Predator AA question on the WIS line...

[ColbieDtreehugger]

<DIV>Has anyone tested Rank 4 on teh WIS line? it's called Obfusication. It says "Stealth and Stalk abilities have their casting speed and reuse speed increased." Wondering if it pertains to ALL stealth and Stalk abilites or just Stealth, and Surveil.</DIV>

[BaruMonk]

I don't think there's any reason to believe that it shouldn't apply to all of them. AAs remain through all tiers, and I'd assume they scale with the character.

[Dragonsviperz]

WIS line is the suck imo...but yea that AA Line should apply to all invis/stealth.

[Homeskillet]

       It pertains to Stalk and Surveil. Honestly for me, I don't view that line as all that bad. I have gone INT line thus far, and was debating STR or WIS for my second line. Perfectionist honestly? Not that great in long run DPS for me. The WIS line provides a bit of personal utility with the Rank 4 ability, as sometimes I am waiting for those two abilities to refresh. Smoke Bomb, along with the rank 2 ability should I use a rapier, provide a bit more agro management. Wether I am pulling agro or not, these two make sure I don't.<div></div>

[Griffona]

I like others, don't see the draw of this line.  Do you feel like faster timers will help getting Stealth attacks in more?  I don't remember that being a problem before, but after level 55 with concealment I have more stealth than i know what to do with.What is it about the casting and resuse speed that appeals to you?<div></div>

[Dragonsviperz]

I don't know why many people would like this..only reason why I see people going to WIS line is because they are on PvP, or their aggro control is horrible. The WIS line would be fun on PvP though, the interupt from the AE deaggro is pretty cool. The AGI line also is pretty good fpr PvP.

[Hadanelith]

<P>Homeskillet:</P> <P>Regardless of what you may think about Perfectionist, it provides a sizeable upgrade to any Assassin's DPS. I've done the math to prove it, viewable in my post at this link:</P> <P><A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=40&message.id=12431&page=3" target=_blank>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=40&message.id=12431&page=3</A></P> <P> </P> <P>As for the WIS line, it's actually a very good line with two little problems:</P> <P>1) If you TAKE the WIS line, you don't NEED the WIS line. The only way you could possibly get enough Hate without taking both STR and INT lines to -need- the WIS line, is if you put 8 Ranks each into Toxic Expertise and Poison Combination, and did NOT take Intoxication so that you can afford Smoke Bomb. If one were to do this, you would be looking at Critical Procs of GM Caustic poison nearing or above 2k DMG each on a full raid, with a proc crit rate of 52%. The melee crit chance provided by the STR line provides more damage per "ability proc" but goes off far less often.</P> <P>2) There're no good Rapiers found in T7, as of yet at least, that you could regularly keep equipped to use Placating Strike. Granted, Halls of Seeing is yet to go Live and Deathtoll has not been COMPLETELY ransacked yet, but unless the Edge of Oblivion counts as a Rapier (despite its appearance as a Katana), there exists NO Fabled Rapier for this tier. The best you can get, rapier-wise at this point, is the Terrorantula rapier from T6. Switching between Rapier and Dagger for the sake of Poison Combination isn't so bad; by contrast, Poison Combo is a much more worthy spell for weapon-switching than the STR line's Bladed Opening. Heck, I don't even USE Bladed Opening, ever. Its recast time lets it be used, at most, twice on a strong Raid Named before the damage on the ability goes to heck (below 80% mob health). </P> <P>As a sidenote, Bladed Opening in and of itself is a fairly good ability, but almost seems to be made for Rangers more than Assassins. At 8th Rank it -might- be fairly useful to an Assassin with Oblivion's Edge to switch into mainhand and use while running Exacting (looks like the unconditional part might do around 750 damage with 444 STR, before Exacting's mod), but given that it doesn't do a heck of a lot more damage than Poison Combo (unconditionally anyway) and doesn't help procs the way Poison Combo does (by lowering poison save), Combo still gets the creds for usability in my mind.</P> <P>Also, Assassin's Nightfall Leggings (Relic Armor) have a focus effect that reduces the recast timer on Surveillance by 7s (23%), which gives plenty of assistance to aggro management. With Obfuscation at Rank 8 and Nightfall Leggings, you get impressive aggro management (8s re-use time on Surveillance), but lose a lot of DPS potential from NOT gaining other skills... which brings me back to the point presented in #1 above. Even then, I think a 7s Re-Use time on the Stalk line is a little overboard even for the AA set I suggested there, granted that we Assassins get the Concealment ability to chain-combo our Stealth attacks with reduced hate.</P> <P>In summary, the WIS line definately has potential, but it seems far more useful for Rangers. Alternately, it'd be great in PVP since you could Stealth far more frequently, aggrivating people as you continually drop from target and sight. It seems a lot of players forget that the AA's were built with PVP going Live in mind, some are almost wasted altogether in PVE servers.</P> <P>-Hadanelith Raswrolski, 70 Assassin of Kithicor</P><p>Message Edited by Hadanelith on <span class=date_text>04-27-2006</span> <span class=time_text>04:22 PM</span>

