Curse

dearest brothel · Jun 14, 2006, 05:15 AM // 05:15

Do they actually read the forums, though? Have they ever taken a suggestion from them?

Vengal · Jun 14, 2006, 07:11 AM // 07:11

Didnt read the rest of the thread, so sorry if I repeat some suggestions. Here is a list of my own:

-Daggers are supposed to be inherently faster then other Melee weaponry, so make the dagger attack skills quicker to come out.

-Seeping Wound needs to be seriously re-evaluated. I can kinda see why it would be an elite since its a Hex in the Critical Strikes attrib, but its still suckin hard. If I wanted more degen I could just use on of the many availabe hexes from a necro or mesmer.

-Black Lotus Strikes recharge needs to be sped up.

-Temple Strike needs to have a faster recharge as well. You could put it back to a 12 or 15 second recharge if you throw it in the Critical Strikes line.

-Give them a good, elite lead.

-Disrupting Stab needs to have its casting time decreased. Too slow for being an interrupt.

-Deadly Arts line needs to be looked at. Most of the things in there suffer from bad recharge times, bad energy cost or are far too conditional to be of any use (Enduring Toxin?).

-Unseen Fury seems a little useless.

-Siphon Strength is listed as an Elite Hex Spell, but I have to be at touch range for it to activate.

Phades · Jun 14, 2006, 10:55 AM // 10:55

Waited awhile before comming back to read, to see if anything different was being presented. I was getting tired of trying to rehash why creating armor to match the scaling up post level 20 is a bad thing due to how GW does not scale up past 20 as is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

...
EDIT: Another reasonable compromise would be to shift 5AL from conditional to non-conditional mode. In other words, what about increasing base armor from 70AL to 75AL, and lowering all conditional armor bonuses from +15AL to +10? This will address assassin survivability without affecting total armor level attainable. Such a change would have to be applied to all conditional bonuses (nightstalkers would become 75AL, +10AL while attacking, etc...), but it would resolve your concerns about assassin max armor exceeding warrior max armor.

This is a reasonable change to the armor, but the baseline armors would most likely become prefered (+health/energy) in the pvp venues, while it wouldnt help your pve problem at all. When mobs in Urgoz use simple things like wildstrike and hit for the 250~300 range against low end armor 60~70, it really wont make any difference what so ever. Especially when half of them have a nice habit of target switching after the pull to anything soft, or just simply bypassing the warrior out in front altogther.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

I hate to say this, but the above sounds like a wild assumption. There is a reason why warrior tanks can solo ice imps for icy dragon swords in Mineral Springs, Run Droknar's Forge, solo FoW spiders, etc... their damage mitigation is unmatched any other class short of the 55-monk.

Malestorm, mindfreeze, and ice spear are terrible damage dealers. Actually, ice magic just sucks in general if you are trying to kill anything really opposed to holding someone in place for a teammate to kill. When you combine that with decent AL and any damage reduction, its not too hard to figure out why warriors can do that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

Not completely accurate either, because all PvE players who want to finish the game eventually have to deal with Raisu Palace and Hell's Precipice. Also, many will eventually have access to the Kurzick and Luxon elite missions.

The end missions, a few select quests, and a small selection of end game farming areas does not constitute the bulk of the game content. People may or may not use it, but to try and state otherwise is kinda silly, especially when your position would have a effect on the rest of the game. Assuming that assassin's AL is arguably fine at anything lv24 or lower, then this would be a buff in the wrong palce to fix a pve use issue specifically. The use issue occurs throughout pve, but is not as obvious until you get to the very end areas where the AL just doesnt stand up well at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

How so? GW's skill sets are not trade-marked to any one class. ANET does its best to set certain guide lines, but playability still has to be maintained, and that is currently lacking in high end assassin PvE.

There is such a thing as cross class balance. If one skill or style of skill becomes more favorable to use in all situations, it doesnt matter what primary is taking advantage of it. As for the Shadow refuge specifically, its a smaller issue when comparing it to troll ungent due to the comparable effects of healing over time. Given the nature of teleportation, that style of healing has some benefit to creating a more natural distribution for uptime. Unfortunatly it will not save the character from spike style damage. Buffing it up more duration wise, would have negative effects considering when the heal would most likely be needed and potentially render troll ungent obscelete. Upping the heal after time signifigantly enough to create the feel of "temporary hitpoints", like endure pain would potentially render healing signet obscelete. Its really in a tough postition given its current effect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

That 75AL to 90AL improvement won't apply until the assassin actually starts attacking. It is not the stable and consistent armor level you portray it to be, even with teleportation present. Warriors get a solid 96AL+ and damage absorbtion, so their tanking roles are quite secure. The assassin's total armor doesn't even come close.

