Do assassins get some kind of inherent boost to defenses? Just seems crazy how a lowbie unarmed assassin can be almost impossible to hit even with weapons that are supposedly hard to dodge/parry and they don't know.

they had some sort of roleplay

that aside, i think the hide timer should be lengthened


anyway, i agree with tac, assassins (and paladins) are the main classes that need a class exp penalty.

Ironically, some of us were having a discussion about assassins earlier today.

The answer is no. Assassins have a lot of defensive skills and get them early on, and of course tend to have high dexterity (and in many cases decent strength too). They also have good weapon options.

Add all that up and you get good melee defense, especially once skill percentages get up there.

For whatever reason, I have always found maces to be the go-to assassin killer (over flails). Especially if you have boneshatter to maledict them.

Which hasn't really ever made sense to me. Daev once said that axes? were the hardest to dodge? Which doesn't match my experience at all, my arial was able to dodge axes way easier than maces (un-maledicted)

I assume that assassins pretty much can only dodge axe/mace since they don't learn those weapon skills. Any particular reason why maces seem so great vs them as compared to axes?

Boneshatter is a better malediction than whirl is probably the most noticeable variable. Another pretty large one is that cranial can, in a lot of situations, get you trip lag where pincer is always 3/2 which allows the assassin more opportunity to escape.

nt

They tank so well that if they keep their weight down you probably can't kill them with melee anyway. You'll need a finisher move like burst damage imho. H2h spec isn't bad against them.

And oh I guess hand specs as well.

Axes stopped raping when they changed weapon dodge variables...a while ago.

Axe and mace are very similar in their difficulty to dodge. One thing I don't know but would be curious to know is what the difference is between the weapon weights of axes and maces in real fights. If your typical axe wielder is averaging a 30lb weapon while the typical mace user is rocking a 15lb weapon, that might be something to consider. Otherwise it should boil down to spec skills and other factors like that.

Thanks for the answer. Do you think one of the reasons why they seem so untouchable now was whatever tweaks were made to how well different weapons could be dodged? In the past axe/mace/flail all weapons they don't know would smack them around at least, now it seems like it makes no difference. Anyway hope you guys tone them down some at the lower levels.

I think part of the thing we are seeing with assassins lately has to do with changes to class based XP. Assassins no longer have a penalty, so a human assassin can now fight consistently lower level people than previous.

So by, say, 21, you've got an assassin with stealth, dual wield, third attack, and throw fighting 15-21 level enemies. In those cases, an assassin can just throw them to death. Their enemies can't absorb the damage of throw and don't have high damage to throw in return. Other characters at that level really don't have any way to defend themselves against that.

Contrast that with a thief who will only have second attack and wouldn't even have cheap shot (and when they do won't do as much damage).

I repeatedly asked about what factors go into throw when I was playing Defl because Yiralis, Cain, and Hireleu were routinely throwing me to death. Note that I was playing a defensive warrior spec that (most of the time) had stat loss covered and they could just throw me to death. No fancy tactics, just 3 throws plus ground controls and regular melee hits and I was dead. They out tanked me (which was dissapointing) and outdamaged me with their lagging move. That lagging move can permalag and maledict (as well or better than warrior spec moves) and you can't just quaff fly (or even enlarge) to avoid/mitigate it. Tack on throw edges and you just make an already bad situation worse.

Also worth a mention a 1.5 round opener that maledicts and is stackable (hand specs are jealous).

NT

...and I was a duergar sword spec dude. I was literally created to have at least a slight advantage against assassins, and all that happened was I got 4-rounded through throw perma-lag.

Meanwhile, I would steamroll village warriors who are the type that should have kicked my ass.