Now that BW has actually listened to our outcries...

[EatenByDistance]

While I think simple damage buffs are a very lazy way to go around fixing the class, I feel like the darkness/deception changes have the potential to do so. While not buffing deception/madness survivability is bad, they hinted at nerfing marauder/sniper cooldowns in the future, so I think that would balance things out.

 

So while I have high hopes for darkness/deception, I still feel like madness will be completely gimped. Not being able to cleanse is great, but it is going to be more noticeable on sorcs. Assassins are still going to be lesser madness sorcs in pretty much every way.

 

These were the best answers yet, and I'm trying to be optimistic. Here's hoping the changes are suitable.

Edited October 4, 2013 by EatenByDistance

[IInox]

I don't play as Tank but Shadow Tank is "the tank that heals himself" so he has a specific gameplay but if BW deletes all healing stuffs...shadow tank will be another classic tank as guardian and vanguard..he will lose his characteristic.

Second thing is..if you remove healing, you must change phase walk's effect cause it will be useless.

 

As deception dps I'm not sure that changes will be good, they seem banal fixes like "oh yeah, increase dmg here..there.." and that isn't the right way to fix a dps imho especially while you want fix the sustain dps, isn't it?

 

I mean, BW must use more fantasy..idk, stupid example..a DoT applied by Spinning Kick..or a new talent that transform the phase walk in a instant teleport to buff the backstab or a proc that remove CD of a dmg skill (or at least, lowers it..)

About sustain I think isn't so difficult, come on, 10energy every 10s, are you kidding me? lower this CD or lower cd of blackout.

I know we have been buffed on sustain with 2.0 but is not enough, you can just increase dmg of skills.

 

Last thing is about timing on balances: *** are devs doing? devs that work on balancing i mean, mounths to try some balances? they need to increase the frequence of patches about class balances and wait our feedbacks.

1 balance per mounths at least not each 4/5 mounths. it's ridicolous.

[Kayriel]

@IInox - Regarding Darkness , i agree with you , we will be loosing a unique mechanic , but on the other hand , for now , the bigger issue is tank spikiness , i went in a NiM op with our sin tank , and he got 1 shot for the first boss in Darvanis , that doesn't happen with PT or Jugger , what Byoware is doing is a step in the right direction , also , to be honest , if you think about it , Force Lightning is a pure destructive force power , it should never have had the ability to heal in the first place

Your Second point , about Deception , again , they just said dmg increase for abilities , we don't know yet in what form they will be implemented at this point it is only speculation , i am just happy that they acknowledged the fact that the middle tree is lacking in the sustained dps department and they are working on a sollution As i said in my previous post , i would like to see them bringing back some of the 1.7 mechanics : 2x VS gives a % dmg boost to shock , and maybe add a bit more baseline damage to discharge , no need to increase maul dmg further than it already is. As for DOTs , i don't think they have a place in this tree , you must think about both aspects ( pvp and pve ) , if DOTs would be added , it would hamper our control in pvp ( low slash , stealth mez break from DOTs ) , an increase for our direct abilities would be better.

As for Madness , again same deal as with the 2 above , step in the right direction IMHO , DOT protection is the first step in making the tree viable in both aspects . As i said in my previous post , if Byoware , doesn't want Madness Assassins to use Maul, then maybe , with a new mechanic , like for example , if the sin has all 3 DOTs on a target he can use Assassinate , on him regardles of HP% ( of course , the CD of the skill will remain , for balance purposes ). This way Madness gets both sustainability , and burst .

Also , like this it would be balanced i think , Deception , would be the High Burst , with lesser sustainability than Madness , and Madness with be the High Sustainability with weaker burst than Deception.

