Legion - Assassination Discussion

[Lex Icon]

^This is MY class fantasy

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you."

[davesignal]

"Subterfuge (Assassination, Outlaw): Also causes Garrote to deal 100% increased damage and have no cooldown when used from Stealth or 3 sec after Stealth breaks."

I guess this is the start of making the stealth tier actually interact with Assassination abilities? Being able to spam Garrote on to a bunch of targets after Stealth/Vanish isn't the worst thing in the world, especially if Subterfuge Garrotes still silence people.

[Will]

That change pretty much makes Subterfuge the mandatory tier-30 talent for Assassination. Good for AoE packs too, open with garotte and spread the love before the cooldown comes back. Could definitely see some synergy with Vanishing mid-fight as well to occasionally apply a stronger Garotte, particularly if cleave-type adds join the fight and you need to spread it around a little.

[Deleted]

In pure ST scenarios, Nightstalker could still be better, Vanish-> Rupture refresh for 30 seconds of Rupture with 50 % bonus is super strong with the huge percentage of your damage coming from Rupture,

[Will]

In pure ST scenarios, Nightstalker could still be better, Vanish-> Rupture refresh for 30 seconds of Rupture with 50 % bonus is super strong with the huge percentage of your damage coming from Rupture,

I thought the same too, but as I'm relatively new to Rogue I decided to test that theory on the target dummies. Alas, the Nightstalker bonus only applies whilst you are physically stealthed. You can test if yourself if you don't believe me. Apply any bleed, and when you're out of stealth it ticks for base damage. Vanish mid-fight and the bleeds already on the target will scale up by 50%, but only for as long as you remain stealthed. Disappointing, yes, but hardly surprising. I currently play feral so I'm still wrapping my head around DoTs dynamically scaling based on your current situation as opposed to shapshotting their full duration based on application strength.

Given the relatively low DPE of Mutilate, Vanishing just to buff it slightly is slightly mathematically inferior to Shadow Focus, and massively inferior to the latest build's Subterfuge mechanic. If it worked on bleeds, it would be awesome, but sadly, that doesn't seem the case.

Mind you, I tested this on live, so if you or anyone else is on beta is aware of Nightstalker behaving differently on the beta, IE: Nightstalker applies to the entire duration if the DoT is applied from stealth even after exiting stealth, I'd be happy to know, as this would make Nightstalker a clear-cut mathematical winner for single target.

[Deleted]

Strange, i tried it on a dummy just yesterday before the patch and it had the bonus for the entire debuff duration.

[pmatnz]

I quite like the dot/bleed type spec with poisons

[Deleted]

Imo, I think the deadly poison does very little damage to the rest.

[Will]

Imo, I think the deadly poison does very little damage to the rest.

Compared to Agonizing poison? Yeah, isn't that not working on beta yet? I find it bizarre that it's a poison spec and yet under current tuning it's majority of bleed damage output. On beta ATM Assassi is basically a stronger and rotationally simpler feral druid in terms of playstyle.

[Jaronicity]

I don't know if anyone saw, but the artifact trait Master Alchemist now also increases Agonizing Poison's damage bonus by 7.5% increased depending on if you relic it. I never saw it listed and was just messing around with the artifacts and saw it was added. Could be late to the party, but never saw anything about it.

[Will]

I don't know if anyone saw, but the artifact trait Master Alchemist now also increases Agonizing Poison's damage bonus by 7.5% increased depending on if you relic it. I never saw it listed and was just messing around with the artifacts and saw it was added. Could be late to the party, but never saw anything about it.

How does the 7.5% increase work? is it additive or multiplicative? In other words, does 25% become 32.5% or 26.8%? Does it mean 7.5% per stack?

In any event, Master Assassin looks like a better trait to relic. Coupled with the artifact that reduces vendetta's CD by 1s every time you spend 25 energy, a 6/6 Master Assassin could potentially allow you to pop Vendetta every ~30s. That's a staggering 66% uptime on top of the fact popping it gives you an energy refill and launches poisoned daggers at your enemy for a powerful DoT for a short duration.

Though if Agonizing Poison turns out strong I'd also consider Master Alchemist a juicy trait to relic up.

- - - Updated - - -

Strange, i tried it on a dummy just yesterday before the patch and it had the bonus for the entire debuff duration.

I had a friend test on beta and can confirm; functionality is changed. Nightstalker is looking like the best single target option. Rupture has a disgustingly high attack power coefficient, particularly at 6 CP with Deeper Stratagem. Losing a GCD to vanish and whack out a 50% stronger one is more than worth it.

[maddnesskhaz]

I had a friend test on beta and can confirm; functionality is changed. Nightstalker is looking like the best single target option.

They did change the scaling formula for Rupture, so it may be a bug that this is snapshotting seeing as Nightblade (for Sub) doesn't do it - not sure if anyone has asked in the Theorycrafting thread.

[davesignal]

I really do hope that Vigor doesn't turn out to be too far behind Premeditation and Deeper Stratagem, the ability to pool energy that deep feels quite handy (even if it does necessitate going back to the WoTLK 'Envenom at 4 or 5 CPs' style of play). Certainly going to be my go-to talent for outdoor content, for loading up a target with Garrote and a high CP Rupture as fast as possible.

[Wow]

I really do hope that Vigor doesn't turn out to be too far behind Premeditation and Deeper Stratagem, the ability to pool energy that deep feels quite handy (even if it does necessitate going back to the WoTLK 'Envenom at 4 or 5 CPs' style of play). Certainly going to be my go-to talent for outdoor content, for loading up a target with Garrote and a high CP Rupture as fast as possible.

I think Deeper Stratagem will be forced with how much rupture gains from the extra cp (1930ap vs 2770ap) and how much rupture's dmg matters now. No other finisher gains that much from a 6th cp in any spec.

[davesignal]

Stacking Stratagem with Hemo does seem like it would produce absolutely bonkers Ruptures. It'd be a shame if that combo was too good to justify using anything else, but if we had to have an 'essential' talent combo I do enjoy absolutely gigantic DOTs..

[Jaronicity]

My inkling is that you'll want a more bleed focused build when you have to cleave or AOE with all the spreading and buffing of bleeds that you can do. That, or if you have significant downtime on a boss where you have to run out of things constantly then it might be beneficial to keep strong bleeds up. Otherwise, I feel like ST will use a poison based build with Master Poisoner and Agonizing Poison possibly combined with Deeper Stratagem (not sure if Anticipation will be better at lower crit levels). Fully buffed envenoms from DS in addition to full stacks of AP could yield big numbers. Who knows, maybe even DfA combined with several targets bleeding could be viable for a little extra burst.

[Deleted]

I don't like where this is going, forced talents again -.-

I really need that beta key to test the shit out our rogue to make a clear statement

[Jaronicity]

Who's forcing what talents you're taking?

[davesignal]

Your own desire to beat everyone else on the DPS meters, I suppose.

[Dandeleon]

I play feral, but im really in love for assassination, this spec have all that a meele dot spec need.