>Sorry for the harsh tone, but I remember old vanish and it was
>a neat skill, gave you good dividends for taking the time to
>perfect it.

You could always consider not perfecting it. The general trend of things has been away from things that reward mindless spam practice, and I think this is a positive directions.

perfecting lore for a class which has little mana. Its a pain the the neck and then some.

Vanish has got to be one of the funnest skills in the game to play with. If you enjoy using it, and you've got a decent int, it'll perfect on its own soon enough.

I perfected vanish with Khajereh just by vanishing down
the South Dairein road every time I went on it. Seriously.

It's about as easy to perfect as any other skill.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

1. I suggest you taking a breather before writing anything. Posting takes a little time and sense, so if you are going to have all the profanities included, I'd rather you not write. The forum can live without those words.

2. If you think vanish is 'nerfed', then perhaps you should stop playing one. Assassins themselves are already a fearsome class.

3. Vanish itself is a very nifty utility skill. However, it it _NOT_ a spell of return or escape. One is a person 'transported' by magical means (think poof!), the other is a distraction. If someone is entwined, I do not see how he can vanish.

>2. If you think vanish is 'nerfed', then perhaps you should stop >playing one. Assassins themselves are already a fearsome class.

Having played more than my fair share, I have come to the same conclusion.

>3. Vanish itself is a very nifty utility skill. However, it it >_NOT_ a spell of return or escape. One is a person 'transported' by >magical means (think poof!), the other is a distraction. If someone >is entwined, I do not see how he can vanish.

The thing that made vanish so great was that it could be used while entwined, or when fighting warriors to prevent parting blow. Now that one of its main uses is nerfed, the skill has gone down considerably. The rate at which it still increases has remained constant. Its like taking with one hand, and not giving with the other.

Take for example another change: kicks are like defs now, you cant do them on mobs that are too weak. Thats fine though, because now they shoot up faster thanks to the new practice code while ranking (YAY IMMS!). So thats a compromise. What is _not_ a compromise is taking with one hand, and giving nothing in return. Especially when you take away one quite important aspect of a skill.

Want another example? Look at the thief revamp. Thieves lost dual backstab and in most cases, third attack. But they got a ####load of neat skills to play with, so its all good in the end. Assassins recently have got nothing except for nerfing. I'm not saying that they are lacking in power, god no. But when a class gets nerfed for a while with nothing in return...

Romanul, a believer that something good is in the work for assassins

Romanul.

Granted I may be a bit crazy but usually when I look at the assassin class as a whole it seems out of place. Aside from its ability to assasinate and thus providing the hope that just about every character has some means of fearing death even when doing awesome in physical combat, it really doesn't contribute much to the game then a bunch of seemingly unexplainable skillsets that don't seem to vibe with the rest of the theme of the game. Not sure how popular assassins are these days, they seem less popular then thieves, but I do remember when there's be a ton of the damn things around everywhere. Meanwhile, gamewise (mobs) there's hardly any. Their skills seem to be a mutt warrior-thief and in the end they seem more of a utility class for newbies and less of a "normal class" in the game. Maybe I'm just being anal but I'd be happier if they got removed altogether, since they just seem in my eyes to be out of place.

I'd remove the ability to assassinate inside cabals. Problem is that when an assassin defends against anything but a big group, he has the time to get off the necessary number of stalks to have a decent shot at killing someone.

Raiders are sort of obliged to raid, so it isn't like ranking where they could just take precautions.

during a raid its hard for an assassin to get the necessary number of stalks unless his assassination skill is high. If you managed to get assassinate high enough then you are entitled to its benefits, and even with assassiante in the high 90's you will still fail more than you would like. Besides, its not that hard to prevent being assassinated.

Being a warrior axe spec or mace, you raid knowing the assassin cant to much to stop you, especially if you are prepped. There has gotta be something to kill super prepped/geared warriors besides another of equal or greater damroll/damredux etc.

You should also put doors on cabals, why dont they have any? Doors that cabal members can lock and once inside, you either win or die. Might as well do that too... (sarcasm)

my elf hero voker used to run out of mana killing the giant on his own.

Against a solo hero who isn't called Dwoggurd, I'd say you could get off around 7 or 8 stalks, and that gives you a decent chance of success.

Not sure how popular assassins are these days, they seem less popular then thieves,

I believe they are consistently our second most popular class, across all levels. It would seem you're in the minority opinion.

As for the skill set, they're a hybrid warrior/thief with a large number of skills centered around unarmed combat. I don't see how they're thematically weak or inconsistent.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Probably in the lower ranks, maybe midranks. At hero not so many. I'm referring to the fact that they're ninjas in a world where ninjas aren't very popular. Example is their titles, which exist sheerly for assassins and except for Scarab's website have no founding or explanation.

>Not sure how popular assassins are these days, they seem
>less popular then thieves,
>
>I believe they are consistently our second most popular class,
>across all levels. It would seem you're in the minority
>opinion.

Just out of curiosity who would be the most popular class?
And any chance to get Ninjas back?

valguarnera@carrionfields.com