Assassin's Ability Tree is...Not Good.

This is going to be a bit more of a ramble of a post than all of my past works combined - including that infamous one about boredom - so apologies if this comes off as disorganized or overly negative.

I'm disappointed that Shadestepper isn't allowed to have more emphasis on Vanish. That's what Pre-2.0 Assassin does best, and now it's been nerfed out of relevancy. Additionally, the other two Archetypes feel like they're supposed to be for a Rogue class rather than the Assassin I knew and loved.

I understand that the developers aimed for a different angle with Assassin, by giving them a more basic Archetype as the middle between two seemingly-insane ones, but it just doesn't feel worth it.

Usually when I hypothesize what hybrid playstyles I could set goals for, the problem is that an Ability bans the use of another (Assassin), a lack of Archetype Points (Shaman), or that the Abilities in question just don't synergize together (Boltslinger X Sharpshooter).

But exclusive to Assassin is the un-lovely notion that I straight up don't want what most of the Tree has to offer...And it's on the main path to the things I DO want.

For example, the fastest route you can take to reach Shurikens is through Trickster, which I'm sure is versatile, but honestly really boring-sounding. Additionally, you're forced to pick up Echo, which subsequently ruins the aesthetic of Shurikens by being more of a Shuriken Storm than a precise, deadly throw. If I wanted dozens of projectiles filling my viewpoint, I'd play Archer. If I wanted to spam Spells, Mage exists, and if I wanted shields which negate damage, I'd go play Splatoon 2 and use Ink Armor kits, because it'd take a lot to convince me Paladin Warrior is more worth my time than that.

A big nail in Acrobat's coffin for me is that the glide is not very good, also. There are ZERO ways to refresh it other than not using it - which, come to think of it, is also Shadestepper Vanish's problem. There's never a loophole like there is with the other Classes, and that means you're forced to build around suppressing the limitations instead of embracing them for something funnier. Imagine if Mage couldn't cast Spells while a Meteor's falling - wouldn't that be terrible? It'd get even worse if nothing in the ability tree - except maybe something random halfway down Riftwalker which wasn't programmed to help it, but it looks like it'd help - didn't give you the speed upgrade...ever.

Assassin - in my eyes - is supposed to be the very highest single-target, small-AoE damager in the game, with a side dish of Smoke Bombs to threaten and gradually kill enemies which are out of range, like how you'd use a Sub-Weapon Bomb in Splatoon 1-3. Throwing Smoke Bombs to butter up an enemy with debuffs before a killing blow just sounds wrong to me when Vanish already exists.

On that note, why doesn't Vanish have ANY statistical upgrades in the tree? Haul gets a handful of well-placed Discounts, Nature's Jolt, Frog Dance, and is half of the free Totem-Haul Loop. Teleport is just incredibly strong, being able to escape situations and incoming projectiles literally scot-free, and even gets Damage upgrades. Charge, if you invest in it enough, turns Warrior into a fighter jet...But after Silent Killer, there's basically nothing which upgrades Vanish, while every other Class has all kinds of upgrades for their primary mobility spell. And if it's a matter of chaining mobility upgrades to the ultimate mobility Archetype of each Class...Why does Acolyte have Blood Connection? Arcanist being allowed Teleport? It's also frustrating for Mana Steal and Life Steal to be more or less mandatory to have long, consecutive chains of Vanishes, when it's basically a worse Shaman in several ways.

I see a lot of writing on the wall, and it says I'm just a fool for expecting better. I know Rekindled is a thing, but I'm honestly not optimistic.

 

Vanish was nerfed because it was incredibly broken. Just because assassin vanish was powerful pre 2.0 does not mean that it was healthy balance wise.
You haven't seen much of 2.1's balance changes, so there might be tweaks and such that you find favorable.

 

Okay yeah, in (*un)fairness...

...I just ran from Detlas to Almuj in under a minute flat with Shadow Travel. If I'd thought of the concept of a Class with a super-strong start to their Tree while in a better mood, I'd probably have outlined the possibilities in the original post.

*The games I consider the best are ones which you can sorta break, but also enjoy playing the way it was intended to be played. My hybrids always push the boundaries of my current point in the game, and I accept there's a good chunk of risk to not sticking with one solid playstyle all the time.

