Wizards vs Assasins...

AprilLove_ - Heavens Tear

Hello all! I have been reading some very interesting topics on wizards and the PVP guide from Pandora which I found excellent!

It sounds a lot of people who give advice here are pretty much pros at PW, no doubt about it, so may I bother ye to request some great advice on how to take down Assasins. That class is pretty tough to beat in PVP with their awesome damage and stealth and all that.

Adroit - Lost City

AprilLove_ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Hello all! I have been reading some very interesting topics on wizards and the PVP guide from Pandora which I found excellent!

It sounds a lot of people who give advice here are pretty much pros at PW, no doubt about it, so may I bother ye to request some great advice on how to take down Assasins. That class is pretty tough to beat in PVP with their awesome damage and stealth and all that.

in a 1v1 the odds are against you.. the only strategy that seems to work for me is to use genie skills to survive the first attack, for bad sins I just fortify to resist the next stun and get away.. better sins I usually need to domain or expel on yourself might work because I die before the next stun. Then you gotta pray you have 2.2 sparks or more left over and sleep then MS them assuming they arent using their anti stun sprint. That 6 second stun is usually enough to finish them off, but often times w/e skill that dodges skills kicks in a few times and they get away. Other than that, I suppose you could try pk pots like detection or immune.. but no guarantees. A good sin destroys me, I still havent found an effective strategy to kill them.

PrettySammy - Sanctuary

Unfortunately I have to agree with Adroit. 1 v 1 against a sin is extremely hard for wizards. I know this as I play both Wizard and Assassin.

Pretty much hit the nail on the head with the genie skills. All I want to add really is this:

your odds of winning depend alot on environment.

1 v 1 PK mode 9/10 bend over and kiss your cheeks goodbye, any decent sin will burying you with non stop stun lock.

Group PK mode: you got a chance if you got someone who can cover your backside by say lobbing a stun at the sin to break the stun lock cycle. If this happens undine / genie spark then fry em and distance shrink away. Assuming you did enough damage the fish is fried, if not they will prolly cloak AGAIN [QQ annoying]

TW: From my experiences the stealth doesn't work as well, largely due to apoths like Adroit mention but also that in large groups the sheer number of aoe's takes out stealth. Seeing them is 50% of the battle won. When I get stunned in TW i slam any genie skill to either:

A: block stuns (fortify)
B: break stuns / reduce damage

then once i get a chance HP food and apoth for anti stun. Then pay em back with some fire!

Better still if your team mates are nearby have them pound the life out of the sin. In past TW's we found that although sins can dish out scary damage fast most can't take too much damage (CS's excepted).

Either way it 10% timing and 90% luck... so

Good luck in you fighting

HexOmega - Dreamweaver

i usually die before i can hit expel/domain or right after i hit it :P
charms are overrated anyways b:shocked
but they might help getting off that genie skill

back when expel was cast on enemy targets, it was an easy game on most of them fish
u can use ur own "stunluck" with MS and FoW timed, in case they dont .... ...what? am i telling fish how to play.?..o.o no..




(following only works on pve servers with only 1 crowded pk area)
1 visible fish=?
2 sneak up, MS unseen, gush pyro or what ever.. just kill before charm cd and stun is over, - got its own medicine - a cowardish sneaky attack starting with stun ^^
3 wait to get killed some minutes after that



winning a fair fight? nooooooooooo

AprilLove_ - Heavens Tear

Thank you guys for the replies. Hmm, it seems that sins are pretty tough to best in pvp and have the upper hand, which requires a lot of strategy for wizys to best them. Adroit, if you do come up with strategy to win 1 vs 1 against assasin, please post when you have the time.

I have assasin too (level 35 only lol) and i pwned my bf's cleric (level 34) very easily so yeh they are very powerful. For the sins there, the reason im lookn for ways to try best ye in pvp, is cos you guys are very good and I like to try a challenge.

