Curse

Siren · Aug 09, 2006, 01:21 AM // 01:21

It's got a recharge of 60 seconds right now, making it pretty much useless. I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to view Dark Prison as the Deadly Arts version of Aura of Displacement (minus the maintained teleport, obviously), so I'm wondering...why doesn't Dark Prison have a comparable recharge time of 20 seconds?

Thoughts?

BahamutKaiser · Aug 09, 2006, 01:28 AM // 01:28

Pathetic skill, Both Advancing Teleports for Assassin are PoS. Leaving only AoD (and advance and retreat teleport) as the only reasonable advancing teleport in the game.

This sits at the top of a long list of skills which arn't useable enough to be worth a skill slot, Assassins are horribly weak in the defense department, the ability to suprise attack and retreat is what Assassin needs to overcome his defensive weakness, and you can't use advancing teleports nearly enough to do that.

This goes right over ridiculous recast times for DoT spells, Spirits, many defensive options for Warrior, and a few other Elementist spells.

Siren · Aug 09, 2006, 01:03 PM // 13:03

So do you have any ideas then? Or just "the skill sucks" and that's it? lol

BahamutKaiser · Aug 10, 2006, 02:08 AM // 02:08

I've brung this up and debated on them several times, perhaps not in a thread to its own, not on this forum, but it has been discussed pretty well in the past.

I already implied this but I will say it clearly, the recast time on Dark Prison and Deaths Charge needs to be reduced. IMO these recasts need to be reduced by 2/3rds making Dark Prison 20 second recast and Deaths Charge 15 second recast. Since Dark Prison has a relatively effective hex feature, it could be increased to 10 energy as well, having a reasonablely useful skill is better than having a cheap one hit wonder.

Also, Heart of Shadow recast needs to be reduced to 5 or 7 seconds, and the lasting effect of the enchantment can be reduced to only cover damage for a for 5 to 10 seconds as well, a randomly located teleport with a non spamable recover is not enough to take a skill slot.

The retreating teleports are alright, primarily Return, which is good enough to overlook any other teleport, but AoD and Recall are quite expensive with their mantenance, so they should both be reduced to 5 energy and mantenance, maintenance alone is significant.

Assassin has armor which allows for good energy but low defense, hardly a mark above caster classes for defense and a bit less energy, but he does not have effective enough skills to compensate for his lack of defense and keep him alive or at least match in added damage output. Assassin truely doesn't do more damage than a nuker, yet he requires melee range for daggers and melee counters are much more devistating to daggers combo skills, further mocking his ability. The least Assassin can have is optimum teleports which allow him to dip in and out of battle regularly to avoid damage and reach targets quickly, at 45 and 60 seconds, there is no way you can continue that, and the fact that it would take 2 skill slots just to teleport in and out at all or an elite makes it costly enough to do so, using more than one skill slot for in/out techniques is cost enough, having skills which are expensive in cost or crippled with recast is not acceptable. With only AoD to do real in out techniques, it eliminates good surprise attacks with any other elite skills.

Frequent teleportation is as important to Assassin as long distance is to ranger, and should be as standard as possible wile still requiring a skill, without frequent teleports Assassin is gimped.

floppinghog · Aug 10, 2006, 04:26 AM // 04:26

the real problem assassins have is.. well all professions can have their skills, consider for a moment what the ability to teleport with one skill cheaply and consistently with one more effect such as slowing the tgt or gaining health constantly, do with other professions? we already can see the use of recall for a tank. so its seems pretty simple to fix the skills for just the assassin's effectivness but not so for the other professions.

thats the issue with balance. i would more like to see critical strikes contain the teleports that are the most effective... it should have been that way to begin with. it may not make sense, but if you look at it like this:
critical strike skill - teleport to the foe's weakest side, or teleport at the worst time (while casting a skill - you can teleport to the foe) you know? it can be interesting and way better for the assassin if they could just do it... seriously

Terra Xin · Aug 10, 2006, 05:37 AM // 05:37

Dark Prison already costs 10 energy to use, I like this skill but the rechage time causes me to run around alot doing nothing...

prodigy ming · Aug 10, 2006, 07:20 AM // 07:20

shadow stepping needs to be reworked.. but thats just one of the many things Anet refuse to face as a fact (along with iway and touch ranger though some may disagree).

Assassin with their low armor and lack of healing/defense ability relies on teleport to survive. However, this ability is crippled by 1. short radius since the nerf, 2. long recharge time and 3. random teleoport often puts one at a worst siutation.

As a side note, skills like shadow refuge should be changed that the extra health gain occur if you STOP attacking to discourage beginner sins from tanking. AoD should be offer earlier in the game so they can learn the importance of shadow stepping with a relatively easy skill to use.

All in all, assassins are majorly gimped at the moment. Yes, in the hands of a experience player it can do serious damage... but saying a class is deadly in the hands of a master doesn't justify bad game design imo. Also, atm, there is an extremely narrow variety in assassin build. As many people have said (in other thread), you can predict 90% of the time what an assassin's skillbar is in PvP.

With the upcoming release of Nightfall and the second team at Anet is probably working on chapter 4 already, i don't foresee Anet will do any serious buffing for the sin. Anet probably consider the faction classes as "finished" and will be more likely to spend resources on new content that they can sell for money instead.

