Sins more broken than ever before?

Zanryu - Lothranis

DionDagger - Dreamweaver wrote: »

If you don't play a sin then how can you ever speak on the balance of the sin class, especially for something you have to actually play a sin to know about?

I find that most of the people that talk the most **** about sins, either have an aps farming toon that they cashed/put into full +10 gears, or never actually play, speak the most about how easy it is, for a class they barely understand...?

Not saying that is you, but you get my point hopefully.

You don't have to play a sin, you have to fight a sin. That'd be like you saying "Hey guys, Wizards are broken." They'd ask you way, you'd tell them because of spark combo. Do you know the reason you can say they're broken? Because you've had that particular set of skills used against you, even without ever having used the class. It's an easy matter to check how much chi the combo costs, as well as the cooldown of each skill without playing the class as well. This is the case here, though some of us may not currently play Assassins we can comment on the state of the class because we have experience going up against them in PvP. If only the people who played the class were allowed to comment the game would stagnate. Nobody would want to change anything, they'd simply flock to whatever class is the strongest. I mean.. they already tend to do that, but it'd be so much worse.

I'm coming from the perspective of a +11/+12 BM with Primal Stones, while my spirit isn't quite up there yet I've seen Elimination do some very crazy things. It's extremely dangerous, and far too powerful for the cost. In fact, it doesn't even have a cost! It's the strongest single skill in the game at the moment and for any other class something like this would require amounts of chi even great ninja masters could only dream of. However, for Assassins, it actually GIVES them 30. Oh, and it has a very decent cooldown at only 15 seconds. The Assassin needs to only to keep you in place for at least some of its duration to force genie or apo use, and from then on it's an uphill battle trying to actually retaliate with damage of your own while trying to survive the onslaught of Life Hunter, Elimination, and their massive crowd control abilities while dealing with Tidal Protection hindering your ability to do anything to them. Oh, and if that's not bad enough even if you do manage to kill them you will almost always have to do it twice, and any "smart" Assassin will go full defense until they can use Deaden Nerves again.

It's not just the fact that they have Lifehunter and Elimination, which are unbalanced in and of themselves, but these new skills in combination with all of the other class skills make Assassins a class that it's honestly hard to see anything resembling the term balance in.

Slewdem - Dreamweaver

tsyfall wrote: »

As of today's date I've finally managed to thoroughly play every single class in PvP, including 1v1s against assassins that are actually good instead of wanna-be-RPKers that resemble nothing so much as baboons wielding rusty spoons.

I'd definitely agree that assassins were an excellent 1v1 class and now, besides barbs, are probably the best class for their role. On basis of this alone, I would also agree that assassins are overpowered. However, that would be oversimplifying the issue: Many people forget that assassins are simply not effective in mass PvP, if we address their skills.

Think about it: What do assassins really have in mass PvP? Single target control skills, 2 aoes and a demented half aoe, Tidal Protection. But is there anything that can really threaten an entire group of people of equal gear like Black Ice Dragon can, or maybe Heaven's Flame?

Not really.

Subsea and Earthen Rift, as stand-alones, can't really do much. Sure, they can destroy groups of noobs - but isn't that the case for all other classes, given superior gear? Sure, they can 1-shot entire groups of equal geared people - but that would necessitate HF, maybe a strength mire, and an AoE stun to hold everyone in place. Other classes, like psychics, can continuously spam AoE skills, while an archer can just sit there AoEing while afk. However, assassins can really only drop two AoEs, and after that it's back to single target damage.

The real danger of assassins in mass PvP is what all of you know: single target damage. They can drop any priority target if they're given an opening. That's the thing, though: In today's PvP climate, we all seem to just ignore assassins because of Tidal Protection, then complain that they're OP because they never die:


(You can find the original Tidal Protection thread here: [link] as well as the post quoted here: [link].)

This is actually a pretty common psychological paradox.
Here are some common examples:



Because most people tend to assume that assassins survive forever in mass PvP, they tend to ignore them - thus, allowing assassins to survive forever in mass PvP. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy!

