4.0 Assassin

[sithBracer]

I like how a few weeks ago people were excited about the possibility of getting this move, and now that we have it they are doubting it's usefulness. It is a very useful ability. Yes deception will make better use of it than hatred and darkness will but it's still very useful. As for why you'd want want to use it in stealth, uh to cc someone? Or open up on them with spike? Stop a cap? There are plenty of reasons why you'd want to use this in stealth. It would be nice if they tied our extra burst(as pitiful as it'll still be) to another ability but over all this is a fairly nice ability for pve and pvp.

 

Most of the opinions about this ability (esp. compared to the others) were about the same as they are now. In fact they were even more negative when we first found out about them. It's funny how people say it is "useful" but can't even give one example of a normal common use for it other than stopping a cap in hatred/darkness and using it right after recklessness to get another discharge-which I still have no idea why it has to be tied to this particular ability.

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

I like how a few weeks ago people were excited about the possibility of getting this move, and now that we have it they are doubting it's usefulness. It is a very useful ability. Yes deception will make better use of it than hatred and darkness will but it's still very useful. As for why you'd want want to use it in stealth, uh to cc someone? Or open up on them with spike? Stop a cap? There are plenty of reasons why you'd want to use this in stealth. It would be nice if they tied our extra burst(as pitiful as it'll still be) to another ability but over all this is a fairly nice ability for pve and pvp.

 

I'm still VERY excited to get this ability, don't get me wrong. All that I've personally said is that it will be less useful on a tank than on the dps specs. Also, if you recall my original thread, I had actually suggested that this teleport ability was locked into only the DECEPTION spec and suggested that Hatred instead get a survivability defensive CD or cooldown.

 

This is because the two specs suffer from different problems; Hatred is WAY too squishy for what it needs to accomplish and Deception is way more melee, thus adding a teleport to Deception would just make more sense than Hatred.

 

Instead of locking it into Deception and actually giving Hatred a DR or Defensive buff that it needs, they just gave all sin specs a teleport with the assumption that it's a one size fits all problem solver.

 

Once again, I DO LOVE THE ABILITY. I just wish that it was locked into Deception and that Hatred got some sort of Defensive buffs.

[Lalainnia]

Ok since you are saying all ranged:

1. this move doesn't affect snipers since they are in cover.

2. sorcs will easily be able to kite us with their new ability so at the very least it will be even, but lets be honest they definitely got the better ability for kiting.

3. I don't know what mercs you fought against on your assassin, but 99% of mercs I fight against either use chaffe flarre to make almost all my burst useless, or they use KB+enet+super burst.

 

Also, hatred is not a spec that "stays on an enemy". It is an in and out spec. It goes in, DoTs up, gets a bit of burst and then gets out of the battle and lets the DoTs eat away at the enemy. It doesn't have the DCDs or DR to stay in dogpiles or to chase enemies (except once again madness sorcs, who once again will barely even notice this ability).

 

 

 

Are you seriously suggesting that a hatred assassin should take on a AP PT head on? The lightest armor class, with the lowest DR and an extremely long setup vs the burstiest class in a 1v1? You will be doing him a favor by teleporting next to him, why you would want to do this is just baffling.

 

 

 

Why is it so hard to accept that this is not a dogpile class? Out of the many, many, many battles I had the only memorable times that I got pulled were when I was offnode and the PT came over to help, almost every time was followed by a stun. Well, that and getting pulled into the fire, but that's another story.

 

 

 

Yeah, this never happened except in arenas where we were usually losing anyway.

 

 

 

What is it with the 3 seconds of speed being very very good? It's just 3 seconds and anyone who isn't a keyboard turner will barely notice it.

 

 

 

We don't have trouble sticking on an enemy, why is this so hard to understand? That was fixed with the 30m LS. And the new speed utility is a masterful utility that no one will take. The masterful utilities are already locked into either disjunction, fade or audacity (both of these should be default at this point, but w/e)+emersion, there is no room to take another utility.

 

 

 

Effective 7s CD vs 30s CD that will be used in the beginning of the fight for the extra burst ... yeah it's definitely going to help

 

 

 

Sorcs will have no trouble kiting us with PW.

 

 

 

chaffe flarre + KB + enet = GG, as for the the heals they currently aren't an issue staying on top of so this will make no difference, and I only know 1 person who plays IO in PvP and I never played against him so can't speculate there.

 

 

 

Very big if.

 

 

 

I'll give you this one, only because they removed the only 30m direct damage ability for hatred.

 

 

 

Overextend FTW, that's how you play the right way.

 

 

 

... ok this is just getting sad.

 

 

 

Other than dancing around keyboard turners, is there any real advantage to 3s of this? I rotate between taking the shiv speed and the extra DR on my operative and I promise, against good players it doesn't help at all.

 

ugh to many broken parts of the quotes and things, but yes you can take an AP tech head on with a hatred sin downside to AP's burst is its very predictable and sins as an advanced class have the perfect dcds to deal with them between just force shroud and deflection you can negate everything if timed properly. As for hatred sins not being a dogpile class this is untrue they can easily stay in they have multiple dcds to remain in a close up fight while at the same time moves to escape one, hatred has 30% DR on its threat drop and with consistent incoming healing from dots and leeching strike and they can spec for 30% DR while stunned which ironically no other melee has access to other than AP techs.

 

As for Mercs I dunno why an sin or shadow would lose to one and even in a group fight ur not going to be set as the e-net target.

