I tested the PTR and I hope they will bring some new changes in the new one for ladder because as things stand right now there is no real incentive to use any other Martial arts then Dragon talon, you just need to invest a few more points into DT and stack some elemental damage to make it useful, if you know what you are doing there is no reason to waste some of your attacks and skill points on charging skills
I think they should rework those charging skills to hold charges over a cooldown, if you don’t hit with a charge skill in a while you lose a charge and you get to use the full extent of the charge-up skill no matter how many hits you unleash as long as you didn’t lose the charge before hitting, that way it’s a worthy investment, of course they should nerf the damage output and change the way the skill works a bit to compensate for the change because it will be too powerful at the moment
they could also make all the charge up skills passive chance on hit or strike skills instead, make the base proc chance very low, which will make you invest in more then one of those skills if you want to use something like dragon talon and if you use something like dragon flight or dragon tail you will have a much higher chance to proc rather if you use DT or dragon claw
Would make the entire tree a lot more fun and engaging in my opinion
I mean, that just sounds like your opinion. My opinion, I enjoy MA Sin and find it worth using, and that’s before 2.4 improvements…maybe you just don’t enjoy them at a fundamental level, and that’s okay, not everyone will.
I wrote 3 whole paragraphs about it being fundamentally wrong and how you could solve it, that’s the exact issue of charge-up skills and it’s all well and good that you like it, but most people don’t which is why it isn’t wildly adopted and the reason they are reiterating the entire skill tree
It’s fundamentally wrong for the flow of the game
I also thoroughly enjoy the gameplay of a martial arts assassin. I just wish it was a stronger class that was as fun in hell difficulty as it is in nightmare.
Like the current elemental aura paladins: they are fun, but not hell-worthy. I feel like both of these characters got the shaft in the last version of the PTR (although not as bad as the throwing barb or summoning druid… who were not even fun for me in nightmare )
Yeah, I had tons of fun with martial arts assassin…
We don’t get all the GG items in the PTR, so I’m sure people will optimise the MA sin over the ladder…
I think Blizzard should launch the ladder, let people give more detailed feedback, and then maybe make some targeted buffs to MA Sin once we’ve tested it more rigorously…
It’s a fun character, I think people will make serious builds with it and really try to optimise it… We’ll know a lot more about it’s strengths and weaknesses in 4 months time once the ladder is finished…
I think let’s play her and fix these problems slowly…
Idk, I’m literally just using Nat’s set with Tiger Strike and Dragon Claw and it’s pretty great even now. Let alone I hear they’re getting some buffs in 2.4. People forget Assassins already get one of the most OP skills in the game in Cloak of Shadows, along with another OP skill in the game, Burst of Speed or Fade. They get a crazy strong Summon…and crazy damage with their MA skills. And this is before any buffs/changes. But maybe that’s just me, maybe we just have differing opinions.
I find cloak of shadows to be annoying with the hidden cooldown. It seems like a much lesser version of the necro’s dim vision curse.
I think the assassin’s best skill is mind blast. It is definitely my favorite crowd-control skill. It makes it hard to try using the paladin’s conversion skill, though, even with the recent buff in the PTR.
Crazy strong summon? I must have missed that one, too. I’ve tried level 20 on either shadow summon and they both pretty much just insta-died in hell difficulty over and over again. A single skeleton from a necro seems to have better survivability… I’d rather use a grizzly bear on a druid… and that is saying something. Something negative, I think.
You can’t be serious …assassin summon is one of the best there is…no hidden cool down when your summons are casting cloak of shadows right after yours ends anyways, it’s essentially a better fully leveled dim vision, not worse. And I should know, I just made a Necro utilizing maxed dim vision as his main curse, dim vision is amazing don’t get me wrong, but cloak of shadows is just as amazing, yet it also only needs 1 point to be that, whereas dim vision needs significant investment to be worth it. I have no idea why your assassin summon dies so fast in hell, mine never dies, and if it somehow does, just cast it again? Wow …so weird we have such different experiences
Yeah, that is really weird. The only other thing I can think of that might make a difference is the number of players in the game or skill level?
I normally play online and try to play in groups: so maybe 4 or 5 weak players trying to work their way through Hell. (I say “weak” because no summons die if a hammerdin/sorceress/javazon is around killing everything before it gets a chance to attack us).
Then again, both summons felt extremely weak to me when I played solo through Hell… but I’m also talking about skill levels between 15 and 25 or so with that character… not level 40+ (I’ve never dedicated that much effort into a non-trapper assassin). Actually that may be it: if you are thinking of a super-boosted skill level. I know the resist/fade skill level they use is highly dependent on skill level, and the master gets innate % physical resist per level… right?
Edit: I guess it is also worth noting about your “just resummon it” point: My non-trapper assassin actually lost her entire mana globe to summon her shadow just once mid-battle, only to watch it die within 1.5 seconds (this was in the Chaos Sanctuary in Hell difficulty). Not exactly spammable without using cobra strike excessively or some other extreme measure…
The summon is cool but it’s not worth the points, what you can do in the time you need to recast it out weighs it’s usefulness
I usually run as a hybrid kicksin, getting almost max damage for traps and at least 30 points into dragon talon, if I want I can get fade from treachery and even then I don’t really need it because I have enough resists and get physical damage reduction from Storm shield and other items, usually maxing everything out and any charge up skills are just getting in the way and are not worth using under any situation, just getting a few points into dragon talon having some elemental damage and using death sentry does a better job then anything else on the martial arts skill tree
I actually am (honest and mindful) and it’s no secret I’m but one player/person with subjective opinions. I never claim to be anything else. But uh, nice try I guess?
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I’d rather use a grizzly bear on a druid… and that is saying something. Something negative, I think.