No, you cannot use a Revenant Assassin as a high-damage striker.
Original Assassins have fantastic mobility, interesting secondary effects, and absolutely worthless damage (a thought explored in both practice and theory). Roughly speaking, you'll want your striker's DPR to fall within (8*Level+24)/4 and (8*Level+24)/2.
To calculate DPR, use the following formula:
(1-(BaseDefense+Level-ToHit-1)/20-CritChance)*(WeaponDamageAverage+StaticModifier)+(CritChance)*(CritDamage+StaticModifier+ExtraDamage)
Where:
- Base defense = 14 for AC, or 12 for NADs (Fort, Ref, Will)
- Level is level of the character
- ToHit is the total attack modifers of the character
- Critchance is .05 (20), .1 (19-20) or .15 (18-20)
- CritDamage is the maximized Weapon Die * Number of Dice
- WeaponDamageAverage is Number of Dice * die average * n[W]
- Die Average = sides/2+.5
- Brutal 1 = sides/2+1
- Brutal 2 = Sides/2+1.5
- Static Modifier is the unchanging modifier added to attack rolls
- ExtraDamage is the weapon's critical extra dice: This can include bonus dice from the weapon's enchantment and/or bonus dice from the high crit property.
For a level 1 defender with longsword: To-hit is 4+3, damage 1d8+4: (1-(14+1-7-1)/20-.05)*(4.5+4)+(.05)*(8+4) = 5.70
(Defenders and other low-damage types fall within (8*1+24)/**8**=4
-(8*1+24)/**4**=8
4-8 damage.
For a level 1 barbarian with howling strike and a 1d12 executioner's axe: To-hit is 5+2, from stat+proficiency; a brutal 2 weapon drops the average by one, and adds 2; and rampage adds an extra basic attack on crit.
(1-(14+1-7-1)/20-.05)*( (5.5+2)+5+3.5 )+(.05)*(12+5+6+6.5+3.5)+(.05)*(1-(14+1-7-1)/20-.05)*( (5.5+2)+5)+(.05)*(12+5+6.5+3.5) = 12.97
on howling strike. So a level 1 barbarian is a "3 round striker" (HP estimate / DPR) which is quite accurate.
For assassins, they suffer from a number of problems: unspectacular dailies, a very swingy striker damage feature that doesn't scale with tier, and unimpressive at-wills, as per the guide. If you want a respectable damage assassin go with the Executioner assassin released in Dragon 394. However, individual builds may vary, and should be assessed using the above guidelines.
First off:
SNEAK ATTACK (HYBRID) This class feature functions as the rogue class
feature, except that you can deal the extra damage only when you hit
with a rogue power or a rogue paragon path power.
And:
ASSASSIN'S SHROUD (HYBRID) You gain the assassin power assassin’s
shroud, except you can subject a target to a maximum of two shrouds
and you can invoke your shrouds on a target only when you attack with
an assassin power or an assassin paragon path power.
So he won't be able to stack those d8s (enforcing this rule may be a cause for respec). Hybrids are tricky in general - you may wish to go through his other abilities, just make sure it doesn't seem like a punishment. Next, Fade Away is an encounter ability, so he'd need to look for other ways of generating Combat Advantage - something that can be tough at lower levels.
However, he is a striker, and damage is what he should be doing. Him outclassing a leader in dps is perfectly fine. Doing twice the damage of another striker in the party is a problem, though. So give him something to use that damage on. Change up your encounters: use more brutes, have reinforcements arrive to replace the ones he kills quickly, etc. Use controllers to make it tough for him to get into a position for Combat Advantage, unless the party helps to set it up. Use sticky soldiers to pin him down and prevent him from going after the boss, unless the party helps. Winning combat is not always about dealing most damage (though it is the easiest way). Experiment. And resign to your monsters dying - such is their purpose.
Best Answer
I don't think that the class is outright broken (as in "unplayable") but rather is seriously lacking feat/item support and requires a much higher level of expertise to properly build and play than other strikes (especially the ranger, where spamming Twin Strike is almost always the perfect answer to any problem -_-').
Anyway, there are some ways to increase the damage output of an assassin. The primary thing to remember, however, is that you will primarily deal large spikes of damage and not a high baseline damage every round (like e.g. a rogue).
Also note that an assassin can basically use the same tricks as other characters as well to pile up damage (using BFG-style weapons like the executioner's axe or the fullblade, knocking prone for Headsman's Chop[DDI], using a Frost Weapon[DDI] for frost cheese, using items like Gauntlets of Blood[DDI] for more damage against bloodied targets, and so on and so forth).
Feats
Brutal 1
properyPowers
7[W]
but also let's you use Assassin's Shroud up to 4 times against the target after the attack; useful for building chains:add 4 shrouds in any way > attack with this power > immediately have 4 shrouds again > spend action point and attack with other daily/encounter
Items