Discussion on the state of Darkness/Kinetic Combat

[Aelanis]

I'm creating this series of threads because I want to try to get as widely encompassing an opinion on the state of the Assassin/Shadow advanced class as can be assembled. The purpose of this series of posts is two-fold. It helps to put the community's feelings all into one place to help generate the real consensus that we, the players of this class, have come to. Secondly, it provides a single place for the developers to look to see that feeling and those experiences, and helps us to have a great platform to build off of when (read: if) the Class Representative program makes a return.

 

A little extra reading for those looking to participate:

 

I'd like to lay down some simple ground rules for these threads:

• [*]Please stay on topic. I'll be keeping a constant eye on these threads, compiling opinions and reading every post with a fine toothed comb. I'm guilty of going off topic on plenty of threads, but please, let's do our best here.

[*]Don't throw around insults. If you think someone is wrong, you can tell them that, but let's refrain from attacks against each other, these threads are intended to be helpful. Hopefully this won't be an issue.

[*]These threads are PvE/PvP neutral. If you're going to talk about your experience or ask questions, clarify which game mode you're talking about so no one has to guess.

[*]Leave the "PvE/PvP ruined PvP/PvE" complaints out of this thread. They're old, not helpful, and divisive. We want to try to send a unified message, not appear childish.

 

As a final note, if you're going to make claims, please try to substantiate them. I know many people aren't willing/don't think they're smart enough to back all of what they say up with equations and simulations, but some data, screenshots, or videos are really helpful in driving home your points. Stating your experience, and providing screenshots of achievements/titles, goes a long way towards improving your credibility.

 

I'll try to update this post at least once a week, twice a week if I can manage, but there are 2 other threads to go through, too.

With that out of the way, here are the combined thoughts we seem to have on Darkness/Kinetic Combat:

 

None, as of yet. This thread is brand new, what did you expect? This section will be split into PvE and PvP sections, but that's going to come later, once I have more than my own opinions here.

[Aelanis]

As my experience is far more extensive in one area than the other, I'm going to only state my opinions on this Discipline in regards to PvE. I have tanked every Hard Mode Operation through completion pre-3.0, 2/5 in HM Ravagers, and 4/5 in HM Temple of Sacrifice. Unfortunately, all of these kills came after my kills as a DPS, so achievements aren't worth much here. My first character was a Darkness Assassin, back at pre-release, though he was shelved for a while while I leveled up other characters. I began playing the AC again when I leveled up a Shadow at the end of 1.7, and started playing it seriously in 2.2. In 2.3, I started to play Infiltration on my Shadow, and in January of 2014, I briefly held 5th place on the world DPS leaderboards with a Balance/Infiltration hybrid build. I went on to play both Deception and Hatred with Exiled then Banished before its dissolution, then in Domination, and finally in Exit Area, with the coming of 3.0. On the other side, I played my Shadow tank from 2.3 through 2.10, and even a little bit into 3.0, where I switched to a Vanguard in order to not be running double Shadows any more, though I'll still tank on my Assassin given the chance.

 

In PvE, Darkness is actually doing really well right now. Shroud and Stealth are amazing utilities that leave it with all sorts of abilities to handle mechanics in unique ways, and its heavy reliance on shielding works well in these operations, as does its DR against Internal and Elemental attacks. While the potential to get spiked to death is still there, I believe this is something that we will always have to accept, that if our mitigation fails, we're going to take a lot of damage. That said, I do think there are still a few small issues for this Discipline that could use some tweaking, mostly in the rotation we use.

 

Pre-3.0, our rotation revolved around 2 6 second cooldowns and a 9 second cooldown. Shock was the important 6 second, as you had to wait for 3 stacks of Harnessed Darkness to use Force Lightning anyway, but Wither was the true limiting factor. However, if you left the Force Lightning with an immediate Shock, you would be able to keep up a rotation looking like: Shock >> Wither > Filler >> Filler >> Shock >> Filler >> Force Lightning > Force Lightning. With no reliance on RNG, you could hold a 12 second rotation indefinitely. The 3 filler slots left time to do things such as Thrash, Assassinate, or Discharge, and you even had 2 more GCDs of wiggle room before Force Lightning where you could still keep up your stacks of Dark Protection. The great thing was, though, that if you got lucky, and managed an Energize proc immediately after Wither, you could go: Shock >> Wither >> Thrash >> Shock >> Force Lightning > Force Lightning >> Wither >> Shock >> etc. This was a very high threat rotation, and had a pretty good 51% chance of actually working out.

