On Assassins and Maintaining PvP Balance

Let's face it my fellow fishmen. Assassins are overpowered. You know it. I know it. They are dominating the 1-on-1 PvP that goes on, to the point that a 'sin with even npc gear can fare quite well, and a 'sin with fantastic gear might as well be a GM in terms of in-game power. From what I've heard from friends and guild-mates, this mostly stems from the sheer amount of dps we're able to put out, three different abilities that can instantly give us sparks, and our ability to stealth in and out of combat with relative ease.

Right now I'm doing about the same damage my Archer of equal level does per attack, but I'm able to put out that damage twice as fast. Anyone wearing robes that can't see us is basically a free kill, and I've seen several high-level 'sins take out Barbarians of equal level with almost no effort.

As much as I absolutely love this, I realize that PvP is eventually going to boil down to 'sin on 'sin combat if something doesn't change. So what we need is a re-balance of the class, and I have some suggestions:

1. Change the way our weapon mastery works.
Rather than have our base damage raised a percentage, instead our mastery should raise our base critical hit damage. This will lower our dps by about a third (or more, depending on your sage/demon path), but increase the dependency on critical hits to do the lion's share of our damage.

2.Change the way Wolf Emblem works.
If our primary damage is crit-based, then of course we're going to have to change our crit buff as well. I see two ways this can be changed to work well with our re-worked mastery: A) make the buff party-wide, and extend the duration to ten minutes (making it much like the barb's physical attack buff, but useful for all classes), or keep the buff at its current 30 second duration, still make it a party-wide buff, but change it so that it effects critical hit rate rather than critical hit damage.

This change will make the 'sin more valuable to the party for both Wolf Emblem and Bloodpaint, hopefully alleviating some of the stigma of the 'sin being little more than a close-range archer.

3. Change the way Shadow Walk and Shadow Escape work.
Right off the bat I'd say the 100 chi gained when Escaping should be removed. We already have Rising Dragon Strike and Inner Harmony that both give 150 chi at the outset, so having the chi gain from Escape seems too much like overkill. Another thing that should change is that these stealth moves should not add stealth level when we use them, as we already have a passive buff that raises stealth level, making this another bit of overkill. Finally, the stealth skills should work more like a typical buff, with a timed duration rather than one based on MP consumption, as any 'sin will tell you that equipping an MP charm gives you near-infinite stealth. IF the dev team feels that the stealth mode should be based on consumption rather than time, then the skill should drain chi rather than MP, as that would even work great with our skills.

I'm speaking as an Assassin here, and I feel that these changes should be implemented to maintain PvP balance. I'm also hoping for meaningful discussion in this thread on the matter rather than whining.

On a final note to GMs/forum mods, I realize this is a thread about a single class that should probably be put in Class Discussion, but I felt that more people go to General Discussion the most so I'm posting this thread here so that people can notice and discuss it. If you guys feel differently, then by all means move the thread to Class Discussion at your discretion.