True, but I'd say that it is quite instrumental to the assassin and operative classes to have an active combat given that so many of their skills and abilities depend on it. Dark Embrace- While this works great in PvP and very short PvE battles it is completely worthless in long scale boss fights and PvP matches where you don't leave combat. Spike- Essentially having an in-combat stealth would actually make the skill useful. It's a handy interrupt among other things but again, on a long term scale it's useless. Hidden Strike(Operative)- Again another example of a skill which despite being very powerful and useful in PvP it is useless in long boss fights. That's the reason they can't balance operatives damage, because so much depends on this skill. Acid Blade included. Now I agree with you in that all classes should have a different feel to them, however there are going to be skills which heavily overlap. In the event that assassins and operatives got a skill such as this, I think I'd like to see the marauder/sentinels cloak reworked. Possibly increase its duration by 2 seconds(to 6 seconds) and have it increase your movement speed by 50%. Alright I'll use ravage as it might be the most blatant example that I've found. At level 15(ish) on my sentinel the masters strike(ravage) deals about 4.5 times the damage of strike which builds 2 focus. It also deals around 2.5 times the damage of slash. As of level 15 master strike is a very useful skill(and it should be considering its 30 second cooldown). However due to its scaling once the marauder reaches level 40 master strike only does around 3.5-4 times the damage of strike and 2.2-2.5 times the damage of slash. It is now almost worthwhile to cast half the skill(I believe that like 65% of the damage is done in the first second and a half) and then cast the other two skills. Thereby your rotation has changed due to scaling which is terrible. If at the beginning master strike does 1000 times the damage of strike then it should stay at 1000 times the damage of strike throughout the entire game regardless of what gear you have on. The same should apply to all skills force, melee tech all of them. The current system is perfectly fine assuming everyone is the same level with the same gear, which they clearly are not, this system is basically foolproof unless the player is TRYING to gear themselves in a way that screws them over. This is completely different from how abilties scale, no comment. It makes it easier to balance because regardless of what gear you put in the game the skills will always maintain their ratios, no single skill will get more benefit than another, thereby offsetting the balance. My goal with the system I propose is to have a game where, no skill benefits more from gear, on a percent of your total damage that all skills put out will remain the same regardless of what gear you are wearing, Thereby keeping the value of talents in trees equivalent and keeping the game balanced over long periods of time,

ROCKET JUMPING YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH sorry it had to be said

I know what marauders and sentinels have the skill and I know what it does. I fail to see your point however. You're not understanding gaahhh(beats head on desk). I realize how the current system works I'm simply stating that there are some slight flaws with the current system that work against balance that could easily be tweaked to simply make the game far easier to balance without sacrificing anything other than a little time and effort to make the change. In the end they'd save themselves alot of work and pain and suffering. Here's an example of an issue with the current system Massacre - Tier 7 skill of the central marauder tree Carnage deals around 214-235 on my level 18 marauder(from the preview). 3 rage cost. Vicious slash deals around 180-205 damage costs 3 rage. As of level 50 however they look more like this. Carnage deals 800-850 damage and Vicious Slash deals 950-1000 damage, the rage costs have not changed. This is a major problem for the playerbase because what looks to be an awesome skill and an upgrade, is actually a downgrade because of Carnage not scaling properly. The ratio has gone from carnage doing 17% MORE damage to carnage doing 15% LESS damage. That's the issue with scaling and I want to make sure that all skills scale at an equal ratio. 100% sure, I went on my shadow 2 hours ago and got shadows training from rank 2-4 and project's damage didn't result in an increase. It was doing an average of 820 non-crit damage on level 4 mobs before shadows training and 820 average after shadows training.

You're comparing concealment operatives to darkness assassins which is complete crap. Darkness assassins are supposed to be tanks and concealment operatives are supposed to be dps. Warzones! - CAN walk on fire unharmed - for three seconds every minute...yay? - Easily can punt anyone off from anywhere - Can Stun you from 30m. Force pull you from 30m/face plant. Whirlwind you from 30m. ( potential 12sec CC from 30m )...whirlwind is absolutely terrible - Can jump first closed bridge in voidstar and win the game solo...this is more an exploit than anything else - Can force speed to node in alderaan to take, also has faster normal speed. You guys have faster normal speed aswell invalid point. - Utility - Force speed - Taunt and Aoe Taunt on CD CC - Sap that doesnt fill resolve bar - Stun 4 sec range 30m - Snare mechanic 10m with 6 sec CD. for 18 secs... once you put two points into the talent sure. - Gouge style skill, breaks on damage Survival - Vanish - All dots cleanse skill Damage - Untouched after patch - Deception assassins have no opener. Gap closer - Force speed- Probably the worst gap closer in the game.

