Cunning D is geting "THE LOOKS"

It's like there is a party on the test live and everyone is invited:

In regards to cunning deflection threads Haven said:

This is a known issue that the devs are taking a look at.

See the source.

So....I can has damage on soldier without dieing?

O....M....G!

in [Suggestion] Revamp the Rogue general tree thread at test live forums, FC team member - Cerard had this to say:

"While it is much appreciated, to have such suggestions, I might want to add something:

It is no secret that there might be issues with the Asassin. As the Dev Team always works on fixing these issues in order to make this class fun for everyone, it should be reasonable to wait for improvement suggestions until all the fixes on this class have been done, to get a clearer picture.

Remember the improvements you suggested are based on what you experience now. But what will be once the char has been "fixed" completely? Your suggestions might be outdated and needs an update again

So sometimes it is good to wait a few days longer, in order to make a suggestion, then giving feedback on something "unfinished" I hope you can understand, what I am up to "

See the source

Trendy sin

It seems that after all assassin might just get a chance to wear GOOD looking armor instead of NIPPLE SET:

In [Suggestion]Social Tabs for Armor on Test live forums Haven the QA tester confirmed that social armor and regular armor tabs overwriting the main armor is something that devs are considering.

Basicly it means that you can farm low level killer looking set (like the one from epic FOTD) and use it to cover your candy ass pvp lvl5 bullshit armor. Whats not to like, eh?

Let me waste 1 minute of your life

Here is small bug report:

Ridin' teh wind!
How to recreate the bug:
1.dismount
2. click target
3. click dismount again
4. ride the wind

Burn, baby, burn!

I have new and hot "feedburner" so if you like this blog and want to make me giggle like a little girl - please subscribe to this blog via link on the right side.

First 3 people who subscribe to the feedburner and post about it in the comment will get special prize! Act now!

You gained a new pvp level

I am now pvp lvl3. I have had lolcat picture saved for month just for this occasion, but I won't post it - it's not a very happy day for me. Basicly it took me like 3 months of blood, sweat and tears in the minigames (mostly random vs premades) while I see people already in their pvp lvl5 gear that I haven't seen in minigames even once and I AM TEH MINIGAMEZ GUY! I know people who play minigames. They have either farmed the gear through endless KESH zerg (If AOC ever dies it will be bured in KESHATTA) or "guild leave and spank for xp" exploit, or better yet - combination of those. Perhaps getting to the pvp lvl4 will be more enjoyable and the lolcat will be used, but right now we are in the Age of the Casters, Cunning Deflection Warriors and gank+spank open world pvp with no real objective. I swear it: if FC did not add pvp xp and gear the AOC would be already over. The server mergers - even thou technicaly succesful - did not bring neither RP nor Minigames. I have been a big supporter of the mergers, but I just can't feel any diffrence except the fact that BARBARIAN POPULATION WENT THROUGH THE ROOF!


So I am 77pvp xp into lvl4 and I can honestly say that I haven't seen so much abuse of this game since "the Gem Wars". Hope FC and provide more pleasurable experience because this is just crap.

Return from the exile

As I got closer and closer to the pvp lvl 3 (3k left) my experience with assassin got more and more crappy. At one point it got so bad that I respecced corruption/general and later hybird (which was just dumb because it made things worse, a lot). I have decided that I will either make "things" click with the assassin again, or I will just quit. In order to do some "mental cleansing" I took a break from the live server and went to the test live. After messing with diffrent lotus/general speccs I have came to the conclusion that it wasn't really the specc, but a matter of executing your combos and key setup in general.


Ask yourself these questions:
1. Do I land my combo steps or do I miss a lot?
2. am I tripping over my fingers, misspressing things?
3. am I dodging hits, or do they all land on me?
4. Does my UI give me clear view of whats is on CD and whats not?
5. Do I need all my CDs to win a fight?
6. am I often going face2face with classes that I really should not? (aka conq)

Needless to say the list is made out of my experience. I have also asked myself questions from my micro vs macro post - do I really *NEED* all of those "clicky" feats? Are they helping me or are they just bringing my DPS and performance down?

