[Analysis] The state of Kinetic Shadow ( and Darkness Assassin) PvP.

[Tiresias]

My name is Tiresias; I have played a Shadow since beta.

 

The purpose of this thread is to call to light the advantages and disadvantages of Kinetic Combat Shadows and Darkness Assassins in group-based, moderate-scale PvP situations. A lot of comparisons to other classes will be made for point-of-reference purposes. Facts will be presented over opinions as much as possible.

 

The thread will be written from the point of view of a Shadow.

 

The post will be long. There will not be a TL;DR. You have been warned.

 

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Kinetic Combat

 

Generally regarded as the best PvP tree available for Shadows, Kinetic Combat mixes utility with survivability. It's main weakness is a complete absence of on-demand burst damage.

 

 

Offensive Tools: Outside of a Force Potency-backed, 3-stack Harnessed Shadows Telekinetic Throw, Shadows have no offensive tools at all. They do have the advantage of decent sustained DPS thanks to Particle Acceleration-infused Projects.

 

Unfortunately, several bugs hold back this spec's damage:

 

-Project does not receive the increased damage from Shadow's Training.

-Particle Acceleration does not actually increase the critical damage of Project.

-Force Potency has its charges consumed by the "small hit" of Upheaval.

 

Outside of these bugs, Kinetic's damage is respectable -- higher than Guardians but lower than Vanguards.

 

 

Defensive Tools: Oy. This is where Kinetic falls apart. I'll just list the bullet points and move on:

 

1. Kinetic Shadows depend heavily on shield chance, but most player-generated attacks cannot be shielded.

2. The strongest defensive cooldown -- Deflection -- provides no static damage reduction and only increases defense; however, most player-generated attacks cannot be defended against (Force/Tech attacks completely ignore the "Defense" stat).

3. Shadows have the worst armor-based mitigation of the three tanks.

4. When facing an enemy that uses attacks that can be shielded, Kinetic Ward gets its charges consumed extremely rapidly since there is no rate limit on how quickly they can fade. Basic attacks (which all hit multiple times) tend to destroy the Ward particularly quickly.

5. The self-healing from Combat Technique does not scale at all.

6. Mind Snap has the longest cooldown of any interrupt in the game -- a full 4 seconds more than what the other two tank classes have -- with the tradeoff being nothing more than 6 more meters of range.

 

Kinetic Combat does have one outstanding advantage in the defensive department as compared to other tanks: incredible self-healing through Harnessed Shadows and modest but steady self-healing through Combat Technique. Even Combat Readiness can provide a moderate 10% immediate heal, though it is on a 2-minute cooldown.

 

 

Utility: This is where Kinetic Combat shines. I would argue that no other class/spec in the game approaches Kinetic's utility except for the infamous hybrid Sage build.

 

Here is a list of the utility available to a Kinetic Shadow:

 

1. 6s duration, 10m range, 12s cooldown, low-damage 50% snare (Force Slow).

2. 15s duration, 10m range, 8s cooldown, medium-high damage 30% AoE snare with 5% damage reduction to target attached (Slow Time).

3. 8m range, 20s cooldown AoE knockback (Force Wave).

4. 2s duration, 4m range, 30s cooldown, low-damage knockdown (Spinning Kick).

5. 4s duration, 30m range, 1min cooldown, low-damage stun (Force Stun).

6. 10m-30m range, 45s cooldown single-target pull (Force Pull).

7. 2s duration, 20s cooldown 150% speed increase with root/snare break attached.

8. 8s duration, 10m range single-target from-stealth mez (Mind Maze).

9. 8s duration, 30m range, 1m cooldown, 2s cast-time single target mez (Force Lift).

10. The amazing Resilience, a 5s duration, 45s cooldown 100% Force/Tech resist buff.

11. The almost as amazing Force Cloak, a 3min cooldown in-combat stealth.

12. The tank-standard Guard and two taunts.

 

Nothing else except a hybrid-spec Sage even comes close to this list of utility. A Kinetic Shadow is basically three damage abilities (Double Strike, Project, Telekinetic Throw) combined with a laundry list of utility.

