User talk:Isaiah Cartwright/Overpowered Skills/Assassin/Archive 1

Black Spider Strike

Even moebius sins use it instead of lead attack. Come on, just gimme a break and nerf this. 10e maybe even 20r.

lol? This skill is crap alone; all it does is poison and add like 20 damage, it's nowhere near overpowered. And uh... what will recharge matter if moebius strike recharges it instantly? :/ -Auron 23:43, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Moebius Strike isn't use because it recharges your other skills, it is combined with Death Blossom for a constant pressure train since both of those skills have a 2 second recharge. Even if you hit a block, BSS allows you to get into the pattern quickly in this instance. --Racthoh 03:20, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Black Lotus Strike would be better as the offhand in such a combo as you'd place a hex on them, deal more damage and have energy management instead of just poison. Now, how do you justify that BSS is overpowered? --Kale Ironfist 03:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Both are overpowered simply because they allow you to use off-hand->dual->off-hand->dual combo instead of lead->off-hand->dual. --PunkSkeleton 11:17, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, and what makes you think offhand-dual-offhand-dual is overpowered, if not the skill itself? ;) --Ufelder 11:23, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

"Both are overpowered simply because they allow you to use off-hand->dual->off-hand->dual combo instead of lead->off-hand->dual." OMG! These are overpowered because they provide a different way of doing things!? LOL! really people stop trying to define Assassins as IMBA based on HB! (I know thats what its based on cos they are definately not based on GvG or HA) HB is broken! We know that, so much so that this build is almost the only one getting anywhere. But in overall game context, the SP sin isn't IMBA. It does what it's meant to and it does it well...that doesnt make it IMBA!--ChronicinabilitY 11:30, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

If it's not overpowered then why is just about every sin running the same build? The dual attack are the ones that actually make the kill, so being able to bypass lead attacks and immediately start with off-hand makes for a stronger build (especially since BLS and BSS are stronger than other off-hand attacks that follow lead attacks to begin with). That said I'm not sure if nerfing BBS is needed (maybe reduce the damage a bit), I'd rather see changes to BLS instead. --Draikin 16:40, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

So by you're attitude anything that is used a lot MUST be overpowered, Why not start on monks with RoF, or eles with GOLE, Warriors with Frenzy, etc etc. It makes no sense. --ChronicinabilitY 16:43, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't necessarily mean overpowered, but it can still be bad for the game. Things can be frequently used both because they open up more build possibilities and because they remove build possibilities. For example, GoLE is frequently used and really is somewhat overpowered, but in doing so has opened up many strategies that weren't available before, particularly for Elementalists by compensating for the lack of benefit from Energy Storage. No longer were Elementalists bound to Ether Prodigy or other elite energy management in every build (attunements helped too). On the other hand, Black Spider/Lotus Strike, regardless of what you think of their power level, are doing the opposite - since almost every assassin runs them lead attacks are irrelevant - an entire skill type eliminated from ever being useful. Lead attacks would have to be buffed to insane, game-breaking levels to compete with these two attacks. Add in a little help from Shadow Prison to degenerate things a little further (can't be kited, makes satisfying the conditionals on the attacks trivial, etc) and you get the lack of variety Assassins have right now.--Mysterial 18:30, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

• reseting indent* I'm not going to say that Assassin's do or don't lack variety, but I will say that when I'm playing my assassin I adjust my builds according to the area I'm going in. Sometimes I run a hex based black lotus / black spider build with flourish as my elite, sometimes I run a disrupting / exhausting build with Moebius. In HB, Shadow Prison builds do seem to be rather dominant right now, but then HB is definitely leaning towards the broken side of things right now, and Izzy is well aware of it (User_talk:Isaiah_Cartwright#Regarding_balance_and_Hero_Battles). Changing a couple assassin skills won't fix HB, all it'll do is cause HB to swing in favor of another FotM Dargon 19:39, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been debating bringing this up to 10e. ~Izzy @-'---- 19:31, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

If you do i wouldnt do it in the same update as you nerf Shadow Brison and BLS. You might just over-nerf the build into oblivion never to be seen again, which would certainly not help in providing diversity for assassin's. --ChronicinabilitY 21:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah seriously. It is not that good of a skill. Start with BLS, SP and Expose ... The really evil stuff. Shendaar 01:28, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

This and BLS are fine because they work well in non-SP builds. SP and Expose Defenses are the two that need an "adjustment" so they don't work well together (15e cost for each would be nice)---arredondo 02:43, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Black Lotus Strike

Another skill that's just a bit to good in most cases and not only a bit in hex builds. Reduce the energy gain and damage to that of Black Spider Strike. Anyway it's a part of 12345 assasin build that even don't care if you're blocked.

It's necessary for energy management for a number of bars, it's pretty much the only thing (hex) assassins have for mid-chain emanagement. If everyone was using AoD sins, you'd be calling for a nerf of golden lotus, regardless of how weak that skill is. This skill isn't the problem, it's the dual attacks in the chain. -Auron 23:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Anon, you might as well stick the entire Assassin profession in this list. Nerfing BLS and BSS will affect a lot of sin builds besides Shadow Prison. --Ufelder 10:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your sense of humor, but no, BLS is fine.--J0ttem 12:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The energy gain allows you to use just about all of your energy before you even start your combo and you'll still have energy to spare afterwards, I wouldn't call that fine at all. --Draikin 16:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Why wouldnt you? There are a lot of other skills that allow you to do that in the game, and remember you have to make the hit. You just dont like this one, you have no basis for saying where this is being used as overpowered. Because the only place they are effective is HB and everyone knows that it's HB that is broken and nerfing the SP sin won't change that. --ChronicinabilitY 16:47, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how a nonelite attack skill that can easily give you 4+ pips of energy while doing something you want already is not overpowered. It's not like other energy management skills, which frequently have a weak or sometimes no alternative effect at all in exchange for their energy, like Power Drain and Glyph of Lesser Energy. This skill is already giving you a direct-to-offhand with an attractive +damage, an effect so strong players would likely take it if it gave no energy at all. Consider that before this skill became so strong and got good hexes to use it with Golden Phoenix Strike was frequently used despite being the same thing minus the absurd energy gain.--Mysterial 17:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Consider all you're saying....and then think that if it REALLY is overpowered how come there aren't SP sins just owning everywhere? Go to HA and you can hardly find one let alone them being anything near meta, GvG teams sometimes run them for splits , but can very easily be beaten by many other Splits, (Water ele, Ranger, Monk, B-Surge etc) So i can only presume that you are only considering Hero Battles, which like we all know about, and as Izzy has said before, is totally IMBA. So you have no proof other than the fact that it is a good skill that it is overpowered!--ChronicinabilitY 17:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

First, whether or not any Assassin dominates the game is irrelevant. If a class had a skill that said "you gain 1,000 energy every 3 seconds" but had only crappy skills to use it with, the energy skill would still be overpowered even if nobody had yet found anything to abuse it with. Secondly, SP Assassins are rampant in every form of PvP that isn't 8v8, and they were in HA too until some even worse builds like Ritualist spike pushed them out (or did you forget when everyone was running Savannah Heat + dual SP sins already?). Additionally, how often do you see an Assassin not using Black Lotus Strike? Not very often, because the skill does absolutely everything you need - it gets you to dual attacks fast and gives you more than enough energy with which to use them.--Mysterial 17:39, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

LOL that made me laugh!....All competitive PvP IS 8v8 so there you go, and Ritspike, Bloodspike etc didnt push out the SH Sin Pressure spike, the spikes were around long before that. and regards to that skill "you gain 1,000 energy every 3 seconds"...If it wasn't being abused then don't nerf it simple as! You're simply looking at what the writing says and assuming it MUST be overpowered! Whereas if you look at the state of the game, which is what i am doing, and i know Izzy does, then no, it's not IMBA! And once again you go back to you're How often do you see them not using it arguement...to which i will simply ask, by that rational...should we nerf RoF for monks!?....didn't think so!--ChronicinabilitY 18:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I see, so my problem is that I consider gametypes other than GvG as worthy of being balanced, that I consider having only one option (well, two, but both are usually on the same bar) for Assassin attack openers an issue, and that I consider an Assassin not having to worry about energy an issue.--Mysterial 18:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

(Reset Indent)"I see, so my problem is that I consider gametypes other than GvG as worthy of being balanced," the ONLY form of pvp where Assassins are dominant is HB...and as everyone, including Izzy, agrees...HB is IMBA! its to do with the lack of Hero AI etc which forces hero's to be defensive and have holding builds, while the player has to do as much dmg as possible, leading to assassin being the best way to do that. Simple as. You cleverly avoided my question about monk's RoF, and it seems you just want to nerf assassins into the ground. If you're real aim is to make more builds available to them, then dont nerf the few they have, Buff other skills so they have more choice! --ChronicinabilitY 19:05, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Why do you insist on comparing this skill to RoF? Sure RoF is used a lot on monk bars but you can just as well replace it with a different skill and you'll still be able to do your job. Warriors without Frenzy? They'll still deal damage with the rest of their skills. SP sins without LBS? That's a different matter, the energy gain from the skill is needed to pay for the 50-55 energy cost of your entire combo. I don't think anyone will disagree that several assassin skills are in need of a buff, but that doesn't mean that overpowered builds shouldn't be nerfed simply because it just happens to be the only viable build assassins currently have. --Draikin 20:38, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

1) I NEVER use BLS anymore, enough CS and Zeal and i dont need it. 2) if its only effective in 1 format it is NOT overpowered... please show me how this skill is overkill in another format. What i'm really liking is how when we end an argument about assassins and HB in 1 topic, instead of accepting the fact that theyre not really unbalanced, you guys just move onto the next skill in the skillbar.--Midnight08 00:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I at least have been saying for some time on here and on forums that the only seriously broken Assassin skills to the point of degenerating the game are Shadow Prison and Black Lotus Strike. Really the class needs rework, but that's not going to happen and the worst problems go away if you hit those two skills. And I've yet to hear a reason why Black Lotus Strike should be the only attack skill in the game that generates a large amount of energy while simultaneously being one of the strongest attack skills in the profession, all on a trivial conditional.--Mysterial 00:18, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

