Curse

Lambentviper · May 29, 2006, 09:26 PM // 21:26

I agree that if the assassin had all those improvements, that it may be to overpowered. and if ANet did fix important things on the assassin, isnt it already to late?

Not everyone who plays guild wars visits the GWG forums daily, or even checks this thread. So really, how many people would know that the assassin has become better, and would still believe it enough to accept them into groups more? This is of course ASSUMING that people ARE NOT chauvenistic and WILL CHANGE their views on assassins, even IF they are more balanced for PvE.

Note on Deadly Arts: These skills aren't meant to be widely placed on skillbars for various objectives. The whole deadly arts skillset is there to improve the assassin's ability to kill a single target quickly.

This is just more proof to me that assassin's soul purpose is to pwn PvP

Phades · May 29, 2006, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lambentviper

Note on Deadly Arts: These skills aren't meant to be widely placed on skillbars for various objectives. The whole deadly arts skillset is there to improve the assassin's ability to kill a single target quickly.

This is rather pointless as the majority of the deadly arts hexes are either too unwieldy for a melee profession, give away the intended target, or must be used in conjunction with other dagger and critical strikes skills. The shadow arts line is more or less a supplement to support the rest, but if deadly arts is to really become usable, i feel that they need to expand on its utility more to make it almost stand alone. This would be similar to dagger mastery or any other weapon mastery. It has the beginings of that with the changes to iron palm knocking down hexed or foes with a condition and other skills that act like off hand attacks. It could easily be expanded to make the longer cast time hexes into dual attacks, in addition to introducing other skills to better round out the skill set.

If it became the "midrange" option for an assassin to take, while the dagger mastery was the "close range" option, i think the class would feel a little more complete.

kinetik · May 29, 2006, 10:43 PM // 22:43

i dont think damage output should be upped..its good enough as it is. its mostly the defence that sucks imo.

the critical strikes attribute basically has the same function as dagger mastery with the added bonus of giving energy on a critical hit. double strike pretty much does the same damage as a single critical the only real spike would come from a double critical. id much rather see some kind of passive defence attribute there giving you an added bonus of being missed or to dodge/evade incoming attacks.

just increasing armor values doesnt solve the problem if you ask me. assassins arent meant to be tanks. youre not forced to play a hit and run assassin but that IS the general idea behind them. then again, teleport ranges are so short theyre pretty much useless. maybe nice in pvp but even in there its not that hard to catch up.

just my 2c.

Spoony · May 30, 2006, 04:49 AM // 04:49

Well, i think it's time to set those in priority order, and then post it and see how it would do. I hope that Anet would make at least 1 of those come true, and that you can help me with persuading Anet.

Viva la assassins! <lol> ;P

lord_shar · May 30, 2006, 07:00 PM // 19:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Your armor has a mod that is +15AL while attacking. Nightstalker's i believe is the prefix.

...<SNIP>...

Thanks for the clarification

Instead of being +15 on that suit only, I believe that more bonus option are needed accross all the existing assassin armors... similar to how ANET implemented warrior gladiator's armor. The +15AL while (x-situation) should be present accross all the armors, in addition to their present stats.

Until the assassin's lack-of-survival factor is addressed, most assassin toons will never see the end of an elite mission via PUG's.

derrtyboy69 · May 30, 2006, 07:16 PM // 19:16

I think anet knew what the hell they were doing when they made assassins, as they did with every other class. Its the players that gives assassins a bad rep, not the class itself. With PvE armor and a +5 armor upgrade, you have 90 armor while attacking, not bad at all. The assassins damage is already great: The standard pheonix-twisting fangs combo can drop am unsuspecting caster in a few seconds. Even if they have a monk backing them, it can pressure the monk to heal the teams target, and the target of the assassin.

GranDeWun · May 30, 2006, 07:20 PM // 19:20

Armor is not really the problem. It's the lack of either a good self-heal or a good stance type defence that makes assassins look so weak compared to warriors.
I'd like to see:
1] A good self-heal that only works if NOT attacking (eg get out, heal, go back)
2] Better defences while attacking
3] Energy refunds for successful combos.

