Powertech vs. Assassin

[Gnorrior]

Hello, I'm an avid pvp'er and am looking at leveling a powertech or assassin. I originally leveled a sage to healbot my brother, but we have since stopped pvp'ing and the sage is frankly boring (I normally run 0/13/28, and my damage/healing is often 300k/200k, so I'm alright, but my gear sucks so dunno.)

 

 

Anywho, I'm a meele'r at heart, but its very nice to have ranged mixed in, enh shammy from wow was one of my favorite classes for example.

 

So I thought I'd ask you guys which you thought would be better for pvp, since they seem to have relatively similar roles, tank/dps, both have pulls+roots, etc. I've done a lot of reading but get mixed messages.

 

PS: I always hear both powertech and assassin take skilled players to do well, if this is the case, I'm fine with learning to play before I am "good" and can 1v1, 2v2, etc. But my overall goal is to pick the class which is a beast at PvP. Thanks for any help.

[LordbishopX]

Sin is a lot more work than a powertech and Range just has a greater advantage in the game over all imho. Sin is fun tho once you learn it.

[DarthNorik]

Powertechs are the strongest class in the game bar none. A Pyro powertech does more damage than an assassin, and does it from range, takes more hits than an assassin. Gets a shield, and decent self heals. The only way I would recommend an assassin for you is if you have to have a lightsaber or like to stealth.

[Sabbathius]

The only way I would recommend an assassin for you is if you have to have a lightsaber or like to stealth.

 

Assassin has many more disruption tools than a Powertech. Off the top of my head, some scenarios:

 

1. You are the last survivor of the door defense in Voidstar. Help is coming, but not fast enough. You have 3 enemies going for the door. As a PT, you can hope to DoT them up, run around hoping they chase you, etc. But they pull you in, chain CC and kill you very quickly. Even Shieldtech PT can melt quick with focus fire of 3 people.

 

As a Sin, you are in stealth, and door looks clear. Out of the 3 people coming, you sap one. He's out of it for 8 seconds. Second gets Whirlwinded, and is also out for 8 seconds. Third can't possibly kill you alone. When the other two come out of CC, you vanish, using Force Shroud to get rid of any DoTs on you. Now you sap the guy you were fighting, Electrocute the guy you sapped, and kite the guy you whirlwinded as he's got a full resolve bar, popping all your defensive cooldowns and making liberal use of force slow and force speed. This should buy you MORE than enough time for reinforcements to arrive.

 

Yeah, yeah, they could all trinket, they could all have max resolve, blah blah. Odds are, some of them at least have their trinkets used up.

 

A PT can never hope to pull this off. Lacks the CC to lock out 3 people for nearly that long, lacks escape mechanics to drag out the fight, lacks defenses to outlast focused damage from 3 opponents. This situation HAPPENED Saturday. This is not a fictional, imaginary scenario that never occurs.

 

Assassin just has a much bigger toolbox. Though if I could have just one char in this game, I'd go with a PT or a Sorc. Sorc, probably. Better toolbox than a Sin, and less resource management than a PT.

[Gnorrior]

One thing I was curious about was pure damage capabilities.

I am positive that the powertech can pull off ridiculous burst as PT (TD->RS) which can do upwards of 7k with amazing gear.

 

Does the assassin have anything even close to rivaling that?

 

Also, I know the assassin has self-heals in the form of overcharge saber + harnessed darkness, and it was a large part of the draw for me, but I am also curious whether these are effective at all in PvP, and does it makeup for the fact that darkness is a tank spec or is their damage still far behind? I ask this because I hear PT's can go Pyro and do like 600k+ in a game, but the only way for an assassin to be near their survivability is as a darkness spec, and I would assume they would have trouble even reaching 300k. That being said I haven't played the past few weeks (School, girlfriend) and my sage was boring the heck out of me so I'm looking into something new, mostly the PT or assassin. Otherwise it's back to SC2.

[Maestrodomus]

Not too familiar with powertech, but I think 'sin has more utility. We get the nice innate sorcerer talents like force sprint, whirlwind, and the aoe knockback.

[Sabbathius]

DPS, as in EFFECTIVE DPS, definitely go with PT.

 

Currently I'm Pyrotech, and aside from Rocket Punch and Flame Burst, all of my attacks are 30m range. That's HUGE. And the closer I get, the more damage I do. And if you go Shieldtech up to Jet Jump, you can close the gap instantly every 15 seconds. Though you'll sacrifice some DPS for it. But not much.