I believe that is the entire point of teleportation. Its to skip the times between when you are attacking and when you are not that the warrior (normally)does not have the same luxury and is typically forced to walk up to the target and needs to survive in order to get there. Alternativly, if you choose to not teleport to the target, dark escape halves the damage on your approach to the target, but you would still be required to teleport away if you have been threatened with a signifigant amount of damage, snared, or otherwise incapacitated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

This is probably true, but that doesn't address why the bulk of end-game PvE assassins can't find groups, especially in elite mission zones.

I do not see people going on campaigns to advertise why mesmers would be a good choice in hunting named factions bosses, or that "utility" elementalists are useful in pve, or that necros have many other useful builds aside from SS and minion master setups. Even if changes are made, it will be difficult to sway publics' mind one way or the other.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

It sounds like you're asking for the scope of impact GW will undergo when a +5AL base class armor bonus and mildly improved self-healing is introduced. The answer: 12.5% more damage mitigation and improved assassin healing rate. Yes, there will be impact downstream, and it is FULLY intentional. Any unforseen complications can be addressed while in Q/A. If the change creates too many negative issues which outweigh its benefits, then the changes can always be backed out, but you'll never know until you implement the change at least once, preferable in a Q/A test environment. If the results are promising in Q/A, then the new patch will be rolled out into production. It's that simple.

Personally i hate the patch, then wait and see method myself opposed to the internal playtesting setup. People want to make their money as soon as they can though. Fortunatly, the game doesnt crash or skillsets do not just stop working bugs as seen from other game companies.

Personally i think the best example of the Q/A gone wrong, would have been the initial modifications to the prot line skills such as the changes to the skill refresh times. This is where they added 1s to no refresh time skills like draw conditions, but in the end it was merely a .25s "nerf" if the skill was used alone and had no penalty when alternated with another skill, which suggested that they didnt understand how their own game worked as ensign put it at the time. Later they changed heal party in a similar fashion, but skipped the 1s and went to 2s.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Well that's the change that's really a head scratcher. A 1 second cooldown? All spells have a .75 second aftercast, so Draw Conditions could only be used once per second before. With this change, it can only be used once every 1.25 seconds. If you mix in RoF like many of the better Smiting builds already did, then you can only cast a Draw/RoF/Draw chain once every 3.25 seconds instead of every 3 seconds like you could before, leading to a remarkable 7.7% drop in DPS.

I seriously wonder if whoever made that change actually knows how their game works. Smiters gained more from Nature's Renewal getting smashed than this 'nerf'

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=51412
That kind of thing could have been noticed before any implementation was made simply by looking at a spreadsheet.

The critical hits on spells was an "amusing bug" along with thunder clap/spinal shivers acting like a sustained enchantment not ending at 0e. Things like that are fortuantly rare from ANET.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

Problems are solved with direct solutions and quality testing, not round-about problem micro-management, global audits, and over-lengthly environmental impact reports.

Their global audits have been rather slow in the making. The henge equipment along with other "unique", but moddable items were in the game for a very long time without any modifications compared to skill tunings that have occured. Hell, how long were people complaining about necromancer fow armor for? That wasnt even a game mechanics or balance issue to weigh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

The above requires more change implementation

Fixing the underlying problems tend to require more work.

.. Now for the guy hot under the collar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by phoenixtech

First, I have NEVER seen ANET ADD any skills outside of a new chapter. Changing armor properties has been done before (see the HOD Helm 50%-> 20% hex reduction), and would cost them ALOT less $$$ and QA time to implement. While I would LOVE to have the old shadow refuge back, I'm not so sure ANET is willing to make such a change. Now as for your statement of "using the available tools properly". That goes to support the arguments made here, that having a wider selection of more practical armor choices WOULD be beneficial and make assasins less restricted in playing style/build.

Well, if they looked at how people played the profession and listend to peoples concernes before the pve preview event, it wouldnt have been an issue for adding skills after the chapter was released. The HoD helm was a year in the making, so i wouldn't wave that around as affirmitave action really.

