So for a while I have been ignoring that my shadower has 24 unused skill points. I have maxed Bstep and have 1 in Venom, Shifter and Assassinate. For now I'm not sure what to max each - I think for now I'm torn between Shifter, venom and Assassinate. Each skill seems to have nice perks and drawbacks, so I would like to know what other people think I should do.
Venom - will get buffed by rebalance patch to be 50% chance and 8 second duration, making it seem really appealing for things that I won't 1/2 hit (places like ToT). However the actual usefulness will diminish as the character lvls (higher chance to 1/2 hit in which case venom's added D.o.T. would be less significant). For the moment though it would seem to be a nice training skill combined with the 90% stun rate of Stepper.
Assassinate - I don't see this skill being that useful for training, one target, high dmg, slow, requires DS. Though seems like a cool skill and possibly useful for bossing - though I really dont are all to much for bossing because if i were to boss I would just go on my Sair (unless through some miracle rebalance II makes shadowers more desirable in bosses).
Shifter - I love having avoid, and having an additional 40% avoid would be really nice, though I can't see how this would actually help me, other than a pot saver. I don't see how this will help me train better/faster, bosses it would help though once again I can't see beyond the pot reduction (being Kbed less would help too though its difficult to quantify this factor).
So that's that, anyone have any suggestions?
On a side note I would like to understand the mechanics of Assassinate.
My understanding of Assassinate is that the dmg growth is a step function, using lvl 1 Assassinate i found that 0-3, 3-6, and 6+ seconds were different realms. That is 0-3 second charge yielded a dmg per hit of 170% and 3-6 seconds 340% dmg (2 x 170%) and 6+ seconds to be 510% dmg per hit. After lvl 11 the max charge time is increased to 9 seconds (as oppose to 6 with lower lvls) is the # of "charges" 1 more w/ the added time (0-3, 3-6, 6-9, 9+) or does the time scale so there will still be the same number of "charges" that stack. If the number of charges do increase it would suggest that max Assassinate would have 5 charges and @ 12+ seconds have a dmg of 600% x 5 (or 3,000% dmg per hit).
Venom - will get buffed by rebalance patch to be 50% chance and 8 second duration, making it seem really appealing for things that I won't 1/2 hit (places like ToT). However the actual usefulness will diminish as the character lvls (higher chance to 1/2 hit in which case venom's added D.o.T. would be less significant). For the moment though it would seem to be a nice training skill combined with the 90% stun rate of Stepper.
Assassinate - I don't see this skill being that useful for training, one target, high dmg, slow, requires DS. Though seems like a cool skill and possibly useful for bossing - though I really dont are all to much for bossing because if i were to boss I would just go on my Sair (unless through some miracle rebalance II makes shadowers more desirable in bosses).
Shifter - I love having avoid, and having an additional 40% avoid would be really nice, though I can't see how this would actually help me, other than a pot saver. I don't see how this will help me train better/faster, bosses it would help though once again I can't see beyond the pot reduction (being Kbed less would help too though its difficult to quantify this factor).
So that's that, anyone have any suggestions?
On a side note I would like to understand the mechanics of Assassinate.
My understanding of Assassinate is that the dmg growth is a step function, using lvl 1 Assassinate i found that 0-3, 3-6, and 6+ seconds were different realms. That is 0-3 second charge yielded a dmg per hit of 170% and 3-6 seconds 340% dmg (2 x 170%) and 6+ seconds to be 510% dmg per hit. After lvl 11 the max charge time is increased to 9 seconds (as oppose to 6 with lower lvls) is the # of "charges" 1 more w/ the added time (0-3, 3-6, 6-9, 9+) or does the time scale so there will still be the same number of "charges" that stack. If the number of charges do increase it would suggest that max Assassinate would have 5 charges and @ 12+ seconds have a dmg of 600% x 5 (or 3,000% dmg per hit).
