Did anet screw up with the assassin and ritualist?

First off, lets try not to make this some big hate thread that is destined to be locked. If you just spam angry replies, you will end the discussion and ruin it for everyone else

Now the question, are the assassin and ritualist a good thing or bad thing for Guild Wars? Both in terms of pve and pvp. How can anet fix them? If you like how they are and don't need to be fixed, say why.

Assassin: I biggest problem with the assassin is that they die way to quickly. When I pick up a pug assassin in pve, I know that I am going to have to keep a prot spirit on him whenever things get nasty. The immediate solution would be to improve the assassin armor...but that would cause even worse problems. An assassin is pretty much the highest "damage per second to a solo enemy" character right now (if you doubt this, go watch a HoH match with Brehon playing assassin, or watch any GvG with a two man assassin yank squad). If you give assassins stronger armor, it will be the new IWAY. To counter this you could reduce the assassins damage. Then in essence all assassins would be similar to the R/A (or even worse W/A) you see in RA. Now the damage output is so low that you basically have a melee character worse in all ways than a warrior.

I like the assassin how it is, but I view the assassin as a mezmer. They are extremely powerful characters, perhaps the most powerful in the game, but to run most builds effectively, you have to be a very good player. So maybe the assassin is simply a class to be enjoyed by the Guild Wars elite.

Ritualist: This is the one class I currently have a distaste for. Really the only thing that is worth using on the ritualist in PvE and PvP is spirits so my discussion will be limited to that. Right now it is simply to easy to play a ritualist. In GvG, the ritualist is able to hide far in the backline occluded by terrain and spam spirits. Currently, to send a warrior that far into the opposing backline is very difficult to do since it puts the warrior and rest of the party at risk and it is easy for the enemy monk to see the attack on the ritualist and just stand their healing him. Ritualists should have to deal with the annoyance of kiting as monks and mezmers do while being in the midline. I think the range of defensive spirits should be significantly reduced thereby pulling the ritualist closer to the action. Conversly, I think the damage taken by spirits should be reduced (with the exception of displacement), making them more effective, but since they are closer to the fight they are easier to remove. As for PvE, the reduction in damage taken would be a nice boost and I do not think it would make anything unbalanced. The only thing I would worry about is how it would effect HoH and RA/TA where the spirit range isn't that important (since everyone is already on top of each other) and the damage reduction would make them harder to kill. Maybe making ritual lord an enchantment? That might be to much of a nerf.

Discuss! Keep it clean!

Edit: Brothel, so you would prefer a softie to overextend?

I should also note I have played neither profession so I do lack that perspective. I am only referring to what I have seen in numerous RA/TA, HoH and high end GvG.

I agree completely with Sora

Warriors aren't the only class that can kill something, so I fail to see why Ritualists should be "nerfed" just because Warriors may have difficulty killing them. What about Rangers? Assasins? What about all of the casting classes that don't need to go through an entire opposing party? If you're relying that heavily on Warriors, I think there's something wrong.

I'm here to talk about Assassin in PvE....although I don't have one:

Assassin, as told by its name, it's to assassinate someone, but not rush into enemies before everyone else do.
A good assassin should know when to rush in and when to retreat. As you've mentioned that assassin is able to deal a large amount of damage, but not to tank.
I don't think Anet had screw up this nice profession, but the player who control assassin did. Actually Anet had balance the assassin well, they can deal great damage, but at the same time they are weak in armor.
Afterall, people think assassin are screwed because they don't know how to play well. I have a friend that use assassin, and he plays it very well, at least he's not rushing into enemies before the tank do and he know exactly what he's doing.

Think you've playing those professions wrong, have seen people do it wrong etc.


Those professions fit perfectly in Guild Wars. The system works!

I think the only problem is the rarity of critical hits with an assassin fighting high level (24+) mobs. ANet should do something about that, either remove the reliance on critical hits for the assassin, or make the assassins just as likely to get them on high level enemies.

