[Datacrons for assassin]

Codex entries, power, the knowledge that the secrets of the Infinite Empire are yours, the hidden history of the galaxy opened up to you...

 

Not everything needs to be about moving tiny numbers around, you know.

 

It's like you planted C4 in my brain, cuz my mind is blown.

[Deception PvP, and why you're doing it wrong]

I think what the OP is assuming is that people expressing dislike for deception in pvp are "doing it wrong", but I do not think that is the case. What you have said is not some revelation, most understand all of the points you have and agree with it. Here are some of the issues imho.

 

The power up burst that you are referring it is great, however it requires several things to make it work; reck, relic and procs. Without these you will run into issues dropping people. So we have 90secs between our burst, not ideal, since we really are subpar once reck, relic (and potentially adren) are on cd.

 

Another issue is, our "burst" damage is quite easy to predict and mitigate vs. good players. Since we rely on duplicity and induction procs, we require a ramp up time on the target to build procs before actually bursting. Any good team will see the yoyo saber as soon as our first VS is used and can do quite a few things to counter us. First our 15k burst will probably be 7k since our target will get guarded while we ramp up to burst. Second, KB/Root (snare), or any stun/mez will neuter us. Yes, we can use our defensive cds, like FS offensively (which I found was needed vs. good players/teams to get the kill on healers or the kill target), however its 3secs, and once its down our ability to escape and reset for the next target is severely hindered (or simply escape alive).

 

To me this makes no sense, we are the easiest class to kill, yet we require as much ramp up time on target to do "burst" as say a jugg who has the mitigation to stand there and ramp up charges without dropping to 20% while doing so.

 

You bring up some legitimate concerns, but these problems have various ways around them. For starters, the target you build up your procs on does NOT have to be the target you drop your burst on. You can get some one to half-health, and then when a healer tries to heal them, pop your CD's and jump on the healer. Now there are two people who are at half health and in danger of being focused down. Also, I don't believe we are completely useless when our burst CD's are down, simply making use of AoE taunt as well as your single-target taunt (I can never remember the names of either one of these) is extremely helpful to your team.

 

Once we are out of stealth, we will instantly become the new assist target for the opposing team (if they have a clue), not because of our burst, but because we are the softest class with the least defensive cds that require ramp up time to burst. Seems like a great formula for getting cblocked regularly.

 

Another issue (for me anyway), playing with a team, is that I felt I was not bringing much to the table. Here is an example, lets say we have two teams 4v4 at a resource in a wz each with a healer and 3 dps. I as a assassin, open on the healer assisting one of my dps teammates. In doing so I burn all of my burst cds and potentially FS and FC, so we get the kill. Now I am a sitting duck, so either i sprint away and try and restealth or stand there and hope my healer can keep me up with 3 dps beating on me. Either way I am no longer providing any "real" value to my team. My force regen is now crap since DS and DE are down severely limiting my dps and having tissue paper as armor really puts a strain on my healer and dps teammates who now have to guard, peel for me.

 

Part of your issue is right here. Popping FS and FC offensively to kill some one is something I would only suggest doing in a 1 on 1 scenario. FS and FC are our get out of jail free card, and your success varies greatly on how well you know WHEN to play that card. In the scenario you give above, why do you have to blow all of your CD's if you have three DPS trying to kill one healer? That's more than enough interrupts/CC to get them down.

 

What I don't understand is that you provide the above scenario as a team fight, but you only list your own abilities in the equation against a team of four. Why are you calculating things in a vacuum? Maybe one of your other team mates has a taunt to ease the pressure off of you. Either way, you should pop FS/FC when you get low, and wait till your healer pops you up to about 50%+ health before joining the fight again. So all you have to do is FS/FC, and then wait 2 seconds and pop your AoE taunt, now you're out of the fight for a few seconds, but your taunt is still helping your team.

 

 

When rated WZs become available (and providing there aren't changes to our class), I highly doubt that any high rated team will take a deception assassin over say a operative for the stealth/burst role (if all other variables are constant, skill/gear/etc between the two players). We are simply subpar in comparison for this role.

 

I really wish deception was more viable for me, but as it stand right now. I feel that we bring much more to the table as a spec that I really had no intention of playing when I rolled this AC, darkness......

 

Just my $0.02

 

Well see I don't agree with this, and as I believe I've said, Assassin is a great class, and it pulls its weight in PvP. My only problem with it right now is Deception is noticeably weaker because we bring nothing unique that the other two specs can't bring, other than a bit more burst. Both specs get whirlwind (and madness has the instant cast) as well as mind-trap, and both have access to the taunts. Darkness gets the survivability, as well as the choice to utilize guard, while madness has more survivability, instant cast whirlwind, the ability to do damage even when not at point blank range, and a powerful 3-target AoE damage shot.

