There's your problem in a nutshell.

Anything that hits at 10m, especially one that hits fairly hard, is useful in any spec, at almost any time when you need to hit the guy over THERE ----> and you're not there yet, or you're slow, and not getting there anytime soon. "Optimal" goes out the window if you're talking about pvp and you need to start putting damage on target RIGHT F'ING NOW. Shock does that. You will use it. You will like it. Or you are bad. 10m > 4m

Yes, they were. They were announced on the PTS forum in the 1.1.2 patch notes thread, which has since been removed, as the changes are now live. You saw the changes in the patch notes when you patched the game today. Just because you didn't pay attention doesn't mean the information wasn't there.

No Madness PvP hybrid any more.

I believe you get defensive medals in huttball by fighting (defeating?) the ball carrier. Or healing/guarding him if your team has it. I think you get defensive medals on voidstar by preventing caps (fighting someone planting the bomb.) And I know you get them on alderaan by standing near the turrets. I think you get them -faster- by fighting near the turrets, and by interrupting caps.

Hopefully no one's actually reading into this that all you do in Madness is spam Saber Strike to fish for Raze procs. It'll proc when it's ready. If it doesn't proc, don't hit Crushing Darkness, and go about your normal rotation. If it does, then hit it. Nothing changes. Move along, nothing to see here.

Skill > Spec I have played all three specs (31 pt versions) extensively, though mostly Deception. Currently 31 Madness. Yes, Madness. I queue mostly solo, so I don't have a pocket healer focused on me. I rely on charity heals from randoms, or I don't get them. I lead every WZ in medals, damage, kills, whatever. You blame your inability to compete with a spec on the spec when you should be looking within. There are plenty of people in this thread who have offered their opinions on the spec that contradict your experience. A poor carpenter blames his tools. A good carpenter can work well even with poor tools. Good luck in your warzones, by all means use whatever spec allows you to play your style, but coming in here and claiming the spec is poor because you're bad at it just makes you look like a fool.

You never cast Crushing Darkness without Raze. You're doing it wrong.

dear god make it stop

VS annoys me, because it's pretty obvious to everyone, "COME KILL THE DECEPTION 'SIN NOW!" I really hate the Maul windup. I see it oh so often, with nothing ever happening ... I'm ok with Assassinate. Big twirly finisher.

Dude. Stop trashing every thread in here with this garbage. No one takes you seriously, and those of us who have been successful with Deception are just laughing at you. Go. Away.

bump again

bumpity

I believe the change to Raze was introduced today, but yes, the other ones were there previously. None of which are documented, and none of which are technically correct. All three tooltips are currently wrong. When it happened is not the issue.

I'm certain this was an oversight on someone's part for potential changes but the fact that the tooltips made it live mean they are now incorrect. Skills not working as described on a tooltip means that players cannot make decisions on spec or ability usage properly. This is a major issue, and it needs to be addressed.

The tooltips for the following Sith Assassin skills have been changed with no mention of modification to them in the patch notes either live or on the PTR: Harnessed Darkness Induction Raze However, none of the skills actually function any differently than the pre-patched version, so currently the live server tooltips on these skills are blatantly incorrect. Will you be fixing this by: a) Reverting the skills to the correct, pre-patch wording, and not changing their in-game functionality, or b) Updating the skills to function in-game as their new tooltips state, or c) Changing both the wording and the functionality to something else totally different. Hopefully a, b, or c will be accompanied by full and proper disclosure of said changes in the official live patch notes so that we can be aware of your recognition of this issue. Thanks.

9.5/10 Thought this was serious for a second.

Alright, I am going to try not to be harsh about this, but you really need to get to level 50 to see how the end game plays out. I understand the 11-49 bracket is fun, because no one's got expertise gear, and you can play with your fully boosted level 49 stats and gear. But please, please don't consider this anything but practice.

My understanding was that at one point, perhaps pre-release in beta, it was working that way, but it's not anymore. And yes, it's trivially easy to test by yourself. Also at work, and can't do it.