 

Now, however, that doesn't work out so well. If you got that Energize buff, you'd be best off holding your Depredating Volts for one GCD. Why? Because Wither has a ridiculous 10 second cooldown, now. It's not a multiple of the GCD, despite respecting it, and so its effective cooldown is really 10.5 seconds, as opposed to the 9 it used to be. Your best threat rotation looks like Shock >> Wither >> Thrash >> Shock >> Discharge (with buff) >> Force Lightning > Force Lightning >> Shock >> Wither. Having a very high threat Discharge there works out very well, but is not quite as good as just having a faster Depredating Volts, which still has the highest threat/use AND threat/second of any Assassin move. Now, this wouldn't be as big an issue if Wither had had a corresponding damage increase: but it didn't. It would just be nice to see its cooldown changed to a GCD multiple, to clear up what the developers intend for our rotation to be. I am definitely super happy that Depredating Volts can now be used on the move, which was another old complaint I'd had. Overall, the rotation is a minor complaint, but something I think could use a little fine tuning.

 

Threat, however, is pretty tight. Yes, Force Pull is the single highest opening threat ability in the game (Saber Reflect can't be popped to initiate combat or it'd take the cake), but after that, we watch our threat generation decline sharply. Back when we could open with a Crushing Darkness into Force Pull, we actually had really, really strong opening threat, able to hold off of even a Critical Ambush + Followthrough combo. Unfortunately, Force Pull's threat is static based on your rank, and eventually even that would have fallen behind, with enough extra gear. Once we have Force Pull out of the way, we still have Wither, Shock, and Discharge, but even they aren't enough to hold off of a lucky crit streak in Advanced Prototype or Marksmanship. There's still a gap, though, between the first two Shocks, before you can fire off a Recklessness Depredating Volts for insane threat. That little gap, unfortunately, comes as both AP and Marksmanship are peaking in burst damage, just before Deception fires off a second Discharge, and about as Concealment is dropping a second out-of-stealth Backstab.

 

If you don't have taunts rolling, there's a very, very real possibility that a dps will pull off of you, despite your best efforts. Last I checked, the devs weren't so interested in taunts being necessary to hold threat, and I agree: they shouldn't be. The new 4 piece set bonus for each tank allows them to roll taunts for 18 seconds, by which point they ought to have aggro firmly established, but should that really be necessary? I don't know that this is even necessarily a problem with Assassin tanks so much as it is with tanks in general. Just something I thought I should throw out there: while we have good initial snap threat, there's a weak point in our rotation where we only keep aggro because we can taunt or people aren't performing to their class's maximum.

 

All in all, I feel like Darkness is in the best place, for PvE, out of any of the Disciplines for Assassin, and if there were changes limited to 2 or fewer of the Disciplines, I would, without a doubt, pass over Darkness to work on the other two. Again, from a PvE perspective.

[KeyboardNinja]

I'm going to speak completely from a PvE perspective here, since while I PvPed extensively with Kinetic Combat in 1.x and 2.x, I have yet to step into the queue in 3.x. Others can provide more authoritative details than I can.

 

My experience with a PvE shadow tank is quite extensive. I've been doing progression tanking (HM/NiM level) since launch. I killed NiM EC with Warstalker pre-2.0, and cleared all content in all modes (including bonus bosses) pre-3.0. I did not tank Hateful entity pre-3.0, since I was needed as a DPS (irony!), but I have tanked it since and am aware of what I would have needed to do at level. I'm currently 4/5 in both HM ToS and Rav, and I've tanked basically through Ruugar (until I misjudged a taunt and wiped us the other night). I have not tanked HM Revan, but I've healed through the end of the second floor.

 

I've done extensive theory crafting on the class, and still consider it to be the most interesting and involved class in the game, all things considered. Much of that opinion is personal taste though, and there is no question that every class in the game offers a very unique and interesting experience (aside from perhaps 3.x Combat/Carnage).

 

Kinetic Combat is in a phenomenally awesome state right now. Really, really awesome. There are remarkably few things that I think are on the weaker side. Overall, I do honestly believe we are the strongest tanks for PvE. Not strong enough that people are forced to bring double shadow tanks to everything, but more than strong enough to counter our weaknesses and present a very attractive option.

 

Our weaknesses generally boil down to a couple of specific things. Number one, our opening threat is less significant than the other two classes, simply because we don't have the same long-cooldown threat magnifiers that they do (Battle Focus, Hilt Strike, Saber Reflect, etc). This can make opening threat sans-taunts tenuous to the point of unachievable. The fact that we can debuff the boss for 18 consecutive seconds makes this a mostly academic argument, but it's still something to think about. We're taunt-dependent now. Completely and utterly. That doesn't make us unviable, but it does mean that if there's ever a boss where we can't use our taunts that aggressively, we're going to be very SoL.

 

The second weakness is that we're the least accessible of the tank classes in terms of game design. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, but it is a weakness. Players have to do a bit more work to maintain the status quo as a shadow tank, and they're punished more severely than the other classes for every mistake. This makes it a very rewarding class to play for those who enjoy a higher skill floor, but it does mean that the vast majority of shadow tank players are far far worse than the majority of vanguard or guardian tanks.

