In PVE assassin tanks will now be worse than every other tanking class. Our DPS has always been subpar compared to other classes. Snipers out dps us by at least 500 dps. On top of having ****** damage, we also have the worst armor/damage mitigation. I just want to know the direction of this class. I rolled it because it was portrayed as a light armor, stealthy, high damage type. Someone said the other day assassins are the glass cannon without the cannon. If you're going to massively nerf the tanking spec because of PVP complaints, you NEED to buff deception and madness because there will be no point in playing a sin anymore. Many sin friends of mine, myself included, have pretty much stopped playing ours and keep it for crafting. You guys definitely shouldn't have portrayed this class as you did because it's not living up to expectations. Hell, its not even up to the standard of other classes. We do NOTHING better than any other class. That is a fact.

In PVE assassin tanks will now be worse than every other tanking class. Our DPS has always been subpar compared to other classes. Snipers out dps us by at least 500 dps. On top of having ****** damage, we also have the worst armor/damage mitigation. I just want to know the direction of this class. I rolled it because it was portrayed as a light armor, stealthy, high damage type. Someone said the other day assassins are the glass cannon without the cannon. If you're going to massively nerf the tanking spec because of PVP complaints, you NEED to buff deception and madness because there will be no point in playing a sin anymore. Many sin friends of mine, myself included, have pretty much stopped playing ours and keep it for crafting. You guys definitely shouldn't have portrayed this class as you did because it's not living up to expectations. Hell, its not even up to the standard of other classes. We do NOTHING better than any other class. That is a fact.

 

haha by 500 dps?! what numbers are you looking at? my 'sin in below average dps gear was within 100-200 dps with my decently geared sniper.

and as far as our tanking role, i know when 1.3 hits im gonna just keep tanking the same as i always did. the same way i kept healing just as well with my merc after 1.2.

lol the sniper sucks then because a well geared sniper can do upwards of 1800 dps and sin at max is 1200-1300. Tested many times over. The point isn't that you CAN tank, it's that sins lose 30% mitigation, 30% of the healing ability, etc.. and they cannot tank as well as other classes. Why take a sin tank in an op when a powertech or jug can do it much better.

well, all i know is im not going to stop playing my sin tank just cause of this update. ill just do what i did with my merc healer, adjust my playstyle, adapt and continue to be awesome

 

crying over a few changes wont solve anything.

We do NOTHING better than any other class. That is a fact.

 

That is not a fact. Even in 1.3, assassin tanks will be viable tanks in endgame PvE. In fact, for anything shy of nightmare mode bosses (or hard mode EC), assassin tanks have *better* overall survivability than powertechs or juggernauts. Even in 1.3. I did the math to prove this over in the shadow forum (http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=4585217&postcount=43).

 

Assassin DPS is indeed annoying. I have yet to see a Deception/Infiltration assassin/shadow put up numbers competitive with the other DPS classes, at least not in PvE. I tend to think that deception is really a PvP spec, given that it has probably the highest burst in the game. However, burst DPS is getting a significant nerf in 1.3 (across the board), and so deception builds are likely to be a lot less viable than they used to be.

 

As for madness assassins, I think the story there is a little brighter, at least for PvE. 1.3 doesn't really affect the madness tree in a significant way, which means that we can mostly rely on our data from 1.2. I raid with a balance shadow (mirror to the madness tree) that consistently puts up numbers in the same range as our watchman sentinel. That is, nearly 1400 DPS sustained. That seems like a fairly viable spec to me.

 

I've *never* (not even once) seen a sniper or a gunslinger put up 1800 DPS over more than a 10 second period. I'd have to look at my spreadsheets, but I don't think the stats exist in the game for that to happen without other buffs (e.g. Bloodthirst/Inspiration and/or the armor debuffs from a Juggernaut/Guardian) and a lot of lucky crits.

 

My point is this: don't panic about 1.3. The tanking nerfs are a lot more benign than they seem, and assassin tanks in 1.2 are a lot more powerful than most people think (we have the highest survivability by such a wide margin, it's silly). The burst nerfs are annoying for deception assassins, and I'm not sure what BioWare wants to do about that. Madness assassins are just as viable as they have always been.

The tanking nerfs are extremely minor for PvE. Your healers won't even notice the difference. People who think this is some kind of major blow to PvE assassins/shadows are just bad at math. Edited June 12, 2012 by Kihra

The tanking nerfs are extremely minor for PvE. Your healers won't even notice the difference. People who think this is some kind of major blow to PvE assassins/shadows are just bad at math.

