Newb Assassin DPS Question

[casm43]

<DIV>Hello all,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>After 3 attempts I have found a class I can really get into.  With that being said, I am still REAL new to the game from EQ1.  I am hoping to draw from the expertise of you guys that have played the class for awhile.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My question is this.  Is it better for me to go for higher damage/higher delay weapons or lower damage/lower delay weapons??  I just hit level 18 and am doing great DPS.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Also with that being said, I am not maxing out my skills each level.  I maxed out as soon as I leveled with my Ranger.  Is this because I have been focusing on STR with the Assassin opposed to AGI with the Ranger???</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks in advance for the help,</DIV> <DIV>Vecarticus</DIV> <DIV>Blackburrow Server</DIV>

[Lariu]

<P>STR is v important yep... As for delay/dmg.. I use a slow swinger in primary and a quick one with proc in secondary. I have a bag full of weapons for variety's sake, and I've tried a few combinations, but this works best for me.</P> <P>Until GDoH drops again I'll continue using Wurmslayer in primary (3s delay) and one of a tonne of quick weapons I have in secondary. You'll get through a lot of poisons this way - which = more dps.</P> <P>Oh and I totally know what you're saying about finally finding a class you can get into - I played around a lot with fighters until I tried assassin - totally fell in love with the class and haven't played my fighters since! lol.</P>

[Thimlee]

The truth of the matter is the speed is irrelevant when talking about dps, a faster weapon does less dmg more often, a slow weapon does more damage less often -- but over time they do the exact same damage. What you want to focus on is the attributes and dps ratings of the weapons.  All of your abilities ( and this is where much of your damage comes from) do damage independent of your weapon's damage range as an assassin, so they are only influenced by strength for your melee attacks, and intellect for your poisons. For dps you want to focus on getting strength equipment and power ( agility converts to power for assassins too) Hope it helps <div></div>

[Computer MAn]

I will try and correct the above poster as he is wrong in many ways. My replys will be in yellow.<blockquote><hr>Thimlee wrote:The truth of the matter is the speed is irrelevant when talking about dps, a faster weapon does less dmg more often, a slow weapon does more damage less often -- but over time they do the exact same damage. <font color="#ffff33">It has actually been tested many times that slower weapons = more DPS. While their auto attack damage may as well be equal when you calculate the swings missed while using your CA's as well as the way the proc rate works (higher delay = more procs) the higher delay weapons come out ahead in 99% of the cases that I have seen. </font>What you want to focus on is the attributes and dps ratings of the weapons. <font color="#ffff33">While at lower levels you may want to focus on weapon stats as you get higher into the levels you will want to start looking for quality weapons over weapons with better stats. And damage rating while it may be useful to judge the aproximate damage of a weapon what you want to look at its top end damage. A higher top end will allow you to get higher crits (crits range from max damage +1 to I believe +30%). For example lets compare the Dirk of Nightfall (64.xx damage rating) with a Grinning Dirk of Horrow (57 or 59 damage rating) going by damage rating alone the Dirk of Nightfall should come out ahead. But because of the Grinning Dirk of Horror's higher top end damage (I think its close to 400) as well as its high delay (more procs) the combination of its crits and the additional procs make the GDOH the superior weapon.</font> All of your abilities ( and this is where much of your damage comes from) do damage independent of your weapon's damage range as an assassin, so they are only influenced by strength for your melee attacks, and intellect for your poisons. <font color="#ffff33">Correct me if I am wrong but at least for me spells actually make of a relatively low amount of my DPS over an entire zone parse. For me auto attack is 45% or so of my total damage, poisons are about 8%, procs will make up probably 1-3% of my damage combined and Malignant mark alone is 14% of my damage. When you add that up it comes out to about 70% of my damage from the rest of the attacks. But depending on how you look at it 30% could be considered much of your damage. The rest of that is correct I just wanted to add that intelligence not only adds to your poison's but to all your procs.</font> For dps you want to focus on getting strength equipment and power ( agility converts to power for assassins too) <font color="#ffff33">For the most part I agree with this as well although depending on how you are doing strength wise (I am generally at 750-800 on raids) you might also want to focus on int. Personally when looking at gear I go with intelligence over strength and never worry about agility as that is so easy to get lots of anyway.</font> <div></div><hr></blockquote><div></div>

[Thimlee]

<blockquote><blockquote> <font color="#ffff33">It has actually been tested many times that slower weapons = more DPS. While their auto attack damage may as well be equal when you calculate the swings missed while using your CA's as well as the way the proc rate works (higher delay = more procs) the higher delay weapons come out ahead in 99% of the cases that I have seen. </font>Right, I was referring to the differences in auto-attack damage, not all damage total.  The proc rates multiplying out make a slow mainhand more advantageous when you include ability use. <font color="#ffff33"> </font><font color="#ffff33">While at lower levels you may want to focus on weapon stats as you get higher into the levels you will want to start looking for quality weapons over weapons with better stats. And damage rating while it may be useful to judge the aproximate damage of a weapon what you want to look at its top end damage. A higher top end will allow you to get higher crits (crits range from max damage +1 to I believe +30%). For example lets compare the Dirk of Nightfall (64.xx damage rating) with a Grinning Dirk of Horrow (57 or 59 damage rating) going by damage rating alone the Dirk of Nightfall should come out ahead. But because of the Grinning Dirk of Horror's higher top end damage (I think its close to 400) as well as its high delay (more procs) the combination of its crits and the additional procs make the GDOH the superior weapon.</font> He's lvl 18, he's got some time before he'll make those sort of decisions. <font color="#ffff33">Correct me if I am wrong but at least for me spells actually make of a relatively low amount of my DPS over an entire zone parse. For me auto attack is 45% or so of my total damage, poisons are about 8%, procs will make up probably 1-3% of my damage combined and Malignant mark alone is 14% of my damage. When you add that up it comes out to about 70% of my damage from the rest of the attacks. But depending on how you look at it 30% could be considered much of your damage. The rest of that is correct I just wanted to add that intelligence not only adds to your poison's but to all your procs. </font>This is a matter of playstyle, some people will let their auto-swings roll longer, other people will use every ability off cooldown whenever possible, and many varying degrees in between. <font color="#ffff33"> </font> <font color="#ffff33">For the most part I agree with this as well although depending on how you are doing strength wise (I am generally at 750-800 on raids) you might also want to focus on int. Personally when looking at gear I go with intelligence over strength and never worry about agility as that is so easy to get lots of anyway.</font> This guy is lvl 18, he is not concerned about the diminishing returns on strength while he's leveling up as he will be nowhere near the caps, so I didn't go into detail about when to swap over from strength to int for poison & procs dmg <div></div><hr></blockquote><div></div><hr></blockquote><div></div>

[khufure]

I'd focus more on keeping your CAs at adept1.  Buy gear if its really cheap and has STR on it.  For now just get two high DR weapons.  While I was leveling I used one +pierce and one +slash, but in the end game everyone uses +pierce.BTW your melee skills will be maxed soon enough when levels start to slow down.  You'll wish for the days where they weren't maxed soon enough <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>