So I did some parsing (and so did Zannah, was talking to him today) and it seems the class got hit by about a 900 DPS nerf (Zannah went from 10500 to 9600 playing around with crit and alac for optimal stats, I went from about 10K to 9.1/9.2K)

 

On most bosses in HM, as an average shadow (before the nerf I could pull over 10K DPS), I could do 7500 DPS before the nerf. If I did things right, and worked my butt off, and did my rotation right, I can occasionally pull NiM-capable numbers (8K DPS).

 

After the nerf, I was doing 6600-6800 DPS on HM bosses tonight. That sucks. I mean that's absolutely abominable. Those are 4.0 numbers.

 

This was way, way, way too much. As I've said elsewhere, as a single target DPS the only thing Shadow has going for it is raw numbers. This class needs a serious buff to fix it.

Edited October 11, 2017 by FlavivsAetivs

They said it in their post if I remember correctly. "We don't balance class against content, instead we balance them around specific target dps".

When I read "we dont balance against content, we balance a target DPS", I interpret it as they do not balance DPS off of content that has the highest DPS check ops, such as Styrak. And it makes sense for a couple reasons:

1). Not all content is balanced evenly at this point in the game, so balancing for one specific op encounter could potentially severely unbalance other encounters.

2). Its much easier to balance the class as a whole and then individually tweak ops encounters where their target dps creates an impossibility to complete, such as styrak.

 

In any case, neither of our interpretations of their statement has been clarified enough to know for sure what source they base their target dps off of.

Perhaps you should take a little more time looking at the leaderboards. There are a number of burst spec classes in the mid 10K range, besides Assassins/Shadows. So no, a nerf was NOT needed. End of story.

 

It was needed. End of story

Up the jugg on dps dot, (heavy armor and max cd)

 

These people who say DPS juggs have max defenses...

Deception sins are much better in DCD department...

Edited October 11, 2017 by Equeliber

The parse you linked is good, but not at all representative of what the class usually do. I find it very strange that he had to use saber strike and still reach 10k7 dps, saber strike would mean he messed up his rotation somewhere. But looking at the individual crit, it's no wonder... 75% crit on assassinate ? Srsly ? :') and I'm not even talking about the apm

 

The answer here is called "alacrity", I'm 99% sure about that. If you stack alacrity realy high (around 15.4%, I think) you'll get an unexpectedly high benefit from it. There is a thread somewhere on the forums talking about the reasons for it, it's mainly aimed at fury marauders, but after reading it, I tried the high-alacrity build on my deception sin. My apm increased by 2-3, damage went from around 9.8k to around 10.2k and yes, I had to use one or two saber strikes aswell, because the energy-regeneration-rate couldn't keep up with the increased apm. Once you reach 30% and can use assassinate it's no longer a problem though.

after a few warzones, i can't say i felt much of a nerf. ball lightning appeared to do a bit less damage indeed, but maybe only because i paid special attention to it.

The answer here is called "alacrity", I'm 99% sure about that. If you stack alacrity realy high (around 15.4%, I think) you'll get an unexpectedly high benefit from it. There is a thread somewhere on the forums talking about the reasons for it, it's mainly aimed at fury marauders, but after reading it, I tried the high-alacrity build on my deception sin. My apm increased by 2-3, damage went from around 9.8k to around 10.2k and yes, I had to use one or two saber strikes aswell, because the energy-regeneration-rate couldn't keep up with the increased apm. Once you reach 30% and can use assassinate it's no longer a problem though.

 

i think alacrity is beneficial to burst classes - im using high alacrity build on me concealment and am having interesting results, while on lethality not so much

The answer here is called "alacrity", I'm 99% sure about that. If you stack alacrity realy high (around 15.4%, I think) you'll get an unexpectedly high benefit from it. There is a thread somewhere on the forums talking about the reasons for it, it's mainly aimed at fury marauders, but after reading it, I tried the high-alacrity build on my deception sin. My apm increased by 2-3, damage went from around 9.8k to around 10.2k and yes, I had to use one or two saber strikes aswell, because the energy-regeneration-rate couldn't keep up with the increased apm. Once you reach 30% and can use assassinate it's no longer a problem though.

