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

[Neamhan]

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.

 

 

So the question becomes (again, assuming you're getting a big DPS increase with your rotation) how do the Developers want players to play a Kinetic Shadow? One would think it would be closer to how the person running the combat log parse was playing, given the Devs put in talents like Particle Acceleration and adding the heal onto the 3rd stack of Harnessed Shadows. Just for the sake of argument, we'll call that style the 'correct' way of playing (again, we have no way of actually knowing how the Devs want Kinetics to play, that style just needs a label for the rest of this post).

 

If that's the case, are Kinetics playing the 'correct' way ending up with damage numbers in line with how the Developers think they should be? My guess would be it's pretty close, since Kinetic was untouched in 1.2. Or at least close enough they're willing to sit back and watch what happens after the patch.

 

The next question would be, are Kinetics using your rotation exceeding the performance of Kinetics played the 'correct' way? If they are, then how should the Devs respond to that? In my opinion, if the 'correct' way of playing is in-line with how the Devs feel Kinetics should perform then the proper response from Devs when coming across a particular rotation that produces results that are higher than intended should be to nerf only that specific rotation rather than a sweeping, across the board nerf that would impact the 'correct' way of playing. In this case, it could be something as simple as increasing the cooldown on TK Throw from 6 seconds to 9 seconds. That should have little affect on any spec (even TK spamming Sages have a talent that reduces the cooldown to 0 anyway) other than to hopefully break that one rotation. It's the kind of targeted nerf that Developers love, since it should only affect the one thing they want to nerf without breaking what they consider to be working as intended.

 

This is the kind of example I was hoping would come up at some point. When Devs decide they want to nerf or buff something, it's rarely something like 'reduce all damage by 10%'. They tend to try to address a problem they see more specifically, through specific skills or talents. So when asking for something like a damage nerf, it always helps to be as specific as possible. 'Nerf Skill X because here's the affect it has' will always gain more traction than 'Nerf Class Y because I said so'. It may turn out they don't agree with why you want Skill X nerfed, but at least it's something they can reasonably look at.

[Viliphied]

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.

 

It's certainly not wrong in PvE, assuming the tank spec is, you know, tanking. I'd venture that it's rarely wrong in PvP, given the amount of misc. AE that you get hit with. I'm not even convinced that your rotation is that much of a net DPS increase than the "traditional" HD priority list.

[DarthMaulUK]

Im amazed that this thread is still alive!

 

It never ceases to amaze me, just how good some players are. Ive been watching a few videos on utube and Powerrrs videos shows the level of detail he goes to, just to ensure he deals max damage in battles.

 

It has nothing to do with classes being OP(unless they have silly amounts of stuns - Smuggler/Opers) but it demonstrates the lengths players will go to by learning their class, skill tree and spending probably hours changing skill points and testing out new styles of play.

 

My spec used to be 31/0/10 and I enjoyed it alot but found that I would get interrupted alot and since most spells were casting, with some melee thrown in, I decided to change to a mostly melee dps spec - which can deal crazy damage if all the procs kick in.

 

So instead of ************ about a class, why not try and learn yours? Because there is much more to a class than just selecting skill boxes because you like its colour!

[unicornfive]

Plz i dont want my Tankasin get nerfed, so i found a screenshot (the only screenshot taht exists)with a jugg that spaming smash, in a wz that enemy team had 4 healers lol, 3 tanks and only 1 dps lolx2 and since the jugg was with his premade healer friends, the enemy 1 dps couldnt kill him, he was free aoeing without care that he didnt get any kills (enemy team had more kills with 1 dps rofl...Obviously the friends of jugg was healing only him so he can achieve this glorious screenshot. Its so clearly that jugg is OP class and im gonna post this screenshot as reply on every new post i see. Plz dont nerf my tankasin plz plz

 

fixed post for you, what u really wanted to say

[Varicite]

