Jump to content

Suitmonster

Members
  • Posts

    52
  • Joined

Everything posted by Suitmonster

  1. Infiltration is built around burst damage, with Low Slash to control the fight. Overwhelming a target and closing the deal quickly is how they operate. Kinetic is total opposite of that. They are about steady damage output, high durability and mobility, with an emphasis on outlasting burst damage. I wouldn't want to fight me as Infiltration, and I love fighting assassin-types as Kinetic.
  2. Shadows get Techniques which are roughly equivalent to tanking stances or paladin seal buffs from World of Warcraft. Combat Technique is for tanking, as it increases mitigation and provides a small self-heal on hit component. It also generates additional threat. You could in theory tank in a pinch with this technique up, regardless of spec, and thereby pull off a bit of a off-tank role. I don't think there is any need for an "off-tank" in SWTOR pve, though. Any Ops group that needs more than just one tank will want a dedicated tank in that role.
  3. Eh, no I can't agree with Project being viable as a Force dump. As Balance 2.0 or whatever you want to call this new way to slice it, I found that I had the Force to use pretty much whatever I wanted to use, whenever I wanted to use it. I could dump Force with Project on a single target, but even that wouldn't usually deplete me and it really didn't do enough damage to feel worth it. In Warzones, dots interrupt capturing, so I felt that I could apply a dot to another one or two targets instead of denting someone with Project and see greater benefits. Since I wasn't using Project much, I didn't see the point in investing so many points in buffing it up, but I was unaware of this discussion and I left Balance where I found it after the patch, to be honest. Kinetic is far more my style. As a side note, I'm definitely not starved for Force as Kinetic, probably due to the "regen phase" side-effect of TK Throw. Being totally out of Force in PVP is a goal for me now, and I see a half-full Force bar as wasted up-time.
  4. Fair enough. Just a difference in terminology. To me, a gap closer is anything that closes a gap intentionally created by my target to keep me out of melee range. It doesn't have to be 1 GCD. Is there a ruling authority on this of which I am unaware? The longest I am out of range of anyone is probably 2 GCD anyway. 1 to pop a CD and 1 to walk to my target.
  5. First, gap closers as I define them are anything that stops someone from keeping me at arm's length. Snares do not technically count, because it is true that if I snare him and he snares me, we're both just moving at the speed of smell, and the gap between me & my target is not closed. In this situation, my Kinetic Shadow has several options: Force Stun, close the gap by walking. Force Speed, shed the snare or root, close the gap at a sprint. Force Pull, eliminate the gap by bringing my target to me. Tenacity, shed CC and close gap by various means. Resilience, shed CC and close gap by various means. But I don't even need to close the gap to do some of my bigger hits. Sometimes I can just kill them with Project & Slow Time. This also yields stacks of Harnessed Shadows, which I will use in conjunction with Force Potency + Telekinetic Throw. I nearly always have something from these choices above available to use. Lastly, Force Speed is not on a long cool down. It is probably similar to the various "leap" abilities throughout the game, but I have not mined the ability tooltips to confirm this.
  6. All gear differences aside, you will not be 3-shotting anything as Kinetic. But no one will be three-shotting you either, again all gear differences aside.
  7. As 31/0/10, I just stay in their faces and mitigate damage/recover health at such a rate that they die before I do. Save silences & knockdowns for key interrupts and keep Telekinetic Throw on cooldown. I cannot comment on other specs, as the Kinetic Shadow has erased completely the thought of doing anything else from my mind.
  8. Something like this maybe? http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601rcrszMskcZ0MZf0cRz.1 I guess that's how I'd do it? Focus instead of shield, run Combat Technique and basically use Force in Balance instead of Slow Time, and spam Double Strike, Project and Force Breach as the main attacks? Why anyone that deeply committed to Kinetic would not take Harnessed Shadows and use Telekinetic Throw is beyond me. That one ability is so key to my survival and dps that I really would miss it. Maybe if you really really love Force in Balance, which does has a lot of utility and advantageous uses if I'm being honest. Granted, I have not tried this variant, and I might have gotten the allocation completely wrong. I'm guessing that the overall damage output will be lower than 31/0/10.
  9. I believe the set bonuses for Survivor's Gear are the only ones that truly fit Kinetic Shadows. As for what mods you use, I believe that falls to personal preference.
