Curse

obastable · Jun 11, 2006, 01:27 PM // 13:27

I'm actually very fond of the new classes, and of Mesmers. I always make room for a Mesmer in my party (if there's one to be found). They are quite possibly the most over-powered class in the game.. and yet no one seems to notice because so few have figured out what it is they really do.

A well played Assassin is an asset to any group, in any PvE setting. They can hex, bleed, poison, and spike all the squishies into nothingness before your ranged allies can get to them, without taking much or any damage in the process. Ritualists are misunderstood, as well. I've run my Ele with my Fiance's Rit, and we've sat here and compared the damage flashing across our monitors. The damage output by his Channeling Rit far exceeds the damage output from my Ele running any sort of nuke or spike build. On top of that, he has faster recharge and lower energy costs, and NO EXHAUSTION! Needless to say, if I ever want to "nuke" I'll be making a Ritualist and leaving my Ele as I intended (Earth Prot).

The problem is not that no one knows what Ritualists do, or that there are no talented Assassins playing the game. The problem is that there is a pre-conceived notion that the Assassin class is sub-par. There are some skills that need tweaking, but that hasn't left the class useless in the meantime. Some people also need to remember that it IS still a new class, and some are slow on the learning curve (not everyone who plays GW scourges the internet for tips & hints on how to play a class). Put plainly, they'll learn faster playing with other competent players than they will playing with crappy AI. Take an Assassin along with you once in a while, and ease your own worries by asking them about their build (maybe even offer some tips?) before you head out into whatever mission or quest you teamed up for.

Mtank325 · Jun 11, 2006, 01:32 PM // 13:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by hazardouswaste

A statement like that, especially coming from a monk, is something I've been waiting to hear about. What was said there was just as powerful as the monk strike a little while ago.

Now if only people earlier in the game would figure it out..

I'm stuck groupless at the Temple if anyone wishes to give me a hand

I've actually started to see a lot of this lately where a duo of a monk and assassin will be looking for a group in a mission spot. I guess guildies are helping out their assassin guildies, which is a pretty smart idea. It's either take the monk and the assassin or keep spamming for a few more minutes to find a monk.

Kriel Drache · Jun 11, 2006, 01:32 PM // 13:32

I agree with most of what's been said. The Assassin is discriminated against but that's the fault of a lot of Assassins. I run an Assassin myself and I do enjoy playing an Assassin. After playing for a while, I've been able to boil down being an Assassin to one statement: if you're going to play an Assassin, act like an assassin would in real life. If you can, avoid taking on the bodyguards a.k.a. Warriors and go straight for the target a.k.a. Casters and then get out. Rinse and repeat.

Desert Penguin · Jun 11, 2006, 03:56 PM // 15:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nivryx

towards the end of factions you start to see less profession discrimination. i was in a group today and heres what happened:
leader: 'GLF tank and assassin 6/8'
*assassin joins, a tank joins shortly after*
Tank: 'kick the assassin, get another tank'
Monk: 'I'll leave if you kick him'
Leader: 'alright, ill take half of your advice--ill get another tank'
*leader kicks tank*

apparently monk and assassin had just been in a group and the monk could vouch for how well he (the assassin) played. and indeed, he was a good assassin.

That is a very brave and honorable thing for the monk to do. The leader is also cool for kicking out the intolerant tank

Its good to see some people disciminate less near the end of Factions.

Ellena · Jun 11, 2006, 05:35 PM // 17:35

oh in very late missions it's safer to assume that peple are at elast marginally compitent (reguardless of class), than in earlier ones. Bad ragequiting suicide assassins rarely make it outside the imperial section of the game.

dreamhunk · Jun 11, 2006, 05:42 PM // 17:42

Ok I have to say I was playing the asassin class. I died alot. But long the way I started to get really good. I have learned what anet had in mind for this class. This class rocks. Has anyone seen the movie electra. Well this class is for someone who is skilled! you have to think about where you are going to go. Where you want to be. If you want to rush in like a tank you can but you have to think about the skills you have to take. I would not rush in like a tank, i would you use the teleports.

If anet adds more health armor to the class I would welcome it. however it is about trying to master the class.

On the other side I love the throwing daggers skills, For the asassin class I would also like more skills where you can throw stars, and darts.

