Class Feedback

[dipstik]

1. I have had to heal shadow tanks, and they are the least fun to heal by far. They take huge amounts of damage in the blink of an eye, and unless they are contantly popping cooldows (which is honestly more busiwork than fun timing) they will die in two blinks.

 

2. Playing my shadow tank is a ton of fun when I'm not dying due to unnessasary nerfs. being able to disappear and cleanse myself is awesome, but losing all of my armor and self heals as soon as I hit 50 (which was one week before 1.3 hit) was not a pleasant experience. the number of cooldowns that I need to rotate seem,s endless, and the fact that I have 6 "oh crap" buttons, and that I have to use one or two of them every time I get burst damage, seems crazy.

[TheCynic]

I play an Infiltration spec in PVE OPs and FPs.

 

1) How do others see it?

They don't. It is looked at as a low DPS spec, and it seems to be played by so few you almost can not find information about it on sites that deconstruct all the mechanics of MMOs. Oh and the Devs see it as a solo ONLY spec...which I am upset about.

 

2) How do I see it?

It is an ok spec, I can tell from playing and from parsing that its not that great. We lack any ability to close the gap, which means on a joust we have too much down time. once we unload in PvE we kind of just stand there waiting for regen/using our free ability before we can build up and unload again. Oh and I see stealth as nearly useless in endgame PVE because there is no synergy in our skill set

[_Mech_]

Balance Shadow (10/0/31)

 

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes?

PVP: Balance Shadow (dps shadow in general actually) seen by others as a sub-par dps class for pvp. Other classes prefer to see a Kinetic Combat Shadow, or simply another dps class

 

PvE: Balance Shadows seen by others as the preferable Shadow dps spec for pve but most would prefer to run with a Sentinel for melee dps.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

I think the Balance Shadow has acceptable damage output for most current content.

 

But I think the level of "utility" and "survivability" that is advertised with the class is overblown when considering end-game content such as Operations and Ranked Warzones. The spec is soft with only brief defensive cooldowns and a hazardous Force-Cloak that prevents incoming healing. Stuns are on a relatively long cooldown (which often are useless in Operations anyway). The idea of self heals seems well placed, but currently seems to add little to the overall survivability.

[ProKsnNwk]

My opinion:

 

Infiltration

 

1. How others perceive it?

PVE: Weak DPS, will rather have any other class as a DPS.

PVP: You can ninja cap the doors, turret, etc. but they will rather have OverPowerd Sentinel or Guardian.

 

2. How I think about it?

PVE: I like the Infiltration spec, thou, it lacks flexibility, and the DPS, your Out of Force quickly, and you also don't have sustained DPS.

PVP: Good for normal group up (4 people), or solo queue, but for Ranked Warzones any other DPS class is better. Lack flexibility and is very squishy, out of Force fast.

 

P.S. :

If you want to have more Force on the DPS Shadow.

 

 

One of The Jedi Consular >PVE< gear gives Set-Bonus of >50 more total Force<

and just put the WH moods in it and the BM armoring.

The Set-Bonus doesn't change, you get +50 more Force, and also you have PVP moods in it.

 

With Regards

Xibbias

 

Edited July 16, 2012 by ProKsnNwk

[Hollowes]

1. I think most people that have an opinion are thinking of the tanks with dps gear in pvp, they see it as op and think that the changes for 1.3 was a pvp nerf which it obviously wasn't. Some people probably saw the changes and thought "oh crap" now they are useless for tanking pve.

As dps they are most likely down prioritised to sentinels by not putting up as much dps.

 

2. I started playing my shadow in early access and have loved it since, I always continue to change and improve my setup when I see something is more usefull than something else.

 

As a tank I think we got quite a hit in 1.3, not so much the self heals where I can see that they could be a bit to high, but rather with the armor reduction since we get alot of spike damage now .The total damage taken might be the same as other tanks, but taking 3 hits of 4k dmg is better than 2 hits of 6k . I don't think that we are any worse than the other tank classes, but we can be a bit more unreliable since if we aren't topped of we might take a big hit and die.

I think the class is the best on building and holding agro and we got alot of usefull CDs, but I feel stressed at times when I see the big numbers on the screen.

 

As a dps I don't see myself as subpar.

In pvp I do wish we'd do some more dmg, but we have some other usefull stuff with the stealth and taunts. I do feel tho that we aren't as effective at being stealthers as scoundrels and not as effective at being melee as sentinels which doesn't make us good for having both. I also miss having a skill that feels uniqe and special.