 

Facing operatives as a dot spec is very hard I agree with that as they can purge everything, but im not comparing roll to the new move 1 for 1 I'm looking at it in a complete fight scenario where sticking on a operative is important as their the real spec that can't sustain being in a brawl for to long without tapping out

 

Sorcs I agree with as their most likely going to use Phase walk with the utility before even using Barrier as it has a shorter cd.

 

Snipers is a big if but it happens.

 

As for the 3 secs of speed yes it helps any speed boost on any class is always useful biggest thing is it's above 50%

 

And the example I gave are perfect I think people simply wanted stuff that would boost def and such.

[Lalainnia]

I'm still VERY excited to get this ability, don't get me wrong. All that I've personally said is that it will be less useful on a tank than on the dps specs. Also, if you recall my original thread, I had actually suggested that this teleport ability was locked into only the DECEPTION spec and suggested that Hatred instead get a survivability defensive CD or cooldown.

 

This is because the two specs suffer from different problems; Hatred is WAY too squishy for what it needs to accomplish and Deception is way more melee, thus adding a teleport to Deception would just make more sense than Hatred.

 

Instead of locking it into Deception and actually giving Hatred a DR or Defensive buff that it needs, they just gave all sin specs a teleport with the assumption that it's a one size fits all problem solver.

 

Once again, I DO LOVE THE ABILITY. I just wish that it was locked into Deception and that Hatred got some sort of Defensive buffs.

 

Now really think about how strong that would be as Hatred if it were to get a another defensive cool down specific to the spec ontop of it's healing and already baseline strong dcds and amazing utility. That's its downside is that it is squishy outside of its cds, but it has the means to actually escape when needed. Don't ask to be sadness sorcs where you can have everything.

[mmerry]

ugh to many broken parts of the quotes and things, but yes you can take an AP tech head on with a hatred sin downside to AP's burst is its very predictable and sins as an advanced class have the perfect dcds to deal with them between just force shroud and deflection you can negate everything if timed properly. As for hatred sins not being a dogpile class this is untrue they can easily stay in they have multiple dcds to remain in a close up fight while at the same time moves to escape one, hatred has 30% DR on its threat drop and with consistent incoming healing from dots and leeching strike and they can spec for 30% DR while stunned which ironically no other melee has access to other than AP techs.

 

As for Mercs I dunno why an sin or shadow would lose to one and even in a group fight ur not going to be set as the e-net target.

 

Facing operatives as a dot spec is very hard I agree with that as they can purge everything, but im not comparing roll to the new move 1 for 1 I'm looking at it in a complete fight scenario where sticking on a operative is important as their the real spec that can't sustain being in a brawl for to long without tapping out

 

Sorcs I agree with as their most likely going to use Phase walk with the utility before even using Barrier as it has a shorter cd.

 

Snipers is a big if but it happens.

 

As for the 3 secs of speed yes it helps any speed boost on any class is always useful biggest thing is it's above 50%

 

And the example I gave are perfect I think people simply wanted stuff that would boost def and such.

 

dont worry.. every fight in PVP is a duel with all defensive cooldowns available.. there aren't any other aspects of the game to consider so basically any argument you have is invalid

 

 

 

 

 

 

/sarcasm

Edited September 28, 2015 by mmerry

[Iona_Var]

Most of the opinions about this ability (esp. compared to the others) were about the same as they are now. In fact they were even more negative when we first found out about them. It's funny how people say it is "useful" but can't even give one example of a normal common use for it other than stopping a cap in hatred/darkness and using it right after recklessness to get another discharge-which I still have no idea why it has to be tied to this particular ability.

 

Styrak punts you across the map and into an exhaustion zone. Irregularities in TFB. Data cores on OP IX. Running back to dashroode in SnV. To a lesser extent, Gate Commander Draxus and the adds that spawn. If used carefully, leap back to Raptus after being teleported away. Teleport to the adds on Thrasher. And with practice and careful timing you can use it on Sparky, Bulo, Sword Squadron, Underlurker.

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Now really think about how strong that would be as Hatred if it were to get a another defensive cool down specific to the spec ontop of it's healing and already baseline strong dcds and amazing utility. That's its downside is that it is squishy outside of its cds, but it has the means to actually escape when needed. Don't ask to be sadness sorcs where you can have everything.

 

It actually wouldn't be anywhere near Sorc level, I'm on mobile atm I'll explain in greater detail when I'm home in 5-10 minutes.

[Aelanis]

It actually wouldn't be anywhere near Sorc level, I'm on mobile atm I'll explain in greater detail when I'm home in 5-10 minutes.

 

Trying to post here on a phone is AIDS.

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Trying to post here on a phone is AIDS.

 

Essentially

[Kazz_Devlin]

I like how a few weeks ago people were excited about the possibility of getting this move, and now that we have it they are doubting it's usefulness. It is a very useful ability. Yes deception will make better use of it than hatred and darkness will but it's still very useful. As for why you'd want want to use it in stealth, uh to cc someone? Or open up on them with spike? Stop a cap? There are plenty of reasons why you'd want to use this in stealth. It would be nice if they tied our extra burst(as pitiful as it'll still be) to another ability but over all this is a fairly nice ability for pve and pvp.

 

Its not that i don't think its not useful I agree it will have uses but, the more urgent need is like you said low DPS output should at very least be on par with a MARA or JUG in DPS or lower their DPS to be on PAR with us either way this is what MOST SINS WANT. Throwing us a new ability is just BW going ooooo look at the shiny its so pretty.

Edited September 29, 2015 by Kazz_Devlin

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Now really think about how strong that would be as Hatred if it were to get a another defensive cool down specific to the spec ontop of it's healing and already baseline strong dcds and amazing utility. That's its downside is that it is squishy outside of its cds, but it has the means to actually escape when needed. Don't ask to be sadness sorcs where you can have everything.

