Rogue - Assassin Changes

[brzytki]

Does this still seem weak from the enhancement tree? Or is the relative weakness of DPS in Shadowdancer where the sense of assassins still being subpar in damage where a lot of this sentiment is coming from?

The way that I just framed MP derived from Measure the Foe probably sways me to what Cthru was arguing with regard to the MtF ticks vanishing 1 at a time, instead of all at once.

I think more or less it's about done, but there are a few things i'd still change:

• Killer fading 1 stack at a time
• CThru's change to Measure the Foe (fading 1 stack at a time, timer shortened to 6 seconds)
• a way to better scale SA in epic levels (doubling MP on them or somehow being affected by crits) either as lvl 18 core or maybe in SD
• +2 INT more instead of +2 DEX in the capstone
• maybe upping PRR in T5 enhancement since we'll be losing 5 PRR anyway in the next update

And yes, Shadowdancer definitely needs some work in a few places.

[Cetus]

It's not really my intent for that to be taken as "be rude and I'll walk" as much as "which producing style do players prefer?"

If a raw style where we communicate a lot is preferred that style has drawbacks. Because we talk with the players directly there is no editing or polish phase to our posts, and that means we are subject to typos, comments that lose context, and sometimes just flat out being wrong about something. This is especially true if we are posting late and/or from home to try to catch up with threads. Some players feel this type of interaction lacks a certain type of professionalism and I respect that.

If we go with a more polished communication style then each post to the players goes through an editing phase, information is consolidated into packages and carefully combed over, and players see a much more polished level of communication. This type of communication means that problems are filtered out and errors and typos that might erode player confidence are much less likely to occur, but it drastically reduces the amount of iteration that can occur during a more raw interaction with the devs. It also eliminates posts that directly reference player feedback.

I prefer as a Producer for the team to engage in the former, even though I know at some points we will have to correct ourselves and the players will see early information. If that proves problematic, however, then we as a team can certainly operate using the latter communicative style, and many producers and companies prefer that approach.

Sev~

Former for daily exchanges, latter for announcements and "state of the game" type posts, obviously.

[Rautis]

~ Assassinate is already a fairly good ability so we won't be buffing the DC in this tree, but instead we will be looking to have items that add to the DC in greater amounts that currently possible in the next few updates.

Commenting late on this one. I just hope that this will also cover other DC-wise lacking abilities in enhancement and maybe even ED trees. And I hope these also come on randomly generated gear/augments instead of getting a +6 assassinate DC item from the next raid.

[Qezuzu]

Does this still seem weak from the enhancement tree? Or is the relative weakness of DPS in Shadowdancer where the sense of assassins still being subpar in damage where a lot of this sentiment is coming from?

My own, current number for what damage my Assassin does at lvl28 is about 2.2k DPS; I've only measured it once a couple months ago, and was using full Blitz and haste+damage boost. I don't claim that it's the most damage an Assassin can achieve but given my gear and build it's probably close. It's a lot of damage IMO but it still falls quite short of the best builds, which also have better survivability by a wide margin so I think that's a problem.

30 Melee Power is actually quite a bit of damage though, but with some quick mental math the DPS might end up being below the curve still, maybe. It will still be very high though, as long as MtF is not expired which is why I would really like it to not fall off all at once like no less than two other Assassin abilities do...

[Bobby88888]

10 MP on its own might seem underwhelming compared to certain super-powered melee machines. Also remember that at tier-5 Measure the Foe is adding +4MP per tick (up to 5x). That's another variable 4-20MP that will be up on assassin rogues for much of the duration of fights. Assassin's Trick will put on the table a more reliable source of 25% Fortification-breaking on pesky enemy types, and thus MP-boosted sneak attack.

I don't have the APs to take too much MP from Harper but some assassins will scrounge up a bit more there.

Does this still seem weak from the enhancement tree? Or is the relative weakness of DPS in Shadowdancer where the sense of assassins still being subpar in damage where a lot of this sentiment is coming from?