In pve I feel I can compete well with other dps, the only ones who clearly out dps me in a long fight is sentinels. I think tho that I have more survivability than sentinels in these fights and can take some hits that they have to move out from. One thing I really think we lack here is a good aoe, Whirling blow just seems like a waste of force and I also end up running around alot when fighting mobs. On a note here aswell, as a dps force speed is not even close to being as usefull as force leap, but for tanking I do find it more flexible if I need to move a boss or similar.

 

I think it's a good class with a possibility for some improvement on the dps side and I do feel that the changes to the tanking could have been done differently. But as long as you don't destroy my class I will continue to love my shadow.

[KiranK]

1. How do you think your Assassin spec is perceived by other classes?

 

I play multiple other classes, and I view people in my spec on the assassin as either "yay! free kill!" or "sigh, Assassin DPS? Can we boot him for a Mara?" Neither is good.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

Fun to play, lackluster in performance. Deception Assassins lack overall DPS due to force starvation and long CDs on key spells. Other attacks have extremely limited useful. Let's take maul for example. Where is exactly is the "back" of a raid boss? Because for too often I get the "must be behind target" error when I'm clearly standing where it looks like the "back" should be. There is also no advantage to using this attack unless it criticals, which I have no control over. Some sort of crit proc on or for maul would go a long ways to improving the spec, as well as the removal of the saber conduit cool down.

[Zintair]

1. Other classes (and I would argue my fellow Shadows as well) have a very erroneous perception of the Shadow tank (balance/infiltration not so much). They largely believe the 1.3 adjustments are a crippling nerf but this is far from the truth. When you parse the numbers you see that 1) mitigation is comparable to the VG (the same kind of tank that we are) and 2) we have the best threat generation in the game. Though the other classes would not believe this. I would even go so far to suggest that we are the best tank spec in the game when you consider all factors (threat, mitigation, utility) but you would not believe this if you asked other classes (or those who have yet to run the numbers).

 

2. I believe Shadow tanks are in a really good spot right now. We are the #1 threat generators, and our survivability is in line with other tanks. I'd say we're in a perfect spot.

 

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes?

 

With my very high mitigation numbers when the parser released it became obvious how powerful the Shadow tank was. Running the Shadow KC/Balance 31/0/10 with my guild showed them this and all will probably agree that the Shadow was the best tank pre-1.3

 

Post 1.3 I think everyone feels that the Shadow was nerfed but that the nerfs were either class breaking, which can be the vocal MINORITY. or necessary as I and a lot of others feel. I think most other tanks feel they are much more in line with the Shadow in terms of tanking.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

I've played Kinetic Combat 31/0/10 since pre-release. Pre-1.3 we were definitely superior to the other tanks. I think the reductions made were fine and brought us in line with other tanks. The numbers are correct as Mavery above suggests. I still mitigate less damage than the other two but its the self-healing that really is the secret IMO. Damage Taken and Healing Done etc.

 

Mavery above was pretty much spot on in his assessment IMO. My only concern for the Shadow Tank at the moment is the mechanics of Kinetic Ward vs large packs of strong mobs. Our stacks get burned within a global cooldown and we are forced at times to use a cooldown. Understandable it seems but I'm curious how the metrics compare to my in game experiences. I raid Server First progression and maintain the guide on the Shadow forums. Like I said I don't mind the nerfs I think they were in line to balance the three tanks.

Edited July 17, 2012 by Zintair

[TERRAFIRMA]

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes?

 

I'm playing DPS (Infiltration) - In relation to PVE I think this spec is percieved as at the lower DPS and survivability of the tree... From discussion's with other spec'd players I think they appreciate the CC capabilities for trash mobs between bosses but they are chosen out of limited availability of other classes rather than there abilities...

 

I see a lot of LFM RDPS or LFM Sentinel in general alot.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

I enjoy the spec from a game design point of view - in specific scenario's like Operations I feel I am providing an acceptable amount of DPS but I require more attention from healers than any other class...

 

We are the only light armor class that is in melee range and the extra boost to endurance does not effectively mitigate enough to make it less work for a healer when on large group dynamics with high AoE damage output - to optimise DPS on infiltration we have to take situational awareness over AoE reduction to squeeze out every last piece of damage to make the class acceptable in DPS for PVE...

 

I feel the Advanced Class offers nothing to assist the group as a whole like inspiration, armor debuff, accuracy debuff etc - pretty much all other classes offer a group wide assist apart from the Shadow... makes them a less desirable addition to end game...

[Heezdedjim]

It is sad to see how far this class has fallen since launch. When I played in beta, the only really well developed player guides I saw for any class were the ones on the "Tankassin." It was alleged that the most active guild that had cleared the most content during beta used a Shadow tank and really liked it. The Assassin was something new and fun; the Rogue that could tank; and at launch was far and away the most overplayed class in the game.