I also should have specified "tools" more clearly as the skills employed, but whatever. Skills dictating the overal function, while the attributes determining the overal effect, then the equipment to tune the build. I have a much larger issue with the fact that the skills dictate how the profession should be played and that there is no depth in the assassin profession really. This is the problem they face when they get hit for 200+ damage in melee in lv28 zones, because they have no other way to play the primary using assassin skills. Trying to fault people for using the good skills doesnt really prove a point either other than pointing out the lack of other usable options.

Quote:

Originally Posted by phoenixtech

... +15 while enchanted/stance would be DIFFERENT than +15 while attacking without providing any real counter argument. Then once again, you toss in an extra sweeping generalization about some campaign to remove knights armor and other BS. Seems to me you are more interested in ranting and arguing than improving assasins.

If you cant identify that you are being kited and switch targets effectivly, then you are not playing any melee profession properly. The fact that the teleports do exist and that one of them happens to be an enchantment, which places the assassin into the most ideal condition possible to perform the combos, thus yeilding additional AL, you have no point really other than trying to duplicate what already exists. If you werent so bent out of shape, you might have actually caught the meaning behind the ascalon armor to knights comparison, or the pointless additional armor types due to the game mechanics in place.

You seem to be more interested in creating a rant than i am about trying to make a point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

I also agree. Critical Defenses was also nerfed into oblivion. 30 seconds recycle and 10 energy for a 6-second duration enchantment??? What the heck! It's pretty much useless without Warrior's wild blow to sustain it. Having CritDef duration scale upward with critical strikes attribute level, 5..15 seconds depending on present attribute score, would have been more than reasonable. ... Temple Strike also got mugged with the nerf bat 25 seconds recharge time for two 7-second conditions is insane. 20 seconds would have been more reasonable.

Yeah, ANET really over reacted with those two skills. I am kinda mixed about shadow refuge though. Shadow refuge had too much going for it before, now it doesnt have enough because they took away the other gimmic attachment.

The class still really needs a different option to play other than the jump into melee and perform a combo though. ANET just never went very deep into the utility aspect of the class unfortunatly. I am still rather puzzled how they came up with something so well rounded in the ritualist, yet something so one dimensional with the assassin. I dont know if they were purposefully attempting to create polar opposites or not, but that is certainly the end result. I would hate to think that this came about by sheer accident though and that all the "utlility" options the assassin have are just an afterthought.

lord_shar · Jun 14, 2006, 05:56 PM // 17:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Waited awhile before comming back to read, to see if anything different was being presented. I was getting tired of trying to rehash why creating armor to match the scaling up post level 20 is a bad thing due to how GW does not scale up past 20 as is.

Some minor stuff was presented, but not much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

This is a reasonable change to the armor, but the baseline armors would most likely become prefered (+health/energy) in the pvp venues, while it wouldnt help your pve problem at all. When mobs in Urgoz use simple things like wildstrike and hit for the 250~300 range against low end armor 60~70, it really wont make any difference what so ever. Especially when half of them have a nice habit of target switching after the pull to anything soft, or just simply bypassing the warrior out in front altogther.

Changing baseline armor from 70 to 75 avoids matching warrior armor levels while still being above ranged caster and ranger armor, so I don't see any problems here. AI-priority is a separate issue. Either way, the minor armor upgrade adds a little more survivability without tipping the balance scales too much in the assassin's favor at the expense of the warrior's tanking role.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Malestorm, mindfreeze, and ice spear are terrible damage dealers. Actually, ice magic just sucks in general if you are trying to kill anything really opposed to holding someone in place for a teammate to kill. When you combine that with decent AL and any damage reduction, its not too hard to figure out why warriors can do that.

That still doesn't answer FoW spider farming

Regardless, my sole point is that no other class comes close to matching warrior damage mitigation short of the 55-monk. It sounds like we agree here. Therefore, increasing assassin armor by +5 won't even come close to impacting the warrior's present tanking role in GW parties.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

The end missions, a few select quests, and a small selection of end game farming areas does not constitute the bulk of the game content. People may or may not use it, but to try and state otherwise is kinda silly, especially when your position would have a effect on the rest of the game. Assuming that assassin's AL is arguably fine at anything lv24 or lower, then this would be a buff in the wrong palce to fix a pve use issue specifically. The use issue occurs throughout pve, but is not as obvious until you get to the very end areas where the AL just doesnt stand up well at all.

