With the 37 points in Darkness, it's still a very viable build, but I personally don't like it as much as the 37/5/4. Celerity is beautiful, wonderful, and all around great to have for getting around, and I can't count the number of times I've been glad to have that 5 second faster force speed. I haven't found a situation yet where I really need to be out of an AOE where Force Speed wasn't up, and so I would find very little use for Misdirection (as a tank, it's great for Infiltration, though). It's also fun to Force Speed -> Rocket Boots -> Force Speed to get ahead of those over-zealous dps trying to take aggro by getting there first and pulling. The second, and slightly confusing point swap I see would be taking Shadow's Respite over Psychokinesis. You've taken 6 seconds of 50% better force regen at the cost of 6 points per project and 2 per Double Strike and Spinning Strike. I just feel like it's not a good tradeoff. Unless I'm the off tank in a fight, I've never had trouble managing my force in the first 6 seconds (or even the first 30), and as off tank, my rotation isn't really that important. Psychokinesis just saves so much more force in the end, is all, since I would save more force after just 2 rotations.

From the opposite side, as I main a Shadow, I'm going to have to tell you: Snipers are my favorite targets. As long as I can get in unnoticed, I'm fairly well able to kill them before they can seriously react. I also play on a PVE server, so I don't expect to find many great PVP Snipers A Shadow/Assassin's strongest move, Shadow Strike/Maul, can only be used from behind. You're kinda boned if we close to melee range under stealth, and it'll be uphill from there. Your best bet is honestly laying down Plasma Probe pre-emptively near yourself, and hope you catch them off guard. Once they show themselves, roll away, and DoT them up. It will force them to use shroud/resilience, and either drop to stealth or move out. At that point, get ready for them to try to get you from behind again. (note: behind also means from the side, since that works for the "behind target" criteria of the attack). If they can't get that move off, you've won half the battle. Aside from that, DoT them up to gimp their stealth, and then pop off your big hits. I would only use Orbital once you've made them blow Shroud/Resilience, so you can ensure it'll do its damage, or make them back off. Then, if they use Deflection, flashbang them, put some distance between you, and hit them with tech attacks. Specifically, drop Explosive Probe on them, then DoT them up. If deflection is still up when they get close, Debilitate them, and burn them down, they won't last long. Just make sure not to waste your big tech hits until after they've used Resilience/Shroud. And don't forget your knockback, followed up by an explosive probe and some DoTs.

The Dread Forged Reactive Warding relic provides greater overall mitigation in the current HM and NiM Ops. Since it's static, it gets even better in easier content. You'll typically want to switch the other two based on the damage profile of the fight you're going into.

I know I don't count for this thread too much, as I main tank, and dps on my Shadow is just a hobby. Anyway, as far as my results go, using more crit than I would typically be comfortable with: I'm finding the same thing. Less variability in damage. I'll still get streaks of bad luck, where I think the RNG gods have abandoned me, and by the end of my parse, I'll end back up at a more reasonable value. I feel like it just works out better in the end, using a little more crit, though it's a bit harder to put up the really high numbers. I'm typically hitting 3050-3150 on the dummy, whereas my best has been ~3280, without the extra crit. I went with 110 extra crit to get to that point (380 -> 490 and Power down from 1107 -> 997), and I'm feeling it somewhat on my top end damage. EDIT: This is in comparison to my 2900 - 3300 damage swings with less crit. I also have a larger number of parses with less crit, so that should be noted, but I don't think my results will change much.

Well, there are a lot of people who would disagree with this. Like Evolixe. And now I'm going to hide before they unleash their fury on this thread.

If your intent is to play full Madness, then yes, you absolutely need Creeping Terror. It's a really large part of your damage (~13%), and to be even competitive without it, you'd need to dig fairly deep into another tree. It's not a matter of "is Creeping Terror better than some of the low level talents for Madness?" but rather "Do I want to play Madness or Hybrid?" The Madness/Deception Hybrid (3/18/25) is reasonably competitive, and often does better than full Deception, but it plays a little differently than true Madness.

