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22 Special


PlagaNerezza

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Greetings Assassins

 

I am posting a new build to test out I've dubbed the 22 Special

 

It may need some tuning, but the foundation is a 2/17/22 build. With the massive amount of Smash AOE damage coming out since 1.4 I have been wondering if I could use the 2 AOE dmg reductions together and turn the tables. The build provides DoT based damage to supplement and pressure the opponent with the improved maul damage, while keeping the chain shock effectiveness and making stealthing and returning more problematic.

 

The spec gives you a 45% AOE damage reduction. If Dark Embrace is up you get another 25% damage reduction. You have whirlwind on instant cast, deathmark and added melee bonus damage should be up with shock which should improve the critical hits of maul with duplicity.

 

You'll be running in lightning charge and DoTing your opponents with a deathmark on them adding in crushing darkness when you melee proc's the instant cast. There's 2 points in charge mastery to increase the damage of your lightning DoT. I didn't take parasitism yet. I am considering it depending on how the force management goes.

 

The build I am testing this week. i will report on its effectiveness. I hope to post a few videos.

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Not quite sure where you get 45% AOE reduction from. Corrupted flesh is periodic damage reduction, not AOE. I have to be honest, although I have not tried it, on paper it just looks like a gimped Arika. I do look foward to your videos of the spec, maybe theres something I'm missing.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200rIzs0MckZZfMbRrMz.2

 

While we are at it, this was a madness darkness hybrid that I came up with. Have not played it yet, because honestly even I'm still trying to determine if it's viable. I would run this with lightning charge, and use the 2 piece set bonuses from survivor and force master gear, giving me a 20 sec cd on spike, and guaranteed heals from crushing darkness. The idea behind it was kind of a madness with more utility, I gain some dots, but keep pull and out of stealth spike. Darkness's 30& force regen should take care of any force issues, as even as full Madness i never had any real management troubles. If your spec testing anyway, maybe try this out as well.

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Not quite sure where you get 45% AOE reduction from. Corrupted flesh is periodic damage reduction, not AOE. I have to be honest, although I have not tried it, on paper it just looks like a gimped Arika. I do look foward to your videos of the spec, maybe theres something I'm missing.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200rIzs0MckZZfMbRrMz.2

 

While we are at it, this was a madness darkness hybrid that I came up with. Have not played it yet, because honestly even I'm still trying to determine if it's viable. I would run this with lightning charge, and use the 2 piece set bonuses from survivor and force master gear, giving me a 20 sec cd on spike, and guaranteed heals from crushing darkness. The idea behind it was kind of a madness with more utility, I gain some dots, but keep pull and out of stealth spike. Darkness's 30& force regen should take care of any force issues, as even as full Madness i never had any real management troubles. If your spec testing anyway, maybe try this out as well.

 

imo that spec will not perform as well as the normal cookie cutter build that most assassins are running. You will have poor force management, poor survivability as missing out on some of the better boosts to your self healing that talents further up in madness has to offer.

 

The spec that I am yet to try out is this its what I will run as soon as I get time to test it. You can switch out fade and deceptive power and put them in saber conduit but I ran a similar hybrid and it did fairly well. Also its a simple rotation thrash, shock and maul deathfield and the force management is quite good.

 

I still love madness and think it performs great once you get use to it but when I get bored I run that hybrid.

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imo that spec will not perform as well as the normal cookie cutter build that most assassins are running. You will have poor force management, poor survivability as missing out on some of the better boosts to your self healing that talents further up in madness has to offer.

 

The spec that I am yet to try out is this its what I will run as soon as I get time to test it. You can switch out fade and deceptive power and put them in saber conduit but I ran a similar hybrid and it did fairly well. Also its a simple rotation thrash, shock and maul deathfield and the force management is quite good.

 

I still love madness and think it performs great once you get use to it but when I get bored I run that hybrid.

 

So I played it. The DPS is ok. At times the damage spikes hard. However, the survivability is lower and a straight deception build provides I think a lot more single target damage. The AOE reduction wasn't their as you stated more than deception. I missed that. Maybe if I was better at DoTing it would be more effective. I tried getting around and marking up targets.

 

Force management wasn't an issue. Infact, no build I am in is truly having that issue if you have blackout/stealth now with dark embrace you really are able to quickly rebuild your force and resume DPS.

