Rogue - Assassin Changes

[depositbox]

And you are again responding with muscle memory and neglecting responding with any sort of intelligence.

An assassin is NOT a fighter. The act of assassinating someone is not combat. It is a preplanned surprise attack that kills the target without the target even getting a chance to defend or respond. You can see that DDO has and still does operate under this assumption. If you are seen by the target you CANNOT assassinate. The game will not let you. You MUST be in stealth and you MUST NOT have agro. This means that you are NOT in combat with your target.
.

Try sneaking up on someone while youre out of shape, untrained, clumsy, overweight, not athletic, lacking hand eye coordination. Tell me how that works out for you. Then try to even get a hit in on someone when youre slow.

The whole int to assassinate dc is laughably inane

[VinoeWhines]

Muscle memory is from the brain, and the brain is intelligence.
I trained and when your mentally tired, your technique goes out the window.
I've seen it multiple times on the mat.

Dexterity plays a big part in combat and defense especially, I've seen people get out of submission holds on being dexterous enough to wiggle out of it.

Now in real life if your not intelligent enough to get off the ground before a buddy comes around and steel toes you up the temple, then it's over.

Intelligence is needed for higher level fighting. Assassinate comes into play here, but if you don't have the dexterity to get at the proper angle, then it doesn't matter how intelligent you are if you can't get to where you need to be.

So to condense the formula, you need a high level of dexterity to get to a position to intelligently assassinate someone, not the other way around or not one without the other.

fin.

[VinoeWhines]

Hey Sev,

Looks like your guys old formula was right from the beginning.
Dex to Assassinate, is not where it should be.
There's nothing wrong adding +10 DEX/INT or +5 Assassinate (with level 20rogue) to what's already the capstone.
You can always add a +4 INT/DEX hip flask type to the 2nd core of Mechanic(making a choice to do damage from Thunderstone or injesting the elixer to boost your damage) to make it comparable to Tensors.
Giving rogues back Lethality to vorpal on 20 was great back in the day, if we can't get that back, give us cheat death again.
The mechanical pet, for mechanic should be recovered back into the game, but now you can make it into a mechanical 90hp owl/hawk. (on release gouges out the eyes of enemies and makes them blinded for 90 seconds). They can be given a defensive cloak(collar type) to allow them to be more evasive since they're squishy. Advance bird of prey can be trained to drop AOE explosives on enemies for daze/blinding/stun affect allowing you to enter stealth and assassinate and also sneak attack for 10/15 seconds.

If DEX goes into assassinate, allow INT to have these options mentioned above, to add back the flavor.
INT to damage with all weapons should be put into Assassin tree, if DEX to assassinate is going to be added.

[slarden]

That's really the whole problem with dex to assassinate. There really isn't a way to minimize the synergy with acrobat without significant changes to acrobat, which would end up affecting them more than assassins. That's why they shouldn't allow dex to assassinate in the first place. But I think you're right, this is the change we are getting and it will be the last of them. Overall, I'm just glad we got more changes at all. The rogue pass was very incomplete without the most recent proposal.

Regarding gear, I don't know what your current setup is as int based, but I came up with a gear set for dex based and it's not that much different than the int version. In fact, the gear is arguably easier to acquire than what I had for the int version. I also added in insightful dex 2 to my int based gear set so I had a point of comparison to the new one. Check out post #212 in my thread for both gear sets if you're interested. And if you see any ways to improve it, either gear or the build, I'm definitely interested in suggestions.

Thank you. yes, I saw your link in the other thread where I posted my starter halfling dex assassin build, but didn't get a chance to check it out in detail yet. I definitely want to go halfling and this my first crack at the build:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5597765

The thing I am most likely to change is swapping out echoes of the ancestor shadowdancer + 2 dex from assassin and 1 other point so I can take damage boost assassin x3 + extra action boost giving me 24 solid action boosts. Yugo pots alone free up another 4 AP for me and the HH necklace frees up another 2 AP, but ends up costing me a feat since my 30 PRR sheltering drops to 16. With past lifes I will still be in the mid to-high 80s PRR so I can afford to make this trade-off (4 less than I was previously), but a very small difference. I am still undecided on gear, but most likely opt for maxing my main stat which is what I typically do.

