v 1.50I assassin=nerfed

[old.hidden]

aparently one-shot kills and staying stealthed was a bug all along...

now they have fixed it

Up until last Tuesday, Assassin characters were able to remain hidden if they killed their target in one shot. This "ability" has been in the game since the inception of Critical Strike Combat Styles. However, we never intended for it to work that way - it is generally not a good game dynamic to have stealthed characters killing people and not becoming visible. Some assassins (not all, just some) were abusing this "ability" to one-shot kill "gray" level enemies and kill them with no chance of being found. But, at the time that we found out that assassins were able to do this, the assassin classes as a whole were still a bit underpowered, so we made the choice not to fix the bug.

As most assassins know, in the 1.50 patch, we inadvertently fixed the "one shot kill but remaining stealthed" bug (by fixing a few bugs relating to hidden players attacking monsters). Now that assassin characters are no longer underpowered, and no longer need any additional advantages, we have decided to keep this fix in. So, assassins will no longer be able to remain stealthed after one-shot kills. Assassins will still be able to kill some lower level (and probably "blue" level mages) characters in one shot, but no longer will they be able to do this with the impunity that they have enjoyed.

as i said, now assassin have no real use, as long as people stay in a group of two, assassin are useless (unless they give us more than 10% ab)

this is still only on the american servers tho, maybe goa will notice that this "bug" is actually a great part of the game, and without it assassin are trully nerfed

 

[Aeiedil]

this makes me kinda hope the 1.48-1.50 patch will take a while, if goa patch to that version anyway (assuming this gets past testing)

imo its now one of the assasains defining abilities, the ability to assasainate sure its annoying, sure it causes chaos

didnt i read somewhere thats that assasains were meant to do?

 

[old.hidden]

yeah i've been thinking about it...

basically assassins are now archers without bows, except that archers get better armour.

inf can now ONLY take people who are alone,
2 blues of any con can kill me extremely easily with my 10% ab,
so now that i can't even take one out at a time (assassinate) is stupid

another thing this does is make climb wall ability only good for spying... Because if you want to take someone out who is defending, well, you can't becuase you'll unstealth and pull guards on you...

assassin really don't have a bright future if this goes ahead, i pray it doesn't or i may have to start another class

 

[old.cheesey_pipps]

but how often does an assasin actually one-shot someone?
if the target isnt sitting down or above green, then generally your not going to get them down in 1 go.

personally i wont be comforted by the fact that the SB/NS that just killed me is lying dead next to me. that usually happens now anyway

 

[old.cheesey_pipps]

and how do you spell assasin??

those pesky missippiissi words get me everytime

 

[Meatballs]

Playing against higher level mids for the most part this isn't going to affect me much I rarely have blues/greens to oneshot in emain and Im actually going to welcome the day shadowblades wont be able to kill me without any risk with their sodding 2handers. I've found red shadowblades standing nearby our group only to yell for help and try and hit them to unstealth them if I can keep up, but if they decide to perforate artery me they can easy pick off members of my group.

It is still possible to kill people in one hit run away and stealth again but if a group has it together they may catch you, they may not.

People complain about how this will stop them killing people alone, but the game isn't about soloing. This is going to help make the rogue classes to actually report on the locations of large forces instead of going in for realm points alone. When I go solo in yggadra it is easy to pick off people who are alone and far enough away from each other.

If yer going to stop your character just because you can't kill blues and greens without any hassle you sound like a complete wuss to me, get some balls your playing an assassin not a girly archer.

 

[SFXman]

There is some sense in Meaties post alright. If you assassins can take out yellow con casters np at all... then a chance of one-shotting them and staying stealthed is just way over the top tbh.

 

[Aeiedil]

What I think would be fair is a % chance based upon your stealth ability that you get destealthed on your crit? maybe ranging from about 75% to 5% depending on % of your level that you have specced stealth? (including item bonuses)

that way it will not render us pretty much useless as anything other than scouts, will add incentive to spec stealth higher, and still leave that chance we will be destealthed

thats my opinion anyway to totally remove it is a bit silly

 

[old.hidden]

but guys don't you see wha this means... assassin can NO LONGER ASSASINATE

they are usless, like an archer without a bow.

keep seiging for example, archers can block other people, and pick off keep npc archers

assassin can check defence and kill defence... now they can no longer kill any defenders because NPCs will aggro them streight away.

