The Assassin. Dear oh dear.

At the risk of stating (or restating) the obvious, I submit the following. Some people seem to need it said.

1. Run out of radar range, and the enchantment ends. The assassin goes to the ally.
2. If you Rend the Enchantment, sure the assasin Recalls, but he also just wasted a skill (no strategic use in Recalling when the enemy decides).
3. If either the assassin or the ally dies, this enchantment has no effect (I.E. doesn't work on corpses).
4. Assassins, as with Warriors, probably shouldn't be your first target. And I expect in most cases a */A would be a waste of a secondary profession. Who cares if a Ranger suddenly appears next to the Monk you are targetting?

Don't nerf it. I like enchantment removal. And no, I don't care if they re-cast it. Besides, I might have an Assassin on my team too.

Those that cry nerf (not just to this) seem to really be saying, "I'm comfortable in my ways, and I don't want to have to change my tactics no matter what."

It is more along the lines of a worry that is becomes the meta-game, opposed to just a flavor within it. In some instances, its not about if X profession teleports back to the monk you are targeting, its if the monk you are targeting teleports away from your ablilty to harm them. This could cause a chain reaction of teleports in kind ending whatever pressure you had on their team. It is the kind of manuver to avoid the accrual of death penalty, while striking unexpectedly with melee inflicting death penalty and playing a war of attrition. Given the nature of static and drawn out confrontations that ritualists represent, it is the obvious counter manuver.

OK... so if you remove enchantments from a few assassins, you've suddenly reduced the force your directly fighting in half.

Does anyone see the good in this?

Dang my post was Echoed.

To the OP:

Fear is the Mind Killer.





I love it. I love the possibilities....I love the counters.....I Love capping the flag stand and teleporting halfway back to pick up another.......

This can only invigorate the game......I see Bases/Halls being able to be set up a little more fortress like....with Assasin Spike teams hopping the walls to spike and retreat.

I see Flag capping with a an Assassin Runner Aura of Displacement, being handed a flag from two other Assassins who have shadow stepped and "Pony Expressed" the flag back from its spawn...re capping the flag in 5-8 seconds......

I see assassin TPs to the catapault when least expected.

I see Assassin Trap teams that tp out behind the approaching split team to lay traps boxing them in......or Assassin Monks tp in back to protect those archers from them......

I see Nature's Renewal being more useful again.

I see teams of Spirit walkers heading accross the map in seconds after carefully making a path.....screaming right past the oppossing team and back into the flag stand area,.....or back inside the base.

I see a Spirit Walking Dedicated Spirit Killer build who systematically despatches them as quick as possible.

I see teams of Dazed Elementalists wondering what just happened before their second spike...

I see........Counters/Tactics to mitigate all of the above......


The Game is Afoot in the months ahead.......

Why in the nine hells would you ever do that?

Ok, here's a better question - why is the Warrior almost always the last one killed on a team? Answer: because most of the time you don't have a choice. Warriors have so much armor and damage reduction that trying to beat him down when he has Monk support is a waste of your time, and even if you catch him out of Monk range he'll just flash Endure Pain in your face. You don't go after your opponent's Warriors because *you can't kill them* until the other team is breaking most of the time.

If you do have an opportunity to kill a Warrior, due to lots of armor ignoring damage, or he's grossly overextended, or you catch him Frenzying without support or a cancel, *you take it*. Warriors are right next to Mesmers as the most dangerous characters on a team, and if you don't put a bit of fear in a Warrior and let him Frenzy to his heart's content he *is* the most dangerous character on a team, bar none. You can't kill him, so you have to settle for shutting him down to the best of your ability while you focus on breaking his team.

Which brings us to Assassins.

Assassins, as melee characters, have to be compared to Warriors in whatever job they're going to do. Being a melee character is a drawback, especially in GvG-type situation where the key targets you really want to get to stay far enough back that you'll have to extend outside of Monk support to do your job. Let's not tapdance around the problem this poses - unlike Warriors, Assassins are *soft*. If an Assassin trys to play like a Warrior and tries to sit on a target in the enemy back lines, he is going to turn into Assassin-paste, very quickly. Because of this, in my estimation, an Assassin in your backlines needs to be *significantly* more dangerous than a Warrior in the same situation. If that is true, that makes an Assassin in your backlines, without Monk support *the highest priority target in the entire game*.

There's no heavy armor to punish you for beating on him. He shouldn't have instantaneous Monk support. If you do not punish assassins in your backlines you deserve to lose.

The lowest priority targets are usually Elementalists and Necromancers, because, bluntly, they kinda suck and just sit there filling in holes while the Warriors and Mesmers do the real work. "Random utility guy" usually isn't the key to an opponent's build. Of course they're soft so sometimes you'll drop one just because you can, but hitting targets of opportunity is just good tactics. They might not be a key part of a build, but they eat up ressigs just the same.

Peace,
-CxE

First of all, i know the game isn't out yet, and we havn't seen all the skills, but if the game was shiped today, recall would be the most needed skill. stfu about radar range or whatever, it is virtualy unlimited mobility. So, on the off chance that ANet doesn't already have a good counter planned, here is an idea: Shorten the maintianable range of that encahntment, that way, it would be more for jumping back to monks if you start getting spiked.

I didn't see some of these replies earlier because the search was broken, so I'm two days out of the argument. Anyway...

Overall, a good post Ensign, here's where I would add to it, or disagree.

Here are two more reasons why I go for Warriors last: Because they can be countered without wasting attacks on them. A blind warrior is a useless warrior. I can keep blind on all but a W/N constantly. Same goes for weakness.

