Deception Sin is Broken

[Sookster]

Ummm if stacking more power than crit is the trick to being able to do any damage, why do you have 41% crit?

I have 1156 weapon damage with 36% crit by stacking mostly power . There is no way you achieved 41% without stacking crit.

 

That is with my stalker gear, I haven't done much to the mods other than add willpower and power augments. My time spent pvp'ing has dropped significantly, so I haven't gotten around to finishing up my suit, I finished it on my operative a couple months ago and won't even bother getting WH gear since BM with augments is only marginally behind WH with augments.

[Boarg]

What are you talking about? If course you can trade it away and still use War Hero gear. You put in the armoring from the base WH pieces, get the mods from some other preferable item - Force Mystic's Gloves, for example - and boom - no accuracy.

 

If you do that and and use War Hero items...sure, you can get rid of all your Accuracy. But you have 530 Surge, which is completely wasteful considering the DR curve. You can also get rid of your Surge, but you'd have 530 Accuracy and that's wasteful too. You can't trade these stats for power or crit below 530 total points using only war hero pieces. (Unless you gear something really silly like alacrity or something.)

Edited July 26, 2012 by Boarg

[Boarg]

Those people who have good reading comprehension and are good enough to know what they are doing will notice that i am a correct and there is nothing wrong with what im saying. I went out of my way to state it in the simpliest terms, but apparently my point escaped you.

 

Enhancements from Warzone Gear come in 4 types.

1. Power and Accuracy,

2. Power and Surge

3. Crit and Surge

4. Crit and Accuracy

 

Now, most WH sets have 2 pieces enhancements that have either Crit Surge, or Power Surge, and 3 pieces that have Crit Accuracy or Power Accuracy.

Therefore, if you were to swap out an Accuracy enhancement for a Surge Enhancement, you GAIN SURGE, and LOSE ACCURACY.

 

Since the goal of most players is to get Surge rating to amount to about 78% Crit damage, you need more than the base enhancements on the given set in order to achieve this number.

 

Suppose for a moment that you have no intention of swapping out any of the enhancements on your base set. You will probably ONLY have 70-72% crit damage increase. Therefore, if you wanted to increase it without swapping enhancements as i just mentioned, the only means of doing this would be to augment for surge.

 

Now there are 2 possible outcomes of this scenario.

 

1. You augment for Surge and as a result are missing out on some Power augments from the slots augmented with Surge. Therefore, a player who DID swap enhancements and reached the desired amount of surge without augments has a greater amount of power, given that he has augmented for Power. He also has less accuracy, but seeing as this state is largely unnecessary, this doesnt matter.

Therefore you can conclude that as a result of swapping enhancements the second person has *****INDIRECTLY**** increased his power as well.

 

2. You do not augment for Surge and instead augment for Power or otherwise Willpower. In this case you have the same amount of Power as someone who swapped enhancements, but LESS surge.

Therefore in this case, your gearing is still NOT OPTIMAL because you are missing surge while having an over abundance of accuracy.

 

Since the original contention was that one cannot gain Power by swapping enhancements, and my response was that you indeed can, i think i have adequately proven that i am correct. You CAN infact gain power although INDIRECTLY by swapping enhancements.

To say that you CAN do something is to suggest it is a possibility, not that it is a certainty. Therefore i was not saying that you ALWAYS gain power by swapping enhancements.

 

What you're saying is that people can swap out those things to tune surge values to where they want it instead of gearing like a moron and augmenting surge; thereby "gaining" power or willpower.

 

That's not "gaining" anything; that's just not being a moron.

[Gidoru]

What you're saying is that people can swap out those things to tune surge values to where they want it instead of gearing like a moron and augmenting surge; thereby "gaining" power or willpower.

 

That's not "gaining" anything; that's just not being a moron.

 

I see. Perhaps you look up the word gain in the dictionary before throwing around the word moron.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Gidoru

[Isislol]

Deception is not a broken spec but like someone mentioned before it's pretty useless since Darkness brings so much more utility to the table. Sure you can do more dmg than Darkness but you also die a lot faster, don't have pull, can't run ball/rotate guard on healers/teammates being FF.

I'd would rather bring a scrapper /hybrid scoundrel to ranked than a deception assassin-they have the same burst but can also offheal if needed and have 8s AoE mezz which is huge when capping nodes.