So, all in all, yes, assassins are OP in 1v1. However, they were never designed to be OP in mass PvP - in fact, if we only look at their skillset, they suck at AoEing and excelling in mass PvP.

But if we look at the actual videos of assassins in mass PvP, we notice a remarkable trend: They are almost never targetted. If an assassin is left alone, then they can become much more dangerous than if they were a target.

Is that OP too?

An archer left alone is OP.
A psychic left alone is OP.
A BM left alone is OP.
An [insert class here] left alone is OP.

Guess not.

So my solution, speaking as both a person who has both been and targeted an assassin in mass PvP, is simple, and quoted from the aforementioned thread about Tidal Protection:



Not only that, you don't even have to try for debuffs a lot of the time. An assassin is light armour, and they're basically squishy to every single type of damage out there. Sure, they can escape an assist attack once - and, usually, that's when people give up. But what if they were forced to escape twice? Three times? Could they keep the Houdini act up forever, while still being effective as a participant that's actually doing something instead of staying in stealth?

Hmm.
Actually...
Nah. Never mind.

Assassins are OP in 1v1, yes. OP in mass PK? Yes, but only because we let them. They would be balanced, but we've graciously let them take the top spot in both roles.

Very well said... I think the complaint is more based on the 1v1 side...

Cytte - Harshlands

tsyfall wrote: »

As of today's date I've finally managed to thoroughly play every single class in PvP, including 1v1s against assassins that are actually good instead of wanna-be-RPKers that resemble nothing so much as baboons wielding rusty spoons.

So you've played every class at an endgame lvl with maxed primal passives and thier new skills in TW Mass Pvp and 1v1s?

tsyfall wrote: »

(You can find the original Tidal Protection thread here: [link] as well as the post quoted here: [link].)

To debunk your quoted post, its not a 1 in every 3 debuffs will work, its every debuff has a 1/3 chance of working. That's like saying if you flip a coin 50 times you'll get 50 heads & 50 tails guaranteed.

tsyfall wrote: »

Because most people tend to assume that assassins survive forever in mass PvP, they tend to ignore them - thus, allowing assassins to survive forever in mass PvP. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy!

So, all in all, yes, assassins are OP in 1v1. However, they were never designed to be OP in mass PvP - in fact, if we only look at their skillset, they suck at AoEing and excelling in mass PvP.

But if we look at the actual videos of assassins in mass PvP, we notice a remarkable trend: They are almost never targetted. If an assassin is left alone, then they can become much more dangerous than if they were a target.

Is that OP too?

An archer left alone is OP.
A psychic left alone is OP.
A BM left alone is OP.
An [insert class here] left alone is OP.

And aside from that
Guess not.

Exept they can all be dealt with without needing a whole squads attention, [insert class] being annoying? SoG/Sleep/purge/seal/bewitch/send a barb with new mightyswing/ ask 2-3 people to focus them, end of story

Sin being annoying? ask for everyones attention while he picks off squishy people one by one and retreats to stealth if he notices hes getting focused.
Case and point https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsYUuOdulB8
One class forced the attention of 12 people for 15 seconds and coulda gone longer had he not burned his pots earlier, This class wears LA and Did something only vit barbs can contest, and even then it would take the barb more effort since they can be purged much easier than Sins

Longknife - Harshlands

tsyfall wrote: »

Think about it: What do assassins really have in mass PvP? Single target control skills, 2 aoes and a demented half aoe, Tidal Protection. But is there anything that can really threaten an entire group of people of equal gear like Black Ice Dragon can, or maybe Heaven's Flame?

Not really.

You kidding me?

Step One: Send a sin after Cata Clerics
Step Two: Watch as the clerics either die ASAP or the entirety of offense is more or less forced to focus down one sin.
Step Three: Trip spark, Force Stealth, Faith, IG....do anything you can to stay alive as long as possible. Given that a buffed end-game sin can reach 30k HP and take an average of 1.7k-3k from other end-game characters and you're not likely to get stunned or purged, you have ample time to react with this.

Step Four: Congratulations, you now have the entirety of an offensive push now distracted and focusing solely on you for a good ~40+ seconds OR you've just single-handedly eliminated all heals for the cata barbs.


