ASSASSIN NEEDS HELP

GGG, Assassins need some help.

Too many historical nerfs to daggers, crit multi, elusive skills, etc.

Assassin has fallen behind other classes. Nearly every league, he is one of the least-picked ascendancies.

My suggested changes below.

For other Assassin players - what do you think?

Let me know if I mixed up anything:



MISTWALKER



- Problem: "If you already have an Elusive buff, you cannot gain Elusive".

- This prevents poison Assassins being able to use this node with Withering Step.

- Yes there is a new way to apply Wither from Unholy Might - but Wither is extremely important for poison builds beginning from Act 1 in campaign, and we can't access Unholy Might in the typical ways (cluster jewel) or sustain it (Sin flask) until end game - so poison Assassins rely on Withering Step from campaign all the way to end-game.

- Suggestion: make Withering Step usable when you already have Elusive but have it not refresh existing Elusive.




UNSTABLE INFUSION



- Decent node.




DEADLY INFUSION



- Problem: Damage is too low on this node.

- I remember crit multi got a massive nerf on the tree many years ago.

- If Assassin is the crit class, why can't it be the one to get very high crit multi?

- At 10 power charges, this node gives 50% crit multi - that is too small.

- If Power Siphon can give +20% crit multi per power charge, and +30% crit multi per power charge at 20% quality, why is Assassin only able to get +5% per power charge as THE crit ascendancy?

-There is not enough crit multi on the rest of the Assassin to justify this node being so low at +5% per charge, as he only gets +20% crit multi from 2x small nodes and +40% crit multi against enemies on full life from Ambush & Assassinate- which is useless for rares and bosses and only good for trash mobs, which builds are one shotting ANYWAY.

- Suggestion: give more damage and let this node live up to its name of "Deadly Infusion" -> by increasing the crit multi to like +10% or +15% crit multi per charge.




OPPORTUNISTIC



- Well designed node, good defense, and decent dps when you need it.




AMBUSH & ASSASSINATE



- Problem: Enemy Full Life condition is pointless. Low Life conditional mod is unnecessary

- I get it, it's supposed to be for "ambushing" and "assassinating" - but no one plays like that in PoE

- Too many conditional mods here - low life, full life, low life .... it's not helping

- Full life conditional mods are useless as they don't apply for rares and bosses that need multiple hits. For any enemy you are destroying with one or two hits - these conditions become pointless

- Culling strike is great

- In order to compete with Opportunistic, this node needs to have more damage than the 25% more from Opportunistic as a trade-off for not having any defense like Opportunistic

- Overall I feel this node should be giving like 40%+ more damage

- Suggestion: remove the conditional mods, just give it "50% more crit strike chance" + "15% more dmg with hits and ailments" + "Crits have culling strike"




NOXIOUS STRIKE



- Problem: Pathfinder is doing way better with poison than Assassin, while having very strong defenses.

- Suggestion: increase duration poison buff - either increase maximum to 200% inc. poison duration, or revert it to being unlimited. There is a DoT cap anyway - one way to reach it is from scaling duration so let Assassins be rewarded if they spend resources to be able to apply many poisons to generate this buff (spell or melee).




TOXIC DELIVERY



- Problem: The node is good but I feel it could do with a little damage boost.

- Suggestion: Increase to 30% more dmg for poison from crits.




DAGGERS



- A long time ago daggers were very good

- But they have been extremely weak for many years now

- Problem: daggers are outclassed by claws as the implicit on claws is too good for sustain and survivability, + the crit implicits on daggers were nerfed a long time ago and never reverted, + dagger nodes are too weak

- Adder's Touch notable enabling crits with daggers to poison - seems superfluous as a poison dagger build will go Assassin which is getting some poison chance from Noxious Strike, and Tattoos are now core - unlocking another source of poison chance.

- Backstabbing notable for 100% inc. crit chance against enemies on Full Life is pointless, as mentioned above.

- Dagger mastery for +100% crit multi against enemies on Full Life is pointless, as mentioned above.

- Suggestion 1: buff dagger nodes, give them more damage, remove Full Life condition mods, give them more crit multi, or add utility to 1 or 2 dagger notables like blind on hit etc.

- Suggestion 2: to compete with claw implicit for survivability, introduce a new dagger base type that has like 20%, 30%, 40% inc. elusive effect as implicit.

I honestly love these kinds of posts, but yeah assassin needs some help.

Maybe if they made the ambush node make enemies always count as full life or low life. This way some other stuff becomes niche to assassin. Maybe make it a choice. It would be more interesting than some sort of weird niche where you deal less damage if an enemy is hurt at all (this means melee builds lose 40% crit multi and 15% damage if the totem hits before them).

I wish GGG at least made the ascendancies on par with each other instead of one is 40-50% weaker because they made melee good 12 leagues ago, /s but not really.

I have been theory crafting a slam exert assassin for awhile, and it never has the legs to actually do anything on paper. The tree position is awkward for melee, a lot of melee enablers are by the glad/jugg area. It is kind of the problem that raider has, all the good tree areas for those kinds of builds are too far away to really justify.

punishment would be broken if a mob could always be considered being a low life.