Curse

master_of_puppets · Feb 05, 2007, 11:03 PM // 23:03

[skill]Shadow Prison[/skill][skill]Burst of Aggression[/skill]

Its become the face of the assassin. Not sure entirely how things are after the tardy skill update, but lately something close to 90% of all assassins in all PvP areas have this as their elite. Assassin's now most common 2ndary prof for a warrior, which means it has to be doing something to see warrior dropping eviscerate and such.. Assassins now always go a/w for BoA.

Has this skill made spiking, adren spiking in particular too easy? Perfect conditions to spike, dont need to worry as much about kiting and such. You dont even need to spec anything at all into deadly arts to use this. Also combos well with skills with powerful effects to hexed foes.

I actually dont think this skill is overpowered in terms of numbers and mechanics. But its certainly extremely over-used. Maybe to require somewhat more co-ordination, the casting time could be increased to 1 second, and in turn the recharge time decreased or something. As for BoA, its another skill being abused by /w who arent affected by adrenaline loss, this skill should be changed to last only 1 second at 0 strength, warrior wont really be affected as they never used this skill anyway.

Hyunsai · Feb 06, 2007, 03:46 AM // 03:46

That is the problem whe we create a melee class only good for one thing: Spiking. When a warrior is running to his target, well, he can endure some pain and survive. A sin is dead half the way...

The other problem is that after other Shadow steps, target can (and will) kite. Hard to make a 4 chain combo. Besides that, if one of the attack fail, chain is broken.

Another problem: The "black" attacks are superior to the "Golden" attacks in every way. Attack power and energy management. And the "black" requires hex.

Burst of agression is not the problem. Those spike work very well with Flurry or even Tiger stance, it was already tested.

So like I said, Sin problem is that they have no utility at all in PVP besides Spiking (or some ganking in GVG). If this is not adressed, Shadow prison will stay in their bar...

Riotgear · Feb 06, 2007, 03:57 AM // 03:57

Raising it to 10 energy would kick it off of warriors, but with Assassins, the reason Shadow Prison works so phenomenally well is largely because of the Black offhands. The reverse is also true, in that the Black offhands lack a decent trigger outside of Shadow Prison.

Shadow Prison with BLS/BSS lets you skip the lead twice, firing off two duals extremely quickly, in addition to letting you dodge positioning worries and eliminate the ability to kite, all on a pretty short recharge.

You couldn't do that with the Golden series even if you wanted to, because GPS is the only off-hand you can fire off without a lead.

Ironically, the best solution to SP being overpowered may be to change Black Lotus Strike to a lead attack.

Although as some food for thought, I think one of the biggest problems now may be that assassins are able to do their job, and are doing it better than ever. That job being a one-man spike, and quite frankly, the entire concept of a class based around solo-killing someone before they can react is newbie-pandering at its finest. Is it even possible to give assassins utility when their role is so one-dimensional? Is it possible to balance them when they're considered ineffective if they can't instagib someone?

Quote:

A sin is dead half the way...

Thumpers and Dervishes have the same armor, both are viable melee choices. The difference is that they're actually threatening when they're not spiking.

Hyunsai · Feb 06, 2007, 10:52 AM // 10:52

Rangers got +30 armor against elemental damage, and Dervish, due to their enchants and avatars, often last longer than a warrior...

Black lotus as a lead, that's an idea, but anything that can reduce the ability to do the only thing they can do well now is rather risky.

Cirian · Feb 06, 2007, 12:04 PM // 12:04

I think the typical attack chain that's linked to that hex/ias is ->

[skill]Black Spider Strike[/skill][skill]Twisting Fangs[/skill][skill]Black Lotus Strike[/skill][skill]Blades of Steel[/skill]

Probably the number 1 skill that will snuff the whole chain is this one:

[skill]Hex Breaker[/skill]

The assassin will still shadow step but the hex doesn't stick, hence their openers will all fail. Unless that is, someone else has hexed you up the wazzoo, such as a necro or mesmer or whatever... the hex doesn't have to be the assassin's for them to unload the chain.

