lolwut? you used some pretty vague terminology there, because i'm pretty sure the word consistently and infiltration dont mix ;P but getting serious, can you tell me you can parse 3.4k on, say, 10 dummies in a row? if not i think 'consistently' isn't the right term. hell, i'd be surprised if it was even possible to have such consistency with infiltration for five straight parses, let alone 10. in all of my parsing with this spec, i've never seen the spec preform on any level of real consistency. i have to parse at least 3-5 times before i get a parse that is even in the 3.4 range, let alone one that gets close to my previous best, that takes days minimum for me. maybe its just me? who knows, i couldn't say. all i know is i've done my fair share of practice and the consistency has never been satisfactory in my eyes. (however my recent experiences make me a bit biased, since i only just got a working computer again and have lost some of whatever edge i had ^.^)

yeah no one ever said it was a consistent problem. i mentioned it, saying i can't stand when it does happen, and i'd go on to say even even the idea that CSx2 is normal bothers me, which is why i'd like the ability to use low slash efficiently. (or just a higher rate of shadow strikes and breaches in general to have a similar effect. i feel like a broken record....) EDIT: i'll amend that, the way i see the spec in it's ideal state, CSx2 will be inevitable every couple of shock rotations. so normal isn't the right word, the fact that it's so much more frequent than i think is necessary is what bothers me i guess.

i still tend to disagree with your standpoint here, i think it's not very hard to add low slash into your rotation while making sure its not interfering with the natural infil tactics proc and not delaying project, but lets face it that happens inevitably even when not using low slash. you have a good point about the execute phase though, LS>SS would certainly (and does) become less usable during the execute phase. having the constant spinning strike every 6 seconds added to the rest of our key abilities makes it so adding burst isn't really even necessary. however for the first 70% of the fight i would welcome a controllable infiltration tactics, because idk about all of you but i am sick to death of having project cooldowns being filled with three clairvoyant strikes. even two is too repetitive for me. in the execute phase this problem is close to non-existent, but again in all the time before that, i would really welcome the addition to low slash to our usable abilities. on the other hand, changing infiltration tactics to a 100% proc chance as is being suggested would pretty much serve the same purpose, only with a slightly lesser reduction of the use of CS. i would probably welcome such a change (but who knows unless we are actually able to test stuff, right?)

for me personally, i spent time playing and growing to enjoy deception (infiltration). even if madness wasn't boring as hell i'd probably end up switching classes if i even stayed on the game.

you should know by now the internet grammar gods are never appeased.

i'm sure my opinion on this is already semi-known: i'd quit, or if i didn't end up being as mad as i predict then i would reroll classes. i think it would be semi-fair if every AC had this sort of restriction, but even so just for me personally i've spent way too much time working with infiltration, and don't even particularly like balance, so to have to switch after so much dedication would be pretty game-breaking for me.

this is what i assumed would be talked about when changing phase walk. changing it to be target-able or place-able would change it too much from what it is, and bring it into the realm of overpowered. however only changing the cast time and possibly the permanence of the node seems more than reasonable. at least an instacast is needed for it to be used more than once in any given fight in pve, however it being instacast doesn't necessarily make it any more appealing if it doesn't bring anything to the table other than a teleport, since it's really just not needed. force speed basically does that better than this idea, i think. if it were changed to be instacast and the node becoming permanent, on top of adding something equivalent to the healing buff for tanks, then i'd think it may be worth it to use in pve. that's my take on the situation, anyway.

i think it's safe to say we could and should cover madness in the pvp section, since that's where it could use the most work. if we can get it so that madness gets a change to pvp that also helps their pve situation, then that'd be the most ideal and would free up the pve question to talk more about deception that'd be my preference anyway, and then wildcard could be about tanking in pvp or phasewalk.

my previous best is 3480 something if i remember correctly; that's close enough to me to make me want to try for the same. if only i could take advantage of that inspiration, my game client went all fail on me and i'm in the long process of troubleshooting and redownloading.

i like the direction your thoughts are in, however this particular idea of autocrit discharges (as it is now) kinda negates the purpose of recklessness and electric ambush, and i don't think you can just throw a buff in that will negate it in pvp (speculation of course). electric ambush could be changed to accommodate such a new mechanic, but i don't see any change getting around the fact that making discharge autocrit will take importance away from recklessness, which i think is great for pve, but may get the pvp crowd mighty angry (both that discharge will always crit and that recklessness will lose it's upfront burst advantage) i think we're better off goin a different route. that's my two cents anyway.

