The changes (and fixes) I'd make for us.

[DarthCnox]

Nothing wrong with it? Have you ever been Deception? I NEVER notice this going off. Not because of the low amount Force it gives back (10 is NOTHING when the lowest costing ability you have is 25), but because of the 10 second limit. Now, if it were going off whenever Surging procs, I'd likely actually notice having more force to sit there and use something other than our basic attack. Hell, it'd give Deception's a reason to use their basic attack.

 

 

 

Again, it's not the worst talent in the world, but it could be more...useful. Not sure how, but it's just sorta, blah in it's current form. Is pretty much the standard for most deception talents. On a rare few bring umph and a feeling of a build to the...build.

 

 

 

Fine as is? That's not even HALF an extra ability. 25 maybe, cause that'd allow us to use an extra Voltaic Slash

 

 

 

I would, except for the fact that I'd rather drop down and get Entropic Field. Though, I never really notice the -30% aoe damage saving me from much (was getting destroyed by a spinning blades mob on Voss yesterday). In it's current useless form, I could consider dropping Saber Conduit for this Talent.

 

 

 

Way over powered? It's TEN force. Again, TEN force. As stated above, that's not even HALF of an extra ability on 30% of my attacks. And (yes, I'm being sarcastic here), oh gosh, TWENTY guaranteed Force every 90 seconds? Say it isn't so! I just ALMOST earned a free Voltaic Slash! Also, as a Deception (the only reason you'd go that high up the tree), we don't use Thrash, so that set bonus doesn't effect us.

 

 

 

Maybe not automatically, but I'd settle for around a 50% chance. Though, I'd also accept your variant. Not really OP, but would gives us something worth using out of Stealth.

 

Again, the main focus of my post is one of the most UP Builds in the game, Deception. It has a good bit of potential fluidity, but never really takes advantage of it. Deception is essentially sub par constant dps with zero burst. We're kinda like a DoT...we don't do much damage per hit, but if you ignore us for our full duration (aka, if you don't kill us) we'll do some decent damage.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but doesn't Darkness (you know, the tanking spec) do more damage than Deception?

 

Edit: Speaking of Spinning Blades above, why don't Assassin's get an ability this awesome? I'd so stop in an big aoe situation and channel this skill. If I'm not mistaken, it'd also proc Static Charges allowing a likely fully charged Surging Discharge to be used right out of it.

 

Look, Jay,...you're whining. You want ever talent to be as useful as every other. As soon as you would increase one, you'd look at another and say 'awe, that's not as useful, boost it' and then again and again.

 

Talents, when looked at individually, do not reveal their usefulness unless you put them in context with another, or a style of play. 10% more force is 10% more force, and you get it with 1 talent point. It doesn't matter if it isn't the amount of one of our most expensive abilities, the point is that you can increase your force pool by 10%.

 

And you're also complaining about no purpose to opening out of stealth. You know about the 6 seconds of 30% regen you get when you drop stealth, right? That lets you dish out more damage. And then blackout? more damage. And then you force cloak..giving you the 30% regen while cloaked (so give it 3 seconds) and then after you decloak (maybe by doing a spike) you get 6 more seconds of regen. So, you can have 18 seconds of 30% regen in a fight that might last 45 seconds. You are saying that's crap?

 

And deception gives you surging charge, which has the best single target dps. If you want to talk about overall damage, darkness has an advantage because it has a few aoe's in your toolbox. but if you want to single target dps, then deception is better for that. Darkness just happens to bring a balance of survivability to the game which allows you to stay in the fight longer to output more damage. That doesn't mean it's OP, or bigger DPS. It comes down to how you play it.

[jkcheng]

Look, Jay,...you're whining. You want ever talent to be as useful as every other. As soon as you would increase one, you'd look at another and say 'awe, that's not as useful, boost it' and then again and again.

 

Talents, when looked at individually, do not reveal their usefulness unless you put them in context with another, or a style of play. 10% more force is 10% more force, and you get it with 1 talent point. It doesn't matter if it isn't the amount of one of our most expensive abilities, the point is that you can increase your force pool by 10%.

