How to Fix Assassin: "Blur" a.k.a. "Super Elusive"

Ascendancy identity is the issue at the core of what ails Assassin at the moment.

Contrast to the development of Rage through this point:

- Initially only available to a specific Ascendancy and a limited number of Uniques
- Gradually diluted to the rest of the Ascendancies over time
- Berserker now has "Better Rage" instead of merely having easy access to it

Elusive has gone through the complete opposite development:

- Initially available to everyone through multiple skill gems
- Restricted over time (w-step nerf)
- Assassin-specific Elusive has received no meaningful adjustments (the 3.13 adjustment was just a balance "sidegrade")

I think it's great that everyone has access to Rage and Elusive.

I also think that Assassin Elusive should be better than everyone else's Elusive by more than just 60% Elusive Effect and crit mitigation.

I propose that Assassin have access to a specific mechanic that I'll refer to as "Blur" (you can rename it if you want):

- On an Ascendancy node: If you would gain Elusive while Elusive, instead consume the Elusive buff and gain Blur
- On the same Ascendancy node: If you would gain Elusive while you have Blur, refresh Blur instead, setting Blur's Elusive Effect to the value of the new Elusive buff if the latter is higher
- Also on the same Ascendancy node: Blur's duration is affected by global modifiers to Skill Effect Duration
- Blur is the same as base Elusive but its effect doesn't decay, it has a short timed duration, and you take no extra damage from crits while it's active (that last part can be either a baseline function of Blur or baked into the Ascendancy somewhere - I imagine you'll need to consider Forbidden Flame/Flesh here)
- Blur provides a constant value of Elusive Effect equal to the Elusive Effect from the consumed Elusive buff at the time it was consumed

This "Super-Elusive" mechanic neatly solves every problem with Withering Step and restores Assassin's identity:

- Assassins with Blur can freely use Withering Step on cooldown because they're not Elusive
- Even Assassins can't just push Withering Step twice while out of combat to gain Blur, because the cooldown would be frozen
- Other Ascendancies don't benefit outside of Forbidden Flesh/Flame for Shadows (mostly Tricksters, who, as an archetype, overlap quite a bit with Assassin)
- Assassins have to engage in combat to obtain Blur but can maintain it afterward with enough Cooldown Reduction for Movement/Travel Skills
- Blur's duration is short, incentivizing Skill Effect Duration
- Assassins get back a viable source of Wither for Poison variants
- Withering Step doesn't have to be changed at all

One related thing that seems strange is Cobra Lash; this skill has lost most of its identity over time. Cobra Lash is currently also problematic when your Elusive is running out: you don't want to use it right before you get a chance to Withering Step, because it'll be bouncing around when your Elusive expires and will crit, which means you need to both hold back and be watching your buff bar instead of the action. During this time, you're probably kiting a group of map enemies, but you don't get to use your chain projectiles from range in this situation, depriving you of other on-hit effects in a pinch. Blur fixes this jankiness too, although the skill would still have only a tenuous connection to the archetype without some further tweak - maybe that's fine.

One thing that may have to be changed to accomodate Blur is Araku Tiki - with that equipped, an Assassin could push Withering Step and then weapon swap to an active Blood Magic Aura to gain Blur outside of combat. Then they could swap weapons back and swap their amulet to a useful one and begin an encounter with max Blur and a significant combat advantage from tedious manual inventory work.

That's all - thanks for your consideration.

- A Viper Strike + Cobra Lash Assassin main

After taking the time to browse poe.ninja, I'll elaborate on what I mean with regard to Ascendancy identity:

Ascendancy nodes are character-defining, as are Keystones on the tree proper. Functionally, for a modifier to be "character-defining" means that it dictates certain other choices you make with your character. For example, when you take Resolute Technique, you do not take Crit modifiers, and you do not take Accuracy modifiers, but you do use an Attack skill, because you're getting that benefit of Accuracy without having to invest in it. This combination of incentives and disincentives is unique and says at least a little bit about what kind of character you are.

Taking Mistwalker does not confer any element of identity. Compare to the other Assassin nodes:

* Noxious Strike: "I frequently apply long-duration Poisons"
* Toxic Delivery: "I am Crit Poison"
* Ambush and Assassinate: "My fights are all a lot shorter"
* Opportunistic: "I'm tanky in maps and I shred bosses"
* Unstable Infusion: "I ramp into Power Charges and keep them as long as I'm hitting something"
* Deadly Infusion: "I stack +Max Power Charges"
* Mistwalker: ...

As of this writing, only 35% of Assassins over level 89 in softcore trade on poe.ninja take Mistwalker. Of those, 55% use Penance Brand of Dissipation; 7% use BV; 6% use Cyclone CoC; 3% use Hexblast Mines; and the other builds, which I'm ignoring, have < 3% representation each. (The sample consists of 516 Assassins out of 97565 characters, which they round up to 1%, when really only 0.53% of characters are Assassins.)

Why do these builds take Mistwalker?

