It's very simple... If you see some1 complaining about PvP you can scroll down there is nothing to see. They are PvPers playing other classes and just heard what some Shadows do on PvE (OFC always 3rd hand experience). They even ignore why Shadows need a nerf on PvP on 1.3... Probably because they still haven't bothered to check their own chars after the nerfs on Biochem + Relics... Wait until they do. They simply do not care about the section of the game damaged by this changes... PvE. So just let them vent and keep on testing... It's old as oaks, a PvP justified nerf (for 1.3 new environment, I repeat) that "leaks" to PvE in an unpleasant way.

Shadow Tanks will be the tail on Demanding Content after 1.3: - Worst Enrage tanks due to worst CDs. - Worst tanks against Physical damage... Self healing works in rates, you can't expect to remove 50% of it (On BOTH components) then go to a tight situation were self-healing is enough to tilt the balance and expect the performance of the class to remain "competitive". - Guardian BLADE BARRIER now scales with gear... I'm still awaiting to get the final numbers on this and how it interacts with the set bonus... This is self healing (And effective one at it... Not just mainly overhealing as the basic CT is triggering on those parsers so popular this days). With the CURRENT nerf on 1.3 Shadow tanks, an OPTIMAL self healing cycle is already close to the Blade Barrier output we have NOW. You don't even need complex math to realize what the options for competitive PvE will be, just match the advantages/disadvantages one by one (We still get the edge on pure power using encounters... Although... But they aren't common enough to warrant a systematic underperformance on the others). Don't get the wrong impression PvE impact is just the "collateral casualty" of the needed nerf on PvP self healing (Why you think they operate on Armor and Self-healing and not Shield/Absorption?) because on 1.3 they are nerfing, again, PvP burst capabilities on all DPSers... Which is always an indirect buff to high mitigation targets able to self-heal. That's why we will not see changes... They may react later when Shadow tanks dissapear slowly from competitive Guild rosters.

The animation shown on the short clip is used on plenty of mobs & bosses that wield Dsabers & Techstaves. It's a 3s Channel that does 360º melee damage (On most bosses is usually a deadly attack) ticking 3 times over its duration. On all mobs that aren't immune to interrupt it can be interrupted as any regular channel. AOE should never be something usefull to add to Shadows (And rooting AOE even less... And thinking every class & build should be "AOE rdy" is a VERY worrysome thought coupled with the imminent introduction of an automatic Dungeon Finder)... So unless it comes with some Synergies on each Skill Tree (extra defense for kinetic while channelling, extra single target procs for Infil and multitarget extra DoTs for Balance)... It will remain a fancy movement to showoff, I'm afraid.

A small fast dirty check seems to suggest that FW is working at least on the basics (It does something ). Target: Operation Training Dummy (Private Ship one). Theoretical 35% mitigation. SS tooltip: 2050 - 2341 SS observed range: 1339 - 1520 SS + FW observed range: 1616 - 1840 The ranges are observed maximum & minimum of non crited hits (To not have to bother correcting surge, etc). EDIT: The build used is this one http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601MZhRrRkhMrtzZf0c.1 So the only source of Penetration for SS is FW.

The last check I did of the proc was right after 1.2 hitted (It worked normally)... A lot has rained on us since then. With the above said... You need to use a better target. Go for a Heavy Armor "dummy" were the difference is more noticeable and then you need to understand how the armor curve works because ignoring 50% of the armor is not equal to do 50% damage more... Not even close. I wish I had kept the detailed numbers of the post 1.2 tests... But here goes the methodology and some rough aproximation of what I remember the values were (Rough in this case is VERY ROUGH ... My memory sucks): - First of all here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=4230212&postcount=17 You will find a decent explanation direcly made by a Dev on how Armor "Ignore" & "Penetration" should work and in reality they are the same and stack additively. - My dummy was a JK. I asked him to remove the Shield. Note down the reduction coming from armor (was something around 42%). Notice that REAL reduction includes also all kind of passive "damage reduced by X%", those AREN'T affected by armor ignore/penetration but doesn't matter for as long as you operate in relative damage applied. - I asked him to remove armor until his armor rating was reduced by 50%. We managed to get close to the target but was lower... I think was something like 52% reduction. Take a note on how much the armor reduction was (In our case was around 30%. Notice that total reduction is higher due to the static damage reductions). - Then we proceed to the long part... Which was to do series of Shadow Strikes with and without FW on. I wonder how you managed to get exactly the same numbers on both of your tests, as the main difficulty we found (and on our case we were "trying to detect" a difference of 20% on damage received) is that the damage range on SS is so high that it's hard to figure the "average" unless you do long tests. - With patience we saw that the difference in averages was close to the expected above behaviour. - Later we did a minimum hit analysis (by adding a 0 armor test) and we discovered that the tooltip of SS was accurate to the rounding limit. When we "trusted" SS tooltip and checked minimum and maximum values at different armor levels it confirmed that the 50% armor ignore was applied correctly. If I have the time I will recheck it... But "on the field", at least against PvE OP mobs (35% mitigation) I haven't detected any recent anomaly... But I repeat that there has been a bunch of patches around.

