Curse

onigiri · Sep 14, 2006, 07:59 AM // 07:59

9/14 Skill Updates

Old > New

-Critical Strike
Black Lotus Strike :
Recharge 25s > 20s

Critical Strike :
Energy Cost 10 > 5

{E}Locusts' Fury :
20% chance > 33% chance

Unsuspecting Strike :
>>If your target was above 90% Health you deal an additional 10~34 damage.
If your target was above 90% 15~75 Health you deal an additional damage.

-Dagger Mastery
Blades of Steel :
Recharge 20s > 8s

Death Blossom :
dmg 15~35 > 20~45

Desperate Strike :
dmg 5~35 > 15~60

Fox Fangs :
dmg 10~18 > 5~30

Golden Lotus Strike :
gain 3~9 Ene > 5~12

Jungle Strike :
dmg 8~18 > 10~25

Nine Tail Strike :
Recharge 10s > 8s

Repeating Strike :
dmg 5~17 > 10~30

Wild Strike :
dmg 8~18 > 10~35

{E}Temple Strike :
Recharge 25s, effect time1~7s > Recharge 20s,effect time 1~10s

-Shadow Arts
Blinding Powder :
>>Target foe becomes Blinded
Target and adjacent foes

Shadow of Haste :
>>Energy Cost 10 , Effect time 5~17s , 25% faster move
Energy Cost 5 , Effect time 30~60s , 10% faster move

Shadowy Burden :
effect time 4~9 > 3~15s

Shroud of Distress :
Recharge 45s > 15s

Way of Perfection :
gain 10~30 health > 10~40 health

-Deadly Arts
Crippling Dagger :
dmg 5~41 > 15~60

Dark Prison :
Recharge 60s > 45s

Scorpion Wire :
Cast time 2s > 1s

Siphon Speed :
>>target foe moves 20% slower
target foe moves 33% slower , half the normal range.

{E}Siphon Strength :
Effect time 5~10s > 5~20s

-Assasin None
Dash :
Recharge 15s > 8s

Signet of Malice :
Recharge 8s > 5s

pve-er · Sep 14, 2006, 08:21 AM // 08:21

Shadow of Haste :
>>Energy Cost 10 , Effect time 5~17s , 25% faster move
Energy Cost 5 , Effect time 30~60s , 10% faster move

this one sucks, 10% speed burst is totally useless. 60sec duration mean I must carry a stance to cancel it, that waste a skill slot

they better change will be
Energy cost 5, duration 5~17 sec, 30% faster move

lord_shar · Sep 14, 2006, 09:26 AM // 09:26

WOOT! ANET actually listened to me about temple strike's recharge being reduced from 25 sec -> 20 sec! Bravo ANET, you just won my trust back

TaiClaw · Sep 14, 2006, 11:15 AM // 11:15

Huge improvements across the whole board, this is truely a sight for sore eyes.

Take a bow Anet, simply stunning.

Wheres our Deaths Charge fix tho? Still 45s Recharge??

Munanko Roha · Sep 14, 2006, 12:00 PM // 12:00

From this day on Assassins are going to kick butts.

The only complain is about Shadow of Haste, it's useless now.

The problem is: Assassins needed a boost in survivability, they had instead a boost in damage...

Anyway, great overall changes...

SAPhoenix · Sep 14, 2006, 12:06 PM // 12:06

Naa, I think survivability with the sin is dependant on the player, and not the class, so not really a problem.

These are definitely welcome changes. Unsuspecting Strike is going to start appearing on a lot more sin players' skill bars.

fallot · Sep 14, 2006, 02:14 PM // 14:14

Let me give my opinion on these changes one by one:

Quote:

Originally Posted by GW.com

Assassin

* Black Lotus Strike: reduced recharge time to 20 seconds : This skill may see more use now.
* Blades of Steel: reduced recharge time to 8 seconds: Blah
* Blinding Powder: Blindness now affects target and all adjacent foes: Blah
* Crippling Dagger: increased damage to 15..60: May see slightly increased use.
* Critical Strike: decreased Energy cost to 5: Returns a lot of energy if you can actually spare a slot for it, which was the real problem with most duals.
* Dark Prison: decreased recharge time to 45 seconds: Will be used as much as it was used before.
* Dash: decreased recharge time to 8 seconds: Good
* Death Blossom: increased damage to 20..45: Needed a buff
* Desperate Strike: increased damage to 15..60: Joke buff, common ANet thing
* Fox Fangs: increased damage to 5..30: Blah
* Golden Lotus Strike: increased Energy gained to 5..12: This will be relevant when Lead Attacks become relevant.
* Jungle Strike: increased damage to 10..25: Blah
* Locust's Fury: increased chance to double strike to 33%: Another joke buff, this skill in stupid, it needs a complete reworking.
* Nine Tail Strike: decreased recharge time to 8 seconds: Good I guess.
* Repeating Strike: increased damage to 10..30: Joke.
* Scorpion Wire: decreased cast time to 1 second: Just as good as it used to be, which wasn't much.
* Shadow of Haste: decreased Energy cost to 5, increased the duration to 30..60, and decreased the movement speed by 15%: [b]ok, this is the biggest and best change. While it may not be the best thing for primary assassins, appreciate what you can do with this skill now. This is a permanent speed boost that, if cancelled with another stance, becomes a panic teleport. IMO, its very powerful. I can see this on flaggers, even on soft targets (monks maybe ? not sure they'd want to lose Dark Escape).
* Shadowy Burden: decreased duration to 3..15 seconds: Type, this should be increase. Blah change.
* Shroud of Distress: decreased recharge time to 15 seconds: The last person who cares just died of cancer.
* Signet of Malice: decreased recharge time to 5 seconds, decreased casting time to .25 seconds: Not worth the slot.
* Siphon Speed: increased movement speed reduction to 33%, and this spell now has half range: This has always been the best skill in the DA line for me, not sure how relevant the half-range clause is. Pretty good skill.
* Siphon Strength: increased duration to 5..20 seconds. It's not a terrible skill in some places, but I still can't see anyone running it in GvG.
* Temple Strike: decreased recharge time to 20 seconds, and increased duration to 1..10 seconds. Great change, may make this a good skill in small scale combat again. I could imagine running Temple Strike rangers or even Assassins (with that Shadow of Haste secks <3) in GvG.
* Unsuspecting Strike: increased conditional damage to 15..75: Wow that's a lot of damage. Still, its a lead attack.
* Way of Perfection: increased Health gained from critical hit to 10..40: This buff is not relevant to me so blah.
* Wild Strike: increased damage to 10..35: double blah

All in all, inconsequential changes for the most part. I can't see what everyone is excited about. Maybe they just saw a big list of skills and though omg Assassin buff!. Some changes are good though and I laud ANet for them.

Kabale · Sep 14, 2006, 02:33 PM // 14:33

About Shadowy Haste... The recharge now is kind of bad. But there is a build which benefits from this skill, along with the buff to Scorpion Wire.

Example:
Activate Shadowy Haste way in advance, find your target and Scorpion Wire him/her. Activate a different stance and you teleport twice, once back to where you activated Shadowy Haste, then again to your target (if you activated Shadowy Haste more than 100" away from your target) and your target gets knockdown as you shadow step.
Commence your combo with Falling Spider->Twisting Fangs->Moebius Strike->Horns of the Ox, or whatever you want (this example knock-locks your target), even having the possibility to get your skills recharge so you can repeat the combo. Only problem is recharge if it doesn't

But yeah, thinking out of the box

unholy guardian · Sep 14, 2006, 02:34 PM // 14:34

unsecpecting strike is godly now... those weird am fah are going to kill us all :P

ubermancer · Sep 14, 2006, 03:44 PM // 15:44

My Assassin just ninja'd up to a 100 AL target and hit him for 102 on the first strike. Now thats what I like to see.

My Assassin also noticed that if you reapply Shadow of Haste over itself, you DO NOT GET TELEPORTED BACK. Could be very useful, or very annoying, depending on your use.

Also, note how much ground you can cover with Dash... Sprint can be maintained 60% of the time with moderate levels of strength, and provides half the benefit of Dash. Dash can be kept up 37.5% of the time. This means that in terms of raw ground covered, over the long term, the unlinked Dash gives you more then Sprint.

Combine this with slightly less blatent buffs, like Blinding Powder, and I can tell you my Sin is respeccing to Shadow Arts right now.

(why you arent excited about Signet of Malice Ill never know)

I found this in the discussion page of Unsuspecting Strike:

Quote:

All infavor to change this skill's article name to Pimp Slap Vote here.