dat 50+ crit% on shadow strike and force breach. i'm gunna puke ;P

low slash causing induction still leaves us with the problem of having to overuse saber strikes, and therefore would only work as a change not accompanied by others if it gave an induction and refunded some force, imo. but thinking too deeply on it tends to not be so helpful unless we're dealing with real possibilities, which i'm not sure we are, cause... bioware. as to the bolded part, while i understand this perspective, i don't feel the same way. i think we could use another ability to break the tedium of the VS spam, unless we get changes to increase the frequency of mauls and discharges drastically enough to have the same effect. but that's just my personal QoL thing, i doubt this would ever happen, heh.

ok i see what you're asking now, coincidentally it's what i thought you were asking ^.^ yes, iv'e made absolutely sure the stacks just disappear into thin air. the logs say they never even get built. when discharge/force breach procs surging charge/shadow technique, logs show that it never actually builds a stack to accompany the damage of the technique. another similar issue is chain shock double proccing surge/techniques. this can be something that isn't completely detrimental when you don't overcap on stacks because of it, but most of the time it overcaps, and even when it doesn't it still throws off the flow of naturally occurring surge/technique procs so anytime chain shock/upheaval proc a surge/technique then it's subtly messing up your rotation, i see it as always being a bad thing. if we could get the discharge/force breach bug fixed, and the upheaval/chain shock double proccing scenario eliminated, then we'd be heading in the right direction and i'd think BW actually knew what they were doing for us. since it hasn't happened i will keep my position as they don't know what to do ;P and the upping of duplicity proc chance is something iv'e suggested before, and certainly would help relieve the situation, but who knows if it will fully solve it. i'd definitely prefer the low slash solution, but if it's either duplicity % increase or nothing, i'll take the duplicity % increase, and i'd probably be fine with the lower chain shock chance to compensate, since we can't rely on shock as a high damaging ability anyway, since it has to crit, proc chain shock, crit chain shock, and then if you really want comparable numbers to maul/discharge you need to crit on the surging charge proc too. (SO MUCH RNG.... CANT TAKE IT....)

to paragraph one, i've toyed with this idea a little bit. what you're describing is basically a talent we already have (saber conduit/profundity), only without the internal cooldown. i think it would be acceptable if we just lowered the internal cooldown from the current outrageous 10s for 10force, then it might have the desired effect without making it identical to lightning burns/rippling force, as would be the case if we completely eliminated the 10s icd. in regards to the force breach/discharge bug, fixing this alone may not put us directly in line with, say, concealment scrapper, but it would be a bump in the right direction. i'd say if a fix to that was coupled with taking away the ability for upheaval/chain shock to proc a second time then there'd be a better chance of getting the desired outcome. if both of these ideas were addressed and fixed as well as a slight force management bump, i would be satisfied with the efficiency of the spec in pve-- --if i had my way i'd add low slash or increasing duplicity/tactics reliability into the mix, then i think the spec would preform as perfectly as the spec's general structure allows, but maul/shadowstrike frequency is probably the least pressing of the matters at hand, since it only has two layers of rng (single layer proc chance and crit chance) instead of the four or so involved with force breach/discharge.

good example, thanks for the needed perspective. however, i'd think the warrior class is slightly different due to the distinct change in resource generation between the two class, the warrior archetype gets the bulk of it's resource generation from using active abilities and has quite a few of them, while assassin has probably the most passive resource generation of any classes due to its static nature. but putting that idea aside for what it's worth, we can at least agree that the necessary frequent use of saber strikes comes at a larger cost than we generally see with the frequency of other classes using their 'auto attack'. and honestly, evo, the thought had occurred to me to raise the damage on saber strikes, but it's not far off from the point of doing too much damage, if all hits crit and you get a critting surging charge with it then the damage is comparable to a non-critting VS, if this was slightly raised it may have a decent effect on our poor sustainability, and would probably solve any force issue we have (which i still say we have a minor one). the only thing i'd say we'd have worry about after that is the unnecessarily large rng risk involved with frequency of discharges and mauls.