Put 23 points into Darkness in some intelligent fashion. Put the rest into Madness in some intelligent fashion. When you're done, you should have Force Pull and Electrify and some other stuff in Darkness, and Raze and other useful things in Madness. Shouldn't have to spell it out, it should be pretty obvious.

I think it's fun trying to pick out the little man with the lazer beam hitting him in the stomach on our tiny buff bar to know when it's time to Crushing Darkness, while, at the same time, keeping an eye on Expose Weakness procs, checking the Unearthed Arcana timer, watching my Discharge, Death Field, and Creeping Terror cooldowns, checking the boss's also tiny buff bar for my dots, watching for interrupts, trying to manage my Force pool, and, oh yeah, looking at the actual boss fight so I don't stand in fire. </sarcasm> No, seriously though ... wtb powerauras

Based on the non-combat log theorycrafting that's been done on other sites, Madness is the highest sustained DPS. It is also very obvious that Deception has much higher burst capability, and I could see your point if you said Darkness even had better burst than Madness after building stacks of Harnessed Darkness. Even Deception needs to build a few stacks of VS + Surge before getting our big burst, anyway. But, for PvE, Madness > Deception for a DPS spec. That having been said, I believe knowing both when and how to apply the burst of Deception in PvP is what separates the really good players from the Darth Mauls running around complaining about why their "hardest hitting ability" doesn't work in PvP. In situations where you're facing loosely organized opposition on a large map (e.g. HUTTBALL) I believe Deception > Darkness. But, all your bursty Deception goodness does almost nothing when facing a double healer-guard team. You can't burst any of them down. Not even pre biochem nerf. Personally, I've run into these mostly on voidstar because of the ease at which this combo is utilized in focused, close quarters combat. In these cases, being able to stick around the fight longer by not dying almost instantly, plus being a tank with Guard on a healer, Darkness > Deception. So perhaps we can attribute all of the love for Deception to the fact that we queue for Huttball about 80% of the time (or worse) and that sort of map is where the spec works the best. Can you do well with a different one? Sure, if you apply it intelligently. You need to use the tool the way it's intended to be used. Personally, since my guild finally has 50's enough to start Ops, I had to spec to Madness for PvE, and figured I'd get used to it running some solo queues this weekend. While I seriously noticed the lack of burst, I was pleasantly surprised to be top damage in every WZ I played, often without any heals or support of any kind. Why? Because while you're not seeing the 4k-5k crits any more, you've got 2-3 dots ticking away, and you've got some decent aoe every 12s that helps. Once I got used to the spec and ability timing, I was able to finish fights pretty effectively. People aren't used to fighting against Madness, maybe, so that might have had something to do with it.

It is very possible to play the assassin like a harassment class, with a few 1v1 solos, but not actively seeking them out, while supporting the ball carrier (or door caps, or turret defense, or whatever) and helping your team, while also putting out respectable, if not mind-blowing or screenshot-worthy damage. Here's something you can try to do, every game, whether it's butthall, or alderaan or voidstar: try to get the Paladin (10k defense in 1 life) medal. If the rest of your team is near the objectives and actively fighting with the other team, all you really need to do is stealth into the group and hit mass mind control, and remember to hit it 45s later if it's still up and there's still action. You'll reduce the healing load by 30% for 6 seconds and that means the difference between wiping your side and killing the attackers, sometimes. If you keep this in mind every game, you'll notice you won't be haring off on your own all the time, or attacking unimportant targets, because you'll be thinking strategically instead of tactically. Almost every game I've been actively seeking out important battles to participate in, I end with a ton of medals. Maybe I'll only be around 100k damage, but I'm at the top of the medal chart, and there's usually a green border around the list. (That means Victory, btw, if you're not familiar with it.) Good luck.

Mouseover your Induction skill and check the tooltip next time you're in game.

I'm sorry your experience with Deception was less than stellar. It's not that way for everyone. hint: if you're stuck in dark charge, you're doing it wrong.