I'd like to hear the reason for not having Shadowly Veil. I know I know, it's almost the less used talent in the whole skill tree, but if you want to be in the fringe that 30% more armor could help, couldn't it?

I had the same issues when going infiltration, but after looking a whil here in the class forums, I realized that my gamestyle was wrong. I dunnow how you confront your pulls, but as long as I know, the Infiltration Shadow should use ALL its CC tricks. Start with a kick, full rotation, low dash, take distance to take a breath, force cloak kick rotation, stun, take a breath with this 4 secs, rotation again. I wouldn't be afraid of using all my CD in every strong fight. As I said, this is not my style (I'm more a Kinetic Shadow: run into them, AoE, DS, DS, Project, DS, project, AoE, DS, DS, Project TT), but sure the (few) infiltration players here could give you an advice.

This is something that bothers me. When I was kinetic balance hybrid and have the instant lift I ocasionally used in PvE as a interrupt/CC to give me some break during a though battle, but I can remember a single time I oculd break the effect. The mob (usually an elite) stayed hovering while I tried to break the CC but couldn't. So basically I have 2 skill points that makes lift instant, but never stunned nobody because never broke.

For a Sage, it has its duration extended to a full minute, which makes it a pretty amazing CC skill to face groups. For a Balance Shadow/Sage, it can be instant, so it can be used as a second stun/interrupt/CC against players or mobs. As a Shadow I'd never use it unless you have those skill points.

I miss the chance of "jumping into Combat Stance" when during a flash/operation a tank goes down and I need to pick a mob before it starts a killing spree.

I recall reading somewhere that Alacrity could be modifiyin the frecuence between tick on the DoT skills. Anyone can refute that?

Sumarizing: Willpower should be your first stat as it gives you "all". Power is good as it gives you raw damage. If you have some auto-crit mechanics (Particle Acceleration), then I'd go Surge all the way. If you don't, I think the common numbers are ~30 Crit ~75 Surge. Endurance...it will come naturally as every mod you get will have endurance. If you go DPS, you should take the willpower>endurance ones.

I finished with a good bunch of DS points (but being Light IV) and never seen what you said.

I disagree there. There is usually a second downtime for fixing the recent patch that could easely be 4 hours long. That is 16 hours more per month. Also is not "just" a money issue...is the feeling that you have payed for a game that you cannot play when you wanted it and have more downtimes that should have. BW could give the players some extra time; this would make great improvements in the way players see BW (right now there are some people that has lost all faith in this company). Don't forget maths are a double edged blade: if the downtime is so "cheap", why don't they refund us?

I'm not the best and most experienced MMO player here but I do have some experience in my pockets. I played a lot of MMO in the last ten years and most of them by 2-3 months. This is the first game I've seen where a patch is applied in schedule and couple of days after servers go down for an emergency patch to fix something that has been broken due the recent patch. I find this quite...surprising. And fairly unacceptable. I mean, the Test Center is there for a reason. I'd prefer the patches to be delayed one or two weeks if that leads to a better testing. There's is little need for rushing such things and, imho, you give worse impresion patching the patches than patching things later. That said, I'm not leaving this game. I like it, I really do, and I expect to be here for a long while. But his kind of behaviour makes the fringe players to leave and creates a bad image of the game that makes new players be reluctant of enter. Honestly, I'm having a hard time convincing my friends to be in this game when they see all the "emergency maintenance".

Imho, Kinetic Shadows are better team-players; Infiltration shadows are better "tools". Play what you like the most as both are good. I tried both and I choosed Kinetic, but Infiltration is calling me like the dark side of the force...

While true, I think your opinion may be a bit radical I'm leveling aa Knight and a Trooper. Knights feels more epic, Trooper is "like-da-movies" story (nice). Consul is good, I really liked it. But be warned: there is more plot, history and philosophy tha raw action.

my fault, I fast-reat your post and thought you were talking about actual talents anyway, you'll find skilled shadows here that would tell you you don't need a teleport if you know how to use your kick, slow, sprint, stun, vanish, kick, low dash, slow, etc. Also, last time I tried Infl spec Shadowstrike position check work so good that I needed to be side to side instead of behind. For me, I rarely see them running away: either I'm dead or they think they're gonna kill me (fools! bwa ha ha).

You know something funny? Techinques also require a double-bladed lightsaber. You may equip and maintain your techinque but won't switch to a new one.

