Rogue - Assassin Changes

[depositbox]

Dodge is never negligible.

yes. yes, it is. few extra points is weaksauce and nothing that stops me. maybe for you, but...

[Severlin]

It kinda got buried under a few posts=

Sev, can you look into helplessness not increasing sneak attack damage? It used too, but doesn't anymore.

I don't know why that would have changed. We can look into it, but that will be a long investigation. (Meaning not for this coming patch.)

Sev~

[Grace_ana]

yes. yes, it is. few extra points is weaksauce and nothing that stops me. maybe for you, but...

Without seeing your build and knowing what you play, I couldn't say, and that's more intensive than this thread needs. I can tell you that when you run end game EE, every little bit counts when it comes to defenses.

[ToastyFred]

I don't know why that would have changed. We can look into it, but that will be a long investigation. (Meaning not for this coming patch.)

Sev~

Don't worry about it Sev. The Helpless condition NEVER increased Sneak damage. It did/does, however, increase Critical Hit damage.

[ToastyFred]

yes. yes, it is. few extra points is weaksauce and nothing that stops me. maybe for you, but...

Grace is right, you are not.

[depositbox]

Grace is right, you are not.

or youre doing it wrong, so. there's that.

[depositbox]

Without seeing your build and knowing what you play, I couldn't say, and that's more intensive than this thread needs. I can tell you that when you run end game EE, every little bit counts when it comes to defenses.

not for me. YMMV

[CThruTheEgo]

Don't worry about it Sev. The Helpless condition NEVER increased Sneak damage. It did/does, however, increase Critical Hit damage.

I'm not so sure about this. Wasn't the whole point of the 19rogue/1monk stunning fist assassin build to take advantage of the extra sneak attack damage against mobs in a helpless state induced by stunning fist? I see the thread which was linked earlier was talking about Lam stuff that Thoon said wasn't going live, but that doesn't mean it did not go live. As we know quite well, dev statements are not always correct. I, too, was always under the impression that sneak attack damage gained 50% against helpless mobs.

[slarden]

Yup already have the Epic Ethereal Bracers, so just need to figure out how to fit in the Insightful Dex somewhere. Anywhere I put, I am giving up something else. I do like the idea of the Mystic Eidolons, but i would have to give up my http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Shroud_of_Ardent which may be doable.

Other then that, no real change to gear. Playing around with enhancements is interesting. Could easily spend all the points in just two trees, Assassin and Thief Acrobat and be pretty happy. How much of a over difference in DPS percentage wise, hard to say. Definitely an improvement in DPS, maybe small enough (single digits % wise? maybe more?) to not make some switch from Int based for the DPS. The improvement to defense as well though make it much more attractive.

I do think the changes are such that if you are happy with your current Int based assassin, you do not need to change. As things are now, I will probably change to a dex based.

The other thing this change does is reinforce the idea we need more storage, because you should never sell or get rid of item that you might need when they make a change like this. I know I use to have a black dragon helm with Insightful dex and Treads of falling snow with insightful dex, but I sold them because I did not need them. Oh well

The "no gear change" option would be to keep all your gear as is and use a +2 dex augment.

With 4 dex from assassin tree, 5 from acrobat and 2 from harper you get 11 dex instead of 10 int to offset the loss of one insightful. So you end up with the exact same stat before yugo pots without any regearing.

[Humperdink]

As I said on the last page, the helpless condition has never increased sneak attack. This is a screenshot from early 2013. The floaty numbers are base damage followed by sneak attack. The first attack is a regular hit. Then I use Stunning Fist to induce helplessness. Notice on the the second attack *base* damage goes up put the sneak attack component stays relatively the same.

[CThruTheEgo]

As I said on the last page, the helpless condition has never increased sneak attack. This is a screenshot from early 2013. The floaty numbers are base damage followed by sneak attack. The first attack is a regular hit. Then I use Stunning Fist to induce helplessness. Notice on the the second attack *base* damage goes up put the sneak attack component stays relatively the same.

Interesting. Thanks for the pic Humperdink.

[Humperdink]

Interesting. Thanks for the pic Humperdink.

Not a problem. Trust me, I understand it takes a PhD just to try and keep up on DDO game mechanics and in no way do I claim to know all. lol That's why I long suspect Mr. Cow was a mad genius.

[HuneyMunster]

I'm not so sure about this. Wasn't the whole point of the 19rogue/1monk stunning fist assassin build to take advantage of the extra sneak attack damage against mobs in a helpless state induced by stunning fist? I see the thread which was linked earlier was talking about Lam stuff that Thoon said wasn't going live, but that doesn't mean it did not go live. As we know quite well, dev statements are not always correct. I, too, was always under the impression that sneak attack damage gained 50% against helpless mobs.

I remember Sneak Attack doing extra damage on helpless back before melee power was added and I think also after. So could be something from the last update or slightly earlier.

Wiki page, though can sometimes be inaccurate or out of date also states "Helpless monsters now take an extra 50% damage from all sources - including sneak attack damage,". Last update of the page on helpless was june 2014. also states "Everything except glancing blows are increased by +50%" which I dont know if is still accurate.

[Bolo_Grubb]

The "no gear change" option would be to keep all your gear as is and use a +2 dex augment.

With 4 dex from assassin tree, 5 from acrobat and 2 from harper you get 11 dex instead of 10 int to offset the loss of one insightful. So you end up with the exact same stat before yugo pots without any regearing.