Dannzzigg · Jun 11, 2006, 06:05 PM // 18:05

One thing that often leads to the discrimination against Assassins, besides the obvious number of people who simply don't play them well, is the lack of understanding as to the role of a 'sin.

I have played my 'sin as a quickstrike hit and run spiker, a ranged hexer, a monk bodyguard, an off-target monk and mesmer killer, a condition generator/spreader and many other roles, some successful, some not.

The key to avoiding generalized discrimination is, as one poster above me put it, selling the build. If you are playing a hit and run character and you are looking for a group, post that in chat: "Hit and Run Spike Assassin LFG".

It won't stop the simply oblivious players out there from discriminating against you based purely on your class, but it will let the more competent players who are forming parties know that you have a firm grasp on your role, and understand your limitations. The great thing for the Assassin is that the less competent people will continue to discrimintate, and teh better players will recognize your value and send invites, increasing your chances of getting into a quality group.

Heck, if you somehow manage to convince one of the less competent (read: discriminating) party leaders to take you along, you may find that you were better off with henches anyway. Conversely, you may actually teach them a thing or two about the value of a 'sin, making the world a better place for all of us.

Alathys Tylderaan · Jun 11, 2006, 06:08 PM // 18:08

I've seen a lot of Assassin discrimination while palying through factions.

The worst part was at Boreas seabed, where I was kicked from 3 groups and spent 4 hours trying to get a group before my guildies logged on and helped me.

Boreas Seabed is one of those missions you can't hench as a melee class or Ranger, otherwise I would.

As a point, when playing through the game with henchies, I found it much much easier as an assassin than with any of the other classes I've played through as (War/Ele/Rit), although that might be just because I know all the missions..

ducktape · Jun 11, 2006, 06:41 PM // 18:41

You know, it's a shame that people get stuck with a few bad players playing a certain class and then refuse to group with w/mos or eles or assassins or mesmers or rangers or necros or ritualists just becuase they had bad luck and got a crappy player playing that class. Sure, some people suck at playing their class, or playing with any class (sucking at the game in general) and not everybody is worth trying to teach.

Know what helps? Ask someone what kind of build and strategy they are running before you start the mission. If they don't answer, or just say:
"I am an ubar tank"
or "I am an awesome nuker"
they might be a good player, but there is a much higher chance that they are not skilled with their class and/or are going to be spamming "U suck n00bs" and "heal me st00pid monk" than if they say:
"I sprint in, draw aggro, body block, and use my hammer for knockdowns and interrupts"
or some other simple explanation of their play style. I don't particularly like redoing missions over and over, so I'm going to choose the people who take the 60 seconds to tell us what they do when they play. It really is about someone being a crappy player or not that is going to make your group have a cakewalk or a nice little stroll through hell. Talk to them and see if they sound like they would make a good addition to your team and if they have any idea what they're doing, and you get a much better percentage of decent players.

O for Oz · Jun 11, 2006, 06:46 PM // 18:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by ducktape

You know, it's a shame that people get stuck with a few bad players playing a certain class and then refuse to group with w/mos or eles or assassins or mesmers or rangers or necros or ritualists just becuase they had bad luck and got a crappy player playing that class. Sure, some people suck at playing their class, or playing with any class (sucking at the game in general) and not everybody is worth trying to teach.

Know what helps? Ask someone what kind of build and strategy they are running before you start the mission. If they don't answer, or just say:
"I am an ubar tank"
or "I am an awesome nuker"
they might be a good player, but there is a much higher chance that they are not skilled with their class and/or are going to be spamming "U suck n00bs" and "heal me st00pid monk" than if they say:
"I sprint in, draw aggro, body block, and use my hammer for knockdowns and interrupts"
or some other simple explanation of their play style. I don't particularly like redoing missions over and over, so I'm going to choose the people who take the 60 seconds to tell us what they do when they play. It really is about someone being a crappy player or not that is going to make your group have a cakewalk or a nice little stroll through hell. Talk to them and see if they sound like they would make a good addition to your team and if they have any idea what they're doing, and you get a much better percentage of decent players.

I completely agree with this. Imho its not so much class discrimination but many ( if not most ) of players who play sins are just naruto kids who have no clue how to play their class.

