Assassinate...

[Gaige]

<p>Needs to have its recast lowered or its damage doubled.  It doesn't do near enough damage for the ridiculously long recast.  </p><p>Elemental Blast, for instance, does way more damage on single target burn fights and don't even get me started on wizard abilities that hit as hard or harder than assassinate while having under 5 minute recasts.</p><p>Assassins should be the king of short, single target burst fights and we no longer are because our good CAs are handcuffed by ridiculous recast rates while other classes have gotten abilities that straight up outclass it, outdamage it and can be used way more often.</p><p>Please take a look at it and get it inline with how it should be, because its currently pretty unsatisfactory.</p>

[SacDaddy420]

<p>what is it's max recast?</p>

[Gaige]

<p>Fifteen minutes and max hit is 458k so far.</p>

[Eritius]

<p>Two words.</p><p>Sniper Shot.</p><p>I think Assassinate might be alright in comparison. However I wouldn't mind seeing the two be useable every 5 minutes (reduced by the Blademaster AA). But with the damage lowered a bit.</p>

[thajo]

<p>Assassinate and Ice Comet were both level 50 spells.  Wizards have had means since EoF to bring Ice Comet down to 22.5s recast.  It's kind of a joke the assassin equal spell is 15min recast.  They do it to alot of classes though.  Like some level 65 spells.  Fusion is 3 min recast, plane shift is like 5....necro's get undead hoard at ~15 min recast.  </p><p>Either way wizzy and Assassin both being t1 dps'ers, its kind of a joke their same level granted spells/highest hit, the assassin one is 20 times (yes thats accurate) the recast of ice comet.</p>

[Peogia]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Needs to have its recast lowered or its damage doubled.  It doesn't do near enough damage for the ridiculously long recast.  </p><p>Elemental Blast, for instance, does way more damage on single target burn fights and don't even get me started on wizard abilities that hit as hard or harder than assassinate while having under 5 minute recasts.</p><p>Assassins should be the king of short, single target burst fights and we no longer are because our good CAs are handcuffed by ridiculous recast rates while other classes have gotten abilities that straight up outclass it, outdamage it and can be used way more often.</p><p>Please take a look at it and get it inline with how it should be, because its currently pretty unsatisfactory.</p></blockquote><p><img src="http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy289/Icexstorm69/EQ2_000001.jpg" width="1023" height="531" /></p><p>looks fair to me</p>

[Gaige]

<p>Right, 45 second recast vs 15 min recast - totally fair.</p>

[Rhadamanth]

<p>I suppose in comparison it does seem a bit unfair.  But at the same time, the casting speed of Ice Comet is 8X longer, which means in terms of DPS, it isn't nearly as much as Assassinate.  EB is OP, especially since I'm a necro.  A decrease in the reuse speed for Assassinate may be good, but assassins are already the best at single target burst damage.  And another thing:  rangers...  I think they need some upgrades before assassins.</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Rhadamanthys wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>which means in terms of DPS, it isn't nearly as much as Assassinate.  </p></blockquote><p>Um, no.  Look at a zw every once in awhile.  What a stupid statement.  Even factoring in cast time you can use IC every 50 seconds (without any reuse gear) vs 15 minutes with assassinate - just lol.</p>

[Rhadamanth]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rhadamanthys wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>which means in terms of DPS, it isn't nearly as much as Assassinate.  </p></blockquote><p>Um, no.  Look at a zw every once in awhile.  What a stupid statement.  Even factoring in cast time you can use IC every 50 seconds (without any reuse gear) vs 15 minutes with assassinate - just lol.</p></blockquote><p>You even said you wanted burst damage...  That's what an ability like this does.  Looking at the ZW for the dps output of an ability like this is the complete opposite of burst damage.  Look at what it does during a short fight.  You said you could do almost 500k with it.  With the 0.5 casting + 0.5 recovery, that is 500k dps.  There is your burst damage.  Compare that to even a 300k IC, 4 casting + 0.5 recovery, that is around 70k dps.  That is a heck of a lot less burst damage.  Over time, however, IC wins.  That's not the point of burst damage.</p>

[Eritius]

<p><cite>Peogia wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><img src="http://i800.photobucket.com/albums/yy289/Icexstorm69/EQ2_000001.jpg" width="1023" height="531" /></p><p>looks fair to me</p></blockquote><p>Assassinate is being upped by AGI in that pic. Where as the Ice Comet spell is not being affected by INT since an assassin's INT is much much lower (if even buffed at all).</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Rhadamanthys wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>You even said you wanted burst damage... </p></blockquote><p>It isn't burst damage either, I've never had it do more than say 8k ext on any single target  burn fight but I've seen EB and IC do over 10k.</p><p>The reuse needs to be lowered, period.</p>

[Gungo]