[Dragonsviperz]

<DIV>Few corrections weapon wise on Had's post. Dark Fury Sabre of Anuk counts as a rapier if you have that. Using Shortsword of Sorrow from t6 can also be used if you can't get the Oblivion's Edge from t7. Seems like there are many weps that can be used for the INT line skill. And the reason why I didn't go STA, not the only reason, there are no fabled spears from t6 or t7, and I don't know of any legendary in either tier. </DIV>

[Hadanelith]

<P>Quoting myself: "There're no good Rapiers found in T7..."</P> <P>Tier-Appropriate Rapiers, Dragon. Tier-Appropriate &gt<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>DFS is T6, and its DR is not as good as many T6 Fabled even.</P> <P>Have you PERSONALLY confirmed, through yourself or a friend, that the Shortsword of Sorrow works? It is definately NOT a Rapier, but I guess there's a possibility that the game could count it as one.</P> <P>We still don't know if Oblivion's Edge counts as a Rapier or not, unless someone posts to confirm/refute this.</P> <P>There's always the option of using Crafted Rapiers, but let's face it, they suck.</P> <P>If you insist on using this line, the only 2 CONFIRMED quality weapons you can use with it are the DFS and Desert Skewer, both of which are T6 weapons. From what we've seen so far, there is NO T7 Rapier unless, all of the sudden, a Katana counts as a "rapier" rather than a "sword" (sword = STR line ability). It's possible that a Rapier could also count as a Sword, but a Katana is NOT a Rapier. I'd lose all respect for the Devs if they counted a Katana as a Rapier; I Fenced for 3 years, good luck using a Katana in the same manner as a Rapier. The balance is totally different. As for the Shortsword of Sorrow, Shortsword = Shortsword, it -should- count as a Sword, not Rapier. Again, I'd lose all respect for the Devs if this weapon counted as a Rapier =p</P> <P>-Hadanelith Raswrolski, 70 Assassin of Kithicor</P><p>Message Edited by Hadanelith on <span class=date_text>04-27-2006</span> <span class=time_text>04:24 PM</span>

[Skratttt]

<hr size="2" width="100%">In t6 there is 2 fabled spears that i know of ....tis the cobalt leafblade/short spearTruth is out of all the 2nd tier AA atacks, spinning spear has the biggest dps potential......too bad rest of line is not beneficial in huge manner exept for 13% chance to ae atack frontal mobs from tier 4 skill<div></div>

[Hadanelith]

<P>Since when is Cobalt -anything- Fabled?</P> <P>Since when does Spear count as Rapier?</P> <P>Whatever the point of your post, it was somewhat confused. But, I do have to agree that Spinning Spear has the greatest <STRONG><EM>AE </EM></STRONG>damage potential. Yes, this is pretty nice to have on raids to show your true AE potential vs the many, many groups of trash mobs... but let's face it: the Assassin class was built around taking down ONE target with extreme prejudice. Spinning Spear is one of the abilities that is meant more for PVP than for PVE. If you're on a PVP server, by all means, Spinning Spear could be a great asset.</P> <P>But, good luck finding that Fabled Spear. I haven't seen one since T5, though I could just be forgetting an odd rare drop. If there is an Assassin-usable Fabled Spear from T6 or T7, I'm assuming (for the time being) that it's a 1H weapon. Nothing wrong with that, but you better take AA's supportive of defense along with it.</P> <P>AA's have two man ideas behind them: Strengthening your weaknesses, or accentuating your strengths. In PVE, it's usually better to accentuate your strengths. In PVP, it's a hard tossup between accentuating strengths and strengthening weaknesses, but the fewer weaknesses you have the harder you are to kill.</P> <P>-Hadanelith Raswrolski, 70 Assassin of Kithicor</P>

[Remma]

<div><blockquote><hr>Dragonsviperz wrote:<div> And the reason why I didn't go STA, not the only reason, there are no fabled spears from t6 or t7, and I don't know of any legendary in either tier. </div><hr></blockquote>I believe wurmslayer is a spear, PITA to get thoughaITEM 723714483 953767497:The Wurmslayer/a</div>