Deception - I just don't get it

[Darth_Xzygy]

This could have been a great discussion if not for this childish attitude BOTH of you are displaying.

 

Personally I prefer madness, and the assumption that all it does is white damage is false. It's damage is backloaded, which I love. I do very little out of stealth, but when my dots are up and I'm thrashing for 2.6k+, I've been severely underestimated and it is too late to do anything about it.

 

Deception is great, darkness is great, madness is great. Acting like angsty teenagers on the Internet helps no one.

[tXHereticXt]

Sure can. Might even be able to do it with one if I was crazy enough to use an adrenal while I have WZ buff on (that's total overkill and a waste of clicks).

 

People who say you do more damage in Deception are deluding yourself. It isn't even like Madness where you at least appear to do more damage. You flat out don't do more damage and take considerably more risk, which is why the spec is weak.

 

Deception is about burst damage, Madness is sustained. So what you're seeing with madness is a constant flow of DPS as opposed to the former.

[Cowflab]

This could have been a great discussion if not for this childish attitude BOTH of you are displaying.

 

Personally I prefer madness, and the assumption that all it does is white damage is false. It's damage is backloaded, which I love. I do very little out of stealth, but when my dots are up and I'm thrashing for 2.6k+, I've been severely underestimated and it is too late to do anything about it.

 

Deception is great, darkness is great, madness is great. Acting like angsty teenagers on the Internet helps no one.

 

As you can see, my responses were not deleted. I don't know if you're referencing me or not though. My whole point was that a madness or dark/madness hybrid DOES NOT have the burst that deception does purely through shocks as you don't even have the resources to accomplish what he was talking about.

 

I agree with your sentiment though. All specs perform well in the hands of capable players and each have different roles.

[TehFuZz]

If I'm honest the one thing I really want changing to make my time in PVP as Deception more enjoyable? Fix stealth.

 

1) Stealth in itself is buggy as hell. The number of times I've been stuck in combat for minutes at a time and unable to re-stealth is just daft.

 

2) If there are going to be abilities in the game that take us out of stealth, fine. At least make stealth work at other times then! It's absolutely infuriating to get targetted and jumped on while stealthed by targets 15-20m away.

[Aedilous]

I don't know why people keep on say 'avoid attention'. If someone sees the yoyo lightsaber you've a red X painted on your head because everyone knows that you're in a spec with no meaningful defense. Unless you can really use Jedi mind tricks, people will always kill an easy to kill class compared to a hard one because having a man advantage is huge in PvP.

 

If you don't have VS then some of the burst DPS argument doesn't even make sense (Shock does same damage with 29 in Deception as an energized reckless Shock in Darkness if there is no VS). By the way Darkness also has a passive +15% damage to Shock that apparently nobody ever accounts for.

 

The only Deception assassins that don't die are the ones with a pocket healer, or the guys that run away from a fight leaving their friends to die.

 

A Deception Assassin should be stealthed whenever he isn't popping out to merc someone. Typically they aren't using Dark Charge so they stay out of the center of combat. They were given and armor buff in the Deception line but not much. If they are stealthed then an enemy won't see them or their lightsaber. The only Deception Assassins that don't die should be most of them who play well and get a little lucky. If Deception Assassins are in the middle of a raging melee then they aren't in the right place.

 

Personally I play Darkness spec and love it. Even in 50 PvP I do good damage to geared opponents and I don't have any Expertise yet. Shock can do a massive amount of damage to anyone if you spec for it. Whatever skill points I didn't use to increase my survivability were spent on either abilities like Force Pull and Wither or they were upgrading Shock.

[Technohic]

If I'm honest the one thing I really want changing to make my time in PVP as Deception more enjoyable? Fix stealth.

 

1) Stealth in itself is buggy as hell. The number of times I've been stuck in combat for minutes at a time and unable to re-stealth is just daft.