 

Ok, I'm ready for you

 

I want to start with this: http://i.imgur.com/bowUBux.jpg

 

186k Damage netted me 22k healing done. 186k Damage in 1 round as Hatred in it's current incarnation is not easy to do, especially consistently. Our self healing is directly tied to our damage. The more damage we do, the more we self heal. But here's the thing, our self heals only benefit from 10% of our dot's damage. This is terrible, especially when compared to the other dot specs that can self heal that are melee. Let's look at them, shall we?

 

Lethality can easily do 200k healing, the spec's healing isn't tied to it's damage, instead it's tied to it's roll and probes.

 

Annihilation can easily heal 2 to 3 times the amount of Hatred Assassins, I know this because I've done it on my Anni mara in ranked.

 

Veng jugg heals through DCDs, the healing of which is worth 2.5k per charge times 12 charges, so 30k HP + Fake health from Endure Pain which gives 30% of your regular health, so it's worth about 13k HP, giving them a total of 43k HP per round

 

So here you can already see, not only are Hatred sins healing for WELL below their melee dps counterparts that perform the same roll, but they also posses the lowest base DR in the game, even lower than sorcerers.

 

Speaking of sorcerers? Madness sorcs benefit from healing from 25% of the damage done off their dots, in conjunction with force leach and death field. There are plenty of games where a madness sorc will self heal for 100-150k Healing while also putting out 150-200k damage. This is just imbalanced.

 

So please, stop saying that

Hatred if it were to get a another defensive cool down specific to the spec ontop of it's healing and already baseline strong dcds and amazing utility.

because it's not true, the self heals are so pitiful, you see my image was an example of 186k damage. When you only do half that damage per arena, you only heal for roughly 10k HP. Of that 10k HP, Overcharge Saber self heal is included, so if you take that away, Hatred self heals account for 5k real hp in a normal 90k damage game, and only 10k normal HP in the example of my screenshot since I used overcharge saber twice that game. If you truly believe that 10k self heals is strong, especially compared to the other melee dps dot specs and even further so, compared to Madness sorc, then we will simply have to agree to disagree.

 

Next, in your quote, you say that Hatred sins have,

baseline strong dcds and amazing utility.

Ok, sure, let's look through the DCDs. Force Cloak, Force Shroud, Deflection and the immunity with the utility and Phase Walk. I don't include Overcharge Saber because I've included it in the self heals portion above. Now then, if an Assassin, specifically Hatred, is tunneled by 4 dps in an arena, if they cycle through all of their DCDs sans Phase Walk properly, they will have enough time to live through 17 seconds of direct face tanking damage. This assumes you save your Force Cloak for Phase Walk. AoE taunt Damage reduction is a terrible excuse, because it's fundamentally broken. It implies that you will not use the AoE taunt to mitigate damage for your team through protection. But even if you do use it on yourself, 30% DR on an already light armor class that has the LOWEST DR in the game is what compared to the same effect on a marauder through Cloak of Pain or the plain Defence chance against anything including stuns that a PT gets? And the fact that you have to choose nothing but defensive utilities for Hatred to perform well competitively anyway shows how terrible the class is defensively. You have no choice but to augment your weakness with specific utiltiies, which still only give you 17 seconds worth of life.

 

17 Seconds is NOT a long time, especially when you compare it to the other melee dps. Marauders have 50% uptime on an ability that is FLAT damage reduction by 20%, that lasts for 30-36 seconds at a time. In conjunction with Saber Ward, Deflections better half, which performs the same function as Deflection as well as providing flat % DR vs Force AND Tech abilities. On top of that, they have Force Cloak which gives CC immunity for the duration and reduces damage by a further 50%. And lastly, they have UR, which gives 99% DR.

 

Juggs have...come on, do I really need to list how juggs have 3 lives ?

 

Operative has 100% CC immunity for 4 seconds every 10 seconds, yes, 4 seconds, because roll gives 2 seconds of immunity, not just 1.5. In conjunction with an effective 30 second evasion + a shield (which also absorbs 1 tick of Arena Acid). And , do I even have to mention that they have passive self healing through probes which only has to be refreshed every 12 GCDs + Kolto infusion.

 

All of these classes have DCDs that last them WAYYY longer than 17 seconds of direct focus fire. What's worse, is that when a sin uses PW to Cloak and heal to full, you have NO cooldowns left and are literally an easy kill.

 

As far as utility goes, what utility is there in Hatred besides raw damage? What extra utility does Hatred sin bring that no other melee class does, and even better? All of the melee counterparts, hell, even Powertechs included, have AoE mez or stuns which are the best form of team peeling when it comes to total effective CC going out. Hatred sin has...2 second hardcast whirlwind and...?

 

The reason Hatred sins are even able to do the damage they do is because in order to survive with having the worst DCDs of all of your melee counter parts, and worst utility of all of our melee counterparts is by raw damage that can be applied in a fire and forget fashion that doesn't require you to be right up in someone's face. You actually DO have to avoid being in the middle of heavy concentrated fights, because we simply don't have the DCDs to mitigate enough of the damage intake. Because of the fact that it plays as a dodgy melee fighter that isn't always in your face, it can benefit from LoS and LoS is 100% Damage Reduction. This is the only advantage it has over the previous spec's that I've listed, the other specs require you to be in 4 meter range majority of the time, Hatred does as well but can get by if , and ONLY if you have already applied your dots to the entire enemy team.

