Since Infiltration tactics is halfway up the tree now

[Kurugi]

What's a good spec for low levels?

 

This has always been my problem with Shadows/Sins, they have very little to no identity till the mid-levels. It just seems silly that certain abilities (Shadow Strike, Project, TK throw) are deemed useless until you have the corresponding talents to make them efficient enough to be considered part of your arsenal. Till then it's really just double strike spam.

 

At least when Infiltration Tactics was 1st tier you could immediately get some satisfaction out of it. I understand why they changed it, I just hate how no other class requires cost reduction talents to make some of their abilities even efficient enough to be of use.

 

Meant for this to be a question on how to spec early on and not so much a complaint thread. I like this class, played one for a bit back at launch and had a lot of fun. There's just a point from about the mid teens up into the late 20s where I have a hard time pushing through due to how boring the class feels.

[thejollygreenone]

What's a good spec for low levels?

 

This has always been my problem with Shadows/Sins, they have very little to no identity till the mid-levels. It just seems silly that certain abilities (Shadow Strike, Project, TK throw) are deemed useless until you have the corresponding talents to make them efficient enough to be considered part of your arsenal. Till then it's really just double strike spam.

 

At least when Infiltration Tactics was 1st tier you could immediately get some satisfaction out of it. I understand why they changed it, I just hate how no other class requires cost reduction talents to make some of their abilities even efficient enough to be of use.

 

Meant for this to be a question on how to spec early on and not so much a complaint thread. I like this class, played one for a bit back at launch and had a lot of fun. There's just a point from about the mid teens up into the late 20s where I have a hard time pushing through due to how boring the class feels.

 

i didnt mind it too much. balance is pretty efficient in the low levels until you get to the point where you can use infiltration tactics and such. and if you find the early levels of balance boring then you may never like balance. but its the best substitute until infiltration starts getting good. however you could always level up tank and thats never too bad. just have to use a damage oriented companion to make things go quicker.

[Altheran]

I think that's a problem that the whole AC suffer, regardless of spec. At early levels, all abilities cost too much to be used for an actual fight and we're forced to use a lot Saber Attack like a Knight would. Unfortunately, Saber Attack is extremely weak unlike Knight's Stike, and as a result we tend to "suck".

 

Maybe Kinetic manage to be a bit more smooth thanks to the talent that regen your Force when you parry/deflect/shield. And thanks to the lack of accuracy of NPCs, your accuracy debuff from Force Breach, and your shield, it should happen often enough to smooth the gameplay. There wasn't this talent at the time i levelled, so that's only a guess.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Altheran

[Kurugi]

I think that's a problem that the whole AC suffer, regardless of spec. At early levels, all abilities cost too much to be used for an actual fight and we're forced to use a lot Saber Attack like a Knight would. Unfortunately, Saber Attack is extremely weak unlike Knight's Stike, and as a result we tend to "suck".

 

Maybe Kinetic manage to be a bit more smooth thanks to the talent that regen your Force when you parry/deflect/shield. And thanks to the lack of accuracy of NPCs, your accuracy debuff from Force Breach, and your shield, it should happen often enough to smooth the gameplay. There wasn't this talent at the time i levelled, so that's only a guess.

 

Kinetics has it's own problem with TK Throw. For that ability to be even part of your rotation you need Harnessed Shadows, which the earliest you can fill that out is 36. 36!

 

Maybe it's just me but I find tying the validity of ability usage to talents to be poor class design. Talents should enhance abilities you're already using, not make them worth using in the first place. Now, once you reach the point where you can get these talents the class is extremely fun, but before then it feels more like a bland chore where you're just trying to reach that point.

 

Funny thing is I've read it more than once (particularly in regards to PvP) that Shadows/Sins blossom fairly early. I don't really understand that viewpoint.

[Kitru]

Kinetics has it's own problem with TK Throw. For that ability to be even part of your rotation you need Harnessed Shadows, which the earliest you can fill that out is 36. 36!

