Class Feedback

[Thlayli]

Kinetic PvE

 

1. Shadow tanks are seen as balanced in terms of survivability and still the best tank spec in terms of damage and threat.

 

2. I feel like the shadow is in a good spot. I'm tanking everything the game has to offer and enjoying it.

[OysterCatcherr]

Balance specced SHadow - Primarily PvP with occasional PvE

 

1) Definitely an irritation, but not much of a threat. Easy to kill and to cleanse the DoTs. Vanguard/Sentinel teammates probably feel they have to carry my average damage..

 

2) As far as play-style is concerned, I LOVE IT. Most fun spec to play in the game of any class (in my opinion), but unfortunately that is the only reason I Have stuck with it. Damage is so-so, and survivability is awful. We have decent utility but not as good as Kinetic shadow or sentinel.

Edited July 17, 2012 by OysterCatcherr

[dronepilot]

Infiltration Shadow - PVP

 

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

 

Were a joke. No one wants Infiltration shadows in PVE or PVP, unless there is no one else available. People think I am crazy for still playing this role. People think were easy to kill, so there for free kills for them. People I mean everyone, tells me about how crappy my DPS is playing in this spec as well, and we can't come close to other Melee damage specs.

 

2. How I perceive my class ?

 

I am an Infiltration spec, I believe I should be able to easily by pass enemies to get to an objective unseen. To a large extent we can do this efficiently. However also refer to my notes on stealth. We should also be able to support other DPS classes effectively, without being sub par to them, if we have light armour, fine, but please we should have effective DPS, that can actually shut down some thing if its needed.

 

1) doesn't bring enough sustained or burst damage to PVP, and is definitely lower than other melee classes.

 

2) supposed to be a shutdown spec, how exactly is this possible when we do not have enough resources to complete a rotation of specific abilities than will do this efficiently. Force Management is a complete nightmare to try and work through, while we have to constantly watch our force pool, which is very low to even begin with.

 

3) Stealth. Blackout, and Cloak, are very easily broken and you are pulled from stealth if so much as some one sneezes nearby you. The Escape mechanism should really be looked at here, as the CD's on these are fairly long, considering this class is supposed to be a hit and run, and fade away class. Even the Sentinels cloak ability is more efficient here than ours !!

 

4) Resilience, and Force of Will CD's are a little too long in a PVP environment, where constant stuns, and roots happen several times, before you can either decide to blow your CD's and hope you can escape the mess, or judge this badly, and find yourself unable to move or even escape from the situation, ok so, fine.. I just get rooted or perma stunned instead, and I get to watch a full minute of this, and enjoy my time being waisted.

 

5) Force wave, is it me, or does this so called wave not throw very far ?? - I see Jedi Knights/Warriors use some thing like this, and theirs seem to throw much further than our force wave. Its really ridiculous the short distance I see people get thrown when I use this ability, so I seldom use it. Besides which much of the time it still passes right through enemies anyway, and are unaffected anyway.

 

My feedback, for your enjoyment

Edited July 17, 2012 by dronepilot

[DarthTyrannious]

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

I have a shadow infiltrator spec, my favorite. Not sure why. I am constantly being told by my guild and family that my shadow character stinks in PVE and PVP. They think my other Characters like the Sith Warrior and Bounty Hunter are much better. All are level 50s. I'm dropped a lot from HM FP and OPS due to being a useless melee DPS. Shadow Inf are treated very poorly. I got dropped twice just this week from HM LI and I have over 19K HP, due to some reason about needing ranged DPS over melee. I finally finished it HM LI, but after begging to stay in and the ranged DPS said he wouldn't have a problem if I died, since he does more DPS and can take up the slack. I feel like I should be cloaked all the time, since I'm embarrassed to be a shadow. Please help us.

 

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

I still think the shadow strike is bugged. I still get the effect condition error message. On certain fights, like 1 on 1 in OPS EV, I can't use the shadow strike at all.