 

So no, adding pure raw defensives to Hatred would do NOTHING to bring it anywhere close to where sorcs are, or anywhere close to where even marauders are defensively, and if you think it will, then explain to me how.

 

The only, and I say, ONLY reason that Hatred sin is as "scary" as it is is because it always seems like whenever you attack one, they always have a DCD up. And that's simply because, despite all of the negatives, we have the luxary of choice. We get to choose when to engage, and a smart sin will only engage after their tankier teammates engage so that all of the big heavy auto crits are out of the way. But what happens when no one else will engage and you have to? Well, I could highlight multiple clips from my stream showing this exact scenario. 100% of the time, I have to go in, waste all 17 seconds of my DCDs to live, and then PW and cloak to heal to full. And I can only pray that my team will take advantage of the damage sponge that I was and propel us to victory.

 

For science, try this. Tell your team to tunnel 1 specific Hatred sin on the enemy team until death. See how long he lasts under 4 dps focus fire, and how long it takes to kill him after he returns from his PW heal to full shenanigans.

 

I'll wait

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Also, as far as going face to face with a powertech, no lol, you will lose flat out. We simply do not have the raw dps output as hatred to kill a PT before he kills us. The only way to kill a PT as hatred is to LoS, period.

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

We don't have trouble sticking on an enemy, why is this so hard to understand? That was fixed with the 30m LS. And the new speed utility is a masterful utility that no one will take. The masterful utilities are already locked into either disjunction, fade or audacity (both of these should be default at this point, but w/e)+emersion, there is no room to take another utility.

 

What is it with the 3 seconds of speed being very very good? It's just 3 seconds and anyone who isn't a keyboard turner will barely notice it.

 

Gonna have to disagree with you here. 75% MS is really good, especially on a melee. It's on par with 80% MS predation from a mara. In fact, with the ability to slow an enemy by 30% rotationally as well as pick up a 50% MS buff rotationally with 50% uptime on different tiers, you can literally have a personal mara predation 30 seconds every minute. And that's with all 3 specs, tank included. That's huge.

 

It's viable on Deception and tank too, just not Hatred since we're pigeonholed into picking defensive utilities.

[sithBracer]

Gonna have to disagree with you here. 75% MS is really good, especially on a melee. It's on par with 80% MS predation from a mara. In fact, with the ability to slow an enemy by 30% rotationally as well as pick up a 50% MS buff rotationally with 50% uptime on different tiers, you can literally have a personal mara predation 30 seconds every minute. And that's with all 3 specs, tank included. That's huge.

 

I would like the 50% speed ability if it were a skillful, but unfortunately it is a masterful. For skillful we are already pigeon held into avoidance and obfuscation (this one should 100% be a deception default, no idea why it is a utility), so not sure if wasting our free space on a 30% slow on a 4m melee move is a good idea, esp. when you have something like a 5s AoE root available instead. For the masterful it is even worse, we are pigeon held to emersion and disjunction or fade (another utility that should be default for deception) or audacity for the extra charge. I don't think giving up any of these is possible. Also, compared to the PTs new speed utility (because we all know PTs need more speed), this utility is garbage.

 

It's viable on Deception and tank too, just not Hatred since we're pigeonholed into picking defensive utilities.

 

If this ability and these new utilities are so great, please give me a common everyday use case for it that will realistically happen (meaning that it won't be on CD in such a case, as in nothing like: we use up our burst, sorc PWs away and we teleport to him because it magically went off CD). Fact is, aside from using it right after we pop recklessness (and once again, I don't believe there is any point in tying the 3 charges to this ability), there is nothing that this ability can do that we can't already do and the extra 3 charges on it are as much a limitation on using it as they are a benefit of using it. For WOW factor this ability is a 10, as for usefulness, 3 or 4 at best.

[sithBracer]

Styrak punts you across the map and into an exhaustion zone. Irregularities in TFB. Data cores on OP IX. Running back to dashroode in SnV. To a lesser extent, Gate Commander Draxus and the adds that spawn. If used carefully, leap back to Raptus after being teleported away. Teleport to the adds on Thrasher. And with practice and careful timing you can use it on Sparky, Bulo, Sword Squadron, Underlurker.

 

Ah PvE ok. Well while all those are ... a bit more convenient, none of them are truly necessary nor do they make a huge difference overall (of course that could be said for all of the new abilities). I would rather have our dps and our burst higher so we could actually pull our weight as easily as other classes do though.

[Aelanis]

Ah PvE ok. Well while all those are ... a bit more convenient, none of them are truly necessary nor do they make a huge difference overall (of course that could be said for all of the new abilities). I would rather have our dps and our burst higher so we could actually pull our weight as easily as other classes do though.

 

It's a 25% increase in the amount we get to use Discharge. Sure, it's going to end up taking the place of Voltaic Slash right now, so it's not a truly massive boost in damage, but considering 2 of 3 of those extra Discharges are very likely to be crits, it's actually a sizable boost in DPS. By a % damage comparison, taking into account only the increase over Voltaic Slash, and the fact that we (currently) have about 70% Surge, with a bonus 30% on Discharge, it's about a 4.4% damage increase. That's HUGE. That also doesn't take into account the 5% boosted damage on all of that Discharge damage. The fact that you're going to delay Shadowstride for Recklessness 2 out of 3 times gives it a huge sustained increase.

 

It could be even bigger if we were to go ham and ignore the fact that we have a limited resource pool with only a 45 second CD ability to help recover. But hey, if something really needs to die...