Well... It's not a serious thread but I will provide you a few numbers (using ACT as parser). All the numbers include full OP buffs (and blue quality willpower stim). I have multiple sets of dps records at different gear levels (The build is 2/31/8, which, ofc guarantees a high degree of randomness). - Rakata + BH OH. Dummy. Average 1290. Best: 1350. T&Z. Average: 1095. Best: 1125. - BH + Campaign (Only lacking 3 upgrades Chest, Legs & Saber). Dummy. Average 1395. Best: 1476. T&Z. Average: 1167. Best: 1297. F&S. Average: 1205. Best: 1311. As you want just top parses I just added EC fights were interruptions are easier to deal with... For example on my current gear (The 2nd one) my readouts on EC last Boss kills are: Average: 980. Best: 1103 (The "best" DPS is in fact a wipe right after killing the walker... Which is just another clue on what happens with fights with extended periods of innactivity, with radical distances to travel and/or AOE phases). EDIT: Oh forgot... All dummy parsers are 6m in length (aka 3 "uses" of a 2m power relic... And all end right at the moment the relic gets out of CD).

Here: http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=4391900&postcount=14 Are a few tips on Infil Shadow DPS build for OPs (Including Gearing approach... Which is slightly different on what you need for Balance, for example). Why it's hard to find a "best" Build: - ALL EC fights enrage timers are beaten by single target DPS. AOE dps is nice to add some "boosts" to your average parser readouts but aren't effective to help your team beat the mark. Spend some time with a good parser to know who does what damage to what targets... Helps clearing up a few "myths" that parsers that pile up everything help create. - Some EC fights include a burst Phase. Average DPS is not as imporant as to be able to apply controllable BURSTs on given parts of a fight. Infiltration has a vast advantage over Balance here. For example, the last boss encounter on EC is HIGHLY misleading if you use an average parser readout blindly. The real DPS bottlenecks there are the Walker Vulnerability Periods (20s bursts) and the Bombardier Kill Time... While doing AOE or multitarget is not particularly effective, even if they make some builds "score high". Something similar happens on Minesweeper combat. - Dummy Parsers have a problem... Dummies DO NOT parry/dodge. That means the results of 2 weapon wielder classes is artificially boosted against them. Also, having low Accuracy is not penalized as much as in EC (Were mobs have a natural 10% defense) meaning the DPS you do against them will not match on-the-field performance (Particularly affecting classes that have attacks and powers mixed). They are good to meassure the evolution of the same build at different gear levels/attack strategies (With the remarkable comment about Accuracy) but comparing DIFFERENT builds/classes on them is not reliable at all. - ALL EC fights come with small interruptions for any Shadow Build. The strategies you use to deal with this interruptions with your chosen build are the key (And they are totally different)... And staying hours spamming perfect rotations on a dummy will not help you at all.

You had to relay on direct Rakata ENH drops from HM/NM EV/KP to get the low END versions which are a pain to get because they drop once or twice per week. As an emergency procedure to deal with OverACC or high END Rakata ENH, I used some of the good low END Columi ones... But they were a temporal solution while waiting for the "good" rakata ones. But currently, BH gear is your way to go and you can gear yourself decently up to only needing 3 Campaign Pieces (And just for their Armorings). Legs, Chest and the Belt (If you are using an adecuately crafted augmented bracer + belt... Which are better than Rakata Stock ones). Notice that due to the crapstatick nature of Consular BH Mk1 Implants (You can get Mk2+ versions of Implants & Earpices as direct drops from Last EC SM Boss and from most EC HM Bosses... But the variety is high so the chances are low to get the good ones for a Shadow... But they are there, it's a matter of luck)... You have to decide what to do with Accuracy. There are different options, in my case I chose to use my Rakata Implants & BH Earpiece which forced me to use 3 ENH on armor/saber dedicated to ACC. Earpiece: http://db.darthhater.com/items/55293/black_hole_strikers_mk_1_chip/ In any case, go for BH Striker Gloves & Boots as your source of MOD (They are perfect as you can control accurately how much crit you want to have) & ENH. Gloves: http://db.darthhater.com/items/46017/black_hole_strikers_mk_1_handwraps/ Feet: http://db.darthhater.com/items/45338/black_hole_strikers_mk_1_boots/ Then for the head go for the BH Force-Lord one, its ENH is a rarity... Too bad you can't afford to have more than one due to all the other requirements you need. Head: http://db.darthhater.com/items/48447/black_hole_force_lords_mk_1_headgear/ Notice this is possible because I'm dumping BH armorings into Rakata (The main guide of this process was as simple as "Remove all the crap tanking armorings"... The rest just follows, tbh) gear to keep the Set Bonus while giving me total freedom on how to configure my stats... The only anoying thing is that you can only keep 1 orange augmented piece until you get your next Campaign (That you should always move to an orange augmented container). The cost of all this swaps is taxing, btw... On 1.3 things should be more manageable, I hope. EDIT: Sorry, forgot to clarify one thing about BH Commendation use... Don't get distracted by all the Tweaking Mumbo Jumbo... Your FIRST goal is to get BH Striker Generator for DPS. Generator: http://db.darthhater.com/items/50283/black_hole_strikers_mk_1_generator/ It will be a "shock" to balance the extra Surge coming from Full Rakata, but it's really worth the effort... The other Generators are utter crap so 1st get this basic building foundation and later tweak your Rakata Gear/BH/Campaign taking into account this 1st piece. EDIT2: My item descriptions suck... Looking to add links to item DB to avoid any confusion. EDIT3: Item DB links added.

