Assassins beware the "love" is brewing!

Really old wise Chinese man say:

HEY! Lots of new players in Guild Wars now, with the introduction of Factions, a completely stand alone chapter and game. New Chapter, New Game = New Player base. We are just seeing a big influx of "noobs" that we havent seen in a while, so lets all take a big breath, wait for the "noobs" to learn more about the game, THEN it will all balance out again. It isnt just Assasins, its just that they are the most easily noticed "noobish" bunch...

(ok, it wasn't worded right to sound like an old Chinese man eh? Boohoo. lol)

i'm with you, i have to pump like 30 energy in keeping one assasin alive, it just keeps draining my energy away and then i just have to stop seeing that i've already wasted so much energy on them!

Yeah I see your point but you can complain all you want but the real and most effective way of making them realize they arent tanks is letting them die.

When they are dead on the ground they will have time to thinkn about how they just got owned like a mesmer with an axe. (which is what assassins are if you think about it)

Vana,
Same could be said about your post. At least I was giving some damn good advice. Don’t group with that guy he probably cant heal and he will just bitch, much like he was in his post. If you bothered to read my post you would know there was feedback and suggestions, you just wanted to flame someone. so here’s some advice for you.
Take your hard drive and A. Drop it in the garbage. or B. beat yourself in the head with it. Either way it would be serving a better purpose. You need to respect people’s opinions instead of judging them because it wasn’t "positive" enough for you. I’m sure more people would post and give feedback if there wasn’t a forum troll like you hanging off the balls of a whiny monk, sarcastically flaming others for their thoughts. Shut up or uninstall I say
Assassins, like many other classes, take damage, which requires healing. If you can’t understand that process, then why are you a monk? Give him a guardian before he goes in. or use aegis, life sheath, MoP, healing hands, etc. dude there are a million ways to heal a assassin even if they suck.

I kinda agree, most assasins play like tank. This takes up a lot of energy from the monk. Assasins are not tanks and will never be.

IMO assasins aren't that usefull (this doesn't mean i wont accept them in parties) at the time beeing. There aint any good builds yet. At first i thought they would be great in pvp as "monk-killers" but seeing how weak they are against counter attacks i'm having second thoughts about this. Monks are often very well protected in GVG and PVP, and an assasin is with the current builds always a gonner against good rangers or warriors. Now they are just like ele's doing massive damage but dying a lot faster than the average ele meaning more work for the monk.

I'm not gonna sign at the moment. I wanna see if anyone can come up with some more stabil assasin builds.

Big question, why is everyone referring to Assassins as having caster like armor? Their max armor is 70, which is the same as the Ranger. Caster armor is 60, so stop saying Assassins are as weak in melee as Casters, they're really as weak as a Ranger wanting to go melee Remember in Prophecies those rare Rangers that would be a R/W with Swords or Axes and rush into melee? Were they a pain to heal? It's pretty much the same deal.

I agree with most, people will either start learning how to use assassins, or they'll just stop playing them, but everyone yelling at them, calling them 'noobs' (I hate that term with a passion), or telling them what to do instead of making casual suggestions isn't helping. If you want to help assassins, just suggest other play styles.

Also, the whole thing between noob and newb...Noob I take it is an insult towards people that a bunch of young players use, though some older players use it too. Newb should be used for players who are indeed new to the game, but are eager to learn how to play a profession correctly, you know? Just don't start flinging the term noob around, it's getting a bit overused. Earlier today, had a w/mo trying to lead us around a mission (the long way), and then called the rest of us noobs when we didn't bother following him. He died, and said, "Hah, noobs, I'll laugh when you all die." ... but we didn't die, we completed the mission. ^_^

Anyway, that's my two cents...sorry it was a book.

lol well ima monk and all i did was grab a guildy and went through the whole game with hench i think we pugged 1 mission and that was it id rather heal hench then some nuggah that doesn t listen to critizism. i have seen some nice n/w and e/w b4 but it takes the right peep to play a tank as a non warrior first pro but ppl will never stop u will see them all over psssst they think there playin wow lol

What many don't understand is that an assassin is not a tank, it's an ASSASSIN! You know, those that attack/kill and flee..? Here's what all assassins should do.. Follow a warrior into the fight, pull off your combo, then get the hell out of there to regen health, energy. Rinse and repeat. Oh, and Viper's Defense is sooo much fun to use.. Way of Perfection is okay too.