 

And you're also complaining about no purpose to opening out of stealth. You know about the 6 seconds of 30% regen you get when you drop stealth, right? That lets you dish out more damage. And then blackout? more damage. And then you force cloak..giving you the 30% regen while cloaked (so give it 3 seconds) and then after you decloak (maybe by doing a spike) you get 6 more seconds of regen. So, you can have 18 seconds of 30% regen in a fight that might last 45 seconds. You are saying that's crap?

 

And deception gives you surging charge, which has the best single target dps. If you want to talk about overall damage, darkness has an advantage because it has a few aoe's in your toolbox. but if you want to single target dps, then deception is better for that. Darkness just happens to bring a balance of survivability to the game which allows you to stay in the fight longer to output more damage. That doesn't mean it's OP, or bigger DPS. It comes down to how you play it.

 

Pretty much this, I also feel like Jay is whining. Also want to note that the regen out of stealth and with Blackout while out of stealth is actually 50%. Jay also seem to forget we're constantly generating Force, while 10 might seem little, combining with default regen plus regen/gains from other sources, it gets pretty high up there. If we actually gain 10 Force for every crit we'd never have to use Saber Strike in a fight.

 

And Jay, I have been Deception b4, pretty much all through Beta, and I was 0/13/28 Hybrid at launch. I am currently 10/0/31 since the Hybrid build is getting killed off. I just can't go back to a build that doesn't have Death Field anymore. Deception, if the numbers from Sithwarrior are correct, definitely can use a boost, but the suggestions you made are simply overkill.

[Toxification]

The problem with saber conduit is that there is literally no point in leveling the skill past 1) It provides a 33% chance to restore 10 focus every 10 seconds. You're already pretty much guaranteed for this to activate once every 10 seconds already at 33% so there's no point putting skill points into it.

2) Additionally it restores 10 focus every 10 seconds whereas Blood of Sith restores 2.4 force every second compared to saber conduits 1. Blood of sith also doesn't require you to be attacking the opponent. Both require the same amount of points on both skill trees but one provides an enormous benefit, while the other's minimalistic.

 

My suggestion for saber conduit would be to give it a 20-60% chance to restore 5-15 focus every 5 seconds whenever surging charge deals damage.

 

Deceptive power is fine, a 10% force increase is equivalent to the sorcerers reserves which also provides a 10% increase per rank. However the sorcerers reserves are available at level 10 so deceptive power should provide some other form of benefit. Deceptive power should provide some other benefit in my opinion though.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Toxification

[Jayvenger]

The problem with saber conduit is that there is literally no point in leveling the skill past 1) It provides a 33% chance to restore 10 focus every 10 seconds. You're already pretty much guaranteed for this to activate once every 10 seconds already at 33% so there's no point putting skill points into it.

2) Additionally it restores 10 focus every 10 seconds whereas Blood of Sith restores 2.4 force every second compared to saber conduits 1. Blood of sith also doesn't require you to be attacking the opponent. Both require the same amount of points on both skill trees but one provides an enormous benefit, while the other's minimalistic.

 

My suggestion for saber conduit would be to give it a 20-60% chance to restore 5-15 focus every 5 seconds whenever surging charge deals damage.

 

Deceptive power is fine, a 10% force increase is equivalent to the sorcerers reserves which also provides a 10% increase per rank. However the sorcerers reserves are available at level 10 so deceptive power should provide some other form of benefit. Deceptive power should provide some other benefit in my opinion though.

 

Your math is actually making it sound better than it is. On a single point, it provides a 33% chance when Surging procs, which is only 25% of the time. If I'm not doing my rough math here wrong, that means on one point, it has a 8%ish chance to proc once every 10 seconds.

 

Also, I may be whining, but I am making very valid points. Saber Conduit needs to be changed. Maybe not have it's limit taken off completely, but reduced to somewhere under five seconds. How could gaining TEN force (again, less than half a thrash) 25% of the time every three seconds possibly be OP?

