Anyone play an assassin yet?

[Prestidigitalis]

One problem with deferred damage is that it needs a trigger. If the assassin is stunned or render unconscious, the damage will be deferred even longer -- possibly past the point where it would have made a difference.

Given a choice, I'll inflict my bonus damage sorcerer style: immediate, predictable, always-on, and applicable to area attacks.

 

[Eric Finley]

Personally, I think the assassin has a lot of potential, not because of the shrouds per se, but because of the various ways to add more of them. I mean, do any of these analyses take into account the Hidden Insight trick - sneak in and place four shrouds, invoke them on a surprise attack? That's gotta skew the damage calculations rather more than d8 quarry dice will. And that's prime for combining with things like the Master of Poisons stuff which adds additional damage to your first hit of the combat.

I've got a couple of builds on the drawing board which abuse Versatile Master and Velvet Blade Trick to stack massive shrouds - as many as three a round or more. (You can only use the Assassin's Shroud power once per round... but Velvet Blade Trick simply adds another shroud to your shroud target, and has no such limit.) Other races have similar ways to help out their bonus damage in sizable ways - Grave Dust Assassin, for instance, is pretty fabulous, and so on.

As for using daggers or shortswords versus fullblades, I'm not sure the case is so clear-cut as all that. They don't have a lot of multi-[W] powers, so the difference isn't going to come up as much as it would for a class where that's the root of more of their damage potential. And what with the amount of invisibility and concealment they can get, Nimble Blade is essentially a permanent +1 to hit with light blades; even the difference between a short sword and a fullblade is only ~3 damage per [W], so it doesn't take all that much to-hit bonus to match up to that. (And since the fullblade is superior, the fairer comparison is with the rapier, in which case it's +1 to hit for Nimble Blade vs. +2 to damage and high crit for the fullblade. Not a ridiculous comparison at that point.)

 

[Turtlejay]

Personally, I think the assassin has a lot of potential, not because of the shrouds per se, but because of the various ways to add more of them. I mean, do any of these analyses take into account the Hidden Insight trick - sneak in and place four shrouds, invoke them on a surprise attack? That's gotta skew the damage calculations rather more than d8 quarry dice will. And that's prime for combining with things like the Master of Poisons stuff which adds additional damage to your first hit of the combat.

I've got a couple of builds on the drawing board which abuse Versatile Master and Velvet Blade Trick to stack massive shrouds - as many as three a round or more. (You can only use the Assassin's Shroud power once per round... but Velvet Blade Trick simply adds another shroud to your shroud target, and has no such limit.) Other races have similar ways to help out their bonus damage in sizable ways - Grave Dust Assassin, for instance, is pretty fabulous, and so on.

As for using daggers or shortswords versus fullblades, I'm not sure the case is so clear-cut as all that. They don't have a lot of multi-[W] powers, so the difference isn't going to come up as much as it would for a class where that's the root of more of their damage potential. And what with the amount of invisibility and concealment they can get, Nimble Blade is essentially a permanent +1 to hit with light blades; even the difference between a short sword and a fullblade is only ~3 damage per [W], so it doesn't take all that much to-hit bonus to match up to that. (And since the fullblade is superior, the fairer comparison is with the rapier, in which case it's +1 to hit for Nimble Blade vs. +2 to damage and high crit for the fullblade. Not a ridiculous comparison at that point.)

I appreciate this examination, because that is kind of how I was approaching them. A truly stealth assasin that scouts out the encounter and can start things off with a bang. The weapon was something I really enjoyed about the class, with the true bonus coming from the ki focus, it allows you to carry a variety of weapons and use what is suitable for the situation. At higher levels, I can see an assasin with quick draw and a rack of elemental or other types of weapons, fullblades and daggers, all depending on his whim. What I would really like is a nice little Dragon article with some more types of ki focuses.

Also, I'm not too concerned about being the key damage dealer, but more with having fun. I mean, I played a warlock knowing they are not the most damaging striker, and had a good time. The abundance of posts on this thread amounting to 'meh' kind of summed up what I was worried about with this class, but it looks like there are some standout reasons to try it. I'll keep an eye on it.

Jay

 

[Diirk]

Also, I'm not too concerned about being the key damage dealer, but more with having fun. I mean, I played a warlock knowing they are not the most damaging striker, and had a good time. The abundance of posts on this thread amounting to 'meh' kind of summed up what I was worried about with this class, but it looks like there are some standout reasons to try it. I'll keep an eye on it.

I quite like the paragon path that lets them make a shadowblade (+3 proficiency, 1d8 damage lightblade that can be thrown as well!) for flavour reasons, but until they give us ki focus enchantments its sadly pretty pointless.

