The endurance talent works out to be up to 800 HP now I think, so yeah it's worthless. I typically go for the increased proc chance on Combat Technique to all but guarantee it goes off on the ICD refresh, then the obligatory 2 points into the follow up talent from Double Bladed Sabre Defence which helps your Resilience refresh faster. Talent tree would look thusly: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601Rcroddfz.3 Next point to round out the DS & WB % damage increase, then into the absorb talents before moving up the three and taking everything in the top 3 tiers if you want to go full tank.

To add to this, you cannot use periodic damage effects to stop caps in PvP (e.g. Force Breach while in Force Technique). Mind Crush works, but that's because it does direct damage before the DoT starts ticking.

This question format is screwing us out of covering some pretty obvious issues with the AC. Is it possible for BW to just sack up and take a list of 10 questions in a rank order, prepare an opening statement that canvasses what they already knew/are working on, then they can answer three of that which remains? People are going to lose their minds if they come on here and answer all three questions with: "we're aware of the problem, and have fixed/will fix it in patch x.xx", while other pressing issues just skid on by.

At that level you're better off being a DPS spec, but whether you want to run in tank stance is up to you. Here's a simple breakdown at 25: Kinetic PROS: Decent mitigation, won't get immobilised easily, auto-crit project CONS: Project still expensive, force regen won't quite keep up (as you've noted) Infil: PROS: Cheap project, good burst (Infil Tactics is *just* available) CONS: Project won't be cheap in Combat Technique Balance: PROS: Force in Balance, Surge bonus for DS, significantly higher melee crit, free instant Mind Crush CONS: Instant Mind Crush won't work in Combat Technique My advice: Be a Balance DPS for a bit assuming you have the gear, otherwise borrow heavily from it until you're level 32, at which point you can respec, get Force Pull and a cost discount to Project and come into your own as tank (Spinning Strike will also help immensely for single target pressuring).

Willpower.

If you want you could incorporate it into the PvP question by simply asking what BW's fundamental goals are for the Shadow class and play style, given as DPS they are the 2nd weakest class in the game in terms of consistent damage mitigation and yet do not see enough damage pressure to compensate for having to go into melee range in a skirmish. From there you could work in that this is especially so for Balance, but mention that AoE pressure should be a concern for both specs despite Infil's single target burst.

Vital Shot is a decent filler move for Sab because you have a fresh chance to crit on each DoT, thus giving it around equal damage to Charged Burst before you factor in the target's armour, but for a lower energy cost. You're not refreshing it all the time, just using it as a filler when you don't need to refresh Blazing Speed and Aimed Shot is on CD or Smuggler's Luck isn't up for use on a Charged Burst. Flourish shot is important if the target doesn't have an armour debuff and you're going to be hitting him for more than 10 seconds, because without an armour debuff you're costing yourself a large chunk of damage. An armour debuff increases the damage dealt by all attacks that aren't internal or elemental (i.e. weapon, kinetic, energy), which for you is: Flurry of Bolts Aimed Shot Charged Burst Shock Charge Sabotage Charge (the initial hit) Contingency Charges Scatter Bombs Thermal Grenade Speed Shot Sweeping Gunfire So yep, everything except Flyby, Incendiary Grenade, Vital Shot and Blazing Speed. So I guess technically speaking you don't *need* VS, but it's a chance to create a slight energy problem for you over a sustained damage rotation if you don't factor it in, particularly if you don't have PvE 2-set. Armour debuff is an absolute must if you're not in a group with a Guardian or a Gunnery Commando. Hope that helps!

