Shadow Mirror Thread is Here

Based off an evaluation of the community's response so far:

- Possible Issue(s)

- Possible Solution(s)

- Possible Inquiry

High Priority (PvP)

Madness

• Issue: Low survivability, Fluff Damage with inability to properly execute targets, Dull rotation, Not 'fun' to play
  
• Solution: Increase AoE capability, Allow Maul or Assassinate back into the rotation, Increase survivability
  
• Inquiry: The question will be centered around the issues concerning Madness: Survivability, Damage incapability and its general bore factor. Solutions will be suggested but the conversation will head in the direction of addressing what exactly is Madness' role in PvP, how it was intended to be played and if the current execution is matching those design goals.
  

 

 

High Priority (PvE)

Deception

• Issue: Lack of Proper Sustained, Possible Force Issues, Low Slash's Viability
  
• Solution: Varied; Reduce RNG elements, Crit increase upon certain procs / talents, Rate limit changes
  
• Inquiry: The question will be centered around Deception's lack of proper sustainability in PvE. Solutions will be presented in such a way that offers simple fixes to aid the spec's sustainability without breaking its PvP performance. The conversation will discuss whether or not RNG is an intended factor to cripple Deception's PvE performance and whether or not this should be altered.
  

 

 

Medium Priority (PvE)

Madness

• Issue: Dull Rotation, Lack of Proper Swapping Output, Lack of Burst, Force Issues
  
• Solution: Increase AoE capability, Allow Maul or Assassinate back into the rotation, Increase Force Regen, Reduce RNG elements
  
• Inquiry: The question will be centered around Madness' general bore in PvE and its lack of anything truly satisfying. Solutions will be presented that will question why signature abilities like Maul or Assassinate are not included in the rotation, which may indeed, cure the 'bore' problems and solve both PvP / PvE issues. In addition, questioning other RNG elements such as Raze proc which can be rather unreliable at times.
  

 

 

Wildcard

Warning: This section is under construction

• Ideas: Resilience / Shroud is still bugged, Phase Walk's general usefulness (PvE), General Quality of Life improvements, Lack of Proper AoE (All specs)
  

Feedback

• Darkness QoL, issue mainly stemming from Dark Protection
  
• Resilience / Force Shroud's tooltip fix or mechanic fix
  
• Low Slash to VS / CS link is not a requirement for Shadows but is for Assassins (Bug)
  

Another batch of questions to come and what would you like to have asked on behalf of your class? Do you believe Assassins are performing well in the respective fields of PvE and PvP?

Yes / No - whatever your answer is, I'd like to know why you feel that way and if you propose change, then don't just say the word. Give actual solutions as to why something should or should not change.

PvP

Discuss the Assassin PvP's performance here. What would you like propose / ask?

- Darkness

- Deception

- Madness

PvE

Discuss the Assassin PvE's performance here. What would you like propose / ask?

- Darkness

- Deception

- Madness

Wildcard

- Be creative

Notes:

- If you are a PvPer, respect that there is an equal field of play also known as PvE. This MMORPG, like many others before it, has a structure tailored very heavily toward the PvE audience. Please be respectful and mindful of your counterparts. At the same time, PvErs should also show some respect to the PvP audience, despite its minority.

- Keep posts constructive. I want whats best for this class and hopefully, so do you. Posts that only complain, flame and vaguely give suggestions beyond 'fix this' are not helpful to this discussion. Take your time and get out what you need to get out properly.

- Kindly keep the elitism to a score of zero please. Those posts such as 'L2P', suggesting other people are bad, or worse than you, is completely unhelpful to this cause and confrontational. If you disagree with something then keep it on a neutrally constructive manner. Posts that contain no substance beyond just disagreement without evidence or suggestions as to why you disagree, bring nothing beneficial to the table. Please don't make posts that just say 'No' or 'Yes'. Explain your position and do not just mindlessly post.

- Practical solutions. This means that thriving for a complete rework of a spec is unlikely. This forces a restriction but also makes you creative. Use the current tools we have and offer suggestions / fixes / questions that are more likely to see the light of day.

This OP will be updated within necessity.

