PVP Tankassin

[iiconik]

iiconik

03/01/12

Darkness Assassin

PVP Build 33/0/8

-Gear: See Gearing at bottom

-Stance: Dark Charge

-Off Hand: Focus

-Ability Priority: force lightning (3 charge) > wither > shock > discharge > thrash > saber strike

0. Target running or >10m range then force slow/pull/force speed or if 3 stacks of harness darkness and target will eat an entire force lightning then pop recklessness and a power or surge clicky and force lightning.

1. if the target is =<30% assassinate.

2. Shock on CD to build charges of harness darkness

3. wither to get debuff up

4. discharge

5. spam wither/saber strike/thrash depending on level of force and range of the target

 

You may prioritize Thrash higher if you are able to maintain good uptime in melee range in order to get more energize procs or if you don't need the defensive debuffs from wither/discharge.

 

Open to comments on this priority list.

 

STRATEGY

Make sure you kite other melee. You have 10m range vs their 4m range. Against healers use your stun, interrupt, knock-back, and spike to control their healing. Be sure to get your 3 stacks before popping your force lightning. Fill in the gaps with discharge and Saber Strike..

 

Use stealth and pull to set up 1v1s. Use stealth and AoE knockback to get up beside a caster on a vantage point and knock him down to where you want to fight him. Use your defensives when you get focused obviously. Use guard on squishies to get your guard medals. Get your Matrix cube from datacrons. Get all your useful datacrons. Obviously use dark charge.

 

Now this spec is versatile. You can gear out pure dps other than the shield generator and have great damage (2-4k assassinates, ~2400 crit shocks with 45% for another to follow etc). This makes you a great brawler able to survive in the fray and escape when you need to or 1v1 ANYONE. NOTE*** healers can be tough to kill without big burst damage, save interrupts and DPS clickies for these situations. Or you can go full tank gear to ball carry or be a huge support to your team and leave the damage dealing to the OP mercs.

 

Final note: Many of you think operatives are OP but guess what... with this spec you will crush them. You have more than enough survivability to outlive their burst if you get caught in it. Return fire with your own CC, get your defensives up, heals up, and start kiting them with force slow and your 10m range moves for the win. If you happen to have your CC break up its GG and the operative is toast.

 

TLDR - Spike out of stealth, pull, massive survivability and escapability, good damage, 20s force speed with snare/root break, ability to kite and not be kited with 4-10m range moves = IMMORTAL!

 

(Quick Tips)

-Your primary job is to get as much attention as possible off your team. Feel free to run through crowds of enemies throwing out a taunt and smashing healers in the face to get that attention.

-Learn to CC/interrupt lock healers. KB, jolt, electrocute, pull, and spike are very important to locking down a healer. A locked down healer heals no one which makes ppl attack you.

-My preferred open in huttball is pull into the acid, spike them, then stun them as they get up if needed. If you stun before spike you trigger resolve. Spike also pushes ppl forward a couple meters use this if an enemies is too near a cliff or trap.

-Medpacks are your friends carry one at all times.

-Don't be afraid to blow your defensive cds in order to survive.

-Learn the locations of the healing powerups they can extend your staying power tremendously.

-When in doubt vanish and run the time it takes to you find a spot to seethe is usually less than the time needed to respawn and move halfway across the field.

 

 

GEARING

PvP is where the whole thing gets complicated. Avoidance and Shielding (especially shielding) are mostly worthless in PvP, as they will not activate properly on a significant portion of the attacks delivered in PvP. My recommendation for PvP tanks is to slot a balance of power and surge rating in your upgrade slots, along with a bit of critical hit rating. This extends to your relics and adrenals; only your stim is possibly in question, since a higher Endurance translates to a bigger Harnessed Shadow heal. Expertise is, of course, the most important stat - it improves all of your healing - but it's basically a default stat that doesn't need to be factored in. At 50, you'll want to run with two pieces of Survivor PvP gear rather than Stalker PvP gear if you went deep enough to get the Stasis skill - just unslot the Survivor mods and put in Stalker mods. Yes, that means you have to get at least two extra pieces of Centurion, Champion or Battlemaster.

 

I do not recommend equipping a Shield Generator in PvP; you'll be better off with a Power Generator.

Saying shield and defense is useless is an exaggeration. But in my opinion the defense it gives doesn't outweight the offense you loose. (Getting 2 sets of gear depending on role, as has been mentioned, is of course an alternative.)

 

Thank you to Strategiize for suggesting a 3 piece stalker, 2 piece survivor gear setup. Ideally one would pull the tanking mods out of the survivor gear and replace them with power/surge/crit mods. With this setup you keep your dps up while taking advantage of the very useful 20s CD on Spike!

 

MODDING:Ditch all Accuracy mods. Ideally you want "Willpower/Endurance/Power" and "Endurance/Power/Surge" mods (the latter you get from BH or IA gear, depending on the endurance/power ratio you want - Why no accuracy? Most of your damage is force attack based, which there is close to 0 "defense" (resistance) against. As a Darkness Sin, you probably have 2% resistance: You put 2 points in Premonition (this is defense against all attacks, including Tech and Force, if you belive the in-game Character Sheet). So 2% accuracy is all you need to get 100% force hit percentage in a mirror match. Afaik other classes generally aren't better off in the resistance department.

 

(Alternate gearing opinion for DPS PVP)

[5/5 Stalker; take pieces based on the stats and pull out all the accuracy mods, since Accuracy + Power or Accuracy + Crit can only be replaced with Surge + Power or Surge + Crit. Stacking Surge is most advatageous. A vast majority of the attacks used are force attacks, so accuracy is not needed. Also push surge up to a base 70% then raise crit. Never take survivor. Tanking stats dont seem to have enough impact on PvP as pure damage stats. Best way to survive in PvP is through smart gamesplay, positioning, timing of CDs, and having a good team backing you up.]

 

 

(Gearing alternative opinion by Enexemander)

"The survivor gear is just overall better for a darkness spec. Yes, with stalker gear a darkness spec can do okay damage, but we're not talking Madness assassin level of damage by any stretch. In my opinion, the survivability you give up is not worth the extra damage. Any class with white attacks I completely laugh at. Marauders? They're a joke. They RUN from me after fighting about 10 seconds and they see which way the wind is blowing. There is no 1v1 match up that I fear in full Survivor. It's worth noting that the Health increase in survivor is SIGNIFICANT. I'm at 20k with just my class buffs and stim. In my opinion, Darkness Assassins in tank gear are also the best ball runners in huttball. Charge is nice, but it depends on the team you're fighting to be idiots about positioning. You can bet at the battlemaster level that's going bye-bye when ranked WZs hit. Really, it's all about how you play. I run the ball. I defend my team, the doors and the turrets. If anyone decides they want to get their 1v1 medal attacking me, I WRECK them. Conversely, I feel if you want to be the guy pressuring the healers, killing the enemy dps to cap and such, you'd just be better served as a real dps spec. Darkness in full dps gear is okay, but let me be clear- Darkness spec damage even in DPS DOES NOT COMPARE with both deception and madness for burst and healer pressure. So anyway, in my opinion, if you're going to be squishy, you might as well respec dps and be useful. If you want to be a tank, roll with the tank gear and be unstoppable. "

Edited March 1, 2012 by iiconik