Game Mechanics Buff Assassin

The standard in games is that melee classes should have better stats than ranged ones, since ranged classes have more consistent target access and can kite enemies, while melee classes need to put themselves at risk and must consistently close the gap between them and their targets. This is already reflected by melee classes having higher base defenses, but they should also generally deal more damage since their range is shorter and they won't always be in range to deal their damage.

I think a big contributor to why mage and archer are tons more popular in the late game than any other class is because of how their range makes them consistent. Inversely, assassin's short range makes it a particularly risky class, and its damage is currently not doing it justice. The exception to this is acrobat, which has both range and mobility. Heavy melee shade also finds some use, not only due to its safe and consistent playstyle, but also because of its incredible burst damage being enough of a tradeoff for its small range.

Bamboozle trickshade is... there. I still don't know if it's actually strong enough to be on par with acrobat or hmelee shade, but its biggest selling point is Bamboozle being tons more reliable to hit than Backstab, which is another point to good range being a factor for viability.


(Backstab requires you to aim directly at the target, while you can simply use Bamboozle while facing in the target's general direction)

Thus, I think spell shade and full trickster should be buffed a little, as they are pretty unpopular compared to other assassin trees. I don't know if there's any planned dev time changes to address this, but right now I want to suggest small buffs just to make them a bit more appealing to use.

Spoiler: Shadestepper

All shadestepper builds are bursty in nature, and only differs in the main damage ability they use: Backstab for spell shade, Quake powder special for heavy melee shade, and Bamboozle for spell trickshade. Alongside Bamboozle's aoe and Quake's burst, I believe there's another factor that contributes to spell shade being a lot less popular than the other shade-related trees: durability.

The durability that comes from either trickshade clones (for trickshade) or the amount of Defense (the skill point) naturally found in heavy melee builds (for hmelee shade) provides a bigger window for offense, and allows players to be more comfortable taking risks to deal damage. Meanwhile, not only does spell shade have minimal innate defense from Dissolution, but also requires a risky playstyle of maximizing Shadow Siphon, even while outside of Vanish, just to have good dps and Vanish access.


(When using Backstab to exit Vanish, it is common practice to cast Backstab twice as it is the easiest way to trigger Shadow Siphon multiple times in a single Vanish cycle)

While Backstab (with Satsujin) can deal absurd amounts of damage equal to that of Bamboozle with Echo, both its small range and spell shade's weak defenses makes it more challenging to produce these good results consistently. This is especially the case when uncontrolled variables are at play, such as other players.


(Unlocking Echo increases Bamboozle's damage by a ton, with a total of 1200% damage. Backstab with Satsujin only deals 1000% damage, although unlike spell trickshade, you'll have access to Better Marked through Satsujin. This means Backstab with Satsujin relatively deals 1240% damage at 6 Marks, which is slightly better than Bamboozle with Echo.)

This can be addressed by giving shade more abilities that can make Backstab more consistent in any given situation. However, these take time to implement or even come up with, since you'll need to consider its interactions and implications with the rest of the ability tree. In the meantime, a buff to Backstab's damage can act as a temporary buff to shade, if only to make it a bit more popular.



Buffing Backstab's base damage might make shadestepper too powerful in the early/mid game, while adding a "Stronger Backstab" node might make spell shade's ap too strict. So I decided to give it more damage once Satsujin is unlocked, similar to how unlocking Echo buffs Bamboozle.

Shadestepper can also receive qol changes instead, such as:
- A burst of speed upon triggering Shadow Siphon, allowing reliable hit-and-runs
- Stronger crowd control, such as roots or slows, to prevent sudden movements while Backstab is being cast
- An ability that makes Backstabs count as successful from other conditions, e.g. if the enemy is under a certain health threshold

Spoiler: Trickster

The recent nerf to Flow State and the adjustments to clone damage equalized the power levels of trickobat and full trickster: Even Stronger Clones gives +5% damage per clone, which totals to +35% damage at 6 clones (plus your own spell cast), which is the same amount of damage Flow State provides. This means that the main distinction between the two trees is trickobat's mana sustain from Weightless and full trickster's durability from Diversion.


(Even Stronger Clones is locked behind Diversion, trickster's third red node. This makes it the damage alternative to Flow State when going for a full trickster tree)

I think this is a great start to making these two playstyles equally viable, with Weightless and Diversion being the levers to make either tree relatively stronger or weaker. However, this resurfaced an old problem: base trickster's damage is pretty weak to begin with.

It's only fair for trickster to deal a bit less damage due to its natural durability from clones and strong crowd control from Blazing Powder, Luring, and Hoodwink. However from my experience, the archetype deals too little damage and is too unrewarding to play, especially when other trees like hmelee shade and acrobat have both good damage and survivability. I believe that trickster has ample room for more damage.



Buffing Spin Attack's damage should buff both trickster and trickobat, as it is their main damage spell. I decided to have Hoodwink give the buff because neither shadestepper nor acrobat takes this node for any reason, while both trickster and trickobat trees always take it. This way, the buff to Spin Attack's damage is exclusive to these trees, and won't unnecessarily buff other trees.

I also increased its trickster archetype requirement to prevent the side archetypes from poaching this ability for its damage buff.