Assassins are still notorious for high death rates at all levels of PvE, hence the mass grouping prejudice. I don't mind seeing ANET shift their armor level slightly higher to compensate. Assassins have a steep enough learning curve as is, so it would not hurt ANET to lower that curve just a bit for the rest of the non-expert masses.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

There is such a thing as cross class balance. If one skill or style of skill becomes more favorable to use in all situations, it doesnt matter what primary is taking advantage of it. As for the Shadow refuge specifically, its a smaller issue when comparing it to troll ungent due to the comparable effects of healing over time. Given the nature of teleportation, that style of healing has some benefit to creating a more natural distribution for uptime. Unfortunatly it will not save the character from spike style damage. Buffing it up more duration wise, would have negative effects considering when the heal would most likely be needed and potentially render troll ungent obscelete. Upping the heal after time signifigantly enough to create the feel of "temporary hitpoints", like endure pain would potentially render healing signet obscelete. Its really in a tough postition given its current effect.

I'm not sure how much I believe in cross-class balance. The utility factor of some classes (necro, ranger, monk) easily outshine their peers (assassin, mesmer, warrior, elem).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I believe that is the entire point of teleportation. Its to skip the times between when you are attacking and when you are not that the warrior (normally)does not have the same luxury and is typically forced to walk up to the target and needs to survive in order to get there. Alternativly, if you choose to not teleport to the target, dark escape halves the damage on your approach to the target, but you would still be required to teleport away if you have been threatened with a signifigant amount of damage, snared, or otherwise incapacitated.

Teleportation skills for the sake of running Nightstalker armor seriously depletes what little energy the assassin already has. Sure, the assassin can go Nightstalkers + Teleportation, but they have less energy upon arrival to pull off any high cost dagger combinations. Teleportation is a unique assassin ability, but they currently have very high casting costs and ridiculously long recharge rates. Then there is agro-management upon arrival.

There should be more armor choices, not less, to allow for creativity beyond Nightstalkers + Teleportation. No specific armor and skill combination should be "required" for any given class.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

I do not see people going on campaigns to advertise why mesmers would be a good choice in hunting named factions bosses, or that "utility" elementalists are useful in pve, or that necros have many other useful builds aside from SS and minion master setups. Even if changes are made, it will be difficult to sway publics' mind one way or the other.

It will take some notable skill upgrades from ANET to sway the masses. Improved healing, improved armor, and better elites would go a long way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Personally i hate the patch, then wait and see method myself opposed to the internal playtesting setup. People want to make their money as soon as they can though. Fortunatly, the game doesnt crash or skillsets do not just stop working bugs as seen from other game companies.

Personally i think the best example of the Q/A gone wrong, would have been the initial modifications to the prot line skills such as the changes to the skill refresh times. This is where they added 1s to no refresh time skills like draw conditions, but in the end it was merely a .25s "nerf" if the skill was used alone and had no penalty when alternated with another skill, which suggested that they didnt understand how their own game worked as ensign put it at the time. Later they changed heal party in a similar fashion, but skipped the 1s and went to 2s. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=51412
That kind of thing could have been noticed before any implementation was made simply by looking at a spreadsheet.

The critical hits on spells was an "amusing bug" along with thunder clap/spinal shivers acting like a sustained enchantment not ending at 0e. Things like that are fortuantly rare from ANET.

Yep, this is the wrong approach, but this is what ANET is currently doing. I don't want to flame them, but I do sometimes question if they have a Q/A dept. Proposed changes seem to get deployed directly into production with no apparent regard for feedback from users (us). Modern corporations have ITIL processes to address how to roll changes into production, but I don't see it happening here. I guess they're not quite up to the corporate standards I'm accustomed to seeing where I work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

Their global audits have been rather slow in the making. The henge equipment along with other "unique", but moddable items were in the game for a very long time without any modifications compared to skill tunings that have occured. Hell, how long were people complaining about necromancer fow armor for? That wasnt even a game mechanics or balance issue to weigh.
Fixing the underlying problems tend to require more work.

Unforunately, some problems cannot be fixed because the underlying problems are rooted in the application's infrastructure (or in this case, the assassin class's core functions). Without getting to broad-termed, let's just say that the assassin doesn't have enough skill set variety to make it more usable than an air elem/mesmer with some mobility tricks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

...<SNIP>...

