Call me an ignorant assassin but......

[jpace1976]

<DIV>is there really much difference between assassins, swashbucklers, and Brigands? Like I said I am somewhat ignorant of the latter 2 classes. I play an assassin as my main and was thinking of messing around with anouther scout class, when I read descriptions of swashbucklers and brigands the skills sound about the same as the assassins I use now.  Can someone please enlighten me to some of the differences?</DIV>

[SageGaspar]

<div><blockquote><hr>jpace1976 wrote:<div>is there really much difference between assassins, swashbucklers, and Brigands? Like I said I am somewhat ignorant of the latter 2 classes. I play an assassin as my main and was thinking of messing around with anouther scout class, when I read descriptions of swashbucklers and brigands the skills sound about the same as the assassins I use now.  Can someone please enlighten me to some of the differences?</div><hr></blockquote>Don't know much about assassins, but from my understanding they're pretty much plain DPS on single targets. They do a lot of stealth and positional stuff.Swashes have pretty good damage, a lot of it comes from AE, but they're also equal part attack debuffing the mob. Also gameplay wise, I think assassins have a lot more stealth and positional stuff and a bunch of big hits on longer timers from what I understand, while swashes are constantly plugging away at fast-refresh CAs. </div>

[jpace1976]

<DIV>I see that swashbucklers are more specialized for AOE type damage, but what I don't see is any line of skills that really stand out as something different. As an assassin your right I specialize in 1 on 1 massave damage but I do have some AOE attacks, some quicker re-use high dmg attacks, I have a stun line of skills, I have debuffs, I have self buffs, and some aggro control skills. I was just wondering if there is any 1 thing that Swashbucklers and Brigands do, that really seperates them as a class. I understand that we're all scouts, but to me there <U>are</U> noticeable differences between assassins, rangers, and bards. Call me critical</DIV>

[Luk]

<P>Swashbucklers are professional debuffers, all but 2 of our damage CA's have some kind of added effect, we reduce the damage taken by the tank by alot, we decrease the mobs physical mit and resistance to magic and divine (same line as Assassin poison Debuff). So, though a Swashy has probably identical group utility as an assassin (pathfinding, evac, track and aggro transfer) we do alot more through our debuffing to aid a group than an assassin which is basically pure DPS.</P> <P>please mote, this is not meant to be a put down to assassins, just a comparison of what we can do for a group/raid.</P><p>Message Edited by Licit on <span class=date_text>04-27-2006</span> <span class=time_text>10:50 AM</span>

[jpace1976]

<DIV>hehe don't worry no offense taken, as an assassin I have no delusions that my role is anything other than DPS.</DIV>

[Ri]

Having played both classes, their play style is very similar.  It's an easy transition from one class to the other.That said there were a few things I had to get used to.  With assassins, all of their big hits are stealth and from behind, whereas with swashies, stealth doesn't enter into the equation and you'll find yourself moving around the mob a lot more.  Also, as was mentioned above, swashies are debuff masters.  Almost every attack they do debuffs the mob in some way.On a different note though, I find that swashies solo a lot easier than assassin's simply because of more frontal attacks and the lack of needing stealth to get those attacks off.<div></div>Oh, and aggro isn't an issue with swashies.  They have more than enough spells to drop the hate off you that I find I'm able to go all out more with my swashy whereas with my assassin I have to actually watch myself and the damage I do.

[Malad]

<P>I like to add a couple things too from the Brigand side although it almost all applies to swashies too.</P> <P>We get smuggle and are the only 2 scouts that can stealth the entire group.</P> <P>I believe we can tank a bit better mainly because of our taunts.  Not sure if assasins have a taunt line, plus a line to take hits for another person and lower that persons hate at same time.</P> <P>Our debuff as other said are big and almost every attack is a debuff too. </P> <P>Not sure about assasins but us brigands have a lot of stuns and 2 snares.  1 stun is ranged, we get cheap shot as all do, and then we get 2 more seperate stun lines.</P> <P>In the end we will play similiar as we are all scouts but basically I think we get a bit more utility and you get a bit more big hits is the bottom line.</P>

[bosqualli]

We get a mezz....

[Luk]

<P>forgot to mention that as of LU#13 (DoF release, think it was 13) Rogues have the highest base health of the scout lines, comes in real handy when soloing or tanking.</P>

[overfloat]

<P>Predators focus on DPS; rogues split their focus between DPS and utility (primarily debuffs). Not from personal observation, but by all accounts I've read. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Between the two subclasses, rogues can debuff just about everything you see in the Persona window and Adventure skills window: every primary stat; every major combat skill <FONT size=1>(e.g. pierce, slash, defense, parry, all casting skills, etc. ... not riposte/block/deflect though)</FONT>; mitigation, attack speed and DPS; and all of the 7 magical resistances. As such, they compliment each other <U>very</U> well.</P> <P>Both classes also have a good number of stun/interrupt/KD skills, other CC skills (mez and multiple snares), and dispels. Other utility you've probably heard about: group stealth, aggro transfer, intercept, taunts, AE immunity, periodic ranged stream attack (like rangers), self burst DPS buffs, AE damage ... spread between the two. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Much as the two classes hate to admit it, they work really well together. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Personally I think if you're looking for a good mix of you utility and fair DPS figures, you can't beat a rogue.</P>

