Assassin buffs going in the wrong direction

The recent buff and subsequent overuse of dagger attacks is the result of a large disconnect between the assassin archetype the way people want to play Assassin. People want to play a non-fragile DPS class, and as a result, Anet has turned Assassins from glass cannons into glass machine guns without removing the possibility of skill overuse by hardier classes.

So here are my thoughts:
-Lead attacks should have a non-speed buff (such as increased damage, crit chance, or unblockability) to encourage their use but not require it.

-Offhand attacks should be weaker than leads/duals in terms of speed and damage (think about it. is your offhand stronger and faster than your lead?). This will discourage bar compression, but still allow for 4/5 skill combos.

The big one:
-The longest recharge in a chain should be 10-15 seconds,(With a minimum of 4 seconds for a 3 skill chain). This will limit use by rangers/dervishes and make bars more than 3 attacks and 4 buffs.

-Assassins should be able to defend themselves during the downtime.
This is mainly saying buff/rework shadow arts. The main idea is to make assassins harder to hit instead of enchant-tanks. Skill suggestions (some have already been said):
Blinding powder: Don't require offhand. Change to unlinked, with a blind duration of 4 seconds. Touch range (or half spell).

Caltrops: Make it 5 energy or not half ranged.

Dark Escape: Halve duration, 15 second recharge, cannot cast spells (run away after a combo, but can't be abused by monks)

Deaths Retreat: Lower recharge to 15 second, reduce healing by 25%.

Shadow Form (PvP): Change functionality to: 5e, 1/4 cast, 20r "Adjacent enemies are blinded and crippled for 5 second. Shadow step to target ally and gain 0...150 health. Your other spells are disabled for 5 seconds.
OR Maintained enchantment. 10e, 1/4 cast, 20r "end effect: all adjacent enemies are blinded and crippled for 5 seconds. Shadow step to the place where you originally cast this enchantment, gain 0...150 hp. Your skills are disabled for 5 seconds.
(Nice escape skill but not abuseable by monks or eles)

Shadow Refuge: Change it so the conditional healing happens if you don't attack anyone for the duration of the enchantment.

Shroud of Distress:
Halve duration, 20 second recharge, 5 energy. (so one removal doesn't kill you for 45 seconds)

Swap: (joke skill) Change functionality to:
10e, 1/4c, 20r. Enchantment: Create a level 1 Spirit of Shadow. For 3 seconds, 50% of the damage you take is redirected to your spirit of shadow. (Ends if spirit dies) You shadow step to a random nearby location.

Point is, Assassins should be hit and run. Not chase down, hit, be invincible, hit some more. There are other classes for that.

PS, this is a PvP-based thread because I'm tired of people complaining about shadow form

*coughwarriorcough*

Thank you for reading the whole thing.

LMFAO! yes warriors are a more viable run down hit kill get hit not die kinda character... the sin i dont see it being a problem the way it is now. i use my sin for pve without using nonstop perma shadow form builds.... this being said i also do not have a problem with a perma build being used for farming as each profession has its own farm builds, monks, ele's, rits, warriors, sins, dervs, they all have their own. i have a friend who can solo most things in uw HM with a r/rt, i have another officer in my guild that uses his warrior to farm raptors faster then my perma EVER THOUGHT OF DOING IT! it is sad when a warrior can run in in HM and kill all the babies and the momma in under a min, when the sin takes for me atleast 3 min on a good run.

he told me he could do it in under a minute i laughed like yea a warrior doing this wtf ever. then he showed me and my jaw dropped LOL> so you can pick on assassins all you want but just know that the guildwars community will still farm whatever in the heck we want to farm and if you take sins away from us we will simply find another mass of builds to use for uwsc's and running dungeons.

best solution is for you to stop trying to ruin other peoples games, them farming thousands of ecto dont affect anyone in the slightest except making ecto a bit cheaper for the rest of us, long live the perma sin!

Look, sorry to burst your bubble, but there are ways to get around shadow form. True you can't target your assassin buddy with spells, but that doesn't mean that an ele loaded with spells like inferno won't hit him. And rangers? Traps. Seriously, trappers can easily handle a perma, and trappers are actually viable now since trappers focus came into play. I mean damn, if you really look into your skill bar you'll notice that there are still a ton of skills that can hurt the perma sin pretty badly.

The trick is to use spells that will target yourself or an area around you. Just because you can't target them with a spell doesn't mean you can't hurt them with a skill like reverse damage or holy wrath.

