Curse

fallot · Sep 15, 2006, 09:49 AM // 09:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

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

Conversely, I find you are giving inconsequential changes too much merit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

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).

See, that's great. But it has to be better than what is currently prevalent to warrant a place on the bar. Twisting, Falling Spider, these are skills which remain inexpendable mostly. Which is why most of the changes are not really buffs to the class. I'm not being negative about a change when I say "blah". It just means I don't feel the skill warrants my attention despite the change.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

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.

Well and good, the skill is now much better than it was. In fact, I found this change to be significant, but not very. Where is Signet of Malice going to go on your bar anyway ? Want to ditch Caltrops for it ? Maybe Shock ? How about Dark Escape ? It really has to wow me to see play in my builds. It almost does that from just one perspective, and I could envision it on a bar in a dual assassin build of some sort. Or on a secondary. But the Cripshot example you gave would have to lose Distortion, a skill that really does wow me. I don't use cripshots for running though, so I maybe you could fit this on a bar somewhere. Admittedly it would be good there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

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.

The day Assassins become relevant as DPS machines, this will be more than a joke skill. Until then, let's agree to disagree on it because I have nothing but bad things to say about it. A skill that doesn't play on the strengths of the class (movement, front loaded damage) gets a change ? Big whoop.

You're scary mathematically though, I'll give you that. The dummy must be terrified (no offense :P).

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.

DPS ? No one really cares about DPS. A skill actually has to do something to warrant a place in a build. Irresistable Blow, Horns of the Ox, Twisting Fangs, Punishing Shot, these skills have more going for them than the damage they do. Unless the DPS is downright imbalanced, its uninteresting and will remain out of my play. I'll compare it to Power Attack, cheap skill with reasonable +damage. No one runs it, why ? Because it doesn't do anything. Cleave is another example, even though Eviscerate got nerfed, its effect is too invaluable to miss; therefore this skill will still not see major play.

That's all besides the fact that Repeating Strikes has a bad interaction with block/evade.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

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'.

I will not dismiss your opinion. You are probably right as far as viability of combos is concerned (but not Locust's Fury, never that). However, I simply can't see as many options being put forth because of these buffs. Even if some of the buffed attacks see use, it will probably be secondary to increased use of one the the truly viable skills. Like Temple Strike for instance, that still requires a lead, we now have a nice buffed lead. Maybe increased use of Shadow of Haste will result in different combos. Once again, a secondary effect of the real buffs.

9th Requiem · Sep 15, 2006, 10:03 AM // 10:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Isil`Zha

BTW, you're all blind:

There was a typo in the update notes :

Quote:

...and decreased the movement speed by 15%.

Seeming that it'd dropped from 25% by 15% to 10%. However, what it should have read was:

Quote:

...and decreased the movement speed to 15%.

lord_shar · Sep 15, 2006, 10:36 AM // 10:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by fallot

...<SNIP>...

DPS ? No one really cares about DPS. A skill actually has to do something to warrant a place in a build. Irresistable Blow, Horns of the Ox, Twisting Fangs, Punishing Shot, these skills have more going for them than the damage they do. Unless the DPS is downright imbalanced, its uninteresting and will remain out of my play. I'll compare it to Power Attack, cheap skill with reasonable +damage. No one runs it, why ? Because it doesn't do anything. Cleave is another example, even though Eviscerate got nerfed, its effect is too invaluable to miss; therefore this skill will still not see major play.

...<SNIP>...

I still don't understand why most people percieve DPS and spike damage as two separate things. DPS = damage / time. Spike is just a very high damage applied over a very short time interval. If damage remains the same but time -> zero, the damage output ratio gets HUGE. This is why IAS is so scary when used properly with high damage attacks. Assassins can easily score sub-5 second kills under the old patch, and I'm betting these speed kills will get faster given the latest patch. You don't need knockdown, deepwound, or any other secondary effect if the total attack damage exceeds the target's life, healing, or ability to react.

Just putting things into perspective...

fallot · Sep 15, 2006, 10:51 AM // 10:51

Is there a particular reason you quoted my post ? Where do I mention spike ?

DPS is taken to mean more than just damage/time. When you say DPS, you mean the amount of damage a character does ---> infinity. While that doesn't fit the literal meaning of the word "damage per second", it's a useful number, though a bit of a misnomer the way its used in GW discussion. Maybe you'd be happy if it was called something else ?

Spike is a useful word because it implies something that will kill before time to react/heal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

You don't need knockdown, deepwound, or any other secondary effect if the total attack damage exceeds the target's life, healing, or ability to react.

I think you may be agreeing with me -_-. "exceeding target's life, healing or ability to react" is doing something. It's why Eviscerate is run and Cleave is not. Its why I would run cleave, if it was buffed to the eyeballs.

What if... · Sep 15, 2006, 11:39 AM // 11:39

I see this as an excellent buff, especially such skills as critical strikes which is now a quick recharging energy management attack that applies decent damage as well. Combos untilizing Unsuspecting and temple strike, with wild strike as an alternate, allow one to stay on a target long enough for a kill. Under Shadow of Haste you can easily keep up wth a running target, and cancel it with dash when things get dicey.

I've considered a potential flag running build with Shadow of Haste and a stance cancel to instantly return to the flag; it's possible now with just a small investment in shadow arts.

Isil`Zha · Sep 15, 2006, 04:35 PM // 16:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by 9th Requiem

There was a typo in the update notes :

Seeming that it'd dropped from 25% by 15% to 10%. However, what it should have read was:

Yeah, I know, the typo was that "by" should've been "to."

None of the people compalining about it though bothered to actually look at the skill.

pve-er · Sep 15, 2006, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by What if...

