Shadow Advice

[SwoopingLion]

Hey all, noob questions incoming. I'm levelling a Shadow and around level 20 (end of Taris-ish) I noticed a massive drop in survivability.

 

I'd been running in tank stance with points dropped into KC (a few in infiltration just for cool points) and encountered no problems really until Taris' end. I suddenly found myself dying regularly trying to tank the Heroic stuff, even struggling vs landscape stuff sometimes.

 

I thought maybe tanking wasn't viable at this level without many skills or much gear to support it, light armour & mits alone not doing the trick.

 

So I thought I'd might be best to spec for DPS until I get far enough in that the full plethora of tanking CDs etc are available. Unfortunately respecced to infiltration running in Force tekkers I didn't seem to be able to output enough dps to burn enemies down fast enough relative to my weaker armour, meaning massive downtime between fights that should be pretty "easy". Fess is taking a massive beating, bless him.

 

Essentially my dilemma seems to be that I'm not hard enough to tank, nor can I output enough dps to "DPS". When survivability started becoming an issue I geared a lot towards Endurance (at the expense of wp). I'm wondering now if that was a mistake, would shifting to willpower give me a better life?

 

Cheers for any help.

[Kitru]

I'd been running in tank stance with points dropped into KC (a few in infiltration just for cool points)

 

There's your problem. Any points you put into Infiltration are going to delay your access to the awesome KC talents like Kinetic Ward, Particle Acceleration, and pretty much everything else from the 4th tier up. By dropping points into Infiltration (even if those points were in Upheaval; Project isn't useful for anyone even with it until you get the deeper talents that reduce the cost and drastically increase the damage), you were drastically reducing your actual effectiveness such that you're functionally however many points you put into Infiltration levels lower than you actually are.

 

As for Infiltration, you're likely having problems because you're trying to spam Shadow Strike, which is an utterly *terrible* attack, even with the 6% additional damage Infil gets with it. You're not going to want to even *look* at Shadow Strike until you get Infiltration Tactics.

 

The fundamental design of Shadows is that the only abilities you use are ones that are based off of a proc or provide a buff/debuff/proc and, if said proc or buff is capable of stacking, you always wait until you hit the max stack. This means that until you get deep into the trees, all you're really using is Force Breach, Double Strike, and Saber Strike (and, once you get it, Spinning Strike).

 

As Infiltration, you shouldn't be using Project until you get Circling Shadows (and only when you have both stacks of Circling Shadows) nor using Shadow Strike til Infiltration Tactics. When you get Clairvoyant Strike, it replaces Double Strike completely.

 

As Kinetic Combat, you shouldn't be using Project until you get Particle Acceleration, Shadow Strike til Shadow Wrap, nor TkT until Harnessed Shadows (and only when you have all 3 stacks). When you get Harnessed Shadows, you want to start using Project on cooldown since it provides the HS stacks (the generation of said HS stacks matters more than the Particle Acceleration buff).

 

So, basically, you should focus *entirely* on your intended tree and resist the urge to use anything except for DS and FB until you get to a higher level. It's pretty boring, but it's the most effective way for a Shadow to behave.

[Avicii]

Moving Infiltration Tactics up in the tree changed what you can do when leveling with a Shadow now. Previously you could sink 3 points or at least 1 to get the proc making leveling a little easier I thought and opening up more option. Now at low levels SS can sink your force fast and make the process of killing things slow.

 

One thing to note, make sure your gear is up to date and get your companions gear up to date as well this should make leveling easier.

[SwoopingLion]

As for Infiltration, you're likely having problems because you're trying to spam Shadow Strike, which is an utterly *terrible* attack, even with the 6% additional damage Infil gets with it. You're not going to want to even *look* at Shadow Strike until you get Infiltration Tactics.

 

Haha. No, don't worry, even I realised SS was terrible

 

So, basically, you should focus *entirely* on your intended tree and resist the urge to use anything except for DS and FB until you get to a higher level. It's pretty boring, but it's the most effective way for a Shadow to behave.

 

This'll be where I'm falling down then, thanks. I'll respec my tree and see how I get on. Sorry for snipping your post, was all helpful stuff.

 

 

 

 

Moving Infiltration Tactics up in the tree changed what you can do when leveling with a Shadow now. Previously you could sink 3 points or at least 1 to get the proc making leveling a little easier I thought and opening up more option. Now at low levels SS can sink your force fast and make the process of killing things slow.

 

One thing to note, make sure your gear is up to date and get your companions gear up to date as well this should make leveling easier.

 

My (and Fess') gear is as good as I can see anywhere at the moment, I'm wondering though if focusing too much on Endurance (vs WP) might be costing me? Bigger health pool seems nice but if it's not worth much per point of hp it's going to waste.

 

 

Thanks again for the help.

[Kitru]

I'm wondering though if focusing too much on Endurance (vs WP) might be costing me? Bigger health pool seems nice but if it's not worth much per point of hp it's going to waste.

 

While you're leveling, even as a tank, you want to stack Willpower rather than Endurance. You'll have more than enough hp to tank whatever you might need to, and, once you get Tharan (who will be your *best* friend) on Nar Shaddaa, your survivability is governed by mitigation and his healing, not by your max hp. It also helps that it means you'll be able to kill stuff faster while you're leveling which is *always* a good thing.

 

If you're going as a tank, you'll still want to use pretty much exclusively DPS gear (except for your shield): tank stats are only useful in large amounts and you won't get them in large enough amounts until you're in your mid-30s/early-40s. Once you get there, you want to start loading up on defense, shield, and absorb.

[SwoopingLion]

While you're leveling, even as a tank, you want to stack Willpower rather than Endurance. You'll have more than enough hp to tank whatever you might need to, and, once you get Tharan (who will be your *best* friend) on Nar Shaddaa, your survivability is governed by mitigation and his healing, not by your max hp. It also helps that it means you'll be able to kill stuff faster while you're leveling which is *always* a good thing.

 

If you're going as a tank, you'll still want to use pretty much exclusively DPS gear (except for your shield): tank stats are only useful in large amounts and you won't get them in large enough amounts until you're in your mid-30s/early-40s. Once you get there, you want to start loading up on defense, shield, and absorb.

 

Sounds about right, thanks. I'll set about remodding my entire wardrobe then!