Shadows - Top 3 Questions

[KeyboardNinja]

Paring down the shadow/assassin questions (particularly as this is the first set between the mirrors) was very, very difficult. There are a lot of issues right now that affect the advanced class. I could have easily asked 8 or 9 questions, all of nearly equal priority. However, we have three questions, and we needed to make them count. Here they are.

 

Allow me to again extend my thanks to the combat team (for taking the time to answer these questions) and especially to Eric Musco, for organizing the community rep program. Special thanks to Xinika, Oaceen and Airam for the collaboration and editing help, especially on the PvP question.

 

Questions

 

Question 1: Tank Spikiness

 

Shadow/Assassin tanks appear to be balanced around the following design philosophy: least healing required over time but the most healing required in short intervals. Shadows/assassins require on average 5% less external healing than vanguards/powertechs in Nightmare-level content (based on mean mitigation accounting for self-heal at an average pre-mitigation DtPS of 5200). Unfortunately, the numbers also show that the spike damage tradeoff is grossly out of proportion: shadows/assassins are between 20% and 50% more likely to die on fights than vanguards/powertechs (based on simulations, combat logs and "death risk" probabilistic modeling).

 

You have stated in the past that shadow/assassin tanks are meant to be "skill" tanks. However, the spike damage data indicates that shadow/assassin player skill gets eclipsed by RNG, making shadows/assassins rely on lucky shield and defense procs. The 5% fail chance of Resilience/Force Shroud only makes things worse, since we currently only have one guaranteed defensive CD.

 

As a result, shadow/assassin tanks are regarded as almost unhealable in 16 man content, and in disfavor among many 8 man raiding groups. The community supports your tank design principles, but opines that shadow/assassin tanks are in need of a design reevaluation based on their current performance in actual raids. We are in agreement that the short-term versus long-term healing tradeoff is valid; however, the short-term healing currently required definitively outweighs any increased efficiency. Could you elaborate on the mathematical models used to relatively balance the tanks with respect to efficiency and spike damage? Are there any planned future improvements to mitigation or cooldowns that will rebalance our performance?

 

 

Question 2: PvP DPS

 

In competitive PvP, the damage from both shadow/assassin DPS trees is very easily countered. The burst from infiltration/deception, while significant, is generally confined to the opener. A team only has to play defensively for a few seconds, after which the shadow/assassin becomes a negligible threat and an easy kill. Balance/Madness lacks any burst window whatsoever, and their setup time is so long that by the time they ramp up, they're already dead.

 Our fear is that neither spec is competitive in arenas. What improvements can we expect for shadow/assassin PvP DPS of both trees? What have your metrics shown regarding shadows/assassins of all specs in arenas on the PTS?

 

 

Question 3: Infiltration/Deception

 

Infiltration/Deception supplies neither on-demand burst nor reliable sustained damage. Outside of its 90 second cooldowns, the spec has almost no control over its burst windows. (the Low Slash -> Shadow Strike/Maul combo is far too expensive to use in rotation, even when burst is required) Moreover, due to random procs and a general dependence on critical hits, it suffers from a strong reliance on RNG rather than player skill. These factors make infiltration/deception unreliable and undesired in top-tier PvE content.

 

The community feels that infiltration/deception needs either more burst control or more reliable sustain. What sort of quality-of-life changes or rotation adjustments might we see to rectify either of these issues?

 

 

Bonus Issues

 

What follows is not a set of questions, and I don't expect a direct developer response on any of these issues. However, Eric has repeatedly stated in the past that he uses the question threads as a source of player feedback for the developers. I figured that it wouldn't hurt to enumerate some of the "runner up" issues in a structured way.

 

• Phase Walk is a terrible ability, even with the changes coming in 2.4. Its usefulness as a teleport is limited to just a handful of PvE encounters (Dash'roode, Styrak and Dread Guard), and has no effect whatsoever on death match style PvP (arenas).
  
• Resilience/Force Shroud is a lesson in false advertising. The tooltip says 100% immunity to force/tech. The fact that it's not 100% is literally game-breaking in objective-oriented PvP. If this ability is intended to provide immunity, it needs to be fixed. If it is intended to be 95%, the tooltip should be updated.
  
• Balance/Madness spec has the least involved rotation in the game by a WIDE margin. It has a single proc which is essentially available on cooldown, and everything else falls into the "refresh on CD; spam your fillers" category. It is, simply put, boring. Also, it is the only spec with no access to the class signature ability (Shadow Strike/Maul).
  
• Survivability is a serious issue in PvP, especially for balance/madness. If the DPS were more controlled and reliable, this would be less of an issue, but as it stands it is far too easy to kill a shadow/assassin relative to the threat they pose to the opposition.
  
• Combat Technique/Dark Charge provide a self-heal which is purely static and does not scale at all with gear. This means that its value as a survivability mechanic is increasingly marginalized as content advances.
  
