Assassin rant

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roundishcap#0649 wrote:

The entire right and bottom left side of the tree are so bad early on.

Are they really, though? Both sides have extremely easy access to dirt cheap defenses for just a handful of skill points. The bottom, left, and right sections also get effortless ways to heavily reduce mana costs, plus easy access to leech, which even after the instant leech mastery nerf still completely solves mana sustain and provides solid life sustain for a good while. Easy access to endurance and frenzy charges.

The bottom right arguably has the highest concentration of early-game QoL nodes.
If I had to point to an area that actually needs improvement, it’s definitely not the bottom right or bottom left. The entire right side feels solid as well, offering a wide range of versatile options, much like the bottom left.

If anything needs help, it’s the top left. Outside of a few archetype-specific clusters and generic nodes that only really shine in the endgame, there’s nothing particularly impactful there for early progression.

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roundishcap#0649 wrote:

Put in some early syngergies for viper strike, double strike, flame arrow, and other stuff because the way the tree is now, you either do poisonous concoction or suffer for 50 levels as every skill gem doesn't do enough damage and costs a hell ton of mana more than it needs too.

Not really, Poisonous Concoction is probably the best and fastest way to level, but honestly everything else you mentioned works perfectly fine and can carry you through the whole campaign and even into endgame if you feel like it.

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roundishcap#0649 wrote:

If I had to hazard a guess it is the worst poison ascendancy in the game, because pathfinder, occultist, and champion exist.

It’s currently the strongest poison ascendancy, mostly because the reworked Assassin gives you an absurd amount of value, especially when paired with the new Bloodline classes. It lets you play almost poison anything without being locked into an Original Sin ring or a Heist dagger, and neither Occultist nor Pathfinder can really match that level of flexibility.