It was only a matter of time. They always come back...

0/27/14 is a very strong dueling spec... Start out with a stalker set and then optimize with high power mods/enhancements 23/1/17 or most darkness/madness hybrids will be strong dueling specs... instant whirlwind not of as much use for 1v1 so 27/0/14 wouldnt be bad either but I am not a fan of that spec and do not think that force lightning should be a priority for a sin even with harnessed darkness but it may offer a slightly dps edge for 1v1. full deception will fall behind. full madness is the worst.

if you get on mr robot or whatever you can work on your build and switch out different mods/enhancements etc... from what I have seen using any more than 1-2 crit mods/enhancements is not ideal... The most optimized gear seems to be mostly power mods/enhancements. Maybe a couple crit ones... Use crit augments to get up to 25% unbuffed and then the rest power. It is really just a matter of numbers so it is easy to demonstrate what gearing is the most optimized and I would like to know if anyone has found something better so I can be more optimized as well.

just get stalker gear and call it a day. the stats arent really correct but you will be in battlemaster gear before you know it and should be starting with many piece of WH/BM gear off the bat due to all the comms you saved, right? Honestly you should not be starting with a full set of recruit especially now that you can have an ungodly amount of comms saved and now that WH mainhand/offhand do not require the BM piece. The stats you want for 23/1/17 are roughly 25% crit unbuffed, 75% surge, 94%+ accuracy and as much power as you can get after that.

nice video on jugg dueling.

they should not buff it. you should adapt by not using full deception as it is one of the worst pvp specs in the game. I cant remember last time I saw a *full* deception sin/infiltration shadow that was anything more than fodder.

So here is my current gearing... http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/c4e19e57-4e7f-4a71-bb3b-8fde88d85bc2 does it show up for you? The only variation I have on that gear is that I also have a third advanced resolve 27 armoring that was in the offhand that I replaced with the EWH armoring because the stats on that armoring are now slightly better than regular war hero as before they were slightly worse. As far as the issue of expertise, my friend was totally wrong and I am surprised at the bad advice. I played a full evening with a full exp build(1390 exp). I was still doing lots of damage, but I was getting less kills as it was harder to burst down a target before they could react- the burst seemed to suffer. I did seem to have more survivability but you really only need that with this spec if you are playing dumb. Then I played a night with all pvp mods except the crystals which I replaced with +41 power and this was a noticeable boost. I feel that this is the best way to optimize your gear with pve mods because the power crystals are very cheap and it is a 1:1 trade of expertise for power(the best stat to boost damage). I then added the advanced resolve 27 armorings back to belt/bracers instead of the WH armorings and played for a night and saw a further boost and was able to burst down targets very easily just like before I tried the full exp build. This is the build that I linked and it is one of the best I have played so far. It is of note that compared to the WH offhand armorings you are losing 50exp and gaining 36 willpower by using the resolve 27 armorings. It is going to be less of a boost item for item than switching out the crystals. I havent made the judgement call as to whether it is worth it to have the resolve 27 armoring in the offhand. Looking forward to replacing the rest of my mods/enhancements with EWH versions- and the armorings too once the patch hits.

if its wrong then you must have included the wrong gear for your own character build.

I dont really see much of an itemization section... Just a link to your character build on mr robot which doesn't tell me anything new about assassin gearing- except that your gear looks to be slightly less optimized than mine currently is. I have 27 pve armorings(your 27 armoring is actually the high endurance one on there?), more of the 40 power EWH mods etc... I will post later for you to have a look at. I do see that you have 1199 expertise on that build. I think I may be shooing for ~1200.

what do you guys like to have for expertise on this build? i recently tried a 1390exp build... custom offhand armorings in belt and bracers... really felt like i was losing dps and gaining damage mitigation that was not needed compared with no pve stuff at all. one of my buddies insisted that full exp was the way to go and that his guild requires at least 1300exp for ranked. for me it seemed like my burst suffered badly stacking expertise. on the other side i have put resolve 27 armorings in belt and bracers, even offhand too sometimes. and always power crystals. leaves me with 1156exp and a ton of bonus damage. i think the power crystals are a must at least. it is interesting that they actually made the EWH armoring actually have better stats now so that may be worth keeping in the focus, too bad its slot bound. shinarika recommended about 1100exp in her guide, but i think a big factor in that was that she used the black hole focus since there was no slotted version to optimize so perhaps around 1200 currently? fully optimized wh and 2 power crystals gives me 1308exp. add in 2 27 armorings that is 1208... put one in offhand also and thats down to 1156.

So I have been playing the WJ spec for several days now. I am pretty happy with the build so far. I have all of my stats where they should be and things are coming into play. I prefer it over the arika due to better burst and I don't miss the instant whirlwind very much. I really like low slash. Despite the limited range I find it tremendously more useful than instant whirlwind due to the short cd and small amount of resolve. I often hit it when someone pops some sort of damage reduction or right before a marauder is about to die and then I get a big hit on them so they cant enter god mode before death. I also like having darkswell. The ability to burst down a target is great. If I find a solo node defender I will cap the node in about 10 seconds... especially if its a pt or vanguard. Still trying to figure out how to make the most out of the burst as I am not always able to burst down healers. I usually open with death field and then hopefully maul with proc and then use thrash/shock/discharge(hopefully with the proc). I will just maul whenever the proc comes up and if I feel like someone is gaining the upper hand on me I will just use low slash and then some sort of proc usually comes up with it which is nice. I am usually top damage unless there is a good marauder or pt... But then I also did pretty well with damage with my usual spec as well. My usual spec is 23/1/17 but I feel like I really mastered that a long time ago and needed a change. I feel like I did better 1vbads with the 23/1/17 but this is better for 1v1 or 1v2 much of the time. also I am thinking about switching to the force mystic pve set(looks like you can now use WH offhand armorings instead of BM armorings?) for the extra 50 force. The idea behind this is that most encounters will be fairly short- with the extra force helping with burst and then I will cloak again before the next fight.

I just started using the arika build(and have also noticed the similar build in this thread)... How much crit would you use for this spec? I have went with unbuffed crit anywhere between 23-30% and currently am about 30% unbuffed, but I havent really found a sweet spot.

Sounds like the game you are waiting for is Planetside 2.

any other insights on how to best spend ~2000 wz comms and 3000+ rwz comms?

if you are not part of a premade then you are doing it wrong. It is a multiplayer game(just barely) and you are supposed to be part of a team, not just running around going soloside. soloside is FTL.