As a last point , i agree , it would be awesome , to hava a bit of work done on Phase Walk , honestly , removing the cast timer , and making it last longer ( 5 minutes maybe ?! ) , would go a long way

[IInox]

@IInox - Regarding Darkness , i agree with you , we will be loosing a unique mechanic , but on the other hand , for now , the bigger issue is tank spikiness , i went in a NiM op with our sin tank , and he got 1 shot for the first boss in Darvanis , that doesn't happen with PT or Jugger , what Byoware is doing is a step in the right direction , also , to be honest , if you think about it , Force Lightning is a pure destructive force power , it should never have had the ability to heal in the first place

Your Second point , about Deception , again , they just said dmg increase for abilities , we don't know yet in what form they will be implemented at this point it is only speculation , i am just happy that they acknowledged the fact that the middle tree is lacking in the sustained dps department and they are working on a sollution As i said in my previous post , i would like to see them bringing back some of the 1.7 mechanics : 2x VS gives a % dmg boost to shock , and maybe add a bit more baseline damage to discharge , no need to increase maul dmg further than it already is. As for DOTs , i don't think they have a place in this tree , you must think about both aspects ( pvp and pve ) , if DOTs would be added , it would hamper our control in pvp ( low slash , stealth mez break from DOTs ) , an increase for our direct abilities would be better.

As for Madness , again same deal as with the 2 above , step in the right direction IMHO , DOT protection is the first step in making the tree viable in both aspects . As i said in my previous post , if Byoware , doesn't want Madness Assassins to use Maul, then maybe , with a new mechanic , like for example , if the sin has all 3 DOTs on a target he can use Assassinate , on him regardles of HP% ( of course , the CD of the skill will remain , for balance purposes ). This way Madness gets both sustainability , and burst .

Also , like this it would be balanced i think , Deception , would be the High Burst , with lesser sustainability than Madness , and Madness with be the High Sustainability with weaker burst than Deception.

As a last point , i agree , it would be awesome , to hava a bit of work done on Phase Walk , honestly , removing the cast timer , and making it last longer ( 5 minutes maybe ?! ) , would go a long way

 

Yeah yeah, I'm happy too aboout for sure. I thought that they can increase spikness and hold the heals..idk.

 

well, you can use dot that can't breack CC, but yeah it was an example of variety..

 

Yes I agree to see 2x CS that boost project and yes maul is in a good potion, huge dmg.

[Berjiz]

Im really unhappy about losing the self heals. what was wrong with my suggestion of a cheat death style mechanic? thats been successful in wow and other mmos. making madness dots uncleansable isnt the right move either, you dont want anything to become "uncounterable", thats just bad for the game. Instead maybe reduce its dependancy on dots? By boosting thrash/force ligthing damage.

 

Overall ye really unhappy about this. I'll see how it all works out when it goes live, but I was enjoying my sin!!! I dont want to have to go back to my troopy and bhunter. Im going to miss playing her.

The problem is that it would be hard to balance and depend even more than today how the content is. If the cd on the cheat death is lower than the frequency of the spikes it would possibly to good, if it's much higher than it wouldn't help. The timing of the spikes are also largely random, you might get 2 close proximity or you might get one at start and one at the end. The only reliable and easy to balance way to fix spikiness is to raise pure dr.

 

However this is different from the issue with selfhealing. The core of the selfhealing issues is that it doesn't scale, so it's always too good for easy and solo content and bad for harder content. And it might be tricky to scale it in a good way. It's conected to the spike issue a bit because reactive migation is always worse then active migation.

[kennethdale]

For reference, the current math based on current encounters and gear suggest that after applying these changes Sin tanks will be light years ahead of juggs and pts in dtps and overall mitigation. Now, obviously there are huge flaws with this given that we have no idea if there will be a new tier of gear in 2.5, what the fights might look like etc but at the moment its all we have.

 

So pre2.0 sins were OP because they had recently high armor, high mitigation, self heals and because the encounters were designed around dealing consistent damage with avoidable spikes. BW then took away a large chunk of that armor in response AND designed fights that relied heavily on unavoidable, sometimes unpredictable spikes if damage. Subsequently, the end result is that Sins now take too much spike damage compared to other tanks. As a first fix to this issue they altered several of those very large attacks and made them many small attacks that hit simultaneously. In those encounters, this worked wonderfully. Then rather than alter their future encounter design, they simply buffed sins mitigation up past where it was pre2.0 and removed the healing. Does anyone else see a silly pattern? They fix one thing, then break another. Its like all these different teams have no communication at all and are all making design decisions independently. Its just ridiculous.

