the only class with any gripe about cc and defensives are the Assassin and the Sorc to some extent. At least the sorc can kite and has an emergency bubble. The assassin defensives are brutal. you get 50% dmg redux on some attacks and it honestly seems to be rng if it does do that. Force shroud is nice to cleanse and block stuns but it is a 5 second (at max) window that you can still take normal melee dmg. For me I will force cloak and I have had 2 separate times when I will hit force cloak... and then i just die (even with the immunity utility) and my force cloak goes on CD.... like... wut. Or I will go into stealth but now out of combat so i cant go heal without leaving the team for too long. Force speed granting phasing phantasm seems to only work in pve... I can take zero dmg from a HM boss on a hit with that and that hit is 50-60k or more and then in pvp it does nothing. NO other class has any gripe...

This post is purely out of experiences and in no way scientific data collection. I use an offhand shield gen instead of a focus cause i noticed no dps loss and I got 20% absorb and 5% shield to give myself 1/5 hit absorb.. the pve thing with phasing phantasm seems to be 100% absorb. As dps I will be offtanking on certain bosses. No matter the hit, I will take 0 dmg. I have played Assassin Exclusively since ROTHC. So don't tell me I have played it wrong lol. I play ranked pvp at 1500+ rating this season. I just didn't feel any difference in how much dmg I was taking as Hatred or as Deception.

Hello all. Just a thought that has plagued me for a little while now, and that is entropic defenses during a fight is always up and at 3 stacks (9% dmg redux), dark embrace is also always up (15% dmg redux). If I have 24% constant dmg reduction, how come i still see myself getting hit for 30k+ attacks taking so much dmg. I switched over to Hatred spec for a bit to see how the increased dmg was (negligible) and I didn't feel any difference in the amount of dmg I was taking. I truly believe that Deception is not getting that 24% damage reduction. That should be taking a quarter off of every hit. that is a very noticeable stat... I am just kinda dumbfounded. Against my better judgments I have begun tank/dmg hybrid in pvp now because I can actually survive. Any thoughts on the Damage Reduction Issue? or is it just me...?

I never have problems with sorcs... it is always with snipers or mercs who have rolled cause they heard they are good and then they just get globalled. When it comes down to it... the lack in DPS is more noticeable in pve where the skill of the player is secondary to the strength of the class and rotation.

So, I read the patch notes for the Assassin, I saw that insulation has been 'fixed'. I wanted to ask to see if anyone thought it would be worth it to pick up insulation for pvp. Since a lot of the popular/high dmg dealing classes use energy and kinetic attacks? Also, are they ever going to fix stealth cloak? I cannot count the number of times that I have cloaked and not been pulled out of stealth or I cloak and even after the dmg invuln. utility, I still am slowed and pulled out of stealth. I hate going into ranked. stealthing out to heal quick, and not being able to exit combat and heal and then getting flamed for running away and not healing up. This bug has been around for a while. plz send help

The way to let people practice at arenas is to allow people to queue for certain warzones so that you can queue for unranked arenas and develop that skill. Ranked should never be a place to learn or to grow and be criticism free. If someone doesn't fully pull their wait then it is annoying. But I don't see people getting flamed unless they do laughable dmg/heals or if they get globalled 2 times in a row or make the sane mistake twice. I am tired of bad player apologists. Stay out of ranked unless you are well 242 and up at a minimum, and you know what you are doing. I played this game for 4 years and I only started to queue for ranked in 4.7 and in 5.0 because even though I pvp'd righteously, I didn't want to be "that" guy. In any case, unranked arenas in regs are the place to learn and you should be able to queue for those independently. I also believe upping the req's for ranked i.e. lvl 60 valor rank and some sort of gear rating minimum like it used to be with expertise, as well as removing bolster.

are you daft? we only have mez in stealth and out of combat and you have to be out of combat too.... every other class gets an aoe mez for 8 seconds in any situation... don't be butthurt and realize that assassin's are actually really squish. Go back and play your merc before you need to use skill to play well

That is once a minute. I am talking about rotational gaurentees. Like when you use one ability and get a proc. a lot of classes have insta crit or crit dmg increase on an ability like with furious burst for fury spec or whatever it is called.

I actually quit the game about 2 weeks after 5.0 was released because I would play ranked pvp or even normal warzones and I would see that no matter the gear, everyone was the same. I lost all motivation to progress my character through the RNG grind that was in place at the time. I came back to the game because a guildy told me that they had added other avenues to gear and that bolster was lower. In my mind the whole idea of an MMO is to progress and develop. I think the best way to overcome this gap. The best way to allow people to get alts geared without getting facerolled. The best way to make ranked more fun and to keep undergeared people out of it; and the best way to allow progression without making alts painful to gear would be 3 fold. 1) Make the bolster to be set at 240 2) Take bolster out of ranked completely 3) Reintroduce expertise. Allow people with those gear shells to turn them in for either pvp or pve shells.

When I speak about kiting, I am saying for people who put utilities into the dcd buffs. I have mine in movement so i dont get kited... but my defensives aren't as strong because of it. 18k is pretty much an accurate amount. Parsing wise and in what I have done. My power is 4.2 but that means nothing since people that have 5.2k power are hitting just as hard as me

I used to follow the school of thought for pvp that you want to just stack crit and power. I found in parsing and in practical pvp experience that when I lowered my crit to 40% and brought my alacrity up to 1600 I was maybe hitting 1k less on my big maul crit but even then I was still hitting just as hard but with 14.8% alacrity and I still crit at a 43% rate

My reaping strike hits for 17-18k when it crits. I would be fine with no need to proc it. i mean an 18 second cd is really really long anyway. I think it would be a nice way to increase dps because the assassin either gets good RNG and crits everything and you delete someone or nothing crits and you hit like a feather duster. I don't know any other way to make dps for regular without making anything too op. Either my maul hits for 27k or it hits for 10k or less. Discharge either hist for 19k or 9k. I think more consistent dmg would be nice since we aren't super tanky, have no self heal and is melee so vulnerable to kiting.

Ummm wut... PVP bolstered to the highest level made me quit the game. What is the point of having gear progression if Warzones and ranked arenas are bolstered to max. At that point why even play an MMO. I should just go play a Moba where you can just hop in and play. the point of an MMO is progression; through levels, through story... through gear. As soon as they toss that bolster back in. People who should not be in ranked pvp aka. the clickers and braindead pve'ers will come back and get the "easy" cxp. I only returned to the game cause I had a way to get gear besides RNG and because bolster wasn't so autisticly high

I was just thinking, almost all of the other dps classes have guaranteed crits on abilities without using cd's to achieve that and based purely on a proc. Assassin has no proc for insta crit. Maul gets a dmg bonus, ball lightening does as well, but it is up to RNG or recklessness (a cd) as to whether it crits. I would like to see reaping strike always be an auto crit. Since the cd on Reaping Strike is 18 seconds and it can't be finished sooner, has to be preceeded by a crit hit, it makes sense to me to make it an auto-crit. I think it would help a spec that hasn't changed drastically in a long time, has some of the most meh dcd's, a meh self heal and has average dmg. Thoughts?

I don't think Deception should be buffed, I think deception is the ideal sort of balance. You get some defensives, good dmg, some good cc and mobility. I think the problem is that the other classes are so so good and have amazing self heal even on dps only specs. i.e. sniper. They have roots, slows, kiting, they can't be interuppted, can't be stunned, can't be jumped too. Every class is on steroids now besides deception.