When can we expect to see a nerf of the Hybrid Sin/Shadow? + Proposed changes

[RobNightfall]

This

 

 

 

 

AND STOP SAYING TANKING STATS SUCK IN PVP THEY MOST CERTAINLY DO NOT!

 

 

.

 

 

Yes, yes they do. Get over it, and get over yourself while you're at it.

[Cowflab]

They hate hybrid builds because they didn't design the game around then and didn't prepare for them. I'm sure they wanted to encourage cross-training and flexibility in a class, but I don't think they expected it would be anything like what they've put out. Almost every class has a hybrid spec that is more viable than an main spec build.

 

Agreed. The 23/0/18 hybrid for assassins/shadow was absolutely ridiculous. Best of both worlds being able to use dark charge and still get your dps spec procs.

[Neamhan]

Ok, then let's say 60% of the dps a pure dps spec is capable of. Would this offset the utility that comes along with the spec? Probably not.

 

Preliminary parsing of combat logs from the test server have 31/0/10 Kinetic tanks in DPS gear at 80% of Balance spec (which itself isn't the highest DPS of the various Damage specs of some other ACs). Obviously in tanking gear that would be even lower. It seems to me that nerfing damage, survivability AND utility all in one fell swoop as you would propose would pretty much wreck Kinetics in PvE, given how much less damage they're already doing.

 

Now, could Balance/Infiltration use more survivability and/or utility? Sure, I've always been on board with that. Does Bioware need to do something to make DPS gear less attractive to Tanks in general? Probably, but I don't know how they can do it. I do know that any nerf that affects a tank in tank gear is unwarranted. Indeed, Bioware is buffing Guardian tank damage rather than reducing Shadow/Vanguard tank damage (outside of the Vanguard hybrid, but Bioware hates hybrids in general) so that leads me to believe that tanks are a lot closer to where Bioware wants them than a lot of people on the forums think they are.

[Neamhan]

The 27/2/12 witherless build still has access to Raze(the shadow equivalent escapes me atm) and I think is one of the only viable hybrid specs left in the AC. I have used the spec in the past and faired pretty well with it.

 

27/2/12 can't reach Raze (that would require 16 in Madness) and it only works in Lightning Charge now anyway. You probably mean Claws of Decay, which is the Sith version of Adjudication.

[Viliphied]

Agreed. The 23/0/18 hybrid for assassins/shadow was absolutely ridiculous. Best of both worlds being able to use dark charge and still get your dps spec procs.

 

Yes, it was. Which is why it isn't a thing that works anymore. Which makes me wonder why this thread exists.

[Neamhan]

Agreed. The 23/0/18 hybrid for assassins/shadow was absolutely ridiculous. Best of both worlds being able to use dark charge and still get your dps spec procs.

 

Oh, it was certainly deserved and I wouldn't shed a tear if they take access to Adjudication and Force In Balance away from Kinetics as well.

 

The only one of the hybrid nerfs from two months ago I think they went overboard with was the change in cost to change Techniques. Obviously a Kinetic would rarely ever have a reason to change Techniques but it really hurt Infiltration and Balance survivability. Given how much offense they would have to give up to gain some defense, I think the tradeoff was fine.

[Cowflab]

Preliminary parsing of combat logs from the test server have 31/0/10 Kinetic tanks in DPS gear at 80% of Balance spec (which itself isn't the highest DPS of the various Damage specs of some other ACs). Obviously in tanking gear that would be even lower. It seems to me that nerfing damage, survivability AND utility all in one fell swoop as you would propose would pretty much wreck Kinetics in PvE, given how much less damage they're already doing.

 

Now, could Balance/Infiltration use more survivability and/or utility? Sure, I've always been on board with that. Does Bioware need to do something to make DPS gear less attractive to Tanks in general? Probably, but I don't know how they can do it. I do know that any nerf that affects a tank in tank gear is unwarranted. Indeed, Bioware is buffing Guardian tank damage rather than reducing Shadow/Vanguard tank damage (outside of the Vanguard hybrid, but Bioware hates hybrids in general) so that leads me to believe that tanks are a lot closer to where Bioware wants them than a lot of people on the forums think they are.

