I have a pretty good idea (I think) on a way BW can save Madness for pvp and pve. We are all aware of the state of the Madness spec for Assassins. They have no role or utility that any other melee class can't do better. Madness is in last place when it comes to their dots, aoe and burst. Lethality Operatives have better dots (30m) and can dot aoe. They dot up the battlefield and aoe, when its time to focus a target down, they have Backstab, Hidden Strike, Shiv and their bread and butter Cull. Other than the TA mechanic with this class, it is extremely fun to play. Annihilation Marauders have short term hard hitting dots with a plethora of melee abilities as well as tons of defensive CD's to keep them in the fight. PT's have hard hitting dots with some insane burst with their resetting Railshot and an almost spammable Flameburst that can put out some serious pressure. So what about the Madness Assassin. Pretty much the only thing Madness has in their arsenal that is unique is Deathfield. Well, I think BW should capitalize on this amazing ability and just turn the Madness Assassin into a melee aoe terror. As of right now the only burst they have is Raze but can take quite a while to set up, two dots, DF and then a couple Thrashes. They are usually dead or close to it before they can get started. These are my suggestions to make this spec really fun to play. First, apply the Discharge dot to everyone that is hit with DF. Second, take the CD and the stun off of Creeping Terror, make it spammable. Now the MadSin has about the same capability as the Lethality OP at dotting up the battlefield. Third, the aoe terror. High in the tree make Lacerate not only proc our saber charge, but also tie it in to Claws of Decay to increase crit bonus and reduce force cost to 25. So essentially MadSins are spamming Lacerate instead of Thrash. Fourth, we need some burst. I propose one of two things, but definitely not both. Make Shock 100% bonus to crit damage during Crushing Darkness dot, or make Assassinate available during Crushing Darkness dot. We will still need to spam for Raze, so the set up alone will still make this spec counter-able and in no way OP compared to the burst other classes can do. Lastly we need some survivability. Our real damage and burst has to be done in melee range and as of right now we can't survive against any other melee, and we can't survive being kited from any of the ranged classes. I say we triple the amount of heals we get from our dots and DF. I know that sounds like quite a bit but it really isn't. Yes Discharge will be rolling on quite a bit more people, but crit rating is still pretty low. The proc frequency won't go up a whole lot. As for the amount healed, it is laughable right now. We are still in light armor and vulnerable to burst classes. So the role and play style of this class is get dots going from range (similar to OP) move into a group with Lacerate spam (put this damage on par with Rage Warriors) Force groups to either spread out or deal with you. If left unattended, the MadSin can put out tons of aoe damage and reek havoc on a tank and the healer he is guarding. The burst phase of the MadSin is just setting up to proc Raze and then Assassinate/Shock, both are on 6 sec cd so you can only do this once during your Crushing dot. I feel this burst potential should be about 5-10% less than the other melee dotters since we can do so much with our aoe. Our heals back should pretty much give us the staying power to stay in melee range with splash aoe and dot damage, but not so much that we cannot be bursted down. Anyways, I would love playing a Madness Assassin as an aoe terror, trying to bring down all of them at once lol. What do you guys think, what would you do to make Madness not only viable but fun to play?

Interesting. Do you think this could out perform Mad Maul build 0-18-28? Will those extra Thrashes make up for not Mauling at all? With the Mad Maul the Saber Strike isn't a huge loss in dps considering it can proc both Raze and Duplicity. I find that Just throwing out Saber Strikes when you are due for a proc comes in real handy at getting your procs right at 7.5 and 10 seconds. And timely use of Blackout can hook you up with a long chain of Thrashes.

Many moons ago I used a build that exploited Blood of the Sith for the extra force regen for a build that was basically Maul spam. In this video you can see that an extremely non efficient force management build can still be quite effective in pvp due to the amount of CC in SWTOR's objective based pvp. This was back in 1.3, this was before Blackout, Fade, Entropic Field and Mauls actually hit for quite a bit less. 1.4 is where Deception got the huge boost pvp survivability and burst. The damage might seem quite low, but relative to the mechanics back then this build was quite bursty and to manage the force you had to rely on getting CC'd.

There isn't anything similar, that spec is dead. Full Darkness will outperform a Madness/Darkness hybrid many times over.

