I am so sick of you just arguing against everyone with your biased opinions. Seems like you always got something negative to say about everything. Instead of just debating everyone on everything, you should open your mind and try to learn from us. I have seen your game play, you are pretty good, but you are no where near being the super master mind of the Assassin AC. I am making a vid right now, I cannot wait to make you eat your words. I will be introducing my Dancing Krayt spec that I have been keeping a secret for a while now. I have the "Guide" section pretty much done just trying to get more WZ and Duel footage. Look for it in about a week or so.

Assassin has been my main since launch, but I am pretty sure I will retire my Assassin when 2.4 goes live. I am just so sick of the shortcomings that AC has. Anyways, gonna join you Snipers in all your glory. I pretty much leveled my Sniper as Engineering and Lethality, going back and forth every couple of levels. I really love all the AOE that the Eng Sniper can put out, and just the sounds of all the bombs and grenades going off gave me a good feeling. All those yellow numbers all over the screen felt really good. Double Wallbanging someone has got to be one of the funnest things to do in this game. Lethality was really smooth. It could do pretty good AOE with CG and when you Cull someone, it was really really gratifying. So many yellow numbers streaming off of someone, the target animation that let everyone know that this guys is in serious trouble. I absolutely loved it. Now I have recently learned that MM is going to be the premier spec going into arenas. I am now MM and I am a bit out of my element with all the casting and the sound of FT is starting to get quite annoying. I have looked quite a bit on these forums and other sites for some pvp videos or guides, but the only thing I can find is pretty much centered around pve. Was wondering if you guys knew of any MM Sniper footage or guides out there that show them getting it done in Ranked matches, or high level pvp. All I can find on Youtube is lowbie stuff. Pretty much all the Snipers that like to show off are doing it with Lethality or Engineering. From the pve guides that are out there, they show that its best to start off with a couple Snipes then FT, then go into your rotation. But sometimes I find just casting Ambush/FT upfront gives me more pressure faster, even though it isn't optimum dps by taking advantage of the reduced cast of Ambush. I have even adopted starting off with SoS/FT, SV, then SoS/FT again before I even think about Snipe or Ambush. And now I find that if I am full nrg I just put EP in front of SoS for even more upfront pressure, don't even notice the nrg loss. Are these legit tactics for front loaded burst for switching targets or getting some quick pressure on a focus target as healer or tank is cc'd. Could I please get some of you experienced guys to give out some tips for rotations and what not, for maximizing initial burst? CC tacticts, like, do you guys roll first and use the CP as the secondary cc, or vice versa. Maybe some tips on effective ways to go against other classes, ways to deal with PT's Maras, and Sins. Maintaining LoS, with the other specs, there where dots and grenades you could toss while moving around, there was always something you could do while maintaining your LoS. Now with MM, I am running around and not doing anything till I get to me new spot lol. It just felt with Engineering and Lethality the rotations and abilities were smooth, I felt fluent. With MM I feel like I am lost a bit, like I am not utilizing my skills to their potential. IDK.

This, I run 12-31-3 and absolutely love it. You get all the defensive goodies from Deception, but your doing it in Dark Charge. Very hard to kill. You still get 2xMauls every 10sec, Shocks hit hard and crit everytime time. All this burst and your guarding healers. Its full of win.

This guy knows what he is talking about, I've seen him in action and is fluent in the arts of pvp. For me personally I love running Dark Maul (12-31-3) for regs. Ill have a healer guarded and I will start off being as annoying as possible and peeling as much as I can for our healers. Once I see someone burning their defensive CD's and CC breaker, I start licking my chops. Like what was said above, most of the time you cannot just charge in like a Warrior in a big battle. I like to sit and wait, watch the battle unfold in front of me, do my best to not get targeted. Then Ill sprint in and dish out some Mauls and monster Shocks. Ill either help focus down targets, or get on those targets that I know can't stop my damage. Anyways, that is the funnest play style for how I like to play my sin.

I wanna see your vid, where is the link?

Im with you Xinika, this guy is off his rocker. Ive tested Wakajinn against full Deception thoroughly. Wakajinn will always parse lower than Deception due to the fact that it builds Static Charges much much slower. Even a DF every 18sec won't help Wakajinn catch up. The only thing Wakajinn spec has over Deception is just DF. In objective based pvp DF is a wonderful ability and most would sacrifice some sustained damage so they can have this ability. Now that endgame objective based pvp is dead, DF won't have the swagger it used to.