<p>Followup > assassinate now. If you are going to compare the 2 best abilities compare the 2 best, but honestly you can not compare 2 random abilities from 2 vastly different classes. You got to compare classes as a whole and right now assassins are very comparable to wizards. Depending on what Velious brings for sorcerers I can see assassinate being reduced to 5-3 minutes of course by then sorcerers should be getting something equally as impressive. </p><p>BTW ice comet is resistible assassinate is not. </p>

[Avirodar]

<p>Trying to directly compare assassinate to ice comet is rediculous.That is unless you want wizards to start complaining their auto attack damage does less DPS than it does for assassins, and needs to be brought up to par. Yeah, kind of stupid isn't it? So is comparing assassinate to ice comet or EB. If the overall DPS output capacity from assassins is lacking, there are much better ways to attempt getting the issue addressed.</p>

[Felonie]

<p>dont do enough damage>? ive seen assassinate hit for over 500k if raids and u get the right gear and group u can get over 100% reuse speed so ur lookin at about a 5 min reuse thats not bad</p>

[Sydares]

<p>Sniper Shot...</p>

[Thunndar316]

<p>Assassins asking for even more DPS?</p><p>I think you get enough handed to you on a silver platter</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>You got to compare classes as a whole and right now assassins are very comparable to wizards. </p><p>BTW ice comet is resistible assassinate is not. </p></blockquote><p>Worse on AE, maybe competitive single target if the fight is 3 mins or less, not competitive at all on mobs with brawler avoidance.  </p><p>Not very comparable imo.</p><p>You can miss assassinate outright and you still have to wait for it to refresh.</p><p><div><p><cite>Felonie@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>ive seen assassinate hit for over 500k if raids and u get the right gear and group u can get over 100% reuse speed so ur lookin at about a 5 min reuse thats not bad</p></blockquote><p>100% reuse is 7 1/2 mins.  You haven't seen a 500k assassinate because I have the highest WW and it was 458k.</p></div></p>

[Avirodar]

<p><cite>Felonie@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>dont do enough damage>? ive seen assassinate hit for over 500k if raids and u get the right gear and group u can get over 100% reuse speed so ur lookin at about a 5 min reuse thats not bad</p></blockquote><p>I believe reuse caps out at half of the base recast value of any ability. So 7.5 minutes.There are varied advantages and disadvantages between the top end DPS class types. Assassins are not a class left empty handed.</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> Assassins are not a class left empty handed.</p></blockquote><p>Which I never implied.  I want the recast issue with assassinate addressed so it can be used more often so it will actually be worthwhile DPS.  There is no reason at all, none, for it to have such a ridiculously long recast.  It should be 4 minutes so 100% reuse makes it 2 mins, that way its up every other FFU chain and it fits in line a lot better with our other stealth CAs.</p>

[Slowin]

<p>Bah gaige beat me to all the replies anyway.. this post just got redundant ;-/</p><p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>BTW ice comet is resistible assassinate is not. </p></blockquote><p>Assassinate can't miss? In which case you get the full recast instead of waiting 5 seconds to cast it again.</p><p><cite>Felonie@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>dont do enough damage>? ive seen assassinate hit for over 500k if raids and u get the right gear and group u can get over 100% reuse speed so ur lookin at about a 5 min reuse thats not bad</p></blockquote><p>You don't understand game mechanics.  Recast on assassinate can never get better than 7.5 minutes. </p><p>I actually have to agree with gaige that the recast on assassinate (or sniper shot.. or pretty much any ability with 10+ minute recasts these days.. healer emergency heals anyone?) could be cut down pretty significantly.  The difference in dps will be far from overpowering.</p>

[thajo]

<p><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Trying to directly compare assassinate to ice comet is rediculous.</p></blockquote><p>Why?  Were both t1 dps classes and were both given that spell first at level 50.  Only my level 50 spell shows as the top damage source of my parse on every fight and Gaiges I have to scroll waaay down on every single one of his ZW's to find assassinates.  They are the only comparable spells of the two classes.  If that spell isn't comparable then I guess the classes are left in polar ends without much common ground. /shrug</p><p>I don't hold much determination or opinion towards this but, I can feel for a dps class having a 15m base recast spell cause I still think undead hoard is a load of crap too, its pretty much my view on all the nice dps spells some classes got that have absurb recasts.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>And where does your auto attack sit at compared to his?</p>

[thajo]

<p>I don't take well to redundant questions you ask just because you want me to type the answer you expect, lets not be stupid.  Assassinate could use a reduction in cast time.  It doesn't need to be 45s like ice comet, but the world (game) wouldn't explode if assassins got the recast lowered to 10 min, thus being able to obtain a max reuse of 5 min, for example.</p>

[Syndarin]