Assassins almost work in PvP, but in PvE they're just weak. The 'all offense' paradigm just doesn't work very well against hordes of AI monsters.

around · May 30, 2006, 07:34 PM // 19:34

The one thing I would love to see on an assassin:

A skill that shadow steps you to the enemy and that can be re-used more than once per encounter. Nothing more, nothing less. Death's Charge is just a joke with the re-charge it has, and forcing assassins to use AoD as their elite severely limits them.

lord_shar · May 30, 2006, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by derrtyboy69

I think anet knew what the hell they were doing when they made assassins, as they did with every other class. Its the players that gives assassins a bad rep, not the class itself. With PvE armor and a +5 armor upgrade, you have 90 armor while attacking, not bad at all. The assassins damage is already great: The standard pheonix-twisting fangs combo can drop am unsuspecting caster in a few seconds. Even if they have a monk backing them, it can pressure the monk to heal the teams target, and the target of the assassin.

I agree that assassin damage output is already fine, especially in pvp. It's the assassin's PvE survivability that I question. Current warriors and rangers get 100AL+ situational armors, while assassins get 70 flat, 85 w/ nightstalkers. That +15AL situational should be standard accross all assassin armors, at least to make them more desirable in PvE. Their mortaility rates are pretty high based on what I've observed. I've gotten my PvE assassin to Ring Of Fire, and even using hit/run AoD tactics, my assassin still required plenty of healing since every attack cycle (AoD, combo, end-AoD) left my toon at 50% or lower life. The round trip took 4 seconds. 50% life drop at only 4 seconds is not reasonable for any melee class.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GranDeWun

Armor is not really the problem. It's the lack of either a good self-heal or a good stance type defence that makes assassins look so weak compared to warriors.
I'd like to see:
1] A good self-heal that only works if NOT attacking (eg get out, heal, go back)
2] Better defences while attacking
3] Energy refunds for successful combos.

Assassins almost work in PvP, but in PvE they're just weak. The 'all offense' paradigm just doesn't work very well against hordes of AI monsters.

I also agree that improved healing is required. Shadow Refuge doesn't cycle quickly enough to be usable in sustained combat, even with other block/evasion skills present.

unholy guardian · May 30, 2006, 08:54 PM // 20:54

have you seen what updates they plan to do?? My god wth, gold phenix strike is going to be 10 energy, shadow stepping wont go past the radar... nothing about shadow refuge or nothing... I = MAD AS @#$*#@$*#@*$*#@
and guess what

"Aura of Displacement: increased recharge time to 20 seconds."

Yeah thats really fair.... ugg update ftl!!

Trixz · May 30, 2006, 09:53 PM // 21:53

It will force people to use more then one build for the assassin. I am kinda pissed but more curious to see what this can do.

lord_shar · May 30, 2006, 10:31 PM // 22:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by unholy guardian

have you seen what updates they plan to do?? My god wth, gold phenix strike is going to be 10 energy, shadow stepping wont go past the radar... nothing about shadow refuge or nothing... I = MAD AS @#$*#@$*#@*$*#@
and guess what

"Aura of Displacement: increased recharge time to 20 seconds."

Yeah thats really fair.... ugg update ftl!!

I guess my assassin will be relegated to mule until someone in the Dev-Team actually starts paying attention to our concerns. How will any of these changes make assassins more desirable in any group?

GG ANERF...

Phades · May 31, 2006, 12:51 AM // 00:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

Thanks for the clarification

Instead of being +15 on that suit only, I believe that more bonus option are needed accross all the existing assassin armors... similar to how ANET implemented warrior gladiator's armor. The +15AL while (x-situation) should be present accross all the armors, in addition to their present stats.

Until the assassin's lack-of-survival factor is addressed, most assassin toons will never see the end of an elite mission via PUG's.

90AL while delivering a combo is nothing to brush off lightly. A warrior is commonly only AL 101 against all forms of attack (barring physical), under similar circumstanes. The 7 points of damage reduction is nothing to sneeze at though, which gives warriors a very clear advantage in this situation. This should not come as a surprise. The real casters would kill for passive methods to augment their AL to similar levels.