I've got other issues with the INF but it did say 2-3 sentences. Thanks

[FodderofCannon]

Infiltration spec- PVP

 

1. Easy kill, burst down in seconds.

 

2. I tried Kinetic spec for a while and it was decent in wz's, fairly hard to kill and decent damage for a tank, but it felt misplaced. I rolled a shadow to be the silent killer, the deadly strike quick and fast type of character. So I re-specced into Inf and I must say I love it. However it is gimped and everyone knows it. Your illusions of "burst" are rather humorous, because lets face it ladies: you can't burst anything if you are dead in 3 seconds. Stealth is great but your not 'bursting" anyone from stealth. Certain AC's sure we can beat 1v1, but how many times in your "team" based warzones is someone all alone?? Almost never. If you try to kill a healer, you run out of force. You simply don't have the burst to kill anyone that's being healed in a multiple group environment (and you burst potential is really random and takes far too long to build up) and to top it all off you are the easiest (with the possible exception of a dps sorc) thing the enemy team can kill. But unlike the sorc you have to be in peoples face to do them damage, you cant hide on the edges spamming dots and lighting strike. This makes for BAD DESIGN in a team based WZ PvP based game.

 

How to fix it? There are a number of ways that would work, many suggested by the shadow/sin community. However here are a few of my own ideas. (Not all of these, but at least some of them)

 

1- Grant us a Find Weakness from stealth ability. Big opener hit from stealth just like operatives. At least we might be feared a little.

2- Reduced the cooldown on Force Cloak, and for gods sakes make it cleanse dots. Or at least make % chance on a higher tier talent to cleanse dots when force cloaking.

3- Hey I know A HEALING DEBUFF?? Why don't we have this? Arn't we supposed to be harassing healers?

4- A reflect bubble of some kind, doesn't even have to reduce that much damage, just make focusing us hurt more.

5- We should have the spinning kick out of stealth ability, not Kinetic.

Edited July 18, 2012 by FodderofCannon

[Tempos]

PvP Infiltration shadow

 

1. People still see Kinetic Combat being the only good spec for a PvP Shadow, simply because of how much less utility other specs provide and how squishy they are. They see infil as lacking in when compared to Kinetic Combat.

 

2. I enjoy infiltration, but I know I have to be better at avoiding damage because of how squishy I am, I would love to have more enhanced escape abilities or a bit better survivability. I also feel my burst damage is quite good, but my sustained dps is lacking when compared to other classes.

[leto_cleon]

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

 

PVP and PVE - Balance Shadows are a lot of utility for both defending and attacking objectives, but on the other hand Infiltration Shadows have a lot less utility with the lack of range and AoE. Both however, seem to take too much damage and the defensive cooldowns are too long to be of use.

 

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

PVP - Ditto above.

PVE - Balance Shadows are really enjoyable to play, but Infiltration Shadows simply do not do enough sustained damage to be viable for Operations (due to the enrage mechanic). Stealth seems to have become more of a solo ability and really does not contribute much to group play in Operations and Flashpoint boss fights.

 

(Slightly off point: There's also too many procs to watch. It hampers enjoying all the hard work put into all the cool ability animations.)

[babygotmoreback]

Balance Spec Shadow PVE/PVP

 

I have played many dps classes and have noticed that balance shadows are very lacking in force regeneration/resource management. Most classes get at least 2-3 abilities that either give a straight amount of energy/force/focus etc, or boosts regeneration for so many seconds or both. Many of these abilities are on top of a base rate (granted, some ratesa are reduced the lower they are). Balance shadows, however, do not have any such ability. The only thing that regens any extra force is dependent on a dot and force in balace being used together. This is only a small amount that can only yield a max of 20 force over a 15 second period on a single target (which is the case in pve). This only computes to an extra 1.3 force per second or 4 force over 3 seconds. The force cost to set these abilities is 65 force (25 force in balance, 20 force breach, 20 sever force). Project and double strike are costly abilites costing 39 force and 23 force respectively (after points in tree to reduce double strike by 2 force and project by 6 force are utilized). In fact, despite 7 points in 3 tiers of the tree which encourage the use of project, most will not use this ability b/c it is so costly. Does anybody else see the discrepancy in resource management here compared with other classes? I will mention that balance shadows do get mind crush which is normally a 3 sec cast but is made free of force cost and an instant ability when it procs which has a chance to proc once every 10 seconds (if you have a point in this ability in the tree).

