July Assassin Questions - Let's Start her up!

[Xinika]

July Assassin Questions

 

We'll need to cover both PvE and PvE sections in this thread, so please, take your time and address which concern you are specifically after. Both are equally important and equally viable. So let's make sure that we try to get the best of the 3 we can get. KBN and Kitru have already started their main PvE concerns for our mirror AC which can be found here:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=660574

or here

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=660575

 

I'd like to comment that this round, our PvP concerns are not as awful as some think. As a matter of fact, we're doing decent right now and we're not in need of any exaggerated buffs. All we need is a few minor tune ups here and there but at the same time, we'll need a serious eye on that wonderful spec we call Balance or Madness.

 

 

Is there any plan to fix Balance / Madness PvP?

At the given moment, there is virtually no reason to carry this spec in warzones for nothing other than legitimately being useless to the team and spreading fluff damage (which can affect CC caps). At the current state, Balance has no form of actual killpower. In addition, it suffers from force issues just from even trying to get said kill power out.

 

Things I've noticed:

- The removal of Insta-FL has severely hurt this tree's PvP performance. Re-inserting this ability and perhaps moving such an ability higher up the tree to prevent hybrids is a recommendation.

- A proc that allows Spinning Strike or Shadow Strike to be used at any % of health. When this attack connects, it should either renew dots on said target, or cause X% more damage based upon the amount of dots on a target, or it can simply just restore X amount of force.

- Mental Defense should recover X amount of force in addition to its effect.

 

These are just a few ideas for the PvP section that hopefully can also bolster PvE without breaking it. I find it interesting how Balance at the moment has virtually no dependency on our signature ability: SS. So, having to put this back into the picture would be going a long and arguably easier route for fixing the tree. The spec itself needs to be able to actually, well, kill things! Right now it is unable to do that and its utility is non-existent.

 

 

Are there any plans to ever fix Resilience / Force Shroud?

This is an absolute red-zone at the moment.

 

Force Shroud / Resilience

Instant

Cooldown: 60s

Removes all hostile removable effects and increases your chance to resist Force and tech attacks by 100% for 3 seconds. Does not break Stealth.

 

According to the tooltip, it is guaranteeing the players that we have an absolute certainty, that when we pop this ability, we will CLEAR our hostile effects and resist them. When this is not the case, then there is something very, very, very wrong. It's going directly against its design mechanic. It is supposed to be a 100% chance to resist force and tech attacks. If this is not the case, then change the tooltip to what it truly is. Having attacks, mezzes or stuns bypass something based on its design was meant to counter said things, is nothing short of outrageous blind luck and furthermore, infuriating and absolutely gamebreaking. (IE: Node caps, Boss spikes) This either:

 

A) Needs to be fixed (to 100% ACTUAL resist)

B) Tooltip change to the true value

 

 

Are Shadows / Assassins the designated 'Node Guarders'?

A serious, an honest question. Will we ever be able to compete with the Guardian for MTing in mid fight? Or are we just purely designed to be an off-tank and node-staller. Why do I ask this? Well, it's becoming more and more evident as time goes by that Shadowsin survivability is decreasing, while the other tanks are incrasing. So what exactly is the deal here? Will we ever be able to fulfill actual tank roles, or are we meant to do what we've already been silently told?

 

/Reserved

Edited July 12, 2013 by Xinika

[bbrooks]

Posted this in the mirror Shadow thread, but figured I'd drop it here too

 

I would love to hear if they have anything in place to make balance/madness less monotonous like it was pre 2.0. All the fun is gone from the spec, would love to see it put back.

[AwkwardGinger]

^Agree with beels.

 

Also, I'd like to know if there are any upcoming changes to make assassin tanks worthwhile in pve, or rather, viable.

[xscott]

Xinika ..

 

please understand you are an exceptional PVP'er. Please remember you represent the player base, and not just the uber min/max PVP'er.

 

Love your videos, stay true to the core of the class, and remember .. many of us are always in the L2P mode

[Xinika]

Xinika ..