 

Burst damage is actually really a non-issue at this point. The weighted standard deviation on our mitigation is dramatically, dramatically lower than same statistic for vanguard or guardian tanks. What gives shadows the appearance of "spikiness" is the fact that we have certain high-probability mitigation cases which are incredibly, ridiculously good, boiling down to no less than "take no damage". However, we have other mitigation cases which are "take ALL the damage". These are lower in probability, but they do exist. Vanguards have very very few "take no damage" cases, quite a few high-probability "take moderate damage" cases, and a few "take ALL the damage" cases. As a result, the contrast between their "this happens all the time" case and their worst case is far less than the contrast between the two cases for shadows, and so shadows are perceived as being much spikier. Whether or not this perception is accurate is sort of up for grabs, but honestly I haven't had an issue with it in a long time.

 

The 10 second cooldown on Slow Time is very weird, as Aelinis pointed out. I'm not sure how much I feel that this should be changed, but it's certainly a little unsettling. The rotation ends up being far from static, despite the fact that the procs are very high probability (or guaranteed, in the case of Shadow Strike). A lot of the skill in maximizing your DPS as a Kinetic Combat shadow involves glancing at your Shadow Protection stacks as you get three stacks of Harnessed Shadows, and quickly computing whether or not you have time for an extra GCD before use. The answer to this question varies quite a bit. I think this makes the rotation more interesting than it was just pre-3.0, where the procs were still basically guaranteed, but the rotation also followed a very static structure. At present, I would not be in favor of changing it.

 

In fact, the only thing about the rotation I would like to change is to reduce the probability (or increase the ICD) of the Shadow Wrap proc and give it a higher damage bonus. This is to add a little more interest to the rotation, and also clarify the priority between Shadow Strike and Force Breach without adding any DPS.

 

Shadow tank cooldowns are in a marvelous place, and honestly represent the creme of the crop in SWTOR tanking. Resetting your medpack, 10 seconds of Resilience (potentially), 25% additive DR for 15 seconds with a heal, and more. That's just really phenomenally good. The only thing I can complain about, and perhaps this is just like the rich kid complaining that his ice creme is just a bit too warm, is that our cooldowns become dramatically weaker on extreme sustained internal/elemental bosses (like Monolith). Battle Readiness is always amazing, and Resilience is great in short spurts, but absorb does nothing against I/E and of course neither does defense. Vanguards are, ironically, the best tanks now for that sort of fight, with their 25% Reactive Shield and their 40% (oh god why?!) Battle Focus. I'm not saying that they need to be nerfed, or that shadow tanks need to be buffed, but it is a weakness that is particularly noticeable in this tier of content.

 

In general, I'm incredibly happy with shadow tanks. Being able to channel on the move always, always makes me smile. Everything is awesome.

Edited June 11, 2015 by KeyboardNinja

[Kawabonga]

As far as pvp is concerned, i'm only playing regs at the moment, but from my experience the Assassin is by far the squishiest tank, due to the importance of Dark Protection and the difficulty of keeping it up in an environment where you have to deal with CCs and tanking duties such as guard switch and peeling.

However, the squishiness is more than compensated by the short cooldown on the defensive CDs. The extra 5% endurance from the discipline and class along with the extra i/e damage reduction also makes it the most resistant spec against DoT classes (looking at you, Hatred/Madness derps)

Overall, Assassin tanks in pvp (regs at least) can perform pretty damn well. Also, trolling people is so easy and fun

 

As for PvE, I'm sitting at 9/10, and i haven't attempted Revan yet. So far I'm very happy with the class. While the cooldown of wither does seem a bit weird like mentioned above, i never thought it caused any problems. Dark Protection lasts long enough to build 3 stacks of Harnessed Darkness even if you begin your next set with Wither, that's good enough for me.

The amount of damage and mechanic cheesing that Force Shroud and Cloak provide is phenomenal, and phase walk is the just one more piece of awesome.

As a small side note on opening threat, I still open with Crushing Darkness>Force Pull by standing at 9.99m from the boss and lightly tapping S+Force Pull at the end of the cast. Virtually no time loss, extra aggro and slightly tighter opener, but it never caused problems so there must be something to it.

 

Again, I'm very happy with where the class is now.

If i had to change one thing, it wouldn't have much to do with survivability: i would make Discharge a smart AoE like Wither. The amount of hate i get for breaking mezzes both in pvp and in the Commanders fight is unhealthy

[Whojoo]

PVE:

In 2.0 I got somewhat forced into tanking (we lacked tanks and someone had to do it). For this I picked my shadow and my shadow's main spec has been Kinetic Combat ever since.

I own a tank of each version (shadow, guardian, powertech) and shadow is my favorite by far.

I never noticed the 'skill based tank' people were talking about, the rotation just came natural to me.

 

So currently my group is working on the hard modes with my shadow as one of the main tanks. The utility I can bring with resilience alone is something my healers already like (not having to heal through every gravity missile for example).

I can't think of a bad thing to say actually. I noticed that my opening felt off in 3.0, took my a few months (yes that bad) to notice the 10 second cooldown on Slow Step xD

 

Cascading Debries on the move is a nice addition. Did not really feel the need for it but don't you dare take it away from me now

 

So yea, I would say that shadow/assassin tank is in a great state and is not in need for any adjustment.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Whojoo

[UrbanSaint]

For PvE, in many ways I think Darkness/KC is in the best spot it has ever been in. most fights in these new ops appear to be Shield-heavy fights and assuming you play it right you can have >55% shield chance with very high uptime. Also Resilience is a pretty invaluable tool that can nullify many major hits in a boss fight. While it is widely considered the hardest tank class to do well with, I also find it the most fun and rewarding when played right.

for PvP, it has some sweet utility great for tanking via extra defense chance on guarded players, Knockback root, and insta-lift. Can't really say how well it does for ranked as I haven't really played it much, but for the most part it was considered bottom of the barrel. Not because Shadow/Sin tanks were "bad", just that the other 2 tank classes could do the job better in that type of environment.

[Luckygunslinger]

TL;DR I picked up Assassin Tank the other week and I've been blasting through content, hell I nearly downed HM Master Blaster just in a random pug. It's miles a head of Guardian in my opinion and there's no reason for me to go back to Guardian other than I enjoy playing it.

[Gardimuer]

My perspective is from PvE in a team that is still progressing through the lvl 60 HM ops.

 

I agree that Assassin tanks are in a really good spot right now.

 

I haven't been with a group that really tests my agro output, so I can't offer an informed opinion on that. Honestly, I have an easier time holding threat than my Juggernaut/Powertech cotanks do, but that is probably down to playstyle.

 

My only point of dissatisfaction is a boss design issue rather than a class specific issue: On the Walkers it becomes extremely difficult to maintain stacks when tanking Walker 1 during the time that the shield is up. If the droid happens to be alive you can save your Depredating Volts to use on it, but that still leaves a lot of downtime. Juggernauts and Powertechs also lose uptime on their buffs for the same reason, but since their buffs are gained by instant abilities they can refresh them more quickly/easily when the opportunity arises. The Depredating Volts while moving change definitely made this a lot easier, but it's still at the point that I would never choose to tank Walker 1 on an Assassin since a Jug cotank can do it better.

 

The only other minor quibble I have is with the continuing viability of the old 186 set bonus. I'm at the point where I'll be maintaining two sets of gear for progression so I can use the old set bonus on any fight where I'm not at risk of losing my Dark Ward. This is of course an issue that will disapear once new tiers of armor come out to make the 2% DR in the old set bonus obsolete.

[Aelanis]

My perspective is from PvE in a team that is still progressing through the lvl 60 HM ops.

 

I agree that Assassin tanks are in a really good spot right now.

 

I haven't been with a group that really tests my agro output, so I can't offer an informed opinion on that. Honestly, I have an easier time holding threat than my Juggernaut/Powertech cotanks do, but that is probably down to playstyle.

 

My only point of dissatisfaction is a boss design issue rather than a class specific issue: On the Walkers it becomes extremely difficult to maintain stacks when tanking Walker 1 during the time that the shield is up. If the droid happens to be alive you can save your Depredating Volts to use on it, but that still leaves a lot of downtime. Juggernauts and Powertechs also lose uptime on their buffs for the same reason, but since their buffs are gained by instant abilities they can refresh them more quickly/easily when the opportunity arises. The Depredating Volts while moving change definitely made this a lot easier, but it's still at the point that I would never choose to tank Walker 1 on an Assassin since a Jug cotank can do it better.

 

The only other minor quibble I have is with the continuing viability of the old 186 set bonus. I'm at the point where I'll be maintaining two sets of gear for progression so I can use the old set bonus on any fight where I'm not at risk of losing my Dark Ward. This is of course an issue that will disapear once new tiers of armor come out to make the 2% DR in the old set bonus obsolete.

 

A few quick things:

As far as I'm aware, no Juggernaut buffs rely on you dealing damage to the target, only that you activate the ability. In addition, PTs have 30 meter range on Rail Shot, so they can use that on Unit 2 while tanking Unit 1. They also build stacks of Heat Screen by shielding attacks, which happens whether or not you can do damage to the boss. Neither of them are quite as reliant on being able to damage the target to keep up defenses like Assassins.

