- Jan 5, 2018
- 170
- 1
- 30
Hi All,
Just wanted to put my personal perspective from playing an Assassin so far on Zircon, a few issues aside I can honestly say that I’m starting to enjoy playing the class. Some of the recent changes have massively improved the way the class plays and I’m sure most Sin’s are happy for these improvements (please keep them coming!!).
What Iwould like to discuss today are the current skill trees and the way in which some of our abilities work.
Combat Tree:
The combat tree consists of our 4 main attacking skills.
Full Bloom
White Lotus
Red Lotus
Sweetbrier
At present the damage for these draws directly from our mana as a %, the problem this seems to cause is that it forces all Sin’s into one specific build (Aside from Jeleh who is testing a DC/Crit Build – would appreciate hearing his findings). I don’t mind going pure mana build but feel that a review of the way the damage is calculated to include an additional DC % factor would go a long way in making people have more diversity to their selection of kit (obviously if a DC % was to be added to the equation then the mana % would need adjusting to ensure that the damage doesn’t go crazy and overpowered).
Passive Tree:
The passive tree consists of 14 skills in total, these offer a range improvements from increasing base stats to adding additional effects to other skills.
Willow Dance
Vine Tree Dance
Bloody Flower
Discipline
Calamity of Full Mooon
Pledge of Blood
Touch of the Departed
Waning Moon
Ghost Walk
Element Puppet
Rejuvenation
Advanced Bloody Flower
Advent of Devil
Advent of Demon
For the most part this tree works well, and I would imagine that the majority of other Assassins also agree. The only skill I would look to review would be Element Puppet, this is a fantastic skill for PvE and most Sin’s take advantage of the additional benefits it offers (Slow or Stun) but there seems little point in the Burning or Shocking dark stones as they don’t offer any additional utility. Would it be possible to add additional effects to these stones so they have reason to be used? Possibly add the burning effect that ticks after casting Hell Fire to the Burning stone and for the Shocking stone to introduce the unable to cast effect (like what Goru Archers cast on us)? With PvE addressed that brings us to PvP, at present Element Puppet doesn’t come into play with PvP but maybe it should… the problem is that this is where it gets tricky and would need testing to ensure it isn’t over powered. Obviously you couldn’t let Element Puppet cause the effects for the duration that they do in PvE as PvP would just become DoS > Element Puppet >Dragon Repulse but would it be possible to see these effects have some play in PvP even if stun is for 0.5-1 second, slow for 1-1.5 seconds, Burn could last longer and no casting for 1-2 seconds – to prevent this from becoming 5 sins back-2-back stunning people you would gain immunity to Element Puppets effect for “X” amount of seconds after receiving any of the above status effects. Again these are only ideas and the time frame for effectiveness and immunity would need extensive testing before any type of PvP implementation.
Neutral Tree:
The neutraltree also consists of 14 skills, these range from buffs, AoE, attacking skills and escapes.
Poisonous Cloud
Cloak
Wraith Grip
Hell Fire
Summon Puppet
Flame Splash
The New Beginning
Dance of Swallows
Dark Conversion
Flash of Light
Dragon Repulse
Abyss
Raging Wind
Evasion
This is probably the tree requiring the most attention as a fair few of the skills could do with some minor/major reworkings. Since there are so many I’ll break them down one by one:
Poisonous Cloud – At present with Agility build having no place in game this skill is no longer used, before anyone throws in the “Its good for PvP” no Sin should be spending long enough standing still and exchanging blows that this would be worth while. I’m unsure how to make this viable in the current game so maybe it just needs to be shelved for now.
Cloak –Due to the can’t be used in combat status of Cloak would it be possible that once Cloak is engaged we can use potions etc without decloaking? Additionally, to give Cloak a little more use would if be possible to have an increased % chance of crit if you go from a cloaked state (Cloak or Puppet) into DoS?
Wraith Grip – This has been brought up by just about every Sin on server, in its current state its almost pointless due to its limitations. My proposal would be to modify the way in which it effects different levels:
Lower Level – Holds for 4-5Seconds
Same Level – Holds for 2-4Seconds
Upto 5 Levels Higher – Holds for1-2 Seconds
This would at least mean that as one of the slower levelling class on the server we can still make use of it for PvP (it will never have use in PvE due to the level difference between us and the caves where we hunt).