Apart from that I think the new professions are OK, it is the people playing them who are the problem.

As for the only thing a ritualist is good for is spirit spam, what about monks... according to the players only good for heal/prot, not smiting.

The problem with both is the lack of balance present in the "legacy" classes.

anet decided to balance the game for pvp, in pve you fight lvl 24+ mobs and even if you play well your assa will die faster than anyone else before

Quote: Originally Posted by Drewfense

Did ANet Screw Up The Assassin?
No..... not a chance, The assassin is one of the most underrated and underplayed character classes in guild wars.
everyone is comparing them to warriors and trying to be tanks.
to play the class properly you have to understand that just because the assassin does more damage then a warrior you are not an uber tanking beefcake with balls of steel.
instead wrap your mind around this.

what if:

Your charcater could suddenly appear beside an enemy of your choice?

you could catch your opponents off guard so quickly and efficiently they never knew what hit them?

you could string your skills together and make them into a combo that you could unleash in mere seconds and leave them in a world of hurt if not dead?

you could escape from an enemy and leave them dumbfounded as to where you went?

Now consider this. (pvp)
with a pvp assassin you have the ability to stop enemy mesmers, ele's, ritualist, monks, and rangers in their tracks
with an assassin the back line of caster/interuptor targets falls within minutes of the assassin picking them off whats a gvg match when the other team has no monks?
Its called a slaughter
as previoulsy said it takes mere seconds to realease a combo devestating enough to leave any character either dead or severly hurting and crying for mommy.
its as simple as the get in get out tactic that the assassin was designed for
get in do your damage and get out all within seconds.
i think the assassin is ANets most creative and effective class so far.

as for the ritualist i havnt really dabbled with them much. but from what i see they are mainly for team support their channeling lightning magic has no armour penetration so its bound to do less then the ele but then again like i said i havnt played much of that yet so who knows

They are both really good and balanced if used well. I see absolutely no problem with them and I won't go into a huge discussion like toehr people have because theres no reason to repeat what they said. anyway both thse profession work well and its really all the fault of stereotypes that makes people like them or dislike them.

Assassins seem balanced for PvP and L20-ish PVE encounters, but once you start taking them into the L28 PvE endgame areas like RoF, Urgoz Warrens, the Deep, etc... then you'll notice their death rates soar dramatically, even when using AoD teleports to minimize damage exposure.

As mentioned above, raising assassin armor would correct the L28+ problems but create new issues in the L20 PvP range. Other balancing possibilities would be:

1) change some existing defensive assassin enchantments into stances instead. The assassin is a hybrid caster and melee class, so why not have the existing skill set reflect this?

2) more situational armor improvements. I would like to see a 85AL, -15AL while attacking armor hit the crafters. This would correct some of the high level PvE mortality issues while keeping attacking armor levels the same as before (base 70AL).

3) correct temple strike by making it critical strike attribute based instead of dagger based. This would correct ranger primary abuse and make sub-20 second recharge times feasible again. As it stands, temple strike is barely elite title worthy due to its excessive 25-second recharge time for 7 seconds of blind + daze.

Quote: Assassin: I biggest problem with the assassin is that they die way to quickly. When I pick up a pug assassin in pve, I know that I am going to have to keep a prot spirit on him whenever things get nasty. The immediate solution would be to improve the assassin armor...but that would cause even worse problems. An assassin is pretty much the highest "damage per second to a solo enemy" character right now (if you doubt this, go watch a HoH match with Brehon playing assassin, or watch any GvG with a two man assassin yank squad). If you give assassins stronger armor, it will be the new IWAY. To counter this you could reduce the assassins damage. Then in essence all assassins would be similar to the R/A (or even worse W/A) you see in RA. Now the damage output is so low that you basically have a melee character worse in all ways than a warrior. Hate to break it to you but they introduced a NEW profession. The main word been, NEW. Its not a warrior, its not suppose to be enduring. Its an Assassin.

