4.0 Assassin feedback

[allexj]

Gear - BiS Ranked gear with updated augments. Based on my testing, this is sadly going to be a one size fits all gear set. There's really no reason to gear for accuracy anymore in Deception because it got nerfed point for point at level 65. Alacrity could still be taken on Hatred but I honestly wouldn't take anymore than maybe 2%. Critical rating is just too attractive now and gives far too much compared to Accuracy or Alacrity. ESPECIALLY on classes that rely on rotational auto-crits. The biggest thing about this gear though is what it does to Hatred....I'll explain this soon.

 

Deception

While the gearing changes did in fact increase the sustained damage of this spec outside of burst windows, it's burst is so mediocre compared to the other burst classes that I honestly can see no reason to take this in Ranked anymore. It could be argued that it's superior control is still there, however with double the health pools, you're not going to be bursting anyone down in a 4 second Low Slash window anymore. Discharge and Maul damage went up only minimally but once again, compared to the larger health pools they don't even put a dent into the enemy. Once you compare this specs burst to any of the other burst specs, bar Lightning Sorc (which actually has nice AoE burst now), the damage is so pitiful. Running a full power/critical rating build with 11 mainstat augs and 3 crit augs as well as a critical relic (i'll explain shortly), the highest Maul I was able to hit in the double relic window was something along the lines of 16.4k, which is terrible when you factor in everything from health pools to increased healing on healing ACs etc.

 

You will be punished much more heavily for running this spec in Team Ranked now than ever before. It just lacks the utility to be viable in such a mode and it severely lacks the burst damage when you could instead bring a sniper who is doing 33k Ambushes on fully geared 2018 players....

 

Hatred

Jesus christ. If you guys thought 3.0 release Hatred was broken then you're in for a hell of a surprise. The changes to critical rating not only massively buffed the survivability of this class, but it also buffed its burst. It's pathetic, my highest Assassinate with a double relic proc and under the auto-crit set bonus was 17.9k on a light armored target with an armor debuff on them. Combine this with the fact that you now have over 2x the crit rating of pre 4.0 and you start to see the issue. This is exacerbated by the trees passives. You can have 46% Melee crit with 100% uptime and 51% Critical chance on all of your DoTs with 100% uptime. Leeching Strike self heal is literally twice as reliable as before, I think the highest Leeching Strike I hit was 12k, which directly translated to a 12k self heal.

 

Speaking of Self healing, I've literally seen at least a 150% increase in self healing done on this class now. Now that almost every other DoT crits and almost every Leeching Strike crits, my self healing went through the roof, even after it was nerfed in patch 3.3. You put out so much damage with dots critting all the time on multiple players that you can afford to be in the middle of a fight for longer durations than pre 4.0 because your self heals are actually reliable now.

 

We've spoken about burst and survivability, let's speak about sustain. The sustained damage of this spec is simply monstrous. I did an arena yesterday against an op healer and 3 melee dps and pulled 4.2k DPS. It felt like every dot I had out was critting and Death Field is stupid easy to use now. The radius of it was actually INCREASED.

 

Here is a picture of a regular ground based AoE radius: http://i.imgur.com/ITZBVlW.jpg

 

Now here is the new death field radius: http://i.imgur.com/wCiSkD8.jpg

 

It's *********** massive and impossible to miss a single deathfield. The sustained damage of this spec with a full power/critical rating build is currently so high that you are able to effectively solo a healer of any kind and kill them with well placed cc and interrupts. This should not be. No single dps should ever be able to solo a healer, ever.

 

 

Darkness

Pushing somewhere in the 90k HP range in full min/maxed high endurance dps gear, as well as sub 40% crit chance and 68%ish surge. Single target dps is insane, autocrit shock is hitting like a truck, depredating volts does slightly more damage than before. The real boon to this spec now is the AoE, since we can now have crit chance to a reasonable level, the amount of AoE pressure we are able to put out has doubled. Sin tank will hands down be extremely competitive this season and I'm of the assumption that we may even surpass PT tanks in viability because of the combination of damage and utility sin tank now has access to. It has levels of single target burst to match Deception (which is sad), and sustained AoE pressure, on top of the ever amazing utility that the spec has always had. Highly recommend that those of you who haven't tanked in Ranked before, do it now.

 

In summary, Deception is more lackluster than ever, Hatred is hands down over the top, more so than any previous iteration of the spec from a raw damage perspective, and Darkness is beyond viable this season.

 

I would personally recommend Hatred over Deception for single target damage, AoE pressure, and even burst. The only thing Deception has over Hatred at this point is raw survivability in terms of stats (Damage Redux) and control.

