Assassination and range weapons

[dark jelly]

Some of the assassination skills mention melee weapons explicitly. Some don't.

Do they all only affect melee weapons? For example, the backstabbing and improved critical. Should it say "doubles the chance of scoring a critical hit with a melee weapon"?

20 Improved Backstabbing (Triple damage when attacking enemy from behind)
23 Quick Strike (25% faster attack rate with melee weapons)
27 Strength +2
31 Improved Critical (Doubles chance of scoring a critical hit)

I played a while with the default team, it was great, but I want to make a custom team now.

[GhoXen]

I don't think you should worry about it for now. It's simply vastly better to completely max out Missile Weapons first if you plan on using a ranged thief. Once you get Volley (double attack), you become simply godly.

[yellowarcher]

I'm actually wondering about this for a different reason - do the assassination skills that explicitly mention melee weapons also work for unarmed combat?

[Pyros]

I'm actually wondering about this for a different reason - do the assassination skills that explicitly mention melee weapons also work for unarmed combat?

I asked that before and the answer was yes, but I have yet to try it myself.