Improve rewards for siding with the Assassin Lord

[Effigy]

As it stands, almost everyone sides with the Merchant in the Trapped! quest. There's just no payoff for siding with the Assassin Lord for most characters. This seems like a missed opportunity, since he already grants Cunning/Poisons but only to specific classes.

I recommend having the Assassin Lord give you a choice of categories if you side with him, and the same choices would be available to every class:
- Cunning/Poisons
- Cunning/Survival
- Techniques/Field Control
- Maybe others?

If you don't have the category you selected, you get it locked at 1.0 mastery. If you already have the locked category, it would become unlocked. If you already have it unlocked, you would get +0.2 mastery.

This would make siding with the Assassin Lord a tempting prospect for many characters. Do you want to be able to buy powerful artifacts later, or get access to a new category? Apart from Cunning/Poisons, these categories are already available through escorts so I don't think that should be a balance concern.

[HousePet]

Cunning/Scoundrel would be a good one.

[Effigy]

Yeah, Scoundrel would be another good one.

[Davion Fuxa]

Can't say I'm against improving the Assassin Lord's reward for siding with him. However, I would probably add on: We should improve Tricks of the Trade perhaps too - especially if we want to cut out Cunning/Scoundrel as part of the Tricks of the Trade reward.

[Planetus]

Just remember that Poisons is a class tree as opposed to a generic one. I'm not against this giving a class tree, especially considering what you're giving up, but do remember that.

With that in mind:
Cunning/Stealth
Cunning/Shadow Magic
Cunning/Trapping
Techniques/Acrobatics

[Winddbourne]

One thing that does seem to be a "no brainer" to me is that siding with the assassin lord as a rogue or other eligible class should UNLOCK the tree for your character if you've already gotten the achievement. Also I was surprised that poisons wasn't made available to more classes. It would fit the shadowblade and necromancer class at least as well as it fits the archer and skirmisher.

For other classes does this even have to appear? We could easily have any number of class specific encounters added to the game which give you the choice between some character bonus and unlocking the merchant. That might even add re play value to the game and be a lot of fun.

[Dracos]

My general experience is that the Merchant represents 3-5 high powered tier 5 randarts, depending on how you play.

That's a lot to balance against.

Even unlocking a tree and putting a category point on it (and lots of unlocks are really just not gonna deliver there). Currently, that is considered worth about 1250-1500 whenever the game offers it to you. Sure, getting it early is welcome, but it's really not enough by itself.

The best answers I've heard on it is that addon someone was working on, giving an extra dungeon, the category, and the ability to get 2-4 randart 5s another way. That's a healthy way of getting them more on keel.

[Sheila]

I disagree with giving cunning/scoundrel away because it's basically the only unique tree rogues have to them, it's also relatively weak and not enough of a reward to give up randarts.

[Davion Fuxa]

Scoundrel isn't too weak - I picked up Tricks of the Trade on my Dwarven Skirmisher run which I did a Video Series on YouTube with when Skirmishers were excessively overpowered because it was one of the few situations where the Prodigy somewhat outweighed the Merchants Randarts. Only real problem is that there are too few situations where that occurs.

[Winddbourne]

Definitely if you are a class eligible to learn poisons you should get the unlock if you already have the achievement. Also for other classes perhaps you could get an unlock for stealth, dual weapons, archery bows/slings, or spell temporal. Any of these trees would open up a lot of interesting new builds for a wide range of classes:

Stealth opens up a lot of sneaky or critical based builds, especially ranged critical builds for staffs and bows.

Dual weapons opens up a lot of different dual weapons builds, especially for ogre characters

Archery bows/slings - these open up bow and sling builds for a lot more characters, as right now bows and slings both are missing from combat training category where you can get knives, swords axes, and maces leveled up.

Spell temporal opens up more magic trees that aren't Vim based to various classes, and most importantly opens up essence of speed to a lot of classes.

[Sheila]

Scoundrel isn't too weak - I picked up Tricks of the Trade on my Dwarven Skirmisher run which I did a Video Series on YouTube with when Skirmishers were excessively overpowered because it was one of the few situations where the Prodigy somewhat outweighed the Merchants Randarts. Only real problem is that there are too few situations where that occurs.

My main point is that it's the only unique thing that rogues have to them and shouldn't be given out to just about anything. Prodigies are a different issue.
Other than that, how isn't scoundrel weak?
Lascerating strikes is one of the weakest dots in the game, 35% of attack damage over TEN TURNS at LEVEL FIVE is pitiful. This mostly needs bigger numbers.