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So I played it. The DPS is ok. At times the damage spikes hard. However, the survivability is lower and a straight deception build provides I think a lot more single target damage. The AOE reduction wasn't their as you stated more than deception. I missed that. Maybe if I was better at DoTing it would be more effective. I tried getting around and marking up targets.

 

Force management wasn't an issue. Infact, no build I am in is truly having that issue if you have blackout/stealth now with dark embrace you really are able to quickly rebuild your force and resume DPS.

 

Woah I never said anything about AoE damage:rolleyes: Anways I wont be able to play until my mouse gets replaced which will be sometime but I still want to try it out. I just hate giving up my madness I love that tree to much.

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I like the direction this thread is going. But I think many of you are sacrificing too much damage for defensive talents that are nice, but are not going to give a full return on your investment.

 

There are two hybrid specs that I highly recommend for pvp. The first is a version of the Arika build but I like to call Mad Maul. Its Madness spec but still trying to exploit as much Maul as possible as it is our new hardest attack. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200bIbszMskZfhbRkZc.2 With this spec you basically play the Madness rotation, keep your Deathmarks up and keep your Discharge dot up for Raze procs and UK. When exploit weakness procs get in there for your 5k-6k crits. Those hard hitting Mauls mixed in with DF and Raze is just nasty. Before 1.4 this spec put out a good amount of damage but sacrificed alot of healing through dots and a 30m dot which also stunned. But with the new Darkswell talent you got 12 seconds of about 50% damage mitigation (24 seconds if you vanish and reset Blackout) which is plenty of time to get your crit on.

 

The next Hybrid spec that does great is Dark Maul. Again taking advantage of the defense and utility of the Darkness tree while taking advantage of the hard hitting Maul. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200bIbszMskZfRbRkZc.2 The idea behind this spec is taking advantage of the increased force regen to make up for the high cost of Maul. The premise behind this spec is all about Maul spam even when Exploit Weakness is not procd. If you just use Saber Strike and Maul, you will do about 100-200 more dps than if you just Thrashed and Shocked on Energized procs. So the idea is not to spam Thrash and Shock and only Maul on Exploit Weakness. You always Maul/Saber Stike. Only when you cannot get behind your opponent you will use Thrash/Shock. You get all the utility out of the Darkness tree, you get insane survivability through Dark Charge and the new Darkswell aswell as sick opening dps (remember that 24 seconds I mentioned above?) Ive parsed way over 2000 dps during the openers with this spec. When you are not taking advantage of Dark Embrace you can still do pretty good damage with Thrash/Shock and Maul when you can.

Edited by Xethis
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I like the direction this thread is going. But I think many of you are sacrificing too much damage for defensive talents that are nice, but are not going to give a full return on your investment.

 

There are two hybrid specs that I highly recommend for pvp. The first is a version of the Arika build but I like to call Mad Maul. Its Madness spec but still trying to exploit as much Maul as possible as it is our new hardest attack. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200ZfRbRzZcMfRrrkbM.2 With this spec you basically play the Madness rotation, keep your Deathmarks up and keep your Discharge dot up for Raze procs and UK. When exploit weakness procs get in there for your 5k-6k crits. Those hard hitting Mauls mixed in with DF and Raze is just nasty. Before 1.4 this spec put out a good amount of damage but sacrificed alot of healing through dots and a 30m dot which also stunned. But with the new Darkswell talent you got 12 seconds of about 50% damage mitigation (24 seconds if you vanish and reset Blackout) which is plenty of time to get your crit on.

 

The next Hybrid spec that does great is Dark Maul. Again taking advantage of the defense and utility of the Darkness tree while taking advantage of the hard hitting Maul. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200bIbszMskZfRbRkZc.2 The idea behind this spec is taking advantage of the increased force regen to make up for the high cost of Maul. The premise behind this spec is all about Maul spam even when Exploit Weakness is not procd. If you just use Saber Strike and Maul, you will do about 100-200 more dps than if you just Thrashed and Shocked on Energized procs. So the idea is not to spam Thrash and Shock and only Maul on Exploit Weakness. You always Maul/Saber Stike. Only when you cannot get behind your opponent you will use Thrash/Shock. You get all the utility out of the Darkness tree, you get insane survivability through Dark Charge and the new Darkswell aswell as sick opening dps (remember that 24 seconds I mentioned above?) Ive parsed way over 2000 dps during the openers with this spec. When you are not taking advantage of Dark Embrace you can still do pretty good damage with Thrash/Shock and Maul when you can.