think of it from an assassins point of view, rvr is nerfed for an assassin.. and PvE was always a problem for assassins, rvr was a kind of "reward" if you like for the hard time you put up with PvE

please check and read this url

http://www.tarnished-dagger.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=924

all assassins agree that this nerf is completely over the top.. and although other people moan about it because Assassin can take out yellow con mages, thats what their for!

i quote from the url above

Pay particular note to the death spam. Every 30 minutes you may see Arnold the Assassin kills so and so, if Arnold is lucky, but you can darn well bet you’ll be seeing Mikey the Mage killed Tom, Mikey the mage killed Dick, Mikey the Mage killed Harry, in most cases these lines will pop up simultaneously. The same holds true for archers. Heck if that’s too much effort, just go visit The Herald and take a look at YOUR OWN Realm Leader Boards and pay particular note to the top players. It doesn’t take a microscope to discover that archers dominate the board and in many cases the differences between their realm points and the next closest players is substantial. You’ll find mages high on that list also

read the url please, it shows better than i can explian how all Assassins are feeling, i myself will be writing to mythic and complaining, i hope others follow my example.

i hope you can see how we feel, and how unfair it is...
you don't understand how hard it is for an assassin to kill others, you may thinks its the easiest but your wrong.

Please read the url, i will be sending an email to mythic pointing out the flaw in their "fix"

i hope others will agree with me

and btw.. don't flame me, you don't know what your talking about unless you play an assassin, reading the url above will show you how many assassin will be feeling with the 1.50 patch on these servers.

 

[old.Breydel]

Let me add in a few things here.

1. Assassins are NOT worthless. They are by far the best reconnaisance class out there. For spying purposes archers now are far away second in rank because of assassin's detect hidden features.

2. Assassins got a lot of improvements too since a few months ago. Added hitpoints, special skills in the stealth line, climb, left axe doing more dmg, can restealth after dropping a poison DoT, disease getting fixed in RvR, ... (the list just goes on).

3. Don't forget that for taking out archers they are superb. When you find a lonely archer (who tends to be lonely in RvR usually ) getting unstealthed or not doesn't matter. When you get that backstab/PA/whatever hidden opener off with a few poison pots let me assure you that is a dead archer and a victorious assassin walking away. I played a 24 scout in Thidranki up to 110 RP (read: 110 kills) and I can tell you assassins own lonely archers. That detect hidden feature really blew away the only defense archers had against them. Perhaps a 42-shield specced scout might be lucky enough to get the stun off and fire 2 arrows. Unless that assassin purges because then that scout will die just as well.

4. Try to be honest, one-shotting a caster standing in the middle of a group while not losing stealth is a bit of an unfair advantage don't you think?

I played the lowest Battleground on 2 realms and I can tell you that people are creating assassin classes in large numbers there. And the lowest BG are always a nice referrence which classes people perfer these days. Especially shadowblades are extremely popular. Not so much a classic critblade but a hard hitting poisonous shadowzerker. Surely they don't one-shotted my scout but in 3-4 hits they do finish off the job too.

If there is one thing that needs to be nerfed it's a 8 player group of stealthed SZ.

 

[old.hidden]

i see you don't play an assassin.

Its quite different from how you make out, assassins are very easy to spot if you know how (aoe spells, "Volley" skill now finds hidden chars etc.) and its quite a challenge to get into a group, kill a mage, and get out without being discovered, and even after that the group is alert and running around looking for you.

and one shotting a yellow caster is not extrememly unfair, because its about all we CAN one shot, i failed a one-shot on a green troll.

The "improvements" you listed are just fixes for previus bugs, and yes, this Stay-stealthed thing is a bug, without it Inf are nothing... Great they can take soloing archers and spy, but not do ANYTHING keep taking with this new "fix"

when you think assassin, you think small creature/human sneaking in to a group of people/keep taking out one person and stealthing away.

without this stay-stealthed ability assassin are useless. Try playing an assassin, it is alot different from what people make out, also removing this "bug" will make nearly half the infs stop playing altogether leaving a void in the realms balance.

If this does happen the game (imo) will be ruined

and Breydel, try playing an assassin before deciding wether this ability is vital to their class

 

[old.Cayleb]

The whole concept of the assassin has been implemented wrongly from the start in my opinion. I was really looking forward to sneaking around in RvR doing what my character was designed to do, in fact it's the only thing that's kept me going through the mindless slog of xp'ing.

