Talk:Assassin

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Revision as of 17:43, 27 May 2015 by Tinker (Talk | contribs) (Orc vs Human)

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Orc vs Human

I noticed that Human Assassin got swapped for Orc Assassin. Seeing as the page hadn't been revisited since before the Assassin got his attack bonus interaction with poison, an update to the reasoning for human versus orc assassin is probably needed. I disagree, however, that Orc is preferable to human. After running the math, it looks like the preferred race depends on the dungeon and prep loadout.

First, you can't always get the poison damage bonus against the boss. Creeplight Ruins, Havensdale Bridge, Magma Mines, Cursed Oasis, Vicious Halls of Steel, Gaan-Telet and Naga City all have preset bosses or unavoidable enemies that are either undead or completely magic immune. These enemies will, virtually by definition, be your biggest challenge as a melee-oriented Assassin. In addition, there's always the chance that Frank will spawn on any dungeon with a random loadout. This means that we need to consider both the case with and without the poison damage boost. It will surprise nobody that human is a lot more preferable without it.

Secondly, let's look at the variation in preparation. Assassins can have a lot of different builds, and virtually any general-purpose prep combo is viable with them. You could go for extra attack boosters, bear mace, and dwarven gauntlets which would cause you to cap out at 75% before poison bonus. On the opposite extreme, you could go only with perseverance badge for 20% before poison. While obviously that would be stupid to do with Orcs (who want to combo with attack bonus) it's a perfectly viable setup with humans who love the poison/burning combo at 1st level and don't care too much about the lost boosters. The other extra booster preps, and even fewer glyphs, are all viable for Assassins.

Given the low-end of the attack bonus spectrum (20% +40% from poison) the break-even between human and orc is level 6 without poison and level 8 with. While level 9 is a little late for human to pull ahead, Assassin's easy leveling curve means that the extra utility against the boss is preferable to the early power. So with caster-oriented preps human is slightly better than orc, and against undead bosses it completely outclasses orc. On the high-end of the spectrum, 75% attack bonus gives a break-even of about level 9. So unless you're in a dungeon where most of your challenges occur after hitting 10th level and the boss cannot be poisoned then Orc would completely outclass human with dedicated melee preps.

Overall, this paints a picture of rough parity between Human and Orc, with race preference depending on what dungeon you're playing and which preps you intend to take. Feel free to discuss further, but I'll probably rewrite the article to include both human and orc in the near future unless someone indicates a good reason otherwise. --Darvin 18:36, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Whoops, didn't see the comment at the end that you were strongly considering doing a rewrite yourself. I incorporated the discussion already. -MTaur

I consider Human strictly superior to Orc for standard APHEELSIK-using builds. If APHEELSIK doesn't work (i.e. undead boss), Human is better; if APHEELSIK works, it generally won't matter, because the Assassin is at its best when it can use poison. So I'd rather recommend the build that is more resilient. -Tinker

@Tinker: I'd agree; I strictly use Human over Orc myself. I really like the fireball magnet prep on Assassins for the guaranteed burning/poison combo in your opening game, which favors humans. @MTaur: no harm done, I'll add a few addendums --Darvin 20:34, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

@MTaur: great edits there; keep up the good work --Darvin 16:03, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Do we want to mention the specific interaction of Elf Assassin and Tikki Tooki? It's one of the strongest spellcaster builds. -Tinker