Assassin Feedback

[Jeyyboi]

Considering now that 7.0 is being delayed. I hope you devs (please Jackie reply or Eric Musco) will consider giving us Spike back if you're gonna make us choose between Force Shroud and Whirlwind. Or I dont know, give us both Whirlwind and Force Shroud if you're taking away Spike forever.

 

(Maybe I should do a daily reminder on this thread for these changes that I personally want to see haha. Could be considered spam I know...)

 

Anyways just my 2 cents.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Jeyyboi

[arunav]

I'd like to comment that is seems Concealment Operatives still have all their stun-locking abilities, if they pick them.

 

The removal of Spike/Spinning Kick and adding the stun to Maul/Shadow Strike might be a light damage nerf, and a slight reduction in stun-locking damage generally.

 

If Concealment Operatives, who have generally always been better at stun-locking, are keeping their abilities, why are Assassins/Shadows losing Spike/Spinning Kick?

 

It seems to me, unless Concealment Operatives are changed further, Spike/Spinning Kick should be put in the skill tree as a choice where a stun is currently given to Maul/Shadow Strike.

 

Especially for Deception/Infiltration players, Spike/Spinning Kick is a really important ability for its class identity, and has been the stealth opener since 1.0.

 

If the intention is to nerf stun-locking damage somewhat, please find a different way to do this than removing a 1.0 iconic ability.

Edited December 8, 2021 by arunav

[Flowwou]

I just notice an issue when i swap from deception to hatred or the opositte my loadouts do not work completly.

 

For exemple i am in deception and i want to switch to serenity with my loadout, so i click the loadout i want but some abilities just disapear like the trash ability and instead i gain 2 phantom stride or leeching strike.

It's the same when i do in the other way i do not have the reaping stike or my voltaic slash.

 

Maybe it juste because of some abilities the two spec share are not at the same spot on my bar. I don't know but it's a bit clanky to change loadout and everytime rebuild my bars just like i used to do when they were no loadout so

[Tentou]

New update:

 

Assassin/Sorcerer

[NEW] Force Cloak now purges all hostile removable effects upon activation.

 

Great change, thank you for listening to us! It should be "Assassin/Shadow" though

[Jeyyboi]

Hello I'm back. Devs please give us spike back. Stun on Maul is pretty bad. I think with assassin, you should be adding more new abilities and making us choose between those rather than taking away old ones and making us choose between them. Think of it like this. Considering our characters are getting stronger (Level 80) we should be gaining new heights (new abilities) rather than losing our old knowledge or power (like spike). I might sound like a broken record but this is how I feel.

[ralphieceaser]

Assassin/Sorcerer

[NEW] Force Cloak now purges all hostile removable effects upon activation.

This is an enormous buff to all stealth classes because they no longer have to save their evasion/immunity if they want to escape safely so you just gave them perfect escape as well as a permanent multiple second long immunity level defensive cd.

[ralphieceaser]

I was checking the tree abilities last night, I am not 100% certain they are up to date but does

"Shroud of Madness" still exist as an option?

"Activating Force Cloak grants 2 seconds of Force Shroud."

 

If you make force cloak remove all harmful effects that can take you out of stealth then this passive is redundant and wont be a relevant choice, the only time I can imagine being useful would be using it literally a milisecond before a projective attack hits you which is extremely niche and doesnt justify it as a choice.

 

The choices should be impactful and meaningful, never extremely niche otherwise you have a useless ability 99% of the time.