<p>It needs to be reduced to 5 minute base recast at least.</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Dakkota@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Trying to directly compare assassinate to ice comet is rediculous.</p></blockquote><p>Why?  Were both t1 dps classes and were both given that spell first at level 50.  Only my level 50 spell shows as the top damage source of my parse on every fight and Gaiges I have to scroll waaay down on every single one of his ZW's to find assassinates.  They are the only comparable spells of the two classes.  If that spell isn't comparable then I guess the classes are left in polar ends without much common ground. /shrug</p><p>I don't hold much determination or opinion towards this but, I can feel for a dps class having a 15m base recast spell cause I still think undead hoard is a load of crap too, its pretty much my view on all the nice dps spells some classes got that have absurb recasts.</p></blockquote><p>The only real commonality between an assassin and a wizard is they are both damage dealing classes. While ice comet is the best dps spell for a wizard it is not thier biggest damage ability. And while assassinate is a the highest damage ability for assassins it is not thier highest dps ability. Comparing 2 abilites in a vacuum from 2 vastly different classes doesnt make sense. Try comparing fatal followup to the wizards fiery blast and fatal followup seems much greater.</p><p>I dont think anyone here cares if they reduce assassinates recast to 5 min in velious, but I would expect equal treatment to all dps classes in order to maintain the overall balance. That is of course if you beleive that assassins are a balanced class that is comparable to wizards as most players do. I also dont expect any changes to ANY classes until velious in the first place. We are not even getting another update until velious.</p><p>Eitherway I would like to see all abilites with a base reuse no longer then 10 minutes (including god abilites). 5 min recast with 100% reuse should be the cap on any long recast ability. There are very few fights in eq2 that last 10+ min regardless.</p>

[Notsovilepriest]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Dakkota@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Trying to directly compare assassinate to ice comet is rediculous.</p></blockquote><p>Why?  Were both t1 dps classes and were both given that spell first at level 50.  Only my level 50 spell shows as the top damage source of my parse on every fight and Gaiges I have to scroll waaay down on every single one of his ZW's to find assassinates.  They are the only comparable spells of the two classes.  If that spell isn't comparable then I guess the classes are left in polar ends without much common ground. /shrug</p><p>I don't hold much determination or opinion towards this but, I can feel for a dps class having a 15m base recast spell cause I still think undead hoard is a load of crap too, its pretty much my view on all the nice dps spells some classes got that have absurb recasts.</p></blockquote><p>The only real commonality between an assassin and a wizard is they are both damage dealing classes. While ice comet is the best dps spell for a wizard it is not thier biggest damage ability. And while assassinate is a the highest damage ability for assassins it is not thier highest dps ability. Comparing 2 abilites in a vacuum from 2 vastly different classes doesnt make sense. Try comparing fatal followup to the wizards fiery blast and fatal followup seems much greater.</p><p>I dont think anyone here cares if they reduce assassinates recast to 5 min in velious, but I would expect equal treatment to all dps classes in order to maintain the overall balance. That is of course if you beleive that assassins are a balanced class that is comparable to wizards as most players do. I also dont expect any changes to ANY classes until velious in the first place. We are not even getting another update until velious.</p><p>Eitherway I would like to see all abilites with a base reuse no longer then 10 minutes (including god abilites). 5 min recast with 100% reuse should be the cap on any long recast ability. There are very few fights in eq2 that last 10+ min regardless.</p></blockquote><p>You can't compare a class ability like FFU to an AA ability such as Fiery blast by your own idea of what is "Commonality"</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Notsovilepriest@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Dakkota@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Trying to directly compare assassinate to ice comet is rediculous.</p></blockquote><p>Why?  Were both t1 dps classes and were both given that spell first at level 50.  Only my level 50 spell shows as the top damage source of my parse on every fight and Gaiges I have to scroll waaay down on every single one of his ZW's to find assassinates.  They are the only comparable spells of the two classes.  If that spell isn't comparable then I guess the classes are left in polar ends without much common ground. /shrug</p><p>I don't hold much determination or opinion towards this but, I can feel for a dps class having a 15m base recast spell cause I still think undead hoard is a load of crap too, its pretty much my view on all the nice dps spells some classes got that have absurb recasts.</p></blockquote><p>The only real commonality between an assassin and a wizard is they are both damage dealing classes. While ice comet is the best dps spell for a wizard it is not thier biggest damage ability. And while assassinate is a the highest damage ability for assassins it is not thier highest dps ability. Comparing 2 abilites in a vacuum from 2 vastly different classes doesnt make sense. Try comparing fatal followup to the wizards fiery blast and fatal followup seems much greater.</p><p>I dont think anyone here cares if they reduce assassinates recast to 5 min in velious, but I would expect equal treatment to all dps classes in order to maintain the overall balance. That is of course if you beleive that assassins are a balanced class that is comparable to wizards as most players do. I also dont expect any changes to ANY classes until velious in the first place. We are not even getting another update until velious.</p><p>Eitherway I would like to see all abilites with a base reuse no longer then 10 minutes (including god abilites). 5 min recast with 100% reuse should be the cap on any long recast ability. There are very few fights in eq2 that last 10+ min regardless.</p></blockquote><p>You can't compare a class ability like FFU to an AA ability such as Fiery blast by your own idea of what is "Commonality"</p></blockquote><p>That was kinda my point.</p>

