Shadow - Infiltration Suggesions

[DarthNuke]

Here's my 2 cents for fixing the Infiltration tree...quite simple too imo.

 

(PVP perspective of course)

 

1.) Shadowy Veil: remove it. In PVP, this is virtually worthless. Replace with a new ability called "From The Shadows", which is a 'Charge' that has to be used while stealthed and either stuns the target for 2 seconds or roots the target for 4 seconds.

CONCEPT: Shadow/Assassins are 'killers' last time I checked. The element of surprise is kewl.

 

2.) Vigor: increase to 50 instead of 10 and/or increase Resilience effect to 12 seconds.

CONCEPT: Shadow/Assassin should be fast paced and lethal, waiting for Force is kinda silly. Especially since Sorcs and Sages can bump up too what....600? Increasing Resilience is just helping with the massive issue of survivablity in this tree. If OP, decrement in 2 second increments until deemed 'balanced'.

 

3.) Kinectic Field: add 25% ranged damage defense and 25% melee damage defense.

CONCEPT: Umm...a smart 'Master of the Force' could channel energy into protection when he's getting his face kicked in.

 

4.) Situational Awareness: remove current effects. Instead speccing this would allow the new ability "From the Shadows" and Spinning Kick to be be used out of stealth.

CONCEPT: as a master of death (Shadow/Assassin), if the situation requires it, charge/disable a target of opportunity when they're vulnerable.

 

That's it. 4 quick-easy steps. I would think that would be enough to make Infiltration viable, while not increasing damage output. I would think instead of seeing 90% of Shadows/Sins running the same spec....Infiltration would be a ton more viable....and also fun. Get it done!

 

Shoot, maybe in the short term just tinker with the passive abilities. Sage/Sorc has light armor too, but range is a part of their defense, that's huge....a clothie melee needs some sort of defense or just be flat-out the undisputed master of damage in the game. Snipers hit harder than infil Shadows? That don't even make sense...not 1 bit...not being this squishy as a melee AT.

 

(IMO as it is now, KC is the most viable spec out there in group play as far as team-utility is concerned. I leveled strictly Infiltration. Lvl 50 PVP...couldn't hang....had to respec KC. Btw, I'm over Valor 70, so I have just a smidge of game time in SWTOR.)

[kelnis]

Well, on the PvE side I'd like to offer my opinion from the Shadow Wish List thread as a possible improvement. for PVE.

 

Copy&Paste from that thread.

Coming from an infiltration perspective, in PVP, i'm quite pleased with our damage. I don't have problems killing people (with the except of tanks, which are always challenging, but personally not always a loss). For PvE however, I'd love to see some bleeds or something. Throwing around a few ideas while bored at work, worked out something like the old RV effect rets had in WoW. When Find Weakness is up, it could do an additional 15% extra internal damage over 6 seconds (1 tick per 2 seconds, or 3 ticks total) . To show some numbers, my average non-crit SS hits for about 2000 damage.

 

2000 * 15% = 300 damage / 6 seconds = 50 dps, or what 100 damage per tick (@1 tick per 2 seconds)

 

Now, this number of course will scale with crit and damage quite well, and being internal will be valuable as consistent damage for bosses. Even with a high crit (a la Fabricator), let's say we do... 11000 damage.

 

11000 * 15% = 1650 / 6 seconds = 275 dps

 

The limiting factor here is that this 'bleed' can only be applied, at most, once per ten seconds due to the Find Weakness Proc. This should allow the single target damage of infiltration to be comparable/better than balance, and reinforce the single target niche of infiltration. The dps increase would be minor, but the % damage over 6 seconds could be adjusted, as well as the time of the DoT, however increasing either of these significantly may be dangerous for PvP as having the DoT apply too slowly would be useless for pve, and too fast would be too dangerous for pvp.

 

Now, about shadow strike, I'd say let's get rid of the positional requirement, but, that wouldn't be fun. I say let's allow it to be used from any position, but only when Find Weakness is proc'd. As a solid alternative, I think replacing Vigor with a 'new' talent - Perhaps one with both these effects tied to Find Weakness. I'd name it... Improved Find Weakness (Such an awesome name right? Also, totally dont have a good name for it.)

 

Improved Find Weakness: An exposed weakness has revealed your enemies greatest weakness; Allows use of Shadow Strike from any position, damage dealt by Shadow Strike while affected by Find Weakness also deals 15% internal damage over 6 seconds.

 

Some of the OP changes might be a bit well... OP, but certainly a talking point to improve on our currently limited defensive abilities.

[DarthNuke]

I didnt think it was over the top OP. 2 utilities, 2 boosts to survivability....1 of which is passive.