* Only 4% of Hexblast Assassins take Mistwalker. Hexblast Miners can only gain Elusive from critting with a Travel skill, because the rest of their damage comes from proxies. (Some use Withering Step but they can't keep that Elusive in combat, so we ignore that source for combat.) They're getting some combat value here sometimes, but certainly are vulnerable at the start of combat to a crit from an enemy that survives their initial payload, and when Elusive expires. In practice, the more consistent value they get from Mistwalker is the movement speed boost that persists after combat for a short time. They almost universally prefer to take the straight-up damage nodes - in other words, the reason any of these players could justify Mistwalker is due to being so overgeared for whatever they're doing as to not need damage, which is an outlier that shouldn't be considered for judging the value of Mistwalker overall.
* 84% of Cyclone Assassins take Mistwalker (but the Power Charge nodes are more popular). Cyclone CoC values all aspects of Elusive highly, particularly the movement speed. Here's a case where the node makes a ton of sense, although only 22% of Cyclone Assassins with Mistwalker bother with Badge of the Brotherhood: the rest opt for other defensive amulets to suit their preference (apart from one unarmed outlier). Furthermore, it's the only Attack build in this list, and it doesn't use Nightblade.
* Among Blade Vortex Assassins, Mistwalker is the most popular Ascendancy node, at 78%. They're here to clear maps fast, so they value the movement speed highly, and they're getting somewhat close to enemies, so they value the defensive aspects of Elusive as well. However, only 26% of Blade Vortex Assassins use Badge of the Brotherhood, because Replica Dragonfang's Flight is so powerful for this build, and none make any further investment into Elusive.
* 73% of Penance Brand of Dissipation Assassins take Mistwalker. Almost all of these builds are farming Sanctum on 3k Life + ES, so the defensive bonuses from base Elusive are mostly useless here - clearly, the node is favored for the movement speed alone. To be honest, I don't know much about damage to player health in Sanctum - it's possible that the crit mitigation is useful too, but I would bet it isn't.

It's telling that the popular builds that care about Mistwalker don't bother making any further investment in Elusive; it's even more telling that none of these builds use Nightblade Support, and that they all deal primarily spell damage. The original "intended" Elusive package, the thematic Poison one for which there are dedicated Attack skills, gets "better" value out of the node but clearly can't compete, and was later neutered because the identity of the package was incorrectly designed into the Skill Gems rather than the Ascendancy. Even without looking at active skills, you can tell immediately that there's a problem by seeing that Nightblade is only equipped by 4% of all Assassins, and only 7% of Mistwalker Assassins, and also that only 9% of Mistwalker Assassins take Perfect Agony.

The point of making this post is to illustrate that scaling damage with Elusive Effect is not even close to being popular among Assassins (who are far from popular themselves), and to proffer a solution that enables an Assassin to stack both Elusive Effect and other thematic modifiers (Skill Effect Duration, Travel Skill CDR, etc.) and be viable for some significant endgame activity. Mistwalker is part of the problem - it currently contributes to the definition of an Assassin very little more than "I run fast and don't get crit." Mistwalker should incentivize stacking Elusive Effect, and certain other modifiers, defining your character as something along the lines of "I maintain Elusive via Skill Effect Duration and Travel Skill CDR, which both perpetually protects me from crits and enables investment into Elusive Effect to have a consistent payoff that would otherwise be impossible." Notice how this definition directly involves modifiers that exemplify the package, similar to most of the other Ascendancy nodes and most keystones. Spell builds, like current Assassins use, could still take this new Mistwalker for the same reasons as they currently do, even without bothering to maintain the buff, but an Elusive-focused build would not only get more value, but that value would actually be meaningful in terms of the character's ability to compete with other Assassins.

I've played many variants of Viper Strike + Cobra Lash over the last several years. Ashes is by far the best variant for getting Poison Attack skills to the doorstep of The Feared, but I'd have to pivot very, very hard to clear The Feared with Nightblade Support and Mistwalker. It's problematic that I'm picking Ashes over the Elusive Effect amulet (Badge) until I have to specialize in a handful of encounters at the expense of my ability to do any other meaningful content efficiently, and when I do specialize, I'm not sure I'd stack Elusive Effect for that either, in spite of having to build to maximize my burst window. Only 2% of Assassins with Perfect Agony and Mistwalker use Badge of the Brotherhood - the vast majority of Mistwalkers with Badges aren't using Perfect Agony, in spite of Elusive being tailor-made for that keystone. That combo should be better than it is.

I'm not saying that I should be able to clear The Feared with Viper Strike on a budget - rather, I'm only saying that the niche to which I'm currently relegated is not valued by the community. I can't do anything that really matters by stacking Elusive Effect (namely, T17 and/or Uber farm), and when it comes to content that my build can clear effectively, I'm not even leaning into the package very hard, and I might actually be better off leaning a different direction, like most Assassins are doing, only taking Mistwalker and making no further investment into Elusive. This is sad. There's some of the typical friction from T17s in this complaint, but it's mostly an Elusive problem.

