take a look on my signature. hf

Alright thanks that spec looks good, and I tweaked it a bit to my liking: 5/2/39. Basically I just replaced Torment with Corrupted Flesh because I think it's more useful.

My question is...is Torment really all that important? Whenever I run WZs, I almost never run out of Force, even without Force talents. The reason is that there is a lot of kiting and CC in PVP. I'm always getting knocked away, slowed, stunned, etc. so I spend half the time closing the gap and such anyways waiting for the next time I can get close enough to pull off an instant Mind Crush/Crushing Darkness. There is hardly ever a time where I'm just sitting there bashing someone to death in which case, yes, I would eventually run out of Force. I always attack the healers, and they attempt to kite the crap out of me, which means I get time to Force regen anyways. Nobody in their right mind is just going to let me pump out my rotation on them for an extended period of time.

I read the note where the guide recommended replacing Oppressive Force for Corrupted Flesh, but I think 10 second CDR on hard stun is a bit more valuable than saving 2 Force on every melee attack. Honestly saving 2 force per melee attack just doesn't seem all that special to me compared to an additional 15 percent damage reduction from DoTs which could easily make the difference between dying and surviving an encounter with another madness/balance spec. I could see Torment being useful if this spec made frequent use of Shock...but it really doesn't. Am I wrong to think this way?

you right but it's istuational too corrupet flash imho, it doesn't change at all, they are preferes u know

If you mean thi note:

"This is the generic build where you can play any WZs, you can change some talents:

-2x Pinning Resolve/Oppressing Force +2x Mind Ward/Corrupted Flesh

-1x Psychokinesis/Torment +1x Lambaste (more 4fun tip to do huge deeps vs lowbies stacking together"

they are just suggestions, I never do them..I just play the standard build

Well my modified version of your spec is working great on my Shadow. I'm not really running out of Force except for in drawn-out Arenas so yeah, I would say Torment/Psychokinesis is for the most part useless. On the other hand the 15 percent DoT reduction has helped a lot in dueling Madness sorcs and Madness sins. The damage of this spec seems really good, a lot more consistent than Deception.

Thanks for the link, that guide is really awesome. Keep it up.

Well my modified version of your spec is working great on my Shadow. I'm not really running out of Force except for in drawn-out Arenas so yeah, I would say Torment/Psychokinesis is for the most part useless. On the other hand the 15 percent DoT reduction has helped a lot in dueling Madness sorcs and Madness sins. The damage of this spec seems really good, a lot more consistent than Deception.

 

Thanks for the link, that guide is really awesome. Keep it up.

this is not mine btw.

My guide is about infiltration.

i tryed balance without torment andf i don't like it at all.. at leat in arenas..

how much dps are u doing btw? on normal warzones

Yeah I just recently respecced into Torment after running like 20 warzones of Madness (actually Balance, cuz I play Shadow but I'll use Sin terms here since its sin forums). I found that 10 second CDR on hard stun isn't that useful. On the other hand it's nice to have more Force so you can pull off more Assassinates and such in cluch moments. So basically I followed the tooltip, saying to sacrifice the 10 second CDR on stun for 15 percent DoT damage reduction.

As for DPS, it all depends if I have a healer on me or not. With a healer I almost never die and can pull really good numbers. My highest so far has been 950k in Voidstar map. I was constantly DPSing (no reason to force cloak or stealth at all really), I had a healer on me at all times, and the enemy was trying to kill our healers which meant they mostly ignored me, allowing me use Assassinate basically every time it procced and using Recklessness+ Death Field + Instant Crushing Darkness whenever it was available.

I've learned to taunt pretty well so I get semi-decent protection numbers too. It really helps when your mass AoE taunt doubles as a defensive cooldown for this spec. >_>

Without a healer, it's completely different. I have to be very careful since I'm fairly squishy and getting focused equals death if I don't have force cloak up, but I still usually get 3rd or 4th top DPS. The top DPS in my games is usually the Vanguards/Balance Sages/Dirty Fighting Gunslingers. It's really hard to out-DPS them at the moment.

When I get better with the class I'm going to switch to the 0/31/15 hybrid. I really think it's the best spec out there right now, but on the other hand it requires a lot more skill to play perfectly, and I'd rather not mess with it until I'm at least decent with the easy-mode spec known as Madness.

So are you playing with torment now?

Yeah well CD reduction, dmg reduction from DoTs are both viable, it's just, u know, preferences imho.

Maybe torment can be more usefull in Arena but I like to spam my melee hit to not miss any raze proc.