I got a few tips for ya if you like. I am in no way trying to flame you or act like I am better than you. What little mistakes I did see, I do all the time myself lol. I will do my best to explain my pointers with out sounding like a know it all. First thing I saw, you did not Low Slash nearly enough. It builds so little resolve, you can pretty much use this off of cd. Not only will you get a free Maul proc, but you will limit their damage/cc/heals as well. Your getting control with some burst. One thing I really like doing is using Low Slash right after I Mauled with a Duplicity proc, this way I get another Duplicity proc back to back. Very sexy damage. If you open with Spike, watch your Dark Embrace buff. I will refresh this as soon as the first one expires. This way right at the end of the second one I know 10 seconds has gone by and its time for a Low Slash and usually my 3rd Maul. My favorite opener is to open with Low Slash. It gives low resolve and hopefully they will use their cc break here. Maul once and wait for your first regular duplicity proc. Then hard stun them for your second Maul. Refresh your Dark Embrace buff. A couple globals later you can Force Cloak and Spike to get your third Maul proc, oh and it refreshes Dark Embrace for another 12 seconds of business time. Managing your Induction and Static Charge stacks. You did good at times, and bad other times. Don't be afraid to Shock even though you do not have 2 stacks of Induction. Yes Shocking with 2 stacks is ideal for force management, but if you are >50% force then Shock that Jawa. Specially if you have to 2 Static Charges, this way you can follow that Shock with a Discharge. So many times I have seen Assassins with 1 induction stack and 2 Static Charges start hitting VS to get Induction to 2 instead of just Shocking them so they can follow with a Discharge. You actually did this once, but then failed a couple of times after. Also, there was a point where you had 2 Induction and 3 Static Charges, you proceeded to Shock then you Discharged. You should have Discharged first then Shocked. This way at the end of those two abilities you would have 1 Static Charge again. Through Mauls and VS you could have easily had your 2nd Static Charge before Shock was off of CD. Then guess what, after that Shock you would be at 3 stacks and ready for another Discharge. You need to get in and out of stealth more. Seemed that you only Force Cloaked when you where being focused Which is the case for the majority of Assassins. However, if you have been in a larger skirmish and heals are good on both sides you should try to Force Cloak offensively to get a reset on your Recklessness buff. Reck is so powerful for Deception Sins because of the instant 3 stacks of Static Charge. If I see less than 1min on my Reck CD I will do what ever I can to get out of combat so I can reset that buff. Crushing Darkness. I know some Assassins swear by it, but I feel we have other abilities that are far better. There was one time where you casted Crushing on someone and followed with a Reck/Dishcharge and it was some really nice damage. Later in the vid you had 3 Static Charges and Duplicity proc, you tried casting Crushing and got caught and didn't get a chance to use Maul or Discharge because of it (did real nice damage to the next guy though lol) Anyways I think Crushing is bad form for Deception. The Damage might be nice, but it doesn't compare to a Maul crit. Even if your Maul doesn't crit, you basically lost a global to cast Crushing and that global could have been a VS or Shock which combined with your non crit Maul would still be far more damage than the Crushing you casted. Again I am not trying to flame you or your vid, you did a really good job. I make all these mistakes all the time (many other ones too lol). But I do hope that these tips could help you and other Assassins alike.

Ya, any of the specs that have Thrash spam are gonna tear through your force pool. Raze will only proc at 7.5 seconds, and Duplicity will proc at 10 seconds. So I try to maximize Thrashes if I just got a Raze and Duplicity proc, the reason is Saber Strike will proc these, so if you know you are due for a proc then Saber Strike for the procs so you can make up the damage loss with Maul and Crushing Darkness. You will get quite a bit of force back when these proc because Raze is free, and Maul is also really really cheap. Try to time your Blackout to hit during your Thrash spam when you know your going to use 3-4 of them with no chance of a proc. Deathfield is also 30 force, I usually preload some force with one or two Saber Strikes before I DF so that am not at 0 force after this point. Anyways, try to incorporate your Saber Strikes strategically instead of just saber striking when you are <25 force. This way you can make sure you can always DF right off of cd, and you can refresh your Dishcarge dot with out wasting a global or two. Thats about all I can think of, this spec is not perfect but even with the Saber Strikes you will do better than full Madness.