 

The fix is, I believe, pretty simple. Make Static Cling cause force slow to add 10% more slowing power per rank (bringing force slow to 70% slow), giving us the most powerful snare in the game. On top of that I think they should remove the durations on Static Charge and the Induction/Voltaic Slash procs, so that we can just pool them and use them when we want to, instead of risk them going away. I would also apply this to recklessness (to keep it balanced the recklessness cooldown wouldn't start until the last charge of reck had been consumed), this way our damage mechanics wouldn't be trumped by roots and stuns/incapacitates.

[Deception PvP, and why you're doing it wrong]

Combine this with the illum experience and how hostile it is to a deception assassin and I can very few reasons that my continuing experience in SWTOR could in any way be described as fun. (My buddy, a sorc, another new 50 joined the illum zerg and he completed his daily almost instantly - his healing allows him to tag almost every kill wheras as an assassin I could only tag enemies within 10m.)

 

When you're in Ilum, just stay in stealth near the ops group and spam Mark of Power (your group buff), you get credit for every single player your ops group kills. I know it's boring as hell, but it gets the job done.

[Deception PvP, and why you're doing it wrong]

Love deception PVP but my chain shocks are beastly but to each his own. The number of shocks and chain shocks I generate are crazy easily above 1k+ I wish this game had a real parser so claims can be verified instead of feelings.

 

The only class I have had tons of trouble with are sents/Maras I didn't realize how good guarded by the force was and was going for the kill wasting tons of resources doh 99% dr for 5 seconds in PVP from a crazy dps class is kind of insane.

 

Whenever they pop that I just pop force cloak and wait it out.

[Deception PvP, and why you're doing it wrong]

I was going to wait until I was a Battlemaster to make this thread, but I've decided there's no more reason to wait. I'm only Valor 58 at the moment, and this thread isn't really some shining revelation as it is a consolidation of what people have a hard time with as far as Deception as a concept is concerned. If you don't understand how Deception is supposed to function in PvP, then this is the thread for you. If you don't accept my credibility since I'm not a Battlemaster, then at least take it from some one who has spent at least 500k credits on respecs during the last few months trying to understand what makes all 3 Assassin trees tick.

 

To start off, the spec. As far as I'm concerned, there's only one good Deception spec, or at the very least, this is the most viable one:

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200McMZRGbRkhrbtzZc.1

 

The only thing I could even suggest switching around would be Static Cling for Recirculation, if you happen to play with a group of team mates who can provide snares themselves. Having discharge come up 3 seconds earlier can be the difference between life and death in limited scenarios.

 

Don't go chain-shock spec, it's just not good, you gain too little damage and give up too much survivability. The 9% armor ignore from Charge Mastery more than makes up for it in the long run.

 

Now that that is out of the way, you have to understand what Deception brings to the PvP table that the other 2 specs don't. Unfortunately, it's not a lot, since all of Deception's utility can be covered by the other 2 specs, and almost always in a better way. I would say Madness is currently the best Assassin spec in PvP currently, if only because of instant-cast whirlwind. However I don't like Madness, for the same reason that most people don't like it, I rolled an Assassin to play a class much like a Rogue, not like a low-rent shadow priest/caster with stealth capabilities.

 

The biggest thing Deception lacks that the other trees are better at, is survivability, and this makes them easier to play hands down. However, Deception is completely capable of doing things the other trees can't if you can play it well, and if you can get the gear. I can't put enough emphasis on that last part, because it is really, really important. You've probably heard a lot of people say "boy Assassin sure gets better in Battlemaster Gear!' And people often come to the agreeable assumption that no sh*t, of course it does, every class does. BUT, these people are actually right, because Assassins get a lot of bang out of the Crit and Surge stats due to their critical damage talents, namely Crackling Blast and Induction. For those of you who leveled as Deception (as I did), this is part of the reason you had such a hard time, because you probably couldn't itemize yourself properly to really benefit from what makes the tree strong.

 

This is the other problem with Deception, our PvP gear is itemized like balls. If we could switch out every +accuracy stat with +crit/surge/power, we would be much better off. I know you could say this for almost every class, but it is more essential to Assassins than any other. Only a few PvP items are properly itemized optimally for Assassins, and if you want to really get the most out of Deception in PvP, you will have to reslot your enhancements with crit/surge or surge/power ones (as far as I know, crit/power doesn't exist yet). Until you can buy an ***-load of Champion Gloves (which have a surge/power enhancement in them that you can remove and place in all of your gear) you will probably have to ask an artifice to make you some epic adept enhancements. You can get these out of Operations if you're lucky: http://www.torhead.com/item/dyXw8Xh/advanced-adept-enhancement-25 but I don't PvE, so that's not an option for me. So unless you know an Artificer who has the Adept 24 or 23 schematics, you'll likely have to settle for Adept 22's, which give 18 endurance, 27 power, and 39 surge. Even though they're lower quality than what is already in the PvP gear, being properly itemized makes them better, period.