I'm still mastering this spec, my best DPS is 2015 in voidstar, average i do 1500/1600 counting just fights with smooth fights, healers, etc.

Actually the 0/35/15 is not the best spec anymore..imho at the same lvl of Balance just because it has nice burst but Balance for Arenas is better actually..too much sustain dps to ignore him

Yes I'm playing with Torment now! You were right, it's definitely necessary for this spec, considering that the entire goal is high sustained DPS.

I'm sticking with the 15 percent DoT Damage reduction, and sacrificing the 10 second cdr on hard stun. Overall I'm very pleased with the spec and now that I bought all the basic Obroan level crit mods and enhancements I need, I'm pushing out some major sustained DPS. I'm currently saving up for augments and brutalizer stuff.

I think the two specs are both good for PVP, but they are good at different things. 0/31/15 is better for burst and jumping into a large group of enemies because it's less squishy. This is probably due to the Darkswell/Masked Assault talent, which makes that spec a lot more useful against instant focus fire, unlike Madness spec which takes some time to get fired up and self-healing a lot.

I think which spec is better largely depends on if you have a healer or not. Because if you do have a healer, Madness is probably the number one spec that will eventually tear through everything if you don't stop it. If it's allowed to survive for a few GCDs, then it can get a large amount of self-healing going.

But...If you're in more of a 1v1 situation, which happens quite often in Warzones if you like to solo-cap/solo-guard nodes, I think an Assassin running 0/31/15 would crush a full Madness Assassin every single time. There is just way too much deadliness in Recklessness->Death Field->Discharge->Shock and that's completely disregarding their ridiculous opener which gives 2 free Maul procs from 2 stun abilities.

Are u getting more dps with more crit?

Actually I'm getting some more power mods/enh to test various sets up..we'll see..

On 1on1 I'm not sure, if you dodge high crits with resilience you win in balance, tho a shadow can use resilience aswell to purge dots..I'm not a pure pvp player so I don't know..

At first when I tried this spec, I had 25 percent crit chance counting everything. My DPS and healing were both kinda low for WZs with that much crit.

Then later I replaced some of my power mods and moved into 30 percent crit chance and I think I saw my DPS got noticably higher but it's hard to say for sure. I was just testing on the Warzone Dummy and noticed a LOT more DoTs ticking for 1-1.3k. Also my self-heals were higher so I prefer keeping it this way.

Even though everyone says crit chance is bad, I think I perform noticably better having 30 percent or more (with this spec anyways). But as you said, you will probably have to run some actual parses to see. I'm only going off what I see from the Warzone dummy.

On 1on1 I'm not sure, if you dodge high crits with resilience you win in balance, tho a shadow can use resilience aswell to purge dots..I'm not a pure pvp player so I don't know..

Really? You can use resilience to purge dots? I thought there was a talent in the Balance/'Madness tree that prevented that. It's called Psychic Absorption for Shadows and Devour for Assassins. Does it not work?

At first when I tried this spec, I had 25 percent crit chance counting everything. My DPS and healing were both kinda low for WZs with that much crit.

 

Then later I replaced some of my power mods and moved into 30 percent crit chance and I think I saw my DPS got noticably higher but it's hard to say for sure. I was just testing on the Warzone Dummy and noticed a LOT more DoTs ticking for 1-1.3k. Also my self-heals were higher so I prefer keeping it this way.

 

Even though everyone says crit chance is bad, I think I perform noticably better having 30 percent or more (with this spec anyways). But as you said, you will probably have to run some actual parses to see. I'm only going off what I see from the Warzone dummy.

 

 

Really? You can use resilience to purge dots? I thought there was a talent in the Balance/'Madness tree that prevented that. It's called Psychic Absorption for Shadows and Devour for Assassins. Does it not work?

Well not all players. Oberei, Xinika and Evoxile are for 30% cirt chance and actually I'm sitting at 29.5 but i want to test by myself the low set up.

0crit rating is not also a good point imho, crit is bad but 200/250 crit points are worth anyway.

talents says: "cleansable" . resilience PURGES not CLEANSES

Wakajinn (0/31/15) is inferior to both full deception post-2.0 and full madness post-2.8. The version of the spec pre-2.0 was great. It has less burst than deception and less sustained and aoe pressure than madness.

Kinda off topic but i saw it mentioned earlier and thought i'd chime in

Wakajinn (0/31/15) is inferior to both full deception post-2.0 and full madness post-2.8. The version of the spec pre-2.0 was great. It has less burst than deception and less sustained and aoe pressure than madness.

