Talk:Sand Shards

Does this work with Illusionary Weaponry? Though I don't see the point, I guess it could work with Signet of Midnight --Alt F Four 03:35, 28 July 2006 (CDT)
 * What's more, does it work with Repeating Strike without a lead-attack? I think that would also hurt quite a bit. --Black Ark 03:51, 28 July 2006 (CDT)
 * You know you could always go test it and find out! By the way, it doesn't work with Illusionary Weaponry, but supposedly (as a few have claimed, I haven't tested yet) it works with assassin skills that miss. I'm going to go test it in an hour or so. --Stexe

or take signet of midnight and blind someone else for 15 seconds and your gonna miss all the time as well.

Assassins with offhands and no leads = gg. Mmmm.. triplesmite A/D &mdash; Skuld 12:48, 28 July 2006 (CDT)
 * Just go for the dual attacks and use Way of the Empty Palm. Them A/Ds are multiplying fast in the RAs! --Thervold 13:59, 28 July 2006 (CDT)

It does not work with Illusionary Weaponry. | You should definitely be D/A to get that extra rune damage. This + WotEP + Whirling Charge + A dual = Major Power. Until, of course, they hit you with a SS or a Price of Failure >.< | I dunno if I was supposed to or not, but I made a build with it and posted it D/A Sand Storm--- Mindule

Anet nerfed this faster than fat football fans chug beer! Hurrah! --Theeth (talk)   16:57, 28 July 2006 (CDT)


 * Yeah but it wasn't Repeating that broke it, it was Exhausting Assault.. 1/2 act, dual attack. - Greven 19:07, 28 July 2006 (CDT)

DESCRIPtion needs to be changed under skill list as well is this skikk usable anymore?


 * Shadow form? Will counts as failing?

related skills?
does anyone see how the related skills actually 'relate' to Sand Shards?


 * They don't relate anymore. They were used to spike before the skill was limited to Scythe attacks. --Theeth (talk)   17:37, 28 July 2006 (CDT)

This skill is pretty useless if they keep it so it only works with scythe attacks!


 * Not really. It's pretty much a half cost, half damage, 30 second scythe version of Splinter Shot that triggers on any hit failure instead of just blocks. With 12 Earth Prayers, if you get blinded you can do up to 63 area damage which might be armour ignoring, which, with Signet of Midnight, get you area DPS comparable to the single target DPS of Illusionary Weaponry (which is a lot more useful in PvE than in PvP against people smart enough not to swarm around a scythe-wielder). That said, I really hope the restriction to scythe attacks was a temporary workaround to the dual attack exploit, and that they come up with a better long-term solution, such as making it impossible to activate out of sequence dagger attacks (just like you can't activate charging adrenal skills, recharging regular skills or attack skills for weapons you're not currently wielding), which, IIRC, is how out of sequence dagger attacks used to work in the Factions PvP Preview event. -- Gordon Ecker 19:49, 1 August 2006 (CDT)


 * well it needs to be cleared up a little; does it work with normale attacks or attack skills(as some assassin skills do, ex: impale) Alucard pwns all 15:54, 25 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I didn't even consider the possibility that it might only refer to scythe attack skills. Either way, it's likely to outperform Splinter Shot in PvE. Anyway, I'm adding the block and evade punishment skills to related skills. -- Gordon Ecker 05:02, 3 October 2006 (CDT)


 * I dont think the idea with Signet of Midnight would work well with the attack speed of a Drevish. The scythe attacs are slow, Im not sure but hammers seem to be faster.--Coloneh 19:40, 3 October 2006 (CDT)


 * Signet of Midnight would be counterproductive if it only procs on scythe attack skills. As for related skills, Sand Shards causes area damage either whenever any attack with a scythe is blocked, evaded or misses or whenever a scythe attack skill is blocked, evaded or misses. How are Swift Chop and Irresistable Blow, which cause damage when blocked, and Griffon's Sweep, Leviathan's Sweep and Seeking Blade, which cause damage when evaded, not related? -- Gordon Ecker 21:29, 3 October 2006 (CDT)

This could become an incredible DPS for farming, D/Me, Signet of Midnight, 16 earth prayers and sand shards, attacking 3 foes at once = 78 damage to all nearby foes, every 1.75 seconds, with an IAS, you could dish out a great deal of damage.. unless im missing something. --86.137.79.37 16:12, 4 October 2006 (CDT)
 * signet of midnight (blinds you and target) epidemic (spreads conditions on target to adjacent) Sand shards (deals damage when you miss) Heart of Fury (IAS) dwayna's touch (healing) spirit of failure (energy management) whirling charge (IAS) mantra of flame? (energy management + damage mitigation from smites)- You could possibly solo UW with this or something like it. Right now it looks (a) like attributes are spread a bit, (b) aataxe wipe you out before you can blind them all. However imo there's got to be a better way to provide the blind Phool 16:00, 24 October 2006 (CDT)

Purpose
Dervish's attacks are just so powerful, that the only way to disable them is to blind them...and this is to counter that blind... Lightblade 15:43, 28 September 2006 (CDT)