 

Sents/guardians can gain focus quickly by using abilities and have talents that refund focus, drastically reduce the cost of abilites, or allows an anility ot be free of focus cost- not to mention the deadle master strike which costs no focus. Scoundrels get cool head which refunds 66 energy over 3 seconds and pugnacity which gives an extra 1 energy per second over 45 seconds yet it only has a 35 sec cooldown. Scoundrel healers get free heals on targets under 30% as well (as long as they have upper hand).Gunslingers have burst volley which gives them 50% extra force regeneration for 10 seconds and has a 45 second cooldown. Also, slingers have cool head and when they are crouched down they have a passive ability which gives them 1 extra energy per second. Commandos get recharged cells which gives 3 ammo immediately and 3 more over 6 secs which is half of their resource with a 90 sec cd. Supercharged cells and a few other abilities also reduce the ammo cost of many abilities.

 

I have a few suggestions that would help bring the balance spec up to par with other classes that would not give us a large boost but would help fix the resource discrepancy.

 

1.) the force cost of double strike can be reduced by 5 (instead of 2) and project by 10 (instead of 6 with points in the skill tree).

2.) blackout can grant shadows respite- 6 seconds of 50% force regeneration over 6 seconds- in the balance tree as it does in the infiltration tree.

 

These together would help even resource management for this tree. I will say that in pvp this spec has better force regen since you could potentially consume suppressions on 3 targets. However, in most situations this is unlikely since the focus in pvp is objectives and quickly single targeting down healers and other players to meet these objectives. Additionally, kinetic shadows have more utility in pvp and the same or better dps.

 

For those of you who would argue that project shouldn't be used in the balance tree, you are right. But the only reason is because we don't have the resource management to use it. And, honestly, who wouldn't want to work in an ability that gives a boost in 3 tiers of your tree?. The answer is people that are using saber strike many times in a row to repair the force drain caused by this ability just so you can use your abilities to set the groundwork (force imbalance and your dots) to gain the small extra regen you actually get in tree. Furthermore, this completely nullifies the bonus damage boost granted by project in the tree.

I look at the balance tree and can't help but think that it was meant to utilize a project for the melee bonus damage. Please help this be realized.

As for the make-up of the class, I love setting the dots, having the aoe, watching procs, etc. It makes this class more complex and enjoyable to play! I love the playstyle. On that note, thanks for the spec!

 

Infiltration

Having played infiltration spec as well (which has more force management capability with a 50% reduced cost of project, shadows respite with blackout (50% of increased force regeneration for 6 seconds with a 45 second cd, and extra 10 force every time your shadow technique procs), I think a 5 force cost reduction of clairvoyant strike would be beneficial to the class. This class has a large burst of damage and which is dramatically reduced by the force strain over time. It would be overpowered if this "burst" could be maintained over long periods, but for as squishy as this spec is, it could afford to have a bit more force regeneration talents/skills. And lets be honest, shadow technique does not proc often enough for the extra 10 force granted when it procs to be of substantial value.

I feel infiltration spec is all about quick/sneaky burst damage. To this end, perhaps having only a minute cool down on force cloak would be appropriate (perhaps 2 minutes for other trees?) This would also help force regen issues as shadow's respite is granted for 6 secs after leaving stealth in this tree.

 

Another thought is to make the 2 piece rakata/columi/campaign set bonus better. Honestly, allowing saber strike which takes about 2 seconds of dps time, to refund 1 force is not that beneficial. Perhaps, extending the time of shadow's respite by 2 seconds might be better. Or refunding 10 extra force when techniques proc, etc..

 

And just as a side note, it is true that ops and pvp teams would prefer all other dps over shadow dps classes. Other classes have the same or greater utility with better dps (typically). And with ranked warzone spots being highly competitive, almost noone want sto to take an infiltration ot balance shadow no matter player skill. Help bring our dps specs for this class back where we have a place in pve/pvp. Thanks for listening.