 

2) If there are going to be abilities in the game that take us out of stealth, fine. At least make stealth work at other times then! It's absolutely infuriating to get targetted and jumped on while stealthed by targets 15-20m away.

 

Are they seeing you 20m away at the same level as you? I know higher levels, when you are leeling, can see you no problem, which is kind of annoying. Not like it would kill anyone to have the lower level player in stealth have a chance to escape.

[Nwalmaer]

Ok, Im not seeing the damage poeple are speaking of in the wz window after the matches are over. 2k voltic slash? Maybe if you crit ungeared players. But on average its not going to hit for more than @ 839. It sounds like most of you are in wz with undergeared players.

Deception now has less burst damage than before. Surge was nerfed. Are you also paying attention to the 2.4k+2.4k + 630 to 880 dot that scoundrels and ops are doing in 2 attacks? Thats "burst damage", in 2 attacks. Deception assasins are melee assasins primarily with some casting. Our so called "Maul" may hit an equally geared target for 1800. If exploit weakness has not proc'ed, you will do even less damage with Maul. Also explain "burst damage". Please let me know if I am wrong, but our abilities depend on debuffs being applied to our targets as well as building charges that have a "chance to be applied or build." It takes time to build up too the procs. Thats not burst damage. If you ask someone who has played an op or scoundrel and tried the deception assasin, they will tell you that waiting on the procs is a pain. So they go the assasin tank spec. Most assasins running the tank spec are running it because they feel that deception is a broken spec. I think the issue with the assasin class may be in the name "Assasin". The SWTOR team needs to explain what the actual purpose of the class is and if it is based on a character from the Star Wars world. Is it a tank, melee dps or a caster with some melee ability. Post some videos of the damage you are doing. That way we can see the armor your opponents are wearing and slow the video to actually see what damage you are doing. These are just my oberservations based on speaking with others who played ops and scoundrels as well as speaking with other assasins after wz matches. I speak with them after the matches because I can see the overall damage and biggest hit damage. and of course the average damage. I bet that window will now be changed so you cant see that info lol.

[Karandor]

Deception has a lot of trouble staying on a target compared to darkness. Force speed breaking roots and snares IMO is incredibly important. Also if it's down you can force pull and recklessness gives your force lightning (which hits VERY hard) 30m range.

 

 

Deception can be kited, darkness cannot. Against good players in good gear this is what matters. When I fight good players as deception I get KB, root, snare 24/7 and there's nothing I can do about it. Darkness can just pop force speed (also reduced CD) or force pull. On top of that there's reduced CD force shroud with +2s duration. Against good players you cannot effectively stay on your target as deception. This was my biggest problem as deception.

 

 

Also in prolonged fights Darkness has much, much more force to work with as they don't rely on CDs (cloak and blackout) to keep regen going for effective damage output.

 

 

 

The small increase in damage (it isn't big, I've played both specs with success) is not worth giving up the utility (guard, AE slow + debuff, out of stealth spike, force pull) or survivability.

 

Against lesser gear and bad players deception is amazing but when people know how to fight you, you'll spend 1/2 the match out of range of anyone.

[Archamedius]

For those looking for a slight damage increase for Deception what about the following:

 

I like Tumult. It's fun to watch your character round kick someone in the face. How about adding a debuff to low slash that last for say, 10 seconds, and while on the target allows them to be affected by Tumult regardless of state (I.E. Tumult currently cannot be used on players, champions, bosses, etc. and it would also lift the stun requirement)? This would give us some additional burst (timing tumult with discharge+fully buffed shock) and give low slash and Tumult some usefulness in Operations!

 

((Sorry, as a martial artist, and a fan of the way Darth Maul fought in Ep. 1 I'd love any change to bring my assassin closer to that fighting style. To me this is a good way to do it, while at the same time giving us another longer cooldown dps item.))