I am definitely going halfling over drow though. Even if I don't go as deep in the halfling tree as I currently plan, I will likely still spend 7 pts for +2 saves, +2 dex and 1 guile leaving me 9 pts for acrobat or harper. There is just nothing useful in the drow tree at all and keeping the int option open seems pointless - and that is the only redeeming quality of drow left is the ability to switch from dex to int and vice versa with an etr and minor gear swap.

Adding dex to assassinate is definitely a huge buff, but I'll take it. I just have to one simple question, how did they manage to build a a dex build that didn't outperform an int build? That is hard.

This is very rough draftish so any and all feedback, criticisms, suggestions, etc. welcomed. I'd like to get everything ironed out.

Edited to add - took a quick look at your build cthru and it's awesome. You are going in a different direction than me, but I might ultimately go for more dodge and defense rather than the self-healing line which is really expensive for what it is - a backup healing mechanism. Without actually playing this new build it will be hard to understand how much benefit it gives me. I like halfling because it gives me alot of AP options to play around with and experiment with.

The goggles is a good idea to free up a ring and cloak slot while losing just +5 seeker. I am liking the Epic Glimpse of the soul goggles also for the Bluff +20 and +6 save vs. enchantment/illusion which helps with my slippery mind, but I might ultimately go with those goggles. The adamantine cloak is something I did take from your build several months ago - I had never considered it prior to checking out your build.

I wanted to experiement with improved feint, but I am not so sure I will need it with melees getting more threat and it's kind of the same thing as shiv tier 1 with alot more cost. They should really remove the combat expertise requirement so it was actually worth considering.

[CThruTheEgo]

Intelligence is needed for higher level fighting. Assassinate comes into play here, but if you don't have the dexterity to get at the proper angle, then it doesn't matter how intelligent you are if you can't get to where you need to be.

So to condense the formula, you need a high level of dexterity to get to a position to intelligently assassinate someone, not the other way around or not one without the other.

fin.

This is the most intelligent response on this topic.

That said, discussions regarding the reality of a fantasy game are an exercise in absurdity, so I question the intelligence of all of you.

[CThruTheEgo]

Thank you. yes, I saw your link in the other thread where I posted my starter halfling dex assassin build, but didn't get a chance to check it out in detail yet. I definitely want to go halfling and this my first crack at the build:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5597765

The thing I am most likely to change is swapping out echoes of the ancestor shadowdancer + 2 dex from assassin and 1 other point so I can take damage boost assassin x3 + extra action boost giving me 24 solid action boosts.

Looks solid. With a 78 DC you can definitely afford to drop some dex. But I will say, 24 action boosts is A LOT. I've got about that many on Dubbell and I find it hard to use them all tbh. There have been a few times when I've run out of them, but that doesn't happen often.

Yugo pots alone free up another 4 AP for me and the HH necklace frees up another 2 AP, but ends up costing me a feat since my 30 PRR sheltering drops to 16. With past lifes I will still be in the mid to-high 80s PRR so I can afford to make this trade-off (4 less than I was previously), but a very small difference.

Yeah with epic past lives, you've got a lot more flexibility with regard to PRR. I'm trying to make up for the lack of epic past lives by taking two weapon defense and epic damage reduction.

There is just nothing useful in the drow tree at all and keeping the int option open seems pointless - and that is the only redeeming quality of drow left is the ability to switch from dex to int and vice versa with an etr and minor gear swap.

Agreed. Thematically, drow is my favorite race, but practically, I think human is the best. My first character was a drow assassin so it's got sentimental value for me, but I really don't see any reason to go drow today.

This is very rough draftish so any and all feedback, criticisms, suggestions, etc. welcomed. I'd like to get everything ironed out.

It looks good. If you're not going for more defense, then I think more/better healing is a good option to balance that out. And with the PRR from epic past lives, you can afford to not invest so heavily into defense.

Edited to add - took a quick look at your build cthru and it's awesome. You are going in a different direction than me, but I might ultimately go for more dodge and defense rather than the self-healing line which is really expensive for what it is - a backup healing mechanism. Without actually playing this new build it will be hard to understand how much benefit it gives me. I like halfling because it gives me alot of AP options to play around with and experiment with.

Thanks. I figure with the proposed changes, dps should be great but defenses are still a major weakness. So I opted to emphasize that without neglecting offense.

The goggles is a good idea to free up a ring and cloak slot while losing just +5 seeker. I am liking the Epic Glimpse of the soul goggles also for the Bluff +20 and +6 save vs. enchantment/illusion which helps with my slippery mind, but I might ultimately go with those goggles.

