You could start by using the correct name Just pick the options you would pick..... it really doesn't change much about the story at that point.

I don't think Bioware is to blame..... With average gear, no PvP gear at all I was critting for 3.5k with shock, discharge (Surging) and Maul against Champion geared opponents. Now with a couple champion pieces I'm around 4k+. Maybe Assassin is a tad bit underpowered as far as bursting down on average, but if 2.5k is your highest, it is you, not bioware.

Underworld trading gives gemstones? as far as I was aware, only treasure hunting did that, and all rare or higher artifice crafts use gemstones. It even shows in the codex that an Artificer should have Archaeology and Treasure Hunting (for the purpose of gemstones) The best CRAFT in general is still highly debated, but most people would still say Biochem, even though it has been nerfed a bit. If you are just trying to pick a craft for endgame, biochem is still the best, because most drops/rewards are better than anything you can craft with other skills. Biochem gives you reusable stims/adrenals and medpacks.

I loled. Being new to Mouse and Keyboard gameplay, then picking a Deception Assassin as my 1st character has become a trial in patience. I am so busy just making sure I have the right hand placement half the time, and having to actually look at my keyboard every so often definately hinders my PvP gameplay, but I'm getting used to it... I still only have my main bar on hotkeys and a few condition based like Unbreakable will, Stealth, cloak on hotkeys around WASD. Its getting better but still, rough at times.

I love how at the start most people were saying it is NEEDED now the majority have switched to its not needed. I guess if you don't spec into any of the "can be used out of stealth" you may think you need it, but most people have 2 abilities that can only be used while stealthed, 2 abilities does not need a stealth bar, even 4 doesn't. An extra bar that pops up on a player selected condition would work better. I.E. Stealthed, Controlled, >30% health ect... this way you could hide abilities that are extremely condition based and free up some space on main bars. This would help everyone, not just those that can't manage the very few stealth only abilities we have.

Incorrect, different gearsets existed in early FFXI which came out 2 years before WoW. Most people carry around the equivalent of 3-4 gearsets, and macro in specific pieces for individual abilties. I had over 60 pieces of gear for my Monk alone at endgame. You dont HAVE to do anything. If you choose to, fine, if you don't, thats your choice. You are the one that pays for the game, play how you want. I consistantly told this to people in FFXI when they said I NEEDED a certian piece of gear. I always said, pay for my sub, then you can tell me what I need. Same goes here, but you have to deal with the repercussions. Maybe you won't get that raid invite because you aren't as well geared as someone else. It's your choice. And BTW, I leveled from 1-50 as Deception just fine in a single set of gear, upgrading where nessessary, and using tank companions the whole time.

As of right now, no. Bioware has stated that a combat log is in the works at least. Thats a start.

Yeah, the difference between Assassin and Sorcerer is probably the largest difference between advanced classes of anything in the game, as far as abilities and playstyles go. Not talking about specific skill trees, just in general playstyle. As far as being dependant on a healer.... well, it is pretty much the same thing as Marauder here, unless you go tank spec. Most people have said that as an Assassin, going through the story is much harder solo than Sorc. As for the Marauder vs Assassin, I have been about halfway through Marauder (on Nar Shadda) and lvl 50 Deception Assassin.... I find Marauder to be easier for normal content. Not only is Vette's dps friggin retarded, Marauder can take quite a few more hits when focused on (in PvE) and I am actually having more fun with it than I did while leveling Assassin. Both require a lot of skill management to maximize dps, and I would say as for endgame PvE and PvP they are about even. (Highly dependant on player skill of course, Sin probably takes a higher level to play as effectively) Of course as an Assassin, you have the option to tank, while Marauder is purely dps.

Deception PvP gear is the stalker set. Pretty much anything gained with the other sets will not affect you at all, unless you decide to use dark charge and a shield, then survivor will help. If you are set on playing strict deception using a focus and surging charge, (arguably) go full stalker.

I do like the force speed idea, but for PvP I think this would be OP as you could lightning with a reclessness charge, which usually procs Duplicity for me, and instantly be behind to maul with weakness, pop cloak, spike (which no longer has a GCD), maul again pop electrocute, shock, discharge, and maul again before they can fight back. This would be pretty much exactly the same thing that caused Oprative to be nerfed. Especially if you added all these "fixes" at once. We would easily become the biggest OP class in the game. Fixing assassins training, and maybe taking spike off of GDC is about the only things I can agree with, otherwise we would be the new class everyone is complaining about.

If that is all you are doing, lol..... I think this is why people complain about Sins being underpowered. And negative points for mentioning a Shadow ability in the Assassin thread... I know they are supposed to be mirrored but at least use the correct terminology for the class.

But Voltaic is 100% how would you not know that your shock is procced? Bad example maybe But still, if people want this in PvE fine by me, but it will get to the point where you NEED these kinds of things in PvP to even be competitive. One of the big arguements is does it affect your experience? If it effects PvP then yes, yes it does. If you need a huge neon sign to tell you to use a certian ability, why not just program the game to activate the ability for you? You know which abilites cause certian procs, why is it so hard to anticipate them? You see a new icon out of the corner of your eye right when you used it, chances are... it proced, what a shocker. The fact is people are used to a certian thing, and now it is gone, and they are having a hard time adjusting, thats really all it comes down to.

^ Best post ever If someone kills you, they obviously need to be nerfed

Meh, you are Sith, most people know what is going to happen.

