On Yasuke vs Naoe endgame balance

[Harris]

So I'm in the endgame now, and I feel a very clear distinction between Yasuke and Naoe in how they're meant to be played. The key thing here is the trinket that gives 1% damage per unspent mastery point - logically, the longer you play, the higher your Master level (beyond 60), the more mastery points you float, and so the more damage you deal.

With Yasuke, your trees are all about dealing damage. Like you can safely invest 73 points to max out a katana tree because of a passive that gives 80% katana damage in addition to all the skills, passives etc. you get from investing into the tree in the first place. Meanwhile you can avoid investing into Samurai tree for health, because of a perk found on Daimyo Armor of Legend that triggers Samurai Stand on death, where your health can't go below 10% for a while, long enough to finish any combat. So as Yasuke, you benefit from this immensely.

Now, the problem with Naoe and why this system sucks for her is you have to invest a lot of points into maxing out Assassin, Shinobi and Tools trees that give her core stealth abilities, however barely contribute to her damage in open combat. She's at the massive disadvantage here and will never be able to catch up with Yasuke because of this - unless you literally ignore those stealth trees and start playing Naoe like you would Yasuke - which straight up makes her Yasuke but worse.

Where I'm going with this is I've come to realize that in the endgame, all those stats like vulnerable damage, posture damage, critical damage for Naoe are useless, because you don't want the damage you deal in combat as Naoe to scale off those stats. Instead, you want engravings that measure your damage in health segments, for example the engraving on Warrior's Garden "Shadow Piercer now removes 2 Health Segments on hit". This is because when caught in open combat as Naoe, your goal is to end combat and reengage stealth ASAP. Obviously, Hidden Hand ability is best for this, however some targets can still deny it and cooldowns exist, so Naoe needs ways beyond Hidden Hand to apply her assassination damage in combat.

With that in mind, I've come to realize that Naoe does not really benefit from mastery points beyond her trees, so she can be made stronger only through better gear, not by playing longer. However, there is not much gear/engravings that can meaningfully improve Naoe at this point either. The perk on Master Assassin armor gives her +2 health segments on assassinations, which brings most her assassinations to 7 segments and her kunai to 6 - that's a lot, there are not many enemies in the game that have that much. Furthermore she gets +1 during Heighten Senses and with Cerulean Puzzle "battle pass" trinket that adds +2 segments on running assassination, I should be able to have those deal the whopping 10 segments of damage. That, in most cases, is an overkill.

Aside from the mentioned Shadow Piercer engraving, I found only one other way to apply assassination damage in combat, and that is "Ground Attacks now remove 2 Health Segments on hit" from the Master Assassin Hood. The problem with it is I can't find reliable ways to knock enemies down. Lightning Kicks and Snakebite sometimes don't work depending on distance and positioning, and the engraving where you knock enemies down by sliding into them doesn't for me at all either.

Mind that I'm playing on Expert and this might not feel as pronounced otherwise.

TL;DR

- Yasuke strongly benefits from the trinket that gives damage per unspent mastery point the longer you play
- Naoe cannot hope to catch up with him because of needing to invest mastery points into stealth-related trees that have almost no bearing on combat
- eventually with Naoe you want to transition to a build where her damage is fully calculated in health segments, with that said her options for such build are quite limited

[Some Kinda Kobold]

Sounds like most of Ubi's effort went towards Yasuke and they just kinda threw the actual assassin in as a second thought.

[Harris]

Yeah, the entire RPG system is heavily geared towards Yasuke. As Naoe, you're gonna hit like a wet noodle and crutch on a bleed kusarigama with its heavy postures for the entire game, at least that was my experience.

Like, this entire system where you farm for epic gear with stats in gold because those stats make them better than legendaries? For Naoe this doesn't exist because her damage scales off segments, not stats on the weapon. The overwhelming majority of engravings that affect stats are thus useless for her, perhaps making the only non-legendary engraving you'll ever want to run with her "50% to recover a tool on kill".

And this thing I explained, that there's basically no reason to play for a long time as Naoe as unlike Yasuke you won't be getting stronger over time? That's kind of a big deal. The two systems designed for continuous play just don't apply for Naoe.

If Ubisoft's reading this, please pass on to the development team there should be a system to scale Naoe as well.

An easy way, right off my head, a trinket with an effect of "Effects that remove Health Segments in combat remove +1 per X unspent mastery points".

[Skywalker]

Originally posted by Some Kinda Kobold:

Sounds like most of Ubi's effort went towards Yasuke and they just kinda threw the actual assassin in as a second thought.

Not at all. You can also make Naoe nearly invincible. Look for example the tantou build where you can nearly perma slow down time. And it is a very slow slow effect like bullet time in other games.

Or you can change the setting to "every assassination kills" - so no need with adding more segements, if you can't kill things normally with Naoe.

[Harris]

Originally posted by Skywalker:

Not at all. You can also make Naoe nearly invincible.

That is not at all my point. My point is even when you go all-in on health with Naoe, you'll have about as much health as Yasuke's glass cannon build with "+75% damage but health reduced to 25%" engraving.

Naoe can never and will never be as good as Yasuke at open combat. That was not the design intent. Just read the descriptions for difficulty levels. She technically can win every fight, yes. Doesn't change the fact she was not meant to. It's just not her way.

Look at her ultimate unlock, the "Broken Spirit". It promotes the playstyle where you disengage from combat and reengage stealth before you have to fight the entire camp. What Yasuke gets instead? An ability where your health literally can't go below 10%. Guaranteed postures with sheathed attacks that make enemies vulnerable. A lot of crazy stuff Naoe just cannot hope to compete against.