 

Self-healing on a Sin? Honestly we can't say yet. When next patch goes live, Wither will properly trigger Harnessed Darkness. Currently, it does not. Without it, it's impossible to say how effective it will be.

 

Heal from Dark Charge attacks is weak, and doesn't scale with gear AT ALL. Yeah, idiotic, I know. So don't count on that being much.

 

If you want passively self-healing melee, go Annihilation Marauder. The crits of their DoT ticks heal them for 2% of their total HP. And popping Berserk makes their next 6 DoT ticks crit automatically, PLUS heal the TEAM for 1% of their health every tick. And you can pop Berserk when you build 30 Fury, or just pop Frenzy (3 min CD, 2.5 min talented) and get the full stack instantly. From time to time I get the 75k healing done medal in Warzones on my Marauder because of it. I've never been within a shouting distance of that on my Sin. But doing effective damage on a Mara is much more dicey than on a PT, and much more complicated. Don't play a Mara if you are the type to punch the monitor or throw a keyboard, because you'll be dead broke in a week.

Edited February 6, 2012 by Sabbathius

[Bewtzor]

I play as a darkness sin, and while I am not lvl 50, so I can't comment on how pvp goes at that level I will say darkness sin's are very viable 1-49. Currently my sin is lvl 41 and I am often times top 3 in damage and top protection. Granted 1-49 present opportunities to stomp lowbies, I can still frequently overcome 2v1 and even 3v1 given the right circumstances.

 

One of the most viable teamplay advantages of the sin vs the PT is the ability to aoe taunt and then vanish... hello 30% damage reduction for entire time.

 

Melee is more difficult, but I find it more rewarding, and I enjoy being the annoying tank that given the right cooldowns can still tear your face off

[Karandor]

Assassin has many more disruption tools than a Powertech. Off the top of my head, some scenarios:

 

1. You are the last survivor of the door defense in Voidstar. Help is coming, but not fast enough. You have 3 enemies going for the door. As a PT, you can hope to DoT them up, run around hoping they chase you, etc. But they pull you in, chain CC and kill you very quickly. Even Shieldtech PT can melt quick with focus fire of 3 people.

 

As a Sin, you are in stealth, and door looks clear. Out of the 3 people coming, you sap one. He's out of it for 8 seconds. Second gets Whirlwinded, and is also out for 8 seconds. Third can't possibly kill you alone. When the other two come out of CC, you vanish, using Force Shroud to get rid of any DoTs on you. Now you sap the guy you were fighting, Electrocute the guy you sapped, and kite the guy you whirlwinded as he's got a full resolve bar, popping all your defensive cooldowns and making liberal use of force slow and force speed. This should buy you MORE than enough time for reinforcements to arrive.

 

Yeah, yeah, they could all trinket, they could all have max resolve, blah blah. Odds are, some of them at least have their trinkets used up.

 

A PT can never hope to pull this off. Lacks the CC to lock out 3 people for nearly that long, lacks escape mechanics to drag out the fight, lacks defenses to outlast focused damage from 3 opponents. This situation HAPPENED Saturday. This is not a fictional, imaginary scenario that never occurs.

 

Assassin just has a much bigger toolbox. Though if I could have just one char in this game, I'd go with a PT or a Sorc. Sorc, probably. Better toolbox than a Sin, and less resource management than a PT.

 

Except the flame DoT lasts just as long as you locked them out for and all it took was pressing 1 button.

[Rawksoss]

Can't speak for sins but being a powertech myself not to sure what you mean about range. Sure you can kite a person around should you choose to but talk about a snoozefest. To really get the most out of your pyrotech u depend on your Rocket Punch/Flameburst procs for Railshots. So if let's say you are using just FB for that you still have to be within 10 yards.

 

And I will agree with the poster above pyrotechs have crappy cc when I read all a sin could do to hold em off really made me glad I decided to lvl one now. Pyros can dish out a boatload of dmg think the highest I saw was like 698k

[Gnorrior]

Out of curiosity, can assassin's burst people down even close to as effectively as a pyro PT?

 

As far as utility in WZ's is concerned, they both have long dots, pulls, and can spec for sprints/ball carrying. The main difference to me is whether the self-healing of a darkness sin is worth the loss in damage comparing to a PT.

