Nibelung
First Post
Originally posted by erleni:
Equipment
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Bloodstinger Poison/Deathcap Spores/Clear Path Mist:
strictly for the Venomed Soul PP Bleak Disciples. Open with one of these and if you hit follow with an AP for an important power and enjoy a huge to hit bonus.
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Most the armors rated will be either leather or hide, as hide armor expertise may be of interest for some builds. If an armor requires hide armor expertise to be used it will be noted in the name using (Hide).
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Addergrease armor/Snakefang Armor: interesting for poison builds (Venomed Souls mainly). Pretty useless for others.
Armor of Dark Deeds: a way to get concealment regularly.
Armor of Sudden Recovery: turning ongoing damage into regeneration until the end of the encounter can be good.
Battle Harness: power bonus to intiative and you can retrieve an item or a weapon as a free action (this can be quite useful especially at low levels for drawing healing potions for Revenants)
Bloodcut Armor: when things get critical and you are surrounded, this can save your life. Combined with insubstantiality will let you eat up quite a lot of damage.
Dawn Warrior Armor: resist 10 against acid, cold, fire and lightning plus a retaliation power based on Con, so better for Bleak Disciples.
Deathcut Armor: you will get resist 5 to two very common damages (necrotic and poison) and will get a nice retaliation strike against somebody who hits you in melee. Better for Nightstalkers.
Displacer Armor: for an entire encounter enemies making melee or ranged attacks against you will have to roll twice for attacks and take the lower value.
Inner Warmth Armor (Hide): you gain resistances to two very common damages (cold and necrotic) and can give it to one all adjacent allies once a day for an encounter. It's a bit expensive but solid. Fantastic if you run an undead fighting campaign.
Lifeblood Armor (Hide): it would be good especially for nightstalkers. A bunch of THP after each rest.
Life Vine Armor(Hide): a last line of defense, letting you spend an healing surge as an immediate interrupt when you get critted.
Mirrorsheen coat: it will let you re-target a ranged attack from you to an enemy within 5 squares. Not bad but you'll have to decide before knowing if it will hit you or not.
Shadowdance Armor: this will be very popular. You can use your implement ranged powers without fearing OA and have a nice daily to reduce lighting around you. If you strictly go for melee powers look elsewhere.
Shadowflow Armor: the bonus to stealth is untyped and stacks with other items. You can become invisible until the start of your next turn once per encounter as a minor.
Shadow Hound Armor (Hide): insubstantiality once a day when you become bloodied (last until the end of your next turn).
Sylvan Armor: interesting mainly for the Stealth bonus. If you want to go for Stealth it may free you another item slot. The Athletics bonus is good too for catching hold while falling and swimming.
Trollskin Armor (Hide): regeneration until the end of the encounter is nice, but the armor is quite expensive and if you take fire or acid damage the regen is suppressed.
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When it comes to arms your first choice will be whether to use a shield or not and if you are willing to use a magical shield or go for bracers. I will then divide this section in two (bracers and shields).
Bracers:
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Bracers of Escape:
a daily chance of avoiding a melee attack by teleporting. Very nice to avoid crits or attacks with nasty aftereffects.
Bloodthirst bracers: reasonable for nightstalkers. You add ongoing damage once a day to one attacks. Blood Disciples should stay away.
Bloodsoaked bracers: these can give you a solid boost to damage for one encounter if you go for melee powers. Over one day they are less effective than Iron Armbands, but in one single encounter they're stronger.
Crest of Vigilance Eternal: a daily chance to avoid stun or dazed by making a saving throw as an immediate interrupt. This can be a shield or bracers so it will be in both sections.
Diamond Bracers: in some selected encounters they can be interesting but if your opponents have attacks that deal different kind of damages they'll not be very useful.
Iron Armbands of Power: it's sad that such a lackluster item is dominating this slot for strikers. You will have a lot of melee attacks so this will help you quite a lot.
Phylactery of action: reroll a saving throws against dazed, immobilized, petrified, restrained or stunned once per encounter.
Rapidstrike bracers: +2 item bonus to initiative and oce an encounter you can use an at-will instead of a melee basic attack.
Serpentine Bracers: you can get quite some damage out of these bracers when you use some of your implement powers (blasts and bursts). You need to be hidden to get the bonus but at 18th level you should be able to do that often.
Trollhide bracers: daily regeneration until the end of the encounter.
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Shields:
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Bloodshored shield: good damage resistance for one round. Probably better than Shield of Protection because you need only a minor action to activate this one.
Netherdark shield: it's a nice object to blind enemies, but it's usefulness may be limited as you can easily affect your buddies. If all party members have access to darkvision then it easily becomes blue, especially the bigger version(burst 3).
Shield of blocking: damage resistance until the end of encounter against melee attacks.
Shield of fellowship: a solid blue for Bleak Disciples. You can become a source of THP for other party members. If you can attack from behind defenders you can lend THP to them while attacking from behid the lines.
Shield of protection:
solid resistance for one round and you can give that to an adjacent ally too. Can save you from huge amounts of damage if you are surrounded. Unfortunately it's a standard action.
Shield of Ultimate Protection: +1 shield bonus to two defenses (Fort and Will) and for one encounter/day +5 untyped bonus to all defenses. Awesome! For some builds it will be worth to look for Heavy Shield Proficiency to get a +1 shield bonus to all defenses.
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Sehanine's Mark of the Dark Moon:
the lowest level boon (8th level) already gives you the benefit, halving damage you get from attacks done by enemies who cannot see you. As you'll spend quite so time invisible this boon is very good. The cost is minimal and it doesn't use any slot.
Worshiping Sehanine is not a bad idea.
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Siberys Shard of Merciless Cold/Siberys Shard of Radiance/Siberys Shard of the Mage: the first two are sky-blue only if you use a Frost/Radiant weapon, while the Shard of the Mage is Sky-blue if you use many implement powers. They give you a nice boost to damage and do not use any slot.
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Boots of Quickness: untyped bonus (+1/+2/+3) to your reflex defense.
