I do too. When game launched created a deception sin until the only viable spec was darkness, then rerolled operative since it was also roguis, in fact more roguish than the sith assassin (closer to the typical backstabber role) until it got nerfed to the point of no return. All i saw was low population and 90% sorcs. After some time of non gaming i returned and wanted to know if the class i wanted to play at launch was viable. So far im 23 and I could have it easier if i waited 4 or 5 levels before respeccing to deception but the cameplay was so boring... I am a lot closer to death in a lot more situations, but its nice to have the *low health* feeling again.

Thanks for the info. Respecced to deception and its a bit hard to keep up compared to madness at low lvls (20-25) but its lot more fun for me. Cya ingame and thanks again

I come back after 6 months of non gaming and would like to know if the Deception tree assassin is right now viable. I had a Deception sin that rerolled to Darkness to be viable in PvP and flashpoints since marauders, operatives (not at that time) and snipers were better DPS, sorcs were outta the chart. I have created a sin from start and specced darkness but i like moer the DPS side of the sin. I read in the forums that seems viable but for levelling and getting into operations and flashpoints? And PvP? So what are your impressions? It is viable to spec Deception at 50? Will survie in PvP?? Any suggestions and builds are brutally welcomed.

Operatives do not crit 5k easily anymore. Before 1.2 it was possible if you popped relics and caught a non full BM geared player, but after 1.2 its pretty hard to score a 5k crit. Also had some rattaka gear to increase the dmg but seriously if you think assassins need a buff, roll an operative, they are fun to play but also very frustrating at some points (more in PvP terms honestly). I have a full BM operative and the best crit i did was 5200 against a not fully BM geared player. Againt full BM geared i have scored 4,2K to 4,7K. Currently after 1.2 patch i have seen metrics of sin DPS and Operative DPS. Sin DPS is about 1600 and operative around 1100. They are not so burst damage anymore, maybe buffed a little more sustained damage but energy consumption (operatives equal to sin force pool) is the main problem.

Thats the deception built i found, and i am more inclined to stealth and positional based attacks, its more fun to me tbh, but i also remember a lot of deaths, of course i didnt know much about the class and the system. But now i am lvl 20 darkness based with the 3 points in madness for the melee crit buff, and must say the class feels like a powerhorse, i hardly get to low hp. Will try some more the darkness spec, at least until i get dark ward and energize and see if the dps raises some, which should. thanks for the tips!!

I have searched and know that for PvP the Darkness/madness spec is one of the most infamous and useful. Thing is for levelling, PvE purpose, what build is recommended? I have seen deception based spec with some points in madness and darkness, a madness based one too, and such. What kind of tree do youuse for levelling? I had an assassin when the game launched and rerolled because i found deception tree (my favourite for armor penetration, positioning, static charges and such) somewhat weak. Dont know hows the current situation. Any advice?

With that mind set roll an Inquisitor or Sage, dont roll BH cause they will get nerfed in patch 1.2. So create another FOTM class character and enjoy. If you like the playstyle just continue with the operative. If you do it to get groups easily roll a SI. Doubt is when there will be 1 tank and 1 dps for each 300 SI, i think SI will struggle to get in operations and FSP. Suppose that winning an item loot roll should be like lottery.

EVERY class has the kind of skill: XXX Dmg on Weak/standard and strong mobs when incapacited.(No gold, no bosses) Its designed for PvE not PvP. Other thing would be to enable it for all the classes in PvP.

The answer to your doubt lies here

I like the Operative being melee, wouldnt play one if they were ranged. Must give credit to the OP since he spent a good time thinking on improvements. I have other thoughts to improve OPs tho, like more TA stacks instead of only 2, added Energy Regen with each TA stack as well as armor penetration buff. Lower the energy bar regeneration treshold to 50 instead of 60. I think Operative is fine at 90%. The only thing it lacks is in the mobility department and resources (energy in this case). It would need a little boost in the dmg area too, but just a little or else it would become OverPowered again. Gap Closer, better energy refill system and little armor penetration and dmg boost per TA stack and it would shine. If people dont play more the Operative class is because people do not like to be the underpowered class or the broken class. I have tried all classes ingame and must say that operative/scoundrel is the one i like most, Operative being prefered due to Story (best one hands down),looks and knife. Atm operative is a class that is either very powerful or complete broken, depends on the player skill here. You still can read people crying on forums because it was killed by an operative without any option to defend himself. Its not an easy class but for sure is one of the most rewarding ones.

