After some time and further consideration, thought I'd create some new builds based on this series to break out of almost always using some slight variant of the same set of skills. Limitations are no PvE skills (so heroes can also use). I also prefer for elites only to be used by the applicable primary profession: ~0:00:42 Regarding Assassin's Promise.... This elite is right up my alley, but I'm always afraid that the target won't be killed in time. Not much of a threat in normal mode if builds are close to right and foes don't have much (if any) hex relief, but in hard mode there are no guarantees. If one is relying on a long recharge skill to recharge to be effective, better take a back-up. A low risk build.... Assassin's Promise [Dark Prison]: Dark Prison, Black Lotus Strike, Lotus Strike, Wild Strike, Vampiric Assault, Mark of Death, Death Blossom, Assassin's Promise ~0:07:26 Regarding Crippling Daggers.... Seems like the purpose of this is to snare a kiting foe after you've gotten in a few hits, perhaps after Dark Prison or Shadow Prison wears off. Besides violating my hex or condition guideline, the cast time should be 1/4 second to better catch while moving. Compare with Caltrops (albeit in Shadow Arts), which costs 5e more and twice the recharge (5 vs. 10 seconds), but it casts in 1/4, has similar cripple duration, has no condition requirement, and affects target and adjacent. This suggests that, while sin is a single target profession, Deadly Arts is a super single target line. ~0:14:04 Regarding Deadly Paradox.... While looking at this one closely, it would appear that's it's designed to run without daggers and perhaps run both Deadly and Shadow Arts. The 15e cost is just too high to manage. (I even tested to see if Way of the Empty Palm worked on lead, off-hand, etc. substitutes.) It must be designed for Shadow Form (as you noted and as per Wiki). Other than Shadow Form, I didn't really see an elite that worked with how I was trying to use. ~0:19:42 Moebius Strike [Entangling Asp]: Jagged Strike/[Lead Dagger Attack Skill], Entangling Asp, Falling Lotus Strike, Signet of Toxic Shock, Wild Strike, Critical Strike, Moebius Strike, Death Blossom ~0:22:04 Regarding Exposed Defenses.... My analysis is similar to that for Mark of Death below (I did that one first), but this one vs. Rigor Mortis (Curses). At 11 Deadly or 10 Curses, ED costs 10e, lasts 8 seconds, 25 recharge, casts in 1. RM lasts costs 10e, lasts 16 seconds, 20 recharge, casts in one. If only investing in Deadly for ED, just invest in Curses instead. (ED should have a 1/4 cast like Mark of Death to continue the lines' differences and emphasis the sin's concept.) Nevertheless, if investing in Deadly for more than Exposed defenses, especially for Assassin's Promise.... Again, not all solutions to the same problem are viable in all situations. Fox's Promise is an enchantment, takes up the elite slot, and can be stripped. Exposed Defenses is a hex. Unseen Fury leverages blind and is a stance. Blind can be cured; stances can be removed. ED is a hex. Golden Fox Strike is unblockable to precede Wild Strike, but requires an enchantment which might not last. ED makes all attacks unblockable for time. Shattering Assault can remove 2 enchantments, but it's expensive, takes up your elite slot, and what if there are 3 such enchantments or the blocking enchantments are buried under 5 others? ED cares not about 100 blocking enchantments. Your position that all possible solutions to the same problem are viable in every circumstance is a constant weakness in your overall analysis, though very insightful as a general rule. ~0:30:08 Regarding Impale and Iron Palm.... The biggest problem I see with skilsl like these are the relative long recharge (15 and 20 seconds respectively). Either or both or great in an assassin spike, but an assassin needs to still be effective after the first kill (e.g. spike kill target #1, pressure kill #2 during recharge, repeat). That leaves little room on the bar for fluff. Assassin's Promise could solve the recharge problem, but it's a hex and Impale inflicts a condition. Just using skills from the Critical, Dagger and Deadly lines, getting the condition inflicted for the Iron Palm knockdown right off the bat proves difficult (if not impossible). Jagged Strike means "wasting" a lead attack. Using (e.g.) Sharpen Daggers with Malicious Strike consume 2 slots.) Likely best used with an opening hex. Impale can be slotted after any dual attack as a little bonus damage in deep wound, just cycling through the normal chain during recharge. My conclusion is that while these two can be used together and/or separately with either a condition or hex strategy, Impale was designed for conditions and Iron Palm for hexes. My attempt to cram in both on a condition bar.... Moebius Strike [Impale]: [Lead Attack], [Off-Hand Attack], [Dual Attack], Impale, Iron Palm, Falling Spider, Critical Strike, Moebius Strike ~0:36:04 Regarding Mark of Death.... This seems to come down to whether to use Mark of