Im having a blast with a Dark Maul build, 12-31-3, but most Sins prefer full Deception.

Madness is over simplified ATM. Very easy. Apply your dots, DF off of cd for your Death Marks, Then spam Thrash for Raze procs. Thats it. Do not shock, Do not Force Lightning. Do not Maul If you are less than 30 force then you may Saber Strike.

I agree, something definitely needs to be done to increase the dps Operatives effectiveness in pvp. I strongly disagree with mirroring us after the Deception Sin. I do agree that a Deception Sin can do (literally) everything better in pvp, better opening burst, better sustained damage, better passive defense, better defensive and offensive cd,s. There is not one thing that a Concealment Op can do, that a Sin can't due better, aside from crap heals and the roll. Ironically Madness Sin is just as broke for pve, as Concealment is broke for pvp. I play my Lethality Op in pve, and my Sin in pvp. Too bad I have to play two toons to get some descent fun in this game. I believe the dps Op can achieve success in pvp with out mirroring the Sin. It would be quite boring if two Advanced class were exactly the same. The Sin is a defensive arc, and the Op is a healing arc, lets use that as a base to keep these Advanced classes unique from each other. Instead of just giving Op the same defensive talents that the Sin has, 30% aoe mitigation, stacking armor buff, 25% damage mitigation for 12-24 sec of an opener, immunity from teck/force for 3-4 seconds. The list is long. We should find abilities with in the healing arc to compete with the talents Sins get that increase their survivability. Anyways my suggestions are; Shield probe needs to be as effective as a sorc bubble. Increase the damage absorbed, decrease the cd. Have any aoe damage proc a smaller shield, the shield amount should compete with the 30% decrease in aoe mitigation the sins get. Instead of stacking amor buff and the 25% damage mitigation from Blackout, During our Sneak buff we should get a 25% increase to our shield during this buff and 6% increase to all incoming heals. Kolto Infusion should not cost TA, and Kolto Injection should be instant cast at the cost of a TA. TA should last 2 seconds longer. Acid Blade ticks should have a 30% chance to proc a buff that will allow Hidden Strike to be used out of combat, 10 sec internal cd, that will be on par with the Sins Duplicity/Maul. These are the key talents adjustments Concealment Ops need to compete with the Deception Sins.

Cull isn't enough burst you say? There are 3 ticks to cull, with my Lethality Op my first tick hits for 1.5k-3k, With Weakening Blast my two tech ticks hit for 1.3-2.5k. That is 4.1k with nothing critting, and 8k with crits (which happens alot). Now chain 4 of those in 5 globals. The one global that is needed that is not cull is shiv and that will hit for 1.8k-4.5k (not shabby). Oh by the way, you have two dots ticking, one of those dots sometimes double ticks and ive seen this crit for me at 1.8k (hard hitting dot if i do say so myself). There is a set up needed to achieve this, but you do it at range and then move in for your Cull chain. My Culls put rediculous pressure on everything, very few people can live through a nicely set up Cull chain, if I am not CC'd, they are dead.

Lightning Recovery is also completely useless against healers lol. 500k damage and 200k protection is a very good game, I don't care who you are. None of that damage is aoe, none of that damage is dots being spread around. 400k of it was Mauls and Shocks lol. You are correct I currently do not have a rated team, My guild fell apart and I have been reluctant to join another when I know Ill be transferring servers. I do not run with skilled healers that I am on vent with, that 200k protection is all taunts and guarding who ever is next to me. I know tanks can get 200-500k protection easily, they are usually on vent with their geared/skilled healers. 500k damage and 200k protection is damn good for a pug. The fact that I solo que might be a very good reason I put so much value in defensive talents. When you have skilled tanks and healers around you it is very easy to play a pure dps role and be very successful.

You get 10% defense stock, so that combined with the talents give you 14%. As far as getting crit with this build, I am still going back and forth trying to find the happy spot. Not critting on your Mauls is extremely frustrating. I am trying to find a medium between the too. This spec is pretty bad at sustained damage, if I were parsing on a dummy or a 5-10 min boss fight then yes Power is definitely a dps upgrade over crit. But this is pvp and a burst spec specifically, not getting any crits hurts you more than a few points in power. Yes Shock is auto crit, but I play this spec really around the Maul ability. Hence the name for the spec, Dark Maul. As far as this spec being only for regs, I would disagree with you here. Having an Assassin that can do as much burst and almost as much damage as a Deception Sin, all the while running in Dark Charge and Guarding healers, is by far a better choice for competitive war zones. Several times I have had 200k defense and over 500k damage, those are my favorite matches by far. Another thing about the talent Lightning Recovery, it has great synergy with the Deflection talent. It is definitely worth it, on top of that, there isn't a better talent choice in that second tier. Remember, our goal is the two talents in the 3rd tier. As far as Energized Shocks vrs regular Shocks combined with Discharge. During the Recklessness buff, there is no comparison, hands down having Discharge front loaded with 3 stacks of Static Charge is way better. However, outside of your Reck buff you will only crit with Discharge and Shock 1 out of 4-5 attacks. That is really bad. The damage when they don't crit is also really bad. Having a Shock hit for only 1.8k and a discharge hit for only 2.3k is just ridiculous. I find having an auto critting Shock is way more valuable considering it is always good for 4.5k-9k damage.