[insendial]

For those looking for a slight damage increase for Deception what about the following:

 

I like Tumult. It's fun to watch your character round kick someone in the face. How about adding a debuff to low slash that last for say, 10 seconds, and while on the target allows them to be affected by Tumult regardless of state (I.E. Tumult currently cannot be used on players, champions, bosses, etc. and it would also lift the stun requirement)? This would give us some additional burst (timing tumult with discharge+fully buffed shock) and give low slash and Tumult some usefulness in Operations!

 

((Sorry, as a martial artist, and a fan of the way Darth Maul fought in Ep. 1 I'd love any change to bring my assassin closer to that fighting style. To me this is a good way to do it, while at the same time giving us another longer cooldown dps item.))

 

That's actually a really good idea! Tumult hits about as hard as Maul, but is free and on a 45s CD, so I have a hard time thinking of a way to construe that as OP.

[Astarica]

I have no idea how you're supposed to constantly stealth since Force Cloak is on a long cooldown, and unless you're constantly killing everyone who saw you, you don't just get out of combat until you go really far away. Of course if you're constantly kililng everyone who saw you, it's probably not that important whether you're stealthed in the first place (because all your enemies are dead). Deception has no meaningful burst coming out of stealth (VS stacks cannot be built while stelathed) and 90% of the time the first thing someone does after you jump them from stealth is use their most crippling CC on you to retalite, and if you got VS you have very little protection against movement based CCs.

 

I mean it's not even like a case where if you see a skinny guy carrying a small gun you can't be sure if that's an Operative or a Sniper at a rough glance since Sniper Rifle isn't visually that much bigger than a Blaster Pistol, or you see a guy in tech armor and not sure if that's a Merc or Powertech. Your double bladed Lightsaber unambigiously identifies your class to any enemy since no other class shares the same weapon. If there's a 4on4 in the middle of Alderran what do you do? If you attack you're certainly going to be seen by all 4 other guys. They're almost certainly going to know how to deal with your DPS coming out of stealth (which isn't even all that scary to begin with). If you stay stealthed a 4 on 3 generally ends up with the 4 winning quite decisively (having an extra person is huge). I guess people will say "I come out of stealth and own the healer", except a good healer can deal with an Operative coming out of stelath (who has much better burst than you) let alone you. So is your strat hoping their healer sucks? That's really how you expect to win?

[insendial]

I have no idea how you're supposed to constantly stealth since Force Cloak is on a long cooldown, and unless you're constantly killing everyone who saw you, you don't just get out of combat until you go really far away. Of course if you're constantly kililng everyone who saw you, it's probably not that important whether you're stealthed in the first place (because all your enemies are dead). Deception has no meaningful burst coming out of stealth (VS stacks cannot be built while stelathed) and 90% of the time the first thing someone does after you jump them from stealth is use their most crippling CC on you to retalite, and if you got VS you have very little protection against movement based CCs.

 

I mean it's not even like a case where if you see a skinny guy carrying a small gun you can't be sure if that's an Operative or a Sniper at a rough glance since Sniper Rifle isn't visually that much bigger than a Blaster Pistol, or you see a guy in tech armor and not sure if that's a Merc or Powertech. Your double bladed Lightsaber unambigiously identifies your class to any enemy since no other class shares the same weapon. If there's a 4on4 in the middle of Alderran what do you do? If you attack you're certainly going to be seen by all 4 other guys. They're almost certainly going to know how to deal with your DPS coming out of stealth (which isn't even all that scary to begin with). If you stay stealthed a 4 on 3 generally ends up with the 4 winning quite decisively (having an extra person is huge). I guess people will say "I come out of stealth and own the healer", except a good healer can deal with an Operative coming out of stelath (who has much better burst than you) let alone you. So is your strat hoping their healer sucks? That's really how you expect to win?

 

Stealth is not an integral part of playing an assassin. Assassins are not a stealth class, they're a melee class that happens to have stealth as a defensive CD and gap closer.

