Best weapon for Assassinate + Power Strike

[danielbda]

Searching for an Assassin build I stumbled upon this PL7 Fighter skill called Power Strike. It is melee only and hits for +200% damage and 4 penetration, therefore, it can deal very high damage if combined with assassinate and backstab. It sucks that I wanted to become Devoted with Arquebus.

I would like to ask you for the best weapon to complement this combo, and if someone who knows console commands can test to see if, and to what extent, it works (that is, how much damage it can deal).

Edited January 22, 2020 by danielbda

[thelee]

keep in mind that damage bonuses are additive, so the numbers may not be as high as you think.

that being said, you'd probably want to go with the highest-base-damage 2h weapons: 2h axes, great sword, quarterstaff, pike.

a two-handed axe with bleeding strike modal enabled doing an sneak-attack, backstab, assassinate, power strike might have a tremendous and long-lasting DoT on the enemy so might be your best bet when your target is tanky. (it also has bonus crit damage, and the +25 acc from assassinate will really make it easier to crit, for even more damage. add in a poison--which also benefits from the assassinate bonus--for extra DoT damage).

edit: rough numbers - 2h axe has average 21 base damage. +200% power strike, +100% backstab, +60% sneak attack, +60% legendary, +30% for 20 might, crit for +50% damage (using improved crit and axe bonus) => 113.4 average base damage, which translates into a 11 damage/three seconds bleeding cuts DoT on the enemy over 60 seconds (for an additional +231 damage over a minute), the DoT stacks with additional hits. You would also get an additional +22 damage over a short duration via rogue Deep Wounds passive.

edit 2: wait, how are you getting an AL9 ability multiclassed with an assassin? you're capped at 7 (i even assumed as such with my sneak attack damage calculation) nm, you fixed it

Edited January 22, 2020 by thelee

[danielbda]

12 minutes ago, thelee said:

keep in mind that damage bonuses are additive, so the numbers may not be as high as you think.

that being said, you'd probably want to go with the highest-base-damage 2h weapons: 2h axes, great sword, quarterstaff, pike.

a two-handed axe with bleeding strike modal enabled doing an sneak-attack, backstab, assassinate, power strike might have a tremendous and long-lasting DoT on the enemy so might be your best bet when your target is tanky. (it also has bonus crit damage, and the +25 acc from assassinate will really make it easier to crit, for even more damage. add in a poison--which also benefits from the assassinate bonus--for extra DoT damage).

edit: rough numbers - 2h axe has average 21 base damage. +200% power strike, +100% backstab, +60% sneak attack, +60% legendary, +30% for 20 might, crit for +50% damage (using improved crit and axe bonus) => 113.4 average base damage, which translates into a 11 damage/three seconds bleeding cuts DoT on the enemy over 60 seconds (for an additional +231 damage over a minute), the DoT stacks with additional hits. You would also get an additional +22 damage over a short duration via rogue Deep Wounds passive.

edit 2: wait, how are you getting an AL9 ability multiclassed with an assassin? you're capped at 7 (i even assumed as such with my sneak attack damage calculation)

I edited the post, it is a PL7 skill.

[thelee]

ah thanks. clearly i've never really used it

 

one thing to consider is that despite power strike being really heavy-hitting, it costs something like 4 discipline, so you are not going to be able to use it very often throughout a fight. you might therefore be better with a less-heavy-hitting power that you can use more often. getting invisible repeatedly to proc assassinate mid-fight is hard and/or expensive, but not impossible.

a single-class assassin could do even better in terms of pure damage just with high intellect, high dex, dual-wielding, ooblit, and vanishing strikes. you'll get like 5-6x the attacks, which will totally dwarf the non-multiplicative +200% damage bonus from power strike.

Edited January 22, 2020 by thelee

[danielbda]

4 minutes ago, thelee said:

ah thanks. clearly i've never really used it

 

one thing to consider is that despite power strike being really heavy-hitting, it costs something like 4 discipline, so you are not going to be able to use it very often throughout a fight. you might therefore be better with a less-heavy-hitting power that you can use more often. getting invisible repeatedly to proc assassinate mid-fight is hard and/or expensive, but not impossible.

a single-class assassin could do even better in terms of pure damage just with high intellect, high dex, dual-wielding, ooblit, and vanishing strikes. you'll get like 5-6x the attacks, which will totally dwarf the non-additive +200% damage bonus from power strike.

