Curse

Master Ketsu · Feb 22, 2008, 07:28 AM // 07:28

Assassin 2

V0.5

Strider Hiryu

This is a concept of the assassin as to be changed for GW2. Note that for the sake of balance I'm assuming that energy costs/health/armor amount ratios will remain the same as GW1.

Basic Idea: Take advantage of the introduction to running, rolling, jumping, and other new mechanics to be introduced into GW2 and incorporate them to change the Assassin's gameplay to become driven by timing and skill as opposed to 123456 instagib combo's.

What is staying the same

Assassins shall still use Daggers as their primary weapon.

the 4 main attributes of the assassin: critical strikes, Deadly Arts, Shadow arts, and dagger mastery, remain unchanged in name. ( The skills are of course almost completely different. )

Assassin armor is still mid classed at 70 plus one bonus dependent on armor type.

What is changing

Gone is the Lead -> Offhand -> dual system.

To replace this is the new "opening" -> "combo chain" system. Which is designed to be more fair and realistic in terms of how Assassins in real life must create or find an "opening" or chance to strike then do so quickly.

Combo chain attacks ( which from here on I will call CCA's ) are fairly straightforward. They basically work the same way dual attacks do with 2 differences:

1) They hit 3 times instead of 2. This makes them significantly more powerful.
2) They disable all other CCA's on your bar for 5 seconds ( this is one of many things to prevent 123456 combos ) In other word's, they cannot be spammed.

The "Opening" system is much different. In order to CCA a sin must somehow inflict an opening on a target. While this synergy is similar to lead - offhand
attacks the way it is accomplished and its mechanics are not the same at all.

- Once an opening has been inflicted, it will only last for 3 seconds.
- Once an Assassin uses a CCA, the opening is gone.
- Enemies can get out of an opening inflicted on them by either jumping or rolling.

There are also no dagger attack skills that allow a sin to simply walk up to a target, use it, then directly proceed with a Combo chain attack. All of them are in some way conditional or require precise timing to pull off.

Basically, there is no dagger attack that is simply named "opening dagger attack". the GW2 sin will need to have more brains then that.

Specialized mechanics

A primary Assassin can double jump, and has much less lag time between rolls as other professions. This comes into play with certain critical strikes skills.

This increase in mobility is to compensate for the fact that Assassins can no longer "instant kill combo" their targets, and instead will have to hit and run to fight off targets in a manner somewhere between a mesmer and a warrior.

Changes to GW2 engine as a whole

Spells: not as easy as before

All spells that target an "other ally" or a foe do not happen instantly. They all act like projectiles or have some kind of motion they must go through to reach their target. This means no more casting through walls. Self targeting is an exception.

There are different types of spell movement types, depending on how they act.

1:[shot] These spells move move like an arrow. This is the same as most projectile spells in GW1

2:[laser] Quick firing laser, almost instant but not 100% unavoidable. This type would only used for certain quick spells.

3:[Arc] Travels in a long arc. Easy to avoid, but most skill with this are strong. Parabola spells are difficult to avoid when jumping and their Attribute point rank is increased by 1 when hitting a jumping foe.

4:[Fallout] Think of an elementalist earth spell that causes a big rock to appear over some poor monk's head and then fall on them half a second later if they don't roll or activate a run stance very fast.

5:[Flash] The only exception to the rules. This is the classical GW1 instant spell that doesn't require any position-awareness. Would only be used for certain high priority spells, like [skill]infuse health[/skill] or skills that would make no sense to have to travel such as [skill]Mystic twister[/skill]. Enchantment spells are always Flash.

6:[Rush] A spell type that causes the user to charge their opponent at fairly fast, but not totally unavoidable speed. The spell takes affect upon touch. These are almost always half range. ( Example: an elementalist skill "Flaming palm" that causes him to charge at his target engulfed in flames. )

The innate skill.

One idea for GW2 is for every profession to have an always-equipped skill that does not require attribute points, but instead provides each profession with an innate "9th skill". Each Class would only get one, and it would only be available to primaries of that class. This "innate skill " is not shown, but is activated by pressing the shift key.

As for assassins, their innate skill is this:

Shadow Fusion:
Energy: 5
Cast Time: instant
Assassin Innate skill: You have -4 energy degen and -1 health degen, but cannot be targeted or seen by non teammates who are not nearby your location. Shadow fusion ends prematurely if you attack, jump, roll, or use a skill. Press shift again to deactivate.

-When using this skill, you will appear as a pitch black model secreting purple miasma to you and your teammates.

A fifth attribute

I'm pretty wary of giving more skill attribute classes since it could risk changing guild wars 2 into a completely different game, but then again it would be pretty dull if their was nothing new added period. For assassins, this is Kunai.

attributes

Max 200 -> Max 250. Multiple reasons for this.

