If they return the assassin

[zooply]

What would she/he be like? I always felt the assassin didn't seem to fit the game much in terms of style or description. The assassin is decked out in black leather, giant katars, etc. Now I won't say there shouldn't be an assassin. I just think she'd be better if she was more like an assassin and less conspicuous. Make her stealth abilities sneakier, give her more dirty combat tricks, and some different/plainer clothes. How much of an assassin can you be if you make it obvious to everyone that you're an assassin?

Anyways, I guess I turned this into my own personal wishes for what a D3 assassin should be like. What about anyone else's opinions? Should she stay the same, or be changed?

[stillman]

I hated the assassin so much I never palyed her past lev 20's. She's too silly. Here is a huge list of complaints:

-She looks like she is sneaking around...in heavy full plate metal armor.

-Her armor looks robotic. I hate her armor designs.

-The claws seem to be mostly very slow attack speed weapons. Why? Aren't they among the smallest of the weaons? Aren't they latched right on to her hands? Shouldn't they be very fast?

-Her skills are merely copy cats of the sorc's meteor, sorc's lightning, etc.

-Why is she sneaking around? It doesn't affect the monsters' abilities to see her.

-Assassins typically kill one VIP. We have to stretch our imaginations to envision her marching out onto a battlfiled to slaughter thousands. She kind of blows her cover by doing this. All the other classes (except druid) make sense killing thousands on the battlefield.

-She has some extra useless skills. This pertains to other classes too, but sins seem worse given the number of trappers. Sure, there are hammerdins, but there are also smiters, etc.

-She's snow white, with large breasts of course. Shouldn't she be Asain?

-Kicking 500 pound firebreathing megademons is just rediculous.

-Likewise, claws are a major down-size for weapons that need to take down giant blunderbores and demons with with tough demonhide. How could Blizzard go from giant axes, executioner swords and two handed mauls to little katars?

-The martial arts technique is very backwards. Why would someone want to hit one monster several times to build up a more powerful attack? Why not just use a barb to one-shot them? There are mobs; we want to kill them fast, not whittle away at individuals. Just my opinion on this one, but there aren't many martial artists.

-She just doesn't look right at all with a tower shield and some of the other gear (horned helm) in the diablo world. The other classes look good with shields and horned helms. The sin is just totally out of place and looks wacky.

-We don't need her help. We have amazons from the Amazon Islands, Barbs, a whole temple of paladins, even necros from a swamp somewhere are congregating to fight the evil. The sin should have been sent home. The jobs are all filled.

-Her traps are too sci-fi. What is this Star Trek? Electric traps?

So if d3 is going to have a stealth character in it, I think it should involve monster AI. You should be able to mingle unseen among a mob, or sneak by fast, or actually turn invisible. Maybe D&D backstab could be made for a Diablo world by having a sudden surprise attack where you get a big damage multiplier applied to a series of bad guys (instead of just one target in D&D). Dark clothes, warpaint, smokebombs, or ink can make this chr harder to hit with missiles, like the zon, etc.

[Funkopotamus]

I always liked the Assassin's armor. I agree her skills are pretty wonky. I don't remember her sneaking though. I know when she moves she kinda holds her weapon behind her but that's about it.

When I think of an assassin in the Diablo world I imagine the scrapper Wolverine type, cutting up "soft" tissues and taking cheap shots at weak spots. Fictional assassins are like... mercenaries apparently, according to wikipedia. I was going to make this argument about how an assassin might fight if stealth was not the way to go but apparently stealth is a bi-product and not a requirement.

If you're going to go the historical route with it it's all "we think"'s and "might have"'s and doesn't really have much of a place in Diablo. Like the Asian assassins. Do Asian people exist in the Diablo world? Did they develop the "assassin clan(s)" in the Diablo world?

[HappyAssassin]

@stillman: Claws read as slow speed weapons to every class besides the assassin. Claws are very fast, and the assassin is actually capable of the highest attack speed in D2 (using a socketed claw as a bear). She could "go invisible" (Cloak of Shadows), and confuse enemies (Mind Blast, but since you never level her high enough you wouldn't know that). Martial Artists could waste whole mobs with one kick (in Hell Act V by the way, using Tiger Strike, Dragon Tail and high damage boots). There was an assassin equivalent to smiters (kickers), and a bunch of PvP builds. Yes the elemental martial arts sucked, but those were the only useless skills. PvP assassins used a wider variety of skills than any other class. The problem with the assassin wasn't that she couldn't be played in a stealthy, strategy heavy way, it was that her traps were so good there was no reason to (in PvM anyway). Whoever made a character's best PvM skill a fire and forget, idiot proof one shot wonder was not thinking straight (in fairness, it was the synergies that screwed them up).

