What's wrong with Assassins?

Well I just got Factions, and I decided to make an assassin just to see what all the fuss is about, and I have to say they are lots of fun. Much more fun than my Warrio, Necro or Ranger I have... However, I have read people saying things like "Assassins are plain hated" and "Don't expect to find a group if you're an Assassin..." So my question is why?

I'd like to make an assassin, but not really up for henching my way through the game, so what's so bad about them?

Assassins rack up the DP when the player doesn't know how to play.

ok, most people hate the people that play the asassins more then the class itself. to many people that play the role of assassin think it is just like using a warrior. when in the end its not.

assassins offer a wide arrange of skills, combo's, and plain offensive skills. the assassin was made to get in, unleash combo, and get out before taking huge amounts of damage. most people play them however like a tank with 80 armor and stances for protection, staying in danger for far to long.

so thats why people hate the class more then any other. people have basically imo, flamed a class when they should be flaming the player for not knowing the class.

in the end i'm not saying to stay away from the class, i think its a great class. i have an assassin and i know how to use the assassin. as far as doing everything with henchmen, i never experienced to much hate from people in groups, guildies do help too. but i guess in the end it comes to what you want to do, you may spend more time looking for that group, but overall you should have a good time with the class.

Quote: Originally Posted by Hand of Ruin

i have seen alot of the assassin hate turning around recently...hell, even at Nahpui Quarter i saw someone spam:

"Starting masters group!! need: 1 assassin, 2 nukers, 1 MM, 2 monks, tanks.."

but if you can manage groups...hench everything!! even Tahnakei Temple is henchable

while all these are true, I have to say that Assassins are fundamentally flawed and needs some buff.

-shadow stepping kinda broken (short radius, long recharge, limited choice, pretty much all of them suck besides Aura of displacement)

-weak armor (ok i can live with this, but not with both broken shadow stepping and weak armor together)

-lack of heal (shadow refuge, way of perfection, and heart of shado are, I think the only heal sins get. Both shadow refuge and way of perfection suggest the player should tank since you will only get the max healing benefit if you are in the fray long enough. heart of shadow suffers from poor "random" shadow stepping, which more often than not is either useless or put you at a worst situation.)

-lack of playing variety. (this may have improved given more time, but with nightfall coming out so soon and how most of the community already hate sins, imo the focus will be directed to the new classes and sins wouldn't be getting any more attention. Right now, in pvp at least 99% of the sins are running the same build with so sort variation involving horns of ox, falling spider and twisting fang.)

There are a lot of reasons why assassins are generally disliked.

One has to do with their shadowstepping ability. Assassins, especially in the early days of Factions, were famous for teleporting into the midst of enemy mobs. Assassin would start taking damage and scream "HEAL ME HEAL ME, and the team monk would have to wade into a bunch of enemies in order to heal him. Finally the monk would get close enough to cast Heal Other, but often he would be casting his spell (and wasting his energy) on a corpse because assassins don't last long when surrounded by enemies.

In the early days, almost no assassins carried defensive skills, and it's still hard for them to equip adequate defense when typically you need 4 skill slots just for one attack sequence -- Deaths Charge plus 3 slots for chained attack. This is the real flaw of the assassin concept. When so many slots are needed for the attack chain, the assassin has literally no room left on the skill bar for all the other stuff he needs at a minimum -- self healing, energy management, condition and hex removal, rez, interrupts, and defense....

Obviously, the typical assassin required the constant attention of the team's monks. And even then they died both quickly and often. They came to be almost universally loathed by monks who considered them a bottomless pit into which they sank precious reserves of energy for scanty returns. The assassin's laudable ability to ixnay 1 particular squishy with a lethal combo, while great in GvG, was less useful in PvE, where there could be 10 or more enemy casters swarming the group all at once.

Plus relatively high energy and skill recharge times meant the assassin needed a lot of downtime compared with other professions in order to keep doing his thing. In Cantha, where groups trying for Masters are under a clock, this obviously presented a bit of a problem.

High DP assassins were commonplace, and there are few professions as useless as the typical high DP assassin. Sometimes you would see a 60 DP assassin standing in the back -- wanding monsters -- because a 60 DP assassin will literally die in a second going toe-to-toe with mobs. At this point, he is next to useless. A 60 DP ele can still cast a full strength meteor shower from the back row. But a 60 DP assassin? He brings nothing to the table and is wasting a space that could've been filled by someone who could actually be assistance to the group.

The whole situation was very lamentable, and so assassins got a bad name in the early days of Factions. You would hear monks screaming "Never again! No assassins! F-n waste of monk energy" in practically every mission outpost. A lot of people still remember those days and still refuse to have them in their groups.

prodigy ming, I agree with every single word, because what you say is obviously true, and ANet should take action.

