I have played my Assasin since release, i have currently cleared all content 8man couldent be arsed with 16man since we are on a lowpop server .

 

and i also been doing quite alot of pvp, rank 64 without any ilum farming since ilum pvp is pretty much nonexistent, other than racing other guys towards the arnamentboxes.

 

Id just like to start a *constructive post about our class and how it could be improved.

 

My main concern atm is the fact, that Darknes outshines both deception and madness overall in both pvp, and pve.

 

*for the guys claiming i have no proof of this i can add a few examples.

 

Dps check: Fourth boss in Ev. is 3 diff dudes with 53k/78 and 123~ hp, *Nm mode*

I as pure 31/0/10 tanking speck grabs dps gear, mainly columi and quite below the other´s average gearlevel of the dpsers.

i am able to take on the 123k hp guy and finnish him off around the same time as our other dpsers

 

*Lol theyre bad in that case and should L2p*

Nope theyre all capable players who cleared all current content, + got both infernal titel and the unyelding titel*

 

And the most alarming is i do infact finish ahead of our other assasin who tryed racing with me for fun both as madnes and deception.

 

And for bosses wich requires burst on demand, Darkness *from what ive seen poping cds, relics + adrenals can do just as good burst as a deception assasin can do.

 

And furthermoore is this:

Madness and Deception requires to be hitcapped to asure that they aint waisting force on atacks thats gonna miss the target.

 

*trash to get raze

and deception is quite obvious

 

Where´s a dps oriented darkness can just swap out all accuracy enhancments for pure surge/power since our mainrotation doesent require melee hits since using trash instead of wither will mostly end up as a dps loss since if it doesent proc the shock* and if it does we will not have enough force to use the shock and follow it up by anything else.

 

*unless its in the start of an encounter or we have runing around filling our forcebar up*

 

Making shock>wither>saberstrike>shock>forcelightning our most efficient rotation

and saberstrike isnt all that amazing dps so we can just run around wth 90% accuracy.

 

in my current dps gear i got 87% surge, 32% crit unbufed and 730+ [Force] bonus damage.

and 92% accuracy.

 

so the main reason i see other specs falling behind is abit duo to the fact they need to reach hitcap leaving less room for offensive modifications.

 

And i am aware that darkness is suposed to mainly fullfill a tanking role.

But in its current state it does way moore than that.

 

What i would like to see is some slight buff to madness and deception making them moore

competative to other classes since

 

1: they are squishy and alot of bosses got cleaves/random agrotable so bringing a deception/madness assasin, the ods are in favour of them being the first to fall to Physical dmg

+ theyre damage doesent compensate for the lack of defense they got in its current state either.

 

2: Madness is higly reliable to watch above your hpbar for procs. Where other classes got a clear animation+ sound for the procs.

 

On chaotic fights where you have alot of other things to be concerned about, it would help if they implemented some kind of proc sound+animation aswell since we got raze/duplicity

+ dot times to be aware of.

 

As for both madnes and deception, i could see giving a talent a few % moore accuracy if specked could leave moore room to optimize other stats could be a step into the right direction.

Edited March 15, 2012 by YoundPadawan

Good constructive post =)

I have played my Assasin since release, i have currently cleared all content 8man couldent be arsed with 16man since we are on a lowpop server .

 

and i also been doing quite alot of pvp, rank 64 without any ilum farming since ilum pvp is pretty much nonexistent, other than racing other guys towards the arnamentboxes.

 

Id just like to start a *constructive post about our class and how it could be improved.

 

My main concern atm is the fact, that Darknes outshines both deception and madness overall in both pvp, and pve.

 

*for the guys claiming i have no proof of this i can add a few examples.

 

Dps check: Fourth boss in Ev. is 3 diff dudes with 53k/78 and 123~ hp, *Nm mode*

I as pure 31/0/10 tanking speck grabs dps gear, mainly columi and quite below the other´s average gearlevel of the dpsers.

i am able to take on the 123k hp guy and finnish him off around the same time as our other dpsers

 

*Lol theyre bad in that case and should L2p*

Nope theyre all capable players who cleared all current content, + got both infernal titel and the unyelding titel*

 

And the most alarming is i do in fact finish ahead of our other assasin who tried racing with me for fun both as madness and deception.