 

It could have been that, I thought about it that way too, but it doesn't explain the high crit rate. You gotta lose crit stat in order to have more alacrity, however on this parse, there is no impact on crit, like I said, 75%crit on his assassinate is way over the top to be called a normal parse. Either this guy got really lucky or he spent some times editing his file. :/

Edited October 11, 2017 by supertimtaf

Well deception was fun while it lasted. looks like the only thing i'll be doing on my sin is tanking. Thankfully I JUST maxed out the tank gear so I don't have to grind.

Yep. Back to uselessness for Shadow DPS. At least we were somewhat useful while it lasted.

Yep, exploits are fun, AIR?

It could have been that, I thought about it that way too, but it doesn't explain the high crit rate. You gotta lose crit stat in order to have more alacrity, however on this parse, there is no impact on crit, like I said, 75%crit on his assassinate is way over the top to be called a normal parse. Either this guy got really lucky or he spent some times editing his file. :/

 

Parsing is only luck after u know what to do with the rotation. Nowadays thanks to casual gearing everyone can get bis and show off how pro they are by getting lucky or parsing often

Edited October 12, 2017 by invertioN

As I've said elsewhere - shadow parses aren't usually representative of the class due to the increased RNG aspect and the much wider margin of error. The 10,500 and 10,700 parses are the exception - most of those parsers regularly did 10,200, which is where Shadow was.

 

The class was in a great spot, it was exactly where it needed to be. Nerfs over DPS did nothing to affect its viability in PvP (it performs almost the same) but absolutely destroyed its usefulness in PvE.

 

The changes need to be undone, hands down, end of discussion. The class is worthless, again, because Bioware can't properly balance it (which is true, the class doesn't have an actual rotation so whatever nerfs they do are going to have a slightly greater effect on Shadow Infil/Sin Deception than they would on other classes). Every time they did a serious update to the game (4.0, 5.0) it ends up "OP" (which it's not, it's merely viable, not OP), and every time they "fix it" (which it didn't need to be) it gets nerfed into uselessness.

 

The Classes without raid utility/raid buffs, IMO, need to be higher parsing than those that do have it in order to create an actual trade off in choice. You can have either a really high-parsing DPS spec or a normal one (which in the case of mara usually ends up high parsing anyways) with a Raid Buff that increases group DPS.

 

This class would still benefit a lot from undoing the RNG procs and giving it an actual rotation, TBQH. It also still needs the soft position requirement removed.

Edited October 12, 2017 by FlavivsAetivs

The class was in a great spot, it was exactly where it needed to be. Nerfs over DPS did nothing to affect its viability in PvP (it performs almost the same) but absolutely destroyed its usefulness in PvE.

Just how much of a nerf is it really? I don't play much recently and when I do I'm normally tanking, soo...?

 

But I doubt it has destroyed our use in PvE. Sure, if you have the choice between deception and any Mara of the same skill, take the mara, but no amount of damage would change that, imo. Mara simply brings too much to the table in a raid to be ignored.

But people said the same about Arsenal, it is useless, destroed, whatever in PvE and they're doing just fine.

 

The Classes without raid utility/raid buffs, IMO, need to be higher parsing than those that do have it in order to create an actual trade off in choice. You can have either a really high-parsing DPS spec or a normal one (which in the case of mara usually ends up high parsing anyways) with a Raid Buff that increases group DPS.

I fully agree.

The problem is, what qualifies as a raid utility and what not? And how do you rank them?

Deception brings some utility: Stealth rezz, being able to offtank quite well, now that we have the ability to frontmaul and thereby maintaining Dark Embrace, a whole lot of cheese with "I don't want to play this mechanic" shroud. Short group DR buff via mass taunt(I know, it's laughable, but it isn't nothing). So, is having the ability to stealth rezz worth more, less or the same than a bloodthirst? Or Predation? It's a tough question to answer and even if you do, not everyone will agree on the ranking anyone would come up with.

 

This class would still benefit a lot from undoing the RNG procs and giving it an actual rotation, TBQH. It also still needs the soft position requirement removed.

I actually like a priority instead of a set in stone rotation, but that's personal preference. And yeah, rng s*cks.

about the stealth rez: consider that deception uses force cloak rotationally so that dead group member is going to be waiting a while if they've died at the wrong time. and it's of course a dps loss.

 

another point for maras, since we're comparing: mobility! slightly lower cd on force charge vs force speed, 30 sec predation (albeit at the cost of 2 utility points for max effect but deception assassins have to spend 3 utility points for damage so...), 45 seconds mad dash and in a pinch force camo can also help you move a little quicker.