Originally posted by Skywalker:

Or you can change the setting to "every assassination kills"

Obviously not what the game is or should be balanced around. If Naoe doesn't have to invest into making her assassinations better - yes, you can fully invest into vulnerability damage or what have you with her instead, but it just becomes the case of a fish trying to fly.

I wonder if your reply is characteristic of this mindset where players want Naoe to be this "good at everything" kind of character while pretending Yasuke doesn't exist - as opposed to playing both characters to their own strengths.

[JKDos]

Naoe has 1-shot kills and can easily escape combat.

[Isa]

I'm confused about why exactly that would be a problem. I favor playing Naoe because I want to do exactly that.

[Skywalker]

Originally posted by Harris:

Originally posted by Skywalker:

Or you can change the setting to "every assassination kills"

Obviously not what the game is or should be balanced around. If Naoe doesn't have to invest into making her assassinations better - yes, you can fully invest into vulnerability damage or what have you with her instead,

Maybe not what the game is around. But I set to "every assassination kills with one hit", cause it is more realistic and like the first AC games. Glad they implement this option.

It is realistic, cause when you get an hidden blade in your throat, then you are 99,9% dead. No matter if you have 3, 4 or 6 segments (whatever segments will be in real live - ruffs? ;) ). If you have an exposed, naked throat (no matter how many training you have or armor you wear), you will be dead. This is how an assassine game should work.

[DVerde]

You say you hit "endgame" but you don't even mention that the trinket is completely worthless thanks to the knowledge passsves.

Originally posted by Harris:

Originally posted by Skywalker:

Not at all. You can also make Naoe nearly invincible.

That is not at all my point. My point is even when you go all-in on health with Naoe, you'll have about as much health as Yasuke's glass cannon build with "+75% damage but health reduced to 25%" engraving.

Naoe can never and will never be as good as Yasuke at open combat. That was not the design intent. Just read the descriptions for difficulty levels. She technically can win every fight, yes. Doesn't change the fact she was not meant to. It's just not her way.

Look at her ultimate unlock, the "Broken Spirit". It promotes the playstyle where you disengage from combat and reengage stealth before you have to fight the entire camp. What Yasuke gets instead? An ability where your health literally can't go below 10%. Guaranteed postures with sheathed attacks that make enemies vulnerable. A lot of crazy stuff Naoe just cannot hope to compete against.

Originally posted by Skywalker:

Or you can change the setting to "every assassination kills"

Obviously not what the game is or should be balanced around. If Naoe doesn't have to invest into making her assassinations better - yes, you can fully invest into vulnerability damage or what have you with her instead, but it just becomes the case of a fish trying to fly.

I wonder if your reply is characteristic of this mindset where players want Naoe to be this "good at everything" kind of character while pretending Yasuke doesn't exist - as opposed to playing both characters to their own strengths.

Pretty much this, in echo. You can't even use the Kusarigami entangle without blatantly leaving yourself open during multi-encounters, where it would actually be useful.

[Ansgar Odinson]

I pretty much only play Naoe, because the combat is actually fun instead of being a button mashing "I win" button. Even then I had to turn to combat to expert mode difficulty just to make things not pretty much instantly die.

Kusarigama is OP. Tanto is WAY OP.

[superlloyd]

I hate to say it but.. you are suffering a severe case of need to git gud!

[BORN2DIE]

Originally posted by DVerde:

You say you hit "endgame" but you don't even mention that the trinket is completely worthless thanks to the knowledge passsives.

I swear though, I have been at max knowledge for 10+ hours before realizing that you enter that menu.

[anaris]

Originally posted by Harris:

Now, the problem with Naoe and why this system sucks for her is you have to invest a lot of points into maxing out Assassin, Shinobi and Tools trees that give her core stealth abilities, however barely contribute to her damage in open combat. She's at the massive disadvantage here and will never be able to catch up with Yasuke because of this - unless you literally ignore those stealth trees and start playing Naoe like you would Yasuke - which straight up makes her Yasuke but worse.

or you could play using her stealth and make open combat completely irrelevant (like you were told to at the start of the game hahah)

like.... once you can instakill enemies with assassinations, why are you even IN combat?

Yasuke scales off putting points into abilities. Naoe scales off you, yourself, the player, getting better at stealth. It is *clearly* the design intent that Yasuke is an Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla era protagonist and Naoe is a 2/3/BF/Syndicate era protagonist

[anaris]

also if you want to apply assassination damage in combat, have you uh. have you tried the smoke bomb lol

[It´sAllAimAssist]

Once I got a few levels on Naoe and built her as a glass cannon and got the counter reds with katana she easily became the most fun to play in combat and out of combat.
I´m on max diff.

I use a lot of kusarigama as well though. Poison on sword and bleed on kusari.
Add poison with the sword then switch to kusi for a couple of skill then back.

The knockdowns do wiff if you are not careful about positioning but in general I don´t have any problems.

Maybe you can make Yasuke stronger but I melt groups or bosses so fast that would be irrelevant anyway.

If I managed to mess up and have an entire base on alert with 10 guardians and tons of adds I just go for the objective though.
Single out the target , kill them and run away.
It´s fun as hell and feels really ninja , running away across the rooftops with a courtyard crawling with enemies.
I don´t see the problem.
apart from that Yasuke sucks to play.

[VhagarTheLastOne]

I havent started endgame yet, I think Im close, Yasuke's 30% health on weak point sounds stupidly op.