So What *Are* We Going To Ask? July

[IronmanSS]

Kitru, I honestly think you should "shoot for the moon" on the PvE Question. You could phrase it like:

 

"All 3 Shadow Trees are underperforming in their respective roles in PvE...."

 

Then address the Kinetic Combat Tree issues of Shadow Tank Spikiness and Resilience not working as intended and/or being eclipsed by Guardians and Saber Reflect in most newer content, etc. The Infiltration Tree has the worst AOE DPS in the game. How is it acceptable for it to also have the worst Single Target DPS in the game? The Balance Tree may have slightly better Single Target sustained potential than Infiltration, but also remains sub-par in comparison to most other PvE DPS ACs available. (Yeah, we know about armor pen, execute, and the dummy... we aren't buying it anymore - lol). Additionally, neither DPS tree has a PvE raid group utility buff that would warrant their comparatively lower DPS or justify a place in a raid group over an equally skilled/geared Sentinel for a melee DPS slot.

 

I know that the question on Shadow Tank Spikiness is what you truly want a detailed answer to, but since Shadows/SIns have so many PvE issues overall you have a one-time opportunity to address them all in one fell swoop. You have the chance to serve the entire Shadow/Sin community and put all the major PvE (and PvP) issues on the table: Tank Spikiness, Resilience, Infiltration & Balance PvE DPS deficiencies - all in one cleverly worded PvE question. I think you should make the most of it even if it means a slightly less detailed answer for each individual issue.

 

The PvP Question focusing on Balance's intended role is fine. Also, addressing Phase Walk and it's lack of ideal implementation and/or utility in both PvE and PvP is a good wild card question.

 

We simply have so many PvE issues, it would be pretty painful to have to wait until Xinika's November Assassin questions to address all these obvious issues that truly needed to be dealt with yesterday.

Edited August 18, 2013 by IronmanSS

[Kitru]

We simply have so many PvE issues, it would be pretty painful to have to wait until Xinika's November Assassin questions to address all these obvious issues that truly needed to be dealt with yesterday.

 

The only possible problem I could see with asking the question of "why do you let Shadows be the absolute worst at everything in PvE?" is that the devs could pretty much say "we don't agree with you; Shadows are performing fine based upon our metrics" and that's likely what they'd say. The devs just don't know **** about Shadows, which susses out in everything they do with them. I'm considering asking "when, if ever, will you guys start actually playing Shadows so that you can see the horrible state you've left them in for so long?". If I stick with the tanking question as the PvE concern, I'm *definitely* going to include an addendum of "when, if ever, will you actually start testing content with Shadows so that you're not blindsided by major issues like Shadow tank spikiness 4 months after it's been common knowledge for everyone else in the entire game?"

 

I'm still playing the waiting game, however. There's still a month until we get to ask which means that we will, hopefully, see some movement on the Shadow balance front. I'm still going to keep that Phase Walk question in because I doubt they're going to change Phase Walk any more and they *really* need to told how horrible it is for our AC.

[IronmanSS]

If you lead with the tanking question, try to squeeze Resilience's 5% "fail rate" in there as it's a tanking CD. Gotta try to 2 for 1 these issues when you can at least.

 

Also, if that's the main PvE question then I'm with Jolly in that Infiltration & Balance DPS deficiency is a more important Question to have addressed in the Wild Card slot than is Phase Walk.

 

Phase Walk is a QoL issue that would be nice to address but we'd all live if we took it off our bars. However, Tanks that can't Tank or DPS that can't DPS (I exaggerate) are role impeding issues that are more important to address if we want our class to have parity with the other ACs with regards to simply doing our jobs.

Edited August 18, 2013 by IronmanSS

[lpez]

I agree if PVE question is for tanks, then wildcard should be the lackluster DPS.

Phase Walk is a minor ability issue, but a DPS who doesn't DPS is a more pressing matter.

[Missandei]

I'm considering asking....

 

«Please don't hesitate to question them aggressively!»©BH-7x

[ArchangelLBC]

The only possible problem I could see with asking the question of "why do you let Shadows be the absolute worst at everything in PvE?" is that the devs could pretty much say "we don't agree with you; Shadows are performing fine based upon our metrics" and that's likely what they'd say. The devs just don't know **** about Shadows, which susses out in everything they do with them. I'm considering asking "when, if ever, will you guys start actually playing Shadows so that you can see the horrible state you've left them in for so long?". If I stick with the tanking question as the PvE concern, I'm *definitely* going to include an addendum of "when, if ever, will you actually start testing content with Shadows so that you're not blindsided by major issues like Shadow tank spikiness 4 months after it's been common knowledge for everyone else in the entire game?"

 

I'm still playing the waiting game, however. There's still a month until we get to ask which means that we will, hopefully, see some movement on the Shadow balance front. I'm still going to keep that Phase Walk question in because I doubt they're going to change Phase Walk any more and they *really* need to told how horrible it is for our AC.