Plz i dont want my Tankasin get nerfed, so i found a screenshot (the only screenshot taht exists)with a jugg that spaming smash, in a wz that enemy team had 4 healers lol, 3 tanks and only 1 dps lolx2 and since the jugg was with his premade healer friends, the enemy 1 dps couldnt kill him, he was free aoeing without care that he didnt get any kills (enemy team had more kills with 1 dps rofl...Obviously the friends of jugg was healing only him so he can achieve this glorious screenshot. Its so clearly that jugg is OP class and im gonna post this screenshot as reply on every new post i see. Plz dont nerf my tankasin plz plz

 

Does this make their argument more valid? Did you really think that Tankasins were the only ones who could do those kinds of numbers?

http://i.imgur.com/0hNY4.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/eqnyx.jpg

 

http://imgur.com/Tiihv

 

http://h12.abload.de/img/500ktyuox.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/kdgrP.jpg

 

/sigh

Edited April 6, 2012 by Varicite

[Neamhan]

fixed post for you, what u really wanted to say

 

Your thoughtful and well supported post will clearly sway the masses and the Devs at Bioware. Thank you reading my mind and putting those thoughts into a clearly articulated, excellently spelled post. Your parents would be very proud of you.

[unicornfive]

Your thoughtful and well supported post will clearly sway the masses and the Devs at Bioware. Thank you reading my mind and putting those thoughts into a clearly articulated, excellently spelled post. Your parents would be very proud of you.

 

Like the reply you just posted.

You are a smart one...

Also when u learn to use my native language as good as i know yours, come talk to me again...

Edited April 6, 2012 by unicornfive

[Cowflab]

Like the reply you just posted.

You are a smart one...

Also when u learn to use my native language as good as i know yours, come talk to me again...

 

Why are you being so rude? Sure his response was sarcastic, but your original post was very abrasive. Expect responses like his when you use that method of approach. Also, if English isn't your native tongue, you really should stay away from the insults. It doesn't bode well for your credibility.

[Neamhan]

Like the reply you just posted.

You are a smart one...

Also when u learn to use my native language as good as i know yours, come talk to me again...

 

Maybe you should post your own thoughts then, instead of trying to be clever in a foreign language. What is your native language, since you brought it up?

[unicornfive]

Why are you being so rude? Sure his response was sarcastic, but your original post was very abrasive. Expect responses like his when you use that method of approach. Also, if English isn't your native tongue, you really should stay away from the insults. It doesn't bode well for your credibility.

 

Cause i was trying to read ppl's opinions and all i see is this troll, spaming 1, sometimes 2 replies in a row, trying to defend his tankasin main...

He said dont use cherry picked screenshots....We show over 40, he shown us 1 and the annoying thing is that he uses it almost on every reply..Which is the cherrypicked screenshot, the 40+ or the ONE? And what one...a DPS jugg...1 of the most squishy classes.

I 've read all of his posts on this topic and the only thing he does, is trying to counter other ppl's solid proofs about assassins, with whatever crosses his mind that time and with the juggernaut screenshot....very constructive. Like we didnt understand what class he plays by now allready and what he wants to achieve.

And tell me which part of my sarcastic post about his reply wasnt true....

[Varicite]

Cause i was trying to read ppl's opinions and all i see is this troll, spaming 1, sometimes 2 replies in a row, trying to defend his tankasin main...

He said dont use cherry picked screenshots....We show over 40, he shown us 1 and the annoying thing is that he uses it almost on every reply..Which is the cherrypicked screenshot, the 40+ or the ONE? And what one...a DPS jugg...1 of the most squishy classes.

I 've read all of his posts on this topic and the only thing he does, is trying to counter other ppl's solid proofs about assassins, with whatever crosses his mind that time and with the juggernaut screenshot....very constructive. Like we didnt understand what class he plays by now allready and what he wants to achieve.

And tell me which part of my sarcastic post about his reply wasnt true....

 

I showed 5 more. /shrug

 

Do you think there aren't thousands of screenshots floating around of dps specs breaking 500k easily?

 

He wasn't using the screenshot to counter "solid proof", they were using it to show how silly it is to rely on a stupid screenshot of the scoreboard as anything but a tiny fragment of the actual story, just like I was.

 

It's not "solid proof", it's a screenshot of someone doing a lot of AoE damage and not dying in a WZ, nothing more, nothing less. When a dps class does it, though, it usually results in a lot more enemies dying.

