Good analysis Jack. There's just so many subtle differences that make the spec an awful frustration to play. A concealment op demolishes the deception sin in 1v1. The deception sin's good damage comes into play only a couple seconds before he's out of life, so you're one of the worst stealth-war classes. You will likely be unable to kill your typical tankasin (the de facto node guarder) because he hits just as hard on you as you do on him, and he's got more life. The concealment op also has a ranged mez (sleep dart), and flashbang, so for CC/mez purposes, you're outshined again. Your practical DPS is literally the lowest of all DPS classes. You're a comparable interrupter to a marauder, but you can't give your team predation, and your dps sucks. And for most purposes, leap > force speed. You might be able to pull some good damage if you didn't get caught so easily, but you do. While the marauder has several extra lives, and the pyro can stay nestled among his friends, you're in the middle of the fray, with a spinning sabre that says "free kill". You are going to be CCed and killed repeatedly. You don't have pull. Pull is so damned important for winning warzones, that even if you could convince your team that your dps was good enough, they would still ask you to respec for pull. The devs comments are just so offbase it's stupid. The concealment op fills the role of lone wolf support a hundred times better than the deception sin. In fact, one of the deception sins only advantages is that he can taunt for his teammates. I played deception since beta. Most ranked teams on the server won't run me, and it seems like the end of the road for me. 2 weeks ago, I switched to madness. I beat my all time deception DPS record by the second day. Last week, I made an alt. I'm starting to get bored of playing by myself.

I completely finished my suit last week. I have remodded, augmented warhero now. I even bought a different crystal, just for the looks. I have reskinned. And I have tons of credits and comms and I have nothing to buy. Right now I'm trying out a different spec. I try to play ranked when I can. But as to what I do the rest of the time, I mostly just pvp for fun.

Depends on context. For 1v1, concealment. For huttball, assassin. For big brawls? Both suck, but assassin can aoe taunt before he gets squashed. For being stealthy, concealment. Flashbang > overload Frontloaded burst > backloaded burst Sleep dart > Mind trap For the things that they have in common, concealment all the way.

Actually, I think 1.2 made class balance better. 1.3 improved on it. Of course, any time you nerf one FOTM, another rises to take its place. It's inevitable. We all know marauders and pts are next. After they are nerfed, sniper will prolly be fotm. I didn't say games can't be balanced. I said people will always whine about it. Take Starcraft. You can find literally thousands of forum threads claiming each race is OP. The truth is that regardless of actual imbalance, there is always perceived imbalance due to varying player skill levels and perspectives about the best way to play. Like I said, I think people quit because a) it's boring to play just 1 game b) most people aren't cut out for pvp endgame and need to blame class balance c) it's not new and shiny anymore

Don't agree with any of that stuff. Class balance? really? You think people quit because of class balance? People have been whining about class balance in every single damn game since multiplayer existed. There are plenty of mistakes I think mythic made with War, and plenty of mistakes I think bioware made with TOR, but that's ultimately subjective. They don't make games to please me, specifically. The truth is that MMOs are a huge gamble. Players join in droves, obsess, then burn out. Your average MMO gamer these days doesn't stick to one game. Things are different now. Long gone are the days where people stick to one game for years at a time. You want to know what I think? I think that pvp mmos are destined to fail, simply because they are ego driven. And not everyone can win. Your average player sucks, and he doesn't want to be told that. The only hope is to mix it up often enough that he can delude himself into thinking "next patch, then x will happen and everyone will see how awesome i am".

115 damage does not let you take down anything. Quit deluding yourself.

I'm not going to debate pow vs crit, that's not the point. You can download simulation craft for yourself and try it out. Or you can do the math. 500 power is 115 bonus damage. Let's pretend crit has literally 0 benefit, and all deception sins have been stacking crit. Giving them all 115 bonus damage isn't going to do anything, and the class will still be underpowred. point stands. fyi, 1400 rating is pretty damn good for deception. Even though that rating is laughable for any other class, I'm probably the highest deception sin on my server, and I barely play anymore. This is why my challenge stands to anybody who plays ranked to disagree with me. If anything my pathetic rating supports my point. Where are all the high ranked deception sins telling me to L2P?

Ranked warzones already rank people according to skill, since nobody without full WH is remotely experienced enough to be competitive. At least for mains, anyway.

Enough. Watching low-qual players debate mechanics just makes my head hurt. That guy with all the "PRO" tips just made my rofl all over myself because his lack of experience is glaringly obvious. Let's establish a few base facts: 1. Very few players play deception 2. Of the few that do, very few highly ranked teams run one of them 3. Hence, if you ranked class/spec combinations by average rating, would put deception sins somewhere near the bottom of the pile. 4. Stacking crit or power doesn't matter. They both give dps, and the difference is not going to be significant enough to notice, let alone make or break a spec. 5. Your hero, Shinarika, has posted on several occasions that deception is underpowered, so using her as your example is really frigging stupid. Now we can pretend that they're just an enigma that nobody, among thousands and thousands of experienced pvpers who have tried, has been able to crack. Or, we can take the astronomically higher probability that the spec is just not a great choice when compared to alternative trees and classes. It's not just about class balance either. High level metagame is very biased towards the win-the-big-battle-then-hold strategy. Which almost instantaneously excludes niche classes like deception sins. You need big damage dealers, powerful heals, and strong defense. Deception sins have difficulty contributing to big battles because of their vulnerabilities. Even on the 1v1 front, you don't have the dps to take out half the classes in a 1v1, and you can only defend well in very specialized (out of combat solo door mindtrapping) situations. You're mobile, but you're not a leaper, and you're not strong enough to carry a ball. Worst of all, your supposed dps never comes even close to several classes that can lob shots from the safety of 20m, nestled tight between healers and tanks. You don't have any clutch abilities that will save you from being focused like some classes (cough, marauder). And you don't have a pull, something both powertechs and tankasins have, and is 100% required for ranked play. It's my opinion that deception is a weak spec, exacerbated by overpowered PT and marauders. Were those 2 classes more in line, I think you could argue inclusion of a deception sin. But as it stands, you have to outplay by a wide margin to give the same performance. If any deception sins or infil shadows who are RANKED would like to debate this fact, you're welcome to. Random pubs with theorycraft can save it, thanks.