Death or Defile Flesh (Curses). At 11 Deadly and 10 Curses, MoD lasts 8 seconds, has a 20 recharge, and casts in 1/4. DF lasts 25 seconds, has a 10 second recharge, and casts in 1. If the player is only going into Deadly Arts for MoD, then DF appears to be the best choice; however, there is a 10% health sacrifice and it may not reduce as many sources of healing. If the player is using more than one skill in Deadly, then MoD may be the better choice (especially when using Assassin's Promise). Keep in mind that the player may only need one of these for the first kill, as afterwards your team may have (e.g.) Lingering Curse floating around. I'll also add to my original post (in response to part of your analysis) that sometimes the opposing healer isn't the priority target (e.g. some nuker or hard rez slotter). Skills like MoD and DF helps to mitigate relief from opposing healers while you spike down the primary threat. Also consider pairing (from your team) with (e.g.) Scourge Healing. Since the opposing healer will have to cast more healing spells to counter the debuff, Scourge will trigger even more. ~0:38:14 Regarding Mark of Insecurity.... Have never used this elite, but on this much deeper dive it has some real possibilities. I see this as a passive alternative to more active solutions for blocking stances and most enchantments. Pop this on and you get some bonus degen and power through with short recharge attack skills. This hex is cheap and lasts twice it's recharge, but you can't rely on any non-assassin skills (not a huge barrier for the benefits). A single target Tranquility. Thinking something like.... Mark of Insecurity: MoI, Expose Defenses, Black Lotus Strike, Lotus Strike, Wild Strike, Death Blossom, Dancing Daggers, Dash ~0:40:25 Regarding Sadist's Signet.... I have used this as a contingent emergency heal when doing solo farming runs in low lvl areas (normal mode) for drops, but never really looked close. My original guess was this was the Deadly version of Shadow Refuge for beginner/low lvl sins given the same short recharge and self-heal purpose; however, the first problem is that inflicting a number of long-ish lasting conditions with just Critical, Dagger and/or Deadly early obtained skills isn't all that easy or cheap. This made me check and the signet is an EotN skill, which suggests this is designed for very experienced sins (not beginners needing a self-heal). Experienced damage dealers generally don't take self-heals. What were the developers thinking? ~0:50:29 Regarding Shameful Fear.... I don't think I would have noticed prior to this series (thanks again for your efforts), but the 2 second cast screams for mesmer use only but why? Nothing seems to benefit from Domination nor Fast Casting, and assuming nothing in Inspiration. That leaves Illusion. Accumulated Pain maybe (violates my hex or condition guideline). I can see with Crippling Anguish/other mes snares in that one weakens the snare a bit for the damage. Does feed Recurring Insecurity, but I'm betting it's for the snares. Would have to outsource some e-management to a battery due to loss if Inspiration, but does make (e.g.) Ethereal Burden more appealing for PvE. ~0:053:40 Regarding Shroud of Silence.... Again (while I also think this elite sucks but we'll see by the end of my analysis) your "I'll just daze" is just as sucky. The opposing monk may immediate cure the daze or worse an opposing necromancer may draw the daze and now your entire team has it. Perhaps this is designed for a coordinated team (admittedly not exactly reliable in PvE with heroes) to shutdown a priority caster while your backline mesmers, etc. implement the longer term strategy. This could possible delay a monk from casting (e.g. Spell Shield/Spell Breaker) or a elementalist Obsidian Flesh just long enough to get in some additional hexes. The disabling cost is to prevent the sin from getting in hexes themselves. Get in three quick attack skills followed by (e.g.) Iron Palm for the knockdown (assuming the team has hexed). Perhaps something like.... Shroud of Silence: Shadow Walk, SoS, Black Lotus Strike, Wild Strike, Critical Strike, Iron Palm, [Open], [Open]
Thought I had unintentionally deleted the comment above.... Continued.... I will state upfront that this video seemed to have more than average "I'd always prefer x skill", "it's just easier to y", etc. Yes, another profession can perhaps handle the task better, but what are your assassin options? Enchantments can be stripped or shattered. Conditions can be cured or transferred. Hexes can be removed or shattered. Stances can be removed. For instance dazed is not always better than a hex based shutdown. A skill or tactic that's a super weapon in one area will be useless elsewhere. This original re-visit + proposed builds really went into this with several specific skill in response to your analysis, but I may not do so in this post delete reattempt.... While I don't use these comments to document any proposed build ideas (those are saved), I will also