 

assassins have force speed and phantom stride, which is however used rotationally in deception. there's a speed buff attached to ball lighting (masterful utility point) but it's a proc so you can't exactly rely on having it when you need it. (and delaying ball lighting to make sure would be a profoundly bad idea in case somebody's wondering, straight dps loss and messes up all priorities)

 

Phasewalk (which needed to be set up beforehand) is of course gone ("we felt assassins were a little too mobile".... ) and before somebody says "you can stealth and move unseen": 1) this is in pve boss fights 2) force cloak is used rotationally for best damage and resource management in pve

Edited October 13, 2017 by nyrkverse

That's exactly the point I was making.

I agree with Eudoxia that balance should take group utility into consideration.

The problem is, as I said above, and you reinforced with your statement about stealth rezz and mobility on Deception: What qualifies as a group utility, what doesn't and how do rank them against each other? There's no universal answer that everybody will agree upon with this. Like with every other way to balance.

The next thing about balance is, as a dev team, you have to agree on a method by which you want to balance and then balance accordingly. Because there is no universal, magical balance that everybody agrees on. But as long as you, as a game dev, manage to balance according to your set balance strategy, it's fine. And Imo Bio does a rather good job at this atm. Sure, there are outliers that still need some tweaking(Hatred anybody?) but overall, the results of their nerfs can't be neglected. They pretty much reached their goal with almost all classes.

I don't have to agree with this balance strategy, but it is what they use and they use it quite well overall.

 

In fact, I don't like the way, Bioware balances atm, with ranking classes based on melee and ranged + burst or sustained. Imo it should be only burst vs sustained because any melee class is capable of transferring as much of it's dummy dps to a real fight, as a ranged is in PvE. If it's not the case either your tanks are crap(force downtime on you due to bad boss positioning) or the melee is crap. Or you get trolled by your sorcs constantly pulling you away or placing voids around the boss

So imo it should be sutained above burst classes, no matter if ranged or melee and ranked due to utility somehow, where the classes with less utility do the most damage and high utiliy sustained classes do comparable damage to no utility burst classes.

As already mentioned, the problem is how to rank utilities against each other.

Another problem to fit in are hybrid specs like vengeance or Engineering, that are neither pure burst, pure sustained, nor pure AoE classes. Not quite sure where they would fit in.

That's exactly the point I was making.

I agree with Eudoxia that balance should take group utility into consideration.

The problem is, as I said above, and you reinforced with your statement about stealth rezz and mobility on Deception: What qualifies as a group utility, what doesn't and how do rank them against each other? There's no universal answer that everybody will agree upon with this. Like with every other way to balance.

The next thing about balance is, as a dev team, you have to agree on a method by which you want to balance and then balance accordingly. Because there is no universal, magical balance that everybody agrees on. But as long as you, as a game dev, manage to balance according to your set balance strategy, it's fine. And Imo Bio does a rather good job at this atm. Sure, there are outliers that still need some tweaking(Hatred anybody?) but overall, the results of their nerfs can't be neglected. They pretty much reached their goal with almost all classes.

I don't have to agree with this balance strategy, but it is what they use and they use it quite well overall.

 

For your answer about the dps loss, it's about 800dps on a "normal" parse. I was parsing at 9k8 on a dummy without forcing myself, now I'm down to 9k. It's worst on boss fight, as it should be, as me and others where around 8k5 on a somewhat normal boss (movement required, defensive ability, trashmob...) we're down around 7k5 which is terrible. Again, as for raid utility, Deception doesn't have one except its damage (Stealth Rez ? Lul, Force Cloak is in our rotation, always on cd. And you should never call "Stealth Rez" a group utility, because it means your group is bad if you have to use it ^^' )

 

The problem with their current balance strategy is that they take a theorical value, with a defined rotation (that we still have to hear about) and parse on a dummy. They balance class around dummy and then said class have to fight a boss that have the same dps requirement as the dummy. Except that this boss isn't a dummy, therefore it will impact greatly your dps, due to mechanics.

The problem being also nerf that weren't needed or badly handled nerf.

Take the 3 healers for example, where they sure nerfed them, but not correctly, not in a way that was enjoyable for the players. They transformed sorc healer into a very slow healer with a weaker burst that cost an arm to pull off.

