The Assassin Questions

[THoK-Zeus]

if you are talking about the 100% proc chance, the merc bug is present for PTs as well (at least it is for Vanuards don't know about PTs)

 

if your talking about the cells double tick just look at Mando parses to see where they are

 

As far as i know the 100% proc chance is just present for mercs, cause all the other 3 classes (vanguard, pts and commandos) don't have two weapon attacks that could add proc change to that ability.

Edited April 2, 2014 by THoK-Zeus

[Xinika]

No. Much like there are skills that affect PvE and PvP differently, it can be done for Assassins. Take the 2.7 Smash for example: it now behaves much differently in PvE and PvP. Why not giving a PvE-only autocrit to Deception? Doesn't change PvP, fixes a hell lot PvE... Well that and what other classes are getting: 100% chance on long rate limit PROCs!

Agreed. The whole nerf / buff intent is such a flawed design that can easily be replaced with the superior idea you presented.

[AGSThomas]

Agreed. The whole nerf / buff intent is such a flawed design that can easily be replaced with the superior idea you presented.

 

My guess is that the code is very involved and they don't like to do that unless its necessary.

[DarthSpekulatius]

As far as i know the 100% proc chance is just present for mercs, cause all the other 3 classes (vanguard, pts and commandos) don't have two weapon attacks that could add proc change to that ability.

 

has nothing to do with main&offhand (that's the cell dot and only yields one additional tick per Railshot), you simply need one ion pulse or Stockstrike during the icd and one right as it finishes it'll proc something like 98% of the time.

[Aelanis]

The highest hybrid sniper (gunslinger) parse currently is 3790 (i actually thought that was lower when i calculated 3,4%). The highest madness assassin parse is 3647. That's a 3,8% dps difference.

If you calculate with pure lethality snipers (without rolling) then the difference gets much lower anyway (close to 1% currently).

 

Same damage goes for Lethality Operatives (dot spec with some aoe in single target Rotation) and Madness Sorcs + Annihilation Marauder. Pyro Mercs are currently bugged. Pyro Powertechs are on roughly the same Level as Madness Assassins but will be buffed.

Vengeance Juggernauts deal slightly more single target damage but have no aoe damage in the rotation and are required to permanently stand in Position and channel 3 seconds.

 

In terms of their dot specs all 8 dps classes are really good balanced (although no one wants to hear that).

 

 

2. Topic:

I personally would consider it bad design if you have to make little changes for pve, pve-only, but yeah as long as it gives slight pve buffs without affecting pvp too much it's fine.

 

I'm not sure it's fair to compare DoT specs only against each other, as, according to the devs, the goal is for ALL dps specs to be within 5% of each other. In this case, you can really see how far behind Assassins and Powertechs are. We're sitting, for Madness (Deception) 1.23% (1.5%) behind Sorcerers, 4.75% (5%) behind Snipers, 6.6% (6.8%) behind Juggernauts, 8.5% (8.9%) behind Marauders, 12.5% (12.8%) behind Mercenaries, and lastly, a whopping 13% (13.3%) behind Operatives. Now, yes, a few of those specs are bugged, or currently poorly balanced, but that's where the game is now, and that's what we have to look at. We're close enough to Powertechs that I didn't bother listing those %s, but that means they're in the same boat. (also, if you move to the best Infil parse on the board, which is 100 dps behind the top one we've seen, the difference gets much worse, to a maximum of 17% behind Operatives) (all numbers taken from the current leaderboard statistics updated by Falver, with the exception of Raulos' new Scrapper parse.

 

A 5% boost would put the top Shadow parse at 3815 DPS, which is still 7+% behind Mercs and Ops. 8% would put it at 3924, within 5% of each other class, excluding Sorcerers and Powertechs And since we'll likely see Sorc dps go up on both specs next week, I'm sure that number could be pushed even higher. After all the changes (and whatever they do to Powertechs to help them out), I'm sure 10% would put us into the competitive range, though not ahead of the current two most powerful specs.

 

For the record, looking ath the changes to Concealment and Vengeance, we saw increases to the top parses for the classes of 6.6% and roughly the same, respectively. Granted, Operatives changed specs for top damage, but the increase to Invinc's best Concealment parse was close to that 6.6% mark.