Rated_PG - Raging Tide

AprilLove_ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Thank you guys for the replies. Hmm, it seems that sins are pretty tough to best in pvp and have the upper hand, which requires a lot of strategy for wizys to best them. Adroit, if you do come up with strategy to win 1 vs 1 against assasin, please post when you have the time.

I have assasin too (level 35 only lol) and i pwned my bf's cleric (level 34) very easily so yeh they are very powerful. For the sins there, the reason im lookn for ways to try best ye in pvp, is cos you guys are very good and I like to try a challenge.

hit them hard and fast (if preemp) or...just walk away from your screen and wait for the "release corpse" button to appear o.o there are ways to beat sins, but it all comes down to luck, and sheer skill. From what i heard you guys can distance shrink while stunned, so after you get stunned and hit once, shrink away, and there is your time to run, or try to 1-2 shot them. Not likely that you will get away, because we have so many movement speed skills that you would be better off to try your luck downing them. If you have any other questions with this i'll try to help, but like I said, it is all the character controller, and sheer luck.

Adroit - Lost City

Rated_PG - Raging Tide wrote: »

hit them hard and fast (if preemp) or...just walk away from your screen and wait for the "release corpse" button to appear o.o there are ways to beat sins, but it all comes down to luck, and sheer skill. From what i heard you guys can distance shrink while stunned, so after you get stunned and hit once, shrink away, and there is your time to run, or try to 1-2 shot them. Not likely that you will get away, because we have so many movement speed skills that you would be better off to try your luck downing them. If you have any other questions with this i'll try to help, but like I said, it is all the character controller, and sheer luck.

it is awefully difficult to make a preemptive strike when they are stealthed.. We cannot distance shrink while stunned (but we can if immobilized).. though we cant move after we shrink away and it usually buys me like .5secs until the sin uses their own teleport to be right on me again. Its extremely difficult to 1-2 shot a sin with even decent gear.. Many of the ones I fight have 7k+ hp unbuffed, then adding in the chance to dodge skills and anti death.. it's very difficult to kill them. Not only that, but if they see they are going to be in trouble.. they can just stealth and start over again.

Mumintroll - Heavens Tear

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

it is awefully difficult to make a preemptive strike when they are stealthed.. We cannot distance shrink while stunned (but we can if immobilized).. though we cant move after we shrink away and it usually buys me like .5secs until the sin uses their own teleport to be right on me again. Its extremely difficult to 1-2 shot a sin with even decent gear.. Many of the ones I fight have 7k+ hp unbuffed, then adding in the chance to dodge skills and anti death.. it's very difficult to kill them. Not only that, but if they see they are going to be in trouble.. they can just stealth and start over again.

I agree. This game became pretty ****..ing unbalanced. And is not worth to spend real money anymore.b:angry
Hopefully GW2 come soon.

Shadowfire - Dreamweaver

In 1v1, it depends a lot on the sin. If the skill and gear gap is in your favor, it's possible to win by tanking the initial lock, then distance shrinking away as soon as you're not stunned/sealed. This doesn't work against skilled sins or well-geared sins that kill you before the first stun wears off, in which case, wait to click go to town. In a fight where gear and skill are mostly equal, the sin is more likely to win, especially with the changes to expel.

In group pvp, it is much easier to deal with sins, especially with other people on your side knowing the sin is there. Once the sin is distracted with 1 target, it's easy enough to kill most sins (well-geared cash ones being an obvious exception). If the sin is caught in a fight where they haven't had a chance to rebuff, and you see that their main survival skills (deaden nerves, that bs 1 damage skill) are off, try to hit them with a quick spell like gush, and then begin channeling a powerful nuke spell. While they can force-stealth, and often will, the channeling isn't interrupted as long as they remain in range. If the skill does enough damage, they'll come back out of stealth with 0 hp. Alternatively, as happens in tw, a large amount of aoes makes it almost impossible for them not to be knocked out of stealth, at which point several DD classes usually make quick work of the sin.