Returning to ppl concerned about Artifice: It's the "copy" paradigm they introduced on 1.2... Notice that this time, at least, it works on High-End Enhancements (BH Shields aren't RE-able)... Still awaiting to personally check if a Campaign OH is RE-able, but it will be very hard to convince my Gm8s to waste an OH on me as my AC best OH is the BH one and 1.3 will affect them in a similar way as Relics. ATM it's expected you to roll those dices each time. I'm also a Raider that has to perform, so I had to secure 1st the best possible DPS gear for EC HM, which, invariably delayed (Delay that seems wasn't that bad... Because it cut down my "loss", seems) my "progress" on High End Recipes as I had to put all Commendations to "basic" real gear. So far I have "tossed" 600 daily commendations on the Campaign Power Relic... No luck so far but, obviously, after realizing what the plans are for 1.3... Well, lets just say that I'm focusing now dumping my BH commendations (Also delayed as Campaing Gear is basically crap for my AC if I do not get certain BH pieces multiple times) into getting Enh recipes (Campaign gear as a source of Enh worthy to sell is still far away as the change in the token class range basically makes very hard for a drop to go "deserted"). Don't take me wrong... I like the RE system... Far far better than the standard "recipe hunt". The problem is that the peak of that system, IMO, that were the entry recipes for fresh L50 characters, (Were crafters were the ONLY sources of the variants to some slots... In our case, Shields/Focus/Generators) has been "deprecated" in a single stroke, after 1.2, with the new Tier of gear. I consider it the "peak" because even if chance was involved... The speed at which you could get the recipes was influenced by how much materials you dumped into the process... Everything was into the crafter loop (Made sense to call it "research" to put it in other words).

Oh, the next reply is obvious... To you I don't need to add anything else. You own comments confirm what I suspected, you are just a PvP reroller "holder of truth". It's what happens when some1 repeteadly claims he is able to do this or that and is not able to provide details... Happens when you just copy cliches you read somewhere else, you have no clue how is done that's why you have to resort to generalized comments. The problem is that I take the time to read with attention ALL posts addressed at me. When you do that and think on the reassonings ppl use and make some numbers, you start to get some "inconsistencies". For example, the Color Crystal Sellers and their claims. Why do you think I added specific numbers on earnings on an specific item? Because it's immediatly followed by some1 bragging about numbers they cannot prove on another type of item or the always handy "L2P issues" comments... ...I can't neither but they are just a trap to catch ppl that has no interest on the craft and are just the local Forum Fauna... Or the 1st thing they would have asked is... "Which is the population of your server?"... Which, any1 remotely dedicated to crafting on MMOs, knows precissely is the main factor affecting Vanity items prices and any absolute gains rate on any item. It's even more obvious when the same person keeps on talking about an old paradigm and continue bragging "Campaign relic sold for 2.5m"... He obviously is not realizing what the reasson of this thread is... Doesn't matter for how much you claim you "saw" something sold... After 1.3 you will not be able to even "claim" things as that... Because it will be impossible to appear "belieavable" to the casual reader... This means that person is just worried about bragging and haven't paid attention to what Artificers have in front... Tell me, can you believe the level of dedication of some1 farming the Magenta Crystals (He also seems to not realize how most dedicated Artificer had to get the Magenta recipes BEFORE 1.2 hitted... He thinks the "actual" approch is cumbersome ) matches the lack of awareness on why bringing the cost of any Augmented Relic Sold now is pointless after 1.3? See? The problem is that forums are full of ppl interested on creating noise that force ppl looking to share ideas to create traps so they are distracted by them so you can keep on talking about the real issues we will have in front in no time... ...So I repeat, again, if you are not interested on a certain Game Feature and how it's developed, you will not be missed by those that do.