Edited April 2, 2014 by Aelanis

[SalvorHardin]

The highest hybrid sniper (gunslinger) parse currently is 3790 (i actually thought that was lower when i calculated 3,4%). The highest madness assassin parse is 3647. That's a 3,8% dps difference.

If you calculate with pure lethality snipers (without rolling) then the difference gets much lower anyway (close to 1% currently).

 

Same damage goes for Lethality Operatives (dot spec with some aoe in single target Rotation) and Madness Sorcs + Annihilation Marauder. Pyro Mercs are currently bugged. Pyro Powertechs are on roughly the same Level as Madness Assassins but will be buffed.

Vengeance Juggernauts deal slightly more single target damage but have no aoe damage in the rotation and are required to permanently stand in Position and channel 3 seconds.

 

In terms of their dot specs all 8 dps classes are really good balanced (although no one wants to hear that).

 

Comparing specific specs is not exactly fair. If you just compare advanced class DPS potential, even with 3.5% DPS increase to Assassins / Shadows, we'll still be at the bottom of PvE DPS... Only this time we would have PTs / Vanguards and Sorcerers / Sages to keep us company. Weirdly enough, those are the DPS ACs that give the (arguably) worst raid utility.

 

I guess the part that really hurts is the incredible buff Scrapper / Concealment had PvE-wise while Shadows / Assassins are being ignored.

 

 

2. Topic:

I personally would consider it bad design if you have to make little changes for pve, pve-only, but yeah as long as it gives slight pve buffs without affecting pvp too much it's fine.

 

The main reason PvE Infiltration / Deception is in such a bad place is precisely because of how well it performs in WZ. Unless we accept to wait for a "revamp" of the class (meaning waiting for new expansion and level cap raise), all they can do to fix PvE without affecting PvP too much IS PvE-only skill(s).

[THoK-Zeus]

I'm not sure it's fair to compare DoT specs only against each other, as, according to the devs, the goal is for ALL dps specs to be within 5% of each other. In this case, you can really see how far behind Assassins and Powertechs are. We're sitting, for Madness (Deception) 1.23% (1.5%) behind Sorcerers, 4.75% (5%) behind Snipers, 6.6% (6.8%) behind Juggernauts, 8.5% (8.9%) behind Marauders, 12.5% (12.8%) behind Mercenaries, and lastly, a whopping 13% (13.3%) behind Operatives. Now, yes, a few of those specs are bugged, or currently poorly balanced, but that's where the game is now, and that's what we have to look at. We're close enough to Powertechs that I didn't bother listing those %s, but that means they're in the same boat. (also, if you move to the best Infil parse on the board, which is 100 dps behind the top one we've seen, the difference gets much worse, to a maximum of 17% behind Operatives) (all numbers taken from the current leaderboard statistics updated by Falver, with the exception of Raulos' new Scrapper parse.

 

A 5% boost would put the top Shadow parse at 3815 DPS, which is still 7+% behind Mercs and Ops. 8% would put it at 3924, within 5% of each other class, excluding Sorcerers and Powertechs And since we'll likely see Sorc dps go up on both specs next week, I'm sure that number could be pushed even higher. After all the changes (and whatever they do to Powertechs to help them out), I'm sure 10% would put us into the competitive range, though not ahead of the current two most powerful specs.

 

For the record, looking ath the changes to Concealment and Vengeance, we saw increases to the top parses for the classes of 6.6% and roughly the same, respectively. Granted, Operatives changed specs for top damage, but the increase to Invinc's best Concealment parse was close to that 6.6% mark.

 

No it was never the goal, that specs perform within 5% on a dummy parse! Never, never, never! And no, Bioware did never say that all specs should perform within 5% on a dummy! They did mean performance in a raid.

 

 

If that would've been the goal, every player would play Smash and AP, cause these specs do over 30% their damage against multiple enemys.

What is the point of picking vengeance then (for example), when smash would deal the excact same damage on a dummy? Smash has higher burst, deals insane aoe damage and doesn't rely on constant 3 sec channel in melee range. And so on....

 

Or they would play marksmann because it has the highest raid Utility, burst and best ranged dps cooldowns of any spec.

 

If all specs in the game would perform with the same dps on the dummy, every dot spec in this game would be dead!