 

The viability of the old set bonus becomes suspect once you have DPS who push your threat generations past their limits. AP PTs remaining at 10k sustained DPS 15 seconds into the fight ruins your day when you have a small gap in your taunts because you don't have your new 4 piece set bonus. Should that be necessary to have to hold aggro? No, in my opinion, and I really don't like having to do it, but that's how it is right now.

[Kawabonga]

 

My only point of dissatisfaction is a boss design issue rather than a class specific issue: On the Walkers it becomes extremely difficult to maintain stacks when tanking Walker 1 during the time that the shield is up. If the droid happens to be alive you can save your Depredating Volts to use on it, but that still leaves a lot of downtime. Juggernauts and Powertechs also lose uptime on their buffs for the same reason, but since their buffs are gained by instant abilities they can refresh them more quickly/easily when the opportunity arises. The Depredating Volts while moving change definitely made this a lot easier, but it's still at the point that I would never choose to tank Walker 1 on an Assassin since a Jug cotank can do it better.

 

 

Actually, last time I checked Depredating Volts didn't build Dark Protection stacks against immune targets.

However, Rocket Punch and Rail Shot still build stacks of Shield Enhancers when used against immune targets, and Heat Blast still grants the extra absorption. Similarly, Aegis Assault still grants Aegis Assault and Consuming Power, Retaliation grants Blade Barricade and Force Scream grants Sonic Barrier...

 

This is definitely something that should be looked into.

 

 

The viability of the old set bonus becomes suspect once you have DPS who push your threat generations past their limits. AP PTs remaining at 10k sustained DPS 15 seconds into the fight ruins your day when you have a small gap in your taunts because you don't have your new 4 piece set bonus. Should that be necessary to have to hold aggro? No, in my opinion, and I really don't like having to do it, but that's how it is right now.

 

I'm also guilty of clinging to the old set bonus. Realistically, between taunt fluffing and tank swaps it is quite unlikely to lose aggro... If you have an AP PT or a MM Sniper that doesn't like to drop aggro (like i do) just slap a guard on him I've never had aggro problems to date with the old set bonus.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Kawabonga

[Aelanis]

I'm also guilty of clinging to the old set bonus. Realistically, between taunt fluffing and tank swaps it is quite unlikely to lose aggro... If you have an AP PT or a MM Sniper that doesn't like to drop aggro (like i do) just slap a guard on him I've never had aggro problems to date with the old set bonus.

 

Unfortunately, when you've got all 4 dps at 6k+ as your second taunt wears off, you start to get into some trouble, because you can't simply guard them all

[Kawabonga]

Unfortunately, when you've got all 4 dps at 6k+ as your second taunt wears off, you start to get into some trouble, because you can't simply guard them all

 

Yeah but what are the bosses where you actually get to be main tank for the 20 opening seconds straight? For me it's Sparky, Torque and Malaphar (I usually tank Squad Unit 2 and Pearl and go dps on Underlurker).

On those bosses I usually delay the AoE taunt for just a few seconds so that i can get taunts 2 and 3 off in a row. The few times the boss turns around it's only for a split second, never even enough to get a hit off on anyone so i don't worry about it. I guess the usefulness varies depending on your assigned duties. Basically, go for whatever rocks your boat ^_^

Edited June 12, 2015 by Kawabonga

[KeyboardNinja]

Yeah but what are the bosses where you actually get to be main tank for the 20 opening seconds straight? For me it's Sparky, Torque and Malaphar (I usually tank Squad Unit 2 and Pearl and go dps on Underlurker).

On those bosses I usually delay the AoE taunt for just a few seconds so that i can get taunts 2 and 3 off in a row. The few times the boss turns around it's only for a split second, never even enough to get a hit off on anyone so i don't worry about it. I guess the usefulness varies depending on your assigned duties. Basically, go for whatever rocks your boat ^_^

 

You also cannot swap Sano in the Commanders soft enrage without the 4pc. You can't keep your stacks up on several fights without the 6pc. Overall, the 186 set bonus is just not worth it.

[UTlNNl]

(PVE player only. I've killed bosses and stuff.)

 

Agreed that not being able to build stacks on immune enemies is very annoying. I'll tab to the Targeting Droid under Unit 1 to build stacks if it's up. WTB full absorb shields on enemies instead of immunity.

 

I sometimes find myself longing for the days of bugged energy in 2.x where we literally never had to Saber Strike; I realize this isn't exactly something I can fairly complain about. But my energy now feels more sustainable in AoE situations than it does in single target.. which seems odd.

 

I personally like the Wither cooldown- if everything lined up too nicely it would just be boring

 

Being reliant on taunts in the opener only bothers me on principle. I can live with it. Giving us some new offensive CD or buff would probably just be overkill- I wouldn't mind it, but I would mind having it lead to being nerfed in some other way later down the line that screws us over.