 

But yeah, definately a talking point. If threads like this get enough productive conversation going...maybe the ivory tower will listen.

[Dagis]

Some of these points I agree with some I don't.

 

I think we have enough stuns for another seems pointless, i would like to see some

Sort of ability that makes us parry all incoming attacks for like 5 seconds, also I would love an the extra 50 force or a lower force cost on our abilitys! But I think people underestimate the use of saberstrike.

 

I also like the additional armour from shadow veil that with the aoe damage reduction we become alot less squishy and by no means as tanky as kinetic we do have more defence to stand our own more.

 

I think one of the things I would like most is the backstabbing ability been reduced in force cost and doing more damage when used from stealth.

[Daiyukie]

I think having Shadow Strike cost 50 force not proccable but dealing 20% more damage only when used from stealth would be nice. Cost prohibitive but proper stealth opener. To clarify, find weakness effect could still apply and be procced after just not on the initial strike, because half-cost higher damage if you can ever pull it off from stealth would be a little OP. Maybe make it 60 force just so you can't immediately throw another even if that would hardly be optimal, I can imagine people crying if from stealth your better shadow strike crits and the second one crits

[dronepilot]

None of these things will ever happen, but I do agree with the OP, Shadowy Veil, and stealth in PVP - basically useless when every man and his dog can still detect you anyway. I got all my points in the stealth thing too.. they still see me, and root me even still.

[RobNightfall]

Actually give shadows a stealth attack that hits hard instead of a weird set-up requirement to hit hard. If we're the jedi equivalent of a ninja, then let us strike hard and fast and be gone before the echo fades.

[Aaramis]

Actually give shadows a stealth attack that hits hard instead of a weird set-up requirement to hit hard. If we're the jedi equivalent of a ninja, then let us strike hard and fast and be gone before the echo fades.

 

Which I think was the initial concept of the Infiltration tree. Hard to say, though, as we don't have direct input from devs.

 

However, the end result is a failure due to numerous reasons, some of which were outlined already in this post, but which include:

- the ability for enemies to easily (far too easily) detect Shadows unless Blackout is up

- the fact that 31 points in the tree nets you a melee attack that is only *marginally* better than a melee attack you have had since level 1 (about 100ish more damage per hit than Double Strike), costs the same amount of force, and for which the only real reason to use it is to set up your higher damaging Projects

- the fact that Project isn't a guaranteed crit. Even with, say, a 30% crit rate on your Shadow, which is pretty respectable, you're going to be doing sub-par damage 70% of the time (i.e. non-crits) compared to the TANK tree which will always have a guaranteed Project crit

- Shadowy Veil boosting what is already a pitiful armour rating by 30%; a boost which is mostly unnoticable.

- Shadow Strike costing way too much force, lending to it only being used when Find Weakness is up, whereas it seems better suited to a high damage strike-from-stealth setup.

- Shadow Strike hitting for far less than it should given it's tooltip damage (i.e. if tooltip damage reads 2000-2500, for example, you might see some SS's hitting for 1700ish). I've also noticed this with Find Weakness up, which is pretty much the only time I use Shadow Strike - and considering it should be ignoring 50% of the enemy's armour, it should be doing *noticeably* more damage than the ingame tooltip damage, and crits should be "WHOA!", which they are currently not)

- no means of self-healing, unlike the other 2 trees; coupled with a poor armour rating, leads to a very poor survivability in any lengthy fight

- Force Breach being one of your main damaging attacks; however, on a CD twice the length of Project, and which requires your Shadow technique to proc 5 times in order to maximize it's effectiveness, something that is contradictory to the "burst dps" vision the rest of the skill tree seems aimed at.

- the long "cooldown" on Profundity leading to a very low force regeneration, and serious force issues on a fight any longer than, say, 30 seconds.

 

Suffice to say, Infiltration needs work.

Whether those suggestions in the OP are the way to go? I'm not sure. But I *do* know Kinetic can pull similar dps numbers to Infil with 1000 times the survivability, which does seem inordinately unfair.

Edited April 30, 2012 by Aaramis

[Screttle]

i think we need to have a pick between two set skills that are from stealth, sure a stun is viable but having another option would be great. the current skills arnt enough.

 

make shadow strike an insta crit from stealth and from stealth it does (x%) more damage then outta stealth.

 

or

 

like a hard hitter close to that of our max.

the skill would consist of a big hit and with a bleed/ or on a (X) second expirary it would stun the target, then apply the bleed. to give more sustained damage over time.

Edited May 1, 2012 by Screttle

[lordbrass]

i think all we need is more dps,a force boost and more hp/armor in inf