Is Assassin's Presence way too weak now?

[Yasai.3549]

Back then, Assassin's Presence was changed from providing Crit Damage increase to allies to giving Fury every interval to allies. However this Fury amount and the interval are absolutely nonsensical in value. 

Current Assassin's Presence gives Fury for 3s at base duration every 10s. Doesn't this feel a little too weak for purposes of Fury sharing in the face of something like Herald Facets? Are other Rev specs even expected to share Fury in such a manner? I'd like to propose a tweak to it: 

Assassin's Presence grants Fury (3s) every time a Legendary Stance Skill is used.

 

 

[Esufer.8762]

Assassin's Presence is hot garbage. What we have now feels like a placeholder and they just wanted to get it out of group comps for whatever reason.

[Infusion.7149]

It was removed as a unique buff in the patch that changed Spotter , spirits, and banners.
Right now it is competing with other fury providing traits on other classes. Those traits do not have 100% uptime without boon duration.
Spotter = 3s , 10s ICD
Master Fencer (on crit) = 4s, 8s ICD with 360 radius
Unrelenting Strikes (on crit) = 4s, 8s ICD with 360 radius

I expect Arenanet wants people to play Notoriety on herald instead.

[ArthurDent.9538]

From a pvp/wvw perspective I would argue that devastation in general is extremely underwhelming, swift termination is more or less the best trait in the line and is a copy paste of a trait found on ele, thief, and necro which has never been meta competitive on any of them. 5 stacks of vuln on elite skills is negligible, immob clear on movement skill sounds good until you play it and realize how rarely you get value out of it, 10% extra on targets above 80% health is like 2% more damage on average, notoriety is negligible on all non renegade specs as other rev specs completely lack decent might stacking options and renegades don't want to take it because they don't want to lose condi damage, etc. etc. Outside of the grandmaster traits and the 5% damage per weapon wielded which are all nothing impressive everything else is basically garbage. They want vindi to take more aggressive traits yet fail to address how underwhelming the more aggressive traitline is.

[Esufer.8762]

9 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

It was removed as a unique buff in the patch that changed Spotter , spirits, and banners.
Right now it is competing with other fury providing traits on other classes. Those traits do not have 100% uptime without boon duration.
Spotter = 3s , 10s ICD
Master Fencer (on crit) = 4s, 8s ICD with 360 radius
Unrelenting Strikes (on crit) = 4s, 8s ICD with 360 radius

I expect Arenanet wants people to play Notoriety on herald instead.

I wouldn't agree it's competing at all, as herald baseline can provide better fury through the facet with no trait investment.

[Buran.3796]

  Assassin's Presence...   I don't think that trait exist since last June.

  For solo play in PvE Notoriety usually grants 25 stacks of might to power builds. That eclipses the trait alternatives.

  I don't agree about Devastation being bad: in WvW/PvP Agressive Evassion is really good since being rooted = dead, and Vindi has 5-6 movement skills based in the weapons of choice. The problem is that in WvW/PvP Rev's boons usually last femtoseconds, so people trend to run a traitline with larger benefits. But In PvE is fine, despite most of the traits are useless.

   That's for instanced content played in teams. In OW condi Vindi runs in circles around any other Rev build, without requiring Devastation at all.

   

[Kodama.6453]

Tbh, almost all the unique AoE buffs from classes which got removed for pulsing boons on 10 seconds cooldown are pretty terrible now.

Fury and 5 stacks of might on 10 seconds cd is just.... not good. Especially since they keep spreading these boons more and more over the classes. How many classes are getting some more might stacks now added with the next patch? Some traits which were just single target fury now also provide AoE fury plus other benefits and that with a higher uptime than these traits which used to be unique (No Scope says hello).

At this point, they could just remove all these traits and replace them with something completely new. I don't even know if any build is currently using any of these....

