These are my Proposed changes for mainly the two DPS Shadow / Assassin specializations from a PVE perspective.

I think in general Deception/Infiltration is pretty much fine, it could use a slight increase in its AoE potential by having a higher crit chance for Severing Slash or an increased chance of a Charge proc for Lacerate. So essentially in AoE situations, it would fuel your single target bursty pay off faster.

Hatred/Serenity has more issues that bother me, though this isn't to say that I don't enjoy the spec tremendously, believe me I do.

Lifesteal (offensive action restores some amount of health) in this game does not really feel impactful in my opinion. However, it could be impactful if you get more creative with it.

Some proposed changes on the survivability front to Hatred:

1. My idea for changing Imbibe-passive. Currently it boosts the lifesteal of Leech Strike and allows Discharge and Creeping Terror to also lifesteal, but I think this secondary aspect of the passive is close to insignificant.

So I would suggest that the Leech Strike part is buffed to 250% or even higher to make it feel more impactful and the DoT part of the passive now instead triggers a stacking Damage Reduction buff up to 20% to help with the survivability issues of the spec.

2. Alternatively I would suggest that Nefarious Methods would be reworked so that whenever you trigger your saber's charge you get a stacking damage reduction buff and it would have a constant uptime and might even have a higher number than what it currently has (30% when using Mass MC for 6sec) and the DoT resistance would stay on naturally.

3. Lifestealing while at full health slowly builds up "overshields" or additional HP on top of the existing health pool. Or it gives that as additional damage absorption during Deflection. (Would also be fun if it healed the target the Sin is guarding...)

Single target damage of Hatred:

Simply an ability upgrade to Spike - now does not require to be used from stealth and refreshes the duration of Discharge or Creeping Terror. This would address one of the animation flow issues I have with the spec, I don't feel particularly powerful when extending my arms to do what is essentially sorcery. Other melee DoT specs have the ability to seamlessly apply their DoTs with their weaponskills, Hatred needs that IMO.

The overall Force cost of the abilities could be lowered as well, but I am not that adamant about it.

Something that also bothers me about Hatred is its lack of interaction with Stealth. Deception for instance has built-in interactivity with Force Cloak because it decreases the cooldown of Recklessness. It essentially makes that Spec feel more like a stealther. Some kind beneficiality of Stealthing/interaction with going to Stealth would be great for Hatred as it is part of the Assassin family.

My idea for it would be that when you exit combat, your on-going Damage over Time effects would deal their remaining damage in that instance and then end. However I could see it as a potential source of lagging when the server has to take it to an account.

In regards to a more general Stealth interactivity I am proposing a very simple change: The Stealth Force Generation passive from Deception/Infiltration should be baseline for all 3 specializations, it's just such a nice quality of life thing and it could help Hatred out so much and give a small boost to Darkness DPS in the opener as well.

What replacing it in the Dec/Infi tree would be? I'll be happy to brainstorm that any time.

Regarding Phasing Phantasm change, I would revert it and allow it to be damage reduction across the board, more than 25% but not more than 60% which it was originally. Around 45-50% would be a good place to put it.

Cleaving Cut/Severing Slash needs more flat damage OR utility. For Hatred it would deal additional damage based on the targets having DoTs. Deception would have small armor ignore component or perhaps another type of Sunder. For Darkness it could increase DR per target hit slightly.

Overall the animation looks cool but it needs to have interactivity with the specs. Sure it can have that with some Tacticals but most of them are very underwhelming - with the main exception being May Cause Injury for the burst spec. Even that feels like jumping through an unnecessary hoop. It spreading the DoT effects was a step in the right direction. More of that BioWare pls!

Did some heavy editing on the 8th of August, gist of my message is the same but my thoughts are now more developed.

KA-BUMP!

I doubt that too many people read this section of the forums. But I would like to bump this thread because I made some changes to my original proposals here.

Feeling pretty passionate about the state of Hatred right now, there are some design disconnects that could be smoothed over. The gameplay loop of Deception feels nicer, even though that is largely subjective.

The main attraction for me with Hatred is the Bloodletting proc, it paired with Reaper's Rush gives an amazing and powerful feeling where I am cleaving huge chunks away from the enemy's health pool. Spreading DoTs with the Spin also feels fantastic, doubly so when Two-Time Trouble procs. Procs, procs, procs galore.

Very addicting, however the rest is pretty meh and I try to smooth those over in the post I just edited, hopefully you're interested in reading it!

Serenity:

Dots healing for 200-400 hp with 300k HP pool - usless mechanic nowadays.

+

I'd rather get rid of DOtTspread and acctually had some single target damage

It feels fluffy fluffy like just after 2.0 bo then oour STD was much much better.

but it's ok, as balance/serenity you get used to being bad class

quiz: are we the only spec (with hatred) that does not have 30 m attack that can stop caps?

P.S I am rocking severance pay and those 1 in 100 Forice in Balace 30k crits are nice ^^

Serenity:

Dots healing for 200-400 hp with 300k HP pool - usless mechanic nowadays.

+

I'd rather get rid of DOtTspread and acctually had some single target damage

 

It feels fluffy fluffy like just after 2.0 bo then oour STD was much much better.

 

but it's ok, as balance/serenity you get used to being bad class

 

quiz: are we the only spec (with hatred) that does not have 30 m attack that can stop caps?

 

P.S I am rocking severance pay and those 1 in 100 Forice in Balace 30k crits are nice ^^

100% agree. They've taken Serenity so far in one direction that it's become quite useless for single target damage. I recently returned to the game so I've not yet had time to gear up my characters and equip them with set bonuses and tacticals. However, when the stars align my Shadow can deal like 20-25k with a critical on Spinning Strike... my Vigilance Guardian, meanwhile, consistently pump out 40k+ crits.

I love the playstyle of Serenity although it has gotten worse over time. It was at its peak in 1.x because back then it wasn't just an AoE spec. You had fairly strong AoE but you had single target damage as well. You didn't have burst like Pyrotech Powertechs or Rage Juggernauts, but you had high single target damage. A good crit could take 1/4th of an enemy's health.

I miss that a lot. I much prefer to be versatile rather than a one-trick pony. The only reason I still play Serenity is... well, due to nostalgia, and because the gameplay is somewhat similar to how I remembered it in 1.x even if abilities do different numbers.

DoT-spreading is a stupid concept and I think by removing that they could start fixing a lot of classes. It shouldn't be a matter of "this spec is a ST spec and this is an AoE spec"; every spec should have single target and AoE damage. Sure, Serenity could have somewhat higher AoE than Infiltration and Infiltration could have higher ST than Serenity, but Serenity shouldn't be neutered in the ST-damage department.

My own list of changes I'd like to see to Serenity Shadows:

- Like Sabatiel I wish to see DoT spreading removed, however I don't want to see self-healing from DoTs removed. I think by removing DoT spreading they can up the healing we receive from DoTs. Back in the earlier iterations of this spec the DoT healing actually made a difference and I miss that.

- Increase the range of Force in Balance to 30m again. I don't mind nerfs, but nerfs that makes the gameplay feel worse are terrible. If Force in Balance was problematic they should've adjusted the numbers and not the functionality of the ability. If 8 targets is too much, do a rollback on that change and have it hit 5 or 3 targets again.

- Give us the 30% damage reduction when stunned back. This was originally a Serenity talent and is given to Kinetic Combat these days.

- Change Serenity Strike so its extra damage isn't dependent on the amount of DoTs on the target. This mechanic feels copied from Lethality Operatives, and the issue I have with it is that there's a pretty long preparation timer before you can deal any good damage with Serenity Strike. Maybe change it so that it synergizes with our Force Suppression stacks instead (the debuff applied by Force in Balance). Maybe it can eat up to 3 stacks which increases the damage of the ability or somesuch.

- Replace our Force Technique with something else or remove it entirely. I know that our Force Regen is tied to our Force Technique procs but it's a really boring mechanic. It was far more fun back in the day when Force Suppression charges would regen a small amount of Force when consumed. This made the gameplay much smoother and when you had DoTs eating away Force Suppression charges on three separate targets you were in Force Regen heaven -- and that right there is excellent game feel.

- Replace Battle Readiness with something else. This kinda goes hand-in-hand with the Force Technique stuff. Battle Readiness is a decent defensive cooldown but a really underwhelming offensive cooldown. It's just not fun to use for DPS purposes because you don't feel the effect of it at all. When you click a cooldown you should feel something. Although maybe it's primary purpose is to be a defensive CD, I don't know. This cooldown has always been underwhelming.

... I could probably list more Serenity is the spec that is most dear to me in this game and it makes me sad to see the treatment it has gotten!

Reading these responses again and playing some Hatred again after a while has made me return to thinking about ways to buff the spec.

I don't think that removing DoT spread is the way to go, I think that the nigh endless spread from spin is very satisfying and a fun mechanic, definitely a selling point of the spec for me. And I understand that having that strong option for AoE will hamper the Single Target balancing prospects of the spec and I think it's alright.

However as things currently stand, I believe a buff is in order.

I recently noticed that none of the Specs on Assassin really interact with Overload Saber significantly. Deception and Darkness do care about Recklessness somewhat but not OS. I'm fine with Hatred not having much interaction with Recklessness if it can instead do stuff with Overload Saber. My idea would be, that it would have a higher uptime on the buff, where either having a DoT crit would extend its duration or one of the DoTs, preferably Discharge have its cooldown shortened for every crit tick.

It's been interesting to see parses with the buffed Quick Escalation tactical, even though I personally don't run it still, the Developers are on the right track there for an alternative Single Target buff on Hatred. I don't like ability spam for single target situations, so I would perhaps buff the DMG increase in Leeching Strike even further for this tactical but lock it behind RNG so that the player is incentivized to fish for it again by using other attacks.

Stealth interactivity and animation smoothness still remain as glaring flaws for this Spec. I'd prefer the DoT reapplication to be tied to weapon attacks instead of long, clunky casts and some kind of incentive to go Stealth pre fight or even mid fight. Vengeance and Annihilation remain the superior, well executed DoT melee models for this game in my opinion.