I can understand your pain. But don't think the people playing the assassin don't feel bad.

Vipers defense is over-rated in PvE - if you warp to the wrong place you've just made a bad pull and people will hate you even more

If, as an assassin, I am draining the monk disproportionally more than others, I would actually appreciate if the monk would let me die, that I might learn and improve. As it is, I do pretty well. I've never seen a monk I was with get upset, so either I'm good at it, or they're just not saying anything. I wouldn't want to be a burden.

Vig Spirit, yes. What I've been using also.

Yes, assasins are just like R/W evasion tanks, only....minus the evasion.

I was wondering when a thread like this was going to popup. I feel there is so much hate and misunderstanding going on in this thread at the moment.

Really people should relax and try to remember how badly ALL classes used to be played in Chapter 1... yes Wammo are a given example.

But...

I've seen my fair share of rubbish monks who don't heal, ranger who can't trap, necros who don't bring the right skills... ect ect..

With my Assassin I've found it's too easy to get carried away during the hate of battle and end up getting killed!

I feel the assassin is a very diffcult class to get use to, there is really nothing else like it in the game. Which is why people keep using them in the wrong mindset.

Sins are all about, in fast, lots of damage dealing, out fast, heal and repeat. If done correctly they will cripple any other teams casters, monks or other softies and get out to heal themselves WITHOUT the need for a monk to cover them.

This is why I use a Assassin/Ranger, its all about Apply Posion, teleport in DURING battle (Not at the start of one), slash slash, add bleeding and deep wound, teleport out.

Ranger defensive stances do wonders for the Assassin.

Please stop this pointless hate, I'm not liking the fact people are unwilling to give assassins a chance, not all of them are bad, a lot of them are however.

One guy told me he was a "stance assassin".

...

Meaning what? I'm not sure why you even posted this. What is the point your trying to make.

I once meet someone who was a E/W... they still kicked a bit of ass.

I sense far to much flaming and blined hate in this tread.

I’ve played a monk more or less exclusively for the past 7 months. He’s having a rest at the moment as I bring through a new Ritulist and Ranger. As a result I have not had the pleasure to team up with an Assassin.

It’s far too early to be generalising about an entire profession. In the past I have had the misfortune to be teamed with some really awful monks.

Maybe us monks also need to look at our builds to complement the classes.

One of two things will occur.

First, and most likely, there is an as yet unknown exploit and the assassin will be be the most sought after class until the nerf. It will take a little time, maybe a few more weeks, but it will most likely be there. If we are unlucky it will take the time that it took for a 55 monk to surface (until that was well known what would anyone have thought of a monk trying to tank much of anything?). I would guess a shorter amount of time as the assassin needs to be in melee range and the monk didn't.

Second is that Anet went overboard with preventing an exploit and the assassin will get a boost and then be the new BoTM.

I would even say the same with a ritualist. It's new and has had none of the attacks and balances that the rest of the classes have had. Not to mention what others have said - give us time to learn the class.

I play almost entirely henchies. For the first few days I died *a lot*. And I mean 60% dp for a single quest, let alone finish any mission. By now, I don't die very often - not much more often than any other profession. A single henchie healer can keep me alive for most cases and I can complete most quests/mission with little trouble, though I still find an "Oh crap - I didn't think about that" moment. It's been, what, a week or so? I rather suspect that if the henchie can keep me and a team alive that you would like to think that you can - and if you can't then you have little business telling us that play assassins that we suck.