LordPangu - Harshlands

Theres no recipe to effectively counter every sin. The best way to fight a sin is on the ground. If you know your opponent is a sin all you need to do is run and jump all the time till he decides to strike. Why? Because if you are running and jumping their teleport skill will be pretty much useless if they caught you jumping since they wont be able to hit you. At this point they already become visible and you can start with force of will etc. I have very bad gears as of now and only 4k hp, but I have been able to survive for more than 30 secs agaisnt a level 101 5 atck/sec sin using this tactic, I just couldnt kill him cause hes good at defense lol.

fulgida

In my opinion, wizards should be immune to stunlock. You should either die before the first stun wears off, or you should be able to distance shrink, and anti-stun before they can land a second stun. Stuns are limited by cooldowns of any previous skill or action and by channelling time. They do have an instant stun but if they use that while you are stunned they waste it, and if they can consistently stun you after you become unstunned and before your distance shrink goes off (when you are holding down whichever key you have assigned for distance shrink) they are using a **** of some sort and should be banned.

Of course lots of other things will be going on in a PvP battle against an assassin, but distance shrink can be a good move, if you can survive long enough to use it.

Of course a smart assassin would try and save shadow teleport to counter your distance shrink, and you will not have much time to get your anti-stun off (but a well timed genie fortify can help here, if you have the "survive" issue solved without draining your genie -- but absolute domain is probably better and also has a nice anti-stun effect which you should ruthelessly exploit). But if you routinely move a lot, they will have difficulty sparking and then hitting you with a melee stun (they will probably do this a few seconds after you attack a monster which itself is an issue you can perhaps exploit).

Adroit - Lost City

LordPangu - Harshlands wrote: »

Theres no recipe to effectively counter every sin. The best way to fight a sin is on the ground. If you know your opponent is a sin all you need to do is run and jump all the time till he decides to strike. Why? Because if you are running and jumping their teleport skill will be pretty much useless if they caught you jumping since they wont be able to hit you. At this point they already become visible and you can start with force of will etc. I have very bad gears as of now and only 4k hp, but I have been able to survive for more than 30 secs agaisnt a level 101 5 atck/sec sin using this tactic, I just couldnt kill him cause hes good at defense lol.

that sin must have been pretty bad.. this tactic might be useful against a non-interval sin, but an interval sin could simply stun u in the air (that teleport thing) and then use their immobilize (and if you get caught in the air without a flying mount you can't attack for the entire duration of the immobilize.. making it like a 9 second stun). They could then air to ground you and laugh as they EASILY beat through your charm with half damage. Besides that, it would be extremely easy for any monkey to just wait for you to land before stunning u if they didnt like fighting a target in the air for w/e reason

Ursa - Dreamweaver

yeah, you know, jumping casters were a rare breed. Jumping dead meats are a lot more common now.
I really wanted to master that jumping cast technique, but my dreadfull lag doen't help.

Shadowvzs - Lost City

ok maybe they can kill us easier but i love the fact we are enough good against most of class.
atm too i am forced to use alot times the anti stun pharma pots cause everybody try stun lock me XD


(still i think on heavy wizz with pdef ornaments for fun XD)

LordPangu - Harshlands

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

that sin must have been pretty bad.. this tactic might be useful against a non-interval sin, but an interval sin could simply stun u in the air (that teleport thing) and then use their immobilize (and if you get caught in the air without a flying mount you can't attack for the entire duration of the immobilize.. making it like a 9 second stun). They could then air to ground you and laugh as they EASILY beat through your charm with half damage. Besides that, it would be extremely easy for any monkey to just wait for you to land before stunning u if they didnt like fighting a target in the air for w/e reason