[Krakenap]

<P>Overfloater said it well - but just to be concise and clear:</P> <P>Predator = DPS class (Ideally T1) - huge burst dps</P> <P>Rogues = Debuffs + Lesser tier DPS (Ideally T2) - sustained dps.</P> <P> </P>

[ArivenGemini]

I like to think of us like 3M, we may not make the tier 1 dps, but we sure make the Tier 1 DPS better <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />When grouped with a pally with amends on my, I find myself off-tanking a lot.. or more precisely helping to pull adds off a groupmate.. with our high level of hate generation and our taunt, I can swap to a mob and start laying into it and taunting it and bam, back to the pally posthaste.But, most importantly, what we -really- bring to a group isn't as mundane as the debuffs and dps, its Style and Panache<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>

[Carna]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> overfloater wrote:<BR> <P>Much as the two classes hate to admit it, they work really well together. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>LIES! ALL LIES!<BR>

[Hadanelith]

<DIV>As a Level 70 Assassin who tries to speak with his Scout buddies often, I can offer up this information:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The Assassin-</DIV> <DIV>   Assassins deal their damage by delivering several, long-recast high-damage attacks that average out over time. An Assassin's Level 70 Repertoire, before counting AA's, consists of 7 one-minute timer moves (two directional bow shots, one directional debuff, one straight attack, one directonal+stealth, and two stealth), 1 three-minute timer move (stealth required), and 1 fifteen-minute timer move (stealth required). We also have a 45s mid-damage "pseudo-ranged" attack (25m range but counts as a melee hit for damage shields), a 10-second mid-DD low-DoT, a 20-second low-DD mid-DoT, and a 30-second mid-DoT mid-DD-Terminant ability. We also have one virtually worthless 30s bow attack, a 30s Stealth AE DoT, 2 10-second Stealth moves (one puts  you into stealth, the other uses stealth), a minor MIT debuff, and a sizable Poison debuff. This is essentially an Assassins full repertoire, not including self-buffs.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The Swashbuckler-</DIV> <DIV>   Swashbucklers deal their damage via auto-attack and many fast-refresh abilities. Some of these abilities have substantial Magical debuffers, and moderate physical debuffers. Where an Assassin mostly uses Stealth attacks, a Swashbuckler uses mostly Positional attacks. These are far less aggrivating as a Positional attack can only be voided by a turned mob, whereas Stealth attacks can be voided by any form of AE (even if it deals no damage), OR the mob turning to ruin the positional requirement but still activate Auto-Attack through systematic queuing compliance (and thus dropping Stealth as well).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The Brigand-</DIV> <DIV>   Much like the Swashbuckler, they deal their damage via auto-attack and many fast-refresh abilities. They use marginally more Stealth than Swashbucklers, but are still mostly Directional attackers. Their debuffs have a substantial focus on Mitigation, but they also have very sizable debuffs to Magical resistances. Brigands are the single most powerful overall debuffer in the game. Brigands have more of a single-target focus than the Swashbuckler.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As a general note, there's a fairly consistant trend with the "good" classes being AE based, and the "evil" classes being Single-Target based. This is consistent through the RNG/ASN, SWS/BRG, CNJ/NEC, and MST/DFL dichotomies. The "neutral" Classes somewhat break this rule, with the "neutral-Evils" (BRZ, WRL, FRY) being more AE-based than their "neutral-Good" counterparts. I honestly do not know enough about TRB/DRG to make an AE/Single comparison. The remaining classes I lack sufficient data on to make this sort of comparison, but that's a good glimpse in a nutshell.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>-Hadanelith Raswroslki, 70 Assassin of Kithicor</DIV>

[overfloat]