 

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Opinionated Synopsis:

 

Passive defenses need to be fixed to work against player attacks (specifically Force and Tech attacks). Lukewarm damage output is tolerable when combined with strong defenses and powerful utility, but right now Kinetic Shadows have only powerful utility -- their defenses are actually weaker than what a DPS Commando or Mercenary can muster in most situations.

 

I PvP a lot, and Shadows/Assassins of any spec are a rare sight. I am known on my server because I am one of the very, very few who is seen frequently in Ilum or Warzones -- I am no amazing PvPer, but the simple fact that I am a Shadow makes me stand out.

 

I honestly believe that if the bugs to Project were fixed (they affect Shock as well) and if shield chance and defense applied to more player-generated attacks you would see a lot more Shadows running around. The class is well-designed by held back by these two issues.

 

Thank you for your time.

 

 

Very Respectfully,

Tiresias

[AMKSED]

If tanks got shields got even more benefits vs shield/force attacks then tanks would be far too OP.

 

And 31/0/10 and 27/0/14 is one of the BEST and most OP builds out there for the class. They need to start fixing Infiltration because as it is, there's no reason to play that spec for Shadow/Assassin.

 

 

I agree they should fix the bugged things with the class but they shouldn't do anything to beef it up outside of what it already has.

Edited February 23, 2012 by AMKSED

[Tiresias]

If tanks got shields got even more benefits vs shield/force attacks then tanks would be far too OP.

 

And 31/0/10 and 27/0/14 is one of the BEST and most OP builds out there for the class. They need to start fixing Infiltration because as it is, there's no reason to play that spec for Shadow/Assassin.

 

 

I agree they should fix the bugged things with the class but they shouldn't do anything to beef it up outside of what it already has.

 

Er... you know that Shields don't work against Tech/Force attacks at all right?

 

And neither does Defense?

 

And almost all relevant attacks in PvP are either Tech or Force? The only exception to this being the Jedi Knight/Sith Warrior classes -- whose comparative ineffectiveness in PvP can be attributed to the fact that almost everything they do is subject to Shield/Defense checks but their own defenses only work well against... check this out... other Jedi Knights/Sith Warriors.

 

Go check out the abilities on TORHead if you don't believe me. Almost every single high-damage ability for almost every single class EXCEPT for Jedi Knights/Sith Warriors is a Force or Tech attack.

 

If tank defenses worked in PvP they wouldn't be overpowered... they would just be TANKS. They may even have a place in large-scale PvP such as in Ilum. Shadows and Assassins are particularly affected by this oversight because their low armor (the lowest of any tank class) is supposed to be offset by a higher shield and defense chance. Furthermore, their main defensive cooldown is ALSO tied to defense chance -- a statistic that is almost entirely circumvented in PvP.

[Alex-PcJ]

I want to support the theme.

I play a shadow of the tank since the start of the game. I like this class and I want to play this tank.

Reaching the cap, I was faced with several challenges. As a PvE - kinetics shadow is excellent. But I pvp player. And in PvP it is now important for the tank only to the amount of health, so as not sheld not defins in pvp do not protect the tank (only protects against standart attacks)

I even conducted a test with my friend, both 50 and 60 lvl rank of Valor. Test the accuracy on me (shadow tank) Defense rating at the time of the test 31

Experienced commando - two accuracy rating of 90 and 103

Any attack is not white (internal, elemental, kinetics and etc.) are never deflect without def ability. Attack of weapon dmg based skill (white) in the absence of accuracy almost lose their accuracy. But the usual standard attack suffers a loss in accuracy, just about 10%.

The result of this

Standrartnye pvp sets (def, shild, absorb) do not provide current survival rate in the current game mechanics

[felirx]

Attack of weapon dmg based skill (white) in the absence of accuracy almost lose their accuracy

 

Wait, what?

[Magnesium]

Shadow Tanks played well are hard to kill, the issue for Force/Tech not going against Defence or Shield is important but also part of their Rock/Paper/Scissors setup, for me the bigger issue is the lack of good damage reduction against internal/elemental, we take lot of those type of hits and a lot of them are based on force/tech and therefore we not only can not defend against them but also lack good damage resistance against them.

