Nitpick, but BR is a 15% heal, not 25%.

Incorrect, Shroud is supposed to resist all tech force attacks, including any secondary effects. Currently, it does not.

Spamming Mauls is a pretty stupid thing to do. And at least one of those 3 won't be procced, so it won't be hitting for 10k.

You know, there is a little thing Operatives get that Assassins cannot come close to. It's called LETHALITY. The damage and killing power is just unreal. Spammable aoe internal dots keep healers busy, and the back to back to back Culls give incredible burst. I do agree that Concealment is pretty much inferior to Deception now, which is unfortunate. Currently, if you are a dps Operative and not playing LethaIity, you are doing it wrong. I think the appropriate fix is buffs to Concealment, rather than nerfs to Deception. Pre 2.0, there 0 viable dps stealth classes. There were perhaps a dozen people who truly believed Assassin dps was viable for ranked, and zero people who believed dps Operatives were good enough. Now in 2.0, we have 2 stealth dps specs that are looking viable (Deception and Lethality). That leaves 2 specs that are not, Concealment and Madness. Buff those 2 up to viability, and we are good to go.

Wake me when Assassins/ Shadows get taken into RWZs as DPS. If they nerf our burst they better buff the heck out of our sustained damage. Oh, and BTW, nobody is getting taken from 100% to 0 in 3 hits. 3 hit kills are only if they are at less than full HP. 100% to 0 is more like 5-6.

Even in the old brackets, 82 expertise did nothing sub 50. Not sure why you bothered.

DPS Shadows and Assassins in RWZ in the near future? I hope so...

Those +41 expertise crystals will still be what you want in 55 bracket. Not a big deal having to shelve them for 5 levels. I'll miss my derelict purple war hero crystal as much as the next guy, but that just means it'll be even sweeter when I get to use it again.

This guy gets it. When warzones become all about 1v1s and ranked teams are 8 sins/shadows, then you can start crying.

OP misposted, this belongs in the sniper sub forum. Honest mistake, I forgive him.

Potency resets as soon as you exit combat. Stealth has nothing to do with it. EDIT: Throwing in my opinion on full Infiltration as it is now, I absolutely love it. For the first time since rolling the class back in 1.2 I actually do not feel like I'm gimping myself by playing the spec. It was a passable spec from 1.4-1.7, but there was still always the nagging sense that if I was a responsible player, I would be playing a tank hybrid or Wakajinn. Now, I feel like full Infil is fully viable at least in regs. I actually think it will outperform a Wakajinn 2.0 spec in most cases. The key to 2.0 Infil is not overlapping procs (Infiltration Tactics, Breaching Shadows etc) and trying to maximize your chances for Potency resets. I've adopted what I call a "light combat" playstyle. What I mean by this is trying to engage the least amount of opponents possible. Rather than charging in and going after everything, which I did with 1.4 Infil, now I try to pick a target, open on him, and between the 2 SS procs, Potency, and the buff to our execute phase, normally kill them. If the only target I was in combat with dies, I leave combat, which means a Potency reset. Then pick another single target, and repeat. There have been games where I've been able to get a dozen or so Potency charges within a single minute just by playing like this. Of course, this is not always possible, you need to be using your aoe taunts off cd still, and you will have to swap targets if someone else is capping your node or door or w/e. But I find that for the most part, being conservative with entering combat leads to the best results. Now, I think that a big advantage full Infiltration has over a Wakajinn 2.0 build is that all of it is single target damage. FiB is aoe, and its radius, and maximum target number was buffed with 2.0. With the light combat playstyle, nothing is worse than trying to kill your single opponent, and then FiB puts you in combat with 3 more enemies. This hurts your chances of Potency resets, which in turn greatly reduces the amount of fully charged Force Breaches you can dish out. Losing Clairvoyant Strike means Breaching Shadows are incredibly few and far between. Also, a big advantage of Wakajinn used to be that the addition of FiB meant another hard hitting ability added to your burst phase, but I'm finding that in 2.0, its overkill. I have zero problem taking someone from 100% to 0 as full Infil. The extra SS proc and our execute buff so far has proven to be all the damage I need. And we no longer need 2x CS as setup for burst, another huge boost to full Infil. How I spec: http://www.swtor-spy.com/skill-tree-calculator/jedi-shadow/20/?build=002300000000000000000000000000000322230221102030221022000210001003020000000000000000000000000000&ver=20

