Assassin

[Ignis Imperia]

Hey so, I have 2 assassins in my retinue by now because making everyone bounty hunter, the class I so far enjoy playing the most of all, feels like a bit of an overkill, and I cannot for the life of me make them enjoyable or even really work out to be on the same level of usefulness as my bounty hunters.

Since one of them is assassin by default as their origin, I don't want to respec them as something else and would rather try and make them work somehow, any tips on how to handle an assassin?

My issue with them is they don't feel like they can deliver a whole lot of immediate damage compared to bounty hunters, and since I currently play on normal difficulty, stacking dots is not very strong due to every combat being done in 2-3 rounds.

[spammdc]

1) You can respec your group if it is not working.
2) When I have used Assassin I have used it with a melee build.

Q) Who has the Assassin as an origin?

[Revan619]

Assassin is probably one of the most gear reliant classes in the game to be useful. You can't really have more than one

[Bishop]

I made Kibellah an assassin and she can pretty reliably clear half the map on her turn (well more like on my officer/gramd strategist turn) on unfair.
Tho blade dancer probably doing more heavy lifting here than assassin but stacking lethality and abusing weak points with movement skills that deal damage works just fine for her.

[Ignis Imperia]

Originally posted by spammdc:

1) You can respec your group if it is not working.
2) When I have used Assassin I have used it with a melee build.

Q) Who has the Assassin as an origin?

Marazhai - you can probably still respec him, but he is one already when he joins you and it feels wrong to respec him since it fits him well.

That being said, he's absolute beast at it, made him fully dots based melee dual wielder and he gets about 8 attacks a turn and absolutely shreds anyone

[Red Knight]

I don't always find assassins the most robust, but I don't see them lacking either. I agree with your style of play. I have to keep reminding myself of all the abilities I have and how to maximize them. There was room for everyone when I played this tabletop over a decade ago because of how you could structure the adventures.

[Ignis Imperia]

Originally posted by Revan619:

Assassin is probably one of the most gear reliant classes in the game to be useful. You can't really have more than one

Looking at the gear I equipped Marazhai to make him a good one, I have to agree, I also feel it's a spec far more suited for melee characters, therefore Pasqal was not very good for it (that was my first assassin) as an operative archetype, but soldiers are really good at it. Though one might want to refrain from making strength characters one, it really is primarily agility spec, which Marazhai and Yrliet are really good at.

I still feel Bounty Hunter is better addition to a party though as it has more utility, especially if you use the trap ability and hot on trail, it becomes a utility powerhouse that can also dish out ridiculous amounts of damage with all of its extra turns, extra AP, extra shots & extremely satisfying to use heroic ability.

Assassin feels more like Grand Strategist, it's good, I'd say better than Grand Strategist, but you only want maximum of one in your party if you have a free spot.

My current party composition feels incredibly powerful, though I only play Normal so I guess I shouldn't really talk about composition too much.

In case anyone wants to try it, imma cover it up with spoiler tag to not spoil in a major way. I include a short-ish description with every record as a bit of an explanation of the general idea surrounding the character's role in party.
Me - Operative/Bounty Hunter/Exemplar - bolter + sniper - focused primarily on using penetrating shot with cull the bold on bolter burst fire, the sniper is for priority targets when one is difficult to reach.

Yrliet - Operative/Bounty Hunter/Exemplar - Caligos sniper rifle + shuriken rifle - focused entirely on eliminating priority targets and enemy snipers, usually 1-3 per round, has trap utility, has hot on trail

Marazhai - Soldier/Assassin/Exemplar - toxin mainhand + bleed offhand + 2h klaive as secondary loadout - focused on chaining dots on 2-4 enemies a turn while using danse macabre and slash to exploit weak spots, always applies the assassin buff that makes him lowest priority too

Ulfar - Soldier/Arch-Militant/Exemplar - 1h bolter + chainsword - acts as extremely offensive tank, focused on drawing enemy fire, providing cover, utilizing kick and bolter burst to remove priority enemies from the skirmish and deal heavy damage to groups with burst fire

Heinrix - Soldier/Arch-Militant/Psyker/Exemplar - force sword + stub revolver - doesn't really use his weapons most of the time, entirely focused on pyromancy, utilizing kick to position enemies the way he wants them to set up dots + build versatility, buffs priority allies' toughness, is a power combo with Cassia

Cassia - Navigator/Officer/Master Tactician - still the staff you recruit her cos I didn't find a better castigating one still - focuses on using waking nightmare to debuff priority groups of enemies/bosses and setting them on fire with her cone attack/lane attack/setting up no-go zones to punish snipers so that Heinrix can then use inflame to delete everyone at once, gives extra turns to Heinrix, in late stages of the battle she buffs herself with Press the Advantage to end any stragglers in a single cone attack

I'm not saying it's a particularly good composition, I'm definitely not some build master, just going through the game on normal and having fun with this composition, so thought I'd share it for anyone who wants to try it.

[Revan619]

Honestly gear and talents to proc as many willpower checks as possible with fiend of vheabos VI and malign influence is the only use for Assassin imo.

As it makes a death aura build. Human companions can get an armour to add one , notes on weakness, self calibrating helm/goggles, lethal threat, shearing strikes with double slash boots dual weild, taunting scream and chainsaw for killing edge.

Other than that you require damage to do damage and lethality builds slow.

[Ignis Imperia]

Originally posted by Revan619:

Honestly gear and talents to proc as many willpower checks as possible with fiend of vheabos VI and malign influence is the only use for Assassin imo.