 

Well, our healers will probably notice (if they're good healers), but they won't have a *problem*. Right now, my healers notice that I'm substantially more resilient than the other two tank types. In 1.3, they should notice that we're pretty much even.

In PVE assassin tanks will now be worse than every other tanking class. Our DPS has always been subpar compared to other classes. Snipers out dps us by at least 500 dps. On top of having ****** damage, we also have the worst armor/damage mitigation. I just want to know the direction of this class. I rolled it because it was portrayed as a light armor, stealthy, high damage type. Someone said the other day assassins are the glass cannon without the cannon. If you're going to massively nerf the tanking spec because of PVP complaints, you NEED to buff deception and madness because there will be no point in playing a sin anymore. Many sin friends of mine, myself included, have pretty much stopped playing ours and keep it for crafting. You guys definitely shouldn't have portrayed this class as you did because it's not living up to expectations. Hell, its not even up to the standard of other classes. We do NOTHING better than any other class. That is a fact.

 

Your Role is "dude that the guild has to take on the raid to be nice but they really wish he would just go away so that they can take a more fitting class."

 

There you go.

The tanking nerfs are extremely minor for PvE. Your healers won't even notice the difference. People who think this is some kind of major blow to PvE assassins/shadows are just bad at math.

 

100% agree with this.

 

Anyone that has run the numbers (I have) will see that this "nerf" just brings us in line with the other tanks. It does not negate our ability to be effective tanks whatsoever. Not to mention all of our utility is still there (Slow Time, Resilience, Force Speed (for kiting)).

 

It's ridiculous how bad people think Shadows/Assassins will be.

 

You know what this patch does, OP? Removes the temptation to only bring Shadows/Assassins. Now it the game encourages more diversity -- and not at the expense of the Shadow/Assassin's spot.

After reading your post, OP, it seems to me that your role is actually to step aside, so someone who actually knows anything about their class can tank/dps for your group.

 

So, *someone* said these things, you gobbled them up, and now spew them as fact? In that case, I have some oceanfront property in Arizona for sale, PM me for the details.

 

Riôt

Well, our healers will probably notice (if they're good healers), but they won't have a *problem*. Right now, my healers notice that I'm substantially more resilient than the other two tank types. In 1.3, they should notice that we're pretty much even.

 

You're really only taking 5-6% more damage from the armor nerf, and so much of our self-healing is overheal anyway. Even a giant 12k hit from HM Kephess would just turn into a 12.6k hit. I stand by my statement that healers really won't even be able to tell the difference.

 

As long as HPS exceeds DTPS and you're not moving into gib territory (e.g., burst deaths in under 2 seconds), then we'll be perfectly viable. Really the only concern we should have with increased damage taken is if we are subject to instagibs, but so far the game hasn't even come close to putting out that kind of damage in Operations (and I doubt it will in Nightmare modes either).

A lot of people seem to forget that you can overload your gear with Absorb/Shield/Def-augments.

So basically you will be easier to heal than in 1.2, although PTs and Juggs will notice a bigger difference.

I said the same thing when 1.2 ruined my healing sorc so i just rolled dps.

Run the numbers:

 

With a 6% increase in damage, 600 damage per second becomes 636.

 

With the 40% nerf in self healing, 200 heal per second becomes 120.

 

Total effective damage taken goes from 400 dps to 516 dps. So you're taking over 20% more damage overall. As the boss hits harder, the damage becomes even worse.

 

Your healer will DEFINITELY notice the extra 100 hps.

Run the numbers:

 

With a 6% increase in damage, 600 damage per second becomes 636.

 

With the 40% nerf in self healing, 200 heal per second becomes 120.

 

Total effective damage taken goes from 400 dps to 516 dps. So you're taking over 20% more damage overall. As the boss hits harder, the damage becomes even worse.

 

Your healer will DEFINITELY notice the extra 100 hps.

 

No, they really won't. First of all, you're picking a very low DTPS value and then trying to apply the self-healing nerf as a percentage increase. Of course it will look worse at low DTPS values, but you need to remember that at low DTPS values, you aren't at risk of dying anyway.

 

For example at 600 DTPS, my tank with 27.5k health can live for 45 seconds with no heals whatsoever. That is a stupidly low DTPS value, and no tank is remotely in any danger when the incoming damage is that low.

