Now you're getting it! Actually I hadn't even thought of using snipe as a pve energy dump instead of overload shot. But yes there is no hidden reason to use overload shot in pve.

Name: Ushanev Guild: Illegal Test Kitchen Class: Operative Spec: Concealment Catchphrase: Exfiltrate is the new backstab.

Overload shot is extremely situational. Occasionally in PvE you'll have extra energy and literally nothing else to use for a global or two. That's the only time you'll use it in PvE. In PvP people often cite it as a counter to force shroud but most assassins also pop their increased range/melee defense at the same time as force shroud. Even if they don't -- like you said it's such crappy damage per energy.

Bwahahahahah those vids are infawesome.

Do I create a profile on the challenge website to sign up?

Could be a system as simple as "at least one/two player/s not in the record-breaking player's guild must post in this thread to verify that the match happened recently." Should be very easy for ranked matches. Most normal matches should have enough players who frequent the forums to verify as well.

Even once the latest bolster bug is fixed, how are we going to determine that screenshots submitted after the fix weren't taken before the fix?

Pfft Desi's been calling me Ushie since I hit 50 and started relentlessly stabbing her in the back -- well after she stopped calling me "that *********** operative", anyway

/forcelifttournament

I think it has to do with the short root they added at the end of the roll to prevent the jump-roll (used to significantly increase exfiltrate distance on the PTS). Right after you roll, some value in some database goes from 0 to 1. While it's at 1 you can't move. It's supposed to go back to 0 after .25sec or so. But every now and then, some combination of roll + cc + lag makes it so the server misses the "reset variable x to 0" call to reset and you're permastunned.

Missing a bunch of flying fists procs in a row will definitely sap your energy, but energy regen overall seems to line up more intuitively with the alacrity number displayed on the character sheet than cast time does. That is to say, 25% alacrity should get you 25% faster energy regen, which is nice.

Interestingly, if you take the shorter, alacrity affected cast times and increase them by the alacrity value, rather than taking the default cast times and decreasing them by the alacrity value, everything adds up (at least on cast times -- the gcd still has a .05sec discrepancy which may well be server lag). This is NOT how I understood alacrity to work.

So I'd been playing around with a high-alacrity concealment build but it kept not feeling as fast as it should. With everything popped I have 24% alacrity and I expected my lacerates to be flying out almost as fast as a pre 2.0 berserked carnage marauder. But it doesn't feel that fast. Turns out it's with good reason. Parses on the fleet target dummies show a gcd pretty consistently hovering around 1.3 seconds -- giving me a ~16% gcd reduction during times when my character sheet says I have 24.39% alacrity. Cast times also show less reduction than they apparently should, though by less extreme amounts. Orbital strike, kolto injection, and kolto infusion all show 19.7% reduced cast times rather than 24.4% Anyone else experiencing this? Naked overload shots with 0 alacrity followed by alacrity fully buffed at 24.39%: http://www.torparse.com/l/189230 Zero alacrity gcd averages 1.568 seconds. Fully buffed alacrity averages 1.304 Screenshot of fully buffed alacrity: http://i.imgur.com/Fqxug9J.jpg I'm saying "fully buffed" for alacrity, but it's possible to push it quite a bit higher than I currently have (6.39% from gear, 8% from talents, 10% from stim bost). I would expect the effects to be more pronounced at higher numbers.

Knocked out of stealth by AOE damage, maybe. If an op gets shot out of stealth by single target damage then he deserves to not have an opener. I'd like it better if damage that is completely absorbed by shield probe/defense screen didn't break stealth.

I'm thinking 0-100 surge on gear and 0-200 surge on augments. Not trying to stack surge.

Has anyone crunched any numbers re: trading cunning for surge in augments? Would it be at all advisable to trade 100-200 cunning for surge via augments in order to max out alacrity on the rest of the gear?

Oooh Althania's 55. I saw him a day or two ago when he was 54 and I was all http://imgur.com/kNoxroH

No need to worry about this since there is no "house," really. Melyn and Urd are just neutral money-holders. All the money bet goes into a single pool and the players are betting against each other rather than the house. The way the system is currently described, it might well be very imprudent to bet very large amounts of credits because the whole amount you bet on your duelist is at risk, but if there isn't much money bet on the opposing duelist you don't stand to win much. This should discourage people from throwing around big sums of credits to skew the payouts.

