Orcish Assasin...No backstab?

Hanski · Post by **Hanski** » September 14th, 2007, 6:35 pm

I was just wondering why Orcish Assasin and it's better form don't have backstab ability. It just fits with them. They ARE assasins after all.
I know, I know...the balance.

Post by **CIB** » September 14th, 2007, 7:09 pm

I never thought of that, but I agree. Maybe the melee of assassin could be weakened a bit and be given backstab? It's not very strong anyway.

Weeksy · Post by **Weeksy** » September 14th, 2007, 7:10 pm

they're not trained for it, and besides, they're used to working alone, while the rest of the orcish horde is driven by a lord, they take their orders and move at their own pace (thus their 2 mp over hills), and are just seperate entities from the orc horde...

Hanski · Post by **Hanski** » September 14th, 2007, 7:23 pm

Weeksy wrote:they're not trained for it, and besides, they're used to working alone, while the rest of the orcish horde is driven by a lord, they take their orders and move at their own pace (thus their 2 mp over hills), and are just seperate entities from the orc horde...

Of course they work alone, but that doesn't mean they can't stab in the back 'cause they're not trained for it.
Backstabbing would be a great add in my opinion.

Post by **Noy** » September 14th, 2007, 8:07 pm

I think it does fairly well "assassinating" by throwing poison darts at opponents.

Or wait... maybe they can serve polonium laced makisushi to their opponents. Yeah, that will teach em!

Soliton, Dragonking to the unit generation machine!

Post by **Velensk** » September 14th, 2007, 9:54 pm

The problem with this is that except in rare instances you attack with assassins to poision. Though maybe if you added backstab that might change. If you do you should decrease the base damage.

Post by **Noy** » September 14th, 2007, 10:10 pm

Umm what would be the point of that? My point in this thread is that not all assassins need to knife someone in the back to kill them, so there is no reason why this unit should have it. Also this would essentially be a clone of the human assassin, which I think is pointless. The Orcish Assassin is supposed to be a breed apart from its larger bretheren preferring to do it via darts and ranged attack. I prefer to leave it as such.

Post by **irrevenant** » September 15th, 2007, 12:16 am

I agree with Noy. Orcish assassination is of a different style to human assassination (from a distance with poison rather from behind with a blade) and that adds character.

I also suspect it would be a very unbalancing change.

The name is slightly misleading though. Perhaps someone could suggest an alternative? Some equivalent to "Guerilla" maybe?

cool evil · Post by **cool evil** » September 15th, 2007, 4:31 am

"Orcish mercenary" would fit nicely. Because i searched up for the definitions and it shows:

-"working or acting merely for money or other reward; venal." Fits the assasin description pretty well

and "professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army, guerrilla organization, etc." that fits too, because they aren't really Orcs and are somewhat different in their battlestyles, working in a foreign army, fighting guerrilla warfare

Post by **Blarumyrran** » September 15th, 2007, 7:14 am

orcish ninja -> orcish pirate ninja.

Post by **irrevenant** » September 15th, 2007, 9:04 am

cool evil wrote:"Orcish mercenary" would fit nicely.

IMO something that fits the combat role rather than the social role would be preferable.

Hanski · Post by **Hanski** » September 15th, 2007, 9:16 am

I was just merely suggesting the add. I'm not demanding it and I can't demand it. In fact I like it what the orc is now. But I agree, that the name is slightly misleading.
Orcish Ninja would be great

September 15th, 2007, 9:19 am

Ninja's too sophisticated for orcs. How about making it simple and direct. Orcish Poisoner. The Slayer name for the l2 would still stand, though. That fits.

Edward V Riley · September 15th, 2007, 10:14 am

Funny thing. The word Assassin comes from an 11th century Islamic cult that would kill for a price. They commonly used Hashish(yes, the drug). They were called Hashishans or Hashish users. Assassins evolved from this.
*I remember reading of this years ago in, believe it or not, a Louis L'Amour book: The Walking Drum

Orcish Bravo? Bravo, the noun, is a trained assassin....I can see it now. He hits with the poison!! BRAVO!!!! j/k

Orcish Manslayer? I looked up synonyms for assassin in a thesaurus. Bravo and Manslayer were two of them. Liquidator and Murderer were two more.

The orcish assassin is already a formidable enough unit, although backstab would make sense. I suppose if you got rid of the poison and replaced with backstab it 'could' work, but it's ok the way it is now.

Elvish_Pillager · September 15th, 2007, 10:25 am

A unit with hardly any concealment-related abilities and that tends to go after the common soldier rather than especially important persons probably isn't an Assassin.

Guerrilla sounds nice.