Shadow Refuge O_o

First Stage was 50% evade I think. It totally sucks now, taking half-damage made it a very useful skill. I dont know what ANet was thinking when they made changes to the Assassin. People were complaining about them being weak and they get nerfed ?

Me = angry, i loved it in the second stage...

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That makes 2 of us unholy guardian!

Shadow's Refuge 's mechanic just don't sound like SHADOW anymore

The first form of SR protected against a limited form of damage (incomming attacks only) and healed. The second protected against a much larger range (Only degen ignored it). The current form helps reguardless of the situation, and I rather like that--altough, I'm not a huge fan of the attacking requirement.

I haven't gotten very farm with my sin yet, and I'm really not sure how they'll hold up in PvE. Their armor just seems rather fragile for what they are, and they lack the sort of defensive skills that rangers and warriors have.

I've gotten to level 13 today on my sin, and although Shadow Refuge is my main healing skill for the moment, I fully agree. I'm not a fan of the third form at all, I find the first 2 to be far more desirable. The only use I really see for this is if you have to do an all-out tank for a few seconds for a friend to run by (yes, this happened) and thus you use it and run in attacking.

The only other use for it is, as another post mentioned, Troll.

the third form doesnt seem very...assassin like...

whatever, the third stage has made the difference between life and death for me quite a few times. 'Sins don't have enough self-heals.

I hate to admit it but after looking at assassin 'role', playing my newly born lvl 1 sin [he's da man...]

I find this form of Shadow Refuge to r0x0rs the house...

Why?

Well, first off, it's like Blood Renewal now. You use it either at the start, or past the beginning of the battle... 2nd, yes, you get a LOT of healing out of it since it'd suck otherwise...

and lastly

You're an assassin, wtf are you complaining about? You're NOT SUPPOSED TO stand next to a foe for 20s. swinging like some pansy warrior wannabe... You use Shadow Refuge to buy yourself perhaps 3 precious seconds to finish off a foe desperately trying to cling to life... If you can't kill someone in half the time it takes a warrior to kill someone, you're obviously swinging at the wrong target...

They don't have enough? How many do Rangers and Warriors have exactly?

Ungent works against degen and nothing much else and takes ages to even cast, Siggy works against degen and damage to an extent. 2nd version of Refuge was good, too damn good.

I agree with Yukito. My build utilizes 2 sets of 2 hit combos that add poison and 2 knockdowns in a row. Normally my target gets defeated quickly or at least stays on the ground and cannot hit me. Assassin is not meant to stand in the foreground. Ive been using this tactic to take one out, run away till im recharged then run back in and take out another.

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A 60 AL character in melee range is one limitation. Giving him a pitiful heal every 8s is just a slap in the face. So when a KD Warrior turns towards you because you are all up in his domain, you have to take 1s to cast (getting pounded), then start running, only to STOP AND ATTACK (getting pounded) just to get the benefit of the health bonus?

That's just pitiful no matter how you slice it up. You are now forced to rely on a second protect skill, your Monks/Rits, or your secondary for primary healing/protection. Like Distortion for Mesmers, SR used to be a solid all-purpose support skill to fit in many builds that was hardly overpowered.

It now gives you 20 health-per-second (between multiple casts) only IF you stop twice to use it (cast and attack)... and that's at L16 Shadow Arts! Whoever compared this to Blood Renewal needs to know it ain't even close. At L16 Blood, BR nets you 28 hps (factoring sacrifice), and you only have to stop to use it once. Since Necros aren't in melee range as often as Assassins (allowing them to kite earlier and safer) these stats skew even worse against typical SR use in-close. Plus Blood Renewal, like Troll, will work even if you are 500 feet from the nearest enemy... not with SR since they trashed it because it then becomes 10 hps to use.

I was going to make a PvE Assassin, and even though it may be fine for mindless AI drones, I lost all desire to build one up for later PvP use since that skill was in all my early theory builds (not much else to choose from). An awful nerf.

I think this is alot more benificial if your getting hit with heavy degen or by spells, in which case no amount of evasion is helping you, in actuallity it is a more universal healing opportunity. The other significant reason would probably be shadow of distress, which raises evasion over a long period of time whenever your health is low, together 2 evasion skills arn't doing much, wile shadow of distress may only work after your half dead, it wouldn't provide alot of defense to use shadow refuge if it just added evasion and then some health. I think my biggest problem with this skill is that it regens so briefly, and you have to be attacking to get the small kick of health, but most of all the recharge time means the other 4 seconds wile it is recharging leaves you with next to no healing options in the assassin line.