 

I do think going into exact detail over HOW each spec fails in PVE, in the kind of excruciating detail that only you can do Kitru. That, at the least, should get more than a "we disagree". KBN's example of focus and watchman for sent questions are good, and we'd just do it times three under the general umbrella of "all three specs are drastically underperforming in PVE". I've been recommending the same idea for merc/commandos. At the very least it would communicate to the devs just HOW MANY issues there are with shadow, which is a problem all its own.

[Kitru]

I do think going into exact detail over HOW each spec fails in PVE, in the kind of excruciating detail that only you can do Kitru.

 

My fear would be that, if it's as long as it would take to spell out everything and *explain* why it's borked so that they can't just say that we're not paying attention to <insert bull-**** here>, their eyes would just glaze over.

 

Pretty much the *only* good thing about Shadows going last in the first set of mirror questions is that we get to get a feeling for how the devs are going to answer questions.

 

Of course, I think that going with more general questions that address the global concerns of Shadows rather than the specific concerns is likely the best way to go for the PvP and PvE questions, elsewise it's pretty much a guarantee that the devs are going to completely oversee any number of our other legitimate issues. I still feel that Phase Walk is the golden choice for the Wild Card question. They *really* need to be told that Phase Walk sucks, even *with* their paltry couple of changes they threw to us on Friday.

 

And, yes, I will most *definitely* be asking in a manner that isn't even *remotely* close to pulling punches or asking politely. I will give them as vicious of a keyboard lashing as I can get away with (I seriously want to see if I can phrase it viciously enough that Musco has to debate whether to censor it). I want the devs to *know* that Shadows are pissed by the fact that they completely ignored us for this long, especially since we were kind enough to provide them with everything they might ever need.

[ArchangelLBC]

My fear would be that, if it's as long as it would take to spell out everything and *explain* why it's borked so that they can't just say that we're not paying attention to <insert bull-**** here>, their eyes would just glaze over.

 

Pretty much the *only* good thing about Shadows going last in the first set of mirror questions is that we get to get a feeling for how the devs are going to answer questions.

 

Of course, I think that going with more general questions that address the global concerns of Shadows rather than the specific concerns is likely the best way to go for the PvP and PvE questions, elsewise it's pretty much a guarantee that the devs are going to completely oversee any number of our other legitimate issues. I still feel that Phase Walk is the golden choice for the Wild Card question. They *really* need to be told that Phase Walk sucks, even *with* their paltry couple of changes they threw to us on Friday.

 

And, yes, I will most *definitely* be asking in a manner that isn't even *remotely* close to pulling punches or asking politely. I will give them as vicious of a keyboard lashing as I can get away with (I seriously want to see if I can phrase it viciously enough that Musco has to debate whether to censor it). I want the devs to *know* that Shadows are pissed by the fact that they completely ignored us for this long, especially since we were kind enough to provide them with everything they might ever need.

 

Well lets be honest, their eyes might glaze over anyway, but that will be obvious in their answers. And you're right we'll get a chance to see how they answer everything. I still think specifics are the best way to get anything that might resemble actual progress.

 

Nothing to say about the rest of what you said, except I agree completely, and go get 'em.

[LoRdTyRANTz]

For the tank question, rather than compare a shadow class to a guardian or VG, I would suggest comparing the changes made for a shadow post 2.0 to pre 2.0. Their is in fact fights where a shadow tank has an advantage over the other tank classes and I could see the devs responding in such a way. However, addressing what inspired the changes to shadow armor and why was the effectiveness of shield chance and absorb changed from the PTS before 2.0 went live might shine some insight to what the devs are thinking. These changes to armor and shield effectiveness directly contribute to the majority of shadow community experiencing RNG deaths.

[Kitru]

Their is in fact fights where a shadow tank has an advantage over the other tank classes and I could see the devs responding in such a way.

 

If that's *honestly* what they respond with, they're even *less* intelligent than we already give them credit for. Yes, there are a small number of boss fights where Shadows have an advantage, but it's only due to a small number of mechanics that allow for cheesing with Force Cloak (TWH adds and a few things on DG; hell, Resilience doesn't even allow us to be useful for mechanic cheesing since Saber Reflect does it *better* in more cases than Resilience does) that aren't particularly disadvantageous towards the other tanks. They can be weathered just fine *without* a Shadow. The fights where Shadows are at a distinct *disadvantage*, on the other hand, are both more common (Thrasher, Operation's Chief, every fight on NiM thanks to the potential for spike damage) *and* place Shadows at a *massive* disadvantage for that fight.

 

Any argument that the Shadow performance on the fights that they *are* good justifies their performance on the fights that they are absolutely *terrible* at is completely ignorant of actually balancing those advantages against each other. Sure, it's nice to be able to cheese some stuff with Force Cloak, but the things that you can cheese aren't liable to demolish one of the other tanks so it doesn't make up for the fact that a Shadow is going to get absolutely reamed by the stuff that they're *not* good at.