Edited July 18, 2012 by babygotmoreback

[babygotmoreback]

So, to answer your questions:

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

Can we get a sentinel, smuggler, or any ranged dps instead? Who plays balance spec anyway? Oh, and maybe you should roll a sage since balance sage is much better than balance shadow.

2.) How do you perceive your class?

Read above post. Love the playstyle with 1 aoe, dots, and constant procs. I wish others could value the dps trees instead of brushing us off as subpar purely because of class/spec. Dps trees (balance and infiltration) could use better force regen abilities to help bring us up to par with other classes.

Edited July 18, 2012 by babygotmoreback

[crzymnky]

I main spec as Kinetic Combat (tank)

I believe people think that shadow tank is weaker and trust a vanguard over and guardian and then shadow. That will probably be due to the fact that we have "light armor" and most shadows tent to be dps in my experience. I see very few of them in game in general at all.

 

From my experience as playing a shadow tank, I really enjoy playing it. It comes with great damage as solo, the threat it generates is good in my opinion. Like I posted on the sage side, i enjoy all the procs that they class comes with. I don't find them a way to increase my damage or tanking ability but I feel it gives the game and every encounter a lot of randomness and complete uniqueness.

 

I have also dabbled in the infiltration spec of my shadow a little bit. I find it equally as much fun as tanking with all the procs it provide. I wasnt too impressed with the damage it provided but I was still using my tanking gear. But overall I find the entire class setup entertaining, maybe a little lacking in damage but that could have been due to my gear.

[Riminy]

Kinetic Combat PVP (DPS gear)

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

 

I think people become annoyed with this build in pvp more than anything. That is what I see as the primarily reason for complaint. Not because it was really that overpowered (small tweaks were probably in order in 1.3 but it probably was too far).

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

Firstly, Shadow pvp is extremely limited in terms of variety. For a while now shadow builds are just some variety of kinetic combat and if a person does choose balance or infiltration, it's simply not good enough to compete in high end pvp. It's a shame too. I never personally wanted to go down the kinetic combat tree. If infiltration was viable and competitive, I would switch right away and as for balance, if I wanted to play balance, I would of rolled a sage. But as it stands we cannot compete with vanguards, sentinels, guardians, snipers in terms of DPS in whatever build a shadow chooses (in pvp). When I started playing my shadow, I had this idea of being somewhat of a rogue equivalent, which is what infiltration partially resembles. I would not recommend a shadow to anyone who had the same concept as me because you will be disappointed (for pvp).

 

Secondly, as it has been established that kinetic combat is the only viable build (whether it be FiB or slowtime), the build we do choose once again cannot compete in DPS when compared to the above classes. What shadows can do is a bit of everything with no real specialty, and this is annoying for other players (mediocre DPS and mediocre tanking).

 

I do believe that the problem isn't the fact that a tank build in DPS gear cant compete with other DPS classes, it's the fact that infiltration cannot compete. If infiltration was solid and playable, then there would be no need for this thread. As it stands infiltration is terrible basically because they cannot survive long enough to utilize their abilities. Their two defensive abilities work great for the kinetic combat build, but its not enough for infiltration. I'm not quite sure how to rebalance infiltration, perhaps a lower cool down on force cloak as well as some armour increase.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Riminy

[Shifty_PL]

1. People perceive shadow as some kind of an unkillable paladin monster from You-know-which game. The truth is, that with recent 5% boost for snipers, remade Sentinel/Marauder trees and the current state of Powertechs - those clases see us as cannon fodder, as i literally vanish in a few seconds from all those 4-5k crits.

 

2. IMO Shadows were perfect pre 1.3, without cut heals, ~1k armour rating more and whatever else You did change. I stood a chance against aforementioned classes in an even fight. The problem existed for scoundrels and sorcerers though, as It did not take too much effort to kill any of them without acutally losing more than 25% health sometimes. Personally, the Jedi Shadow has been the most fun to play MMO class of all times, until those weird QQ-based changes came and it became... something different - mediocre dps, mediocre survivability, mediocre tanking abilities due to lowered survivability.

 

Secondly, Infiltration is excellent and fun spec to play, but its just too useless and squishy to be viable. Soloing anything using shadow technique is really tough, nigh impossible.