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

I would like the 50% speed ability if it were a skillful, but unfortunately it is a masterful. For skillful we are already pigeon held into avoidance and obfuscation (this one should 100% be a deception default, no idea why it is a utility), so not sure if wasting our free space on a 30% slow on a 4m melee move is a good idea, esp. when you have something like a 5s AoE root available instead. For the masterful it is even worse, we are pigeon held to emersion and disjunction or fade (another utility that should be default for deception) or audacity for the extra charge. I don't think giving up any of these is possible. Also, compared to the PTs new speed utility (because we all know PTs need more speed), this utility is garbage.

 

You can't really say that in comparison to something else, it's garbage. It still retains the same value. A small example; If you found $100 on Monday coming home from work but then on Tuesday you found a case of $1 million, the $100 still retains its value of $100 and has the same buying power, regardless of your new found riches.

 

In swtor terms, yes, in comparison to Sonic the Powertech™, it's not as fast of a MS increase, but in comparison to every other class, it gives us an edge that we didn't previously have, which is a net gain, regardless of the size of the gain. As far as the utilities go, Avoidance is needed, that's a given, the last two points are optional. You don't "need" Obfuscation, considering the effective stealth level can be naturally circumvented in deception by simply using blackout and resetting it by leaving stealth and reentering. The 15% MS portion is good, but I would trade it for the team utility of slowing down a target to ALL my team mates by 30% instead. It's just sacrificing self sufficiency for team play. Electric bindings is also good, but is counterintuitive to the role of Deception, you're attempting to close a gap and stick to a target, not push them away. For this reason, I would be willing to give up Electric bindings for the rotational slow, ONLY because it will have more uptime than electric bindings will. To me, this matters.

 

Masterful tier is actually 1000x better for Deception players than Hatred. Hatred has no choice but to take Disjunction and Emersion. This is because they have TERRIBLE base DR and need to augment their already weak means of defense. Deception on the other hand, can choose to take a potential direct DPS boost and peeling tool with Audacity, or can opt for Fade. Considering Fade is 100% useless in Ranked Arenas, i'll count that out. That leaves Disjunction and Audacity. Deception, when fully buffed has pretty good DR and in my personal experience, doesn't really need the crutch of the extra duration on Force Shroud. I would normally take Audacity only if I took Electric Bindings because they compliment each other so well, since I won't be taking Electric bindings, I would instead take the new 50% MS utility.

 

 

 

If this ability and these new utilities are so great, please give me a common everyday use case for it that will realistically happen (meaning that it won't be on CD in such a case, as in nothing like: we use up our burst, sorc PWs away and we teleport to him because it magically went off CD). Fact is, aside from using it right after we pop recklessness (and once again, I don't believe there is any point in tying the 3 charges to this ability), there is nothing that this ability can do that we can't already do and the extra 3 charges on it are as much a limitation on using it as they are a benefit of using it. For WOW factor this ability is a 10, as for usefulness, 3 or 4 at best.

 

Thing is, you have to pair these utilities up together for the most bang for you buck because they directly compliment each other. It's just like Audacity and Electric bindings. Audacity directly buffs the inherent usefulness of Electric bindings by lowering the cool down on Overload.

 

When you combine the 30% rotational slow with the 50% Rotational MS buff, you gain a net MS of 80% over any opponent you are attacking, giving your team a net MS buff of 30% on the enemy you are attacking. This is only compounded even further by the fact that the 30% slow can also be applied with Lacerate, which gives you an AoE 30% slow and Lacerate is already buffed in the Deception tree and you should be Lacerating anyway if you're in a group of 2+ people to be putting out the most DPS, so it's usefulness is only compounded further.

 

As far as Phantom Strides goes, you are assuming that it will only be used to increase your dps Just because it does build 3 discharge stacks doesn't mean that it should be used to build 3 discharge stacks in a PvP scenario. I would be saving it for situations when Force Speed is down and I'm rooted (hint, they're increasing the CD of Force Speed to 30 seconds. This is a big nerf). In Heroic, I would give up Shroud of Madness for the root break. My 2nd utility would be Instalift.

 

This utility load out is simply a MUCH more aggressive version of Deception and would mainly be viable in a scenario where the queue is mainly comprised of Ranged dps, since a queue full of melee dps is naturally going to be better exploited by running Hatred.

Edited September 29, 2015 by Jinre_the_Jedi

[sithBracer]

You can't really say that in comparison to something else, it's garbage. It still retains the same value. A small example; If you found $100 on Monday coming home from work but then on Tuesday you found a case of $1 million, the $100 still retains its value of $100 and has the same buying power, regardless of your new found riches.

 

I'm not sure what this analogy is supposed to mean or how it compares to 2 classes in direct competition with each other getting different abilities. A better analogy would be I find $100 one day and am happy that now I can finally buy a product that I always wanted, but on the same day my friend sonic (who was always more wealthy than me) found $1 million and he can now easily outbid me for the same product.

 

In swtor terms, yes, in comparison to Sonic the Powertech™, it's not as fast of a MS increase, but in comparison to every other class, it gives us an edge that we didn't previously have, which is a net gain, regardless of the size of the gain.

 

I wasn't talking about the sonic the hedgehog speed, I was talking about the +50% speed boost he gives his entire team with stealth scan (which hurts us in 2 ways 1. it pretty much much makes our +30% slow even more worthless and 2. stealthing into a dogpile will be even harder, but w/e it is what it is). It also lasts longer (entire time they are in the middle of stealth scan and 6 seconds after they leave stealth scan or after it disappears).