 

Later in the post you quoted I proposed adding 5-10% to the damage reduction of dark charge which would put them at 85-90% of the dps specs, so that actually seems on par with your preliminary parsing.

 

The removal of disjunction from darkness to deception would definitely put a dent in darkness' utility but I don't think it would gut the spec. Afterall, these are just my personal "off the cuff" fixes.

 

On an unrelated note, do you have a link to these parses you're referencing?

[Cowflab]

27/2/12 can't reach Raze (that would require 16 in Madness) and it only works in Lightning Charge now anyway. You probably mean Claws of Decay, which is the Sith version of Adjudication.

 

Lol, you're right, I had a brain fart. No raze, but still a viable hybrid. I think I still had 23/0/18 on the mind when I wrote that post.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Cowflab

[Viliphied]

Lol, you're right, I had a brain fart. No raze, but still a viable hybrid. I think I still had 23/0/18 on the mind when I wrote that post.

 

31/0/10 is SO much better than any hybrid right now. I have no idea why someone would even want to go hybrid.

[Neamhan]

Later in the post you quoted I proposed adding 5-10% to the damage reduction of dark charge which would put them at 85-90% of the dps specs, so that actually seems on par with your preliminary parsing.

 

I'm confused, how would adding a further 5-10% damage reduction increase a Kinetic's damage from 80% of Balance to 85-90% of Balance?

 

The removal of disjunction from darkness to deception would definitely put a dent in darkness' utility but I don't think it would gut the spec. Afterall, these are just my personal "off the cuff" fixes.

 

I would consider Disjunction a cornerstone ability for a Darkness Assassin.

 

On an unrelated note, do you have a link to these parses you're referencing?

 

First page of the Shadow subforum.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Neamhan

[Cowflab]

I'm confused, how would adding a further 5-10% damage reduction increase a Kinetic's damage from 80% of Balance to 85-90% of Balance?

 

I wasn't subtracting it off of the 80% parse, I was speaking purely in terms of flat reduction from 100% potential. Although I still think 70-75% sounds reasonable.

 

 

 

I would consider Disjunction a cornerstone ability for a Darkness Assassin.

 

I would too, but removing it from the tree wouldn't gut the spec. You still have untalented force speed as a gap closer and pull. Deception has nothing but untalented speed, and IMHO would benefit the most from this talent.

 

 

 

First page of the Shadow subforum.

 

Thanks.

[Ravenolf]

Oh you sweet, sweet thread. I was worried the sent/mara nerf cry threads were coming back in fashion.

 

So where were we. Yeah the post above make you think, but then there is the post above that one....I don't know. Great discussion all around.

 

Tanks should have high utility, and low dps. That is all.

[Neamhan]

I wasn't subtracting it off of the 80% parse, I was speaking purely in terms of flat reduction from 100% potential. Although I still think 70-75% sounds reasonable.

 

I was hoping someone would do a parse in Survivor gear, but at a guess I'd say a Kinetic in tank gear is probably somewhere in that neighborhood. It's why I think a damage nerf is very unnecessary.

 

I would too, but removing it from the tree wouldn't gut the spec. You still have untalented force speed as a gap closer and pull. Deception has nothing but untalented speed, and IMHO would benefit the most from this talent.

 

I don't think you can remove a cornerstone ability without gutting a spec. That doesn't mean I'd be against giving access to the talent to Infiltration and Balance, though. I wouldn't see putting it in tier 2 instead of tier 3 as a bad thing.

[Astarica]

I looked at the parse and that's not how you would DPS at all in 31/0/10 in PvE at all. You'd never use Thrash/Double Strike, and you'd never wait until 3 stacks of HD to fire off Force Lightning. He's clearly doing both of that and both of them significantly gimps your DPS when you're doing damage against something that doesn't fight back. You rotation should be just Wither -> Shock -> FL -> Saber Strike X2 -> repeat.

 

For that matter, the 3 stack HD rotation isn't necessarily even a good PvP rotation but a lot of people continue to play the wrong way.