 

What it certainly doesn't show is a Tankasin bursting someone down as fast as a DPS spec can, which is what they were countering.

 

2/31/8 PvE Infiltration http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/4135/...rationdumm.png 1357 dps

 

7/3/31 PVE Balance(without project, damage would increase if used) http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/8216/adribalance2.png 1283.4 dps

 

7/3/31 PvE no project, with SS http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/8...ribalance3.png 1374 dps

 

31/0/10 tank build, dps gear http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/4323/kinetic.png 1099 dps

 

 

NOTE: Notice how much of the Tank specs damage is from AoE abilities...

 

About skill names in the parses:

 

- Crushed (Force) = Force Breach with Force Technique

- Crushed = Telekinetic Throw

- Dark Spike = Proc from Dark Energy Surge relic

 

That would be "solid proof".

Edited April 7, 2012 by Varicite

[Astarica]

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.

 

There's nothing normal about getting 3 stacks of HD in PvP. The 2K heal isn't going to help you when you're being hit by 3 guys or even a good Marauder. As a DPS your role is still trying to do the most damage possible, not delay your death by 2 seconds.

 

The 3 stack HD approach is simply bad DPS in most situations, which is why you don't see a 500K DPS screenshot every other WZ.

 

Let's not even talk about Thrash which is net negative DPS compared to Wither.

[Varicite]

There's nothing normal about getting 3 stacks of HD in PvP. The 2K heal isn't going to help you when you're being hit by 3 guys or even a good Marauder. As a DPS your role is still trying to do the most damage possible, not delay your death by 2 seconds.

 

The 3 stack HD approach is simply bad DPS in most situations, which is why you don't see a 500K DPS screenshot every other WZ.

 

Let's not even talk about Thrash which is net negative DPS compared to Wither.

 

You're not a dps though. <.<

 

You are a tank. You are just wearing DPS gear. You will never do what a real DPS can.

 

You're already maximizing the damage portion of your attacks by wearing DPS gear, I don't think that it's worth it to hurt your main role to boost your side role.

 

You may not think that a 2k heal every 10-15 seconds is a lot, but it adds up, especially for a class that has very viable methods of escape. I can tell you that coming from PT, the difference is most definitely noticeable.

 

Even when you aren't necessarily being focused, you can take a lot of AoE and Guard damage just from doing your job, and keeping your health bar moving in the good direction is always helpful. Especially if you pug a lot like I do. : )

 

You don't see 500k+ screenshots all that often because it's not really worth it most of the time to focus only on doing a bunch of damage for a tank class that has enough utility and longevity (when not being focused by more than 2 people) to sway the tide of battle.

 

You should be wearing DPS gear because wearing Tank gear is a waste of stats in PvP most of the time, not because you want to shirk your duty (and the focus of your entire spec) to become a subpar DPS.

Edited April 7, 2012 by Varicite

[Astarica]

So the question becomes (again, assuming you're getting a big DPS increase with your rotation) how do the Developers want players to play a Kinetic Shadow? One would think it would be closer to how the person running the combat log parse was playing, given the Devs put in talents like Particle Acceleration and adding the heal onto the 3rd stack of Harnessed Shadows. Just for the sake of argument, we'll call that style the 'correct' way of playing (again, we have no way of actually knowing how the Devs want Kinetics to play, that style just needs a label for the rest of this post).

 

If that's the case, are Kinetics playing the 'correct' way ending up with damage numbers in line with how the Developers think they should be? My guess would be it's pretty close, since Kinetic was untouched in 1.2. Or at least close enough they're willing to sit back and watch what happens after the patch.

 

The next question would be, are Kinetics using your rotation exceeding the performance of Kinetics played the 'correct' way? If they are, then how should the Devs respond to that? In my opinion, if the 'correct' way of playing is in-line with how the Devs feel Kinetics should perform then the proper response from Devs when coming across a particular rotation that produces results that are higher than intended should be to nerf only that specific rotation rather than a sweeping, across the board nerf that would impact the 'correct' way of playing. In this case, it could be something as simple as increasing the cooldown on TK Throw from 6 seconds to 9 seconds. That should have little affect on any spec (even TK spamming Sages have a talent that reduces the cooldown to 0 anyway) other than to hopefully break that one rotation. It's the kind of targeted nerf that Developers love, since it should only affect the one thing they want to nerf without breaking what they consider to be working as intended.