Boots of Stealth: a solid bonus to stealth checks (+2/+4/+6)
Dragonborn Greaves: +1 to AC and Ref and +2 to speed while you're bloodied. Revenants will get more use out of these, especially at higher levels.
Eladrin Boots: with these your Shadow Step becomes a teleport 5.
Lightstep slippers: close to epic boots of stealth. The bonus is 1 point lower, but the item is cheaper and you cannot be detected by tremorsense.
Sandals of Precise Stepping:
the same stealth bonus of Boots of Stealth at heroic, falling back at higher tiers (+2/+3/+4). This bonus extends to Acrobatics and Athletics but the cost is higher.
Spark Slippers: blue for Nightstalkers. You can inflict lightning damage equal to your Cha modifier to any creature that moves adjacent to you. Over the course of a day this can amount to a sizeable figure.
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Gauntlets of Blood: untyped bonus to damage against bloodied enemies. It applies to all your rolls, not only melee, and stacks with Iron Armbands of Power and Siberys Shards.
Gauntlets of Destruction: an alternative to Gauntlets of Blood at paragon. The overall damage should be close to that of the paragon version of the Gauntlets of Blood, slightly better if you use dailies with many [w] but you cannot apply the bonus to multi-target implement powers which are among the best things an assassin has.
Gloves of Ice: a solid boost for Frostcheese users. The rating is based on using a Frost weapon, otherwise these gloves are not that appealing. Still interesting though if you have powers like Well of Shades and Cloaking Mist, who can affect several targets but probably only green then.
Hero's Gauntlets/Great Hero's Gauntlets: these items can be an interesting source of THP and help you in hitting with APs. The Great version is maybe a little expensive for an item that wprks only on APs and provide THP only if you hit.
Shadowdancer Gloves: similar to Serpentine Bracers. An interesting item if you plan to be hidden often.
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Cannith Goggles: better than Headband of Perception at heroic and extremely cheap. At paragon/epic you'll probably move to the Headband if Perception is your focus with this slot.
Circlet of Arkhosia: rolling at the start of your turn as well as at the end against the worst conditions in the game can be crucial. Assassin's are fragile things and one round of inactivity can spell disaster for you.
Circlet of Indomitability: +1/+2/+3 item bonus to Will. Better defenses are alway good, but probably Bleak Disciples will be more interested in this one.
Coif of Mindiron: you can avoid being dazed (at heroic), dazed or stunned (paragon), dazed, stunned or dominated (epic) once per encounter. Less useful than the Circlet of Arkhosia if the monsters can use the power several times per encounter or at will, but better against encounter effects.
Eye of awareness: +2 untyped to Will and +5 item bonus to initiative.
Headband of Perception: +1/+3/+5 bonus to perception. Perception is usually important to you so this item helps.
Hood of the Wolf: +4 to perception, insight and intimidate and darkvision are all good for you. The encounter power is not bad too, especially against monsters with invisibility.
Fey-blessed circlet: blue for nightstalkers in late heroic/paragon. Some THP at the start of every encounter. At epic it won't make a real difference so you'll probably abandon it.
Goggles of Night:
darkvision is always a good thing, especially if you like skulking in darkness. Useless for some races.
Ioun Stone of True Sight: +6 to perception and darkvision plus a daily sustainable power to see invisible creatures. It's quite expensive tough.
Lenses of the Luminary: a close friend to Hood of the Wolf. Bonus to perception, darkvision and some interesting charge-based powers.
Stag Helm: the bonus to perception is better than that of the Headband by 1, but this applies only to passive perception and not to active. You can take a minor action if you are surprised (activating a defensive item?). Overall very close to the Headband.
Shadowdancer's Mask: if you don't like the roll on a crucial stealth or bluff check you can reroll it with a +3 bonus.
Trickster's Mask: roll twice for Stealth and Thievery and once a day take 20.
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Cup of Death Ki Focus: good addition of THPs for Bleak Disciples, plus a good encounter power.
Final Sleep Ki Focus: almost equivalent to a vicious weapon.
Iron Body Ki Focus: damage resistance until the end of your next turn against the attacks of the creatures you hit. Goes to Sky-Blue if you focus on blast/burst/area encounter powers (Well of Shades, Cloaking Mist, Obsidian Spiders) as you get resistance to the attacks of all the creatures you hit. The crit damage is solid too at 1d10 x plus.
Rain of Hammers Ki Focus: the extra attack can help on some situations but it usually of limited scope.
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Book of Truths (Fourth Truth): equal to the eye of awareness but it doesn't use you head slot.
Book of Thruths (Fifth Truth): equal to Ioun's Stone of True Sight but it doesn't use your head slot
Silver Hands of Power (19th level): recover a daily or encounter power once a day if you score a critical hit. Interesting for Rogue multiclass build who take Knockout to exploit an high [w] power.
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Amulet of Aranea: resistance to poison and a daily power that will benefit mainly Venomed Souls.
Amulet of Life: this item is strictly better than the Cloak of the Walking Wounded (unless you can use second wind more than once per encounter). It allows you to spend two healing surges instead of only one once per encounter.
Assassin's Cloak: rolling twice means in average a bonus of 3,325 to your stealth check. And an interesting daily invisibility power.
Brooch of Vitality: more hit points and an higher surge value as a consequence. Solid item.
Cloak of Invisibility: a powerful daily invisibility power, but nothing else. If you can pump your defenses some more (say with a Shield of Ultimate Protection) then you can make your character almost unhittable for one encounter a day.
Cloak of Resistance: resistance until the end of your next turn once a day. Good if you get surrounded and want to avoid a beating.
Cloak of Survival: resistance to cold and fire and a bonus to endurance checks.
Cloak of Translocation: this is almost a +2 to AC and Reflex for the rest of your career. Stacks with the Shiere Knight's Cloaked in Magic feature.
Death Defying Cloak: a life saving item, but not the best one. If you happen to be in the aura of some creature you'll be dying again at the start of your turn and any area attack will do the same.
