Game Mechanics Roving Assassin should be overhauled

Roving Assassin is one of the few Major ID's made before 2.0, and it shows because it seems like it's trying to do the complete opposite thing of the weapon it is attached to, Weathered.

Weathered has many traits that make it a prime canadate for an Acrobat weapon. The air damage, the average dps being good for spellspamming, the walkspeed, and the whole thing with it being an Agility weapon means that it can make use of skills like Parry.

But Roving Assassin throws a wrench into the design, and makes it look more like a Shadestepper weapon, which, while it CAN be used for that, it misses out of most of its potential if you take it in the Shadestepper direction.

The name "Roving Assassin" doesn't make sense anymore, too, as the word "roving" would imply constant movement, like what Acrobat does, but instead, you spend more of your time waiting for Vanish to go off cooldown. Despite this, I don't think it should be changed to an Acrobat Major ID, as Hanafubuki already sort of does this.

What I suggest is that Roving Assassin gets a change to how it effects gameplay with Vanish. The best Major ID's tend to mix up gameplay. And I think I know the best way to do it!

Roving Assassin, before 2.0, was great because it negated the mana drain that Vanish did, meaning that you could effectively stay in Vanish forever as long as you didn't attack. And I think this should be brought back:

Roving Assassin: Vanish's timer will freeze as long as you are constantly moving, but the duration is halfed.

As long as you are moving, Vanish's timer will freeze, and will last indefinitely as long as you keep moving, playing into the "roving" part. The halfed Vanish duration is to further incentivise the player to keep moving, as they only have about 2.5 second of time where they don't have to move, so quick decision making is a must.

As long as Vanish's timer is frozen, so too will thing like Shadow Travel and Surprise Strike will be saved until a spell is casted, to which vanish will end. So that means that Shadow Travel would be a good alternative to flying with Acrobat, as you would basically have 120% extra Walkspeed all the time outside of combat.

This would make the process of getting large damage from Backstab + Surpise Strike + Satsujin + Wind Prison easier, too, as you no longer have to worry about getting Wind Prison, and angling yourself behind the enemy within the 5 second window of vanish, and the timer on Wind Prison is the only thing you have to worry about.

This could also maybe play into some unique Acro/Stepper trees, because Acrobat is kinda always moving, so you could maybe come up with a "Stealth" or "Ninja" kind of playstyle, where you have reduced aggro from Vanish to do whatever. It still probably wouldn't be viable, but it's a neat concept.

Other than that, I think the current version of Roving Assassin should have its named changed, and put onto a different item. Maybe a fabeled weapon or hard to build with armor piece.

 

this seems kinda OP, no other ideas on how to balance it lol

 

Isn't being able to fly INSIDE combat just as powerful w/ Acrobat?

 

i mean...acrobat cant fly anytime else easily...weapons are mostly for combat

it just seems like at that point there is no difference between +120% walkspeed on weathered and this, right?
i mean outside of combat

 

I suggest that this new version of rover assassin only freezes the timer while you are sprinting, so it isn't infinite. otherwise i kinda agree that the weathered major id seems out of place

 

Was just about to say this lol. Sprinting would be more balanced imo.

Though I do think that an acrobat related major id would fit better on weathered instead of something related to Vanish. Not sure what that could be though. But I like this idea also, it’s much better than the current one i think xD