"What i'm really liking is how when we end an argument about assassins and HB in 1 topic, instead of accepting the fact that theyre not really unbalanced, you guys just move onto the next skill in the skillbar." LOL!....and AMEN to that! --ChronicinabilitY 01:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Its pretty obvious that this skill is good because it gives the energy for a combo but more so lets you skip a lead attack along with having another offhand that skips a lead with the same hex req allowing the assassin to fulfill its one and pretty much only use; killing stuff really quickly. No other assassin combo lets you do that making it just about if not the most powerful assn combo out there. Its still predictable like most assassin combos and therefor has its balance but the only reason I think its viewed as overpowered is because the rest of the assassin class is underpowered. If they fail to kill they are useless until their combo recharges and most builds besides SP are unable to kill a player with some selfheal/prot or whatever in one go not even on splits anymore. So imo keep this the way it is but buff some non hex reqed combos/skillsDVDA 05:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll say what i said in the Expose Defenses talk : reduce damage of this and BSS to +1..13..17. This way, the balance of having a straight offhand would be that you won't do as much damage with it, with the advantage that you can reach a dual faster which does big damage. The effects are already worth it (BLS is huge emanagement, BSS is cheap and poisons which can be useful for Sig of Toxic Shock, and both are straight offhands ofc). It wouldn't reduce your effectiveness much if you use them say to spike assist with a warrior or other allies. In a team coordinated spike where you'd do like BLS-Dual or BSS-Dual, losing 5-15 damage doesn't usually make the difference between a kill or not. But in the 'BLS-Dual-BSS-Dual' combo where every bit of damage counts, losing around 30-40 damage would seriously reduce the bar's effectiveness. It would still be good IF coordinated with allies that would help finish the kill, but not so much as a solo spiker anymore, which is a lame concept in general that just doesn't fit with the 'team' aspect of GW Patccmoi 15:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

1, learn to use yer :'s no need to force an early LJ. 2)Assassin - Doesn't sound to coordinated/team based even in the definition. and 3) Please keep it to 1 topic so i have to stop looking around to come up with yet another reason the sp sin is not UMBA, its getting tiring. Are they a good build? yes.. are they an IMBA build? Not at all... Want proof? look at 90% of the discussions about this, Im tired of arguing the same point over and over again). It really doesnt matter if you dont like the concept of a solo spiker, its what they were made for. And unlike you, some ppl do like that.--Midnight08 17:54, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I've been debating bringing this up 15+ recharge. ~Izzy @-'---- 19:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

This will hurt all bars but SP sins. Not a good move imo. It used to be 20s before and the only bar using it was with Flourish Patccmoi 19:52, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Patccmoi. Any nerf that keeps the skill under 20 sec recharge would not affect the SP sins at all just like the Expose Defenses nerf so the only bars that would be affected are, well, everything else that doesn't use SP. The problem is not the recharge, it's the fact that you can use this skill to chain an 8 skill combo that costs you 55 energy. In my opinion it's the energy gain and damage that need to be hit. --Draikin 20:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

As I said in another section, do NOT increase the recharge of BLS. The assassin does not need long recharging attack skills, especially when the limited amount of skills that you can combo with them have shorter recharge and end up being useless on your bar half of the time. If BLS is really a problem, then change it to work like Lyssa's Assault(Always hits, but is free if the target is hexed). This way, BLS would become more versatile but less powerful at fueling monster combos. Shendaar 17:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

If you reduce the energy gained by 5, it reduces the power of a single chain spike build, but not it's overall effectiveness as a lead-attack skipper. Increasing the cost of Black Spider Strike from 5 to 10 would reinforce that, forcing a choice between one or the other (aside, you can make Black Spider worth 10 energy if you give it a recharge similar to Golden Phoenix Strike). Simply increasing the recharge to 15-20 won't do much because SP spikers rely on SP being recharged anyways whenever they start their chain. You know the most powerful part of using the Black skills is that they skip a lead attack, so the chain has one less skill to interrupt, and gets to the Dual Attacks that much faster. Make energy the limiting factor here.--Skye Marin 01:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, BSS Nerfed and BLS remains the same. BSS didn't deserve the nerf.--Atlas Oranos 09:30, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I feel this skill is more inline of where it should be now, and I'm moving this to the archive. ~Izzy @-'---- 23:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Expose Defenses

The longer recharge was a good start, but the skill is still way too strong. One issue is that it's always immediately covered with Shadow Prison, so you only have 1 sec to remove it even if you're pre-veiled. Personally I'd make it more like Shadowy Burden so that you get a weak snare with it but the anti-block only works when it's the only hex on the target. You might probably have to raise it to 15e then too - not sure. It would still be way better than Shadowy Burden. Errr 09:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I was hoping for something closer to 30 sec recharge, but oh well :P Errr's idea is a possibility, but I'm thinking just bump the cost up to 15. It will still be usable, but not broken (i.e., on every burst sin's bar everywhere). -Auron 09:19, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

If you're pre-veiled you can easily remove expose before you get SP on you, its one of the most noticable hexes in the game when it lands on you. I dont feel that it is too overpowered, its not as if it guarantees hits, just that they cant block, there are plenty of othere ways you can be made to miss. --ChronicinabilitY 13:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Plenty = 1 now? Is there any way other than blinding? Hexes don't really work because if the guy has a load of anti-melee hexes on him you can be pretty sure they're coming off just before he uses Expose. Errr 13:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Hexes work fine, its just as easy for you to take Expose of your side as it is for them to take the anti-mellee hexes off on their side. Harder for them i'd say since he's probably going to be stacked up. Expose is a powerfull skill i'm not trying to say its not, but it's not overpowered. It gives a clear indication as to where the damage is heading ao dealing with it isnt too hard. --ChronicinabilitY 15:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The team with the sin can easily coordinate the hex removal for just before the spike, and almost every team can deal with hex stacks fine now. The team being spiked has got to remove Expose in the small window between it being applied and say Horns hitting. Most teams now carry the bulk of their hex removal on their prot monk, so he has a choice between protting the guy or taking off his hexes. If he's sensible he'll go for the prot, so Expose stays on right through the spike. Errr 08:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your points but i feel we have come to different comclusions. The skill IS powerfull yes, but i dont feel it is over-powered. At the end of the day it is a hex that must be cast on the target, which can be removed, and even if not removed gives a clear indication of where the next spike is going to be. I feel the game needs powerfull skills like this. It's not like this skill ensures the assissin is even doing to get his spike off. 1 good interrupt and he's screwed. I think that maybe you feel the skill is too powerfull because of its strong effect, yet there are lots of other skills in the game with very strong effects that aren't considered brokem, its just what that skill does. --ChronicinabilitY 16:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you could make the target not be able to block a certain number of attacks? >.> Just a possibility.. =D Vengeance Signet 04:51, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Problem with that is its strength lies in just getting those 1st 2-4 attacks in. Once those hit your targets probably going to die anyway. Either way as Chron says its a powerful skill, but not really overpowered. --Midnight08 16:42, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I certainly think this skill is overpowered when combined with SP. I agree with Errr, it just shouldn't be allowed to stack with other assassin hexes. --Draikin 00:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think the problem is with Expose Defenses here. It's partly Shadow Prison is plain overpowered spike for dummies and partly because the combination of Black Lotus Strike and Zealous Daggers is an insane amount of energy to power it all with. The typical Assassin combo used in 4v4 at least costs 50 energy: 10 for Expose, 10 for SP, 10 for Black Lotus Strike, 15 for the other dagger attacks and +5 if you use Twisting Fangs or Impale. Being able to afford that in a short spike combo every 20 seconds is absurd.--Mysterial 16:57, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Except the part where all assassins do well is spike. Theyre supposed to be the best at it, and they are... As such they are good against teams with less protection, but teams with better protection generally stop them in their tracks. A single well placed hex or prot spirit/etc is disasterous for assassins and sadly this seems to be the 1 skill that makes them overpowered because it overcomes 1/2 of the usual defenses used against an assassin spike. If they didnt have this (not saying to remove it just saying if it didnt counter defenses so well), and they still CAN spike. But with protection it wont happen all the time. --Midnight08 15:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Except the part where all assassins do well is spike. I'd call that a problem with Assassin design, then, and it should be addressed by making them able to do other interesting things, not by allowing them to be absurdly good at spiking to compensate. That's like making Discord do 115 damage on 5/1/2 because its conditional is insane. :)--Mysterial 21:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Assassins should be good at making fast solo spikes and then retreating back afterwards, that's their thing. But their combos were suppose to be fragile -- ideally a sin should have to maneuver the enemy into a situation where his pants down, otherwise the spike probably won't complete. Back in the days of the Shock Assassins, that's kinda how it felt, plus with the added downside of Exhaustion. Speed-enhanced kiting, blocking, snares, enchant shatters, interrupts, blinds could all end a combo from an AoD Sin. Wasn't perfect, but it felt like there was more strategy involved in running a sin.

SP + Expose Defenses kills Kiting, Blocking, and Snares as counters and the Black off-hands makes the spike into a super easy 1-2-3 button mashing affair (the same buttons in the same order every time), with little to no energy management concerns. The impetus is on defenders to provide an active defense once every 20 seconds, or someone dies, at the low cost of 2 or 3 neurons in the attackers head having to fire.

