I am fairly new to swtor but am curious to what the pvp game is like at 55.

 

Please share with me how are assassins pvp wise and how do you like it personally?

and also my main question: which skill tree(s) are most viable for pvp?

 

From what I've looked up it seems that everybody is going Darkness and that's it.

I saw one post from 2 months ago of a hybrid between darkness & madness but that's all I've seen that is farthest from Darkness.

 

And please assume that I am very capable of doing "well with my class" and also please don't tell me "you can do great with any skill tree!" because I am asking which is most viable, in your opinion.

 

Thanks in advance

Full darkness got a bit stronger and deception got huge buffs which you will here some people call it OP...stay away from madness.

Most viable are full-tree Darkness, full-tree Deception, and then Darkness and Deception hybrids which pick up Death Field (one of the most amazing PVP skills in the game) in the Madness tree.

 

I would personally say that full-tree Darkness if you want to tank and the Wakajinn 2.0 Deception/Madness hybrid if you want to DPS are the most efficient specs for ranked and unranked play.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Omophorus

Thanks so much guys, much appreciated. If anyone else reads this feel free to also share your opinion as well!

I'm running a darkness/madness hybrid. Seems to work just fine. Similar survivability to full darkness but a good 40-50% more damage.

I don't know why people are in love with Death Field. It was never that great of a skill and it really says more about how strong the Darkness is that you can be without Wither and still be halfway respectable.

I would be curious to see how well 36/X/X does against 33/11/2 with blackout for a node guard. In a 1v1 fight, I would probably take blackout over wither or death field. With field respec it's not so hard to swap around when needed during a WZ, also.

hmm interesting points. thank you guys for your opinion! if anyone else has opinions they would like to share feel free to here! im always down for more pointers/tips/guides/etc.

I don't know why people are in love with Death Field. It was never that great of a skill and it really says more about how strong the Darkness is that you can be without Wither and still be halfway respectable.

 

DF is a long-range, moderate damage AOE that you can use around corners on a fairly short CD. Oh and it heals you.

 

Agreed Darkness is strong. That's why you take most of the darkness talents and then get DF.

Heya, guys!

 

How do you feel full Darkness fares in a 1v1 fight? I have a Kinetic Combat Shadow that I LOVE, but I don't feel like I'll ever be able to kill a healer in that spec, even with DPS gear.

 

I'd love to get your thoughts.

Heya, guys!

 

How do you feel full Darkness fares in a 1v1 fight? I have a Kinetic Combat Shadow that I LOVE, but I don't feel like I'll ever be able to kill a healer in that spec, even with DPS gear.

 

I'd love to get your thoughts.

 

Healers are generally too strong right now for anyone to quickly take them down. That said for Darkness, something like Maul -> Shock -> 3 stack HD still does pretty respectable damage. Generally speaking you'd be responsible for the beginning and the end on a healer, but not the middle part. You'd do your sustained rotation to get the healer down to 50-70% (this is easy unless he never healed anyone besides himself, and if he does that's acceptable too as he's effectively neutralized). At this point, you do not have any attack that can suddenly drop his health down to 30% from this point, so someone else should be assisting you with a big attack (Deception Maul, HSM, Ambush, Smash, whatever). Note that the division of work here is important. If you try to smash a healer at 100% he's going down to 60% at most, and at that point he'll just heal himself back up and you won't have your big attacks left, so it's crucial the Darkness works on this unexciting part of the healer's lifebar so that your good DPS can save their burst.

 

Once the healer gets below 30% something like Assassinate -> Maul (proc) -> Shock (Energize) is as strong as any other class's burst and it has about 50% chance of happening (70% chance to proc Conspirator's cloak on Assassinate, and ~70% chance either Assassinate or Maul procs Energize).

Heya, guys!

 

How do you feel full Darkness fares in a 1v1 fight? I have a Kinetic Combat Shadow that I LOVE, but I don't feel like I'll ever be able to kill a healer in that spec, even with DPS gear.

 

I'd love to get your thoughts.

 

You can kill a healer in full darkness. Takes a while and you need to time your burst but very doable.

I don't know why people are in love with Death Field. It was never that great of a skill and it really says more about how strong the Darkness is that you can be without Wither and still be halfway respectable.

 

You don't know why people are in love with the single best utility PVP skill in the game?

 

It's an AMAZING skill.

 

30m range. Ground target (avoid LOS). Instant cast. 5 targets now, and heals based on targets hit. Cheap (with talents).

 

It fixes the biggest shortcoming of both Deception and Darkness... the lack of reliable 30m attack. Sure, you can pop Recklessness and FL, but a 30m instant on a relatively short CD that also happens to have amazing side benefits is basically too good to pass up.

Edited May 5, 2013 by Omophorus

Heya, guys!

 

How do you feel full Darkness fares in a 1v1 fight? I have a Kinetic Combat Shadow that I LOVE, but I don't feel like I'll ever be able to kill a healer in that spec, even with DPS gear.

 

I'd love to get your thoughts.

 

I've already fought 2 very good healers (scoundrel and sage) and in DPS gear (as darkness)... It's nearly impossible. You may be able to kill the sage when they have no force and their immune bubble is on CD, but if they know how to play their class, you may get them low, but you'll have a stalemate for the most part.

 

As for scoundrel, it's even more impossible. They'll stay at 80% ammo, and only be busy healing themselves.

 

I haven't tested enough against commando healers, but you may be able to kill them, not sure yet.

 

You won't die due to passive heals and harnessed darkness, but you'd be in for the world's most boring and longest fight.

Yeah, I concur that it's almost impossible to kill a good healer solo (bad healers, sure). It even takes 3 of me to reliably kill a good Scoundrel healer. I have been in so many matches where I stick to a Scoundrel healer the entire time, interrupt every single cast, and they still do over 2million healing.

Here's the general form of how to fight a healer.

 

Against Sage:

 

If no one is in immediate danger of dying on the enemy team, interrupt only Deliverance and Salvation. Do not interrupt anything else.

 

When someone is getting close to dying (preferably the healer, but can be someone else), do NOT interrupt Salvation. Use weaker CC (Spike, Overload, possibly Force Pull) against Healing Trance (using interrupt on that is way too dangerous). Interrupt Benevolence if you've a second CC ready to deal with the guaranteed Deliverance htat will be cast next.

 

When healer or another valuable target is at 30%, Electrocute the Sage. If he uses Force Barrier, go do something else for a while.

 

Against Scoundrel:

 

Interrupt only Underworld Medicine.

 

Stun at 30%

 

There is literally nothing else you can do.

 

Against Commando:

 

Stun when their bubble is active.