Assassin
A hidden prestige class promoted out of Thief, which currently plays as a Thief with its own guild identity rather than a distinct skill set.
The Assassin is the deepest point of the rogue branch and the hardest class in the game to reach. It is a shadow-and-poison killer in concept, built for ambushing from concealment, working toxins into a target over time and executing single foes rather than winning drawn out fights. It is also, at present, honest to describe as a title rather than a build. An Assassin inherits the entire Thief catalogue and adds one ability of its own, Assassinate at level 60, which no Thief can use.
Getting there is a long road. Assassin is a hidden class, which means it does not appear in the remort listing at all. You need to have taken a Rogue to level 100, promoted to Thief, taken that Thief to level 100 as well, and you must still be a Thief at the moment you join. Even then the guild takes no walk-ins, so a guildmaster has to grant you admittance or induct you directly. Guild ranks run Initiate, Stalker, Shadowblade, Nightreaper and Guildmaster.
There is one more gate that catches people out. Assassin requires five remort points on your account, and reaching level 100 in a class is what awards them: Rogue is worth one and Thief is worth two. Walking the direct path leaves you two short. Points are earned per account rather than per character and are checked rather than spent, so the shortfall is made up by any other class any of your characters has finished, and once you clear five you keep them. If you are aiming at Assassin, plan on having taken at least one other class to 100 somewhere along the way.
Resources#
Assassins spend SP, exactly as Thieves do, and use the same pouch of trade tools and poison vials. Check it with supplies and restock at a Rogue Supplies counter. There is no separate assassin resource, no unique currency and no conversion of any kind.
Armour access is leather, in line with the rest of the rogue branch. Plate, mail and cloth are closed to you, and gear with no category on it is open to everybody.
Two things are worth knowing before you commit. Joining any guild resets you to level 1 with no experience, so a level 100 Thief who promotes starts the climb again from the bottom. And the level 60 subclass mastery system does not cover Assassin: your Thief mastery is cleared on the change and there is no assassin equivalent to replace it with.
Talent Trees#
Nine tree names are registered for the class. Five of them are bare labels with nothing tagged to them; the other four, Stealth, Subterfuge, Skirmish and Poisons, are the branches your Thief skills sit in, and they are the ones you will actually see filled in when you look at your abilities.
Shadow#
The concealment branch. In practice this is served by the Thief stealth line you already have, which covers Sneak, Shadow, Skulk, Scout, Shadowstep and Hobble.
Blades#
Declared as a branch but with nothing assigned to it. Thief melee sits under Skirmish instead.
Venom#
Declared but empty. Poison work is currently tagged under Subterfuge in the Thief catalogue.
Execution#
Declared but empty. The nearest thing you have is Assassinate, the one assassin-only skill in the game, unlocked at level 60 and tagged to the Stealth branch rather than this one, and it is an opener rather than an execute. You have to be out of combat, hidden and wielding a cutting or thrusting weapon, and it deals a share of the target's maximum health that scales with your level, 35 per cent at level 99 and 36 per cent at level 100, plus a point of damage per level, with the whole total then scaled by your agility. A target you reached by Shadowstep takes a further 20 per cent. It only lands on a target still at 96 per cent of its maximum health or above, and anything more wounded than that is refused outright; even then the strike can be botched on an 85 per cent base success roll adjusted by the level gap between you.
Stealth#
A live branch inherited from Thief, holding the silent movement and concealment skills that gate every opener.
Subterfuge#
A live branch and by far the largest, covering locks, pockets, traps, poisons, disguise, bribery and theft.
Skirmish#
A live branch holding the melee kit: Backstab, Blindside, Shiv, Shank and Quietus Strike, plus Dagger Mastery. Garrote is a Rogue skill and is lost on promotion to Assassin.
Poisons#
A live branch, though a thin one: the Thief passive Venomed Edge at level 30 sits here. Poison application itself is under Subterfuge.
Traps#
Declared as a branch, but no Thief skill is tagged to it either. Set Trap and Tripwire are under Subterfuge.
Skills#
The Assassin has no skill catalogue of its own beyond Assassinate. Joining the class grants you the full Thief list, with the same names, levels, costs and cooldowns, so the tables on the Thief page are the reference for the rest of what an Assassin can do.
Playing an Assassin#
Play it much as you played the Thief, but do not expect parity. Assassin damage is dialled about 12 per cent below a Thief's across the kit and your weapon swings, though the percentage openers Backstab and Assassinate are exempt and hit exactly as hard as they did. You keep the same health pool, carry a larger spell point pool and slightly less stamina, and you gain Assassinate, which no Thief can use. The rotation itself does not change: open from Sneak or Shadow, land Assassinate or Backstab, follow with Blindside and Shiv, Hobble anything that tries to leave, and finish with Quietus Strike, which costs 55 SP and resolves in two phases, the first landing three combat rounds after you commit and the second three rounds after that. Assassinate is not a finisher: it refuses to fire while you are in combat and requires that you be hidden, so it is the strike you open with from concealment rather than the one you close with. Poison the blade before anything that will take more than a few rounds. Slip and Quick Escape remain your outs and you should still be using them early.
The real reason to take the promotion is what surrounds the skills rather than the skills themselves. You get the assassin guild and its channel, a separate rank ladder, and a character who has demonstrably completed two full hundred-level classes to get there. If you are playing for the roleplay and the standing, that is the point. If you are chasing new abilities, be clear-eyed about it: promoting from Thief to Assassin gains you Assassinate, which no Thief can use, and a larger SP pool, but it dials your ordinary damage down by about a tenth, though Backstab and Assassinate themselves are exempt, and it clears any level 60 subclass mastery you took as a Thief, because the system defines no assassin mastery to replace it.
The practical advice, then, is to finish your Thief properly first, and to be sure you are done with it. Learn the full Subterfuge branch rather than just the combat line, use the subclass mastery you took at 60, and reach 100 with the utility half of the class actually in play. When you do promote you drop back to level 1 with the whole Thief list to earn again, so treat the decision as starting a new character in an old body rather than as an upgrade.