The way that I just framed MP derived from Measure the Foe probably sways me to what Cthru was arguing with regard to the MtF ticks vanishing 1 at a time, instead of all at once.

Yes it still is weak.
Lets say my Assassin has 29d6 SA dmg and +12 or whatever static SA dmg and 24 MP from lvl 28, 24 from ED, 10 from capstone, 20 from MtF and 9 from harper for 87 total with 67 permanent. And that average dmg is say 500.
My base average SA dmg is 113.5. Multiply by MP gives 189.5 permanently and 212.2 with temp. Assuming we get 200% MP on SA and Crits on SA: Permanent SA dmg is 379 and temporary peak is 424. That gives total average dmg of 879 and temporary of 924. Pallys/Barbs/Bards still considerably out DPS that by at least 10x. Now say I crit, that SA dmg bumps up to 1137 permanent and 1272 temporary. Add base dmg and ~1600 dmg on crits or ~1700 temporary.
Ok so this time I vorpal. 1516 SA dmg and 1696 temporary. Add base dmg and ~2k and ~2.2k. This is still far less than Pally/Barb/Bard, who can acheive at least 5x that, but I think that has hit too high now probably for the Assassin, but without crits is too low. I personally don't want to see the assassin dmg go too high and ruin the class because of it.

So no crits is too low and crits is too high. How about we let crits but use crit = x2 mod and vorp = x3 rather than using weapon Multipliers (typically X3 crit and X4 vorp)
That gives us 758 SA dmg on crit/ 848 temporary for ~1250 dmg on my hypothetical Assassin and 1350 with temporary boosts.
On vorpal that becomes 1137 SA/1272 temporary, giving ~1650 dmg for vorp with 1800 possible with temporary boosts.

I think this is a good range for assassins to be in but if its too high making either just vorpal (with 3x or weapon multiplier) or just 2x for all crits and vorps reduces it down some more. Alternatively adjust the 200% MP up or down.
It still isn't the 5 digit hits of the pally/barb/bard but I think sitting at that point seems about right. You can get some meaningful DPS through SA, keeping it in theme with the class/tree without getting too much power.

That is just my opinion on the matter but at the very least I think one of the 2 should be implemented and the lvl 18 core is just worthless now and a good spot to put one. It used to be one of the best abilities but the game moved on and it got left behind. and the capstone could do with a bump too.

Sorry if the layout there is hard to follow.

[davmuzl]

Commenting late on this one. I just hope that this will also cover other DC-wise lacking abilities in enhancement and maybe even ED trees. And I hope these also come on randomly generated gear/augments instead of getting a +6 assassinate DC item from the next raid.

For Assassinate and similar abilities in the heroic levels it might be fitting to make epic levels count as class levels for the DC.

[amsharkwei]

I suggest put the "Assassin's Mark" in Shiv.

Remove the Poison Strikes
Because,if Poison Strikes give a "Assassin's Mark" on the target ,and the "Assassin's Mark" can not stacks,the T2 and T3 Poison Strikes will still useless

Shivassive reduces threat of all your attacks by 5/10/15%. The attack makes a Bluff check using your Bluff skill. And opponents struck by Shiv attack have an "Assassin's Mark" for 10 seconds.
With a bluff check,Shiv is a very useful ability,every one will put AP point on Shiv

[Pehtis]

Sev plz ignore the obvious trolls and drama queens. The raw style is appreciated.

My only concern with all these passes is game balance. I fear level 1 - 20 content is becoming trivialised with these passes. The recent ones to pally/barb/swash has created an uncomfortable benchmark to game balance.

What I notice is much of the assassin feedback revolves around not being as capable in post level 20 content. I agree with this, especially when refer to the new benchmark. This is why agree that any serious buff be focused on Core 4 & 5. Perhaps an extra +1 assassinate DC to Core 4 is all that is needed?