Pre 1.4? I don't know about you but I thought 1.4 was one of the best patches the Assassin ever had. Harder hitting Maul, Enrtropic Field, Darkswell giving Blackout used out of stealth for increased force regen and 25% damage mitigation, Fade providing 30% aoe mitigation. 1.4 was an awesome patch for Assassins. 1.1-1.3 was also a dark time for Assassins.

A.Gloat? I dont think so, I did not come up with the spec. B. I have not done it arenas, as I said earlier, it is very likely that BW will hot fix it in a quick minute, so I am not going to go into arenas on ptr so people can figure out what I did and how they died so fast. They will complain and we will get nerfed. I only tested it in duals, highly skilled/geared healers and tanks. They all confirm that it is quite a bit more pressure than they are used to from Assassins. I am fully aware how easy it is to blow people up in regs. I have used many broken specs in regs just for fun. C. If it pans out that BW is fine with it, then I will share it with everyone so we can get something positive to take forward into arenas. Trust me, it is not my intention to be rubbing this in anyone's face.

You don't come on these forums often do ya?

I know arenas are going to be fun. For most of us that play this game, we haven't done competitive arenas in a few years. Getting back to that level of competition will be exciting even if I lose more than half of my matches. I may have puffed quite a bit of hot air about only playing my sniper, but I plan on doing everything I can to get my Sin as highly ranked as possible. More than likely I will be at it for months till I actually give up. To be honest a guildie came to me with a hybrid spec, and it is ****in awesome. I tried it in regs and I cannot believe how fast I am killing people. Tanks healers, hyrbids, they all get blown up. Normally when I find something like this I would have already came to the Assassin community with everything I know, as I have in the past with other hybrid specs. But I fear two things. One, there is some hidden synergy with some of the abilities that put out crazy burst and I fear if the Devs know about it, they may nerf us even more. The second is if I use this spec in arenas then other people will surely learn what I am doing and complain about exploiting or hax'n. Which again can lead to more nerfs. With the state of the Assassin, I do not want to do anything that can further delay or hinder any type re-balance of abilities that we may get.

Optimism is not a bad way to go. Our Electric Ambush talent was changed way after 2.0 was on the PTS. And that change single handedly made Assassin fun for regs. Imagine if that change was not made, not only would we not be viable for ranked but we would not even get invites to regs lol. Anyways, they made changes late in the test phase that really helped our class, there is a chance they could do this again.

BH's and Troopers get some nice changes they need to compete in pvp, yet we have to wait to see how we fair in arena's. This is such crap. We never did anything useful during that 4v4 or 5v5 at the middle node of Civil War, but they need to do further testing to see if that will change in another 4v4 format. I got some great news for you BW, and this is backed by thousands of players. We were so damn useful in those 4v4's and 5v5's that we get sent to grass to call out incs, regardless of our spec. Its not that we are great node guarders, other classes do just as good if not better. Its that we have no use in a 4v4 skirmish and our guildies like us and they don't want hurt our feelings. So we guard the get away car while everyone else gets to go rob the bank.

I am a still a bit upset with our lack of upcoming changes so this may sound a bit crude. I know DarkSin have some issues in pve, but in pvp they are our only performing spec. So no questions about that. Second, I know Deception needs some sustained dps to be viable for pvp and pve, but I do not play that spec so no questions about Deception. The first question, fix Shroud. Actually I don't even want you to put it in a question format. Just put "Shroud" in for the whole question. You and I both know they already know exactly what you are talking about. The second, Sadness. I want Sadness to get back to Madness. I want some burst via increased dmg on CrD and a proc for Assassinate. I also want some survivability, either give us some real defensive abilities or increase our healing to give us some damn staying power. Give Madness away to break a damn kite. We get one sprint, and if we are snared, then we are just screwed. I *********** hate having to use my damn cc breaker on a damn snare or root, its ridiculous. Give Madness the ability to keep their target snared or give us some damn snare breaks. I want instant WW back, who gives a **** anymore about sap caps, that **** is over, let us get back to having some nice CC abilities. We also need a much more efficient way to apply our dots, one is on a 9 sec cd, and the other is only applied at near melee range. How the hell can we dot up multiple targets to take advantage of some return on our force, if the only ones we can dot are the two smashers that killed us before my dots got 3 ticks on them. Ya, I need you to sum all that up in one question too. The third question, I want to buff my group. Other classes can increase damage of the group, increase run speed, increase healing, and oh ya, one class can even make the whole group invisible. Let us do something wonderful and unique as to get invites to pve and pvp regardless of the lack of damage our dps specs can deliver. I really love your idea about the increased crit % for the raid. That works for pvp and pve. 5-6% increase to crit when target is 30% or lower not only helps all the other classes with their 0 crit rating, but gives us an ability that increases the Assassin's ability to actually "assassinate" people. I know this is all far fetched, and what Xethis wants does not hold a candle to what the community needs, but can a dog get a *********** bone!

This is what Phase Walk should be, this should have been patched at 2.0.1. We should not have had to wait till 2.4 to have our awesome level 51 super ability finally work as it was intended. I feel really really let down. Snipers level 51 ability is nothing short of amazing regardless of what spec they run. Not only do they get to roll 18m with an evasion attached to it (as if they need it with all the cc they got). On top of that each spec has a 7th tier talent that can upgrade this ability, it can reapply Entrench, one of the best defensive cd's in the game. It can emit an aoe dot with a snare, or it can unleash 4 cluster bombs to further punish would be chasers. A class with some of the best cc and damage in the game also gets a wonderful level 51 ability. Why is the Assassin treated so badly. Tanks are falling behind, Deception is falling behind in pvp and Sadness is only fun for free2play players that are not raiding or pvp'ing. Our whole AC has major issues. Other classes have 100% immunity to cc, stuns and snares with out that 5% miss crap, why can't we get Shroud to also do what it should. How hard is it to put 10-15% damage to VS so Deception has a bit more sustained damage while they are building charges. How the **** can anyone at BW consider the Sadness spec to be "performing as intended" How many 30 page threads does BW need to understand this. I really hope the Assassin performs horribly in arena's so maybe they will actually understand. But I know it won't, many Assassins are phenomenal players and are going to get it done no matter what. But that will only hurt our chances at getting some development attention. Also, Darkness will always have some viability due to the fact that we can guard and do descent damage. I hope that damage turns out to be horrible though, and I hope every DarkSin loses their healer in seconds because they have no real defensive cool downs that can save a healer. I know we got taunt, but every one has taunt so don't go there. I am beyond upset, at this point I doubt I will even gear my Sin out for high level rateds. Gonna go Sniper I think. Gonna wallbang the *********** **** (<--those are cuss words) out of everyone I see. I want so many people to cry at this level 51 ability that it gets nerfed down to Phase Walk statis. "Due to the fact that we made the Sniper level 51 ability way too awesome, we are going to scale it down a bit to be more in line with other classes, particularly the Assassin AC. From now on Covered Escape will be on a 3min cd and will only roll you 8m in a random direction. In addition if you are under an cc or snare affects, Covered Escape will only roll you 2m and do 4k eternal damage to you. We are also removing the talents, Portable Bunker, Scatter Bombs and Corrosive Mine." Sincerely, BW's class balance development team.

I agree with you. In wows early days of arena I hated matches that got drawn out due to some wicked healing by a druid. I hated them so much that I completely refused to join any 5v5 or 3v3 team. I always went with 2v2 two dps, this way win or lose the match was over in just a couple min, sometimes seconds.

This game has companions, so you can solo with what ever build you want, pure dps or tank. We have companions that pick up the slack for us. For a pure dps build you can bring a tank or healer, for a pure tank build you can bring a dps or healer. There is really no point in leveling with a tank hybrid unless you want to use a dps companion. To answer your questions, probably the best solo build with great defense and burst is 12-31-3, however your sustained and aoe dmg will be low, not ideal for leveling. I would do as another poster said and just go all the way up Deception to level.

I have one shift modifier keyed on the pad. I run a Razer Naga mouse with 12 buttons, that can be shift modified. There is not one class in this game with even one ability that is not bound. Stims, grenades, medpacks, adrenals, all my interface tabs, I got everything bound. If that is not enough, you can add a cnrtl modifier key to double the amount of binds. If that still is not enough, Logitech has one with a few more buttons. http://img.clubic.com/02283070-photo-logitech-g-series-logitech-g13-1.jpg

