Make siding with the assassin lord better

[Umbrall]

In short, Tricks of the Trade is really pretty bad for a lot of characters now that stealth was nerfed away. Make him grant you a locked 0.9/1.0 poisons when you side with him. That makes it actually worthwhile to side with him and generally isn't overpowered.

[SageAcrin]

"nerfed away"?

I'm not aware of any nerfs to Stealth in recent history. Buffs, yes...

[Umbrall]

I mean it no longer grants stealth if you don't have it. It was nerfed away from the prodigy.

[SageAcrin]

As the person that coded it; It never did.

For a less terse response, though...

IIRC I considered Poisons but DarkGod doesn't like the idea of universal Class categories. Scoundrel was the substitute to that, to make it more generally accessable(granting a mobility option and a Defense booster universally isn't totally useless).

I think making it as good for everyone as the artifacts is probably hopeless, though, as the artifacts are a fairly randomized bonus and can be extremely good or extremely mediocre at random. A skill that manages to reproduce that is really, really hard, and it's a lot easier to just make the choice to side with the Assassin Lord more of a niche thing, though.

If anything, implementing a second half to siding with him, where you can get some loot out of it later in the game, would probably be the best answer for generalizing the quest right now.

[Planetus]

Between the prodigy point, the initial shop, and the later randarts, the cost of this prodigy is incredibly high. The benefits that it gives should be similarly high. With that in mind, Scoundrel isn't that impressive of a tree. It's only beneficial to a few builds and even a lot of rogues in the character vault, who start with it unlocked, don't invest that much in it. Poison would be for many a character, but that would be the first class tree ever to be made available outside of the classes that naturally get it. That would be a major precedence and thus should require DarkGod's approval to make (though I like the idea if the trees are rare, difficult, and some random to get). As a middle ground, I'd say either adding points given in the Scoundrel tree (maybe something like 2/2/2/2), or or changing it to Survival, again with points added (maybe 5/5/0/0, or 5/0/5/0).

Remember that the Naloren prodigy not only grants you 5 talent points in a talent that many characters never even got a chance to get, but also grants permanent waterbreathing (not that it's that important at that point in the game) AND a guaranteed tier 5 artifact weapon, which is awesomely powerful and uses those 5 points, and the only costs are the Pearl and a prodigy point. The Pearl is nice, but as it's arcane it's useless to AM characters, while the weapon is usable by them. Compared to the Assassin Lord prodigy, this one is both really cheap and incredibly powerful.

[HousePet]

Would be nice if siding with the assassin lord gave you the Scoundrel category, or if you already have it, gives you the Poisons category.

[SageAcrin]

Remember that the Naloren prodigy not only grants you 5 talent points in a talent that many characters never even got a chance to get, but also grants permanent waterbreathing (not that it's that important at that point in the game) AND a guaranteed tier 5 artifact weapon, which is awesomely powerful and uses those 5 points, and the only costs are the Pearl and a prodigy point. The Pearl is nice, but as it's arcane it's useless to AM characters, while the weapon is usable by them. Compared to the Assassin Lord prodigy, this one is both really cheap and incredibly powerful.

Having used it for the Invisibility damage bonus on a Shadowblade, I would say that the impact is comparable to getting the Legacy of the Naloren trident for a two-hander oriented build. I've been told that +0.2 to Stealth is generally similarly impressive for Stealth builds. In both cases, the effect shows up earlier than Naloren, the niche is wider, and it's more playstyle defining.

So basically it's a strong niche skill, very similar to Naloren in fact. Just because it's not flashy doesn't mean it's not really good.

(As a disclaimer, I haven't actually gotten Legacy of the Naloren. On the other hand, I designed the Trident. <_<)

[supermini]

(As a disclaimer, I haven't actually gotten Legacy of the Naloren. On the other hand, I designed the Trident. <_<)

The trident is awesome. I've used it on a wyrmic to devastating effect.

I don't really think directly comparing prodigies is going to help here, though. Tricks of the trade carries an opportunity cost of siding with the assassin lord. The rewards are pretty good on the right character, but it's always going to be harder to pick over something that has no downsides.

I agree that the cunning/scoundrel bonus is a bit meh, but that's more of a problem with scoundrel than the prodigy itself.

[HousePet]

So free locked Scoundrel category for siding with the assassin lord?

