Deception Set bonus: Death Knell Tactical: Blade of the Elements/The Awakened Flame (ST), May Cause Injury (AoE) Amplifier: Weapon Expertise Stat distribution: • Alacrity: >= 1213, 1.4 GCD without Guild Perk >= 1895, 1.3 GCD with Guild Perk • Accuracy: >= 1590 • Critical: remaining tertiary stats __________________________________________ Hatred Set bonus: Death Knell Tactical: Two Time Trouble Amplifier: Periodic Intensity Stat distribution: • Alacrity: >= 1213, 1.4 GCD without Guild Perk >= 1895, 1.3 GCD with Guild Perk • Accuracy: >= 1590 • Critical: remaining tertiary stats Courtesy of the Theorycraftng Discord

That's just how it is. There's no changing it. One of Juggs best tacticals can only be obtained via schematic that is sold by Kai Zykken. However it's random whether Kai has the schematic in his shop or not. The last two sessions of Kai's shop being open, the tactical schematic was not present. Gotta wait for the rotation for the schematic to pop up, which could take up to 2 months. I have to assume that we have different definitions of what's balanced then, as well as we must be facing different quality powertechs. All of the Powertechs I've faced who have their full set bonuses and tacticals are able to kill at least 1 player before they die, or at least heavily contribute to a player's death before their own. What I mean by that is, whenever there are specific PTs on the enemy team (geared ones who know what they're doing), more often than not one of my team mates dies either shortly after the enemy PT dies or even before they die, purely because of the PTs incredible burst as well as their new ability which almost guarantees that they have enough burst to kill someone before they die since the ability does more damage the more focused they are. Juggernauts are not capable of ensuring that they "take a player with them" so to speak, so I see PT as ranked much higher than Jugg. On top of that, Pyro PT is actually insane in arenas atm but it's underplayed by the masses. Once more people catch on, it will be pretty annoying to deal with en mass.

Ok, let me sum this whole thread up for you then, so that you have a singular post to reference for my opinions and thoughts behind this entire thread. I agree that Maul hits too hard in the context of triple maul spam in the opener. I've made the statement that maul damage needs to be toned down in multiple different areas (discord, my stream, PTS threads, a podcast I've done with fellow streamers). This is a valid concern. I disagree with this because Assassins have the innate advantage of gearing faster than everyone else, so I believe this statement is catagorically false, because currently assassins do not have the same level of gear, they have better gear via the form of the 4 pc Death Knell set bonus which is a large power spike, and the 6 pc Death Knell set bonus which is a huge spike in power for the sin. The same can be said of other classes when they gain their set bonuses, like Powertechs with the Right Price set, Operatives with the Tactician set, and so on and so forth. My counterpoint to this was on page 6, where I show that you can actually avoid the entire stun lock 100% of the time. We can still nerf spike, but it seems knee-jerky to do so before everyone has acquired their power spike via their 6 pc set bonus and when the statement that we can stun lock in the first place is a false one, so we would be balancing a class based on a false premise. A strange thing to do, in my opinion. I've stated in a prior statement above that the maul opener can be nerfed damage wise, that's probably fine and for the best. Roaming death squads is super disingenuous to the argument because you can do that with any class and that's not unique to Assassins. This player clarified that they were actually referencing Set bonuses, not tacticals. With that in mind, we aren't comparing Assassins vs a host of people who also have their set bonuses. We are comparing geared Assassins vs people who don't have their set bonuses yet, aka, under geared players. Is it not strange to compare a fully geared player to one who lacks gear? Should we not wait at least a few months for everyone to have gear and then compare the playing field? I ask this because I have been doing ranked on Darth Malgus against players I consider to be of equal skill, who also are fully geared with set bonuses, which means we are playing an on even playing field, and in THAT scenario, you can see how balance truly lies, and in THAT scenario (one where everyone is geared and not just the assassin) sins are not OP by even any stretch of the imagination and they cannot global people at all with their opener. I agree, let's nerf Maul's damage and buff defensive capabilities, this actually falls in line with what I've always believed and statements that I've made in the past in other threads. Regarding the "whataboutism" I've already stated that I was actually comparing a Geared sin with a Geared sniper to show that when both players are geared, they are capable of similar damage output. However, I instead should have gone through all of the classes to demonstrate how they are all strong in their own regards in ways that could be considered nerf-worthy. This is the first expansion where literally all classes are "equal" with each other in that they are all OP in their own ways. As the saying goes, if everyone is OP, no one is. So if we nerf assassin, what actually happens is that they go immediately from being balanced to poorly balanced, instead of going from OP to balanced. In fact, there is only 1 class right now that is underperforming at a high level and that's Juggernaut, though that's also because Juggernaut has gear that is gated by crafting and operations, meaning the time gate for Juggs to be fully geared is longer than other classes, so we can't actually see how they perform fully geared yet and won't be able to for at least 2 more weeks. It's unbalanced. The rest of the comments are either personal attacks on myself or attempts to discredit me by making assumptions about how I perceive my fellow forum goer, so I'm not going to respond to those. I hope this was adequate enough for you to see exactly what my stance is and that my argument is no longer of "poor" quality.