• Self-healing in general is an extremely poor survivability mechanic as it does not scale with damage taken. This issue makes shadows/assassins incredibly overpowered on low level content relative to the other tanks, but incredibly underpowered on high level content. There are certain Nightmare Mode bosses where vanguards/powertechs are both more efficient to heal over time and easier to heal in short bursts (due to the incoming DtPS out-pacing the static value of the self-heal).
  
• In Infiltration/Deception, Force Breach/Discharge is locked out by 3 stacks of Breaching Shadows/Static Charge, which procs off of Infiltration Technique/Surging Charge. This proc can be triggered by the use of Force Breach/Discharge itself. Unfortunately, when this happens, the proc is wasted as it (and subsequent charge increment) is considered before the charges are consumed by Force Breach/Discharge.
  

Edited September 13, 2013 by KeyboardNinja

[ekimmak]

• Balance/Madness spec has the least involved rotation in the game by a WIDE margin. It has a single proc which is essentially available on cooldown, and everything else falls into the "refresh on CD; spam your fillers" category. It is, simply put, boring. Also, it is the only spec with no access to the class signature ability (Shadow Strike/Maul).
  

 

One point from me:

 

Balance does have access to Shadow Strike. Does it make it efficient, or worth it? No. But they can use it, and I think that would probably make it an L2P answer, unless you specifically state that it isn't capable of using it correctly.

 

My 2 credits.

[thejollygreenone]

Paring down the shadow/assassin questions (particularly as this is the first set between the mirrors) was very, very difficult. There are a lot of issues right now that affect the advanced class. I could have easily asked 8 or 9 questions, all of nearly equal priority. However, we have three questions, and we needed to make them count. Here they are.

 

 

great job overall, i'd say very accurate as to what the main issues of our AC is and asking questions in a manner that will provide the responses we're looking for.

 

my only issue, and this is a very minor issue, is that you gave no mention to the improperly working force breach when proccing shadow technique! while this is understandable not to be specifically mentioned in the main question concerning infiltration in pve, i would've hoped to see it at least in the bonus section. i'd think it's something that isn't readily apparent to the dev team and would've like to have seen it given some mention in the one thread post we are guaranteed to be seen by our devs.

 

anyway, i understand how something like this could be overlooked in your post, just some food for thought otherwise you've hit our issues spot on.

Edited September 13, 2013 by thejollygreenone

[ConCube]

Nice job - now all we can do is hope and protest if they give as an L2P-answer ...

[zImperium]

Thanks for picking up the torch, Tam. Good questions.

[KeyboardNinja]

my only issue, and this is a very minor issue, is that you gave no mention to the improperly working force breach when proccing shadow technique! while this is understandable not to be specifically mentioned in the main question concerning infiltration in pve, i would've hoped to see it at least in the bonus section. i'd think it's something that isn't readily apparent to the dev team and would've like to have seen it given some mention in the one thread post we are guaranteed to be seen by our devs.

 

Ah, I forgot about that one! Bonus Issues section now updated.

[reqnifoni]

Very nice questions I hope we get some proper answers for them and maybe even some of our bonus ones answered.

[Evolixe]

I like it. Someone mentioned the "can we expect" phrases in another thread though.. and I have to admit it sounds a bit too much like "give me!" to be honest.

 

Try something else. Like "are there plans to.." etc etc.

[KeyboardNinja]

I like it. Someone mentioned the "can we expect" phrases in another thread though.. and I have to admit it sounds a bit too much like "give me!" to be honest.

 

Try something else. Like "are there plans to.." etc etc.

 

It's a minor point, but I do agree with you. Since Eric hasn't confirmed on this thread yet (and I know that he's not forwarding the questions until Monday), I don't have a problem updating the wording in such a minor way.

[oaceen]

i'm happy with the change to the PvE question, since it was getting way too long.

i suppose the PvP question is still rather long, but it is what it is lol.

 

we raised, i think, a lot of the important concerns, and i think the developers and the discussion occurring after the responses are going relatively well, so even if we get some 'heal to full' type responses, we can air it all out, and EricMusco will march down to the combat team war room and raise hell for us.

Edited September 13, 2013 by oaceen

[Xinika]

i suppose the PvP question is still rather long, but it is what it is lol.

Actually the PvP question is fine where it is and if anything it should've been longer. The main reason I'm okay with it is because hopefully the devs will also look at the Bonus Issues, where they will see a deeper magnitude of the problems in PvP.

[MasterFeign]

Actually the PvP question is fine where it is and if anything it should've been longer. The main reason I'm okay with it is because hopefully the devs will also look at the Bonus Issues, where they will see a deeper magnitude of the problems in PvP.

 

And worse case scenario we can add a pvp question for the assassins, in a more specific manner.

