Jedi Shadow Bursting Guide

[Boarg]

There are many more points that could be made in favor of Security Breach,so I'll just ask you one thing. What ability is likely to deal the most damage to your target, when you are in dire need of it?

 

Answer: It's Shadow Technique's Force Breach.

 

- It's the only direct damaging ability we have that deals internal damage

- It can not be defended by anything short of a damage immunity cooldown (try using Project on a tank with 9-11k armor, because of a stim)

- It has 10m range, which makes it a great ability for jousting, which is essential for a infiltration shadow beyond the initial burst

- It is instant (no frustration over an enemy disappearing, while you watch your 45 force and your debris going up in the air and poof)

- It costs 20 force

 

Generally speaking, I've never disagreed with most of that. Although, again, I would try to keep it in perspective.

 

Against a tank target, yes, it's a pretty big deal. However, a tank target is generally the least effective target selection option on the field for an Infiltration Shadow. A skilled Infiltration player normally won't be attacking a tank at all except for cleaning up enemy stragglers after already winning a group battle. Sometimes there's no other choice, but there's almost always a healer or dps somewhere to focus on in any meaningful battle with a chance of winning.

 

For non-tank targets, Project is more the go-to dps ability rather than Force Breach….and of course, both is better.

 

Okay, so…at face value, Security Breach is 25% more Force Breaches. However, the person without it is going to be using Force Breach at higher ES stacks. If you assume they have 1 extra stack on average, that's ~8% harder hitting FB's to offset the 25% more quantity. You also have to figure that those extra GCD's and force used on the extra FB's would be spend on something else…so you're only getting to claim the extra damage/force above and beyond what you would normally be using otherwise.

 

To try to quantify it all… using data from Simcraft and taking it to rough numbers, Security Breach is pretty much about a +3% damage talent at the cost of 2 points. That's decent, but not at all impressive. For comparison, Kinetic Field is about a 5-6% talent for 2 points, and Shadowy Veil is a 4% talent for 2 points…but for survivability instead of damage. They offer better value than Security Breach, but in a different category.

 

So, it comes down to what you are looking for in your PvP build…more offense or survivability? And at what value? Personally, I've tried them all…I get better results with the survivability talents. Kinetic Field and Shadowy Veil are actually stronger stacked together than they are taken individually…and I end up doing more damage because I'm alive longer and enemies focus me less often because I don't seem so squishy when they attack me…so they focus someone else a little more often. And that's not to say I'm even right…just to say that the talents are close enough in value that people should decide for themselves instead of going cookie-cutter.

[Payneintherear]

Without going into the theory-crafting that you are presenting (and while finer points like the value of lining up of FB and Project every second turn and thus more often are hard to quantify, your arguments are absolutely legitimate), my infiltration build includes Security Breach, Shadowy Veil and Kinetic Field.

[RockysRevenge]

Without going into the theory-crafting that you are presenting (and while finer points like the value of lining up of FB and Project every second turn and thus more often are hard to quantify, your arguments are absolutely legitimate), my infiltration build includes Security Breach, Shadowy Veil and Kinetic Field.

 

Do you find your survivability to be higher? And not just by seconds, but do you see a noticeable difference in the time you can stay in a fight? Because that's essentially the only problem I have with a 2/31/8 build.

[Payneintherear]

Do you find your survivability to be higher? And not just by seconds, but do you see a noticeable difference in the time you can stay in a fight? Because that's essentially the only problem I have with a 2/31/8 build.

 

Yes, definitely. I took Kinetic Field and Shadowy Veil from the get-go, because both these talents are incredibly cheap for their returns. On top of that, I would advise any infiltration main spec to forget about the 2 points in Kinetic and pick up Psychokinesis instead. 2x ss = 17 Force Projects instead of 23. This is huge for sustained dps.

[Powerr]

people should disagree with me on spec, some of the specs I play take the defensive choices in infiltration due to the amount of attention I receive. either way it makes for great debate, keep it comin.

[ComputerSaidNo]

I personally don't bother with the 2 points in Security Breach, mainly for the reasons that were listed above. But I am wondering what people are doing after their initial burst. Are you guys going right back in for another CSx2 then project or do you wait until Force Breach is almost ready again before going back to the CSx2 and project combo? If the latter is true what skills are you using to fill in between the next burst?

 

The reason why I ask is that after my initial burst, and especially with 15s cooldown on Force Breach, I find I have plenty of time to throw in another CSx2 then project.

[Stepkick]

Is the surge relic/adrenal better than power ones please advice thnx

 

Edit: And is the relic>adrenal or vice versa.

Edited March 14, 2012 by Stepkick

[Powerr]

Is the surge relic/adrenal better than power ones please advice thnx

 

Edit: And is the relic>adrenal or vice versa.

 

OP states the BiS

 

adrenal is much stronger

Edited March 14, 2012 by Powerr

[Stepkick]

OP states the BiS

 

adrenal is much stronger

 

Whats OP? and is surge > power or vice versa?

[grandmasterub]

Whats OP? and is surge > power or vice versa?

 

OP has BiS

 

Means...

 

Original Post has best in slot.