Favored:
Agreed. Ubermancer 10:02, 14 September 2006 (CDT)
Far too powerful not to rename it.-Onlyashadow 10:28, 14 September 2006 (CDT)

Unfavored:

Would assuming a stupid, standing still target would you be able to pull this off:

Shadow of Haste, close range, Scorpion Wire, Dash, Falling Spider, Awe, Twisting Fangs

Would you need an unobtainable IAS, or Wanderlust?

glountz · Sep 14, 2006, 04:05 PM // 16:05

Suddenly a build I was using a lot in PVE becomes a lot less energy-stressing:
Dagger 16
Critical strikes 13
Golden Phoenix Strike
Critical strike (Dual)
Falling spider
Death Blossom (Dual)
Flashing blades (E)
Mark of Instability
Sharpen Daggers
Critical Eye

Yup!

glountz · Sep 14, 2006, 04:09 PM // 16:09

Suddenly a build I was using a lot in PVE becomes a lot less energy-stressing:
Dagger 16
Critical strikes 13
Golden Phoenix Strike
Critical strike (Dual)
Falling spider
Death Blossom (Dual)
Flashing blades (E)
Mark of Instability
Sharpen Daggers
Critical Eye

Yup!

pve-er · Sep 14, 2006, 05:18 PM // 17:18

good for me, my build is now more deadlier then ever, all you turtle will be laying under my shoe, hahaha

1. Unsuspected strike, 2 wild strinke, 3 twisting fang, 4 death blousome / critical strike.

ogami_ito · Sep 14, 2006, 06:00 PM // 18:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by pve-er

Shadow of Haste :
>>Energy Cost 10 , Effect time 5~17s , 25% faster move
Energy Cost 5 , Effect time 30~60s , 10% faster move

this one sucks, 10% speed burst is totally useless. 60sec duration mean I must carry a stance to cancel it, that waste a skill slot

they better change will be
Energy cost 5, duration 5~17 sec, 30% faster move

10% speed still keeps you in melee range. Now, the skill is...controloable. Recall could be used with human players, but not with henchys. This can be used with henchys. Now we have...

Recall > go to targeted ally. maintained. Only works when ally and you have teamwork.
Return > go to targeted ally. cripples adjecent mobs. not practical in PvP unless you have really good teamwork.
AoD > go to targeted mob. Enchant. maintained.
Prison, Death Charge > go to targeted mob. and slow him with hex or heal yourself
Spirit Walk > go to targeted spirit (shame no one uses this).

and now...

Shadow of Haste > go to targeted LOCATION when this ends. non-maintained. probably VERY helpful in AB and competitive missions.

My Sweet Revenga · Sep 14, 2006, 06:44 PM // 18:44

Wow this was a long time coming. But I fear due to all the PVE sin hate, the damage has already been done...... But maybe with all these buffs, all sin teams might be possible heh.

Patccmoi · Sep 14, 2006, 08:20 PM // 20:20

Fallot, i think you dismiss a lot of significant changes.

Off-hands became much stronger in general. Take Wild Strike, it's +30-35 damage with 4 sec recharge and 5E, with the bonus that target lose a stance (no big deal, but still). I used it on R/A all the time, especially in Temple Strike builds (which got a really nice buff), and that damage increase will show considering the spammability of it.

For Assassins primary, Unsuspecting-Wild Strike-Critical Strike becomes a very spammable high damage chain. With Critical Strike 5E cost, it now actually refills your energy for Unsuspecting (if you use Zealous daggers and Critical Eye, the net cost of this chain without any random crit is 9 + 4 - 4 = 9E. Any random crit gives you an extra 4E, and the damage output of this chain is actually really high, can easily go around 250-300 damage on casters depending if you meet condition of Unsuspecting or not).

Signet of Malice is really not an insignificant change. If your team uses conditions in the least (say you have a Crippling Shot ranger), it's truly easy to find a target with conditions (often multiple) on and this instantly clears conditions on you every 5 sec, and it can be used from range. I can even see /A use it. Think of a Crippling Shot ranger. They could go /A quite easily using Shadow of Haste and Dash for stances, and Sig of Malice to clear conditions. There is good chances in a 1v1 encounter that you will manage to at least put poison on the other guy, making eles totally unable to blind you, etc.