<P>Nice summary Hadanelith . <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Couple of things to point out though...<BR></P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Hadanelith wrote:<BR> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The Swashbuckler-</DIV> <DIV>  Swashbucklers deal their damage via auto-attack and many fast-refresh abilities. Some of these abilities have substantial Magical debuffers, and moderate physical debuffers. Where an Assassin mostly uses Stealth attacks, a Swashbuckler uses mostly Positional attacks. <HR> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>It's true that we use a number of positional attacks and have fast refresh abilities (one AE is 1min recast, one single-target CA is 1min recast -- everything else is 30, 20, or 10 sec recast). We don't have quite as many single-target positional attacks as brigands, but we do have two blue AE lines plus Hurricane, our auto-attack AE proc, which definitely require careful positioning.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Our debuffs focus mainly on primary stats <FONT size=1>(AGI, WIS, etc.) </FONT>and skills <FONT size=1>(parry, defense, piercing, casting skills, etc.)</FONT> over mitigation. And, I believe (could be misremembering), we debuff those primary stats <EM>marginally</EM> better than the brigand equivalents (only very marginally, mind). We get the weapon/casting skill debuff after 50.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>We do have a couple of moderate physical mitigation debuffs from the early levels, but brigands vastly outdo those later in the game.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Our direct magical resistance debuffs (i.e. not including our WIS debuff) are limited to a single CA, our snare. All scouts have a similar snare plus magical resistance debuff, so we're no different there... except that our snare debuffs <EM>two</EM> resistances, not one (there are 6 scouts classes and 7 magic resists, we just got the lucky spare). <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <HR>  The Brigand-</DIV> <DIV>  Much like the Swashbuckler, they deal their damage via auto-attack and many fast-refresh abilities. They use marginally more Stealth than Swashbucklers, but are still mostly Directional attackers.</DIV> <DIV> <HR> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV> Brigands eventually get a couple more single-target positionals that swashbucklers but, as far as I'm aware, they have only one stealth attack (just like swashies).</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <HR> </DIV> <DIV>Their debuffs have a substantial focus on Mitigation, but they also have very sizable debuffs to Magical resistances. Brigands are the single most powerful overall debuffer in the game. <HR> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>One thing to note is that brigands have <U>no</U> physical mitigation debuffs for the first 50 levels (only the Defense debuff that both rogues get). They seem to have slightly better raw, single-target damage, while swashbucklers improve their damage by debuffing phys mit. and AEing when possible!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>After 50, brigands get a powerful physical mit debuff and a massive (short duration) all-mitigation debuff, meaning they only really come into their own as top-of-the-range mitigation debuffers after 50. However, they are able to debuff all magical resistances very well from level 20 onward.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'm not sure "overall" debuffer is a great classification to choose, though. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Brigands are definitely the most powerful <EM>defensive</EM> debuffer in the game (after 50), while swashbucklers are the most powerful <EM>offensive</EM> debuffer. They overlap each other a little but, after 50, that's where they specialise. And that's why they compliment each other so well. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I know some 50 stopped being the level limit a while ago now, and some people barely consider the first 50 levels "breaking in" their character...  but it still marks a pretty significant turning point for many classes and there's a lot of the game <EM>before</EM> that point, so I still tend to make that distinction. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV><p>Message Edited by overfloater on <span class=date_text>04-28-2006</span> <span class=time_text>09:57 AM</span>

[Hadanelith]

<P>That's very true Overfloater, all of what you said. And I thank you for the slight corrections; I've never done a full investigation into either of those classes abilities. The Brigand "feign-and-pop" move (it gets upgraded several times, one of their highest dmg attacks if not THE highest) is, in my book, a form of stealth. It doesn't use Stealth per se, but it uses something beyond mere positioning that is distracting to a creature.</P> <P>Unfortunately, since 60+ has been the level cap for a good 9 months now (roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of EQ2's history), and since it's relatively easy to get to max level (when the cap was 50, I hit it in 3 months of relatively casual play with no constant groups, all pickup), a class is truly defined by its highest level abilities. Let's not forget that Assassinate was the defining ability of the Assassin, even when you could only use it at lvl 50 and only ONCE PER HOUR *belly-laugh*. Meanwhile, a Wizard's class-defining ability that did virtually the same thing (same damage but via ice rather than melee) was a 45s recast, and I hope you can see where the arguements for "50+ is your character" come in.</P> <P>I totally agree that Swashbucklers are, in whole, essentially equal debuffers to Brigands though through very different means. I guess my real implication in saying "Brigands are the single best debuffer in the game" is that on a raid, or even in a small group, after a Brig lands 2-3 moves, the entire groups' / raids' DPS goes up by 25% or more (usually closer to 33%). That's a huge overall boost, though you cannot discredit how much easier it is for a tank to live with Swash debuffs on a mob.</P> <P>-Hadanelith Raswrolski, 70 Assassin of Kithicor</P>

[Gandof82]

<DIV>brigand debuff facts :</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>we get dispatch at lvl 55 , which is on 1min timer and ad3 reduces migitation vs all dmg by 3080 , this means that every CA does 50% (capped) more dmg to the mob than examine max says for 13 seconds</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>we have lesser phys and lesser magical mig debuffs too which increase CA dmg bout 25-30% in t7 , these are on 1min timer and lasts for 1min 20secs</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>dispatch we got at 55 is the most powerful migitation debuff in game.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>brigand also has many stuns (4) and tons of interrupts + other debuffs like parry , agi , def , str etc</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>the area that brig slacks is  ranged attacks and AE dmg , we are pretty poor in that department , swash is more into it</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Tikku , lvl 63 n 60 Brigands</DIV>

[LoreLady]

"As a general note, there's a fairly consistant trend with the "good" classes being AE based, and the "evil" classes being Single-Target based. This is consistent through the RNG/ASN, SWS/BRG, CNJ/NEC, and MST/DFL dichotomies. The "neutral" Classes somewhat break this rule, with the "neutral-Evils" (BRZ, WRL, FRY) being more AE-based than their "neutral-Good" counterparts. I honestly do not know enough about TRB/DRG to make an AE/Single comparison. The remaining classes I lack sufficient data on to make this sort of comparison, but that's a good glimpse in a nutshell."Id have to disagree with you on this statement.. Now, I will admit I dont know much about the diffrences about sws/brg's because I am a ranger.. But I know alot about ranger/assassin, and conj's/necs.. Its just a diffrent way of doing AE. An assassin will do AE over time, for the same damage as a ranger would Burst. Same goes with a nec/conj.. A nec will use AE's quite easilly, however they are over time. While with conj's its instant.Its not a matter of ones better than the other.. Its just diffrent, an orange isent better than a mango cause it tastes diffrent - its still good <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Snarks]

we do slightly less dps than a GOOD assassin, and have infinitely more debuffs and better utility <div></div>

