Xinika Posted May 27, 2012 Share Posted May 27, 2012 Only a bad sent/ Mara will lose to a tank shadow. Vanish, force choke, and ape mez ensure that you will be long dead before you get more than one or two ticks of pebble throw. No... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daiyukie Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Flash Bang is the best mez in the game. Slip Away is money. Last but not least, Sleep Dart -> cap objective + wait for opponent to trinket -> Flashbang and simultaneously capping the node (if timed right, can cap a point before the opponent can retaliate) is pretty dirty. Shadows can theoretically do the same thing but they'd need to Force Cloak into Mind Trap, but that only affects one target and if you screw up, you can't do it out of stealth (plus the target needs to be out of combat, which is sometimes unreliable with Vanish), whereas you can keep trying the Flash Bang + cap during the same GCD trick while getting attacked and being out-of-stealth. Good example of tricks that are much easier to do on the Scoundrel: I'd say the Warrior's AoE mezz is just as good, but I love Spinning Kick and Low Slash over Flashbang. Flashbang is still awesome, but because the GCD prevents you from unstealthing and starting a cap immediately, it's actually hard to just sleep dart and then grab the node. If the positioning is good and they have to walk more than a second before basic attacking you, then you can get it, but for VS it's better for the person to just spam their attack button near the end of the mezz rather than breaking it, because as you said you can then Flashbang and just cap it even easier/faster. For actual combat though, Spinning Kick, Low Slash and Stun ftw. One situational advantage on one CC doesn't make their CC options better =p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daiyukie Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Did you try and be wrong on purpose or do you just not know better? Not only does the Infiltration Shadow have the poorest resource management of all the ACs [just to point out the ridiculousness of it, once you have bottomed out your incredibly large force pool of 100, with abilities costing 30+ on average in any given burst rotation, the Infiltration Shadow will be able to cast a single Project every 6.25s and nothing else in order to stay at a net +/-0 force. Funny huh? ], the burst skills at their disposal are not even close to readily available (6s CD on an ability that costs half your resource pool, 15s CD on Force Breach, a positional attack that barring a proc will cost half of your resource pool again and then there's a big whole nothingness to fill the time between these attacks). To top it off, Infiltration Shadows have no armor debuff and no armor penetration whatsoever. "No armor penetration whatsoever" < I list the armor pen options < "Well Mara/Sent has WAY better armor pen" < ...... Not really following your logic Again, if you're using Shadow Strike without proc.. I'm sorry. If you are waiting for proc, it doesn't cost half your resources and is the best armor-pen Shadows have outside, you know, yellow damage. Not sure how you can say it doesn't have any bearing on whether it's mitigated since it DOESN'T get mitigated besides the paltry resistances most classes get, with Shadow having the best potential resistances to that damage. As for one Project every 6.25 seconds AFTER every single other option is exhausted (Blackout, Vanish, just killing your opponent and normal stealthing/Speeding away) and at 0 Force, it's a hell of a lot better than a dozen Flurries as a Smuggler's energy crawls back up from 0, no? Even ignoring the "Holy Worst Case Scenario Batman!", you illustrated perfectly how much better the Shadow's regen tools are, since just initial regen from stealth, Blackout and Vanish should give you LOTS more uptime than one Cool Head and a lot more 100% balls-to-the-wall energy usage time. You -could- sit at 60% energy on the Smuggler and have infinite uptime, but you'll be doing far less damage than the Shadow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Payneintherear Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 "No armor penetration whatsoever" < I list the armor pen options < "Well Mara/Sent has WAY better armor pen" < ...... Not really following your logic Again, if you're using Shadow Strike without proc.. I'm sorry. If you are waiting for proc, it doesn't cost half your resources and is the best armor-pen Shadows have outside, you know, yellow damage. Not sure how you can say it doesn't have any bearing on whether it's mitigated since it DOESN'T get mitigated besides the paltry resistances most classes get, with Shadow having the best potential resistances to that damage. Dude, can you stop spreading misinformation? Yellow damage does NOT check vs. resists in this game. Yellow damage merely means it's a force or tech attack, which are mitigated by either armor or resists based on their damage type. The vast majority of all yellow damage abilities checks vs. armor. As for one Project every 6.25 seconds AFTER every single other option is exhausted (Blackout, Vanish, just killing your opponent and normal stealthing/Speeding away) and at 0 Force, it's a hell of a lot better than a dozen Flurries as a Smuggler's energy crawls back up from 0, no? Even ignoring the "Holy Worst Case Scenario Batman!", you illustrated perfectly how much better the Shadow's regen tools are, since just initial regen from stealth, Blackout and Vanish should give you LOTS more uptime than one Cool Head and a lot more 100% balls-to-the-wall energy usage time. You -could- sit at 60% energy on the Smuggler and have infinite uptime, but you'll be doing far less damage than the Shadow. Having a net +/- force is not a worst case scenario, it's the reality of any sustained damage model. Blackout and Vanish are utility abilities with long cooldowns, which happen to have force regeneration attached to it. This means that they may or may not be available every 60 and 120s respectively. They also