Yeah, ANET really over reacted with those two skills. I am kinda mixed about shadow refuge though. Shadow refuge had too much going for it before, now it doesnt have enough because they took away the other gimmic attachment.

The class still really needs a different option to play other than the jump into melee and perform a combo though. ANET just never went very deep into the utility aspect of the class unfortunatly. I am still rather puzzled how they came up with something so well rounded in the ritualist, yet something so one dimensional with the assassin. I dont know if they were purposefully attempting to create polar opposites or not, but that is certainly the end result. I would hate to think that this came about by sheer accident though and that all the "utlility" options the assassin have are just an afterthought.

No arguments here. The assassin class needs notable skills which no other class can deliver if it is to have any acceptable role in PvE parties. They used to have viable shut-down with Temple Strike, and adequate healing with Shadow Refuge. Now those are just distant memories, balanced out of existence for the sake of PvP, at the expense of PvE.

Phades · Jun 15, 2006, 12:02 AM // 00:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

AI-priority is a separate issue. Either way, the minor armor upgrade adds a little more survivability without tipping the balance scales too much in the assassin's favor at the expense of the warrior's tanking role.

I dont mind the AI priority, as it makes the AI slightly intellegent similar to the AOE patch. The only real detriment is when you are trying to force a melee situation against monsters that can take apart a unsupported warrior easily, never mind an assassin.

This would fall back to the idea of shutdown and off tanking concepts commonly found in other games. This is what i was alluding towards when i was mentioning assassins taking on that role and that it wasnt really neccacary since any profession could off tank in this game given sufficient shutdown/prot on a target. This was where things like temple strike really shined in the first preview event, because it was flexable enough to be used against any target effectivly and had a pretty good duration vs cooldown balance to make such a "off tank" work via shutdown and still utilize dagger combinations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

Regardless, my sole point is that no other class comes close to matching warrior damage mitigation short of the 55-monk. It sounds like we agree here. Therefore, increasing assassin armor by +5 won't even come close to impacting the warrior's present tanking role in GW parties.

The problem is that it wont do enough to warrent the change in the first place against the monsters you described as a problem area to cause the change in the first place. In this kind of situation, either it is or it is not a warrior and even then the warrior still needs to be supported by other characters in order to survive. What it does cause, is make a evasive target more resiliant in places that is not warrented.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

I'm not sure how much I believe in cross-class balance. The utility factor of some classes (necro, ranger, monk) easily outshine their peers (assassin, mesmer, warrior, elem).

There are parrellels though, you were just not comparing the right ones against each other. Necro to mesmer, rit to ele or monk, and so on. You really have to look at what the skill effects within the lines and how they play together to really get the bigger picture of things. A simple comparison would be if a new profession came out with distinctivly better adrenalin skills than a warrior, similar to the cleave vs eviserate comparisons made months ago. The immediate question would arise, what is the other profession giving up in order to have this and what would the warrior be forced to give up in order to take advantage of it instead. Its not really difficult, just a time consuming process.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

Teleportation skills for the sake of running Nightstalker armor seriously depletes what little energy the assassin already has. Sure, the assassin can go Nightstalkers + Teleportation, but they have less energy upon arrival to pull off any high cost dagger combinations. Teleportation is a unique assassin ability, but they currently have very high casting costs and ridiculously long recharge rates.

I do believe in tradeoffs, but buffing the baseline armor would efficivly make the nerf to golden phoenix strike pointless. I was always used to having the assassin energy starved to begin with, so its probably just a difference in experiences. I normally find myself running with zealous, +e, +def weapon combination more often than vampiric, +damage, (any other mod) combination. Other things like critical eye typically always have a spot on the bar for me as well, which makes some skills gain energy if they crit when used like horns of the ox for example.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

There should be more armor choices, not less, to allow for creativity beyond Nightstalkers + Teleportation. No specific armor and skill combination should be "required" for any given class.

So, warriors shouldn't be required to use knights boots, gladiators armor, and shields because its the most effective way to run the character? A different example would be an ele being forced to bring ether prodigy. A ranger or assassin having different minimum investments in their primary attributes etc. This sounds strikingly similar to comments made by another individaul in the thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

Unforunately, some problems cannot be fixed because the underlying problems are rooted in the application's infrastructure (or in this case, the assassin class's core functions). Without getting to broad-termed, let's just say that the assassin doesn't have enough skill set variety to make it more usable than an air elem/mesmer with some mobility tricks.