I have done TONS of duels, zerg, jumps etc. on test live and here are my conclusions:

1/ combos - I have redone my directional attack keys so to NOT to trip over my fingers. The default ones are good for static PVE "tank and spank" encounters, but I found them too cumbersome in the PVP. Perfect execution of a combo is way more important that having buffs feats close to your finger tips. If you can both MOVE and EXECUTE a combo, you are on the right track.

2/ I have always used the default UI (for many reasons), but I have never put my clickables in the right fasion: buffs/heals/defences/CC/Anti CC. Instead I had all those feats spread around my screen which wasn't really helping me to judge on what is at my disposal in given scenario.

3/ I have shaven off my most beloved feats: antrophy and brutality. You really should focus on the *CORE* of assassionation: SS and SDS with some GC debuff. In minigame scenario mere second can decide if you will get the kill or get CCed, so by the time I managed to land antrophy (very sluggish to fire off and land for some reason) I could get one SS in. Also the Vile Posions deserved a second look as they go with my "passive synergy" mindset: SDS will benefit from Vile Posions, GC debuff and Corrupted Body which has clear advantage over Antrophy (2 minute cooldown is just waaaay too long).

If you get stagnat with your assassin - re-invent yourself, look for the key issues, ask questions and find solutions that will help you take it "to the next level". The specc is important, but the most important is how you setup your keys becuse it is where all things "assassin" begin and end.

Fate gone wild

Fate, the goddness of Tortage decided to "take it to the streets" and went to the place that all people eventually wind up in: KESHATTA (which sounds like somekind of dish or a name for a kebab bar). The goddness did not WTFPWN anyone, but she could only if she wanted to.

Crap interview with Craig Morrison

Today Eurogamer had a live developer chat with Age of Conan Game Director Craig Morrison. My hopes were very low and I was not mistaken. Mr. Morrison did not mention anything that any AOC player woudn't already known and there were no really HARD question asked (the kind of questions that linger on forums for months without dev reply).


I have tried to stand up for our little assassin community with some much needed "stealth mechanic" question, but to no use. People reading this interview weren't pleased about it either.
I guess the whole thing wasn't aimed at "teh hardc0rez" forum crowd, but at non-Aoc gamers who needed a reminder that Conan is still out there and kicking.

1.4 Slaughterhouse review

Here is my review of 1.4 solo dungeon - The slaughterhouse cellar:

The architecture

Nothing special. You would think that walking into cellar that is populated by savage picts where dozens of people were killed and where slobs of meat are rotting you would see something like REALLY FREAKY STUFF THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR STOMACH TURN. No. It is quite clean place - the picts are taking good care of it. You can barely notice crates filled with meat.

You will see mix of "cellar", acheronian architecture and caves.

Room for improvment: more meat please. This place should be all about tons of rotting meat and corpses. There is quest in Old Tarantia Noble District (green cape man or something like that) where you investigate where the rotting meat comes from. THATS IS exacly what I am talking about. Blood, corpses, rats, dust, spider webs.

The mobs
Quite a few bosses. The picts must have been trained by Villa guards because they do same tricks with their swords. You will face sword + shield picts (not VERY pictish! Give them AXES) and bow picts. Good thing FC did not add any shamans as mobs because casters are a rare rare thing amongst picts. You will get knockedback a lot, and if you get cought by bow fire - run, because it will get you down FAST.

I got one blue drop and by Mitra - it wasn't belt, boots or other 80lvl stuff droped en masse in Villas, but a BLUE WEAPON! Oh joy!

Room for improvment: Picts are savage warriors that fight mostly with clubs or crude axes - don't give them swords and shields.