If the changes they make to Operative/Scoundrel dps are anything like the changes to Assassin/Shadow, we have nothing to worry about An idea I've been tossing around in my head, for Deception/Infiltration in PVE, goes like so: Change Discharge/Force Breach in Sugring Charge/Shadow Technique so that, rather than increasing damage per stack, increases critical chance of Discharge/Force Breach by a significant amount (33% per stack for the auto-crit?) and make its damage independent of the current stack system. It should probably be made a bit weaker than the current 3 stack damage when it crits, or else we'd actually be more powerful than basically all other dps specs. I know that sounds terrible for pvp, which relies on its big damage for killing people, but I'm getting to the point where that balances out. Add to the Electric Ambush/Potent Shadows talent an increase in damage to any Discharge/Force Breach uses that consume a stack of Recklessness/Potency, much like Energize/Particle Acceleration in the tanking trees. PVP keeps their burst, and PVE sees some more stable damage. I also think that the proc rate on Surging Charge/Shadow Technique needs to be increased along with the ICD, and it's BS that Discharge/Force Breach proc'ing the Charge/Technique doesn't build stacks. It would also be kinda cool if Voltaic Slash/Clairvoyant Strike had a force cost reduction, but baby steps, first. As for Madness/Balance, there should be some form of Maul/Shadow Strike woven in. I play the hybrid (3/18/25) quite often, and it's a lot more enjoyable, to me, than the full Madness/Balance build. I'd like to see the Raze/Force Strike proc be a little more reliable, but I'm at a loss as to how to balance it out, as when it works now, it works gorgeously. As for tanking, the only change I think would really be in order is possibly an increase to 15 seconds of our new buff. anything else would be a little boring to keep up, as it's usually not too difficult to maintain in current content (assuming you're the tank getting hit, which sustains your rotation), and it would give us a little breathing room on those tougher fights. I'd also love to see the buff get applied through resists (and this should work for PT/VGs, too). Aside from that, I'm personally happy with where Shadow Tanks are now. I'm sure I'll think of more later, but I wanted to get the idea out there, and see what people think.

I got ninja'd. That's what I get for derping around Korriban on a lowbie.

Considering a Sentinel is a melee based class, no, Dual Saber Throw does not need to be buffed. It already hits unlimited targets and has a slow attached to it. Mercenaries "spam" their rockets because that's how their spec plays. A Combat Sentinel can leap over to them, then unload 30k+ damage in 3 GCDs, while they're rooted. And that's not even the fabled Smash spec. And back before the changes, Sentinels got Guarded by the Force. 4 full seconds of "Healer, heal me to full while they can't do jack to me!" Sentinels also get Rebuke, which reduces damage by 20% and hurts your attackers, that lasts for up to 30 seconds. That 'bubble' Sages get lasts 10, and they can't even do anything while in it. It's also got a 3 minute cooldown. Dying in 3 seconds to 2 bursty enemies trying to kill you? That's not really surprising. I'll bet 2 Assassins would do just as well. Or 2 Marauders. Or 2 Operatives. Or 2 Sorcerers. Or 2 Powertechs. Or 2 Snipers. Or 2 Juggernauts. The point is: if 2 people playing a bursty spec want you dead, 3 seconds is a long time to live.

Yes, all of the above are capable of triggering the relic. Any time an effect belonging to you heals you or an ally, it has a chance to activate that relic.

There's a guide that's stickied to the forums that's really good. It covers all aspects of Shadows, though I'm not sure if it's been updated to 2.5.

This used to work back before 2.5, when Shadow tanks had a steady stream of self heals. It procs when you heal yourself, and the damage it healed was better than the mitigation provided by any other relic of an equal item level, for the content that was relevant when it used to work. It is worthless now, though, since we only have self heals when we activate Battle Readiness, and that's not enough to justify the use of the relic. For now, use the damage absorption relic in its place: it's a very similar concept, and is BiS for every tank, if I remember correctly.

I can tell you that when I crit poorly, I end up with around 2900 dps, as opposed to that 3300 I posted. I'd have to dig through my logs to find the fight, though.