 

I run the Dark Maul Build but I think you have to tune your build slightly because your build spec has problems if you are running surging charge. Energize doesn't work on surging charge. I run a 23/11/7 build that uses darkswell as opposed to torment to help offset energy management with the 25% 6sec. damage reduction. I run dark charge on that build. That has improved my DPS to about 300-400k when it normally ranged 225-300k in most matches.

 

I am not sure why you'd take thrashing blades over lightning reflexes. You don't have voltaic slash, barely anyone uses lacerate and thrash is almost a throw away to me in pvp. I am interested in induction as a measurement case. Does the stack make the critical maul dmg go to 60% with 2 stacks or are they only talking about the shock cost? It might be worth carrying if you got that sort of edge

 

I am going to toss the 22 Special in the river with the dead bodies that was anyone who tried the build. Lets call this new build the "Dark Lightning"

 

How it works: Running Lightning Charge you get the best of Darkness without running dark charge and a 50% armor bump. Eye of the storm should stack with Insulation while in lightning charge. Discharge is now a single target DoT.

 

You keep the improved maul. You get death field to heal you. You get Chain Shock. You get spike out of stealth. There is some play in the build to take Dark Embrace if energy management is an issue to use stealth to bump the energy.

 

You keep force pull. You run a stance that has more melee damage. Lets see how this build plays tonight/tomorrow. If its good I'll make a video. If it sucks I'll be the first to admit it. If you want to give it a try please do so.

Edited by PlagaNerezza
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I like the direction this thread is going. But I think many of you are sacrificing too much damage for defensive talents that are nice, but are not going to give a full return on your investment.

 

There are two hybrid specs that I highly recommend for pvp. The first is a version of the Arika build but I like to call Mad Maul. Its Madness spec but still trying to exploit as much Maul as possible as it is our new hardest attack. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200ZfRbRzZcMfRrrkbM.2 With this spec you basically play the Madness rotation, keep your Deathmarks up and keep your Discharge dot up for Raze procs and UK. When exploit weakness procs get in there for your 5k-6k crits. Those hard hitting Mauls mixed in with DF and Raze is just nasty. Before 1.4 this spec put out a good amount of damage but sacrificed alot of healing through dots and a 30m dot which also stunned. But with the new Darkswell talent you got 12 seconds of about 50% damage mitigation (24 seconds if you vanish and reset Blackout) which is plenty of time to get your crit on.

 

The next Hybrid spec that does great is Dark Maul. Again taking advantage of the defense and utility of the Darkness tree while taking advantage of the hard hitting Maul. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200bIbszMskZfRbRkZc.2 The idea behind this spec is taking advantage of the increased force regen to make up for the high cost of Maul. The premise behind this spec is all about Maul spam even when Exploit Weakness is not procd. If you just use Saber Strike and Maul, you will do about 100-200 more dps than if you just Thrashed and Shocked on Energized procs. So the idea is not to spam Thrash and Shock and only Maul on Exploit Weakness. You always Maul/Saber Stike. Only when you cannot get behind your opponent you will use Thrash/Shock. You get all the utility out of the Darkness tree, you get insane survivability through Dark Charge and the new Darkswell aswell as sick opening dps (remember that 24 seconds I mentioned above?) Ive parsed way over 2000 dps during the openers with this spec. When you are not taking advantage of Dark Embrace you can still do pretty good damage with Thrash/Shock and Maul when you can.

 

Keep in mind induction doesn't work unless you run surging charges. The madness/deception and dark/decep builds here have an inherent inconsistency in it. I guess you could switch charges...but yea i would rather not...

 

Edit: After testing I stand corrected, the 30% maul critical damage applies regardless of charge.

Edited by Dierdrea
Mistake
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Guys you are missing everything. Dark Maul is designed to only be run in Dark Charge, the only reason that Surging Charge was grabbed was to get Induction for the 30% crit damage bonus on Maul because this is your primary attack. If you are not in Surging Charge then there will be no stacks of Induction, the only reason the talent was grabbed was for the 30% crit modifier to Maul. 23-11-7 is a waste because you are not even exploiting your best attack with max force regen. Darth Maul only works because of the new Darkswell talent. The 12 seconds of increased force regen every time you come out of stealth. Why did I take Thrashing Blades, that is a no brainer. I did not take any defensive talents out of the Darkness tree. Basically everything out of the Darkness tree was for utility while running Dark Charge.