Not sure how you can say the burst is inferior Rankor, maybe you are trying to Thrash too much, idk. Ill try to explain why I can parse 200-500 higher opening burst with this spec compared to full Deception. As far as Stats, Its pretty much standard with 24%-ish crit, 95%-100% acc, 70%-ish Surge and Max out your power from there. If you are high on Willpower and have over 24% crit then start trading out your Willpower for straight Power. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200rMrozZfrcRzGbRr0zZc.3 Ill try to be brief with my talent selection. In the Darkness tree Energize and Disjunction are our main talents we are chasing. Both are pretty obvious why. The damage from Dark Charge is meh, upping the damage of this ability with Electric Execution is not going to make a difference in pvp, however it is more damage so you can do it if you want. Dark Charge already has a 50% proc rate with an internal 4.5 sec cd, Swelling Shadows will increase your chance to have the very first ability used after the 4.5 sec cd expires actually proc your Dark Charge. But Dark Charge will always proc with in one to two globals after the internal CD so you can go around this talent also if you choose, but the others are not better talents so might as well grab it. I go 2/3 of Charge Mastery cause the first point is filler to get to second tier, and second point is filler to get to 3rd tier. 6% extra internal elemental and internal mitigation does compliment a semi defensive build. Lightning Reflexes and Recovery, With these you get 14% base defense and you are slightly helping your force regen, specially during Deflection. You also slightly reduce the CD on shroud again complimenting a semi defensive build. As far as Exploitive Strikes, this is pretty obvious considering youll be auto critting on Shock and having an extra 9% crit on Maul, Thrash and Assassinate. Just a couple of things with the Deception tree, there are some wasted points, but they are worth it. The first 4 tiers grab the obvious talents, The 5th tier you will waste points in Saber Conduit but it is worth it as Electric Ambush will reset your Recklessness buff even though you are in Dark Charge. Crackling Blast is a must to tie into Energize and Reck, and Entropic Field is really sexy combined with Dark Charge. Lastly Impose Weakness is such an amazing talent as all Deception Sin's know how valuable it is. Ok, my rotations. Ill do my best to be brief and informative. You are tracking two different Duplicity cd's at 9 and 10 sec, you are also trying to Thrash as much as possible all the while maintaining enough force to Shock when Energize does proc. It is very easy to do this wrong, it is deceptively challenging to do it right. I open with Low Slash from stealth and look for them to use their cc breaker, most wont use it here, but the bads will and you wont need help with knowing what to do next lol. Anyways second ability is Maul obviously. Now here you are watching for procs, Your first Maul can easily proc your second Duplicity and Energize both, so start looking for those. Your still in the middle of your first Dark Embrace buff so you can afford some Thrashes here. Most of the time, before my first Dark Embrace buff expires I will Maul twice for 4k-8k each, and an Energized Shock that crits for 6k-9k. If my Mauls crit then you already won or really close to it. If they did not crit and your opponent is skilled or is getting help we go to phase two. Phase two is the 6-12 second window of the fight, usually starts with Blackout to refresh Dark Embrace. During this time your defense is really good still from Blackout and your armor and your sure to have 6% extra mitigation from Entropic Field. This is usually a positioning and cc battle. Your not going to get another Maul proc in this phase so your burst will be really reduced. However force regen is really good still so you should be able to get 2-3 Thrashes with another Energize proc for another hard hitting Shock. If you are fighting a kite, or they are trying to cc you then you can use your hard stun here, but phase 3 is the best time to use it. Depending how how efficiently you refreshed your Dark Embrace buff, you can get a good indication on when your first internal cd on Duplicity will expire. I know if I refreshed Dark Embrace via Blackout at the perfect time then just before it expires for the second time I can Force Cloak and Spike for a new Duplicity and a whole new refresh on my Blackout. If you preloaded your Recklessness buff then you will also refresh this at the end of phase two when you Force Cloak. Anyways phase 3-4 are basically the same as 1-2, both your Duplicity internal cd's are reset, your Blackout is reset for two sexy Dark Embrace buffs and hopefully your Reck buff will also be reset. In Phase 3 your Low Slash will be coming off of cd from your opener, and if you still have your hard stun you can set up some wicked cc chains here. Above is a best case scenario, and will most likely never happen exactly as you plan. There is a plethora of CC and adds in the pvp with this game. You rotations will have to be constantly adjusted and manipulated around the cc in this game. Many times your target will be dead long before you even get close to getting into phase 2-3, you might be dead from being focused. Sometimes you will have wicked crit chains, sometimes Energize will never seem to proc. Your experience and ability to adapt on the battlefield is also a huge factor in making Dark Maul successful for you. You don't always get to fight from stealth with this spec. Some engagements can last a while, specially if you are relentlessly guarding a healer. During an endless combat sequence there are a few things I would like to mention. First don't be afraid to Saber Strike. Most people that play in Dark Charge are going to Thrash as much as they can for an Energize proc and then Saber Strike till they have enough force for a Shock. Its not a bad strategy, but I found that playing at the front of my force pool and always having at least 40 nrg is going to make a big difference when you can Shock immediately after it procs. Saber Striking might hurt your sustained damage on the dummies or in pve, but its not a bad ability. It can crit for 2k dmg, not bad for a filler. It also hits 3 times, almost guarantying a Duplicity proc if it is not on its internal cd. If I get opened on, I like to Saber Strike up front to get my first Duplicity, I get behind them and Maul then immediately Low Slash for another Maul. If these crit they can take really geared players to 50% health easily. On top of that those two Mauls have a good chance to proc Energize for a really hard Shock. It is so fun when a Mara/Sent Leaps to you, you Saber Strike and sprint behind for a Maul, Low Slash Maul, hard stun Shock, then Assassinate/Thrash dead. So fun. To be successful with this spec, you have to exploit Recklessness, Duplicity and your Dark Embrace buff. During this buff you can pretty much spam Thrash as much as you want to maximize your monster Shocks. It takes practice. I don't think there are many people that can switch to this spec and immediately start doing better than they did with Deception. I love the playstyle of this spec. Great burst, back stabs, great defense. It is not better than full Deception, but it is different, and I think most will like the differences. What Dark Maul can to that Deception can't. Gaurd healers, better armor, light self heals, auto crit on Shock. Deception has Surging Charge Discharge, and during phase one of your opener Discharge is really nice to have. It's front loaded with three stacks and it crits with Recklessness. Out side of your Recklessness though, Discharge and Shock are far inferior. When they don't crit they hit for less damage than Thrash/VS and barely beat out Saber Strike. An auto criting Shock that will proc just as often as the Shock cd is way better in my opinion. With Deception your also having to manage your Induction stacks and your Static Charges on top of managing Duplicity procs. The Darkness Hybrid suffers from bad force regen, but your just managing Energize and Duplicity procs, After they open up server transfers I plan on getting on a server on my side of the country so my latency is low and I will try to make some nice Dark Maul videos, I can show the community how effective it can be.

