Curse

Isil`Zha · Apr 25, 2007, 07:57 AM // 07:57

I'm sure everyone can agree that one big problem with the Assassin is its primary attribute, and how unlike all other classes, its form of energy management (Critical Strikes) is severely reduced by the target simply having higher armor. Thus, Assassin's ability to take on Warriors is hindered in two ways:

1) Obviously, the higher armor, and with a 'sins already low dagger damage, that damage gets reduced to almost nothing
2) Very few critical strikes, which not only prevents them from doing any decent damage without attack skills at all, but also nearly stops their energy management so they can't even use them as often.

This only really addresses PvP, in PvE its much worse, where you'll get almost no critical strikes against high level enemies, and are forced to take something like Critical Strike in order to gain back energy.

So here's my suggestion:

Speccing just 1 level into the Critical Strikes line will make your chances of critical striking ignore armor, in the way that holy damage "ignores" armor - it'll base the critical hit chance, not the damage type, on 60 AL. (And since it's Critical Strikes, you won't have other Professions exploiting it.) I'll also say that it will keep the affect of increasing critical hit chance by 1% for each rank in Critical Strikes. This way, let's say you have a combination of attributes in Dagger and Criticals that your overall chance to get a critical hit is 40% - that 40% will apply to anything. It won't increase the overall damage done to squishies, but at the same time, 'Sins would actually gain some useful DPS against heavier armored targets - and the biggest reason for this suggestion, their energy management won't suffer just because their target has high armor.

Thoughts? (Constructive only)

Saphatorael · Apr 25, 2007, 08:09 AM // 08:09

Critical Hits are determined through level, not Armor Rating, I think?

Even so, Crit Strikes works fine for me... the damage isn't bad at all, because of the armor ignoring damage dagger chains rely on.

Very few Critical Hits? Try to get a better chain that won't drain you completely, the most obvious example would be Black Lotus Strike + any hex.

But I wouldn't mind your change to it at all, any buff to an assassin is fine with me XD

Shuuda · Apr 25, 2007, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Let see about critical strikes, it adds damage, provides energy, and has a nice range of skills, seems fine to me.

Ishtar Serket · Apr 25, 2007, 12:44 PM // 12:44

The only time Sins have problems with Critical Strikes is not when the target has high armor (since Critical Strikes ignores it when determining chance to crit) but when they put up enchants or stances that block attacks. A stancing ranger or warrior can easily shut down energy regen of a sin. Unfortunately the options to counter it are limited as well. You can either bring Wild Strike (a sin skill that can itself be blocked by the stance) or Wild Blow which guarantees to end the stance but requires you to go A/W.

There is no need to change Critical Strikes though since stancing targets won't shut you down completely since others can hit that target anyways. I wouldn't mind if the % chance to critical went up a bit though.

Shuuda · Apr 25, 2007, 12:54 PM // 12:54

Or how about Expose defences, or Way of the Fox, or Fox's Promise even.

LightningHell · Apr 25, 2007, 12:55 PM // 12:55

Critical Strikes is one of the best primary attributes, if you're talking in terms of the passive effect.

ACreator · Apr 25, 2007, 01:29 PM // 13:29

that way sins would be overpowered.

critical eye + way of the assassin + atack skils means that 90% of ur dmg is armor ignoring, so anything to boost ur atack (like conjure weapons) would make a sin overpowered i think..

Yanman.be · Apr 25, 2007, 01:52 PM // 13:52

ACreator, learn to read.

Samurai-JM · Apr 25, 2007, 03:50 PM // 15:50

Critical Strike + Moebius Strike would tear warriors apart if that happened. CS is fine the way it is now I think, for higher damage and nice e-management.

LightningHell · Apr 25, 2007, 03:55 PM // 15:55

I have to post in the wrong thread...

I think the problem isn't with Critical Strikes, it's the skill trees of the assassin that's screwed up.

Shendaar · Apr 25, 2007, 05:47 PM // 17:47

Hmm ... Assassin have no problem taking down warriors. most of the Dagger attack skills have high +damage, which means that you still do some damage regardless of their armor. You can drop a Dolyak Signet warrior in a couple of seconds with a combo like Moebius Strike + Death Blossom.

Tingi · Apr 25, 2007, 08:00 PM // 20:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightningHell

Critical Strikes is one of the best primary attributes, if you're talking in terms of the passive effect.

QFT

I can't really belive anyone is complaining about CS. It's a pretty dam good Primary Attritube as far as they go.

I mean, look at Strength - now THAT's a bad attribute.