 

Last thing, gearing. Crit Relic and Mainstat Relic seem to be BiS now. I've tested Crit Relic vs Power Relic and Crit Relic simply gives more burst. If you're smart and line up your opener auto crit window with a double relic proc (not hard to do at all in practice btw), your opener will benefit from 9.8% extra surge from your crit relic, as opposed to the flat 882 power which only gives a marginal bonus damage increase which would be worth less actual damage on an enemy than 9.8% surge is on an auto crit opener. Not to mention that even with stacking high amounts of crit rating, the crit relic still gives you 4.9% extra crit chance as well as surge when it procs pushing its usefulness even further since it gives two stats now instead of just one.

Tl;Dr - Nerf Hatred, buff Deception, watch out for Darkness this season.

 

90k Health? how? i am only missing a few mods and i just hit 70k without a health stim. il have to look into this more apprelty what mods and such where you useing?

[RankorSSGS]

It's not that the burst is bad, it's that it's STILL mediocre and underwhelming compared to every other burst spec, for yet another expansion.

 

I get you. I was mostly just commenting on the extreme irony of the spec's situation, since it always had the opposite problem all the way back to launch.

[Mumbai_]

Hatred is definitely strong af right now, I'm not even in full BiS gear and I've put up some crazy numbers. I really liked Deception's play style but I guess los'ing people is cool too. My only concern really is Operatives. I don't see how this spec can get the best of them. Deceps burst was lower than Ops, but with Hatred they can just cleanse right through.

[truevalon]

Hatred is definitely strong af right now, I'm not even in full BiS gear and I've put up some crazy numbers. I really liked Deception's play style but I guess los'ing people is cool too. My only concern really is Operatives. I don't see how this spec can get the best of them. Deceps burst was lower than Ops, but with Hatred they can just cleanse right through.

 

Operatives have been the counter to Hatred all of 3.0. This has not changed in 4.0. Best advice as a Hatred sin is to avoid Operatives whenever possible.

 

Also I ran Hatred through EV and SnV. To say that our dps has improved is a understatement. Even died a few times due to pulling aggro early on in the fights. Time for tanks to start guarding the sins instead of the PTs

Edited October 22, 2015 by truevalon

[RodneyMcNeely]

Operatives have been the counter to Hatred all of 3.0. This has not changed in 4.0. Best advice as a Hatred sin is to avoid Operatives whenever possible.

Okay, there is NOTHING more galling to me than losing to an operative. I think it stems from that HORRIBLE giggle noise they made OVER and OVER back in the day.

 

Not even sure how it'll work, but for this very reason I'm actually thinking of running Kinetic Combat in DPS gear JUST for the purpose of smacking those guys around.

 

[djcetra]

Gear - BiS Ranked gear with updated augments. Based on my testing, this is sadly going to be a one size fits all gear set. There's really no reason to gear for accuracy anymore in Deception because it got nerfed point for point at level 65. Alacrity could still be taken on Hatred but I honestly wouldn't take anymore than maybe 2%. Critical rating is just too attractive now and gives far too much compared to Accuracy or Alacrity. ESPECIALLY on classes that rely on rotational auto-crits. The biggest thing about this gear though is what it does to Hatred....I'll explain this soon.

 

Deception

While the gearing changes did in fact increase the sustained damage of this spec outside of burst windows, it's burst is so mediocre compared to the other burst classes that I honestly can see no reason to take this in Ranked anymore. It could be argued that it's superior control is still there, however with double the health pools, you're not going to be bursting anyone down in a 4 second Low Slash window anymore. Discharge and Maul damage went up only minimally but once again, compared to the larger health pools they don't even put a dent into the enemy. Once you compare this specs burst to any of the other burst specs, bar Lightning Sorc (which actually has nice AoE burst now), the damage is so pitiful. Running a full power/critical rating build with 11 mainstat augs and 3 crit augs as well as a critical relic (i'll explain shortly), the highest Maul I was able to hit in the double relic window was something along the lines of 16.4k, which is terrible when you factor in everything from health pools to increased healing on healing ACs etc.

 

You will be punished much more heavily for running this spec in Team Ranked now than ever before. It just lacks the utility to be viable in such a mode and it severely lacks the burst damage when you could instead bring a sniper who is doing 33k Ambushes on fully geared 2018 players....

 

Hatred

Jesus christ. If you guys thought 3.0 release Hatred was broken then you're in for a hell of a surprise. The changes to critical rating not only massively buffed the survivability of this class, but it also buffed its burst. It's pathetic, my highest Assassinate with a double relic proc and under the auto-crit set bonus was 17.9k on a light armored target with an armor debuff on them. Combine this with the fact that you now have over 2x the crit rating of pre 4.0 and you start to see the issue. This is exacerbated by the trees passives. You can have 46% Melee crit with 100% uptime and 51% Critical chance on all of your DoTs with 100% uptime. Leeching Strike self heal is literally twice as reliable as before, I think the highest Leeching Strike I hit was 12k, which directly translated to a 12k self heal.

