Hey guys!

I´ve been trying to find any Info online or in the appendices regarding the assassination skill in WBC 2. I was wondering if there is any form of defense or modifier aside from the percentage change given by the skill itself, but couldn´t find anything.

Does anybody have some solid Infos on this, or maybe a website where I could find somehting?

It would be interesting to know if things like the defenders combat or resistance value affect the assassination rate.

Thanks in advance!

I seem to recall that high Combat (compared to the one with Assassinate) will reduce the would-be assassin's chance to hit. I believe you can't assassinate a target you can't hit, so that increases survivability.

Also, I seem to recall seeing somewhere that a high Resistance stat on a hero reduces the effectiveness of the Assassinate ability.

I do not have sources for either of these, however. It has been a long time since I've played these games and therefore read surrounding materials.

Assuming I right, Combat doesn't affect chances of assassination on a hit, it only reduces the number of hits coming from a number of swings. It is the Resistance stat that blocks an assassination success.

Each swing has a few points of failure for assassination:
1) The attack has to hit.
2) The Assassination has to trigger.
3) The "block chance" (based on resistance?) has to fail to block the assassination.

Edit: I found this with some quick googling.
https://etheria.fandom.com/wiki/Assassin
https://etheria.fandom.com/wiki/Assassination

Hero level may also play a role in blocking assassination; it is harder to summarily execute high level heroes.

I had found those articles too, however they refer to WBc3, not 2. The calculation of successful assassination vs a hero was changed in that game and i have personally witnessed heroes being assassinated (which iirc actually deals 1000 damage, potentially allowing survival).

I have been testing with temps of varying combat and resistance scores vs dark elf assassin temps at lvl 50 and will keep doing so, but so far i've yet to see a successful hero assassination in WBc2. Has your experience been any different? If one such event was observed, it would prove that it's at least possible in principle, but until then i feel inclined to conclude that heroes are immune to assassination in WBc2.

Heroes can be assassinated in WBC1 and in WBC3, so I can't imagine they are completely unable to be assassinated in WBC2.

I recall save scumming the crap out of one of the campaign maps that featured a really nasty minotaur assassin type hero, but maybe I was preserving a high level knight or knight lord unit in the fight instead of my hero.

Have you been varying the level of the would-be victim? I basically only played the campaign in WBC2, so I know very little about setting up custom match-ups like you're describing. Can you minimize the physical damage of that Dark Elf Assassin and run it against a level 1 hero?

So far i've only experimented with lvl 50 temps (which is the max level in WBc2). You can of course customise your own temp as much as u want, but for the enemy u may only choose his race, class, speciality and custom AI. I use lvl 50s to ensure the enemy dark elf assassin temp will have all skills (which increase his assassination chance by +4% each), but perhaps i should do this the other way around and play as the assassin temp myself, to customize her further.

If u want to test this urself, u need only click on the skirmish button and right click on the enemy side in the match setup screen, for the customization screen to appear. Remember also to opt for playing with temps, or ur own hero will be used instead.

It's also a good idea to opt for no building in the map so as to force the enemy to attack you instead of building his keep and trying to convert stuff.

I wonder if the level 50 is what is killing the assassination chance. I could see maybe the developers forgetting to cap some kind of assassination reduction that is based on hero level (which they did include in WBC3). Maybe play a Dark Elf assassin hero at low levels and pump the chance with limited points, or even just use a bunch of the Assassin unit to go hunting for the enemy hero in a low level game.

If I get some time, I might play around with it a little myself.

Heros can die to assassination. Years ago I played a Dark Elf Assassin and she was able to instakill other Heros as well as Titans - nothing seems to be safe from assassination just by itself. When leveling up, the description for resistance just gives a little info about it being able to deny assassination, but I don't know any hard numbers. Resistance also helps against psychological effects and can even prevent poison or disease, but again it's just this basic information, no specifics at all.

I think it's the Assassins poor strength max of 10 messing with your testing. Combat 40 is a real challenge for Assassins, they need 20 upgrades in combat to at least rival the 40 (210 Aps). If they don't spend any points for additional combat upgrades, they will sit on 20 combat giving them just a 30% chance to hit against 40 combat. A Dark Elf Assassin can reach a base Assassin chance of 20% giving a pretty lousy chance of 6% Assassination per attack before any resistances.

Maybe the best way to test this is by don't upgrading you own combat at all (so no strength neither). If the Assassin has a max hit chance we can take this out of the calculation and resistance should be the only stat making any difference - at least if the enemy always goes for max Assassination upgrades.

Why do u mention a 6% chance? I would think that it would be around 20% (5 x 4%, each from a different skill: Dark Blade, Assassinate, Poison, Killing Blow and Garrotting). But chances aside, the thing is i've never even seen one successful assassination vs what is usually a Fey Healer of a combat score around 35. I just let her take hits on me while i run around her casting self-healing when needed.

This is all very easy to test urself in a skirmish game with temps, and would rule out smth being wrong with my installation.

Ok i see now, its 30% x 20% = 6%. I should probably test with lower combat differences.

Recently one of my Heros died to assassination, so I'm pretty sure it's possible. Sadly I can't say for sure which Hero that was (though for sure it was a Warrior type, I think Fighter or Death Knight) and I couldn't say if the Hero died to the enemy Hero or just an Assassin unit. But I can assure you it is possible.

I wanted to make a little test, but that was useless: The enemy kept casting silver arrow instead of attacking me in melee =/