Scoundrel's strategies doesn't really cripple enemies in any meaningful way, accuracy penalty is meaningless since things mostly outscale you, movement speed penalty is ok but overriden by anything ranged or with a gap closer, wil/cun penalties are ok but not meaningful for anything that doesn't use mindpower. Flat damage reduction instead of movespeed amongst other more useful stat penalties would be nice, maybe global speed, maybe other stats, etc.

Nimble movements is good since it adds mobility which is always nice, but needs a couple points to be fully effective, I would make it instant and reduce the range.

Misdirection is potentially good but unreliable and too weak while requiring 5 talents for a 15% chance of enemies to target a somewhere other than you, which doesn't mean anything for aoe, the defense portion is useless since nothing really scales with it and things usually have more than enough accuracy. I would make it give extra benefits when a target is bleeding. Maybe make the whole tree scale with defense in a meaningful way.
Add to that the fact that those numbers are at 1.3 mastery, so at 0.9 from tricks of the trade it would be even worse.
I think you're severely underestimating a good lineup of randarts.

[Davion Fuxa]

Actually I'm moreso taking into account that they are 'RANDOM' Artefacts. Also, while Misdirections 'Random Targeting' chance is only 15%, it can stack with your characters other defensive - same with the Defense bonus. It may seem low but it is possible to make a character stupidly defended with it when the character's class has other defensive abilities.

As an aside, right now Tricks of the Trade gives both Cunning/Scoundrel and Cunning/Stealth; if Scoundrel isn't enough on its own then Stealth could be tossed into its package too. I suppose that might be going a bit against what Effigy with Escort categories being given - but maybe those categories shouldn't be given here and we should focus on category rewards that are 'a bit above' what Escorts go about giving.

[Sheila]

Actually I'm moreso taking into account that they are 'RANDOM' Artefacts. Also, while Misdirections 'Random Targeting' chance is only 15%, it can stack with your characters other defensive - same with the Defense bonus. It may seem low but it is possible to make a character stupidly defended with it when the character's class has other defensive abilities.

As an aside, right now Tricks of the Trade gives both Cunning/Scoundrel and Cunning/Stealth; if Scoundrel isn't enough on its own then Stealth could be tossed into its package too. I suppose that might be going a bit against what Effigy with Escort categories being given - but maybe those categories shouldn't be given here and we should focus on category rewards that are 'a bit above' what Escorts go about giving.

Randarts are a lot more valuable after 1.3 hit since they can no longer be completely unusable if arcane or antimagic! Most of the time you can replace your worst pieces of equipment with something quite a bit better, even if unlucky.

Is that ~15% high enough to justify a prodigy and 8 generics though? Stacking defense just doesn't pay for itself most of the time since the stat is relatively weak, and mostly irrelevant past normal which is why making some things have a nice defense scaling would be a way to make it more valuable.

I'd be fine with poisons and stealth being given away but it also makes me wonder if Tricks of the Trade could use some tweaks or not. Still, I think the rewards aren't enough to offset the cost later, maybe make it also give you a fixedart of some kind, something that represents the group you're joining, could be something like a cloak or a when-carried item like a medal, could be a new item, something that has decent enough effects to be valuable and to add something on top of the package. Similar to how afflicted get a pretty nice passive item for completing a quest, I think we could use something for joining the Assassin Lord.

[Davion Fuxa]

Generally I don't find I have a lot of bad equipment left to replace once I'm nearing high peak. Most equipment past 40 levels is usually semi-decent - what slots aren't being taken up by Fixedarts or Randarts are usually still pretty beneficial for what they offer. The Randomness of trying to replace them doesn't always connect sadly.

If you are tacking Misdirections 15% on top of something like Buckler Mastery/Buckler Expertise then it can be worth it. I could also see it possibly being worth it for Reavers and Corrupters using Bone Shield as it can allow them to avoid further hits. You also pick up Nimble Movements too which even at 1 talent point is useful for mobility issues. I wouldn't necessarily say it is the most 'optimal' expenditure of Prodigy or Talent Points but it isn't necessarily an non-effective one.

I'll note that I would definitely be all for improvement of both siding with the Assassin Lord and the Tricks of the Trade Prodigy - even if that includes revamping them.

[HousePet]

Scoundrel being the only unique category Rogues get is more of an issue with Rogue than a good reason not to allow it to be obtained via a quest.
It is a generic category.