Its not hard to use absolute domain or any genie skill to avoid getting another stun after he uses the first stun. All sins I usually faced are interval sins, and its pretty easy to say he will wait for me to reach the ground and attack, executing it is totally different. Unless you have like, less than 50 ping then you can be accurate at getting some1 jumping all the time exactly on the ground or at an effective melee range. If they do catch me in air, they will have to fly and hit me afterwards, but absolute domain has a 4 second duration if I remember right and makes you immune to stun after that time for 2/3 secs i think. The sin would have lost about 2 seconds to fly and as soon as he reaches me and starts dealing dmg, I activate absolute domain and laugh at him while I reach the ground happy and alive. At that point i can use my control skills and keep the sin slept or sealed and deal dmg and pray he is squishy. Obviously thats not the only way a wizzie could face an op sin, but its the simplest way of doing it safe and effectively when the odds are agaisnt u.

Adroit - Lost City

LordPangu - Harshlands wrote: »

Its not hard to use absolute domain or any genie skill to avoid getting another stun after he uses the first stun. All sins I usually faced are interval sins, and its pretty easy to say he will wait for me to reach the ground and attack, executing it is totally different. Unless you have like, less than 50 ping then you can be accurate at getting some1 jumping all the time exactly on the ground or at an effective melee range. If they do catch me in air, they will have to fly and hit me afterwards, but absolute domain has a 4 second duration if I remember right and makes you immune to stun after that time for 2/3 secs i think. The sin would have lost about 2 seconds to fly and as soon as he reaches me and starts dealing dmg, I activate absolute domain and laugh at him while I reach the ground happy and alive. At that point i can use my control skills and keep the sin slept or sealed and deal dmg and pray he is squishy. Obviously thats not the only way a wizzie could face an op sin, but its the simplest way of doing it safe and effectively when the odds are agaisnt u.

and what do u propose if they force stealth and wait for cooldowns? I can guarantee you that the sin can come at you again with full chi and able to use any of their skills again before the 3min domain cooldown is up. Sorry, that just won't cut it.

fulgida

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

that sin must have been pretty bad.. this tactic might be useful against a non-interval sin, but an interval sin could simply stun u in the air (that teleport thing) and then use their immobilize (and if you get caught in the air without a flying mount you can't attack for the entire duration of the immobilize.. making it like a 9 second stun). They could then air to ground you and laugh as they EASILY beat through your charm with half damage.

I agree with you here, except that I do not know that I would automatically call non-interval sins "pretty bad".

Except, most people have flying mounts, and some even carry spares.

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

Besides that, it would be extremely easy for any monkey to just wait for you to land before stunning u if they didnt like fighting a target in the air for w/e reason

But I am not so sure I agree with you on this point: If either of you have any lag on your connection the position where you get stunned will not be the position where the skill goes off. Even a tenth of a second of lag can make a difference, here.

Adroit - Lost City

fulgida wrote: »

I agree with you here, except that I do not know that I would automatically call non-interval sins "pretty bad".

He mentioned that the sin he was fighting was 5.0, so I was not saying interval sins were bad, just the one he fought that can't deal with someone jumping.

fulgida wrote: »

Except, most people have flying mounts, and some even carry spares.



But I am not so sure I agree with you on this point: If either of you have any lag on your connection the position where you get stunned will not be the position where the skill goes off. Even a tenth of a second of lag can make a difference, here.

I have a fairly fast computer and a good internet connection and I NEVER had/have any trouble timing things. I have an 8x alt sin that I play.. and I can guarantee you that the jumping tactic will not save you from me.. or anyone else that with a decent system/connection.

Vorhs - Lost City

Distance Shrink should remove all the movement impairing effects, such stun / immobilize /freeze etc.

btw, since changes in skills seems impossible to apply here, the only way to kill the sin is to be ready to absolute domain when he approaches, then just pray your god.

I usually die during the 1 second delay between the "click" on absolute domain and the "actually take effect" of the absolute.

Adroit - Lost City

Vorhs - Lost City wrote: »

Distance Shrink should remove all the movement impairing effects, such stun / immobilize /freeze etc.

