Shadowstepping & escaping

I keep reading that one the key elements to being a good assassin is being able to get in and out quickly, ie shadowstepping in, doing your burst damage, then shadowstepping out. The problem is, as far as i know (please correct me if I'm wrong. In fact I hope I'm wrong), that at low level PvE there is no skill for effectively shadowstepping out. Lack of an escape route more often than not is what gets me into trouble. Any solutions to this dilemma would be greatly appreciated.

Really early on this isn't a problem in PvE as enemies are rather easy. At about the mid point where dodging becomes a good idea, there's the somewhat unreliable but better than nothing Viper's Defense. If you sub warrior, you can use "watch yourself" to pump your early armor as well, increasing your longevity. Just don't count on this in the late game.

I henched Shing Jea Island with my sin, had no problems. Once you make it to kaineng center, you can buy all skills.

early assassin teleporting is generally accomplished by using death's charge to get in, and recall/return to get out. you can get these two skills very early on. i actually used them until i got myself to House Zu Heltzer and capped Aura of Displacement. they are usable, but the recharge is brutal.

AoD is good if you can't see past it's weak points, recall is far better, and even then recall isn't THAT good..

A lot of players are still fixated with AoD simply becasue the two in one effect
is seen as superior, I have a problem with shadow step skills in general, and that is that the radius to the target is far too short, everyone expects Assassins to warp to the target, no suprises there and the fact that you have to be pretty much within 4 paces to activate it is a bit of a let down.

I won't be using AoD again, unless shadow step skills are improved somewhat, but i doubt that will happen, they are availible to all who go sin secondary, I still think they dropped the ball with sins shadow stepping distance should have been primary linked more points into it the longer the step to distance.

It's still usefull to shadow step, but at the current bubble radius it's far too easy to get a hold of the sin and twat him/her.

as an Asn you do not NEED to use shaddow stepping to be effective and in al actuallity when you start to learn when to agro and when not to agro shadowstepping is wasting your skill slot...

in a group with human the tank should be groing and of corse tanking... which allows you to strafe to your target while the tank has everything agroed..

in a group with NPC (been finding a lot of times the npc's are better than humans myself) you can call targets for your tank NPC's but using Ctr+Shift+Space to call the target without attacking which will cause your melee npcs to agro allowing you to step in or arround for your target...

i use health and energy support skills to keep myself from the sticky situations...

Another weakness of shadow-stepping: rangers barely notice if you pop around a bit, their arrows will most likely still be hitting you.

Random shadow-stepping is flat-out bad in PvE and only amusing in PvP...

shadowstepping increases the assassin's efficiency. if you're not shadowstepping, you're essentially playing a gimped warrior. shadowstepping is the only thing you have over the warrior. use it.

"shadowstepping is the only thing you have over the warrior. use it."

Umm..

I personally like AoD a lot.. it's nice in PvP.

Quote: Originally Posted by Miakoda

some new defense skills would be great... although I like AoD in pvp, makes the warriors jumpy ^^

i know that you can get Dash, which should be just fine for running on Shing Jea, at least for Captured Son quest if nothing else

when you're running around, you're not hitting anything also. at least shadowstepping brings you to your target immediately, which then you can proceed to deck that target and then move to the next one.

remember, you can still move when maintaining AoD. so you can pop in, deck one target, run one step and deck another, and then pop out. that's far more efficient compared to actually RUNNING to your first target, and then running out.

Point is warriors can do exaclty the same, i'm not suggesting axe warriors drop evisc for AoD, but shadow stepping can be used by all and is not reason enough to call it "the only thing you have over the warrior".

Assassins have front loaded damage, which is an actual advantage, you can also run around with recall up on a team member which acts as a cover enchant for example, AoD gets you in, gets you out, and also aids with GPS (we all know this), does it actually help you stay alive longer? do you think using AoD will be unexpected for the enemy in pvp?

"that's far more efficient compared to actually RUNNING to your first target, and then running out."

Yes because running 5 steps is far less efficient than warping the 5 steps instead..

There is a reason AoD is non attribute linked.

give it a week and you will see more and more pvp players drop it for something of more benefit.

ive actually swallowed my assumptions and started expirimenting with shadow of haste in RA. Its great when i have it anywhere from 15-18 seconds. Cast it once im a stone throws distance from my target, and i have more than enough time to the damage i need by the time it wears off. And even better, your targer cant run, because you have a 25% speed buff. Its very nice

i'd like to see a warrior have the energy to use AoD. i'd also like to see if any of the other classes want to use a teleport-to-target spell. shadowstepping is unique to assassins because they are the only ones who can truly take advantage of it. as for whether AoD can save you: yes. when you're out of range of the damage you're taking, you've been saved by it.

"Yes because running 5 steps is far less efficient than warping the 5 steps instead.."

yes. it's slower. that gives your target time to kite you, and chasing them down will bring its own problems.

"give it a week and you will see more and more pvp players drop it for something of more benefit."

go watch WM's and EvIL's assassins. they've been running it for a month now, and they're still using it. if you take AoD away in favour of another elite, they essentially become useless. AoD is not a flavour of the week: it's the real deal.

but then again, i thought this thread is about early pve usages of shadowstep skills, not pvp...

AoD is a great skill and any open-minded, non-chauvenistic person would be able to see its many uses outweigh its few flaws.

Aura of displacement

/thread

The thing to realize is that Shadow Step abilities are excellent in PvP. Using them in PvE will often dislodge the aggro circle and pull your enemies towards your backline. I find that, once past the Afflicted and their auto-exploding corpses of Assassin DOOM, I never really needed a teleport. I still bring recall, just in case, but I rarely start getting beat on if my group understands the mechanics of Guild Wars AI...or if I'm using henchies for that matter.

In PvP, being able to teleport around is what saves you since your enemy can actually think and target you in an instant. Surprise is also an issue that, while monumental in PvP, is unfortunately useless in PvE. Popping up next to a Mesmer player in the middle of a battle and unleashing your damage will have much better results than running up to him to begin your attack sequence. Doing the same to a PvE mesmer is silly. You can just run up to the PvE mesmer, right past the Warrior enemies who are all beating mindlessly on your Warrior, and start your combo while the enemy Mesmer sits still and takes it.

So......

PvE - Shadow Stepping is still kind of fun but really not all that useful.
PvP - Shadow Stepping is extremely useful as it gives you the ability to actually surprise your enemies, escape the battle, and use overlapping (high/low) terrain to your advantage.