Wakalord's concerns/ideas for DPS assassins/shadows

[Kayriel]

Some of the ideas that EatenByDistance point of deception are very interesting , would like to see how the tree behaves with them , unfortunately some of the changes , aren't needed by our class ( gonna talk about depetion since this is the spec I've been running since vanilla early access) ; by this , i mean the trauma debuff , that is a skill specific to Snipers and Maras , since they need to bring something unique in addition to pure dps , since classes like sins and PTs have taunts , Sorcs and mercs have heals and so on.

Regarding phase walk ... i can only say that at the moment for DPS specced assassins any changes to the skill would be a welcomed addition , changes to the timer ( add 3 more minutes so instead of a 2 minute window make it 5 ; putting us back into stealth on use , and by this i mean add the effect of blackout to it ; removing the damn cast timer and the visible spot on the ground ; you get the picture )

Most of the changes and ideas and arguments that have been thrown around seem to be PVP oriented , but what all seem to forget is that with the wierd changes made with the coming of 2.0 pve was impacted as well , I did NIM ops in 1.7 with my deception assassin and i felt that i was powerful enough to pull my own weight in an op grup ( i am the only assassin from my guild that actually goes into ops as DPS anymore since i adapted to the new mechanics , but i feel much weaker and the parsers seem to agree with me , i mean i am still pulling out decent dmg , but i would not feel confortable to go into NIM with my main anymore , and i am parsing behind a vengeace jugger , in burst phases , i get huge numbers , but then i get back to "decent" ). Anyways the point i am trying to make is , without beating around the bush , that i would like to see the Depetion tree reworked a bit to be like it was in 1.7. For this i only have a few changes , that would impact both pve and pvp , since i do both so please take a look and tell me your thoughs , i would like the OPs opinion especially since he started a thread obout changes , so here goes :

1) Nerve Wracking - please move this back into darkness , this way an entire operation ( both pve and pvp ) gets the benefit of the dmg boost throughout the entire encounter , since tanks can use spike out of stealth

2) Sith Executioner - honestly the damage increase for that 6% is so insignificant , since for a pve encounter 30% is the execution phase for all clases that have that and you usually save adrenals and stuff for that period and for pvp... really if you don't crit , the dmg si negligible , since a healer at the moment , either will heal you up and above 30% or simply let you die , depending on the situation , no real impact from it - suggestion for this... rework the talent to give us the ability to use assassinate on a target of every HP , once every 15-20 second ( balancing stuff left to the devs ) , or remove it , really...

3) Give us the old Voltaic Slash ability besides what it does now... pls.... ( for the people who forgot what it did , after 2x VS you have 30% dmg increase to shock ) and if 30% is too much make it 20% , i really have having shock hit like a wet noodle compared to the rest of the skills and to balance this out , remove Assassin's Mark that boosts Maul dmg , this way we still have the burst but its spread out evenly amongst our 3 main big hitters

4)Charge mastery for Surging charge - this skill has been the way it is for deception since game launch , and since then , to me at least , it seemed like an afterthought from the devs - something that wanted to be made into something else , my proposed change to this would be to make it give sins 20% armor pen like juggers and mercs have , or reowork it into something else

5) This will be the last one and applies to operative concealment as well , since both specs are kind of brothers ( stealth burst ACs ) give us a static crit chance increase ( maybe 6-9% , balance left to the devs again ). This change would make the dmg we put out more consistant and it would help us be on par with the guys that have an auto-crit. ability ( marauders in carnage and rage ; juggers in veng and rage ; sorcs in lightning ; think snipers get this as well in one of their trees , but i am not sure ; anyways you get where i am going with this ) , let them have the auto crit and we have more constant ones due to higher crit rating provided by our tree.

Not gonna even start a conversation about madness since , as i said in any post related to this spec , at the moment it is the retarded brother of the Sorc tree without Maul use and wierd resource management.

[DarthMaulUK]

^

Space bar is your friend

[thejollygreenone]

kayriel,

i think you've got a couple good ideas which you've set about in a realistic fashion. kudos. i hope some of these concerns are met as i suppose most deception assassins are.

however theres a few underlying problems that deception is plagued with that aren't as apparent. mainly i really hope to see discharge properly build static charge if surging charge procs, instead of it being built and consumed with the previous 3 stacks. another of which, which may be quite opinionated, we need a talent for higher % proc to surging charge! (maybe have swelling shadows in darkness be changed to include all charges) there are too many times where i go 2 full shock rotations with only getting procs on shock. this is a problem that adds to the awkward gaining and spending of static charges, which is never consistent.