 

And for bosses which requires burst on demand, Darkness *from what ive seen poping cds, relics + adrenals can do just as good burst as a deception assasin can do.

 

And furthermore is this:

Madness and Deception requires to be hitcapped to asure that they aint wasting force on attacks thats gonna miss the target.

 

*thrash to get raze

and deception is quite obvious

 

Where´s a dps oriented darkness can just swap out all accuracy enhancements for pure surge/power since our main rotation doesn't require melee hits since using thrash instead of wither will mostly end up as a dps loss since if it doesent proc the shock* and if it does we will not have enough force to use the shock and follow it up by anything else.

 

*unless its in the start of an encounter or we have runinng around filling our force bar up*

 

Making shock>wither>saberstrike>shock>force lightning our most efficient rotation

and saberstrike isnt all that amazing dps so we can just run around wth 90% accuracy.

 

in my current dps gear i got 87% surge, 32% crit unbufed and 730+ [Force] bonus damage.

and 92% accuracy.

 

so the main reason i see other specs falling behind is a bit due to the fact they need to reach hitcap leaving less room for offensive modifications.

 

And i am aware that darkness is supposed to mainly fulfill a tanking role.

But in its current state it does way more than that.

 

What i would like to see is some slight buff to madness and deception making them moore

competative to other classes since

 

1: they are squishy and alot of bosses got cleaves/random agrotable so bringing a deception/madness assasin, the ods are in favour of them being the first to fall to Physical dmg

+ they're damage doesn't compensate for the lack of defense they got in its current state either.

 

2: Madness is highly reliable to watch above your hpbar for procs. Where other classes got a clear animation+ sound for the procs.

 

On chaotic fights where you have a lot of other things to be concerned about, it would help if they implemented some kind of proc sound+animation aswell since we got raze/duplicity

+ dot times to be aware of.

 

As for both madness and deception, i could see giving a talent a few % more accuracy if specked could leave more room to optimize other stats could be a step into the right direction.

 

If Madness Assassin isn't beating you easily on the same HP bosses in EV, they're not keeping their rotation tight enough. A Deception Assassin losing to you doesn't say anything about your dps being high b/c in that fight he cannot use Maul which is a huge contributor to Deception DPS.

 

I've used 24/0/17 and 7/3/31 specs against the Freeing the Fallen boss and Madness comes out way ahead of hybrid Darkness.

 

I don't know how you can possibly get 87% surge when last I read it was hard capped at 80%. While the other two specs do rely on Accuracy a bit more, it does come into their advantage when mobs are below 30% health and Assassinate becomes the top ability for all 3 specs to use.

 

PS. I really hope you typed this post on a phone.

As far as my own experiences on the solo bosses in EV, can't really comment on that because I get put on different bosses depending on my spec. I can say that against the Juggernaut boss I'm usually the first few if not the very first person to finish the boss while in 23/1/17 spec.

If you just look at the tooltip damage and calculate DPF there's really no reason why Darkness should do less damage than other specs in identical gear. In fact Darkness can more afford to pull out all its accuracy mods because the only major attack that needs accuracy is Assassinate. Most staple Darkness attacks have around 80 DPF from tooltip (because each stack of HD is worth 500 tooltip damage) and that's on par if not higher than the staple Deception/Madness attacks, and Darkness gets more Force regen. Burst is irrelevent because the same relic/adrenal/etc affects Darkness rotation moves as any other spec rotation moves.

 

Seriously, take your average rotation and calculate the DPF of every move based on their tooltip damage. Add any spec specific crit modifier if you want, but for a move like Thrash it's going to be below 80 DPF for example. If you have EW proc permanently Maul would be a bit higher than 80 DPF (it's DPF is under 80 DPF by tooltip but it gets armor piercing + extra modifier on crits). So Darkness with its staple moves at the 80 DPF range is basically like having EW proc up permanently the whole time in terms of efficiency.

