1) Offtank ... maybe a Kinetic heavy spec (23+) with Combat Technique, but offensive gear, with a focus instead of shield 2) 23/0/18 was pre-patch, the insta-DoT doesn't work anymore in tank stance. Nowadays it would be 24/0/17, but this is a utility spec for PvP, I would not recommend it for PvE. 3) First major buff for PvE tanking is Kinetic ward, which you could get at Lvl20. But for levelling I would recommend going Balance until Upheaval first, and then whatever you want.

Aiming for side / middle is a nobrainer. Going for side/side is basically is a confession of your incapability, because you assume you will die fast and very often. Unless your opponent does something very stupid like going 0/8/0 going 1/7/0 is the best tactics. When you are on the way to the middle point, you see your enemies movement - adapt! (send backup to left side when a few enemies run left, send scouts to right side if enemy is going heavy middle and left). Once you own middle+side 1-2 people defending worked best in my WZs, rest of the poeple should move quickly between middle and side depending on your enemy (learn to jump over the wall when going back side -> middle). I can't remember any WZ I would have lost when the enemy was ignoring the middle, going only side/side.

Force Lift is the reason I stayed Kinetic Hybrid (24/0/17) and did not switch to full Kinetic (31/0/10). I use it _a lot_ in warzones (especially for guarding a team mate's objective tagging, but also as an "8sec 100% dmg debuff") and in the middle hotspot on Ilum, but I agree, you either spend to points to make it insta-cast, or it is hardly worth a slot on your quickbar.

Definitly Kinetic 31/0/10 or Kinetic/Balance hybird (27/0/14, 24/0/17)... it is the most casual friendly spec for WZs, your overall damage will be a little bit lower, but you survivability will increase tremendously. Especially for solo casuals, who usually don't have much healing support in WZs and/or no top-notch gear, Combat Stance is a nobrainer. For PvE: Any stance is viable IMHO, Combat Stance is a bit slower killing, but you'll save time for regging/meditation.

Acutally pretty impressive video, definitly best shadow/sin vid I've seen so far. There are so many really bad videos around, just showing fragmented fights with high numbers, but this one has the high numbers AND very good usage of utility spells at the right moment. Really good work!

Did I ever say it makes you CC immune? CCs build resilience, rupts don't. A solo sage/sorc healer without support from team mates will die instantly when focussed by two people, a commando/merc can survive _much_ longer. And I'm playing neither sorc nor merc, I'm the guy that tries to kill them both. Mercs are way harder to kill than sorcs due to exact this ability.

You mean that healing class, that can make itself immune to rupts for 12 seconds? Jesus... try Tic Tac Toe, MMOs obviously aren't for everyone.

Did a lot of duels as kinetic hybrid against a guild sentinel, it basically was learning to interupt his master strike and not wasting force while he bubbled, after that the odds were clearly against him.

IMHO all the ST+Harnessed hype is based to much on theory and math, and to little on actual PvP. Range is a point for FiB, everyone agrees. Setting ground targets is clunky and revealing stealthers with a GT is highly speculative, so targeting is a point for ST, most people agree here too. Now to the part where I seem to disagree with the majority: The damage of FiB _per person_ is roughly double the damage of ST per person. Except for Voidstar you will not hit 5 people with ST very often ( - and survive, an additional factor which makes ST useless on Ilum). In practice, FiB's damage per person AND the total damage will be much higher than ST's damage, which also damagewise makes FiB *way* better than ST. The snare component of ST is heavily redundant when used offensivly, because especially Kinetic and hybrid shadows are cramped with CC/movement abilities. Same for using it as a defense / fleeing ability. The main benefit of ST is the 5% damage debuff, fool-proof in usage and your opponents cannot really counter the effect. TK is channeled and contrary to Sages you will use it within melee range, which is a huge drawback in PvP. While a Harnessed TK has the potential to be your best damaging ability, it is also the most error-prone ability due to CC and rupts. DS and increased DS crits might not sound all that powerful, but is a) spamable b) has no preconditions and c) is as good as any other abiity as long as their beneficial procs aren't up - which OTOH depend on DS (DS -> PA -> Project -> Harnessed). You usually shoudn't use Project without PA, you usually won't use TK without 3 Harnessed stacks. You might not want to use DS that often, but you will have to use it more often than you want. Instant mezz is also a major benefit of FiB spec synergy. You can basically force your opponent to use his CC purge, or you either can tag a WZ objective or just casted an 8sec 100% damage debuff. A notable tactical advantage, no matter how your opponent reacts. Instant Force Lift is also extremly handy when guarding a tagging attempt on any WZ objective. TL;DR: ST is a PvE ability for 5% damage debuff on boss mobs and threat generation, but PvP'ers should go FiB+instant Force Lift.