Strong aggressive play with plenty of things dieing is preferable to plodding defensive teams. But the SP assassins are a little too 1-2-3 brain dead easy for my tastes. Running a successful assassin should require more cunning than running a warrior, not significantly less.--Drekmonger 21:44, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

"defenders to provide an active defense once every 20 seconds" if you cant do that you deserve to be dead IMO. Once every 20 seconds is nothing. --ChronicinabilitY 21:52, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

You don't get to choose the who or the when, and only specific counters work. Often, the guy with the most obvious counters is the one knocked-down, getting stabbed. Impossible? No, it's very possible to defend against a sin, esp. in 8v8 (can be different in 4v4, or worse the 1v1 HvH often degenerates into). The problem is the sin is getting a big chance at a kill in exchange for almost no expression of skill. The warrior has to consider moving towards his target, energy, adrenaline, blocking, juggling frenzy, faintheart. The sin has to consider 20seconds of cool-down between insta-death attempts, and remembering to press 1 before he presses 2 or 3.--Drekmonger 22:13, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

A little off topic, but I couldn't help but think of "One...two......five! (Uh, three sir!)" (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 22:17, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

You're comparing how to play a bad sin and how to play a good War... A good sin should be considering alot more than that when he tries to strike, and a bad war can do the same thing with builds in 4v4. --Midnight08 01:06, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a "good" shadow prison sin (except maybe for ipod's template with death blossom, siphon speed and ddagger). Every skill on that bar is designed to be used in sequence to score a kill. You need ZERO attention to positioning and almost zero attention to situational awareness to play that build. Basically you spike when your team does (sometimes you might get to choose your target), and you'll call for a removal if you're blind or hex stacked before you spike, but that's about it. It's a retarded build and I hope it dies in a fire soon. --Symbol 21:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I think all defensive skills should be nerfed into oblivion. I mean, someone uses ONE of these really strong defensive skills like...RoF, Shielding Hands, Purge Conditions, or Dismiss Conditions. If someone uses any of these seriously overpowered skills, then an assassin is totally shut down for 20 seconds. thats absurd. Come on guys. Most assassin spikes are just enough to kill someone, barely enough with Deep Wound. Any sort of healing, protection, or condition removal screws them over for 20 seconds. I'm sorry, but take some sort of defense other than block. If the assassin still kills you, then he is more skilled than you. A monk that can't counter an Assassin needs to consider a change of profession. If you play without a monk, and take no defensive skills, what do you expect? --Deathwing 21:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Lol@Assassin being "more skilled than you". How much skill does it take to mash 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 in order? That said I don't believe expose defenses is overpowered. I don't think it was overpowered before at 10r. But I do think the whole shadow-prison instakill spike template is activately BAD for guild wars gameplay, and is a prime example of too much reward for too little effort. --Symbol 22:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Lol@reading comprehension. If you survive the "instakill" from an assassin, and they kill you in the 20 seconds that they are useless, then yes, they are more skilled than you. It is easily shut down by anyone with half a brain. I do admit though, it owns people with no defensive skills and 60 armor because they needed the radiant insignias. Does the 1,2,3,4,5,6 combo take skill to kill? No not really. Does the 1,2,3,4,5,6 combo take skill to counter? No not really. Theres so many skills that make assassins useless for 20 seconds, just because you can't find any room doesn't mean it needs nerfed. --Deathwing 22:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Do you play the same game as the rest of us? You know, where there are _OTHER_ people on the opposing team who can and do contribute?. The assassin doesn't even need to kill someone to do his job, the threat of a kill alone can allow their warriors or dervs or whatever to drop someone because that spike demands immediate time, energy, and (MOST IMPORTANTLY) attention on the part of the defender to catch it. Is it _overpowered_? Perhaps not in the sense that people can't stop it. But in terms of risk+effort vs reward. HELL YES. And the devs have clearly show a willingness to nerf skills on this basis (see searing flames). --Symbol 22:56, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

People need to realise that an assasin's job IS to press 1,2,3,4,5,6 DEAD!. Thats the whole point of Attack Chains after all! I agree that there is very little diversity among assassins at the moment, due to a lack of other comparable skills. The SP bar isn't overpowered, as is clearly illustrated above, it is VERY counterable with so many different skills in the game, and because it is so dependant on 1,2,3,4,5,6 it's very easy to shut down! catch one of the 4/5 attacks with Diversion and he might as well go sit in a corner for the next 40 odd seconds! The problem i see is that people are now mistaking GOOD skills for OVERPOWERED skills! And even then, SP sin's aren't particularly good, they are just simple noob friendly assassin's, that when facing unprotected unskilled opponents, kill without any difficulty. So not overpowered. --ChronicinabilitY 23:03, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

No, 1,2,3,4,5,6,dead isn't an assassin's job, it just happens to be the role that they're forced into at the moment. That design mechanic is totally stupid and completely unworkable as something to build a class around in a team oriented game. And lets not bring up the asinine "learn2counter noob" argument. Yes, counters exist. Yes, in a vacuum, where no one splits, no one accrues dp, and monks have no other demands on their attention, SP-spike would be fine. But none of those things are true. If SP-spike was just some noob-killer build I wouldn't be complaining. But you see people abusing it all the way up the ladder, including plenty of top 20 guilds. --Symbol 23:18, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Replace ABUSE with USE in you're last sentance and yes you're right, they are used throughout the ladder. And splitting, accuring DP and monks having other things to do don't make SP sins any more difficutlt to counter against. On a splt they are very easy to counter against as they have very little to support, so a simple blind or blurred vision is usually enough. As for you're arguement that they are only forced into a 1,2,3,4,5,6 Dead attitude thats totally wrong. The entire idea of the lead, off-hand, dual attack system is to create chains of attacks, ie 1,2,3,4 etc...and the aim is obviously to kill as quickly as possible, as is the assassins job. Therfore in the simplist form, 1,2,3,4,5,6 Dead IS what they were designed to do! I'm not trying to say that it's how they should be in terms of what's best for the game, or even that its a good thing, all i am saying is that they ARE designed to do that! --ChronicinabilitY 00:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The dagger line is built around lead-offhand-dual combos that _don't_ have the potential to instakill. What people actually _use_ is the degenerate offhand-dual-offhand-dual sequence because dual attacks are so much more powerful than all other attack skills. 90% of sin skills are not designed around mashing 7 buttons in sequence in hopes of getting a kill, just look at the damn skill list. The fact that it turns out that way in practice is just a natural consequence of PvPers seeking out and exploiting the most powerful mechanics. As for splits, the standard SP sin can defeat blurred easily since they all take horns and will port in and KD your water runner before the cast completes. --Symbol 09:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Its funny that 4 of the skills that assassins regularly use are on here. Whats next? Blades of Steel? Feigned Neutrality ? Come on guys, we know you hate assassins, but could we at least just keep it centralized in one discussion? Currently its like,

"Shadow Prison is overpoweredzz"

"No its not"

"Fine Black Spider Strike is overpoweredzz!"

"No its not"

"It has to be Black Lotus Strike then!!!"

"Nope"

"Oh its obviously Expose Defenses then"

Just give it up please. Are 90% of assassins running the same build? Yes. Should we nerf all decent skills assassins have because of this? No. Buff the other skills that see no use, not kill the skills that get used. Besides, as has been stated, it is extremely easy to counter an assassin, especially the 1,2,3,4,5,6 build that you people are complaining about. --Deathwing 01:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

First, if you've actually been reading, you'd know that most of us in this discussion actually agree that Expose Defenses is not the problem. Just because the same people participated in the discussion with the same overall aim doesn't mean the opinion on the topic is the same. Secondly, if the idea for Assassins "is obviously to kill as quickly as possible", why does Temple Strike exist? Why are there an array of other Assassin skills that relate to killing indirectly at best? The answer is obvious: their job wasn't intended to be simply killing as fast as possible in 1-2-3 spikes, that's just where they ended up. Sure, it's partly because many of those skills suck, but if they didn't it wouldn't make any difference at all. Temple Strike could blind and daze for 30 seconds and I still wouldn't care - why bother with all that crap when I can just instakill people as soon as their attention lapses for a second or two? Finally, even if their job really was intended to be simply 1-2-3 spike, I'd still be here arguing about it because that's stupid design. It's contrary to the rest of the supposedly skill based game to have a build that ignores most of the strategy in favor of pressing buttons in a predefined order every 20 seconds or so. It's also extremely frustrating to newbies to get randomly destroyed in four seconds before they even get their bearings. And it's not really any fun to play against either.--Mysterial 02:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

How is Temple Strike not 1,2,3? It has to follow a lead, which in this case lets consider "1". Since it is an off-hand, the most logical thing to do is follow it with a dual attack, which we can consider "3". Now, since Temple Strike has to follow a lead, 1 has to come first, and since a dual is going to follow Temple Strike, there is a 3 after it. Now if we consider Temple Strike to be "2". Guess what? 1,2,3. Do they have to think about who they use it on? Yes. Do SP assassins have to think about who they attack, and when they attack? Yeah. If they don't score a skill, they are useless for 20 seconds. Granted, Assassins can do other things. Siphon Strength is amazing to use on some warriors. Siphon Speed can help other people kite. I'd actually love to see some more of these type of skills. Sadly though, there is a lot of crappy assassin skills, which pretty much narrows down the builds that they can use. --Deathwing 02:58, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

A dual attack doesn't have to follow Temple Strike. You may choose to do so to cover it with some more conditions (Twisting Fangs) but it's far from required. That's also still only 1,2, maybe 3, a long way from the current Assassin builds of 1,2,3,4,5,6, sometimes 7, and occasionally 8 too.--Mysterial 13:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Temple Strike is nothing, nothing comparable to SP sins. Yes, they use an attack chain, dah. But that attack chain doesn't have the damage to instantly kill. It SHUTDOWNS someone while either you can finish the kill on him while he's shutdowned if he happens to be alone, or your team can use that shutdown time (on a monk likely) to score a kill on someone else. Or it can even be used to stop a warrior from spiking your monk down with the blind. It's a very versatile skill that, while part of an attack chain, isn't part of an 'i kill you in 4s with my 8 buttons' attack chain. It's a very tactical skill that requires good team coordination to be worth it. Lately in GvG i always used Siphon Strength Assassin and imo that's a very nice bar to play too, with a good mix of shutdown and high damage combos, but not straight kill combo. You can spike assist with allies to score kill, or kill overextended people/people in a split on your own fairly fast, but you mostly cause good shutdown, high pressure and spike assist with very high power in split (where you can take out any attacker's damage usually because they can't get rid of Siphon Strength, and then have a snare (Siphon Speed) and high damage to finish them off).