@ b:surrender

Vorhs - Lost City

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

@ b:surrender

I mean, when you use distance shrink, it should also remove all the stuns / immobilize / freeze that you have on you. It would be a way for wizards to -at least- survive sins and fist bms.

fulgida

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

I have a fairly fast computer and a good internet connection and I NEVER had/have any trouble timing things. I have an 8x alt sin that I play.. and I can guarantee you that the jumping tactic will not save you from me.. or anyone else that with a decent system/connection.

Ok, that is interesting, though keep in mind that because of how this game works the lag can be on either computer (which also relates to some of their bot problems -- though I think statistical analysis on pwe's part should make botting behaviors obvious).

[I have not played an assassin, but my wizard has never been attacked by an assassin that could kill me without either me doing something stupid or having help from someone else. (So far, level 99+ assassins with interval gear have left me alone.) I have assumed that a part of this has been that I tend to not stand still. Maybe its not a defense, but I imagine I am too much of a bother to be worth killing.]

(I have decent gear but I am way below the caliber of an end-game wizard.)

Vorhs - Lost City wrote: »

I mean, when you use distance shrink, it should also remove all the stuns / immobilize / freeze that you have on you. It would be a way for wizards to -at least- survive sins and fist bms.

But when you use distance shrink you will have no stuns on you. And if you want to get rid of freeze you can triple spark.

LordPangu - Harshlands

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

and what do u propose if they force stealth and wait for cooldowns? I can guarantee you that the sin can come at you again with full chi and able to use any of their skills again before the 3min domain cooldown is up. Sorry, that just won't cut it.

lol Im not any perit in fighting sins, im just sharing my previous experience with assasins. Like I said, this is not the way to BEAT them, but just to avoid getting beat for sometime. The anti stealth pots would help alot too.

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

I have a fairly fast computer and a good internet connection and I NEVER had/have any trouble timing things. I have an 8x alt sin that I play.. and I can guarantee you that the jumping tactic will not save you from me.. or anyone else that with a decent system/connection.

Well thats excellent for you cause I have always had problems with lag despite having a fast pc and net (my location is what makes my ping so high). You should be able to PvP flawlessly too because you can time your pots, genie skills, yours and your opponents attacks. In that case, like you said, it would be very easy to stun some1 as soon as he reaches the ground. But there are many ppl on a similar location to mine, and those definitely will have a problem doing what you say you could easily do it. In that case, this tactic is always useful because it helps analysing the opponent reactions (or net speed) in PvP, which could give any decent PvPer an advantage.

TheJackal - Heavens Tear

Uhh try being 35 lvls higher then them and pray (:
b:chuckle

Malanaki - Raging Tide

For what I know about Wizards , the whole point is to keep the enemy away while downing them in 1-hit-kO. Ok, high level sins have 7k+ hp and gear and evasion. But , the whole point to be a good 'sniper' wizard is to kill the enemy with 1 NUKE damage...and that damage goes above 10k hp in one shot, so stop crying about stealth and sins getting close to you , open your eyes, get 2 sparks and hope for luck that your ice dragon hits and koes him. That's the point of 'snipers'wizards. For other magic classes its very hard, i would say 1% chance to win an equal opponent sin. For other melee classes, get HA and hope you don't get stunned too much...lol

DyingBreed - Dreamweaver

Who needs anti stealth pots when theres a lvl 3 mob nearby to dragon's breath .

Jiblet - Sanctuary

Malanaki - Raging Tide wrote: »

For what I know about Wizards , the whole point is to keep the enemy away while downing them in 1-hit-kO. Ok, high level sins have 7k+ hp and gear and evasion. But , the whole point to be a good 'sniper' wizard is to kill the enemy with 1 NUKE damage...and that damage goes above 10k hp in one shot, so stop crying about stealth and sins getting close to you , open your eyes, get 2 sparks and hope for luck that your ice dragon hits and koes him. That's the point of 'snipers'wizards. For other magic classes its very hard, i would say 1% chance to win an equal opponent sin. For other melee classes, get HA and hope you don't get stunned too much...lol

Sin's are a hard class to 1hitKO as they have that power that prevents them dying in 1shot. Any sin with half a brain will always have this on when they PK...