Of course, you can still go prima donna on us and refuse to heal any profession you don't like regardless. That's your choice. But I rather suspect that will be about as stereo-typical of monks as your complaints about assassins or wammos are. Your choice, your game, do what makes you have fun. At least some of us didn't demand Assassins be perfect out the door, given that you must have been any game must be *really* irritating.

You shouldnt be aggroing mobs that big that an assasin takes so much damage. If the mob is a decent size an assasin takes down stuff quick enough that its worth having them.

Lots of great skills that prevent most damage anyway though, you dont need to run in and out.

Im sorry, but by making this post you have proved that you really havent got a clue what the assasin is about


Think IW Mes, Touch Necro, and Standard warrior must all stay in Sustained Combat. they have to keep in the combat to keep doing damage

The assassins whole strength is to pop in, do a crap load of damage to one Squishy target and get out. ive faced them with my SS necro in the RA, they can take down a caster in no time at all. one theyve pulled off theyre combo and most likely finished the target monk/ele/necro/mesmer off? they pop back out again.

in short the assassin the the Ultimate anti caster class.

If the assassin is trying to tank and stay in sustained combat, the player is at fault, if anybody is comparing them to a tank, then they are at fault


oh, and 8 hours a day is *Not* Casual play hours

Funny seeing some people saying 'this' and 'that' skill are must for Assassin, if one really took those that are said, even a 12 slot skillbar isn't enough, let people make their own builds, isn't that the idea of GW anyways.

I haven't bumped up to painful assassins on my monk yet atleast, and don't think I've caused any pain to monks on my assassion, usually on full-team-wipeout (so what, I like PUGs :P) my 'sin is the last one standing.

Sorry, just a quick question, everyone is saying the assassin should be teleporting in and out but if he has aggro, what happens? Does he just lose the aggro and the monster switches to another target or does it follow him?

They seem to usually pick another target rather than pursue the pesky assassin long ways back. GW doesn't really have "aggro" or "taunt" system which would make the mobs "hate" targets with such passion to make them follow them around long ways.

Bit like kiting on a monk, the mob doesn't follow very long time until it picks a stationary target to gank.

Assassins like IW Mesmers, Touch Necros, even some Earth Elementalist builds, need to heavily supported before they move in to a staying engagement. Which means monk support and hopefully a bond or three. Anyways, I play a Boon/Prot or Healing Monk and I play Touch Necro and an Earth Ele. I understand the pains of both sides, but monks need to remember that Assassins are a quick fix, people wanted to play them and are just starting. Besides the "casual" 8 hour a day player , most people are still coming up with a style for them. Yes, a month from now you will still get some A/W who thinks he is Tank, but you still get Wa/Mo's who use Frenzy and than charge in to combat to use Healing Signet on themselves. The moment that a class, such as monk becomes unfun for you, STOP. This is a game, if you are stressing out because of blame for not healing enough, STOP. If you are getting angry about a game, STOP. Most Assassins will learn, some will fade off, some will get deleted, and there will be a few who try to be Stance Tanks.

Remember the Monk Strike in ThK. Started out as a funny idea, than snowballed, had a guildie who was trying to get ThK done, set aside the day for it and got screwed with no peep monk being available. He quit the game, because it became that unfun, enough people quit the game, there won't be any buyers for expansions... no buyers... no more income... than the GW server support will die off.

So before you start screaming, "if you invite a Assassin in the party I'll quit and tell every other monk here not to join," remember that Assassin might take his buck somewhere else and not comeback at all to the game. Enough people get annoyed because the L33T monks get pissed, the game will fade away.

