Non-essential Assassin; Opinions?

[Theroc]

Since I'd heard about the assassin class and it not requiring evil alignment and all, I was pretty excited. Then I finally got the resources, but now I am hearing a great deal of talk to the effect of Assassins being subpar strikers etc... etc...

Is this objective fact or subjective, and HOW subpar are they? I'm considering making one for one of the Living realms on Enworld, and would not want to pick a character and turn up disappointed with the performance and need a 'redo'.

Is this a class with a lot of 'traps' that makes it subpar, and they CAN be built well? Or is it just lack of feat/power support?

 

[mneme]

From what I've seen, the non-Essential Assassin isn't bad at all; they're just not really the 3e Assassin, and with controller HP, they have to make the most of really good hiding and teleportation abilities.

Pros:

Good controlling effects.
Teleport at will.
Did I mention teleport at will?
Can use any weapon. How about a fullblade? (are you a Gith? Were you one when you were alive?) Can effectively stack your damage feature on one critter while bashing minions or helping finish up the current bunny.
A lot of the big powers are crit fishing powers (multiple attack rolls with only one Hit means multiple chances to crit even when you don't get to stack your static damage).
Really good stealth.

Of all the melee classes, the Assassinv1 is the one who most wants a Defender to work with -- AKA "the guy you teleport behind".

It's worth perusing the The Charop Guide to Assassins.

 

[ppaladin123]

Besides the tiny HP, which people complain gets them knocked out continuously, they have a sort of backwards damage mechanic in the shrouds.

To do serious damage you want to build up your shrouds, so the game encourages you to hold off on applying your striker mechanic. If you overestimate your target's HP, you or your teammates end up killing them before the big payoff and you lose all your shrouds. That means you could have killed the thing faster and saved everyone some effort. And now, those shrouds are gone.

If you decide to go assassin, consider going with a revenant and taking the feats:
Death Wastes Nothing


and

Grave dust assassin.

That way you get to transfer your shrouds (and get some bonus damage out it) once per encounter when an enemy kicks the bucket unexpectedly soon. Death Wastes Nothing is such a good feat that it probably shouldn't have a racial requirement.

You might also want to pick up a Scavenger Bird Ki Focus. In fact, I strongly urge you to pick one up. It will let you transfer shrouds from any enemy you hit to any other enemy as a free action, at-will. You can use it to transfer shrouds when you know that your enemy is going croak shortly regardless and you want to get a head start on the next one.

 

[renau1g]

Well, I've played one for 4 levels in L4W Theroc and I can tell you they are one of the most underwhelming classes in the game. The at-will teleport is incredible though. I love it, but beyond that, well my assassin AP'd used 2 dailies and didn't outdamage my barbarian with one at-will...

The fact that you almost have to be a revenant sucks, the fact that assassin wielding fullblades is stupid, and that your hp's are so low is just icing on the cake. Most of their powers are about being hidden/concealed which is cool...except there's nothing to bump up their damage, which a striker is supposed to do. Fighters easily out-damage the assassin.

They are certainly playable, nothing in 4e isn't, but they are generally regarded as the worst striker, as they don't have the control of the warlock or rogue, lack the "nova" spike damage of a ranger or avenger, or the staying power and brutal crits of the barbarian.

There's also precious little in the way of feats/skills/powers/items for the poor assassin as there's 0 support for the shadow class and almost all of the feats focus on poison (easily resisted/immune) or are race-specific.

Personally, I really, really want to like the assassin, I love Murphy, but man he was being out-hit by a level 2 rogue I was so upset (Jax was a level 2 rogue in my Simple Errand game), despite being level 6.

PC:Siblyx(renau1g) - L4W Wiki

 

[Theroc]

Hm... that's disappointing to hear, R1. I actually don't mind the weapon so much, I figure if I gave up a portion of my SOUL, I deserve to use an inordinately large weapon to assassinate people for style points... but that the damage of two dailies is less than one at-will?

That definitely kills it for me, I think. I love the concept, but I'd go insane if I ended up being useless for my role.

pp, I was planning on assassin, but according to the charop threads I've been reading, that feat wasn't that valuable. I'm guessing they assumed optimal shroud placement or somesuch.