True, but what about changing race from human to say halfling? Not use the harper tree at all and pick up 2 dex for being a halfling race and 2 more racial tree, as well as get maybe a couple more sneak attack die and a bit more dodge? Will have to play around with the planner to see about the AP.

and then if I do regear a bit and get the http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Necklac...ystic_Eidolons for a bit more Dex.

Regardless of all that, If I go dex base I could swap my goggles for something else. Currently I wear http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Intrica...%28Level_25%29 with Insightful int +3 and 2 slots. Maybe swap for the epic time sensing with 2 slots.


Edit: I just checked my TR cache and turns out I have a Mystic Eidolons I had forgotten about. lol

[bbqzor]

As I said on the last page, the helpless condition has never increased sneak attack. This is a screenshot from early 2013. The floaty numbers are base damage followed by sneak attack. The first attack is a regular hit. Then I use Stunning Fist to induce helplessness. Notice on the the second attack *base* damage goes up put the sneak attack component stays relatively the same.

Turbine math is at fault here. Sneak attack values do not display as increased, but their increase is applied to the front number instead, because having it work how it "should" is too hard or something.

Helpless is +50%. Using that pic, do the math. In the second hit, the sneak value is 63. That means if helpless the mob took an additional 31 damage from the sneak portion. Subtracting that from the first number of 78 yields 47. That 47 is 150% of your base hit (the normal front number value) which in this case was likely 31. (Side note, that means the game likely rounded the extra sneak and base hit increases together for an extra point, so thats nice at least).

Given that the first hit is also a base of 31, that seems spot on. If I am wrong here, that means your base hit between the first and second strikes went from 31, to 52, which would be quite the change.

Or at least this is how it all used to work back when they "fixed" it at some point. Maybe you just have +% helpless damage from a lot of sources. But seeing as the math lines up right, I assume thats still what its doing. Its been a long time since I bothered to check this on live.

In any event, if you have a ton of +% helpless, or if someone else has better values to check, feel free to chime in. I dont really have time to go check this myself right now or look up the notes for the changes, but maybe it gives someone a good idea of how to test. You should see your front number go up more than 50% if you have sneak attacks against a helpless mob, and the difference should be the 50% sneak attack bonus being thrown onto the wrong floaty number.

If that is no longer how it works, then yea, something changed. Or Im crazy... as someone said keeping up with ddo changes takes a PhD. But if memory serves, thats how it is (or maybe was, given the posts) working. Cheers all.

PS. Sev... poison DCs? Sneak changes rogue only or global? Any word of item revamps? People asked a lot of questions that have gotten silence, be good to know. Thanks.

[brzytki]

Sneak attack was never increased by the helpless condition. A dev even confirms it here when they switched from auto crits to +50% damage in 2011:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post3710232

That's incorrect. Sneak attack damage might have not been increased on Lama that time but since that update went live it certainly did increase sneak attack damage from helplessness. Here's a thread with some of us testing it: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...37#post3793637

And about your screenshot, it proves you wrong. See how did you get 78 damage on the second hit when on first you have only 31? Maybe because you hit for ~30 + 50% helplessness for base = 45 then add +50% from helplessness from SA (63/2) ~31 and you get around 78 damage.

[Bolo_Grubb]

Something else I just thought of...

Harper tree allows me to use any weapon with strategic combat.

If I go dex based and use several points in Thief Acrobat, I guess I should get a couple of staves for blunt DR.

[CThruTheEgo]

Something else I just thought of...

Harper tree allows me to use any weapon with strategic combat.

If I go dex based and use several points in Thief Acrobat, I guess I should get a couple of staves for blunt DR.

Or take weapon finesse and dual wield light maces. This is what I did before we had harper. The assassin core also lets you use dex for damage with any light weapon or rapiers if you have weapon finesse. I tried using a quarterstaff at first and the difference in dps between dual wielding with the full twf line and staff wielding without building for it in any way, is quite noticeable.

Although with the acrobat tree synergy we will have, it might be an option to take some staff enhancements from there. I've not looked at the tree for that purpose, though, so I'm not sure how good of an option that would be.

[Delacroix21]

That's incorrect. Sneak attack damage might have not been increased on Lama that time but since that update went live it certainly did increase sneak attack damage from helplessness. Here's a thread with some of us testing it: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...37#post3793637

And about your screenshot, it proves you wrong. See how did you get 78 damage on the second hit when on first you have only 31? Maybe because you hit for ~30 + 50% helplessness for base = 45 then add +50% from helplessness from SA (63/2) ~31 and you get around 78 damage.

Thank you for this, I DISTINCTLY remember it used to increase sneak attack damage, but then after the melee power update (or around that time) it did not.

[Bolo_Grubb]

Or take weapon finesse and dual wield light maces. This is what I did before we had harper. The assassin core also lets you use dex for damage with any light weapon or rapiers if you have weapon finesse. I tried using a quarterstaff at first and the difference in dps between dual wielding with the full twf line and staff wielding without building for it in any way, is quite noticeable.

Although with the acrobat tree synergy we will have, it might be an option to take some staff enhancements from there. I've not looked at the tree for that purpose, though, so I'm not sure how good of an option that would be.

Weapon Finesse will depend on if I decide to stay human or try a race with a dex bonus.