 

The entire point of comparing Shadow performance to the other tanks, while bringing in the context of the existing content's design, is to demonstrate this fundamental point: Shadows *don't* have appreciable advantages but *do* have appreciable disadvantages. Comparing Shadow performance pre-2.0 to post-2.0 wouldn't even really apply since the content is so fundamentally different thanks to tank balance being so fundamentally modified to account for that.

 

Shadows were fine pre-2.0 because the devs only play Guardian tanks, which meant that everything could be measured in how Guardians deviated from the other tanks; it worked well because Guardians were actually in between in all facets: midway between VG and Shadow spikiness, midway between VG and Shadow mitigation. With 2.0 landing, Shadows actually only got made *slightly* spikier. The problem was that the only tanks that the devs play got turned into an overpowered monstrosity that has the best of every world, with the biggest change being that Guardians got given an incoming damage profile so smooth that it's effectively identical to VGs. Since the devs only play Guardians and are only aware of *their* capabilities while designing content, damage became spikier because Guardians could now handle it and it got *loads* worse for Shadows because, not only were Shadows slightly spikier than before, but the amount of spikiness that the content that developers designed with in mind suddenly became what used to be exclusive to VGs. It was less about Shadows themselves changing than the window with which the devs view the game suddenly shifting so that Shadows no longer even exist in the periphery of their vision.

 

It would be as if the developers refused to play any DPS except for Gunslingers and Sentinels and decided that ops content from them on would require substantial amounts of AoE and ST DPS in excess of 3.1k because that's what the ACs that they play are capable of. Not every DPS spec actually *has* significant AoE nor is every DPS actually capable of 3.1k ST DPS, but the devs would be designing with those capabilities in mind because that's the only thing that the devs play.

 

The entire root of the problem isn't in the class balance, but in the complete and utter ignorance of the devs for any classes that the don't play heavily themselves, and, since they only play Guardian tanks, any deviation in capability from what a Guardian is capable of means that they have no idea how it will affect you; any sufficiently large amount of deviation means that you're screwed. Since Shadow now deviate so heavily from Guardians thanks to the massive changes/buffs that Guardians underwent, Shadows get ****ed not because our *class* got nerfed but because the devs haven't a clue about Shadows.

 

The lack of developer experience with our AC is the entire root cause of our problems. The devs have only passing familiarity with the class and are only aware of their capabilities on a purely theoretical level. This is why the devs dismiss Shadow DPS by saying that it gets better during execute range so it's just fine (in reality, they drastically overestimate the performance of Shadow DPS in execute range) or claim that they made Balance simpler by removing one ability from the rotation (in reality, the reason that Balance is friggin' hard to get decent numbers out of is because it requires an *absurd* level of precision to reapply all of those DoTs that Sage Balance doesn't happen to share because their non-DoT DPS through TkT spam is nearly as good as their DPS *with* DoTs).

 

They're so disconnected from Shadows that they don't have the slightest clue about what problems they have or *how* they actually play. It's like putting a janitor in charge of the programmers in the office where he works: he doesn't have the knowledge or experience to actually know what he's doing so he ends up completely screwing everything up. Sure, he can probably figure out who spends the most time in the office, but he doesn't have the ability to actually gauge performance or anything else that a boss *should* be able to do. He would likely base any executive decision based upon how clean someone kept their desk because all he knows is cleaning the office.

 

Another great metaphor would be asking a deaf person to become a record producer: sure, they can feel the vibrations in the floor so that they know *something* of what's going on, but they're missing everything *except* what they can feel manually, which just so happens to be 90+% of what they're supposed to know about.

 

Comparing Shadows now to Shadows then wouldn't do anything to assuage that since the developers don't have any real reference to either of those points. The only way for the comparison to actually make sense for the developers is to bring in something that they *do* know, which is the other ACs. Even then, it's doubtful that the developers would actually be capable of commenting on anything because the only thing in that comparison that they're actually familiar with is the thing we're comparing Shadows *to*.

 

The best outcome of all of this would be for the devs to realize how little they actually know about Shadows and the commensurate admission that they can't balance a class effectively without actually playing and testing it so that they are forced to actually become *familiar* enough with Shadows to make intelligent decisions concerning their balance. Of course, considering everything that we've seen about these devs, I'm not holding my breath for anything resembling this outcome. The best we can reasonably hope for is the devs to not simply dismiss our concerns by saying that they don't show up in their metrics.

[thejollygreenone]

a bit off topic here:

 

i had this thought awhile ago for infiltration and brought it up in a post but no one payed any mention to it, so i will bring it up again because i'd like to hear if people think it will screw things up.

 

i think that force breach/discharge should be included as an ability that can stack circling shadows. i notice it's a very normal thing to have to delay using project/shock when the cooldown becomes available because force breach also became available at the same time. i'd like to see force breach/discharge get treated like any other filler (shadow strike, clairvoyant strike, assassinate when 30%) because i think it will partially change the purpose of the ability, mainly to move it to a place within the rotation that doesn't have it disrupt the internal cooldown of projects, or breaching shadows for that matter. the place that it would be moving to is to replace a second clairvoyant strike while still adding to the force cost reduc on project, making it actually worth it to replace a clairvoyant strike, and using less GCDs between projects (the proper 3 per).