The other options are to get some form of blocking to snuff the chain, have a shadowstep of your own, or have a team mate save you. Something that should be standard of course is to have as high a max life as you can get to survive the initial onslaught.

Agyar · Feb 06, 2007, 02:22 PM // 14:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cirian

Probably the number 1 skill that will snuff the whole chain is this one:

[skill]Hex Breaker[/skill]

The assassin will still shadow step but the hex doesn't stick, hence their openers will all fail. Unless that is, someone else has hexed you up the wazzoo, such as a necro or mesmer or whatever... the hex doesn't have to be the assassin's for them to unload the chain.

This is QFT. Hex breaker against a team that's not using an abundance of other hexes pretty much stops the sin or war from getting to you. I run hex breaker on my monk most of the time in TA and I find that it makes it very difficult for those SP/Burst sins to spike me down. It's funny, a lot of them will keep trying for the whole match to pull it off and hex breaker cops the SP every time. Maybe that's a testament to how easy this type of assassin build is to play and thus, how many not-so-bright players are finding a niche using it.

jktstance · Feb 06, 2007, 02:32 PM // 14:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agyar

This is QFT. Hex breaker against a team that's not using an abundance of other hexes pretty much stops the sin or war from getting to you. I run hex breaker on my monk most of the time in TA and I find that it makes it very difficult for those SP/Burst sins to spike me down. It's funny, a lot of them will keep trying for the whole match to pull it off and hex breaker cops the SP every time. Maybe that's a testament to how easy this type of assassin build is to play and thus, how many not-so-bright players are finding a niche using it.

You are absolutely correct. Burst SP sins are starting to replace whammos (in my mind, at least) as the new newbie-friendly build. They're EVERYWHERE!!! It's great fun to break their combo, either with Hex Breaker, Shield Bash, taking off a Holy Veil, or even just a Blessed Light as most of these sins prefer damage over KD and take Blades of Steel instead of Horns of the Ox. Even a Savage or Distracting Shot fired at them after they cast Shadow Prison will usually destroy their entire chain, yet they'll still continue attacking you even if their off-hand doesn't connect...

Riotgear · Feb 06, 2007, 07:54 PM // 19:54

I don't know about Savage or Distracting, since a lot of them run Horns, meaning there isn't much time to react. If their timing is sloppy, it may not even hit an attack.

My personal picks for punching Prison sins in the face:
[skill]Disciplined Stance[/skill][skill]Shield Bash[/skill]
(Note that Disciplined now lasts 4 seconds at 8 tactics with a 15 second recharge)

I'll often go out of my way to make myself a target for them just so I can bounce BLS off of shield bash.

Quote:

I think the typical attack chain that's linked to that hex/ias is ->

Lotus is first, Spider is second. It's too expensive to start with BSS. Prison+BoA+BSS+Twisting+BLS is 35 energy.

Quote:

Rangers got +30 armor against elemental damage, and Dervish, due to their enchants and avatars, often last longer than a warrior...

Melandru will give a health buffer and condition immunity, Grenth will not. Grenth is usually run without any self-survivability stuff just fine in GvG. Elemental damage was horrible when thumpers first started appearing, and it's still not too common outside of SF or Sandstorm, so Rangers were still on roughly on the same playing field.

The only time this makes that much of a difference is on a skirmish template, where Assassins run into a little problem called "Shadow Refuge sucking" and rangers/dervishes don't.

Quote:

Black lotus as a lead, that's an idea, but anything that can reduce the ability to do the only thing they can do well now is rather risky.

I'd rather see Assassins known for their ability to stay mobile and take down overextended targets and be used as a spike assist than to be known for running a build based around an elite that takes all of the brains out of melee and spiking down a target from full health in 4 seconds.

If a build is so simplistic that you can imagine bots farming glad points with it, yet still works, and even works outside of scrub arenas like RA/AB, then there are problems. Button-mashing stupidity should be discouraged in general.

Quote:

Burst SP sins are starting to replace searing flames elementalists as the new newbie-friendly build.

