Why not: Deception Manifesto

[Xethis]

It baffles me that you guys are so up in arms about not having enough crit. Sure other AC's have a talent that ups crit by a couple % or gives an ability an auto crit, but we have a buff on a pretty short cool down that will make both of our force abilities (Shock/Discharge) crit. When I pop Recklessness on cool down I am averaging just under 40% crit for my force attacks. VS has an insane 60% crit rate with armor set bonus and Exploitive Strikes talent (50%-70% up time). Both Maul and Assassinate average about 45%-49% crit due to Exploitive Strikes as well. With about 33% crit rating you already crit more than anyone else.

 

It would be really nice to have an accuracy talent given pretty much all of us choose power or crit over accuracy anyways.

 

It has been proven that Deception Assassins with around 40% base crit can keep up with Madness Assassins in pve damage. But if you really want to do more damage than Madness and don't want to spend a ridiculous amount of credits and time on re-itemizing your gear, then just go Mad Maul. Even 40% crit Deception Assassin will do less damage than a Mad Maul Assassin.

 

I will try to write a detailed Mad Maul guide here in the next few weeks with some video even. I have been inspired by some of the very sexy guides put out recently.

Edited November 27, 2012 by Xethis

[Griad]

I personally think that the best thing would be to get a box giving us 9-10% accuracy that way we can remove all acr mods from gear and stack power instead.

 

This would help PVE immensely and not make a big difference in PVP

[Atramar]

I personally think that the best thing would be to get a box giving us 9-10% accuracy that way we can remove all acr mods from gear and stack power instead.

 

This would help PVE immensely and not make a big difference in PVP

 

How would that not hit pvp?

[nosmos]

It baffles me that you guys are so up in arms about not having enough crit. Sure other AC's have a talent that ups crit by a couple % or gives an ability an auto crit, but we have a buff on a pretty short cool down that will make both of our force abilities (Shock/Discharge) crit. When I pop Recklessness on cool down I am averaging just under 40% crit for my force attacks. VS has an insane 60% crit rate with armor set bonus and Exploitive Strikes talent (50%-70% up time). Both Maul and Assassinate average about 45%-49% crit due to Exploitive Strikes as well. With about 33% crit rating you already crit more than anyone else.

 

It would be really nice to have an accuracy talent given pretty much all of us choose power or crit over accuracy anyways.

 

It has been proven that Deception Assassins with around 40% base crit can keep up with Madness Assassins in pve damage. But if you really want to do more damage than Madness and don't want to spend a ridiculous amount of credits and time on re-itemizing your gear, then just go Mad Maul. Even 40% crit Deception Assassin will do less damage than a Mad Maul Assassin.

 

I will try to write a detailed Mad Maul guide here in the next few weeks with some video even. I have been inspired by some of the very sexy guides put out recently.

 

Recklnesness is not on a really short cool down, in terms of auto-criting. And if you are trying to itemize your gear, with a nice looking power # your shock or discharge may not crit anyway. A minute and a half on a raid boss for 2 crits is nothing special. Other AC's get auto crit from combo's, or increase crit with force attacks etc...

 

With the way the current end game is itemized, dropping your black hole implants for Hazmat equals loosing around 114 accuracy. What rubbish. If anything, since I doubt they will give us 2 out of 3 talents (which everyone gets) then at least give us an accuracy talent. In surging charge or something...anything!

[Xethis]

Recklnesness is not on a really short cool down, in terms of auto-criting. And if you are trying to itemize your gear, with a nice looking power # your shock or discharge may not crit anyway. A minute and a half on a raid boss for 2 crits is nothing special. Other AC's get auto crit from combo's, or increase crit with force attacks etc...

 

With the way the current end game is itemized, dropping your black hole implants for Hazmat equals loosing around 114 accuracy. What rubbish. If anything, since I doubt they will give us 2 out of 3 talents (which everyone gets) then at least give us an accuracy talent. In surging charge or something...anything!

 

I 100% agree with the accuracy talent, we do need this. It isn't just a buff to Deception, both Darkness and Madness Thrash about the same amount of times as Deception will VS.

 

As far as the Reck buff, I know two crits every 90 sec does not sound like much but from the countless hours of parsing that I have done trying out all the various specs and rotations I found that pretty much across the board my force abilities were consistently critting just under 40% of the time when I used Reck off of CD.

Edited November 27, 2012 by Xethis

[nosmos]

Well, after getting 2 hazmat implants (Which suck *** compared to the black hole, but i just want all the new tier ) i have been trying out diff mods etc..again spending way too many credits re-slotting stuff. Thanks BW!

