Assasinate: Ambush not triggering?

[BartiriX]

Hi,

I'm consistently experiencing issues with Assassinate: Ambush not triggering when using a melee attack on enemies that I'm not in combat with yet.
They don't yet have the surprised status, sure, but is that really the bar here?
I'd assume they'd be surprised as least as much to find a dagger in their back when they're not in a fight (yet), compared to when they're in a fight they didn't expect.

If this is actually intended design, it'd be nice if this would be clarified a bit better in the game. Tooltips generally can feel a little lacking in specifics, and there appears to be no way to figure out how certain interactions are supposed to work.
But that's another, broader point.

Anyone else experiencing unintuitive/bugged/strange behavior like this?

[BartiriX]

Just played around a bit more and it seems that Assassinate: Ambush just isn't guaranteed to trigger outside of combat.
Is this by design or a bug? If it's by design, maybe this should be included in the tooltip.
It sure renders Assassins pretty weak.

[Lasermormor]

It is working, just not the way its seemingly intended to work. There's also other bugs involved by the looks of it.

- If you open up on an enemy with the rogue, the dmgevent comes before the surprise status is set, and thus it doesnt trigger on the first attack, it will however trigger on the 2nd attack. (tho, because you're no longer in stealth, and noone else is near the mob, you dont have advantage and you cant sneak attack)

- The surprise status itself is inconsistent when opening up from melee in stealth, if another mobs line of sight cone covers your position when you open up, mobs seem to just instantly engage after you've done dmg, and no surprise status is set at all. (Im guessing its related again to the surprise status being set after the dmgevent, and because you unstealth prior to sneak attacking, the other mobs see you before the dmgevent happens, and thus surprised isnt set at all)

- Assassin's alacrity is also bugged when the rogue enters an ongoing battle from stealth. If you start combat with a different partymember and trigger the surprised status, while the rogue remains in stealth, the rogue sneak attack from stealth will trigger Assassinate: Ambush, but it will not refresh the action/bonus action upon entering combat with the sneak attack.

So to make this 'semi-work', you make sure no other mobs have their line of sight cone aimed at the mob you want to assassinate, you open up with sneak attack, which wont trigger Assassinate: Ambush, but will trigger suprise and refresh your action/bonus action, and then step afew yards off, restealth with Cunning action: Hide, and sneak attack the mob again which will trigger Assassinate: Ambush.

This is also easiest done with turn-based mode turned on as you engage. Hopefully Larian fixes this before long.