 

As far as the utilities go, Avoidance is needed, that's a given, the last two points are optional. You don't "need" Obfuscation, considering the effective stealth level can be naturally circumvented in deception by simply using blackout and resetting it by leaving stealth and reentering. The 15% MS portion is good, but I would trade it for the team utility of slowing down a target to ALL my team mates by 30% instead. It's just sacrificing self sufficiency for team play. Electric bindings is also good, but is counterintuitive to the role of Deception, you're attempting to close a gap and stick to a target, not push them away. For this reason, I would be willing to give up Electric bindings for the rotational slow, ONLY because it will have more uptime than electric bindings will. To me, this matters.

 

Ok, a lot in this post, I will take it one at a time.

1. You might not need obfuscation in arenas I admit that, and I understand that arena's are much more important to some people than wzs (I myself am one of those crazy people who believes 4dps vs 4dps deathmatch is impossible to balance and just play w/e is FOTM and not complain about my favorite class being at the bottom). However, you definitely need it in wzs. I tried playing without it many times and every time I was bait to be opened on by other stealthers (who I usually easily defeat btw) and moving around from one node to another and LoSing out of focused ranged fire takes 5ever. Without this you will probably not be able to take nodes from even bad stealthers who have the ability on and you are a liability if you node guard. You can try joining to dogpile, but we know sins are not really a dogpile class. We need to get quick kills in order to reset our recklessness; jumping in a dogpile just makes us a marauder with no burst and less defense and less team utility. I could mention the less speed part as well, but I don't know how well the masterful speed boost would work in a dogpile (even though it has nothing to do with obfuscation at this point), so I will leave that out.

 

2. You are saying we should take the +30% slow because it helps the team (still not sure how it will help with stealth scan and predations but w/e), yet at the same time we shouldn't take an AoE KB root on a short CD because it is counter intuitive to deception ... just let that sink in. Done? ok. First off, running randomly into dogpiles and lacerating is counter intuitive to deception. By attacking too many enemies at once you are keeping yourself in battle, rather than just by focusing one enemy and finishing him off you could reset your recklessness and be of more use. As for team utility, you honestly think a +30% on maybe 1 or 2 enemies is better for your team than a peeling ability that roots the enemy for 5 seconds? With all the speed boosts and mobility boosts that 4.0 will receive I honestly don't understand how you can think that a +30% slow which can easily be countered with a predation or a stealth scan is better than a root which can only be countered on the person using a root breaker instead of someone who just happens to be in a location close to a stealth scan or a predation.

 

Now onto the "using AoE root is counter intuitive to deception" argument. I am assuming you are talking about 1v1s and I completely disagree. There are uses for the KB root, specifically to stall an attacker on a node, or to wait out one of the enemy's stronger CDs like UR, ED, saber ward, endure pain, stun proof deflection (if you got them to waste a force speed). Obviously you don't use it on a sorc or a PT/merc who is trying to run away from you (since he can just cleanse the root), but the +30% slow will not affect them in 4.0 either.

 

Masterful tier is actually 1000x better for Deception players than Hatred. Hatred has no choice but to take Disjunction and Emersion. This is because they have TERRIBLE base DR and need to augment their already weak means of defense. Deception on the other hand, can choose to take a potential direct DPS boost and peeling tool with Audacity, or can opt for Fade.

 

Considering Fade is 100% useless in Ranked Arenas, i'll count that out.

 

Are you talking about the real ranked, or the "oh no DS/ID is queueing, lets go to TEH where the scrubs are queueing and go to the other faction and get some easy kills" ranked? Ok that was a bit of a low blow, I admit, but you can't automatically discount a pvp mode that is played more than 95% of the time for a pvp mode that is completely broken and (imo at least) unfixable.

 

That leaves Disjunction and Audacity. Deception, when fully buffed has pretty good DR and in my personal experience, doesn't really need the crutch of the extra duration on Force Shroud. I would normally take Audacity only if I took Electric Bindings because they compliment each other so well, since I won't be taking Electric bindings, I would instead take the new 50% MS utility.

 

In 4.0 by not taking audacity you will actually be giving up a lot of initial burst. 2x discharge + 1 ball lightning, and force shroud is not only used defensively in PvP, it is also used offensively and the extra 2 seconds can mean the difference between finishing someone off or getting stunned/KB rooted and watching the enemy LoS and H2F.

 

Thing is, you have to pair these utilities up together for the most bang for you buck because they directly compliment each other. It's just like Audacity and Electric bindings. Audacity directly buffs the inherent usefulness of Electric bindings by lowering the cool down on Overload.

 

Thanks, such a combo is just so hard to figure out for oneself ... unless you graduated 3rd grade.

 

When you combine the 30% rotational slow with the 50% Rotational MS buff, you gain a net MS of 80% over any opponent you are attacking, giving your team a net MS buff of 30% on the enemy you are attacking. This is only compounded even further by the fact that the 30% slow can also be applied with Lacerate, which gives you an AoE 30% slow and Lacerate is already buffed in the Deception tree and you should be Lacerating anyway if you're in a group of 2+ people to be putting out the most DPS, so it's usefulness is only compounded further.

 

I think I already wrote a decent response to this above.

 

As far as Phantom Strides goes, you are assuming that it will only be used to increase your dps Just because it does build 3 discharge stacks doesn't mean that it should be used to build 3 discharge stacks in a PvP scenario. I would be saving it for situations when Force Speed is down and I'm rooted (hint, they're increasing the CD of Force Speed to 30 seconds. This is a big nerf). In Heroic, I would give up Shroud of Madness for the root break. My 2nd utility would be Instalift.

 

Well, the force speed nerf hasn't been confirmed yet, that was from datamined data on PTS. It is possible they thought it was too draconian for us and left it off ... who am I kidding, they did it for sorcs Anyway, until it is confirmed I won't be assuming that, but yeah I agree the situation and strategy will change based on the final changes. Currently I believe the scenario I described is probably the best choice esp. if the surge changes are as bad as they were on PTS.