1. With the introduction to a more "tweak" type of gameplay where the vast majority of spells can be Roll-dodged if the player is on guard, Players need to be able to have more room for utility and combos, otherwise the fights could be needlessly drawn out.

2. It allows multiple weapon builds to become more viable. In the case of the sin, it allows a sin to realistically place points in both Daggers and Kunai without making a build that is bad. The idea assumes that all classes would be given more attributes that ask for larger spreads.

Concept skills

Critical strikes -Critical strikes for the most part remains unchanged, with the addition of skills to affect gameplay and skills that compliment Shadow fusion.

Acrobatics
Cost: 5e
Cast time: 1
Recharge: 20
Enchantment spell: For 1....7...8 seconds, whenever you land after a double jump, you inflict an opening on all adjacent foes.

Critical Assault:
Cost: 10e
Recharge: 10
CCA: If this attack hits, you deal +10...35 damage. this CCA always results in a critical hit.

Malicious strike:
cost: 5e
Recharge: 8e
Dagger attack: You strike for +12...45 damage. If this attack is blocked, you inflict an opening. Otherwise, this attack results in a critical hit.

Zealous evasion ( ELITE )
cost: 5e
Recharge: 12
Stance: For 1...9...10 seconds your rolls travel twice as far and activate 33% faster. Whenever you evade an enemy spell this way, you gain 5 energy.

Hatch mark
cost: 5e
Recharge: 15
Hex spell [Shot]: for 3.....15...17 seconds, whenever you strike target hexed foe while they have an opening, you gain 1...3 energy.

Twilight Haste
cost: 5e
Time: 1
Recharge: 30
Enchantment spell: For 5....20...25 seconds, whenever you roll while in Shadow Fusion you shadow step 15 meters in the direction you would have rolled.

Hunters Blade
cost: 10e
Recharge: 20
Dagger attack: You strike for +5....+45..+50 damage. If you were using Shadow fusion and this strikes a moving foe, you inflict an opening.

Dagger Mastery -With The lead offhand system gone, non CCA dagger attacks are given a boost to become a more direct utility system.

Venom Blades
Cost: 10e
Recharge: 12
CCA: You strike for +5....25 damage and inflict a random condition with each strike. Venom blades cannot cause dazed or deep wound.

Death Bloom ( ELITE )
Cost: 5e
Recharge: 2
Elite CCA: You strike for +5...40 damage. All foes adjacent to your target take 5...40 shadow damage.

Death Blossom
Cost: 5e
Recharge: 8
Dagger attack: You strike for +5....40 damage. All foes adjacent to your target take 5...40 shadow damage.

Falling spider
Cost: 5e
Recharge: 12
Dagger attack. You strike for +5...30 damage. If this attack is activated at the peak of a double jump, your target is
poisoned for 5...15 seconds.

Surprise attack
Cost: 5e
Recharge: 12
Dagger attack: You strike for +8....30 damage. If this strikes a foe that is using a skill, you inflict an opening.

Disrupting strike
Cost: 5e
Time: 1/2
Recharge: 10
Dagger attack: If this attack strikes a foe that is using a skill, that skill is interrupted. If that skill was a spell, it is disabled for 5...20 seconds.

Kunai Its been noted that its wanted, but really having it as a weapon that can be picked up seems redundant to the fact you already use daggers. Rather, Kunai simply gives them more utility.

Shuriken
Cost: 5e
Time: 1
Recharge: 2
Kunai skill [Shot]. Throw a Kunai at target foe, if it hits it deals 15....60 piercing damage.

-note that is is not a spell, but follows the spell [shot] formula.

Air Shuriken
Cost: 5e
Time: 3/4
Recharge: 10
Kunai skill [Arc]. Throw a Kunai at target foe, if it hits it deal 15...60 piercing damage. This skill has 20% armor penetration.

Kunai Storm
Cost: 10e
Time: 2
Recharge: 15
Spell [Fallout]. For 10 seconds, target foe and all nearby foes take 10...35 piercing damage each second.

Psycho Shuriken ( Elite )
Cost: 10e
Time: 1/4
Recharge: 6
Elite Spell [Laser]. Throw a shadow shuriken at target foe that strikes for 20....60 shadow damage if it hits. If this skill strikes
a foe that is neither moving or casting a spell, you inflict an opening.

Deadly Arts -Deadly arts stays as a way to give sins utility spells, but is now far more geared towards stopping defensive maneuvers and punishing healing.
NOTE: healing benefit reduction capped at 50% unless a single skill pushes it over that limit.

Mark of Death
Cost: 5e
Time: 3/4
Recharge: 15
Hex spell [Shot]. for 1....10 seconds, target foe gains 33% less benefit from healing. Whenever that foe is healed for more then 10% of their max health, Mark of Death inflicts an opening on them.