Anyone want to borrow my soapbox?

technically he should never have gathered aggro in the first place


the warriors do the usual of going in and gathering the aggro, the assasin pops in, takes out a caster, then pops out. if he gathers aggro , he did it wrong

Probably been said already but it's just a matter of time before all the crap assasins give up and roll another toon and the assasins that understand what they're doing with their skills (I am getting there slowly as I understand how the combo attacks work) lead the way in hit and run tactics. As an assasin you MUST use some defensive skills and self heal, if you go in naked you will die rapidly. My skill bar atm is :-

Jagged Strike - Lead attack
Fox Fangs - Offhand attack
Repeating strikes - Offhand attack
Death Blossom - Dual Attack
Way of Empty Palm - elite (this with repeating attack is great)
Vipers Defence - teleport if in trouble
Shadow refuge - nice spamable health regen
Rez signet

Unless I get ganked by a hoard of monsters using this build I do good damage, can heal myself, regenerate a full bar of energy while spamming repeating strikes and teleport away if I get into trouble and hardly die unless the group is going down because of a bad pull or agro.

The main problem is, that if you have only Rts, As and maybe a Monk in your team, the teleporting back and forth isn't gonna do much, because everyone is a soft target. If you have a Warrior ot two tanking, then it works extremely well, because they won't just follow you to the backline, but stop and target Warriors again.
And please, take the +15 armor while attacking for PvE... I mean 85 armor is actually enough for tanking if you have Flashing Blades or something similar. It's nowhere near what Stance Tanks do, but it should be enough.

I see the Sin as a class that would be helpful backing up 2 warriors and NOT the other way around, i would not want more than 1 Sin in a team for most aspects of guild wars, they are cool, and look awesome but people have gone MAD with them :P lol

i mean i'm considering losing my Sin and having another Warrior just because its not cool in anyway to be one anymore.

people actively dont take them on missions now.

a few days ago i grouped with a fantastic Sin and i would happilly take him or her with me on every mission, but the fact is because in alot of places in factions the only melee fighters available are assassins which sucks chunks i am a proud W/mo for my primary class and am also growing tired of the weekness more than 1 Sin brings to a team of 8.

(maybe if im feeling crazy 2 would be acceptable.)

i was in a group of 4 or 5 assassins the other day and i was like...

*ahem*... *backs away*... *whistles*... *leaves the town*... *takes henchmen* lol

-Not a attack at all assassins-

Unfortunately Sins don't know thier support chars....Most run into battle with no reguard for life...It's gotten so bad that half the outpost I go to people scream "Mission group LF XXX NO More Assassins!" So us monks aren't alone in what we think. Most resources are used on these nimble little dagger wielders. Seems I have to carry 3 skills just for them since they never bring any dodgeing skills or stances...Healing Hands(cause they get beat on), Reversal (they get beat on soo much), Guardian spamming (oh yea can't dodge hits cause they don't know how to use what they can get for skills)

I have a ranger/Sin and never leave home without my Whirling defense/shadow refuge.

just my .02cents

p.s. please for the love of god learn to use your skills Sins.

Assassians only have 70 armor! that's a good 30 less than a warrior! And they do less damage? and they still think that they have godmode.

I've gotten pretty pissed also.

But, Now I can play prophicies in peace. the noobs all went to cantha.

Wow, so much hate for assassins
I've been playing an assassin since factions hit the market, mostly henching it up and have noticed several things.
1. the henchies rarely heal me.
2. assassin armor is definitley not adequate for sustained tanking.
3. if you are going with henchies you must tank at some point.

with these things in mind I have found a very successful build for tanking and damage dealing.
I'm an A/R 20 btw
dagger mastery 13 (+26% dual strike chance)
critical mastery 12 (+12% crit chance) (+2 energy/crit)
shadow arts 3

Bestial Fury - stance, all non-attack skills disabled for 5 seconds. you attack 33% faster for 5 seconds.
Leaping Mantis Strike - Lead attack. +x damage
Fox Fangs - off-hand attack. Must follow a lead attack. +x damage - cannot be blocked or evaded
Critical Strike - Must follow an off-hand attack. +x damage will always crit.
Critical Defense - enchantment. for 6 second you have 65% chance to block incoming attacks, everytime you crit, this enchantment resets. (6 second timer restarts basically)
Shadow's Refuge - enchantment. for 4 seconds you gain health regen of 6 and at the end of shadow's refuge you gain 38 health if you are attacking.
Critical Eye - for 30 seconds you have a 6% greater chance to crit. You gain 1 energy everytime you crit.
Rez Signet