 

WIth 2 hazmat i loose 114 accuracy, so if i want to make that back - i have to rid of some enhancments and put accuracy / crit or something. Well, I decided to try out tfb with around 105+ accuracy, around 33 crit force and lots of powaaa (around 1050 force depending on which relics i use). Yeah, saber strike misses sometimes when i build force, even VS, but its used so much...maul, the ODD time may be dodged but the proc stays up.

 

What i DID notice, though some of my stuff may be dodged more and I am not critting as often, is that when i do crit it hits HARD, and i think it may be better. Our operation training dummy parses are not particularly good, considering we get a weak 9 percent armor pen if spec'd into it. In an operation, I seem to crit more and harder - last night, on the tentacle add my maul hit for around 7.7k. Major chub.

[nosmos]

So putting all this aside for a second - I was browsing the Dread Guard gear out of curiosity to see how it has been itemized. Nearly every piece is filled with Crit Surge, with one having around +44 accuracy. The Hazmat implants have power / surge unless you grab the sorc one with crit / surge.

 

Has anyone tried slotting all crit / surge enhancments (with lots of crit mods etc)?. I have been playing around with 96/106 accuracy - now, Voltiac slash may be dodged sometimes, and maul yet the proc stays up so you can maul again. Two of our main attacks are force, and like the sorc who doesnt need accuracy for shock etc to hit.

 

After our raid last nightin 16man hm TFB i spent more time and money (at least 400k a day) swapping 63's in and out of gear, parsing or trying it on elites. I am starting to think moving heavily, i mean heavily into the DR of crit (without talents this requires lots and lots of crit enhanc / mods) and using basically all crit/surge enhancments.

 

WIth a surge around 79 / 80 and a melee crit above 44ish with force around 42...it would crit often, and hard...EXCEPT for maul since this build would barely have any power...

 

i may try this later

Edited November 29, 2012 by nosmos

[Griad]

Well considering maul is our main dps apart from VT this seems like a very bad idea, i would much rather have maul and VT hit harder as they account for almost 50% of our damage on raid bosses.

 

Overall as i wrote earlier i think that a +9% accuracy box 3 point would be the best way to solve this issue.

Edited November 29, 2012 by Griad

[nosmos]

Well considering maul is our main dps apart from VT this seems like a very bad idea, i would much rather have maul and VT hit harder as they account for almost 50% of our damage on raid bosses.

 

Overall as i wrote earlier i think that a +9% accuracy box 3 point would be the best way to solve this issue.

 

of course, but who knows when and if something will come. In TFB hm 16man, Writhing and the Dread guard im usually around 4th on MoX simply because the movement of the bosses and having to position myself for maul with 15 other bodies around me. It's frustrating. On the puzzle boss and TFB though, I am always consistently topping MoX. Our dps is good when played well and geared - but we do need to be evened out a bit more. Accuracy in our surging charge stance perhaps? i get very frustrated looking at my guildmates with their 79 surge, 37 crit and 1070+ power (with the new dread guard relics equiped). There is NO WAY I can come close to stats like that while maintaining 110 accuracy.

 

So frustrating :/

[Narazumono]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but surging charge gets 9% armor pen off the 1st tier of the darkness tree. Isn't that a static stat boost?

[nosmos]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but surging charge gets 9% armor pen off the 1st tier of the darkness tree. Isn't that a static stat boost?

 

You are correct, though that is not the issue. TBH i would love to see that changed as well, 9 armor pen if spec'd doesnt seem like all too much tbh. Other dps classes get this as well, ala powertech's railshots armor pen (and its much larger then 9 percent).

 

We need some very basic stat talents that every single class in the game gets, both AC's - with the exception of assassins. I don't know how else I can stress that, why this class was left out is beyond me. Why does the operative get shared talents that increases crit and mainstat - thats on the sniper tree? Why do powertechs and merc share passive stat talents? What about maras and jugs? So why not assassins and sorcs, where is our mainstat / crit!!! If not, then give us accuracy in the surging stance at the VERY least

[svenofnine]

Just wondering what spec is everyone running. is the Chain shock spec still top deception spec or the 7/31 any good? also been reading thru all the post here and it seems we are stacking crit like mad, which i understand. I'm at 37% crit buffed, should go high as i was thinking of switching out some willpower augments for power (power at 921).

 

also just wanted to say thank you so much for making this thread. it's so hard to find forms that talk about deception builds anywhere or videos.

