Curse

NeroX · Oct 02, 2008, 09:04 AM // 09:04

This is based on some of the skill/function changes that have taken place in the past and are still in effected for the assassin class. Read on if interested.

First of all, i want to mention what i think has stuffed up assassins...
Aftercast delay for shadow stepping - .75 secs sounds like its not a lot but it has a massive effect on assassins (imo anyway). All shadow stepping skills kinda suck now.

Reasons:
- Shadow stepping is supposed to be quick and catch people of guard WITHOUT notice. In the DEVELOPER UPDATES this was the sole reason why they applied this aftercast .... "oh look!!!, here i am, you might as well prot yourself up since i cant do anything instantly".
When spikes are executed in GvG's for example, "is the opposing team supposed to know who's being spiked?!!?!!".

- If aftercast is an absolute necessity, at least apply some kind of snare to it. if the person starts kiting before you do anything (if your lucky you might get 1 hit in) ... well that's a shadow step wasted already (shadow step recharge is long enough already).

- And when your an assassin in PvP, u want to get in as fast as u can and out again right away after finishing ur combo because your base def sucks as it is (make assassins live up to their name of being "top priority to kill")

- Also when your a sin that relies on shadow stepping to take out someone, when you unleash your combo on someone, the downtime is massive for that one player .... rendering them useless for like 15-18 secs. And slowly running into battle is not an option for a sin that can barely defend itself simply because the skill bar is occupied by all offensive attacks to make the combo worth executing, without having to rely on a monk.

- Try catching a Ranger by surprise now! If the ranger noes what hes doing (and in most cases do), all u get is a whole lot of whirling defense in your face and another dodging skill chained after it.

Ok moving on to an old old skill change (it has only really occurred to me now how useless it has become)...........

Horns of the Ox ... ill outline all of the negatives then justify reasons why it should change a little bit.
.... in comparison with Trampling Ox, i find Horns of the Ox useless.

Horns of the Ox
- weak damage
- high recharge, 12 secs
- knock down condition (if target adjacent to ally target isn't kd'd)

....now Trampling Ox
- Stronger damage
- lower recharge, 8 secs
- KD condition (target must be crippled for kd and cripple is always VERY nice on target when your a sin)
- u can fit cripple condition into a combo so easily (hex + mantis thrust + jungle strike + trampling ... so on, so effective already)
- whatever u could do with horns of the Ox, you could do 2 times better with trampling (snare + high damage = more pressure, limited kiting)

when you take everything there into consideration, which would u choose.
if you ask anyone in-game which skill they'd use in their combo, chances r they'd say trampling ox.
i guess all i'm trying to say here is that, these skills that serve the same purpose differ so much, and the one that has more negatives than the other got nerfed to do even less damage.

I'm a big fan of assassin and think that a few things should change.

feel free to argue against me OR bring to the spotlight other negatives

*sorry about my spelling beforehand, it has become a bad habit as well as the Balding of words*

Numa Pompilius · Oct 02, 2008, 09:06 AM // 09:06

You're seriously arguing for the return of shadow-step instagibbing?

No thanks.

Mixie · Oct 02, 2008, 10:26 AM // 10:26

Insta - whatever, but there is a point here. Assassins are supposed to be unnoticed, otherwise they are nothing other than squishy melee characters..

dilan155 · Oct 02, 2008, 10:42 AM // 10:42

well thats the thing, they cant be unnoticeable, that would make them unstoppable. thats why adding sins to the game was a big mistake

Gift3d · Oct 02, 2008, 10:46 AM // 10:46

Pretty annoying post to read really.

.75 isn't a long aftercast time so read the developer updates to see an explanation of why this was added.

If anything needs a nerf, it's exhausting assault.

Keekles · Oct 02, 2008, 10:47 AM // 10:47

The entire concept of ignoring the positioning aspect of game play was flawed to begin with. The way Guild Wars PvP is structured, positioning plays a rather large role, and allowing one class (or anyone who takes it as a secondary) to completely ignore an aspect of it is bad. I don't mind instagib builds, however, I do want to be able to prot against them. To be honest, it's easier sometimes to spot warrior spikes than shadow step spikes, EVEN with the aftercast.

Horns and trampling were nerfed to reduce the amount of damage insta-gib sins were putting out. The ability to suddenly appear, and demolish (just about any class) is once again, bad for game play. However, the fault there lay mainly with the ability to suddenly appear and unleash your chain before the person could react.

I for one am entirely against the reversion of Shadow steps, I feel that they were a broken concept, and still are a broken concept. There are still plenty of ways for an assassin to kill people, unblockable enchantment stripping comes to mind, as well as having one of the highest dps outputs in pve.