Sigh... It's always lovely seeing Mr Obvious coming to the rescue. Remember to apply exactly the same logic each time you find an anoyance on: - Your quests. - Your current build. - Your current character. - Your current MMO. Mmm now that I think... Lets just have 1 crafting skill, 1 quest, 1 build and 1 class... ...Balance problems solved in one smart move... Come on! I solved all MMO problems with this smart solution!!! Can't wait to get rich selling this to every1... Oh... ...Wait... Will you pay for playing something like that? On a less mocking tone... ...Skiping a problem doesn't fix it... Just makes the associated path dissapear, that unless you haven't realized is what this thread is about... Artificer extinction, which, ofc, your "solution" will hasten. Really, if you do not care about an aspect of a game... Just let ppl concerned about it discuss it... Threads will be much cleaner without "smart ideas" as yours. EDIT: I hate when ppl do not read my whole posts so I can't do the same... Sadly I forgot to highlight this I know that you have no clue on what makes you a good crafter in this game because you seem to ignore the ammount of time/resources needed to rebuild the average suit of products you have got exclusively by REing (Specially if you have always aimed at providing demanded products at a wide range of levels).... You just show the profile of the early PvPers that rolled Biochem for the Rakata Consumables that later rolled Armormech for the easy mode PvP orange recipes... Obviously your target was never to get involved into the Economy, just to boost a single character by self-crafting following the current FOTM recipe.

I don't know your server... But I think I was one of the few to go over the mark of 1M credits earned by selling augmented sabers in the 3 days after 1.2 landed the Community took to realize the new recipes were the easiest to get non-vendor recipes on the whole game. 1 week later all models of sabers were sold at around 57k, nowadays you sell one at 50k price (The last one I sold took me 5 days to sell it... And there is not much comptence left on my server... At least on Rep Side. I could talk plenty about the effects of easy Faction Mail item transfer on servers with a huge asymetry on faction population... But that's a generalized effect to all crafts and as such do not belong to this thread). Which is really not even worth the effort to gather the materials you need to make them (I average 7 sabers per augmented one, which, according to Dev info, is even a "lucky" average). You simply get more money during the dailies if you go for the elegant ones and if you go for the custom ones (Assuming your main source of materials are missions, not direct gathering) which are the real profit now... They will be disabled automatically when, on 1.3, your crits will yield craptastick Mk2 Augment slots. That "secret" is barely innovative... Happens when a certain craft dies and there are only a few crafters around to satisfy the highly unreliable alt demand. You can do this because GTN fees aren't spent, because I guess each of your batches takes like 2 or 3 attempts to sell. Wait until BW finnally decide to make a decent GTN system were Fees are not reimbursed back after the selling period is due (The proof of how low the crafting market is compared to the ammount of active players is precissely that they have managed to survive this long without this feature on... Which is basic to protect your Auctioning system from careless flood of offers at ridiculous prices or with tiny ammounts). On top of the above... You know that your craft sucks when you can't supply anything usefull for top level players, and are forced to low level trading (That, I repeat, is only profitable when you wait for your craft to die)... It's a generalized effect on most crafts on TOR, don't take me wrong... But there is a difference between having a reduced set of effective products for top level players to have exactly 0 to offer them. I hope that you both, optimistic crafters, at least realize the absurd situation that even "self crafting" will be replaced by Vendor purchase immediatly followed by Augment Kit coming from other crafts... Which is, well, I don't know how to describe it because it's a new situation for me on a MMO... ...That a product your craft covers is suddenly cheaper & faster aquired directly through a vendor and then boosted by another crafter... Kicking the original crafter out of the loop (I'm ofc talking about 100% reliable gearing approaches... Chance based items can replace whatever the Dev wants with an easily controllable effect on the desireability of crafted gear).