[Berjiz]

For reference, the current math based on current encounters and gear suggest that after applying these changes Sin tanks will be light years ahead of juggs and pts in dtps and overall mitigation. Now, obviously there are huge flaws with this given that we have no idea if there will be a new tier of gear in 2.5, what the fights might look like etc but at the moment its all we have.

 

So pre2.0 sins were OP because they had recently high armor, high mitigation, self heals and because the encounters were designed around dealing consistent damage with avoidable spikes. BW then took away a large chunk of that armor in response AND designed fights that relied heavily on unavoidable, sometimes unpredictable spikes if damage. Subsequently, the end result is that Sins now take too much spike damage compared to other tanks. As a first fix to this issue they altered several of those very large attacks and made them many small attacks that hit simultaneously. In those encounters, this worked wonderfully. Then rather than alter their future encounter design, they simply buffed sins mitigation up past where it was pre2.0 and removed the healing. Does anyone else see a silly pattern? They fix one thing, then break another. Its like all these different teams have no communication at all and are all making design decisions independently. Its just ridiculous.

Yeah this might become a big problem. And it will most likely bring back the old reason the armor was nerfed in the first place, pvp tank sins in dps gear.

 

BW really has a strange way of doing things, it's like the content and balance team doesn't discuss things at all with each other, and it will mostly affect tanks. The spikes/healing required needs to be balanced together with the tanks else they have a big risk of breaking something.

[kennethdale]

Yeah this might become a big problem. And it will most likely bring back the old reason the armor was nerfed in the first place, pvp tank sins in dps gear.

 

BW really has a strange way of doing things, it's like the content and balance team doesn't discuss things at all with each other, and it will mostly affect tanks. The spikes/healing required needs to be balanced together with the tanks else they have a big risk of breaking something.

 

It just doesn't make any sense to me. Honestly, its like having a flat tire and rather than simply changing that tire, they move the bad tire to a different wheel and then replace the other three. It doesn't change the fact that you still have a flat tire. Just like rebuffing sins armor won't change the fact that the tank balance in this game is ridiculously off. The better solution? Change the encounters. Adjust spike damage down across the board, lower healing across the board instead of throwing out buffs and nerfs trying to catch every single problem that stems from how ridiculous the damage and healing output are right now.

[Berjiz]

It just doesn't make any sense to me. Honestly, its like having a flat tire and rather than simply changing that tire, they move the bad tire to a different wheel and then replace the other three. It doesn't change the fact that you still have a flat tire. Just like rebuffing sins armor won't change the fact that the tank balance in this game is ridiculously off. The better solution? Change the encounters. Adjust spike damage down across the board, lower healing across the board instead of throwing out buffs and nerfs trying to catch every single problem that stems from how ridiculous the damage and healing output are right now.

Exactly the damage output and healing is so high now compered to the health of the tanks that it's hard to challenge healing outputwise without creating spikes and risk oneshotting the tanks if a few unlucky hits occur. They can either reduce healing and damage or increase the health of the tanks.

[kennethdale]

Exactly the damage output and healing is so high now compered to the health of the tanks that it's hard to challenge healing outputwise without creating spikes and risk oneshotting the tanks if a few unlucky hits occur. They can either reduce healing and damage or increase the health of the tanks.

 

Have you seen the endurance on the new 78 gear? My jugg gained 3k hp from a few mods and armorings. Its clear they've decided to go with the silly amounts of health route which was one of the reasons I grew to hate WoW. When your tank has 80k hp and you're healing for 40k its just silly. I had thought they'd sone a decent job of scaling but they broke it with this new gear :/

[Berjiz]

Have you seen the endurance on the new 78 gear? My jugg gained 3k hp from a few mods and armorings. Its clear they've decided to go with the silly amounts of health route which was one of the reasons I grew to hate WoW. When your tank has 80k hp and you're healing for 40k its just silly. I had thought they'd sone a decent job of scaling but they broke it with this new gear :/

But isn't that because it's the heavy endurance stuff and 6 item levels? I haven't looked at the drops yet but the comm gear has a lot of endurance compered to 72 unlettered.

