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PvE Guide: The Ultimate Raiding Assassin/Shadow DPS Compository!


THEFERRARICARGUY

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Welcome To The Ultimate Sith Assassin DPS Raiding Compository!

 

Hey guys, I haven't seen a PvE guide for dps sins around here, so I decided I will take the initiative. I'm Warlord Triveticus of Prophecy Of The Five, and I'm bringing a guide for all raiding Assassins/Shadows who DPS. This write up will cover the multiple pillars of how a DPS Assassin/Shadow can bring his own in raids and surpass even the greatest dps.

 

Ability Names Converted to Shadow Terms:

Project=Shock

Trash=Double Strike

Discharge=Force Breach

Whirling Blow=Lacerate

Raze=Force Strike

Death Field=Force In Balance

Deception= Infiltration

Voltaic Slash= Clairvoyant Strike

Overload=Force Wave

Surging Charge=Shadow Technique

Lightning Charge=Force Technique

Darkness=Kinetic Combat

Dark Charge=Combat Technique

Force Shroud=Resilience

Death Mark=Force Suppression

Celerity=Avoidance

Induction=Circling Shadows

Sever Force=Creeping Terror

 

Please notify me if I forget any terms so I many add them to the list. Thanks all!

 

General Overview:

Stats

Specs

Keybinding

Rotations

Itemization

Tips and Tricks for Boss Fights

 

STATS:

 

As with all raiding assassins, you want to find the perfect balance between stats. taking tips from a few fellow dpsers and other raiding DPS Assassins, I've come to my personal stat balance of:

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/88bb95d0-7fd2-4fc7-939e-dfa40e3fd9e3

 

The reason you may ask why my accuracy is so low is well.. You don't need that much accuracy. Sure, you miss a maul or saber strike, but Maul is dirt cheap and the proc will not go away after a missed maul. Missing an ability or two will not have a major overall impact on your dps. My crit levels are as shown in madness, or 34% as deception. You wouldn't want anymore after 37% because after rigorous testing, there is hardly any benefit from increased crit over these values as you have to stack an INCREDIBLE amount of critical rating for a boost, so going that far into diminishing returns is completely not worth it and you will end up sacrificing almost all of your power investing into crit rating.

 

SPECS

 

There are four widespread specs for DPS raiding, and those are 8/5/28, 5/5/31, 2/31/8, 3/7/31.

 

3/7/31:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/assassin#30-c23-1fe72e8d2f

 

The current standard for raiding DPS assassins, only one point taken in chain shock as it a massive sacrifice in force for shock and will only be used once every 20 seconds for the buff.

 

8/5/28:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/assassin#303c-23-3e72e832f

 

A more simple spec, utilizing the bonus charge damage and sacrificing creeping terror improves force management and reduces the need to micromanage, utilizing more death marks for crushing darkness ticks.

New players to this spec will need a bit of practice to keep up to full madness.

 

5/5/31:

 

Same as 3/7/31 but points placed into avoidance will now be placed in trashing blades.

 

2/31/8:

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/skills/assassin#20-6e8cf78e2f-30f

 

Cookie-cutter deception build. Uses resourcefulness to lower cooldown of overcharge saber for extra dps. Will not pull as much dps as madness but is suited to different fights where it can take advantage of blackout and burst capabilities.

 

Project-less Balance:

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200bc0MZcZfRbRrrkMfz.2

 

KEYBINDING

 

I recommend a sith assassin dps should fully keybind his/her abilites, not doing so will not cause a drop in dps or effectiveness, but I find it helps for efficiency over clicking. I use modifiers and keys such as;

 

QERTVXF23456, Then the same keys using shift modifiers, and I also have a razer naga, so I bind abilities to numberpad. I recommend placing cooldowns on the main bar because those are what you will pay attention to most and you will be prepared to use them, and also enable cooldown timers for extra precision (Comes in handy for difficult boss fights, such as Nightmare Kephess, Firebrand & Stormcaller, Terror From Beyond, and such.)

 

ROTATION

 

A madness assassin has a very complicated dps rotation, but will produce incredible results if all actions are played down to a T.

 

The basic Madness Rotation goes as follows:

 

Discharge

Creeping Terror

Trash (To Proc Raze, if there are no procs proceed to the next step.)

Death Field

Trash (Only do this if Raze has not been procced)

Crushing Darkness

Shock (Intitial Rotation only, reapply after buff falls off. Do not spam, this costs a massive amount of force to sustain.)

Trashx2

Saber Strike

Assassinate (Target Below 30%)

Maul (Exploit Weakness Proc Only)

 

This is the basic rotation for madness. Reapply DoTs after you see the buffs fall off, or you will experience a drop in dps due to cutting off DoT ticks. Use Deathfield on cooldown and save raze procs until Deathfield comes off cooldown again.

 

Deception Rotation (More of a priority list than anything):

 

2X Voltaic Slash (>50% Force)

Shock (2X Induction Stacks)

Discharge

Maul (Exploit Weakness Proc)

Assassinate (Target <30%)

Saber Strike

 

Repeat Rotation as necessary, use blackout when low on force, also do not attempt to save surging charge stacks, use discharge off cooldown or you will experience a drop in dps. Use relics + adrenals in combination with recklessness to achieve maximum burst. Use discharge first before shock or you will waste recklessness charges

 

8/5/28 Rotation:

 

Same as madness rotation, apply crushing darkness whenever the next one comes off (Only with raze proc, do not hardcast crushing darkness) and keep discharge up. Deathfield off cooldown and only shock to replenish the buff.

