For those who continue to PM me, Yes darkness is a perfectly viable leveling spec.

My apologies. I would love to do some video capture for you guys but at the moment my machine would not be able to produce a quality video. Perhaps in a month or so when I build my new rig. Glad you are enjoying the build. At 50 you will easily hit 10 medals per game unless the other team is a premade and intentionally trying to shut you down.

Agreed! Nice to see someone who has tapped the true potential of this spec! Happy hunting! 5k+ assassinates are the only way I've found so far to hit the 5k damage in a single hit medal.

Sorry you are having a hard time in PvP as an assassin. With the 31-0-10 being discussed in this thread you are the most mobile melee in the game with the best ability to deal with kiters (pull, stun, slow, spike, range damage moves, etc). We are NOT easily kited, in fact we kite others quite well. You are also not squishy. With a full set of stalker gear minus two pieces of dps modded survivor gear for the spike CD reduction and a shield generator you still have 21% reduction to internal and mental (which bypass armor) 35% chance to shield for 24% (I have read that in PvE at least shielded attacks CANNOT crit, not sure if this applies to PvP), and over 40% damage reduction in Champ gear. Wither also applies a -5%damage debuff to your targets and discharge applies a -5% chance to hit. What more do you expect? Furthermore in team fights you should be guarding others and popping mind control/mass mind control for -30% damage done by your enemies to your teammates.

As has been discussed at length in this thread already the points in swelling shadows, electric execution, shroud of darkness, or thrashing blades are rather unimportant and up to you. I personally don't feel that the extra 3% endurance is worthwhile as I never experience getting burnt down from full to dead inside of CC. In fact when you are dieing 0-2 times per warzone more hp probably isn't an issue. For my play style electric execution is the lesser of the throw away points needed to proceed through the tree. The same goes for swelling shadows. If you read back in this thread the math has been done for you already but in essence: with a 50% chance to proc dark charge per single hit in a GCD (yes thrash and SS will produce more) you will not be proccing dark charge every GCD and as such the 15% increased chance to proc dark charge will go a long way over the course of a 15 minute warzone both in terms of damage and self healing. This will change with the incoming 1.1 patch. Again these skill points are rather unimportant to the overall build so place them where you will and continue to roll face regardless.

Kinetic does NOT bypass armor...

To answer your last question, you are not a dps by any stretch of the imagination but I have played this setup in heroic flashpoints in the role of a dps (someone else tanking) and we haven't hit the enrage timers so for flashpoints I'd say it is fine. Don't try to pull it off in a raid though.

First of all if you are being serious with this entire post and not trolling this thread thanks for the effort you put into your post. I am glad you have found a play style that suits you. I have a question. Is your game play in this video how you normally play this setup? I have several issues with the game play in the video: 1. keyboard turning and backpedaling obviously 2. clicking (again obvious) 3. using force lightning all the time when it does terrible damage (300 ticks? with the 31-0-10 setup you can see upwards of 2k per tick) 4. complete lack of support for your team 5. attempting to play more as a ranged caster than a melee 6. if you want to use force lightning so much I really suggest either a madness sorc, or a 31-0-10 build 7. you end the game with 3 badges. ok. Are you aware that valor (which increases your valor rank of which rank 60 is needed for T3 pvp gear) and comms (which are used to buy bags that have a chance at awarding gear) are awarded for medals earned during warzones? I'd suggest you learn what the medals are awarded for and start farming them if you are serious about pvp. Even if you lose a game you can earn more valor and comms than the other team by having many medals. As for the post corrupted flesh have VERY little value in pvp. A - Wither applies damage reduction for your entire team in AoE where as corrupted flesh only applies to you and B - ONLY on dots which make up a tiny fraction of damage in PvP. I can't even believe you call the 5% damage reduction on wither measly, this comment alone makes me think you are trolling. Next up the damage issue. If you spent less time in stealth and trying to attack from range I'm sure your damage would go up with either setup. With 31-0-10 I regularly see myself and other sins in the 220k-300k range in full duration games. Again 40-50k damage average in games? Are you sure your not trolling?

