)
____
43 (no fail)

At level 14, you can still hit 39.

[CThruTheEgo]

Another option on MtF to what others have suggested. If either losing 1 stack at a time is not something that will not be implemented or adding a timer to it, then why not increase duration to 15 sec? If this is considered too long then 12 secs. This allows using assassinate cooldown to time how long is left on MtF and also leave a window of opportunity to get back into stealth and assassinate without having to wait up to 5 secs before using assassinate again at full effect.

Agreed. Stacks should fade one every six seconds or the timer should be increased to 12 seconds to match the cooldown of assassinate.

Right now, the mechanics of measure the foe are cumbersome and annoying to use. At 9 seconds after coming out of sneak mode after assassinating something, I have to drop back into sneak mode to keep measure the foe up, but I still have 3 seconds before I can assassinate anything. So what do I do? Stand there in sneak and not do anything? Or come out of sneak for a whole 2 seconds to dps something?

Keep in mind Sev, that one of our biggest critiques right now is the lack of dps to make up for the weak defenses and poor self healing. The situation I described above only means a loss in dps. Think about it. One of the biggest dps buffs we received this update comes from the melee power from measure the foe, but in order to keep that buff up we have to lower our dps. This doesn't make any sense. Regardless of however measure the foe is conceived of conceptually (i.e. a surprise attack after coming out of sneak mode), it is not a good or fun mechanic in actual gameplay. Now if we were able to crit with our sneak attacks, then this would be less of an issue. But as it is, our already low dps is made even lower by trying to maximize it... huh?

[slarden]

I think you should be able to reliably use heal scrolls by now if you build for it. Make a +6 Cha Skill item from shroud if you haven't already.

Level 16

19 UMD Ranks
6 Shroud
5 Charisma (10 +4 Tome +6 Item = 20)
4 Skill Tome
2 Luck
3 Lvl 16 Sypglass
4 Greater Heroism (Planar Gird, Scroll, etc)
____
43 (no fail)

At level 14, you can still hit 39.

The issue in EE is inability to make a concentration check so they are only usable in non-combat situations. If the devs gave rogues a unique ability like the equivalent of quicken for scrolls - scroll healing would once again be a unique self-healing ability for rogues.

[HuneyMunster]

I think you should be able to reliably use heal scrolls by now if you build for it. Make a +6 Cha Skill item from shroud if you haven't already.

Level 16

19 UMD Ranks
6 Shroud
5 Charisma (10 +4 Tome +6 Item = 20)
4 Skill Tome
2 Luck
3 Lvl 16 Sypglass
4 Greater Heroism (Planar Gird, Scroll, etc)
____
43 (no fail)

At level 14, you can still hit 39.

Shroud item can take alot of time to get the shards required to craft. Also requires having at least one past life for lower level rogues to use.

A +4 Ability tome depends on how invested you are into your rogue. Though +2 or even +3 is reasonable cheap and often sell for plat.

A umd skill tome can only be bought from auction or store and from some special events.

The only good luck +2 item that would be at level is as far as I know is Head of Good Fortune which is rare drop in Reavers fate. Also uses same slot as Spyglass. The +2 aug is also ml20. But still +1 can get easily obtained

A Spyglass from Crystal cove would have required pre-planning to run before hand to craft and from what I read will no be open again for some time yet. Easier option is Flameward from Servants of the overload quest. Also has 6 cha as well as umd. So can make a weapon set that has scroll in main hand flameward in off hand to change to before using heal scroll.

Greater Heroism scrolls bonus is easy to get as having a few fails at start of quest is not much of an issue. I usually drink a heroism pot at low levels before casting GH.

Ship buff also provides a bonus to umd up to 3, not sure how much at lvl16, prob 1 or 2. If your guild ship doesnt have it you could also ask party members for ship invite.

If you have Harper then you could always take 3 to skills and if not 3 umd from mech tree.

Skill mastery feats are also and option. At 16 improved evasion and opportunist would most likely have been taken so still one more rogue special ability left at 16.

Even with lower values of what Nokowi posted you should be able to get close to no fail with a little investment.

[nokowi]

The issue in EE is inability to make a concentration check so they are only usable in non-combat situations. If the devs gave rogues a unique ability like the equivalent of quicken for scrolls - scroll healing would once again be a unique self-healing ability for rogues.

I understand the issue. The post was talking about heroics and an inability to scroll heal. I did not include +3 skill stance, or +3 from artificer past life, ship bonus, or enhancement bonuses to skills. My point was that you can scroll heal pretty early in heroics (definitely by level 11 with past lives).

As to epics, I would prefer a rework of the concentration mechanic over quicken. You do have to read the scroll, after all.

Example: An interrupted scroll gets an (80 + Concentration - 2* Char Level) percent chance of still being cast.