[Avirodar]

<p><cite>Dakkota@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Trying to directly compare assassinate to ice comet is rediculous.</p></blockquote><p>Why?  Were both t1 dps classes and were both given that spell first at level 50.  Only my level 50 spell shows as the top damage source of my parse on every fight and Gaiges I have to scroll waaay down on every single one of his ZW's to find assassinates.  They are the only comparable spells of the two classes.  If that spell isn't comparable then I guess the classes are left in polar ends without much common ground. /shrug</p></blockquote><p>Because if you start with one ability vs another, where does it end? Every lvl_XX CA vs lvl_XX spell? That is just silly on so many levels, especially because if you do it for one you have to do it for all, as the DPS of a class is a reflection of ALL their skills and abilities, not just one. This also includes DPS from autoattack. I hope you now understand why?The real question is, in the scheme of things, is Assassin DPS lacking? Gaige wrote that he has never implied that assassins are a class left empty handed. Asssassins are very capable of doing a lot of DPS, and like any DPS class, they do better in some situations than others. Not every encounter is custom built to make one type of DPS shine. But all DPS want to do DPS, which is understandable.We all hate abilities with stupidly high reuse timers (15 mins is high). But would assassins accept a damage reduction to Assassinate, to go with the lowered reuse time, in order to keep general DPS output totals in control?</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Because if you start with one ability vs another, where does it end?</p></blockquote><p>Sigh, it was just an EXAMPLE of WHY I think assassinate's recast should be lowered.  I don't care if we compare it to anything.</p><p>For the DAMAGE that ASSASSINATE does the RECAST is totally 100% absolutely RIDICULOUS and UNCALLED FOR.</p><p>It should be 4 minutes or 5 minutes base recast so that you can use it every other FFU chain.  Nothing about assassinate warrants its ridiculous recast.  IF they insist that it stays a ludicrous FIFTEEN MINUTES the damage should be quadrupled or something to make the wait worth it.</p><p>I simply used Ice Comet because it can hit about as hard as assassinate yet they can use it every 45 seconds.  EB hits about 10x harder than assassinate and conjurors can use it every 90 seconds (3 minute base reuse).</p><p>If our specialty is short single target burst then our "best" ahem most damaging CA (only sometimes, FFU does more all the time and its a minute reuse) should be usable for the majority of those fights.</p><p>So can anyone tell me why they feel the recast time on assassinate is warranted?  No.  Thought so.</p><p>As for other classes who are stuck with long recasts, I'm fairly sure they can make a post to get theirs changed too.  I'm an assassin, I only care about our worthless CA.</p><p><div><p><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>But would assassins accept a damage reduction to Assassinate, to go with the lowered reuse time, in order to keep general DPS output totals in control?</p></blockquote><p>The damage assassinate does doesn't warrant the recast, period.  A max of 450ish thousand isn't near enough to warrant using an ability once or twice per raid zone.  Not to mention the fact that assassins aren't so overpowered as to need a reduction in dps if this CA gets fixed.  I routinely lose to conjurors on sub 1 minute fights thanks to EB and wizards, warlocks, swashes, conjurors and others are competitive encounter to encounter and don't even get me started on zonewides, our lack of AE dps or the fact that on the hardest encounters in this game (like Yael) casters are already more valuable.</p></div></p>

[Kizee]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Because if you start with one ability vs another, where does it end?</p></blockquote><p>Sigh, it was just an EXAMPLE of WHY I think assassinate's recast should be lowered.  I don't care if we compare it to anything.</p><p>For the DAMAGE that ASSASSINATE does the RECAST is totally 100% absolutely RIDICULOUS and UNCALLED FOR.</p><p>It should be 4 minutes or 5 minutes base recast so that you can use it every other FFU chain.  Nothing about assassinate warrants its ridiculous recast.  IF they insist that it stays a ludicrous FIFTEEN MINUTES the damage should be quadrupled or something to make the wait worth it.</p><p>I simply used Ice Comet because it can hit about as hard as assassinate yet they can use it every 45 seconds.  EB hits about 10x harder than assassinate and conjurors can use it every 90 seconds (3 minute base reuse).</p><p>If our specialty is short single target burst then our "best" ahem most damaging CA (only sometimes, FFU does more all the time and its a minute reuse) should be usable for the majority of those fights.</p><p>So can anyone tell me why they feel the recast time on assassinate is warranted?  No.  Thought so.</p><p>As for other classes who are stuck with long recasts, I'm fairly sure they can make a post to get theirs changed too.  I'm an assassin, I only care about our worthless CA.</p><div><p><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>But would assassins accept a damage reduction to Assassinate, to go with the lowered reuse time, in order to keep general DPS output totals in control?</p></blockquote><p>The damage assassinate does doesn't warrant the recast, period.  A max of 450ish thousand isn't near enough to warrant using an ability once or twice per raid zone.  Not to mention the fact that assassins aren't so overpowered as to need a reduction in dps if this CA gets fixed.  I routinely lose to conjurors on sub 1 minute fights thanks to EB and wizards, warlocks, swashes, conjurors and others are competitive encounter to encounter and don't even get me started on zonewides, our lack of AE dps or the fact that on the hardest encounters in this game (like Yael) casters are already more valuable.</p></div></blockquote><p>How dare you use logic on these boards Gaige. You should know better.</p>