Edited December 16, 2021 by ralphieceaser

[Schwarzherz]

More additional feedback from me especially for PvP. On the PTS at my playing times unfortunately only 4vs4 matches went up. But at least only pure dd games. In these Sin still feels quite good. But based on such games, you can not really conclude the class balance. In general, I would wish for Sin if abilities like Ball Lightning or Discharge would be moved more into the foreground. The damage of Discharge feels a bit too low relative to Reaping Strike and Maul, especially since they can now also benefit from Recklessness. Discharge should be the key ability of the Deception Assassin and feel like it. Similar to the AP PT, it would be a good idea to include an autocrit on Discharge. Be it as a Legendary Item or through a passive Ability. You would only have to see if Phantomstride shouldn't be converted back to a pure Mobilty ability to avoid too much burst damage from double Discharges. Shroud to me is one of the Abilities that sets the Assasssin apart from other classes. So I would be happy if Shroud would be a baseline Ability for all specs. The possibility of a permanent increase for Shroud is unfortunately also no longer possible. For Shroud, Force Slow could be included as a Choice and alternatively swap places with Overload then.

[JattaGin]

[*]Are you able to defeat enemies at a reasonable rate?

 

I played my deception sith from level 75 from Ossus to the end of the Onslaught. My feedback compared to live is that it takes much longer to finish trash mobs. I seem to either deal much less damage or the mobs have more HP. It wasn't an enjoyable experience, since those fights are no challenge anyway. So all what happens is that it takes longer.

 

Bosses seemed fine. Just the random trash was annoying.

 

Additionally, it doesn't help that you basically render stealthers useless, since you trigger most fights in instances anway. So I get punished with less DPS, but the stealth I got instead becomes obsolete. I think you shouldn't do that. Stealthing is one kind of legit gameplay. If I would want to fight through all those mobs, I'd play with my gunslinger. Make stealthing useful again, please.

 

On top of that, force cloak is bugged. Jus as on live, it works maybe 50% of the time. What usually happens is that one enemy in a group remains red, or - if there is only one enemy - they get shortly unmarked, but then they continue fighting you anyway.

 

EDIT 1: Just played the Belavis heroic "Old Enemies". My assassin died at the boss Lord Raxxus. With a level 50 companion. DPS didn't suffice to bring him down in time and I don't have enough defensive abilities anymore. I have never died at that boss solo. Not even remotely. So, big nerf, I would say.

 

EDIT 2: Energy management is also MUCH HARDER now compared to live. Much closer to 1.0 than to 6.0.

 

[*]Do all your abilities feel like they’re working together?

 

I still don't know what exactly this question means. But I do have the feeling that deception assassin works smoother than infiltration shadow. It doesn't feel like a mirror anymore. My shadow feels inferior to my assassin now.

 

Even though my shadow and my assassin are both exact mirrors on live, they are different on the PTS. My assassin has AoEs for example, while my shadow doesn't. I don't understand why my assassin has more AoEs now. I chose the same options (with one exception). Are those combat styles different now, and not exact mirrors of the other faction anymore? Or how did that AoE mismatch happen?

Edited January 6, 2022 by JattaGin

[AdjeYo]

I was checking the tree abilities last night, I am not 100% certain they are up to date but does

"Shroud of Madness" still exist as an option?

"Activating Force Cloak grants 2 seconds of Force Shroud."

 

If you make force cloak remove all harmful effects that can take you out of stealth then this passive is redundant and wont be a relevant choice, the only time I can imagine being useful would be using it literally a milisecond before a projective attack hits you which is extremely niche and doesnt justify it as a choice.

 

The choices should be impactful and meaningful, never extremely niche otherwise you have a useless ability 99% of the time.

 

Shroud on stealth is very often used in PvE for this exact reason. Probably not hugely important for PvP, but still helps you from being popped out of stealth immediately by an AoE (unless it's a melee/ranged AoE of course).

[Kasuaner]

From how I see it, Deception Assassin was re-structured so that Reaping Strike is the major core ability to both open up with and most frequently use. I went with the CD reset on direct force attack crits, volt slash's static stacks giving crit chance and the bonus kinetic damage on crits every 3 seconds and I do quite good damage and have no issue clearing trashies or providing the necessary DPS to get past tight enrage checks like the first bosses from both Czerka flashpoints, but the rotation is very static and fixed and abbreviating from it even a little causes serious ressource management issues.