Edited November 30, 2012 by svenofnine

[nosmos]

Just wondering what spec is everyone running. is the Chain shock spec still top deception spec or the 7/31 any good? also been reading thru all the post here and it seems we are stacking crit like mad, which i understand. I'm at 37% crit buffed, should go high as i was thinking of switching out some willpower augments for power (power at 921).

 

also just wanted to say thank you so much for making this thread. it's so hard to find forms that talk about deception builds anywhere or videos.

 

I have tried pushing my crit as high as I can go. The DR starts to hit hard once you reach around 38 crit rating for force - adding more crit +44 or w/e mods starts to bring your crit rating up by smaller ammounts. When parsing or in raids, I honestly don't see much of a difference in the amount I crit from a 39 - 40 crit rating and 34ish. This also means that with a 40 crit rating your loosing lots of potential power. From what I can gather now, a crit rating of 34ish - 35ish, and even less accuracy then 100/110 enabling us to stack more power is efficient.

 

On a side note, the ops training dummy sucks for us. I parse everyday and try new combos of mods / enhancments. On another char I can easily sustain 1850+ while deception on the dummy after a few minutes i usually end up in the 1730ish realm. In a raid environment on a boss, my stuff seems to crit more then on the dummy and harder.

[Xethis]

I have tried pushing my crit as high as I can go. The DR starts to hit hard once you reach around 38 crit rating for force - adding more crit +44 or w/e mods starts to bring your crit rating up by smaller ammounts. When parsing or in raids, I honestly don't see much of a difference in the amount I crit from a 39 - 40 crit rating and 34ish. This also means that with a 40 crit rating your loosing lots of potential power. From what I can gather now, a crit rating of 34ish - 35ish, and even less accuracy then 100/110 enabling us to stack more power is efficient.

 

On a side note, the ops training dummy sucks for us. I parse everyday and try new combos of mods / enhancments. On another char I can easily sustain 1850+ while deception on the dummy after a few minutes i usually end up in the 1730ish realm. In a raid environment on a boss, my stuff seems to crit more then on the dummy and harder.

 

It is awesome that you are figuring it out all yourself. But most of this info has been learned already. Deception is do-able for Ops, but Madness and Mad Maul will always pull more dps. If you are able to sustain 1750 dps as Deception you could easily sustain 1900-2000 dps as Mad Maul.

[nosmos]

It is awesome that you are figuring it out all yourself. But most of this info has been learned already. Deception is do-able for Ops, but Madness and Mad Maul will always pull more dps. If you are able to sustain 1750 dps as Deception you could easily sustain 1900-2000 dps as Mad Maul.

 

Don't care for the madness tree, i got bored of that long ago on my sorc - granted it is better and slightly different for an assassin. I have raided with madness, and I tend to do better with deception. I enjoy the burst, and in TFB a lot of fights require that. The ops dummy is a terrible resource for parsing as deception, in game raid circumstances i hit a lot more critical hits with all of my abilities then on teh dummy. For me, coming on top consistently for a few bosses as deception - a weak class to bring to a raid - is quite nice. We just need some loving in an area or two, and i'll be happy..

 

If i wanted to easily parse that high on a dummy, i'd just go back to my marauder and we'd have an all marauder melee 16 man raid. But alas, i enjoy my deception assassin (frustrated as I am, with no accurac or crit or mainstat talents)

[svenofnine]

Still wondering what spec everyone is using for deception. Can anyone post their askmrrobot? Another thing as well, i know people who are madness spec are using the new relic (dread guard relic of dark radiance), but was wondering if people are using it as well for deception. Edited November 30, 2012 by svenofnine

[nosmos]

Still wondering what spec everyone is using for deception. Can anyone post their askmrrobot? Another thing as well, i know people who are madness spec are using the new relic (dread guard relic of dark radiance), but was wondering if people are using it as well for deception.

 

I use deception in raids, and I have both the internal proc relic and the on use power (dread guard). I change it around from a warhero power relic + on use, to proc + on use. As for the spec, if your a sub you get free respec so i suggest playing around with them. Go fight some elites, try the ops dummy - see what you think. I would suggest though, for OPS do discard Obfuscation and put it in the 30 sec cool down for overcharge saber instead..etc

[PlagaNerezza]

Well, I decided to dig out an old character I had a blast on back in March - my assassin, and use him as my main when 1.4 hit. Tossed aside my Marauder, and my sorc healer.

 

I am only going to discuss deception here, since it is the assassin DPS spec I enjoy (if i wanted to do madness i'd go on my sorc). Tanking, I could not really come up with anything useful to add. I've tanked all the content on its hardest setting (except for NiM EC) and its fine.

