Assassin In 1.19 [80 Supporters]

The Identity of the Assassin Class in 1.19

So, 1.19 is coming out soon, and while I’m probably going to do a rundown of my opinions of it, I’d first like to cover, what in my eyes, is kind of a huge problem.

Assassin is about to be nerfed. Hard. Too hard, honestly. For those of you who don’t know, here’s the patch notes

Spin Attack:
- Used to deal 200% damage, now deals 150% damage
- Element conversion changed to:
1st tier: 15% thunder
2nd tier: 20% thunder
3rd tier: 25% thunder

Vanish:
- Used to cost 2 mana, now costs 1 mana
- Now only lasts 5s at all tiers
- Stealth used to give +30% damage bonus when vanished, now gives +70% damage bonus

Multihit:
- The knockback before the Force upgrade has been lowered
- Used to deal 30% damage per hit, now deals 27% damage per hit
- Used to cost 10 mana, now costs 8 mana
- Now has 50% water conversion on the Fatality hit

So these are kind of huge nerfs, and the buffs just aren’t enough to offset them for a couple of reasons. Currently, assassin kind of lacks a defined direction, being an odd frankenstein of warrior-esque range, mage-esque comboing and archer-esque damage, but because the class itself deals great amounts of damage and has a good stun, it doesn’t really matter for it. But these changes hurt what it’s good at most, which makes me worried about its future. Let’s go down the list.

Spin Attack
This is just a bat to the knees of spin attack, honestly. Not much to say here. The lower conversion rate is nice for Ivory use but that’s kind of it. It seems like the point of this is to encourage comboing spin with other spells, but it kind of misses the reason spin spamming is just better than attempting combos with multihit or vanish. The damage wasn’t the problem; it’s the fact that it applied its damage instantaneously in an insanely wide area of effect, meaning that it could be spammed easily and rapidly without needing to think about aiming. It was a low skill-high reward option. But the nerf doesn’t change that. It’s still going to be better to spam spin rather than combing with multihit just because multihit takes so damn long to do its damage, and the utility, range and ease of use for spin attack is just so good.

Vanish
Good concept, poor execution. REALLY poor execution. I like the idea of vanish being a cheap, dodge-like ability that grants bonus damage, but it just nukes vanish outside of combat. For example. I like to use vanish to do parkour more easily. Now, I have to contend with having to
-reproc vanish every five seconds
-deal with the constant FOV changes from the speed boost
-not hop off the platform because of the ‘dodge’ at the beginning of vanish, every five seconds
-do all of this while managing a sprint bar, mana bar and doing the actual parkour, as well as server lag

And to top it all off, vanish is still worthless for boosting damage for everything but super slow melee builds, since it actually does less damage when comboed with spin attack than it currently does (in terms of spell multiplier, it’s roughly 260% now compared to 255% in 1.19), and because it just doesn’t play nicely with other parts of the class (looking at you, multihit/fast attack speed weapons). The hop at the beginning of vanish makes it really annoying to use in fights, especially with multihit and it’s point blank nature, or when trying to strafe. In addition, because mana doesn’t regen and actually drains in vanish, alternating between, say, spin attack and vanish just doesn’t work effectively; assuming you spend 50% of your time invisible while doing your combo, that’s a 50% chance that mana regen just doesn’t proc unless you pace yourself. And if you do pace yourself, you’re lowering your damage output anyways.

But in my opinion, the worst part is that assassin, the class with the lowest mobility out of battle, now has even worse mobility out of battle. Seriously; having to reproc vanish every five seconds just to get from point A to point B, while managing sprint, potential input lag, the hop, and mana is just going to be a hassle, and I am not looking forward to it. And while other classes can spam their transport spells with reckless abandon, as a walk speed based assassin, I can’t even do that since the hop actually slows me down. The speed boost is what made it useful, and now I need to contend with the hop every five seconds just to get the speed boost. And I can’t ‘just get a horse’, because I’m not rich enough for one. This is the part that I legitimately hate the most out of all of this, just because the mobility already feels mediocre outside of battle, and now it’s going to be even worse. Like, the rest of the changes may hurt, but this change is the one the one that’s going to affect me the most. It’s like the opposite of a QoL update.

Multihit
Multihit was changed in the wrong way, and was changed badly. The point of multihit is that it’s a high-risk, high-reward spell. If you hit with it, you get a large chunk of burst damage. If you don’t you get punished hard. However, even before this changelog, it just wasn’t useful for that since its DPS was lower overall than spinspam, while being harder to attain. Now, it’s just a worse version of itself, and is even worse for comboing since the damage for comboing isn’t worth it and it still knocks enemies out of smoke bomb.

Smoke Bomb
Smoke bomb wasn’t changed, but it’s still affected by the spin attack nerf since it relies on the spin-smoke combo for maximum utility. It’s still a decent area denial tool, though.