Ghosts
I was really looking foward to this: the cellar was supposed to be haunted by ghosts of the people traped in cellar and then mercilessly killed. Well I found...one ghost. Talking about need to call ghosts busters eh?

The poor ghost (which accualy went melee against me instead doing some ghostly freaky attack) droped blue item (yeee! bosses drop usefull stuff at last!)

The drop was slighty better than 80lvl midnight chest (added more HP) so considering that you can solo this eq - it is GREAT.

But, oh lazy lazy FC, the drop uses same model as 80lvl crafted chest so....MEH!

Room for improvment: more...ghosts...please? I mean - one? Come on, gimme at least 4! More unique models for drops too..

Cutscene:
When you use some "thingy" the croc boss spawns and you will see a nicely done mini-cutscene. It is a welcomed thing - more of this please.


There is also one hidden area that I will not spoil for you - add more of those :D
I will not spoil the quest plot either, but it is good and based heavly on lore.

To sum it up: not too shabby. I have actually quite enjoyed it and if you allow me to farm unique 80lvl blue eq from this place, I will do it till my eyes bleed :)

Massively shits on AOC

Massively - part of Virginworlds podcast collective - in a last show did some more AOC bashing, criticizing the server mergers. Althou "Massively" is by far my favorite podcast, Shawn and Michael, Tim Dale and Jon Shute don't know anything about current state of Age of Conan, and are basing their opinions on their first experience with the game which could have been unpleasant. The aoc part of the show actually got me a little angry which is the first sign that I am turning into fanboiiii..and clear evidence of my own hypocrisy - I shit AOC all the time (or am I only going hard on FC and not the game itself?). I could write a long and hart filled e-mail to Massively, but whats the point? I rather have Funcom changing those gentlemen's minds and damn, it will take some work, let me tell ya.

BTW - Do check that show, it is made by very talented and entertaining people.

Hide fix?

Haven, QA tester on test live forums, in reply to yet another "State of Hide" thread confirmed that:

The devs are aware of your feedback on these issues. (There have been several threads about this on the Live forums as well as several threads in the past on the Testlive forums).

Please remember that just because a thread does not get a blue or dev post, it doesn't mean that we haven't seen it or done anything about it

see the source

So...we are getting something or what?

[Guide] Brutality

This thread have inspired me to make a post about brutality because I have been using it quite a lot as Lotus assassin lately.

Brutality grants you 50% chance that your combo which kills the target will be converted into Fatality (this is not exacly what tooltip says but it's what it really does)

Few facts about brutality:
- the proc is 50%, but from what I have seen in PVE if you do not fatality first mob, the proc won't go off on another. Same if you proc fatality, you will chain fatality next mobs.
- fatality animation does damage to other mobs that are closeby (AOE)
- during fatality you cannot be affected by melee or spell, but you benefit from healing already cast on you (spells, pots)
- fatality gives +20% dmg buff and regens stamina very fast
- only combos proc fatality
- only "killing" combos proc fatality - if you do less than enough damage to kill a mob, fatality won't proc.
- Antrophy for some reason is not geat for procing fatality (or perhaps I have been very unlucky with it)

PVE brutality:
Brutality affecs you and your team so you will benefit from it in PVE aswell. I have had a blast in PVE when fighting 3-4 mobs at once which is not easy thing for lotus assassin (without droping all stuff at once, and then waiting for a cooldown).

Timing
The brutality should be activated on your LAST combo step and only if it is "killing combo". Any other usage like droping it at the begining is wasteful. When I am faceing group of mobs that I will use brutality on I open with GC to:

1. take out chunk of health
2. debuff
3. FORCE ALL SHIELD to the LEFT (helps SSIX to be killing combo)

After that I proceed with SSIX and buff it with butality.