[JackNader]

Well I can see the old saying "the majority is always wrong" is alive and kicking. To the guy who said to use Maul even without Duplicity... Kudos!

 

To all the rest of you "majority" :--

 

These stats are ripped straight off my fully geared Sin..

 

Shock 1566 max damage - force cost 45

Maul 2577 max damage - 50 force cost

Saber strike max 1122 damage - free

Voltaic Slash max 871*2 damage - force cost 25

 

I am eliminating any force regen talent from the equation and using the stock 8 Force regen per second for simplicity. Doing so has no effect on the math as it is common to all variables.

 

Casting voltaic slash twice = 871 * 2 * 2 = 3484 Damage with a force cost of 50

 

Casting Maul + Saber strike = 2577 damage + 1122 damage = 3699 damage.

 

Keep in mind that this is with NO duplicity proccing or taking into account the added +30% surge on crit to maul.

 

Let's look a little deeper now...

 

The stock standard deception rotation casts Voltaic twice to proc the + 30% damage to shock and to halve shocks cost. This rotation expends a total of 72.5 force which must be offset through passive force regen. You will always be casting saber strike as your fill in while you regen this force regardless of rotation.

 

 

Voltaic Rotation

 

Globals

0)---------- Voltaic ( - 25 force) + 8 regen

1)------------------------------------- + 8 regen

1.5)-------- Voltaic ( - 25 force)

2 )------------------------------------- + 8 regen

3)---------- Shock ( -22.5 force) + 8 regen

4)----------------------------------- + 8 regen

4.5)-------- Saber

5)------------------------------------- + 8 regen

6)---------- Saber + 8 regen

7)------------------------------------- + 8 regen

7.5) -------- Saber

8)------------------------------------- + 8 regen

 

* we have to cast saber strike 3 times to offset the force cost of 2 voltaic's and an induction procced shock.

 

Maul costs 50 force. 50 force / 8 force regen = 6.25 seconds.

 

Maul Rotation

 

0) --------- Maul (-50) + 8 regen

1)------------------------ + 8 regen

1.5)-------- Saber

2)------------------------ + 8 regen

3) ----------- Saber +8 regen

4)------------------------ + 8 regen

4.5) ---------- Saber

5)------------------------ + 8 regen

6) ---------- Saber +8 regen

 

Now what we need to do is find a balance in rotation so that we can compare the two in damage output

1 maul = 6.25 seconds to regain force

2 maul = 12.5 seconds

4 maul = 25 seconds

12 maul = 75 seconds

 

*75 seconds = 50 global cooldowns. We cast maul 12 times therefore to balance our force pool we need to cast saber strike 38 times.

 

* Deception rotation = 50 globals / 6 abilities cast = 8.333 therefore we need to boost 50 globals to 150 globals to find a merge in rotation.

 

Deception damage over 150 global cooldowns = 50 * Voltaic + 25 * shock + 75 * saber strike =(50 * 871 * 2) + (25 * 2035.8) + (75 * 1122) = 87100 + 50895 + 84150 = 222145 total damage

 

maul damage over 150 global cooldowns = 36 mauls + 114 saber strikes = (2577 * 36) + (114 * 1122) = 92772 + 127908 = 220680 damage.

 

 

Now keep in mind that I didn't include shocks + 50% surge on crit or Mauls + 30% surge on crit or Mauls Duplicity talent. I can tell you flat that if included, Mauls trumps the standard Voltaic Rotation.

 

Maul > Voltaic PERIOD!

 

And this is why Deception sins are broken. It's top tier talent is complete garbage. It has the worst survivability of all trees. It has the worst force management of all trees and the least utility of all trees. What spec do I play? Deception/Darkness hybrid

Edited July 27, 2012 by JackNader

[Skolops]

Well I can see the old saying "the majority is always wrong" is alive and kicking. To the guy who said to use Maul even without Duplicity... Kudos!

 

To all the rest of you "majority" :--

 

These stats are ripped straight off my fully geared Sin..

 

Shock 1566 max damage - force cost 45

Maul 2577 max damage - 50 force cost

Saber strike max 1122 damage - free

Voltaic Slash max 871*2 damage - force cost 25

 

I am eliminating any force regen talent from the equation and using the stock 8 Force regen per second for simplicity. Doing so has no effect on the math as it is common to all variables.

