Assassin Upgrades

[Traxor]

Once again, I'd like to touch on the current tiers of DPS. It's quite unbelievable that assassin's tier  one dps cannot match that of a ranger or swashbuck ler. An amazing swashbuckler or ranger can outparse an amazing assassin anyday, and I find that very disturbing since swash's are tier 2, and rangers are supposedly an assassin's equal tier. Now, here are a few suggestions. The new gear released has many +% ranged crit modifiers on it, or + to ranged skill on it. The best I've seen for melee crit is  the Praetorian Hood off the pumpkinhead that has + 1% melee crit. Some of the newbie quests give you  +1% melee crit, but who's gonna use a crappy statt ed item just for melee crit. Yes, many of the new encounters are ranged based with the AE's that some of the new boss mobs have, but I've still been able to parse well over 1k and closer to the 1.5k mark on these mobs. So, how do we even out assassin's to swash's and rangers. I have a suggestion. It's not more haste, more dps mod, more poison proc %, it's melee crit. I've found that I can parse higher in a group with a bard than in a group with no bard and an illusionist, even if I have illusory arm. So that tells me that the +7.5% crit chance has to do something to my parse. Assassins live off their high damage CA's, without them they're screwed. Of course their auto-attack and poisons help, but swash's and rangers can auto-attack for twice or maybe 3 times as much with their Star-Darkened Longbows and Spears of the Mighty Grutan. Rangers have a focus spell that increases their ranged crit by like 40% or something at master 1, why not add a +40% melee crit modifier to deadly focus? Rangers cast theirs and have a sure shot of critting on their sniper shots and rain of arrows, etc. Why not give it to assassins for their decap? This isn't that huge of an upgrade, but I thought about it alot, and if I can assure that my decaps and killing blades will crit, then I'm positive to see huge ups in my parses. Tell me what ya think devs.

[poe7]

a swashy once and awhile on mobs with multible targets but if  a ranger is outparsing you you have problems, might as well hang up your duel wields and roll another class.....

[Norrsken]

Not to mention the whole tier thing with dps is flawed and should never be used to compare classes in a serious manner.

[HellRaiserXX]

<p>The reason you parse higher with a dirge instead of an illusionist is because of cacaphony of blades.  With the timer reductions they get on their AAs and various gear they can cast it like every 20sec or something crazy like that. That is huge.  That spell alone adds around 300DPS to your parse.  Thats where your DPS is coming from not the 7.5crit, they figure in to it, but the majority of the DPS you get from a dirge comes solely from Cacaphony of blades.  Couple Cacaphony of Blades to illusionist double attack and haste and its insane.</p><p>What people dont realize is how much buffs and raid setup really come into play.  If I am in the best possible grp I can be in, its going to be rare that I get outparsed and probably not in the zonewide.  It all depends on how your guild sets up its DPS groups in their raids.  If you could buff everyone equally its pretty even depending on the type of encounter, but generally that isnt the case. Sometimes the ranger has the best buffs, sometimes the swashy, sometimes the assassin; some guilds are able to have set grp, but I dont think that is the case in general.  We have an amazing ranger in our guild and when we have fairly equal buffs we are pretty much dead even down the stretch on a zonewide.  </p><p>I do not think assassins are that bad off and I personally dont think we are at a disadvantage and need help in DPS. The amazing assassins I know arent having that bad of a time and if they aren't #1 they are close and not behind by much DPS. Unless I have really terrible buffs Im never off the #1 spot by more than a 100-200DPS. I dont mind at all if Im not #1 as long as Im not behind by a ton and getting beat by a ranger is nothing to be ashamed of unless they are smoking your [Removed for Content].  I personally think the DPS tiers are pretty balanced with the exception of the few tier 2 classes doing tier 1, but even that doesnt bother me too much really.  In the end its winning the encounter that matters and as long as Im competitive one is just as good as the other when it comes to DPS. You wont see me sitting out of a raid cause they need more DPS.</p>

[Traxor]

I'm not one to post parses, so I'm not going to. Rangers going AGI and INT lines, using mainly their bows, and dropping in for CA's can parse so much more than assassins because they can get crit autobows for 10-11k which equals a critical killing blade, and this is their auto-attack damage. Yes, you are probably right. A good assassin will out-parse any mediocre ranger or swash, but if we're on an even skill range, Assassins lose to both hands down. Hang up my dual wields? Well, if hanging up my dual wields makes me auto-attack for 9-11k every 4-5 seconds with haste, HECK YA! But I don't think we have to eliminate the type of weapons used. With added melee crits, our high damage CA's will start accumulatively balancing out the amount of damage ranger auto-attack hits for. To touch on Swash's, I've seen swashes auto attack for 3-4k X 2 with double attack using Spear of the Mighty Grutan...add hurricane, fast recast inspiration, reach for AE fights, and you've got yourself a good tier 1 dps. The downside to the way that SOE balances classes is that they take the average player. I'm just saying that an assassin doing the MAX dps possible out of his/her class, cannot beat a ranger or a swashbuckler maximizing their DPS. It's just the game mechanics.