So my reasoning skills defending my specific position against the OP are poor because I didn't instead defend my position against others in the thread as well, is that what you're stating? Edit: So I'm not allowed to bring up other classes when considering balancing a class? I admit, instead of only bringing up snipers, I instead should have brought up everything that all classes can do to demonstrate what the ramifications are for adjusting Sin/Shadows. I'm more than happy to do that, actually, if you so inquire. You've never seen me offer and explanation for it because I don't think it's balanced, show me a quote where I said it's balanced for Stealth to be able to do this and no one else, I'll wait.

I can't help myself, give me some more abuse. How is my reasoning poor? You state OP's premise is that the opener is too strong because you are able to stun lock a target (CC them for 6 uninterurptable seconds) and then use 4 GCDS to burst them. I want to define what a stun lock is here, so that we are all on the same page. OP's solution to fix this issue is to nerf Spike so that it doesn't stun. Nerfing spike would no longer allow Assassins to control a target for 6 seconds straight in a stun lock, giving the target time to react after they are opened on, and then use a Defensive Cooldown. Are we all on the same page regarding the premise of the OP? Yes? No? If yes, let's continue. If the premise that I'm supposed to be disputing is "Assassin's can stun lock and burst with no counter play" and I provide information showing that "Actually, this isn't true, you can prevent the entire stun lock, rendering your argument false" Please explain my how my reasoning is poor. Disregard the comment about how I have poor reasoning on whether or not something constitutes a nerf, please attack the previous statements that I have made and show me how they are poor leaps in logic, I'd love to hear how to become better at supporting my statements.

Okay.

You're right.

You know, I wrote out like 5 paragraphs responding to this, but then I realized, it actually doesn't matter what I type at all or what evidence I provide to show that this isn't the same as a merc having too many DCDs or an ability doing too much damage, you all will always have the same opinions no matter what evidence you see. So with that, I'll just leave ya'll to it. You're right, I make a bad argument. And OP is right, sin is too strong right now, go ahead and nerf spike and turn it into a slow. And others are also correct, nerf tacticals so they can't be swapped. Also tone down Maul's damage. Have a good day.

It seems reasonable to you that he is asking for a class to be nerfed so that you can play suboptimally against them and still succeed instead of having to play properly against them? Seriously?

Nah, I have never once stated that anyone who disagrees must be bad at the game. That would be disingenuous to the argument, you don't have to be good at the game to make criticisms on something. My entire point has been that some people are arguing for things by using extreme exaggerations to get their point across, making things seem much worse than they are. Let's take your point, for example. You start off by stating that the issue is that Sins can stunlock with Spike and Electrocute, while also doing massive damage during this stun lock. I counter this point by offering ways to completely disrupt a sin's opener, which prevents the stun lock, which prevents the issue that you state you have in the first place (the entire premise of your thread is that sins do too much damage while also being able to control their target to ensure their damage connects, is it not?) You then try to I assume discredit my argument by showing footage of you doing exactly what I say needs to be done to disrupt the sin opener and prevent you from taking a massive amount of damage while being controlled. So yes, I drop the argument because now I'm purely confused. I'm confused because you start with this premise: Sins do too much damage while simultaneously controlling their targets. Nerf spike to be a slow and that will fix this issue. I counter your premise with: Actually, sins cannot put out immense burst while simultaneously controlling their target if the target decides to play the game and use DCDs to stop the assassin's advances. Here's how you stop this opener. You then post a video that shows my premise in action, displaying yourself using Rocket out and then avoiding the entire Sin opener. I then stop pursuing this thread because you've contradicted yourself by posting evidence that proves that: Assassin's, in fact, can have their opener dismantled, preventing them from getting in a load of damage and forcing them to either attempt to run away to drop combat, or burn a Force Cloak, which is a valuable cooldown. And then you have the audacity to state that "I'm merely stating that anyone who disagrees is wrong and a bad player" when you fail to see the hypocrisy in all of your statements. So yea, I'm pretty frazzled, because your entire thread makes no sense when you start the thread saying "Sins have can stun lock you and push insane damage" then halfway through, you post evidence that literally shows "Sins can't stun lock you if you press buttons".