 

One thing i cant help but agree on is that without vanish active shadestepper is usually a sitting duck, without the dash itself getting any buffs unlike other classes that do at least get something in their movement spell, you can't even go out of your way to get something cool (one thing i always fantasized about was shaddestepper with righting reflex, however it gets blocked by backstab or multihit and its just super limited), assassin feels like the most limited to me when you're shadestepper, when you're trickster or acrobat you can get a few cool abilities from those trees.

But shadestepper can't get anything useful without massive sacrifices, to the point you wouldn't even be able to have satsujin if you wanted movement, even though other classes have insanely overpowered abilities AND movement while being blocked by nothing, even archer's grappling hook is extremely convinient to take, you can snatch it without any sacrifices.

For shade you need to charge up your marks slowly, pray the enemy doesn't have the movement speed of a warp mage so that you can get inside the delirious gas, then wait for vanish to recharge only to then miss the attack because the enemy you were trying to hit is too fast or moves randomly when they cant see you, while other classes can shred everything on the fly, its frustrating how poor shade's movement is and how limed the tree is.

 

Agreed with everything here. Every ability revolves around Vanish, but using it locks you out of 5 seconds of actual gameplay. The thing is, your damage AND mobility is locked behind Vanish and thus locked behind a 5 second cooldown. So every time you want to do either, you're being punished. Not to mention that a lot of abilities are locked behind kills, but all that has been discussed before. Hopefully, we'll see more changes in the beta besides Shadow Siphon, because it looks like just another bandaid fix that doesn't actually address any of the archetype's core issues.

I feel like the 5 seconds cooldown just wasn't the right was to go about nerfing Vanish. It fucks will almost all of the possible gameplay with Shadestepper, only excluding Marked or something. It could drain more mana while you're vanished, it doesn't matter. But a cooldown is just not the right solution because it locks damage, meaningful gameplay, and any good mobility behind a 5 second cooldown every time you try to do any of those, which makes playing Shade just feel shitty. The archetype needs a full rework, but sadly it sounds like that's not what we're getting in 2.1. But maybe with the raised level cap in Fruma we'll get that lol.

 

I think you put my thoughts on words, shadestepper is a class that is only playable in a 5 second cooldown, especially during bosses without any minions, a rework would be the best thing shade could get, the game rn is really unwelcoming to builds without movement, and this will only get worse with 2.1

 

I don't even mind the 5 second cooldown on vanish, why does shadestepper need so much setup for such mid damage.

 

Honestly, I agree, And I have been using my level 105.5 Assassin for a WS% build, (Really just to get to places quickly, not much else..)
I know that they moved things around on the Ability Tree for assassins just after the update, however, just like @AcadeeAlkana said, there aren't many ways to use the assassin's skills as is, and the "ShadeStepper" is almost worthless in its current state, and Vanish only has one way (That I know of) to break the 5-second cooldown, and that would be "Silent Killer" which requires you to kill an enemy, but that doesn't help when you are fighting a 1 on 1 Boss battle...
and the only way to get that is by going through "Suprise Strike" which requires a minimum of 3 SSA points, which means that you have to go into the Thunder or Earth Mastery, if not both, which makes it all the harder to make a WS% Air build and still have Vanish in a usable capacity (AKA "Shadow Travel")...

In a way, I feel like the Assassin has become on par with the Warrior in this last update, and not in a good way...
The Ability Tree almost forces you to go down a path, and then when you get to the end it doesn't make things much better, the only way that I know of to make it work is to spread out the points so that you have at least a semi usable all-around build, but that means that you can't get use of the abilities at the bottom of the tree...
And you end up making so many compromises that you aren't sure if you want to try to make it work, or to just throw the whole tree out the window!

I didn't mean for this to end up sounding like a rant but...
Thanks for listening!