PenutButer - Dreamweaver

bribe him/her to let you win ?

Adroit - Lost City

Malanaki - Raging Tide wrote: »

For what I know about Wizards , the whole point is to keep the enemy away while downing them in 1-hit-kO. Ok, high level sins have 7k+ hp and gear and evasion. But , the whole point to be a good 'sniper' wizard is to kill the enemy with 1 NUKE damage...and that damage goes above 10k hp in one shot, so stop crying about stealth and sins getting close to you , open your eyes, get 2 sparks and hope for luck that your ice dragon hits and koes him. That's the point of 'snipers'wizards. For other magic classes its very hard, i would say 1% chance to win an equal opponent sin. For other melee classes, get HA and hope you don't get stunned too much...lol

And I suppose the sin is going to run around out of stealth.. with absolutely no buffs (even self buffs), watch you cast your ulti (without doing anything) and just stand their waiting for you to atk them first? WAKE UP, sins have stealth.. 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the time they get the first hit in. You should also note that they have the best stun lock of the game.. the highest dps in game (apparently sins can out DD fist bms from what I'm told).. and are nearly impossible to kite between their two teleport skills and amazing control skills. I guess while I'm at it I should mention they build chi faster than any other class in game, and cannot get one shot if they have deaden nerves on. Throw in a 50% chance to dodge our seal and sleep or a 25% chance to dodge our skills, and you have a dead mage at the feet of just about any sin on the server.

fulgida

Adroit - Lost City wrote: »

Throw in a 50% chance to dodge our seal and sleep or a 25% chance to dodge our skills, and you have a dead mage at the feet of just about any sin on the server.

And I suppose this rather clearly illustrates the difference between forums and games.

I do not always win against assassins, especially when they have a squad backing them up and I am solo, but I usually beat them with my wizard (and with my archer).

The tricks are:

Do stuff to stop taking damage from them and break up their stunlock.
Hit them hard and fast. (If you do this right they might not even notice that their deadened nerves got used up.)

Also, I usually wind up fighting them when I am in the air or water.

Alimion - Sanctuary

This just may be a sun tzu moment i had, however i bears relevance because it happened last night.

Like anyone else i am tired of being beaten but a class 20 levels lower then me, but given my overall look at life I see these moments as learning experiences and try not to get frustrated.

What ever made me think of sun tzu is beyond me but for some reason "use your surroundings" popped into my head.

IF the opportunity presents itself(through FoW/whisper) SHRINK into a large crowd of players, i am not joking.

Alot of people think the "perfect" in perfect world is like a rule more then a set of guidelines, wizards & clerics cant heal in duels/sins cant stealth along with all the other "restrictions" people who don't like losing impose on other players/classes while invoking "n00bwins law"( the eventual degrading of any argument to calling someone a n00b).

I believe in game imitating life, therefore i will use anything to my advantage just like i do in real life, when i Dist Shrink into a group of 4 or more people my opponents were forced to remove the word "perfect" from "perfect duel" or "perfect pk" and they ran around, thier brain trying to shift gears with what they were seeing on screen..i could smell the smoke.

I play on the overweening ego of the SIn owner and thier own belief that they can kill anything, me jumping into a crowd should not mean a dam thing in the game, so i attack the actual person sitting behind the keyboard.

my favorite: duel near the teleporter....Sutra/town portal sneak up behind and obliterate them or hit sutra while they are attacking when it finally goes off...heal/heal/FoW.

"If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to
irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant."

" Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where
you are not expected."