[Planetus]

Sage,
I admit I haven't played around much with shadowblades, so I may not be seeing the true potential of this prodigy well, but the cost is still there, and it seems to me to be the highest costing prodigy in the game, by a long way. Yes, it's available earlier, but the cost of getting it, IMO, outweighs both the delay of getting another prodigy and the difficulty of getting prodigies that require exposure to space or meteors or whatever.

In short, to be competitive with other prodigy options, it either needs to be much more powerful or 'cheaper'. I'd love to see siding with the assassin lord opening up an alternative shop option, maybe buying from their loot somewhere, and maybe later on having a higher-tier shop that only has guaranteed artifacts, with a high chance of uniques. That would make siding with the assassin lord not much worse than saving the merchant (tier 5 choose-your-type randarts vs a shop dedicated to artifacts), and thus make this prodigy more tempting.

[supermini]

In short, to be competitive with other prodigy options, it either needs to be much more powerful or 'cheaper'. I'd love to see siding with the assassin lord opening up an alternative shop option, maybe buying from their loot somewhere, and maybe later on having a higher-tier shop that only has guaranteed artifacts, with a high chance of uniques. That would make siding with the assassin lord not much worse than saving the merchant (tier 5 choose-your-type randarts vs a shop dedicated to artifacts), and thus make this prodigy more tempting.

That would make siding with assassin lord or the merchant a non-choice, no more than it is now.

I don't really think losing one shop is that much of a disaster, I've been screwed over by the random artifacts merchant so many times it's not even funny. Sure, it hurts to lose it but it's not the end of the world. That said, I agree that siding with the assassin lord could be made more interesting.

How about a return to the assassin's fortress after you come back from the east (optional)? Only this time - it's full of horrors! The assassin lord tried to break into an old Sher'Tul ruin and found something...something that changed him. It would be a straightforward level (like the tunnels), only you fight horrors, and in the end a hard boss fight - a 10 foot horror made out of spikes with daggers for hands. If you beat it you'd get a random artifact. Maybe the dungeon could be flooded, because I really like those new aquatic horrors in alternate Nur and would like to see more of them.

If people think it's a good idea, I wouldn't mind coding it.

[cttw]

For the price, it could give a cat point to stealth and another cat point to Phantasmal (I think it's this, the one with the invisibility).

As for the custom artifacts, they used to be more hit or miss when you could get magic artifacts as antimagic. Now that does not happen anymore, and you can get very good, consistent results from just picking the right type of artifact. I've been getting really nice results from gauntlets.

I tried to build a shadowblade around this prodigy, with stealth and invis. It's one of those things you have to decide early (lvl 12 or so to side with the assassin) and might not get good equipment , and will not get to use until much, much later.

[SageAcrin]

How about a return to the assassin's fortress after you come back from the east (optional)? Only this time - it's full of horrors! The assassin lord tried to break into an old Sher'Tul ruin and found something...something that changed him. It would be a straightforward level (like the tunnels), only you fight horrors, and in the end a hard boss fight - a 10 foot horror made out of spikes with daggers for hands. If you beat it you'd get a random artifact. Maybe the dungeon could be flooded, because I really like those new aquatic horrors in alternate Nur and would like to see more of them.

If people think it's a good idea, I wouldn't mind coding it.

Seems pretty fine to me, fuzzy details notwithstanding. Wouldn't mind seeing that.

Something to think of; Having the dungeon roll an inordinately high amount of Chest events would help for it being a corresponding amount of loot. If you're getting six to eight chests for passing up the randart store, the choice is looking better, even if it's clearly not even.

[supermini]

Something to think of; Having the dungeon roll an inordinately high amount of Chest events would help for it being a corresponding amount of loot. If you're getting six to eight chests for passing up the randart store, the choice is looking better, even if it's clearly not even.

That sounds like a good idea.

I'll start working on it and see what I can come up with.

[SageAcrin]

Oh, and poke Pure for an artifact idea, rather than going with just a randart.

A really good Tier 5 fixed artifact dagger, with a 100% drop rate, would seal this as a very good Rogue/Shadowblade idea and have enough of a spread of interest to make more players consider going with the Assassin Lord. Maybe not one that's Legacy of the Naloren level good, but definitely one that could be seen as gamebest.

(You could use another equip, but given that the randart merchant is unstable for weapons, a weapon would make the most sense. That way, you don't have any direct comparisons and the worth is more subjective.)