Quote: Originally Posted by Konrow

I've only played the assassins in PvP. I find that the best trick is to run (or shadow-step) in, kill, then run away from the fight.

In this sense, an assassin is pretty much a caster. Their weapon: themselves. They jump in and kill (like casting a spell), then run away (to where the casters are). In this way they are some kind of Melee-caster hybrid thing that is really confusing to figure out (or describe).


About ritualists (which I have only found, never been), I'm pretty sure most of their spirits don't take 5 seconds to cast. Most seem to take 3 seconds, max. This is why I dislike them in PvP. They can create a small army real fast, then run away and have their "army" kill you.

I personally would think sevral things would be good:
1. Longer casting times on more powerfull spirits. Seiously, ever been hit by a guy who keeps spamming Pain, Dissonance, Bloodsong and Shadowsong? Maybe make the more powerfull (elite?) spirits take longer, and therefore last longer (balance).
2. Shorter range. The attack spirits (mostly) have ranges greater than our agro bubble (sometimes). Possibly shorten attack spirit ranges to half that of a wand (shortbow range?). That way they work more as defensive attackers, and aren't just like having a group of see-through rangers.
3. Make them have Spells. Mesmers have been knocked down a notch because of this. Most of their interupts work on SPELLS, not "rituals". As well, many mesmer spells only work on spells, hardly any exploit skills or "rituals".

I again, have never played a ritualist (I have used one of two of their spells and rituals), so don't get all agitated if one of my ideas seems bad.

Quote: Originally Posted by Mr_T_bot

Quote: Originally Posted by morodoth

I like both classes so far. I started up an assassin yesterday, and I like it. Been playing a ritualist for a while now too. There's nothing I would like to be changed from either class so far. Although I haven't been playing an assassin for too long yet, the ritualist is great in my opinion. So far so good.

the only problem I have with the ritualists are, the range on the spirts' attacks are too limiting to me, I wish they could move, maybe at 1/4 normal player speed or something... but I sopose it made me think more defencively for king of the hill pvp or something
oh and curse you, the spirts have the same range as a wand/staff

Quote: 1. Longer casting times on more powerfull spirits. Seiously, ever been hit by a guy who keeps spamming Pain, Dissonance, Bloodsong and Shadowsong? Maybe make the more powerfull (elite?) spirits take longer, and therefore last longer (balance). Lemme guess... a wammo that hasn't learnt how to interrupt. Ritual Lord makes spirits recharge in about 15 seconds IF and ONLY IF they cast. Unless your head is falling off 3 seconds is plenty of time to interrupt a ritual. Play one and you might notice that.

Quote: 2. Shorter range. The attack spirits (mostly) have ranges greater than our agro bubble (sometimes). Possibly shorten attack spirit ranges to half that of a wand (shortbow range?). That way they work more as defensive attackers, and aren't just like having a group of see-through rangers. Yeah how useful, i can have 3 spirits that can't do anything till your half agro range. What next, spirits that only attack in melee? You sure you don't wanna make all spirits have a 25 energy cost while your at it?

Quote:

3. Make them have Spells. Mesmers have been knocked down a notch because of this. Most of their interupts work on SPELLS, not "rituals". As well, many mesmer spells only work on spells, hardly any exploit skills or "rituals". Are Nature Rituals spells? Get over it. A Ranger can interrupt them regardless. A Psychic Distraction Mesmer can shut down a Rit single handed, perhaps we should nerf Signets and make it so we can interrupt Healing Signet with Power Spike while your talking about interrupts. Quote: I again, have never played a ritualist (I have used one of two of their spells and rituals), so don't get all agitated if one of my ideas seems bad. Yes they are quite bad... If you've ever played 1 in PvP you'll know exactly how fragile a rit is the moment someone comes for you and/or your spirits.

To say it shortly yes. I see lots of people trying to justify it, but compared to the original 5... sins and rits are not so great. Give me an elementalist, war or necro any day over a sin or rit..


~prime