This has been something ive had complaints about since the first preview event. Then they went and nerfed some of the options, while giving near meaningless buffs to other skills that still arent worth a spot on the skill bar really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

No arguments here. The assassin class needs notable skills which no other class can deliver if it is to have any acceptable role in PvE parties. They used to have viable shut-down with Temple Strike, and adequate healing with Shadow Refuge. Now those are just distant memories, balanced out of existence for the sake of PvP, at the expense of PvE.

The more i think about it, the more i am inclined to believe that the changes to temple strike and twisting fangs was a direct byproduct of rangers abusing the assassin skill set. Temple strike did not need that kind of nerf and the twisting fangs move to critical strikes was just odd. That had nothing to do with any kind of tradeoff between pvp and pve, merely a cross class balancing issue handled poorly. Shadow refuge can be filed under cross class abuse, but it was a more generalized one. At the same time they nerfed weapon of warding, which was a similar heal while being protected situation, in order to not obscelete skills like guardian.

lord_shar · Jun 15, 2006, 12:23 AM // 00:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

...<SNIP>...

The problem is that it wont do enough to warrent the change in the first place against the monsters you described as a problem area to cause the change in the first place. In this kind of situation, either it is or it is not a warrior and even then the warrior still needs to be supported by other characters in order to survive. What it does cause, is make a evasive target more resiliant in places that is not warrented.

The 75AL base armor is just one of several changes I'd like to see. A Shadow Refuge upgrade would also be welcomed (though its linked attribute may have to be changed to prevent secondary class over-use/abuse).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

...<SNIP>...

I do believe in tradeoffs, but buffing the baseline armor would efficivly make the nerf to golden phoenix strike pointless. I was always used to having the assassin energy starved to begin with, so its probably just a difference in experiences. I normally find myself running with zealous, +e, +def weapon combination more often than vampiric, +damage, (any other mod) combination. Other things like critical eye typically always have a spot on the bar for me as well, which makes some skills gain energy if they crit when used like horns of the ox for example.

The trade-offs are still there, but they just won't be as pronouced at +10AL instead of +15. The other option is to leave them at 75 armor, +15AL conditional, but I remember you opposed this due to PvP implications and matching of warrior base armor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

So, warriors shouldn't be required to use knights boots, gladiators armor, and shields because its the most effective way to run the character? This sounds strikingly similar to comments made by another individaul in the thread.

Certain armor combinations will always have more advantages than others, which goes without saying. However, Nightstalkers + Teleport should not be the only option available towards getting the condition +AL boost.

I wouldn't mind seeing a +AL while not attacking (opposite of nightstalkers) or 80/85AL assassin base armor, -10AL/-15AL while attacking. This would reward the "surgical strike" assassin hit/run model, since the armor penalty occurs at the point of engagement, thus forcing the assassin to choose attack opportunities carefully while punishing bad decisions. Just more suggestions...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phades

This has been something ive had complaints about since the first preview event. Then they went and nerfed some of the options, while giving near meaningless buffs to other skills that still arent worth a spot on the skill bar really.

The more i think about it, the more i am inclined to believe that the changes to temple strike and twisting fangs was a direct byproduct of rangers abusing the assassin skill set. Temple strike did not need that kind of nerf and the twisting fangs move to critical strikes was just odd. That had nothing to do with any kind of tradeoff between pvp and pve, merely a cross class balancing issue handled poorly. Shadow refuge can be filed under cross class abuse, but it was a more generalized one. At the same time they nerfed weapon of warding, which was a similar heal while being protected situation, in order to not obscelete skills like guardian.

I agree, and a more appropriate fix for Temple Strike would have been to re-link it to the critical strikes attribute. This way, primary assassins still retain the fast cycling, 7-second blind + daze, while rangers just get 1-second effects out of the elite. I only wish ANET would have asked the GW community for feedback instead of just blindly swinging the nerf bat.

Shadow Refuge can be similarly changed, to allow the assassin primary to have reasonable healing, without seeing it being used/abused by assassin secondaries.

There are supposedly ANET Dev lurkers which occasionally visit these forums, but I've never seen anything in game which suggest that they are actually paying attention to this forum's suggestions or content.