 

What is the point of picking a dot spec, when i can pick another spec that deals the same damage instantly and doesn't need to sustain damage for more then 20 seconds on a target before it does the same damage?

 

When the day comes (god forbid it) that every spec deals the excact same damage on the dummy 2 AP Powertechs and 2 Marksmann Sniper will be the best raid combination by far and 10+ dps specs are completely dead and utter thrash.

 

You can not compare a spec with 200 attacks in a 5 min fight, with a spec that does 1000 attacks in the same time. Of course the dot spec will do more consistent damage on the dummy, and the burst spec will have a higher variance in crit and will therefore get the ultimate higher parse after a number of tries on the dummy.

 

The only reliable way of comparing specs, is to compare dot specs with a similar amount of attacks during a 5 min parse. Otherwise a dummy comparision would not make any sense.

 

Edit: Powertechs have a passive ability that heals them for 2,5% whenever they get hit by an aoe. That allows their relics (sa and fr) to double proc and increases their raid dps by quite a substantial amount.

 

Edit2: About the top parses you talk about:

Top parse for a marauder it's a dotsmash hybrid that according to Bioware will be nerfed, your top parse for mercenary uses a currently bugged spec, your top parse for Snipers does 3% of his damage with his most essential raid Utility by rolling through the dummy, your Juggernaut top parse is a spec that constantly has to channel 3 seconds in melee range.

I don't know much about Concealment operatives. I know that they have about Zero raid Utility, require constant positioning in melee range behind a target, have no aoe in their Rotation.

 

If you don't look at bugged specs and Dotsmash (which according to Bioware will be nerfed) Concealment is over 5% ahead over any other spec in this game on a "dummy fight ". Still almost no one plays them (for good reasons). Sure we could buff every other spec in the game to the level of concealment on a dummy fight.

 

For example smash will need about an 800 dps increase (currently they are at 3400 sustained). I suggest we give them 18k smashes (instead of 10k). Then they are on the same balancing level like concealment.

 

The same for AP Powertechs, completely underpowered, also just ~3400 dps. They need 800 dps more, therefore their Flamethrower needs to do 12000 more damage, hey then it will just hit for 30k thats ok i guess.

Edited April 2, 2014 by THoK-Zeus

[Evolixe]

I havn't followed this thread for the last 2 pages because the posts were too long and don't have an interesting subject..

 

What are we talking about?

[DarthSpekulatius]

Edit: Powertechs have a passive ability that heals them for 2,5% whenever they get hit by an aoe. That allows their relics (sa and fr) to double proc and increases their raid dps by quite a substantial amount.

 

that and an tiny tiny ammo return / heat vent (i say tiny but its just about perfect as long as you get semi frequent AOE)

 

I havn't followed this thread for the last 2 pages because the posts were too long and don't have an interesting subject..

 

What are we talking about?

 

more or less only offtopic stuff

Edited April 2, 2014 by DarthSpekulatius

[Evolixe]

WTB on-topic stuff :/

[AGSThomas]

WTB on-topic stuff :/

 

How to fix Madness PvP???

[DarthSpekulatius]

How to fix Madness PvP???

 

duplicity+death mark regenerating force (instead of the ripple)

 

done (at least on the offensive side. can't talk about Survivability I'm doing to little pvp for that)

[AGSThomas]

duplicity+death mark regenerating force (instead of the ripple)

 

done (at least on the offensive side. can't talk about Survivability I'm doing to little pvp for that)

 

That doesn't take away how boring it is to double strike 500 times. Its really the only spec that just doesn't fit. Its a melee class forced to be mid range/melee. Plus it gets annihilated pretty quickly.

[ShadowMudkip]

That doesn't take away how boring it is to double strike 500 times. Its really the only spec that just doesn't fit. Its a melee class forced to be mid range/melee. Plus it gets annihilated pretty quickly.

 

Madness takes to long to set up.

[Xinika]

Madness takes to long to set up.

Agreed. Takes too long to setup and gets globaled in the process of doing so. It is quite possibly the worst PvP spec in game. Seriously think about what Madness Sins do...

 

...wait you're still thinking aren't you?

 

If you guess nothing, well buddy, you may just be right!