P.s. As an aside. Is there any reason you can't buff ED's by making them work with selected enhancements or rogue feats. That will keep the integrity of the enhancement trees during level 1-20.

[amsharkwei]

I suggest

-"Assassin's Mark" also reduce target's fortitude save for 1 per 5 Rogue level.

-When the target with "Assassin's Mark" below 30% health,the "Assassin's Mark" will explode and deal 25 damage per Rogue level.This damage scales with 200% Melee Power.
This help Rogue kill low health target, and also remind the "Execute" can be use now.

-Core Abilities 3: Assassin's Trick, should also mark the target with an "Assassin's Mark",and makes a Bluff check using your Bluff skill.

-Assassin's Trick replace the Bluff skill. (Or shares it's cooldown with the Bluff skill)
Sneak ? Assassin's Trick ? Assassinate will be a good combos-chain.

-If "Execute" hit a target with an "Assassin's Mark", it will decuse the "Execute" cooldown by half.

-If the target with "Assassin's Mark" below 30% health ,your any attack deal extar 1D6 damage per Rogue level.This damage scales with 200% Melee Power.


..................................

Rework the "Poison Strikes" as a passive ability buff the "Venomed Blades"

"Poison Strikes": choose one poison, this will buff your "Venomed Blades".

-Heartseeker Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 fort save (stacks 5 times), On Crit: 1d6 Con damage, On vorpal: -5% Hit Points, no save, no work with BOSS.

-Chill Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 reflex save (stacks 5 times), On Crit: 1d6 Dex damage, On vorpal: Paralysis, no save, no work with BOSS.

-Soulshatter Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 Will save (stacks 5 times), on Crit: 1d6 Wis damage, on Vorpal: Shattermantle (-100 Spell Resistance) no save, no work with BOSS.

[Seikojin]

I like the former. All around. I understand having more polish for announcements, release notes, etc.

[Linvak]

Well said brzytki.

The same issues keep being brought up Sev. In this revamp, assassins are still missing an increase in their damage and damage mitigation.

Make light armor mastery grant 5/10/15 PRR and give us more debuff options like the melee power debuff from poisons.

Slap 5 or 10 melee power in the capstone and let stacks of measure the foe fade 1 at a time every 6 seconds. I think letting measure the foe fade 1 stack at a time is a great idea because it will create a condition that encourages assassins to be in sneak mode more often, and with the changes to sneak speed that will be a practical possibility. As mentioned, an alternative way to increase dps would be to make it affected by 200% melee power (even 300% wouldn't be too much imo when you consider the dps of a bard or paladin). Others have proposed allowing sneak attack damage to be crittable. I haven't done the math on that, so I don't know if that would be too much or not, but again, considering that my first life paladin with hand me down gear was critting for several thousand, I'm not sure there is a "too much."

These changes would not turn assassins into another easy button but would minimize the amount they currently lag behind other revamped classes. The unique playstyle of an assassin would not change and they would be a lot more fun for those who enjoy that playstyle, which you said was the main priority with these changes.

As always CThruTheEgo, great points, great ideas. I can't really say that I look forward to better dps, nor can I completely reject it. In a way, I like being 1 out of about 3 dedicated assassin's on my server. The day I join a group with 1 or 2 other Rogues will be sort of off putting.

I fear for Rogue becoming an easy button like you mentioned. When I tried out Swashbuckler, it was truly boring being so successful while doing almost nothing. I truly don't see an issue as far as kill count goes as of now. Being able to insta-kill 2 things per group, and follow up with what I think is decent dmg keeps me ahead in most quests. I'm much more in favor of cleaning up assassinate and sneak mechanics then increasing dmg.

I think where people complain about dmg is mostly do to the fact that we can't just smash the keyboard and run into a group of mobs and start cleaving for 1000-3000 with almost no fear of dying. Barbs have a huge amount of health + big heals per kill, palis have insta heals paired with high defenses, while bards get decent PRR, high dodge, 24/7 displacement, and insta heals. I don't want to see rogue turn into this. We can't have a reliable insta kill (x2) and comparable dps/defenses. I like the utility and tactics we have to use in order to keep up with everyone. It's much more satisfying leading a kill count as rogue when no one was expecting it. If anything I'd love to propose better and more utility.