[Korrupt]

<p>Good luck with this, warlock spells are outclassed again and again by their wizard counterparts. Lower recasts, more damage, not being broken, SDA fully affecting them, not being cured, etc. Wizards are a big dev favorite no doubt, but then again assassins arent far behind.</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Korrupt@Najena wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Wizards are a big dev favorite no doubt, but then again assassins arent far behind.</p></blockquote><p>I'd say we're pretty far behind when Ballads can complain about elemental resistant encounters and they're immediately changed while this expansion still has five or six mobs I can barely attack 50% of the time.</p>

[Korrupt]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Korrupt@Najena wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Wizards are a big dev favorite no doubt, but then again assassins arent far behind.</p></blockquote><p>I'd say we're pretty far behind when Ballads can complain about elemental resistant encounters and they're immediately changed while this expansion still has five or six mobs I can barely attack 50% of the time.</p></blockquote><p>I meant more as a comparison to other classes and their issues.</p>

[stevenbanks]

<p>I remember playing my Assassin for 5 years, since launch before changing classes. Anyone else remember when recast was 1 hour? Those were the days.</p>

[Andok]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> while this expansion still has five or six mobs I can barely attack 50% of the time.</p></blockquote><p>Five or six??!! Oh no!!!  Bring down the servers and HOTFIX!!! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Andok wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Five or six??!! Oh no!!!  Bring down the servers and HOTFIX!!! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Exactly, that is what they did for the THREE mobs that resisted wizards elemental attacks, even if it wasn't the entire encounter but only the adds.</p>

[kelvmor]

<p>Assassinate should be made like the brawler Devastation Fist. Instant kill on standard and weaker mobs, but keep its current damage on heroic and epic mobs with the same reuse timer it has now. Or, lower it to five minutes like Harm Touch/Devastation Fist.</p>

[MurFalad]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rhadamanthys wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>which means in terms of DPS, it isn't nearly as much as Assassinate.  </p></blockquote><p>Um, no.  Look at a zw every once in awhile.  What a stupid statement.  Even factoring in cast time you can use IC every 50 seconds (without any reuse gear) vs 15 minutes with assassinate - just lol.</p></blockquote><p>Its burst damage you are queuing up time there for, not DPS, the higher the burst damage the exponentially more valuable it is (moot on raid mobs with millions of health, rather handy for heroic mobs where its the difference between being able to solo them or getting killed).</p><p>Lowering its cooldown means also that you up the Assassin's overall DPS, I've not seen any need for Assassin's to get a buff in DPS?</p><p>And upping player power means nerfing the difficulty of content.</p><p>So all in all I don't see any benefits myself to making the Assassin's version of Sniper even faster to recast.</p>

[DrkVsr]

<p><span style="font-size: medium; color: #993300; font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif;">Lowering the recast to 10 minutes should not be a big deal: if you are in a big fight, don't you want all the help you can get? And if the assassin is just doing it to up their [Removed for Content]-ness then you need to blacklist the sod for giving all assassin's a bad name</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium; color: #993300; font-family: Comic Sans MS;">Having something like Assassinate enables V`Wak to finally solo mobs higher than pale-blue (and do it more often than once an hour) specially in 'fun' events where you have no option but face white mobs</span></p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>MurFalad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Its burst damage you are queuing up time there for, not DPS, the higher the burst damage the exponentially more valuable it is </p></blockquote><p>Um, Ice Comet can and does hit for right around 250k.</p>

[Shotneedle]

<p>I'd agree with you Gaige, but they already moved it to the forums they rarely if ever read so <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Remeo]

<p>Please keep in mind that FFU chains are all too easily interrupted.  So no, FFU does not always hit as hard as assassinate.  Anything from AoE to getting teleported away, to jousting and being stunned/stifled can break a chain.  Or at least reduce the amount of stealth attacks executed in the last 10 seconds.</p><p>I am in agreement with the original post...5 minute recast at most.</p>

[Felleyes]

<p>If this is about parity among the classes, then I’m sure the assassin community would be in full support of allowing sorcerers to wear chainmail, duel-wield and equip spell pouches that have awesome stats. That’s fair, right? Since we’re trying to level the playing field?~ Fin</p>

