Carnage/Combat will only be weaker in so far as Tanks actually gear for shield/abosrb. The only force ability that was part of a PS > Kill something rotation was Blade Storm, which Auto Crits in the spec (though if I'm reading the skill tree right atm that looks to have been massively nerfed depending on a 30% chance to get opportune strike off of an Ataru Form proc (which you'll just use Blade Rush to get the proc, but now must also get the crit proc).

this is another reason I like the new saber reflect ability. it's fairly easy to see that auto-crit storm/scream coming. Pop saber reflect and the sent will eat the hit.

These changes could put a big gap between regular and great players.

this is another reason I like the new saber reflect ability. it's fairly easy to see that auto-crit storm/scream coming. Pop saber reflect and the sent will eat the hit.

 

These changes could put a big gap between regular and great players.

yes, that is a good thing!

The segregation between specs will be much more greater. Specs like carnage, even if they ignore armor, they will have to deal with the shields, and since crit rating has received a nerf across the board, you will not be able to override shielding with your own crit chance that often.

 

Overall i see a more specialized, and important role for tank buster specs. Carnage will be weaker against tanks, Smash will be weaker against tanks, sorc DPS will be weaker against tanks, Concealment will be terrible against tanks (kinetic damage mostly).

 

Snipers don't really care about this nerf apart from lower crit chances which will make MM mitigated more often. The only spec that will have slighly worse performance is engineering because it will be no longer able to bypass shields with frag grenades, explosive probe and interrogation probe.

 

Lethality will now be LETHALITY, a spec in its own league, extremely valued for being capable to actually bring Tanks down. What other spec can do that? Probably Pyrotech and that's about it. Madness has crushing darkness doing kinetic damage. AP must see how the tree has been reworked. cannot judge. And Pyrotech has Railshots vulnerable to shielding and defense. In the end, Lethality may end up as the most reliably tank buster in the game.

 

So yeah boys and girls, time to protect your lethality snipers and support them if you want thse budies to help you with your tank problem.

That might be the only class capable of dropping an assassin tank/healer combo team. Some cursory builds on my assassin suggest that you can get really tough to kill in tank gear for very little in surrendered DPS.

For those who aren't aware: chance-to-crit pushes chance-to-shield off the table of possible results. So if an ability crits, it can't be shielded.

 

So 100% crit chance = 0% shield chance.

 

Therefore: Rage/Focus smash, with the auto-crit from leap = no shield.

 

...unless mechanics have changed further, or there's something else I'm not aware of.

Correct on the shield. However,

In 2.0 Assassins running a tank spec, and assuming they go deception can get damage mitigation running against almost all attacks with the shield working on the non-critical hits. Force screams, Non-crit ravage, etc. You can get overcharge saber to grant 12 seconds of 25% dmg reduction. You get the 30% AOE dmg reduction from deception. You get the 25% dark embrace dmg reduction for 6 seconds. In the meantime you can get a shock that will crit hit like a truck to go with induction/duplicity mauls.

Correct on the shield. However,

 

In 2.0 Assassins running a tank spec, and assuming they go deception can get damage mitigation running against almost all attacks with the shield working on the non-critical hits. Force screams, Non-crit ravage, etc. You can get overcharge saber to grant 12 seconds of 25% dmg reduction. You get the 30% AOE dmg reduction from deception. You get the 25% dark embrace dmg reduction for 6 seconds. In the meantime you can get a shock that will crit hit like a truck to go with induction/duplicity mauls.

Deception is not a tank spec. To get the AoE damage reduction they have to go 17 points into the deception tree. I suppose you can do a 27/17/2 build. You have to waste like 4 points in the deception tree to get that high too since increased shadow strike damage is somewhat worthless without the duplicity proc which you won't be getting.

If you're talking about running a deception spec with shield, that's kind of contraindicated outside of tank spec (which you probably also shouldn't be doing if you don't want to lose force breach as the hard hitter that it is).

Incoming: Tank classes actually wearing tank gear and being very tough to kill.

 

Also incoming: DPS specs favoring internal/elemental damage if possible.

 

Very nice change, only took them a year to do it.

Incoming same noob specs being tanks AND having huge DPS, yep that's something to look foreward to.

Incoming same noob specs being tanks AND having huge DPS, yep that's something to look foreward to.

Except just using a shield drops your Force/Tech damage because shields have a lower amount of Force/Tech power on them than a Focus or Generator.

Second if you want to get any real use out of that shield you have to a) be in tank spec, b) gear for it. Hell half the reason kinetic shadows bothered to get DPS gear at all was because of how worthless their biggest part of mitigation (shield) was in PVP.

Except just using a shield drops your Force/Tech damage because shields have a lower amount of Force/Tech power on them than a Focus or Generator.

due to dimnishing returns the difference is not that much - shields with the new mechanic out perfom fokis by far then.

This ^^^^ we will have to see if losing some damage will be worth the mitigation that the shield brings, my guess you will see a lot of pure dps people giving a little to get the additional survivability. But really along with the Alacrity we will have to see how the numbers look