To OP, I would say that I have six chars and I play the assassin more than any of the others. It does take more skill, but the damage output is addictive.

If you don't like henching, just learn to play well, be helpful and friendly even when you don't get a group, and presently people will include you.

For those times when you do have to hench, make sure you have a longbow. A simple no attribute required 8-11 longbow is just fine. Use this to initiate battle and let the henchies aggro before you go in. The longbow is The Weapon for henching in PvE. Include an archer henchman in your hench group. The archer usually stays at range and makes a good target for the Return shadow skill.

As much as I love my assassin, I have to agree with pretty much everything that has been said here. I too believe that the class is flawed, but only in PvE.

The problem is that an Assassin is a single-kill master. An assassin is capable of killing a single target in a very short amount of time, but that ability is quite useless in PvE where the mobs are twice as numerous as your party. I am perfectly aware of what a sin is capable of, but I am also perfectly aware that a warrior who is setup for damage can rack up the kills much faster(no skill recharge and adrenaline is easy to come by) while taking damage at the same time.

Assassins are very good in PvP because a single kill can make a difference, but in PvE, you don't need a character that can only (possibly) kill a target every 20 seconds and more due to skill recharge or lack of energy.

I agree. Assassins are definitely useful in PvP if used correctly. It's just that people take notice the flaws of an assassin much quicker than the flaws of other professions, such as elementalists.

I personally like my Assasin, it's only the second character I ever got to level 20, my pervious one being a Wammo. I loved the character, it was easy to use and very productive, but after a while it became real boring since it was zone, mending, glads defense, bonetti's, hit some axe skills, repeat. No thought, just teh same formula for all PVE.

When I started this Sin I wanted to make a character that would require thought but would still have a good learning curve. I did a bunch of research on what I wanted to do and how to play the class carefully, and I've followed most of the posts here to the T. Though most of Factions I've used nothing but henchmen, up until the Boreas Seabed, where I pretty much hit a brick wall with the henchmen due to the Krakken being ridiculously powerful (at least to me)

When I finally decided to team up I joined up with a group of about 4 Wammos and a single Monk and some others (Including my A/Mo). When we got to the mission, we hardly managed to beat the first two teams in the Convication, and when the third team came by, all of the Wammos died right off because then wanted to charge right in against the Mesmer and Ele bosses. They all went down, soon the monk did as well (who did harldy and healing) and I was the last person left. The only Sin on the team, I'm last alive with +8 Dp.

Immediatly I know I'm done for, so I try to get around and Res one of my teammates, but I got hunted down and killed quickly from rapid degen from both bosses. After we get back to the town, one of the guys says "That's why Sins suck, they wear castor armor"

First off, degen ignores armor, second, this Sin outlasted everyone, and was standing in the middle of the fight getting my enchants stripped quite often too, but still living. If it were any Warrior, they wouldn't have lasted any longer than I would have from those attacks. Anyway I joined another group and we did the mission on the first try, with two monks, an interrupt ranger, 2 wammos, a necro and myself.

So yeah, I'd say Sins get a bad rap due to stupid players who have no talent just hitting their tab and space keys over and over. I can't say I'm the best or play Sin idealy, but it just takes common sense and a brain.

One problem with Factions when it first came out was that too many people made assassins. Any mission town would be literally 1/4th to 1/2 filled with assassin primaries. On the other hand, 75% of Canthan missions groups are built like this:

1) Warrior
2) Warrior
3) Monk
4) Monk
5) Elementalist
6) Necromancer
7) Open
8) Open

When a town is 25-50% assassins, a lot of them aren't going to get a group. I remember waiting for a LONG time in mission towns waiting for a group. Maybe there was some hate towards the assassin class, but I think the real reason it was hard to find a group was because there were too many of us and not enough of everything else to build balanced teams.

The other problem is that a lot of assassins, including me I have to admit, is that most of didn't know how to play the assassin the right way. When I saw it was a melee fighter, I thought I could play it just like my warrior. In reality, tho, the assassin needs to be played more like a mesmer or a monk. You need to anticipate what the enemy is going to do, or you won't be able to be effective in the assassin role. A warrior can react to a situation and still be effective. The assassin doesn't have that luxury.

To be honest, most people who play the assassin prolly don't have the basic core gaming skills to do the profession justice even today. The general level of assassins has gone up substantially the past month or so, but it's still not equal to the requirements of the profession. An assassin in the right hands is a lights-out killer. In the wrong hands, it's exactly what EasyE said in his post.

The problem is not the assassin, it's the people who play them.