 

This utility load out is simply a MUCH more aggressive version of Deception and would mainly be viable in a scenario where the queue is mainly comprised of Ranged dps, since a queue full of melee dps is naturally going to be better exploited by running Hatred.

 

It will be useless against snipers.

Nothing will change with mercs since we have no issues staying on target currently. The bigger problems are the chaffe flarre buff which is essentially 10s of force shroud on a 45s CD and the KB+enet combo. Our new ability should counteract theirs. INB4 mercs are bad, they are actually a very strong 1v1 class against assassins after the CF buff, their weakness only lies in arena's where they have no way to disengage focus fire. Everywhere else they are a very strong class.

And lastly, I agree this will probably help a bit against sorcs, but with PW on their side ... I don't think it will help as much as you think.

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Snip.

 

Gonna shorten that for the sake of simplicity. As far as the whether or not I see the intrinsic value of Knockback root in Deception, don't worry, I know all of it's uses, I even have a specific section in my guide for it I'm saying that to me, I will find a 30% rotational slow to be more useful since I play Arena format pvp more than regular format PvP, that's all, just a differing of opinions.

 

As far as not Lacerating, I should have prefaced, my post was only looking at the solo/team ranked aspect and not Regular warzones. Regular warzones can be won without ever going into stealth once sometimes and the "good" regs are a dime a dozen, at least on Harb when I'm streaming, so I never bother replying with usefulness in regs, that's a personal fault and I'll admit that. Fade being useless once again has to do with it's format in arenas.

 

What is DS/ID? And what does the Ebon Hawk server have to do with anything? If it was supposed to be a low blow for how pubs only Q on Ebon Hawk then what does that have to do with me? Going to assume you don't watch my stream because if that was a low blow directed towards me then you would know that for the last 6 weeks I've queued on nothing but impside Harbinger on my Assassin while attempting to place top 3 on the leaderboards, my shadow isn't even on EH and hasn't been for well over a month and a half. Perhaps there was some joke I was simply missing there?

 

Overall, it's a difference of opinion. And that's fine. Yes, you may miss out on burst by not using Phantom Strides for 3 stacks of Discharge, but you gain situational mobility, and that's all that PvP is, is responding to the ever changing stimuli in various different ways to achieve the same outcome: victory. I will be opting to play Deception more aggressively in 4.0, you don't have to do the same but that's the beauty of the utility system. Different people will have different success with different tactics is all.

 

Also, as far as "spelling out" the synergy between the utilities, that was not an insult to you so much as realizing that we aren't the only two reading this conversation and realizing that new players may also read these topics to gain insight on how they should play their Assassins. It was just for others who might not have already known or seen the synergy between the two abilities, nothing more.

[sithBracer]

Gonna shorten that for the sake of simplicity. As far as the whether or not I see the intrinsic value of Knockback root in Deception, don't worry, I know all of it's uses, I even have a specific section in my guide for it I'm saying that to me, I will find a 30% rotational slow to be more useful since I play Arena format pvp more than regular format PvP, that's all, just a differing of opinions.

 

As far as not Lacerating, I should have prefaced, my post was only looking at the solo/team ranked aspect and not Regular warzones. Regular warzones can be won without ever going into stealth once sometimes and the "good" regs are a dime a dozen, at least on Harb when I'm streaming, so I never bother replying with usefulness in regs, that's a personal fault and I'll admit that. Fade being useless once again has to do with it's format in arenas.

 

What is DS/ID? And what does the Ebon Hawk server have to do with anything? If it was supposed to be a low blow for how pubs only Q on Ebon Hawk then what does that have to do with me? Going to assume you don't watch my stream because if that was a low blow directed towards me then you would know that for the last 6 weeks I've queued on nothing but impside Harbinger on my Assassin while attempting to place top 3 on the leaderboards, my shadow isn't even on EH and hasn't been for well over a month and a half. Perhaps there was some joke I was simply missing there?

 

Overall, it's a difference of opinion. And that's fine. Yes, you may miss out on burst by not using Phantom Strides for 3 stacks of Discharge, but you gain situational mobility, and that's all that PvP is, is responding to the ever changing stimuli in various different ways to achieve the same outcome: victory. I will be opting to play Deception more aggressively in 4.0, you don't have to do the same but that's the beauty of the utility system. Different people will have different success with different tactics is all.

 

meh, everything we say is just speculation at this point. Wait and see, if it turns out good, then that's good, if not just play another class or another game. Not a big deal. Differences in opinion are good for discussion and I did gain a bit of insight as well.

 

And DS/ID is death smile and infinite darkness. It wasn't directed at you directly, but I heard how everyone ran away from shadowlands after those 2 guilds just rekt everyone who came over.

 

Also, as far as "spelling out" the synergy between the utilities, that was not an insult to you so much as realizing that we aren't the only two reading this conversation and realizing that new players may also read these topics to gain insight on how they should play their Assassins. It was just for others who might not have already known or seen the synergy between the two abilities, nothing more.

 

I was just trolling you, no offense taken at all.

[Aetideus]

Ok, I'm ready for you

 

I want to start with this:http://i.imgur http://i.imgur.com/bowUBux.jpg

 

186k Damage netted me 22k healing done. 186k Damage in 1 round as Hatred in it's current incarnation is not easy to do, especially consistently. Our self healing is directly tied to our damage. The more damage we do, the more we self heal. But here's the thing, our self heals only benefit from 10% of our dot's damage. This is terrible, especially when compared to the other dot specs that can self heal that are melee. Let's look at them, shall we?

