Harnessed Darkness\Shadows - The most OP talent in the game

[Sookster]

Our tank assassins consistently put out a lot more damage than our other tanks--didn't know this was the reason why. Tank specs in this game have three awesome things going for them: guard, taunt, and huttball. There's no need to throw burst in there.

 

About huttball, nothing touches a team of sorc/assassin, sage/shadows, bubble+forcespeed+pull gets you 6 goals in < 2 minutes. Even in Voidstar, you don't even need to extract the bridge to get to the second set of doors. in Alderaan, you can get to the side turrets faster.

[Jagerinho]

Our tank assassins consistently put out a lot more damage than our other tanks--didn't know this was the reason why. Tank specs in this game have three awesome things going for them: guard, taunt, and huttball. There's no need to throw burst in there.

 

lol

 

Please don't comment about things you don't understand.

 

the "tank" specced shadows/assassins you are taking about aren't actually tanks. We get our damage through wearing DPS gear.

 

If other tanks wore DPS gear in PvP you would see similar results. Obviously when shadow "tanks" do this, our defensive rating drops.

 

p.s. we also wear cloth.

[iLLaDeLpHLife]

Now sins are op

 

These forums really are the lowest point in human civilization.

[neandramathal]

 

the "tank" specced shadows/assassins you are taking about aren't actually tanks. We get our damage through wearing DPS gear.

 

Not to mention Slow time spam is AoE.

 

450k damage as full kinetic in a voidstar, top I've done in my usual spec is 370k (not full inf, but still built for damage).

 

I would never call a kinetic shadow burst.

[cycao]

Now sins are op

 

These forums really are the lowest point in human civilization.

 

I think when they made hybrid builds not worth while, the majority of the players went darkness.

[Grubfist]

lol

 

Please don't comment about things you don't understand.

 

the "tank" specced shadows/assassins you are taking about aren't actually tanks. We get our damage through wearing DPS gear.

 

If other tanks wore DPS gear in PvP you would see similar results. Obviously when shadow "tanks" do this, our defensive rating drops.

 

p.s. we also wear cloth.

 

Most tanks wear offensive stat gear in PvP.

 

Defensive stats are pretty underrated. Especially as a vanguard, where it's all Absorption on the pvp gear.

[pixelelement]

I'm a shadow, and TBH I'm fed up of seeing the amount of tank shadow/sins around lately too. Great for holding a point in Civil War or carrying huttball, but when you need to kill someone quick... well, itd be nice to see the occasional DPS one.

 

It's not the damage that HD/HS does that bugs me, but the heal. With them all running tank gear AND spec, 12% of the HP is about 2.5k. I've tried the spec (altho not in tank gear, dont have any for PvP) and I didnt find it had any burst at all, but pressure damage.. its fcking great.

 

450k damage, 75k healing in the same warzone with only 16k hp... if I had the 23k that tank geared ones did, that healing would be far higher.

 

Worst part of all the tank shadows? They still don't seem to understand protection.

 

EDIT: Hadnt read the last few responses to this thread.

 

I'm not sure if Harnessed shadows are affected by trauma, I never paid enough attention to it in warzones - but on ilum its definitely healing 3% per tick. If it was affected by trauma (does it exist on ilum thats what i cant remember, dont go there much) it would be 2.1%.

 

3 stacks in 6 seconds is very possible. Project/Shock = 1 stack, Wither/Slow Time = 2 stack, the CD on project/shock is 6s... see where I'm going with this? Even without that, particle acceleration/equiv give you a chance to reset your CD on it after using double strike.

 

EDIT2: Still not as retarded as AoE 5k crits that take about 5s to build up on 20s CD....

 

Your first stack of x3 HD you could get off in the 6secs, but anything after that will take longer. Wither is 30FP, and shock is 39/45 FP depending on spec. So its not spamable.

 

HD is effected by Trauma in WZ. My ticks are in the 400's not 600's

[Cyannez]

lol

 

Please don't comment about things you don't understand.

 

the "tank" specced shadows/assassins you are taking about aren't actually tanks. We get our damage through wearing DPS gear.

 

If other tanks wore DPS gear in PvP you would see similar results. Obviously when shadow "tanks" do this, our defensive rating drops.

 

p.s. we also wear cloth.

 

I'm sorry to disappoint you but no other tank spec can come even close to the dmg darkness puts out.

 

Shieldteck has so pitiful dmg in w/e gear you want to use and immortal isn't far away either.

 

And for god's sake we don't use cloth. We have a god damn armor increase in both our charge and our talents. Atm i have almost 7k armor and that's 39% dmg reduction. If that's cloth i'm curious to see what heavy armor does.

 

In the end i must say i don't find assassins over the top, maybe just in 1v1 where we can't be challenged by anything except marauders (maybe), and i don't think HD is the reason we do so much dmg. It's just the entire tool-set with wither/discharge being aoe and our very good survivability allowing us a very high up time in fights.

[Korrigan]

Unlike other heavy tank specs, like juggernauts or powertechs and their mirrors, which balance their survivability with lower damage output - it seems assassin specs mostly just lose a measly 5% to bonus damage from the stance but that's about it.