As for SP sin, sure, you can stop that combo if it happens once every 20s sec and nothing else happens. But you know, good guilds running this (watch RenO, they've been running that 2 SP sins build for how long now? And they're rank 1-2 or something, at least were when i last watched them) might fail most of the time, but there's other people pressuring/disrupting on the team and 2 SP spikes every 20s means that you have to be perfect everytime. Eventually, if someone makes a mistake, someone dies. And it's not actually easy to never make a mistake when you're always under hex pressure with a Melandru pressuring too. The annoying part mostly is that this bar DOESN'T take any skill to play (ok, minimal skill. Target picking) and does reward bad play overall. You don't have to actually do anything 75% of the game except running around. Then you pick a target that's not preprot and if possible slightly hurt already, and click 1 to 8 (and it's really 1 to 8 now, all 8 skills used at the same time in one single combo with 0 versatility or option on the bar).

The bar as a whole should be nerfed. The offhand-dual-offhand-dual combos SHOULDN'T do so close to a straight kill, because as long as they do it will completely shadow everything else sins do. My suggestion on this personally would be to raise SP to 25s and lower the +damage of BLS and BSS to +1..13..16. The price to pay for straight offhands should be that you don't deal much +damage out of them. This way, offhand-dual-offhand-dual would lose around 35-40 damage in their combo, which would likely be enough to take them away from that 'straight kill' potential. And the nerf of 25s to SP means that you're not gonna spike too often if you rely only on that as your spike skill, and at least half your combos should be done WITHOUT relying on SP, which will increase the player skill needed to play the bar optimally, and SP will become a nice offensive shadowstep but not one that you can fully rely on absolutely every time you combo.

And sins DO have interesting bars potential (Siphon Strength is one, and with GW:EN skills there should be some new stuff too. A few buffs to key Deadly Arts/Shadow Arts skills could change tons too), but they're kinda pointless in general when you can just bring 2 sins that only have to press 1 to 8 to kill. Basically, you put all the pressure on the OTHER team, who has to be perfect in their defense all the time, while your team doesn't have to be skilled to run this (at least not the SP sins). It's just like stuff like mass Searing Flames was much more easy to run than to counter. It doesn't mean it couldn't be countered, but when a team running a build like this can easily beat people that would beat them in more or less any other situation, it's bad. Patccmoi 14:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

You are simply moaning all the way through that rant that an SP assassin can kill something unpreotected. Well well-done! Of course they can, and so should any assassin build. People think that nerfing SP assassins will stop Insta-kill assassins, but it wont, unless you nerf them so much they become about as usefull as a third elbow! The only reason teams take assassin's is for quick spike damage to KILL a target, if assassin's can't do that then they fail. Simple as. You don't take assassin's to pressure, you take warrior's and dervishes. No matter what you think about it in relation to how difficult or easy it is, an assassin's job IS to kill very quickly. Nerf that and you might as well remove them from the game. --ChronicinabilitY 15:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

"The only reason teams take assassin's is for quick spike damage to KILL a target, if assassin's can't do that then they fail.". So in your opinion an A/W Moebius + flurry sin fails because they can't spike? It's exactly that mindset that ruins whatever potential the other assassin skills actually have. SP sins are that good that you simply don't have to look at the other skills anymore. It wouldn't matter if the other skills were buffed as long as SP sins are around that let you kill things faster and with less effort than any other skill combination. --Draikin 17:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

<-------- Incorrect, an A/W Flurry build fails because Wars and Dervishes (the profssions built for pressure) can do the job more reliably. The Build is great, but usually a War or Mel build is better for pressure. The reason,The only reason teams take assassin's is for quick spike damage to KILL a target, if assassin's can't do that then they fail. was said, is because thats the only thing they specialize in. They Spike great (their role), they dps poorly (moeb/db is their only reliable dps), They snare horribly compared to R's and E's... Have you competively played an SP sin? its not as easy as you make it to get the job done. Yes theyre strong, but there are PLENTY of strong builds out there. Please if you are going to nerf SP sins you might as well list every build thats considered good out there as "overpowered". Its a good build, but it is fragile and can be stopped pretty easily. --Midnight08 18:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly! Well said Midnight. Of course assassin's can do other things, but they are not the best characters to do wo with!...You don't try to pressure with an assassin, just like you dont expect and ele to kill in 4 seconds. They have different specialities, and what it seems the entire arguement is coming down to is that people don't like the speciality of the assassin. That's all very well, but that doesn't mean that every build that works for the assassin should be nerfed! I Run a Moebius assassin quite a lot of the time, and the bar is entirely different from the SP bar, but the outcome is the same, Fast Eficient spikes...killing opponents! --ChronicinabilitY 18:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow I step away for a few days to work on GW:EN skills and miss all the fun, for started I'd like to get a few things clear, Assassins are hard to play anyone who thinks you simply click 1 2 3 4 5 6, clearly hasn't played these guys enough, if you think my statement is false go play X Ekelon X with the same assassin build. There are a ton of choices to make, and while you can be effective doing 1 2 3 4 5 6, your gonna die 10 times more then someone who knows what they are doing. Ok for the age old question are Assassins overpowered, I don't think so, are they balanced no I don't think they are. But Isaiah how can they not be overpowered and not be balanced, in order for something to be balanced there has to be diversity, and options. Currently there is very few sin bars, there is the Shadow Prison sin, and the Mobus sin, there are variants of each, but the Shadow Prison sin is used in 90% of the time. Because of this I'll probably be tweaking these guys this next update, my guess is I'll hit Black Spider Strike, and Black Lotus strike, and probably the recharge on Shadow Prison, but well see. In the end the assassins job is to get in spike their little heart out, and get out. This is not going to change, this is their job it's what they do! ~Izzy @-'---- 19:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually Ekelon wins because he can control his 3 other heroes better than the opponent, not because he's better at playing an SP sin. There's no secret to the build, as a monk in HB you just sit there ready to cancel Holy Veil when Expose shows up (well unless you're a Mo/A, then you just use Recall and run around until time is up). The only difference is that players like Ekelon or Adzik won't try to continue the rest of their combo when they miss, they'll corrupt enchant your Holy Veil then rend enchant your Spirit bond before using BoS + Impale, they'll try to trick you by using Expose on one target and then quickly spiking another and they'll use SP to snare you so they can cap the shrine before you get there. But in the end they'll still be clicking 12345678 to kill their opponent and then wait another 20 seconds to repeat the exact same thing. The only thing you don't know is who they're going to spike because positioning doesn't matter anymore when they have SP. At that point it's just a matter of reflexes instead of actual skill. I'll already click Mending Touch before they even use Impale simply because I know their combo as well as they do. I've seen top 20 HB players button smashing on Impale until they're completely at 0 energy because they failed to notice BoS didn't hit. So can you be effective just by clicking 12345678? Yes, you'll be very effective already. You can get better at it, but the difference in skill between experienced SP sins and a newbie is small compared to the progression you can make with other popular builds. That's exactly why they replaced R/N touch rangers in RA for that matter. And about the Moebius sin, since when isn't that a pressure build? It's not a instant kill combo, rather you constantly repeat your combo to pressure your target with a massive amount of armour ignoring damage (combined with KD, interrupts and/or fear me spam). It's the only build that can compete with SP sins simply because it does more than what the assassin is supposed to do. If you only want them to "get in, spike and get out" then every assassin will just use that one single build that is the best at that job, which is exactly why 90% of them are running SP sins. --Draikin 21:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It'd be nice to see Expose Defenses given a 15e cost. The change will make it tougher to run with Shadow Prison (which should be 15E too IMHO) while also making Fox's Promise a better elite in the process. In a way, Expose Defenses is kind of like Mantra of Persistence for the Mesmers in that it is a non-elite that significantly enhances an entire line of skills and builds for its class. MoP was nerfed significantly several times (was once 10e, but now is 15e and affected Hexes last half as long as before), so it wouldn't be unreasonable to bring ED down to earth in similar fashion considering how well it enhances any dagger spike builds as a non-elite. arredondo 23:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm responding to only Expose Defenses, but my post addresses most of the skills on this page. The attack skills by themselves are fine, they are near copies of any given warrior attack skill. The reason every assassin runs the exact same build is because it's easy to do and hard to counter. The regular way to counter melee is to block it or kite it...and with expose+shadow prison, you can do neither of those. Expose should only prevent blocking if it's the only hex on the target. This would at least bring some usage of player skill into the assassin class, instead of this business of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, wait 10 seconds, repeat. Right now, assassin combos are too easy to use and too hard to stop because of Expose Defenses. Shard 05:01, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

What about making it "For 5...17...20 seconds, while target foe has no other Assassin hexes, that foe cannot block your attacks."? -- Gordon Ecker 05:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Shadow Prison, Shadow Walk, etc

I have no problem with assassins using shadow steps to spike (OK I do a bit, but I accept they're here to stay). What I really hate is warriors and dervishes being able to do it too. It completely rules out pre-protting and pre-kiting (two of the game's core player-skill elements), and with Mel's dervishes you can't even blind the bugger. It effectively turns an otherwise balanced build into a full caster spike with all the benefits but without any of the usual downsides (inability to pressure, long cast times, low armour etc). And it makes Ancestor's Rage insanely good (tempted to add this to the overpowered list by itself but I'll hold off for now). My suggestion is to make all shadow steps disable all non-assassin attack skills for 2 seconds. Errr 12:23, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

my suggestion is that using a warrior stance disables all your non-warrior attacks for 2secs. why shouldnt w and d be able to teleport if sinz are able to use warrior stances? --79.8.174.24 20:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

yes, would like to see longer recharges on most shadowsteps but scaling with critical strikes so that they end up a bit better for most assassins (well the 45 sec recharge ones at least), but alot harder to use for most as well. Or Maybe something like 50% fail with under 4 cs? I generally would like to see most of the shadowsteps become more effective for assassins (so we have some variety, 45 secs is too long), while also becoming less of an anti kite skill for everyone else(as this removes one of the central ideas of what makes an assassin special and gives it to everyone else). --Midnight08 15:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't like Shadow Prison on principle. When AoD was king of the shadowsteps you could shatter it to break the assassin's combo. The cost was more significant for a warrior. If you knew an assassin was about to use AoD on you, you could move in a straight line. So long as you were not snared (or better yet had a speed boost), when the assassin teleported in he would wiff -- hitting nothing but air with his first dagger attack if he just pressed 1-2-3. Or if he used Shock directly after AoD, a kiting target would often be too far away to hit with Falling Spider.