I think continuously using assassinate is only possible through brilliant aspiration. I tried the Slippers, but sadly is once per encounter.

Assassins seem really underwhelming in this game.

Edited January 22, 2020 by danielbda

[thelee]

1 hour ago, danielbda said:

I think continuously using assassinate is only possible through brilliant aspiration. I tried the Slippers, but sadly is once per encounter.

Assassins seem really underwhelming in this game.

not continuous, but way more often than just the two or so power strikes you'd get. i wouldn't call assassins underwhelming.

 

with robes/no armor, high intellect, smoke veil will give you invisibility at 2 guile.

if you need something that doesn't need you to be almost naked and a super genius, shadowing beyond gives you invisibility at 3 guile.

Vanishing strikes needs dual-wielding, robes/no armor, high dex, and high intellect (and possibly ooblit and things like meppu for +beneficial duration) to really take advantage of, but gives you invisibility that doesn't go away upon an attack for 3 guile.

 

a multi-class assassin who self-empowers will be able to shadowing beyond 4 times per fight, or smoke veil 6 times. a self-empowering single-class assassin can do vanishing strikes up to 6 times (you have to rest in wild mare or bathe in luminous adra for +1 guile) or smoke veil 9 times. this is ignoring initial stealth hit, or trigger from slippers, or potions of invisibility.

however, the limits of multi-class assassinate does mean that typically to get maximum benefit out of it, you multi-class with a caster, since the +25 acc, +4 PEN, and crit bonus also applies to spells and an assassinate spell cast is way more impactful than a souped-up single attack.

Edited January 22, 2020 by thelee

[Elric Galad]

Assassinate + Power Strike + Whispers of the Endless Path should cause damages and stun with high Accuracy Bonus in an AoE.

Feels like the best way to use Power Strike for this build.

But I agree with thelee that if your into Assassinate and backstab, Single Class Assassin + High INT (Acute/Brillant inspiration from another team member helps) + Vanishing Strike is the way to go.
This is basically God Mode.
If this is your Main Character, using Ooblit as a pet provide +3s of "god mode" for each use of Vanishing Strikes.

[Boeroer]

If you take a Tactician/Assassin and do fights solo you can trigger Brilliant via Brillant Tactician nearly every time you go invisible. You don't need Devoted so bad since you already get +4 PEN from Assassinate. The additinal crit damage is nice but not stellar anyway. 

2 hours ago, thelee said:

that being said, you'd probably want to go with the highest-base-damage 2h weapons: 2h axes, great sword, quarterstaff, pike.

Yes, but that's only one half. The other one is piling up lashes (from weapon, Hylea's Talons, Belt of Magran's Chosen etc.). Bleeding Cuts is also nice - but the DoT can take some time to kill an enemy and that might be the time he needs to strike you down before the Slippers kick in or you can cast Smoke Veil etc. Fortunately stealth provides you with a 80% recovery bonus that almost nullifies the high recovery from Bleeding Cuts. It's still noticable though. An Assassin should always try to strike and then go invisible (via kill-->slippers or Shadowing Beyond or Smoke Veil) in order to end the encounter so that his resources refill. Then it can be very powerful and fun (if you like the sneaky "Thief™" playstyle). As Tactician/Assassin you can skip the "end combat" thing often enough though and still get Guile back.

The best assassination weapon is Dragon's Dowry because of the combo of high base dmg + highest lashes. And also because guns don't have recovery. You can shoot twice (stealth reload bonus of 80%, shoot again) and then vanish. It's a bit frustrating that the best weapons for Assassins are the biggest guns - used a point blank - in general. Spearcaster with the lash enchantment is also good.

If it has to be a melee weapon then Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff is also decent because of its lashes and because it has the additional advantage that you don't need to go into engagement once unstealthed (reach weapon).
Oathbreaker's End does good dmg with Bleeding Cuts.
Effort with Maiming isn't too bad either (raw dmg doesn't stack like Bleedig Cuts though).
Engoliero do Espirs: also nice. Less base dmg but if you manage to kill with the opening backstab you'll send out Ghost Blades with all the dmg bonuses of the weapon. 

