Why Nerfing Tidal is Stupid.

Boomz - Harshlands wrote: »

ok, first LOL. Now, you stated in your long rant that an assassin is better in 1v1 - much better than other classes, this just defeats your entire point that sins are not overpowered in pvp. pvp "Player vs. Player" refers to a 1v1 match. If in a 1v1 a sin is much stronger it therefore is an overpowered class, enough said. 2nd on the pve side sin is the best farming class, they can solo almost any instance in the game (except gv, warsong, and aeu of course), enough said. Now, you do a long rant about sage tidal protection, i will simplify this: you say r9 3rd sins are easy to kill even though you can barely even land a debuff? there are many classes who damage is based on landing debuffs like a wizard, that arguement is horrible. If I as a wizard can't land a debuff on a sin with almost 20k hp how am i suppost to kill it? As a r9 3rd cast wiz myself I am not hitting those insane 15k+ on aa and la classes without debuffs. Also, I think you forgot the mention that when your "30 second window" opens, you can just go into stealth and hide until all your cools are ready. How can you stand to say sins are not overpowered when they are the best at real pvp and pve?b:surrender

SashaGray - Heavens Tear wrote: »

nobody cared the first time, what do you think changed?

Zanryu - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Okay, I'll bite.
HI ZANRYU

Well you've already started off with a bold faced lie, Tidal is not their only defensive skill. You neglect to mention Deaden Nerves, which even if you DO manage to get through Tidal or force their genie while in Tidal to go for the kill, they can still very much survive and render those efforts worthless.
Deaden Nerves is completely different. If it's ticked, then you have to wait for the rest of the cooldown to get it up again. Tidal stays up no matter how many times it works/fails.

1: Debuffs cost time and usually chi, in a game where you need debuffs to land kills a skill that resists them 2/3 of the time is arguably the best defensive skill in the game. You need stuns, debuffs, amps, or usually some combination to actually bring down a target or you just simply will not have the damage needed to bypass a charm or drop it from full to 0 in 10 seconds (less if fighting a Psychic). It's not impossible, sure, but it's difficult and you can end up wasting both time and chi to hope you can land a debuff, stun, or amp.
This is true of all classes. If a player always died to a specific combo, then this would be a game of speed, not intelligence and skill. Futhermore, assassin's also need stuns, debuffs, and amps - which in themselves also have to work against their target's natural self-buffs.
Tidal makes it difficult for an opponent to proc a sin's genie, yes. However, if a sin is using debuffs to try to kill you, they're also using genie - which means they won't have it for their defense. Chi is also not as costly as you imply - Roar costs 35 chi and can be spammed pretty much every 15 seconds. Chances are, you're going to stun at least once during a Tidal cycle, and chances are, a BM will get sufficient zerk crits to force genie at least once in a 2 minute fight.

2: Let's not forget that for every debuff that isn't landing, that's less genie energy the sin has to use to break stuns, purify debuffs, or resist damage. 30 seconds would be enough to kill a class if it were to sit there and face tank you while you threw debuffs on it, but it's extremely likely that an Assassin will be able to save his genie to mitigate any damage you can throw at it as well as being able to kite efficiently with the use of Tackling Slash on melee classes and Deep Sting on ranged classes in order to buy a few seconds. Remember how it usually takes some kind of debuff to land kills? Yeah, that just makes it all the harder for you to get the damage required to kill outside of an insanely lucky zerk crit chain or crit from ~ half HP.
The same thing could be said of any other class. A wizard can kite if their genie is used up, thus negating their vulnerability.
Furthermore, at endgame defenses, a crit chain or lucky charm bypass is really the only way someone will kill something - baring a wizard sutra combo.

3: They can still have quite the impact in group PvP, especially if waiting on the right timing. I wouldn't call it disadvantaged unless it's large scale PvP, but in a situation like that anything that gets focus fired is going to have a tough time. I'd chalk it up to them having a more specialized role, which is waiting in stealth to take down a key target after it's exhausted genie or apo. Not much can survive an Assassin once it has no outside resources to defend itself with. You've experienced this yourself I believe in some of our 2v2 and 3v3s, you were able to survive a handful of people for a fair amount of time even after your partner(s) died. You weren't able to win, but you did survive which is what most other classes are capable of as well. Sure, you have less AoEs than most classes, but you do offer a fair amount of passive survivability and the option to stealth some of your squad members for a short amount of time.
Most other classes can also survive 2v1 and similar in a pure defense mode. Taking away Tidal just basically removes that capability completely - a nerf for sins that brings more imbalance than equality.
My point is, however, that while a BM can HF and basically help drop a group of 5 people - a sin can only pretty much do that to 1 person, after waiting in stealth, which is rare. They'd lose this capability with the nerf of tidal as well, seeing as most sins are instantly targetted out of stealth.