Fixed that for ya. Wammos think defensive skills are the way to win. SF newbies on the other hand probably got sick of getting ganked by prison sins and rolled one of their own for even easier kills.

ThisIsNi · Feb 06, 2007, 09:37 PM // 21:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cirian

I think the typical attack chain that's linked to that hex/ias is ->

[skill]Black Spider Strike[/skill][skill]Twisting Fangs[/skill][skill]Black Lotus Strike[/skill][skill]Blades of Steel[/skill]

Probably the number 1 skill that will snuff the whole chain is this one:

[skill]Hex Breaker[/skill]

The assassin will still shadow step but the hex doesn't stick, hence their openers will all fail. Unless that is, someone else has hexed you up the wazzoo, such as a necro or mesmer or whatever... the hex doesn't have to be the assassin's for them to unload the chain.

The other options are to get some form of blocking to snuff the chain, have a shadowstep of your own, or have a team mate save you. Something that should be standard of course is to have as high a max life as you can get to survive the initial onslaught.

I quite agree, however maybe a viable option for sins is bringing more than one hex, to cast before sp.

Riotgear · Feb 06, 2007, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThisIsNi

I quite agree, however maybe a viable option for sins is bringing more than one hex, to cast before sp.

They do.
[skill]Expose Defenses[/skill]

Ensign · Feb 06, 2007, 10:39 PM // 22:39

Also the combo is Black Lotus strike -> Twist -> Black Spider -> Blades...you'll zero your energy prematurely fairly often if you open with Black Spider instead.

Peace,
-CxE

Tingi · Feb 07, 2007, 05:50 PM // 17:50

BoA doens't need to be nerfed.

Shadow Prison doesn't need to be nerfed (recharge wise) as this is pretty much the only viable teleport a 'Sin can use and bypass his lead.

Maybe a 10 energy nerf would just about oke...if the lads and ladies at Anet think that this skill maybe "overpowered".

But IMO it's oke the way it is.

Patccmoi · Feb 08, 2007, 06:12 PM // 18:12

I dislike the build a lot and it great parts because it actually totally stopped experimentation from most people on Assassin builds. I totally disagree that an Assassin can't be built around pressure and utility now while still keeping powerful spike assist (i.e. not solo spike but at least as strong as an adrenal spike). Assassins have much better support/utility skills than they had before, the main problem is that SP-BoA is SO mindless to play and still efficient, and so 'obvious' at the same time, that it's what everyone jumped on and they just ignored the rest of the buff except saying 'hmmhmm, they're nice, now let me use that +65 BoS'.

Assassins have no other viable hex to open with? Please, Siphon Speed is simply incredible (Cripple + 33% speed buff...) and very spammable, and Expose Defenses is very helpful for sins too and really good since its buff.

I play sin often, in HA and played a lot in GvG, and i never run Shadow Prison sin because personally i can't stand being useless 15/20s. I experimented a lot, tried a lot of setup, and you can be very good as a sin doing something else than Shadow Prison.

Example of setup i used in HA:

Disrupting Stab
Exhausting Assault
Black Lotus Strike
Twisting Fangs
Assault Enchantments
Siphon Speed
Burst of Agression
Rez Sig

My main spike assist was just BLS-TF. I wasn't alone with a hex in the build so it wasn't too obvious who that was on and i could just go spike someone hexed by something else too. I could allow to heavily pressure someone in case the spike failed or against things like Ghostlies by spamming Assault Enchantments on him while the rest of my team blasted him with a mix of Rt Nukes + Warrior pressure. Assault Enchantments is 2s recharge and drops all enchant, so basically it's pointless to reenchant the guy (except maybe with RoF). Can snare easily with Siphon Speed. Can interrupt very well with Disrupting Stab + Exhausting Assault (which also gave me a non-hex opener to reach Assault Enchantments very fast on anyone. And Exhausting Assault is awesome to use on /E using exhausting skills like Gale cause adding to their tightly controlled exhaustion can actually put them at a critically low max energy level and stop them from being able to Gale). There was also Nightmare Weapon on a Rt that i could use with DS-EA to do a nearly instant 150 life steal, healing me and doing very good at pressuring or finishing weak targets when my main spike was recharging. There's lots of utility there (snare, interrupts, spike, massive enchant control), and i had no trouble staying alive to use it. You just have to keep a good overview of the battlefield and not go in tunnel vision, when you see people gunning for you you do as a caster and run for wards or for your backline, pre-siphon speed your pursuers, etc. If a sin/war Shadow Prison on you, you c-space, BoA and Disrupting Stab-Exhausting, you'll definitely stop his chain/attacks straight.