Maybe rework Shadow Prison into an interesting snare? For XX seconds target moves 66% slower, when the hex is removed you shadowstep to target... So the snare and shadowstep would be staggered. --24.206.111.186 07:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

See the entire argument in why Shadow Fang wont work... uncontrollable effects are bad for assassins. SP is only IMBA in HB... its good, but not overkill. If something MUST be done, i would say make it... Elite Hex Spell. Shadow Step to target foe. For 4...9...10 seconds, that foe suffers X degen and is crippled. The point here being that crippled is much easier to remove being a condition, the degen being so it still has a "Hex" effect. --Midnight08 06:47, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

That's interesting. The synergy with Trampling Ox could be a bit scary though lol. Shendaar 07:18, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I would enjoy that =D lol --ChronicinabilitY 21:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Honestly I think these two are fine, I really feel the 45r teleport skills are just too much and I may bring them down to 30r base instead of 45, as for these two well see I don't think I'll change Shadow Walk it has it's own trade offs, but I may look at some changes to shadow prison. ~Izzy @-'---- 19:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Shadow Walk has trade offs unless you're a dervish, in which case it doesn't really. And if you buff Death's Charge to 30 secs, the meta will fill up with Death's Charge hammer warriors, which is a pretty depressing thought (goodbye kiting skills, goodbye pre-protting skills, goodbye positioning skills). The only way of buffing the 45sec skills for sins without generating massive non-sin abuse is to tweak the skills to stop warriors and dervishes using them (e.g. through the 2 sec non-assassin attack skill disable idea). Errr 09:52, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the suggestion a little earlier, making the shadowsteps a 50% failure chance based on Crit. Strikes, might be a nice touch. Or something else simple, that makes the shadowsteps better for 'Sins then Warriors and whatnot... I would personally be one of the happiest players alive if you made it a "50% chance of shadowstepping to a random location on the map with Critical Strikes 4 or less". :P (with that actually, I might purposely set my Critical Strikes to three...) -- Jioruji Derako.> 10:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

"Shadow step to target foe, Lose all adrenaline. You cannot gain adrenaline for 10 Seconds." How about that as a general fix to the warrior problem? It wouldnt affect Assassin's at all and would then allow the non-elite Shadow Steps to be dropped to 30seconds recharge safely. Making them more usable and allowing for different bars to the SP bar. --ChronicinabilitY 13:05, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

That fixes warriors but does nothing to dervishes. Errr 16:08, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Shadow stepping dervishes aren't as big of a problem, because they can't 'Unload' in the same way a warrior can. They can still be dangerous but shadow stepping Adrenaline full warriors are much more dangerous than Dervishes. --ChronicinabilitY 16:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Somehow, Wearying Strike->Mystic Sweep is at least as scary to me as Evis-Exec. Especially if they can shadowstep on 2 adjacent foes to do it and your monks have a hard time seeing which one of them is actually being spiked to prot. Shadowsteps on Dervishes are as much of a problem, at least potentially, for instance if other skills get buffed on Derv. I still think that 2s disable on all non-Assassin skills on shadowsteps would be a good step forward. Patccmoi 17:53, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Can someone tell me where to look to see these overpowered teleporting Warriors and Dervishes? Thanks. -Ensign 20:12, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

They are referring to the proposed reduction in recharge times for deaths charge, and are concerned it might cause shadowstepping warriors to come back like the days of Shadow prison+dismember euro spikes. Im a little concerned too. Shellshock, deaths charge+body blow+agonising chop/critical chop (buffed with ghostly weapon), grenths aura dervish with pious fury and a high dmg spike skill, shatter enchant, energy blast. OUCH. Just needs a war/ass, dervish/ass, ele/rit, mes/x, perhaps another ele/mo with draw or paragon or another mesmer. New telespike meta. Buff deaths charge and this could happen. Sins wont use it.

Why are teleporting Warriors and Dervishes a problem? -Ensign 05:51, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Because they remove the benefits of positioning, pre-protting and pre-kiting from the the team facing them. And they remove the need for good movement and positioning from the team using them, so they encourage bad play. And their skill/reward ratio is obscenely low compared with non shadow-stepping warriors. And they're no fun to play against. The situation at the moment isn't too bad (although the [be] spike build is still very nasty) because warriors need SP to tele-spike, but if Death's Charge and Dark Prison become viable they'll be doing it with Eviscerate and hammer elites instead of just Dismember. OK, an assassin's attack chain might do more damage than a warrior over 4 seconds, but Eviscerate -> Agonizing can easily do 200 dmg + DW in the space of 0.3 sec, 0.9 secs after the shadow step. And at least assassins die easily. Errr 10:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand how mobility tools can encourage bad play. Haven't the problems with shadow stepping skills that were too good always been that they enabled tactics that an opponent had no reasonable chance to respond to? You're worried that if Warriors are able to teleport, they might be able to...hide and time their adrenaline spikes better? Is that a joke? -Ensign 10:53, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

You're misinterpreting/misrepresenting my post. Most of my post made exactly the complaint you seem to think might be valid (enabling low-skill tactics that take high-skill to counter effectively). But yes, I do also stand by my suggestion that shadow steps encourage bad play, because there is no need to get your positioning, movement and timing right for spikes when you can just press 1, 2, 3 for a perfectly timed dual warrior spike every time. For example, most of my guild started GvGing in December, but by January we were beating top 50 teams because our adrenal spikes were perfect even though our warriors (like the rest of us) were pretty bad. We stopped doing it because we realised that the warriors were learning nothing playing that way. And I never suggested that warriors would be hiding between spikes btw - which is obviously stupid - just that the shadow step takes all the skill out of spiking. Errr 12:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Not hiding as in the Warriors running and hiding, I mean hiding the spiked target by not running towards it (the tell is the teleport, not the movement). My general thought on short range, offensive teleports is that I like them quite a bit for their ability to stretch the field or punish bad positioning in the hands of a good player. The skills are at their strongest when used to push past a team to get on a flagger before the Monks can get back, or to push a backline and jump back to the frontline to spike an overextended melee. They compress an opponent's field, limiting their tactics, if you can recognize the right situations in which to use them. On the flip side all of this can be played around as you should see all of it coming, it's just a tool that's used to punish inevitable mistakes hard. So for those reasons, I think teleporting melee is generally good for the game. The low skill situation you're talking about, in cleaning up adrenal spikes, I agree with. It does make cleaner adrenal spikes and is easier to pull off. However I don't really consider that a really pressing concern, because it's an ability that a bad team would use to perform adequately, and not one that a good team could use to become unstoppable. Reason being that the good Warriors are already good at timing their spikes, so they don't gain benefits there, and because they are good at switching targets and causing chaos with that sort of gameplay the teleport actually becomes a tell that otherwise wouldn't be there. Not that there aren't still benefits, such as the increased target selection and the ability to make plays mentioned above by stretching the field, but that needs to be weighed against other options like brute force from Conjures, self-sufficiency from Plague or Mending Touch, or utility like Shock. I don't think that's a trivial decision in the high end game at all.

If the big concern about teleporting Warriors is that they allow weaker teams to perform at a decent level, I'm fully in support of that happening. Skills like that are important parts of the game, as they let people get experience playing competitively without having to master a bunch of really nuanced skills to even start. It doesn't become a problem until those nuanced skills start to be pushed off of bars in high level play because the simpler options are that much more powerful, that even in skilled hands you're better off running the simple bar. I understand the concerns, but I don't think teleporting Warriors are a big danger of crossing that threshold. -Ensign 22:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your point that shadow steps on warriors benefit bad/inexperienced players more than good players, and it is unlikely that the top 20 will become dominated by W/As. However, I think that raises an interesting philosophical point on the aims of skill balancing. I disagree that the only aim of skill balancing is to maintain build diversity in the top 20. If certain skills/builds that are not overpowered for elite players are still significantly stronger for non-elite players, they can become dominant in the mid and lower reaches of the ladder. If those skills/builds are not fun to play against and/or discourage the development of playing skill then that is a massive problem for the game. I think you can draw a fairly good analogy with the thumper and necro heroway build. You're never going to see it in the top 20 because elite players can deal with it. But when you get out of the top 200 it's everywhere, and it makes the game a hell of a lot less fun for the majority of the player base. OK, heroway is certainly worse than shadow stepping warriors, but I still maintain that playing against hyper-defensive pure spike builds (which is what shadow steps on warriors encourage) is not much fun either.

Another of your points that I disagree with is that it's a good thing that shadow steps punish overextension. Overextension is not always a mark of bad play - pushing up on a flagger with your split warrior has always been a solid tactic for breaking static games and preventing ward camping. If shadow steps prevent that (and they kinda do) I think that's a bad thing. Errr 10:04, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't disagree that skill balancing is important for the middle tiers of the ladder as well as the top, though the goals there are a bit different. Simpler templates are important stepping stones in the game, to let people experience some competition without having to master bars...however at some point, people start to get better but get frustrated because 'we keep losing to cspacing Steady Stance nubs' or equivalent. So yes, there's a careful balance in there between what's enabling people to progress and see the next level, and what's hindering the next level by being too strong through those levels. Teleporting Warrior spikes seem pretty subtle to me, but if you want to say that people won't progress past it because it's too strong I won't argue that point.

