Assassins overpowered?

They're far harder to kill and have far FAR higher dps than a warrior. They can pile five conditions on an enemy with one combo. They have a skill which lets attacks bypass stances and defences. They have good self-heal.
Basically an attacked caster is dead after one combo, and a warrior is bleeding, crippled, blind, deep-wound, and dazed, and there's not much one can do about it. Oh yeah, and add poison to that if it's an A/R.

I don't really see why anyone would use a warrior any more, except as a pure damage sponge, when an A/R is far more lethal and harder to kill.

Erm, yea they do pack a punch when all the linked skills hits you.
However, if a single linked skill misses, the rest of the skills does 0.

In that aspect, assasins are alittle underpowered.

Ways to get screwed. for a pure A (with the skills they provided)

You get blind on you, you're screwed.
Enemies uses dodge stance, the first linked skill hit misses the rest does 0.

I'm guessing that there will be an enchant for A, to buff up their accuracy, its is afterall not easy to link 4 skill hits onto a seasoned player.

You get blind on you, you remove it (they have condition removal).
Enemy uses a stance, you use the skill to bypass stances.

I've not seen this kind of one-man spiking since the Fragility build mesmers were the FOTM, and the mesmer skills had longer recharge times (and N/Mes can't tank worth a damn).

I disagree, I've encountered these A/R's with my W/A and because of Healing signet and a few of same skills they have along with warrior Wild Blow (faster regen than assassin WB) I out damage them in the long term and they end up hitting the run. I also carry a little swipe skill just to disrupt their troll urguent should they have it. Plus the warrior armor is just better in melee with them 100 vs their 85 (while attacking). When they move into that stance WB takes them out of it rather quickly plus does a critical "everytime" it hits. Balanced stance also works rather well against them since it nullifies any critical damage plus it stops that silly elemental spell whatever it is that knocks you down everytime you stand up.

I'm pretty happy with my W/A build so far. Testing out A/N build now, with Life Transfer and Barbed Signet, it's not too bad either, but, the W/A is really the better of the two because of the good defensive capabilities.

Wanted to edit something i've said but my wireless went dead heh.

From what i've gathered so far, assasin's effectiveness only shows when their linked skills hits you.

Thats like 4 (10+10+5+x) energy skill hits, a mesmer could drain A's energy rendering him pretty much useless.

Like i'd said, all it takes to render A's combo useless is for the first linked skill to miss, then you do 0 for the rest linked skill. Unless (i'm guessing) you only equip the first lead skill in ur skill bar lol.

i'm thinking skills like Riposte and Deadly Riposte could help out a lot here.

Enchantment removal, Wild Blow and other skills could help shut down an Assasin on the field.

I thought they were overpowered when I first got mauled by two of them as an Air Ele, but then brought Blinding Flash and fought one on one with one once the res of the team went down (I imagine he used his sig too). With blind on him and clearly no condition removal he couldn't do much, and when he did, Enervating Charge made sure that even when I was hit it wasn't for much. I think Hydromancers could do really well against these guys, Mist Form, Armour Of Mist, Blurred vision and a load of snares could effectively shut a few of them down provided you have a pretty good team.

What I'm really worrying about though is coming up against a team of 6 A/R with pets and Tigers Fury, with 2 Necro's using Tainted Flesh and the other using Orders...

Orders could be really, really effective with Assasins, worryingly so...

The way I would get around this is to have 2 lead attacks on the assassin's skillbar. If the first one misses (or interrupted or otherwise rendered useless), you can still use a second lead attack to start the lead-off-dual chain. That takes up 1/2 the bar, but still leaves 3 slots + rez sig.

Or go with 5 A/R, plus 2 necs and a fevered dream/fragility mesmer.

Of course they're overpowered. Ritualists have some pretty crazy skills too. That's no doubt one of the reasons they're shipping in a few months and not now - because they haven't finished balancing yet. It's extremely likely that part of the point of this event is for them to analyze skill usage and the combos people come up with that they and their testers may not have tried.

Also note that we didn't get to see the other 150 skills that the current professions are getting, which probably include at least a few direct counters to the new professions.

Just look at SoS, I can link 5 attacks and then SoS a monk and he's dead in 4 man teams.. :]

You really think they're overpowered? I honestly don't think i saw one effective assassin all day..that said it's obvious they have massive potential.

Huh, My Ritualist useing the Soulspinner premade had almost no problem at all with assasins. I was forming the opinion that they were underpowered.

I'd just sit next to my spirits, throw weapon of warding on myself, and use the time that the assasin was attacking me as a chance to regen some energy. I've been seriously underwhelmed by what I've seen from assasins thus far.

If a %block spell is what it takes... isn't either Aegis or Guardian on most monks skill bars?

Don't base your judgment on the A/W prebuild, that's pretty weak. They can be a heck of a lot scarier than that.

They are not overpowered. I think they're suprisingly balanced for a new class. And they can't take ALL of those skills you mentioned, just because they're available doesnt mean they have them. You might as well say Elementalists are overpowered because they can cast earth armor, kinetic armor, obsidian flesh, meteor shower, fireball, mist armor, blurred vision, and phoenix.

I don't think assassins are overpowered at all, except as a runner in arena matches (A/W). Circles and circles...and when you catch 'em, they've Shadow Stepped elsewhere. Just not fun, even when you cripple 'em it doesn't do much at all. Overall though, I think they'll make a great secondary and merely decent primary.

Ritualists are closer to overpowered, if anything. However, it's still very early and proper counters aren't all planned and well known yet. I would like to see some more means of dealing with them though, spread across other classes.

Anyhow, it's all theory at the moment, nowhere near enough ingame time to form a concrete opinion. I'm eagerly awaiting for this to go live though.

Something about shadow step, hehe this happened to me like once or twice.
I was about to xxxx from a "blastard" ranger to tackle on a monk. Nothing special eh ?

Some how the monk has charge on him and in the bid to get to him, i shadow step away, manage to kill him anyhow but guess what ?
When i tele back to the original position, i got hit by traps. Lol, barb, spike, dust,flame, you name it ;/
Dam that ranger ;p

It's amazing... We've had the classes for less then a day and already people want to bring out the nerf stick. *Sigh*

Assassins take skill to use properly. As has been previously stated, if you miss the first attack, the rest of the skill set is useless. The smart thing, however, is to NOT attempt to use it till the lead recharges...Or bring a second, just in case. Like every other class in Guild Wars, they have pros, and cons. The people at Anet are pretty good about evening out classes, everything has it's proper place. The Assassin can (emphasis on can) do an incredible amount of damage in a short time only if the oppurtunity presents itself. If it doesn't, they're stuck with regular attacks (Which are nothing to sneeze at, even given low damage ratings) or other skills. Which they do seem to have a lot of interesting ones, and I can't wait to try them. So no. If you think the assassin is overpowered, try thinking first and blocking it rather then complaining about it.

How are thay "far harder to kill"? Warriors are a lot more tougher, trust me. If you invest some points into tactics, you will get good returns.


This simply IS NOT true.

So can Warriors. The differance is, if an Assassin misses an attack, he usually has to start the combo all over again.

So do Warriors.

Again, not true. Never seen a caster die from one Assassin combo. Assassins mabey good at adding conditions if anything, but that's what we have monks for, right? To turn those conditions into health reserves.

Except for the fact that Warriors do more damage overall and are arguably harder to kill?

lol i've owned so many A...wars live much longer