THe only problem that you could argue however, is the fact that the breakpoint for 3 energy is 13 CS, which is quite high, thus reducing the amount of other attributes you can specify in. But that's only if I'm nitpicking.

Evilsod · Apr 25, 2007, 08:04 PM // 20:04

You want to fix Critical Strikes? Is there something wrong with it?

Isil`Zha · Apr 25, 2007, 09:19 PM // 21:19

I thought Critical Strike chance was lowered by AL? I always seemed to get that impression.... if not, then some of you aren't reading it properly.. my proposed change would not affect PvP at all. I even stressed that the damage done would not be armor ignoring. I thought chance to critical was affected by armor, if not, then PvP remains unaffected, what I did say was to base the chance for a critical hit on 60AL... under the assumption that AL affected critical hit rate.

It would however, fix them for PvE, where high level monsters make it so Assassins get very few critical hits - but if it's not based on AL, then make it as though it were based on no higher than level 20.

MsMassacre · Apr 25, 2007, 09:34 PM // 21:34

Please don't "fix" critical strikes. My assassin loves it just the way it is.

Ahrims Assassin · Apr 25, 2007, 10:13 PM // 22:13

In my opinion, it wouldn't be good to buff assassin at all at this point. They're working pretty well right now, but if we get buffed than we may get that group of people that migrates to whatever seems most powerful. Personally, when I meet an assassin, I'd rather it be someone who is loyal to the class.

mrmango · Apr 25, 2007, 10:28 PM // 22:28

@Zha: Honest mistake, but I think their PVE monsters' stances and such allow you have much less critical hit-age. So yes, AL doesn't mean anything pertaining to crit hits.

To the majority of these posters, you guys didn't really see how he made that mistake, just posted random opinions. XD

And @ Ahrim: Loyalty is sort of useless, unless you're roleplaying something. But yea goood point.

Trylo · Apr 25, 2007, 11:48 PM // 23:48

i think we might need an explanation of critical hits because what ive gathered from your OP is that you want to be able to crit hit more on warriors to get energy back... now im not sure if crit hits are linked to armor or level, someone needs to explain the truth about that one...

also your suggestion is either confusingly written or i just havent played sins enough to understand what you mean, but from what it sounds like is that you want all crit hits to ignore damage by speccing 1 into crit strikes. i doubt thats what you really mean because that would be way overpowered. it also could be interpreted that you want it to scale upwards by your chance of critical hits to do armor penetration (ignore armor)... so basically with 12 dagger mastery and 13 crit strikes you would have ~40% armor penetration on all critical strikes. i think people would take that into consideration (even though that might still be a little overpowered, once again i havent played sin enough to know their average damage vs wars.)

so if im totally wrong say so, if i explained your thoughts to the masses then i hope i got the ideas right :/

Coloneh · Apr 26, 2007, 01:12 AM // 01:12

critical strikes is great. go fix strength or soul reaping.

Isil`Zha · Apr 26, 2007, 02:21 AM // 02:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trylo

i think we might need an explanation of critical hits because what ive gathered from your OP is that you want to be able to crit hit more on warriors to get energy back... now im not sure if crit hits are linked to armor or level, someone needs to explain the truth about that one...

also your suggestion is either confusingly written or i just havent played sins enough to understand what you mean, but from what it sounds like is that you want all crit hits to ignore damage by speccing 1 into crit strikes. i doubt thats what you really mean because that would be way overpowered. it also could be interpreted that you want it to scale upwards by your chance of critical hits to do armor penetration (ignore armor)... so basically with 12 dagger mastery and 13 crit strikes you would have ~40% armor penetration on all critical strikes. i think people would take that into consideration (even though that might still be a little overpowered, once again i havent played sin enough to know their average damage vs wars.)

so if im totally wrong say so, if i explained your thoughts to the masses then i hope i got the ideas right :/

No, it probably seems that way cause I was talking about it as if AL affected your chance to critical strike, which I now know it does... it just has to do with level.

So, by basing it on the correct value, my suggestion would fix Critical Strikes for PvE, and have no affect whatsoever on PvP.

So, now that I know, here's my modified suggestion:

In PvE, as previously mentioned, the Assassin's e-management gets nerfed to almost nothing because of the huge level difference of high-level enemies.

Speccing 1 into Critical Strikes would make it so that the reduction in the ability to make critical hits, is capped at level 20. IE: When playing as an Assassin, if you come up against a level 27 monster, your chance to critical will be as though you were attacking a level 20 monster, not the damage done by the critcals, just the chance to land a critical hit.

As you can see, since everyone in PvP is already level 20, this would have no affect on PvP whatsoever, and not shove Assassin's out of late-game areas by making their primary attribute nearly useless.