add that this effort, notwithstanding Lincoln's sage advice to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt, is my public documentation on my thoughts on these GW skills.... ~0:58:39 Regarding Signets of Deadly Corruption, Shadows, Toxic Shock.... I really want to figure out the proper sin use for these. I considered a strange build that ignores Dagger and look just to Critical, Deadly and Shadow, but just couldn't get it right due to energy demands, etc. The duration of cripple/dazed from Palm Strike/Golden Skull Strike is too short to feed these signets. The energy demands from Temple Strike appear crushing and where to get cheap poison? Shadow Arts has blind, but alas.... The best can figure thus far is that these may be best used by x/A, but if by a sin primary Locust's Fury or Way of the Assassin look like the most promising elites.... Way of the Assassin [Deadly Signets]: WotA, Jagged Strike, Entangling Asp, Mantis Touch, Wild Strike, Critical Strike, Signet of Toxic Shock, Signet of Deadly Corruption Burning Arrow [Deadly Signets]: Hunter's Shot, Pin Down, Poison Tip Signet, Burning Arrow, Signet of Toxic Shock, Signet of Deadly Corruption, Throw Dirt, Signet of Shadows ~1:05:01 Regarding Siphon Strength.... I would think that a well designed game profession should have a way to be effective in all situations and against any other professions. While I consider sins mostly anti-caster, there are physical heavy areas. At 10e, 10 recharge this elite seems to fill that role yet still emphasize the single target concept of the assassin. I don't get your analysis at all. ~1:09:46 Regarding Way of the Empty Palm.... Building on the comments in my original post, as an energy management skill this likely should be in Critical Strikes rather than Deadly Arts. Based on my testing, this does not work with attack skill substitutes (e.g. Mantis Touch). The only skill in the line that's affected seems to be Vampiric Assault. Perhaps WotEP is designed to fund the attack skills that follow a sting of Deadly skills, as they are generally more expensive than those in Shadow Arts. Your palms are empty when using some/lots/most Deadly skills (i.e. no dagger use). For instance this skill chain below leaves one below 10e as I'm runed, etc.: WotEP, Dark Prison, Iron Palm, Mantis Sting How does one get energy quickly back up? A: Some free energy attack skills.
Skills like Augury of Death and Scorpion Wire (i.e. shadow step to when) have to be reworked to have any effectiveness. I have never used, but I imagine you pop this on foe #1 which runs away. Okay, I'll pound on foe #2 here. If the hex triggers, you will shadow step to #1 but then start running back to #2. To make this effective, your target must auto change to #1 and your place in the attack chain also transfer to #1. Another option is to have all your attack skills recharge rather transfer your place. The sin shouldn't be penalized and lose their place in line. I can't add much on Dancing Daggers, but I will emphasis that it counts as a lead attack which is unique. As a spell it can be rupted though, so keep that in mind when facing spell rupters and how you can remain effective. I do find the earth damage theme for sins interesting. Factions came second, so I'm guessing that the developer's were spreading the ele damage around and earth was what was left. Wars no ele damage theme; rangers fire; monks some immaterial fire; necs cold; mes no ele damage; eles all four. After they went with lightening for rits, that left earth for sins. All 4 types were covered by 2 professions. Interesting in that I would never use Shadow Prison over Dark Prison. Just not going to burn an elite for an additional 1-2 secs of snare and 5 secs less recharge. Usually I'll use Prison just to get there fast and feed Black Lotus Strike to mitigate the energy costs to get the chain going. By the time the snare ends, the team should already have most of their important hexes going. Long shadow step recharges shouldn't be too much of an issue since the role of an assassin is to get in, take out a high priority, and get out. I would like the outs have faster recharge though to better serve their purpose (i.e. self heal and damage mitigation). Thoughts on Disrupting Dagger: I like that sins have some rupting role, as they are supposed to startle and surprise. Disrupting Stab is melee range. Dagger is half range. Maybe there is a skill that I can't recall, but a third should be from shadow range. Disrupting Step/Appearance: Shadow step to target foe. Interrupts an action. As a player, I need skills like this in reserve to deal with that must rupt spell (e.g. Ray of Judgement) by a caster wherever they are on the battlefield. The recharge on that should be long. Perhaps some conditional shorter recharge if you rupt a spell or something. I really want Enduring Toxin to work, but, as you've pointed out many times in this series, the fact that you can't control the conditional benefit really kills it. When/if moving being one of the worst of those