 

Casting voltaic slash twice = 871 * 2 * 2 = 3484 Damage with a force cost of 50

 

Casting Maul + Saber strike = 2577 damage + 1122 damage = 3699 damage.

 

Keep in mind that this is with NO duplicity proccing or taking into account the added +30% surge on crit to maul.

 

Let's look a little deeper now...

 

The stock standard deception rotation casts Voltaic twice to proc the + 30% damage to shock and to halve shocks cost. This rotation expends a total of 72.5 force which must be offset through passive force regen. You will always be casting saber strike as your fill in while you regen this force regardless of rotation.

 

 

Voltaic Rotation

 

Globals

0)---------- Voltaic ( - 25 force) + 8 regen

1)------------------------------------- + 8 regen

1.5)-------- Voltaic ( - 25 force)

2 )------------------------------------- + 8 regen

3)---------- Shock ( -22.5 force) + 8 regen

4)----------------------------------- + 8 regen

4.5)-------- Saber

5)------------------------------------- + 8 regen

6)---------- Saber + 8 regen

7)------------------------------------- + 8 regen

7.5) -------- Saber

8)------------------------------------- + 8 regen

 

* we have to cast saber strike 3 times to offset the force cost of 2 voltaic's and an induction procced shock.

 

Maul costs 50 force. 50 force / 8 force regen = 6.25 seconds.

 

Maul Rotation

 

0) --------- Maul (-50) + 8 regen

1)------------------------ + 8 regen

1.5)-------- Saber

2)------------------------ + 8 regen

3) ----------- Saber +8 regen

4)------------------------ + 8 regen

4.5) ---------- Saber

5)------------------------ + 8 regen

6) ---------- Saber +8 regen

 

Now what we need to do is find a balance in rotation so that we can compare the two in damage output

1 maul = 6.25 seconds to regain force

2 maul = 12.5 seconds

4 maul = 25 seconds

12 maul = 75 seconds

 

*75 seconds = 50 global cooldowns. We cast maul 12 times therefore to balance our force pool we need to cast saber strike 38 times.

 

* Deception rotation = 50 globals / 6 abilities cast = 8.333 therefore we need to boost 50 globals to 150 globals to find a merge in rotation.

 

Deception damage over 150 global cooldowns = 50 * Voltaic + 25 * shock + 75 * saber strike =(50 * 871 * 2) + (25 * 2035.8) + (75 * 1122) = 87100 + 50895 + 84150 = 222145 total damage

 

maul damage over 150 global cooldowns = 36 mauls + 114 saber strikes = (2577 * 36) + (114 * 1122) = 92772 + 127908 = 220680 damage.

 

 

Now keep in mind that I didn't include shocks + 50% surge on crit or Mauls + 30% surge on crit or Mauls Duplicity talent. I can tell you flat that if included, Mauls trumps the standard Voltaic Rotation.

 

Maul > Voltaic PERIOD!

 

And this is why Deception sins are broken. It's top tier talent is complete garbage. It has the worst survivability of all trees. It has the worst force management of all trees and the least utility of all trees. What spec do I play? Deception/Darkness hybrid

 

You're completely incorrect in your methodology here. You claim that Maul is better than VS, but you don't calculate for the entire purpose we have VS - the damage bonus proc. You also made a HUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGEEEEEEE mistake in that you don't calculate for the fact that Voltaic Slash hits twice. Oh, you mention it in your original formula, but when it comes to calculating the total damage over 150 GCDs you leave it out:

 

Deception damage over 150 global cooldowns = 50 * Voltaic + 25 * shock + 75 * saber strike =(50 * 871 * 2) + (25 * 2035.8) + (75 * 1122) = 87100 + 50895 + 84150 = 222145 total damage

 

If we correct this, the total damage for the Voltaic Slash rotation is 309245 without the heavy extra crit damage on shock.

 

You also seem to be messing the numbers up for shock. Your gear ("fully geared," as you call it) gives VS an 871 damage output and you are listing a +30% damage shock as 2035.8. Well first of all, your Assassin is not nearly fully geared because on my 9 WH Assassin with only 4 augments, VS hits for 898. Ignoring the fact that you've exaggerated your gear, your shock value has got to be incorrect, because my shock is hitting for 1794 before the 30% boost and 2332.2 after the boost. That means you're listing yours as hitting for 1566 before the 30% boost.