 

please understand you are an exceptional PVP'er. Please remember you represent the player base, and not just the uber min/max PVP'er.

 

Love your videos, stay true to the core of the class, and remember .. many of us are always in the L2P mode

It will not be about PvP exclusively anymore. The guides and stickies on both Shadow / Assassin forums are going to be updated with both PvE tank and PvE DPS information. PvE will also be apart of this effort.

[xscott]

I know ..

 

just remember that you are the 1% .. and don't forget some of us are not uber, .. you sometimes pull things off only seen in a youtube video.

[Kyllona]

I consider the 3 questions you have posted to be all primarily PVP focussed. Please can you include at least 1 PVE question since assassins are doing pretty well at PVP at the moment, apart from the madness spec issue which is effecting PVE just as much. Possible questions you may consider are;

 

1. Assassin Tank spikeness

2. DPS Class balance - this has been raised in another post, please be aware they are talking about class balnce vs other classes not the Balance tree. This issue has been made worse due to the fact we are a melee class.

3. Class gear, is the ultimate gear suppose to be so useless for our class (accuracy on tank gear, dps with high end and crit etc)?

4. PVE set bonus, do we still require the saberstrike force bonus due to new force regen mechanics introduced or the extra 15% crit on VS for that matter, would be alot better on maul.

[Berjiz]

I consider the 3 questions you have posted to be all primarily PVP focussed. Please can you include at least 1 PVE question since assassins are doing pretty well at PVP at the moment, apart from the madness spec issue which is effecting PVE just as much. Possible questions you may consider are;

 

1. Assassin Tank spikeness

2. DPS Class balance - this has been raised in another post, please be aware they are talking about class balnce vs other classes not the Balance tree. This issue has been made worse due to the fact we are a melee class.

3. Class gear, is the ultimate gear suppose to be so useless for our class (accuracy on tank gear, dps with high end and crit etc)?

4. PVE set bonus, do we still require the saberstrike force bonus due to new force regen mechanics introduced or the extra 15% crit on VS for that matter, would be alot better on maul.

 

3 affects pretty much everyone and is a way to pronlong the time until you get BIS. Im guessings its intedned by BW. Rember how fast it to took to get BIS with Rakata?

[NrDLeipe]

about the node guarding i say we should be in par with the other tank classes its kind of sad that 1 AC is forced to stand there picking his nose, we should be a wall thats hard to kill but not high dps ( goes for all tanks imo ) .

 

Pve they alrdy let us know that they are looking in to it, and basicly all tanks should be capable of tanking content x, so imo pvp should be no diffrent, the only thing that should be diffrent is the playstyle, spikey with alot of utility to cover that

 

Shroud is weird atm it says 100% but when you hover over it it says 200% but then you have the 5% hit chance its just weird. but i also have problems the way % is used in this 100% is a 100% theres no such thing as 110% etc but that irrelevant

Edited July 15, 2013 by NrDLeipe

[Rafe_Vidar]

I run Madness quite heavily in 55hm pugs, due to pugs heals/tank being questionable at best. Upon discovering a solid healer and tank ill swap to Deception immediately, depending on the content of the fight (burst vs sustainability).

My issue, upon many: RECKLESSNESS seems to repeatedly "miss its application" a majority of times. My accuracy is 99.6% melee, and every time I've noticed Recklessness not be properly applied has not been due to an actual missed attack. Most notably Death Field does not use the Recklessness as it should, DF doesn't miss it just doesn't trigger it in many of my applications. I've also seen Raze not proc it, sadly watching my Recklessness drop off without use. I do not see any of these problems repeated in Deception spec.

 

Also, (insert general compliant about Madness having a complete lack of burst making it unreliable and a team handicap in pvp.)

[Xinika]

I consider the 3 questions you have posted to be all primarily PVP focussed.

Which is why I want you to post PvE related, and as it currently stands, PvE may just end up getting majority of the questions. Either way, this thread is to select the best or possible best questions out of all in both fields.

