Personally I would have just liked to see Healing scale by being a shield mechanic. Overheal becomes a shield that builds up to 10% or so of our HP and decays over time if not knocked off. Would have solved the big spike hit issue and left the class feel/play style exactly the same. could probably go ahead and knock off the darkcharge heal anyway with that.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=616779 <- very good post on min/maxing your tanking stats on gear Definitely keep shield, for tanking dont use power (Overkill) Augs, isntead use (primarily) absorb but ideally you want to get your ratio of shield/defense/absorb right. I run Fortunate redoubt and shield amp relics,might be better options but I havent seen any decent data to suggest otherwise currently. Without knowing how many stat points you have available (Ie are you in 66s, 72s, all 78s? etc) even some of those mods are weighted more towards endurance (verpine) etc. so telling you what shield % you should be at would do you an injustice since the ratio of shield/absorb/defense changes depending on how much of a stat budget you have to work with. Keyboard Ninja's post explains it pretty well though so start there.

Just reviewing some 16man HM DP parses from post/pre. Last night I took 1070DPS throughout the Tyrans fight. Biggest hit 17k. Pre-2.5 I took 1203DPS biggest hit 18.2k Full clear no problem before and after. The difference however, Post 2.5 I now did 63HPS, pre-2.5 I contributed 295HPS. (82% effective) So I took 133 DPS less, and healed 232 Less for a net Loss of 99HPS our healers now have to make up for. With overhealing, perhaps it's a wash, in some situations perhaps not. -shrug- Thats a 7% decrease in the max hit I took which was nice... Spikiness "problem" (and I say problem because we cleared all this content including NiM stuff pre 2.5 just fine) got resolved in an exchange for completely losing our unique mechanic (Stealth be damned, it was nice but when you're a tank you're not utilizing it 90% of the time). This was an overall Nerf to PVE, and a pretty extreme Nerf to PVP imo. Really not happy with the way the Devs have decided to take this class.

Yeah its pretty easy to see the actual shield/abs adrenals arent that great, especially for us. We stack so much anyway we're into the DR curve so we only wind up with a few more mitigation points from it (Assuming non crits). With the older absorb adrenals we get that flat mitigation increase that has no DR. Works really well. I use the reusable rakata still most of the time unless we're working on progression content then I'll break out the exotech for a bit more.

You're making the very flawed assumption that 100% of attacks in a warzone -CAN- be shielded at all, which is not the case by far and also that you, as a tank, are being focused continually. Also, you get dark bulwark whether you itemized for tank gear or not, so itemizing for an additional 15% to shield 40% of inc damage (or 6% additional bulwark proc per attack) is marginal. You need to fresh dark ward every 15s regardless so at an estimated 22% shield chance on average for all incoming damage getting all stacks of bulwark is not easy unless you're in huttball or something and getting focused as a tank for some reason, even still, after 15 shields you must refresh, assuming it's not on cooldown... Under focus fire you cant count on bulwark or even dark ward since it will quickly be depleted of charges. You're not building much defense if any as a Sin tank over your natural. So you're going to have that regardless along with your deflection skill. Stacking shield/abs mitigation wont stop effects like legshot from occuring, stacking defense on a sintank is even less useful. That being said, mitigation stats are useful in huttball, where you are actually likely to be focusd fired, which is why I have a second set just for huttball. In nearly any other scenario I wouldnt use them over the Higher Health or higher damage options.

So you throw 2k stat budget into mitigation, you get you 55% shield, your 45% absorb... Most parses and compiled data that I've seen have pointed to a 40% rate of attacks that can be shielded, IE, non critical, non internal etc. in a typical pvp scenario, and of those that cant be shielded are the hardest hitting such as Instacrit smahes, Thundering blast etc. So.. of that we'll say 55% chance you'll shield those "other" attacks, 22% are now shielded, of that, you apply your absorb of 45%... now you're looking at 9.9% overall abosrb. You're already sitting at about 5% absorb with the shield/abs rating you get naturally without even allocating points for it. So you've given up 5~8k health (Which is actually considerably higher when thought of in terms of EHPs) and tons of bonus damage if you're running fortitude augs, for an additional average mitigation of 4.9%. Just haven't been able to justify that in my mind when you're seldom being actually focused as a pvp tank anyway AND those mitigation stats do ****all to help the guard damage you're receiving. At the end of the day we're a second health pool for the healer and a peel/taunt machine, the health mods just seem to help fulfill that job a bit more reliably.