The New Beginning/Flash of Light – I don’t really use TNB/FoL much as its damage seems so low that it doesn’t feel worth it (also it seems to miss… A LOT!), I wouldn’t ask for an increase to its damage as I’ve got low DC and only Lv.1 FoL so maybe someone who has fully levelled it can comment further. My suggestion is to increase our options to generate TNB, at present it’s a right pain to stop and charge up TNB, my idea would be that at the completion of a full Lotus/Bloom cycle 1 TNB is generated, this would mean the skills works better within the playstyle of our class but wouldn’t really damage the PvP side of things as no Sinis ever going to be completing full cycles of Lotus/Bloom skills. How would others feel for something like this to come into play so FoL can be added into our damage rotation and not just a redundant skill?
Dark Conversion – The spell itself is great and anyone not using it should really reconsider as it’s a huge benefit to PvE grinding. The problem is that at present DC continuously ticks from the moment it is cast until all of your MP has been consumed, would it be possible for this to cease draining mana once our HP is full (but the buff remain in place until cancelled)?
My final area of discussion is the current “Spell Power” stat that we get on items such as armour and helmets, in a previous thread I made it was confirmed that this only comes into play for the Burn effect of Hell Fire… which to me feels like a waste, especially when some of our items can have 12-12 spell power. The only use I’ve been able to come up with so far that doesn’t overly change the current game systems would be that having spell power increases the duration of our buff skills, this would mean it doesn’t directly affect PvE or PvP just Sin utility in how often we would need to recast…. Unless there are other plans for this down the line?
Anyway, that’sa few of my thoughts out on paper and open for discussion, there are loads of other things that I would like to bring to the table but I feel that the Skill Trees are the most integral part of the class so make the best starting point.
Thanks for taking the time to read all of this.
Regards,
XIII
---------- Post Merged on 04-02-2018 at 11:01 AM ---------- Previous Post was on 02-02-2018 at 12:08 PM ----------
I’ve conducted some further testing with FoL and it seems a little broken, at present with 120+ DC my attacks are nearly always blocked by mobs with as low as 25-25 AC, furthermore the hit rate seems a little off since it works on cursor position, basically if you are in a group that’s surrounded a mob you’ll be lucky to get the hits to land. Not sure how everyone else is finding this (plus the other things mentioned above) but would like to see some input from other Sin’s on how they are finding the current skill trees and what they feel needs reviewing.
XIII
Just wanted to put my personal perspective from playing an Assassin so far on Zircon, a few issues aside I can honestly say that I’m starting to enjoy playing the class. Some of the recent changes have massively improved the way the class plays and I’m sure most Sin’s are happy for these improvements (please keep them coming!!).
What Iwould like to discuss today are the current skill trees and the way in which some of our abilities work.
Combat Tree:
The combat tree consists of our 4 main attacking skills.
Full Bloom
White Lotus
Red Lotus
Sweetbrier
At present the damage for these draws directly from our mana as a %, the problem this seems to cause is that it forces all Sin’s into one specific build (Aside from Jeleh who is testing a DC/Crit Build – would appreciate hearing his findings). I don’t mind going pure mana build but feel that a review of the way the damage is calculated to include an additional DC % factor would go a long way in making people have more diversity to their selection of kit (obviously if a DC % was to be added to the equation then the mana % would need adjusting to ensure that the damage doesn’t go crazy and overpowered).
Passive Tree:
The passive tree consists of 14 skills in total, these offer a range improvements from increasing base stats to adding additional effects to other skills.
Willow Dance
Vine Tree Dance
Bloody Flower
Discipline
Calamity of Full Mooon
Pledge of Blood
Touch of the Departed
Waning Moon
Ghost Walk
Element Puppet
Rejuvenation
Advanced Bloody Flower
Advent of Devil
Advent of Demon
For the most part this tree works well, and I would imagine that the majority of other Assassins also agree. The only skill I would look to review would be Element Puppet, this is a fantastic skill for PvE and most Sin’s take advantage of the additional benefits it offers (Slow or Stun) but there seems little point in the Burning or Shocking dark stones as they don’t offer any additional utility. Would it be possible to add additional effects to these stones so they have reason to be used? Possibly add the burning effect that ticks after casting Hell Fire to the Burning stone and for the Shocking stone to introduce the unable to cast effect (like what Goru Archers cast on us)? With PvE addressed that brings us to PvP, at present Element Puppet doesn’t come into play with PvP but maybe it should… the problem is that this is where it gets tricky and would need testing to ensure it isn’t over powered. Obviously you couldn’t let Element Puppet cause the effects for the duration that they do in PvE as PvP would just become DoS > Element Puppet >Dragon Repulse but would it be possible to see these effects have some play in PvP even if stun is for 0.5-1 second, slow for 1-1.5 seconds, Burn could last longer and no casting for 1-2 seconds – to prevent this from becoming 5 sins back-2-back stunning people you would gain immunity to Element Puppets effect for “X” amount of seconds after receiving any of the above status effects. Again these are only ideas and the time frame for effectiveness and immunity would need extensive testing before any type of PvP implementation.