 

The DPS on a Shadow has extremes and if you can adapt to those extremes you can make it work, since we use a lot of DPS from auto crit Project my Tanking/DPS build relies a lot on decent base Surge ( The surge nerf hit our DPS hard).

 

The OP also forgot to mention our 30% or under execute skill which can also add decent DPS into the rotation, while using Spinning strike with extra inc damage and well timed project help too.

 

I was a Infil Shadow for the longest time, reach rank 68 in PvP in that alone and while I felt I could be targetted quickly I had to balance that against strong quick burst DPS but while that tree needs some more work, it was far from a bad spec. I must admit though, I do enjoy taking on 3 enemies at once and killing them all, whereas before it was a case of bursting 1 down and then stealthing up to re-plan your next attack.

[Smerte]

Kinetic Shadows are fine the way they are. We do not need extra survivability, especially not against tech / force attacks. We're immune for 5 seconds every 45 seconds to those abilities... no other class can say the same. What do you want more?

 

This spec is based around utility, group play, survivability, while still maintaining very decent DPS. Giving us even more defenses would make our class truly overpowered.

[Crowleyz]

As someone who plays Darkness in PvP, I can testify that we do NOT need more survivability. It's totally fine. Our damage is crap, but we're tanks so what can you do.

 

My analysis:

 

1. Stealth to a fire trap.

2. Wait for the enemy carrier and his 5 healers to walk by.

3. Drag victim to fire trap right before it starts up.

4. Apply crowd control in the form of stun/knockdown.

5. /laugh

6. Take ball.

7. Press sprint.

8. Move towards goal line --->

9. /s WINNING!!!

10. Score.

11. Repeat as needed.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Crowleyz

[Fairell]

i admit i also switched to KC at rank 66 or smth. kinetic is strong duelist, but for group pvp i would almost prefer a guardian. no matter how strong kinetic is, it is the only tank lacking an ability to mitigate focus fire.

 

 

since mitigation stuff is additive, has anybody tested this?

 

against force/tech a guardian/jugg has 40% base mitigation + 6% less dmg taken due to stance, + 25% less dmg through blade ward and + 40% less dmg through warding call. so it should grant immunity or near that against force/tech. + they take much less dmg through normal attacks and 1-2% more through internal/elemental.

 

guardian with all cd on is immortal for the duration. unfortunately kinetics cant do the same. we still die quite fast when focused

[MashTactics]

Explain to me in the form of something other than a three paragraph essay why we need to give a stealth tank more survivability than it currently has?

[Fairell]

Explain to me in the form of something other than a three paragraph essay why we need to give a stealth tank more survivability than it currently has?

 

as a tank in grp pvp you have to..well.. tank. and stealth does not help you at all with that. stealth has its benefits sometimes, but is more useful to a solo player. in a premade kinetic doesnt need stealth at all.

[Crowleyz]

in a premade kinetic doesnt need stealth at all.

 

I do not support this sentiment.

[Aidank]

Out of the three tanks, you're 1st in utility, 2nd in damage, and 3rd in survivability? Is what you're saying?

 

doesn't really seem like that big of a problem to me.

[Fairell]

I do not support this sentiment.

 

like i said, it sometimes gives you small tactical advantage but you dont really need it.

 

love having it though

[Cyannez]

i admit i also switched to KC at rank 66 or smth. kinetic is strong duelist, but for group pvp i would almost prefer a guardian. no matter how strong kinetic is, it is the only tank lacking an ability to mitigate focus fire.

 

 

since mitigation stuff is additive, has anybody tested this?

 

against force/tech a guardian/jugg has 40% base mitigation + 6% less dmg taken due to stance, + 25% less dmg through blade ward and + 40% less dmg through warding call. so it should grant immunity or near that against force/tech. + they take much less dmg through normal attacks and 1-2% more through internal/elemental.