On top of our current situation and the "fiasco" of 1.2 I just read this: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=4405935#edit4405935 After I read it, as an Artificer from day-0, I can't but wonder for how long SWTOR Devs think they can delay saying what, each day that passes and each decission they take makes more and more obvious, Artificer is going to dissapear as an economical activity. After all the long paragraphs the only message I can extract is the following: Wait longer Continuing with the trend started at 1.2, 1.3 will be all around Augmented Gear, this time they have added a more reassonable setup to have an economical reasson to craft High Tiered gear and, again, they decide to systematically put Artificers at a disadvantage. Don't get me wrong, this post is a rant... It's really hard to swallow a "Wait longer" when you check, again, how there is a conscious effort by the Devs to make Artificers obsolete (This started, ofc, at the moment they removed Color Crystals as an effective slot under the control of Artificers). It's very simple to realize if you know, at the moment of writing this, Artificer & Cybertech are the ONLY crafts were obtaining a bonus to Critical is impossible. Doesn't matter the faction/companion or Droid package you buy. We are the crafts with less chances to obtain an augment slot. But here doesn't end the details, after 1.3, as Artificer will be totally left out of the Augment Kit system, we will basically be the WORSE craft to try to get an augmented slot. As I like to pinpoint problems using simple examples I will do 2 questions... Here goes one after 1.3 hits live, as an Artificer yourself, interested in high end gear: 1) Which shall be the fastest/more economical way to get a BiS Relic? 2a) If you remove Artificer from the game after 1.3... Which are the items NO PLAYER could ever get (Including Augmented versions)? 2b) From those items... Which ones can be replaced by others with the same stats but different looks? After you think enough you may answer in the following way: 1) Buy from vendor just once, buy an Augment Kit from other crafter. 2a) Specific Color Crystals, Specific Sabers. 2b) All, and directly from a Vendor. (Notice that due to how RE works with the new gear... The "unique versions" crafters could provide at entry level by spending gathered materials has been turned into a simple copy approach with the chance of having Augmented Versions of the "copy", all of this by burning materials you need ENTIRE TEAMS to get in a reallistic way) So seems that Devs ask for patience while their calculated decissions basically aim at removing Artificer from the game... One step at a time. I wonder if any of them realize that for some paying custommers, been able to get involved into the economy in an effective way is a good reasson to keep waiting while content comes to other sections of the game... Maybe on their "metrics" Artificers aren't scoring high enough for them to bother... And I wonder if they wonder why there are so few of us around. For those around with a bit more background on this "Long Term plans for crafting skills" mean on a MMO... Any1 remember Architects on AoC? (Guess who was one that was "waiting" until I cancelled my sub keeping the "soon-to-be-improved" crafting skill maxed and up-to-date over the close to 2years I spent there?). EDIT: Notice that the solution to the "reasson" used to deny Artificers access to Augment Kits is painfully obvious... Something that I was thinking it was part of the new system and that, apparently, it's not.

Too much theory and lack of practice imo... If you had extensive experience on PvE seeing and playing tanks you would know the following: - Shadows are the best against Power based bosses. There are plenty and there are very important Bosses were we have the edge. The problem is that "best" in this case is not spectacular. NOBODY is a good tank against power bosses... Shadows are "better" because of Resilience and Self Healing but any tank will take a hard beating on this bosses... Shadows are just the "lesser evil" . Shadow are the best AOE threat generators... But they are the worse AOE tanks against non-power using trash (ie most of it). - Guardians are the best Enrage tanks. Their Panic buttons eat alive all the others, even against power based bosses. That's why healers find difficult to heal Shadows... A Shadow is the WORST tank against an Enraged Boss (Or a Boss that have an "Enrage Phase") because our Panic buttons are attack type sensitive and, against Physical Bosses (The vast mayority of Enraging ones) our panic button is Chance based... Meaning we can't avoid reliabily one-shots. Guardian threat generation is the worse of all... And close to non existant on the AOE department (This soon may change according to 1.3 FAQ... Not clear if by a boost to this class or by applying nerf on the other 2). - Vanguards are a middle ground. They are decent Enrage tanks, decent AOE threat generators, the best Single Target threat generators and the best at AOE trash tanking. Their key specialty is that, as they can generate some threat at distance, they have more freedom on how to possition themselves vs Boss vs rest of the team which, sometimes, can ease A LOT certain encounters. So, the way I see it, the 3 tanks have their strong points and, due to the high variation on PvE Encounters you have to change the tank you use if you are after the most optimum configuration, which is a good symthom... ...In PvP, sadly, Shadow Tanks are reliant on a single skill... Harnessed Shadow boosted TK Throw... As with all 1 skill Wonders, their fate is linked to changes on it and the "effective performance" is linked to the fact of how good your opponent is at neglecting this key advantage (which is very easy to do... If you plan in advance how you use your CC instead of, like most PvPers, just follow the same attack sequence doesn't matter what enemy you have in front... Which is what most PvPers claim they do on forums but that, ofc, you rarely find on WZs later.).

It's not... It's the same when you are on a party. If you cloak too soon... Some1 will make you stay in combat that's all. FC it's a personal power and as such works very well on you... It's the ppl (or companions) you play with that may screw your attempts. Maybe it's that I have played too many MMOs were this kind of "instant OOC" mechanics are really bugged while used alone... The best example I remember was from my times on WoW (A rogue there)... I think that were 3 years constantly reading "Fixed Vanish to work as intended" periodically on patch notes, to later OFC, get a laugh or 2 by checking how it kept on failing over and over to the point that you could never trust to use it unless you were out of range of everyone because of the bad bugs WoW engine got regarding cause and effect sequentiality. And were it's said that FC has to be the perfect I-win button? If you don't reserve your cleansers to escape... Why you would be able? It's like on PvP... Every defense should have a counter... Typically DoTs are a counter to restealthing, makes sense and you have the tool to deal with this (In less CD than FC itself). Yes... Certainly it should be (And in fact it's implemented Server-side most likely... As, in TOR, I have never had the problems with proyectiles still on the air that were behind most complains about WoW's Vanish, for example). The problem comes with the "creative" use of full immunity periods... There is simply too many ways to exploit them on PvE giving the class an unintended level of survivality. Notice that some players think we may need more survivality... But not because of having to "fix" a power... Has to be a deliberate decission to provide us with better survival tools, not just an "accident" some players use to make the class outperform on given situations. Here is were I disagree... FC works most of the time to get yourself out of combat. You just need to be carefull on groups and with specific mechanics to know when and how to use it... Not expecting it to become the ultimate panic button that will save your butt under all circumstances.

