The Assassin. Dear oh dear.

If people make false assumptions, like for instance "fire storm is leet", then the game wont get balanced into the right direction.

If you are looking to the assasin as a raw damage dealing class, you will be very upset with results. If you use the assasin to disrupt, then you will have more favorable returns. Now, thats not to say it has to be an assasin primary doing it, but using the skill sets from the assasin.

Xia in TGH was saying his A build does 28-118 dmg every hit... And yes, I mean normal hits.
He was using Strenght of Honor and Judge's Insight atleast.

And even if it didn't do that kind of dmg I can safely say I've never done as much dps as I did with my A during the week-end.

Your friend would have had to have +13 damage from strength of honor and double strike to go that high. You do the same thing to a warrior and the warrior is doing far more damage.

Spirt Walker LFG will kill all of IWAY's, Ranger spike's, etc spirts with my uber Assassin skills "

IWAY's days are limited MUHAHAHAHA.

Return is an spell but not a enchantment you must be thinking of recall.

Umm... If you're going to say something like that, at least back it up with some theories, please. If you have some good reasons why this wouldn't happen, then I might consider believing it. But until then, the common-sense idea seems to be that assassins could make life difficult for warriors without a specific anti-warrior build.

Exactly how are Assassins going to trouble Warriors at all? They'll have exactly the same problems getting through the armor as everybody else does. Worse, probably, since one of the features of the class is double strike, which to balance means lower damage per hit, which just makes Warrior damage reduction better.

And as for replacing them... no. Assassin's aren't damage, they're Elementalists in melee form with faster cycles. Get in, spike, run/teleport away, recharge, repeat. Even if you tried to make a damage build their lower armor would make it dangerous at best.

read 4 of the 6 pages but has anyone thought of a blackout-like effect that triggers when you teleport?

for example..you cast recall on your monk, charge into battle then port back when you start getting low on health. once you port, however, all of your skills are disabled for..say..7 seconds.

this could be a side effect of all the teleport skills, the duration of the disabled skills could be dependent upon your rank of attribute and the power of the teleport (i.e. shadowstep would have very little to no skill disable time)

and maybe even for recall...since it has a huge potential...when the enchantment is removed (i.e. you port back) the allied target (the monk you cast it on) has its skills disabled for a few seconds as well...not nearly as long as the assassin but still

do that and keep the rest of recall the same. you can still have the potential for a very powerful positioning skill...but by using it you are also putting your targetted ally at risk

Leave everything as is for now. We don't know all the new skills for core classes yet. Right now we can only see half the picture and are yelling nerf or buff. Some things do need a slight buff but lets not get carried away just yet. They can make changes at any time. Let use try everything in its purest form then mold it from there.

My common sense tells me that if my Warriors are beating up your squishes, and your Assassins are attacking my Warriors, then I'm going to win. I don't think that I need to explain that theory in depth.

I think that the general reaction of this thread has been an unmitigated 'OMG TELEPORT OMG OMG OMG' without any sort of conception of how the various shadow step skills work mechanically, let alone tactically. This exuberance has replaced common sense, leading to conclusions like 'an Assassin that teleports all over the place would give a Warrior fits!' when no one, apparently, has stopped to ask why a Warrior would give half a shit about an Assassin teleporting all over the place when there are perfectly good casters to beat the energy out of.

I can see reasons for Warriors and Assassins to interact outside of garbage time, but they have less to do with OMG TELEPORT and more to do with Frenzy.

Peace,
-CxE

Well said.

/own

nuff said ^^

---Edit---
my guildies tell me its not enough said so here i go:

We were running a kind of recall split build using an order spammer as our anchor for recalls. What we did was play a pretty standard split build using Ranger/Assasins. One Team went straigt for the flag the other one straigt into their base to gank the bodyguards. The bodyguard gank teams Order necro had his teams recalls on him he stayed as far away as possible (radar range) and once we had started dropping enemy npcs in their base he started moving to the flagstand. The other guild usually now did a split themselves and half of their team went back to their base to save their npcs... when they reached their base our */assasins recalled to the flagstand so we could team up on their remaining 4 people there. Another thing recall is great for is over extending of offensive characters. Once they notice they are starting to take lots of damage they just recall back to the monks so they can be healed (great for killing overextended enemy attackers going for your monks too). Im sure you guys can think of many more tactical options recall gives you, so i wont have to talk about all of them.

