phase walk

[cycao]

Anyone else think that this is just a lackluster ability? With it only being useable within a two minute window I find myself rarely using this ability.

 

I did fine without it and it just feels, lame in comparison to all the other abilities that were added in with 2.0.

[kwestone]

I use it every cooldown when tanking. I don't pvp though. For DPS its only an escape at the moment.

[cycao]

The buff you get with the tanking tree makes sense I am not sure why deception but more so madness cant have some sort of buff put into it to make it more useful.

[Andar]

When dpsing I feel like it's uses are pretty much only a get out of jail free card. Sometimes it's useful to reinforce a node quickly, assuming you were already there and were able to plant it.

 

For me, it only really shines on huttball or guarding a node.

It would be nice if it has some synergy with the dps specs as you said.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Andar

[cycao]

When dpsing I feel like it's uses are pretty much only a get out of jail free card. Sometimes it's useful to reinforce a node quickly, assuming you were already there and were able to plant it.

 

For me, it only really shines on huttball or guarding a node.

It would be nice if it has some synergy with the dps specs as you said.

 

That or are able to use it within the two minute window...I honestly think that 75% of the time I plant phase walk the timer runs out on it before I can use it.

[Astarica]

Just use Phase Walk the moment you get hit by a stun. There's no reason to stick around to see what happens after you get stunned.

 

The biggest problem I have with Phase Walk is that I rarely have time to plant it in the first place. People will actually interrupt that if you're trying to pop one down in battle, and why not? They literally can't interrupt anything else cast by an Assassin so might as well make you waste more time trying to plant it. Do not get fixitated into thinking you must use it to teleport back to make a heroic save or a miraculous grab for health power up. Just use it as a CC breaker and you'll find that it often accomplishes exactly that, as whoever CCed you will generally be looking around very confused as you Phase Walk out of their CC and negating the purpose of their CC. No it won't always work, but it's very effective against melee classes and even works on ranged class if you plant your beacon near a pillar.

 

A simple but effective trick for Huttball is plant it on high ground, and then when a melee is on you, you jump down (after KB is exhausted of course) and see if they follow you. If they follow you, teleport back up. If not, go do something else. In particular this allows you to say jump down to grab a health powerup and then immediately get back to the ideal position for scoring.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Astarica

[Andar]

One neat little trick I've learned when your team needs a little time to position themselves after a reset(if you have a few teammates respawning) is grabbing a reset and drop into the enemy pit. At this point their team reacts and chases you because they think you have someone to pass to endzone, and you phase walk resetting the ball mid. Most times I'll end up with their entire team following me pit, as my team is free to pick up the ball uncontested.

[Astarica]

One neat little trick I've learned when your team needs a little time to position themselves after a reset(if you have a few teammates respawning) is grabbing a reset and drop into the enemy pit. At this point their team reacts and chases you because they think you have someone to pass to endzone, and you phase walk resetting the ball mid. Most times I'll end up with their entire team following me pit, as my team is free to pick up the ball uncontested.

 

Phase Walk is a completely unstoppable way of resetting the ball. There is nothing the enemy can do to prevent you from doing it since you can phase walk while stunned (and dropping the ball). When I get the ball back in a nasty spot (i.e. our own endzone) I try to pop down a beacon as soon as possible so that I can get rid of the ball if something bad happens.

[cycao]

Phase Walk is a completely unstoppable way of resetting the ball. There is nothing the enemy can do to prevent you from doing it since you can phase walk while stunned (and dropping the ball). When I get the ball back in a nasty spot (i.e. our own endzone) I try to pop down a beacon as soon as possible so that I can get rid of the ball if something bad happens.

 

Yeah the only time I use phase walk in huttball is to do this, or the ole give an go if you have someone in teamspeak.

 

 

Anyways it has its uses I cannot deny that but its so darn limited. Even if they increased the timer to 4 minutes it would put the skill from "eh" to "great", because 2 minutes is just not enough, some fights can last a long time and part of the reasoning to me for its limited application is tied into its 2 minute window of use.

