Dissatisfied with Assassin Armor?

So because that's how D2 did their assassin, that's how ANET should do theirs... Sounds like sound logic to me.

These assassins aren't portrayed as (nor meant to be, imo) Ninjas. They may be VERY similar in behavior (stealthy and the such), but I believe they are trying to equate them more as "snipers" in this instance.

Here's my logic. An assassin is (dictionary.com): "One who murders by surprise attack, especially one who carries out a plot to kill a prominent person."

The Assassin here is going to research his "prominent" target, study and plot a plan to take out said target. They are going to bring along the proper clothing, weapons, and items to accomplish this. When they're done, they're going to return and find a new "prominent" target.

This is similar to what a sniper does (when not used to gather intel.) They are tasked a target, or "type" of target. They plan out their mission, gather their gear and step off. When they're done (unless re-tasked) they return and begin again.

Now a Ninja (at least in Hollywood...) may be tasked against a specific target, but if the shit hits the fan, they're still able to take on all comers. A compromised sniper team is going to call for help and then escape and evade, not turn into Rambo. This is similar to what I believe the Assassin is portrayed here.

Now as far as clothing and that, well, think about it. Ultimately someone who is going to try and slip in unnoticed should be wearing simple or less-noticable clothing. You want to blend in, be no more recognizable than any other person. You DEFINATELY want to avoid the "That scantly chick with the huge rack and a bunch of weapons" as you would be recognized and tracked rather easily.

Now of course, in a fantasy game, 'no one' "wants" to play the "average" character ("but I'm playing this game to be someone DIFFERENT than who I am. If I wanted to be an average person, I'd go outside...") I've had to deal with this an ungodly amount of times in RPGs, but that's besides the point. You don't WANT to be the "bad ass looking SUPER COOL cyber-ninja assassin cyborg" or whatever, because then everyone would say "Hey look, there's the bad ass looking..." But this is a fantasy game, and I think ANET is doing a good job at trying to compromise some shread of realism with Fantasy RPers desire to play the "cool" person.

So in conclusion (and I know I tend to be long winded) they're not (imo) Ninjas, nor should they be dressed as ninjas. Nor should ANET have to live up to some other game/style's depiction of a Ninja or Assassin. Going by your logic that Assassins should not have the option of a ninja theme, Warriors on the other hand should never have Gladiator, Knight, Barbarian, etc themes as well...

Dictionary.com defines "Warrior" as broadly as they do an "assassin" : someone engaged in or experienced in warfare... No mention of it specifically being a certain theme, but what does one think about when one hears the word "Warrior"?

Dictionary.com also defines "ninja" as the following: A member of a class of 14th-century Japanese mercenary agents who were trained in the martial arts and hired for covert operations such as assassination and sabotage. Doesn't this sound more like the Assassin that Anet is portraying? After all, they're trying to have an ASIAN theme for the Continent of Cantha aren't they?


I'm not saying that Assassins should SOLEY be ninjas... I'm simply requesting that ANet cater to different themes that "Assassins" can have... sorta like how they did with the Warrior Profession... I mean, a "Warrior" can be anything from a Barbarian, Gladiator, or even a Samurai... not just the standard Knight correct? No restriction...


Using this perspective, I believe it's viable to request for Assassins to have different themes as well... Ninjas possibly being one of them, along with the current "Dominatrix" theme Anet proudly sports. Looking at the "Tenderfoot" starter armor set that they have, ANet seems to be aware of the class being portrayed as a "ninja".

Now I'm sure not everyone that chooses an Assassin will want to look like a ninja (despite the thousands of Assassins I see that sport names connecting themselves even somewhat remotely to "ninja" - n00b or otherwise), then again I'm sure there's an equal amount of people who do not want to look like that biker dood from the Village People.

I think the ONLY RPG that I've seen contain "Ninjas" is Final Fantasy XI... I don't know any other RPG that has it, though I can name various ones that have professions similar to it, in which most commonly refer to them as the Rogue/thief class...