Revenant Assassin / Warlock Build and League of Whispers vs. Ninja Comparison

[MwaO]

Well, it is something I am capable of doing. Specifically, wasting enemy actions with the daze status. Like I said, Poisonous Shuriken will not even daze on average 1 extra turn (enemies will only spend .88 of a turn more dazed). Since an enemy can't be dazed for a fraction of a turn, this amounts to some combats where Poisonous Shuriken isn't even better than Precision Dart at all and other combats where it's better by 1 turn. Admittedly, you'll have more of the latter (.88 is closer to 1 than to 0). But still, the point is that what Poisonous Shuriken essentially does is give you slightly more daze.

That's not really the relevant point. You're not doing Bloodroot Poison to do damage, you're doing it to gain control. You're a Striker. You do less damage with Precision Dart than you do with Eldritch Strike. You presumably want to focus fire and kill the thing you hit with either of them - so how long the Daze lasts on your primary target ought to be of very little interest. Either it recovers at the end of its turn or it doesn't - it is still sitting next to you proned and you plan to kill it with the help of your teammates in the next round.

What Poisonous Shuriken does is three things:
It gives you multiple targets to damage and then attack. You charge the opponent you hit with your Assassin bonus damage with an AP. Because you target 3 opponents, odds are really high that you hit someone and therefore do damage and daze them. Odds are better that you roll a critical hit, which applies to your Assassin damage too.

Because you tried to daze 3 opponents, you might very well have 2-3 dazed opponents, one of whom the party tries to focus fire and kill. Which potentially negates an attack or two, but also possibly means one of those opponents is going to fail their saving throw and be dazed for the next round - setting up another kill for you.

It targets multiple opponents by default - yes, it doesn't prone, but you attacking 3 targets a round is ultimately good distributed damage with a hint of striker added on. This is good for popping minions, attacking multiple flyers, etc...seriously, anyone who has access to a 3 target ranged at-will should strongly consider taking it simply because it does that.

 

[vtphoenix]

I agree with your point about popping minions but disagree with pretty much everything else you said. I really think it makes a big difference how a player plans on playing their character. Like, for one thing, I'm planning on leaving minions to other party members. I would also mostly be using a ranged attack only as an opener so usually 1/combat. Eldritch Strike is so good I wouldn't be attacking 3 targets per round with unpoisoned shurikens. I would use the shurikens only to open (i.e. when enemies are too far away for Eldritch Strike) or to apply poison, that's it.

I think you said a lot of self-contradicting stuff like damage doesn't matter but you get to damage three things and the control matters but it doesn't matter how many turns targets spend dazed. That's weird because the power only does 2 things: damage and dazed (at least while your only poison is Bloodroot). There is no other way of assessing the power apart from damage and dazed turns.

If you're only looking at initial poison application and don't care about dazed turns then Poisonous Shuriken is only better than Precision Dart 57% of the time (better defined as applying poison to more targets than Precision Dart would apply poison to).

10% of the time, you will miss ALL targets with Shurikens and the power will be flat out worse than Precision Dart.
33% of the time, you will hit the SAME number of targets with Shurikens as you would hit with Precison Dart.

So it's fair to say that Shurikens give you a CHANCE of affecting more targets than Precision Dart (but remember that Precision Dart has a guaranteed poison application, even on a miss).

Now, let's say you don't have poison left for the day. What ranged attack would you want to use to open?

Shurikens - potentially hits/damages more targets but the damage is mediocre and you add no control
Dart - potentially hits/damages one target but the damage is mediocre and you add no control
Bola Takedown - potentially hits/damages one target but the damage is mediocre and you ADD control

A prone is enough to prevent a melee enemy from reaching your team or to give members who go after you combat advantage against that target.

Anyway, I guess I'm all out of arguments about the two paths. Feel free to add more if you like, but I think at this point I've reached my own conclusion about what I personally prefer. If you prefer something different or understand these choices in a different way, that's cool, but I probably won't be terribly interested in debating this further. Sometimes two people see things differently and that's totally okay.

I may still post more about how this build is working for me and how I'm fleshing it out as I gain levels.

 

[VikingLegion]

There are ninja on Athas?

 

[vtphoenix]

There are ninja on Athas?

It all depends on the DM but the Dark Sun Campaign Guide states that there are no divine classes or certain races on Athas. It doesn't say anything about ninjas. When I run Dark Sun games, I usually let my players be anything anyway, including divine classes. We tweak the class to make it fit (worshipping elementals/primordials instead of gods, for example) or we come up with a story reason it could exist. We have had sunwarped characters, characters that were products of the Pristine Tower, and we have had a character that was rescued in the desert by a mysterious voice (and who then came to worship that being as a god). I find most DMs are pretty lenient providing you come up with a fun story