Pathfinder >>>>>> Assassin for poison, maybe fix that?

If you look at current poison builds, almost all are pathfinder, and assassin (the 'poison archetype') is not represented at all.

Maybe thats fine, but it does feel like the assassin is totally wasted.

Pathfinders have both proliferation and automate the wither debuff, which is mandatory for all poison Builds.

Assassins just have poison duration, which is found elsewhere.

So I dont know..


Assassin applies wither when they poison?
Assassin can poison with all damage (this is not too crazy, its available on daggers and those boots)
Assassin spreads poison WHEN the enemies is poisoned, not when it dies?
Poisoned enemies do X less damage per poison, up to Y.
Assassin leaches X% of poison damage?


You don't need all of those, just some.

Thanks.

Honestly, assassin needs a total overhaul. It has severely fallen from grace.

My ideal poison assassin is one focused on speed: %increased attack speed per poison you inflicted recently, poisons you inflict deal damage x% faster, release a poison cloud on attack that causes all poisons in area to increase in intensity (think doom mechanic, but for poison).

WITHERED: Both occultist and pathfinder have passive withered. At the very LEAST have assassin gain benefits while the enemy is NOT withered.

If I were to take the existing nodes and tweak them:
1) Deadly Infusion should ALSO add an additional maximum power charge
2) Ambush and Assassinate should GUARANTEE a critical hit against enemies on full life
3) Noxious Strike life recovery should be an on-hit effect, instant.
4) Noxious Strike "increased duration" should also have a "deals damage faster" mod, or the duration should be totally replaced with a faster damage mod.
5) Toxic Delivery should not have the "critical strike" condition for the "more damage".
6) Elusive should just be a permanent buff for assassin, no need for the 50% increased effect nonsense. Or add to Mistwalker: elusive stays at 100% for x seconds, before decreasing. OR have it work similar to deadeye tailwind nodes: a buff that stacks with elusive, up to a maximum, that maintains elusive at max effect as long as you have crit in the last 2 seconds.

Biggest problem with Assassin right now is the conditional nature of every single one of its nodes, and how underpowered they are when compared to similar nodes of other ascendancies. Trickster gets TWO frenzy charges but Assassin only gets 1 power charge? Occultist gets Power charge buffs in ONE node that Assassin has to take two nodes to get. Slayer gets 20% culling strike condition-free, Assassin gets culling....only with crits. Opportunistic is just....garbage.

Assassins are way better this league with perfect agony changes but I don't think they will get to Pathfinders level really

perma flasks is extremely strong defensively, no contest vs Assassin

Wither is a garbage debuff and anyone who automates it kinda gates chaos skills due to its fairly mandatory nature

Lastly Poison is a very single target focused ailment so prolif is absolutely huge in terms of how playable it is.

When I look at this block I think the 2nd and 3rd really need addressing in general and It would bring assassin and others up by default. Wither could use more effect for less stacks so it isn't so important to automate and poison in general needs some form of prolif that isn't Binos.

For a long time poison builds were all considered flavours of plaguebearer due to the fact PB was used for 95% of the clear regardless of which skill was used.

Also agree that Assassin has a few too many conditionals and could use some more reliable power.

I'm toying with a poison spell build, and the power level seems to go


Pathfinder > Trickster > Occultist > Assassin

I'm sure that varies depending on specifics, my point is just that assassin is not narrowly beat out by Pathfinder, it seems far down the list according to POB and being generous with things like poison applied recently.

Assassin used to be great but just kept catching nerfs.

Elusive which was their mechanic used to give Assassin +55% Move, 40/40% Dodge, 25% attack speed, 8% Damage Reduction and Immunity to Crits.

The rest of the Ascendancy suffered nerfs all over. Removed 10% reduced damage from DoTs. Reduced Crit 50% more from poison to 25%. Removed 20% phys as Chaos.

The Ascendancy played really well. GGG just obliterated it instead of changing Night Blade.