[LoreLady]

<cite>Summona wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm not one to post parses, so I'm not going to. Rangers going AGI and INT lines, using mainly their bows, and dropping in for CA's can parse so much more than assassins because they can get crit autobows for 10-11k which equals a critical killing blade, and this is their auto-attack damage. Yes, you are probably right. A good assassin will out-parse any mediocre ranger or swash, but if we're on an even skill range, Assassins lose to both hands down. Hang up my dual wields? Well, if hanging up my dual wields makes me auto-attack for 9-11k every 4-5 seconds with haste, HECK YA! But I don't think we have to eliminate the type of weapons used. With added melee crits, our high damage CA's will start accumulatively balancing out the amount of damage ranger auto-attack hits for. To touch on Swash's, I've seen swashes auto attack for 3-4k X 2 with double attack using Spear of the Mighty Grutan...add hurricane, fast recast inspiration, reach for AE fights, and you've got yourself a good tier 1 dps. The downside to the way that SOE balances classes is that they take the average player. I'm just saying that an assassin doing the MAX dps possible out of his/her class, cannot beat a ranger or a swashbuckler maximizing their DPS. It's just the game mechanics. </blockquote>While you are talking truths, there is some things your forgetting to take into consideration..  When we are hitting 11k crits with our bow, its over a 8-9s time period, along with that it is with bazkul ammo.. While we do have an advantage over assassins in auto attack, assassins have an advantage in CA's. The bow mechanic works similar to the DW mechanic, low/high damage long delay, I crit 2k with my gdoh when I am forced to do pure melee.  This sort of tweaking and min/maxing is something you can do with your class as well as mine. On the topic of a swash.. Most of the new stuff is single target, the KoS stuff is more AE.. A swash will appear godly in KoS, but will go down in EoF.. I am outparsed in labs, lyceum, deathtoll everytime by a swash or warlock.. I am never touched by a swash in mmis, freethinkers, hos, - any single target zone. This goes the same for the assassins in my guild. On the topic of focus aim, focus aim gives rangers a +45 ranged crit chance, 100haste/dps boost for 10s(15 with aa).. Its enough time to get all of our ranged CA's and crit most of them.. Assassins get mark, the dps between the two abilities is easilly comparable.. Mark boosts your dps by 15-25%, focus does the same. But, look at both classes CA's as a whole before going and nagging about one of them.. You will find the total damages on your CA's out damage rangers - which is why things are the way they are. I honestly believe that they should normalize double attack to be on a 3s base like everything else; than what is at now.. A very fast weapon will give a swash great AE dps because of that.. I also think that the KoS AA's need to be rearranged in the int/sta lines - to where the crit chance and the AE attack are the third ones down, and that the AE attack includes ranged.. But this is opinion would overpower wizards/warlocks.

[Traxor]

Now now...think about this Ranja man... Aren't u self-buffed like 60ish haste? and u have honed reflexes too? How often are u gonna have 8-9 second delay on your bow? And yea, you've got the idea, we need the same thing for your ranged crit on our deadly focus buff...I'm not saying you have to make it 40%; that may be a bit extreme, but at least 25 or so. Ranger CA's and Assassins CA's are actually quite close to equal even with our Malignant Mark. You guys have Selection and Rain of Arrows which does a considerable amount of dps. Your sniper shot is the exact equivalent of a decap without the assassin's KOS aa STR line.. But yes, maybe you're right, we have a minor advantage in our CA's, but the advantage in no way competes with the auto attack of a bow. And once again, there is no possible way you are auto-attacking at 8-9 seconds unless you just choose not to use self-buff or wear an item that adds 23-25 haste...lol.. Fact is; it's just not equal. And until something is changed it won't be. I'm not attacking your class or the Swashbuckler class; it can stay the same if SOE so chooses, I just wish for a little upgrade so that I can not only compete better with these classes in zonewides, but also be thought of as an equal if not greater DPS player. And yes, player skill has a lot to do with it, but if these classes were played by 3 evenly skilled players with even buffs, the parse would go something like this. Ranger Swashbuckler Assassin I'm not suggesting huge upgrades here because assassins don't lose horribly, but they are just a little underpar for the type of dps that they SHOULD do.