I guess this is just wishful thinking. If not, any post from any of them would be a welcome sight.

Master Fuhon · Jun 15, 2006, 05:05 AM // 05:05

I'm definitely fine with the damage I'm able to deal in random arena with an assassin. If no healing/intervention gets done in the amount of time you execute a combo then the target is pretty much dead no matter what it is. Warriors drop a few seconds later from the degen.

The problem is the reckless behavior by rangers and warriors (the high AL group) that makes me wonder if the assassins aren't just being dominated like another caster class. Each and every assassin armor could use a vs. physical defense, before having the bonuses added on.

Right now a well timed "Shock" to interrupt the combo is all a warrior needs to be able to drop an assassin. You even see this among top guilds playing assassins that get dropped by a pure offensive warrior build with no defense. I think assassins are a good possible counter to the ability of warriors to just run around with no fear.

I just saw the idea about the switched conditional on the "while attacking" armor. The biggest trouble I've had is having to be the random arena noob who can't execute timely signet ressurection because I've had to tank some warrior to death just to stay alive to make the rez. Same problems with Shadow Refuge. Must attack to stay alive...

Fu Manchu · Jun 15, 2006, 07:35 PM // 19:35

I would like to see the following changes at least:

Shadow Refuge - 'While Attacking' condition removed for bonus heal and moved to CS attribute line.

Shadow Form - Recharge lowered to 45 from the current 60 for better synergy with certain builds, further more, I'd like spells such as Inferno and other indirect AoE spells to not cause damage. Skills like Touch and Traps would be ok to leave as is.. we don't want total invulnerability.. why so much damage mitigation? because the enchantment is quite short in duration even with certain boosts such as +20% enchant mods and considering you would still die fast to frequent touch damage/trap and corpse explosion I think being vulnerable to these is enough of a counter without making the skill worthless as a damage mitigation tool (as it practically is now), If this change is made it would go a long way towards resolving pve problems, because of the proposed change it should be moved to Critical attribute to stop secondary abuse. (IE duration would be prohibitively short).

Palm Strike - Whilst the recent change was welcome, I still feel it's just an alternative to GPS to skip the lead dynamic.. I would like to see a Knock Down added to help add diversity with builds, this will make it much more attractive
as an Elite and be on par with Shove, why Warriors got yet another KD i'll never understand, If you need to justify or balance it downwards then by all means take 20-40 damage off the max This won't be much of an issue I feel.

Recall - I'd like to see the cost changed from 15 to 10 just to make it worth considering.

Deaths Charge - I feel the current recharge is a tad too long and would like to suggest 25 sec recharge instead.

Seeping Wound - I haven't been able to make use of this Elite.. to be honest more degen doesn't seem that attractive, Maybe we can have a Stance shut down of some kind aside form a few skills there doesn't seem to be a dedicated anti stance Elite skill (Target is unable to use stances for x seconds), Not greatly overpowered and would help with secondary diversity as well as specific pvp builds.

If no changes are to be made, then I suggest changing how Critical Strikes attribute works, just make it a blanket return rather than 'chance' effectively an inherent Zealous mod.. overpowered? perhaps, but then Fast Casting and Divine Favour seem to give flat returns instead of a 'chance' as does Soul Reaping, I don't see many complaints there. Yes I'm perhaps getting carried away with that one.. I would favour the skill changes above rather than messing with Crits.

I feel that ANET's intention was to have (as many players have already stated) a 'Glass Cannon' an effective front loaded damage dealer with the caveat of needing to Turn tail and recover so as to not become a Tank thats more effective than a primary Warrior. I also feel that we are not quite there yet in terms of synergy. our skills need to be tweaked in favour of this dynamic, currently a few of our skills are hindering usefulness in a pve situation, I would like to suggest the above changes would not unbalance pvp at all, in my opinion.

(I'm fine with how AoD is currently incase anyone is wondering..)

These are the skills I feel need tweaking the most, although of course some of the Deadly Arts need to be looked at in time too. and perhaps more..
but I say give Shadow Form priority to solve a lot of survival issues.

My current Assassin build tries to make good use of Shadow Form, but in all honesty the ability for indirect AoE ele/smite/necro/mes/traps to get through makes the Elite less useful.. as all are aware.. it times out quite fast and removes all but a few points of health a good substantial drawback but not quite enough damage mitigation compared to some other classes skills to make it effective enough for generic pve.