Targeting:
If all mobs have equal HP - always target mob in the middle to do most AOE damage
If one mob has lowest HP - target him for more reliable fatality proc

Chain
The best brutality usage is "chaing fatality" - since the brutality buff last 15s you can get 2-3 procs of it and jump from the mob to mob. It is really spectacular view to see assassin grab his enemies one by one and lay the smackdown. To get chain use GC after first fatality if mobs have more HP (meaning they will survive the opener and die from combo finisher) or SLAM if they are almost dead.

use SLAM
Slam is your best friend when it comes to procing fatality - it does instant damage so it won't kill the mob with combo step hit and it proces OFFHAND nicely to help you do that extra damage for fatality proc. Use only on REALLY damaged opponents.

The most important TIP:
If you are lotus assassin chances are you are specced into Sense Weaknes which grants 25% chance to crit on your combo opener. I know all of us <3 big critz, but having your GC opener crit and kill mob is not something you want when you have to fight the other two without fatality proc. So, when your target is low on health (but not low enough to kill him with SLAM) turn from the mob so your GC opener hits air, and then turn back to land the GC's combo finisher and enjoy the fatality. If you use mouse look turning you can do this very fast and fatality proc is WORTH the hussle.

PVP BRUTALITY
all things from PVE apply here except it is much harder to use it well in pvp. Since fatality buffs everyone in the team, it doesn't have to be you who fatalities someone. The fatality buff can be real "battle turner". Brutality is great BUT - 3 points is a lot when it comes to PVP specc which has to include antiCC stuff. Is brutality really worth the 3 points in PVP build? That is up for a debate.

Funcom loves you..

The server mergers went super smooth and the test live has been updated with new 1.4 content including two 80lvl instances. I hope things are downhill from here, because server mergers must been funcom's top priority for sometime now.

BTW check that turtle's simle - wicked.

Minigames fun

Since the EU servers are down for the mergers people RUSHED to the test live to "keal the time". This turned out to be great opportunity to test things I previosly couldn't becouse it's almost impossible to get minigame on test server:

Totem Torrent
1.4 revamps poor Totem torrent that use to be "one-tactic" dominated (hide, sneak to enemy, take down totem, fragfest in the center, gg)

PVP MINIGAMES
* Totem Torrent - Various gameplay changes have been made to improve the flow and speed of this minigame. The optional resurrection points have been removed. The capture areas have been moved into the north and south buildings (to the location of the old resurrection points). If you capture one of these new areas, your totem will be much more durable.

The water in the center is GONE which have greatly increased the game's performance. It has really brought down the map's "eye candiness", but the FPS got smoother.


The healing spot in the center now...works! Get healers/rangers into that place and watch the smack down.


Totems got defence boost - even when 5 of us were hitting it, the HP bar was going down slow. I would even go as far as saying MAKE IT HARDER.




My observations:
1. the game is fast, but you can't do the zerg from the nearest respawn point because you have to run across the map to re-enforce you team.
2. The Tottem itself is harder with an option to make it even more durable.
3. Healing spot provides interesting tactic ideas.
4. Tweaked performance - removing water helped a lot.
5. Wide open map with something to fight over for.

The GMs had good times making people into gigants and "little people" which of course screwed with the minigames.

Conan the rebel

After shiting all over "Conan and the spider god" I had to mention that I am through first few pages of "Conan the rebel" by Poul Anderson: so far so good, baby. The book tells about Conan and Belit, the queen of the black coast. REH was not VERY specific on what exacly happened during Conan's "AMRA days" but lets just say: the heads DID roll. I am looking foward to reading more of Mr.Anderson's work.

Conan and the spider god review

**Minor spoilers**
What crap book, by Howard's no.1 fan - Mr. Sprague de camp. The poor guy just tried too hard. The whole book is just plain boring, the action is slow, the plot is...meh, and the Conan himself is not Conan at all. The book tells about young Conan, so the author had to take special care to make Conan stay consistent with his later life portrayed by REH. The author failed at that:

1. Conan learned how to fight illusion magic and hypnosis - the older Conan never had ANY arcane knowledge and REH mentioned that young Conan though that writing and reading was a "girly" skill, not to mention learning magic which Conan was deeply afraid of.
2. Conan found a true love - Conan's first true love was Belit, REH was very specific on this.
3. Conan worked as blacksmith - Conan lived by the sword until he became king of Aquilonia.
4. Conan did not solo WTFPWNed gigant spider - he always does.