Edited October 8, 2013 by Berjiz

[IInox]

For reference, the current math based on current encounters and gear suggest that after applying these changes Sin tanks will be light years ahead of juggs and pts in dtps and overall mitigation. Now, obviously there are huge flaws with this given that we have no idea if there will be a new tier of gear in 2.5, what the fights might look like etc but at the moment its all we have.

 

So pre2.0 sins were OP because they had recently high armor, high mitigation, self heals and because the encounters were designed around dealing consistent damage with avoidable spikes. BW then took away a large chunk of that armor in response AND designed fights that relied heavily on unavoidable, sometimes unpredictable spikes if damage. Subsequently, the end result is that Sins now take too much spike damage compared to other tanks. As a first fix to this issue they altered several of those very large attacks and made them many small attacks that hit simultaneously. In those encounters, this worked wonderfully. Then rather than alter their future encounter design, they simply buffed sins mitigation up past where it was pre2.0 and removed the healing. Does anyone else see a silly pattern? They fix one thing, then break another. Its like all these different teams have no communication at all and are all making design decisions independently. Its just ridiculous.

 

big *

 

it seems they are not trying to do their best.

 

 

About item mods obv the commGear, some times have a suboptimal MOD (with more end than Power/Crit/etc) and all Enhancement are suboptimal stat ratio (accuracy/alacrity/surge is ok but always more end than 3rd stats)

[Griad]

From a pvp perspective, I am very disappointed. I think the tank changes are good, they will definitely help with Sin tanks being bursted so easily. But PT and Jugg tanks still have more tricks in their bags, still not gonna make the Sin a favored or desirable class for pvp.

 

More damage on the melee attacks for Deception is better than nothing, but it isn't going to bring our sustained damage where it needs to be in pvp and pve. The main issue with Deception is outside of Recklessness you never crit with your force attacks, hell sometimes my Reck buff will expire with 3 stacks because 80% chance to crit still isn't enough. They got to fix our crit rng.

 

Madness, in another post I went on a small rant about what I think. To sum it up, giving us un-cleansable dots won't change anything. Sadness will remain exactly how it is for pvp and pve.

 

This soo true and not criting with force means less crit chance on melee which in turn means less overall damage either we need 100% crit on reckless or they need to remove the crit reliance and boots our general damage.

[Griad]

I actually use to really enjoy playing Madness but without Maul there just isn't a point. They just need to move it back down so Madness can get it. I still really believe it would be a good start to making it a better spec. I know people would be concerned with tanks having it, but at this point I don't even think it would be that big of a deal as long as it couldn't proc the same time as the other Maul proc for tanks. Not to mention that the whole dps gear with a focus isn't as popular as it use to be for tank spec.

 

If they did that Darkness spec would be able to get both conspiritor cloak and duplicity wow i would love that, slab on mainly dps gear and then a shield. That would be awesome.

 

Which is why i doubt they will ever do that

[thejollygreenone]

This soo true and not criting with force means less crit chance on melee which in turn means less overall damage either we need 100% crit on reckless or they need to remove the crit reliance and boots our general damage.

 

i say the problem with recklessness is how long the cooldown is. burst classes require sustainable and frequent burst to put up adequate numbers. 2 recks and a overcharge saber every 2 minutes is unfathomably too long in regards to putting up adequate numbers.

 

my thought would be to change recklessness (whether in a talent or just a flat change) to be much more frequent but much less potent. right now its 60% to force abilities with 2 charges every minute and a half because of force cloak. i would like to see the change of taking away its dependency on force cloak, and make recklessness do say 30% crit chance to force abilities, 2 charge, with a 30 second cooldown, but maybe make the duration of the buff last longer in case crits are stubborn and take too long to use the charges.