All in all tho, I'd place the assassin behind the barbarian, ranger and rogue in terms of pure single target damage, but not very far behind. Its still a very solid class, and it looks pretty fun to play.

 

[Ajar]

I'm actually playing a hybrid Rogue|Warlock that I built for combat mobility and mobile stealth before the Assassin class came out. The idea was to use Fleeting Ghost and Shadow Walk together. I'm now going to multiclass that character into Assassin, using the power swap feats to gain Gloom Thief and a couple of other powers that get me hidden or invisible to set up a full move with Fleeting Ghost + Shadow Walk to get to the next target with CA.

That said, if I was making the character over again, I might have done an Assassin|Warlock hybrid, since Assassins can take a power similar to Fleeting Ghost at level 6. I'll be curious to see if Wizards releases an official hybrid Assassin class stem when PHB3 comes out.

 

[Neuroglyph]

Anyone check out the Podcast by Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford about the Assassin yet? Was just posted this morning on the WotC Site

The Assassin and Primal Power PODCAST

 

[MrAlgothi]

I have been playing a 26th level Human Nightstalker/SoulThief/PotG for awhile now and am really enjoying it. The character is a direct conversion of my 26th level Human AD Rogue/Daggermaster/Deadly Trickster, so comparisons between the two are very easy. Both classes were focused on extra attacks on crits, the rogue via two weapon feats, the Assassin via Jagged Falchion and PotG so burst damage between the two is similar. Overall, the Assassin is lower on total damage then the rogue, however in fights where we have many minions, the Assassin's damage tops the rogues due to Soul Reaper generating extra soul shards, which convert to additional shrouds per turn. Overall, Id say the two are equal with very different methods of operation.

 

[The Little Raven]

The assassin in my group is working out just fine, once she realized that having more than one shroud stacked on a target means she has built-in "miss damage" on at-will and encounter powers, and additional "miss damage" on daily powers that deal half damage on a miss.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The eladrin assassin a friend of mine created today does a lot of damage.

On a target with no friends next to it she deals at least:

1d8 +4 from dex, +3 from charisma and +1 for a creature next to the target (the assassin) with +7 to hit.
This is nothing to be ashamed of.

She has played 4th edition the first time today and is doing fine damage wise. She used shroud every second strike. for extra +2d6 damage.

This is about as much as rogue can do on average.

1d4 +4 dex, +3 cha +2d6 with +8 to hit (ok, +10 actually because you need CA for this...)
and throwing a dagger also equals about as much damage, because it is not so easy to get combat advantage every round with deft strike...

things going for the assassin is: you don´t need to leave the secure side of the defender, you can easily move into and out of flanking positions and you can make yourself insubstantial if really needed. And you have implement powers against different defenses with range. So nothing wrong with assasin.

 

[Novem5er]

I built a revenant assassin at level 11 and played a couple combats with him. So far, I've loved it.

The first combat, I did a lot of jumping between foes while stacking shrouds on a brute. I liked how mobile I was and damage was just fine when I set it up right. A couple feats and powers actually helped my enemies damage themselves or each other (Shadow Jack is a pretty neat power, lol). That first combat, I actually took out 3 monsters of my equal level all on my own but it took several rounds (it was a solo fight just to test things out).

The second combat was a mixed back. I was playing with a group of players so I tried to adjust my tactics to support them. I wasted much of the combat maneuvering and trying to set up attacks. I didn't feel very effective, other than tying up two monsters for couple of rounds while the rest of the party went after an elite across the room.

However, on the last round, I had a bunch of things stacked up that worked in my favor. The Grave Dust Assassin feat (for revenants) allows me to deal damage on my Dark Reaping target (revenant racial power) AS IF I had invoked my shrouds, and the Grave Dust Advantage feat puts another shroud on the target of my Dark Reaping. Basically, with an action point, I was able to hit a Minotaur Warrior with an encounter power, the Dark Reaping bonus damage, 3 shrouds, AND THEN a Daily plus 4 shrouds.

150 points of damage, exactly. It made for one dead minotaur and a very impressed gaming group. For being an "under damage" striker, my assassin pulled off more damage in a single round than anyone else had to date.

It was cool... but kind of a waste as the fight was pretty much over with by then and the minotaur was already bloodied. I just wanted to see what I could do. Technically speaking, I could have pulled that off on the second round of combat... I just need somone within 10 squares to become bloodied in order to trigger the Dark Reaping power (which gives the bonus damage and allows the AS IF shroud damage). Note, the 10 squares and bloodied trigger for Dark Reaping is another revenant feat (Thin the Herd).

Anyone think that revenants and assassins were made for each other?