 

One last time, I don't give two cents about the stacks of Induction or the Surging Charge talent. I run Dark Charge for the damage mitigation and the heals. If you read my post I broke down exactly why I took the talents I did and even parsed the damage potential of a Maul spam opener. I don't know why so many people got to discredit everything I say and try to educate me on my spec when they have not even ever tried it. I am trying to help YOU do better in wz's. If you are completely happy doing less than the AC can do then just stay with what you got. But last I checked there is no spec that can pump out over 2k dps during the opener. If you do disagree pls bring some solid evidence and facts from actually trying the spec. Don't just read a couple of the talents and claim there is no synergy.

 

The spec is called Dark Maul, Darkness tree, Dark Charge all while exploiting the Maul ability. Dark Maul. Not, Dark Surging Charge To Get Induction Stacks For No Reason.

Edited by Xethis
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I am sorry if I am misunderstanding this, I was told that the 30% maul damage did not work unless you were in surging charge and that the tooltip was wrong. This may well be an error on my part. Will run some tests.

 

The only thing you need to be in Surging Charge for is the Induction stacks for your shocks. 30% increase to Maul crit damage is the same no matter what Charge you use.

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Guys you are missing everything. Dark Maul is designed to only be run in Dark Charge, the only reason that Surging Charge was grabbed was to get Induction for the 30% crit damage bonus on Maul because this is your primary attack. If you are not in Surging Charge then there will be no stacks of Induction, the only reason the talent was grabbed was for the 30% crit modifier to Maul. 23-11-7 is a waste because you are not even exploiting your best attack with max force regen. Darth Maul only works because of the new Darkswell talent. The 12 seconds of increased force regen every time you come out of stealth. Why did I take Thrashing Blades, that is a no brainer. I did not take any defensive talents out of the Darkness tree. Basically everything out of the Darkness tree was for utility while running Dark Charge.

 

One last time, I don't give two cents about the stacks of Induction or the Surging Charge talent. I run Dark Charge for the damage mitigation and the heals. If you read my post I broke down exactly why I took the talents I did and even parsed the damage potential of a Maul spam opener. I don't know why so many people got to discredit everything I say and try to educate me on my spec when they have not even ever tried it. I am trying to help YOU do better in wz's. If you are completely happy doing less than the AC can do then just stay with what you got. But last I checked there is no spec that can pump out over 2k dps during the opener. If you do disagree pls bring some solid evidence and facts from actually trying the spec. Don't just read a couple of the talents and claim there is no synergy.

 

The spec is called Dark Maul, Darkness tree, Dark Charge all while exploiting the Maul ability. Dark Maul. Not, Dark Surging Charge To Get Induction Stacks For No Reason.

 

No one is trying to discredit your build. You might want to relax a bit on a build thread, especially when its not even your thread.

 

As to your dark maul spec, I still don't understand some of the points if you are taking dark charge why not put the points in so that overcharge saber heals you for 10% health? If you do great. If you don't fine. I find insulation to not be as valuable as chain shock and I use maul running dark charge.

 

As to lightning charge spec as a viable spec with darkness, the bottomline to that was it wasn't providing the killing power of a pure deception/darkness build and seemed on pace with the damage darkness gave without the survivability. So. Good luck fellow sins. See you in game.

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No one is trying to discredit your build. You might want to relax a bit on a build thread, especially when its not even your thread.

 

As to your dark maul spec, I still don't understand some of the points if you are taking dark charge why not put the points in so that overcharge saber heals you for 10% health? If you do great. If you don't fine. I find insulation to not be as valuable as chain shock and I use maul running dark charge.

 

Feels like you have not even read anything I actually wrote, your just looking at the spec and not understanding. If you really do have questions then actually read my post, then actually try the spec. It is quite obvious you have done neither.

 

As far as the Hollow talent that gives you a 10% heal, that is a nice talent and if you want to tweak the 23 points a bit to get you the talent it wont hurt much. As for me personally I use Overcharge Saber right off the get go, when I am 100% health and when I have roughly 60% damage mitigation through Dark Charge and Darkswell. So the heal isn't needed. I found when I ran a full Darkness build that I ended up saving Overcharge Saber as a defensive cooldown instead of an offensive one. As of right now my first 12 sec is 100% offense.

Edited by Xethis
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Feels like you have not even read anything I actually wrote, your just looking at the spec and not understanding. If you really do have questions then actually read my post, then actually try the spec. It is quite obvious you have done neither.

