Isn't Assassin too weak?

I have a secret hobby that I can't tell my friends about: I like to make weird Flickers with CI or Int-stack. I recently compared Warden and Assassin Ascendancy... And while it should be obvious, for some reason it wasn't for me:

If we consider both of these Ascendancies as effective ways to achieve damage - Warden has about 200% more damage than Assassin.

And even in other respects, such as defense, Warden is simply better. Assassin looks so much worse against it that it's not even funny. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Warden is currently the strongest class, and Assassin is one of the weakest, and such is the contrast. In any case, it's a bit sad.

Honestly, it's just sad. I don't even hope for Assassin rework, but who knows...

There are very many undiscovered builds in this game, any character is built to have its weaknesses and strengths.

I created my first shadow this past league, and went assassin, also flicker strike, also stat stacker. And also like you, I'm realising (circa lvl 95) that I'd likely be better off as another class (either Marauder or Scion for me), though I think in my case I'm looking at a 15% to 20% difference, not 200%.

That said, even if I don't have the same exact experience on assassin, I can strongly relate. I'm absolutely gutted by the huge nerfs in 3.26 to my longtime favourite build (Elementalist Golemancer) & just wrote a similar post. The 3.26 patchnotes are taking a 0.03% of leaderboard build nerfing it into oblivion, while dozens of more meta builds are left unscathed.

The immense complexity of PoE, the massive skill tree, the huge build variety, and the interconected nature of skill trees makes balancing these things extremely difficult (I say, speaking w/ some experience as a game balancer on dev side of a different game), but I do hope some QA/balance people at GGG read & consider this feedback. Be it Assassin, or Elementalist, some of us off-meta builds are really getting wrecked in 3.26.

Edit: clarified wording

Warden is not the strongest class in the game.

If its not the strongest in hc it doesn't matter, because in sc having a good build doesnt matter. Only speed and damage.