 

My openers so far have been (Assuming you use Shadow Craft legendary for the 6 seconds of double crit chance)

 

Shadow Walk (From Stealth) > Reaping Strike > Discharge > Maul > Reaping Strike > Lightning Ball > Reaping Strike (By then, the 6 seconds will be over and you no longer almost auto-crit from Shadow Craft proc)> Volt Slash > Volt Slash > Lightning Ball > Discharge (Should be at 3 stacks) > Reaping Strike (if Discharge Crits) > Recklessness > Discharge > Reaping Strike > Lightning Ball > Reaping Strike > Priority

 

Priority being 1) Lightning Ball whenever off CD; 2) Reaping Strike after each Lightning Ball or Discharge Crit; 3) Volt Slash if either Static is about to expire or everything is on a CD; 4) Maul with proc if everything is on CD and Static is alright with duration.

 

I don't like that rotation at all, if I am honest. It does give a lot of very solid damage, but it is very crit reliant, which thankfully deception Assassin has a lot of, but RnG can get very nasty every now and then and you end up spamming Volt Slash for 3 GCDs, which really sucks.

 

It is also pretty clear that this is a very minimal alacrity spec now because of how heavily it relies on crits, specifically direct force attack crits, which are Lightning Ball, Discharge and the 4 second hard Stun you get.

 

You are pretty much forced into a single type of build for 3 particular Ability choices, which are as mentioned the reset on force attack crits for the Reaping Strike buff, Static giving +10% additive crit chance per stack for Volt Slash buffs and the Bonus Kinetic damage on crits every 3 second and melee attacks consuming Recklessness stacks. You CANNOT choose anything else if you want to deal damage, maybe except Reaping Strike resetting if you kill an add 3 seconds after damaging it with Reaping Strike and getting additive +40% crit chance for 3 seconds which refreshes on each new kill for non-Heroic daily areas like CZ-198, Black Hole, Ossus etc.

 

Overall not a big fan of this power re-distribution to Reaping Strike, it pretty much shifted Deception from a PvP to a PvE spec. It serves its purposes, but I don't see this being well received at all.

[Anyaka_Jedi]

I tried searching for another post about this issue but havent found one...

 

PLS give sin tanks a decent legendary

 

Dont get me wrong, the class is intact and the utility tree choices i can live with. in 6.0 you got rid of the old survivor setbonus:

2 Wither or Slow Time increases damage reduction by 2% for 3 seconds.

4 Wither or Slow Time reduces the cooldown of Mind Control and Mass Mind Control by 2 seconds per activation.

6 Dark Ward's or Kinetic Ward's duration is increased by 3 seconds and charges are increased by 3.

 

Given us tank tacticals that are just borderline useless, with the preference going to using a general tactical instead (two cloacks).

 

And then given us a choice between Death Knell or Efficient termination or Rebuking Assault setbonus, which were lackluster at best. I dont even want to mention the Ballast point one. I havent seen one sin tank use that one.

 

Come 7.0 the legendaries are:

 

General Inquisitor: Dynamic Force - The cooldown of Recklessness is reduced by 15 seconds.

 

Assassin / Shadow:

Ballast Point - Deflection grants Ballistic Immunity for 6 seconds, giving you immunity to movement impairing effects, knockdowns, and physics.

Force Resistance - Elemental, Internal, Kinetic and Energy damage reduction is increased by 3%.

 

Force Training - Melee and force attacks deal 3% more damage.

Shadowcraft - Using Shadow Stride from stealth grants Shadowcraft, increasing your critical hit chance by 100% for 6 seconds. [Force Cloak resets the cooldown of Phantom Stride.]

 

With only Ballast Point and Force resistance having tank stats. You might say why do sin tanks even need a legendary their tool kit is aplenty. However, it cant be that we're getting another expansion and in all these years time you cant come up with something thats halfway decent?