 

Lethality can easily do 200k healing, the spec's healing isn't tied to it's damage, instead it's tied to it's roll and probes.

 

Annihilation can easily heal 2 to 3 times the amount of Hatred Assassins, I know this because I've done it on my Anni mara in ranked.

 

Veng jugg heals through DCDs, the healing of which is worth 2.5k per charge times 12 charges, so 30k HP + Fake health from Endure Pain which gives 30% of your regular health, so it's worth about 13k HP, giving them a total of 43k HP per round

 

So here you can already see, not only are Hatred sins healing for WELL below their melee dps counterparts that perform the same roll, but they also posses the lowest base DR in the game, even lower than sorcerers.

 

Speaking of sorcerers? Madness sorcs benefit from healing from 25% of the damage done off their dots, in conjunction with force leach and death field. There are plenty of games where a madness sorc will self heal for 100-150k Healing while also putting out 150-200k damage. This is just imbalanced.

 

So please, stop saying that because it's not true, the self heals are so pitiful, you see my image was an example of 186k damage. When you only do half that damage per arena, you only heal for roughly 10k HP. Of that 10k HP, Overcharge Saber self heal is included, so if you take that away, Hatred self heals account for 5k real hp in a normal 90k damage game, and only 10k normal HP in the example of my screenshot since I used overcharge saber twice that game. If you truly believe that 10k self heals is strong, especially compared to the other melee dps dot specs and even further so, compared to Madness sorc, then we will simply have to agree to disagree.

 

Starting with the image you mentioned.

Your heals imply that fight lasted 40s max.

Used 3 or 4 Leeching strikes. Leeching Strike on 430 Alacrity is on 11.3s cd and heals for 4-11k for Dark Reaver.

Taking in account that both juggs had far less dps than you, imply that their self heals were far less effective than yours.

The issue is that a bursty class like Hatred is allowed to have up to 25% max hp heals every 11.3s.

No other bursty spec in the game.

 

Sorc is a healing class - Madness is not bursty.

 

Annihilation Mara, how many have you seen in yolo/trwz apart from your own?

The same stands for Lethality Op.

 

The only self-healing bursty spec is Hatred. Concealment has only probe, not multiple 4-10k instant heals in a 40s fight.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Aetideus

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Starting with the image you mentioned.

Your heals imply that fight lasted 40s max.

Used 3 or 4 Leeching strikes. Leeching Strike on 430 Alacrity is on 11.3s cd and heals for 4-11k for Dark Reaver.

Taking in account that both juggs had far less dps than you, imply that their self heals were far less effective than yours.

The issue is that a bursty class like Hatred is allowed to have up to 25% max hp heals every 11.3s.

No other bursty spec in the game.

 

Sorc is a healing class - Madness is not bursty.

 

Annihilation Mara, how many have you seen in yolo/trwz apart from your own?

The same stands for Lethality Op.

 

The only self-healing bursty spec is Hatred. Concealment has only probe, not multiple 4-10k instant heals in a 40s fight.

 

1) Leeching strike can miss, and it does miss sometimes.

 

2) Have you seen a non-crit leeching strike hit? It's literally 2-3k damage, which correlates to a 2-3k damage heal after damage reduction and armor is calculated.

 

Edit: The viability of a class has nothing to do with the facts of effective healing possible.

 

Edit 2: What I mean by edit 1 is that Annihilation isn't seen as "Viable" in the public eye but doesn't change it's potential healing/damage. Who cares how many you see in the queue, it will perform the same function if there are 20 in the queue or if there are 0.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Jinre_the_Jedi

[nyrkverse]

Now that it's official (it was mentioned in last night's stream), how do you guys think the merging of surge into crit will affect Shadows/Sins?

 

I'm a bit worried that for Infiltration/Deception there won't be any choice but going for the high crit gearing path in both pvp and pve if we want to keep as much surge as we can have now.

[Iona_Var]

Now that it's official (it was mentioned in last night's stream), how do you guys think the merging of surge into crit will affect Shadows/Sins?

 

I'm a bit worried that for Infiltration/Deception there won't be any choice but going for the high crit gearing path in both pvp and pve if we want to keep as much surge as we can have now.

 

I'm wondering how they are going to handle crystals since we are getting to the point where +41 stat is practically nothing when compared to other mods. I can see alacrity and power mods also become more useful for dps(they already are to a point.)

[MusicRider]

If I understand well the argument is about hatred self-healing and whether it is adequate or not. Looking at it solely without taking any other factors into account the plain answer is no, it is not adequate by any means. Dot healing never saved anyone (this includes sorcs), and can get a breath with leeching strike, but unlike sorc madness which can benefit from potency for increased damage+healing, l-strike does not so it is up to the rng gods to be effective.

 

However, hatred survivability comes from using all the other dcds to get in/out without having someone preventing your out. A hatred sin without his dcds caught in fire range is probably the worst class/spec to survive. Even with them he would be in a disadvantage position and pretty bad play to facetank any other melee. This is not bad design but it is how the class and especially hatred is meant to be played. Facetanking is better achieved with both knight classes.

 

Bottom line although hatred self-heals might be inadequate the whole package is not bad at all. Increasing self-heals by a large amount would be mean nerfing other dcds and possibly will lead to changing the playstyle of the class, with the last bit definitely undesirable from my side. I like them how they are. A small increase in dot self-healing of the magnitude of 5% for start (and take it from there) might help and I don't think it would be game-breaking.

Edited October 1, 2015 by MusicRider