[BRODIEMAN2]

From what I heardRogues (Swashy's and Brigands) = Debuffs and sustained dpsAssasins = Pure burst damage<div></div>

[LoreLady]

Now,  I am going to speak for the assassin community here..  An assassin isent all "burst" dps, its sustainable.. It is just diffrent from the way ranger, or rouge DPS works.. But similar. Assassins will get a great amount of DPS with there 3 dots, and will maintain t1 dps with backstabs. Both rangers and assassins have the ability to backstab every 10 seconds to put us in sneak, and then use sneak attacks so its like a double whammie. So its easy for us to stay in t1 dps even if we are compleatly out of abilitys and using our quicker arts.. Our dps is just well, lower than it noramlly is.I dont want to go and give a long essay that no one understands till they play the game..  so just take it as, assassins will do more damage than rouges, unless the assassin really sucks, or the rouge has all masters/max str and the assassin is an average assassin..

[Carna]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> overfloater wrote:<BR> <DIV>One thing to note is that brigands have <U>no</U> physical mitigation debuffs for the first 50 levels (only the Defense debuff that both rogues get). They seem to have slightly better raw, single-target damage, while swashbucklers improve their damage by debuffing phys mit. and AEing when possible!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>After 50, brigands get a powerful physical mit debuff and a massive (short duration) all-mitigation debuff, meaning they only really come into their own as top-of-the-range mitigation debuffers after 50. However, they are able to debuff all magical resistances very well from level 20 onward.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I'm not sure "overall" debuffer is a great classification to choose, though. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Brigands are definitely the most powerful <EM>defensive</EM> debuffer in the game (after 50), while swashbucklers are the most powerful <EM>offensive</EM> debuffer. They overlap each other a little but, after 50, that's where they specialise. And that's why they compliment each other so well. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I'm going to underline this as it's a pretty crucial distinction between the two classes for somebody deciding which to play.</P> <P>My Brigand is level 55 and my Swashbuckler is level 36... it's only since 50 that I've been able to debuff physical mitigation on my Brigand, and this level that I got my big debuff... my Swashbuckler is debuffing physical mitigation now. One of them is on a 30sec recast timer which means most mobs have their mitigation debuffed by my Swashbuckler.</P> <P>The physical mitigation debuffs that my Brigand now has are <EM>huge</EM>. They turn single targets into jelly. And they debuff across the board meaning even my poisons are (much) fatter when solo.</P> <P>However at only level 36 my Swashbuckler has an AE attack that really packs a punch including a knockback just to make sure everybody notices <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>With my Brigand, with his stuns I feel like I lock onto a single target and pull it down fast.</P> <P>With my Swashbuckler I feel like I can let all hell break loose. I'm keen to level him more and get a feel for his full AE potential which I'm not currently experiencing. I can't really make a valid comparison until I do.</P> <P>I also have a level 50 Ranger and would really like to be in a group with both a Swashbuckler and a Brigand <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Playing my Ranger up to 50 was really worthwhile and caused me to realise there's a lot of really crap Rangers and Assassins out there. With 10 sec of enhanced crits and ranged skill I can drop 2 AE CAs that just make my eyes water each time I use them. I dont think there's a wide gap between the Ranger and the Rogues with overall damage over time, but there's a large gap in the Rangers ability to load up a massive amount of damage now.</P> <P>I love the Scout classes. I have a baby Assassin (22) I want to level up and then I need to find time for a bard. In my limited experience all 4 of the Rogue and Predator classes play suprisingly different from each other. The Swashbuckler and the Brigand feel like very different classes... very different... the Ranger obviously feels different... and while the Asssassin is only young I can see the bouncing in and out of stealth is very different indeed along with balancing when to pack the big punch for best utility like the Ranger.</P> <P>My Brigand is likely to remain my main because tactically I feel as if I can influence the flow of combat most with him with the combination of stuns, debuffs and enough ruggedness and skills to rescue a caster in trouble.... I do find the singlemindedness with which I can focus on offence liberating with the Ranger especially when it comes to equipment choices. I could make the same choices with my Brigand but can't bring myself to, meaning I ensure that he is capable of offtanking and caster rescue. For reasons that are probably more to do with my personal perception of my characters I feel more inclined to focus more purely on offence with my Swashbuckler like the Ranger.... this is probably down to how I use the stuns on the Brigand.... my Ranger wears leather if the stats warrant it. My Brigand insists on high mitigation along with his stats.</P> <P>These are all just very personal experiences with the classes, and are obviously very limited in their scope and biased by personal preferences. Just feeding back. Not making any claims about the classes.<BR></P>

