The "names" I've given to each line in the trees are self explanatory, but I'll still explain my reasoning.
Basically, I've tried to keep in mind these things while I made the changes:
- Each line on the skill trees must have a theme
- The central line should be filled with passives that you would want all for all builds
- Get access to abilities earlier, you don't want to be level 16 when that happens
- Replace as much as possible the passives or skills that have no use whatsoever for the Assassin
Assassination
#1 Starting Skill
No change, same starting skill as usual.
#2 Blades and Death
Replaced Shadow Strike with Mark of Death. I feel Shadow Strike doesn't pack enough damage to be on the Assassination tree while Mark of Death fits the theme quite nicely.
#3 Increase Damage
Replaced Mercy Killing by Looked Like It Hurt. Mercy Killing had absolutely no use whatsoever on the Assassin, she has no skill to panic or put to sleep enemies...
#4 Hard Hitter
This is basically the "old" sixth line except Sneak Attack has been replaced with Bloodied Prey. The Assassin is pretty bad without her abilities so she needs to access them as early as possible. And Sneak Attack is a pretty bad passive considering you should mostly attack from Stealth, for which we have Knife In The Shadows.
#5 Flanking
This line is also very different from the original. The biggest change is the inclusion of Archer's Flanking Fire passive (25% damage when flanking). It does fit perfectly the role of the Assassin, I wonder why it wasn't included from the start. The rest of the line are "flanking" passives already available to the Assassin. Note that Sneak Attack while not really good is at least optional now.
#6 Hard Hitter
Again, this line is very different from the original. This line is all about making it easier to take enemies, be it because they have low health or by reducing their armor. Not much more to say about it since those passives were all available to the Assassin before.
Stalker
#1 Stealth
Much needed changes here, what Stealth's good for without I Was Never Here and Knife In The Shadows?
#2 Specialized Blades
Very different line than before, the emphasis is now on blades. To gain access to abilities earlier, I moved the Poisoned Weapons there. In place of Hook And Tackle, I added Hunter's Throwing Blades because it fits the Assassin theme quite nicely. It also gives her a semi-AOE ability which isn't bad for her.
Hook And Tackle was removed because it is horrible for an Assassin. An Assassin should rely on stealth and positioning, Hook And Tackle brings you to the attention of your enemies by removing stealth then it sends you directly into danger with a very high chance of bad timing and positioning. It's about the worst combination for an Assassin...
#3 Evasion
Very different line than before. Mostly, it was made this way to bring abilities closer so you don't have to be level 16 to finally have a complete build. I kept the original "spirit" of the line by going for an evasion theme.
#4 Disorientation
Only Flank Attack and Dance of Death remains from the original line. Since I moved Knife In The Shadows to the first line, I went for disorientation theme instead. It's also fortunate that I had to find a place for Shadow Strike since I removed it from the Assassination tree. It does counterbalance Flank Attack well, both abilities have an effect to avoid damage after their use and they both deal comparable damage.
#5 Critical Chance
This is pretty much a mismatch of what I moved from other lines. I had 2 passives concerning Critical Chance so I checked if another fitting passive was used by other Rogues. Turns out And Take Them Down fits the bill perfectly. It's supposed to be on characters that can point out the enemies weaknesses to their teammates so what's a better fit than a killing machine on single target? The only other characters having that passive don't really fit much with it. How can the Archer sees that from that far? And how does the Alchemist can know that being more AOE than single target? All in all, it's a better fit on the Assassin than on any other character.
#6 Evasion II
Had to put that somewhere to keep a "standard" amongst the other characters. I find the 5% chance ridiculous when you die in less than 3 hits so unless something is done there, it would be better not to include it in it's current state...
Additional Notes
Hidden Blades cooldown should be reduced from 32 to 24 seconds. It is a core ability to about any build and the cooldown makes for a very weird flow while in battle. Sure it does a lot of damage, but given the high cooldown, a lot of characters can surpass her killing count over time, especially when there's a lot of enemies like in Ferelden Castle. It also weakens her a bit in Nightmare where you can't really go auto-attack everything like in lower difficulties.
Evasion must be made better with an higher percentage chance. 5% is simply too low, you mostly get killed in less than 2 seconds unless you have a lot of promotions. Something like 25% would seem appropriate to me (given reasons under NDA
), it's a 1/4 chance of avoiding 1 attack. Since you usually receive a couple attacks in a short amount of time when you do get hit, it's not that strong either.
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