[ArchangelLBC]

I would change the questions slightly as follows:

 

1) Are there plans to fix Balance/Madness?

 

Whatever the metrics say it's pretty clear that Balance/Madness DPS is in a pretty sad state in either portion of the game (don't we just call it sadness spec now?), the fact that shadows are melee only makes this problem a lot worse from a PVE perspective, and their lack of burst is a huge liability in PVE as well. A way to free up your execute above 30% health would actually go a long way towards helping this spec. Every other class with an execute has a spec that allows this to happen. Why was this overlooked for Shadows?

 

2) Resilience/Force Shroud is a concern in both aspects of the game. It needs to do what it says, and that "everything always has a 5% chance to hit" BS is exactly that.

 

3) Kinetic Combat/Darkness balance. Again, while you notice the imbalance more in PVP where the squishiness of shadow tanks sidelines you as a node guard, the concern is equally valid in PVP where the incredibly well documented spikiness issues make shadows incredibly untenable for NiM level content, especially with changes like Huge Grenade being made Melee/Ranged, and things like Terminate which Resilience never worked on. An overall more sturdy shadow/assassin tank would, I think, see their broader employment on both sides of the game, and frankly the imbalance is starting to become incredibly annoying. The fact that BW has stated that they didn't even test current content with shadow tanks is especially disheartening.

Edited July 15, 2013 by ArchangelLBC

[insaneric]

I think force shroud not working as it says is the most encompassing issue (PvE and PvP) but this won't give the devs much to talk about.

 

From a PvE perspective I'd like to know more about their plans to make the dps specs viable (in terms of wanting to take on for progression). I feel tanks are in a good place even if most of the community disagrees with me.

[Rafe_Vidar]

I think force shroud not working as it says is the most encompassing issue (PvE and PvP) but this won't give the devs much to talk about.

 

From a PvE perspective I'd like to know more about their plans to make the dps specs viable (in terms of wanting to take on for progression). I feel tanks are in a good place even if most of the community disagrees with me.

 

I think the tanks could be in a worse spot and in some player reactions over-inflated, but I do think there is a RNG-content-blocking problem with their overall spikiness that BW has acknowledged. I think both Deception and Madness are viable for HM OPS, NiM I'm not sure. Are they behind the perceived curve? Likely. But is it the detriment that many complain about, I don't believe so. Madness and Deception are within acceptable limits of each other, in terms of actual output, and raiding wise within acceptable limits. Can other classes do it better/easier? Yeah, which is what I think needs to be tuned. Less reliance on simple/troublesome RNG and more on playerskill.

[bbrooks]

I run Madness quite heavily in 55hm pugs, due to pugs heals/tank being questionable at best. Upon discovering a solid healer and tank ill swap to Deception immediately, depending on the content of the fight (burst vs sustainability).

My issue, upon many: RECKLESSNESS seems to repeatedly "miss its application" a majority of times. My accuracy is 99.6% melee, and every time I've noticed Recklessness not be properly applied has not been due to an actual missed attack. Most notably Death Field does not use the Recklessness as it should, DF doesn't miss it just doesn't trigger it in many of my applications. I've also seen Raze not proc it, sadly watching my Recklessness drop off without use. I do not see any of these problems repeated in Deception spec.

 

Also, (insert general compliant about Madness having a complete lack of burst making it unreliable and a team handicap in pvp.)

 

Recklessness give you a 60% extra chance to crit. It has nothing to do with an attack missing, it just only goes away if you roll the crit. say you have 20% crit, you would bump to 80% with recklessness, but if you get unlucky the recklessness doesnt go away. Working as inteded

[DarthSpekulatius]

Recklessness give you a 60% extra chance to crit. It has nothing to do with an attack missing, it just only goes away if you roll the crit. say you have 20% crit, you would bump to 80% with recklessness, but if you get unlucky the recklessness doesnt go away. Working as inteded

 

for Madness they do go away,

as Darkness/Deception you have enough Force attacks to eat the stack later.

as Madness you have Death Field and Crushing Darkness both on a relatively long CD.