[SageGaspar]

<div></div>I actually feel like I have a finger on the combat pulse with my Swash as well, but in a little different sense. Dashing Swathe, for example, the AE knockdown -- once I get to know a tank, I can time my cast of it so that it goes off just when they get the encounter positioned, which interrupts the entire encounter's crucial first attacks, gives the healers time to heal up the initial salvo, and thanks to hate transfer keeps the mobs securely on the tank. Followed up by Lucky Ruse, the high-damage non-knockdown AE which cements that aggro. Thanks to those and hurricane, many times I have my debuff poison(s) up on nearly every member of the encounter at the same time.When a mob turns on a priest or mage I'll often switch over to that and go beat it and taunt it. When it turns on me I bring it over to the tank and use my aggro slip -- generally by then I've transferred enough aggro with it that it turns on the tank.When we overpull and the [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] hits the fan, I usually have Inspiration in reserve to tear a mob down in no time. If it turns on me, no worries, I can take a few hits, and better me than a mage. Actually, once in a while I'll AE like crazy and offtank some full encounter adds on purpose just to spread out the damage if it seems like too much. If an initial surprise attack manages to take down the tank before the healers can react, I'm usually next on the list and always ready to hop into the tanking spot and finish out the encounter -- it works almost every time and is one of my favorite moves.<div></div><p>Message Edited by SageGaspar on <span class=date_text>04-30-2006</span> <span class=time_text>09:25 PM</span>

[Hadanelith]

<P>LoreLady-</P> <P>I have two points I have to call foul on here. For one, up until recent nerfs where Ranger's single-target damage is greatly reduced (until they've undergone much retraining) compared to what it used to be, Rangers almost always outparsed me on AE fights despite my having 2 of them (one being a DoT) to their one. The reason? Theirs also needs to be fired from stealth, if I'm not mistaken, but since they're AT range to begin with, they have little to no chance of Stealth being broken by mob AE's. Whereas both of an Assasssins AE's have relatively long casting timers AND must be cast from Stealth, in Melee range. We have the ability to AE but we're not very darn good at it; I can't even count the number of times that I have had Stealth broken by a 53-160 point minor AE from enemies, completely thwarting not only my AE attempt, but wasting my cast time for getting into stealth, casting the ability, AND having to repeat both of those actions. This is especially horrendous since the advent of Thornstorm, which I swear was specifically designed to [Removed for Content] Assassins off. (If you don't know what Thornstorm does, it's an AoE Damage Shield that procs every single time any melee weapon hits. Makes it almost impossible to stay in Stealth long enough to land a Stealth-based CA.)</P> <P>Also, unless you're running under some very specific circumstances... Namely, having the Lyceum dagger mainhanded, the Dirk of Nightfall offhanded, Poison Crits at 52%, Physical Crits at 14%, and 100% Haste / 100% DPS, it's quite hard for us to stay in "Tier 1" DPS unless you're using a rather low arbitrary number for Tier 1. IMO, 1k is arbitrarily low; Tier 1 DPS really starts at about 1.2k if not 1.3k or 1.4k. Even then, you're relying on debuffs to push you over that threshold. Having the hard data on MST1 of all Assassin abilities, at my STR of 444 (totally unbuffed), I can say that using Masked Attack, Puncture Blade, and Malignant Mark gives a cumulative 330 DPS by the DOD (Damage Over Duration) model. These are our 3 most devastating attacks on a purely DOD-DPS level; Deadly Wound ties with Masked Attack at 71.3 DPS if you have the Nightfall Tunic and use Deadly Wound at every opprotunity with its new refresh rate. Even then, that caps us off at about 400 DPS from CA's if we use only our 4 most devastating (on a DOD-DPS model) regularly-usable abilities... before auto-attack and poison procs. Once you factor in these other two, and given all the variables accounted for above, I can see an Assassin hitting maybe 1k DPS with just those 4 CA's. Even then, the setup pretty much has to be what I've outlined above to the letter. Strictly speaking, a lot of our DPS comes from using abilities with a 1-min refresh timer in battles that last only 20-40 seconds.</P> <P>-Hadanelith Raswrolski, 70 Assassin of Kithicor</P> <P> </P> <P> </P> <P> </P> <P> </P> <P>*NOTE:</P> <P>The DOD-DPS model is the overall most effective for studying hard, raw data on individual ability DPS. It takes the maximum posted damage of the ability and divides it over its recast timer if it has no duration, or if the duration is less than the recast timer. In doing so, you get the precise amount of DPS it actually contributes to your overall DPS pool; there is an implication that there will be sufficient debuffs in your group (or more likely raid) to make the maximum posted damage of your CA the average damage of the ability, which is not uncommon at all in a group formed for DPS or any quality raid. As an example of how this is skewed by fighting battles less than the abilities "effective duration", Decapitate only does 24.44 DOD DPS with Perfectionist at MST1 level... but its duration is 10 minutes. If Decapitate is used in a battle that lasts only 1 minute, the DPS contributed to that battle is 244.4 from this ability, but its DOD DPS is constant at 24.44 points. DOD DPS is essentially used to process the raw data of your total DPS capacity over an infinite amount of time.</P>

