Spy tree: A bit of everything?

**EndlessVoid**

While I like the overall idea of the new Assassin being able to throw a few knives and incorporate some escape moves from interlock... I find the sudden lack of bulldogging somewhat troubling. Granted, it's easier now to hold my own in PVP without loading hacker, and so I really can just load both trees, but it seems to me that the three spy trees (not counting data miner) are now each a bit of everything, with simply a different focus.

I think the trees work out nicely at the moment because they are specialized. If I want an Assassin who can throw knives, I should be able to load Assassin and MKT, without having the abilities randomly placed throughout the trees.

I'm sure the placement isn't TRULY random, but it certainly seems that way, at least with the current build.

- Void

TheTaxidermist

I don't know if it felt right for a "master assassin" to use a wrestling move to dispatch his assailants in the old build SMILEY

**EndlessVoid**

That's an entirely different problem. SMILEY

It's not like the moves still available in the Assassin tree are any less-pro-wrestleful.

- Void

mitez

Dont ask me about the name of the ability but its in the assasin tree and it roots the enemy for 8 seconds, i feel that ability should stun the ability and not root them.

RockyB

Yeah, the changes are really confusing me too. Diving Frankensteiner in Master Shadow? Ghost Strike now sending me INTO stealth? Knives under Assasin?

It's gonna take a lot of getting used to. Plus points for being able to use some knifer moves in interlock though.

**Tytanya_MxO**

As things stand I expected a downgrade of this tree but now its too easy to knock a spy out of sneak and they are too ineefective when visible imo.

It might cause outrage but if all sneak attacks that dont IL took you to the 'transparent form' for a specified time and didn't knock you completely out of sneak it makes a bit more sense. A spy should only really be forced out of sneak by another players specific ability to do so or by an attack on the sneaked individual imo. Likewise disguises should not be on a timer but should remain until penetrated by an opponent's ability to do so.... and this should be tough because people in disguise are always directly observed etc.

TheTaxidermist

I'd like it if disguises removed your name and org tags.

RockyB

YES TAX

Err, sorry.

/agree

stuporfluous · 02/21/2006 08:52:01

having just started playing around with the spy tree this weekend i have to agree to the general sense of bewilderment and possibly forward my own sense of disappointment and worry about this spy tree revision. i really hope they just either screwed up or threw things together with the intention of straightening out the spy branches in an upcoming update. but i'm worried they actually thought they had a cogent plan.

1. original MKT, master assassin and master shadow abilities now distributed haphazardly between the three branches. as someone noted upthread, given the greater flexibility to load multiple branches, any spy could have multibranched abilities without the confusing and nonsensical hodgepodging of abilities that CR2 inexplicably set up. let the MKT branch be solely about knife throwing, let master assassin branch be about assassin moves, let master shadow branch be about stealth and infiltration, not misplaced assassin attacks.

2. the nerfing of the MKT "killer" combo. honestly, i never had much of a problem with MKTs in live. with a sensible amount of DR, normal MKTs could never land enough knife throws to ever kill me. certainly without the aid of the analyze weakness tool, which has also been nerfed to hell in CR2, never. allowing for the what i will still maintain was an unnecessary rebalancing, the state of MKT now in CR2 is absolutely silly. a subduing throw with a stun that doesn't last long enough for an MKT to reachieve the sneak state now necessary for staggering throw makes MKTs completely worthless. i would suggest removing the sneak requirement. furthermore, as it appears (until all the clothes have been switched over i suppose i can reserve judgement but going by the general CR2 philosophy of making clothes less essential i would guess this will be the case) all players will have to wear armored clothing, there won't be any more super RCT (rather, thrown accuracy) MKTs running around and as far as i can tell so far, most players' thrown accuracy wouldn't even be gd enough to let them chain together combos enough to be a threat to other players.

3. analyze weakness. did it really need nerfing? no. is it worthless in its current state? yes. in its original form it was a novel and singular aspect of combat where a single player changed a combat relationship with another player to the exclusion of any other players. how cool was that? in its current form it's just a crappy buff.

4. this may fall under the general "why did you scramble up all the abilities between the three trees?" complaint but why is punt suddenly the strongest assassin attack? nevermind the persistent WWF style of all assassin attacks, why is the purely comedic kick to the groin now the deadliest move?

5. after all these arguably unnecessary changes, why can a L1 mob still detect a L50 master assassin with max sneak?

6. terminology suggestion, if "thrown" will refer to everything spy related, why not call it "stealth" or "spy" instead? it makes a little more sense for a MKT knife attack to base off of "stealth accuracy" and "stealth damage" than for an assassin interlock like reverse bulldog attack (that one, at least, is still in the assassin branch, right?) to be based off of "thrown accuracy."

Message Edited by stuporfluous on 02-21-200611:52 AM

**9mmfu**

I am going to be looking into the Sneak problem and see if something got broken in the process or perhaps in the fixes for NPCs made this less effective in the process.

Tytanya_MxO wrote:
As things stand I expected a downgrade of this tree but now its too easy to knock a spy out of sneak and they are too ineefective when visible imo.

It might cause outrage but if all sneak attacks that dont IL took you to the 'transparent form' for a specified time and didn't knock you completely out of sneak it makes a bit more sense. A spy should only really be forced out of sneak by another players specific ability to do so or by an attack on the sneaked individual imo. Likewise disguises should not be on a timer but should remain until penetrated by an opponent's ability to do so.... and this should be tough because people in disguise are always directly observed etc.

**MxO-Insertion**

I would like the idea of when a spy is in sneak, and an opponent's stealth detection picks up on them, that the spies's chance of successfully pulling off the attack or doing as much damage, are reduce. Hope that makes sense...

SilentW

I agree. Having played Spy a fair amount, and loving it, I can say that I disapprove of the move switches. Spy trees are light enough that I can load two at level 25, and it's quite nice being able to focus in two different areas.

**Ic3b3rg**

The one thing that caught my eye was the Sheild breaker ability. However its not in the Actions panal when the ability is loaded up.

Further more, using sneak attacks under the new CR system is something to get used to. Instead of having to hit Escape combat icon, I now have to use the Side roll escape ability. This I feel is a good change cause now we got a reason to use that ability.

I too was scratching my head at Punt being the most damaging move, and bulldog being deleted. But with all the abilites the damage on the mouse over says something like D.P.S. (125) or something. Now I aint to sure but isnt that suppose to be a Damage per second sort of damage? If so why does the abilities cause a one time amount of damage of 885 or so?

Also looked like Paralyzing throw just copied the Blinding throw Icon.

After doing a couple duels with the assassin build, I came to the realization that in PvP an assassin will get ganked many times over before they ever get one kill in the current system.