 

my point of this is it seems that maintaining a perfect flow of breaching shadows, and the other set of them from project even more so. i'd like to see this become more normalized by making a certain situation (delaying project for force breach) disappear, but i'm not sure how it will practically play out. i guess i'd just like to see force breach properly taking its place directly after a project, and the disruption of the flow of breaching shadows drastically alters this position, and leads to awkward situations like having to use delay using project.

 

something that i think would work in tandem to helping the flow of breaching shadows is to change the talent in KC (rapid recovery) to be a % proc chance buff for all techniques. infiltration would greatly benefit from something like this.

 

i'm sorry if this doesn't seem like as much of a problem to you all as it does to me, but the way that breaching shadows are built as of now, with huge random gaps of no natural procs, we are suffering a huge loss of potential from force breach. if we were able to use force breach more, i would want for it to be easier to accommodate in the rotation, which is why i would like it to build a circling shadow. this would reduce the occurrences of double clairvoyant strikes, and hopefully would give it a more concrete place in the rotation so it wont always drift to be available as soon as project is. this conflicting of abilities is what i see as a problem.

 

if i were to have any changes made to infiltration to make it close to viable in pve, would be to

• lower the force cost and damage on low slash, make it worth it to use whenever the cooldown is ready
  

• fix force breach to properly build a breaching shadow if it procs shadow technique
  

• add force breach to the list for the acquiring of circling shadows
  

• and finally change rapid recovery to include all techniques (name change too)
  

• (i would also like to see some sort of talented crit chance seeing as we need much more than we have access to, but this is pretty minor, just something i think would help and would enjoy greatly. kitru mentioned tying a force crit bonus to circling shadows which i think is brilliant)
  

 

if all this was done and worked as i'd hoped, i would have no more complaints about infiltration. the changes here basically would (hopefully) give us more uses of force breach and shadow strike, and less clairvoyant strikes. which means more opportunities for 7-9k crits to maintain our dps, and less major losses in force from having to use clairvoyant strike twice in a row less if even at all. after all i believe the steady flow of these high crits are what is supposed to allow us the consistency we all are saying is lacking. which it is, right now.

 

so my solution to that is to give us a steadier flow of abilities with that potential. and in all hopes this would regulate our single target dps, but still doesn't give mention to our horrid aoe (which is actually typical for rogue-like classes), which would be fine if our ST dps was exceptional to make up for horrid aoe. and then beyond the aoe concern we still have no group utility like marauders/juggs get. if balance were to get a group utility buff in this manner i wouldn't mind all too much.

 

(for all you balance lovers i thought of a change that might help for you as well):

as i'm sure most of you have seen already xinika has proposed a change to balance to give them a spinning strike proc. it makes sense because balance is only dots, FiB, and melee spam right now, and very unforgiving about refreshing. i think balance needs another splash of some burst to help them out at least in pvp, and spinning strike makes sense for that.

 

what spinning strike doesn't address is the absolute precision needed to keep dots and FiB up. i think to add a mechanic such as i will suggest next will help solve this problem. again please give feedback if it's terrible i want to hear so the idea is to have the spinning strike proc tied to dots, say 10% chance to proc for each of your damage over time effect with say a 20 second internal cooldown. on top of that when the proc is available, spinning strike has a 10% chance per dot effect on the target (value debatable) to refresh all your existing dots. so these values would obviously max out at 30% chance to proc spinning strike, and 30% chance for spinning strike to refresh all dots. (leaving the damage dealt in-tact to be similar to FiBs damage without talented surge)

 

i think this might help alleviate the refreshing precision mechanic, while not increasing complication way too much, but enough to help the players who think balance is too dull

 

i'd like to hear if anyone thinks these changes would imbalance any other aspect of the game, so please give me more perspectives for my thoughts i'm particularly interested in what others think of my infiltration changes since that's my forte.

Edited August 19, 2013 by thejollygreenone

[LoRdTyRANTz]

They're so disconnected from Shadows that they don't have the slightest clue about what problems they have or *how* they actually play.

 

Yes one of the devs mentioned that they do not play shadow tanks. That does not mean all devs do not play or test our class. I know for a fact that they do pay attention because pre 2.0 a shadow tank/hybrid in dps gear could use project then shadow strike 3-4 times and very quickly destroy any other class in WZ. Insta-lifts and good def CD's made shadows the king of PVP. I could easily handle and down 2-3 against my 1 every time. This is no longer feasible with the new skill trees and armor set bonuses being re-worked. So I would suggest that most of the changes were a result of PVP and hybrids while no consideration was taken into how these changes would affect PVE.

 

This is why the devs dismiss Shadow DPS by saying that it gets better during execute range so it's just fine (in reality, they drastically overestimate the performance of Shadow DPS in execute range).