Daryon Romuald

In the rest of MMO's all rogues have vanish and will continue so. Now for the rest: 1- Any action removes stealth. If so, i want all the actions to be cancelled if moving, so all skills must be used standing quiet. There are only 2 or 3 skills that do not remove stealth. 2- Stealth duration reduced. For a stealth based class this is great. Might aswell lower the sorc/sages mana pool to hmm 50 maybe? 3- Complete invisibility moved to a much longer cooldown and the addition of another stealth skill that is not invisible to other players, but leaves you untargetable/unhitable and is very hard to see visually and/or invisible when stationary. *** is this? You complain about stealth and want to give another stealther? 4- More skills to detect stealth e.g. An aoe that will uncloak stelath for a quarter-half a second before they recloak. Currently stealth detection is fu**ed. Many times you are visible from 20m away and even 30m away. If you step in middle of an AOE you get uncloacked. 5- Stealth doesn't make you completely invisible straight away, there is a short transition phase where you are still targetable. Would be ok if dmage wouldnt break stealth. Put a dot during the fade and you have a useless skill. 6- AOE size if inherent stealth detect is increased and you cannot stealth when in it (can you?). No 7- Decloaking by inherent stealth detect is permanent. Silence/interrupt a player should be permanent too unable to use the skill until you are out of combat, being victorious or defeated. 8- Inability to cloak in combat without a break combat skill, that apllies a very short stun, and has a longer cooldown than stealth. Would be cool this one, but then its not very realistic due the low amount of stun skills the class has. Now in general. Are you mad because you get killed by stealthers? You want to remove a basic skill for stealthers. Its like remove Guard from a tank or the bubble from casters. Sin/Shadow have more sustained dmg, and they have vanish too. Ops/Scoundrels have not the sustained dmg and rely on quick stricking and vanish again before getting crushed. Lets say the sorc/sage bubble is only casteable once every 10 minutes, same for tank Guard skill, that would make your class really broken. Sages/Sorcs dieing pretty fast and tanks not being able to keep healers alive.

So far mate i have not been 2 hitted to death except for BH and Jedi Knight AoE

Its true the initial burst needed to be nerfed but those classes need some kind of boost (burst or sustained dmg) to be played for more people and to be accepted in High End groups and raids, as they lack group utility and do not add any profit to the group. Just wanted to list some points for devs to read and think if they can implement (or think in alternatives) any of those in order to solve the poor situation of the pure stealth classes: (1) Wounding Shot and Kolto Pack require but do not consume Upper Hand. (2) Upper Hand lasts 15s instead of 10s. (3) Hemorrhaging Blast grants Upper Hand. (4) Move our Maximum Energy Regeneration threshold from 60% to 50%. (5) Increase the absorption of Defense Screen by around 50%. (6) Improve the way that Kolto Cloud is applied so it effects the four most-damaged of the eligible targets. (7) Either an in-combat speed boost that works as a gap closer OR better resistance to Snares/Roots. (8) Sabotage Charge does not require cover. (9) Increase the max number of Upper Hand from 2 to 4/5. (10) Aside the 2% dmg increase each Upper Hand stack (4% in total) add some Armor Penetration (2% or 5% since TA is main resource used) and/or Energy Regen Boost per stack too. (11) Add group utlity. If inside a group the Scoundrel/operative is the target of a guard or there are other smugglers/imperial agents give some kind of boost. This would make them more desired in groups. (12) Add a skill (StarPlayer/Adrenaline Rush) that increased the dmg/armor penetration/healing done for XX% during 10 secs (30 secs CD). This would help to maintain the burst dps, after the effect expires the class will have to be cautious with energy management since it will be on low reserves and regen needs some time. Usable ONLY out of stealth to avoid 1 shotting problems.

They do have it already, called HutBall

Yes remove incombat stealth. Also remove incombat spellcasting. And also remove the arm of jedi knights and sents and mirror classes too. Perfect balance then.

I do find DPS classes to be funnier if done right. Tanks usually have enough HP and mitigation skills to kill the mobs out of boredom. Healers heal themselves until companion kills mob or mob itself dies of starvation. DPS classes have that balance of kill fast but get killed fast too that makes me pay more attention to it and enjoy more.

I dont see whres the problem really. I have amongst other classes an operative and scoundrel. Stealth detections seems f**ed since many times people can spot me 20m away. The intial stun lasts 1,5secs, before nerf was 3secs, and then you can use another stun but you can break it with the Break Free talent we all get at lvl 9. Crits are not surpassing the 5k dmg (if not geared with the best equipment and mods) while tracer missile, tanks AoE and Sorcs can do crit harder with repeatble skills without best quipment. BH and mirror class when in a group with other BH and mirror class stacks different player buffs that makes tracer missile more powerful, if you usually lets say can stack 5 points, with another BH you will stack 10 points (2 different stacks of 5 points each) making tracer missile to hit by a lot more, yesterday night 6,4k dmg... not seen that with my stealth classes yet... Sorcs/Sages bubble themselves and before the bubble fades the skill to bubble is already usable. If you break the static barrier you get blinded for 3secs... Sincerely the i dont believe you got killed in 2 hits, maybe you fought against a top geared scoundrel/operative being a fresh 50. Maybe the stars aligned and he killed you in 2 hits, but that does not happen often, maybe 1 every 3 months or so.