That's exactly the problem, that's exactly the purpose of this thread: their tankiness is ridiculous. The problem is a sin on a target, with Elimination, is -basically- a guarenteed kill. Despite this, a sin has become one of -THE- most difficult to kill targets in the game. It's absolute madness. BMs get plenty of AOE CC and tankiness, but their damage is sub-par; they won't accomplish much without any DDs to support, so a BM is simply part of an equation. Seekers have awesome offense and defense, but their guarenteed kills depend on very specific combos and their defense goes to hell the moment they're purged. On top of that, it's the easiest class to pin down in the game, so all their amazing stats often get cancelled out by how long and easy it is to stun them. Classes like archer, psychic and wiz are plenty threatening, but all are squishy in some way. Archer is a class that more-or-less relies on ganks to shine, Psychic can only remain offensive for as long as they remain physical immune, after which it's time to start planning a mini-retreat and wait on cooldowns as they've got the worst raw defense stats in the game, and wizard will go from a tank to a oneshot the moment a rogue purge hits their earth shield..


Every single one of these, you name a strength of theirs? It's immediately counter-acted by a weakness. For sin? In the past the issue was they were excellent in 1v1 and terrible in group fights. Why were they terrible? Because they were as squishy as Psychics, but they lacked the range and resistance skills to hide behind. That has changed drastically as we continue gaining stats, as buffs = everything. The difference between a buffed character vs. an unbuffed one is practically the old r8 vs r9 standard. Now, with Tidal Protection ensuring that they remain buffed round the clock, sins simply are NOT dying. And with Elimination, they get a guarenteed kill every 15 seconds. Please name a class that can consistently get a kill every 15 seconds. Yes, Sins are limited to single-targets for the most part, but this doesn't matter for ****-all if those single targets are a GUARENTEED kill every 15 seconds.

Go watch -ANY- TW vid by any class and count every 15 seconds, see how many kills they get. You'll find that nobody does this, or if they do, then someone uploaded a TW vid where they did awesome. You see the thing is, it's not that people aren't capable of getting kills every 15 seconds, but that there's a lot of kite-fighting going on in TWs. But kiting a sin is basically impossible. They have fast movement speed, multiple ways of pinning you down and all they need is to get Elimination off and GG. So despite the single-targeting, they undoubtedly have an equal, if not superior, kills-per-second now.

ResMePls - Heavens Tear

Pe0ple still crying ab0ut sins even t0 this day? I guess it's the 0nly real easy thing t0 c0mplain ab0ut while actually s0unding seri0us. 0r y0u can just st0p whining and L2PvP.

Aeliah - Dreamweaver

Tsy, most of what you said is invalid, due to the fact that you haven't actually played PWI in a while...

I've seen nobody assassins do over 25k dmg to me with the combined damage of this skill, and this isn't even particularly unusual---its more the norm really. With crit of assassins approaching 70-80% without power dash, zerk crits can't be called rare anymore. At worst, several zerk crits on this skill plus a zerk crit on the final hit could conceivably do over 40k dmg to me---an endgame, full jades, full +12 cleric. Even arma doesn't do 40ks to me.

Its pretty simple. Forget what you used to know. This skill made assassins so deadly that single target dps is now just as effective as aoeing, because they kill people THAT FAST.

Yeah.

tsyfall

w0w fine, I ragequit

DionDagger - Dreamweaver

Longknife - Harshlands wrote: »

With that same logic, how can you say sins aren't OP unless you've thoroughly played every single class and seen no definite advantage yourself?

Actually i have played every class. GG.

As to not saying sins are OP, I have never said that, even thought it would seem like I am saying that, I can not. Sins aren't up there because of one skill compare to other skills, it isn't because of tidal, cc, or chi. It is a combination of those things, on top of the psychological crippling that sin skills do to those that are targeted by them, and target the sins themselves.