Ok so my burst move idea I mentioned in the AC question thread was a redesign on Mind Crush/Crushing Darkness for all ACs. More front loaded damage, shorter DoT run (i.e. significantly less than CD and ICD refresh). This restores Mind Crush to what it was prior for the melee classes, which was a move that didn't require active maintenance to yield the vast majority of its DPS. That there is such a wonky DoT maintenance (i.e. not sharing the same duration) makes it extremely difficult to maintain at an optimal level. The best move is to simply make maintenance irrelevant, you just hit it when it refreshes. The trick is how to balance this burst so that it doesn't make a TK Sage too powerful in PvP by having awarding them another nuke button (and perhaps Infil players using it in combination with Low Slash/Spinning Kick as a 1v1 opener). Perhaps a high-tier Balance talent to boost it? So to recap on my ever reforming plan to modify Shadow talents & abilities: Ability Changes: 1. Reduce damage on Shadow Strike 2. Look to boost Damage on all other Shadow-specific attacks to recompensate for SS nerf (consider a boost to Project also) 3. Mind Crush redesign with a goal of making it more of a burst move for Balance/Madness in both ACs without breaking PvP for the other damage trees. 4. New AoE damage ability with a CD to replace Whirling Blow that could behave differently for each technique (weak Internal DoT for Balance, flat Internal damage for Infil, flat Kinetic damage for KC); 25-30 force cost and balance damage to remove it from Single target rotation; consider making it short range, no upper target limit to promote viability/play style in Operations. 5. Give Balance Shadows another move or burst move (if the MC/CD change doesn't go through) so there is an enjoyable form of variety in their rotation instead of super-careful-DoT-refresh time. 6. If they're not interested in 5, consider at least an additional single-target burst damage mechanic for Balance Shadows in PvP that has an ICD and triggers on being struck with direct damage, perhaps a free Spinning Strike on a target of any health or a free off-GCD move. Talent Changes: 1. Remove Shadow's Mark, move Upheaval to Tier 2 in its place, create new +Force Damage talent to replace Upheaval's position 2. Remove talent for extra ticks on Mind Crush; consider a flat damage increase talent for Mind Crush in a similar position to balance for all ACs. 3. If possible, peel back sub-30% talents to allow for less constraints on design requirements for Operations, look at replacing with crit talents to discourage hybrids in PvP. 4. Improve upon Mental Defence, either adding another form of DR to the talent, or making it a 1-point talent. 5. Remove Lambaste or redesign for new AoE to encourage players to spec all the way up the Balance tree in PvP. Side note: Does Lambaste actually allow for Rippling Force to be placed on 5 targets, making Whirling Blow cost an initial 40 force, before returning up to an additional 10 force 1 second later? I remember having this thought on the PTS but never doing enough testing to confirm, and haven't bothered with it since (bad AoE is bad). If so, I guess they had the same idea in mind as what I just mentioned, but just failed in their assumptions and ultimately their design.

I vaguely remember a tooltip or some other game note with regards to this saying that you gain more killing blow animations for SS as your level increases, but I've never actually bothered to note if this is the case. I could be completely wrong about that though.

Seems counter-intuitive to getting the best possible argument, but ok.

Just found this through another thread and it turns out you were bumping it at the same time. Forum Mods, why isn't this stickied? Good work so far Kitru and while you and I disagree on how to rebalance from a talent/ability perspective, I certainly agree on the fundamental mechanics you raise here. Also, I've come up with a few more design thoughts regarding increasing single target burst for Balance (for both ACs), which thread is your preferred discussion point on the matter?

BW has comprehensively shown that they can't handle the math and simulation to maintain such sub-30% talents, and you want them to invest more into it? I'd rather they peeled them back, nerfed SS a bit and increased force damage. Their PvP solution has failed IMO.

I'm not sure you understand what the word 'need' means. Ok, how about my Force Breach idea becomes this new AoE attack similar to how I described, and there's a redesign on Force Breach while in Force Technique to add a burst mechanic, while maintaining the nerf to SS, buff to other attacks, high-tier crit talents, and scrapping the SS buff in favour of a bonus to force damage? I still think a Low Slash redesign would be favourable as well in terms of a skill cap, but if Shadows become AoE & Single target pressure in DPS specs, I think that will satisfy the PvP & PvE crowd, and justify a melee class in light armour. Giving Balance Shadows another button to press would be a welcome change.

