Feedback:User/Golden phoenix/Assassin PvE Changes

Assassin PvE Changes
User	Golden phoenix
Categories	Skill feedback → Assassin  → Other Player vs. Environment

General problem in modern PvE

Well...the big problem, that assassins are having in pve, is that most of the battles don't last very long. I mean it's really no secret for anybody, that almost every player and every team set up their builds to play as efficiently as possible in order to proceed as quick as possible. And with PvE-only skills like Asuran Scan, Pain Inverter, "Finish Him!", etc. it is significantly supported to play so. But this is not a complaint about PvE-only skills, nor about the evolution of players to play as efficiently as possible. Therefore it's pointless to think about removing the skills mentioned above or trying to change the behaviour of players. But what definitely would makes sense and would be both, helpful and useful for assassins in PvE, is: TO CHANGE SOME SKILLS in order to adapt to the modern PvE play style.

To get to the point: Unfortunately, almost every assassin attack skill has a recharge time, that is simply to high for PvE. And that is something, that is so annoying and nasty, if you always have to wait for your Lead Attack or in some cases your Off-Hand Attack to recharge, just to lay down your combo, because the target enemie you tried to attack or just were about to strike with your Off-Hand Attack or Dual Attack already got defeated. This is surely a common scenario for many assassin players.I bet that most of you who are reading this, now have the beloved Moebius Strike on their mind. Two points to that: Firstly, even with that elite skill equipped, you still can get ino the situation of not sucessfully striking your target with it (either if it got blocked or, which is again, the most common scenario in battles: the opponent already died before you could catch him with Moebius Strike). But secondly, and more importantly, it's really sad and extremly boring, to play with and rely always on only one elite skill, because there are simply no other elite skills in pve that are useful or even worth to be equipped. The only 2 elite skills I play with are the mentioned Moebius Strike and Fox's Promise. The rest is as mentioned...useless or not worth of being an elite.

So...enough said. Here are my personal suggestions to improve and change the situations of assassins in PvE.

Dagger Mastery

Jungle Strike 5 ½ 6 Off-Hand Attack. Decreased recharge time to 6 seconds.

Falling Spider 5 0 4 Off-Hand Attack. Decreased recharge time to 4 seconds.

Falling Lotus Strike 5 0 6 Off-Hand Attack. Decreased recharge time to 6 seconds. Should be no problem, since a knock-down is required to sucessfully hit the opponent.

Jagged Strike 5 ½ 3 Lead Attack. Increased recharge time to 3 seconds, changed functionality to : Inflicts Bleeding condition 5...17...20 seconds. Deals +8...18...20 damage. Bleeding.....maybe the most sensless and useless condition in PvE. The only conditons that are really usefull in PvE against enemies are Dazed and Blindness. And currently this skill ONLY inflicts bleeding in PvE, nothing more. That's a little bit poor for me.

Golden Lotus Strike 5 0 4 Lead Attack. Decreased recharge time to 4 seconds.

Golden Phoenix Strike 5 0 4 Off-Hand Attack. Decreased recharge time to 4 seconds. This skill is great, since it gives you the possibility to play with only 3 attack skills (Golden Phoenix Strike, any Dual Attack and Moebius Strike as elite skill). But again it is simply annoying and stupid, to wait 8! seconds for the attack to be recharged, until you can pull off your combo again, if target enemie died before you could hit it with Moebius Strike. Therefore the recharge time of this skill must be decreased.

Golden Skull Strike 10 6 Elite Off-Hand Attack. Decreased recharge time to 6 seconds, changed functionality to: Inflicts Dazed condition 1...3...3 seconds. Deals +5...17...20 damage. No effect unless you are enchanted.

>>>That elite skill had a) a way too high recharge time in comparison to it's function and b) too high recharge time, to use be used as a combo starter or gernerally in a combo, e.g. Golden Phoenix Strike. So this way, that elite skill becomes worthy of being an elite, because a) even the duration of being Dazed got reduced, the skill will now deal a decent amount of damage and b) it is finally possible to set up a nice combo with it.

Golden Fang Strike 5 0 4 Off-Hand Attack. Changed functionality to: Inflicts Deep Wound condition 5...17...20 if you are enchanted. Deals +5...17...20 damage. Must follow an Lead Attack.

>>> re-added the requirement of being enchanted in order to get the Deep Wound condition and decreased damage for better balance.

Lotus Strike 10 0 8 Off-Hand Attack. Decreased recharge time to 8 seconds, reduced energy gain to +5...13...15.