 

This is the kind of example I was hoping would come up at some point. When Devs decide they want to nerf or buff something, it's rarely something like 'reduce all damage by 10%'. They tend to try to address a problem they see more specifically, through specific skills or talents. So when asking for something like a damage nerf, it always helps to be as specific as possible. 'Nerf Skill X because here's the affect it has' will always gain more traction than 'Nerf Class Y because I said so'. It may turn out they don't agree with why you want Skill X nerfed, but at least it's something they can reasonably look at.

 

You brought up a pretty good point. It seems like Kinetic/Darkness isn't overpowered if you play it the 'correct' way, if 'correct' means use Thrash to proc Energize and wait until 3 stacks of HD to fire off a Force Lightning.

 

However we don't actually know if this is correct way, but it's really irrelevent if a 'better' way exists compared to the 'correct' way. Just like a lot of people figured out that 'use Maul on EW proc', which appears to be the 'correct' way to play Deception, is actually a bad idea simply because nobody can keep track of tiny buff icons so well. So instead people just use it as 'Maul in case of emergency' and completely ignore the original premise, but if you Maul only in case of emergency then you can be pretty confident whenever you do Maul, the proc is up, without actually knowing if the proc is up.

 

The number one enabler of runaway Darkness DPS, at least for 31/0/10, is that Wither does more damage than Thrash on a single target. You can take Wither's damage, add the 25% of Force Lightning's tooltip, and compared to Thrash + 50% of the damage gain for a crit on a Shock, and the former number is always higher. This has a very profound effect on the spec:

 

1. Your best HD generating move is an AE that does two nasty side effects. You get to AE for free because it is your single target rotation move anyway. It'd be as if Thrash randomly becomes an AE every 7.5 seconds. Why would you not use it even against a single target? It's free gain, and a very considerable gain.

 

2. Because Energize is a random chance, it is impossible to have a reasonable rotation of Wither -> Thrash (until proc) -> Shock simply because any bad luck would completely kill your rotation. But due to Force Regen issues, Wither -> Shock -> Thrash (until proc) is not sustainable. This means you can actually eliminate Thrash from your rotation completely.

 

3. Eliminating Thrash from your rotation means all your rotation moves are 10m (except Assassinate). Combined with Wither's perma snare, this gives you a comfortably kill zone against all other classes in the game. Against melee, they can't touch you if you're >4m. Against ranged, they can't outlast you by exchanging hits but PBAE CCs have a range of about 5-8m, which can be avoided by standing 9m away.

 

It's not so much as that the Darkness can do top DPS but rather he can do it from a distance (9-10m) where there is no possible counter. Marauder can do similar DPS but he must be at 4m to do it, which leaves him vulnerable to counterattack/CC. An Arsenal Merc can do high DPS but he has to be at 30m because once you get to 10-15m you can interrupt his attacks. But the 10m range really has no counter when combined with Wither which guaranteeds a speed advantage. A ranged class cannot put extra distance or PBAE CC, while a melee class cannot hit you.

 

I think Wither went from low damage AE only to a damage buff + AE snare + generate a stack of HD was really a poorly thought out change. Yes before that change nobody used Wither in PvP but that doesn't mean it needs to become a godly attack so it'd probably have to be nerfed in some way.

 

I don't actually have much of an opinion on the 27/0/14 spec. It has no way of generating HD stacks quickly so all it brings is just raw damage, and there are a lot of specs that can do that. The combination of durability + damage might be a bit excessive but it's not like Wither which is self-heal + damage (HD stack), debuff, snare, and stealth detection all rolled into one ability. The funny thing is that originally I speced 31/0/10 because Wither is a great stealth detector (any spammable AE is good at catching stealth) back when Operatives one shotted anyone.

