Master Assassin effects.

merfpmerfinton

This passive has me a little confused about mechanics.
I'm not in front of the game atm, but I'm pretty sure the tooltip reads: While using assassination abilities: 10% increased weapon damage while crouched or invisible.

First thing I'd like to point out is that you will receive the bonus without any assassination abilities slotted. I checked with both bars completely empty and when crouched, I see the increase to my weapon damage on my char. sheet.

Naturally this increases the damage for skills in my weapon line, but I also noticed that Ambush, Surprise Attack and Assassin's Blade are getting an increase in damage as well.
I know these abilities fall into a weird category regarding crit mechanics and mitigation, but it is my understanding that damage on class abilities is based off max magicka and spell power.

swoop.romerb16_ESO

Well guess away, unless Zos decides to explain all of those weird mechanics nobody will know how anything works.

Especially for NB class skills where most of them are melee. They SHOULD scale with weapon power but they dont. They DO actually scale with armor reduction effects (surprise attack), but do they scale with weapon crit or ONLY spell crit? If only spell crit, then i think its weird that they force melee users to use light armor and become total glass canons... which aint right because glass cannons are ranged...

merfpmerfinton

My post got cut short before cause my boss snuck up on me

But I'm actually in front of the game now and I see that with the Master Assassin passive all damaging skills get a boost when crouched. Swallow Soul, Cripple, even Ults.

I switched to my other NB who doesn't have the passive and there is no change in damage when crouched. Seems this passive is just a 10% increase to all damage, which is actually pretty nice.

swoop.romerb16_ESO

It is but something is wrong then, just like a lot of NB skills and passives

merfpmerfinton

Well yeah either the tool tip is wrong or the skill is bugged. I'm hoping the former...

merfpmerfinton

Ran some more test on this and despite every skill showing a 10% increase in damage on the skill sheet, the passive still only applies to "melee or physical" type attacks.

My Swallow Soul goes up to 295 from 269 when crouched or invis, but will consistently hit for 250 on lvl 37 targets.

The "melee" abilities like Assassin's Blade do get the 10%. Normal non stealth crit with AB for me is 221 on the same lvl 37, while the auto crit I get from Shadowy Disguise is 243.

Actual weapon attacks seem to be getting an even bigger bonus. The 2h skill Carve crits for 140 a 10% increase would be around 154 from invis, but instead I'm seeing 162. Same goes for basic attacks. Light attack crit non stealth is 90, a stealth crit is showing 106 instead of 99.

curlyqloub14_ESO

Bumping this again - still unanswered, and still many of us wondering how this passive is supposed to work...

The qualifier "while using assassination abilities" - does that mean:

Option A: while you have an assassination ability slotted, and the bonus applies to ANY attack - regardless of whether it comes from the assassination skill line or not? If this is the case, does it apply to both class skill attacks AND weapon attacks? For example, could I crouch> Mark Target (which is an assassination skill), then get the damage bonus from a bow attack while crouched? Or do I even need to use Mark Target? Could I get the same damage bonus from just crouching and attack, as long as I have mark target (or impale, or any other asassination skill) slotted, whether I use the skill or not?

OR

Option B: Does it mean the bonus ONLY applies to the actual USE of others assassination abilities (in which case its prettty much useless unless you're opening with teleport strike or impale, which are both pretty lame openers). But if this is the case it gets even more confusing, because the tooltip specifically says and increase to WEAPON damage, which makes us think the dmg bonus doesn't apply to class abilities at all (since none of them are weps), and instead the bonus should only apply to weapon skills. Which is a complete contradiction in itself: if the bonus only works while using the assassination skills (not just having them slotted), but it only applies to wep damage, does it just not do anything, since assassination skills are not wep skills?

In addition, there is the line about "while crouched or invisible". So, does "invisible" include things like vampire mist form? Shadow cloak? Do we get this damage bonus while in those forms of invisible as well?

The OP also mentions that he sees a bonus increase without even having an assassination ability slotted at all - I'd love to get clarification on that too. Is that correct? Is Master Assassin an all-around passive that doesn't even require you have a skill from that line slotted?

And finally, if Master Assassin is passive and applies to all attacks, does it then also combine/stack with other "from stealth" bonuses, such as the Wood Elf racial "Stealthy"? (I read Stealthy as being an all around +3% dmg bonus to any attack done from stealth, so therefore with that and Master Assassin I would get a +13% dmg bonus to all stealthed attacks, yes? No? Does anyone know?)

So many questions about this skill and just how passive (or NOT passive) it really is. There are multiple discussions on this topic (see http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/68244/nightbland-assassination-passive-tooltip-confusion).