 

In order to really gauge the effects of a self-healing nerf in conjunction with the armor nerf, you need to pick a much more reasonable DTPS value for harder content, e.g., 5000 DTPS.

 

So in the above scenario, a tank with 5000 DTPS and 200 HPS effectively takes 4800 DTPS. A 27.5k health tank can live for 5.72 seconds.

 

Now with the nerfs, that turns into 5250 DTPS and 120 HPS, and so now the tank is effectively taking 5130 DTPS. A 27.5k health tank can live for 5.36 seconds.

 

So as you can see, the changes are a completely negligible nerf to survivability. Even if the boss swings once per second, it takes six swings to kill the tank in either scenario. The self-healing nerfs become minor very fast once you are talking about high DTPS values, and at low DTPS values, you didn't need any self-healing anyway.

Theres a big old thread in the shadow forums mapping out the changes (nerf) to shadow tanks.

 

Currently, shadow tanks in full campaign gear take 5% more damage than vanguards in full campaign gear. This gap in damage taken its more than made up for by shadow self healing, on an average fight where incoming damage is fairly low, the self healing far exceeds the mitigation advantage that other tanks get.

 

After 1.3, that same geared shadow will take ~12% more damage than the same geared vanguard. Again, on the average fight where incoming damage isn't particularly high, the self healing will close that gap so as to make it negligable. However, the problem is going to come in high damage fights. Self healing does not scale, mitigation does. So, at the top end of tanking (for example, HM EC currently), Shadows will be taking more damage than vanguards despite the self-healing. This becomes worse on any fights involving lots of movement or interupts where we can't self heal as much.

 

 

Now, this is a small number of fights so for 99% of shadow tanks, the nerf won't be that noticeable. For the top end fights, it will be more noticeable and you'll be better off with a vanguard. Another difference is in the nature of the damage taken. Shadows are "spikey" because we are more avoidance based. Vanguards are more steady as they avoid less but mitigate more. This makes vanguards easier to heal in terms of resource management.

 

 

 

As far as DPS shadows / assassins go, I don't think we need to worry too much. We can hold our own against every class that isn't a sentinel or gunslinger (well, thats what the logs seem to be showing). The issue with sentinels and gunslingers is not so much that they do more damage, its just they benefit much more from armour debuffs than other classes. I've seen the logs from sentinels putting out 1600-1800 dps and their rotation and damage ratios match the same as my guild sentinels. The only difference is gear and their raids stack armour debuffs. In my raids, we usually lacks people with armour debuffs. However, the other day we brought a commando with us and that alone improved our sentinels DPS by ~ 100dps, whereas mine only improved by ~50dps (as im 50/50 melee/force damage).

Self healing does not scale

 

Yeah, this is definitely an issue. I agree completely. Effectively right now Shadow tanks are a bit like Death Knights in WoW. The intent is for us to take more damage but make up for it with self-healing. The problem though is at high DTPS values, the self-healing becomes completely negligible because it doesn't have any component that scales with damage taken.

 

Note this is really already true even on live... i.e., the self-healing just becomes pretty meaningless at high DTPS values. This isn't much of an issue right now in EC HM because tanks rarely take enough damage for any of these theoretical arguments to matter. For example, a tank could take 20% more damage in EC HM and be healed just fine. The DTPS values for tanks in this game are so low that raising them substantially doesn't make a tank non-viable.

 

The question will be if NIghtmare Modes raise the tank damage bar enough for the extra DTPS to make a difference. What happens to us will depend on if the window of survivability becomes small, e.g., 2-3 hit death scenarios. In that kind of scenario if a shadow dies in 2 hits and a vanguard dies in 3, you could have a very real issue, since the self-healing wouldn't come into play when dealing with "gibs."

 

However, I really do not expect that kind of increase from Nightmare damage. I think you'll see about 10-20% more DTPS in Nightmare Modes, and so I expect all tanks to remain viable even with the nerfs. You are absolutely right though that at some point, they really should consider making self-healing scale with damage taken (or give us an absorb mechanism that scales with damage taken).

 

I worry that they are balancing around low incoming DTPS values and that they may also not be accounting for how often Telekinetic Throw overheals. In low DTPS scenarios, the self-healing looks really strong, but in high DTPS scenarios, it really isn't strong right now. These high DTPS scenarios just don't exist in the game yet, but I worry that when truly challenging content arrives, they just might make an appearance.

I'm ready for the changes, personally. It might make me have to pay more attention to what's going on .