  10. I am doing 31/0/10 and have no complaints about the balance between damage and survivability. I do not use a shield or and all defensive stats are swapped out for offensive mods/enhancements, and I do not take Kinetic Ward. I have found that I have no trouble reaching 200k damage in a warzone, and depending on how targets present themselves, I can go over 300k total. I definitely have less damage potential hit-for-hit than other specs. Infiltration Shadows probably kill faster and hit harder, but definitely cannot stay in the fight as long as I can. When I tried out the "new" Balance spec I was impressed with the overall damage done, but did not enjoy the lack of burst. 31/0/10 is a great dueling spec too. I've found that most of the fights I win one-on-one are decided during the gravel-throwing phase of my dps rotation.
  11. Again and again I debate with myself over the usefulness of a Shield. For me, I believe that I'd rather have a Focus, even after reading all the redaction and redress that the subject has gotten in this thread. I made my judgement (again today, after another internal debate and study) based on the following: I'm only trying to play my Kinetic Shadow like a DPS with some extra crowd control, and probably a bit more hit points. I wear Survivor's gear with the Defense and Absorption mods swapped out for Crit and Surge and such. In theory, the stuff I swap out would probably make my damage lower and survivability higher. In actual fact, the damage absorbed by a Shield is pathetically low in PVP, even when augmented by various talents and abilities such as Kinetic Ward. This leads me to believe that the perceived/actual utility of Kinetic Ward is low, so I don't take it. And with Kinetic Ward gone, so go the related defensive stats. Plus the lack of Kinetic Ward means one less button to press, which means fewer calories expended by the player, which means less energy consumed, which means I am lowering my carbon footprint and reducing my contribution to the Heat Death of the Universe.
  12. Good video! This new tanking viability in pvp is great. I do miss the damage I pumped out as Infiltration, but the survival and utility I offer to a group are far more enriching. Being able to actually support my healers and dps is so much fun for me. I still get some big Project hits and TK throws, especially when modified by relics and such.
  13. Yes, wise players should consider everything that factors into their class in action. Limiting the scope of research to just math is a pitfall that can lead to sub-par results. I always approach each stat as a minimize costs, maximize benefits, but I freely admit they are me-centric critera.
  14. Right. Even if not having to press the key to refresh KW is the only benefit to me, and all other things are equal, I prefer to press less instead of more. It is a pity too, because the concept is nice, the animation is well done and the actual ability is good; it just calls upon the Shield Generator mechanic, which is useless to the point of broken in pvp. Now, if shields were reworked, or absorbed critical strikes, or if it absorbed more than just "white damage" melee swings... then I'd use it.
  15. I don't use one for PVP, nor do I take Kinetic Ward. This quote explains it more accurately than I can:
  16. AstralFire recently commented on a thread explaining why the shield mechanic is a non-starter for pvp. I'll see if I can find it and repost it here, since it is pretty much the last word for Kinetic pvp tanking.
  17. Great video! I play this way, use 31/0/10, and wear dps mods in the Survivor's Gear 4 piece. I don't think I've ever gotten the 300k damage medal in my life. I usually end up with 9+ medals though, since I'm getting guard credit and such. Around 200k damage is my neighborhood it seems.
  18. ... only to find out that Force Breach requires a DBLS. I found a cheap, level 9 moddable Electrostaff on the market and plugged in all the mods and color crystal, and equipped it. It had no color or glow whatsoever, which made me a little unhappy, but it looked like I was swinging a doubled-headed parking meter. My guild asked why I was using "most of a lamp post." I queued for a WZ with much excitement for the beatstickery I was about to enforce, until I noticed that Force Breach was greyed out. It seemed like most everything else worked, though.
  19. Just my two credits and personal opinion, but from what I've seen of the mythos and dogma of the Jedi, they don't want to kill anyone at all. They appear to only kill as a last resort, when all other options have failed, and usually in defense of oneself or an ally. A fair example would be Anakin slaying Dooku. Palpatine urges Anakin to kill him, and even after he did it Anakin said he shouldn't have done it, he should have been tried, justice, etc. Based entirely and only on the above, I feel that Force Breach should operate like a shattering of the target's will, more like a demoralization of their fighting spirit, and not physical damage to their body. I agree that the animation is horrible. But I have no idea how I might animate the breaking of someone's will, so I can't say what I'd do differently.
  20. It does bear mentioning that Force in Balance has a great utility in that it can reach out and hit people who are clicking a point around a corner, because you can position the ground-target shot accordingly. I have found this useful when I am rooted or otherwise knocked back, slowed, etc and need to tap someone off a Void Star door.