 

guardian with all cd on is immortal for the duration. unfortunately kinetics cant do the same. we still die quite fast when focused

 

The main difference being that a tank specced guardina/jugg does close to no dmg when compared to a darkness sin. We are by far the tank that does the most dmg.

 

The only wz where you would want a true tank (as in tank spec AND gear) is huttball and there juggs make for a better carrier not due to their mitigation but mostly due to their insane mobility alowing to bipass the y-axis. In every other wz i would pick a sin a thousand times before a jugg.

 

As oposed to juggs/pts who lose A LOT of dmg to switch to their tanking/guarding stance you don't lose anything

 

I don't know how can someone can ask for buffs considering the curent status of darkness sins.

 

They are ne of the best (if not the best) dueling class with marauders being the only contender.

In wzs if you follow the 'corect" path (survivor gear for the set bonuses with dps mods/enh and a shield generator) you have great survivability and great dmg at the same time.

 

The shield is just a "bonus". It may not proc vs a lot of things but it still reduces a great amount of dmg (and totaly nullifies sniper dmg tbh). It's not like you invest a lot to get a shiled. Just 1 talent point and you have a 35% proc chance. You also lose about 200 force power but you gain 500hp.

 

Now about the elemental dmg: you get a 21% reduction from talents (it's not like you have any better choices anyway) and from your buff. That seems resonable mitigation compared to other classes.

 

 

I, for example, have 41% energy/kinetic dmg reduction through armor and talents, 17.23% deflect chance, 35% shield chance with darkward up, 21% reduction to internal and elemental and exactly 17k hp. that w/o really sacrificing any dps stats (1506 wp, 393 power, 75% surge)

 

If that's not tanky enough for a spec that can also do a great amount of dmg i don't know what you are thinking.

 

EDIT: to Aidak we are 2nd in utility (after pts since they have a charge, an aoe stun, a better grip and an imobilize that doesn't add resolve) but we are by far the first in dmg w/o a contest.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Cyannez

[SWB-NL]

i admit i also switched to KC at rank 66 or smth. kinetic is strong duelist, but for group pvp i would almost prefer a guardian. no matter how strong kinetic is, it is the only tank lacking an ability to mitigate focus fire.

 

How much more do we need to mitigate focus fire than Resilience? 5 seconds of being immune against nearly everything which is particularly nasty, on only a 45 second cooldown. If properly used totally negates attempts to burst you down and wastes opponents cooldowns.

 

 

since mitigation stuff is additive, has anybody tested this?

 

against force/tech a guardian/jugg has 40% base mitigation + 6% less dmg taken due to stance, + 25% less dmg through blade ward and + 40% less dmg through warding call. so it should grant immunity or near that against force/tech. + they take much less dmg through normal attacks and 1-2% more through internal/elemental.

 

First of all this depends on the type of damage being done; Elemental and Internal damage is not mitigated by Armor. (Energy and Kinetic is) It's true Guardians and Powertechs have a slight mitigation advantage from armor (they have 45% roughly I believe, we get about 40%). However this is partially mitigated by our self healing, so I'd say the gap isn't all that significant.

 

Overall though, complaining about cooldowns is silly. You are complaining here that if Guardians stacks two three minute cooldowns, they become immune to force and tech attacks for 10 seconds. We can use a single cooldown which grants 5 seconds of immunity every 45 seconds. This is both superior uptime (20 seconds every 3 minutes), not to mention in the majority of cases (excluding hutball, where quite honestly passing is often a better idea than trying to walk the ball all the way across the line) once you activate Resilience and classes see they aren't hitting you, they will quite frequently give up and switch to another target. (And again here, we have it better than Guardians with 4 activations per 3 minutes)

 

Of course Warding Call is very nice as a cooldown, but to complain that Guardians by stacking cooldowns can become immune to tech/force makes zero sense as a Shadow.

 

I also disagree on the damage issue. I feel we have surprisingly good on demand burst for a tank (This is assuming you actually use Stalker gear, as loading up on defensive stats is just wasteful) with Force Potency, Particle Acceleration and Relics/Adrenals, especially if we get the chance to follow up with Spinning Strike, depending on health. Obviously DPS specs are going to do more, but I have no problem killing players as a tank. I'm a little on the fence with the Force Potency + Upheaval thing, since it indeed eats charges but otoh also provides even higher burst damage if that happens.