 

So you're saying that your VS is hitting for 27 less with your gear vs. mine, but your Shock is hitting for 228 less. I don't buy it. I also don't buy it because you're listing your Saber Strike as hitting for 1122, whereas mine hits for 1092, even though my other two attacks hit harder. I'm not entirely sure how you're getting such different values, but I certainly hope you're not picking and choosing minimum and maximum values to try and cook the numbers.

 

Because I can't reverse engineer all your numbers from comparing mine, let's just use mine and do your math again with numbers I know are correct - mine, using only the maximum values.

 

Deception damage over 150 global cooldowns = 50 * Voltaic + 25 * shock + 75 * saber strike =(50 * 898* 2 * 2) + (25 * 2332.2) + (75 * 1092) = 179600 + 58305 + 81900 = 319805 total damage

 

maul damage over 150 global cooldowns = 36 mauls + 114 saber strikes = (2506 * 36) + (114 * 1092) = 90216 + 124488 = 214704 damage.

 

That's 105101 more damage using VS. If we include the crit damage, its even worse in favor of VS.

[JackNader]

Theres always someone who needs yet another schooling after being schooled once already.

 

First off your claim that i'm under geared.. I have over 38% crit and 78% surge with a base of 1122. I am geared. I am not even going to bother explaining Power stacking vs crit stacking vs balancing power and crit for optimal diminishing returns because clearly i'd just lose you in the math.

 

2nd of all.. Voltaic is used to proc 30% damage and halve the force cost of shock. If you look closely, which apparently you didn't, You will notice the initial quote of 1566 max damage for shock. Scroll down towards the end and note that i used 2035.8 as the listed shock damage. This is standard shock + 30%.

 

Now you also claim that I didn't take into account the double hit on voltaic. Look again at the 50 * 871 * 2. The * 2 is for the double strike. I'll explain a little further because this is where you've messed up.. 50 Voltaics is the total number of voltaics cast. 871 is the base damage and *2 is for it hitting twice. You've included the damage of 100 voltaics.. well done!

 

jack 2 : Skolops : 0

Edited July 27, 2012 by JackNader

[Astarica]

Why do we even have an argument over Thrash/VS versus Maul? Do people fail to realize that through level 10 to 50, no matter what gear you have, the tooltip damage of Maul is always neatly around 1.5 times that of Thrash? Sure Maul has some random stuff that boosts it but Thrash gets Induction/Energize/whatever too and it's probably more favorable if you add all the intangibles anyway.

 

Maul uses 100% more Force while delivering 50% more damage than Thrash, and has a positional requirement. It is mathematically inferior as an attack, though that alone doens't mean it's never usable without proc because sometimes you care more about delivering damage immediately as opposed to using the best DPF attack. But over the long run Maul loses to pretty much everything you can possibly use if you don't EW proc up.

[Gidoru]

Even if it is true that maul is superior to a standard rotation this is irrelevant in any other PvE. The Deception spec relies on burst in PvP and this burst comes from a standard rotation. What is best for sustained damage is irrelevant.

[Skolops]

Theres always someone who needs yet another schooling after being schooled once already.

 

First off your claim that i'm under geared.. I have over 38% crit and 78% surge with a base of 1122. I am geared. I am not even going to bother explaining Power stacking vs crit stacking vs balancing power and crit for optimal diminishing returns because clearly i'd just lose you in the math.

 

2nd of all.. Voltaic is used to proc 30% surge and halve the force cost of shock. If you look closely, which apparently you didn't, You will notice the initial quote of 1566 max damage for shock. Scroll down towards the end and note that i used 2035.8 as the listed shock damage. This is standard shock + 30%

 

You missed my point. My point is that your numbers just don't add up, because you're saying your VS hits for 871, but mine hits for 898 - that's fine so far. However, then you're saying your Shock hits for 1566, whereas mine hits for 1794. Even if my gear is set up for more power than yours, there's no way the difference should be only 27 for VS but 228 for Shock. If that wasn't enough, the real nail in the coffin is that you're listing your Saber Strike as hitting for 1122, which is 30 more than mine does, and there's absolutely no two gear setups which will result in VS and Shock hitting harder in for one guy but Saber Strike hitting for less.

 

Now you also claim that I didn't take into account the double hit on voltaic. Look again at the 50 * 871 * 2. The * 2 is for the double strike.