 

As far as the Hollow talent that gives you a 10% heal, that is a nice talent and if you want to tweak the 23 points a bit to get you the talent it wont hurt much. As for me personally I use Overcharge Saber right off the get go, when I am 100% health and when I have roughly 60% damage mitigation through Dark Charge and Darkswell. So the heal isn't needed. I found when I ran a full Darkness build that I ended up saving Overcharge Saber as a defensive cooldown instead of an offensive one. As of right now my first 12 sec is 100% offense.

 

I run a 23 point darkness build currently. I told you I ran a very similar spec as you run, with some changes to better align my darkness tree with improved overcharge saber, for instance. I ran it without chain shock to take insulation. In fact I would tell you if your running deception with insulation you should take fade, but you don't like anyone making suggestions to you.

 

You have a full darkenss build options currently:

 

Darkness with heavy maul and chain shock (23/11/7)

Darkness with heavy maul and insulation

Darkness with death field and whirlwind and light maul. (23/1/17)

Darkness with Wither, chain shock (31/0/10)

Darkness with Wither, chain shock and heavy maul (31/3/7)

Darkness with Death Field, heavy maul and chain shock (23/5/15)

Darkness with Force Lightning, light maul, chain shock, Death Field (27/1/13)

 

All of these play slightly differently and I have played all of them. What I don't appreciate from you is this sense that dark maul was somehow your build that no one else plays or understands. There are many assassins who have had maul in builds as openers or finishers. Prior to its current revamp I found after much fighting that 31/0/10 pvp was the best build for the roll I played in warzones.

 

Maul is unpredictable. Unlike smash, or snipe or other big hitting skills it requires more timing to hit. To take insulation as your build has requires dropping a host very powerful attacks.

 

For instance, I enjoy using maul, but a lot of times having no instant cast attack I can use at 30m now is a big issue in your build. Especially with well structured groups or on fleeing targets. I find my build shares that issue. Having dealth field for instance helps to give us greater range and FL on x3 is very powerful with recklessness.

 

Wither is very useful to healers who get slowed/rooted. When you can slow down the attackers pursuing your guarded target and reducing the damage output you've taken stress off the healer.

 

I have played plenty in darkness. All I was looking to do is try some hybrid build specs. Maybe next time instead of saying you didn't try my build "Waaaa!", you could tell us or post to us stats, strengths, additional info, whatever to supplement your posts.

 

Instead of just falsely proclaiming we've never tried your build. I have tried a bunch. It makes pugging more fun. So please post your builds others. I am always looking for something fun to play.

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All these builds seem to kind of gimp Shock for some unnecessary damage reductions, for most of the cookie cutter builds Shock is the bread and butter and the most consistent damage ability. I recently revisited a spec I tried when 1.4 came out on the reccomendation of another assassin, and that would be this one right here
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All these builds seem to kind of gimp Shock for some unnecessary damage reductions, for most of the cookie cutter builds Shock is the bread and butter and the most consistent damage ability. I recently revisited a spec I tried when 1.4 came out on the reccomendation of another assassin, and that would be this one right here

 

You do realize that not taking voltaic slash to have death field in the same post doesn't reconcile.

 

Also any darkness build that has chain shock is gimping shock how exactly?

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You do realize that not taking voltaic slash to have death field in the same post doesn't reconcile.

 

Also any darkness build that has chain shock is gimping shock how exactly?

 

I think he means the 50% critical strike damage to shock you get from Crackling Blasts. I made up something similar when 1.4 came out, and Deathfield more than makes up for the 30% damage Voltiac Slash gives Shock. Discharge also hits like a truck with Cracling Blasts and Static Charges when it crits.There's also the fact that you get 30m ability which makes a lot of difference in pvp, for me atleast.

Edited by mikekrumbak
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I think he means the 50% critical strike damage to shock you get from Crackling Blasts. I made up something similar when 1.4 came out, and Deathfield more than makes up for the 30% damage Voltiac Slash gives Shock. Discharge also hits like a truck with Cracling Blasts and Static Charges when it crits.There's also the fact that you get 30m ability which makes a lot of difference in pvp, for me atleast.

 

I don't disagree that a case can be made to not take voltaic slash for death field. I just found it odd for someone to say All those builds gimp shock! Use my build! Which opt to take death field over voltaic slash.

 

I like discharge a lot. The fact that its also a less target facing attack also makes it very useful as you are posiitoning.

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