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Balance THE PvE spec now?

SnapKatana

By SnapKatana
in Shadow / Assassin

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The-Vortex

The-Vortex

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This may be slightly off topic but screw it - its somewhat relevant. You should just play the spec you are most comfortable with. As a raid leader I find that when people are forced into playing a spec / class that they don't enjoy the numbers wont be up to par - even if it is far better on paper, as long as the bosses are going down without hitting the enrage - I really couldn't give a damn what the other guys spec's are. However infiltration is nowhere near as bad as others are making it out to be. Yes balance has much more in terms of sustainable dps but I feel that infiltration can make up for it in most situations with its bust damage, and seeing as there are no changes in 1.2 to infiltation or balance which have an impact on dps I really don't see the point in completely changing your playstyle for what, in most cases is a marginal dps increase at best. Maybe it does matter for the top 1% of guilds, but for most people you shouldn't worry yourself with it, just play what you want to play and have fun with it, it is a game after all.

 

Personally I've tried both and after recently going balance for a stint to see what all of the fuss was about - I really, really didn't enjoy it. I found it to be one of the most boring specs I've played in this game to date, and this is coming from someone with a Vindication Guardian alt. I don't want to have to spend an entire fight watching DoTs and trying to figure out which ones on the boss are mine.

 

TLDR: Play what you want to play - a well played infiltration shadow that enjoys the spec will 9/10 times outperform a poorly played balance shadow that doesn't enjoy the spec. If you don't like either spec well, go play another class.

Edited by The-Vortex
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ragamer

ragamer

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The new combat log will dispel some systematic bias that has been "added" by some theorycrafters...

 

...Balance will stay the easiest to use, ofc, and should stay on top on static Tank'n Spank fights...

 

...But at the very moment you have some "phases" were burst openings are common, a decent Infil shadow should be ahead.

Edited by ragamer
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Jurugar

Jurugar

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The new combat log will dispel some systematic bias that has been "added" by some theorycrafters...

 

...Balance will stay the easiest to use, ofc, and should stay on top on static Tank'n Spank fights...

 

...But at the very moment you have some "phases" were burst openings are common, a decent Infil shadow should be ahead.

 

Balance is the hardest by a decent margin.

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SnapKatana

SnapKatana

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So i went balance, i like the combat, however i feel just as squishy as i did infiltration. I've played kinetic its cool but im not going tank style since i dps pve some too but balance is pretty cool like my really long run on sentence i doooooooooo
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LessQQMorePewPew

LessQQMorePewPew

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So i went balance, i like the combat, however i feel just as squishy as i did infiltration. I've played kinetic its cool but im not going tank style since i dps pve some too but balance is pretty cool like my really long run on sentence i doooooooooo

 

If you're squishy as balance l2kite. If your next ability is 10m range try to stay 6-10m away from them if they're melee.

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ragamer

ragamer

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Balance is the hardest by a decent margin.

 

Sorry but we meassure "difficulty" in different ways.

 

It has been like this on most MMOs so far on PvE...

 

...Any build requiring a possitional attack is always replaced by 1 with DoTs.

 

The reasson is that you suddenly do not have to pay attention to what your enemy is doing and just can focus on keeping the DoTs (This is understandable on Hero Engine MMOs which systematically screw possitional attack users by the miriad of bugs related to foe possition/facing).

 

 

Until now everything makes sense... Then you discover that refreshing DoTs on long fights is just something a timed macro does for you with 99% accuracy, so your "hard to keep DoT build" suddenly turns into a boring excercise of seeing your timed macros doing everything for you.

 

 

Luckily on SWTOR, even the DoT build has to pay attention to some procs and administer them partially but the main "anoying part" is solvable by timed macros.

 

 

The second part of is that a DoT build do not have to pay attention to bursts, is just struggling to keep the perfectly energy efficient rotation. Meanwhile a "bursty" build has to swap modes based on expected interruptions or high damage cycles (This is also related to how energy-deficient Infil is compared to Balance, ofc).

 

 

So to put it short:

 

- Balance -> Upkeep effort. No need to consider bursts nor facings.

 

- Infil -> Reaction effort. Need to consider bursts and facings.

 

 

So at the very moment you "assist yourself" with timed macros, Balance difficulty drops to the ground.

Edited by ragamer
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Dulwaithe

Dulwaithe

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In a pve spec, balance uses shadow strike too.

 

Played correctly, balance is much more difficult than infiltration imo.

 

For those of you looking for the spec/priority list, track down the shadow's handbook and find the balance section, it is still basically the same.