 

Kinda off topic but i saw it mentioned earlier and thought i'd chime in

Could you post a link with this spec on torhead or something. But if its what I think think it is, I use it all the time in pvp. I find that it has more burst then full deception because a recklessnessed death field crits harder then shock as an opener. Its not as sustainable as madness, but that's not how it should be played IMHO

if you are still talking about pvp, deception has the highest burst. (well pve too imho)

I was talking pvp. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but voltaic slash isn't all that great of a technique and death field is. Its not as sustained, but very bursty.

And IMHO, deception rocks for PVE. I prefer it to madness for the fun factor in SM, especially for the DF fights. I just wish it was up to par with madness.

I was talking pvp. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but voltaic slash isn't all that great of a technique and death field is. Its not as sustained, but very bursty.

And IMHO, deception rocks for PVE. I prefer it to madness for the fun factor in SM, especially for the DF fights. I just wish it was up to par with madness.

death field in wakajinn will not hit harder than a recklessnessed discharge. couple that with a proc'd maul and shock.

Voltaic is a strong filler compared to most fillers. It hits harder than thrash does and builds voltage. Voltage at 2 stacks auto triggers surging charge on your next shock. I've hit almost 4k with just the surging charge. Add that to the 5-6k you can get from shock. If you're getting more burst from wakajinn, you're not playing deception properly. The spec is average at best since 2.0. The playstyle is still kinda fun but full madness just enhances that play style of semi-mid-ranged play.

also, comparing death field to voltaic is silly. its apples to oranges. Death field is a burst AoE. Voltaic is a filler and a good one at that, that also builds voltage for shock.

A simple opener for deception is Spike > Recklessness > Discharge > Duplicity Maul > Voltaic x 2 > shock > low slash > duplicity maul. Thats if i remember everything correctly. its been a while since i played deception.

With madness buffs, you can get your death field fix by simply playing the full spec. For performance, its full spec either deception or madness

EDIT: Here is the Wakajinn spec

You could swap oppressing force for sith defiance and insulation for obfuscation but thats preference.

As you see, you lose all the flow of deception. you no longer auto-proc duplicity off low slash and spike. shock will hit for less without the added auto-surging charge from voltage. You do less damage to low health targets, which is important for burst specs because you NEED to kill that target quickly to fulfill your roll

I was talking pvp. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but voltaic slash isn't all that great of a technique and death field is. Its not as sustained, but very bursty.

And IMHO, deception rocks for PVE. I prefer it to madness for the fun factor in SM, especially for the DF fights. I just wish it was up to par with madness.

u can't beat

LW > MC > FP+FB > PJ > FiB

Yeah for some fights u can play infiltration but..Balance outperforms it in all ways..

death field in wakajinn will not hit harder than a recklessnessed discharge. couple that with a proc'd maul and shock.

 

Voltaic is a strong filler compared to most fillers. It hits harder than thrash does and builds voltage. Voltage at 2 stacks auto triggers surging charge on your next shock. I've hit almost 4k with just the surging charge. Add that to the 5-6k you can get from shock. If you're getting more burst from wakajinn, you're not playing deception properly. The spec is average at best since 2.0. The playstyle is still kinda fun but full madness just enhances that play style of semi-mid-ranged play.

 

also, comparing death field to voltaic is silly. its apples to oranges. Death field is a burst AoE. Voltaic is a filler and a good one at that, that also builds voltage for shock.

 

A simple opener for deception is Spike > Recklessness > Discharge > Duplicity Maul > Voltaic x 2 > shock > low slash > duplicity maul. Thats if i remember everything correctly. its been a while since i played deception.

 

With madness buffs, you can get your death field fix by simply playing the full spec. For performance, its full spec either deception or madness

 

EDIT: Here is the Wakajinn spec

You could swap oppressing force for sith defiance and insulation for obfuscation but thats preference.

 

As you see, you lose all the flow of deception. you no longer auto-proc duplicity off low slash and spike. shock will hit for less without the added auto-surging charge from voltage. You do less damage to low health targets, which is important for burst specs because you NEED to kill that target quickly to fulfill your roll

This is the new spec I decided to give a shot. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200ZfbfRzGbRrbzZfrzoM.3

Sometimes I put points into obfuscation instead of avoidance. I like it because its made for maximum opening burst. spike>recklessness>Discharge>Death Field and then I have options. Kite for shocks. LS>CD>maul. Electrocute then spam whatever is off cooldown. Whatever I need to kill them. I like it because its set to hit hard, immediately. Its crap for any strung out fight. I cant build voltage. Force management is nonexistent. But I cant build voltage for an opener. This is max opener build. Its fun, but I might switch back to full deception. this spec was just to try out ever since I heard of Wakajin.