Secondly because of battlefield placement. Few warriors hang out in the backfield and wait for you to come to them. They would be useless if they did. But since I just killed your Monk, I'm heading over to the Mesmer or Necro standing next to him. Only last do I mop up the guy swinging in frustration in my own backfield.

I will essentially aggree with your reasons why Assassins should be dealt with quicker than that, but I have yet to decide how much quicker. They are soft and deal a lot of damage quickly. In that respect they are more like Elementalists; but didn't you just say they pretty much suck(not that I agree)?

Sure, I like targets of opportunity as much as the next man, but there are practical reasons to ignore melee attackers aside from tankability.

And I won't even TOUCH your statement about Necromancers...

This is true of most characters, with the right design you can pick a target and sit on his face. Nothing special there. It is simply common practice to shut down a warrior instead of trying to kill him because it is so much more efficient to attack the softies. Trying to shut down their casters to mitigate damage while you beat on their warrior just doesn't make any sense.


That's true of warriors attacking warriors - obviously once they're both in the other team's midlines it's bloody inconvenient for them to attack each other. Of course having your warriors attack their warriors at the beginning of a fight isn't terribly unusual, at least for Korean teams. I'm talking about your midline casters though - if they can get away with turning around and hitting a warrior that's overextended, they should.


I disagree with you here because I do not believe that an elementalist can deal a lot of damage quickly outside of textbook AoE situations. They can spike reasonably hard because of their large packet size, but over short, non-instantaneous timeframes they are too limited by casting times...over longer timeframes, by energy. They just don't represent nearly the threat that a warrior does.

Peace,
-CxE

As usual, I only have a couple things to say here.
1.) I agree with you completely Ensign. The only thing I'm not certain of is the lack of faith you put in Elementalists. While I do agree that they aren't quite as effective as some other players, a coordinated Elementalist can be quite useful in certain situations.
2.) In response to some earlier posts about nerfing the assassin, every time a cry for a nerf comes along it frustrates the hell outta me. Guys, for every strategy there is a counter-strategy. Find it, exploit it, and use it to your advantage. Here's a hint: an assassin that warps away is not dealing you any damage!!! Use the time that you aren't being pounded on to heal/rez/whatever needs to be done. Just don't chase after them. That would be stupid. Also, every time a nerf is called for, it baffles me as to why people just don't use the strategy they are complaining about. Now, I might be beating a dead horse here. I haven't read all of the posts in this thread, so please feel free to tell me to stfu if I'm out of line. But honestly, in most situations, I find nerfing to be one of the most ridiculus things ever.
*note* There are some exceptions to this. There were one or two nerfs in the past that I felt needed to be instituted.
3.) Finally, you can bet I'm making an A/Me as soon as the expansion comes out. I love the idea of having a stealth character. The possibilities are virtually endless. While I'm not a big fan of the Ritualist, the Assassin is going to be without a doubt my new fave class.

I made an a/me and what a blast it was during the pvp weekend, i came up with an incredible build that worked for a long time and i didn't even bother with any of the tp skills. I miss my sweet little assassin..she will be my first character in ch.2.

as far as all these skill go and, like some of you have already stated all the other class will be getting new skills, and although its great to agrue and speculate about what should and shouldn't be.. were just going to have to wait..and man altough is only months away, its months away..damn..

Ensign, I don't use Elementalists for damage, alrighty? :P

Assassins are going to be hard to kill. I like eating up the opponent's rez sigs first Disabling the Assassins are easier, IMHO.


They should be targeted first, but well, they teleport back pretty quickly

Unless you actually have an organized team (I live in an entirely different timezone so I have NOT encountered any of these yet, in Tombs - oops HA - yet.) Then they should be absolutely first target.

Wait a minute. You're from iQ. Organized play.

Nevermind, then.

I put little faith in them as damage dealers because, well, they kinda suck at dealing damage. I think you can make a pretty good utility character with an Elementalist, though, between Wards, Windborne Speed, Gale...they have the energy management to power a lot of that stuff out too. While Elementalists don't apply any sort of pressure (besides masterfully built and played fire guys, but even those are kinda sketch in PvP) they can spike. They aren't unplayable, but they are most certainly role-fillers.


Oh don't get ahead of yourself. I don't think anyone really understands how to play an Assassin right now, nor do I think that anyone has any idea what makes them good (or fail to be good) and why. People asking for a certain skill to be nerfed very likely *do not even know if it's any good*. The whole discussion is incredibly amusing.

Peace,
-CxE

My original comment was geared more toward the OP, but ok.

And as for the Elementalists, I have played a little more with them in PvP. I was gone for about 5 monts starting in August, so a lot of strategies changed while I was away. Man, with all the modern strategies Elementalists really aren't all that great for PvP anymore...
I think they are now officially my ex-favorite class. Stupid nerfs and new fangled strategies.

Yes, I know, but I was inspired by what you said hence the quote. You can quote someone and agree with them you know. =)


Elementalists haven't been nerfed significantly - hell, for the most part they've been getting buff after buff in the updates. What has changed is that people have gotten better at the game in general, and they're discovering that the other classes just have so much more to offer than an Elementalist. Sure they have a place, like as an Obsidian Flame spiker with lots of utility or an Ether Prodigy / Heal Party guy with lots of utility. But the one thing that an Elementalist is not, is a nuker. Once you get past trying to nuke you can find some nice uses for an Elementalist...it's just that he was sold as a nuking class to a lot of people, who are justifiably disappointed to find out that what they ended up with was a 'ward bitch'.

