I know reworks are frowned upon when it comes to the ideas department, but hear me out as I’ve had this idea for quite awhile now.
As Assassination is now its clunky, it’s been said to be boring, and reliant on bleeds to keep up the sustain. It can be bursty but is reliant on Vendetta to feel that way. Builds are either AoE/Cleave or they are Single target with some utility to spread in Council fights.
Though I always wondered, why would a rogue want to bleed or poison their target if they are an assassin? An efficient killer whose sole job is to get rid of targets fast.
That’s why I am thinking the rework would be that combo points and finishers would generate poison levels known as (Toxicity). Remove the dependency of Rupture as the go to energy regeneration ability. Make poisons our energy regeneration resource but also the level of power of our poisons are more lethal the longer we stay on the target. Our job is to finish a target asap and move on.
That’s why I introduce the Poison Vial resource. Basically beside our character frame would be a vial. It would start out empty, no poison has been administered and energy is at maximum. Damage would be at its most minimum, but you can quickly ramp this up by attacking. Once the Vial becomes full it would lose its percentage of build up over time quickly (from 100% [5% each second out of combat and no contact], it would be faster till 50% [1% each second, out of combat and no contact], but could be carried over when on a new target.
How it would work:
Go stealth, use Garrote as a start (same as it is right now, similar functionality and one of our only bleeds [the others would be talents]).
Next would be Mutilate, where in addition to combo points it drops 5% poison in the vial. With each 1% of poison, our poisons become more lethal, our non-bleed damage gets higher and stronger. At 50% full, Wound Poison’s effect is administered for PvP and become non-dispellable, and PvE targets get a debuff called Profusion. Profusion will weaken the target and make our physical attacks stronger. Each envenom cast would increase our poison build-up by a 4% each combo point it is used at. At 100% we have several options. On Single target the best is to use Envenom which will drop a Poison Bomb, like the talent we have now. At 100% Poison, Poison Bomb would do incredible damage to a profuse target, but would only be single target.
On multi target fights, casting Fan of Knives would increase Poison Build up 1% per each target hit each cast and administer our poisons. Then at max Poison (the ideal damage output instead of combo points) use Venomous Vortex which unleashes a flurry of toxic blades (channeled, but allows movement) onto the targets causing Profusion and draining their health down at a faster rate. Poison Vial would drain slowly until empty and Venomous Vortex’s cast time would stop. The dots in addition to our poisons would make our physical attacks from Fan of Knives/Mutilates much more powerful as they would become Profuse.
Profusion would be like Find Weakness for Sub Rogues, but Assassination could use talents to make it have stronger dots or physical attacks. Including several survival measures to allow greater longevity.
Closing argument: Assassination is fun for the most part (for me), I know others may not like being shoehorned into it, but it does have some weird itemization issues and gets outclassed by much faster and stronger classes.
Our itemization and stats would be strongly dependent upon what you prefer. Haste=Energy Regen, Critical=Stronger Physical hits and Poison ticks, Mastery=Poison Build Up is Quicker and Much more Volatile on Profused targets.