[Kayriel]

@DarthMaulUK if you actually read my post ( i know its a wall of text ) and you only got that from it , no constructive criticism , then my friend ... you should not post

@thejollygreenone thank you for your reply , i am hoping the OP will take the time to read it as well and see what he thinks of my ideas , since he started the thread

Also , regarding the static charge build , there's a much easier way to fix it than having a different talent in another tree for it that;s to have the surging charge proc % increased , i would say make it 50% as our other 2 charges have , since the charge gain is limited by a 4,5 sec internal CD , it will merely help us get the procs from when we hit the mobs/players , faster , but not faster than intended , since the internal CD will still remain.

[thejollygreenone]

i would say make it 50% as our other 2 charges have , since the charge gain is limited by a 4,5 sec internal CD ,

 

thanks for your reply,

actually, i had considered this option. but for some reason it seemed easier to me to simply alter a current talent which could already be easily incorporated into our build by moving 3 points away.

i guess the big thing that this talent showed to me is that 15% would be for every charge, surging charge would be at 45%, and still applies the same concept you just suggested. there's no change to the internal cooldown, it would be a raw talented percent increase. the only difference from what i suggested is that it's 5% higher and not part of the talent trees.

and i can respect this idea, as i mentioned it had occurred to me as well. and with your point in mind, given how Ataru form is 25% with a low internal cooldown (1.5s) it would make sense for surging charge to have, inherently, a higher % chance (50%) and a high internal cooldown (4.5s)

TLDR; i think both options are totally viable, and our point is the same. the point is that if our technique is every 4.5 seconds and we rely HEAVILY upon it proccing on time, we need a higher chance to do so.

but none of this changes when we lose static charges by discharging at 3 stacks and it proccing surging charge. if discharge procs surging charge at 3 stacks and doesnt gain a stack, which always happens, it completely screws up our rotation of discharges, adds another 4.5 seconds of no stacks gained. imo discharge should build a static charge after the previous stacks are consumed.

Edited July 27, 2013 by thejollygreenone

[Darth_Precursor]

some of the ideas that eatenbydistance point of deception are very interesting , would like to see how the tree behaves with them , unfortunately some of the changes , aren't needed by our class ( gonna talk about depetion since this is the spec i've been running since vanilla early access) ; by this , i mean the trauma debuff , that is a skill specific to snipers and maras , since they need to bring something unique in addition to pure dps , since classes like sins and pts have taunts , sorcs and mercs have heals and so on.

Regarding phase walk ... I can only say that at the moment for dps specced assassins any changes to the skill would be a welcomed addition , changes to the timer ( add 3 more minutes so instead of a 2 minute window make it 5 ; putting us back into stealth on use , and by this i mean add the effect of blackout to it ; removing the damn cast timer and the visible spot on the ground ; you get the picture )

most of the changes and ideas and arguments that have been thrown around seem to be pvp oriented , but what all seem to forget is that with the wierd changes made with the coming of 2.0 pve was impacted as well , i did nim ops in 1.7 with my deception assassin and i felt that i was powerful enough to pull my own weight in an op grup ( i am the only assassin from my guild that actually goes into ops as dps anymore since i adapted to the new mechanics , but i feel much weaker and the parsers seem to agree with me , i mean i am still pulling out decent dmg , but i would not feel confortable to go into nim with my main anymore , and i am parsing behind a vengeace jugger , in burst phases , i get huge numbers , but then i get back to "decent" ). Anyways the point i am trying to make is , without beating around the bush , that i would like to see the depetion tree reworked a bit to be like it was in 1.7. For this i only have a few changes , that would impact both pve and pvp , since i do both so please take a look and tell me your thoughs , i would like the ops opinion especially since he started a thread obout changes , so here goes :

1) nerve wracking - please move this back into darkness , this way an entire operation ( both pve and pvp ) gets the benefit of the dmg boost throughout the entire encounter , since tanks can use spike out of stealth

2) sith executioner - honestly the damage increase for that 6% is so insignificant , since for a pve encounter 30% is the execution phase for all clases that have that and you usually save adrenals and stuff for that period and for pvp... Really if you don't crit , the dmg si negligible , since a healer at the moment , either will heal you up and above 30% or simply let you die , depending on the situation , no real impact from it - suggestion for this... Rework the talent to give us the ability to use assassinate on a target of every hp , once every 15-20 second ( balancing stuff left to the devs ) , or remove it , really...