[otto.5684]

On 2/11/2023 at 4:48 PM, Kodama.6453 said:

Tbh, almost all the unique AoE buffs from classes which got removed for pulsing boons on 10 seconds cooldown are pretty terrible now.

Fury and 5 stacks of might on 10 seconds cd is just.... not good. Especially since they keep spreading these boons more and more over the classes. How many classes are getting some more might stacks now added with the next patch? Some traits which were just single target fury now also provide AoE fury plus other benefits and that with a higher uptime than these traits which used to be unique (No Scope says hello).

At this point, they could just remove all these traits and replace them with something completely new. I don't even know if any build is currently using any of these....

This reminds me of the 300 sec CD in pvp. It is a place holder that will last till… 2030?

[Infusion.7149]

Fury for 5s on 10s cooldown means 2 players upkeep fury for the subgroup. That is a far different case than 300s cooldowns.

The only reason why it would not be considered now is because supports such as axe firebrand (key here), herald, druid, mechanist, catalyst, alac tempest with air traitline, and alac mirage output fury.

[Kodama.6453]

39 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Fury for 5s on 10s cooldown means 2 players upkeep fury for the subgroup. That is a far different case than 300s cooldowns.

Assassin's Presence has 3s fury baseline with 10 seconds cooldown... if you want to provide fury for an entire subsquad just with that base duration, you would need 4 revenants running that trait.

And honestly, is that trait even used anymore? There is so much fury thrown around recently that I don't think this trait is worth running over something like Notoriety.

[Infusion.7149]

12 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Assassin's Presence has 3s fury baseline with 10 seconds cooldown... if you want to provide fury for an entire subsquad just with that base duration, you would need 4 revenants running that trait.

And honestly, is that trait even used anymore? There is so much fury thrown around recently that I don't think this trait is worth running over something like Notoriety.

You would probably run it with a boon chrono , maybe quick berserker, or quick scrapper as a power alac. I do not see a likelihood of using it with a quick herald/quick firebrand/harbinger/catalyst ; if you are quick herald you do not need fury.

I was only responding to your theoretical 5s, I already did the comparison above a while ago to other class traits.

[Kodama.6453]

6 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

You would probably run it with a boon chrono , maybe quick berserker, or quick scrapper as a power alac. I do not see a likelihood of using it with a quick herald/quick firebrand/harbinger/catalyst ; if you are quick herald you do not need fury.

I was only responding to your theoretical 5s, I already did the comparison above a while ago to other class traits.

I never talked about 5 seconds of fury, tho. ^^'
The 5 was related to the number of might stacks the corresponding traits give on other classes.

And I still don't see much reason to ever use these traits.... Anet is increasing access to fury on pure dps classes recently to ensure that not all the boons need to get provided from the healers. And that resulted in sometimes just straight up better versions.

Look at Assassin's Presence and then at No Scope on engineer. No scope does not only give 50% fury uptime baseline (Assassin's Presence just has 30%), but it also gives the engineer 150 bonus ferocity. Both traits are master tier, yet no scope is just way better by having way higher fury uptime and also providing an additional effect.

These passive boon pulse traits are hopefully just placeholders. As they currently stand, they are way undertuned and not worth running. They just slapped something generic onto them to get rid of unique buffs in the game for good.

[Infusion.7149]

14 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

I never talked about 5 seconds of fury, tho. ^^'
The 5 was related to the number of might stacks the corresponding traits give on other classes.

And I still don't see much reason to ever use these traits.... Anet is increasing access to fury on pure dps classes recently to ensure that not all the boons need to get provided from the healers. And that resulted in sometimes just straight up better versions.

Look at Assassin's Presence and then at No Scope on engineer. No scope does not only give 50% fury uptime baseline (Assassin's Presence just has 30%), but it also gives the engineer 150 bonus ferocity. Both traits are master tier, yet no scope is just way better by having way higher fury uptime and also providing an additional effect.