The hybrid is super strong as far as tanking goes, by far the best mitigation achievable and a monster in 1v1 situations, havent lost to any one in it yet. The damage can be MUCH higher and more busty than straight darkness as well. The problem is it's conditional on being behind the target which with so many aoe slows can be a pain to constantly get your mauls off. The other damage comes from induction/energized shocks and with recklessness thats still considerable. You also lose out wither on this so you lose your aoe slow/damage reduction as well as the out of stealth spike. You can pickup low slash in exchange though so that single target cc is about the same. Overall the hybrid spec is really tanky but the on demand damage isnt on par with hybrid AP. If you're going that route Hybrid AP is still better. Either of the other tanks as better as pure tank. Really no reason to bring a tank or hybrid sin to pvp anymore over the other tanks (Speaking from the POV of someone that has all 3 in full Obroan). And outside of PVP...I dont think it's viable at all for PVE... you need wither for threath generation, especially on AOE as well as to maintain your HD stacks fast enough to keep the DP window open, also while tanking mobs you never get to Maul which is a big portion of it's damage.

Not much of a change for sintanks in PvP.... ***. Are you joking? Sintank in PvP has been hit extremely hard by this.

This really sums it up. And another major point, MANY times in arenas, you are dying to attrition, Aoes, guard bleed through, etc. We have FAR less mitigation for than the other two tanks, far less on abilities that can crit, or just cant be shielded at all, of which there are many and commonly used in pvp. The self healing was essential for sustaining through that. 250+ HPS is kind of a big deal to a class with this type of design in PVP. Those were my thoughts before this went live, then it went live wtih the 12s window and 20% instead of 40% from swelling shadows which turns out it, actually made it a HUGE deal As the tank, you are very rarely the actual focus target, Sins self healing has always taken advantage of this. when you're taking 400~650 DPS from Aoes, bleed through etc. 250HPS increases your TTL DRAMATICALLY compared to the additional DR. For example, with these values in a 45s fight the self healing would provide 11250 worth of healing, the additional DR would reduce the amount you took by a mere 1170 in comparison! it's a tremendous nerf in those situations, and that is not at all an uncommon situation in PVP. This is very often the case in 1v1s, further reducing the Tankassin's usefulness as a duelist and node guards. PVP in full darkness now is much less useful than the 2x/2x hybrids. They take less damage with the additional cooldowns (which also reduces guard damage) and AOE damage reduction, and put out more damage on top of it. For now at least, my sin is going to be relegated to deception and PVE tanking, which is disheartening since I've been darkness since beta in all aspects of this game.

I do alot of both, pvp 8s, ranked 4s, etc. And my guild does ALOT of 16 man HM/NIM Raiding. My guild was doing fine with my sin tanking and clearing in NiM before these changes. Now its about the same with slightly less spikiness. Either way, I don't feel it was an even an issue, although maintaining that buff for 12s becomes a bigger priority, annoyingly so. Was rng an issue? Sure, slightly for some, but certainly not insurmountable. These changes have severely impacted the darkness spec in PVP, to the point that running darkness in pvp is basically worse than any other tank. We went from being THE self healing tank class, to the tank class with the LEAST healing. It completely shattered the play style of the class and removed their unique ability to prolong their sustain and to survive a death by guard attrition since we take MORE damage via guard than any of the other tank classes! The spec is just not fun the way it stands for pvp, which is sad, I have enjoyed it immensely since beta, through all the other buffs and nerfs it's seen along the way.

In pve, its what people asked for, in PVP... its disappointing, and sad. The class is a "shadow" of what it was.

I have a 55 of every class. Despite that, I have mained darkness assassin since beta in PVP, ranked, PVE and progression raiding. That being said, personally, I'm extremely unhappy with the changes to darkness. The self healing was a core mechanic of the class. It's been the heart of darkness since BETA. this is the playstyle and aspect of the class that alot of us really enjoyed as opposed to the other tanking classes. Our spikiness WAS an issue, but there were much simpler fixes out there. It came down to a 5% variance from what most research was showing. A flat increase to the amount of armor Dark charge gives and perhaps some reduced self healing, or mitigation in other areas (Dark bulwark could have been a good mechanic to focus for this as well, which each hit increasing armor instead of absorption, or darkward in general giving armor to promote the active playstyle Assassin tanking has always been centered around. Basically, we don't need 182% additional armor and the self heals or even 182% armor and the damage reduction from FL. A small increase in armor and a small decrease in other areas would have been ideal instead of an entire rework. There were a TON of viable ideas to address spikiness by many long term members of the community, including removing the heal from dark charge for a slight armor buff and leaving HD how it was etc etc. NONE of them suggested completely removing all of our self healing, and for good reason. It's what makes darkness assassin what it is. Additionally, this new mechanic for HD... channel the entire FL for 4% DR, and we're giving up an 8% max health heal which has been -the- darkness assassin mechanic. In PVP sins will now have less peeling than the other 2 tanks, AND less sustain, if anything these changes are going to unfortunately increase the attractiveness of hybrid builds in all but end game raiding. As for deception, the increased damages were simply not requested or required and again, will help hybrid builds more than anything. Madness needs the most help, I'd love to see a healing debuff utility for them in that tree particularly and an "expunge" type ability similar to cull. Deception and madness both have force issues, deception however only needs some moderate help with the long term force management issues they are faced with, not more damage. I'm very happy to see the dev team making real balance changes, but please, try to retain the core game play we all love about these classes that you all created. Some of these issues merely require very small adjustments, completely overhauling sections of classes is simply not warranted.