 

Definitely agree here. What is the point of the execute phase if we can't get there because our dps is not on par with other AC's. On top of that, what is the up-time of a boss during burn phases where everyone should be popping everything they got, compared to the first 2/3 of the fight. My point being that around 20-30% health most bosees will be dropping very quickly making spinning strike less effective.

[Altheran]

a bit off topic here:

 

[...]

While I agree that making Shadow circling proc on Force Breach would smooth things, people will still not use Force Breach after Project, because they're likely to not want to miss the one or two Breaching Shadow(s) that can result from Project.

Using Project before may delay the next Force Breach (the one after the one you're about to throw) to the point it could result a DPS loss. Note I said "may".

 

What I'd do is changing Judgement from increasing damage on target below 30%, to increasing damage when attacking from behind. Ideally with a 5%/10% rate instead of 3%/6%. Like this, the better Infiltration parses on dummies would be able to reach slightly less than 3K instead of 2.7K, meaning that with armor debuffs it could be within a much reasonable margin with the Gunslingers' 3.4K best parses.

 

In addition, I'd increase Force Breach base damage by 15% adding and 7.5%/15% damage to Project with circling shadow (the passive or the proc - The proc may be preferable so that the previous change don't increase too much opening burst in PvP) while reducing Deep Impact to only 10%/20% instead of 25%/50%.

As a result, non-crit attacks would hit 15% harder, while crits would only lose 0.33% compared to what it's now (considering 75% surge, crit would lose 0.68% with 70% surge), making the average damage of these attacks increase by 8.43% (still considering 75% surge but also considering 25% cirt chances), pushing up the overall DPS by ~3.2% (considering Force Breach and Project make for 40% of the overall damage according to this this parse)

 

With both proposed changes, the Infiltration parse I previously posted would have its DPS increase from 2700 DPS to 3065 DPS.

Edited August 19, 2013 by Altheran

[IronmanSS]

a bit off topic here:

 

• lower the force cost and damage on low slash, make it worth it to use whenever the cooldown is ready
  

• fix force breach to properly build a breaching shadow if it procs shadow technique
  

• add force breach to the list for the acquiring of circling shadows
  etc...
  

 

While I agree with these ideas, lets not kid ourselves. The devs surely already think we're "beyond blessed" to be able to simply hear their thoughts on whatever 3 issues we may bring up every 3 months. We are a far cry from being able to just drop our notes into the "Class Fix Suggestion Box".

 

Besides if those suggestion notes "make sense" and would address all the major issues without making the class OP, then those notes will be left to rot for months on end:

 

Ex. - Fixing Shadow Tank Spikiness

 

(Seriously how is that thread not Stickied with 600+ replies - lol.)

Edited August 19, 2013 by IronmanSS

[thejollygreenone]

[...]

What I'd do is changing Judgement from increasing damage on target below 30%, to increasing damage when attacking from behind. Ideally with a 5%/10% rate instead of 3%/6%. Like this, the better Infiltration parses on dummies would be able to reach slightly less than 3K instead of 2.7K, meaning that with armor debuffs it could be within a much reasonable margin with the Gunslingers' 3.4K best parses.

 

In addition, I'd increase Force Breach base damage by 15% adding and 7.5%/15% damage to Project with circling shadow (the passive or the proc - The proc may be preferable so that the previous change don't increase too much opening burst in PvP) while reducing Deep Impact to only 10%/20% instead of 25%/50%.

As a result, non-crit attacks would hit 15% harder, while crits would only lose 0.33% compared to what it's now (considering 75% surge, crit would lose 0.68% with 70% surge), making the average damage of these attacks increase by 8.43% (still considering 75% surge but also considering 25% cirt chances), pushing up the overall DPS by ~3.2% (considering Force Breach and Project make for 40% of the overall damage according to this this parse)

 

With both proposed changes, the Infiltration parse I previously posted would have its DPS increase from 2700 DPS to 3065 DPS.

 

i like the idea about changing judgement, and i like that you're thinking with numbers, but i think taking focus away from large crits in infiltration is no different than making CS more acceptable to spam (less force cost more damage). it will regulate the dps but it changes the philosophy that infiltration bases its dps off of (which is flowing large crits in as quick succession as possible repeatedly)

 

i think i'd like to try to make it work as it is(i enjoy the high surge dependency, its a class archetype i always pick), which could appropriately be helped by the crit chance increase, making force breach more consistent and frequent, and shadow strike also more frequent and controllable through low slash. ie high crit chance, and more opportunities for the crits that matter.

 

Using Project before may delay the next Force Breach (the one after the one you're about to throw) to the point it could result a DPS loss. Note I said "may".

 

i mentioned this positioning because when i looked at the spreadsheet the rotation was layed out to have force breach every other project rotation, directly after project. this is assuming project is able to be used on every 4th GCD and that shadow technique is refusing to proc perfectly on the internal cooldown. which as of now doesnt happen enough.

 

the changes i suggested address both of those things to greatly reduce the RNG while maintaining the playstyle, and i think if the changes lead to near(or more at least closer to) perfect gaining of breaching shadows, then force breach can maintain that spot right after project, according to the spreadsheet. so my change would really just be increasing the likeliness of attaining that near perfect building of stacks of breaching shadows (if that makes sense)

 

you mentioned people may be missing a stack of breaching shadows, can you elaborate on that? because i don't see any loss especially if force breach can properly build a stack. the project will be being used as normal and building stacks as normal, i see no missed opportunity to gain a breaching shadow under these circumstances, but maybe i'm missing something, which is why i'd like some elaboration ^.^

 

While I agree with these ideas, lets not kid ourselves. The devs surely already think we're "beyond blessed" to be able to simply hear their thoughts on whatever 3 issues we may bring up every 3 months. We are a far cry from being able to able to drop our notes into the "Class Fix Suggestion Box".

 

this totally makes sense, and trust me i get how far fetched it is with BWs track record, but i figure it's worth to put it out there at least to the community. i at least wanted some fellow player perspectives on how the changes would actually preform, which is hard to gauge over text without seeing it in action.

Edited August 19, 2013 by thejollygreenone

[Altheran]

i like the idea about changing judgement, but i think taking focus away from large crits in infiltration is no different than making CS more acceptable to spam (less force cost more damage). it will regulate the dps but it changes the philosophy that infiltration bases its dps off of.

 

[...]

 

you mentioned people may be missing a stack of breaching shadows, can you elaborate on that? because i don't see any loss especially if force breach can properly build a stack. the project will be being used as normal and building stacks as normal, i see no missed opportunity to gain a breaching shadow under these circumstances, but maybe i'm missing something, which is why i'd like some elaboration ^.^

 

I'm not taking away the focus from large crits, at least in my opinion because I chose the numbers purposely so that the crit don't get lowered, or significantly lowered. I just have a different approach, instead of making these crits more regular, I cushion the loss when it doesn't crit so that bad luck is less punitive. That's another way to make the spec more reliable. If you remember, I mentionned those crits would lose less than 1% damage, so their burst won't get significantly lower... if you attack from the front. If you add "my Judgement", then you can expect your crits to hit 10% harder than before if you attack from behind, even in the <30% area where you could have 6% bonus.

I chose this "path" because I noticed that when Force breach doesn't crit, the attack is pretty low considering the prepartion it required. And so, even if I'd were to have higher chances to crit, if I'm unlucky these "big hits" end being inconsitant. That's pretty inconvienient when you were about to kill someone in PvP, and bad luck made the target survive and healed. (My Guardian's Overhead Slash do better damage when it doesn't crit, and it doesn't need any preparatives.)

 

 

 

For the Breaching Shadow proc miss, I'd be glad to explain, even though it will be a bit messy as it's more a hypothesis than something I'd have actually proven... I'd even say that it's more a psychological barrier rather than anything else.

 

Let's say I used Project before Force Breach one of the next filler attacks "can" give me my first Breaching Shadows stack. When the 6s CD of Project will end (after two CS) I'll have my second one. Since Project will be 3s after the first CS being able to proc, usually Project will be unable to give me the third at the same time than the second one. If I consider myself lucky with RNG and that the first CS gave the first stack and that the next ability after Project gave the third, I'd have my three stack by using 4 abilities. RNG makes that it will rather be by using 5 or 6 abilities if not more if unlucky.

 

Now let's say I used my Force Breach first. Project will grant me the first stack immediately. I'll use 3 abilities waiting the next Project (the GCD of these 3 plus the initial Project will make for the 6s CD). The second Project will grant me at least a second one. Now, the chances than within these 5 abilities that the Technique didn't procced once naturally are much lower than it procced twice convinently like previously. There is even a slight chance that the three stacks can be ready at the same time as the second Project again (if the first Project procced and the third filler too), repeating the situation. By doing so I protect myself against a bad RNG that may have forced me to use more than 5 abilities between each Force Breach (In addition, if I had the lucky RNG with the same probabilty than in the previous exemple, I also may be able to have the 3 stacks by using 4 abilities only)

Edited August 19, 2013 by Altheran

[thejollygreenone]

I'm not taking away the focus from large crits, at least in my opinion because I chose the numbers purposely so that the crit don't get lowered, or significantly lowered. I just have a different approach, instead of making these crits more regular, I cushion the loss when it doesn't crit so that bad luck is less punitive.

 

you're not taking focus away from crits by having the crits be less effective, you're taking away focus from crits by making it fine to not crit. this just goes against how infiltration is set up if you ask me. i fear that with your changes our BiS stats will change so that our suggested crit rating will be drastically less, making our gear much more similar to balance (if not identical), and just about every other dps in the game who barely uses crit rating. i'd like to keep this from happening, because again, i enjoy this crit dependence, it's just not done correctly yet.

 

again i must bring up, it seems really no different than the changes someone suggested to CS to make it do more damage and cost less. your goal is to cushion the loss when we don't crit and get bad rng, while my goal is to lessen the frequency of bad rng and maintain the dependency on crits. the difference between our goals is a philosophical one. i'm fine with the fact that when we don't crit it's less so. i think this is part of the idea of infiltration. i prefer it this way tbh but i can see how others would think otherwise.

 

the solution you've put forth (to me) suggests that the idea of a crit dependent build is flawed at it's core and needs a buffer to compete. i refuse to resort to this, i would really prefer to keep infiltration's design as it is, which is again finding the easiest way to string large hitting crits together, my changes aim towards making the opportunities to set up those strings more frequent and controllable. i can't get around this philosophical difference of ours. what you suggest will certainly work, but i think i'd like to keep the goal of the spec the same (which again to me is flowing large crits together).

 

the problem to me is that we're blocked from even using these high hitting crits as much as we need to.

 

Let's say I used Project before Force Breach one of the next filler attacks "can" give me my first Breaching Shadows stack. When the 6s CD of Project will end (after two CS) I'll have my second one. Since Project will be 3s after the first CS being able to proc, usually Project will be unable to give me the third at the same time than the second one. If I consider myself lucky with RNG and that the first CS gave the first stack and that the next ability after Project gave the third, I'd have my three stack by using 4 abilities. RNG makes that it will rather be by using 5 or 6 abilities if not more if unlucky.

 

in this hypothetical situation did you consider that force breach will be able to properly proc technique and build a stack as well as build a circling shadow as well as the talent with increased chance to proc technique(bringing it to 45% chance) as well as the increased crit chance? cause it seems like you just described what would happen as the spec currently is, i suppose i'm having a little bit of trouble with the phrasing barrier.

 

(if what you're saying here is that the position of force breach will never be in the same place, i still dont see much of a problem with that. it seems to me that with 1 natural shadow technique proc between ever project, force breach would alternate between being right after project and right before it, and i'm still not seeing a problem)

 

i think the main thing that i see is that the ICD of shadow technique should allow one natural proc in between ever project, yet this so rarely happens. i figure we do as much possible to lessen that RNG burden and see to it that procs at least once within each of those 4.5 second windows. i don't seem to be so good at putting this idea into practice but it seems that with this assumption, that force breach should at least have a proper place within the 3 filler GCDs between projects, especially if it can take the rightful place of a CS or SS. now you can always play devil's advocate and expect the worst as to RNG, but i think with these changes it will be much better than it was, and will work a lot to help that RNG issue. again it's hard to say exactly how it would play out.

 

but i'm going to stress that i feel that infiltration should remain a crit dependent, high critting low hitting build, because i feel that we can make changes to continue this play style. i feel like going after that aspect of the problem is really just avoiding our core problem and adapting to the (in my opinion) crappy way the spec happened to go in the direction of. i picked infiltration because i love the high crit dependence, but i understand it's a hard thing to get right. i would want to try to do exactly that though before we go settling with a less crit heavy play-style (however much that crit loss happens to be, its a philosophical issue, as i said)

 

but at it's core that's exactly what my suggestion is, a preference. yes the spec would play well with CS being buffed and us getting used to spamming it, yes the spec would play well if we buffed our non crits but took away some from our surge talents, but to me this isn't preserving what infiltration stands for. and so now this conversation leads into me spitting mumbo jumbo about how i think my spec should play ;P so i'm gunna end with this:

 

yes you're suggestions would work, but it seems to me that it's taking away from what infiltration is at it's core. so if i had the almighty choice as to the direction infiltration would go, i would still go with the suggestions i originally made, unless someone could tell me it would make things worse than they are. maybe that makes me a bad problem solver but that's my two cents.

Edited August 20, 2013 by thejollygreenone

[Altheran]

you're not taking focus away from crits by having the crits be less effective, you're taking away focus from crits by making it fine to not crit. this just goes against how infiltration is set up if you ask me. i fear that with your changes our BiS stats will change so that our suggested crit rating will be drastically less, making our gear much more similar to balance (if not identical), and just about every other dps in the game who barely uses crit rating. i'd like to keep this from happening, because again, i enjoy this crit dependence, it's just not done correctly yet.

 

again i must bring up, it seems really no different than the changes someone suggested to CS to make it do more damage and cost less. your goal is to cushion the loss when we don't crit and get bad rng, while my goal is to lessen the frequency of bad rng and maintain the dependency on crits. the difference between our goals is a philosophical one. i'm fine with the fact that when we don't crit it's less so. i think this is part of the idea of infiltration. i prefer it this way tbh but i can see how others would think otherwise.

 

the solution you've put forth (to me) suggests that the idea of a crit dependent build is flawed at it's core and needs a buffer to compete. i refuse to resort to this, i would really prefer to keep infiltration's design as it is, which is again finding the easiest way to string large hitting crits together, my changes aim towards making the opportunities to set up those strings more frequent and controllable. i can't get around this philosophical difference of ours. what you suggest will certainly work, but i think i'd like to keep the goal of the spec the same (which again to me is flowing large crits together).

 

the problem to me is that we're blocked from even using these high hitting crits as much as we need to.