As it makes a death aura build. Human companions can get an armour to add one , notes on weakness, self calibrating helm/goggles, lethal threat, shearing strikes with double slash boots dual weild, taunting scream and chainsaw for killing edge.

Other than that you require damage to do damage and lethality builds slow.

I dunno, no idea how it is on higher difficulties, but on normal I am quite happy with my full melee-focused bleed + toxin focused assassin I have now, I just wish Exemplar had something to support dots and not just direct damage.

I have to admit though that clearly my opinion on the matter should not matter that much considering I to this day have 0 idea how the hell lethality works. I mean, I don't even know how resolve works and where to check how much I have it, so many mechanics I utilize without really knowing what they do. :D

[dwarfpcfan]

I don't pretend to be good good at this game or anything but to me Assassin always seemed built to be a sniper. Straight out the gate Yrlet is capable of doing just so much damage in a single shot with her aldaeri sniper riffle that as soon as she joins she become a mainstay of my party, one shotting or near one shotting far off targets over and over as an assassin.

[Revan619]

Assassin can build lethality a few ways. This is the funniest imo. Most of the support is for melee https://youtu.be/oN1YyCoeU5I?si=OdWQQbedcFbJAx9n

Originally posted by dwarfpcfan:

I don't pretend to be good good at this game or anything but to me Assassin always seemed built to be a sniper. Straight out the gate Yrlet is capable of doing just so much damage in a single shot with her aldaeri sniper riffle that as soon as she joins she become a mainstay of my party, one shotting or near one shotting far off targets over and over as an assassin.

Snipers are low damage because not many talents support it. Assassin's killing edge does damage based on missing health. You apply openings via the gloves for dodging attacks. So ranged assassin's can't effectively get openings to do initial damage to then do their big killing edge hits.

Bounty hunter works better as you can loop exploits. Tactical knowledge. Joint analysis and have extra attack turns via hot on the trail. It also get traps to stop melee rushing you

[Ignis Imperia]

Originally posted by Revan619:

Assassin can build lethality a few ways. This is the funniest imo. Most of the support is for melee https://youtu.be/oN1YyCoeU5I?si=OdWQQbedcFbJAx9n

Originally posted by dwarfpcfan:

I don't pretend to be good good at this game or anything but to me Assassin always seemed built to be a sniper. Straight out the gate Yrlet is capable of doing just so much damage in a single shot with her aldaeri sniper riffle that as soon as she joins she become a mainstay of my party, one shotting or near one shotting far off targets over and over as an assassin.

Snipers are low damage because not many talents support it. Assassin's killing edge does damage based on missing health. You apply openings via the gloves for dodging attacks. So ranged assassin's can't effectively get openings to do initial damage to then do their big killing edge hits.

Bounty hunter works better as you can loop exploits. Tactical knowledge. Joint analysis and have extra attack turns via hot on the trail. It also get traps to stop melee rushing you

I find Yrliet works incredibly well with bounty hunter and hot on trail, because in her actual turn, you do cull the bold, mark your targets, apply some debuffs, deadeye shoot someone, then put hot on trail on some easy target once out of AP, someone kills that target, Yrliet gets an extra turn with 2 AP, what I like to do here is use that 1 AP for cull the bold & the other for her unique "sniper next turn" ability, since that way you're taking advantage of both of her "end my turn" abilities at once and most likely she basically provides you with 3-4 kills a round, and since she's a bounty hunter, those are generally eithet T3 or T4.

I have to keep bringing up that I'm talking normal difficulty because I do not think this approach would be that effective if enemies had say double their armor and hp, she could not oneshot people even with a good sniper rifle on crits then.

Assassin I think is more aligned with warrior than Operative since it doesn't really have many abilities that focus on large hits on the spot, killing edge is probably the exception, but for instance the one that applies hemorrhage (sorry if I misspelled that, English is not my native language) deals greatly reduced damage and instead applies a pretty good dot. The certain act 3 companion I keep bringing up for assassin I believe is perfect fit as he already comes with basically the best warrior setup for it, with slash which allows you to apply 2 different dots to 3 different targets for 2 AP each turn if you do positioning well, danse macabre, which makes that positioning a whole lot easier, and charge for when you really have him in a bad spot and need to reposition him all the way to egypt. He also comes in with really good bleed gear and in the area you get him you get some awesome toxin/bleed weapons he can dual wield. I tried building Pasqal into ranged assassin but it just never seems to work, he used to be one of my favorite characters to play due to Adeptus Mechanicus being really cool with being able to have 2 mainhands, but ever since I made him assassin I just benched him as he was doing like 5% of team dps.

All in all the spread of dps in my party currently is about like this:
Priority targets: BHs about 60%, Assassin 15%, Arch-militants 20%, rest is 5% as support
Heavy AoE: BHs about 25%, Assassin about 30%, Arch-militants 35%, rest is 10% as support
Boss: BHs about 60%, Assassin about 25%, Arch-militants 10%, rest is 5% as support

My current composition feels extremely fun to play on Normal which I think is the most important thing currently, I will attempt Daring or maybe straight up Unfair someday (though not after this playthrough as I have WotR in my sights for that time), and I'll likely learn nothing I worked with in normal quite holds up there, but we'll see when we see. :D

Normal I think is incredibly forgiving and can recommend it for anyone who is not all that familiar with CRPGs like myself, you are very unlikely to ever fail an encounter, and if you do, generally you'll get it on quickload.