It's obvious you don't have a clue about what you're talking about here. Out of curiosity... do you have a max level shadow or assassins? Guess not.

 

This is done outside of melee range, is uninterruptable, and takes 6 seconds max to setup to get full stacks...

If the first part wasn't enough, here's another proof. Just for your information, it can be interrupted, and in NO way you're gonna be able to use it ever 6 seconds. Obviously another case of "learn to play" here.

[Ahhmyface]

I think we should fix this by giving deception healing debuffs. Thanks.

 

[neandramathal]

If the first part wasn't enough, here's another proof. Just for your information, it can be interrupted, and in NO way you're gonna be able to use it ever 6 seconds. Obviously another case of "learn to play" here.

 

Actually, it ISNT interuptable if you have 3 stacks other than via CC.

[Hethroin]

I urge everyone here that's talking about force consumption and time-to-stack HS, and burst DPS to look at the document I made. It is a time table of the "I want maximum HS-ed TK Trows".

 

It clearly shows that the first fully charged Throw cannot occur until the 6-second mark (statistically, you are likely to have to wait till the 8-second mark if your 1st DS does not grant particle acceleration). From this point on your force regeneration limits you to Throwing once every 12 seconds.

 

When you consider that the ability is getting 6k damage total when 3 tics crit over a period of 3 seconds (as seen in the video, against a low valor target with adrenals popped), with a 12 second low-dps build up it doesn't seem that OP. It also happens to be the reason I don't spec it on my Sin or Shadow, it's a DPS loss over DS/Project-spam (when speced for 50% more crit damage in DS) against non-tanks. I take the instant lift and FiB instead.

[Vember]

Immortal spec juggs, even in dps gear, are far more survivable than kinetic shadows. Therein lies the tradeoff.

[Astarica]

For people who say use Stun/KBs, those tend to stop every form of melee burst DPS already (if you consider Assassins as a melee class) so the fact that Force Lightning gets stopped by those isn't saying anything. You can run any burst DPS rotation as a melee you want and getting tossed/stunned as you prepare to unleash your DPS stops it fine. If the Assassin knows what he's doing he should start his casting outside melee range which makes stun the only viable method to interrupt it, and stun absolutely stops any form of DPS when applied at the right time.

 

Harnessed Darkness is overkill at 3 stacks because it forces you to use a second Shock which isn't very Force efficient. But at 2 stacks it means you fry someone for 6K instead of 7K which isn't really a big difference. It's not effective against high armor target but that's not saying much (nothing is from an Assassin's skillset).

[Astarica]

Actually, it ISNT interuptable if you have 3 stacks other than via CC.

 

It's uninterruptible with only one stack. 3 stacks is only needed for healing.

[Hethroin]

For people who say use Stun/KBs, those tend to stop every form of melee burst DPS already (if you consider Assassins as a melee class) so the fact that Force Lightning gets stopped by those isn't saying anything. You can run any burst DPS rotation as a melee you want and getting tossed/stunned as you prepare to unleash your DPS stops it fine. If the Assassin knows what he's doing he should start his casting outside melee range which makes stun the only viable method to interrupt it, and stun absolutely stops any form of DPS when applied at the right time.

 

I think the argument here is that the stacks of HS are consumed as soon as you start the channel; a stun after the 1st tic requires the shadow to start stacking HS from 0.

 

I would venture to say that dealing 6k to someone over 3 tics 1 second appart isn't really "burst" in this game where a vanguard can attach plastique to someone and then time his 4k HIB to hit at the same time as the 3.5k explosion from the bomb; all of this 7.5k damage happens at the same time, not over 3 seconds and is stacked on top of 2 DoTs. The entire combination also happens to ignore most armor with the exception of the bomb. In the same game a merch can fire off 2 TMs for nearly 3k each within the same time-fram as it takes for one channel of Tk Throw, one minor difference is that TM has no cooldown. Neither of the above examples are OP, and both have reliable counters, as does an HS Throwing tank shadow.

Edited March 2, 2012 by Hethroin

[Astarica]

I think the argument here is that the stacks of HS are consumed as soon as you start the channel; a stun after the 1st tic requires the shadow to start stacking HS from 0.

 

I would venture to say that dealing 6k to someone over 3 tics 1 second appart isn't really "burst" in this game where a vanguard can attach plastique to someone and then time his 4k HIB to hit at the same time as the 3.5k explosion from the bomb; all of this 7.5k damage happens at the same time, not over 3 seconds and is stacked on top of 2 DoTs. The entire combination also happens to ignore most armor with the exception of the bomb. In the same game a merch can fire off 2 TMs for nearly 3k each within the same time-fram as it takes for one channel of Tk Throw, one minor difference is that TM has no cooldown. Neither of the above examples are OP, and both have reliable counters, as does an HS Throwing tank shadow.

 

Let's not whine about other classes for now since everyone will have a sob story about how they were two shotted by someone else.