[TyeWebb]

Infiltration Spec

 

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

PVE - They would rather have a sentinel, if they could select to have another melee DPS.

PVP - Teammates wish I was either full Kinetic or hybrid kinetic/balance. Enemies see a squishy target, that is more of an annoyance and not an actual threat.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

PVE - I can pull my weight DPS wise in Ops, however I know I'm not doing the DPS other classes are doing and I'm also not bringing any nice utility or buffs to the group. I'm not a liability to the group but I'm not an asset either.

PVP - In organized PVP I am a liability to the team. DPS and survivability is subpar, and I bring no must have utility.

[Zionicest]

My spec: Kinetic Combat (Tank)

 

 

1. Other classes think we are OP in pvp but we're not. Snipers, Operatives, and powertechs eat us up. The community thinks we're a wasted spot for dps. Nobody fears (or wants to invite for ops) a dps tree shadow.

 

2. 1. We feel squishier in PvE and PvP due to the reductions in self healing. We're just about right in kinetic but I'd like to see a buff to our dots to coincide with the reduction in self-healing. Our dps trees need some serious attention for our infiltration and balance.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Zionicest
clarification

[Pedra]

Infiltration Shadow

 

How I perceive it.

1) Not a team spec. Brings no utility to the team. Too squishy compared to other DPS classes that do that role better.

 

How others perceive it (Austin Peckenpaugh):

 

1) Not a team spec. Doesn't bring anything to a team. Designed to be as much as 10% off DPS spec of other DPS classes. Should be a lone wolf in a team based MMO.

 

Does that about sum it up? I would say we just about have a convergence here.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Pedra

[StarDaimyo]

Kinetic Spec

 

1. I believe other players perceive the Shadows as undefined right now; the perceived nerf in 1.3 makes many think we are no longer viable tanks (PVE), and "everyone knows" that Balance and Infiltration Shadows have been looked upon as semi-meh since launch.

 

2. I solo a lot (PVE), and do group runs (FPS/Ops) but never PvP. I feel the survivablility as a Shadow tank is good when I solo, but think that it must be a bit hard for the healers in FPs / Ops since we are victims of spikey damage. It is kind of sad that most bosses are immune to our strengths (shield etc). I hope this will be balanced out in the future; I want to tank; both solo and wen in groups.

[Oshimo]

Hi everyone,

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

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Thank you!

 

Telekentic

1. It won't damage me, I can ignore it. In huttball it can't be brought down or slowed. If it has the ball and is healed it's going to score. Is OP in damage gear (not an intended design, most likely).

2. Weak. 2nd class citizen in Ops, 3rd out of 3 choices for tanking. Utility only in PvP.

[mikebevo]

Infiltrator Spec

 

1. Weak, weak DPS in longer fights, great for cleaning trash, terrible in Boss fight. DPS goes from average to very poor when having to moving around a lot to avoid AOE damage.

 

2. Very fun class while leveling. Could easily do heroics solo before the server mergers, but feel like I’m being carried when doing Boss fights in Operations and HMFPs. Great for burst and fast kills, but anything over 3 ½ mins and the DPS drops like a rock. Really don’t want to respec, because I really love the play of a infiltrator, but it is either that or give up doing group activities because I hate the feeling of being carried.

[brainpsyk]

1. How do you think your Shadow spec is perceived by other classes? (Kinetic Combat)

PvP - OP (But every class considers every other class to be OP). Squishy, even in tank gear.

PvE - Fine for HM Flashpoints, I haven't done an Op in months, so I can't comment on Ops

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec? (Kinetic Combat)

 

overall

• LOVE the playstyle and animations of KC ( cannot stress this enough, as this is PERFECT)
  
• Too many keybinds (I have 36, and not everything is bound).
  
• Armor / healing nerf didn't affect PvE (again, I only do HM FPs), but hammered our survivability in PvP
  

 

PvP

• No real burst, mediocre survivability, even in fully augmented gear.
  
• HIGHLY vulnerable to AOE stuns, since we have to be in melee range to do anything.
  