Peace,
-CxE

Assassins were my first target, they were like rangers with out the elemental bonus. Easy kills.

Mmm, I'm not sure about this. There are a few elementalist builds that can "nuke" effectively (aka deliver high sustained dps), but the problems are four fold.

1) The best energy management for elementalists are enchantments
2) The best dps builds require high energy expenditure
3) Most elementalist defense is based around enchantments
4) Elementalists don't have any easy way to bypass armor, meaning their damage output is heavily reduced on armored targets.

Warriors on the other hand can deliver very high sustained dps to soft targets and good dps to hard targets (because they have strength and armor ignoring + damage on skills) without any conditions. And they're sturdy.

Note that I'm not particularly happy about this state of affairs, but that's how it is.

Also note that necromancers have potentially big armor-ignoring damage output up close and at range. I don't think they're limited to "utility" roles out of necessity.

Moved my piece on the merits (or lack thereof) of elementalists HERE so that this thread can get back on track.

Peace,
-CxE

WOW...never thought the Assassin's teleport would be used THAT way in GvG...

Anyways, even if they do manage to get rid of the Teleport skills or something, do you guys till think the Assassin is still overpowered?

Sorry, but I did not get to play in the Factions demo weekend. So please tell me if you think this works for those who DID play.

I've been studying the Assasin build and how everyone said it's Overpowered and others say balanced?

Well, I've been studying the various builds ideas, taking in everyone's ideas as to how to get around the Assassin build. Some say it will replace the warrior, while others say the warrior will still own the Assassin.

However, has anyone very thought about making the assassin build like this?
-------------------------------------------
Jobs:
Assassin / Necromancer

Dagger Mastery 12 (10 + 2Helm/Rune)
Blood Magic 12
Rest...whatever you want

I was planning on killing Block/Evade Warriors and Rangers like this:
1) 10eng Lv1 CURSE (2sec cast) Rigor Mortis (8sec cannot block/evade)
2) 05eng DM LEAD Black Mantis Thrust (+17dmg & cripple 13sec if foe Hexed)
**) 05eng DM LEAD Desperate Strike (+41dmg if your HP below 61%)
3) 05eng DM OFFHAND Wild Strike (+17dmg & foe loes stance)
4) 05eng DM OFFHAND Repeating Strikes (+17dmg)
5) 05eng DM DUAL Death Blossom (+22dmg & adjacent foes)
6) 05eng DM DUAL Nine Tail Strike (+29dmg & all skill recharge if foe HP -50%)

...At this point, you have spent 35 Energy to deal +102 Damage over the period of 4-5 seconds.
...If your foe is still alive with some health and you have a larger mana pool, you may also use this skill:

1) 10eng ELITE Life Transfer (11sec, 7HP degen on foe & +7HP regen on you)

PROS:
1) Well...basically...you have shut down any Warrior, Ranger, or Caster who might use a stance or spell to block/evade your attacks.
2) Whatever stance they had, you already disabled.
3) You alraedy Crippled them, so running is not an option.
4) Because they cannot block/evade without removing the Hex you put on them, they cannot cast another block stance.
5) If your enemy does NOT have a block/evade stance/skill, you can save another 10 energy.
6) If option5 is used, you can squeese in Deperate Strike as your 2nd Lead Attack if your HP is below 61%.

CONS:
1) You're fighting a Mesmer who can use Energy Drain skills like DOM Energy Burn (lose 4-9eng & take 8dmg/pt lost) and ILL Sympathetic Visage (lose all adrenaline & 3eng per attack) so you cannot do your massive attack runs.
2) You are hit with Blind and you cannot continue with your attack run.

...If this happens, you may sacrifice your Extra Lead Attack skill for the Necromancer's Plague Touch (transfer negative condition to foe) costs 5 energy.

I say there is not much of a CON, because Mesmer's are not too strong, you should be able to pull off 2-4 of your attack blows, then smack your enemy with normal melee attacks while he cripples away.
If he takes off cripple, you always have the option to use Life Transfer, so keep at least 10 Energy available at all times when fighting Mesmer classes.

Just wondering how everyone thought this build would do...

Anyways, I know this would probably PAWN in PvP...but what do you think about GvG? You can easily shut down 1 warrior, or even the healer, but you'll have to wait some time before you get all your energy back to use your attack run again.

And still others say that each will have its place, independent of the other.

I'm not sure how accurate your damage calculations or energy expenditures are because you actually have 2 attack runs here. Offhand attacks (for the most part) must follow Leads, and Duals must follow Offhands (again, for the most part). You have one of the exceptions here though, and that's Repeating Strike. The beauty of it is that there is no recharge, and you can hit it multiple times for +17 damage at 5en. It has to follow an Offhand though, so your chains look something like this:

BMT - WS - RS - RS (etc.) - Death Blossom then
DS - Moebius Strike (Nine Tail Strike's description is wrong here...) - RS - RS (etc.) - Death Blossom (You need this refreshed by MS to use it again so soon)

Now Rigor Mortis will be great for 18 out of 30 seconds, but the first attack in a chain has to hit for any of the others to have an effect. In other words, for Wild Strike to remove their stance, you have to hit them with BMT or DS. Wards and Blind are also your enemy. I would say if you are going /N then you NEED Plague Touch (or one of it's cousins).

As to your list of cons, Mesmers can do far worse to you. I would put Clumsiness and Soul Shackles in that list. You won't have hex removal from either class, so you rely heavily on teammates that you may be too far from. And you will have no way to heal or escape the damage they will be doing to you. Um, and no Res Signet. You should have one.

