Assasins, the good, the bad, & the ugly

ok, ive read alot about assasins and thier issues.. and #1 enough with the complaining, we get the point. #2 give people more than, oh... 10 minutes to learn to play the class ? not all of us had 24/7 after release to play the game.

the good.. high spike damage

the bad, low armor

the ugly, a large number s of leeroy jenkins closes running around thinking they are tanks

on that note i have a word of advise to my fellow ASS's (no that wasnt a typo) ... think about defending yourself as much as you do spiking. your a melee class with casters armor, act accordingly. hit and move. if your not carrying defensice stances or skills on your bar and are loading with attacks, your already screwing up

This type of post has not been covered on these forums yet.

/usethesearchfunction

To me the assassin profession is broken. High energy skills, low energy management, low armor and yet it requires you to be in close to do the spike damage. The only way an assassin is effective in my opinion is to take the Ranger primary and the assassin secondary. At least then you have expertise. I don't think it is so much the players as it is the profession itself. I really wanted to believe that it was just stupid people but now that I've examined the assassin profession I have come to the conclusion that it is a pointless waste of time. I know there will be a group of people that will always be die hard assassin players and mroe power to you but I don't see the utility of the profession. The only thing assassins are good for is unloading all the assassin crap I've found in the game and to unload black dye so you can all get your ninja look on.

ok so note to self, never post anything cause im sure its already been posted before, got it, thanks Kvan

as to the broken part .. not sure i agree, its just being played wrong by most that thinks they are warrior equals, when logic and understanding tell a different story

Well even aside from people playing them like tanks there are problems with them that go deeper than bad players. An assassin is more like a melee support character which in my eyes is just stupid. Even with the defensive and damage mitigating skills at their disposal, most are such short duration that you get no practical use out of them. Insanely long cooldown times on some of the attacks bug me too. An assassin would be more effective if they could throw their chains faster. To me the point of an assassin is to go in, target a specific character behind the aggro lines, hence the shadowstepping, and throw down their chain and either kill them outright or throw a group of conditions and severely hurt their life bar. As it stands now with the energy management problems and the cooldown times involved there is nothing than an assassin can do that another class can't do better. Their utility is limited. Conditions? Rangers and necros can do that better without putting themselves in harms way. Spike? Again rangers and necro's can do that better without the potential of getting themselves killed. It just seems thrown together to me, like they had to come up with another profession and couldn't really decide on anything good and so they made the assassin.

im going to have to agree with you Str0b0. Assassin's deffently seem to be a broken class NOT only because they have Low health and armor but because they cant cause undetected DPS. Im in a group for a mission tank starts to tank i come up behind and start throwing moderate amounts of Dps at the target, then i get aggro from not only the tanks target but 3 targets.

I dont like the way they set up this class, for Example the Rogues of World of warcraft have "stealth". The major part of that classes role is High Undetected, fast and vicious DPS But theres a catch most of the DPS can be done from the first attack of stealth. this class also works with "combo points" Repersenting 5 total points that do high damage or some other effect required by how many points you have. Another thing that bothered me was that assassins dual weild...so why cant We attack faster or twice!! Ive noticed that my assassin only attacks with ONE sai, i mean if you have two you should use both of them, right?

I do know that assassins are probly the best Anti-casters around, possibly as well as anti ranger class as well, who knows.

Although your all going to tell me "This isnt world of warcraft you stupid Noob, go back to playing that game if you dont like this game!" or something like that. I get that its just im disapointed, I expected more from the assassin class.

I DONT have a level 20 Asn (seeing that i dont want to waste my time), i have a level 12 one but i still think thats enough to tell that a class is going to be rough if u die on avarage about 7+ daily, this is just the PvE comparison.

Unless they fix something idk what im going to do.

I'd have to say the people who see the sin as broken must be kind of hypocritical...

The Ranger can do everyone's job, just not as good, I suppose that makes them 'broken' too eh? "jack of all trades" is what they're described as anyway...

I think a sin is like a warrior on steroids. Very powerful, but falls short in the end... after it the steroids wear off... wtf is this?

Well, a warrior can do tons of damage in both dps and spike, this is true, however to spike, a warrior needs to build adrenaline, this takes time, time in which a sin has already unloaded a full combo on your face and you've lost 60-70% of your hp bar... A warrior can do more but NOT in less time, time needed to build adrenaline.