 

ITEMIZATION

 

Itemizing with an assassin is very difficult as we have no passive accuracy/crit talents (apart from passive 3% Buff in madness) but the general consensus is to reach all softcaps.

 

Aim for 33% buffed in deception, and the passive madness buff will increase this to 36%. Aim for over 96% Accuracy, anywhere from 96% to 100% is fine. 75% surge, and stack the rest into power/willpower. Rip the mod and enhancement from the Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Boots (50 Black Hole Comms) for early minmaxing. Also buy the Striker's MK-1 Generator for 50 Comms as it is BiS for what you are able to buy with black hole commendations.

 

At the campaign gear level, aim for the mystic lightsaber, legs, and stalker chest/gloves and use the black hole force lord mk-1 headpiece. Rip the high willpower (60+ willpower) and replace them with the 41+ power mods (53 Willpower), or take lettered mods (Aptitude 26A/Mettle 26A) and replace with unlettered variants to perfectly minmax stats. The 4piece Stalker set bonus is very beneficial to our class, so be sure to take it as trash/VS will offer a massive increase to trash/VS dps.

 

When you start buying Dread Guard gear, be sure to aim for the stalker legs and headpiece first as they are the easiest pieces to minmax first, with gloves and boots coming seconds. The Dread Guard Stalker's Saberstaff is also a great Piece and shouldn't need much itemization when bought. Be careful when gearing in Dread Guard, as the set only has one piece with accuracy on it. Have a crafter create accuracy/power or crit/accuracy enhancements as it will take too much effort to farm raids to have all the perfectly minmaxed mods. When you are finished itemizations, you should be around:

 

1050 force bonus damage

36% melee crit (Madness/Balance)

75% surge

97% accuracy (add more if you prefer it)

1300+ mainhand damage

 

Use a Dread Guard Relic with a War Hero Relic or a Dread Guard Relic with a damage proc Relic (Dread Guard are much better than campaign, campaign relics are next to useless, as they have 47+ Passive power (Dread Guard Relics) before augmenting gear.) Also remember, mainstat augments are most useful in most cases as they increase your crit percentages and have only a slight bonus damage loss from power augments. And finally do not use high endurance enhancements, they offer no benefit to dps whatsoever and should be the first modification replaced.

 

A dread guard relic is currently the best in game, but war hero relics can suffice too. If you're not an avid pvper, then you can use a Proc damage relic, preferably the elemental one because it is the most damaging. A war hero relic will give static power and a Dread Guard power relic is clickable, so it's up to you to make a judgement call when to switch, especially for boss fights with rapid phase changes or burst phases.

 

Boss Fight Tips and Tricks

 

This is more of a category where assassins can use utility to their advantage. These will help you be an increased asset to the raid and help ease boss fights.

 

Tactics include:

 

Vanishing and Rezzing a tank/dps/healer to avoid wasting combat res (wait for all DoTs to fall off before attempting, also tactic will not work on certain boss fights.)

 

Taunts: When a tank is down you may switch to dark charge and use deflection and force shroud to mitigate as much damage as they can to avoid deaths in the raid. Only recommended for a short timeframe or else you will take excessive damage as a result.

 

Force Shroud/Resilience:

 

This ability can turn the tide of a whole encounter by completely negating the mechanics of a boss fight, such as lightning field on the dread guards, or Soa's lightning balls, and Fabricator's grenades.

 

Thanks For Reading!

 

Thanks for reading this guide guys, feedback would be much appreciated or if anyone can notify me of mistakes or something I can add to the guide to improve it, that would be great.

 

"The Dark Side Is Strong In You, My Apprentice. Use your hatred to fuel your conquest for glory!"

Edited by THEFERRARICARGUY
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recommend you switch from razer naga to a g600 logitech mmo gaming mouse. It contains a shift button on the mouse that allows you to switch between 3 sets of key bindings and still have them all on the thumbpad. Simply download the extras from logitech and pre set 3 modes that you can shift between on the mouse. Its so muchmore efficient than the naga and g600s last longer.
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recommend you switch from razer naga to a g600 logitech mmo gaming mouse. It contains a shift button on the mouse that allows you to switch between 3 sets of key bindings and still have them all on the thumbpad. Simply download the extras from logitech and pre set 3 modes that you can shift between on the mouse. Its so muchmore efficient than the naga and g600s last longer.

 

lol :rolleyes:

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recommend you switch from razer naga to a g600 logitech mmo gaming mouse. It contains a shift button on the mouse that allows you to switch between 3 sets of key bindings and still have them all on the thumbpad. Simply download the extras from logitech and pre set 3 modes that you can shift between on the mouse. Its so muchmore efficient than the naga and g600s last longer.

 

Oh dominion.... it's my money let me spend it the way i want to lawlz.

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All the links on this page itself are cut short.

 

Links like this

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/characte...e-dfa40e3fd9e3

 

should be

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/88bb95d0-7fd2-4fc7-939e-dfa40e3fd9e3

 

Mouse over them if they look identical, there's a big difference. You can't just copy+paste your other guide not inside the edit post window, it'll butcher the links.

Edited by ckoneful
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All the links on this page itself are cut short.

 

Links like this

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/characte...e-dfa40e3fd9e3

 

should be

 

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/88bb95d0-7fd2-4fc7-939e-dfa40e3fd9e3

 

Mouse over them if they look identical, there's a big difference. You can't just copy+paste your other guide not inside the edit post window, it'll butcher the links.

 

Uh, gotcha, gonna fix it since I posted it on assassin forum first.

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