It's not bugged... ...Are the DoTs you leave or the ones put on your Companion (That you can't dispel) (I'm assuming that you use Resilience when in doubt on yourself to clean up). If you think you aren't puting DoTs on enemies... Then check if your companion do: - Tharan has an anoying DoT place there for the only purpose to torture us to prevent FC from working and break Low Slash early. Disable it, the only thing you will miss is... The headaches. - Nadia dps stance leaves a DoT behind, same with Zenith. - Companion channel/charge up attacks, if you FC while an NPC is channeling/charging up an attack there is a chance that he remains in Combat, that in turn, will make you. The best examples are Tharan's Holiday CC & Nadia's Eruption. Sometimes Qyzen's AOE taunt has the same effect... But I swear it's an instant skill, must be the animation. Solution: Put your NPC on passive before FC (This happens rarely... So you can live with this... DoT pressence is far more common). - There aren't many of those but there are DoTs that can't be dispeled by Resi.

Didn't want to make the initial Tip post longer than necesary but now that you bring the "hot topic" I think I can ellaborate a bit. We have 3 skills with inherent bonus to cri damage (SS: 30%, FB & PR: 50%) this reasson is already a bias factor towards crit chance but... ...Keeping Force Synergy up is an even more important factor. The highest contribution to FS uptime comes from Shadow Technique proc crits and here your basic crit chance is what matters... If you do not meet the 40% figure it's highly likely your FS fades away on a regular steady sequence (It's another reasson on why you have to interlace Saber Strikes they way I mentioned... To control "FW drift" and to be sure you are also maximizing ST procs... There is a world of a difference between the combined chances to trigger a ST proc of single hits like FB/SS compared to Saber, on top of been able to trigger double procs to "speed up" Exit Strategies to increase the likehood of a a 5/5 FB. I still consider it a bug... But has been on for so long that you really have to count with it ). If you let your Force Synergy go down... The bigger looser is Shadow Strike, your 2nd most efficient attack and one of the "Hard Hitters" on crits (Also, proportionally speaking, Clarvoyant Strike is your TOP dps source, even on steady fights... So degrading FS uptime also takes away a part of your global DPS). EDIT: Forgot to mention... When I speak about crit chance I'm speaking about melee crit chance (The "default" stat our character sheet show... Your force power crit chance is usually 1% lower, depending on how much datacrons you have gathered). I always wondered why our UIs do not save the stat tabs we choose, tbh. EDIT2: Never really understood why, on PvP, you have to use less crit chance with this build... The 100% crit chance (or close to) while using CP (3 charges there) still applies. Granted that Expertise takes a higher toll on item budget than Accuracy, meaning that your overall Crit + Surge has to be lower on PvP but... The logic to use passive Crit & Surge combined with active Power boosters still nets higher burst DPS (Willpower vs Endurance Ratio is also potentially affected on PvP but... A glass cannon efficiency is meassured by how much time it takes for him to kill something... You don't survive as Infil if multiattacked anyways, but I understand that some PvPers feel safer with a bigger pool of HP).

They refer strictly to relics... If you want to convince yourself get to a dummy with it equiped and spam your Saber Strike... You will see plenty of procs of BOTH on the same hits, even. When you do an analysis on minimum period between procs you will get the 4.5s CD (Sadly it doesn't double proc... As Shadow Tech does ). The only "but" this relic have is that ATM its crit chance is anomalously low... Around -10% compared to Shadow Tech chances. Reported plenty of times and created a bunch of threads... But still no confirmation nor massive "is happening to everyone" (I can confirm that at least JG also suffer from reduced crit chances with their proc relics). So go for Dark Radiance + Power (Unless you get your Campaign Augmented... Rakata Power Relic Augmented is better) BUT... ...With all the above been said... Be sure you keep an alternative NON PROC relic to swap. There are a bunch of bugs on EC related to them... Particularly problematic on Fireband & Stormcaller encounter.

