Rogue - Assassin Changes

[Qezuzu]

You may be a knowledgeable player but that doesn't mean you understand how to play DC assassin.

DC Assassin is the sole build I've played the last couple years so, again, rude.

I will take your comment about multi-class not ruining stealth in the context of all the rest of your (incorrect) statements.

You have absolutely nothing but conjecture to back it up. Everyone who prefers tank builds over stealth builds are already playing something that's not 20 rogue, and everyone who wants tanky+insta-kills is using Swashbuckler.

Assassins by no means need web in a group

I was talking about solo. Without the CC of web, there's no way you can get the defenses to tank several EE mobs at once with just a small splash. You're greatly overstating how much benefit you're going to get from a small splash, you'd need 3 Paladin minimum to get anything significant (CHA to saves, free heavy armor prof, 19 net PRR after armor [at the cost of 50% threat gen], 20% more HP), at which point you're giving up some stuff beyond DCs (5d6 dice and 10 MP is not insignificant, but Lethality needs a revamp to make it an actual cost to drop).

I would be happy to make a group video. The only reason I have not done this is because I am not on the forums to tout how awesome I am, and it requires permission from all of the other players. I would propose EE Von 3. I will ask you to join me so we can post a screenshot at the end. We can run 2-man or full group. Please let me know if you are interested.

Are you on Thelanis? If not, we could do something on Lamannia.

[slarden]

It seems ridiculous for people to be criticizing other's play based on forum posts. Although endgame rogue builds are likely close, the small differences can change play style quite a bit.

It gets a little old when people counter a minor disagreement by saying the other player sucks.

I would suggest that if we focus more on what we agree on we are more likely to get interest from the devs on minor tweaks to the tree.

[Donny_b]

I walked through this in another thread where someone was demanding proof that 77 was possible. The max sustainable assassinate DC is at least 80 including ship buffs and yugo pots, but not including any other non-sustainable buffs like store pots, cookies, turn-in potions, etc. ship buffs and yugo pots you can effectively run all the time.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5566708

I don't think you understood what i had said. A dc high enough to do ee will require copious effort at the loss of dex which is a rogue reflex, dmg and to hit. Not to mention loss in other aspects that those points can be allocated to instead of grevious amounts of intelligence. If youh ave ran a rpgue before, you will understand exactly where i am coming from. If you have not, then you have no necessary nor useful input to this topic because you do not understand how pain staking it is to have to try to maximize two stats at the same time considering survivability.

[slarden]

I don't think you understood what i had said. A dc high enough to do ee will require copious effort at the loss of dex which is a rogue reflex, dmg and to hit. Not to mention loss in other aspects that those points can be allocated to instead of grevious amounts of intelligence. If youh ave ran a rpgue before, you will understand exactly where i am coming from. If you have not, then you have no necessary nor useful input to this topic because you do not understand how pain staking it is to have to try to maximize two stats at the same time considering survivability.

I take insightful reflexes so my reflex save is based on intelligence rather than dexterity. I also take strategic combat I and II from the harper tree so I can use int for to-hit and damage instead of dex. However, I do know what you mean since before harper tree I also went up the acrobat tree to get a high dex and that will be harder after the next update.

I still need to get a 21 dex by level 24 for improved sneak attack so I need to worry about a high dex also.

The point of my previous post was to show you what is possible, not to suggest anything else so you may have read more into my post than I intended. If you read my post I also noted going for a max assassinate is a very bad trade-off in my opinion.

[Bobby88888]

I don't think you understood what i had said. A dc high enough to do ee will require copious effort at the loss of dex which is a rogue reflex, dmg and to hit. Not to mention loss in other aspects that those points can be allocated to instead of grevious amounts of intelligence. If youh ave ran a rpgue before, you will understand exactly where i am coming from. If you have not, then you have no necessary nor useful input to this topic because you do not understand how pain staking it is to have to try to maximize two stats at the same time considering survivability.