I read what you said, and that system is faulty. It should be (base damage + bonus damage) * coefficient to keep values constant. I never said I wanted a long cooldown skill to enter stealth in combat I wanted a short cooldown skill that would put you in stealth for a limited time in combat. I never said that assassins and operatives should get a long term one to have them leave stealth permanently because they already do in the form of cloaking screen and force cloak. I realize that there is no pvp buff at level 50, I was simply using the buff that you receive from pvp as a way to clearly demonstrate the scaling in skills. Some skills clearly benefit more from gear than others THAT was the point that I was trying to make. Actually assassins training provides only the initial 25% damage buff to shock, there's literally no damage difference in shock between assassins training rank 1-4. In fact shock isn't even getting a full benefit from assassins training(I believe it's like 18-19%?) or it's falling somewhere into the equation that I'm not aware of. Because if they aren't in spoilers then wall of text syndrome occurs. People don't like scrolling all that much. Although if it bothers you that much I'll take them out and see what I can do about formatting.

darkness assassins are arguably overpowered and one of the best classes. It destroys in PvP and is a very viable tank. Deception assassin is terrible sustained dps and isn't really useful at all in PVP and madness is a viable spec in PvE but it's lacking in PvP. An annihalation marauder can put out equivalent to or greater dps than a madness assassin, I'm fairly certain of that.

Here are the current readings for deception assassin Combat log: Thrash = 1006.5 damage, Uses: 159 Total Percentage of Damage: 13.9% Shock = 1331.0 damage, Uses: 249 Total Percentage of Damage: 28.7% Force Lightning = 1732.5 damage, Uses: 0 Total Percentage of Damage: 0.0% Maul = 1468.5 damage, Uses: 125 Total Percentage of Damage: 15.9% Discharge = 1507 damage, Uses: 125 Total Percentage of Damage: 16.3% Crushing Darkness = 1694.0 damage, Uses: 0 Total Percentage of Damage: 0.0% Spike = 1254.0 damage, Uses: 94 Total Percentage of Damage: 10.2% Saber Strike = 550.0 damage, Uses: 154 Total Percentage of Damage: 7.3% Dark Slash = 1045.0 damage, Uses: 94 Total Percentage of Damage: 8.5% Over the course of a thousand turns Thereby tier 1 of deception: Thrashing Blades- Increases the damage dealt by thrash/voltaic slash by 5.4%..10.8%, 2 points. Assassins Boon/Shadows Insight- Increases your willpower by 3...9% 3 points Insulation- No changes from current, till I come up with something creative. Tier 2: Recirculation: No change Objuscation: Being replaced Avoidance: No need for changes Tier 3: Surging charge: Guaranteed chance to trigger on attacks. Multiplier of 15%. Will have it's damage spread out if the skill is a multi-hit. Induction: Thrash/Voltaic slash has a 50...100% chance to make your next discharge free Deceptive Power: No change from current, maybe add in an additional passive affect. Dark Swell: Not sure what's going to replace this yet. Tier 4: Fade: Reduces the cooldown of force cloak by 30 seconds and increases your movement speed by 15...30% for 3 seconds when you activate dark slash Duplicity: While surging charge is active maul deals 10...20% more damage Dark Slash: Deals 190% damage, 15 second cooldown and grants 4 seconds of stealth. Static Cling: Decreases the cooldown of force slow and increases it's duration by 1.5...3 seconds and force speed grants 3...6 seconds of slow on shadowstep. Tier 5: Resourcefulness: Not sure what to do with this yet, but it's got to go. I'm thinking it might be a good one to change into some form of heal mechanic Static Charges: Your surging charge hits increase the damage dealt by shock by 3...6% stacks 5 times. Cannot be triggered more than once a GCD. Crackling Blasts: Increases the critical damage of surging charge and shock by 10...30%. 3 Points. Tier 6: Dark Embrace: While in stealth mode and for 6 seconds after leaving stealth mode your force regeneration is increased by 25...75%. 3 Point skill. Requires Dark Slash. System Shock: Derp? Tier 7: Voltaic Slash: Base multiplier of 210% before other talents. Using this skill increases the damage of your next discharge by 30%.

The issue with the current system is that when comparing say shock or project to saber strike the benefits from equipment and leveling scale at a completely different rate. If saber strike deals 500 damage and shock deals 3000 in the current system, then you upgrade your equipment and the new damage values are 1500 and 4500. The ratio has gone from 1:6 to 1:3 and it's completely broken, there's no real reason that something like this should be occuring as all it'll do is offbalance the game for you depending on how good your equipment is. A rather extreme example and no skills in game are exactly like this, but a great example is to examine marauder/sentinel skills at the top of the tree at a low level, then go in a PvP match where you recieve the buff. The skills go from being amazing and overpowered to being weaker than some of your current skills. Massacre's a good example. So there has to be a set amount of base damage, say 50 on all skills that gets added with the bonus damage from equipment, be it 400 or something like that, then the multiplier gets applied, what the multiplier is completely depends on the skill. So it would look something like 500 damage on saber strike and 1500 on shock, then after the gear upgrade it's 1000 on saber strike and 3000 on shock. No skill has become more or less valuable simply more valuable as a whole. It simply means that there's a less confusing system for the community, the developers and it's constantly balanced assuming they don't do anything screwy with gear ratings.