A/x

Full Shrouded Armour (31 energy if I remember right).

+20% Enchant mod
Zealous/Vampiric mod

16 dagger
11 Crit
13 Shadow

Shadow of Haste*
Golden Phoenix Strike
Horns of the Ox
Falling Spider
Twisting Fangs*
Res*
Shadow Form*
Shadow Refuge

(it's just a semi-generic build appart from the sup runes, I would use this setup to make SF and SoH more synergistic and useful, without the runes it's less effective so much so that it's hardly worth it).

Tested this many times and I had no issues with timing between closing the gap and getting off a full cycle of attacks (its close though, allowing you just enough time to carry out a 'hit' provided you don't miss and don't get AoE'd/touched to death).

I tried with A/W too and using heal sig and WY (to try and help with damage you still take) but is less effective in that you must invest into tactics, although the instant heal is comforting compared to the slower constant SR spam

All this I mention is pretty standard play i'm not suggesting this is how assassins SHOULD be played at all, Or that this would work well outside pve (especially not great with skills staying as they are). With the skill changes however I feel it would be a comfortable standard much like MM etc.

Scenario:

Intentionally lagging behind my group so that I never draw initial fire from pop ups or whatever is in front of the team, I watch for when the 'Tank' or damage/aggro-sponge rushes in to grab focus..

When the Tank is in good position and has good support from the monk I watch for that mob that is tactically important to take out (a high level ele boss for example) and while the tank has the attention I would activate Shadow of Haste and immediately follow with Shadow Form.. rushing in and closing the distance I would then use GPS -> HotO -> FS -> TF and then be warped back to a safe-ish distance when SoH ends (it doesn't last very long)
so that I am reasonably safe to spam Shadow Refuge until I am healed or indeed Heal Signet, this could turn out to be quite an effective way of Helping the team without being a constant drain or concern. yes you have down time to recouperate but no more than a Warrior needs to charge up or an ele needs to regen.

Currently I still die frequently through Shadow Form as already mentioned and the recharge doesn't sit well, 45 seconds would still have me needing to retreat and heal up and wait for SF to recharge without being a drag.

How will mobs ever killl you? as you can see with SF as I suggest it should be.. I would not be invincible by any means and can be easily killed through carelesness and the afore mentioned class skills. and that's ontop of the standard Assassin/melee concerns such as missing with your attacks.

Yes I can understand some may say that being near invulnerable by changing SF to block nearly all damage for a few seconds would be too much, but if you consider you need to retreat from danger to recoup, and that during this time you are extremely vulnerable and that you are essentially out of commission for a while.. and even using SoH (it gets you in and out as you have limited choice while using SF) still requires line of sight to be effective, if you rush in without good positioning you are going to be blocked.

And as already explained I feel the downsides are adequate enough to warrant the improvements.

I also understand the common attitude of "why not just take another warrior along and be even less of an issue.." Assassins can still output faster damage (initially) enabling targets to be taken down very quickly in comparison even if the target is not completely dead, the warrior is inplace to switch at a moments notice to finish the job with a couple of hits, still faster than two warriors I wager..

However, the frequent Health yo-yo effect will take getting used to by the team healer/s, once they are accustomed to the Shadow Form Health bar scenario and know not to chase heal and just leave the Assassin then it's not a drain on the team at all and just as the monk or mes often go unsung, teams may start to NOT notice the Assassin as much and instead start to invite them as a useful addition.

It's certainly not news to anyone who plays Assassins i'm sure, it's quite an obvious strategy the same as AoD build usage, but for me I feel the above changes will integrate the Assassin smoothly into the pve environment.

Ok sorry for the long winded bore-fest, this would just be my prefered way of playing an Assassin.

edit fer gud speling and clarity.

Savage · Jun 15, 2006, 10:15 PM // 22:15

wow this has nothing to do with the topic but this thing took awhile to read everything

Spura · Jun 16, 2006, 04:40 PM // 16:40

Lol at people saying that death charge should have lower recharge than 45 sec. Any of these thought of dark prison? Double cost and 60 sec recharge and it is in deadly arts which suck.

lord_shar · Jun 17, 2006, 07:05 AM // 07:05

Another improvement suggestion: Have Return teleport the assassin to a random living party member in range if your current target is not an ally.