To clarify you can still fairly easily hit 40 dex while pumping int on a 1st life sk, drow or halfling but that is rather irrelevant to your point since you are saying pumping int is at the cost of reflex, to hit and damage when in actuality it boosts all of those as well as your DC thanks to Harper int to hit and damage and insightful reflexes. If you choose to skip them you can hardly complain about needing dex to increase them since you chose that.

For most EE content you don't need a massive DC either, and can ignore all temporary boosts and some Int from shadowdancer. And needing to put effort into your DC is a good thing IMO.

As to maximising 2 stats, my rogue maxs 3: int, dex and con with ~70, 40 and 40 each on 1st life shadar kai, yes that is with a +6 tome to each but that was earn't via ingame TP not bought TP so I think it is fair enough to count it.

I think it is safe to say Slarden has run a rogue and has a fairly good idea what he is talking about, you just play a different rogue type that doesn't take the options provided to let you do the above and that is OK but makes for a weak footing for such an argument.

[nokowi]

DC Assassin is the sole build I've played the last couple years so, again, rude.



You have absolutely nothing but conjecture to back it up. Everyone who prefers tank builds over stealth builds are already playing something that's not 20 rogue, and everyone who wants tanky+insta-kills is using Swashbuckler.



I was talking about solo. Without the CC of web, there's no way you can get the defenses to tank several EE mobs at once with just a small splash. You're greatly overstating how much benefit you're going to get from a small splash, you'd need 3 Paladin minimum to get anything significant (CHA to saves, free heavy armor prof, 19 net PRR after armor [at the cost of 50% threat gen], 20% more HP), at which point you're giving up some stuff beyond DCs (5d6 dice and 10 MP is not insignificant, but Lethality needs a revamp to make it an actual cost to drop).



Are you on Thelanis? If not, we could do something on Lamannia.

We can do Lamannia. Did you want 2-man, pug, or a defined group? What will you be playing?

You keep responding to my paladin comment without addressing fast moving builds that don't use stealth but blind everything and assassinate before a stealth player can get to the mobs. As a person allowing multiclass, you are in the position of defending that there are not any builds that will preclude stealth assassin from doing their job. If you think the gains from pally are appropriate, fine, move on to the next build. I am sure I can find more. I came up with pally and monk speed/blind in about 15 seconds.

Yes, I am using conjecture because by definition you have not given out complete information. I have no choice but to use conjecture based on your comments. When you make a blanket statement that assassins cant be effective in groups (which I know to be wrong based on my own experiences), I could definitely be giving you less credibility than you deserve. Make better statements in the future.

I solo EE House of Broken Chains without any web or any form off CC now because with the addition of melee power, I just don't need them. I disagree that web is a requirement in solo EE's. I think a few of my solo EE videos don't use web at all. I am pretty sure I can do EE Fleshmaker without web or any other cc. This is a level 31 dungeon. Definitely would be a challenge though.

Here is me fighting seven or eight CR 70 EE mobs at the same time. Can you explain why you think web is required to fight multiple EE mobs, or at least clarify this statement? http://youtu.be/EO9H0wIPYTM

[Faltout]

You just need some more practice. You are willing to evaluate your own game play (rather than trying one thing, quitting and saying assassin is broken) so I am sure you can do well with assassin.

I'm sure I have lots of ground to cover till I am able to play an assassin with full potential. But that said, I'm not a new player and have played many builds with very different playstyles (barbs head in battle, sneaky rogues that never get aggro, squishy wizards that manipulate the field from behind, tanks that try to take aggro off allies, rangers that kite monsters in a circle for the party or lining them up for IPS, etc.) I know very well when to get and when not to get aggro as well as how to position myself on the battlefield.
But nobody's perfect. When a great number of things are happening all at once in a quest, it's tough to keep on top of things.

In spinner, a newer assassin DC player should follow another player. As soon as the mob runs (or teleports) to the other player, you assassinate them.