Moebius Strike is an Elite as well, so you would have to pick between it and Life Transfer in your build, but as Energy will be a huge problem, Offering of Blood would be much better suited. I also recommend Zealous weapons.

I would have to say that in its current form, this build would be owned more than it would own.

Well, thanks for the input.

Again...I'll say that I never played during the Factions weekend trial.

Also, I haven't played GW too much since school started back up. I'd have to say I got a few months in, but I've so far got Ele in SShiverpeaks and War in Crystal D.

I guess I do need to look at this stuff better =/. but those stacking skills?

2) LEAD Black Mantis Thrust
**) LEAD Desperate Strike
3) OFFHAND Wild Strike (after a LEAD)
4) OFFHAND Repeating Strikes (after an OFFHAND) oh...X times
5) DUAL Death Blossom (after an OFFHAND)
6) DUAL Nine Tail Strike (after a DUAL) hmm...also X times here!

I don't see any problems with this combo...

...About my Rigor Mortis having problems and foes with Block/Evade stances and auras??? Err, RM makes it so foe cannot block/evade any of my attacks...it's a HEX.

...Now...I will agree that Mesmers can do more damage against me, but are you saying that the +102 Damage against my enemy after this combo is like nothing and I'll get Pawned???

If you have isues with it, tell that to the Webmasters, because I grabbed all the Info from the Skills List database on this website.

------------------------------

Just out of curiosity...since Expertise for the Ranger gives you -4% energy cost per point...would 12 Expertise for a 5 energy skill end up costing only 2.6 = 3 energy?

I guess that combo will work. I don't like the combos so much. I'm gonna use assassin as a secondsary for my ranger. I think Shadow Arts and Wlderness survival will make for a good trapper.

I don't really have a problem with the combo either, my comment was mostly about the order of skills, and the energy cost you posted. 35 in about 4 second with 102 extra damage. As I listed the combos, it is +90 for the first, and +126 for the second at 25 Energy apiece and optimally at least 10 seconds for both combos. Of course, Repeating strike would add 17 more damage and 5 Energy for each repitition. Nine Tail Strike is not X times, even by the description listed, a recharge of 12 seconds would prevent that.

Not what I meant. With a 18 second duration, a 2 second cast time and a 30 second duration, that means that it is off for 14 seconds. While it's on, you can only fear Blind, but while it's off you can fear all of the above. Nothing special there, it just sounded from your explanation that you thought it would always be on. And don't forget about hex removal. My Monk hits that every time it recharges.

If a Mesmer were to do it's worse, you wouln't be doing the +102 damage at all, but mainly what I meant is that you can expect people to be attacking you at the same time, and you have no self-heals or buffs, or escape skills, or blocks for that matter. You need to think about your survivability as well as your damage output (which is good, don't get me wrong). You may very well kill your first target before you die, but you will die, and they will likely get rezzed.

Right. When looking through the skills I noticed it as well, and only because I played with Mobius Strike did I know that Nine T(r)ails was listed incorrectly. I have faith in the people that run this site and I know they will fix it before long. Here is a link to the proper description.

Yes. At lvl 12 it would cost you 3 (same as at lvl 8) but at lvl 13 it only costs you 2. Expertise is great for the energy consumption of so many quick attacks! If you go primary Ranger though(for a 13 in Expertise), you lose a pip of energy, so that's a tough one. Better armor helps. You would have to go with Antidote Signet for Condition Removal. I bet with Zealous Weapons and 13 in Expertise, you would gain energy faster than you can use it.

Ye know, looking over the extremely bitter complaints people have leveled against the Assassin's teleportation skills, I really have just one thing to ask.

How many of you play Warrior primaries?

Seems to me that the real big complain in here is an almost purely Warrior complaint - that of having targets able to escape the Warrior before it can finish the target off. Yeah, there are plenty of other ways to abuse teleports, but having unlocked and tried out Death's Charge during the event, I can say that most of them would require a lot more forethought and work than I could give it for a weekend to end up any other way than you dead on the ground.

Warriors are the dominant class in Guild Wars. They may very well not be the best class, but they are the class which ninety-five percent of battles swing on. Guilds running three Warriors (Gale Jailors or otherwise), three Monks, an Order Necro and some form of Warr-supporting swing guy have shown up in more than one Guild battle I've seen. Think it was iQ that showed me that configuration the first time though. And despite having very little flexibility to it, that build shreds its opponents with depressing regularity for one reason and one reason only: people can't reliably escape from Warriors.

Now we have a class which, with a little bit of foresight and planning, laughs merrily at a Warrior's attempts to simply pound it down like a nail into a wall. Quite simply, you can't rely on Warriors to be the be-all and end-all of damage dealing anymore, because Assassins can play tag with them all day long and never lose. The teleporting defense stances and a single speed booster (NOT Shadow Step, the stance) are more than enough for the Assassin to evade any melee character for hours. Ignoring the Recall chain problem altogether for a moment, this permits the Assassin enough leeway to pick off targets of opportunity pretty much at will. Run in, savage the Mesmer or Monk (preferably with Shroud of Silence in place), and when a Warrior comes along to play knight in shining armor, just trip your escape skill and cackle.

People crying for nerfs to teleporting are the ones who can't stand the thought of having to work past more than brute healing for their kills. They don't realze that, at least in my non-8-man experience, Assassins typically work too far away from a Monk for convenient Monk-saves. They trade away reliable healing/protection support in order to gain their battlefield mobility. Assassins working in close alongside their other teammates, down in the trenches within easy reach of their team Monks, aren't taking advantage of being Assassins.