Well, conditions in general will work pretty well on a Dervish, as they have no actual condition removal skills, though with all their offensive enchants I don't see Blind being too big a problem. I'd be more worried about Cripple, as almost all the Dervish's offense is predicated on being within melee range. Featherfoot Grace and the numerous movement speed enhancing stances can help, but of course for a real solution, there's always Avatar of Melandru... Arshay Duskbrow 16:31, 28 September 2006 (CDT)

this skill was overnerfed and is almost useless now User:xyz 11 December 2006
 * Only purpose is Signet of Midnight with Epidemic, Spirit of Failure, and Heart of Fury. Used to farm, I guess... I saw a video somewhere showing some guy soloing the Zaishen IWAY Team with the SoM/Sand Shards build. LavaEdge324 [[Image:Assassin-icon-small.png]] 20:12, 3 January 2007 (CST)
 * I think the main use can be as a back-up vs. Blind or, since it has a larger range, deal more AoE damage. You also realize that for each hit MISSED, you trigger Sand Shards. So if you miss 3 foes, it triggers 3 times on all nearby foes. This with an IAS and even Twin Moon Sweep can produce a somewhat hefty DPS. --Guild of Deals 15:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Penetrates?
Has any every tried this against Shadow Form? The attack would fail, but will it deal the damage?-X H K


 * I would presume so. Assassins using Shadow Form do take damage when caught in an AoE effect, so they probably will be hit with Sand Shards as well. Haven't tested it, but I'll keep it in mind when I get around to taking my Dervish through Factions unless it has been disproven by then. Draxynnic 23:36, 13 February 2007 (CST)

Why doesn't this work with Illusionary Weaponry???
Sand Shards says that if any of your scythe attacks "fail to hit", it does the damage, and the way Illusionary Weaponry seems to work with every other skill is that it makes you fail to hit, while doing damage. If you don't fail to hit with IW, then why doesn't ANY other attack skill that says "if you hit" work?

I think that Sand Shards SHOULD work with Illusionary Weaponry, but it should only count for scythe attack skills, because thats what the wording of the skill suggests. It really doesn't make sense the way it doesn't work with IW right now, it just goes against everything IW stands for.
 * None of the skills that trigger when an attacker fails to hit are triggered by IW. --Fyren 06:59, 11 February 2007 (CST)
 * But at the same time, none of the skills that trigger when an attacker "hits", like Dismember, are triggered by IW. So what does IW do? does it hit, or does it not hit?  --Boottspurr 02:24, 17 February 2007 (EST)
 * IW does not hit. That is why you don't gain Adrenaline while under IW. [[Image:Entropy Sig.jpg]] (T/C) 02:28, 17 February 2007 (CST)
 * IW is currently a unique skill, with its own rules. Why attempt to classify it in terms of a seperate mechanic? It doesn't 'hit' in the usual sense, but neither does it 'miss' in the usual sense either. Phool 04:30, 17 February 2007 (CST)
 * Or maybe they just saved themselves the trouble of having to nerf the combo later...--64.230.107.131 10:55, 24 February 2007 (CST)

Actually, IW changes the whole physics of your weapon. Your weapon doesn't hit, but the Attack actually does. At least, that's what I'm presuming.--Rickyvantof 12:48, 26 February 2007 (CST)

mist form + sand shards does not work either :<<<
 * mist for makes you deal 0 damage, not miss.--Coloneh RIP[[Image:Coloneh.png]] 01:31, 4 March 2007 (CST)

It should work with IW. And i doubt anet would have to nerf it because scythe attacks are pretty slow. -jupsto &mdash;The preceding "signed" comment was added by 89.241.168.179 (contribs).
 * but they hit 3 people, so you hit shards 3 times per swing, and when there arent 3 people you switch to a sword, o v e r p o w e r e d --Coloneh RIP[[Image:Coloneh.png]] 00:00, 7 March 2007 (CST)

Note that the skill description for IW is that your attacks deal no damage. However it has been tested and proven many many times that IW actually makes the attack not hit. Maybe it is sort of like in D&D, where if you attack, you first need to see if the attack actually hits, and then figure out the damage. Maybe it is sort of like that, where IW is registered as sort of hitting, but deals no damage, and thus doesn't tirgger sand shards, or normal attack thingummywats. Of course this theory will probably be shot down quickly, so I'm just going to go with IW having it's own physics.  Marin Bloodbane  ( Talk ) 14:39, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Does this skill trigger AoE scatter?
J/w :) GrammarNazi 11:09, 5 April 2007 (CDT)
 * As late as this is, yes, it does. I was just using it for the hell of it in a D/Me PvE build, and got scatter a few times from AoE pressure... I would have to assume that because the skill says "to all nearby foes" that AIs count it as AoE even if only one target is being hit. --69.143.6.8 00:06, 5 July 2007 (CDT)

Armor-ignoring?
I'd presume so, because otherwise the damage would just be miniscule, but I thought I'd double-check. --Mafaraxas 17:08, 10 August 2007 (CDT)
 * You're correct. The Hobo 17:30, 10 August 2007 (CDT)

IW+blind+Sand Shards?
what if you used iw and arcane mimicried signet of midnight and used sandshards then? I mean if you are blind you WILL miss and iw would do its own thing right?...maybe i should just give it a quick check.--JRyan 19:52, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think you'd need blind, you'd just need a scythe for the Sand Shards part --Gimmethegepgun 20:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
 * You only get the Damage from IW, even when blinded. --Dazra 06:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Shadow Sanctuary
someone adden this to the notes(bold)
 * Combines well with Signet of Midnight, and in PvE, Shadow Sanctuary.

While that is the only other option for self-blinding than signet of midnight, 5seconds blind every 30 seconds. Seems to me like a waste of 2 skill-slots on a bar, but it is still the only other guaranteed blind on yourself that I know of, so I'm not sure if I should remove that or not.. Thoughts? GW-Viruzzz 05:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd remove. [[Image:Felix_Omni_Signature.png]] 05:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)