Greater Whirlwind or Assassinate?

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Assassinate looks better "on paper" but which would you rather have? BTW this is for my fighter/mage/thief.

 

Greater whirlwind for me. When I'm in a tough fight it lets you land far more blows on the enemy which I found crucial.

 

Definitely Greater Whirlwind Attack. 10 attacks on an enemy in a single round of combat can bring even the toughest ones to their knees.

 

An Improved Haste and Assassination can go a long way.

I was using a Half-Orc Fighter/Thief with that combo. He had a natural 2.5 attacks. Imp. Haste raises that to 5 attacks. Add Assassiantion to the mix and you have 5 backstabs in one round!!!

With a Backstab modifier of x5 that equates to 25 attacks in a single round
(5 atk. * 5 multiplier= 25)

Now this is assuming the monster is able to be backstabbed. Even with that combo, it's best to have both abilities in case you run into that problem.

 

It depends. If you cast improved haste on your character, then Assasinate. If you are caught unprepared, then Whirlwind has no match.

 

Thanks, all.

 

Assassinate is better IMO. Especially if you have a poor str (15 or less) then assassinate is the way to go. This is because str is not multiplied in backstab, just the weapon damage and I think proficiency bonuses too. So...

With a char with short sword +1 (1 prof point) and 15 str. Assassinate would give min 5+5 to 30+5 damage.
For a fighter thief at max level buffed with Imp. Haste, this would come to 5 attacks doing min 25+25 to max 150+25

This same characters 'potential' with greater whirlwind would be 20-70 damage. So Assassinate wins from what I can tell.

If the char had 19 str. then it changes slightly - It would be min 5+5+7(17) to 30+5+7(42) with assassination. With the buffs 25+25+7(57) to 150+25+7(182).

With gww this would be min 90 damage to 140. No where near as good.

Then you take into account critical hits and gww falls flat on its face. Would you rather have 84 critical hit or 28?

This really only works if you use Imp. haste or dual wield belm and kudane or maybe the scarlet ninja to.

Ok, its really late for me so I might have totally screwed up my numbers and logic so if I'm wrong be gentle I've just finished a 16 hour shift at work.

 

Greater Whirlwind is damn effective and fun...looks very cool, especially if you are a Monk and play the game on 60 updates per second.

 

i'd say it depends on your THAC0 ... if you will likely miss 1-2 attacks vs a powerful opponent i think GW would be better. in later stages when you hit anyway, assassination is the best. there IS a reason why you only can pick it once.

 

I took more than one Assassination in my game. In fact, I had 3 of them. I just went with Greater Whirlwind after that.

 

Duel weilding with Improved haste and Scarlet (usable by Theives with "use any item") can get you up to 7+ attacks a round, or if you have the true grandmastery installed as I have you can put 5 * into a weapon for an extra attack bringing the total up to 9.

So in the former case Whirlwind is probably better but if you have Ease of use then it's assasination all the way imo.

 

i agree with getting assassination, because if you combine that with improved haste you can take down monsters pretty fast, unless of course they are immune to backstab... then you will have to use a different strategy, but i will always put assassination better over whirlwind (mainly because i recently started a solo assassin lol) but also i tend to get more use out of it, but it is really a matter of opinion, and it also depends on your situation, so really there is no 'better' move, just depends

 

Assassination...especially as I see that this is a Fighter/Mage/Thief.

Slap on an Improved Haste and watch the monster chunks fly!!

Of course, if the monster is immune to backstab, then using Assassinate is a bit stupid...obviously, you will have to use GWW instead.

However, when deciding which ability to use considering that Assassinate can be used as well, i.e. the monster can be backstabbed, Assassinate is the best ability you can use.

 

A question: How do you know if a monster can be backstabbed or not?

 

When you backstab the critter, it says "The backstab failed" or something like that. That's pretty much the only way you can make out whether a monster is backstab-able or not.

I think there was a thread on one of these boards a while ago about which monsters could be backstabbed and which couldnt.

IIRC, demons, Rakshasas and pretty much any of the bosses (Gromnir, Illasera, Yagashura), any dragon...and a few other characters I cant remember about are all non-backstab-able...but my trusty halfling Assassin with his Gesen's Bow and Poisoned arrows is still able to kick butt!!

 

So Assassination is useless against any of the really tough enemies in the game? Whereas Whirlwind is effective against every single enemy?

I guess I'll be sticking with Whirlwind for the time being.

 

Also depends on the weapon you are using. A weapon with an effect (like Celestial Fire, Vorpal Sword, etc.) is better used more times for less damage (greater whirlwind) to increase its effect.

Also depends on your opponent. Greater whirlwind is better at taking out stoneskins and the like.

 

Assassinate works better than GW in most of the case, but since there are a few bosses in TOB that is immune to it, and you rarely use Assassinate for the entire battle anyway (2 hit is enough for most of your foes). I would suggest put more skills in GW (2-5 is good, the rest in Time and Spike traps).