What are some improvements that could be made to Assassin? (Polling for a mod)

[Cyrus_Blackfeather]

Hey guys, 

 

So, I'm wanting to play an Assassin rogue for my ranged DPS MC, just because I think it fits well thematically. Now, the consensus around these forums seems to be that Assassin, while perfectly serviceable, could use a small buff of some kind to bring it up to par with the other two Rogue subclasses. I was wondering if there were any ideas for what that small buff could be? 

 

Things I've considered...

 

Fixing the "Stealth Breaks Full Attack" thing. That seems to be working as intended, and fiddling with it would essentially allow you to be permanently invisible. 

 

Giving Assassins what amounts to a scaling PL bonus to poison effectiveness - essentially reverting to 1.1 in terms of how Alchemy worked regarding poisons. This seems a lot more doable, and is in keeping with the theme. It hearkens back to D&D Assassins, who made heavy use of poisons, and makes them a little more significant in an Assassin's hands. 

 

Giving Assassinate bonus Sneak Attack damage as well as bonus Accuracy, Penetration, and Crit damage. Might be a little too OP though.

 

Allowing Assassinate to trigger outside of Stealth on low health targets that are vulnerable to Sneak Attack. 

Edited July 23, 2018 by Cyrus_Blackfeather

[mosspit]

If it was me, it would be having all invisibility skill cost reduced by 1 Guile, to a minimum of 1 Guile. Assassin is a class that depends on repeated use of stealth / invisibility so this change makes this subclass more active (albeit more spammy) in combat.

 

But I think it is fine as it is. It is still quite viable, at least when compared to Corpse Eater (Yikes).

[Verde]

I think it's fine. Plenty of ways to not get hit. Why ranged? That might be your problem there.

Edited July 23, 2018 by Verde

[Purudaya]

I don't think it would be terribly unbalanced to reduce smoke veil/shadowing beyond by 1 Guile each. Neither ability deals any damage or provides any inspirations (the upgraded version of SB could be left at 3 guile), and the time you spend in recovery after going invisible is time you would have otherwise spent attacking, so the net melee DPS is less than an unstealthed dual wielding rogue making full attacks and even worse vs a streetfighter heating up/on edge. To make up for the extra time spent untargetable, maybe add an additional 5-10% to the damage received malus.

 

The problem is that the extra uses would probably break assassin/evoker cheese, since AoE spells currently benefit from Assassinate. The ability should probably be changed to be exclusive to ranged/melee the way swift flurry was (which is probably more in line with the flavor of the class), but I can think of a few people who would see their assassin/caster builds damaged as a result. 

[Verde]

Assassin/Evoker sounds awesome lol.