Considering the melee players were at center and the ranged players were kiting, getting to their position can be tough. But I did have many successful assassinates. Several Jariliths and 2 Hezrous. I was especially happy with the Jarilith ones as they can cause a lot of pain.
The problem with that particular Hezrou was that I wasn't expecting it for a while (because there were spiders still to be killed), but the melees at center were in a hurry and killed the spinner which spawned the Hezrous. At the time I thought I had the ranged on my side, but I was wrong.

Another idea would be to repeat the same quest and just stay in stealth the entire time. After you better learn how to select targets, you can work on popping in and out of stealth and paying attention to your health bar.

What would that accomplish? I know the quest like the back of my hand. But with champions and fireballs and walls of fire and cleaves and disco balls all going on, it's hard to know where everything is, wouldn't you agree?

Lastly, you may or may not have the DC for spinner, depending on your build choices. I am remembering a DC of 60 being usable off the top of my head. The cats and spiders are easy to assassinate while the Hezrou take some DC.

60 for a heroic spinner? I don't know, I thought that was the good enough DC for pale masters in epic levels...

Aaaanyway. I wanted to provide my experience which I'm sure others must be having. Insta kill is much easier in other classes. I don't expect it to be easy like bard, but this is too hard.

[nokowi]

I'm sure I have lots of ground to cover till I am able to play an assassin with full potential. But that said, I'm not a new player and have played many builds with very different playstyles (barbs head in battle, sneaky rogues that never get aggro, squishy wizards that manipulate the field from behind, tanks that try to take aggro off allies, rangers that kite monsters in a circle for the party or lining them up for IPS, etc.) I know very well when to get and when not to get aggro as well as how to position myself on the battlefield.
But nobody's perfect. When a great number of things are happening all at once in a quest, it's tough to keep on top of things.
Considering the melee players were at center and the ranged players were kiting, getting to their position can be tough. But I did have many successful assassinates. Several Jariliths and 2 Hezrous. I was especially happy with the Jarilith ones as they can cause a lot of pain.
The problem with that particular Hezrou was that I wasn't expecting it for a while (because there were spiders still to be killed), but the melees at center were in a hurry and killed the spinner which spawned the Hezrous. At the time I thought I had the ranged on my side, but I was wrong.


What would that accomplish? I know the quest like the back of my hand. But with champions and fireballs and walls of fire and cleaves and disco balls all going on, it's hard to know where everything is, wouldn't you agree?

60 for a heroic spinner? I don't know, I thought that was the good enough DC for pale masters in epic levels...

Aaaanyway. I wanted to provide my experience which I'm sure others must be having. Insta kill is much easier in other classes. I don't expect it to be easy like bard, but this is too hard.

Sorry I thought you were on epic spinner. I no longer remember heroic DC's. I am sure you just need more practice with assassin. Having played a lot of other builds does not mean you can step into assassin and play well. Assassin takes far more skill than other builds (as you now know). I personally can keep track of everything without a problem, but I have a lot of experience with assassin. I don't even think about my buttons any more, I think and they happen. My thought is always focused on where to move to next to be most efficient (while keeping track of all other player and mob movements), and deciding when to pop in and out of stealth. Being able to predict mob and player moves ahead of time is very helpful and rewarding.

Non-group oriented kiting ranged toons are an annoyance to all melee. A good group ranged player would pull 2 mobs to you and let you double assassinate on each kiting pass. Alternatively you could have stayed center with the melee and probably done much better. (This is where the Hezrou can get annoying and you can get lots of 2x Hezrou assassinates)

Don't give up! Check out the rogue discussion page and look for CThruU or Saekee among others if you need any advice. They are very helpful.

[amsharkwei]

Add a new iteam in DDO store

yes!

The Tome of +1 to +5 Assassnate DC !!!

The Tome of +1 to +5 Action Point !!! Then we can have maximum 85 AP

The Tome of +1 to +5 Epic Destiny Point !!! Then we can have maximum 29 DP

[redoubt]

To clarify you can still fairly easily hit 40 dex while pumping int on a 1st life sk, drow or halfling but that is rather irrelevant to your point since you are saying pumping int is at the cost of reflex, to hit and damage when in actuality it boosts all of those as well as your DC thanks to Harper int to hit and damage and insightful reflexes. If you choose to skip them you can hardly complain about needing dex to increase them since you chose that.