• CC is pathetic. Our 1 stun is for 4 seconds (instead of 9), and only affects 1 person (instead of 8). our CC is only usable out of combat, and is only for 8 seconds. Force Lift? you're kidding right?
  
• Stealth is a joke. Marauders/Sentinels have better stealth on a shorter cooldown. Can only stealth once every 3 minutes. Stay in combat as long as someone has us targeted, unless they are 100m away.
  
• Force Wave needs to be instantaneous. Timing is everything in PvP, try to time something with a built in 1/2 second + random delay. Literally, I've knocked people in front of me farther behind me because of game lag plus the ability lag on Force Wave
  

 

 

The little I played Balance I found it was too annoying to be a proc-based class, while having the procs be these tiny little icons near my character.

 

Balance was way too squishy, even the cooldowns were useless, except for the 5 seconds of Resilience, which is only 50% useless.

 

 

Suggestions:

 

• Nerf AOE Stuns (diminishing returns depening on number of PLAYERS affected)
  
• Telekinetic Throw - pebbles aren't intimidating, use the Project animation for each tick
  

[KeeferE]

1: Shadow was a good tank till it got Nerf.. Now in PvP most people know it is softer and will jump you for an easy kill.. They also know that the force breach has such a long CD that you will be kept in cc while they kill you...

2: I like the tank but reducing it's ratings really hurt the play of it...

[zhedeyenite]

After i shelved my commando post 1.2 I re-rolled a shadow and have loved every minute.

I only play PVP and have tried many specs, currently using kinetic/balance hybrid in DPS gear.

 

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

Pretty hard to kill (except for pyros) and moderate DPS, but not enough for the enemy to be worried about.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

Amazing of course. Yes the survivability went down a bit but all the self-heals were a bit OP. I love the utility we have, cc and stealth plus enough burst to surprise and annoy healers.

 

The Infiltration tree really needs some work to be viable in ranked warzones, it was great for trolling solos in Ilum but that was it.

Very happy with shadows at the moment, this is not the class you want to nerf. cough pyro/mara

Edited July 18, 2012 by zhedeyenite

[VarickThrae]

1. Shadows KC spec seems to be in an odd state were some people claim its overpowered while others think its weak. I think this stems from some of the powerful hybrid specs that used to exist and are still somewhat viable such as a KC tank in dps gear or hybrid Balance KC spec.

 

2. The KC tree could use some reworking to make some of the lesser talents more attractive and to make taking more fun. right now especially in pvp it feels a bit difficult to protect healers and nodes due to the high burst and abundance of cool downs for interrupting and separating tanks and healers. Overall i think the entire tank role in pvp should probably be evaluated and made more interesting. In pve I think the overall abilities are fine and do their jobs well Kinetic ward could require less maintenance in both pve and pvp gets a bit annoying to keep hitting it a few more charges and a longer duration might work out better.

[KeyboardNinja]

I play a 31/0/10 spec shadow tank, almost exclusively in PvE. Black Hole mods in Rakata gear, fully augmented and min-maxed to the hilt.

 

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

 

Poorly. The popular perception at the moment is that shadows are the weakest of the three tanks. I never have any problems getting a group, but I have heard stories about raid groups on other servers that have started excluding shadow/assassin tanks. This is a perception problem, but a very serious one. A dev post on mitigation (with actual numbers!) would go a long way here, since forum-lurker posts (such as my own) just aren't getting the message across.

 

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

We're absolutely over-powered in PvE, tanking-wise. My weighted survivability is nearly 81%. Compare that to a guardian, who will get around 74%, or a vanguard, who will only reach 67%. As a result, we require the lowest average HPS to keep us up (averaged over the entire endgame), and it shows. A well-played shadow tank is the best endgame PvE tank, full stop. (more nerfs may be in order)

 

However, our damage profile is certainly much spikier than the other two tanks. A run of bad luck will do us in, regardless of healer. Post-1.3, we're much closer to dodge tanks than we have ever been. We've still got a fair bit of non-RNG mitigation, but less than I would like. Our worst-case TTL is the lowest of the three tanks, which makes us very *difficult* tanks to heal, albeit very efficient.