Edited April 2, 2014 by Xinika

[ShadowMudkip]

Agreed. Takes too long to setup and gets globaled in the process of doing so. It is quite possibly the worst PvP spec in game. Seriously think about what Madness Sins do...

 

...wait you're still thinking aren't you?

 

If you guess nothing, well buddy, you may just be right!

 

Takes too long to set up and to long to switch over. Finally, its damage is subpar at best.

[Aelanis]

No it was never the goal, that specs perform within 5% on a dummy parse! Never, never, never! And no, Bioware did never say that all specs should perform within 5% on a dummy! They did mean performance in a raid.

 

 

If that would've been the goal, every player would play Smash and AP, cause these specs do over 30% their damage against multiple enemys.

What is the point of picking vengeance then (for example), when smash would deal the excact same damage on a dummy? Smash has higher burst, deals insane aoe damage and doesn't rely on constant 3 sec channel in melee range. And so on....

 

Or they would play marksmann because it has the highest raid Utility, burst and best ranged dps cooldowns of any spec.

 

If all specs in the game would perform with the same dps on the dummy, every dot spec in this game would be dead!

 

What is the point of picking a dot spec, when i can pick another spec that deals the same damage instantly and doesn't need to sustain damage for more then 20 seconds on a target before it does the same damage?

 

When the day comes (god forbid it) that every spec deals the excact same damage on the dummy 2 AP Powertechs and 2 Marksmann Sniper will be the best raid combination by far and 10+ dps specs are completely dead and utter thrash.

 

You can not compare a spec with 200 attacks in a 5 min fight, with a spec that does 1000 attacks in the same time. Of course the dot spec will do more consistent damage on the dummy, and the burst spec will have a higher variance in crit and will therefore get the ultimate higher parse after a number of tries on the dummy.

 

The only reliable way of comparing specs, is to compare dot specs with a similar amount of attacks during a 5 min parse. Otherwise a dummy comparision would not make any sense.

 

Edit: Powertechs have a passive ability that heals them for 2,5% whenever they get hit by an aoe. That allows their relics (sa and fr) to double proc and increases their raid dps by quite a substantial amount.

 

Edit2: About the top parses you talk about:

Top parse for a marauder it's a dotsmash hybrid that according to Bioware will be nerfed, your top parse for mercenary uses a currently bugged spec, your top parse for Snipers does 3% of his damage with his most essential raid Utility by rolling through the dummy, your Juggernaut top parse is a spec that constantly has to channel 3 seconds in melee range.

I don't know much about Concealment operatives. I know that they have about Zero raid Utility, require constant positioning in melee range behind a target, have no aoe in their Rotation.

 

If you don't look at bugged specs and Dotsmash (which according to Bioware will be nerfed) Concealment is over 5% ahead over any other spec in this game on a "dummy fight ". Still almost no one plays them (for good reasons). Sure we could buff every other spec in the game to the level of concealment on a dummy fight.

 

For example smash will need about an 800 dps increase (currently they are at 3400 sustained). I suggest we give them 18k smashes (instead of 10k). Then they are on the same balancing level like concealment.

 

The same for AP Powertechs, completely underpowered, also just ~3400 dps. They need 800 dps more, therefore their Flamethrower needs to do 12000 more damage, hey then it will just hit for 30k thats ok i guess.

 

You took what I was saying, and blew it out of proportion. I used dummy parses because it shows max single target potential damage, and removes mechanics that keep melee dps off of the boss. It's about as fair as it gets, and while AOE heavy specs shouldn't perform at the same level as single target specs, all single target specs should do roughly equivalent damage, sorry for not making that clear. I never advocated boosting AOE abilities to unreasonable levels, I was advocating for class balance. Also, favoring DoT classes is a turn off to those people who don't like them, so there should be other classes that have high skill ceilings, and just don't require using the current awful DoT tracking system (AKA no system).

 

I picked those parses in particular because they're the current top. I didn't bother finding the top non-dotsmash parse, because that would have been a lot of digging, and I don't even know how long Mercs have been bugged for, so I wouldn't know when to go back to, if that's at all possible. I could take out the roll damage, but I'm about to raid with my guild and don't have the time.