 

Potency'd Cascading Debris on-the-move is also the BEST THING EVAR. My average DTPS on Sword Squadron literally went down by more than a hundred when we got mobile CD/DV. I constantly move in little circles in that fight now, which makes me feel like I get out of circles much faster. This was the one change I think the class really needed,,, especially in 3.0. Or I might just be bad.

 

I think we're in a very good place overall. I'd be scared if they tried to mess with the spec at this point.

Edited June 12, 2015 by UTlNNl

[Gardimuer]

As far as I'm aware, no Juggernaut buffs rely on you dealing damage to the target, only that you activate the ability. In addition, PTs have 30 meter range on Rail Shot, so they can use that on Unit 2 while tanking Unit 1. They also build stacks of Heat Screen by shielding attacks, which happens whether or not you can do damage to the boss. Neither of them are quite as reliant on being able to damage the target to keep up defenses like Assassins.

 

Thanks for the correction!

 

You also cannot swap Sano in the Commanders soft enrage without the 4pc. You can't keep your stacks up on several fights without the 6pc. Overall, the 186 set bonus is just not worth it.

 

The group I've been raiding with doesn't tank swap Sano. I pretty much only hold Kurse and some adds throughout the fight, so I don't understand the need for more taunts in that context. Could you explain why having two tanks switch Sano is preferred?

 

Regarding the 186 set bonus, "several fights" causing lost stacks does not mean the new set bonus is ideal 100% of the time. That was my point about maintaining 2 gear sets.

[Kawabonga]

We kill Sano first, dps with taunt takes the kick. If i had to compile a list of fights and jobs in which that happens it would go like this:

 

Ravagers

- Sparky on add duty, during the burn phase

- Bulo if taunting pirates

 

Temple of Sacrifice

-Sword squadron tanking unit 1 (without swaps)

-Revanite commanders throughout the whole fight.

 

I don't know yet about Revan, but it doesn't seem the case from all the vids I've seen

 

Feel free to add stuff, but this is pretty much it from memory... I mean, maybe Coratanni with a really lucky Shield streak?

[KeyboardNinja]

The group I've been raiding with doesn't tank swap Sano. I pretty much only hold Kurse and some adds throughout the fight, so I don't understand the need for more taunts in that context. Could you explain why having two tanks switch Sano is preferred?

 

You can do this if you burn Sano first, or if you have a dps with an off taunt and good healers. Either strategy really requires very good healing, since Deron gets progressively worse as the soft enrage continues. Basically, not swapping on Sano (through either strategy) trades off much harder healing for much easier tanking. You are correct though that you don't require the 4pc if you aren't swapping him.

[Gardimuer]

You can do this if you burn Sano first, or if you have a dps with an off taunt and good healers. Either strategy really requires very good healing, since Deron gets progressively worse as the soft enrage continues. Basically, not swapping on Sano (through either strategy) trades off much harder healing for much easier tanking. You are correct though that you don't require the 4pc if you aren't swapping him.

 

Our group burns Sano first with one tank holding him a while. Meanwhile I hide in a corner and prevent Kurse from getting off any Soaring Smashes. Preventing Soaring Smash probably offsets the healing difficulty of the gradual damage increase from Deron. I guess BioWare should patch that out if they don't want it happening.

[Aelanis]

Yeah but what are the bosses where you actually get to be main tank for the 20 opening seconds straight? For me it's Sparky, Torque and Malaphar (I usually tank Squad Unit 2 and Pearl and go dps on Underlurker).

On those bosses I usually delay the AoE taunt for just a few seconds so that i can get taunts 2 and 3 off in a row. The few times the boss turns around it's only for a split second, never even enough to get a hit off on anyone so i don't worry about it. I guess the usefulness varies depending on your assigned duties. Basically, go for whatever rocks your boat ^_^

 

It's important to hold aggro on Unit 1, as things get pretty dicey if a DPS pulls right before a Rapid Fire. If they ever throw in a boss into this game that has an alpha strike, this is going to become an issue. For now, though, we're somewhat safe.

We kill Sano first, dps with taunt takes the kick. If i had to compile a list of fights and jobs in which that happens it would go like this:

 

Ravagers

- Sparky on add duty, during the burn phase

- Bulo if taunting pirates

 

Temple of Sacrifice

-Sword squadron tanking unit 1 (without swaps)

-Revanite commanders throughout the whole fight.

 

I don't know yet about Revan, but it doesn't seem the case from all the vids I've seen

 

Feel free to add stuff, but this is pretty much it from memory... I mean, maybe Coratanni with a really lucky Shield streak?

 

Also Torque, when you're intercepting a full wall of Tamper Deterrent Devices. You can basically kiss Dark Ward goodbye when that happens. Revan certainly won't cause you to lose Dark Ward stacks, he doesn't really hit you often enough for it to be an issue.