[Graton]

<cite>Summona wrote:</cite><blockquote>Once again, I'd like to touch on the current tiers of DPS. It's quite unbelievable that assassin's tier  one dps cannot match that of a ranger or swashbuck ler. An amazing swashbuckler or ranger can outparse an amazing assassin anyday, and I find that very disturbing since swash's are tier 2, and rangers are supposedly an assassin's equal tier. Now, here are a few suggestions. The new gear released has many +% ranged crit modifiers on it, or + to ranged skill on it. The best I've seen for melee crit is  the Praetorian Hood off the pumpkinhead that has + 1% melee crit. Some of the newbie quests give you  +1% melee crit, but who's gonna use a crappy statt ed item just for melee crit. Yes, many of the new encounters are ranged based with the AE's that some of the new boss mobs have, but I've still been able to parse well over 1k and closer to the 1.5k mark on these mobs. So, how do we even out assassin's to swash's and rangers. I have a suggestion. It's not more haste, more dps mod, more poison proc %, it's melee crit. I've found that I can parse higher in a group with a bard than in a group with no bard and an illusionist, even if I have illusory arm. So that tells me that the +7.5% crit chance has to do something to my parse. Assassins live off their high damage CA's, without them they're screwed. Of course their auto-attack and poisons help, but swash's and rangers can auto-attack for twice or maybe 3 times as much with their Star-Darkened Longbows and Spears of the Mighty Grutan. Rangers have a focus spell that increases their ranged crit by like 40% or something at master 1, why not add a +40% melee crit modifier to deadly focus? Rangers cast theirs and have a sure shot of critting on their sniper shots and rain of arrows, etc. Why not give it to assassins for their decap? This isn't that huge of an upgrade, but I thought about it alot, and if I can assure that my decaps and killing blades will crit, then I'm positive to see huge ups in my parses. Tell me what ya think devs. </blockquote>there's more + melee crit in game than ranged. 2 of the league items have +2% melee crit, the cloack from the catacombs quest has 2% melee crit, the earring from the hand of fate series has 1% crit, the amulet from EH has 2% melee crit and the bp from the clockwork has +2% melee crit. none of these have +ranged crit. there's one bow with + ranged i know of but there's also a slasher with + melee crit (m's flame).  in short, i don't really think you know much of what you're talking about. crit chance has a huge effect on our dmg and yes a bard is therefore fantastic for us. i would never take off the league items for the dark bangle or something similar from the new zones because 13 more str is certainly not > 2 % crit on all ca's and auto attack. i can think of very few mobs that we use straight range so on what mobs are you parsing 1k to 1.5k? that's pretty bad dmg on 95% of named mobs that come to my mind. you mention the horseman which i've never fought so maybe that's an example but even so, that's a single encounter. if that's what you generally parse on named mobs you'd be behind more than just rangers and swashbucklers in my guild, you'd be behind assassins, necros , rangers, conjurors , illusionists , swashbucklers , wizards, warlocks & brigands. i top the zone-wide parse very regularly and at least the reason you won't see me complaining to devs is that i'm quite happy with where we are and don't find these huge balance discrepancies that some claim. our eof aa's are not as good as the kos ones but they are hardly worthless.  not to mention we just got another nice boost from the kos aa revamp. i honestly don't know what the unhappy folks are grousing about.

[Graton]

<cite>LoreLady wrote:</cite><blockquote>On the topic of a swash.. Most of the new stuff is single target, the KoS stuff is more AE.. A swash will appear godly in KoS, but will go down in EoF.. I am outparsed in labs, lyceum, deathtoll everytime by a swash or warlock.. I am never touched by a swash in mmis, freethinkers, hos, - any single target zone. This goes the same for the assassins in my guild. On the topic of focus aim, focus aim gives rangers a +45 ranged crit chance, 100haste/dps boost for 10s(15 with aa).. Its enough time to get all of our ranged CA's and crit most of them.. Assassins get mark, the dps between the two abilities is easilly comparable.. Mark boosts your dps by 15-25%, focus does the same. But, look at both classes CA's as a whole before going and nagging about one of them.. You will find the total damages on your CA's out damage rangers - which is why things are the way they are. </blockquote> you make a good point about zones affecting parse greatly. as an assassin i look awful in labs on the trash because the ae encounters are dead before i can even complete a concealment chain. there's no touching a good warlock in that place. swashies look godly in that zone as well as lyceum. the 15% to 25% dmg on malignant mark is way off though. if 25% of an assassin's dmg is coming from malignant mark that assassin is doing a lousy job using all their other ca's.