Formerly the Belkin 52te, now the Razer Nostromo will be the most important gaming device I will ever own. http://wccftech.com/images/reviews/hardware/peripherals/Razer-Nostromo/DSC_0410.JPG This device is full of win. And any skill that other people do think that I have I owe 100% to this bad boy. Your hand never moves, and you have 14 keys available to your finger tips very comfortably. All the keys are 100% customizable to what ever key you want. I have 2-10 bound to the corresponding numbers, and 11-14 bound to F1-F4. The number one key I have programmed to be a shift modifier to give me easy access to 23 abilities. There is a wheel also on this thing, forward is F5, back is F7 and press the wheel for F6, hit my shift key (1) and that wheel serves as 6 abilities. That is 29 abilities at my finger tips with out having to move or adjust my palm. There is more...there is a small joystick at the thumb. This servers as my WASD, a button above it is my tab, and a large button below the joystick serves as my spacebar (jump). This device is also 100% macro-able. For instance on my PT I have the 9 key to macro'd to press numberpad 9 then regular 9. On my hot bars I have my Rocket Punch bound to numberpad 9 and Flame Burst bound to reg 9. What happens is the macro will always hit the numberpad 9 first, so if I am with in 4m, it will activate Rocket Punch, if RP is on cd or I'm farther away than 4m my Flame Burst will activate. I took it a step further and put Railshot to numberpad8 and put that in to lead off the macro, so Railshot will always take priority over FB and RP. I spam one button and effectively prioritize 3 abilities. Works 100% of the time too. I have 4 55 level toons and 5 more are 50+. Every toon has at least 3-5 of these priority based macros tied to them. The Nostromo has 8 different keypad settings for each of my toons and I can switch between them with one click. This thing even has different palm settings too so it will adjust to you if you have large or small hands. Put a Naga on the other side of your keyboard and you will never have to touch your keyboard unless your typing in chat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlG23Euczvc nice little review here to give you an idea about how this device works. If there is one device that can revolutionize your gaming and unlock your true potential, its the Nostromo.

Assassin is no where near being trash at endgame. There are some shortcomings, there are classes that do some things better. But it is still a very fun class to play. Even though Assassins are rarely used for dps in Ranked WZ's they are really strong for 1v1's. Changes happen with class balance all the time, Assassin is holding a shorter stick right now, but that can easily be changed in 2.4. If I were you I would start leveling both of them, and see what play style you start to gravitate towards. Go with the class that is more enjoyable to you. All the opinions in the world will never hold a candle to your own, so just level both at the same time and see what you like better. By level 30 or so you will probably have made your choice of what you like better. Even though there is tons of QQ on the forums with the Assassin right now, just about all of us keep playing our Assassins.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=666330 In this thread there is a healthy debate on CrD being used in Low Slash.

I got to say, the last few pages of this topic are quite entertaining. As you may have already noticed, this is not an easy question to answer, many Assassins are finding success with multiple specs and gear sets. I personally have several sets. Which is what I would recommend to you. If you are starting out in regs and using a Darkness build to help with some survivability then I would suggest getting your Stalker set first. This way you can still guard healers and have the utility that Darkness offers as well as some descent damage so you can help focus targets and maybe even win some 1v1's. If you are on a ranked team then you really need to bring several sets with you as your role will change form wz to wz. What I do to minimize the amount of swapping is just change out 4 armor sets with my shield and the absorb relic. If we are guarding doors in Voidstar or I am running the ball, I run my tank pcs that are modded for stam and absorb. If we are attacking Voidstar or I am asked to go try to solo nodes, I run full dps gear. If I am solo guarding then I run all my tank pcs as well. I personally don't even try to kill when I am defending, I just stall stall stall.

Wakajinn can be a very fun and versatile spec. It does suffer from the same things that is holding full Deception back. Deception has major short comings when it comes to their sustained damage, basically if you do not have your target dead or close to it after your Recklessness is over, then you probably aren't going to kill your target. Well, Wakajinn actually puts out less sustained damage due to not being able to build Static Charges as fast as a Deception Assassin. Wakajinn does have Deathfield though. And this will hit for 5k even with out the crit bonus higher in the Madness tree. Deathfield is also probably one of the best cap stopping abilities in the game, great for objective based pvp. Even though you are Discharging less, you can easily make up for the loss of damage with having Deathfield available. So its really a preference, youll have to try both. It might be one of those specs that are good for one WZ, and you might find full Deception better for another. It also depends on your team make up. Some times on my ranked team we will go in with a Madness Assassin, and a Madness Sorc, just so we can dot up healers and 50%-0% them by timing our Deathfields with our Mara's Smash. It can be quite effective. Even in this thread we heard several times about how different specs perform differently in different WZ's and team make ups. I think we are at a point where there is not hybrid spec, or full tree that is the absolute best for all around pvp. You just got to get with your team or friends and just theory craft your teams strengths and weaknesses and find ways to exploit your advantages and mitigate your weaknesses.