I see this as an excellent buff, especially such skills as critical strikes which is now a quick recharging energy management attack that applies decent damage as well. Combos untilizing Unsuspecting and temple strike, with wild strike as an alternate, allow one to stay on a target long enough for a kill. Under Shadow of Haste you can easily keep up wth a running target, and cancel it with dash when things get dicey.

I've considered a potential flag running build with Shadow of Haste and a stance cancel to instantly return to the flag; it's possible now with just a small investment in shadow arts.

Consider using Criticle strike (recharge 6 sec) with Critical defence (need critical attack evry 6 sec to reflesh), Critical defence can last as long as 1 keep throwing Critical Strike out at enemy. it don't seem much in PvP but in PvE, it is so helpful in keeping Assin alive to kill caster. combine with Shadow refuge, wow.

but it is less spikey comepare to Twisting Fange and the newly buffed Death Blosome.

Energy saving combo with zealous dagger (at lvl 13 Critical Att) nearly infinite combo to throw out
Jag S (4E-1E) + Wild S (5E-1E) + Critical S (5E - 3Ex2 -2E) =5E used at 4 sec.)

Higher DMG combo
Unsuspected S (10E -1E) + Wild S (5E-1E) + Critical S (5E - 3Ex2 -2E) + Unsuspected S (10E -1E) + Wild S (5E-1E) + Twisting Fang (10E - 2E) - 2E from auto attack = 29E used at 10 sec

crossound · Sep 15, 2006, 08:21 PM // 20:21

Some people just have a hard time experimenting with new skills.
I ran into a sin who was the falling shocker yea he got me a couple times, only because of aod but when his aod was charging and i used dash i got him good

.

no i wasn't running falling shocker.

Skuld · Sep 15, 2006, 09:57 PM // 21:57

hehe, I coined that name

Fenix16 · Sep 16, 2006, 12:24 AM // 00:24

Im not trying to hate on you but I heard "Falling Shocker" The second day of the preview event...

Skuld · Sep 16, 2006, 12:32 AM // 00:32

Maybe co-oincidence? I can't find anything on google refering to that before 24th may when I put that on the wiki *shrug*

Evilsod · Sep 16, 2006, 01:02 AM // 01:02

Lead attacks do indeed suck... but Unsuspecting Strike has a 4 second recharge. At lvl16 Critical Strikes it givves about 110 armour ignoring bonus damage on full health targets. At the lvl13 breakpoint its about 90-95.

I wouldn't call this skill a lead attack anymore, i'd call it pressure. Causing a monk to heal off 100+ damage every 4 seconds onto random targets will cause a serious drain of energy over time. You seem to be forgetting that monks often use Dark Escape too, which Wild Strike would also instantly remove allowing other members to spike. Following it with Twisting Fangs to aid a spike. Nothing drops Deaths Charge been used either. Not to mention that with the new change to Shadow of Haste meaning you could still give chase quite easily.
As many of you probably know... Am Fah Assassin use Unsuspecting Strike. If any of you have been hit by it recently while kiting you'll know it can hit for well over 100 damage.

This skill would could be used in GvG. If when you activate this skill your team gets pushed back... you'll appear in the middle of them... ie, your stuffed. You may also vanish when your needed... but how does this skill work? If when you re-use it do you vanish or does it renew?

I really think you need to try a TA build with a Zergling 'sin... A couple of months ago we ran a Spinal Shivers necro and a Zergling 'sin w/ Flurry and Daggers. The daggers hit about once every second and once every half second with double strikes... that is some VERY potent interrupting power. Now with the boost to Locusts Fury you can get about a 60% chance to double strike.... and bring Unsuspecting Strike for some damage

shmek · Sep 16, 2006, 01:42 AM // 01:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

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

Trust back? laughable.. they are getting more pathetically like other lame companies as we age. Your situation was not listenning but mere coincidence. NON-Players (i.e. developers) don't know what they are doing in reacting to crying of players since they cannot evaluate what really matters from what a nooblet cries often about.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

Lead attacks do indeed suck................
you can get about a 60% chance to double strike.... and bring Unsuspecting Strike for some damage

Nice ideas

Evilsod · Sep 16, 2006, 02:06 AM // 02:06

I'll just assume that was sarcasm...

If you'd read it you'd of noticed i said Unsuspecting Strike is more pressure. A zergling 'sin with Spinal Shivers is not about to spike an enemy is it? It too is pressure.

If hastling a boon prot theres still a good chance they'll 1. Be able to sneak RoFs through it. 2. Be able to sneak CoP through it. Bother of which i've seen interrupted by this many times. Plus the moment they need to cast E-management... they don't stand a chance of getting it through.

pve-er · Sep 16, 2006, 02:18 AM // 02:18

All the update here will not get rid of Assassin hate. only they make Assassin deadlier but the survival rate unchanged among noobs.
I worry some noob will think they can solo out enemy and forgot to run away from danger
overall, I still think the buffs are nice, at least for those who are serious of being assassin.

shmek · Sep 16, 2006, 02:35 AM // 02:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

I'll just assume that was sarcasm...

.

Your assumption was absolutely incorrect, and I did read the intire thread along with your post. Don't wear your animosity too high now and please accept the original compliment... sorry I didn't spell it out better. I was hoping I wouldn't be misinertpretted since I was negative on the first comment, but not at yours. Again, you had nice comments that I considered valuable.. good job.

Best regards

Xeln · Sep 21, 2006, 08:55 AM // 08:55

Anyone know when we can expect these changes to be reflected here on the skill page? I'm getting sick of digging this post up whenever I want to look at possible builds at work.

Damastes · Sep 21, 2006, 11:39 AM // 11:39

I like the sound of Shadow of Haste now - I can see it working nicely as a runner skill... agro the mobs, activate and flee in a different direction then when you pulled them far enough change stance and carry on your merry way. At least I think that would work - not tried it yet