[Assassin] wasteful skills to avoid

[kuchel]

Now, I've noticed from reading a lot of threads that there's a bunch of skills that people seem to invest in which aren't really worth the investment (unless you find you have skills to spare). Of course, a lot comes to personal taste. So some of these skills are still viable (like Calculated Strike) but they aren't maxing potential.

Battle Rage Tree
You probably should only put 1 point into Battle Rage and nothing into the rest of it's tree.
What are your chances of getting a Crushing Blow? a measely 10%, and on top of that the 64-114 damage is so insignificant, its like raising your average damage per hit by only a WHOPPING 6-11 damage WOW! On top of that, Battle Rage is not reliable in terms of how frequency it pops on.
Many players only add Battle Rage for it's +50% offensive ability at level 1 which stays constant. Players who do that will tell you that the 8% chance of activating is so small (since your aim is to get hit a little as possible when you're using poison + Mandrake) that it's really just a nice boost for only 1 point spent. Any more points spent feels like a waste since Battle Rage hardly comes up when you need it most.

Hamstring
Next, Hamstring is not worth a single point. At lvl 6 it gives -26 to defensive ability and armor to the enemy. Is that really worth putting 6 points into it? No. And then the reduced movement speed, your aim isn't to run away from them like a coward, you want to smash them as fast as you can while your onslaught is still activated. So how fast they move doesn't make much difference at all.

Onslaught vs Calculated Strike
Note: if you ignore Hamstring, which you should, both trees require the same amount of skill points to max.

An assassin probably works better with Onslaught than Calculated Strike, as Onslaught offers a more reliable source of increased DPS. Firstly, Ardor gives you +%attack speed which lets you use a slower and still keeping as close to 190% attack speed as possible. Ardor's movement speed bonus might not seem like much, but closing in on dangerous ranged attackers quickly, is important... movement speed is also incredibly important to dodge those one-hit kill attacks that some bosses have in epic and legendary.

A maxed Onslaught at lvl 8 gives you a constant 50% damage bonus on top of the 16% attack speed Ardor gives you.
A maxed Calculated Strike with Lucky Hit only gives you an extra 103 piercing and 156% damage every 4 hits. And once every 12 hits, Lucky Hit will work of which it is useless a third of the time this happens (bleeding damage is insignificant). Which means you'll get a remotely useful Lucky Hit once every 18 hits. You'll see the frequency of the bonuses with Calculated Strike is poor. But it's bonus is much bigger so it balances out right? No, not necessarily.

There are 2 things to keep in mind:
1) Onslaught affects other abilities.
2) How many hits does it take you to kill a monster on average?

Firstly, once you have maxed your Onslaught charges, your damage bonus doesn't only apply while you continue to use Onslaught. Your 50% (or higher) damage bonus also applies to every other physical attack you make. Yes which means, Warwind, Lethal Strike, Crushing Blow, and more... heck even a Calculated Stike will benefit from maxed Onslaught charges (though I don't see using points on both trees as really feasible).

Now, this second point is under the assumption that you are not over or underequipped for where you are up to:
Now, if you have good gear, you should be taking down monsters in 3-4 hits with Onslaught (or less). If you were using Calculated Strike, you would take them down in 4 hits; your first 3 attacks are weak, and your Calculated Strike finishes it off... but wait, your Calculated Strike finished off the monster, which means the Lucky Hit bonus was rather pointless.
So not only are you guaranteeing that you can only kill the monster in 4 hits exactly (because your first 3 hits are so weak at normal damage), but you are also missing out on the attack and movement speed increase.
Since you spend so much of the game dealing with little monsters, you don't want this scenario repeating itself over and over. Calculated Strike's power only comes to fruition against longer lasting enemies, i.e. bosses. But heck, it still doesn't outclass Onslaught in this case.

You will also find that no matter how many hits it takes to kill a normal monster, that on average Onslaught will do the job just as well... and on top of that have extra bonuses. Not to mention, you get Ignore Pain. Late game, you need all the resistances you can get your hands on.

Maxing the Poison Tree... or not?
Everyone agree that a maxed Mandrake and Nightshade are great! But the problem is when people begin to max out Envenom Weapon and Toxin Distillation. It gives a measely 100 poison damage over 5 seconds with a modifier of +144% poison damage and 76% poison duration. Excluding other item modifiers, this results in a 48.8 poison damage per second which means 429.44 poison damage over 8.8 seconds. Sounds good? Well, consider that you aim for a DPS in the thousands by late game, and that you try to kill a monster in a few hits (which is definately shorter than the time it takes for all the poison damage to be dealt). And even then, spending 22 points to raise both Evenom Weapon and Toxin Distillation from level 1 to 12 is not worth it if you only get a 300 damage bonus.

Bleeding Damage
Bleeding damage is insignificant late game. This is easy: just don't spend points in it. Lacerate and Mortal Wound offer other bonuses too, so they are worth 1 point for the extra hit target and 3 second stun effect respectively, but only for that.



Well that sums up skills that I often see people spending points in. I hope it makes it clearer for people planning to start an Assassin of what to stay away from. The question of what to get is adequately dealt with in other threads so I won't talk too much about that here.
Also, if I've missed out other skills that are just hopelessly useless, it's because I rarely ever see anybody giving them consideration so I'm giving people the assumption that they are smart. Everyone is smart enough to stay away from Anatomy and Doom Horn right?

To sum it up:
- 1 point in Battle Rage, and none to the rest of the tree
- no points to Hamstring (1 if you have nowhere else to spend it, and to solely to take advantage of +skill item modifiers)
- 1 point only in Envenom Weapon and Toxin Distillation (this one is option, only to take advantage of +skill item modifiers)... but as usual max out Mandrake and Nightshade
- avoid getting skills that only provide Bleeding damage (and poison for that matter). Of course, if the skill gives something else you want like stun (Mortal Wound) then go for it!

And lastly, Onslaught comes on top over Calculated Strike. However I will admit that the choice is largely a matter of style. Both are great and definately feasible. But if style doesn't matter to you, Onslaught is probably the better way to go. In summary, it adds DPS to you just as well as Calc. Strike... and it does this in a more reliable and consisten fashion. It also gives you extra bonuses (resistances and move speed) and it's damage bonus affects other skills as well (CS will not add damage to Warwind or Lethal Strike for example!).

Well, that's my 2 cents. Good luck to all people out there planning to play an Assassin!

[Felexitus]

i agree on each and every point. nice discussions

[kuchel]

OK it seems like my list of skills to avoid was not complete afterall. After reading some more there's a few other poorly spend skill points that I've seen flying around the place.

Throwing Knives
Thowing Knife is one of those skills that the Assassin absolutely cannot live without (along with Mandrake/Nightshade). Then why is it on this list? Some people misunderstand what is so great about Throwing Knives.
The power of this skill is not in the damage at all, but it is with its synergy Flurry of Knives and with Mandrake/Nightshade poison effects. Throwing Knife with maxed Flurry of Knives gives you the means to apply your beautiful poison effects on a whole crowd of monster quickly, without having to run in and die first.

That said, you only need 1 point in Throwing Knife, don't max it. Max its synergy.

Flash Powder
By late game you'll probably have some spare skill points if you aren't Dual Wielding. This might be a place to spend some, but not until you max out all the other important skills first.
However, remember you are an Assassin. So that means you probably have one point in Warwind and Lacerate. That will apply poison on up to 5 targets. Now how often do you have much more than 5 monsters in close range to you? Not often at all. Instead of spending 8 points to max this skill, you could spend only 2 points: 1 each on Warwind and Lacerate.

Note that using Warwind to apply your poison will also add on the effect Nightshade too, which Flash Powder won't. Warwind will also deal damage to your enemies. Also, since you are already in their melee range so you will probably finish them off quickly. During this time your plain attacks also continue to keep your enemies under this effect. These 4 points definately make up for the shorter duration of your Mandrake effect compared with the duration of Flash Powder.

Until you have spare skill points: save skill points by putting 1 into Warwind and Lacerate instead of maxing this.

Poison Gas Bomb
This has a relatively small radius, so you likely wont be hitting many monsters with this, considering that monsters usually aren't clumped unless they are surrounding you in melee range.
That aside, heck you've already got Throwing Knives to apply your Mandrake and Nightshade. Not to mention these poison effects are able to make your enemies confused and slow on top of missing you. Throwing Knives also have a shorter cooldown, use less mana, will probably be able to hit more enemies easily, and are using the points that you have already spent on poison.
So why use Poison Gas Bomb when you've got something better?
Also, this might be stating the obvious: but avoid, like it'll be the end of the world, the synergy to this skill Shrapnel. It's horribly poor in damage, and that's all it does, deal poor damage.