If you are interested in simply blowing people up then you can modify the build or chose a better one to be more offensive. The build I have suggested is optimized for PvP solo que with the intention of maximizing valor and comms. Valor and comm farming occurs from obtaining medals in warzones. The 31-0-10 build is IMO the best build an assassin can take for farming as many medals a game as possible. Wither will let you hit up to 5 targets every 7.5s netting you MANY kills on the scoreboard and helping you get the 25 kills medal much easier than thrash spamming and using deathfield in addition to all the other goodness wither provides. The extra defensive capability of the 31-0-10 build will allow you to stay alive and wrack up the XXXX defence in a single life medals. Dieing as little as possible provides you more up time to farm the medals to maximize your valor and comm grind. If you are team queing as the dps or you roll with a healer then more offensive skill choices are in order.

Specifically I would get all of the Stalker's pvp pieces that you can obtain except for getting the Survivor's shield generator instead of the Stalkers focus. In terms of stat priority: Willpower> Endurance for primary stats. You want enough accuracy to obtain at least 100% then: Power > Surge > Crit.

Tank assassin will own either of these classes in a 1v1 most notably due to equal mitigation yet superior self healing.

You can kill any class with the 31-0-10 spec. You are an outlaster more than a burster and skilled healers can take some time to wear down.

I'm not going to argue with you. As I have said they are rather unimportant skill points regardless of where you assign them. Do as you will.

With full champ gear and a matrix shard and bioc clickies your damage will be good. You will regularly see 2.4k+1.2k shock crits, 3k-4k assassinate crits, and 7k-10k force lightning channels.

If that rotation works for you then great but try to mislead others here into thinking that Thrash>Thrash>Shock is an optimal playstyle.

I've run some rough numbers and it seems like power is more useful than surge on auto crits such as energized shocks or X3 harness darkness force lightning with recklessness and crit relic popped. I could very well be wrong, I just did a rough calc. That said for deception I would go surge and see 5k crits easy.

I use the full dps set minus the focus. The shield is just too good to pass up. The tank set would make you an absolute beast if you want to carry the ball and guard your team a lot.

How are you attacking twice every GCD? If you look at the priority that I put up there even though its rough MOST of those attacks do not hit twice per GCD... granted in team play they hit more than 1 target however. I don't think either choice is going to break your game, they are optional points put them into what ever dump skill you chose.

In PvP there is no rotation you will adjust everything you do on the fly. In a team fight I get the debuffs up first but 1v1 would be something like: 0. Target running or >10m range then force slow/pull/force speed or if 3 stacks of harness darkness and target will eat an entire force lightning then pop recklessness and a power or surge clicky and force lightning. 1. if the target is =<30% assassinate. 2. Shock on CD to build charges of harness darkness 3. wither to get debuff up 4. discharge 5. spam wither/saber strike/thrash depending on level of force and range of the target You may prioritize Thrash higher if you are able to maintain good uptime in melee range in order to get more energize procs or if you don't need the defensive debuffs from wither/discharge. Open to comments on this priority list.

23-0-18 has advantages in some situations but overall IMO it is not as competitive. You sacrifice 15% damage on discharge, wither, 30% damage on wither, the -5% damage debuff of wither and the ability to Force Lightning for up to 7k (on squishies) with recklessness every 1 min 15 secs for a 30m range move and the ability to lock someone out for 10s every minute. A great trade in some circumstances but I feel it depends on your style of play. Also note that deathfield may hit about twice as hard as wither, but wither is usable twice as often AND is AoE. The benefit of 31-0-10 becomes hugely important in group PvP where you realize the full up time of wither, discharge, shock, force lightning, and force slow. The majority of the time in group battles you will be knocked back, rooted, snared, or knocked down and your kill target will be running out of your thrash range. You may hit harder with 23-0-18 while able to maintain melee range but 31-0-10 is much more effective at dealing damage up to 10m and staying alive.

Either of these are acceptable. I find myself attacking from 5-10m range the majority of the time and not able to use thrash, hence my selection.

I don't think it would make a huge difference either way but you may as well put him in dps stance if you are going darkness until you get a dps companion.

I personally prefer dps gear using a shield generator instead of a focus. For solo que I definitely think this build is stronger however if you are rolling around with a pocket healer then go deception by all means.

Excellent points. I couldn't agree more with everything you said.

Have to disagree with you this IS the I-WIN class.