I have found this to be very effective. when entering combat I typically charge ritualists or mesmers first then other casters then melee, rangers usually last as they often use defensive skills that cost me to take to much time killing them.

typical strategy is to use critical eye for the bonus to crit, and then bestial fury. then combo attacks leaping mantis, fox fangs, critical strike.
If I start taking damage I use shadow's refuge and keep pounding away.
after the casters are neutralized I go for the meleer's.
melee tactics are much the same except that I usually go critical eye, critical defense and then bestial fury.
my crit chance is high enough that I can typically keep the defense enchantment up for 30-45 seconds before I don't crit within 6 seconds. unless the melee's are far away from each other, then it is charge and hope, but by then they are too few to do enough damage to kill me off as the rest of the henchies are also attacking them by then.

Personally I hope that most assassins in the future will be able to find a happy medium of skills that allow them to do damage and stay in a fight long enough on their own power that the monks aren't going crazy.

I created a new monk char for Cantha (thankyou for those new slots!) and finally had some time this week to join a few PuGs on the island.

First thing I noticed was that almost every group contained multiple assassins. Second thing was that about three quarters of them were complete idiots. Third thing: the more I healed them, the dumber they got.

I've only done the first mission and a few quests afterwards so far, which to be honest were pretty darn easy. What worries me is that if the assassin horde are having so much trouble at this early stage, what the heck is gonna happen to them when they get to something actually difficult?

We don't hate the class, It's the players that think they are god we hate. (Well, My warrior IS god. In my guild anyway...)

The class is great! just when the players set their skills, they forget that they have this little red bar... And then when they get into the field with NO HEALS, they scream at us monks.

And I just let their damn corpse rot.

They die. and die again, then bitch about us monks not doing our job.

They also forget, I don't have 300 energy.

Hmmm... just started a monk today with a friend of mine playing an assassin... let me just say, good thing I bought Life Bond! Seriously tho, I can see this as being a problem as I was using about 75% of my energy keeping them alive just questing around. To be fair to assassins tho, the only real problem in this scenario is learning to play the class, perhaps as the game gets older, the 'sins will improve to a level where their effectiveness is good enough that they wont need monks to keep them alive.

For the time being tho
/signed

there was this match that i watched.

war machine vs the last pride.

Wm Test Char (Assassin/Warrior) versus The Last of the Master (Warrior/Elementalist) 1 vs 1-ing in the obelisk stand.

and The Last of the Master got owned.

and i thought at that moment: Assassin > Warrior

It's worse than that. They also don't have a shield, that's another 16 AL or so. They also don't have an absorption rune, or a pair of knight's boots, or an absorption modifier from a shiled. That's a base 46 AL difference and -6 (using the affordable Major rune of absorption) or more damage reduction; on a hit for (for example) 80 physical damage versus AL60, an assassin takes 67 damage, while a warrior using a 16AL shield with -2 damage while enchanted, knights boots and a major absorption rune takes 24 damage. That's 35%damage!

And if the hits are smaller it's even better - a 50 damage hit vs AL 60 results in 42 damage to the assassin, but only 13 to the warrior, or about 30% of the damage, and hits for under 16 damage or so are actually 0 damage to the warrior, while the assassin will still suffer 12 damage for a hit at this level, making him infinitely more vulnerable.

No, there is much more than a 30 AL difference. On a 50 damage or so attack, the difference is the equivalent of about 70 AL.

