Ranger/Assassin and scripting question

[crdvis16]

I've modded Maia to be a Gunhawk/Assassin.  I played a SC melee Assassin as my MC in my previous playthrough and figured that big arquebus shots from stealth could be fun for Maia this time around.

With my melee Assassin I would attack from stealth and then immediately use smoke veil to go back into stealth to repeatedly regain the assassinate bonuses.  The biggest headache with that playstyle was that any target that was moving would often move out of range when I was trying to do my melee assassinate attack and cause an out of range miss.  But that won't be a problem for Maia with a gun!

However, with Maia the recovery+reload time for a gun takes so long that if I immediately cast smoke veil after an attack (say, by queueing up smoke veil after wounding shot or something) the 5s of invisibility ends up timing out before she gets her next shot off.  Right now I have to watch her reload animation like a hawk (har har) and as soon as I see her start to raise her rifle I pause and cast smoke veil to put her back into stealth and then have her perform the attack.  This is super annoying.  If the fight is chaotic with a lot going on it's very easy to miss her animation that shows her reload is complete and she's ready to fire.

I was hoping to use scripts to automate this but either it's not possible with the available in-game script options or I'm just too inexperienced with scripting to figure it out.  This is the first playthrough that I've even started using scripting and even then I'm just using it to automate self buffs for things like disciplined strikes, etc.

So question 1:

Does anyone know of a way to script Maia to cast smoke veil but ONLY when she's actually ready to shoot so that she is still invisible when the fire actually happens?

Also, question 2:

Does anyone have a sense if this playstyle is even worthwhile?  I'm adding in a cast time of 0.5s and a recovery time of 3.0s when I use smoke veil and what I'm getting in return are the assassinate bonuses of accuracy, penetration, and crit damage (and I guess some survivability from being invisible a lot which is probably less valuable for Maia than it was for my melee Assassin).  My guess is that if the extra penetration avoids underpen or puts you into overpen then it's probably worth it and that's pretty easy to see in real time.  However, the accuracy and crit damage bonuses are harder for me to wrap my head around as they are more probabilistic- you never know if the accuracy bonus is going to be what puts you over the threshhold to go from miss->graze, graze->hit, or hit->crit.  Similarly, the bonus crit damage obviously only matters if you crit.

In other words, there will be situations where the bonus penetration results in no change in damage and individual shots where the bonus accuracy doesn't change my attack resolution simply due to what random roll I get.  In those situations I'm just adding cast/recovery time and wasting rogue class resources on smoke veil for nothing.

Edited October 5, 2021 by crdvis16

[Not So Clever Hound]

Hey @crdvis16 don't know if it's intended (and if so, why ) but you're writing black on black, it's very hard to read. Might want to edit your text to a lighter color.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[crdvis16]

Ugh yes- I'm trying to figure out how to change it and why it happened in the first place

 

Ok fixed!

Edited October 5, 2021 by crdvis16

[Kaylon]

10 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

Does anyone have a sense if this playstyle is even worthwhile? 

For a PC without infinite invisibility is not worthwhile, for NPCs under AI even less. Applying Gouging/Arterial Strike to multiple targets does more damage overall than striking from stealth a few times.

[crdvis16]

That would suggest that the Assassin subclass is pretty much worthless, then?  You can often benefit from an opening volley from stealth but then after that it would be a dps loss.

Maybe I'll try to do a simulation to test the accuracy/crit damage component to see if you end up ahead or not. 

[Boeroer]

The Assassin subclass is absolutely not worthless. For example the Assasinate bonus also works with spells. +25 ACC can make a huge difference for a hard CC spell that gets cast from invisibility (e.g. with an Assassin/Bloodmage). 

If you are solo (or park the party out of combat range) Assassin is very good, too. 

Just the "use weapon from invisibility to get a little more damage" approach is not that great in a party setup. 

Edited October 6, 2021 by Boeroer

[crdvis16]

Yes, I should have been more specific that my setup for Maia was potentially worthless, not the assassin subclass in general. 

I am working on a little simulation to figure out just how worthless or not it is and will report back what I find in case anyone else is interested. 

[Ouroboros226]

23 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

That would suggest that the Assassin subclass is pretty much worthless, then?  You can often benefit from an opening volley from stealth but then after that it would be a dps loss.

Maybe I'll try to do a simulation to test the accuracy/crit damage component to see if you end up ahead or not. 

Cept sustained dps don't mean much. I'm not a veteran to this game like others here. So someone correct me if I'm wrong. But my experience from PoTD is that the assassinate ability is extremely powerful and loss of sustained DPS don't mean crap. Why?  

Because burst damage and taking out priority targets, strong single threats fast, is the biggest tip of the scale. In POTD if you start a fairly difficult encounter, and you lose one party member early. You have an exponentially lesser chance to win. Taking out a high threat dangerous enemy single target fast, gives you the same advantage. Dealing 40% damage to 7 enemies is monumentally worse than killing 2 enemies faster and having 5 enemies left on full life.    