 

Deception lacks some things that are so basic, every single other class has them. We have ZERO talents for passive Mainstat, Crit or accuracy. Not in a stance, not in a tree. Deception, like the other DPS classes has talents that increase the bonus damage of critical hits - and yet, we have no combo to garuntee a critical hit.

 

The issue is quite simple. Every other class through stats in their trees, can get their crit to a respectable level and push power into the 1100+. I have messed around with so many variations of mods, and if I do not push my crit HIGH into the DR, my mauls barely hit for anything other then the tool tip says. Shock, Discharge..the same.

 

While our force management is a bit better with the lowered cool down on cloak and blackout resetting - it's still not that great for sustained. It works, but again - in comparison to my other Five 50's, they don't have that issue. We have nothing on a cool down that gives us X amount of force. The Surging charge talent that gives 10 force X amount of time is rubbish.

 

What can be done? For starters, give us the stat abilities that sorcs have. You know, like powertechs and mercs share stat talent abilities, jugs and maras, ops and snipers.

 

I shouldn't have to have 600 crit rating to get good numbers.

 

Surging Charge: This talent should have something with its stance - an increase in accuracy (like Carnage), better internal damage procs. Something.

 

Saber Conduit: Your surging charge has 100 percent chance to restore 10 force when dealing damage. This effect cannot occur more then once every 10 seconds. This should NOT be a 3 point talent considering it gives us 10 force every 10 seconds. In a sustained boss fight, that is really not much. Drop it to 1 talent, or increase the amount of force regenerated.

 

Static Charges: This talent makes me think none of the devs actually play a deception in a raid raid environment. How often do you actually use 5 stacks? It's a dps loss to wait, you discharge when its off cooldown. This needs to be changed. Perhaps speed up the process it takes to get 5 stacks? Or make it so 5 stacks gives you an auto crit on maul or shock? This is lackluster, needs to be fixed.

 

Resourcefulness Force reduction on lacerate...which is pretty useless, and 30 second cool down on Overcharge Saber. Overcharge saber could use a boost, maybe make it increase critical chance of shock and maul for x amount of time while its active? I dunno, but something could make it a better talent.

 

Low Slash Why do i need low slash to get to Voltaic Slash? WIth free respecs now, if I want to Raid I shouldnt have to take that talent.

 

Charge Mastery: Why the madness talent gets increased crit and deception gets...9 percent armor pen is beyond me. There's nothing more frustrating in deception then doing your rotation and see your tooltip numbers hit. For a 3 point talent, the Surging charge part needs to be fixed. Increases Force Critical Damage by X amount perhaps? That coupled with an accuracy increase in the stance itself would be nice..

 

SIDE NOTE: The entire Stalker set of dread masters, implants / ear included - gives you something like +44 accuracy. THATS IT. The heck?

 

In summation, I love the class but everyday I wonder why i spent so much time RE'n stuff to get all 63's, when I can't even get above 1040 power with having 33 force crit. It's very frustrating....PLEASE please please bioware, fix us!

 

Deception is fine. In Full WH with BiS it performs quiet well. I personally prefer the elements of the tanking tree over the deceptions higher dps. We don't need anything.

[Exiled-Phoenix]

Just wondering what spec is everyone running. is the Chain shock spec still top deception spec or the 7/31 any good? also been reading thru all the post here and it seems we are stacking crit like mad, which i understand. I'm at 37% crit buffed, should go high as i was thinking of switching out some willpower augments for power (power at 921).

 

also just wanted to say thank you so much for making this thread. it's so hard to find forms that talk about deception builds anywhere or videos.

 

i run with this, without chain shock http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200bc0MZfMrRkfbRroZc.2

 

It would be nice to have that willpower increase at the bottom of madness tree like sorcs have...

Or the extra 100 force points at the bottom of lighting tree sorcs have

[nosmos]

@ PlagaNerezza

 

Heh, I feel like you quoted all of that without reading it. This is not about PVP - and I am unsure how you can compare a tanking tree over a dps spec

[PlagaNerezza]

@ PlagaNerezza

 

Heh, I feel like you quoted all of that without reading it. This is not about PVP - and I am unsure how you can compare a tanking tree over a dps spec

 

Because in SWTOR buffing and nerfs for pve/pvp effect each other and pretending that your slightly smaller dps than a marauder is some problem is unrealistic. Play better. Its not a bad build for PvE.