https://www.charplanner.com/ is a pretty good resource to make sure that your stats add up

There's a ton more spreadsheets where that one came from. There's a whole discord where players theorycraft BiS stats and set bonuses for each spec. It's a nice place for discussion between people who want to make their characters the best they can be.

Ok that makes more sense. That being said, you can find multiple quotes from me if you look hard enough where I state that the damage of Maul spam was too high and could be toned down. I never disagreed with that before, and I will not disagree with it now. I will however defend my class when people are spreading false information and being dishonest about the true balance of the class. It's like they forget that there is more to the class than it's opener. It's sustained damage is extremely mediocre and low, it's defensive capabilities are not even close to stellar compared to the other Melee DPS classes (Yes, you can make this comparison of melee dps defensives because it is a sub-topic of how balance is calculated) and the other spec, Hatred, is perfectly fine offensively for sustained damage but has even worse defensive capabilities than a Sorc while being a melee class. So yea, I'm going to defend my class from Improper nerfs because people are targetting the wrong thing and responding to some of these knee-jerk reactions to 1 portion of a complex class is the exact way to get something nerfed into oblivion incorrectly.

I'm testing Crit relic and Power relic atm. Don't worry about power/endurance in gear, it'll just come naturally. There are a few BiS modifications but I can't remember their names off the top of my head. Here's a spreadsheet with them all though, so you can pick and choose which ones you want: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N9emf63IMOaEHt0-9qEQ2AvZGFS4jQQxOq93VcmNtIk/edit#gid=2078002636

Speak for yourself.

You're welcome friend, I hope the guide helps. I'll try to have a guide out for Darkness (tank) spec next week, but gearing tank isn't as straightforward as it seems since there are many attractive set bonuses that they can use.

Pretty much this. So we should be nerfing classes that have clear counterplay as was shown in OP's video because sometimes people don't use abilities at the right time?

Ok so I looked at your video and it appears that you literally did what I said was the counter play. You spam rocket out after his spike and his discharge, you go flying back and you can even see the moment he uses electrocute and you resist it from Rocket out. From that point onward, you Rocket Out again further into their team and are now being attacked by not just the Assassin, but more players on the enemy team. ____________________ So in this example, the sin opens, you Rocket out and resist his 2nd hard stun, and you do NOT take a boat load of damage from the Sin only. You've shown video evidence that there is counterplay to the opener, where you don't take a bucket load of damage because you use a DCD to escape the 2nd hard stun (electrocute). So what is the issue here? The alternative is that you choose to do nothing, sit through the incoming Electrocute instead of using a DCD, and then taking a boat load of damage *as you should* because you chose not to use a DCD. This was a situation gone correctly, and this situation can be replicated 100% of the time. I guess I'm confused what you want nerfed then?

I'll only call you an idiot if you decide to blatantly lie to bolster your argument, which is an incredibly disingenuous and idiotic thing to do since the quote function exists, as well as fact checking