   

Assassinate, despite only getting to use it free once, and maybe 3 times on average during a fight midgame out. Is ridiculously strong for burst damage. It excels at what matters most. Being able down enemies rapidly. Your total damage over time dealt to the enemy encounter as a whole is not meaningful generally. Against bosses and super bosses you still have gouging strike which is a perma damage debuff, this allows you to focus your main dps elsewhere while still contributing to damaging a boss. Don't need to be an assassin for that but in context it is still relevant.  

  

This is my opinion after.... I think I have 350 hours now. Like I said, I'm open to being wrong so someone correct me if so. But from experience, on a POTD perspective, instantly being able to take out 1 enemy fast. And having crazy single target 2-4 times when needed. Is gold worth. I'm not sure if party composition alters this factor by tons. Could be. My preferred setup is 1 main tank hybridized for damage, 1 pure healer/support, 1 pure dps, 1 hybrid dps/support and 1 hybrid off-tank/dps. Averaging CC abilities out divided on the entire team. I like to have 2 pure roles and 3 1/2*2  roles so I have more flexibility if one character dies. I feel like hyper-specializing a character creates too much of an achilles heel because if that character dies, the main contribution they provided to the encounter is also gone. 

Edited October 7, 2021 by Ouroboros226

[Boeroer]

Yeah, but instead of using it for a bit more (single target) damage it is - in my experience - often better to use it with hard CC. Especially on PotD where defenses of enemies are higher and health pools are bigger. A hard CC does "take out" a certain enemy right away no matter the health pool and buys you a lot of time. In case of mind control (dominate for example) you not only take out the enemy for some time but also gain sort of a summon. Sure, the added crit damage and PEN from assassinate won't matter at all - but the higher ACC (maybe even combined with other ACC buffs) makes it so much more likely to actually hit even high defense targets (and those are usually the most worthwhile to turn).

So I would argue that Assassin itself is very useful - but in this example (Maia as Ranger/Assassin) it's not that impactful. You might be able to take out the first threat a bit earlier - but what about the second and third? PEN aside imo it's more impactful to use all that Guile for 3 Crippling Strikes (300% all-multiplicative dmg) instead of 1 Smoke Veil and 1 Crippling Strike (+50% additive dmg, +200% additive if Backstab is used from point blank). 

There's one thing about assassinating with something like an arquebus though: high numbers per hit are just fun. And fun is important, right? I can see Assassinate on a target with Takedown Combo be really cool. Use Dragon's Dowry from stealth/invisibility after you AC used Takedown Combo and the target should be in real trouble.

But thinking about a fun and more effective way to use a Ranger/Assassin... what about using it with Thorny Roots? High Chance of immobilizing a whole bunch of enemies right away for a rel. long time and doing decent AoE dmg, too (+4 PEN might be what this ability needed). Stop them, then shoot them. Doesn't sound too shabby to me. Has anybody tried?

 

 

[crdvis16]

Ok, I made a relatively simple spreadsheet to try to simulate this.  The basic premise is that one ranger/assassin using an arquebus attacks every turn using 1 guile for an attack like crippling strike.  The other ranger/assassin uses 1 guile to cast smoke veil and then do a regular attack out of stealth every turn.  I'm only concerning myself with the damage done and ignoring the utility of the afflictions of crippling strike vs the defensive utility of stealthing.  I also did not try to simulate all the buffs and passive bonuses that could be in play that might affect damage or rate of fire- I *think* that adding those wouldn't drastically change the top line takeaways I'll get to later.  Can skip to the bottom for the top line takeaway if you don't care about my methodology.  Also note- this is with using community patch and balance polishing mod... not sure if that changes my assumptions from what the base game would be.

 

The "normal" ranger/assassin attacks roughly 3 times with a +25% damage bonus from crippling strike for every 2 attacks from the "smoke veil" assassin (the added cast/recovery from smoke veil ends up being ~50% of the attack/reload time from a normal arquebus attack).  The "smoke veil" assassin gets the bonus accuracy, penetration, and crit damage from the assassin buff when attacking from stealth.

 

To simulate, I gave the "smoke veil" ranger/assassin 100 attacks where the "random" roll was set to 1, 2, 3, ... 100.  The "normal" ranger/assassin got 150 attacks where the first 100 had "random" rolls of 1, 2, 3, ... 100 and then another 50 where the "random" roll was set to 2, 4, 6, ... 100 (counting by 2s from 2-100 to still get a representative sample).  This maintains the 3:2 attack ratio between the two tactics.