 

Edit:

not a really big issue though

and to the topic:

what I'd like to see in regards of balance would be a fix to it's game play (bringing back the old style would be quite fine) that's all for the moment

one month down the road we can ask about DPS to low/to high

but as it is talking about DPS being to low is like saying

"my DPS are to low! oh and btw I've only used 20points in my Skill-Tree"

Edited July 16, 2013 by DarthSpekulatius

[Regentlord]

I know its just wishful thinking, but the randomness of deception in PvP in some ways sucks. Occasionally I will do a full combo and barely scratch someone, and other times I 3 shot people. I wish it was more predictable.

[FuriCuri]

Xinika, I think your 3rd question (Are Shadows / Assassins the designated 'Node Guarders'?) is not a proper "question" as it is. In current form it's non constructive to say the least. If I may, I suggest to come up with some proper question which will also cover some "broad" pve and pvp problem as was requested by devs (1 question pvp, 1 pve and 1 wildcard).

[Helig]

I know ..

 

just remember that you are the 1% .. and don't forget some of us are not uber, .. you sometimes pull things off only seen in a youtube video.

So... what does this have to do with the legitimacy of concerns listed?

 

As for the original post, I support the questions listed. Resilience is what bugs me the most, tbh.

[Griad]

I still feel that we are to crit reliant in PVE maybe if we had a skill that could raise crit or willpower by a percentage then i think deception would be in a good place.

 

I really cant say much about madness never liked that build.

 

Darkness is quite decent at the moment true we are spiky, maybe give us something that could increase our overall damage reduction, maybe instead of the healing buff from phase walk. Alot of the time i find myself having to cut of my force lightning heal which kind of reduces the overall survivability

[kwestone]

July Assassin Questions

 

We'll need to cover both PvE and PvE sections in this thread, so please, take your time and address which concern you are specifically after. Both are equally important and equally viable. So let's make sure that we try to get the best of the 3 we can get. KBN and Kitru have already started their main PvE concerns for our mirror AC which can be found here:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=660574

or here

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=660575

 

I'd like to comment that this round, our PvP concerns are not as awful as some think. As a matter of fact, we're doing decent right now and we're not in need of any exaggerated buffs. All we need is a few minor tune ups here and there but at the same time, we'll need a serious eye on that wonderful spec we call Balance or Madness.

 

 

Is there any plan to fix Balance / Madness PvP?

At the given moment, there is virtually no reason to carry this spec in warzones for nothing other than legitimately being useless to the team and spreading fluff damage (which can affect CC caps). At the current state, Balance has no form of actual killpower. In addition, it suffers from force issues just from even trying to get said kill power out.

 

Things I've noticed:

- The removal of Insta-FL has severely hurt this tree's PvP performance. Re-inserting this ability and perhaps moving such an ability higher up the tree to prevent hybrids is a recommendation.

- A proc that allows Spinning Strike or Shadow Strike to be used at any % of health. When this attack connects, it should either renew dots on said target, or cause X% more damage based upon the amount of dots on a target, or it can simply just restore X amount of force.

- Mental Defense should recover X amount of force in addition to its effect.

 

These are just a few ideas for the PvP section that hopefully can also bolster PvE without breaking it. I find it interesting how Balance at the moment has virtually no dependency on our signature ability: SS. So, having to put this back into the picture would be going a long and arguably easier route for fixing the tree. The spec itself needs to be able to actually, well, kill things! Right now it is unable to do that and its utility is non-existent.

 

 

Are there any plans to ever fix Resilience / Force Shroud?

This is an absolute red-zone at the moment.

 

Force Shroud / Resilience

Instant

Cooldown: 60s

Removes all hostile removable effects and increases your chance to resist Force and tech attacks by 100% for 3 seconds. Does not break Stealth.