For huttball, I usually just try to harass rather than kill. Slowing the ballcarrier, stunning healers, knocking people off ledges, stunning them on top of firetraps, knockback then stun in the acid pools, staying stealthed on the goalline and taking a pass when the carrier gets close, that last one is probably the best way to help your team overall, unless they are getting facerolled and cant even get ball control. Something I really love doing that I don't think may Sins do is Mass Mind Control in large groups. This lowers the enemies damage by 30% unless they are hitting you for a short time. This is often the difference between winning and losing an objective in a big battle. Deception Spec. Another thing I do a lot is try to stay near the back of the enemy group and pick off, or at the very least, distract healers and range enough to keep them from doing thier jobs, even if it is just a stun and run. Being 50 and not having much expertise, I usually go down quite fast in 1v1 so I try to just annoy, which works for me, and usually helps my team a lot. In anything but huttball, I try to find targets that have pulled away from the group to heal and pick them off. In huttball this puts them in a perfect position to defend thier goal, in the other 2 WZ well, the benifits are pretty obvious. I almost never target someone who hasn't started hitting someone else if in the middle of the group. The last thing you want as deception is for the enemy to focus on you, hang out in the corners and wait for the fight to start, or for the enemy to target a class that can take the damage, then jump in and burst them down from the back. Thats how I play anyway, lots of kills very few deaths, usually around the middle of damage and still useful enough to actually help the team. Editing to respond to the guy below me: I just PvP when I am bored really, I am PvE focused, which is why I haven't respecced. His point is very well made, full Deception spec in PvP is pretty rough unless you are full champ gear vs people not in full champ gear. Which is why I play the way I do lol still gives me a purpose without becoming a target.

You are talking about 20% more damage using an adrenal, compared to being able to make your crit chance higher... of course using an adrenal would boost your base attack significantly higher than a crit adrenal, since a 20% flat crit chance would be insanely overpowered. You are talking about bosting average damage slightly over time. A Crit can boost your abilities damage by 100% or more. As my average maul is about 1500, but a crit is 3500+. Do I want my average Maul to be 1600? or do I want to be able to make lets say 4 out of 10 Mauls a crit rather than 3/10. Of course this is a very simplistic way to look at it, but I can't help that it is true. Just by saying that a power adrenal gives you more % of a boost than a crit adrenal, isn't really a fair way to say that power is better than crit.

I have heard anywhere between 30-45% crit and 75-90% surge "bonus damage" It is hard to find a definitive answer right now, for anything really, it is all speculation. I have been searching for a long time and reading a lot of different threads on the subject. I am shooting for the high end numbers of what I have read, as it is easier to gear down after hitting diminished returns rather than gearing up. A lot of people say they know for sure, but without ingame logs, it is very hard to tell.

Female Inquisitor has been my favorite. Almost everything she says sounds like an ******. Edit.... really they edited that word...... climax... that gonne get edited too ok no...

^ this... As was seen in my encounter with my friends last Marauder fight and mine.... His was LOL easy ours is like WTH cheaterface.

Willpower is your primary stat, this will make ALL damage you do better. Stack it first and often as much as you can. The NEXT stat is what is in question, Power or Crits. As you said in your first post, it is debatable at the moment. I don't think anyone really knows for sure, although the other guy thinks he does. I have stacked Crits and Surge, with deception being more spike/burst damage than sustained, and all our abilities that increase crit chance, you will see the majority of Deception Sins stacking crit over power. I read on these forums somewhere that 7 power stat = 1 bonus damage. I don't know if that was ever disproven, but I would say hit at the very least soft cap for crits and surge, then work on power.

I brought a friend. Tried it once and was like psh screw it. Don't forget, this is an MMO. It is intended to be played with other people, don't feel bad if you have to use them, otherwise TBH you might as well not play. I used my Oprative friend that was a good 8-9 levels below me, but the couple of heals was enough to finish the fight. Just told him to hang back out of AoE range, and not pull threat.

Well Deception isnt really a "rotation" it is more of a priority. This is pulled directly from that thread, so I don't know how you missed it. 0. Saber Strike (Out of Force) 1. Assassinate (Target at 30% health or less) 2. Maul (Exploit Weakness buff about to expire, behind target) 3. Lacerate (3 or more enemies) 4. Discharge (Every Cooldown) 5. Shock (2x Induction buff... so near basically every CD) 6. Maul (Exploit Weakness just proc'd) 7. Voltaic Slash or Thrash This is pretty much what I stick to as well without even really looking at this thread before hand. Your standard will be Voltaic, Voltaic, Shock everything else comes off of procs and CDs and force. Don't forget about Reclessness, Relics, Overcharge Saber, and other Utility stuff like Mass Mind Control then Cloak to reduce enemy damage for a time, stuns ect... all based off of effect conditions. Basically don't get so locked into your "rotation" that you forget about other things.

Ive had maul not connect many many times when im standing directly behind a target that is not moving, and it gives me the effect condition message. That happens more than it should, and I find it wierd, because I can maul from the side and it will connect, why wouldnt it when I am behind? They should maybe add in an additional effect to duplicity that when procced Mauls can be done from anywhere. At least in PvE.

What spec are you using? cant really answer that question unless we know your talents. Or better yet, look at the sticky thread at the top of the forum. It should answer most, if not all of your questions.

Well yeah you "can" tank but for high level stuff you will get absolutely destroyed trying to tank just using dark charge with no gear or darkness spec. I tanked a lvl 50 flashpoint on Ilum full deception in dps gear, but this was with a healer spec sorc and dps merc throwing heals on me constantly, and me taunting at the right moment, allowing others to take some damage while I got healed back to full, lots of medpacks and using cloak to my advantage when healers couldnt keep up. Basically, yeah you can tank normal content, but go into HM BT and mass mind control the first group of enemies and see how long you live