 

I don't entirely agree with mindsnap complaints either to be honest. It's indeed in a somewhat longer cooldown, but not that long. When wearing the most useful combo of PvP gear however (2 Stalker, 2 Survivor) we have a 15 yard range Mindsnap combined with a 20 second cooldown Spinning Kick. That's plenty of options for interrupting.

 

 

I don't really see that many reasons to complain right now as Shadow. The class has some issues, just like most other classes do, and hopefully they get fixed. The tanking stats issue is a general issue which plagues all tanks. I don't like it very much either that it's worthless to use tank stats in PvP, but it's not really a class issue which hits us worse than other tanks. (If anything, Vanguards/Powertechs might be hit harder by it, with their dependency on Shield procs, whereas our only impact is DB Saber Defense not returning as much force)

 

Overall though a Kinetic Shadow is a very potent character if you know what you are doing and want to win warzones. They are far from rare on Bloodworthy as well, with us frequently having about three geared shadows in warzones, and these being very useful in winning the game. (I very much agree with the above sentiment that the only situation where I would prefer a Guardian over a Shadow in a warzone would be hutball as ball carrier, and we still have plenty of skills to help our team win there without being the primary ball carrier.)

Edited February 23, 2012 by SWB-NL

[Fairell]

i didnt ask for buffs and im pvping as 31/0/10 now with stalker gear and 2 pieces survivor (too lazy to switch mods)

 

as full tank sin (def gear and def mods) you wont do any dmg and still die faster that PT or jugg.

 

now to make things clear, i kicked as.ses as infiltrator and i still do as kinetic. i just said that for node or door guarding, nothing beats full tank juggernaut. PT coming close second.

 

in a full pvp tank role, those two a better than sin in my opinion, cause they just last longer for reinforcements to arrive.

[Crowleyz]

That 100% resist to force and tech is pure gold. Use that while running over a fire trap and you won't get cc'd, big, big, BIG advantage right there.

[Khabarach]

As a side note a couple of things need to be pointed out in regards to comparing the tanks.

 

First off, PT's and Juggs don't have equivalent armour values as PT's get a 16% bonus in tank stance. The armour values go in order PT >> Jugg > Sin.

 

The 3 specs also don't have equivalent HP values. Both PT's and Sin get a 3% End bonus in their tree, where as there is none in the Jugg tree. Gear wise, there is discrepancy in the amount of Endurance present on tier gear. It works out as Sin > PT > Jugg.

 

Personally mitigation wise I'd put PT at the top with Sin next and then Jugg.

 

as full tank sin (def gear and def mods) you wont do any dmg and still die faster that PT or jugg.

Your self heals more than make up for the armour difference, especially given the End bonus too.

now to make things clear, i kicked as.ses as infiltrator and i still do as kinetic. i just said that for node or door guarding, nothing beats full tank juggernaut. PT coming close second.

I'd say the opposite. If you are solo, Sin is probably the best due to being able to drop combat and reopen. Given the 8s cap time, this is pretty huge when trying to last as long as possible before reinforcements arrive.

 

If there's a healer defending too though, Jugg would win out. Lower cd on interrupts and taunts, more stuns/CC and an extra 4s 20% damage reduction to the healer (Intercede) makes a Jugg/healer duo pretty tough to take down quickly.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Khabarach

[angryca]

Er... you know that Shields don't work against Tech/Force attacks at all right?

 

And neither does Defense?

 

And almost all relevant attacks in PvP are either Tech or Force?

 

I have been thinking lately that shields should extend to (nearly) all atacks (they could have a few attacks specifically ignore them). Also guard damage should run through shields but nothing else (it is nice and visual since you seem to be using the shield to guard them). This would give some motivation to get these stats and allow people to run builds that are better or worse at this sort of 'pvp tanking'.