If you're talking about Force Pull, I won't call it a teleport strike...it's more like "you won't get away that easely" or "come over here, my friend want to kill you during my GCD". I could never used to finish someone with a melee strike by myself (another good reason to use FiB ^^).

You could use a companion on Ilum...before...

Never forget to take two pills of Force Breach.

My choice is for FiB. I tried ST and, while it helps you build your Harnessed shadows for better TT, I prefer the 30 meters FiB offers me. In pvp TT is something I use only whe Force Potency is up and I chained 3 projects. The rest of the time...Double Strike and project are my mine attacks, FiB when facing multiple objectives or need ranged punch (which is quite oftne due the amount of sprinters in my server)

This. While I like Nadia, I recently started a female Knight and I regret picking my gender the second I met Kira.

Perosnally, I would prefer Nadi to be a Sage than a Shadow. Lore-wise, she is supposed to be strong in the Force, and a brand new padawan using a double-bladed lightsaber (they say it's the hardest style to learn and master) is a bit weird for me. And I think she would be more handy for every Sage/Shadow to be a dps/healer Force user. Also I'd like to see other healers apart from smuglers (aka medium armor pistol gun handlers that go with Cunning, except from Elara, who is a heavy armor pistol gun handler that go with Aim).

I was going ro post it in the shadow sub-forum, but due the fact that we're talking about the shared tree I was aiming for Sage's advices too. Ok, I miscalculated on the healing. But, hey, are you sure THAT was all you had to say? ¬¬

I leveled my Shadow til Tatooine with a Balance spec (but going with combat stance), then switched to Kinetic 23/0/18 all the way to 50. With 1.1.2 putting some love in Balance, I want to give it a try, but there are some skills that troubles me. I'd like to hear the advices/opinions of the other fellow shadows and sages that tried that tree, as well as discussing if the modifications that 1.1.2 introduces are worth. The whole Focused Insight mechanic. Right now I have ~30% crit ~76% surge. Do the self healing make the cut? I know it won't heal myself the whole bar in mid combat but I want to know if it really helps me staying alive, maybe switching companion to a DPS/tank and leave Tharan at bay. Also Psychic Absortion now will double the healing of FoB and Crits. Let's say, if I have 10k of health, a FiB and each crit of my DoT's will heal me by 2k? that sounds good. Twin Disciples. 10% of bonus damage. I don't know the scale of bonus damage for shadows, can anyone explain this? Force Strike. Is just one point that helps increaseing our DPS. Usefull in PvE bosses, not so usefull in PvP methinks. Technique Mastery. Right now increases the crit and the duration. Now instead of duration it will increase the damage, but maintain the crit bonus? Force Focus now will reduce the CD of Force Breach while in Force Technique. We do not know by how much, but Security Breach also reduces the CD. Force Breach now deals the same damage (1.2k aprox at lvl 50 IIRC), but now it does some instant damage. If we pile all the CD reductions we may be seeing the new "spammable instant DoT force burner skill". This reminds me so much of WoW's Moonfire After all this, I came up with a Balance build with some Infiltration grasp: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#6010cZG0MZfMforMkrfz.1 I don't know if Shadowy Veil is worth of, but I think a 30% armor can help us being less squishy. Also it seems like Force Breach will be our new go-for-it tool so having low CD will be good in PvP.

Bump to actually discuss 1.1.2 Does anyone know if Force Potecy and Particle Acceleration finally works properly? I've tried a lot but didn't noticed any improvement...

I'm fine with FiB. If it were chaged to be a targeted AoE I'd be fine either. What I do not like about Balance: Sever Force should takes too long to finish. I'd prefer to be 9-10 secs DoT. Force Supression should affect other Force DoT's. Telekinetic Throw should trigger Focused Insight Lack of some survival skill in the tree. As it is now, for a shadow, feels like a wannabe sage.

I see your point, I'll try to make you see mine. What I intend to defend is the liberty of choosing not to reach the top tier skill of your tree in order to gain some mid-tree utilities. Of course I'm not asking to be optimal or better in every aspect of a full spec'ed character, but I do like having the option. I'll respec to 33 kinetic or balance now, but I do not feel confortable being "forced" to change because the trees won't synergize any longer (or will have worse synergy). I said "stupid" because...what's the point in having 3 different trees if you will be able to only "use" (not fullfil or complete) one at a time?