Rogue - Assassin Changes

[Tinco]

Huh. So this will be attainable for q-staff and xbow builds as well and will be stacking with their core/tier 5 crit bonuses. I'm a bit concerned about this.

Yep. This plus the new Acrobat 18 core (20% flat DS) pretty much sadly destroys multiclassing for Acrobats on the first glance, I have to theorycraft a bit more though before starting the lament.

[Jetrule]

Well Thank you Sev and team! This is very good news for the shadowy crew. There is another reason dex based assassinate dc dose not kill int based besides know the angles. Shadow puppet. A grerat shadowdancer tool for soloing/stealth play for thinning the ranks of enimies or just offering a distraction while we sneak by.

[brzytki]

~ The display is unchanged. When we looked into it I believe there were issues showing the cooldown and charges at the same time? I'd have to check our notes.

Sev~

If it's impossible or big tech/coding undertaking to have both charges and timer displayed on the same icon, maybe adding another icon with a timer would be a better idea. But you'd have to make sure they are displayed next to one another, like Greater Heroism for example.

[Mellkor]

I like these changes. Except for Dex to assassinate DC. IMO leave it as it was, it was good to choose to go with DEX or INT based with the related pros and cons. Now it will be a VASTLY superior choice to go DEX based. Dumping all those Harper tree points and putting them all elsewhere will FAR outweigh spending them in Harper as an INT based build, IMO.

[Qhualor]

The Rogue's fighting style favors speed and precision to increase their chance to deliver critical strikes. Armor that is making you slow and clumsy is bad for the type of fighting style that Lethality is supposed to portray.

Sev~

Nice! ill buy that.

[ToastyFred]

Still need a HIGH Int score to make Assassinate work well guys.

If all I wanted to do was DPS, however, I'd move to a Dex-based build.

I'll be sticking to an Int build.

[brzytki]

I like these changes. Except for Dex to assassinate DC. IMO leave it as it was, it was good to choose to go with DEX or INT based with the related pros and cons. Now it will be a VASTLY superior choice to go DEX based. Dumping all those Harper tree points and putting them all elsewhere will FAR outweigh spending them in Harper as an INT based build, IMO.

On the bright side, i'll no longer need to farm those stupid Optic Goggles from Tor. God, those puggers made this quest like a walk through hell a number of times for me.

[slarden]

Still need a HIGH Int score to make Assassinate work well guys.

If all I wanted to do was DPS, however, I'd move to a Dex-based build.

I'll be sticking to an Int build.

It uses the hgher of int or dex now so you don't need a high int score.

The notion that the assassin tree was ever an int or dex choice is wrong. Assassin was always an int tree and dex was used for damage/to hit because it was a secondary stat of assassins. Presumably at one point the devs thought int to hit and damage was too powerful for assassins. It became irrelevant after harper tree since rogues could use int to hit and damage.

Now dex wins hands down.

[CThruTheEgo]

Intelligence builds have a large advantage because they can make the best use of Know the Angles which itself is a large DPS boost. In addition, Intelligence builds get more skill points to play with which can actually be an issue for Dexterity rogues who wants stealth skills, bluff, and still be able to keep up all the trap skills.

Sev~

The additional skills on an int based won't really make a difference. Int based gets so many skills that they end up taking useless ones. A dex based can still get all the essential skills and then some.

With the changes to acrobat you just posted, there is no way that int based will beat dex based in dps. While int based gets know the angles, dex based can go 31 points in acrobat to get 20% doublestrike for 12 seconds after tumbling. That's huge and will beat whatever you would get from know the angles. With 60 int, an int based gets 25 additional damage from know the angles. If a dex based assassin does go for cartwheel charge, all assassin tier 5s, and the assassin capstone, that's 74 AP total. Which means a dex based can get the first rank of know the angles, which is expensive sp wise, but would make for some nice burst dps. But that 74 AP would get you a lot more dps than going full into harper as an int based, including 9 melee power and full ranks of know the angles.

[oradafu]

Huh. So this will be attainable for q-staff and xbow builds as well and will be stacking with their core/tier 5 crit bonuses. I'm a bit concerned about this. I do like that Assassins will have better crit profiles than Paladins and Bards with kukris and daggers. That seems right.