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The-Vortex

The-Vortex

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Until now everything makes sense... Then you discover that refreshing DoTs on long fights is just something a timed macro does for you with 99% accuracy, so your "hard to keep DoT build" suddenly turns into a boring excercise of seeing your timed macros doing everything for you.

 

 

I'm pretty sure macros and such are against the ToS (feel free to correct me on this) as they are usually created by external programs. That said, why on earth would you risk getting banned to avoid playing your class / spec properly. Kinda defeats the point in playing a game if you have a program to do it for you.

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Devorasx

Devorasx

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...Balance will stay the easiest to use, ofc, and should stay on top on static Tank'n Spank fights...

 

Absolutly not! Balance/Madness is rather the most complicated to learn as you have so many bloody alternatives to go around. It doesnt exactly follow a set of rotations, and its hard to master.

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Zintair

Zintair

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Lets not start saying Balance is HARD.

 

 

There is not a single class in this game that is HARD. It just different and unique in its ranged/melee playstyle. And BW making the procs the size of pin drops didn't help although they at least give a char glow when you proc Force Strike.

 

 

The best DPS for tank and spank fights for Shadows is Balance. It's always been considered the better sustained DPS spec.

 

For fights like SoA / Fabricator and the new last boss in EC Infiltration will be better because they are able to unleash their burst at the correct phases.

 

When I DPS I've done both Infil and Balance and prefer Balance rotation. Also Balance isn;t great when you need to be touchy of where your AoEing (trash/bonethrasher etc) because you can;t exactly FiB wherever you want losing the 10 Force Suppression charges.

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Magnesium

Magnesium

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I would still go with personal preference. I've taken Infil to every single Nightmare mode and has been perfectly fine as a DPS spec in PvE.

 

I like the way we Shadows have a lot to mix about and I would argue that in certain situations certain specs are better, but not enough to say they are the "go to" DPS spec.

 

No spec is hard to master and ALL have a pretty standard rotation with a few variations based on changing circumstances.

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Jurugar

Jurugar

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Sorry but we meassure "difficulty" in different ways.

 

It has been like this on most MMOs so far on PvE...

 

...Any build requiring a possitional attack is always replaced by 1 with DoTs.

 

The reasson is that you suddenly do not have to pay attention to what your enemy is doing and just can focus on keeping the DoTs (This is understandable on Hero Engine MMOs which systematically screw possitional attack users by the miriad of bugs related to foe possition/facing).

 

 

Until now everything makes sense... Then you discover that refreshing DoTs on long fights is just something a timed macro does for you with 99% accuracy, so your "hard to keep DoT build" suddenly turns into a boring excercise of seeing your timed macros doing everything for you.

 

 

Luckily on SWTOR, even the DoT build has to pay attention to some procs and administer them partially but the main "anoying part" is solvable by timed macros.

 

 

The second part of is that a DoT build do not have to pay attention to bursts, is just struggling to keep the perfectly energy efficient rotation. Meanwhile a "bursty" build has to swap modes based on expected interruptions or high damage cycles (This is also related to how energy-deficient Infil is compared to Balance, ofc).

 

 

So to put it short:

 

- Balance -> Upkeep effort. No need to consider bursts nor facings.

 

- Infil -> Reaction effort. Need to consider bursts and facings.

 

 

So at the very moment you "assist yourself" with timed macros, Balance difficulty drops to the ground.

 

Except balance also uses shadow strike via infiltration tactics.

 

Balance has dots, procs, backstabbing and aoe to deal with in the standard rotation. It's widely accepted to be the harder of the two specs.

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Zintair

Zintair

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I would still go with personal preference. I've taken Infil to every single Nightmare mode and has been perfectly fine as a DPS spec in PvE.

 

I like the way we Shadows have a lot to mix about and I would argue that in certain situations certain specs are better, but not enough to say they are the "go to" DPS spec.

 

No spec is hard to master and ALL have a pretty standard rotation with a few variations based on changing circumstances.

 

Pretty much this.

 

When we ran progression for Kraggas I was Infiltration. But that fight would have been much better for Balance.

 

Either way like you said they are both completely viable with strs/weaks on each fight. No Operation is going to be completely better off for one or the other from what we've seen.

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Philosomanic

Philosomanic

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could you please be kind enough to tell me the rotation and spec that u use for balance in pve? thanks a lot ^^

 

I'd recommend reading this thread. It has a lot of info.

 

AstralFire's guide is quite a bit out of date, now. There's a new stickied guide that's essentially her guide, but it's being maintained and updated. I'd strongly suggest reading that as well.

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