 

If you assume 2500 tooltip base, you can pretty much get 2X2 HD FLs for every 1X3 HD FLs, which is 3500X2 versus 4000, or a difference of 3000 tooltip damge for the same amount of Force (the third stack of HD really messes up your Force regen/rotation because it doesn't come naturally).

[Cowflab]

I was hoping someone would do a parse in Survivor gear, but at a guess I'd say a Kinetic in tank gear is probably somewhere in that neighborhood. It's why I think a damage nerf is very unnecessary.

 

I completely agree. Not much else to say about that.

 

 

 

I don't think you can remove a cornerstone ability without gutting a spec. That doesn't mean I'd be against giving access to the talent to Infiltration and Balance, though. I wouldn't see putting it in tier 2 instead of tier 3 as a bad thing.

 

I would have say that is a good and resonable suggestion.

[Neamhan]

I looked at the parse and that's not how you would DPS at all in 31/0/10 in PvE at all. You'd never use Thrash/Double Strike, and you'd never wait until 3 stacks of HD to fire off Force Lightning. He's clearly doing both of that and both of them significantly gimps your DPS when you're doing damage against something that doesn't fight back. You rotation should be just Wither -> Shock -> FL -> Saber Strike X2 -> repeat.

 

For that matter, the 3 stack HD rotation isn't necessarily even a good PvP rotation but a lot of people continue to play the wrong way.

 

If you assume 2500 tooltip base, you can pretty much get 2X2 HD FLs for every 1X3 HD FLs, which is 3500X2 versus 4000, or a difference of 3000 tooltip damge for the same amount of Force (the third stack of HD really messes up your Force regen/rotation because it doesn't come naturally).

 

Once the combat logs are available on the live servers, I look forward to seeing your parses to compare them.

 

Edit: I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but I do want to see what the combat logs say about it. For the sake of argument, if you're right then by giving up Double Strike you never get Particle Acceleration procs and by using TK Throw on 2 stacks you're giving up self healing. This style of play seems to increase pressure while requiring greater external healing, so it's trading survivability for damage.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Neamhan

[MrXen]

Why are you being so hostile? Did you read what he was discussing with me, and in which context he was trying to use? Why is it his responsibility to place labels on the questions you're asking?

 

Also, the questions you're posing are quite broad. Most of which being rhetorical simply because we are not on the dev team and don't really have a solid grasp of the overall design and direction of the game. That is a pretty common debate fallacy known as " begging the question."

 

I'm actually in agreement with much of what you say, but your method of approach needs to be altered in order for you to truely make your point to people of differing view points.

 

 

So you are saying that a whiner has no responsibility to provide factual information as to why xxx class needs to be ruined, err I mean nerfed as the whiner has specified. And you claim that people wanting proof need to essentially ignore any and all possible facts, numbers, and unbiased data that could possibly be put forth to argue one way or another because of people's "view points"?

 

 

 

View points are just that...YOUR POINT OF VIEW. With that we can take an example from a project happening in real life: a company claims a cryogenic treatment on its springs increases fatigue life and sells these springs for a fairly high price ("performance" springs to nascar). My university has done research proving that the springs are >LITERALLY< better and last longer BEFORE treatment, and that the cryogenic treatment is actually DECREASING fatigue life.

 

 

Company in response begins with: "Our view point is..."

 

 

If you want to nerf assassin (remember people play this class and the same game as you and some WILL be motivated to quit this game if their class is ruined) either prove with unbiased evidence why they need to be nerfed and by exactly how much or admit you just want them to be >ruined< because you don't like them.

 

 

The reason your question hasn't been answered is because there is no absolute answer for the question you are asking. If it was an answer someone could come up with and made sense, I'm sure they'd have a job at BW and we wouldn't even be discussing this. Since we don't even have combat logs right now on live servers, the only thing we can go by is how we as pvpers "feel" what gameplay and balance should be like.

 

As far as a nerf is concerned, I wouldn't say there is a certain damage number I am thinking about when it comes to tank specced Assassin/Shadows, but rather some kind of nerf that will offest the pvp utility or damage of the class, for specific abilities. This can be done by not necessarily reducing damage, but also by lengthening cooldowns or adding and removing passive abilities generalized to each AC. Perhaps something like a Sorcerers Force Lightening has a snare aspect attached to the ability, but the Assassin's doesn't similar to how an Imperial Agents Dodge ability removes all negative effects when activated but the Snipers doesn't. Or maybe the Lightening Stun for Assassins is melee range only instead of 35m range like the Sorcerers... there are a number of things that can be done to further separate some of the utility that Sorcerers get from Assassins.