PvP

Discuss the Assassin PvP's performance here. What would you like propose / ask?

• Darkness: I feel like I don't have much to contribute here, as I don't PVP in Darkness/Kinetic Combat any more.
  
• Deception: Deception/Infiltration's balance in PVP is very precarious right now, and I don't believe it should be changed significantly, if at all.
  
• Madness: Madness/Balance suffers serious target switching, set up time and burst issues in PVP. I believe that this should be what our PVP question is based on. My proposed fix would be to either A) Give a talent high in the tree that causes exiting combat to finish the cooldown on all DoTs and Death Field/Force in Balance or B) Give/change a talent high in the tree that causes Creeping Terror/Sever Force, when used under Recklessness/Potency, to leave a DoT for 6 seconds that deals moderate damage, or to implement both. Option A is a bit weak, but allows for repeated application of DoTs on multiple targets. Option B would help add burst into the spec, and reducing buildup time, as well as applying some pretty serious pressure for the 1 or 2 global cooldowns where all DoTs are ticking away at the targets health. While both of these changes feel a little like they're just stealing from Deception/Infiltration, I think that the middle tree represents almost the quintessential Assassin: attack suddenly and brutally from stealth, and slip away, only to come back and do it again shortly afterwards.
  

PvE

Discuss the Assassin PvE's performance here. What would you like propose / ask?

• Darkness: I think Darkness/Kinetic Combat is doing very well in PVE. I may miss the self heals at times, but those occasions are rare, and I appreciate not getting spiked nearly as hard as I used to. Since 2.5, Tyrans has yet to do 27k damage to me in 0.3 seconds.
  
• Madness: Madness/Balance is doing better in PVE than Deception/Infiltration right now, but I wouldn't say it's doing well. I feel like the PVP suggestions I gave it might translate well to PVE as well, giving it a little more burst (good for adds and solo-content) and reducing its setup time (the bane of PVE Madness/Balance). With some fine-tuning, I think they could easily be put on par with the other advanced classes, in terms of absolute potential.
  
• Deception: This is probably my favorite (if its second, it's right behind Darkness/Kinetic Combat) spec in the entire game, and so I've put a lot of thought into ways to fix this problem. Anyone who seriously tries to play this spec in PVE knows it has serious sustained damage issues. My personal idea for the fix would be to have stacks of Static Charge/Breaching Shadows not only increase damage dealt by Discharge/Breach, but to also increase the critical chance. Whether by 25% or 33% per stack, at 3 stacks, with as much critical rating as is optimal for PVE Deception/Infiltration, that will turn the move into an auto-critical. Going by M-Knightrider's best Infiltration parse, it would result in an increase of ~11% to his DPS, putting him in the same damage range as some of the stronger classes (~3960). It may need to be toned down, and if so, a talent should be added somewhere (or changed) to have Recklessness/Potency enhanced Discharge/Breach uses deal the current 3 stack damage, to not mess with the PVP balance of the class. The important thing about a PVE buff here would be not changing the spec plays in PVP. The math could be done to figure out what kind of reduction should be done if any, and I would be willing to do it, if we want to seriously suggest this. I feel like this change would simultaneously make the spec less RNG dependent (a very large problem right now, and the main source of inconsistency and weak sustained damage), and more satisfying. A 12 second buildup to a 3.5k hit is pretty disappointing.
  

Wildcard

• The issues may not be creative, but I feel like the failure chance on Shroud/Resilience (and by extension Saber Reflect) and the non-tank usefulness of Phase Walk would be good choices here. The Shroud/Resilience issue may be something that they build into the game, fully intending it to work that way, but it would then be nice to have the tooltip for the skill state that it's not actually a 100% resist chance. As for Phase Walk, the ability is somewhat underwhelming right now, though it definitely has its uses, and can be very good in PVP. My suggestions for changing it would be to remove the cast time (and secondary activation time), and allow it to be placed up to 30 meters away. In return for that, it should go on cooldown for, say, 6 seconds, but remain active. This would prevent it from turning into an instant-teleport ability, but still allow it to be used without tying up global cooldowns that could be used for damage. It could also still be used for quick tactical movement without being turned into a second gap closer. The initial cooldown duration should be equal to about the amount of time it takes to run that distance. It should probably also have a shorter than 45 second cooldown after being used to teleport, and remain up for longer than 2 minutes, but that might be asking a little much.
  

