Stealth/Detection and Assassins

Feannag
05-20-2008, 08:01 PM
Okay so I picked up some shit on hiding and detection. You can see some slight detection on NPCs/players, but you have to target them. Little yellow arrow pops up showing their heading. Best bet is to stay within the 180 degrees on the back side for their facing, preferably as close to their back as possible.

Apparently there is also a gem on your HUD that's a light indicator, up near the mini-map. It indicates how much light is in your immediate area, which I would think cuts into your stealth to a significant degree. Stick to dark and shady areas when sneaking around is your best bet to avoid being seen.

Assasin-wise there's a couple of things.

Ambush

A default attack (1, 2, or 3) on anyone while you are hiding is pretty much an instant crit, and it seems to scale based on positioning. Against mobs on my assassin one of these crits are enough to shave 80% - 90% off a monster's total health, pretty much allowing you to 2-shot it. I haven't been able to test it on other players though, they move around too much and on White Sands Isle it's just a gank-fest.

Soul Fragments

Poke around in your Abilities and you find a skill that uses these to heal you, and Unholy Stance gives you a chance to gain them. Check your HUD on the left-side of your health, you'll see five greyed out gems. These are the soul fragments. From what I can see, they operate similar to WoWs rogue combat system. As you gain them in a fight, you can consume them to do things like do extra damage, heal, and probably other things. What I haven't figured out is their lifespan. I have seen them vanish roughly 10 - 12 seconds after combat ends, but they are not target-specific. So I think if you can attack something else quickly enough you won't lose them.

Generating them proves another matter, it seems your strikes have a small chance to gain them and you need to being Unholy Stance to get them.

The Corruption Feat tree seems to augment Soul Fragment generation and use in addition to unholy damage, but if you do Lotus and poison it seems like you don't worry as much about Soul Fragments. But I get the idea with proper management and feats it would be powerful in concept.

Calder
05-21-2008, 03:30 PM
Stick to WoW

Feannag
05-21-2008, 10:23 PM
Stick to WoW

Let me taste your tears, they're DELICIOUS... Seriously though I haven't really seen the soul fragments show up too much but I don't have any combos/skills which use them. Well all assassins get one that will heal you for an amount based on how many you have, but by the time I get around to it they are either dissipated or I really don't need to heal.

Besides stealth seems to be available to everyone in this game, and well as stealth detection. It's just a matter of how much skill do you want to spend on hiding and perception to either avoid/cause ambushes. But with assassins, it helps more with those open crit strikes. Though it's still a toss-up, they have Skulking now (faster movement when hiding) and Climbing and bandaging and endurance so you really get torn over what you want to spend them on.

Witch
05-22-2008, 01:11 AM
Sadly Skulking seems bugged at the moment. It does virtually nothing. Same goes for Endurance and few other skills. Oh well.. Waiting for a fix ^^

Feannag
05-22-2008, 10:59 AM
Sadly Skulking seems bugged at the moment. It does virtually nothing. Same goes for Endurance and few other skills. Oh well.. Waiting for a fix ^^

Really? Good to know, I may as well reset those two and throw the points in elsewhere until a fix is made.

Outlaw.
05-22-2008, 07:31 PM
maybe it's too early to tell, but i feel like Assassin's are gimped which is frustrating because that class was the main reason i became interested in AoC. i'll wait a bit and see.

Flowen
05-22-2008, 09:03 PM
Stick to WoW

Devil Slayer
05-22-2008, 09:14 PM
Pro assassin tip: Don't bother attacking guardians. They will just laugh as you can't do any dammage to them as they knock your cloth wearing ass to the ground with a polearm to the face. That is all.