Elven Cloak: an item bonus to stealth. Nice at low levels. At higher levels the piwawfi is strictly better. Personally I would use a different slot for an item bonus to stealth, but it can depend on your exact build.
Far-step Amulet: looks good, but it's more expensive that Boots of Teleportation and Shadow Step carries some limitation while the Boots let you teleport freely. Look at this item only if you really want more teleporting distance and want to use your feet slot for something else.
Life Charm: a good choice for all characters. Some revenant builds using the Fierce Vitality feat can use it to stay conscious at negative HP. Some others, who focus on automatic healing when below 0 HP by making a 20 or more on Death Saving Throws will not want this item.
Mantle of Faith: a life saving item, but it's an immediate reaction, so will not heal you if the attack brings you below 0 HP.
Medallion of Death Deferred: another life saving item, but this one is a no action and actually heals you some more HP.
Periapt of Cascading Health: you can end a condition on you once per encounter. Unfortunately doing that it's a minor action so this item will not help you against the worst conditions (stunned and dominated).
Periapt of Proof Against Poison: well, as the name suggests, you get poison resistance.
Periapt of Recovery: +2 to Death Saving Throws. All characters will benefit from this item as it triples your base chance to automatically recover from the dying condition when you make a saving throws. Good also for some revenant automatic-healing builds.
Piwafwi: bonus to stealth and fire resistance.
Possum Amulet: similar to the death defying cloak and with the same drawbacks.
Raven Cloak: resistance to cold and necrotic + a daily reroll on a save with a +5 or +10 bonus (if it's a death saving throw). Very good item and Sky-Blue for undead heavy campaigns.
Scarab of Invulnerability: it's quite expensive and has only a daily power, but it's invulnerability until the end of your next turn.
Steadfast Amulet: a daily chance to roll a saving throw as an immediate interrupt to avoid being stunned or dazed.
Tattered Cloak: a nice daily power to become invisible to many targets. But you have to hit.
Tenebrous Shroud: necrotic resistance and a daily invisibility power.
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Chameleon Ring:
the base property is nothing special but the daily power is solid.
Eladrin Ring of Passage:
Shadow Step becomes a teleport 4 or 5 (if you're an Eladrin) and the cost is relatively low. You also get a teleport that doesn't require line of sight, which is very useful in those bad situation when you get swallowed by a monsters.
Ring of Dimensional Escape: also this one makes Shadow Step become a teleport 4 and you get a free teleport when you go below 0 HP which is especially good for non revenants (who at this level will most likely be able to stay in battle even below 0 HP). More expensive than the Ring of Eladrin Passage, but can potentially save your life and is still in the paragon tier.
Ring of Free Time:
resist 5 to all is the main issue here. The extra minor action is good too, but a pure assassin has not much use for minor actions. Multiclassing may change this.
Ring of Giants: better that War Ring in many cases, but you should look into this one only if you have a way to do some crit-fishing.
Ring of Invigoration: a life saving power. I have some doubts about the wording though. It's a free action, but you can take it only when you are reduced to 0 HP and if you're dying you should be able to take free actions. RAW it's interesting only for revenants, but I guess that RAI everybody should be able to use the power when brought to 0 HP.
Ring of Protection: +1 item bonus to all saving throws. The daily is nothing special.
Ring of Regeneration: +3 to your healing surge value, and a daily recovery of one healing surge and regeneration if you've reached a milestone.
Ring of Retreat: this is probably the only item who can save a party from TPK (ok, this works only from the 5th encounter of the day, but very often TPK happen there, when the party is low on surges and has used up dailies). You get also a 1 square increase to all your teleports. You can also use it to access items you stash home (hey, we're out of healing potions...let's go home and take them).
Ring of Tenacious Will: sky blue for Nightstalkers. You can use Cha instead of Con to determine your healing surge and get a life saving power that heals a decent amount of HP if you've reached a milestone. Less interesting for Bleak Disciples.
Ring of the Dragonborn Emperor: this ring can be used in a combo if you have a Battlecrazed weapon (even a low level one) and the Well of Shades power. With an AP you can do:
Minor: battlecrazed
Immediate Reaction: Well of Shades
Standard: Well of Shades and teleport out
AP: Cloaking mist
Minor (instead of Move): Dragonbreath (cold?) if you're a Dragonborn.
With Lasting Frost and the bonus to close attacks you get from this Ring you can inflict quite some damage to a group of monsters.
Ring of the Phoenix: resistance to fire plus a life saving power that heals you well, let you teleport and make a close burst attack based on Con or Cha (so good for both guilds).
Shadow Band: concealment all day long plus total concealment for one encounter. There are only two creatures that ignore concealment and they are both level 14 so you'll probably not meet them by the time you have this ring.
Shadowfell Signet: mainly for undead heavy campaigns.
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Belt of Blood: blue for Bleak Disciples. Your healing surge value is increased by your Con modifier when you're bloodied.
Belt of Sonnlinor Righteousness: crazy for revenant builds. It really kicks in only in paragon when you put your hands on Fierce Vitality, but becomes broken if you can keep fighting regularly below 0 HP. Raven Consorts may be almost unkillable with this belt.
Belt of Vim: +1/+2/+3 item bonus to Fort.
Cord of Foresight: may be interesting for Nightstalkers, who do not generate THP. It lets you start every encounter with an healing surge of THP which is not that bad.
Potion Bandolier: potion juggling can help you especially at low levels. Revenants with Death's Quickening will make the most out of this item.
Sash of Regeneration: regeneration 5 while bloodied.
Survivor's Belt: rolling twice saving throws is better the more bonuses you have. This points towards unkillable builds. Raven Consorts rolling twice will become your DM's nightmare.
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This part is probably the most difficult of the whole Items sections. Any feedback about the ratings will be greatly appreciated. In some cases a weapon is listed not because you want it to attack, but because of a power you can use even with a low level version of the weapon.
Armbow: for warforged.
No more bolts, free loading and the crossbow is a one handed weapon.
