Returning 2012 player : Need Dex Assassin build advice

[Posgildenlow]

Hello folks, I was an active player in this game up till 2012, and am just now returning. I´ve played a varied bunch of characters, mostly on heroics and low epics, but i my "main" character was an epic rogue i later TR´d before all the revamps ever came around.

Right now i´m sitting on a lvl 12 dex based twf halfling assassin, and my weapons were mostly daggers and rapiers. ( 1 rogue past life, a bunch of +1 or +2 tomes, some more or less decent gear from events/crafting/challenges back in 2012). When i played, i focused heavely on assassinate DC (while stil making sure i could do trapping) ad usually had enough killcounts (and high priority targets killed) that i felt i was being usefull to the party.

I made a new character to see how the game feels with the new updates, and while i´ve only ran a few tests on the rogue i can tell the build will most likelly be gimped compared to current meta. I *maybe* can still get do a half decent work by sheer force of gear ( since i had a bunch of varying level named items saved for the purpose of re-leveling after the TR) but i´m quite lost on what build i should be following.

I do not have much money (maybe half a million plat combined between my other characters) but i do have around 400 turbine points , a +20 heart of wood and most of the old premium adventure packages. I do not have harpers or vistani enhancement tree, or any of the premium races . I would prefere not to invest any money on premium stuff for the build unless strictly necessary, as i plan on buying the new expasion packs with my TP instead.

Essencially, i would like a decent TWF assassinate build for low-epic dificulties. I don´t intend to run high reaper with it nor be the top DPS in the party, but rather, i´d just like to feel efficient once mor

Can you folks give me some tips on building or even point me towards a few builds for this? i looked around the foruns , but the game has changed so much that i have a hard time judging between the many builds i found here. If you think a particular build can that has those premium races/trees can be pulled off without them, than i´d gladly try as well.

Thank you in advance for the help.

[unbongwah]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...x-Assassin-1-0
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...A-Reaper-Rogue

Biggest DPS upgrade for Assassins is actually the Vistani tree. It's 495 TPs though so you'd need to earn some TPs or wait for the next sale.

Gear-wise you need...idk but it probably involves Ravenloft. Mist-laden Vestment with Silent Avenger set is likely the best option at lvl 12.

Welcome back and good luck!

[Posgildenlow]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...x-Assassin-1-0
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...A-Reaper-Rogue

Biggest DPS upgrade for Assassins is actually the Vistani tree. It's 495 TPs though so you'd need to earn some TPs or wait for the next sale.

Gear-wise you need...idk but it probably involves Ravenloft. Mist-laden Vestment with Silent Avenger set is likely the best option at lvl 12.

Welcome back and good luck!

The DPS with a greensteel rapier ( plus the sweet, sweet blindness) should keep me covered untill i can get some better daggers, and the named stuff i have left over should be reasonable for a few levels. I´ll probably wait till 15 or 16 before respecing anyhow, and i´m running a new char with my SO so we should rack up the remaining favor reasonably fast for Vistani or just throw some cash at it, since it´s not a lot of TP.

The Vistani Build seem similar enough that i probably can get by without wasting a heart of wood too, so cheers to that.

Thank you very much for the reply! I´ll take a deeper look at those two and figure out where to go, but i´m leaning towards the shadow assassin one.

[kamimitsu]

The DPS with a greensteel rapier ( plus the sweet, sweet blindness) should keep me covered untill i can get some better daggers, and the named stuff i have left over should be reasonable for a few levels. I´ll probably wait till 15 or 16 before respecing anyhow, and i´m running a new char with my SO so we should rack up the remaining favor reasonably fast for Vistani or just throw some cash at it, since it´s not a lot of TP.

The Vistani Build seem similar enough that i probably can get by without wasting a heart of wood too, so cheers to that.

Thank you very much for the reply! I´ll take a deeper look at those two and figure out where to go, but i´m leaning towards the shadow assassin one.

Ravenloft is your best bet, firstly to get the favor and grab Vistani, which is the biggest DPS boost for the least effort. There are quite a few great daggers out there which may be worth farming, but you can get by with the Barovian dagger from 10-20, pretty much. Secondly, Ravenloft also has some stellar gear- it's probably the best bang for the buck what with lots of stuff on each item and then set bonuses; plus the quests are *mostly* quick, so you can loot run them over and over. Thirdly, as you're doing them you will also pick up the tokens needed to buy the Macabre Dagger (or another Barovian, or both), and you're mostly set for weapons from 10-20.