 

On topic, though, giving Madness some kind of "leaving stealth" buff that enhances Creeping Terror could be neat. Maybe make it do double damage out of stealth? It can't be used like that too often, and I don't think that'd be too OP. Maybe even make the root a stun?

[DarthSpekulatius]

How to fix Madness PvP???

 

...

 

That doesn't take away how boring it is to double strike 500 times. Its really the only spec that just doesn't fit. Its a melee class forced to be mid range/melee. Plus it gets annihilated pretty quickly.

 

why didn't you say you want to talk PVE?

 

with these two changes there's enough to do besides Thresh

 

multidotting the Deathmarked targets (for the Force return) alone will reduce the number of threshes by a lot, then there are GCD's used for cc. also PVP is by default far more dynamic then PVE.

[THoK-Zeus]

Offtopic:

 

 

@Aelanis:

And because dummy parses show max single target damage, you can't take all the specs for comparision. You need to compare average dummy parses, if any, but that is just possible if you just compare specs with roughly the same number of hits.

As burst spec with just 200 attacks per parse will have a considerable higher max parse then a dot spec with 600-800 hits, even if the dot spec would do more damage on all his dummy parses on average.

 

Therefore i compared these dot parses with each other, they all have roughly the same number of attacks and so on...

 

Dot classes should provide more sustained damage then burst classes (as Bioware already said multiple times), because if they don't whats the point of a dot classes? If a burst class would deal as much sustained damage as a class that needs 15-20 seconds ramp up time, it would strictly be superior.

 

If you look at Biowares class answer, they always compare sustained with burst, when they compare dps specs of different classes. One spec is generally the sustained dot spec, the other one is generally the burst spec.

 

 

Edited April 3, 2014 by THoK-Zeus

[Evolixe]

That's ******** zeus. You can't burst for 4 minutes at a time and burst specs really don't get any advantage on the target dummy over specs that require a little more ramping up.. Edited April 3, 2014 by Evolixe

[THoK-Zeus]

That's ******** zeus. You can't burst for 4 minutes at a time and burst specs really don't get any advantage on the target dummy over specs that require a little more ramping up..

 

The variance of specs that have less attacks over a dummy rotation is higher, then the variance of specs with more attacks. Therefore the general top parse of burst classes (with less attacks over a dummy Rotation) is not comparable to the top parse of dot specs. That's simple school mathematic.

 

The variance of a dot spec like hybrid lethality is less then 100 dps, the variance of specs with less attacks (for example marksmann) is easily three times as high. Therefore, while having a pretty similar top parse, marksmann deals considerable lower damage on average.

 

Therefore i say top parses of different specs, can't be compared unless both the specs have roughly the same number of hits (especially regarding their hardest hitting abilities).

 

 

And no, i meant that burst specs get huge advantages on raid fights, compared to dot specs. On every raid fights dot specs have the disadvantage that they actually need ramp-up time to provide their dps. If a burst spec can deal as much dps as a dot spec from the first second it starts hitting a target, was is the point of the dot spec then?

Edited April 3, 2014 by THoK-Zeus

[Evolixe]

Fair enough. There is no reason you couldn't compare them though; because when it really comes down to it... the average output is all that matters anyway. And that should be equally worth for everyone as long as you take a large enough sample size.

 

Unless, of course, when the only proper samples are the top5 and the rest is just useless..

Edited April 3, 2014 by Evolixe

[a-n-i-k-i]

That's why I suggested some weeks ago to create a "5 parses in a row DPS Leaderboard" topic.

Anyone ?

[DarthSpekulatius]

Assassinate/Deathfield doesn't crit once versus Assassinate/Deathfield crits almost every time

 

dot specs have no variance huh?

[THoK-Zeus]

Assassinate/Deathfield doesn't crit once versus Assassinate/Deathfield crits almost every time

 

dot specs have no variance huh?

 

Dot specs generally have a lot less variance then specs with less attacks over a dummy Duration. If you throw a dice 10 times it's a lot easier to get exceptional high results (top dummy parses), then if you throw a dice 100 times.

 

@aniki: Your idea is very good. It should help making dummy parses more reliable to compare class balance.

 

Edit:

@Evolixe: I don't think you would need 100 parses, 5-10 consequent parses from the same player should be enough .

Edited April 3, 2014 by THoK-Zeus