Factions has, in one sitting, given us both a near-perfect character for siege-style positional battles (Ritualist) and a superb character for high-speed moving battles (Assassin). In the first case, Warriors are all you need. That three-Warr, three-Monk team can run an Order battery and a defensive Spawner and be all but unassailable in the proper position. I'll bet you five bucks that this sort of team emerges within ten minutes of Factions releasing, and since it slots so nicely into already-popular tactics, we're seeing very little Ritualist complaining compared to the Assassin.

By the same token, we might see some players with superb coordination skills play the other end of the spectrum with completely new tactics. A high-mobility team whose Monks and associated supporting players are quick enough to keep up with its Assassins. This sort of team, if much harder to effectively pull off than the fort-up team, would be absolutely insane to fight, and almost Warrior-proof. That sort of team is what Recall is good for, and that's the sort of thing people are crying for nerfs for. They want the game to remain Warrior-centric. They like it when they can put on the plate mail and be the single deciding factor in a match.

Me, I can't wait to see what some of the high-speed, high mobility moving battles are gonna like like . A running two-way blitzkrieg in which the slow are left behind, impotent and crying. Good Lord, I'm shivering in delight just thinking about it.

Kanya Daggerstorm: "Take THAT, you armor-plated baboons! Your year of total dominance is OVER!"

Seriously, teleportation or even Recall "abuse" is such a non-issue. They're introducing a new gameplay mechanic in an expansion. The horrors.

It's going to change the way things are done, yes. People are going to have to adapt and change their strategies to include the new reality that, hey, people can warp around the map like crack-fueled monkies on rocket powered skates. There's going to be trials and errors and Recall might even *be* an essential skill for a team to have, especially for certain plans. This is good. The devs aren't standing pat and letting the metagame stagnate by repeating the same mechanics and gameplay over and over again. The picture once the expansion hits is going to be different from what it is today.

But that's the case whenever they introduce something now. I'm sure that if there were some testers around her they could tell us what it was like as the things we've come to know and love today were first implemented. How everyone went wild over minions or wards or adrenaline or primary attributes or even whole professions. If we could know what the top players were running with even just prior to release, we'd be amazed at what was considered important and what was trash. Or even what's still around that we're still using.

Remember, we're seeing a snapshot of where the sin is at right now. It's the brand new shiny toy and everyone is going to want to play with it. Plans are going to be built upon it and everyone's going to have to come up with dealing with the crazy stuff that's thrown against the wall. If it's shown to be out of whack it will be brought in line. But just because something works doesn't necessarily mean it's the end-all-be all or even a broken skill. It just means that there's something new out there and the rest of us need to get off our rear-ends and figure out how to beat it. Calling for balance changes at this point is beyond futile. And only the most self-deluded fools are going to try and predict what the professions are going to look like once the expansion comes out. Or a month after we've all had a chance to test them out.

No, there are some serious warning signs about the direction of the Assassin at this point. And a potentially broken skill isn't the tip of the ice berg. There's plenty of time to correct them, but there are more fundamental, conceptual issues that gives one pause.

First, the sin is a melee class. A class that deals out physical damage and does it up close and personal. That means it's going to be competing with the Warrior yet it has to be separate enough to have its own identity. Why play an Assassin when you could play a Warrior? The answer, beyond the neat-o uber dual wielding seems to be that a Sin will hit harder than a Warrior but be less durable. They're going to have a good damage output but poor armor, so that if they're left unchecked they can wreck havoc on the enemy but at the same time be a much more tempting target than those classes like the Ranger and Elementalist that can attack from a distance or the Warrior that's well-protected. High-risk, high-reward. To be a successful at this, the Sin is going to have to be capable of matching, even surpassing, the spike capability of a Warrior because there's no way that they'll be able to stand and slug things out the way a Warrior can. If they can't at least come close to out-damaging a Warrior then they're Elementalists, a nice class with some nice tricks that will be cool to play around with but a second option at best compared to a true damage dealer. But if they can keep up with a Warrior that means they're one of the most dangerous targets on the field yet one of the weakest in terms of defense - they'll have low armor, they're not going to be able to use a shield when dual-wielding and if you can't dual wield what's the point, and they're going to be in your teams front lines, trying to get at high value targets on the other side and therefore potentially out of range of the protection of their teammates, in short, they have all of the problems of a Warrior without the advantages. Sins are going to get mauled once teams clue into just how effective they can be, they'll either be hated out thanks to the plentiful and varried options available for anti-Warrior measures or they'll be targeted and out of the match quickly. To thrive the Assassin needs something to protect itself from instant death but superior defense is the Warrior's schtick. The solution seems to be that Sins are going to be far more mobile with teleportation and the rest which should nicely complement the spiking potential of a well-constructed build. But whether Sins will be able to stick and move well enough to be a credible threat but something more than a bloody stain on the battlefield remains to be seen. And I'm not convinced that they're completely there yet. Or, to get right down to it, that you can create a successful alternative to he Warrior archetype with enough difference to be worthwhile.

