TOPIC: Assassin’s crossbow reprint breakout thread

kurtreznor wrote: The sneak attack damage doesn't get doubled (or tripled) from a crit unless you are using nightshade's shortsword or viper strike set. So, it is only the wheel plus ranged +damage that gets tripled. So, melee is still going to outdamage ranged. No nerf needed.

Also, if it does get nerfed, I want to swap mine for a different UR (probably mighty shortbow).

Interestingly, the assassin's crossbow with the legendary necklace and the full build out is almost identical in damage to a nightshade's build. I run quite a bit of rogue (see my build in signature). The nightshade build (it is slightly better than a viper build) 116 average damage on a crit (+33 dmg+5 weapon+20 sneak)(times 2 for crit). The assassin's crossbow build does 122 average damage on a crit (+28 dmg+6.3 weapon)(times 3 for crit) plus 20.

The variance is 6 points. Viper is about 4 points less.

If you nerf the Assassin's Crossbow, you then have to also nerf both the viper set for rogue and nightshade's shortsword. Players spent $2K-$3K for any variation of these builds (unless they collected them when each piece originally came out.)

If any edit should be made, it would be in the legendary itself of moving the crit from 17-20 to 18-20. It's a minor change but would have a substantial impact on in-person sliding.

In general, though, nerfing the crossbow then sets off a list of other items that would also need to be nerfed in kind to reduce damage overall.

Even though I play rogue a good deal, I would support editing the legendary to 18-20 crit range. 17's just tend to be big targets on most sliding boards.

Fred

Fred K wrote:

kurtreznor wrote: The sneak attack damage doesn't get doubled (or tripled) from a crit unless you are using nightshade's shortsword or viper strike set. So, it is only the wheel plus ranged +damage that gets tripled. So, melee is still going to outdamage ranged. No nerf needed.

Also, if it does get nerfed, I want to swap mine for a different UR (probably mighty shortbow).

Interestingly, the assassin's crossbow with the legendary necklace and the full build out is almost identical in damage to a nightshade's build. I run quite a bit of rogue (see my build in signature). The nightshade build (it is slightly better than a viper build) 116 average damage on a crit (+33 dmg+5 weapon+20 sneak)(times 2 for crit). The assassin's crossbow build does 122 average damage on a crit (+28 dmg+6.3 weapon)(times 3 for crit) plus 20.

The variance is 6 points. Viper is about 4 points less.

If you nerf the Assassin's Crossbow, you then have to also nerf both the viper set for rogue and nightshade's shortsword. Players spent $2K-$3K for any variation of these builds (unless they collected them when each piece originally came out.)

If any edit should be made, it would be in the legendary itself of moving the crit from 17-20 to 18-20. It's a minor change but would have a substantial impact on in-person sliding.

In general, though, nerfing the crossbow then sets off a list of other items that would also need to be nerfed in kind to reduce damage overall.

Even though I play rogue a good deal, I would support editing the legendary to 18-20 crit range. 17's just tend to be big targets on most sliding boards.

Fred

This makes me hesitant to spend any more money trying to aquire the legendary Rogue necklace if folks are already calling to nerf it.

Guedoji wrote: Why are we suggesting nerfing a weapon when we literally just got a legendary item providing that ability?

Who cares what a maxed out player can do, most of us don't have maxed out players and will not ever come anywhere near it. This is all theoretical.

At UR and lower levels of play, moving the assassin crossbow to 3x crit on 20 only changes nothing that I’m aware of, as crit range extension doesn’t start until relic level.

Imo, reprint with modification is a graceful way to Address a problem created at the top end with the relic and legendary rogue tokens

Guedoji wrote: Who cares what a maxed out player can do, most of us don't have maxed out players and will not ever come anywhere near it. This is all theoretical.

This. The build in question belongs to a longtime player with many powerful tokens. Most players aren’t going to do that much damage.

BeLinda Mathie wrote:

Guedoji wrote: Who cares what a maxed out player can do, most of us don't have maxed out players and will not ever come anywhere near it. This is all theoretical.

This. The build in question belongs to a longtime player with many powerful tokens. Most players aren’t going to do that much damage.

Agreed. When top end builds are in play, the end results are goofy regardless. A cabal wizard can do 100 damage to an entire room of creatures, a monk can do (without critting) more damage than a rogue can with a crit. There is a path for a barbarian to do over 200 damage on a crit. Clerics, routinely, can't do less than 25 points of healing at a time.

The highest end builds all end up with some ridiculousness to them. Unless those become a huge gulf away from everything else, there isn't much reason for changes.

Where most attention should be focused on balance is for mid-tier players who aren't in heavy eldritch builds yet. If we see huge variances in character performance at that level, then you likely have a problem (but that would likely also be visible in high end builds as those gaps would usually just get magnified.)

These conversations are best prior to new tokens coming out rather than nerfing current ones (unless something game-breaking happens.) Changing existing tokens should be reserved only for things that are truly game-breaking. The last time I recall one of those changes was the lenses of divine sight not doubling healing. That was a major change and pretty controversial for the time. I can't even recall a change like that prior to the lenses.

The necklace made rogue more competitive with barbarian on damage (but still a good deal short of monk or ranger) with the more frequent crits. It went from #6-7 to #4. It made a difference but wasn't game-breaking.

Fred

Fred K wrote:

BeLinda Mathie wrote:

Guedoji wrote: Who cares what a maxed out player can do, most of us don't have maxed out players and will not ever come anywhere near it. This is all theoretical.

This. The build in question belongs to a longtime player with many powerful tokens. Most players aren’t going to do that much damage.

Agreed. When top end builds are in play, the end results are goofy regardless. A cabal wizard can do 100 damage to an entire room of creatures, a monk can do (without critting) more damage than a rogue can with a crit. There is a path for a barbarian to do over 200 damage on a crit. Clerics, routinely, can't do less than 25 points of healing at a time.