I think it is better then the original from an overall combine skill use standpoint, but I think the recast time should be 4 seconds, your spending 5 energy for 4 seconds of regen and a possible kick of health if your still offensive, compared to troll urgent which cost the same but last 10 seconds and can be cast back to back, you get more health overall, and can be cast back to back, without an offensive ploy.

If an Assassin spends one second and 5 energy casting a regen skill every 4 seconds, then he is going to be pausing alot and using energy quicker then he is gaining it, giving him a survival heal just like Warrior, which is good, but a prime target for shutdown, and Assassins drop alot faster then warriors.

Ye don't actually need the attack healing bonus, but even ten regen, at four seconds, isn't a game-breaking heal. Useful as hell, yes, game-breaking, no. I miss second stage...regen healing does not outweight even a small window of half damage. Now Dark Escape is all that cuts the damage, and that falls the instant you land a hit.

Bad Anet, bad! No more cookies for you!

Though I do miss the 2nd iteration, I found using the current Shadow Refuge in conjunction with Critical Eye and Way of Perfection so far quite useful for survivability... Anyone try this combo yet?

i think shadow refuge should drop to 6sec recharge aside from that i think its fine.. the assassin does lack in the way of direct heals. refuge is basically it.

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Play the game a wee bit lads... then maybe ya can complain.

I have played the game plenty. IDK what monsters you people who say "your geh noob if u have to attack for more than 4 seconds to kill shit u wannabe warrior noob go cry noob" but they must be waaaaay back from where i am.

My AL is 70... not 60... with my armor but i still get raped by the lvl 20 mobs outside. If your assassin can kill them in 4 seconds im impressed, moreso at how stupid you are and how gullible you think i am.

This skill IMO is useless... it was fun when i was fighting lvl 8 sickened guards but when im taking 50+ dmg a hit the 16 hp per second for the amazingly long length of 4 seconds just doesnt blow my mind. There are better ways to heal... the assassin really lacks heals but i still say there are better heals even if u are an assassin... this skill is a pos junk skill imo

critical defense + SR if your set right its a decent combo to carry you.

I'm torn between 2 classes though:
A/W heal sig,bonetti,watchyourself
A/N plague touch,critical defense,SR

dunno without some kinda evade or block the word refuge is misleading.
25% evade would be a fair add on or 6 sec recharge. either change would be a good balance.

This move is garbage. Period.

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Block and evade skills are better to go with than healing spells. You can prevent more dmg than you could possibly ever hope to heal.

This skill is junk imo. At max it gives +9 regen and 58 health if you are attacking. The most life you can gain from this is 130. 3 blocks of 50+ dmg would have prevented more dmg than that and I don't have to be attacking.

I see your point. I still say rename it and reduce to 6 sec recharge. or add 25% maybe even fifty to evade to satisfy the people then turn it back. but for what effect it has atm it does need renamed and recharge chopped to 6 sec.
Reason: its a approx. 130hp heal over 4 seconds castable every 8 ( +1 sec including casting time ). Gee lets go A/w and triple our heal.
Does this surprise me? no. Not coming from the people who actually create a repeat skill of symbol of wrath ( Kirin's Wrath ), totally useless after the AOE anti 55 nerf.
Gee 2 skills to make them run now.
pure genius.

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I dont expect the skills stats to change.
But i do find it fun tuning characters around the idotic idea behind some skills the designer came up with.
this skill does need work. it does not terribly hurt the sin but it does make it where you need a secondary class that has some kinda healing skill.

whoever relies strictly on a monk to heal is plan dumb. the assassin has not one decent basic heal that does not require some kinda action or effect.

I still say add evade and leave at 8sec recharge or reduce recharge time t 6 sec.
Evade skills also lack as a sin. At least til you get to 50%
Last time i check a martial artist was as good a defense as he is an offense.

Shadow Refuge is apparently being treated by some of you as a MAJOR heal...

lol

The only REAL major healers in this game are monks...

If the assassin has a better heal than Shadow refuge at 0 stats. please tell me...

Also, Blood Renewal at 0 blood magic is blah. Easily worse than Shadow Refuge at low stat levels...

And end game, wtf are you doing attacking alone with no monk backup? Some of you need to get your context straight. You're not supposed to get hit but it combats degen quite well I'm afraid...

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