I run a Deception Hybrid, and I find it is very successful in 1v1 and really shines when there is a healer to gaurd. I attacked a node with another sorc, the two of us held it of against 4. Just as I killed one another would pop up so there was always 3-4 on us and it seemed we could live for ever. Anyways the spec I am referring to is 12-31-3. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200rMrozZfrcRzGbRr0zZc.3 there is some great synergy with some of the talents with this spec, even though there are a few wasted points. First off, your running in Dark Charge, added armor value and heals back, that goes well with Entropic Field taking your mitigation to 36%, and add that to the Dark Embrace buff for 61% damage mitigation for the first 12 sec of an opener. Sexy. Next is Electric Ambush, yes you have to dump two in Saber Conduit to get it but, Electric Ambush will reset your Reck buff even though you are in Dark Charge. This actually ties into the synergy between Energize and Crackling Blast, that is 100% increased crit damage (not including your Surge rating) during your Energize proc. With a Chain Lightning proc I am getting 9k+ crits on my Shocks, My hardest Maul I have ever seen with my current gear is 8.1k and that is rare, I am usually critting with my Maul at 6.5k-7.7k. Shock is my boom and I can do it often. Force Management is this specs bane, its a pain. You can't stand there and just spam Thrash and Shock when ever you want. Anyways I have learned quite a bit about managing the force with this spec but that can double the size of this post, if you guys want hit me up and Ill give detailed tips on how to do this. Anyways, can you pls make a vid of this spec and show the community how awesome it is for rateds and solo play.