So hopefully blizzard will balance the skills better. The assassin won't be back though, the most likely place we'll see some of her skills is probably on a "rogue" type character.

[Waffen]

I love the Assassin, personally I think she look awesome with a bonehelmet and wearing an embossed plate. Using Atma's Wail she looks like her character select screen portrait, very cool indeed. I didn't like the whole trap motif on her and I agree the Martial Arts which should have been the staple are kind of strange, as shes' not really being very martially. She just hits and hits and then does a kick of claw stab to release the charges.

A better approach probably would have been for like skills where she'd weave in and out, slicing and dicing and hopping back and forth or something off of targets. Something to give it more of an actual martial arts flavor. I mean heck when you click on her for character choice she walks forward and does a roundhouse. She sure doesn't do that in the field, which is a shame.

[Sass]

A better approach probably would have been for like skills where she'd weave in and out, slicing and dicing and hopping back and forth or something off of targets. Something to give it more of an actual martial arts flavor. I mean heck when you click on her for character choice she walks forward and does a roundhouse. She sure doesn't do that in the field, which is a shame.Almost as there was some magical Dance of Death she could do that uses claws to swipe while she moves around her opponent, striking vital spots and dealing deadly strikes.

She can even coat her claws in some kind of poison while making a whirling motion around a paralyzed opponent.

A shame we don't have it in D3. I'll miss her; she's the best class :thumbup:

WW female barb anyone?

[Arbedark]

Almost as there was some magical Dance of Death she could do that uses claws to swipe while she moves around her opponent, striking vital spots and dealing deadly strikes.

She can even coat her claws in some kind of poison while making a whirling motion around a paralyzed opponent.

A shame we don't have it in D3. I'll miss her; she's the best class :thumbup:

WW female barb anyone?

As long as they have some claw style weapons, I'll be pwning face with a female WW Barb :whistling:

RE: stillman

Do you have ANYTHING constructive to say about anything in Diablo? Every post I read of yours seems to be a long list of complaints about how god-awful Diablo is...

'Sin rules btw. HARD!

[mackscynox]

sorry a bit off topic.

personally,

other classes dont look too realistic too:
barbs hold their swords in air, arenot they heavy,
pals never move their shield arm it is like fixed,
druid walk/run funny,
some necro armors look funy on them.

i dont think assassin looks more weird than any other class.


assassin is the only class that have skills for any situation.
kick big guys,
lay traps for mobs,
COS for escaping bad big guys,
MB for confuse mobs,
3-4k dmg is easily achieved with some good claws,
can deal 50+k dmg in 1 hit easily beyond 30 levels,
any type elemental dmg , low but that is a good thing(cold, fire, poison, lightning), in which massive poison, fire and lightning
15+k AR and fastest attack, (kicks)
some very nifty skills (corpse explosion, COS, MB, best intelligent summon in game, some kind of Tele)

also the play style of sin is best for me, lure them on u and take 1 by 1 with a variety of useful skills. the only thing she lacks is synergy on skills (there is no synergy on MA and SD)

in single player (where the ping/lag, fast skill/weapon switching is not a problem) i always play martial sin. even 12 skill shortcut is not enough for me :) where my other characters need 4-8 max.

i shall miss her in d3 :(
shall wait for her in d3 expansion lol...

[zooply]

sorry a bit off topic.

personally,

other classes dont look too realistic too:
barbs hold their swords in air, arenot they heavy,
pals never move their shield arm it is like fixed,
druid walk/run funny,
some necro armors look funy on them.

i dont think assassin looks more weird than any other class.

True the other characters have some quirks too, but some of the quirks you mentioned aren't really style related, which is what this thread is about.

Now of course as you said the D2 assassin is gone for D3. It will be interesting to see if there is another assassin-like class, or a class that has a tree (or w/e they use in D3) that incorporates assassin skills.