 

Speaking of Self healing, I've literally seen at least a 150% increase in self healing done on this class now. Now that almost every other DoT crits and almost every Leeching Strike crits, my self healing went through the roof, even after it was nerfed in patch 3.3. You put out so much damage with dots critting all the time on multiple players that you can afford to be in the middle of a fight for longer durations than pre 4.0 because your self heals are actually reliable now.

 

We've spoken about burst and survivability, let's speak about sustain. The sustained damage of this spec is simply monstrous. I did an arena yesterday against an op healer and 3 melee dps and pulled 4.2k DPS. It felt like every dot I had out was critting and Death Field is stupid easy to use now. The radius of it was actually INCREASED.

 

Here is a picture of a regular ground based AoE radius: http://i.imgur.com/ITZBVlW.jpg

 

Now here is the new death field radius: http://i.imgur.com/wCiSkD8.jpg

 

It's *********** massive and impossible to miss a single deathfield. The sustained damage of this spec with a full power/critical rating build is currently so high that you are able to effectively solo a healer of any kind and kill them with well placed cc and interrupts. This should not be. No single dps should ever be able to solo a healer, ever.

 

 

Darkness

Pushing somewhere in the 90k HP range in full min/maxed high endurance dps gear, as well as sub 40% crit chance and 68%ish surge. Single target dps is insane, autocrit shock is hitting like a truck, depredating volts does slightly more damage than before. The real boon to this spec now is the AoE, since we can now have crit chance to a reasonable level, the amount of AoE pressure we are able to put out has doubled. Sin tank will hands down be extremely competitive this season and I'm of the assumption that we may even surpass PT tanks in viability because of the combination of damage and utility sin tank now has access to. It has levels of single target burst to match Deception (which is sad), and sustained AoE pressure, on top of the ever amazing utility that the spec has always had. Highly recommend that those of you who haven't tanked in Ranked before, do it now.

 

In summary, Deception is more lackluster than ever, Hatred is hands down over the top, more so than any previous iteration of the spec from a raw damage perspective, and Darkness is beyond viable this season.

 

I would personally recommend Hatred over Deception for single target damage, AoE pressure, and even burst. The only thing Deception has over Hatred at this point is raw survivability in terms of stats (Damage Redux) and control.

 

Last thing, gearing. Crit Relic and Mainstat Relic seem to be BiS now. I've tested Crit Relic vs Power Relic and Crit Relic simply gives more burst. If you're smart and line up your opener auto crit window with a double relic proc (not hard to do at all in practice btw), your opener will benefit from 9.8% extra surge from your crit relic, as opposed to the flat 882 power which only gives a marginal bonus damage increase which would be worth less actual damage on an enemy than 9.8% surge is on an auto crit opener. Not to mention that even with stacking high amounts of crit rating, the crit relic still gives you 4.9% extra crit chance as well as surge when it procs pushing its usefulness even further since it gives two stats now instead of just one.

Tl;Dr - Nerf Hatred, buff Deception, watch out for Darkness this season.

 

I think Hatred is pretty legit, I don't know about nerfing it considering what some other classes are putting out. Darkness sounds appealing, I may give it a run this time around. However, I think you really missed the mark and are underestimating Deception by a lot. I'm getting 17-20k Mauls, 14-17k Discharges back to back with some nasty Ball Lightnings. Taking down a healer is a joke in Deception, it's nearly impossible for them to survive when I jump on them with how often Duplicity etc. is proccing now. At times Maul becomes spammable with this spec. Maybe it could still use some buffs, the one thing I like about Hatred more is the self healing, I wish Deception had something similar. It seems though 1v1 Hatred doesn't do as well, Operatives will beat you down while Deception can go heads up with an OP. Using Shadowstep on Deception is also quite comical when sorcs try to run away.

 

The really STUPID change here especially for Deception is the nerf to Force Speed CD, it needs to be reverted immediately.

 

BTW, since Sorc's adopted PhaseWalk for whatever (Personally still don't agree with it but I run a Sorc a lot so whatever), where's the Assassin's Force Bubble? Remember the whole mobile sorc bubble idea? Give it to deception, only you're able to use it in stealth as well but if you start doing dmg again it cancels the bubble.

Edited October 22, 2015 by djcetra

[Mumbai_]

Operatives have been the counter to Hatred all of 3.0. This has not changed in 4.0. Best advice as a Hatred sin is to avoid Operatives whenever possible.

 

Also I ran Hatred through EV and SnV. To say that our dps has improved is a understatement. Even died a few times due to pulling aggro early on in the fights. Time for tanks to start guarding the sins instead of the PTs

 

Lol I haven't been doing much PvE since 4.0, but I don't doubt that at all. It's pretty ridiculous how much those dots crit. I saw a video of a guy doing 5-6k dps in the new basic gear. So God knows what you can do in the highest tier PvE gear.