I agree with many of the points here. Deception is one of the best specs in the game right now. Very competitive for pvp and not too shabby for pve. It has burst, some sustained damage, and survivability, and it is down right fun to play. For pvp I personally run 12-31-3 and *********** love it. Dark Charge, hard hitting Mauls and even harder hitting Shocks. It is pretty bad for sustained damage but fortunately in pvp no one lets me stand there and tee off on them anyways. I think the huge burst and survivability from this spec more than make up for its lack of force management. Tanking with Assassin is also not in a bad place. Soft armor dodging tanks have always underperformed mitigation tanks in just about every MMO, so I really don't understand why everyone is so upset about it now. A Darkness tank might be behind the other tanks, but it will still get the job done. Oh Madness where do I begin. There is nothing this spec can do that a Lethality Op can't do better. Since 2.0 I have been using my Op for pve and only use my Sin for pvp. The Op can spam dots from range, one of those dots is aoe. They got descent hitting grenades they can do at range also on a relatively short cd. Not to mention their Rifle Shot is 30m also. An Op can soften up the battlefield from ranged with lots of aoe and hard hitting dots then they can roll into melee with some of the best burst in the game with Backstab and Cull spam. MadSin has only one ranged dot with a 9sec cd and DF has has an 18sec cd. The other dot is only 10m, very very hard to spread this soft damage around. When the MadSin gets close he can spam Thrash for Raze procs, thats it. This is very weak burst and can easily be classified as sustained damage. So the MadSin has to get in close to get both dots rolling, it can only sustain damage in melee range and can pretty much nothing at ranged. I do not understand what BW was thinking. I mean, I know their goal, they say, was to dumb down the rotations a bit. But what they did was just awful. Not only does my Op completely outperform my Sin in dps, but it is way funner to play since there is a rotation that I actually have to pay attention to.

There are really only two attacks that use white damage, Weakening Blast and the first tick of Cull. Your basic rifle shot and Over Load Shot are your fillers and are actually only used once in a while. So since the majority of our damage is tech damage with dots and cull, those are way over 100%. You might actually get a dps increase for sacrificing a bit of acc for some power. However it remains to be seen on if a Weakening Blast is missed, how bad that will hurt your dps if that 30% damage is lost for a whole rotation.

Depends what your definition of ranged is. Assassin really isn't ranged, with the exception of one 9sec cd dot and DF with an 18sec cd, all of their force abilities are 10m and their saber attacks are 4m. Powertech has most of their abilities set at 10m with Rocket Punch and Retractable Blade is the only real melee abilities they have. The PT can auto shot and Rail Shot at 30m. I think the class you are looking for is Operative Lethality spec. You get both your dots, one of them aoe, at 30m and they are spammable. You can auto shot at 30m and throw aoe grenades at 30m also. When you want real burst you you have several melee abilities. Hidden Strike from stealth, Shiv and Backstab are all 4m abilities. When you activate your Tactical Advantage you can Cull at 10m for some really sexy damage. The playstyle of this spec is dot and aoe the battlefield, soften them up and when you see a healer or someone being focused you roll into melee and nuke them. Out of all the classes that hybrid melee and ranged abilities, this can be the most challenging to play, but in my opinion it is the funnest to play right now.

Sounds like a gear issue. If you are using your tank then make sure she is as geared as you are. And when you get your healer again pimp him out so he can heal the **** out of you. You need to exploit your shield probe as much as possible too considering this is basically your only defensive cd.

Your rotation is off bro. clipping dots, using cull with 1 TA, there are a few things you can do to clean up your rotation. First off, clipping dots is a no no. Second, the way you apply your dots might be 100% efficient for maximizing your dots utilizing your weakening blast, but weakening blast is not for your dots, its for cull. Making sure that one tick of your weakest dot gets this buff is not necessary considering the buff is going to end before the dot expires, so that just leaves that many more dot ticks on the back end that wont get buffed. There is a sequence you can get into where you will find your self culling 4 out of 5 globals, make sure weakening blast is at max stacks for that cull chain. You should never cull with only 1 stack of TA, unless it is going to expire and you have no way to build your second stack. Your opening should be HS then apply your dots. Then shiv for your second stack of TA. Now apply WB and cull twice if you can. IF you can't then cull and BS. If you used your BS too early in your opener you won't have it available to fill at this point and will be forced to use much weaker attack. There is about a 1 sec delay before you can shiv again at this point, I choose to use filler at this point and then Shiv, you Cull again here if it procs your free TA then Cull again, if not pop your Stim Boost at this point so you can Cull again. Start looking to refresh your dots (with in a global after they expire if you can) and use BS as a filler and OS if your nrg is 80+. This is your standard rotation. I will admit that I do occasionally clip my dots, as sometimes I find myself with one stack of TA and Shiv and BS are on cd. At this point I might refresh just so it makes the next 15 seconds easier to manage my TA/Cull rotations.