Slewdem - Dreamweaver

tsyfall wrote: »

w0w fine, I ragequit

b:chuckle

No come back for what they said huh b:surrender

Cantabrum - Archosaur

just a game who cares for balance and all this bs lol
every patch a different class become op until next patch

oh also srry you guys unable kill a sin or just unlucky to dont purge or stunt them or to scared to try
main problem ppl scared of try anyway bye<3

Longknife - Harshlands

Cantabrum - Archosaur wrote: »

just a game who cares for balance and all this bs lol
every patch a different class become op until next patch

oh also srry you guys unable kill a sin or just unlucky to dont purge or stunt them or to scared to try
main problem ppl scared of try anyway bye<3

But even if you do try, you're wasting double or triple the resources because of it. Three venos purge a sin instead of three individual targets, three Psys stun a sin instead of three individual targets, three Seekers attempt to combo a sin, etc etc etc...

That's the problem. Simply by -existing-, sins are taxing on enemy resources to a degree that any other class can only dream of.

Socqar - Lost City

Longknife - Harshlands wrote: »

But even if you do try, you're wasting double or triple the resources because of it. Three venos purge a sin instead of three individual targets, three Psys stun a sin instead of three individual targets, three Seekers attempt to combo a sin, etc etc etc...

That's the problem. Simply by -existing-, sins are taxing on enemy resources to a degree that any other class can only dream of.

Only good point is ea's can BOA the hell out of the tanky sins, allowing them to have a long-lasting BOA that hits-purges more things, and luckily, the sin, if the IG + AD lasts enough b:pleased

At least is the only thing I can do when Rinc comes to the battlefield xD

Who needs to BOA on a tank when you can simply boa on the hard-killing sin?

Zsw - Dreamweaver

Slewdem - Dreamweaver wrote: »

b:chuckle

No come back for what they said huh b:surrender

Admittedly, we do not have enough experience on a NH R9rr server to make the call, and will give the benefit of the doubt until we get on one.

XXHotXx - Morai

wait did i just read somewhere that a Black Dragon Ice Strike has the same threat of an endgame sage assassin lurking around? when actually bid hits like a single tick from elimination?

serious laughs man b:laugh

what probably tsyfall did was to reroll sin and then go full biased

have you ever did mass pvp with couple of sage sins in enemy team?

If you focus them, you lose lot of time and resources, giving chance to opposite team to **** your assets 1by1...

If you are in a theorical perfect mass pvp endgame scenario, where 2 rainbow teams are organized and experienced...

if one of that teams Assist-Attacks anything different than a sage assassin, that target will be dead in matter of seconds...

if instead the whole team AA the sin, its most likely that the sin wont get CCd, purged and will probably kite away before his deaden nerves has been ticked, and while most likely he killed 1 or 2 of your arcanes

and that in a perfect mass pvp scenario, in current mass pvp scenario (TWs NWs) team-AA almost doesnt exist... enough said lol

but still why do we need to heavily outnumber the assassin to be able to kill him?

balanced

Socqar - Lost City

XXHotXx - Morai wrote: »

wait did i just read somewhere that a Black Dragon Ice Strike has the same threat of an endgame sage assassin lurking around? when actually bid hits like a single tick from elimination?

serious laughs man b:laugh

what probably tsyfall did was to reroll sin and then go full biased

have you ever did mass pvp with couple of sage sins in enemy team?

If you focus them, you lose lot of time and resources, giving chance to opposite team to **** your assets 1by1...

If you are in a theorical perfect mass pvp endgame scenario, where 2 rainbow teams are organized and experienced...

if one of that teams Assist-Attacks anything different than a sage assassin, that target will be dead in matter of seconds...

if instead the whole team AA the sin, its most likely that the sin wont get CCd, purged and will probably kite away before his deaden nerves has been ticked, and while most likely he killed 1 or 2 of your arcanes

and that in a perfect mass pvp scenario, in current mass pvp scenario (TWs NWs) team-AA almost doesnt exist... enough said lol

but still why do we need to heavily outnumber the assassin to be able to kill him?

balanced

You seem to be a bit biased as well (don't get me wrong, sin's are more broken xD), but getting a bid strikex2 from a couple of wizzys at a time on a squad (for example if going too close to a cata or doing tower-crystal in nw) it's an insta-killer for like everyone in there, not just 2 of them like would happens with sins.