 

jack 2 : Skolops : 0

 

Yeah, but read the tool tip: "Strikes a target twice, dealing 788 - 898 weapon damage with each hit." Then, the Deception Assassin is using VS twice. In your final fomula, you're either failing to account for the fact that each VS hits twice, or for the fact that the player uses it twice.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Skolops

[JackNader]

Astarica.. it's not that simple as I just pointed out. You are not comparing Thrash to Maul but Thrash to Maul expending the same focre cost and using the same number of global cooldowns. This is like comparing Marauder annihilation talent to Vicious slash. On the surface it seems Vicious does more damage to rage but once you incorporate globals into the equation it's just not the case.

 

Is thrash better than Voltaic? Only with the +50% surge from claws of decay. Is a thrash rotation with claws of decay better than a Voltaic rotation? No idea.. I would have to work it out.

[Skolops]

Even if it is true that maul is superior to a standard rotation this is irrelevant in any other PvE. The Deception spec relies on burst in PvP and this burst comes from a standard rotation. What is best for sustained damage is irrelevant.

 

Thanks; I was going to mention this but I forgot to.

[JackNader]

Why am i even bothering.. Skolops do I have to screenshot to get you to shutup?

 

And no.. my math is right...

Edited July 27, 2012 by JackNader

[Skolops]

Why am i even bothering.. Skolops do I have to screenshot to get you to shutup?

 

Yes, on the issue of tooltip values.

 

On the issue of the formula, no, because you're plain and simply wrong.

[JackNader]

Dude it's TWO voltaics to every ONE SHOCK.. 50 Voltaics vs 25 shocks

 

1 Voltaic does 871 damage * 2

50 Voltaics does 50 * 871 damage * 2

 

You've listed it as 50 * 871 * 2 * 2.... Go back to school.. geez!

 

And if you still think voltaic is doing 871 * 2 * 2 after all this. Go and download mox parser and run it.

Edited July 27, 2012 by JackNader

[upzie]

I <3 how ppl went into a discussion about openers, for Deception - It doesnt matter what you open with, Deception is still only good for one thing, and thats having fun in normal wz's watching 6k+ crits.

 

In rwz 31/x/x and 23/1/17 are still 10x better than deception as things stands now.

 

Your whole discusion about maul vs VS/trash as an opener is atm pointless untill they make some major changes

Edited July 28, 2012 by upzie

[Skolops]

Dude it's TWO voltaics to every ONE SHOCK.. 50 Voltaics vs 25 shocks

 

1 Voltaic does 871 damage * 2

50 Voltaics does 50 * 871 damage * 2

 

You've listed it as 50 * 871 * 2 * 2.... Go back to school.. geez!

 

Alright, you have me there. I misread the way you were doing it. That said, I still completely disagree with the way you're doing it.

 

In all the time I've played my Assassin and Shadow, I've played a lot of Deception and I've never had to hit 3 Saber Strikes to keep my energy in a good place. Further, as other posters have said, the point of the whole spec is burst, not sustained damage. It's dumb to look at sustained damage as something particularly meaningful for this spec.

 

By not including crits, and by not considering energy regen, you're messing things up. Here, lets do it again considering crits, with my numbers just because I'm sure of them. We need to get larger sample to make this crunching meaningful. The simplest way to do it is to take 100 samples of 150 GCDs. Here are your formulas, with the crit damage version in red:

 

Deception damage over 150 global cooldowns = 50 * Voltaic + 25 * shock + 75 * saber strike =(50 * 898* 2) + (25 * 2332.2) + (75 * 1092) = 89800 + 58305 + 81900 = 230005 total damage

 

Deception damage over 150 global cooldowns = 50 * Voltaic + 25 * shock + 75 * saber strike =(50 * 898* 2)*1.75 + (25 * 2332.2) * 2.25+ (75 * 1092) * 1.75 = 157150 + 131186.25 + 143325 = 431661.25 total damage

 

maul damage over 150 global cooldowns = 36 mauls + 114 saber strikes = (2506 * 36) + (114 * 1092) = 90216 + 124488 = 214704 damage.

 

maul damage over 150 global cooldowns = 36 mauls + 114 saber strikes = (2506 * 36) * 2.05 + (114 * 1092) = 184942.8 + 217854 = 402796.8 damage.