This is the new spec I decided to give a shot. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200ZfbfRzGbRrbzZfrzoM.3

Sometimes I put points into obfuscation instead of avoidance. I like it because its made for maximum opening burst. spike>recklessness>Discharge>Death Field and then I have options. Kite for shocks. LS>CD>maul. Electrocute then spam whatever is off cooldown. Whatever I need to kill them. I like it because its set to hit hard, immediately. Its crap for any strung out fight. I cant build voltage. Force management is nonexistent. But I cant build voltage for an opener. This is max opener build. Its fun, but I might switch back to full deception. this spec was just to try out ever since I heard of Wakajin.

It still won't hit as hard as full deception. Madness's burst phase is stronger. Plus, this has absolutely no sustained damage. (thrash won't do jack in this build) It lacks fillers and flow. To each his own, but I see no appeal in this spec.

This is the new spec I decided to give a shot. http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200ZfbfRzGbRrbzZfrzoM.3

Sometimes I put points into obfuscation instead of avoidance. I like it because its made for maximum opening burst. spike>recklessness>Discharge>Death Field and then I have options. Kite for shocks. LS>CD>maul. Electrocute then spam whatever is off cooldown. Whatever I need to kill them. I like it because its set to hit hard, immediately. Its crap for any strung out fight. I cant build voltage. Force management is nonexistent. But I cant build voltage for an opener. This is max opener build. Its fun, but I might switch back to full deception. this spec was just to try out ever since I heard of Wakajin.

Few things about that spec you linked.

1. It doesn't make sense to pvp without the Celerity/Avoidance talent. Regardless of whether or not you use CC breaker or interrupts often, you NEED cooldown reduction on Force Speed. Regardless of how strong the class is DPSwise, shadows and assassins are still squishy-as-f*** melee classes that need all the mobility they can get to get out of sh*tty situations.

2. You say force management is nonexistent but you can literally have a 50 percent Force regen boost for up to 24 seconds using shadow's respite/dark embrace properly in conjunction with Force cloak and blackout. In addition you run Torment/Psychokinesis, you should have plenty of Force, enough to pull 100k dps or so before you really start to have to use Saber Strike in place of a Force-costing GCD.

3. Claws of Decay is not that good of a talent. If you can get an opponent to sub 30 percent, you already have a great chance of winning that fight, that you don't need to improve upon. A 6 percent damage boost at that HP level is not nearly as good as any other talent which helps you get your opponents into that HP range in the first place. Those points would be better served in Celerity/Avoidance.

Anyways, I didn't start this thread to argue about the best sin spec out there right now. I'm currently using 5/2/39 which is a slight variation of the standard spec in the guide Ilnox showed me, and I don't think it could be improved upon in any way.

Arguing about full Deception vs Wakajinn vs full Madness is kinda pointless. They're all pretty decent specs, good at different things. I understand that full Madness has the highest sustained DPS out there right now (I have read the parse data) but that doesn't mean Deception or Wakajinn are strictly worse, they are just good at different things like opening and applying tons of instantaneous damage (combined burst from two or more burst classes can put a LOT more pressure on someone who is healing from a Heal-Over-Time effect).

If any spec sucks, it's Darkness, and I'm only saying that because I have been told that there have been statistics to prove that tank Powertechs and tank Juggs have a higher winrate than tank Assassins in PVP. That's what needs a buff right now. I'd say anything else is more or less viable with the right gear and playstyle. If you disagree then you should really back it up with statistics, and I don't mean DPS parses because they do not tell the whole story. I mean something significant like win statistics in PVP.

(just to clarify, the balance pvp spec is not mine)

Btw well the only one spec is not worth to play is Wakajin actually..(and wakalord said it by himself) cuz with spininngstrike, balance has a but burst too so it's pointless to play wakajin..

Deception is still viable for burst but in Arena imho is better balance atm..too much pression..

as long as we are posting builds heres my build atm http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200ZfrZfMfRrMkrfMR.3but after reading this thread i think ill start fooling around a bit more, and please tell me what you think of this build, I do have the 4 piece force master set for the extra shock range.

i was thinking about trying out this build so feedback would be much appreciated

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#200bcZbMZf0fRrrkrfMR.3