Lethality. Moar criticism...

[krimsonrane]

I'm not sure so let me ask. Is that a normal vorpal of 1000 HP or less? if so it sucks.
You have 4 different tiers of vorpals on weapons all the way up to 3000 hp kills. 2 tiers can be found on random items and yet the MASTERS of vorpal strikes only get the lowest version? So to upgrade your ability you have to equip the same item a non assassin can use with the same effects?

If I can vorpal BETTER with a random gen item than I can with the abilities of a pure rogue assassins own skills then why bother with enhancements? Again, it looks like a change with no thought spent on the matter.
But hey, I might be wrong.

The video presentation never clarified it as if it didn't even matter.

Drow smoke goggles are the equal to being an assassin with lethality on any weapon. Not a good look.

[Mandelia]

It would be nice if they clarified a tier 5 core with vague wording. In the video they seem to treat it as basic vorpal, and one dev even mentions that a chunk of damage happens when the kill fails. As it stands the ability doesn't seem to do this, so maybe they fixed the coding or are simply ignorant to it not working properly.

[Powskier]

I'd like to see Vorpal tier, w you build... 1st lifers do the 1k damage / Heroes do 2k / and Legends do 3 k damage on fail save. An auto -past life feat ,it would be.

[walkin_dude]

I think the main problem is the inflation of mob HPs in epics.

1,000 HP is nothing in epic quests. Many mobs have to be slivered to have <1k.

Given that it's not too hard to one-shot a lot of the heroic mobs without needing vorpal, it seems like something that should be tweaked to be more useful in epic content.

Also, to address the OP's point, maybe the assassin's ability should scale. You could base the scaling on level, number of SA dice, or something else.

[Chi_Ryu]

Given that it's not too hard to one-shot a lot of the heroic mobs without needing vorpal, it seems like something that should be tweaked to be more useful in epic content.

The HP restriction on insta-death abilities is inconsistent as well; the Earthshatter Warhammer's "Rock shattering" property ignores HP, as do all death spells.

Is now the time for all Vorpal-like effects to no longer have the artificial HP cap?

[Chai]

The HP restriction on insta-death abilities is inconsistent as well; the Earthshatter Warhammer's "Rock shattering" property ignores HP, as do all death spells.

Is now the time for all Vorpal-like effects to no longer have the artificial HP cap?

To do this vorpal would have to be a special weapon and not something that drops on vendor trash loot often. That ship sailed years ago.

[Tinco]

To do this vorpal would have to be a special weapon and not something that drops on vendor trash loot often.

That's called mortal fear.

[Chi_Ryu]

To do this vorpal would have to be a special weapon and not something that drops on vendor trash loot often. That ship sailed years ago.

Fair point. Along with Tinco's comment about Mortal Fear (a ML28 raid-weapon effect), I guess the answer is most definitely "no."

[krimsonrane]

I think the main problem is the inflation of mob HPs in epics.

1,000 HP is nothing in epic quests. Many mobs have to be slivered to have <1k.

Given that it's not too hard to one-shot a lot of the heroic mobs without needing vorpal, it seems like something that should be tweaked to be more useful in epic content.

Also, to address the OP's point, maybe the assassin's ability should scale. You could base the scaling on level, number of SA dice, or something else.

pretty much yea. that 1k hit works great in amrath and meridia but not so great in other places. When the monster your fighting has 20,000 HP a 1k vorpal even with a paltry 100 extra damage is not going to make much difference. You could adrenaline rush it to death easier.

[krimsonrane]

I'm not sure so let me ask. Is that a normal vorpal of 1000 HP or less? if so it sucks.
You have 3 different tiers of vorpals on weapons all the way up to 2000 hp kills. 2 tiers can be found on random items and yet the MASTERS of vorpal strikes only get the lowest version? So to upgrade your ability you have to equip the same item a non assassin can use with the same effects?

If I can vorpal BETTER with a random gen item than I can with the abilities of a pure rogue assassins own skills then why bother with enhancements? Again, it looks like a change with no thought spent on the matter.
But hey, I might be wrong.

The video presentation never clarified it as if it didn't even matter.

Drow smoke goggles are the equal to being an assassin with lethality on any weapon. Not a good look.

make that THREE tiers. I forgot the 3k vorpal on the shield from HH.

[krimsonrane]

I have an 18/2 bard rogue right now. When it comes to assassinations he's better at it than any assassin I've ever had and just as good at locks/traps. yea he might only be able to assassinate one at a time but so what? they will literally stand there passively waiting for their turn. Add drow smoke goggles and who needs an assassin and for what?

