Edited above to clarify a little for you. I myself am Madness. I stack as much crit and surge as possible. My playstyle is for massive crits on my maul with exploit weakness while all the dots are rolling out. Dunno how Deception plays out.

We're not anything even close to low damage. Higher than many others if anything. Because this is a forum though you'll mostly find the people who are doing it right and enjoying it in game while those that are not must find an excuse to vent their frustration publicly upon others here. Some people have bad experiences with Assassin damage, but the truth is they can inflict a ridiculous amount of pain if you work your abilities right. I find setting the ability delay to .75 also helps a lot to ensure your abilities are queued up and there is no downtime between them.

I can do 5k crits. In fact, I can do 5k crits while 3 dots are active on the enemy, also rolling crits of their own at the same time. Madness assassin. All it takes is a few bad examples to make us all look bad. Comparative to other dps I've encountered I actually have been getting the feeling that we could use a nerf if anything.

I like Ashara. Easier for me to gear her and easier for me to see what she is doing since she is fighting right up in melee with me. It's not like companions take damage anyway unless put in tank mode. We have cc and taunts to help make sure of that. I keep Ashara as armor pen, by the way, and load her up with crit gear. Mobs die too fast for the bleeds to be noticeable, so armor pen works with my crit stacking to ensure her blows land hard and big. For really tough things, like if I am going to solo a champion mob, I'll make her do the other stance since the dots will be more beneficial in that situation.

I don't have battlemaster gear and am able to crit over 5k. 5232 is my maximum to date, and they average 4.8-5.1k on usual. Guess what? I have stealth just like an operative does too! I can go toe to toe with any class, indeed even heavy armor classes without using Dark Charge of my own, and am able to manage just fine. I am madness spec by the way, with a tanking set too.

Couldn't agree more ♥ Though the emotes is a reason why I use asterisks in rp, besides simply allowing for much greater flexibility of gramatical devices. -Krie

I do pretty well in pvp as madness. Usually around 40 kill range, 8-11 medals. I tend to focus on completing objectives and cc spamming healers for mauls and assassinates. I don't have any pvp gear mind you so could be better of course, but certainly not cannon fodder at all. Deaths are rare and damage is pretty darn intense. It's always a good giggle when someone tries to run away at low health and dies from dots.

I've never used a healing companion. Was dps Khem, then Andronikos, then Ashara who I kept for the raw damage output. I am a madness assassin. Bosses are an absolute joke, and where we shine because of our dots and crit based procs. Use the market and don't let your gear or your companions gear fall behind. Keep your implants, earpiece and relics up to date and use them whenever off of cooldown. Don't try to save Recklessness either. Those abilities are there to be used, not hoarded. If you are still having trouble buy a blue quality stimulant. Those last 120 minutes and persist through death. The benefit they provide allows you to kill more smoothely, easily making back more credits than you spent.

I focus on crit more than power myself, but I am a madness assassin. Crit is more than just damage for me. Crit is the chance to proc buffs which then further passively increase my damage even more, or give me a free no force insta cast damage/dot off of cooldown which then gives me even more force crits for stronger melee, in return making force stronger again due to the enhanced melee crits. Deception looks like it would benefit well from power, however, to make those strikes hit nice and hard at a reliable consistency.

Utility? Absolutely not. We do make solid tanks or dps though. If you go madness spec you become a real interesting hybrid melee/force class akin to an enhancement shaman, which is real interesting, but still not utility. It's not like we're bringing a group buffs and such. We either go in and make bosses smack us in the face or we tear them apart with some truly brutal damage. Gotta love the 4.5k+ crits while you have three dots running at the same time also critting.

Is there any way to alter your characters appearance in game, or is it planned at all as a feature in the future? Specifically hair. I live searching for hooded outfits that can be modified out of shame for my characters hair. It looked good in creation! Or at least not as terrible as some others... but in game it just doesn't match up with equipment designs and just looks goofy.

I'm trying to get a good general healing guide written up but am just starting to get personal experience with Operative and Mercenary classes. I was wondering if someone would shed some light on the differences or primary points. Some of what I've been hearing is that Operatives handle many healing over time abilities while Mercenary healers focus more on aoe healing.

I'm trying to get a good general healing guide written up but am just starting to get personal experience with Operative and Mercenary classes. I was wondering if someone would shed some light on the differences or primary points. Some of what I've been hearing is that Operatives handle many healing over time abilities while Mercenary healers focus more on aoe healing.

Really, whining about a system in a game that isn't even released yet? Sure seems like you have a lot of experience with the function that you are moaning about. When the game is released there will be thousands of people playing. You will be put in matches with people in the requested level range, and it will not be common for people outside of that range to be brought in except maybe at very late hours. The reason you are experiencing this now is because the game has not even been publicly released yet! There is such a small player base currently that it -has- to bring in higher levels in order to fill it. Really, a little critical thinking and logic goes a long way, or even reading dev posts. Wait for the game to be released, then complain.

Biochem has tradeable epic quality consumables which can -not- be made in a reusable form. These are the raid quality consumables, and there are enough of them that those alone trash this supposed 99%. I'm seeing a hell of a lot of purple crystals which are BoE also. Also lots of other BoE epic mods. Seriously OP, did you even do five minutes of research? In fact as I go through this list there looks to be far, far more BoE epics than there are BoP.