Second, and more pressing, is the entire mechanic of skill chaining with Opening, Off-hand, and Dual strikes. There's some of this to be found in the Warrior skills. The favorites of Sever and Gash, where one skill is dependant on another to be fully effective. They can be used in isolation but together the synergy makes each better. Which is all well and good, skill combinations are at the core of the strategic draw of this game. Mixing and matching and finding skills that work together is fundamental and such ready made skill chains are a good way of letting people discover it on their own. They're combos that are all but spelled out for you, you just have to slot them and you're good to go, newbs feast on such things but they'll quickly learn that there are better options. The problem is that skill slots are a limited resource. To use Sever+Gash you're devoting 2 of your 8 skills towards that strategy. That's 25% of your skill bar, for those who can't do simple arithmatic. If something screws up your skill chain, you've sunk a lot of your pre-game planning into dead slots on your skill bar, slots which could have been used on other skills that would be more flexible and effective. Assassins have it even worse because they'll need 3 slots for a chain or 37.5% of their available resources just to roll the die on their chain working. Worse, unlike Warriors that chain is not simply made up of skills that work better together it's made up of skills that *must* work together, an off-hand attack *must* follow an opening strike so if your first attack misses you're not just dealing with two skills that are weak on their own (because if they were as strong as normal skills when you put them together they'd be far too strong to be balance, skills that are designed for skill chains are generally a bit under par individually) you're dealing with a weak skill and a skill you cannot use at all. Mess up that chain and you've got two skills sitting there taking up space by design. And most worisome these skill chains are only usable by an individual Assassin. Those strike marks don't show up for anyone else. Two Warriors can use the Sever+Gash combo as well as just one, if they can coordinate which shouldn't be an issue in top-flight play, one leads off with Sever and the next hits them with Gash, the results are the same and each Warrior needs only a single slot instead of 2. Assassins won't be able to coordinate their attacks and increase their strategic flexability by spreading out their skill chains among multiple party members, each one will need to devote 3 slots for each part of the 1,2,3 punch. That it seems an entire profession is being built around such a begining level mechanic is troublesome but the fact that it's not going to do anything for strategic interdependance in a team setting is downright scary. At high level play, this is a team game but it seems like Assassins are being built for 1v1 fighting.

There's more, but that's enough for now. But those are tracks that are going to be more rewarding at this juncture. The point is that rather than crying nerf or buff for each and every skill that's not going to live for month yet the thing to do is focus on the conceptual, on the basic underpinings of the class. Are their skill lines looking robust, do their mechanics make sense, is the foundation solid? Those are the questions to ask. Skill balance doesn't mean jack squat if the class is fundamentally broken to begin with but once the base is solid the work of making sure nothing is too over or underpowered can proceed.

You people are playing a very different game than I am if you think that Assassins are going to have any effect upon Warriors whatsoever.

Peace,
-CxE

Populi makes a lot of good points. And Ensign is deluding himself if he figures a brand-new melee class with a mechanic built almost exclusively into it alone which has people worried about breaking the game isn’t going to affect Warriors in some way :-P

Anyways. I’ve been noticing a lot of things along the same lines as Populi’s observations. Assassins (or at least Dagger Mastery) don’t mesh very well with any secondary profession, and most of the hardest-hitting skill streams aren’t very stackable. It seems like the Assassins don’t really play well with others (would say duh, but this is GW. Logic doesn’t apply here XP). Or do they? Ignoring what the Assassin is or is not good at for now, let’s look at why people are saying they’re uselessly pale imitations of Warriors when chosen as a primary, and indirectly why people are still begging for Anet to nerf them.

Despite having really, really lousy options for increased movement speed stuff (Shadow Step is both annoying and dangerous to use, Dash lasts for a whopping three seconds, Siphon Speed is a Hex and thus takes time to use), Assassins are almost universally accepted as the new high-mobility class in Guild Wars. This is because Assassins are masters of teleportation, which was previously available in GW, if not previously yelled at. The Assassin can teleport to any target within its range (Death’s Charge {enemies}, Return {Allies, probably including pets}, Spirit Walk {Spirits}) and can also defend itself using random teleports (Viper’s Defense, Heart of Shadows). The Assassin can also set a delayed teleport which allows it to set up teleport nets which can move an entire 8-man team to a location in mere seconds (Recall). Assassins also have trick teleports (Shadow Step, Aura of Displacement) which permit it to fake out enemies before flickering away. And all of this is either in Shadow Arts or Assassin General, meaning that any primary can make full use of the Assassin’s mastery of teleportation.

The drawback to all this is really very simple. Since Assassins get around via teleportation for the most part, there isn’t another character type which can really keep up with them. Sprinting Warriors, Storm Chasing Rangers, Windborne Els, none of them can match a teleporting Assassin’s mobility. Thus, the Assassin is typically forced to operate virtually alone, poofing in to try and do its work before it’s forced to poof out again in order to save its own hide. The exception, of course, being Recall, the problem brought up in the original post. However, for the most part, Assassins poof too much to be really efficient team players. Given that an Assassin alone can’t kill very well, this is Bad. This is why Assassin primaries are generally considered underpowered whilst Assassin teleports are screeched at as broken.

The solution, of course, is multiple poofers. A pair of Assassins working as a detached element, calling poof-targets, could easily be absolutely devastating. What Populi failed to take into account with his criticism of Assassin skills being unable to stack, thus allowing multiple Assassins to carry a long skill stream between them, is that Assassins aren’t meant to stick in one place long enough to get off a long stream regardless of how many Assassins are carrying the stream. Instead, they’re meant to come in and smash a target as quickly as possible. And simply because two Assassins can’t carry a single skill stream does not mean that they can’t combine the effects of two different skill streams. For instance, an Assassin which begins its Unsuspecting Strike/Temple Strike/Death Blossom stream as its partner is Hexing the foe for its own BMT/Jungle Strike/Twisting Fangs stream is supporting its partner in the only way that really matters in the end – slicing off HP like a mad surgeon with a brand new liposuction kit. That sort of combined strike is almost guaranteed to fell its target. Just like a Cleave axeman naturally compliments an Eviscerate axeman, two Assassins using entirely different skill streams compliment each other by bringing useful effects that can’t be used together in a single character.