I few tips on some pitalls ppl usually makes while advicing Infil on Ops: - You are a DPS... Anything that reduces your output makes you less valuable for the team you are into. Try this build: http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/jedi_consular/shadow/#::ce3fe8fe2fe2f5ef18ef5ef2ef5 - There is no rotation (nor spoon ). You need to understand that with the above build you can fight in 2 regimes differentiated by how much Priority you give to the 2xCS+Project Sequence compared to FB & SS: High DPS: "The Sequence" has high prio but you can only use this for short periods (Extended if you have FC or Blackout rdy) because "The Sequence" has the lowest efficiency of all your repertory. If you come from PvP background you should be familiar with this way to fight. Efficient DPS: "The Sequence" has the lowest Priority of all. FB & SS has to be used as often as possible... And then, if you have force excess, you "dump it" using "The Sequence" once in a while. This is the way to fight that you need to control on long fights... "The Sequence" is basically a waste of DPS when you are Force Starved, it's counterintuitive to use a specc that boosts Project to later been forced to use it the less times posssible on long fights but... That's the paradox an Infil Shadow has to live with. To be a good Infil Shadow is equal to know when to swap from 1 regime to the other based on how much you expect to be interrupted. Once you get practice with this swaps... You will surprise yourself on how "resilient" our DPS is against short interruptions. - Force Cloak & Blackout has to be used on CD unless the fight you are in has a VERY IMPORTANT burst phase (You will find them on KP and EC, for example). Remember, we are systematically force starved... Controlling your force use is another key concept you need to tune to the fight you are in. - Resilience, Force Speed & Deflection are very important to be adapted to each fight. All can allow you to make more DPS if you do the effort of studying when to use them strategically to avoid damage/interruptions or to be able to stay against a deadly attack (it is not always obvious... But a good bunch of powers that force other Melees to run away or eat a high hit can be easily soaked with Resilience, for example). - Buff Travelling & Force Bar control. Some fights come with mandatory target swaps... Specially on the ones were you have to kill a small add it's important to "build up" buffs on your current target to launch a barrage on the next one (This can also apply to Bosses with "vulnerability" periods... Which you will find on KP & EV, for example). The key concept is that your Force Bar should be almost full by the time you need to engage that new target/phase (A shadow with a Force Bar full is slacking and not doing the DPS he should be able), again, can't give a recipe because the scenarios are plenty... But remember you get a full bar in 14s (On normal combat circumstances... Were you can't exhaust it completely, if you have Vigor specced, this period is usually reduced to 11s). When practicing this on regular fights just follow 2 simple rules: 1) Never let your Bar fill up (Here is were Vigor helps considerably... Allows more room). 2) Always reserve 20 Force for the next FB. While trying to fullfill the above 2 points you soon discover the "rythm" of each fight and the next time you will be able to fine tune your regime swaps. - Do not neglect SS. It's your 2nd most efficient attack (1st is FB). Here the key concept is that doesn't matter when you do SS (For as long as you do it once per FW proc earning) but how much time pass since the 10s CD ends and you get the next FW. I call this "FW drift" control. Ideally you should be performing a Saber Strike right after the 10s CD is over to maximize your chances to get the next FW proc up. Sounds complex... But it's not... Just interlace saber strikes between the 2xCS and Project and after each FB use... You will naturally be getting a high ammount of FW procs per fight. Buff... A long post, I'm surely missing some tips... But too late to keep on typing . EDIT: Regarding itemization... Temporal Buffs other than Power are a waste... When you want to trigger high bursts you use Combat Potency & BR... Anything above 40% effective critical chance is a waste because your FB & Project will have already 100% crit chances. My advice is that you keep your fully passive buffed crit chance as close as possible to 40% (Below to), your surge above 70% (This can be tricky if you also want to control Accuracy but very important if you have the 4-piece PvE set bonus) and basic melee accuracy at 98% (or close to 100% if you spend most of your time on EC), because You don't want your CY strikes to be parried/dodged and you do not want your Saber Strikes to miss as soon as you have the 2-pieces PvE Set bonus... Obviously all the above while Maximizing your Willpower, minimizing your endurance (not an easy task... believe me) and the rest goes to power.

The problem is that most parsers look for the numeric tag that marks the end of combat event... And that is sent by the server each time we use Force Cloak. At least on ACT it's just cosmetic after you merge the different sections of the same combat (No event is lost and the Average DPS is calculated properly... Or put in other words there are no meassurement window effects, as other parsers typically show). Activate "show checkboxes" option at the bottom left and check the sections of the same fight between FC uses (It's easy to distinguish) then select "Merge Checked" and on the, previously empty, top encounter label called "merges" you will get all your combined fights (In brackets you have the number of sections you merged... Usefull to check if the ammount you merged is correct). You will not be able to inspect them unless you deactivate "show checkboxes"... So merge all the fights you want and then deactivate "show checkboxes" so you can inspect the merged combats as you would do with regular ones (Remember to "uncheck" previously merged fight sections because ACT doesn't do it by default each time you generate a merge). ATM I'm modifying the basic SWTOR plugin with some extra options the original Dev didn't add... I will check if I can make something with FC "auto split" and try to contact the original Dev to see if he can include it (No promises... This kind of things require a decent options dialog for the plugin... Something I have been avoiding like the plague so far ).