Suggestions/comments are welcome, I'd really like to see a good conversation get going here.

Personally still waiting to see Low Slash viable in PVE, out of all the options, I think the one I like the most is to lower the damage as well as force cost of Low Slash to be equal to Saber Strike. But as a kicker, give it the same benefits that Voltaic Slash have (Induction+Voltage).

To me, it makes sense, because Low Slash now can just be swapped out for Saber Strike when our force is low, and instead of hitting 2 saber strikes we can just do Low Slash + Maul for roughly the same cost (+16 force over 3 secs vs +6 over the same 3 secs). In PvE this will have the effect of raising our sustained because we can sneak more Mauls in.

I'd love for a PvPer who isn't against changes chime in on how this will effect them. To me, the PvP crowd will end up with more force, but they wouldn't necessarily do Low Slash more often since it's used heavily already, but they also lose a bit of damage from the Low Slash it self to maybe counter the increase in force. If this change is too much, a refund of force if the target is not stunned would work as well.

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One other note, but I would still love to see Electric Execution added to the deception tree at the bottom, that way Madness/Darkness can still use it with ease, but that way Deception can avoid some useless talents and get that +18% to charge damage.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

One last suggestion for Madness. In order to give Madness more force/burst, change Lambaste to "Reduces the force cost of Lacerate by 100% and each use of Lacerate now automatically triggers Lightning Charge on affected targets on a separate rate limit. In addition, each use of Lacerate makes your next maul cost 100% less force. This effect can not occur more than once every 10 seconds."

Personally still waiting to see Low Slash viable in PVE, out of all the options, I think the one I like the most is to lower the damage as well as force cost of Low Slash to be equal to Saber Strike. But as a kicker, give it the same benefits that Voltaic Slash have (Induction+Voltage).

 

To me, it makes sense, because Low Slash now can just be swapped out for Saber Strike when our force is low, and instead of hitting 2 saber strikes we can just do Low Slash + Maul for roughly the same cost (+16 force over 3 secs vs +6 over the same 3 secs). In PvE this will have the effect of raising our sustained because we can sneak more Mauls in.

 

I'd love for a PvPer who isn't against changes chime in on how this will effect them. To me, the PvP crowd will end up with more force, but they wouldn't necessarily do Low Slash more often since it's used heavily already, but they also lose a bit of damage from the Low Slash it self to maybe counter the increase in force. If this change is too much, a refund of force if the target is not stunned would work as well.

The thing is that this change alone isn't going to increase our damage by much more than 2-3%.

PVE:

DPS needs tuning upwards to be on parity with operatives and marauders. Why doesn't sin/shadow DPS have any raid utility? Taunts are not utility. If a DPS is taunting, a light armor DPS at that, your group is wiping. Without any form of raidwide utility, even if assassins did more DPS than an equally geared/skilled marauder, no progression guild is going to bring them.

Sin tanks are fine.

Taunts are not utility. If a DPS is taunting, a light armor DPS at that, your group is wiping.

Little OT:

Raptus, 1 tank teleported the other launched. You SHOULD taunt to save your raid from sudden death.

I have yet to die from fullfilling this exact action and many deaths have been prevented because of it.

The thing is that this change alone isn't going to increase our damage by much more than 2-3%.

maybe, but all classes are supposed to be within 5% of each other and right now, we are around 10% lower. I'll take 2-3% if it has almost no effect on pvp damage.

maybe, but all classes are supposed to be within 5% of each other and right now, we are around 10% lower. I'll take 2-3% if it has almost no effect on pvp damage.

The thing is that they thought they were giving us a buff before, with the 2.5 changes, but they basically didn't help. We can't be looking for small changes, we need to look for more radical change than that, or it's going to be a 2.5 repeat.