I had forgotten that Glimpse had bluff 20. I did want to include bluff 20 in my gear set, but couldn't find a way to do it and settled for slotting bluff 15. Isn't the enchantment bonus on the goggles the same as regular resistance and doesn't stack with it? I thought that was one of the complaints about them when they were first released.

The adamantine cloak is something I did take from your build several months ago - I had never considered it prior to checking out your build.

The adamantine cloak is my go-to cloak for all my melees. +5 exceptional seeker is only found there and on bracers. There are too many other good options for bracers but not much competing for the cloak slot.

I wanted to experiement with improved feint, but I am not so sure I will need it with melees getting more threat and it's kind of the same thing as shiv tier 1 with alot more cost. They should really remove the combat expertise requirement so it was actually worth considering.

Yeah they need to remove combat expertise as a pre-req and fix the animation before that will be useful.

[brzytki]

Isn't the enchantment bonus on the goggles the same as regular resistance and doesn't stack with it? I thought that was one of the complaints about them when they were first released.

It stacks, it works just like +X to fortitude save vs poisons for example - there are subcategories within the 3 basic saves and if something specifically boosts one category then it stacks with all other "wider" bonuses. Also, if you have, for example, +X insight bonus to reflex save, it will stack with +Y insight bonus to traps if you are rolling vs traps. It's been confirmed by a dev shortly after the update went live.

[CThruTheEgo]

It stacks, it works just like +X to fortitude save vs poisons for example - there are subcategories within the 3 basic saves and if something specifically boosts one category then it stacks with all other "wider" bonuses. Also, if you have, for example, +X insight bonus to reflex save, it will stack with +Y insight bonus to traps if you are rolling vs traps. It's been confirmed by a dev shortly after the update went live.

Nice. Thanks for the info.

[redoubt]

Try sneaking up on someone while youre out of shape, untrained, clumsy, overweight, not athletic, lacking hand eye coordination. Tell me how that works out for you. Then try to even get a hit in on someone when youre slow.

The whole int to assassinate dc is laughably inane

And again... you are not thinking about it.

Why do I want to move and give them a chance to hear me? Why would I not be in a place I know that they are going to be later and simply wait quietly? Why would I not use a decoy to get them to turn their back and then, while using the cover provided by that decoy, simply walk up behind them and kill them? Its not a game example, but why would I not simply poison their favorite drink in the mini-bar at their hotel before they get to their room? Why would I not shoot them from a distance where they have neither suspicion of me, not chance to respond or react?

How well does your super high dex and hide/move silent protect you from spiders? I've learned, in game, how to assassinate spiders. They have tremor sense and can detect you moving even with very high hide & move silent. Doing this is about knowledge, not reflex.

The things you want to say are important are important in a fight. That is to say, in a fight when your opponent knows your are in a fight and sees you. Those things are far less important than intelligence when your target (not opponent) is not aware of you.

Lastly, sneaking up on people is easy if you think about it ahead of time. Watch their habits, learn where they feel safe and when they let their mind wander. Choose your spot carefully and you can simply walk up behind them and whisper hello in their ear. Scares the pee out of people. Can a dexterous person be sneaky via catlike movements? Yes. But its not the only way, you can be sneaky by being smart about it as well.

Okay, one more final thought. I don't disagree with DEX being part of the skill when the kill is being made hand. That is why I am interested in the other recent idea which combines INT and DEX in the DC formula.

[slarden]

Are you guys still arguing about what stat is the most logical?

I don't think it matters and I don't think Turbine cares what is logical. They are making this change to make people happy not because of moral high ground about what makes the most sense from a realism standpoint.

Spending countless hours obtaining digital items with no real value isn't exactly logical either.

[redoubt]

Are you guys still arguing about what stat is the most logical?

I don't think it matters and I don't think Turbine cares what is logical. They are making this change to make people happy not because of moral high ground about what makes the most sense from a realism standpoint.

Spending countless hours obtaining digital items with no real value isn't exactly logical either.

Why not?

Turbine has ignored this thread since the update and they went and did their own secret testing and proves INT builds are still competitive and that DEX builds are swash level damage.

So rogues are fixed and we might as well have a pointless debate over which stat makes more sense to be used for assassinate.