As for your ranger argument, any half-decent ranger would have hit natty stride the instant you showed up anyway, the 3/4ths of a second is meaningless. (The better rangers would have d-shot your lead)

Depending on the format of pvp, you can still get sneak kills without a shadowstep (hint: go attack people that are already occupied). However, you can solve the 'low armor going to get my face bashed in' problem by paying attention to positioning. Don't overextend, and target people who are overextended. Unless you have no idea how to play the game with the positioning aspect, and thus require the means to bypass it with shadowsteps.

Zidane Ortef · Oct 02, 2008, 10:52 AM // 10:52

Everyone knows that sins are for PvE Farming (hehe). Why do you think they made Perma-Form even easier than what it was. As for PvP Sins the delay isn't helpful but think about it being from one place to another in a 1/4th of a second and still a decent amount of unnoticeable time. Before it was every sin had one so it was even more predictable, oh look that team has a sin and I'm a monk better put up guardian or shield bash because hes coming for me.

With the after cast it has make some sins move away from them and using other builds like caster sins, and other well thought of sin builds that req. weapon swapping and such. Just use your brain find a skill bar that works for you and stop the QQ.

~Zidane~

ag3ntblak · Oct 02, 2008, 11:07 AM // 11:07

So what exactly is your argument here?

[Morkai] · Oct 02, 2008, 11:24 AM // 11:24

Obvious troll is obvious.

NeroX · Oct 02, 2008, 11:26 AM // 11:26

ive read all comments and have taken em on bored.

just want to throw an extra comment out there about sins having such great dps though.

Reason y i believe sins are as strong as they are, are coz:
- they r squishy indeed and combos can be interrupted relatively easily (putting them out of play way b4 any huge dmg was ever dealt)
- for the amount of dmg they put out in short bursts, makes up for the time lost while recharging ur combo up again as well as energy (depends though).
- and for all energy lost you r sure to expect some sort of result.

AND My main argument is to revert the .75 aftercast back to nothing

one question --- "Why dont ppl use assassins in GvG?"
and dont say dps coz thats a positive lol. if anything, theres more negatives now.

Rakim B · Oct 02, 2008, 12:50 PM // 12:50

I am greatly against this terrible idea

Windf0rce · Oct 02, 2008, 01:01 PM // 13:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by NeroX

one question --- "Why dont ppl use assassins in GvG?"
and dont say dps coz thats a positive lol. if anything, theres more negatives now.

From my veeeery limited experience, armor would be the answer. Your Assassin frontline puts a lot more of pressure on your own backline simply because they take far more damage than Warriors would. And Warriors also have extremely good DPS, don't rely on enchantments as the other melee does, it pretty much sums up why Assassins aren't as popular as a Warrior in GvG.

Plus the if the other team uses Warriors they can lineback the Assassins putting you in a pretty hard position.

NeroX · Oct 02, 2008, 01:38 PM // 13:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rakim B

I am greatly against this terrible idea

at the moment thats not a valid comment, a justification would be nice with it.

MagmaRed · Oct 02, 2008, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Perma-Sin doesn't use PvE only skills, so use that for GvG. :O

I personally don't use a Sin in PvP, but even in PvE I rarely use Shadow Steps. I learned what enemies to attack, and when to attack them. Even when using hero+hench, I know how to make them aggro first so I can pick my target carefully.

Only reason I see a change needed is because people want a way to play an imbalanced build. Imbalanced gets nerfed for a reason.

Deadshot Seven · Oct 02, 2008, 02:35 PM // 14:35

I main an assassin and I haven't even noticed the aftercast o.o.
Thats probably because I don't bother with meta builds and come up with my own, but the idea of instantly killing somebody without any kind of skill isn't good for any profession.

Tyla · Oct 02, 2008, 03:21 PM // 15:21

I've got a better update. Delete the Assassin profession from PvP.

Snow Bunny · Oct 02, 2008, 03:28 PM // 15:28

OP, stop posting. You don't know anything about competitive balance.

DarkNecrid · Oct 02, 2008, 03:34 PM // 15:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

I've got a better update. Delete the Assassin profession from PvP.

all they need to do is nerf Hidden Caltrops again and we're pretty much there.

/signed

Eragon Selene · Oct 02, 2008, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyla

I've got a better update. Delete the Assassin profession from PvP.

Delete monks: they heal people so I cant kill them

Delete Eles: They cause AoE and whipe my party

Delete Warriors: They have to much armor and health

Delete Rits: Spirits kill the game

Delete Necros: Invincy MM's ruin AB

Delete Mesmers: Hexs and interupts are lame

Delete Rangers: Touchers are so noobish

Delete Dervs: Just because

Lets all play Paragons!!!!!

Tyla · Oct 02, 2008, 03:41 PM // 15:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eragon Selene

snip

Uh... what...?