Energy problems? Critical at 8 or 13 solves that problem easily. Run critical Eye if you're in need of energy and blam, no more critical issues. Critical strike counts as a double crit so... yeah...

Don't double strike? That's what you get for not packing 16 dagger mastery. I find myself dstriking a lot and Locust Fury only makes it a lot uglier. Heck, doing more dstriking can add up to more damage then high crits.

If you look at the mechanical aspect of an assassin, it meshes together damn well...

Your armor is low, but you can initiate a spike instantly. What's that mean? You get your ass out of there after doing your spike and you wait... Does your spike kill? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but that means you're fighting an off target. Logically speaking, assassins are better solo.

If you can spike 3+ different people using yourself and your teammates for 70+% dmg, then their monk is hurting, even if they're a heal party monk [how you make one that's effective is beyond me...]

I'm preferably the open-minded type who likes every class for what they do and if I don't know how to play a class, then I simply leave it... Not bash it...

Broken ? Not at all, they have some excellent skills.

I'm gonna have to disagree with Str0b0 on the "broken" issue. Their energy and skills are perfectly set up for what they are meant to do: Spike kill one target, then leave.

IMHO, the correct way to play an Assassin is to let a tougher character (like a Warrior) move in first, take aggro, then have the Assassin assess the situation and strike fast and hard on the biggest threat (like a healer). They move in, bring down a target, then shadowstep away to recharge and prepare for the next spike.

This is by no means a simple tactic. Completely new players may not figure this out for a long time, even with help. The Assassin is a scalple, and most players that I've seen seem to treat them like a broadsword. It just doesn't work that way.

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I see what your saying, Recall or shadowstep ...Combo (Targeting the opponets caster/monk or most important group member) then get the hell out. makes sence

I guess im kinda low to start pointing the bad assets of the assassin , thanks for the motiviation.
the only problem now is that there is SO many assassins

Well, part of the problem with this quick-kill/getaway mentality is that a lot of the shadowstep skills have long recharges (30-45sec). That's a long time to wait if you want the skill to be recharge for your next emergency evac before going in again. If they shortened the recharge on the shadowstep skills, that would help a lot imo.

Another problem is that if you just go in and spike for a few seconds before evaccing, then it means you're basically useless during the time that you're not in there attacking. A warrior can give out more or less constant dps by attacking targets since they have the armor to withstand a little punishment. Assassins can't do that so they waste a lot of time standing around waiting for an openning (assuming you play assassins in the manner many people are suggesting).

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Well, that may or may not happen. If the enemy monks are tossing out prot, it's likely that the assassin's chain would get disrupted by Aegis, Guardian, RoF, etc. before he can actually kill the monk. Even missing one attack can ruin his chain, forcing him to evac again (if it's recharged) and wait for attack skills to recharge, shadowstep skills to recharge, etc. before attacking again. That's a hell of a lot of waiting imo. I really think those shadowstep skills could stand to have their recharge times lowered.

Assassins are getting a bad rep right now due to the fact that they are the new class, so everyone is playing them. Now for the next fact, not everyone is good at playing every class. So what a while and those that just can't get the handle of playing them will leave them and the good Assassin's will be left.

They can be played different ways too. The get in quick, hit hard and fast, and get out. Or there are builds that can keep a steady (sometimes constant) chain of damage attacks going with little to no energy issues. Both of which must always keep good defensive and escape skills on the skill bar. And know how/when to use them.

I recently changed my secondary to Warrior on my Assassin. And I'd need help from those that do all the nice calculations on skills. But if the Warriors armor level is around 80-85 (not including Absorption runes and shields), wouldn't simple skills like "Watch Yourself" give you the +20 to the current 70 armor level of Assassins (90 total) make them pretty close to Warrior armor? We all know you can pretty much keep Watch Yourself up at nearly all times. I'm not saying this to encourage Assassins to take on the role of a Tank, but just to help you from being killed. Anyone have any experience in using that tactic?

Basically, give the Assassins of the world time to figure out the best way to play it or leave it. It's the new toy, everyone is playing with it. Just think, if we still played our <insert class> the same way when we started however long ago, we'd be horrible I'm sure. It took time to develop the skills/builds needed to be considered "good". I'm tired of the "I'll never group with Assassins again", "they suck", "broke class", etc, comments...It's been just over a week, give it time and development.