[Varicite]

It's not so much as that the Darkness can do top DPS but rather he can do it from a distance (9-10m) where there is no possible counter. Marauder can do similar DPS but he must be at 4m to do it, which leaves him vulnerable to counterattack/CC. An Arsenal Merc can do high DPS but he has to be at 30m because once you get to 10-15m you can interrupt his attacks. But the 10m range really has no counter when combined with Wither which guaranteeds a speed advantage. A ranged class cannot put extra distance or PBAE CC, while a melee class cannot hit you.

 

Tank killers like Pyro PTs operate at a 10m range also. Fortunately, Tankasins are the one tank that can stand up to those bullies. : )

 

Also, it should be noted that 30% is really the weakest of the snares for melee classes. Every other class will be using a 50% snare that negates any benefit the snare portion of Wither gives. In 1.2, AP PTs/Tactics VGs will be hitting you w/ a whopping 70% snare on top of huge elemental damage, backed by a 15 second duration 50% snare/DoT while being completely immune to your own snare.

 

Wither is used for the HD stack and damage, but it's great for snaring groups where you may not be counter-snared immediately.

Edited April 7, 2012 by Varicite

[Astarica]

You're not a dps though. <.<

 

You are a tank. You are just wearing DPS gear. You will never do what a real DPS can.

 

You're already maximizing the damage portion of your attacks by wearing DPS gear, I don't think that it's worth it to hurt your main role to boost your side role.

 

You may not think that a 2k heal every 10-15 seconds is a lot, but it adds up, especially for a class that has very viable methods of escape. I can tell you that coming from PT, the difference is most definitely noticeable.

 

Even when you aren't necessarily being focused, you can take a lot of AoE and Guard damage just from doing your job, and keeping your health bar moving in the good direction is always helpful. Especially if you pug a lot like I do. : )

 

You don't see 500k+ screenshots all that often because it's not really worth it most of the time to focus only on doing a bunch of damage for a tank class that has enough utility and longevity (when not being focused by more than 2 people) to sway the tide of battle.

 

You should be wearing DPS gear because wearing Tank gear is a waste of stats in PvP most of the time, not because you want to shirk your duty (and the focus of your entire spec) to become a subpar DPS.

 

How is someone topping the DPS chart every time not a DPS? Even a Sorc/Sniper doing the dot/AE bomb combo is still a DPS.

 

To generate 3 stacks of HD, the cheapest reasonable way to do it is Wither X 2 + Shock + FL, which is 139 Force. At 10.4 Force/s you need 13.4s to do it, though even this rotation is likely to have some serious disruption to your flow, not to mention this assumes you never use any other Force consuming ability. Assuming you don't plan on dying often (you get all your Force back when you're dead), you're looking at more like ~20s to regenerate 3 stacks of HD once you're engaged in battle, and Darkness's superior survivality guaranteeds that you'll usually not have anywhere near full Force (because you're busy fighting the whole time).

 

Can a 2K heal every 20 seconds turn a fight around? Sure, but there are also a lot of situations where it'd do absolutely nothing to change the fight and you'd be better off getting 2 FLs off instead of 1. Also, getting 2 FLs off instead of 1 will usually result in doing a lot more than 2000 damage. While you can't say one is strictly superior to the other, the damage is usually more useful than the extra heals. You also have to factor in that now that people are aware FL hurts a lot, they'll probably make an effort to stop it, and it's obviously easier to interrupt 1 FL compared to interrupting 2 FLs. Doing 2X2 FL instead of 1X3 FL lowers your risk against a good player who may know how to stop a FL or even just a drive-by KB.

[Viliphied]

How is someone topping the DPS chart every time not a DPS? Even a Sorc/Sniper doing the dot/AE bomb combo is still a DPS.

 

To generate 3 stacks of HD, the cheapest reasonable way to do it is Wither X 2 + Shock + FL, which is 139 Force. At 10.4 Force/s you need 13.4s to do it, though even this rotation is likely to have some serious disruption to your flow, not to mention this assumes you never use any other Force consuming ability. Assuming you don't plan on dying often (you get all your Force back when you're dead), you're looking at more like ~20s to regenerate 3 stacks of HD once you're engaged in battle, and Darkness's superior survivality guaranteeds that you'll usually not have anywhere near full Force (because you're busy fighting the whole time).