 

Stun is generally used early in the fight so due to the time need to set up HD stacks you'll generally already be stunned. If you're against some hypothetical flawless opponent who knows your every move, he could time his stun to stop virtually any burst DPS tactic. But yes this is why you should use up the HD stacks at 2 instead of 3, because it takes a lot of effort to setup a third stack and it's not worth risk losing the 3 stacks and the extra Force unless you need the healing to survive.

 

In pretty much every situation you can do a 3 stack HD, you can instead do 2X2 stacks and it does more total damage. 3 stacks makes interesting videos but that's about it.

 

Note that if a melee avoided by FL by running away, you already won the fight since no melee can possibly out DPS a Darkness Assassin from range.

[RobNightfall]

Then you can combine Shroud too and it's gg against a lot of classes.

 

Sins have a lot going for them.

 

IMO, their Tank spec should NOT be doing that damage. You spec Tank/Tank Hybrids for suvivability. It's silly it's spec'd for damage. (On our server most sins have a tankish build in PvP).

 

Their DPS Trees should though, yet as it stands right now if I run in to a DPS sin it's a free kill and they don't do much damage which to me, stands at a current design flaw with the tree and needs to be severely looked at.

 

Our tank spec has all the endurance and survivability of butter cream frosting against BHs and marauders who know what they're doing and are geared. And our damage is none too profound. It takes 40 seconds bare minimum to set up that attack and it doesn't hit that hard against anyone in PvP gear (and I'm talking centurion gear, let alone champ or BM). It's easily interrupted and when you use it in PvP you're vulnerable because you have to sit still for 3 seconds. DPS shadows played by people who know what they're doing hit much, much harder.

[RobNightfall]

Let's not whine about other classes for now since everyone will have a sob story about how they were two shotted by someone else.

 

Stun is generally used early in the fight so due to the time need to set up HD stacks you'll generally already be stunned. If you're against some hypothetical flawless opponent who knows your every move, he could time his stun to stop virtually any burst DPS tactic. But yes this is why you should use up the HD stacks at 2 instead of 3, because it takes a lot of effort to setup a third stack and it's not worth risk losing the 3 stacks and the extra Force unless you need the healing to survive.

 

In pretty much every situation you can do a 3 stack HD, you can instead do 2X2 stacks and it does more total damage. 3 stacks makes interesting videos but that's about it.

 

Note that if a melee avoided by FL by running away, you already won the fight since no melee can possibly out DPS a Darkness Assassin from range.

 

If you're stun is used up use something different. Stun is not the only interrupt in the game.

[yukirshiro]

It just needs to be interupptable. It's stupid it isn't. I can see no pushback but immune to interrupts is ridiculous.

[Grubfist]

Our tank spec has all the endurance and survivability of butter cream frosting against BHs and marauders who know what they're doing and are geared. And our damage is none too profound. It takes 40 seconds bare minimum to set up that attack and it doesn't hit that hard against anyone in PvP gear (and I'm talking centurion gear, let alone champ or BM). It's easily interrupted and when you use it in PvP you're vulnerable because you have to sit still for 3 seconds. DPS shadows played by people who know what they're doing hit much, much harder.

 

Indeed. I've seen many shadows that hybrid balance and KC and sit in combat technique most of the time.

[cycao]

Our tank spec has all the endurance and survivability of butter cream frosting against BHs and marauders who know what they're doing and are geared. And our damage is none too profound. It takes 40 seconds bare minimum to set up that attack and it doesn't hit that hard against anyone in PvP gear (and I'm talking centurion gear, let alone champ or BM). It's easily interrupted and when you use it in PvP you're vulnerable because you have to sit still for 3 seconds. DPS shadows played by people who know what they're doing hit much, much harder.

 

have you played with a darkness spec?

[KaL_InvictuS]

I play a Darkness-specced Assassin with Survivor Champion/Battlemaster gear, and at about 520 expertise I BARELY hit 2.5k critical hit damage ONCE every 2 matches. My average damage per hit is around 400 against heavily-armored targets, or 600-700 against squishier targets.

 

As for my Harnessed Darkness/Lightning combo, it hits for an AMAZING 500-600 damage per tick. Truly magnificent!

 

So...yeah.

Edited March 2, 2012 by KaL_InvictuS

[Grubfist]

I play a Darkness-specced Assassin with Survivor Champion/Battlemaster gear, and at about 520 expertise I BARELY hit 2.5k damage ONCE every 2 matches. My average damage per hit is around 400 against heavily-armored targets, or 600-700 against squishier targets.

 

As for my Harnessed Darkness/Lightning combo, it hits for an AMAZING 500-600 damage per tick. Truly magnificent!

 

So...yeah.

 

Your tank can't get 2.5k damage in one hit? Cool. Neither can several of my dps.

 

Not every class gets big hits.

[KaL_InvictuS]

Your tank can't get 2.5k damage in one hit? Cool. Neither can several of my dps.

 

Not every class gets big hits.

 

 

I agree whole-heartedly! My damage output sucks, and I am totally fine with it. But all that talk about nerfing my already sucky damage is, well, quite ridiculous.

Edited March 2, 2012 by KaL_InvictuS