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I think it is just because the GW:F culture right now is retarded.

An A is targeted first when there is an IW mes next to him/her.
An A is targeted first when there is a lv 16 guy next to him/her.
An A is targeted first when there is a monk next to him/her.
An A is targeted first when there is an ele next to him/her.
An A is targeted first when there is a ritualist next to him/her
An A is targeted first when there is a .... next to him/her.

You get the picture. People target assassin not because they are deadly OR they are soft target, people target assassin because they are assassin, and a new class in faction.

The point is, there isn't really anything that wrong with assassin, but there are plenty within people's mind.

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My assassin rarely dies now because I figured out how to play her -- as an "assassin". I also sacrifice a little offense for defense.

First I choose my target: a caster at the back of the group that no one else can get to. Then I cast critical eye for energy, shadow step to my target, and unload my attack chain. If nothing comes to the caster's rescue I can usually kill my target fast. I rarely run out of energy.

Sometimes I bring an interrupting skill like distrupting stab. I can warp to a target and stop a casters big spell before anyone else gets close. Sure a ranger or mesmer can do that too, but a warrior can't. Plus I can stick around to finish the job, faster than a ranger or mez.

I changed to warrior secondary so I could spam "watch yourself" for the extra 20 armor. You get all that adrenaline and you don't use it for anything else. Even 1 pt in tactics is enough to keep +20 armor up most of the time. Plus I use +4 armor dagger handles. That gives me 94 armor which is within the range of a warrior. I can tank next to them most of the time, and they can enjoy the free +20 armor too.

Plus I always have some form of protection ready if things get heavy, like flashing blades or viper's defense. I like viper's because it works as offense too -- if the mob hits you it gets poisoned, then you run back and finish the job or run away to regen.

If I'm not sure about healing I'll bring the self healing skill (forget the name) which is excellent -- cheap, fast cast, and massive regen, albeit for a short time. Like troll unguent, only faster cast and shorter duration. It's still long enough to get out of there and save your monk's energy.

If you don't increase your armor and/or protect yourself, and if you warp into a pack of enemies like a fool, you are going to die a lot.

The other problem is when you get a group that's half assassins. A balanced group benefits greatly from an assassin or two. No more.

I think the Assassin is far from broken.
Its as strong as an enchanted melee warrior,is faster then most warriors DPS rate,Hase the armour of a ranger...eh,and lacks in heals and aside from an elite decent stances to evade or block.

I play A/N and switch between SS and Flashing blades but virulance and tainted flesh appeal to me as well.
I feel the assassin could use some work in the way of heals ( SR!!! ) and maybe a slight adjustment to stances.
All in all its a decent nearly balanced character. however for balance dmg and healing it leaves 2 choices warrior or monk for secondary.
So do ya want to be a tank or kill your victim then pray for forgivness.lol

Good class just needs a slight fix to be equil.

If anything, assassins are overpowered. If you don't believe me, you aren't playing right.

I NEVER have energy problems, you just have to learn how to control it.

I hardly ever die.

I have almost as much defence as a warrior, but people fail to realise that assassins arent really that fragile... they're just a primary target! Like monks, assassins get targetted more than usual in pve. Monsters AI have a high assassin-killin priority.

Say a warrior runs up and attacks, they won't care, they'll just run after your casters, hence why warriors are considered "tanks" they don't even take any damage, because they're low on the priority list.

What if a monk went and overextended? he'd be dead in 2 seconds, because he's high priority, so everything would dive for him. it's the same with an assassin, he's high on the AI priority list, so he gets nailed as though he were a monk. If you're using nightstalker armor, you have almost as much defence as a warrior.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about. My monk is rarely targeted unless I approch the frontlines.

Sins do not, and cannot have more AL than a war. If the get more AL than a war has fr base AL, well, the war can use the same number of skill slots and have even more AL. Like a sin with 70 armor using WY! is not almost within range of a warrior, because a warrior can us WY! too (And a fair number of warriors do use that skill in PvE).