I don't know about Mechanics, but on a pure Acrobat, I doubt very many builds will have enough points to get Lethality. On a pure Acrobat, at least 40 points will be spent in the Acrobat tree (if not more) and 8 AP in the Mechanic tree for the Wand and Scroll Mastery (aka the only extra Heals for Rogues in their trees). That leaves 32 points to spend and Lethality needs 30 points. The point spread for Acrobats is just too tight for me too see this being an issue on a pure Acrobat, much less splashed Acrobats.

[Tinco]

Holy mother of rogues, you are right, CThru. Basically Assassins and TAs will share 90% AP distribution now, that sounds extremely varied and interesting.

I don't know about Mechanics, but on a pure Acrobat, I doubt very many builds will have enough points to get Lethality. On a pure Acrobat, at least 40 points will be spent in the Acrobat tree (if not more) and 8 AP in the Mechanic tree for the Wand and Scroll Mastery (aka the only extra Heals for Rogues in their trees). That leaves 32 points to spend and Lethality needs 30 points. The point spread for Acrobats is just too tight for me too see this being an issue on a pure Acrobat, much less splashed Acrobats.

I go faster to the nine hells and back for a crit multi than Elminster can light his pipe.

[CThruTheEgo]

IMO leave it as it was, it was good to choose to go with DEX or INT based with the related pros and cons. Now it will be a VASTLY superior choice to go DEX based.

There hasn't been a viable reason to go dex based for years now. With dex to assassinate, there will be no reason to go int based.

[CThruTheEgo]

Holy mother of rogues, you are right, CThru. Basically Assassins and TAs will share 90% AP distribution now, that sounds extremely varied and interesting.

And I didn't even mention the additional damage from no mercy, or the additional defenses from improved defensive roll, shadow dodge, 6 max dodge from cores, and immunity to slippery surfaces and knockdown. It's no contest. Int based is dead.

[Failedlegend]

Lethality - (Removed all old functionality.) While wearing light or cloth armor you gain +1 Insight bonus to critical damage multiplier to any weapon you are wielding.

Can someone please remind me why people were complaining about getting an insta-kill on vorpal again...I thought it was a really cool thematic ability.

Edit: To clarify this is a cool ability to just less so and frankly no longer suits the name "Lethality" with the odd light armor requirement...I'd say rename it to something more related to the light armor's lack of restriction or something

[Severlin]

There hasn't been a viable reason to go dex based for years now. With dex to assassinate, there will be no reason to go int based.

If it becomes an issue we can make adjustments, like making the acrobat doublestrike be staff only.

Sev~

[Severlin]

Can someone please remind me why people were complaining about getting an insta-kill on vorpal again...I thought it was a really cool thematic ability.

It didn't work on anything with more than 1000 hit points.

Sev~

[CThruTheEgo]

~ The display is unchanged. When we looked into it I believe there were issues showing the cooldown and charges at the same time? I'd have to check our notes.

That's understandable. What about just changing the timer to 12 seconds so it follows assassinate?

[Tinco]

And I didn't even mention the additional damage from no mercy, or the additional defenses from improved defensive roll, shadow dodge, 6 max dodge from cores, and immunity to slippery surfaces and knockdown. It's no contest. Int based is dead.

Well, we on the other hand will gladly take Killer, Nimbleness, Assassin's Trick and SA damage on our way to Lethality. One big family of non-splashed rogues (which actually doesn't make me happy at all).

[slarden]

If it becomes an issue we can make adjustments, like making the acrobat doublestrike be staff only.

Sev~

That would be a bad change. Assassins are now dex builds we should be able to benefit from the acrobat tree just like acrobats benefit greatly from the assassin tree.

[CThruTheEgo]

If it becomes an issue we can make adjustments, like making the acrobat doublestrike be staff only.

Sev~

Even without the 20% doublestrike from cartwheel charge, there is just too much synergy with dex based and the acrobat tree. Whatever gains an int based assassin could get by investing in harper, it won't be far enough ahead to outweigh the defensive advantages of a dex based investing in acrobat. Shadow dodge is a huge part of this, but so is no mercy, and improved defensive roll. A dex based that does not invest 31 into acrobat for cartwheel charge would simply invest more into know the angles (and, as someone pointed out above, would still only be about 5-7 additional damage behind an int based) and possibly melee power from harper, both of which would merely close the dps gap between int and dex based and put dex based further ahead overall.

Dex to assassinate really does kill int based assassins. I don't care either way to be honest. I'm just pointing out the reality of it. If we get dex based, I'll be happy to start over from level 1 so I can enjoy these changes through the entirety of the game.