I always open with spike if its available, since it auto procs Maul. This does 2 things. First, it starts the internal cooldown on Impose Weakness right away, which means another proc for maul coming in faster. It sucks when you've procced Maul from spike, and then have to Low Slash within the 10 second internal cd and waste a Maul proc.Second, it allows me to save Low Slash for when I may actually need a mezz, rather than blowing Low Slash purely for the maul proc. Also, assuming you spec into Nerve Wracking (which I do) using spike grants 6% more damage to Maul (you should be using Maul right after spike to gain this 6% boost, but also to avoid overlapping Maul procs, in case Maul procs on its own with the base 30% chance.) I find that the new Deception is all about minimizing your chances to waste damage. Prioritize Discharge at 3 stacks in case Surging Charge procs on its own, then Maul so that you can get another proc again faster etc. EDIT: Forgot about CD. In 1.7 I toyed around with using it, and found that If I had nothing better to do, no Maul proc, Discharge on cd, stacks of Shock set up, etc, casting CD didn't really hurt. It was actually pretty sweet when I casted CD on an enemy focused on someones else, and Discharge came off CD right as I finished. CD hits hard, and having it tick in the background while the rest of your damage is going off was really nasty. In 1.7, CD was a highly situational ability, but not one to be ignored and forgotten about forever. Now in 2.0 our rotation has gotten busier, so there might not ever be a time where we have nothing better to do than cast CD. I'll have to test it out more.

So, just went into a wz with the OP's recommended 5 pieces. All were full expertise as i remodded my pve armorings out of them. And still the same numbers as naked, 5k mauls, 3-4k discharges. Apparently I'm just special and cannot benefit from the system one way or another.

You can stop lying, and insulting and accusing me thanks. I'm giving you the facts about what my stats looked like. Now I'm trying to figure out what the new best is. Ive been min maxed for months before 2.0 launches, and no I don't need a gear advantage, the same way I don't need my class to be a crutch. There's a reason I play dps Assassins. I do apologize if the nature of my post was unclear, I'm simply trying to figure out what is the best thing for me to do now.

I'm very willing to believe its a bug, because everything is just so screwed up right now. Everyone and their mother is claiming 7-8k crits, and yet the biggest I've seen whether naked, geared, or any combination of, is a 5k Maul and 4k Discharges as full Deception. Something is off. EDIT: and even pve or levelling gear without expertise dropped me significantly. I threw on old leveling blues I had, and my stats still went down. Idk if I'm just special, but everything I've tried points to the best stats absolutely naked

Unless they changed it since last night, in my full WH gear I had 1600 expertise. Naked I had 2004. I call BS.

Don't really do PvE, so i can't help you there

Considering you didn't even see the obvious BW post icon before scrambling to make this, I'd say you deserved it.

Talking PvP here. Use it in your opener. Rotation should look like Spike > Maul > Stun if needed, if not, Recklessness > Discharge. From here its up to the encounter. If you know its going to be a short fight and you need to drop them quick, go straight into Shock. Dark Embrace will more than cover the high force cost, as all the previous opening abilities are very cheap. If you think its going to be a longer encounter, do 2x Voltaic Slash and then Shock. This dilutes your burst phase, but will start setting up your next Discharge earlier. From here, go into the usual 2x VS into Shock rotation, throwing in Maul, Low Slash, and Discharge when appropriate. Another good thing about 2.0 that I just realized yesterday is that losing the 30% boost to Shock is not actually as bad as it appears. Remember that Shock will now automatically proc Surging Charge, which is a decent hit of internal damage. I'm not sure how hard Surging Charge hits compared to 30% of a Shock, but I'd bet that it's really close, and internal damage is not mitigated as heavily. The new VS is starting to look like a win across the board. As for the best use of the 3 Recklessness charges, Discharge and Shock will take 2, and Chain Shock will normally take the 3rd, which is ideal for burst. If Chain Shock doesn't proc, then just use it on your next Shock after the 2x VS. Basically what has happened to our rotation that we have changed from Shock before Discharge, to now doing it after Discharge.

So my understanding is that the new BiS at 50 is the highest level of PvE mods we can get, aka Dread Guard. Correct?

I didn't preorder because I was pretty sure something like this was going to happen, so I'm staying 50 until BW makes it worth purchasing the xpac, or until I quit. So you say the best bet for me is to put regular lvl 49 greens in my armor, or as many blues as I can. What about the lvl 49 124 rating purples, is that even better?

WAAAAHHHHH IM BUTTHURT!! pity me oh woe oh woe!!!! i want everyone to know exactly the horrors that been done to me! pity me for i have been hurt!!!! Grow the heck up already.

Except that nobody gives a flying eff about your silly little mask. The only one losing respect here is the guy who's so butthurt he needs to make a thread to try and have the whole server pity him.

Ah ok cool. I can understand the appeal of playing wonky specs in regs purely for the fun factor. i'm more than guilty of that

Good video, and I enjoy your stream as well. Awesome to see fellow dps Shadows doing well. I'm a little confused with the Force Technique hybrid you use in a lot of that footage though. It looks to be 0/23/18, as I can see you have low slash, insta lift, and both Kinetic Field and Force Strike procs. And I can't figure out why you would ever play it over the 0/27/14 build that you also used, or a 0/14/27 if you want a Balance playstyle. As a Balance spec, I can see that Low Slash is nice, but most of the time your own DoTs would break it anyway, as seen lots in the video. And 6% damage reduction is always good, but I do not think its worth giving up all the damage you gain from the higher Balance tiers. Maybe you can point out something I'm missing.