2.1.1 and a bad warzone 13k maul http://imgur.com/2pkyM2Z.jpg?1

I was curious to see some of the ideas for the new darkness builds using wither or not. It's impossible to test any builds in the warzones.

What darkness spec is being used right now, for those who are putting their points into darkness?

What is everyone's opinion on expertise? On my server, I have seen some good sin's with high expertise and others with low expertise. Is the % that you gain in pvp from higher expertise that noticeable? Has this been tested? And what are your opinions on having either a higher crit rating or higher bonus DMG for a hybrid/tank spec? Because there are so many ways to mod/aug a toon, would it be more benificial to have mods and augs for higher bonus damage or the 30% crit chance with lower bonus damage? Just wanting some opinions. Thanks

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200rIMozdskrZhGb0zZR.2 What do you all think? Masked Assault/Darkswell: Now additionally finishes the cooldown of Blackout when you exit Stealth mode. In addition, Masked Assault/Blackout causes Shadow's Respite/Dark Embrace to reduce all damage taken by 25% while active. Celerity/Avoidance now additionally reduces the cooldown of Force Speed by 2.5 seconds per point. Infiltration Tactics/Duplicity: Now when triggered, your next Shadow Strike/Maul deals 30% more damage and costs 75% less Force. This cannot occur more than once every 15 seconds, but each rank after the first reduces this rate limit by 3 seconds. Humbling Strike/Magnetism is a new 1-point skill. Causes the target of your Spinning Kick/Spike to be slowed by 70% for 3 seconds when the knockdown effect ends.

Oh does it compensate for resolve already? Hmm...

Seeing as how damage will no longer break this, this now becomes a full- on stun.. Is this going to add to the resolve bar? Because 3 seconds of being stunned is not fun, especially if the sorc isn't going to be penalized for it. Or am I misinterpreting all this? Does it just reduce your accuracy or something like that?

I can definitely see 100 endurance far outweighing 100 expertise at 1100 expertise

Yes, custom belts/bracers is the way to go IMO. What is causing the hesitation? At the risk of sounding abrsaive, did you not read the examples I gave? Edit: I guess it depends on where you are with your other stats.

The saddest part about all this is... Go to the PVP terminal and you can pick up at most 2 pvp quests. Go to the PVE terminal and you can pick up wayyyyyyy more than 2 pve quests. We're stuck in a PVE game that does PVP as a side gig.

