Venom Tank Spec

[Avicii]

You should try it before you knock it. You basically playing the same style as Deception Assassin, except your not counting Induction stacks or Static Charges. You don't Discharge except for some aoe splash, but Energize will proc enough times to make up for not having discharge, and your shocks will hit harder than the Discharge or Shock from a Deception sin. You are also much harder to kill than Deception sins due to your armor and heals.

 

My opener is usually open with Low Slash from stealth (low resolve cost) I then Maul, and then Thrash, Energize has usually procd by the first two abilities, now I blackout and Duplicity usually procs by now, so I stun and Maul for a second time. One more Thrash and Energize will proc again for another hard hitting Shock. Towards the end of my second Dark Embrace Buff I know 10 seconds has gone by so I'll Force Cloak and the Spike for another free Duplicity buff (this also restarts my Dark Embrace buff). Activate my 3rd Maul and Thrash or Assassinate by this point. Energize usually procs for the third time by this point and if I need can hit Black Out again. If my Mauls are critting, I will come no where near to finishing this rotation series, but for skilled healers or tanks, I find this rotation puts out serious pressure.

 

With all that burst, its being done in Dark Charge and Dark Embrace buff for over 50% damage mitigation as well as heals form Dark Charge. Deception can burst just has hard, they have the same Maul potential and can set up back to back Discharges that can put a serious hurt on someone if they both crit. Deception has way better force management for much higher sustained dps. But Dark Maul requires no set up, just watching for procs, and is much harder to kill. Dark Maul can also gaurd healers, as well as break snares with a 15sec sprint.

 

Anyways, if you are not sold by now to at least try this spec then I do not know what else to say about it. It does have its ups and downs, but it is definitely worth trying for a few WZ's.

 

I apologize I wasnt trying to be abrasive, just stating it feels odd to me taking points that benefit something I am not using. I will try it out, I would really like to roll with DC as it suits my objectives the best, like I said I havent settled into what fits my playstyle the best but maybe this will. thanks for taking the time to post and explain your choices.

[Astarica]

HD is weaker in 2.0 relatively speaking simply because ranged classes are stronger. With Conspirator's Cloak placed at the 30+ point tier, there's really no reason to have less than 36 points in Darkness for PvP. If you want to pretend you're not a tank you should put 11 points into Darkness (to get Disjunction) and then mess around with the other trees.

[Xethis]

Was refering more specifically to stuff you take that you don't need to take toget something else. Aka Energize with dark charge and Saber Conduit / Electric Ambush with surging charge. You don't need to take those to get other stuff and you can't get the benefit from both at the same time. I am 100% sure there are some small changes that need to be made that are 'pareto optimal' to the spec.

 

The spec is designed to be run in Dark Charge and take advantage of the synergy between Energize and Crackling Blast during Reck buff. Electric Ambush will still reset the cd of Recklessness even though you are in Dark Charge, those points are not wasted, you need to read the actual words I am typing before just dismissing. You obviously not only missed my point, but you haven't tried the spec.

[Mordarion]

HD is weaker in 2.0 relatively speaking simply because ranged classes are stronger. With Conspirator's Cloak placed at the 30+ point tier, there's really no reason to have less than 36 points in Darkness for PvP. If you want to pretend you're not a tank you should put 11 points into Darkness (to get Disjunction) and then mess around with the other trees.

 

So let's say I see wisdom in what you say about the darkness tree.... what should I gear for rwzs?

 

I am thinking dps gear and a sheild similar to the 1.7 hybrid build.

 

Thoughts?

[Astarica]

So let's say I see wisdom in what you say about the darkness tree.... what should I gear for rwzs?

 

I am thinking dps gear and a sheild similar to the 1.7 hybrid build.

 

Thoughts?

 

If you've DPS gear + shield you'll have exactly 7% damage reduction versus non internal/elemental attacks while losing close to 7% damage from the fact that you're using a shield over a focus. It's a pretty straightforward offense/defense tradeoff.

 

The Assassin tank is the least valuable target to kill for the enemy team (extremely hard to kill and does relatively low DPS) even in full DPS gear. If the enemy knows that then your survivality is actually irrelevent. If they don't know that, they're already way behind anyway. Unless you fight by yourself for prolonged period of time, your survivality frankly doesn't matter just by the fact that anyone else is easier to kill you than you so the enemy might as well try to kill them first in every conceiveable scenario.