http://i.imgur.com/ANalHLBh.jpgurl 23 medals http://i.imgur.com/D86aQDO.jpg 501k Damage/358k Protection

/signed

I've played assassin since prelaunch and still do today. That being said, unfortunately, it's not a class I'd recommend in its current state. Assassin, specifically darkness spec has a TON of utility and can round out a team as an off tank/node defender in PVP. But that's really the ONLY role they do well. For damage, yeah.. you might blow up an unguarded squishy in a non ranked game occasionally, but the truth is other classes do just about everything better and bring more utility. For pure tanking, other classes do it better, the 20% armor nerf in 2.0 hurt tremendously, especially for pvp. For damage, a mara/jug/sniper is going to be better at it... There is just little place for them. And compared to other classes in PVE the damage numbers are easier to obtain and be consistent with. Assassin has always been my favorite class and play style but overall I'm not seeing many people that are rolling them very happy with their decision.

Allow me to contribute to this thread. We downed him on NiM last night, here are the damage taken parse logs: Jug Tank: http://www.torparse.com/a/286092/38/0/Damage+Taken Assassin Tank: http://www.torparse.com/a/286086/32/0/Damage+Taken Slightly higher spikes on the Sin (about 1k higher max hit as to be expected with the heavy armor) but higher overall mitigation on the Sin. Meanwhile The sin is pushing out over 70k more self healing and brings some very nice utility to the group. Overall the difference were near negligible and the Sin tank had far from a perfect defensive cooldown usage as I was frapsing at the time and hitting some lag due to it. Either way the healers had no trouble keeping either of us up until the very end when we both died along with the boss. Would I like the devs to make us less spikey? Sure, but I'm not sold on the idea that sin isnt viable for this content in the slightest.

You actually cant taunt them before they start firing at someone. Right as they are about to touch the ground aoe taunt. you have about a second and a half forgiveness. once you get it down you'll aggro them first everytime. Interupt the one you're targeting and tank the rest, dps can just burn. Not too bad once you do it once or twice it'll become second nature.

All of the videos here are private boo, was hoping to see some of you guys in action

I'm glad for it getting an animation, well.. any animation.. but not THAT animation. It makes no sense.

just a quick search but I couldnt find anything recent about assassin tanks being "broken" in some respect. The 20% hit 2.0 certainly hurt but we seem to have managed... Do you have a link to what you were referring to with all this mathematical proof? Not being sarcastic here, serious request.

In full 72s, 39.6lk HP with optomized stat distribution for 2250 points, mending relic and fortunate redoubt relic. I'm able to tank him... barely. But no better than our jug tank to be honest. We both take huge hits, have to manage our cooldowns effectively and really get pushed hard for tanks and healers. At this point (day 1 mind you) Tanking the boss is no longer an issue for us, We have 1 jug and 2 sin tanks... The rest of the mechanics are what we're working with currently, getting him down to about 16% best attempt thus far. So it certainly is possible for us to do it, it's just a hard damn fight with no room for error and sadly I dont see getting significantly easier to tank with Kell Dragon gear, miss a defense/shield and take a 18k melee followed by a bite and that's game, same for jug tanks though. Healers have got to keep you above the 20k mark at all times. Welcome to NiM guys, best of luck to all attempting it!

I run 37 points into darkness, full DPS gear with a shield gen. 600k damage/300k protection, 20+medals, topping the damage charts etc. games are not at all uncommon. I might do a video at sometime but I generally dislike doing so as they typically are seen as epeen waving. essentially you just swap your guard as needed, taunts when they're off cd, keep throwing out wither/discharge into crowds, shock/thrash/maul as you get procs then 3stack HD lightning. Rinse/repeate/use cool downs as they're available/situationally useful. I tried the hybrid for a while with deathfield but I've personally found the hand of darkness+conspirator's cloak+wither to be much more useful as a general rule. Especially now with no instant whirwind.

typically I just throw out a knockback, cc breaker and force sprint and I'm golden. Force cloak if absolutely necessary but usually isnt. Never gotten lost twice from cloaking so I dont think it's a guarantee you'll be lost again just bad luck.

Saereth ~ Reign ~ 22 Medals http://i.imgur.com/eJr8tG1.jpg

I don't know about humbling Vastrix haha but it would be nice to face other teams for a change... Lightsage and I are eventually going to get bored of the same offnode dueling constantly