[Jiminison]

we need our self heals back DRR does nothing for pvp I'm so tired of keeping my rock belt up through my rotation ,I do a good job keeping up I have a shdow in mostly Dps Ive replaced some of the tank mods and kept the 2 tank set gear armors from last season for 10 sec off spike. On my assassin I'm in all tank gear 100% anyone guess which one last longer...neither the one in in more dps gear is just as tanky. plus I have gear from last season and the shadow does better in wpvp because of the armor pieces from last season. DRR from Harnesses shadows is crap at 3 stacks if anything we need the stacks and self heals marauders with pally bubbles and guardian healing in your face and placing 2nd in heals in wz is ********!

[VaeVictis]

PvE: 10/10 HM Rav/ToS. I'd like to see Shadow Protection changed to 15 seconds and the graphical effects of Shadow's Shelter toned down. If I had one wish Sturdiness would grant immunity to KB through Resilience.

 

PvP: I've only ever queued yolo as Infiltration or Serenity, getting top-tier all five seasons. I only queue Kinetic in reg premades and have no complaints since smart Heal + Tank is op no matter what AC the heal/tank are.

[Hockaday]

The mitigation mechanic of Votls needs to be fixed / made equal to other tanks. It has to do damage to build stacks, and if the stacks fall off mid volts, you do not gain your stacks. While the latter is more rare, it's still a bias against the class, and the former is just rediculous.

 

Utility is a bit lacking, these days Jugs / PTs are seemingly able to cheese more mechanics (or ones that matter) than Assassins. So group utility is down.

 

Healing should possibly be restored or tweaked. Seeing as how a PT can pull close 200-400 hps, but sin healing was nerfed because "it's too hard to balance".

 

And maybe it's just me, but force regeneration seems broken.

 

TL: DR, Lack of utility, mitigation mechanics need to be fixed, healing looked at again.

Edited July 12, 2015 by Hockaday

[Aelanis]

The mitigation mechanic of Votls needs to be fixed / made equal to other tanks. It has to do damage to build stacks, and if the stacks fall off mid volts, you do not gain your stacks. While the latter is more rare, it's still a bias against the class, and the former is just rediculous.

It is pretty frustrating that we can't keep stacks up on damage immune targets. It would definitely be nice to get stacks based on ticks of DV going off, rather than dealing damage.

Utility is a bit lacking, these days Jugs / PTs are seemingly able to cheese more mechanics (or ones that matter) than Assassins. So group utility is down.

The number of Saber Reflectable attacks (that matter) is actually pretty low in this tier. You also greatly, greatly discount Shroud if you think we can't cheese more than they can. PTs are only so good because of Hydraulic Overrides right now, but Assassins aren't even that far behind. You can, as a tank, take care of Master's Ion Cutter all on your own, without the need to spread it among your raid team. You can pop Shroud and Force Speed and clear up a huge area that's full of mines during the fight with Ruugar. You can pick the stun DR to tank Pearl, which makes things much less hectic for the healers. Shroud lets you walk through the Floor Vents with impunity. Shroud can also help you cheese Brutal Rampage and simply cancel the ability, as well as preventing the damage and knockback from Shoulder Throw on Sparky. Shroud lets you tank the adds inside the Spear Throw circle on Malaphar, is an "oh ****" button for Sword Squadron, or can simply be used to mitigate Gravity Missiles, Phase Walk can help you recover from a bad set of rocks during Underlurker (not that that's really an issue), Pull is AMAZING in Commanders, and again, Shroud is crucial in helping mitigate spike damage from Revan, even if you don't have Hydraulic Overrides for the third floor.

Healing should possibly be restored or tweaked. Seeing as how a PT can pull close 200-400 hps, but sin healing was nerfed because "it's too hard to balance".

You're cherry picking a little bit here. PTs can only pull that much healing on AoE heavy fights, as their Guard Cannon, if they bother to even take it, is only worth 90 hps. On incredibly heavy AoE fights (Underlurker getting hit by the lurkerlings), I'm at anywhere between 300 and 400, depending on how much extra damage I want to be taking. You actually have to be willing to take extra damage to get up to 400 hps on that fight, so I think that listing it between 100 to 200 hps on normal fights and upwards of 300 hps on AoE heavy fights is more fair. Now, if they had kept us on self healing, we'd be approaching about 500 hps. Especially with how spiky the damage is in these operations, I'm quite fine with some extra DR, even if our effective dtps would be lower. Now, I'm not saying an emergency little "oh ****" button wouldn't be unwelcome, but I just don't think the healing difference is such a big deal as a lot of other people think it is.

And maybe it's just me, but force regeneration seems broken.

 

I think it's just you. If it seems like you have worse regen than 2.10, that's because it's not bugged any more, where you were getting a lot more Force back for mitigating damage than in 2.10.

