I think you missed the part where this guy isn't a tank. He's playing Infiltration. If he wanted to gimp his damage hardcore, he'd do what you suggest. Oh, and by the way: the best way to run dailies is in a group of 4 burst DPS, at least one of whom has terrific AoE. Coincidentally, 3 DPS and a healer is the best way to run all of the HM flashpoints (because the SM ones aren't worth running any more, ever). And if you're going to say: "Oh, but what if they can't get a group?" I'm going to respond with: "Despite BioWare's best efforts, this is still an online multiplayer game, if they can't get a group they simply aren't trying."

The DPS checks have dropped on most HM instances since they released, on a relative scale. The game is about as easy as it ever has been.

NiM DF. When NiM DP came out, Madness Assassin was one of the best specs in the game. MK also only played Infiltration on Council because he'd get one shot as Madness (16 man damage scaling isn't broken, right?). As for now? If you can't clear NiM content, you simply aren't putting enough time into it (there are these horrible crystals you can gather together to more or less cheat your way to victory). If you can't clear HM content, you need more practice, none of the instances are as bad as they used to be.

Except it's not. Maybe it wouldn't matter if relic procs didn't exist, but they do. The damage boost is huge when combined with an autocrit (which is basically another 40% more damage, multiplying everything beyond your surge), and you're losing out on it. There's nothing else to it.

Those can be crafted (Battlemaster, at least). Also, they've released numerous reskins of the PvP armor.

Yeah, I remember that. It was really discouraging, and a big part of the reason I never got serious about PvP. It used to take, what, 2 months of grinding at a couple matches a day? It would be more if there hadn't been the old weekly quest. I guess perspective makes it hard to see how the new system could be considered "grindy."

Yes. You should be doing damage, not wasting time casting a move that doesn't work against any boss and most adds in boss fights (while even fewer need it, it breaks on any damage, and it only lasts 8 seconds for your 2 second time investment). Only if you want to be able to respond to emergencies with them. As a heads up, Battle Readiness can be used offensively, though the effect is marginal compared to Potency or Blackout. In PvE, it's only really useful while you're closing a gap or being forced to stay at least 10 meters away from your target for at least a GCD. It's highly situational, but any damage is better than no damage. You won't use it for the mezz, really, since not much can be stunned in PvE, and of what you can stun, there is only a mild benefit for doing so, and it costs you a global of what could have been much better damage.

Then it's really good you didn't play a year ago, when ranked gear costed 3x as much as it does now. Or was it 4x? It was a lot worse.

Just so we're clear, I'm going to say, upfront, that my entire response is only relevant to PvE. Yes, especially if you're playing Hatred, in which case you typically end up as a smear across the ground when a boss looks at you. There's this preconception that Assassin tanking is significantly more difficult than either of the other 2 tank Disciplines. While it certainly has a slightly steeper learning curve, I wouldn't say it's drastically so (especially since tanking isn't especially tough to begin with). ...you're playing an MMO, were you expecting a non-grindy experience? Tanking in PvE is a little better, since you typically only need to grab 1 of each set piece and another 10 mods from Mk-2 or Mk-4 pieces to get the B Mods. Then again, you also have to roll against 7 other people per piece and rely on them to not suck so that you can kill the bosses, so there is that.

Spike is literally worthless in PvE. In PvE, if you're not stealthing on an exact timer, you're losing damage. You have 1 chance every 102 seconds to use the move unless you want to gimp your damage, and so you'd use it against what, trash? No, it's completely useless, and I have never used Spike in PvE as Deception.

Fixed that for you.

That looks familiar. I even fixed it so people can see ridiculously high gear levels based off an averaged linear extrapolation.

Trade all your Redoubt augments for Absorption augments. You have way too much defense: you shouldn't use any Defense outside of what you're forced to.

Delaying Blackout at all would be a loss of DPS due to your Force regeneration taking a hit, and we just can't have that. You would simply have to potentially waste a couple of stacks of Static Charge each time you use it. It's not the end of the world. Also, in the opener? Absolutely, I would most definitely waste 4.5 seconds of Shadow's Respite for another Discharge under Recklessness. Besides, while tying it to Blackout is still a little bit clunky, we literally can't tie it to anything better, and the developers adding another ability isn't going to happen. You're losing mobility because 30 seconds isn't really a short cooldown and most of the time you use it you're already right on top of the boss, beating its face in. You literally don't change position. As for the speed boost tied to using it? If you need that speed boost to keep up with the boss, your group is using a pretty weird strategy for whatever boss that is.

No, this situation is fine as is. 3 stacks of Static Charge should have been tied into Blackout with a lockout, rather than forcing us to use the ability that's supposed to make up for the jump in Force Speed cooldown. We shouldn't have to voluntarily give up mobility to increase our damage to barely competitive levels (though it used to be pretty strong). No, I'm quite happy with Hatred how it is.

None. The fights are too short to really benefit from it much as opposed to getting lucky with some extra crit. Sure, you'll do less DPS not using the Alacrity, but the chance of getting some lucky crits and having some extra surge is worth it in such a short fight due to the very high variability of damage over the short fight.