These passive boon pulse traits are hopefully just placeholders. As they currently stand, they are way undertuned and not worth running. They just slapped something generic onto them to get rid of unique buffs in the game for good.

AP gives fury in AOE. No Scope did not until June.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Infusion.7149

[Kodama.6453]

1 minute ago, Infusion.7149 said:

AP gives fury in AOE. No Scope did not until June.

Well, yes. And we are talking about if this trait is currently undertuned. So I am talking about the current state of the traits, since this is what's relevant not what they used to do.

I am saying with how Anet is handling fury now, giving it to already popular dps builds as a side note, it is not worth running anymore. Hence why I hope it is just a placeholder until Anet replaces all these bad, passive boon pulse traits with something else.

These traits also have no interesting gameplay elements. No scope at least needs you to hit an enemy in close combat to get the fury. Traits like Assassin's Presence or Pinpoint Distribution are just pulsing the boon passively as long as you are in combat.... there is 0 gameplay involvement.

[Infusion.7149]

1 minute ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Well, yes. And we are talking about if this trait is currently undertuned. So I am talking about the current state of the traits, since this is what's relevant not what they used to do.

I am saying with how Anet is handling fury now, giving it to already popular dps builds as a side note, it is not worth running anymore. Hence why I hope it is just a placeholder until Anet replaces all these bad, passive boon pulse traits with something else.

These traits also have no interesting gameplay elements. No scope at least needs you to hit an enemy in close combat to get the fury. Traits like Assassin's Presence or Pinpoint Distribution are just pulsing the boon passively as long as you are in combat.... there is 0 gameplay involvement.

The answer is nerfing No scope back to personal fury (see Raging Storm), not buffing everything in the game.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Infusion.7149

[Kodama.6453]

5 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The answer is nerfing No scope back to personal fury, not buffing everything in the game.

Because it is doing what Anet intends it to do, which is making dps focused builds provide fury without major dps loss?

They specifically made these changes because they wanted to lift off some pressure from the boon supports. It's also the reason why they added stuff like might to blunderbuss and corona burst.

And I am not saying we should buff Assassin's Presence... I am saying we should replace it with something else. The traits are not only bad, they are also just terribly boring since they require no gameplay at all. Until you consider it gameplay to simply.... start fighting, I guess.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Kodama.6453

[Infusion.7149]

31 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Because it is doing what Anet intends it to do, which is making dps focused builds provide fury without major dps loss?

They specifically made these changes because they wanted to lift off some pressure from the boon supports. It's also the reason why they added stuff like might to blunderbuss and corona burst.

And I am not saying we should buff Assassin's Presence... I am saying we should replace it with something else. The traits are not only bad, they are also just terribly boring since they require no gameplay at all. Until you consider it gameplay to simply.... start fighting, I guess.

1. The trait would act on its own merit, since you get a bonus for having fury. (see also Vicious Quarry)
2. A trait that provides fury in combat is no different than a passive bonus to might or precision. It is worthy to note the radius of No Scope is the smaller 360 instead of 600 range.
3. It is probably due to No Scope being used on power quickness scrapper (a common complaint was no fury output unless you run turrets), but it does not have boon duration to upkeep fury so mechanist is considered to provide fury. Arenanet aims were to provide AoE fury/might to DPS, but if a spec already puts out fury/might with no downside due to trait selection then it is just an outright buff to the spec. Generally if the quickness/alac specs provide fury it is redundant whereas might stacking almost always helps.

 

[Yasai.3549]

On 2/28/2023 at 7:54 AM, Kodama.6453 said:

And I am not saying we should buff Assassin's Presence... I am saying we should replace it with something else. The traits are not only bad, they are also just terribly boring since they require no gameplay at all. Until you consider it gameplay to simply.... start fighting, I guess.

Alternatively they could have Assassin's Presence provide an additional benefit to the DPS player themselves, but that probably won't ever raise its pick rate over Notoriety which is the biggest DPS boost a Power Rev of any sort can enjoy. 