I was thinking about possible effects on sneak attacks other then stat dmg and increased dmg. What would you, and anyone else say to percentages of effects such as nerve severing (reduction in enemy attack/movement speed) or even something along the lines of Guardbreaking (one of the most broken effects in the game LOOOOL). 5% chance to daze enemy target on each sneak attack doesn't sound too OP to me (maybe even underpowered/useless) considering Bards get 25% which isn't limited to creatures that can be sneak attacked in the first place.

[draven1]

Core 1 : Knife in the Darkness: You gain proficiency with Kukris. You can also use your Dexterity modifier to hit with Daggers and Kukris

Core 2 : Dagger in the Back: You can now use your Dexterity for damage with Daggers and Kukris. If you possess the Weapon Finesse feat, this also applies to melee weapons with which you can use your Dexterity modifier to hit. This enhancement does not work with handwraps or unarmed attacks.

Both are pretty obsolete now, because of harper tree.
Almost every assassins who want to use assassinate for higher lvl will take harper tree for INT hit & dmg.

How about changing those 2 Cores to some roguish combat utility ability like "Sap, Slicing blow, Hamstring"?
Or just replacing dex modifier to int?

Usual rogues can't afford to get those feats, because of lack of feat slots, and it's not worthy to take those for a precious feat slot.
But, those feats have very roguish flavor, so I think it fits really well for assassin,
it will not give some DPS for assassins, but it will give some tactical options for them.
A small buff for those abilities is also good for it.

I'd like to see assassins using their GUTS & WIT to escape emergency situation rather than more PRR like other easy buttons.
Rogues are nimble, not sturdy

But sometimes nimble rogues can get really hard hit, so it would be nice to see defensive roll buff.
I want not to tie that defensive roll buff to certain prestige class like acrobat too much.
What if general defensive roll works at 50% hp, it can reduce incoming damage by 50% on successful reflex save,
but, acrobats can reduce incoming damage up to 80% by enhancement?
Numbers may need some adjustment for balance, but I think we can find some roguish damage migration method for it, not PRR

Lowering some requirement point for diplomacy & bluff in combat on higher EE quests might be also good, too.
It's too hard to get enough skills for most higher EE contents. So, it's near obsolete for end game.

ps> I appreciate you for open mind attitude for this discussion, Sev~

[Soleran100]

..................................

Rework the "Poison Strikes" as a passive ability buff the "Venomed Blades"

"Poison Strikes": choose one poison, this will buff your "Venomed Blades".

-Heartseeker Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 fort save (stacks 5 times), On Crit: 1d6 Con damage, On vorpal: -5% Hit Points, no save, no work with BOSS.

-Chill Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 reflex save (stacks 5 times), On Crit: 1d6 Dex damage, On vorpal: Paralysis, no save, no work with BOSS.

-Soulshatter Poison: Your Venomed Blades on damage: -1 Will save (stacks 5 times), on Crit: 1d6 Wis damage, on Vorpal: Shattermantle (-100 Spell Resistance) no save, no work with BOSS.

This would be awesome only if they kept venomed blades at 2 ap per rank and needing all 3 ranks to work and possibly even requiring us to spend ap on the actual poison lines.

But where I see the assassin fall behind like everyone else is in epics, in heroics they can rock pretty hard all things considered with the new passes on other classes.

[brzytki]

My own, current number for what damage my Assassin does at lvl28 is about 2.2k DPS

See, my guildies have made a DPS test after barb revamp. They tested many types of builds, like THF barb, TWF barb, SWF S&B pally, THF pally, SWF bard, druid exploiter, some rangers, LD vs Crusader. I don't recall exactly which build had what numbers, but ALL the builds had 2,5k+ DPS, some were even around 4k DPS or over. I had my main rogue on an Arti life at that moment so i couldn't join them but i'm leveling her up now back to cap so that i can run the test myself.