 

The root of the problem is probably because offhand adds Force Power which buffs almost every Darkness rotation move but not most Deception/Madness moves. It's basically as if Darkness can wield a single 280 damage rating weapon since all its major moves are Force-based.

misstyped im @ 78% surge and yes sorry for some bad grammar english* Edited March 15, 2012 by YoundPadawan

Here's one way to think about the problem. One guy listed his tooltip damage and we get that difference between BM focus and shield is about 7% tooltip difference on Force-based attack. The difference between those two is around 200 Force Power, while a focus provides ~600 Force Power.

 

So to a rough approximation you can say having a BM focus increases force-based attack by 20%. But melee attacks do not get any benefit from Force Power.

 

Now imagine if your offhand added your melee damage to a Deception/Madness build by 20%, would your DPS go up by a lot? Of course it would. If you look at the issue this way, it's hard to see why Deception/Madness would even be competitive against Darkness with a 20% DPS difference attributed to offhand. Maybe they're not even competitive, precisely because of this reason.

you sir have a good point

i also have played assassin since day 1, and i agree with your post. Darkness is a great spec and doesn't need much changing, but deception and madness need some way to stay alive longer and do a little more damage

I agree...deception and madness are currently a little bit underpowered. But hey, make a guess what bioware is doing in 1.2...CORRECT, nerfing darkness.

I agree...deception and madness are currently a little bit underpowered. But hey, make a guess what bioware is doing in 1.2...CORRECT, nerfing darkness.

 

how so?

Even though Darkness is much better than both Deception and Madness, I don't understand why BioWare would nerf Darkness instead of buffing Deception and Madness. Darkness isn't particularly over powered, it's that the other two specs are both slightly underpowered and I won't be happy if they nerf Darkness in 1.2.

 

I currently play 31/0/10 for both PvP and PvE (as a tank not dps) and I don't see it how it is fair if my performance gets nerfed because it's easier to nerf 1 spec than buff 2.

 

I'm looking forward to changes coming in 1.2 and I really hope that BW go the right way in balancing out the 3 specs.

Here's one way to think about the problem. One guy listed his tooltip damage and we get that difference between BM focus and shield is about 7% tooltip difference on Force-based attack. The difference between those two is around 200 Force Power, while a focus provides ~600 Force Power.

 

So to a rough approximation you can say having a BM focus increases force-based attack by 20%. But melee attacks do not get any benefit from Force Power.

 

Now imagine if your offhand added your melee damage to a Deception/Madness build by 20%, would your DPS go up by a lot? Of course it would. If you look at the issue this way, it's hard to see why Deception/Madness would even be competitive against Darkness with a 20% DPS difference attributed to offhand. Maybe they're not even competitive, precisely because of this reason.

 

That's a REALLY good point.

That's a REALLY good point.

 

the problem---- tank offhands don't do anything in PvP and if you use one, you are doing it wrong. there is NO reason to use a tank offhand over a DPS offhand. the shielding from an offhand doesn't affect any attacks from other players.

the shielding from an offhand doesn't affect any attacks from other players.

 

Yes of course it does. All gunslinger, marauder, juggernaut attacks can be shielded, plus some attacks of Powertechs/Mercs and Assassins.

Yes of course it does. All gunslinger, marauder, juggernaut attacks can be shielded, plus some attacks of Powertechs/Mercs and Assassins.

 

But not enough to the extent of justifying the massive loss of force power from using one. Grant you some attacks are shielded but if I pop dark ward and run into a giant group after the end of the "EPIC BATTLE" the buff has either dropped off or is still there with 5-6 charges left.

http://db.darthhater.com/items/17979/battlemaster_stalkers_power_generator/

http://db.darthhater.com/items/41350/battlemaster_survivors_shield_generator/

 

 

Battlemaster Stalker's Power Generator

Bind On Pickup

Shield

Armor (Rating 140)

Total Stats:

+82 Willpower

+75 Endurance

+612 Force Power

+50 Expertise Rating

+51 Surge Rating

+77 Critical Rating

 

 

Battlemaster Survivor's Shield Generator

Bind On Pickup

Shield

Armor (Rating 140)

Shield Absorb: 20%

Shield Chance: 5%

Total Stats:

+61 Willpower

+126 Endurance

+37 Defense Rating

+408 Force Power

+50 Expertise Rating

+48 Shield Rating

 

So picking up on the "deception doesn't get enough out of its offhand idea"....