 

this would give us something similar to the carnage marauder and its gore phase. however this is all just food for thought, since the questions and answers are already out i suppose this post will never be viewed by the devs. but regardless, i think a change like this would solve deceptions burst changes, and may also be beneficial without being op to the other specs that use the ability (lightning or madness sorc, and madness sin)

[IInox]

About increse proc% for Maul and increase the CDproc as deception, I think is a bad idea, it's actually in a good way.

 

if you wanna increase sustain you can try to create a new effect that decrease the CD of blackout for Xs for each force breach/project/maul etc (idk..are examples) and/or decrease the CD of saber conduit from 10s that is high imho.

 

about dmg output you can increase Voltaic slash project for sure and a bit the base rate dmg for each breaching shadow used for force breach.

[thejollygreenone]

About increse proc% for Maul and increase the CDproc as deception, I think is a bad idea, it's actually in a good way.

 

if you wanna increase sustain you can try to create a new effect that decrease the CD of blackout for Xs for each force breach/project/maul etc (idk..are examples) and/or decrease the CD of saber conduit from 10s that is high imho.

 

about dmg output you can increase Voltaic slash project for sure and a bit the base rate dmg for each breaching shadow used for force breach.

 

this is where i fundamentally disagree, from the beginning of this reputation fiasco i've been trying to pinpoint what i think is wrong with my spec (infiltration), and the collective theory that i've come up with for myself is that i don't believe simple damage increases to certainabilities will fix our dps.

 

our problem is much deeper than that imo. maul is on a 9 second internal cooldown, however more often than not that duration is a hell of a lot longer because of bad RNG. the same could be said about the natural procs of surging charge (outside shock that is), and to me these are the leading issues we face, simply increasing damage instead of regulating the frequency of our essential attacks will leave us in the exact same spot we were at in regards to consistency, all it will do is give us a better threshold.

 

but if we improve the frequency of those attacks instead, we will have the same threshold (which is already decent) but actually be able to reach the top of the threshold on a semi-regular bases. as of now the top of our threshold is literally impossible to reach because of various odd mechanics like discharge proccing surging charge over and over and losing numerous static stacks, or when shock double stacks statics and one gets lost because there was already two up. or because you go 30 seconds multiple times in a rotation because duplicity refuses to proc and low slash is unusable.

 

theoretically, regulating our chance based mechanics to actually work properly should be exactly what we need. as of now it is the main source of inconsistency because when things go awry as they so often do, we are left spamming VS two or three times between shocks, and that messes up our dps in multiple ways. namely that it's a huge force drain, but less obviously i've believed ever since picking up this spec that our dps revolved around cycling through our two highest hitting abilities as frequently and evenly as possible, the rest is simply there to

make it easier to do so.

 

while i do agree right now our force regen isn't perfect, it doesn't need a whole new mechanic added to regulate it. it was designed to work how it is, and the only reason (imo) that it isn't doing so is because the way we are forced to play our rotation (multiple VS per shock and no access to low slash for more mauls). over time it adds a huge drain on our force pool, if we were to reduce the number of VS used (down to one per shock) our force regen would be noticeably easier to manage. the one thing i fully agree with you on from your post is that saber conduit is terrible right now, i don't think our force is a big problem, but if we are to address our force management we should need to do nothing more than fix saber conduit to have some merit, and to reduce our over-dependence on spamming the hell out of VS.

 

i think this sort of change is necessary if we ever want to have a rotation that we can count on to always have a similar and reasonable output to previous attempts. our force regen being better certainly going to make things a little easier, but will do nothing to address the core of our problem, which is crazy inconsistency. our only other problem imo is that as a burst class we have no short term burst phase. every burst class needs one of these if they hope to have sustained damage, bottom line. carnage marauders have gore, we have force potency. but force potency has a minute and a half between uses, while gore has to way 20 seconds at most. this is a fundamental flaw in our class and one that refuses to be noticed by those who matter (devs). even concealment ops have that poison that gives them a short period of 30% armor pen.