I was levelling with Shadow Technique and Qyzen all the way up to 50. Mind Snap the strongest mob of the pack, start with Spinning Kick on a weak mob and kill all the weak mobs first. They will be dead long before Mind Snap wears off, continue with Tumult on the mezzed mob. This will use 3-5 additional seconds in the beginning to set up the fight, but will save 10 seconds of Meditation because Qyzen will have to absorb much less damage. Don't forget to disable Qyzen's AoE spells or he will break your Mind Snap. I have to admin though that I never really tried the other techniques for more than a few minutes while levelling.

First ?5? fights were group fights. Only in the first fight mass taunt was greyed out/on cooldown.

Even after the hybird nerf in 1.1.2 and trying them both, I've still chosen FiB over ST. My reasons are: Range. This is our main weakness, 30m attack every 15sec helps a lot. The damage of FiB per person is double the damage of ST. You can actually _kill_ from range with FiB. Hitting 3 people hard is 1000 times better than tickle 5 people. Instant force lift. OK, this isn't actually a benefit of FiB, but of spec synergy. Can't count the number of times the instant force lift saved my buddies tagging attempt. Getting 30 kills on Ilum. Yes, Ilum sucks, but I still have to do my daily 30 kills there, FiB makes it easier. The main drawback is, ST only helps us in areas we are already damn good without ST: close range, soaking/preventing damage. That's why I'm still 24/0/17 instead of 31/0/10.

Honestly.... crap video, bad player getting big hits on lowbobs because he outgears them. L2P and use taunts, CC from stealth, rupts,.... then your team sometime will win because you actually contributed something. Stopped watching after 4mins because only thing I've seen is stealth, selfbuff and then standard rotations. Shadows can do so much more than this.

What I really don't understand is... shadows/sins weren't asking for those changes, other classes weren't crying about shadows/sins - so why the heck does BW waste its ressources with this causeless annoyance instead of focussing the real issues like lotto bags, tracer missile spam, sorc bubbles, Ilum, bugged operations,... Shadows/sins were asking for a change of Kinetic/Dard ward, because it outright sucks (in usability, not in it's effect)

German client still has the old description, and it still works the old way. No nerf, the new english tooltip is wrong.

Vote for sticky!

Gosh, I wish I would have gotten this hint earlier.

EDIT Nr 2: For the second vid, first an Spinning Strike (execute), followed by a project and a force breach on the 2nd guy. That guy has RR7x though, meaning he is massivly overgearing his opponents, and he uses adrenals, don't expect to see these numbers in "real life".

If you want a challenge pick any class which uses a light saber to do melee damage. If you are a masochist, choose Republic too. If you want PvP fun instead of frustration - then avoid both!

OP: Totally agree, I especially hate the Ilum Orbital Station and this stupid space dock!

Never played with this spec, but just doing the math doesn't make it really appealing. Compared to the common 2/31/8 infil spec... you are loosing 30% damage from 2*CS on Project you are loosing (45% * 50%) * 1,3 =~ 30% damage from Upheaval on Project you are loosing 5% + ?? damage because of tank stance penalty + not having Shadow technique procs you are loosing ?? damage from using DS instead of CS Seen from from a kinetic/tank perspective (comparing to my own 23+/x/8+ kinetic/balance spec) you are loosing 15% from Bombardment on Project you are loosing (45% * 50%) * 1.15 =~ 25% damage from Upheaval on Project you are loosing Stasis, which is a 30sec knockdown _without_ stealth you are loosing Kinetic ward (doesn't really matter for PvP, but useful in PvE) you are loosing One with the Force, which I personally think is much better than Circling Shadows you are loosing Force pull you are loosing Force synergy I don't think the increased crit on Project can keep up with all those points.

