The life drain isn't too bad. I do wish our dots would heal us for a bit more. Say 15-20% instead of the current 10%. To help make going into the middle of the fight worth it. Otherwise yea, get rid of it and give us an actual dcd

Power

PvP = player vs player..

I hope it's no secret that sorcs need to get toned down. As it currently stands, there's no reason to play anything else. An amazing operative has to have a perfect game to get close to an average sorc in terms of healing and a merc isn't even in the same convo. While lightning spec is lacking, madness is still extremely strong. Strongest dots in the game with the easiest dot spread mechanic in the game all while having range makes them extremely hard to touch. Then with the recent nerf to burst specs for majority of the classes in the game, that's even more survivability for sorcs in terms of dealing with burst damage. I guess I could also mention how much easier it is to deal with energy on a sorc compared to really every other class in the game. Add a phase walk and barrier and you end up with one of if not the strongest class in terms of mobility, survivability, healing, and damage. Edit: as far as what to do balance sorcs out a bit, that would take a new thread with new ideas on how to go about it. After bioware actually acknowledges the classes needs some rework and so far, that doesn't seem to be the case. Until then, don't hold your breath

I've never fotm rerolled but if no changes to sorc happen by the start of the season it just might happen. There's no reason to play assassin when a sorc can pretty much do everything and more with 10x less the effort. As it currently stands, run sorc if you wanna win without even having to try

I hope so. I have never fotm re-rolled, but its almost at the point of why bother playing a shadow/sin. anything we can do, and sorc can do better. The utilities are also much stronger and viable depending on an individuals play style where as for our class, you really only have maybe one point you can move around... everything else in horrid.

Here's and updated 4.0 guide - http://dulfy.net/2015/10/27/swtor-4-0-deception-assassin-pvp-guide-by-krea/

A spammable dot spread might be nice in pve. However, from a pvp perspective - lacerate/whirling blow is trash because... you have to get within 5m (not easy with roots, stuns, slows, etc) and then pray your dot spread actually lands and doesn't get get parried or miss. Even then, this wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that hatred spec is one of the squishiest specs in the game (after force shroud is gone gg). Having to be so close to the middle of the fight while being one of the squishiest specs in the game with a 50/50 chance of actually getting a good dot spread off make this spec relativity difficult to play. It also doesn't help that many of the abilities that would help such as shroud and phantom step are broken.(i.e phantom step not actually teleporting and players still getting carbonized while shroud is up). For madness/hatred specs the dot spread is key and as it stands, there's no real reason to play hatred assassin when a sorc has a much better dot spread AND will never need to be in the middle of a fight to achieve it. A few things I would say would help would be... - Like most have said, make death field dot spread but just bring down the range to 5m. - Change the range of lacerate/whirling blow from 5m to 10m in order to give the spec some wiggle room and not force one of the squishiest specs in the very middle of the fight. (might be best option for both pvp/pve ?) - Give the spec some passive DR so the spec's survivability isn't so reliant on a trash dot spread or increase the healing received from dots to 15% instead of 10% to offset some of the dmg being in the very middle of the fight would bring.

Mara's, operatives, snipers and pt's all have better burst than a deception sin. Deceptions good for crowd control via 30m low slash but that's about it. On top of that, all of the classes mentioned prior with the exception of pt's have better dcd's.

your dots and phantom stride give the buff. If your dots give you the buff then you assassinate, then try to phantom step thinking you will get another proc it wont work. the effect can only happen once every 30 sec.

I like the playstyle of hatred but I don't think you will see much of it in ranked matches unless there's a healer/tank involved. With the dot spread changes, its impossible to get a decent dot spread unless you put yourself in the very middle of the fight. This wouldn't be such a bad thing except hatred is one of the squishy specs in the game. You are hoping you can geti n the middle and get a solid dot spread then get out of the mess before getting rocked. Deception's only issue was getting kited but due to the speed changes in the utilities, that might not be a problem anymore.

pvp in a nutshell

Dear god hatred.... you crit on EVERYTHING. Dots are too stronk.

Knockbacks to create number advantages for your team. This of course works better if your team has more knockbacks than the other team

It's getting to the point of why play shadow/assassin ? anything the class can do, another class can do better

If you don't have a sorc in 4.0, you're wrong. Phase walk AND barrier on the move.... who the **** thought that was a good idea. If any other classes needed a phasewalk, that would be merc's.

^ This

so I was told that there was some testing done for this, but I wanted to know has there been any progress with making target dummy's say an item on the cartel market that we can drop in our strongholds and use ?

Roll the class. Get a better understanding of what's kicking you in the teeth so when you get back on your main, you can honestly guess what is the next step which can help you prevent it. You started your Original post basically saying you don't play either class and have no clue what either or capable of in terms of cc's. Yea I'm gonna get easy sap caps on you all day if that's the case...

Deception is nice due to the on demand burst. But I personally feel the spec gets kited too much even with 30m low slash. Some people are able to make it work which is why you might see a decent amount of deception sins running around. The dot spread for hatred is complete garbage and honestly not even worth using which kinda puts the spec back to the way it was before being op where you had to tab dot.

^same

Krea has made a solid guide that includes everything you need to know for tanking from gear, utilities, and rotation. That's a good starting point. If you still have questions - then you can ask him or myself directly.

Current set bonuses are good. With the new level cap soon approaching and with that bringing a new ability - that's the only exception I would say as to why we should change the set bonus to MAYBE incorporate the new ability.

Buddy of mine made a shadow/sin guide on the class forums. He was #1 shadow in season 4 on all servers and with the combine knowledge from other top rated players, put a full in depth guide on everything related to the class including 1v1's. It's a good starting point tbh. In short, your only chance of beating a good operative will be in infiltration/deception spec. The guide goes more in depth as to why that's the case... Link here - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=811783

edit- ahhh thanks for clarification