I've now reached level 33 and the bitter truth has hit me - there are two conditions absolutely vital for an assassin to attempt a successful attack:

1) the victim must be standing still for a fair time, otherwise you'll never even reach him while stealthed.

2) Unless he's grey or green, the victim must be alone.

By nature the assassin classes operate alone and having now spent some hours playing RvR it is apparent that you find yourself in this situation maybe once an hour if you're lucky. Not exactly the most rewarding gameplay.

If anything, Mythic should be UPPING the Critical Strike ability - it's a bloody assassin for god's sake, you hit a blue with PA and if you're lucky you'll knock off half his hitpoints. Admittedly I don't have the follow up Creeping Death yet which creates a nice big stun, but even so I've yet to even get a second attack in - victim either runs like billy-oh (yes I'm stuck to him, but as soon as he legs it he's too far away to attack) or his mates pan me with 500 dam/shot (what the hell's that all about?). Critical Strike my arse, in my opinion we should have a good chance of one shot killing blues and yellows, maybe even orange or reds.

I'd like to see some kind of system (CS level vs victim's level?) where if you manage to remain stealthed, and successfully get off your first attack, there's a chance to assassinate the victim on the first blow. Until that happens, I really can't see myself playing my assassin much anymore.

 

[old.Breydel]

I see you don't play anything else than an assassin either.

Volley is on a 30 min timer if I'm not mistaken. Do you really think any archer wants to waste that at an empty spot of terrain just in case there might accidentally be a stealthed assassin in it?

Aye, AE spells 'detect' hidden monsters. You should try playing a caster and PBAE / AE DD at empty spots. I give you exactly 10 minutes before you are tired doing this. In the BG I saw an Alb caster in my group do it for 30 mins or so, kudos to him, I couldn't do it that long (especially if the cast makes an annoying sound).

I never said one-shotting is unfair. Staying into stealth after doing it is IMO. Archers don't stay stealthed after getting a one shot either, do they? Heck, we don't even pierce through bladeturn on a stealthed crit hit.

Those improvements are really more than just a bug fix. I think you should wait until patch 1.50 and see for yourself.

If you think this ruines infils (or even the game, a bit drastic IMO) you should try playing a mess based class like bards. That's what I would more call a nerf.

when you think assassin, you think small creature/human sneaking in to a group of people/keep taking out one person and stealthing away.

Ever seen those documentaries how lions in Africa kill a zebra or buffalo or whatever animal that gets away too far from the main group? That's what I call an assassin. What you describe doesn't fit what I think about an assassin is. They take out solitairy targets one by one. They don't just whack someone in the middle of a group and getting away with it, get real.

 

[old.Breydel]

Cayleb, any class killing reds one on one the way DAoC works now is an overpowered class, let aside if it should even be able to one-shot it. This game is hugely level based, so is the chance of winning a 1vs1 versus another player.

I wouldn't mind decreasing the level penalties for having a wider range of player levels you could get a fair fight with. But then not alone for assassins, for all classes.

 

[old.Cayleb]

Absolutely agree with both points Breydel, I was referring to RvR with that last comment - solo one shot kills against reds in PvE would be plainly ridiculous.

RvR's a different kettle of fish though in my opinion, given the frequency (or lack of) with which you're actually able to make an assassination attempt I don't think it's at all an unreasonable wish.

 

[old.Halfmad]

Guy I wouldn't get too worked up about this. There's tons of yank assassins out there that will be shouting like crazy about this so something will no doubt be done to silence them.

I still think we're going to be a damn good class to play even with this, sure we cant 1 shot but we can still kill that one people that nobody else can get to.

So far whenever I've 1 shotted I've died anyway, got crap stealth though so no massive surprise

doubt the patch will be in soon anyway at the rate GOA are translating.

 

[old.DtM]

This is bad news, very bad news, i hope 1.50 never comes. The assassin community will be furious at this and rightly so, and i reckon Mythic will eventually be forced to compensate the assassin in some way due to this 'fix' i suppose thats the good news.

 

[old.chesnor]

At last. I always thought this 'feature' of the game was ridiculous. Like Mr.Invisible could sneak between 7 tanks and 1 hit the lowb caster and not drop stealth....OH COME ON !!!