It really doesn't matter that I can have fun blasting from level 1 through T16s with a couple of extra sources of Elusive Effect, because I have to stop doing that after a rather short stint. I feel unrewarded for putting in the effort to both maximize my burst window and execute on it, not to mention that maximizing my burst window means ignoring the modifiers that exemplify the package. I'm pushing a ton of buttons over here and it's not worth it. I'm this close to league starting something else, in spite of the fact that I'll have less fun doing it and that I'll have to spend more currency and that it'll probably be at least a little bit slower, just so I can achieve something that's actually meaningful. I love the high skill ceiling, the speed, and the budget and league start efficacy of the Elusive package - I just wish I didn't have to abandon it so soon after league start.

I know that you know that Elusive needs an overhaul. I don't need you to necessarily implement my specific idea (but I think that would be awesome) - I'm just hoping that the idea for Blur can at least get you going in the right direction, resulting in a change that lets me build an Assassin that stacks modifiers that actually exemplify the Elusive package, instead of merely paying lip service to it, and is rewarded appropriately for doing so. (Maybe we could get some more small sources of Elusive Effect too.)

Lastly, I should quickly address the new Anointable Elusive Notable, Incorporeal - it's terrible for me because after I complete my first burst window upon a boss, I have to wait almost twice as long for the next one, just for a little bit more average Crit Multi during each window. I'd have to shirk some Elusive Effect to get my burst windows closer together, which is obviously antithetical to the entire build, unless I burst so hard that I phase the boss in one window, which is simply impossible with Ubers and their 70% DR. For mapping, there's simply no point - in T17s I'd vastly prefer to Anoint some other layer of defense, like Reservation Efficiency for another Aura. So it's not for an Elusive Effect stacker at all, and nobody else who uses Elusive would bother because they don't care about getting help with maintaining Elusive. Who is this node for? I have no idea. We don't need or want this kind of modifier - we need for investment into the package beyond current Mistwalker to actually matter, and this doesn't do that.

That's all. Thank you again for your time.

After posting this, and then thinking about the rest of my build, I came up with the idea for "Smoke Mine of the Conspiracy" and posted that in the Smoke Mine thread in the Skill Gem Feedback forum. Then, after that, I realized that Smoke Clouds in general are thematic of all Shadows on paper, but not in-game. The closest we have right now is Sabo's "Born in the Shadows." (Interestingly, Sabo is even less popular than Assassin right now, although I personally think a lot of Sabo's potential is currently unrealized.)

So, I thought I would supplement my list of mods I want to stack for Elusive's sake with a quick list of ways to make Smoke Clouds interact with Elusive, or a different core modifier in the Elusive package:

* "When you use a Blink skill, leave a Trail of Smoke in your wake for 1 second"
* "While inside a Smoke Cloud, Blur's duration is maxed and frozen"
* "When you enter or exit a Smoke Cloud, you gain 10% More Elusive Effect for 1 second, and then you gain Elusive"
* "Smoke Cloud Radius increases over time at a rate proportional to your Elusive Effect value at the time it was created"

Combining all of these would be insanely OP, and I'm not asking for that - I just wanted to explore the uncharted design space between Smoke Clouds and Elusive Assassins, and highlight some potential dynamics that I found particularly interesting. I hope this can spark an interesting discussion in the office for all Shadow Ascendancies, not just Assassin, but I think Assassin in particular is a good candidate to get some direct synergy with the mechanic, because of the thematic relationship with the concept of being elusive. Thanks for reading.

I don't disagree with you.....up to a point. I'm going to list my counter-thoughts but that doesn't mean you aren't making some good points.

It's actually really hard for non-assassin builds to get elusive reliably. I don't think nightblade should GRANT elusive, but even as-is it is limited by available builds that typically lean assassin anyway.

Taking no extra damage from crits practically permanently is HUGE. Never discount the power of this effect, and the rarity of it across ascendancies. To actually get to 100% outside of ascendancy, you need a corrupted implicit (or two), along with points AND a mastery or two on the tree. This singular mod saves ALL of that investment. And it is almost necessary to try and get this in modern PoE.



I DO think the current node simply....doesn't make sense from a basic standpoint. The assassin GAINS elusive on a critical strike? Shouldn't he already be elusive by being an assassin, and especially BEFORE he strikes?

Elusive was perfect when it was added. It was ruined by Nightblade which came with the same update. It gave Assassin 25% Attack/Cast Speed 25% Dodge/Spell Dodge, 8% Reduced Damage taken, 60% Movement and immunity to Crits. Can't ask for much more for 2 points.

They should have just changed/removed Nightblade.

Assassin should be able to gain elusive while elusive. Replace the 50% increased elusive effect line with this and it'll be a decent ascendancy.

Opportunistic should also provide full immunity to reflected damage, not just crits. That line is completely useless even with 99% crit.