The class is almost nothing compared to what it used to be. I would have been fine with "Quick on demand burst but with a really strong cost". Or even "Slow heal with a not so great burst but with low cost". Instead I got everything at once. The same can be said about Operative Healer, where they made the class very hard to play (no burst improvement at all, reduced TA gain, reduced energy regeneration...). The funny part still is merc, where they nerfed its hps... Without realising that 10% of it was done by the broken utility it has.

 

It's the same as Arsenal merc you see ? The dps nerf wasn't asked, really. Nobody asked for it. Peoples just wanted to see those broken defensive go away. Instead they got hit with a nerf as big as Deception, and got to keep their defensive ability. ^^'

 

Let's also talk about Carnage, who was also nerfed to be "in range", and still Parse way ahead of most spec in the game (fine by me, Carnage is a spec that needs a good part of skill, along with a good part of meth to keep up with the required apm ) or Hatred, who should have been brought to its target dps along with madness... Still doesn't see them in a raid as "main dps". That's strange don't you think ?

 

I've got really nothing about class balance. The idea is completely normal to me. What isn't normal however is the class balance we've been given, which destroy spec that didn't need to be destroyed, or just plainly don't solve the right problem at all, instead creating another one.

 

 

 

This class would still benefit a lot from undoing the RNG procs and giving it an actual rotation, TBQH. It also still needs the soft position requirement removed.

 

Actually, maybe keep the rng but make it less consistent. A priority system is what have made this class famous and so different from other, I don't see the utility of removing it. The soft position requirement is a nice idea, but it is way too much impacted by desync right now. Fix those desync and the position requirement can stay.

Edited October 13, 2017 by supertimtaf

Have you even read what I said? There's no universal balance that everyone agrees on. Not here, not in WoW, Overwatch or any other multiplayer game. This very discussion proves that.

What Devs do is agree how they should balance and then get to work.

And for this round of balance patches Bio said they're concentrating on dps, dtps and hps numbers. And so far they did a good job at their set goal. If you don't like it or not is a completely different topic.

Are there specs that still need attention? Sure, but apart from that they reached their set goal.

I don't agree with their strategy. You obviously don't, too. Thing is it doesn't matter. It is what they use.

 

Other than that: No spec was "destroyed". Arsenal players like to whine, sure. But Arsenal is still more than capable of doing enough damage to meet any dps check. That's a simple fact.

And just so you know what I mean with "Bio did a good job according to their set goals":

 

Based on the top parse on the 2.5mio dummy, ranged burst:

Arsenal 9357, Marksman 9318, Lightning 9580

Next up, ranged sustained and melee burst:

Engineering 10356, IO 10207, Virulence 10388, Deception 10056, Rage 10041, Fury 10789, Carnage 10660, Madness 9704

Top tier, melee sustained:

Pyrotech 10521, Hatred 10226, Vengeance 10385, Annihilation 10437, Lethality 10750

 

It's not perfect, there are still outliers which needs a little tweaking(Carnage, Fury, Madness, Lethality), but overall it's rather good.

I still don't agree with their current balance strategy, but within it, they did good.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Torvai

So, yesterday a friend of mine and me were both assasine-dps in the same operation (Asation) and the results were very interesting. He, a very good dps at any class, is one of the top decepton-players (and usually the best one in our raiding group). Me, that I am usually tanking most of the time, was trying hatred. I have to add, that I am usually not very good at dpsing. My dps are mostly sufficient, but not overwhelming. Due to dps-leaching with dot-spread I was on top of the dps-chart on 3 of 5 bosses, however, the single-target dps on the required targets were very similar. Due to the fact, that, as said before, I am not the best dps at all and were playing this spec for the first time in several weeks, I was very satisfied with the results. In my opinion, the nerf of deception and the buff of hatred both went in the right direction. However, if deception would have been 1 or 2 % higher, it would have been perfect in my opinion. A really good played deception should be more then barely able to compete with a bad played hatred in terms of single target DPS.

So the other day they officially announced the changes to utilities.

 

Shadow will be loosing its 30% AOE DR passive, which is being turned into a utility. On top of that, it loses the 30% DR during stun utility.