 

 

Then we take them and throw them in with the normal values as follows:

 

VS: 230005 * 62 + 431661.25 * 38 = 30663437.5

 

Maul: 214704 * 62 + 402796.8 * 38 = 28617926.4

 

VS comes out better.

[Astarica]

Astarica.. it's not that simple as I just pointed out. You are not comparing Thrash to Maul but Thrash to Maul expending the same focre cost and using the same number of global cooldowns. This is like comparing Marauder annihilation talent to Vicious slash. On the surface it seems Vicious does more damage to rage but once you incorporate globals into the equation it's just not the case.

 

Is thrash better than Voltaic? Only with the +50% surge from claws of decay. Is a thrash rotation with claws of decay better than a Voltaic rotation? No idea.. I would have to work it out.

 

I said there's value to be doing more damage at a DPF penalty but in the long run you're still better off using the best DPF attack, since it's very rare to kill someone before you run out of Force, especially as Deception.

 

There are definitely some cases where Maul even without proc is better but like Upzie posted if you're Deception based you're probably just going to lose a fight 90% of the time anyway and whether you opened with Maul or VS or whatever doesn't really change the outcome. Sure one of those moves is going to be the more correct move based on exactly how the events unfolded but you're still only looking at a 10% chance to win, so there's not much point to theorize whether opening with Maul or VS makes it a 11% or 9% chance to win.

 

I noticed people in general way overestimate the burst DPS of Deception. You're not going to kill anybody before you run out Force unless someone started out at 50%. If this was possible that'd imply Deception can sometimes kill someone in 4 GCDs (Maul, proc Maul, Assassinate, Maul) which uses up 150 - (6s * 8F/s) = 102 Force and it uses 125 Force for 3 Mauls, which averages out to 41 Force per Maul and that's not a bad premium to pay to kill someone in 4 GCDs. Of course, if you actually tried that, it won't work because 3 Mauls won't even do 50% of someone's health. If it did, people would be complaining about Deception Assassins killing anyone in 4 GCDs now.

Edited July 28, 2012 by Astarica

[JackNader]

Skolops.. you make baby Jesus cry.

 

The reason you don't have to cast saber strike that much is because of the +10 force on surging charge procs and out of stealth blackout.

 

Also you can't just do a flat crit % increase like that. Full deception tree has Base surge + 50% surge to shock, Base surge + 30% surge to maul, Only base surge to Voltaic and Saber strike. Then you have to calculate duplicity procs and then you have no way of knocking what the armor of your target is... if it hits it can do an additional ~ 11% more to a sorc or 25%+ more to a Jug in soresu...

[Skolops]

Skolops.. you make baby Jesus cry.

 

The reason you don't have to cast saber strike that much is because of the +10 force on surging charge procs and out of stealth blackout.

 

Also you can't just do a flat crit % increase like that. Full deception tree has Base surge + 50% surge to shock, Base surge + 30% surge to maul, Only base surge to Voltaic and Saber strike. Then you have to calculate duplicity procs and then you have no way of knocking what the armor of your target is... if it hits it can do an additional ~ 11% more to a sorc or 25%+ more to a Jug in soresu...

 

I considered the extra crit damage to Shock and to Maul in my calcuations. I didn't consider duplicity procs because that wasn't the point you were trying to make. You were simply looking at VS versus Maul unprocced. If you really wanted (and I really felt like it, which in honesty I don't) I have the ability to consider all of these things, including armor mitigation. It's not that hard, it's just time consuming and mind-numbing. Armor penetration doesn't really matter, though, apart from Maul procs, which we aren't really all that concerned with here.

 

You also failed to consider discharge, which is pretty force friendly and would be used in a VS rotation, mind you.

 

As for saber strike, that's exactly the point. The only reason that your little comparison comes close to working is because you're considering non-ideal rotations where you need to do saber strikes. Once your force regeneration is at a point where you don't, the capabilities of using VS, Shock, discharge, and procced Mauls completely outpaces Maul alone.

 

Moreover, I'm not sure your comparison does work. If you'll notice, using my numbers even before crits the VS rotation is better. This is because you have values for saber strike which are higher and shock which is lower relative to your value for Voltaic Slash than I do.

 

You:

 

SS 1122, VS 871. Shock 1566

 

Me:

 

SS 1092, VS 898. Shock 1794

 

This number discrepancy is making a pretty big difference here.