For most EE content you don't need a massive DC either, and can ignore all temporary boosts and some Int from shadowdancer. And needing to put effort into your DC is a good thing IMO.

As to maximising 2 stats, my rogue maxs 3: int, dex and con with ~70, 40 and 40 each on 1st life shadar kai, yes that is with a +6 tome to each but that was earn't via ingame TP not bought TP so I think it is fair enough to count it.

I think it is safe to say Slarden has run a rogue and has a fairly good idea what he is talking about, you just play a different rogue type that doesn't take the options provided to let you do the above and that is OK but makes for a weak footing for such an argument.

Minor point, but how do you earn enough TP on a 1st life character to buy 3 +6 tomes?

[FlaviusMaximus]

I have an off the wall idea.

Assassinate is really strongly tied to Rogue level and there is almost no wiggle room when it comes to building a character that wants to utilize the ability. That is problematic, in my mind, because it eliminates the best feature of this game - the customization. Right now, it's go single class or don't bother. With the proposed changes so far, I don't think this changes much.

What if assassinate was completely untethered to Rogue level but the cooldown was instead? For example, instead of the DC being 10 + Rogue level, what if the DC was simple base 30 and then the cooldown is decreased by 1 second at core 12, 2 more seconds at core 18, and 2 more seconds (for a total of 5) at core 20?

Doing this would still give single class Rogues a distinct advantage when it came to assassination but it would make building a lot more interesting.

Gotta revise this. Somehow forgot about Holy Sword. This would just create too many 15p/5r Assassins. Thank you Holy Sword for being so broken.

20 + 1/2 Rogue level instead.

[redoubt]

Severlin,

Any chance you guys are looking at the stealth system any time soon? Could we get an official thread to discuss it?

Thanks!

We can do Lamannia. Did you want 2-man, pug, or a defined group? What will you be playing?

You keep responding to my paladin comment without addressing fast moving builds that don't use stealth but blind everything and assassinate before a stealth player can get to the mobs. As a person allowing multiclass, you are in the position of defending that there are not any builds that will preclude stealth assassin from doing their job. If you think the gains from pally are appropriate, fine, move on to the next build. I am sure I can find more. I came up with pally and monk speed/blind in about 15 seconds.

Yes, I am using conjecture because by definition you have not given out complete information. I have no choice but to use conjecture based on your comments. When you make a blanket statement that assassins cant be effective in groups (which I know to be wrong based on my own experiences), I could definitely be giving you less credibility than you deserve. Make better statements in the future.

I solo EE House of Broken Chains without any web or any form off CC now because with the addition of melee power, I just don't need them. I disagree that web is a requirement in solo EE's. I think a few of my solo EE videos don't use web at all. I am pretty sure I can do EE Fleshmaker without web or any other cc. This is a level 31 dungeon. Definitely would be a challenge though.

Here is me fighting seven or eight CR 70 EE mobs at the same time. Can you explain why you think web is required to fight multiple EE mobs, or at least clarify this statement? http://youtu.be/EO9H0wIPYTM

The version of stealth you are wanting does not work well in a group. If you are in stealth you are too far behind to be relevant. That's why I pushed, early in this thread for sneak speed that exceeded normal movement speed as a means to keep up with fast movement. You countered by saying that sneak and stealth are not the same thing.

You are right, they are not the same. You want stealth to be relevant, but the game is prejudiced heavily against stealth, even in solo play.
1. Any interactions break sneak and invis.
2. objectives that require mass killing
3. doors that "magically" unlock when EVERY mob in the room dies.
4. most champions have see invis or true seeing (hey, if we are talking "stealth" and not just "sneak" this counts!)
5. No way to avoid tremor sense or blind sight (also things I've suggested in this thread.)
6. masses of mobs that spawn around you when you cross a specific location in the quest. (We should be able to "stealth" past, open the door and "stealth" on by without the mobs ever spawning, but Turbine won't let us.)

