Hey Guys, I was gearing up with endgame gear and I finally got around to relics. I'm a DPS Assassin using the Deception spec. Now, I'm going to have a matrix cube as one, but for the other I'm confused as to which Relic I should choose. I'm probably wrong here, but hear me out.

I want to use Campaign Relic of the Kinetic Tempest (extra kinetic damage) because looking at most of the moves in my rotation, they deal weapon damage. Now am I to take it that weapon damage means kinetic damage? It didn't seem blatantly clear to me. Also my Discharge move deals internal damage and my Shock move deals Energy damage. Should I be using the Campaign Relic of Dark Radiance (extra internal damage) or the Campaign Relic of the Cerulean Nova (extra energy damage) instead?

Weapon damage means 'does the type of damage equal to your weapon', which is going to be Energy unless you use a practice saber, which does Kinetic damage. Almost every weapon does Energy damage in this game except for training sabers, but because you can't rule out the possibilty of someone using one, that's why it's still 'weapon damage'.

There's no relationship between the type of damge you weapon or attack does compared to the damage type your relic does because Assassins don't have any effects that buff either type of damage. Energy/Kinetic damage is mitigated by armor and Internal/Elemental is not, but the relic that deals EnergyKinetic damage does more. Generally speaking Energy/Kinetic relic will do more damage on lowly armored targets or targets debuffed with armor reduction debuffs. For solo purposes, the Elemental/Internal one might be better, but it obviously varies on exactly what you're fighting.

I would actually recommend matrix cube + War Hero Power Relic with augments on both for Willpower. Or 2x War Hero Power Relics augmented. Failing that the Battlemaster ones are also good to start off with.

This is a huge constant power boost for all your attacks, much better than those other extra damage relics which don't really add a lot of damage anyways.

Ah ok, so weapon damage just corresponds to the type of damage your weapons give off. Vibroswords and such being kinetic as well I'm guessing. I'd be using a double-bladed lightsaber, which I see now is energy. Since energy/kinetic damage doesn't go through armor I would be advisable to get the relic that does periodic internal damage because it goes through their armor.

Originally I just thought added Energy damage periodically would make the energy damage I'm doing now even better. But you're saying that's only good for debuffed bosses. So would you advise the Campaign Relic of Dark Radiance for what I'm doing now seeing as it adds internal damage. And lets say I every got to high level raids, the Campaign Relic of the Cerulean Nova would be better because others in the operation would likely be debuffing the boss? Anything I'm getting wrong? Thank you very much also!!!

I would actually recommend matrix cube + War Hero Power Relic with augments on both for Willpower. Or 2x War Hero Power Relics augmented. Failing that the Battlemaster ones are also good to start off with.

 

This is a huge constant power boost for all your attacks, much better than those other extra damage relics which don't really add a lot of damage anyways.

I agree with this. I'm using 2x War Hero +Power relics. They help much more than the 30% chance of extra damage proc on the Campaign ones.

As far as the OP's question goes, in a PVP scenario, is the thought that the +Power War Hero Relics are still considered better than the damage on proc ones?

I was curious if the damage on proc relics scaled with any of our stats, or if the relics had additional chances to proc for Deception Assassins on abilities that hit 2 and 3 times per use like Saber Strike or Voltaic Slash....

Any help is appreciated.

The relic that does Energy/Kinetic damage has higher base damage than Internal/Elemental, so you pretty much have to know how much armor the target has to make a reasonable decision, but I'd assume by design you'd want to use Internal/Elemental if you can't armor debuff the target (PvP, solo PvE). You obviously can't tell for sure without parsing but this seems like a safe guess since Assassins have almost no innate armor penetration.

The PvP power relic should be higher damage overall than anything at least for PvP. For PvE, it's hard to tell because there's no equivalent of a pure power relic for PvE.

PvE bosses have 35% armor, so even debuffed the internal/elemental relics are better than kinetic/energy. However, deception doesn't proc quite often enough to make it as good as War Hero power relics. Better than PvE activated power relics for sustained damage, though. Madness does proc often enough with full dots to be a smidge better.

So, Deception PvE would want to run War Hero power relic x2. (Willpower augments) There are a couple fights were it can be good to swap in one PvE activated power relic where it fits into burst windows.

I would actually recommend matrix cube + War Hero Power Relic with augments on both for Willpower. Or 2x War Hero Power Relics augmented. Failing that the Battlemaster ones are also good to start off with.

 

This is a huge constant power boost for all your attacks, much better than those other extra damage relics which don't really add a lot of damage anyways.

Actually, over the course of a boss fight, you're going to get ~1.5x more damage out of a DPS proc relic than you would out of one WH power relic. At this point, the best setup is probably one proc relic and one WH power relic. The Matrix cubes are kind of meh these days.

The relic that does Energy/Kinetic damage has higher base damage than Internal/Elemental, so you pretty much have to know how much armor the target has to make a reasonable decision, but I'd assume by design you'd want to use Internal/Elemental if you can't armor debuff the target (PvP, solo PvE). You obviously can't tell for sure without parsing but this seems like a safe guess since Assassins have almost no innate armor penetration.

 

The PvP power relic should be higher damage overall than anything at least for PvP. For PvE, it's hard to tell because there's no equivalent of a pure power relic for PvE.

Are you saying that even though most Deception builds include 9% overall armor pen from Charge Mastery and 59% armor pen on Duplicity-procced Mauls?

As far as some of the later other posts go.....I appreciate the feedback very much, although, I did specify that I was referring to a PVP environment only. I assume that each of you would feel the same way if you based your answer on it anyway, but if not, please share.

Are you saying that even though most Deception builds include 9% overall armor pen from Charge Mastery and 59% armor pen on Duplicity-procced Mauls?

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50% armor penetration applies to the Maul attack only, not the proc from relic. The most armor penetration you'd have is 9%. I figure that's a low enough number it'd be easier to treat it as 0% for the purpose of calculating the value of armor mitigable attacks. You can put that 9% back in if you really want to, but I doubt it'd change anything.