Assassin, nothing else but SF?

Hello,

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I want some advice/opinion on this.

After a while I want to roll back my sin. I did a few days ago with heroes (VQ) and i really enjoyed it!
Yesterday I wanted to do the ZB which was Fendi Nin (SoO) at the moment. A friend and I were making a party. I just wanted to run my dagger build.

As soon as we got a full party of real people we went outside. At the first mobs we were killing, Krait's: Some monk started to ping the skills I used. I was like ????. The first thing he raged at me was: "Your not SF and running us to dungeon?!?!?!?!". I was like: "OMG >_>". This happened a few times. As soon as I told them I wasn't a SF they just left.

Well the point im making is that I'm really sick of playing SF in that way. I just want to play a build with daggers, because I enjoy such a build. Is there anything wrong with that? What do you think about this? I just don't like being a tank... Oh btw, I don't want to SC it.

More short: I'm sick of people who think an assassin is nothing else but Shadow Form/perma.

Am I wrong with this? Are PUGs just awful today? Or am I supposed to run SF, SF, SF, SF and SF as a sin? I just don't know.

Thanks.

Offtopic: just a question of mine. Running WotA+Critical Agility is fine or take just one of them?

You obviously joined a SoOSC party, not SoO balanced party.
And yes, doing it the SC way with SF is the fastest way you will get with a sin, but that does not mean that SF sin is the only sin useable nowadays.

I run the good old WoTA "Imbasin", Assasins Promise caster sin, but normally you do such builds when you do non-SC stuff...

Death Blossom is the main build run by most Assassins. Shadow Form is retarded shit only used by farming idiots.

A monk, huh? Why doesn't that surprise me?

Anyway, no, there is nothing wrong with that, infact, as an Assassin, killing things with daggers is what you should be doing. That's what Assassins were designed for.
Shadow form is a tanking build, which Assassin's weren't designed to do. That was the role of Warriors and Dervishes. Yes, it works, but it's basically a gimmick, and gimmicks are fun, but bad for general use. As a result, if it stops being fun, there is no reason you should be forced to play it.

Shadowform basically = no damage, and as an Assassin you should be doing damage in any balanced team.

Chances are the Monk was just some typically bad player whose really no good at the game, doesn't truly understand the game mechanics, and is married to PvX. Without PvX he probably wouldn't have been able to get out of Old Ascalon. That's how bad these players, that aren't open to innovation or inventiveness (which is one of the things Guild Wars was always supposed to be about) are.

As for any points on Shadowform speed clears. If that's the case, fair enough, but if it was a speed clear group they should have stated as much beforehand. They can't blame you for that. Which leads onto the next point...

So yeah, basically, the PuGs are just awful today. That's why most of us play with either friends or guildies only, or just heroes and henchmen.

As for the offtopic point...I wouldn't run both together, as stacking IaS seems a little bit redundant when the cap is 33% IaS anyway, however there is some benefits to the improved critical hit rate of having the two, and the fact that even though it's IaS is inferior, WotA is unstrippable, so I'd say it's not completely pointless, and as a result if you want to bring them both, by all means do. So long as you are still doing damage, and having fun, not everything needs to be optimal.

PUGs will remain bad if they do not learn to listen to advise or join parties with experienced players. Struggle through it and keep pugging alive.

And this is the reason I don't play a sin.. I don't want to touch SF even with a long stick, and it would be worse if people expected or demanded me to run it.

Thanks for your comments.

Well the parties I joined weren't actually SoOSC ones. Those monks thought it would be required to have a tank. Well the first round I took their SF build and started tanking. It gave me everything but fun...

I mean I love playing an assassin as an assassin and not as some godmode guy. What's wrong with doing a dungeon with actual tactics and strategy instead of speed speed speed speed.

Atleast I'm glad my heroes don't care what I run. They love me as dagger sin.

There's nothing wrong with running melee in SoO, but it requires cleaning Blind from the backline(or AScan). They probably didn't want to do that, or they just wanted to do a SC. You also don't need a tank in there at all, so if they thought that tanking in SoO was needed, they're mistaken.

For melee soo you'll definately need 2 things. 1st a-scan there is lots of blind in soo...relying on being cleaned by another is unproductive. 2nd anti KD...IAU would be best option for that...That being said you as a dagger sin will definately have at least 3 dagger attacks....probably can assume jagged>fox>db...crit agility...elite of choice (tbh i luv daze for soo)...and that leaves you with 7/8 skills...last spot crit eye?

Anywho...you'll definately need ps or some other prot.....pugs for some ungodly reason don't like prots....and you'll need it being frontline sin. If you dont have some prot you'll require 70%(made up percentage) of the monks attention to stay alive =(

An easier way to pug with sin in areas that have lots of melee hate is just to run ap sin.