These are things that are killing stealth. I'm happy to address them. In fact, I'd love to address them, but that is not what this thread is about.

I don't know how you want us to respond, but I will tell you that if you are sneaking/stealthing around, then my paladin and the other 4 in the party will RUN past you and kill everything in the room before you arrive. This is why I say stealth does not work well in groups. Its the same problem with fascinate. Groups don't have the patience or the appropriate awareness of how to deal with fascinated mobs. THAT, and the monte hall dps we do clears ROOMs so fast that no other tactic is needed.

Of course stealth works better when solo. CC is likely not needed in most quests. With the use of patience and proper single pulling of mobs you can kill things one at a time. This is only place left for the actual stealth game today. (Again, I'd be happy to discuss ways to invigorate the stealth game, but in another thread.)

[redoubt]

Aaaanyway. I wanted to provide my experience which I'm sure others must be having. Insta kill is much easier in other classes. I don't expect it to be easy like bard, but this is too hard.

Moving targets are problematic. TWF has a very small hit box and both latency and moving make it worse. You really need to almost assassinate from in front of the mob, anticipating where it is going to be when you attack actually happens.

It is hard to do consistently and its the same sort of cheese that is protected by people who want twitch dps to be better than dps via the normal attack chain.

[redoubt]

Gotta revise this. Somehow forgot about Holy Sword. This would just create too many 15p/5r Assassins. Thank you Holy Sword for being so broken.

20 + 1/2 Rogue level instead.

Splashing 5 rogue on a paladin is not going to make the paladin kill faster...

But I still don't think we should separate assassinate DC from rogue levels like you suggest.

[Qezuzu]

When you make a blanket statement that assassins cant be effective in groups (which I know to be wrong based on my own experiences), I could definitely be giving you less credibility than you deserve. Make better statements in the future.

I never said Assassin, I said the sneak system. It seems we're using different definitions of stealth.

In videogames, there's two kinds of stealth. Stealth as in avoid alerting any attention whatsoever (e.g. Thief series). And then there's murder stealth where you're really aggressive and kill everyone without making a scene about it (e.g. literally every other story-driven action adventure game use glass bottles to divert attention WOOHOO).

And then in DDO, stealth in a group is some bizarre combination of murder stealth and an ARPG, where one person is being REALLY STEALTHY in that mobs don't notice them at first but they still murder everything in roughly the same fashion as the rest of the group. At least in the way I use sneak, which is, again, to Assassinate things whenever I get a chance. At all other times I'm just attacking or healing.

Okay, calling Web traps a necessity everywhere isn't accurate but there's still really no reason to not use them in top level content (so not House of Broken Chains). It doesn't quite matter how much defense a splash would give when you have such good crowd control anyway.

I'm still a bit confused about the "blind and then Assassinate" thing. How is this so different from just sneaking up and Assassinating, especially with the improved movement speed? Why is this something that a pure 20 Assassin can't do either? Why not just Bluff and then Assassinate?

[SealedInSong]

Players have an infinite number of builds to experiment with. This includes DC insta kill through bard. You dont need rogue to do this.

You suggest that assassins should also have stunning fist because you like it.

I don't have the time to respond to all of this, but:

1] "infinite builds" across all classes/races has nothing to do with me, and others, talking about how restricted ASSASSINS are.

We obviously understand that rogues aren't required for instakill, but THAT'S THE POINT; other instakills can have a nice variety of builds, whereas ASSASSINS ARE PIGEONHOLED for higher difficulties.

2] I'm not asking for assassins to have stunning fist AT ALL. I was using stunning fist as an ANALOGY for a AN ABILITY USEFUL ACROSS A WIDE VARIETY OF BUILDS.

If you don't understand that analogy, it's possible that I made a poor analogy, and it's possible that you missed it and your post doesn't address what I'm saying at all.

I think it's the latter.

[SealedInSong]

If I watched you play your 8 stunning fist toons, would I notice the difference in your game play?