I disagree with you completly. Maybe I am just a prodigy or something, but my deception assassin is contantly doing as much if not more DPS than any mara in any group. If we are about to wipe, I am almost ALWAYs the last one standing. Many times I kill the thing wiping us and start rezing people.

 

It is definitly a tricky class to play in order to get the most out of yoru DPS, but it can be done. you can be just as good if not better than any other DPS class out there. You just don't have a 1 thru 6 rotation. you have to hit your buttons at the right time. I shall stay with my deception assassin and continue killing all who get in my way.

 

I am sure they will make it easier for us with a patch in the future, but if youfigure it out like I did, you don't need no stinking patch.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Enochx

I disagree with you completly. Maybe I am just a prodigy or something, but my deception assassin is contantly doing as much if not more DPS than any mara in any group. If we are about to wipe, I am almost ALWAYs the last one standing. Many times I kill the thing wiping us and start rezing people.

 

It is definitly a tricky class to play in order to get the most out of yoru DPS, but it can be done. you can be just as good if not better than any other DPS class out there. You just don't have a 1 thru 6 rotation. you have to hit your buttons at the right time. I shall stay with my deception assassin and continue killing all who get in my way.

 

I am sure they will make it easier for us with a patch in the future, but if youfigure it out like I did, you don't need no stinking patch.

 

I hate to break this to you, but if you, as an Assassin, are doing more DPS than a Mara, you are either not running a meter and are running off "what it feels like" or the Mara is just bad. Mara/Sent should be the top melee DPSer without exception. Their theoretical parses are that good.

If you're the highest DPS and you're the last one alive.. something is not adding up.

If i gave the impression I was the highest DPS, then I apologize. I meant I am right up there with the Mara's. Any Mara that I happen to be grouped with. I am not as low as yall seem to think. I didnt mean I out DPS Mara's that would be silly.

 

But see I wait to attack after everyone else has hit once, then I lay into the enemy with my attacks. Very rarely do I get aggro because of that. Ergo I am always one of, if not the very last one standing still attacking. I don't require much healing because of this. If I do grab aggro (and it happens of course) then I pop cloak to drop aggro and start in on him again. This allows a high DPS (if played right and you plan your cooldowns and force regen correctly) while the healers can focus on the others.

 

Try it out. Try running with a couple of assassins in place of some of your other DPS and see what happens. If you have a couple of good assassins you won't be disappointed......unless I am just the man which is entirely possible too.

I'm the main tank. Can't switch to DPS.

Try it out. Try running with a couple of assassins in place of some of your other DPS and see what happens. If you have a couple of good assassins you won't be disappointed......unless I am just the man which is entirely possible too.

 

I play my shadow as DPS most of the time if I can. Whilst I keep up with other DPS classes (sentinels and gunslingers included) in most fights, its down purely to our class balance.

 

In our guild, we seem to lack people with armour debuffs (specifically commando dps). That means for most bosses, there aren't many armour debuffs on the bosses and thus all damage is equal and I can keep up with sentinels and gunslingers.

 

However, as soon as you start stacking some armour debuffs, shadows get left behind. Sentinels and Gunslingers benefit the most from armour debuffs as they are mostly white/kinetic damage. So, the more armour debuffs, the higher their damage. If you look at the top raiding guilds where sentinels/gunslingers are doing 1800+ dps, armour debuffs are the reason. However, shadows hardly benefit from armour debuffs, so whilst sentinels might go from 1300 to 1800 dps, shadows only go from 1300 to 1400 in the same situation.

 

 

 

So, again, its the same situation for DPS as for shadow tanks: in average content with average groups, shadows/assassins will do just fine. However, at the very top end, other classes are better than us.

you said it way better than me. That is what I was trying to say. But I got a question. a few weeks ago i changed servers because mine was dead, so I haven't really done any high level ops or heroics etc since the newest patch. Will I be shunned as I am looking for groups for end-game things becasue I am a deception DPS or will I be able to find a group?

 

It's been awhile since I have done anything end-game related since I re-rolled and my new char isn't even lvl 50 yet. I am just curious. I mean I know I can be just as effective, but you know how it is....if there is a generally accepted stigma (even if it isn't completly true) then it can be hard to find groups. I remember being laughed at in WoW as a ret pally and even AFTER they fixed the ret pallys in BC (remember when they became awesome) it STILL took a few weeks before groups would allow me in their raids and what-not.

 

Also, what are these damage meters yall are talking about? How do you get those? I didn't think you could have add-ons in this game.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Enochx