8P

[Full_Bleed]

It takes some pretty big blinders to not see both sides of the DEX/INT stat debate. Which is why, I suspect, that the argument itself wasn't much of a factor in the decision to do it or not.

The thing people should be focusing on is balancing.

And since the two most popular seem to have been discarded:

1) Insightful Reflexes in Assassin Core.
2) INT To Hit/Damage in Assassin Core.

We need some fresh ideas.

How about...

1) If INT is higher than DEX, MTF can get 1 more stack and an extra 2 seconds on the cooldown? Thematically makes sense. The smarter guy should be better at "Measuring a Foe". This would be a tangible benefit for an INT build. +6 MP, +2% Dodge, +2% MDB, +1 Hit, +1 Assassinate DC for 12 seconds after stealth.

2) If INT is higher than DEX, let Assassin's Trick apply an Assassin's Mark. INT builds would be getting 2 AP from this because they wouldn't have to take the ineffective poisons to get the mark.

[slarden]

It takes some pretty big blinders to not see both sides of the DEX/INT stat debate. Which is why, I suspect, that the argument itself wasn't much of a factor in the decision to do it or not.

The thing people should be focusing on is balancing.

And since the two most popular seem to have been discarded:

1) Insightful Reflexes in Assassin Core.
2) INT To Hit/Damage in Assassin Core.

We need some fresh ideas.

How about...

1) If INT is higher than DEX, MTF can get 1 more stack and an extra 2 seconds on the cooldown? Thematically makes sense. The smarter guy should be better at "Measuring a Foe". This would be a tangible benefit for an INT build. +6 MP, +2% Dodge, +2% MDB, +1 Hit, +1 Assassinate DC for 12 seconds after stealth.

2) If INT is higher than DEX, let Assassin's Trick apply an Assassin's Mark. INT builds would be getting 2 AP from this because they wouldn't have to take the ineffective poisons to get the mark.

All great ideas, however, i have moved on from the "bargaining" stage to "acceptance". I don't expect the devs to make any more balancing changes at this point. This is effectively a change of assassin's main stat from int to dex and quite honestly assassins will be much stronger because of it. So while I am disappointed to be putting raid gear in the bank, that is the cost of progress I suppose. Rogues are much better than they were a few months ago.

[depositbox]

Why? Its not a game example, but

That is why. Game examples have to translate in game. Those are not good examples. Whoever thought of int to dc was wrong. Int is not easily quantifiable. For example, take someone with the intelligence of a surgeon. Place them in a desert in Australia. His IQ won't hold up too well. Certainly better than mine, but not as well as an Aboriginal. The more intelligent person in that circumstance would not be the surgeon. To translate that level of intelligence in dnd they give skills. In this case survival. Where rangers and rogues are considered proficient in use of their class skills. Like hide and sneak, which are granted bonus points from Dex, not int.

a large cat stalks its prey silently. Not really an Int thing there either, so.

Stalking and plotting would be under maybe knowledge skill combined with dex skills like sneak/hide, local, and profession. We do not have those in DDO. We dont have many rogue niches in DDO. Climbing, poisoning a drink, stalking a target through its daily routine. We do have combat. You are in combat as soon as you swing on something whether that thing knows you are there or not. We have a combat log that reads: Combat: you attack spider. Combat

[CThruTheEgo]

How about...

1) If INT is higher than DEX, MTF can get 1 more stack and an extra 2 seconds on the cooldown? Thematically makes sense. The smarter guy should be better at "Measuring a Foe". This would be a tangible benefit for an INT build. +6 MP, +2% Dodge, +2% MDB, +1 Hit, +1 Assassinate DC for 12 seconds after stealth.

2) If INT is higher than DEX, let Assassin's Trick apply an Assassin's Mark. INT builds would be getting 2 AP from this because they wouldn't have to take the ineffective poisons to get the mark.

I'll /sign these, but I'm pretty much where slarden is at. I don't expect any more work to be put into rogue at this point, even if a bit of tweaking does still seem appropriate. It's at that point where it's "good enough" and, imo, we are lucky we got this far.

Everything we've said about balance since the dex to assassinate change was announced is all stuff that we said before the announcement. They knew what needed to be changed and how it could have been changed to provide balance. So if the devs really wanted to balance int and dex, they would have done so before the announcement and included those changes with it. Plus, there's also the fact that according to their way of analyzing (which seems rather out of touch with actual gameplay), int is balanced with dex.