[erratic]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Andok wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Five or six??!! Oh no!!!  Bring down the servers and HOTFIX!!! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Exactly, that is what they did for the THREE mobs that resisted wizards elemental attacks, even if it wasn't the entire encounter but only the adds.</p></blockquote><p>Sadly this expansion (UD in particular) is very melee unfriendly, there are entire named that are virtually impossible to joust in for any amount of time without an aoe blocker on you.  With raids needing to stack more healers for curse and other staple raid issues its not a fun time to be melee at all.  It would have been nice if ranged classes felt even a bit of our pain instead of getting their issues fixed immediately.</p><p>To the pont of this thread however, balancing one ability of one class against another ability of another class even if the two classes do similiar roles (or even the exact same role) and the two abilities are similar in nature is the wrong way to go about it.  Every class is unique, and ultimately when deciding which skills need to be "fixed" the important questions are:</p><p>1) does it work.</p><p>2) do players use it.</p><p>3) is there some problem with it that detracts from the enjoyment of the game.</p><p>4) is the class as a whole balanced where soe wants it.</p><p>If the skill works and the players use it and the class is where soe wants it to be then there is no point in changing skills.  I don't play an assassin so I can't particularily speak on #2 but #1, #3 and #4 seem to be fine.</p>

[Davngr1]

<p>assassins need to have higher single target dps then all other classes because their main function is to dps and once you start adding joust and other factors that are common to raiding, assassin damage takes a sharp drop off.</p> <p>  ca's/spells should ultimately dictate damage potential so the fact assassin has a ca at 15 min recast is absolutely ridiculous.     yes ranger still need some tweeks to ca's damage but the fact that they can joust out and not loose nearly as much damage as assassin means that their burst damage should stay lower then assassin. </p>

[Wigg]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>MurFalad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Its burst damage you are queuing up time there for, not DPS, the higher the burst damage the exponentially more valuable it is </p></blockquote><p>Um, Ice Comet can and does hit for right around 250k.</p></blockquote><p>Read through this thread and realized people will say anything for things to not get fixed.  So here is my 2 cents on it.</p><p>These are all assuming the players are of good quality and equal T3 gear.</p><p>1.  IC ~ 250k = min recast, 22.5 seconds</p><p>2.  EB ~ 1 million= min recast 1.5 minutes.</p><p>3.  <em>VC ~ 100k= </em>min recast 5 minutes?  <-- Group wide multiple trigger buff.</p><p>4.  Dance of Metal ~ 115k= min recast 1 minute  <-- LAST TRIGGER ONLY!  Total combined damage ~ 350k</p><p>5.  Assassinate ~ 425k = min recast 7.5 minutes.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To say that this ability is anywhere close to where it is supposed to be now is insane...  On any parse assassinate gets beat by all these abilities in dps, even if you pulled at a rate of waiting 2 minutes between pulls and using it as often as possible.  On an 4 minute fight, <strong>Peace of mind</strong> out DPSes what is supposed to be the class defining ability.  </p><p>Edit:  Actually looking at a parse where PoM out dpses it in a 3 minute fight.. that is just sad.</p>

[On3iron]

<p>I agree completely. The recast of assassinate is way to long as it currently stands. It's base recast should be reduced to 4 minutes (and mortal blade should have the same recast as eviscerate and jugular slice as well).</p>

[Fidel85]

<p>Have to agree with Gaige 100% on this - the recast on assassinate is antiquated and a joke. 1% - 2% contribution to zw parses on raids makes for sad reading.</p><p>What happens if a high hitter like Ice Comet or Fusion gets resisted? Refreshes in few seconds, but what happens when assassinate gets riposted/parried/blocked? Full recast timer. The "Hitbonus: 100% easier" reads as 50% parried/blocked/riposted in Underfoot Depths at least, Wing 3 I won't even mention for scouts. Someone seems to have suddenly forgotten tanks aren't the only classes engaging in melee combat.</p><p>Recast on assassinate needs to come down. Alot.</p>

[NardacMM]

<p>5 minutes is way too low, especially when you can cut that in half with 100% reuse.  FFU should always follow assassinate... You have Predator's Final Trick to guarantee that (unless the mob dies before FFU hits and there is nothing else nearby or you don't plan its use properly.)</p><p>A reduction is good, but 5 minutes is extreme. </p>

[Lethe5683]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Followup > assassinate now. If you are going to compare the 2 best abilities compare the 2 best, but honestly you can not compare 2 random abilities from 2 vastly different classes. You got to compare classes as a whole and right now assassins are very comparable to wizards. Depending on what Velious brings for sorcerers I can see assassinate being reduced to 5-3 minutes of course by then sorcerers should be getting something equally as impressive. </p><p>BTW ice comet is resistible assassinate is not. </p></blockquote><p>Assassinate can miss which is worse than being resisted.</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Deverel@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>5 minutes is way too low, especially when you can cut that in half with 100% reuse.  FFU should always follow assassinate... You have Predator's Final Trick to guarantee that (unless the mob dies before FFU hits and there is nothing else nearby or you don't plan its use properly.)</p><p>A reduction is good, but 5 minutes is extreme. </p></blockquote><p>5 mins makes it 2.5 minutes which lines it up perfectly with every other FFU chain and makes a lot more sense with 3 abilities being 1 min, one being 3 mins and the other being 5 mins.</p>

