User:Anti Oath/Assassin

Balancing the Assassin.
The current play style of Assassins is to get to your dual attack as fast as possible and the most efficient way of doing that is skipping the Lead Attack all together. There are currently only 8 Lead Attacks in the game (not counting spells that act as Lead Attacks). And none of them are truly worth a spot on a skill bar. Then there are 11 Off-hand attacks, the problem here is only 5 of those 11 Off-hand attacks require Lead Attacks to be used before them. That’s where the problem with Assassins come from. The only off-hands that really appear on an assassins skill bar are Black Lotus Strike and Black Mantis Strike, which both require a hex to work, but with the hexes the assassin line offers there’s no worries to select one. Then, with both of those hex requiring Off-hands, you have the opportunity to deal two dual attacks. The damage from this spike is easily enough to kill a soft target quickly, and even quicker with an attack speed buff. My idea to balance the Assassin line is based on the idea of the ability to do damage with the combo starting with a Lead Attack and ending with a Dual attack. The assassins primary role, “Get in, kill, get out”, was what inspired a lot of the decisions for the skill balances and skill rewrites I made. Hopefully my balances to the skills will result in an abundant amount of new skill bars assassins and secondaries can choose from to play, and have a good time doing it.

The Goal.
My goal for the glass isn’t to buff the damage or increase the duration. It’s to capture the true essence of playing an Assassin in each skill in the profession. Almost all of the changes had Player vs. Player in mind, but I also thought of ways to better Assassins in Player vs. Environment. I wanted to make Deadly Arts more deadly and Shadow Arts act as a pocket full of tricks. I thought most assassin bars will follow a 14 Dagger Mastery, 9 Critical, 9 Shadow/Deadly Arts template. I wanted to add utility to an assassins bar also. My goal is to have a basic assassin have his 3 combo attack skills (Lead Attack, Off-hand Attack, Dual Attack), 1 finisher/damage buffer, a shadow step, and 3 other skills, with an elite that could fit into any of those roles. I also wanted to add utility to the combo. The Lead Attack should be the start of every combo, it should render or disable the targets defenses and deal damage at the same time. The Off-hand Attack should be the peanut butter between the bread, like the “flavor” of the combo. The Off-hand should set up for the Dual Attack to make it as effective as possible. If the Dual Attack gets its damage from a conditioned foe, the Off-hand Attack should apply those conditions. The Dual Attack should be the finishing damage. The previous 2 attack skills effects should be short lived and very active, hopefully eliminating passive play from the profession. These changes should make for fast paced, active play, that leads to the rediscovery of this class.



Critical Strikes Skills

 * Unsuspecting Strike

Dagger Mastery Skills

 * Black Mantis Thrust
 * Desperate Strike
 * Disrupting Stab
 * Golden Fox Strike
 * Golden Lotus Strike
 * Jagged Strike
 * Leaping Mantis Sting

Deadly Arts Skills

 * Iron Palm