  21. The ultimate focus of my Shadow is to be a pvp tank. Because that's all I do, I have not tried any other spec in any flashpoint at all. My goal in pvp is to soak up damage meant for my allies and turn aside threats to my squishier dps and healers, to control the flow of the battle with various crowd control abilities, and to initiate fights on my terms by use of Force Pull, etc. I focus on Endurance & Willpower in the Survivor's Gear 4 piece, with Critical or Power mods replacing the defense mods from whatever I can get and in as many of the slots as possible (conversion from defense/absorption ongoing.) I do not use a Shield Generator, because I feel the benefits of current defensive stats & related mechanics are almost entirely worthless in pvp. I use the following spec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601rcrRzMskrsZZf0cM.1 I give recognition to AstralFire, who has spent many, many hours and probably a million credits testing various incarnations of the Shadow PvP tank. He recently commented on a similar spec in a thread a few days before 1.1.2, and I believe he was having a lot of success before the patch. My testing has proven that this is viable, and I am satisfied with the balance I have struck between dps output and tank-style mitigation. I can only presume AstralFire's results have been even better than my own.
  22. No, Infiltration does not use TK Throw to my knowledge... I think Force Breach is still your best nuke, with the rest of your dps coming from regular use of Project, Clairvoyant Strike and Shadow Strike when subject to the lowered-cost buff. I don't think there's much else you should be using as an Inf Shadow, aside from Kick and Low Slash. To be honest I haven't tried Infiltration since 1.1.2 and don't plan on it. Kinetic is more my wheelhouse.
  23. I really did not enjoy the changes made to the Balance tree 1.1.2. They probably are superior in Flashpoints, but since we have no way to track/parse dps (and I never, ever do Flashpoints) I cannot see it as a valid spec for me, right now. The following observations are based upon 4 piece Force gear Centurion, and a little over 400 Expertise as I am still relatively new to end-game with my Shadow. I did see a general, overall damage increase in pvp warzones, because I was liberally applying dots to everything that was in range, and had no trouble getting in range of anything that wasn't. Versus melee, I was able to kite and run while dotting, but overall did not feel that I could do my maximum because I really didn't want to be in melee with them, due to the lack of mitigation and no real punch of damage to get them into Spinning Strike range... thus, no Force Strike procs, and a relative lack of survival against them toe-to-toe. Assassin-types did not seem to have much difficulty in killing me and I had to use a significant amount of ohshi- buttons to get away. I did not have good survivability versus other ranged (and I say "other" because I really think this spec is not melee anymore), as they suffer no drawbacks from me closing with them to melee, and I gain no real burst to threaten them by being closer than 4m. My damage over time was much more noticeable against softer targets. TL;DR - I felt like a kitten that had managed to pin a hawk. Now that I have it where I want it, what am I going to do with it? My experiments with this revamped spec resulted in mixed success and your mileage may vary, but going back to 31/0/10 after working with Balance was like realizing that I had no weapon equipped after several losing fights.
  24. In a 31/0/10 spec of Kinetic Shadow, Harnessed Shadows is usually taken and justifies use of TK Throw on a regular, religious and orgiastic basis.
  25. I ran a Kinetic Balance hybrid until 1.1.2 when Slow Time was improved. The substantial damage increase and the fact that it now generates a stack of Harnessed Shadows made it superior to Force in Balance in my eyes. Also, Slow Time is a targeted ability, which affects the target + area around it. Force in Balance is a longer range, ground-targeted ability, which may affect no one if they run away before you land it. The healing generated by Force in Balance hits was scaled back in 1.1.2, and those heals can no longer crit, which merits mention as well. The ultimate focus of my Shadow is to be a pvp tank. Because that's all I do, I have not tried any other spec in any flashpoint at all. My goal in pvp is to soak up damage meant for my allies and turn aside threats to my squishier dps and healers, to control the flow of the battle with various crowd control abilities, and to initiate fights on my terms by use of Force Pull. I focus on Endurance & Willpower in the Survivor's Gear 4 piece, with Critical or Power mods replacing the defense mods from whatever I can get and in as many of the slots as possible (conversion from defense/absorption ongoing.) I do not use a Shield Generator, because I feel the benefits of current defensive stats & related mechanics are almost entirely worthless in pvp. I use the following spec: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601rcrRzMskrsZZf0cM.1 I give recognition to AstralFire, who has spent many, many hours and probably a million credits testing various incarnations of the Shadow PvP tank. He recently commented on a similar spec in a thread a few days before 1.1.2, and I believe he was having a lot of success before the patch. My testing has proven that this is viable, and I am satisfied with the balance I have struck between dps output and tank-style mitigation. I can only presume AstralFire's results have been even better than my own.
×
×
  • Create New...