Battlecrazed Weapon: this will probably not be your main weapon, but you can use a low level one to trigger a some racial feats/powers, like Dark Reaping (with Thin the Herd to trigger Grave Dust Asssassin), the Shifter racials, or the Dragon Warrior feat).
Blade of the Eldritch Knight: as all of your weapon attacks are standard action this blade really shines, letting you deliver melee attacks from 5 squares away. By the way it's part of the Eldritch Panoply and that's another reason for it to be an interesting item.
Blood Fury Weapon: as the battlecrazed but the power is an encounter. A low level one will be very interesting for those who have something to trigger by becoming bloodied. As you need it only for the power you'll most likely use a different weapon to attack.
Bloodthirsty Weapon:
+1 to hit and extra damage equal to the enhancement bonus to bloodied enemies.
Frost Weapon: to exploit frostcheese by taking Lasting Frost.
Frost Fury Weapon: revenant Bleak Disciples may be interesting in this weapon as they will be bloodied often without too much risk and have high Con. By the way with the last interpretation of the rules when you are bloodied your attacks will get the Cold keyword so you may look into frostcheese. Probably too dangerous for a non Revenant.
Graefling: gives you darkvision and is brutal 1 against bloodied enemies. The main interest here is darkvision.
Graceful Weapon:
look into this one only if you go crit-fishing with Daggermaster (a strange path but somebody may do that). Using you Dex mod instead of a dice is better.
Incisive Dagger: good to increase your Shadow Step range. Anyway remember that to get use of the property you'll have to wield the dagger and this will leave you only a one-handed weapon to attack.
Jagged Weapon: 19-20 crit range. Deals ongoing damage on a crit.
Mithrendain Steel Weapon: another way to increase your teleport distance. Anyway you'll probably want to do that using some other item.
Mordant Weapon: great to bypass resistances. Obvious synergy with Venom Hand Master, but if you take the feat then you'll probably go for the cheaper Spiderkissed weapon.
Pact Weapons
(Sword/Blade): if you want to multiclass into Warlock these will save you the cost of an extra implement. The sword is a longsword and for eladrins only and the blade is only a light one.
Radiant Weapon/Sunblade: going Morninglord to exploit radiant vulnerability by using one of these items is a way to get more DPR. For Nightstalkers, as the Morninglord attacks can be based on Cha but not Con or Dex.
Ravenclaw Warblade:
when you drop a non-minion enemy you can spend an healing surge or make a save. Can be useful if your party is low on the leaders's side.
Rubicant Blade: +1 to Shadow Step and an interesting daily power to teleport up to two allies. This can be useful to teleport an unconscious ally close to your leader(s).
Shadowrift Blade: will not rate this one yet. Some interest about "slashing" assassin builds seems to be around. Still to see something solid but it's better to keep this possibility in mind.
Spiderkissed Weapon: the basic weapon of the poison builds and sky-blue for them. Take it only if you have Venom Hand Master to bypass any resistance or immunity.
Subtle Weapon: you'll attack very often with combat advantage and this can help increasing your DPR. Stacks with everything.
Sword of Black Ice: only an high level version exists, but it's a very good one. It's a longsword but it deals 2d8 poison damage extra on each hit as a property, thus bestowing the poison keyword and triggering Weapon Hand Master. The crit damage is good, dazes on a crit and once a day you can stun (save ends) the target when you crit. By the way the wording of the dazed effect is unclear as no way to end the condition is listed. Extremely good if you want to use a shield.
Vicious: can be your choice at low levels when interesting enhancements are not really available.
Wraithblade: this is useful only for MC Rogues with Daggermaster and using a dagger. Blue or maybe Sky-blue for them.
Wyrmtooth Dagger: once again for Daggermaster. You can act as support for your buddies by trying to shut down enemy resistances.
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Battle Standard of Healing: cheesy? Maybe. This item is cheap and useful at any tier. Unkillable revenant builds can keep a whole party up with this standard.
Darkskull: if your party has access to darkvision, then this item is deadly and may easily be a way to decide the build of a party. 10 squares in every direction is a lot of space. You'll be able to hide very often. If darkvision is not available look elsewhere.
Demonskin Tattoo: you get resistance to a type of damage you choose between acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder until the end of the encounter everytime you use an action point. Solid especially because you can decide the resistance on a case-by-case basis and the tattoo doesn't use up any "normal" slot.
Dice of Auspicious Fortune: depending on you luck on the dice this item can help you or not. Anyway I guess that a lot of epic tier characters will buy these dice.
Eager Hero's Tattoo: for Nightstalkers, to start each encounter with some THP.
Fireheart Tattoo: a cheaper and less effective alternative to the Eager Hero's Tattoo.
Mummified Hand: the benefit of another ring is good, but the cost of the Hand is very high.
Resurgence Tattoo: you regain the use of an encounter power when a non-minion crits you. Very nice property, but the cost is high.
Tattoo of the Escape Artist: the cost is low and if you get critted you can now teleport as a minor until the end of the encounter. If this happen you can start teleporting in and out of the fray.
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Only some comments here about Sets that can be interesting. As you'll usually need to take more items to get access to the extra benefits, there are many combinations possible and each one could be taken or not based on your overall build
Shadowdancer's Garb: the single items are more or less usefule for an assassin, and the cumulative bonus to Athletics, Stealth and Thievery is pretty good. It's an item bonus though, so it will not stack with other item bonuses. Overall is a very nice set for the late heroic tier.
Zy Tormtor's Trinket Benefits: assassin/warlocks maybe interested in this set at low levels. Pact Blade helps in keeping costs down. Probably the Blade and the Prison or the Mantle will be your target to get the Thievery bonuses.
Eldritch Panoply: the Blade of the Eldritch Knight is great and the benefit you get with two items is equal to an extra teleport every round. The Rebuking Bracers are good too, as you will automatically teleport 3 your target and daze hit when you score a critical.
Offering of Celestian: to be evaluated for Hybrid Sorcerer/Assassins.
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Equipment
Alchemical:
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Bloodstinger Poison/Deathcap Spores/Clear Path Mist:
strictly for the Venomed Soul PP Bleak Disciples. Open with one of these and if you hit follow with an AP for an important power and enjoy a huge to hit bonus.