 

Can a 2K heal every 20 seconds turn a fight around? Sure, but there are also a lot of situations where it'd do absolutely nothing to change the fight and you'd be better off getting 2 FLs off instead of 1. Also, getting 2 FLs off instead of 1 will usually result in doing a lot more than 2000 damage. While you can't say one is strictly superior to the other, the damage is usually more useful than the extra heals. You also have to factor in that now that people are aware FL hurts a lot, they'll probably make an effort to stop it, and it's obviously easier to interrupt 1 FL compared to interrupting 2 FLs. Doing 2X2 FL instead of 1X3 FL lowers your risk against a good player who may know how to stop a FL or even just a drive-by KB.

 

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. So, it takes 13.5 seconds (9 gcd, 2 of which will be taken up by FL) to be force neutral for the 3x HD rotation, but you're saying you can only do it "basically every 20 seconds"? Because it just sounded like you JUST said you could do it every 13.5 seconds.

[Astarica]

Tank killers like Pyro PTs operate at a 10m range also. Fortunately, Tankasins are the one tank that can stand up to those bullies. : )

 

Also, it should be noted that 30% is really the weakest of the snares for melee classes. Every other class will be using a 50% snare that negates any benefit the snare portion of Wither gives. In 1.2, AP PTs/Tactics VGs will be hitting you w/ a whopping 70% snare on top of huge elemental damage, backed by a 15 second duration 50% snare/DoT while being completely immune to your own snare.

 

Wither is used for the HD stack and damage, but it's great for snaring groups where you may not be counter-snared immediately.

 

Snare isn't free for other classes. They usually use a GCD doing next to no damage if not outright no damage. It's free for Wither since it's your single target rotation move. It also lasts way longer than the CD, wihch cannot be said for most snares (i.e. Force Slow 6s duration 12s CD without talent). If you both snared each other you're ahead by one GCD due to the fact your snare does damage and theirs usually do not.

[Astarica]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. So, it takes 13.5 seconds (9 gcd, 2 of which will be taken up by FL) to be force neutral for the 3x HD rotation, but you're saying you can only do it "basically every 20 seconds"? Because it just sounded like you JUST said you could do it every 13.5 seconds.

 

It's hard to imagine a successful WZ experience if your sole goal is to generate as many stacks of HD as possible. That'd mean never using Electrocute, Overload, or Assassinate for starters. In 20 seconds if you allocate 13.5s for 3 stacks of HD, that leaves you with about ~70 Force for everything else you can possibly do in 20 seconds that may use Force. Yes it's just a guess, but I think using 70 Force every 20 seconds for things not related to HD is reasonable. After all, one of the desireable results for using FL is so that you can Assassinate them, and Assassinate, while cheap, still isn't free.

Edited April 7, 2012 by Astarica

[Varicite]

How is someone topping the DPS chart every time not a DPS? Even a Sorc/Sniper doing the dot/AE bomb combo is still a DPS.

 

To generate 3 stacks of HD, the cheapest reasonable way to do it is Wither X 2 + Shock + FL, which is 139 Force. At 10.4 Force/s you need 13.4s to do it, though even this rotation is likely to have some serious disruption to your flow, not to mention this assumes you never use any other Force consuming ability. Assuming you don't plan on dying often (you get all your Force back when you're dead), you're looking at more like ~20s to regenerate 3 stacks of HD once you're engaged in battle, and Darkness's superior survivality guaranteeds that you'll usually not have anywhere near full Force (because you're busy fighting the whole time).

 

Can a 2K heal every 20 seconds turn a fight around? Sure, but there are also a lot of situations where it'd do absolutely nothing to change the fight and you'd be better off getting 2 FLs off instead of 1. Also, getting 2 FLs off instead of 1 will usually result in doing a lot more than 2000 damage. While you can't say one is strictly superior to the other, the damage is usually more useful than the extra heals. You also have to factor in that now that people are aware FL hurts a lot, they'll probably make an effort to stop it, and it's obviously easier to interrupt 1 FL compared to interrupting 2 FLs. Doing 2X2 FL instead of 1X3 FL lowers your risk against a good player who may know how to stop a FL or even just a drive-by KB.