Neutral Tree:
The neutraltree also consists of 14 skills, these range from buffs, AoE, attacking skills and escapes.
Poisonous Cloud
Cloak
Wraith Grip
Hell Fire
Summon Puppet
Flame Splash
The New Beginning
Dance of Swallows
Dark Conversion
Flash of Light
Dragon Repulse
Abyss
Raging Wind
Evasion
This is probably the tree requiring the most attention as a fair few of the skills could do with some minor/major reworkings. Since there are so many I’ll break them down one by one:
Poisonous Cloud – At present with Agility build having no place in game this skill is no longer used, before anyone throws in the “Its good for PvP” no Sin should be spending long enough standing still and exchanging blows that this would be worth while. I’m unsure how to make this viable in the current game so maybe it just needs to be shelved for now.
Cloak –Due to the can’t be used in combat status of Cloak would it be possible that once Cloak is engaged we can use potions etc without decloaking? Additionally, to give Cloak a little more use would if be possible to have an increased % chance of crit if you go from a cloaked state (Cloak or Puppet) into DoS?
Wraith Grip – This has been brought up by just about every Sin on server, in its current state its almost pointless due to its limitations. My proposal would be to modify the way in which it effects different levels:
Lower Level – Holds for 4-5Seconds
Same Level – Holds for 2-4Seconds
Upto 5 Levels Higher – Holds for1-2 Seconds
This would at least mean that as one of the slower levelling class on the server we can still make use of it for PvP (it will never have use in PvE due to the level difference between us and the caves where we hunt).
The New Beginning/Flash of Light – I don’t really use TNB/FoL much as its damage seems so low that it doesn’t feel worth it (also it seems to miss… A LOT!), I wouldn’t ask for an increase to its damage as I’ve got low DC and only Lv.1 FoL so maybe someone who has fully levelled it can comment further. My suggestion is to increase our options to generate TNB, at present it’s a right pain to stop and charge up TNB, my idea would be that at the completion of a full Lotus/Bloom cycle 1 TNB is generated, this would mean the skills works better within the playstyle of our class but wouldn’t really damage the PvP side of things as no Sinis ever going to be completing full cycles of Lotus/Bloom skills. How would others feel for something like this to come into play so FoL can be added into our damage rotation and not just a redundant skill?
Dark Conversion – The spell itself is great and anyone not using it should really reconsider as it’s a huge benefit to PvE grinding. The problem is that at present DC continuously ticks from the moment it is cast until all of your MP has been consumed, would it be possible for this to cease draining mana once our HP is full (but the buff remain in place until cancelled)?
My final area of discussion is the current “Spell Power” stat that we get on items such as armour and helmets, in a previous thread I made it was confirmed that this only comes into play for the Burn effect of Hell Fire… which to me feels like a waste, especially when some of our items can have 12-12 spell power. The only use I’ve been able to come up with so far that doesn’t overly change the current game systems would be that having spell power increases the duration of our buff skills, this would mean it doesn’t directly affect PvE or PvP just Sin utility in how often we would need to recast…. Unless there are other plans for this down the line?
Anyway, that’sa few of my thoughts out on paper and open for discussion, there are loads of other things that I would like to bring to the table but I feel that the Skill Trees are the most integral part of the class so make the best starting point.
Thanks for taking the time to read all of this.
Regards,
XIII
---------- Post Merged on 04-02-2018 at 11:01 AM ---------- Previous Post was on 02-02-2018 at 12:08 PM ----------
I’ve conducted some further testing with FoL and it seems a little broken, at present with 120+ DC my attacks are nearly always blocked by mobs with as low as 25-25 AC, furthermore the hit rate seems a little off since it works on cursor position, basically if you are in a group that’s surrounded a mob you’ll be lucky to get the hits to land. Not sure how everyone else is finding this (plus the other things mentioned above) but would like to see some input from other Sin’s on how they are finding the current skill trees and what they feel needs reviewing.
XIII
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