Iraqalypse Now · Jun 11, 2006, 06:52 PM // 18:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zakarr

Assassins are cursed:
Some warriors think assassins are alternative warriors which they want to beat and prove them to be weak. If you don't take 1 vs 1 with warrior, you are a coward but if you accept it and most likely die, you are a loser or n00b.

If you know you are going to be 1v1ing a warrior, you can win it with almost any class if you tweak the build. I'm not familiar enough with ritualist to guarantee it, and warrior is to constrained to try to specialize anti-warrior. But with an assassin, I can win against warriors easily - all it takes is 13 critical strikes, 8 illusion magic, zealous daggers, and distortion. Or go assassin/ele with blinding flash and conjure lightning. Or glimmering mark. Or water snares and kite like mad. Or go A/Mes with signet of midnight + signet of malice. There are so many ways to win a 1v1 with a warrior its not even funny.

prodigy ming · Jun 11, 2006, 07:16 PM // 19:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iraqalypse Now

If you know you are going to be 1v1ing a warrior, you can win it with almost any class if you tweak the build. I'm not familiar enough with ritualist to guarantee it, and warrior is to constrained to try to specialize anti-warrior. But with an assassin, I can win against warriors easily - all it takes is 13 critical strikes, 8 illusion magic, zealous daggers, and distortion. Or go assassin/ele with blinding flash and conjure lightning. Or glimmering mark. Or water snares and kite like mad. Or go A/Mes with signet of midnight + signet of malice. There are so many ways to win a 1v1 with a warrior its not even funny.

thats true. In Alliance battle, I specificlly go after the warriors since they are mostly easy kills for my assassin. trappers on the other hand seems hardest to kill because whenever i get close i am on fire/blind/crippled/bleeding... warrior at most usually only put on bleeding and deep wound which can be removed with plauge touch (nec skill) and you are free to continue your combo. with high enough crit strike and zealous dagger you should almost never run into energy problem.

LifeInfusion · Jun 11, 2006, 07:50 PM // 19:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Haggard

...the problem is that many assasins ...simply don't know how to play.

I agree with you there. WAY too many people don't bring any form of teleporting and just charge in. Not only that, but the fact that energy denial severely cripples them due to their MINISCULE energy pool doesn't help either.

Assassins are like watered down warriors IMO. They have:
A. less armor
B. more energy dependence (that doesn't help since you have a small pool)
C. less protection from Spiteful Spirit, Empathy, Clumsiness, Mind Wrack, Spirit Shackles and all forms of hate because you have less time to react to skills that activate on hit
C. more dependence on enchantments (shadows refuge shattered continuously = dead assassin)
D. one mandatory skill to not die every 10 seconds: return or aura of displacement
E. more vulnerability to skill disabling because of combos
F. more newer users playing them since it is a newly released profession
G. crippled literally when crippled

Count to Potato · Jun 11, 2006, 09:12 PM // 21:12

Ur right, assasins have shadow arts for a reason

Dark Suoon · Jun 12, 2006, 03:57 AM // 03:57

yea I think my assassins cool and all but many ppl think they suck when they do their job. I am not a tanking type of assassin and if i die once they go crazy, but personally for alliance battles, id go with a warrior

Edge Martinez · Jun 12, 2006, 04:33 AM // 04:33

All I can add is... whatever. Assassins may be the red-haired orphan of the month, but most groups will happily take a badly played assassin over a finely played mesmer. I am dreading having to bring my Mesmer across to Cantha. Finding groups will be a soul numbing experience. I'll wait and see if chapter 3 even requires Cantha before I do. Alliance Battles are good enough for now. That same Mesmer has earned enough amber to outfit all my toons with Kurzick top shelf armor.

lord_shar · Jun 12, 2006, 06:18 AM // 06:18

Other intersting posts in the assassin forum of GWG:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3054880

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3055208

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3043557

The bottom line is that the assassin is perfectly balanced for PvP at the expense of PvE. Deficient self-healing, soft melee armors, high AI-target priorty, rapid fall-off of critical strikes vs. high level monsters, only two worthwhile elites (AoD and Temple Strike -- barely elite-worthy), etc... all lead up to one very unproductive, high maintenance PvE class. Many are already starting to become dissolusioned at their assassins. I know more than a few player friends who have permanently shelved their assassin toons.

