New Assassin skill: Veil of Severance

[PsychoTrashCan]

Before I provide the reason for this post, I’d like to address something about the game which has never ceased being discussed. That is, the solo viability and how DAoC has leaned heavily on group and zerg play, while solo play has become less and less desirable (understandable, the game is built around group play). And as it stands, solo play is typically set to “honor code” rather than organic and spontaneous conflict and is rife with “being steamrolled”. DAoC as a whole has taken a sort of hands off approach to this fact.

Most solo “fixes” have targeted damage nerfs/buffs, or tried relegating areas for “solo play”. When really, it should be focused on making solo more viable for large scale action (such as a solo in a keep fight or zerg fight)

The most solo centric class, Assassins, have been pushed out greatly from group play and relegated to camping docks and XP spots. A gameplay style that is more akin to griefing than it is fun, challenging, and engaging. For Archer’s, their high damage range gives them a lot of desirability in keep defense and open range warfare so they suffer much less for this issue. Their ability to see Assassins at a distance has essentially nullified them as typical assassin targets.

It’s a wide known truth that Assassin’s this season have become a bit, how should I say…undesirable? Their CS line does not scale well with all the ToA and CL buffs. They have a tough time killing anything besides soft opponents, much less anything above a hybrid and are forced out of a spec line for the sake of DPS. The one thing that has been consistently overlooked and therefore suffered is why they are desirable for solo play. Their opportunistic nature.

The original (live) design for assassins was top tier solo pvp ability in exchange for grueling leveling and nightmarishly expensive templating. Even before templates were a thing, assassins took months and months to reach 50. Even as much as a year for many. They were practically shunned in groups and had essentially a complete solo experience to 50. But as the years went on, it got easier and easier to level and template. Expansions increased survivability, the one thing that assassins used as their advantage to kill a target.

With that said, I’d like to propose a new unique ability for Assassins that targets not their ability to damage or win fights, but their ability to draw an opponent into a fight and take advantage of their opportunistic nature.

Skill: Veil of Severance
The assassin pulls their target into the Veil, severing contact from the realm. This ability forces the target into a 1 on 1 fight for survival.

Using this skill will instantly transport both players into a “layer” in the game world, called the Veil. Where Assassin’s normally walk the line of the veil to remain hidden and interact with the real world, they’ve learned to pull their prey into the veil with them, forcing their target into a fight for survival.

[This is my own interpretation on how to implement this skill and what specifications it has, but this can be tweaked/adjusted for gameplay purposes of course]

Recast time: 10:00
Recast time on fail: 30s
Duration: 30s
Must be used while stealthed.
Ability is set to active and fired when the caster makes a successful stealth opener (Backstab/Perforate Artery). If the opener fails the ability has a 30s cooldown. If no action is taken the ability resets after 10 seconds.
Target and caster are transported instantly to the Veil.
The target leaves behind a rift that slowly loses health. Destroying this rift ends the ability and both parties are transported back into the realm. The amount of health the rift has is based on the type of target and the amount of players in the group. If the target is solo, no rift appears and they are on their own.

Caster>Stealther>Hybrid>Healer>Light Tank>Heavy Tank

Based on each class type, the portal will have a higher HP pool. The rift will slowly lose health as time goes on, starting at 100% and ending at 20% with 5s left. If the portal is attacked, it will only lose health proportional to the time left. (see Q&A about this being “group only” option as well)
If the target dies before the ability ends, the Assassin is forced into a vanish like state (without the weaponless debuff) and both are instantly transported back to the realm (with the targets dead body laying at their position relative to the real world). If the target wins and defeats the assassin, the target is instantly cured of any ailments and healed to full health.
You also cannot interact with any real world objects including doors.
Optional: If the timer runs out and neither player is dead, the Assassin will suffer a 10% debuff to all stats for 5 minutes.

This ability can be tied to a spec line or as an RA. Maybe spec points or RA points can be used for higher tiers where it increases the length of time the skill as active for, or reduce it’s recast time. Maybe put it in the CS spec line to make it a more attractive prospect.

Q&A


Q. What is this supposed to accomplish?
A. It has a couple of effects. For one, it makes them more desirable in Keep Defense/Attack while not relying on them being group friendly. It makes their natural climbing useful as well. It also plays into their solo centric nature without buffing them, instead relying on being opportunistic killers. It’s not much fun being an opportunistic killer in a large scale fight if you’re going to get burned down in 3-4 seconds because you don’t have group healing/support.

Q. All this means is that they get to gank casters free without any repercussions!?
A. No, that’s what the rift is for. Although nobody can enter it, they can destroy it. For a caster, this would die rather quickly. I had considered making the ability target only people in groups, and only that group would see the rift to damage it, but I’m not sure how that would play out in reality. It would make someone more apprehensive to step away from their group, on the other hand, having it visible to everyone means it would be burned down very quickly making the skill rather useless.

Q. But what about other soloers??
A. Assassins are the only class built around being solo. Even archers have AoE abilities and range for keep defense and open zerg warfare (I know NS has a small nuke and infil has xbows, but its piddly damage against grouped members). All attempts to make assassins more group friendly over the years have failed. Instead this gives them the ability to be more solo viable while also participating in keep/zerg warfare. Any other classes that run “solo” can still find groups.

Q. How does this affect roaming/campers?
A. It really doesn’t help much. The only benefit would be to keep people from adding. With the possibility of the debuff for not killing their target in time, it’s more of a strategic tool rather than a blunt instrument to be used on cooldown.

Q. What if the Assassin joins a group?
A. This could be very useful or not. It would depend on the circumstance. Imagine sending your assassin in to take their healer out of the equation while the rest of the group pounces? Quite an interesting dynamic and change to how 8man would work. But the tricky part is getting your assassin in to make a PA/BS in the first place. Not easy in an 8v8 fight.

Q. What about things like chants/group buffs? Like if the assassin attacked one of those classes and transported them?
A. Chants would disappear. Anything already casted that has a range check would stay since they didn’t move relative to the real world. They’re just in an area “inaccessible” to anyone else.

Q. How would this affect stealther groups?
A. That would be for the devs to decide. I don’t pretend to know how this would affect that dynamic but considering what they’ve already done in that regard, I’d assume it would have limited or even disabled use in stealther groups.




Issues

I don’t know if this is even possible on a technical level. With how the client/server handles transitions, this may be a moot point. How I see it working is when the assassin hits their target, they instantly transition to a “gloomy” version of the area they are in (kind of like how those Otherworldly portals work that show up during leveling) with no one else around. So if this happened in say, Dun Crauchon, you would be in the keep area just the same with no one else around. Just you and your target. However this transition would need to be almost instant with no loading.

If this isn’t possible, another solution would be to “stealth” both characters and have them completely invisible (100% stealth) to everyone around them. Unable to interact or attack anyone but eachother. This could make it more interesting for the victim to stay near their teammates but may require more work than the devs care to spend on a single skill.

Let me know what you think. I tried my best to be unbiased. As I see it, being grouped means not worrying about solo players/assassins. This could help shift that dynamic a bit and make grouped players even more aware of their surroundings while extending more solo viability to Assassins without arbitrarily buffing them or nerfing others.

[Kara]

great Idea... 100% with you