My idea is much more similar to yours, than it is to the one increasing Clairvoyant Strike. We both focus on increasing DPS by makings the big hitters more reliable, while the other one tries to compensate with another ability which purpose at the moment is to support the big hitters.

 

I can understand your concerns that it may reduce the importance of crit rating on gear, but whether it be by increasing base damage, or crit chances, it will reduce the importance of the rating in a way or another, that is unless the crit modifiers (surge & talents) rise at the same time. It's possible that increasing crit chances will change less the stat distribution, but it will make it change. That's inevitable.

 

Crit based builds are not flawed at their core. But there are some prerequisites to have so that they're really reliable. Either the crit chances must be really high, either a wide range of attacks would benefit from crits so that unlucky hits get "drowned" in the flow of others crits. The first category is the kind of Lethality, which have more than 40% crit chances on DoTs, the second one is the kind of Lightning where even Lightning Strike get "surged". That's this second category who is the one needing the most crit on gear.

Given that Infiltration only rely on one regular hit (Project) and two situational hits (Breach and Shadow Strike), it would need that the crit chances of these attacks to be buffed badly to be one of the "first category", the category who need crits but not so much.

Said that, it's perfectly viable as option. However the ennemy is luck, and even if we reduce the chance factor, it's still possible to face unlucky RNG and be as efficient as wet gunpowder. I think that's why we were given Force Potency and workaround to used it more regularly. The problem is that with high crit chances, the need for Force Potency is reduced, and without knowing it we'll regret not have used it when non-crit will occur. That's why strictly as personal preference, I'd prefer have an insurance that I'll be a threat no matter what, and rely on Force Potency for occasions when I can't afford to rely on luck.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Altheran

[thejollygreenone]

Crit based builds are not flawed at their core. But there are some prerequisites to have so that they're really reliable. Either the crit chances must be really high, either a wide range of attacks would benefit from crits so that unlucky hits get "drowned" in the flow of others crits. The first category is the kind of Lethality, which have more than 40% crit chances on DoTs, the second one is the kind of Lightning where even Lightning Strike get "surged". That's this second category who is the one needing the most crit on gear.

Given that Infiltration only rely on one regular hit (Project) and two situational hits (Breach and Shadow Strike), it would need that the crit chances of these attacks to be buffed badly to be one of the "first category", the category who need crits but not so much.

 

this makes a lot of sense, so i guess i feel the changes i suggested really addresses the second category (it wouldn't be a wider range of attacks, but rather more frequency in the main attacks we already rely on, breach/SS), and then beyond that i also wanted to see a talented crit chance (preferably force crit chance to add synergy to force synergy).

 

so it seem's that with my solution it's addressing both of those problems on a minor level. my question would be whether or not it would all be enough. if we had say 40 shadow strikes and 40 breaches instead of 30 per 5 minutes, and had something to help keep force synergy up (talented force crit), then we could hope that the RNG would sort itself out, but you can't rely on that, unfortunately.

 

and you're right, what you suggested wouldn't be nearly as bad as if we were stuck with an overpowered clairvoyant strike spamming it over and over between shocks, i see that now. tbh now that this is been discussed a bit more your choices (the safe route) seems pretty desirable compared to what we're going through now, and that's all i really care about. so if changes were made down to the detail (which obviously wont happen) of what either of us suggested, i'd think we'd at least be in a better spot than we are in now, and i'd be happy with that.

 

(but no matter what changes are made force breach needs to be fixed to properly build stacks of breaching shadows just in case! )

[Xinika]

I made a thread here

Come out and support it.

Show the devs we're tired of this ********

[tamadolovas]

And, yes, I will most *definitely* be asking in a manner that isn't even *remotely* close to pulling punches or asking politely. I will give them as vicious of a keyboard lashing as I can get away with (I seriously want to see if I can phrase it viciously enough that Musco has to debate whether to censor it). I want the devs to *know* that Shadows are pissed by the fact that they completely ignored us for this long, especially since we were kind enough to provide them with everything they might ever need.

 

And you really think that being disrespectful and forming the questions in the worst manner you can will solve anything? When you argue with someone or just easily someone tells you his/her problems how do you like it when they sound like crying angry babies? Or let me put it this way: whose opinion / personality do you take more seriously: someone who states pretty badly that he/she is right and is pretty obvious by its words that is annoyed OR someone who tells you its problems but respecting your opinion too and being polite enough to take seriously?

English is not my native language as you may can see but I'm pretty sure that you have your language abilities to be polite and calm while stating out that our class needs to be changed and the shadow / assassin community is more than unhappy with the current state of this class.

SO if you listen to me than you'll form the questions in a no-need-to-censor it form with as much politeness as needed (and by talking to the guys being able to change our class I think that they deserve our respect, even though they does not seem to bother much with our cause).

 

P.S.: Please note that this is only my opinion, it's not my job to form the questions or judge your opinion about the whole thing.

[Missandei]

I figured out the problem with Devs ignoring on Assassins/Shadow.. They have profanity filter enabled.. so all question about ***-***-ins are not shown in their browser/mail etc..