[Xiotia]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Needs to have its recast lowered or its damage doubled.  It doesn't do near enough damage for the ridiculously long recast.  </p><p>Elemental Blast, for instance, does way more damage on single target burn fights and don't even get me started on wizard abilities that hit as hard or harder than assassinate while having under 5 minute recasts.</p><p>Assassins should be the king of short, single target burst fights and we no longer are because our good CAs are handcuffed by ridiculous recast rates while other classes have gotten abilities that straight up outclass it, outdamage it and can be used way more often.</p><p>Please take a look at it and get it inline with how it should be, because its currently pretty unsatisfactory.</p></blockquote><p>+1</p>

[Eruditessay]

<p>With Velious Assassins Auto-attack will proc assassinate 50% of the time and Evac 50% of the time</p><p> Its true , its on the internetz</p>

[pinba11]

<p>110% on this !</p><p>Assassinate needs some love now , its our class ability , sort it out please. (and dont make us use a stack of aa points in the next expac to do it mkay)</p>

[Draylore]

<p>Something really needs to be done with Assassinate.</p><p>Something is wrong when your class defining (even in namesake) so called heavy hitter barely shows up in ZW parse breakdowns.</p><p>Sure it can put out some "impressive" single hit numbers (ok not really anymore) but if people were to take a look at what it actually contributes to overall DPS its a joke.</p><p>I would say with its current DMG the reuse (after buffs and AAs, JCAP) should be at 2.5min.</p>

[Mythicor]

<p>I actually mentioned this issue during sentinals fate beta, assassinate has always been the classes signature CA.  With the way damage/mob hp has scaled over the years assassinate hasnt scaled with it.  Personally I'd like the damage increased 4X keeping the same reuse.  Its an ability not meant to zw parse, its there to add a burst dps component to the assassins arsenal. </p>

[SageGaspar]

<p>15 min recasts just don't make sense in the current EQ2 game. There's not much downtime between pulls or even boss pulls, and the damage spike provided by assassinate isn't high enough that you're saving it to drop a bomb at an appropriate time. It's just another button you press but on a long cooldown. 5 min sounds a lot more appropriate.</p>

[Gaige]

<p>Xelgad, please explain something like this to me:</p><p><img src="http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/7729/stupidgy.jpg" width="1208" height="617" /></p><p>See that?  That is the <strong>PALADIN </strong>reflect ability.  A fighter.  A defensive fighter.  You see it doing 109k ext?  You see it hitting for 166k more than the best assassinate WW?</p><p>Now explain to me why assassinate needs a 15 min recast?  It doesn't.  This game makes no sense balance or mechanics wise when you allow things like this to happen.</p>

[Slipac]

<p>That is a wicked reflect. I highly doubt that's going to occur more than in extreme cases where as assassinate has a much smaller variation than legionare's conviction will most likely have across all the zones and fights.</p><p>That said, the 15 minute recast is completely rediculous, but also the amount of dps auto attack does for scouts and fighters is also out of control when you look at the fact that mages need power for pretty much every last bit of dps they do. There should be considerations for that difference, but IMO the fact we're so deeply entrenched into MOAR DPS!!1 that theres no chance of controlling it anymore, a 15 minute recast on really any ability regardless of if it's assassin, necro, or w/e is just silly.</p><p>Whats the worst that can happen? Blow up mobs faster? Unbalance gears more so theres tons of rangers AND assassins running rampant? Too late imo, the damage has been done. At this point it's all about enjoying the game while it lasts.</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Slipac@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>That is a wicked reflect. I highly doubt that's going to occur more than in extreme cases where as assassinate has a much smaller variation than legionare's conviction will most likely have across all the zones and fights.</p><p>That said, the 15 minute recast is completely rediculous, but also the amount of dps auto attack does for scouts and fighters is also out of control when you look at the fact that mages need power for pretty much every last bit of dps they do. </p></blockquote><p>You should balance for potential.  Just because reflect can't always do that, the fact that it even can do that needs to be balanced.  We're in the same guild, geared about the same, fighting the same things in the same group and he destroyed me by 75k on that mob due to that one ability.  </p><p>I'm sorry but a fighter should never beat a T1 dps ever, never.  You don't see assassins tanking Yael do you?</p><p>As for the auto attack complaint - try raiding on a melee every once in awhile.  Deal with auto attack range, jousting, KB, positioning, etc.  You'll then realize how much of a pita it is to have auto attack.  I have a wizard too and I love that I'm able to just start nuking on pull while positioning myself against a wall to avoid KB.</p><p>Oh, resist = shortened spellcast, if I miss a CA welcome to full recast.</p><p>While both gameplay styles have advantages/disadvantages, auto attack isn't the huge deal mages try to imply it is.</p>

[Prestissimo]