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ , @ZOS_GinaBruno‌ , @ZOS_KaiSchober‌ - sorry if you're not the right people to ping for this one, but please please please can we get some clarification on Master Assassin???

dracobains_ESO

I assume everything is bugged at this point... at least for NB. I died.. bug, can't find something... bug.

I am being a bit snarky of course but with so much in this game seemingly difficult or impossible to add up with descriptions and the sheer number of verified bugs it is impossible to know what is working as intended.

Brasseurfb16_ESO

Master Assassin gives you a 10% increased "Weapon Damage", not to be confusing with "Increased Damage" (wich is a multiplicative value) and increases the duration of the stun when you deal a sneak attack.

So this passive applies itself on every skills that scale off "weapon damage", so it won't affect magicka skills unless they are specificaly set to scale off weapon damage (like veiled strike does for instance). This also means Master Assassin is affected by diminishing returns when you get above the weapon damage soft cap.

This passive scales very well with the racial passive Stealthy and the Stygian set bonus because both of those are multiplicative values and are going to increase the overall damage wich is going to scale even higher because your weapon damage bonus is increased by 10% while stealthed.

Finally, when you invest skill points in this Master Assassin passive, you get the bonus whether or not you have an Assassination ability sloted.

curlyqloub14_ESO

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

Master Assassin gives you a 10% increased "Weapon Damage", not to be confusing with "Increased Damage" (wich is a multiplicative value) and increases the duration of the stun when you deal a sneak attack.

So this passive applies itself on every skills that scale off "weapon damage", so it won't affect magicka skills unless they are specificaly set to scale off weapon damage (like veiled strike does for instance). This also means Master Assassin is affected by diminishing returns when you get above the weapon damage soft cap.

This passive scales very well with the racial passive Stealthy and the Stygian set bonus because both of those are multiplicative values and are going to increase the overall damage wich is going to scale even higher because your weapon damage bonus is increased by 10% while stealthed.

Finally, when you invest skill points in this Master Assassin passive, you get the bonus whether or not you have an Assassination ability sloted.

I appreciate the insight, but this is basically just assumptions, and does not address the actual wording in the in-game tooltip that specifies "While using assassination abilities", and is the main source of confusion here because it contradicts pretty much everything else about the skill.

Was really hoping for some official clarification from a dev, rather than just more assumptions and interpretations from other players.

ShedsHisTail

merfpmerfinton wrote: »

My post got cut short before cause my boss snuck up on me

But I'm actually in front of the game now and I see that with the Master Assassin passive all damaging skills get a boost when crouched. Swallow Soul, Cripple, even Ults.

I switched to my other NB who doesn't have the passive and there is no change in damage when crouched. Seems this passive is just a 10% increase to all damage, which is actually pretty nice.

Yes, let us not complain about the Nightblade abilities that are working in our favor.

In fact, delete this thread before a Dev notices and "fixes" it.

Brasseurfb16_ESO

curlyqloub14_ESO wrote: »

Brasseurfb16_ESO wrote: »

Master Assassin gives you a 10% increased "Weapon Damage", not to be confusing with "Increased Damage" (wich is a multiplicative value) and increases the duration of the stun when you deal a sneak attack.

So this passive applies itself on every skills that scale off "weapon damage", so it won't affect magicka skills unless they are specificaly set to scale off weapon damage (like veiled strike does for instance). This also means Master Assassin is affected by diminishing returns when you get above the weapon damage soft cap.

This passive scales very well with the racial passive Stealthy and the Stygian set bonus because both of those are multiplicative values and are going to increase the overall damage wich is going to scale even higher because your weapon damage bonus is increased by 10% while stealthed.

Finally, when you invest skill points in this Master Assassin passive, you get the bonus whether or not you have an Assassination ability sloted.

I appreciate the insight, but this is basically just assumptions, and does not address the actual wording in the in-game tooltip that specifies "While using assassination abilities", and is the main source of confusion here because it contradicts pretty much everything else about the skill.

Was really hoping for some official clarification from a dev, rather than just more assumptions and interpretations from other players.

Those are not assumptions, go to your character sheet, look at your weapon dmg when you use sneak and while you don't. You will see a net increase of 10% of your weapon damage while sneaking and while beeing invisible.

Now unequip every assassination abilities, and do the test again. You will have the exact same results out of Master Assassin.

With the data collected you can conclude, not just assume, Master Assassin passive doesn't requiere any Assassination abilities equiped and boost your weapon damage (stats) by 10% on your character sheet while sneaking.

Edit : On another note, it also increases the duration of the stun done by sneak attacks.