Group: Top DPS Assassins seem to be coming up about 300 DPS short of what's required for these upcoming NiMs that we have on deck, what should we do boss?

AP: Well, more people play L50 FPs than Ops anyway, so we always balance around those. The metrics seem to show that in L50 FPs that these Sins are firing off their Discharge before it hits 3 stacks... maybe we'll make them glow at 3 stacks or something, those n00bs should pick up about 300 DPS right there - L2P.

Group: What about Madness?

AP: Who wants to play a gimped melee Sorc? Metrics show that no one plays Madness anymore. Next.

Group: Ok, well the Top Tank Assassins are saying that they're too spikey, that they have less DR than the other Tanks, and just want to be brought in line with the other tanks overall.

AP: Again, the metrics clearly show that in L50 FPs these Sin Tanks are dying because they let Dark Ward fall off or don't even use it. Heck, half of em just turned on Dark Charge and didn't even respec. L2P issue as usual. Maybe we could recycle that glowy idea from before, it would save us some time so we can raid more tonight. Maybe we can try that NiM Withering Horror fight that we... I mean the internal testing team is having so much trouble with.

Group: Well we still haven't beaten HM S&V, our tanks keep dying and we can't come up with the DPS to down Styrak.

AP: I'll see if I can sneak Jesse and myself, I mean Jugg & Snipers some more buffs in the next patch.

(This thread is a parody. A bad joke... but then again so is Sin/Shadow PvE balance)

i'll just leave this here.. notice the shadow dps and the shadow tank

dont click zomg assassins are so bad

i'll just leave this here.. notice the shadow dps and the shadow tank

 

dont click zomg assassins are so bad

I notice that people only started dying in the last what was it? 10 seconds of the fight?

i'll just leave this here.. notice the shadow dps and the shadow tank

 

dont click zomg assassins are so bad

You're a "top" Shadow, I've seen your parses, and you have my respect. But, you're honestly going to tell me that you beat the other 3 DPS in that fight? BW adding in 30s to the enrage tomorrow will probably make it "fine" for any group comp all playing at top 5% of skill cap, still I'm not sure that makes DPS Shadows/Sins "desirable" in any way. Right now, along with PTs, we're more of a "we did it anyhow" kind of AC: a handicap.

Bottom line is, when you can't put up the #'s that you could if you were playing at the same skill on 6/8 other DPS ACs - something is off. That something is not the rest of the game, or players, its the 2 outlier ACs. Crazy idea: bring em up to where every other non-pure DPS (mercs, juggs, etc.) is parsing at on actual boss fights.

Also - Sin tank issues aren't quite as amplified in DGs - or in 8 man content in general - 16-man Titan/Thrasher should be good times tho.

Im pretty much on the fence of not playing this game anymore, already cancelled my sub in advance, got until August of game time but i dont see the point, not to say ive been having connection issue with the game servers (only the swtor one) for 4-5 weeks now, its unplayable.

All of that problem because of PvP...

Im pretty much on the fence of not playing this game anymore, already cancelled my sub in advance, got until August of game time but i dont see the point, not to say ive been having connection issue with the game servers (only the swtor one) for 4-5 weeks now, its unplayable.

 

All of that problem because of PvP...

Honesty, I'm really sorry to hear this - you're an exemplary Deception Assassin. You're not alone though, I've been hearing it often enough that several dedicated and talented players of DPS Sins/Shadows/PTs are choosing to leave the game or reroll rather than suffer BWs "fail" class balance any longer. The following example is all too familiar:

This is a game. People play the characters they have fun playing, in addition to the fun of progression... We had a member of our guild (Jekel) who probably played the best Shadow/Assassin DPS I have ever seen. He rerolled a Gunslinger in order to raid, then quit the game because he didn't have fun with his Gunslinger and his preferred class just cannot keep up with the other classes in DPS. Honestly sad really...

How is this good for the game? The game itself becomes weaker when we lose solid players in this manner. The only good I can see is that eventually the metrics will no longer be skewed by the few remaining hyper-dedicated, excellent players playing the spec to its fullest while simultaneously providing the majority of the ACs HM/NiM metrics data.

Honesty, I'm really sorry to hear this - you're an exemplary Deception Assassin. You're not alone though, I've been hearing it often enough that several dedicated and talented players of DPS Sins/Shadows/PTs are choosing to leave the game or reroll rather than suffer BWs "fail" class balance any longer. The following example is all too familiar:

 

 

 

How is this good for the game? The game itself becomes weaker when we lose solid players in this manner. The only good I can see is that eventually the metrics will no longer be skewed by the few remaining hyper-dedicated, excellent players playing the spec to its fullest while simultaneously providing the majority of the ACs HM/NiM metrics data.