Welcome back. Assassin really is in a nice place at 55. The tanking is good, and the pvp has never been better. Full Madness for PVE and PVP is a complete joke now though. They tried simplifying the rotation by taking Maul away from the Madness tree, that ruined Madness for pvp because lack of burst, and is well behind all the other dps dot specs in PVE. Deception is just as strong if not stronger than it was at 1.4. For Deception, you get 2 Duplicity procs every 10 seconds, Recklessness not only has a reduced CD, resets at 30 sec if you exit combat. But it also grants 3 stacks of Static Charge, so you can Discharge from stealth with max dmg and almost auto crit. Wakajinn 2.0 is also really strong. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200ZfrcRzGbRr0zZfrzor.3 This build puts out less sustained damage than full deception because it builds Static Charges much slower, but you get DF and nice crits on Thrash. Mad Maul http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200ZdrsRzhZfMfRrbkG.3 (Lightning Charge) puts out the best sustained damage of all the Assassin specs. It is still really squishy in PVP, but if you got a good team around you this spec can really fun to play. I forget the exact spec that you came up with, I think we called it the Xinika, very similar to Mad Maul but you run in Surging Charge, Even though you can take advantage of hard hitting Deathfields, your Shocks and Discharge damage will be really low with out Crackling Blast. 23-1-17 is RIP. There isn't a utility spec in 2.0 for the Assassin. They changed Haunted Dreams and moved Duplicity farther up the Deception tree so this spec is pretty dead. There are a few of us still doing out best to find a Darkness hybrid, but all of the hybrids are under performing compared to full Darkness Sins. There is one Darkness hybrid that is the exception, 12-31-3 Dark Maul. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200rMrozZfrcRzGbRr0zZc.3 This spec is very similar to a spec I came up with at 1.3. It is also my favorite spec right now. You run in Dark Charge so you wont have hard hitting Discharges from Surging Charge but you do have some hard hitting Shocks. These Shocks are the hardest hitting single target instant ability in the game right now. My sin is only half way Partisan gear and I have hit as high as 9k with a Chain Lightning proc. The reason they are hitting that hard for this spec is there is some nice synergy with Crackling Blast and Energize. With this spec you still have your Recklessness reset at 30 seconds when you exit combat, the reason I mention this is that with the Energize talent your Shocks have an increased 50% crit damage bonus with Recklessness buff. That goes really nice with our Crackling Blast talent. The drawback on this spec is the force is a nightmare to manage. Those Shocks are expensive. But it will put out the best opening burst. Glad your back, looking forward to some new vids!

I parse highest with a Mad Maul build. 0-18-28. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200ZdrcRkhZfMfRrbkG.3 Use Deathfield off of cd for Deathmarks, keep 100% up time on Discharge dot (do not clip), spam Thrash for Raze and Duplicty procs, try not to clip your Crushing Darkness dot. When low on force a regular Saber Strike will proc both Raze and Duplicty, so it doesn't hut your dps too bad when you get low on force the way other specs can drop in dps when they use their auto attack. You also have Darkswell talent so you can time your Blackouts to maintain force for longer Thrash spam. Lastly, do not ever Shock, way to much force for too little pay out, I only took one point in Chain Lightning so I could get to the second tier. Almost 6 months ago I wrote a guide for the Mad Maul spec. http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=564738 The info in the guide that compares to Madness is pretty much obsolete now because Madness spec doesn't Maul at all. However the rotation and abilities are identical, there is a bit more indepth info on the rotations if you like.

When I was on the ptr I was going back and forth between 4 different specs trying to find the one that put out the most pressure in the first 12 seconds of opening. And just like most of us that change specs, I forgot to change my charge lol. Anyways I was trying full Deception and noticed I was in Dark Charge when I tried to Discharge, When I saw my failure I ended combat to reset in the new correct Charge, low and behold, my Recklessness buff reset at 30 seconds, woohoo! By the way, 12-31-3 put out the best numbers for the 12 second opener by a large amount. Deception was next followed closely by Wakajinn 2.0 and Mad Maul put up the lowest opening burst but did sustain the highest dps of any spec in the Assassin trees.

You missed a couple points on both specs, http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200bcZfrfRkGdRr0zzZcM.3 this is what you want.

I agree.

I am glad to see that there is at least one person out there that shares my enthusiasm for this spec. Seems everyone else just hates it because it looks funky on paper. I am sure that if everyone who has flamed it actually tried it, a very good % of them would see its potential and start running it.

The spec is designed to be run in Dark Charge and take advantage of the synergy between Energize and Crackling Blast during Reck buff. Electric Ambush will still reset the cd of Recklessness even though you are in Dark Charge, those points are not wasted, you need to read the actual words I am typing before just dismissing. You obviously not only missed my point, but you haven't tried the spec.

Personally I love Lethality. I am new to the class so I get my lunch money taken from me from PT's and Warriors, but I really do like dotting the jeezus out of people from range and then moving in on healers or focus targets with multiple culls. Its a very fun play style.