I agree with everyone that it is the player make all the different, I love my Sins (not sure if I can call it a Sin and not Ass) it is so useful if use right. I use it for Raisu Palace chest run, and keep monk boss busy healing himself in Ring of Chain island mission. and kill those caster during quest or mission in game. people might think Assasin sucks in PvE, but in fact, as long as it is not those elite mission that only certain classed are needed. Assassin is quite useful if play right. especially the Kill Shiro mission.

but Assassin need buff, Shadow step sucks totally, most of time it bring you to the worst place of mob and die instantly, the recharge time is long and energy inefficient even AoD sucks too. ANet need to work on it and hope they are reading this thread in which I doubt they will

easyg, very good point. You mentioned these happens in the "early days", but I think they are still an issue even today. Assassins still requires long attack chains, completely useless when they reach 60dp, and monks still hates us.

Don't get me wrong, I love my assassin. In fact, thats the only character I got 15k armor for. But if Anet don't address these problems, It would seriously gives me second thought for playing new professions in the future seeing Anet's lack of concern for balancing and supporting expansion professions.

The quality of player matters of course, but if the majority of the people playing this class seem to suck... there gotto be something wrong other than the players as well.

I use my assassin a good 95% of the time now!

I experiment with builds and in our guild we hold scrimage events to help us iron out any little problems with the build.

The key thing though is to make sure you are part of the team and not a 1 man/woman killing machine (because you never will be!) Place the safety of your healers at the tops of your list, do not wade into full battle as you will not last long. You are a support character and you need to provide support to your healers. If you spot the opportunity to get a quick kill on an enemy healer then do it but make it quick and make sure you do not leave your healers exposed!

A good sin should be calling their targets as well, since you are laying down conditions as well, some of your team mates may be able to take advantage of that! Not only that, other will see your work rate!

I have seen assassins running all over the place on a battlefield and yet they get so few kills! 1-1 against a good monk then you will not have enough power to take them down without interupts. 1-1 against a Warrior, well lets just say, I would not advise it unless they are really low on health!

In PVP lately I have come across more bad players than good! Chased down by a Warrior that had no clue on how to use him! A combo and run, he has bleeding on and is still taking damage but instead of healing himself he runs after me and wasting his time using stances! (now if I had gone toe to toe with him then it would have been different!) Rinse and repeat 1 dead Warrior. A bad warrior no longer gives warriors a bad reputation but a bad assassin, well that is just the norm as far as other players are concerned.

Protect and serve! Spend most of your battle time watching for those that come to attack your healers, if it is a warrior, hit and run and hope they chase you! If you call the target and you are working as a team your warriors should be aware you are on your way to them or they have to come to you! If the other warrior is chasing you they are not hurting your healers! So you are doing your job!

Look at your skills and set your self up with a specific target type! Either to harrass warriors/fighters or to shutdown casters.

Hey if you want to add damage to a fight get yourself a bow with no req and shoot from the backlines whilst waiting around for the right victim!

There is nothing wrong with looking at some of the builds out there but make sure you try as many as possible so you can switch depending on the situation. Also look for ways to adjust the build to suit your gameplay. Oh! and carry a rez sig just in case you mess up and let your healer die!

reading this forum 1 thing I saw over and over was "sin's combos have long recharge times" what I want to know is what combos you guys are using? I have a 3 hit combo that is recharged as soon as it is finished so I could hit something else, as far as shadow stepping try return, you teleport to a target ally and all foes around you are crippled. And as far as "sins can only kill 1 squishy then they have to get out" In Raisu I took out in an average mob, Monk, Rit, Ranger, then Returned cause I was starting to get attention. keep in mind while I was doing this eveyone was busy with the Sins, Wars, & Mesmers so I killed the targets named above solo. as far as complaining that Sins get limited healing, look at Wars, Heal sig, look at eles, Arua of Restoration, look at rangers, Troll Urgent, look at mesmers, Ether Feast, Even monks are limtited on what heals they can used on themselves. As far as the monks that complained about Sins being an energy sink, your job is to heal, a crappy Wammo, a tanking Ele, necro, mesmer, rit, will drain your energy too, yet eveyone wants most of these classes still.

Quote: Originally Posted by sabretalon

I totally agree on it's the people and not the class.

First off, I love my Assassin and I do great with it, including PvE - a good combo for PvE is Unsuspecting Strike, Wild Strike, and Critical Strike and Critical Eye - you can start your combo again almost as soon as you finish it with no inturruptions, especially since Critical Strike along with Crit Eye will give you +8 energy, making CS essentially cost you only 2 energy.

I think what really caused all the Assassin hate was when Factions first came out. As mentioned, 60%+ of people were Assassin primaries, and of those 60%, 95% did not have a clue how to play as an Assassin. Thus, almost everyone now thinks that Assassin's suck, thanks to all the idiots that didn't know how to use them.

I don't suck. Even without teleport spells (My personal skills makes up for not being able to get out of hazard quick )
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