 

Atleast thats what I am trying to consider

[LordbishopX]

Out of curiosity, can assassin's burst people down even close to as effectively as a pyro PT?

 

As far as utility in WZ's is concerned, they both have long dots, pulls, and can spec for sprints/ball carrying. The main difference to me is whether the self-healing of a darkness sin is worth the loss in damage comparing to a PT.

 

Atleast thats what I am trying to consider

 

Not even close to effective if your looking for heals sin isn't for you lol. almost all advantages go to range class sad to say and boatloads of damage from a tank is kind of like just wow.

[Gnorrior]

Uhm, PT's can do very respectable damage with a hybrid spec in the tank tree and then points into pyro.

 

It's pretty reasonable to expect the same from a tank from assassins, and dunno, I would expect the 10% heal from overcharge and 12% from harnessed darkness to be huge, espescially with the low CD on harnessed. Though this might not take effect until wither procs HD, but 12% of 15k + 10%, thats 3k heal, which is pretty solid especially considering you're doing 5k over the channel of force lightning anyway.

 

So after watching a video of a jedi shadow kinetic hybrid spec can definitely still put out the hurt. It was post 1.1, and I'm not sure how people say they don't have self-healing, when the lightsaber charge itself is 400 every like 5 or 6 seconds. Sure, it might not be "a lot" but in the course of a 1v1 when it procs like 7 times, added to harnessed darkness TKT or FL, you're starting to talk 50% of your health etc, while still able to get very good burst (for a tank at the least. what with project's delay, you can basically use project into an execute or any other related ability and get 5k burst.)

Edited February 6, 2012 by Gnorrior

[DarthNorik]

Our self healing is nice, in warzones I'm almost always over 45k with my 27/1/13 build, will be even higher after patch with buff to death field.

 

But IMO it doesn't come close to pyrotech powertechs. Just head to their forums and you'll see soo many threads with screenshots of the crazy damage they do.

[Astarica]

DPS PTs reminds me of Sorcs, i.e. inflated WZ numbers though in this case PTs get their number because apparently nobody takes them seriously and always leave them at the end to kill. Looking at how rare the PTs get attacked in some games I'm sure a Sorc can put up 600K every game if given that kind of freedom.

[Sabbathius]

Except the flame DoT lasts just as long as you locked them out for and all it took was pressing 1 button.

 

Except many classes have ways of getting rid of DoTs. Off the top of my head - Sin=Force Shroud, OP=Evasion, Merc=Cure, etc., etc.

[Sabbathius]

It's pretty reasonable to expect the same from a tank from assassins, and dunno, I would expect the 10% heal from overcharge and 12% from harnessed darkness to be huge, espescially with the low CD on harnessed. Though this might not take effect until wither procs HD, but 12% of 15k + 10%, thats 3k heal, which is pretty solid especially considering you're doing 5k over the channel of force lightning anyway.

 

Except remember than in Warzones you have a -30% healing debuff. So that 3xHarnessed Darkness Force Lightning will NOT heal you for 12%, it'll heal you for 8%. And that Overcharge Saber will not give 10%, it'll give 7%. Etc., etc.

 

I tested the Harnessed Darkness, and it is indeed 8%, according to my calculations, in PvP. Haven't tested the Overcharge Saber yet, don't have it, but it's a safe bet. And Dark Charge heal is also cut by 1/3rd.

 

So all that self-healing? In PVP? It's not that impressive. Nice to have, but not impressive.

 

Oh, and one last thing, back on topic of PT vs Sin. The build many people use as PT, the so-called Carolina Parakeet build, which is a hybrid of Shieldtech and Pyro. For now, it works. And it is GREAT. You do very decent damage, and your survivability goes way, way, WAY up.

 

But tell me this, what's to stop Bioware from doing to that build what it is doing to Assassin hybrid builds next patch? Answer: NOTHING. Not a darn thing. For all we know, it's already in the pipe. Unless they specifically set out to just screw Assassins, in which case you should roll a PT anyway.

Edited February 6, 2012 by Sabbathius

[Astarica]

With full BM armor in Dark Charge I die more often than most PTs. In fact sometimes I see them put up death numbers that are more suited for ranged classes despite being a melee.

 

But I know they don't have better defensive CDS than I do, and armor difference isn't that great (I've never had a problem killing a PT 1 on 1) so the only way this make sense is people are not attacking the PTs.

 

If your class is deemed as unimportant of course you get more opportunites to put up numbers. Whether that perception is true or not is a matter of debate, but like I said, a Sorc or Merc can put up way better numbers if they have the same kind of anonymity as a PTs. In most WZs, if I see someone with a flamethrower we just snare that guy and walk past him because it's not worth the effort to kill him, but pretty much anyone will always make the stop to kill a Sorc or a Merc, and those are generally considered the hard-to-kill classes. But PTs are arguably harder to kill than they are, because nobody actually wants to waste time attacking them!

[Kajin-Diablo]

well yes sin's can burst dmg.

im a Deception sin and get over 100k dmg easily on any pvp match. But!

you will lack what shield/def (survivability) to get that dps.

PT's have heavy armor and what not so they can survive a little better b/c of that

but our cd's are pretty good and once you get used to playing a sin as dps you will learn the mechanics of vanishing when you know your about to get mobbed.

so it is literally all in how you want to play.

you want to jump in mobs and hope not to get killed and do damage? go PT

you want to be the guy that can burst down that healer before he can get another heal off?

go assassin. but you def. will have to learn how to play a sin some to like it.

[Rawksoss]

Seems like u have many self heal abilities and from what I read seem to beb used quite often where as the terrible PT self heal is on a 2-3 min cd. So I think the self heal is a push if not in the favour of sin becuase of how often it may be used. Again like I said I'm not to familar with sins so I can't be certain.

[LordbishopX]

Tip ppl go after the easiest targets not the hardest in pvp lol.

[Sabbathius]

Seems like u have many self heal abilities and from what I read seem to beb used quite often where as the terrible PT self heal is on a 2-3 min cd. So I think the self heal is a push if not in the favour of sin becuase of how often it may be used. Again like I said I'm not to familar with sins so I can't be certain.

 

Yeah, problem with Sin heals in PvP is that currently (until next patch) Wither doesn't give Harnessed Darkness like it should. And Harnessed Darkness buff falls off too quick. Plus the 30% reduction to healing in Warzones.

 

Nobody can really tell how effective the self-healing with HD will be until the patch goes live. Personally I think it may be bordering on overpowered, as I can get a 3-stack just with shocks quite often.

 

In theory, you could go Wither->Thrash->Shock->Thrash->Shock-LS, with filler swings if your energy is too low. Each rotation will do very reasonable DPS, and LS at the end will heal 8% HP. And while LS is immune to interrupt, you are still subject to CC, so other classes will have to save the CC to break it. Except you can knock them over with Spike just before you channel, and pop Recklessness to boot. It'll hurt.

 

Considering this is a tank spec, this could be quite scary, actually.

 

But again, total guess here. Won't know until the patch is live.

[Gnorrior]

So one last question, how does the burst an assassin can put out compare to what a pyrotech PT can put out? Especially when considering armored classes like juggernauts etc.

 

As an assassin it seems like the majority of damage is kinetic, IE: we kill clothies easily, and everything else reduces our damage a ton.

[Sabbathius]

Depends on spec. A Deception Sin can have a nice burst. Two Voltaics followed by Discharge and Shock can do quite a bit. The Voltaics are the buildup phase, and Discharge/Shock are the burst. If you time it right and it puts the target below 30%, you can follow up with Assassinate for another chunk of health.

 

But again, with Deception spec, you are in melee range wearing light armor and you depend on your defensive cooldowns to keep you alive. And your defensive cooldowns are significantly worse than those of a Marauder, who is also in melee range and is wearing medium armor.

 

If you are still in doubt, go with a PT. They're just so much easier to play right now it's not even close to being fair. Their damage, especially as Pyro, is ridiculously high (maybe TOO high, time will tell). Yeah, they lack a lot of tools a Sin has, but tools are overrated.

 

And I got a chance to play a WZ after the patch this morning. Wither is nice, but as predicted heals from Harnessed Darkness, and while it's MUCH better than what it used to be, it really doesn't solve anything.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Sabbathius

[Gnorrior]

So I have been watching some youtube videos and it seems like in competitive PvP with dispels, an infiltration shadow is an absolute monster, especially shadows because of the project delay. Bursting can happen for consistent 9k with 2 globals, except those two globals hit within .7s or so because of delay...definitely considering this as my main class.