Quote: Originally Posted by Essence Snow

For melee soo you'll definately need 2 things. 1st a-scan there is lots of blind in soo...relying on being cleaned by another is unproductive. P/any or Any/P: Song of Purification, Purifying Finale, "IJAFW!"
Rt/any or Any/Rt: MBaS, Pure Was Li Ming
N/any: Foul Feast
Mo/any or Any/Mo: RC, Draw

?

AScan isn't needed, because Blind does not exist if you build for it. These counters are easy, but PuGs may not want the role of a cleaner.

Quote: Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Struggle through it and keep pugging alive. Why would you want to keep pugging alive when the majority of pug groups have at least one jerk or asshole in them? There is a reason I never pug anymore...

Quote: Originally Posted by MisterB

P/any or Any/P: Song of Purification, Purifying Finale, "IJAFW!"
Rt/any or Any/Rt: MBaS, Pure Was Li Ming
N/any: Foul Feast
Mo/any or Any/Mo: RC, Draw

?

AScan isn't needed, because Blind does not exist if you build for it. These counters are easy, but PuGs may not want the role of a cleaner. For a melee I would argue that it is. There is so much constant reappliying of blind in soo that melee will be gimping thier team b/c they will need cleaning so often. Not to mention mutiple other conditions + fragility triggers on removal.

Plz explain building for blind in SoO. There are 5 foes that apply the condition via mutiple skills and skill types.

Quote: Originally Posted by Essence Snow

For a melee I would argue that it is. There is so much constant reappliying of blind in soo that melee will be gimping thier team b/c they will need cleaning so often. Not to mention mutiple other conditions + fragility triggers on removal. Fragility is a non-issue, and blind gets ripped off by heroes before a second miss can happen. I've played melee in SoO on my warrior a fair bit. PuGs may be less effective than heroes as a cleaner. Condition removal also cleans off all the poison. As for gimping the team, melee blows stuff up very effectively(Change damage type to Holy for lulz.). See listed skills re: building for Blind.

Also see: Vow of Strength and Hundred Blades, but a 'sin would have to use a different weapon, so that's off-topic here.

Will have to agree to disagree on this one.....almost every group in soo has possible 6 conditions that are spammable...thus making fragility trigger up to 120 (6*20) on application then ofc triggering again on removal (all packet dmg as well)
While in a pug group chances are there will not be that many condition removal skills mainly b/c there will be 2 healers and no hybrids (hybrid heros supply majority of condition removal in hero set-ups) but ofc we agree on this part.
I will agree melee blows stuffs up nicely in soo when team is built around it....but lets be honest its not gonna happen in a pug. By simply running ascan a pug melee player can aleaviate so many issues in soo that it would almost be foolish not to run it.

Quote: Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Will have to agree to disagree on this one..... Fair enough. If it's not clear, I don't PuG, nor would I ever consider it for SoO, so team builds are a non-issue. I said Fragility was a non-issue because I also include hex removal.

PuGs are less likely to consider adapting builds, which is unfortunate.

Quote: Originally Posted by Essence Snow

Will have to agree to disagree on this one.....almost every group in soo has possible 6 conditions that are spammable...thus making fragility trigger up to 120 (6*20) on application then ofc triggering again on removal (all packet dmg as well)
While in a pug group chances are there will not be that many condition removal skills mainly b/c there will be 2 healers and no hybrids (hybrid heros supply majority of condition removal in hero set-ups) but ofc we agree on this part.
I will agree melee blows stuffs up nicely in soo when team is built around it....but lets be honest its not gonna happen in a pug. By simply running ascan a pug melee player can aleaviate so many issues in soo that it would almost be foolish not to run it. Cast SoA, take 0 damage from everything because they have no enchantment removal. Fragility should certainly be a non-issue

I do agree on Asuran Scan though. Even if you you have an RC on the team clearing things off you on recharge it still isn't as good as never missing in the first place. Missing even one attack is a ton of lost damage, even more so for an assassin where missing one attack means your chain of 3 has to be restarted.

I have formed a PUG physway team for SoO, just for fun; knowing it would be a bitch. Took some AoM dervs (pre-update), warrior with SBS, Orders nec with FF (which wasn't needed much) and it was fine. Think there was a sin with ascan too.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kunder

I wouldn't run a pug or want to if you want to play through SoO. You need an ST rit for it not to be a total pain in the ass and SoH/RoJ to roll through it like a hot knife. You will want Asuran Scan because of the bounty of blind spam, or bring Foul Feast on a N/Rt. WotA is fine on the Assassin, it's the popular elite to run; you have more useful elites than hitting criticals a little more often imo. Don't listen to minion, his opinion on pugs is based on using an emo to carry the entire group.

Quote: Originally Posted by Relyk

Don't listen to minion, his opinion on pugs is based on using an emo to carry the entire group. Not 100% true; I do also monk, provided I have an SY spammer in the team. WoH hybrid is pro.