The beauty of this system is that the odds are basically crowd sourced. In the example, Ushanev and Melyn get 1:1 odds on their money because the betting was split exactly between duelist 1 and duelist 2, but if one duelist is heavily favored by the crowd, you can get substantially higher odds by betting on the underdog. Example: 10 people bet 10 credits each on duelist 1. 2 people bet 10 credits each on duelist 2. The total prize pool is 120 credits. If the heavily-favored duelist 1 wins, each of the people who bet on him will have a net gain of 2 credits (12 creds total minus the initial 10-credit bet). Essentially they are laying odds at 1:5, risking 10 credits to win 2. If Duelist 2 wins, each person who bet on duelist 2 will have a net gain of 50 credits (60 total minus 10 initial bet). They are getting odds of 5:1, risking 10 credits to win 50. Now the problem with this system is that your odds might shift significantly after you place your bet. Because of this drawback, I think there should be a point after which no more bets can be made followed by a summary of odds and a short period where bets can be withdrawn (not shifted to another duelist, just withdrawn for zero gain/loss). It IS possible to manipulate a system like this by placing and then withdrawing large bets, so everyone is on the honor system (or maybe there's a rule that bets over x amount cannot be withdrawn). It's either that or all bets are placed blind without knowing the odds and odds are only revealed after betting is fully closed (or even after the tournament is finished to prevent charges of throwing a match). Vegas-style odds won't be possible, imo. Even if the bookmakers can keep track of them, getting that info out to all potential bettors in a timely manner would be a huge hassle -- not worth it for what is supposed to be a fun event anyway.

You can't divide the pool evenly. It has to be proportional to the size of the bet -- otherwise someone who bets big will get screwed whether or not he wins. Looks like the spreadsheet is set up that way so it's all good. Edit: Melyn you should make this explicit or a lot of people will probably wind up feeling cheated. The prize pool is not simply split evenly between the winners. The prize pool is split proportionally according to the % of the bets placed on the winning player. Completely unbiased Example: 2 duelists. Ushanev and Melyn bet on duelist 1 Ushanev bets 9 credits Melyn bets 1 credit (wuss) Urdnought bets on duelist 2 He bets 10 credits (should have bet where the smart money was). The total prize pool is 20 credits. If duelist 1 wins, the 20 credits are not split evenly. Rather Ushanev gets 90% of the prize pool because he placed 90% of the bets that were placed on the winning duelist. So Ushanev wins 18 credits and Melyn wins 2 credits. Kind of a fun, self-regulating system that also offers bettors a way to hedge on longshot bets.

Magical Unranked Most Damage Taken 696052 http://i.imgur.com/kz8jm3b.jpg This was a fun match. Wish I had recorded it. The other team had both sides capped for a long while, but we were able to switch-and-slow a couple of times and finally grabbed grass. Magical had no guard and got a lot of love from our ranged dps.

/follow used to fix some stuck-in-place-in-the-spawn problems. Try that? I haven't experienced this bug yet though I'm starting to feel like one of the lucky few.

This is the standard concealment PVE build for HM+ Ops where all the mobs are immune to knockdowns. If you're running ops or flashpoints with a lot of trash mobs who aren't immune then you can take one point from revitalizers and one point from the healing boost and put them into the knockdown on hidden strike.

If were to trade points to pick up hit and run, it would be some combination of 2 crit/2 alacrity/1 crit + 1 alacrity from the bottom-tier lethality talents. I don't think anyone who's putting 7+ points in lethality is going to pass up the debilitate cooldown reduction.

Energy management is leaps and bounds better than it used to be. 1) We now have a passive skill that is equivalent to always-on old stim boost. 2) Backstab is free when talented 3) Lacerate refunds 75% of its cost 75% of the time. Essentially it costs 25% less than it used to. 4) Alacrity increases energy regen and we have several alacrity buffs. 5) Acid blade no longer wears off so you can apply it way before you expect to use it.