Basically just use a two hander with lashes on it (I'll count Bleeding Cuts as a lash since its also a multiplicative dmg boost like elemental lashes are). 

A suprisingly good assasination weapon is Whispers of the Endless Paths with the Run-Through enchantment. It has very high base damage. But of course you can't combine that with Power Strike because it's its own ability (but you can use it with Takedown Combo if you play an Assassin/Ranger). 

After a lot of testing with an Assassin some time ago I think I came to the conclusion that the best melee backstab weapon is Concelhaut's Draining Touch (of course only usable by a Spellblade) followed by Chromoprismatic Staff and then Oathbreaker's End (+ Bleeding Cuts) - iirc.

If you find it stupid that Backstab favors heavy weapons you can check out the Community Patch in my signature: it changes Backstab from a additive dmg bonus to a flat raw dmg bonus (same numbers for all weapons) which scales with Rogue's Power Level and will generally be a tad higher than a vanilla Backstab with a two handed melee weapon after some PLs (but less than with Dragon's Dowry).

 

[Boeroer]

57 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Assassinate + Power Strike + Whispers of the Endless Path should cause damages and stun with high Accuracy Bonus in an AoE.

The AoE didn't get the Backstab bonus nor the Assasinate bonus last time I checked. 

Edit: was before 5.0 though...

Edited January 22, 2020 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

19 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

The AoE didn't get the Backstab bonus nor the Assasinate bonus last time I checked. 

Edit: was before 5.0 though...

It was just before 5.0 that afflictions weren't applied by WotEP... so there might be hope. Does Assassinate work with Citzal Lance (since you're the world best specialist for Citzal lance among other things) ?

Edited January 22, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

Nope. Lance and WotEP (and also rod+blast) do the initial attack first and then the AoE follows a fraction of a second later (sometimes I manage to pause in between). By then the stealth is already gone. It's different with AoE spells like Fireball where all targets get hit at the same time (basically). With such a spell Assassinate works for all hit rolls.

[Powerotti]

it's worth to mention, that best abilities to use with assassinate comes from weapons, because it needs to have high base damage or solid lash

- Thunderous Report (from Kitchen Stove) - 1 per encounter: AoE 55° 6.5 m Cone, 35-50 Crush/Burn base damage, 2.5 m push, Accuracy vs Reflex. If successful, Inflicts Dazed for 15.0 s, Accuracy vs Fortitude

- Bottom's Up (from Modwyr) - 1 per encounter: Primary attack (you can hold modwyr in offhand and use this ability with main hand weapon), +25% Crush damage lash, +25% Shock damage lash, Stunned for 6.0 sec

- Run Through (from Whispers of the Endless Paths) - 1 per encounter: 25-35 Slash/Pierce base damage, +15% Crush damage lash, Prone for 4.0 sec, 10 Raw base Damage per 3.0 sec for 9.0 sec

 

edit - correct bottom's up

Edited January 23, 2020 by Powerotti

[Elric Galad]

11 minutes ago, Powerotti said:

it's worth to mention, that best abilities to use with assassinate comes from weapons, because it needs to have high base damage or solid lash

- Thunderous Report (from Kitchen Stove) - 1 per encounter: AoE 55° 6.5 m Cone, 35-50 Crush/Burn base damage, 2.5 m push, Accuracy vs Reflex. If successful, Inflicts Dazed for 15.0 s, Accuracy vs Fortitude

- Bottom's Up (from Modwyr) - 1 per encounter: 13-19 base Slash/Pierce damage, +25% Crush damage lash, +25% Shock damage lash, Stunned for 6.0 sec

- Run Through (from Whispers of the Endless Paths) - 1 per encounter: 25-35 Slash/Pierce base damage, +15% Crush damage lash, Prone for 4.0 sec, 10 Raw base Damage per 3.0 sec for 9.0 sec

And people still prefer Devoted to Black Jacket tss tss...

Edited January 23, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Powerotti]

@Elric Galad https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/110192-class-build-last-surprise-black-jacketstreetfighter/?tab=comments#comment-2168437

[Elric Galad]

1 minute ago, Powerotti said:

@Elric Galad https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/110192-class-build-last-surprise-black-jacketstreetfighter/?tab=comments#comment-2168437

I see you are a man of culture.