 

in conclusion, i believe simply giving flat damage boosts to a few abilities and adding a new mechanic to our force regen is not gunna do diddly squat for us in the long run. on bosses my force regen is picture perfect, unless i have no uptime on the boss and am subjected to the horrors of spamming VS and getting my force drained, and i believe giving us a few flat damage increases will do nothing but raise our dps floor and ceiling a bit. what we need to do is raise our dps floor and keep the ceiling the same (close the gap between lowest dps potential and highest dps potential), because at my dps ceiling i'm capable of sustaining 3k dps (burst phases) but my dps outside of that is pitiful because of infrequent mauls and discharges. having regulated mauls and discharges will not only increase our dps floor, but coupled with a smaller scale burst phase would actually provide capable and consistent dps potential

 

i find it a little funny that the one part of the devs proposed changes i thought was a step in the right direction (changing duplicity % chance and lockout period) is the one you disagreed with. can you elaborate as to why you think its a bad idea? i've given my reasoning for why i think it and more is a good idea, and then some, so i'd surely like to hear a detailed account of your side of the story since we seem to have quite opposite views. and that goes for anyone who disagrees with me or believes they have a better solution, i welcome the discussion, but i do warn that i can be quite stubborn, and have put a LOT of thought into this, so my opinion wont be so easily swayed ^.^

 

to summarize, i guess what it comes down to for me is that our problem isn't a problem of low dps, it's a problem of faulty sustainable dps. the potential is certainly there, but our vehicle to reaching that potential has a few too many flat tires, making it impossible to reach. we need to fix the flat tires instead of shifting the starting point to be a bit farther towards the end point. (sorry if that metaphor makes absolutely no sense )

 

EDIT: the only flat damage increase that i really think could possibly have some use is shock. right now it's a little lackluster.

Edited October 9, 2013 by thejollygreenone

[Kvnticvs]

this is where i fundamentally disagree, from the beginning of this reputation fiasco i've been trying to pinpoint what i think is wrong with my spec (infiltration), and the collective theory that i've come up with for myself is that i don't believe simple damage increases to certainabilities will fix our dps.

 

our problem is much deeper than that imo. maul is on a 9 second internal cooldown, however more often than not that duration is a hell of a lot longer because of bad RNG. the same could be said about the natural procs of surging charge (outside shock that is), and to me these are the leading issues we face, simply increasing damage instead of regulating the frequency of our essential attacks will leave us in the exact same spot we were at in regards to consistency, all it will do is give us a better threshold.

 

I agree with everything you said in this post. The difference between overall damage out put on the same fight when done multiple times is ridiculous, sometimes as much as ~300 - ~400 dps for the exact same fight, all because I wont get a Duplicity proc for 30-40 seconds at a time or it takes 15-20 seconds to build 3 stacks of Surging Charge. The guaranteed Duplicity from Low Slash never comes into play because it costs too much force to use and we're running pretty close to empty all the time.

 

Overall I really like your ideas for increasing the probability of a Duplicity/Surging Charge proc or possibly lowering the cost of Low Slash to allow us to use it frequently in a rotation. This way there's no base damage increase, simply more reliability with our various procs so we're not relying so much on blind luck to max our damage potential, which is how it feels at the moment.

 

Thumbs up to you, sir. I really, really like these ideas.

[Maudril]

Our self heals are now gone instead of useless? Yay, time for some real mitigation!

 

I saw a comment from I think it was Leafy Bug (someone I tend to actually disagree with more often than not, mostly regarding his 'nerf guardians' thread) that mentioned that Assassin's self heals have not been worth it for quite some time.

 

Looking at their nerf, I can see why.

 

At one point their healing was *halved*, and Harnessed Darkness dropped from 12% health recovered total to 8% health.

 

So dayum, self heals were nothing short of SLASHED.

Self heals are *barely* noticeable, the idea of them being noticeable to me are astounding, and something I would not want to lose (I started playing around 2.1, first character I rolled was a sintank, followed by jugtank)

But... "Wake up and smell the coffeee", self heals aren't too hot now.