3) give us the old voltaic slash ability besides what it does now... Pls.... ( for the people who forgot what it did , after 2x vs you have 30% dmg increase to shock ) and if 30% is too much make it 20% , i really have having shock hit like a wet noodle compared to the rest of the skills and to balance this out , remove assassin's mark that boosts maul dmg , this way we still have the burst but its spread out evenly amongst our 3 main big hitters

4)charge mastery for surging charge - this skill has been the way it is for deception since game launch , and since then , to me at least , it seemed like an afterthought from the devs - something that wanted to be made into something else , my proposed change to this would be to make it give sins 20% armor pen like juggers and mercs have , or reowork it into something else

5) this will be the last one and applies to operative concealment as well , since both specs are kind of brothers ( stealth burst acs ) give us a static crit chance increase ( maybe 6-9% , balance left to the devs again ). This change would make the dmg we put out more consistant and it would help us be on par with the guys that have an auto-crit. Ability ( marauders in carnage and rage ; juggers in veng and rage ; sorcs in lightning ; think snipers get this as well in one of their trees , but i am not sure ; anyways you get where i am going with this ) , let them have the auto crit and we have more constant ones due to higher crit rating provided by our tree.

Not gonna even start a conversation about madness since , as i said in any post related to this spec , at the moment it is the retarded brother of the sorc tree without maul use and wierd resource management.

 

my eyes!!!!!!!!!!

[Griad]

Alot of nice things here we are still relying to much crit to keep up in my opinion, but less than before.

[Belgaer]

On Madness Rework:

 

I totally agree with most things here. And a lot of this holds true in my mind even in pve (the topic of my post, as I'm much more familiar with pve than pvp). Going with the offensive side of your melee suggestion, I think that, with everything else going on, you've only complicated the rotation (not trying to be rude by any means here) and you'll find yourself rarely getting around to your Force Lightning/Shock idea (which I thought was brilliant). What I would like to see instead is for Lightning Burns to be reworked to be a lasting DoT effect (the Force Regen added effect would need to be rethought, of course) on melee hits rather than procing Raze to then use a DoT. It would promote meleeing and the use of Force Lightning/Shock at the same time. Here's what I suggest:

 

Remove Crushing Darkness from Assassin and make it Sorcerer-specific. Assassin has no use for it without Raze, so let's just remove it from the equation entirely. Instead, increase the damage of Lightning Burns to compensate for the loss of Crushing Darkness as well.

 

 

But yeah, fantastic ideas, man. I'd especially love to see Force Lightning see some use in the spec.

Edited July 27, 2013 by Belgaer

[Kayriel]

@Darth_Precursor how about some actual thoughts or constructive criticism on how to improve the AC instead of spewing random stuff ? I suppose i am asking for too much , but then again trolling is the norm on the forums so troll away my friend

 

On Topic : Although i don't play madness myself ( i dislike DoT spec on this AC ) , i thought up of an idea and it relates to Maul. Basically what i have in mind ( since from what i gather this spec suffers from no being able to burst , and not being able to use one of the signature moves of the AC ) is to have Lambaste reworked into a talent that would go like this :

- Lambaste - Reduces the Force Cost of Maul by 40% and when it hits , it has a % chance to apply Creeping Terror or a separate CD , or a weaker version of it

 

This way the spec gets the use of Maul back along with burst and a new way of applying the DoTs , and since it is very high up in the tree , there is no chance of making a hybrid with it , since the devs fear hybrids Of course the balance and the numbers are left to the devs

Edited July 27, 2013 by Kayriel
Edited to Spelling

[Belgaer]

and not being able to use one of the signature moves of the AC

 

I mean I suppose you could replace the Force Lightning/Shock idea with Maul. Make Maul cost less Force and do more damage based on how many DoTs you have on the enemy. But then you're really just applying the concept of Duplicity to Madness. I personally like the idea of getting more offensive Force Power use out of my Assassin though. If I want to Maul, I have a spec for that. If I want a melee focus, I have a spec for that. I started as an Sith Inquisitor, not a Sith Warrior. I'd like to have a spec that's got more of a battle mage idealism, personally. (I'm not including DoTs)

 

Maybe that's just me though.