Seems to me that the problem is people trying to tank using an assassin in the same manner as tanking with a warrior. Lets say the damage to defense ratio for a warior is 2:2 (or 1:1). Which means the warrior can dish out as much damage as he/she can take. The assassin is at 3:1. This is caused by the increased odds of doing critical hits combined with the doing double hits and skills that deal more damage plus the less armor a warrior has. I think the mistake anet made was creating a magic user melee character where you have to rely on your skills and magic to tank. The only problem I see is that there is not enough energy available to constantly use the skills (keeping them up) to do this succesfully so the assassin can tank but only in bursts. The most energy you can get is 32 with the +4 energy regen (unless you go with weapons that give you energy which defeats the purpose of using dagger mastery) which I think isn't enough to handle the high energy costs of the assassin's skills that you constantly have to use to survive at the front line and not be a healers burden. Although the assassin can get up to 3 energy back per critical hit while increasing the odds of doing criticals but a better setup would be what the ranger has. Reduce the energy cost as points are put into the attribute.

As for monks. Stop being so god damn high and mighty about yourselves.

The amount of assasins in the Euro quarters is pretty scary at the mission outposts, purely for the fact that everyone wants to play them (including me).

I think it takes a while before people realise that Assasins are not tanks and once that clicks, you usually see the more cautious hit and run tactics employed (if the player has any sense that is).

I'm just taking my time around Cantha so hopefuly by the time I get to the tricky parts, the assasin population should have thinned out, and I might just get the chance to get into a group or two.

I too have noticed this activity....Playing my monk the other night, the only guy I had to revive twice was the Sin. I was not upset about it, but I never thought about how the character was designed to "hit and run".

I remeber my exact word to my friend when I use assassin during the test run. "So this is a melee ranger?"
70al is not much of defence for all those lv 20+ foes out there in pve, and dont forget, the highest block and evade rate in assassin skills are 55%.
Even a warrior with 90 def+75% block get own sometime...what do you expect. Of course, in pvp that is a different story.
I am using my assassin like a short range ranger in pve marksmanship+deadly, only time I go for dagger is for distrrupt, I only have savage shot in maksmanship for that. I am not saying this is the best or the only way, i dont know all the build that is out there, but this one work for me=P

Assassin is a good class, no question about it, but its just not tank material in starter, the best I can get out of it is using the dagger block elite(which I forget the name) and gaurdian, that give a good chance for block and evade, I cant even use warrior tactic, cause that elite is a stance, and same goes for mes stance...I also tried pushing the def higher, it just dont work well in pve.

Looking at all the concensus opinions on this thread (and in several other threads on this board) and the attitudes towards assassins in game, it looks like I should just delete my assassin because 1) other players just don't want to 'deal' with someone who is playing one and 2) I won't get to far in the missions without the help of people who have selective elitist attitudes.

I am a veteran of prophesies campaign since its inception and I have NEVER seen so many players out right reject someone because the all assume that a assassin is played by a n00b. That is why I have finished all the quests offered in the town and outpost and surrounding area but have yet to even progress in the missions. And since my char is a 20 A/Me (one elite and ALL the skills offered up to the point where I have access to V-Quarters), I get horrible replies like "WTF? A mesmer secondary, forget it, you're gonna die" and I get kicked. This didn't happen once, but several time at V-Quarters mission. And I have even YET step into the mission because of this.

There should be a new term in the gaming world, IGS - In Game Snob. This is a video game design to promote players to play with other players but instead you have people complain about how much other characters/professions suck or how one profession is better than another or how they will go on strike and refusing to play with certain professions. Thus ruining the whole experience for other like me because people make generalization all across the broad spectrum. So you get on person who plays an assassin who thinks he's a freaking tank and ruins your mission. Does that mean ALL people are like that? No. And I don't think its fair for such attitudes to subjected to others.

As for my A/Me build, I think its successful enough that it allows me to fight bosses to skill cap, get rune drops and completely finish all the quests that are available with less than 15 deaths (I kept track of the /deaths before I started my A/Me and to where I am now.

So all I can say is, please people, be considerate of others who are playing assassins. Yes, this is a new profession and nearly everyone and their mother is playing this profession. It is a new game and people will want to try something new but that doesn't mean everyone playing an assassin is n00b.