Grey Elf Assassin, thoughts?

[Sardaukar]

My usual class to play is Grey Elf Priest, but I am recently trying GE Assassins for a change.

They seem to have quite nice skillset (apart from missing Healing & Herbalism..so that's bit of dilemma).

Any thoughts if this is a viable option for not-too-hard play in mid (if I get even that far) to late game?

[JellySlayer]

Well, by the mid-to-late game, if you can survive that long, all classes start to look pretty good. The major differences tend to be early in the game, and get smoothed out as time goes on.

Assassins have a lot going for them--good skillset, decent class powers, generally excellent crowning gifts (good chance of a slaying weapon, most importantly). With Find Weakness and Archery, they can make great missile users, or can fight well in melee.

Getting them to the midgame can be a bit tricky. With low starting HP and no Healing, you're quite vulnerable to traps, poison, etc. early on. You do start with several daggers and +4 ranks in thrown dagger skill. This makes for a surprisingly effective early missile attack (best of all, the daggers never break, so you can get very good usage out of them). You also start with, IIRC, some elven chain, which gives you a bit of protection. Obviously, don't dual wield even if you start with two weapons, because that's insane.

[SirTheta]

Grey Elfs make crappy assassins imo. Roll yourself a gnome, drakeling, or dwarf assassin, have a blast, get the axe of the minotaur emperor, backstab everything to death with big hulking axe of doom.

[Sardaukar]

I like Elves for the guaranteed Literacy..even though in p20 and such, low levels are crappy even for scrolls.

[Blasphemous]

I have closed the gate about a week ago with candle born grey elf assassin.
Just get aotme, max out find weakness & backstab, get invis and melee things.
Early game is tough but once you get that crucial 10+ PV and some means to heal, you're set.
I got healing via village elder quest and later wished for herbalism which was tremendously useful.
Now that I think about it, it would have been better to get herbalism instead of healing and just farm spense.

[SirTheta]

I like Elves for the guaranteed Literacy..even though in p20 and such, low levels are crappy even for scrolls.Learning over 10 guarantees you literacy on everything but a Barb or Beastfighter [where HE and GE (and I think ME now) come into play]....

The only time you won't start with literacy on an Assassin is with Troll and half the time Orc [and not much point in playing those guys anyway since you have super awesome class powers and FW, respectively].

P.S. You can get on fine without herbalism. You can still pick herbs just fine and I've played a bunch of recent characters without bothering to get it and w/o any trouble. Healing is by far the way to go [choose Tree starsign, it's currently pretty much the best aside from Raven].

[infe]

Milk orcs for knifes - 10+ stacks are possible with only one orc tension room. Then you are set for rest of mid game - i have currently lvl 20 mist elf assassin who use only throwing daggers and dual wield phase daggers a bit - like 6 lvl now. With nice alertness and careful play i wasnt wounded till lvl 6. Also dont forget that you can create potion of poison - its nice to have huge stack of it and make liberal use of them. When you finally gear up for ToEF another powerful strategy that you may consider to use is offensive alchemy (AOE increase with your willpower). I found that increasing stealth and backstab in early game is efficient.

EDIT: i usually choose druid quest but not for herbalism but for black torc - its amaizing artifact for assassins and any other missle users.

[Ravenshire]

When you finally gear up for ToEF another powerful strategy that you may consider to use is offensive alchemy (AOE increase with your willpower).

curious what you mean by this. is offensive alchemy just using alchemy to mix 2 random components to get explosions

[sylph]

curious what you mean by this. is offensive alchemy just using alchemy to mix 2 random components to get explosions

Yes, that's right. Be immune to fire before you try it, though. Or don't. ;)

[Silfir]

Why gray elf over high elf? The skills are identical and high elves are ever so slightly less anemic.

I used to play tons of high elven assassins because I have a thing for elven chain mail. But the HP of a higher toughness class are probably the better bet.

[Sardaukar]

Why gray elf over high elf? The skills are identical and high elves are ever so slightly less anemic.

I used to play tons of high elven assassins because I have a thing for elven chain mail. But the HP of a higher toughness class are probably the better bet.

I think HE Assassin might be better, since pick-pocketing is not that important, apart from getting some training with Thieves Guild..and those (maybe important/useful) thieves picks. But since Assassins have most of useful skills already (Detect Traps etc.), HE might be better choice. But, according to Guidebook, GE have slightly better overall attributes than HE, apart from Toughness etc.

[littlebrather]

...according to Guidebook, GE have slightly better overall attributes than HE, apart from Toughness etc.
Attributes such as Appearance, which are crucial for Assassins of course, but only if you are trying to seduce pure victims in process.

The main yet not that obvious attributes for races is the HP PP recover rates. While PP recovery of GE is huge, recovery of GE HP makes me cry every time. Playing Priest you may not notice this, since Priest does not recover HP in natural way.

Stop milking Race/Class combinations for Skillsets. Or start Troll Assassin right now, since Athletic is very sweet.

[grobblewobble]

I think you're seriously underestimating the importance of toughness. It´s hard to train beyond your potential nowadays. Any character with 10 learning or higher can read scrolls. In the latest prereleases, you don't often fail reading scrolls, unless your literacy score is *really* low. Grey elf is the very worst race for assassins (ok maybe dark elf / mist elf are even worse). The best race is easily drakeling. Food preservation, acid spit and high toughness, combined with the assassin skillset, are superb. In case you rolled an illiterate, just reroll.

[Blasphemous]

I usually play grey elves for two reasons:

1) They don't need to worry about getting aged by all those ghosts and ghost lords, so I can melee them with impunity.
2) They start as N, which is convenient for a few reasons, like getting scrolls/potions from dwarven mystic.

As a side note, GE assassins often start with 13-14 Toughness and 2-3 points more of potential.
This is fine as long as you're careful and eventually by the mid game I usually hit the 25 mark.
Also the learning and mana bonuses of the race permit some spellcasting in emergency situations, which has a life saving potential.
All in all, GE offer versatility and let you adapt. In return they require you to be careful, which is a good habit for all r/c combinations.