[nosmos]

Because in SWTOR buffing and nerfs for pve/pvp effect each other and pretending that your slightly smaller dps than a marauder is some problem is unrealistic. Play better. Its not a bad build for PvE.

 

Thanks for your input bro, move along. And I am a pretty good player, so I thank you again. This thread is about some equality in terms of some very basic stats - ie, at the very least, an accuracy increase in the surging charge stance or something. Kindly move along to the next thread, peace

[RankorSSGS]

What about Voltaic Slash automatically causing a proc from Surging charge? More damage off of the ability every use, and also making it far easier to build up static charges for Discharge, which in turn helps us do more burst, and making those 2 points less of a waste. Also for PvP, doing something like this would make Voltaic Slash desirable again over hybrids such as 0/27/14. Mara's get a similar effect off of their Massacre, so why not us too? Seems like a perfect plan to me.

[JP_Legatus]

I actually don't like deception for pvp as much as I used to. I only respec into it if derpsmashers are lolsmashing me constantly and I still need to dps. Madness is just better at too many things: instant ww with second stun, creeping terror snare, death field huge range and huge aoe, and higher actual dps on top of self heals. I really like the cd reduction of cloak and force speed, but almost all specs get speed anyways because all specs get duplicity and its only 2 more pts to reach speed.

Sure it's great against smash but so is snare/stun/dot or snare/overload/dot and smashers can leap to someone else to dps anyways.

Anyhow, I agree that the talents you described are ignorantly designed, for any situation. Surging charge needs a bonus like the other stances, and conduit is stupid. VS shouldn't require low slash and overcharge saber kinda stinks, in addition to the discharge buff never getting to 5.

I do disagree on 2 points: accuracy on gear was mentioned. Two of our main attacks are force and need no accuracy. Maul can just be recast for 17 again if it doesn't connect. VS is filler and whiffing a filler is no big deal. Assassinate whiffs will suck, but that's one out of 5 skills. I run with no accuracy on gear and have no issues, you will do just fine without it too.

The other thing is a mainstat buff. While I agree it kinda sucks we don't get one, every spec grabs the 9% crit bonus and recklessness is there every 60s. That adds up to a lot of crit.

 

I'd like to see changes to the stance, conduit, VS prerequisite and overcharge saber but realize that 600 internal damage every other gcd is nothing to scoff at. When overcharge is up it deals more damage per second than death field with its cooldown.

 

People say deception is good in pvp but it really isn't all that great vs good teams, and obviously it stinks in raids. The changes were good but I think more tweaks are needed. My only question is why use deception for pve? Madness has range, more dps and self heals.

 

That's my 2c

Edited December 5, 2012 by JP_Legatus

[nosmos]

I actually don't like deception for pvp as much as I used to. I only respec into it if derpsmashers are lolsmashing me constantly and I still need to dps. Madness is just better at too many things: instant ww with second stun, creeping terror snare, death field huge range and huge aoe, and higher actual dps on top of self heals. I really like the cd reduction of cloak and force speed, but almost all specs get speed anyways because all specs get duplicity and its only 2 more pts to reach speed.

Sure it's great against smash but so is snare/stun/dot or snare/overload/dot and smashers can leap to someone else to dps anyways.

Anyhow, I agree that the talents you described are ignorantly designed, for any situation. Surging charge needs a bonus like the other stances, and conduit is stupid. VS shouldn't require low slash and overcharge saber kinda stinks, in addition to the discharge buff never getting to 5.

I do disagree on 2 points: accuracy on gear was mentioned. Two of our main attacks are force and need no accuracy. Maul can just be recast for 17 again if it doesn't connect. VS is filler and whiffing a filler is no big deal. Assassinate whiffs will suck, but that's one out of 5 skills. I run with no accuracy on gear and have no issues, you will do just fine without it too.

The other thing is a mainstat buff. While I agree it kinda sucks we don't get one, every spec grabs the 9% crit bonus and recklessness is there every 60s. That adds up to a lot of crit.

 

I'd like to see changes to the stance, conduit, VS prerequisite and overcharge saber but realize that 600 internal damage every other gcd is nothing to scoff at. When overcharge is up it deals more damage per second than death field with its cooldown.

 

People say deception is good in pvp but it really isn't all that great vs good teams, and obviously it stinks in raids. The changes were good but I think more tweaks are needed. My only question is why use deception for pve? Madness has range, more dps and self heals.

 

That's my 2c

 

I agree with a lot of what you said, but this has more to do with PVE and deception in endgame operations. Honestly, I see no issue in PVP.