The highest end builds all end up with some ridiculousness to them. Unless those become a huge gulf away from everything else, there isn't much reason for changes.

Where most attention should be focused on balance is for mid-tier players who aren't in heavy eldritch builds yet. If we see huge variances in character performance at that level, then you likely have a problem (but that would likely also be visible in high end builds as those gaps would usually just get magnified.)

These conversations are best prior to new tokens coming out rather than nerfing current ones (unless something game-breaking happens.) Changing existing tokens should be reserved only for things that are truly game-breaking. The last time I recall one of those changes was the lenses of divine sight not doubling healing. That was a major change and pretty controversial for the time. I can't even recall a change like that prior to the lenses.

The necklace made rogue more competitive with barbarian on damage (but still a good deal short of monk or ranger) with the more frequent crits. It went from #6-7 to #4. It made a difference but wasn't game-breaking.

Fred

Would this make any difference in mid tier builds? How many ways are there to extend the crit range besides the rogue relic and legendary tokens?

Fred K wrote:

BeLinda Mathie wrote:

Guedoji wrote: Who cares what a maxed out player can do, most of us don't have maxed out players and will not ever come anywhere near it. This is all theoretical.

This. The build in question belongs to a longtime player with many powerful tokens. Most players aren’t going to do that much damage.

Agreed. When top end builds are in play, the end results are goofy regardless. A cabal wizard can do 100 damage to an entire room of creatures,

I really wish you would stop saying things like this, as it seems likely to confuse people.

A Cabal Wizard with a spell bonus of +35 and Crown of Expertise can do, in one round:
* 40 damage to all monsters
* And distribute a pool of 90 damage
* Once per game (twice with a variant build that costs 2 spell damage on every spell and Cleric restore spell)
* at a cost of 10 HP to themselves using both their standard and free action

I'm not sure what everyone thinks when they hear "100 damage to an entire room of creatures" - but I'm pretty sure that's not it.

Oil of smiting and Keen scroll come to mind. The oil with the quiver of anointment has the oil lasts for the whole room as does Keen. Some class abilities allow for 19-20 crits as well as the ring of wizardry.

Beyond that, there are a number of enhanced crit weapons (+5 thor's hammer, IO's bow). Thor's hammer was available for rogues previously with a 19-20 crit range and a good damage wheel.

Where the rogue legendary might have gone an extra step was making it a 17-20 crit rather than 18-20. With that said, it makes playing rogue more fun - crits are definitely fun to see. Without them, your sneak attacks aren't terribly impressive.

I have always appreciated how little TD nerfs tokens. It has happened, but the vast majority time, if it is printed it tends to stick.
That stability sure makes purchasing tokens easier if you don't have to wonder "will this get zapped down in a couple of years time?"

WaterSomePlants wrote: I have always appreciated how little TD nerfs tokens. It has happened, but the vast majority time, if it is printed it tends to stick.
That stability sure makes purchasing tokens easier if you don't have to wonder "will this get zapped down in a couple of years time?"

+1

So crit extenders available to the assassins crossbow are basically limited to consumables (bolt and oil) and possibly amulet / ring of wonder effects without the rogue relic or legendary.

Nightshade has the oil and possible wonder effect.

On class balance principal, I would say that both the assassins crossbow and night shades should be changed to natural 20 only triggering the effect, but it looks like the issue is most relevant only on the legendary. At any other rarity of character build, there is minimal impact regardless of change to nightshade or crossbow now. If it’s not changed on the weapons. all future crit extenders need to take the interaction into account.

Endgame wrote:
As a class that is primarily about the rogue box (ex a puzzle room class), my feeling is that the rogue has plenty of class identity, and doesn’t need to be above bottom 3 in damage.

I feel that switching the assassins crossbow to 3x on natural 20 would still give the opportunity for surprise, high spike damage without the consistency to push the class into the higher damage tiers.

Speaking from the point of view of someone who pretty much only ever plays Rogue, this doesn't reflect my experience in TD.

Opening the Rogue box is certainly a big part part of the class identity, but given that it takes less than a minute and only happens three times per run it's much less part of the identity than using Sneak Attack to land a really big hit on a monster which will generally happen at least three times per dungeon as part of a full combat.

I have to view Rogue as a combat class, since during a combat there is nothing else a Rogue can do. There are no spells available, no class abilities which take up a standard action at level 4, and at level 5 there is only Flank which I have never seen used in a run due to it being generally more beneficial to just attack instead.

Based on the above I don't think it's wrong for Rogue to be included in the top five damage dealing classes, both thematically and mechanically it makes sense to me for Rogue to be there. If the damage were significantly higher than Monk, Ranger, Barbarian, etc I'd agree that a reduction in power level is necessary but the combination of necklace and Assassin's Crossbow only puts Rogue up to the same level as the other classes - yes there is the option of using consumables to boost the damage but other classes also have the same option with Potion of Bull's Strength, etc.

Changing the Assassin's Crossbow to only work on a natural 20 would mean there's little reason for a Rogue to use it. The ability would no longer work with the necklace and the +2 Stunning Light Crossbow has better stats at that point, with the exception of when rolling a natural 20 which has been extremely difficult in recent years outside of VTD. If Assassin's Crossbow were changed then most likely I'd have to switch to a melee build to keep my build viable for the higher difficulty levels, and at that point I'd still be able to output similar damage to the current Assassin's Crossbow build.

However, I don't think Assassin's Crossbow should be reprinted. Not necessarily because of balance issues, but because at the moment it's by far and away the single best Rogue ranged weapon in the game with nothing else coming close. I'd much rather see something new like a Viper Strike Crossbow which allows for a choice of viable builds.