I am just sayin, just about every MMO out there makes their rogue/assassin archetype have a trade off for the stealth ability. Most games balance the stealth/burst/cc abilities with slightly less dps and survivability. And in everyone of those games people roll this type of character and complain that they cannot keep up with the melee warriors in sustained damage and can't hold a candle to the clothie casters aoe. Its never going to happen. You cannot have your character excel in every aspect of the game. So you get to stealth and vanish and have insane opening burst, if you could also have the same or better dps than a Mara or Jugg, then no one would roll those classes because the Assassin class would have all the goodies. And all we would ever hear would be qq from the warrior forums talking about how they can't get invites to ranked and raids cause the stealth classes do everything they can do better. As far as pve goes, MadSins should be with in 5% of top tier dps classes, I know they are behind that. There is definitely a tweak that is needed. However, that spec has terrible survivability. Its the trade off for increased sustained damage. You are never going to be able to have the sustained damage the Madsin can do, and be able to have the opening burst of Deception. You have to trade one for the other. I did not like the changes to the Madness spec, but instead of throwing my arms up and crying, I rolled a Lethality Op, it had everything that I was looking for my pve playstyle. Hard hiting dots form range, and insane burst spikes with Cull. It was how I wanted to do my pve, it is what I wish Madness was. If the Assassin isn't topping the dps meters the way you want, then try a class that can.

The point I was trying to make was, if you like a gank type class then go with it and have fun ganking. If you want to have top tier raid dps, then roll a sniper or mara. You can not have a toon that is best at burst, stealth, dps, tanking and aoe all wrapped up in one spec. The Assassin class has pretty good versatility with in the three specs, a tank spec, pvp spec and a raid spec. Now trust me I do understand the short comings that the three specs have in their respective rolls. Other tanks tank better than our tank, just being able to burst in pvp isn't always ideal for objective based pvp, and our raid spec is no where near the 5% mark that it should be to the top tier dps classes. With that being said, there are classes out there that will get you what you want in this game. There is always going to be a trade off for having a stealth class. If you don't like what the stealth classes in this game offer, then roll a class that does fit what you want to get out of this game.

Most fantasy MMO's rock a stealth assassin rogue type class. There is a huge market for people that love playing this archetype. BW could not ignore the demand for this type of toon. This archetype in every MMO always runs the same advantages and disadvantages. Typically, high burst, low sustained, next to no aoe and low survivability with better than average single target cc. This is a class that is designed for world pvp ganks, duels, and pretty much anything that is single target or 1v1. BW's pvp system right now is pretty much only objective based. With this type of pvp your going up against multiple people and killing them is not your only goal. Every MMO has a hard time balancing abilities to give this archetype a place in objective based pvp. In my opinion, BW has done an incredible job at giving this class some options to have a place in objective based pvp(tank) or in raids (Madness). The Assassin and the dps Operative will never have a designated spot for objective based pvp, it will never happen. You chose a gank class, so go gank and quit complaining. There are lots of options in this game if you want to have a different roll, many classes and archetypes to choose from. You can play support and go tank and gaurd a healer and use your cc to peel, keep your teammates alive longer. This roll will always have a high demand in objective based pvp. Yes some classes do it better (juggies) but DarkSins do have some descent burst (for a tank) to help focus down the other teams squishies. With this game the Darkness and Deceptions Sins are actually great at defending nodes against multiple players. Hard for one person to take a node from us, cause we are better at 1v1 then just about every other class. We also have several cd's that give us great survivability against multiple people to buy time till help can come. This is another role in objective based pvp that will be highly sought after. As of right now these are the two roles that we fit nicely, don't complain about it, there are many classes that only have one role, and some have none, Operatives have to heal, and Mercs are in a far worse spot than we are for ranked spots. So many people complaining that the sustained dmg is holding us back from spots. This really upsets me. Deception sins and several hybrid specs have by far the best opening burst in that game. And some of you just want to cry cause you want the same burst and to keep up with a Sniper in sustained and aoe damage lol. The part that puts me in a bad mood is the fact that you have a spec that does great aoe in pvp and some of the highest sustained dps, but its pretty bad at 1v1 so no one chooses to play it. Just as easy for scoreboard heroes to hit 1mil damage with a Sin as a Sniper or Warrior. I am going to end my rant here, but just know that there is at least 10 other points I would like to hit on the silly things Assassins complain about. I just don't understand why people pick a gank class and complain that it does not out perform ranged dps in sustained damage, or why they can't compete with the ranged cloth class in aoe. I could start a thread about why Assassins need some healing abilities and I bet the topic would be at 10 pages in a day.