You should try it before you knock it. You basically playing the same style as Deception Assassin, except your not counting Induction stacks or Static Charges. You don't Discharge except for some aoe splash, but Energize will proc enough times to make up for not having discharge, and your shocks will hit harder than the Discharge or Shock from a Deception sin. You are also much harder to kill than Deception sins due to your armor and heals. My opener is usually open with Low Slash from stealth (low resolve cost) I then Maul, and then Thrash, Energize has usually procd by the first two abilities, now I blackout and Duplicity usually procs by now, so I stun and Maul for a second time. One more Thrash and Energize will proc again for another hard hitting Shock. Towards the end of my second Dark Embrace Buff I know 10 seconds has gone by so I'll Force Cloak and the Spike for another free Duplicity buff (this also restarts my Dark Embrace buff). Activate my 3rd Maul and Thrash or Assassinate by this point. Energize usually procs for the third time by this point and if I need can hit Black Out again. If my Mauls are critting, I will come no where near to finishing this rotation series, but for skilled healers or tanks, I find this rotation puts out serious pressure. With all that burst, its being done in Dark Charge and Dark Embrace buff for over 50% damage mitigation as well as heals form Dark Charge. Deception can burst just has hard, they have the same Maul potential and can set up back to back Discharges that can put a serious hurt on someone if they both crit. Deception has way better force management for much higher sustained dps. But Dark Maul requires no set up, just watching for procs, and is much harder to kill. Dark Maul can also gaurd healers, as well as break snares with a 15sec sprint. Anyways, if you are not sold by now to at least try this spec then I do not know what else to say about it. It does have its ups and downs, but it is definitely worth trying for a few WZ's.

Yes you waste points to put into Surging Charge so you can get Induction, but Induction is worth three points so its not really a waste. You again waste points into Saber Conduit to get to Electric Ambush, but because Shock hits so hard with the Recklessness buff, it is totally worth 4 points for this talent. On top of that you are going to waste points anyways to get to the 6th and 7th tier. If Saber Conduit wasn't needed you would be putting points into Deceptive Power and Static Cling, and neither of those talents are going make or break you in battle, they are not missed. So technically the points are wasted, but the talents we are chasing are so crucial for this spec that it does not matter.

Awesome thread here I am learning alot. I got a few questions I thought I would throw out there to keep it going. Im pretty new to Lethality so I am barely starting to learn the spec. I do have a couple questions if you guys don't mind. I know traditionally it is a no no to clip your dots as it can really hurt your sustained dps. However I found that refreshing my CG dot right after my CD dot really free's up my rotation to get as many Shiv's and Culls in. Is it OK to refresh CG early since the Dot will tick at the beginning of the cast to free up globals for Shivs and Culls? As of now I am only Backstabbing when Shiv is on CD and I have 0 TA. Should I be using Backstab on cd? Explosive Probe? The damage is sexy, but it feels so damn clunky when I use it, almost like it costs 2 globals. Is the damage worth it? What is the best way to use it in my rotation? Should I just pop this sucker off of cd? I am trying to fire this bad boy off at the end of my rolls but it isn't very consistent and I find my self wasting even more time rolling around to get it off. West coaster on an east coast server is pretty bad for latency. Also, any tips you guys got that I might not even know enough to ask about would be greatly appreciated.

It is a considerable dps loss to try the hybrid. All my other toons are dps so I am still full dps specced and have not even tried the hybrid. That is quite a bit of damage to lose for longer TA and some hots. But there is a steep learning curve with Lethality in pvp and in weak gear it feels like I'm banging my head against the keyboard. Anyways I was trying to see if anyone has tried this spec or is currently using it and if the trade off was working for them or not. I am looking for alternatives till I get the hang of lethality, or gear, whatever comes first lol.

I got a Darkness Hybrid I have been pvp'n with and having a blast. Against people in similar gear as me I am destroying them. 12-31-3 Dark Maul http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200rMrozZfrcRzGbRr0zZc.3. This is a version of a spec I used pre 2.0 23-15-0 Also coined Dark Maul by me, so pls don't flame me cause I copied myself, lol. Anyways the only healing your going to get is from Dark Charge and Overcharge Saber, but you have 10 times the burst and should be ripping through people. Electric Ambush works with Dark Charge so you want to go in and out of stealth as much as possible to get the reset on Recklessness. The main flaw of this spec is the energy management so again in and out of stealth and timely uses of Blackout to take advantage of Dark Embrace is a must. There is awesome synergy with Energize and Crackling Blast. With the Recklessness buff you have 100% increase to Shock crit. With only a few pieces of Partisan gear and not a single 69 mod in my gear I am still Shocking for 7-8k, and about 5k-7k on my Mauls (on PTR I was hitting 9k Shocks and 8k Mauls). Open with Spike, Maul, Thrash 1-2X, Shock, by then Duplicity procs and stun to get behind them and Maul again and hopefully Shock is up again for another 5k damage. With in a few globals they are in execute range and its good night. All this front loaded burst and your doing it in Dark Charge with added defense from Blackout and Entropic field. Its very sexy. When I get descent gear I'll make a show case video with big crits and people in worse gear than me getting their faces melted lol.