So what’s the point of Assassin now?
I mean, sure, it has an insanely good stun in spin attack, but that’s literally all that it has now. It’s got worse mobility, a worse main damage spell, and a worse secondary damage spell. And I don’t know about you, but I am really sick of just spamming spin attack, which this update, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to change, while still making everything about the assassin that isn’t just being a gambling addict (spin to win) worse.

There's also just a cruel irony in Assassin being relegated to stunlocking because its damage is too low. It's an assassin class. Like, the one class that should be shitting out damage like an ak-47 who's had Taco Bell. That's the point of an assassin; to kill stuff

So how would I fix Assassin?
The simplest method would just be to halve the time multihit takes and to make it so multihit no longer knocks enemies into the sky, away from your strikes and the smoke bomb you lay down. That way, it combos well with both spin and smoke, without neutering your overall.

In addition, make the speed boost on vanish last for three minutes, and independent of vanish’s other effects. Archers have a speed boost and an actual good mobility spell; we should at least get one of those as well.

But I have a different, and more fun idea.

Assassin was originally meant to be a higher skill subclass based around comboing spells; let’s make it that again. And since it’s an assassin, let’s give it a new focus: High damage to single targets and groups at the cost of lower effectiveness against larger groups. First, things first, it’s base defense is now 60%, on par with archer.

Fixing Spin Attack
First, lower the attack radius from 5 to 3-4 blocks. Give it back it’s 200% damage, but distribute it over time; 140% of it is in the direct attack, but the other 60% is done in 4 more damage ticks over the next second. Next, replace the disease perk with a new one:
Defenseless: Enemy combatants hit by this spell take 20% more damage for two seconds.
This would make spin attack an excellent primer spell, while also giving assassin actual utility in team fights. Technically speaking, the damage of the spell is 215% since the aftershocks (so to speak) are also affected by the Defenseless perk.

Fixing Vanish
“But wait,'' you may be asking. “Disease was the stunlocking perk on spin! You said earlier that was the only good part of the class now!” And you’d be right! But it’s also brokenly overpowered using it without any setup- so let’s put it somewhere else. For example, vanish, which we’re also going to be practically revamping. With this revamp, vanish is now the core spell of the assassin’s toolbook; it’s basically a dodge, damage boost and primer rolled into one.

First off, the basic parts:
Vanish lasts 5 seconds still
The hop at the beginning of the vanish now moves the player in the direction they are travelling rather than the way they are facing. (or rather, the direction they intend to travel; if they jump forward and then vanish while pressing the A-key, it lurches them to the left). It also grants a 60% damage reduction while hopping.
Finally, this hop is useful for more than accidentally throwing the player right into the psychomancer’s shotgun blast. Use it while strafing to dodge meteors, flamethrowers, and morons charging you down like you’re a bullfighter! Use it in midair to jump around corners!
The speed boost from vanish now lasts for 20 seconds, no longer ends at the same time as invisibility, and refreshes on vanish.
Archers have it for three minutes, and can give it to allies. This is nothing.
Vanish no longer gives resistance

Next, the interesting parts
Vanish now gives a 30% damage boost for 5 seconds after casting that doesn’t end on hit.
Now this is where the fun begins. Stack this with the spin attack damage boost, and you start dealing a fuckton of damage.
Your first hit out of vanish with blind and freeze opponents for a short time
And here’s where spin’s stun perk went. Rather than being stuck on spin, this stun can be applied on any hit; multihit, melees, repeatedly applying this to a group of enemies in a smoke bomb while you laugh invisibly in a corner.

Fixing Multihit
Keep the lower cost and damage, but increase the speed that multihit hits so the spell only lasts half a second, or consolidate the hits so it has 5 at 54% and the sixth fatality hit rather than the current system.
Fatality now throws enemies at the floor rather than into the air.
Because it’s annoying as fuck having multihit launch your enemies right out of a smoke bomb, and also having to wait for your enemy to hit the ground again
Fatality now stuns enemies for a short time if the enemy has the defenseless debuff
Again, keeping in line with the powerful stun needing setup

As for smoke bomb? It’s honestly fine as is.


So what's this all for?

This revamped assassin focuses on stacking buffs to deal large amounts of damage up close and personally, while avoiding damage itself by using stuns and avoiding huge bursts of damage with the vanish dodge.
The basic combo of this new class is Vanish-Spin-Multihit rather than Spin-Spin-Spin. Assuming three spells a second, the new combo does a massive 884% spell damage in one second, without even counting the extra 187.2 damage from two ticks of a buffed up smoke bomb that could be thrown earlier. Smoke bomb mixed with vanish becomes the best method for crowd control rather than spin attack.

Not only that, but the revamped class would play EXTREMELY well with powder specials. Imagine:

You and two friends are facing off against a Corrupted Theorick. Your friends use the courage and curse powder specials, while you vanish and prepare. You spin Theorick, and then? You strike with a quake.

Congrats! Theorick no longer exists. He's a fucking stain on the floor.