[redoubt]

That is why. Game examples have to translate in game. Those are not good examples. Whoever thought of int to dc was wrong. Int is not easily quantifiable. For example, take someone with the intelligence of a surgeon. Place them in a desert in Australia. His IQ won't hold up too well. Certainly better than mine, but not as well as an Aboriginal. The more intelligent person in that circumstance would not be the surgeon. To translate that level of intelligence in dnd they give skills. In this case survival. Where rangers and rogues are considered proficient in use of their class skills. Like hide and sneak, which are granted bonus points from Dex, not int.

a large cat stalks its prey silently. Not really an Int thing there either, so.

Stalking and plotting would be under maybe knowledge skill combined with dex skills like sneak/hide, local, and profession. We do not have those in DDO. We dont have many rogue niches in DDO. Climbing, poisoning a drink, stalking a target through its daily routine. We do have combat. You are in combat as soon as you swing on something whether that thing knows you are there or not. We have a combat log that reads: Combat: you attack spider. Combat

Nice cherry pick, but at least you have joined the discussion instead of being simply being terse. I congratulate you on the upgrade to obtuse.

I won't edit your post down like you did mine to make it appear to be something it is not. I'll use your example of a large cat stalking its prey and I'll use your aboriginal.

The aboriginal with the intelligence to make and use a bow will kill the stalking cat before the cat even knows the combat has begun. Why? Because the aboriginal is smarter than the cat.

And again, I'm not discounting DEX. It is valuable. It is you who seems unable to see the other side.

[depositbox]

The aboriginal with the intelligence to make and use a bow will kill the stalking cat before the cat even knows the combat has begun. Why? Because the aboriginal is smarter than the cat.

And again, I'm not discounting DEX. It is valuable. It is you who seems unable to see the other side.

Well, first, there arent any big cats in Australia ;p Nit-picking lol.

Using the bow requires Dex to hit ;p

The other side is just tears and babyrage at dex to dc due to illogical feelings of unfairness.

I win!

[redoubt]

Well, first, there arent any big cats in Australia ;p Nit-picking lol.

Using the bow requires Dex to hit ;p

The other side is just tears and babyrage at dex to dc due to illogical feelings of unfairness.

I win!

LOL.

Take a look a Slarden and Cthru's comments on it. Go look at the rogue class forum. We are all building our DEX assassins. I agree with them, they will be stronger than ever. Now that Turbine is making assassination a DEX or nothing proposition, I'll be a DEX based assassin. As you said, in game rules are the rule, right?

I simply don't buy into the argument that dex is somehow "logically" superior to INT as a the base stat for assassinate. I still don't.

Have a good one.

p.s. as an archer, I needed to decide the range to target, determine which range sight pin to use. Adjust for elevation and wind. I also had to set up the bow before all of that. Dex is required to execute yes, but without the intelligence to set it up, the dex is useless. 8P

[slarden]

The other side is just tears and babyrage at dex to dc due to illogical feelings of unfairness.

I win!

This is where you are so off-base it's almost comical. You and a few others are turning this into an int vs. dex debate as if those of us talking about balance are trying to gain some advantage. The reality is those of us already playing assassins are asking for balance in some cases so we don't have to change our builds drastically (me) to be on par with dex assassins and in other cases so there is an actual choice in stat. As it stands now "Int Assassin" falls into the "It's a trap" category and only new and casual players will fall into it.

Look at the rogue boards. Those of us playing int assassins are proposing builds, commenting, collaborating and generally making the most of the situation even though our builds were more severely impacted than freeing up 1 AP to fit in assassinate for builds that are already leveraging the synergies of assassin and acrobat and gave up on assassinate to do it.

I would like to see balance, but I've accepted it's not going to happen. It doesn't mean the balance issue doesn't exist.

[depositbox]

p.s. as an archer, I needed to decide the range to target, determine which range sight pin to use. Adjust for elevation and wind. I also had to set up the bow before all of that. Dex is required to execute yes, but without the intelligence to set it up, the dex is useless. 8P

Right and in DDO that is included in proficiency. No bearing on INT.

As it stands now "Int Assassin" falls into the "It's a trap" category and only new and casual players will fall into it.

False.
This would only be true if your assassin was nerfed to perfrom worse than it did prior to updates. Which is the exact opposite as now they perform better than they did before the update. This all boils down to "Whaa, my thing is now worse than the new thing, pls nerf".