At level 28, you would need a 76 concentration to have no-fail scroll use. For a rogue, any amount of concentration skill is going to help you, so each point in the skill matters.

You could also lower the 80 number and have abilities like improved wand/scoll mastery add to the number.

Example 2: An interrupted scroll gets an (50 + Concentration - 2* Char Level) percent chance of still being cast, with a +10 bonus per rank in wand/scroll mastery.

Edit: I would also add to the above formulas that damage less than the Concentration Skill should not require a concentration check at all.

[dualscissors]

As to epics, I would prefer a rework of the concentration mechanic over quicken. You do have to read the scroll, after all.

Quicken type fixes seem odd to me too (maybe any workaround would be better than no workaround). Reworking the formula for Concentration would be the most credible way to fix scroll healing. With so few builds being truly reliant on heal scrolls in Epic combat, fixing this narrowConcentration part of the game might seem like a trifle to some. In this case, though, heal scrolling is the intended method of healing for UMD rogues, and Concentration is horribly out of scale (as soon as 350+ dmg was introduced in the game).

[HuneyMunster]

The issue in EE is inability to make a concentration check so they are only usable in non-combat situations. If the devs gave rogues a unique ability like the equivalent of quicken for scrolls - scroll healing would once again be a unique self-healing ability for rogues.

You can still use heal scrolls effectively in EE, but at a dps lose due to having to obtain a distance between yourself and melee mobs. I have 58+d20 Concentration at 28 with just 5 ranks spent into into it, GH, 3 skill tome and ship buffs. Though I am using epic belt of thoughtful remembrance for 20 concentration and constitution mod. Max ranks from skill points is at 11 due to cross skill which could get me to 64. The biggest problem to using heal scrolls is being heavily dotted by spells such as Niacs biting cold. You can time the use after a tick, but waiting increases chance of death and comes at a dps loss. I usually find that arrows rarely break concentration check.

Most of my healing comes from rejuv as I now have 145 hamp from shroud of ardent, mysterious cloak, harper and ship buff. Im also running with 229 positive spell power with 138 devo aug slotted so it ticks for anything between 48-241(if I got my math right). My heal scrolls are only hitting for 269 as dont have W&SM.

[redoubt]

I think you should be able to reliably use heal scrolls by now if you build for it. Make a +6 Cha Skill item from shroud if you haven't already.

Level 16

19 UMD Ranks
6 Shroud
5 Charisma (10 +4 Tome +6 Item = 20)
4 Skill Tome
2 Luck
3 Lvl 16 Sypglass
4 Greater Heroism (Planar Gird, Scroll, etc)
____
43 (no fail)

At level 14, you can still hit 39.

You are correct, but I've made the choice to not wear those items at this time. I have CHA 6 and CHA skill items, but I have to swap to them. I think I have a +3 tome and +1 luck from the voice; though I guess I could dig out the head of good fortune, I think it is +2. My bigger issue with Severlin saying rogues have UMD is the amount of gear swapping you do on rogues.
1. Swap my melee alacrity of mobility trinket for the head of good fortune
2. Swap my improved deception necklace for UMD +3
3. Swap my insightful +4 saves / guard bracers for +6 cha skills
4. Swap one of my weapons for a shroud healing amp weapon.

THEN scroll heal, THEN swap it all back.

My contention is that wearing the UMD stuff all the time is a huge loss of DPS. This means you will actually need more healing by wearing them since mobs live longer. By middle to high epic levels you can have no fail UMD without all the gear swaps and at that point scroll healing is a decent SUPPLEMENT to cocoon.

I don't mind gear swapping when I do traps. I also gear swap to cast other scrolls out of combat. Teleport or restoration type things.

[slarden]

Quicken type fixes seem odd to me too (maybe any workaround would be better than no workaround). Reworking the formula for Concentration would be the most credible way to fix scroll healing. With so few builds being truly reliant on heal scrolls in Epic combat, fixing this narrowConcentration part of the game might seem like a trifle to some. In this case, though, heal scrolling is the intended method of healing for UMD rogues, and Concentration is horribly out of scale (as soon as 350+ dmg was introduced in the game).

I think rogues should be better than other classes at scroll healing. The quicken ability not only stops the interruption it also speeds up the scroll healing which is an advantage I think rogues should have.

[Grace_ana]

1. I haven't had any trouble with hide/MS, but my skills are over 100 in each, so that might be why. I'm not sure what the threshold is right now.

2. Getting UMD to scroll heal level on a rogue just isn't an issue, at least by epic levels. In heroic, as usual, those of us with tomes and past lives will hit it sooner. But just like everything else, if you are having trouble with it, you need to make some choices. If you choose to not wear or at least swap in a charisma item when you scroll, you are choosing to give up scroll healing for three more levels. Just like if I chose not to wear a DD item, I'd be choosing not to be able to do traps. Rogues are and always have been gear dependent, and I think that is fine.