conditions. Renewal if target is using a skill when it would end? Has a condition? Something other than moving. Maybe some counter punish hex that does the opposite somehow like some mesmer hexes do. I think you're missing the niche for Expunge Enchantments. No, I wouldn't bring it either since I would prefer to power my way through to save the slot, but this is a non-elite touch skill. It's sole purpose is to remove enchantments that cannot be directly removed by normal means (i.e. other spells). The penalty is to debuff the Deadly sin since that line is heavy on non-attack stuff. Say it disables half your bar for 6 seconds, but you should still have a lead, off hand, and dual to use. A lot of deadly looks designed to deal with a hardened foe, namely hexes, conditions, armor ignoring damage, and this mass enchantment remover. Vampiric Assault seems to fit this theme as well. One of the biggest difference is our analysis is exampled by your comments on Mark of Death. MoD is a hex; deep wound is a condition. Your opponent will often have counters to one but not the other, which means they are not freely interchangeable. If your strategy is based on reduced healing to spike or pressure, you had better know if that leverage will go poof. The question would be, if I need to use a hex to accomplish reduced healing, what are my options? I do use Shadow Fang. I wish I could claim that this use was by design but got lucky and figured it out. I think this skill is meant to be used against foes that have a nasty upon death effect. Maybe it's not necessary, but I use this in the Jade Sea against Naga rits that have an elite item spell that does damage and KDs when dropped (i.e. intentionally drops or dies). With Fang, I pop in, usually kill, and auto shadow back avoiding the damage and KD. If I don't kill within 10 secs, I shadow back leaving the deep wound tattoo and a soft target for the team to finish off. Since the upside is negating this upon death damage and effects, the recharge is longer. Your results may vary. (Note that skills that remove a hex and then a condition counter this very well, as you will just shadow back with just wasted energy.) I agree that Shroud of Silence is trash, but there are lots of signets in that line. I've been playing around with these deadly signets on my ranger to good effect. They also look rather attractive for a warrior with Symbolic Strike, but rangers have far more ways to setup the conditions themselves. Oddly, I haven't used on a sin, but Symbolic Strike is a generic melee attack and a sin can certainly burn otherwise unused adrenaline. I feel I'm missing some action here. Siphon Strength is situational to where you will be facing almost all physicals. The recharge is more than reasonable at 10 secs and the +critical% helps fund it. The sole area I recall using is the Bloodstone Caves. I should probably expand my usage because I find very effective getting there and in the dungeon itself. Thoughts on Way of the Empty Palm: Seems like I have effectively used this to fund an entirely unblockable chain twice where my beloved Asuran Scan is not an option. Elite-1-2-3-1-2-3, though I probably had more than one off hand and dual. The issue was strong hex removal and blocking, and this elite provided the enchantment to trigger additional attack skill benefits. Might have been the Asuran spiders, the final boss in that dungeon sure has a nasty stance.
Shadow Prison is also a stronger snare (66% vs. 33%), but I feel like that difference probably only matters in PvP. I definitely prefer Wastrel's Collapse or Beguiling Haze as elite shadow steps. I think I'd prefer Defile Flesh over Mark of Death generally, as Defile Flesh has a longer duration and shorter recharge. On the other hand, it also has a 10% max hp sacrifice. You make a really good point about Shadow Fang. I hadn't thought about the way it'd work when the enemy died. I'm glad you discovered this and shared it!
@@Sientir Looking back at my original comments, I had several skill design, etc. questions there. I could be wrong here, but I suspect that I'm more of a forest guy and you trees. I won't prod about all of them, but any thoughts on my proposal to fix (e.g.) Augury of Death? Thoughts on how ele damage was spread around the classes? They added more earth and cold for dervs and burning (but not fire) with paras. I find it also a bit odd with all the holy damage hate you noted under the smite vid, that holy is an emphasis with dervs as well. Rits likely have a lot more lightning than necs have cold, so I suppose they felt cold and earth were still shorted before the derv. Really leaves a hole for more fire, but fire eles are already overpowered and I suppose all the slashing damage (vs. plants and the like) made up for it some. I like how the game will drop hints as to what damge type, etc. to use if one pays attention. For instance Zhed comes as a water ele in Kourna but in the cut scene prior to the Desolation he asks for a torch. Likely seeing things not really there.