That being said, I believe the sin skills have gone in the right direction, with sins having a high output and a few skills that can save their bacon. On the flip side, I don't have much trouble killing one once I focus on a sin. It's all about the way you play.

Chain attacks skills will always be a joke. Deadly arts are potent. Shadow arts is damn effective. So I say sins are fine.

people i belive this is a PvP poll not pve. it has nothing really to do with farming with SF. he is talking about the escape assasins running around RA,HA,GvG,TA,HB and u cant do anything about it they kill so fast, and u cant hit them. i honestly dont think they people incharge of GW even considered this when they buffed the sin skills. i think this updated skills was BAD. end of story. no good can come from 1 R/A running into a GvG clearing an entire base and lording it with out getting hit. talk about over powered...

so true.
i think we just need to nerf escape and all problems will be solved. sure the chain recharges fast and hits quick but if you could actually hit them back it would help alot.

The nature of sins makes them either powerful or horribly underpowered.They either have to wait half a minute to pull off a chain or can keep on spamming a chain...

What I want to see is lower recharges in general (3-8 seconds) and the damage can then be changed accordingly. There's no reason to play a sin if they can't use their combos as stated...

And 'ecnhantment tanks' is just standard buffing for a frontliner,it's just sins need it more becuase they're squishy.

How many times do you see a permasin in PvP? How many times do you see a monster permasin in PvE, or a monster changing their build to counter a permasin in PvE?

Shadow Form in normal play is fing useless, both in pvp and pve, it's just another FARMING ONLY elite, which makes it pretty much useless.
Change its functionality to do something else than farming.

Since this is a "PvP-based" thread, let's keep in mind that while the sin buffs have utterly destroyed PvP, their primary purpose was enhancing PvE. Anet seem to have given up on the expansion classes in PvP.

I've always said the chain attack system is the fundamental flaw in an assassin's ability to apply DPS in PvP. A single block from guardian or a blind in the middle of an attack... oh well, you can't do anything now. A warrior and derv can at least still auto attack or quickly change targets. A sin is stuck waiting for his attack chain to restart and really can't do much of anything until it does.

PS, LOL at people not even reading this thread thinking it is about SF. Kinda sad that all people think sins are for is SF farming.

assassin skills should never be buffed. in case none of you have noticed, every time assassin skills get buffed in any way, it breaks the game.

i say we just leave them alone. they work well in arenas, and let them stay there.

people that argue that the chain skill system is flawed make me angry. its a good principle, it makes sins different than warriors. sins can carry skills like expose defenses to ensure your chain gets through. the entire point of having a chain of skills is to ramp up the potency with each successive attack. therefore, if you want to be useful, do everything in your power to get your chain through. sins have blocking skills(in useful attribute lines), they have anti block skills, and they have very potent attacks. therefore when skills are given attack speed timers, especially in the lead and offhand there become problems. dual attacks are very powerful, thats why they come so late in the chain! by giving skills leading up to them timers, its much harder to shut them down and problems arise.

as for the pairing of these powerful timered attacks with escape, perhaps escape should end on attack, but still, stupidly fast attacks that bypass the the fragility of a potent attack chain should not exist. anet should have realized this when they buffed palm strike because it allowed immediate access to very powerful dual attacks. i find jagged strike to be extremely problematic. yes bleeding is a pretty lame effect, but also, it puts that little slash in on your target, giving that slash with a 1 second recharge is very dangerous, especially when the skill has a attack speed timer. this skill allows for no thought needed on timing block skill durations, watching for clumsy/wandering eye, etc. its the definition of a 'spam me' skill. oh, you blocked me, *waits the second for the little metallic sound and the little yellow 'block' to float up the screen and use it again, and again, and again(this is assuming the standard intelligence of the usual assassin and lack of target swapping) until you get through, then unleash the unblockable offhand, fox with the timer, or wild with the stance ending, then the dual.

the pressure to buff these attacks though to 'make sins viable' has come from the problem that is shadow form. huge amounts of people play the 'perma' builds and when they want to venture into pvp, they find it too difficult and complain for buffs. too many people play sins and play them too much with farming (see any district of any town with all the sins in fancy armor with chaos gloves) and you immediately know they are farming characters. then turn around and see the same stereotype in RA and AB struggling without op skills, at least until recently where the simple button mash allows them to at least be 'semi' effective.

how to fix these op skills and prevent the same things happening in the future?? easy solution. destroy shadow form completely and the pressure on anet to make sins viable from the people that want to farm and be competitive in all formats of pvp on the same character will go away. clearly anet caves to peer pressure and once the people stop pushing for the changes, actually useful changes can be implemented.