I was running something like this last night. It's a fun spec. You won't be great at either but it is very good for node guarding or 1 on 1 fights.

I just hit 55 with max WZ comms. I wanted to buy both conqueror implants and the earpiece and I was wondering which would be the best to go with? I was leaning towards power/surge for all 3, however, I have been reading that this class uses alacrity. That was a dead stat when I left the game over a year ago so I'm unsure if it's worth investing in now. Also is there an optimal crit rating for pvp? I'm going to be playing either conceal or lethality. I was thinking about 21-22%, which, would boost to 24-25% with the lethality +3% crit then to 40% for hiddenstrike/stab and 38% for DoTs. Does that seem reasonable? Thanks.

What he said....100%.

I completely understand that some players are just better or have better specs or run FOTM or better gear, however, that does not excuse any level 50 player from the following: 1) Allowing someone to leap to you for a score in huttball. 2) White bar a ball carrier before he crosses the fire pit. 3) Leave a turret or door unguarded. 4) Stand by a door or turret doing god knows what while they cap under your nose. 5) See non stealth incomings and not calling for help or at least stating so in ops channel. 6) Not knowing the difference between east and west and miscalling directions. There are so many basic common sense things in this game that by the time you make it to level 50 you should just know. I honestly don't know how some of these people function in their daily lives when they can't do the most basic things in a video game that they probably spend plenty of hours playing. So yeah I'll admit that I call people on it but I grew up being very competitive with a bunch of ahole friends that I love to death but we call each other out or just bust each other's balls when one of us f's up.

In my opinion deception assassins are supposed to burst for high damage. Pre 1.3 we would do that with power adrenals and power relics for 15 seconds or so. I was squishy but for that short time I could 4k shock and 5-6k discharge. Now most people here are not fans of deception and until recently I was one of them and I tried to build up a bunch of crit and my WZ overall damage went up, however, the damage was more sustained and less bursty. I didn't feel very useful just putting out sustained DPS because tankassins could do that with more survivability and utilty so in the process of power stacking to play tankassin I decided to go back and try deception again. I honestly think that deception is better now than it was pre 1.3 because I used to have to manage 2 power boosters that made me great for 15 seconds and now because I've stacked so much power I only have to rely on recklnessness every 75 seconds. I generally go for sage/sorc, op/scoundrel, mara/sents or pt/vanguards because I find them to be much squisher than say a darkness tank or guardian type. I can VS for 2500 x2, then shock for 4k if I crit and then discharge for 4-6k depending surging charge stacks. Low slash can crit for 2k to set up a 3-5k maul and a 3-5.5k assassinate. I don't put up big sustained numbers but I do put up big burst and that is what is really needed to drop people these days. Playstyle has a lot to do with deception as well so where a tankassin might just sit there in the middle of a fight hitting everyone while getting healed I will sneak around and mark targets for the first 10-15 seconds of a fight and then strike on a back line player or healer. If people focus me I drop into stealth and pop black out and give it 5 seconds or so and then unleash on the next person. Deception is about being elusive and striking hard and fast and with my play testing that is only possible with a heavy power stacked build. I am currently 3 mods away from being completely min/maxxed. I have about 1215 top end melee damage, 915 or so force bonus damage, 26% melee crit (jumps to 35% with the madness proc for 9 seconds) and 25% force crit (85% wiwth recklessness), 96% accuracy and 77ish% surge bonus. Deception still needs a few tweaks but it is not all doom and gloom like people seem to think. The problem is you have to correctly know how to min/max the gear and you have to have the time to invest into doing it. Hope that helps.

Power ear Power implants power bracers power relics 1 acc/power enhancement and the rest power/surge 2 +39 crit mods and the rest +39 power power belt power focus All war hero of course. Stalker set bonus armorings for 1:15 recklessness and 3 charges. Enjoy the destruction.