Mr. Sprague de camp did not even reference the "Elephant in the tower" by REH right: Conan DID NOT fought lions guarding the tower, other thief used black lotus to kill them.

I am glad that I am through this book.

Assassin gear guiide

Tsuniko down at EU assassin boards created a much needed and detailed gear guide featuring every pice of assassin phat lootz. Check it to feed your EPIX0RZ hunger.

Stealth bug

This bug has been around for a while so I decided to throw this report in.
Description: your character and horse will be stealthed and you can even run on your horse's back.

Way to recreate the bug:
1. mount
2. join minigame
3. before minigame ends - use stealth aka hide
4. enjoy

Mergers are coming to ur town!

Yep, it's official

The EU servers will come down for the announced server merges on Wednesday, 14th January at noon GMT (13:00 CET). The duration is scheduled to last about 24 hours.

Can't say I am overcomed with joy, but this will be interesting.

RP-IN-AOC

Few post ago I have said that since AOC community consist of mature males it has a lot of potential. Well here is a prime example of what a ment: rp-in-aoc site is a RP community heaven with forums, profiles, rp blogs - the works! From the little thread it went STICKY along with head moderator Tahitoa's blessing. I have already added my profile to the top of the page. I very happy that site like that came up because in recent months I had nothing to do with RP and it was nice to remind myself that Slith as character once had his background story. Tialla of Tesso truly started something extraordinary.

Just for you....not really

I now *own* my very own domain http://www.assassinshideout.com/ which when clicked will take you to this blog. Now you can browse this blog at work and don't have to carry your yellow stickie with my blog's web adress because it will be drilles into ya head ASSASSIN+HIDEOUT and that sweet .COM at the end.
It's a win-win situation because I have just made your life that easer and in return I can weave biger EPEEN at Assassins board. Good times!

Feedback to feedback

Recently Haven the QA tester from test live forums confirmed what all community have been wondering about for the past 6 months:

As always, every thread is read and all feedback is reported to the dev team. (Although a response to each and every thread is not always possible - they are ALL read).

Haven the QA tester

This should be very encourageing for people to give their feedback on test live forums because it just might help shape this game into something better. I myself wasn't sure if QA from Funcom where even looking at boards, but it seems quite the opposite.

Server mergers!

The Server Merges list has been posted.

EU Servers

English Servers
* Aquilonia (PvP-RP)
* Corinthia

Looks like we will be merged with Corinthia which is goooooood. The pure PVP servers are getting even better deal: all pvp servers are going to be smashed into one peeveeepee killa-fest. Needless to say people cry tears of joy.
Damn, can you imagine how great the new pvp server will be in terms of game play? Too bad the community will suck ass (check the global chat on those servers.....akward!).
I am happy with our merger, but I wish Funcom got us all RPers into one world. Oh well..it is still very good.

Lethargy guide

No one seems to like lethargy anymore because it was turned down from GOOD to BAD damage dealer. Funcom took out 3 out of 4 combo steps leaving poor lethargy as one-step combo with +20.3 dmg on opener. Some people went as far as taking the lethargy out of their combo bar.
I would have to agree that Lethargy lost all uses in pvp: the damage is way too low and the debuff not worth the hassle - landing simple GC will do you better in every way.
However leathargy still is somewhat useful in PVE encounters:


Raid:
I don't have any experience at raiding, but from what I have gathered lethargy should always be droped on the boss to let the tank and a healer breath a little. Debuff giving -6% dmg may not seem like much but those things add up and over a long fight that debuff can translate into a lot damage being avoided.