CHUIU · Aug 10, 2006, 07:36 AM // 07:36

Or you could try to use it.

Siren · Aug 10, 2006, 03:26 PM // 15:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHUIU

Or you could try to use it.

I've used a similar build to repair Dark Prison, but even as that build works fairly well, Dark Prison still has an awful recharge time. 60 seconds is just obscene. You'd think given the similarities between Dark Prison and Aura of Displacement, their stats would at least be even. But currently, that's not the case. And so Dark Prison needs to be buffed to match Aura of Displacement's recharge (20 seconds), or even have a shorter recharge than that, perhaps 15 seconds.

CHUIU · Aug 10, 2006, 05:47 PM // 17:47

If anything, 45 seconds, but its does 2 more things than just teleport you there.

1. Hexes the opponents (which can work in conjunction with many things as my build shows)
2. Slows down the opponent (slows them down for the first strike whereas AOD doesn't and anyone using a speed boost can quickly get away from you still)

Oh yeah, and theres also the fact its not an elite, so it doesn't get the abusive benefits of being one.

Siren · Aug 10, 2006, 09:30 PM // 21:30

I'm fully aware of what Dark Prison does, and what it does is kind of the point here. We've got a Shadow Step, a snare, and a hex all rolled into one skill that costs 10E. That's a beauty of a skill and it'd be incredibly useful if it didn't have such a craptacular recharge time. Even at a recharge of 45 seconds, you're still looking at an absolutely pitiful implementation in combat.

I love Assassin's Promise just as much as the next guy, but AP doesn't change the fact that Dark Prison is basically disabled for an entire minute after you use it. Any recharge on Dark Prison longer than 20 seconds is broken. 60 seconds is rubbish. 45 seconds is rubbish. Even 30 seconds is pretty awful...especially considering you're looking at a max hex duration of about 5 seconds.

So with that duration, you're presently spending 10E every 60 seconds to Shadow Step (without a means of escape unless you've got Recall pre-cast on an ally) to your target, and snare them with a hex that lasts no more than 5 seconds.

I'm sorry, but to me, that says Dark Prison needs a buff. lol. And the only fair buff here is a recharge of 20 seconds. The only difference between AoD and DP should be their respective bonus effects, I think.

AoD has its own nice perks (Shadow Step, escape plan, maintained enchant for GPS) with a respectable recharge time.

DP gives you a Shadow Step, a snare, and a hex set-up for BLS. It should have a respectable recharge time, because it truly is the Deadly Arts equivalent (in concept only presently) of Aura of Displacement.

Is that not logical?

BahamutKaiser · Aug 11, 2006, 12:56 AM // 00:56

This isn't a Warrior or Mesmer skill, it brings you to the enemies location so you can attack, big woop, that solves the obvious problem of having to get to the enemies location with a 70 armor unit...... whereas a ranger deals his attacks at full range......

Because of Assassins nature of tradeoffs, his skills should reflect increased effectiveness to compensate for his lack of natural strength. And if anyone needs a list of them here it is. 70 armor + highly situational +15 on a melee class, low weapon damage on a weapon which takes 2 hands, it deals lower damage than a wand and, with a chance to double strike with decent points in dagger mastery you can now get a few extra hits in over time with an assassin, which isn't what an assassin is for, if he is sitting around laying down normal melee damage then he obviously isn't using proper suprise attack skills, attack skill damage which doesn't outmatch anything a spiker can deal, whether it be touch ranger, Necro blood spike or Lightning Spike, yet requires combination skill use which is even easier to sabatoge with melee attack counters. And his healing/protect skills are not effective enough to compensate for the lack of armor he has.

I could have swore Dark Prison was 5 energy at one point or another, reguardless, 10 energy is fine, that leaves it down to reducing the recast time on both advancing teleports.

AoD is alright, but, 10 energy upon advance absorbs a significant portion of energy you will need to combo with, and with the maintenance as well, it woln't be regenerating quite as fast either. Sure it works, but one functioning advance teleport doesn't mean the others can be overlooked, and the lack of non-elite advances means that no other Assassin Elites can be used in an effective surprise attack build, because the only good advancing teleport is an elite.

Reduced movement speed of 33% for 1-6 seconds is not an incredible ability, and nor is reaching attack range quickly with an assassin, these are simple neccessities Assassin needs to have just to function properly. Warriors don't use skills to bear heavy armor, Rangers don't require skills to shot thier bow, Assassins have niether long range, heavy armor, nor premium survival skills, the least they can do is make frequent Advancing and Retreating teleports to avoid damage and reach their target easily.

A spoon can be used to kill someone in the hands of a master, that doesn't make it comparable to a blade, nor does it make it a fair match, skillful use doesn't replace balance, and Assassin is not balanced.

I admit, Anet does a better job at designing reasonable PvP gameplay, much better than other games I have played, but they have failed on this issue. And more importantly than that, it isn't fun to play, balance is great, but it only matters because it facilitates enjoyment, if their "balance" isn't fun, then it needs to be rebalanced, assuming it was actually fair to begin with.