Darkness (Full build or hybrid): Other's perception is "oh look another tankassin". My perception: The class has it all, especially in full WH gear min/max'd for power. The pvp utilty is amazing. Spike out of combat, force pull, force run that breaks holds, 5 second force shroud, sustained dps, ability to guard healers, guard off points, mind trap...the list goes on. Deception: Other's: OMG a deception assassin, really? lol. Easy kill. My perception: Lack luster team play and utility. No front end burst. Easily kited. Squishy as hell. Requires luck or recklessness to pull big spike damage/burst. Madness: Other's: See Deception above. My perception: More squishy than deception with less burst. Better for PvE dps. A bit more utility in PvP than deception with creeping terror 2 second hold and instant whirlwind. Lack of dueling control due to no spike/low slash out of stealth. Self healing is too low. I miss this spec from beta with a 15 meter range on force powers and force lightning with no cool down. Lastly, why am I playing madness and yet the tank spec does force lightning better than me? what the hell is wrong with this picture!?!

In regards to Deception Assassins: I think if you all as designers look at the metrics for successful high ranked rated warzone teams you will find a class make up that is heavy on power techs, marauders, operative healers, darkness assassins and snipers. Due to the survivability, utilty and sustained DPS the tankassin shines over the other two specs (deception / madness). One big reason for this is the auto crit mecnanic of engerize that allows darkness assassins to power stack their mods/enhancments. If you envision the class as being a more "lonewolf" hit-and-run class then I think a few tweaks could be made to make that happen and make them more playable and ranked warzone friendly. Here are a few examples that I would like you to please consider: - Consider moving the disjunction talent to tier 1 in darkness. - Consider lowering the cooldown on force cloak to 1 minute with the Fade talent and have it remove snares/holds, etc.. - Move the duplicity talent up higher in the deception tree and remove the 50% armor pen and add a 30% chance to make the next maul a critical hit so that is functions like the energize talent for darkness. - Find a way to make surging charge build faster and/or take less stacks to build up to the maximum for more front end burst to offset the low survivability. - Consider changing voltaic slash to add a debuff effect to our opponents such as having it lower their critical strike chance and/or bonus, which, makes us more survivable and helps team play. These are just a few examples that I think could help improve our class and make us more useful in end game PvE and PvP. I think that after looking at successful ranked warzone teams you will find that there is a lack of several builds beyond just deception assassins and that some tweaks will be in order. Thank you for the consideration and all the work you do. Vlos <Gm of Dread> Jung Ma

Yeah but doesn't thrash talented with claws from the madness tree do as much damage? If you combine that with death field it's very nice burst and allows you to hit targets from a distance and stop node cappers in pvp.

I think with the change to adrenals the deception spec just got worse with 1.3 and now there is a larger dispartiy between tankassin and the other 2 specs. A tankassin pulled 600k in a match the other night and they can easily stack power with auto crits on shock and 3 recklessness charges. Deception lacks in burst like OPS and sustained high pressure like Maras and versus darkness has much less utility/survivability. Madness IMO is more squishy than deception and the dots don't put enough pressure on people to make a noticiable difference. The thing that really irks me is that the tank spec does force lightning the best and back in beta we had a 15 meter no cooldown force lightning. I think voltaic slash needs to be replaced to provide more burst and madness needs to be reworked with shorter duration dots, shorter cooldowns on things like deathfield and some way to make force lightning a go to ability.

Part of the skill is knowing what buttons to push when to optimize your attacks and defense based on what class you are facing and what the situation is so I also do not like this change. I also feel like in 1.2 they tried to balance healing a bit so that we didn't run into immortal healer types and if they remove quick burst from relics and adrenals we may see the shift back to healers. Obviously we won't know how this all plays out until we test it but my first impression is that it contradicts some of the 1.2 adjustments.

For me real pvp is open world random encounters that help add immersion to the gaming environment. If I am out on a quest or exploring and I run across the enemy and we make that split second decision to engage one another and something is on the line that is real pvp to me. EQ1 Vallon Zek for me was the best pvp and not because of balance because it had plenty of flaws. It was the best because if you lost the other player was allowed to loot an item right off your corpse. Dying had consequences that impacted your character so you did everything you could not to die, be it escape, out smart your opponent, perfect your class in pvp, etc... because the last thing you wanted was to lose an awesome piece of gear you just recently aquired. I enjoy mmo's but IMO they are way too soft because the average person wants all of the good but none of the bad when they lose. Vlos <Ven Zallow>

I came up with a 3/21/17 spec I've been running since shortly after 1.2 came out. I used to run 23/0/18 and then 23/1/17 after 1.2 but since changing to this spec I've had much more fun. The spec has burst and control plus decent survivability.

2/22/17 is awesome for pvp.