 

Right now, shadestepper feels like worse pre-2.0 assassin frankly. In pre-2.0 assassin, you vanished, came up to an enemy, executed a high-damage combo, then vanished and backed off for a second and repeated. With shadestepper you build up marks, vanish, come up to an enemy, execute a single, high-damage attack which can be easily missed if the enemy turns, then wait for 5 seconds before you get to do anything. Because building up marks typically kills anything that isn't a boss, the actual gameplay is pretty boring when you're fighting anything that isn't a boss. When you are fighting a boss, the slow gameplay makes it really boring, since the actual amount of time you spend doing the fun part (vanishing and doing massive damage) takes less time than the cooldown, and while the cooldown is active the archetype has basically nothing to fill in the gap, so you're effectively just sitting there not doing anything archtype specific. You can build up marks again, but that's just you fighting an enemy normally with no archeytpe mechanics; it doesn't feel like cool shadestepper gameplay. In fact, the actual shadestepper bit feels unnecessary. Basically the combat gameplay loop is non-archetype-exclusive gameplay followed by archtype-exclusive gameplay that seems to be worse than the non-exclusive. Compared to trickester and acrobat, which have continuous archetype-specific actions you can be doing that feel rewarding, it's just kinda boring. It's like not taking an archetype except you sometimes get to do an attack that does a bit more damage.

I think what it needs is something to make it actually worth using over either of the other two, especially if you don't just want to use heavy melee. It's terrible at dealing with multiple enemies, but also is generally not a ton better or is even worse at single-target dps than the either trickster or acrobat. I feel like getting rid of the vanish cooldown, or adding a better way to reduce it would help (honestly I think the old system of it having no cooldown but constantly draining you mana would work the best), as would decrease the downtime between bits of gameplay. Bringing back the 1 second of damage bonus instead of one attack would also really help I think, as it would improve the damage immensely, especially for non-heavy-melee builds, and make the actual gameplay more exciting. If they also made spin attack momentarily stun an enemy, would allow a really useful combo with backstab, since that would become easier to land without the enemy swinging around randomly, making that an effective combo. Really, it just needs somethign to make the gameplay more exciting and to remove the downtime between actual gameplay.

 

Spin attack stun is something that should be so fundamental for shadestepper and just isnt there, blazing powder actually makes shade worse since it makes an enemy flail around randomly instead of keeping them in place

 

I think Assassin is the worst class in the game. I find that every archetype feels unsatisfying or awkward to play, but I'm gonna focus on Acrobat for this post.

Acrobat: I compare Acrobat to Battle Monk, because playstyle wise they're both about fast movement and spell combos. But Acrobat just feels worse, and I think a huge part of that is because the movement is not nearly as controllable as Battle Monk.

For example, Battle Monk has Whirlwind Strike to lift you off the ground, Charge to move around in the air, and Aerodynamics which lets you control your movement mid-flight. Flying Kick also affects your movement by stopping you, but its hitbox is small enough so that its usage feels deliberate and controllable. Any decent player can pick up Battle Monk and learn to use its movement mechanics with relative ease, because each ability provides a movement mechanic that is unique and well defined. Because of this, I think Battle Monk feels really good to play at endgame.

Now compare this to Acrobat, where you have Dash, Hop, Righting Reflex, Pirouette, and Lacerate, all of which alter movement. Dash and Hop do the same thing, Righting Reflex keeps you in the air, while Pirouette and Lacerate both launch you into the air (though arguably the latter is inconsistent). None of the movement mechanics with the exception of Righting Reflex have a clearly defined purpose. Why do you need Hop when you have Dash? Why does Lacerate have forced movement that accomplishes something similar to Pirouette?

Thankfully though, I think it's pretty easy to improve Acrobat with a few minor changes:
- Remove Lacerate's forced movement.
- Make Wall Jump work off of Dash, and rework Hop to be an ability that launches you straight up into the air. Daredevil major ID increases Dash's horizontal speed instead.

This way, your movements are more defined with Dash and Pirouette launching you forwards, Hop launching you upwards, and Righting Reflex keeping you midair. I think this would massively improve the feel of the archetype, as now the use cases of each ability are easy for the player to understand and work with mid-combat.

 

Pirouette does not launch you forward.

would be awkward.

Hop isn't a combat ability, you use to scale walls and mountains when you run out of dash's vertical momentum or during lacerate to keep you moving. Hop also doesn't have to vertical momentum rules that dash does.

The whole idea of lacerate is to move you. You may as well remove it from the tree.