Mobs:
When you are fighting +2 mobs lethargy can help you stay alive by debuffing several NPC at once with cone effect.

As you can see lethargy affected 3 mobs so it was as your lethargy affected only one NPC, but for -18% dmg.

You can debuff more than 3 mobs with this litte trick: use lethargy to get the first hit (combo opener) and then dubble tap backwards (default "s") which will make the NPC try to get closer to you and "stack" (being closely packed).

Tired of Funcom bashing..

Seriously, I am tired of coming home, using a lolcat builder to create half-baked FANNY jpgs featuring somekind of fuzzy animal and then writing post on how much Funcom sucks. What kind of news is that? It reeks of 70' superhero cartoons where TV-news-guys used to report news like this:

"and now in a breaking news - Dr. Evil did more evil."

Now, I am not saying that Funcom is evil, but I am sure as hell thinking that!
I will not go over things that Funcom could do better when it comes to managing their community because people that are smarter than me already did that: quite a while ago Amorey, a very active poster, made a thread Building the Age of Conan Community that is superb and should be Funcom's staff bible. Why Funcom isn't doing exacly as stated in that thread is beyond me! Age of Conan's community consist mostly of mature males so it got a lot of potential (as opposed to community consisting mostly of pre-teen males who can't get organized to do fuck all, l2p crowd). But the community needs to be feeded with news and Funcom won't give any because "we'rz too buzy with teh patchorz to post newz, biotches!". As DIRECT result of Funcom's "no news" policy our only podcast (WOW got them in hundrets and WAR got atleast few) Hyborian Herald Podcast went down HARD - it's hard to do podcast on how there is no news. Funcom just doesn't understand that people are not buisy plaing AOC all the time - they are in fact at work, browsing forums for any news to keep then interested enough to log on when they get home. Apparently I am not the only one disappointed in Funcom's overall performance - Kruella thinks so too. The sad, sad thing is this is what Funcom thinks about their crappy policy:

"(...)call me silly but I think the communication that we have now is quite good

Regards

Tahi "

Ofcourse I won't even attempt to make a thread about this issue on main boards - it already failed here and here so why bother.

Please, oh please Funcom - change your wicked ways...

Holidays are over...

The last pice of news about AoC development was posted 19.12.2008 and the devs are still silient. Everyone is expecting word from the Funcom to be posted tommorow, because there are few burning issues:

1/ server mergers are highly anticipated (we FOOLISHLY asumed that 1.4 won't be in for X-Mass but mergers will..)

2/ Xibaluku and Slaughter house cellar are still not open in the 1.4 build on the test live server

3/ some minigame changes are coming down the pipe

All boards are filled with suggestion threads and the ammount of feedback that was ammased is staggering. My hopes are up and I am hungry for the news.

Hungry for lore

As I have previously stated I am a big fan of Conan lore - in fact it might by main reason why I am still playing AOC - it is true to the lore. I have already chewed trough all of R.E.Howard's works and they all were superb. After "Hour of the dragon" the last book that features Conan as a King is "Conan: the avenger" and the series stop (Conan is in his late 40-ties and still kicking ass). Since R.E.Howard commited suicide and a very young age, his fans took his notes and tried to continue the Conan saga. The first book that came out was "Conan and the Spider God" by L. Sprague de Camp where Conan is still in his early 20-ties and just quited his "job" as Zingarian thief for a military service in Turan (almost 30 years later he does some pretty funky shit in Turan, but that is another story ;p). So far I don't like Sprague de Camp's writing at all: R.E.H had this unique style of action packed yet rich in details story that kept you interested from the page 1 to the very end. Sprague de Camp's story unfolds sloooooowly and is packed with some irrevelant shit: Conan sits down, orders dinner, eats it, and goes to bed 0_o (and no assassin pop out of his beer and try to rip his head off). I still have like half the book to go, but so far it was "yawn-fest" for me which was never the case with REH.