 

So what does a properly itemized Assassin bring to the PvP table that the other two specs don't? Unstoppable burst, basically. The other two trees can put out impressive numbers over a longer period of time, but they can't hold a candle to Deception done right. When you pop a relic (I suggest a +power relic for this combo), recklessness, and over charge saber all at once, only a tank or a CC train can stop you from murdering the sh*t out of some one. With good gear--not even best gear--you can drop 15k damage in 6-8 seconds no sweat, on just about anything but a well geared PvP tank (though I've dropped some pretty well geared tanks pretty quickly on occasion). The other thing about Deception, is that if you have a healer and/or a tank working with you, to up your survivability, Deception becomes the best PvP spec possible (for pure damage, that is, darkness tanks work very well). However, if you solo queue WZ's often, I would suggest going with one of the other specs if you like surviving while trying to carry bad team mates.

 

So now you understand the concept behind Deception, but how do you accomplish that? Stealth is obviously important because it lets you fight who you want to, when you want to. That said, being in stealth does nothing for your team until you make a move. Ever play Team Fortress 2? You know that dumb-*** spy who sits in stealth for 5 minutes with the Cloak and Dagger before coming out to kill one person and then sitting there for another 5 minutes? Don't be that guy. Rapid target acquisition is a skill you will have to excel at to play Deception well. Squishy healers and casters that are trying to stay at the rear of the fight are always high priority. Killing them might not always be the most efficient option, though. Mind Trap is a seriously under-used ability, and if you can reach a ranged player or a healer before they jump into the fight, you can be very valuable to your team. Especially if they use their CC breaker to get out of it and try to hurry into the fight.

 

Healers with guard on them are a different story completely. If you come across a healer with guard, killing him is usually not an option unless he or his tank are very, very stupid/poorly geared. The best thing you can do in this case is make the healer's life a living hell. Just stick on him as much as possible and interrupt him every chance you get. If you interrupt one spell and he tries to cast another, slap a stun on him with electrocute or do force cloak -> spike, and then when those are about to run off, hit him with a whirlwind. While doing this, you can throw out taunts and maybe some damage to help your team some more, but locking down the healer is your top priority. Remember that Low Slash and Overload also make useful interrupts if Jolt is on cooldown.

 

As a side note, openers for the Assassin are pretty limited. I usually go with maul because its high cost is off-set by the 6 seconds of dark-embrace while exiting stealth. Spike is decent, but the only time I use it really is for knocking people off ledges.

 

I hope this helps and will alleviate some of the confusion people have on this board.

[Madness or Deception? PVP]

That Shalaska kid exploited Illum and nerdburgered Warzones for a high valor rank and now comes into EVERY deception post to spread his anit-deception **** like it's gospel.

 

****, nobody cares.

 

I can not wait for rateds and arena to come out so you ******* can see how useless both darkness and madness specs actually are.

 

Darkness + madness = classic BG hero specs, useless for anything else in PvP.

 

Example - 3v3, your sage healer CC's one target

 

Shalaska, the all mighty darkness assassin runs in " DERP DISCHARGE, OR WITHER... OOPS I BROKE YOUR CC, BUT IM ALIVE CUZ IM DARKNESS SO ITS ALL GOOD"

 

Either that scenario or he isn't as clueless as that and notices a CC 'd target, "DERP, CC, CANT USE ANYTHING USEFUL UNTIL IT RUNS OUT, SO ILL JUST SIT HERE AND TAUNT AND DO LESS DAMAGE THAN A LVL 10 OPERATIVE".

 

While if you were Deception in that situation, you and your group could fully utilize the situation. Seeing as it is now 2v3, you are taking a great deal less damage, and seeing as you don't actually need to AoE people to be useful, you will rip apart one target before the other group actually realises whats going on.

 

 

Disagree with me? Enjoy playing your darkness or madness spec. It'll be like a prot warrior with a resto druid playing 2s in WoW; sure the disc priest rogue combo they might fight cant survive as good as you, but who needs it when the prot warrior does so little damage they will never be a threat.

 

What makes you think that they will ever add something as boring as arenas to SWTOR? Seriously, that's not the pinnacle of PvP, it's even more redundant than Warzones. Go back to WoW if you want that boring arena ****.

[Pure Deception and new Induction PvP]

I'm actually glad they're doing this because it's a step in the right direction. Right now, Surging Charge is garbage, especially in comparison to Dark Charge for PvP. However, if you skip surging charge, it's not like that allows you to pick up any killer PvP talents in deception. The entire surging charge branch of talents is much more tailored to PvE sustain DPS than it is to any kind of PvP DPS, any one should be able to tell that just by glancing at it. What needs to happen, is that surging charge needs to be given another branch/talents that will give it more viability in PvP. The issue is that surging charge isn't the whole problem, it's just part of several dysfunctions that are weighing down Assassin PvP. My biggest problem with Deception PvP right now is that all of Assassin's PvP utility is more effective if it is used by a tank instead of a DPS, that needs to be addressed.