 

For those lore sticklers, doesn't madness still selfheal (Parasitism does need some help, though), so there are your story selfheals. I personally think that they can afford to be buffed a bit in terms of chance they happen and how much they heal, but Madness's monotony (regular lightsaber spam cause no resources, and thrash when DOTs dont need to be refreshed) need a fix before that. I agree with a solution I read on another thread for Thrash to have a chance to proc Assassinate much in the same way that Conspirators cloak procs maul. Perhaps for resource management they should have a talent similar to Lightning Sorcs where an ability grants a buff that boosts their force regen.

 

Anyway, I digress

 

I wholeheartedly support them cutting out selfheals for Darkness. If its not gonna be useful (pre1.3 or similar), better to just not have it.

 

I am watching eagerly for what they do to the DPS trees, I hope to get field respec for my Assassin and play some DPS once they touch up their trees a bit. I am mostly hoping that Madness gets some melee love so I get to use Maul or Assassinate more often, I hope they spice that up. Deception, I hope they make the RNG a bit nicer to the spec, as my short time playing one the RNG seemed to lift a constant middle finger to me.

 

So overall, encouraged by their words, and looking forward to how they handle it

[Vember]

Not happy about the way they're fixing the mess they created. Self heals made the darkness assassin unique and fun, converting to a regular old mit tank like the other two pretty much ruins it for me. Generic and boring redux, imo.

[MGNMTTRN]

Focusing just on the tank changes... I think Sins will be somewhat overpowered in PVE and probably PVP as well.

 

Sins will still have by far the worst trash defenses. Compare cooldowns: Resilience/Force Shroud lasts for 5 seconds and only works against Force/Tech attacks, which are somewhat more rare. Whereas Juggs take close to 0 damage at the pull thanks to Saber Reflect and Powertechs can pop Oil Slick for 18 seconds of -30% acc. Sins will also still have the slowest time building up defense procs at the start of combat. For Juggs you just have to hit Retaliate and Force Scream, Powertechs just have to hit Stockstrike and Rail Shot and/or build up shield stacks, then fire off a Heat Blast. The in-combat procs of these two ACs requires almost no effort. Whereas Sins actually have to hit Shock, Wither, Shock... which takes slightly more work. In PVE trash pulls it will make a difference.

 

Which brings me to my next point. The armor and damage reduction buffs Sins are getting is ridiculous, and it's going to put Sins at approximately the same place they were back when they warranted their nerfs. Despite their bolstered passive defenses, I think in 16man HM our Vanguard and Guardian tanks are already taking such huge hits that if a Shadow were to have filled in that slot, he would have randomly exploded occasionally. So despite the huge, excessive armor buffs that'll eventually be nerfed, they still do pose a serious threat to the raid's progress. As any dodge-or-die tank should.

 

As for accusations of class homogenization or decreases in differentiation: yes, they certainly will lose their differentiation because they're losing self-healing and gaining armor. I agree. However, hose changes were necessary in order for them to not randomly die[/i in hard content]. Accept your overpowering buff with a little more grace, would you.

[Xienive]

Assassin tanks have really gone from being an awesome and unique class to a bland boring tank. Before 2.0 the Sin tank hybrid was the most fun class I have ever played in an mmo. It was a stealth tank that had a positional burst proc attack, great self healing, an optional hybrid to get a great aoe attack with nice damage and utility.

 

Now with these changes you have a standard tank...that can stealth but that's pretty much its only unique feature. It is much less fun and much less creative to play.

 

On a side note phase walk is still a lame ability. It really has two uses, one being easier access to enemy end zones in HB and two being able to set it next to a heal and being able to us it...if somebody hasn't already taken it. Now the healing bonus from it is also going to be gone.

[Evolixe]

^ There are so many more uses for phase walk I don't even know where to start..

[Aetrus]

^ There are so many more uses for phase walk I don't even know where to start..

 

Embarrassing MM Snipers in duels is one of them.

[Xienive]

^ There are so many more uses for phase walk I don't even know where to start..

 

Well think of a place and do start because I would like to hear some of these many uses.

 

Compared to the other level 51 abilities ours is just impractical and I would say definitely the one I see least used outside of huttball. Not to mention you can very conveniently see where somebody has placed one so that's nice too.