For Pressure Assassin, there is also various things you can do like:

Unsuspecting Strike
Wild Strike
Critical Strike (ridiculous emanagement since the buff)
Shattering Assault / Twisting Fangs
Impale / Assault Enchantments
Entangling Asp / Burst of Speed
Siphon Speed
Rez Sig

to have good enchant control, high damage pressure, range kd, snare, stance removal and speed buff. No IAS though (can replace Entangling with it if you prefer it to the kd utility)

or one that is really nice for both pressure and spike:

Black Lotus Strike
Death Blossom
Moebius Strike
Impale / Twisting Fangs (I prefer Impale personally)
Siphon Speed
Expose Defenses (can also use Horns instead, which offers a very nice kd utility, especially when Moebius recharges it. This is priceless in skirmishes if you have someone that can heal you because of the ability to keep someone in a kd lock on your own if they get below 50%. If there's an adjacent target, you use DB to hurt both, if there's no adjacent, you use Horns to knock)
Burst of Agression
Rez Sig

BLS-DB-Impale-Moebius-DB kills an overextender very efficiently, while just BLS-DB-Impale-Moebius or BLS-TF-(Moebius) are very good spike assist. What this build mostly offers that few others can is extremely good adjacent area control, aka anti-bodyblock. DB is 80-90 armor ignoring damage to adjacent foes and you can do it every 2-3s. Add Splinter Weapon and it goes up to 200 damage in a single DB. DB-Moebius-DB in Splinter will pretty much kill everything that was adjacent to your target if they don't move in 3-4s. Even Eles can't hurt Adjacent foes nearly as well. DB is final-trust damage to your target and can be reused every 2s, it's really serious pressure overall and the DPS of the build exceeds Dragon Slashers except if they're frenzying on an immobile target for a long duration (which is overall quite unrealistic). Note too that if anything is blocked in there appart from BLS, it all recharges really fast so it doesn't matter any more than for a warrior. If i do BLS-DB-Moebius-DB and that DB is blocked, i just wait 2s and DB again. Same if Moebius is blocked, etc. BLS is 12s, which is still not dramatic.

Those builds are mostly designed to be used in main team, so they don't have much self-defense/skirmishing skills, but if you play well and with good team support i never felt more of a softie with a sin than a Grenth Derv or w/e. You just have team support that works accordingly. We also tend to use Channeling/Resto Rt to skirmish and the Resto part has enough healing/condition removal to support anything that goes help against ganks, etc. so that you don't need self-heals on everyone as much. And if someone can take care of your healing/condition removal, most of those sin builds are actually very strong in skirmish because of the snare + high pressure and defense removal. I'm not saying they can be thrown in any team build without a thought, but they all work well with a decent team build around it. They might not be perfect and can be modded/tweaked to fit what utility is required and there's likely a lot more efficient setup that could be pulled, but it was just to show an idea of what can be done and what utility assassins can bring out of 'one-man-spike using 6 skill slots'. Cause i'm sick of never seeing Assassins that aren't SP-BoA and mostly of seeing people talk as if it's the only viable build out there. It's not the only viable build, it's just by miles the most mindlessly easy to play.