 

There isn't a definitive answer of how much less damage an Assassin tank should do, because the resolution to balance for the class doesn't even have to include nerfing the damage, but instead it could be done through nerfing other aspects of the class like their utility.

 

I summarized what you and every other whiner has said thus far. Really providing great support and unbiased evidence "proving" that us assassins need ultra-nerfing into the ground ahhh.

 

 

At this point I don't even care what cry babies want or if they get it. Go ahead and break the entire assassin advanced class in half and make it worthless, I'll just either quit (realizing the game will only get worse and you'll be down another player in the game) or I'll re-roll another class I think would be fun, inevitably perform well enough that it gets cried about here until it too gets broken.

[Cowflab]

So you are saying that a whiner has no responsibility to provide factual information as to why xxx class needs to be ruined, err I mean nerfed as the whiner has specified. And you claim that people wanting proof need to essentially ignore any and all possible facts, numbers, and unbiased data that could possibly be put forth to argue one way or another because of people's "view points"?

 

 

 

View points are just that...YOUR POINT OF VIEW. With that we can take an example from a project happening in real life: a company claims a cryogenic treatment on its springs increases fatigue life and sells these springs for a fairly high price ("performance" springs to nascar). My university has done research proving that the springs are >LITERALLY< better and last longer BEFORE treatment, and that the cryogenic treatment is actually DECREASING fatigue life.

 

 

Company in response begins with: "Our view point is..."

 

 

If you want to nerf assassin (remember people play this class and the same game as you and some WILL be motivated to quit this game if their class is ruined) either prove with unbiased evidence why they need to be nerfed and by exactly how much or admit you just want them to be >ruined< because you don't like them.

 

Uhhhh... I don't really care if they're nerfed one way or the other. I play madness so it wouldn't affect me. I was just pointing out that he was singled out several pages later for saying the same thing 10 other people did.

 

Also, I think it makes you sound a bit egotistical to say that you'll just roll another class and perform so well that it will eventually get nerfed too.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Cowflab

[Astarica]

Once the combat logs are available on the live servers, I look forward to seeing your parses to compare them.

 

Edit: I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but I do want to see what the combat logs say about it. For the sake of argument, if you're right then by giving up Double Strike you never get Particle Acceleration procs and by using TK Throw on 2 stacks you're giving up self healing. This style of play seems to increase pressure while requiring greater external healing, so it's trading survivability for damage.

 

We're talking about a training dummy here. It's obviously not going to fight back so there's no reason to do anything that increases your survivality.

 

In a PvP situation there's some inherent value in gaining the heal from 3 stacks of HD that cannot be measured by just DPS done. That is never going to be captured by a parser, and when comparing to Deception/Madness clearly they're not getting a considerable heal doing their normal rotation, so you're already comparing apples to oranges. If you want a fair comparison you'd have to do DPS in a way with no regard to your own safety since the other specs parses are also done with no concern for their safety.

 

If you work out the math solely from tooltip + crit %, Thrash is strictly less DPS/DPF than Wither. It might actually be higher than Shock, except it wouldn't matter in this rotation because you must use a Shock after you get a proc so you don't actually have a choice with skipping Shock.

 

The heal from 3 stack HD is nice but in any large scale fight you're ultimately dependent on your healer. The heal is more valuable in smaller scale fights, but there are a lot of large scale fights in PvP too.

[Viliphied]

We're talking about a training dummy here. It's obviously not going to fight back so there's no reason to do anything that increases your survivality.

 

In a PvP situation there's some inherent value in gaining the heal from 3 stacks of HD that cannot be measured by just DPS done. That is never going to be captured by a parser, and when comparing to Deception/Madness clearly they're not getting a considerable heal doing their normal rotation, so you're already comparing apples to oranges. If you want a fair comparison you'd have to do DPS in a way with no regard to your own safety since the other specs parses are also done with no concern for their safety.