[Jayad]

I dunno, if I have some decent buffs I'll parse in the 1800-3000 level depending on the duration of the fight, what buffs of my own are up, etc. Our other good assassin (my bro) parses the same, our top ranger parses that much, our best warlock parses that much. Our top swashies and rogues get pretty close - and they don't have the best gear either. The best rangers I think can parse equal to us - I know because ours does it every time he's on. He's better on AE fights than we are and close on single target. He's very very good though and this is with the proper buff setups. There's no problem though because like us Rangers add nothing else to a raid. We should be equal to the pure DPS classes. I don't think assassins need a DPS adjustment, up or down, but something needs to be looked at with other classes in terms of DPS vs. util. If a swashy can do almost my dps with all that utility, what's the argument for a dirge not doing 1500 dps? An assassin brings nothing to the table a swashy doesn't, yet there's little difference in terms of DPS.

[HellRaiserXX]

<p>Pumpkin is by far not a ranged only encounter, assassins do great on that encounter. The only encounter I have heard of that is actually completely ranged is Wuoshi because of the huge distances you have to joust.  Lots of encounters require jousting, but Wuoshi is the only one I know of that is strictly ranged and we havent fought him yet so there may be a way to melee on him as well. </p><p>I also concur with LoreLady on the type of zone affecting things hugely.  I get smoked in Labs and Lyceum and have to do really [Removed for Content] good in DT to be the top and its rare.  EoF zones Im usually never lower than third and the other spots are held by the other assassin and ranger. In Lyceum on the encounter with the 8 mobs our warlock can do 8k and I bet a swashy could do 4-5k.  Assassins need a bit of time to really build momentum and KoS encounters are over in 30secs or less most times and its hard to get any momentum going.  </p>

[Traxor]

I like the feedback. And yes, the only mobs I'm talking about that I parse 1.5kish is Treloth in FTH, and maybe Matron, and a bit higher closer to 2k on Mayong.. But then again, our ranger on those fights is getting near 2.5k, while our swash is nearing 1.8k to 2k.. Other mobs I parse very well, sometimes winning, sometimes nearing the top... But so many classes in this game, their DPS is based so much on auto-attack... The majority of ours is CA's. Making our CA's crit will up our dps.. And yes, many of the items you just posed do have + to melee crit...but why aren't there melee crit adorns? There are ranged. And Treah in EH drops + ranged crit on bracers, Sarik drops +ranged crit on gloves. Avatar drops + ranged crit on shoulders... while all the melee crit items are kinda gimped on stats...quested items...not end-game raid equip...

[Traxor]

Oh, and I agree; Pumpkin Headed Horseman is def not a big ranged fight... I was commenting on the Praetorian Hood that drops off him, and I'll also comment on Coat of Static Aura, both give melee crit. Nice items. But both are a few if not all of the end-game items...

[Kaiser Sigma]

Traxor@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote>And yes, many of the items you just posed do have + to melee crit...but why aren't there melee crit adorns? There are ranged. And Treah in EH drops + ranged crit on bracers, Sarik drops +ranged crit on gloves. Avatar drops + ranged crit on shoulders... while all the melee crit items are kinda gimped on stats...quested items...not end-game raid equip... </blockquote>There's a +1% melee crit adornment for neck slot vs two +1% ranged crit adornments. I don't think it's unfair. I'm not going to comment on avatar loot because there's a lot to be discovered so maybe a few pieces with +2% to melee crits will drop eventually. But we have a few high end items with +2% to melee crits that are awesome stats wise, most have been mentioned but I'd also like to add the Segmented Saber (slasher with +2% to crits with an impressive damage spread), probably the succesor for GDoH.

[judged_one]

<p>Here is the problem for assassin this tier</p><p> 1.) To parse top, we are heavily dependant on buff (Dirge+illusionist) </p><p> 2.) We lost our MT position for hate, swashy can put out more aoe hate, any smart guardian will want more aoe hate vs single target hate</p><p> 3.) We lost our ability as the heaviest spike damage dealer. Pre-EoF Assassin can easily put out 40k+ damage using concealment chain and mark </p><p>(25k Decap, 10k DB, 3k Evi, 1k PB, 1k MoN, 8k Mark) once very 10 min. Now a wizard or Necro can easily spike 40k+ every 2 -3 min with LifeBurn ManaBurn etc.</p><p>4.) Swashy gain 3 massive upgrade to AA  1-bladedance 12 sec (aoe immunity for group) shorter recast than actual bladedance 2-Inspiration buff 3-Reach</p><p>With Reach stacking with hurricane stacking with inspiration. Which means a swashy can stay 5 meters + away and owning any aoe mobs.</p><p>5.) Swashy is doing comparable DPS as assassin + they are better aoe DPS + they have better debuff</p><p> Bottom line, assassin is gimped this tier. Swashy + Brigand shouldn't parse anywhere close to a ranger and assassin.</p><p> I actually would want to see Ranger/warlock parse #1 in aoe fight, Assassin/wizard parse #1 in single fight, not Necro in single, Swashy in aoe. That's just bad balance and silly.</p>