Edited May 11, 2013 by cycao

[Philelectric]

Try to use Phase walk this way:

 

Step 1: find a rotation where you use force lightning (or hard cast crushing darkness LOL? )

 

Step 2: Set it close to the ennemy you want to attack. (not too close, 9m to 30m)

 

Step 3: engage the ennemy

 

Step 4: activate Phase walk while you channel Force lightning.

 

Step 5: Watch the magic happen and look at the reaction of the opponent.

 

 

NB: I found this on the PTS when I was self healing with seethe after a duel to activate the CD of Phase Walk and have it ready for the next fight. I was pretty confused and impressed at the same time

 

EDIT: a good use for madness would be to give a buff to it like: Every ennemies entering the Phase Walk radius is hit by a dot. Or something like every ennemies entering the phase walk radius is affected by ''Wound Mark'' Wound Mark would be like Deathmark and increase the damage of dot abilities so deathmark+wound mark= Good damage.

 

Also, once speced into Wound Mark, Phase walk cast time is reduced by 100% so it would be useable during a fight and the perk must, obviously, be high in the madness tree.

 

I'm not even playing Madness btw

Edited May 11, 2013 by Philelectric

[MantorokTwelve]

A buff to madness to make it competitive with deception would be nice, but it's already a great ability.

 

For tanks, it's great to throw down any time you can for healers, and even when you can't, it still has some use for buffing your self healing. For everyone else, it can be useful for any fights where you have to reposition. The last three raid intances (and Golden Fury) all have mechanics that often require you to move out quickly, and phase walk gives you a lot more flexibility.

 

It's pretty obvious how invaluable it can be in PVP, jumping to nodes or power ups, jumping up ledges, using with pull to draw an enemy away, do a kamikaze jump and save yourself, there's a ton you can do.

[Eternalnight]

1. Place Phase Walk

2. Say: Follow me, I know a shortcut

3. Jump of the bridge

4. Phase walk to teleport back where you were

5. Watch everyone else fall to their death

[cycao]

I know plenty of aplications for phase walk. My biggest beef with it is it's 2 minute placement. Take huttball, Ill usually place it on the catwalks or in the endzone but if they other team has the ball and are making a hard push (like you would see in rateds) the timer usually runs out.

[mrdert]

I'm with cycao on this one. Phase walk has tons of uses, but most of the time it's on cool down by the time you're ready to use it. Personally, what I'd like to see is them remove the cool down if it wasn't used within the 2 minute window. Of course the cool down would operate normally if you did use it in the 2 minutes.

[Monterone]

Agreed, it goes down too soon to be useful most of the time. I'd rather have the mark stay indefinitely, but have a 1:30 cd or something like that.

[MantorokTwelve]

It's not the skill's fault if you aren't using it properly. Know the situation, and learn when and where you should place it. Never use it if you aren't going to need it within the next two minutes. If for some reason you screw up and place it, just click the icon on your buff bar to kill the mark and begin the cooldown.

[JP_Legatus]

When phase walk first came out I thought it was really stupid to have this ability on a melee class when it was clearly designed for a ranged class as a kiting ability. Actually, I still think that's stupid, but I've found myself finding more ways to make this ability useful.

 

I tend to drop it in LOS'd places at the start of every fight, so that I can use it as a cc breaker or to escape focus fire and nobody ever looks around the corner. It's hilarious watching sorcs root me and 3 warriors jump to me and I phase walk right before they all smash. It's also great in huttball to put on top of the catwalks so when you get knocked or pulled off you can just phase walk back up.

The obvious uses like planting it for defense or at center in huttball and on nodes when guarding are always great as well. I've also used it simply to decrease travel time in games where the teams are running back and forth constantly.

 

I've also tried planting it near a pit and jumping off then force pulling someone into the pit (voidstar), then phase walk back up, but so far the delay has made me die when I tried it. I'll get it to work someday though Make sure you always watch out for the delay between button press and activation, it seems to take almost a full second.

