4.0 Assassin

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

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.

 

Bottom line, hatred needs a defensive buff, period. It doesn't even have to be large, anything would be welcomed. Not only are the among the lowest parsing spec's in PvE, it's also the squishiest spec in PvE. It needs something.

[Aelanis]

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.

 

Except no, no it's not.

 

Let's look at the whole defensive package for Hatred. We have 5 defensive abilities: Mass Mind Control, Deflection, Shroud, Overcharge Saber, and Force Cloak. In order, they have 45, 120, 60, 120, and 120 second cooldowns. This makes no real difference in an arena because the outcome is rarely uncertain after 30 seconds, but in regs and in this rare, elusive game type called "PvE," it actually does make a difference. We have 2 cooldowns that work against all damage (MMC + OS), one of which is worth healing less than what Sorcs, who have more passive DR, get every 30 seconds. We have 1 cooldown each against M/R and F/T damage, of which the M/R one is Russian Roulette if you filled half the chambers with bullets instead of only one, though the other one is fantastic for all of the 5 seconds it lasts. The last cooldown we have is actually really good, as it forces people to stop targeting you by literally removing you from the fight, leaving your teammates to take the brunt of what was just headed your way, while cleansing yourself at the same time (probably).

 

Now, we have it come down to: we have a less-than-useful heal, 6 seconds of moderately reduced damage taken, a total crapshoot M/R defense for 12 seconds, a purge + 5 second duration immunity to a significant portion of the PvP meta, and a "hey, you can't even target me any more!" button. That's 2 solid abilities, a decent ability, and two almost useless abilities. For a melee class with the lowest DR in the game that's not a lot of reassurance, and so you'd need decent self heals, which we don't have, to balance it out.

 

And don't even get me started about its performance in PvE.

[MusicRider]

Except no, no it's not.

 

Let's look at the whole defensive package for Hatred. We have 5 defensive abilities: Mass Mind Control, Deflection, Shroud, Overcharge Saber, and Force Cloak. In order, they have 45, 120, 60, 120, and 120 second cooldowns. This makes no real difference in an arena because the outcome is rarely uncertain after 30 seconds, but in regs and in this rare, elusive game type called "PvE," it actually does make a difference. We have 2 cooldowns that work against all damage (MMC + OS), one of which is worth healing less than what Sorcs, who have more passive DR, get every 30 seconds. We have 1 cooldown each against M/R and F/T damage, of which the M/R one is Russian Roulette if you filled half the chambers with bullets instead of only one, though the other one is fantastic for all of the 5 seconds it lasts. The last cooldown we have is actually really good, as it forces people to stop targeting you by literally removing you from the fight, leaving your teammates to take the brunt of what was just headed your way, while cleansing yourself at the same time (probably).

 

Now, we have it come down to: we have a less-than-useful heal, 6 seconds of moderately reduced damage taken, a total crapshoot M/R defense for 12 seconds, a purge + 5 second duration immunity to a significant portion of the PvP meta, and a "hey, you can't even target me any more!" button. That's 2 solid abilities, a decent ability, and two almost useless abilities. For a melee class with the lowest DR in the game that's not a lot of reassurance, and so you'd need decent self heals, which we don't have, to balance it out.

 

And don't even get me started about its performance in PvE.

 

From a pvp point of view it really is not too bad as there are more that contribute like PW and overload, but anyway.

 

For pve, I agree with you. Things IMO are strange, from one side sins have one of the best dcds in the game common across all disciplines, but then what? The rest fall short in dealing with a lot of situations. I agree with what was said above, some form of dcd would be needed even if it means compromising somewhere else, e.g. reduce deflections duration of cc immunity, it is already more than enough in pvp and rarely useful in pve.

Edited October 1, 2015 by MusicRider

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

From a pvp point of view it really is not too bad as there are more that contribute like PW and overload, but anyway.

 

For pve, I agree with you. Things IMO are strange, from one side sins have one of the best dcds in the game common across all disciplines, but then what? The rest fall short in dealing with a lot of situations. I agree with what was said above, some form of dcd would be needed even if it means compromising somewhere else, e.g. reduce deflections duration of cc immunity, it is already more than enough in pvp and rarely useful in pve.