It's telling that a well geared capped assassin in a Legendary Dreadnaught destiny (that is heavily centered around damage and it's not designed for assassins) is doing half the damage of the top DPS builds. And to top it off, it's single target.

That's why we NEED something to make SA scale better in epics.

[Chaios]

Great stuff Chaios!

Thank you very much. Yet, instead of quitting while I was clearly ahead, I feel compelled to rejoin the discussion...

Assassins should be fun for players who enjoy that type of play style.
(Rogues also have a lot of non-combat advantages.)
Sev~

Some posts denigrate the Rogue's non-combat advantages as irrelevant, useless or worse. Assuming the characterization is meant seriously, I wonder what attracts those posters to the class at all.

1. I proposed some mitigation to tremor sense be put in. 2. Some percentage of immunity to True Seeing and See Invis 5. one way to help with this is to increase damage on helpless targets.
Rogue healing is poor (I've done it with scroll before, yes, its poor.) Avoidance via dodge is decent, but avoidance via AC is poor. Mitigation is poor.
3. On the helpless damage, rogues would depend on others to make them helpless. Not only does this encourage team play and actually paying attention to what the others in your group are doing, but it also fits well thematically.

I like proposals 1 2 and 5, except that in the case of immunity form sensing buffs like True seeing I'd prefer 100% but not constant. I would say that Rogue healing is more... Ironic than poor: I usually only need to self heal when I run with a party, and UMD usually works better for me than whatever other things my team mates thought was going to help them. I solo the same way any other slacker does: With a hire, unless I want a challenge or a particular screen shot or something.

I've read a lot of posts about about Rogue damage mitigation. I'm always happy for more, of course, but I haven't had trouble soloing anything in a long time, and I haven't noticed any embarrassing kill count or death count ratio's on any of my rogues.

Shadow step/teleport ability was discussed before MotU went live and Devs said it's not gonna happen...

I don't like teleport effects for heroic lvl Rogues, mostly because of my prejudice against giving Rogues innate magical abilities (even if such is found in certain prestige class versions of the Assassin, and of course Epic is different). But I like the idea of a stealth sprint to incorporate the idea the Rogue dodging form shadow to shadow too quickly for the average eye to follow. I'd rather have something like that than a blanket movement increase or a sneak speed increase. Give that back to the acrobat. I'd like a short duration, very fast sprint that only works in stealth but that recharges quickly enough that an Assassin using it everytime it came off cooldown could keep pace with bard of the same level. If it could make the rogue immune to True Seeing for the duration of the cool down, that would be cool too.

That bonus to single-weapon Assassinate would need to be pretty hefty because you need to use TWF to get double assassinates.

Actually, my bonus to single weapon Assassinate is the higher number of attacks per minute SWF gives over TWF. But I'm glad we agree that TWF offers an advantage that other styles don't.

It's telling that a well geared capped assassin ...is doing half the damage of the top DPS builds.

Barbarian should be the absolute uncontested master of melee DPS. Of course, he should still die peacefully to a well placed Assassin's blade. Unless his pet Cleric is awake, of course.

[Ayseifn]

Barbarian should be the absolute uncontested master of melee DPS. Of course, he should still die peacefully to a well placed Assassin's blade. Unless his pet Cleric is awake, of course.

Disagree, wish it went back to rogues to be honest.

Having to not have aggro is a pretty big deal, and I'd like that part played up more in this update, +200% SA damage in Shadowdancer would go a long way to help out here and wouldn't be game breaking. Probably wouldn't help rogues take the DPS crown either.

[IronClan]

Wow, really wow...

So you initially thought that +6 MDB and 3 PRR was worth not only 3 APs but also a spot as a T5 enhancement?!

I shouldn't be surprised anymore...

