Assassin vs Bladedancer movesFollow

Sorry in advance for all the text.

So, I'm playing an Assassin main with Bladedancer secondary right now. I'm up to level 28, and do a mix of solo and group play. All is going well, I enjoy the build and it's a lot of fun. However, I wanted to initiate a discussion here about the base moves of these two souls. I will discussing these moves at level 30 (since I am currently 28) and level 50 (full Assassin). Assassin gives Savage Strike as the combo builder and Final Blow as the finisher. Bladedancer gives Keen Strike and Quick Strike as the combo builders, and Deadly Strike as the finisher. At level 30, Savage Strike is Rank 7 and deals weapon plus 49 to 52 Physical damage. Keen Strike is also rank 7 at level 30 but deals weapon plus 52 to 55 Physical damage. A small difference, but worth mentioning. However, what is really worth mentioning is that after using a Keen Strike you can use Quick Strike, which at level 30 is rank 6 but does weapon plus 62 to 65 Physical damage. Furthermore, a 50% bonus from AP is applied to this attack. This puts these 2 moves leagues above using Savage Strike, despite it being the "main" assassin move (besides Backstab, which is actually almost identical to Quick Strike, and is only better because Quick Strike requires the weaker Keen Strike to be used first). The finishers at level 30 compare similarly; Final Blow (assassin) is rank 6 at this point and with 5 combo points does 251 damage. Deadly Strike is rank 7 at this point and does 283 damage at 5 combo points. I don't know if these two scale differently as far as bonus from AP (which is also dependent on combo points), but I highly doubt it (or if there is a difference, I would bet Deadly Strike would get the better benefit).

At level 50, Savage Strike is rank 10 and deals weapon plus 77 to 80 Physical damage. Keen Strike at this point does the exact same damage, also rank 10. Quick Strike is still better, however, at weapon plus 101 to 105 Physical damage plus the AP bonus. Final Blow at rank 10 deals 400 damage at 5 combo points, which is the exact same as Deadly Strike. However, at this point I would have talented Final Blow to do an extra 15% damage so that actually comes out ahead.

So what do you think? Keen Strike + Quick Strike seems the obvious choice when I'm not backstabbing, even at level 50. However, that means I'm wasting 2 talent points just to get the final ability for filling out the Assassin tree. Is it worth it?

Any other thoughts? Am I not considering something? Just wanted something to think about.

Twin strike is great when needed, but would not be a regularly used move :P.

The problem with Impale is that it does its damage over 16 seconds. It is clearly the most damaging finisher, but not very useful for soloing because mobs just don't last that long.

Well, I assume Savage Strike would be useful for people who didn't take Bladedancer as a secondary soul :P.

That being said, once I hit 50 I will do some testing to see. The assassin soul definitely focuses on crits, so having that extra crit chance could be useful, but at the same time I pretty much find myself critting plenty even without it (I'm approaching 30% crit chance unbuffed at level 45)... so I just think it's inferior.

Also, while on this topic, I'm trying to decide if it's better to have +12% dexterity from the bladedancer tree or +12% AP from the riftstalker tree with this build. I feel like the dexterity would be an overall improvement, but I don't know if it would increase my damage as much (how does dexterity affect crit chance?).

I switched to savage strike and am using jagged strike as an opener instead of paralyze, and it actually seems like mobs are going down a lot quicker (mostly because of jagged strike - it's hard to tell if SS is doing more with the crits than keen/quick still).

I'm also curious what you folks think about a slightly different full assassin build: Assassin (51) / Nightblade (10) / Bladedancer (5)

I wanted some Nightblade for the aoe ability, and the ranged incapacitate would also be useful probably. I also kind of like the extra 15% damage on combo-generating abilities and finishers from the tree. However, I can't decide if that's worth giving up going further into the bladedancer tree. I'm thinking of this being primarily an instance role, where I could regularly backstab (or use the aoe ability for large trash pulls). The main thing I'm worried about losing is the +12% dexterity, but it may be worth it. Any thoughts?


Edited, Mar 18th 2011 1:40am by Vataro