This might sound like all is fine and dandy, but we had our problems using recall never the less: it still was really buggy, youd often get stuck on closed doors, small walls, mountains and every other obstacle imaginable while trying to recall back to your anchor, leaving you half way between your team and the enemy team with some kind of "road block" preventing your escape which almost always resulted in certain death for you ^^. Another problem was that if there wasnt enough free space next to your anchor (he standing close to a wall or something) youd not recall there as intended too.

We had lots of fun playing around with recall during that "beta weekend" but as far as we could tell its about as overpowered as normal split builds were when they first became a part of the metagame: As long as its new you have an advantage because you can surprise your enemy, once they adapt its just another kind of split.

And if im not mistaken, our game against roks looked like this: During the first 2 or 3 minutes we killed their bodyguards and a couple of archers, they retreated back to their base and camped there for 27 minutes until VoD, when VoD came we had the advantage, half their npcs being dead already and we won. *gg* If your standing around for 27 minutes you have no reason to start complaining, you might want to consider taking matters into your own hands, or like a german proverb says: "Jeder ist seines eigenen glückes schmied"

like Daimon said, there where some serious problems with recall.
if you tried to do it over long distances certain things blocked your path.
iirc the gank on your bodyguads was the only one that weekend that worked perfectly.
quite a few times one or more people only teleported a few steps and got killed.
(on friday using recall even crashed the game giving all 16 players an err7)

like others posted before me caster spikes still hit their target after the shadowstep,
against you i died twice after porting back
and as any holy veil user can tell you sometimes entchantments arnt removed after a doubleclick
(not to mention the tiny image).

but the real problem was that on sunday evening a lot of guilds were already prepared for the temple strike combo
either with mass conditon removal on non primeary monks (draw, restore) or with energy denial
so we had a hard time killing anything against top 50 guilds.

Ok, but still a 70+ dps combo that does over 500 dmg every 12 seconds is alot more than warriors will ever do. Add orders/strenght of honor and the double-striking+faster attack speed will do its work.

Or you could just use a ranger and spike for 200-250 every 5s.
You are still limited to combos and the only time you begin to compare to warrior damage is when you randomly crit and double strike. The key word here is randomly. The 12s combo is limited by hitting and energy. The warrior adrenalin spikes can occur much faster and be repeated more quickly and reliably without needing the "best attack" to occur last and require at least 2 hits before it.

The assasin is more like a melee mesmer than a damage dealer like a warrior or a ranger.

I think anyone going into Factions expecting Assassins that do uber damage (much less damage better than a Warrior) or a WoW style rogue that can solo characters will be severely disappointed.

Chain dependency will kill them facing any organized group worth their salt (aegis, martyr, restore condition, guardian, etc. are facts of life).

Low damage per hit will kill them (esp. versus bonded, damage per hit reduced foes..you can forget about going up against warrior armor in gvg).

For straight damage, the only way you're going to squeeze anything out of them is utilizing dual strike, a speed buff and plenty of damage buffs.. it'll be another fun build to look out for in Tombs, much like IWAY.

Critical strikes... meh. Most people going in will be blinded by those words alone, expecting something straight out of a typical rpg game doing double damage or something stupid. In truth, even with maxed out CS it won't be doing the damage you think it should be doing. The +2 energy is tied to that attribute alone and doesn't trigger on skills like Wild Blow or the Critical Eye skill which is rather lame.

Just looking over the skills list, Assassins have mostly gimmick skills. Teleporting MAY be useful in future pvp. The rest have too many conditional requirements, and are gimmicky. There are a few decent ones for the arenas.. Temple strike and twisting fangs come time mind.

Being a melee character, the long cast times for Shadow/Deadly arts skills and enchantment based buff skills seem like a poorly thought out design decision as well. 1 sec cast on Way of The Fox? Good luck getting that off in a combo.. ignoring the fact that the soft target you're trying to kill is kiting you at the same time.


Now if we're going to talk about being overpowered, someone should take a look at the Ritualist. A single Ritualistist can take over the job of two monks, do damage at the same time, and has weapon enchants that can't be removed through normal means. Weapon of Warding=gg. I can now see games being won by boring the other team to death.