This is very subjective.
I spent hours trying to figure out how to uppercut surf because whirlwind strike's mechanics are inconsistent. On a slab? Sorry, you can't lift off. You also can't use it more than once sometimes, but sometimes you can use it twice. To add to that, it's a lot more mana intensive, and charge acting like elytra in a sense that it turns you into a missile that uses direction to control movement makes it harder to stop mid-air and harder not to continuously crash into everything.
You're also claiming that acrobat's mechanics are unclear because multiple abilities 'do the same thing'. Well, I'll tell you right here:
They.
Do.
Not.
lacerate - dash - hop - repeat is for staying in the air and avoiding damage. If you think dash will keep you in the air because of pirouette, you're wrong and about to find out as you crash to the ground and get multihit-ed to death. If you just dash again, you won't do it fast enough without a high cps and you run the risk of running out of mana thanks to lacerate costing too much too quickly.
multihit - dash - (pirouette from the dash) - shurikens - repeat is for single target focus on one enemy to do lots of damage. If you think lacerate can function the same role as pirouette, you will fly into the air and lose about 2 seconds falling.
And, unlike Battle Monk, acrobat's mechanics are consistent. Dash always functions the same. Pirouette also always functions the same. You can say that for lacerate, righting reflex, and hop. You can't say that about whirlwind strike. You can't even say the aerodynamics's description tells you that uppercut surfing requires it.

 

I think that Shadestepper could benefit from a 'Backstab' rework. Instead of having the hit an enemy from behind (impossible with bosses like TCC and The Eye) and relying largely on RNG to hope that an enemy doesn't just randomly decide to face you, I suggest this:
Backstab ----> Smoke attack: Attacking an enemy from inside smoke bomb increases your damage greatly.
The damage increase would be identical, but this would remove the RNG of backstab, it works thematically (attacking when unseen), and it still relies on skill (placing a smoke bomb optimally, getting inside it and being able to conserve enough mana to pull off a decent attack from inside it.)

 

Acrobat isn’t really as inconsistent as you seem to think. Though the mechanics may be less straightforward than they are on Battle Monk, they work together really well if you know how to use them. Lacerate can be used in tandem with an upwards Dash to gain a ton of height, and I mean a ton. Then, you can combine Lacerate, Hop, and Dash to stay airborne, since Dash combined with Lacerate’s second jump boosts you forward and Hop keeps you airborne.

It’s not true that Hop and Dash serve the same purpose at all. It’s also not true that Pirouette and Lacerate accomplish the same thing. Lacerate is used mainly for movement, and though it doesn’t do a lot on its own, it can be combined with every other movement ability in the archetype’s tree to improve them and use them in unique ways.

Removing Lacerate’s movement would ruin the archetype, since you would not be able to fly at all without that ability. As Elytry said, you might as well just get rid of the node itself. Acrobat just has a fairly high skill floor and a nigh infinite skill ceiling, which may make it seem really complex at first. But once you get used to flying, it gets much easier to use the many abilities together.

I recommend that you mess around with the archetype a little in a housing plot with infinite mana enabled. There’s a lot of ways to play acro and make it work for you. You can also check out Looni’s video on Acrobat flight on youtube if you want.

 

well, it launches you up and forward

I find it useful in combat but I probably play acrobat in a different way than you. What I do is lacerate + multi + hop and the hop resets your vertical momentum so that lacerate's vertical boost is more effective (similar to using leap before arrow storm), and using this I can fly infinitely in combat

 

hmm, interesting.
i did mention that hop can be used in tandem with lacerate as well

 

it doesn't actually, it just carries over your momentum from whenever you used it. so if you dash into an enemy, you'll keep going forward, but if you are unmoving and look straight down and pirouette you'll only go up

 

really? ive done some funny tricks where i dash into an enemy then 180 and it sends me in the direction im facing

 

hmm, maybe it does boost you forward a little. but if it does, it has to be based on where you're facing, because you can look straight down and pirouette straight up. i'll have to try that though cause that actually sounds fun

 

Is Shadestepper really the worst archetype? Ever since 2.0, I haven’t seen another archetype get more criticism than Shadestepper.