[ArivenGemini]

<div><blockquote><hr>Carnagh wrote:<p><font color="#ffff00"><b>With my Swashbuckler I feel like I can let all hell break loose. </b></font>I'm keen to level him more and get a feel for his full AE potential which I'm not currently experiencing. I can't really make a valid comparison until I do.</p><hr></blockquote>My main tanks of late have usually been Pallys, and with amends on me its fun time.. I get to let all hell break loose a lot.  <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />   More so than other MTs who (even with my hate transfer on them) can lose agro to me if I am not behaving...     I actually dont do as much focus on the AE as I could, I find myself in "Full bore ahead" and off tanking modes, which is enjoyable and gives me some nice activity.. its kinda nice to make the mobs dance while DPSing and debuffing.. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></div>

[SageGaspar]

<div><blockquote><hr>Hadanelith wrote:<p>*NOTE:</p> <p>The DOD-DPS model is the overall most effective for studying hard, raw data on individual ability DPS. It takes the maximum posted damage of the ability and divides it over its recast timer if it has no duration, or if the duration is less than the recast timer. In doing so, you get the precise amount of DPS it actually contributes to your overall DPS pool; there is an implication that there will be sufficient debuffs in your group (or more likely raid) to make the maximum posted damage of your CA the average damage of the ability, which is not uncommon at all in a group formed for DPS or any quality raid. As an example of how this is skewed by fighting battles less than the abilities "effective duration", Decapitate only does 24.44 DOD DPS with Perfectionist at MST1 level... but its duration is 10 minutes. If Decapitate is used in a battle that lasts only 1 minute, the DPS contributed to that battle is 244.4 from this ability, but its DOD DPS is constant at 24.44 points. DOD DPS is essentially used to process the raw data of your total DPS capacity over an infinite amount of time.</p><hr></blockquote>I think that's actually a pretty poor model. Damage over the long haul really doesn't matter. In most cases half your raid can fall asleep while you're fighting trash, what matters is your DPS contribution to big named. In regular groups attention to DPS just really isn't needed. Unless you're doing truly abysmal damage without your long-term abilities up (I'm talking on the scale of sub-600 DPS), as long as you can spike to top DPS on big fights I don't think there's a concern.</div>

[LoreLady]

<div><blockquote><hr>Hadanelith wrote:<div></div> <p>LoreLady-</p> <p>I have two points I have to call foul on here. <font color="#ff0000"><font color="#ffffff">For one, up until recent nerfs where Ranger's single-target damage is greatly reduced (until they've undergone much retraining) compared to what it used to be, Rangers almost always outparsed me on AE fights despite my having 2 of them (one being a DoT) to their one. The reason?</font> </font>Theirs also needs to be fired from stealth, if I'm not mistaken, but since they're AT range to begin with, they have little to no chance of Stealth being broken by mob AE's. Whereas both of an Assasssins AE's have relatively long casting timers AND must be cast from Stealth, in Melee range. We have the ability to AE but we're not very darn good at it; I can't even count the number of times that I have had Stealth broken by a 53-160 point minor AE from enemies, completely thwarting not only my AE attempt, but wasting my cast time for getting into stealth, casting the ability, AND having to repeat both of those actions. This is especially horrendous since the advent of Thornstorm, which I swear was specifically designed to [Removed for Content] Assassins off. (If you don't know what Thornstorm does, it's an AoE Damage Shield that procs every single time any melee weapon hits. Makes it almost impossible to stay in Stealth long enough to land a Stealth-based CA.)</p> <p>Also, unless you're running under some very specific circumstances... Namely, having the Lyceum dagger mainhanded, the Dirk of Nightfall offhanded, Poison Crits at 52%, Physical Crits at 14%, and 100% Haste / 100% DPS, it's quite hard for us to stay in "Tier 1" DPS unless you're using a rather low arbitrary number for Tier 1. IMO, 1k is arbitrarily low; Tier 1 DPS really starts at about 1.2k if not 1.3k or 1.4k. Even then, you're relying on debuffs to push you over that threshold. Having the hard data on MST1 of all Assassin abilities, at my STR of 444 (totally unbuffed), I can say that using Masked Attack, Puncture Blade, and Malignant Mark gives a cumulative 330 DPS by the DOD (Damage Over Duration) model. These are our 3 most devastating attacks on a purely DOD-DPS level; Deadly Wound ties with Masked Attack at 71.3 DPS if you have the Nightfall Tunic and use Deadly Wound at every opprotunity with its new refresh rate. Even then, that caps us off at about 400 DPS from CA's if we use only our 4 most devastating (on a DOD-DPS model) regularly-usable abilities... before auto-attack and poison procs. Once you factor in these other two, and given all the variables accounted for above, I can see an Assassin hitting maybe 1k DPS with just those 4 CA's. Even then, the setup pretty much has to be what I've outlined above to the letter. Strictly speaking, a lot of our DPS comes from using abilities with a 1-min refresh timer in battles that last only 20-40 seconds.</p> <p>-Hadanelith Raswrolski, 70 Assassin of Kithicor</p> <p>*NOTE:</p> <p>The DOD-DPS model is the overall most effective for studying hard, raw data on individual ability DPS. It takes the maximum posted damage of the ability and divides it over its recast timer if it has no duration, or if the duration is less than the recast timer. In doing so, you get the precise amount of DPS it actually contributes to your overall DPS pool; there is an implication that there will be sufficient debuffs in your group (or more likely raid) to make the maximum posted damage of your CA the average damage of the ability, which is not uncommon at all in a group formed for DPS or any quality raid. As an example of how this is skewed by fighting battles less than the abilities "effective duration", Decapitate only does 24.44 DOD DPS with Perfectionist at MST1 level... but its duration is 10 minutes. If Decapitate is used in a battle that lasts only 1 minute, the DPS contributed to that battle is 244.4 from this ability, but its DOD DPS is constant at 24.44 points. DOD DPS is essentially used to process the raw data of your total DPS capacity over an infinite amount of time.</p><hr></blockquote>The common misconception about a ranger is rangers being able to hold a substancial DPS from a range, while assassins do need stealth. Rangers need melee. One of our AE's does not require stealth, both AE's require ranged. The diffrences between assassins and rangers is recast. Even on dots, while you cannot directly compare one ability to another if you look at burst damage to dots, while the dots do relitively the same damage as the singel attack. Assassins have a 30 second recast for there first AE, and a 2-3 min recast for there second. Rangers have a 1 min (double) recast for our first AE, and a 3 min recast for our second. While I can burst both AE's and see a group of mobs get to half health rather quickly. I cannot maintain this, where assassins can maintain AE's.I stated this in my first paragraph. Rangers need melee to maintain DPS, there is one ability that will hold DPS but untill you get poise it is useless. And even after poise - the effect does 400-600 damage every second (with poise). This amounts to t2 DPS with stream of arrows.For those of you who dont know poise is an AA that grants 35% faster cast times.The arguement you have stated has been something that has been stated on the ranger fourms time and time again on assassins getting the large direct attacks, while rangers getting smaller attacks. This would be true if not for auto attackOne last thing I would like to add - many ranger abilities were given a slight boost during LU22, while this boost is menial at best. The greatest advantage we have had to work with is ranged auto attack. Each attack does 1k damage easilly. While rouges may not see this damage in there own bows, rangers and assassins do.</div>