I'll have to agree to disagree on teleporting to punish people out of position being a good thing. But I'll have to add that the range of the teleport and the range of a Monk's heals are identical, so in order for a teleporting Warrior to punish someone well out of range that Warrior still needs a head start. You don't get to beat the Monks by several seconds unless the Monks are well out of range as well. -Ensign 23:24, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Shadow Prison could indeed use a nerf... maybe 15E/.25C/30R over the current 10E/.25C/20R. Maybe even give it a max 6s duration. arredondo 00:38, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, let's nerf the elite to worse than it's non-elite counterpart. --Deathwing 03:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Not quite Dark Prison's stats (-33% snare, 45s recharge there), but perhaps it is a tad much. Instead of my suggestion of 15E/.25c/30R I'd say it can have a 25s recharge with the 15E cost. This skill needs to be cut down, not BSS and BLS which are useful in non-SP setups. Nerfing SP and Expose Defenses (15E charge for that too, making Fox's Promise a better elite in the process) is the way to ensure the two skills are rarely used together.

arredondo 23:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The "all your non-Assassin skills are disabled for 3 seconds" effect would be quite nice, possibly... but that has the side effect of nerfing any other combos a 'Sin might have (no Shock + Falling Spider combo for you!). I guess it all depends... we'll have to see how many Warriors and Dervishes are going to want to stick themselves as W/A or D/A. That secondary on a Derv or Warrior is a pretty dead giveaway as it is... you can plan ahead if you know they're packing shadowsteps. Nerfing non-Sin shadowsteps might not even be needed, especially at this point; possibly if they suddenly start taking over the metagame, but as-is, a small decrease in recharge shouldn't make a huge difference for the effectiveness of the skills. -- Jioruji Derako.> 03:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

That makes it unusable at all for warriors, byebye adren. –Ichigo724 03:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

That would be the point! --ChronicinabilitY 00:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

No it wouldn't. These's a different between making something less powerful and making it completely useless. –Ichigo724 14:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Deadly Paradox

At the core of many recent abuses is Deadly Paradox. This skill needs to be changed for the same reason Mantra of Persistence was changed, because it makes it impossible to properly balance significant chunks of Shadow Arts and Deadly Arts, as any given skill has extremely different properties with Paradox active. Augury of Death becomes a half-second-cast DW (see above), Shadow Form goes from 58% downtime to 17%, Expunge becomes a 15-second-recharge enchant stack strip, etc.

Feigned Neutrality was already gimped severely due to Deadly Paradox, Entangling Asp is useless outside of DP because a competitive recharge would make it imbalanced with it, N/A spike assists were abusing it non-stop, I think it's time to hit the problem at the source. Riotgear 18:46, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree with hitting it. It's forcing gimped Assassin utility because it would all be too good with DP otherwise. I fully agree with Entangling Asp, which i'd love to see at 10/1/12, which seems fair to me considering you need a lead to proc it, but would be absolutely ridiculous under DP.

My suggestion for DP would be to relegate it as a niche skill for particular uses. Make it 45s recharge, last 5..10s. So it could be used for instance to fast recharge a Shadow Form at some point (but not constantly), or perform a DA combo really fast once and have it ready faster for a second time after, but NOT something you could have up all the time. You could safely balance Assassin utility without considering DP because at worse it's a small thing happening every 45s (and at worse work on shutdowning the Assassin when you see DP go up, knowing it won't last long and will take a while to recharge afterwards).

It will always severly limit Assassin utility as long as it stays as it is now, and i'm sick of seeing everything else balanced around it instead of seeing this balanced properly Patccmoi 18:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

This is one of the few times I really wouldnt mind seeing a skill nerfed straight into hell.--Atlas Oranos 22:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I posted this in the Deadly Haste section.... the latest stats on skills used in championship play shows that Deadly Paradox is not part of top tier play at all. Of course that doesn't mean it isn't a good skill, but I think it shows it isn't overpowered. I personally feel it is fine the way it is, despite the fact that some skills have naturally longer recharges because of it. Some of those skills might be too strong if they naturally cast/recharged 50% faster because they'd then work with Dagger combos with no penalty.

For instance, I don't think it would be wise to make Dancing Daggers a 5e/.5c/2.5r skill so that Dagger-chain spike Assassins can have it as a potent option when Blinded or blocked. DP is a great all-around skill for non-Dagger Assassin builds (which themselves aren't considered top tier). There's no guarantee all of the non-attacks will be buffed should DP be nerfed, so I say let's leave well enough alone. --arredondo 08:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually Deadly Arts sins with Deadly Paradox have invaded TA and even HA. The combination of Entangling Asp and Sig of Judgement makes tons of knockdowns that are hard to deal with while the damage piles up, and the fast cast time means that interrupting is really really hard. I honestly don't think it's a good skill for the game. No, dancing daggers shouldn't be 5/.5/2.5r. It's actually FINE at 5/1/5 (notice that it's above 100 damage, in 3 packets so can't trigger Prot Spirit/Spirit Bond, for 5E and 1s cast. If it wasn't half range, it'd be the strongest caster spike available, and even then it's actually used more and more as mass caster spike in HA. This skill DESERVES 5/1/5, it's in fact too strong at 5/.5/2.5). Some skills though, like Entangling Asp, could definitely use a better recharge. But with Deadly Paradox it's already borderline overpowered, so putting it any lower would be retarded as long as DP exists. And how much that was used in the last championship doesn't mean jack. Not all skills are meant for GvG play, and in general spamming builds there are very risky because of all the Diversions, and Deadly Paradox leads to spamming builds in general. The fact that it doesn't fit well in the GvG meta doesn't mean that the skill itself is fine when it's abused everywhere else Patccmoi 14:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I clearly said that DD doesn't need to go 2.5s, so there's no argument there. Just because DA sins are getting more use in a world of SP sins, and KD Hammer or spiking Axe Warriors is no reason to try to reduce its effectiveness. If "abuse" is the criteria for pulling out the nerf bat, then there are a ton of skills that are in line ahead of Deadly Paradox, including Reversal of Fortune, Protective Spirit, Savage/Distracting Shot, and Blinding Flash. Deadly Paradox is hardly used as much as those, and none of them are overpowered. Hopefully A-Net just leaves DP alone rather than nerf it and then try and tinker with a lot of the 'Sins non-attacks to keep them useful. --arredondo 17:54, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Howabout a complete change as in its current form it is overpowered. I was considering something along the lines of Stance. For 5...13...15 seconds, Assassin Skills activate and recharge 20...45...50% faster. When this Stance ends all of your non attack skills are disabled for 10...17..20 seconds, and you suffer from weakness and crached armor for 5..7...10 seconds. This would make it useable by frontline assassins increasing their DPS initially and also allowing them quick use of key skills. When it ends the character is left in a heavily weakened state and in need of support as well as lowering damage until it cycles. If overpowered in this state add cracked armor at the start... Similar concept, but very different end results and it wouldnt be able to stay up 100% due to the skill disable after the effect wears off. It would also require a notable investment in DA for its full effects. --Midnight08 23:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Self induced condition/skill disable's time should be shortened with raised DA. ‽-(eronth) I give up 01:34, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

No, the idea here is the stronger the effect the stronger the setback, if you did it that way the skill would likely be more overpowered than it is now, this way, the more of a punch they want from the effect the more the setbacks punch back. Teamates can help counter the conditions and the sin can still attack for the duration, meaning he uses it to become more formidable now, at the expense of becoming more of a burden on the team later.--Midnight08 06:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree entirely, when I stop seeing shadowform/deadly paradox assassins in PVP I'll be very happy. I also like the idea of disabling all non attack skills for XXX seconds when the skill ends but the self-inflicted conditions are un-neccessary IMO. --Tankity Tank 01:36, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Best suggestion I've heard so far: 30 second recharge. Problem solved. Riotgear 06:08, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

We played a bonder and three Deadly Paradox assassins with Sig of Judgement in TA the other day. Now, I have some TA experience, the other three team members, however, were beginners to RA/TA. We ended up winnig nearly every game, most (flawless) victories done in less than a minute. We encountered teams that emoted a tiger, and won.
My point is, regarding RA/TA, this build desperatly needs a nerf, and i agree with the idea, that Deadly Paradox is the main problem here. My three proposals to solve this issue are
1) Reduced recast ist just fine, but get rid of the increased cast time speed. This way, Dancing Daggers and Entanging Asp would be vulnerable to interrupters and damage coming from the assassin would be slowed down.
2) Move Deadly Paradox to Shadow Arts or (even better) Critcal Strikes attribute. Everythings evolves around Dancing Daggers, Entangling Asp, Signet of Toxic Shock and Deadly Paradox - and those are all related to Deadly Arts attribute. The idea is to force Assassins to put points in Deadly Arts AND Shadow Arts/Critical strikes in order to be effective. In my opinion, the possibility to bring up another attribute to 12 causes much of the problem, so I think this would make the skill more balanced.
3) As other people mentioned before, bring up the recast to 30s. This way the assassins can spike (as they are supposed to), but they can NOT keep up the pressure for such a ridiculously long time.
Any of these, a combination, or maybe some other nerf, would be very healthy to RA/TA. - TeleTeddy 11:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Totally forgot. Now that I'm here, *hands up*. Nerf this skill. Well, not nerf. Tweak it. Change it. Make it do something else. Servant of Kali 19:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The 'permanent' Shadow Form users with the lower recharge AEcho + Deadly Paradox are a real concern too. Not necessarily unstoppable, but they can grief RA something fierce. It's not necessarily common to have a skill that can stop Shadow Form, and a guy can keep it up 100% of the time now, not even a chance to interrupt without a signet. Patccmoi 06:29, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I have a friend that goes to Fort Aspenwood with permanent Shadow Form... he just charges through the green gates (waits for people running amber to open gates) and then kills the gatekeepers + gunther. Even if he can't kill them, he forces the Monks or whatever to stick around while the rest of the team charges through the gates. skaspaakssa 14:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Ive got a nice idea, change Dancing Daggers to this : Spell. Send out three Dancing Daggers at target foe. For each dagger that hits, target foe takes 5...29...35 earth damage when they next take damage. Dancing Daggers has half the normal range. This skill counts as a lead attack.

That way it will activate skills like PS and SB, and wont be as spammable, because they will need to cause damage before recasting DD.--Renegade 14:26, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Dont change Dancing Daggers cause DP is broked. ‽-(eronth) I give up 23:54, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah Deadly Paradox makes the already powerful daggers/asp/toxic shock combo even more devastating, on top of making it nearly uninterruptable, and giving it a 8ish second recharge. Even if your target doesn't die, you can follow the combo up with itself, which is just plain stupid. Every time I fight with/against one of these in TA or RA, it levels the other team in a matter of moments. It's a ranged version of prenerf SP/Expose, but with no viable counters.