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Armor:
Most the armors rated will be either leather or hide, as hide armor expertise may be of interest for some builds. If an armor requires hide armor expertise to be used it will be noted in the name using (Hide).
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Addergrease armor/Snakefang Armor: interesting for poison builds (Venomed Souls mainly). Pretty useless for others.
Armor of Dark Deeds: a way to get concealment regularly.
Armor of Sudden Recovery: turning ongoing damage into regeneration until the end of the encounter can be good.
Battle Harness: power bonus to intiative and you can retrieve an item or a weapon as a free action (this can be quite useful especially at low levels for drawing healing potions for Revenants)
Bloodcut Armor: when things get critical and you are surrounded, this can save your life. Combined with insubstantiality will let you eat up quite a lot of damage.
Dawn Warrior Armor: resist 10 against acid, cold, fire and lightning plus a retaliation power based on Con, so better for Bleak Disciples.
Deathcut Armor: you will get resist 5 to two very common damages (necrotic and poison) and will get a nice retaliation strike against somebody who hits you in melee. Better for Nightstalkers.
Displacer Armor: for an entire encounter enemies making melee or ranged attacks against you will have to roll twice for attacks and take the lower value.
Inner Warmth Armor (Hide): you gain resistances to two very common damages (cold and necrotic) and can give it to one all adjacent allies once a day for an encounter. It's a bit expensive but solid. Fantastic if you run an undead fighting campaign.
Lifeblood Armor (Hide): it would be good especially for nightstalkers. A bunch of THP after each rest.
Life Vine Armor(Hide): a last line of defense, letting you spend an healing surge as an immediate interrupt when you get critted.
Mirrorsheen coat: it will let you re-target a ranged attack from you to an enemy within 5 squares. Not bad but you'll have to decide before knowing if it will hit you or not.
Shadowdance Armor: this will be very popular. You can use your implement ranged powers without fearing OA and have a nice daily to reduce lighting around you. If you strictly go for melee powers look elsewhere.
Shadowflow Armor: the bonus to stealth is untyped and stacks with other items. You can become invisible until the start of your next turn once per encounter as a minor.
Shadow Hound Armor (Hide): insubstantiality once a day when you become bloodied (last until the end of your next turn).
Sylvan Armor: interesting mainly for the Stealth bonus. If you want to go for Stealth it may free you another item slot. The Athletics bonus is good too for catching hold while falling and swimming.
Trollskin Armor (Hide): regeneration until the end of the encounter is nice, but the armor is quite expensive and if you take fire or acid damage the regen is suppressed.
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Arms:
When it comes to arms your first choice will be whether to use a shield or not and if you are willing to use a magical shield or go for bracers. I will then divide this section in two (bracers and shields).
Bracers:
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Bracers of Escape:
a daily chance of avoiding a melee attack by teleporting. Very nice to avoid crits or attacks with nasty aftereffects.
Bloodthirst bracers: reasonable for nightstalkers. You add ongoing damage once a day to one attacks. Blood Disciples should stay away.
Bloodsoaked bracers: these can give you a solid boost to damage for one encounter if you go for melee powers. Over one day they are less effective than Iron Armbands, but in one single encounter they're stronger.
Crest of Vigilance Eternal: a daily chance to avoid stun or dazed by making a saving throw as an immediate interrupt. This can be a shield or bracers so it will be in both sections.
Diamond Bracers: in some selected encounters they can be interesting but if your opponents have attacks that deal different kind of damages they'll not be very useful.
Iron Armbands of Power: it's sad that such a lackluster item is dominating this slot for strikers. You will have a lot of melee attacks so this will help you quite a lot.
Phylactery of action: reroll a saving throws against dazed, immobilized, petrified, restrained or stunned once per encounter.
Rapidstrike bracers: +2 item bonus to initiative and oce an encounter you can use an at-will instead of a melee basic attack.
Serpentine Bracers: you can get quite some damage out of these bracers when you use some of your implement powers (blasts and bursts). You need to be hidden to get the bonus but at 18th level you should be able to do that often.
Trollhide bracers: daily regeneration until the end of the encounter.
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Shields:
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Bloodshored shield: good damage resistance for one round. Probably better than Shield of Protection because you need only a minor action to activate this one.
Netherdark shield: it's a nice object to blind enemies, but it's usefulness may be limited as you can easily affect your buddies. If all party members have access to darkvision then it easily becomes blue, especially the bigger version(burst 3).
Shield of blocking: damage resistance until the end of encounter against melee attacks.
Shield of fellowship: a solid blue for Bleak Disciples. You can become a source of THP for other party members. If you can attack from behind defenders you can lend THP to them while attacking from behid the lines.
Shield of protection:
solid resistance for one round and you can give that to an adjacent ally too. Can save you from huge amounts of damage if you are surrounded. Unfortunately it's a standard action.
Shield of Ultimate Protection: +1 shield bonus to two defenses (Fort and Will) and for one encounter/day +5 untyped bonus to all defenses. Awesome! For some builds it will be worth to look for Heavy Shield Proficiency to get a +1 shield bonus to all defenses.
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Divine Boons:
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Sehanine's Mark of the Dark Moon:
the lowest level boon (8th level) already gives you the benefit, halving damage you get from attacks done by enemies who cannot see you. As you'll spend quite so time invisible this boon is very good. The cost is minimal and it doesn't use any slot.
Worshiping Sehanine is not a bad idea.
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Dragonshards:
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Siberys Shard of Merciless Cold/Siberys Shard of Radiance/Siberys Shard of the Mage: the first two are sky-blue only if you use a Frost/Radiant weapon, while the Shard of the Mage is Sky-blue if you use many implement powers. They give you a nice boost to damage and do not use any slot.
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Feet:
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Boots of Quickness: untyped bonus (+1/+2/+3) to your reflex defense.
Boots of Stealth: a solid bonus to stealth checks (+2/+4/+6)
Dragonborn Greaves: +1 to AC and Ref and +2 to speed while you're bloodied. Revenants will get more use out of these, especially at higher levels.