What’s more, this sort of thing, carried to extremes, could apply to an entire 8-man team, as I’ve stated before. Let’s say that your team consists of four Assassin primaries, three Mo/A, and, say, an Order-based N/A. The four primaries, which carry the biggest punch due to Rune-boosted Dagger Masteries and their Critical Hits attribute, split into two two-man elements for scything through squishies, while the Monks and Necromancer use their own teleports to keep up with the primary strikers. This is of course off the top of my head, but such a Guild, designed to stick and move in a single mass wave, would run rings around many of the more traditional types. IT would also allow the Guild superb defensive abilities, as pretty much every character would be able to scatter under pressure. Viper’s Defense > physical spikes of any type, and the odd holdout spell spiker can either he Heart of Shadows-ed while the attacking elements cut down the spikers or just suffered through during the above. The point is that this sort of ultramobile build would only work with Assassin primaries instead of Warriors, who need the slugfest in order to build up adrenaline.

As I stated in my above post, the Assassin is the current epitome of hit and run, striking and fading before any Warrior can catch up to them. This lack of offense thing people are talking about just needs a bit of creativity to fix, and as for builds like the above, which can just fade out from under attacks en masse, well…I can’t wait to fight one and find out how to take it down XP. I’ve already got plenty of ideas for it. Do you?

First off, I put one of the tele skills on the guildlord, so it did work on npc's, although I wouldn't be too surprised if it changed by release.

Secondly, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a new nature rit that killed tele.

Third, many of you don't seem to have any idea how the tele skills work, and some of you seem to think removing the chant solves the problem. It MIGHT stop the spike, depending on which tele was used, but you're making an enormous assumption that you can stop the spike in time. As long as they get a kill, they should be more than happy to go back and start all over.

Think of a ranger or air spike group with tele. Just how much time do you think they need? Add in a bonder, and they could not only maintain a higher percentage of fighting toons, but would need very little healing unless you could get to them and maintain constant pressure.

Finaly, it seems clear that the best way to counter tele, assuming there isn't a specific counter coming, is to do exactly that: maintain constant pressure.

Many of the skills are impractical and weak in hitting power by comparison to similar warrior skills. I would be more worried about an adrenalin charged warrior that teleports to a target than a assasin that must land a 3 hit combo to do any real damage. The other tricks the assasin posesses can be mimiced and argueably executed better by other profession combinations. Of course you can just ignore the whole teleport buisness and just fill people full of arrows as well though.

The first option is to apply a snare then teleport to the target. The second option is to teleport to the target then apply the snare. Otherwise, just use a run speed boost from a secondary profession. You do not need to use dash or shadow step in a assasin build. Shadow step is gimmicy at best in a kind of a lure/harassment tactic.

They must have a target to teleport to, unless its a passive option. In which case the user has no choice in destination and not all potential destinations are better.

A ranger spike or gale lock is so much easier to pull off on much sturdier characters.

Point being, Phades, that unlike Warriors, which typically need to sit around and smack something for twenty, thirty seconds to build up their killing attacks, a single pair of Assassins can pull off their killing strikes the instant they're in range of the target. Gale Warriors still need to charge their attacks, and with many counters in the game for both taking damage and adrenaline buildup, that's not always a reliable choice. Ranger Spike is closer, but the Ranger spike guilds I've seen tend to use a ludicrous number of Rangers to do what just two, or at the maximum end three, Assassins could do.

I can see what you guys are saying - a fully adrenalized Warrior can indeed match the amage output of an Assassin, but first off, that damage takes time to build while an Assassin's strike only needs the Energy to pull it off. Which, by the way, most W/A would be unable to use with their pithy energy pool, throwing out the forthcoming argument that W/A is more effective than Assassin primary could ever be.

On another note, all these damage calculations you're all throwing out are based on nothing but brute weapon/skill damage totals. This is ignoring altogether the fact that the average Assassin is going to have half again the default critical hit ratio of any other character class, not to mention a significant chance of a lovely Double Strike, further bolstering DPS. Double Strike is available to Warrior primaries, but Dagger Mastery isn't something a Warrior energy pool can really take advantage of. And with bolstering skills such as Critical Eye and Locust's Fury, these hidden percentages can be jacked up even more. And since both are Critical Hits skills, only Assassins can really abuse them. And these are just passive bonuses. Taking a look at what an Assassin can land with just the standard Hex/BMT/Jungle Strike/Twisting Fangs combo, I really don't see how any Warrior is going to be able to come close to matching an Assassin's burst damage. DPS, sure, the Warrior can win a drawn-out slugfest, but that's not what Assassins are built for.

Personally, I figure Anet's going to boost the power of most Assassin dagger attacks while, possibly, reducing teleportation's efficiency somehow, but both would be minor adjustments. I simply don't see any Assassin worth his daggers being such a detriment to his team that replacement with a Warrior is the only solution. And there's one piece of indisputable logic I can throw at you that would shut down this argument for good:

Anet would not introduce a class into the game in which use of said class as a primary attribute would gain a player no true benefits over another class. Given their own extensive playtesting I do believe that they would have caught it if, somehow, the Assassin were unusable next to the Warrior. And given the many, many...many...threads from all sorts of players stating that Assassins are just that, I really would expect damage buffs before the release of Factions. Possibly even improvements to the teleportation skills. After all, if Warriors are just so gee-golly darned dangerous that no Assassin, or two or three, could possibly stand against them, then something needs to be done, no?