sorry, not getting what you're referring to, there was a lot of things discussed ;P please clarify before i make random speculations that may not be relevant whatsoever ^.^

there are inevitable points of running out of force while fighting a dummy, that is it is inevitable if you're trying to not sacrifice your good current dps to weave in saber strikes, which for me is a big deal. our force is a problem when faced with 100% fighting uptime, but its a very minor problem. the problem is we have no efficient control of how to manage it. you use blackout cloak blackout and individual blackouts on cooldown, then you rely on good procs and saber strikes. i'm pretty sure no other dps spec uses their auto attack as frequently as we must to stay in decent force levels, and the more we use them the more dps we're sacrificing. that's how it is. most other dps specs have a decent method of switching to a more force efficient rotation at will to accompany their force regen boost actives for all around good force with enough control that doesn't irreparably damage their dps flow. the idea being talked about gives us exactly that. in short: if you think our force regen is perfect as it is, my opinion is that you're quite wrong. this buff may or may not be too much, that's not what i'm getting at. all i wanted to put my opinion on the record clearly that our force regen is NOT perfect. it's got a pretty big flaw, that is really almost a QoL issue for parsers. (and if it's not perfect than there's no reason not to work towards perfecting it )

^ this is what i'm seeing people like mknightrider doing. iv'e followed suit, i wouldn't say it's BiS until someone does some hard math on the setup, but i would say it's probably unofficially the best stat setup for those working on or in full dread forged.

to your first query: i'm always using shock with 2 stacks of induction and voltage, i may use it with only 1 stack of voltage if i have an expendable amount of force which isn't often. this also means that often i will have to delay shock a gcd or two even depending on the situation which becomes a bit of a problem. as to your second query: the second shock from chain shock isn't affected by voltage (i'm honestly surprised all of this is news to anyone), however it does have a chance to, and this becomes more of a problem than something useful, since you can't always rely on it not happening or happening, and if you're not getting it at the perfect time and number of stacks then it will make you waste a stack and we want to avoid that at all costs. all in all, you keep trying to look at this low proc chance im seeing as theoretical, when it is anything but. the theoretical aspect is what BW keeps looking at and deeming we need no change. if you actually sit down and do 5-10 parses like i do (and i'm sure i'm not alone in that) every time i try, (trying to fish for a parse with decent numbers) then you'll see the sort of thing i'm talking about in great detail. you'll see how you can have 3 discharges go off and each proc and lose a static all in a row, or how it can take to that third shock before you actually have a discharge ready to go, or how duplicity will refuse to proc and your dps is already dipping. these are the situations where you see the problems that i'm talking about, testing the mechanics briefly then formulating a theory about it is going to show you a picture that is very disconnected from the picture i see every day i log on and start parsing. what i've been saying for awhile now is you have to go in and see the spec actually in its element, half way through a parse when all the rng has added up and is in mid stride of slapping you. that's where you'll see the problems i'm talking about (whether exaggerated or not, if you all haven't figured out by now i'm only speaking about prior experiences and speculation of it, not any specific testing, but i believe my point remains.)

doesnt change the fact that we get a single use of the ability then it becomes basically inefficient to try to set up again. and basically all of those, and even though i will try these situations, i doubt they will help us anymore than if we were to completely neglect the ability. but at least my main quarrel with phase walk is that it's only able to be used once, then no one wants to take the cast time to put another down. you can find places to use it if you get really creative, as you've shown, but it's still a gimmick at best that doesn't give any real specific benefit, imo.

as to the discharge frequency, the scenario you described happens more often than i'd like, but isn't the only source of the longer gap that i'm experiencing. i also generally get really bad luck with either discharge proccing and losing a static charge, or shock double proccing static at the wrong moment and also loses a stack. these two things combined with scenarios such as you've described will account for the frequent large gaps of time i notice between discharged. however keep in mind this is from someone who parses a lot and therefore has lots of opportunities for stuff like that to go wrong. as to what you were wondering about maul, the maul>lowslash>maul combination imo is inefficient in pve and is more of a pvp maneuver. back when i was using low strike and i was using it when i had already gotten a maul in the same shock rotation, i end it out with a VS and hold off on using the free proc i obtained until the next shock rotation directly after shock, doing this only when i know i've given myself enough time so that the original natural ICD of duplicity won't be ready by the time i'm using maul for the free proc i had built the rotation before. (sorry to make that more complicated than it had to be), however with all that being said i'm not quite getting the connection you're making between low slash, induction, and voltage. but to clarify, voltage will remain on the target at full stacks until the duration runs out or it is refreshed by a single VS. as long as this isn't in danger of running out, then it's completely safe to have a shock rotation without a single VS, if that's what you were getting at. for that matter, i've always seen that as the ideal way the rotation should play out, where there are enough procs so that VS only needs to be used as a refresh every <20 seconds and the occasional filler. we see this play out nicely in our execute phase and maybe the first 30 seconds of the fight for a few reasons, but really no other times. if i had my way, we would get changes so that maul and discharge are used enough whereas this idea i've just described is normal, and the focus is taken away from spamming the hell out of VS like our current pve rotation is. sorry to derail what you were trying to discuss, please clarify for me the part of your quote i bolded so we can get back on subject, if you don't mind doing so