Eladrin Boots: with these your Shadow Step becomes a teleport 5.
Lightstep slippers: close to epic boots of stealth. The bonus is 1 point lower, but the item is cheaper and you cannot be detected by tremorsense.
Sandals of Precise Stepping:
the same stealth bonus of Boots of Stealth at heroic, falling back at higher tiers (+2/+3/+4). This bonus extends to Acrobatics and Athletics but the cost is higher.
Spark Slippers: blue for Nightstalkers. You can inflict lightning damage equal to your Cha modifier to any creature that moves adjacent to you. Over the course of a day this can amount to a sizeable figure.
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Hands:
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Gauntlets of Blood: untyped bonus to damage against bloodied enemies. It applies to all your rolls, not only melee, and stacks with Iron Armbands of Power and Siberys Shards.
Gauntlets of Destruction: an alternative to Gauntlets of Blood at paragon. The overall damage should be close to that of the paragon version of the Gauntlets of Blood, slightly better if you use dailies with many [w] but you cannot apply the bonus to multi-target implement powers which are among the best things an assassin has.
Gloves of Ice: a solid boost for Frostcheese users. The rating is based on using a Frost weapon, otherwise these gloves are not that appealing. Still interesting though if you have powers like Well of Shades and Cloaking Mist, who can affect several targets but probably only green then.
Hero's Gauntlets/Great Hero's Gauntlets: these items can be an interesting source of THP and help you in hitting with APs. The Great version is maybe a little expensive for an item that wprks only on APs and provide THP only if you hit.
Shadowdancer Gloves: similar to Serpentine Bracers. An interesting item if you plan to be hidden often.
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Head:
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Cannith Goggles: better than Headband of Perception at heroic and extremely cheap. At paragon/epic you'll probably move to the Headband if Perception is your focus with this slot.
Circlet of Arkhosia: rolling at the start of your turn as well as at the end against the worst conditions in the game can be crucial. Assassin's are fragile things and one round of inactivity can spell disaster for you.
Circlet of Indomitability: +1/+2/+3 item bonus to Will. Better defenses are alway good, but probably Bleak Disciples will be more interested in this one.
Coif of Mindiron: you can avoid being dazed (at heroic), dazed or stunned (paragon), dazed, stunned or dominated (epic) once per encounter. Less useful than the Circlet of Arkhosia if the monsters can use the power several times per encounter or at will, but better against encounter effects.
Eye of awareness: +2 untyped to Will and +5 item bonus to initiative.
Headband of Perception: +1/+3/+5 bonus to perception. Perception is usually important to you so this item helps.
Hood of the Wolf: +4 to perception, insight and intimidate and darkvision are all good for you. The encounter power is not bad too, especially against monsters with invisibility.
Fey-blessed circlet: blue for nightstalkers in late heroic/paragon. Some THP at the start of every encounter. At epic it won't make a real difference so you'll probably abandon it.
Goggles of Night:
darkvision is always a good thing, especially if you like skulking in darkness. Useless for some races.
Ioun Stone of True Sight: +6 to perception and darkvision plus a daily sustainable power to see invisible creatures. It's quite expensive tough.
Lenses of the Luminary: a close friend to Hood of the Wolf. Bonus to perception, darkvision and some interesting charge-based powers.
Stag Helm: the bonus to perception is better than that of the Headband by 1, but this applies only to passive perception and not to active. You can take a minor action if you are surprised (activating a defensive item?). Overall very close to the Headband.
Shadowdancer's Mask: if you don't like the roll on a crucial stealth or bluff check you can reroll it with a +3 bonus.
Trickster's Mask: roll twice for Stealth and Thievery and once a day take 20.
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Ki foci:
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Cup of Death Ki Focus: good addition of THPs for Bleak Disciples, plus a good encounter power.
Final Sleep Ki Focus: almost equivalent to a vicious weapon.
Iron Body Ki Focus: damage resistance until the end of your next turn against the attacks of the creatures you hit. Goes to Sky-Blue if you focus on blast/burst/area encounter powers (Well of Shades, Cloaking Mist, Obsidian Spiders) as you get resistance to the attacks of all the creatures you hit. The crit damage is solid too at 1d10 x plus.
Rain of Hammers Ki Focus: the extra attack can help on some situations but it usually of limited scope.
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Legendary boons:
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Book of Truths (Fourth Truth): equal to the eye of awareness but it doesn't use you head slot.
Book of Thruths (Fifth Truth): equal to Ioun's Stone of True Sight but it doesn't use your head slot
Silver Hands of Power (19th level): recover a daily or encounter power once a day if you score a critical hit. Interesting for Rogue multiclass build who take Knockout to exploit an high [w] power.
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Neck:
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Amulet of Aranea: resistance to poison and a daily power that will benefit mainly Venomed Souls.
Amulet of Life: this item is strictly better than the Cloak of the Walking Wounded (unless you can use second wind more than once per encounter). It allows you to spend two healing surges instead of only one once per encounter.
Assassin's Cloak: rolling twice means in average a bonus of 3,325 to your stealth check. And an interesting daily invisibility power.
Brooch of Vitality: more hit points and an higher surge value as a consequence. Solid item.
Cloak of Invisibility: a powerful daily invisibility power, but nothing else. If you can pump your defenses some more (say with a Shield of Ultimate Protection) then you can make your character almost unhittable for one encounter a day.
Cloak of Resistance: resistance until the end of your next turn once a day. Good if you get surrounded and want to avoid a beating.
Cloak of Survival: resistance to cold and fire and a bonus to endurance checks.
Cloak of Translocation: this is almost a +2 to AC and Reflex for the rest of your career. Stacks with the Shiere Knight's Cloaked in Magic feature.
Death Defying Cloak: a life saving item, but not the best one. If you happen to be in the aura of some creature you'll be dying again at the start of your turn and any area attack will do the same.