Symbol · Feb 08, 2007, 06:43 PM // 18:43

I run a build centered around Moebius in arenas.
Black Spider Strike
Death Blossom
Moebius Strike
Impale
Siphon Speed
Disrupting Dagger
Restful Breeze
Rez Sig

Huge pressure and a pretty unpleasant spike. BSS/Moebius + Death Blossom + impale is already ~370 damage not including degen. And impale comes out really fast, the whole thing takes ~2.25 seconds from the start of the first attack to the last hit. The only weakpoint in the combo is BSS which has a 12s recharge, but a lot of the time moebius will recharge it so you can switch as soon as you see a target recieving heavy prot. And even in the worst case if it's blocked right off you don't have to wait too long-and unlike a warrior it recharges even when you're switching targets, blind, hex stacked, etc (anytime you're not hitting). Also your auttoattack is on par with a sword warrior's so you're never totally useless.

And because the combo is pretty compact (4 skills) you can pack in some good utility and self survivability (great kite heal, great snare+speedboost, great interrupt). It seems like it could be a pretty solid skirmish template too, esp if you can replace rez with dash/shadow walk. And if you want it to be even more deadly you can drop disrupting for Horns.

I agree with Patccmoi, a lot of the useful goodies in the assassin skillset are totally ignore in favor of the *must have shadow prison* mantra. Things like siphon speed are almost criminally underused given how awesome they are in small engagements. 33% speed boost for you and 33% debuff for them? Unconditional and on a 5 sec recharge, with good duration to boot? AND it's a hex? How can people NOT like this? Siphon speed + shadow walk is almost as good as shadow prison in terms of effect, and if you add a cancel you have a bulletproof escape as well.

Shadow prison is not the only sin build out there. I would argue that it isn't even the "best". The class has more to offer, even with shit lead attacks and a dearth of good non-elite shadowsteps.

Crystal Titan · Feb 08, 2007, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cirian

I think the typical attack chain that's linked to that hex/ias is ->

[skill]Black Spider Strike[/skill][skill]Twisting Fangs[/skill][skill]Black Lotus Strike[/skill][skill]Blades of Steel[/skill]

Probably the number 1 skill that will snuff the whole chain is this one:

[skill]Hex Breaker[/skill]

The assassin will still shadow step but the hex doesn't stick, hence their openers will all fail. Unless that is, someone else has hexed you up the wazzoo, such as a necro or mesmer or whatever... the hex doesn't have to be the assassin's for them to unload the chain.

The other options are to get some form of blocking to snuff the chain, have a shadowstep of your own, or have a team mate save you. Something that should be standard of course is to have as high a max life as you can get to survive the initial onslaught.

Expose Defenses + Shadow prison
But Hex breaker will slow the assassin down

Legendary Shiz · Feb 08, 2007, 10:28 PM // 22:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crystal Titan

Expose Defenses + Shadow prison
But Hex breaker will slow the assassin down

To be honest, for me if I'm constantly missing the kills because of hex breaker than I just find a new target. You can take down most things fairly easily with Shadow Prison sins, no need to try to force a kill that isn't happening IMO.

Zuranthium · Feb 11, 2007, 03:24 PM // 15:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Also the combo is Black Lotus strike -> Twist -> Black Spider -> Blades...you'll zero your energy prematurely fairly often if you open with Black Spider instead.

Booo. That's the noob combo.

Black Lotus -> Horns of the Ox > Black Spider > Twisting, plz.

~Z

Hyunsai · Feb 11, 2007, 03:33 PM // 15:33

The fact that they buffed Blades of Steel to +65 damage is some proof that Anet is fine with the current Burst prison sin, since BoS is used 99% of the times on this build...

The Muffen Man · Feb 11, 2007, 03:39 PM // 15:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zuranthium

Booo. That's the noob combo.

Black Lotus -> Horns of the Ox > Black Spider > Twisting, plz.

~Z

That too is noob combo

mark of insta, sp, bls, tf, bss/fs, bos

Riotgear · Feb 11, 2007, 07:13 PM // 19:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyunsai

The fact that they buffed Blades of Steel to +65 damage is some proof that Anet is fine with the current Burst prison sin, since BoS is used 99% of the times on this build...

That or they simply aren't paying attention. If their first balance attempts on Reaper's Mark and AoG were any indication, that may be the case.