[Skratttt]

* sigh ^^^^As an assassin leme tells you i loves swashies AND brigs alike...withouts em raiding would be so much more dificult...swashy helps keep the MT alive and softens the mob, brig helps the entire raid kill the mob fasterRogue classes get self STR buffs, Preds do not, we get self haste(rangers) or + dps (assassins)....<div></div>

[LoreLady]

<div><blockquote><hr>Skratttt wrote:* sigh ^^^^As an assassin leme tells you i loves swashies AND brigs alike...withouts em raiding would be so much more dificult...swashy helps keep the MT alive and softens the mob, brig helps the entire raid kill the mob fasterRogue classes get self STR buffs, Preds do not, we get self haste(rangers) or + dps (assassins)....<div></div><hr></blockquote>Im assuming that sigh is at me - I just dont like people to think that one class is above another in terms of t1 dps.. And I enjoy swashy's and brigs in my groups <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Means I can crank out extra damage.</div>

[Hadanelith]

<DIV> <P>I'd like to clarify to Sage and Lore both on the DOD Model for DPS:</P> <P>The purpose of the DOD model is to circumvent the natural differences in class' abilities. As you stated, the main difference between ASN and RNG is cast and re-cast time. The DOD model accounts for these recast timers and gives you a raw DPS comparison based on the ability's total end-effect. These numbers are actually exceptionally accurate for Raid Nameds in every case except Assassinate/Decapitate/SniperShot, as few (if any) battles last a whole 10 minutes. Furthermore, I'd like to point out that in my original post I drew attention to the fact that most of an Assassin's DPS comes from using "long" refresh moves on battles that are usually half the time of the refresh rate; this is true for Rangers as well. I'll admit to being relatively ignorant of the CAST time of Ranger CA's, but given that most rangers do, in my estimation, 70% of their damage is from Range using bows with no less than 3.5s delay (more commonly 7s delay), that even when you consider 80-85% self-haste (rounded after adding a Haste item) a Ranger's Delay is never less than 2.4s bow-wise. This assumes you actually choose a Shortbow; my guess is closer to 3.8s with a Longbow. (Keep in mind 100% Haste = HALF Delay!) I doubt that very many of your abilities have longer than a 3.5s -cast- time BEFORE obtaining Poise, but please correct me if I'm wrong. As such, you do not usually lose a bowshot by using a CA if you use it right after a Ranged-Auto Attack.</P> <P>The arguement on AoE's is far more substantial, but you're still failing to consider some issues we Assassins face when trying to use our AoE's. Both of our AoE's require Stealth, and we have 3 abilities that can put us into stealth without affecting our DPS. One of these, however, is essentially invalid as it is almost always used in conjunction with another ability, as both have a 10s recast time. (Masked Attack and its predecessors is the stealther I refer to. If used in conjunction with Puncture Blade, both at Master, those two abilities grant 200 DPS to the Assassin. As such they're always paired.) The remaining 2 stealthers are on a 30s recast and 1min recast, with the 1min recast being a 55 Ancient that puts us into Stealth after every CA that LANDS on the Target. The re-use time on our AoE's is 30s (DoT) and 1min (DD); however, multi-mob encounters are usually down to 1 mob by the time the 1min ability refreshes. All of this may look fairly peachy compared to Rangers in raw theory, but in practice it gets rather messy.</P> <P>Thornstorm is the bane of Assassins, period. Especially on Raids. If you're unfamiliar with Thornstorm, it's a short-range AE Damage Shield that activates every time anyone locked with the encounter hits the mob. In a group with 2 other Melee (and don't even get me started on Raids), if Thornstorm is used, an Assassin's Stealth is entirely disabled for the duration of the ability. Each time someone hits the mob, Thornstorm hits, and when it hits it breaks Stealth even if it does no damage (due to Wards or etc). Rangers share our 30s 50m range Stealth move, and can use this to activate their stealth-based AoE with NO fear of dealing with Thornstorm or any other form of AE; even if we use that ability