As for builds, it's pretty tough to screw up so long as you put a bunch of points in Assassin and Vistani. This is a great build (mine is very close). Don't worry so much about the gear listed, but take note of the enhancements and feats selected. I prefer Slippery Mind over Defensive Roll at 16, and I don't use the Heartseeker poison, but that's minor stuff.

Here and here are two more very solid builds. Look at all three, think about your play style and adjust accordingly.

And if you feel up to it, maybe visit us over in R.O.G.U.E. (Just doing a little recruiting for my pal Saekee)

[Grace_ana]

I used to use daggers until the enhancement tree revamp. In tier 5 of the assassin tree, you get crit bonuses, but only for daggers and kukris. So rapiers became pretty useless on assassins now, and I haven't used one in years on mine. That's a big change from "before." I had a rad2 rapier as well, and I haven't used it on a heroic life since the change. It's not bad or anything, but there is probably stuff that is better. (Unless you can whip up a rad2 dagger, in which case go crazy.)

The vistani tree has been mentioned, and I would highly recommend it. There's a lot of power in the tree.

Apart from that, the biggest difference in the power creep in gear. It's HUGE. You will want/need to farm out some better gear for your toon, especially because content is scaled based on where the power creep was at the time of release. So newer content is significantly harder than older content. That affects you less at lvl 12, but it will hit you soon. Slave lords gear is nice, Ravenloft gear is awesome, and cannith crafting got a revamp and allows you to make the best stats for any particular level excepting end game epic.

For your assassinate DCs you WILL need better gear. I don't know what difficulty you are planning on running, but the necessary DCs have been heavily inflated for most of the epic content. You'll want your highest dex item (check out the newest released content in the Twelve for a +11 dex helm at lvl 21) as well as a high assassinate item.

Something else to know: if you run reaper, the random reapers that appear auto-detect sneak and not only find you but alert others to your presence. There's no real workaround for it.

[Posgildenlow]

I used to use daggers until the enhancement tree revamp. In tier 5 of the assassin tree, you get crit bonuses, but only for daggers and kukris. So rapiers became pretty useless on assassins now, and I haven't used one in years on mine. That's a big change from "before." I had a rad2 rapier as well, and I haven't used it on a heroic life since the change. It's not bad or anything, but there is probably stuff that is better. (Unless you can whip up a rad2 dagger, in which case go crazy.)

The vistani tree has been mentioned, and I would highly recommend it. There's a lot of power in the tree.

Apart from that, the biggest difference in the power creep in gear. It's HUGE. You will want/need to farm out some better gear for your toon, especially because content is scaled based on where the power creep was at the time of release. So newer content is significantly harder than older content. That affects you less at lvl 12, but it will hit you soon. Slave lords gear is nice, Ravenloft gear is awesome, and cannith crafting got a revamp and allows you to make the best stats for any particular level excepting end game epic.

For your assassinate DCs you WILL need better gear. I don't know what difficulty you are planning on running, but the necessary DCs have been heavily inflated for most of the epic content. You'll want your highest dex item (check out the newest released content in the Twelve for a +11 dex helm at lvl 21) as well as a high assassinate item.

Something else to know: if you run reaper, the random reapers that appear auto-detect sneak and not only find you but alert others to your presence. There's no real workaround for it.

Yes, i figued that would likelly be the case. So far, i can run reaper 3 on lv 12 to 14s without much problems, and i honestly don´t intend to go much beyond r3, but i am sure once i hit 14 or 15 i will start to struggle with at level reaper quests. While i´m not doing top dps, i´m getting a decent kill contribution in by assassinating mages and the ocasional redname, and it has been hard but doable. Still, i can clearly see the unrealiability of assassinating on the higher levels unless i take the time to plan out better gear.

Still, i should be able to hit 16 with my current gear. At that point i will likelly have bought ravenloft so it should be okay. i will look into the gear you guys mentioned, and just have a quick look on the wiki to see the new things.

Thank you very much for the advice!

[slarden]

The 25% hp boost assassins just got convinced me to return to assassin. So few ap and so many good tree choices is the biggest problem right now.