So, avoid Poison Gas Bomb and its synergy altogether. It's a waste of points and you've got something much better already.

Dual Wielding
While this is strongly a taste and style matter. I'd recommend most players to stick to shields. Dual Wielders survive fine in Normal, but it gets a lot harder in Epic and Legendary unless you are an experienced player. But it's still your choice, however consider this:

It's agreed that DW will provide you with higher damage output, while sacrificing your survivability. So this makes it all so balanced right?

Well it forgets to take into account 2 main things:

1. The DW tree takes up 24 skill points. Using a shield uses no skill points, leaving you free to invest in other important skills earlier.

2. Tumult and Cross-Cut is often wasted as monsters aren't surrounding you in the right way. Firstly, against only 1 monster, the 12 points you spent on these 2 skills are pointless as you only have one target. Secondly, monsters will tend to scatter as they become confused by your Mandrake. Thirdly, you would be stupid to jump into a pack and get swarmed since you are even more vulnerable without a shield.
Considering that these 2 skills have a 10% chance to be used, and that they are only put to full effect less than 50% of the time used: these 12 skill points you have spent are probably useful for less than 10% of your attacks. Not great for 12 skill points.

That leaves Hew as probably the most useful DW attack. However it only gets used 10% of the time when maxed. Is this worth 6 skill points?

In summary DW, gives you better damage output. But not enough to justify sacrificing 24 points in other skills as well as greater vulnerability. What's the use dealing lots of damage if you get so hurt that you always have to retreat so often? All the time you spend retreating cancels out some of the extra damage output you have.

However yet again, this is a matter of personal taste. I don't think everyone will agree with me on this.

Edit:
I also just remembered that DW will lead you to using Swords instead of a Spear so that would mean getting Weapon Training. The extra attack speed and offensive ability is nice. And it's also 6 skill points extra - which makes the 30 skill point investment of DW rather expensive early on.

[Cernunnos]

Basically, what needs to happen is that the game needs to be more balanced for dual weilding, and the dual weild tree needs a bit of focus for it to even be viable.

As it is now, you have NO survivability as ANY dual weilding character UNLESS you are a champion and have a maxed out life and Heart of the Oak.

I'm dual weilding in Legendary as my champion right now, and he does quite well, ripping everything apart and only having to heal every 3 or 4 fights due to how much life he has (over 9000, plus 973 armor rating, plus sapros' life draining). His DPS is over 3000 with maxed onlsaught...but anyway, this is about Assassins....

War Horn is PARAMOUNT with an assassin....those extra points you saved not speccing out throwing knives can be put into warhorn and its synergy. I think peopl forget about warhorn alot, but it is amazingly effectve, ESPECIALLY against taurens and cyclops.


......I said Taurens LOL I meant minotaurs....WoW anyone? :P
]

[r00ster]

I disgree with a few.

1. Throwing knives, I have it maxed, throw somewhere around 18 knives at once. This is not a waste. How many knives can you throw with 1 point in the skill? 1? 2?

2. The first 2 skills in poison tree. Now, with DUAL poison weps, and these maxed, I throw knives, mob dies... in legendary. Yes its over time, BUT! I am not around when they croak, but I do take their xp.

3. Onslaught vs Calc: I agree overall with this, however I have enough toons with onslaught, so I gave this a go. Now, if you actually calculate it, it works beautifully. I.e. mob 1, 4 tigermen, one tigerman caster boss. Hit 3 anonymous henchmen, run in smack boss with the calc strike, dead mob.

4. Bleeding. Same thing. Add this with the poison and knives and yes by the results I see, the bleeding adds to throwing knives dmg, This also helps in making my knives near 1 throw dead mob senarios.

5. Dual is amazing. I have 80% all res, 80% pierce with dual. No shield, in legend. You just have to get the gear you want, or make it with rares etc. dual out does a single handed high dps toon. Skills aside, you can easily waste a mob with dual and way lower dps than a toon with a shield and very high dps. It is a fact. With a few + skills items, you get a 15% procc to each dual skill, and fancy that 3 of them hit more than 1 enemy.

Lastly, I would say its overall some good info, for a SPECIFIC playing style.

If you want me to prove it, I could make a video, and will post screenies etc if you really think it necessary.