 

Burst is bad for MMOs. It is one thing if you have to aim to get off a headshot for a kill, but quite another when you can just click-target and everything hits automatically. BioWare has done a superb job of keeping burst low. The only times you'll die (at 50) before getting out of a CC chain is when you are a fresh 50 vs geared 50s or you're getting targetted by 3+ people.

 

Assassins also have better sustained damage than an Op, so opening on a healer won't do as much immediately but you can keep them busy longer. They can't just ignore you or not heal themselves, because that'd result in their death.

Edited February 15, 2012 by insendial

[Nwalmaer]

Burst is bad for MMOs. It is one thing if you have to aim to get off a headshot for a kill, but quite another when you can just click-target and everything hits automatically. BioWare has done a superb job of keeping burst low. The only times you'll die (at 50) before getting out of a CC chain is when you are a fresh 50 vs geared 50s or you're getting targetted by 3+ people.

 

I dont know who you a fighting but headshot hits hard regardless of gear, of course tanks are the exception. And aiming is nothing lol. But your opinion should be considered. and burst isnt low for scoundrels, ops, and mercs. Even with the surge nerf, they are still hitting on average with 4.3k burst.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Nwalmaer

[Astarica]

Stealth is not an integral part of playing an assassin. Assassins are not a stealth class, they're a melee class that happens to have stealth as a defensive CD and gap closer.

 

Burst is bad for MMOs. It is one thing if you have to aim to get off a headshot for a kill, but quite another when you can just click-target and everything hits automatically. BioWare has done a superb job of keeping burst low. The only times you'll die (at 50) before getting out of a CC chain is when you are a fresh 50 vs geared 50s or you're getting targetted by 3+ people.

 

Assassins also have better sustained damage than an Op, so opening on a healer won't do as much immediately but you can keep them busy longer. They can't just ignore you or not heal themselves, because that'd result in their death.

 

Exactly, which is why I don't get people say Deception needs to 'pick your battles' or 'avoid attention'. Everyone can see that double bladed lightsaber and VS is one of the most noticeable attack in the game in terms of animation. In fact, Deception would get a considerable buff if VS just uses Thrash animation, as this makes it harder for someone to immediately identify you as one of the lowest survivality spec in the game.

 

The only class that could avoid attention was the pre nerf Operative, mostly because anyone who saw them is usually soon dead. You're not going to become better as a Deception by avoiding attention, because burst DPS in this game is relatively low, not to mention you're one of the easiest spec to identify in the game.

[Snaex]

Whenever you completly lose arguements on the forums from now on, you should just report the person. I hear that makes up for the fact that you can try argue without having understanding of simple math, and in-game mechanics.

[Auxili]

Burst is bad for MMOs. It is one thing if you have to aim to get off a headshot for a kill, but quite another when you can just click-target and everything hits automatically. BioWare has done a superb job of keeping burst low. The only times you'll die (at 50) before getting out of a CC chain is when you are a fresh 50 vs geared 50s or you're getting targetted by 3+ people.

 

I dont know who you a fighting but headshot hits hard regardless of gear, of course tanks are the exception. And aiming is nothing lol. But your opinion should be considered. and burst isnt low for scoundrels, ops, and mercs. Even with the surge nerf, they are still hitting on average with 4.3k burst.

 

Point

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your head

[insendial]

Burst is bad for MMOs. It is one thing if you have to aim to get off a headshot for a kill, but quite another when you can just click-target and everything hits automatically. BioWare has done a superb job of keeping burst low. The only times you'll die (at 50) before getting out of a CC chain is when you are a fresh 50 vs geared 50s or you're getting targetted by 3+ people.

 

I dont know who you a fighting but headshot hits hard regardless of gear, of course tanks are the exception. And aiming is nothing lol. But your opinion should be considered. and burst isnt low for scoundrels, ops, and mercs. Even with the surge nerf, they are still hitting on average with 4.3k burst.

 

You completely and totally misread me -.-

 

It is one thing if you have to aim to get off a headshot for a kill

Is a reference to shooters which give auto-kills for shooting someone directly in the head.

[Darth_Xzygy]

Whenever you completly lose arguements on the forums from now on, you should just report the person. I hear that makes up for the fact that you can try argue without having understanding of simple math, and in-game mechanics.

 

You had valid points, but the way you presented them were childish and blatantly in violation of terms of use. Not surprised at this outcome. Next time use a little tact so we can have a good discussion instead of a troll-war, please.

 

On topic, I like any idea that makes tumult a viable ability in pvp. One of the coolest animations in the game doesn't even get to be on my bars. I like that it requires setup especially. Maybe I just miss my marauder from beta

 

I think a lot of the problem comes down to proper target selection for most people. Deception is good at dealing 60% of someone's health in rapid order, but at that point, the spike seems to really slow down, despite being able to use execute. Unless of course everything crits, then someone just explodes.

 

Maybe part of the reason I didn't have many issues is that I almost always picked a target that was already in combat. My philosophy was to turn a bad situation into an impossible situation for the enemy player. I believe this is extremely important as a deception sin, where it wont be so important to other specs due to their utility, their ability to survive, or in the case of Madness, their high sustained throughput.

 

What I noticed as a difference between madness and deception was that I was suddenly able to demolish Commando/Merc healers, where they were extremely frustrating as a Deception sin. most of my damage went through their armor, and I just needed to keep them from healing. It was also very amusing to see one put up a bubble only to get a full duration whirlwind and see that cd largely wasted. (<3 Askarah, if you happen to be reading).

[Archamedius]

That's actually a really good idea! Tumult hits about as hard as Maul, but is free and on a 45s CD, so I have a hard time thinking of a way to construe that as OP.

 

I think its a little more on par with the damage from assassinate, but I am only 43 so assassinate may outstrip it at 50. Right now my mauls are hitting for 1100 and my tumults hit for 1300 (non crit for both). Still with it's 45 sec cd, it's not a huge increase to dps, so it shouldnt make us OP in operations, but at the same time give us another nice tool to use in conjunction with adrenals and relics, adding a little more spice to the rotation in PVE as well. And of course the added burst timing in PVP should help improve our skirmish/edge tactics and use, thus solidifying deception assassins into that role of picking off people on the eges of combat.

[Darth_Xzygy]

Exactly, which is why I don't get people say Deception needs to 'pick your battles' or 'avoid attention'. Everyone can see that double bladed lightsaber and VS is one of the most noticeable attack in the game in terms of animation. In fact, Deception would get a considerable buff if VS just uses Thrash animation, as this makes it harder for someone to immediately identify you as one of the lowest survivality spec in the game.

 

The only class that could avoid attention was the pre nerf Operative, mostly because anyone who saw them is usually soon dead. You're not going to become better as a Deception by avoiding attention, because burst DPS in this game is relatively low, not to mention you're one of the easiest spec to identify in the game.

 

What they're referring to is the Tab effect. When the entire enemy zerg hits their tab key, you do not want to be the one closest to them. You let the tanks enter battle first so that they get tunnel visioned and are likely killed first while you take out healers/squishies and get out of dodge. Be sure you support them, though with an AoE taunt. It wont break stealth.

[Astarica]

What they're referring to is the Tab effect. When the entire enemy zerg hits their tab key, you do not want to be the one closest to them. You let the tanks enter battle first so that they get tunnel visioned and are likely killed first while you take out healers/squishies and get out of dodge. Be sure you support them, though with an AoE taunt. It wont break stealth.

 

Most people know how to pick out the double bladed lightsaber guy even if you're not the first person who charged in. Voltiac Slash is one of the biggest giveaways fory our spec too. It's arguably worse than Revivification/Salvation because at least you have to have the guy targeted to be sure he's casting that, while you can see Voltiac Slash easily without having the guy targetted.

