ColePomaikai Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Which is best to use in pvp? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CplQ Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Your personal playstyle. Game is not as cookie cutter as you think. Every skill tree is viable you just have to be able to play it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SvnStrSlm Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 All are viable for damage Kinetic is good for protecting and capturing objectives. Infiltration is great for ninja-ing points and burst kills. Balance was great for dots and preventing captures. Post 1.1.5 they are pretty much DPS but may be frustratig to play now in PVP I prefer infiltration because with the other builds I always say I would of won if i had more burst. Play what you like most. If there is one thing i found about shadows is the player makes the biggest difference and not the build. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subatomix Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Kinetic. I've posted in lots of other threads as to why. To me, there is no substitute. I mainly pvp but find pve to be very, very easy with my spec. I can get up +3 harnessed shadows, then lifetap, then execute. Fight is over. Spinning kick out of stealth rocks. I don't know how anyone can live w/o kinetic ward, period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaymill Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Infiltration is very good for pvp without a doubt. Burst damage and stealth dependent for the most part. Kinetic is great for pvp due to its surviveability aspect, not to mention they get force pull (which is ******), but they do rather good damage, granted your hitting a player with roughly the same expertise as you. However I cannot speak for either of these trees because I am balance. And I love it. I do not do the most damage but pvp isn't just a frag fest or about who has the highest numbers. Balance has a nice 2 second root with an 18 second dot which ignores resolve which has been a great help in hutt ball. Balance also gives you a 30 meter instant cast aoe that hits up to 4 targets and heals you. Not to mention you get instant cast 18 second dots with no cool down added to the fact that your dots have a chance to heal you. Pretty decent survivability with all the self healing. Don't get me wrong it's nothing incredible, but anything is better than nothing. Instant cast and not cost mind crushes have a chance to proc on melee crits too. Just some food for thought. But give them all a try. Who knows what you'll prefer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kckkryptonite Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 (edited) Kinetic, if you want to play stealth burst make an Operative. Haven't tried the Bal tree yet since Kin is too damn amazing. Maybe 5-10% of the Shadows on my server still actually run ST in the 50's brax. The survivability/dps gain/loss is ridiculously disproportionate. Edited March 7, 2012 by kckkryptonite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greennight Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 31/0/10 kinetic or 23/1/17 hybrid inf spec is too squishy and balance doesnt have burst to deal damage to kill target Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaramis Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 A month ago I would have argued pro-Balance. Since trying out Kinetic in PvP, and with the 1.1.5 changes to DoTs, I just see it as a subpar option now unfortunately :/ Kinetic for survivability and good dps, or Infiltration for higher burst but noticeably less survivability. Those are the 2 main choices IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SvnStrSlm Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 I would like to add I switched to 27/0/14 Hybrid and could be happier with the results. Right now i have full stalker cent with cent survivor shield, waist and champ saber. i feel like an unstopable wrecking ball in PvP. Alot of people say to use two peice cent for the spin kick bonus. ut ill take the extra force pot charge for awesome burst on project. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnesium Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 It really depends what else is around you. If you have plenty of Tanks, then Infil will help in getting plenty of DPS out but you will need the Guard/Heals to be worthwhile when against several or another burst / high armor class. That said Kinetic as it stands without buffs to Infil is the best in really group and solo play and the only thing you will really have issues with is killing a healer who is half decent. Infil is a "from the shadows" attack and get out but Kinetic has so much utility its a much needed support in PvP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philosomanic Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 (edited) Shadow is a great class, as long as it fits your playstyle. I can't really say "Shadow plays like this", because each of the three is so different. So here are the three Shadow talent trees, and how they perform in PvP: Infiltration Infiltration focuses on mobility, single-target control, and large bursts of damage. You get +15% in-combat run speed, a really powerful single-target slow (-50%), and a single-target 4s disable (breaks on damage) with a 15s cooldown that does really high damage. Mixing Low Slash into your rotation results in almost no drop in DPS. Infiltration DPS focuses on using melee skills to get procs, and then using the corresponding force skills for a massive burst of damage. Many of our skills are worthless without procs, but then incredibly powerful with them. For example, with a base cost of 45 Project is too expensive for Infiltration to include in their rotation; however, use Clairvoyant Strike twice and Project only costs 23 force, and does 30% more damage. Infiltration's biggest weakness is it's relative lack of defense. You have a lot of control and decent CC against one target, but your survival relies on taking the opponent down quickly, before they can recover. You can take a lot of damage with your defensive cooldowns up, but after that you have very little armor and no self-healing. An Infiltration Shadow can take down any class, but some (like tanks) that are hard to kill will be much harder. Kinetic Kinetic is the tanking talent tree. Kinetic shadows have the highest amount of group utility; with guard, high defenses, and AoE slows and debuffs, a good Kinetic Shadow can go a long way to keeping their team alive. One of a Kinetic's best skills is Slow Time. It hits 5 targets, does decent damage, and debuffs them for -5% damage and -30% run speed for 15 seconds, on a 7.5 second cooldown. Additionally, you have the defenses to use your taunts and then stick around. Kinetic DPS, especially against single targets, is the lowest of the three trees. This isn't to say that they don't deal damage; a Kinetic tank can still put out high DPS numbers. However, they do significantly less than Balance or Infiltration. Kinetics make up for their lower DPS with significantly higher defenses, and a lot of self-healing. Kinetic DPS also relies on procs; however, some of their force skills also build procs for other force skills. Playing as a Kinetic Shadow is a lot less reliant on luck than Infiltration. One of Kinetic's talents gives some melee skills a chance to make the next Project automatically crit. They rely less on high single hits, and more on sustained damage with lots of self-healing thrown in. You'll be the most valuable shadow for keeping your team alive, and you'll do really well in 1v1s, but some people find the class to play too slowly. Balance Balance is, in my opinion, the most interesting Shadow tree. Balance's power comes from a multitude of DoTs that they can stack on several targets at once. Balance also has a few powerful skills with a 30m range, making them the best of the talent trees at long distance. They're still not nearly as powerful as when they're in melee range, but being at a distance doesn't entirely cripple them. Balance DPS relies on DoTs, and is far more reliant on force powers than the other two. Also, Balance has far less of a reliance on procs than the other two builds. Balance only has one proc (from a melee skill) to watch for. Balance also gets several buffs to melee damage from force powers. However, these are up almost constantly and don't really affect rotation. Balance has defenses in between Infiltration and Kinetic. Any time one of their DoTs crits, the Balance is healed for 2% of their max health. With DoTs ticking away on several targets at once, this results in a steady stream of decent self-heals. They won't be enough to survive focus fire for any length of time, but the heals give a significant advantage in 1v1s. Balance's weakness is burst damage. They don't have the burst damage to take down a healer by themselves, and they don't have the defenses to survive burst or focus damage for any real length of time. However, they can hold their own in almost all 1v1s, and they can put out devastating amounts of damage by putting their DoTs on multiple targets. Although they have the worst burst damage, they have the highest overall DPS output of the three trees. TL;DR Infiltration: Single-target burst, mobility/control, low defenses Kinetic: AoE Control/debuffs, tanking, high defenses Balance: DoTs, decent range, moderate defenses Edited March 7, 2012 by Philosomanic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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