 

But yeah I'm mostly worried about going Hatred over Decep for Ranked, just because a class is basically immune to me as Hatred spec. I've been seeing a lot more Ops since 4.0 too. At least as Decep I can stand a chance with them.

[djcetra]

Lol I haven't been doing much PvE since 4.0, but I don't doubt that at all. It's pretty ridiculous how much those dots crit. I saw a video of a guy doing 5-6k dps in the new basic gear. So God knows what you can do in the highest tier PvE gear.

 

But yeah I'm mostly worried about going Hatred over Decep for Ranked, just because a class is basically immune to me as Hatred spec. I've been seeing a lot more Ops since 4.0 too. At least as Decep I can stand a chance with them.

 

I've always preferred Decep over an Op but never take them lightly they're deadly. In my experience a good Decep sin can def take down an OP more often then not as long as you don't let them los and heal, pretty much same heads up match as pre 4.0.

[truevalon]

I've always preferred Decep over an Op but never take them lightly they're deadly. In my experience a good Decep sin can def take down an OP more often then not as long as you don't let them los and heal, pretty much same heads up match as pre 4.0.

 

Agreed. Deception are far better at fighting Operatives. The difference there really is night and day.

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

17k Discharges? Gonna need to see this, the highest I ever got was 13-14k rarely. Most were only 12k.

[Magira]

17k Discharges? Gonna need to see this, the highest I ever got was 13-14k rarely. Most were only 12k.

 

Yes, also only 13-14k by me. But 3 times consecutively and Shock and Maul afterward. And then after 15 seconds it all over again. I for one am very happy with Deception. For Reg Heros Hatred is no alternative, DPS is not interested, it counts only burst.

Edited October 22, 2015 by Magira

[Aetideus]

17k Discharges? Gonna need to see this, the highest I ever got was 13-14k rarely. Most were only 12k.

 

I have seen 16k discharges. It looked good until I noticed 25k PT energy burst.

Using the same gear as the OP. The chain of mid to large instant hits + speed with the new abilities looks good.

Not good enough for TRnk I guess.

Sad news for Hatred. Adding crazy dots again and 10k guarantied instant heal every 11.5s is far from balanced.

Edited October 22, 2015 by Aetideus

[helpmewin]

Deception is not so bad IMO. Only have 2 issues - lack of mobility with FS nerf, and not enough maul DMG crit.

P.S. Darkness shock DMG with reck is lol.

[xX-Archangel-Xx]

Deception is not so bad IMO. Only have 2 issues - lack of mobility with FS nerf, and not enough maul DMG crit.

P.S. Darkness shock DMG with reck is lol.

 

this patch 10/10 ign

[helpmewin]

If srsly maul DMG is just meh, even my railshot on AP PT can do more dmg. Thats is laughable.

[djcetra]

17k Discharges? Gonna need to see this, the highest I ever got was 13-14k rarely. Most were only 12k.

 

Will SS a 16+ for you when I play next, they're definitely happening. 17 not so common but definitely hit a few.

[Evolixe]

Will SS a 16+ for you when I play next, they're definitely happening. 17 not so common but definitely hit a few.

 

Low expertise targets don't count

 

But to be honest, proportionally to RoTHC and before those abilities should all be hitting between 20 and 25k on a good crit. The fact that 17k is a feat is just sad.

Edited October 22, 2015 by Evolixe

[Jinre_the_Jedi]

Either way, tank spec shouldn't have competing burst with a DPS spec.

 

Buff Deception pls bioware.

Edited October 22, 2015 by Jinre_the_Jedi

[sithBracer]

Either way, tank spec shouldn't have competing burst with a DPS spec.

 

Buff Deception pls bioware.

 

rofl, that is too funny. Definitely going to try out tank spec after finishing my sorc.

[JasonNH]

Looks like we're being set up to be nerfed into the bottom of PvE again.

[IInox]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=844210

 

here the first comments about augments for PvE side if someone didin't see it!

[Iona_Var]

rofl, that is too funny. Definitely going to try out tank spec after finishing my sorc.

 

I went tank spec on a whim for 4.0 and I love it. I don't have full exemplar gear yet(because I'm a casual pvp'er) but even then it's really fun and it hit's like a truck.

[Mumbai_]

Tried Decep last night and it was a *********** joke. Won't go back until it gets buffed, but I might try Darkness out it's been a while.

[allexj]

Will SS a 16+ for you when I play next, they're definitely happening. 17 not so common but definitely hit a few.

 

Discharge is what? Project for shadows

[Evolixe]

Discharge is what? Project for shadows

 

Force Breach.