 

At the lower level of PVP you can avoid attention by just not being the first guy in, but good players know what matchup is favorable and what is not, and since Deception has terrible survivality, any decent player knows that it's a relatively easy kill since your skill can't change the fact that you've low survivality. Besides, if Deception is really that strong, wouldn't they want to kill you first? And you can't hide your Voltiac Slash even against complete strangers. If I see a guy casting Revivification (31 point heal talent) I usually hound them for the rest of the fight, and that's much harder to spot (requires targetting the guy) then VS (requires looking at an Assassin in the general direction).

Edited February 16, 2012 by Astarica

[Renvious]

Deception Assassins are awesome. I just wouldn't want one on my team if I had the choice, though.

[Voraxus]

Seeing a lot of QQ and obvious PEBCAK in this thread, but have noted a couple of decent players:

 

First let me say that I run Darkness, I'm a battlemaster, I've been Darkness since Beta, and I wreck people with it. Let me also say that I have never, EVER been beaten in 1v1 by any other kind of Assassin (or Shadow, respectively). All the people in this thread that tout about Deception being "viable" in PvP, the answer is yes and no. The problem with squishy stealth PvPers is that, unless you have flawless (and I mean flawless) positioning, and know exactly when to enter/exit combat, you will die considerably more than usual, be of little to no value to team fights, will be virtually useless in objective-based PvP (particularly Voidstar and Huttball) and you will (which, by my estimate, most of the people in the game have already done) re-spec Madness, Darkness, or simply re-roll. Sure, your burst is quite good and you are capable of eliminating 1 (keyword: 1) target pseudo-quickly (and if there are healers in the equation, which in PvP there usually are), but is it worth the abysmal survivability, the lack of team value, the marginal room for error? Not in my opinion.

 

TL;DR: Squishy stealther with high DPS output and no survivability? SOUNDS LIKE A PVE SPEC TO ME.....is it viable for PvP? Absolutely. Is it OPTIMAL for PvP? Absolutely not.

[jkcheng]

Seeing a lot of QQ and obvious PEBCAK in this thread, but have noted a couple of decent players:

 

First let me say that I run Darkness, I'm a battlemaster, I've been Darkness since Beta, and I wreck people with it. Let me also say that I have never, EVER been beaten in 1v1 by any other kind of Assassin (or Shadow, respectively). All the people in this thread that tout about Deception being "viable" in PvP, the answer is yes and no. The problem with squishy stealth PvPers is that, unless you have flawless (and I mean flawless) positioning, and know exactly when to enter/exit combat, you will die considerably more than usual, be of little to no value to team fights, will be virtually useless in objective-based PvP (particularly Voidstar and Huttball) and you will (which, by my estimate, most of the people in the game have already done) re-spec Madness, Darkness, or simply re-roll. Sure, your burst is quite good and you are capable of eliminating 1 (keyword: 1) target pseudo-quickly (and if there are healers in the equation, which in PvP there usually are), but is it worth the abysmal survivability, the lack of team value, the marginal room for error? Not in my opinion.

 

TL;DR: Squishy stealther with high DPS output and no survivability? SOUNDS LIKE A PVE SPEC TO ME.....is it viable for PvP? Absolutely. Is it OPTIMAL for PvP? Absolutely not.

 

I don't play deception, but I don't believe they're useless in group PvP. If one can down a target quickly, say a healer, that leaves the rest of the group's job in the skirmish a lot easier when the targets they're on are no longer getting health. The earlier you can take the opposing healer out of the equation, the better chance you have at winning.

[StarHuntr]

I'm a lvl 37 deception assassin with absolutely no pvp gear (obviously, since I'm 37) and always place in the top 5 in terms of WZ medals/damage/objective/kills. I don't have VS yet so I can pick and choose my battles without generally being noticed. I've heard that once I get to the lvl 50 bracket, things SERIOUSLY change. Is this true, and should I respec madness/darkness?