[Kayriel]

The issue i see with the madness spec for Sins is you have to be up close and personal (4 m range ) to get Raze procs. I'd say that the spec before 2.0 was exactly what you needed , a combination of melee and spells that can both put pressure and have a decent burst once you set up. At the moment the spec is missing 1 of the melee attacks that made it unique , hence my idea with the maul proccing the dot. Then again , as i previously mentioned Madnes is not something i like to play so i don't really have much experiance with it.

Perhaps if you could elaborate on what you mean by battle mage idealism , since , to me at least , this sounds like someone who's a mid range fighter , using spells and physical attacks to get the job done , which is what the spec did before 2.0 and still does now but at the moment it is missing the burst .

[Latrodectus]

One of my biggest problems with Madness is that our PvP set bonuses don't really do much for the spec.

[Belgaer]

Perhaps if you could elaborate on what you mean by battle mage idealism , since , to me at least , this sounds like someone who's a mid range fighter , using spells and physical attacks to get the job done , which is what the spec did before 2.0 and still does now but at the moment it is missing the burst .

 

Maybe it's just me, but when I think of a battle mage, I think of something that stays in melee range to melee (usually with a sword on one hand and spell at ready in the other), maybe setting their sword aflame with fire (we have stances that do just this) while they fling fireballs or lightning at something alla Elder Scrolls. Most RPG games have something to that effect. Something that's not as strong with magic as your standard mage, but makes up for it by providing sustained damage via melee attacks between spells. I've always loved this and when they announced the Assassin way back when, I figured it might be my best bet at that playstyle. I was right. Sort of. I've always thought it was weird that Assassin leans more toward melee than Force though considering the base Class it comes from. Pre-2.0 Madness was cool, but didn't quite fit the bill for me. But it was the closest thing I had and it was fun in it's own right. Waka's idea about Force Lightning and Shock use got me a bit excited, since even in pre-2.0, Shock only complicated rotations, created force starvation, and actually decreased DPS even with Unearthed Knowledge because it simply cost way too much Force for the DPS is was netting in return. I've always wished we had a reason to use Force Lightning every now and then too and knowing I wasn't alone is nice. But back to the whole battle mage idealism I mentioned, and maybe it's just me, but DoT's don't feel very magey at all anyway. It's just kind of boring and a let down. 'Oh ****, I just used Crushing Darkness on your ***! Prepare for pain. Wait for it.... wait for it... You hurting yet?' The spec has always kind of fell flat for me. Maybe I'm shallow and my real gripe is that the animations are boring, but it's only worse since 2.0. Deception, on the other hand, has only become more enjoyable as time has gone by. Though, I will say that Deception has a lot more room for variety in playstyle where Madness has next to none.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Belgaer

[Evolixe]

What I like to know is.. why all you people think this class needs any buffs at all? Especially for deception...

 

It's downright stupid how overpowered the burst is right now and it needs instant nerfing the crap out of it. Honestly, The class is more than fine as it is, all that needs to happen is a few burst tweaks down..

 

Maybe a little more breath to hold on sustained damage but really thats it. No more tweaking needed, no more niche things. We're more than good.

[Valkyrst]

Right now the front loaded burst with Deception is insane. It needs no improvements. I don't think it needs a major nerf either purely because right now it's one of the only things comparable to Ranged DPS damage, Smash and Healing. Obviously I'm not going to get into what changes needs to be made to those aspects of the game since it's an entire meta game that's messed up right now. But in line with that, Madness needs some love.

 

The problem is that outside of giving it stupid amounts of internal damage, Madness Assassins will always be a bit of an open wound in PVP and definitely not viable in a Rated team where Ranged and Smash rule the roost at the moment. Providing dots that reapply when cleansed would be a start, so would a reduced cost of maul/shock/lightning since they're signature moves for an Assassin and currently useless for Madness. Let's hope this is looked at.