Moebius Strike 5 ½ 2 Elite Off-Hand Attack. Changed activation time to 1/2.

Nine Tail Strike 5 0 4 Dual Attack. Decreased recharge time to 4 seconds.

Temple Strike 10 0 6 Elite Lead Attack. Decreased energy cost to 10, decreased recharge time to 6 seconds, changed property to Elite Lead Attack, changed functionality to: Deals +10...26...30 damage. Inflicts Crippled and Blindness conditions 1...8...10 seconds if target foe is hexed. Fails if you are not enchanted.

>>> added the requirement of being hexed for the target for in order to get the conditions of Crippled and Blindness.

Black Spider Strike 10 0 8 Off-Hand Attack. Decreased recharge time to 8 seconds.

Blades of Steel 5 0 6 Dual Attack. Decreased recharge time to 6 seconds.

Trampling Ox 5 0 6 Dual Attack. Decreased recharge time to 6 seconds.

Desperate Strike 5 0 4 Lead Attack. Decreased recharge time to 4 seconds, changed functionality to: Deals +5...17...20 damage. Deals 15...63...75 more damage if you have less then 50...74...80% Health.

Critical Strike

Critical Strike 5 0 4 Dual Attack. Decreased recharge time to 4 seconds, decreased energy gain to 1...2...2.

Twisting Fangs 10 0 10 Dual Attack. Decreased recharge time to 10 seconds, changed functionality to: Deals +10...26...30 damage. Inflicts Bleeding and Deep Wound conditions 5...13...15 seconds.

Black Lotus Strike 10 0 4 Off-Hand Attack. Changed property to Off-Hand Attack,decreased recharge time to 4 seconds, changed functionality to: Off-Hand Attack. Deals +10...27...31 damage. You gain 4...12...14 Energy if target foe is hexed.

>>> I changed the property of this skill to Off-Hand Attack, so Critical Strike has also an non-elite Off-Hand Attack, that does not require a Lead Attack. This way there will be nice opportunity to set up different combos and builds.

Shattering Assault 10 0 4 Elite Dual Attack. Decreased recharge time to 4 seconds, changed functionality to: Elite Dual Attack. Deals +10...26...30 damage. Removes one enchantment. Unblockable. Must follow an off-hand attack.

Way of the Assassin 5 0 12 Elite Stance. Changed functionality to: (20 seconds). You attack +5...27...33% faster and have a +5...33...40% chance to land a critical hit. No effect unless you have daggers equipped.

>>>I reintroduced the requirement of wielding daggers because otherwise this elite would have been used only with scythes. I have really to admit, that my former suggestion (any weapon could have been used with the elite) was definitely too strong, even for PvE. Assassins would have only used scythes all day and that is something I don't want. After all, an assassins weapon are daggers and he's meant to use them as his primary weapon. Also the name of the elite skill underlines that fact. But I remain with my opinion, that the former increase of attack speed ( +20% IAS at Critical Strike on 15) was just ridiculous and a insolence to all assassin players.

another option would be:

Way of the Assassin 5 0 12 Elite Stance. Changed functionality to: (20 seconds). You attack +5...27...33% faster. You gain +1...2...2 to all your assassin attributes. Your attack skills recharge 33% faster. No effect unless you have daggers equipped. This function would be a justification to the name of the skill.

>>> Decreased the additional gain of attribute points to +1...2...2. Hope that this way the balance is a little bit better but if it still seems to be too strong the feature of increasing all assassin attributes shall be removed.

No Attribute

Aura of Displacement and Shadow Meld -1 5 ½ 10 . Decreased energy cost to 5, decreased recharge time to 10 seconds. It is quite obvious, that the former energy cost and recharge time were too high. These 2 elite skills already cause a -1 energy regeneration, so it's pointless to make them expensive in energy and high on recharge. With the cost of only 5 energy and a recharge time of 10 seconds, assassins in PvE will be able to play excatly as these 2 skills are expected to be played with: get quickly into situations and get out fast, if necessary.

Summary

The changes listed above are only 50% of those, that are needed to be done. As you may have noticed, I didn't list any Deadly Arts or Shadow Arts skills at all, that would have been simply too much stuff. But everybody might know, that especially these 2 attributes are almost totally useless in PvE and really need an alteration. But we can't have everything and the effort would be too much. I would highly appreciate it, if they really take a deep look at the skills listed above and change them a little bit, so assassin players have a larger variety when it comes down to set up a build with daggers and are more effective in combat (not auto-attacking whil waiting for attack skills to recharge). That would be more than a satisfaction.

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