The main idea is that OPS/Scoundrel if specced Concealment are burst dps. There are other classes doing sustained DPS flawlessly. The focus system would help for Operations, if specced medic you can focus the main tank and heal him more than usual, giving more healing and be able to get in groups easily. If specced for dmg, you could focus on the boss to do more dmg. Thing is that PvP regarding balancing is hard to achieve because it depends on the rest of classes too, its useless if we get buffed and the sorc/sages bubbles get buffed too as example. But PvE balancing its easier. Many people play in PvE realms (not me tho) but if we make the class more appealing or prepared to fit in PvE groups and such more players will create and play these classes, and in the long term that means more feedback and attention. I have read everything regarding PvP wise. We are OK, we are f**ed, we are medium and so. But the common thing in PvP and PvE is that we lack utility in a group except our 5% crit bonus buff. The concept i have in mind is to boost the class abilities when in a group, usually you wont PvP 1vs1, and usually the times i have done that i had the upper hand (assuming i choosed to fight since i usually pick my targets according to my capabilities).

Posted the same thread in Scoundrel forum. Suggestions obtained:

Well i was thinking in active skills more than anything to benefit all the trees. For example in PvE you have companions that can hold the aggro while you get the benefit. The main concept is that the increase in dmg could also apply an increase in healing. I have encountered some problems with energy regen too, maybe a skill in any tree that increases by 2 the energy gained per sec could be cool. The armor penetration would be fantastic, i dont know why a 5% AP buff was added per TA, an increase in energy regen while active would be cool too. The %dmg increase while TA is up is to say the least laughable, Juyo form stacks for Jedi Sents 5 times, each stack giving 2% dmg increase and burn skills increase 3% crit chance per stack when used. Dont know why Ops/Scoundrels have something similar, having in mind we only can stack 2 TA... Not to mention the all so known big MMO, many other RPG games (offline and online) have a "Death Target" skill that increase the dmg and crit chance or dmg to the target. Instead of a Death Target, call it Focused or whatever that could increase the healing done to the target. It would be a skill castable on both mobs and friendly.

Seriously. Give more information or this is a troll attempt. What gear do you have? Whats your maximum HP? 2 Hits, seriously? Maybe YOUR BH, SW, SI, IA cannot kill other players in 2 hits, doesnt mean others more geared and skill players can. Assuming that now its pretty hard to crit 5k dmg from the opener (Concealment/Scrapper talented) with good gear, you get the knockback and another hit after that. Are u telling us that the stealth opener critting for less than 5k(if not top notch geared), knowcked down and with another hit he killed you? Did you have any armor debuff stacking on you? like 5 stacks of 7% armor reduced? Many factors come to play here.

My zabrak operative looks exactly like me (no horns no tattos tho) but face model and hair for sure

Proud Zabrak Operative here. Fits perfectly my role

Ops/Scoundrels are supposed to be stealth and burst DPS classes. We are stealth but no Burst DPS class, not anymore. Victim = mob/player we are fighting Thinking on how the classes could be improved without making us overpowered i figured some kind of bonus to dmg if victim is not targetting us or some active skill. Quick Explanation: 1- If victim is not targetting us we should have some kind of bonus dmg, not much maybe 5 or 10%. Lets call its a passive skill called Surprise Flanking or something like that. The drawback is see on this is that is easily exploitable and the rivers of tears of other classes. 2- An active skill similar to the Shadows/Sins one where you taunt and if the victim is targetting other one than you he does 30% less dmg. Instead of that we could make it to improve our dmg for XX% if victim is not targetting us. Call it Anatomy Knowledge or something like that. Option 2 is an active skill that has cooldown and should last 6 to 10 secs max (10 secs is too much IMO). This would increase the dmg the pure stealth classes do (not shadow/sin since they are hybrids). As we have no sustained dmg i think an increase of the burst dmg is the solution, if its permanent people will cry, if its not class is underpowered compared to the rest. So the balance lies in the medium, increase of burst dmg but not always. Opinions please? If i see this is accepted by the fellow mirror class i will post it in the suggestion forum.