 

If you work out the math solely from tooltip + crit %, Thrash is strictly less DPS/DPF than Wither. It might actually be higher than Shock, except it wouldn't matter in this rotation because you must use a Shock after you get a proc so you don't actually have a choice with skipping Shock.

 

The heal from 3 stack HD is nice but in any large scale fight you're ultimately dependent on your healer. The heal is more valuable in smaller scale fights, but there are a lot of large scale fights in PvP too.

 

...wut?

 

Are you actually saying that whoever took that parse should have gone MAX DPS MODE on the dummy because it will never fight back? Even though they will never play like that in PvP or PvE?

 

Because that seems like exactly the opposite of what you'd want to do to me.

[Varicite]

AND STOP SAYING TANKING STATS SUCK IN PVP THEY MOST CERTAINLY DO NOT!

 

Please tell me what the benefit of wearing tank gear in PvP is, oh great guru of the PvP forum.

 

This should be amusing.

[Astarica]

...wut?

 

Are you actually saying that whoever took that parse should have gone MAX DPS MODE on the dummy because it will never fight back? Even though they will never play like that in PvP or PvE?

 

Because that seems like exactly the opposite of what you'd want to do to me.

 

Aiming for 3 stacks of HD is a very conservative that doesn't even always makes sense in PvP and it's definitely wrong in PvE (because mobs never suddenly change their mind on who to attack). You pay a considerable DPS cost to charge 3 stacks of HD instead of 2 and it's reflected in the parse.

 

And using Thrash is a net negative DPS move for 31/0/10. As in, it does less damage than Wither in every conceiveable situation. It can replace Shock if you know which hits will proc Energize, i.e. something like Wither -> Thrash (Proc) -> Shock is a good rotation, except that requires prescience which I'm pretty sure no one has. Use Wither/Shock/FL on every CD already drains all your available Force regen, so there's no need to consider anything else at this point.

[MrXen]

Uhhhh... I don't really care if they're nerfed one way or the other. I play madness so it wouldn't affect me. I was just pointing out that he was singled out several pages later for saying the same thing 10 other people did.

 

Also, I think it makes you sound a bit egotistical to say that you'll just roll another class and perform so well that it will eventually get nerfed too.

 

Not from me specifically, and it was meant more as an overall rationale. Good players playing assassins no doubt causing all of these tears, will..

 

 

a)quit

 

b)lead to another class getting nerfed by these same whiners because the fact is: they are just good players

[Varicite]

Aiming for 3 stacks of HD is a very conservative that doesn't even always makes sense in PvP and it's definitely wrong in PvE (because mobs never suddenly change their mind on who to attack). You pay a considerable DPS cost to charge 3 stacks of HD instead of 2 and it's reflected in the parse.

 

And using Thrash is a net negative DPS move for 31/0/10. As in, it does less damage than Wither in every conceiveable situation. It can replace Shock if you know which hits will proc Energize, i.e. something like Wither -> Thrash (Proc) -> Shock is a good rotation, except that requires prescience which I'm pretty sure no one has. Use Wither/Shock/FL on every CD already drains all your available Force regen, so there's no need to consider anything else at this point.

 

Most people do go to the third stack for the utility of the heal in PvP, though. I think the parse reflects the most "normal" 31/0/10 rotation, although like you say, you can squeeze out a bit more dps if you want to forego survivability for a time.

 

By that same token, there are going to be plenty of times when you are doing less dps than the parse simply because you are too busy playing the objectives, etc. I think in the long run, the extremes will even out.

 

I think it's a good indicator of where a Tankasin will "normally" sit in PvP, dps-wise.

[Cowflab]

Not from me specifically, and it was meant more as an overall rationale. Good players playing assassins no doubt causing all of these tears, will..

 

 

a)quit

 

b)lead to another class getting nerfed by these same whiners because the fact is: they are just good players

 

Good assassins will do neither, because they won't be nerfed over forum QQ.

 

I'm actually not looking forward to the QQ once 1.2 goes live and assassins are still not nerfed. That's going to be whining of epic proportions.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Cowflab