 

Thanks to everyone who helped with the questions btw.

[Evolixe]

I do still think that Phase Walk as an ability is absolutely fine for PvP.

 

Sure it shines in warzones a lot more than in arena.. then again, it's very powerful if used well.

 

The cast on it is ******** and makes it imposseble to use a second time though. It's just too much to ask someone to completely step out of the fight for however long it takes to put it at a decent spot.

 

An instant cast might be pushing it.. but i don't really see how else it could be useful in arena's. At the very least it's worth testing.

 

Same kinda goes for Whirlwind. We're designed as a god damn melee class.. melee's don't have the time to stand still for 2 seconds to try and get a cast off in the middle of the heat of battle. You need to step out to even bother trying to cast because you WILL be interrupted to oblivion.. which you can hardly blame the opponents for.

[Bilirubin]

Nice work you all, and thanks for stepping in when needed KBN

[kennethdale]

Nice work you all, and thanks for stepping in when needed KBN

 

+1 10char

[JasonNH]

Great work on these, thanks to everyone who contributed.

[Sarenne]

Thanks for picking up the torch, Tam. Good questions.

 

^ This KBN, thank you so much

 

and Xinika too, thank you!!

Edited September 14, 2013 by Sarenne
to add

[Majspuffen]

As a Balance-centered player I'm a bit disappointed. I read the drafts and liked what I saw but now none of the concerns for Balance are put to question. I've been waiting since March to hear them justify their retarded changes, but I suppose I'm being selfish now.

 

Guess I'll have to wait until either our November questions or see if 2.5 or 2.6 brings anything... so much *********** waiting.

[DarrelK]

Great questions. Fingers crossed that we won't get a "Maul 'em to death + stealth to immortality" response

[Helig]

Very good list. Agree on all points.

[ArchangelLBC]

Glad I'm not a balance player or I'd feel a bit jipped by the midnight change to the wildcard question to completely exclude Balance. I know that you put a lot of it in the bonus issues section, but you also pretty much gave them your blessing to ignore that entire section, assuming they'd have taken official notice of it in the first place.

 

Honestly, the question that got actually asked was so brief, why not just throw it under the bonus issues section and just rename the whole bloody thing the wild card question under the header "Shadow has a lot of freaking problems" (with more diplomatic phrasing)?

 

On the note of brevity, while being concise is important, brevity for its own sake, and at the cost of content, seems a poor goal pursued for reasons that I don't really understand (granted I tend to get all wall of texty at times). The first question was three paragraphs. It said exactly what it needed to say, without going overlong, and is pretty close to perfect in my mind. Why did we feel that when it came to PVP and PVE DPS that anything more than a paragraph was too long? If we can pare down months and months of endless talk about shadow tank spikiness into three perfectly constructed paragraphs, certainly we could find a way to go into a little bit more detail on PVP problems and expand the PVE question to at least mention balance.

 

 

I do like the idea of the bonus issues portion, especially since there isn't another bite at the apple for another 2 months. Even assuming I take Eric at his word though that he passes on feedback, I have no reason to believe the Devs will listen, let alone respond, to one more thing than the rep program requires them to. It's certainly clear they don't tell Eric any more than they absolutely have to, and I wonder if he has to hound them just to get that much.

 

Oh well, at least, only a scant 10 weeks after they took official notice of shadow tank spikiness, they'll finally be compelled to answer. I give it 50/50 on being either substantive or H2F.

Edited September 14, 2013 by ArchangelLBC

[Solar_Breeze]

Thanks KBN, looking forward to the answers to these. A little sad that we have had to ask a question that we were already told we would get answers to months ago and nothing happened...

 

I can only hope they don't answer the same on the force shroud question as before - where there are other abilities in the game that currently far eclipse it on certain fights (Saber Reflect).

 

Might be worth adding some of the metrics posts you have written as links to this post under bonus questions so they can find all the info in one place if not read before.

 

You also missed an extremely important extra bonus question:

 

Please change Kinetic Ward / Dark Ward back to the previous animation (the one where you don't have a glow obscuring all your procs and no stupid datacrons floating around you) because it is horrible and almost everyone hates it.

 

Edited September 14, 2013 by Solar_Breeze

[Leafy_Bug]

Good to see we reached a point where our questions will be submitted. I won't hold my breath and in b4 metrics show that Shadow tanks are fine

[ConCube]

When will Eric pass these to the Devs? And when will we likely get an answer?

[sainik]

Surprised about the exclusion of the balance/madness engagement/depth question from the top 3. This gives them a chance to completely ignore one of the most vexing issues for any balance/madness player. In general in any game, I would give the top priority to engagement/depth of the specialization over anything else, but others may disagree with me here.

 

Anyways I hope they do take notice and address it, because that is more game breaking than performance/viability/dps/survivability to me.