 

It already is being reduced, to 6 seconds in 4.0. And mara's are also gaining the same 6 seconds of CC immunity on Saber Ward, an ability that does EXACTLY what Deflection does, AND reduces Force/Tech damage by 25%. So...

[sithBracer]

It already is being reduced, to 6 seconds in 4.0. And mara's are also gaining the same 6 seconds of CC immunity on Saber Ward, an ability that does EXACTLY what Deflection does, AND reduces Force/Tech damage by 25%. So...

 

Was this confirmed yet? Just to add Marauders are gaining it on a skillful utility, not heroic.

Edited October 1, 2015 by sithBracer

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Was this confirmed yet? Just to add Marauders are gaining it on a skillful utility, not heroic.

 

Confirmed that mara's are getting it, yes. Officially confirmed that sins are getting reduced by 6 seconds? We'll say that it's just "speculation" for now, but you know where to find it.

[Iona_Var]

I would rather us get away from self heals from dots all together and either give hatred the same DR deception has or grant a specific healing ability(never going to happen I know but it's a suggestion). Even pre-nerf our self heals from our dots didn't do a whole lot in pve though they were over tuned in pvp. Which is why they should just scrap it all together. Unless they actually commit to making abilities have different effects in pve and pvp, they'll never be able to properly balance self heals from dots.

[AchillesStark]

Get 3 charges of force breach on the new teleport is good but force Breach/discharge is a pretty average ability when it doesnt crit. Even in a recklessness window, I have times where I used my 5 force attacks and none of them critted in the 20 seconds of recklessness.

With 4.0 crit rating changes, we'll see what that means but deception's burst is so random its doesnt even feel like a burst spec. Its a burst class with only one auto crit that does less damage than vengeance jugg auto crit.

I welcome the increase in damage from the teleport but its not like we are getting some crazy burst out of it.

[Lalainnia]

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 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, 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

 

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://m.memegen.com/0x1x3r.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.memegen.com/meme/0x1x3r&h=288&w=512&tbnid=CNWbeMC2woOQmM:&docid=7sH6y-thhE16JM&ei=CbEOVr2SH8Tk-QG166foAw&tbm=isch&ved=0CBwQMygAMABqFQoTCP26_eaapMgCFURyPgodtfUJPQ

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://m.memegen.com/0x1x3r.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.memegen.com/meme/0x1x3r&h=288&w=512&tbnid=CNWbeMC2woOQmM:&docid=7sH6y-thhE16JM&ei=CbEOVr2SH8Tk-QG166foAw&tbm=isch&ved=0CBwQMygAMABqFQoTCP26_eaapMgCFURyPgodtfUJPQ

 

I still love you

[Rilok_Singz]

It's getting to the point of why play shadow/assassin ? anything the class can do, another class can do better

[Aetideus]

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.

 

Coming back on that because I would prefer the spec as it was in 2.8. Would be good for meta too.

 

Missed 1 out of 10 max. In 1 m fight, max 5 LS can be used.

 

With +9% crit for melee baseline 3 out of 4 are crits, out of my experience.

 

The argument about effectiveness is exactly the opposite. Who cares if annihilation can have extra heals if is not bursty enough to use it? Or Juggs. They 'ld be shut down sooner in yolo and challenging regs.

 

There is a reason Hatred is so successful and taking in account that the most frequently used 3.0 change (11.2s cd) is LS, might place a question by deduction.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Aetideus

[Aetideus]

Get 3 charges of force breach on the new teleport is good but force Breach/discharge is a pretty average ability when it doesnt crit. Even in a recklessness window, I have times where I used my 5 force attacks and none of them critted in the 20 seconds of recklessness.

With 4.0 crit rating changes, we'll see what that means but deception's burst is so random its doesnt even feel like a burst spec. Its a burst class with only one auto crit that does less damage than vengeance jugg auto crit.

I welcome the increase in damage from the teleport but its not like we are getting some crazy burst out of it.