The thing is that they thought they were giving us a buff before, with the 2.5 changes, but they basically didn't help. We can't be looking for small changes, we need to look for more radical change than that, or it's going to be a 2.5 repeat.

maybe, but possibly this could be one of several small changes. adding electric execution to the bottom row of deception could be really helpful as well considering we get a free surging charge proc every shock on top of our 25% chance every 4.5 secs.

Personally I'm pretty happy with our class for the most part. I only really would be interested in two things.

1.) Is there any plan to improve the survivability of Madness in PVP?

2.) Is there any plan to incorporate some kind of unique Maul proc for Madness like both other specs have?

I dislike the thought of adding Low Slash to the PvE rotations. It's a priority heavy spec as is and with the addition of having to place Low Slash in the right part of the rotation to optimize DPS will add a ton of complication on an already complicated rotation.

The talent tree for me holds looks like it's thrown together really quickly. Look at Assassin's Mark, a 6% increase to the base damage of an ability isn't that bad but it's pretty weak for 3 points. Look at Marksman snipers talent Steady Shots; it's on a lower tear, gives the same bonus of 6% but for only 2 points AND it affects 3 abilities not 1. The talent tree also has a LACK of increase crit chance which REALLY hurts the class. Carnage Marauders have a 100% crit chance to crit with Force Scream with a proc. There are other examples I'm sure but I would ask if they are reworking the talent trees to help reduce the DPS gap between Assassins and other classes.

Our set piece bonus to me is weak. I'd like to see something new as 1 extra energy every 10+ hits is un-noticable and though 15% extra crit to our filler move isn't bad it's not 4 pcs worthy either.

I don't tank but from what I've seen the rotation is pretty tight to keep your mitigation up, compared to Jugg's who just have to hit 1 ability. So possibly asking them if they meant to have that timer so tight to allow a bit more freedom in tank rotation.

Madness again I don't play but it seems to have very low survivability, minor boast to damage in the talent tree and a boring rotation.

Maybe increasing proc rate for maul and surging charge. Fix those missing surging charge stacks and giving us mains stat and crit boost from skill tree.

Deception PVE

I want to bring up one thing about Deception, given that everybody talks about sustained damage when it comes to Deception in PvE. Warning: Wall of text ahead.

Suppose for a moment, Deceptions overall sustained dps would be on par with the overall sustained dps of other melee classes/trees. If you look at the pure execute dps, then you will notice that Deception would have the highest sustained pure execute dps by a large margin.

Why does this matter? In Operations there are many soft enrage mechanics which usually happen during the execute phase. Since Deception Assassins would have the highest sustained dps during the execute phase, a Deception Assassin in your Operation group could shorten the duration of a soft enrage by a significant time without providing any penalty compared to other melee dps.

The only other melee class that can offer an utility to compete with are Sentinels/Marauders.

The bottom line of this thought experiment is: If Deception Assassins had an equal overall sustained dps as other melee dps classes, then they would be overpowered on every Operationboss with soft enrage mechanics (hi Dread Council).

Based on what Deception Assassins currently are like in-game, I think in PvE they are balanced around the thought experiment I wrote down above. Taking a Deception Assassin in your Operation group allows you to have shorter soft enrages, helping your healers, but as a trade off the length of the fight increases, because Deceptions overall sustained dps is lower, increasing the risk of hitting enrage.

Think about it: If you could shorten the duration of any soft enrage by 10 seconds in exchange for a 20 seconds longer fight in total, would you do it? The numbers I wrote down are random, but if those numbers stand in a certain balance, the tradeoff becomes fair and the choice depends on the capabilities of your healers and your remaining dps.

Having said all that, I don't think that Deception is balanced the way it is right now. If we look only at the sustained dps of the different classes/trees during the execute phase (Take a dummy parse and cut away the first 70% of the fight. This will give you the pure execute dps), Deception is parsing high, but I think, it's not high enough. Please note, that I haven't finished looking at parses of pure execute dps yet, so this part is pure speculation.

In order to be balanced in Operations, I claim Deception Assassins should have the highest pure execute dps, while having lower overall sustained dps than any other melee dps tree. If this is how Bioware envisions Deception Assassins, we need a much lower damage increase, than it seems. A minor buff to sustained damage, together with a minor buff to our damage during the execute phase (for example by buffing the Talent Judgement/Sith Executioner, or vie the 4pc PvE set bonus) might do the trick (again, comparing parses of pure execute dps of different classes/trees is necessary to see, how much is needed).

So if Deception isn't clearly superior when it comes to pure execute dps, I suggest a question like the following: Is the combat team balancing Deception Assassins around the niche function of being exceptionally powerful during execute phases? If so, is there any chance for minor buffs to our execute damage, to create a clear gap to other trees, and to our sustained damage, in order to reduce the penalty to our overall sustained damage?

I want to bring up one thing about Deception, given that everybody talks about sustained damage when it comes to Deception in PvE. Warning: Wall of text ahead.

 

Suppose for a moment, Deceptions overall sustained dps would be on par with the overall sustained dps of other melee classes/trees. If you look at the pure execute dps, then you will notice that Deception would have the highest sustained pure execute dps by a large margin.

 

Why does this matter? In Operations there are many soft enrage mechanics which usually happen during the execute phase. Since Deception Assassins would have the highest sustained dps during the execute phase, a Deception Assassin in your Operation group could shorten the duration of a soft enrage by a significant time without providing any penalty compared to other melee dps.

The only other melee class that can offer an utility to compete with are Sentinels/Marauders.

 

The bottom line of this thought experiment is: If Deception Assassins had an equal overall sustained dps as other melee dps classes, then they would be overpowered on every Operationboss with soft enrage mechanics (hi Dread Council).

 

Based on what Deception Assassins currently are like in-game, I think in PvE they are balanced around the thought experiment I wrote down above. Taking a Deception Assassin in your Operation group allows you to have shorter soft enrages, helping your healers, but as a trade off the length of the fight increases, because Deceptions overall sustained dps is lower, increasing the risk of hitting enrage.

Think about it: If you could shorten the duration of any soft enrage by 10 seconds in exchange for a 20 seconds longer fight in total, would you do it? The numbers I wrote down are random, but if those numbers stand in a certain balance, the tradeoff becomes fair and the choice depends on the capabilities of your healers and your remaining dps.

 

Having said all that, I don't think that Deception is balanced the way it is right now. If we look only at the sustained dps of the different classes/trees during the execute phase (Take a dummy parse and cut away the first 70% of the fight. This will give you the pure execute dps), Deception is parsing high, but I think, it's not high enough. Please note, that I haven't finished looking at parses of pure execute dps yet, so this part is pure speculation.

 

In order to be balanced in Operations, I claim Deception Assassins should have the highest pure execute dps, while having lower overall sustained dps than any other melee dps tree. If this is how Bioware envisions Deception Assassins, we need a much lower damage increase, than it seems. A minor buff to sustained damage, together with a minor buff to our damage during the execute phase (for example by buffing the Talent Judgement/Sith Executioner, or vie the 4pc PvE set bonus) might do the trick (again, comparing parses of pure execute dps of different classes/trees is necessary to see, how much is needed).

 

So if Deception isn't clearly superior when it comes to pure execute dps, I suggest a question like the following: Is the combat team balancing Deception Assassins around the niche function of being exceptionally powerful during execute phases? If so, is there any chance for minor buffs to our execute damage, to create a clear gap to other trees, and to our sustained damage, in order to reduce the penalty to our overall sustained damage?

No i would not i would rather have a longer soft enrage than the risk of hitting hard enrage, because soft enrage is healable but hard enrage isnt for the most cases.

Deception needs to be consistent, not higher dps but more consistent, i can parse 3100 in my current gear which is fine for everything ingame at the moment, but onthe next parse i drop almost 200 dps because of a really unlucky parse.

I have had a parse to 1 mill damage and had a crit % around 21% c on all the damage done, but most of the crit was from voltaic slash, granted i have never had this happen before or after.

@Mathemagica With regards to what you said about the execute phases for ops bosses , i don't really see a big difference between what we can do at the moment and a Vengeance Juggernaut , except that vengeance actually can push his DPS in that phase beyond what we can because of the sustained and reliable damage output that the class has , even more so now , with the Rampage redesign. The only advantage that i see for an execute phase for Deception sin is the fact that we have more control over our burst and can actually decide when to unleash all of it , unlike other classes that have an execute.

We don't need a boost to damage at all , we just need to be brought in line sustained wise.

The changes that i've been proposing that would benefit all the DPS trees ( can't talk about Darkness since i don't play it that much , only tank when guild tanks aren't available , and i don't use it in PVP ) are as follows and i think that what i'm about to list below will NOT make Sins OP in PVP or in PVE :

1) Crit Rating increase - this is the biggest change that was done for Concealment that gave sustained and burst in both pvp and pve , we should get this as well . My suggestion is to rework Expoitive Strikes , to provide crit rating increase for both melee and Force Atacks. Conc ops get a 9% crit increase ( 3 static and 6 dynamic ) , we should get this as well.

2) Static Charge from Surging charge - increase the proc change from the charge from 25 to 50% , leave the 4.5 seconds internal CD , this would help with RNG ( more liable static charge build time ) and consistency

3) Charge Mastery for Surging charge - this gives us at the moment 9% armor penetration , why not make it a nice 20% so our damage is not so dependent on other classes armor debuff

4) This is a change that has Madness in mind : Move Conspirator's Cloak from Darkness to Madness , so the tree gets a bit of burst and flavor back. Like i said , i rarely tank , but when i do it , i don't need maul to the face to keep agro , so this would be better served into a DPS tree

Of course the math for the % and so on , would be left to the devs. but i think that even with just the Crit Rating increase we would be in a decent place.

@Mathemagica With regards to what you said about the execute phases for ops bosses , i don't really see a big difference between what we can do at the moment and a Vengeance Juggernaut , except that vengeance actually can push his DPS in that phase beyond what we can because of the sustained and reliable damage output that the class has , even more so now , with the Rampage redesign. The only advantage that i see for an execute phase for Deception sin is the fact that we have more control over our burst and can actually decide when to unleash all of it , unlike other classes that have an execute.

 

We don't need a boost to damage at all , we just need to be brought in line sustained wise.

 

The changes that i've been proposing that would benefit all the DPS trees ( can't talk about Darkness since i don't play it that much , only tank when guild tanks aren't available , and i don't use it in PVP ) are as follows and i think that what i'm about to list below will NOT make Sins OP in PVP or in PVE :

 

1) Crit Rating increase - this is the biggest change that was done for Concealment that gave sustained and burst in both pvp and pve , we should get this as well . My suggestion is to rework Expoitive Strikes , to provide crit rating increase for both melee and Force Atacks. Conc ops get a 9% crit increase ( 3 static and 6 dynamic ) , we should get this as well.

 

2) Static Charge from Surging charge - increase the proc change from the charge from 25 to 50% , leave the 4.5 seconds internal CD , this would help with RNG ( more liable static charge build time ) and consistency

 

3) Charge Mastery for Surging charge - this gives us at the moment 9% armor penetration , why not make it a nice 20% so our damage is not so dependent on other classes armor debuff

 

4) This is a change that has Madness in mind : Move Conspirator's Cloak from Darkness to Madness , so the tree gets a bit of burst and flavor back. Like i said , i rarely tank , but when i do it , i don't need maul to the face to keep agro , so this would be better served into a DPS tree

 

Of course the math for the % and so on , would be left to the devs. but i think that even with just the Crit Rating increase we would be in a decent place.

Overall very good ideas, dont know about the numbers but still good ideas.

One thing that i think could maybe help and be easy to fix is to make either shock or discharge autocrit, at 3 stacks dicharge could crit or at 2-3 or 4 stacks of voltage shock would crit.

Overall very good ideas, dont know about the numbers but still good ideas.

 

One thing that i think could maybe help and be easy to fix is to make either shock or discharge autocrit, at 3 stacks dicharge could crit or at 2-3 or 4 stacks of voltage shock would crit.

About the Discharge or Shock Autocrit , we would already have that , if we had our pre 2.0 crit. Basically , we need a 30-35% crit rating ( coupled with Recklessness , its 90% crit and back in 1.7 i rarely had an attack not crit ) , 30 for pvp and 35 for pve , since , just like concealment , our consistency is completely dependent on this particular stat ; and as i see that they already have this crit boost , 3% static crit from "Lethality" talent , and another 6% dynamic from "Calculated Frenzy" , i don't see why would couldn't benefit from something similar as well .

A simple way , would be to have Shock and Discharge proc "Expoitive Strikes" , and the talent provide a 9% crit rating boost for 10 seconds for both Force and Melee attacks , if a static crit boost is out of the question

@Mathemagica: I see the point you're making, and yeah, putting us at exactly equal to other class's sustained dps would make us almost strictly better, so it's a very valid point. All I want to see, though, is enough of an increase in sustained dps to put us on a somewhat even playing field. Yes, our execute phase is drop dead gorgeous in Deception/Infiltration, but we need a little more sustained damage to even bring us in line even with what your idea is. I feel like our combined standard and execute phases should put us more or less on par with other classes, and looking at parses, that just doesn't happen except with a very, very small number of players.

@Kayriel: Your numbers, by the numbering you used for your suggestions, look somewhat like this, based on Evolixe's top Infiltration parse for the leaderboards:

1) Applying the 9% crit chance to Force damage as well results in a roughly 3.38% dps boost, assuming 100% uptime, which isn't a bad assumption, considering the crit rate of this spec, and what it would be with the 9% extra. This is a pretty good start.

2) Much trickier to analyze. I set up a simulation to test exactly this, and the results were: We get roughly double the Surging Charge procs. Not too unexpected. This results in a ~2.8 second decrease on time between Discharges. Going back to Evo's parse, these changes give a (with your crit chance changes) further 11.5% (!!!) increase from Surging Charge procs and a 1.5% DPS increase from Discharge. Doubling Surging Charge's Proc chance almost doubles its hits, even with the internal cooldown, and it does a not-insignificant portion of our damage as is. We're now up to a ~16.4% damage increase.

3) Not sure if the armor pen stacks. If it does, it's too much work for me to analyze to know the %increase to damage, but it would certainly be rather large, since 70% of our damage is affected by that. If it doesn't stack, then we're at a point where we just wouldn't need the debuff for ourselves.

4) This change would be neat for Madness, but wouldn't substantially affect overall dps. Thrash gets +15% crit chance (set bonus) and +50% Surge bonus. Maul, on the other hand, gets nothing in that spec. They'd have to make it more like Duplicity, or move that skill back down into reach of full Madness, in order to put Maul back in the rotation.

All in all, some decent suggestions. Unfortunately, if they wanted to double the proc rate, they'd have to halve the damage of Shadow Technique, but if they did that, we'd still see an increase of ~5% from your suggestions, which isn't a bad place to be, and would bring us closer in line with other ACs. Of course, these numbers should be run more thoroughly, but a simple analysis can at least ballpark what the changes would do.

PVP:

- Darkness

-- I haven't played pure tank spec in PVP in quite a while, it just feels too restrictive and immobile compared to Juggernauts/Guardians and PT/VG tanks when Force Speed isn't available.

- Deception

-- burst is fine, but if the target survives the initial burst, it's usually not going to end well. Also, practically no ranged interrupt capability -- this is why I use a hybrid spec, purely for the 30m interrupt with Death Field/Force in Balance.

- Madness

-- the non-cleansable DoTs change were supposed to help us, but actually they make very little difference to us, whereas it has hugely empowered Sorcs/Sages. This really doesn't work well when the only thing we can proc is Crushing Darkness/Mind Crush by using Thrash/Double Strike. Burst damage is non-existent, and it takes far too long to "set up" the damage.

PvE

- Darkness

-- increase timer on the Dark Protection/Shadow Protection buff by 3 seconds to 15 seconds. This is purely a quality-of-life issue, and does not affect "balance". (*perhaps* instead change the way Thrash/Double Strike triggers Energize/Particle Acceleration chance such that each activation puts up 1 stack of a buff (with say a 6 second duration itself), and at 2 stacks it triggers Energize. This would keep the average number of Energized procs the same, but give an ability to activate Energize "on demand" by keeping 1 stack of this buff on-hand -- I have not really worked through the rotation impact of this, but it "feels" as if it will give us more control rather than being at the mercy of the RNG).