This is how it goes; I thorw knives, mob turns other way (mandrake) as they turn away, their hp drains like wildfire (poison weps+poison skills+bleeding) run to next mob.

The thing is, is these skills work in cahoots with gear, not other skills. Like take the symphalion talons or cerberus bite out with max bleeding skills, and tell me if its a waste. I think not.

Or for poison, arachnids drop these poison daggers that are insane. With 2 and th epoison skills, you hit a guy once. I don't mean once = dead, but u run through the whole mob hitting each guy once, and by the time your done, they are too.

I think this is based off of a max dps, thorny maul type idea, which is not the means to survival. I mean how much fun is it to kill an enemy in 1 hit, when you also take 1 hit to die. Is resup fun? I do agree with most points tho. good thread.

[Felexitus]

throwing knife doesnt add any knives at all it just makes them do more damage. only flurry doest and maxing flurry is recommended

[r00ster]

This cannot be true. I will get screenies from my assasin, and the base skill I believe says 9, and the top skill (flurry) says 8....I will get screenies.

[Felexitus]

thats exactly the point. 1 from the base skill and 8 from flurry. the base skill shows how many projectiles you get from flurry. you can a) try an skill out of it and watch nothing happen to the number or b) open one of the exp cheat custom maps and just play with the skill ofr a bit

[UnDefiler]

Originally Posted by kuchel

2. Tumult and Cross-Cut is often wasted as monsters aren't surrounding you in the right way. Firstly, against only 1 monster, the 12 points you spent on these 2 skills are pointless as you only have one target.

Actually, doesn't DW proc when Tumult/Crosscut procs also? Well, sort of. I mean, when Tumult/Crosscut procs against a single monster, you also hit that single monster with both weps at once just as if a DW proc'ed.

So essentially with all the synergies maxed, you're getting somewhere between a 45% to 70+% chance to 'DW' against a single monster too (depending on how much +skills you have). This might explain the large dps boost (far greater than the tooltip) that DW gets.

Tumult/Crosscut against a single monster may not be it's full potential, perhaps, but hardly wasted. Just treat it as a +% mod to DW chance.

That said, yes 24 points down this tree is a huge investment and probably not for new players...

[kuchel]

To UnDefiler about DW:
Sorry if I wasn't clear about my argument on DW. Yes I agree with what you say about Tumult/Crosscut.

But hey, the main idea is that Tumult/Crosscut are hardly used to full potential so like you said, it's almost just like adding to your chance to have a Dual-Wield attack.

Keep in mind though, that the percentages don't just add up. For example skills with % of 22, 10, 10 ... the chance of getting one of these is not 42% because skills are dealt with seperately rather than together (if someone knows the exact details to how it works then it'd be a great help)

Anyway, back to topic: where in practicality you have an augmented chance to have a Dual-Wield attack (with the occasional Tumult and Cross-Cut used to potential) and the occasional Hew... is 24 points worth investing before other important skills and trees - such as Mandrake, Throwing Knife, Ancestral Horn, Battle Standard/Triumph, Onslaught/Calc Strike trees.

Many of these skills are important in their own respect and all have their uses in different situations. Skimping out majorly in 1 or 2 of these trees in Epic sounds like your making life hard for yourself, just so that you can increase damage output and at the same time make yourself much more vulnerable.

Of course like r00ster argues, you can give yourself all 80% resistances in legendary. But the problem is, will you really have all that equipment before you have all those important skills listed AS WELL as the whole Dual-Wield tree? If you have all these skills, then go ahead, but until then there are other skills that more urgently need investment.

The other question is that you must consider all the sacrifices you make in order to increase your survivability through items. Whereas someone with a shield, may slant a bit more towards opting for items with damage/speed modifiers. So to say that changing your items can solve the problem is not the whole side of the story.

Also, people seem to never mention that shield's can block damage. The useful thing about shield damage blocking is that it is not limited to any ratio of damage blocked the same way that armor is.

Edit addition:
And I've never seen 18 throwing knives thrown on one cast. I could imagine getting close to that with many +skill modifiers and a Mastery Shrine. But maxing Throwing Knife does not make a difference to this at all. Like Felexitus suggested, just cheat yourself some character, max out Throwing Knife. Have no +skill modifers or anything that might increase the Flurry skill... and see how many you throw.

Also look at the skill description "Throwing Knife - Throw A piercing blade at your opponent..."