If a monk over-extended, he would die because his armor is so low, and he has no shield, no absorbsion, and besides maybe guardian, no block/evade skills. Oh, not to mention that the idea of a monk over-extending is rather silly, because over-extending is getting out of range of your monks. Doh.

Warriors are not tanks because they're low on the priority list. It's backed by nothing at all. A tank that is a low prioirty targt for the AI, would be a useless tank. Warriors are tanks because they have the hightest AL, a shield in most cases, and absorbsion.

If you're using nightstalker armor, you have 85al vs all, where a warrior has 100 vs phys, 80 vs ele, a shield, and absorbsion.

Not sure what they're on about..

Defense:
There's plenty of defense for assassins.. Ever tried flashing blades? 50% chance to block, and you can keep flashing blades running constantly, depending on your build. Then add on shadow refuge and you got a 60ish heal with an initial 8ish heal regen for 4 sec. Or add in shroud of distress for 63%+ evading below 50% health..

Just because we don't get it for free in our armor doesn't mean its not there. And thats not even considering the vast amount of other defensive skills available, or even warriors WY.

Offense:
Several good all 5 energy builds exist, add on critical eye (also 5 energy cost), high crit strikes and a zealous dagger mod.. Whats energy management when you regain enough for your next skill in 2 hits?

Theres also builds to allow you to stay and fight an entire battle without running, as well as get-in-get-out major spike builds to lay down a monk in 8 secs flat. Try doing that with your warriors

Movement:
Aura of Displacement, Return/Deaths Charge, Dark Escape, the list goes on..

I hardly think assassins are overpowered. Not by a long shot. I still maintain they are broken. If it wasn't for the chaining of attack skills their skills would have no synergy to them at all. That indicates a broken profession to me. I'm glad some of you have had success with your assassins but it's still weak in my opinion. Shadow skills are crappy with short duration and long cooldown and there are most of your defensive moves. Sure you can get in there and kill that one target with ease and while you're busy recharging a ranger or caster has taken you out. Why? Because you blew your defense skills trying to remain in close to your target while under aggro. It does happen, mostly because of the strategy involved when facing assassins, which is let them come in behind your lines then make sure they never leave. I have yet to face an assassin that isn't as easy to take out as a lone, undefended monk and that's because the nature of their skills means they often have no support once they get to their target. Now this would say, to me, that they need higher armor but apparently the devs decided not to. I mean ranger equivalent armor? Please. I don't get up close and personal with my ranger because it's suicide. I can certainly see the rationale behind the lower AL because assassins are supposed to be stealthy and quick. Guess what? They aren't in this game. An assassin is about as overt as you can get. I can certainly see them being fantastic Ghostly Hero killers but against real opponents I see them falling short of expectations. I'm just unimpressed with the profession as a whole. It just seems like to get any utility out of them you would have to spread your attribute points thinly across the attribute available just for the assassin, forget the secondary profession which in turn would make a broken character, able to do everything but not any one thing particularly well. To me assassin will always be a secondary profession, same with ritualist.

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A bit lengthy but after so much success with the class I had to say all I could.

Pro's:
Personally, I love the Assassin class.

Currently running an Aura of Displacement build called True Assassin...its posted. The name is exactly how it plays. I watch the enemy movements and position myself where I shadow step though terrain...like a bridge or cliff. Soon as I see that the monk is out of healing range or is low on energy, I shadow step in and pull off a 5 combo attack that usually kills the target if they havent gotten any healing support.

Then I either A) stick around and keep fighting or B) shadowstep back to my original position out of harms way.

Anyone saying the Assassin skills have too long of a recharge are probably referring to the regular shadowsteps or skills that are meant to recharge at length. Notice how they also give you a bonus other than the step? Thats why theres a longer recharge! Aura of Displacement is 15 sec recharge and you can undo it at will, step in step out.

Also, I see alot of people complaining about energy. Try reading up on the class first. For each critical hit you get energy to boot and it only increases as you increase your crit strike lvl till 13. The only problem you have is if you miss with your attacks or use a few 10 energy skills in a row. Your damage comes from a successful combo so you need to plan accordingly.

My assassin is great for chasing people down and taking them out from fullhealth in a matter of seconds. Only a warrior can do that but they need to charge adrenaline first. Assassins are meant to strike when the opportunity presents itself.