Maybe they will get the message someday.. maybe.. They swim in money so they dont care, the soul of the game is gone, just like WoW post 3.3.5 when they started pumping cash shop stuff and tell people they didnt have time to make new druid model (announced 3 years earlier) or the visible libram/relics, etc.

Serve me right to stay from release, pay a sub every month and get nothing in exchange except getting a spit in the face.

Might be a curse on me making class i play the least powerful or always forgotten class by the devs in everything i play.

Shade in AO

Ret paladin in WoW (TBC even if i could melt faces with it, just needed a mana regen in the group and a good seal twisting, Vengeance + crusader? omg!)

Shadow Warrior in Warhammer online

I dont think were going to see a change for the assassin, deception or madness, in the near future. Since it apperantly works pretty well in PvP, they are not going to change anything in those skill trees. We will have to wait for at least 4-6 month for the "evolutionary cycle" in this game to come to pass. And im not sure they are going to change anything for the better then either. As it is now, i have retiered my deception assassin, leveling a merc instead. I have played my deception assassin since launch, always using it as my main. For me, its the most fun class to play. But how fun is it when youre so far behind so you feel that yore are dragging youre team down?

I did two runs, TFB and TC with both my assassin and sniper. I know my assassin, how it works, how to play and im very comfortabel with it and i love playing it. My sniper, on the other hand, i havent played it since 2.0 came (except leveling), im not comfortable with it, dont know the new rotation that well, its not boring too play but kind of static and really not my type of gamestyle. (Assassin has 69 mods all over, sniper has mixe of 61 to 69, mostly 63 and 66.)

My sniper was on average 300-350 dps above my assassin. That is way to much, all things considered. I have always been behind my sniper, and thats ok, but never this much. How can i justify to my guildmates to bring the assassin instead of the sniper to our progreesion raids? As an assassin, ill be the weakest link, and the question is, how weak can that link be?

Kudos for the OP. Fun and unfortunately close to realistic model of how BW balance the game.

Does anyone remember the interview that lead class balance guy had about "mad sin." Well they only people who are mad are the players who mad sin was their main dps. PvE wise the expansion really hurt sins. Tanks now are the weakest, due to spiky damage. Dps wise sin wither deception or madness bottom of the barrel in damage output.

BW won't fix jack. That's not how things roll if you are not a sniper or a marauder.

Kudos for the OP. Fun and unfortunately close to realistic model of how BW balance the game.

 

Does anyone remember the interview that lead class balance guy had about "mad sin." Well they only people who are mad are the players who mad sin was their main dps. PvE wise the expansion really hurt sins. Tanks now are the weakest, due to spiky damage. Dps wise sin wither deception or madness bottom of the barrel in damage output.

 

BW won't fix jack. That's not how things roll if you are not a sniper or a marauder.

Did you mean THIS INTERVIEW ?

The entire interview is honestly a good read and I suggest anyone who wants to look deeper into the decision making behind some of the 2.0 class balance changes for Shadows/Sins takes the time to read it. There were a few parts that I enjoyed:

Belanos: A gripe I’m seeing a lot of is that Lacerate costs too much Force to use for what you get out of it - even with new talents increasing its damage. Is this still being iterated on or do you think it has its purpose the way it is now?

 

Austin: I think players are spot-on with this analysis of Lacerate. It’s hard to give precedence to AOE viability when single-target balancing is such a huge priority, but that’s ultimately no excuse after a certain amount of time. I’m really hoping that we’ll be able to get to a spot (soon) where we can address some of these minor but long-overdue issues like Lacerate.

It's been a long, long time now... can we get something useful for that ability now? Soon ® is always so far away.

Also, this in particular is worth another look:

... I must mention that when we do our internal playtests against real enemies with real group conditions, Assassins are in fact hitting our DPS targets. Our tests aren’t perfect, however, and we don’t test every fight or scenario with every spec, so we will be looking forward to seeing the results players provide for us. If things really aren’t looking good for Assassins, we won’t hesitate to make the necessary adjustments.

Well, how are things looking for Assassins (or PTs) after several months now to look at "real" numbers? Sin Tanks could really use a good looking over as well. I bet many of us would just honestly like an update as to whether things are "working as intended" presently.

The original OP made me lol pretty good. Thanks for the laugh.

I do still pvp with my sin, I run a Darkness Hybrid that I absolutely love. As far as pve, I rolled a Lethality Operative because it is basically what I wish MadSin played like. Not only is it fun and interesting to play, it also hits dps #'s that will keep me competitive with other classes. Lethality Op is everything MadSin should be, dot and aoe from range, then move in for some wicked burst at 4-10m. Anyways, I really hope 2.4 will adjust the weaker AC's in pve and pvp to bring better balance to this game so we can play the toons we want to play and still stay competitive no matter what role we want to choose.