we must get in close to land our stealth moves. Thornstorm aside, Rangers are generally exempt from other AoE's a Mob or group of Mobs may have, including but not limited to Inquisitor's "Prayer" AE, Taunting Assault, various other Guardian / Berserker AE's, mage AE's (such as Fiery Doom and others in Vyemm's Lab), and even more aggrivating Scout Mob AoE's that normally require Stealth to use >_<</P> <P>To be fair, I'm not claiming that we have Stealth broken on a regular basis, but there are particular zones, encounter sets, etc where Assassins actually lose up to 350 DPS just from having Stealth broken repeatedly. This doesn't count times where its disbled for virtually the whole battle. The 1-min recast stealth-after-CA ability I mentioned is the easiest one in the game to break, as the ability lasts only 7s and any Stealth between attacks can be broken, interrupting our flow of attacks and causing us to lose 1 or more Stealth Attacks from having to use one of our 3 DoT's or one of our 1min recast straight-attacks, if they're even up, to put us back into Stealth to continue the chain. Beyond that, the ability usually has a phantom activation-delay of about 2s even in a lag-free environment which effectively drops its duration to 5s. I must also clarify that "relatively long" casting timers on Assassin AE's refers to 1.0s and 1.5s compared to our (average) 1.6s delay weapons PRIOR to Haste; compare this to the above math on Ranger casting times given Bow delay even after accounting for Haste.</P> <P>I'm sorry if this series of responses has essentially "stolen" the thread, but clarifications were asked for, and I believe we're all trying to give them. In the end, what was said about SWS and BRG is true: They do slightly less DPS than ASN or RNG, but they contribute FAR more utility to battles than either Predator.</P> <P>-Hadanelith Raswrolski, 70 Assassin of Kithicor</P></DIV>

[LoreLady]

While I do realize assassins have the stealth problem with AE's and raids.  And, the mechanics behind the assassin on where they do there damage.  And I want to get one thing clear, in no way shape or form have I said that one is better than the other. I have said that they are equal.While currently, rangers and assassins share the same problems. Although rangers get more ranged abilities, we currently cannot maintain a  longterm ranged DPS. The ability that allows us to do so is bugged. The main point I wanted to put out, is the original statement that "the evil side has better single target good better AE" - that statement is false, and that is the point I have been hammering out. And just for some info, on our AE recastsSelection - 1 min recast out of encounter AE - ranged stealthed. Total damage equivilant of the assassin 30 second recast AERain of arrows, 3 min recast, total damage equivilant of the assassin level 70 AE. - does not require stealth.

[Hadanelith]

<P>Eh, the AE thing was a general pattern. Not a really high correlation but it is there, I'd say roughly 60% true... just this side of the river.</P> <P>I don't agree that Rangers and Assassins share precisely the same problems... similar perhaps but definately not the same. I do hope that ranged ability gets fixed, however, for I understand that you've got to put forth quite a bit of effort to keep up with our DPS... more than you should have to, given that we're supposed to be roughly equal through different means. That one ability would probably fix that.</P> <P>In the meanwhile, the only support I can offer to Rangers is obviously the AGI AA line (which I'm sure all are taking), and a little poke at a piece of random info I dug up from personal experience:</P> <P>The Crits in the STR line are not altogether useless for you. The chance of getting 3 -ranged- crits in a row with only 2% from my MoA are slim to none... but when you count my physical crits...</P> <P> </P> <P>-Hadaneilth Raswrolski, 70 Assassin of Kithicor</P>

[Sova]

<DIV>Now to another question, who do u think solo best, assasin or swashy?:smileyhappy:</DIV><p>Message Edited by Sovarh on <span class=date_text>05-15-2006</span> <span class=time_text>08:52 AM</span>

[Habita]

god bless swashy´s fd! <div></div>

[Braw]

The extra damage we make meleers do is OUR damage, so we are probably closer to tier 1 than most people think