Here are the Release Notes for Update 40 Patch 2, released on Tuesday, October 30th.

News and Notes:

Enhancements

    Wood Elf's Arcane Archer toggles now work properly without levels in Ranger.
    Assassinate now displays immunity particles if the character hits an immune target.
    Assassinate's death effect no longer requires landing a "sneak attack" to apply, a normal hit will do. However you still must be stealthed to use the skill.
    Assassinate can now be used on Oozes, Elementals, Constructs, and Undead creatures. The description no longer references "living target" and now just references "target".

Falconry

    Falconry no longer needs Killer Instinct I as a pre-req to take Killer Instinct 2.
    The long pause has been removed in the attack chain when using a Falconry attack.
    Fixed an issue where Death from Above would hit the player if the player had no target.
    Falconry's level 20 Capstone now properly applies its Freedom of Movement effect.
    Several animation issues have been corrected.
    Death from Above can now be used on Oozes, Elementals, Constructs, and Undead creatures. The description no longer references "living target" and now just references "target".

Epic Destinies

    Shadowdancers Executioner's Strike/Shot can now be used on Oozes, Elementals, Constructs, and Undead creatures. The description no longer references "living target" and now just references "target".

Hirelings

    Fixed an issue where some hirelings were posing strangely.

Items

    Fixed an issue where handwrap users who received extra dice through any means were .5[W] lower in total than they should have been.
    Sigils are now fully gone from the Sentinels of Stormreach end rewards.
    The Ghostly benefit now mentions ranged and melee in its tooltip.
    Time Runes from the raid Killing Time can no longer erroneously be passed to other players in the chest before being looted.

Quests and Adventure Areas

    The Night Revels - Snitch and the Lich - Sneblin no longer gives a message mentioning rewards.
    The Night Revels - Grave Work - The hit points of the Bramble Blockade have been reduced.
    The following Night Revels challenge dungeons have had their xp increased:
        Ressurection Chamber
        Gravework
        Eternity Unleashed
        The Snitch and the Lich
        Getting Ahead in Lordsmarch Palace

Miscellaneous:

    Halfling female sword and shield attacks now have their proper animations.
    Dragonborn female cloaks now behave normally when opening chests.
    Half-orcs no longer pop to the left when using the /laugh emote.
    NPC dwarf males now cross their arms properly.
    Several animation tweaks have been made related to certain races and item combinations and cloaks.

No complaints from me. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see too many rogues these days--many people such as myself just take a few levels for evasion/trapping/some minor enhancements.

And excuse my ignorance (perhaps I'm missing something) but assassinate/sneak attack in general still seem somewhat niche. They're really good if you're partying with a tank, are combining with GS blinding weapons, DWS bluff attack, stuns etc. Sneak attack has always seemed a bit too inconsistent for most people to give it a shot.

My philosophy for awhile has been having extra Sneak Attack damage is always nice, but it's preferable to not completely center your build around it. Of course, I'm not one who does anything higher than R3 and I mostly play on heroics, so it's entirely possible that the meta has shifted or there's something I'm missing out on. Are assassins gonna end up being the new sleeper OP? I've read some of Rubbin's damage testing and other discussion here and the prevailing opinion seems to be that Tempest is at the top of the DPS foodchain for melee. I don't foresee assassin overtaking them anytime soon.

I thought it ran through the weekend? Going to have to give Assassin another look soon.

I was the greatest assassin of all time, even before these updates. Now I don't need anyone else.

#gamekilling

Quote:

Well its from design. Not supposed to be "always on". that many d6 always on would be crazy
Atleast in DDO its alot easier to "allign the stars" oposed to P&P sneak attack. On the other hand in DDO we have many undeads and other naturally immune enemies. But sneak attack was always ment to be "specialist" not "generalist" thing.

Metal-Beast wrote on Oct 31^st, 2018 at 1:36pm:


Clearing the stairs in strahd with 4-5 rogues becomes child's play.  And that was pretty much the gate to high skulls.

Same with clearing the wisps and scarecrows in Baba.   

I doubt it matters quite as much in KT, where it is mostly a boss fight and the gate to higher difficulties right now seems to be the incoming un-evadable magic damage.

There are a lot of high skulls 6 man runs where 4 rogues with CC and heals will be significantly easier than other ranged or melee DPS options. 

It's not like an assassin's single target boss DPS was that far off from a fighter, ranger, or barbarian build. 

rogues are top tier dps

WonderfulFoppyBint wrote on Nov 1^st, 2018 at 3:27am:


Expected timeline:

1 month from now: Sev posts, "I made a rogue following the build.  It's nice, don't see what's so great about it though?"

3 months from now: Steelstar posts, "Our internal testing shows that monk staff builds are still #1 dps.  To compensate, we're going to reduce monk fists to 1d4 base."

6 months from now: Lynn posts, "Since I only play with one hot bar we're consolidating all rogue attacks into one button.  We're gonna call it "Emancipate" because I think the word sounds cool.  You have to push it 8 times per mob but then it deletes them.  See?  Better!"

9 months from now: Flimsy posts, "FUCK ALL YOU MOTHER FUCKERS I'M UP IN THIS BITCH STABBING THINGS"

9 months and 38 minutes from now: Cordovan posts, "We will have discussions with our staff regarding proper forum etiquette."

1 year from now: Steelstar posts, "Our internal testing shows rogues are #1~#38 damage.  To compensate for this, rogues are now a premium class costing 2000 DDOPs."

tinkerer wrote on Nov 1^st, 2018 at 7:35pm:



Don't forget the part where several people point out her mistake, and she references her post total and blithely claims that since she posts a lot some errors are to be expected but she's quite happy with her statistics.  Completely ignoring the fact that you can post that the sky is blue 99 times and post that rogues can get hit 18 times in a row and still remain in stealth 1 time and have a 99% accuracy rating that is meaningless when it comes to instilling some faith in the players that the devs know shit about the game they run.

Edrein wrote on Nov 4^th, 2018 at 11:13am:


You asshole!