It makes no damned sense. A ranked system for casual players where wins are determined by luck of whoever landed on your team is about the stupidest system ever. The number of games you've even have to play for a solo ranking to mean anything would be in the thousands. 1 bad player can throw a whole match, and you want to randomly queue with people? I know you guys have this idealized version of ranked solo queue where you prove how pro you are even though you solo queue but the fact is that you make little to no difference to your team in the scheme of things. You can't rank that.

The thing that bugs me most about it, isn't the L2P stuff. I'm perfectly ok with a class being harder to play than another class. I'm perfectly ok being told I'm playing it wrong. What I'm not ok with is the complete lack of actual people who are able to do it right. Where are the 2400 pure deception assassins? Please, post here, if you exist. Somehow I think you don't. I'm even more interested in the #2 team. The #1 team might be able to carry a deception assassin, but the #2 team, well, they've got a lot of incentive to trim the fat. And if there's 1 player who can do it, but there are hundreds of powertechs, I have to ask the question: should a class really be 100x harder to play?

Well, it's nice to know what the design is. I'm not surprised that people are disappointed with it. As a purely deception assassin I have to put in my 2 cents. I'd also like to echo the OP on some points. My old guild wouldnt run me in rated because I wouldn't respec. So read my dedication to this spec from that. I don't know how deception can be a lone wolf spec if we lose to 75% of equal gear/skill classes in a 1v1. What are we going to do off alone? Our mez would be useful except it has a combat requirement, requires stealth, and can only be applied to 1 target. It's not long enough cap... so honestly, what is this lone wolf supposed to do? Go off and 1v1 respawns and lose? Ok, so lets pretend that we can kill things 1v1. How are we going to get a 1v1? There are just not enough 1v1 situations. Aside from hacking at respawns or the odd ninja node (doesn't work in rated really), the majority of the time, your team needs a player that is helping the team. Last of all, what is this complete bull about falling within the 5% dps targets. Give me a break. Name a single deception sin who comes within even 20% of his teams top marauder or pt on average. There isn't one. So where are these metrics coming from? Perhaps its the fact that marauders and their ungodly defensive CDs that keep them up longer, allowing them to do damage. Perhaps it's the fact that PT range allows them to hump the safety of their healers. Deception has nothing at all to stay alive, which means that even if our dps was as high as the other DPS (and it isn't), we spend half the battle waiting to attack something without it being a suicide. I will admit that deception has powerful lockdown abilities, and having taunts on a dps with decent mobility can be a fun treat, but alas, it all comes down to the fact that we don't have enough utlity to justify our shabby dps and defense. Pretty much the only thing deception is good for is solo defending a node by mind-trap, and even that is better done by concealment ops. All this being said, I am determined to find a way to make it work, if i'm the last one left, i'll do it.

A lot of people don't like open world. They think that balanced teams make things "fair". I'm going to attempt to explain how even teams are unfair. Your typical ex-wow player thinks that arena is the epitome of pvp competition. Capturing objectives is for carebears, or something. I disagree with this notion on many levels. War is never just about killing your enemy. Neither do swat teams go into buildings and kill everyone and then just go home. No. You're always fighting over something. There's a purpose behind it. Objectives are one such attempt to insert a purpose. For the duration of the warzone, you have a goal. It opens up room for lots of strategy and turns combat into a dance of deep complexity. For your hardcore pvper, this is sufficient. People who play to "beat" somebody on even terms will get their kicks out of this. But for your casual player, this is just a poor system. I think all of the problems with warzone quitters and premade whines and gear QQs can all be traced back to this fact that you're making non-competitive players compete. They aren't going to be able to gear, or coordinate, or practice well enough to be as good as everyone else, and then Bioware grabs 8 of them and sticks them against people who can. It's just not fair. You can give them commendations for losing, and welfare loot, but in the end, it sucks to get beat over and over again. And I think this is going to damage the pvp in this game. Already the super-premades from ranked are making pvp unplayable for anybody else. I'm happy when people pull up their socks and find a way to compete, really I think that was the goal. But the whole process is doomed to failure. 8 casuals vs 8 non-casuals just doesn't make sense. Some people say that the solution is to separate the queues. Day in and day out people ask for gear to be removed, for stats to be normalized, for the premades to get their own queue, but all that does is further divide the population, take away what people work for. In truth, neither side is getting any satisfaction from it. And that's where I think open world fits in. If 16 noobs and 8 ******es clash, and either side loses, people are going to be more or less satisfied. The 8 know that they were facing superior odds, and the 16 know that they were outmatched by gear and experience. It equalizes the playing field. Of course, warzones will still be around for proving who has the best 8, but for every day regular pvp... there's no need to make casuals compete. They never wanted to compete. Give them a away to band together, and I think you'll see much healthier pvp. There will be zergs of course, and even so, part of the fun of open world is dodging the zerg... and trying to find those fights you can win. The less you standarize and regulate how pvp goes down, the less bluntly you shove it into somebodies face that they are a loser. anyway, that's my 2credits

You don't speak for the community. Lots of us like the amount of CC in the game. CC is not balanced around 1v1. Thanks for playing.

Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got somethin to say But nothin comes out when they move their lips; just a bunch of gibberish And motherfrackers act like they forgot about deception