Mark of Doom ( ELITE )
Cost: 5e
Time: 1
Recharge: 10
Elite Hex spell [Laser]. For 1....7 seconds, target foe gains 66% less benefit from healing and -1 to all attributes. If that foe dies while hexed with Mark of Doom, you suffer from exhaustion.

Strike from the darkness
Cost: 10e
Time: 1
Recharge: 20
enchantment spell. For 1...6 seconds, you can use Kunai skills while in Shadow Fusion without canceling it.

Siphon Defenses
Cost: 10e
Time: 1
Recharge: 25
Hex spell [Flash]. For 5...17 seconds, target foe gains -5 armor and 20% less benefit from healing while you gain +5 armor and gain 20% more benefit from healing.

Vertigo
Cost: 5e
Time: 1
Recharge: 10
Spell [laser]. Target foe takes 25....55 shadow damage. If this spell strikes a foe that is in the air ( Jumping ) you inflict an opening.

-more concept skills to come. As you can tell, I like concept skills. This is probably because I work in the games industry and wouldn't be able to do this all day if I didn't.

Lord Darksoul · Feb 22, 2008, 07:38 AM // 07:38

sounds like a weaker version of the warrior.

I still like the idea of combo chains, except with secondary effects.

Like attacking a hexed target makes them poisoned, but not will do +20 damage or something (just an example)

That way, you don't HAVE to follow a combo chain, and it'll open the sin up a bit more to a hybrid of chains and open attacks.

jonnieboi05 · Feb 22, 2008, 11:02 AM // 11:02

ehh.. i like the whole rolling thing. it seems cool. but for everything else... i'm kinda iffy on it. let's just see what ANet surprises us with.

Phoenix Tears · Feb 22, 2008, 12:26 PM // 12:26

i think a hybrid between your concept and mine would make it perfect

my GW2-Assassin

But on my version I talk about alot more of improvements, that this Class needs and I speculate about, that all professions in GW2 will/should have more Attributes.

Also the typical Weapon of the Assassin are Katars and not Daggers, normal Daggers are the Weapons of Rogues in my opinion. The only Daggers that an Assassin uses, are "Kunais"... short flat and very sharp "Throwing Daggers".

The Assassin uses 3 types of Weapons: Katars, Kunais and Shuriken, because they are strongly influenced by the japanese, but also persian origins.
persian Order Killers are the origin of the "Assassin", but the typical Assassin we all imagine them, has its origin from the japanese Ninja Culture.
The Assassin totally missed in GW1 its persian origin half and was only influenced totally by the asian version. That should change imo for GW2. There the profession should show also its persion origin of culture, because would that not be, wouldn't call Assassins Assassins, because the origin of this word is persian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin :

Under Etymology to see, in the 8th to 14th Century, there was no Turkey or other islamic countries there, all there was the emperium of Persia.
Also India belonged in this Time Age to Persias Empire and in there, the Katar was a typical Weapon. So surely the Katar was a typical Weapon for Assassins at least in this region, but surely in general too.

[M]agna_[C]arta · Feb 22, 2008, 02:03 PM // 14:03

I think they just wanted to have a Ninja Feel for the Assassin.
It looks boring to see a robed guy doing combos and stuff.
You wouldn't even realize it.

Master Ketsu · Feb 22, 2008, 02:58 PM // 14:58

Point taken on the warrior bit, So I upped the power a bit.

I'm not quite done yet, it would be great if I get feedback because I plan to add more. My idea for Deadly and shadow arts in particular is very different.

You can't see me · Feb 22, 2008, 06:09 PM // 18:09

Your changes would be interesing. I like it far better than the lead-offhand-dual system. I also agree on your movement related mechanics. Way more realistic combat.

But I don't like the whole new spell system. That strongly depends on how you define magic.

Master Ketsu · Feb 22, 2008, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Waiting to see how people think of Kunai's. Personally I find it redundent for classes to have tons of different weapons and considering how Kunai can be used as Dagger's it seems odd.

Gameplay wise, 2 auto attack weapons on a sin can be tedious. The idea is not the same as a warrior who will not carry both axe and sword skills, but for sins to be able to do both on the same bar.

I also added [Flash] to spell types. I was tired when writing that and now that I look back I realize that certain spells just wouldn't make sense if they didnt happen the moment they were casted.

Darkhell153 · Feb 22, 2008, 10:42 PM // 22:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonnieBoi05

ehh.. i like the whole rolling thing. it seems cool. but for everything else... i'm kinda iffy on it. let's just see what ANet surprises us with.

do you really want to see how they surprise us considering some of their latest surprises?

RavagerOfDreams · Feb 23, 2008, 07:17 AM // 07:17

i like it

but i wanna see some more concept skillz plz