 

Deflection is a more difficult subject. A shadow with nothing but the relevent talents in the tree has 16% parry/deflect. A shadow with the relevant shield talents (and KW up but that is easy) has 8.4% shield mitigation to appropriate attacks. Something has to give here - maybe defense is fine the way it is.

[SWB-NL]

as full tank sin (def gear and def mods) you wont do any dmg and still die faster that PT or jugg.

 

Going as a Shadow/Sin with full tank gear is just a bad idea right now as you say. The gains you make in survivability don't really make up for the loss in damage. Luckily, in Stalker gear our damage is quite nasty compared to the other tanks.

 

i just said that for node or door guarding, nothing beats full tank juggernaut. PT coming close second.

 

I disagree there as well. The other tanks may be more durable (but again, I feel a well timed Resilience can increase your durability enormously). However the time gained by being able to start the fight on your terms most of the time (letting the opponent start the cap and sapping him wastes a lot of the attacker's time) makes us great solo defenders against small forces, whereas Resilience as well as Force Cloak to buy time until reinforcements arrive make us rather good against bigger groups as well.

[Desgarden]

All tanks need would be that force and tech doesn't ignore the shields etc anymore. Believe me, I play a marksman sniper and this AC's damage has to pass through ALL available defenses. In 1 vs 1 ít is hard to win because of all the mitigation even with shatter shot. It is like hitting a brickwall

[Alex-PcJ]

It seems that no one understood the point.

The point is not that the shadow is not enough survival, but the fact that in pvp useless stat in Tank sets (def, shield, absorb)

Because the shield does not work on any abilities (even based on weapon dmg) as well as defiance (standard battlemaster setup with hidh level of accuracy!) for any tanks =)

Works only surv ability.

[SWB-NL]

It seems that no one understood the point.

The point is not that the shadow is not enough survival, but the fact that in pvp useless stat in Tank sets (def, shield, absorb)

Because the shield does not work on any abilities (even based on weapon dmg) as well as defiance (standard battlemaster setup with hidh level of accuracy!) for any tanks =)

Works only surv ability.

 

Both the title and the entire OP is mostly an analysis of the Shadow/Sin's weak points and their merits compared to other tank classes.

 

The issue of tank stats being worthless affects all tanks and is also heavily discussed in other threads.

[Cyannez]

It seems that no one understood the point.

The point is not that the shadow is not enough survival, but the fact that in pvp useless stat in Tank sets (def, shield, absorb)

Because the shield does not work on any abilities (even based on weapon dmg) as well as defiance (standard battlemaster setup with hidh level of accuracy!) for any tanks =)

Works only surv ability.

 

Shield works versus any attack that says "deals xxx weapon dmg" in the tooltip. From a sniper point of view that's all their attack except the explosive probe. From a sin pov it's trash and maul.

 

2nd of all why would you get tanking in the first place? it's borederline useless. You can't really "tank" other players. You can't force them to attack you so you will get ignored while you do pityfull dmg.

 

The concept of a "tank" in this game's pvp is a char who can keep guard on another player 24/7 and use he's taunts on cd. What are you gonna do besides this as tank geared? crit for 800?

 

You could just aswell get dps gear and do all the guarding/taunting while puting out an impresive amount of dmg. And out of all the tanks the sins are the only ones who can actually contribute in this aspect in a resonable way.

 

Juggs switching to their guard stance lose a lot of rage gain unless they are attacked (why would you attack him and not the healer in the first place?) and that means they also lose a lot of damage.

PT's tanking tree is lousy at best for pvp dps so i won't even mention that. (might be better if you go hybrid. I don't really know since PT is the only tank i never played so i might be wrong)

 

The only situation in which you might use a "full tank" is huttball but even there a high mobility (jugg/marauder) char or good position/passing are a lot better for your team than just tanking everything while you crawl to the scoring line.

 

And about the acc issue on Bm gear, you know you can swap those out right? I swaped all the enh and even some mods from my bm gear because they were useless. Just rip the mods/enh out of rakata / other class' champion gear depending on your needs. (for example the "enforcer" gloves enhs are very good for sins since they give end/pwr/surge, same for the rakata mods with end/wp/power)

Edited February 23, 2012 by Cyannez