Elven Cloak: an item bonus to stealth. Nice at low levels. At higher levels the piwawfi is strictly better. Personally I would use a different slot for an item bonus to stealth, but it can depend on your exact build.
Far-step Amulet: looks good, but it's more expensive that Boots of Teleportation and Shadow Step carries some limitation while the Boots let you teleport freely. Look at this item only if you really want more teleporting distance and want to use your feet slot for something else.
Life Charm: a good choice for all characters. Some revenant builds using the Fierce Vitality feat can use it to stay conscious at negative HP. Some others, who focus on automatic healing when below 0 HP by making a 20 or more on Death Saving Throws will not want this item.
Mantle of Faith: a life saving item, but it's an immediate reaction, so will not heal you if the attack brings you below 0 HP.
Medallion of Death Deferred: another life saving item, but this one is a no action and actually heals you some more HP.
Periapt of Cascading Health: you can end a condition on you once per encounter. Unfortunately doing that it's a minor action so this item will not help you against the worst conditions (stunned and dominated).
Periapt of Proof Against Poison: well, as the name suggests, you get poison resistance.
Periapt of Recovery: +2 to Death Saving Throws. All characters will benefit from this item as it triples your base chance to automatically recover from the dying condition when you make a saving throws. Good also for some revenant automatic-healing builds.
Piwafwi: bonus to stealth and fire resistance.
Possum Amulet: similar to the death defying cloak and with the same drawbacks.
Raven Cloak: resistance to cold and necrotic + a daily reroll on a save with a +5 or +10 bonus (if it's a death saving throw). Very good item and Sky-Blue for undead heavy campaigns.
Scarab of Invulnerability: it's quite expensive and has only a daily power, but it's invulnerability until the end of your next turn.
Steadfast Amulet: a daily chance to roll a saving throw as an immediate interrupt to avoid being stunned or dazed.
Tattered Cloak: a nice daily power to become invisible to many targets. But you have to hit.
Tenebrous Shroud: necrotic resistance and a daily invisibility power.
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Rings:
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Chameleon Ring:
the base property is nothing special but the daily power is solid.
Eladrin Ring of Passage:
Shadow Step becomes a teleport 4 or 5 (if you're an Eladrin) and the cost is relatively low. You also get a teleport that doesn't require line of sight, which is very useful in those bad situation when you get swallowed by a monsters.
Ring of Dimensional Escape: also this one makes Shadow Step become a teleport 4 and you get a free teleport when you go below 0 HP which is especially good for non revenants (who at this level will most likely be able to stay in battle even below 0 HP). More expensive than the Ring of Eladrin Passage, but can potentially save your life and is still in the paragon tier.
Ring of Free Time:
resist 5 to all is the main issue here. The extra minor action is good too, but a pure assassin has not much use for minor actions. Multiclassing may change this.
Ring of Giants: better that War Ring in many cases, but you should look into this one only if you have a way to do some crit-fishing.
Ring of Invigoration: a life saving power. I have some doubts about the wording though. It's a free action, but you can take it only when you are reduced to 0 HP and if you're dying you should be able to take free actions. RAW it's interesting only for revenants, but I guess that RAI everybody should be able to use the power when brought to 0 HP.
Ring of Protection: +1 item bonus to all saving throws. The daily is nothing special.
Ring of Regeneration: +3 to your healing surge value, and a daily recovery of one healing surge and regeneration if you've reached a milestone.
Ring of Retreat: this is probably the only item who can save a party from TPK (ok, this works only from the 5th encounter of the day, but very often TPK happen there, when the party is low on surges and has used up dailies). You get also a 1 square increase to all your teleports. You can also use it to access items you stash home (hey, we're out of healing potions...let's go home and take them).
Ring of Tenacious Will: sky blue for Nightstalkers. You can use Cha instead of Con to determine your healing surge and get a life saving power that heals a decent amount of HP if you've reached a milestone. Less interesting for Bleak Disciples.
Ring of the Dragonborn Emperor: this ring can be used in a combo if you have a Battlecrazed weapon (even a low level one) and the Well of Shades power. With an AP you can do:
Minor: battlecrazed
Immediate Reaction: Well of Shades
Standard: Well of Shades and teleport out
AP: Cloaking mist
Minor (instead of Move): Dragonbreath (cold?) if you're a Dragonborn.
With Lasting Frost and the bonus to close attacks you get from this Ring you can inflict quite some damage to a group of monsters.
Ring of the Phoenix: resistance to fire plus a life saving power that heals you well, let you teleport and make a close burst attack based on Con or Cha (so good for both guilds).
Shadow Band: concealment all day long plus total concealment for one encounter. There are only two creatures that ignore concealment and they are both level 14 so you'll probably not meet them by the time you have this ring.
Shadowfell Signet: mainly for undead heavy campaigns.
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Waist:
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Belt of Blood: blue for Bleak Disciples. Your healing surge value is increased by your Con modifier when you're bloodied.
Belt of Sonnlinor Righteousness: crazy for revenant builds. It really kicks in only in paragon when you put your hands on Fierce Vitality, but becomes broken if you can keep fighting regularly below 0 HP. Raven Consorts may be almost unkillable with this belt.
Belt of Vim: +1/+2/+3 item bonus to Fort.
Cord of Foresight: may be interesting for Nightstalkers, who do not generate THP. It lets you start every encounter with an healing surge of THP which is not that bad.
Potion Bandolier: potion juggling can help you especially at low levels. Revenants with Death's Quickening will make the most out of this item.
Sash of Regeneration: regeneration 5 while bloodied.
Survivor's Belt: rolling twice saving throws is better the more bonuses you have. This points towards unkillable builds. Raven Consorts rolling twice will become your DM's nightmare.
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Weapons:
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This part is probably the most difficult of the whole Items sections. Any feedback about the ratings will be greatly appreciated. In some cases a weapon is listed not because you want it to attack, but because of a power you can use even with a low level version of the weapon.
Armbow: for warforged.
No more bolts, free loading and the crossbow is a one handed weapon.