Like posted above, Mercenaries/Commandos are the ones getting the healing buff. Not Operatives. Besides, they haven't said how they're going to buff DPS Scoundrels/Operatives. Honestly, Scrapper needs some more sustained damage. I'm not so sure about Dirty Fighting, having seen Invinc whoop everybody who isn't a Pyro Merc/Assault commando or Engineering Sniper/Saboteur Slinger with the numbers he put up last night. Still, That's not even relevant to this thread. Bioware, more recently, has been making fewer heavy-handed changes that result in massive imbalance. Numbers have been run, and they point to tanking actually being very well balanced right now, even in PVP. Say what you will about your feelings, I'll take numbers over feelings every single time. On top of this, as minor as the buffs were to Shadow DPS, they were buffs, Shadows largely received buffs across the board. Aside from a 1 v 1 fight, the changes to tanking were a buff for Shadow tanks in PVP, and in the content where it's more likely to make the difference between dying and nota difference at current gearing levels, it was buff for PVE as well.

Since you asked for some gearing numbers, here are some of the top posters worldwide for Shadows (top for each spec is a Shadow): (Please take note, these are not being submitted to the leaderboard, just as examples that were asked for for gearing purposes. I figure I should say so even though I'm not posting any logs for them ) Aerre - Infiltration - AMR Profile M-Knightrider - Balance - AMR Profile Aerre runs a smidge more crit , but both have put up fantastic numbers in their respective spec. All Shadows benefit a lot from the crit, since we have 30 and 50% surge bonuses to a vast majority of our abilities. Running low on crit is asking to do poorly. To demonstrate this, let's look at Aerre's Shadow Strike maxima. His minimum hit with Shadow Strike was 3945. That's good... for filler. This ability is supposed to be part of what keeps our damage per second so high, though. His maximum hit, on the other hand, was 10698. Now, to be fair, that's his minimum non-crit vs. his maximum crit, but it still shows just how much surge bonus we get. The example for Balance would not be quite as stark, but you see it there, too, especially on Force in Balance.

All Shadow dps need quite a bit of crit to get our best numbers. I've had poor crit runs where I didn't break 3k dps, compared to my best runs, where I'm sitting close to 3300. It's frustrating.

Adding to this, crit is very valuable for all Shadow DPS. The surge bonus Infiltration Shadows about as high. 50% to Project and Breach and 30% to Shadow Strike, our hardest hitting move. Infiltration Shadows hit very hard when they crit, and not as much when they don't. I've had disparity in parses of around 300 dps just due to poor RNG. That 9% damage swing really hurts to look at.

Hold on now. They said dps shadows were getting a DPS buff (nowhere either time was it said to be "large"), and look how much that did for us: nearly jack. It moved us from worst to tied for worst dps. Also, they said nothing about buffing Operative heals. To top it off, no, we aren't getting to share in the pushback prevention that Sages/Sorcerers are getting, they left us out specifically. And for a thread titled as it is, I'm pretty sure this has no relevance here. I'm not even sure what you're disappointed about, here. Sage/Sorcerers are the only one of the classes mentioned for 2.6 that got anything in 2.5: and what they got was pretty measly outside of PVP. Other classes should get a chance to have their issues addressed, too. Shadow may be my favorite class, but we're not all-important. Lastly, any class that gets stun-locked is pretty boned (as I'm guessing that's what you were referring to). Shadows even happen to be one of the few classes that can spec into a "take less damage while stunned" talent.

Personally, though I no longer have any relevant Ops experience healing, I would probably use the Focused Retribution relic over the Serendipitous Assault if you had to pick one of the two. After all the bonus to cunning we get, it's a 4.588 difference in bonus healing. And even if you have a starting Cunning of close to 3800 before it goes off, you still get a 1.4% additive bonus to your crit chance, and we all know that Scoundrel heals hit REALLY hard when they crit. Just my two cents on how I'd gear my Scoundrel Healer if I still seriously played him.

I've been kicked 3 times, but seem to be doing fine, now. Might have just been a hiccup.

Ellendra - Shadow - Hybrid - 3/18/25 - 3293 DPS TORParse AMR Profile Also my offpsec. I don't get much of a shot at the really good gear, and this was a pretty lucky run.

Didn't know this existed for just our server. Ellendra - Shadow - Hybrid - 3/18/25 - 305.415 seconds (5' 5.415") TORParse AMR Profile It's a straight up copy of my post for the world-wide boards.