 

I set the base accuracy and penetration to 10 and 100 respectively (so 14 and 125 for the "smoke veil" model).  I then changed the target's armor/deflection to various values to try to get a feel for how things shake out.  These are the top line takeaways:

 

Target's armor/defl	"normal" dmg	"smoke veil" dmg	% dmg incr
10/100	111	117	5.1
4/100	144	134	-6.7
14/100	28	104	273.0
18/100	28	59	111.2
10/0	233	228	-2.3
10/150	18	35	93.1

 

Row 1 (10/100) shows that when attacking an "equal" target (penetration = armor, accuracy = deflection) there is hardly any benefit to doing the "smoke veil" stuff for the assassin bonuses.  Similarly, there is no real benefit to the "smoke veil" tactic if the target's armor is already being over penetrated (row 2) or if the target has such low deflection that you're critting every hit already (row 5).  The times when the "smoke veil" tactic is really valuable are when:

 

1) the added penetration from the assassin bonus (+4 as well as a 1.5x multiplier when you crit more often with +25 accuracy) allows you to avoid underpenetration penalties (rows 3 and 4) or 

 

2) when the targets deflection is so high that you desperately need the +25 accuracy just to not miss (row 6)

 

So yeah- it terms of damage, it can be very worthwhile to take the time to cast smoke veil to re-enter stealth and unlock the assassination bonuses but only if it helps you get out of underpen, get into overpen, or if your accuracy is far below their deflection and you REALLY need that +25 accuracy just to sometimes graze instead of miss every shot.  In fact, if I set the target's deflection to 170 then the "normal" model misses every shot and the "smoke veil" model does low but non-zero damage from grazes and therefore gives an infinite increase in damage!

 

Of course, this is just a very simple model and just for damage but I think it's somewhat interesting.

 

[Boeroer]

Smoke Veil does cost 2 Guile, not 1. 

You forgot to factor in the Powel Level scaling of Crippling Strike. It gains 5% base dmg (meaning multplicative dmg) among other bonuses like more PEN and ACC. Auto-attacks do not scale.

Because of that it is not really worth it to use 1 Smoke Veil (2 Guile) and then auto-attack instead of using 2 Crippling Strikes. At least at higher levels.
One could compare 1 Smoke Veil + 1 Crippling Strike from invisibility with 3 Crippling Strikes - but I guess the outcome would be even worse. 

Crippling Strike is a PL-1-ability (even when upgraded it counts as PL 1). At char's PL 7 (that's at max level of a multiclass without any further PL boosts) it will get a bonus scaling of 7-1 = 6 Power Levels. If you use stuff like PL-food or other power level buffs it's more of course. 

Power Level scaling mechanics are here:  https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Power_levels#General_effects

That means at PL 7 Crippling Strike will have 30% more base damage, 1.5 more PEN (+2 PEN it already has by itself, so 3.5), +6 ACC and the affliction will last 30% (base) longer. 

It's worthwhile to use Smoke Veil + Assassinate if you can use the Assassinate bonus on multiple enemies at once (e.g. with a spell) and/or in order to make sure you really hit something which is otherwise hard to hit (for example if you need to apply Gouging Strike to a really tough boss and then hide and let it bleed out). For the average encounter this tactic isn't very effective in a party setup - just as Kaylon said. 

Edited October 7, 2021 by Boeroer

[dgray62]

32 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Smoke Veil does cost 2 Guile, not 1. 

Very true in the vanilla game. But the Balance Polishing Mod reduces smoke veil to 1 guile, if I remember correctly. It's worth using if one plans to play an assassin.

[crdvis16]

Ah good call on the power level issue.  That could make quite a difference, especially the extra penetration since that seemed to be the biggest factor in the comparison.  I'll try to recalculate and see what the result is. 

 

And yeah- without the polishing mod, a 2 guile smoke veil would probably make the comparison moot.

Edit: I didn't initially see in your post that crippling strike ends up giving almost as much pen as a smoke veil auto attack when at PL7, in which case your conclusion that smoke veil auto attacks aren't worth it is definitely correct.  I could see smoke veil + crippling still be useful over non-stealth crippling strikes if it helps with underpen so maybe I'll try to model that instead. 

Edited October 7, 2021 by crdvis16

[Boeroer]

In Turn Based Mode I guess the Smoke Veil variant is more attractive than in Real Time with Pause.

Not because of dmg output or attack speed or so (which is also a factor but let's forget that for now) but because in RTwP the whole "turn invisible to deliver an attack" routine means more micromanagement and that becomes annoying after some battles. It's also difficult to automate this effectively.

In the early game it's very good to use Smoke Veil - because the +25 ACC is so impactful then. If one uses Breath Blessings to start at lvl 4 you can even start with Smoke Veil right away.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Boeroer

[Haplok]

I'd argue that in Turn Based actually the most expensive Shadowing Beyond wins. Because you're "wasting" a whole round to hide with Smoke Veil, while Shadowing Beyond is a Free action that will grant you Stealth AND also the positioning you desire.