[Astarica]

Of course Maul sucks in DPF compared to virtually everything, but you're supposed to pay a premium to deliver more damage. If you use 3 Mauls in a row and assume one of them proced (roughly 50% chance this would happen), that's 125 Force for 3 Mauls, or 41.6F per Maul. Assume Maul delivers 150% of the damage of Thrash, then Maul should use 37 Force to have same ratio as Thrash (we ignore all the side effects, which probably favors Thrash in a DPF argument though Maul has much better burst DPS value after talents). So you're paying roughly a 10% DPF premium to deliver 50% more damage for 3 GCDs. That's not a bad deal, if the extra damage delivered puts the enemy in an especially vulnerable position (i.e. Assassinate range). Of course, if the enemy is still at 50% after 3 Mauls (or more), you just paid an extra 10% DPF premium for absolutely nothing and now you're worse behind. But if the enemy started out at say 60% and 3 Mauls dropped him to 20% and you finish him off with an Assassinate, then that 10% DPF you paid for the first 3 Mauls is certainly well worth it compared to just using 3 Thrash in those 3 GCDs.

 

Even if you do a standard say 2XVS + Shock rotation instead, that almost certainly deals less damage than 3 Mauls, and yet below 30% and above 30% is a huge difference. Assassinate's DPF and burst DPS pretty much blows away any attack, so if 2XVS + Shock knocked someone to 31% but 3 Mauls knocked someone to 20%, then 3 Mauls win here because your next move is going to be Assassinate and the enemy would be dead and you at least got your money back (you killed someone before you died). Now if the guy started at 100% you'd be looking at 71% (with ~60F remaining) versus 60% (with ~25F remaining) then obviously using Maul was a very bad idea.

 

At any rate this also highlights why Deception is weak and arguing about opener is pointless. Most of the time you're looking at either get someone to 60% with no Force left (Maul) or 70% with some Force left (VS). Either way your opponent is in no danger of dying while you're definitely in danger of dying.

[JackNader]

i'm done dude.. your foresight is terrible. Force regen is totally irelavant because it applies equally to a maul rotation as it does to the voltaic rotation.. The whole point is that you have to "balance your force." If you blow 75 force you have to rake back 75 force. It doesn't matter how you do it. The result on the math will be to inflate or deflate both overall damage calculations by the same %. I just did the math for crit % and the difference between the two numbers was so dismal you could straight up say they were the same. Again I didn't include duplicity. If it is included, maul wins hands down.

 

Another thing to consider is that you are blowing 31 talent points for basically the same damage rotation as a 13 point rotation. You could spend an extra 3 points and pick up the force regen from surging charge procs and then go down the darkness tree and pick up +30% force regen and pull and out of combat spike, root breaks, longer shroud etc. Or you could drop the 3 points for force regen on surging charge and pick up HD. HD with surging charge is an 8 - 12K attack. It's pretty funny taking a recruit gear to almost no hitpoints in 3 seconds.

 

All these post illustrate one key point... Full deception tree is a joke!

[Astarica]

Another thing to consider is that you are blowing 31 talent points for basically the same damage rotation as a 13 point rotation. You could spend an extra 3 points and pick up the force regen from surging charge procs and then go down the darkness tree and pick up +30% force regen and pull and out of combat spike, root breaks, longer shroud etc. Or you could drop the 3 points for force regen on surging charge and pick up HD. HD with surging charge is an 8 - 12K attack. It's pretty funny taking a recruit gear to almost no hitpoints in 3 seconds.

 

All these post illustrate one key point... Full deception tree is a joke!

 

I think that's a general problem with Deception and even Madness trees. There just isn't anything in the upper tier talents that's worth such an investment. Try to play a Darkness Assassin without the 20-30 point talents and you might as well be playing with only Thrash. Would Marauder even be viable as a DPS if you can just gut their 20-30 Annihilation talents? The point is that the 20-30 point talents are supposed to be spec-defining, and yet in Deception/Madness they seem like just fillers to get the 31 point talent which is just as unexciting as the 20-30 stuff.

[upzie]

Another thing to consider is that you are blowing 31 talent points for basically the same damage rotation as a 13 point rotation.!

 

WHAT =!=!`?!?!`! how am I supposed to get my 6-7k crits on pve geared ppl in normal wz's, if I dont specc for that?!!?