[Pehtis]

Maybe if Lethality did 10% damage based on mob current health (max health might be op) on a resisted vorpal ?

Would allow it to scale into epics.

[krimsonrane]

Maybe if Lethality did 10% damage based on mob current health (max health might be op) on a resisted vorpal ?

Would allow it to scale into epics.

interesting.

[FuryFlash]

Maybe if Lethality did 10% damage based on mob current health (max health might be op) on a resisted vorpal ?

Would allow it to scale into epics.

I for one completely agree with this idea, for ALL vorpal effects. Also, the insta-kill portion could be changed to happen when the enemy's health is at a certain percentage instead of a number, similar to the execute ability. e.g. Insta-kill effect can happen at 20% or lower. The enemy you are fighting has 20k health, so once it reaches 4000 the insta-kill becomes possible. If they are at 20k, you would do 2000 extra damage, whereas if they are just above 4000 it would do 400 or so. Basically, a weaker version of mortal fear.

The problem is that in heroics, mobs have much less health. A 5% chance to deal 10% total HP is OK, but the insta-kill would almost never happen. Example:
Enemy has 2000 health. At full health, a Vorpal proc would do 200 damage, which is not bad. However, for the insta-kill to happen, the monster would have to be at 400 or lower health; at that point, the enemy is a couple hits from dying.
To counteract this problem, it would simply keep the old "if health < 1000" mechanism as well as the new "if health < 20%", whichever is higher.

Naturally, since killing things in heroics is generally considered easy for the most part anyway, it wouldn't have to be that powerful. It's really just in epics where it falls behind.


Anyway, this is just my opinion on the matter. Also, the numbers are not at all balanced, just some random numbers I threw in for examples.

[Buffyanne]

Vorpals were nerfed years ago when characters with vorpal weapons could out dps what were considered the best geared characters and people who spent long hours getting the best weapons complained loudly about vorpals. I don't see vorpal ever rising to power again because then you would simply have everyone equipping vorplas. And where do you draw the line? Why should assassins get a special vorpal and yet monks don't with vorpal strikes? That is after all an Epic feat. I think one should consider that even when mobs are immune to the instadeath effect they are still taking damage which is a nice DPS increase.

[brzytki]

Sorry for a shameless self-quote but take a look at this:

Lethality should definitely be improved. Vorpal or 100 damage if >1k hp as a 5th core is too out-dated. The idea is good but the really low HP limit and laughable not-scaling-with-MP damage just kills this ability. I'd change it so that each epic level increases both the HP limit (by another 1k) and damage (by another 100, MP-scalable). That way at cap we have a vorpal if HP <9k and 900 damage if HP>9k. I think it would be fine that way. It would both give some much needed DPS boost and preserve the "killer" factor of the PrE.

I think it would be the best way, assassins would again have a useful and not OP vorpal and get DPS boost that works both on trash mobs and bosses.

[Pehtis]

Vorpals were nerfed years ago when characters with vorpal weapons could out dps what were considered the best geared characters and people who spent long hours getting the best weapons complained loudly about vorpals. I don't see vorpal ever rising to power again because then you would simply have everyone equipping vorplas. And where do you draw the line? Why should assassins get a special vorpal and yet monks don't with vorpal strikes? That is after all an Epic feat. I think one should consider that even when mobs are immune to the instadeath effect they are still taking damage which is a nice DPS increase.

I am not suggesting returning to the old system of vorpal weapons. No, this would specifically an Assassin core. A level 18 one at that. Therefore unique to that class.

[Hobgoblin]

Sorry for a shameless self-quote but take a look at this:


I think it would be the best way, assassins would again have a useful and not OP vorpal and get DPS boost that works both on trash mobs and bosses.

i like this.

but wouldnt it scale with meele power and be more then 900 damage on over 9k?

[Chai]

That's called mortal fear.

Except I can have it at ML 8 rather than ML 28. Theres no reason to have any other weapon. Once that cap was removed, its likely people would want smiting, disruption, banishing removed as well, which puts melee at 5% insta kill at level 8 and above, with 10% after they get gswf or an equivalent feat / enhancement which makes their vorpals 19-20.

[brzytki]

i like this.

but wouldnt it scale with meele power and be more then 900 damage on over 9k?

Yeah, with ~70 MP it would be around 1530 damage. If it's too big, we could change it to be non-MP-scalable like it is now or lower it to be +50 damage per epic level.