 

My point of contention and the entire point of this thread was that Assassin's Presence was once very good, for both the player themselves and the entire group. It gave Ferocity straight up which was amazing for everyone. This isn't just "nerfed in line with other Precision group share traits", it was straight up twisted and put down for no reason. It never gave Precision, it gave Ferocity simple and sweet. 

If Devastation really needs Fury share (news flash, it doesn't), then have it be more intuitive like Swift Flow, where spending Energy gave you Fury, 5s ICD for 3s. At least with this, it would be more usable than this inefficient mess it's currently in. 

 

Personally, I would make Assassin's Presence a group Siphon skill: 

When you cast a Legendary Stance Skill, you give allies nearby 5 stacks of Battle Scars. (3s ICD) 

 

[Infusion.7149]

Arenanet does not want any profession specific buffs. That is why they took out spotter and banners, remember?

[Kodama.6453]

52 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Arenanet does not want any profession specific buffs. That is why they took out spotter and banners, remember?

Seems like Anet is ok with some unique buffs, tho. Including life siphon effects:

• Vampiric trait in Blood Magic
• Leeching Venoms in Shadow Magic

If they truly want to get rid of all unique buffs, then they also have to completely rework venom skills and the stance share on soulbeast, I guess.

[Infusion.7149]

13 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Seems like Anet is ok with some unique buffs, tho. Including life siphon effects:

• Vampiric trait in Blood Magic
• Leeching Venoms in Shadow Magic

If they truly want to get rid of all unique buffs, then they also have to completely rework venom skills and the stance share on soulbeast, I guess.

The vampiric trait in Blood Magic is negligible DPS and running Blood Magic is a DPS loss in pretty much every case as far as I know. Leeching Venoms in Shadow Magic requires venom usage, so you need to slot utilities to trigger it or spam stealth to trigger the trait skill and Shadow Arts is basically a DPS loss for DPS builds too.

[Kodama.6453]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The vampiric trait in Blood Magic is negligible DPS and running Blood Magic is a DPS loss in pretty much every case as far as I know. Leeching Venoms in Shadow Magic requires venom usage, so you need to slot utilities to trigger it or spam stealth to trigger the trait skill and Shadow Arts is basically a DPS loss for DPS builds too.

All fine and dandy, but these are still unique buffs.

Guardian had the unique buff to give allies around them toughness. Definitely was a dps loss to take it, yet it still got removed alongside all the other stat buffs for the simple reason that Anet wants to remove unique buffs. They are kinda inconsistent with this stuff.

Also even if we would accept the reasoning of them being a dps loss or not, that still leaves soulbeast stances as candidates for change. Because sharing stances is in no way a dps loss.

[Infusion.7149]

3 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

All fine and dandy, but these are still unique buffs.

Guardian had the unique buff to give allies around them toughness. Definitely was a dps loss to take it, yet it still got removed alongside all the other stat buffs for the simple reason that Anet wants to remove unique buffs. They are kinda inconsistent with this stuff.

Also even if we would accept the reasoning of them being a dps loss or not, that still leaves soulbeast stances as candidates for change. Because sharing stances is in no way a dps loss.

The guardian one (Strength in numbers) was pulsing passively

Edited March 1, 2023 by Infusion.7149

[Kodama.6453]

8 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The guardian one (Strength in numbers) was pulsing passively

Just like all these traits now do with boons instead (fury, 5 stacks might, protection), hence why I am advocating for their complete replacement with something else.

[Yasai.3549]

I'm just gonna say, if Herald already has Siphon Share, it makes no sense that Core can't have it through a trait which competes with another DPS trait. 

If Assassin's Presence is given Siphon Share, it competes with Notoriety for personal DPS or group DPS/sustain. With Battle Scars already toned down from the launch version, it's honestly very reasonable to give the group 5 stacks every 5 seconds.