 

Now . . . well, now the tank spec is universally regarded as the weakest tank in the game. Likewise, one DPS tree is widely derided as the weakest DPS AC around; and the other is marginal at best. Going from the best class in the game to the class that is the bottom of the barrel in BOTH of its designated roles is just . . . pathetic. I would not have thought it possible, but you guys did it. It took you six months to do it, but you finally killed the Shadow.

Edited July 17, 2012 by Heezdedjim

[CarverX]

1) One of the top pvp classes in game and a serious threat in any situation.

 

2) Great amount of skills to say the least as the shadow can do pretty much everything. I love this class because I can do so many things although it got a little over nerfed in the last patch.

[Morrolan]

Kinetic Combat based with Balance

 

How do others perceive the class:

Weakest tank now with less survivability than other in both PvE and PvP and underpowered DPS wise

 

How do I perceive it:

Great utility but as a tank its not much use now, the changes in 1.3 went too far and its underpowered.

[Spectus]

1. MY PERCEPTION: Underpowered, limited to Kinetic (Tank) spec for any hope of viability. And that was nerfed with 1.3. Infiltration spec is particularly weak: inferior DPS, very fragile. Role is basically a one-trick pony, only good for sneaking past enemy NPCs and filching a quest objective. Can harass squishy casters and healers in PvP, but they kill slowly and die quickly. Kinetic and Kinetic/Balancy Hybrids are only slightly better: They die more slowly, but Kinetics kill even more slowly. Most Shadows put at least 8 points into the Balance line to get the extra half-damage rock from their Project attack, just to have one decent attack. And I still resent that 10-ft. range on Project and the default version of Telekinetic Throw.

 

2. OTHER CLASSES' PERCEPTION: Shadows are perceived as useless in any role/spec but Kinetic/tanking. Hybrid Balance/Kinetic builds are gaining some interest among Shadows desperate for SOME role, but I find their contribution dubious. No healing spec, and their DPS spec is outgunned by pretty much every other class's DPS build.

Edited July 17, 2012 by Spectus

[Raeli]

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes?

Infiltration PvE: Sub-par DPS, waste of a raid spot considering the immense utility of Sentinels, why take a Shadow as a melee when you can take a Sentinel with a group damage buff and other useful utility cooldowns.

 

Infiltration or Balance PvP: Free kill.

 

Kinetic Combat PvE: A good pretty strong tank, the 1.3 nerf hit pretty hard, but we're still going pretty strong, no one has struggled healing me so far - I often end up tanking in our operations, while we are gearing up newer tanks, and even in my ilvl 61 / 58 half and half gear, healers are managing fine with me on Kephess. Also, Resilience is awesome.

 

Kinetic Combat PvP: Annoying point defender. Lots of tools to defend a point and survive against even several people until you get support.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Infiltration PvE: A very fun spec to play, it feels awesome, and I love it, I just wish it was a little less bursty, and a bit better sustained DPS - I'm managing to compete with our sentinels, but that's with me in my fully optimised ilvl 61 gear (bar 58 armorings in the bracers/belt), vs at best, 80% or so campaign gear, not yet fully optimised in our sentinels. They will be blowing me away when they are in fully optimised ilvl 61 stuff, which saddens me as I don't have their utility, I feel, especially as a raid leader, that I should reroll to another more useful class as I am wasting a lot of the potential of our raid team by bringing a useless class.

 

Infiltration PvP: Again, I so wish it was a viable spec. It's so much fun, and is the reason why I made a shadow, but they're so squishy. The best way to play is to attack from stealth and use your high burst, but the problem is, in most situations, you can only get back into stealth the once, and then you either have to run away and sit somewhere to get out of combat, or stay there in the thick of things, a bad place to be for such a squishy character. There needs to be a few more options and tools for DPS Shadows in PvP, because they're just pointless - even when I see a Shadow that is not tank specced, I think free kill.

 

Kinetic Combat PvE: It's in a very good place I think, the nerf hurt a lot, and it feels like only one part of it would have been necessary, the armor or the healing nerf, not both. Resilience is an awesome cooldown, our threat is very good and easy to generate, I don't feel weak as a tank in PvE.

 

Kinetic Combat PvP: The only viable spec. It's a little dull to play most of the time, since the best place you can be is defending a point. We're much weaker than other tanks in PvP due to the diminished value of defense and shield, and our Armor being FAR FAR less than others. In DPS gear we make a reasonably good off-tank, which I think is the only viable role for us at the moment, guarding, spamming taunt when in team fights, and solo defending points when not.