I hope this will force all those lamer critblades who are turned on by the r0x0ring 1 hit no-risk uber-RP kills to look at the assassin class in more depth, and start playing the game properly instead of being Mr.Lonely mage killer R6L2.

I'm kinda glad about this 'nerf', and will probably start levelling my shadowzerker again now

 

[Aeiedil]

I find my niche not in the middle of any army, but at the back making 1-shots, causing a little disorder If I cannot 1-shot stealthed I cannot perform this duty. I don't expect to 1-shot anythign above a green, blue casters should be a bit iffy, but 1-shotting green\gray (sorry whoever i do this to) creates disorder as they try to find an assasain, which is what we should be, a distraction. if we destealth after we can no longer distract because when a kill is made any bystanders will be able to see us, if they couldnt see our shadow already.

 

[old.chesnor]

Well, I'll tell you now my experience after 46 seasons of playing a guilded Healer.

Guildchat was constantly spammed by assassins whinging 'i cant get a group', 'levelling a sb is sooo hard' etc.. So I'd /who them and it would be R0x0r0r the level 36 Shadowblade in Emain Macha. Clearly out there 1-shotting green mages instead of levelling like the rest of us.

Sure assassins got PvE tough, just like archers. But you also had RvR very easy up to this point IN RP TERMS.....Purely because your primary targets (casters and archers) have it easy in RvR too.

A smack from the nerf stick always hurts, but I realy am glad about this one (and as I already said, I will level my Shadowzerker now) as 1-hit no-destealth kills SUCKED !!!

And you know it

 

[old.Biohazard]

GOA can't consider this "bug" as a good one because their end of the contract says they can't modify the base code of the game and thus not being able to change these sort of things.
Let's just hope it takes a while then

 

[old.Laico]

Originally posted by chesnor
At last. I always thought this 'feature' of the game was ridiculous. Like Mr.Invisible could sneak between 7 tanks and 1 hit the lowb caster and not drop stealth....OH COME ON !!!

I hope this will force all those lamer critblades who are turned on by the r0x0ring 1 hit no-risk uber-RP kills to look at the assassin class in more depth, and start playing the game properly instead of being Mr.Lonely mage killer R6L2.

I'm kinda glad about this 'nerf', and will probably start levelling my shadowzerker again now

If you dont want ridiculous features go play something else. Here we have dragons, spells and a lot more. The "unreal ability" excuse is out here.

No risk uber-RP... Im still laughing, clearly you dont play a high level assasin. Are we at the top of RP earners? A big NO. Go check camelotherald. If we are lucky we get sometimes a one shot kill (maybe I can do 1 each our?). Last week I had one of my best nights doing RvR, lots of Hibs in Albion wall at Emain, and some of them clearly dont known the risks of RvR, so I was able to do 3 one shots in 1 hour. And 90% of the time I get uncovered, Im dead (this happens more often than you think, of course).

When I was at the early 30s, when the server was very young, I got killed sometimes by assasins. You know what? I havent been killed by one for more than 1 1/2 month. Why? I know how to counter them, its easy if you know how to do it. With the new realm abilities its a lot easier, because almost anyone has something to catch them, like true sight, traps, tanks AE snare/root, and the list go on.

Its easier to cry NERF! NERF! instead of learning to play. Im tired of ppl like you playing this game.

 

[old.Demeter]

heh as a ranger i hate assasins cause they and minstrels are the only who kill me

but ffs ! they nerf stealthy class in every patch
rangers were nerfed 3 times ! without getting something...
now its assasins turn
seems they are trying to make us play group-friendly classes like Smyth Clerics :lol:

 

[Aeiedil]

the best way to learn to combat an assasain

become one

see how it plays

if you get high enough level go to rvr and see hwo it plays there

then you know how an assasain works and what they hate

trust me theres a lot of things assasains hate, and taking a kill amongst a group is always a risk, and you always need an escape planned, and also luck that your prey dosent move, or that another group dosent come with higher cons.

 

[Meatballs]

I just been playing in emain I didn't one shot anyone but got over 1000 realmpoints and died twice.

Don't see what your obession is with one shotting.