WARNING: lots of math and numbers Okay, so I pretty much got tired of reading random posts (most of which have no actual in game info to back their statements up), so here I am, I ran some tests with expertise/power/endurance mods. Be forewarned, I don't subscribe to the school of thought that 1300+ expertise is the way to go, and when I see people stacking expertise over power/endurance mods, I can only sigh....here is why: I. Power and bonus damage: Yes, we all know power gives you .23 bonus damage, but most don't know what it actually gives you in real world numbers. I estimated the following calculations from static abilities (i.e. always give you the same amount of damage, e.g. marauder rupture, inquisitor force lightning): 0.000243 * 1 power = % increase/decrease in damage 0.001 * 1 bonus damage (melee/tech/force) = % increase/decrease in damage So, for example, not considering expertise for the moment, say you have the following stats: 900 (force) bonus damage 1200 expertise ..with these stats, one of your abilities hits for 2000 damage ..you decide to add a 41 power crystal... math: 41 * .23 = 9.43 bonus damage ...which amounts to, in real world numbers, 909.43 bonus damage 1200 expertise more math: 9.43 * 0.001 = 0.00943 -----> 0.943% increase in damage 0.00943 * 2000 = 2018.86 your ability mentioned above now does 2018.86 damage II. Expertise FIrst of all, expertise has diminishing returns, but not that great, hardly noticeable, and they begin around 1100 expertise. Real world example: Expertise: 823 --> 923 (+100) --> 1033 (+110) --> 1133 (+100) --> 1242 (+109) Damage On Players: 17.01% --> 18.63% (+1.62%) --> 20.33% (+1.7%) --> 21.79% (+1.46%) --> 23.3% (+1.51%) As you can see, after around 1050-1100 expertise, you don't gain as much as you did before, and to reiterate, it's diminishing, but hardly noticeable. Expertise vs. Power, direct comparison: Here is an example of my assassin casting force lightning on a sniper with 1242 expertise, and him using his orbital strike on me, both static damage abilities: First run @ 1200 expertise... Force lightning hits HIM for 1853 Orbital strike hits ME for 1724 (3083 Crit) Second run @ 1241 expertise... I switched crystals...so, +41 expertise, -41 power Force lightning hits HIM for 1843 Orbital strike hits ME for 1717 (3069 crit) Third run @ 1241 expertise....without losing any power Force Lightning hits HIM for 1863 Orbital strike hits ME for 1717 (3069 crit) Fourth run @ 1200 expertise...adding 41 power Force lightning hits HIM for 1872 Orbital strike hits ME for 1724 (3083 crit) The best outcome, if we're talking about DPSing, is obviously the fourth run, where power > expertise. If you do the math, expertise is giving me about .5% damage PLUS some damage reduction, while power is only giving me 1% damage. NOT exact numbers, but relative. As you can see in this example, at 1200 expertise, i gain much of nothing by taking 41 power or 41 expertise, and in my opinion, if anything, I would want to take the power over expertise. BUT.... III. Endurance This is short. With Bounty Hunter buff, you gain 5% endurance, you should almost always have this buff on, so I will consider it, also, tanks get more buffs, but I will ignore those for now. So, say you have a 41 endurance crystal... 41 endurance = 410 health * 1.05 = 430.5 actual health IV. Sort of conclusion Keeping with above mentioned examples... Ideally, if i'm at 1200 expertise, i'm pretty set, any expertise I add will now only add about half the damage i would gain from power, and some damage reduction (trivial IMO). However, if i can get more endurance and power, I would definitely want to do that. Why? because of the following simple example At 1200 expertise, I took 1724 damage from an orbital strike At 1241 expertise, I took 1717 damage from an orbital strike At 1200 expertise, if I add 41 endurance instead of 41 expertise, my health will go up by 430 points or so... i.e. 19,000 health went up to 19,430 health with 1200 expertise, at 19,000 health, after 1 orbital strike tick I would end up at 17276 health. with 1200 expertise, at 19,430 health, after 1 orbital strike tick I would end up at 17706 health. with 1241 expertise, at 19,000 health, after 1 orbital strike tick I would end up at 17283 health. ...i'll let you choose which of the three options is the best. So there you have it, a short and hopefully understandable real world analysis of expertise/power/endurance. This is my opinion and most of it is based on fact, not numbers I conjured up. My suggestion is to make your goal to reach 1200 expertise or so and focus on stacking power / main stat / endurance after this. Please, let's have no trolling and I welcome constructive opinions/facts.

yeah that's another thing with snipers, inability to leap to them, punt you, kill you, gg and yeah, that's true, still leaves that, but if bioware was, as i keep saying, not as arrogant as they are, they could easily fix this by switching the snare on jet boost to a root, a la sorc/sniper aoe punt....or, root while channeling unload or, they could add a new ability, something called channel scrambler or something : "For 4 seconds, you scramble your positioning and enemies cannot leap/force charge to you"....or, to keep with the theme of diverse ACs, "enemies targetting you will leap to an ally or enemy close to them, if no enemy/ally is near them, they will be confused for 2 sec, will end on damage"...and put this on a 1 min cd will we ever get them to do something like this though? i'm not betting a cent on it

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#300Rc0zZMIkbRrdRkczZc.2 except, switch positions of Power Shield and Critical Reaction now we have ourselves a very viable and very attractive PVP DPS option possibly gone are the days where mercs are picked last, and if at all, in pick up games

no, no no no you're not going to give me that "they can't heal" crap neither can mercs when they're dpsing....healing on a merc in dps spec completely leaves you open to unanswered damage...i love when i'm on my mara or sin and mercs think they can heal instead of dps me....they become free kills, moreso than before the only possible situation where you can heal in PVP is if NO ONE is paying attention to you, or you manage to somehow escape a fight so no, don't give me that "mercs can heal" crap...it's an unfounded cop out but, end of rant, and sort of back on topic... i agree without the cover mechanic, snipers would be piñatas....but they should instead get a castable immunity, not a passive immunity more back on topic.... mercs definitely need some kind of cover mechanic for arsenal spec IMO, the easiest possible solution for bioware is to move down powershield to either a level 1 or level 2 skill in bodyguard , or switch positions with Critical Reaction (immunity to interrupt during energy shield) so that nothing much is changed, but 31 point arsenal mercs can now spec into an immunity to interrupts and lord knows why, or if they ever will loosen up on their idiotic arrogance.....but mercs NEED a true interrupt

:rak_04::rak_04: