23/1/17 Put me in my place... again.

[Boarg]

i find myself not double striking enough bc i feel i rather conserve my force for big hitting abilities like FiB and Project.

 

It's a matter of force management. If you keep spamming abilities, eventually your force bar runs out and you can only use abilities as new force regens in.

 

Ideally, you want to keep enough force in your bar (about half a bar) so then when the good abilities come available like Project w/ PA proc, FiB, and SS w/ FW you can use them right away or when most useful instead of being forced to wait for force regen.

 

The tricky part in pvp is occasionally you need to use force while you have uptime - a target in range to hit.

 

Either way, you have to conserve force at some point by using Saber Strike. You can either use it before you run completely out of force or after. Or you can just go off-target, which sometimes makes sense in PvP to LoS or go save a healer or something.

[Bilirubin]

Holy crap...apparently I have been too tentative in my PvP--since I am new to MMOs I have been holding back, guarding nodes, trying not to be a detriment to my team. Last night I had a guild mate healing and, inspired by the vid in the OP we launched into the middle of the fights. He was aces not letting me drop, my guard covered him well, and consistently I wound up at the top of the table, averaging 200k damage 50k protects top two objective. Was mad. Nice finally being over 1100 EXP too but *** DPS letting a tank outscore you?

[Taelizalde]

I just released a new video with heavy emphasis on how to play 23/1/17

 

23/1/17

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/Shadow#79e162fe-6-2e830f

2:27 - 4:35

7:57 - 9:16

 

As for gearing, please see the armoury link in my signature.

 

Nice video as usual, Shin.

Although, I don't appreciate you 'rofl'ing the assassin in the early 23/1/17 VS clip for playing as Deception. A bit hypocritical since everyone knows you enjoy the spec as well. We all want to make it work.

Otherwise, keep it up.

[Xinika]

Good stuff! Really love the LOS work in the final Alderaan clip. Give me a lot to think about in my own play.

 

In one of the VS I saw you switching targets a bit--between two sorcs IIRC--one was really low and I thought you might finish them off but you hopped targets. What are your target priority criteria? Also do you use target center or next enemy?

 

My target priority is generally bringing multiple foes down at once and allowing my team mates to finish them off. In that specific video I was fulfilling my role as being a disruptor. We aren't a direct damage class, so it's better to play how we were made to be.

[Bilirubin]

My target priority is generally bringing multiple foes down at once and allowing my team mates to finish them off. In that specific video I was fulfilling my role as being a disruptor. We aren't a direct damage class, so it's better to play how we were made to be.

 

Meaning interrupting casts, distracting their targeting, ccing, taunting, drawing direct attacks, etc.?

[parbs]

As much as i like what this spec brings to the table i just cant see it being superior in the main fight to an equally played mara or pt (if you're taking the place of a dps). The abilities mentioned in the post above are all done better by these two classes.. i mean maras have a 6 second (talented) interrupt, and most important of all to ranked a healing debuff. All we have compared to this is a 12sec interrupt. This only leaves the maintanking role, which is better served by a guardian or full KC.

 

Having said that, hybrid shadows are still by far the best node guarders and stealth allow us to be the best node cappers - probably their reasoning for giving us very little in the way of debuffs.

[Xinika]

Meaning interrupting casts, distracting their targeting, ccing, taunting, drawing direct attacks, etc.?

 

Yes, along with doing respectable damage.

 

As much as i like what this spec brings to the table i just cant see it being superior in the main fight to an equally played mara or pt (if you're taking the place of a dps). The abilities mentioned in the post above are all done better by these two classes.. i mean maras have a 6 second (talented) interrupt, and most important of all to ranked a healing debuff. All we have compared to this is a 12sec interrupt. This only leaves the maintanking role, which is better served by a guardian or full KC.

 

Having said that, hybrid shadows are still by far the best node guarders and stealth allow us to be the best node cappers - probably their reasoning for giving us very little in the way of debuffs.

 

This comparison is inaccurate, because all of those classes/specs you call out plays nothing like 23/1/17. The role is a multi-use high versatility spec with respectable damage, CC and above average survivability.

[Astarica]

Does the addition of Maul make that much of a difference? That's the only key difference I see in terms of skill point distribution compared to 31/0/10 or 27/0/14. I don't like to melee in this game since it's usually a lost cause for anyone who isn't a Marauder, but mixing in Maul obviously gives you some much needed on demand burst that's usually lacking in a typical TK based build.

 

My major concern with melee-based builds is that since Marauders are undisputedly the #1 class at melee range, it seems like all you're doing is being a weaker version of the Marauder no matter how hard you work at it. I understand not everyone wants to reroll as a Marauder but you just can't beat them when it comes to delivering melee damage. Yes I get that people play for fun or whatnot but if you play competitively it just doesn't feel very fun being an inferior version of another class. I realize this isn't our fault but that's the reality we got to live with for now. I don't want my contribution to a team as 'a weaker Marauder'. Yes you can guard and do a few other things too but obviously the major contribution is still from doing DPS, and it's not like Marauders are particularly weak when it comes to utility either.

[parbs]

This comparison is inaccurate, because all of those classes/specs you call out plays nothing like 23/1/17. The role is a multi-use high versatility spec with respectable damage, CC and above average survivability.

 

It's accurate because in the ranked games i've been a part of, the stacking of maras and PTs were beating us. The best guild on our server ran with and ONLY with their stacked team of fotm builds. 2 heals(usually scoundrels), 2 maras, 2 pts, 1 full 31 sin tank, and a jugg. No matter what makeups we used we simply couldn't compete until we countered them with guess what.. the same type of lineup.

 

It came down to a few things.. but the main offenders were maras having OP cooldowns, stupidly fast healer interrupts combined with the OP damage of the pts was simply GG. I'm speaking very situationally here, but there was no room for a hybrid shadow on top of 2 tanks in this team. we tried, and it didnt have enough dps, we didnt have enough interrupts, healing debuffs or armor penetration to compete.

 

And on another note, the above reasons are why we didn't particularly enjoy ranked. People couldn't play because they didnt have the right class, and alot of us were pigeon-holed into roles we didn't enjoy. Before ranked went live we were considered the guild to beat, and we were when we had our lineup - but most of the time we just played with who was online. This led to a further issue, people got pissed off at losing to FOTM games all the time, and as of now we haven't queued ranked in over a week, and the guilds essentially dead.

Edited August 4, 2012 by parbs

[Astarica]

It's accurate because in the ranked games i've been a part of, the stacking of maras and PTs were beating us. The best guild on our server ran with and ONLY with their stacked team of fotm builds. 2 heals(usually scoundrels), 2 maras, 2 pts, 1 full 31 sin tank, and a jugg. No matter what makeups we used we simply couldn't compete until we countered them with guess what.. the same type of lineup.

 

It came down to a few things.. but the main offenders were maras having OP cooldowns, stupidly fast healer interrupts combined with the OP damage of the pts was simply GG. I'm speaking very situationally here, but there was no room for a hybrid shadow on top of 2 tanks in this team. we tried, and it didnt have enough dps, we didnt have enough interrupts, healing debuffs or armor penetration to compete.

 

And on another note, the above reasons are why we didn't particularly enjoy ranked. People couldn't play because they didnt have the right class, and alot of us were pigeon-holed into roles we didn't enjoy. Before ranked went live we were considered the guild to beat, and we were when we had our lineup - but most of the time we just played with who was online. This led to a further issue, people got pissed off at losing to FOTM games all the time, and as of now we haven't queued ranked in over a week, and the guilds essentially dead.

 

Well there's no doubt that PT/Marauder are the top in general purpose DPS. No Shadow spec could ever come close to either in terms of killing people quickly.

 

In particular, given both class has 8s base interrupt that can be speced to 6s, and Marauder has the all-powerful healing debuff, this means there's no way a Shadow can possibly match the ability to kill the most important person on the other team: the healer.

 

So then you've to ask, if you can't kill the healer who are you good killing? Tanks? Besides attacking tanks rarely make sense, Marauderes bleeds do internal damage and PT have railshot, and almost certainly do more total DPS than a Shadow, so no good here.

 

Your only option to contribute in the DPS department is basically how good are you at killing PT or Marauders.

 

I'm not familiar with the PT matchup, it seems like we can beat them rather easily but they're always able to kill someone else before they die. At any rate I see no glaring difference between the major specs in terms of how they'd fight a PT.

 

But Marauders are a different story. You know you can't possibly fight a Marauder in melee range, so this pigeon holes you into as much ranged DPS as possible, which would be of course 31/0/10. After all, any time you try to melee a Marauder you're just going to lose, so 31/0/10 is the de facto best anti-Marauder spec.

 

And since Marauders/PT pretty much locked up DPS slots for any other purpose, we're pretty much stuck with 31/0/10 as the anti-Marauder spec to pull our weight.

[parbs]

no doubt the full 31 KC spec is the best for maintanking and kiting the maras, and protecting the healers. killing them however, it stands pretty much no chance. The one good move you have against them they can vanish from, and if things ever heat up they can just pop the most powerful defensive cooldown in the game, guarded by bioware - they're straight back up again, and quite frankly maras in a good ranked game are harder to kill than most tanks within the main fight. So if you're arguing the KC is there as a dps and not the tank, that's never going to work its not enough focused DPS to make any difference.

[Astarica]

no doubt the full 31 KC spec is the best for maintanking and kiting the maras, and protecting the healers. killing them however, it stands pretty much no chance. The one good move you have against them they can vanish from, and if things ever heat up they can just pop the most powerful defensive cooldown in the game, guarded by bioware - they're straight back up again, and quite frankly maras in a good ranked game are harder to kill than most tanks within the main fight. So if you're arguing the KC is there as a dps and not the tank, that's never going to work its not enough focused DPS to make any difference.

 

It's not enough to say I drop ST on Marauder, and then pull him to make sure he can't reach our healer, if the Marauder then just turns around and kills you 1on1. You're still behind overall if this happens (you died, Marauder did not) and your team would be better off having a Marauder instead of you (who presumably can at least draw with their Marauder). You must have enough DPS to first make the Marauder feel threatened enough to peel him off, and then you still need enough DPS to ensure you draw the ensuing 1on1 if you indeed successfully peeled the Marauder off. And it has to be the case that you can at least draw after you peel off the Marauder, or it'd never be correct to have a Shadow in the first place. Your team would lose every time if the Marauder decide to just beat down the Shadow in a 1on1 first and if he always wins that fight, then your inclusion is strictly worse than just having the mirror class who can always fight the Marauder to a draw.

Edited August 4, 2012 by Astarica

[parbs]

Yeah and although ive tried doing this as the maintank, leaving my healers alone just got them ***** by the PT's. At least the full KC build can be a viable tank for ranked even after nerfs.. its just frustrating that we're not as good as the aforementioned dps's in our OWN dps specs..

[Xinika]

It's accurate because in the ranked games i've been a part of, the stacking of maras and PTs were beating us. The best guild on our server ran with and ONLY with their stacked team of fotm builds. 2 heals(usually scoundrels), 2 maras, 2 pts, 1 full 31 sin tank, and a jugg. No matter what makeups we used we simply couldn't compete until we countered them with guess what.. the same type of lineup.

 

That doesn't do anything to disprove my point. That's an issue laying within either your comp or player skill as a team or individual. Again, 23/1/17 plays nothing like full KC.

[Astarica]

Yeah and although ive tried doing this as the maintank, leaving my healers alone just got them ***** by the PT's. At least the full KC build can be a viable tank for ranked even after nerfs.. its just frustrating that we're not as good as the aforementioned dps's in our OWN dps specs..

 

Let's not even think about the big picture stuff here. Suppose you're a tank, and you got this ability to pulls you and a DPS to a pocket dimension where the only way to leave it is by killing the other guy. This ability far exceeds any 'peeling' type ability in the game. Yes while doing this you can't Guard your healer anymore but I think banishing an attacker to another dimension more than makes up for that. But even if you've such a nonsensical powerful denial ability, what good is having this ability if you went on to lose the 1on1 deathmatch inside this pocket dimension more than 50% of the time?

 

So a prerequisite to contribute as a tank is that you've to be able to beat the two likely classes you want to peel 1on1 at least 50% of the time, or your team loses even if you successfully peeled the attackers because that guy will just turn around and kill you instead. PTs seems borderline impossible to peel because they have grapple, so I think we're really stuck as 'anti-Marauder' as our only possible role in a RWZ.

[Xinika]

...so I think we're really stuck as 'anti-Marauder' as our only possible role in a RWZ.

 

It is not our only possible role. With an outlook like that, it may be for you or anyone else thinking this way. We can fulfill more than guarding a node. Also, it feels like people are putting Marauders on a pedestal. They're strong, but in reality, overrated.

[Astarica]

It is not our only possible role. With an outlook like that, it may be for you or anyone else thinking this way. We can fulfill more than guarding a node. Also, it feels like people are putting Marauders on a pedestal. They're strong, but in reality, overrated.

 

Um I don't think Marauders are that overpowered, but this is merely a process of elimination.

 

I think it is pretty well established that both Marauders and PT are better at killing tanks or healers compared to virtually any other class in the game, let alone any possible spec a Shadow can have. Our toolset is just not ideal for either of these two roles.

 

This means your DPS contribution is limited to versus other DPS.

 

But since Marauder/PT are the de facto DPS choices for rated WZ, this really means how good are you versus PT/Marauder.

 

PT is mostly dealt with by even more DPS. They're pretty much impossible to peel since they've very good range + grapple. This means anti-PT role is better filled by a PT or a Marauder than us.

 

That leaves exactly one role left to fill: anti-Marauder.

 

Now you can say we're better against Snipers than Marauders are (probably true). But in general Sniper is worse than PT or Marauder as a DPS role, so we should not expect to see them in an idealized roster. Of course not every team has an idealized roster, but this is usually more limited by class availabilty, not because people actually want to try new classes. Also, in general we're still worse than either Marauder or PT for the anti-DPS cases simply because they do more DPS than us. For example Shadow can beat an Op DPS fine, but so can a PT or a Marauder, and since they do more DPS than us overall, you might as well use the guy that can kill the fastest. In fact Snipers are the only class I can think of that creates a unique matchup problem for the PT/Marauder because you can't leap/grapple them, but I don't think Snipers are powerful enough to warrant replacing PT/Marauder overall because Snipers are definitely not very good versus healers due to lack of mobility.

[Astarica]

I thought about this problem more, having highest WZ numbers plus being best against healer is pretty much a no-no combination for balance.

 

There has been plenty of various classes that crushed the WZ leaderboard, including our own class just prior to 1.3. Thing is, even including the pre nerf concealment Ops, none of these leaderboard heroes are exceptionally good at killing the healer by design. Even an Op, if they didn't get the jump on a healer while stealthed, can easily be dealt with. Arsenal Merc pretty much are incapable of pursuing, not unlike the current Snipers (high leaderboard DPS, no ability to pursue healers). So you've guys who can put up crazy numbers but generally not on the target you really want to kill most, so the lesser DPS classes have their role, and you can easily argue that role is far more important than just looking at leaderboards.

 

But after enough nerfs now we actually have a WZ leaderboard leader that is also the best at killing healers. So if you lead in leaderboard numbers and you can kill the most valuable class in the game, this immediately pigeon holes every other DPS's role to 'kill the guy killing the healer'. And since PTs are countered by themselves, this means all the DPS are competing for 'anti-Marauder'.

 

Even when Tracer Missile spammers seem to dominate every WZ, it just doesn't make sense to say, 'let's get four of those guys on our team' because then you've to ask 'so who is killing the healer?' But having 4 Marauders or PTs is perfectly fine, because they are the healer killers and top leaderboard as well.

 

Assuming no fundamental changes to class mechanisms are coming (redistribute healing debuff, normalize all interrupts to 12s) I don't think PT/Marauders are giving up their healer killer throne any time soon, but they got to lose some other DPS for this game balance to make sense. Let me put it this way, if PT/Marauder now gets this innate ability that reduces all DPS done to an AC without a healing spell by 50%, thus guaranteeing they'll lose pretty much 1on1 against anyone who cannot heal, you'd probably still want 1 or 2 just to deal with their healers even though both classes now have no chance of beating anyone else 1on1. Actually, that's a good argument for just reworking the classes themselves so that healer killing abilities aren't so concentrated on one class (8s base interrupt + healing debuff).

[Xinika]

Um I don't think Marauders are that overpowered, but this is merely a process of elimination.

 

I think it is pretty well established that both Marauders and PT are better at killing tanks or healers compared to virtually any other class in the game, let alone any possible spec a Shadow can have. Our toolset is just not ideal for either of these two roles.

 

This means your DPS contribution is limited to versus other DPS.

 

But since Marauder/PT are the de facto DPS choices for rated WZ, this really means how good are you versus PT/Marauder.

 

PT is mostly dealt with by even more DPS. They're pretty much impossible to peel since they've very good range + grapple. This means anti-PT role is better filled by a PT or a Marauder than us.

 

That leaves exactly one role left to fill: anti-Marauder.

 

Now you can say we're better against Snipers than Marauders are (probably true). But in general Sniper is worse than PT or Marauder as a DPS role, so we should not expect to see them in an idealized roster. Of course not every team has an idealized roster, but this is usually more limited by class availabilty, not because people actually want to try new classes. Also, in general we're still worse than either Marauder or PT for the anti-DPS cases simply because they do more DPS than us. For example Shadow can beat an Op DPS fine, but so can a PT or a Marauder, and since they do more DPS than us overall, you might as well use the guy that can kill the fastest. In fact Snipers are the only class I can think of that creates a unique matchup problem for the PT/Marauder because you can't leap/grapple them, but I don't think Snipers are powerful enough to warrant replacing PT/Marauder overall because Snipers are definitely not very good versus healers due to lack of mobility.

 

Why are you focusing on what DPS classes do? You are aware this is a hybrid class, right? With the exception of PTs who are flat out broken. A sniper is an amazing class and an excellent objective defender. Do not underestimate them. What is with this mentality that damage alone matters? Especially in this poorly-done-objective-based-win game.

 

Marauders do not have perma-stealth, force lift, taunts, pulls, direct stuns or sever Force. You are vastly overlooking the wide range of versatility and tools this class has to offer. PTs are a one-trick pony. They can taunt and damage. That's IT. This class can kill any other class 1v1 (Namely as KC) so with that thinking, what, are we the anti-everything? Don't pigeon hole us into such a low title because it's flat out not true that this is the ONLY role we have to offer.

[Astarica]

DPS, especially concentrated DPS, is needed to take objectives and objectives do not start out taken.

 

Not counting Huttball, all the WZ generally boils down to the side winning the first major engagement gains a significant edge. Here DPS is far more important than defensive/utility abilities since you got nothing to defend during the initial engagement. Yes there are a lot of classes that excel at defending better than Marauder and PT after an objective is held, but you got to win the fight to take the objective first.

 

Even in Huttball, you generally need to be winning the fight to have the ball in the first place. Only in Voidstar is it possible to go with a completely defensive strategy but then that strategy will simply tie you the game at best though Voidstar does place different emphasis on what classes to bring. However since that's 1 out of 4 WZ it's not like you want to overload on defesnive classes just because that's preferable on Voidstar since that's not a good idea on the other 3 maps.

 

A heavy offense team might not be the greatest at holding a node (though they're surprisingly good), but at least they have a node to defend. A defense/utlity heavy team wouldn't be able to capture the node in the first place unless the enemy did something silly like only having one guy to defend it.

[Kajuana]

What, are we the anti-everything?

Please do not give BIoware any ideas of nerfing us!

 

I think you guys should be proud of what Shadows can do:

(1) Choose to fight or not fight with our resilience + force cloak escape

(2) Stall enemies without harm using our stealth CC

(3) Pull people away from capping/scoring and into fire traps / abyss

(4) Push entire teams into the pit

(5) Dash forward to finish line with complete immunity to CC for few secs

(6) Guard healers and taunt enemies to give up to 30%+25% dmg reduction

(7) Cap a node in 1v1 situation with 100% success rate (stealth CC > cap > force lift > cap)

(8) Beat any class 1v1, even after being jumped on

 

Could you name 1 class that can do nearly as much?

 

Yes, we do not perform as admirably in the kill healer department.

But hey, you can't be good at everything.

Sniper and Sentinels are pure DPS classes and they deserve that title.

 

On the other hand, PT is errr..... Well, they don't have stealth and our CCs.

If you say you want to trade our stealth and CC for their DPS, then roll a PT!