Ive known about this interview since the day it was released, trust me I understand their logic. I just don't buy it. The claim that Assassin dps suffers more on a dummy than all other classes because the dummy wont enter an execute phase is ridiculous. Just about every other dps class doesn't parse their execute phase or their armor debuffs, so we should all still be relatively close. To say that they will not take low parses from a dummy to reflect the potential of a dps class is lazy. I cant believe you bought their excuses and line of crap to try and shut us up.

In there it showed the Shadow/Assassin Hybrid to yield the least dps, what hybrid are they talking about. During ptr with the gimmie gear I was putting up 100-200 more dps with 0-18-28 (Mad Maul) than full Deception or Madness. Trading Creeping Terror for Induction/Duplicity is so much more damage with how well Maul scales in 2.0.

I'm relatively new to the Operative class but I am having a blast with the Lethality spec. I really like the dot from a distance and move in with nasty Culls for the kill. Anyways, since I am in crap gear I have a couple questions about specs. One obstacle that I am running into is when I roll in to Shiv to build TA , seems to be the ideal time for my opponent to cc or start kiting me. A good % of the time my TA is falling off before I get a chance to Cull with my Weakening Blast debuff. There is a talent in the Medicine tree, Medical Consult, which can extend the length of my TA by a large %. I tried several 5 min parses on the dummies with and with out Weakening Blast to see if it was indeed a large % of my damage since I found about half of my Culls are done with Weakening Blast on cd. I averaged about 1700-1800 dps on the dummies with and with out Weakening Blast. My question is, Is it worth dropping Weakening Blast, Imperial Brew and Concealed Attacks to pick up Medical Consult and Kolto Probe for a more defensive less bursty build for the current gear that I am in. Or should I stay 3-5-37 and just get better at managing my TA. Thanks for the tips.

Nice match!

I totally agree. Pre 2.0 Madness couldn't be ignored on the battlefield, and was really fun in pve. 2 ticking dots and then getting a Raze and Duplicity proc could take 50-70% of your opponents health in just a couple globals. Yes, it took quite a bit of set up, 2 dots, 2 debuffs, 2 procs, and 2 buffs. When all this lined up it was really fun. So they wanted to simplify the rotation to increase how fun it was to play. They succeeded in simplifying the rotation, but they took away our real threat and burst and lowering how fun it was to play. As of now we apply our dots, Thrash for Raze, and DF off of cd. Boring and standard. No threat on the battlefield, dps can out dps/burst us, healers can out heal us and tanks are barely tickled by our dots. I simply fall asleep in raids now as there is nothing to manage or look for. Raze is a really nice and fun talent, it just is not enough on its own though. We need something that can make the Madness Assassin put fear into our opponents again. Pyro Power Techs have a 30m resetting Rail Shot that does serious damage. Mercs get Unload that is good for 10k damage. Lethality Operatives have Cull with 3 ways to build TA. Lethality Snipers have Cull and Series of Shots as well as resetting Take Down. Annihilation Marauders have Annihilate and Force Scream which hit really hard to go along with serious pressure from their dots. Anyways, the other dot specced dps classes cannot be ignored on the battlefield, they severely affect the battle if left unattended. Madness Assassin is no threat to anyone. What I propose to bring back our swagger with out re complicating our rotations is to do something with our Raze proc. Give us a free Deathfield, or just reset the CD on Deathfield after we cast Crushing Darkness. Or put some serious damage increase to Shock during the dot phase of Crushing Darkness. Have Shock auto crit with 100% crit damage increase, this is only 5k-6k damage, 8-9k with a Chain Shock proc which is rare. Anyways, there is only a small window which we can use this hard hitting Shock and it is less damage than Deceptions Maul so it is in no way over powering. But with it tied to a Raze proc it can add just enough pressure for us to contend on the battlefield. Pls read and consider this BW.

Has anyone found the exact soft and hard caps for our stats, or at least know of a website that has theory crafted the stat goals for 2.0?