Deception is really strong at low levels because Maul hits so damn hard. Darkness is really strong too but shines later on with high dps companions. Madness isn't bad for leveling at 45+ when you can get the full tree and have talos or a geared out khem. I have leveled 9 toons to 50+ and probably the best advice I can give is get your field respec ability. Rotate your spec every couple of levels or so. What I found with my leveling experience is changing specs can break up the monotony. You can also get a really good feel for how each spec plays and find a play style that might not necessarily be as strong but will be fun for you.

I don't play madness anymore. I use my Sin in pvp only and use a lethality spec'd Operative for pve. The way lethality plays for Operative is what I think madness should have been, dot and aoe from range then move in for burst at melee.

DR refers to the Diminishing Return on our crit rating that affects your crit %. So at 100 crit rating you will see a certain crit % gain per point. At 500 crit rating you will see a much less crit % gain per point. So DR has only to do with your crit rating, not your crit %. You can use % as a mile marker as most have, but that just means that 25% crit at that particular crit rating is going to start seeing a Diminished Return. Has nothing to do with your buff. The buff is a static 5% as well as an additional 1% from companion. Stims affect crit rating, so they would be apart of your soft cap for crit rating. Now the question is, is 19% the soft crit cap for crit rating, or is 25% where DR kicks in. If it is 19% then yes, you can consider 25% overall crit rating to be your soft cap. But if 25% crit is where DR kicks in for our rating, then you can safely use 31% (buffed) crit as your soft cap. Once again, the 6% buffs we get have nothing to do with DR on crit rating as they are static.

I will admit, that it is a nice way to get someone to use their cc breaker so they can blow a cd or interrupt to avoid CD. But in the time it takes to cast CD, you can get off 2 instant abilities. Any two abilities that do not crit will do more damage than a CD that will crit. Any two abilities besides Saber Strike, just to be clear. So, I really don't see the logic in that ability for Deception because this spec has so many abilities that will do so much more damage.

Yes you came to the Dark Side! lol. Anyways looking forward to more vids, its nice to see Assassins with crazy burst. Couple of things though, I definitely want to see more Deathfield with your Wakajinn 2.0 spec. Also as far as your full Madness spec, the 3 points in Madness for Exploitive Strikes is a must for me. I abuse Maul in a bad way with my sin.

Bad ideas are bad.

Madness definitely sucks right now. Its funny that you mention reversing everything to take it back to the way it was cause like, when I do pve on my Sin its usually in 0-18-28 MadMaul spec that plays almost the same as before except no Creeping Terror. It is again funny that you mentioned Lethality Op spec cause that is the toon I mainly pve on now lol.

Single target is what Deception does, do we really need two single target specs? Second, I applaud your effort to control aoe damage because your Jugg wants full affect on his aoe mez. But just about every dps class is popping aoes and dots as part of their rotation. Rage specd warriors are still very popular. As far as protecting a healer, aoe roots and snares can be just effective as an aoe mez. Don't worry bro, there is no way in hell BW will ever take a suggestion from the forums and implement it so my fantasy of a melee aoe terror will never be realized, as well as your single target Madness Assassin.

Sin is much stronger for pvp. Better burst, better defense, better utility through darkness tree, can taunt and gaurd.

They are all good. If you are healing spec'd then youll probably use a dps companion and this is actually a strong combo even though you will be pretty slow at bringing down your pulls. Concealment is a burst spec, youll be single target dps'n your targets down best to use Kaliyo so you can stay behind your targets. Lethality is great for bringing down large pulls and elites. Aoe dot them up, frag them down. When you get strong or elites then youll go into your shiv/cull rotations, it is sexy damage. I would strongly recommend trying all the specs as you level. Buy your field respec and constantly go back and forth every couple levels or so. Get a good feel for how all the specs play and find the style that fits you best.

So funny that you mention that, I am having a blast on my Operative and as of right now it is my main lol. Go Go Lethality!

Well, I just figured if Creeping Terror was spammable then the root attached to it would be very OP. I would gladly trade the root for no CD. As far as your hybrid, I think you got the right idea. For pve I run 0-18-28 and I am still having fun with it.