As for a suggestion, I'd say the recharge time clause should be removed, or the skill should scale in another attribute (critical strikes, to prevent fast casting mesmer abuse). I am so sick of seeing skill-less gimmicks dominating the assassin meta. Sins have so much potential to be a cool, active profession. The NF sin skills disappointed me because they made it a "1 2 3 win" profession. Shard 02:07, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Nerf Paradox to 30r and make it a skill instead of stance. Then buff Deadly Haste to:

Enchantment Spell. For 5...30...35 seconds, half-ranged spells, signets and stances cast 18...44...50% faster and recharge 18...44...50% faster. 5e/.25c/20r HTS 84.40.188.84 17:51, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The only reason the spike is effective, is because no one calls augury like they should. Not a major threat otherwise. Readem Promote My Ban Here 06:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I humbly protest against this skill. I'm trying really hard to resist the kill-impulse and think reasonably. how about 0...6d, 10e spec'd in crit strikes ? (no more E/A or Rt/A silliness [by silliness I mean evil degeneracy]) and/or only works on spells (not signets) ... and/or 10...50% faster? Perhaps I'm missing the thing this skill does for GW, or accomplishes, that would serve as the foundation of an argument for treating it differently than a poisonous snake threatening one's infant child. (but I am lowly, and am often shown the errors of my thinking) love, Aran 21:16, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Skills like these should not exist. Hint: Mantra of Persistence imbalance phenomenon. Tweak, change the effect. Servant of Kali 08:51, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

This skill singlehandedly defined the metagame in TA. No skill should singlehandedly make every other skill in the same attribute line broken. Horribly designed skill, and I think nobody says it best than the post above me. Skills like this should not exist. Shard 02:37, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

lmfao TA metagame? Wth is that? Readem Warning: Ignore this User if at all possible. 05:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It's what people tend to run in TA. Duh. Why do you post in a competitive game balance discussion when you don't know these basic terms readem? There is more to life than failing at showing how cool you are. 72.235.48.41 04:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

lmfao, is there a AB meta as well, lulz? Readem Hate Mail Goes Here 17:40, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually... yes, there is. Nobody cares about AB meta, but yes, there is. ;) Seriously, even if you don't use the word meta, that's not the point: Balance in TA seems to be broken to a certain degree, and there are people (like me) who care about it. - TeleTeddy 16:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Broken? I keep seeing that here, but I think it is an exaggeration of the Deadly Arts line under this skill (no other line is greatly improved by it for offense). Even within the DA line, the one skill that has the biggest impact under DP is Dancing Daggers. That is a skill that hits hard and often, but is 100% affected by armor and anti-magic casting defenses and skills.

Rangers, Warriors, Paras and Dervs aren't easily spiked by it, and the casters can be spiked just as hard by the Ele fire spells (from a distance) or KD Hammer Warriors. Not to mention, spamming DDs add up energy wise, especially combined with the use of rest of one's skills. You can't simply add Critical Eye, Black Lotus Strike, or Zealous mods or any of the other +energy Assassin skills because they all require Daggers as the main weapon which of course conflicts with Deadly Paradox since it disables Dagger skills.

Certainly SP Assassins kill even faster than a DA Assassin. Sure, DP+DD spam works pretty good except for the areas I point out, but that's not a reason to nerf it. --arredondo 18:33, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Nah, Dancing Daggers is not the problem, it's the uninterruptable (casting time of 1/2s) combination of knockdowns and damage. Damage dealt by signets is armor ignoring damage and you get poisened, I don't think damage dealt by Dancing Daggers is that important. The build might even work without Dancing Daggers, if no lead attack was needed. I play RA/TA very often, and in my opinion, A/Mo with Signet of Judgement definitely needs a nerf - preferably via Deadly Paradox. - TeleTeddy 22:53, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

If a nerf happens, I hope they adjust other DA skills; much as Mantra of Persistence is somewhat factored into Illusion skills, DP is factored into DA skills. --Epinephrine 22:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with above. In any case, I believe Deadly paradox is gimping Assassin Deadly arts and Shadow arts just because of the possible potential with Deadly Paradox on the same skillbar. This skill should not be able to kept up constantly, and also outclassed Deadly Haste by a wide Margin. 30 sec recharge IMO...--Zarfol 05:28, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

This skill was made to help a lot of skills that would never see light of day, I don't think the builds that come about because of this skill are insanely overpowered it just allows for some odd builds out there, it's mainly powerful with Augury of Death, but in the end the two are sorta balanced with each other. I don't plan on changing this anytime soon. ~Izzy @-'---- 00:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. A skill whose only job is to make other previously useless skills useful. Am i the only one who thinks this is a little... odd?--Lorekeeper 14:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

"Odd" is putting it very kindly. If you knew that 50% faster cast/recharge would make a bunch of skills that would otherwise never be used actually useful, why didn't you... I don't know... apply it directly to those skills? Instead of making a blatantly overpowered skill that then abuses those few skills that were actually fine (or close to it) before? --Mysterial 17:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, the function allows you to use skills which are barely supplimental become the focus of your build, it does cost you your attack capabilities which is a significant cost and limitation, making this a caster alternative.

I think it is more reasonable to cut the value of this effect in half, and add a little bit of the effectiveness back to the base skills. That would allow the base skills to operate in other builds better, and slightly reduce the combination advantage from this effect, but overall, it is a viable Assassin build, in keeping with the lethality an Assassin is designed to operate.--BahamutKaiser 19:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Well its not like i lose to builds centered around these sins on a regular basis, but on most occassions it does get pretty hairy. I like the fact that people are able to keep coming up with these new and deadly builds. It gets boring to monk vs the same typs of builds over and over again. At least it will take me a few more matches vs these sins in order to figure out the best way to monk against them. So far ive had success removing the Augury of death as often as possible and removing any conditions as often as possible. SoA myself and aura of stability on the LoD usually helps to stabilise the dmg and KD to levels at which we can go about preventing deaths. But i would say that in most cases we win because the limited utility/defensive abilities of these sin builds caused their backlines to crumble faster than mine did. And over time im sure monks will have more experience fighting these things, they are still relatively new in the grand scheme of things. --Lorekeeper 01:17, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that DP is effectively doing the opposite, it's forcing skills like Feigned Neutrality to never see the light of day outside of with Deadly Paradox. If you want skills like Entangling Asp to see use, then fix the godawful recharge on it. At the very least, get rid of the fast-cast aspect so the ridiculous DA builds can actually be disrupted in some practical way.

And yes, the builds coming out of it have been "insanely overpowered:" An extremely-fast-casting caster spike which mostly goes through Spirit Bond and has six unconditional KDs in the TA variant and a minimum of five plus however many copies of SoJ they decide to run in the HA variant. Echo-Shadow Form invincibility builds that are extremely impractical to kill because their window of vulnerability is a couple seconds, all of which are spent under Feigned Neutrality. The N/A spike-assist used in ritspike was based on Deadly Paradox DA because it provided a fast-cast unconditional KD and low-recharge fast-cast enchant stack strip. "Odd" is something that has niche uses and doesn't work particularly well unless your opponent really didn't bring any general-purpose counters. These are not "odd," these are seeing play in HA and especially TA. "Overpowered" is something which most general-purpose counters don't really work, and something that produces far too much effect for the skill needed to run it, which I'm pretty sure every build oriented around Deadly Paradox qualifies for.

If you want those unused skills to see the light of day, then they need to be fixed, not thrown up against something which throws the cast/recharge balancing mechanisms of two entire lines of skills completely out the window. You wouldn't look at pre-buff Shield of Regeneration and say "okay, this sucks, I'm going to make a skill that makes ALL monk spells cast in 1/4 sec and recharge in a quarter of the time" would you? So why do it with Deadly Paradox? Riotgear 09:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

In addition, I'd like to mention Mantra of Persistence. Some time ago its effect was reduced, while the duration of most illusion hexes was extended. The reason for that was stated something like "because Mantra of Persistence should be an option, not a necessity". Do the same thing with Deadly Paradox: It should be a viable option for Caster Assas, it should not be the centre around everything evolves. - TeleTeddy 12:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is smiters boon... and that's a great addition. Moving the advantage toward the skills which are lacking, and taking away from Deadly Paradox is definetly good, though a significant advantage should still exist just because using Deadly Paradox is an entirely additional skill just to make some of your other skills better. I would also consider switching the attribute on Deadly Paradox and Deadly haste, since Deadly Paradox is more useful, effects more Assassin skills, and seperates the investment of Deadly Paradox from Deadly Arts. Or they could limit Deadly Paradox to Deadly Arts skills, and eliminate it's advantage with Shadow Arts.--BahamutKaiser 01:25, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Why is everyone bringing up Augury of Death in this skill discussion? The deep wound doesn't kill you. The 400 damage combo every 5 seconds does. Izzy, it disappoints me that you don't want to change this skill. It's probably the most broken skill in the game right now. Shard 13:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

"I don't plan on changing this anytime soon." /fail Have you not seen this skill used??? Yes it brings useless skills into usefullness....but what does that mean it does to every skill that was already usefull? yes thats right, makes it severly overpowered! --ChronicinabilitY 15:09, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Izzy, that's just ridiculous, and you should know better. Please go into TA and watch, then do what is blatantly obvious: fix deadly arts and then fix paradox. --72.211.152.118 01:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Why not give it a 20 second recharge and make it elite? It would be balanced then. Done25 01:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's any precedent for a skill gaining or losing elite status. Which is a pity, because if there was they could fix Balthazar's Pendulum! Riotgear 21:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It happened in beta, when Hundred Blades (IIRC) gained elite status to stop it from being used with Illusionary Weaponry. --72.211.152.118 21:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I just want to point that, given the last skill balance update, the Shadow Form/Deadly Paradox/Echo combo is even more imbalanced than before thanks to Chillblains (one of the... three? ways to counter it) being taken out of the game. Maybe not ground breaking imbalance, but Random Arena / annoying to hell imbalanced. --Fighterdoken 19:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I play vs this guy a lot, I've played it a lot overall here are my impressions. A.) his energy is not what you guys think it is, you can do burst of high damage with a ton of KD's but overall he cannot keep it up. B.) The main issue is KD's his ability to spam KD's is really the only thing that makes him viable, otherwise he has no defense, no movement, and good damage. C.) not elite bound, the fact this guy doesn't require any elite allow for some interesting mixture of stuff. Possible Fixes: While I don't mind the build overall I don't like KD spam and I'll probably tweak this sometime this week, by most likely increasing recharge somewhere and energy somewhere in order to slow down his abilty to KD spam and to put more energy pressure on him. In the end I think the fact someone is finnally playing a Deadly arts build is a cool thing but I can see where this guy could use some tweaks. ~Izzy @-'---- 21:52, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the guy's you faced but my DP sin has 57 energy and can keep Neutrality up 95% of the time and after it runs out the 2nd time I will have 40 - 15 = 25 more energy and much more health. I cast Augury of Death then Dancing Daggers followed by Entangling Asp then Signet of Toxic Shock cast Dancing Daggers to activate Augry of Death then Iron Palm for a 2nd knockdown. Then I finish it with another Dancing Daggers. All in all it cost me 40 energy. I still have at least 15 left. Done25 00:07, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Run several copies of it (i.e. TA) and you can spread the cost of Entangling Asp and Augury of Death out because you only need one of those per spike. Energy is not a concern. The damage isn't "spectacular" in terms of sheer numbers, but it's hard to prot it because it's dealt as many packets and only two skills guard against that, and it's hard to do ANYTHING about it when you're being jackhammered with KDs. Riotgear 00:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