My main goal here is to make spell shade, full trickster, and trickobat as popular as the other assassin builds. I decided to give them more damage, as I believe their gameplay is already pretty good and they mainly need more oomph in terms of results. This allows these trees to keep their distinct features, while still making them more rewarding to play given their natural flaws as a part of a smaller-ranged class.

This would also make all assassin trees (full shade, trickshade, full trickster, trickobat, full acrobat) equally viable and popular, which is a sign of a healthy ability tree.

linebreaklinebreaklinebreaklinebreaklinebreaklinebreaklinebreak​

Thank you so much for reading! This is a lot different than my usual posts about game design, so I would greatly appreciate your feedback! Feel free to leave your thoughts on the comments and vote in the poll. And don't forget to like the post if you think it was helpful or insightful! You can also check out my signature for other cool posts I've made in the past (though they're pretty old now lol).

 

Classic Crispy Wildfire W

buff shadestepper

 

BUFF SHADESTEPPER

 

bro changed his signature

 

those posts are old af now I wanna put them in an archive

 

he woke up

 

I RETURN from my SLUMBER (I honestly dk how long this will last lmao)

 

buff acro damage PLS

 

Yeahhh, I said in the post that acro is relatively fine but,

I posted this in wynncord to have more discussion and learned that people mostly only think that acrobat is good because of Hanafubuki, the new mythic dagger.

Assassin might need a blanket buff, and not just a few buffs to some of its branches.

 

I think that full trickster needs a diversion buff or comleat rework to be good
Also I played bamboozle trickster and it probably can be good with shadestepper mythic but without it I was loosing clones before I could vanish again (at least in raids meyby it can work in solo content like EO or LI

 

I went and made a whole new profile just to test trickster's gameplay feel and figure out its flaws. Though I don't think a full rework is necessary. The gameplay is just awkward and unclear, but imo it's still there. It just needs some anti-macrospam mechanics and a better gameplay loop.

I gotta say though, Bamboozle is a really weird ability. Ik it's best to use it with your last clone but idk, the fact that 1) its available all the time, and 2) there's no easy way of telling how many clones you have unless you're in f5, just puts Bamboozle in this awkward spot where you never really know if it's the right time to cast it. Trickshade completely ignores this cuz Bamboozle is your main damage spell anyway so you just use it with every clone you have.

And yeah, it's wayy too easy to lose all your clones at once. That gotta be addressed.

 

No, I meant that Diversion, trickster final ability needs a big buff or a complete rework. When I read my message from earlier it sound like I meant that trickster needs a rework rather that full trickster is not good because of bad final ability. My bad I am bad at english lol

 

Oh I see.

Ok honestly though, Diversion is pretty strong already. I have an etw trickster build and Diversion + Distraction got me playing like I'm a tank. I think people are missing out, not exploiting that with glassy builds.

________________________________

Anyway, I have additional thoughts about trickster.

I realized how unwise this would be without monitoring Nirvana's performance in trickster first.

I think the biggest selling point of spin attack is, while it doesn't have the best damage scaling, it's spammable. Its cast time to completion (the second spin) is very short, which means you can just spam spin attack and not miss out on dps. This is exactly what is making trickster gameplay so encouraging of macro. This is also why players don't want to play trickster without enough sustain: they feel like can't utilize spin attack's full potential.

I'd say just add like triple spin lmao, but people really liked how the Hellfire mID turned bash into a single, massive strike (most likely cuz they can spam it more without missing out on dps).

Without cooldown on spells, it's not so important to be mindful with your spellcasts, so lots of meta builds are utilizing mana sustain and smaller spell costs to maximize that. But I think that's a really unhealthy design that makes players feel like they gotta be constantly using spells, lest they "don't play it right".

I wish players were more encouraged to space out their spell casts, not only to account for mana since people would just build more mana, but also as a part of the core gameplay loop. Aura, multihit, quad bash, heal, twain's arc, phantom ray; these abilities add waiting and timing as an organic part of gameplay. It allows you to focus on the environment, use other spells, or even use your main attack which is so overshadowed rn with how much players feel like they have to be using spells all the time. It just gives players space to breathe, which is so so important.

More mindful spellcasting, less mindless spellspam.

 

Update: damage is monitored with Cataclysm. Conclusion: buff assassin

 

bump assassin

 

buff
assassin

 

Buff shadestepper

 

chat, they finally buffed assassin. I'll see myself out

 

I guess they buffed shade but also heavily nerfed trickacro (weightless cooldown and strength effect change) and nerfed acro (strength effect change, weightless changes balance out)
edit: after some calculations weightless changes actually are a pretty significant nerf so theres that

 

I talked about my thoughts on the acro changes in wynncord. I ain't sending it all here but essentially I think the weightless change is good and the damage buff changes is uh interesting (mostly a nerf to tricko than anything, but also parry ig). Combined with the hana bugfix, this should put acrobat's performance down to that of the other archetypes, which at least makes blanket buffing assassin more predictable?

Idk the numbers are lost on me, but systemically they're both great changes for long-term which should set assassin up for a simpler buff with more predictable results.

________________________________

Though I can't help but feel worried about tricko. It should be as viable as the other assassin options, but dgas and flow state overlapping is quite a blow on it, especially considering how unpopular it already is rn (I'm not saying they should revert the change though). I wonder if ct would feel more comfortable reverting some of echo's nerf to weightless since tricko won't have as much damage anymore.

Overall, I wanna see what ct is planning to do with tricko. I have no idea what they're doing with it.