Been working with a Guildmate on the two-Assassin strike element idea, and found more than one strategy which deals enough damage to easily match a triple-Warr beatdown. And even if you don't figure Assassin primaries or Dagger Mastery are worth the scratches on a disc they take up, anyone with half a brain can see that Deadly and Shadow Arts both contain fantastic supporting options. Expunge Enchantments is hands down the best known enchantment stripper around. Shroud of Silence is already recognized as a Serious PitA. Not gonna bother with the incredible utility of many of the teleporting skills as people are basically permanently split between teleporting = broken or teleporting = more useless than Otyugh's Cry.

Seriously. Whether it's primary or not, I don't know of a way to better screw with casters, and prevent self-saves, than to warp in with Dark Prison, hit Shroud, then Expunge. Suddenly the foe is essentially Crippled, unable to cast their spells, and has no protective Enchantments. Hell, if you're dead-set on Warriors, you could use the Assassins for little more than their Deadly and Shadow Arts and be well rewarded. And just like Necromancers, it may end up that Assassin runes alone are worth the primary profession slot.

Nobody is saying that Warriors have to hunt down Assassins or that Assassins have to hunt down Warriors. But there are gonna be changes in this game when Factions hits, and they're not just gonna be in locale and Ritualists. For instance, an N/A focusing on the typical Necromancer tricks such as Spiteful Spirit or Orders, while also utilizing the Assassin's defensive/disruptive skills, would be nearly proof against Warriors. Because Warriors can't catch teleports. Oh, I'm certain a well-played Warrior against a poorly-played teleporter would end up with the teleporter smeared on the ground, but me, I figure that it's gonna be awful hard to catch a competent defensive teleporter. Because it was awful hard to catch miserable teleporters in the preview weekend.

Again, though, why would a Warrior be concerned about taking out a flitting Assassin when a Monk is a higher priority target?

Point being that if it works for an N/A, why wouldn't it work for an Mo/A? A Monk using the defensive Assassin skills would be, if not able to keep its entire team afloat on its own, at least able to keep a few fighers, or perhaps the other Monks, going, while being virtually proof against Warrior ganks while retaining healing capabilities.

In this way the Assassin will indeed make a Warrior's life miserable. As I said above, an entire team of /A could render an enemy's Warriors virtually useless. And since nobody bothers running Elementalists or damaging Necromancers/Mesmers or, in fact, much of any damage dealer except Warriors anymore...

*Shrugs* Up to you guys, but I'm planning on making sure my El is up to spec, regardless of how useless she is for anything but PvE.

The problem with a Mo/A, is the near complete lack of energy management over time. You would be completely dependant on things out of divine favor for efficiency. Sure return is real hate for chasing melee characters, but it is not something that can be reused quickly outside of some kind of trick ele build renewing it with glyph or renewal.

Not just Return. Though I doubt very much that it'll be taken as a serious skill, and it may very well not be entirely top-tier, the stance Viper's Defense is an excellent and efficient way of avoiding melee combat and the inevitable smearing squishies suffer there. Not only does it get you out of Dodge after only a single (admittedly probably un-fun) hit, but it allows the escapee to retaliate with Poison. Lousy eight HP a second and an easily removable Condition, but it's still something the Warr/Ranger/wander has to deal with. And if spell damage is heavy in the metagame, Heart of Shadows provides a similar, if less user-friendly, alternative. Yeah, random teleports can land a guy in narsty goo, but truthfully, the odds of being in an arena possessing narsty goo, and then randomly teleporting into that goo, are low enough that I intend on at least seeing if it's worth the skill slot.

Environment effects is not the only issue. If it lands you further away from where you plan to retreat to or seperates you from the rest of the group, then you are screwed.

Please enter the Isle of the Nameless, check the AoE of "nearby", and report back.

Not that I trust skill descriptions in this game, but if that's what you have to go on you should at least undestand what they purport to do before getting overly excited.

Peace,
-CxE

I didnt use the skill, but i was assuming it lasted for more than 1 hit. In which case the chain of possible teleports would be unpredictable where the character would end up leaving many possibilities.

Did anyone use Shadow Form?

(Elite Enchant) For 5-17 sec, all hostile spells that target you fail, and all attacks against you miss. When Shadow Form ends, lose all but 5-41 Health.

A/Me with Illusion of Weakness FTW.

I encountered one person who used this skill durring the beta weekend. Bascially he did alot of running away. He tried to use this, shadow refuge and death's charge to recover health afterwards. It was not very effective, since it didnt help his team at all, while he spent most of his time merely avoiding the targets he should have been hurting.

I do not think it is worth an eliete slot even if you do use it with illusion of weakness. There are far too many other elietes to disable, recover, or damage that would far outweigh this skill's use.