 

This royally screws shadows even further for a variety of reasons. Although a decent survivability buff for hatred to a certain degree, both classes lose a vital 30% DR that's critical to the way they're played. Having 30% DR while stunned kept this class viable in Ranked PvP and in PvP in general, because the easiest way to win a ranked match with a DPS shadow in it is to kill the shadow first due to how squishy the class is - picking the stun DR prevented that from happening.

 

We also now can't take our other utilities in general PvP, like the force wave root, or the 25% AOE damage increase on whirling blow (and whatever the imp one is called).

 

It also affects deception on NiM Styrak now. We now have to pick between AOE Damage reduction (a mandatory utility due to the change) and the root utility on that fight. Which makes the class even less viable on top of the fact its DPS has been badly over-nerfed to the point where it's no longer viable anyways.

 

This is why I again plead Bioware to not follow through with these changes. They are game-breaking for the Shadow DPS classes.

Edited October 31, 2017 by FlavivsAetivs

I can understand infiltration needed to be toned down a bit but not as much as they did. In the most practical sense, the only really raid utility infiltration brings is it's burst dps. In most cases that I've been in, you're not going to stealth rez someone in the middle of a MM or even VM pull, so don't call stealth rez a raid utility. You also shouldn't call infiltration's mobility a viable utility. Yes it does make a difference with being able to have more dps uptime on the boss, but it doesn't make a huge difference as some may think.

 

And then now with the change to one of our utilities/abilities, effectively reducing our DR, is just absurd. Yes serenity needs love in the DR department. But infiltration shouldn't have to suffer for it.

 

I love my shadow, and I'll continue to play my shadow till the game shuts down, but it just makes no sense that they finally had infiltration in a fairly good place, and then nerfed it to be less than desirable in raids again. Seriously, other than infiltration's burst and it's(current, not future)DR, what does the spec bring to the table for progression raiding?

I can understand infiltration needed to be toned down a bit but not as much as they did. In the most practical sense, the only really raid utility infiltration brings is it's burst dps. In most cases that I've been in, you're not going to stealth rez someone in the middle of a MM or even VM pull, so don't call stealth rez a raid utility.

 

Stealth rezzing is a very helpful raid utility. Especially for Deceptions or Darkness-Sins, who don't have to wait until some hots or dots fall of. I don't know your special raid experience, but there is no raid night, where we don't use a stealth rez. Just watch

.

 

In terms of raiding, the only fight, where I miss the stun-DR is Brontes NiM final Burn. And there we have plenty of other dcd's (especially force speed, that we can use for every fire&forget). So, in my opinion, it's not a great loss for pve/raidcontent.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Exocor

For PvP, the loss of DR when stunned will be a very crushing blow, especially on top of that they already did to infiltration in 5.5. Not so bad in a 1v1, but when you get in the middle of the main battle near a door on a voidstar or whatever, the land of chain stuns, this loss of the 30% DR will mean there is no hope for a healer to keep us alive. It's a good thing we can get away using our phase walk...eer, nope we don't have that anymore. We're screwed.

 

It really disheartens me that the devs didn't listen to the very good points made when these utility changes were first announced. They sure as heck listened to sentinels/marauders about their changes and made an adjustment. I think they should take a step back and not nerf us into the ground.

For PvP, the loss of DR when stunned will be a very crushing blow, especially on top of that they already did to infiltration in 5.5. Not so bad in a 1v1, but when you get in the middle of the main battle near a door on a voidstar or whatever, the land of chain stuns, this loss of the 30% DR will mean there is no hope for a healer to keep us alive. It's a good thing we can get away using our phase walk...eer, nope we don't have that anymore. We're screwed.

 

It really disheartens me that the devs didn't listen to the very good points made when these utility changes were first announced. They sure as heck listened to sentinels/marauders about their changes and made an adjustment. I think they should take a step back and not nerf us into the ground.

 

Maybe we should cry as much and as loud as Carnage maras did about their precious Ferocity so BW will hear us as well.

Maybe we should cry as much and as loud as Carnage maras did about their precious Ferocity so BW will hear us as well.

 

Or juste abuse even more the system by playing skank. Seems like it's what they want anyway...

 

But yeah, still waiting for an explanation as to why they nerfed both hatred and Deception for what should have been a buff to hatred.

And if it isn't a nerf, I'm still waiting for an explanation as well, currently the information relayed doesn't make sense at all, especially if you consider that some ranged class (mercenary) got to keep the whole utility.