 

First off, that's not a DPS chart. It's a total damage done chart. There's a very large difference in what that means.

 

If it were a DPS chart, Darkness Sins would be near the bottom and people wouldn't be complaining about their damage, but their utlility.

 

Also, you need to consider that a 2k heal isn't linear, due to a Tankasin's natural mitigation. Are you being hit by tech attacks? Increase that 2k by another 19% due to mitigation. It's not just 2k, it's 2k at a very steady pace on top of doing okay damage. It's 2k healing being done against classes that cannot heal at all in a lot of cases, and have a hard time breaking through a Tankasin's defenses, or staying on top of them.

[_Scattered_]

Its not a 2k heal in dps gear with trauma debuff.

 

It ticks for ~400 that is a 1600 heal.

[Viliphied]

It's hard to imagine a successful WZ experience if your sole goal is to generate as many stacks of HD as possible. That'd mean never using Electrocute, Overload, or Assassinate for starters. In 20 seconds if you allocate 13.5s for 3 stacks of HD, that leaves you with about ~70 Force for everything else you can possibly do in 20 seconds that may use Force. Yes it's just a guess, but I think using 70 Force every 20 seconds for things not related to HD is reasonable. After all, one of the desireable results for using FL is so that you can Assassinate them, and Assassinate, while cheap, still isn't free.

 

 

Ok, I really am not getting your argument here. Why are you still operating around a 20s total time, when you seem to be operating at a 10s total time for 2 stacks? Why?

[Varicite]

Snare isn't free for other classes. They usually use a GCD doing next to no damage if not outright no damage. It's free for Wither since it's your single target rotation move. It also lasts way longer than the CD, wihch cannot be said for most snares (i.e. Force Slow 6s duration 12s CD without talent). If you both snared each other you're ahead by one GCD due to the fact your snare does damage and theirs usually do not.

 

It's "free" for the class I just mentioned, because it's part of their main damage ability (Flame Burst) and also procs free Rail Shots and puts one of the heftiest elemental DoTs in game on you. All "free".

 

In fact, every snare that I mentioned in the post that you quoted occurs w/ damage. A LOT more damage than Wither on a single target, usually. Even Anni Mara's Rupture snare is getting buffed to 50%.

Edited April 7, 2012 by Varicite

[Neamhan]

The number one enabler of runaway Darkness DPS, at least for 31/0/10, is that Wither does more damage than Thrash on a single target. You can take Wither's damage, add the 25% of Force Lightning's tooltip, and compared to Thrash + 50% of the damage gain for a crit on a Shock, and the former number is always higher. This has a very profound effect on the spec:

 

Thanks for your thoughtful post. Looking at the numbers on Double Strike, Force Slow, TK Throw and Project, I'm getting ~1850 damage on the Force Slow + 25% of TK Throw and with only 65% Surge I get almost exactly the same damage on Double Strike + 50% of a Project crit. There are a lot of other little variables like Force Synergy or Upheaval that could be taken into account but for napkin math I'm getting nearly identical totals. Certainly close enough to make your point, I think.

 

So if it really is a problem, what would you propose to fix it? Problem is, Force Slow is the staple move for a Shadow trying to tank. It already only affects 5 targets. It's the only high thread AoE move a Shadow has, and with Force Breach on a 15 second cooldown and Whirling Blow costing 40 force it makes it hard to change Force Slow without severely impacting a Shadow's ability to take and hold aggro. For good or ill, the Devs went out of their way making it something of a lynchpin for Shadow tanking. And it's really only a problem if you ignore Double Strike.

 

They could possibly drop the force cost of Double Strike a bit to improve the DPF while still increasing the cooldown on TK Throw to force enough dead time in your rotation to drop the DPS on it. 9 seconds seems to match a 3 stack of Harnessed Shadows more than 6 seconds does, and it introduces two more global cooddown worth of actions for your rotation to fill.

[KryptikX]

Tank spec with DPS gear is not a hybrid, its just adaptation to the PVP environment.

 

As for when? Nowhere in sight. Just looked at the transcript from the PAX (i think) conference and this was specifically questioned. According to their metrics, there isn't an OP hybrid build atm.