@@tarheel7406 I think both Scorpion Wire and Augury of Death suffer from the problem of being hard to use effectively in part due to disorientation. The idea of auto-switching targets is a good way to address that, as is transferring the last inflicted attack mark so that you can just keep doing what you're doing and adjust after the fact. Transferring the attack mark might be difficult, though, depending upon how the code works. Maybe automatically assigning the mark from your last used Dagger attack would work? Anyway, programmatic musings aside, I also like the idea of them recharging all of your attack skills. It gives more of a reason to use them. As far as the damage types, I do find your observations there interesting. I don't know if ArenaNET was being as intentional with them as the pattern you observed or not. It is useful to remember the connection between the professions and the gods: • Dwayna is associated with life and healing and air. As such, Air Magic is associated with her, as is Divine Favor, Healing Prayers, and Protection Prayers. (Wiki says Protection Prayers are associated with Balthazar, which seems weird to me.) Some Wind Prayers are associated with her, though they seem split between Dwayna and Grenth. • Melandru is associated with the earth and nature. Rangers are associated with her, as is Earth Magic and Earth Prayers. • Lyssa is associated with energy and illusions. Mesmers are associated with her, as is Energy Storage and Mysticism (at least loosely). Assassins have a connection with her as well. • Grenth is associated with death and cold. Both Necromancers and Ritualists are associated with him, as are Assassins and Water Magic. Wind Prayers also likes to reference Grenth a lot. • Balthazar is associated with war and fire. Warriors belong to him, as does Fire Magic and Smiting Prayers. Paragon attributes are apparently spread around as well. You can check the wiki for more on this stuff. Anyway, I bring it up because there may have been some thoughts related to these that inspired the developers as they worked on new professions. For example, Ritualists play around in a similar conceptual space that Necromancers do. As such, the devs likely sought to make Rits feel distinct. I could see them emphasizing Lightning (which has some associations with the dead as both a form of divine wrath and Frankenstein's Monster being reanimated), where earth makes slightly less sense and fire feels like something you fight the undead with (as per Zhed calling for a torch). I don't know why they decided to give Assassins some earth damage (rather than having those spells deal Piercing damage, for example). They may have been avoiding having spells deal physical types of damage at that point, to differentiate them from attacks, and earth damage felt the most like physical force to them. It certain feels more that way to me than the other three elements. And for the Dervish, I do feel like Wind Prayers emphasizes Grenth at least as much as Dwayna (though it is a bit of a mess in that regard). The Dervish as a whole feels like an exploration of the Monk-as-holy-warrior archetype that they minimized with Smiting Prayers. As such, I imagine they were trying to differentiate the Dervish and the Monk. Thus, focusing on Lyssa, Grenth, and Melandru (as opposed to Dwayna and Balthazar for the Monk) makes sense to me. Of course, there are skills that reference Balthazar and Dwayna, but I feel the other three are a bit more emphasized. Of course, all of this is speculation, and approaching the design from a different angle. I could see it happening from your direction as well (mechanics first). Though, in my experience, you usually want to come up with some high level concept that you then flesh out. Actual implementation decisions will likely involve a lot of thinking through how things will fit together, though, and making sure elemental damage types were spread around may have happened. As a bit of a tangent, the original six professions were really well concepted, but a little too thoroughly. It made it hard to differentiate the new professions. I think it could be argued that Assassins are a different take on the same sort of archetype that the ranger occupies, and likewise for the Ritualist to the Necromancer, the Dervish to the Monk, and the Paragon to the Warrior. But I've probably written enough of an essay in this comment! Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I've been enjoying our conversation. :)
@@Sientir My comments are mostly written in real time as I listen, pause, un-pause. My original thoughts were the complicated transfer mark mechanic. Then I thought, just recharge all attack skills. I agree, it's such a contingent benefit that one can't control other than (e.g.) running away from the target. (Maybe that's an abuse they saw.) Burning e and a slot for highly contingent benefits should have a high reward, like a lottery ticket. I'm guessing like you. The developer's conceived this ele/god/class association that got overridden with additional classes and balance concerns. Zhed is an example of where the mandatory hero use can cause practical irritations. Since Sousuke is an optional hero, Zhed is your only surefire ele hero for Nightfall; however, he's required for two missions. If I'm right about the clues, water for the first, fire for the second. Causes rune and perhaps weapon issues. I have him runed and equipped as a water ele, but running him that way in the 2nd mission means re-equipping or just going as is. He's the only hero that's like that if I recall. I guess I'm just weird for noticing stuff like that.
@@tarheel7406 Honestly, I think Scorpion Wire is a PvP skill so your target can't run away from you. AI doesn't flee like that, so it's kinda useless in PvE. Oddly enough, I tend to make Zhed an Earth Elementalist. Not sure why I've done that. Elementalists are a bit different from other professions in that whichever element they most specialize in has a huge impact on what they do. For example, a warrior may have three different weapons to pick between, but they all attack in melee. But each elementalist attribute really wants you to invest a lot in it (the Attunements point to that), and all four of them work really differently and fill different roles. I think that makes that sort of thing stand out a lot more.