 

Power>surge IF you are in diminishing returns on surge already

[Maeljina]

I've played almost that build ever since the game came out. There's one point I would like to say: At that 33 infil 8 balance-spec u have 3 points at the Infiltration Tactics (increases the chance to 30% to have Find Weakness) and I find it pretty much useless to stack all 3 points to it. I've noticed that even you have just one point on Infiltration Tactics, it procs about all the time. So those 2 other points you can put them to Applied Force, Technique Mastery or some other at Infiltration tree.

[MnniBeast]

How do you get over 5k crits in the videos? I just hit 50, and nothing really has changed, battle readiness isn't doing much damage and i'm doing normal crit damage, maybe less because of the better people i'm facing. How do you get those high hits?

[Lina_Inverse]

How do you get over 5k crits in the videos? I just hit 50, and nothing really has changed, battle readiness isn't doing much damage and i'm doing normal crit damage, maybe less because of the better people i'm facing. How do you get those high hits?

 

Power, expertise difference, and stacking charges of the buff before you breach.

[Lina_Inverse]

I personally don't bother with the 2 points in Security Breach, mainly for the reasons that were listed above. But I am wondering what people are doing after their initial burst. Are you guys going right back in for another CSx2 then project or do you wait until Force Breach is almost ready again before going back to the CSx2 and project combo? If the latter is true what skills are you using to fill in between the next burst?

 

The reason why I ask is that after my initial burst, and especially with 15s cooldown on Force Breach, I find I have plenty of time to throw in another CSx2 then project.

 

If it means anything, I take the reduced cd on breach in my build for 2 reasons.

 

Breach is one of our few skills usable at 10yards (over clairvoyant's 5).

 

Breach is unaffected by armor or defense.

 

It's a judgement call. I can personally see why people take the 2 in the cs damage(it is more damage up front and no one can deny that). I just feel that breach has a lot more flexibility in its use than cs does and I prefer to have it up more often.

[MnniBeast]

I have been level 50 for awhile now, have almost all of the BM gear except 3 or 4 pieces, and my max crit so far has been around 3.8k damage, nowhere close to the 5k+ in the video, has there been some sort of nerf in the jedi shadow DPS that i haven't found yet? Some healers I am still having a hard time dps'ing down like a shadow should...

[arcadean]

hey powerr can we can an update on this?

[roestzwiebel]

hey powerr can we can an update on this?

 

Nothing changed, what update do you expect?

[Daiyukie]

Something I haven't seen an answer to is, does Force Synergy stack? For example, Force Potency + TKT = 4 crit hits let's say, does that mean I now have + 37% melee crit chance?

[GrayGunner]

Something I haven't seen an answer to is, does Force Synergy stack? For example, Force Potency + TKT = 4 crit hits let's say, does that mean I now have + 37% melee crit chance?

 

It does not stack, no.

[dronepilot]

If it means anything, I take the reduced cd on breach in my build for 2 reasons.

 

Breach is one of our few skills usable at 10yards (over clairvoyant's 5).

 

Breach is unaffected by armor or defense.

 

It's a judgement call. I can personally see why people take the 2 in the cs damage(it is more damage up front and no one can deny that). I just feel that breach has a lot more flexibility in its use than cs does and I prefer to have it up more often.

 

I used that spec for a some time, I really think the points matter in the CD for Breach. I recently changed this to resistance.. though, will have to see how that works out ! - otherwise back to the two points in breach cd

[Stepkick]

Is deception/inflitration viable anymore ..... I have play assassin since early access and I always loved to play deception/inflitration .... but right now it doesnt do enough burst .... max crits hit for like 3.8 to 4k ..... and I can quite easily pull off similar crits using the hybrid 27/0/14 spec ..... Was wondering if any of you other assassin/shadows experiencing the same problem ..... I am in full BM part warhero gear ..... plus in the hybrid spec the crit heals for 1% each target hit ..... Edited May 28, 2012 by Stepkick

[anstalt]

I still play inf and I still think it is viable. Just have to realise your strengths and weaknesses.

 

For example, due to squishiness, we're not great in large scale fights. so, the smaller the fight, the better. For this reason, in matches live novare and alderaan, I go sit on a node and defend. Its boring, but means almost every time someone comes to attack I have my CD's ready and can burst down nearly anyone.

 

Where we are really ineffective if where a decent tank or healer are involved. It is very easy to shut down an inf shadow, just taunt / guard / heal and after the initial burst, we're kinda rubbish.

 

Still, I find it fun, get a lot of kills, contribute to the team so its all good

[Xienive]

In my opinion, Infiltration is utter gargbage. Especially if you compare it to the DPS geared tank specs. It doesn't get really good burst when your cooldowns are not up and you are as squishy as a Sage with no bubble.

 

I mean, some people run it and enjoy it but that doesn't make it good. I lvled up Infiltration as soon as I got the game when it first came out and I switch to it once or twice a week but it feels so much better when I switch back to Kinetic afterwards. Especially I miss force pull, it helps a ton from keeping objectives from getting done for the other team.

[Swijr]

I'm going to bump this from the grave. This was a great write up a year ago, where does this build stand now and how viable is Infiltration and what about with 2.0 coming up?

 

 

Thanks,

Swijr