Locust's Fury is far from a joke buff. If you ever used Flurry/Frenzy + Locust's Fury with damage buff on you (Str of Honor, Order of Pain, etc.) you'll know how insane your attack speed got. Now, if you have 15 Dagger Mastery, you can reach 63% chances of double strikes when auto-attacking, which means with an IAS you can hit on average every .54s. Nearly 2 hits per second. Things like Fear Me! can be spammed at a ridiculous rate, and with the new Siphon Speed, good luck to kite the Assassin. Think of something like Locust's Fury, Flurry, Siphon Speed, Fear Me!, Leaping Mantis Strike-Jungle Strike-Twisting Fangs. If you have some buffs on your back, you're quite scary, trust me.

While i tend to favor Off-Hand-Dual-Off-Hand-Dual combos, i played with a lot of Lead-Offhand-Dual-Dual combos too, and some of the buff done here will greatly increase their viability. Lead and Offhands are crucial in any Temple Strike build for example, because it needs to follow a lead attack, and with its still long recharge you can't afford to have it as exclusive off-hand if you plan on doing some damage too. My usual Temple Strike combo for example is Leaping Mantis Strike-Temple-Twisting-Leaping Mantis Strike-Jungle-Blades of Steel. I might consider Critical Strike instead of BoS now to recharge my energy though, or use Siphon Speed and switch LMS for one of the other lead that got more interesting.

Repeating Strike is really not a pointless buff either. In IAS, +30 damage every hit allows for quite good DPS overall, and using something like Way of the Empty Palm there is no energy limitation. WotEP with GPS-Repeating Strike-Twisting Fangs can be pretty interesting imo.

I'm not saying that the normal combos will vanish. But options are there to make solid combos out of other attack skills now. I agree that you can't just look at this and think something like 'wow, Assassins are so much stronger' (maybe only Siphon Speed, Temple Strike and Shadow of Haste can do that... I'd actually say Locust's Fury to some extent too, i played with it seriously being buffed by allies and you can't dismiss it until you did). It's more like 'wow, Assassins got so much more viable options'.

Symbol · Sep 15, 2006, 06:35 AM // 06:35

I actually saw a high ranked guild using /A for signet of malice (Final Dynasty). Of course they were running the cripshot-apply poison/melandru's combo which means conditions for everyone, but it was still cool to see.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Repeating Strike is really not a pointless buff either. In IAS, +30 damage every hit allows for quite good DPS overall, and using something like Way of the Empty Palm there is no energy limitation. WotEP with GPS-Repeating Strike-Twisting Fangs can be pretty interesting imo.

I tried gps - repeating - critical, the damage is really excellent. Better than any other spammable assassin combo. Twisting fangs is interesting, I may swap it out but my thought is critical will be better, because it serves as secondary energy management to compensate for WoTEP's downtime.

luxor9 · Sep 15, 2006, 06:55 AM // 06:55

yep agreed!! your not gonna see assasins owning everyone, but atleast now people won't know what to expect. They usually group together when they see a sin to stop the horns and now I'm gonna bring death blossom lol. well probably not but that would show them!!

phoenixtech · Sep 15, 2006, 07:48 AM // 07:48

For locus' fury I think the math is more like 1 - (0.66% chance of NOT hitting double with locusts)*(0.7 with 15 dagger mastery) = 54%. I don't think it's a straight up 33% + 30% = 63% setup.

Also, I'm pretty sure you can't get QUADRUPLE hit from the percentage of both dagger + locusts both triggering.

Isil`Zha · Sep 15, 2006, 08:39 AM // 08:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by fallot

Let me give my opinion on these changes one by one:

All in all, inconsequential changes for the most part. I can't see what everyone is excited about. Maybe they just saw a big list of skills and though omg Assassin buff!. Some changes are good though and I laud ANet for them.

Ok, I totally agree with you on Shadow of Haste and was going "huh" at the ones that thought it made it useless - it's basically a permanent speed buff. It also indirectly buffed Leaping Mantis Sting, which practically requires a speed buff to hit a moving target. What's really nice about it now, you can replace AoD with it, and grab another stance that you'd probably be using anyway (like Dark Escape) to cancel it in a pinch. With it fulfulling part of AoD's role (get the hell out of here!) you can open up that elite slot for something else.

Really, I've been using Shadow of Haste a lot since the update to great effect.

BTW, you're all blind: