Ok first off, here is my tree build atm

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200rIbckbskbZZo.1

Planning to spec my comming points in madness for death field

I specced darkness for the tanking, but besides flashpoints and heroics i do most of my questing alone.

And i'm starting to feel like i'm coming up short on damage.

I made a BH alt yesterday with a friend who just started and we are ripping through heroic 4 quests with just the 2 of us + companions.

I've never been able to do that on my assassin.

My gear is mostly prioritized on endurance +willpower/crit

My willpower stat is 550 ish and my endurance is 850 ish (9kHp when long buffs are active)

Critical shocks do about 900-1200 damage, regular ones 500+-

Trash does 200/400 damage most of the time (first hit 200, second 400)

But i'm always starved on force and the only rotation that does alot of damage is going for a 3 charge harnessed darkness.

Usually i'll open with a reckless shock, trash, trash, shock,..sabre strike till force is back up,shock again for the third darkness charge and release lighting.

Works, but i still seem to have lost half my (massive) HP when i'm done killing mobs equal to my lvl (with a companion hitting aswell)

Helmet, armor, legs, gloves, boots are orange with blue mods, purple implants self crafted, 2 relics

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Would i be able to do ALOT more damage as a deception/darkness (15/25/0)+- or other build?

Pvp is already a bummer for a tanksassin, but even PvE i start feeling weak compared to my BH alt.

I would dump swelling shadows and shroud of darkness for premonition and mounting darkness. 50% chance to get a tiny self heal every 1.5 seconds is just as good as 65% imho. Id rather have less damage coming in all the time than a slightly larger max healthpool and discharge doing more damage cant hurt.

I also make sure to watch when I get an energize so I can pop recklessness for the extra crit damage. I pretty much use recklessness exclusively with energize procs now.

Currently at 43 and going for more or less the same point distribution as you. 27 in Darkness, rest in Madness for Death Field.

Electric Execution and Shroud of Darkness seem like wasted points, really. Dark Charge doesn't do enough damage to really profit from EE, and for your level, you're already swimming in more than enough Endurance to make SoD superfluous.

Meanwhile, Disjunction and Lightning Recovery are quite useful in PvE as well as PvP. Force Shroud cooldown and the 2s extension is very good to have against elites or champions with tech or force channels/activated abilities for when Jolt isn't off CD yet. The 2% of Defense off of Premonition are also, arguably, less useless than a straight up END boost that doesn't even let you take one extra blow.

Ah. But that's mitigation and you were asking about damage. It gets better when you go deeper into madness, but one piece of advice I can already give you - don't pop Recklessness as an opener. Pop it when you have Energize up, for the +50% Shock. Ideally, you then Thrash to get another Energize proc and use up the second Recklessness charge to boost that Shock as well. It has a pretty forgiving duration.

Also, consider going for Resolve mods rather than Force Wielder mods. Trade some of that END for Willpower.

I would dump swelling shadows and shroud of darkness for premonition and mounting darkness. 50% chance to get a tiny self heal every 1.5 seconds is just as good as 65% imho. Id rather have less damage coming in all the time than a slightly larger max healthpool and discharge doing more damage cant hurt.

 

I also make sure to watch when I get an energize so I can pop recklessness for the extra crit damage. I pretty much use recklessness exclusively with energize procs now.

I agree on the swelling shadows and am seriously considering dumping it, just waiting on the next patch to see if the healing from dark charge gets better or not.

And i usually try (hope) to get an energize on my first or second trash so that my initial recklessness count still gets applied and doesn't go to waste.

Currently at 43 and going for more or less the same point distribution as you. 27 in Darkness, rest in Madness for Death Field.

 

Electric Execution and Shroud of Darkness seem like wasted points, really. Dark Charge doesn't do enough damage to really profit from EE, and for your level, you're already swimming in more than enough Endurance to make SoD superfluous.

 

Meanwhile, Disjunction and Lightning Recovery are quite useful in PvE as well as PvP. Force Shroud cooldown and the 2s extension is very good to have against elites or champions with tech or force channels/activated abilities for when Jolt isn't off CD yet. The 2% of Defense off of Premonition are also, arguably, less useless than a straight up END boost that doesn't even let you take one extra blow.

 

Ah. But that's mitigation and you were asking about damage. It gets better when you go deeper into madness, but one piece of advice I can already give you - don't pop Recklessness as an opener. Pop it when you have Energize up, for the +50% Shock. Ideally, you then Thrash to get another Energize proc and use up the second Recklessness charge to boost that Shock as well. It has a pretty forgiving duration.

 

Also, consider going for Resolve mods rather than Force Wielder mods. Trade some of that END for Willpower.

I spent the points on Electric execution so i could unlock a higher tier without having to put points in others (but that might not have been the best idea).

Disjunction and lightning recovery only seem good for PvP imo, i don't really get into any situation where i have to break combat more then once in PvE (except bosses).

After seeing people say they have a willpower of 1500 (in another thread) i realized i probably focused to much in Endurance and should trade some off.

I'm temped to try out a deception/madness 0/31/10 build but i'll try to make darkness work first.

More advice is always welcome.

Lightning Recovery reduces Force _Shroud_ CD, not Force Cloak.

http://www.torhead.com/ability/3qAwuaY/force-shroud

Disjunction further adds 2 seconds to its duration. This gives you a nice margin of error against hard hitting enemy skills or channels. _And_ the ability removes DoTs and most debuffs. This is rather useful for a tank.

The Force Speed cooldown reduction and snare-break are just nice to have on top of that.

You won't have 1500 willpower.

You certainly won't have that much while tanking.

Your friends are lying, or in full raid gear and dps, neither of which you are.

Lightning Recovery reduces Force _Shroud_ CD, not Force Cloak.

http://www.torhead.com/ability/3qAwuaY/force-shroud

 

Disjunction further adds 2 seconds to its duration. This gives you a nice margin of error against hard hitting enemy skills or channels. _And_ the ability removes DoTs and most debuffs. This is rather useful for a tank.

 

The Force Speed cooldown reduction and snare-break are just nice to have on top of that.

Ok i must have misunderstood that, ty.

You won't have 1500 willpower.

 

You certainly won't have that much while tanking.

 

Your friends are lying, or in full raid gear and dps, neither of which you are.

First of all i didn't say it were my friends.

Second, as a tank i dont expect to have that high a willpower, but if i can push to almost 1k endurance at my lvl, i dont see why a lvl 50 DPS cant have 1500 willpower if he sacrifices his endurance for it.

I think you will push 1k willpower or so, probably higher later on.

Its true that you will get endurance much easier than willpower; all the mods/enhancements with defensive stats on them will typically have pretty high endurance, though some enhancements have significantly lower endurance and much higher avoidance than is typical for their level, so those are the ones you should shoot for.

You can also switch from force wielder to resolve armorings; they do not really impact your survivability, and the increased willpower will help you kill faster.

Here would be my recommendation on a respec at your level: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200bcbskrcZZf0c.1

Until you get Talos, you're going to be at half health or lower after most fights, it just works out that way. Once you have a healer in your pocket, just don't sweat the details.

So the idea here is to improve the dps you're getting from your shock spam, while also improving the average damage you do with your melee attacks (Energize + Expoitive Strikes Synergy). As you level up you can continue up the darkness tree, but right now I think the problem -- given that your primary complaint is lack of DPS -- is that you've gone deeper into the darkness tree than you need to be for tanking flashpoint and solo content at your level.

The other suggestion I'd make would be to change your stat focus. I would continue to prioritize Endurance then Willpower, but for your third stat start stacking +Power rather than +Crit. The shock spam talent build means that most of your shocks will be crits, so +critical is useless there, and the Exploitive Strikes crit bonus of +9% equals or exceeds the crit % bonus you can get via gear, so that evens out. Power, on the other hand, will increase both your melee and force damage, and will generally bump up your DPS.

Also, you can look into dropping your next 2 points into Torment, which provides noticable relief in feeling like you're out of Force too often.

Hope this is helpful.

I've noticed the same thing. I'm 41 and things don't die as quickly as I'd like. I have a DPS companion most of the time, but when I see a gold elite, I bring out my healer. Fights take a little longer, but they tend to end with me being alive, which is the entire point of being a tank. You outlive your opponents. You don't kill them with your high damage, you just wail on each other and they die first because you're more resilient.

There IS a trick to tanking as an assassin though and that's abusing interrupts. You see a blue bar you interrupt the **** out of it. Otherwise all those guys with Full Auto are going to wreck you.

I've noticed the same thing. I'm 41 and things don't die as quickly as I'd like. I have a DPS companion most of the time, but when I see a gold elite, I bring out my healer. Fights take a little longer, but they tend to end with me being alive, which is the entire point of being a tank. You outlive your opponents. You don't kill them with your high damage, you just wail on each other and they die first because you're more resilient.

 

There IS a trick to tanking as an assassin though and that's abusing interrupts. You see a blue bar you interrupt the **** out of it. Otherwise all those guys with Full Auto are going to wreck you.

The only times i get wrecked in PvE is when i let my guard down on dark ward for a few seconds.

Not complaining about my survivability, just my damage output as a tank.