[Hawtmama]

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes? meh dps, meh tank because the other class should tank instead, too squishy otherwise to be useful. can tank fine if traited right, but the other 2 specs are meh dps wise

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec? We are the poor stepchild dps. are we melee or not? neither melee or ranged dps/force attacks feel powerful enough

Edited July 17, 2012 by Hawtmama

[DarthNuke]

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes?

Scapegoat. There is nothing this class can do that all of the other classes can't do better. Yet, everyone calls for Shadow/Sin nerfs. I've never seen my OP class ever hit 500K damage in a warzone. Meanwhile, these classes I've seen hit 800K damage: Sorc, Powertech, Merc (pre nerf), Jugg, Mara, Sniper, Operative.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Lackluster. Flawed design. Too many keybinds. KC: boring with no real burst and not a feasible tanking class imo. Infiltration: way too squishy while always rooted with burst nowhere near that other classes. Balance: why pick up a squishy Balance Shadow when a Balance Sage can do the job better plus provide off heals...poor design imo.

 

Free Tips:

- Give the class a stealth opener.

- Make Shadow Strike a core utility...which atm...it is not.

- Graphically, the double-bladed lightsaber, with no really cool tricks? C'mon. Surely y'all can give us some sort of Impale ability with that thing.

Edited July 17, 2012 by DarthNuke

[SajPl]

1. Good tanks.

2. A tank with cloak is OP for holding objectives.

More survivability - bring back the armor to what it was, less damage we are tanks not DPS after all, doing 200-300k damage on my lvl 42 shadow-tank is normal. For example lower the damage bonus from harnessed shadows.

Edited July 17, 2012 by SajPl

[geezy]

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes?

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

I WAS a infiltration shadow from day 1 early access until T1.3 + 1

 

1. KInda useless, in a guild where we already have our main Shadow tank for WZs etc ( infiltration is truly horrible and a balance sage is better than a balance shadow imo)

2. I used to be so damn proud of being one of the few shadows on my server to stick with Infiltration. I loved being the class that could 1v1 basically anyone and FAST and then dissapear.

We always relied on CDs, but it was manageable as we had powerful'ish burst without them, and had POWERFUL burst with them. Alot of people say that the changes to relics werent so bad as now we have so much extra power as a static stat, but thats just not true in my experience. I have both WH Power Relics and full WH gear (except offhand and 1 implant ) all augmented with Overkill augs (+18 power), my bonus damage is around 550-600 as far as i can remember and I'm hitting less than I was in BM gear. Its kinda retarded that our damage has decreased while everyones health has increased.

 

Please do yourselves a favour and go on Youtube and check out some of the vidz on infil from a few months back, then please respond as to why you completely deadened our class.

 

P.S Havent got a single annhilator medal since 1.3 while I have been hit for 6k + by focus knights and around 5k+ by HiB

[TrevNYC]

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes?

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

Spec: Balance

1. Other classes perceive Balance as the highest sustained dps for shadows if played properly, but significantly lagging behind some other dps specs (commandos, gunslingers, sentinels, especially). Some mechanics are seen as group-unfriendly (AoE attacks needed to maximize damage, damage over time takes a while to ramp up -- both have crowd-control breaking implications). Utility is about average (good out of combat crowd control, not much in-combat utility), and survivability is low.

 

2. I perceive balance as a great mix of force powers and melee, but possibly a bit over-complicated for the dps payoff. I feel like I make a significant tradeoff in toughness, but lack the tools to benefit from hit-and-run tactics that would seem to befit an inherently vulnerable character. I don't think my self healing is particularly valuable compared to other dps specs (even those without a healing tree).

[DransiksApoc]

I mostly Play Infiltration spec

 

 

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes?

 

 

Horrible DPS, would rather have a sent or even a Guardian dps. Too squishy to really do anything in a group setting. Doesn't bring anything to the table that another class can't do a lot better in both PVE groups and pvp.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

The Concept is really fun. I feel very underpowered in any situation outside of solo gaming. Truth is though I do just as well if not better on any of my other toons (I've leveled at least one version of each character either on the pub or imp side.) I just don't feel competitive on my shadow. If I wanted to tank I would have made a Guardian or a Vanguard. If I wanted to play a ranged casty type (i.e. Balance) I would have made a sage. But no the only uniqueish tree to play on either a shadow or assassin is horribly out matched and out gunned in most if not all situations by better AC's. Burst was ok until endgame (this mainly do to always being a higher level then the instance was rated for in pve) and in pvp it just doesn't compare to other AC's burst/utility. I can play smarter in pvp but if I was fighting me playing an operative, me playing the operative would win when it comes to bursting and quick kills. I gave up trying to play rated, its all very depressing, this was the class I latched on to while waiting for Tor to come out and now I just feel let down.