It's responses like this which make most developers justified in not participating in forums much less sharing early stage work in progress development.

There's always some ... one... that guy, who thinks he would poo gold bricks every time he sits on his porcelain throne.

They are humans bro get over yourself.

[brzytki]

Some posts denigrate the Rogue's non-combat advantages as irrelevant, useless or worse. Assuming the characterization is meant seriously...

I meant every word i said.

I've read a lot of posts about about Rogue damage mitigation. I'm always happy for more, of course, but I haven't had trouble soloing anything in a long time, and I haven't noticed any embarrassing kill count or death count ratio's on any of my rogues.

Scaling? You know that while soloing the quest difficulty scales down and when in full group it scales up, right? That's why it's harder to solo a quest with 5 people piking at the entrance than actually soloing with only you in the quest. And that's when the damage you take per hit can be quite deadly.

Actually, my bonus to single weapon Assassinate is the higher number of attacks per minute SWF gives over TWF. But I'm glad we agree that TWF offers an advantage that other styles don't.

From what i know you don't need TWF to double assassinate. I might be wrong because i haven't actually ever taken SWF on my assassin but i've seen some other knowledgeable posters say that's the case. Apart from that, with SWF your attack animations can be faster than TWF but it doesn't mean you get more hits per minute because TWF has 80% chance for an off-hand attack during each swing animation while SWF is just x1,3 faster swinging. I might agree with your one hit being bigger than one hit from TWF character due to x1,5 ability mod and free MP though.

Barbarian should be the absolute uncontested master of melee DPS. Of course, he should still die peacefully to a well placed Assassin's blade. Unless his pet Cleric is awake, of course.

Barbarian should be the absolute uncontested master of melee DPS only when they have no healing from their trees. That's just basic game tradeoff - characters with best DPS should have some trouble with survivability. Now pet Clerics are long dead. Haven't you seen the new on-hit/on-kill/passive healing enhancments barbs have? Or the insane amount of Hamp they were given? Or HP? Or those temp HP? PRR form heavy armor? Now look at the rogue, it was dubbed a glass cannon for a reason, it had poor defenses and healing but awesome DPS. In today's DDO they still have poor defenses and healing while their DPS is miles behind the other classes.

[bloodnose13]

first of all i think all shadowdancer like abilities, like shadow form like stance and bolt should dissapear from assasin tree, becouse those smell of shadowdancer....

second we need something to counter the sneak ai changes, hypotetical situation, a room with 10 enemies, assasin sneaks up to one of enemies, bit out of way, from back, and assasinates, IF:
A: target dies, 9 enemies instantly turns and sees sneaking assasin, pulls out bows and shoots him, still sneaking
or
B: assasin fails assasinate roll, and 10 enemies pull out bows and shoot the assasin............
....so either way it does not work
we need some ability that will give assasin an chance to sneak out of the area before being noticed, to make assasinate again into an attack that can be repeated more times if used right way.
maybe it should be an update to sneak ai again, to make enemies first walk ot the spot where one of them died, and tehn make search check, coupled with ability that would let assasin recover from failed assasinate attempt without getting attacked.

otherwise we will see only assasins that dont use sneak at all, and sneak only for quick assasinate attempt, seeing awfuly lot of those since changes to ai (often dead), assasins comfort zone lies in shadows (in actual shadows created by lack of light and not in negative energy clouds of doom!!!!), and it should be expanded on that.

third i think that assasin should get a little boost to attack speed (10% maybe?) when useing finesseable weapons, like daggers and kukris, twf with those seems awfuly slow.

[brzytki]

assasins comfort zone lies in shadows (in actual shadows created by lack of light and not in negative energy clouds of doom!!!!), and it should be expanded on that.

After reading this i thought of an ability that when activated could immediately produce a fog effect (like the cloudkill spell in terms of looks only black and smaller) around the assassin giving him bonuses to hide/ms and then triggering a backwards tumble. I think that kind of trick would be awesome.