FINALLY done my java program, good riddance. Here's my code, if you understand java clicky. Now the only thing that really needs work is the rotation and priorities. Currently it's Discharge if force greater than or equal to 25 and off-cooldown Shock if force is greater than 35 and shock's off cooldown Maul if force is greater than 35 and maul's off-cooldown Dark slash if force is less than 70 and dark slash is off cooldown Then spike if dark slash has been used. Thrash if force is greater than 35. My only issue at the moment would have to be with the logic and rotation parameters.

I think this is the second of these threads posted by you that I've seen Not sure if your previous one got taken down or what. Either way, have fun trolling

Um context would be nice, but for example's sake (I'm going to ASSUME) that you're talking about bonuses in the class trees. So +1% endurance would be your current endurance + 1% so if you are at 500 endurance then a 1% endurance boost will add 5 endurance(multiply by 1.01). So regardless of how much endurance you have that 1% will always be added.

I personally always use it on cooldown as much as I can. Namely because as powerful as shock is it requires 2 thrash/voltaic slash to get to that point.

Alrighty Sorcerer/Sage and Shadow/Assassin should now be dealing exactly the same damage before any talents in the trees. Which will be modified as soon as I get my java program functioning well. This is excluding rotation conflicts however. So all the assassin and sorcerer class trees will deal exactly the same damage over an extended period of time. Working on getting operative to the desired threshold. Boo yah

The tanking tree for assassins/shadows is arguably overpowered However if you tell me the dps tree's are OP I'ma smack you. The ONLY thing damage assassins and shadows have going for them that the tank spec doesn't is their short burst damage when they have recklessness proc'd. If you're saying that deception and concealment need a nerf, I want you to play one ALL the way to level 40 ish.

Update to the operative Any constructive feedback is welcome =)

I'm not sure how many of you actually looked in-depth at the patch notes for arsenal mercenaries but they didn't actually get nerfed. Those spamming tracer missile got nerfed but the sustainable damage of the class got a very slight buff(from a mercenary on the PTS)

Willpower Surge(till at 300 or 70% I think) Crit chance Power Not sure if or where accuracy falls in there.

On my level 46 deception assassin I will consistently get around 7-9 medals, I've gotten 10 a couple of times.

Oooh these are definitely interesting. Personally I'd like to see changes like this Shadow Slash would deal about the same damage as it does now(about) 9 second cooldown, 35 force cost and it gives 3 seconds of 30% increased movement speed to you and 5 friendly targets within a 30 meter radius. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=333306 It's not all translated to republic at the moment.

Yah you really want to be using crushing darkness if you have the raze talent 1) It's free 2) It does a truckload of damage Death field does lots of damage as well and increases the damage of your periodic abilities by 20%. You really want to be using death field on cooldown. Your rotation should look something like this Discharge should always be applied to the target Death field should be used on cooldown Shock should be used frequently Thrash until crushing darkness proc's Crushing darkness as soon as you get the proc if the targets health is below 30% assassinate on cooldown. Your spec should look something like this: http://knotor.com/skills#Ag4AABopSVJaYnmJkpqrsrrL2gAA

What gear are you using, I mean you should have no trouble at level 35. Are you using khem val? Is his gear crap? Also why are you using force lightning in the madness spec? You should be using crushing darkness with the proc. And death field. I destroyed her with khem as deception at level 33 with the PvP lightsaber.

Meh I can get a general idea as to the damage they want for utility skills by looking at the damage of current utility skills in the game. That's what I base them upon, but I haven't even gotten around to working on utility skills yet. Additionally you have to realize that all this is simply my opinion generally. However I can't help but look at so many of the the skill trees and the damage values of skills and notice that they are completely wrong. Bioware made balancing classes very difficult for themselves. They used an additive template instead of a multiplicative template and didn't use constant values for absolute upgrades in the skill trees.

You're absolutely right, I wouldn't suggest they throw a buffed shock into the game at the moment as it would completely throw everything out of whack. However to make balancing skill trees simplistic and accurate as well as fair, it's optimal to start with an equivalent base and work your way up from there. If all skills are equal at the start, all upgrades can be equivalent.

Finally got my excel spreadsheet set up and all my equations figured out Time to start pumping out numbers

Aye there's something wrong with the animation or the skill. I have NEVER once had issues with the operatives backstab while I have rage at maul pretty frequently. The animation is far too slow for such an incredibly conditional ability.