There are far more questionable armors in the game. I would suggest reviewing elementalist choices in general. Prior to factions, they only had armor that protected themselves against..... other elementalists. Yes, fire could be derived from rangers and smiting, but the skill volume would dictate elemental damage was dealt by other elementalists.

LaserLight · May 31, 2006, 01:35 AM // 01:35

Well. May I suggest everyone in this thread forget any plans they had on Assassin buffs for a while?

The only possible logic for the current Assassin spanking is to get the nOObs to go play something else and drop the number of Assassins currently in the game prior to the actual work of fixing the damn class. And that's a weak piece of logic even to someone who believes it. And I don't.

Xasew · May 31, 2006, 11:05 AM // 11:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by fallot

That is incorrect. Shadow Refuge gave no health regeneration during the FPE, nor did it do so during the PvP preview event. I don't like the current Shadow Refuge (with its attack requirement for the greater heal) but the previous one was overpowered. I've said otherwise before, but I was wrong, the half-damage part of the skill was just too damn good.

I think at one point you evaded 50% and then they changed it to taking half damage. I can't remember in which order, but that's irrelevant. And it had the unconditional heal FTW.
8 in Shadow Arts and the Enchanting Mod will give you a heal of 80 health now. That's quite sucky and needs a buff. Get rid of the "if you are attacking" -thingy and make the health gained in the end slightly smaller.

Mord · May 31, 2006, 02:59 PM // 14:59

i hope it wasn't said yet, bcz i didn t read the whole article(would be bad at work)

so mainly i think the telleport skills should be performed better.

This could be done mainly through loosing focus on targeted assessin who teleports. If anyone wants to hit him again, they have to search and target again. It's also quite reasonable i think to loose the target lock of anyone who is not on the playingground for some milliseconds.

there should be a teleport skill which teleports me to any nearby area without being hit or cannecling my entchantment, so i can do teleport by choice(and tactical overview)

Lambentviper · Jun 01, 2006, 02:09 AM // 02:09

hmm, reading Mord's post popped the idea of a temporary invisibility enchantment.

Like a shadow step, that actually lets you become a shadow. I'm sure im taking a bold step by offering this, but even for 3-5 seconds would be nice...makes those wammos take a few seconds to find you and also a few seconds where you couldnt become targeted.

Or maybe it could even be a Weapon Spell for the Rit: Target Ally is randomly teleported to a nearby area and becomes invisible for 2-4 seconds after being hit by a melee attack

Trixz · Jun 01, 2006, 02:49 AM // 02:49

I don't know about invisible but does the heart of shadow buff do that for ya to some extent?

Chikara · Jun 01, 2006, 03:08 AM // 03:08

no it doesn't

lord_shar · Jun 01, 2006, 04:19 AM // 04:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

90AL while delivering a combo is nothing to brush off lightly. A warrior is commonly only AL 101 against all forms of attack (barring physical), under similar circumstanes. The 7 points of damage reduction is nothing to sneeze at though, which gives warriors a very clear advantage in this situation. This should not come as a surprise. The real casters would kill for passive methods to augment their AL to similar levels.

There are far more questionable armors in the game. I would suggest reviewing elementalist choices in general. Prior to factions, they only had armor that protected themselves against..... other elementalists. Yes, fire could be derived from rangers and smiting, but the skill volume would dictate elemental damage was dealt by other elementalists.

My warrior using standard gladiators (80AL) + shield (AL16) gets vs 96AL vs. all attacks, and 116 vs. physical attacks. Then there's Watch-Yourself (+20AL) and Dolyak Signet(~+38) for +58AL on top of the above. Now factor in Ascalon/Knight's armor piece (-2 damage reduction), superior absorbtion rune (-3), and a dual-DR shield (-2 stance/-2 enchant), and you get -9 consistent DR per attack. This translates into a lot of zero-dmg hits whenever my warrior tanks <= L20 mobs.

Assassins, even with a +10 to +15 armor upgrade, will never approach the armor levels and sheer damage mitigation warriors are capable of.