>b-but stealth pots

Yeah, so? If they're wasting time going for you when you're likely 30 meters away waiting to teleport to your target if people see you they'll either ignore you as it's a waste of time to chase you down, or chase you down which takes heat off your team and possibly leaves them at a temporary numbers advantage. At the very least it could take one of them away from your team while you waste his/her time kiting them. I'd say that's still quite useful.
5v1 was the original situation. Could honestly just have people cycle their stealth detection pots once every 30 seconds.

4: I personally wouldn't say immortal, but I would say very difficult to kill given their passive resistance to one shots at nearly any given time and 66% chance to resist the only reliable way of landing kills. Immortal? No. But the things I just listed in combination with extremely good CC abilities and the ability to constantly regenerate chi allow sins a lot of chances to land kills that they would likely not land if limited by chi as every other class is. Blowing through 5 sparks in one combo and having some left after? Come on man. Come on.
Smack doesn't cost 1 spark, as does Throatcut. Drake Bash doesn't cost 2 sparks, as does Headhunt. Furthermore, those mentioned "5 spark combos" are necessary as assassins actually hit weakly without amazing crits and debuffs. Sins generate chi faster than any other class - but they use it up just as quickly. I don't see wizard's expending 5 sparks to kill someone - because they can just do it with two.
The only advantage sins really have is that their sparks cost "half as much" - considering their chi generation is twice as fast.
That being said, assassins lose that without tidal. They get CCed to hell the moment tidal is off and often use genie to compensate if they don't holy path off the map.

5: An Assassin's lock does very respectable damage, you should know this better than anyone. That being said, it isn't the main point of this is it? So let's move on. I'll agree that the debuffs can shred an Assassin, but there's a fine line between not good enough and too good. As it stands, Tidal Protection is too good. A slight nerf to Demon and Sage Tidal would allow people to have a decent chance at landing debuffs while still allowing the sin extremely good resistance to it. I don't believe a sin should be able to sit there and take attack after attack without wasting genie to purify the debuffs that actually do land. There should be some kind of balance between it, and a small nerf would allow sins to still dodge a lot of debuffs but they'd still need to use genie now and then even while in Tidal.
Okay, you serious? Ask a Sin to permanently stunlock the way a BM can, and deal damage while doing it.
Find which class is going to deal the most damage and lock the longest time. I'll bet it will be the BM.

Sins only lock for short periods of time in order to pull off those multispark combos, where they can have a both stunned and debuffed opponent at the same time, which is the only way sins ever kill anyone.

6: I.. honestly can't say I care about it much in PvE, let's face it that aspect of the game is already easy enough anyway. I can't speak for the new Abba and SoT, but the rest of it? As if it even requires skill past a certain point. It's gear up and faceroll.
JAJAAJAJAAJ LOL PVE but yeah, same.

I understand Tidal fine, and I still believe it's a bit much. In my experience it's been mostly Assassins that defend the skill and the way stealth is, as it seems to be in every game involving a stealth class. "It's not broken 'cause it's part of the game. We need it 'cause we're squish. Our high damage doesn't mean anything." when the reality is they seem to get much more love than other classes. I get that they're squishy, but it usually works out in a way that the classes have skills that far exceed what they need to compensate for it.
Go 1v1 an assassin without Tidal. If assassins were balanced without Tidal, it would be a 50/50 win rate.

Equal gear, I highly doubt that would be the outcome.

In any case, good luck landing important debuffs through tidal and playing a game of luck where the sin has nearly every advantage depending on the class. Is a game where luck rules supreme the kind of game you really enjoy?
I've already explained that assassins are naturally deficient in defenses. Is a game where you can kill with ease every single sin the kind of game you really enjoy?
Well actually. Hmm.

Lyritha - Heavens Tear wrote: »

instead of complaining I highly suggest a solution that only you can come up with and not the development team : go play something else. If it is broken in your opinion and there are no signs of a "fix" then just simply play something you do not have a problem with.

Zanryu - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Try again please.