Or seven. (about)

Yes, the assassin needs energy. Which means it does its big huge damage combo, probably misses with half of them because any team that's any good already cast blocking spells, then runs away to recharge for a while because if it stays on that side of the field it's going to get slaughtered due to the low armor.

Bingo, the assassins we saw in the preview weekend weren't damage, they were yet another spiking character.

well, the only thing i hate about assassin is ther damn silly run.....

'mam, are you running to me or trying to shoulder-ram me into the wall?'

i hope they fix that befor release, cause i cant watch her run outside of towns without getting cross-eyed wondering if shes listing to the left or going in a streight line....>.< *headaches after the weekend was over*

The elementist has a lot of firepower too (some combos can reach 150+ damage) and I don't see anyone complaining that THEIR overpowered.

Wait a minuite Assassins have the SAME AI lvl of elementists.

Could THIS have something to do with their high damage.

Orb+Mind Shock=~250 dmg IIRC. Eles have 60 armor. Assassins have 85 if they are attacking.
Show me an ele combo that kills someone in 8 seconds, prevents casting and can be repeated every 12 seconds with no energy problems. Because that's what As can do atm.

Actually it can be as low as 3s for the warrior, if you figure in things like dark fury and IAS skills. Also the warrior applies more pressure in addition to being a harder target to fell opposed to the assasin and does not have to give away the target of the spike by changing targets.

A single pair of assasins do less damage than a pair of warriors. They also have to hit every attack in the chain instead of waiting for the right moment to drop the adrenalin. This means there is time to react to the presence of the assasin teleporting forward since the most dangerous attack in their skil lists is not delivered on the first blow. This is the single and most important thing you are overlooking here. No one cares at the number of rangers if what they shot is already dead on the ground and they are already spiking the next target.

Warriors have more damage output than assasins. Their weapon damage base is higher and the bonus damage on every attack is higher. Warriors also get auto penetration on the damage dealing attack skills, while assasins randomly crit on any attack which warriors do as well.

Its not something the assassin energy pool can reliably take advantage of either. A ranger using assasin skills is another topic entirely though.

It would appear that these percents are treated independantly from using an assasin over the preveiw event, similar to stacking block/evade or miss chances. It is not as straight forward or as good as it seems.

Actually warriors do more if you actually look at the bonus damage from the skills and combine them with the higher base damage of the weapons and the innate penetration on every attack skill. Simply stated, a wand user beats a dagger user with no skills involved. The assasin must use skills in order to be effective at all, while warriors do fairly well just on auto attack. See here http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=113319

Play an elementalist lately using elementalist skills exclusivly?

no one threatens...
Spirit Walk
Spell. Shadow Step to target spirit.

I bet spell limits it to within your character radius... but still a spirit could be on the ground main floor and you might be on the 2nd set of stairs... a hoh map configuration... just an example... a total pain in the butt type of situation; well guess what? you can use your allies spirits or your foes spirits.. now that will threaten homeland security...

Oh man once I can use it again I wanna make some crazy videos WHY CANT Isle of the Namless be up to 8 party members!

assassins are gonna be close to as bad as elementalists. soon after people start to really use assassins, you will see less and less attack skill chains used, people will be having enough of only using 1 or 2 of them before they miss and the other 2-3 in the chain are made useless, not to mention the FotM SS/insidious/empathy necros/mesmers to shut them down harder then they would on warriors
the solution is seeing more assassin take advantage of their critical strike attribute using warrior or ranger weapons/skills, or their shadow arts using the massive condition heavy skills in CA/TA to really mess up people unprepared

Assassins will probably make great flag runners, also. But even that is counterable. Skills like Return and Aura of Displacement are enchantments, and so you can remove them with one of a billion skills and watch them teleport somewhere they would rather not have (perhaps doubling their travel time).

You people sound like you like the fact that nothing happens in this game withot a Warrior's involvement. Am I alone in loathing Warriors (and Monks to a lesser extent) with a passion for stealing this game from four - and soon to be six - other classes?

You all make such a huge deal abot game balancing. Well, how balanced is it when the only time a specific character type is useable is in either PvE or a very specialized team designed with the goal in mind of breaking the norms? People who want the most effective teams se Warrior-centric strategies, period. I don't know abot you dudes, but I am more than ready to see a change in that. As opposed to, say, just consigning Assassins to the realms of Unnatural Signet and continuing to play my Rangers and Elementalists and several others on the sufferance of the Warriors.

So how about we tell Anet just how to fix these things as opposed to somply telling everyone to never use them, so that Guilds can be more than just "who's bringing the axes and who's bringing the Prot staffs today?"

If I'm being snide, I'm very sorry, but I really can;t help myself when it comes to subjects like this. There is absolutely no reason for a game whose heart and soul is balanced, variable PvP to center, almost totally to the exclusion of all else, on the actions of Warriors and Monks. Soon we will have eight classes in the game, and right now each of them is udged mased on what it can do to support either Warriors or Monks. And that is just not right

And what do you expect us to do about it? We're just saying what is. It might be sad, but regardless, Arenanet's job with this expansion is to improve the balance and gameplay with new, interesting game mechanics and so far what they've shown is another spike class with a few potentially exploitable running/teleporting skills (Assassin) and a class that is based on possibly the worst episode in this game's post-release history, spirit spamming (Ritualist). Is it surprising that a lot of the hardcore players in this game are bashing on them? I don't like the reliance on Warriors or Monks either (I personally think Monks are worse), but that's the way the game is, design flaws and all, and you either get used to it or you stop playing. The best you can do is point out the flaws and pray Arenanet fixes them.