Since you already pay 30 wz for 10 merc commendations, why not just make the vendor a 1:1 ratio for merc to rated?

I also like low slash, however, if I was to make any useful changes for deception to make it more competitive I would remove resourcefullness and entropic field. I would replace one with a force leap gap closer and the other with a second vanish ability. Deception suffers from squishyness and lack of utility as compared to say darkness or darkness hybrids. Having pvp'd with assassins since beta, I don't think their burst off sets the drawbacks. CC, holds, knockbacks just dominate deception assassins making all that extra dps worthless. Deception is a lot of fun and so is madness but IMO they are both weaker than a darkness build unless you have a premade team to offset the weaknesses. I think a high tier gap closer and a second vanish would fit thematically and make them more competitive.

Player to player legacy would be much cooler so that you could tie together a roleplaying community and even use the legacy name of another player.

I heard about this thread so I wanted to give my 2 cents. I do not feel that the armors being presented to us currently and in 1.2 have a true Star Wars feel. I often joke that my battlemaster assassin is called Darth Peacock because of that silly helmet and overall ridiculous looking armor that I have to wear atm to be competitive. I welcome the changes coming in 1.2 and being able to mod swap (great job bioware). When I speak to my friends they mostly want to look like Darth Maul, Anakin, Luke from Empire in his Bespin outfit, etc...and right now they sort of feel like the armors are more World of Warcraft meets Star Wars, which, they don't like. I do have this question if a dev or anyone else can answer it: Will the space commendation bought armors, slave outfits and various other orange vendor bought pieces have schematics or some way to create a version with the crit augemented slot? Thanks

WZ damage doesn't mean much. I've played madness and done crazy damage but it's nothing but dots mostly. I find my darkness or burst deception spec to be much more useful even though the numbers may not be as high. You also have to consider that if you survive longer you will do more damage. If you play deception and die more often or spend more time force shrouding away to live then you spend less time dpsing. I just don't think overall WZ damage is the best thing to look at and say "oh they must be OP". Having played this game since last summer's beta, I will say that I grow less interested in the game as Bioware and players try to push players into "roles". The whole you picked a tank class so you have to suck at damage mentality I think hurts the game and makes it less interesting. I could have 20k+ hps and a really high shield / defense but I choose to wear offensive gear and use willpower boosters. I do more damage and have easily 5k less hps. There is still a trade off for choosing how to play your class. I just know the more Bioware limits player options the less appealing it becomes to me.

I'm 100% happy with my tank assassin so I'd like to see: A) No nerfs B) Deception and Madness builds a bit more viable / less squishy. and yes I would like to feel and look more like a darth maul and not a darth peacock.

I prefer open world pvp and Ilum over warzones. I just find it more dynamic. It is hardly perfect, but running wz's over and over just becomes boring for me and it feels too scripted. I know that if they removed open world pvp and left only wz's as a viable option that I would unsubscribe. The game wouldn't hold much interest for me at that point. Hopefully, they will do more to bolster it though.

Despite the recent changes to surge I still like the +34crit, +48 surge enhancement. I have around 31 crit and 75 surge by stripping mods and replacing my accuracy BM ones. My base damage is around 850's with a willpower stim and then I use a power relic and power booster in pvp. My accuracy is still around 95-96%. I run 27/0/14 and love it. I use the stalker set for the extra recklessness charge. I would only worry about replacing the centurion pieces if the new stats from the champion piece is much better. For example the centurion legs mod wise I thought were better than the champ ones. Buying a champ force master helm and stripping the mods might give you a more noticible boost than replacing a centurion piece.

So is 250-300 the new range mark for surge? I had just replaced my BM legs/robe with the crit/surge enhancements and I noticed that when I popped by crit/surge relic I only got like a 3.5% boost to my surge rating now.

So most people tend to agree that the champion head/hands +crit/surge enhancements are the way to go, but what mods does everyone like? The same head/hands mods or the stalker head/hands mods with the extra crit?

The point of taking death field for Ilum is to more easily get credit for kills and to catch runners and to catch stealthers who try to disappear on you. If you don't have some sort of ranged ability you rely on random people being force pulled in or leaping to your group. Full madness is also great for Ilum because you get creeping terror to stop runners who try to force run back to their group and another 30 meter ability to gain credit for kills.