Cons:
Seems like theres a majority out there that hates assassins. Ive been in many RA games where people leave just because they see A/W on the party list and assume Im the prebuild noob with no idea what to do with my new class.

I dont blame them. Honestly, there are many assassins out there that just plain suck. They just run in thinking "gotta kill the monk gotta kill the monk" without even checking what builds the other team is running. Easy kills for me cause self heals for assassin arent all that great in a pinch. (EXCEPT Way of Perfection thats great because it gives constant health for each crit you do)

Lower Armor...not really a con because its expected with the class. You arent a warrior, get over it. Youre basically the flame savant build from the betas but better.

Getting targetted first. Sometimes a con but I tend to turn it into a pro. Draw the attention of the enemy warriors and flee the battle with low health(make sure Aura of Displacement is active). If they follow just keep on going, your monk will get pissed if he doesnt know whats going on but the point is to let the warriors think youre an easy kill. Once across the map simply cancel displacement and zap, youre back at the main fight with one of their members missing.

Fast attack and dual hits. Con? Only bringing this up because I also play Ineptitude Clumsiness mesmer alot. Faster you attack, harder it is to avoid triggering these hexes.

Anything that slows your attack speed totally kills the assassins ability to do anything well. Obviously, gives more time for them to get a heal in. Faintheartedness is the devil.

Extreme reliance on energy. Not to be confused with not having enough energy. But if you meet up with an edenial mesmer you are pretty much screwed for the beginning of the fight. Good luck trying to pull a full combo while the burns are going.

Conclusion:
Id say the Assassin is a great class with its balance of pros and cons. Excellent at taking targets down fast but is easily countered; ie miss an attack or slowed. He cant take a ton of damage if focused but if ignored he'll deal a ton to you. The only way to run a successful assassin is to know when to run and when to strike.

Great for getting a warrior to follow you across the map, only to shadowstep back to the enemy team leaving him wondering wtf?

-Kod

Assassins aren't any more or less effective than any class, that's the way they were designed to be. If they didn't have low armor then they'd be much better than warriors for sure. The thing is, playing an assassin takes tactics, a little bit of planning. Positioning is important in pvp, and that's something the assassin has a lot of control over. In pve there are lots of defensive skills that help you evade the enemy or render them ineffective while you escape to regenerate health. In pvp, you shouldn't be worried so much about defending yourself, I suppose it will get you farther in random arena, but normally you'll be relying on your monk, even with a warrior. Bottom line, You have the potential to deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time, and cause a lot of conditions, but you also have the potential to get killed in a short amount of time. The assassin is quite viable as a primary or secondary class, and they would be over-powered with more defense than they already have.

ok so I am big necro freak as such, I went ass/nec(lol). I also im sure im playing compleatly the wrong way yadda yadda yadda. mostly i hang with henchies or go solo. I've just got off that damn island at a common lvl of 14. drawing on my previous necro experiaces, minnions are used to tank or distrac but with 25 mana adverge ihad to be creative with +15 energy -1 E regentrucron and a simmilar off hand item in weapon slot 2. Vamp minions cost 25 E a pop and i do 2 baby minions at 15 E. Wepon slot 1 gets my dagger o enchnt and i recharge at 4 blips holding those. Crit skill & death @ 8 points rest into dagger mastry.
while its fun to play like this, it is set up like a house o'cards. a front line of minions and my hasting the busy ennimis, getting them to agro on me till i pass by a minion or henchie. when i can work it, it's buetiful. wheni cant, its my butt running away but not dying. like a warriors adrennilen, energy flows when i hit those crits 2 or 3 times outta 10 and 10 hits can happen real quick for me. vamp minnions are my only healing atm. anywayi consider this good and bad and very very ugly

Funny... my original fear was assassins would be overpowered and everyone would cry and then they would get the nerf bat.

assassins are a prity balanced class, Went toe to toe with an zin yesterday. Used my Axe warrior, He killed me (not after healing thousands of times ) But the caster picked up and finished the job after . my group won

i was suprised that zin was able to take all that damage, and i hit prity hard highest hit so far was 99 with out my updated runes and skills.

I also agree with the high assassin AI targeting thing, im not sure that its only that but its the fact that they target the One who pulls the group first ( with henchies it alittle diffrent)

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