- Deception

-- again, burst is fine, but sustained needs to be increased. I think this could be done by reducing the rate limit on Surging Charge/Shadow Technique, which would not significantly change our burst damage, but would help with the sustained.

- Madness

-- the rotation is clunky. Allowing the DoT timers to line up better would make it more accessible. There should also be some burst capability, maybe by allowing Force Lightning/Telekinetic Throw to "use up" remaining duration on certain DoTs (or perhaps just on Death Mark/Force Suppression charges in a similar way to how Cull/Wounding Shots works). Or, this could be given to Maul/Shadow Strike. (Both abilities are pretty much absent from the Madness/Balance spec and this would be a way of giving them some purpose).

Wildcard

- Make Phase Walk instant-cast, and last 5 minutes. It would still be a gimmick, but of more use than it is now.

(Just as flavour stuff, allow Force Speed wearing off to reset the cooldown on Phase Walk, or allow Teleporting via Phase Walk to reset the cooldown on Force Speed).

Little OT:

 

Raptus, 1 tank teleported the other launched. You SHOULD taunt to save your raid from sudden death.

I have yet to die from fullfilling this exact action and many deaths have been prevented because of it.

You are far worse served by taunting. You should actually vanish. Unless you are running all sorc/assassin dps, any other class is better at taking the chunk from his target swap. If it's anything like our group, it'll go to your mara, who can cloak/ward or just UDR. If your top dps is a sniper, shield probe + entrench is just fine. If you're concerned about the stacking issue since you're behind the boss, your DPS is positioned wrong.

Taunting is still not raid utility.

Blue sky dream: alacrity makes dots tick faster and madness is the best spec in the game.

Phasewalk granting crit chance or damage, or...anything to the raid outside of tank spec would be start at giving a reason to bringing sin DPS anywhere. Wouldn't really mess with PvP balance either. Shrug.

Honestly, I don't think the change to Energize is needed. It comes up quite often, and for skilled players, it isn't needed to keep up Dark Protection. Besides, those instances where you get lucky and pull off 3 Energized Shocks in a row is pretty sweet. I can understand the Dark Protection changes, even if I don't personally feel that they are necessary.

As for the Surging Charge cooldown change you suggested, it won't have as large an effect as you think. The limiting factor isn't the internal cooldown, it's the activation chance. Unless you almost completely removed the rate limit, you'd be better off increasing the chance of activation, and completely removing the rate limit would not change the reliability of it activating. It would reduce the average time to activating Discharge, but would leave us feeling totally at the mercy of RNG.

Aside from Crushing Darkness, the Madness DoT timers line up really nicely. You just need to figure out how to weave Force in Balance into your rotation to not interfere with the others. A little more consistency on the proc rate on Crushing Darkness would be cool, like what they've done to Vengeance Juggernauts and are planning on doing to Lightning Sorcerers.

The wild card seems to be leaning towards phase walk, as very few people seem satisfied with the ability as is.

You are far worse served by taunting. You should actually vanish. Unless you are running all sorc/assassin dps, any other class is better at taking the chunk from his target swap. If it's anything like our group, it'll go to your mara, who can cloak/ward or just UDR. If your top dps is a sniper, shield probe + entrench is just fine. If you're concerned about the stacking issue since you're behind the boss, your DPS is positioned wrong.

 

Taunting is still not raid utility.

 

Blue sky dream: alacrity makes dots tick faster and madness is the best spec in the game.

 

Phasewalk granting crit chance or damage, or...anything to the raid outside of tank spec would be start at giving a reason to bringing sin DPS anywhere. Wouldn't really mess with PvP balance either. Shrug.

You taunt so your raid doesnt get gobsmacked..

You hold him for 4 seconds untill a tank can take him back and go on your way again.

A mara taking it? They dont have the cooldowns to survive raptus.