Battlecrazed Weapon: this will probably not be your main weapon, but you can use a low level one to trigger a some racial feats/powers, like Dark Reaping (with Thin the Herd to trigger Grave Dust Asssassin), the Shifter racials, or the Dragon Warrior feat).
Blade of the Eldritch Knight: as all of your weapon attacks are standard action this blade really shines, letting you deliver melee attacks from 5 squares away. By the way it's part of the Eldritch Panoply and that's another reason for it to be an interesting item.
Blood Fury Weapon: as the battlecrazed but the power is an encounter. A low level one will be very interesting for those who have something to trigger by becoming bloodied. As you need it only for the power you'll most likely use a different weapon to attack.
Bloodthirsty Weapon:
+1 to hit and extra damage equal to the enhancement bonus to bloodied enemies.
Frost Weapon: to exploit frostcheese by taking Lasting Frost.
Frost Fury Weapon: revenant Bleak Disciples may be interesting in this weapon as they will be bloodied often without too much risk and have high Con. By the way with the last interpretation of the rules when you are bloodied your attacks will get the Cold keyword so you may look into frostcheese. Probably too dangerous for a non Revenant.
Graefling: gives you darkvision and is brutal 1 against bloodied enemies. The main interest here is darkvision.
Graceful Weapon:
look into this one only if you go crit-fishing with Daggermaster (a strange path but somebody may do that). Using you Dex mod instead of a dice is better.
Incisive Dagger: good to increase your Shadow Step range. Anyway remember that to get use of the property you'll have to wield the dagger and this will leave you only a one-handed weapon to attack.
Jagged Weapon: 19-20 crit range. Deals ongoing damage on a crit.
Mithrendain Steel Weapon: another way to increase your teleport distance. Anyway you'll probably want to do that using some other item.
Mordant Weapon: great to bypass resistances. Obvious synergy with Venom Hand Master, but if you take the feat then you'll probably go for the cheaper Spiderkissed weapon.
Pact Weapons
(Sword/Blade): if you want to multiclass into Warlock these will save you the cost of an extra implement. The sword is a longsword and for eladrins only and the blade is only a light one.
Radiant Weapon/Sunblade: going Morninglord to exploit radiant vulnerability by using one of these items is a way to get more DPR. For Nightstalkers, as the Morninglord attacks can be based on Cha but not Con or Dex.
Ravenclaw Warblade:
when you drop a non-minion enemy you can spend an healing surge or make a save. Can be useful if your party is low on the leaders's side.
Rubicant Blade: +1 to Shadow Step and an interesting daily power to teleport up to two allies. This can be useful to teleport an unconscious ally close to your leader(s).
Shadowrift Blade: will not rate this one yet. Some interest about "slashing" assassin builds seems to be around. Still to see something solid but it's better to keep this possibility in mind.
Spiderkissed Weapon: the basic weapon of the poison builds and sky-blue for them. Take it only if you have Venom Hand Master to bypass any resistance or immunity.
Subtle Weapon: you'll attack very often with combat advantage and this can help increasing your DPR. Stacks with everything.
Sword of Black Ice: only an high level version exists, but it's a very good one. It's a longsword but it deals 2d8 poison damage extra on each hit as a property, thus bestowing the poison keyword and triggering Weapon Hand Master. The crit damage is good, dazes on a crit and once a day you can stun (save ends) the target when you crit. By the way the wording of the dazed effect is unclear as no way to end the condition is listed. Extremely good if you want to use a shield.
Vicious: can be your choice at low levels when interesting enhancements are not really available.
Wraithblade: this is useful only for MC Rogues with Daggermaster and using a dagger. Blue or maybe Sky-blue for them.
Wyrmtooth Dagger: once again for Daggermaster. You can act as support for your buddies by trying to shut down enemy resistances.
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Wondrous:
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Battle Standard of Healing: cheesy? Maybe. This item is cheap and useful at any tier. Unkillable revenant builds can keep a whole party up with this standard.
Darkskull: if your party has access to darkvision, then this item is deadly and may easily be a way to decide the build of a party. 10 squares in every direction is a lot of space. You'll be able to hide very often. If darkvision is not available look elsewhere.
Demonskin Tattoo: you get resistance to a type of damage you choose between acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder until the end of the encounter everytime you use an action point. Solid especially because you can decide the resistance on a case-by-case basis and the tattoo doesn't use up any "normal" slot.
Dice of Auspicious Fortune: depending on you luck on the dice this item can help you or not. Anyway I guess that a lot of epic tier characters will buy these dice.
Eager Hero's Tattoo: for Nightstalkers, to start each encounter with some THP.
Fireheart Tattoo: a cheaper and less effective alternative to the Eager Hero's Tattoo.
Mummified Hand: the benefit of another ring is good, but the cost of the Hand is very high.
Resurgence Tattoo: you regain the use of an encounter power when a non-minion crits you. Very nice property, but the cost is high.
Tattoo of the Escape Artist: the cost is low and if you get critted you can now teleport as a minor until the end of the encounter. If this happen you can start teleporting in and out of the fray.
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Sets:
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Only some comments here about Sets that can be interesting. As you'll usually need to take more items to get access to the extra benefits, there are many combinations possible and each one could be taken or not based on your overall build
Shadowdancer's Garb: the single items are more or less usefule for an assassin, and the cumulative bonus to Athletics, Stealth and Thievery is pretty good. It's an item bonus though, so it will not stack with other item bonuses. Overall is a very nice set for the late heroic tier.
Zy Tormtor's Trinket Benefits: assassin/warlocks maybe interested in this set at low levels. Pact Blade helps in keeping costs down. Probably the Blade and the Prison or the Mantle will be your target to get the Thievery bonuses.
Eldritch Panoply: the Blade of the Eldritch Knight is great and the benefit you get with two items is equal to an extra teleport every round. The Rebuking Bracers are good too, as you will automatically teleport 3 your target and daze hit when you score a critical.
Offering of Celestian: to be evaluated for Hybrid Sorcerer/Assassins.
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x) this is a paragon build that can eat up a lot of damage and win the battle by outlasting its enemies. 