 

According to the tooltip, it is guaranteeing the players that we have an absolute certainty, that when we pop this ability, we will CLEAR our hostile effects and resist them. When this is not the case, then there is something very, very, very wrong. It's going directly against its design mechanic. It is supposed to be a 100% chance to resist force and tech attacks. If this is not the case, then change the tooltip to what it truly is. Having attacks, mezzes or stuns bypass something based on its design was meant to counter said things, is nothing short of outrageous blind luck and furthermore, infuriating and absolutely gamebreaking. (IE: Node caps, Boss spikes) This either:

 

A) Needs to be fixed (to 100% ACTUAL resist)

B) Tooltip change to the true value

 

 

Are Shadows / Assassins the designated 'Node Guarders'?

A serious, an honest question. Will we ever be able to compete with the Guardian for MTing in mid fight? Or are we just purely designed to be an off-tank and node-staller. Why do I ask this? Well, it's becoming more and more evident as time goes by that Shadowsin survivability is decreasing, while the other tanks are incrasing. So what exactly is the deal here? Will we ever be able to fulfill actual tank roles, or are we meant to do what we've already been silently told?

 

/Reserved

 

Well, I now know I better get used to my Jugg. Have fun with this class in PVP guys, it just got the nail in the coffin for PVE.

[Xinika]

Xinika, I think your 3rd question (Are Shadows / Assassins the designated 'Node Guarders'?) is not a proper "question" as it is. In current form it's non constructive to say the least. If I may, I suggest to come up with some proper question which will also cover some "broad" pve and pvp problem as was requested by devs (1 question pvp, 1 pve and 1 wildcard).

My questions are not 100% what will be presented. They are only as suggested: questions. That's why this thread is open to others who may indeed have equally viable or more important questions to the presentation. The rep, whoever they might be, will have to act on a more impersonal manner - as the voice of the community and take into consideration that there may be other more important queries. Which is why this thread exists.

[Torcatoth]

Xinika you could ask why, assassin top dps is giving 1000 dps less than the best dpsers around there It's simply ridiculous, I cant and will not belive that only lousy assassins posted there and I gave seen gunslingers getting 3600 3700 dps the best sins are around 2700 and 2800, It's there so everyone can see, and it's ridiculous

[insaneric]

Xinika you could ask why, assassin top dps is giving 1000 dps less than the best dpsers around there It's simply ridiculous, I cant and will not belive that only lousy assassins posted there and I gave seen gunslingers getting 3600 3700 dps the best sins are around 2700 and 2800, It's there so everyone can see, and it's ridiculous

 

According to the DPS Leaderboard (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=637291) top dps is 3483 on an ops dummy (sniper - engineering) with most classes/specs getting around 3000-3050 with the top assassins at 2722.

 

I think you're exaggerating a little bit but there's definitely an issue here.

[FuriCuri]

According to the DPS Leaderboard (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=637291) top dps is 3483 on an ops dummy (sniper - engineering) with most classes/specs getting around 3000-3050 with the top assassins at 2722.

 

I think you're exaggerating a little bit but there's definitely an issue here.

 

From the Austin Peckenpaugh interview on 25 march 2013:

Belanos: There is a fear amongst the community that low DPS parses versus other classes on PTS may lead to pigeonholing us into tanking. Of course, we only have limited data to go on. Could you clear this up: Are Assassin DPS specs reaching your targets?

 

Austin: Yes and no. If your measure of Assassin DPS is parses on a training dummy, you WILL see lower numbers than most other DPS specs.

 

...

 

Assassin-Deception No Assassinate; no armor debuff present; no Sith Executioner

Assassin-Madness No Assassinate; no armor debuff present; no Bloodletting

...

 

There’s a good deal of additional context that can be added to these parses against training dummies, but I hope this clearly demonstrates how Assassin DPS has THE MOST to gain when switching from a simulated fight to a real fight.

 

Furthermore, I must mention that when we do our internal playtests against real enemies with real group conditions, Assassins are in fact hitting our DPS targets. Our tests aren’t perfect, however, and we don’t test every fight or scenario with every spec, so we will be looking forward to seeing the results players provide for us. If things really aren’t looking good for Assassins, we won’t hesitate to make the necessary adjustments.

Edited July 18, 2013 by FuriCuri