only increase your regeneration by 50% for those 6s, which, following above model, means 1 Project every 4s instead of 6s for the duration. So, for a net +/- 0 force damage sequence you have Project x1, followed by Saber Strike x3 and Project x1, Clairvoyant Strike x1, Saber Strike x2 during Shadow's Respite. I don't know any other class with such ridiculously low sustained damage. We are talking 3/4th of your abilities being your basic attack outside of dps cooldowns on a 60 and 120s CD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daiyukie Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Ok =p Funny how I don't see my yellow damage being nearly as low as my white damage on, say, a tank, but let's say that's just my fantasy. It -still- doesn't show me that Scoundrel has better energy management tools, because he -could- sit at a nice regen level and Flurry a lot, or go nuts and then Flurry a lot all in a row. I'd much rather have 45 second Blackout than Cool Head, if you prefer a direct comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boarg Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 Ok =p Funny how I don't see my yellow damage being nearly as low as my white damage on, say, a tank, but let's say that's just my fantasy. It -still- doesn't show me that Scoundrel has better energy management tools, because he -could- sit at a nice regen level and Flurry a lot, or go nuts and then Flurry a lot all in a row. I'd much rather have 45 second Blackout than Cool Head, if you prefer a direct comparison. He's right on most yellows being subject to armor reduction. Yellow just means it's tech/force and which hit tables the ability uses. The notable thing there is there are no checks for avoidance or shields, so pure tank stats are useless against them. To bypass armor, they also have to be internal or elemental damage type (instead of kinetic or energy) which is generally a minority portion of damage in this game. Although Infiltration still has at least a significant portion (albiet clear minority) of its damage as internal or having partial arp. Breach is our biggest hitter outside of Upheaval procs, and it's internal. Shadow Tech procs are internal too, and they really add up when they're critting for ~1200 damage and such. And then there's using Find Weakness procs. Added up, I usually put it about ~27% of our damage on average. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daiyukie Posted June 1, 2012 Share Posted June 1, 2012 (edited) He's right on most yellows being subject to armor reduction. Yellow just means it's tech/force and which hit tables the ability uses. The notable thing there is there are no checks for avoidance or shields, so pure tank stats are useless against them. To bypass armor, they also have to be internal or elemental damage type (instead of kinetic or energy) which is generally a minority portion of damage in this game. Although Infiltration still has at least a significant portion (albiet clear minority) of its damage as internal or having partial arp. Breach is our biggest hitter outside of Upheaval procs, and it's internal. Shadow Tech procs are internal too, and they really add up when they're critting for ~1200 damage and such. And then there's using Find Weakness procs. Added up, I usually put it about ~27% of our damage on average. Concise and very helpful, thank you. It's probably me getting used to Force Breach damage with Projects hitting about as hard. Still not "no armor pen at all" is it? 27% seems high, unless Shadow Technique really does that much damage overall. I take back the "force attacks are 100% armor pen" statement, I knew theoretically that kinetic and energy gets mitigated, but it didn't really click in practice that a lot of attacks are still energy or kinetic despite being yellow damage. Sorry =p Edited June 1, 2012 by Daiyukie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Payneintherear Posted June 1, 2012 Share Posted June 1, 2012 What you need to understand here is that when Boarg says that he has parsed his average damage and that 27% of his total average damage is contributed by internal damage attacks, that the very reason for actually making up 27% of his total damage is the fact that they deal internal damage and are, on average, mitigated quite a bit less than kinetic attacks. Infiltration does not have access to more internal damage abilities than other dps specs, in fact. Yet it has very, very limited armor penetration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kllashaa Posted June 1, 2012 Share Posted June 1, 2012 (edited) The sustained damage capabilities of 31Infil after using the first Shadow's Respite out of stealth, then Blackout, is pretty disappointing. Couple that with the lack of gap closers, vulnerability to roots and snares, and vulnerability to y-axis (vertical) separation, and the class feels clunky to play against good teams. The Sents and DPS Vanguards I play with have a much easier time maintaining constant uptime on targets. It really amazes me that the designers decided that they should give the KC tree all the utility which either increases uptime or reduces the vulnerability to cc: - 5 second Resilience - 45s Resilience CD - 20s Force Speed CD (yes, you can spec into this as 31Infil, but it's an incredibly bad idea to skip Upheaval) - Snare/Root removal upon activating Force Speed - Force Pull - Spinning Kick on demand We get... 15% run speed bonus, and a marginal CD reduction on Vanish and Force of Will (where you still can't use either one every single fight). Yay. Low Slash is nice for 1v1 and 1v2s, but it's pretty useless in big fights. I actually don't find the class that squishy, and I rarely get or ask for a guard. I'm actually pretty self-sustainable, and can solo protect points pretty well, though not as well as a KC Tank. It's the poor sustained DPS and vulnerability to movement impairment and ccs that bug me the most. Edited June 1, 2012 by Kllashaa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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