 

All specs use discharge and shock. So that's kind of a wash. Darkness' other "main" attacks are wither and force lightning (both of which are force attacks) - so you can see how they get more out of their off hand and are even tempted to use the stalker focus at the expense of defense.

 

Deception assassins "main" attacks are voltaic slash and maul both of which are melee attacks and therefore do not benefit from that juicy 204 extra force power on the focus.

 

Can deception's lack of punch be fixed simply by itemization, changing "stalker" foci to a greater percentage of "power"?

 

 

Battlemaster Stalker's Power Generator

Bind On Pickup

Shield

Armor (Rating 140)

Total Stats:

+82 Willpower

+75 Endurance

+408 Force Power

+204 Power

+50 Expertise Rating

+51 Surge Rating

+77 Critical Rating

 

This would essentially buff Voltaic Slash, Maul, and Assassinate- the things that make deception deception.

The Force Power issue isn't just about tanking. Even a shield has 400 Force Power, likely representating an amount greater than the sum total of your normal Power rating.

 

I have a Merc alt. If i pull his Champion offhand, his Tracer Missile goes from 1500 to 1100 damage. There's no reason to assume this number is particularly unusual. Yet pulling off the Champion offhand only minimally impacts attacks that do weapon damage (only the primary stats affect it, ignoring dual wield abilities since Assassins have no such abilities). It certainly isn't going to make any weapon attack do 400 less damage.

 

If you assume 1 primary stat is roughly equal to 1 Power, then a BM Focus usually has 100 primary stat and 600 Force Power. That means weapon damage attacks gets boosted by equivalent of 100 power (from primary), but Force damage attacks get boosted by 700 power (primary stats + Force Power). The difference between the two class of attack is greater than the difference of a Power Adrenal from offhand!

 

You can basically assume Darkness DPS is 100% Force-based (Assassinate is pretty much guaranteed kill anyway so DPS from that is almost irrelevent). So if you get 20% more DPS from an offhand, that's 20% more total DPS.

 

For Deception/Madness, Force is definitely not 100% of your DPS by design. It might be 50% or less, but let's assume it's 50%, so you only get +10% DPS from a focus. Again, having a Focus represents somewhere around 400 tooltip damage on all your Force-based attack compared to something well below 100 tooltip damage on all your weapon-based attack. When you consider Force-based attacks are probably our most powerful moves outside of Assassinate, how can this even be balanced when one spec gets a far greater benefit to your best damaging moves? This is a problem with all classes that have white/yellow damage, because the offhand boosts Tech/Force far more than melee/ranged which leads to a massive distortion.

 

Personally I think Madness is in the limbo right now. It's not strong but it's not weak either so it's hard to see anything major changing about it. Deception definitely needs help. I think the long term solution is make offhand benefit weapon based damage as much as Force/Tech. If your offhand increases your Thrash/VS by 400 damage (total) and Maul by 500, Deception would certainly be quite formidable.

This would essentially buff Voltaic Slash, Maul, and Assassinate- the things that make deception deception.

 

Well this issue is universal to all DPS classes besides Sorcs (who only have Force attacks). Once you have a great offhand Force/Tech attacks generally just becomes far superior to melee/ranged since offhand always contains Force or Tech Power in huge amounts but never the plain old Power. It'd make sense if Force/Tech attacks are weak compared to melee/ranged attacks and need the extra buff except it's usually the other way around.

 

If Maul gets reclassified as a Force attack, it'd probably do 500 more tooltip damage in BM gear, and that'd actually be pretty scary. It might even be overpowered for all we know. This is a huge underlying flaw of the game. If your attacks all get magically reclassified as Force/Tech with no other change, you can still become way more powerful just because the game's formulas favors such attacks greatly. Something needs to be done about that. Changing Force Power to a combination of Force Power + Power (while keeping the sum the same or possibly less) seems like the right way to fix it.

@OP

 

All Force attacks have 100% hit chance by default. It is non-Force attacks that benefit from +hit towards the cap in PVE.

 

In PVP, having additional hit (past 100%) counters the defensive stats of the opposing player. Every 1% over you have cancels out 1% of avoidance they have.

 

I don't know if NPCs have defensive stats, it seems very likely, but if they do it should work the same way as it does in PVP.