The class has problems, but ignoring those issues and waiting for the learning curve and more strategies to develope doesn't seem to be helping. The limited skill set makes the assassin a fragile spike damage delivery toon and nothing else. I can see why so many are giving up.

I've already finished the Factions campaign with my assassin and am almost done with Hell's Precipice. I see little or no chance of ever entering Urgoz's Warrens or the Deep due to lack of assassin PvE groupability. The present skill set and L70 armor simply don't work well in L28+ areas . PvP assassins are fine, but their PvE world isn't.

Maxiemonster · Jun 12, 2006, 06:35 AM // 06:35

I wish Assassins were never created. Just when the common W/Mo started to understand the game, the Assassins came, and ruined everything again, just like the Warriors did. Sorry, but I hate Assassins, and to be honest, I can understand why those people don't invite Assassins, because it's about 95% chance that they'll suck. I don't like discrimination most of the time, but sometimes, it's for a reason.

Assassins shouldn't whine though, as Mesmers, which usually are the best players of the game, never get invited, just because noone knows what Mesmers are capable off.

seanedsw28 · Jun 12, 2006, 06:41 AM // 06:41

I think the main problem is that players judge the assassin by the henchie assassins. The problem with that is that the henchies are stupid. I had to say when my assassin was down to the last two missions, I had to say that I knew what I was doing. I was even told that he should just go with his secondary skills. (He is a ranger for a secondary.)

sabretalon · Jun 12, 2006, 09:35 AM // 09:35

My tactics, whilst I may not be the worlds best player I have spent time learning my assassin. Just capped Assassins promise and it has now allowed me to do what I feel an assassin should be doing.

I seek out the softer targets, but the softer targets are usually the key to most battles! Take out the monks, mesmers, necros and then rangers and last of all the warriors. Hit and run is the main thing, I load up with way of perfection first then shadow of haste and then deaths charge to my target, hit them with dancing daggers which also counts as a lead attack, then kick in assassins promise, then fox fangs for my off hand and then deaths blossom as my dual attack, if they are not dead by then I can usually get off anothe dancing daggers before teleporting back. Most of the time they are dead by then and my skills are fully recharged thanks to assassins promise.

The one thing about my main skill set is that apart from shadow of haste all the skills cost 5 energy.

I do change around if I'm working with some guildies who happen to be mainly rangers! Since they use brambles I take some knock down skills instead.

I had issues when I was not using any skills to get me out of the middle of a fight! I have ranger as my secondary and really only use it for my pet. The assassin seams to me to get body blocked on a regular basis even with my own pet! That is why I use dancing daggers as a mini ranged attack, I can then if need be do deaths charge to get me past any blockage.

Do not get caught up in the heat of battle and think you are a tank! It is easy to do. Concentrate on the weaker targets, when I say weaker I mean less armour and melee damage skills.

I'm not going to stand up and say I do X amount of damage with my build and I own most of the things out there! I do however like the balance my character gives me.

My guild tolerates Assassins, still get the oh no an Assassin quips but provided I don't have to be resurrected in the game then I don't see it being a problem!

Having the low energy output worked very well prior to having assassins promise and I intend to look at some of the higher energy skills to see if they fit just as well.

One thing that I also like to do in areas with several bosses in is to equip distraction skills.

Most classes have problems getting into certain groups, until the assassin or should I say the people using assassins start using them in the right way, then it will be difficult to get into some of the groups.

I remember when I first started, I used a necro and found it difficult to get into groups at the earlier stages of the game. At higher levels of the game MM tend to not have many problems getting into games infact most variations of necros tend to be welcomed with open arms now. I hear the same was for mesmers, what do they do? Unless you see people actively fighting by your side I guess it is easy to overlook what these characters bring to the party.

My skills are maximized for my assassin skill set the rest went into beast mastery for my pet. Other than that I do not use anything else but pure assassin skills. I was the same with my necro, I only used necro skills until recently where I used mesmer as a secondary for the arcane echo.

I think it will be a few more months before you see people asking for assassins to join a group. If your build allows it, then try and pack some skills that help manage health and energy, become relitively self sufficient and then people will start to see they do not need to spend all their time resurrecting you. If you have no shadow stepping skills then get in there do 1 full combo, lead, off hand and then dual attack, then get out of there. Most of your skills will provide some sort of additional damage and early on in the game this will help you to finish them off.