 

Really, the ability itself doesn't fit well for a melee class but there are still countless uses for it. If you aren't using it, you aren't being creative enough with what you can do with it. Yes it's more useful on a ranged class, but we can still make it useful due to the range and long timer. I've found myself using it nearly every fight nowadays. Just plant it in stealth before a fight and you're guaranteed to have a use for it at some point.

Edited May 13, 2013 by JP_Legatus

[cycao]

It's not the skill's fault if you aren't using it properly. Know the situation, and learn when and where you should place it. Never use it if you aren't going to need it within the next two minutes. If for some reason you screw up and place it, just click the icon on your buff bar to kill the mark and begin the cooldown.

 

One of the problems is placing it and clicking it off. I don't feel that clicking the ability off your bar if placed should put it on cooldown, you should be able to move it without penalty. Plus all good assassins (yeah myself included) all feel that this is a decent ability but its lacking and limited due to its short timer and the fact that if it goes unused when placed or you click it off it goes on a cooldown.

[darthmorbous]

That or are able to use it within the two minute window...I honestly think that 75% of the time I plant phase walk the timer runs out on it before I can use it.

 

same here. phase walk in comparison to lets say ,the marauder ability is a joke. the jugga one too.

hope they´ll change it for DPS, or replace it altoegether.

[MantorokTwelve]

One of the problems is placing it and clicking it off. I don't feel that clicking the ability off your bar if placed should put it on cooldown, you should be able to move it without penalty. Plus all good assassins (yeah myself included) all feel that this is a decent ability but its lacking and limited due to its short timer and the fact that if it goes unused when placed or you click it off it goes on a cooldown.

 

Then don't let it go unused. Are you really going to go a two minute span without needing to LOS an opponent, avoid AOE, or circumvent terrain?

Edited May 13, 2013 by MantorokTwelve

[cycao]

Then don't let it go unused. Are you really going to go a two minute span without needing to LOS an opponent, avoid AOE, or circumvent terrain?

 

Yes?

 

Whoops, answered your question with a question?

[vimm]

Anyone else think that this is just a lackluster ability? With it only being useable within a two minute window I find myself rarely using this ability.

 

I did fine without it and it just feels, lame in comparison to all the other abilities that were added in with 2.0.

 

Yeah, I dislike it, actually. I keep thinking that I just need to adjust and think of new ways to utilize it, but the ability just feels clumsy. The main reason for this is that I have no means of determining whether or not I'm in range of it, and if you use it from outside of that range, you waste it. I do like using it in the tank tree for the 5% healing increase, though!

[Astarica]

You'd have to go for 2 minutes without getting CCed to not find a use for Phase Walk.

 

Rather than kicking yourself for being too conservative (which I do all the time after I died) people prefer to blame the ability instead, though.

[JP_Legatus]

You'd have to go for 2 minutes without getting CCed to not find a use for Phase Walk.

 

Rather than kicking yourself for being too conservative (which I do all the time after I died) people prefer to blame the ability instead, though.

 

This.

I mean even in the worst of circumstances it can function as a 2nd cc breaker or get out of jail free card, to say nothing of actual good uses. I think you guys are just being too conservative with it. Don't be afraid to spam your phase walk on the first mezz, what else are you going to do?

[cycao]

You'd have to go for 2 minutes without getting CCed to not find a use for Phase Walk.

 

Rather than kicking yourself for being too conservative (which I do all the time after I died) people prefer to blame the ability instead, though.

 

I don't panic after the first CC and I would have to be under crazy focus fire (I get that all the time) to have to use this during a skrimish at the main "middle" node in a fight to use this ability.

 

This.

I mean even in the worst of circumstances it can function as a 2nd cc breaker or get out of jail free card, to say nothing of actual good uses. I think you guys are just being too conservative with it. Don't be afraid to spam your phase walk on the first mezz, what else are you going to do?

 

"Spamming" your phase walk sounds bad and it sounds worst using it on your first CC assuming you just drop it and enter a fight. I bet you guys use your CC breaker after getting mezzed.

 

 

Trust me when I say I use this ability wisely. But if you cannot see the flaws in this ability then well f'it, spam maul like some other sins do.