The focus sounds like a good idea if I do decide to try out an assassin. I think if I *DO* try one, it'll be in a oneshot game where I won't be stuck unless I really enjoyed it.

 

[renau1g]

To be fair I missed on one of the dailies, but yeah the spike damage is so weak, it just makes me sad. Rogues have all of the flavor of the assassin (less the shadow-ness) but they have excellent damage, plus the errata to Sneak Attack they can use it more often now.

Now, Kane is the damage leader in L4W, so he is the benchmark, but he did 41 damage with his Whirling Rend attack. Murphy did 32 damage with his Targeted for Death (miss - 7 damage), AP: Twilight Assassin attack (19 damage) + minor action Twilight Assassin (6 damage). So yeah...

 

[garyh]

Rogues also benefit from two whole Martial Power books, so if you want to sneak around and stab things, there are a lot more ways to make that work with a rogue.

I love my Living 4th Edition bugbear rogue 6, Hrav.

PC:Hravoth Kortaga (garyh) - L4W Wiki

He held the L4W damage record before Kane stole it.

 

[The Human Target]

I'm going to offer a somewhat counter opinion.

Yes, the assassin does not have as much direct damage as a barbarian.

But that's because its built more like an avenger- in that its strikery-ness does not come from big hits but from consistent hits.

I agree the shroud mechanic is semi-counter intuitive, but its not worthless. You just have to figure out ways for it to be extra useful. The assassin in my previous campaign would stack his shrouds on an opponent that he wasn't (nor was the rest of the party) focus firing on. So that when it came time to attack that monster he could bring down the thunder.

The class reminds me of the wizard class in a way. not the pure best at its main role by any means, but the sheer utility of its other powers makes it stand out as fun to play. Teleports, invisibility, enhanced senses and movement, buffs for other characters.

I'd say give it a try if you're cool with not being the biggest damage dealer a round.

 

[Neverfate]

If you're looking for a pure damage class, the assassin is not it. All the math jockeys will be able to prove that. However, the math jockeys will only ever respect Twin Strike as an at-will, so you're not going to get an unbiased opinion from them. No disrespect to the crunchers, of course.

If you're looking to have a lot of fun, popping up all over the battlefield out of puffs of smoke and people's shadows, while "subtly" using a full blade or executioner's axe on your enemies and then flinging them around, then assassin is the class for you. A vast amount of feats make them somewhat customizable too.

It is unfortunate that assassins just aren't newbie/casual friendly (except the Essentials one of course). They do moderate damage. They have the lowest HP pool (barely mitigated by the Con build) of any class. Their class features are hard to time (just when exactly should you shade form, or invoke shrouds?) and their at-will teleport does have restrictions.

All in all, I would steer people away from the assassin until they have a more refined concept of combat, then I'd suggest a rogue, because assassins are too fragile and take a solid understanding of timing in combat. However, if you do have those things understood then I say choose the assassin for all the neat tricks and nasty things they can do.

To some it up: The assassin class is really fun, but you have to know what you want from the game of D&D itself. Pure damage is found elsewhere, but then again, at-will teleports aren't. It's a trade off. Also, now there's the Essentials assassin for another option/play style (and it really amounts to play style).

 

[renau1g]

If you're looking for a pure damage class, the assassin is not it. All the math jockeys will be able to prove that. However, the math jockeys will only ever respect Twin Strike as an at-will, so you're not going to get an unbiased opinion from them. No disrespect to the crunchers, of course.

When leaders out-damage them, it's a problem. I hate rangers and twin strike, so much I haven't touched them with a 10' pole because of twin strike.

Assassins are cool for teleporting, but sure you can *bamf* all over the field, but eventually that gets old when you can't do much else. Invisibility is ok, but only helps keep you upright. Not sure what buffs the assassin grants allies? I haven't seen it so far.

Night Stalkers do ok through heroic tier, it's just frustrating compared to nearly every other class, well besides Seekers The fact that their striker mechanic encourages you to use weak damage for four rounds to build up the shrouds on a different target is poor. Really the shroud transfer on death should be automatic.

Again YMMV, I just get frustrated when the group counts on the striker to be the damage dealer and when the chips are down, my assassin decides to try and bring the heat in a fight that was steering towards a TPK. He mustered up all of 32 damage...