 

Eh, once you understand the basic principle behind Shadow design, it actually makes a fair deal of sense. Shadows were designed to have only 2 attacks that are useful no matter what: Double Strike and Force Breach. Everything else is either bad (Shadow Strike) or mediocre (Project) based upon cost efficiency. Until you hit your mid-20s, all you're doing is spamming DS and FB.

 

This is largely required because all of the specs use the abilities in different ways rather than getting bunch of new abilities that become the baseline capabilities of the spec. Infiltration and KC both use Project in *very* different ways thanks to the differences in the specs while Balance isn't supposed to use it at all. The inverse is true concerning Mind Crush. The fact that talents play such a big role in how Shadows play rather than the addition of new abilities, combined with the fact that they *don't* want hybrids going crazy, means that talents, especially the *really good ones* either need to be comparatively deep into the trees or be stance exclusive.

 

The only problem I've ever had on a Shad/Sin while leveling was that the attack string was *boring* because I hadn't gotten the useful talents yet, and, honestly, boredom at low levels isn't really a big issue, imo.

 

For leveling, I always recommend KC: you're durable as hell so you have no downtime and you've got the outright *best* AoE DPS of all of the Shadow trees, which drastically speeds up killing while leveling. I've done Infil/Deception and Balance/Madness before and they both went slower, thanks to lacking any real AoE and relying too heavily on DoTs, respectively, and were riskier, thanks to being DPS specs, than KC/Darkness.

[Majspuffen]

Eh, once you understand the basic principle behind Shadow design, it actually makes a fair deal of sense. Shadows were designed to have only 2 attacks that are useful no matter what: Double Strike and Force Breach. Everything else is either bad (Shadow Strike) or mediocre (Project) based upon cost efficiency. Until you hit your mid-20s, all you're doing is spamming DS and FB.

 

Are you saying that is a good design, though? I pointed it out before 2.0 was released that Shadow Strike was to be made useless to people who hit level 10. How fun is it to reach level 10, select your AC only to get a useless ability? As a newbie to the game, I wouldn't accept the "design" speech, mainly because it is poor design. Shadow Strike can't function without the proc. I believe that it was designed around that proc, as such it was in tier 1, available to all specs. PvE tanks didn't need it, but PvP tanks utilized it. Balance Shadows utilized it. Not perfect design, but it worked.

 

Instead of moving the ability into the middle of the tree they should have made the proc baseline. Shadow Tanks could have gotten Shadow Strike-to-the-face talent, still, and Infiltration Shadows would have a Shadow Strike that deal 6% more damage and 30% more extra crit damage, while Balance just gets to keep the normal proc which remains useful to them due to the low cost and high baseline damage.

 

This is largely required because all of the specs use the abilities in different ways rather than getting bunch of new abilities that become the baseline capabilities of the spec. Infiltration and KC both use Project in *very* different ways thanks to the differences in the specs while Balance isn't supposed to use it at all. The inverse is true concerning Mind Crush. The fact that talents play such a big role in how Shadows play rather than the addition of new abilities, combined with the fact that they *don't* want hybrids going crazy, means that talents, especially the *really good ones* either need to be comparatively deep into the trees or be stance exclusive.

 

They aren't very deep into the trees though and it feels as though more hybrids are cropping up than ever before, because the top tier talents just aren't that amazing. I love Sever Force as a Balance Shadows and I refuse to play without it, but for pvp a Wakajinn-esque build is better than full Balance.

 

That said, how are Shadows any different from other classes? What you say is true for almost every class, as far as I can tell. Look at Force Sweep for Guardians. Tanks use them for getting armor and accuracy debuff on targets, Vigilance only use it in case of AoE and Focus uses it on rotation, even on single-target. Yet the ability isn't worthless without the talents. Look at Scoundrels and backblast. Even the healers can use that ability because it does a great deal of damage, baseline. It's not a priority for them however but it is useful. For scrapper it is a priority, you want to hit it on CD. For dirty fighter it's a bit of a filler and tougher to use. If you have the spare energy for it you use it, but dots, shiv and cull comes first.

 

Again, moving Shadow Strike into the middle of the tree doesn't make any sense. Having what Austin Peckenpaugh called a "game-changing" talent so low in the tree actually made more sense.