Yes, of course. They have extremely varied tactics, not just from their builds but because of roleplaying considerations and abilities. That's pretty much inherent.

Not build differences, but how you move through the dungeon, how you assess targets, etc.

See above.

It seems likely you are confusing hitting the same set of buttons with the exact same game play and different build choices with actual differences in game play.

Nope, I'm not.

Ex: my stunning wizard likes to group mobs, because fighting in AoEs is better DPS than single target.
Ex: my stunning rogue likes to bluff mobs and bring them close, then eliminate them singly.
Ex: my stunning clonk likes to get into the fray after party members have gotten aggro, so she can get in sneak attacks but also keep party members alive with ameliorating strike and radiant aura.

If you are bored with assassin, it sounds like you have plenty of other toons to play. Go play your 8 other stunning fist toons.

This is equivalent to saying, "If [X] DDO [class/race/prestige/destiny] doesn't give enough build options, play the interesting ones." Uh, yeah. We'll play the things that interest us most. However, if I think that [X] option is GENERALLY not interesting/diverse to the player base, myself included, then I will make suggestions to make it more colorful and applicable.

You certainly have not made a good argument that there are not enough stunning fist builds, and therefore we need more. These exist. Go play them.

Most classes have many build choices and then game play is just players trying them out.

I think that I carefully and effectively illustrated that stunning fist builds can be effective on an extremely diverse platform of builds, whereas assassins are basically only effective in endgame when they are:
pure rogue + int destiny (default shadowdancer) + [mythic muffled veneer/dark diversion] + int based

That is not diverse to me.

For assassin, the variety comes through the game play choices that you make as your skill, understanding, and character power change. It also depends on your tolerance for risk vs reward, your character dps, character toughness, willingness to use traps, and as your party composition changes. There is much more variety here than just testing your latest build for awesomeness.

Yes, I understand that. As I said, I have two assassins and I do enjoy them. Hence, I'm on this thread hoping to improve my enjoyment of them and possible future assassin builds.

Someone else mentioned 7 assassin builds that they found on the forums. If they can make a compelling argument that they all have their merits in endgame AND are sufficiently different from each other, rather than just choosing Shadar-Kai vs. Drow, or running in Magister vs. Shadowdancer, or using this weapon vs. that weapon, then I'd love to see it.

Currently, your sidestepping of my argument that it's easy to think of tons of effective stunning fist BUILDS AND GAMEPLAY vs just a truly narrow window of assassin BUILDS AND GAMEPLAY, because BUILDS ARE A PLATFORM FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF GAMEPLAY, leaves us with little to talk about.

[Bobby88888]

Minor point, but how do you earn enough TP on a 1st life character to buy 3 +6 tomes?

It was a +6 supreme tome actually and I have been playing for 5 and a half years, that character is 1 of 9 and you can easily get ~1200 TP a life without first time bonuses these days so I have built up a lot of TP over the years, not to mention favour farming each sever to 100 fav. Getting enough for a +6 supreme on the 20% off sales is easy enough and when you have nothing better to spend it on why not
But I probably should have adjusted numbers for a +3 tome to dex/con and +5 to int which gives ~70 int still, 36 or 38 dex and 36 or 38 con

[Bobby88888]

6. masses of mobs that spawn around you when you cross a specific location in the quest. (We should be able to "stealth" past, open the door and "stealth" on by without the mobs ever spawning, but Turbine won't let us.)

Actually there are a lot of places that sneaking (successfully, low hide/ms doesn't work) will not spawn mobs/activate them at all. Of course the rest of the group blunders through moments later and sets them all off but you can skip spawning a lot of mobs by having the entire group successful sneak past.

[Ayseifn]

Just throwing this out there, what if flanking bonus was added to assassinate DC?

That'd mean +1 for attacking from the side, +2 from behind and the only way I remember that buffs it is from Way of the Faithful Hound. Hound is +2 for one monk level and then another +1 at 3 monk levels so not really game breaking.