I did the test, this time against my Ship's Operation Combat Dummy (And only using Saber Strike & Clairvoyant Strike) and without speccing into "Force Synergy". Relic: Campaing Relic of Dark Radiance (Proc name: "Corrosive Injection". Refered as CI from now on) Class/Build: Shadow - 2/31/2 (This one) Minimum Base Crit Chances: Melee 39%, Powers: 38% Analysis Tool: ACT with SWTOR plugin installed (Modified to report avoided/missed hits) And here is a sample of powers with their critical chance (In brackets the number of hits landed/attempted. If only 1 number appears means that particular power hitted 100% of the time): Clairvoyant Strike (3158): 55% Shadow Technique (1220): 38% Saber Strike (3035/3054): 41% Corrosive Injection (676): 26% Results: Same dramatic reduction in CI critical chance, this time without "Force Synergy". This suggest that there may be a component in Total Crit chance that somehow is ignored on Proc DPS Relics calculations.

Bugged a JG friend that uses a particular "High Threat" tanking build that uses one of this Relics on EC. Luckily he got some combat logs recorded (The samples are much smaller than in my case so variance is higher). Relic: Volatile Energy Module (Proc name: "Energy Surge". Refered as ES from now on) Class/Build: Jedi Guardian - 31/7/3 (This one) Minimum Base Crit Chances: Melee 20%, Powers: 27% Analysis Tool: ACT with SWTOR plugin installed (Modified to report avoided/missed hits) His results are: Strike (1571/1829): 23% Blade Storm (285): 32% Energy Surge (198): 12% Comments: - Blade Storm (Force Power). Seems to show an anomalously high crit chance... Probably due to a lucky streak on the short sample. Results: ES shows a very low crit chance but due to the low samples this aren't as decissive as the 1st results. In any case, this seems to suggest that my initial crazy theory is not correct. Proc relics show a systematic lack of crit chance. I will try to do a long test WITHOUT "Force Synergy" and then post the results.

It works BUT I have detected a very weird anomaly. Details on this post: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=452121 Soon I will have the time to sit down against the dummy to perform a long test WITHOUT "Force Synergy" up to check if the "crazy theory" applies.

No, this is not about the multiple OPs mechanics that interact in weird ways with the Proc DPS Relics (Like for example F&S "Mortar Volley") but about the crit chance of their effect. Over this past weeks I have been patiently gathering information on my combat log regarding effective crit chances of my different attacks to try to confirm an initial anomaly I was perceiving. So here are the results: Relic: Campaing Relic of Dark Radiance (Proc name: "Corrosive Injection". Refered as CI from now on) Class/Build: Shadow - 2/31/8 (This one) Minimum Base Crit Chances: Melee 38%, Powers: 37% (Increased slightly on the last weeks due to new BH & Campaign gear been acquired) Analysis Tool: ACT with SWTOR plugin installed (Modified to report avoided/missed hits) And here is a sample of powers with their critical chance (In brackets the number of hits landed/attempted. If only 1 number appears means that particular power hitted 100% of the time): Clairvoyant Strike (7252/7270): 61%* Project (2207): 45% Force Breach (1206): 44% Shadow Strike (1022/1028): 46%* Shadow Technique (3890): 37% Saber Strike (4819/5301): 47%* Spinning Strike (341): 42%* Whirling Blow (961): 43%* Corrosive Injection (2724): 27% Comments: - The way I fight, on a steady attack sequence against Bosses, "Force Synergy" (+9% crit chance for melee attacks) is up most of the time. Those crit chances are marked with an asterisc "*". - "Project" & "Force Breach" crit chances are artificially boosted by "Combat Potency" use. As this use is heavily changed based on the particular fight it's hard to get a good picture of their base crit chance. - "Clairvoyant Strike" is permanently modified by the extra 15% crit chance of the 4 Pieces PvE Set bonus. - All the data comes from EC OPs, on Story Mode & Hard Mode. - I have highligted "Shadow Technique" because it's an effect that's triggered in the same situations than CI (With the remarkable difference that it doesn't seem to have the weird buggy interactions with some EC OP mechanics CI has). Results: CI has 10% less crit chances than similar powers. The only magnitude close to that difference on the build used is "Force Synergy" (+9% melee crit chance) so, as a wild guess, may be another strange interaction with this particular buff (Substraction). Could be nice of other ppl, using other relics/classes/builds and with stored logs could add their results to this to extend this test.

Blame Darth Maul excellent coreography on Episode I... It's visually stunning compared to the "Kendo-like" EIV-VI shown on Icons like Darth Vader and Luke. So it's basically to cater to different tastes on combat animations... ...Why they are locked into specific power sets is basically to restict some Iconic characters to a given class so a lore-fan can get "close enough" ingame characters to whatever SW Fantasy they like. And why they cannot allow a given set of animations to change is because they are an integral part of the effective performance of such powers. I think I covered all the topics more or less... And sounds even half believeable , my english must be improving.