[Perdition]

So, if you want to play a void mage VA you don't actually have a whole lot of support within your own class. Dark spells that deal decent direct damage are few and far between, and dark is a very commonly resisted element. Within VA specifically, Black Bolt is not really a spammable spell as you want to build up your void energy to get the most out of it. On the other hand, Detogate has good scaling but takes 6m to use if you want to do it in one turn. Outside of that, the rest of your class just offers you utility, but nothing to do if someone just walls you with dark resistance. I guess there's fray too, but that's not reliable in any sense of the word.

Considering Verglas got a means to deal with this in the form of Winter's Bite, my suggestion is a skill similar to that, but with a caveat or two...

Null and Void
Targets 2 locations. In both locations there must be an active voidgate. Both of the voidgates pull units and field objects around them within a 3 tile radius in, then objects at the voidgate in L1 are teleported to a random tile within 3 tiles of the voidgate at L2 and vice versa. If you have at least 30 Void Energy available, it is consumed and all enemy units that entered your voidgates because of this skill have their Dark resistance negated for 3 rounds.


Rather than just a clone of winter's bite, I figure that void gates themselves could use more things that interact with them from VA. As a means of mobility they're okay, but I don't often see that used as people tend to have better mobility options. This way, void gates become a more potent threat and can also serve as a means for your dark spells to hit harder.

[JamOfBoy]

I'm going to preface this by saying the class is Void Assassin, not Void Mage. I don't think we should be giving magic to a class based around stabbing people and teleporting. Black Bolt isn't meant to be spammable. Detogate isn't meant to be Voidgate -> Detogate-d in one turn, it's meant to (hopefully) create space by hitting and teleporting someone too close to a gate, either through your doing or their lack of mobility. Voidgates are meant for spacing, threatening people with your range - teleport, vanishing strike, cutthroat - and for that, they're exceptionally good gap closers. They're not as instantly gratifying as other movement options, and that's fine - sometimes you need that instant payoff, and sometimes you have the time to set up.

In my opinion, you're asking something from the wrong class. VA isn't the source of people getting dark resist, Hexer and DH's Matador are more attributable to this problem - give the resist busting to the classes who use the element more. Something similar to Priest's Divine Judgement, maybe - but that's for another post.

[Perdition]

Void Assassin isn't just a dagger class. If it was meant to solely be a dagger class, why would it have Black Bolt, Detogate, Impure Element, a passive for generating Void Energy on lightning crits (which none of its skills being able to lightning crit.)

No, VA is meant to support different playstyles. That's why it has so many skills in it. The dagger playstyle isn't the only one and it's why it has skills that blatantly don't go with daggers. Black Bolt and Detogate can't even be cast with daggers, they have to have tomes.

[HexGirlBestGirl]

If you want my take, all I see Void Assassin as the class that just uses the void in tandem with daggers to kill things with minor magical synergy.

Everything it has technically fits the thematic, and offers some magic synergy but namely seems focused on the dagger part.

Effectiveness wise, it falls short in a lot of instances. So personally, i'd rather see what we already have just made to be better or just make the spell skills able to be cast with daggers.

That's all I got to say on this.

It has skills, but most of them really are focused more on being utility/standalone with Daggerplay or utilizing voidgates. Just commit fixing class up.

[Lolzytripd]

I think the elephant in the room here is this

Elemental resist tanking is too easy/rewarding

1) Its stupidly easy to stack up to 25-50% to whatever element you want.
2) proccing a resist punishes the the person attack with momentum loss.

when a class /gimmick build revolves around doing a specific damage type it becomes extremely easy to counter. In this case void assassin (and hexer) are guaranteed to be doing dark damage. Verglas is guaranteed to do ice and without winters bite it would stupidly easy to counter, either by equipping extra ice resist or the absorb ice accessory.

[Mr.SmileGod]

I wouldn't mind seeing an option like this, personally. Elemental resists have always seemed a bit overbearing to me, especially for classes without a lot of elemental options past what they specialize in. And for those saying 'VA is a dagger class', VA's strength as a class is often cited to be the ability to CHOOSE whether you want to be void magic or void assassin. It has options that aren't dagger accessible that are tied more closely to the Void as an elemental force for that very reason.

The exact method of applying the resist piercing could be tweaked perhaps, but I don't see an issue with it past that.

EDIT: Come to think of it, the entire idea of the Void is for it to be a cancerous, all-consuming poison. This would make it more fit that in that aspect as well, seeing as nothing can survive the raw void for very long. That, or all of its dark damage could be turned into Null damage, but I doubt people would like that.

[Perdition]

What Mr. SmileGod says is exactly how I feel about VA. You're supposed to choose how you want to play it. The entire class kit was never meant to be synergistic, and that's fine. The thing is, even if daggers could be casting tools for their spells, it wouldn't change much because dagger builds can't afford to take res anyway. I guess there are some exceptions, but functionally I couldn't see them being good with the stats you'd need.

Look at Ignite Engine. There's absolutely nothing within VA or base rogue that works with that. There's no dagger synergy there. If it was a simple dagger class, why would that exist in VA? Engineer is another rogue promo, but that class is far from a 'dagger' class, so the point stands. There are several things in VA tied to Dark ATK scaling in general, such as the aforementioned Ignite Engine's bonus damage and Fray's damage alongside the two void spells of course.

When you look at a class like curate, you can see another example of different playstyles baked into one class. There's Pacifist for if you want to focus on healing and support, but you also have Solar Lance which is a spear skill and clearly meant for a more offensive curate. In Priest, you have lightning synergy skills in the form of Holy Spark and Mercalan Mist--that coupled with the evade passive from Curate is set up for a more dodge focused priest as opposed to the more traditional tanky one.

My point is, I like VA's versatility. I like that you can do a lot of different things with it. However, I would like to see more support options for its clearly meant alternative strategies. The dagger aspect is fleshed out, but that's not all there is to VA.

[Balor]

Personally I think that VA is in a spot that needs it's current skill-set tinkered with rather than new skills added on to try and make an under performing class perform up to snuff.

And speaking of it's niche I almost feel like something like Spellthief could use a bit more in terms of spellcasting with daggers.