 

Shadow tanks are also very difficult to play correctly. Unlike the other two tanks, an incorrect rotation doesn't just mean loss of threat, it often means loss of life. I really enjoy this aspect of the spec, but it has certainly led to a proliferation of very bad shadow tanks, probably reinforcing the common perception (point 1) that shadows make extremely poor tanks.

[reinforever]

Hi everyone,

 

We’re looking for some specific feedback about each Advanced Class and spec. Your feedback here, along with other feedback we’ve been gathering and our internal metrics, may guide future class balance changes. Similar threads will be found in every Advanced Class forum.

 

Here are the two questions that we’d like to ask (please only post about specific specs that you actively play, and don’t forget to tell us which one you’re talking about!):

 

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

2. How do you perceive your own spec?

 

Please answer the post using the same format and in no more than 2-3 sentences per question.

 

 

Thank you!

Play Infiltration spec

 

1. Others usually think that it's very underpowered and would usually prefer other classes and am often discriminated against when trying to find a group for pve AND pvp.

 

2. I think the class is really good for what it's designed for despite the long cooldowns for everything. I think some good changes would be shorter cooldowns for potency, battlereadiness, and the vanish move. Also if the vanish move had 100% effectiveness for 3 seconds where you took no damage would be a nice change instead of having to use vanish and resilience at the same time.

[teremx]

Hello and thank you for asking what we think!

 

1) Other's view of us.

a)Balance; sub-par compared to sage's balance spec. Stealth<Ranged damage and off-healing with all the same utility.

b)Infiltration; weaker damage spec than other classes, easily to counter due to simple set rotation/priority. Not an immediate threat.

c) Kinetic; weaker than the other tanks, by far.

And the view currently is that unless you're bringing in a hybrid (tank/balance dps) shadow, shadows are worthless in rated warzones.

 

2) My own view. (PVP player) I like to think i'm a skilled player. I've played kinetic, infiltration, balance, balance/infiltration hyrbids, kinetic/balance hybrids, and have created a few hybrids that work.(one is just mine =) ) I will do the same listing with the spec's problems as i see them, and then list any general problems at the end under E that apply to the class as a whole.

 

A) Infiltration. I can make this work, but its hard. After spinny 1 and spinny 2, they know what's going to hit them within the next four seconds... it's way too predictable, and the force management is horrible. Once you lose force and can't use blackout you're a sitting duck.

 

B) Balance. I play this well and am currently using it very well. The one think I don't like about it is that it's very complex to have to use nine attacks. (shadow strike, spinning strike, saber strike, double strike, sever force, mind crush, project, force in balance, and force breach(force technique)) As i will say later on, shadow strike needs to be infiltration only, and be able to be used from any orientation. I also do not like how project costs so much to only keep up a buff, and does minimal damage. I would rework it in the balance tree to turn it into an upfront damage of a rock being thrown and then splinters of the rock being forced into the victim (turn it into upfront damage and add a DOT =) i feel this will help and make it worthwhile).

 

C) Kinetic. I am not often a tank very often anymore, or a tank hybrid so i have little to add here. All i can say is that due to the other spec's problems (being ineffective (inf) and complex (bal)) a lot of players were forced into tank specs, and now other tanks are by far, better to take into rated warzones.

 

E) General issues. a)A designer said in the last Q&A that Infiltration is a lone wolf spec. IF THIS IS TRUE for the design of the spec, design lone wolf content for use, including 1v1 PvP matches. IF THIS IS NOT TRUE, that guy should not speak anymore, ever. PvP is team oriented, and PvE is team oriented, throughout the leveling process you encouraged grouping, it does not make sense to have a lone wolf.

b) Foce Cloak needs to remove all DOTs and make you invulnerable for 2 seconds to escape AOE. It would be nice if it were on a lower cooldown as well.

c) Shadow Strike. Every spec in the game for shadows obtains optimal use with shadow strike, yes, we don't have to use it, but to be competitive we have to, even in Balance. Make Shadow Strike Infiltration only and remove the silly orientation requirement.

 

That is all i have. Once again thanks for asking us!