you and i seem to be experiencing very different rates mauls and discharges ;P i'd say generally rng only affords me a discharge after 2 shock rotations instead of every other as you suggest. every other shock rotation is the ideal rate for discharge to occur and i'd be ecstatic if i could rely on that to happen. however, it seems to me, that it's much rarer than it should be that i actually get a natural discharge every other shock, let alone should it happen when i need it most. and honestly, the same could be said about duplicity only not to such an extent. due to the random nature on our abilities that have the best potential for damage, and no rooting in a solid foundation, then people (at least i) will experience wild rng that will be much more problematic for overall dps than one would hope or expect.

it's clearly a pvp tool, but you can't ignore the fact that theres a part of the ability that would give (if actually intended to, and tailored to that intention) pve'ers a concrete method of producing duplicity when rng gets really bad. if this was put on any other ability that we use, then it would be a vital part of our rotation, not to mention what it would do to our dps; i'd rather not talk in detail about something that would never happen ;P it's not that i (and i'd assume others) like the concept of low slash/spike in pve, its purely that i like that it gives us control in an important part of our damage output that otherwise we can greatly lack. the potential iv'e seen from the start is that it gives us a method of counteracting when rng in one aspect of our rotation is really bad. this sort of concept would go a long way in improving the consistency between parses and the ability to sustain a number throughout the fight instead of taking wild dips of 200+dps because rng suddenly sucked for a long time, which happens just all the time for me. but again, this is purely theoretical, since i have no belief that anything like this would actually be intentionally implemented by whoever has control of that sort of thing. i suppose i just wanted to clarify some things that i felt weren't being understood >_<

yeah i'd agree here. and honestly, i'm not even worried about the damage output of spike/low slash if they end up being at least more force efficient than VS, which could be done through the refund if fail to stun idea. especially so since a critting low slash does similar damage to a non critting maul or discharge. but putting low slash off gcd, while great for pve, would tip the scales in pvp way too much, as clearly explained above. however, i think all this discussion is in vain, anyway, unfortunately. BW made it quite clear in our questions/answers session that they don't want low slash or spike to be used for pve, which is just bad planning if you ask me. giving any ability an automatic proc of duplicity is something any pve dps sin would see as highly beneficial. the only reason it's fallen out of popularity is because of the force inefficiency, imo. if they didn't foresee that, then i doubt they'll change low slash or spike, because we all know how hesitant BW is of admitting they made a mistake (the mistake being that they made a pvp ability WAY too appealing to pve players therefore making it inevitable for pve players to get angry about it not being usable, OR that they intended it to be pvp exclusive to begin with when it could be infinitely beneficial to both, depending on your view of the situation)

i don't pretty much proc duplicity on ICD :-/ sometime's itll favor me like that, but more than half the time there are delays anywhere from 5-10seconds (sometimes as bad as 20) after the icd is finished. however i somewhat agree that i don't think an extra 15% chance to proc is going to help as much as is needed. that's why many of us pve'ers are interesting in making low slash/spike work for us. having a reliable and controllable rate for our highest damaging and arguably most important ability is infinitely appealing to us. i personally have always seen getting the basis for getting desirable numbers in this spec is to have consistent enough discharges/mauls while getting decent enough crits within those two abilities by having enough of them occurring. unfortunately with things like the inefficiency of low kick/spike coupled with the often inconsistent rate of duplicity, and then the double proccing problem of project and the discharge bug where it wastes static charges if it procs it, then we have some incredible inconsistency in the abilities that we rely on the most. the only concrete base we have for any key abilities is shock, which the only consistency is that it will always give at least one static charge if done right. but even in that there is inconsistency in it's damage because it requires 2 procs to crit along with the base damage, as well as the double proccing problem i mentioned earlier. to sum up, i do think the rate (in reality, not on paper) of maul poses a threat to the consistency of the deception sin in pve, as does the rate (again, in reality, not on paper) of discharges. in my honest opinion these two abilities should be the focus of any intention to fix the absolute horrid sustainability of the deception assassin in pve. however, how to fix it is something that has yet to be figured out, and i don't think that the idea in question is going to help such as is needed, as well as not being as ignorable to the pvp community as is needed.