How is this guy with the new Paradox? ~Izzy @-'---- 20:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Something like it just rolled me in AB, but then again I was alone and he had a couple allies, and I wasn't paying much attention to him anyway (if he's an N/A he's not likely to be an mm and therefore can be ignored for the monk... right...?) Armond 20:28, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Taking a nearly uninterruptable instant-kill combo and giving it an extra 2 seconds recharge and making it slightly less uninterruptable isn't a nerf. It's a poke. At least you're poking it in the right direction. Make the person who activates this skill die after 10 seconds and it will still be overpowered. Someone in the Nightfall skill design department fails at game balance. "Object A makes every other object 4 times better" is the very definition of broken. Shard 11:40, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you return the recharge to 50%, but remove the halves casting time effect. If skilled players (aka interrupters) could stop it, it wouldn't be overpowered. 69.137.78.47 18:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The best way to make the degenerate Paradox-based builds more counterable would be to eliminate the fast-cast. However, it's still not fixing the core problem: A bunch of abilities are still ridiculously better with Paradox than without, largely because they skirt the lengthy recharges. This wouldn't really be a problem if you couldn't keep it on pretty much permanently. I don't think anyone would complain if it let you recharge a Shadow Form or Feigned Neutrality fast every so often, but the fact that it can be perpetually kept up forces it to be the rule rather than the exception. The best change to Deadly Paradox would be restoring it to 50/50 and substantially increasing the recharge, i.e. to 20. Possibly a duration cut too, but the recharge is definitely the point to hit if you don't want to destroy the skill. Riotgear 19:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

What you're epically failing to understand is that the combo itself is broken when it is unstoppable. The whole combo, including deep wound, lands for close to 500 damage over a period of 3 seconds, plus the knockdown from entangling asp, plus the knockdown if they have SoJ on their bar. This combo can solo a monk in small teams in literally 3 seconds. Even in large teams, 2 monks can't outheal the spike if it's coming back 5 seconds later. Since Anet hasn't deleted skills since the beta, they probably wouldn't delete DP, which is a shame because it's arguably the most broken skill ever made. It's one of those skills that will never be balanced because it is fundamentally flawed. 72.235.48.41 10:02, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of builds that can spike someone down early. The question is what they're going to do after someone casts rez sig on the spike target. Having a team that can't do anything but spike someone once every 15 seconds is kind of crap. Hammering DP's recharge means that the skill recharges that WERE the main balancing factor of most DA skills has to actually be dealt with. Oh yeah, and if the DW that's actually a hex (Augury) gets fixed, that'll destroy it even further. Riotgear 23:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You're askng us how the new version is? Instead of each skill having 1/4 second activation, they have 3/8 activation. Instead of the whole combo recharging in 5 seconds, it recharges in 7. You made a nearly uninterruptable combo only slightly less uninterruptable. If this skill costed 25 energy and killed you when it ran out, it would still be broken. Who designed this skill? It goes against every basic concept of balance. /fired. Skill like this can never be balanced. The closest you can get with this one is by removing the recharge clause altogether, then increase DP's recharge so removing it becomes a viable counter. 20s recharge AT LEAST. Shard 03:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

This skill deserves elite status. Should definately make this elite, it makes a lot of things completely overpowered, its like making assassins primary mesmers without requiring any investment in fast casting. 81.129.110.59 14:59, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

If this skill becomes an elite, it will take a while to implement, as all the assassin bars from Nightfall and Eye of the North will have to be reviewed and tweaked, not to mention another two bosses introduced, at the least (one from NF and one from EotN). Armond 16:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

This skill is still rediculous as ever even with the so called nerf. This skill is like giving fast casting and mantra of recovery to an assasin all in one for a cheap 5 energy. It's near impossible to interrupt those spells even when a Mesmer use frustration. This skill should have the half casting time removed. --204.174.35.210 03:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

BTW I have played this guy too. I have taken it into RA, TA, AB, and even GvG, and have found it painlessly easy to solo anything I wanted to. NPCs, base splits, teams of 3 healers...this build can solo all of them. How does it deal with getting owned? It becomes invincible unless you have one of the...umm, is it 2 skills now that can counter it?

Also, izzy, the reason it runs out of energy is because assassins only have a pool of 30 some energy...unless you make a +15 energy staff, in which case you can wipe whole RA or TA groups without hitting 0. Energy isn't the issue here. If you had a 5 energy skill that did a bajillion damage, you'd run out of energy from that too, but it's still not balanced.

Another point: Other professions use this. I've seen N/A use DP with augury and daggers with the ever-broken Soul Reaping fueling their ownage powers. Although the primary concern is that assassins can use it to do anything they want, other classes can use it to do anything they want too.

How to fix: 20 second recharge, shorter duration, scale cast time and recharge to critstrikes. Shard 09:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Jeez people the skill is fine as is. If you have to complain about the spike capibilities then ask him to remove the fast cast and put the recharge back to fifty. Done25 23:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I have a great idea on how to fix this: Remove the skill disable, and make it only affect the *next* non-attack Assassin skill. Non-gimmick uses of it become possible. DA spam builds get kicked in the face. Shadow Form farming builds get untouched so the PvEers have no excuse to cry, in fact they actually get buffed because they can use their attack skills sooner. Wow, I think I just fixed the skill! Riotgear 19:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

That is a horrible idea. 5 energy to make one skill recharge 33-50% faster every 10 seconds? Who would use such a thing? And if you didn't know farming is BAD. Done25 21:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Reducing recharges of shadowsteps, assassins promise (in case you don't make the kill), keeping expose up longer, keeping up shroud of silence a lot more. No spamming there, quite nice to have if you've got a free slot. Lord of all tyria 21:18, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Since when does an assassin have a "free" slot? Done25 21:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

A sin not running SP is able to get hold of utility slots for stuff like dash or w/e. Same applies here. Lord of all tyria 21:48, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Who would pay 5 energy to make one skill recharge 50% faster every 10 seconds? Uh.... let's see, what has DP been used for outside of spam builds: Shadow Form farming (one skill), powering Feigned Neutrality (one skill). So basically, anyone other than DA spammers who ever had a use for it. By removing the skill disable, it may even find other uses, as mentioned above. Riotgear 19:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

It's the recharge that's the problem here, not the fast cast, the assassins having to wait between their spikes would really take an edge off of their ability. I'm also all for the removal of the disable, or even better, have it disable your whole skillbar for 5 seconds. This means that spamming it is dangerous, how it does let you pull some impressive deadly art/dagger combinations, somwthing which doesn't often happen. --Ckal Ktak 10:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you ever going to fix this BROKEN skill ? Reminder: Arenas are PvP, and this skill is still stupidly strong there. Please get it fix, people already said some nice changes for DP. Again, PLEASE FIX THIS. 3 chained kd's on a sin is not funny. Even hammer warriors have to gain adrenaline to KD ! And your explaination "This skill was made to help a lot of skills that would never see light of day" = ? Making a overpowered sin to boost underpowered skills? That's balance?... Please fix this... - Kiji 22:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Makes arenas unplayable. I leave the game for a week and come back, and they're even worse. Izzy: fix this bullshit. It's gone on long enough. --72.211.152.118 22:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Archived Shard 08:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Mirrored Stance

→ moved from User talk:Isaiah Cartwright

plx nerf fast --Cursed Angel 18:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I have reason to believe your entire room is covered with printouts of mirrored stance. --97.100.141.74 22:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I use arcane echo on mirrored stance --Cursed Angel 22:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Echo chain mirror stance ftw. Three stances at once! Lord Belar 23:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Wild Blow! ah, hax! --Rayd 23:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Here's a screenshot that proves that mirrored stance needs to be nerfed, i got vipers defenses from that ele.--Cursed Angel 01:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

And this is bad why...? It works exactly as designed. You hexed him, he entered a stance, the hex ended, you gained that stance. Where is the problem with this? Mirrored stance is always a gamble. You may get something useful, like a blocking stance, IAS, or other such stance... or you may get slapped with frenzy. They may not even use a stance.76.174.13.77 11:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

awesome. So you are telling me, that mirrored stance isn't broken! It's just bad!?! omy --Readem 23:13, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Hahahaha.... is this a troll, because if it is.. its kinda sad.. and its more of a gamble then frenzy.68.20.214.67 23:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Frenzy is not a gamble. It can only help you win. --Readem 23:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

No its a gamble or people wouldn't bring cancel stances for it.68.20.214.67 03:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

haha awsome, someone moved it to the overpowered section. Nerf it mercilessly! --Cursed Angel 16:32, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

How do you nerf a skill that is not used, and also not very strong? If anything it should be buffed.68.20.25.93 04:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Can we move this to the underpowered section please? Shard 09:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes please. --71.229.204.25 09:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. 87.189.211.123 22:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Nvm there is already a section for this skill in the underpowered section. Vote to delete, gogogo. Shard