That's about all I would be scared of that though xD

XXHotXx - Morai

Socqar - Lost City wrote: »

You seem to be a bit biased as well (don't get me wrong, sin's are more broken xD), but getting a bid strikex2 from a couple of wizzys at a time on a squad (for example if going too close to a cata or doing tower-crystal in nw) it's an insta-killer for like everyone in there, not just 2 of them like would happens with sins.

That's about all I would be scared of that though xD

lets say blade tempests and not bids, cause 2 bids wont kill anyone @ endgame

man thats 2 different wizards using 4 sparks to land the damage a single sin can dish out indeed gaining chi with 1 click in complete safety

i am not biased i have a sin, played a sin for long time and i am considering to make it endgame right now cause atm the gap between sage assassin class and all the rest is immense (especially the uber-nerfd wizards)

Socqar - Lost City

XXHotXx - Morai wrote: »

lets say blade tempests and not bids, cause 2 bids wont kill anyone @ endgame

man thats 2 different wizards using 4 sparks to land the damage a single sin can dish out indeed gaining chi with 1 click in complete safety

i am not biased i have a sin, played a sin for long time and i am considering to make it endgame right now cause atm the gap between sage assassin class and all the rest is immense (especially the uber-nerfd wizards)

I was just giving usual sin-logic when it comes to debating OPness :P

But half our server's heavy-csers are doing that now, re-rolling a sin... You can see a lot of sin's lvling or doing Primal passives after reawaken running around on +12 orns and emperor with crappy TT armor set waiting for 101 or badges to wear endgame gear...

XXHotXx - Morai

Socqar - Lost City wrote: »

I was just giving usual sin-logic when it comes to debating OPness :P

But half our server's heavy-csers are doing that now, re-rolling a sin... You can see a lot of sin's lvling or doing Primal passives after reawaken running around on +12 orns and emperor with crappy TT armor set waiting for 101 or badges to wear endgame gear...

GG pwi soon it will be known as Perfect World Assassins b:chuckle

Cantabrum - Archosaur

Longknife - Harshlands wrote: »

But even if you do try, you're wasting double or triple the resources because of it. Three venos purge a sin instead of three individual targets, three Psys stun a sin instead of three individual targets, three Seekers attempt to combo a sin, etc etc etc...

That's the problem. Simply by -existing-, sins are taxing on enemy resources to a degree that any other class can only dream of.

i want a functional tildal then i get purged 3 of the 3 times stuned mutipletimes and yet cced whole day b:sad
sins always wasted ppl resources since pre r99 update make clerics waste ad or ig was okay even if they dont die
srry you cant 1 shot sins anymore b:bye

XXHotXx - Morai

Cantabrum - Archosaur wrote: »

i want a functional tildal then i get purged 3 of the 3 times stuned mutipletimes and yet cced whole day b:sad
sins always wasted ppl resources since pre r99 update make clerics waste ad or ig was okay even if they dont die
srry you cant 1 shot sins anymore b:bye

and since when someone was able to oneshot dph sins @ endgame?

sage tidal and deaden nerves came along with the tideborn patch bro b:chuckle

Euthymius - Heavens Tear

If Tidal cant be made to allow certain debuffs to pass through it, then it should at least strip the user of a set amount of chi for every debuff evaded imo

Aeliah - Dreamweaver

Euthymius - Heavens Tear wrote: »

If Tidal cant be made to allow certain debuffs to pass through it, then it should at least strip the user of a set amount of chi for every debuff evaded imo

Thats brilliant. I support 100%. So if sin is getting focus fired, he'll be stripped of his chi, at least tidal then has a cost. Mind you, won't stop him from killing with elimination... but it would be a step in the right direction I think.

DionDagger - Dreamweaver

Euthymius - Heavens Tear wrote: »

If Tidal cant be made to allow certain debuffs to pass through it, then it should at least strip the user of a set amount of chi for every debuff evaded imo

I agree with this, slightly. Lets make tidal a permanent buff, and make cost like 20 chi to use. However the amount of chi would need to be miniscule, like 3-5 per blocked debuff.b:laugh However this would make it more like the wizzie buffs, which are permanent, and i fully support that.