Kicking it old school - Ninjas of the night

Intro to pvp video made by Mephs back in the days....no comment really needed - it is full of win.

The assassin that almost was, but it is not.

Couple days ago I have stumbled upon old class interview where the Devs were boasting about assassin. Just few things I want to show you that was "in the pipe" for assassin development, but were scraped along the way:

The Assassin is also the most proficient class when it comes to stealth, and has a bit of an easier time sneaking around than the other classes in the game.

Comment:not really true. Assassin isn't any better at sneaking than other rogues. People at forums often suggested that assassin should get extra sneaking mechanic like "forced stealth", "untrackable by rangers" etc.

Future development: We might infact see something new additions to assassin's stealth as it's iconic for this class.

While Assassins are able to use crossbows and other forms of ranged weaponry, their strength is primarily in their ability to surprise and overwhelm their target quickly. Although one could accomplish this reasonably well with ranged attacks (...)

Comment: assassins can only use crossbow which is a shame. Again, people on forums suggested to enable assassin to use throwing daggers or to let us use the bows.

Future development: Barbarians can in fact throw their weapons at their opponents (No escape)even if they wield two-hander. I think we might see assassins getting somekind of ranged feat/skill at some point.

If skilled enough in sneaking around his chosen targets, the Assassin also has the ability to perform sneak attacks to further gain an advantage. He also has a number of abilities which have additional properties if used from stealth.

Comment: It would be soooo sweet for assassins to get openers like (I hate to make that comparison..) rogue has in WoW - garrote for bleed, sap for stun etc.. What would be even sweeter if having exacly what the devs said - skills that do extra things when used from stealth like Grim Corruption from stealth would also silence the target for 2 s.

Future development: This is coming, I can feel it :D It would be the best patch for Funcom to take on the next expansion that would make assassins more unique and immersive.

His “Lethargy” combos, for instance, will dramatically lower the damage output of his chosen target, while he can further increase this effect with his “Atrophy” feats in the Lotus specialized tree.

Comment: I like that idea a lot: synergy between Lethargy and Atrophy instead of Antrophy being just superior choice. Right now Lethargy as damage dealer is nerfed through the roof and the debuff is laughable -6% to melee only.

Future development: I doubt that things will change, but I hope for synergy between those two skill/feat

In terms of other specialized feat-based group utility, Assassins can train in many abilities which are quite useful, such as:
(...)
* “Cleansing Lotus”, which can remove poison effects from their group

Comment: the poison effects are not really big part of the game. I could see this being useful if posion and posion related dots where common in AOC: posion arrows, necro's spells, posion traps etc. This fits the POM or other healer classes and I am glad it got scraped.

Future development: let's hope for none :D

Additionally, depending on the stance the Assassin is in at the time, their combos will take different forms and have slightly different effects corresponding with said stance.

Comment: this half baked idea took the form of Toxic Venom/Dread venom skills which change the very mechanics of slow death strike transforming the damage into unholy/posion purely from the stance.

Future development: Hope FC expands on this.

he Assassin is a really great class for people who like having a large strategic toolset, many abilities on the hotbar, and high damage-dealing potential.

Comment: It was a major let down for me when I found out that assassin in fact has very low ammount of "clickables" and even lower ammount of "tools" (I would say we got antrophy/lethargy, GC and Impede Life). Most icons on your toolbar will be skills of diffrent levels (like GCIII and IV) while chars like Conquerer have their bars JAM PACKED with clickable goodness.

Future development: more doesn't mean better, but I would like some "tools" that I can choose to use, instead of having them randomly proc: Burden to Bear for example should be buffed up to 20% - 25% debuff and made a clickable instead of passive. Hope we get more control over out arsenal.

Quotes and the image taken from http://www.tentonhammer.com.
Interview done by Cody "Micajah" Bye, Managing Editor at thentonhammer