3. Like others I would really like to see a scroll quicken ability for rogues. I don't think boosting concentration will do it, for a couple reasons. First, you would have to give it a MASSIVE boost to make it reliable when getting hit in EE, and that would cause all kinds of imbalance for other builds. It would basically obsolete the quicken feat, because other casters would be able to then invest in concentration (and many do) and skip the feat. I'm not sure what affect that would have on monks, either. There are other classes that use concentration, and I don't know that completely changing it so rogues can scroll heal is the best solution.

Second, every other healing class has the ability to either take and use quicken or has an ability that basically doesn't care if you're getting hit. That means only scroll healers have unreliable heals. I think IF you are a class that has the ability to heal yourself, then you should be able to do so reliably. This makes for better party play too, not just solo. There are a lot of times on my rogue that I have had to step back and rez/heal people in the group to save a wipe. It's not fun when I'm trying to do that and waste 15 scrolls in a row before I die without a single one going off because I have things chasing me, hitting me, casting at me, and firing arrows at me. Particularly as a high level rogue, I should be able to do this. And I do max out concentration (11 ranks on a pure rogue, plus usually a skill item somewhere).

The only real problem then becomes...where do you put such an ability? Really, all rogues should have it easily accessible. But the problem is, if you make it low-hanging fruit, it's too powerful, and if you put it too high in the tiers or cores, you have to sacrifice too much in your own tree if you aren't the chosen ones. You'd have to either put it in each core (maybe the lvl 18 ones) or make it an autogranted rogue feat. The latter is probably the best.

[dualscissors]

I think rogues should be better than other classes at scroll healing. The quicken ability not only stops the interruption it also speeds up the scroll healing which is an advantage I think rogues should have.

Scroll and Wand Mastery is duplicated for Mechs and Archmages.

Having heal scrolls on your bracers - like NFL Quarterbacks - would help with the swapping issue.

[nokowi]

Would an easy button like quicken be easier? Sure! Do we need it? Not really. Most of us (still playing rogue) flocked to rogue because we don't want everything, and we like overcoming challenges. We do, however, like our abilities (like concentration skill) to have a use.

I tend to go back to PnP for changes that would be nice, but are not required. It would be appropriate to have a sufficiently high concentration skill help casting a scroll while taking damage. A damage based DC just does not make sense in DDO mechanics. That's why I proposed a percent chance somehow based on both Concentration skill and character level. We have precedent in the defensive roll calculation for acrobats, which is also a damage based number in PnP but was instead converted to a % success rate.

Scrolls have horrible DC's and do not use spell power (low damage). I could care less if other classes use them without fail due to high concentration scores. Quicken is still very useful for casters, both for actual spells and for scrolls. It will still be taken. You can splash a caster class if you need quickened scrolls.

[Grace_ana]

Would an easy button like quicken be easier? Sure! Do we need it? Not really. Most of us (still playing rogue) flocked to rogue because we don't want everything, and we like overcoming challenges. We do, however, like our abilities (like concentration skill) to have a use.

I tend to go back to PnP for changes that would be nice, but are not required. It would be appropriate to have a sufficiently high concentration skill help casting a scroll while taking damage. A damage based DC just does not make sense in DDO mechanics. That's why I proposed a percent chance somehow based on both Concentration skill and character level. We have precedent in the defensive roll calculation for acrobats, which is also a damage based number in PnP but was instead converted to a % success rate.

Scrolls have horrible DC's and do not use spell power (low damage). I could care less if other classes use them without fail due to high concentration scores. Quicken is still very useful for casters, both for actual spells and for scrolls. It will still be taken. You can splash a caster class if you need quickened scrolls.

To my knowledge, no class including casters can quicken a scroll. I'm not sure what you mean there.

Rogues basically use scroll for rezzing (DC doesn't matter) or healing (where we have 75% bonus for scrolls in the mechanic tree). With wand and scroll mastery plus heal amp, the lack of spell power applying doesn't matter.

The only thing holding rogue healing back in comparison to everyone else is quicken. I find concentration effective in heroics and in epic normal (aside from TOEE). I suspect that other rogues with fewer lives/tomes/etc. struggle with it in late heroics. If the idea is, according to Sev, that rogues can self-heal properly and comparatively with scrolls, the only thing that will make that work without throwing off other classes is to allow rogues to quicken scrolls. Actually, making it a rogue feat might be the best way. You could take it as early as level 10, which is late enough to have to invest in rogue but early enough to be useful to even newer players. And if you wanted improved evasion and opportunist as well (and nearly every rogue does), you'd have to invest even more. And, it would be comparable to the investment other classes get for the same thing (spell quicken feat vs. scroll quicken feat). The more I think about it, I think because it is a need for all rogues, a rogue feat is the way to fix this as opposed to enhancements.