 

Teleport (no gcd) + dis + reck + dis (+ maul) does not seem weak.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Aetideus

[Iona_Var]

Teleport (no gcd) + dis + reck + dis (+ maul) does not seem weak.

 

It's still not a 100% crit chance though. Yes if the stars align, that's a good amount of burst. But if they don't it's pretty meh. We still don't really know what other changes they are doing to abilities, ie: how hard a certain ability will hit for, plus with them changing the stats around, that's another unknown.

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Teleport (no gcd) + dis + reck + dis (+ maul) does not seem weak.

 

To be fair, you would actually want to do VS > Maul > Reck + Discharge > Phantom Stride > Discharge > Ball lightning.

 

Either way, the latter would be to use another Voltiac slash which would do about 3-4k damage. A non crit Discharge is 4-5k damage so it's not that much of a dps gain.

[Aetideus]

To be fair, you would actually want to do VS > Maul > Reck + Discharge > Phantom Stride > Discharge > Ball lightning.

 

Either way, the latter would be to use another Voltiac slash which would do about 3-4k damage. A non crit Discharge is 4-5k damage so it's not that much of a dps gain.

 

Nice.

[JediAdvent]

So does this mean that Assassins/Shadows will be viable in PvE with the 4.0 changes or no?

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

So does this mean that Assassins/Shadows will be viable in PvE with the 4.0 changes or no?

 

Deception, ofcourse. Hatred, same spot as currently.

[Iona_Var]

Deception, ofcourse. Hatred, same spot as currently.

 

Depends on how stats end up working and how they tweak the damage from the abilities. With crit=surge in 4.0, I think power and alacrity are going to come into play more. It's going to be a rough first week while we figure out how to best balance our stats.

[Evolixe]

THIS IS JUST SPECULATION.

 

If sins get a similar functioning ability to Operatives in the Dev blog, a 30m teleport OFF the GCD, that would mean with proper Phase Walk placement, we could move 90m in one GCD.

 

Also, if said ability is off the GCD, it's going to be a DPS gain.

 

Again, this is SPECULATION.

 

Discuss.

 

Meep Meep.

 

Sounds like good fun to me

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Depends on how stats end up working and how they tweak the damage from the abilities. With crit=surge in 4.0, I think power and alacrity are going to come into play more. It's going to be a rough first week while we figure out how to best balance our stats.

 

Thing is, the issue with Hatred in PvE was never with how they geared. So the crit/surge or stacking power thing is irrelevant, it was their Defensive capabilities as well as their poor single target damage. In conjunction with now, their range or lack their of and subpar dot spread, which is fine.

 

They needed a single target dps buff, not better gearing choices.

[Aelanis]

I should stop disappearing for weekends.

 

3 stacks of Static Charge on Phantom Stride will be incredible for DPS. Optimal usage will be to delay until Recklessness comes up, and it's looking like a 5%+ DPS boost. Before the extra 5% damage.

 

Hatred will be in a slightly better place due to the relatively low amount of spike damage in older ops, but I haven't looked at the damage boost to analyze. I wouldn't rule it out just yet.

 

I wish things were different with gearing, but that's how it's going to be. There's more reason now than ever to push for Recklessness to be +100% chance, due to the new critical functionality. I have a lot more to say, but posting on a phone is aids. Also, welcome back, I didn't think you'd be gone for good.

[Evolixe]

Also, welcome back, I didn't think you'd be gone for good.

 

I wanted to be, but you can't always get what you want

 

And static charges on a sstep? Well damn. And I kinda like what the new stat thing is looking like

 

I'd love to jump on the pts and add some last minute value though

(just assuming there is one.. but i think we all know there is ), but chances are that wont happen.

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

I wanted to be, but you can't always get what you want

 

And static charges on a sstep? Well damn. And I kinda like what the new stat thing is looking like

 

I'd love to jump on the pts and add some last minute value though

(just assuming there is one.. but i think we all know there is ), but chances are that wont happen.

 

PTS is closed now

[Evolixe]

PTS is closed now

 

Maybe so, at the same time you're probably under NDA given you had an invite at all and can't say anything.

 

Been there, done that