Well, Kinetic Combat is the only technique that will actually allow you to tank. That said: Shadow tanking is very fun, in my opinion. As far as performance goes, you'll have more "oh ****" moments than the other tanks, but in general, you'll require less healing over a long period of time. You have a small number of amazing cooldowns: Battle Readiness will (with a nearly mandatory talent) give a flat increase to your DR by 25% as well as healing you immediately for 15% and giving you more, small self heals over the duration. Deflection gives a flat 50% increase to your defense chances, and prevents a ton of damage, when applicable. It's not as universally applicable as Battle Readiness but prevents more damage on average of what it can prevent. Resilience fails 5% of the time, but when it works, it makes you resist 5 (talented) seconds of force and tech attacks, which can come in very handy, when it works. We also recently became less spiky than before, which has caused a lot of players to become very unhappy with the loss of self heals. In terms of play style, though: nothing has really changed, other than that it's easy now to know when you're not playing optimally, and when mechanics want you to fail. Balance spec currently seems to have the highest damage potential, despite what the leaderboards currently look like. M-Knightrider has a Balance spec parse that was looked over due to the massive task of updating the thread through 30 or so pages of posts, and he has the number 1 spot. If they were updated to be current, the top 5 spots would be, in this order: Balance, Balance, Balance, Balance, Infiltration (translating to Republic terms). The only problem with this is that it doesn't quite live up to a lot of the other classes. Vanguards don't have enough qualifying parses to compare to, but Guardians seem to be in a similar boat. Compared to the others, though, Shadows end up significantly behind, even Balance. There are 3 people who play the class who have put up numbers that are even competitive with the other classes, though we're still 6th out of 7 (excluding the too-little-data Vanguards). All this said, even putting up those numbers is very difficult. Balance requires an immense level of precision, never once cutting off a DoT and never once letting it fall off for even a full global cooldown, on top of having to force Mind Crush off of cooldown and weave in Force in Balance. Everything else is just spamming double strike. It ends up being a somewhat boring play style that requires a ton of precision. I don't perform as well with it as I do with Infiltration or either 'viable' hybrids. The two hybrids pick up either Infiltration Tactics (Infiltration hybrid) or One with the Force (Combat hybrid), and then basically get as far into the Balance tree as possible. Surprisingly (or not, depending on how well you know Infiltration), both of these hybrids perform more reliably than Infiltration. My current best is with the Infiltration hybrid, sitting at ~3240 dps. Infiltration is my personal favorite dps spec, though, despite its vast reliance on good luck. It requires much less precision, though you have to be careful not to drain your force too quickly, or you'll lose out on a ton of dps. The rotation is basically 6 seconds long: Project -> Other x3. Other, there, needs to try to build 2 Circling Shadows so that project costs less, while not overextending on your force. This rotation comes second, though, to using Force Breach as soon as you have 3 stacks of Breaching Shadows, so that you don't waste more stacks. But that's the rotation in a nutshell. Unfortunately, you hit like a gimp when you don't crit, as you have ridiculous surge bonuses to most of your abilities (+30% to Shadow Strike, your hardest hitting ability under Infiltration Tactics, and +50% to Project and Breach), but most of them have somewhat unimpressive base damage. Also, your time between Force Breach uses is dependent on a 25% chance that has a 4.5 second lockout. I've got through a full rotation where I didn't have a single natural Shadow Technique proc, taking 18 seconds to fire off another Force Breach (which didn't even crit), and then after using Force Breach, I had a full 3 stacks in another 6 seconds. Go figure. All in all, I'd have to say this to you: Tanking is in a pretty good spot right now, despite the complaints you'll hear about losing our self heals. We aren't crazy OP in easy content any more, but we're balanced better against the other tanks. As far as dps, goes, there were better choices. You get to pick a less involved spec (Infiltration) with usually very subpar results, or a mindless, yet difficult, spec with somewhat subpar results. Shadow dps is pretty frustrating, but can still be fun. Edited to represent the leaderboards as they will be updated to be. 1/1/2014

Yeah, I missed it. Looks like the competition is back on. You're barely holding the number 5 spot now, so we'll all have to step up our game.

Ellendra - Shadow - Hybrid - 3/18/25 - 305.415 seconds (5' 5.415") TORParse AMR Profile Alright, Mikaeel, time for you to try to get back onto the boards