The variance in my estimate for Low Slash reflects that it was guesswork, with no math put in beyond working out the estimated dps once I had established a value (factoring in the armour count of the Ops dummy) and CD. The smart AoE was for Infil's FB only, given how much it would hamper the rotation to avoid that attack in PvP, but that can be revisited. I'm working off the assumption the Devs don't really want to give us another ability, given the way they hacked apart Balance and gave us Phase Walk. I suggested this for both trees as a high-tier talent. Was not aware of this but agree 100%. Increasing sub 30% damage means that Devs have to create fights that suit the mechanic, I would rather that they simplify or remove this process and think about how they can make fun and unique fights without worrying about discounting individual classes beyond the range/availability of attacks. You can see that ranged is king right now, and I think dancing around such points is the cause of that. Shadow Strike, Shoot First, Back Blast and their mirror abilities need to be tapered down by perhaps 10%. It is the *first and most obvious* step to rebalancing without mass-whining. Then, you boost up other things to bring DPS in-line. To ignore that concept and complain about a reliance on crits without crit bonuses is quite strange. You're certainly going to hear people screaming about 12+k SS crits even if the ability goes untouched through the buffs. That's a rough estimate for a 5-6.5 minute fight with a normal burn phase, for an Infil player that is doing around 2600-2700 DPS on a dummy. Factor in a CS being replaced with a Spinning Strike every 6s, the slightly smaller amount of auto-attacks due to the low cost of Spinning Strike to CS, and the 6% increase to all damage on a mob below 30% and if the burn phase is a standard one, DPS sky rockets. That's the problem right there, that to meet low-end bracket of acceptable 'dummy' DPS, Shadows need a normal burn phase: take that out of a fight, and it becomes problematic. They've re-engineered fights for this in several ways (more add phases, longer burn phases, damage boost phases) but honestly if you guys think my way of rebalancing Shadows is unnecessarily complex, you should be tearing strips off of BW for how they chose to nerf Shadows to suit the PvP community's concerns.

Ok some quick napkin math suggests the base boost from Low Slash would be around 200-250 dps, with a 500 and 120 dps boost to Infil & Balance respectively (using the best dummy parses I have seen as a reference). Given that projected DPS for Infil in an actual ops fight is 2900 DPS now with 72 BiS, this boost would likely make Infil OP, hence the SS nerf. Low Slash would most definitely soften the PvP blow suffered through this change. Balance would become competitive under these initial changes, though I have not factored the use of project, which would slide into a value just below a non-crit DS before a +dmg modifier is brought in. A fair estimate would then be replacing Sabre Strike once every 30s pre-boost, for a gain of around 16 DPS. Doubling the damage of project with this proc would then boost this to a 78 DPS gain over existing values. So there's 100 DPS with CDs for those who want to push it with Balance under my proposed changes. That said, it's 6 hits in a 5 min fight, a mediocre PvP benefit and probably worth dropping out of the concept altogether in favour of a new burst mechanic or an overall buff to damage output in the tree. New thoughts Kitru?

Kitru I'm trying to address the key concerns of the Shadow PvE/PvP community, while addressing the concerns of the remainder of the PvP community. If you look at it from the perspective, the objectives are clear: Raise average DPS Increase AoE options Keep Shadow Strike in check as DPS goes up Ensure there is regular enough burst so people don't complain about a nerf to Shadow Strike. Upon reading it over after I posted, my first thought was "maybe a reduction on Force Breach damage with the change," so in that sense I definitely agree with you. The point of the cost reduction on SS is to give Balance an emergency burst move that doesn't break the bank as much, especially in early levels. From memory SS is approximately worth a little under 2x DS/CS without a proc. That needs to change. Additionally, the rotation for Balance is immensely simple, and needs a skill cap. An off-GCD move helps with that. With infil, the damage is there, but it's locked behind the force cost of proc abilities. The tank rotation becomes slightly more complex, perhaps more in line with other tanks. Perhaps give the aforementioned armour bonus with the off-GCD move as well to reinforce the benefits of a good rotation. At no point have I assigned the delta percentages for the changes, (except hinting at up to a 20% reduction on SS before factoring in talent reductions), because that would clarify the kind of balancing I'm looking for; there'd be a bit to do there. I hope that clarifies my methodology, and I'd be open to hearing estimates on where Shadow DPS would be with just the off-GCD change and a consistent double IT SS, as well as the auto-crit change to Balance, but feel that this doesn't address concerns with regards to low level play, nor in PvP given how every other DPS has a legitimately powerful AoE spec or is a powerful AoE class. So far, the biggest concerns I have are how Force Potency would be utilised as Balance, and if the CD would be manageable if used on 2x Project in a 11-20s window.

Surprised people haven't tried this before? I certainly have: good PvP hybrid, probably some of the best damage available in PvP for a Shadow and plays like Balance pre-2.0 with some minor advantages (and losses). Fade is just sitting right there though...