 

[old.stabba]

hidden: you still can use vanish every 30 mins, of course any pet class will still kill you, and since see hidden is going in i cant see how archers donw wanna be part of a group so youll prolly get seen anyway. we SB:s wont even have that . and i doubt the assassins are great RP farmers, sure we can kill, we can survive when we get the chance, we cant walk around like gods killing armys in one shot. the yber critblade rp-farmer templete you are reffering to cant kill 2 mages next to eachother, sure a mage running around randomly firing pbaoe might not find us. people dont know shit about the assassins, or what they do know they attribute to all 3 classes. i find it odd that i read people saying how a SB:s one-shot casters get bonus to chain and got the best dualwield in the game and bla bla bla. obviously this isnt true, if i said that a theurg get a 6 sec BT, A.E mez, bolts,9s insta stun, nearsight, all 3 pets A.E root and and the ability to nuke any class for 1000 dmg everyone whould cry nerf theurg. yea whouldnt it be fair that all casters got teleported to the spot where they killed someone? surely they must balance their ability to nuke xx greycons with inpunity?.

found a nice url to add a laugh at what we have coming
http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=29633064&replies=23

personaly i dont give a rats-ass about RP, or if i can beat a smite cleric or not. i do care about my class job, i have specced to do a task and to fill a role. every class want to have something they are good at, we dont anymore. im sure many mages are happy now, maybe some other classess aswell i dont understand why you as a healer are so happy about casters loosing their predators. as you said not only assassins get hit, and without mezzing A.E nukes will go off like mad, and who do you think are there to stop the casters? a lvl 50 caster can get more HP with epic armor than a critblade can hit for, they can get slash resist for even more effective HP (assuming SB) they can work together to prevent us from hitting them, they can face objects, they can turn, they can reg their damn mana spinning around randomly.
is this why one-shots that staying stealthed is overpowering? because it requires either a statistical defense or an active one?
and dont forget we kill people that are close enough for a rez, when we die we most likely release. i know we are overpowered in comparison to other classess at certain lvls, a lvl 24 critblade is a killer in the BG:s, im pretty sure of it after reading a ton of nerf critblade posts with logs and screens from the BG:s. i have never ever seen a post by a lvl 50 caster saying critblades are overpowered, the casters damn TL was against this. you may see it as good for the whole of RvR, and as you said just "group". thing is we arent made for grouping, pre 1.50 a stealther group could prolly a killer after all the realm abilitys a pure stealther group might still be something that works, however it takes one assassin and that group is dead as a rock, let alone all the problems with other realm abilitys such a group whould face. im sure there is no SB that whould like to meet an armsman with hail of blows or a cleric with bunker. we will not survive to the element of surprise anymore, we will die to it.

however i know there are many good assassins out there and i hope that we can find a way to overcome this, and if we are lucky or 44 CS and disquise will be what we need

 

[SFXman]

I am getting really sacred about this whole detect hidden thing? How the long is the range on it? PLEASE don't say it is like half you viewing distance or something... that would be awful.
I must disagree Cayleb on you point that you shot have a chance of one-shotting oranges or reds.... I mean, bit of a limit on it mate. A class that can kill reds is over-powered, especially one-shotting a red, but of course with a L10 tank with L4x wiz buffs you can kill a red but that is different

 

[old.stroke]

Detect hidden seems to be at clipping range. This is even considered by some assassins to be too long range.
All archers get the option to buy True Sight, which reveals all hidden characters (including assassins) within viewing distance for 1 minute. Recast is 30 min on this one, as with Vanish.

 

[old.Laico]

Successful quick kill + Vanish. Archer casts true sight and sees you from a mile = 2 arrows in your back = death, then release.

That is the usefulness of vanish now. Better spend that 10 points in another place.

Both see hidden and true sight need some balance, they are overpowered atm imho.

 

[old.Grymshadow]

Originally posted by Cayleb


If anything, Mythic should be UPPING the Critical Strike ability - it's a bloody assassin for god's sake, you hit a blue with PA and if you're lucky you'll knock off half his hitpoints. Admittedly I don't have the follow up Creeping Death yet which creates a nice big stun, but even so I've yet to even get a second attack in - victim either runs like billy-oh (yes I'm stuck to him, but as soon as he legs it he's too far away to attack) or his mates pan me with 500 dam/shot (what the hell's that all about?). Critical Strike my arse, in my opinion we should have a good chance of one shot killing blues and yellows, maybe even orange or reds.

Change your quickbar
1. Perf
2. Sprint
3. Garrote

You could also use enervate for first hit, then switch to another faster weapon with dot poison for garrote.

1. Perf
2. Sprint
3. Weapon
4. Garrote

Ive used this quite alot, not many get away