f13.net

All information available here (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=106534).

Free to everyone, whether you own the game or not. The expansion won't actually be out for a few months.

Servers are quite laggy and the Assassin so far is pretty boring.

If zee assassin is boring, I weep. That's the last nail in the coffin for the game. I'll try it out tomorrow or tonight I guess.

I might log in, even though I know what is going to happen.

I wouldn't call the Assassin boring.  It's a nice melee alternative for those who don't like Warriors.

Remember Melee Rangers?  Basically built around lots of quick hits and mobility?  That's what Assassins are, but because they have all the tools necessary for that in one class, they have more flexibility than a melee Ranger (Rangers were built to be a ranged class, Assassins were built from the ground up with the idea of mobility and critical attacks).

Lots of combos/chains, seemingly.  The one I'm trying has a Lead Attack, which can be followed with an Off-Hand attack, which can be followed with a Dual Attack, which can be followed with an Elite Off-Hand attack.  Each one of those has the provision in its description, "Must be used after a X attack", so building a really powerful chain of attacks should be fun once more skills are available.  Though the chain it gives the PvP characters from the start seems pretty damn good.

Shadow Step seems like an interesting ability.  It's a speed boost for X seconds, and at the end of it you are teleported back to where you were when you turned it on.  There's an Elite version that's a maintained enchantment, so you could lead a fake charge into a group of enemies and, when things start going south, poof back to safety.  Could be fun to use.

Wow, I like that. I might have to check this out.

New pony, same trail?

Dead horse.

>Jesus gets leprosy.

>You repair the broken wagon wheel.

>Jesus dies.

"Boring" was perhaps not the best choice of word -- one dimensional is probably a better fit -- though I'll explain why I picked it in a bit. As Llava said the prebuilt Assassin is all about the chain.

(http://www.pandadesigns.com/games/guildwars/01 Black Mantis Thrust.jpg)(http://www.pandadesigns.com/games/guildwars/02 Jungle Strike.jpg)
(http://www.pandadesigns.com/games/guildwars/03 Twisting Fangs.jpg)(http://www.pandadesigns.com/games/guildwars/04 Moebius Strike.jpg)
(http://www.pandadesigns.com/games/guildwars/05 Shadow Refuge.jpg)(http://www.pandadesigns.com/games/guildwars/06 Shadow Step.jpg)
(http://www.pandadesigns.com/games/guildwars/07 Mirrored Stance.jpg)

(Your last PvP template skill is Resurrection Signet)

As you can see half your skill bar is filled with your combo attacks. Your other three skills are there to complement the "combo". Shadow Refuge helps you survive the onslaught of attacks when the other team sees you Shadow Stepping towards their healer or whoever. Shadow Step allows you to quickly get into battle to do your combo and then back out or vice versa (e.g. if you need to wait for Black Mantis thrust to recharge) or to chase down a runner. And Mirrored Stance is there to allow Black Mantis Thrust to Cripple which lets Jungle Strike do more damage.

The reason why I said the Assassin was boring is that to do the combo all you do is 1 2 3 4 in sequence every time. There's no special timing involved, no decision making involved it's always just 1 2 3 4.

The new character generator is crap.

Woah...shame they nerfed mesmer fragility, although I could still see an assassin/mesmer with frag + self generated combos work out with this...

Considering the one thing GW does better then anyone is skills I'm betting that assassin gains a ton more depth if you have access to all their abilities.

Rt (not even sure what it stands for) is a pretty neat addition as well, I didn't play much but if a team's RT could get a bunch of spirits out and nobody bothered to aoe pwn them the fight usually was swung hardcore.

Ritualist. Their problem of course is that their effectiveness is so tied to their spirts that if you kill the spirts or even just move out of the range of them the Ritualist is gimped.

Ritualist seems like a decent  alternative to a Monk.  Which is sorely needed.

Not as flat out healerific as a Monk, but not completely worthless on that front.  Could probably work well as a complement to a Protection Monk.  That's just at a very cursory glance  though.

This wasn't a bad event, although be the end of it, R/A were a plague in the random arena. Wasn't impressed with Rt, the elementalist and monk stuff was weak.  The spirit stuff was neat but it lacks the focus-fire that is needed to kill and it makes you a big AOE target like wards.  Not to mention the spirits that kill themselves in a few seconds needs to be thought out better.  The assassin's teleport will make for an interesting new dynamic for the game.