[parbs]

Of course, these things are all great. That's why i have been able to enjoy playing a shadow for so long - but let's not get ahead of ourselves, ranked wzs aren't being won by stacking shadows. We're pretty much a jack of all trades master of none, so in that sense there's always room for at least one of us, but its generally as a tank. Shin you are obviously right regarding the utility and disruptor aspect of our class, but ranked games have been won consistently by having the superior dps / healer killing, stacking PT's and maras - which also provide plenty of CC.

 

There simply isn't room for half of the AC's and even the ones that are useful are lucky to have even 2 viable specs. If you read around the boards, ranked is dead / dying on most servers with only the few top guilds playing.. honestly if you've got tanks running pure dps gear just because DPS is so important to winning then there's some fundamental flaws in the balance of this entire game.

 

I don't want to derail the thread, but it does allow shadows to understand the current situation of the end-game pvp for our class, and hopefully if BW are paying attention they could see why all this stuff they're doing for balance is almost a moot point when certain aspects of gameplay are dominating ranked.

Edited August 4, 2012 by parbs

[Astarica]

Pretty much any MMORPG has always had the same issue because stacking DPS almost always is better than stacking anything else. This is because there's a fundamental design flaw in any game that favors stacking defense, namely two teams that both stacked defense would never beat each other and it'd really suck for have hour long Novare Coast battles. On the other hand two teams that stack offense is very easy to figure out the victor: the side with more DPS (after factoring utility/heailng).

 

The Shadow is well designed as a class but in a game that heavily favors stacking DPS, there really isn't anything to do beyond stacking the best DPS. Even in our tank role we still need to do very considerable DPS or you're better off with either another healer (2 healers > 1 healer + guard for healing always) or a DPS.

 

The root of the problem we have here is that almost every objective in WZ is ultimately achieved by killing people. You can talk about defensive strategies or Huttball strategy but you got to kill someone to get the ball or capture the node in the first place, and it's better to have the ball/node and be unable to defend it successfully than never having the ball/node in the first place.

[parbs]

I've been a part of ranked games where our dps was superior and we still found ways to lose - it's obviously not the be all end all of it. A big part came down to who could capture said objectives first, and here's another case of the sentinel and transcendence being a massively important ability, on ALL wzs. Shadows still have their niche role of being node guarders / objective cappers - but thats what is happening, certain abilities are required for winning in the 'all or nothing' objective style of our wzs, and its only really our tank spec that provides them.

 

But yes, the fact of the matter here is mitigation is done more effectively by guarding, taunting and using cooldowns than any armor, or shield absorb defense stats (which only mitigate white damage) - and combined with DPS being so effective at catching back objectives, i guess it's no wonder we see this situation.

Edited August 4, 2012 by parbs

[Astarica]

I've been a part of ranked games where our dps was superior and we still found ways to lose - it's obviously not the be all end all of it. A big part came down to who could capture said objectives first, and here's another case of the sentinel and transcendence being a massively important ability, on ALL wzs. Shadows still have their niche role of being node guarders / objective cappers - but thats what is happening, certain abilities are required for winning in the 'all or nothing' objective style of our wzs, and its only really our tank spec that provides them.

 

But yes, the fact of the matter here is mitigation is done more effectively by guarding, taunting and using cooldowns than any armor, or shield absorb defense stats (which only mitigate white damage) - and combined with DPS being so effective at catching back objectives, i guess it's no wonder we see this situation.

 

By DPS I obviously include any healing/utilty/tanking as extension of DPS. 7 DPS + 1 healer will almsot certainly beat just straight up 8 DPS even though the latter has more total DPS because healing extends your DPS.

 

Utility matters but this game isn't clever enough for you to just bypass defenses. You do all your planning and whatnot but at some point you're going to run into the enemy's team's top 2 defensive specialists guarding some node and you're not going to get around them without killing them. Yes you can get a huge positional advantage for Transcedence, but it's never enough by itself. You're not going to pop Transcedence and found an unguarded node to cap. You can catch the defenders in a vulnerable transition state, yes, but you still have to win that fight and your window of opportunity is presumably small (the other team would try to reinforce the weak points), so you need not just DPS but concentrated DPS so that you can cap the node in this brief window opened up by your movement advantage. And right now I don't think any class, and certainly not a Shadow, can possibly catch PT/Marauder in terms of concentrated DPS.