<p>(posted last time under the wifes account... oops :/ )</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Skip to the last part if you don't care about the details/reasoning behind my posts.</strong></span></p><p>I don't disagree at all with anything you said, but I would like to point out that back in the day before paladins got a lot of dps and survivability boosts (early RoK and KoS) just because a paladin siphoning 41% hate COULD be rediculously OP hate wise, doesn't mean there weren't times also where it was equally as damaging that they relied so heavily on amends (2 dpsers fighting for the top parse spot pretty evenly for example made paladins very unfun). Just because it could be abused (amends on a chanter with wicked wand of malice and increased hate gain/hate procs for example) didn't mean that it was something that happened all over the place.</p><p>It's a different story now because they had to take into consideration that there was a potential for extreme abuse of hate siphon stacking and that averaging down siphons to 50% meant that paladins no longer had the huge end all total hate siphon that no one else could ever begin to approach and that left paladins needing a boost across the board to survivability and dps. Ironically, balancing with potential in mind put another tank into the dps race that otherwise largely would not have had a reason to be in.</p><p>--------back to subject...-----------</p><p>I do believe just as you mentioned that the balancing factor of scouts auto attack costing no power is that mages don't have to worry nearly at all about damage shields and can just spam buttons. I'm also strongly of the opinion that if mages resists = shortened recast, a missed/parried/blocked CA should be treated the same.</p><p>I have a scout, a tank, a healer, and a mage that I keep permanently, and have played nearly every class at one point or another close to cap level if not cap level and raid with my warden and troub frequently but casually, so I do realise alot more about individual perspectives especially scout perspectives than I'm often given credit for. I do realize very well that the scouts auto attack is not oh.em.effin.gee the end all [Removed for Content] sauce of uberness and never once thought that, but it's definately something that cannot be ignored because it's still a non-trivial % of average dps (which is very unfortunately largely trash mobs on ZWs) and is indeed a lot more of a deal on the ZW than many scouts often times try to down play and is indeed a very minor part of the parse on the fights that do matter such as epic names. (5% up to 35% on the extremes, 10-20% average of my troub's ZW parses are auto attack damage and thats encompassing all different zones, setups, situations, and what I'm spending my time doing. That % is not something I'd ignore, but also isn't something I'm ever going to be overly impressed by.)</p><p>Also, just because the Sol Ro incinerate can be used on an RO recording does that mean that the spell should be balanced down to accomidate that potential on every recording? You could also be fighting mistmore and spike him for part of a recording and that'd be a wicked OP VC. Or in Research halls when you're on the quest to use the one shotting clickie on the tinkerers you could use that to make a wicked OP VC also.</p><p>People will find ways to exploit flaws in the system. Those situations should definately be taken into consideration when balancing, but it should not be expected that just because one person managed to do something rediculous that every person and their dog is going to 1. have the ability to do it and 2. actually do it.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>The short and sweet of it:</strong></span></span></p><p>I don't disagree with you gaige, but don't agree 100% on everything. Just because there is the potential in specific conditions does not mean it should be expected every time an ability is used by anyone and their dog including on level 5 swamp rats that it could be abused, and just because it's not common doesn't mean that it should be ignored when balancing the overall picture. You can't balance around potential without pretty much stating that you expect it every time the ability is used, and if you ignore the extremes it leaves the possibility of such a situation like what you posted with the crusader reflect and the times in the past where it's been used to one shot nagafen.</p><p>Edit: missed a word. /fail</p>

[Liavy]

<p>Environmental factors play a lot more into melee dps than mage dps as well. Positioning for starters as far as scouts go, mages have unmitigated access to use their abilities on a mob, whereas things are not always put so simply for scouts. Concealment, which including all backstabs and such are probably = or > auto attack typically, is broken due to proximity at least half the time, and is usually very difficult to recover from in the event you miss an attack or have Concealment broken with an AE. With that said, I don't think it's unreasonable whatsoever to ask that Assassinate and Sniper Shot both have their reuse taken down to a much lower base. Not that I ever use Assassinate while Concealment is up, but it's just an example that I wanted to bring up based on the previous post.</p>

[Mythicor]

<p>Sounds like a good opportunity for Velious AA's</p><p>focus assassinate - reduce base reuse timer/increase damage</p><p>focus flurry - increase flurry by 30% ish.</p><p>and for when i BG :  focus piercing - ignore targets avoidance/100% strikethrough for 20 seconds so i can kill a [Removed for Content] brawler once every 2 -3 minutes</p>

[Prestissimo]

<p><cite>Liavy@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't think it's unreasonable whatsoever to ask that Assassinate and Sniper Shot both have their reuse taken down to a much lower base.</p></blockquote><p>Either that, or at absolute minimum if the powers that be at SOE refuse to adjust reuse, at least increase their damage to reflect just how epic their reuse timer is comparatively to other T1 dps classes main nuke. I'd also still love to see CAs treated the same as spells are when they miss or are stopped from landing (with the exception of damage absorbs since all abilities get full reuse timers when the damage is absorbed).</p>