Edited July 17, 2012 by DransiksApoc

[MimicUnleashed]

Kinetic Combat

 

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes?

 

OP as heck in PvP while wearing DPS gear. Great for PvE tanking, but after the nerf the trust is sort of shallow.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

Great for PvE. The nerf sort of killed me a little. Hitting every major survival option at once is a lot to adapt to. However I like it just fine, and honestly I can still laugh my way through certain bosses just because of Resilience. Why don't other tanks get a skill like that since every other boss hits hard with something like that?

 

Infiltration

 

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes?

 

100%, complete and total crud (crud used for safety of TOS forum agreement). No survivability, no consistent damage, easily targeted and killed.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

Too weak in sustained DPS. In fact a recent Q&A really made me shake my head that Shadow/Assassin DPS needs a partner and should be a glass cannon. I refuse to PvP as this spec not because tank is OP, but because this spec can't kill time without a pocket healer. Maybe it's a viable spec in rateds with good coordination, but the other 99% of us that want to PvP need to do it solo, and this spec is HORRIBLE at it.

[Oktaine]

KC Spec

 

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes? Either OP or broken depending on which forum the tears are flowing from.

 

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

I only pvp, haven't done any flash points or any of that stuff. It's just not fun to me. So anyway, DPS spec is a disaster and has been from the beginning. So everyone starts using a hybrid spec. But you guys dont want people using hybrid so you kill that and we all start using KC. So now you hurt KC and people are going back to hybrids. I think right now you devs need to figure out what you want us to be.

 

I've leveled a Shadow and an Assassin to 50 and the bottom line for me is it's just not as fun as it was. We either need a damage buff so you know we could actually have a chance of killing a healer one day. Or we need the self healing bumped back up so we can last a bit longer.

 

Honestly I liked the pure KC spec pre 1.3 and post 1.2 the best. You guys just need to figure out what you want us to be. In the mean time I'll be leveling my Vanguard.

[Darkoath]

I play an infiltration spec shadow in a top-tier raiding guild.

 

1) Um, can we get a Sentinal instead? Or maybe a smuggler? Does someone have a ranged dps available?

 

2) In full Campaign gear I come in about 200 to 300 dps behind other similarly-geared players. My damage starts out strong, but in 15 seconds or so the other classes catch up and surpass me as my damage sputters down. We have enough dps in the raid to get the bosses down, but, obviously, the raid would be better off with another class filling my spot. Add in the squishiness, the lackluster aoe, and the fact that damage suffers even more in mobile fights, plus we bring no raid-wide buff or utility, and it's hard to make the argument for bringing an infiltration shadow over any other dps class. I love playing he shadow though; i just wish it wasn't so gimped. FYI -- I tried Balance spec for a while. It's not significantly better to make it worthwhile.

[Lorica]

My shadow is fairly new but I can already see the increased dps. With Qyzen, I cut down mobs and bosses faster than when I was a sage thus far. At my current level, the only thing I would change is that Qyzen concentrates on the foe I am attacking or there is a button to direct him.

 

To add, I am currently spec'd for balance.

[sentawan]

Kinetic, Tank, PVE FP and OPS

 

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes?

 

I don't know. I have read that others grief the changes in 1.3, which gives it an under-powered reputation for tanking. I routinely am given praise by healers for my skills. [When playing other roles, I have seen other AC tanks suck in HM FPs. It isn't the class; it is the player.]

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

I absolutely love tanking with shadow. While I felt a little squishier post 1.3, it has not effected my survivability.

 

 

 

Post 1.3, I have absolutely NO problems getting and keeping agro in HM FPs and OPs, and I routinely make sure to grab ALL mobs [primarily with aoe, saving taunts] and have NO problems surviving. Survivability in the face of multiples is what CDs and CCs are for. Contrary to popular belief, the self-healing from telekinetic throw DOES help by eliminating damage you are currently taking; it is just less likely to heal you more than the damage you take.

[WoruulKeei]

Infiltration Spec.

 

1. Weak compared to all other dps spec but scoundrel. Using infiltration in pvp is often considered a hindrance.

 

2. I like to play infiltration and find it quite fun, however damage seems weak compared to sentinels and gunslingers. It feels like just to remain competitive I have to go through all my gear working in mods, enhancements, armorings, and hilts that maximize dps stats as efficiently as possible, my other guild members feel like their heads explode when I talk about all the stuff I go through to ensure I have as much dps as I can.