So here's the thing. There are these things called "limits". If you make your time period go really small, you can use these "limits" to look at things on really small time scales. If you then sum up these "limit" things, you can see the results of complex changes happening on a small time scale with some pretty good accuracy. So now if you trade an almost imperceptible loss in damage (I just didn't think it needed to be stated that losing 4% Surge out of 72% or so would be very noticeable, nor the ~2% crit out of almost 40%, inflated further by auto-crits) for a slightly more perceptible boost in attack speed (oh, roughly 3% or so), and you sum the result up over a series of a) lots of small fights or b) a long fight, you'll see that the damage you deal over time (literally damage per second) goes up as you trade critical for alacrity. It's actually really really simple, and you don't need calculus to look at it. It's actually some pretty easy algebra because it's not actually time-dependent. Also, just because you can hit someone with Overload at 15 meters (because the measurement of distance in this game is SO ACCURATE) doesn't mean you automatically push them back to 15 meters. The actual distance you knock them back is really more like 4 meters (maybe 6?). So if you tried to knock back a Marauder as they leap to you, you'd probably end up with them within 10 meters of you, unless your reflexes and timing are really good. Besides, you can't knock back any Juggernaut (your specific example) worth their salt while they're leaping: Unstoppable is arguably the best utility in the Skillful tier, and I'd be surprised to hear people don't take it. If you had said Marauders, I could see you having a point, but you said Juggernauts pretty specifically.

You don't waste it. How is holding it for a few seconds wasting it? Duplicity triggers off of any damaging ability you use, can only trigger once every 10 seconds (10.5 divided by 1 + alacrity percentage in reality), and lasts long enough to be able to be replaced by the next Duplicity trigger if you don't use Maul in time. If you hold the Duplicity buff for 9 seconds (6 abilities) before using Maul (which is basically fitting in all of your possible other damaging moves, other than Assassinate, in before it plus another stun), you still get to use Maul under Duplicity, and your next move after Maul triggers Duplicity again, and there's no wasted Mauls.

The accuracy boost is not a Darkness thing: it was made so each tank class would no longer have to worry about their high threat moves being resisted/dodged and losing aggro simply because they can't afford to run accuracy at no fault of their own. As for alacrity in our gear: it is absolutely not a DPS loss: it's a DPS increase. It just causes your abilities to not hit as much for a fractional speed increase that you can't really benefit from in a 30 second long fight. It's very frustrating to see so many people incorrectly categorize it as a DPS loss when it really only causes them deal less damage at a fractionally faster rate than which they lost that damage. You can certainly use Force Lightning on a Juggernaut when you knock them back: it's just a terrible idea. Force Lightning is a bad ability for Assassins to use, and it's extra baggage from when you could have become a Sorcerer. That said, it's still situationally useful, you just can't use it at terrible times and expect it to be good (like when someone's speeding up to you to punch in your face). The same thing goes for Crushing Darkness, it's not a general use ability. You have all the time you need to use it when you hit a target with Electrocute, and another half-second to spare, even. No class should expect to be able to get a 2 second cast off without getting hit, why should we? The only valid thing you say in this post is that you wish Phantom Stride worked. Because it really should.

No, B Mods will give you health, which will at least buy you some time before you die.

Yes, because your word is law. Look: you can deny the math, and be wrong, or you can do something other than say "I said so" and prove you have some idea about what you're talking about. Now, I can't vouch for the math: it was a very odd way of doing it and I'm certainly unhappy about the lack of examination of the effect of relic procs, but that's the only time I've ever seen anyone give a concrete argument as to why any one given way of gearing is better than another. So for now, I would tentatively stick with that.

No, it actually boosts every ounce of Mastery you add via gear as well as your base Mastery. Compare your Mastery in full gear with buffs on and off and it's pretty easy to see. As for "way better," you get 0.03 more Bonus Damage per point of Power, pre buff, versus the same point of Mastery, and only 0.02 more after the buff. So you would end up with 30 (20 with buff) more Bonus Damage if you could swap 1000 Mastery for Power, and you would then lose the critical chance increase from Mastery. Of course, there's then the 5% Bonus Damage buff from Warriors, but that just starts to get complicated. You appear much more credible if you quote your information rather than throw out seemingly random numbers. Especially when you clearly don't understand game mechanics that you can check with 2 button clicks. Besides, going back and reading the post, the math for Mastery augments is a little bit sketchy, and I almost want to go and verify them for myself... if the end result wouldn't be so minorly different.

I mean, people can have their opinions about a fact, but if they really have an opinion about it, rather than proving they're right, they're wrong. What I'm saying does more damage isn't opinion: it's fact.

Wait, Soa has a melee attack?

Because +40% damage on Maul under a double relic window is worth more than ~+7% damage on VS and Low Slash during the same window. Not to mention you're also missing +2% damage on your opener by not using Ball Lightning in your opener. In addition to this, you can't use Maul a second time when you try to: there's no more Duplicity trigger off the rate limit on Low Slash or Spike. Using Low Slash like that also wastes 2.5 seconds on the mezz by immediately hitting the with Maul (ignoring the fact that that doesn't even work).