[AceMidnight]

I got a Darkness Hybrid I have been pvp'n with and having a blast. Against people in similar gear as me I am destroying them. 12-31-3 Dark Maul http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200rMrozZfrcRzGbRr0zZc.3. This is a version of a spec I used pre 2.0 23-15-0 Also coined Dark Maul by me, so pls don't flame me cause I copied myself, lol.

 

Anyways the only healing your going to get is from Dark Charge and Overcharge Saber, but you have 10 times the burst and should be ripping through people. Electric Ambush works with Dark Charge so you want to go in and out of stealth as much as possible to get the reset on Recklessness. The main flaw of this spec is the energy management so again in and out of stealth and timely uses of Blackout to take advantage of Dark Embrace is a must.

 

There is awesome synergy with Energize and Crackling Blast. With the Recklessness buff you have 100% increase to Shock crit. With only a few pieces of Partisan gear and not a single 69 mod in my gear I am still Shocking for 7-8k, and about 5k-7k on my Mauls (on PTR I was hitting 9k Shocks and 8k Mauls). Open with Spike, Maul, Thrash 1-2X, Shock, by then Duplicity procs and stun to get behind them and Maul again and hopefully Shock is up again for another 5k damage. With in a few globals they are in execute range and its good night. All this front loaded burst and your doing it in Dark Charge with added defense from Blackout and Entropic field. Its very sexy.

 

When I get descent gear I'll make a show case video with big crits and people in worse gear than me getting their faces melted lol.

 

Thanks for posting this! I've run your Dark Maul since last July when you came up with it, and it's always been my fav 1v1 spec.

[Xethis]

Thanks for posting this! I've run your Dark Maul since last July when you came up with it, and it's always been my fav 1v1 spec.

 

I am glad to see that there is at least one person out there that shares my enthusiasm for this spec. Seems everyone else just hates it because it looks funky on paper. I am sure that if everyone who has flamed it actually tried it, a very good % of them would see its potential and start running it.

[underpantsgnomes]

Electric Ambush will still reset the cd of Recklessness even though you are in Dark Charge,

 

Was reading the tooltip. Worth a look as that would be another fail on bioware's part. Assuming you're right (and you probably are), nice spec.

[Xethis]

Was reading the tooltip. Worth a look as that would be another fail on bioware's part. Assuming you're right (and you probably are), nice spec.

 

When I was on the ptr I was going back and forth between 4 different specs trying to find the one that put out the most pressure in the first 12 seconds of opening. And just like most of us that change specs, I forgot to change my charge lol. Anyways I was trying full Deception and noticed I was in Dark Charge when I tried to Discharge, When I saw my failure I ended combat to reset in the new correct Charge, low and behold, my Recklessness buff reset at 30 seconds, woohoo!

 

By the way, 12-31-3 put out the best numbers for the 12 second opener by a large amount. Deception was next followed closely by Wakajinn 2.0 and Mad Maul put up the lowest opening burst but did sustain the highest dps of any spec in the Assassin trees.

[JP_Legatus]

When I was on the ptr I was going back and forth between 4 different specs trying to find the one that put out the most pressure in the first 12 seconds of opening. And just like most of us that change specs, I forgot to change my charge lol. Anyways I was trying full Deception and noticed I was in Dark Charge when I tried to Discharge, When I saw my failure I ended combat to reset in the new correct Charge, low and behold, my Recklessness buff reset at 30 seconds, woohoo!

 

By the way, 12-31-3 put out the best numbers for the 12 second opener by a large amount. Deception was next followed closely by Wakajinn 2.0 and Mad Maul put up the lowest opening burst but did sustain the highest dps of any spec in the Assassin trees.

 

I can't see how this spec would beat wakajinn or full deception by any margin and even be a close contest in terms of opener damage.

 

Basically, you lose your discharge, then you lost the higher damage from surging charge itself, then you lose 5% just from having dark charge on. On top of that, you haven't taken claws of decay so your thrash is less than voltaic and you lost 6-9% armor penetration from charge mastery, depending on whether you put 2-3 points in that talent (Your version shows 2). You additionally lose auto-surging charge procs from shocks used after 2x voltaic.

 

I can't imagine you actually parsed this opener at all because that 12s opener damage doesn't seem to meet up to all that with having just energize.

 

Comparing this spec to wakajinn is probably closer since it's essentially the same spec trading DF for energize, but you are still losing lots of damage just from being in dark charge.

 

The one thing I'll say for this hybrid is that it's probably quite tanky with dark charge plus dark embrace plus fade.

 

I'm also curious to know what mad maul spec is parsing at the top of the sustained dps charts since I don't know what the new mad maul is.

Edited May 13, 2013 by JP_Legatus