Here are the changes I would like to see made: Talents removed: Kinetic Combat - Shadow Wrap (replacement: a 2-pt armour bonus talent) Infiltration - Low Slash & Impose Weakness (replacement: a 2-pt +crit talent); Shadow's Mark (replacement: 3pt +force damage talent, swap positions on tree with Upheaval) Balance - Lambaste, and convert Mental Defence into a 1-pt talent (replacement: a 2-pt +crit talent) New ability for all trees: Low Slash - Mezz removed; now an off-gcd ability (cannot miss) which procs further abilities; consider damage reduction. Cost: 0 force. Low Slash generates the following effects for each technique: Kinetic - Shadow Wrap Infil - Impose Weakness (i.e. grants infil Tactics on a separate CD) Balance - Auto-crit on FiB or a free Project with a +x% damage increase Ability changes: Force Breach now hits 5 targets in Shadow & Force Technique to bring it into line with the Kinetic variant, and is a smart-AoE in Shadow Technique. Consider marginal force cost increase. Shadow Strike now has a reduced base damage and costs 40 force to reflect the change. Double Strike & Clairvoyant Strike have seen their base damage increased. Net Result: Average damage up Damage spikes down Tanks are tankier Shadows are a legitimate AoE threat in PvE & PvP with legitimate trade-offs to counterbalance the advantages Burst is available in all trees for PvP & PvE that doesn't break class balance.

As we're new to the server, I'll give a quick run down of the guild for those unfamiliar. <Beyond Redemption> was formed in March 2012 on Master Dar'Nala with two simple ideas: the best way to experience end-game is to foster a community of active, mature-minded players, and the best way to sustain it is to not overcook the raiding schedule. These simple philosophies grew BR into and maintained it as the largest republic guild on the server, while keeping up a competitive progression rate for HM & NM operations. Where almost all other guilds wilted, our progression player base grew on a dying server, so we think we have a pretty decent guild model for this particular MMO. Our progression operations times are through the weeknights (two nights for each team, in the hours of 8-11.30 UTC+10), but for those in need of a lighter schedule, we offer story mode runs on Monday nights as well as alt & sub HM runs for gear on Sunday nights. All 55 HM content is on farm in all teams. We currently have three 8-man teams and will look to create more teams as our progression player base grows.

Creating new thread to get new thread title... great forum permissions. BR is, as always, seeking active republic players of all classes and levels interested in getting into nightmare mode end-game content. We do our utmost to offer something for the more casual gamer as well. We are currently looking for the following class specialisations for Monday & Wednesday with a start time of 8.30 PM UTC+10: - 1x Gunnery Commando People interested in a sub role are also welcome, and will find themselves involved in HM content every week, as well as being first option when a permanent spot opens up. Gearing is not a problem, but you will be expected to show you can learn fights and that you are capable in your role to secure a regular spot in a progression group (i.e. we will trial you for the role). BR is also forming a more active PVP presence and all classes are welcome, with the aim of organising one scheduled rated warzone timeslot each week. If you're interested in joining BR, please apply online, or contact myself via forum PM, tell or mail in-game (character names are in my signature), or simply /who Beyond, contact a guild member and you will be forwarded onto any available senior members of the guild to discuss. For more info about <Beyond Redemption>, see the next post.

Bump; looking for a gunnery commando who likes running NM content and feels as though they can pull 2.7k+ dps in full underworld gear.

Bump; one of our raid teams is looking for a 'slinger. Apply today!

As we're new to the server, I'll give a quick run down of the guild for those unfamiliar. <Beyond Redemption> was formed in March 2012 on Master Dar'Nala with two simple ideas: the best way to experience end-game is to foster a community of active, mature-minded players, and the best way to sustain it is to not overcook the raiding schedule. These simple philosophies grew BR into and maintained it as the largest republic guild on the server, while keeping up a competitive progression rate for HM & NM operations. Where almost all other guilds wilted, our progression player base grew on a dying server, so we think we have a pretty decent guild model for this particular MMO. Our progression operations times are through the weeknights (two nights for each team, in the hours of 8-11.30 UTC+10), but for those in need of a lighter schedule, we offer story mode runs on Monday nights as well as alt & sub HM runs for gear on Sunday nights. All 55 HM content is on farm in all teams. We currently have three 8-man teams and will look to create more teams as our progression player base grows.

Not sure how many guilds would be good for that start time, you might get lucky with a late-starting WA guild, because 5 AM your time is 8 PM their time. GMT/UTC+8 guild would be your go. Have a fish around this forum; best of luck!

What time zone?