[mynameisbugged]

10/10hm here. Just got my revanchist. Was the only one who died early at core phase(died to pull in + abberations) but because of 204mh the DPS didn't need me.

 

IMO now that the other 2 tanks have some knock back immunity, a shadow tank should see some sort knock back immunity too to get some form of consistency with all 3 tanks. Maybe make it so that u are immune to knock back during cast of cascading debris? I don't mind if this is a utility either.

 

Otherwise I think they're in a good spot right now in pve. Not the easiest tank to play, but is pretty good for all bosses except bulo maybe.

Edited July 13, 2015 by mynameisbugged

[XisscVekno]

10/10hm here. Just got my revanchist. Was the only one who died early at core phase(died to pull in + abberations) but because of 204mh the DPS didn't need me.

 

IMO now that the other 2 tanks have some knock back immunity, a shadow tank should see some sort knock back immunity too to get some form of consistency with all 3 tanks. Maybe make it so that u are immune to knock back during cast of cascading debris? I don't mind if this is a utility either.

 

Otherwise I think they're in a good spot right now in pve. Not the easiest tank to play, but is pretty good for all bosses except bulo maybe.

 

If I remember correctly there is a utility point we can take that if we pop Deflection it grants CC immunity. The problem is that the other options in that tier are better for a tank in general. I maybe mistaken if Assassin tanks can get that utility. it has been awhile since I looked at them.

 

To point out my expertise with this class I have been playing as an Assassin Tank since 1.6 or .7. I have cleared most HM and some NiM (only can go as far as your team can regardless of your skill) I've read and done my own testing with this class since I made it my main. It is also my favorite class because of it's play style as a tank.

 

So, I do agree with both Aelanis and KBN. I have mad props for those guys since they do alot of the ground work for our class. Though we don't always agree on things as anyone who has seen me post on Dulfy and here can tell. As a whole I personally feel the class is in a good spot. I would like to see us get a small boost to either our proc heal, or a small heal added back to one of our abilities since it does seem that the other two tanks have more self healing. I don't think it's necessary for us to have it, I just think it would put us closer to their numbers.

 

As far as threat goes I have noticed that I've need the guard and taunts a bit more for the first 18 sec of a pull.... especially with trigger happy DPS that I tend to run with. Though I don't think it's game breaking and after reading some of the post that was written I do feel we may need a slight threat increase to hit that "shouldn't need taunt in your rotation" area.

 

As for our mitigation goes I have not seen any "spikey" areas while tanking. But to be fair, I'm only 1/5 HM TOS/Rav. My team has had Scheduling issues this expansion sadly so i can't see for sure if we really do in current HM operations.

 

Over all I'm quite happy with our current state and have enjoyed the changes they have made to our class so far. I do somewhat wish we could drop discharge out of our rotation because I feel it makes it to busy. Which might be a turn off for some newer players. i kinda liked it better the way it was where it was only really used in AOE threat and to keep your accuracy debuff on the boss. But then again I have never had an issue like Aelanis pointed out in his post with the rotation of Shock>Wither>Thrash>Shock>Depredating Volts. I have really good luck with getting the electrocute buff. The maul buff on the other hand.... I have really bad RNG when it comes to that skill.

 

P.S. I forgot to add one of my big pet peeves and one of the abilities I feel should be changed and that's Deflection. I've always felt that the Warrior Saber Ward was a much better skill to our Deflection. They essentially do the same thing, yet ours is weaker. We should also have the 25% damage reduction to both force and tech like they do. It has never made sense why Deflection didn't have that component to it. I have always felt that this ability has been our weakest and maybe even the weakest defensive CD in the game.

 

P.S.S. Phase walk... not that I don't like the ability. It's come in handy from time to time, and my healers love the utility part of it, but, and it's a big but, is that for the Assassin version of Phase Walk it's pink. Not the color is the problem, but the fact that it's a very thick color it makes it hard to see any telegraph aoe that is getting targeted on the phase walk. I noticed that this wasn't so much of an issue with the Shadow version. The shadow version looks like it sits lower into the ground so it doesn't cover up telegraphs as much, also with it being gold there is a clear contrast between Red/Blue telegraphs that make them easy to spot. With the Pink color it's a dark and hard to see through and the Blue/Red telegraphs can be lost if you are not paying close attention. This has been a complaint for my healers for awhile. Basically since 2.0 when we got. So I've had to not put it down during fights that have a lot of AOE telegraphs in it. I thought they had been just not paying attention till I started healing some of the raids and I noticed that I also was having trouble seeing the telegraphs through the Phase Walk pool.

 

I feel that Phase Walk should be changed from a filled in circle or pool on the ground to just a colored ring showing the edge of where a healer might stand to get the buff. Maybe something similar to how proximity mines circles are shown on Master Blaster fight or maybe even something close to revivification just a different color.

Edited July 13, 2015 by XisscVekno