In Conclusion; AKA the TL:DR
Assassin is going to be extremely weak in the new update, and more reliant on spin’s stun locking than ever, which ironically seems to be the exact opposite of the intended goal. Vanish is the victim of questionable changes, and is about to be an even worse movement spell than it already is.

Anyways, The conclusion for my feedback series is cancelled because I don't have the time, and also @JaydonTheWarrior I fully expect a similar thread from you about warrior.

TL:DR for TL:DR
Buff vanish.

 

;)

Tbh I was only going to cover the new "Throw yourself up with uppercut"
But challenge accepted.

 

Yes please. Why does this make so much sense? Hello? Salted? My boy, look at this, this is so good!

 

Hmmm...

I like these. But I'd like to run some tests on your suggestion to get some theoretical data. Give me a couple of days.

Also, poll please :)

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Two questions btw for my idea:
How does the vanish damage bonus/boost work currently as in-game? Does it apply on the first hit only? Or does it apply throughout a spell?

What's the most common assassin spell combo?

 

This isn't possible to do in code, period. The Minecraft Server client doesn't report back what control the player is pressing to the plugin.
And yes, theoretically one could get the current velocity direction of the player and use that, but I don't know if that'd be super good as you may get knocked back by a spell and then just vanish in the direction of the Knockback.

 

For a general-purpose midskill cycle, Spin-Spin-Multi-Spin-Spin-Smoke for a 4-second cycle. Higher skill players could double the opening three for a total of nine (or even do that twice if they're quite skilled), stack multihits in certain specific scenarios, etc.

 

Vanish’s strength only lasts for your first hit or spell. Basically as long as you’re invisible you have it, but only when you’re invisible

My most common spell combo is smoke-spin-spin-multi-spin-spin or smoke-spin-spin-smoke-spin-spin

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Unfortunate, but I still think the utility of having it hop you in the direction you travel far outweighs the annoyances due to knockback

 

For me when fighting bosses it’s straight Multis until they’re in the corner, then smokes and spins all along the way.

 

Yeah this too, especially for ranged bosses that tend to stand still

 

Wasnt archer supposed to be getting destroyed? Cuz thats nothing compared to this tbh.

 

I mean archer’s arrow storm was pretty much halved in terms of damage but yeah arrow shield and bomb weren’t really hit that bad and arrow shoeld may be better overall now

 

Arrow Shield lost blindness

 

Wait it did?
Wow that’s bad

 

I would say that's a needed nerf. But combined with the Arrow Storm damage nerf feels like too much.

 

Yeah. That said, if the changes to the melee attack also affect the arrows in arrow storm and the rain from arrow shield then it’s at least going to be great for crowd control

But if it doesn’t, then archer is probably going to be hurting. And man the mage meta is gonna be strong.

 

@Flow of Fate

SO

I went ahead and tried out the new Assassin spell changes and yours on my own little demo thing. I wanted to see the overall damage dealt and the DPS (Damage per Spell Hit)

So, I took @Druser's mid-skill combo and added a Vanish at the beginning. So the combo used here is Vanish-Spin-Spin-Multi-Spin-Spin-Smoke Bomb. These are all while under the influence of a mana potion. This is only to assume I actually had viable gear to to this combo with, which I don't for the most part.

I also used 100 Dexterity and 100 Intellect as my base skill points.

Afterwards, I used two builds, Cata and Nirvana, and ran the following combo above for both Assassin variations once. I also recorded the Damage Dealt overall and the Damage per Spell Hit (Yes, this includes things like Multihit spell hits. Imo, you should probably ignore that variable).

Note: Defenseless and the Damage Bonuses act as ID bonuses (They're additive). So they don't multiply the entire damage calculation.

Here are the results in video format:



If you're too lazy to watch it, here are the numbers:

Thunder Build (Cataclysm) Damage Dealt

• 1.19 Assassin: 79,671
• Flow of Fate's Assassin: 96,700
• Damage Comparison: 17,029 Difference

Water Build (Nirvana) Damage Dealt

• 1.19 Assassin: 53,949
• Flow of Fate's Assassin: 64,376
• Damage Comparison: 10,427 Difference

Hopes this helps with your suggestion. I will also say that trying out your version was much more fun than both the 1.19 and the current Assassin. Much more fast paced. I like it! :D

 

Yeah, those look good. That Nirvana at roughly the same dps as it currently would be, but more interesting to play.

Edit: yes, I took into account the build.

 

I take back what I said, after a whole day of thinking, I have a fairly good idea of what I want to do with the warrior class.

 

so assassin is less mobile now, how does this new vanish work exactly? what was so wrong with the previous vanish that it needed a change?
also while I completely agree with your suggested changes, do you have any faith in them being applied?
very useful thread thanks

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I feel like assassin is going to have the problems that the previous warrior had, its spells wont match its range and mobility

 

New vanish is basically current vanish but it only lasts 5 seconds

IMO nothing was really wrong with vanish in its current state but the devs don’t seem to like the super long invis for whatever reason

And honestly not really much faith so far given that no CT member has acknowledged this thread