 

On that subject, how is giving a spec with likely the lowest dps (don't know the actual numbers) a slight dps boost via an opener so OP?

 

In all honesty, I'd change three things with the Assassin that would add a boost to a Deception (full spec) Assassin and some to the other ones as well.

 

Fix Assassin's Training.

Lower the limit on Saber Conduit to 3 seconds.

Deceptive Power now activates Expose Weakness while Stealth is active.

 

No really OP boosts there. Would just make the Spec flow a bit better. Expose weakness (if the target has 25% damage reduction) makes Maul do what...12.5% more of it's actual damage? Heaven forbid we be allowed to do that out of stealth!

[jkcheng]

Seriously, is it some type of auto-correct at work here, how do people not know the difference between "it's" and "its".

[Toxification]

Jay that would be 8% per second every 10 seconds, which would be 80%. What you're not taking into account is the fact that you only attack once every 1.5 seconds, but also that surging charge's chance to proc is triple when activating saber strike and double when using thrash/voltaic slash.

 

So on average you're going to use your saber strike once every 10 seconds(depending on how much force you have). Thrash/Voltaic slash are going to be used at least 3 times every 10 seconds(on average). So that's 11.6 attacks every 10 seconds = 90% chance to trigger saber conduit every 10 seconds.

[Jayvenger]

Jay that would be 8% per second every 10 seconds, which would be 80%. What you're not taking into account is the fact that you only attack once every 1.5 seconds, but also that surging charge's chance to proc is triple when activating saber strike and double when using thrash/voltaic slash.

 

So on average you're going to use your saber strike once every 10 seconds(depending on how much force you have). Thrash/Voltaic slash are going to be used at least 3 times every 10 seconds(on average). So that's 11.6 attacks every 10 seconds = 90% chance to trigger saber conduit every 10 seconds.

 

Again, your math is faulty. Just because an ability CAN proc three times off an ability doesn't mean it will. I've had times when no Surging's proc'd off of Saber Strike, or did so three times. Same with Voltaic. With one point into Saber Conduit, the chances of you getting that 10 force off of a Saber Strike is stupid low.

 

I'd settle for every 5 seconds. Still less Force than Blood of Sith provides and would be about where it would activate on a proper Deception "rotation". I do the quotations cause Deception has more of a priority list than a rotation. Something along the lines of:

 

If low on Force, Blackout

Use Maul if Expose Weakness is up.

Use Shock if you have 2 stacks of Induction and Voltaic Slash.

Use Discharge if you have 5 Static Charges.

Use Voltaic Slash.

Use Execute if target is below 30% health.

Pepper in Interrupts and Stuns as needed.

If low on Force, Saber Strike.

 

Kind of simple really. I usually only use Voltaic Slash, Maul, Shock and Discharge in most fights.

[jkcheng]

Again, your math is faulty. Just because an ability CAN proc three times off an ability doesn't mean it will. I've had times when no Surging's proc'd off of Saber Strike, or did so three times. Same with Voltaic. With one point into Saber Conduit, the chances of you getting that 10 force off of a Saber Strike is stupid low.

 

I'd settle for every 5 seconds. Still less Force than Blood of Sith provides and would be about where it would activate on a proper Deception "rotation". I do the quotations cause Deception has more of a priority list than a rotation. Something along the lines of:

 

If low on Force, Blackout

Use Maul if Expose Weakness is up.

Use Shock if you have 2 stacks of Induction and Voltaic Slash.

Use Discharge if you have 5 Static Charges.

Use Voltaic Slash.

Use Execute if target is below 30% health.

Pepper in Interrupts and Stuns as needed.

If low on Force, Saber Strike.

 

Kind of simple really. I usually only use Voltaic Slash, Maul, Shock and Discharge in most fights.

 

Don't have the source off the top of my head, but I've read that Discharge should be used on cd rather than waiting til you have 5 Static Charges.

[Toxification]

Again, your math is faulty. Just because an ability CAN proc three times off an ability doesn't mean it will. I've had times when no Surging's proc'd off of Saber Strike, or did so three times. Same with Voltaic. With one point into Saber Conduit, the chances of you getting that 10 force off of a Saber Strike is stupid low.

 

The chances of saber strike getting three crits in a row is 1.6% so I wouldn't even point that out, also worth noting is the fact that that's impossible because it can't proc more than once every 1.5 seconds. No the probability that saber strike will activate surging charge is 75% rather than the 25% normally. Thereby I simply count it as 3 strikes. Same applies to thrash as it would have a 50% chance to proc. So my math is very slightly flawed because I'm not counting the times where surging charge could proc twice and three times per second but those would only put it down to 85% under the rotation I previously mentioned.

[Jayvenger]

Don't have the source off the top of my head, but I've read that Discharge should be used on cd rather than waiting til you have 5 Static Charges.

 

I was thinking that. Chances of it being on CD while you have 5 charges running out is low since those refresh and last forever when they don't.

 

Still say the limit on Saber Conduit should be lowered to 5 seconds. Will make it noticeable, but still less than what Darkness already gets.

[Dominickz]

I usually play deception sin and I have to agree some of OP's changes are really really needed.

 

1.First off assassins training needs fixed then maybe I could actually hit 5k medal kinda like how every other dps spec can or at least it feels like according to scoreboard.

 

2.Saber conduit internal cd needs to be removed, its not even that good with 25% chance to proc via surging the least they could do is remove Internal cd.

 

3.Blackout buff needs to be raised to 12 secs, 6 secs is Way too short

 

4.Spike needs to not trigger GCD aside from that this ability is fine.

 

5.I Really really really! like your idea about force speed becoming a shadow step and anyone who plays a sin should to because if you have played a sin you would know force speed is a crappy gap closer it really is, you can get stunned/slowed/cced while your sprinting and then you have to wait not 10 not 20 but 30 freaking seconds before its up again. Making force speed a teleport behind target is the most brilliant idea I've heard on the assassin forums and would greatly help with gap closing since it would be a guaranteed gap closer not a control based gap closer which totally relies on your enemy to be too stupid not to stun/slow/cc you while you pop it. Not to mention melee is already fairly weak in this game in comparison to ranged, don't try and deny it. It would make assassins a bit more viable to play and no it wouldn't be OP at all since it's still a 30 second CD, to make it easier on devs coding it you could just make another ability that does shadow step but shares the same CD with force sprint it would be easier to code and would work just aswell.

 

Now here's to hoping bioware reads this thread.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Dominickz

[Jayvenger]

I usually play deception sin and I have to agree some of OP's changes are really really needed.

 

1.First off assassins training needs fixed then maybe I could actually hit 5k medal kinda like how every other dps spec can or at least it feels like according to scoreboard.

 

2.Saber conduit internal cd needs to be removed, its not even that good with 25% chance to proc via surging the least they could do is remove Internal cd.

 

3.Blackout buff needs to be raised to 12 secs, 6 secs is Way too short

 

4.Spike needs to not trigger GCD aside from that this ability is fine.

 

5.I Really really really! like your idea about force speed becoming a shadow step and anyone who plays a sin should to because if you have played a sin you would know force speed is a crappy gap closer it really is, you can get stunned/slowed/cced while your sprinting and then you have to wait not 10 not 20 but 30 freaking seconds before its up again. Making force speed a teleport behind target is the most brilliant idea I've heard on the assassin forums and would greatly help with gap closing since it would be a guaranteed gap closer not a control based gap closer which totally relies on your enemy to be too stupid not to stun/slow/cc you while you pop it. Not to mention melee is already fairly weak in this game in comparison to ranged, don't try and deny it. It would make assassins a bit more viable to play and no it wouldn't be OP at all since it's still a 30 second CD, to make it easier on devs coding it you could just make another ability that does shadow step but shares the same CD with force sprint it would be easier to code and would work just aswell.

 

Now here's to hoping bioware reads this thread.

 

Honestly, they already have similar coding in the Inquisitor class itself. Sorcerers get a passive that increases the duration of Vortex to 60 seconds. Was where I got the idea from. If they get all these spiffy passives, why can't we?