Just checked assassin skills

RA and AB should be balanced in the sense that you can't just wipe the maps all over the place with certain professions, but that's not going to happen as long as the same mechanics that govern other PvP playstyles are also at work in random styles.

The problem is ANET tied far too much together under a single set of rules in this game. Random and AB are not remotely like GvG, for example, but the same rules still apply both ways.

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When an assassin starts hitting my ele; blind, +armor, knockdown, spike, blind, and run. I survive maybe 50% of encounters with assassins, mainly when they get frustrated. Countering assassins isn't the point. It's not hard to counter sins. The problem is that the sin is such a ridiculous blend of casting and melee that it is always going to have builds available to it that make it nigh-invulnerable in any part of the game where trying to plan for a specific build encounter isn't an effective tactic. They're ability to specialize so acutely adds to things like GvG, but it completely short circuits the entire concept of RA and, to some extent, AB where specialization for any other class often means death. In other words, yes, you can counter a SF-spammer in RA, but you're just going to get wiped out by one of the other non-specialized opponents because your skillset isn't going to be very useful beyond that one assassin.