This is actually incorrect - both Viper's Defense and Heart of shadows, while they last for a set duration, will trigger (and thus deactivate), after only a single hit. Ye only get one use per casting.

I havent looked much into the new factions stuff but, coudlnt a ritualist just put up its spirits or whatever by the gaurds and when the assasins show up, blow em all up?

I was thinking of Me/As or Me/R and going after the monks who are out of reach. If the assassins break off to go deal with the mesmer, the whole fight moves back towards the monks anyway and your group gains ground.

Bleh, alot to read through. Replying mostly to the first post.

Of course Recall is overpowered right now. Its a new weapon thats been introduced into a fairly static system. The Assassins and Ritualists are game changers; if they didn't have the ability to effect old tactics in the way discribed by the OP then there'd be no point to making new proffessions.

We got what we wanted in the Assassin: a proffession capable of making old strategies old. Its the law of Guild Wars:

Adapt or die.

Hmmm, let's see, you want them to have low armor, and then take away their best escape skills....ok yeah that sounds sooo balenced

there alot of pvp players who don't want change but it has to happen. For every new game there has to be somthing new.

man, everyone just go and critize the assassin and their skills from the fpe a month ago, come on ppl, that was anets way of checking on skills to see if they're overpowered, in one way or another. sure some skills might stay the same, some may change a little, funny how alot of you are judgeing this from just a weekend event, and not waiting until the real deal (factions) comes to us on the 28th of april, to make your final judgements.

I personally can't wait for assassin more because I like the play style of one alot from other RPG's I have played. Couple an assassin with a warrior and I would have to think that he would be a huge damage dealer.

I dont see what the problem is...

if your opponent, an assasin, teleports away because you have nearly killed him.. then you have beaten him...

you just got to take territorial advantage of them teleporting away...there is only so far then can go.. and like with ANY strategy, you must deal with the monk first anyway.

To build your entire team to 'run away very fast' basically means your preparing to lose, as opposed to preparing to win!

Just because they dont actually die doesnt mean they have gained any kind of tactical advantage over you.

As far as I know, ritualists can only blow up one spirit every 20 seconds (with rupture soul) please correct me if I'm wrong.

Completely agree with you, couldn't have said it better. The only place recall would cause a problem is in the arenas where you have to get more kills than your opponents team (can't remember what it's called...)

Actually, retreating and healing instead of dying and ressing means you're up 15% DP. Yes, I know, people hate Assassins, and in the intervening time between when this thread started and when it (unfortunately) came back, even I've realized some of the problems inherent in the things.

Doesn't mean I'm willing to give up on them altogether. Because, frankly, I prefer being able to escape and evade and maintain a mobility advantage over my opponents even if typical knowledge says Stay There And Take it For The Team and that running off to regroup is the worst thing to do when being beaten upon by an axe. Especially given the cross-class potential teleportation has. As I'd stated in another thread, an Aura of Displacement/Blackout Mesmer can poof in, unload the Blackout, and poof out just by dismissing the enchant, being done with the thing in maybe a second and giving an enemy no real time to respond. And who says you wait until you've got thirty Health left to retreat? Minute that axe starts coming down, hit the escape and find a more viable target or method of attack.

I'm aware of the tactical flaws in the Assassin. I know people see the Dagger Mastery combos and shudder in horror - even I'm some annoyed at how hard it is to guarantee the thing lands. I know that giving ground is usually not as advantageous as taking ground. I know that New and Different is tantamount to Sin Most Foul, but honestly people, is it that easy to just throw out an entire profession because it's not as good as a Warrior?

my first post , good a time as any.

recall should definetely be left in the game, bcuz wat else do assasins have?
they are weak, low armored characters who actually need to be able to run away.

how to beat them: anyone ever tried attacking one of those 100 armor wooden things? takes them quite the time to be able to take them down.
warriors now will have armors with 100 al, and even a 110 vs physical i think i read, which would absolutely own Asses

plus when they tele back, u can always just move closer to their monks. eventually u will be fighting them in a small area, and a 6 ass, 2 monk team will get owned

if anything i think ppl should be happy they got the tele power, and not something else to make them even close to other classes

I'm looking forward to seeing a relic map won in 20 secs.

Not really sure how to reply, but I felt liked I needed to cuz your icon startled me for a sec I agree relic maps are gonna get a little screwy, which is why hopefully there will be some counters to the assassin teleportation.