I'm PvP rank 53, got 5 belts, 5 implants, 3 relics, 2 offhand. No weapon. Until rank 50 I had only 1 part of armor set, now 2 parts. Best thing on top of everything is I don't even get mods or enhancements from belts and implants. Let me trade 3 of my unused implants for a mainhand weapon. Yes, I'm unlucky, want my response? I don't care, it is frustrating, and I want to spend my spare time with something actually being fun and not frustrating me.

And exactly that is the problem: for almost as much damage as an operative, we additionally need 1. a CS strikes before 2. another CS strike before 3. Force Potency (90sec cooldown) 4. an upheaval proc (45% chance) An operative just uses Shoot first, without pipelining 3 spells/actions immediatly before the hit and with 100% success rate instead of only 45% success rate. PS: I really hope consumables get nerfed soon. No class should almost oneshot another player, not in any case, no matter which preconditions, never!

2nd tier PvP gear set bonus fives an extra force potency charge

I'm currently at PvP rank 44 and I'm getting increasingly annoyed by the performance and gameplay of my Shadow in PvP. So far I have been playing mostly 2 builds at lvl50, a CS/Upheaval build and a Kinetic/Upheaval build. Due to taunt it is extremly easy to get 6-8 medals... but both tank and DD builds are tedious to play. When playing the infil build I'm as squishy as I expected, but the damage done was NOT what I expected. SS is a disappointment: without proc it is a bad style, with FW proc it is OK, but it is really hard to notice the proc in the buff bar in the heat of battle. The animation is a major issue, it feels like a second or more until damage is delivered. I'm a button masher, quite often I had the animation starting again and again from the beginning, not doing any damage at all. Another issue, often I was running behind my opponents, stunned him, but then could not deliver a single hit until he started running again because I was constantly getting the "effect condition failed" message (hope I translated it correctly, I'm playing with the german client). CS might seem a nice standard attack, but when comparing it to my scoundrel twink and his 10m range "Quick shot", the 31 spec attack is damagewise - at best - on par with a free lvl 8 or something ability. Project, Force Breach,... all our abilities need procs, damage stacks, extra CD abilities, ... just to perform mediocre, on their own they are terribly weak. When playing with Kinetic/Combat technique survivability is a lot better, but from what I see in warzones healers are at least as "tanky" as a Shadow tank. I'm doing damage mostly by PA+Upheaval Projects, DS is pointless for anything except getting the next PA proc. It takes some time to get the 2.5k dmg medal, but due the increased survivability I overall do as much damage as I have done playing my infil build. But I can't remember one single warzone where I would have been alone long enough to get a solo kill. Kinetic Ward is just dumb, what's the point of activating a mandatory, always-up buff every 20 seconds? Reminds me to those idiotic twisting classes like Paladin in DAoC or Knight of the Blazing Sun in Warhammer that needed a buff activation every 5 seconds. I'm good at annoying other people, especially with the tank setup (knockdown without stealth, shorter stun CD, stealth+Mind Snap near warzone objectives), I'm good at farming medals... but it's no fun. There are now "WOW!" moments, no DD "omg i just smoked this guy instantly" moments, no tank "harhar, I stood through an onslaught of several players" moments, no healer "I saved my entire group's *** from annihilation" moments (ok, the last one is obvious). All our abilities are tailored around procs, damage stacks and long extra cooldowns, and this can only work in a controlled enviroment like PvE, but in the struggle of PvP fights they are just to error-prone to be used effectivly. Comparing to my scoundrel twink, which is the same stealth-DD/rogue archetype as my Shadow, I can do simple standard rotations, while playing my Shadow feels like hard work just to perform equally. TL/DR: Procs and damage stacks suck, that's why Shadows suck at PvP