Cantabrum - Archosaur

XXHotXx - Morai wrote: »

and since when someone was able to oneshot dph sins @ endgame?

sage tidal and deaden nerves came along with the tideborn patch bro b:chuckle

but my tidal is broken D; ppl purge me 24/7 and stunlock me 24/7 b:angryb:angryb:angry and by 1 shot i mean pre thirdcast

Euthymius - Heavens Tear

If it were to have a chi cost for every successful evasion of abnormal status, it should be about 30 chi each time it succeeds. In mass PvP, they'll still be able to evade status 2 out of 3 times, but the constant loss of Chi from others attempting to control them will weaken their ability to maintain so much momentum in their offensive.

This way, they can still make themselves an effective short term disruption (while likely killing off a target) but struggle to jump to others and continuing the assault. Between taking damage, losing chi from successful evades and the few status effects that happen to succeed, they will have to decide on either using their Apothecary/Genie for more chi to continue their offense or use it to defend themselves as they make their escape (which conveniently....gives them 100 chi as well).

That's the way I see it, anyway.

odieuxconnard

Euthymius - Heavens Tear wrote: »

If it were to have a chi cost for every successful evasion of abnormal status, it should be about 30 chi each time it succeeds. In mass PvP, they'll still be able to evade status 2 out of 3 times, but the constant loss of Chi from others attempting to control them will weaken their ability to maintain so much momentum in their offensive.

This way, they can still make themselves an effective short term disruption (while likely killing off a target) but struggle to jump to others and continuing the assault. Between taking damage, losing chi from successful evades and the few status effects that happen to succeed, they will have to decide on either using their Apothecary/Genie for more chi to continue their offense or use it to defend themselves as they make their escape (which conveniently....gives them 100 chi as well).

That's the way I see it, anyway.

As a sage sin, I agree with that solution at 100% !!
It is a better idea than reduce the % of success of sage Tidal which will be imo still broken for others.
I think we should do:
- Sage tidal 50% of success , demon 33% of success
- Every negative status evasion cost 30 chi

Because it is true Tidal is broken, I see it when I was playing with my sin in TW or NW. And I think it would be better to nerf Tidal.

Concerning Elimination and Life Hunter, I like them too much to want its nerfed. But I am far to be objective on that point. Just I like to be deadly now in 1vs1, before these skills released, dph sin was not the master of 1vs1 which should be the definition of an assassin. We were strong, it is true, but there were classes with equal gear which could beat us hard. Now we are again the 1vs1 master, yeaaaaaaaaaaaah....until the next change about class which make a caster class or other more OP than sins are atm.

Ahira - Lost City

I suppose pw china will make changes/introduce something new if/when it feels the need- we cant influence anything from here.

Lets just try to manage as best we can!

XXHotXx - Morai

wow yes i totally support the chi-consumption to be able to keep tidal up idea, like 20 chi per status evaded, if chi reaches 0 value tidal wears off... that would be a clever re-balance

DionDagger - Dreamweaver

Euthymius - Heavens Tear wrote: »

If it were to have a chi cost for every successful evasion of abnormal status, it should be about 30 chi each time it succeeds. In mass PvP, they'll still be able to evade status 2 out of 3 times, but the constant loss of Chi from others attempting to control them will weaken their ability to maintain so much momentum in their offensive.

This way, they can still make themselves an effective short term disruption (while likely killing off a target) but struggle to jump to others and continuing the assault. Between taking damage, losing chi from successful evades and the few status effects that happen to succeed, they will have to decide on either using their Apothecary/Genie for more chi to continue their offense or use it to defend themselves as they make their escape (which conveniently....gives them 100 chi as well).

That's the way I see it, anyway.

Not even a sin can maintain that much **** chi. How about this, tidal will cost 30 chi per status, when SoS and Soul of stunning cost something other than mana.

Zanryu - Lothranis

DionDagger - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Not even a sin can maintain that much **** chi. How about this, tidal will cost 30 chi per status, when SoS and Soul of stunning cost something other than mana.

Make that **** cost chi too. Chi for all the passive and luck based stupidity that plagues this game.