Do you not see your own logical fallacy or are you purposefully trolling? I can't tell. Let me spell it out for you and how my comment on Sniper isn't whataboutism but is instead, directly related. This is a quote from the OP. From this quote, I made the comment that Snipers can hit 100k. The purpose of this comment is to show that despite a class being able to hit hard, there are obviously other factors that come into play on whether something is balanced or not. You don't just balance based on can they do alot of damage. That would be idiotic and if that were the case, Powertech would be nerfed because they do a ton of damage. FROM HERE, THE GOAL POST IS MOVED TO THE FOLLOWING: So to counter this point, I provide a way to NOT get stunlocked by making it so that you can react after stun #1 and before stun #2. That should alleviate the issue of taking Insane burst while being stunlocked right? Because then you're just taking insane burst, but NOT being stunned while taking it, meaning you can pop DCDs. I mean, OP literally says himself, if you give up the stun lock combo, it's not that bad, so by proving that you can, in fact, disrupt the stun lock combo, things shouldn't be that bad anymore, by OP's standards, right? But no, then the Goal post moves EVEN FURTHER: So now the issue is no longer 1 single sin doing his singular Opener, it's now that there are multiple players screwing 1 single player. So now this is somehow only relegated to assassin's doing it, but if I mention that snipers can also do this by going as multiple snipers and using INSTA CAST AMBUSH FOR 100K, WHICH HAS NO COUNTER PLAY, that's suddenly whataboutism and it's fine for Sniper to be able to do this because we need to nerf Assassin. My argument was not, "but what about snipers, wahhh!" my argument was "contextually speaking, all classes are capable of doing something insane, here's an example of snipers doing it, yet at the same time, they are *still considered balanced*" Somehow you missed my context to purely twist my words though, something I'm used to the masses doing these days since outrage media is all the rage today. But it gets better Now the goal posts is no longer even in the endzone, it's all the way in the pacific Ocean: So i counter with a post showing EVERY TACTICAL A SIN USES and showing how NONE OF THEM increase Opener burst damage, meaning this user has clearly just made stuff up for the hell of it, to get Sins nerfed. And after using logic to counter all of these idiotic points, you're still trying to twist my words around to make it look like I'm defending an OP spec. So here, quote me on this: Devs, please nerf Sins and Shadows. I don't care if you nerf them into the ground since I will continue to play them, just as I have when they've been nerfed in the past for multiple expansions. But before you do, please look into the credibility of all of these complaints first, since half of the arguments against sins are literal lies and disinformation. Thanks.

If they nerf sins, I will still play them regardless. It's just insane that the goal post keeps moving for what's considered OP. First, the premise of the thread is that the opener damage is OP and then OP states that it would be fine if you couldn't stun lock with 2 stuns in a row. So I show that you can, in fact, do something between stun #1 and stun #2, proving that it's not a true Stun lock because there is a window where you are not stunned where you can react. Then the goal post is moved saying that it has nothing to do with the stuns but instead the tacticals providing too much damage. So I prove that NONE of the tacticals provide increased damage in the opener, which is the issue at hand (once again, premise of the thread is the opener does to much damage since we can "stun lock".) Now the goal post is moved saying that it has nothing to do with any of that and that it's instead an issue of 2 sins being able to stack their stuns. So yea, you're right, I'm done trying to defend stupidity. Have a nice day friends

When confronted about assassins, I offered a solution on how to get out of the "stun lock". Or did you skip that post and jump straight to the conclusion that I'm only using whataboutism instead of offering construct feedback on how to counter the Sin opener? Hmm?

Tacticals do not directly affect how *hard* sin hits. My video demonstrates how to gain extra utility from swapping tacticals. Utility does not equal more damage. Two Cloaks: This isn't used in the opener at all. Life Warden: How is this used to hit harder? Friend of the Force: Once again, how does this make sin hit harder? Blade of the Elements: Reaping strike isn't used in the opener because it doesn't hit as hard as maul Awakened flame: This is the only one that can be applied to the opener, yet you wouldn't start with this anyway, you start combat with Two Cloaks active. ________________________________ Explain to me again how tacticals affect the sin's opening damage? You say "are you saying a 2nd sin can't apply a stun in that window?" This means you are 1v2 now, right? So now the issue is 1v2 instead of a singular assassin's opener dps? Could you not say the same about being 1v2 vs ANY class? Since all classes can stun lock you with 2 players vs 1? I like how we keep moving the goal post further and further from the original point of the OP, which was ONE assassin doing burst damage from their OPENER only, not from sustained damage/etc. Keep on moving those goal posts, I'm sure it will get sin nerfed eventually if we move them far enough

He said that the problem is that there is no counterplay to the assassin's opener, that has literally nothing to do with Tacticals. Tactical's effect on PvP is different issue to the main subject of this thread.

There are variations but the stat difference is anywhere from 7 to 20, between Power/mastery. Honestly, you just want the versions with the lowest endurance and higher power/mastery, which one specifically doesn't matter in the macro scale. There are some specific ones you can aim for to min max to a tee if you wanted but I can't recall which named ones they are by memory.