[thejollygreenone]

Maybe a little more breath to hold on sustained damage but really thats it. No more tweaking needed, no more niche things. We're more than good.

 

if you're only saying maybe then i don't believe you quite see the state of the dps sin/shadow in pve. i'm by no means saying the drastic changed op has suggested are the solution but i can simplify that deception/infiltration is in dire need of one improvement, and that's consistency. iv'e said it before i'll say it again yes madness needs some tweaks to be less precision intense and could probably use some incorporation of maul or shock or force lightning. but i don't play the spec so i'm going to cut the speculation. my point is BOTH dps specs need a good look at and at least some gameplay tweaks to be viable in pve and pvp. if either spec was to get neglected in either game aspect i'd be disappointed, but on the other hand i suppose that's asking a bit much, huh?

[Evolixe]

if you're only saying maybe then i don't believe you quite see the state of the dps sin/shadow in pve.

 

I don't really care about that either, anyway.

[Valkyrst]

People do care, Exo, and whether people like it or not, the game needs to be balanced for both PVP & PVE. Edited July 29, 2013 by Valkyrst

[thejollygreenone]

People do care, Exo, and whether people like it or not, the game needs to be balanced for both PVP & PVE.

 

^ just because someone doesnt care about pve doesnt mean it should neglected, and if that was the case then i'd leave this game in a heartbeat.

[cycao]

What I like to know is.. why all you people think this class needs any buffs at all? Especially for deception...

 

It's downright stupid how overpowered the burst is right now and it needs instant nerfing the crap out of it. Honestly, The class is more than fine as it is, all that needs to happen is a few burst tweaks down..

 

Maybe a little more breath to hold on sustained damage but really thats it. No more tweaking needed, no more niche things. We're more than good.

 

Strictly speaking PvP there is nothing OP about deception. We are glorified node guards, that's what most people want us to do. Deception is a regstar spec and it can wreck havoc there but for ranked its a bit of a different story as you might only see a handful of teams willing to run a sin/shadow in a dps roll as they are mostly on the team to watch nodes.

 

And madness is laughable in PvP, there is literally no reason to play a full madness spec.

[Evolixe]

Strictly speaking PvP there is nothing OP about deception. We are glorified node guards, that's what most people want us to do. Deception is a regstar spec and it can wreck havoc there but for ranked its a bit of a different story as you might only see a handful of teams willing to run a sin/shadow in a dps roll as they are mostly on the team to watch nodes.

 

And madness is laughable in PvP, there is literally no reason to play a full madness spec.

 

If you think deception is fine mate, then you need a checkup. The burst is just dumb, and needs nerfing. I can understand you might not think so if you don't know how to maximize it's potential though.

[stephenalandavie]

If you think deception is fine mate, then you need a checkup. The burst is just dumb, and needs nerfing. I can understand you might not think so if you don't know how to maximize it's potential though.

 

Its powerful but some of your posts need nerfing mate tone it down lol, Its not OP and in PVE they are middle of the tier when it comes to DPS, This is well known. And you know mate that this game is mainly PVE orientated anyway so yes it does have issues. In Pvp though it is the best 1 v 1 spec.

[MarkXXIV]

If you think deception is fine mate, then you need a checkup. The burst is just dumb, and needs nerfing. I can understand you might not think so if you don't know how to maximize it's potential though.

 

Yeah, because a spec that people don't even take to ranked is op.

 

@stephenalandavie you meant bottom tier in pve.

[Evolixe]

Yeah, because a spec that people don't even take to ranked is op.

 

@stephenalandavie you meant bottom tier in pve.

 

People don't take it because it doesn't do any damage in the long run. It's very, very rare to see a full deception sin do 1.5k dps in a warzone. And unheared of in ranked really.

 

However, if you ever dare to check the killing blows in voidstar offense for example.. unless your sin is superbad he should have atleast 1,5x the killing blows that anyone else has. Because we hit so damn hard for a short period of time.

[thejollygreenone]

Yeah, because a spec that people don't even take to ranked is op.

 

@stephenalandavie you meant bottom tier in pve.

 

this quote says it all. please refrain from using the word nerf so loosely because the last thing sins need is a nerf. and yes they are BOTTOM tier dps in pve. there is 0 reason to have a dps sin in progression content. i'm a dps sin and this puts me on the verge of quitting the game.